Fragile Hearts (TID - Will Herondale fanfic)

Chapter 61: Parabatai

  Heya. These few chapters would mostly be taken from the book, but with Ella added in them. Cheerios🙃
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  The courtyard of the Green Man Inn was a churned mess of mud by the time Will drew up his spent horse and slid down from Balios's broad back. He was weary, stiff, and saddle-sore, and with the bad condition of the roads and the exhaustion of himself and his horse, he had made the last few hours in very bad time. It was already quite dark, and he was relieved to see a stable-boy hurrying toward him and Nora, boots splashed with mud to the knee and carrying a lantern that gave off a warm yellow glow.

  Nora had her arms wrapped around herself, and she seemed exhausted. Will now wished that he hadn't brought her along.

  "Oi, but it's a wet evening, sir," said the boy cheerfully as he grew nearer. He looked like an ordinary enough human boy, but there was something mischievous and a bit spritelike about him—faerie blood, sometimes, handed down over generations, could express itself in humans and even Shadowhunters with the curve of an eye or the bright shine of a pupil. Of course the boy had the Sight. The Green Man was a well-known Downworld way station. Will had been hoping to reach it by nightfall. He was tired of pretending in front of mundanes, tired of being glamoured, tired of hiding.

  "Wet? You think?" Will muttered as water ran off his hair and into his eyelashes. He had his eyes on the front door of the inn, through which welcoming yellow light poured. Overhead almost all light had drained from the sky. Ponderous black clouds loomed overhead, heavy with the promise of more rain.

  The boy took Balios and Xanthos by the bridle. "You two've got one of them magic horses," he exclaimed.

  "Yes." Will patted the horse's lathered side. "They both need a rubdown, and special care."

  The boy nodded. "You a Shadowhunter, then? We don't get many of them around these parts. One a little while ago, but 'e were old an' disagreeable—"

  Will noticed with annoyance and anger that the boy's eyes kept lingering on Nora.

  "Listen," Will asked, bringing his arm around her and drawing her closer, "are there rooms available?"

  "Not sure if there are any private ones, sir."

  "Well, I'll be wanting a private one, so there'd better be. And a stable for the horse for the night, and a bath and a meal. Run along and get the horse put away, and I'll see what your landlord says."

  The landlord was utterly obliging and, unlike the boy, made no comments on the Marks on Will's and Nora's hands or at their throats, only asked the very usual sort of questions: "Do you want your meal in a private parlor or to take it in the common room, sir? And will you be wanting a bath before your supper, or after?"

  Will, who felt encased in mud, opted for the bath first—as did Nora—though they agreed to take dinner in the common room. He had brought a good amount of mundane money with him, but a private parlor for dining in was an unnecessary expense, especially when one did not care what one was eating. Food was fuel for the journey, and that was all.

  Though the landlord had taken little notice of the fact that the two was Nephilim, there were others in the common area of the inn who did. As Will leaned against the counter, a group of young werewolves by the large fireplace, who had been indulging in cheap beer for most of the day, muttered among themselves. Will attempted not to notice them as he ordered hot water bottles for himself and Nora and bran mashes for their horses, like any high-handed young gentleman, but their sharp eyes on him were avid, taking in every detail from his dripping wet hair and muddy boots to the heavy coat that showed no sign of whether he wore the Nephilim's customary weapons belt beneath.

  Nora inched closer to him, half leaning on him as if to support her and give her warmth.

~

  Having sealed the letter, Will called over the landlord and confirmed that for half a crown, the boy would bring it to the night coach for delivery. Having made his payment, Will sat back, considering whether he should force down another glass of wine to ensure that he could sleep—when a sharp, stabbing pain shot through his chest. It felt like being shot with an arrow, and Will jerked back. His wineglass crashed to the floor and shattered. He lurched to his feet, leaning both hands on the table. He was vaguely aware of stares, and the landlord's anxious voice in his ear, but the pain was too great to think through, almost too great to breathe through.

  The tightness in his chest, the one that he had thought of as one end of a cord tying him to Jem, had pulled so taut that it was strangling his heart. He stumbled away from his table, pushing through a knot of customers near the bar, and passed to the front door of the inn. All he could think of was air, getting air into his lungs to breathe.

  He pushed the doors open and half-tumbled out into the night. For a moment the pain in his chest eased, and he fell back against the wall of the inn. Rain was sheeting down, soaking his hair and clothes. He gasped, his heart stuttering with a mixture of terror and desperation. Was this just the distance from Jem affecting him? He had never felt anything like this, even when Jem had been at his worst, even when he'd been injured and Will had ached with sympathetic pain.

  Then Nora was next to him, and she was clutching his hand. He held on tightly.

  The cord snapped.

  For a moment everything went white, the courtyard bleaching through as if with acid. Will jackknifed to his knees, vomiting up his supper into the mud. When the spasms had passed, he staggered to his feet and blindly away from the inn, as if trying to outrace his own pain. He fetched up against the wall of the stables, beside the horse trough. He dropped to his knees to plunge his hands into the icy water—and saw his own reflection. There was his face, as white as death, Nora's beside him, tears streaming down her face. And his shirt, and a spreading stain of red across the front.

  With wet hands he seized at his lapels and jerked the shirt open. In the dim light that spilled from the inn, he could see that his parabatai rune, just over his heart, was bleeding.

  His hands were covered in blood, blood mixed with rain, the same rain that was washing the blood away from his chest, showing the rune as it began to fade from black to silver, changing all that had been sense in Will's life into nonsense.

  Jem was dead.