Chapter 3
From where Sable worked, cleaning the cookware, she heard the accusations and threats Thorn hurled at Seylin. She couldn't possibly be more alarmed if he had accused the new elf of being a goblin.
Of course! Why hadn't she seen it before? Sable thought back on everything that had happened since Seylin came to camp. He always used her real name. He tried to stand up for her when Thorn was being exceptionally cruel, going so far as to follow her into the day. He even slept in the same tent with her! It was all so obvious now.
The man had just lost his woman to goblins and now he needed another to replace her.
Since Thorn had made sure to stake his claim on Irina, Seylin was settling for her. That's why he was so kind! That's why he taught her that spell! He was just trying to get close to her so she might agree to marry him. Then she would die bringing his child into the world.
Well, it simply wouldn't work. Sable wouldn't marry her own fiance. She certainly wouldn't marry this stranger.
Sable tried to distance herself from the newcomer after that. But, every time she bluntly refused his help in some task or snubbed him when he tried to talk with her, Sable always felt an odd pang of guilt. A look of hurt surprise always overtook his handsome features during moments like these. He was too kind to rage at her when she rebuffed him. That made it all the worse. If only Seylin was a brute like Thorn, it would be so much easier to be mean to him.
"I think I should leave," Seylin said.
He was having another dream of being back home with Marak and talking over his problems. Both the presence of his friend and the surroundings of the dream were so painfully comfortable compared to the squalor and poor company he had in the elf camp. He hated knowing he would soon wake up.
"Already, you've barely gotten to know 'your people,'" Marak said. "Can you abandon them so easily?"
"They don't care if I'm there or not," Seylin replied, unhappily. "And the only intelligent member of this band wants me gone. Maybe it would be best if I listened to her. It's not as if I'm doing them any good anyway. Sable won't let me help her at all."
The goblin King watched the young man's depressed expression turn into the shadow of a grin.
"You should have seen it when Sable did let me help her. I was teaching her a spell," he explained absently. "When she did it, the way she smiled... I almost thought she was beautiful."
Marak gave out a laugh. "I see why that elf bully is so worried."
"No, no, no, I just... admire her," Seylin stammered. "Thorn's accusations and threats are entirely misplaced."
The bicolored eyes of the monarch narrowed. "Threats? Have those elves harmed you?"
Seylin sat up straighter at the deadly seriousness in his king's voice. "No, no, they haven't. Everything is... fine."
Marak continued to study him critically. "Remember what I said before you left. The very second you suffer violent harm at the hands of an elf, all my promises are null. I'm your King and you're my subject. I won't tolerate anyone harming you."
Sable held her hand over a broken tree branch and performing the heating spell. The wood ignited into flame right away. The scarred woman covered it in snow put the fire out. Taking branches from the pile she collected, Sable performed the spell again and again, delighted each time. She still couldn't believe she could perform magic.
"It's not fair," Willow said behind her.
Sable turned around to see Rowan and Willow dragging a dead doe into camp and tying her feat to a tree. Without hesitation, she rose from her spot and began gutting the animal.
"Why does the ugly woman get to learn new spells?" Willow complained.
Rowan just shrugged and poked his head through the cave door to tell the others about the new kill.
Thorn, Irina, and Seylin came outside.
Sable was startled by the look of sadness in the new elf's black eyes as he examined the dead doe. He looked devastated, as though he was witnessing the loss of something pure and wonderful. She looked down and only saw an ordinary deer that would soon be dinner. The dark haired woman glanced up at him again curiously. When he saw her studying him, Seylin stepped forward and knelt beside her. Turning away from him, she went to work on the animal.
"Do you want me to teach you the Slaughtering Spell?" Seylin asked. "It will make this much easier and cleaner."
The scarred woman slowly turned to look at him, aching to know more magic. Irina looked rather excited too.
"No!" Thorn growled. "We got on fine for years without that spell. We don't need it now."
"But, Thorn-" Irina started.
"I said no, puppy!"
Sable looked up at the furious Thorn to find him glaring at her threateningly. Wordlessly, Sable resumed butchering the doe.
"I'll help." Seylin pulled out his elf knife.
"Since he's butchering now, does that mean I don't have to anymore?" Irina asked.
Thorn didn't answer. He just stomped back into the cave, furious. The look on the blond man's face told Sable she probably wouldn't be eating during the morning meal.
Rowan, Willow, and an ecstatic Irina followed their leader into the cave.
"What are you trying to do?" Sable demanded once they were alone.
Seylin looked back at her in confusion. "I'm only trying to make your lives easier."
Sable looked at him in disbelief. This new elf had lived with them for almost two weeks and he still didn't seem to understand how the camp functioned.
"Thorn doesn't care about making anyone's life easier," she said. "It's like I said the other night, he likes our life the way it is. He's the best at everything and he's in control of everyone."
"Do you like your life the way it is?" he asked.
Sable's hands froze in place over the steaming carcass. No one ever asked her what she liked or disliked. No one cared. Did Sable like working tirelessly only to be fed scraps and be insulted? No. But at least she was alive. At least she was free to look at the stars.
"My life could be worse." She resumed cutting into the animal. "I could be captured by goblins and die giving birth to a monster in a dripping, starless cave."
A long silence followed where Seylin watched her, a confused expression on his handsome, dark features.
"Why did you ask me about goblins the other day?" he asked.
Sable remembered Thorn's outburst when she questioned Seylin about goblins. She shuddered anew over his wish that she be taken by them. But the truth was, as leader of the camp, Tho9rn should be the one asked these types of questions. As helpful and well intentioned as Seylin seemed, he obviously wasn't telling the truth. He knew about goblins and he brought danger. Sable could feel it in equal measure with the wind brushing her skin and the wooden handle of the knife in her hand. This stranger was trouble.
"That's what happened to the woman you loved," she told him. "You lost her to a goblin. Your band was doing well, and then the goblins came. It's the only thing that makes sense."
The mysterious elf's mouth dropped open in surprise, confirming Sable's suspicions.
"You need to leave," Sable begged. "You must have seen the goblins, but you don't know what they're like. They'll follow you and find us. They'll capture Irina and me, and we'll die down there with them. They use elf women to make monsters. They- they breed them to monsters to make more. I'm sorry about the woman you loved- what a horrible way to die. But you can't stay. You'll bring goblins and you just don't belong here."
Seylin bowed his head toward the cold snow. "I don't seem to belong anywhere anymore."
A surge of compassion poured through Sable as she watched the lonely elf. To lose your entire band, your entire way of life, and then be rejected by an inferior band like theirs. How awful! She knew the pain of losing loved ones and watching the slow death of her own band. But nothing she had ever been through could be as bad as loosing a fiance and an entire band, as Seylin must have.
She was finished with the butchering. Seylin emptied the bloody tub of guts while she carried the meat into the shed. They burned the bones together with the spell he taught her.
"I'm sorry," Sable said, "about your woman, your band... about everything. You're so kind. I wish you could stay."
"I can," he said. "And I will teach you all sorts of things like- like how to write. You said you'd wanted to. Remember?"
"Writing isn't for women," Sable said automatically, reciting the words her father told her years ago when she asked to learn..
"Writing is for everyone," Seylin said. "So is reading. I can teach you."
Sable stared into Seylin's black eyes. Somehow this strange man had found her weakness. As much as she wanted to learn magic, she could do without it. But to learn to read and write like her father... to be able to read the words of her ancestors...
"When do we start?" Sable asked.