Chapter 16 The Archives
We go to sleep that night in stilted silence.
There's a moment when Marton eyes the lone double bed, and seems on the point of courteously offering to let me have it to myself.
But I grab a pillow from the bed and take it to the ottoman by the fire.
It's too short for Marton to sleep on comfortably, but it's plenty large enough for me.
And I don't really need blankets since I hardly ever get cold, and the halls of the Academy are temperate.
I curl up on my makeshift bed, not all that different from the cot I slept on in the tower.
The crackling of the hearth and the sound of steady breathing from the bed behind me lull me to sleep quickly.
Just like the tower, in winter, when we always kept the fire going.
..
Cherry huddles on the queen-sized bed, a triple layer of blankets around her, pulled up over her head and around her chin so that only her eyes and nose peak out.
She's shivering.
"C-c-can't you g-go any faster?
"
"There's about a century's worth of grime stuck in the flue," I inform her, stretching my arm up the chimney as high as it will go, scraping blindly with the branch of pine needles I've commissioned to use as a broom.
I watched my mother clean our chimney at home with her old straw broom often enough to know how it's done, but this is my first time attempting it on my own.
This is our second winter in the tower, and Cherry is ten years old.
We spent most of last winter huddled under the blankets together as I shared my warmth with her, because I couldn't figure out why the fire kept going out, or why the room kept filling with smoke and ash anytime it did stay lit.
This winter, I finally remembered my mother's insistence on cleaning the chimney every autumn before it was lit for the first time.
A dirty chimney was a good way to catch your house on fire, she always said.
Our house was made of timber back then, and I never thought to apply that logic to a fireplace in a stone castle.
Now I'm giving it a go.
I've spent half the day on the roof of the tower, leaning down the chimney with my pine bow in hand, knocking down what ash and soot I could reach from the interior of the flue.
Now I'm doing the same from the bottom side.
Our tower is on the top floor of the castle, so luckily the chimney is not too long for this to work.
Cherry is the only one of the two of us small enough to crawl up the shoot if it came to that, and I already know she'd never go for it.
I think she'd freeze to death before sullying one of her three remaining dresses that fit with chimney gunk.
I give a last vigorous jab at the chimney with my pine branch, dislodging the barest sprinkle of ash, before extracting it.
I sweep the residue of my cleaning endeavors—large and small chunks of icky black stuff—out of the fireplace and into the waiting ash pail.
Then I pile up the firewood I've collected, arranging a bit of kindling on top.
I breath into the hearth, still a little giddy at how openly I get to do this.
At home, my mother was always scolding me for using my dragon abilities, looking over her shoulder to make sure the neighbors didn't see me do something odd.
As if the neighbors weren't already horrified with me beyond repair.
But now my abilities are useful.
Now they're important.
A lively flame springs to life in the hearth before me, and Cherry gives a pitiful cheer from the bed behind.
"There we are," I say proudly, standing up.
I turn to look at Cherry, and she's a trembling statue upon the mattress, her eyes fixed hungrily on the flames.
"Come on, then," I urge. "Move closer to the fire.
"
I frown at her when she still doesn't move.
She's a frail beanpole of a girl. But surely a bit of cold hasn't done her in.
After a moment, she starts to get up, shaking so hard she can barely lift herself.
She stumbles at the edge of the bed, and almost lands face-first on the hard stone floor before I catch her.
Against my will, my heart softens towards the child Poor thing.
Her father cast her out up here with no one to care for her but me.
It's for her own protection, of course—but surely he could have at least given her a nursemaid?
I'm only fifteen, and unaccustomed to caretaking.
I do my best now, bundling her in my arms as I help her towards the fire.
When she's seated on a stool before the crackling hearth, I go to release her, but she latches onto me.
"P-please don't," she whispers, still shivering.
"Just—Just a little longer. Hold me."
Obediently, because she is my princess, I wrap my arms around her and hold her close.
I can feel the chill of her body even through the blankets.
Poor girl.
It's a long time before her trembling stills, and even after it does.
..for some reason, I'm hesitant to let her go.
She has no one but me...and I...I have no one but her.
She leans her head against my collarbone, and I lean my cheek against her hair.
"There now," I whisper.
"We'll be alright."
I wake bleary and disoriented, whispering Cherry's name.
I sit up quickly in bed, aware of a flurry of unfamiliar smells.
This isn't the tower—
My eyes land on stacks of books, cluttered knickknacks, male tunics in a wardrobe.
Light streams into the room through a window in the wrong location.
No, of course this isn't the tower. I'm at the Academy with Marton, and Cherry has been taken from me.
I failed her.
For a second, the devastation of it swamps me. She's gone. In danger. Scared. Who knows what's happening to her now?
All because I couldn't do the one thing I was ever useful for.
I'm sorry, Cherry, I whisper in my mind. I'll come for you. I promise that I will.
"Are you alright?" Marton's voice startles me out of my emotional state.
He's standing in the open door the bedchamber, clearly just returned from an errand.
His tunic is damp with sweat and he holds a breakfast tray in his hands.
And he's looking at me with concern, shoulders held stiffly. Expecting a rebuff, maybe.
"I'm fine." I clear my throat. "Where did you go?" I sniff, the smell of his sweat and skin and soap wafting through the air. It is not unpleasant. It may smell even better than the tea and toast on the tray that he holds.
Marton moves into the room, sitting his tray down on the desk and padding barefoot over to the wardrobe.
"I was working out. I missed the gymnasium here.
It's a good place to clear one's head." He sifts through the contents of the wardroad, the muscles of his back bunching and relaxing under the damp fabric that clings to his skin.
To give myself something else to focus on, I stare at his bare feet.
I don't think I've ever seen him barefoot before.
Travelling means a lot of sleeping with your shoes on, especially if there's danger around. Marton's bare feet seem oddly...vulnerable. Like they are not something that should be for my eyes, because he's not mine.
He shucks his tunic off over his head at that moment, and I freeze, tongue sticking to the roof of my mouth. Did I say the sight of his bare feet was not for me? The sight of his smooth, muscular, bare back is certainly not for me.
I drop my eyes, toying with a loose thread of the ottoman while he dresses. I don't have fresh clothes to put on, and on quick inspection I find that I seem to have burst through the laces of my corset in my sleep. It's possible that I partially shifted and clawed them open.
I clear my throat again, and Marton turns to me, dressed in a pristine white tunic that makes him look almost unearthly handsome with his golden hair curling in damp ringlets and his skin flushed from exercise.
"I seem to have..." I gesture to my corset, half-turning so that he can see the ripped seams.
He makes a noise in his throat, but when I turn back to him, he's staring at the floor. "That—is it—the corset or the dress that's torn?"
I feel behind me. I'm still in my stiff dress, and I'm not entirely sure of the system of well-bred female clothing that connects dress and corset. Is it possible I could have torn through one and not the other? But that's bare skin I feel beneath my fingers.
"I think it's both."
Marton nods. He turns on a heel and goes to his wardrobe. He touches one of his own tunics, and then hesitates. "Or...we have one of your old dresses...in my pack."
"I think the sight of me in a dress that's been shredded and resewn a dozen times might alarm the scholars more than seeing me in your clothes."
"The sight of you in my tunic might alarm them right into the ether," Marton mutters.
But he pulls one of the tunics off its clothes hanger, bringing it to me.
I take it from his grip gingerly, then hold it up to study.
It's going to be much too large for me. He's about twice as wide and a foot or two taller than me.
Not for the first time, I wish some of the size and fierceness I command in my dragon form could translate into my stature as a human.
But no, I just get greenish skin and yellow eyes and black hair that's so coarse it takes three-quarters of an hour to brush.
Marton leaves the room while I dress, claiming that he's going to set up an appointment to visit the archives later.
I hastily take the opportunity of ridding myself of yet another ruined dress.
Clad in leggings that somehow survived the night, I pull Marton's tunic on over my head.
The sleeves fall inches past my fingertips, the hem hitting me somewhere around the knees.
I don't need a mirror to know I look ridiculous.
I find a comb on a side table, but on second thought, I decide to leave yesterday's braids in my hair. They feel as if they've held up alright. Probably safer to leave them as they are.
I wash my face in the basin, clean my teeth, and then wonder what to do about the shoe situation. Surely I can't be expected to put on those stupid shoes again when the dress that went with them is in ruins?
I decide to go barefoot, imagining with amusement the scholars hastily looking away from me as I walk down the halls, horror in their eyes for a completely new reason.
Marton returns and only freezes for a second in the doorway when he catches sight of me. His eyes go, of all places, to my collarbone. I glance down and see that the wide neck of his tunic is hanging to one side, baring a wide expanse of skin here. I straighten it.
When I look back up at Marton, he's studiously arranging dishes on the breakfast tray, sliding a stack of books out of the way to make more room. He picks up a teacup, fixing it with milk and the smallest speck of sugar. He grabs a piece of toast and retreats towards the bed.
I make my way over to the tray, seeing a selection of breakfast items. Sausages, boiled eggs, toast, porridge, fruit. Another cup of tea, a glass of water, and a cup of something that might be juice. My stomach rumbles hungrily at the sight.
"I—" I glance over my shoulder at Marton.
"You can have it all," Marton says quickly, industriously munching his toast.
I want to protest, but my mouth pools with saliva and my stomach rumbles, painfully empty. And this looks better than anything I've eaten since... Eight years ago, maybe? The two days I spent in the palace, dining with the king and his daughter before we were shipped off to the edge of the map.
I dig in, inhaling sausages and eggs in huge, impolite bites. I pour porridge onto a slice of toast, fold it up, and stuff half of it into my mouth. Wash it down with black tea.
After I've snarfed down the majority of the tray, I turn my attention to the unfamiliar liquid in the third cup. I pick it up, swirling the yellow contents around inside.
"What is this?"
"That?" Marton sounds surprised. "That's orange juice."
I sip the juice, and the sweet, tart flavor explodes in my mouth. I pull a face, and Marton breathes a husky laugh. I ignore the shiver that runs down my spine at the sound, drinking more juice to distract myself.
The breakfast tray is empty in minutes, and I sigh. I don't feel full, exactly, but I'm not really hungry either. I think about what Edythe told me in the valley, about how Dragomira never grow full. The more we eat, the more our protector forms grow.
I think I should be eating as much as I can while I'm here. In preparation.