A Prophecy for Two, page 5
No, Oliver thought, no, I’m not, not really, not for a Quest—
But he’d go. He did not, in a world of magic and possibilities, have any real choice.
He nodded back at Tir. They took off, in flight, heading North. Toward fairy country.
And, despite his reservations, the first day proved ominously uneventful.
They did ride North, but they rode through fields they knew, villages where people recognized Oliver and Oliver’s fairy-shadow and beckoned them in for a meal or a cup of tea. They paused to help a widower fix a fence. Oliver jammed a stake into ground, triumphant, and looked up to see Tir calmly walking out of the forest with all six missing pigs docilely trotting behind him. He made a few jokes, but only the amount any reasonable person would, because he was being nice. Tirian rolled those expressive eyes.
Of course Tir could find lost pigs. Tir could do anything; Oliver entirely believed that.
That old question sidled up anew, as he watched his fairy scratch a sow under the chin with no thought given to any incongruity of elegant fingers and bristly hair. It was a question that nobody’d ever outright asked, but the subject of vast speculation in taverns and below palace stairs. No one would put it to Tir, of course.
In every single legend, fairies who came across the border had some sort of purpose. Some form of motive. Light or dark, mischief or protection: always a reason. A few wicked sorcerers in old tales claimed to be able to summon and bind fairies to their will, but those stories tended to end bloodily and badly; in any case no one had ever claimed responsibility for Tir being here.
Nobody would ask Tir because, in the first place, it’d be terribly rude: one should treat fairies with good manners. In the second place…
In the second place it could be not only rude but conceivably dangerous, if the fairy was offended, if the fairy was under a spell or a geas not to speak of it, if consequences arose.
Tir, being Tir, had saved them a small amount of consternation by explaining, unasked, that he wasn’t allowed to say much. He’d been sent, he’d been told to find Bellemare’s royal family, and he’d obeyed. Ollie knew his parents—after welcoming their unexpected guest, finding Tirian a room, asking what he’d like for supper—had had late-night discussions about this sudden development, after the children had gone to bed.
He knew because, a couple of weeks later, he’d been invited to one of those discussions, as the Heir. His parents had been proud and worried and serious about it: Oliver needed to know what they were thinking. A stray bit of wild magic turning up meant some sort of magical presence, an epic brewing, a legend in the making, for one of their family. Potential glory. Potential peril.
They’d guessed Tirian had to be some sort of fairy royalty from the inhuman fineness of his clothes and the Court polish of his politeness; not precisely the same as their own customs, but Tir clearly knew about the way a court functioned, the duty of a monarch, the devotion to one’s people. Queen Ellie had looked at him and seen the fairy-creature but also simply a boy, twelve years old and in need of chocolate biscuits. Tir had not had the palace’s famous chocolate biscuits before. He’d taken one bite, and stared at it, wide-eyed.
He’d spent the most time with both Oliver and Cedric at first, another brother underfoot. Somehow gradually he’d spent more time with Oliver, permanently right there when Oliver needed a hand in the weapons training yard or a sounding board before public speeches or a partner in tavern-related mischief. That hadn’t changed. Not in all the long years.
In the present, Tir had continued petting the pig, simultaneously listening with apparently honest interest to the farmer’s story about the time the village cows ate strange indigo grasses after a wind out of the North. The cows had supposedly given blue milk for a month; the punchline of what was almost certainly a tall tale was, “…and they still do, once in a blue moon.”
Tir laughed. The farmer looked as if he’d just realized that he’d told this story to a fairy and was trying to work out whether he should be nervous or proud. Tir said solemnly, “Only once in a blue moon? If they ate moon-grass, you should be getting at least twice that amount of blue milk, or so I’ve heard,” and the man now looked as if he was trying to work out whether or not this was serious, at least until Tir grinned, and then he guffawed.
The closest Tir had ever come to revealing his reasons had been the night of his twenty-first birthday, which they’d celebrated by hosting an all-night party in his favorite tavern. Tirian could outdrink just about anyone, courtesy of fairy blood or maybe only fortunate inheritance, but neither of them’d been sober by the time they’d stumbled home. Tir’d said, leaning on Oliver’s shoulder in his bedroom doorway, obviously continuing a line of conversation only existing in his head, “Sometimes I think it won’t be that hard, when it’s for you…”
“What won’t?” Oliver had asked, struggling to balance tipsy fairy-muscles and his own sloshing brain and uncoordinated toes. “Hey, d’you mind if I just pass out on your bed too?”
“I never do, do I…?” They’d fallen heavily onto the mattress; Oliver, vaguely recalling that it was Tir’s birthday, had managed to tug his fairy’s boots off, though not his own. Tir had mumbled words that sounded like thanks, and then something else that sounded like, “I’m going to die because of you, that’s what.”
“I didn’t make you drink the scary purple mead,” Oliver had yawned, “you did that on your own,” and tumbled into sleep fully dressed.
He’d been thinking about that first sentence—the unusually revealing one, not the obvious attempt to blame the hangover of death on Oliver—on and off, not continuously but intermittently, ever since. It won’t be hard? What won’t be?
They’d all taken guesses in secret. Oliver, his siblings, even his mother. Wondering about their adopted fairy-brother. Coming up with ever more outlandish theories. Making it a game, though that’d been years ago.
Glancing at Tir—his best friend, the man who’d come along on Oliver’s Vision Quest despite unspoken personal concerns over magical distress—as they swung back into the saddle, he felt ashamed. He felt guilty.
He wanted to apologize, but he didn’t know how. He did not even know where to begin.
They went on. The air murmured cool and dry against his skin. Sun and shadow dappled the fields, the road.
North. Toward, though not into, Fairyland. The edges, though. The Territories, where nobody—not human, at least—lived. Where gryphons and dragons and walking trees and singing rock-roses were said to wander. Where marvels happened, and where a Seeing Pool might show someone their fate, if found and asked.
Oliver let himself get distracted from thinking about Tir by thoughts about the Pool. About mysteries, and destinies. He knew the histories, but the Quest was never the same twice. He did not know what he might expect, and started to give himself a headache thinking from dwelling on it.
They made good time, for the first day. Neither of them minded sleeping out of doors, under the big firework shimmer of stars, at the edge of a pale cluster of birch trees, among sweet grass. That was familiar, too; they’d been camping before, many times.
Tir had brought a small collapsible pan, and they were only a day and a night out; supper involved roasted carrots and parsnips, sausages, small sweet potatoes, buttery dense bread rolls, and even two chocolate biscuits. Ollie was good at making a fire, the horses settled in contentedly, and the evening felt warm, cozy, familiar.
Except for the looming destiny. The headache. The Quest.
Tir said, “Are you all right?”
“Oh. Yeah. Sorry.” Oliver shook himself. “Thinking too much.”
“Well, stop that.”
“Just stop thinking. Done.”
“You could sketch something. Or keep a journal. For posterity.”
“Do you want me to leave you alone so you can read?” Of course Tirian had brought a book, a travel-sized dense compilation of improbable romances.
“Not necessarily.” Tir set the book aside. Hearty firelight brushed his face, turning his skin to amber. “What were you thinking about?”
“I don’t know, exactly. I mean…I guess this is how True Love works, for my family? I see the person, whoever it is, I ride to their rescue, save them from whatever Deadly Peril it is, a big romantic grand gesture…and that’s what you do for someone you love, right? Show up at the right time, the right place, to help them? And you fall into each other’s arms?”
“I suppose,” Tir said. “Does only metaphorical falling need to be involved, or should we find you a convenient tree root to trip on?”
“You’ve never been in love,” Oliver retorted, as loftily as he could manage. “Not like that, anyway. Where you just catch a glimpse of the person—eyes meeting across a crowded room—”
“—or in a magical Seeing Pool—”
“—thank you, shut up—or seeing even the back of their head, the movement of a hand, and you just know, y’know, like fireworks, even if you’ve never talked to them before. That doesn’t matter. Whether you’ve even met them. It’s all sort of champagne and sparkles. At first sight.”
Tir was quiet for a second; Oliver wondered why. He did not think Tirian had ever had feelings for anyone here, in this very human non-magical land, but—
But he didn’t know. Not with complete unbreakable certainty.
All at once he wondered why he didn’t know. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t talked about attractive persons; Ollie had complained to Tir endlessly about the excruciating indifference of Lady Katherine, for instance, back when they’d been younger and that’d felt like the end of the world; and there’d been a visiting viscount or two, and that blacksmith…
Tir had generally agreed as far as aesthetic attractiveness, and had not said a word, ever, indicating any particular desire to leap into bed or a bluebell clearing or a nicely appointed pleasure-room with anyone. Oliver had always vaguely thought that perhaps Tir just couldn’t or didn’t find humans interesting in that specific way.
Maybe he’d been wrong. Tir’s complicated silence, lasting a heartbeat longer than expected, seemed to argue as much. But—
But Tir would’ve told him, in that case. They shared everything.
Didn’t they?
“No,” Tir said finally, ending the odd silence. “I’ve never been in love like that.”
“And that’s how this Quest is supposed to work, I think. For my family.” Which should prove his point. Except he couldn’t quite recall his point. What had he been trying to say, about love and falling head over heels?
He eyed his best friend again. Something still felt off. Something felt not…well, not right. Nothing he could put a finger on. “You okay?”
“Fine.”
“You have an actual headache, don’t you? Not, like, me just wanting to complain.”
“No. Yes. Not as such.” Tir looked away, into the leap and flare of the fire. He had a finger marking the spot where he’d stopped, in the novel. “It’s…it’s the North. That’s all. It’s a fairy-place, of course. One that ended up on your side of the border. It’s just the sense of it in my head. Like an itch, but inside. Prickly.”
This was almost certainly true; Tir never had lied to him. Oliver had the sense that there was more, though.
Maybe the magic itchiness was worse than Tir was letting on. That’d be something Tirian would do: not complete denial of it, not a lie about it, but minimizing the impact. Practicing self-discipline. “Hey,” he tried. “You know I’m here, right? Whatever you need.”
And Tir did smile. And it seemed like a genuine smile, no trace of…whatever that’d been. Before. “I know.”
“I can work on keeping a record. For, um, posterity. If you want me to leave you alone to read.”
“If you feel like starting that, then yes. Your mother did ask.”
“I can…make more tea? Mint?”
“If you’re offering,” Tir said, picking back up his book, “then I won’t say no. Perhaps it’ll feel good for both of us.”
Chapter 5: Obstacles
The landscape grew rockier. Drier. More grey. Hills sprouted stone boulders and crags like bewildered stone faces. Temperatures fell precipitously; plants took on iridescent hues, shimmering white and turquoise and primrose. Magic in the air.
Tirian shot him a look of sheer delight, the second day into the North, and nudged heels into his mare and took off: a streak of fairy wildness, person and horse, enchanted as the wind. Ollie sighed internally—he couldn’t breathe magic like vitality, and this wasn’t home for him—but Tir all lit up and glowing and daring him to follow, well. That made him want to follow. Made him grin.
This was home for Tir. More or less. The borderlands. The closest he’d got. Ollie wondered, pounding after his fairy-companion down a crooked defile, leaping a stream, catching up and playing tag on horseback among merry towering rocks and indecently iridescent hummingbirds, whether Tir missed it.
He wondered also, for the first time, why Tir had never ridden this far North. Never come so close to home. With that joy in each breath, in those chilly excited eyes.
He thought that this might be because of him. Because of himself: Tirian had spent years looking out for him, finding his missing boots and correcting his arithmetic sets before the tutor checked. Ollie had never cared much about riding up toward Fairyland, seeking out the perilous and the wondrous and the strange.
His chest did that odd twist and ache again, the way it had over bacon and toast the morning they’d left.
“Oliver,” Tir yelled over, laughing, pink-cheeked in brittle wind, “you’ll get stuck, that ravine’s a dead end—!”
“Carrot can turn on a penny!” Ollie shouted back, tugging at reins, getting Bellemare’s Autumn Harvest Joy to rear and spin obligingly, “and you didn’t tell me where we were going!”
“North!” Tir came back and reined Sprite in and waited helpfully while Ollie figured out directions. “You know. That way. Not down a dead-end ravine.”
“Ridiculous fairies and your ridiculous country,” Oliver grumbled at him. “How do you know it’s a dead end, anyway?”
“One, because I, unlike you, pay attention to my surroundings. Two…” Cool grey eyes got a little more cloud-like, pensive. “I don’t exactly know. It’s like…knowing.”
“Oh, right, that’s completely clear, thanks.”
“No, I mean…” Sprite matched Carrot’s pace amiably, without active direction from her rider. Ollie’d always half-suspected Tir had a mysterious magical bond with most animals, though when asked his fairy’d only started laughing hard enough to be useless for answers.
“I mean,” Tir said now, thinking aloud, “not like that. It doesn’t work if I think about it. It’s a little like remembering.”
“Like…you…” Came this way? When you were only twelve and alone in a brand-new human land?
He thought: I couldn’t’ve done it. I don’t know how you did. And you don’t talk about it. And I can’t ask. In case it’s a spell or a geas or a charm. In case it hurts you.
He said, “Like you spend a lot of time in ravines?”
And Tir laughed, weightless and untroubled. “Maybe if you count the University archives. I swear some of those manuscript stacks haven’t been touched in centuries. It’s funny, though, if I try to push it, to really think about it, that headache…”
Oliver gathered rein. Carrot stopped. This meant that Sprite stopped too; Crown Prince and companion regarded each other for a minute. Wind flirted with unnaturally indigo-and-magenta rock-grass behind Tir’s head.
Tirian looked away first. “I know. I know what you’re saying. Not saying. You know my answer. Just—just don’t. Please.”
“You’re hurting,” Ollie said, “because you’re riding North with me.”
“It’s not like—”
“It isn’t?”
“It’s…hard to explain.”
“Try.”
“I know,” Tir said carefully, even gingerly, “what I’m supposed to do. And I…this feels like going home. Before I’ve done it. And that—”
“Oh,” Ollie said. “Oh. No. Stop. Nothing you’re not allowed to say,” and then they looked at each other for another second, until one corner of Tir’s mouth quirked up. “I’m okay. It’s just…a reminder. From—from the magic. Land-sense. It won’t matter; we won’t be going into Fairy proper.”
“I’ll believe you,” Ollie told him, “if you tell me that again. Right now. Honestly.”
“I am being honest, you turnip.” Tir was smiling, crooked, but his eyes were serious. Graveness; gravestones, that grey. Ollie swatted that thought down. “I don’t lie to you, Oliver. It’ll hurt a little, and it won’t get much worse, and I can live with it for now. It’ll go away after we’re done.”
“You’ll let me know,” Ollie said.
“Of course.”
“Then…” He bit his lip, wavered: a pebble making a choice. Could be an avalanche. Might not. No way to know. And he had a traditional quest to complete, and Tir had…also a quest. Of some sort. A mission. “If you’re sure.”
Tir gave him the most affronted look Oliver’d seen on anyone not a palace cat. He had to laugh. “Fine. But you’ll tell me how you’re feeling.”
“I just said—”
“Not only when it gets worse. Check in with me. Talk to me. Did you call me a turnip?”
“I’ve called you worse before. I’m all right, I promise.” Wind tugged a strand of black hair across grey eyes; Tir tucked it back, and made even that motion exquisite: ruffled as silk, as water, a fairy framed by ravine walls and cinnamon rock-roses. “Still going to beat you to that stream, up ahead…”
“That’s not a fair start!” Oliver yelled at his vanishing back, and took off after.
Tir and Sprite won. This was not a surprise.
They stopped playing around after a while, settling into a long journey’s pace. They wouldn’t go as far as the border, despite the Northern Wild also settling in around them. Strangeness in the knots and whorls of tree-bark. Near-faces. A kind of invisible presence, heavy and curious and bright, lying like a gaze between shoulder blades.
