killed those things which killed men, and they grew to fear me. The Vanguard had long been been protecting their people. One man in particular grew up with me and was my friend throughout everything.”
“Thaimon?” I asked, finding it strangely easy to believe.
“Yes. He was suave and charming, gifted with a silver tongue and easy manners. Even his appearance was kindly, so much so that he was contested often by those who did not know him to be Vanguard. I frightened people, and I scoffed at them for being frightened. Youthful arrogance.
“The best of men found me terrifying, some called shadow-walkers abominations. Were I anything else, the shadows would not flee at my presence. Enough people were brave enough to speak with me and drink with me and enough women took me as their lover that I was not lonely nor completely outcasted. I broke some hearts, but I hadn't asked for their love nor promised them anything. Unlike Van, who promised the world and left them with sweet kisses and hopeful hearts.
“We travelled and hunted the worst of the creatures, protecting the hamlets which were least defended. Kings and their stewards paid us for heads of monsters, and their minstrels conveniently forgot us in winter ballads of the trophies. It didn't matter. We had songs of our own to sing on the long, cold resting periods when there was little else to occupy our time.
“From Van, I knew how to charm a blushing maiden if she took my eye. And so took my eye this maiden of bright spirit who felt no fear at the sight of me when I ripped the stick out of her hands and held her at my mercy. I had gone my entire life seeing fear in those around me. Van alone had never feared me, because Van alone knew me. This maiden, even when she should have been afraid, did not fear me in the least. She challenged me to try to make her afraid. She said, 'Do what you're to do, then. I haven't all day to wait upon you.'”
I laughed, imagining the reaction. “Taunting a man never does anything but draw attention to yourself. What did you do? It surely wasn't letting her go.”
“No, I didn't let her go. I may have, if it had been the two of us alone, but Van was present as well. He said, 'This one's fierce as a direhound. Shall we see if you can frighten it?' Direhounds were massive dogs, their backs came to about your shoulders, as tall as a small horse, excellent against mounted opponents and considered protectors of any home which could afford to feed them. We never kept a direhound ourselves. In between shelters, there was too little food and drink to keep the two of us content, nevermind enough to keep a direhound from the brink of starvation. We did, however, have a warhorse. Just the one was all we needed, a brave beast which made the cowardly direhounds tremble.
“We bound the maid up and tossed her abreast the horse. The day passed, leaving the maiden unshakeable and confident enough to call me many uncouth names. We never once harmed her. When darkness crept in, I thought she would become afraid at last. But instead, I learned that she was working to bring back the fabelled world of long ago one hex at a time.”
The story was flitting through memory, stirring up images. I said, “I broke free from you two. There was a man who wanted my help. I remember...” But then I didn't. As soon as it was there, the image of the shadowy figure with an outstretched hand slipped my mind. I went to the next thing I knew. “I sheltered on my own. The two of you thought I'd gone to my death.”
“We went to your village...”
“...to start up a search party, but they knew better.”
“They said you'd be back once you were done with your tasks. Van was smitten. I respected you well enough to give an ultimatum: pay the bride price or leave you alone. We'd come to hire your hex-breaking services, but to add the bride price your mother set on top of that … well, it was very costly. In total, it was slightly under our combined wealth. It would all go to you no matter what, but it still needed to be paid.”
My heart skipped. “What did you do?”
Wraithbane went very still and kept his tone level. “It was a different time in a different culture. Van and I were closer than brothers. We each paid half of the services fee and half the bride price.”
Breathing became difficult, not necessarily in a bad way, but neither was it comfortable. “You both married me.”
“You married us, too,” Wraithbane said. “The choice in all things was first and foremost yours. Even the bride price wasn't to buy you, it was to prove our worth. Things worked differently then. People paid kings and chieftains, and so husbands paid wives. You'd refused all others, yet you found us acceptable. In our bonding oath, you said that some souls are forged together and destined to find one another throughout time. We swore to safeguard and honor one another, even after we constructed the Veil and ended the dark.”
I went quiet, not recalling those exact words, yet the resonance was impossible to deny. “And you still feel connected to that oath today?”
“Our triad all feels that oath to protect and safeguard one another.”
“Even when you're trying to kill Thaimon and he's trying not to kill me?” I had a hard time believing it. “He's a total manipulator.”
“True, but the oath still comes into effect.”
“Oh? Do tell.”
“Hmm, they're coming back. I'll tell you why I'm trying to kill him later. Meanwhile, act normal,” he said before resuming his oration of F. Scott Fitzgerald. The door opened and healers entered, tending to my back as quietly as they could. They didn't leave for a long time, prodding my back, scraping up samples. I heard one of them say to Wraithbane that they hadn't seen any eggs yet. After I heard that, I deliberately focused only on Wraithbane and soon grew sleepy. Probably something they'd given me. Wraithbane continued to read uninterrupted.
Hours rolled by as if we were in some kind of timeless spell. The containment center room fell away and we could just as well have been lounging on a settee before a quietly crackling fire. He must have lulled me to sleep with the rhythmic way his hand stroked my skin, the trancelike quality of his voice, because I found myself drifting on swirling fog into dreams.
Shapes emerged from the mists, concealed and revealed at the twitch of an eye. There was a baby in a bundle, left alone on the doorstep of the fire department. A hood dripping with rain and soldiers with ale. Hooves and the smell of horse leather. A silver coin spinning as a bullet struck it midair. Parlor tricks at night entertaining guests. Things drawing near me, cowering, scraping, begging. In their hearts a shard of blackness, tedious to remove. Each new shard harder to ease out, slimmer and smaller than the one previous, apt to shatter and dissolve. I dreamed of iodine-orange fingers and the stench of vinegar. Vials lined up on shelves, scrawled upon in an old handwriting long gone out of use.
Words whispered through the mists, It's all balanced on the blade of a knife right now, and you can illuminate the world.