Chapter 10 #3
He pulled the bag off his shoulder to prop against a tree, and lay down, sprawled out on the moss and earth.
After a moment, I calculated a polite distance, and I lay down beside him. He didn’t comment. Overhead, the tree limbs sparkled and glowed, the tiny pinpricks of sky visible through the patches still blue.
I gathered my resolve. “I didn’t mean to offend you. Asking about…about your plans. With your body and…and a family.”
“You didn’t.” His voice was a little gruff. “That’s a conversation most people have before they have a wedding, or a wedding night. You’re not outside your rights to ask.”
“I just worry that you’re doing that thing where you think about everyone around you and you just keep…picking up things to carry. I…I don’t want to be another thing to carry.”
He let out a long breath, didn’t look at me. “You're not keeping score on who has burdened whom.”
I reached to argue, but he kept going, pain in the tightness of his voice.
"— because if you were,” he repeated again, “because if you were you would know that you have protected me, over and over, and all I have done for you is be a bit less brutal than you were expecting.”
“You saved me at the wall,” I rasped out.
“Yes, from the danger you'd never have been in without me.” His gaze stayed fixed on the sky.
“Allow me to get you through the peril that I married you into.
This part, I knew about. I'll make sure you're safe.” He went quiet, and I thought he was done talking, when he murmured, “I’ll make sure no one is making you do anything.”
There was a weird, heavy feeling in my chest, and a tightness where I breathe, and I was supposed to feel better, but I just felt… “Khal?” I whispered. “Can you tell me what's going to happen?”
He was quiet for a while. “...yeah. That makes sense. This is important to you.” He took a deep breath. “The last time people made plans without you knowing, you got in this mess with me.”
I couldn't answer, just lay on the soft earth with the moss beneath me. My eyes burned, and I couldn't look at him.
“You know I'm a chieftain's son,” he said.
“Now that I've taken a step to assert myself, my cousin will challenge me for my place.
He's tried to convince people for some time that he deserves to be my mother's heir.
And he's done a lot of good things. When I'm off with my cadre, he's helping the elderly and slaying monsters close to home. He’s spent time proving himself.
And he's spent time trying to prove that I do not belong here.”
“And you set this up so you'd fight him.”
“Yes.”
I looked over at him.The glow of the moss reflected on his skin.
“My cousin might be a good leader,” he said. “He cares enough about how people view him to work hard. And he's a capable warrior. But the dissension he's caused while trying to undermine me isn't good for anyone. So…better to bring it to a head.”
“Why was Vrathgar arguing with you?”
“He wants me to risk killing Sephar.”
“But Sephar will be trying to kill you.”
“Yes. He's wanted me dead for a long time.”
“So why not kill him?”
The side of his mouth lifted, bleak. “He's my cousin,” he said. “I don't want him lost. Even if he hates me.”
A bird sang somewhere in the canopy. A knot grew in my throat. “How do you do it?” I whispered.
He looked over at me. “Do what?”
“How do you see something in people that makes you want them to live, when I’m just ready for them to die?”
He stopped, staring into that light. “Do you think I’m being irrational, too? Like Vrathgar does?”
“No. I don't think you're being irrational.” My throat hurt. “Just…better.” I spoke quickly, like maybe I couldn't humiliate myself if I went fast enough. "—I thought at first that maybe you hadn’t met evil, that it was innocence. But they’ve hurt you. Sephar…he hurt you. He hates you.” I forced through the lump that rose in my throat, the hate like bile. “So why? Why do you care about people? And why does it seem like I can’t?”
“That’s not true,” Khal said quietly. “You cared about your sister so much that you traded your life for hers. You cared about Tyralk.” He took a breath. “You cared about me.”
“Because you’re kind. You’re good. All of you…even Tyralk, when he’s not being an idiot. Even Vrathgar.”
He shrugged. “It’s a habit. You start caring about someone, like…like they’re a dog that bites you, but they’re still something good. They feel and think and hurt. You start seeing what’s good in them, and then you can’t stop.”
“But he hates you.” I dug my nails into the earth, as if I was going to fall off.
He rolled his head to look at me. “When Sephar was younger, we were inseparable.
We'd climb trees, jump over the rocks, try to throw sticks the farthest. And he always had to prove he was better than me, he could throw it farther, climb higher, jump faster.
And I didn't care. He was my big cousin.
I didn't mind that he was stronger or faster. I just wanted him to like me.” His smile stilled.
“Things got bad when I won the first time.”
A shaft of sunlight broke through the trees, pollen dancing on the air, and I almost gasped at the golden spar of it.
Khal reached his hand out, as if to catch the warmth on his skin.
“And I realized that I had seen us as brothers, but he…he couldn’t be happy unless he was better than me.
” He shrugged. “You can’t live trying to convince someone that they’re worth enough that they shouldn't hurt you.”
I traced the shape of his nose, the line where it might have been broken at some point, the arc of his cheek. “You make it a habit of loving people who aren’t worth it.”
He didn’t smile. “I don’t think I do.” His eyes cut over to me, still that amber fire.
“But this isn’t because of you, Rowena. It was always going to come to this.
I was always going to have to fight him, today or another day.
And I was always going to have to stand up to my mother.
Choosing you, doing this…I just chose the day. ”
I rolled onto my side, so I could see him better. Sunlight dappled on his face, the fabric of that shirt. “But why didn’t your mother stop him? When she saw he was trying to hurt you?” She didn’t look like someone who’d back down from a fight. Piotr didn’t either, even jolly on his crutch.
“She believed strongly in letting whelps handle conflict between them, and in letting power struggles run their course. Not that she didn’t want me to succeed, just…
I needed to succeed. She wasn’t going to tell others to be nice to her son.
” He rolled his head to look at me. “She’s fair.
She’s not particularly…nurturing, but she’s fair. Mostly.”
“What’s she like?” My brief glimpse of her had been so aggressive, but people weren’t their most aggressive selves. I’d seen people fight bitterly in the warrens and be kind behind doors.
“She’s a good chieftain. She protects her people.
She loves my father, more than she’ll show.
” He half-smiled again. “Maybe that’s the trouble between us, because I only know her as a warrior-leader.
But I am not her soldier. And I’m not a muddy child to chastise anymore.
” He stretched. “She can try to give me orders again. But it will not go the way she plans.”
I rested my head on my arm. “Your father seemed so different.”
“He is. He’s having an easier time adjusting to the change, I think, me being older. But he’s the one who’s been here all the time, watching me grow. She’d come back from beating back an encroacher, and suddenly I can walk. Suddenly I can think and disagree. It must have been disorienting.”
The sunlight vanished, cut off by some cloud. The air felt colder.
“You said this place was special earlier.”
He shook his head. “It’s just a place I’d come to be alone. Vrathgar and Tyralk learned to find me here.”
“They seem to really care for you.”
“They’re good friends.” He glanced over at me. “You’re shivering.”
I hadn’t noticed, but I was.
He reached out, automatically, and then stopped.
“I don’t mind,” I said, hoping he couldn’t read beneath the schooled calm of my face.
He stayed there. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” he said.
“Well,” I got out. “It’s uncomfortable to be cold.”
He leveraged himself closer, his eyes locked on me, and put his arm around my shoulders.
I scooted closer, into the heat of his side, and then stayed rigidly still, like that could help me pretend that this was really about warmth.
He shifted, and I rested, too lightly, my head on his shoulder. My heart beat stupidly fast.
“I’m not afraid,” he said. “About fighting Sephar.”
I waited against the curve of his side.
“I’m not afraid,” he said again. “I’ll just be relieved when it’s over.” He looked at me, like he was looking for something in my eyes. I hoped he would find it. “Rowena—"
Laughter rang out from the trees, and Khal whipped up onto his feet. “Come on,” he said. “We should get back.” He helped me up. The giggles and snickers continued. “The sun sets early in the mountain, and we have dinner with my parents.”
He was walking quicker than before. His hands found my waist to lift me into a ledge.
“Are we in danger?”
“No. No one is going to hurt us before tonight.” I wondered if he knew how not-comforting that was.
“I'd just rather not have a conversation with whatever idiot kids thought following us was a good idea.” His jaw was tight. He swiveled to watch around him, often. I wasn’t certain how much he believed his words of faith in his people.
When the homes of the village were glowing through the foliage again, I touched his arm. He started, like someone had thrown water on him, but he waited. He didn't shake me off. “I'm sorry,” I said. “That they found your meadow. I know that was special.”
He blinked. “Thank you. I…appreciate that.” He turned away. “Come on. Let's see my parents.”