Chapter 33
They would go to Orc Mountain. Orc Mountain.
Raye’s heartbeat skipped, and began drumming fast and frantic against her ribs. Did Gaelfr mean… all of them? Including her, and Svein? But… he’d promised, hadn’t he? He’d promised he would only go to Orc Mountain himself, without them.
“No,” Kalfr hissed, and he lurched toward Gaelfr, shaking his head.
“We shall not go there, Gael. I told you, they have already sought to help, and I have already made my choice upon this. I shall not abandon my home, and there is naught else our kin can do to alter this. Naught else that will not start another war!”
Gaelfr growled back toward him, his lip curling.
“What this vile woman has done to you,” he hissed back, “this is already war. Hunting you. Seeking vengeance upon you. Plotting to bring you pain, and death. For what? Your great sin of showing kindness to a woman who meant to kill you, and all your kin? Who meant to kill your son!”
Kalfr kept shaking his head, the fury and frustration flashing in his eyes. “This is not your battle, Gael,” he countered. “This is not your choice to make!”
Gaelfr’s shoulders stiffened, and he jerked closer to Kalfr, glowering toward him. “Ach, it is,” he snarled. “You are my ástvinur, and I have sworn to guard and help and tend you! I should never stand by and wait for some foul harpy to come here and touch you, and harm you, and destroy you!”
The frustration flared brighter in Kalfr’s eyes, escaped in a hard, mocking growl from his throat. “But you did, Gael!” he shot back. “You left me! When I most needed you in this, you were gone!”
Gaelfr betrayed an unmistakable flinch, a sharp exhale through his nose.
While Kalfr huffed a cold laugh, and shook his head.
“And then you charge back in here,” he continued, “with not one word of apology, nor one honest word of how you have spent all these past summers — and now you ignore all my wishes, yet again! I may yet be your ástvinur, but I am no more yours to command or control or entrap, as you see fit!”
Raye could almost feel the words striking Gaelfr, flashing deepening flares of pain across his eyes.
And though his mouth opened, no words came out, and Kalfr choked another hard laugh.
“Even she has spoken an apology to me, and has sought to make amends,” he said thickly, with a furious wave of his hand toward Raye.
“Or was that upon your orders, too, Gael? Just like all the rest of this farce?”
Now it was Raye flinching, too, and shaking her head. Did Kalfr really believe that? That all of this was… a farce? Something fake, something contrived? Perhaps even another plot against him, but this time from them?
“You are too late, Gael,” Kalfr growled, his voice deepening. “You left me. You have no more right to me, nor to my trust, nor my fate!”
Gaelfr flinched again, his breath catching — but before he could speak, Kalfr spun around, away. And with fast, jerky steps, he stalked into his own room, and shoved the door shut behind him.
Raye stared at the closed door for a frozen instant, and then instinctively wrenched forward, spreading her hand against the solid wood. No. No. Kalfr couldn’t keep thinking that. He couldn’t truly believe such things. And now Gaelfr would barge in, and address this. He would fix it.
But when Raye shot a searching, expectant glance back toward Gaelfr, he hadn’t moved. Instead, he was gazing at the closed door, his shoulders slumped, while more pain flared in his eyes. Pain, and regret, and… fear.
Raye blinked at him, while all those furious words of Kalfr’s swirled through her thoughts. You left me. When I needed you, you were gone. Not one word of apology. You have no more right. You are too late.
And the longer Raye stared at Gaelfr, the more she could taste that ever-rising fear, bitter and pungent in the back of her throat. Gaelfr was afraid of losing Kalfr. Afraid of losing control. Afraid of being weak, wrong, unworthy. Afraid of failing.
It was so familiar it ached, and the sight of it made it even worse.
Big, brutal, belligerent Gaelfr, rendered silent and defeated, his grand Orc Mountain plans — whatever they had been — already crushed beneath Kalfr’s feet.
And he still wasn’t trying to move, trying to fight it, his shoulders sagging lower, his head slowly bowing, his eyes squeezing shut.
Suddenly Raye couldn’t bear it, couldn’t stand it for another breath. And without at all meaning to, she swept toward Gaelfr, squeezed her arm around his waist, and shoved him forward. Toward Kalfr’s door.
“You’re a fierce, brave Bautul warrior, Gael,” she breathed, quiet. “You will address this, like you vowed to do. Like you promised me you would do. You’ll tend to your ástvinur, and grant him help, and healing, and peace.”
Gaelfr’s glance toward her was blank, inscrutable, but Raye hadn’t missed that telltale streak of wetness beneath his eye. And it was enough that she set her jaw, tugged him closer to the door, and firmly rapped against it.
There was no answer, but perhaps Raye hadn’t expected one, and after another bracing breath, she pushed the door open. Barging in, apparently in typical Bautul fashion, whether anyone else wanted it or not.
Inside, the room was dark and quiet, but Raye’s eyes instantly caught on the sight of Kalfr, sitting hunched on the bed.
His knees were drawn to his chest, his tall body looking strangely small, and Raye swallowed, and again shoved Gaelfr forward.
Closer, and closer, until she could pluck the lamp from his slack hand, and set it down on the small table beside the bed.
And then she gave him one last push, until he was standing beside the bed, blinking down at Kalfr’s curled-up body upon it.
But Gaelfr still didn’t speak, didn’t move — and after another instant’s studying him, Raye settled her hand to his stiff back, and began stroking her hand up and down.
Pressing him as much silent comfort and encouragement as she could muster, just like he’d so often done to her, these past few days.
And yes, his big shoulders rose and fell, and his hand reached out toward Kalfr’s bowed head, before dropping again. So Raye kept touching, kept stroking, until Gaelfr took a dragging breath, and braced himself against her touch.
“You were right to say all this of me, ástin mín,” he finally whispered, his voice a croak. “I am — sorry. I am so sorry, for how I have hurt you.”
Before them, Kalfr didn’t betray any acknowledgement of having heard him, but Raye kept stroking Gaelfr’s back, and he drew in another ragged breath.
“I ought — never to have left you, as I did,” he continued, with obvious effort.
“I ought never to have stayed away from you for so long. I broke my vow to you, and I was…”
The pain spasmed across Gaelfr’s face, and Raye stroked harder, pressing deeper against his skin. “I was wrong,” he finished, with a heavy sigh. “I was stubborn, and angry, and — jealous.”
Jealous? Raye blinked at him, that word swooping oddly in her chest, and Gaelfr grimaced as he glanced toward her.
“I was jealous,” he repeated, flatter. “And I was… fearful. Cowardly. Weak. I could not bear to watch you make a life with a woman — to make a home, a son — without me. So instead of facing this pain, and fighting for you, as a true Bautul would, I… ran. I hid.”
His eyes closed as he spoke, the shame and misery deepening across his face, but Raye kept stroking, until he took another deep, painful-looking breath.
“And all the summers I was gone,” he added, hoarse, “I did not lead nor train warriors, nor even fight a single battle, as I ought to have done. Instead, I…”
Raye’s heart stuttered, her breath locked in her throat, waiting as Gaelfr inhaled another slow, shaky breath.
“I was — little better than a bondservant,” he rasped.
“I ploughed furrows and fields. I dug ditches and tunnels. I worked in the deepest mines. I covered my face, and forswore my name and my vows and my kin. I left all I was, all I cared for, so I could hide amongst those who hated and feared me, and thus heap shame upon my own head.”
Oh. Oh, gods. The grief cracked in Raye’s chest, quivering in her breath, because — no.
He couldn’t have. Gaelfr couldn’t have been suffering alone all these years, too.
He couldn’t have given up what he clearly saw as his own purpose, his own calling, to hide himself away, to bow and scrape for people who hated and feared him. Because he’d been… jealous. Afraid.
Just like… just like Raye.
“And then I judged your own good work here, ástin mín,” Gaelfr said, his voice small and strained.
“I mocked you for playing as a farmer, and digging in the dirt. When in truth, I was the one who did this, all these summers, and you” — his back shuddered against Raye’s hand — “you helped our kin. You built these clever byrgis, and earned the title of voreur. You faced great fear, and put yourself at great risk, in the path of great harm, as a true Bautul does. Whilst I… I failed.”
His voice broke, and he bowed his head. And then, oh gods, his shoulders quaked, and a deep, guttural sob escaped his throat.
He was weeping, Gaelfr was weeping, and Raye could only stare at him, stunned and unblinking, while misery jolted through her chest. He’d failed.
He’d failed. A refrain so familiar, so viciously painful, she could have choked on it.
And gods, no wonder Gaelfr had been so adamant about all this. So determined to prove himself, to address everything. To take charge. To find his own power in this. But he’d lost that power, just like she had, and now —
Now, it was Kalfr, in charge. Kalfr, raising his head, his eyes glimmering strange in the lamplight. And with a harsh exhale, he reached and grasped Gaelfr’s wrist, and tugged him down toward the bed.