“I’ve lived here a long time. You learn things.” He paused. “Also, I may have used these for dyes myself. Some of the hangings in the den, the ones with the darker colors, those are mine.”
“You made those?”
“Wove them. Badly, compared to your work. But they’re functional.”
She thought of the tapestries adorning his walls, the care evident in every piece despite their rough edges. The thought of him weaving alone, year after year, making a home out of his exile…
No wonder he built only one chair. One bed. One of everything.
“You won’t be alone anymore,” she said softly.
He went still. “No?”
“No.” She reached out and took his hand, staining his fingers with berry juice. “We’re here now. And I don’t intend to leave.”
For a moment, something raw flickered across his face—hope and fear and desperate want all tangled together. Then his fingers curled around hers and squeezed.
“Good,” he said roughly. “That’s… good.”
They returned to picking, but something had shifted between them. A door opened that couldn’t be closed again. A promise made without words.
She reached for a particularly lush cluster of purple berries, stretching across the bush to grasp them. The branches rustled around her, releasing the sweet-tart scent of crushed fruit.
“Jessa—”
His voice cracked through the peaceful moment, sharp with sudden alarm.
She looked up, confused.
“—move!”
Something struck her ankle with blinding speed.
Pain—bright, hot, immediate—lanced up her leg. She looked down and saw the snake already retreating, its mottled brown body disappearing into the underbrush. Just a flash of movement, there and gone. The two small punctures in her skin were already beginning to swell.
“Oh,” she said distantly. The pain was spreading now, racing up her calf. “That’s not good.”
The world tilted.
He caught her before she hit the ground, his arms coming around her with desperate strength. She heard him cursing in alanguage she didn’t understand, felt him lower her to the earth, felt his hands at her ankle pressing hard.
“Stay with me.” His voice seemed to come from very far away. “Jessa, stay with me. Don’t close your eyes.”
She tried to obey, but the edges of her vision were going dark, the pain transforming into a strange floating numbness that was somehow worse. She watched through dimming eyes as he worked on her leg—cutting, sucking, spitting—and thought vaguely that she should probably be more alarmed.
“Talk to me,” he ordered. “Tell me—tell me about the cloth. The first piece you made. Tell me about that.”
“The loom,” she managed. Her tongue felt thick and clumsy. “Broke it. Seven years old. Mama was so…”
She couldn’t remember the word. Couldn’t remember anything except the spreading cold and Tarek’s hands on her skin and his voice getting further and further away.
“Stay with me, damn you?—”
The world went dark.
She drifted.
There was heat—too much heat, burning through her like a fever. Cold water on her forehead. Voices that might have been real or might have been dreams.
