Pure

Finten stood in the doorway of Alvie’s old workroom for a long moment before he walked in swinging a heavy axe by his side. He went over to the worktable and stopped again. He stared at the worn leather bindings attached to the table and swallowed.

Did I really do the best I could have?

Faces of the many people who had suffered the last thirteen years passed over his mind’s eye. He squeezed his eyes shut. I’m sorry.

Maybe he would have done things differently now, but at the time he had done the best he could. He had given his people everything he had. He had kept them alive. It was the only thing he knew to do.

He remembered Maigred being dragged into the manor. The way she strained at the men holding her arms, trying to get to Hadeaon, demanding that her brother be set free. Begging him to hold her until the presentation ceremony so that Cathal could go home. ‘You can cut off as many pieces of me as you want, just let him go, please!’ That had been the moment he thought of every time he felt like he couldn’t put up with Hadeaon’s greed or Alvie’s fire magic anymore. The young human woman willing to put herself at Hadeaon’s mercy to protect the brother she loved. Her bravery had given him courage for years. She and his memories of Caevah. His hand automatically reached up to touch the stone and found only the front of his shirt.

He’d gone back to the sacred grove and gifted his wedding stone to the earth sister.

He didn’t need it any more. Caevah was dead and he had promised himself to Maigred. He swallowed and remembered the way she had stalked up to Hadeaon so fearlessly, stripping out of her clothes, offering herself in place of her daughter.

Finten hadn’t really been surprised, it was what she had done all those years ago, given herself in place of her loved one. He had only been afraid that she had lost faith, lost hope and was going to throw away her life in a desperate bid to protect her children. A hearth maiden should not have had the power to drown out a wyrm’s fire like that. But Maigred had ever never fit into the categories of ‘supposed to’ or ‘shouldn’t be able to’.

He frowned at the table, then raised his axe. He brought it around in a swinging motion and slammed the bit deep into the wood. He loosened the axe head, brought it back and swung again.

After Hadeaon had been killed, both he and Maigred had been afraid that Hadeaon’s tarasque would come looking for them. They never came. It turned out he had sent all of them out looking for any children he might have fathered. Whatever had happened with his tarasque after Hadeaon had died, they hadn’t come back to avenge their lord.

He swung the axe again and the solid wooden top cracked, splitting down the middle. Finten put his axe down and shoved the two halves of the table away from each other, then arranged one of the halves so that he could start chopping it apart.

He picked up his axe again and swung it.

Alvie had bled out on the carpet while they were dealing with Hadeaon. Maigred had checked on her almost as soon as Hadeaon had expired. Hadeaon had gutted Alvie with his claws. She had been holding herself together with her hands when she was begging him for her life.

Finten swung his axe steadily, the bit chopping away at the fist half of the table, little by little. Soon it was nothing more than a pile of fire wood. He turned to the other half and arranged it so that it was as stable as he could get it and began swinging his axe again, slowly chopping up that half as well.

It had been about a week since Hadeaon had died. Finten hadn’t seen much of Maigred in that time. He and his men still ate breakfast and dinner at the inn, most of them ate lunch there too now. But Maigred always seemed busy when he was at the inn. When Finten wasn’t there, he was busy cleaning the town and the manor up.

Hadeaon’s men had been surprisingly easy to deal with. Those who hadn’t already deserted the town, turned themselves in to face justice. Many of them had married women in town and didn’t want to leave.

Finten had to lock some of them up, the rest he had put on work details under the supervision of his men, or other men in the town that he trusted. Several crews were working on repairing the roads. A couple of crews were helping to clear out and repair the manor. Some of the more trustworthy prisoners were serving out their sentences by working for families that needed more man power on their farms or in their businesses.

Finten finished chopping up the rest of the table. He looked at the pile of wood for a long moment. He had at first thought that he would send it out to some of the poorer families in the town for firewood, winter was coming on; but now he realized, too much fire magic had been done on that table. He would just be sending bad luck to people who couldn’t afford it. He began carrying arm loads of the chopped wood out to the back courtyard and dumping it in the burn pile.

He was about a third of the way finished when he came back to the room to find Maigred there, looking around. She was carrying two large baskets. He stopped in the doorway.

She looked up at him. “Hello, Finten, you’re looking well. They said you were working down here but they didn’t say what you were doing. Did you chop up Alvie’s work table?”

He swallowed and gave a nod.

“Are you using it for firewood?”

He shook his head. “Too much fire magic was worked on it. I’m talking it out to the back courtyard to burn.”

She gave a nod. “Good thought. Do you want help?”

“I…” but she had already set her baskets down and was gathering up an armful, so he went and gathered another armful then followed her out to the back courtyard.

They worked in companionable silence carrying armful after armful out to the courtyard. He could have called some of the others to come help, but he didn’t want to make the job shorter. He didn’t know where he stood with her, he only know that she didn’t need him.

There were other, younger tarasque she could court, tarasque who hadn’t put her and her family in harm’s way, if she even wanted a man in her life,.

Yes, Finten had pledged himself to her, but she hadn’t asked him to. When she had asked to court him, he had refused. He wasn’t going to hold her to a promise that he had made unprompted. She didn’t know what she was asking for when she had asked for his wings.

When they dropped their last loads in the courtyard she dusted her hands on her skirt. “Well, that’s sorted then.”

Finten nodded and ducked his head. “Yes. Thank you for your help.” He turned to go find something else to try to occupy his mind with when she caught his arm.

“Wait.” She leaned close to him, reached up and took something out of his hair. “There.” She showed him a chip of wood before throwing it into the pile of rubbish. Then turned back to look at him.

He realized he had been staring at her. He turned away. “I’m sorry.”

“Do you not want me here, with you?” She asked, a puzzled expression on her face.

“Of course I want you here with me! I alw-” He stopped and looked down for a moment then looked back up at her and continued. “Yes, Maigred. I want you here with me. I just don’t want you to feel obligated to be with me.”

She smiled. “Good. I brought you lunch.”

He blinked. He had no idea it was lunch time.

She took his arm and led him back to the workroom. “We haven’t gotten to spend much time together since…since everything happened with Hadeaon. I wanted to try to spend some time alone with you, I have…some things I want to talk to you about.”

“Okay.”

They walked into the workroom and she picked up her baskets.

“Can I help you with those?”

She handed him one of the baskets. “You can carry this one. You’ll have to tell me where a good spot to eat in this place is though. I don’t really feel like eating in the great hall.”

He smiled. “No. Let’s go upstairs.”

“I don’t want to eat in Caevah’s room either.”

“I have another place in mind.”

She followed him up stairway after stairway. They didn’t encounter anyone on their way up. He finally pushed up the trap door in the roof and climbed out onto a large flat area surrounded by a waist high parapet, then reached back to help her up. She was already half way up the ladder, the basket in tow.

“Do you want me to take your basket?” He asked.

“No. Not this one.”

“Okay.” He stepped back, out of her way.

She stepped up beside him and looked around. “Oh. This is nice.”

Finten smiled and looked out at the view. “It’s a good place for lunch, with nothing but the sky above you.” He looked down at her to see her already smiling up at him. He ducked his head self consciously. “Can I help you set out the lunch?”

They ended up sitting on the parapet, with their legs dangling on the outside with the lunch basket on the wall between them. It was a good lunch. Finten hadn’t realized how hungry he was. For a long time he was only focused on eating, then as his stomach grew fuller he still kept quiet, waiting for Maigred to bring up whatever subject it was that she said she wanted to talk about.

She didn’t bring it up. She seemed nervous.

Finten felt sure that she was wanted to tell him that she was pursuing another man. He reached across the basket and touched her arm softly. “Maig, I mean, Maigred.”

She looked up at him.

“I…I don’t expect you to feel bound by my promise.”

She blinked and frowned. “What?”

He swallowed and looked down at his lap. “I know I made a promise to you Maig, but you didn’t ask me to. I know you have better prospects than me, and-” Maigred burst out laughing. Finten looked up at her in surprise. “What?”

She shook her head and climbed off the wall. She picked up her other basket and brought it up beside him. “Finten, you silly fool. I don’t want any other man.”

“Well, yes, I know you don’t really need a man, I mea-”

She squeezed his arm. “No. I want you, Finten. I came here today to ask to court you.

“I’m sorry it took so long, things have been busier than usual at the inn and I wanted to make you a proper gift this time.” She began unloading little bundles from her basket and opening them up, revealing baked goods and sweetmeats that smelled freshly prepared. She laid them out on the wall beside him.

Finten stared at the abundance in wordless surprise.

At the bottom of the basket was a bundle of dark blue fabric. She set the basket on the ground and lifted out a tunic. Finten’s breath caught. It was like the fine suits of clothes that Caevah made by hand for him every year out of the finest woolen fabric. They were both beautiful and comfortable. The shirt Maigred had made had two crossed feathers embroidered on the chest. A red-tailed hawk feather and a raven feather.

She handed the shirt to him and then lifted the set of pants out of the basket and handed that to him too.

“I wanted it to be a proper gift this time,” she repeated. “I’m sorry, I’m nervous. You’ve always been kind to me, but…you’ve never shown a deep interest in me. We’ve been thrown together by circumstance. Now those circumstances are gone. I…I don’t want to pressure you into anything either.”

Finten stared into her eyes, afraid to believe what he was hearing. “Maigred, why would you choose me? I couldn’t protect you or your family from Hadeaon, I didn’t believe you’d had any visions, I’m tainted by years of fire magic, I’m broken, I-”

Maigred stepped close to him and cupped his cheek. “Finten. You have the purest heart I’ve ever met. You love with every fiber of your being, You would give every drop of blood in your body to keep someone else from having to suffer. You believed in me simply because you wanted me to succeed.

“I don’t want any other man but you. If you don’t want me, that’s fine. I would never hold that against you. I would continue to work with you for the good of our people and I would never ask anything more of you. But Finten, I do want you. Please, may I court you?”

Finten stared into her bright, passionate eyes. In some ways he understood her perfectly, in others she was a complete mystery, a mystery he wanted to spend his life exploring, pursuing, adoring.

“Yes, Maigred, I accept your offer of courtship.”