He swallowed thickly and leaned his head back along the pillar, exposing the wide column of his throat.
For the briefest of moments, I had the desire to press myself there. To curl my own face into the crook of his neck because I thought I might feel…warm there. Safe there.
Then I flushed and chided myself for being foolish.
“Everyone has their purpose. And no purpose is more important than another,” he told me. “There is a rhythm in a horde, one that outsiders might not understand. And only when that rhythm is uninterrupted does a horde thrive. The hunters hunt. Thebikkusfeed us with the game they bring home. With that strength they give us, with the nourishment that Kakkari gifts us, the warriors train and grow strong. Themitrimakes our swords and keeps us protected with his craft. Ourpyrokiscarry us across the land so we are able to survive. Themrikrocares for thepyrokis. A young girl trains under themrikro,and will one day take his place. Her mother is part of a group who tends to our crops. And another mother processes the fur and hides that the hunters bring in. If a hunter is injured on the hunt, our healer tends to their wounds. So you see? Horde life is all about connection. That is what makes a horde strong.”
He spoke of rhythm and I felt the rhythm of his own voice. It lulled me and I felt a longing bubble up in my throat. It was so unlike the stories of hordes I’d heard all my life. Of violent, hulking beasts, who reveled in battle and bloodshed.
“Are they happy?” I whispered, my throat tight.
He met my gaze. “I like to think so.”
“Are they safe?”
He inclined his head. “Lysi.”
Longing built in my breast. He said it with such certainty.
“And are you happy?”
The expression that passed over his features was one of bewilderment, not unlike the one Hassan had worn earlier when I gave him therikcrun. As if…he’d never asked himself that question before. As if his own happiness didn’t matter.
“I serve my horde as best as I am able to. That is all I ever wanted.”
“I suppose it’s a difficult question to answer,” I murmured, my eyes fastened on his shoulder wound as I washed it with fresh water. “I suppose happiness is not a state of being. It’s an emotion, like you said. Just like anger or hurt or longing. It passes and fades into another emotion.”
When had I felt happiness last, that elusive emotion?
The memory that immediately came to mind was a moment with my father and aunt. It had been a beautiful day in the warm season after a particularly brutal frost. We’d been out in the bog, foraging for whatever berries we could find there. I’d been…perhaps 10 or 11. And we’d been making up songs as we were ankle deep in the muck, trying to rhyme words with ‘swamp’ and ‘mush’ and ‘squelch.’
I always liked singing because when I sang, I didn’t stutter over words. When I was young, all I wanted was to sing. I thought that if I sang, people would think I was like them.
And so we sang that day in the bog.
And Father had made me laugh so hard I couldn’t breathe because he had a terrible singing voice, especially when he was rhyming ‘mush’ with ‘tush’ and ‘squelch’ with ‘belch.’ His cough had finally begun to abate for the season. Our spirits had been lifted. Even my normally disapproving aunt had needed to hide a smile or two that day.
There was a bubble of warmth that built up in my chest at the memory. I hung onto it for as long as I could, keeping it close, letting it heat some of the loneliness that plagued me.
“What do you think of,sarkia,” he asked, “to make an expression such as this?”
The weight of his stare flustered me when I met it. I realized that I was smiling. Though it was soft and barely there, I was still smiling and I didn’t remember the last time that had happened.
That memory was precious to me and so I didn’t share it. I didn’t want to, not with anyone. As if when I spoke it aloud, it would drift away and I’d never be able to recapture it again.
“What would you even look like smiling, I wonder?” I asked instead.
His grim, serious stare made my lips quirk even more.
Eventually, my smile left me. That little ball of warmth faded and I was left shivering, in the cold darkness of the horde king’s cell, with the scent of metallic blood in my nostrils, and his terrifying bulk close to me.
But he was warm and I found myself scooting towards him. His bare outer thigh pressed into my knee. I saw something flicker in his gaze. His eyes went to my lips and under his stare, they parted. My belly warmed, replacing that warm memory with a heat that I didn’t recognize.
“Rowin,” I whispered.
At the sound of his name, I saw him tense and move forward, the chains rattling behind him. I studied the wounds on his face, the swollen areas that I knew would smooth come morning. Then I met his eyes. Suddenly I was a bundle of nerves but I didn’t want to be afraid. Not anymore. Like he said, my death was guaranteed in this life. I might as well die for something I believed to beright.
I leaned close, so close that my lips brushed the sharp shell of his ear.
