“But this one young man, this corporal—Holden, his name is… was—he and Wheeler, I think there was something there between them. He was mourning him like his world had ended, and he wouldn’t—I mean wouldn’t—say a word against him. He wasn’t going to break, I could see it in him, and even if he had done, it wouldn’t’ve stuck, he would’ve recanted the minute someone questioned him.” Dallin stopped, turned, looked at Wil straight, dead calm. “So I blew his head off.”
His expression hadn’t changed, his voice still cool and matter-of-fact, so it took a moment for the sense of it to penetrate.
Wil blinked. Huh. Maybe that was what Marden had been talking about when he’d said there might be more deaths. His eyes narrowed, and he tilted his head.
“Just like—?”
“Yes.” Dallin’s hand came up, thumb and forefinger extended, and rested against his own temple. “Bam. Quick and… well, not so clean.” A bit of a grimace he couldn’t quite hide, and he shrugged. “Creighton held him for me, though by that time there wasn’t much need. I don’t know if he’ll ever get the blood and brains from off his coat. Though I suppose it’s not so bad—it wasn’t his surcoat.”
Wil shook his head, quite unnerved—not by the story, but by the cold, emotionless recitation of it, the dull, flat look in the dark eyes. “I don’t—”
“It wasn’t the only time, just so you know. I’ve killed men before, and plenty of them in anger, rage… for vengeance. It’s a fine line a man walks, the line between killer and murderer, and I’m not so sure it’s a distinction that matters to many. In fact, I’m not so sure it’s a distinction I’ve managed to maintain.
“See, the problem, as I saw it, was that Corporal Holden was holding a gun to your head, to my head, just as surely as I was holding one to his. I just beat him to the trigger. Just like you did. And I’ll likely have to do it a couple more times before this is all through. And you know what? I’m not sorry. I won’t be sorry.” He paused, stared at Wil for a moment, but when Wil didn’t say anything, Dallin shrugged. “I may not like the way you did it. In fact, I could throttle you for having done it like that at all, and not because of what you think, but because it was bloody dangerous and almost killed you. But this misapprehension you have that I would somehow condemn you for having lived through it, survived when it’s the one thing I asked of you, it’s…”
This time, he shook his head, turned back to the window. “It’s incomprehensible to me,” he murmured, almost to himself, and huffed a dry chuckle. “Insulting, actually, though I haven’t quite figured how yet.” He turned contemplative for a moment, frowned. “See, I believe in you—whoever or whatever you are, I believe in you, because I’ve touched your heart. I touch your soul every night when we sleep and you let me in. And so I keep thinking you believe in me, and when I have the fact that you don’t, maybe can’t, slam me in the face, it… well, it rather winds me, I think.”
A long, shaky breath dragged into Wil’s chest, and he held it for a moment, waited until his heart slowed a little, before he let it go. “I never meant—”
“Who chooses?” Dallin asked, his tone once again impassive, no trace of emotion. “By tradition, it’s the Guardian who Calls, but in this case…” His hand opened, waved vaguely. “Doesn’t seem to fit, does it?”
“Dallin—”
“I’ve been thinking how odd it is that the Guardian has never been a woman, considering how devoted Lind is to the Mother, and She supposedly to it. None of the Old Ones, either.”
“Please don’t make this—”
“Strange, innit? Maybe you should consider Andette. You’d be able to push her around, at least, because she’s still feeling like she cut out your heart just by being related to—”
“Damn it, Dallin, listen to me!”
Dallin finally stopped, shut his eyes tight, bowed his head for a moment, and breathed in deep. “No,” he answered, lifted his head and shook it, looked right at Wil, his eyes no longer blank but on fire once again. “I don’t think so,” he said flatly, fury finally bleeding through the odd calm, as he turned and started for the door. “I’ve already heard more than I can stand.”
“You’ve not heard a bloody word I’ve said!” Wil retorted sharply, and when it didn’t stop Dallin’s progress toward the door, Wil stood, aimed lower: “I’ll come after you if I have to, and I still get dizzy, y’know. If I fall on my face, I’m going to tell Thorne and the rest of the Old Ones that it’s entirely your fault. I’ll tell them you pushed me!”
Aiming below the belt worked remarkably well: Dallin spun, stalked back over, hands fisted tight at his sides and teeth bared. “You can tell them I punched you in the mouth, because if I—”
“I don’t want a new Guardian!”
Dallin was looming over Wil again, this close to actually following up on his threat, by all appearances, but apparent uncertainty made him pause, before anger closed his face again “Well, it appears it isn’t your choice, dunnit?”
Wil gritted his teeth, growled frustration. “It isn’t, but—”
“I’ve fulfilled my Calling, She told me that, and why I didn’t guess…” Dallin snarled. “Fucking sentiment. Bloody hell, I’ve been a bleeding fool, haven’t I?”
“No, it isn’t what you keep—”
“And here I was, thinking…” Dallin’s hand came up so fast Wil almost flinched, but he only ran it through his hair. “Fucking shit! ‘Choice’ my arse, because I could hardly have made it any plainer, and if you really had to ask—” He cut himself off, leaned in until they were almost noseto-nose, snarled, “What you’re trying to do here, Wil, it’s called letting a person down easily, and I have to tell you, you’re really rot at it. At least have the stones to say what you bloody-well mean.”
It wasn’t supposed to be like this, damn it. “I am saying what I mean, but you won’t bloody listen!”
“I’ve done nothing but listen—to Him when He told me She chose well, to Her when She told me to believe, and to you when you stood in front of me, lightning dancing in your hand, and told me —”
“I’m not done!” Wil shouted. “That’s the price I have to pay, there’s more to go, and I need you with me, I want you with me—not just a Guardian, but you, and I know how unbelievably selfish it is to want it, but there it is, and I know if I loved you like people are supposed to love each other, I wouldn’t want that, but I can only love how I love, and I had to give you the choice, I had to, and I wanted to give you a choice, but I didn’t want to, too, because why would you?—bloody Dearg-dur, right?—and I desperately want you to choose to stay, but not out of… of duty, or any…”
He paused, panted for breath, swiped at his cheeks; damn it, he’d started blubbering back there somewhere. “’Not meant,’ everyone keeps saying that, and I used to think it was because they thought you were a danger to me—can’t make good decisions with your cock thinking for you, can you?—but now I know it’s because I risk whoever is standing next to me, likely for the rest of my bloody life, and someone like you, you’re more important to the world than I am, all I am is the barrel of a gun, and I’m really fucking sorry, but selfish or no, I want the person standing next to me to be you.”
Exhausted all over again, Wil sank back onto the bed, propped his elbows to his knees, and dropped his head into his hands. “Fuck!” He hadn’t wanted to say it like that, not any of it, and he’d apparently shocked the shit out of Dallin, who stood like a rooted tree in front of him, staring at him with an expression Wil didn’t quite have the courage to interpret. “How you can even think I don’t believe in you… I believe more of you than you do yourself. You’ve no idea the things you can do, the things you are, and I wish I had the words to make you understand, but I can’t do—”
“Shut up.”
Wil snapped his glance up, narrowed his eyes. “I’m not going to—”
“I said—Shut. Up.” Slowly, Dallin went down to one knee in front of him, jaw set tight, breath coming harsh and heav
y. “You bloody idiot,” he growled. “If you ever do this to me again, I swear I will pound you so hard you’ll have to reach up to take a piss, and not even the Mother Herself will be able to hold me back. In fact, I might just take a swing at Her as well. Of all the stupid, bleeding ways to go about this, you had to pick the one that almost guaranteed I’d go off the deep end, and you don’t even bloody know why, do you?”
Despite the fact that he should probably be pretty bloody pissed at all the slurs to his intelligence, Wil couldn’t speak, didn’t trust his own voice or any words that might come out his mouth. He could only shake his head.
Dallin wheezed out something between a growl and a sigh and a sharp, grim laugh, propped his elbow on the bed, and dropped his head into his hand. “Fucking idiot,” he muttered. “Because, Wil,” slowly, and more calmly than before, “you can be a cryptic little shit sometimes, and you have yet to learn that it’s possible for someone to just want to be with you. Not for what you are, not for what you can do, but for you, and bollocks to whatever might come.” He looked up, shook his head. “I can’t keep proving myself, I can’t keep offering everything I am to you, and have you blinking at me in bewilderment and disbelief—you either trust me or you don’t. You either take my hand because I offer it and you believe I’m doing it because I love you and I want to, or you…” He shut his eyes, sighed again, then looked back at Wil. “Or you don’t. There is no choice for me. Haven’t you twigged to that yet?”
We cannot teach you to accept an extended hand because you are worthy of it. Such a thing requires the patience and persistence of love.
Well… Dallin was the most patient man Wil knew. And damned bloody-mindedly persistent. “I trust you,” Wil said, small and cracked.
“Yeah?” Dallin flopped his face to the mattress, his shoulders sagging. “Good to know,” he muttered, muffled by the furs. “Until the next time you don’t, anyway. Bloody damn, you make my brain hurt. And you wear me to the bone. I feel like I’ve just run a dozen leagues. Underwater.”
So did Wil, actually. “There won’t be a next time,” was all he could think to say. Because he was sure now, and there really wouldn’t be. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Dallin replied into the mattress, “just don’t do that to me again. Say the ‘I want you to stay’ part before you say the other bit, yeah?”
Five minutes ago, Wil wasn’t sure he’d ever have cause to smile again; now he couldn’t keep one from twitching at his mouth, and it only made his eyes blur more. Not invisible. Not merely the sum of his sins. “Yeah,” he agreed, reached out tentatively, and slipped his fingers into Dallin’s hair. “I want you to stay.”
“Good,” Dallin sighed, “because I don’t think I can move just now.” In direct negation, he turned, sat so his back was to the bed-frame, flopped his head back this time, and peered up at Wil with a frown. “I’m supposed to be feeding you and getting you ready for a trip down to the main common. There’s a whopping-great festival for the Turning, y’know. They weren’t going to have it, what with…” His hand waved about. “…everything. But the Old Ones said it’s more important now than ever, and I agreed. Our presence is… encouraged. Thirty minutes ago, I thought it was a brilliant idea.”
Wil shook his head, tried to adjust his thoughts and emotions to this sudden relief, this new lack of tension. He’d been sure that, one way or another, there would be a ‘goodbye’ back there somewhere. And then there simply hadn’t been. Instead, there was only… this—the same ‘this’ that had been between them from the beginning, and there it was, still there, and it took him a moment to slide his brain from Please don’t go away to Let’s go to a party. It was, to put it very mildly, boggling.
The very thought of a festival made him tired all over again, but a whopping-great festival with a horde of Linders might actually help him pull his mind from the wad of cotton that had settled about it. And he always seemed to arrive at new places in Lind half-dead and unconscious; it would be a nice change to arrive somewhere awake and upright.
How had Dallin put it, back when they’d been trekking through the wilderness and undecided yet if they still hated each other? Taking hold of life, or something like that—latching on and valuing it, and if that wasn’t quite right, it was at least close. Wil hadn’t been doing much latching on lately; more like drifting beneath everyone else’s surfaces and hoping they left him to it. Well, he’d got his wish, for the most part, and it didn’t take much to show him that he didn’t really want it. He’d fought hard for life—had chosen this life, with this man—so he’d best start living it. Time, after all, had never been his friend, so making the time for a festival seemed one of the wisest things he’d ever considered.
Later. Because there was time. For the first time in Wil’s life, there was time. And right at the moment, he was feeling a pleasant, slow-spiraling need to indulge himself. A need for something more immediate, something earthbound and close, just between them, just for them. A need for reclamation and affirmation. The feel of bare skin against his and hoarse whispers in his ear. Lind and the Turning could go hang, for the next… well, half-hour, at least.
“Come to bed with me,” he told Dallin.
One corner of Dallin’s mouth turned up, and his sandy eyebrows twitched. “Was that an order?”
And that was it—it really was over, and it really was going to be all right. Whatever came, Wil could stand anything, if only Dallin would always look at him like that.
Wil couldn’t help the grin, soppy as it likely was. “I could make it one, if it’ll help.”
“Bossy.” Dallin smirked, sighed a bit dramatically. “Don’t let this ‘servant to the Aisling’ thing go to your head. I’m not as easy as I look.”
Wil’s laugh came out a loud guffaw. “Easy,” was all he could snort. As if that was a word that could ever be applied to Dallin Brayden.
Dallin gave him a wide, return grin, before he slid it wolfish. “I don’t have to go about calling you Drút, now, do I?”
Wil’s smirk crimped a little. “I wish you wouldn’t.”
“Good,” Dallin said as he started to lever himself up from the floor, “because that would be a little too twee, I think.” Then he stopped, frowned. “What’s more to go?”
Well, Wil had known that was coming. He was only surprised it had taken this long.
Wil’s fingers were still in Dallin’s hair, stroking at whatever tension he’d put there. “Ríocht,” he answered quietly, because just the one word more-or-less explained it, or at least it was good enough to be getting on with.
Dallin was silent for a moment, narrow-eyed. “Not marching on the Guild, I trust.”
“No.” Wil shrugged a little. “I expect anonymously would be advised.” Cautious, he peered at Dallin through the tangles falling over his brow. “Someone has to do something. It’s gone on too long. The corruption’s gone too deep.”
“Huh.” Dallin rolled his eyes. “Too bloody right.” He rubbed at his face. “Ríocht, huh?” He sighed, his expression predictably wry. “Bloody typical. Should prove interesting, at least. I hope you won’t mind skittering about under rocks, because I’ll be just a little bit obvious over there.”
“I know.” Wil sank his fingers deeper into hair gone russet-gold in the weak strip of winter-thin sun threading in from the open window. He kneaded gently, satisfied when Dallin’s eyes drifted shut. “It’s why I shouldn’t want you with me.”
But I do. I’m sorry, Mother. I really did try.
Dallin’s mouth slipped up in a weary bit of a grin. “Can’t help yourself, I know. It’s my carefully cultivated air of danger. A bloody magnet, me.”
The grin was contagious. Wil clutched the fur about him, slithered down to the floor beside Dallin, leaned in until his head was resting comfortably on a wide shoulder, and slid his legs over Dallin’s thighs. “A lodestar,” he corrected. “I followed your pull all down the whole of Cynewísan and didn’t even know it.”
D
allin was still for a moment before his arm came up and around Wil’s back, tightened. “I don’t think I know what that means.”
Wil only smiled and closed his eyes. “’s all right,” he said into Dallin’s shoulder. “I do.” He hesitated, dipped his voice, cheeks heating the slightest bit. “I’m not starless anymore.” Quiet and a little embarrassed at the rawness inside the truth of it.
“Hm,” said Dallin, pulling him closer. “If you say so.” He set a kiss to the crown of Wil’s head. “I thought we were going to bed?”
Wil grinned, lifted his head, leaned up, and kissed him. It was fairly well received—in fact, pretty enthusiastically received—so Wil kept kissing him until he turned himself dizzy, and it had nothing whatever to do with hurts and healings. Found himself on his back, trying to curl around Dallin and stretch him out to get his clothes out of the way at the same time, because he wanted skin and heat and touch me, please, don’t stop. Vanished inside kisses and hands and gently nipping teeth, and words breathed with an urgency that set his skin on fire. Bodies rocking and melding together and arching one into the other until all he could do was breathe Dallin’s name, over and over again, like it was the only word he knew. Hear his own panted back, and ‘Please’, and ‘Yes’, as a sea of stars slowly unfurled behind his eyes, melted his spine.
They never quite made it to the bed.
****
The Festival was very different from Ríocht’s. Turning Night, for Wil, had always been a strange mix of anticipation and dread. Once the shakes and spasms tapered off and the cramps had died down to a dull, achy need, the call of seeing the stars again and the hopeless but ever-present dream of escape—one way or another—would rise up and set his heart racing with life he’d forgotten was even in him. Faces staring up at him, an endless sea of faces, and he couldn’t see a single one of them, not clearly, and he used to wonder if any of them might somehow see, might know. How many of them had he seen in dreams, and if he’d been in their dreams, how could they not understand, feel his pain, take pity? Or even succumb to fear and hatred and send an arrow sailing up to the ramparts, strike him down as he mouthed blessings he didn’t believe and didn’t hear?
The Aisling Trilogy Page 105
