Page 36 of A Tale of Mirth & Magic

B ARRA

E likki was gone.

Just a few short hours ago we’d been together in this room. Talking. Fucking. Laughing. And now she’d left.

I thought back to that moment when I asked her to come stay with me. I had truly believed that her gift—this beautiful necklace that she had poured so much of her time and magic into for me—meant something.

Not just that she valued our time together. But that she wanted more . More of me. More of our… relationship? What I had started to hope was the beginning of a relationship, at least.

The way Elikki had looked when she gave me the necklace, when she kissed me—a sadness like she was mourning the loss of me while I was still in the room. I’d thought she might want another option. A future together, or at least the possibility of one.

I had been so fucking wrong.

Inviting her to Nepu only hastened our ending. It was the same story I’d written for myself time and time again with previous people, just in a different font. I’d put myself out there again. Scared off someone wonderful again. Got my heart broken. Again .

When would I learn? Elikki had been completely honest with me from the start. She didn’t do serious. This was supposed to be short-lived, just fun. Two travelers on an unexpected road trip, fighting bounty hunters and having some amazing sex.

I should have kept my mouth shut. Swallowed my feelings and enjoyed the time we had, whatever days were left.

It still would have broken my heart when she eventually moved on, but all those extra memories…

I could have had so much more Elikki to think about, hold close, in the months and years after I returned to my monotonous life.

Who invites someone home to live with them after a week? Who tells someone that they love them as that person is actively leaving you, rejecting you?

She was right to go , I berated myself as I dragged a palm over my face, rubbing away tears.

I had to get out of this room. Maybe I’d go see Pebble.

It had been a couple of days since I checked in on my horse at the inn’s stables.

Dragging myself to my feet, I took a few steadying breaths, then headed downstairs.

When I entered the inn’s main room, still half full despite the late hour, the innkeeper behind the bar looked over. She was talking to a cloaked figure who leaned forward, listening intently.

I stopped abruptly. Bounty hunter.

We thought they’d given up. There hadn’t been any sign of one since we’d arrived. Thank the goddess Elikki was gone, safe somewhere else for the night.

The innkeeper nodded and jerked her thumb at me.

I tensed. There was nowhere to go. I’d have to deal with them here.

The cloaked person looked over to where the innkeeper pointed, to where I stood like a seven-and-a-half-foot-tall statue by the stairwell.

I desperately wished I’d strapped on my sword before leaving my room.

Their face was partly in shadow. Shaking their hood back, they peered across the candlelight room at me—

“ Telen ?” I cried in disbelief.

My eldest sister’s dark brown face broke into a wide grin. She strode toward me, hands in her pockets.

“Well, well. Glad to see you’re alive, little brother.”

“What—what are you doing here?” I returned her tight, quick hug, bending down to her shorter human height.

She gave me a bemused glance before flagging down the innkeeper from across the bar. “Looking for you, of course.”

“But… why? Oh no—is everyone all right? What happened?”

“Everyone’s fine, fine. No, I want to know what happened to you ,” she said, then paused, eyes tracking across my face and likely bloodshot eyes. “But first—I know you don’t often drink, Bar, but let me get you something. You look terrible.”

“Wow, thanks,” I grumbled under my breath. Telen truly had no filter. But I didn’t protest as she got two hot toddies and led us to a quiet table in the corner.

“Now sit,” my sister said, placing a massive, steaming tankard in my hands, “and tell me why I found you here, days away from where we thought you were going on business, looking like someone just cut down all the flowers in your precious front garden.”

I stared into the amber depths of my tankard, not knowing where to start. The spiced lemon-honey scent lifted to my nose, the heat of the mug a welcome comfort. Telen waited patiently, sipping at her own hot toddy and watching me as she played with one of the short braids that framed her face.

In starts and stops, I began to recount what happened.

I told her everything, from the charged encounter between Elikki and Felsith in the market, ending with her breaking his wrist, to the mass fight that we kind of accidentally started in the bar later, when I broke his other wrist. I explained our flight from the town, how I pretended to El that I had business in Old Orchard, our tumultuous and exciting journey, the bounty hunters, falling for her, and the blissful days we’d had together here.

Choking out some of the words, I told her about everything that had happened tonight.

How I’d messed up. How she’d run away from me, and she was going to leave town tomorrow.

At some point Telen had taken my hand, or I’d taken hers, and she held on with her firm, steady grip, strong from years of apprenticing with Ma Reese in the forge.

When I finally finished, we sat together in silence. I felt raw, empty. Though it also felt good, somehow, to get it all out. I slumped back in my seat, wiping my face again with the handkerchief Telen passed me.

She had finished her drink while I talked, and now reached over for mine, still untouched on the table. She took a long swallow, then leaned back too and said, “Well, why don’t you go with her?”

“… what?”

Fixing me with her look—the one that said don’t act dumb, dummy —she said again, “Why. Don’t you. Go with. Her. This Elikki woman—if she can’t come back with you, why not travel with her?”

My brain whirred. “I can’t… I can’t just set off… traveling, for—for who knows how long! I have all of you at home. Our mas, and Monty, Sassura. And our family business. I need to be there to do the books, do the orders, keep things run— why do you keep shaking your head? ”

Telen barked out a laugh and said, “Bar, I love you, but we’re not exactly going to fall apart if you leave. I know how to do the books. You taught me yourself. I already handle them when you’re out of town on customer trips. We’d be fine.”

“But—I have a house. The garden. My—my plants.”

She shrugged. “I’ll stay there if you want, in the spare room.

Keep an eye on things. I’ve been meaning to find my own place and move out of our mas’ anyway.

And I bet Ma Wren would be happy to help with the garden.

Will keep her from fussing over Monty and the pregnancy.

” She snorted, taking another gulp of my hot toddy.

“Goddess knows she needs a new project, or Monty is going to combust from the overattention one of these days.”

“I can’t ask you all to do that. I should be there, taking care of you too. Monty’s baby is coming in a few months. I wouldn’t see Sassura off for her next performing season. I’m already going to be so behind on work as it is…”

Telen just said, “The girls will understand. Our mas will too. Stop trying to come up with excuses, Bar.” Softly, she added, “We’ve watched you be unhappy for so long.

Giving up on love when it’s something you’ve always wanted—throwing yourself into work and pointless tasks—it’s been hard for me, for all of us, to see you drawing in on yourself these past years. ”

I closed my eyes, letting my head fall back on the wall behind me. Tried to let myself picture it, what the reality of what she suggested would look like. Traveling with El. Leaving my home behind.

Somehow, the idea didn’t scare me. It didn’t feel like a sacrifice.

I just couldn’t believe it hadn’t even occurred to me.

I was so sure that after a life of no real home, no real family, this was something substantial that I could offer her.

That she’d want stability, comfort, and a place of her own because that’s what I knew and I understood.

And when she said it wasn’t what she wanted, I didn’t bother to fight for her. I just let her walk away.

Releasing a long sigh, I said, “I doubt El would even want me to go with her now. She probably never wants to see me again.”

“If that were true, I doubt she’d have asked you to come see her at the market tomorrow morning.

Besides—if there’s even a slight chance that she’d accept, don’t you have to at least try?

I certainly will never forgive you if you come back to Nepu with me without talking to her.

” At that, Telen drained the last of the hot toddy and burped lightly in my face.

Waving the stink away with a grimace, I said, “I suppose you’re right. Disgusting, but right.”

“I always am,” she said with a smile, then stood, stretching out limbs tight from the long day’s ride. “I have more to tell you about my journey, but I’m exhausted. Going to get a room here. Meet in the morning for breakfast?”

“Yes, but early. At dawn. El said she was going to try and get to the market as soon as possible tomorrow, to get a good spot.”

“All right, all right. Night, little brother.” She yawned.

“Good night,” I said. “And Telen—thank you.”

She waved me off and went in search of the innkeeper. I headed up to my room, head spinning with everything I’d realized tonight. Going over and over my plans for what to say to El when I saw her.

This could go terribly. Again. But like Telen said: if there was any chance, I had to try.

And if we were completely wrong, and El just wanted nothing more to do with me, I swore to myself that I would let her go. Even if it ripped my heart apart irrevocably.