She is my fire.
She is mine.
I close my eyes. And for the first time, I sleep.
5
BETTY
Afew days pass. A few days where the world is nothing but the four mud-packed walls of my hovel, the smell of elmbark and drying herbs, and the sound of his breathing.
He is healing. The Urog magic, or whatever dark power fuels his massive body, knits his flesh at a speed I cannot comprehend. The star-shaped wound is no longer a weeping, infected crater. It is a raw, puckered, angry-red scar that pulls the skin of his chest tight.
He just... watches me.
He sits against the far wall, his massive legs drawn up, his head resting against the packed mud. He makes my home a cage. I have to skirt his feet to get to my woodpile, have to reach past his shoulder to stir the pot. He is a mountain of quiet, coiled potential.
The villagers leave me alone. Joric’s words have spread. I am the "monster-keeper." The woman who repeated her family’s mistake. They leave small offerings of food—a hunk of dried meat, a small pouch of grain—at my door, but no one knocks. They are offerings to the beast, not gifts for a friend. They are buying their safety from me.
The guilt is a constant, cold stone in my stomach. Joric was right. I am a fool. I am doing it again.
But then I look at him.
His feral red eyes are not burning with the red haze anymore. They are clear, bright, and fixed on me. He watches me stir the thin suru-rabbit stew. He watches me mend my cloak. He watches me bank the fire. His attention is absolute, a heavy, possessive weight on my skin. He is quiet. Docile, even.
As long as I am here.
If I get too close to the door, a low growl rumbles in his chest. A warning. Stay. He is a caged animal, and I am his... his thing. His comfort.
The thought sends a shiver down my spine that is not from the cold.
I am on edge. My fingers twitch, finding the ends of my hair, twisting, twisting. I am trapped in here with a ten-foot killer, and the only thing worse is the village outside.
A sound bubbles up in my throat, a small, absent noise to fill the silence. It’s a tune. An old Oshtan lullaby my mother used to sing, about the mountain finding the moon. I hum, my voice thin and reedy, my eyes on the bubbling pot.
The growl I was expecting doesn't come.
The heavy, rhythmic sound of his breathing… hitches.
I stop humming. The silence that rushes in is heavier than before.
Slowly, I turn.
He is staring at me. His massive head is tilted, his red eyes wide. He isn't just watching me; he is listening. There is a new expression on his brutish face. A stillness. A… wonder.
I realize what I'm doing. I'm humming a lullaby to a monster. Treating him like... like a child. Like my little brother, when he was sick with lung-fever.
My heart aches. A sharp, painful throb of pity. What is he? Who was he, before the Dark Elves forged him into this... thing?
"It's just a song," I whisper. My voice is too loud in the hovel.
He makes a low sound in his chest. A grunt. A question. More.
A part of me wants to recoil. To build the wall back up. But I can't. Joric is wrong. Maeve is wrong. This is not a mindless it.
"I... I don't..." I don't know what to do. My hand goes to the small, loose-planked box I keep under my pallet. My past.
I pull it out. His eyes track the movement.
