Chapter 29
It turns out Roiven packed clothes for me in that huge bag of his.
By the time I’ve dried off with my dirty clothes and put on the set of clean ones—soft trousers and a flowing shirt, with sleeves wide enough it’s no trouble for my metal arm—Roiven has a fire going.
He’s still wearing the same clothes from the day, but his wet hair is tied back.
Sava lies down some thirty feet away, her immense body curling loosely around where we’ve made camp.
I pad toward the fire, trying to keep a close clamp on my emotions.
I don’t feel embarrassed about sex, usually, and Roiven obviously wanted me.
But even knowing what we are to each other, I have to admit, at least to myself, that it hurt he didn’t want anything in return. Was it my looks, or who I am?
Roiven has a long knife out and is sawing into the fish Sava brought us, a blue-crested spear. By the light of the flames, I see two long rents on its side from the dragon’s claws. I sigh in disappointment that my days of fruits and vegetables are over.
“Problem?”
“I could go the rest of my life without eating fish and it still wouldn’t be soon enough to crave it. Not that I’m ungrateful. The Bluff was just… grim.”
Roiven smiles tightly.
“We’ll be at the Tower tomorrow. We grow our own food there, too.”
“What are you burning?” I squint at the fire and crouch beside it. There’s no smell. No wood, or dung, or blubber.
“It’s a spell. See the marks?”
Whatever humming threads of pleasure are still curling through my body go quiet as I stare down at the fire’s base.
The flames are hovering above the rock. There are thin lines drawn on the stone in something that glimmers; oil, I think.
The shapes it forms are similar to the Empire’s enchantments, the lines a little more curved, like the same words spoken on another’s tongue.
Witchcraft.
“I thought your power was air,” I say, my throat tight. “But you can do this and healing?”
Roiven looks up from the fish, his knife still buried in its gut as he splits it open.
“Storm, nor air. And spells and powers are different. Power comes naturally. Spells use marks.”
Just like enchantment, but I don’t point that out.
Roiven bends his head down and finishes sawing the fish open.
“Like your power, you cast spellmarks from your familiar bond. And you can learn spells for most things. But the further from your power a type of spell is, the weaker your ability with those spells will be. I don’t do well with earth-based spells, for instance. ”
I nod, my jaw tight, and stare at the glistening marks of the oil. The fire burns steadily, a bright flame dancing just above the surface of the stone.
“You could try, you know,” Roiven says quietly. “I could show you…”
My breath catches, and I can feel the word yes on my tongue. The fire is beautiful, and my heart nearly buzzes at the thought of being able to make it myself. But I swallow the word down. This isn’t for me. No matter how curious I am, it’s a step too far.
“No.”
The Witch King shrugs.
“Suit yourself.” He carefully flips the fish up on its back and lifts it in his arms, standing lithely. No wonder he didn’t change yet; his clothes are going to be filthy now. He’ll probably need another soak. “I’m going to wash out the entrails.”
“Alright,” I say quietly. My throat feels tight. Should I have said yes? But if I change my mind now, I’ll look like a fool. And I’d give him the wrong idea.
“There are two bedrolls in the bag. You could make yourself helpful and set them out.”
He strides away from the fire and into the darkness.
“A please would have been nice,” I mutter under my breath, but it’s a reasonable request, and I do as Roiven asked without further complaint. I set them up a ways off from where he gutted the fish.
As I expected, he rinses off and then changes while the fish cooks.
I find my eyelids growing heavy as I stare at the fire.
It’s a pleasant surprise that he packed wooden plates in the traveling bag.
We eat in silence. When I nearly nod off on top of my plate, Roiven reaches over and grabs my shoulder before I can fall on top of it. I jerk back upright.
“Are you alright?”
“Just tired.”
“Took a lot out of you, didn’t I?” he asks, sounding as smug as I’ve ever heard him. “If you’re done eating, get some rest.”
“I can clean.”
“It’s fine. It won’t take long. I’m still awake anyways.”
There’s no protest left in me. My legs wobble like jellyfish as I crawl into the sleeping roll he brought. I’m out so fast I don’t remember anything else.
It’s another nightmare night. Or perhaps they all are, and I just only realize it when one’s bad enough to wake me up.
This time it’s Roiven that wakes me, not the dream itself. I thrash awake as he grabs my shoulder. It’s entirely dark out, no moon, no fire. His golden eyes glow down at me as I shiver and pant beneath his hand.
“You’re having a nightmare,” the Witch King says, and sits back.
I raise my left arm up to my cheek, using my face to feel for the freshly tattooed enchantment lines I’m sure are there. Harfor was holding me down while the War-Father wielded the needle himself. But there’s no inflamed skin, no raised lines. I can’t even feel the bond marks that I know are there.
“Did I scream?” I rasp.
“No. The bond woke me. What did you dream this time? The skin-peeling again?”
“No.” I close my eyes. “I’d rather not talk about this one.”
“Back to sleep, then, knight?”
“In a minute,” I whisper.
The wind is fresh and crisp on my sweaty face. I untangle the bedroll and sit upright, waiting for my heart to calm down.
“Do you want to go flying?” he asks. I blink into the darkness.
“What? Now?”
“I used to find it helpful. To clear the mind, on a bad night. She’s willing, if we don’t mind her fishing.”
Could I have been as kind as him, if the situations were reversed? If Roiven had spent a lifetime working for the Empire to destroy my people, and my home. But he isn’t acting like I’m an enemy anymore.
I want to be worthy of that trust. If I can’t undo the past, I at least want to make a better future.
I flex my metal arm, then nod, then realize he probably can’t see me.
“Alright,” I whisper.
A crackling tangle of lightning appears in Roiven’s right hand, illuminating him and the rocks around us in a flickering burst of golden light.
He offers me his left hand. When I take it the lines of our bondmark touch, and I feel him more strongly.
The nervous, wakeful energy in Roiven’s body makes my heart pound harder.
He hauls me effortlessly up off the ground.
The ball of lightning leaves his hand as we approach Sava, to float between us as we climb. I blink away sleep and ascend, hand over hand, fingers straining as they grip the dragon’s scales.
We settle back between the spikes. I wait for Roiven to point out we don’t need to. But he stays silent, and so do I. I lean against him and feel the rise and fall of his chest. The ball of lightning vanishes, and we go dark.
“Hold on tight,” he says. Sava launches up.
For the first time I’m really ready for it.
My legs, though exhausted, fall into place and grip the dragon’s scales.
Flying all day made my inner thighs raw, but Roiven was right, I do heal fast. I just spent my life passing it off as being tough, as the other squires, and then knights, admired how quickly I got back to the training ring after a bad hit.
She angles down, a slow dive. We circle towards the water, closer and closer until the air stings with droplets of seaspray. Roiven’s arms wrap around me, and I’m weightless. Sava tilts, dipping a wing. The water sprays, slashed by the outer finger of her wing.
All of a sudden my heart starts lurching and I break into a cold sweat.
“Up,” I say. “I need to be higher. This—I can’t—we’re too close—” my whole body trembles. Roiven’s arms are still around me. They tighten, one arm around my stomach and another over my shoulders.
I know he probably isn’t going to dunk me in the ocean just for the fun of it, but if he decided to, I’d be helpless. My sword’s back in the bedroll.
He has all his magic. I have none.
“It’s alright,” he says, as Sava rises immediately higher and levels out.
“The water.”
“I figured.” He loosens his grip on me. The arm around my shoulder drops. The one around my waist stays in place, and I don’t ask him to move it.
I calm down slowly. I can tell we’re high above the water now, but the night is so dark I feel like I must still be dreaming. If this isn’t real, at least it’s not a nightmare.
“I wish we could see the stars,” I murmur. Roiven chuckles into my ear. Before I can ask what’s funny about that, the clouds shred apart above us, like they’ve been torn away just for me. Well, I guess they have.
Storm magic. The night feels no more real than it did before. We aren't trying to get anywhere. We're just flying. Like this. The Witch King and I.
“You told me you had nightmares after we fought,” I say.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why?” His voice is even, but he feels amused. “Is watching a burning woman fall into the sea meant to be a pleasant experience?”
“That’s a question, Roiven. Not an answer.”
He laughs quietly, under his breath. Then his voice goes serious.
“I thought I knew who you were. It haunted me.”
All that, because he thought I was one of his people? I wonder if it’s because he’s king. If he takes some unnecessary responsibility on his shoulders. But then why try to kill me?
“But how did you even guess? My eyes don’t burn.”
“They almost seem to. Like gems catching the light.”
“Believe me, I spent enough time as a child staring at them in mirrors. They don't burn,” I mutter, as Sava slowly tilts the other way. Roiven’s hand is still around my hips.
“They would burn if you weren’t pushing away your familiar.”
There’s a long silence. The wind tousles my hair as Sava circles.