Chapter 19 #2
As Bastion ate, Rowan relaxed. Nesrin kept the conversation light, going over the planned repairs to the keep and the headache of accommodating her father’s men and those who came to their aid.
Rowan remained silent in front of Nesrin, but his expression loosened, and he returned Bastion’s smile when he made a joke.
After Bastion had eaten his fill, Nesrin shepherded Rowan out of the room. “Why don’t we take Finn a treat while Bastion bathes?” The boy resisted at first, but at a nod from Bastion, he relented, even if it was with a pout.
As soon as they were gone, Bastion stood, swaying.
As he caught his balance, he clenched his teeth and went to the basin to wash up.
He was in a hurry, but he could smell himself, and hygiene demanded he remedy the problem before he left the room.
When he wasn’t brimming with the need to leave, go, follow the pull in his veins, he would soak in a proper tub of scalding water and wash the last two weeks of travel and battle from his skin.
For now, the sponge and rosemary-scented soap were enough.
Finally satisfied, he dressed, moving stiffly as he settled clothing into place and tugged his boots on. He hated the feeling of weakness in his limbs and the fatigue that tried to persuade him back into bed, but it wasn’t going to stop him.
Lastly, Bastion reached for his sword belt. He grasped the grip without looking, and stilled when his fingers settled into familiar grooves. He lifted it to trace the lines of his own blade.
Bastion collapsed on the bed and swiped a hand over his face, overcome.
A sense of profound relief hit him, and he pressed his forehead to the hilt as a single wracking sob escaped.
One hand reached for the pommel and the divot he’d worn smooth from worrying it with his thumb over so many years.
Fat tears erupted from his eyes. They raced down his face and hit the scabbard with an audible plop!
He clutched the sword more tightly, clinging to it like a lifeline as all the fears he’d kept bottled up since leaving the island surged through him, as violent as a riptide.
He hadn’t realized just how dear it was to him until it was gone.
How could he have ever considered throwing it into the sea?
Slowly, something tense and knotted unraveled inside him.
The tension in his muscles loosened, leaving him limp and exhausted.
When he was sure the last wave had subsided, he rose and buckled the belt around his waist, a sense of rightness settling over him.
He dragged his sleeve across his face and took a deep breath.
Feeling as well as he could, Bastion left the room… and ran straight into Minato and Lawrence coming down the hall.
“Just the person I wanted to see,” Minato said. The way he deadpanned suggested otherwise.
Bastion angled to go around him, but the Yvri blocked his path.
“Can this wait?” Bastion frowned. “I have somewhere to be.”
Minato stabbed Bastion with a finger. “I know.”
Bastion tensed, sucking in a breath. The Yvri had hit his chest right where it hurt the most. Where his heart was trying to leave his body.
“Are you sure this is the right time?” Lawrence asked, his brow wrinkled in compassion. “Surely, you remember how turbulent the early stages of the bond were for us?”
“He doesn’t know what he’s facing,” Minato snapped. He wasn’t exactly glaring, but his expression was anything but friendly. “What Ulla will be facing if he continues down this path.”
“It’s none of your business,” Bastion said softly.
“Oh, but it is,” Minato sneered. “The Yvri don’t take kindly to… unconventional partnerships.”
“What’s it to you when you clearly don’t care!” Bastion made a gesture of annoyance at Lawrence.
“I DO care!” Minato bellowed. “I know the consequences of the choice you’re about to make because I sacrificed everything to be with Lawrence! Do you?”
The sheer force of his words made Bastion step back. He looked between the two men and let the gravity of what Minato had said swallow him. When he saw that he had Bastion’s attention, Minato continued.
“If you follow through with this, if you allow the bond to solidify, there’s no going back. You will condemn her to a life of isolation.”
“And that is her decision!” Bastion exclaimed, lunging forwards. His voice echoed against the moss-slicked walls. He glowered at Minato, anger incinerating his fatigue.
The Yvri gave him a ferocious smile. “There’s the spine I knew you had!
” he hissed, his vertical pupils nearly disappearing into the whites of his eyes.
“Everything you do will be challenged. Every choice, every motive will be criticized and examined. Her friends and family will turn their backs on her because of you. She will be anchored to the shore, though the sea will always call to her. If you die, no pod will have her, and the gates of Nerrukine will be forever closed to her. You both will have to defend your bond again and again and again. You, Sir Bastion, can pass as human, but Ulla cannot. Finding a place you can both exist will not be easy. Think on that and make sure you understand, fully, so that your love does not fester into resentment!”
Bastion drew back, the sharp edge of Minato’s words as tangible as the sword at his hip. He hadn’t thought about any of that, let alone had time to categorize his feelings. But what else could this be but love?
It took everything he had to swallow a retort and reply with civility, but Bastion managed it.
“Thank you,” he gritted out, “for your concern, but as I said before, it is neither your decision, nor any of your business.”
Bastion pushed past both men and hurried down the stairs. He moved so quickly that he wasn’t sure if he actually heard Lawrence say, “He’s got more teeth than you did in the beginning.”
His side complained as he ran, but Bastion ignored it. He tore out of the keep and into the cold, evening air. It disoriented him at first, and he skidded to a stop, catching his breath.
Scorch marks blackened the southern wall. Most of the windows were jagged mouths, empty of glass but for a few sharp teeth clinging to the edges.
The courtyard was fuller, busier. Near a glowing forge, a farrier was finishing up with a flashy grey gelding.
Where pallets of hay had been stored beneath canvas tarps, there was only ash.
Men were busy fitting new doors to exterior walls or cleaning weaponry, while those on duty patrolled the battlements.
Ahead of him, the drawbridge was down and the portcullis up.
Bastion barrelled past the gatehouse. The guards gaped, unable to get their questions out in time. A few called after him, but he didn’t stop.
Apprehension sank its teeth into his chest as he crossed the drawbridge.
For half a heartbeat, Bastion hesitated.
Minato’s warning lanced through him, burrowing into him like a burr beneath a saddle.
In a sad, shadowy part of his mind, Bastion hoped that what Minato had implied was wrong, and Ulla would let him down easy.
He turned south and followed the jagged cliffs until Moonwatch’s walls fell behind him.
He passed the flattened, bloodstained grass where he’d fought Buck, barely giving it a glance.
Further on, his feet carried him onto a narrow path, hidden by rocky terrain which was quickly becoming consumed by shadow.
The path zigzagged down the cliff face, hammered by the echo of the sea. Every treacherous step eased the ache in his chest. He slowed as he reached the salt-soaked bottom, stepping around patches of slick kelp and tidepools that reflected a half moon in the twilit sky.
He couldn’t deny that he and Ulla were somehow bound together, and the knowledge made him as helpless as a moth drawn to flame, knowing he would be burned.
Bastion took a deep breath, letting his heart lead his eye. When she emerged from the water, the sight of her made him think he’d be happy to drown.
Rows and rows of sea glass, pearls, and shells hung across her chest, each reflecting light and water according to its nature. Waves tugged at her hair, swirling around her waist, but otherwise she was still, watching him.
Bastion stepped into the water, heedless of his boots. Cold hit him, climbing his legs. There could have been a chasm in his path, and he wouldn’t have been able to take his eyes off her.
An arm’s length away, he stopped and took a deep breath. He didn’t know where to begin.
Her eyes had grown luminous as night descended, and he searched them, prepared for disgust and rejection.
He’d been here before, as a child, with so many others.
How many families had declined him when they found the ridges beneath his hair?
How many children had run, thinking he would invade their minds?
How often had hope been squashed, teaching him not to expect anything else?
Ulla dropped her gaze and reached for his hand.
He let her take it, a tingle spreading up his arm as her claws grazed his palm.
Choking down his fear, he laced his fingers with hers, desperate for more connection.
His stomach swooped as her grip tightened.
When her eyes met his again, he knew what to say.
“Whether we admit it or not, an orphan’s greatest desire is to belong,” Bastion said.
The words came out hoarse, like his heart was trying to gobble them up.
Bastion wanted the ocean to carry them away, but Ulla didn’t need to hear him.
“Everyone I met spurned me as soon as they found out what I was. A half-breed. Less than, even. I don’t know how much. ”
He looked down at his hand in hers and sighed.
Her palm remained cool in his, and he swiped his thumb over her knuckles, memorizing the texture of her skin.
When he’d gathered his thoughts, he continued.
“Somehow, someone saw something in me. I was brought to the palace to train as a prospective knight at the behest of an anonymous benefactor. The opportunity was too big, too generous. I’d been hurt so many times for being truthful about what I was that I kept my lineage a secret. Until now, no one knew.”
With his heart in his throat, Bastion met Ulla’s eyes. He searched them, waiting for judgment.
Instead, with her free hand, she touched her temple twice, her expression curious.
“I have horns,” he said. “Just the ghost of them. And a few scales on my legs.”
Ulla’s brows bounced, and a roguish smile curved her lips. Her gaze scorched him as her eyes ran down the length of his body, lingering over his hips. A flush radiated over Bastion’s cheeks and down his collar. Suddenly, the sea was lukewarm.
Then, slowly, she reached up with both hands and swept his hair away from his forehead.
Bastion froze. The waves tugged insistently at his legs, urging him to run.
He forced the instinct away and stood fast. She took her time, fingertips caressing his face and sending goosebumps racing across his skin.
The waves seemed to tug him forwards, determined for them to fall together.
Bastion turned his face into her hand like it held the solace he’d been looking for all along.
When Ulla’s fingers laced through his hair, he didn’t flinch.
She found the two faint rises of bone running parallel along his skull. As her fingertips ran over their length, Bastion closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
It was only then that he realized his chest no longer ached. In place of that insistent pull, there was overwhelming peace.
Ulla let her arms fall to his shoulders, her hands still threaded through his hair. Bastion opened his eyes. He didn’t know what to do with this feeling.
“Don’t you care?” he rasped. Ulla tilted her head. “That I can’t swim far out to sea, or breathe underwater? That I look… human?”
A soft smile curved her lips. She shook her head.
He’d expected relief, and instead Minato’s words circled like vultures in his mind: You will condemn her to a life of isolation.
He pushed the thought away and couldn’t help but ask, “Why?”
Ulla slid her hands down his arms until she found his, then tugged him towards the shore. As they stepped out of the water, she reached for something on the rock. The book. She still had the book.
She opened it to their last conversation and wrote one simple line.
In the last light of day, Bastion read three words.
You are enough.
It took everything not to succumb to the pain of acceptance. It was all he’d ever wanted to hear, and yet, in giving him this, he was taking from her the thing he’d chased his entire life.
He swallowed, marveling that it was the sea and sweat that had brought him to this moment. And tears would carry him away from it.
Ulla moved closer, her hand reaching to tangle in his hair.
Bastion stepped back.
The ache in his chest returned as he broke his own heart. He touched his fingers to his lips and let his hand fall forwards.
Then, he turned and walked away.