Page 29 of The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire
I stare at him in open surprise. I can’t imagine a teg, let alone anellyll like Neirin, feeling inferior to anyone. I hope he’ll explain, but he doesn’t, of course.
“I’d sooner throw my lot in with a dying man than a sneaky one.”
“I’m not a man, Habren,” he reminds me, and it’s like I’ve missed a rung on a ladder.
No, he isn’t.
“The soldier is.” I shrug. “Or he was. I understand him.”
Neirin’s eyes narrow, burning dark as coals. “Your soldier is hardly a man. He’s an idea of a man. He hasn’t even been born yet; he is a thing that will be, and, still, he is already dead. Just like your sister—just like you.”
I open my mouth to argue but nothing comes out. It’s impossible to win against Neirin because there is one insurmountable difference between us: he is eternal, while I am tearing through dates on a calendar. He has infinite time, experience—he will always come out on top.
“Send him into Y Lle Tywyll.” Neirin steps closer, leans toward my ear. His breath caresses the shell of it and I jerk away. “Maybe the favor could fix… whatever’s wrong with him.”
“But my sister—”
“Does her right to the favor matter more than his?”
Again, my tongue ties itself into knots. I have no intention of letting Ceridwen go near enough to Y Lle Tywyll to claim that prize, so I have no answer to the question.
Neirin glances past me to the waning fire and his lip curls. “Never mind. Your soldier’s gone.”
I snap around, expecting another trick, but the patch of earth beside the smoldering fire is empty and only a dark, bloody stain remains. The soldier is nowhere. A shadow, lost to the night.
I curse and when I glance back at Neirin, he’s grinning.
“What did you do?” I look him up and down. “Bring him back.”
“Me?” He points a finger into his own chest, overstated offense onhis face. “I couldn’t command him away. I don’t have his name and, while you may be new to magic, I assure you, it would take a far more powerful ellyll than I am to make a grown human vanish.”
I cross my arms, indignant. “You could’ve made him invisible or turned him into a bird. How am I to know what you could be hiding when you still haven’t give me sight?”
“What an imagination you have. Have you considered the soldier simply decided this wasn’t worth his trouble and slipped into the night?”
The simplest explanation rings truest, but I don’t want to accept it.
“And neither of us saw him leave?” I challenge.
Neirin lets out a frustrated sigh. “Habren, I was enjoying our argument far too much to notice where your mutt wandered off to.” He sweeps an arm toward the forest. “Leave, if you want. I’ll release you from our bargain. Have fun navigating the woods blind and unarmed; you might make it to the palace as a ghost eventually. I wish you the very best of luck.”
“I don’t need luck,” I insist. “I just need sight.”
“If you want sight, you must stay with me,” Neirin replies as if I’m stupid. “Simple as that.”
A fat splash from the river interrupts us and a malformed, winged ball sails over our heads. It splats on the grass, making strange gasping sounds. I recognize those crossed eyes immediately—it’s Dwp.
I whirl around while Neirin stares at the flopping creature. Morgen’s eyes appear over the edge of the riverbank and she slams her webbed fingers onto the mud.
“Stop arguing! You’re wasting daylight.”
“It’s night.” I point to the sky.
She waves me off, drips of water flying everywhere. “Never mind! Fact is, I followed you and—”
“Hello, Morgen,” Neirin finally says.
Morgen stiffens. She slicks her hair back, turns and fixes him with a level gaze. “You’ve stolen my rescue party, Neirin.”
