Chapter 22 #2
“There is no one in all the world like you, Rivani, and has never been.” He adjusted his hold on her hands and pressed them back to his chest. “If there are other compassionate and gracious beings in this world, I could never imagine any of them...” He struggled for words.
“No one would treat me as you do. No one ever has. Not even before.”
“Their loss, I think.” She let her eyes wander over his face again before she kissed him once more, this time on the temple. “May I lie beside you again tonight?”
He tilted his face down, eyes closed, a brief hint of a smile pulling his lips.
“Yes.”
Rivani kissed his brow again before she pried herself off his lap.
“I have no desire to leave you but the sooner I get the furs and linens from my bed, the sooner I can return to your arms. I mean to sleep on more than just you and the floor.”
He watched her through his lashes, shyly, not quite believing what she suggested, but too afraid she would reconsider if he asked.
He watched her go from the room, allowing himself to breathe at last when he was left alone.
And then another thought came to him and he got up to follow her.
Rivani had not quite made it down the length of the great hall, but by the time he called her, she was on the steps.
She turned to look at him, the question of what he wanted on her face. When he drew nearer, she mounted another step to make her a little more at eye level with him.
“Did you rethink the wisdom of our sleeping together?”
“There is no wisdom in sleeping together, but I did not follow you to dissuade you. I am willing, indeed eager, to be a fool with you.”
“Then what, my Baró?” She ran her fingers through his curls.
If Baró were capable of love, and he questioned his capability every moment of his life, certain that he was not, but if he were, then this would have had to have been it.
He almost made that declaration to her upon his return, down on his knees, when their time of separation seemed like the worst punishment he had yet endured.
He wanted to make that declaration now for he could not imagine feeling closer to, warmer toward, or more emotionally enmeshed with anyone else.
He bit down hard on his tongue lest he slip.
He did not say it. He would not say it. Not aloud.
Not to her. He had been as honest with her as he could be from the moment they first interacted and while he felt a sensation beyond lust or passion, beyond a simple need to cherish and worship, that manifested in the inclination to defend and protect and care for with his life, he felt disingenuous to call it love.
And if he did declare it and it was true, then he would be one step closer to unraveling the powers that bound him here.
And one step closer to being a complete stranger to Rivani.
The thought chilled him. He was her Baró, her beast. Not her man.
Rivani astounded him at every turn, but what she prized in him were those things he could provide as a monster.
Those physical fascinations that caused her to touch him so intimately did not belong to the man who could leave the forest. He did not believe he would ever be worthy of the privilege to be let out among people, but even if that came to pass and he lost Rivani’s affection because of it, she would go when the year was up.
He would have to be silent until then. He could never tell her that he loved her.
“Y care for thee more thanne Y have ever cared for another,” he said at last, “and thy name ys styll unknown to me.”
“Names are power, Baró,” Rivani reminded him.
“Beauty thought as you did. I do not know what her father said but she refused me her name, thinking I would steal her soul. I did not even look as horrible then.” He redirected his thoughts back to the point.
“I called her ‘Beauty’ the way I call you ‘Rivani’ because, beside her, I felt every inch of my ugliness. Even after she had seen through all the pretense and pride of her host, though we had become fair companions and she did, on occasion, touch me, I never learned her true name. Although by then I would have never thought of her or called her anything but ‘Beauty,’ I regret not knowing.”
“I know you loved her. I’m sorry.” Rivani stroked his fur.
“I asked her for the braid. She did not understand why. When I offered the same, she thought the token unnecessary.”
“How did you–”
“I smelled you on it.” He shrugged and then cast his eyes away. “Would you give me a piece of your hair before you leave?” His voice cracked on the question and he swallowed, keeping himself as together as possible. “I would offer some of mine but I no longer have it to give.”
“Some fur then, Baró, for I think the token most necessary.” Rivani swallowed her own lump. “I will, however, tell you my name if I can have the confirmation of yours.”
“Baró.” He cast his eyes down. “My name was also your gift to me.”
“Before that.”
“Beast,” he said. “That is the only other I have had in three centuries. That must count.”
“Before that,” she repeated. She kept her hand on his shoulder, in his fur. “When you looked like a man, what did they call you?” She sought his gaze and held it.
“Please do not make me own it.”
“I know it already,” she admitted, “but I need to hear you speak it, to settle all my wild imaginings.”
“Arturo,” he relented at last. “Arturo Hemnesium Elliel Vallon... de Vacca.”
To hear it from his own lips, the confirmation struck her like a gust of wind.
“The second son,” she said. “The Rivan Prince.”
“Nay, Y beg thee.” He had once been misguided to wear his name like a medal, but now it burned him with shame. “Let me be thy Baró and naught else.”
“I knew you must have been someone,” Rivani mused. “But I did not allow myself to imagine that you were — to know that you were —”
“Solelie thy Baró,” he finished for her.
“Why not own it?” She tilted her head. “We have discussed your faults but our stories say that you, unlike your family, possessed a heart. You, Baró. You were the hope to end the Rivan persecution.”
“Thy stories art Rivan,” Baró said. “Thy Rivan Prince lyved not among Rivani. He heard no stories of hope. The people loved my fa—” He had referred to a father before, but having confessed to who he had been, it did not feel right to refer to Hemnesio as his father.
Hemnesio had never been much of one. “They loved the kyng and Luca found favour among them. Yn their eyes, the second son was naught but a Rivan bastard byrthed by a treasonous queen.” An old fury bubbled up and laced his voice with poison.
“They put my mother to death because of me, because Y was not of the kyng’s get.
He would have renounced me except that it was too late.
Y already carried his name. Styll Y was remynded daylie by all lest Y forget. Y—”
He stopped. None of this mattered anymore.
He never spoke of it to another in all the years since, ashamed to own that he had always been alone and unwanted.
And if no one had wanted him then when titled and accomplished and attractive, no one could want the little he could offer now. Arturo de Vacca was better off dead.
“To the Rivani, perhaps the Rivan prynce offered hope, yet his existence proved more embarrassment. To those around him, he was a faylure, a disappointment, a terrible mystake who possessed no vyrtues to redeem him.”
“He had faults and flaws,” she agreed, “but he saved many Rivani from torture and death even as his king conditioned him to hate the blood of his sire. He was lauded as intelligent and fair with all the makings of a good ruler and a morality he could not abandon even at the expectation of his family.”
Baró snorted, his resentment palpable. “And what other remarkable vyrtues hath been doubtless fabrycated?”
“That he was the most beautiful man who had ever walked this earth.” She added, “But I do not think that was fabricated.”
“’Twas Rivan beautie,” Baró corrected. “Non-Rivani did not thynk him so. Yet all wolde agree that now he appeareth the mooste uglie.”
“No. He has been elevated to a god,” Rivani countered, “the Fir’Darl, a most magnificent creature.” That earned her a hard snort of derision. “It’s true.”
“Cease such flatterie, Y pray, Rivani.”
“Sahtiya.” She leaned forward and kissed his forehead.
Baró’s confusion overwhelmed his face.
“My name,” she said. “Sahtiya.”
“May I speak it? Just once. I will not abuse the privilege.”
“Of course. It is a common name.”
“Sahtiya.” He spoke it slowly, reverently, like the name of a god, tasting and savoring each syllable of it. “Thank you.”
“There is no need for gratitude.” She reached out and fingered a black curl on his right shoulder.
“Now, I am going to get my furs and blankets. When I return, I plan to hold my Baró and I expect my Baró to hold his Rivani. All talk of other names stays outside this world of ours. Our other names are for those for whom we are obliged to perform our roles of mystics and monsters.”
He caught her wrist before she could leave. He had to know.
“Does it change anything — being who I was?”
“I have a better understanding of who you were, Baró, but I only care about who you are now.”