Page 20 of A Tale of Ice and Ash
Chapter Five:
The Second Stray
Almost five years later, Eirwen woke in the long bed Merry had made for her two weeks after her arrival. He had no idea quite how long humans were supposed to grow, so he’d made it twice the size of the twins’ beds, only Eirwen had stopped growing two years after she came to them and was now left with an extra two feet of bed she had no need for, although the cats made good use of it. She and Garnet had stitched an extra long quilt for it, with scraps of white, cream, blue, red and purple. Eirwen had strung up gossamer around the frame when she found some in one of the caverns a few years back, plugging up the tears with blue embroidered roses; the flower of Aberthor. A snippet of home.
It was the only part of the cottage that reminded her of the palace at all. Everything else was bright and warm and red. For the most part, she liked it, but as she ducked under one of the low rafters and made her way downstairs for breakfast, there was a minutereminder that this place wasn’t built for her, that she didn’t belong as well as she pretended.
She punched the thought down. No. Wrong. Foolish. She belonged here, with her family. There was nowhere else she wanted to be.
Garnet was already up, cooking porridge in the large pot over the fire. Eirwen started diligently laying the table, just for five. Wren was already off in the forests, and Merry and Oakley took breakfasts in their hut by themselves.
Onyx glared at her as she dropped a bowl in front of him. She scowled right back. “You can’t still be mad about yesterday!”
“Never underestimate Onyx’s ability to be mad about nothing, dear,” chirped Garnet from the kitchen.
“You let your guard down,” Onyx snapped. “Next time it might not be for a pretty face–”
“Cole isnotpretty,” said Eirwen indignantly, although a little giggle from Ivy’s corner of the attic served to prove her otherwise. “And l didn’t ‘let my guard down’, he tricked me!”
“What happens if ashadetricks you, next time?”
“Shades can’t–” Eirwen stopped, grinning. “Onyx, are youworriedabout me?”
“I wouldn’t go as far as ‘worried.’ Concerned, maybe. Some of the others would be put-out if you died.”
Any traces of anger vanished from Eirwen. She leaned across and planted a loud kiss on his leathery cheek. “You like me really.”
“I don’t find you as troublesome as I used to.”
“You say the sweetest things.”
“This is why you don’t have any friends, girl.”
“Don’t need friends. Got you.”
“You are disgusting. Go help your mother in the kitchen.”
Eirwen stuck out her tongue and went to help Garnet dish out the bowls. She tried not to dwell on Onyx’s comments about her lack of friends. He hadn’t meant it to sting. He was right, though. Her only friends consisted of the seven members of her family. She had never really had anyone other than Niamh close enough to miss from her life before, and she never went into the nearest village long enough to form any lasting friendships. All the bonds that once connected her to any fellow nobles had long since dissolved.
Well, all bar one. She still thought of Marie Van Transinberg every so often. She was smart and funny and kept hiding from balls in the library. She was the only person Eirwen thought of turning to in her exile, before thinking of the danger it would bring.
A low-hanging pan hit her in the face.
Was she honestly planning to stay here forever?
She’d always have a home here, of that she was certain. Dwarves aged far more slowly than humans. Juniper and Ivy would barely be adults by the time she was an old woman. Was that the course her life was to take?
But what other course was there?
Garnet flicked her nose. “You all right, pet?”
“Lost in thought. Sorry.” She took two bowls of porridge and handed them to the twins. They grinned hungrily, digging in.
They had barely aged a day since when she first arrived, in stature or maturity. They had looked about ten when she was almost thirteen. Ivy had combed and braided her hair one night, a few weeks after her arrival, and they talked of dances and dresses and hair ribbons.
This is what it must be like to have a sister,Eirwen thought.A friend.
She was right on the first account, but Ivy was still ten in feeling if not in years. They had not grown up together. They never would.
