Page 69 of Fires of the Forsaken
I didn’t trust Quinn. At all. He’d probably slit my throat and tell everyone I tripped and impaled myself on a sword (a scenario that had a high likelihood of actually happening). I didn’t want him within twenty feet of me with a weapon.
“Quinn is prideful. Not mean-spirited,” Cheriour said.
Becauseof courseI’d been talking again. “You sure about that?” I thought of the blade whizzing through my hair.
Instead of answering me, Cheriour turned away with a soft-spoken, “I’m sure you’re hungry,” and beckoned for me to follow him to one of the food-laden tables.
“Distracting me with food,” I mumbled as I walked behind him. “You’re starting to know me a littletoowell. This would normally work. But I’ve tasted the food around here and—yo!”
Cheriour flopped a strip of meat into my hands.
“Did you stick your fingers in the food? That’sgross…hey now…” I held the meat to my nose. “This smells pretty good.” And the taste wasn’t half bad either. It was steak. Notgoodsteak. More like the cheap, thin-sliced stuff you’d get at amehsteak sandwich place. But it was like a top-dollar filet mignon compared to the hardtack I’d been choking down the past week.
“Good choice, sir,” I said. “What else is decent to eat around here?”
He inclined his head before he moved toward the table. And I swore—couldn’t be sure, with the background noise—but Isworehe breathed a chuckle.
21
Darfield
Terrick cried as we packed; the first time I’d ever seen tears in his normally jovial eyes.
“We’ll take only what we need, lass. Nothing more,” he said as he plucked a wooden doll off the shelf. He traced his fingers over the doll’s face and smoothed his thumb over its braids. His lip trembled.
“Dorothy is good at drying tears,” I said. I’d christened the doll with that name after Terrick and I began reading the fictional adventures of Dorothy and her dog. An exciting tale I would, sadly, never finish.
Terrick blinked and returned Dorothy to the shelf. “As much as she would doubtless enjoy the journey,” he tapped his thumb against Dorothy’s shoulder, “I’m afraid she isn’t an essential item.”
“You’re sad,” I murmured.
“No.” He wiped his moist cheeks. “The dust is bothering my eyes.” His smile was strained. “You’ll never fit those clothes in your saddle bag if you fold them like that,” he chuckled as he surveyed my haphazardlypiled garments. “Here, lass, we’ll fold them together.”
His grief was palpable, even as he tried to hide it from me.
And, at the time, I hadn’t understood the brevity of the situation. I didn’t learn of Terrick’s past until many years later.
* * *
He’d beena soldier in his youth and had helped to liberate Sakar from Ramiel’s rule. While in the army, he met Lucy.
When the first war ended, and Sakar was declared free, Terrick and Lucy moved to Swindon.
As Terrick opened his fiction book shop, Lucy became a wood crafter. She designed each item of furniture in Terrick’s dwelling, including the flowered armoire. After she bore Terrick a daughter, Lucy also used her skills for toy making.
The little Dorothy doll had been Lucy’s creation. Their daughter had adored the doll. As had I.
Terrick had many years of happiness with his family. In that regard, he was luckier than most. But I’ve found happiness lowers one’s pain tolerance. If one is not used to a life of anguish, they’ll find themselves unable to bear the burden when tragedy strikes.
Terrick’s daughter was nearing adulthood when she accompanied her mother into the forest to collect wood. It was mid-summer, and the day promised to be sunny and arid. Lucy harnessed their old horse to a cart and told Terrick she’d return before nightfall.
She did not return.
Terrick found Lucy, their daughter, and the horse the next morning. All three were drained of blood. Their murderer, a wild Púca, still stood nearby. The creature had been long abandoned by its masters and nursing a crippling injury to its left forehoof. Perhaps Lucy and her daughter had been inattentive, thinking themselves safe while close to Swindon’s borders, and had been easy prey. Perhaps hunger had lent the Púca speed and drove it to ignore the pain as it hunted its meal. Regardless, the creature went to its grave with a full belly.
And Terrick lost his family.
But their shadows clung to the dark corners of his dwelling.
