Chapter XIX #4
“It was stupid of me to be so careless,” he said. “I was pitting olives and lost my grip on the knife. Of course, as Inver Priest I won’t have my blood given to the old goddesses—Tyrus in particular would take grave offense if I did.”
“Thank you,” Fia breathed. She unwrapped the blanket from around Justus and placed him, still sleeping, on the bed. “Here, I’ve brought linens already soiled.”
The Priest offered his hand, and Fia held the cloth to the new wound there, his blood and her own mingling together.
“My shift is spoiled, too,” Fia said, stating the fact without emotion.
“Leave it,” the Priest told her. “You know they’re all talking about us anyway. You can take something of mine to wear, and we’ll just say you were here to witness my unfortunate clumsiness, if anyone asks.”
He nodded in the direction of a satchel beside the door, and Fia went to the washbasin first, where she cleaned her hands thoroughly.
Then she skinned out of her bloodstained shift and padded across the room, naked in the moonlight.
She rummaged through the Priest’s things, coming up with the loose trousers and shirt that were as much a signifier of his role as the sorias’ habits were of theirs.
As she pulled them on, she stole a look at the Priest—he sat with the air of preternatural calm he wore sometimes, but his grip on the soiled linen blanket was a great deal tighter than necessary.
“Never,” the Priest said drily, “have I given so much cause for gossip that has so little truth in it.”
If not for the dream haunting her, Fia would have been tempted to take his words as an invitation.
It was impossible to deny that she wanted him.
If she’d stayed on the mountain longer, Fia suspected it was inevitable, that she would have had the Inver Priest. But Dolenza had called her away, and now, fear paralyzed her.
Death hung over Ariana and the Priest both, and what action or inaction of Fia’s might serve as the catalyst that ushered it in or prevented it, she couldn’t say. All she could do was keep watch.
Fia moved back to him, her bare feet soundless on the stone floor. She sat down beside him again, and with his unbloodied hand, the Priest touched the fabric of the shirt she wore.
“I’m not sure I like the idea of you dressed as an apostate,” he said, an odd note in his voice that Fia had never heard there before. Before she could stop herself, she took his hand in both of hers and clung to it. The Priest turned his face toward her, startled by the gesture.
“Was it so bad?” he asked. “The thing you dreamed of?”
Fia did not trust herself to speak. She nodded wordlessly, knowing that her silence would convey the movement he could not see.
“I’m sorry,” the Priest said. “It may not be of help, but for my part, I don’t believe in prophesies or fates.
Even if the gods attempt to move us, I believe we make our own destiny.
It’s the only way I’ve survived this long when I ought to have died a dozen times over.
And you of all people are strong enough to make your own way. ”
There was a ring of defiance in his voice when he spoke of fate and the gods, as if he meant to convince himself as much as Fia. When Fia replied, it cost her. She dredged up the question from the very bottom of her soul, because she did not want to know the answer.
“Will you do what Gileta asked? Will you try for Orden?”
Beside her, the Priest was quiet for a moment. He drew in a measured breath, and then spoke. “Do you want me to?”
“Yes,” Fia murmured, her voice catching on the word.
“And no. I hate myself for not being certain, or knowing which choice is right. But mostly I’m tired.
I wish I’d never even heard of you Invers and your troubles.
I wish I was just a soria, standing in the light of the sun.
That’s all I really want. I keep grasping for it, only to find that peace has been placed just beyond my reach. ”
With great caution, the Priest put his arm around her, mindful of the blood still drying on his hand.
Fia let herself be gathered in. She pressed her face to his shoulder—comfort was the rarest of luxuries to her still, and one she could not resist when it was offered.
This time, though, it felt fatally tainted in light of the dream she’d been given.
A few hot tears escaped her, dampening the Priest’s shirt, and he brushed a kiss to the crown of her head.
“I’m afraid I have no peace to give you,” the Priest said, his voice low. “As for certainty and rightness, I lost all mine long ago. I’ve only myself to offer, for what I’m worth—you can stay with me for what’s left of the night, if you’d rather not be alone.”
Fia nodded, knowing that this time he could feel the gesture.
She watched as the Priest went to the washbasin, where he cleaned and bandaged his hand and left the bloodied clothes in a neat pile.
When he returned to her, she took Justus, settling the baby between herself and the wall.
The Priest lowered himself down beside Fia, and she leaned into him, until she could feel the full stretch of his body and his breath warm on the back of her neck.
One of his arms pillowed her head, the other rested over her waist, and Fia realized she’d never lain so with anyone before.
Nikolau had been too wary to sleep in her village, and she’d been too shy and shamefaced over their unmatched feelings to spend much time in his deserters’ encampment.
A part of her fought furiously for retreat.
All Fia’s broken and fearful pieces—the child who’d cowered before her mother’s temper and nursed bruises and broken bones.
The sister who’d watched her siblings die one by one, of hardship or disease or cruelty or neglect, and been tormented by the sight of their lifeless bodies ever since.
The girl who’d understood that Nikolau the renegade wanted more from her than she could give, and who went to his bed anyway because she craved kindness and a modicum of power.
She forced that wild, wretched aspect of herself down until at last it settled, leaving her boneless and weary, lulled by the warmth and nearness of an Inver Priest and an Inver prince.
“Priest?” Fia whispered, the single word barely audible in the dark. “You never answered me.”
But he was already asleep.