Chapter 15
CHANGES
Iwoke up nestled beside him, his skin against mine, the bandage on his shoulder next to my cheek. The power had faded, the space where his thoughts had been just quiet. I stayed still, not wanting to wake him, letting my eyes skim over the beauty of his form.
“I’m awake too,” he murmured. Hope bloomed inside me, was quashed by, “We should get dressed. They’ll unlock the stone soon.”
“I guess there isn’t time to…” I flushed, which was silly, when I was already here, and he’d already been…everywhere.
“There isn’t.” He cleared his throat. His neck was warm. “But…later. Last night…” I waited. His eyes finally found mine. “... that was good.”
“Yeah,” I said, treasuring this moment of not moving, this tiny piece of time lying still. “It was.”
He cleared his throat again, and stood up.
And for once, I let myself stare, let myself catalog the way his muscles moved, the intricacies of the marks on his perfect skin.
I knew the peppered scarring at his lower back, the handprints from the tower, knew that under the bandages on his shoulder and thigh there would be new slices from what he'd chosen and done. There were others I wanted to ask questions about, the toothmarks on his forearm, that slice underneath his pec. Later. Pure, shaky happiness flooded over me at that thought. We’ll have plenty of time later. We have the rest of our lives.
He pulled on his trousers, and I realized I should dress as well.
I splashed water from the basin over my face, cleaning quickly, and turned to look for where I’d shucked the shift, my blue dress.
And he was staring at me, Khal Drazha’s-son, his hands still on the closure of his trousers, staring like I was a sunset, or a fairy.
Like I was going to disappear into thin air.
I stepped closer. “I can’t read your mind anymore.” I brushed his hair off his brow. It was longer than when we’d met. I wondered if he would cut it. “So I don’t know what you’re thinking.”
His jaw moved. “That you’re real. That you’re mine.” His gaze traced downwards again, and he inhaled, closed his eyes. “Dressed. We need to get you dressed.” He took a step back, his touch on my arms feather-light. “The sight of you like this is something I’m not interested in sharing.”
I pulled my clothes on, and he kept a distance, watching me. “Do you want help with the bandages?” I asked.
“We can check the one on my calf later, but I think all the incisions are still closed.” He glanced down at his bicep. “I don’t think I needed the bandaging for the burns, anymore. I just kept them in case…I didn’t want to upset you.”
I examined the marks, where they showed, the mottled pink stark against the olive green of his skin.
He was watching me, so carefully that I felt like he was the one who’d read my thoughts.
“These are the wounds that brought us together, are they not?” I stepped closer, brushed my lips against an upraised mark.
He was very still again. I looked at him.
“I think I’ll just keep falling in love with every piece of you. ”
He closed his eyes again. “Rowena, they’re going to open the door soon.”
“Why? Is this something they shouldn’t see?” I stepped a little closer, my heart rioting. And-
Power hummed against my consciousness, the runes around the door glowing as the rock bloomed open, white sunlight spilling in.
Late morning sunlight. But it wasn’t the old woman elder, or any assembly.
It was Tyralk, leaning hard on the crutch, his eyes desperate.
“Khal, Rowena!” he gasped. “The beasts. We can’t—"
Screams tore in the distance.
Khal, who’d been stoically walking all of yesterday, wincing against his wounds, grabbed up his swords from where he'd left them and lurched into a run, past Tyralk, into that pale light. I stumbled after him.
In the clearing chaos reigned, people fleeing.
“It’s scralghir!” Tyralk shouted behind us.
“We need a perimeter!” Khal roared. I loped after him down the slope, keeping pace with his labored gait.
Massive, mottled dog-beasts with slavering jaws were cutting in and out among the tents, as if they were separating people out, herding and culling.
One rose on its back legs. They had arms. Somehow it was worse that they had arms.
It lifted an old woman, the ale wife, in its massive hand.
I couldn’t roast the ale wife. Khal glanced at me, a split second.
“Go!” I bleated.
He took off, lurching forwards to cut the thing down.
And drew the attention of three more.
“Khal, get down!” I screamed, and he threw himself and the old woman to the earth, right under their claws.
I blasted the fire over his head, dropping all three of them in a charred, twitching mass.
He rose, helping the old woman up, urging her back towards the stones.
There were tents in every direction, more screams. Khal ran for the far edge, still limping, and I followed.
Every face he saw he shouted “To the stones, get to the stones!” I couldn’t use fire so close to the tents, couldn’t risk burning stragglers, of which there were many.
One of the young women from before had a baby in her arms, scrambled away from two of them and slipped.
I needed to be close enough to angle fire. Without letting myself think, I dodged around Khal’s blade-reach, and skidded to a stop directly in front of her.
“Roe—"
A blast straight up enveloped this one’s face in flame.
It keened and fell over, but before I could turn and get another one a green blur hit it at the throat, the gut, sending it down, writhing. Vrathgar trotted to put his shoulder to Khal’s. “Perimeter?” he shouted.
“We have too many vulnerable!”
The young woman was up and running from us.
“So just fight?”
“I need a clear shot!” I barked. I knew, solidly knew, with the power from the stones humming through me, that I could do more than I’d done before, whether from me growing stronger or only the power of this place.
Vrathgar nodded, and the three of us ran.
So many of the orcs were fighters, their old, their young.
I saw elderly wielding weapons, their men and their women forming circles around the injured.
Those short spears were popular, but Khal and his friends’ swords flashed, again and again, taking the slavering horde to the ground.
Soon Krashal, Gernaz and several more were alongside us, spreading the line, creating the pockets of safety to let others flee.
The crowd of orcs was thinning as we pushed through. Khal’s movements slowed.
“Drazha’s-son!” a shout from behind us, Gnarlak. “They breached the other side! They reached the stones—"
Cursing, Khal streaked back.
I didn’t have much experience running. I knew I’d be out of breath, very soon, and maybe all of me would hurt tomorrow. But thankfully the magic didn’t seem to care if I could breathe, if my legs trembled or my balance wavered.
At the center of that vast clearing Drazha and her kin struggled to keep back an unrelenting flood of canine aberrations from the vulnerable clustered around the central stone, and their line was breaking.
Blood streamed down from one of her arms, her double-bladed spear taking throat after throat. Khal’s hand found my back.
“I’ll be fine,” I said. “Go.”
He tore down the slope and slid into place at his mother’s side.
It’s strange how, in the face of terrible things, all the fear can bleed out of the world.
I wasn’t afraid for him, or for me. I just knew what I had to do, and Khal was capable, even injured, even half-maimed by the woman he now fought beside, Khal was splendid at his role. So now it was time to take mine.
It was time to find out just how much I could burn.
I made my way down the slope, fighting not to turn an ankle or tumble down into the melee, till I was at a range I trusted, and could angle myself to face only dog-beasts.
I think Piotr saw me. He was behind Khal’s line, with his cane, comforting some children, and when he looked up he had a look of horror on his face, head whipping to find Khal, like he was calculating how someone could reach me.
I almost laughed at that, a strange feeling.
Because the dog-beasts had scented me now, and the same way they’d cut in and out before, herding us apart or together, some five of them loped towards me. I held up my hands, and I breathed.
As the heat flowed through my arms, fifteen feet of flame reduced them to curling, wriggling masses of char.
I kept walking.
Another blast- I stretched myself this time, tried for how long I could keep the flame moving- took out the center of their formation.
The remaining were eyeing me, jaws snapping, pulling away to opposite sides.
I was in front of Khal’s line now, the orcs some yards behind me, the beasts spreading out as the light-headedness began.
But I had one more in me. I knew I did, and I’d make it count.
“Khal,” I shouted back. “I might faint after this.”
Leaves crunched at my back. “I have you,” he said.
I nodded, and lifted my arms, and let myself scream, right as two of them leaped.
My fire took one. Someone’s sword took the other. And I burned. And burned. And burned.
When I’d burned at Rowton, at the tower, that once in the streets, it had been a thing beyond me, a thing that terrified me, just another thing about my body and my mind that I could not control.
But here, I chose this. I chose to melt flesh and char bone.
I chose the power flowing out of me and through me, this trust that when I fell it would be into his arms. And the flame flowed till the beasts were scattered, some fleeing, till the heat left and cold flowed down my arms, till I lost sense in my legs and the world tipped back.
Khal caught me. Vrathgar was running past, others were running, picking off the remaining of the creatures, and Khal’s face was over mine, sweaty and earth-stained and perfect. I wanted to reach up and touch it, but my hand was numb, clumsy against his cheek.
“You did it,” Khal said. “You were wonderful.”
“You’re wonderful,” I mumbled. I guided his face down, and I kissed him, salt and earth and hope.
“Sorcerer’s husband,” someone was speaking Orcish. The reservoir inside of me was emptied, but still in bits and pieces I could understand. “Is she alright?”
“She will be.” Khal’s face was relief, exhaustion and relief.
“If sorceress…water…” Someone brought a jug, and he helped me drink.
“You too,” I grumbled. “You were fighting.”
He half-laughed. “So were you.” He bent his face over me, his forehead resting against mine.
Runners were coming, reporting to Drazha, words I knew with words I didn’t. Injuries, some grave, but none taken. None stolen today.
It was cold. Khal noticed me shivering and acquired a blanket. Clouds were gathering overhead, portending rain.
“I should get you to the tent,” he murmured. He started to lift me.
I flailed. “No, stop! I can stand, your leg—"
He stopped, and let me rise shakily to my feet, clutching his sleeve for balance.
He chuckled. “We make a fine pair, here.” He was limping, heavier than before. There was a stain at his thigh.
“Did your stitches open?”
“Possibly.”
“Khal, that’s bad! You stay here; I’ll find Gnarlak—"
He caught my wrist, a pause. “Gnarlak is needed. I’m not going to bleed out, Rue. We can wait.”
I bit my lip. He did look at ease. There was peace in the cant of his shoulders, the hang of his arms. “Is this about showing strength?” I said quietly, fearful of listening ears.
He laughed, a real laugh that vibrated in his chest, one that threw back his head. “Wife,” he said. “I think you just showed enough strength for both of us.”
I looked around us. Even in the hubbub following battle, the way the orcs looked at us was different. People nodded in respect when our eyes met. There were smiles, tears.
“You were good to a people who had not been kind to you, Rowena,” he said softly. “Thank you.”
The Drashik were the kindest people I’d ever known, their forced marriage the least awful of the people groups by whom I’d been endangered, but I knew Khal well enough to know that would not soothe him, that his ideals were higher than platitudes.
Another answer was easier, and true. “How can I hate when the dearest person to me loves so much?”
He brushed his forehead to mine again.
“So,” I said, when my heart was not so very much in my throat. “Sorcerer’s-husband, hmm?”
“I do like the ring of it.” His hand, warm, found mine.
“Does that make me Rowena Khal’s-wife?”
“I think it makes you whatever you want to be. Rowena of the Daring Flame. Rowena of the Roastings Beasts, perhaps.”
There have been times when happiness scared me, when it felt like too much good had to be balanced, like I'd be punished for being so carefree. Later I'd feel like I brought this on myself by forgetting to be afraid.
We were all still recovering when another runner staggered into the clearing, fell to one knee. “An army!” he cried out, more words I didn’t know, and one I did. Fagrik.
My father's people had arrived.