Chapter 6 No.6

Memory

It was the cold that woke Yelena. She opened eyes gritty from crying herself to sleep and saw that the shutters had blown open on one of the windows, letting in the silvery moonlight and a drift of white flakes, the snow too fine to linger, melting away into tears on the blankets the moment that they landed.

Her breath hung on the air as mist. The fire had died down to embers, and barely heated the large nursery chamber.

She never barred the shutters, but she knew that she had closed them. Which meant...

"Sylvin?" She sat up.

There was blood on the windowsill, and she could smell the sharp metallic bite of it.

The moonlight caught in the bright silver of his hair. It had been braided back, but strands had pulled free and floated, gossamer fine, as he poured water into the washbowl from the jug. The shadows dragged across his face, the monotone of night hinting at the man he was yet to become.

How old he was remained a mystery. He did not know, but he matured at the same rate as she, a half-Fae, did, and he seemed to be within a couple years of her own thirteen years.

He carried the bowl over to her moving with care so as not to spill it, but also painfully, stiffly.

"What has happened to you?" She exclaimed in alarm seeing him wince.

"Mmm," he sat on the edge of the bed, placing the bowl onto her lap.

The moonlight through the open window showed that his shirt was in ruins, torn and filthy, the white linen blackened with blood.

"Oh, f-k Sylvin," her use of the grow-up curse word pulled a look of amusement from him, and he raised his eyebrows. "Oh, don't scold," she told him, lifting the edges of his shirt to see the damage below. His back was crisscrossed with marks, many which had broken his skin and bled, but others that were beginning to bruise, or just showed as hot red lines.

"Sylvin," she whispered, distressed by what he had endured and how much pain he was in.

"It is nothing," he said softly. "Wash the wounds."

He lifted the shirt slowly with a hiss of breath over his head and passed the bundle of cloth to her. He was filthy, his fingernails rimmed with black, and rope burn ringed his wrists. His arms and shoulders showed the development of muscles that she knew came from training with a sword.

She chewed her bottom lip, tears threatening, and touched her fingertips to his skin where there was a patch spared injury as she closed her eyes and drew upon her power. She heard his sharp breath and opened her eyes to find that he had turned his head to look at her, the moonlight catching on the metallic silver shards of colour within his grey eyes.

"I'm just learning," she told him, embarrassed by the look on his face. "My mother was teaching me but..." Tears blinded her, and her grief pulled the corners of her mouth down as she fought to smother it. She laid her palm onto his healed back, the terrible punishment recorded in raised scars across the skin, but no longer causing him pain. "I'm not very good," she apologised. "There are scars."

"You are good," he told her.

The grief won and she leaned her forehead forwards onto his shoulder as she cried. He saved the bowl from spilling, leaning forward to set it to the floor, before turning on the bed in order to put his arms around her.

"What has happened, Yelena?" He murmured as he stroked his hands up and down her back.

"My mother," she sobbed the words out. "Died."

His hum was sorrowful, and he held her until she brought the tears under control and leaned back from him, wiping her face onto her sleeves. "Let's get you cleaned up," she sniffed back the last strains and busied herself tearing the shirt into strips.

He retrieved the bowl from the floor and dipped a finger into it. Steam rose, and their eyes met acknowledging that he, too, could use magic. She wet the cloths and used them to clean his face and neck, before rising from the bed in order to fetch her hairbrush and kneeling behind him to brush out and re-braid his hair.

When she was done, she put her arms around his shoulders and leaned against him, seeking comfort from his solid presence. He dipped his head, pressing his lips against the cross of her arms beneath his chin. "I am sorry, Yelena," he said. "About your mother."

She nodded. "I don't know what I will do without her. I don't know how to run the keep. I don't know enough about my magic... and it is outlawed by the Fae for humans and by the humans for Fae to wield it, so I am doubly cursed, being half of each. Each side makes rules that crush their people between them," she tightened her grip on him as the tears rose again. "My father... The grief is heavy on him..."

He turned within her grasp and put his arms around her, and they sat with the snow drifting over them, holding each other until she sighed in a breath. "I should find you new clothes, Sylvin. You will wait?" She leaned back to meet his eyes. "You won't slip away again whilst I am gone? Please."

"I will wait."

She tiptoed through the sleeping keep, down the main staircase into the hall where the servants lay where-ever there was space upon the floor before the fire. Optimistic dogs and cats took advantage of the sleepers and curled amongst them. Someone was snoring, but most of the servants were still, deeply asleep, exhausted by their day.

One of the manservants, Jilseth, and a maid f-ked beneath a table and did not notice her as she passed.

Yelena knew that, like many of the able-bodied men in the household, Jilseth had been recruited by the Fae to go to war and spent this last night farewelling his lover, hoping, perhaps, to leave her with child so that his family line would continue should he die in battle.

In the kitchen Arithen slept before the fire. The table was set with produce ready for preparation in the morning, and Yelena selected from amongst it.

"What are you about, child?" Arithen whispered, opening an eye.

Yelena froze. "I am sorry to wake you," she whispered back. "Sylvin..."

"Ah," Arithen, like all of the keep, was used to the silver haired boy's coming and going. "There is some bread left from yesterday's bake," she pointed.

"Thank you," Yelena took it. "He needs clothes."

"Mmm," Arithen swung to sitting and then pushed to her feet. "I'll go unlock the chest and bring you what we have."

"Thank you."

Whilst she waited, Yelena took a cloth bag from where it hung on the wall and filled it.

"Here," Arithen returned with a bundle of cloth. "Bring down anything that does not fit in the morning."

"Thank you, Arithen."

"He will not stay?" She asked as she laid back and arranged her blankets around her.

"It is not his nature to stay," Yelena shrugged sadly.

"Mmm, that is true," Arithen sighed. "Goodnight, My Lady."

He had added wood to the fire and closed the shutters when she returned to the room. She set the bag and clothing onto the bed. "Hopefully some of these will fit," she shook out a pair of trousers and handed them to him.

He held them against himself and shrugged, toeing off his boots and pushing his trousers down his legs without any modesty. She rolled her eyes and looked away, shaking her head. "One day, Sylvin, you will learn to dress out of sight. Here," she kept her eyes down and held out a shirt.

He joined her at the bed, looking within the bag before taking out a carrot. He chewed on it whilst they looked through the clothes. He put a second shirt into the bag with the food and draped a cloak around his shoulders with a crooked smile.

She reached out and straightened it's sit around his shoulders. "I think this was my father's, but now he has new," she observed. "The colour is good on you." The blue was striking against the silver of hair, and the grey of his eyes.

He leaned forward and kissed her, a brush of lips against lips, sweet and soft, and she smiled as he leaned back. "What was that for?" She asked him.

"I love you," he said.

She placed a hand on his chest. "I love you too, Sylvin. Come," she patted the bed. "Sleep. We'll talk some more in the morning." Using her magic and the night-time adventure had tired her, and she was ready to return to sleep. "Stay and sleep," she took his hand and tugged him onto the bed with her.

He pulled the blanket up and lay with and arm over her. She took his hand and held it against her chest as she closed her eyes, the warmth of him against her back comforting. "Why did they whip you, Sylvin?" She whispered.

"They wish to train the wolf like a dog, and wonder why it bites them," he replied softly.

"Oh, Sylvin," she smiled at little because it was so typical of him. "Stay here, where you can be the wolf, without anyone to whip you." She knew that he would not, but hope had her suggest it anyway.

"Hmm," he snuggled closer and after a while, lulled by the beat of his heart and the rise and fall of his chest, she fell asleep.

She woke alone.