Chapter 8
COLD
It was cold, terribly cold. I was shivering so hard it woke me up, and I realized I was touching bare earth. My muscles felt liquid, enervated. I tried to sit up, to move, and I could barely stir my arms, couldn’t turn my head. Something was wrong, broken.
I could see the color pulsing on my eyelids, the heat from my blood.
I was still using magic, couldn't stop. I forced my eyes open, and the space around me was a riot of color, blinding light pouring in through cracks above so my eyes didn’t work.
I’d thought I had emptied myself of magic, but what if I hadn’t?
What if I had broken the part of me that was able to control it?
I felt around inside myself, found that heat, that pulsing, awful panic.
I gasped out a breath, closed my eyes and pressed.
Heat flushed across my skin, my muscles, and I lay there, panting, exhausted. Every movement was too much.
“You should sleep, Khal. Someone else will watch her.” The voice broke in on my mind, echoing around the chamber. I knew, instinctively, that this wasn’t Common, that something else was being spoken. The magic was twisting it, making it something I could understand.
“No. I have this.” Khal’s voice was heavy, his words in this other tongue lilting. “It needs to be me, if she wakes. She won’t…burn me.”
I wanted to curl in on myself, draw back away from the horror, but the most I managed was a twitch.
“She’s alive. She’ll wake up.” That was Vrathgar’s voice. Vrathgar’s voice without the malice. It seemed so alien. “This wasn’t your fault.”
“This, her being here, all of it. It’s all of it my fault.”
I was slipping. I wanted to stay, to cling to his voice, but I was losing my hold on the light, the heat, moving away. It was so cold.
“Wrongs can be made right. That is what all of us hope, Khal.”
The darkness took me.
When I woke there was an arm under my head.
“Rowena! Rowena.” Khal’s face leaned over me. Concern etched his features. “Rowena, can you hear me?”
I tried to speak, and a dry hiss came out. My mouth was so dry. A waterskin pressed to my lips, dribbling slowly, and I caught at the drops. There was warm air against my face, darkness around us, barely lit by a rag lamp hanging above.
“I’m sorry to have to wake you. You were shaking again. I don’t have another blanket, if this one catches fire.”
I tried to sit up, and he caught me.
“Steady.”
We were in a building of some kind, various implements tied into the rafters close above. I saw a waterskin, knives and a few clay pots. Dizziness overwhelmed me, like the whole room spun.
“Easy. Easy.” He held me tight, and I focused on the sound of his heartbeat, too strong, too loud to be natural, and I clung onto his chest. “My father says this is normal; this happens to ones with the gift. He said the others recovered; it would just take time.” His voice was a little tight.
Either he kept a secret or he was lying. But Khal didn’t lie.
Another wave came, and I clung to him, waited till the world stopped moving. This one was a little easier.
“Are you alright?”
Finally words came. “I am,” I rasped, “alright.”
He stared at me. I couldn’t read his face.There were bandages on his arms under this ill-fitting shirt, and his lip was still split, his brow swollen. I wanted to reach up, to touch his face, but I held back. “More…more water? Please?”
He got it.
I drank, wiped it off my mouth with the back of my shaking hand. “Where are we?”
“We are safe,” he said. “In the Drashik Enclave. Near my family’s home.”
“I thought…your people lived in tents.”
The side of his mouth lifted, not touching the worry in his eyes. “When you meet us, we do. Outsiders do not come here.” He hesitated. “Do you want to see?”
It was such a strange question that I couldn't deny it. “...yes.”
He helped me to my feet, his hands hovering as if I was going to drop or fly apart. I was so wobbly on my legs. Together we reached a thick door, and he pulled open the latch above my head, swung it clear.
We were in a cavern, but it was a cavern so large that my mind rebelled at calling it that, as if we were within a mountain, dark rock walls with lush greenery climbing up above us to a crater open to the sky, mists swirling through green treetops that reached for the white sunlight in those shafts of life.
I caught a river flowing beneath us in a silver ribbon, and the ground was a riot of color, fungus glowing where the sunlight did not shine.
I started to see the homes worked into the nature here, the lights from houses in the trees, in the walls, the little courtyards down amidst the green, everywhere emerald life and glowing light.
“What do you think?” he said.
“It’s beautiful.” My voice quavered.
“It is.”
"Why would you ever leave?"
He shrugged. "The sporing time kills everything that breathes here, so we leave for a few months a year. And of course, there are materials that aren't found here, things that require trade."
This cottage was on a platform built around a tree trunk wider than many peasants’ houses. Dewdrops glistened on threads in some kind of strong-woven webbing above us. I made out a rope bridge, suspended below.
We were in his land, among his people. He was home. But didn’t this mean…
I turned. “Khal? I shouldn’t be here, should I?”
And again, he hesitated.
The horror fell like a rock into my stomach, pulling me down. He caught me as I hit my knees. Normally I’d plant my hands on the ground, but this was wood, and God-in-heaven, what would happen if I lit fire to the wood? I was breathing too fast, too hard, the world going light.
“Easy,” Khal was saying. “Rowena, please, stay with me.”
I fought to focus on his voice, his face swimming in front of me, the panic in his eyes. Panic I shared. “Khal,” I got out, strangled, “I was supposed to stay…in Rowton…”
“I know,” he said. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“I wasn’t supposed to come. I wasn’t supposed to be trouble—"
“You’re not,” he said, but his eyes shifted away, and bile rose in my mouth.
“Khal, Drazha…I’m not supposed to be here—"
“I married you,” he said. “You have every claim to sanctuary.”
“You married a baron’s daughter. I’m—"
“You are a baron’s daughter. And I’m a chieftain’s son.
” His hand cupped my face. He was so gentle, even with real worry in his eyes.
“Other people’s loyalty and betrayal have nothing to do with your due as my wife.
” His eyes flinched away, and he let go.
“...a title you have until you’re prepared to abandon it. Until…we are able to make this right.”
My tongue still tasted acid. “This will bring trouble for you.”
He pulled back. “I chose to make trouble. I chose to seek alliances with men instead of the Val Drak.”
“The Val Drak?” I was breathing shallow.
“They are…an orc clan that have been gathering others under their banner. As they grow, they make enemies.” His jaw worked. “I want no part in that. I want our people to stay safe as they have been, under their own names, making peace with our own neighbors.”
“But your mother disagrees,” I whispered.
He leaned heavily on the wooden rail. “We do not see eye to eye on this, no. She also sees the risks, but she…finds less value in the human side than I do.”
“What value could you possibly find in us?” My voice cracked.
He looked up, solemn eyes in his rugged face.
“There are better men than the ones you have met, better humanity than those in the halls you come from. I’ve known my father.
I’ve grown up on his stories. I believe it, but,” he drew breath, shook his head, “even among the worst men I’ve encountered, there was you.
There is your sister you love so much. There was that man on the road. ”
“He threatened to kill you,” I whispered.
“He was brave.” Khal shook his head again.
“Amidst the worst of you, there are still people. There are still lives I want to save. For every blackguard, there’s someone I hope can live.
” His eyes met mine again. “How do you expect me to hate humans when two of the people I love most are among them?”
I didn’t know how to answer that. I felt like I had given up on mankind for less, like I’d given up so many times.
“You’re hungry,” he said. “I’m not thinking clearly. Come on. Let’s get you something to eat.” He took my elbows to help me up, seemed to falter when I reached my feet. We were standing so close. A flush touched his neck. “You’re hungry,” he repeated, pulled back.
"You said we were near your house," I remembered, pulled back as well. "What is this place?"
"It's Vrathgar's. He built it last autumn, for an engagement that fell through. He offered it."
I tried to hide my racing pulse at the idea of confronting the orc again. "Oh. That's…generous. Is he…"
"He's staying with Tyralk's family for now, while things are hard." He must have seen my fear. "Tyralk lives. And he will keep his leg. Thanks to you."
I'd heard relief described as a weight removed, but this relief was a weight dropping onto me, like it would pull me to the floor.
“There's damage, but he's building back the strength on that side. Vrathgar will be there to fuss and hover over him." he started to draw me towards the rope bridge.
"They didn't seem that close, Tyralk and Vrathgar. They fought a lot."
Khal's lips twitched. "Vrathgar fights everyone a lot. But he comes through when we need him." His smile faded. "He wanted to apologize, for his harshness. He was unfair to you."
The clouds shifted, far above, the precious light dimming around us. "This was unfair to all of you.” I shivered. “His anger is justified."
"His anger, perhaps. His behavior, no."
The planks swayed a little, but I was okay if I held his arm.