Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
Dorian
The night had turned dawn-gray by the time we came out of the old house. Morning crept up once again in my district—the first dawn I’d seen from inside these walls in over twelve years. The jeweler’s son, somehow alive and grown.
If we lingered, I would be recognized.
I clasped Eury’s hand as we walked. Only the fringes of this district would do—the places I’d never gone as a boy. We needed a bed; I could feel the exhaustion flowing off her.
But I had never felt so alive, so awake.
Eurydice knew the truth. She knew it, finally and completely, and she had come to me. Her fingers in my hair were a gift. Her lips on my forehead were a benediction.
I would never forgive myself. But she had forgiven me.
The streets were so familiar, I could have closed my eyes and navigated by the smell. We passed down the metalworkers’ corridor—ozone and coal dust. We turned onto the Tanners’ Row—lye and wet hide. After some time we came to a pub close to the middle wall, wedged by the sewers and the mountain.
“The Floodgate,” she said as we approached. “Clever.”
“You’ll find no greater toxic sludge.” I pushed open the door for her. “And it always has a free room.”
Inside, the pub was dead empty. The chairs sat upside down on the dark-wood tables, the counter had been wiped clean, no noise sounded from the kitchen. For all the effort, the place was rank; the smell of the sewers could penetrate any window.
The shutters were all buttoned up, and only one candelabra burned low on a wall. Good.
I called out for the owner, but no answer.
After twenty seconds, footsteps above us.
The floorboards creaked, followed by a tumbling as though someone were falling down the stairs.
An old man in rumpled nightclothes soon appeared, quick-stepping down.
He rubbed at his hair and his eyes shifted from me to Eury.
His cheeks pinked. “Who the hell comes at dawn?”
“Door was unlocked,” I said. “You have a room?”
“Well, yes—”
“We’ll take it for the night,” Eury said.
“The day and the night,” I added.
His fat brows lowered, eyes darting between us. I didn’t know this specific man, but I knew his type. The inner district possessed two classes: highborn and those who called themselves lowborn, who acted as though they lived in the outer districts even though they had never set foot in them.
He perceived us as highborn. It was our cloaks and leathers.
“Ten gold,” he said.
“I’ll give you fifteen”—I pulled the coins from my belt pouch—“if you bring us three square meals, set them at the door, and you never saw us.”
The gleam of the three coins under the candlelight, moving between my fingers, got his head nodding. “Never did see your like. That’s true.”
That meant everyone he knew would know we were here within a day. That was fine; we wouldn’t stay that long.
His attitude was much improved as he led us up the narrow staircase. He took us to the corner room, opened the door, and ushered us with one hand on the knob. Inside, a bare room: one bed barely big enough for the two of us, an end table, a shuttered window, a chair.
“Breakfast starts in an hour,” he said. “Don’t suppose you’ll want that.”
“Lunch, dinner, and tomorrow’s breakfast,” I said, and passed him the gold.
In five minutes he had the room done up for us. A candelabra on the side table, all three wicks burning, and the bed’s cover turned down. He left us alone with a click of the door.
Eurydice stood by the bed, back to me, her fingers touching the patterned coverlet. Her braid hung over one shoulder, her form so beautiful I either had to approach or force my gaze away.
I had never wanted to touch her more. I had never felt greater responsibility.
“We should sleep.” Every word felt stilted. “After sunset we’ll go down.”
She met eyes over her shoulder. “Back to the sewers?”
“Deeper than that.” I unclasped my cloak. “Much deeper.”
She turned fully toward me. “There’s nothing under the city. It’s all rock down there.”
I threw my cloak onto the chair. “You’re right about the rock.” She stared, even as I went about removing my leather jerkin. “The bed is yours,” I said.
“Don’t be silly.”
I dropped into the chair and began untying my boots. “I’m never silly.”
She crossed around the bed to me. When she came to stand a foot in front of me, the smell of her made me pause. I closed my eyes, fingers still on my boot.
Her scent had always been impossible to ignore. Bright, fresh, intoxicating. For my part, the spiritstag hadn’t even needed a magical bind to draw me to her.
“The bed’s big enough.” Her eyes were so blue, so wide. “And I’m not going anywhere with you when you’ve slept on a chair. A crick in the neck makes for terrible decisions.”
I didn’t move. Didn’t speak. She had no idea the effect she had on me.
“All right”—she turned away and unclasped her cloak—“I only wanted to be held like you did in the Eldermaze, but…”
In the Eldermaze, I’d hardly known her. Now, that request was like asking me to grip a flame. Yet I couldn’t refuse her, even if my restraint was threadbare.
I followed.
When we had undressed to our underclothes, we climbed into the bed together. She leaned toward the candelabra, blowing out the flames one by one. Darkness enclosed us, and she backed herself into me.
Her body against mine was almost unbearable. I wondered if she could feel my heart against her spine. Her loose hair against my nose, her softness under my arm—all of it made tomorrow feel too soon and far off.
Her breathing deepened, and in the quiet of the inn room I made the second vow of my life.
I would never fail her again.
I hadn’t realized I slept until I woke. A rowdy pub song filtered through the floorboards, a tune I hadn’t heard in a decade. Men used to whistle it walking home—a ditty about the wall. Most songs and poems were about the wall. Only those of us who’d grown up under its shadow knew its power.
Eury still slept in my arms, the length of her body pressed against mine. The ache inside me was even worse now than it had been eight hours ago. A whole night of breathing her in, of her warmth against me—
Wildmother, would her nearness always be fucking torture?
My hand lay over her forearm. I stroked my thumb over the soft skin until her breathing changed. Awake, her breaths were always short, as though she wore permanent armor over her chest.
“Has it been a whole night?” Her voice was gritty with disuse.
“A whole day.”
She sat up, her hair sliding over her shoulders in waves. She went still for a moment, no doubt listening to the song downstairs. “I know that one.”
I propped my head on my hand. “Do you?”
“I thought it was sung only in the southern district.” She let out a breathy chuckle. “This side of the wall is different, and yet…”
“Hardly different at all?”
“Drunk people worshipping stacked stones.” She glanced back at me, her lips curving. “All while wishing for something else. Something better.”
Yes, that was right. I had pushed my childhood so far down, so far back, I could hardly remember it. But her words dredged up that old feeling—the desire to see above, to see beyond the wall.
I had wanted that badly as a boy. Not to study the facets of tiny gems with a loupe, but the horizon. I worshipped the wall’s sanctuary, and yet I wanted to be free of it. Perhaps the feeling was even stronger when you were surrounded by two walls instead of one.
“You always wanted out, didn’t you?” I asked.
“Of course.” She stood and began dressing. “Now I think maybe that was the fae in me.”
“I used to climb it.” I sat up in the bed, facing away. My feet hit the floor. “The middle wall.”
She paused in her rustling. “Often?”
“More times than I can count.” I rose and crossed to where I’d thrown my leathers onto the chair. “And yet when I was taken, all I wanted was to be back.”
Silence fell. The song swelled from downstairs. Then, her voice gentler than I’d ever heard it, “It’s one thing to go on a journey. It’s another thing entirely to be forced.”
I closed my eyes; she wasn’t only referring to me. “Eury…”
“I only mean to say I understand. That’s all.”
She and I weren’t made for long, heartfelt apologies. I picked up my doublet and stared down at it. Fae-made stitching. Meant for a ball, but as tough as human-made leather, practically unrippable. Mirek’s hand. “You still want to go back to Feyreign?”
“Yes. And this time I’m making that choice.” A pause. “Dorian?”
“Yeah?”
“You don’t have to avert your eyes.”
I squeezed the doublet in my hand and released a low, audible breath. She had no idea how much one flippant sentence affected me.
“Don’t say things like that unless you mean it, Eurydice.”
“Why’s that?”
Because if I turn around now, I don’t know if we’ll ever leave this room. “If I get to look at you, then I want to be the only man who does.”
A small laugh. “Are you claiming me?”
“A queen can’t be claimed,” I said. “But I’m also not one for sharing.”
Her footsteps sounded behind me. She came to within a foot of my back and stopped. “I’m not declaring a consort or a king, Dorian.”
“I know—”
“But,” she said, “what happens behind closed doors is up to us.”
I didn’t move. My eyes closed against the blood thrumming through me. “You have no idea the power you hold over me.”
Her fingers touched my back, raising the hairs there. “Tell me, then.”
“I—” I had never been good with words. Especially not around her. “I can’t think when I’m near you. My words turn into a slurry. I hear your voice even when you’re not there. When you look at me…”
Her finger stroked along my spine. “Yes?”
I shuddered. “When you look at me, I can’t breathe until you look away.”
“That seems hazardous.”
But I was already onto a deeper truth, one that had ricocheted inside me since the Thorn Rite: “When I told you my life is yours, I meant it. Now, tomorrow, every tomorrow until I’m gone.”
Her finger stopped moving. She didn’t speak.
Finally, I said, “I’m going to turn around now.”