Alric left with a touch of his brow on my own. I was as a statue, unable to feel or move or think. The din of a festive city eventually pulled me from the perfection of my husband’s kiss. I looked around, hoping to see someone I knew. I saw no one and decided to walk home, hoping the cold night would clear my head. I wanted to be in that room when he entered it.
“Edie,” said Helena, from nearby, touching my elbow, standing at my side.
I had not realized she was close. “I have to get back to the keep,” I mumbled as she leaned into me.
“So you can bed your husband?”
I put my hand over my mouth. “Yes,” I said, my voice high and breaking.
“Gods, what is the matter?” she asked. “I thought— I thought you would be happy. Caleb and I saw the two of you and, Edie, you were enraptured. Both of you. By each other.”
“Get me out of here,” I begged her, my eyes shut. I had already passionately kissed and petted in this place. I would not publicly weep here as well.
She pushed us through the crowd and out into the street, where while the throng was even larger, the sky above absorbed more of the chatter and song, allowing for me to think.
“What is it, kindred?” she asked as we stood amidst Brother Air’s carnival holiday.
“I love him,” I choked out.
“And he, you. Why do you cry?”
I could not tell her I had heard The Knelling and that my days were numbered. So I said, “He gave his heart to the Lady Vinia already. I am a consolation prize.”
“Over half of his life ago. Is that why you are upset? I doubt he still—”
“I’m scared,” I cried. “This is so much all at once and I am scared, Helena.”
She said nothing and stood beside me, her left hand holding my right. Then she said, “Caleb believes the captain loves you. He has known Alric longer than Vinia. Since Alric was twenty and Caleb thinks he was twenty. He does not now his true age.”
“He does not know his age?” I then remembered Cian’s story about the sergeant.
Her voice laced with privacy, she answered, “He was kidnapped by Helmsmen and raised with them until what he guesses is his eleventh winter. Then he ran away and found a unit of Tintar infantry and they took him back to Pikestully and he was put into an orphanage. After his majority, he used his air penchant to rob houses before he joined the army.”
I let out a gurgled laugh. “I cannot believe you are betrothed to a former thief, who swears and drinks heartily and tries to swive you outside his bedroom.” Before she could say anything, I said, “I cannot think he took you to the top landing in the turret just for the view.”
She removed her hand from mine and put her face in it and her other hand. “Who knows?”
“Just me. And Alric. It sounded like you were enjoying yourself.”
She pulled her hands away and where I expected to see embarrassment, I saw tenderness. “I am happy,” she sighed. “I am scared too. It is, as you said, so much all at once.”
“You love him?”
“The man is flawed through and through and yet, when I look for fault, I find none.”
“I like him. I pray he is worthy of you.”
She put her hand over her chest. “Not only me but Maureen. You would think a girl of seventeen would not need a father anymore, what could he offer her other than a dowry? But he has mixed her pitch for her in the throne room and listened to her go on about how to paint. He is teaching her to ride, because she said she wanted to learn. I cannot believe my child will have a last chance at a father before her womanhood.”
I had observed none of this in recent weeks, consumed by my despair and desire. “Do not make me cry any further tonight. I have regained control now.”
We stood, our cloaks drawn tightly up to our chins, smiling at each other in the way only kin can, heads tilted towards each other.
“Go home and make love to your husband,” she urged. “Caleb told me to stay here. He was called away too, but said he would return to collect me.”
“Thatcher really thinks Alric loves me? What did he say exactly?”
She stamped her feet a little. “Just that he knows Alric loves you, nothing further. Of course, he started to laugh and said Perch owed him. Apparently, they bet whether or not Alric would try his luck by either The Turn of Trees or The Thawing. Caleb said the man was going mad and it had to be sooner rather later. Perch said Alric would need to be ice cold before he sought warmth. Then I chided him for such a bet. Mischa is right, they really are savages.”
