The First Binding, page 8
For all our bravery and feats, we’re frightened things when it comes to many of life’s avenues. Uncertainty, loneliness, even a dark and long road leaves us wishing for someone’s company. And who better than a god? It’s in those quiet and scared moments we turn in hope of a silent watcher.
I met Solus’ eyes for a moment that stretched out longer than I could recall.
“What do you want?”
I blinked, returning to the present.
The innkeeper here stood at my height, well weathered by years and stress. The set of face made it obvious he’d gone past his patience hours ago. Nothing remarkable stood out about him to distinguish him from the average Etay-nian. He ran a hand through a mess of shaggy dark hair threaded with lines of salt. It matched his trimmed, but just as messy beard.
“A place to sit, a fire to think by, and if it’s not too much trouble, drinks and food.” I gave him my best smile.
He glowered.
Eloine leaned closer, almost bringing her lips to my earlobe. “I think you should learn to smile better.”
I scowled.
“Not like that.” She breathed hot against the side of my head. “Like this.” Eloine pulled away and flashed the innkeeper a smile that would have had any man tripping over his own feet, and any woman glaring daggers at the back of her when she turned around.
“I’m sure I can find something.” The innkeeper scratched at the side of his face. “Anything in particular?” Something hung unsaid in the words. The question of: Can you pay, and if so, how much?
I reached into the folds of my cloak, fingering one of the slender pockets. Rough-worn leather brushed back against my touch. I pinched the mouth of the purse and pulled it free. The familiar clink of metal sounded from within the bag.
The tavern owner bobbed his head in acquiescence and moved behind the counter. “What would you like? Most of my girls have left, not sure if there’s one or two still milling about. I’ll fetch what I can, but you’ll be mostly making do with what I’ve got ready and easy on hand, sieta?”
Eloine and I nodded and spoke in unison. “Sieta.”
“Something warm would probably do for drinks. Chocolate?” The drink wasn’t as common farther north and out toward the west, but Etaynia traded well enough with their neighbors to the south that I could hold out a small hope.
The innkeeper nodded. “Woman looks like she’ll need more than one.” His voice had stayed carefully neutral, but I could tell his concern rested in selling another drink more than Eloine’s health.
“One will be fine,” Eloine said. “I rather enjoy the rain against my skin. It doesn’t chill quite so much. You wouldn’t happen to have any leftover stew, perchance?”
The innkeeper nodded. “Pork, carrots, sugar, and marrow—farrow-grain. Will that do you?”
“Gods yes.” Eloine moved to a nearby table.
She’d missed the innkeeper’s lip stiffening at her comment. His eyes darkened a shade and a shadow fell over his brow. “There’s only one god.” He nodded brusquely over to the statue of Solus. “Our Sun, our Lord of Light and Harvest. Don’t care for what other people preach and pray to outside these borders, but a woman such as yourself, dark and kissed by his light, you should remember that. Should dress proper like one of ours too.…” He trailed off, brows furrowing as he shuffled off to get what we’d asked for. I waited till he had passed fully out of earshot before I came by Eloine’s side.
She smiled, gesturing for me to take a seat.
I did, holding her look as a question bubbled to mind.
Her lips pursed for the span of a breath. “A gentleman would have refused, giving me his hand first and easing me into my seat.” She gave me a knowing look, mouth quirking again to one side. It was a good act, but she’d made it clear my behavior hadn’t bothered her.
I raised my hands palms up nonchalantly. “It may come as a shock to you, but I am no gentleman. I can play one, sure—perfectly in fact. I’m nothing of the sort, however.”
“Mhm. Good.” She moved to me, slipping behind me as one of her hands fell to my shoulder.
I fought to suppress a shiver and willed my cloak into the definition of stillness.
One of her fingers trailed along my collar, gliding to the other side as she passed by. Eloine sat beside me, eyeing my cloak more than me now. “Odd.”
“What’s that?”
“Your cloak.” Her eyes narrowed as her face twisted in puzzlement. “I’m soaking wet, yet there’s not a drop on you.” She blinked and re-trained her stare like she wasn’t sure if she’d seen right the first time. “It was warm to the touch like someone’s skin after sitting under the sun. But the way it felt … it was like, like…” She trailed off, looking away and biting a corner of her lower lip.
I said nothing. Most people came to various conclusions about my cloak, normally settling upon the rational answer—the believable one: It was well-made, expensive, a material that defied what little they knew of the world.
It was easier to accept than the truth.
“Like blood.” She swallowed, looking more through me than at me now. “What is it?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but she waved me off with her hand, turning her attention to the table now with the same distant stare.
“Around him—a blood-red hame.” Recognition filled her eyes and, slowly, she turned to look at me as if just realizing I was there.
And stillness returned, almost like it had been following me all along rather than filling the Three Tales. I would have given anything to know how to break it. But in the moment, I didn’t.
The silence stretched out, making me acutely aware of the emptiness of the place. The soundlessness threatened to go on into the stonelike deadness of noise that could drive men mad until, finally, a reprieve.
“I’m going to ask you a question. I know I have no right to it, not with how I’ve slipped yours, but I’m going to regardless.”
All I could do was nod.
“Are you him?” She didn’t have to add anything else. The question was enough.
But I avoided it all the same. “Him, who?”
Something dark and hot kindled within her eyes. “Don’t. Many men have thought many things about me. All of them wrong. The one thing I cannot—will not—abide is thinking that I am stupid.”
Silence for the space of a heartbeat.
She broke it again.
“Over a dozen stories—legends—all so similar, yet worlds apart in other details. It’s almost as if someone, someone clever, twisted the tales over the years to be accounts of a dozen different men. But do you know what I’ve long since wondered?” She fixed me with a look that could have burned clean through oak.
I did, in fact, know. She’d all but handed me the answer, but I gave her what she needed to hear, knowing she’d return with the one thing I couldn’t bear to hear anyone speak. “No.”
“What if they were all one and the same? One man, one legend. One set of stories told over and over, warped the way a song is over time. Purposefully. Masterfully. By a storyteller, perhaps? By you.” She didn’t end on a question, doubling the intensity of her look. “Are you him that struck Khir Na Edderith, setting off a war with the Shaen? The one that broke the Rokashi? He who drowned the Zahinbahari in a storm. A man with a thousand faces. Are they in fact all one and the same? Is it all you?”
I spoke once of how the truth could break some people. I’d been right, and I wished I hadn’t been.
“Yes.” The word carried more weight and strength behind it than I’d anticipated. Wood creaked through the tavern as if come under a great pressure. Motes of dust, which somehow avoided the late-night cleaning, leapt to the air and scattered through the place. The world dimmed as candles flickered under a gust of wind that was not there.
Then, stillness.
“Ari.” She breathed my name like it was something forbidden. “The sword, the eagle, the lion. Fire binder. Lightning rider. Princesskiller.” The last one struck like a hammer to my heart, and the blow rang through me, threatening to break me to pieces.
“What do you know? What does anyone?” My words were acid, strong enough to gnaw at iron. Wood shuddered against my fingernails as I raked the surface of the table in a momentary fit.
“Only the bits told tall and loud through taverns across the world. Only the tales you’ve told, preened and molded, to suit your purpose. Gods can only guess what that is?”
I glared at her. It wasn’t a thing of small and fleeting anger. It was hot and hard, like an iron rod pulled from a forge. “My purpose? My purpose is whatever I damn well please. My purpose is to, for once, be free to walk this world without a cadre of forgotten beings, the blackened Shaen, hounding me. My purpose is to maybe do some good. Do something as little, silly, and undeniably good as make people laugh and smile. It’s the least I can do after living the life I have.” And brought about all of its consequences.
“My purpose is to be able to move wherever I see fit, when I see fit. If I want the stars for company for a night. I will do so. If I want a nice tavern bed. Then I’ll choose so. That is my purpose.”
Eloine had sat with the stillness to shame the wooden carving of Solus. She licked her lips, still holding my gaze, looking like she was searching for the right words. “I know what that’s like.” She had spoken so softly that a simple puff of wind could have drowned the words into nothingness.
I didn’t know if what she’d said was meant for me, or if it was just an exclamation driven by something deep inside her not meant for the ears of others.
The innkeeper arrived just then to set down a pair of mugs for us. He took a step, half turning to address us. “When I come back with your food, I’m expecting a certain number of things.” He held up a finger. “Some coin, and not kept tight in your purse. Some eating and drinking of the quiet and content sort. And that you two will keep your damn lovers’ spats to yourselves. Don’t much care for your problems. Don’t have the ear to hear them. And that goes doubly so for the folk sleeping here tonight. Understand?”
He didn’t wait to hear the answer.
I turned the heated look I’d given Eloine on his back. My fingers flexed against my staff until dull pressure radiated through my knuckles.
Eloine’s hand fell on one of my shoulders and squeezed hard.
I blinked, slipping out of the folds of my mind and the binding I’d been working toward. Numbers passed by as I counted by odds in an effort to calm myself. It didn’t work.
Her hand fell to my cheek, putting a gentle pressure as she slid it down along my jaw.
I turned and followed the moving of her hand. Words fell through my lips before I realized what I was doing. “There are ten bindings all men must know.” The simple tenet steeled me, driving home the grueling lessons and philosophy of a life past.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.” I took her hand within mine. “Nothing. Just a memory.” I picked up my mug with the weak hope of losing myself in it. A hint of almond tickled my nose followed by a tinge of something else as well. I took a sip and clicked my tongue as the faintest bite of cayenne made itself known. Spiced chocolate.
I took the next sip with the intent of letting it sit in my mouth, savoring it. The smooth softness of the chocolate rolled through me. It tempered the sharpness of the pepper in the best of ways, sending a sweet heat through my mouth that washed my mind clean of our stroll through the rain.
Eloine had only taken one sip, watching me over the rim of her mug. “If I ask you to tell me, to tell me all of it. Every bit of your story. Will you?”
I don’t know what prompted me to answer as I did. A beautiful face? A certain something, indescribable, about her? The weight of my own past and story, clawing at my sternum and the hollow of my throat for a way out. That maybe if she heard it all, she’d understand. She was different, of course.
Any storybook romantic answer would have done. They were all wrong. And they were all right in that moment.
“Yes.”
Because there’s nothing so horrible as a locked-away story.
SIX
A DINNER INTERRUPTED
Our meal arrived, and I’d never been so relieved for the break in conversation. The innkeeper bent slightly and placed a pair of wooden bowls and tin spoons before us. Two cups of the same metal, holding water, were placed next to them. A great deal can be learned about a place by the crockery used.
Some taverns prided themselves on their cutlery and other utensils. One place would take the painstaking effort of having every bit detailed and of the highest quality. Most fell somewhere in between, trying to balance their budget with what they could carry to entice a better kind of customer.
This place was not such an establishment. There was nothing wrong with it, but another look around spoke volumes. This was a place for the common man, with no idea of ever entertaining anyone beyond that. And the innkeeper liked it that way. The sturdiness of everything within the tavern, including the statue of Solus, inspired familiarity for his clientele.
Nothing was lavish or ornate. Nothing would make someone feel out of place here. And nothing would prompt him to ill behavior all under the watchful eye of his god.
Our meal threw up wisps of steam and pulled at me with the smell of meat and spices. Slivers of shredded carrot floated through it along with nubs of potatoes.
I took a spoonful, blowing a steady breath over it. The first taste filled me with warmth. Marrow and cream made themselves known in the stew’s broth. Eloine and I ate with a quiet speed only known to travelers and performers. Silent. Focused on our food.
We’d downed over a third of the contents before revisiting the topic we’d let sit.
Eloine sucked a spoonful of the broth only, chasing it down with a swig of water. Her mouth moved for a second without sound like she was debating what to say next. “Why?” The single word was enough, I suppose.
I rolled my wrist and signaled for her to elaborate as I shoveled a few more spoonfuls of stew into my mouth.
“Why hide it all—hide yourself, your story?” She shook her head, dark hair still wet but springing a hint from the action. Her mouth pulled tight in a way that did nothing to thin the fullness of her lips. “The stories: Ari, Aresh, Ba’shaen, the sword, the Lion of Amir…” Eloine exhaled before draining the last dregs of her chocolate, “They’re all just you,” her voice but a whisper, suggesting she could scarcely believe the truth. “How? Why? Does anyone else know?”
“How else? Because. And a few people, and some things that fall well outside that term.” I took another spoonful of stew, deciding to follow her example and drained my chocolate in full. The last note of sweet and spice was a wonderful spark against the backs of my throat and tongue.
Eloine’s eyes flashed hot again. “When I asked for a clever man, I’d hoped he’d be clever enough to know when not to be.”
I permitted myself the shadow of a smile. Going too far in prodding a woman was never conducive to one’s health.
“Why turn the stories the way you have, then? The same tale, depending on who tells it, paints you as hero or villain. They’ve all been twisted so many ways most people can’t even believe they’re true, despite—” She waved to our surroundings. “Amir marches on Sevinter. People across the world report raiding parties of Shaen—Shaen! Stories come to life, turning peaceful hamlets and villages into smoldering ruins amidst a winter’s freeze … all in the middle of a warm spring? What’s anyone to believe?”
I pushed my bowl away from me, giving her a calm and level stare. “Whatever they want. That’s the point. That’s why I let the stories get out of hand, tweaking them when and where I could. Something gets told enough times by the wrong sorts of tongues, well, it goes on to take a life of its own. Several lives in fact. Each as true and false as the ones before it. The fact it exists as a story makes it true to itself. The fact it gets the details wrong just makes it false in accuracy, that’s all.”
She arched a brow. “Cavalier way to look at something your people hold so dear.”
I froze, eyeing her unblinkingly. “My people?”
“It’s in the look of you, but more than that.” Eloine furrowed her brows and stared at me, taking in every detail. “It was how you spoke when you told the story. The air shook and bowed. There was … magic in your voice. It was the gift of the Ruma, the second folk to walk this world. A people born of fire and the distant echoes of the first folk. You huddled for warmth around man’s light, and with the faint voices of your ancestors, you wove sounds into stories. The first tellers.”
The saliva ran dry in my mouth as I tried to swallow my shock. “Where did you hear that? How do you know of the Ruma?”
She waggled a finger in admonishment. “No. It’s not your turn for asking. Gods far and wide know that you’ve raised plenty enough questions for me. It’s time for you to answer. You promised, after all.”
I wanted to point out that while I had agreed, I’d never promised. But my deliberation in breaking into my story had served me in other ways. I’d learned a bit more about Eloine the longer we spoke.
She had handled a specific breed of horse from far into the east. Her clothing and performances spoke of gifts I’ve never seen in all my life, which says a great deal by itself. And she knew the truth, even if partly, about me, as well as had an understanding of my people.
The last one was far out of the ordinary. Enough so for me to wager comfortably she wasn’t some common traveler, beauty notwithstanding, trading songs and dances for rooms and meals. She was something else—something more.
And every bit of me burned in wanting to know what—know more. I wanted to know her from the curls of her dark hair to the arches of her feet. I couldn’t say why. It was a yearning, like I was tethered to her like the sun and moon, each following the other in an endless cycle. Yet, they never truly shared sky together.
In those brief instances where one danced too close, eclipsing the other, they brought about moments neither could enjoy.
