All the sound dies out in the room. This new quiet settles over the hall with the weight of pregnant expectation. Everyone waits to see Keiran’s reaction. Some even dare to look toward me for mine. I check my glamour again, making sure it’s woven too tightly for anyone to look past. In all our time riding the Wylds, in all Keiran’s time selling the stories of my legend, he’s never been asked such a question. He’s offered vague answers before, in an attempt to head off interest, but this is different. This is personal. This requires the type of story people will hear and either believe or reject. Keiran’s a storyteller who sometimes embellishes or twists the events, but he’s not a liar. He can’t weave a story from nothing. The woman must have known that, or else there wouldn’t be the muttered, approving remarks from her compatriots for putting Keiran on the spot.
It’s a subtle rebellion. A way to profane the holy. A way to show the Horned King is not infallible, nor his Hunt.
Keiran turns to look back toward Aage, a graceless movement that’s met with an encouraging nod. Whatever wordless conversation they have in that moment, it settles something in Keiran. His frame relaxes and even at this distance, I can hear his exhalation. Then he turns to me. I don’t recognize the look in his eyes, or the set of his jaw. He’s nervous, but not afraid, waiting for a sign from me.
I nod, a slow movement I know will catch the audience’s attention. I want him to speak freely. Let there be no doubt of my support for him.
It’s enough. He turns back and there’s no show of bravado in him now. The Sluagh lean in, even the Mainlanders, drawn by his stoicism, the quiet strength centering him in their midst.
“You have heard many of my tales before,” he starts. “You welcome us into your lands, your homes, and you trust us to aid you in your times of need.”
The Northerners nod, though some of the Mainlanders shift uncomfortably in their seats. Their behavior toward us has been fairly hostile, and I take cynical pleasure in the knowledge that they may regret it now when compared to other clans.
“I tell you tales of the seidhr’s wildest victories. You see the shining edge of his knife, you feel the salt spray of monsters’ blood against your skin, and you triumph with him as he rides back to prove to you his promise has been kept. I am blessed by the gods to use my words and voice to bring you with us on these quests, to help you understand the way the gods act through our seidhr.”
He gestures back toward me, though he never turns his face from his audience. “He is the gods’ instrument in your midst, and he bends to their will, no matter the cost.”
The crowd murmurs their agreement and I blush beneath my glamour. He makes it sound like a sacrifice I’ve chosen, not a curse I was born with.
“But that is not why I follow him.”
The only noise in the hall is the quiet crackling of the fires. No one speaks. No one dares breathe too loudly.
Keiran lets that stillness build, rise, and swell until we’re about to drown in it before he speaks again. He offers the words softly, like he’s piecing this tale together in front of us, yet his voice remains clear enough to hear at the back table. “Many, many years ago, a griffin brought its wrath down upon a village too poor to hire someone to frighten it away. The beast built its nest and raided the farms. The bones of cows and horses and pigs littered the woven branches of its death-gilded larder, and when no animals were left, the beast turned its attention to the villagers. It took two children and their grandfather before our seidhr was given a vision.”
I remember those shades. Small and quiet and afraid, a trio waiting desperately for me. It was their care I remember most, the way they offered me the memories instead of forcing them on me.
“You know the rest of the tale.” The crowd’s agreement sounds and dies. It was one of the first legends Keiran told about me and it’s been a favorite of the Sluagh for so long even little children can recite it. “What you don’t know is what happened after the seidhr presented its head to the village elders. The farmhouse where the victims had lived stood nearly empty, inhabited by the grandmother, a woman wasting from grief. Her village would care for her. Her village would ensure winter did not steal her life too. There had been enough suffering for the family. Yet the seidhr told us we would remain another day. He claimed he needed to rest, but in the afternoon, I couldn’t find him in his room.”
Keiran had looked for me? I was positive he had bought my excuse before I snuck out of our room in the village’s hall.
“There was no reason for me to return to that farm, but when I neared, I saw the seidhr’s horse in the field. I saw the seidhr skinning a buck he’d shot while the grieving woman sat in a chair beside him and wept. He soothed her pain though the gods hadn’t asked that of him. His task is not to bring war and suffering, but to help mend the wounds left by it.” His hands clench at his sides and there’s something confused and angry and joyful fighting its way out of me, clawing up into the light where I’ll have to face it and will never be able to deny its existence again.
“I don’t know how long I watched them,” Keiran admits. “But the moment he made her laugh, I knew—”
He turns and looks over his shoulder, finding me, always finding me in an instant, as if he knows exactly where I am at all times. Goddess, I don’t know if I can hold his gaze. I’m not worthy of such adoration. I’m not worthy of him, but he watches me as if the sun rises and sets by my command, and I want him in any way he’ll allow.
“I knew,” Keiran repeats, low and gentle, “I could have no greater purpose than fighting beside such a man for the rest of my life. Than dying to protect him, if the gods will it. I would fall with a smile and wait an eternity to greet him at the doors of Valhalla.”
A buzz fills my ears. Keiran turns away from me. He
’s won over the hall. They shout praise to me and him and the Hunt, and Aage waves the servants to bring out another round of drinks for everyone.
I don’t know how to breathe. I don’t know how to look away from the muscles shifting in Keiran’s back as he lifts his hands and begins another tale as if he hasn’t just broken my heart and soul. I don’t know how to read the crowd as the evening drags on, so I hide behind my glamour instead. When Keiran’s done and Aage wishes us all a good night as we wander back to our chambers, I don’t know how to explain to the perfect, loyal man at my side that I can’t be around him right now. That I can’t face him because I’ve lied to him and broken his trust. That I let the draugr take residence inside me against his advice. That I’m not the good, honest man he thinks I am.
“Lugh,” Keiran asks quietly, “is something wrong?”
I pretend I don’t hear him. I know he deserves to hear the truth, but I don’t think I can give him all of it yet. I’ll give him something at least. And I have a short hallway’s walk to figure out what exactly that will be.
Keiran
Lugh said all the right things. He stayed in the hall, in view of the crowd, and nodded at the right times during my other stories. No one doubted his support of me. After tonight, no one will doubt how deserving he is of the title of Horned King or how valuable he still is to the people of the Wylds. His stories are alive in the minds of the Sluagh here, and hopefully his testimony tomorrow will be better received after my honesty.
When the Mainlander asked me that question, I froze. The truth hung on my tongue, but the thought of freeing it into the world and baring my sensibilities while Lugh sat tables away was worse than facing any monster I’ve killed. At least, it was until I remembered Aage’s story. The thought of Breoca’s pain—of causing Lugh such pain—gave me the courage to look back. I saw only pride in my thegn’s face. And I saw Lugh, not as the boy I grew up with, but as the man who has held my heart for so long I can’t remember when it was I offered it to him.
The words came easily after that.
Now, following him back down the hall toward our chamber, regret replaces the euphoria. My honesty has left Lugh’s lips tightly pressed and he hasn’t spoken to me once, even when we took our leave of Aage. The crowd’s noise fades away, leaving nothing but strained silence.