Chapter Eighteen Five Thousand Grains to Dream In
Chapter Eighteen
Five Thousand Grains to Dream In
Where Saeldian, Much to Their Surprise, Is Not Dead
Saeldian shouldn’t be alive right now, but the warm, soft bed and the dim, comfortable lights and the clean sheets on their skin were hard to deny. They lived. They were alive.
Alive? No. No…
A clay jug and a cup rested on the bedside table. The pale green cup had an uneven rim. Saeldian touched their mouth, knowing already how the dripped glaze felt on their lips.
Someone had lifted their head and gently ordered them to drink three swallows…Terandis.
“Kell is fine,” he’d said. “He fainted when he carried you through the oak, but Filandior caught him.”
Then Terandis stroked their shoulder and told them to sleep. Saeldian had been too weary and sick to argue or wonder why the man was being so kind to them after Saeldian had behaved so obnoxiously when they met.
When they woke again, they lay very still as the fright smothered them because they were alive.
Kell had saved them. He’d risked his own life to try to save theirs, and he’d done it. He’d made it back to the Village That Chooses Its Own and saved Saeldian’s life, and they were going to be sick because they weren’t supposed to be here.
But they were, and Saeldian had to know.
They reached for the amulet. Still there, and a bit cool, lying still in their fingers.
In the oak’s grove, it had pounded like a man who’d run ten miles, prompting them to make that promise.
It had beat, calm and resolute, while Saeldian fought off a monstrosity with cantrips.
More, those minor spells had hit with incredible force. Magic had sung through them, louder than it ever had, all while they tried not to imagine their last bolts of fire and force failing, the troll closing the distance, but everyone gone, everyone escaped—
Sick, they were going to be sick. Kell wasn’t supposed to save them.
Saeldian made a fist and then opened it. When the magic unfurled from their fingers, Saeldian bit back a gasp. A hand glowed, floating in the air a few inches away from Saeldian’s.
This shouldn’t be happening. But they flexed their fingers and their will, and the magic obeyed.
The hand curled around the clay cup, lifted it, and brought it floating back to their lips. Their magic tilted the cup perfectly. Saeldian didn’t stop swallowing until the cup was empty.
This couldn’t be happening. They’d broken their pact. There was no way they hadn’t broken it. If giving your life to save another’s wasn’t enough—
Their power was intact. But it wasn’t just intact.
Saeldian had never felt stronger in their life.
They had driven that melded troll back hard enough to break bones.
Their fire bolts had burned hot and stubborn.
And they had such control over the hand they’d formed from their own will, Saeldian bet they could write a letter with it—or at least a list.
They had never been capable of the power to use a Mage Hand spell so subtly. That they could do it now, after everything, was not possible.
But Saeldian couldn’t deny the truth. Somehow, they’d become even more powerful than they were before. That had never happened without Osalor’s casual statement, You know, I think it’s time you learned something new, while they were meeting through the mirror.
And Osalor had never granted them this much strength. This new potency was a bucket’s worth next to a teacup, and it didn’t make sense. How had this happened?
The cup floated back to the nightstand and landed so gently it didn’t make a sound. The jug rose—it had some heft—and Saeldian used more magic to pour water into the cup.
They set the jug down and let the spell drop. “What in the Hells is going on here?”
“That was unexpected, I take it?”
Saeldian twisted around. Kell sat in the chair by the bed with his ankles crossed and resting on a padded footrest. A book cradled in his hands blocked the view of his bare chest until he set it on a little shelf.
A scar that looked like he’d nearly lost his arm curled over his pectoral, leaving a bare streak in the hair on his chest. That hadn’t been there last night—or whenever they had been in that bed in Hearthaven’s Repose.
And that scar, rose pink and shiny, was the story of a time he’d almost died.
For them.
Saeldian trembled and stared at Kell like they’d never see him again.
Light by the window shone on his hair. He had glasses. Round lenses rimmed in gold, sitting on his nose. They’d never seen Kell wearing glasses, but they had to be to help him read his book. When humans got older, they needed glasses to see things better.
The gray hair. The lines at his eyes when he smiled at Saeldian. Kell hadn’t smiled at them like that since Baldur’s Gate. Why the change? What had changed?
“It was a very good demonstration of the Mage Hand spell. But you seem troubled.”
Saeldian shrugged. “It was too good. I shouldn’t be able to do that.”
“As I get stronger, my spells are easier to control. Your heroic acts have strengthened you, obviously.”
“Don’t. I’m no hero.”
“Saeldian. You gave everything you had to save us without hesitation.”
No. No, they didn’t. “We all win, or nobody does.”
Kell reached up and pinched the temples of his glasses, taking his time lifting them away from his nose. “Just like you vowed. But you’ve changed. Your adoptive tiefling family has done you some good.”
Their middle turned to ice. “I haven’t changed.”
He smirked, not buying it. “The old Sheld wouldn’t have stood their ground and fought back, not when an easy exit would do.”
Saeldian shrugged. “Lorzok had to figure out that spell. There wasn’t anywhere else to go.”
Kell laughed, delighted. “I woke up yesterday. We had to rouse you to get half a cup of soup in you.”
Simple drawstring trousers, no shirt, bare feet…“You slept in my bed?”
“My bed,” Kell corrected. “This is my room. Look around.”
The room was larger. The window was made of three of those clear shards of weaveglass from Menoriath, and the view was of the creek that ran alongside the brewer’s hut…the creek that Shuahn’s bridge house stretched over.
“My mistake. Why am I in your bed, then?”
“Easier to have two patients in the same place.”
Saeldian peered at him. “You just about had your arm off. Do you hurt?”
“Only a little sore. How are your ribs?”
Their ribs? They looked down. Only the yellowing of an old bruise. Why—
The troll had hurled a rock at Saeldian. It had made it very hard to breathe without screaming, but there was no time to feel it. “Whoever healed me was amazing. I forgot that it happened.”
“I’ll give your compliments to Lorzok. You can take deep breaths? You can raise your arms?”
Saeldian did both, just to make sure. “Yes. But you were fine yesterday. So why are we still—”
“Three reasons. You were still recovering. There was no good reason to move you. And I didn’t want you to wake up alone.”
That smile. Hero. He’d called them that. No one had ever said that. No one ever thought that. Not of Saeldian Charmhand.
But they lived, and their magic wasn’t gone, and Saeldian had to back away from what that meant. “You didn’t have to. But I appreciate it.”
“There’s makings for breakfast. Do you want it?”
“Yes.”
Kell turned to a hutch in the wall and filled a bowl with yogurt, drizzling honey and spices on top, then adding fruit and tiny seeds. “It’s not eggs.”
“I couldn’t eat an egg right now. Even if you boiled it in oil.”
Kell chuckled. Saeldian sat up, the blankets puddling in their lap, and held out their hands for the bowl and a wooden spoon. Kell perched on the side of the bed and leaned against the footboard.
Saeldian scooped up a big spoonful of fruit and stuffed their mouth with it. Rude to talk with your mouth full.
Kell smirked. “Lorzok and I talked it over, and we agreed on this. So, here.”
The key to a bank vault full of gold landed in the dip the blankets made between Saeldian’s thighs. “Hey!”
Kell scoffed. “You’re fine. I aim better than that.”
“You do. You’re giving me your share of the take?”
“Lorzok already gave Jubilee his key. She might have cried.”
“She doesn’t do this so she can buy baubles and throw naked hot spring parties. The villa her dad accepted for payment needs work.”
“I spent an afternoon there, remember?” Kell said. “I understand why she needs gold.”
“Then you should give her your key too. If she has one coffer for the roof and the other for the taxes, they might get through this.”
“You want her to have three-quarters of the money.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Why not? I have my share. What you two do with yours isn’t my affair.”
“Do me a favor?”
“What?”
“Don’t treat me like a fool.”
Saeldian’s heart pounded. But the amulet thumped, once.
“I know what I said to you in Hearthaven’s Repose. I know you can’t say it back. I know why you fought the dire troll on your own so the rest of us could get away.”
“I told you, Lorzok needed time to—”
“Because you would have rather died than have the post–love confession talk.”
“Kell! Gods.”
Kell laughed. “Sorry. I shouldn’t laugh. But it’s so you.”
Saeldian ate some more yogurt so they couldn’t talk. Kell waited. When they had another spoonful, he chuckled.
“I’m not going to sit here and make you talk it out. I know you. I don’t know everything about you. But I know enough. And I have some guesses.”
“And you’re going to tell me what they are, even though I can’t tell you if they’re correct or not.”
“I get that. A long time ago, you made a bargain with an archfey. You were very young. So you offered something that seemed like a small thing that wouldn’t matter, or something you didn’t want.”
Saeldian waited.
“I know what you ran away from. A lot of people would assume you ran away from Mr. Wheeler. But it was your mother, I think.”
Going absolutely still was a tell, but they couldn’t help it.