Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Riley
We search well into the night until I can’t keep Kit focused at all and have to give up.
“Let’s head back to your place,” Torin says, but I’m afraid the Door will close, leaving us struggling to get back here.
“We’ll just stay here for the night.”
“Fine, fine. My bed is definitely big enough for us to share.”
“In this enormous palace, there’s only one bed?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“It’s a one bed plotline now,” he says. “On this fateful night we have but one option… we must share. Whatever will we do?”
I ignore his words but let him lead me upstairs where he opens a door into an impressive bedroom unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
Outside of this room, the décor is relatively minimal and vibrant.
But in here, there’s a surplus of things.
And while none of it seems cluttered, it appears way more lived in.
The wall is adorned with weapons of all kinds with only two empty spots, which he fills by pulling off his scythes and hanging them up.
“These are all yours?” I ask as I question just how many weapons one person needs to be versed in.
“They are. You may touch them, but they’re all sharpened so be careful.”
I pick up a spear and nearly drop it on the floor. “Why the hell is it so heavy?” I cry.
“So it packs more punch when it goes through the skull of my enemy. It’s made for mounted attacks. I can drive it right in while I ride past,” he says, sounding far too excited about this. He even takes it from me and mimes the movement as though I couldn’t visualize it myself.
“I… see,” I mutter. Then I notice an armor stand covered in beautiful black armor. It’s almost like a mixture of Asian and European styles that adds its own flair with unidentifiable things on the shoulder pads and down the arms.
“What are these?”
“The spikes of a dhuer.”
“Which is?”
Torin contemplates this. “Maybe in your tongue we’d call it a small water dragon?
They are nasty little fuckers that will take any opportunity to kill you.
The one I got these spikes from tried to kill me when I was very young, maybe fourteen.
It relentlessly hunted me down for six nights until it pinned me down, and with barely a breath left in me, I drove my broken sword right into its heart.
I had one living in the pond outside for a while.
We had a pact that he could live there if he didn’t eat any people. He mostly listened.”
“Mostly?”
“Yeah, there was this asshole of a guy who just like… accidentally got pushed in there one day… by me… and into the jaws of the beast. It was fine. He died very quickly. After that, I realized he was like… hmm… what do you call it in your tongue… like a place to dispose of things.”
“Of… things?”
“Living things that no longer needed that ‘living’ part.”
I stare at him, uncertain which part of this was fine, but he seems to believe it.
“Would you like to try the armor on?”
“Me? After feeling the spear, it’s probably heavy enough to crush me.”
“No, it’s very lightweight. You need to be able to move quickly in battle,” he says as he pulls the breastplate off and fastens it to me.
Once it’s on, he starts in on the other pieces.
Then he pulls a sword off the wall and places it in my hand, finally parking me in front of a mirror before realizing he can just hold Kit in front of me.
Kit seems disappointed that she doesn’t have some armor to wear.
“I feel like a proper badass,” I comment as I strike up a pose that makes him grin.
“You look like a proper badass,” he says before flipping the visor down. “Now you just need a mount.”
“I will stick with the subway.”
“You’re missing out.”
“I don’t feel like I am,” I say as I turn around, pleased that I can look at every side of the armor because of Kit. While it’s obviously too large for me, it’s really not as heavy as I imagined it’d be. I find myself wondering what Torin looks like in such armor.
I also can’t help but wonder how many battles he’s worn this in.
The idea of a war seems so distant to me.
Sure, we have fights and have had to deal with many magical people and creatures, but a real war?
One I’d wear armor in and ride into battle for?
That seems like something out of a history book or a fantasy novel.
He’s from a world that is hundreds of years behind ours with tech, so how are they in other areas?
“Is this world currently in a time of peace?” I ask.
“There has not been a war in nearly two hundred years. One hundred and ninety-eight years, to be exact.”
“That’s how old this armor is?”
“That armor is over nine hundred years old.”
“This is wild,” I say as I hang up the sword. He helps me out of the armor and puts it back on the rack, even though I debate asking him to put it on.
“Is it too much to ask for a toothbrush now?”
Torin stares at me for a second and then smiles. “Might be.”
“Dammit,” I say.
“I’ll go see if I can find what the servants use to keep their mouths fresh,” he says, and off he goes.
It’s his first mention of servants in this place, even though I haven’t seen any. Did he send them off before going through the doorway?
I wander around the room and over to the fireplace where the mantel is filled with little metal figurines, much like the metal in the jewelry he wanted me to sell for pizza.
These are made into animals: dragons, horses, and whatever that creature is that’s in the garden.
He seems to favor that one the most because there are six of them in this area alone.
I move over to his massive bed, the size of about three of mine, and find a book sitting next to it. I flip it open but before I can see what it’s about, he’s returned.
He holds a strange paste out to me. “Simply rub it on your teeth and presto!”
After the meal I was served, I’m not quite sure what to think of it but decide that it shouldn’t hurt me… too much.
“So this is now my room. Where will you sleep?” I ask.
“This is our room to share. There is only one bed. One palace, one bed scenario.”
“Ah, I see. So if I… oh, I don’t know, open the door across the hallway, there will be no bed?”
“That is someone else’s bed. We don’t want to be rude and take their bed, now do we?”
I suppose that’s true. And I guess if something happened in this foreign world, I would prefer to be near the god.
After considering this for some time, I sigh and nod. I wipe the paste on my teeth and then realize I have no idea what to do now, but he doesn’t seem to know either, so he just gives me a thumbs-up.
Internally grumbling, I decide rinsing and spitting it into the sink in the bathroom is good enough.
Using a pot of water, I rinse my mouth out while hoping my teeth don’t fall out or something because this god of war and love doesn’t really appear to know what’s going on.
Then I head back to his room that is lit up by candlelight.
There are other lights in the room that seem more likely to run off magic, but since neither of us has a fire-type magic, they remain unlit.
Torin is sprawled out on the bed in this weird pose that I believe he thinks is sexy. I frown, climb in on my side which is as far from him as possible, and close my eyes.
“It is customary in my culture to hold people when we sleep,” Torin says. “When we were in your land, we did your customs. In mine, we should do mine.”
“Nah.”
He sighs before crawling over toward me. “It’s been so long since I’ve touched another that I’m deprived of love.”
I set Kit on his chest. “You can borrow her for the night.”
Torin stares at Kit. Kit stares back at him.
Then she yawns, stretches, and flops down on his chest before ramming her foot in his mouth while she flips and flops to get comfortable.
He sighs again but wraps his arms around her.
Seeing it through her eyes makes me feel oddly like he’s hugging me, so I disconnect from her eyes, dropping myself into darkness.
“We’re going to find that text, Riley. I promise,” he says.
“Yeah…”
I clench my fingers tightly as I close my eyes and try to find peace in this foreign land. I really don’t know what I’m doing or what I plan to do. But I lie awake for a very long time while I question where my life is heading.
When I wake, I’m wrapped around something warm. I try to mentally nudge Kit awake, but she’s more than happy to sleep through my stealthy extraction. I attempt to pull back without Torin knowing, but I’m practically riding the god’s leg. Like what the hell am I doing in my sleep?
And I can feel the way he’s ramrod straight, probably afraid that if he engages, I’ll blame it all on him. I plan to anyway.
“Riley, your body knows what it wants,” he whispers, like he could maybe hypnotize me into believing that.
“I got cold and you were convenient,” I lie as I push away from him.
Kit finally wakes up, and the first thing she decides to stare at is Torin’s smug face.
Then she pulls in the fact that he’s as close to the edge as humanly possible while I migrated all the way across this expanse to ride his leg like a pony.
I want to ignore his happiness and hastily slide the covers back, but before I can get out completely, he latches on to me and tries to pull me back in.
I press a hand against his face and climb out. “Let’s get going. I’m heading to the library. Bring me food there.”
“You can’t go out dressed in night clothes. Let me dress you,” he says.
“I can dress myself,” I declare.
“Fine, fine,” Torin agrees as he pulls the clothes out of a large wardrobe and sets them on his bed. I pick up the first item and stare at it before staring at the second item.
“I will wear yesterday’s clothes.”
“Or you could let me dress you,” he says, but the happiness in his voice tells me that I should dash his hopes and dreams and say no.
He reaches out and tugs gently on my shirt while he beams at me.
“Your happiness sickens me.”