Present:
Estienne picked at a plate of scallops and held himself together with an effort. To anyone watching, he was a bored nobleman; inside, he was a churning morass of emotion. He had learned the hard way how important it was that his grip on himself never slipped.
Caer Tor was nothing but ruins now. A part of him regretted that. Another part, prowling unseen in the dark corridors of his heart, wanted to go back and do it again.
But that was in the past. A past that barely seemed his, so long ago had it been.
His pressing issue now was Thomas, whom he’d somehow lost. He had his suspicions how that had happened, but he’d had to write them down. He had no chance of remembering any of it otherwise. Reality seemed a distant dream, all fluttering edges of tattered scraps of memory, chased away by the nightmare of what he’d done.
That parchment was folded carefully into a pouch which he kept under his shirt. He read it twice-daily, but his memory was never jogged – to him it was only fiction, a fairytale, a long-distant myth about other people he’d never known.
But even fairy spells could not reach that little corner of his heart that held his true essence.
If only he wasn’t so afraid of showing the world his power.
He knuckled his eye sockets, weary. No, he remembered: it wasn’t his own power that terrified him. Thomas of Albion wielded far more than he did, or he would once that crown was settled upon his head and his army gathered. Estienne dearly hoped he’d live to see that day, if he ever found Tom again.
‘Stop it,’ Henwyn snapped at him.
‘Stop. What.’
‘Moping.’ The elf picked at a scallop, eyed it critically, and threw it back on the platter. ‘Can’t stand that hangdog look on your face. You look like you’ve lost the crown jewels.’
‘Might not be so far from the truth.’ Estienne stared at the people around them, shovelling fine food and coarse alike down indifferent throats, oblivious to the two conspirators in their midst. He supposed they were a ragtag pair; he in the robes of a nobleman’s servant, and Henwyn in his patchwork mess of questionable origin. ‘Why are we here?’
‘Where else would you like to be?’
‘On the heels of my Fair Thomas, or did you miss the part where I fell in love with him?’ Estienne hissed.
‘Oh, I didn’t miss it.’
‘Then why ask.’
‘Because,’ Henwyn smirked, his eyes narrow and sly, ‘that’s not the real reason, is it? It’s only your convenient excuse. Well, if you cannot tell the truth even to your own self, perhaps you should expect to hear nought but lies from others?’
Estienne clamped his mouth shut. Henwyn’s assessment of him was irritatingly astute and he felt like a worm.
‘Wherever Thomas is,’ Henwyn continued, still smirking, ‘it’s likely that the other thing you want is there too, isn’t it? He knows something. Or you know something about him. Let’s face it, you knew who you were looking for when you wandered into Lord Josce’s camp, didn’t you?’
Estienne sat back with a sulky huff. ‘And so did you. So why don’t you tell me what you’re looking for?’
‘In whose interests would that be?’
‘In the interest of truth, you slippery son of a bitch!’ Estienne slammed his dagger onto the table. ‘Next time I draw this it’s going in your fucking neck!’
Henwyn’s smirk stretched to a twisted smile. ‘Oh, will you look at that! The boy’s got his fire back.’
That probably wasn’t true, Estienne thought, but he determined to try it out at the next chance he got. When this upstart elf wasn’t looking. He doubted he’d be able to live down the humiliation if he failed.
He stood up and sheathed the dagger. ‘Wasted enough time here. Let’s go. That’s if you’ve finished eating.’
Around them, the other patrons lowered their eyes and resumed shovelling stew and bread into their mouths. The silence, and the walls, seemed to stretch into the night. Estienne flexed his hands. Definitely time to test Henwyn’s theory out. It had been long enough.
But had it been long enough for him to pay for his past mistakes?