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It was a simple enough question, but it took me back to all the wrong places. Not just to the snakes I had seen at the gates of Turin, but of the Fae who had destroyed my home. The King of Fae.
“Excuse me?” I hissed, trying to finish as I quickly reclothed and turned.
“Well, you’re a warrior, right? I saw your swords, although they don’t look like any swords I’ve seen before, they are all curved and twisted. I didn’t even know they could make blades like that. What are they anyway?”
“They were made for me, after I took…” I hesitated explaining the heads and trials that were required to earn those blades on the Isle of Dám would give the boy night terrors. “After I completed a task.”
“I saw your scars…” he continued, “and that wound… you are clearly a warrior.”
“Something like that,” I pushed my way past him. I needed to find some place to hide in this rotten place, or to find my blades and leave.
“So, if you aren’t a warrior, are you one of her guards?” Great, Ziah was following me now. Shaking him was going to be harder than dodging Lyani. Was there any kind of peace or privacy in this Goddess damned group?
“Isn’t there some cutting or milking you need to be doing?” I snarled as I darted back over to the main wagon. Perhaps I could find a small tent I could disappear into for a time, if only to rest and not be hounded by pain and questions.
“I’ve done my chores. Lyani sent me to make sure your wound doesn’t need to be cleaned again since you tore it.”
“I didn’t tear it!” I roared, turning toward him and the damned woman who was standing at the far end of camp, watching me with a smile.
The woman. Could she not leave me be?
“It’s fine,” I snarled and turned, grabbing a small canvas bundle out of the back of the wagon and moving toward the outskirts of the makeshift village where thankfully no one was pitching any tents yet.
“She said you would say that, and then she told me to tell you that she will be by to change the bandages after you get the tent out of your–” He stopped mid-sentence and made a sound that was almost a snicker.
I rounded on him, canvas roll dropping to the ground.
“Get the tent out of my what?” With the way he was giggling and blushing I already knew exactly what Lyani had relayed to him.
“If I say, Ryndle will have my tongue.”
With a snarl I went back to my tent. I had no patience for this, for these people and their glee and prayers, and songs which were once again filling the air. I needed sleep, and perhaps a salve for the sores on my ass that were thankfully not caused by a tent.
That woman!
I laid out the canvas carefully, pitching the small tent the way I had seen them do. Or at least trying to, not that the boy was any help. Even after I had finished pinning the stretch of fabric to the ground, Ziah was still standing there staring.
“What is it boy, you’ve delivered your message, now be on your way.” I didn’t even look at him, but he still didn’t move.
“I can’t. You didn’t answer my question.” He was bouncing on his toes now, still watching even as I tried to place the last pin in the ground. I must have hit a rock.
“What question?” I pulled the corner of the tent with too much zeal, popping the other pin out of the soft soil. It took everything not to throw the damn thing across camp.
“Are you a warrior or a guard?” That awed look on his face was back, the hero worship that I wanted so much to squash beaming into me. Well, if I wanted to end his misplaced adoration, now was my chance.
“Neither,” I stomped the pin back into the soft soil with enough force it bent. “I was a hunter.”
“A hunter?” He actually seemed disappointed. Good. “What did you hunt?”
I paused, foot still firm against the bent pin as I stared at him, any disappointment already replaced with a look of beaming awe.
I hesitated, so many in the Realm thought that the Fae had been destroyed in that war with the sister. The histories say that they were eliminated in that last battle that formed so much of the religion that these people followed. I wondered if they thought the same, that the Goddess had decimated the Fae and saved this world from their scourge.
Or if they knew it was a lie.
“Fae.” I said simply, grabbing the corner of the canvas and preparing to secure it to the side of the wagon. I waited for some shock or confusion to cross Ziah’s face, instead he went very pale, his eyes wide in an unmistakable horror.
I hadn’t expected that. But, at least the hero worship was gone. Perhaps I should have not been as callous with my disregard of his beliefs, but the boy would find out soon enough when the Fae guard started stomping village to village and killing any child with magic. Best prepare him now.
