13. Pain
PAIN
He was suffering.
It was quiet, the gasps, the grinding of his teeth in the room by the fire. It was my unnatural ears waking me from slumber; no one else would hear.
When I crept into the wide hearth-room, his eyes were closed, maybe under the influence of the drug, though his features contorted and his breathing caught. I laid a hand on his brow, and he turned towards it, but his lashes didn't flutter. He didn’t wake.
“You don’t have a fever,” I murmured. “That’s good at least.” The wound on his thigh had been deep.
I didn’t know if the creature had nicked bone.
“There isn’t much I can do for you.” His head rested against my hand, his breathing deepened.
“Would you be angry if you found out I sang? You said there would be no monsters here.” The greater risk was him believing I'd bewitched him.
If he'd asked about it once, he'd be suspicious again. And if any of the others saw me—
His face tightened in pain.
When had his pain become something I couldn't ignore? How long would my traitor-heart bind me here? “I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with you, Vrathgar One-Eye’s Son,” I said softly.
“But I can’t kill you, so what else is there to do?
” My fist tightened at my side, my own aches and bruises a dull throb.
His brow was furrowed, the tension there even while he slept.
“They speak like you brought a terrible trouble when you brought me. I don’t know what any of this means.
I know nothing,” I whispered, “But I guess I’m here with you until you’re finished with me.
” I ran a thumb across his eyebrow, across the split left by that scar.
“But I’m not going to sit here and watch you suffer. ”
He didn’t answer. I listened to the house, didn't hear anyone else.
I hovered fingers over his thigh, over his chest. I soothed trebling patterns, like falling pebbles, over his brow, and I whisper-sang, begged again, for mending, for knitting, that this man would heal, for his pain to leave, for my heart to stop jumping at every breath so I could mend as well.
And maybe it worked. Maybe his forehead relaxed.
His chest rose in smooth, even breaths. Maybe I hadn't helped, but I hadn't harmed.
And maybe that made it feel like he was mine, sleeping against my palm, calming under my touch. Odelle used to say the scariest of people were still childlike, if they’d sleep. Maybe she’d been a little right, because the firelight flickered soft over the harsh planes of his face.
“You’re a lot kinder than you need to be,” I whispered. “I won’t forget that.” And then, emboldened by the little victory, I took it too far, and I brushed a kiss against that brow.
His lashes fluttered, and I froze. What would I say if he woke? How could I explain creeping over him? I was nothing to him, and I…
The fluttering stilled. His breathing relaxed.
My heart was still too fast, painful in my chest. And that was foolish; I was his wife. What was he going to do if he found me over him, pin me down again? Whatever else, he'd seemed disinclined to harm me.
I fled into that backroom, through the curtain. I felt around in the dark till I stumbled into the bed the mother orc had given me.
And I woke to roaring in a language I didn’t understand.