Chapter 22 #2
"Is this a lecture or a comedy set?" someone in the crowd asks.
"It is wisdom disguised as entertainment, which is the highest form of communication. You're welcome."
I'm on my fourth ale, which means I have ignored Thalia's advice completely, and everything is warm and slightly tilted.
Kaelren is beside me, nursing the same first mug he started with, because of course he is.
The man faces existential threats with clinical composure and apparently treats root ale with the same level of caution.
Thalia has moved to the musicians' corner, where she's talking with the drummer, laughing at something he said, her hair loose around her shoulders. She looks her age for the first time since I have met her. Not the commander. Just a young woman in a tavern, enjoying the music.
A commotion near the entrance pulls my attention.
Krag is back. He's not alone this time. He's flanked by two other fae, both large, both well-marked, both wearing the easy arrogance of people who are used to getting what they want.
They've positioned themselves near the bar, and Krag is looking in our direction with the particular focus of someone who took a rejection personally.
"Oh, wonderful," I mutter.
Kaelren has already seen them. He set his mug down thirty seconds ago, and his posture has shifted from relaxed to ready in a way so subtle that anyone who didn't know him would miss it.
His arm is still on the bench behind me.
His expression hasn't changed. But the corruption marks along his forearms are pulsing, slow and deliberate, like a heartbeat building pressure.
Krag starts walking toward us. His two friends fan out slightly, not flanking exactly, but positioning themselves in a way that gives them angles on the table. It's a move designed to look casual and feel threatening.
"She's taken, friend," Peeble calls from the bar, interrupting their own speech. "Extensively. Aggressively. By someone who makes violence look effortless. I would rethink this particular life decision."
Krag ignores Peeble and stops at our table. He's looking at me, not Kaelren. "I wanted to apologize for earlier. I was rude. Can I buy you a drink to make up for it?"
"She has a drink," Kaelren says. He hasn't stood up. He hasn't changed his tone, which is somehow more frightening than shouting.
"I'm addressing the lady."
"The lady has answered. Through me. Because that's how this works."
I put my hand on Kaelren's thigh under the table. Not to restrain him. To let him know I'm here and I'm choosing to let him handle this, because the look on his face is telling me he needs to.
Krag leans forward, both hands on the table. "In the Verdance, we don't claim people like property."
Kaelren stands, slowly. Unfolding from the bench with the controlled economy of a man who knows that the movement itself is a weapon.
At his full height, he's taller than Krag by three inches, and leaner, and his corruption marks are now fully lit, dark veins pulsing along his neck and jaw and down his forearms, throwing faint shadows in the amber light.
The two friends take a step back. They have better survival instincts than Krag.
"I don't claim her," Kaelren says, quietly enough that only our table can hear.
"She claims me. There is a difference, and it is not one you are equipped to understand.
" He leans forward until his face is inches from Krag's.
"But let me put it in terms you will understand.
If you speak to her again, if you look at her again, if you so much as breathe in a direction that inconveniences her, I will remove your ability to do any of those things. Permanently. And I will enjoy it."
The tavern has gone quiet around us. The musicians are still playing, but the conversations at nearby tables have stopped.
Krag holds Kaelren's gaze for three seconds. Four. Five. Then something in his expression shifts. The confidence drains out of his face like water from a cracked glass, and what's left is the sudden, clear understanding that he has picked a fight with something he is not prepared for.
He steps back.
"My mistake," he says. The bravado is gone. He turns and walks toward the door, his two friends follow, and neither of them looks back.
Kaelren sits back down. He picks up his mug and takes a drink. The corruption marks settle back to their resting state. His arm returns to the bench behind me.
"Feel better?" I ask.
"Marginally."
"You threatened to permanently disable a man for asking me to dance."
"I threatened to permanently disable a man who came back with reinforcements after being told no."
He's right. That is different. And the fact that he's right is annoying because I was fully prepared to give him a lecture about territorial nonsense, and now I can't.
"For the record," Peeble announces from the bar, having resumed their speech at full volume, "that was a masterclass in intimidation. Absolutely terrifying. I award it nine out of ten. One point deducted because he didn't cry. I wanted tears."
The tavern laughs, the tension breaks, and the music picks back up.
Thalia appears at our table with fresh mugs, and she sets one in front of Kaelren with a look that says I saw all of that, and I'm choosing not to comment.
"He had it coming," Kaelren says.
"I didn't say anything."
"You were thinking it."
"I was thinking that you handled it better than cycle thirty-seven's version, who broke a man's arm in three places for looking at Mom too long during a supply run." She takes a sip of her ale. "So. Progress."
Kaelren stares at her. "Three places?"
"Wrist, elbow, and shoulder. Very thorough. Mom didn't speak to you for two days."
"That also tracks," I say.
The three of us sit there, drinking root ale in a tavern full of people who are celebrating because tomorrow might not come, and something settles between us. The feeling of a family that found each other too late and is making up for lost time in the only way they know how.
Peeble, having concluded their lecture to thunderous applause, flutters over and lands on the table between us.
"I have been informed by a very enthusiastic bartender that I am the first beetle to ever give a standing-ovation speech in the history of the Root and Vine," they announce.
"I would like this recorded for posterity.
Torvel. Where is Torvel? Someone get the archivist. This needs to be in the official record. "
"Torvel went to bed three hours ago," Thalia says.
"Then wake him. History is happening."
I lean into Kaelren's side. His arm comes around me. This is what we're fighting for.
This. Right here. A tavern full of people who refuse to stop living just because the end might be close.
I raise my mug. Thalia raises hers. Kaelren, after a moment, raises his.
"To day five," I say.
"To day five," Thalia says.
Kaelren doesn't say anything. He just drinks. But his arm tightens around me, and through the space between us, I feel something steady and certain and fierce.
We are going to make it to day five.
We have to.