Chapter 29 #2
I froze, registering the jarring dip where my heart skipped a beat. It sputtered irregularly before returning to its natural rhythm, sure and strong. But it was enough.
My truth was not what I’d expected.
“Yes.” I tried to pluck her away.
“Why? Why can’t you? If you no longer support the Dendralis’ cause?” Her hand stuck to my chest, as if smothered in tar.
“You know why.” Never look unto me, demanded our Lord, or else never be ye saved, until the ends of the earth… “That’s enough,” I demanded, giving bite to my tone. She clung on, surprisingly strong. I loathed to admit the effort it took to peel her away.
“May I feel it?” Herbaceous curiosity laced through her whisper.
“Feel it?”
“Your face,” she clarified. “If…if I cannot see you, can I touch you? I must check for horns, you see, lest you be a demon sent to turn me from the will of our most gracious Father.”
Though she meant it in jest, the tartness of unripened cherry betrayed her nerves.
“It is a strangeness, to not know your—”
“Yes.” The word slipped from me before I understood why, though regret chased its tail.
I held my breath, ready to put an end to this absurdity, but then she raised her hand.
It was so gentle at first, just a whisper of contact. I dared not move, lest any sudden shift frighten her away—a hunter’s stillness when the doe pads into the clearing.
Her fingers found the length of my jaw, tracing the bone left, then right.
The tips of them brushed against the trimmed hair of my beard, as if testing its length.
I likely needed a shave; a difficult feat without the aid of a mirror.
She lingered not at my lips, having spent enough time there already.
Instead, she pressed at the bow and dragged towards the tip of my nose, turning it upward.
I smiled as she explored its bridge, circling lightly and mapping its shape. It tickled.
Eventually, her touch drifted towards the peak of my cheek, her thumb braced along my jaw. With a measured breath, I rallied every shred of restraint not to lean fully into her touch. Mad. Most definitely, mad.
The heat followed her fingers, less concentrated than at my heart, but still intoxicating.
Fuck it.
I angled my face into her hand, a silent invitation.
But the curve of her hand retracted, and for a moment, I thought her perusal was done. Then, something skimmed over my lashes and pressed softly upon the flesh of my lids.
I let them fall shut and drew in a shuddering breath. To the pits with the council. I would remain here forever.
Her hand slipped into my hair, joined by another, each of them pushing it back from my brow. She tugged it, and a ripple travelled from the base of my neck downward—down, down—until sitting became distinctly uncomfortable. I needed her to stop.
I was about to tell her such, when her fingers kneaded my temple, and I laughed. Checking for horns.
After an eternity and no time at all, she withdrew.
Neither of us spoke, yet the Unmantle hummed, charged with an energy that rivalled the fiery heart of Ovidius. I half expected the walls to melt, turn molten with the press of it. Despite the chill, sweat slicked my skin; salt coating my lips.
Eventually, I stood, because one of us had to, though Ashara stayed seated, hands folded in her lap.
My helm waited where I had left it, mail pooled at its base like iron-dark blood. It stared at me. I stared back.
Unclasping the door to let her pass, helm firmly secured, I felt her gaze before I saw it: eyes the colour of moss in torchlight, boring through the mesh as she clambered free of the box.
How did she imagine me now, after mapping my face with her fingertips?
Still a monster? I hadn’t the courage to ask.
I led her through the hidden passage and back into my office, fighting the overwhelming urge to tear the helm from my head.
“My buttons!” The silence fractured with her shriek. “My buttons—my dress—I meant to ask—” Her eyes were wide, rounded and imploring.
“I am late for council, and I said no more questions.” I needed to leave, or we would both regret it. My fingers twitched.
She bowed her head, defeated.
Under the mesh, I bit my lip. “Out with it, Seamstress.”
My father would question my absence. I had missed several meetings already. There was likely a sweating paxiam stationed outside my door at this very moment, too terrified to knock, weighing which consequence would prove less painful: interrupting me, or returning to the council Vetrius-less.
“My dress—the one I was wearing. What happened to it? To the buttons?” She plucked at the grey, templum-issued gown.
“Incinerated,” I said, ushering her towards the door. “Turned to ash in the fires of the silent sisters’ communal.”
A look shuttered her face and my stomach cinched tight, as if weighed down by an acolyte’s belt.
I returned her to her chamber and set off for the ministerial rooms, intent on being present for at least the last turn. How curious, then, that my boots carried me not towards them at all, but to the sisters’ communal instead.