“What if it’s the other way around? A warrior wants a particular woman, but she wants another man.”
“If a man wants a woman on a permanent basis, then he should ask her to marry him. And if he doesn’t, then he can hardly be surprised if she decides to explore other options.”
“But what about… No, never mind.” Gantalla sighed. “Your customs are a little strange to me.”
Another idea occurred to Nalyx, and he wondered how best to ask the question. “You said you weren’t married, but… was there someone in particular you were interested in, back home? Someone you would have wanted to marry?”
“No one in particular, no. I’d thought about it now and then, but I hadn’t settled on anyone.” Was it odd that Nalyx felt relieved at the news? “But two of my brothers were married. And one of my sisters was engaged. She and her fiancé were killed when our estate was attacked. But my oldest sister, she wasn’t married. She was going to inherit the estate. I think she wanted to wait until everyone knew it was hers before she decided to share it with anyone.”
Nalyx tensed at that. “Your sister was going to inherit the estate? A woman?”
“Yes. It’s not common, but my father… I suppose he was a bit odd that way. He didn’t see why a woman couldn’t run it just as well as a man could.”
“That’s very… open minded.”
“Yeah. I miss him.”
Wanting to distract her from her darker thoughts, Nalyx fumbled for a way to direct the conversation in another direction. “What about the brother that lives in Palashran?”
“What?” Gantalla seemed surprised by the question, but she recovered quickly. “Oh, right. Well, yes, he’s married. He might even have a child by now. I don’t know.”
“Is he expecting you? I mean, is he going to be worried when you don’t show up?”
“I sent him a letter to tell him I was coming. I had to tell him about the attack on our estate, anyway. But if I stay here, I’ll just send him another letter saying I decided to stay in Minia.”
Nalyx stroked a lock of hair out of her eyes. Losing his own father had hurt like hell, and he couldn’t imagine what it must be like to have lost most of her family in one go. She was a brave woman.
“After my father died, my mother… She married a tanner.” The words came tumbling out of him unbidden. “They moved to Reedy Hollow.” Bitterness welled up inside him. “The whole town was mourning the death of my father. They did everything for her, brought her meals, some of the older serving women showed up to clean her house and do her laundry. If one of the warriors is killed, the town does everything they can to look after his family. My mother had a sixteen year old son, but she didn’t spare a thought for what would happen to me if she left. She just up and ran off with the first smiling face that came along.”
Why the hell was he telling her this? The anger was old, and the grief at the death of his father, but it surged up like a living thing now, grabbing him by the throat and choking the air out of his lungs.
A gentle hand stroked his cheek, and he refocused on Gantalla, forcing himself to take a deep breath. “Grief is a funny thing,” she said. “Sometimes people will just grab onto the first thing that gives them a sense of stability. My sister did that, after our father was killed. The estate was in ruins. Half the staff were dead. We had no idea what the future was going to bring. And one morning, she just comes trotting down the stairs in her favourite gown, sapphire earrings in her ears, and says we should hold a party. That it would cheer everyone up.
“That was the day I decided to leave. I don’t blame her for it. She was hurting and overwhelmed and just trying to cling onto anything familiar. But there was nothing left to hold onto, and I…” Gantalla’s mouth trembled.
“You didn’t abandon her,” Nalyx said, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder. “You said before that you tried to talk her into coming with you. It’s not your fault if she said no.”
Gantalla’s eyebrows rose. “I’m surprised you remember that.”
“Why?” To be fair, Nalyx was a little surprised as well. He’d been paying far more attention to the lace hugging Gantalla’s bosom at the time.
“You were very drunk by the end of that night.”
“True enough,” Nalyx admitted. “But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t listening.”
Gantalla cleared her throat. “My point here is that maybe you shouldn’t be too hard on your mother. Yes, I realise she hurt you, and she should have been paying more attention to that, but at the same time, grief can…” She paused. She was wearing an odd expression, confusion and bitterness combined. Her eyes roamed over his face, then glanced down at the bed they were both lying in. “Yeah, grief makes people do funny things.”
He wanted to keep talking, but dredging up Gantalla’s memories wasn’t sounding like a great idea. But another thought occurred to him, one he’d had yesterday during his run. And suddenly, he was eager for her opinion on his own strange thoughts. It seemed she saw the world differently from most people, and maybe…
“Can I ask you something?” he said, and she nodded. “Maybe this sounds crazy. Actually, it probably is crazy. But when I was running yesterday, I went through the forest, and I ended up near where the unicorn was killed. And no, before you say anything, this is not more of me boasting about fighting the unicorn.” Gantalla had made it plain she was sick to death of hearing about that particular story, and given the bloodshed she’d seen in her own town, he couldn’t blame her. “But while I was chasing it, and before I actually attacked it, it stopped beside a stream. And, of course, they’re on fire because, you know, demons, but this one… It was splashing its face in the water, like it was trying to put the fire out. And it worked, for a few seconds, but it caught fire again, because the rest of its body was alight. But I was thinking… Maybe I’ve lost my mind, but I had this fleeting idea that maybe it didn’t want to be on fire. Maybe it was actually trying to put it out. And then I thought, unicorns aren’t all that different from horses. So if we caught one, and put the fire out… I had this crazy idea that maybe we could train them and use them like horses. Or at the very least, see if it was possible to tame them. Wouldn’t that be better than just killing them all? I don’t know, maybe I’m being stupid.”
Gantalla seemed tense, and Nalyx wondered if he’d made a mistake. To most people, even suggesting that the demons were anything but the epitome of evil was considered heresy. Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything.
But when Gantalla replied, there was an odd note of curiosity in her voice, of hope, even. “It’s not a crazy idea. I mean, I’ve never met a unicorn, but if that’s what you saw, maybe they’re more complex than we realise. Maybe there’s more to the demons than we’ve been taught to expect. From what people have said about the way they fight, they must be intelligent. They make armour and weapons, and back at the festival, I heard one of the warriors saying they took some of the swords from the battlefield, and they were as fine a quality as anything the blacksmiths made in town. They must have some skill to be able to do that.”
“Skill, yes, but they’re still a major threat to this world.” Her thoughts had taken his vague idea and run in a unique direction. “I’m not talking about trying to negotiate peace with them. Just that the unicorn was behaving strangely.” Despite the fact that he’d been the one to start the conversation, her comments were making him uneasy.
“Does anyone even know why the demons are trying to cross the gate?” she asked.
