38. Bonds and Sleep
Bonds and Sleep
Dali was waiting at the entrance to the Darkway.
She looked me over and was either indifferent or annoyed, I could not tell which. "Teorin has not been pleased with your absence," she said. "Stay away from him today."
I looked at her. "Have you gotten from him what you needed?"
She smiled and did not answer.
I walked past her.
I did not examine why I kept walking past her chambers and down the corridor toward his.
Some part of me that had no business caring was caring anyway, and after everything Eravic had told me tonight about what Teorin had agreed to and what he had decided not to do, I could not make that part go quiet.
I stopped outside his door and drew in a breath and knocked.
He answered.
He looked terrible. Pale, his eyes glassy and wild, his hair loose and uncombed. He looked like a man who had not slept and had not eaten and had been running on little more than fumes for days.
"Have you drunk any blood today?" I said.
He shook his head.
I felt a flash of anger at Dali that surprised me with its sharpness. I did not know what I had expected from her. I did not know why I cared. I cared anyway.
"Sit down," I said.
I reached past him and rang the bell on the wall. A creature appeared in the doorway, frightening to look at in the particular way that many things in Morrath were frightening to look at, and I said, "He needs blood." It nodded and left.
I turned back to Teorin. He had sat. He was looking at me like he was not entirely sure I was real, which told me the fever had already been going for some time.
"You need to take care of yourself," I said.
"I am."
"No. You are not. Clearly." I looked at him. "I do not know much about what you need to sustain but whatever you have been doing it has not been enough."
I pressed the back of my hand to his forehead.
He was burning.
The creature knocked and I opened the door to find a tray with a decanter of blood.
I nodded my thanks and carried it to where Teorin sat.
His hands were trembling when he reached for it so I set the decanter aside and took the spoon from the table and brought it to his lips that way, slowly, the way you fed someone who could not feed themselves.
He did not protest. That told me more than anything else.
When it was done I helped him with his shirt, working the buttons carefully while he sat very still.
"Why are you helping me?" he said. His voice was hoarse. “I do not deserve it. After what I have done to you.”
He grabbed my wrist. “I lost control. I am sorry. I—I should not be around you. Someone should kill me.”
I frowned. He had crossed many boundaries, including insisting on sleeping in the same bed as me. Not to mention the human on her knees at breakfast. But in those moments he did not seem to care. He was behaving as though we had an interaction that had recently caused me harm.
“What are you talking about, Teorin?”
“There was so much blood,” he whispered.
Despite myself, I took his hand. “You are feverish and not thinking clearly. There is no blood anywhere. I am fine.”
“I do not deserve your help,” he said, voice hoarse.
Part of me agreed. But there was another part that could not help but remember the past.
"Do you remember when I had a fever and could not walk or move or even think?" I said. "How you helped me."
"Yes."
I laughed despite myself. "Do you remember the Weaver?"
Something moved through his face. He nodded.
I had never seen him like this. It was difficult to process.
The man who had watched me from outside my father's estate for years, who had agreed to drain me and decided not to, who had carried something enormous and private for a very long time, was sitting here trembling while I fed him blood from a spoon.
I helped him lean back against the pillows and went to the closet and found a blanket and brought it back and tucked it around him the way I would have done for Ari or Fiorakis.
I sat on the edge of the bed.
"Perhaps it is time for you to return to Thrykis," I said quietly. "You were healthier of mind and body before you came here."
The guilt sat in my chest like something with weight as I thought about him giving me blood and marrow so that I could survive.
His voice was hoarse when he answered. "There is no Ashen in Thrykis."
He laughed. It came out rough and low and not entirely his.
His eyes were fighting to stay open and losing.
"Sleep," I said. “For now, there is Ashen right here.”
I watched him sleep, smiling despite myself at how boyish he looked.
He had lied to me so many times. Overstepped so many boundaries. And yet here I was at his bedside.
For reasons I did not want to examine, I cared.
I did not know what it was that he wanted. But I knew he would not let anyone hurt me. And here in Morrath that meant something.
I thought about Dali. About what exactly she was doing to convince him to help her find the amulet. About why Teorin would even be qualified to find it when he did not know Morrath well. About the smile she had given me when I asked if she had gotten what she needed.
You promised to stay out of it, I reminded myself.
My eyelids grew heavy. The daytime tiredness I had grown accustomed to began to close in. I shot up quickly before my head could hit his pillow.
You cannot end up in his bed, I reminded myself.
I curled into the chair at the bedside instead and counted his breaths and knew sleep would come soon regardless of where I was sitting.
When I woke he was already watching me.
I straightened in the chair and pushed my hair back and pretended I had not just been asleep with my mouth open in a man's bedroom.
He looked better. Not well. Better. The glassiness had cleared from his eyes and the color had come back to his face in the way it did when feeders had what they needed.
"How long was I asleep?" I said.
"Long enough," he said.
I looked at him. He looked back. The room was quiet and the light had shifted and I decided that if I was ever going to ask him I was going to ask him now.
"The bond," I said. "What were your plans? Truly."
He was quiet for a long while.
“Do you know what it was truly designed to do?” he asked.
"I do now. Tell me what you planned."
He looked at the ceiling. "In the beginning I planned to do it. Drain you. Open the veil. Bring Brina back." He paused. "Then I found you in Rathmor."
"And?"
"And I could not."
“You told me she was dead, Teorin. You told me your mother was dead.” I tried to keep my voice even.
“I lied.”
I did not react to that, there was no point.
I watched his face. "What happens if the veil opens, Teorin? Truly."
He looked at me. “What lives in Sarenal is dark. Darker than anything you have seen here in Morrath.”
"We need to seal the wards then,” I said.
"If we do," he said carefully, "you will be forever tied to me through the bond. That is what the bond requires. That is what it has always required."
I looked at him.
"I am not scared of that," I said.
He looked back at me.
Neither of us said anything after that. The room held the silence the way rooms did when something had just shifted inside them.