The Warded Man

her die …” His face screwed up into an anguished grimace, and he stumbled, clenching his fists. Elissa rushed to him, not knowing what to do or say, only knowing that she wanted to hold him.
    “He let her die because he was scared of the night,” Arlenwhispered. He tried to resist as her arms encircled him, but she held on tightly as he wept.
    She held him a long time, stroking his hair. Finally, she whispered, “Come home, Arlen.”
    Arlen spent the last year of his apprenticeship living with Ragen and Elissa, but the nature of their relationship had changed. He was his own man now, and not even Elissa tried to fight it any longer. To her surprise, her surrender only brought them closer. Arlen doted on her as her belly grew, he and Ragen scheduling their excursions so that she was never alone.
    Arlen also spent a great deal of time with Elissa’s Herb Gatherer midwife. Ragen said a Messenger needed to know something of a Gatherer’s art, so Arlen sought plants and roots that grew beyond the city walls for the woman, and she taught him something of her craft.
    Ragen stayed close to Miln in those months, and when his daughter, Marya, was born, he hung up his spear for good. He and Cob spent that entire night drinking and toasting.
    Arlen sat with them, but he stared at his glass, lost in thought.
    “We should make plans,” Mery said one evening, as she and Arlen walked to her father’s house.
    “Plans?” Arlen asked.
    “For the wedding, goose,” Mery laughed. “My father would never let me marry an apprentice, but he’ll speak of nothing else once you’re a Warder.”
    “Messenger,” Arlen corrected.
    Mery looked at him for a long time. “It’s time to put your trips aside, Arlen,” she said. “You’ll be a father soon.”
    “What has that got to do with it?” Arlen asked. “Lots of Messengers are fathers.”
    “I won’t marry a Messenger,” Mery said flatly. “You know that. You’ve always known.”
    “Just as you’ve always known that’s what I am,” Arlen replied. “Yet here you are.”
    “I thought you could change,” Mery said. “I thought you could escape this delusion that you’re somehow trapped, that you need to risk your life to be free. I thought you loved me!”
    “I do,” Arlen said.
    “But not enough to give this up,” she said. Arlen was quiet.
    “How can you love me and still do this?” Mery demanded.
    “Ragen loves Elissa,” Arlen said.
    “It’s possible to do both.”
    “Elissa hates what Ragen does,” Mery countered. “You said so yourself.”
    “And yet they’ve been married fifteen years,” Arlen said.
    “Is that what you condemn me to?” Mery asked. “Sleepless nights alone, not knowing if you’ll ever come back? Wondering if you’re dead, or if you’ve met some minx in another city?”
    “That won’t happen,” Arlen said.
    “You’re corespawned right it won’t,” Mery said, as tears began to flow down her cheeks. “I won’t let it. We’re done.”
    “Mery, please,” Arlen said, reaching out to her, but she drew back, evading his grasp.
    “We have nothing more to say.” She whirled and ran off toward her father’s house.
    Arlen stood there a long time, staring after her. The shadows grew long, and the sun dipped below the horizon, but still he stood, even at Last Bell. He shuffled his boots on the cobbled street, wishing the corelings could rise through the worked stone and consume him.
    “Arlen! Creator, what are you doing here?” Elissa cried, rushing to him as he entered the manse. “When the sun went down, we thought you were staying at Cob’s!”
    “I just needed some time to think,” Arlen mumbled.
    “Outside in the dark?”
    Arlen shrugged. “The city is warded. There were no corelings about.”
    Elissa opened her mouth to speak, but she caught the look in Arlen’s eyes, and the reprimand died on her lips. “Arlen, what’s happened?” she asked softly.
    “I told Mery what I told you,” Arlen said, laughing numbly. “She didn’t take it as well.”
    “I don’t recall taking it very well myself,” Elissa said.
    “There you’ll find my meaning,” Arlen agreed, heading up the stairs. He went to his room and threw open the window, breathing the cold night air and looking out into the darkness.
    In the morning, he went to see Guildmaster Malcum.
    Marya cried before dawn the next morning, but the sound brought relief rather than irritation. Elissa had heard stories ofchildren dying in the night,