Chapter Sixteen Taking Squash from a Farmer
Chapter Sixteen
Taking Squash from a Farmer
Where Saeldian Must Run from the Truth
Saeldian woke up to pale gray light through the window breaking on the hump of Kell’s shoulder as he slept…and their hand resting on it across the bolster border that separated them.
Barely. Kell’s back was pressed up against one side of the roll of blankets, while Saeldian had one knee resting on it, their arm crossing the line until it landed on his skin, warm and vital. His shoulder shifted with his sleep-slowed breaths, and when his chest rose, theirs did too.
In their sleep, they had come as close to each other as they could.
In their sleep, they had breathed together.
Maybe Saeldian’s dream of swaying in a net bed between two trees in the Village That Chooses Its Own, listening to the music above while idly talking to Kell very seriously about the magical properties of eggs, was something they dreamed together.
“They’re potential the way seeds are potential,” they had said in their dream hammock in their dream village, and Kell had replied, “They’re also a fine breakfast,” and Saeldian huffed in outrage at his teasing.
It was exactly what Kell would say, in that dream that had felt so natural, so ordinary that Saeldian never wondered at it for a moment.
They had lain side by side, shoulders and arms touching, his foot gently swiping against theirs.
And Saeldian knew, the way people know things in dreams, that they always woke up with him, waiting to find out if what he dreamed was what they had dreamed too.
Now that Saeldian was awake, their tears burned in their throat.
Kell was the only one who could have cracked the wall holding Saeldian together.
Kell was the only one who could have accepted Saeldian’s embarrassing loss of control and then agreed to put it away like it never happened.
He had rocked in the bent willow rocking chair he’d dragged to the tub, sat facing away from them as they washed and shaved.
They talked about replacing the spell gem without anyone noticing.
They didn’t talk about Saeldian’s tears.
They didn’t talk about Saeldian’s mortifying, desperate, needy behavior.
They didn’t talk about being enemies. They didn’t talk about being friends.
And then this morning, which felt like the dream had—not unreal, but seamlessly natural, with the chilly air outside the warm refuge of their blankets, and their hand resting on the strong, perfect curve of his shoulder until he would wake up and turn to face them.
Maybe Saeldian was still dreaming. Half awake, but with dreaming still wrapped around them, warm and drowsy, with cool air on their face and shoulder—
Their shoulder next to the mattress.
The amulet rested there, but it was colder than it should have been. It hadn’t felt like anything since Osalor had protected it. That cold spread across their skin like frost flowering on a windowpane, and they took their hand away.
Fleece. Where was their pouch—
Saeldian landed hard on their knees in front of their pack, digging into it for a pinch of wool. They whispered, “Apparent,” in Draconic, and two small glowing lights winked as they bobbled and swooped in the thin dawn.
It worked. Saeldian nearly yelped. Their cantrip had worked. They were still powerful. Still safe. The firefly illusion winked and swooped, their sparks barely visible in the gloaming, but they had come at their command, and nothing had changed.
Beyond it, Kell watched it all happening.
He followed the fireflies’ bumbling course until he lifted his head and stared at Saeldian’s hand and the pinch of fleece they held, at Saeldian’s hair still covered with their silk bonnet, their sleeping shirt, their bare knees on the rug.
He looked at them with understanding shading his eyes as the firefly started a loop and then veered off, as if it had forgotten what it was doing partway through.
Saeldian didn’t know what to say. There wasn’t anything they could say.
They hadn’t talked about how he’d held them until their eyes hurt from weeping, or how they tried to eat him alive with kisses, how they rubbed their cheek against the curly hair on his chest and belly, resting for a moment on its soft, relaxed strength, exulting in how their kiss had made him go hard and tense with wanting more, until he broke the spell with a question and saved Saeldian from losing everything.
He’d been awake with Saeldian’s hand on his shoulder, waiting as the sky lightened, and he hadn’t moved.
He’d watched Saeldian’s half-panicked rush to cast a spell and their relief when it worked.
There wasn’t anything to say because he understood what it meant.
Saeldian searched for words, an explanation, something that would say I shouldn’t have done that, I’m sorry and Thank you for stopping me in time and I wish to all the gods that you hadn’t stopped me, but every word refused to march over their tongue, and they didn’t know why.
“Sheld,” Kell said. “I—”
“Helloo!”
A voice from outside. Saeldian rocked up to their feet to answer the door, and an elf veiled in meadowflowers who wasn’t Helfyra bustled in. “Are you slugabeds ready to—oh.”
She stopped, eyeing the bed—or, more accurately, the barrier behind Kell in the bed—while Kell went wide-eyed at their intruder. “Oh. Well. I’ve come to ask if you want breakfast before it’s nothing but scraps.”
“Yes.” Saeldian pulled out a little pinch of fleece they had combed from Righthoof Manor’s goats. “Are there any eggs?”
“Only if you hurry. No need to dress for breakfast! You’re fine as you are.”
And then she walked out.
“We’d better hurry.”
“Wait.”
Saeldian tossed a thick fleece robe at him. “No time.”
Kell caught it and hopped out of bed, strong and wide-shouldered and completely naked, and because Saeldian adored suffering, they couldn’t stop looking at him. But soon his legs and chest and all the soft, curling hair that grew on him were buttoned over. “Listen. I know her.”
Saeldian should probably do some buttoning too. “Really? Where from?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen her before.”
“I don’t follow.”
“I’ll explain later. Just stay wise around her. Something is up.”
They grabbed their boots and jumped on the barge barefoot. The elf watched, amused, as they hopped around getting them on.
“I’m Dylstra, summer’s shadow.”
“Saeldian Charmhand,” they replied. “Good morning.”
“Kell Redsong,” Kell said. “We came in last night.”
“Just in time to witness the heart-fasting of Bisana and Nerinis Storraneld, yes? A wonderful couple. Stumbled in here by fate! Quite a story.”
“They mentioned it at the ceremony,” Saeldian said.
Dylstra fluttered one hand to the pendant around her neck, and a tiny diamond flashed as the rabbit twisted in her fingers. “The whole story, I mean.”
“Will they be at breakfast?” Kell asked.
“I’m not sure if they will still be there. They planned to leave right after. You’re our only guests now. The starless time is nearly on us.”
“When your lady will sit in vigil by her beloved’s side,” Kell said. “Our poor timing.”
“Those whose heart-sore path leads them here are always welcome, even as we turn to winter. Look.”
Dylstra gestured to the shore, where morning had finally broken over a forest aflame with autumn’s color. Those leaves were falling, carried into the whims of the air to slip in spirals and spins, landing on the ground and in the mirror-still water, brilliant against the surface.
Kell hummed a bar of a grieving song that would set a tavern sobbing into their beers but stopped when he noticed he’d done it. He coughed. “It’s beautiful. And sad.”
“Did others leave before the Storranelds were married?” Saeldian asked.
“Oh dear. No. Few have come at all lately. We had thought no one would come before the winter. Besides the Storranelds, I think it was the crone’s moon the last time someone visited.”
“All of those people at the ceremony live here?”
“Yes. We’ve all come here for one reason or another and stayed.”
Saeldian glanced at Kell, but he was watching the leaves falling. “I still feel like we’re intruding.”
The barge thudded to a stop on the pebbled beach.
“You are not. If you are here, your hearts need this place. I hear your friends. I’m sorry to leave you, but I must sail to the heart.”
“The heart? Do you mean the island?” Kell asked. “Does your lady need you?”
“I need the peace of it,” Dylstra said. “You do as well. You should visit and see. Make sure no one else’s barge is there—unless all are called, one’s time at the heart should be private. It’s easier to talk there, if there’s anything you need to say.”
And with that, the lake carried the barge on a little swell and sailed away.
“One’s time at the heart should be private?” Kell said. “It’s like taking squash from a farmer. We can be out of this place by noon. We’ll invite the others back to the cottage after breakfast.”
“This doesn’t even seem fair.”
Jubilee rocked in one of the bent willow chairs while she watched the island, where a barge sat waiting for Dylstra to be done with her contemplation.
Saeldian and Kell had dressed and packed, then gone to the cottages Jubilee and Lorzok had been assigned so they could get the best view of the island.
“It’s weirdly convenient, I know,” Saeldian said. “I’m not questioning it. Their starless nights thing is happening tonight. This is it. I’m glad it’s going to be easier than we thought.”
“I’m glad the right gem’s going back in its place,” Jubilee said. “Did you hear about the story behind this place?”
“It’s a memorial.”
“Do you know what happened, though?”
Saeldian rocked their chair. “People always want to know the story behind the tragedy, like they deserve the whole experience.”
“Sheld—”
Saeldian ran right over Jubilee’s attempt. “Ilondrel’s mourning her lost love forever, this place is a refuge for people who want to defy a world that would tear them apart, blah blah—”
“Shut up,” Jubilee said, “and listen.”