12. Roughing It

12

Roughing It

Safira Chastain

T he sorcerers started arriving that night, and after bare moments of contemplation, I took myself elsewhere. I had no interest in being in a Spire full of the most powerful mages in the world, especially when I came around a corner and nearly ran into one of them, a middle-aged man the wizard had spent a great deal of time cozening up to. He gave me a sharp look, dangerously akin to recognition, and I fled.

The summer nights were plenty warm enough for sleeping outside, and there was a shed with a loft for keeping the hay in. Once upon a time it must have housed goats or maybe a donkey, but it was empty now, and I'd slept in far worse circumstances.

My discomfort with the sorcerers went unremarked. Bash brought me dinner and ate his with me in a companionable sort of fashion, munching on some grain flatcakes, then patted me on the shoulder.

"Nice night for sleeping rough," he said, his voice warm. "If you'd like, I can bring you breakfast tomorrow."

I blinked away tears at that, gratefulness spiking in my chest. "That would be really nice, Bash," I said. "Thank you."

"My pleasure." Bashen ducked out of the shed, then bent down to look at me through the human-sized doorway with an easy smile. "Yon water-horse is staring from the hill. You might wish to tell him if you're planning on staying out here for more than a night."

"He won't be upset at me," I said, confident in that.

Bash chuckled, standing back up and stretching. "Oh, aye. That one seems mighty fond of you. I meant only that waves are a gentle lullaby, and he might know a cove or three where you could sleep hidden from all this bustle, with a guardian to watch over you."

That startled me enough that I got up from my makeshift bed and joined him outside. I looked up at the minotaur, who smiled back down at me, then followed the tilt of his horns to see Celyn silhouetted on one of the bluffs, looking down at us. "You don't think he's... dangerous?" I asked. Marin has cautioned me about Celyn, even though she hadn't tried to tell me what to do, but she hadn't been exactly encouraging.

"Of course he is," Bash said with another warm laugh. "So'm I. So're the mages we all like to tout as our protectors. But I'll reckon a water-horse is no less a man than any other you might find, and can be as trustworthy as the best of them or brutal as the worst of them."

"He's killed people," I said quietly.

"I'm sure he has." When I looked up in surprise, Bashen made a lowing sound of amusement. "He's a water-horse, Safira. People have an unpleasant fascination with enslaving people like him. I'd drown a man for putting me in a yoke like an ox. Does that make me frightening?"

"No." Then I laughed, lacing my hands behind my head and looking up at where Celyn still stood, a black figure against the stars of the sky. "I think it makes you human."

Bash reached over and gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze. "I'm not human, and neither is Celyn," he said in a low rumble, a bit of chiding in the words. "What it does is make me a person, like any other. Same as him, same as you."

Before he could take his hand away, I reached up and put my own slim fingers over his, giving his hand a squeeze. "You're right. I didn't mean it that way, and I apologize."

He huffed out a snort, shaking his head with a smile. "I know. It's one of the many traps of our language." He looked back up at the bluff; Celyn had vanished, as he so often did. "Go tell your friend you're staying," Bash suggested. "I reckon you'll sleep better with his lullaby in your ears than in the hay-dust, and he doesn't sleep. You can't ask for a better watcher than him."

I squeezed his hand again, then let him go. "Okay," I said, looking over towards the lake, where the moonlight glinted off Celyn's waves. "I think that's a good idea."

"I'll leave your breakfast here, then, under a lid," he said, patting my shoulder before stretching again. "'Til tomorrow, Safira."

"'Til then," I replied, watching him go for a moment. Then I walked back into the shed and rolled up my things again, bundling them up to tromp down to the shore, carrying my light in one hand.

Celyn didn't appear, but I didn't expect him to. He never approached Bashen, and he'd seen the two of us talking and gone on his way. I wrestled the rowboat down and set it in the water, then added my things and hopped in, pushing away from the shore with one of the paddles and starting to row.

I wasn't sure where I was going, exactly, except out of view of the Spire. It wasn't as if I was doing anything wrong , but I didn't like the idea of all those strangers knowing things about me, and I especially didn't want anyone to do anything to Celyn for interacting with me. He was a lake, but sorcerers were enormously powerful. Any one of them could erase Tsirisma Lake from existence if they wanted to, and I didn't want to guess at which of the sorcerers present would see a water-horse talking to the gardener as dangerous.

It took a little while to make it along the shore to a bluff, but when I did all the tension simply fell out of me, dissolving like snow on a warm spring day. I tilted my head back and grinned. Bashen had been very right about me. I would be so much happier sleeping hidden from Barixeor Spire and all the sorcerers within than even in the shed for the animals.

Feeling warm and loose, I reached down and trailed my fingers through the water of the lake as the rowboat drifted. "Celyn," I said, keeping my voice pitched low so it wouldn't carry. "I've got a question for you."

He didn't immediately appear, so I stayed there, running my fingers across the cool surface of the lake with a smile on my face, enjoying the feel of clean water against my skin and the soft sound of waves lapping against the wood of the boat. Only when I at last took my hand out of the water to pick up the oars again did Celyn appear, his head breaking the surface of the water like a diver coming up for air.

"Safira," he said, his voice rough. "I thought you would be with the minotaur."

"Nah," I said, a helpless grin spreading across my face. "We only had dinner. He likes sleeping indoors just fine."

Celyn paused at that, then put his arms on the edge of the boat and pulled himself up further out of the water, his weight not displacing the rowboat at all. "And you do not?" he asked, a hopeful edge to the words.

"I like being comfy, but I like the night sky and summer air, too." Feeling daring, I dropped my hand to the water again, tracing my fingertips through the waves.

Celyn shuddered, his eyes fluttering, the moonlight not bright enough for me to make out his expression. "Safira," he said again, his voice going deeper, that edge of roughness warming me in the way only a handsome man's voice can. "Why are you touching me?"

"You said I could come to you, so I am. I have an open invitation, remember?" I flicked some water at him, then took my hand back and leaned on my elbow, lake water dripping off my fingertips. "I was wondering if you knew any comfy, hidden places along the shore where I could sleep. And, um," I added, feeling suddenly shy about it. "If maybe you could watch over me while I slept?"

He tilted his head, pushing himself up to head-height with me. Moonlight gleamed off his bare chest, limning the strong lines of his body and highlighting the lines of his collarbone. "What is it you want of me?" he asked, sounding curious. "I cannot stand against even one of the great powers now resting on the island, unless they were to touch me. And such powers are rarely so foolhardy as to hand themselves over to one such as me. "

"Am I foolhardy for doing it?" I asked, meeting his eyes in the moonlit darkness, my heart pounding and breath light.

"You will never come to harm in my waters, Safira," he said, like it was a vow. "To have a friend is to be vulnerable to the knowledge they have of you, is it not? Yet I think friendship is to trust that such knowledge will never be used to harm or hinder." Celyn smiled, then lowered himself back down to rest his cheek on his arms. "I will take you to a hidden place and watch over you if you desire it, though I can do aught if any of the ley powers seek to do you harm."

"They don't care about me," I said, leaning my head on one hand. "I'm a nobody. I'd just like a place where I can sleep listening to your waves."

"Then you will have it," he said. Then he paused, lifting his head. "And you are not a nobody. You are Safira, who has bargained with a water-horse and won his friendship, who commands the earth to grow her food and who walks softly by the shore." Celyn lifted his hand, as if he might reach out for me, then lowered it to the water again. "They may not care to think of you, but they are mere flashes of lightning in the sky. I will remember you when their names have been forgotten."

"Vain," I said as I had that afternoon, though my pulse quickened at the words, emotion thrumming beneath my skin.

"I have seen many like them," Celyn said with amusement. "It is not vanity to imagine I shall outlive these ones, as well. Stow your oars. I will take you to a comfortable bower."

He ducked beneath the waves, and I did as he said, shivery excitement dancing its way down my spine. The rowboat slid into motion, pushed by a gentle wave, and I leaned over the edge to see Celyn. But the night was dark, lit only by the moon, and the water was a black mirror reflecting only ripples of the starry sky. I refrained from dragging my fingers through the wake, letting Celyn have his space, and watched the world go by.

Celyn brought me to a little cove I'd never seen before. It was a half-circle arc, the shore less rocky than most, with a narrow strip of soil next to the tall bluff. A craggy pine grew at the base of the bluff, its branches hanging out over the water and roots trailing down into the lake, and short-mown grass made a dense velvet bed.

The waters of the lake pushed the rowboat to shore, the prow lifting and not even scraping before the waters receded, leaving me half-moored. Celyn stood up at the base of the rowboat and ran his fingers through his shoulder-length hair, drawing attention to the power of his arm and sides.

"Will this do?" he asked, sounding oddly shy.

"It's wonderful," I said, meaning it. "It's gorgeous." Then I realized one reason he might be shy, and grinned. "You're gorgeous. Well worth any amount of vanity."

"Hm," was all he said, but I thought he sounded amused .

I got out and made camp by moonlight, while Celyn lounged against the tree. I felt a little self-conscious getting into my makeshift bed, but when Celyn settled down next to me, the embarrassment faded.

"May I touch your hair, Safira?" he asked quietly.

I turned to look up at his face in the darkness, surprised. I saw him smile, but I thought it didn't look happy, exactly. Melancholy, perhaps, though it was hard to tell by the light of the moon. "My hair?" I asked, when he didn't elaborate.

"Your hair is part of you, but it is not part of your body. It holds no power over you. I may touch it, if I desire, but I would only want to do so if you would... allow it." Celyn spoke with an uncertainty I didn't usually associate with him, his voice as lovely as ever, but without the allure it usually carried.

The request sent a frisson of warmth through my chest, leaving fluttering anticipation in its wake. With one hand, I spread my hair out behind me, fanning it across the smooth cloth of my pillow. "I'd like that," I said, closing my eyes again. "Just don't pull."

"I would not," he said, again with that edge of roughness.

He did nothing for a long time. I started drifting off before he moved again, a rustle and then a pause before he lowered his hand to my hair. Celyn barely disturbed my hair; he must have been running only his fingertips along my waves. With that gentle touch and the soft sound of the water on the shore, I fell asleep, guarded by Tsirisma Lake.