Page 59 of The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire
He lets me go. I can breathe again as he steps away and takes up his own blade once more.
Too late I realize that in trying to push him away I’ve shoved himfar too hard. I assumed that everything nasty I say to Neirin bounces off him and is forgotten with ease. Perhaps this—his brother—cannot be.
“Who do you think taught me?” Neirin says, the words clipped. His jaw is tight as he demonstrates the proper way to move a blade.
I should apologize. My mouth doesn’t open, but the pit in my stomach does.
By the time he starts showing me how to parry, I feel rather sick with myself, and I’m so lost for what to say that when he tells me to parry I almost want to tell him that my surnameisParry. And isn’t that funny? I’ve never thought of it before, but it suits me well. I’m very good at it—the act of holding someone back with a weapon, of blocking any possible attack. Too good, maybe.
But telling him would be stupid. It would be breaking the very first rule I learned about the teg, and I’d be putting myself at Neirin’s mercy. And yet it still dances on my tongue.
On his fourth swing, I catch his blade mid-arc. We remain there, staring at each other. Neirin’s face is blank. I haven’t seen him like this before. He’s usually so fascinated and entertained by everything I do, and I hadn’t realized until now how much I needed that. I’ve lashed out at him as I do to everyone else, and suddenly, he’s looking at me as they all do. We’re still locked together when I finally apologize.
“I’m sorry.”
His eyes remain shuttered. “For successfully blocking me?”
“For”—I take a breath to steady myself, knowing just how terrible I am at being nice—“what I said about your brother. It wasn’t needed.”
Neirin pulls his sword back carefully, letting it hang at his side.
“I do believe that’s the second apology I’ve managed to wring from you,” he says.
“Don’t get used to it,” I counter, preparing myself for another back and forth. Longing for it, even. I like how we talk—trading barbs and grappling for the upper hand. It’s fun. I’m good at it.
What I’m not prepared for is when Neirin drops his wooden sword and surges forward, breaking through my defense. For half a second, I think he’s attacking, using my surprise to land a winning blow, but… he doesn’t. Neirin does something even more unthinkable.
Hehugsme.
His hands grip me tight, fingers burrowing into my bodice. My own arms freeze—my sword hand hanging limp as the wooden blade slips from its grasp, and the other hand hovering over his shoulder blades. I can’t see my hands, but I feel them shake. The tremor works its way up my arm to my body and, against my will—against everything I’ve ever told myself—I tremble. My hand lands on his back; I don’t remember moving it.
“Thank you.” Neirin’s words ruffle my hair as he rests his chin on the crown of my head.
I’m welcome in his arms. I could get used to it. I ought not.
“What for?” I let my other arm wrap around him too, my hand still on the sword’s hilt.
Before he can answer, a clattering bang echoes through the grounds. I jump back but don’t get far. Neirin’s arms have tightened around me, pressing me close to his chest. He’s shielding me, though I’m the one who has a real weapon about their person. My heart—small, rotten thing that it is—swells in my chest. He turns, taking me with him, head snapping around, searching for the source of the noise.
It’s hard to miss.
At the edge of the clearing, at the very boundary of his property, stands one of the teg.Neirin relaxes against me, a sigh reverberating through his chest.
“Who’s that?” he wonders aloud. “Can’t be of my court—they’d be able to move through the shield if they…”
He trails off and I crane around, looking for the invisible shield that ensconces us. For the first time, I can see it, but only in parts. There’s an opalescent shimmer in the air, rippling up and down in a straight line. Just behind it, the figure stands ominously in the shadow of the trees. The teg jerks violently, a coal-dusted palm landing on the shield, sending reverberations of pale light up to the very sky itself, and as she hammers, that loud crashing sound fills the garden.
My fingers reach for the iron hilt at my waist. Neirin finally releases me, but as I step out of the circle of his arms, he grabs my free hand. We take careful steps closer to the barrier and the person waiting just beyond.
“Not here,” Neirin mutters.
It’s a girl, I realize. Her eyes are crusted over with black stone, but beneath the black powder and the lumps of coal that erupt from her flesh like buboes, her ears are curved, like mine.
“She’s human.”
Is this what Ceridwen and I will become?I wonder, stomach churning.Has it already taken Ceridwen?
Neirin’s throat bobs. “An unfortunate wanderer.”
