Chapter 25 #4
“But you are from the Land of Mud and Mist. These people are always cold…” He trailed off, his voice even quieter as he stared at me.
I felt like I were being fearless, like there was only water around me and any sudden movement might leave me sinking. My eyes flicked to his lips and then back to his eyes, my cheeks heating, terrified he would know I had noticed his lips.
The music kept playing, and we kept looking at each other, but then he looked away and the enchantment between us was broken enough that I could breathe.
“I will speak of the ship on the mountain,” he said, rolling his eyes playfully to the side. There was a hint of true bashfulness in the gesture, but mostly play.
“The what?”
“The ship… Ah, it means, if we were looking at the mountains and there was a ship atop one… we would both notice it, correct? As it is a very noticeable thing.”
The corners of my mouth lifted. I held the laugh in, not wanting to make fun of his language, but his face showed me that he understood how strange a concept it was as he was explaining it, so I think if I had laughed, he wouldn’t have been offended. Fell was famously difficult to offend.
I stilled myself and listened, ecstatic that we’d somehow managed to be alone and talking.
He said, “I find you interesting. And… I can guess only, but you seem to… at least be interested enough in me to spend some of your time with me.”
I nodded the slightest bit. He was the most interesting person in the world to me.
“So…” Did he look nervous? Was I imagining that? “I am saying I am aware of this, but nothing can happen until you are named Norsen.”
I heard the words and was a little lost by them. “Things happen all the time,” I said.
He raised his brows as he thought. I could tell he was trying to reword things as I had missed his meaning—the expression was one I saw often. But as I studied his face—the playfulness and nervousness that flitted across his brow—my mind began to catch up.
“Oh, you mean nothing… special?” Special wasn’t what I’d wanted to say, but it was the first word that came to mind. And I suppose, it came to mind because it was exactly what I meant. I just found it embarrassing to say what I felt.
“Uhh, I meant something physical,” he said. “But that is special I suppose, so… yes. Nothing can happen until you’re no longer soten.”
I became lost again in the conversation because were we talking about sex or was I imagining that? Could it be? The same way we’d talk about what game we were to play next or how we were to spend the afternoon? He has been thinking of having sex with me. That’s what he means… isn’t it?
I think he worried for a moment he’d offended me. “It is not that I think you are wrong for being soten… it is more… I am against it as a whole—sotern—I think all people should direct their own lives, entirely. If your Norsern is kind, yes the time will not be painful, but not everyone is kind.”
“Uhh…” I was stirred up entirely, still caught by the idea that the whole time I had been looking at him, feeling overwhelmed by him, he was perchance feeling a fraction of what I was.
And then I was stung by a nauseating fear because the entire conversation was problematic and dangerous.
“Even if I were named Norsen this moment, nothing could happen,” I said.
“I have a man—” There was no Norsern word for marriage, because their gods were very adamant that it is a bad idea to make any promise for all of your life.
I had to stretch my mind to find something that made clear my meaning. “He is waiting for me back home.”
“Ah.” Fell nodded once to show he understood, but then again, more to himself.
Maybe it was the time we’d spent only communicating via looks at sea, or maybe it was the intervention of divine forces, but I could see his disappointment.
He covered it quickly with a friendly smile, but I could taste the flavour of his feeling—salty and regretful.
It stung like wasps to know I’d caused that flicker in him.
“I am sorry,” I said.
“No bloodstain.”
But there was. There was blood all over the ground, over both our hands already.
As I had been finding for some time, the stronger my emotion, the harder it was to find words and string them in the proper order.
“Be not… low mood, or… no… You understand?” I set the tips of my fingers on his arm, just above the elbow.
It had seemed like he was leaving, and I couldn’t have him leave with even a drop of sorrow caused by me.
I would ache all night over it. “I have some days here, soon will be over. To cause you grey mood would ruin them.”
He looked at me, and it felt like we were in a cave together, deep in the belly of the world.
Until that moment, I hadn’t known my heart was inside his chest already. I knew my skin wanted his, that my eyes wanted to study his form. I could cry about this man forever, I realized. I swallowed and took my hand back, terrified. Sick. My whole life will be suffering now. I retreated.
“No bloodstain,” he said again.
When we walked to the palace later, Inga was with us. And when I went to my chamber, she was still with Fell. She was with him in the morning too, as all the hungover Norsern grumbled over breakfast.