Chapter Forty-Eight. Daye
Daye
Rory had to teach her to speak: how to move her tongue, her lips, how to breathe.
It took hours. None of it was intuitive.
Everything was foreign and jarring. But she was speaking.
Speaking! Sounds spilling from her lips.
And the more she did, the more words she repeated, carefully mimicking Rory’s movements, the easier it became.
At times she got lost in the feel of it: How the sound built low in her throat. How it grazed its way up, unfolding on her tongue. How it made the birds in the garden tilt their heads and listen. To her.
“This is it. This time, it really is,” Rory breathed.
“What—” Daye cleared her throat and tried again. “What do you mean?”
“This is the solution we were looking for.” He gathered her hands in his. For a moment, all she could feel was Rory’s fingers encasing hers, that heavy sinking in her chest as her words were taken away. And then she remembered—
“Me talking?” She could hardly shape the words around her smile.
“For a start, yes.” Rory was vibrating with excitement. “You see, I was looking at it all wrong until now. I can’t believe it took me so long to realize that. It was never about finding a way for you to last forever without a transition. It’s about finding a way for you to do it yourself.”
“Myself?” Her fingers twitched in his grip, echoing her confusion.
“Yourself,” Rory echoed, his smile as soft as rose petals.
“Now that you can speak, I can teach you the words and how to weave yourself—it wouldn’t be hard, not with how well you know the plants here and how much practice you had with weaving them into flower crowns.
” He smiled. “And once you know the technique, you will be able to do the transition on your own.”
“But I’m not … but I’m not like you.” Her heart was beating fast.
“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that you’re a Blodeuwedd.
” He stilled, his forehead creasing. “At least I’m ninety-five percent sure it shouldn’t.
There’s no reason for it to matter.” He shook his head, and the wrinkle between his eyebrows smoothed.
“It might take a while to teach you everything—how to weave everything together, which plants to pick and which words to use—but that’s it.
You’ll be able to do the winter transition yourself.
” And then he darted forward, as if unable to sit still any longer, and pressed his lips to hers before darting back again.
Doing the transition herself? No more experiments? No more waiting as the rot swelled and roared?
“But … but Rory, how—”
Rory’s breath hitched. “Say my name again?” he breathed, eyes shining.
“Rory,” she said, enunciating carefully.
Rory shuddered. And then he kissed her again. Hard.
“Again?”
Daye laughed, startling at the sound of it and then laughing afresh for startling. Rory shuddered again. “Oh, God. Your laughter. I can hear you laugh.” He kissed the laughter off her lips. His tongue exploring her mouth, his hands exploring her torso, a fevered look in his eyes.
“Say my name again?” he asked as he entered her.
“Rory,” she breathed, the ground hard under her back.
“Tell me you love me?” he asked as he moved inside her.
“I love you.”
“Again?” A thrust.
“I love you, Rory.” He shuddered under her hands. “I love you.”
“I love you too, Daye.”
And there were no more words after that.