“I’m sorry, lad,” she said softly. “I didn’t mean…”
“No,” Matt said, “no, I’m sorry. I didn’t know…about your husband and your daughter…I didn’t—”
Maeve waved a hand. “Leave it, lad. I’m sorry for what you’ve suffered, believe me I am. I only…you see, Matt, I have lived a long time—longer than I ever expected to, in truth. And I have seen people’s grief turn them into monsters. I would not see that happen to you, not if I could help it. But I understand, I do, understand the desire to defend yourself. So if you really want him to teach you…”
“I asked him before,” Matt said softly, his shoulders slumping. “He said no.”
She nodded. “Well. Just think on it, okay, lad? Sleep on it. And if, when you wake in the morning, you still want to learn…I’ll talk to him. Okay?”
“Really?” he asked, turning to her, and there was no denying—no matter how much she might have wanted to—the hope in his eyes, in his voice. “You would do that?”
Maeve sighed. “Yes. I would, if you really want me to, I will. But I can’t promise you it’ll do any good. Cutter makes his own decisions—he always has.”
He nodded. “Maybe you’re right,” he said. “Maybe I shouldn’t…” But they were words spoken for her, she saw that from his face, saw that they were just his attempt to soothe things over, words meant as an apology. “But, Maeve…can I ask you something?”
“Yes.”
“If Cutter really is a prince…then why…why does he care about me? Why did he take me away from the village? Why was he even in the village in the first place?”
She winced. “I don’t want to keep you in the dark, Matt, I know how that feels. But if you want Cutter’s reasons, you’d best ask him yourself.”
Matt sighed. “He won’t tell me. He doesn’t tell me anything.”
Maeve watched the boy, feeling sorry for him. A boy with a history he knew nothing about, a bloody, tragic legacy from which he had come. A legacy which would follow him, one way or the other, for the rest of his life. There were those—many—who would see him killed for that legacy, would execute him for crimes he had not committed and for reasons he did not understand. “I’ll talk to him,” she said finally. Then she rose.
“You’re leaving?” he said, looking up at her. Fifteen or sixteen years old. Not a child, not anymore, but neither was he a man, and like a child, he was watching her, frightened at the thought of being alone, and that she understood. After all, children were scared of monsters in their closets, under their beds, but she knew enough of the world, had lived and struggled and suffered within it long enough to understand, as all adults came to, sooner or later, that the monsters they had imagined in their youths were actually very real. Only, the real monsters did not hide underneath beds or in wardrobes. Instead, they walked among men, hidden in plain sight, often behind smiles and soft words, but monsters just the same. Sometimes, those monsters were people you knew. Sometimes, they were your friends, your family. Sometimes, they were your prince.
“Yes,” she said, moving toward the door. “You need your sleep—we all do. If I know Cutter, he’ll want an early start in the morning, so you’d best rest while you can.”
“Okay,” he said in a soft voice. “Sleep well, Maeve.”
“And you,” she said, giving him a wink before turning and stepping out of the room, closing the door behind her. Sleep well. Maeve appreciated the sentiment, truly she did, but she doubted that she would sleep well. Doubted, in fact, that she would sleep at all. More likely, she would spend hours tossing and turning, thinking and worrying, and regretting, that most of all. But even that lay somewhere beyond her, minutes or hours, there was no way to know for sure.
No, she would not shuffle to her room to lay and nestle curled up against her regrets and her fears. At least, not yet.
There was something she had to do first.
***
It did not take her long to find him. There were others standing surrounding the great blaze, villagers mourning their dead, sending prayers up into the air to accompany the great pillar of dark smoke drifting into the sky. There were other forms, many, men and women who could have been anyone, their forms vague and indistinct in the darkness, yet it was not difficult to pick him out.
For one, there was the fact that he was far taller and wider at the shoulders than any of those others gathered around the fire, but mostly it was because while those others huddled in groups, those who had lost the most sobbing and wailing while those with them did their best to offer what little comfort they could, he stood alone. A lone figure receiving no comfort and giving none, a figure who stood so still that he might have been a statue placed to appear as if it regarded the flames.
She had known she would find him here, had been able to trace her way to him as easily as if she’d had a map. He doubted that, if he were asked, he could have explained what had brought him here to this great blaze within which the corpses of those villagers who had died burned, but she knew well enough. He had come because he must come, the same way that a moth must brave the flames of a torch, attracted to it by some imperative which it could not deny. Only fire waited for the moth in its coming, only the possibility of drifting too close and being burned and it was much the same with him, for there was nothing
