28. Tug-of-War
Tug-of-War
The servant led us to a door at the end of a corridor with a sweeping mosaic panorama of desert dunes in shifting shades of ochre and rust tesserae.
Two ruhks dominated the top of the artwork.
The giant birds’ wings were shaped with such careful geometry that it gave the illusion of feathers rippling in the wind.
Their eyes, set with fragments of polished amber, danced in the lantern light and spied a caravan winding through the sands beneath them, tiny figures pointing at the enormous birds above.
Griffon had said little since we watched the tapestry burn. The strong, silent type was all very mysterious, but sometimes a girl just wanted to know what was going on in that head of his.
“What’s wrong?” I asked as the servant closed the door to our guest chamber. The room smelled faintly of cedar and lavender.
“You should stay here.”
I blinked at him, still caught up in the festival’s warmth, still tasting the spice of wine on my tongue and sporting the golden feather behind my ear. It took me a full three seconds to register what he said. “What?”
“In Solis.” He gestured sharply toward the door, and presumably toward the palace beyond. “You could have a good life here. Salma clearly adores you. The king and queen respect you. You solved a mystery their greatest minds couldn’t crack. You’d be valued here. Safe.”
My chest constricted. Was I supposed to just stay in this desert while he rode off into the sunset?
“I don’t want a life here. Faisal was ready to execute us.” Like, enthusiastically ready. With a whole ceremony planned and everything. Stars above, he probably had it scheduled on the festival itinerary.
“Exactly. You almost burned to death this morning. Because of me. Because I dragged you into—”
“You didn’t drag me anywhere.” I stepped closer, my skin tightening. I found that freckle between my thumb and forefinger to calm myself. “I made my own choices. Every single one of them.”
“Foolish choices.” He ran a hand through his hair and tugged at the ends.
The careful composure he’d worn all evening was beginning to crack.
“You want to come with me into the desert, back to Volantia where they hunt people like us? Toward a village that might not even exist…” He noticed my fingers worrying that star-shaped freckle and exhaled sharply.
“It’s madness. And you deserve better than madness. ”
I stared at him as my heart did something complicated in my chest. It felt suspiciously like it was trying to strangle itself while simultaneously doing cartwheels. Hearts should really come with instruction manuals. “So you want to leave me here.”
“No.” The word came out fierce. “Gods, no. I don't want—” He broke off, running a hand through his hair again.
At this rate, he was going to pull it all out. Which would be a shame, really. It was nice hair. It was so—stop it, Wren. Focus.
“I don't know what I want, except for you to be safe. To have a chance at something normal.”
“Normal,” I repeated flatly.
His eyes burned with conflicting emotions. It was as if a tug-of-war was going on under his skin. And then, suddenly, I knew. The part that wanted to keep me safe was warring with the part of him that just started to hope he might not have to do this alone anymore.
Men. Why couldn’t they just say things?
“Yes, normal,” he continued. “A place where you can read your books and solve your puzzles and not be running or hiding or nearly burning to death. You’d be alive.”
“I am alive. For the first time in my life, I’m actually living. Not just existing in some library alcove, hiding from people who think I’m broken.”
His expression twisted. “You’re not broken.”
“I know.” The certainty in my own voice surprised me. When had that happened? I reached over and took his hand, waiting until he looked at me again. “But I'm not staying in Solis.”
“Wren—”
“My whole life, I've been the square peg. The defective Sideri. The girl without an ember. Too curious, too weird, too much of everything except what I was supposed to be.”
His grip tightened around my fingers.
“I was so desperate to belong that I convinced myself that if I just kept trying harder, eventually I'd be enough.” My voice cracked slightly. “But I never was. And I'm done trying to jam myself into places I don't fit.”
“That's not what I—”
“Let me finish.” I squeezed his hand, possibly harder than necessary.
“Staying here would be the same thing. Even though they would treat me well, I'd still be the foreign curiosity. The girl from Volantia who solved the riddle. The exotic pet they trot out at parties.” I met his eyes.
“I need to find that village. But more than that, I need to know if there's somewhere in this world that was meant for me.”
Griffon shut his eyes for a moment and exhaled before opening them again. “And if it doesn't exist? If we get there and it's just a rumor? Nothing more than smoke?”
“Then at least I tried.” I lifted my chin, channeling every bit of stubbornness I'd ever possessed. Which was considerable. “At least I chose my path instead of accepting whatever cage had the nicest cushions.”
He was quiet for a long moment. His thumb traced circles on the back of my hand in a way that did absolutely nothing to help my concentration. “You're going whether or not I come with you, aren't you?”
“Yes.”
“That's incredibly stupid.”
“Probably.” I wasn't going to argue with that assessment. It was monumentally stupid. The kind of stupid that would make future scholars scratch their heads and write dissertations about poor life choices.
“You don't know how to survive in the wilderness. Or even in cities. You can't fight. You get distracted by pigeons and nearly fall out of windows.”
Despite everything, I smiled. “All true.”
“And you're going anyway.”
“Yes.”
He pulled me closer then, wrapping his arms around me, and exhaled against my hair. He smelled of desert wind and something spicy from the festival. “You're going to be the death of me, stargazer.”
“I’m going to take that to mean I have a traveling partner.”
“Of course. Someone has to keep you from walking off cliffs while you're calculating trajectories.”
I laughed, the sound muffled against his chest. “Thank you.”
“Don't thank me yet. We're going to be cold and hungry and probably hunted before this is over.”
“I know.”
“And there's a very real chance we'll get there and find nothing.”
“I know that, too.”
He pulled back just enough to look at me, his expression serious. “So why do you look happy about it?”
“Because I'm choosing this.” I rested my palm on his chest, feeling the heat of his body through the embroidered fabric. “I’m choosing to go find my people. And I want to do that with you, even though you're grumpy and overprotective and occasionally insufferable.”
“Occasionally?”
“Frequently.”
He peered around the room as his mouth quirked. “Fair enough. But—“ He broke off and went still.
I followed his line of sight, my brain slowly catching up with what my eyes were seeing. Copper lanterns hung from a domed ceiling and cast a golden light on opulent silk tapestries, overlapping plush rugs, silk-cushioned seating…
And one big bed.
Oh, for the love of—
We both took an abrupt step away from each other.
“I think,” I said carefully, a flush creeping up my neck, probably setting my entire face on fire, “they misinterpreted our relationship.”
“I’ll sleep on the floor,” he decided, already looking around for spare blankets like a man planning his retreat.
“No.” The word came out more forcefully than I’d intended. He’d slept on a cold cell floor for days. While he'd waited to die.
“Wren—”
“The bed is enormous,” I reasoned. And it was. The bed could fit an entire family and still have room for their livestock. “You will not ruin my virtue by sleeping on the same mattress.” Not that my virtue was in any particular danger, but the principle stood.
He searched my face, looking for…I wasn’t sure what. Discomfort? Fear? Second thoughts? Whatever he was seeking, he didn’t seem to find it. He looked back at the bed and took in its truly ridiculous size. “Alright.”
Victory. Sort of. The kind of victory that came with immediate regret and an accelerated heart rate.
I changed into the simple sleeping shift I found in the wardrobe while being very aware of Griffon right on the other side of the privacy screen.
When I emerged, he was sitting on the far edge of the bed, wearing a loose cotton tunic and breeches, staring at nothing with the intensity of a man contemplating complex mathematics. Or impending doom. Hard to tell.
“Don't look so terrified,” I said, trying for lightness, and probably achieving something closer to manic. “I promise not to kick you in my sleep.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Can't make the same promise.”
I climbed onto the bed and settled against the pillows, suddenly exhausted down to my bones.
The adrenaline that had carried me through the day was draining away, leaving me hollow and shaky.
I settled further into the cool silk sheets that felt exactly as luxurious as they looked.
He doused the lanterns one by one until only a single flame remained.
When he finally lay down, he kept to his side of the mattress, so rigidly still he might have been carved from stone.
Minutes passed.
This was fine. Totally fine. Just two people sharing a bed the size of a small continent. Nothing awkward about it at all.
A faint breeze carried the scent of night-blooming jasmine through the screen.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
I turned to look at him. His eyes were fixed on the ceiling, his profile sharp in the lamplight.
“For what?”
He turned his head then, meeting my eyes. His expression shifted to something softer, as if his walls were lowering just enough for me to glimpse beneath the armor. The boy who'd been made into a weapon. The man who was trying to figure out how to be something else.
“For not giving up on me. Even when you probably should have.”
I stared at the small space between us. It was barely a meter, but it suddenly felt vast. Unbridgeable.
Except it wasn't. Not really.
For so long, I kept a distance between myself and everyone else.
The greater the distance, the less likely they could hurt me.
But Griffon hadn’t stood for it. He’d pulled me back from windows and cliffs and pyres.
Held me through panic attacks and adrenaline crashes.
He’d seen me at my worst and never looked away.
Maybe it was time I stopped looking away too.
I reached across the space between us and found his hand. His calloused fingers were warm when they closed around mine.
“You didn't give up on me either.”
There were so many times he could have.
With our hands linked between us like a bridge across a vast expanse of silk, I felt a little more at peace. Not because everything was suddenly resolved or certain, or even safe. But because in that moment I wasn’t alone. And neither was he.