The brow lifted, and as I suspected, my hand fell off. It slammed down before lifting again, repeating the movement until Darcke snarled, “Fine!”
I struggled to breathe by the time my body was lifted from the damp wood, and I whimpered as each step he took up the brow sent white-hot pain through my head. Darcke set me down on the deck, and I collapsed instantly, curling into a shivering knot atop the dark wood. My limbs thrummed with a white-hot ache, as if a winter fever had settled into my marrow, and I moaned at thebreeze, which had been warm earlier but that now felt like a glacial squall.
“Why did you come here?” Darcke asked.
I shuddered even as the wood heated, the ship starting a soft tune that reminded me of rushing rivers at home.
“Why. Did you. Come.Here?” he echoed.
More shadows pressed at the corners of my eyes, and I took a shallow breath before managing to get out, “You hate me enough not to try something.”
Then I was swallowed by the dark waves entirely.
Twenty-Three
The rocking of the waves was so comfortable I turned, spinning myself into the fur blanket and burrowing my nose into it. A scent of sea and warm driftwood pricked my nose, and I inhaled happily, feeling rested for the first time since I’d arrived at the Hird.
“Don’t get so fucking comfortable. You’re not staying.”
Darcke’s voice should have made me bolt upright, but I was so warm. And I knew that if I opened my eyes, everything that had happened the past weeks would be real—the choosing would be real. Darcke as my second would be real.
I made my chest move steadily, allowing my breaths to whistle through my nose.
“I know you’re not sleeping. I’ve listened to you all night, and your breathing has changed,” the warrior barked.
“It’s creepy to watch others sleep,” I mumbled.
“I had to make sure you didn’t fucking die, didn’t I?”
I peeked over the fur. Darcke was sitting on the floor, his legs spread out and his back against the beautifully polished wood. “I thought my death would make you infinitely happy.”
His sinister smile hit me square in the chest. “Watching you die like a fish struggling for breath in a fisherman’s hand? No.Killing you myself and silencing that wicked mouth of yours? That would entertain me for a few moments.”
I didn’t know why I laughed.
“You are so strange.” Darcke placed his hands on his corded thighs. “No wonder you don’t have any friends.”
“And you are so rude,” I said as I forced myself to sit, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. “No wonder you can only get the outcast into your bed.”
He rolled his eyes as I nervously curled my toes first, then my fingers. Next I moved my legs, and finally my still slightly aching arms. As I lifted the covers, I held my breath, but where I expected wounds from crawling over the ground were only soft bandages. I stiffened for a second, but my clothing was cut only around the areas that were wrapped in white cloth.
“Did you… did you patch me up?” I asked.
“It wasn’t the damned ship,” he replied as he got to his feet, brushing some dust off his leathers. “I didn’t want to clean the bed.”
“You let me sleep in your bed?”
“She wouldn’t allow anything else.” He tapped the walls of the ship, his face twisted with harsh lines, but as the vessel stirred with life, sending the boarded windows flying open to allow the summer sun inside, there was something soft around his eyes.
“Right,” I said.
I was annoying him. In my state yesterday, I’d betted on his ship allowing me to take refuge on her deck, but I hadn’t expected Darcke A’lian to allow me into his bedroom, or into his bed while he slept on the… floor?
“Did you sleep at all?” I asked.
He always looked tired, the blue beneath his eyes somehow part of him, perfectly shadowing the war paint that was smudged over his eyes and cheekbones, but his hair was messier than usual, and he was in the same clothing he’d been in during the choosing.
“You should go.” Darcke turned his back on me as the sunrose over the sea, sending a warm glow over him that didn’t fit at all with the glowering warrior.
