I needed to make things right between us.
Chapter Forty
“Such beautiful hair,” Hukri murmured.
“Hay…hay-air,” Rakoni murmured from her spot on the floor, her mouth forming the word in a language I knew she did not yet know. Hukri’s daughter was watching us both from her place next to the fire basin, watching as her mother brushed through my strands. Then she asked a question of her mother.
Hukri’s reply was sharp and Rakoni pouted.
“What did she ask?” I wondered.
Hukri blew out a sigh. “She wanted to brush your hair.”
I smiled at the young girl. Though she’d been around quite a lot in the last week, she was still shy. Wary of me.
“It’s all right,” I told Hukri gently. “She can brush it.”
Mypiki’shand stilled. “It’s…it’s not proper,Missiki.”
“It’s just hair,” I told her, beckoning the young girl forward with a wave of my hand. I was sitting on Wrune’s bed—where I’d slept, alone, for the last week. Tonight, I expected the same. Already the moon had risen and there was no sign of my husband. “Jiria,” I said to Rakoni.Come, in Dakkari.
Hukri sighed again but her daughter’s excited smile swayed her and she relinquished the brush. Hukri’s own brush since I didn’t have one of my own.
Small, tentative fingers ran through my waves. A hushed whisper came next, one laced with awe. I’d learned that my hair was strange to the Dakkari. I’d only ever seen Dakkari with silky, straight locks and so mine, wild with waves and more coarse, must make an odd sight.
My scalp tingled as Rakoni began to brush through it. It was wet from my bath, freshly washed. Such a simple pleasure, having one’s hair brushed.
When Rakoni hit a knot, my head pulled to the side sharply and I laughed when her mother immediately broke into rapid apologies.
“It’s all right, Hukri,” I said, grinning when I heard even Rakoni’s small giggle, so at odds with her mother’s panic. “It’s—”
I spied a figure, lingering near the entrance of thevoliki, and my smile died, my spine straightening.
He’d entered so quietly I hadn’t even noticed. And I wondered how long he’d been watching us.
“Vorakkar,” Hukri gasped out, as surprised to see him as I was. She looked at Rakoni and then back to Wrune. She said something rapidly in Dakkari, words too quick for me to understand.
I imagined mypikiwas apologizing for her daughter’s presence, especially in his ownvoliki. Though it was at my request that the small girl join us. I knew how much Hukri missed her daughter throughout the long days she spent with me. There was no reason for Rakoni not to be with her.
Wrune listened to Hukri’s words but his reddened gaze was only on me. I felt a knot rising in my throat, wondering what version of him I would get this night. In the last week, I’d hardly seen him. I went to sleep alone and I woke up alone, no sign of him ever having lain beside me during the night. Occasionally, I saw him walking through the horde, speaking with different members,darukkarsorbikkusor hispujerakor elders or themrikro. Occasionally, I spied him training but I didn’t stay to watch for long.
This was the closest we’d been since the night he retrieved me from his council’svoliki. I’d like to say that his presence made me feel indifferent. I’d like to say that his presence didn’t affect me in the slightest.
Unfortunately, it did. My heartbeat sped. My breath came faster. To try to mitigate these things, I avoided his eyes, keeping them pinned to the bathing tub, which still had steam rising from its surface.
Wrune waved his hand once Hukri stopped talking.
“Kakkira vor,” he said. My brow furrowed. “You are dismissed for the night.”
“Lysi, Vorakkar,” Hukri murmured, dropping her gaze to the ground and chastising Rakoni when she looked up at Wrune with wide eyes, as big as apyroki’s.
Something swam in my belly when I saw Wrune place his large palm on the young girl’s head as she passed him. For a brief moment, Rakoni seemed to forget her fear because she grinned up at him. A strange expression passed over my husband’s face but then Hukri shuffled her daughter from thevolikiand with a murmured goodnight to me, mypikidisappeared.
Leaving me alone with Wrune.
Strangled silence descended between us but I refused to be the first one to speak. If he wanted to play another one of his games, I would let him. If he wanted—
“I’ve been a fool, Mina.”
