“Do you read palms?” he asks. “We’ve a lady at Winterhold, from Penrith, who does.”
“No,”I sign.“Not a clue.”
“Minds?”
I laugh and press another no into his palm.
He winks and smiles, then lets his head fall back as I keep tracing the lines in his skin. “That’s probably a good thing. Though I bet you could if you tried.”
Funny how he worries about me knowing what he’s feeling and thinking. First, he asked if I read people’s emotions, and now this. IwishI could read him—his emotions, his mind, his palms. Mena always said the lines of the hands define who we are. She labeled me well enough, calling me an idealist with volatile tendencies and someone who struggles with a mundane existence. She called me impulsive, impatient, and imaginative, a restless being who needs freedom to flourish and love to thrive. I think she was right, but I fear those last two requirements for peace might be impossible anymore.
Alexus exhales and relaxes, as though my touch is all he needs to unwind. Though we’ve been pressed against one another for days, I would be lying if I said it didn’t feel good to touch him outside the mode of sheer survival. His hands are big and calloused, scarred in the way of a swordsman, strong and warm in ways I shouldn’t be thinking about.
Delirium. It must be.
But maybe it isn’t. Because ever since his words before we left Hel, I can’t stop ruminating about how much Idotrust Alexus now, how I knew that I trusted him the moment he asked me to as we stood in the snow. Trust is earned, and though he hasn’t had very much time to do so, he’s only proven himself unfailing.
If I had to imagine what his palm would tell me, it would be that.Unfailing.When I’m grieving, he provides comfort. When I’m angry, he lets me rage but tempers my fury. When I’m frightened, he’s right there beside me, facing whatever comes my way.And sometimes tossing pebbles to scare me.
I stifle another smile. My mind is in tangles over him.
Shaking my head, I snap out of the spell and rest his hand in my lap.He still has a little frostbite in places and blisters from the reins, so I set to healing him. He winces and flinches and even hisses a time or two as I weave the tattered threads of his flesh back together.
Eventually, he settles, watching my hands as I sing and work.
Such a mystery, this man, though he also feels like an open book. Perhaps there are pages and lines I simply haven’t had the time to read yet. Chapters to lose myself inside.
And perhaps I shouldn’t want to.
But gods, I think I do.
Once the strands of his injuries are entwined, I ask,“Any more wounds?”
He twists his mouth up to one side as though considering whether he should tell me something.
“No shame,”I sign.“Just show me. Is it your feet?”
He barks out the loudest laugh, as if what I said was funny, but I meant it. My toes looked horrendous, black-tipped and covered in blisters from too-small shoes. Feet are bad enough without all that damage.
“Frostbite?”I spell out, stifling a laugh myself.“On your toes?”
“No.” He laughs again. “Somehow, my shameful feet are fine. But this”—he hooks his thumb in the hem of his tunic and tugs the fabric up his long torso—“is another story.”
My smile falls, and I swallow hard. Not just because awful scrapes zigzag from his navel to his collarbone, but because I didnotneed to see this much of him right now.
He’s more beautiful than I imagined. There’s a dark dusting of hair across his deeply tanned chest, and an even darker trail that travels down his rippled abdomen, between deep V-shaped muscles, and disappears inside his breeches. Old scars live amid the new wounds, too. Strange markings that remind me of runes, raised and rough like someone carved them with a hot knife. If a relic could be human, this is what it would look like.
“When did this happen?”I sign, trying to seem unfazed. But I remember when he had to have received these marks, and he sees the recollection on my face.
“That damn wraith dragged me quite a long way. Rocks and roots and sticks and gods know what else lay beneath the snow and upturnedsoil. It’ll heal fine on its own, though. No need for you to exhaust yourself even more for a few scratches.”
I shift to my knees. These are more than scratches. Some are deep and probably painful, and they arenothealing well on their own.
“It should be easy,”I tell him, which isn’t a lie. They’re not complex wounds, but they’ve been there for days now, and they don’t look good.
Even though I could sleep for a week, eating and drinking have replenished much of my strength, so I begin my work. His strands are becoming so familiar, and each time I tinker with healing him, the tiny darkness of his stolen death hums and churns and sparks, a little lightning storm inside my heart. It’s strange, that connection. That reaching out of energies. But I find I like it, feeling attached to someone other than myself.
It doesn’t take long to heal his scrapes. I decide to heal the cut still marring his lip, too—the wound I gave him. When it’s over, I relax and open my eyes. A yawn awaits, but my mind shuts it down, instead opting to send my hand straight to Alexus’s body to check my work before I can think to rein myself in. I dance my fingertips lightly up his healed skin, where a shallow cut traveled from below his navel to the bottom of his chest only moments ago.
