Page 44 of Beneath a Shattered Sky
There’s a pause, then a slow snicker of a breath echoes from beyond me.
“No bow and arrow? No net? Some hunter you are, young Nicnevin.”
It talks? And in a voice so cold and mocking, too. I shake my head violently, but it only makes the pain worse.
“I’m no hunter,” I reply, voice quaking.
There’s a gentling of his aura—something I didn’t realise I was seeing until now. It no longer pulses against my skin like a bruise and that gives me the courage to look up again, though I stay away from those eyes.
He’s coming closer, all long graceful limbs and regal bearing as he stalks through the soft mud. His glowing white fur is immaculate, despite the humid air and the dirt. It makes me feel oddly naked, even though I’m wearing Jaro’s enormous shirt.
I suppose I do look more like a lost child than a queen right now, though I suspect even a full set of armour wouldn’t lessen this sense of vulnerability.
“Do you wish to hear a truth, young Nicnevin?” he asks, stopping close enough that I can see the droplets of water still clinging to his pink nose as his breath washes over me in wet gusts.
Is this a dream?I ask myself silently. This place certainly has a dream-like quality to it. And a truth? What truth? I’m painfully aware that the truth can be crueller than a lie, but if this stag does give out wisdom, surely, I’d be an idiot to turn him down.
“Y-yes.” It would somehow be fundamentally rude to decline the offer, though I have no idea where that knowledge is coming from.
His muzzle presses against my shoulder, and I reach up to stroke it without thinking. His pleased sound reverberates through my body.
“Then I offer you your truth in the form of a question,” he says after a long moment of gentle petting. “As Nicnevin, you are connected to many, but which of those connections is the most vital?”
I bite my lower lip, closing my eyes to think. The most obvious answer is my connection to Danu. That’s what gives me my power and my position as high queen. But my connection to Faerie is what brings the fae life and magic. Memories of the tiny infants carried by the Wild Hunt—who died because they were born without magic—and of the ravaged landscapes of the courts before I reconnected them to Danu flash behind my eyelids.
A niggling in my gut makes me want to say that my Guard is the answer, but while they’re surely the most important connection to me, and the one I’ve selfishly chosen above others before, surely a connection that sustains the lives of thousands is what a good Nicnevin should choose?
“Faerie?” I ask. The answer doesn’t quite feel right, but his patient gaze demands one, anyway.
He snorts, but there’s a paternal kind of gentleness in his tone when he says, “Try again.”
“Danu?”
My heart falls as he pushes me lightly in reprimand.
“Honour the gift of truth with the same, or I shall rescind my offer.”
“My Guard,” I say, and he nods. “But isn’t that… selfish? If I love them more than the Goddess or my people, doesn’t that make me a bad Nicnevin?”
A true queen would put her own desires last, surely?
The stag shakes his head. “That is not how it works, young one. Tell me, on the eve of battle, who better serves them? A Nicnevin well cared for, rested, and whole, surrounded by her fiercest supporters, or a leader isolated, suffocated under the weight of her burdens and her loneliness?”
When he puts it like that…
“They are born to be your greatest strength.” He backs away, breath washing over me one last time. “Nourish them, and you shall reap the benefits. When you are united as one crown and one Guard, everything else falls into place.”
He’s leaving? Just like that?
“But how do I do that?” I call after his retreating scut, my voice wobbling. “They’re hurting, and they hate each other.”
The white hart looks over his shoulder, pausing. “When their love for you is stronger than their hate for one another, they will put their differences aside.”
I’m not so sure, but before I can question him further, a loud bark echoes from our left. He rears, thundering into the bush, and I whirl, searching for what spooked him.
A pair of hands clasp my shoulders, fingers digging in and stopping me mid-motion.
Only the familiar buzz that accompanies the harsh touch stops me from screaming.
