9. Into the River #2
“Worth it,” I mumbled to myself, shifting position on the uncomfortable wooden bench.
My hind end was getting very flat, though at least my pants had gone from sopping wet to uncomfortably damp.
How long were they going to leave me in here?
It was almost sunset, and I hadn’t even gotten to eat lunch.
A knock on the door had my head shooting up and ears cocking forward.
Alluin smiled at me from the doorway, his knuckles against the door and an expression of such warmth on his face that my wayward heart started beating faster.
“Hello, troublemaker,” he said, the corners of his eyes crinkling and his ears lifting.
“Alluin,” I breathed, his name coming out far too worshipful.
He didn’t seem to notice, though, or to mind. He dragged the lone chair over to my cage and took a seat facing me, resting his elbows on his thighs and his chin on his hand. “How are you doing?”
I made a face and shrugged, reeling myself in. “Hungry. Achy. My ass is flatter than I’d like and I’m not looking forward to finding out what Nyland’s going to demand as reparations for me beating his face in.”
His mouth tilted higher. “You went feral, didn’t you?”
My damned cheeks heated. One great curse of pale skin: blushing like a maiden. “Maybe a little.”
Alluin breathed a disbelieving laugh and shook his head, wearing a fond expression. “Nyland isn’t demanding any reparations. If you accept the deal, you’re free to go.”
“What deal?” I said, brows snapping together. “What did you give him, Lu?”
His expression only went fonder. “I’m giving him the manor.”
“What? No! Don’t do that! Just let him hit me in the face!” I jumped to my feet, grabbed the iron bars, and immediately regretted it as my palms started burning. With a hiss, I let go and rubbed my hands on my pants, glaring down at Alluin. “Droesh is yours. Your people, your history—”
“Only the manor part, Zhi,” he said, smiling helplessly up at me.
“The manor, the town, and most of the farmlands, to be precise. He’ll be a petty lordling, exactly like he’s wanted all this time, and if I’m lucky, I’ll never have to see him again.
” Alluin laughed again, looking like the weight of a world had been lifted off his shoulders.
“All the wildlands are still mine. The meadows, the forests, the caves; all the things I truly care about. And they’re yours, too,” he added, vulnerability coming onto his face. “Ours. If you’re willing.”
I stared at him. “What?” I asked, dumbly, because I had no idea how to respond.
“You love the wilderness,” he said, a note of pleading creeping into his voice.
“You’ve walked the length and breadth of this Court.
I have reams of paper from you telling me all about the creatures you’ve seen, and the ways the streams have changed through the years, and the very many interesting patches of wildflowers you’ve encountered. And if I die, I want—”
“Don’t you dare die,” I said, my heart pounding and skin tingling from adrenaline. “I’m so royally fucked if you die.”
“I’ll show it to you,” Alluin promised in a rough whisper, “if you let me. I’ll show you where the wild horses wintered and where we built our shelters, all the places I remember.
I think I still know how to find most of the sacred spaces.
We could build an altar and do a bloodline binding, and then we’d still be family even if I died and you didn’t share a piece of my soul anymore—”
“For fuck’s sake, Lu,” I said in desperation.
“Fine, yes, alright, whatever you want. I’ll do it.
I’ll learn your history and walk your land and taste your blood, alright?
I’ll do it.” I panted, his promises and mine sinking into my soul with a heady weight that felt more like marriage than friendship.
“What the fuck is a ‘shield-love’?” I paused, the rest of his words sinking in.
“Wait. You still have all of my letters?”
He looked up at me, breathing hard, a wildness I didn’t expect turning his hazel eyes honey-gold.
“I know it’s greedy,” Alluin said in a breathy exhale.
“You keep sending my letters back with replies on the other side of the pages, and then you send me yours with both sides filled, so I get everything and you have none.” A shudder ran down his spine.
“Of course I have them. I get them stilled practically as soon as I finish reading them. I keep them at my house near the palace garrison.”
I wet my lips. “Alluin,” I said carefully. “What’s a ‘shield-love’? And, for that matter, what does ‘shaeulo’ mean?”
Some of the tension eased out of him. “‘Shield-love’ is an old term for someone you trust completely on the battlefield. The person who will defend you without hesitation, even unto death, and for whom you’d do the same.
It was considered an unbreakable bond.” Alluin tucked one curl behind his ear, ducking his chin in what looked oddly like shyness. “Do you mind it? Me calling you that?”
I grumbled, blushing again, but it wasn’t like the term didn’t fit. Me ferally attacking Nyland for the sort of action only I would recognize as an assault had made my devotion fairly obvious. “I accept it,” I muttered. “What about the other one?”
He reached into his belt-pouch and pulled out a square of folded papers, all written in his careful handwriting.
He proffered it to me, along with a small knife.
I reached through the bars and took it, unfolding the papers so I could read the terms before I bound my life to it.
Not that I didn’t trust Alluin, but signing bargains sight-unseen wasn’t a good habit to get into.
“‘Shaeulo’ is a word from an ancient mortal language passed down through my family,” Alluin said. “It’s the name of the bleeding-heart dove. When used as an endearment, it refers to someone noble and gentle, who loves even when that love is agony.”
My chest went tight. “You’re the shaeulo, not me,” I said, not looking up from the bargain he’d penned. “You’re noble and loyal down to your bones. I’m feckless and I punch people I don’t like in the face.”
In my peripheral vision, I saw his mouth quirk up. “Well, shaeulen are also white,” he said with the lilt of a tease.
I pinned him with a dire look. “Are you seriously giving me an over-the-top romantic nickname because I have the same coloration as a fancy dove?”
Alluin grinned at me. “Are you going to let me get away with it?”
I grunted and pricked my thumb with the knife to blood-seal the bargain. “I haven’t decided yet. Did you tell Nyland I was your shield-love, or did he manage to piece that one together on his own?”
“I told him.” Alluin leaned back in the chair, everything about him warm and at ease.
“He demanded that I stop wasting my time and money following you around Stag Court like a lovelorn puppy. I informed him that you were my shield-love, and that if I preferred to spend my nights in your company instead of his, perhaps he ought to consider why that might be.”
“Weaselly fucker. I hate him even more now,” I growled, pressing the dot of blood on my thumb to the paper.
The landscape of duty and debts shifted underneath me, the debt of my recent sins dissolving, replaced by bonds of duty and affection.
This was another indelible bond tying Alluin and I together, but I didn’t have any sense of restriction from it.
He had paid an enormous price to free me—but that price had also freed him.
So what if we were walking out of our prisons hand-in-hand? We would have done that anyway.
Alluin stood and pulled a key out of his pocket, sliding it into the lock with a hum of satisfaction. “Want dinner?” he asked as he opened the cell door.
I gave him a forlorn look. “So badly.”
“Come on, then,” he said, holding out his hand to me. “Let’s go find some.”