Chapter 23
Twenty-Three
The rocking of the waves was so comfortable I turned, spinning myself into the fur blanket and burrowing my nose into it. A scent of sea and warm driftwood pricked my nose, and I inhaled happily, feeling rested for the first time since I’d arrived at the Hird.
“Don’t get so fucking comfortable. You’re not staying.”
Darcke’s voice should have made me bolt upright, but I was so warm. And I knew that if I opened my eyes, everything that had happened the past weeks would be real—the choosing would be real. Darcke as my second would be real.
I made my chest move steadily, allowing my breaths to whistle through my nose.
“I know you’re not sleeping. I’ve listened to you all night, and your breathing has changed,” the warrior barked.
“It’s creepy to watch others sleep,” I mumbled.
“I had to make sure you didn’t fucking die, didn’t I?”
I peeked over the fur. Darcke was sitting on the floor, his legs spread out and his back against the beautifully polished wood. “I thought my death would make you infinitely happy.”
His sinister smile hit me square in the chest. “Watching you die like a fish struggling for breath in a fisherman’s hand? No. Killing you myself and silencing that wicked mouth of yours? That would entertain me for a few moments.”
I didn’t know why I laughed.
“You are so strange.” Darcke placed his hands on his corded thighs. “No wonder you don’t have any friends.”
“And you are so rude,” I said as I forced myself to sit, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. “No wonder you can only get the outcast into your bed.”
He rolled his eyes as I nervously curled my toes first, then my fingers.
Next I moved my legs, and finally my still slightly aching arms. As I lifted the covers, I held my breath, but where I expected wounds from crawling over the ground were only soft bandages.
I stiffened for a second, but my clothing was cut only around the areas that were wrapped in white cloth.
“Did you… did you patch me up?” I asked.
“It wasn’t the damned ship,” he replied as he got to his feet, brushing some dust off his leathers. “I didn’t want to clean the bed.”
“You let me sleep in your bed?”
“She wouldn’t allow anything else.” He tapped the walls of the ship, his face twisted with harsh lines, but as the vessel stirred with life, sending the boarded windows flying open to allow the summer sun inside, there was something soft around his eyes.
“Right,” I said.
I was annoying him. In my state yesterday, I’d betted on his ship allowing me to take refuge on her deck, but I hadn’t expected Darcke A’lian to allow me into his bedroom, or into his bed while he slept on the… floor?
“Did you sleep at all?” I asked.
He always looked tired, the blue beneath his eyes somehow part of him, perfectly shadowing the war paint that was smudged over his eyes and cheekbones, but his hair was messier than usual, and he was in the same clothing he’d been in during the choosing.
“You should go.” Darcke turned his back on me as the sun rose over the sea, sending a warm glow over him that didn’t fit at all with the glowering warrior.
“I should.” I stood on shaking legs, grateful when the ship creaked and turned into the wind, making the lift and drop of the waves rolling in from the sea smoother and thus my journey across the room easier.
As the door leading up to the deck opened before me, I let my fingers trail down the doorframe and the ship thrummed in response, the wood heating beneath my fingers. “Thank you,” I whispered. “I haven’t slept like that in weeks.”
Another low murmur went through the ship.
I turned my head over my shoulder. “Th—”
“Whatever,” Darcke growled. “This was a one-time thing.”
One of the shutters around the window behind Darcke closed and opened once, and I turned my head down when a smile threatened to spread over my face.
“I saw that.” Darcke glared into the floor. “You better not try to gang up on me, because you will lose.”
The ship winked at me again.
“Just leave.” Darcke spun, and whatever I’d been planning on saying stuck in my throat as he wrangled himself out of his tunic and revealed a broad back ropey with muscles that played beneath his summer-tan skin.
Unlike his face, where those intricate tattoos wove, his body had none, his skin like an empty beach in summer, golden and glowing and inviting anyone who passed to run their hands through the sand.
A plank beneath me shifted at the same time Darcke spoke. “I can feel you staring.”
I wasn’t sure what to say, and when the plank moved beneath me again, ushering me up the stairs, I kept quiet.
The sun warmed my skin as I walked down the dock. As I closed my eyes for a second, the smells and sounds nearly tricked me into believing I was walking the path from the sea to our longhouse at home.
A wave of homesickness washed over me, and my people’s familiar faces flashed before my eyes. My shoulders tensed, but instead of shoving the feeling aside, I used it to quell the guilt from yesterday—what I’d done to Darcke and Kilia. Even Ilse.
My choosing might not have had the optimal outcome, but it was the only one that would save my family. When I bonded with Darcke tonight, he wouldn’t expect to share my magic, since his was already leashed, and that was how I’d survive until I earned my rune.
I refused to let myself linger on what Geord had said about us being able to sense each other’s emotions. I’d deal with it if it became a problem.
My stomach rumbled, and I pressed a hand against it as smoke began twirling from the longhouse as the servants prepared the first meal of the day. But as initiates started trickling out of the doors on the side, I swerved and headed to the forest again.
I was sure Geord and the rest would be out for revenge for what had happened yesterday, and I was still injured, too weak to take them on should they decide to try in daylight.
I didn’t go far into the woods. Choosing a tree close to the tree line, I climbed a few branches up, glad that my weak hands were able to hold on and pull me up.
A vague memory of me ripping into Ottoh’s face flitted through my thoughts, but I wasn’t sure if it had been a dream from the drug or had happened. I picked at the leaves on the branch, letting the green dance between my fingers.
Whatever they’d put in my drink hadn’t been fly agaric. I was still feeling weak, and from what I’d understood, fly agaric would work the opposite: the mushroom would make me stronger—better.
More initiates came out of the house, and I crept closer to the trunk of the tree, closing my eyes again as the sun trickled through the crown, dancing over me until I was wrapped in warmth.
I knew I should probably change and eat before the bonding, but I was so tired, so I only settled in and allowed myself to drift in and out of light sleep, listening to the soft rustle of leaves and the scurrying of animals across the forest bed beneath me.
When I opened my eyes again, the sun had moved across the sky and the light was different. A darker shade of orange threaded through the trees, painting the ground darker shades of red and yellow. The field was quiet, and I stretched my arms over my head as I shook the sleepiness from my mind.
A horn blew in the distance, somewhere deeper into the forest, the opposite way from the lake.
Two rabbits who’d been chasing each other stilled at the sound, and I smiled at their whiskers whipping back and forth as they smelled the wind for danger.
When the horn bellowed again, they were off rushing through the bushes to hide.
In the silence they left behind, I jumped down from the tree. While the stillness was initially comforting, my stomach hollowed when I realized no smoke twirled from any of the tents or the longhouse. As I spun to the harbor, the docks were silent as well.
There wasn’t a single person within my line of sight.
“Fuck,” I cursed as I started running toward where the horn had sounded.
Already after a few steps, the taste of iron filled the back of my throat, and it was impossible to ignore the lightheadedness the day of not eating had caused.
But I forced myself to continue at a steady pace, letting the crunching of my boots distract me from the exhaustion weighing heavy on my limbs.
As firelight started dancing through the trees, low drums beat the air, and the familiar droning of the Hird filled the evening. A deep, familiar voice broke through the trees, and I swore again as I stumbled over a root.
“The bonding is a sacred ritual between warriors.” The shaman’s voice boomed across the clearing, where tall oaks leaned in as if they were spectators to the event.
Yellowed grass crackled beneath my boots. The tension in the air grew as the crowd spread out before the shaman, and the king and queen and their court, turned to watch me approach.
“Keep your chin up,” I muttered to myself as I plastered a blank expression across my face and strode through the gathering of initiates, pretending I didn’t mind having to shove several people out of the way as they tried to block me from reaching the front.
When I used my elbow to nudge a final person out of the way, someone stuck their foot out, and I stumbled into the space left open before the royals, biting my tongue so hard tears sprung to my eyes.
Thankfully Ilse got hold of my jacket before I fell entirely, and I grimaced gratefully at her before taking the spot between her and Darcke.
“You may proceed,” I said as I faced the shaman, pretending not to see when the old wrinkled man gave me a look of loathing.
He scoffed, but when he turned to the king and the only thing Gustief did was to raise his brows, the shaman shook his head and started speaking again in his low, hollow voice.
I felt the king’s eyes on me, but when I pushed back my shoulders and rolled my neck, they moved on to someone else.