Chapter 13 #2
His neck was red. “I know. But not…” He grimaced. “...not by orc rites.”
“You have a ritual for lovemaking.”
He raked his fingers through his hair. By the window, Hagmar snorted, settled.
“A lifetime of celibacy cannot be appealing to you.” I was speaking at a whisper, hushed. He didn’t look at me.
“It’s hardly the worst thing that can happen.”
“You were seeking to get married. You were marrying younger than the rest of your friends. Most of them are unmarried.” This was so pointless. That I was arguing this at all was pointless.
“Yes.”
“So you married me expecting to have sex with me.”
“Yes.”
“And probably also at the sex stones, right?”
“That’s not important.”
“But it is something you wanted, in your life. It isn’t…you weren’t planning to be a monk. You were planning to be a husband.”
He was quiet for a long moment.
My heart guttered in my chest.
“...I had known a long while,” he said, “that I wasn’t what the women my mother wanted me to marry were looking for.
That I was…too human for them.” His mouth tightened.
Arguments leapt to my tongue, but I stayed silent as he said, “And I knew it was likely that I was not what any outsider we forged alliances with would be wanting, either. It was…a brief fancy. A few days of delirium, the idea of this working.” He looked up at me, looked me in the eyes while everything in me crumbled down.
“So don’t worry, Rowena. Don’t. You have taken nothing from me that you didn’t give.
We’ll make you safe, and I’ll be…I’ll be fine. ”
I wasn’t going to let him see me cry. I wasn’t going to show that I was harmed. Wasn’t that the first thing you learned, as a child? Not to show that you hurt? I turned away, focused on slowly, slowly filling the bowl.
Against the wall, Hagmar yawned and stretched. He said something to Khal, but I wasn’t listening. I don’t know if the magic was even flowing.
“He’s leaving,” Khal said.
I looked up. The bowl was still in my hands.
“He needs to prepare for the journey. Should I—"
“Don’t get up.” I put the bowl down by the hearth, went to bar the door. Full daylight, and we needed to bar the door, because I’d brought so much trouble to him. And then I was just standing there, motionless, with my fingertips on the woodgrain.
“Are you alright?” He said.
I didn’t have an answer for him, so instead I asked. “Is it so repulsive? The idea of making love to me?”
Silence filled the space behind me, and then the creak of a stool. I waited, listening to my breathing, to the ache in my chest.
“Yes,” he said, his voice husky. “It is and it should be.”
I stayed still, looking at that door.
“There are people who let themselves take pleasure in other people’s suffering. I can’t be that. You might think I’m a monster, but I’m not that kind.”
“Did I seem like I was suffering very much when I kissed you?” He was quiet, and I forged on. “You didn’t…you didn’t seem to be suffering at the pool.”
“I didn’t know yet.”
“If you need to know then ask!” I wheeled on him. “Stop making decisions for both of us! I’m not…I’m not a child!”
“I know you’re not a child.”
“Then let me speak for myself!”
“What do you want to say?”
“Not this!” And this was ridiculous. We were staring at each other. Heat pulsed in the air, coloring the edges of my vision, like I was trying to fix this with magic, but there was no magic that could fix. “I…” I drew breath, clenched my fists. “I don’t want more decisions being made for me.”
“What decision am I making for you?”
“This!” I flung the word in his face, realized I was wrong. “...none. But you haven’t had a chance to make any. You’re wounded.”
“And you think I’m going to get better, and I’ll start making decisions again?” There was hurt in his eyes.
“No. Yes.” I was falling, fading. Why did I want to fight him? “I don’t know.” He looked at me, and I didn’t know what I was begging for, how to fix this. I didn’t know if there was a way to be what he needed, or how I would ask. “What are we?”
Khal breathed deep, like he coped with more pain than the wounds, like he was holding those closing slices together again. “We’ll make it safe out of here, away from the sporing,” he said. “And I’ll find an answer for you, alright? Whatever that is.”
Vrathgar’s voice came through the door, more banging on the oak.
The journey down the steps was excruciating, through the cavern, under a chill gray sky.
Khal’s face was a mask of control, his steps tense with pain.
Vrathgar stayed near him, scanning the forest and then the crowd, as if he wasn’t, like me, trying to be beside Khal in case he fell over.
But Khal didn’t fall. No one attacked us.
And then the sky faded pink, and the old chieftess from before was murmuring, and we were walking through what looked like solid rock and felt like air, back into the open world.
I was not as strong as an orc. I knew the bag I carried was lighter than the others, had seen them distribute Khal’s supplies among them. But I was glad to be stronger than before. I was glad he didn’t have to worry whether I would fall.
And that reservoir inside me was still low, but I could stretch out the thread of conversation and pull it back. If I lit someone on fire, probably, yes, I would lose consciousness again. But this, these small things…I was coming back together.
At noon, someone called rest. Khal sat, heavily, leaned against a tree.
“Are you hungry?” I asked, quiet. Activity buzzed around us. Families squabbled and voices laughed.
“Right,” he swallowed. He started to get up-
“Stay.” I put my hand on his shoulder, and he stilled, his eyes on me. I dropped my hand. “Stay,” I repeated. “I’ll do it. Let me play your wife.”
He leaned again, against the tree.
I went through his pack and started pulling out the rations I remembered, wrapped jerky, dried mushroom and fruits, that thin bread he’d said was made of crickets. He murmured thanks, started to drink from his canteen, but only a trickle came out.
“I’ll take it,” I said.
“You don’t know where the water—"
“I can ask.”
He nodded. He was still quiet, still avoiding me.
I stretched out that thread as I walked, following the flow of the others, picking up words in the chatter.
“...last time…Harlak…stream.” I kept my distance, and approached the water alone.
My stomach clenched remembering my outburst this morning.
The walking seemed to help, like we could leave my stupidity behind, but he was hurt, and what right did I have to ask him?
“Greetings.”
I spun, almost dropping the canteen.
“Whoa, there. I didn’t mean to scare you.” Sephar was on the bank, leaning against the trunk of a tree. “I was just…” he gestured with his own waterskin.
“...greetings.” I didn’t know what else to say.
“I didn’t get the chance to congratulate you on overcoming the challenge. I was remiss in my welcome.”
“I didn’t miss you.”
“Ha.” He smirked. “It’s you that’s been missing, isn’t it? You’re the power this enclave has needed. But such a shame you were dragged in here against your will.”
“I chose this.”
“Really?” His gaze was lazy, and lingering, and I felt the canteen heating in my hands. “That’s fortunate. It’s not what my cousin said.”
“Don’t make me light you on fire, please.”
His eyebrows rose, and he laughed. He laughed. “I wouldn’t think of it.” He stood up, and he swept a bow, and I was an uneducated bastard daughter, but it wasn’t a terrible one. “I’ll leave you to your water collecting…Rowena.” He left.
I tucked the canteen under my arm, and dipped my hands into the current.
There were fish here, among the current-tumbled stones, little ones that darted up to inspect my fingers.
I needed to calm down. If I needed to kill his cousin, I’d be good at it.
I could do it. Khal would forgive me. He’d forgiven me for worse.
And maybe I could just burn him, burn my hand on his face…the melting faces of the toughs in the tower came back, and I gasped. Steam rose, and the fish fled away. A few dozen yards away, voices laughed and chattered, a group of young women, my age. One of them waved.
When I put the canteen in Khal’s lap I’d stopped shaking.
“My thanks.” He drank. He looked drained. The travel was hard on him. I wished he didn’t have to “project strength.” I wished he’d let us carry him. He looked up at me. “Are you alright?” he tensed. “Did something happen?”
“No,” I said. “I just…almost immolated your cousin.”
“Did he do something?” he started to sit up, and without thinking I put my hand on his chest, guided him back down.
“No. No, he just…tried to be friendly. I threatened him.”
“Then I’m sure he deserved it.” His voice was quiet. He glanced down at my hand.
I pulled it back. “Sorry,” I whispered.
He swallowed. “You don’t need to be.”
A giggle rang out. It was the young women from before. One of them was waving again. I hesitated, and waved back. One of them shrieked something happy. Dash it, I hadn’t been extending myself. I couldn’t hear.
“What are they saying?” I asked him.
“They’re happy that you’re interacting with them,” he murmured. “It’s just things like, ‘She waved!’”
“Why are they being friendly to me?”
“Why not? They want a friend.” He drank again, and offered me the canteen.
I hadn’t realized I was thirsty. I wondered if that was a part of the struggle with the magic, the way I wasn’t in touch with my body.
“Do you want to walk with them?”
I coughed, choked on the water. “What?” Dagnabbit, I had to pull it together. I was a grown woman who’d had her wedding night, not some child infatuated with a boy.
“You could walk with them,” he repeated. “I would understand.”
“No. I’ll…I’ll make friends with them later,” I said. “You need me.”
The side of his mouth lifted. “Vrathgar is hovering about like a mother hen. I’m not going to die.”