Page 61 of Oathborn
Something crashed to the floor. Tobias sprang into action, shoving his shoulder into the closed door, then aiming his pistol directly at—“Captain Javen!” he blurted out, hastily dropping his arm.
The man stumbled forward. He threw out an arm but not before he’d nearly smashed his face into the table. Was he drunk? Injured? For Captain Javen, both seemed highly unlikely. Still, he looked like a complete mess, his white shirt was unbuttoned, his uniform rumpled and mud stained.
“Hey, hey.” Sliding the gun into his belt, Tobias cautiously approached. He didn’t smell alcohol. So, maybe not drunk. “C’mon, Jav.” The nickname slipped out but did nothing to draw Javen’s attention.
With a low growl, Javen braced himself against the counter before he tried to stalk away. He tripped, his hand slamming against the wall for support. The impact left hairline cracks spreading through the plaster wall.
As Javen stumbled into the dining room and collapsed into the nearest chair, Tobias followed.
Tobias cleared his throat. “What do you need? Water? Food? First aid?” He rattled off ideas, though he doubted any of those items could help the captain.
With a raspy voice, Javen whispered, “Atelle.” He tapped the leather book on the table.
“Uh.” Tobias blinked. Was he really being quizzed on vocabulary? “To light.”
“Vesh.”
“Speed, to run.”
“Ishni.”
“Ember. Hey, Javen, what exactly is going on?”
Javen kept his hands covering his face as he answered. The words were muffled, but still, the sentences weren’t in Rhydonian. The fae language, he realized. It was beautiful to hear out loud, even muffled as it was, with smooth, soft consonants and the rolling cadence of water rushing over river stones.
Tobias recognized a few of the sounds from what he’d studied, but nothing else. “Sorry, not quite fluent yet.”
Another impossible-to-translate set of words was the only reply. Javen didn’t seemableto speak Rhydonian. This wasn’t an exam, but his desperate attempt to communicate.
“How can I help?” Tobias asked. “Uh,samele.Help.”
Javen lifted his head. His eyes blazed silvery-blue, wild, ignited like lightning. Just looking into them made Tobias’s stomach twist. There was nothing human in that gaze, only something cold and predatory, like a cat watching its prey.
Tobias retreated one step, then two. Javen had fae blood. The realization hit Tobias with all the subtlety of a freight train. A thousand questions rose to his mind, but he pushed them away, focusing on the words Javen had made him translate.
To light. Speed. Ember. He put the words together over and over, like sorting out puzzle pieces in his mind. To light… quickly? He wasn’t sure of the verb construction in the fae language. The book Javen gave him only provided simple definitions. And ember… did Javen want a fire? Was he cold?
No, that didn’t make sense…
He wanted something lit, and quickly.
“That’s it!” Tobias charged down the hall and into the small office Javen had made his own. Only one thing that Javen ever needed could be described as something to be ignited. On the desk sat a pack of his unlabeled cigarettes. He grabbed them and the matchbook before returning.
Tobias lobbed the pack to him, and Javen opened it, taking out one perfectly rolled cigarette. Before Tobias could throw the matches, Javen lit it with a flare of blue magic. Somehow the crackling light dancing on the man’s fingertips seemed like the most mundane part of the night.
With a sigh, Javen took a deep drag of the cigarette. The tremors wracking his body slowed, then stopped. Tobias had heard of men shaking from craving a drink or a smoke, but this… This didn’t feel like that. It felt far stranger, far more unearthly.
The business card from the wealthy man was still in Tobias’s pocket. There was a telegram operator in Wesburg. If Tobias truly wanted to, he could relay this occurrence back to the capital.
Doing so would be a betrayal of Javen, though. The captain had never before shown a shred of vulnerability, or even much trust, in Tobias before now. What sort of a man would he be if he turned around and stabbed Javen in the back at this first opportunity.
When Javen spoke again, it was in his usual precise tones, and his eyes were their normal shade of cold, human, blue. “Your studies are proceeding well, then?”
Stunned by the change of conversation, not to mention demeanor and appearance, Tobias rubbed the back of his neck. “Is that really what you want to be talking about right now?”
“Why else would I have asked?” he exhaled, fanning the eddies of smoke around him. “I would appreciate silence about the events which have transpired tonight.”
“Uh, yeah, sure.” Pulling the other chair toward him, Tobias spun it around so that he sat backward. “I can’t say I don’t have questions, though.” Because it wasn’t every damn day one’s boss stumbled in lit with magical fire and muttering in a foreign language.
