Chapter 24
Hannalinde
It was an astonishing thing, waking in her own home in her husband’s stone arms. She could not remember the last time she’d slept so well.
She wriggled out of his grasp when she could no longer linger in bed, then kissed him and pulled up the blankets.
It was a silly gesture, as he would not get cold, but she couldn’t deny herself the impulse to care for him while he slept as he cared for her.
With a new ladies’ maid to help her, she readied for the day and breakfasted with Carlijn.
“What should we do today?” Carlijn mused as she slathered her toast with gooseberry jam. “We can go anywhere now that we don’t have to manage all those ladders. We could visit the market. Or go to a theater to watch a pantomime!”
Hannalinde huffed a laugh at the thought of such an ambitious venture. “Have you seen my belly lately? I’m afraid I can’t manage more than a walk around the garden.”
Carlijn grinned. “It is getting large. And your bosoms are spilling out of your bodice.” Hanna threw a piece of dry toast at her, and she squealed indignantly, tossing one back.
Hanna laughed. “Now you have to pick them both up, because I can’t bend over, and we don’t want to anger the housekeeper on our first day in Rose House!”
Barring a few crumbs, they left the breakfast room in a reasonable state and, giggling, went to organize Hannalinde’s dressing room. The ladies’ maid had accomplished most of the heavy unpacking, hanging gowns to air and folding smaller garments, but she’d left a few things out for Hanna to decide.
The plain, patched dresses she’d worn before her marriage were easy to discard, as were the stained stays that no longer fit her new figure. Soon, the only thing left was her wedding dress.
It hung on the back of the dressing-room door. The ivory silk was still beautiful, even in its ruined state. The bodice was intact, the gold thread catching the afternoon light from the bedroom window. But below it, the graceful sleeves and skirt fell in ragged strips.
“Hm. You should probably throw it out,” Carlijn said, eyeing it. “You can’t wear it like that, and you can’t reuse the fabric for something else.”
“I want to keep it.”
“Use the excuse to have another one made just like it,” Carlijn suggested. “So what if it’s expensive? You know Rikard won’t deny you anything.”
Hanna flushed. She would not test the theory, but she suspected it was true. He was always overgenerous with her. She took the dress down, fingering the silk. “I don’t want another one. I want this one.”
Carlijn sighed and shook her head, moving to organize the perfume bottles on the dressing tray. “All right, suit yourself.”
She stood there a few minutes, enjoying the feel of the fine fabric, while Carlijn tested out her rouges and powders. The dress was like her marriage, she supposed. It might look like a disaster to another’s eye, but to her it was precious. More beautiful for its imperfections.
The cuts she’d made were clean. She’d used good shears, and slashed across the grain, leaving edges that frayed a little but didn’t ravel. She saw possibilities where others might see irreparable damage. She could make the ruin beautiful. It was begging for her needle.
When Carlijn excused herself to visit the market, Hannalinde sat in the window seat of her new sewing room with her wedding dress spread across her lap.
The former lady’s bedchamber had the best light and the best view of the garden.
Though the temperature was chilly outside, the afternoon sun was warm through the glass, and the hours stretched in front of her.
She selected some ivory silk thread and a fine needle and began.
The work was absorbing. It silenced the chatter of anxiety that lived in the back of her mind.
She stitched a row of leaves to join the raw edges of the first slash.
Where the silk had torn unevenly, she followed the tear, incorporating its shape into the design so the damage became the curve of a vine.
In just a few hours, the first sleeve was transformed. The shredded edge was now a cascade of subtle leaves and tiny flowers, tumbling down the silk as though they’d been embroidered first and the sleeve cut to display them.
She held it up to the fading light. The light caught on the silk threads, and the effect was luminous. The sleeve looked fae-wrought, like the edge of a wildflower field.
Carlijn appeared in the doorway with a cup of tea and a biscuit and stopped dead. “Fallen gods, Hanna. You did that while I was gone?”
“Just the one sleeve.”
“It’s gorgeous.” Carlijn crossed the room and took the sleeve between her fingers, turning it in the light. “You’ve made the cuts look like they were always meant to be there. Like the dress was designed this way from the start.”
“You think I should keep going?”
Carlijn gave a fervent nod. “Do the whole dress.”
She showed Rikard as soon as he woke, pouncing on him so he could not even leave the bed. She thrust the gown into his hands as soon as the dust fell away. “Look!”
“What is this?” He sat up, staring at the sleeve in his hands.
“My wedding dress. I decided to fix it so I can wear it again. I hope to finish before the baby is born.”
His face fell. “Ah,” he said, voice still rough with daysleep. He absentmindedly petted the tatters of the other sleeve while he examined her work. “You’ve done a lovely job with the repairs.” He handed it back with a sad smile.
She sat back, dismayed. “I thought you would like to see me in it again. It seemed to please you when I wore it the first time, but maybe I was mistaken.”
“Ah, wife.” He pulled her down beside him. “The dress pleased me very much, both then and now. It only reminded me that some things can be fixed and others cannot.”
He meant his wings. Oh, how her heart ached. “I could embroider them, too,” she mused. “Unless you think it would hurt too much.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your wings. Would you let me? I think, if I were very careful and used a clean needle, it wouldn’t hurt too much. Then we would match again.”
His silence was immediate and total, and she was afraid she’d offended him. But then he spoke, his voice harsh. “What good would it do? The scars are old. Even stitched, I still wouldn’t heal.”
“Neither will my dress be made whole. But still, it’s pretty, isn’t it?
And more practical to wear because it won’t catch on things.
You wouldn’t need to bind your wings if the torn parts were stitched together.
It won’t look like plain-stitched patchwork.
I can embroider anything you like.” She held her breath, hoping.
Finally, he jerked his head in a single nod. “If it will please you.”
They moved to their private sitting room, where the furniture could be rearranged to provide the best lighting for the task.
Hannalinde directed him how to reposition two lamps, angling them so the light fell across the low, backless couch.
Once she fetched her sewing things, Rikard sat facing away from her, his wings spread.
She had never seen them fully extended.
He always kept them bound or folded, the shredded membranes held against his back. When he occasionally stretched or shrugged, she’d seen a bit of their span, but it was nothing compared to this.
They were enormous. Even ruined, their architecture was breathtaking.
Bowed struts of bone formed the frame, remnants of the membrane stretched between the joints like tattered sails.
Dozens of tears marred them, ranging from small punctures the size of her thumb to long, jagged rips that split the skin from edge to bone.
Where the tissue was intact, it was translucent, a dusky gray that the lamplight turned to pink amber. The edges of each tear had scarred into thickened ridges. Those would serve as sturdy anchors for her stitches so they wouldn’t pull through the thin membranes.
She stood behind him and took a few deep breaths to steady her hand before threading a clean needle with new silk.
She stepped closer and touched his right wing, assessing where to begin.
The texture was not so different than heavy fabric.
It twitched under her fingers, a shiver that ran the length of the wing and made the shredded edges flutter.
“Tell me if it hurts, and I’ll stop.”
“I will.”
“Good. I don’t want to make you suffer.” She selected a puncture near the trailing edge of the wing, roughly the size of a coin. A practice piece, small enough that a mistake wouldn’t matter but large enough to test the technique. “Ready?”
He grunted in the affirmative, so she set the needle.
The membrane resisted at first, the scar tissue denser than she’d expected, and the needle needed more pressure than she liked.
He flinched, and her needle slipped, finding purchase in her thumb and drawing a drop of blood.
She sucked in a breath, willing away the sting.
It was no worse than what she was doing to him.
“Am I hurting you?” she asked.
“No. Keep going.”
She pushed through, using her thimble. The needle pierced the scarred edge and emerged on the other side, and the silk thread followed.
She anchored the stitch with a second and third and tested the tension.
It held, and the wing membrane didn’t tear.
Only the smallest bit of blood marred the site, and she suspected it was hers. “How did that feel?”
“Like someone pricked me with a needle,” he deadpanned.
“Was it tolerable?”
“A small price to pay for beauty.”
“And you claim to have no sense of humor.” She relaxed fractionally and set the second stitch.
Then the third. The needle’s familiar cadence translated easily to this new canvas, as though Rikard’s skin were just another fabric like linen or wool.
The principles were the same: anchor, bridge, pierce, pull. The geometry of repair.
Since he expressed no preference, she chose a design that came naturally to her: trailing leaves, like the ones on the wedding dress.
The silvery thread caught the lamplight and gleamed against the granite-colored membrane, and where the stitches bridged the tear, the gap filled with a web of silk that caught the light like lace.
So pretty. She hoped he liked it.
Rikard sat still as stone while she worked, and she couldn’t tell if his frozen posture was due to discomfort or regret.
“Talk to me,” she said, pausing. “I need to know you’re still in there. Am I torturing you?”
He shifted, huffing a laugh. “Quite the opposite. You have put me under your spell. I have been holding back my purr so I don’t jog your arm again, but it’s quite pleasurable, in fact. It’s a bit like being groomed.”
She was familiar enough with gargoyle grooming practices. In the eyrie, she’d seen Roul and Cléa oil each other’s horns and braid each other’s hair and remove bits of moss and lichen from areas they couldn’t reach themselves. It seemed quite intimate and loving.
With a pang, she realized she had not done these things for him. He hadn’t asked and she hadn’t offered. All her efforts to be a good mate to him, and she’d neglected one of the most basic tasks.
“I could groom you, if you’d like,” she offered quietly, her needle flying.
She heard him swallow. “I would like it very much, if you would let me do the same for you.”
She stitched another leaf, and then a flower.
The tear was nearly closed now, the silvery pattern filling the gap with a tracery that was both structure and ornament, each stitch pulling the scarred edges closer without forcing them to meet.
The design was organic, following the shape of the tear, so the result looked like something the wing had grown on its own. A scar that had blossomed.
“I’m almost finished with this one.”
“Already?”
“It’s small. The larger tears will take longer. Many sessions over multiple evenings, if you can be persuaded to sit for them.” She anchored the last stitch, knotted it, and cut the thread. “Done. You can look.”
He turned his head, craning to see over his shoulder. His wing flexed, angling toward the lamp, and the silver repair caught the light.
He went still. “It’s a rose,” he said.
“For our new beginning at Rose House. But if the pattern isn’t to your taste, I can—”
“Hanna, stop. I love it. It’s beautiful, both the meaning and the embroidery itself. I can’t believe…I can’t believe it’s my wing. Stitched by my wife.”
His purr thrummed to life, and the warm vibrations moved through her, raising goosebumps on her skin.
The child inside her kicked, reminding her of all the things left unfinished.
The partially-mended wedding dress draped across the bed, and the garden outside with still-empty flower beds, waiting for planting.
The many more tears in the expanse of her husband’s wings that begged for her needle.
Their life was only going to get more beautiful.
“We have a lot left to accomplish before the baby comes,” she said.
He reached back and caught her hand, drawing her around to his lap. “Then we’ll find the time.”