I hung back, unsure whether this was a trick. She rolledher eyes. “I promise I won’t defend myself. I just need to demonstrate.”
I moved a little closer. Belis smiled at me encouragingly. I reached out, then hesitated. “Come on, Mallt! I won’t get hurt. Humans aren’t that fragile!”
I pushed her, using both hands. I doubted I had really landed it with enough force to knock her over, but she fell backwards, rolling over her shoulders and springing back into position as gracefully as any fae.
“Again, this time from the side,” she said, flicking a strand of coppery hair from her face. I pushed her again, and again she went down, this time rolling over her right shoulder.
“You never want to be on the ground. You should avoid it at all costs,” Belis said, jumping back to her feet. “But sometimes you will get knocked down and you need to know how to get back up. Use the force of your attacker to fuel your movement. Again.”
I pushed her a third time and she dodged, missing my hands by inches. Faster than my mortal eyes could track, she doubled back and pushed me hard on my shoulders. I went down, hard and fast and without any of Belis’s grace or purpose. I landed flat on my back, the breath knocked out of me.
“Ow!” I complained, struggling to sit up. “You said that you wouldn’t defend yourself.”
“I was lying,” Belis said cheerfully. “Never trust anyone to fight fair and never fight fair yourself.”
“I thought you were a princess,” I grumbled. “Shouldn’t you be more invested in nobility in combat?”
“My father was noble,” she said, the smile dropping from her lips. “He put trust in his enemies and, after he died, they betrayed him. Again!”
Belis came at me, fast and threatening. We continued until she decreed that I could fall acceptably.
“Perhaps tomorrow we will start on blades,” she said happily. “You should carry my sword, get used to the weight of it.”
“I’m beginning to regret making amends with you,” I muttered but took the weapon she offered me and settled by thefire. Belis sat opposite me and wrapped her cloak around her shoulders.
“It’s your turn to teach me something now,” she said. I frowned, looking up at her; she hadn’t shown much curiosity about me so far.
“What do you want to learn?”
“Tell me about you. Do you always live in the mortal world or do you flit between here and Annwn?”
“Here mostly.” I considered how to frame my response. “Very few can travel between the realms and it must be done carefully and with a purpose.”
“What purpose could take you there?”
“Think of those who should be in Annwn but remain here: wights, ghosts and ghouls. If they were in Annwn they would be normal souls but if they are trapped here then they become dangerous.” I shuffled a little closer to the fire. “Most who need my help require only to be set on the right road and they can find their way, but for those few I must take them right to the gate. For only the most fearsome and lost souls do I escort through the passage and into Annwn itself. They are rare, arriving maybe once a generation, and with them I go through to speak with Arawn so that he can care for them appropriately while they recover.”
Belis nodded thoughtfully, an odd look on her face. “And now you are returning there with me, the greatest monster of them all.”
“That’s a strange thing to say.” I glanced at her, the light of the flames reflected in her eyes so that they seemed golden.
“Didn’t I kill you? Your immortal self, damning all lost souls to wander and all the living to fear them?”
“Well, yes.”
I paused, trying to marshal my thoughts. Belis was saying no more than what I had been grumbling to myself and aloud to her for weeks, but I had never considered her monstrous because of it, merely foolish and human. Now Vatta had talked a little sense into me and I felt differently. I looked at Belis again and saw thesadness cut deep into her expression. I wanted to ease some of that pain if I could.
“Perhaps for now we can forget what we were and simply be two humans travelling together, at least for a little while. I am sick of fighting. I would rather be at peace with you.”
For the first night since we had met I watched a little of the tension lift from her face, and she fell asleep easily while the fire crackled between us.
Chapter 6
The next morning my legs were even more brutally sore and stiff than usual, but I got back up on Weasel as soon as Belis and I had broken our fast. After much hesitation Belis had agreed that we could ride along the road. She paused again as we left the forest and touched the back of her head, checking that her braids were tucked under her scarf. She caught me looking and flushed, urging Carrot forward onto the road.
Out in the open we passed other travellers every few hours, greeting them with nods and a mutual unease. Most were small merchants, riding on carts piled with bales of carded wool or cages of chickens. The wealthier ones rated a guard trotting along beside them who invariably glared at us until we were out of sight. After three days on the road we saw our first Romans, a covered carriage escorted by a small squadron of legionaries. They barely glanced at us as we scrambled off the road to let them pass, taking our obeisance as their right. I saw Belis grinding her teeth and heard her fingers tapping the sheath of her dagger. She was jumpy for the rest of that day and I let her take a long time to find a campsite that felt safe without complaint. She insisted we keep a watch and it was only with great effort that I talked her into letting me take the first half of the night. She tossed and turned for a while before eventually lapsing into a restless sleep.
A few hours later she started screaming. I scrambled up from where I had been sitting, leaning against a tree and staring out into the blackness, and hurried over to her. Belis’s eyes were clamped shut and she was all tangled up in her cloak, pinning her arms to her side. Her face was damp with sweat and she was howling in fear.
