Page 27 of The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire

I glance up, annoyed that I’ve already become predictable to him.

Somehow, Neirin has fastened himself to my side without my noticing.

His chest brushes my arm, and he’s staring down at my grasp on the blade with a tailor’s keen eye.

He wraps his hand around my straining wrist, and the breath in my throat catches.

He tugs my arm, but I refuse to give in. I hold my rigid posture, shooting him an irate look.

“I’m not going to drop it,” I snap.

Neirin laughs. “You will drop it, but not for a lack of trying. You’re holding it like it’s an ax and you’re going after a particularly big tree.”

“It’s a fight,” I say, trying to sound confident. “I’ve got to be sturdy.”

He shakes his head. “Not with a rapier. You need to be light and flexible, and your grip needs to be loose.” His eyes drift up from my hand on the hilt to find my own. “May I?”

I think this is the first time he’s asked permission for anything. I swallow the lump in my throat and nod.

With feather-light touch, Neirin’s fingers curl around my own, coaxing them to loosen, and his thumb slips between my palm and the hilt. I try to hide the shuddering breath I take. He moves behind me, adjusting my grip, moving my arm to the correct position.

“Swing the blade like you’re fishing,” he says.

“This isn’t some great sword—you aren’t aiming to chop off any limbs, just to slice and maim,” His chest is warm at my back, and his chin brushes the top of my head, resting there for a moment.

He flicks his hand, taking mine and the rapier with it, and grips the top of my other arm, holding me in place against him.

“That will be enough, as it’s made of iron.

There’s an old adage that says you should hold a sword like it’s a bird: tight enough so it can’t escape, but light enough that you don’t hurt it. ”

My reply hitches in my mouth. I can think of nothing except his hand covering mine, and how he’s so gentle with me even as I crash around him like a bull.

Gentler than anyone’s been in my whole life.

As if I’m something he could break—as if I’m something he’s afraid to break. A bird in his hand. Or a sword.

I bite the inside of my cheek. “Maybe someone should’ve told your brother that.”

He lets me go. I can breathe again as he steps away and takes up his own blade once more.

Too late I realize that in trying to push him away I’ve shoved him far too hard. I assumed that everything nasty I say to Neirin bounces off him and is forgotten with ease. Perhaps this—his brother—cannot be.

“Who do you think taught me?” Neirin says, the words clipped. His jaw is tight as he demonstrates the proper way to move a blade.

I should apologize. My mouth doesn’t open, but the pit in my stomach does.

By the time he starts showing me how to parry, I feel rather sick with myself, and I’m so lost for what to say that when he tells me to parry I almost want to tell him that my surname is Parry.

And isn’t that funny? I’ve never thought of it before, but it suits me well.

I’m very good at it—the act of holding someone back with a weapon, of blocking any possible attack. Too good, maybe.

But telling him would be stupid. It would be breaking the very first rule I learned about the teg, and I’d be putting myself at Neirin’s mercy. And yet it still dances on my tongue.

On his fourth swing, I catch his blade mid-arc.

We remain there, staring at each other. Neirin’s face is blank.

I haven’t seen him like this before. He’s usually so fascinated and entertained by everything I do, and I hadn’t realized until now how much I needed that.

I’ve lashed out at him as I do to everyone else, and suddenly, he’s looking at me as they all do.

We’re still locked together when I finally apologize.

“I’m sorry.”

His eyes remain shuttered. “For successfully blocking me?”

“For”—I take a breath to steady myself, knowing just how terrible I am at being nice—“what I said about your brother. It wasn’t needed.”

Neirin pulls his sword back carefully, letting it hang at his side.

“I do believe that’s the second apology I’ve managed to wring from you,” he says.

“Don’t get used to it,” I counter, preparing myself for another back and forth. Longing for it, even. I like how we talk—trading barbs and grappling for the upper hand. It’s fun. I’m good at it.

What I’m not prepared for is when Neirin drops his wooden sword and surges forward, breaking through my defense. For half a second, I think he’s attacking, using my surprise to land a winning blow, but… he doesn’t. Neirin does something even more unthinkable.

He hugs me.

His hands grip me tight, fingers burrowing into my bodice.

My own arms freeze—my sword hand hanging limp as the wooden blade slips from its grasp, and the other hand hovering over his shoulder blades.

I can’t see my hands, but I feel them shake.

The tremor works its way up my arm to my body and, against my will—against everything I’ve ever told myself—I tremble.

My hand lands on his back; I don’t remember moving it.

“Thank you.” Neirin’s words ruffle my hair as he rests his chin on the crown of my head.

I’m welcome in his arms. I could get used to it. I ought not.

“What for?” I let my other arm wrap around him too, my hand still on the sword’s hilt.

Before he can answer, a clattering bang echoes through the grounds.

I jump back but don’t get far. Neirin’s arms have tightened around me, pressing me close to his chest. He’s shielding me, though I’m the one who has a real weapon about their person.

My heart—small, rotten thing that it is—swells in my chest. He turns, taking me with him, head snapping around, searching for the source of the noise.

It’s hard to miss.

At the edge of the clearing, at the very boundary of his property, stands one of the teg. Neirin relaxes against me, a sigh reverberating through his chest.

“Who’s that?” he wonders aloud. “Can’t be of my court—they’d be able to move through the shield if they…”

He trails off and I crane around, looking for the invisible shield that ensconces us.

For the first time, I can see it, but only in parts.

There’s an opalescent shimmer in the air, rippling up and down in a straight line.

Just behind it, the figure stands ominously in the shadow of the trees.

The teg jerks violently, a coal-dusted palm landing on the shield, sending reverberations of pale light up to the very sky itself, and as she hammers, that loud crashing sound fills the garden.

My fingers reach for the iron hilt at my waist. Neirin finally releases me, but as I step out of the circle of his arms, he grabs my free hand. We take careful steps closer to the barrier and the person waiting just beyond.

“Not here,” Neirin mutters.

It’s a girl, I realize. Her eyes are crusted over with black stone, but beneath the black powder and the lumps of coal that erupt from her flesh like buboes, her ears are curved, like mine.

“She’s human.”

Is this what Ceridwen and I will become? I wonder, stomach churning. Has it already taken Ceridwen?

Neirin’s throat bobs. “An unfortunate wanderer.”

“Or a failed champion,” I say quietly.

The thin, membranous shield beneath her hand begins to darken. It hardens, turns to stone, then starts to crack, creeping down and up at the same time. We watch it spread in jagged silence until Neirin takes a sharp breath, eyes wide with barely hidden terror.

“Fancy testing out that rapier of yours?”

“Not really.” I swallow, steeling myself. “But I’ll have to, eventually, right?”

Neirin gives a rigid nod.

I extract my hand from his and unsheathe the rapier in a fluid motion that doesn’t betray the cold terror in my chest. My fingers are a vice on the hilt, until I remember what Neirin said. Hold your sword like it’s a bird. I loosen my grip and raise the blade as I step toward the barrier.

“Can I pass through it?” I ask.

“You’re part of my court,” Neirin tells me. “It’s no more than air to you.”

I put distance between myself and the girl, then take a tentative step through. The barrier passes over me like mist, leaving a faint sheen on my skin.

I swipe my blade in the air, catching her eye. Her nostrils flare. She can smell it, like a fairy would. Odd.

She hunches and stares me down. I don’t flinch; I just wait to see what she’ll do, though my heart is hammering fast.

I don’t have to wait long.

She charges forward with no sense of self-preservation.

I flick my wrist like the blade is a fishing line, just as Neirin taught me.

My movements are as controlled as hers are wild.

The thin blade slashes her arm, and she lets out a piercing shriek as blood—still red, still warm—leaks from her flesh and washes away the coal. She rights herself and rushes me again.

I dodge back and swipe again, catching the palm of her outstretched hand. This time, I smell her flesh as it sizzles. She recoils and then lunges once more for me. She’s slower now, her steps becoming heavy, clumsier. I’ve poisoned her.

She makes one last helpless flail, the jerky motion almost knocking me off balance.

My sword hardly glances her neck, just nicks her throat, but it’s enough.

The final brush of iron makes her stumble, slowly, to the ground.

She twitches at my feet, face in the dirt.

The mark on the shield remains, but it stops spreading.

It seeps into the cracks and hardens like old cement.

A cool breeze shoots through me, and I glance around in surprise.

It was warmer on Neirin’s side of the barrier, far more comfortable.

My hair stands on end, and a sense of wrongness cuts through me like iron.

I’m frozen, staring into the dark forest—into the truth of Eu gwlad, until I hear Neirin’s voice.

“You’re a quick study.”

His hand breaches the shield, reaching for me. I take it without thought and let him pull me back into his timeless court, into his grasp, and Y Lle Tywyll fades to little more than a strange dream.