“Korrvun Thaldren went to the bride market again,” a woman says at the table closest to my corner. “Came back with another one.”
I set my fork down.
Four women sit together. The one who spoke has short red hair, and she does most of the talking. The one across from her wears a yellow dress. An older woman, the oldest of the four, shakes her head at what’s being said. The fourth fidgets with a diamond pendant around her neck, sliding it back and forth along the chain, wrapping it around her finger, unwrapping it, pulling it tight.
“A new wife?” the one in the yellow dress says. “Again? How many women has he gone through?”
The older woman shakes her head. “That man has no shame.”
“More than twenty at this point,” the red-haired woman says. “They all end up down here in the Narrowhalls. It’s a harem! What else would you call it? All those women, and he just keeps buying more.”
“I don’t understand how they accept,” the one in the yellow dress says. “How do you look at a man who’s done this twenty times and agree to go with him?”
The one with the diamond pendant wraps the chain tight around her finger. “Maybe they don’t know until they get here.”
The older woman leans back and folds her arms. “I feel sorry for the poor girl he brought back this time. She’ll figure out what he is, and by then she’s stuck. How long before he bores of this one and tosses her down here with the rest?”
I push the plate of plum cake away. The soup and the pork sit heavy in my stomach, and the smell of the food makes me sick now. I can’t eat anymore.
Twenty women. More than twenty. The room he gave me wasn’t prepared for me, it was prepared for whoever he brought back, because he always brings someone back. The fire alreadylit in the fireplace, the furs on the bed, the closet big enough for more clothes than I’ll ever own… All of it arranged and ready, because he’s done this before, and he has a routine. Every kind word, every careful step back, and every time he gave me space and didn’t push… It’s what he does. It’s what he’s always done, and I wonder how it will change and evolve, and into what.
I pour the last of the wine into my cup and drink it down. The bottle is empty. I haven’t finished a whole bottle by myself in a while. I tried to stop after Bran died. I used to drink to get through his worst nights, and I told myself I wouldn’t need it anymore. Sometimes I still need it, it seems.
I stand up, and the floor shifts under me. I’m not stumbling, but my legs feel loose and unreliable, and my face is flushed and hot. I leave a handful of coins on the table without counting them and walk to the door, keeping my head down as I pass the women’s table.
Outside, the corridor is quieter, and the market stalls are closing for the night. I walk to the nearest lift and step onto the platform. I pull the lever for the Highhalls and grab the chain rail as I start to rise and my stomach protests.
I want to cry. My eyes are burning and my face aches with the effort of holding it in, and the wine is making it worse. I get emotional when I drink. I grip the rail and keep my feet planted, force myself to remain standing.
I have no way out. The portal is controlled by the golems, and the main gate is somewhere inside this mountain that I don’t know how to navigate. I chose Korr because no one else wanted me, and now I have to go back and sleep in the same quarters as the horrible man everyone in the Narrowhalls seems to talk about.
Chapter Six
Korr
Sorina has been in Steinheim for four days. I’ve seen her maybe five times, and none of those lasted longer than a few minutes. She stays in her room with the door closed, or goes down to the Narrowhalls, and I don’t know what she does in either place. When we cross paths, we talk about nothing. Food, the weather outside, whether she needs anything from the market. She always says she’s fine and then finds a reason to leave.
I can’t ask anything from her. She doesn’t owe me her company. I bought her at a bride market, which is problematic in itself, and the least I can do is give her room to figure out her new situation before I start wanting things she isn’t ready to give. But it bothers me… this distance between us. I want to reach out to her, but stop myself every time, because her body language and the fear flickering in her blue eyes tell me I need to wait. And wait I will.
She’s gone to the Narrowhalls again. I heard her door open and close, and her light footsteps as she crossed the living room. She’s probably made friends. The Narrowhalls are built to human scale, the Pickaxe is full of laughter, and everyone there is her own size. I can’t blame her for choosing that over the Highhalls, where the ceilings are too tall, and the golems look at her with curious eyes, knowing she’s my new bride and wondering how long she’ll last. They all know about my predicament, so they don’t comment. They would never say anything to her, and when I meet my friends and acquaintances in the Corehalls, we stick to general topics of conversation. Calcification is not something golems like to talk about.
The quiet in my quarters is too much tonight, so I go to Irrva and Jarrvik’s.
Their place is a short walk from mine. Irrva opens the door before I knock, which means she heard me coming down the corridor.
“I was about to send Jarrvik to drag you over,” she says, stepping aside to let me through. “You haven’t visited in over a week.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Busy doing what? Sitting in your workshop staring at your tools?”
She gives me a look, the same one she used to give me when we were children, and I lied to her that I hadn’t eaten the last of the smoked meat.
“Come on. We’re on the balcony.”
The balcony is carved into the mountainside, open to the night. From up here I can see the treetops below us and the sky above, wide and clear, the moon a sickle surrounded by bright stars. Jarrvik is lounging with his feet up on the ledge and a crate of bottles beside his chair. He hands me one of the dark beers from the Narrowhalls without looking up.
“Sit,” he says.
