Emyr's Smile

By Amy Rae Durreson

Life is easy for young artist Heilyn, as he travels between the floating islands of Ys with nothing more urgent to worry about than what to paint next. Then he meets sad, serious Emyr and forms a new ambition. Before he leaves for the next island, Heilyn's going to make Emyr smile.

But will a smile be enough? If he wants more, Heilyn will have to choose between his wandering ways and the man he's coming to love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Amy Rae Durreson
• Release date: Dec 25, 2013
• ISBN: 9781311991034

Amy Rae Durreson

Amy Rae Durreson is a quiet Brit with a degree in early English literature, which she blames for her somewhat medieval approach to spelling, and at various times has been fluent in Latin, Old English, Ancient Greek, and Old Icelandic, though these days she mostly uses this knowledge to bore her students. Amy started her first novel a quarter of a century ago and has been scribbling away ever since. Despite these long years of experience, she has yet to master the arcane art of the semicolon. She was a winner in the 2017 Rainbow Awards.

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Emyr’s Smile

Amy Rae Durreson

Copyright © 2013 by Amy Rae Durreson

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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A Note From the Author

This little novelette was written as a companion piece to my longer novella The Lodestar of Ys, as a thank you to my readers. Although it is set twenty years before The Lodestar of Ys, it assumes that you have read that book first. The most important thing you need to know is that the islands of Ys float in the sky just offshore, lifted by the magical derwen trees that grow on every island. The most low-lying of the islands is Sirig, which floats just above the sea. The islanders of Ys travel by flying ships, built of derwen wood and steered by lodestones. Emyr and Heilyn make a brief appearance in The Lodestar of Ys, but the main characters and plots of the two stories are quite distinct.

Chapter 1

HEILYN HAD just loaded up his brush with the most perfect shade of blue he’d ever mixed when he heard a very polite voice say, I think you ought to know this field usually contains an awfully bad-tempered bull.

Heilyn laughed without looking aside from his canvas and the shimmering view before him: the sea, still hazy with early mist, and the islands floating above low-lying Sirig, the morning light catching on their undersides where the moss velveted the rocks and brushed against the interlocking brass pipes and cisterns, and the tumbling streams where the water fell like Dwynwen’s tears down the islands’ craggy cliffs, garlanded by misty rainbows . I’ll take the chance, thanks.

I only mention it because he broke the last artist’s arm and ate his canvas. After a moment, the unseen stranger added thoughtfully, Which in his case was no loss, but your work is much better.

Well, that was a new approach. Thank you, but flattery won’t persuade me to move.

I don’t want you to get hurt. The stranger’s tone was a little frosty now. Pumpkin is going to be in an even worse mood than usual when he gets back, so consider yourself fairly warned.

If you really want me to believe in the bull, Heilyn suggested, you should choose a more likely name than Pumpkin.

You don’t believe…? the stranger said, sounding quite bewildered. Why wouldn’t you believe in a bull?

Heilyn sighed and put his brush down. He would have believed it without question at the start of his trip around Ys. Travel, however, as he’d tried to explain to his protesting family as they gathered to wave him off from the wharf on Rhaedr, broadened the mind and taught new skills. Including cynicism.

You see, he said now, people like art.

They do, yes, on the whole.

But that doesn’t mean they like artists. Oh, people like to know what you’re doing, and they love looking over your shoulder to criticize, but after that they don’t really like you sitting around on their land, blocking their view, and making them feeling embarrassed to scratch their arses. But Dwynwen forbid they look like they don’t like art, so it’s all, The light’s bad there, and, Oh, the view’s better in that other man’s field, or Mind the bull. Heard them all. There was silence from behind him, and he belatedly realized that might have been a bit much. Uh, sorry. Didn’t mean to go into that much detail. He turned to offer up his most charming smile, the one which had gotten him out of trouble in more islands than not, and caught his breath sharply.

The man on the other side of the hedge was lovely—no, not lovely. That sounded too pretty and delicate. This man was stunning. He was all lean clean lines, even his face long and high-boned. His hair was cut close enough to his head to display the perfect curve of his skull. It could have looked too austere, on someone even a shade paler, but there was just enough color to him: a hint of pink in his cheeks and the darker blush of his lips, the dark otter-pelt hue of his hair, and his eyes, the brightest thing in his face, blue as the sky and so sad. Heilyn wanted to put his hands on that face and feel the lines of it under the heels of his palms until he knew how to shape it in clay. He wanted to mix those colors in watercolor or ready to slide straight onto fine china.

You’re beautiful! Heilyn blurted out, his heart in his words.

The vision of perfection across the hedge looked a little disconcerted at that. Oh. Um, thank you. That’s very… I still have to put the bull back in his field.

The bull named Pumpkin? Heilyn was slowly coming back to his senses, though he still couldn’t look away.

Is that a name I would make up?

That was a fair point, but Heilyn could refute it. I’ve been painting here all week, and there are no pumpkins in this field.

He’s been down at the east end of the island all week earning the price of his pasture in stud fees. Owen ap Owen Up-the-Hill is bringing him back this afternoon. He’ll be worn out and irritable, poor Pumpkin.

And late, Heilyn added, because

Reviews for Emyr's Smile

[Babiche · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Touched my heart. I have also been hurt and unwilling to take a chance on love.

[Estarianne · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a fantasy whales with airships. Very cool, and lots of buildup in the romance. It is short, but sweet.