The boy opened his mouth to answer then hesitated, frowning.
She gave him a small smile. “Yes. Cutter’s like that. He’s not like a man, really. He’s more like…a storm, maybe. A storm that just sort of sweeps you up and carries you along with it. Terrifying, sure, something to be avoided, if you want to live in peace, a storm full of lightning and rage and no knowing, at any time, where it might strike. And yet…”
“You’re carried along anyway,” he finished.
Whatever else the boy was, he was no fool, that much was certain. “That’s right,” she said. “Like a leaf in the wind.”
The boy nodded, not satisfied probably but likely understanding that it was the best answer he was going to get. “Those men,” he said, “they called him Prince Bernard. The Crimson Prince.”
“Yes.”
“So he is? Our prince, I mean? My father and mother didn’t talk much about them, the royals, but some of my friends, their parents told them stories about him. He was…he was a hero, wasn’t he?”
“Oh yes,” Maeve said. “He was, he is a hero. It’s because of him—his brother too, understand, but mostly him—that we won the war against the Fey and found a place to stay here.” Of course, it was also because of Cutter that they had ever been forced into a war with the strange denizens of this land in the first place, for it had been he and he alone who had broken the peace treaty by slaying the Fey king, but she didn’t think now was the time to mention that.
“A hero,” the boy said slowly, musing over it. “But scary.”
She grunted. There wasn’t any arguing that, even if she’d meant to, and she did not. After all, she had traveled with the man for years, was as close to him as anyone could claim to be, but knowing him, traveling with him for years, had done nothing to make him less terrifying to her. For as it turned out, being close to the monster, knowing the exact length and sharpness of its claws, having seen its bite, offered no comfort. “Scary,” she nodded. “I’d say that’s pretty accurate.”
“Still,” the boy said, something flashing in his eyes that she thought dangerously close to admiration and out of all the things she’d seen in the last couple of days since Chall had arrived at her home, she thought that the scariest yet. “I’ve never seen anybody fight like that…I never knew people could fight like that.”
“Yes,” she said grudgingly. “He is a great warrior, it’s true. I have seen many warriors in my time and none—not even his brother who is known for his skill with the sword—can compare.” A great warrior, yes, perhaps from the outside looking in, but she had never thought of him as such, and she doubted Cutter thought of himself in that way. A great killer, sure, one born to it as much as anyone ever had been, that could not be denied.
“Do you think…” He hesitated, then turned to meet her eyes. “Do you think he would teach me?”
Those words rocked her to her core. She had been expecting them, of course, but she had hoped…“Would you want him to?” she asked. “Would you want to be like him?”
The lad hesitated, thinking it through, and that was something. For a moment, Maeve allowed herself to hope, then he frowned, his face going hard. “Men came to my village. They killed everyone in it, my friends…my mom. If I could fight, maybe I would have been able to stop them. I wish I could have. I wish I could have killed them. All of them.”
Maeve watched him, feeling very old, feeling very sad. “Will you take a bit of advice from an old woman, Matt?”
He didn’t say yes, but he didn’t say no either, so she grunted. “Bloodshed only leads to more bloodshed and killing only leads to more killing. You see, killing, hurting, it’s a habit a man or a woman gets into. One that is very, very hard to break.”
His expression softened for a moment, and she began to think that maybe he had heard her, then his face hardened again, and he scooted away from her. “What do you know?” he demanded. “You’re not the one who ran away while your mother and all your friends were killed. They killed them, Maeve.”
Maeve frowned. “What do I know?” she demanded, feeling some anger of her own, feeling, in that moment, closer to the woman she had once been than she had in many, many years. “Do not talk to me of loss, boy,” she hissed. “I have lived far longer than you, have lost more than you could imagine. You have lost, boy, but do not think for a second that your losses are greater than those of others. You, after all, weren’t alive during the Skaalden invasion. You were not forced to watch your home, your entire kingdom destroyed. You lost your mother, your friends? I lost my husband. My daughter. My home. And you would lecture me about loss?”
The boy recoiled, clearly frightened, and Maeve felt a heavy wave of guilt sweep over her as she realized that she had screamed that last. It was true, of course; she had lost, had suffered much. Had lost a man who had meant the world to her, the only love of her life and doubted very much if there’d be another. Had lost her young daughter, a child born out of the love that she, in her youth, and her husband had felt for one another. But that did not give her the right to treat the boy so. He was only frightened, that was all, frightened and wounded from recent loss, and here she was lashing out at him while her
