3. A Blade Given Life
A Blade Given Life
Nerves rattling, Seren closes the front door behind him. A satchel thuds against his back, holding everything he dares take. Saved wages, a change of clothes, and a day’s worth of travel rations. Just one book— Fearsome and Wondrous Histories of the Fae, because the boring bestiary is too thick.
A larger bag would tell neighbors Seren is traveling. He can’t let gossip reach his mother until it’s too late.
Seren has to break the chains of cowardice now.
He’s a grown man, and he doesn’t need his parents’ permission to leave town.
This morning is perfect. Edith is across town delivering herbs.
Alard is seven days into his circuit. And Seren hasn’t felt that strange watchfulness since the footprints by the creek.
Seren meets eyes with the iron rabbit above the door.
“Don’t tell them,” Seren says quietly, fighting down unease. His parents’ anger won’t hurt him. He’ll be long gone by the time they realize he’s disobeyed.
Once the squalling blows over, they’ll be happy he’s gone.
Seren adjusts his satchel and sets off at a stroll. Possibilities fight for his attention. Alard’s up north by now, so Seren should head south to Bardill to buy a horse first.
From there he can ride to Forwick, which sounds big enough to get lost in. Seren can read and write, and he’s a fast rider. A city will have plenty of jobs, not like Wymond where everyone already has their place. Seren could run messages, wait tables, clean shops.
Maybe he could even make friends or fall in love. Or at least work up the courage to sleep with a man, despite the threat of unpredictable emotions.
It’ll be crowded, but Seren doesn’t mind crowds. Disappearing is easier the more people are around. That’s why he likes festivals so much, with all the distracting bonfires and music. Seren would never jump into the dancing circles, but he likes soaking up the revelry from the shadows.
Especially Midsummer, just two weeks past. The height of summer always turns Seren wistful. Long days give him more time to mull over unhappiness, and he needs the festival’s distraction.
Other towns have festivals, too. Maybe Midsummer will be even better someplace where nobody knows Seren, and he doesn’t have to spend every day dodging other people’s feelings.
Chiyo and Steadfast aren’t out this morning. That’s good, because Chiyo might tell Edith. But Seren wishes he could give Steadfast one last pat.
As Seren trudges on, he half-expects Edith to appear around every corner. Or Alard’s wagon will trundle back early. Grand arguments flash through Seren’s imagination. He’ll finally stand his ground, and he’ll storm out of Wymond regardless of his parents’ fury.
Silly dreams. He learned as a child not to make scenes.
Stout cottages settle farther apart as Seren continues. Each neat little garden seems to glare in rebuke.
Seren’s leaving home. This is what he wants. He should feel glad.
His route takes him through the packed-earth festival grounds to a hunting trail. It should connect with the main road before the river, but it’s less busy in the meantime. After the first bend, Wymond is out of sight, and Seren is safely alone.
The trail is wide enough for two horses to ride abreast. Trees arch overhead, each stretching for the best sunlight. Shadows dapple the trail, and saplings crowd between their ancestors. Fallen branches become part of the forest’s architecture.
Barely half an hour out, something rustles loudly.
Seren’s shoulders tense. Maybe his stalker has been in the woods all along, waiting for Seren to stumble away from the safety of the village. Or the outside world truly is as dangerous as Edith tells him. Seren may have wandered into a wicked brigand’s territory.
Gods’ meager mercy, he should have brought a knife.
Or a handful of iron nails. Never mind that Seren doesn’t know how to wield a knife.
And he’s allergic to something in the blacksmith’s smoke, so nails always irritate his hands.
Maybe he should turn back, buy a knife, practice a little, then try again after a week.
But if he turns back now, he may never take a second chance. He’s too fragile, and the world outside Wymond is too vast.
Another rustling. Seren spins, nerves sparking into fear, to face—
A sparrow darts beneath the canopy.
Seren exhales into laughter. Of course he’s not alone, but the sparrows are hardly stalking him. They’re just minding their own business. Best of all, they won’t tell his mother on him.
He jumps at the next rustling, and the next. Gradually he grows comfortable with the birds and rabbits, the whispering wind.
Then a shadow lunges from the trees.
Seren scrambles back with a yelp, struggling to process the shape rushing at him. Like the panthers in the non-boring bestiaries, except its face is long like a sighthound. It’s as large as a horse at the shoulders, its coat sleek and charcoal black.
Silver eyes glare with predatory intelligence.
Seren should stand his ground. Make himself large, intimidating, like he would if he crossed a bear or wolf. Running will only make him look like prey.
Yet fear floods out rational thought. Seren skids for the tree line.
The creature’s too fast. Seren’s too far from the village, not that he wants to lead this creature there. Wishing he had a knife, he yanks the satchel from his shoulder and swings.
Snapping jaws tear the bag from Seren’s grasp.
The ground slams his back, and something punches his left shoulder. Seren first feels pressure and cold breath. Then pain surges with the heat of Seren’s own blood. The creature bites deep, teeth scraping against bone.
It begins dragging him.
Seren gasps uselessly for air. As leaves and dirt scrape past, he flails with his right hand. Ignoring splinters, he grasps what he seeks. With all his desperate strength, he swings the branch into the creature’s head.
The creature hisses and springs off him. Seren forces himself to his feet, his left shoulder screaming. He’s stunned the attempt worked. For now. The creature shakes its head, then turns towards him again. A mere ten feet away. Seren’s bought himself a moment, nothing more.
He can’t run fast enough. All he can do is bluff through his fear.
“Go away,” Seren shouts, lifting the heavy branch in front of him. Splinters dig into his palms, and blood sluices beneath his shirt. His left arm trembles. “Get out of here!”
The creature flinches, ears pinned back. Seren’s startled it, against all expectations. His stomach jumps with elation.
And a figure of green and gold blurs between them.
The newcomer lands in a bone-rattling quake. Hair streaming, sword shining, feathered wings slicing the summer air.
Seren’s breath catches, his terror suppressed by raw power. The sheer force of presence should be painful. Maybe it is, the way Seren’s every sense tunes more precisely to the world around him.
The winged man’s nature is clear, even before Seren sees his pointed ears. He’s so bright he doesn’t look real. He moves like a song given shape, as if the green scales of his armor weigh nothing at all. His wings are immense, rustling with pale green feathers. His words are sunrise given sound.
“Stay back,” the fae orders, and rushes at the creature. His wings tuck in, vanishing between one blink and the next. The holes in his armor seal in an instant, like the wings were never there.
Snarling, the creature meets his charge.
Seren forces himself backwards one step at a time.
Terror remains out of grasp. He should run while they’re occupied, because whoever wins this encounter is just as dangerous.
Fae are the villains of ancient stories.
They ensnare humans in their tricks and traps, for fates worse than being devoured by a giant cat.
Yet Seren can’t tear his eyes from the clash. The fae moves as quickly as the shadowed creature, and his blade paints golden arcs in the air. They crash, claws scraping against armor.
The creature keens in an eerie echo. It leaps away in a spray of black blood. Wounded in the chest, it rocks back on its haunches.
Before the creature pounces, heat surrounds Seren, and shining green fills his vision. The fae is suddenly so close, Seren can smell the white floral scent of him. The scales of his armor are shaped like leaves.
“I would reconsider, augray,” the fae warns. His blade rests steady between Seren and the foe.
Ears pinned, the creature seems to understand the fae’s warning. It snarls, and a cold wind whips through Seren’s clothes. Shadows coalesce into a narrow archway behind the creature. Like a tear in a canvas wall, revealing pure darkness outside.
Wrongness ripples with the wind.
The creature darts through the archway, which vanishes. The wrongness passes, leaving only Seren and the golden-haired fae on the forest trail.
Seren stumbles back, cold and dizzy. The movement jostles his shoulder, and the pain is a welcome shock back to reality. He sorely needs the anchor.
The fae’s sword shimmers, disappears, then reappears in its ornate scabbard. He turns to face Seren.
Fae are real, of course. Not superstition like the gods.
But fae are real in the same way the fox spirits of Chiyo’s homeland are real, or the elephants and griffons in the bestiaries that actually sell.
They’re from history books and legends. They don’t belong here and now, in the woods outside Wymond.
Yet this fae is unmistakably here, and he’s the most beautiful man Seren’s ever seen.
Maybe eight inches taller than Seren, as if he needs the height to be intimidating.
Golden hair falls in waves to his waist, braided back at the temples to keep it from his face.
Which means every feature is terribly clear.
His jaw and cheekbones are slightly too sharp to be human.
Like a blade given life. When sunlight crosses at just the right angle, his tanned skin glitters.
The fae looks like summer, except for his icy composure.
“You’re hurt,” the fae says, voice low and intense.