9
SHE WAS FOURTEEN when Dathor returned to Foxglove Peak, when he came back huge and muscled, defiant and sullen, when his uncle told him to sleep in the barn if he would not show respect, when his uncle had him whipped while Dathor gritted his teeth and refused to make noise.
Galadril was gone now, because Celedin went off to school each year, only in the winter and spring, though, for he was obliged to stay home and assist with the harvests in the fall.
The steward was obliged to shelter his ward, to feed her, to clothe her, but he had no obligation to educate her. So, there were no tutors anymore.
She tried to keep up with certain aspects of it, to read some books about history and to continue to study the books in the library, but she was not especially good at convincing herself to do tasks when there were no consequences or rewards, and she ended up not doing it as often as she did.
Life at Foxglove Peak was harsh. Celedin was cruel. The steward was unfeeling and sneering. The storms came through in all the seasons, pitiless and violent, winds that tore and ripped, rains that soaked, snow that hit like icy needles.
But there were other aspects, too.
Mornings when she woke and opened the window to look out at the bright sun struggling into the sky, staining the sky shades of crimson and magenta, the beauty of it so intense that it made her throat hurt in the sweetest of ways.
Afternoons where she walked along the paths in the woods and gazed down over the cliffside.
She could see the village nearby, nestled in its walls, cozy and gray against the vibrant landscape.
In the spring, the colors were bright and new, in the summer, deep green and deep pink, in the fall, angry oranges and reds, in the winter blue and white and silver.
All of it that same aching kind of beauty, the kind that reached inside one’s soul and squeezed and shook and scoured.
The sights and sounds and smells of the north were impossible to look away from. They seared themselves against the inside of her body, they wrote themselves into the pulse of each of her heartbeats, they entwined with her guts. The land here, it became a part of her, indelibly.
It was home.
It was a savage sweetness.
She loved this place, in a way, a way that was difficult to explain, but undeniable.
When Dathor first came, it was summer. Celedin had not yet returned from school. She assumed that Dathor would do whatever it was that he must in order to appease his uncle and that he would be back in his little bedchamber at the top of the stairs soon enough.
Of course, she had to admit that his fifteen-year-old orc frame was not going to fit on that bed anymore. He would not be able to sleep there, she supposed.
He would have some other room, though, or a bed in another room, perhaps even just with the servants. He wouldn’t be forced to sleep in the barn forever.
But Dathor was stubborn and not only did he refuse to appease his uncle, he was defiant enough to be whipped two more times, though he had not been able to keep silent during the second whipping. His back had not healed, and the wounds were reopened.
She still remembered his agonized cries.
She had not spoken up for him, but she had looked on, tears rolling down her cheeks, no attempt to wipe them away.
His uncle came to stand near her. “You cry for him?”
“We were children together,” she said, her voice full of tears. “I remember him fondly. I do not like to see him hurt.”
“You are still children,” said the steward. “It is funny, though, you pitying the orc, you the nae Oir elf from the south, too good for all of us.”
“I am not too good for anyone,” she said. She had lived here for six years at this point. She remembered her life before, but it was distant. When she visited home for a fortnight here and there, it was all very strange. She no longer belonged there. This was more her home than anything, the Peak.
The steward had ended the beating.
“It cannot be good for his wounds to be sleeping in the barn,” she said tentatively.
The steward raised his voice. “How about an apology, then, Dathor? How about that? It cannot be good for your wounds to be sleeping in the barn. Just admit you were wrong, and I shall give you a bed.”
Dathor looked up at the man, hair in his face, back a bloody mess, and bared his teeth.
He did not apologize.
The next time he was whipped, she cried again, but the steward was not moved. He told her to go inside if she could not bear to watch, that he would not stand here next to her sniveling.
By that time, Celedin was back from school, and he jeered at her and jeered at Dathor and watched the beatings with something like sheer joy, as if he could not think of anything more wondrous to watch than someone’s flesh being broken.
And then soon enough, it was fall, not summer, and the nights were growing colder.
And Galadril was gone now, not that the other girl had ever woken when Aerhril had left the room in the midst of the night before.
But she had a room to herself, and no one noticed if she was bringing blankets in to her room, or perhaps they thought the blankets were for her. No one noticed if she took the blankets with her to the barn and climbed up into the loft where he was lying burrowed in the straw for warmth.
She brushed the straw off of him, and he woke up.
He grabbed her wrist, too hard, and she squealed, and he said, “Little fair elf,” and he dropped her hand.
“I brought you blankets,” she said. “It’s getting too cold for you to be sleeping out here.”
He sat up. “You are still pretending we’re friends, aren’t you? That’s rather amusing.”
When she had been ten, she would have insisted that they were friends, but she was fourteen now, and she understood things better. “Well, whatever the case, even if you’re an orc and I’m an elf, even if you’re naturally lower than me—”
“Naturally lower, you say?” He snatched the blankets from her. “Thanks for these. Go away.”
“It’s just the way it is,” she said.
“Is it truly?” he said. “So that’s why you’re fed the worst cuts of the meat, why you get your wine poured last, why Celedin sneers at you. Because you’re so naturally superior to everyone, being a fair elf and all?”
“I didn’t say that being a fair elf meant I was naturally superior to the silvan elves.”
“Don’t you call yourselves high elves?” he said. “Don’t you call silvans low elves?”
“I suppose,” she said quietly.
He spread his hands. “And there we are.”
“But it’s different, having lived here for so long,” she said, hunching her shoulders. “Because I see that we aren’t really better than they are, only different.”
“Are you not?” he said. “Why is it, then, you think, that you high elves have all the choicest bits of land in the country? Why is it that you farm in the plains and live in the balmy south and you have driven all of us up here to the rocky soil of the mountains, where we fight the storms and the cold? Why do you think that is?”
She furrowed her brow. “Are you arguing you are lower than me?”
“No,” he said, sighing heavily. “I suppose I’m arguing we aren’t friends, and we can’t be friends, and it’s because of that, whatever it is, the things that separate us. I’m nothing, of course. I’m not even a low elf. What is it Celedin calls me, a creature?”
“You’re not a creature,” she said. “And whatever the case, we can still all be good to each other. Don’t the gods command us to love each other, after all?”
“Some of them do,” he said. “Some of them command us to grind the bones of our enemies to dust. So, it’s a bit of a mixed message.”
She was taken aback.
He let out a little laugh, and she realized it had been a joke, and she laughed, too.
When the laughter faded, she said, “I want us to be friends.”
“It’s impossible,” he said.
“Why?” she said.
“Because you will make all these assumptions, little things, here and there, over and over, about how I am inferior to you, how it is my nature and duty to serve you. And I will go along with it, on account of how your blond hair curls.”
“What?” she said.
He laughed again. He leaned in. “Oh, are we going to pretend, then? Why have we been watching each other for hours on end every day for months, little fair elf? Because we don’t like the look of each other?”
She swallowed.
He leaned in even closer. “Not going to say anything? Not going to protest you couldn’t find something like me appealing because I am a brute?”
“You are… strong,” she said, breathless. “So very, very strong.”
“And you are a little slip of a fair thing, all curls and grace and clean and gleaming, and I think often about getting my filth on you.”
She sucked in a sharp breath.
“No?” he said. “Still not running from me?”
She met his gaze. “I won’t do that. Run from you. I do want us to be friends.”
“You don’t want us to be friends,” he said. “You want something else.”
“I… don’t.”
“All right, I want it, then,” he said. “I would be a fool to discourage you from sneaking out in the middle of the night to find me where I’m sleeping. Perhaps you’re cold, little fair elf? Would you like to share the blankets with me, huddle up against my bare skin?”
She backed away, then. “You don’t have to make it… like that.”
“So, that was the line, then?” he said.
She halted, looking at him.
“All right,” he breathed. “I won’t cross it again. You can stay. Don’t worry. I would never make a half-breed creature like me on any woman, let alone would I sully something like you. You can trust that I won’t ever touch you.”
She regarded him, wary. “I’m not… you don’t…” She crawled closer. “You know how men get babes on women?”
He laughed. “By the dark of the shadows, you’re still an innocent child yet, aren’t you?”
“I’m not,” she said. “I’m only a year younger than you.”
“Creatures like me grow up faster than soft little milk-blooded things like you.”
“Don’t call me milk-blooded,” she said.
“Fine,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s what Celedin says.”
“I know,” he said.