“Fucking—” I stood and kicked loose soil over the remains of the root.Good enough.My eyes rose to the double stable doors, and I brushed my hands on my skirts, dirtying the fabric.
Making up my mind, I crossed the garden and unhinged the simple wooden gate.
The stable was just across the cobbled road, and as I entered the building, I lowered the hood of my cloak. The usual greetings I received were lacking; the horse’s soft nickers were replaced with stepping and snorting. It was the smoke, their instinctual fear of fire.
Leaning against one of the stable doors, I held a hand out and clicked. The black stallion at the back of the stall tossed his head, and a fog of warmth clouded from his flaring nostrils.
“It’s alright,” I said.
The creature’s ears twitched, listening to my words, and after a moment of hesitation, he crossed to me. With slow movements, I stroked the side of his face, and the muscles at his neck quivered.
Hooves on the stone outside drew my gaze, and I caught sight of Neirin’s back as he rode past the double doors.
“You brought her back,” I spoke loudly to draw his attention. Neirin looked over his shoulder, and Sorrel stopped. His eyes met mine as I paced to stand in the doorframe.“You stole my mare.”
Neirin grunted, and for the first time, I noticed the figure of a child in front of him. Lying the lifeless form over Sorrel’s withers, he dismounted, then hefted the body over his shoulder.
“Borrowed,” he countered, hooking his free arm over Sorrel’s neck and guiding her past me into the stable.
“What—” I cut myself off as Neirin passed me; the dark curls of the child strung over his shoulder bounced as he walked. “Is that child … dead?”
Turning back to me, Neirin stopped and frowned. Sorrel, the headstrong mare she was, made her way to where hay littered the floor in small piles, fallen from the overhead attic space where it was kept.
“If he were,” Neirin said coolly, “things would be much easier for him and I both.” Then, as if the situation I’d somehow become drawn into was commonplace, he nodded behind himself to where Sorrel pushed her nose amid the hay on the ground. “Your mare is disobedient.”
“She’s fine,” I said, the words sharp as disbelief held me in a state of shock. A lack of what to say numbed my tongue.
Neirin ran his hand back through his hair, causing his hood to fall. He sighed. “It was suspected that raiders had set fire to the farmland to the west. I went to lend my aid.” He peered around me to the stable doors. “You do not need to whisper. It is unlikely anyone will return to the stables for some time. The fire has all free hands occupied.”
Abandoning my whisper because it was easier than arguing a moot point, I returned to the topic of importance. “You went to lend aid, yet you returned with an unconscious child?” As I spoke, my mind cleared enough to address the most pressing of issues. “Lay him down, let me look at him.”
Neirin obliged, lowering the boy unceremoniously to the dirty stable floor. When I knelt before them and shot Neirin a pointed look, he drew his brows further in and retorted dryly. “Where did you want me to lay him, Evera?”
Because there was no good answer, as there was no better place to put the boy, I huffed my frustration. “You did not answer my question.” I lowered my head and rested my ear on the child’s chest. It rose and fell steadily.
“It is not a simple question to answer.” Crouching, Neirin propped his arms on his knees, his gaze watchful.
Checking the boy’s pulse and finding it steady, I turned my attention to his head, searching for any obvious lumps. “Try.”
“There is nothing wrong with him. He will wake in a few hours,” Neirin stated calmly. “And I know the boy. He is a messenger from the castle.”
I stilled in my task. “I recognize him.”
“You do?” Confusion laced his expression, his silver eyes slits.
“I saw him at the festival.” It was unimportant, though, so I moved past it. “What happened to him?”
“He is exhausted, that is all.”
Nothing about the lifeless child before me implied a simple state of deep sleep, but I couldn’t find anything obviously wrong with him. Sitting back on my heels, I rubbed my eyes. Emotion, pressed down in the initial moments of shock at seeing the listless boy, returned to the surface. I drew in a steadying breath to keep my voice level. “Why are you staying in Elrune?”
Neirin’s expression softened. “Until I hear back from the huntsman I’ve sent to the capital, I have nowhere else to go. For now, I must just”—his eyes cast to the child—“avoid drawing unnecessary attention to myself.”
I offered a faint, sarcastic noise.
“Admittedly, taking the child in further complicates things.”
“What will you do with him?”
