For the Love of a Goblin Warrior (Shadowlands) (8 page)

Meryn rolled his shoulders and stretched his back. Old injuries that had never troubled him while he’d been goblin were stiff in the cold morning after a night on the ground. After seven nights of watching and learning and listening, he knew enough of the language to get by. Knew enough about the people to know he wasn’t fitting in. He was living rough in the forest that overlooked the city, living off the lizards and snakes he caught, and washing in the public restroom.

He took a breath, enjoying the now familiar scent of the grass and trees. He had to find somewhere more permanent to live, some way to earn coin.

For the first time since he was a child, his days were his own. His nights were filled with memories he’d rather forget, and they were getting stronger. His fingers traced a cut on the back of his hand. He’d woken with the wound after fighting goblins in his sleep, as if he’d been to the Shadowlands and back. The implication of that was something he didn’t want to think too hard about.

Each day he’d ventured farther from the park, a different direction each time. The forest was hemmed in by roads, traveled on by
cars
. Amazing advancements had happened in his absence. Two hundred years, three hundred years…more? The time was harder to grasp than the language.

Every new word he learned he repeated and tried to use in sentences the way he’d learned Latin. But he had no one to practice with. Back then it had been Roan and he and a few others, all trying to learn something about the invaders. Dai had picked up the language fast and could read and write fluently while he and Roan were still speaking like babies.

He stopped and tried to press down on the sadness that burst like a boil in his chest. He’d lost everything. His wife, his children, his tribe. Gone forever because one man had sold the Decangli out to the Romans. Wanting to know who was almost a reason to seek audience with his king. Almost.

But he couldn’t bring himself to admit he needed help. He’d been the one people came to for aid. He would not face his king until he had proven to himself he was a man who could care for himself. Yet he wanted to know what had happened to the other men who’d also worn Roan’s curse. Six of them had woken in the Shadowlands, confused and scared. Six of them had witnessed the rebellion failing. But then, instead of doing his duty and ensuring the safety of his king in the Shadowlands, he’d given in to the cold and mindless curse, welcoming it’s embrace instead of fighting.

He’d forever live with the shame of being the first to fade to goblin. If the man who’d dragged him free of the Shadowlands truly was Dai, then it meant he and Roan had survived and found a way to break the curse—thus also freeing him.

But while the man looked like Dai and spoke like Dai, the man he’d seen hunting him in the woods wasn’t the angry youth he’d known. This man had patience and magic. Had Dai changed so much?

How had Roan changed?

How had the curse been broken?

Where were the others: Fane, Brac, and Anfri? Were they all adapted to this world?

Of course they were. It was only he who’d given in to the curse and become goblin.

He had to prove he was no longer weak hearted and that he wouldn’t fail again. Not for them, but for himself. If he couldn’t look at himself in the mirror when he trimmed his beard, how was he ever going to look his king in the eye?

***

Nadine jogged down the path, inhaling the fresh scent of the lemon scented gum trees lining the road. On one side, at the bottom of the hill, Perth spread out along the Swan River; on the other, tamed park was interspaced with buildings. Behind the buildings, Kings Park gradually gave way to wilderness, a sanctuary in the middle of the city that was well used by runners and cyclists on weekdays and families on weekends. Opposite the white building that was a restaurant, she stopped. An old-fashioned wishing well, complete with wrought-iron arches, sat alone and out of place. Most people walked past it without a second glance. She hadn’t stopped here for months.

Nadine turned off her MP3 player and pulled out her earbuds as she caught her breath, her muscles easing after the run up the stairs known as Jacob’s Ladder that linked the park to the city. Last time she’d been here, she hadn’t known what to wish for. The letter from the Department of Corrections had arrived, informing her of her father’s imminent release. Even though she hated him for what he’d done to the family, she couldn’t wish him ill or ask that he remain in jail forever. That would be a misuse of the power of a wishing well.

A wishing well was for granting wishes and she’d read enough fairy tales to know that wishing misfortune on someone else was a guaranteed way of having bad luck come visiting.

She unzipped the small pocket in her pants and pulled out a gold two-dollar coin. For a moment she just closed her eyes and held the money tight in her hand. Meryn’s gray eyes had been with her all night while she worked. She hoped he was okay, half hoped he’d come back. He hadn’t. Was it wrong to make a wish for someone else? She didn’t know what he wanted. The only thing she could do was wish him well. No one should be lost and alone.

She held her hand out, over the well. The top was covered in mesh to prevent thieves from stealing the money that would eventually go to charity. She let the coin fall. It flickered brilliantly in the early morning sun before splashing into the shadows.

“Good luck, Meryn. Wherever you are.” For three heartbeats she waited, as if expecting a puff of smoke and a shimmer of magic. Nothing.

Her lips moved in a quick half smile. Wishing on stars, or in wells, hadn’t helped her as a child, yet she couldn’t stop herself from believing in magic or hope.

She was sucker for a happy ending and hated depressing news stories.

After stopping, she didn’t feel like running again. There was a train every fifteen minutes and it wasn’t like she had to get home for anything important. So she dawdled, strolling through the park and looking at the scenery. The morning was too nice to waste, sunny and cloud free. If it weren’t for the biting breeze, she could pretend it was already summer.

She noticed a man sitting on a bench. His arms rested on his jean-clad legs and his gaze was on the road. He didn’t seem to be aware of the swirl of people passing him. As she drew closer, he lifted his head. His dark eyebrows arched in surprise and then he smiled as if he knew her. She glanced over her shoulder, but no one was there. The smile was for her. She smiled back to be friendly, like she did with most people. Then she noticed the half-healed cut on his head and his eyes. The man did know her. It was Meryn.

Her foot snagged on a tree root and she tripped. Instead, of landing face first in the grass, she was caught by the man with the strange gray eyes. His touch was strong and sure as he helped her back onto her feet. That was the second time he’d saved her; around him she couldn’t seem to stay on her feet. Heat crept up her neck. This close, his eyes were dark gray; they seemed to draw her in, but she knew if she fell she’d get lost in there forever. His eyes definitely weren’t the empty gray she’d first thought, but they had a faraway touch, as if he’d seen places no person should. She blinked and the moment was gone. He released her arm and she immediately missed the warmth of his hand.

“Meryn,” she managed to say.

His smile widened and revealed a dimple in his right cheek. “Nadine. Are you okay?”

He did remember her. She glanced at the wound on his head. It could’ve done with some stitches, but he didn’t look like the kind of man who cared about a scar or two. She glanced at his hands, remembering the nicks she’d seen on his skin. There was a fresh cut on his hand. Did he go looking for trouble, or did it find him?

“Your head looks better.” God. Could she be more lame? He looked better, in jeans and a hoodie zipped up against the cold. He’d trimmed his beard and looked, well, like an attractive man she’d stop to talk to if she hadn’t seen him confused and disheveled. It was hard to believe he was the same person who looked so lost in the hospital.

“It is. Thank you.” He spoke in accented English.

She paused and realized he’d spoken to her in English. The other night they hadn’t been able to talk. Her lips curved as a smile began to form. Today she could ask him everything she’d wanted to. Should she? Or should she just walk away?

If she’d been able to stop thinking about him, she wouldn’t have dropped a coin in the wishing well. Besides, he didn’t seem dangerous and she was in a public place.

“And you speak English today.”

He glanced away before answering. “A little.”

“Do you speak French?” She hadn’t spoken her mother’s language for so long, with anyone, yet she hadn’t forgotten. And the other night he’d responded as if he recognized the language.

He shook his head, his brown hair curling just above his shoulders in a fashionable
I
don’t care about my hair
look. “I’ve heard it.”

“What languages were you speaking? Was one Latin?”

Meryn considered her for a moment. “Latin and Decangli.”

“Decangli? Is that from Wales?”

He smiled. He should smile more often. “Yes. You run here?”

“Sometimes.” Liar. She ran every day after work. But it was too soon for him to know that, even though she wanted to sit down and get to know him better. “Ahh.” She shifted her weight, not sure what to do. “Well, um. I’m glad you’re looking better—er—feeling better.”

“I am.” He paused as if he wanted to say something else but didn’t know what.

That made two of them.

“Thank you,” he said, filling the silence.

She reached out and touched his arm, a gesture meant to offer comfort. But feeling him beneath her palm, she didn’t want to pull away. She wanted to step closer. What she’d thought was simple curiosity, or even compassion, was turning into an attraction she shouldn’t have. Her pulse sped up as if she were running.

He moved and caught her hand in his. Skin to skin. His palm rough against hers. She wanted to know everything about him. How he’d ended up in hospital, what he did. Why he was here.

Instead, she drew away, her fingers sliding free of his and craving the contact as soon as it was lost. He was already under her skin. Whatever she was feeling was dangerous, and falling for the wrong man could be fatal. Her mother had learned that the hard way.

“Well, maybe I’ll see you here sometime.”

Meryn smiled again and the chill left the air. Before she could get sucked into talking to him more, she walked away, but couldn’t resist glancing over her shoulder one more time. He’d sat back on the bench and was watching her. She waved and turned away before she was tempted to go back and ask more questions.

He wasn’t like other men. There is a reason why, she reminded herself. He wasn’t right. Wasn’t right or just damaged? She couldn’t judge him when she’d been to more shrinks before she’d hit ten than most people saw in a lifetime. At the end of the street she stopped and looked back. He was sitting, head bowed again. Was he praying or thinking?

***

Meryn glanced down the road in the direction Nadine had left, but she was gone, back into the endless city. Tomorrow he would wait here and hand back the cross. He couldn’t hold her hand and lie to her in the same breath. Today he would learn more words, so he could make her understand him better. So he sat in the pale winter sun and let other people’s lives eddy around him. He lost himself in their discussions. The words were foreign in his ears, even though he understood their meanings. The words he mimicked under his breath were awkward on his tongue. Yet he knew he had to try harder, as this was the only way he would be able to learn the language and be able to speak to Nadine.

He had to try harder to fit in and become a man of the times.

The sun tracked higher. Meryn knew he should get up and do something, but sitting and absorbing had taken on a greater importance than walking around aimlessly. The dark-skinned man he’d seen pulling up plants earlier sat down on the bench. Meryn watched from the corner of his eye as the man unpacked food. He should go and get something to eat and drink. He’d sat here for too long listening and watching. He was about to move when he noticed a marking on the back of the man’s hand.

A cross.

He tore his gaze away.

“Would you like a sandwich?” The man mistook his glance as interest in his food.

Meryn shook his head. He wasn’t taking charity from an elder; he hadn’t sunk that low, had he? His stomach grumbled. It would be nice to try something different—something he hadn’t hunted and killed, and he would be able to try out some of the new words racing around his skull. He could have his second conversation for the day; that was enough to keep him seated.

He pulled out a silver coin and offered it to the man. “I’ll pay.”

The man studied the coin, then looked at him, a faint frown lined his forehead. Did they not accept silver coin anymore?

“No charge.” He handed the coin back. “You might want to hang on to that; it’ll buy you a bit more than a sandwich.”

Well of course it would buy more than a
sandwich
. It would buy meat and wine enough for several meals, but he had nothing smaller and nothing else to trade.