[This post is from Thom’s point of view.]
“Are you planning on abandoning us already?” Thom asked, the words bitter on his tongue. “Last I checked, you were part of us.”
Seamus exhaled, closing his eyes for a moment. “I’m sorry. Poor choice of words—though I’ll point out that I wasn’t here the first few times you dealt with them and so far as I know, they don’t have a real reason to be coming after me.”
“That you know of,” Thom said. He wanted to be angry at Seamus, but he found his ire fading quickly, replaced only by weariness and resignation.
Because we don’t have enough problems already—what’s one more? Why not send Vammatar’s avengers after us, too?
Thom shook his head. “How long ago was it? Do you know?”
“That they were digging? During the fighting out here, I’d imagine. It was the perfect distraction. No one would have noticed until it was too late, had they been successful in their aims.”
“Their aim being to get to our dead,” Thom said.
Seamus nodded. “That’s what appears to be the case, in any event.”
I don’t want to think about what they’d want to do with our dead. Thom’s lips thinned. “But they failed.”
“So it would seem.”
Thom nodded, his gaze drifting back to the wall. Suddenly it seemed like too small a thing, not enough to protect what was most precious to him.
But what else do I have?
Nothing else.
He sighed. Seamus put his hand on his shoulder and Thom closed his eyes.
“How did you manage it?” he asked softly. “Day after day, year after year, finding ways to protect your people against shit like all of this?”
Seamus smiled crookedly. “I didn’t have to. My father did, then I was sent away—it became Teague’s problem for a time, but only after most of the old threats had already retreated, when they came back before all of this hell began. I don’t envy you, Thom, not at all, but I am intending to help—in any way that I can.”
Thom managed a crooked smile. “Fantastic. Figure out a better way to defend the settlement—and tell me what the hell you meant when you said that maybe we couldn’t rely on the Wild Hunt to help.”
Seamus winced and looked away. “I had hoped you wouldn’t ask.”
“If you’d hoped I wouldn’t ask, you shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Too true,” Seamus said with a rueful smile. It faded as he turned away, stared out over the field, the churned and broken earth, the spot where Pluton had died.
“Something feels wrong,” he whispered.
Thom held his breath and waited.
