It was a risk coming here. Always was for Padric. The warriors might try to goad him into a fight. They had before, sometimes with success. The drunken ones were the most likely to try or the ones that liked to mask their fear with bullying. Just another reason to hate this place, hate the fearful and simple-minded people who branded him.

Raven-touched. Death Cap.

Ill luck was in his blood or so the midwives said. Those ugly crones should be sent away too, like the child-selling widow and Eirwen’s mother. He should have stayed away. Fafnir had asked him to journey farther and it had been tempting, but Padric felt obligated to return. His father needed him.

Padric’s face twisted.

It was a lie he told himself then, as now. He was a burden to his father, a mouth to feed that was rarely useful except to draw the ire of the other farmers when a sheep died or the milk turned sour. For true, his uselessness was the reason he had been given leave to travel with Fafnir and he left with a high heart. This place could contain his revulsion no longer. The distrust of the village had poisoned him, he was full up with it and it leaked out of him. He had idled here over tedious years, the sour frustrations of his own shortcomings seeping out of him, soaking into every house and every person that surrounded him, until he had poisoned them in kind. Leaving it all behind was like coming out of a long illness, a sudden breaking fever and then nothing but easy breaths, clear and deep. It was not a long journey, but how he had enjoyed it. He had been free of this place. Free of Eirwen, free of the endless work, free of a people who judged and feared one of their own simply because his hair was the color of coal. Padric hated them for believing such a thing. He hated them for making him believe it.

Eirwen always admitted to believing the things that were said about him. Rather than shunning him, she seemed to take pleasure in his reputation. It excited her and made folk talk of her also, which she relished. She had no family to speak out against their coupling, so their romance kindled. To her, he was a dangerous novelty and she was a child playing with fire. When she was in good spirits she delighted in reminding him what the villagers called him, as if he would take equal pleasure in hearing the unwanted titles. When angered she would spit them in his face and proclaim how cruel he truly was, how she feared for herself when he was near. He was rarely the cause of her sorrows, in truth, but it was easier for her to place the blame upon his dark brow.