“Persuasive,” Tahlen exhaled it. “With daggers drawn.”
“He worries,” Zelli explained to Mayor Sar.
She looked at Tahlen, both eyebrows raised, then to Zelli. “Things are getting more frightening than most would like, but you will be safe in my inn for the time being.” She glanced to Tahlen again, quirking a smile. “Best do what The Tialttyrin says.” She bowed her head. “I’ll go finish seeing to it.”
Zelli thanked her, then fiddled with the fruit and nuts before finally eating some. “You do need to rest,” he said to Tahlen, not sorry.
“Yes. But you didn’t need to make it plain, especially when you have only one guard.”
Zelli dropped a handful of nuts back onto the plate. “Oh.” He nodded slowly. “I will think more like that in the future. But, Tahlen,” he lowered his voice to a whisper, “if we are at the point where our people are murdering us in our beds, all is lost anyway.”
Tahlen leaned in. “Is that supposed to make me less right or you less dead?”
Zelli crossed his arms and turned his head. He nearly jumped to find three children next to their table. Tahlen had undoubtedly noticed them already.
The oldest child might have been around ten years old, the youngest possibly six or seven, but Zelli knew children only from the village around the fortress and he was hardly allowed to be familiar with any of them.
The oldest would overtake Zelli’s height within the year, Zelli guessed, but smiled for the children anyway.
“Hello,” he said pleasantly. “Did you have a question?”
The middle one said, to the others, not to Zelli. “Not supposed to bother the fae.”
Zelli nodded. “That is true. But it isn’t always obvious what annoys them. And I am not totally of the fae, so I can take some bothering.”
“We’re not supposed to annoy nobles either,” the oldest volunteered.
Zelli glanced around for any aggrieved parents, but they must not have noticed their children sneaking off.
As a child who had often snuck away—though not as often as he would have liked—Zelli faced the children with a wider smile. “Now, if you were talking with a true fae, you’d be wise to offer them a sweet. So, how about I give you some of my treats, and you keep some for yourselves and leave some wherever you leave offerings here?”
He swept dried fruit and nuts into his palm and then waited until several little hands were underneath his to distribute them. “You have to be careful when you ask things of the fae. That is the most important part. Promise me you’ll remember?”
Some alarmed parents were starting to move forward at last.
Zelli smiled for them too, and again, wider, for the children, who nodded to answer him but looked already distracted and forgetful with their hands full of sweets. He let the parents call their children back and then had to fight not to sag in his chair.
“You’re staring,” he mumbled to Tahlen, who, of course, said nothing. “I’m never sure how to act with children,” he added in explanation, in case he’d done something wrong.
Tahlen gazed at him for a moment more, then gently pushed the plate with the remaining fruit and nuts toward Zelli. He moved not an inch until Zelli ate some.
Zelli’s room was about the size of his personal bathing room at home, and consisted of a high bed with steps thoughtfully provided on one side, a small fireplace, and table and mirror, with space for a pitcher of fresh water and a cup.
He didn’t know where Tahlen’s room was, though Tahlen had walked Zelli to his and stayed until Zelli had locked the door as promised. Zelli, full of soup and warm bread and wine, feeling his long night, had stripped off his boots and several of his layers and then collapsed on the bed.
He’d woken to Tahlen’s polite knock on his door and Tahlen informing him he was going to request the hot water now, if Zelli wanted to be cleaned and dressed to come downstairs to dinner. The sky outside was dark. Hopefully, Tahlen had slept as long and as well, even if he hadn’t had wine to help.
Zelli had washed up and shaken some travel dust out of his clothes before dressing again in one of his under layers, since he wanted his finer clothing for tomorrow. He fought with his hair, unpacking his hair oil to get the mess into braids that would fall down his back. He got out some of his jewelry as well, leaving the rowan tree at the hollow of his throat, but affixing a silver ear cuff to each ear, then debating whether or not to attach a chain to those and putting cuffs in his nose.
Wearing delicate chains across his face always made him anxious that he would reach up to fix his hair and snag one, so were perhaps best left for the judgments. He had nothing in gold and no real gemstones unless he used something from the family collection, which he never had. The cuffs were bands at the top and bottom of his ears, with links running between them along the shell.
Tahlen had visibly paused in the hall by his door when Zelli had come out, but hadn’t said anything, so Zelli had assumed he looked presentable enough and followed Tahlen out to the main room for their dinner and more staring from the villagers.
Zelli wore jewelry so rarely, he’d sort of hoped Tahlen might comment. Since Zelli’s hopes had likely been all over his face for Tahlen to see, he kept his head down while he ate and whenever he looked toward Tahlen, he made sure to hide behind his cup.
A mistake which he was aware of making even while making it. But it did make the candlelight sparkle and the room warm, and it let him breathe, a little, even though people still did not approach him and Tahlen focused on his food without uttering a word.
Zelli had never had a night out. This one was disappointing.
