6. Frawjō
Frawjō
Valerie
The room is too quiet for sleep. Back home, the ocean would be battering the Saltweather breakwater by now, loud enough to reach my bedroom. Even on calm nights, there was always water against concrete or harbor chains knocking somewhere in the dark.
Marta used to tell me to listen for three-second intervals when I was a child.
“Listen to the water hit the concrete, Val. The tide always keeps time.” I stare at the dark ceiling and try to imagine the rhythm, but Mt.
Qaf hangs above the clouds without a tide, a harbor, or anything familiar enough to measure the silence.
Tomorrow I have to meet Solveig Haraldsdóttir and convince her that what exists between Sigurd and me is real. Saltweather depends on this arrangement working. Maren will be there too, not only as the woman who shares three centuries of history with him, but as the match Solveig wants for her son.
A faint blue glow beneath the bedroom door catches my attention. It brightens and fades in a slow rhythm, spilling across a narrow strip of floor. Sigurd is asleep on the velvet couch outside, and his markings pulse with his breathing. Once I notice the cadence, my mind starts counting.
Sleep still feels a long way off. Rakan’s bookshelves might contain something dull enough to finish the job, provided I can find it without waking Sigurd. Find a book. Read about trade routes until you pass out. Do not wake the billionaire.
I pull on the robe lying across the footboard and cross to the door. The latch gives a quiet click when I open it, and Sigurd’s blue light spreads farther across the floor.
“Please let there be something boring on those shelves,” I whisper. “A tax manual. A history of dirt. Anything.”
Moonlight spills through the tall windows of the living room and catches on the edges of the furniture. I give the couch plenty of room and head for the bookshelves along the far wall.
The leather spines smell faintly of dust and old binding glue. That, at least, is familiar. I run a finger along a row of cracked volumes and stop at an encyclopedia that looks promisingly tedious.
A shadow drops across the windows before I can pull it free. Something enormous lands on the balcony, and scaled talons slam against the emerald railing hard enough to send a vibration through the floor. A hooked beak scrapes against the glass, followed by one dark eye larger than my head.
I back away from the shelves, tightening my robe around myself. Whatever has landed outside is large enough to carry away a car.
Sigurd wakes behind me and looks toward the window without any sign of alarm. When he rises from the couch, I get my first unobstructed look at what his tailored shirts have been covering.
The faint blue markings along his throat and collarbones continue across his bare chest. They follow the planes of muscle beneath his skin, dim enough not to overpower the moonlight but bright enough that I can see every line.
His tentacles shift behind him as he crosses the room.
Remembering the enormous bird outside requires more concentration than it should.
The creature knocks its beak against the glass with a sharp clack. Sigurd stops in front of the window and taps his knuckles against the pane.
“What is it?” I ask. “Even in Saltweather, I’ve never seen anything like that.”
“It’s a roc,” Sigurd replies. “They nest on the upper peaks of Qaf and sometimes come down to investigate the buildings. They are curious creatures, but usually harmless unless someone gives them a reason not to be.” He taps the glass again, and the roc tilts its enormous head to follow the movement of his hand.
“You’re encouraging it.”
“I’m acknowledging it. I’m a guest in its territory, and ignoring the locals would be impolite.”
I look from the bird to him. “Your definition of polite is apparently much broader than mine.”
The roc gives the glass another questioning knock before settling its wings against its sides. Sigurd turns toward me, and the cold radiating from his bare skin reaches me across the few feet between us.
“Could you not sleep?”
“I thought I might find something boring enough to help.”
His gaze moves toward the shelves. “Rakan owns several volumes on pre-imperial maritime taxation. If those fail, there is also a six-volume history of port levies.”
“That sounds medically effective.”
Neither of us moves toward the books. Hattie once told me that billionaires live by different rules because they can afford to rewrite reality whenever it becomes inconvenient. “You can’t play their games, Val. You don’t have the cheat codes.”
Maybe that is true of some billionaires. Yet here, with no audience and nothing to prove, Sigurd leaves the distance between us untouched.
His gaze drops briefly to the opening of my robe before returning to my face. Heat moves across my skin anyway.
“Tomorrow morning, we’ll climb toward the upper pools,” he says. “My mother will be there, and Maren will almost certainly stay close to her. Solveig is very good at making disapproval sound like fact, so don’t let her decide what you think of yourself.”
“I’m not intimidated by her, Sigurd.” My voice comes out softer than I intended. “I deal with overdue book fines. I have thick skin.”
His eyes remain on mine for another long moment before he finally looks away.
“Goodnight, Valerie. Try to sleep.”
“Goodnight, Sigurd.”
I close the bedroom door and climb back into bed. His blue light still reaches beneath the threshold, pulsing slowly across the floor.
Morning sunlight strikes the slopes of Mt.
Qaf and turns the exposed emerald painfully bright.
The trail winds upward between jagged outcrops, narrow in places and covered with loose green gravel that slides under my flats.
A procession of wedding guests stretches ahead of us, most of them handling the incline considerably better than I am.
My foot skids, but I catch myself before I lose my balance. “Are we sure this path actually leads to a pool? I’m beginning to suspect the djinn invented it as a hazing ritual.”
Sigurd walks beside me without any visible effort. The climb hasn’t changed his breathing, and his suit jacket remains perfectly in place despite the rising sun.
“The djinn appreciate a dramatic ascent. Watch the loose stones on your left. The trail becomes easier once we reach the upper shelf.”
“You could have warned me there would be actual hiking involved.”
“You requested no magic, so we’re taking the manual path. Considering the altitude, you’re doing exceptionally well.”
I give him a look but save my breath for climbing. The trail narrows around a boulder that blocks most of the path, with a step that reaches past my waist.
One of Sigurd’s tentacles slides through the tailored opening at the back of his jacket and curls securely around my waist. Before I can object, he lifts me onto the boulder with effortless care.
The cool ridges press through my blouse as my shoes find the stone. I catch his sleeve for balance, suddenly aware of exactly where the limb circles me.
“Thank you. I did have a plan.”
“You were studying the rock for quite some time, so I decided to intervene.”
“I was assessing my options.”
He steps up beside me, but the tentacle remains around my waist as we continue. Last night, I wondered what those ridges would feel like against my skin. This morning, even through my blouse, I have an answer close enough to make concentrating on the trail more difficult than it should be.
Whenever the path pitches awkwardly beneath my feet, the tentacle steadies me without slowing our pace.
A few minutes later, the incline eases onto a broad shelf of stone. I stop near the rock face while my breathing settles. Dark granite breaks through the emerald in harsh bands here, nothing like the polished terraces below.
I move closer to one of the seams. “This is what you meant yesterday about the granite core. I pictured the emerald covering it in cleaner layers, but up here you can see how the two formed together.”
Sigurd turns toward the rock beside me. “Most visitors only see the polished sections. Those hide much of the original structure.”
Pale fractures branch through both materials and disappear beneath the next ridge. I follow one of the broader lines with my gaze.
“Some of these breaks look older than the others. The narrower ones are much sharper.”
Footsteps scrape along the trail behind us as a low voice joins the conversation.
“That’s because the older faults predate most of the visible emerald growth. Later movement fractured both materials again, leaving the cleaner lines you’re seeing now.”
I turn as a man steps onto the shelf. He is nearly as tall as Sigurd, and his reptilian eyes are narrowed against the glare. Faint scales mark his temples, catching green reflections from the mountain.
He stops beside the same seam and studies the fracture I had been examining. “You noticed the difference without seeing the geological surveys?”
“I was just thinking the lines looked different,” I say. “Sigurd explained the granite core yesterday. Once you stop looking at the mountain as one enormous gemstone, the structure underneath becomes easier to see.”
The man inclines his head. “Vasili Drachen, of Lindwurm Capital. It seems introductions are overdue.”
I recognize the name immediately. Lindwurm Capital is one of the largest dragon banks in the world. It’s the kind of institution that appears in financial news even when you make a point of avoiding it.
“Valerie Priest. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“The pleasure is mine, Miss Priest. You have a good eye.” Vasili steps aside as another group passes behind us on the trail. “What is your profession?”
“I’m a librarian in Saltweather.”
“Then you work with the municipal maritime archive.” Vasili turns more fully toward me. “Lindwurm financed several shipping houses along that coast before the modern port authority existed. Some of their records disappeared into local collections.”