Chapter 77
Herbs and White Fruit
The warmth arrives all at once as I ease into the warm water. I close my eyes and let it, the cold of the mountains, the road, the weight of the last several days all loosening by degrees. I stay there until I hear him at the door.
He passes Ari through first, then Kiss, and I take them both into the water with me, one against each side, and I wash their hair with careful hands while they look up at me with the particular attention of people who find everything interesting.
Ari submits to it with solemn dignity. Kiss objects to the water temperature and makes it known at length.
“Will you attend the council today?” I ask without turning.
"Yes."
“Perhaps tomorrow I will attend with you," I run my fingers through Ari's hair, smoothing it flat. "Today I want to be with my babies. They have been stuck in the transport, traveling through cold and danger for days." I look down at them both. "We will bathe and then go to the gardens."
A pause. "The weather here is far warmer."
"Yes," I say. "It is."
Ari latches onto me without warning, his small mouth finding what it is looking for, and I adjust him without thinking. Kiss watches and immediately wants the same.
I smile, still relieved that she is finally agreeable to milk.
"Arthen smelled strange when he greeted us," Colsar says.
I look up. In the chaos of deathmages and Yvara and the Yorali princess, I did not even remember greeting Arthen. “In what way?”
"Wrong," he says simply.
I think of Matron Oramin, of what she had been underneath everything.
Of the particular wrongness of something that looks like a person and is not.
My hands are trembling slightly before I realize it.
She had always been stoic. She had also always been kind in her particular contained way, the kind of kindness that does not announce itself and does not need to.
My eyes burn as I think of how her eyes would have brightened at the sight of Kiss and Ari.
How she would have looked at me with approval as she saw how well I cared for them, how strong they were.
But then Aunt Petunis’s words rang in my ears.
“The dead have no use for your tears, Asharin. And the living even less.”
I exhale and looked at Colsar. “Kiss me,” I say quietly.
He leans down and presses his mouth to mine, brief and certain. Then he straightens and moves toward the door.
He gets there and stops, then turns back. He begins removing his clothes and I watch him step into the large tub behind me and lower himself into it with a sound that tells me his body is more tired than he has let on.
Ari has fallen asleep on my breast. Colsar reaches for him without asking and lifts him with extraordinary care, settling him against his own chest where he stays without waking, one small fist curled against Colsar's skin.
We sit in the warm water with both of them and neither of us speaks for a while.
"I wish to bathe," he says eventually, "and then walk in the gardens.
" He looks out the window at the light beyond it.
"Now that it is warm there will be things planted, not just in the gardens but the greenhouse.
" A pause. "If we are to be here for any stretch of time I would prefer to see it now.
So I can picture what you're describing when you give me your updates at dinner. "
Something warm moves through my chest.
"I never got to see the silver ash drop its leaves while you were gone," I say.
His face changes. Something darkens in it, old and certain.
"I know," he says. "No one will ever stop you from seeing it again."
He shifts in the bath and pulls me and Kiss toward him, his arm coming around us both. We sit like that for a moment and I look at the light through the window.
"Asharin." His voice is low. "I will be patient. I will play the game of strategy. We will have Kiss named heir. We will figure out Morrath." A pause. "But then I will take his throne. And then he will pay for every single thing he has done. Just when he thinks all is forgiven."
I turn to look at him.
"I love you," I say.
He presses his mouth to the top of my head. "The red brethil birds will be here soon," he says quietly. "They hate the frost but they come back at the first sign of warm weather." Something that is almost a smile. "The children will like the colors.”
"I never understood why they call them red brethil when they are so many different colors."
He makes a quiet sound of agreement.
"Ari will like them," I say. “But your daughter will only find them interesting if they are making noise or in a large flock."
He laughs. Low and real. "My little princess has very little patience."
"She comes by it honestly," I tease.
He says nothing to that but I feel something move through him that is warm. My thoughts are interrupted by a small grunt and I look down to see Kiss has also fallen asleep, milk dribbling down her chin as she snores softly. “Let me put them down," he says. "And I will come back."
He rises from the bath and takes them both, one at a time, placing them into their baskets near the window since the bassinets have not yet been brought up. He moves quietly, with the particular attention of someone who understands that a sleeping child is something to be protected.
Then he comes back.
He gets into the bath behind me and leans back against the edge, his eyes closing. The weight of the road leaves him slowly. I can see it happening, the way it always does when he lets himself stop moving for the first time in too long.
I reach for the soap. He does not say anything. His head lowers slightly as my hands move through his hair and the tension held in the back of his neck eases under my fingers the way it always does when he has decided to let something happen.
I press my mouth briefly against his jaw.
"There is something very attractive," I say, "about a man who abandons his responsibilities to look at flowers with me."
Something moves through his face. Not quite a smile, but close enough.
We stay there until the water cools.
I had brought the herbs from Shalvar. I am not entirely certain why.
The last time we had spoken of them I had told him I was not sure I wanted them, and then everything had overtaken us and neither of us had returned to it.
I suppose I brought them the way you bring something you have not decided about yet.
He says quietly, "Did you bring the herbs?"
"Yes," I say.
He is quiet.
"Why?" I press.
"I just..." A pause. "We have not discussed it. Not properly since that night in the throne room.”
"Then let us discuss it now," I say. "I wish to know what you want. Not what you think I want. And do not feign ambivalence, Colsar. I dislike it when you do that."
He turns to look at me. "You are starting to know me well."
He draws in a breath. "It is not ambivalence. It is respect. I do not wish you to have a life you do not want, or to do things you are not comfortable with."
"We have talked about you deciding for me—"
"And I am working on it," he says, sharper.
Then quieter. "It is not always easy, Asha.
" Then lower still. "I told you I was fine with whatever you want and that is true. But if you are asking me what I want, I want more. Now, or whenever. I will not be upset if it takes a day or weeks or months or even years.”
He exhales. “And I would never hold it against you to say no. There is danger everywhere and you almost died the last time.”
He pauses.
"And if we are working on my vulnerability, I will admit this." He looks away. "I want to experience more this time. I missed most of your pregnancy." I thread my fingers through his, knowing this does not come easily to him.
"I missed the birth of my children."
"They will not remember," I say quietly. "You were busy saving us."
"I know. It is not something I dwell on." His voice is careful. "I only look forward to being able to see all of it, next time. And to show you that I can be present.”
He runs a hand through his wet hair. "I did not even get to be the first person to find out the news," he says. "That you were with child."
I look at him. "You are not normal," I say. "Most men do not care about such things."
He looks back at me. "Most men do not have you."
I hold his eyes for a moment. "Cambra says after carrying a feeder child it takes a while," I say.
"I am patient."
I look at him for a moment. Then I say, "I do not want the herbs."
Something releases in him. His shoulders drop by a fraction. He exhales once, slow. Then, quieter, "And now I am aroused at the thought of breeding what is mine."
"Patience, dear husband."
I smile. “But there is a price. Before our next child comes, you must find me Yaforins.”
Colsar grimaces. “The rare white fruit of Kisernia?”
I nod, unable to hold back my smile.
"For you," he says, "anything.”
We stay in the bath until the water cools completely and neither of us moves to get out.
I put my head against his shoulder. He pulls me closer without a word, his arm coming around me, and we stay like that while the light through the window moves slowly across the floor and the children sleep and the palace holds itself around us.
It is the first time in a long time that nothing needs to happen next.
I think he feels it too.