CHAPTER21
Callos and Quinnare shocked to see us. Delighted, but very surprised. They don’t even bother hiding that they had already begun to write us off for dead—something that the others don’t seem to find nearly as unnerving as I do. Apparently it’s quite normal to go into the old castle and never be seen or heard from again.
Our return quickly becomes a small celebration. Quinn announces that he will gladly dip into the stores of blood to replenish everyone’s strength. It’s still odd to see people dropping blood from obsidian vials into water goblets, but it doesn’t unnerve me as it once did. Moreover, I know now how much they need it.
Their faces had been looking a little gaunt, a little more monstrous, the longer we spent in the castle depths. I wonder if it is a function of being so far from the sun, being so close to others who had Succumbed to the curse, or how much power and energy they all exerted. Likely all these things combined.
Just like back in Hunter’s Hamlet, I use the smithy as an escape when the festivities start up. Because just like in Hunter’s Hamlet, these celebrations aren’t meant for me. I might be on better terms with them all, but I’m still not “one of them.” I can’t expect to ever be. So I carry their weapons through the main hall, past their chambers, and into my quiet solitude of creation.
But, when I’m here, my hands don’t move. The forge is cold. Sad. No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to spark it.
Where do I belong?Moreover, what am I meant to be? Perhaps Ruvan can tell me by looking into my blood. Maybe I’m not “meant” to be anything. I’m as malleable as hot metal, waiting to be shaped. But what shape will I become? The metaphorical hammer has always been in other people’s hands—be the forge maiden, keep Hunter’s Hamlet protected by outfitting the hunters. Allow the master hunter to decide my husband. Have a child. Pass on the vital information and trade of my lineage.
Stay in line and do everything you’re told. Never think about anything else because if you do you might realize just how suffocating all the demands and expectations are. My breath is ragged. My feet pace across the floor as fast as my heart pounds in my chest.
For the first time, I have control and I…I don’t know what I want.
I try to smother the thoughts by holding on to the disk and thinking of the dream. There’s more to that than Ruvan or I know. Something is different within me. Something is changing and I’m helpless to stop it.
I feel him before I hear him—his sturdy, unyielding, blistering presence.
The world parts for Ruvan, as if he’s the one standing still, and the rest of us are moving around him, pulled by his undeniable power. Ventos’s earlier remark about the bloodsworn confirmed my suspicions. This pact must be what’s changing me. The longer I’m in this arrangement, the less I’m who I was, and the more I’m someone new. Someone I don’t know yet. Someone I couldn’t have imagined myself becoming even in my wildest dreams.
“Shouldn’t you be celebrating with the rest of them?” I ask, staring at the cold forge rather than looking at him. If I look at him, I’ll give in to his hands, his mouth, again…and I won’t feel the slightest bit guilty for it.
“They need their victories where they can find them. Ending the long night isn’t on their heads, it’s on mine. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be celebrating,” he answers with a solemn note that pulls his voice into a lower register. I grip the disk tightly to prevent my arms from breaking out in goosebumps at the richer, fuller sound. “We don’t even know yet if we’re any closer to breaking the curse. We certainly didn’t find the anchor and for that I feel more like a failure than any triumphant hero.”
“I wanted to ask you something about that.” I still haven’t turned to face him. I don’t have to face him to see him with my eyes that can now see even the thickest of nights. Instead, I’m building him in my mind’s eye. The way he holds himself, out of his plated armor, back in his velvets and silks. Trousers that graze against his thighs, tucked into leather boots. Soft, yet sharp. And his snowy hair that constantly falls into his eyes.
Snowy hair like the man who has been occupying my dreams… I try to keep my focus on the present. I’ve been needing to ask this question and I can’t get distracted now. And Ruvan is nothing if not very good at distracting me.
“Yes?” he asks as if he is somehow completely oblivious to the effect his presence has on me—that my bones have gone white hot and are searing me from the inside out. I wonder if mine has the same on him. If every minute that passes this channel between us grows deeper and deeper, until it’s large enough to swallow both of us whole.
“If we don’t break the curse, what happens to me? Do I stay here forever?”
“Ah,” he breathes softly, the sound becoming a low, rumbling chuckle. “We didn’t really plan for that contingency, did we?”
“I realized we didn’t.”
The sound of the heels of his boots hitting the stone floor reverberates against the ceiling as he slowly approaches. Each step echoes like thunder on a distant horizon. He is the lightning, making my hair stand on edge.
“What do you want to have happen?”
I inhale slowly in time with his hands as they rise. They hover over my shoulders, a breath away from touching me. If I moved in the slightest I could bolt away, or topple into him. I still don’t know which I want more and that terrifies me. I think of him holding me last night, but thoughts of him crushing me against him morph into when he stole me away—when he kidnapped me from my home and attacked my family.
“I want to be able to think clearly,” I whisper.
“Why can’t you?”
“You know why I can’t.”
“I suppose I do, if you’re half as ensnared as I am.” He has yet to touch me. Why won’t he touch me? The memories of that room return with aggressive clarity. Pale moonlight, just like what shines through the window of the smithy now, casting him in a silver purer than any I have ever worked with.
With an exhale, I’m back in his arms on that forgotten floor. His fangs are in me. I stop existing; he stops existing. We’re one.
I shake my head and do what I should have done already. I lurch forward. I stumble away. Wrapping my arms around myself, I rub my biceps and I try and shake the phantom feeling of his hands on me. Of him underneath the pads of my fingers.
I can’t allow myself to have him. I can’t…
