The silence between him and Mal was easier than it had been in years, and it seemed to be some kind of balm for this bitter evening, loosening the tension in his shoulders the longer they sat together without the need for uttering a word, watching the stars and listening to the varied music of the Mire at nighttime.
But eventually, Mal picked up his book and untangled his fingers from Griff’s, saying gently, “You should probably get some rest. Works wonders for not dying, so I’ve heard. I’ll make sure nothing undead creeps too close, and maybe you can check on Alys again, make sure she’s not choking on her own vomit or anything.”
“I won’t let her drown,” Griff said as he slowly, painstakingly worked at unbuttoning his shirt. He pulled it off and wrapped it around Mal’s shoulders in his absence, explaining, “So you don’t get cold later.”
Then he limped back into the halo of the fire and his waiting bedroll, pulling out a new shirt from his pack for himself and an extra one, which he slid carefully under Alys’s head. She didn’t stir. He finally lay down, settling on his back so he could watch the stars, mind too full of phantoms to drift right off to sleep no matter his intentions of staying on this earth.
Chapter Twenty-FiveThe Quiet Game
When Griff had gone, Mal wrapped the shirt tightly around himself and smiled a little, because he liked the black. Black reminded him of Griff.
He didn’t think that the shadow was the reason he was still cold enough to appreciate the bonus shirt, but he couldn’t be sure. He hoped the mark he had scratched into the dirt would help take care of that, too, at least while they were resting. It was something that had popped into his head when he saw Alys’s drawing. An old lesson from Vic, not Wynnie.
It was a ward against spirits, one she had learned from her people. Vic came from Asnan, an area of clannish, often-warring folk who frequently stabbed each other over contested land and resources. Hers was the kind of folk belief that Rhun would have looked down on, by all accounts, and deemed superstitious nonsense.
Seemed like the man might have gotten further out here if he’d been a little more superstitious, or listened to someone like Vic. Hopefully, the mark would at least be enough to keep the shadow out of the narrow circle of their camp; he hadn’t thoughtto bother when it came to the dark queen’s watchful spirits, because they didn’t seem able or interested in hurting him and never came as close as the bolder shadow.
With the cool night pressing in around him once more, Mal tried to slide a little farther down in his seat to get comfortable, only to be met with a protest from his stitches again. With a frustrated sigh, he settled instead with his back against the trunk and rolled up the too-long sleeves of Griff’s shirt.
The light of the fire had grown lower with no one tending it, so Mal had to search for a good angle by which to read. Yet on page ten, where he expected to find familiar words about ale and ethics, a neatly folded piece of paper greeted him instead.
Mal’s eyes roamed over words written in the neatest penmanship he’d ever seen from a man wielding a piece of stubby charcoal. His brows arched in certain places and drew together in others. Grins sometimes played at the corners of his mouth as he read, while other times he frowned or his throat tightened.
Then he read it all again.
Three times over.
Mal,
It was beautiful and serene in Stormveil, and I hated it. Even seated among the most esteemed of our parents’ friends, even in the concerned company of the princes and princess, my heart was only for you and my thoughts turned to despair the longer the silence stretched between us; that was worse than any distance.
You would have hated it: constant hushed voices, all the rules, the small niceties that felt like another language we had never learned how to speak. For years, your ghost was all I had, and most of the time I was content to be haunted by you forever rather than lose you entirely. Other times, I won’t denythat I was resentful of the way I could never fully give myself to another, because even when you didn’t know it, you had me. You always have me. From the first time I can remember looking into your eyes, you’ve had me.
… I set out to recreate for you here all the letters that were burned without my knowledge, bit by bit from memory, but then I realized they were all part of the same refrain, and you know the melody well enough by now. Maybe you don’t need new letters about old wounds, anyway. Now that we’re something more, something pulled right from my wildest dreams—you’ve ruined me for anyone else now, whether you intended it or not—it seems right to talk about what’s next.
After all, you promised me a horse, and someone had better put that in writing so there’s no question of ownership when I’m ready to collect.
And that got me thinking, I owe you a few promises, too: I promise that you’ll never again know me only by the void my absence creates.
I promise I’ll never again lash out at you in anger, with fists or words, so that one day the past will be like a fever dream and you’ll question whether you ever knew anything but safe harbor when you turn to me.
I promise, too, to make a place for us, if you’d welcome it. For you and me, with my own hands. I know of some land outside town. I can plant good crops and put up walls to keep out the world, at least the parts of it that don’t suit us, walls with far more space than the cottage and plenty of room to grow. Room for a horse or two, some good dogs, your weapons, that big bed and bigger stove you said you’re going to buy. It wouldn’t be the castle I know you dream about, but at least it would be ours. Just say the word—I’m at your command.
Before I go, have I told you lately—or perhaps, though I’m ashamed to write it, have I ever told you—how proud I amof who you’ve become? You’re not like Wynnie or Rhun or Vic or anyone else. You’re your own. And you’re stronger for it. And I’m actually quite grateful I didn’t die, because now I’ll be around for whatever you do next. You continue to amaze me.
—Griff
With trembling fingers, Mal folded the paper back up and slid it into the book, giving the Mire—for once seemingly empty—one last warning glance. Then he pushed to his feet, tucking the book under one arm, and crept across the camp by the light of embers, leaving Vic’s ward to guard them.
Mal found Griff’s eyes just drifting closed when he stepped over the dark-haired man’s bedroll, straddling him before dropping to his knees as gracefully as someone could with stitches tugging at their side. Then he placed the book just beside Griff’s head with silent meaning before holding up a finger to his lips and laying it gently over Griff’s mouth.
When he leaned in, he swiftly removed his finger and replaced it with his lips.
That letter was still running through his mind as Griff wrapped his good arm around him and pulled him in closer. Griff met his lips hungrily, with the intensity of someone who hadn’t eaten in days, though his hands were much more cautious than his mouth as they gently sought beneath Mal’s shirt, mindful of the tender places he had stitched.
Mal answered that rising hunger with a deepening of the kiss, trailing his fingers up Griff’s chest and growling softly in the back of his throat.
They needed to be quiet. To not wake Alys, or attract anything that usually hunted by night. But there was still so much they could do while hardly making a sound.
