Candlelight Oaths

    Sean stumbled into the room Colm had put aside for his group and sat down on the edge of his cot, burying his face in his hands. Flick followed, setting a candle down on the room’s desk before moving to her own mattress. Corvane perched on the window sill.

    The raven cocked its head to one side, studying him. “Not the most seamless ascension I’ve been witness to, but not the worst either.”

    Flick nodded, her cheeks full of plundered chestnuts. “Aye, you could have cacked your britches in front of the whole town.” She looked up at the ceiling, pondering. “Which, now that I think of it, would have made the evening significantly more entertaining.”

    Sean’s gaze didn’t shift from the floor. “I’ve made a terrible mistake. I should never have made those promises.”

    “Come now, lad, pull yourself together.” Corvane admonished, his voice stern. “A king can’t show weakness in front of his subjects, not even in private settings such as these.”

    “You don’t get it, Corvane. I’m not made for this. I haven’t led anything greater than a team of low level cubicle jockeys. Now I’m, what, supposed to be the father of a whole nation?”

    Sean felt his breathing start to quicken.

    “I’m not the guy those people out there think I am. I’m not someone who fixes problems.”

    His vision started to narrow down, darkening around the edges until the floor boards looked a mile away.

    “When I found out I was dying I told everyone the trip to Ireland was a bucket list thing, a last hurrah before hospice.”

    He faintly felt his hands spasm, the fingertips dragging against his forehead as they curled closed.

    “It was all Hallmark channel bullshit. I was running, plain and simple.”

    Sean’s chest tightened and he forced out a ragged cough. The breath he dragged in after burned his throat.

    “I went on that stupid trip so that my parents wouldn’t have to watch me disappear one breath at a time!”

    He finally looked up and, unable to meet Flick’s concerned gaze, turned to Corvane with wide, terrified eyes.

    “I can’t save this island, Corvane. I’m a liar, and a coward. Not a king!”

    Corvane reared up, his wings spreading wide with a crack. “And that’s all you’ll ever be if you don’t stop sniveling and rise to the challenge before you!” he snapped.

    “Corvane, that’s enough.” Flick said quietly, rising to her feet. Sean tracked her almost automatically as she walked to the window and opened it to the cool night air. “Take a flight, I’ll talk to the lad.”

    The raven stared Sean down for a moment before hopping to the outer edge of the window. “See that you do,” he said, “because if he fails now, he's not the only one who will suffer.”

    With a cry, Corvane winged his way into the night. Flick watched him go before walking over to Sean. She settled in front of him, meeting his unblinking gaze as she gently placed her hands on his knees.

    The woman looked like she was about to say something, but stopped before it left her lips. Instead she closed her eyes, let hands fall back to her lap, and sat with Sean in silence, until the candle burned low.

    In the flickering light of the failing taper, she finally spoke.

    “Sean, lad, I won’t pretend to understand what your life was like before you came to Aiane. I’ve been around long enough to learn a thing or two about people, though, and I can tell you this with certainty: everyone runs and everyone lies. You, me, Corvane, the good and great, even the Gods themselves – we all have fears we refuse to face and truths we refuse to tell.”

    Her hand came up and rested itself on Sean’s.

    “You say you can’t save Aiane, and aye, maybe that’s true.” He saw her silhouette shrug. “You’re doing a fair job so far though, you’ve already saved at least five of her folk in nary more than two days.”

    His brow furrowed. “Five? I’m not sure I follow.”

    “Well, the babes are obviously the first and second,” Flick counted, “and their ma and pa are three and four.”

    “Colin and Nancy weren’t in any danger, Flick.”

    “Oh? And you think they’d have just gone about their lives after losing their darling children to the bog? You saw them, Sean. Their bodies might’ve kept moving, but their souls would’ve fled.”

    Sean sighed, “Fine, fair enough, but I still can’t get to five. Who’s the last? Some searcher who’d have stumbled into the tomb?”

    Flick’s grip tightened on his hand. “Me.”

    “Excuse me?”

    “I wasn’t living in that rabbit burrow, Sean, I was dying in it. Starving, to be precise, until a certain young man appeared.”

    “You can’t mean the nuts I gave you. There’s no way you couldn’t find food for yourself.” Sean remarked incredulously.

    “Not the nuts, lad, the magic! I’ve been asleep in that hole for forty years, trying to hold on to every scrap of mana I could. Another six months, maybe a year, and I’d have been just another story for parents to tell their wee ones.”

    “That’s awful, Flick, I didn’t know. You said-“

    “Everyone runs and everyone lies, lad, remember? Not that it was entirely untrue, Heroes are almost always interesting after all.”

    Flick knelt in front of Sean and bowed her head.

    “What are you doing?”

    “Making a decision, now hush before I change my mind.” Flick answered, her ears twitching.

     “I, Flick of the Merry Mists, promise mine aid to thee. Through briar and bramble I will walk thy path with thee until thou can walk no longer or thou cast me aside. So long as thou keepest faith with me, I shall keep faith with thee. This covenant I swear, may all Aiane know me as false should I break faith with it.”

    The chain around Sean’s neck remained cool, but the chill that had gripped his heart for the past few hours faded.

    “Thank you, Flick,” he said, his voice catching slightly, “but I’m still not sure I can do this.”

    “I’d be more worried if you were, lad, there’s whole crypts full of fools who were sure they knew how to rule. Now let’s both get some sleep. No doubt Corvane will be back in the morning, raring to whip you into a proper monarch.”