He was moving slightly slower than usual as he made his way through the winding cobbled streets to his first day of work since the attack. Rosemaris might have saved him, but not even her magic or the elves’ rarest healing potion had been strong enough to completely cure this particular wound; he was still stricken at times by sudden, sharp pain, and it wasn’t the sort of hurt any balm or tea could touch. And since it was nothing more than an ugly scar on the surface and he was tired of sitting around the house all day, he had decided there wasn’t going to be a better time to try seeing what his body could still do.
… Right after he paused for a little a break outside the Wyvern & Wyrm, the city’s largest tavern, to watch the sun climb higher while breathing in the eye-opening aroma of coffee—a fairly new dwarven import from the far south that gave him the jitters with just a few sips.
He leaned against the base of the sturdy stair rail leading up the few steps to the pub’s entrance, scrutinizing the wooden sign depicting two creatures tangled in a vicious battle. Freshly and clumsily hand-painted by the halfling who currently owned the place, it rocked steadily back and forth on its hanger above the door in a warm early-summer breeze.
It was still fairly early in the morning, but it was going to be the kind of day where Griff regretted wearing so much black all the time regardless of the season. He was already sweltering beneath a dark linen shirt that remained unbuttoned at the collar, but at least he no longer needed any bandages that would have added to the warmth.
He was about to make his way up the steps for a sip of coffee when a familiar figure left the pub and came bounding toward him.
“Griff!” Dove cried happily, stopping partway down the stairs. She was notably petite where he was tall, so a few stairs up was the perfect vantage point from which to throw her deep-brown arms around his neck.
He pulled her into a tight hug despite the way his wound protested. He had seen her a few days ago when she dropped by to spend the evening playing cards and laughing with him and Liam, and she had looked much the same then as she did now: bright-eyed no matter the hour, always in her muddy Warden’s uniform and boots like she was either just returning from or about to disappear into the wilds to fight some rampaging beast again, a full quiver on her back and the tip of her scabbard dragging the ground.
“Good to see you out and about,” she said, stepping into the shade of the tavern’s roof so that the sunlight wouldn’t beam so directly onto her long raven hair and roast her. “You working on the Goatleafs’ place today, then?”
He grinned a little and nodded, touching a few fingers to his tool belt. This project was one of his own design, a new bakery in the north ward of the city on the way to Barcombe.
“How are you feeling?” she asked next, a question that put more focus behind her golden-brown eyes. As a Warden, she had some training in the healing arts as well as fighting, tracking, and foraging—training Griff would be plenty ready to start again ifhe could find a permanent solution to end the pain beneath his scar. It was a dark world outside the confines of Mayfair, and he wanted to do what he could to make it a little lighter for everyone. After all, it was what his father had done, the path already laid out bright and clear before him.
“Bit tired, and … you know. The pain comes and goes, like we talked about.” He frowned, running a hand over the area where he now bore an inch-long scar that made him wince anytime he caught sight of it. Worse still were the nightmares that had plagued him since it happened.
“What, did Liam keep you up all night again?” Dove teased, sensing his frustration and trying to lighten the mood, at which Griff scrubbed an embarrassed hand over his face. That mouth of hers was going to get her in trouble someday, probably in the middle of territory negotiations between centaur herds or something equally dicey. “I saw him yesterday, by the way. He was running errands with that … Alys.”
She scrunched up her nose, making no secret of her distaste for the other woman. Alys was, after all, wanted for several petty crimes no Warden could quite prove, right along with Mal, Vic, and Wynnie.
“Easy. She’s my friend too,” Griff protested gently, no longer so inclined to say or hear a harsh word against Alys now that they were making up for lost time. “It’s actually been nice, having her around again.”
Alys appeared on his doorstep surprisingly often these days, sometimes with flowers and an appetite for Liam’s raspberry pancakes, sometimes with the intention of going for a picnic or a walk and telling stories from their childhood (though she spoke carefully around the glaring issue of Mal’s existence in these old tales). Acting, for once, like the friend he had missed for a long time now. Reminding him why they had mattered to each other in the first place.
Dove shrugged, and Griff saw in the set of her face that he wasn’t about to change her mind. “Anyway,” she said, a gleam of interest returning to her warm brown gaze, “they looked like they were heading to the jeweler’s—you know, the dwarven gent who makes the really nice rings?”
There was a too-long pause while Griff tried to work out who Alys might be marrying. Wouldn’t she have told him if the children’s father had come back into the picture? Last Griff had heard, just a few days ago, she had still sounded very done with him and his lofty expectations and un-asked-for judgments.
A gnome wheezed past, pushing a wheelbarrow laden with fresh floral bouquets, and Dove raised a hand in greeting. Rather than lifting his colorful cap and waving back, however, the busy farmer grunted and turned away, quickening his steps. Wardens weren’t exactly popular in the city; they were trained more like knights than guards, but they tended to stick their noses into all sorts of matters where they weren’t welcome. There were also some who thought they shouldn’t idealize the elves like they did, preserving their history and lore, as if collective memory had forgotten in their absence that they were once the source of so much beauty and goodness, like the magic that had saved Griff’s life. That it was their light and strength that had broken the Shadow Queen’s grip on the world in the first place, their efforts that had pushed her back to her own realm, where she spun orcs and wraiths and all sorts of undead from her dark magic.
She plotted to smother the world in her darkness and supernatural horrors, then save it by uniting all peoples and creatures under one banner—her own. Murdering strategically so that someday she alone would possess magic and could use it to remain feared (or, in her twisted mind, adored) in her new Deathless Empire. It was the nightmare the earliest Wardens had stood against since they first formed into a band of mercenaries fighting for the light wherever they were needed. They had been appointed by the elvesas they retreated to Stormveil, most Wardens having some elvish blood in their lineage in the hope that they would be the most inclined to protect the world the elves had loved for so long.
Most folks worried vaguely about the Shadow Queen’s return, but only the Wardens worked tirelessly in secret to prevent the possibility of another full-scale war by any means necessary—which meant making everything their business, and hiding their true purpose as more than monster hunters from the general population.
“Maybe Alys was just … window shopping? Daydreaming?” he guessed, shaking off the malaise of his thoughts. Alys was more like Mal that way, always hoping and scheming.
“Maybe,” Dove agreed, her full lips twitching into a smile before she added, “Or maybe somebody’s thinking about finally taking Mayfair’s Most Eligible off the market for good, if you get my drift.”
Griff wasn’t proud of that nickname, often heard throughout the city, though he knew Dove meant it fondly, in the way of acknowledging how many men admired him or wanted to be with him—not in the way of chastising him for having made a few too many conquests even for his own liking since returning from Stormveil. But so what if he’d dated more than his share of Wardens and often taken home whoever happened to have the nicest smile at the pub that night? He didn’t owe anyone anything from before he started seeing only Liam. There was, admittedly, the time he got down on his knees, sloppily and against his better judgment, for an entire company of visiting knights from the kingdom of Kattan—all eight of them—but that had been after a stupid fight with Mal, and he had been trying to heal his black eye by soaking it in whiskey. A bit of field medicine learned from Wynnie, of course.
“You really think?” Griff asked Dove at last, her meaning finally starting to sink in. He’d had a foreman’s steady hand inbuilding the life he and Liam shared, and he planned to keep waking up to raspberry pancakes and going on walks with Badger for a long time to come. He didn’t need to dream any bigger than that. Liam knew almost every detail of his past and accepted it all, the good with the ugly. Liam had taught him how to do some amazing things with his mouth. Liam was a better musician than him. And Liam loved him. “Huh. Griff Sayer-Blackthorn. I like the sound of that.”
Dove’s smile widened. “It does have a certain ring to it. Just don’t tell him I dropped any hints or I’ll never hear the end of it, yeah?”
Griff held up a hand, folding in a few fingers. “Warden-in-training’s honor,” he vowed, even though he wasn’t exactly that anymore. That big dream of his own was out of reach unless he fully healed, and he wasn’t sure what the path ahead looked like if he didn’t—dark, and full of thorns. The grin quickly slid from his face and he added, lower, “Any other news?”
Dove—whose real name, of course, wasn’t actually Dove; that was only adopted to protect her kin from any retaliation by the Shadow Queen’s people—frowned and shook her head. She was one of several of his Warden friends trying to track down his attackers. But neither they nor Wynnie had made much progress yet.
They said their goodbyes and Griff continued on his way, his head too full of lovers past and present and a wedding in his future to remember that he had wanted a coffee.
He and Liam had something with the potential to last, and apparently, Liam saw it too. Something true, a growing love that Griff was often afraid he would somehow shatter if he didn’t hold it carefully enough, and didn’t quite know what to do with. He didn’t know how to stay, did he? His parents hadn’t stayed. Nor had Rhun. Nor even Wynnie, in her way. Still, what he had with Liam was the realest thing he had ever felt for a man in his bed.
AndGriff Sayer-Blackthornhad such a nice ring to it.
