The Staff and the Blade: Dreams

Chapter Two

This was going to be a disaster.

Damien brought another bag of grain to his shoulder and lifted it, catching traces of the women's conversation as he loaded the bags from the Aberdeen boat. The new singer was hardly more than a girl no matter how confidently she walked. And she wasn't the kind of docile creature Damien associated with Ariel's line. Earth singers were usually the calm, quiet sort, content to work their magic in the fields and woods, not quick-tongued women with eyes that cut through the comfortable cloak of numbness he'd worn for the past three hundred years.

He was too old to notice her so keenly. And Einar would dislike her immediately. If he had to, he'd put his foot down. Though Einar was the undisputed leader of the village, it was actually Damien and Henry who had been there the longest. Henry was ancient; all he wanted was to be left alone with his books. Damien had taken on the mantle of Henry's guardian, so all he wanted was food, beer, plenty of work... and for Henry to be left alone with his books. It was a comfortable partnership.

Sadly, Einar was a brash sort and often let his own delusion of grandeur get in the way of the good of the village.

It was a small commune on the north end of the mainland. The humans on the island tolerated them and their secretive ways because the women were excellent healers and midwives and the men were handy and always willing to help on neighboring farms. It was a restful place that often had Irin warriors passing through for a few months or a few years. Orkney was, on the whole, isolated and accepting of the odd and wayward.

Damien had made the outer islands his home for two hundred years and had no plans to return to the mire of politics and war, not when he'd finally stopped dreaming. But Einar dealing with this new girl could be trying.

Damien glanced up to see her watching him and hoped she wasn't the fanciful sort. She didn't look fanciful. She looked... direct. Intelligent. Her height was both disconcerting and attractive.

He had no desire to be attracted.

At one point or another, it seemed that all the unmated women of the village had flirted with him. He ignored them and eventually they lost interest and found other men. Or they left the island if they were restless. But none had interested him as more than a passing curiosity. He was sure the new girl would be the same, though he couldn't imagine one like her settling on the island for good. No, that one had restless eyes.

Three more sacks of grain and he climbed in the back of the wagon, slotting in the backboard so nothing fell out.

"All right there, Damien?" Ingrid asked.

"All right."

She snapped the reins and the wagon jerked forward, throwing Damien to the side. The girl's sea chest slammed into his knees and he cursed quietly. He glanced up to see the girl watching him. Her eyes were laughing, and Damien felt compelled to speak.

"Your chest bruised my knees, earth singer."

"Do you expect an apology? You're the one who loaded it."

He narrowed his eyes and watched her, but she didn't look away like most girls did.

Fearless.

Heaven help her, she reminded Damien of himself at that age. Brash. Confident. Ready to take on the world.

He was the one who looked away.

"Ingrid says you don't like to drive," the girl said. "Why? Do you not like horses?"

"I like horses just fine." But the old nags pulling the wagon and the plow frustrated him. If there was one thing Damien did miss from his old life, it was the feel of a horse racing beneath him. The speed of galloping along the rolling fields surrounding his father's castle or the empty deserts where he'd once fought. There was no thrill to compare to it except the touch of an eager woman in bed.