When I lifted my eyes, finally meeting his gaze, I, too, smiled broadly at him.
At first, he kept his beautiful smile, but then…then he stared. He just stared and stared as if he was gazing into a hollowedface. And then his brows knitted, the expression of shame and disappointment replacing that of beauty and promise.
His hand clamped around mine and he pressed. He pinned me to the desk, his green eyes glowering at me, an ice dagger pressed against my neck as he growled, “You arenotwho you say you are.”
My breath caught and my heart beat just as fast as it had been when I ran for my life earlier.
“I—I’m—”
I jerked awake with a sharp gasp that was followed by heavy panting. Beads of sweat trickled down the sides of my face, down the length of my spine, and I could tell that I was…wet.
“Yeesh, Delia. Was Ithatgood?”
I snapped my head towards Marshen’s bed and winced in embarrassment and discomfort. Unfortunately, he was awake, grinning, his back resting against the headboard.
Just lovely!
“Shut up.”
“You’re going to have to get a little bit more creative with your replies. You’re boring me with all of your lovely shut-ups,” Marshen replied flatly.
I leapt out of bed. I needed to very badly wash myself. And to compose myself. I needed to clear my mind. As I was making my way to the bathing chamber, Marshen said, “Oh, and by the way…you’re bleeding.”
Fuck! So I wasn’t just wet, then. I looked down, then sprinted towards the bathing chamber.
It was very likely that Marshen had watched me come in my sleep, yet what I was about to do felt not only more humiliatingbut also more daunting. Emika was sitting at a small table on the front porch. She was admiring the little blue birds that fed on the crumbs she scattered.
Her brightness glowed as the sun rose in front of her, its rays reflecting off her pale skin. The sight of her was enchanting.
I approached her, two cups of blueberry tea in hand. She turned her head my way and smiled broadly at me. Her blue eyes shone.
This is going to suck.
I had gone through what I would tell her an uncountable number of times, yet I couldn’t remember how I was supposed to start the conversation.
I sat down next to her with pursed lips and finally found the courage to look into her smiling eyes. My own welled up and I tightened the press on my lips. I extended my hand towards her, a gesture to take the velvety green box.
She gasped. “My girl! Has he already given you the ring? Why didn’t you tell me yesterday, and why are you not wearing it?”
Tears started making their way down my cheeks, little sobs escaping my lungs as I watched her confused face.
“I’m so sorry, Emika, I didn’t know it was yours. Aegir and I, we—we are no longer an item. I am not even sure if we ever were. He—he has found someone else, and—and I took the ring. I took it. My intentions were not sincere, I’m sorry. Here, take it back. Take it and give it to him so that he could give it to her.”
It broke my heart, the way her expression hardened. I made this kind, elderly woman who was waiting to join her husband and son in the afterlife feel dismal.
“My girl, I do not know what happened between you two but you are going to give it back to him yourself. I don’t believe that he would want to take it from you. I know my Aegir.”
I stared at her, blinking my tears away, then shook my head.
She took my hand in both of hers, forcing me to clench the green box. Then she pushed my hand towards my belly and said, “Don’t you realise, girl? He claimedyou. Promise me that you’ll talk to him.”
I hated the implications in her words, the sense of false hope that they carried. She seemed so certain, so much so that she did not yank the ring from my hand. She did not curse me and send me away like I thought she would. No, instead she asked me to hold on to it, to keep this thing of such emotional value. What else was I supposed to tell her?
“I promise you, Emika. Again, I’m terribly sorry.” I meant my promise. One day, I would return it to him. Her next words surprised me.
“I forgive you. Honesty is the strongest virtue and you, my girl, you have a good heart.”
I couldn’t understand how she could say that, but the words sounded so familiar, I absorbed them the same way cracking soil absorbs water.
