Sweetness Bled and Brindled Page 6
Haven had stayed long enough to squat beside Jewel, resting a hand on Jewel’s knee, and tell him he couldn’t stay. Long enough to suggest he take River and her puppies wherever he wanted to go.
“He knew you,” Briar said when Haven was long gone and they were alone in the world. Her voice made it a fact, a statement. Jewel could have done many things. He was too tired to do most of them.
“He’s my brother,” he said.
River let Briar feed her some jerky beside him. That was probably a good sign. “Ah.”
She didn’t say anything else. She didn’t even suggest they go elsewhere. All she did was squat beside him, not touching, as he looked over the dogs and tried to convince River that they were safe. There were times when she left his side and the one time he glanced over to see where she’d gone, he saw her circling and pacing restlessly.
He should gather up the crate and suggest they leave, go wherever Briar wanted when she was so ready to go, but he couldn’t. He found, unsurprisingly, that all he wanted to do was sleep. He had to watch the puppies in case this was all just a strange dream. If it was, he didn’t want to wake up.
“We can stay here for the night,” Briar said softly from beside him. He started, causing River to assume a defensive stance and bare her teeth at him as well before they both realised that nothing was happening and they slowly relaxed. “Sorry.”
“I’d like that,” Jewel managed to say, though his mouth felt dry. Wordlessly, Briar handed him a canteen she’d conjured up from somewhere. It was just water, thankfully. He didn’t like alcohol at the best of times, but he doubted he’d have been able to keep it down. “Can I have a hug?” he asked, voice small, when he handed the canteen back.
Briar simply let the thing fall from her hands and sank onto the grass beside him, arms wrapped around him. Jewel leaned back, not caring that all he smelled was blood and sweat. He could feel her warmth seep through his clothes and into his bones. He could feel her chin resting on his head, just the lightest of pressures to let him know he was safe from the world.
He stayed where he was when she let him go to carry the crate into shelter. He took her hand when she offered it on her return, not trusting his legs to hold him otherwise. He didn’t lean on her, but he let her pull him close and he rested his head against her shoulder as best he could. Arm around his waist, Briar guided him to the crate and gentle maneuvered him down onto the ground. It wasn’t much. She’d used her saddlebags to make a pillow and one of the sheets from the crate which he wasn’t sure was supposed to keep them off the grass and weeds or keep the night cold from finding them.
They were in the corner of the building that was still standing, the walls offering at least some protection from the elements even if the weeds had taken over whatever floor had once been there. It was so clear of rubble that Jewel couldn’t help but wonder if Briar had come here and readied it before fetching him. She probably had. Her thoughtfulness was one of the reasons he loved her, after all.
Oh, he knew full well that she wasn’t always like that. She was reckless and impulsive and she didn’t always think things through, but if it truly mattered she would. Briar had put the crate near the foot. Jewel would have liked to have had it closer, but she was probably trying to balance his need to stare at the animals to believe they were alive and this was real with River’s need for space.
“The mother is hurt too,” Briar said softly. Jewel turned to look at her, shocked to see the tiredness in her eyes too. She had boundless energy. This wasn’t right. She put a finger to his lips when he tried to nudge some of his magic into her. “I’m fine. Save it for the dog. I’d prefer you wait until tomorrow, but I don’t think you’d forgive me.”
Right then, Jewel thought he could forgive her anything and everything, but she had a point. He’d already done what he could for her and he’d not even noticed how River favoured one of her legs, but now that Briar had pointed it out he didn’t know how he’d missed it.
By the time he’d convinced the dog to let him touch her and take away the pain and speed up the healing process the best he could, he was swaying on his feet. Briar caught him before he could fall and it felt like it happened to someone else. She half-carried him to the saddlebags and eased him onto the sheet. “Rest,” she said, her voice cutting through the cotton wool in his brain enough for him to realise that she wasn’t done moving. He reached out for her ankle, to keep her put, but he missed.
Briar still stopped and turned however. She took a step back towards him and knelt down beside him. “I need to look after Fourscore.” She brushed the hair that had fallen in front of his face behind his ear, a soft smile on her lips. “I won’t be long.”
He wanted to argue with that, he really did. Fourscore couldn’t possibly need her as much as he did. He said nothing. He felt like he was three steps from his body, like the inside of his skull didn’t exist, and he was so, so tired.
Leaning over Briar kissed him on the forehead and trailed a finger down the bridge of his nose. The fact that it didn’t tickle felt strange. “Nothing can harm you here,” she said. “But I’ll be back before you know it.”
He watched her leave, listened for the soft noises she made at Fourscore-and-Twenty, the clop of the horse’s hooves when she led the beast nearer, listened to her humming a song softly. Tried to at least. His eyes had trouble staying open and his ears had to strain to catch anything. The darkness too was inviting. Falsely, most likely, but perhaps not having the strength left to ward it off meant it would be gentle with him.
Jewel never noticed whether Briar returned. All he knew was that when he woke up, sun high in the sky, she was curled up beside him and asleep, soft and vulnerable as he’d ever seen her. She looked younger, asleep, and Briar brushed his hand past her cheek. It didn’t wake her.
It did, however, draw his attention to the blanket covering him. Briar was lying on top of half of it and Jewel frowned. He decided to ask about it when she was awake. At that moment all he did was carefully use his half of the blanket to cover her. She’d need the warmth more than he did it, especially now he was awake.
Fourscore-and-Twenty was nearby, being fed oats by Haven. Jewel rubbed at his eyes, but the two other horses, two bays, didn’t disappear. “What are you doing here?” he asked, hoarse still. He propped himself up more firmly, rubbing the sleep salt crusts from his eyes.
Haven was silent so long Jewel didn’t think he was going to answer, but his brother eventually spoke. “Henry’s dead.” A part of Jewel had known it, had expected it. The words still hit him like his brother had punched him from the grave. His arm which he’d been leaning on gave out and he fell nose first back onto the sheet. Briar didn’t stir.
“So I’m making sure the person who did it gets out safely,” Haven continued as if nothing at all had happened, as if the world hadn’t just shifted beyond all comprehension again. Jewel hadn’t known what he’d expected, but it wasn’t until Haven’s words that he’d realised a part of him had expected that he would always have the option of slinking back to his eldest brother, take whatever punishment he’d devise and return to the safety of what he knew. That it’d felt good to know he had that choice if the world beyond what he knew was too much, too cruel for him to handle.
Briar wouldn’t hate him for it, but he wondered, briefly, whether he should. “I made sure you have provisions and money.” Haven was still talking. Jewel had no idea what, if anything, he’d missed. If he had, it couldn’t have been important because Haven simply kept going. “I set up a plan that made this the last place people look, so we need to be gone by then. I even got something to carry the dogs.”
Jewel scooted back when his brother came over, carrying what turned out to be plate. “I’m not Henry,” Haven said softly, putting the wooden plate down near Briar. She twitched in her sleep, but didn’t wake. Jewel simply looked a his brother from where he’d huddled. River padded over from her crate to lick his cheek. Jewel reached out to pet her only out of habit,
the fact that she let him shaking him out of whatever his brain had been expecting.
The plate had a couple of bread slices, a chunk of sausage and of cheese. Jewel’s stomach rumbled and he carefully moved away. When he’d stepped over Briar carefully, she rolled after him and he shifted to sit in such a way that he could see both Haven and Briar’s face. One of Briar’s arms was thrown out onto the ground. Jewel shifted to sit near it and took her hand in his. He’d eat with just the one.
Haven sat down opposite him and Jewel tried to study him surreptitiously. His brother was dressed to travel, and not like a prince with an entourage. His brother was wearing sturdy clothes like the gardeners wore. Well-made and quality, but workers’ clothes for all that.
They didn’t speak. Jewel used the food as an excuse not to talk. Haven didn’t seem inclined to fill the silence. There was so much for Jewel to say and yet so little, all of it tied up with the news that their brother was dead. That Haven was crown prince like he should have been all along. That Haven had never stood up against Henry when it mattered most. Not that Haven had been alone in that and it hadn’t ever been his brother’s job to look after him. Jewel still felt a knot of bitterness because he’d have tried, if he’d been the elder one.
His plate was empty by the time Briar woke up. Haven rose and took it, silently walking over to wherever he’d stored their supplies and back with food for Briar. She too didn’t say anything and merely attacked the food, spitting out some bits of sausage and feeding them to River and some of the more adventurous bigger pups who had jumped out of the crate after their mother.
It was the dogs that loosed the awkwardness Jewel felt. They might be bigger than they were supposed to be, and physically well on their way to weaning off their mother, but they had the same clumsiness as they wobbled, learning how their balanced worked, learning how to play with one another. They all laughed at the puppies. Especially at one that had an ear that seemed like it would be permanently up. That one had attempted to pounce onto one of its siblings, misjudged it entirely and landed on its butt, the ear making it look like it had the most baffled and disapproving look Jewel could ever recall seeing on a dog.
It felt good. And then it felt bad because Jewel remembered his brother was dead, never coming back, and as horrible as Henry could be, surely he hadn’t deserved that. Briar held her arm open and he scooted into her embrace, snuggling until his head was half-resting against her sternum. Her arm lay around his shoulders, light and high and easy for him to pull away if he wanted to.
He didn’t want to. He reached his arm up to move hers lower. Briar responded by gripping his upper arm tightly. Not enough to hurt, but enough for him to be aware of how solid she was, how strong as she pressed him against her. He let himself doze, knowing she’d keep him safe, trusting her to handle Haven if she needed to on her own.
“You can’t come with us.” Her voice startled him from whatever doze he’d been in. River’s head shot up too. She’d apparently decided to cuddle up against him the way he’d snuggled with Briar, her puppies all spread out across their laps and against their mother’s body. They twitched in their sleep.
Unlike Jewel, River was soon satisfied that nothing was amiss and lay her head back down on his hip. Jewel tried not to tense, to stay calm. Tell himself that however sharp Briar’s voice had been, however much louder it’d been for him to notice, she and Haven weren’t fighting.
“I’m not coming all the way,” Haven countered. “Just far enough to ensure you’re safe. I’m also not taking ‘no’ for an answer and you’re not shaking me if I follow. You can’t afford to look conspicuous.”
Briar growled, but it was one of frustration.
“It’s okay,” Jewel muttered, putting his free hand on her thigh. “I don’t mind.”
The look she gave him said, very clearly, that she did, but Briar sighed. “Fine, but you’re in the rear.” Haven, it seemed, had no objection to that, only to Briar’s slow pace. She didn’t point out that she was waiting for Jewel to be ready to move, or to run out of time before they had to leave.
Jewel found he didn’t have the words. He opened his mouth to say he was ready to go and the words stuck in his throat, thick and heavy and cloying. Neither Haven nor Briar asked him what was wrong, for which he was grateful, because he didn’t know and he didn’t want to think about it. He stuffed it away with everything else he never thought about before it sent him into a panicked mess that wouldn’t, couldn’t, breathe. It’d happened before. It was why he shoved his fears that the words would never come again, that he didn’t understand what was wrong, deep down even below his fears for Henry.
He didn’t believe his brother was dead, he realised. He doubted Haven would lie, not about something like that, and that was an awful lot of blood on Briar’s clothes. But Henry couldn’t be dead. Nothing ever touched Henry, death least of all.
He also realised that he didn’t want to find out the truth. He didn’t think he could handle the knowledge that the sweet, terrifying lie he desperately wanted to stay a lie so the world was less daunting was exactly that: a lie, and if he ran Henry would hunt him down and find him, destroy everything he’d build, if he’d built anything at all.
Haven got up eventually to fuss with the horses and even Briar’s grip started to loosen. River rose, nosing at one of her pups. Jewel’s gaze snapped to stare at the warm bundle now against his leg, but everything was fine.
“I don’t want to go,” Jewel tried to say. He thought he got some of the sounds out, which was more relief than anxiety and yet he found his heart hammering all the way up in his throat. It wasn’t simply that he’d tried to express a desire that was counter that of his brother and Briar. It was that he had to find some other way to let them know he didn’t want to leave.
It was too much change too fast and with too many uncertainties. He wanted to curl up in his apothecary, bury himself in preparing tonics for anyone who needed them. Reduce the world to the familiar, to the safe.
Neither Haven nor Briar let him. Dimly, it dawned on him that she wasn’t wearing bloodied clothes anymore, though they were worn and a little dirty. He wondered what had happened to them, then let his attention wander to the waking puppies now starting to clamber over them. Letting Briar and Haven sort out what they wanted or needed to sort, Jewel busied himself with the puppies, waggling his fingers at them and play-biting them with one hand, challenging them to bite him in return. Mostly, he succeeded in getting the dogs to play with themselves, which wasn’t the worst outcome.
Eventually, however, he couldn’t deny that his brother and Briar were done and he could come meekly or he could come unwillingly. He chose the former, taking the remaining bay for his own. Someone had already saddled the mare for him. He didn’t recognise her, but she seemed docile enough and they’d hardly be hunting with them.
Haven took the crate of puppies and Jewel couldn’t decide if he wanted to stay with Briar or his brother, and so he stayed in the middle as they rode, leaving the ruins of his old life behind.
Content Notes
Content notes are notes that help readers decide whether a book contains material that they need to be in a specific mindset for or avoid altogether. Sometimes they're known as trigger warnings, which are intended to help trauma survivors avoid being surprised by content that will trigger them.
Common in fandom, these notes are controversial in original written fiction yet a staple of other forms of media such as films and games.
This book contains warnings for:
Implication of young animal euthanasia
Dissociations
Discussions of support animal murder and animal cruelty
Close family member death
Threats of physical abuse
Emotional abuse
Torture (implied and otherwise)
Implied (threat of) rape
(Threat of) setting people on fire
Multiple counts of murder
Threat of blowing up
buildings and people in it
Acknowledgements
You'd think after a certain number of books, writing these acknowledgements would get easier. They never do.
First of all, I'd like to thank Claudie Arseneault, Cedar McCloud and Matt for their enthusiasm as I told them about this story. It's so much darker than I usually write (or, if not darker, at least more focused on the dark elements) and their interest in it helped keep me going through the worst of dealing with Henry. His just desserts could not come soon enough! (And Matt, thank you for lending your name to our favourite squirrel. I'm sorry they didn't stay around for long!)
I'd also like to thank Peat and Fabienne for their encouragement and enthusiasm, as well as their betareading and encouragement. Peat is my tutor in all things literary evil, and I could not wish for a better one, while Fabienne has been the one to refuse to let me think this story wasn't any good, that it was too different, to deviant from established narrative paths to ever work or find an audience. (She's also responsible for whipping my blurb into shape because blurbs are the worst.) You can thank Peat for the fact that I threw half the kitchen sink at you all after all. I hope it's evil enough now, Peat!
My thanks also extend to RoAnna Sylver, whose Stake Sauce books showed me how important it is to feel seen, to feel like you get to exist. Without Stake Sauce, specifically Arc 2: Everybody's Missing (Somebody), and the spoiler spoiler spoiler there, I'm not sure this novella would ever have made it anywhere because without it I'd still have believed that fiction only has place for one specific type of narrative.
Sarah Waites is an amazing cover designers whose work always blows me out of the water. (One day, I'll be able to get you to design some covers especially for me instead of lucking out, Sarah!) I really wanted this cover to feel like a me-book but also convey that it's more jagged and dangerous than what people might expect from a book by me. Sarah's work did a great job capturing that and she's always a delight to work with, putting up with my titling ideas.