The Devotion of Delflenor

by R. Cooper

  “I do.” Prityal’s eyes were closed. “It used to… used to trickle back to me in reports. What you had done or said. They would tell me, and I would look for you to ask you to explain. But then…”

  And then Prityal would find her drinking or being led to someone else’s room, and, as unbelievable as it felt, Prityal would lose her courage.

  “If you had asked me, I would have stayed to answer,” Delf told her, still rubbing gentle circles over Prityal’s back. “I understand why you didn’t. But you should know by now, there is very little I would not do for you. Would not have done for you, even then. A moment of Prityal’s time, or a night in someone’s bed? That’s not even a real choice.”

  Prityal made a sweet sound, almost dreaming. “I could use clarity of vision.”

  Delf opened her eyes, which she had not realized she had closed. “Hmm?”

  Prityal stirred. “So many things that others saw that I… that he saw.”

  Delf stroked Prityal’s shoulder blades and along her spine until Prityal was calm again. “Don’t think of him now.”

  Prityal hummed. Only for a moment, but enough to lighten Delf’s heart. “Do the bones truly tell you nonsense?”

  “They give me answers to questions I do not ask,” Delf informed her, and briefly stopped her hand in confusion and a bit of hurt when Prityal smiled. “What?”

  “You should think about what They might want you to ask.” Prityal shifted and seemed to grow heavier. Another long breath left her.

  Delf resumed her light caresses. “Are you the priest now?”

  “Strength.” Prityal hummed again, and Delf closed her eyes to listen to her. “And Hope.”

  Rosset had taken her strength, but the rest remained.

  “Ask Them,” Prityal ordered sleepily, the words little more than a murmur. “When we return to the Seat.”

  She didn’t say anything else, and shortly afterward, her breathing became slow and even.

  Delf opened her eyes and looked around the small clearing, at the firelight, and the icors, and Prityal’s head in her lap.

  She would ask now, if she knew the right question.

  DELF MUST HAVE slept despite her intentions, but she woke up half-slumped in the dirt, Prityal curled against her, at the first hint of dawn.

  It was harder to move on this morning, with a day of fast riding behind them, and her arm heavy, and Prityal taking too long to wake.

  They did not ride as fast as yesterday because of the thickness of the trees, but Delf thought they made decent time. What would have been decent time, on any other quest.

  Prityal ate pieces of bread and sipped another tisane. She required Delf’s arm to hold her steady when she needed privacy, which made her scowl. An unpleasant start to the day that got worse when she needed help to mount Frire as well.

  The large icor had not liked that, and even Kee had reacted nervously. Delf smiled at both of the icors to calm them, and praised them for all their work, and did her best not to appear anxious as she once again took the lead.

  Halfway through the day, the day of the second sunrise, which Delf could not help but remember, Prityal swayed forward in her saddle and did not sit up again.

  “Prityal?” Delf called to her, glancing back.

  “It takes so much.” Prityal had a hand in Frire’s mane, which was a small relief, although Delf did not immediately grasp what she was talking about. “But Ran said to practice.”

  “And practice you did,” Delf assured her. “Please don’t worry about that anymore.”

  “Do you know, when I… after… when I was healing… no one would oppose me?” Prityal sounded as if she had to drag each word from her chest. “I was nothing. A child. Who had done brave, stupid things. And they called me a hero and gave me names that did not match me. I hurt every day, and I cried where no one could see me because they called me hero, and I was not meant to cry.”

  “You are a hero.” Delf made it soft. “But not for slaying the Tyrant. For what you did afterward.”

  “My choice.” Prityal whispered something else, perhaps just for Frire, before adding, “You walked up and you helped me. I was furious. That you had seen me. That you might think I was not what they thought, even though I thought it. But you never said. You never said anything.”

  “You are a hero,” Delf repeated, firmer this time.

  “A hero is a person, like the knights of old, who has done something difficult that anyone else might have done. It is only that they did it. The doing is hard. Living with it is also hard. But it might be anyone. You just have to choose.” Prityal pushed herself up to look at Delf. “I liked that you helped me, but I was also furious. To be special to everyone else but not to you was upsetting.”

  “I suppose that would be,” Delf agreed in a faint voice, bemused. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Clarity of vision.” Prityal huffed. “Protection.”

  Delf watched her closely, searching for signs of her illness worsening, which it must be for Prityal to talk nonsensically. “I don’t follow.”

  “I know.” Prityal drifted for several moments, her eyes falling shut. “Delflenor, I’m tired. My body is heavy and I cannot remember the last time I rested.”

  Delf sat up straighter, barely keeping the alarm from her voice. “Last night.” She struggled to smooth out her hoarse voice. “Last night you slept in my arms.” Eventually, at some point, they had curled up together, though Delf had no memory of how or when it had happened.

  “I did?” Prityal opened her eyes, seeming quite pleased. “Now who is the knight of legend?”

  “What?” Delf exchanged a look with Frire, if only because Frire was there and more awake than his rider. “What knight? What legend?”

  “Protected by the priest as they run from danger.” Prityal let her eyes fall closed, though her tiny grin of pleasure did not disappear.

  The usual protest of I’m not a priest, died on Delf’s tongue. “A priest of sorts,” Delf allowed, speaking as much nonsense as the bones.

  Prityal did not answer, her chin dropping to her chest as she returned to sleep once more.

  DELF WANTED to keep going that night, despite the risk to the icors and the lack of light. She did not know if Rosset’s words mattered, or if he had been speaking out of shock and pain, but it was their third sunset since he had wounded Prityal, and the thought would not leave her.

  Nonetheless, she stopped them when she found a space big enough for a fire. Prityal shivered in her sleep, and that seemed reason enough to rest until at least moonrise. Delf had to help her from the saddle, and the jarring, sudden fall snapped Prityal into something approaching her usual sharpness. It lasted long enough for Delf to force dried fruit and a hot tisane into her, ignoring the foul looks she received for her efforts, fussing over the muttered apologies that followed those.

  “I don’t like to be helpless,” Prityal explained, as though Delf could not have guessed that, but she consented to be pulled to Delf’s chest and draped in her cloak. Delf suspected Prityal had been looking forward to it, and so merely laid down with her and hid her face in the back of Prityal’s neck while Prityal slept.

  It was not restful slumber. Prityal stirred often, not quite fully rousing, and mumbled as though she dreamed.

  Delf closed her eyes, but couldn’t say she fell asleep, only that time passed. If foxes or wolves walked the woods around them, they stayed away. The icors raised no alarms. Delf stared at the shadows and up at the stars, or dreamed she did, and began to shiver not long after.

  Wound-fever, she supposed, unsurprised, and carefully moved Prityal so she could get to her feet. She relieved herself in the dark and drank the cold dregs of the tisane, and prepared to ride again now that the moon was high. Delf had to get Prityal to the others before her fever grew worse. If Delf succumbed, there would be no one to protect Prityal.

  Delf’s limbs shook as she patted the weary icors and apologized for waking them and then spoke intently to Fr
ire alone. She wanted nothing more than to return to the bedroll, to curl around Prityal and sleep for a hundred years.

  Getting up and staying up was difficult. Delf thought that made her a little bit of a hero, but it might have been her exhaustion tricking her into thinking so, or her wistful notions of being what Prityal wished her to be.

  I am not, of course, Delf told Prityal silently. She was too practical to be a person of legend. She was a good knight, and brave when she had need to be. That was enough, for most things. Hopefully, it would be enough for this last quest as well.

  “I am like a work icor,” she explained aloud as she kicked some dirt over the fire and smoke rose to the sky. “I don’t know why They have chosen me for this, unless They know that I will stop for nothing to save you. Which They must. That you did not see it can be forgiven, but the Wise are quite different.”

  She propped Prityal up to a sitting position, and fretted when this did not immediately wake her. She arranged the scarf where it had fallen, and took one of Prityal’s hands between hers to warm it. “Prityal? Prityal, I need you to wake up again, only for a few moments. I need to get you back on Frire. We are making good progress,” she added, when at least that got her a frown. “We’re on the right path, and it won’t be much longer, though the icors tire.”

  “You tire,” Prityal returned without opening her eyes. “And you do not move your arm.”

  Delf wanted to drop a kiss on her clever brow. She wrapped her good arm around her instead. “Are we going to argue?” she inquired, too tired to be polite but also not truly angry.

  “We would not if you were not stubborn.” Prityal neatly avoided answering the question and argued at the same time.

  Delf gave in and kissed her on the top of her head, over the scarf. “Oh, I am stubborn?”

  Prityal blinked her eyes open, then pushed out her bottom lip. “Delflenor the Most Stubborn.”

  “Are you…” Delf could not finish the question. Prityal tipped her head back to regard her curiously. “Have you known you were pouting this whole time?” Delf asked in disbelief.

  “I’m not pouting.” Prityal sulked. “You’re being ridiculous. I don’t know if I should speak, or guide, or shove you. Diplomacy is Jareth’s skill, not mine. I don’t know what will make you understand, or if I am even right. I—I would not have to do this with anyone else. This is confusing, and I am tired, and are you never going to call me ‘love’ again?”

  “Sorry, love,” Delf answered without thinking.

  Prityal frowned. “I wish I had tried approaching you. That I had not been afraid.”

  “Silly you, for thinking I was something to be frightened of.” Delf gave her a smile that Prityal did not seem to see. She abandoned her teasing tone. “There is no need to bring this up now.”

  “So many times, I convinced myself you were looking back, only to doubt a moment later.”

  “I was.” Delf turned away, then cleared her throat in warning before she tugged Prityal to her feet. It made her head swim. Prityal stood unsteadily for one moment, then two, and then hissed as Delf caught her before she stumbled. Delf confessed to the side of her face. “You were far away, and beautiful, and brave.”

  She guided Prityal forward with her arm around her waist, and kept her gaze on the ground.

  “And scared.” Prityal exhaled it.

  “Yes.” Delf nodded. “You were scared. I did my best to help, as much as I could.”

  “From a distance.” Prityal reached up to grab for Delf’s shoulder, or for her hair, which she tangled her fingers into and yanked. “From the lower-tier.”

  Delf did not quite contain her gasp. “Yes.”

  Prityal gentled her grip but did not let go. “From around the stronghold, but not with me, at my side.”

  Delf had no place there, but restricted her answer to a simple, “No.”

  “Until this.” Prityal panted as though the short walk exhausted her. “Here, you were with me. You called me Prit to let me hide, and teased me about the goat and how I do chores. You held me.”

  Delf was holding her now. It was a pleasure, but a joke or a flirtatious comment felt wrong when it cost Prityal dearly to say anything. Delf waited until they were closer to Frire before she responded. “Is that so much, that I did those things?”

  “It was to me.” Prityal dropped forward to lean against Frire and stroke his neck. “And I wish you had done them sooner. You are stubborn, and that quality might save us, but it is also what has brought us to this place.” She caught her breath for several moments, and Delf busied herself with putting out the last remnants of the fire, and transferring the packs to Kee.

  She returned to Prityal when all of that was done. “Up we go,” she said lightly, and stooped to take Prityal’s weight and help her into the saddle.

  “You’ve removed my things?” Prityal looked down at her, and then over at Kee, now serving as a pack animal. “What?”

  “Hold still,” Delf instructed, before swinging herself up behind Prityal and then scooting in close to get her arms around her and to take the reins. She had to deal with Prityal’s cloak, and then silently send up a prayer to the Wise who watched over feisty icors for making Frire cooperate.

  Prityal had recovered from her surprise by then. “You’re to ride with me?”

  “You’re tired, and we’ve a long way to go.” Delf did not express her worries that Prityal would grow weaker and fall from the saddle, because the idea of losing her stole the breath from her lungs.

  Prityal stiffened and then eased back against her in almost the same moment. “For this, you put yourself forward.”

  Delf could not read her tone. “For you.”

  The sound Prityal made was not a laugh or a cry. It was small and quiet, and afterward, she sank down and put her head to Delf’s shoulder. “It is not only you who is hurt when you do not take your place. It’s all of us. It’s me.”

  Delf glared into the dark. “I’d never hurt you.”

  “You would not spar with me. You would not look back.” Prityal huffed. “You would not sit with us, nor speak. Do you think that didn’t wound? Plans were made without your experience and insight that might have been better for them. Knights might have been saved. Injuries might have been spared.”

  “Or worsened…”

  Prityal silenced her without mercy. “I am happy right now, in your arms in the dark. I could have known that sooner. I could have known it when I was not—”

  “Please.” Delf stopped her with a ragged plea.

  Oryl Wood was silent. The icors waited patiently.

  Prityal wrapped an arm around one of Delf’s, Delf’s bad arm, but Prityal’s hold was light. “This is not a way for a knight to die.” She struck Delf to the core and pushed on while Delf was still collecting her panicked thoughts. “I don’t want to die this way. You are not going to let it happen. You are going to save me.” Prityal might have had her eyes closed, or might have been giving the trees around them her most determined glare. “I have wanted to have faith in you for so long. You’re going to give me this. You’re going to save me, and we will reckon with Rosset, and legends, and magic when it is over. You chose devotion, all of things. I… I have not that faith. But you do. So you are going to do this, and save me, and save Ainle, I think. Say yes, Delflenor.”

  Delf swallowed. “I…”

  “You are Delflenor of the Seat,” Prityal said firmly, “and I will push you there if it takes my last breath.”

  “I will go,” Delf whispered to the soft folds of Prityal’s scarf. “I would go before that ever happened.”

  A vow. Not a good one, but one truly spoken.

  Prityal hummed, not a song, just the sound, and shivered against Delf before settling again. “Then let’s ride. I would like to witness this blessed event.”

  Delf urged Frire to walk, and clicked her tongue for Kee to follow, though Kee would have regardless.

  Prityal seemed content to hold Delf’s arm. She did not
speak again.

  Delf was left with her wild thoughts, and her fears, and the darkness of the watching woods.

  THEY RODE through their third sunrise.

  Seventeen

  out of the Wood

  PRITYAL DID NOT WAKE.

  Delf urged the icors to go faster once the sun lit their way.

  She hummed so Prityal would hear something familiar and encouraging, hummed bits of Saphar’s long, long story and all the different ends of Laradoc she could remember, stopping only to rest the icors and to trickle some water past Prityal’s lips. She asked Frire and Kee to go farther, and faster, though it would break Prityal’s heart if either of them were injured for her. But Delf did not think it could be put off another day.

  They continued on through the night, slowly. Delf’s arms were numb. Her skin was hot. She drank enough to keep her voice from cracking and continued to hum what songs she knew until her eyes fell shut. She roused and slept again, trusting the icors to keep them on the path.

  She was half-asleep when they rode out of the thick forest and frowned in confusion when fewer and fewer trees surrounded them.

  Cold wind hit them without the trees to shield them. The clouds were low and heavy with unshed rains. But there was light.

  Delf opened her eyes and turned her face up toward it, and thought of Prityal’s reaction if rain were to fall on them now.

  “You are not going to do that to her,” Delf sternly told the clouds and any of the Wise who saw her misery.

  The wind picked up, making Kee and Frire flatten their ears and leaving Delf to shudder around Prityal’s sleeping form.

  Not a drop of rain hit them.

  DELF DRIFTED into dreams.

  She opened her eyes to see specks on the horizon. If they were farmers, she did not have the strength to salute them, and would not have taken her arms from Prityal. But she begged Frire to go faster and the magnificent creature obliged.

  Delf expressed her gratitude in a croaking voice and tightened her grip to keep Prityal from falling. She shut her eyes again, then opened them at the quiet sound of her name.