Chapter 15 #2
“Then you choose again. That’s what freedom means.” Cera smiled. “Now finish your tea. I have a patient to check on, and you have a very large warrior to terrify with your sudden decisiveness.”
Instead she finished her tea and went to find Tess. The other woman was sitting up in her pallet in the corner of the healer’s cave, wrapped in a thick fur blanket and scowling at a bowl of porridge.
“It’s too sweet,” Tess announced. “Who puts honey in porridge? It’s wrong.”
“I’ll tell Cera you said so.”
“I already did. She laughed at me.” Tess took a defiant bite and made a face. “Still too sweet. But at least it’s hot.”
She looked better than she had a few days ago.
There was color in her cheeks that had nothing to do with the fire, and her eyes had lost some of their haunted hollowness.
Polly remembered Cera mentioning that she’d asked for a comb and started trying to tame her roughly cut hair into something that resembled a style. Small things. Tiny choices.
“Cera says you asked about clothes,” she said, settling onto the chair beside Tess’s pallet.
“The ones she gave me itched. And they smelled like someone else.” Tess pulled the furs tighter around herself. “I know that’s stupid. They’re just clothes.”
“It’s not stupid.”
“I didn’t have clothes of my own. Before. For… a long time. I had whatever they gave me. Whatever they wanted me to wear.” Her jaw tightened. “I want things that are mine. Even if they’re ugly or too warm or the wrong color. I want to pick them myself.”
“I understand.” And she did. She understood all the way down to her bones. She’d made her choice by refusing to wear anything they gave her. “I’ll introduce you to someone who sews.”
Tess looked at her sharply. “Really? The Hothians don’t seem to wear anything other than leather belts and jewelry.”
“Really. She helped me make my first dress here. It took three weeks and I changed my mind about the color six times and she never once got impatient with me.”
“I’d like that,” Tess said softly.
They sat in comfortable silence for a while. The fire crackled, and somewhere outside the cave, she could hear Cera’s voice, giving instructions to one of her assistants.
“Baralt sent word,” Tess said eventually. “About the ship I was on.”
Her heart clenched. “What did he find?”
“He thinks the symbol I saw indicates that the ship was part of a larger trafficking organization, but he hasn’t tracked it down.
He’s reached out to some people who track that kind of illegal stuff.
He says he’ll keep looking.” Tess’s voice was carefully flat, but her hands had tightened on the blanket.
“He also said that Athtar’s wife will sponsor me and help me get settled on Sherae if that’s where I want to go. ”
“That’s good.”
“Is it?” Tess looked at her. “I don’t know anything about Sherae. I don’t know if I can trust this woman. I don’t know if I’ll be safe there or if I’m just trading one cage for another.”
“You’re not,” she said firmly. “Sherae doesn’t permit slavery. And Njkall says Athtar’s mate is brilliant.”
“Great. And I’m just a bartender.”
“Which probably means you can find a job anywhere.”
“Maybe,” Tess muttered.
“You don’t have to decide right away. You can stay here as long as you need to. No one’s going to force you to leave.”
“Njkall said that too.”
“Then believe it.”
Tess studied her for a long moment. “You trust him. Really trust him. I can see it.”
“I do.”
“How? After everything?”
It was the same question Tess had asked before, in different words. Is he your owner? Why do you sleep with him? What is he? She had fumbled the answers then. She didn’t want to fumble them now.
“Because he’s always been there for me, whenever I needed him.
” She thought of the previous night, and their fight and the way he’d apologized immediately when she’d pointed out what he was doing wrong.
“And when he makes mistakes, he admits them. He doesn’t defend or deflect or blame. He just… changes.”
“That’s rare.”
“It is.” She looked over at the other woman. “That’s how you know, Tess. Not by whether they’re perfect. By whether they can be wrong and still be safe. By whether they care more about being right or being good.”
Tess was quiet for a long time after that. Then, slowly, she nodded.
“I’m going to Sherae,” she said. “Not yet. Not until I’m stronger. But I’m going to go. I’m going to try.”
“That’s brave.”
“It’s terrifying.”
“Same thing.”
Tess gave her rusty laugh. “Yeah,” she said. “I’m starting to figure that out.”
She thought about those words all the way back to their quarters.
He was there, as she’d suspected he would be—standing by the fire, his back to the entrance, the massive breadth of him silhouetted against the flames. He turned when he heard her footsteps, and she could see both hope and caution on his face, all tangled together.
“I wasn’t certain you would come back.”
“I came.”
“I’m glad.”
She crossed the cave to stand in front of him.
Looking up, always looking up—he was so much larger than her, this warrior who’d gentled himself for her sake, who practiced patience when everything in him probably wanted to act.
She put her hand on his chest, over his heart, the way she had last night.
“I want to tell you something,” she said.
“I’m listening.”
“I’ve been sleeping in your bed for months. But I’ve been… sneaking in. Coming in after you’re asleep. Leaving before you wake up. Treating it like something shameful, something I shouldn’t be caught doing.” She took a breath. “I don’t want to do that anymore.”
His hand came up to cover hers. “What do you want?”
“I want to share your bed. Not secretly. Not like I’m stealing something. Openly. Because I choose to. Because—” Her voice caught. She steadied it. “Because you’re not just the male who protects me, Njkall. You’re the male I want to wake up next to.”
The caution on his face melted away, leaving only the hope—bright and raw and terrifying in its intensity.
“You’re certain,” he said. It wasn’t quite a question.
“I’m terrified,” she corrected. “But I’m choosing anyway. That’s what brave is, right? Choosing even when you’re scared.”
His laugh rumbled through his chest, through her hand, into her bones. “That is exactly what brave is.”
He pulled her close then, wrapping his arms around her, and she let herself sink into the warmth and solidity of him. Her cheek pressed against his chest. His chin rested on top of her head. They fit together like this, despite the absurdity of their size difference. They always had.
“Stay tonight,” he murmured into her hair.
“I will.”
“Stay tomorrow night.”
Her heart fluttered. Tomorrow was a much bigger word than tonight.
“Ask me tomorrow.”
Slowly, his mouth curved.
“I will.”