Chapter 5 #2
“First round’s on me, loves,” she says, setting down the mugs. “Heard about the missing lads. Terrible business, that.”
Garrett gives her a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Thank you, Marion.”
She pats his shoulder before heading back to the bar. Garrett watches her go, then picks up his mug.
He takes a long drink. Then another. By the time I’m halfway through my first ale, he’s signaling for a second.
“Slow down,” I say.
“Why? Are you my mother now?”
The serving lady brings two more ales. Garrett pays her and I notice his hand shakes slightly when he hands over the coins. That’s not from the alcohol. He’s not that drunk yet. It’s from the exhaustion and stress.
“I’m your guard. How am I going to get you home when you’re too drunk to walk?” I keep my voice low.
“Then carry me.” He drains the rest of his first mug and starts on the second.
I watch the tavern while he drinks. The other patrons are mostly harmless. Merchants sharing a meal after a long day. A few off-duty guards playing dice in the corner, their laughter getting louder with each round. An older couple eating quietly near the fireplace.
No one pays us any attention. We’re just two more people in a crowded tavern.
A group of Valorians at a nearby table are deep in conversation. I catch fragments of their words.
“—can’t just disappear with no bodies, no blood. It could be anyone—”
They’re scared.
“You know what I love about this place?” Garrett asks, gesturing with his glass. Ale sloshes over the rim, dripping onto the table. “No one bows. No ‘my lord’ every other sentence. I’m just another person drinking away bad days.”
“Is today a bad day?”
“Today’s particularly shit, yes.” But he smiles as he says it. “Tell me about Tiamat’s taverns.”
“Think of the worst place you can imagine, then make it worse. That’s a Tiamat tavern.” I take a drink. “It’s the kind of place where you keep your back to the wall and your hand on your knife. Someone dies in one every night.”
“Really?” Garrett laughs at that, the sound of it makes heads turn. “That’s horrifying.”
“That’s Tiamat.”
He takes another drink, his eyes distant. “Did you go to them? The taverns?”
“Sometimes. When I needed information or when Kitty wanted to celebrate a successful contract.” I remember those nights. Rare moments of something almost like happiness. “We’d drink cheap ale and pretend we were normal people for a few hours.”
His smile vanishes. The warmth in his eyes turns to ice. “Who the fuck is Kitty?”
“My friend,” I clarify quickly.
Garrett studies me over the rim of his mug. “Do you miss it? Tiamat?”
“No.” The answer comes quickly, honestly. “There’s nothing there worth missing. Except for my friends.”
“You worry about them.”
It’s not a question, but I answer anyway. “Always.”
Shade especially. His contract is complicated.
Garrett doesn’t push for more information. He just nods and takes another drink.
“I was supposed to be protecting them,” he mutters after his third ale. His voice is starting to slur slightly at the edges. “The missing knights.”
I wait. I’ve learned that sometimes Garrett just needs to talk and someone to listen without judging.
“I’m their commander.” He sets the mug down and his ale sloshes over the rim. A few patrons glance our way then go back to their business. “They trust me to keep them safe. To make the right calls.”
His hands are shaking again. Not much, but enough that I notice.
“You can’t protect everyone,” I offer.
He runs a hand through his hair, leaving it disheveled. “My father says leadership is about making hard choices. My brother used to say it was about inspiring people. But what good is any of that if I can’t even keep my own knights safe?”
The mention of his brother makes him reach for his ale again. He drinks deeply, like he’s trying to drown something.
“Tell me something, Wolf,” he says instead, leaning forward. His knee brushes mine under the table. “What’s the worst job you ever took?”
I shouldn’t answer and let him in. The space between a guardian and his charge should remain clear. But the ale is warm in my belly, and Garrett is looking at me with those too-green eyes, and I find myself answering anyway.
“Merchant’s son,” I say finally, surprised by my own voice. “Nineteen years old. His father owed money to the wrong people. They wanted it paid in blood.
The emerald hue in Garrett’s pupils is almost luminous in the lamplight. “Did you complete your mission?”
“No.” I take a long drink, remembering the boy’s face. “But my partner did.”
The memory is sharp even years later. I remember the sound he made as Carver’s steel went through him.
Pain flares in my bad knee, the joint the guild had shattered for my disobedience.
The punishment for refusing to kill. They’d broken it in three places, made me watch while they did it.
Then they’d healed it just enough that I could walk, but not enough that it would ever be right again.
Garrett leans even closer and his leg presses more firmly against mine under the table. “I’m glad you didn’t do it.”
Everyone in the guild had thought I was stupid. Even I had wondered some nights if they were right. But here’s Garrett, saying he’s glad I didn’t kill the kid.
I’ve waited years to hear someone say that.
“You know what I think?” he continues. His grin is wild and slightly dangerous. The ale is hitting him properly now. “I think you’re too good for the guild.”
“You’re drunk.”
“Doesn’t make it less true.” He reaches across the table and places his hand on top of mine. “You could be more than a killer, Wolf. Someone better than what they made you.”
The touch is light as a feather, but I feel it like a brand.
“No.” I drain my ale to avoid his eyes.
“I’m not asking you to leave tomorrow.” His thumb brushes across my knuckles. “I’m just saying the guild doesn’t own you forever.”
They do own me. That’s how it works.
I don’t pull my hand away from him. Garrett doesn’t move his either. We sit like that for a long moment, his fingers resting on my scarred knuckles.
The tavern noise washes over us like waves. Someone’s playing a fiddle in the corner, a jaunty tune that doesn’t match the mood at our table. People laugh and argue and live their lives around us.
Garrett pulls back first, laughing softly. “Sorry. I told you I was getting drunk.”
“Mission accomplished,” I mutter.
He raises his mug. “To successful missions. May we have more of them.”
I clink my mug against his. The sound is lost in the tavern’s noise.
The ale flows freely after that. Garrett orders saffronated lamb and mushroom soup for us both. The food is better than decent and we eat while the tavern fills up around us.
The lamb is tender, practically falling off the bone. The soup is rich and earthy, thick with cream. I eat slowly, savoring each bite. I silently hope Kitty and Shade are eating well too wherever they are. Food like this is rare in our lives.
Garrett watches me eat with a small smile.
“Tell me about your family,” he says after a while.
“Don’t have one.”
“Everyone has a family.”
“The guild took me when I was ten.” I tear a piece of meat off the bone. “Before that, I lived on the streets.”
“That sounds lonely,” he offers gently.
“It was.” I’ve never admitted that out loud before. “But you learn to survive. That’s all that matters.”
Garrett doesn’t offer empty comfort. He just nods slowly, eyes holding mine. I realize he understands more than I expected.
“What about you?” I ask, turning it back on him. “How does a noble’s son end up as a Valorian guard instead of a lord?”
“Second son,” he mutters after he finishes chewing. “The spare. I could either spend my life as a decoration at court or I could do something that mattered. I chose the Valorians.”
There’s pride in his voice and a thread of defiance running beneath it. This wasn’t just a career choice. It was a rebellion.
“Do you regret it?”
“Sometimes. When my mother writes letters to me during long missions, asking when I’m coming home.
” He turns his mug in his hands. “But then I remember why I left. At court, nothing I did mattered. I was just filling space, being decorative. Here, I can make a difference. Hopefully in some small way, what I do actually matters.”
“It matters,” I say, and I’m surprised by how much I mean it.
Garrett raises his eyebrows in surprise.
“I know it matters to the candlemaker’s daughter. You walked her home every night for a week after someone tried to grab her.” I recount it without thinking. “I’m certain the old veteran you check on in the lower quarter is glad for your company. The widow whose roof you fixed.”
I don’t know why I’ve been paying attention. Gods, I don’t fucking know why I’ve catalogued all the small kindnesses he shows.
His smile is soft and a little sad. “You’ve been watching me.”
It’s my fucking job.
We continue eating and drinking, watching the tavern life flow around us. The fiddle player switches to a slower tune, something melancholy that makes me think of Tiamat’s underbelly and all the things I left behind.
“You know what?” Garrett says, his voice thoughtful. “This is nice.”
“What is?”
“This. Sitting here with you.” He gestures vaguely with his mug.
Something warm unfolds in my chest. It is nice. “I wouldn’t mind spending another evening like this.”
“Yeah?” He grins, and there’s something playful in his expression. “You asking me on a date, Wolf?”
Heat floods my face. “This isn’t... I didn’t mean—“ I stop, realizing he’s teasing me.
He laughs. “Your face. Gods, if you could see your face right now.”
“You’re an ass.”
“True. But you like me anyway.”
I don’t deny it. Not when he’s looking at me like that, eyes bright with laughter and ale.
The evening wears on. We order more ale. It’s too much even for a half-Wolven and an elf, but neither of us seems to care. Garrett tells me stories about the Valorians and about his late brother’s terrible poetry that he used to recite at family dinners.
“He once wrote a fifty-line ode to a potato,” Garrett says, laughing so hard he can barely get the words out. The sound of his laughter makes me forget I’m supposed to be guarding him. I catch myself smiling at his stories. It almost makes me feel like a person.
Not an assassin or a weapon. Just... a person.
He wipes tears from his eyes. “Gods, I miss him.”
The laughter dies, replaced by something sadder.
I vaguely tell him about Shade and Kitty, my only real friends in the guild.
About the time Shade got so drunk he tried to fight a statue and how Kitty can pick any lock in under thirty seconds.
I tell him about the three of us huddled in the crypts, sharing stolen food.
I even share with him about my life in the streets. The cold nights and empty stomach.
It’s something I’ve never revealed to anyone else other than Shepherd. But the ale has loosened my tongue, and Garrett listens without judgment, and the words just... come.
By the time we leave the Eagle’s Rest, the moon is high and the streets are mostly empty. Garrett is drunk enough that he needs to steady himself against the wall for a moment. I’m not drunk but I’m definitely more relaxed than I should be.
The night air is cold, clearing some of the haze from my head.
“I should get you back,” I say.
“I don’t wanna go back.” He says it like a petulant child and I have to bite back a smile. “Back is boring. Back is responsibility and having to find seven missing soldiers.”
“Back is where your bed is.”
“I could sleep here.” He gestures vaguely at the street. “Street looks comfortable.”
I shake my head. “You’re not sleeping in the street.”
“Why not?” He sways slightly. “You said you did when you were a kid.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“I didn’t have a choice. You do.” I pull him upright.
He considers this with the careful deliberation of the very drunk. “That’s a good point. You make good points, Wolf.”
“Come on.” I take his elbow. “Let’s get you home.”
I end up walking him back to the keep, one hand on his elbow to keep him steady. He leans into me more than necessary.
I tell myself it’s just because he’s drunk. That’s all. Nothing more.
But when his hand finds mine in the darkness between streetlamps, I don’t pull away.
We make it to his chambers without incident. I open the door and guide him inside. He collapses onto his bed with a groan, not bothering to remove his boots or coat.
“Wolf?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you. For tonight.” He waves a hand vaguely. “For... everything.”
“Get some sleep, Garrett.”
“Will you be here in the morning?”
“I’m always here.”
He smiles, eyes already closing. “Good.”
I watch him for a moment longer, making sure he’s actually going to sleep. His breathing evens out, deep and steady. In sleep, he looks younger. The worry lines smooth from his face and he looks almost peaceful.
When I’m satisfied he’s down for the night, I settle into the chair by his window. The moon paints everything in silver and shadow.
I think about what Garrett said. About being more than a killer. I think about his fingers on my hand in the tavern, the softness in his eyes when he looked at me.
These thoughts could get you killed, my Wolven instinct whispers.
It very well could. But for now, with Garrett breathing softly in sleep behind me and the moon shining through the window, I let myself wonder what it might be like to be someone who could be more than what the guild made them.
I imagine it for a moment.
Then I go back to watching the shadows.