“I didn’t say anything.”
He let out a hiss, as if he was in pain. He looked like he struggled to speak. “So you were hurting.”
“It’s supposed to hurt.”
“You shouldn't be coddling me, Rowena.” His face was so pale. “I knew when you were trying to insist you could walk. I knew something was wrong. I thought maybe it was warrior’s pride, the kind of poisonous self-reliance we see sometimes in the southern clans. I thought maybe you’d been taught not to speak about pain, or to ask for help. When you moved so quickly, after our wedding, I thought you were just surer than me. It made sense, to have the woman lead. But then you were so alert.” He swallowed. “I never thought about what that would look like. What it would look like to have no one on your side.” He pressed his head back against the tree. “I failed you. And Idon’t know how to apologize for something like this. I thought I would just…never do it.”
"It's not your fault?—"
"Howis this not my fault? Why won't you let yourself be angry with me? Rowena," his voice broke again. "You are allowed to be angry. This is your body. This is your life.”
“Is that what you want?” I whispered.
“Why do you keep asking me what I want?” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Are you still waiting for me to hurt you?”
I made myself wait before answering, test my mind. If I didn't have to, I didn't want to lie. “Not all the time. Not anymore. But that…isn't your fault." He made a sound of disgust, and I pressed on. "You didn’t make my people barbarians. You didn’t…make me a human.” I lowered myself to sit in the leaves. “And you tried to say no. I talked you into claiming me.” I clenched a handful of soil. “You can be angry at me later, when you’re ready."
He didn't open his eyes. "And when will you be ready?"
I wanted to touch him, to comfort him somehow, but he would shrink back from me now. Now, he knew who I was.
"When I'm ready to be angry, it will be at the people who hurt us both." My throat ached. "I didn't know," I said quietly. "About the colored water."
"I know," he said. When he leveraged himself up off the tree, he held out a hand. I took it. He pulled me to my feet beside him. "We'll have time to discuss later. About what you want to do."
Confusion buzzed at my temples. "What do you mean?" He started walking, and I struggled to stay alongside.
"I'm not holding you to a vow made under duress. You can decide…what this means for you, when we're safe." His jaw clenched.
My chest ached. Right. I had to take care of him. "Your mother is already going to be angry with you, isn't she?" I said.
That muscle twitched in his jaw. He shrugged.
"Wouldn't it be easier for you to leave me at Rowton?"
He lurched to a stop. "What?"
"Rowton. The city. I know my way around. It's where I was…before."
He seemed to catch his breath. "If that's…what you want."
A whippoorwill sang.
"Tyralk," I said.
"Right. Of course." He lurched back into motion again, and I followed.
We reached the town as the sun sank.
“Not the main gate. You don’t want to deal with the guard.”
Khal hesitated. “I can identify myself.”
“We don’t have time to deal with it if they take us for criminals or try to get money. It better serves Tyralk if we take the window-gate.”
He followed me on the trek wide around the city to the place where the Old Wall still stood, near where the sewer mouth emptied into the fen. I called the call I’d learned so many years before, and when the rope ladder fell from the high gash window, he followed me up.
Beatta looked much the same, and much different, her body still broad and strong, but now there was silver in her hair, lines by her eyes. Khal’s eyes widened as I pulled out the purse, paid the money for passage.
