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Chapter Twenty-Eight
Wren’s kiss, as ever, proved a balm for Shrike’s wounded heart. Shrike slung his arm around his waist and guided him into the cottage to settle down for the evening as best they could, considering their trials.
While they shed their garments and nestled into bed together, Shrike’s mind kept whirling away at the problem. Wren had bid Shrike trust him to think of something. And so Shrike would. Still, that needn’t prevent Shrike from devising alternatives.
But his allies and resources, once he’d numbered them, proved few indeed. Even with Wren warm and safe in his arms, he felt a cold dread seep into his veins.
“Shrike,” Wren murmured.
The sound of his true name, however faint, sent a shiver through Shrike’s core—all the moreso when it fell from those beloved bespeckled lips. “Aye.”
“Have you heard the tale of Saint George and the Black Knight?”
Shrike had not, and said so.
“Perhaps you know him as the Redcrosse Knight,” Wren added, though Shrike did not. “He slew a dragon once, but that’s not the tale I’m thinking of. It’s just a mummer’s play. The same mock pageant every year. The Black Knight challenges the good Saint George, and they fight to the death, until the Black Knight is slain by Saint George.”
It had a certain ring of familiarity to it, Shrike had to admit.
“But,” Wren continued, “when Saint George realizes he’s killed the Black Knight, he’s overcome with remorse and grief, and begs the doctor to return the Black Knight to life. The doctor does so, and Saint George and the Black Knight embrace as comrades.” He paused. “I don’t suppose there are any such doctors in the fae realms.”
“There are rumours,” Shrike admitted. “It would take a quest to find them.”
“If they exist at all.” Wren sighed. “Still, it’s a thought.”
They lapsed into silence again. Shrike’s hand wandered to Wren’s hair and began braiding knots into it absent-mindedly.
“Your turn,” Wren murmured.
“Mine?” Shrike replied.
Wren nodded against Shrike’s collar. “Tell a story.”
One couldn’t live centuries in the fae realms without hearing at least a scrap of story or song. But Shrike had never tried his hand as a bard. His quiet nature made him ill-suited to recounting epics or reciting poetry.
Still, there remained one tale he knew by heart. One oft whispered at the margins of his presence in hunts, though none knew it so well as him. One he’d not told but the once, many years ago, and yet burned in his mind now. He forced himself to begin. “I would have you know the truth of how I came to be called the Butcher of Blackthorn.”
Wren’s body took on the aspect of a taut bowstring as Shrike felt rather than saw his gaze fix on his face with intense interest.
“I’ve already told you how Larkin raised me through my first century, until he perished.” Shrike hesitated. “He did not die a natural death.”
While Shrike couldn’t see Wren’s face in the darkness—could not search his dark eyes for what he thought of his tale—he felt Wren’s body tense against his own in his embrace. He waited to see if Wren might speak. But Wren did not. And so Shrike spoke on in his stead.
“On a September eve, Larkin bid me bring our wares to the Moon Market to barter. The day’s work had wearied him, and he remained home to rest. I left him abed and went out. The moon was full. The market was bright. Amongst the throng I stumbled across a fae peddling pomegranates—a particular favourite of Larkin’s. I brought some back with me alongside the rest of the night’s spoils. I walked home. When I came within a half-mile of our hovel, I beheld a curious light that rivalled the moon. A golden glow flickering through the trees.
“Belatedly, I recognized it as a towering flame.
“I dropt all I held and ran.
“By the time I arrived at the remnants of our home, most of the fire had burnt out. The ruin of our hovel still smouldered. Larkin…” Shrike forced his words out past the catch in his throat as the memory flickered once again into his mind. The dark stains spreading o’er the homespun tunic stitched by Shrike’s own hand. The strong arms which had carried Shrike through his childhood and taught him to wield axe, scythe, hammer, and bow, now fallen at fixed angles never to rise again, the iron dagger yet clutched in his rigid fist. The crow’s-feet wrinkles around eyes that had smiled warmly on Shrike all his days, now fixed unseeing on the night sky beyond. “His body lay beyond it.”
Shrike’s voice failed him. His own ragged breath resounded in his ears. He knew not how to continue his tale.
Then Wren caressed his cheek, a touch familiar and warm, and with more comfort in a single gesture than Shrike’s heart could well bear.
Shrike cleared his throat and spoke on. “He’d been cut down by three blades. I buried him. Then I slipped his iron dagger into my belt and took up his iron scythe in his stead to seek my vengeance.
