One of the children knocked something over and Eom turned away to help him set it right. Eiland used the distraction to cover up his shock and couldn’t quite manage the task. To go against the wishes of his parents, let alone the vows made before the gods…
It felt like everything he thought he knew about the world was being pulled down, piece by piece.
Alis pressed Eiland to take seconds and wouldn’t take no for an answer. She was small and plain, but Eiland sensed the steel behind her smile. She and Eom tried to give Charon and Eiland one of the children’s bedrooms to sleep in, too, but they drew the line there. Or, well, Charon drew the line by kicking their bedrolls out in front of the fire then lying down and refusing to move until Eom finally gave up.
It took some time for him and Alis to herd all the children to bed: the house was small and the walls were thin, and Eiland heard children squawking at one another, bickering over pillows and blankets and who had touched who’s ear before one of the older children stepped in to settle the dispute.
Some crawled out the windows to sleep in the branches. Others swung off on the rope bridges to parts unknown. It was a remarkably comforting cacophony. Eiland knew from large families, and the thought made his heart pang in memory.
The house took a long time to settle down but once it did, only the dying pop of the day’s fire interrupted the silence.
Eiland was just about to drift off when Charon whispered, “Are you awake?”
“Mm.” The house creaked, and Eiland didn’t think he entirely imagined that the floor moved a little. “I’ve always wondered what it would be like to live in a tree.”
“How do you like it so far?”
“It’s not bad. I wouldn’t want to be up here in a storm, though.”
Charon huffed his agreement then murmured, “I hope they don’t get in trouble. For letting us—for letting me stay here.”
“I don’t think they care about what the priests think, Charon.”
“Yes, but sometimes that isn’t—if people hate you enough, they’ll always find a way to hurt you.” Charon paused then added, “They make me miss my family.”
Opening his eyes, Eiland stared at the far wall. It hadn’t occurred to him before now that Charon had a family somewhere. Of course he did; everyone had a mother, even bandits, but Eiland had never considered that Charon’s family was off somewhere in the world right now, in their own home in their own village.
He rolled over. Charon stared up at the ceiling, though his eyes flickered when Eiland settled at his shoulder.
“Do you have brothers and sisters?” Eiland asked.
“Sisters. They’re younger.” Affection curled soft in Charon’s voice. “Tessie and Em. They’re…ten and…six? I think? Which means I’m almost ten-and-seven, now.” The thought seemed to surprise him.
“I should have guessed you had younger sisters, the way the girls all like you,” Eiland teased and grinned when Charon rolled his eyes. “Did you teach them to juggle?”
“Crickets, no. Tessie would have hit herself in the head every throw, and Emali would have wanted to juggle torches and wound up burning the house down.”
Eiland laughed then clapped a hand over his mouth when Charon shushed him. He propped himself up on one hand. “You didn’t have any brothers?”
A shadow passed over Charon’s face, visible even in the dark. “My father was the town smith, and I liked that work, so they didn’t think they needed to have more. Mama said that three was enough. The priests didn’t like it, but Mama and Papa never cared much for the priests.”
Charon fell silent. Eiland watched shadows play across the ceiling and wondered if he would have had the courage to go against the priests’ wishes like that, or do what Eom and Alis had done. The way Eom had spoken about love and what he’d wanted—Eiland had no idea what that felt like. He’d never looked at any of the village girls and felt like he’d give up his family and his home for them. He’d never felt that strongly about anything.
Charon began to whisper again. “There was this boy, Tanivi, he lived in the village. He’d come and stay with us sometimes. A lot of the time. He was like my brother, I suppose.”
“Did he not have his own family?”
“His father had done something. I don’t remember what, but he’d shamed himself somehow and no one would give Tanivi a bed but us. Mama and Papa used to tell him that so long as he lived there, the gods would think that he really was ours and they wouldn’t strike our house for not having enough children. I think they just wanted him to stay, though. He didn’t have anywhere else.
“We’d share, the two of us. Tanivi and I. Like this, sort of.” He gestured at how the two of them were lying together on the floor. “When there were storms he couldn’t sleep, and I’d make him tell me stories until we both fell asleep.”
Charon stopped, drew in a deep breath, licked his lips, and whispered, “I think—I think I loved him. Not as my brother. Even if I hadn’t been Cursed I probably wouldn’t ever have—but I did. I loved him.”
Wind pushed at the side of the house and the floor shifted again. Eiland’s innards rolled with it, a queasy shiver of strings. “What happened?”
“After I got Cursed, the priests said that it was Mama and Papa’s fault for not bearing more children, and Tanivi for going where he didn’t belong. So now the gods were taking away their only real son as punishment. Mama and Papa didn’t listen but Tanivi—one day he just disappeared, and he never came b-back.”
Charon’s voice stuttered. It was so full of pain, worse than the worst of his Agonies.
“Charon,” Eiland whispered, reaching out, not thinking of anything except to make it better. He rested his palm over Charon’s breastbone then lifted it to slide over his cheek, cupping the side of his face.
Charon’s eyes pinched, and he rolled closer. He was bigger than Eiland, but the way he tucked his face tucked into the crown of Eiland’s head made him seem smaller. Their knees bumped together.
Eiland curled his arm over Charon’s back. “Charon, how were you Cursed?”
“Don’t,” Charon choked softly, miserably. “Eiland. Don’t ask me about that.”
Eiland bit his lips, harder and harder until he had to let go or draw blood. He touched the nape of Charon’s neck and ran a palm over his shaggy head, but he couldn’t make his own muscles relax. Part of him wanted to give words of comfort, to draw Charon out of whatever awful memory had clutched him; but Eiland missed his own family, too, and the person who had caused that absence was shaking apart under his hands.
So he said nothing, and he didn’t move away. They fell asleep like that.
Eiland woke with his face pressed into Charon’s neck, his fingers wound in Charon’s hair, and their legs tangled together.
Eiland let his breath out slowly. Underneath his cheek, Charon snuffled a little but didn’t wake. Eiland had always been a cuddler in his sleep; his brothers used to fight over who had to share with him, saying that he near crawled down their throats every night. Given all the nights he and Charon had slept side by side, Eiland should probably be grateful this hadn’t happened before.
When he started to disentangle himself Charon made another sleepy noise, except this one was closer to a moan.
Eiland froze. Charon shifted in a strange way, his stomach muscles tightening under Eiland’s arm and his hips pressing up just the barest amount. Eiland’s breath stuttered in his throat.
He stayed still—but Charon only resettled and resumed the deep breathing of sleep. Pulling back and turning his head a scarce few inches, Eiland looked down at him. Charon’s face was turned slightly away; his pale eyelashes rested on his cheeks, and he breathed slow and steady.
The sun had brought out his freckles. It’d brought out his scars too. They branched along his neck, snaking over his jaw. Looking back Eiland couldn’t believe that he hadn’t noticed the signs when he and Charon had first met in the orchard.
It felt so long ago. Yet the same fe
eling rose up in Eiland, as if he were trembling on the edge of something that he should not know.
And oh, how he wanted to.
Charon breathed deep and even. He is pretty, Eiland thought. Charon was very lovely in an uncommon way. Even if he had grown up alongside Eiland in Summerton, Charon would have been…different, somehow. Something about him drew the eye.
At least, he would have drawn Eiland’s eye.
Eiland breathed out through his nose. He’d watched the village livestock and heard the whispered gossip of his older brothers after they’d snuck off with one of the farmers’ daughters. He knew, too, that there were things that two men or two women could do together, if only from the priests’ stern yet vague prohibitions against such unnatural acts.
Suddenly Eiland wished they had gone into a little more detail.
Moving so, so slowly and not daring to so much as breathe, he leaned down until his mouth hovered just above Charon’s.
Charon started to snore. They were pressed together from their knees to their shoulders and every movement, even the steady rise and fall of Charon’s chest, made the tight feeling low in Eiland’s belly even tighter.
This is what it would be like, Eiland thought, the knowledge coming too fast to escape. This is what it would be like to sleep beside someone, in a marriage bed.
Beside a man. In a marriage bed.
Eiland tore away, rolling off of Charon and all the way over to lie on his side. Even as he did so he felt Charon jerk, as if waking.
Eiland settled with his back to Charon, his heart racing. He could feel the beat drumming low, low. Behind him, Charon breathed unevenly.
The house creaked again, shifting on its delicate perch.
“Eiland?” Charon whispered, sleep-soft and uncertain.
Eiland didn’t answer, and Charon didn’t ask again. They lay side by side in silence until Eom shuffled into the kitchen and set a pot on the fire for the morning porridge.
Chapter Thirteen
They slipped out of Hador in the early morning heading north-northwest, wary of pursuit and loaded with as much food as Eom and Alis could persuade them to take.
That proved to be as much a burden as a blessing: the ground grew steeper as they went, such that their necks ran with sweat even in the cooler air.
It was only when they reached a clearing and Eiland paused to look over his shoulder that he realized how high they had already climbed: he could see out across the whole valley. The haze of midsummer hung over its length, but he could still make out the great river and distantly, the line of the ridge that led back to Summerton.
It was hard to believe they’d traveled so far. In the plains, yes, the days and miles had slogged by like a finger grinding in its joint. But it still surprised Eiland to realize that a full turn of the moon had passed since they’d left Summerton.
When he shared this realization, Charon looked at him sideways. “Are you sorry you came?”
Eiland, who had lowered his gaze to the ground in front of his feet, kept it there as he walked. He had no idea how to respond. Was he sorry that he had seen all the things he had? Was he sorry that he hadn’t let Charon Curse either of his parents rather than come along? Was he sorry that he now knew what he knew about himself?
A quiet peace had grown between them, born of necessity and Eiland’s compulsion to heal, but Eiland didn’t know how honest he could actually be with Charon.
Eventually he said, “I never knew the world was so big.”
It was not an answer, but Charon didn’t press him for more.
They stopped for their midday meal in a clearing filled with jutting rocks. Several boulders had broken free of the stony outcroppings and rolled down the hill. Eiland and Charon perched on top of one, their food spread out in their laps and their eyes on the panorama before them. From this distance the great river that had taken them an hour to cross looked nothing more than a stream, winding across the valley.
Eiland found his eyes straying again and again to the ridge back to Summerton. It was so abrupt, cutting straight across the horizon, that from here it looked like the edge of the world—like if he walked back that way, he’d fall off the side into nothingness.
“It’s beautiful.”
“Yeah. I could probably stand to live up here.” Charon lifted his head and squinted up at the sun as he chewed. He had the faint dustings of a beard, Eiland realized, some thin strokes of manhood creeping along his jaw. “If I had a cabin, maybe. I don’t know how to build a cabin, but if there was one up here, I could live in it.”
He sounded almost as if he were trying to convince himself. Eiland thought of the nights when he had felt Charon curl close to him, starved for touch, and knew that Charon could never live alone.
Instead of commenting on that he asked, “How long do you think you have?”
Charon frowned at him. “What do you mean?”
It seemed too awful to say outright. Eiland looked down at his hands. “I mean—how long have you been sick?”
“A long time,” Charon answered, and the ache in his voice made Eiland believe him. But then he added, “You know it doesn’t kill us, don’t you? The Curse doesn’t kill us.”
Eiland blinked down at his hands then at Charon. They stared at one another.
“The Curse always kills.” Eiland didn’t even remember who had told him that or why he’d believed it all this time.
“No.” Charon’s eyes were hard and flat and blue again, like the surface of a pond in winter. “We die of hunger and thirst and cold and hot, and wild animals, and people. The Curse doesn’t kill, Eiland. It hurts and it makes us weak, but on its own it doesn’t kill us.”
Eiland wet his lips. Another brick of the wall in his head wobbled free and fell. “So you could live? Up here or—somewhere else?”
Charon studied his face, a small frown line lingering between his brows. “Well,” he said slowly, “I could never live in a village. It’d be too dangerous, if I had an Agony and the wrong person was around. But if I had a home like the one we’re going to, right now.”
His voice quickened its pace until he was speaking with a strange urgency. “You’ll see what I mean when we get there, Eiland, but I definitely could live there. It’d—the Curse would never go away, but you’ve made things a lot better. I could live as long as a normal person. I could live a long time, yet.”
His gaze was intent, searching Eiland’s face. For what, Eiland didn’t know—or he was just afraid to admit that he knew.
Slurping the last of his soup, he stood and lifted the empty pot as well. Charon was still looking at him. “I’m glad you’re not going to die,” Eiland said finally before turning away.
He carried the pot to one of the creeks that tumbled down the hillside. As he cleaned it his head swirled with disjointed thoughts: herbs for Charon’s nausea, if they had enough time for him to lay out a few more snares, if he needed to make a warmer cloak from the skins. What Charon had said about the sickness—how it never actually killed them. Did that mean it wasn’t an act of the gods? Why, then, had so many people died like that, out here in the wilderness, starved or sick or ravaged by the world?
If the gods were not to blame for that then who was?
He found no answers in the sun-dappled water. Eiland shook water droplets from the pot’s surface, wiped it off on his trouser leg, and marched back to rejoin Charon.
* * *
Sometime during the night Charon shook him awake. “Eiland, look.”
He pointed upwards, at the sky. Eiland groggily lifted his face and gasped.
Something strange moved above them: rivers of light that twisted and danced. It almost looked like dawn, yet stars shown bright in the rest of the sky—and these colors were like no dawn he had ever seen. They were shades that he had no name for, all tangled together in great plumes that stretched above him.
“What is it? What’s happening?” Eiland cried.
“Shhhh, it’s all right.” Charon’s hand l
anded on his forearm then fumbled down to touch his wrist. Eiland caught his hand, gripping it close. Charon tensed then slowly spread his fingers, letting their hands tangle together. “It’s just the Southern Starfire. I’ve seen it before. It can’t hurt you, I promise.”
“But what is it?”
“I don’t know exactly. I met a sailor in town once who had been down past the Horn and he said that in the South it fills up the whole sky. Like a green and gold day at night. The other sailors thought it was the gods’ looking glass.” He paused, and Eiland could sense rather than see Charon peering at him in the dark. “Have you never seen it before?”
“No.” The glowing lights in the sky felt far too close for comfort, and in his unease Eiland huddled close to Charon.
Charon fell silent for a long moment then murmured, “It’s because we’re up so high. That’s why we can see them.”
The lights went on and on, ebbing and growing for hours. It was beautiful and terrifying. At one point a great shaft of white light edged with blue speared out across the sky right over their heads and Eiland gripped Charon’s hand tight.
Charon squeezed back, and Eiland tucked against his body, letting his head rest on Charon’s shoulder.
They watched the lights until dawn poured over the edge of the horizon and hid them from view.
* * *
They moved steadily uphill. The trees, though not as big as the ones in Hador, grew thick; from their bare trunks and the sparse vegetation around them, Eiland could tell that in wintertime this whole area would be filled with snow.
Eiland bent forward as he walked, putting his hands on the tops of his knees and pushing down with every step. Ahead of him, Charon’s breath was short and hard in his throat. Eiland suggested several times that they should stop so that he could rest, but Charon only gasped back, “We’re close.”
He kept saying that until he stopped abruptly. “We’re here.”
They stood on the edge of a small clearing. Away up the hill was a house, a huge one; a manor, even, three floors high and sprawling. Eiland had never seen such a house. It almost looked like it belonged to a lord of court, except for how much of it had fallen into disrepair. The walls of the southern wing had been scrubbed and its front porch kept free of vines, but the window shutters on the northern wing hung by their hinges, drooping like sad eyes. It gave the structure a lopsided appearance.
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