19. Torgan
TORGAN
“You’re still awake.”
Firelight catches Lissy as she props herself up to look down at me. I’ve never seen anything as beautiful as her right now, the tension gone from her shoulders, her expression completely relaxed.
This, I think. This is the Lissy as she’s supposed to be.
Until now, after four more rounds of worshipping her body and making her too loud for the rest of the wedding camp, I thought she was asleep.
I give her a sly smile. “Want another go, my lady?”
She swats at me playfully. “Don’t tempt me.” She searches my face for a moment, her long lashes lowering slightly. “I was just... wondering.”
I slip an arm around her. “I don’t sleep very well.”
“Never?” She sounds surprised.
“Never.” I think carefully about my next words, because I know why. It’s just never bothered me before. “You don’t sleep on a battlefield. That kind of vigilance never really leaves you.”
Especially when we’re lying in a tent with fires burning around us. Without the wedding noise, I could close my eyes and believe we were in a war camp.
“Orc insomnia.” She lets out a dry chuckle. “Who knew? I would have thought I wore you out.”
I snicker. “Never.”
Her eyes sparkle. “That sounds like a challenge.”
But she looks tired around the edges, and I know she’s had a full day. While I could ravish her another time or two, I need to give her time to recover. Not just from our lovemaking, but from the triumph that was Saskia’s dress and everything the wedding demanded of her.
“Tell me a bedtime story instead,” I say.
For a moment, I think I’ve lost her, because she goes so quiet. I’m about to ask what’s wrong when she speaks.
“Have you heard the fairy tale The Oak and the Needle?”
“No.”
She settles against my chest. “It’s not that popular. It’s less of a fairy tale and more of a... warning, I guess. To the right ears.” She traces a line down my bare chest. “Once upon a time, there was a dressmaker who made the finest clothes in all the land.”
“Hey, I know her.”
I feel her smile against my skin. “She was in high demand, with clients lined up outside her door and commissions booked for years. One day, a lord came to her shop to see what all the gossip was about, and he fell in love with both her clothes and her. She fell in love with him too. He was strong and steadfast, as strong as oak. She was fast and nimble, a needle that tied them together.”
She pauses, her finger still moving over my chest.
“He promised she would never want for anything and that they would have a beautiful life together. His family didn’t approve, but they didn’t care.
They married and had a daughter they both loved very much.
Life was good, except the lord had a jealous friend.
Another lord. He tried to lure the dressmaker away with gold and trinkets and presents, but her love was steadfast. So he did what all jealous, jilted lovers do. ”
“What?”
“He killed the lord.” Lissy’s voice drops to a whisper. “The dressmaker was so heartbroken that she left her daughter with her grandmother and disappeared for years.”
My heart beats harder. “That’s... not a nice fairy tale.”
She shakes her head. “It’s not. And that’s not the end.”
“There’s a happily ever after?”
“No.” She sits up, like she needs to do something with her body. Her expression is stricken as she looks down at me. “The daughter grew up to become a dressmaker. The finest one since her mother. Then a lord came and...”
“Fell in love with her?”
She nods. “And the cycle happened again. And again. That’s why I said it’s more of a warning. The Oak and the Needle never has a happy ending, no matter how many times it happens.”
“Like a curse,” I murmur, taking her hand in mine.
She nods and looks away.
This isn’t just a story to her. Something about it has cut too close.
“What’s wrong?”
For a moment, she doesn’t answer.
Then she says, “It’s my family’s story. The dressmakers are the Sunfells.
The women keep their mothers’ name because their grandmothers are the only constant in their lives.
My mother was the dressmaker. My father was a lord from a small village about a day’s ride north of here. His best friend killed him. And me...”
“You were raised by your grandmother,” I finish, thinking of the woman I met today. “Who lived the same story.”
“Yes.”
There is a difference between a fable and a life. There has to be.
“Lissy,” I say, my throat dry. “It’s just a story.”
“Not to me. It’s my story. My family’s story. It’s why...” She clears her throat, and for a moment I think she might cry. “It’s why I don’t let myself hope for a wedding.” She gestures vaguely around the pavilion. “Nothing like this.”
She looks broken right now. There is a terrible, helpless expression on her face, and all I want to do is take it from her so she never has to look like this again.
“Your life isn’t decided by a fairy tale.” I cup her cheek. “You can write your own story. Or sew it, in your case.”
She laughs despite herself. “It’s hard to believe that when every woman in your family has followed the tale from beginning to end.”
“Lissy.” Her bottom lip trembles as she turns back to me. “Listen to me. How much of that story is real, and how much has your family forced to fit because they already believed it? Maybe putting it behind you would do you some good.”
“But what if...”
Then I understand.
She’s talking about us. She’s afraid whatever is happening between us will become another chapter in the story. That loving me means the same ending is already waiting for her.
I won’t let that happen. I refuse to believe everything between us has already been written by a story that has never met either of us. A story isn’t going to keep us from being happy.
I kiss the back of her hand, pressing my lips to each knuckle.
“I’m not much of a lord,” I tell her. “And you’re a dressmaker, but you’re also the person Mirelle talks to when she needs sense.
You gave Ysolde the confidence to stand tall.
You understood Brynna like a scholar and made Saskia into exactly the warrior-bride she wanted to be.
” I kiss her palm. “And you’re my lady, although you have been decidedly very unladylike tonight. And I want more.”
Her breath shudders against my hand. “You are a strange man, Torgan.”
“That makes sense.” I pull her toward me. “I’m not a man. I’m an orc.”
I bring her back down to my mouth, and several more rounds make us late to breakfast hours later.
We’re not the only ones. The wedding camp wakes in stages around burnt-out fires. Dryads are already up in the branches, while orcs emerge from their tents groggy from mead. Saskia and Mikka don’t emerge at all.
Grammy isn’t at the long table either.
Lissy notices before I do. She stops with a piece of bread halfway to her mouth and scans the camp. “Where’s—”
Grammy comes up the path from the pavilions.
From the far side of the pavilions.
Her good gray dress is yesterday’s dress, and her hair is messy but pinned up.
My grandfather walks beside her, carrying her shawl folded over one arm like a squire.
Lissy makes a sound I have never heard a person, human or otherwise, make.
“Mornin’,” Grammy says. She sits across from us and reaches for the teapot like nothing is amiss. Then she lifts the lid and frowns inside. “The tea’s gone cold. Someone put a fresh pot on.”
“Grammy.”
“Mm?” her grandmother says serenely.
Lissy turns bright red all the way to her ears. “Grammy.”
“The mead was old.” Grammy smiles at my grandfather. “And the company was older. Beyond that, a lady keeps her own counsel.”
She pours herself a cup of cold tea anyway. My grandfather sits beside her, not across from her, and says nothing.
I have seen that man stare down a mountain wolf. He cannot currently look in my direction.
“Sleep well?” I ask him blithely.
“Fine,” he says to his cup.
“Those dryads make great tents, don’t they? Sturdy.” I drink my tea. “Not soundproof, though.”
Lissy kicks me beneath the table hard enough to bruise. My grandfather gives me a look that promises a reckoning in the training yard. Grammy laughs, a young, cackling sound, delighted.
Down the table, Brynna wordlessly passes Ysolde three silver coins. I decide not to ask which of the morning’s revelations their bet concerned.
Mirelle floats through all of it like she’s dreaming.
Her engagement ring flashes every time she moves her hand, which she does often, accidentally and directly in front of everyone’s faces.
The box Caden made never leaves her side.
It sits beside her plate, and every so often she rests two fingers on the lid without seeming to notice, the way I check a sword hilt.
“We have so much to plan,” she tells the table for the third time. “So much to think about for our wedding. Flowers, timing, the guest list, and... everything.” She sighs. “Everything.”
Pa grunts into his tea.
I let myself enjoy the morning. If I died now, I would remember Lissy’s shoulder against my arm. The camp loud and safe. Mirelle glowing over a crooked box and a ring. My grandfather unable to meet my eyes.
Later, Brynna would come with the ledgers for the Voss business, and we would get to the bottom of what was happening.
But that was for later.
Last night, Lissy told me it was the best night of her life. Now it’s the best morning of my life.
I want to remember that I knew it at the time.