CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
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Jameson Wicket
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1st of Janus, 936 PC
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Ashe had created himself a frozen pond and some trees that didn’t belong in this part of the empire. He’d wandered around the ice, he’d stared at the ice, he’d even walked across the ice at one point, before he finally sat down on a log and didn’t move again for hours. Not the most exciting play Wicket had ever watched but definitely the saddest.
Wicket was about to leave his place by the mouth of the cave and move closer to the fire when Yormir appeared beside him, having just come from a piss. “Good thing piss is warm or it’d freeze right at the tip of your cock tonight.” He finished buttoning his pants and took a long gander at Ashe. “Why don’t ya try’n talk to him?”
“Reckon he don’t want nobody to talk to him,” Wicket said. Besides, he was sulking too. Not like killing a man was easy on him these days.
“You should, Uncle Wicket. I think he’d like to talk with you,” Camila said.
She’d hit her face on a rock when Lace sent her tumbling. The bruise on her cheek dropped a mountain of guilt on Wicket’s conscience. Not many things could crush a man alive easier than a bad choice. He should have walked Lace into the river the night they found Kit. As soon as he put hands on Wicket and showed he wasn’t one of them. He’d wanted this mission to go perfectly though, to prove to Alaric he wasn’t a halfwit. Almost as badly as he wanted to prove to himself he could be a leader. Sometimes you love the picture you painted too much to dare believe anything could be wrong with it.
Yormir crouched beside him and blew his smoke away from Wicket’s face for once. “Gotta clear the air if ya expect him to keep plugging along with us. Don’t worry, that boy wouldn’t raise a hand at ya if he had a question. And he likes ya.” He paused. “Well, he did. Not sure what he thinks of ya now. I can tell ya how I feel about ya though.” Wicket turned to him, not recognizing the gentleness in The Old Wolf’s tone. “I think you’re a good man who did the right thing a little too late. Hard to get in the habit of making the right choices when they’re hard ones to make. Don’t mean you’re a bad man though if that’s how you’re feelin’. My daddy used t’tell me a good leader always has more regret than a bad one.” He chuckled. “Course he was making the point that the bad ones don’t survive the battle, but there’s somethin’ in there for you too if ya ask me.” He patted Wicket’s shoulder and walked away.
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A Purist’s soul was always ready to spring open in a moment’s notice but Wicket’s was on high alert as he approached the log Ashe sat on. The boy he’d met wasn’t the kind of fella to hurt anyone but losing a loved one had a way of killing whatever you were when that other person was alive, gave birth to you all over again as something new. Oftentimes something angry and vengeful when you lost them the way Ashe lost Lace.
Ashe lifted his head right before Wicket spoke. He’d expected the moonlight to glisten off Ashe’s tears but there were no tears to glisten off of. Vengeance don’t cry. There were bruises though, all over Ashe’s face. He waited for the man to ask him to leave, lords knew he would have done so, but there was nothing but uncomfortable silence. “I’m sorry,” Wicket said. “Should have left ya alone.” He went to turn away.
“No. Stay. Please. I’ve been thinking and I’d like to talk to you.”
Wicket sat down a few arm's length away. His brain had learned to be cautious no matter what the circumstances years before and something like that is never forgotten. The log was smooth, no bark or bumps to make it uncomfortable – the work of an artist.
They sat in silence at first, staring at the icy pond, watching the snow add to its beauty. It even had scuff marks on the ice like someone had been skating on it.
Ashe spoke first. “I’ll never forget what you did. And I doubt I’ll forgive you. Not completely. But I understand why you did it and I can live with the fact that you did. He would have killed me. He hits me all the time, sometimes because that’s what he and his friends did with each other, sometimes because his temper gets the best of him. I never tell him how bad it hurts.” He paused. “Or that it used to hurt my feelings. He knew how much I hate violence. He knows that.”
Wicket had done the same thing when his mum died, tried to talk about her like she was gone but his brain wouldn’t accept it. Not at first. Not right away.
“Reckon I oughta apologize even still.” Wicket looked at the ground. “I didn’t have to kill him. Any number of things I could have done to stop what he was doin’. I just wanted him dead. I wanted to kill him like no man I’ve ever met. I get like that sometimes. When someone gets to pushin’ me so hard I can’t do nothin’ but push back I turn to killin’. Not sayin’ I’m proud of it, just tellin’ the truth.”
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There was a haunting silence as Wicket thought about all the times he’d been pushed so hard he’d done something about it. He could have sworn all the men he’d killed were watching him from the trees.
“I feel that too sometimes. But I could never do anything about it. Not just because of how I think either… I’m pathetic. Can’t swing a sword, can’t shoot a bow. I can’t even aim a crossbow correctly and it does all the work for you.”
“Hold on now.” Ashe looked at him. “I’ve known pathetic people.” There was one on the log right then. “You ain’t pathetic. The things I’ve seen you do with your magic. You’re like meeting The Creator without having to take the long walk home. And then to sit here beside the man that killed your brother and not show an ounce of hatred. If I could steal whatever it is that gives ya that strength I’d do it in a heartbeat.”
Ashe shrugged. “Can’t spend your whole life preaching pacifism then throw it all away the first time violence takes something you loved.” A man of his word. It was a foolish word but it took courage to stand by it when the fire got its hottest. Wicket could respect that.
Another silence.
“Lace loved to spend time on the lake behind our house when we were kids.”
“Aye.”
“He'd never left home before this. Even when I went on all my trips… He’d stay home and train with his precious weapons. Mother calls him her rock. I’m her little bumblebee, buzzing around from here to there, looking at nature, making it more beautiful wherever I can. But I’d always come back to her hive. It’s going to feel weird without him there when I go back.”
“Ya don’t gotta keep goin’, Ashe. Reckon we can go over the mountains if we have to.” The idea sounded horrible but he’d always wanted a way out when he was at his lowest. Course, neither Iris nor Alaric were the kind of people to give him that chance.
“No, Lace wouldn’t want that.”
“You’re not him, ya know.” He paused. “Ain’t never met nobody quite like you, really.”
“Thanks. I think. But I’ll continue on. If you’ll have me around. Imagine my moping isn’t good for morale.”
Wicket let a long breath escape into the night. “Mope all ya need,” he said. “I ain’t never lost a brother but I’ve been where ya sittin’ right now. Whole world feels darker than it did the day before. Try t’sleep but ya can’t. Things ya used to love feel rotten. Ain’t easy.”
Ashe nodded, looking at the pond again. His breath floated away as he sat in his memories.
“But things get easier,” Wicket said.
“What did you do to move on?”
Wicket shrugged. “The world don’t stop and you can’t either. Ya fall behind for a bit the first few days but then you come to realize ya just gotta keep goin’ or it’ll feel like you’re never livin’ in the moment. Anything good that might have helped ya ends up passin’ ya by.” He paused, letting the words sink into his own mind too. “But ya can’t forget ‘em. Never forget ‘em. Just make sure ya pick and choose the memories ya think about as best ya can. Need ones that make ya smile, not cry. That’s for the best. I’ll tell ya that from the bottom of my heart.” He reached for his golden locket but paused, remembering he’d left it in the dirt at Gella’s Ring. The image of the parchment floating to the ground like the snow right now flashed through his mind and while he did feel bad for Ashe, he was glad Lace was dead.
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Coyne’s pub was less a tavern and more a room in the back of a house. A sign was nailed to the door that simply read, Pub. The word had been underlined by someone that drew lines about as well as Cora. The inside of the place was as unexciting as the sign had suggested. Exactly two pictures of poorly drawn trees hung on the wall and there were less tables in the room than fingers on his hand. Only half the torches on the walls were lit but the room wasn’t exactly dim either. Still bright enough to see there was no one at or behind the bar which was weird for a pub, but there were two women sitting at one of the tables that looked like they had some influence in here. One had red hair that barely reached her shoulders and the other had put her long black hair into some kind of ball on top of her head. Both were dressed like they’d be in the forest all day. It made his heart sink to think these women might have been out looking for Maddy with his mum.
“Evening,” the redhead said. “Can we do something for you?” If her voice was to be trusted, she was sweet as sugar.
Wicket fiddled with the note in his hand while taking a closer look at the stained floorboards.
The black-haired woman tried this time. “Ay, fella. You alright? You want some ale? First one’s free for newcomers.”
“No. That’ll be alright, miss. I just wanted to see if you knew where Gladys Hallstone might be?”
Both women went from smiling to wondering who this stranger that had come wandering in wet as the Jazak Sea might be.
The redhead said, “We’re not in the business of settin’ up meetings but I’d relay a message to her if you got something you need to tell her.”
“That sounds mighty good actually,” he said, walking toward them, each step putting a smidge more nerves in both of them. He laid the note that Camila had written for him on their table and nodded his head as a thank you.
“That all?” Black Hair said.
“Reckon so.” He turned to take his leave.
Yormir met him at the bottom of the stairs outside. He threw an arm around Wicket as they walked through the rain back toward the forest. “You’ve come a long way, Wick.”
“I’m tryin’.”