Fallen Ward (Deepwoods Saga Book 3) (17 page)

Siobhan nodded uselessly. “I feel like I should go after him.”

“Siobhan…” Wolf warned.

“I know. I know I can’t. And it
hurts
that I can’t.” Until the words burst free, she hadn’t realized what emotion was burning and throbbing in her chest. But it was that, more than anything—her inability to help when Rune needed help the most. Even if he had put his fool self into such a dangerous situation.

Wolf’s hand moved an inch along her shoulder, as if he intended to bring her into his embrace, and then he stopped short.

She was confused for a split second before she realized why he stopped. She’d been so skittish around him the past several days, avoiding touching him at all, because of her new awareness of him. Now he wasn’t certain how to offer her any comfort as the old patterns were thrown off. Some part of her still felt that awkwardness as she didn’t know how to respond to him still, but more than that, she needed him in that moment.

Siobhan reached for him, arms going around his neck, head on his shoulder. He relaxed into the embrace with something that could have been a sigh, drawing her in closer.

“He’ll be fine, Siobhan,” Wolf whispered against her hair. “Kiō’s part cat, he’ll show up when he’s of a mind to.”

“If he doesn’t, I’ll murder him myself,” she promised.

“I’ll help,” he soothed.

Without asking, he shifted her so that he could squeeze into the chair as well, then pulled her into his lap. Siobhan went without protest. On a different day, when she wasn’t so tired and wrung out, she might have protested.
That
hadn’t been resolved yet, and until it was, taking advantage of him like this was not at all kind. But she was tired, beyond that, exhausted. To her sleep-deprived mind, it was easy to rationalize things. She hadn’t asked, he’d offered, and she wasn’t going to fight him on this.

She let her forehead rest in the crook of his neck, taking in a deep breath, his clean, masculine scent filling her head as she did so. Siobhan let the breath out slowly. There was a time, not so long ago, that she would not have questioned this position and probably have fallen asleep against him. Now, she was too aware of him to do so. Still, she found this moment perfect. It was exactly what she needed.

He was what she needed.

Siobhan’s eyes half-opened as that thought penetrated. Wolf was exactly what she needed. When her heart was troubled most, it was him that she turned to. Every time. It seemed that she had finally found her answer to Grae’s question. He was right—her heart had known it all along. Although that still left Sylvie’s question.

“So,” he asked in a quiet rumble, “mind telling me why you’ve been so skittish the last few days?”

And how did she respond to that without making things even more awkward than they already were? “Sylvie asked me a question I don’t know how to answer.”

“A question about me?”

Wasn’t that obvious? She answered anyway. “Yes.”

“What was the question?”

No. She was not telling him that, especially while ensconced in the man’s lap. “When I figure out the answer, I’ll tell you.”

He seemed to weigh that for a moment. Wolf wasn’t one to let things ride. If he had to choose between lettings things go and pressing the point, he usually chose the latter. But this time, mercifully, he decided to not push her for an answer. “Promise?”

“You’ll be the first to know,” she vowed.

Wolf put a chaste kiss against the crown of her head. “Good enough for the moment. Come on,” he urged softly, lifting her to her feet as he stood. “We both need to be in a bed. Asleep.”

If they had stayed in that moment a little longer, she wouldn’t have minded. But perhaps he was right, her heart had gone through enough turmoil for tonight. Still, she didn’t completely release him as she normally would have done. Instead, she wrapped both of her hands around one of his, leaning her head against his arm as they walked up the stairs.

Siobhan could feel a line of tension in the way that Wolf carried himself, as if he weren’t sure why she was acting like this or how to respond to it. After several days of her not touching him at all, it would seem very strange for her to suddenly cling to him instead. Even she couldn’t offer an explanation of why she was doing it.

When they got to her room, she forced herself to let go, and gave him a wan smile of thanks before slipping inside. The door shut behind her, Siobhan took the first natural breath she had all night. “Heart, thank you for the answer,” she whispered to herself.

Now if her hormones would just cast a vote, then perhaps she’d know what to do next.

ӜӜӜ

When the fifth day dawned, people more or less kept an eye over their shoulder, expecting Rune to waltz in at any moment. Of course, they were still steadily building on the new hall. Their worry and frustration with Rune had not stopped their progress. The framework for the guildhall had been constructed, and today they were working on adding a roof.

It was amazing what a group of dedicated people could get done when they put their minds to it. Beirly had pessimistically calculated that it would take them a solid two months to rebuild the guildhall. But to Siobhan’s eyes it appeared he was wrong. They were already three days ahead of the schedule he had laid out for her. It was probably because people were picking up a knack for construction better than Beirly had anticipated. Not everyone had the skills for it, but they were good at focusing on the parts they had a talent for, and between nine people they had enough skills to get the job done.

“Siobhan.”

Siobhan whirled around so fast that several bones in her neck cracked. There, standing framed in the front door, was Rune. Her first impression was that he looked tired, filthy, and perhaps a little thinner. He seemed to have a young child thrown over one shoulder, but before she figured out why he had carted a kid here, she needed to focus on him first. She had honestly wondered if she would hug him or punch him first, and it was not until that moment that she realized the answer. Without a moment of hesitation, she went straight to Rune and punched him hard in the gut.

Of course, Rune could have easily dodged it, but he didn’t. Instead he winced, before grimacing a smile at her. “Guess I deserve that.”

“It’s good that you feel that way,” she responded with a saccharine smile. “Because I think every person in the guild has vowed to punch you at least once.”

This time he looked more nervous. And for good reason. After all Tran, Fei, and Wolf could pack quite the punch.

She eyed the child that was still on his shoulder with open confusion. “I thought I knew where you went and what you were doing, but I must be wrong. Where did the child come from?”

As if remembering, Rune slung him off his shoulder and set him down on his own feet. It was only then that she realized the child’s hands were bound. The more she saw the situation, the less it made sense. What child could possibly be a threat to Rune?

A hint of mischief danced in Rune’s eyes, as if he were about to pull an elaborate prank. “Siobhan, you might want to sit down.”

She stubbornly remained standing. “Who is he?”

It was not Rune that answered her, but the child, and in the most haughty tone that she had ever heard.

“I am Alexander Alfred Bertrand Jonquil III, Guildmaster of Fallen Ward. I demand that you return me immediately.”

For a split second, Siobhan was sure that the child had suffered some sort of head injury. Everyone in Robarge had debated on the identity of the guildmaster for Fallen Ward. But a child had never been seriously considered for the obvious reason that having a child rule would be madness. She glanced up at Rune’s face and that was enough to tell her that the child was not lying to her. Rune looked at her steadily, not surprised by what the child said, nor trying to deny it in any way.

Which meant that it was true.

Siobhan truly regretted not sitting down first. She had to lock her knees to keep upright. The silence stretched as she tried to figure out what to respond to first.

It was Conli, always a voice of reason, who stepped forward. “My name is Conli Roroana. You say that you are the guildmaster for Fallen Ward? Not the heir of that guild?”

Alexander-whatever’s expression became outraged. “I am the
guildmaster.”

Siobhan had more or less been experiencing a headache ever since she discovered that Rune had gone missing. But at this conversation, she felt like an ice pick had been driven through her temples. “Rune. From the beginning.”

“I think you more or less guessed why I’ve been gone, and where I went,” he admitted easily with a nonchalant shrug. “Trouble is, when I got there, I found out that the guildmaster was this kid.”

“KID!” Alexander exclaimed, turning red in the face.

Rune ignored him and continued the explanation. “I couldn’t kill him. Didn’t seem right. But I didn’t want to leave him there either. So I thought, I would bring him to you, and let you decide what to do.”

Siobhan was fairly sure that she only got half the explanation. That must be the case, because she had no idea what Rune expected her to do. “Rune, brother dearest, that doesn’t really tell me why you brought him here.”

His head cocked in question, as if he expected his reasoning to be obvious. “Siobhan, he’s not evil. Kid his age can’t be evil. He doesn’t know right from wrong, and no one around him was telling him, so he couldn’t be punished for the things he did. Didn’t seem right. But you know how to teach people right from wrong. So I brought him to you.”

Siobhan stared at his face and the full realization of what he meant dawned. Rune too had very little sense of right from wrong when she had first met him. He still believed that Siobhan knew the answer to everything, and that there was no problem that she could not fix. He was just like a little child that still believed that his mother could do everything.

Helplessly, she looked at the both of them and honestly did not know where to even start to unravel this particular knot.

“Excuse me,” the little guildmaster said in a particularly frosty tone, “I do not need any instruction from the likes of you. You will return me to my guild.”

Cocking her head at him, she asked, “How old are you?”

His glare at her could’ve bore a hole through solid steel. “I do not see how my age has any bearing on this.”

Conli stepped in close to her and whispered next to Siobhan’s ear, “Judging from his size I would think he is about nine.”

She leaned her head a little closer to his and responded in a low murmur, “He does not sound like a nine-year-old.”

Alexander stamped his foot. “The nine-year-old can hear you. And you are wrong, I am ten.”

Rune, without a flicker of change in his expression, grabbed the kid’s head in the crook of his elbow and rubbed a knuckle hard into the top of his head.

More surprised than hurt, Alexander gave him the most incredulous look and said, “What was that!”

“It’s called a noogie, kid. You say stupid things, you get punished. That’s how the world works.”

Wolf and Tran seemed to find this funny as they both chuckled behind her. Siobhan gave them a Look over her shoulder. “You two taught him that, didn’t you?”

They attempted to look innocent. They were very bad at it.

All of this bantering aside, it did not solve the problem. Siobhan still had no idea what to do about the situation. While she was glad that Rune had not assassinated anyone, she half wished he had simply gathered intel and come back. Without a child guildmaster in tow. But the damage was done now, and Siobhan was not quite sure how they would return the boy home, or when, but the one thing she was sure about was that there would not be anything simple about it.

With her thoughts now semi-organized, Siobhan went to damage control. “Tran, go to Darrens and report what has gone on. Ask Cha Ji An to come back with you if possible. I feel like we need her skills for this.” Turning, she instructed, “Grae, go find Markl and Sylvie. They are supposed to be preparing to leave for Coravine but I think that the trip will now have to be either canceled or postponed. The city is surely a madhouse right now.”

Both men took off at her bidding. “As for you two, you need clean clothes and a bath, not in that order.”

“And breakfast?” Rune asked hopefully.

Siobhan gave him a scathing look. “Do you really think I’m in the mood to feed you right now?”

“I take this as a no.”

She didn’t deign to answer him. Taking the young guildmaster by the arm, she towed him outside. There was an inn nearby that would let her borrow their bathing room for the space of an hour. “Conli?”

“Find them clothes?” he guessed.

“You’re a genius. Go.” Siobhan silently blessed him for playing along. Guildmaster and ex-assassin were dirty, yes, but really, giving them a bath was only a delaying tactic on her part. It was to give Tran time to notify Darrens and for him to respond. Siobhan was not above passing responsibility onto someone else.

ӜӜӜ

Bathing a reluctant child was akin to bathing a cat. Or at least, Siobhan felt so by the end of the ordeal. She had somehow become soaking wet during the process, had scratches on her arms where her victim had fought back, and, even though the bath was complete, he was still snarling at her. Yes, just like a cat.

Conli had found clothes from somewhere that would fit the boy. Rune, of course, had his own clothes to change into. Siobhan was relieved that offering dry clothes was an easier process than giving the boy a bath. However, her plan to get Darrens here before the bath ended failed. Tran had not even sent word back by the time that she got both of them into dry clothes again.

Because she did not know what else to do while waiting, Siobhan fell back to Rune’s suggestion and ordered breakfast for them. Even the snobby little guildmaster’s eyes lit up when a plate of steaming food was set in front of him, and he dug in with gusto. The way that he and Rune consumed their late breakfast indicated that Rune had not stopped to eat at any point. When Siobhan thought about it, it made perfect sense for him not to. After all, he was traveling in between cities without an escort or any of his guildmates with him. Even with his pathmaking ability making the trip easier, it did not necessarily make the whole journey safer. Of course he would limit how much time he would spend in between paths.