42. Tobias #2
Tobias gritted his teeth. Javen was wrong in that assessment. After his father’s death, Tobias had taken on many of the household duties, to help his family. Even now, he sent most of his paycheck back home. “Cause you’re so much older, right? What are you? Twenty-eight? Thirty?”
Javen laughed, just once, making Tobias feel like he’d missed some critical punchline. He strode to the door and opened it. “If you are still certain there can be peace with the fae, follow me.”
They walked for over an hour, through the woods and away from the falls.
Eventually, Tobias gave up on the quiet and started to talk, telling Javen about life in Karsic, about his siblings, his ma’s cooking, anything he could think of to fill the void that hung heavy in the air.
Then, as the tree line thinned, and a clearing appeared, Javen’s usual sure stride faltered.
He reached for his cigarettes, his hand trembling.
The clearing was empty except for ash and ruins.
Blackened timbers jutted from the ground like broken ribs, and soot-streaked stones marked the outline of what had once been walls.
Amid the debris, incongruously bright, a raspberry bush trembled in the wind, its berries stubbornly red amid the gray.
Whatever had once stood here must have burned to the ground years ago.
Javen stared out at the desolation as a slow, ragged breath escaped him.
Feeling the weight of grief, Tobias decided to use the first name he’d learned. “Alaric?”
A muscle in Javen’s jaw twitched. “Do not ever call me that.”
Tobias swallowed, imagining yet another black mark against him ticking in Javen’s mind. “Did… did someone live here?”
“I was supposed to.” Javen’s clipped tone held no emotion, but, like a mask slipping ever so slightly, the grief showed.
The tightness in his posture, the slightest flicker in his eyes.
It must have been such a deep heartbreak that not even Javen could hide it.
There was a type of loss that carved deep wounds on a heart, like a merciless river wearing down stone into a canyon.
He cleared his throat, still staring at the clearing. “When the war ended, when the Accords were ratified by your damned Parliament, this was to become home.”
There. The smallest slip. Your Parliament. As if he were not governed by them. As if Javen belonged to another land, another place entirely.
As if…
No, Javen was just a part-fae, surely. A wildling.
Javen certainly didn’t look like the beautiful, otherworldly fae Tobias had seen.
The captain, though intimidating, was entirely mortal in appearance, right down to the faint crow’s-feet in the corners of his eyes.
His jawline was sharp, and his dark hair was thick, sure, but lots of men had good luck in those regards.
There was a baker back in Tobias’s hometown that still had a full head of hair at the age of eighty, and he certainly wasn’t a fae.
Still, Javen had never said how old he was, and he did have that strange habit of using antiquated words, as well as a near-perfect memory of military maneuvers which occurred decades earlier. Lockwood, too, had implied he knew Javen before his own hair had turned gray.
“How long were you married?” Tobias asked, carefully skirting the question he wanted to ask.
“Seven months,” Javen whispered. “Not even long enough for the lilacs to bloom.”
The sadness of the unusual expression pulled at him, made him think of his own loss, of all the seasons his father never lived to see, all the memories he’d missed, and all the times Tobias had missed him. “So you never came back here.”
“There was no reason to…” Javen clenched his jaw, stopping his words. He shook his head. “This is the so-called mercy of the fae. To kill an innocent mother and child—”
“No…” Tobias whispered. “Wouldn’t the… what about the Acco rds?”
Javen turned to him. “The Accords,” he drawled, mockery in every syllable, “protect humans from the fae. They offered no protection to my wife, despite how much she’d believed in peace.”
There it was. The final clear confirmation, then, that Javen’s wife had not been a human.
How deeply he must have loved his wife, Tobias thought. Everything in Javen had shifted since coming to this small clearing, as if his defenses were lowered.
Wordlessly, Javen dropped to his knees, a hand reaching out to the ashes.
His long fingers raked through them, the sunlight flashing over his wedding band.
No wonder Javen dedicated his life to his work; he’d already lost everything that would give him meaning outside of it.
“Damn her. Damn every cursed breath she takes.”
“The Queen, sir?”
“Your intelligence never ceases to impress, does it? Look at these ashes and tell me if the fae deserve mercy. For they will not give it in return. They will betray the Accords, and they will bring death to everyone you love.”
Tobias stared at the charred remains of what must have been a little cabin.
A few stones remained, a hint of a chimney, a bit of a retaining wall.
He tried to imagine Javen coming here, returning to a family, to that beautiful woman he’d seen in the drawing.
A lump rose in his throat as the painful image seemed to crystallize.
The bitter irony must haunt him, Tobias realized.
For Javen had survived the war, only to be denied a long-awaited homecoming.
Something else nagged at Tobias; some small element of the drawing of the woman felt familiar to him. He wished he could study it again, but doubted the opportunity would ever present itself.
“Do you come here often?” Tobias asked. “I visit my papa’s grave when I can. I just sit and talk to him. Tell him about stuff, you know?”
Javen did not look his way. “No. I have not returned to this cursed land since before the war ended.”
“So why…” Why had he brought Tobias here, to this private, grief-filled clearing ?
“This merciful fae you spoke to,” Javen replied, sarcasm dripping.
“With her beautiful golden hair and no-doubt perfect voice. Do you truly think she could stand alone against the Queen? Against all her Oathborn? Against Blood Ember? Are you such a fool that you think kindness can triumph over evil?”
“No. Not kindness alone. But it, along with love, with mercy.” The things his parents had raised him to be.
They’d never had much money, but they’d given him a far greater inheritance.
He’d gone to sleep every night secure in their love, knowing nothing he could ever do, could ever say, would make them care for him any less.
Even when he’d once broken a window, which had surely cost them most of their savings to repair, his mother was more worried over the cuts in his hand.
“The best part of humanity,” Tobias said softly, not entirely sure that word fit the situation. Even if fae weren’t human, though, surely they still loved, they still cared for others.
“Mercy?” Javen spat. “I had a chance to kill Blood Ember, and mercy stopped me. Now my family is gone, along with countless others, killed by the same one I should have destroyed.”
Captain Javen had faced down Blood Ember itself? Just how many more secrets did the man hold?
Javen pointed to the ruins. “I brought you here so you do not forget the lesson that damned me.”
Tobias wasn’t ready to give up. Not yet. “If we don’t help her, what will happen to her? This fae.” Tobias frowned, wishing he knew her name. “If she is to stand against the Queen, then…”
“She will die. As did others before her,” Javen said.
“Could you…” Tobias’s resolve strengthened.
“Sir, I’m going to overstep, probably, but it’s clear to me that you know a whole hell of a lot more about the fae, and their language, than anyone I’ve ever met.
So, can you help me find her? Warn her? She won’t leave my thoughts. I want to protect her. ”
“Like you protected Miss Ankmetta?” Javen smirked as he stood, reaching for the cigarettes in his pocket. He hesitated, then, as if even the ghost of his dead wife would not approve of the vice. “And allowed her to escape?”
“You… you knew about that?” Tobias was once more at a loss for words. He plunged his hands into his pockets, bowed his head. Was this it then? Would he be court-martialed? Demoted? Left out here in the woods?
Perhaps Javen would tie him to a tree and use him as bait for Blood Ember. Then he’d have his revenge and be done with his useless lieutenant at the same time.
Tobias backed up a step, his heel sinking into the spongy grass. He should never have accepted this assignment in the first place and reported everything he knew about Javen to that mysterious stranger. Now, he’d pay the price of trusting the wrong person.
A sudden howl of pain cut through his thoughts.
Whipping his head around, Tobias stared at Javen.
On his neck, a strange mark had appeared.
It glowed faintly, an almost silvery sheen pulsing like a beating heart.
Even as Javen tried to cover it with a hand, blood welled from it, seeping into the gaps between his fingers.
“In all the hells,” he muttered, “what has she done now?” With his free hand, Javen dug in a pocket for his cigarettes. After clenching one between his lips, he dropped his bloody hand and snapped his fingers. A blue spark flickered above his fingertips, leaping to ignite the cigarette.
“You’re bleeding!” It was far from the most pressing statement Tobias wanted to make, and he winced as soon as he said it.
Javen glared at him. “Why is it that you received such high marks at the academy and insist so frequently on stating the obvious?”
A lot of Tobias’s teachers, and his own mother, probably wondered the same thing.
“I, uh… wait.” Tobias held up a hand. “You knew my grades?”
With a dismissive snort, Javen replied, “Why else would I have selected you? I was told you set high standards for linguistics and code breaking. Apparently, you did not merit the same in common sense. ”
“You selected me? You thought I had merit?”
Javen lifted his head to stare up at the sky, making an exasperated noise that seemed to shake his shoulders.
It let Tobias better see the wound on his neck, which appeared to be a set of four interlocking crescents, deliberately carved into Javen’s skin.
“How is that a surprise, Lieutenant, when I have brought you along on this mission? When I have provided resources for you to learn the fae language? When you have been allowed far greater access to things beyond a usual soldier’s reckoning? ”
All the events of the past weeks replayed in Tobias’s mind.
All the times he’d tried, and failed, to be a help.
The messes he’d caused. Somehow, still, Javen believed he was capable, that he could do something to help Rhydonia.
“Thank you for trusting me, sir,” he said, more than a little abashed.
“I am sorry I have not lived up to it. I want to do better and help you capture Blood Ember, and bring Miss Ankmetta back.”
Javen shook his head. “I do not think such things are within your ability. Nor, perhaps, anyone’s. Leave me be. See Lockwood for your next orders.”
The dismissal felt like a permanent one.