20. Resting Place #2
I couldn’t see, but when he put me down, the ground was soft: furs. He retreated, returned with the rag lamp.
Flowering vines were carved up every wall and pillar, so fragile they looked almost real.
He took off the pack and slung it next to a rack built of antlers.
Someone else had made this place; his people had furnished it.
Somewhere in the shadows, water was trickling. I found a pool as my eyes adjusted.
“I know this wasn’t the whole of Tyralk’s reasoning for calling a hunt,” he said, “but I am grateful for it, if maybe the water can help with your back.”
“This place is a wonderful secret for your people,” I said. “I can tell it’s a strength for you.”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” he said. “About the secrets. I trust you, and none of the others will tell the circle that you know. You can still…we’ll make sure. That you can leave.”
Inside of me felt so cold, like winter air on a dress wet with blood, like the bottom of a pit I couldn’t climb out of.
“I’ll get you well, and then we’ll find that town you talked about with your mentor’s sister. I’ll walk you into the town if I have to, yes? You’ll be safe. You’ll leave the Drashik as whole as you reached them.”
As whole as I reached them.
“Annora?” Something clattered on the stone, and he dropped to his knees next to me. “Annora, are you hurting? Do you need something?” He was looming, gestured to the pack. “Grezha sent herbs with us, we could—"
“No.” I shook my head. “No.”
“No what? No herbs?” He sounded desperate. “Something is wrong. Tell me.”
“Why…why do you keep offering? To help me leave?” I got out. He’d frozen. My face was cold, wet. I should stop. I should stop talking, but instead I heard myself garble, “Is it because that’s what you want?”
He sunk into the ground. The silence gave me time for my heart to pound, time to regret my boldness.
He started tying the pack laces, and when he spoke, his voice was bitter, tired.
“What else do I have to offer you?” he said.
“Can I offer you safety? Can I offer you respect? They won’t respect you for my sake.
They won’t keep you safe.” He shook his head.
“I have strength of arm. I have a house built for another in a place that you hate. What else do I have? My body? This face?”
“What if that’s enough for me?” The words tumbled, too fast. “What if you’re enough?”
There was a moment where we hung in the lamplight, cords of silence.
He stood.
“You’re exhausted,” he said. His voice was hoarse. “And you’re in pain. You’re not in your right mind.” He breathed deep. My chest was splintering. “Let’s get you taken care of. You can figure out later that this was a mistake.”
I didn’t answer. Pain and stillness merited each other, stillness for pain, pain for the unmoving.
“The water should help. Getting in the water.” He turned like he was struggling. “I could stay outside the room, while you got in.”
So we were talking, like everything was normal. “Are there steps?” I murmured. “Or do you want me to jump?” A stupid joke.
“Yes, there’s a step, and you…you can sit. But sitting still hurts you, so you’ll…float. You’ll just have to be careful. They’re deeper steps.” What was he saying? “I can spend the night with Tyralk.”
Oh. Clothing. That made sense. We couldn’t soak my dress and stomp through the chill tomorrow. Removing clothes was a lot of intimacy for someone who was trying to get rid of me.
“How would I get out of the water?”
“I could be outside the door. And when you’re finished, you yell, and I’ll…” he stopped.
And I whispered, “You’re making this unnecessarily complicated.”
His eyes didn’t meet mine. “Larrakh could come.”
“Please don’t make me ask Larrakh.”
He looked up, sharp. “You still don’t feel at ease.”
Tears burned at my eyes. I whispered, “Please.” It hung in the air between us, with everything unsaid.
“We could get a blanket wet,” he said. “It doesn’t matter, if that’s not dry tomorrow.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
“I’ll help you up, I turn away, you undress, I give you the blanket…” he lost his train of thought.
“I can put on the blanket,” I whispered. “And you take me into the water.”
“Yes.” His eyes were on me.
“Okay.”
He hesitated, before leaning in.
If I remembered to relax, to let him do the lifting, my back wouldn’t spasm.
I went rag-like, and he drew me up and caught me like someone had tossed him an armful of glass, like he wasn’t sure where I’d break or crack.
And for all the time we’d spent discussing him sending me away, here, with me held against his chest, he seemed to be in no hurry to let me go.
Was it wrong, that I didn’t remind him? That I let myself rest against his chest a little longer?
He cleared his throat. “The water.” He stepped back, his hands hovering, then falling to his sides. “I’ll get the blanket.”
I waited for his back to turn before pulling off my dress. When he held the worn blanket out behind him, I took it.
It wasn’t gigantic, for a blanket. It wouldn’t be decent, in public. But he’d seen worse, and I could wrap it over my shoulders and around me. It hung above my knees.
He’d seen my body anyway. I shouldn’t be so precious about my legs, not when he was already rejecting all of me. “Ready,” I whispered.
He turned back, his eyes catching on my face. “I…” He looked away. “I’m sorry. That you still don’t feel comfortable with Larrakh.” His arm was under my knees, the other under my back, and it was like he was pretending this was normal, like we could pretend he wasn’t lifting me in a blanket.
I tried to let my body go limp while still holding the blanket closed. “I know she won’t hurt me.” Focus on Larrakh. Focus on talking to him, like this isn’t ridiculous or terrible.
“It’s something else?”
I wanted to hide, but the only place to hide was against the planes of his chest. He walked towards the water. Talk. “They all know I failed the trial.”
“It wasn’t a trial for you,” he said instantly.
I clenched the fabric in my fists. “It doesn’t matter, though. Because they all know I failed.” My bare leg grazed his arm. “She's kind,” I forced out, “but…they look at me and know I couldn't earn you.”
A growl snuck into his voice. “You never had to earn me. We chose each other.” He stepped into the water. My foot trailed in, warm. The water reflected back the light, just a little, into the shadows of his face.
I scoffed. “You did not choose me.”
“Nonsense.” He sunk us in, and the water rose, up through the blanket, over my body to my chin.
“Oh,” I gasped, and then remembered where I was, with a sopping wet blanket vaguely floating around me, and I tugged it back.
Vrathgar was looking up and away, what I could see of his throat flushed in the lamplight, from the steam or something else. “Do you want to try standing?” he said. “I could set you down.”
If I was going to be abandoned somewhere, a warm spring was not the worst, even if part of me wanted to hold onto him, to cling like a sopping cat. “Yes. Thank you.”
He released me, slowly, and I found purchase with my toes on the stone floor of the pool. It was warm.
The water was making me light, almost weightless. The heat melted into my skin. Slowly, I felt my breathing deepen and slow, the expectation of pain that haunted me receding. I let myself release the knots I’d been holding to stand upright.
We'd been speaking… “You didn’t,” I repeated. “You didn’t choose me.”
He snorted, a ridiculous sound. “Slander.”
“You didn’t.”
“That's an odd way of remembering.”
“It isn't.” Why did arguing this seem so important? I turned towards him, slowly, balancing in the water. “Me or your life is not a choice.”
He laughed under his breath. It sounded caught, wrong. “If it wasn't a choice that day, what about the day after? And the day after that?” It ached. “You say I didn’t choose you then. Does it matter? When I’ve chosen you every day since.” His face changed. “…you’re crying again.”
I tried to take a step back in the water, had to fling my arms wide to keep my balance. He caught my waist, on instinct, hands on bare skin.
“Sorry.” He let go. “Can you…did I say something asinine again?”
I shook my head. “No, it’s just…” I was crying, like a simpleton. “It just sounded like you wanted me.”
He cursed again, the Orcish hissing on his tongue. “I’ve bungled this.”
“I’m sorry,” I got out. “I’ll stop—"
“No,” he said, and he caught the side of my chin, lifted my face to his.
“I’ve bungled this if you’ve ever, for a moment, thought that I didn’t want you.
” I couldn’t speak, couldn’t think. He tilted my face up to look into his eyes.
“There are so many reasons we won’t work, Nora, but me wanting you was never one of them. ”
Tears streamed down my cheeks, and I tried to breathe while something was breaking in my chest. He was looking down at me, so vulnerable in the lamplight, and was this worse? Was this worse than thinking it was only me who’d fallen in love?
“I’ve always wanted you,” he said, “From the first time you challenged me in that cell. From the moment your eyes locked with mine. From hearing you sing courage and fear over that sick lump’s knee.
And when you chose me? Who was I to object to that?
” His eyes were distant. “The threat of death was an excuse, barbarian, not the reason. I was more than willing to make you mine, even if it meant belonging to a witch.” Something was wrong.
The words were sweet, but they sounded like a withdrawal, like an iron gate slid into place.
“But the people in your mind that I’m competing against, the people from your town, your father?
The people you’re comparing me to? They're not worth the earth to bury them. Do you see it, barbarian?” He was shaking his head.
He gritted his teeth. “The only way to do this right is by giving you the chance to realize that you chose wrong.”
“What if I don’t think I chose wrong?” My voice ached. “Will you let me keep you, then?”
“Annora—"