2.3
“Better?” Athan asked, rubbing at the back of his neck and sending her a dubious feeling across the bond.
“No,” she croaked out, rubbing at her throat, then the space in her chest where the tangle of bond had lived for so long. “What was that thing?”
He made a strange sort of noise in the back of his throat. “Brum,” he gave in answer, as if that would be all the explanation she required.
She was too tired of this. “I’ve never heard of a brum.”
Not that she’d paid much attention to the books on the wildlife on their planet.
She swallowed.
Not true.
She had, when the books were filled with pictures, and she was small and nothing seemed more important that learning about how long a hesper’s horns could grow, or how many babies they could have in a season.
“No,” Athan corrected. “That’s not... that’s his name.”
She blinked stupidly for a moment, trying to make sense of him. “He lives there?” She stared up at the house, and maybe it made sense why it was separated from the rest of the surrounding buildings. “That is his dwelling?”
Athan laughed, a breathless sort of sound that was light and lively and suggested he was not unused to doing so. “Well, I mean. It’s mine. But his. Or...”
If he suggested it was hers, she was going to begin shuffling home again.
“I did not remember how intimidating he could be if you do not know him. I should have warned you.” He took a step nearer and held out his hand. “I can put him in another room for a bit. Let you get settled without worrying about him. I want you to be comfortable.”
She rubbed harder at her chest.
“Orma,” he urged, reaching out for her. Was he going to pick her up again without waiting for her answer? She took a step backward in case he got anymore ideas.
“I don’t...” she started, her chest feeling too tight, too empty, and she shook her head as she tried to calm herself. “I can’t...”
The tonic’s effects came all at once. Not the gentle burst of light and energy it usually gave, but a sudden rush to her pulse that felt far too much like panic.
It made her grow alarmed as Athan approached, made her skirt back and hold out her hands as if that could possibly ward him off.
“Orma,” he repeated, this time more softly. Coaxing. “Take a full breath with me.” He demonstrated what he meant, his hand coming to mimic her position, resting upon his sternum. He didn’t understand, didn’t know how it hurt, how her pulse raced, how nothing ever worked the way it should. Not when it came to her.
She felt the traitorous tears as she shook all over, trying to do as he bid, managing a half-breath by his third.
Held it.
Let it out in a tremulous puff of air.
“That’s it,” he praised. “Again.”
As if she was a child. As if she could not even do something as rudimentary as breathing without assistance.
She shook harder.
“I’m going to take you inside now. No Brum, I promise. Just a room and you can lie down, and we’ll get you feeling better.”
A ridiculous thing to promise, but likely what anyone else would believe possible.
He did not wait. Not for her answer. Not for her to fall, as was much more likely to happen next.
He simply moved with all the assurance he was doing the right thing. And this time there was light and a sharp whistle, and the lumbering beast retreated somewhere else while he whisked her to the upper floor and shut the door behind him.
In the dark.
Again.
She curled inward, which might have pressed herself into his chest more than was decent, but that could not be helped. She did not much care for the dark. Or the cold. She liked the glow that came with light and warmth. A fire in a hearth, the whisper of a flame in an oil lamp. Those were girlhood comforts in an otherwise unyielding underground.
She wasn’t there. She was grown, and she did not need to cower and...
He set her down on something soft.
Lit a lamp.
A room. Perfectly ordinary—or it might have been, if she had not spent her life in the confines of a tower, its ornaments and furnishings passed from one generation to the next.
These were plain. Useful, but without carvings or gilding to add to their beauty. A trunk. A bed. Shutters that were fitted poorly and allowed a bit of the night air to push between them.
She wiped at her face and curled on her side. She should take her boots off. They had no place on a bed. She was going to get his bed linens dirty, and could a healer afford a service to launder them?
She couldn’t stop shaking.
“This is not a reproach,” Athan warned as he came to her side and coaxed her hand away from her middle. Her arm. To poke at. Prod and cut and see if that released her visions and...
She yanked it away.
He was not her healer.
She did not have to consent to any of his experiments.
“Medicines do not always heal,” he continued, looking at her sadly as she clutched her hands together and kept them far away from her. “You are overwrought. You are reacting poorly and I do not know how to counter the effects because I do not know what was in that potion of yours.”
She rubbed at her nose, willing the tears to abate. “If that is not a reproach, I hate to hear what is.”
Her words were quiet and slightly slurred, but she caught his frown at the edges of her vision, his hand coming to her shoulder. Not pulling at her, forcing her to bend and offer her arm up to him against her will.
Just... resting there.
A large hand. Practiced in a craft she held no trust in.
“I will fetch you some water. And a clean blanket.” He nodded to himself, as if pleased with his pronouncement, but his steps were hesitant as he moved from the room. “If you could just... stay put. While I’m gone. I will be quick.”
He shut the door behind him, and she waited to hear the familiar sound of a latch bolting from the outside, but it did not come.
That should mean something, shouldn’t it? She had choices, even now. Or she would, if her body could stop betraying her. Could stop shaking and shivering and decide if she was hot or cold. If she wanted to tuck herself in or bolt for the door again.
She started to sob.
She wanted this to be Lucian’s fault. He’d set the idea in her mind. But he loved her and was only trying to help. But that was always true, wasn’t it? Everyone wanted to help her. See her better. Cured. No more visions, no more threads. No more pain that was her most constant companion of all.
Athan was true to his word. She hadn’t had time to purge her disappointments with a proper cry before he was back again. He had a neatly folded blanket over one arm, and a pitcher in the other, a handled mug crooked on one finger so he could carry it all.
He went to the bedside and set down the pitcher and filled the cup, holding it out to her. At least he did not cradle her back and help her sit up—just let her take it when she was ready, sipping at the contents and belatedly remembering she should peer into the contents to ensure it was only clean water.
“Are you in pain?” he asked, still gentle, as if afraid of setting off another bout of her hysterics. “I should like to measure your pulse, if you are agreeable.”
She did not laugh, but she wanted to. He couldn’t know her history, and she did not truly want to share it with him. It would only make him think worse of her, treat her more delicately, because she was needy and broken and...
She sat up slightly, careful of the cup in her hands, and nodded vaguely. It’s not like it mattered. It never did.
He did not reach for her arm again, but instead brought his palm to the back of her neck, his fingers pressing into the vulnerable lines of her throat.
He looked so serious, a crease forming between his brows as he lingered. This was not the method she was used to, and she swallowed, feeling caged and anxious and...
Something else.
His palm was warm.
Not cold and clinical.
He was handsome, now that there was light enough to notice. His features were well met, his dark hair complimented by the blue of his eyes.
His wings were a speckled brown, and he did not wear the harsh black of her kin. Blues and browns—simple in cut and utterly lacking in embroidery or decoration. Practical and layered.
How often did he get blood on his clothing?
It was a strange thing to wonder, and she refused to dwell on it. There were memories enough that could answer it, but she shoved them away, trying to calm her heart, even as it refused to quiet no matter how many deep breaths she took.
He hummed, shaking his head slightly as he removed his hand.
She tried not to notice the way his hand curled in his retreat, his fingers flexing lightly before returning to his side. “Are you frightened?”
She curled her legs up toward her middle, balancing the cup on her knees before she remembered her boots.
On his coverlet.
She paled, then used one hand to pluck at her laces, water sloshing over the side in her haste to undo them.
He took a step backward and put on a smile. Not wide—only the corners of his mouth pulled upward as if assuring her it was all right if she was. “I need to know if it was that potion of yours or part of your natural reaction. It will help me decide how best to help you.”
What she wanted most was for him to leave so she could cry herself to sleep.
But she could not say that, could she? She wanted to poke at the bond, to see why he could not tell for himself what she was feeling, but she did not want to wake it up. Did not want it to take over, rushing her even further into matters she was not ready for.
“I am frightened and tired and I did not mean for any of this to happen.” It was as much honesty as she could offer.
He did not appear hurt by her assessment of their evening, nor by her apparent lack of trust in him. He merely nodded his head and took another step backward. Did it cost him something to do so? She peeked at him, at the glow that surrounded him—the silvery threads that glowed gold where the light caught.
Hers.
A matching pair.
How could she tell him about that? She’d learned that lesson well, and even thinking of it now set a burn in a throat and made her pulse quicken even more.
She rubbed. Rubbed harder.
Athan stepped closer, reaching to still her hand. “Describe the discomfort,” he urged. “A pain? An itch?”
He’d want to delve beneath her tunic. To see the abraded skin. The scars. He wouldn’t see the bursts of light, the pretty shimmers. Just mangled flesh that had healed poorly. “I do not want you to see,” she protested before he’d even suggested she unfasten her laces, so carefully tied to just beneath her throat.
He sighed, but just a little. “How can I help you if you I do not know the source of your discomfort? I could provide a salve, or a compress, or...”
She reached for his wrist. Held it as firmly as she dared. “I need rest,” she insisted. “Sleep. To deal with...” she needed to be kind. Needed not to hurt him. “To address matters tomorrow.”
He took on a look of supreme patience, as if she was the wayward child that could not possibly know what was best.
She sat up straighter, smoothing her hand over the wet part of the covers where she’d spilled the water. “I’m sorry,” she began, not sounding sorry in the least. “But I have a poorly constitution. This is not new, and I have had many healers long before you. Nothing you give me tonight will change anything that is wrong with me, unless you’d like to provide me a sleeping draught, so my rest might be easy.” She let go of him. Went back to rubbing at her chest. Felt his deep displeasure settle through her bones, and she grimaced. “I’m not what anyone would have wanted. I know this. And I did not mean for us to meet, or for you to have to care for me. It was an accident.” Her throat burned. Her eyes too. She wasn’t pleading, but it was a very near thing.
He did not sit on the bed with her. Instead, he sank to his knees beside the bed and reached out and took her hand, holding it almost tenderly. “What was an accident?”
She sniffed. Wiped at her eyes. “What do you mean?”
“You keep apologising. Saying this wasn’t what you meant to happen. That suggests you intended something—what was it?”
She flushed all over. But strangely, with him holding her hand, with the weariness that spread and settled through every part of her, it made it easier to talk with him. These bonds were for life. Putting off the truth of it all would only prove a hardship.
His thumb moved over the back of her knuckles, and she frowned down at the gesture. It felt... Nice. Not so soft that it tickled, but a warm sort of reassurance. He was there. He was listening.
And for a moment, she felt like that little girl again, seeing him from afar. Certain that everything would be perfect if she could just reach him. If he might turn and look at her and be her friend.
Seeing him now, he was older than she’d estimated in her youth. He spent time beneath the suns, not just tucked away in an infirmary. His skin glowed slightly, with good health and good humour, and hers appeared sickly and grey in comparison.
“I’m not supposed to talk about this,” she explained as cautiously as she could.
His thumb did not stop its careful circles. “Not even with your mate?”
Tears welled. They shouldn’t, and she tried her best to keep from embarrassing herself with yet more upset. She was too exhausted for another bout of sobs, her muscles protesting the effort they’d already made for her. “Surely there can be no secrets too burdensome to share between the likes of us.”
He was unpractised with the bond, yet still pushed comfort and warmth in her direction. To make sure his words were not a chastisement, but an encouragement. That he was there, and he would care for her, and nothing she said would change that.
It wasn’t true though, was it? He thought he could patch her up. Settle her into a new regiment of medicines, this time with his oversight, and she would be better.
Or, like her mother thought, once the bond settled properly, all of her ails would simply vanish.
It had been the source of more than one argument once Orma had come of age, and no amount of her explanations proved satisfactory. Her fears were unfounded. Her anxiety about having a mate was leftover from girlhood traumas.
If she had enough faith that all would be well, it would be.
What calm had come from his tender touches left her. Could she tell him? Lay out the whole horrid business and be done with it?
She would worry. It would rob her of sleep and fill her mind for days otherwise. Until inevitably she had to act, had to tell, just as she’d had to find him.
But perhaps there were parts she might hedge around. Cover the important parts. Leave the rest for when she was stronger. Braver.
“I saw you,” she blurted. “As a girl. And... I knew.” Her free hand went to her chest. Not rubbing, just holding. Covering. “I was... far, far too young. But the bond went to work as it’s supposed to, and I’ve carried it ever since.”
Alone.
Twisting and scaring and leaving her with terrible dreams that stole her sleep and plagued her waking hours.
“Oh no,” Athan murmured, shaking his head. “Orma...”
She didn’t sniffle. Just met his eye as best she could. “I was born wrong. There was nothing you could have done. Nothing you can do now.”
His grip on her hand tightened. “That cannot be true.”
Of course he would think that. Because he was strong and capable. While she...
“If you say so.” She would not argue with him. He’d come to agree with her conclusion soon enough.
And she pitied him for it.
She waited for the lecture. About how he was different—his methods and experience far more advanced. The usual puff and bluster she’d come to associate with the others of his profession.
She did not know how she would tolerate it coming from him.
“I was told I would be undesirable as a mate if I became a healer.” He grimaced a little, shaking his head and looking down at their hands rather than look directly at her. “Then I found a starving and bedraggled faol and took him in. So then I was told to prepare myself because surely any mate would come into my home and look at him and insist I get rid of him.”
Orma thought of her response, and even though he tried to hide just how he felt about it, she knew she had hurt him. That even now, he was waiting for her to pronounce she would not live in the same dwelling as an over-large beast, and he’d have to make a terrible choice.
For her.
Not for her.
Because the bond would compel him. Would make the choice, perhaps not an easy one, but one with an inevitable outcome.
Whatever it took to keep her close.
Whatever loss was necessary, so she’d stay.
Athan swallowed and glanced at her, and it really was unfair how handsome she found him. How her heart fluttered, and she was forced to think of her own appearance and feel worse for his sake. “Is that why you waited? If you knew who I was, did you... did you find me lacking?”
He’d taken her words and come to the wrong conclusion, and she needed to correct it. But that would mean talking about forbidden matters, deeply personal.
Ones that would inevitably lead to talk of cellars and chambers and screams when even careful anaesthetics could not contain the agony...
Would it be so wrong to let small bits of untruth to lie between them? If it meant... if she could just...
“No,” Orma answered him. “I did not know... anything about the rest. I just...” There it was again. The confession Lucian had pulled from her, which was not quite so costly to offer this time. “I was afraid. Still am.”
His thumb went back to work on her knuckles. Circling. Smoothing. For his sake or for hers? “I am sorry. I did not know...” He paused, obviously weighing his next words. “I have never heard of such a thing.”
She waited for the glimmer that would inevitably follow. A mystery. Something to poke at and wonder about. An exciting a specimen if ever there was one.
Not a person. Not a girl, not a woman. Just a body with a puzzle trapped inside.
“I do not much care for healers,” Orma stated bluntly. “Always so sure of themselves, and I find they become mean and impatient when you do not respond to their liking.”
His shoulders tightened. “I do not believe that is why you were warned away from becoming one.”
He coughed slightly. Awkwardly. “No. It wasn’t.”
He seemed reticent to say more, and she wondered if she should pry further. Open him up as he was doing to her.
“I do not know what your...” she paused. Considered. “Brum is,” she finished, satisfied she had been correct in its name. “And I do not know if I shall live with you, here or otherwise.”
The bond flared. Pounded. A sharp tug, insistent such thoughts were absurd, but she’d spent far too long practicing how not to listen to be swayed by it now.
It was harder than it had been—she’d let it out far too recently. But she could manage.
Athan was struggling more.
“If he is your friend and your companion, I would not have you parted. Not for my sake, or for anyone else’s.”
She might come to regret that, most particularly since her glimpse of him had been short and her terror very real, but the sentiment remained the same. If Athan cared for it—him?—then she would not be the one to make such cruel demands.
Just as she could not tolerate if he made the same of her.