Flame and Snow

Chapter 6: Talfryn

Chapter 6: Talfryn

“Up,” said Glenna, voice short. She yanked open the curtains on Talfryn’s two little windows before stomping down the stairs and leaving him to the bright midday light. He groaned and rolled over, usually able to sleep in as much as he wanted after a late night, but his mother sounded pissed.

Maybe she was ready to tear into him about using his magic. So much for avoiding that one. He pulled on clothes and descended to find the mayor in the kitchen with Glenna, his face pinched tight. His skin was light brown and his straight, black hair was pulled tightly back. He seemed to be here on official business—but nothing about this felt official. His brown-eyed gaze slid over to Talfryn.

“Morning, Mayor Verne,” said Talfryn.

“It’s noon,” he said, and Glenna scowled, but Talfryn wasn’t about to apologize.

“I have a feeling Talfryn will have an opinion on this,” said Glenna, and he knew it was nothing good because she used his entire name.

“What is it?” he asked, taking a step closer, and that was when he saw the bodies laid out on the cot. The fox was easy enough to recognize, but Talfryn had burned the wolf badly when he’d killed her. He froze.

“Were you aware there were shifters in Teorg?” asked Verne, and Talfryn’s mind spun. He’d really screwed up. Why hadn’t he thought to move the bodies last night? Nobody in Teorg was comfortable with shifters. He knew that—he’d grown up knowing it. The traveler, the adventure, had made him thoughtless. Of course there was bound to be a problem. Things like this just didn’t happen here.

He glanced over at Glenna, who had crossed her arms over her chest. Talfryn felt suddenly seventeen again, reckless and uncaring, not twenty-six and a moderately established town figure. He’d allowed fantasy to bleed into reality. He swallowed.

“Those are shifters,” he said, careful to keep the tone of his voice somewhere between statement and question. “What were they doing here, do you know?”

Verne sighed and sat, really looking his sixty-some years. Talfryn had never quite realized just how old he was, and now that he did he could see it—the wrinkles by his eyes, the gray here and there in his hair. The earliest memories Talfryn had of the mayor were of his wife’s funeral, but he’d been married to his husband now for almost as long.

Talfryn understood now he should have said something, done something, other than fight and run away.

“No one had seen them prior to their bodies being discovered,” said Verne. He sounded weary, like he’d been up half the night talking with the pub owners, and he probably had. “Of course, it’s hard to tell with shifted bodies, but the other three with them were unfamiliar. There was a fight at Road Forks Pub, during which several fires broke out, and a window was shattered. A man who was seen at the bar for about an hour rented a room for the night and disappeared.”

“I mentioned we treated a man for cuts last night,” said Glenna. Her eyes held rage. “What happened to him?”

“He refused to stay,” said Talfryn, moving closer to the dead shifters. He wasn’t sure how to process all this. “I didn’t get his name.”

“Shifter?” asked Verne, and Talfryn extended a hand to touch the fox’s ear. Warm. He shuddered and drew back.

“Talfryn would know better than me,” said Glenna, then, “He reads more.”

Talfryn couldn’t speak.

“The thing is,” said Verne, “people are concerned. You understand that. What these shifters were doing—why they were killed—if you step outside it’s all up and down the streets. I need information from you, and a little advice wouldn’t go amiss, either.”

“Just a moment,” said Glenna and motioned to Talfryn to follow her to the store front. No one was currently there and he expected a lecture, but she merely took him to a corner and whispered, “Is that all of them?”

Two dead, the traveler gone—Talfryn nodded. When Glenna wheeled abruptly and returned to where the mayor was waiting, he followed.

“We believe that was all of them,” she said, and Verne looked relieved to hear it. “If you wish to leave the bodies with us, we can examine them and look for other clues about what they were doing.”

Verne nodded.

“That would be ideal. Any other advice? The last time we had shifter problems it was food theft. You remember that mouse…”

“Not all shifters want to cause harm,” said Talfryn before he could stop himself. Both Glenna and Verne looked at him. He shrugged, trying to make himself seem casual rather than furious. Now would be the worst time for people in Teorg to discover he was a shifter. “There’s really no evidence they are ruled by selfish behaviors or violent tendencies. The problem is that many of them were hunted off generations ago, and when bloodlines occasionally pop one up, they are often shamed, shunned, and cast out. Hence the current reputation for illegal and dangerous activity—old biases meet new realities of poverty and hunger.”

Verne stared at him. Talfryn forced himself to shrug again.

“I read a lot.”

“What Talfryn is saying is that we believe the town to be safe at the moment,” said Glenna. “But we will continue to research and give you as much information as possible.”

Verne nodded and stood.

“I suppose that’s the best I can hope for at the moment,” he said, though he sounded disappointed. “Although I hope you’re right about the safety. Five bodies were found last night—some of them burned like that wolf—and this does not give people the feeling they are safe.”

“We’ll do what we can,” said Glenna and showed Verne out.

Everything within Talfryn screamed at him to leave through the back door. Spend the day in the forest hunting down supplies and ingredients. They needed more dock and could stand to have some garlic mustard, too, but Talfryn stayed rooted to his spot. He wasn’t going to run from Glenna like a child. And there was something eerily terrible about the warmth in the dead shifters. He stared at them until she returned, neither of them speaking for ten minutes at least.

“You never listened to me,” she said at last, but Talfryn didn’t respond. “All these years—you still shifted, didn’t you? Still played with your fire. Did you wait until you were out collecting to do it, or was it once I was asleep?”

“What makes you think I did this?” asked Talfryn.

“Tell me you didn’t, then.” Glenna paused, then moved around to stand in front of him. “Talfryn.”

He couldn’t look at her. She would know either way. Talfryn ran a hand over his short hair.

“I’m trapped here,” he said instead.

“Trapped. This—killing other shifters—means you’ve freed yourself, does it?”

Talfryn winced, but her words also stirred something hot inside him. He was nothing like these shifters. Nothing at all. He looked up into Glenna’s eyes and glared. He knew she saw fire there but she didn’t even flinch.

“We’re not all the same,” he said.

“I raised you to heal, not to kill,” she said, voice ticking up. “You’re not all the same? You’ve done a shitty job proving your kindness. How am I supposed to look Verne in the eye and tell him this town is safe?”

“It is,” said Talfryn.

“How do I know that?” She took a step closer to him. When she spoke again, she was nearly shouting. “How do I know the man I called son isn’t lying to me?”

“I’m not—”

“You lied to me all these years.” Glenna thrust a hand at the charred remains of the wolf. “That is accuracy. That is training. You’ve been practicing—and for how long? Since you were fifteen? Ten? Five?”

“It’s part of me. I have to work with it,” said Talfryn. He’d been learning to control his abilities since he knew he had them. It was that or burn up from the inside out. “You weren’t going to help with that.”

“I’m trying to protect you! What else could I have done? You know how people react. Tell them my son’s a shifter? One that burns? Let them see you playing with fire? They would have drowned you.”

Talfryn clenched his hands at his sides. It had been a long time since Glenna had been truly angry with him, and he almost felt she was right this time. He had killed so easily—and enjoyed it, flexing his magic, seeing the damage. He should have made himself sick.

“These shifters weren’t good people,” he said, as though the people here would have seen him as unthreatening, as though Glenna was overreacting. “Teorg is safer without them.”

That made her pause, but her silence was even worse. She was giving Talfryn the worst look he’d ever seen, pure doubt.

“I don’t know you at all, do I, Tal?” she asked, gently. He still couldn’t look at her. “I never did, did I?”

“What I did,” he began, but she waved his words away and put the hand to her mouth.

“I know,” she said. “You’re a shifter.”

Talfryn was stung. He’d never felt like she didn’t love him, all these years, even knowing him. In fact, he’d thought Glenna was all the closer for knowing who he was and unquestioningly accepting him. And now…He wanted to say something, anything, to make up for whatever fear she had of him now. But he stood there, unable to think of anything.

Out in the storefront, the bell tinkled.

“Prepare to autopsy them,” said Glenna. “And be ready to tell me everything you know. We need to give Verne more than just your assurances.”

She went to see to whatever customer just walked in, leaving Talfryn feeling hollow.