“I don’t know what I did to deserve you,” Ayla told him, as she split the fruit in half and separated off a slice of the orange.
“You’ve got that backwards,” Niel told her softly, utterly sincere. Ayla shook her head, and offered him the first piece. He declined and watched as she ate it.
She had lived in conditions as intolerable as Niel’s, but she’d had more to return to than he did. A family, and a country she had not committed treason against. And yet she, the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, whether measured in appearance or in heart, was here beside him in Cirancia all the same.
He’d loved her before they left Blackfell, but it had deepened so much more than he’d expected. It was so easy here, with her. He’d always felt like he was facing down the world on his own. Now he had someone at his side, and if it rained all night while they camped outdoors, or if the strap of Flower’s saddle-pack broke and spilled their things on the riverbank, or if a peddler sold Niel a bag of dried lentils that turned out to be mostly stones with a layer of lentils on top, they faced it together, and he never doubted it would come out fine. Even if, after the lentil incident, he insisted on Ayla handling the money.Shewas a born merchant, he’d reasoned to her.Hehad never had to keep a budget or haggle a price in his life. Eyron had no shortage of wealth, and making a purchase had always been a matter of simply telling a servant or a quartermaster what he required. This might have been embarrassing, but they’d had two run-ins with bandits, and one with a large, winged serpent that had shot out at them from a tree with its fangs bared, which was enough to make Niel feel he hadsomethingto offer her.
Ayla’s eyes fluttered shut as she ate for a moment. She offered Niel another piece.
“You have to try it,” she said. “You picked the best one. Just perfect.”
Perfectwas right. There was nothing he’d change.
“Well,” he said, looking at her and not the fruit as he accepted a piece. “I think luck played a bigger role in that than I did.”
She shrugged and set back off down the path, not seeming to realize he was talking about her. With a smile to himself, Niel followed.
Home
Soon they left the trees and entered rolling farmland, the town visible in the distance. They reached it in mid-afternoon, as Niel had predicted. A man on the street was taking down laundry from a line. Niel ran the words he’d need over in his head as he approached, bracing himself to use the foreign tongue. The man looked up at the warrior’s approach, his eyes squinting and his expression a little stern.
In broken words Niel asked after a room, repeating himself twice.Yes, the man said, once Niel had finally gotten the message across, as Ayla absently scratched Flower’s forehead and listened to them talk.That way,and a left.
Not everywhere they stayed was big enough for an inn, though there was often a farmer willing to make a few coins off renting a room, or a barn they could sleep in. But this place was comfortable, the town big, though not approaching city-status. A young girl led Flower away to the inn’s stables while the girl’s father led Niel and Ayla up to the second floor of astone building, to a room with a wide fireplace, a pair of narrow windows, and a neatly-made bed.
Niel thanked the man and closed the door. He set down his pack and stared at Ayla, who’d perched on the dainty chair next to the hearth to unlace her boots.
“Do you want to marry me?” he blurted, before he could consider whether that question was better posed at another time, in another way. Ayla looked up at him, still bent half-over, fingers buried in the knot of her left boot’s lace. The right shoe was already off.
“What?” she asked, and straightened abruptly.
“We keep saying husband and wife,” he said, feeling himself flush. They’d decided it was best to do so on the road, uncertain how Cirancian people would view the two of them sharing a bed otherwise. “I just wondered. Neither of us wants anyone else. Shouldn’t we, then?”
“And here I thought I was running off with a married man.” though her tone was teasing, Ayla bit her bottom lip nervously.
Niel narrowed his eyes. His Aronthian half-wife had become something of a joke that Ayla liked to tease him over. Just now, he didn’t want her laughing at him.Hewas serious about it, and if he’d waited less long to ask, the question might not have burst out of him at such an inopportune moment.
“Would it change anything?” she added quietly, so soft he barely heard, from where he stood at the doorway.
“Change anything?”
“Well, it’s just. Being married before…” she blinked and looked away.
Niel felt his throat tighten. They were different people now; happier people. But only so much could change in a handful of months. Even in a year, or two, or five, he knew they’d still carry shadows of their wounds. He crossed the distance to her and knelt slowly before her. Ayla had clasped her hands tightly onher lap. He took them slowly into his own, and squeezed gently until she met his eyes again.
“No,” Niel told her firmly. “No, it wouldn’t change anything. Not like that. But if the idea troubles you, there’s no need to marry. I wasn’t thinking.”
“No. I want to,” she answered quickly. “I won’t let him ruin that. I want to give you… but could I have a little more time, Niel? I know we say we’re married, but only when we speak Cirani, and never in private, and I…” her gaze dropped down, away from his own. He waited as patiently as he could manage, still holding her hands tightly in his own. “I don’t have doubts about you,” Ayla added. “Or about how I feel, or what I want. I love you so much sometimes it hurts to breathe, and I want a life with you, all of it. But I’m still scared, Niel. I can’t help that.”
“Then we’ll take it one day at a time,” he answered. “What’s the rush, when we have our whole lives? But should I keep asking, or should I wait for you to bring it up?”
“You can ask, if you promise not to be hurt if I say I’m still not ready,” she said.
“Will you promise to tell me, if you fall out of love, or you decide you don’t want this anymore?”
“That won’t happen.” Ayla frowned at him. “I told you, it’s not because I’m uncertain about you.”
“But if it did,” Niel pressed seriously.
