The Wise Man's Fear

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SIX Returning

After my encounter with the Cthaeh, it was a long time before I was my right self again.

I slept a great deal, but only fitfully as I was endlessly set upon by terrible dreams. Some of them were vivid and impossible to forget. These were mostly of my mother, my father, my troupe. Worse were the ones where I woke weeping with no memory of what I’d dreamed, only an aching chest and an emptiness in my head like the bloody gap left by a missing tooth.

The first time I awoke like this, Felurian was there, watching me. Her expression was so gentle and worried that I expected her to murmur softly to me and stroke my hair, as Auri had done in my room months ago.

But Felurian did nothing of the sort. “are you well?” she asked.

I had no answer for this. I was blurry with memory, confusion, and grief. Not trusting myself to speak without bursting into tears again, I merely shook my head.

Felurian bent down and kissed me on the corner of my mouth, looked at me for a long moment, and sat back up. Then she went to the pool and brought me back a drink of water in her cupped hands.

Over the following days Felurian did not press me with questions or try to draw me out. She occasionally tried to tell me stories, but I couldn’t focus on them, so they made less sense than ever. Some parts made me weep uncontrollably, though the stories themselves had nothing in them that was sad.

Once I woke to find her gone, only to have her return hours later carrying a strange green fruit bigger than my head. She smiled shyly and handed it to me, showing me how to peel off the thin leathery skin to reveal the orange meat inside. Pulpy and tangy-sweet, it pulled apart in spiraling segments.

We ate these silently, until nothing was left but a round, hard, slippery seed. It was dark brown and so big I could not close my hand around it. With a slight flourish, Felurian cracked this open against a rock and showed me that the inside was dry, like a roasted nut. We ate this too. It tasted dark and peppery, vaguely reminiscent of smoked salmon.

Nestled inside that was another seed, white as bone and the size of a marble. This Felurian gave to me. It was candy-sweet and slightly gummy, like a caramel.

One time she left me alone for endless hours, only to return with two brown birds, one carefully cupped in each hand. They were smaller than sparrows, with striking, leaf-green eyes. She set them down next to where I lay on the cushions, and when she whistled, they began to sing. Not snippets of birdsong, they sang an actual song. Four verses with a chorus between. First they sang together, then in a simple harmony.

Once I woke and she gave me a drink in a leather cup. It smelled of violets and tasted of nothing at all, but it was clear and warm and clean in my mouth, like I was drinking summer sunlight.

Another time she gave me a smooth red stone that was warm in my hand. After several hours it hatched like an egg, revealing a creature like a tiny squirrel that chittered angrily at me before running away.

Once I woke and she was not nearby. Looking around I saw her sitting on the edge of the water, arms wrapped around her knees. I could barely hear the gentle song of her sobbing quietly to herself.

I slept and I woke. She gave me a ring made from a leaf, a cluster of golden berries, a flower that opened and closed at the stroking of a finger. . . .

And once, when I startled awake with my face wet and my chest aching, she reached out to lay her hand on top of mine. The gesture was so tentative, her expression so anxious, you would think she had never touched a man before. As if she was worried I might break or burn or bite. Her cool hand lay on mine for a moment, gentle as a moth. She squeezed my hand softly, waited, then pulled away.

It struck me as odd at the time. But I was too clouded with confusion and grief to think clearly. Only now, looking back, do I realize the truth of things. With all the awkwardness of a young lover, she was trying to comfort me, and she didn’t have the slightest idea how.

Still, all things mend with time. My dreams receded. My appetite returned. I grew clearheaded enough to banter with Felurian a bit. Shortly after that, I recovered enough to flirt. When this happened, her relief was palpable, as if she couldn’t relate to a creature that did not want to kiss her.

Last came my curiosity, the surest sign I was my own true self again. “I never asked you how went your final workings with the shaed,” I said.

Her face lit. “it is done!” I could see the pride in her eyes. She took my hand and pulled me to the edge of the pavilion. “the iron was not an easy thing, but it is done.” She started forward, then stopped herself. “can you find it?”

I took a long, careful look around. Even though she’d taught me what to look for, it was a long moment before I spotted a subtle depth in the darkness of a nearby tree. I reached out and drew my shaed from the concealing shadow.

Felurian skipped to my side, laughing as if I had just won a game. She caught me around the neck and kissed me with the wildness of a dozen children.

She had never let me wear the shaed before, and I marveled as she spread it over my naked shoulders. It was nearly weightless and softer than the richest velvet. It felt like wearing a warm breeze, the same breeze that had brushed me in the darkened forest glade where Felurian had taken me to gather the shadows.

I thought of going to the forest pool to see how I looked in the water’s reflection, but Felurian threw herself onto me. Bearing me to the ground, she landed astride me, my shaed spread beneath us like a thick blanket. She gathered the edges of it around us, then kissed my chest, my neck. Her tongue was hot against my skin.

“this way,” she said against my ear, “whenever your shaed wraps you, you will think of me. when it touches you it will seem like my touch.” She moved slowly against me, rubbing the length of her naked body along mine. “through all the other women you will remember Felurian, and you will return.”

After that I knew my time in the Fae was drawing to a close. The Cthaeh’s words stuck in my mind like burrs, goading me out into the world. The fact that I had been within a stone’s throw of the man who had killed my parents and not realized it left a bitter taste in my mouth that even Felurian’s kisses could not erase. And what the Cthaeh had said of Denna kept playing over and over in my head.

Eventually I awoke and knew the time had come. I rose, put my travelsack in order, and dressed for the first time in ages. The feeling of clothes against my skin felt odd after all this time. How long had I been gone? I brushed my fingers through my beard and shrugged the thought away. Guessing was pointless when I would know the answer soon enough.

Turning, I saw Felurian standing in the center of the pavilion, her expression sad. For a moment I thought she might protest my leaving, but she did nothing of the sort. Moving to my side, she fastened the shaed around my shoulders, reminding me of a mother dressing her child against the cold. Even the butterflies that followed her seemed melancholy.

She led me through the forest for hours until we came to a pair of tall greystones. She drew up the hood of my shaed and bid me close my eyes. Then she led me in a brief circle and I felt a subtle change in the air. When I opened my eyes I could tell this forest was not the same one I had been walking through a moment before. The strange tension in the air was gone. This was the mortal world.

I turned to Felurian. “My lady,” I said. “I have nothing to give you before I go.”

“except your promise to return.” Her voice was lily soft, with a whisper of a warning.

I smiled. “I mean I have nothing to leave you with, lady.”

“except remembrance.” She leaned close.

Closing my eyes, I bid her farewell with few words and many kisses.

Then I left. I would like to say I did not look back, but that would not be the truth. The sight of her almost broke my heart. She seemed so very small beside the huge grey stones. I almost went back to give one final kiss, one last good-bye.

But I knew if I went back, I would never manage to leave again. Somehow I kept walking.

When I looked back the second time, she was gone.