I took Thomas’s hand. “He was so young.”
He placed his hand over mine. “Not yet thirteen.” He sniffled. “I did not know, did not think... I had come here only to say goodbye.”
There were no words. I am no Christian who can speak reassurances of salvation and the world to come. I do not believe these things. Death is cruel and unfair, and it comes upon mortals too eagerly and too quick.
This should not have failed. My efforts, mine, could not have failed.
Absently, Thomas stroked my hair. “I barely knew him. I was younger than he is—was—now when I left home.”
The shepherd king was kept from his family, all for the stupid lines humans draw in the dirt. Wed or unwed, born on the wrong or right side of the bed, what does it matter anyway? It made me so angry; I struggled to keep that out of my voice. “You two missed out on much.”
Thomas took a deep, shuddering breath. “I had thought I might bring Cullen to meet Malcolm. He would have liked that, do you not think? Boys like dogs. Or was he too old?”
Cullen’s name pressed against me like a knife. He was Margaret of Roxburgh’s gift, after all. “You are never too old for a good dog,” I said, with a false smile stretching across my face. “I believe they would have been the best of friends.”
Thomas clutched at his hair, frantic, eyes glazed. “Why did I not bring him, Bess? Why was I such a fool? I thought I had time. I thought...” He broke off with a choked sob.
I went to him, wrapping my arms around his shoulders. “He understood,” I murmured softly. “I believe in the end Malcolm would have understood.” Thomas could not know the significance of my words, but I did.
I could not have said them were they not true.
He breathed in deeply, as if he inhaled my essence, then pulled me into his lap. “Time,” he repeated. “So little time.”
I buried my face in his neck, murmured soft reassurances into his ears, strong as spells. His breath shuddered in his chest, he sobbed unabashedly, and I let him. These human tears, they call them salty, but I taste them sweet. The emotions they express are a gift.
“We have so little time,” Thomas kept murmuring, as he kissed my shoulders, the side of my throat, where the rosebud yet bloomed. We were not the wood nymph and the shepherd king now, only two lost souls who happened to find one another.
And then, worst of all things, one soul dared to awaken from this dream to face the glaring light of day.
Thomas straightened, pulled away from me, going so rigid I nearly slid off his lap. “I am sorry,” he said, face white as milk. “I cannot take my comfort here. I am to wed Margaret of Roxburgh in a fortnight’s time.”
At first, I did not believe I had heard him proper. My shepherd king could never be putting me aside. The bond between us would not permit it. I felt it like a hair wrapped around my heart, still.
But humans are not ruled by such bonds.
Thomas was still red of eye, red of nose, curls mussed and standing on end. ’Twas enough to wake the purely mortal pity in me again. Yet my inner fae burned with fury, knew it could not permit this insult to go by unchecked.
“I am to wed Margaret of Roxburgh in a fortnight’s time.”
“No.” If I did not consent to this state of affairs, it could not be true.
Thomas’s face said otherwise. He held out his arms. “My love—”
“Do not call me that!” I clenched my fists tight, hard enough to crush stone. “How can you call me that when you would make another your wife?”
What sort of lies do these mortals live by anyway?
Thomas was startled into the pure and simple truth. “I call you ‘love’ because you are. Because you ever will be. I owe you my life.”
It rang inside me, heavier than church bells.
“Do not say it,” I hissed. “You have no idea what it means.”
You have no idea of the price you could pay.
Neither did I, then.
Thomas shook his head. “I do.” He stepped towards me, put his hands on either side of my face.
