Zelli crossed his arms tightly over the wrong and terribleneedin his chest. “You deferred to me like I was… like I was The Tialttyrin.”
Tahlen observed Zelli in silence until Zelli wanted to snap at him. But all Tahlen said was, “Do you need to touch me?”
To which Zelli hissed, “Yes,” and couldn’t even be shocked at himself.
Stubble rasped wonderfully under Zelli’s palms. Tahlen’s hair was just as soft in the mornings as it was at night, although Tahlen braided it himself this time, efficient and quick before turning to attend to Zelli’s, which was back to being wild until Tahlen whispered to it.
Zelli watched Tahlen shave with cold water and caught Tahlen glancing curiously at Zelli’s smoother face. He insisted Tahlen eat something. Then they were on their way once more.
If they were to keep going in their current direction, they would eventually reach the other road following the length of the valley, although Tahlen would make them turn around before they went that far. Short of finding a friendly farmer or hunting some rabbits or field rats as the outguards might be doing, they would run out of food.
It did all feel ridiculous, in that respect. The need for more information was urgent, but Zelli hadn’t planned on being in the open for this long and they weren’t even sure where to look. The outguards had mentioned a wooded glen, but the spaces between fields were often left as chunks of wilderness for owls and deer and the plants that only grew among the trees.
Several hours had gone by when he and Tahlen began to pass heavy thickets of green vines off to the side of the road, some full of chattering birds happily feasting on the dark berries that must not have been ripe enough to pluck when the rest of the berries had been harvested.
Zelli turned his horse in that direction without thought. He slid from Lemon Blossom’s back in his excitement and was gathering blackberries over the sound of Tahlen’s bewildered, “You’re berry picking?”
Zelli had hunted for berries before in his life, although the small bushes down in village were nothing to the wild bramble in front of him, so tall that Tahlen would likely have to stretch to see over it. Zelli stood up on his toes to reach berries deep within the tangle, snagging his sleeves and then his hands on nearly invisible thorns. He ate some berries before gathering more, then, after fighting with the thorns to get free, brought spilling, sun-warmed handfuls over to Tahlen, who was standing beside Starfall and giving Zelli that odd look again.
“The last of summer’s gifts,” Zelli said, holding his hands up so Tahlen could take some berries. “It’s not childish,” he added when Tahlen hesitated. “We need food, and they’ve already harvested this patch, else there would be berries everywhere.”
“You’re bleeding,” Tahlen observed, but let Zelli fill his palms with blackberries.
Zelli’s hands and wristswerebleeding, in fact, but only in two places. The purple stains on Zelli’s fingertips more than made up for a few cuts.
“Barely,” Zelli dismissed this before devouring several more berries. “If a beat-of-four can wear a sword and risk being killed by one, I can bear a few scratches and have purple fingers for a while.”
Tahlen pulled in a long breath. “I wish more of them had your ideas.”
“No!” Zelli poured the remaining berries into Tahlen’s hands and pushed them up toward Tahlen’s face to fill his reckless mouth. “No wishing!” he ordered, not teasing, then snatched his hands away. “I should… I should offer some of the berries to them, though they can pick their own.”
He hurried back to the thicket, offending a few birds by taking more of their berries. No offering place was obvious, so Zelli brought his handful to a stunted and bare apple tree nearby and set the berries on the ground at the base of the trunk. “No wishes,” he told any listening fae, “only a greeting. We are family, after all.”
He’d known that. Everyone who saw Zelli knew that. But no one had ever called them that until Tahlen, and then two outguards. Even Grandmother usually only spoke of their shared fae blood, not of their shared fae family.
“Zelli, come back here, if you please,” Tahlen requested gruffly, all his berries gone, his lips only hinting at a darker color. Zelli looked apprehensively at the corner of Tahlen’s cloak, which Tahlen had soaked with water, thinking Tahlen was going to tell him he had blackberry juice all over his face. But Tahlen took Zelli’s hands, one at a time, and washed away the trickles of blood and the worst of the purple.
It would stain the cloak, but Zelli would see it replaced if it could not be cleaned.
Tahlen focused on his work, so Zelli studied Tahlen’s bent head and the length of his braid fallen over his shoulder, and how he had to stoop to get near to Zelli’s level. Tahlen had nice ears. Zelli fantasized about covering them in cuffs like the one Arden had worn. Not gold for Tahlen, though Tahlen deserved it, but a shining metal like silver or platinum. Necklaces and cuffs and bracelets, with jeweled clasps climbing his braid.
Then Tahlen’s eyes came up and Zelli thought warmly that Tahlen needed no decorations. Maybe Zelli could pay a trader to bring him moonrise vine seeds so he could plant them and see the blooms for himself. Maybe, if his alliance turned him into the sort of beat-of-four to wear jewelry of his own, he would commission clasps in the shape of flowers, so he could imagine them in Tahlen’s hair.
Imagine only, he reminded himself.
He pulled his hands from Tahlen’s grasp and smiled shakily before returning to Lemon Blossom. “Thank you.” He had no idea how to get back onto his horse but only stood there in any case, listening to himself say foolish things because he didn’t want Tahlen’s silence to go on or to be broken by Tahlen asking him what was wrong. “Do you know, Tahlen, I think those outguards wanted to take you to bed.”
Never mind. He had changed Tahlen’s silence. It was tangible, almost like Tahlen grabbing a handful of Zelli’s cloak to forcibly turn him around.
Zelli risked a look back. Tahlen’s eyebrows were knitted in a such a way that Zelli suspected Tahlen didn’t believe him or couldn’t believe Zelli would mention it.
Zelli readied an apology, then heard himself continuing on in the same fashion as before. “Particularly Mil,” he added before turning away again. “I wonder who you reminded him of.” Mil must have known a hero too, in his time. Unless he’d meant Arden, which would mean Arden was a beat-of-four who had become an outguard and that was practically unheard of. There was only one song Zelli knew that mentioned anything like that, and that was about….
“Oh.” Zelli turned back to Tahlen on the heels of a revelation, but Tahlen had his brows raised now, in unhappy inquiry. “What?”
Tahlen watched Zelli carefully. “Youcould have gone with them.”
Zelli raised a hand to argue, then dropped it, thinking over the entire conversation. “Are you sure?” he asked at last.
