Page 33 of In Your Light

“I've frightened forests before,” Hadeom admitted. “I’ve hurt them.” He wasn’t talking about the forest, and he was sure Fyn knew.

“I'm sure you have.”

“You believe me too easily,” Hadeom murmured. “I say such things, and you smile as if you know what I’m saying is true, yet you still don’t believe it.”

“I believe you've been alive a very long time,” Fyn replied. “I believe you believe you are not worthy of kindness.”

Oof.

Hadeom felt as if he’d been struck in the sternum.

Fyn smiled at him. “But I believe you are.”

Hadeom tried to swallow, but his mouth was too dry. “Fyn, I’ve done many a terrible thing.... I’m not...” He shook his head.

“You have to be worthy of redemption, Hadeom,” Fyn said with his usual confidence. “Because Cern believes you are. He wouldn’t have sent you here otherwise.”

“And you believe everything that old man says?”

“Yes.”

Fyn’s certainty should have been comforting, but Hadeom wasn’t sure if it was youthful naivety or blind faith.

“He’s the god of the wild things. Of course I believe him. You should too. We are both wild things, are we not?”

“I’m not...” Hadeom didn’t want to say it. Didn’t want to scare Fyn away.

“You’re not human.”

Hadeom shook his head and whispered his reply. “No.”

Fyn smiled. “So we are not too different, then. Except you are perhaps more like Cern than me, but that’s okay.”

Hadeom let out a sardonic sound. “Is it?”

Fyn studied him for a long moment. “You’ll be okay.”

Hadeom slow-blinked. “What?”

“You’ll be okay,” he said again, and Hadeom couldn’t remember the last time someone had reassured him like that.

The realisation settled somewhere deep in his ribs.

Fyn was splintering his resolve. He wasn’t fearful, simply truthful, and spoke with such honest conviction.

Hadeom was older than empires. Older than memory. He sometimes felt as though time had rubbed him smooth the way rivers polished stones—until there was little left but weight.

But in front of Fyn, he felt newborn. Helpless. His defences in ruins.

Fyn grinned at him, then began walking again, only to spot something that captured his interest. He crouched beside another fallen log, and when he stood up, he was holding a small flower.

“Is that edible?” Hadeom asked, voice rough.

Fyn shook his head. “No. But it’s for you, nonetheless.” He held out the flower to Hadeom.

A flower.

He’d given him a flower. A single bluebell.