Shadowfell (32 page)

‘At Shadowfell,’ Flint said quietly, ‘there are folk who can teach you, if that is the path you wish to follow.’

I did not think I would be spending time on herbs and healing. After today, it was all too clear what my path must be. But it was too soon to share the revelations I had been given. When we reached Shadowfell I would tell him.

Beyond the cave mouth, the darkness deepened. It was a night of no stars; the moon lay hidden behind a veil of heavy cloud. We sat by our fire, exchanging a word or two from time to time, nothing of much import. We did not tell tales or sing songs, though I allowed myself to imagine a future in which I would pass on to him the stories my grandmother had told me when I was growing up, and the tunes my father had whistled, and maybe the grand old song I had sung to the ghosts of Hiddenwater and shared with a brollachan. Once or twice the two of us would glance up at the same time and our eyes would meet, and I wondered if the feeling that passed through me was the same for Flint. Not desire, not exactly, though his plain features had become pleasing to me. I liked his strong, capable hands and his well-made form. But the trust we shared was too new-found, too fragile for anything beyond the touch of hands, the occasional brushing of one body against another. All the same, our eyes spoke of something good, something deep, something that could grow and flower if the world we lived in would allow it. Something too precious to put into words. Something I would not dare let out into the light of day, not yet.

I wanted to tell him to stay safe, to take care, to make sure he came back to me. I wanted to ask what had made him so grim and quiet when he emerged from the trees earlier. I wanted to be the one who could gentle that hunted look off his face, who could reassure him that the world was not all hurt and violence and madness. But that was to assume too much. He was not staying at Shadowfell. He was going back to Keldec. The questions that hung over that choice could not be asked, not now, and perhaps not ever. They forbade any expression of tenderness. They forbade my speaking to him as if I had a right to care about his welfare. I hoped my eyes might convey, at the very least, that I was going to be lonely without him.

Some time in the night I woke with a start to hear the voices of wolves on the wind. The sound was eerie, forlorn, a song of cold and loneliness and survival. It was a hungry season for all who picked a living in this harsh place. I moved to add wood to the fire, which had burned down to embers.

I looked across the fire. Where Flint had been lying wrapped in his cloak, there was nobody. I felt a jolt of panic. Gone already? He had said
in the morning
. He had said he would gather wood, he had told me –

‘Neryn? I’m here.’ His voice came like a breath of darkness. He was up by the cave mouth, gazing into the night, where the pale moon now peered out between clouds, setting a chill light on the rocks around our haven.

I threw my cloak over my shoulders and scrambled out to stand beside him. Gods, it was cold! My fingers were numb; I could barely feel my feet.

Flint was as still as a man of stone. The moonlight touched his features, revealing him as a person of flesh and blood, for on his strong face the cold glow illuminated the glittering path of a tear.

Nothing to say; how could I find the right words? I laid my hand against his back and kept it there, willing some of my warmth to flow into him. We stood thus a long time. Eventually he moved, muttering something about my getting cold, and the two of us returned to the cave.

‘It’s freezing,’ I said. ‘Why don’t we put one cloak underneath, and the two of us lie on it, and the rest of these covers can go over both of us?’ And when he said nothing, just looked at me, I said, ‘All I’m suggesting is that we keep each other warm. If you feel responsible for my welfare, this is your way to make sure I don’t freeze to death before I get to Shadowfell.’ I realised that I had said it; I had spoken the word aloud to him at last.

He might have said,
What about tomorrow night?
But he did not, merely helped me spread out his cloak on the cave floor. The two of us lay down on it awkwardly, side by side, and pulled the rest of the bedding over us. Without touching him I felt Flint’s unease. Without touching him I felt the warmth from his body spreading into mine, banishing the chill and filling me with wellbeing, comfort, rightness. Outside, the night was quiet now. Within our haven, the fire made dancing patterns on the walls.

I fell asleep with my heart at peace. I opened my eyes at first light. I was lying on my side under the coverings and Flint was curled behind me, his body touching mine at chest and thighs, his arm flung over me. If I had been half-asleep a moment ago, I was wide awake now. I should get up, move away. To be so close to him was utterly wrong. But he seemed so peaceful; I did not want to wake him. I did not really want to move at all.
I will remember this
, I thought.
I’ll remember it when I’m cold, weary and alone
. I lay still awhile, not thinking beyond the sensations in my body. Then Flint woke, and without a word about the semi-embrace in which we found ourselves, we moved apart and rose to face the new day.

Flint packed his bag. I heated up the leftover food while he fetched more wood and stacked it for me. He gave me a bigger knife, a serious-looking weapon I hoped I would not need to use. And then we were sitting by our fire once again, and there was a quality in the silence that was more troubling than all my fears for his safety.

‘Neryn?’

‘Mm?’

‘I have something to tell you. Something I want you to hear before I go. Will you promise to listen until I’ve said all I need to say?’

I did not like the tone of his voice, or the words.

‘Are you sure you want to tell me now?’ If he had to go away, let him get on with it before I had time to think too much. Let him complete today’s mission, whatever it was, and come safely back so we could go on together. Let him perform the task without being killed or hurt or taken. The time for explanations was when we reached Shadowfell.

‘Want to, no. Need to, yes. Promise me you won’t interrupt until I’m finished. Promise you will listen to the end.’

Now he was scaring me. What could this be? ‘All right,’ I said.

He sat opposite me, his eyes sombre, his fingers twisting restlessly together. ‘You know, I imagine, that the king has a number of canny folk in his household.’ He had lowered his voice to the merest murmur. ‘Folk whose abilities he uses for his own ends. What is outlawed in the general community is accepted within his inner circle, and that includes the Enforcers. A talent for, say, being able to pass through walls, or to hear as acutely as a cat does, might prove extremely useful to such a person. As might, indeed, the skill of seeing into the future.’

Since he had told me not to interrupt, I only nodded. My expression no doubt revealed my opinion of Keldec and his exploitation of magic. This was no surprise to me; it had been common knowledge in Corbie’s Wood, and was understood all across the west. Not that folk spoke of it the way Flint did. It was a hushed comment here, a whisper there, with always a glance over the shoulder in case the wrong person might be listening.

‘I . . .’ He hesitated, his brows drawing together in a frown. ‘We spoke of the western isles, before. I was not born there, but sent. As a small child, to be . . . trained. When I was eighteen years old, I went to court. My skills were of value to the king. I have been there ever since. I belong to Keldec’s inner circle, Neryn. He has few friends. I am . . . He considers me the closest of those friends.’

In my mind was a picture of Flint on that island, a little boy learning what an Enforcer needed to learn: how to break down a door with a single well-placed kick; how to extract a confession by torture; how to wreak terror in the king’s name. How to perform those acts and survive. How to remain obedient even when his orders made him sick. The thought of it was disturbing, and yet, most shocking of all was the revelation that he was not only the king’s obedient henchman, but also his friend. That, I could not picture.

‘I have to say to you that . . .’ He cleared his throat and started again. ‘You have more reason than most to hate the king’s authority. To despise those who enforce it for him. You’ve suffered grievous losses. You’ve seen the very worst of what his rule has brought to Alban. But . . .’ He broke off once more, staring down at his hands. ‘A pox on it,’ he muttered. ‘There is no right way to say this.’

‘What? I know you are an Enforcer. I know you are connected with the rebel movement, and I can imagine how hard that makes your life. You’ve taken a terrible risk to help me. I understand that it isn’t safe for you to explain any more, not yet anyway. What is so important that I must hear it now?’

‘I . . . Neryn, I . . . What you understand about enthralment, what you saw with your grandmother, that is not the true nature of mind-mending. It is a twisted variant, an evil distortion of what was once a noble art. People have forgotten what it was in times past; they have seen it only as this perverted mockery. Mind-mending is not the destructive practice you have witnessed. Used as it should be, to heal, it can be a powerful tool for good.’

A cold snake of dread was curling around me, squeezing at my vitals. ‘So I’ve been told,’ I said. ‘Though I never quite believed it. Flint, whatever you have to tell me, just say it.’

Flint reached up to the collar of his tunic. His hand was shaking. There was a cord around his neck; I had seen it before but had not given much thought to what might be strung on it. Men often wore a lucky stone, a family talisman, a token from an employer or patron.

He drew the thing out, and it was no lucky stone, no stag amulet, no rune or sign of protection. It was a tiny transparent vial, held in place by an elaborate clasp of silver shaped like the clawed foot of a bird of prey. My shocked eyes took in every detail: the delicate, five-sided shape of the container, like a long crystal; the intricate chasing on the silver talons; an area of scratching to one side, as if it had at some time been roughly handled. Around the top, just below the clasp, was wound a lock of honey-coloured hair. Within the vial something stirred, something a little like smoke and a little like water.

‘This is my canny skill, Neryn,’ Flint said, and his voice might have been that of death itself. ‘I am a mind-mender. You mustn’t –’

My gorge rose. Spots danced before my eyes. The cave went night dark, and blood red, and began to turn in circles around me. I jumped to my feet and staggered outside, where I was violently sick, retching up my breakfast down the front of my gown and onto the rocks. I clutched my arms around myself as my stomach churned with spasm after spasm. My ears rang. My eyes and nose streamed. I could barely stay on my feet.

‘Let me help you.’ He was here, looming up beside me, his fingers on my skin –

‘Don’t touch me!’ I wrenched my arm from his grasp and bolted, stumbling over the uneven ground, slipping on the pebbles, tripping on tussock, running, running toward the shelter of the pines, anywhere away, away from him.

‘Neryn, stop! Wait! You promised to hear me out! Neryn, listen to me!’

‘Get away! Leave me alone!’ Oh gods, I had thought him my friend, my guardian, my saviour, and all the time he was one of
them
. . .

Revulsion sped my feet, but I knew Flint could outrun me. The wood lay some hundred paces ahead. His boots crunched on the stones not far behind me. I heard his hard breathing. My chest was tight and sore; each breath hurt more than the last. In my head, throbbing pain warred with images of Grandmother staggering toward me, her eyes those of a stranger; of Garret and the little son who would grow up while his father remained a child. I dug deep within myself and summoned what I needed. The call burst from me, silent, powerful.
Hide me. Help me
.

Tendrils of mist snaked out from the dark place under the trees. The vapour moved too fast to be a natural thing, enveloping me, cloaking me in its clouds, twisting and tangling about me and drawing me up the hill toward the wood. There were shapes in it: a queen in a long gown, a fighting man whose sword flashed silver through the wreathing fog, a big-eyed child in tattered garments, a great white hound. They merged and changed even as my head turned from one to another, for none held its form for longer than a heartbeat. They led me, pushed me, swept me forward until the darkness of the pines fell over me, and my juddering heart began to slow, and I knew I was hidden. The vapour formed a thin pale curtain around the little grove where I stood. I could see through it to the outside, but my instincts told me nobody could see in. It seemed to me that some of these trees that hedged me around were . . . not quite trees. I held myself still, my feet on a dense carpet of needles, my hands against the trunk of a pine. I tried to quiet my breathing.

‘Neryn!’ He was out there, calling. ‘Where are you? Come out and talk to me!’

I listened. I breathed. I spoke not a word.

‘Neryn, you know I have to go soon. I can’t leave you here like this, I must be sure you’re safe. Please come out and listen to me. Neryn!’

His voice was uneven, cracking; he strode through the woods, one way, the other way, his face linen-pale, his fists clenched.

If it’s so important to go, then go
, I told him silently.
I pray to all the gods that I never see you again
.

He stayed a long time, hunting for me, begging me to reveal myself. He stayed so long that he would surely be late getting to wherever he was going. He would not find me. The Watch of the North had its own uncanny powers, and I was thankful from the bottom of my heart that they had answered my call.

I watched Flint make a final turn around the little wood, jogging now. He called my name one last time. His voice was hoarse with shouting. I saw him return to the cave and emerge soon after with his bag on his back and his sword at his belt. He took one last look up toward the wood, and then he was gone.

Even so, I stood a long time among the trees, motionless, scarcely breathing. I waited until the sun had risen higher behind its veil of clouds, and small birds were busy foraging in the trees, and my back ached from the effort of keeping still. I waited until I was sure – as sure as I could be – that Flint was really gone. Then I murmured, ‘My respects to you. I will leave here now,’ and with a shivering movement the almost-trees parted and the mist lifted to let me through.