Chapter 29.5 The Story
As Marton falls silent, the night noises seem to rush in once more. I blink across the fire at him.
Cherry sputters, breaking the stillness.
"That—That is a terrible story!"
Marton only ducks his head, drawing in the dirt with the tip of the stick he holds.
His eyes dart up to me only briefly before he looks away again.
And I feel...I feel strangely spoken to.
As if the story was for me in some way. I'm just..
.not sure in what way.
"I agree," says Vakh, "the knight is basically an asshole, and I say he doesn't deserve a wife as faithful to him as she was.
"
"I mean, who ever heard of a noble knight treating his lady love so poorly!
" Cherry cries.
"Some people lash out," mutters Marton, "when they're in pain.
And doubt can be deadly as a blade. That's what the story is about.
"
"It's a ghastly love story.
"
Marton shakes his head.
"I don't think so. I think it's...I think it's real.
It's not all perfect nobility and untouchable virtue.
Not on the part of the 'hero,' at least. His own self-doubts make it so that he doubts the people who love him, and it almost leads him into ruin.
But the wife...the wife has a kind of unassailable faith, an unflinching trust that makes her stay by her husband's side throughout the story.
And though she's not the one who wields the blade, she's the one who conquers.
Because she perseveres. Because she believes in the good, and acts on it.
I like that. I like that anyone can be the hero, if they set their mind to a goal and keep the faith.
'Henceforward I will rather die than doubt.
' That's what the knight swears at the end of the story, because that's the virtue his wife has lived by all along. "
I can see, suddenly, why Marton would relate to a story like that.
He's the wife in the tale, not the knight.
He's the one who believes, stupidly, unfailingly, no matter what life throws at him.
That's what he did when he left the Academy in search of legends, and that's what he's done ever since.
Believe. Believe in the best and most magical outcome.
Believe in me.
And have I been the knight?
Am I the cruel and foolish one, treating him like filth when all he's offered me is faith?
Is that what his story was about?
Feeling sick, I clench my hands into fists to keep my claws contained.
"We should get some sleep if we plan to leave these mountains tomorrow.
"
"Oh, I can't wait," says Cherry as we go about preparing for bed, "I so long to be warm again.
"
Vakhrin is amused.
"It will still be autumn, once we are out of the mountains.
"
"Yes, but with any luck it won't be snowing, further south and at a lower altitude.
"
Vakh makes a noise in his throat.
"Snow is a horrid part of being in the north.
It almost makes me miss the fiery sands of Umrahs.
The dry crackle of plain grass underfoot.
It's a desiccated, parched landscape, but it's bloody warm.
" He spreads one of the patched and repatched Trove quilts atop his bedroll, plopping down beside Cherry.
The two of them continue to chatter together, and movement on my left catches my eye.
It is Marton, unrolling his bedroll beside my own.
I've set up next to Cherry, as I do every night.
But this is the first time I have not been separated from Marton by at least one other person.
He looks at me as he prepares to lay down.
I can't decipher the look in his eyes. Is he asking permission to lie beside me?
Asking what I thought of the story, if I understood it?
Is he demonstrating how all my cruelness will not be enough to scare him off, that when he leaves us it will be because he wants to?
Because he has faith in something else rather than fear of me?
I must look too long without responding because Marton just shrugs and lies down, turning his face towards the fire as he draws the blanket up over his shoulder.
I lie on my back, with the great black sky overhead, with the noises of Cherry and Vakhrin's easy banter in my ears.
I think about what Marton told me, so many nights and nights ago, on the day we first met.
About looking at the world from outer space.
About globes and oceans and cartographers.
How just for that moment, the world felt full of infinite possibility and wonder.
That night I dream I am trapped in a round prison, a globe, and I am peeking through a window in the shape of Ithyma.
There is a collar of bones around my throat, and somewhere, the basilisk king is laughing.
It is midday when we leave the mountains behind us.
The green foothills of Ithyma roll on before us.
The chill wind of autumn flows down out of the mountains, its icy kiss at our backs.
The deciduous trees have been losing their leaves all the while we've been in the mountains, and now their skeletons greet us where once there was lush profusion.
I am trying not to be a person who believes in omens.
"Autumn is a season, not an omen," I whisper to myself as I stoop, refilling one of our canteens from the trickling stream we have stopped beside.
"What?"
"Bah!
" I startle, nearly losing the canteen to the water's current and splashing water all down the front of my tunic as I flounder to retrieve it.
I've been so absorbed in my own thoughts, I didn't sense Marton's approach.
"Don't think so hard," Marton advises as he crouches to refill his own waterskin—as if he knows exactly where my mind has gone.
I clench my jaw, and my hands strangle the neck of my water bottle.
Don't think so hard. As if he knows anything about my thoughts.
As if he would understand. The world isn't all hopes and dreams and magic, not for most of us.
Just him. Just him and his stupid stories and his stupid face—
Marton gives me a strange look, almost smiling, before he turns and makes his way back up the shallow hill to where Vakhrin and Cherry wait.
And I decide that I am tired of thinking.
Tired of waiting for him to make a decision.
Tired of being afraid.
I stomp after him, fuming.
"Stop!"
Marton pauses and slowly turns around.
He opens his mouth, but I speak first.
"When are you leaving?
"
He stares at me.
"When are you leaving?
" I cross my arms over my chest, fingers digging into biceps.
"We need to know." I nod to Cherry and Vakh in the distance, who have started to look our way in concern.
"If you want us to drop you somewhere—"
"Stop," Marton says quickly.
"Stop. Tarah, what are you talking about?
"
"You," I say through my teeth.
"Leaving. Just tell me where you want to go and I'll—"
"Tarah!
" Marton nearly shouts, and his face has drained of all color.
He swallows. "I'm sorry. Tarah, I'm so sorry—"
"I don't need your apologies!
I just want you to tell me your plan so I can be ready.
"
"I'm not— I don't— I wasn't planning to leave.
I'm sorry if I— Tarah, I'm sorry for what happened at the Trove, okay?
I didn't know things would get so out of control with Inobar.
That you would have to... I didn't want you to have to do something like that.
Because of me. I'm sorry. I should have stayed in the mountains like you asked me to and waited—"
"Shut up!
" It feels like something in my head just..
.explodes. I feel my dragon form moving under my skin.
This idiot. This human fool is apologizing to me. He thinks I want him to leave because killing for him was an inconvenience.
He was planning to stay. With me. After what I did.
With what I am.
"What is wrong with you?
" I ask, my voice rasping strangely.
"What?
" Marton is all confusion. Pain. "Nothing.
Tarah—"
"No. There must be something.
There must be something wrong with you!
" My voice climbs up to a shout, and without conscious volition, my arms come up and shove him in the chest. One firm shove with both hands, and I hear his breath oof out of him as he goes tumbling back, landing hard on his backside in the grass.
Everything cringes and shrivels inside me, galled by what I've done.
Looking more surprised than anything, Marton stares up at me, braced with his palms behind him in the grass.
He opens his mouth to speak, and before I can yell or scream or burst into tears, my dragon form blessedly takes over.
I feel my clothes shred, my bones and muscles and senses shifting to something stronger and far less human.
Cherry and Vakh have started running in our direction, and Marton is a small male figure in the grass beneath me.
All of them so human and feeling and wanting something for me, something from me.
I push off the ground as hard as I can and flee into the skies.