A Fistful of Earth: Chronicles of Marsdenfel #2

Year 532, New Calendar - part III

I wake up multiple times throughout the day, one of them when someone comes to try to give the room to a customer. Solis and I forgot to mark the room as reserved, so Solis and the hostess got into a bit of an argument.

I sat up and stared her down. “Leave the boy be. You have a problem, take it up with your boss.”

I closed my eyes and lay back down—but my feral side prodded me back up to warily watch the hostess and her guest until they left. I don’t think they liked me.

The last time I wake up, it’s because someone knocks briskly on the door and opens it. Wight waddles in, my pack in her arms, my staff in her hand, and a grey cloak draped over her shoulder. She stops and eyes the two of us. “Solis?”

“The boy need stay calm and relaxed, but he’ll be fine.” I hope.

A faint frown crosses Wight’s face before she schools it. She knows as well as I do that she could easily lose her son to insanity, though he’s at a higher Bridge than his parents, so that keeps them from knowing how close to the edge he is.

“I’m sure you packed your bag well. Barun’s providing the royals with packs and cloaks, and he’s working out arrangements to get the horses back to the royal stables without attracting attention.” Wight stops. She avoids meeting my gaze head-on, limits how much her teeth are bared when she smiles. I wonder how long she’s done that.

And I’m only noticing it now. Embarrassing.

“Solis,” I say abruptly. He and his mother look at me. “Have Solis take the horses. Silva Feyim is a friend of mine.” Wait. “Or whatever her name is now; she got married yesterday. She or her father or uncle or some other relative should be able to help Solis out with his magic.”

Wight frowns, her brow furrowing as her jaw tenses. We’re about the same age, as close as we can figure it. Sometimes she resents my connections—but then, her own connections would suit me a lot better, too.

She looks a lot like Prince Aidan when she frowns like that.

I shake off the thought. With so many folk in the world, of course some will resemble others. “Don’t you give me that look. They’re good people. And His Majesty won’t hesitate, if it come to that.” If Solis goes over the edge and needs someone to kill him.

Wight flinches. She tosses me my bag and staff. “Must you be so blunt?”

I shrug. “It’s kept me alive.” Considering I grew up an earth elemental in an orphanage run by folk who killed folk like me, my survival was a greater feat than it would be for most.

“Horses don’t like me much. Not anymore,” Solis says mournfully.

He liked horses, I remember. “Feel how your magic be quiet, right now? Keep it that way. Animals notice when it be n’t.” But then… “Mine’s acted up around the royal stables and kennels to get them used to me, so those animals might not mind you so much.”

Solis frowns. “Don’t you keep your magic under control?”

I shrug. “Since I be old enough for it to listen to me, sure. But I was younger than you when I met His Majesty.” And in trouble because my magic had acted to save someone’s life, without my consent. Fortunately, then-Prince Aldrik didn’t approve of his mother’s special guardsmen who lynched the elementals no one would miss.

Wight blinks, while Solis smiles. “I thought that might’ve been an elemental thing. Dad thought nothing of it, when I mentioned it to him, but my brothers stared at me as if I’d caught a haint.”

I doubt Solis has ever actually met someone possessed by a haint. It usually take some faery blood to be susceptible to them that way, though the haints can ride anyone. Once a haint rode Pickle back from the Marshes and possessed Sil. Its nastiness gave it away, right fast.