Winter's Fallen (The Conquest of Kelemir Book 1)

by A. F. Dery

The girl was silent a moment. “I don’t hurt quite as much, I think,” she said slowly. “My head feels a little clearer. I’m not as cold.” Again she paused. “Is that part of a chair in the fireplace?”

  “Nothing wrong with your eyes,” he said. She was silent again, and he wondered if he’d managed to embarrass her. He cleared his throat a little. “I brought something for you to eat, you’ve been some time without food.”

  “I’m not really hungry,” she admitted. “I’m very thirsty though. Do you think…I mean, could I take these bandages off?”

  “I don’t know that they’re necessary, but it felt like your fingers were blistering,” he told her, “so I thought it would be safest. You’ll have to tell me what they look like, all right?”

  “Okay,” she said faintly. She sounded worried, understandably so, he thought. “They still burn, but not as badly as before. Is that a good sign?”

  “I think so,” he said quickly, not wanting her to pass out again before she’d eaten something. He listened to her fumbling with the bandages for a few moments, then reached out his hands awkwardly, palms up. He felt her hands in his a breath later, and he turned them over, carefully unwrapping what he’d done. They shook against his palms.

  “Easy, please be calm,” he said anxiously.

  She let out a low laugh that ended in a cough. “I know this will be hard for you to believe, given how I’ve been since I came here, but I am not normally someone who is anything but calm. It feels like the world has gone mad all of a sudden, or like I’m in some other place that isn’t real.”

  “You’re not dead though,” Hadrian assured her, remembering her first words upon awakening.

  “I’m not dead though,” she repeated back, and the unexpected sadness in her voice made him pause. Was she that miserable right now, or was this something else? He felt his chest tighten.

  “You’re doing better, you have a fighting chance of surviving this,” he ventured awkwardly.

  She said nothing. Hadrian suppressed the frown he could feel curving his mouth. I have no right to pry, I certainly don’t want her prying into my life, he reminded himself, finishing unwrapping her hands. He stood pretending to take extra care in rolling the bandages back up while he imagined she inspected what her hands looked like, listening intently for sounds of impending hysteria.

  At last she said hesitantly, “I’m not sure how to describe them to you. What do you want to know?”

  Hadrian furrowed his brow. “Tell me what they look like…color, how many blisters, is the skin hard or soft…” Awareness dawned on him. “I haven’t always been blind, I’ll understand what you’re saying.”

  “O-oh, well…my fingers are very pale, sort of purplish in places…they don’t feel hard or anything…there are three or four small blisters.”

  “No black anywhere?”

  “No.”

  Hadrian sighed in relief. At last, good news. “I think you’ll be all right. They would have turned dark by now, I think, which means the damage would be irreparable. How do your feet feel?”

  “Better than my hands,” the girl answered. He heard her shifting in the bed. “They’re not black either, or blistered.”

  “You couldn’t have been out there very long before the wolf brought you here,” he told her.

  “I was outside when the snow started, I’m not sure how long I was in it after that, or how long I was passed out exactly, or how far from here…or even where ‘here’ is,” she admitted. “Are we in Haevor?”

  “Haevor?” Hadrian pondered this. “I haven’t heard of it, but that might not mean much. We’re in the easternmost reach of Sartide.”

  “There’s nothing there that would interest you unless you’re a shepherd,” she told him. “We’re a farming village.” She was silent a moment. “May I ask your name?”

  “My name?” Hadrian took an involuntary step away from the bed. “What do you need that for?”

  “I don’t, I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “It’s just…you saved my life, you know. I owe you a debt, when I can get out of this bed. I keep thinking of you as a stranger, but you’ve been keeping me alive since I got here. It doesn’t seem right.”

  “You don’t owe me any debts, girl,” he said sharply. He felt like he’d been slapped. His face burned. If she had any idea who she was saying these words to, she would choke to death on them. “I’m doing what anyone would do, and it remains to be seen whether you’ll even make it out of that bed.”

  “I-I thought you said I was doing better?” she said faintly.

  “I also said you had a fighting chance, that hardly means the battle is won. I know you can see what you’ve been dragged into…” He opened his arms expressively, indicating the room around them. “It surely hasn’t escaped your attention that this place is in ruins. I have next to nothing to give you. You could as easily starve to death here as die from your illness, more easily maybe.”

  “You brought me food,” her voice was fainter still, now scarcely a whisper, but he heard the doubt in it and he felt vindicated by it. At last, she is starting to understand. No more nonsense about life debts and imaginings of heroic strangers.

  “The wolf brought you food, if we are being precise, and there’s no telling how it will go when it’s all been eaten,” he said repressively.

  “You didn’t have to do anything for me, but you did,” she was still whispering, but her voice was insistent. “You could have just left me to die, but you burned your chairs.”

  “Anyone would have,” he was equally insistent, and had to struggle not to raise his voice at this show of obstinacy from her. “Make no mistake, that wolf was your savior here, not me. If you owe any debts, it is to him, not me. I’ve done nothing more than…than…than a wild dog would do if it came across an abandoned pup! You will not be thanking me when there’s no more food to be had, or wood left to be burned. Your only real hope is to get out of here as quickly as possible, and with the weather as it is, that is not much of a hope. Once it starts snowing like this up here, the only pass to the tower can’t be breached. There is no way through until spring, no way to go out, no way for help to come in. I’ve spent five winters out this way, I know of what I speak. Now how do you feel? Still owe me something?”

  The girl was very quiet. Just when he thought she’d surely accepted defeat, she said tremulously, “The chairs didn’t burn themselves, and the wolf didn’t burn them either.”

  Hadrian glowered fiercely in her direction, biting his tongue painfully to stop himself from making a full confession of his crimes, of telling her what kind of filth it was that she was trying to look on in such a positive light. Anything to disabuse her of this…this…madness, this sheer insanity. He stalked from the room before he lost his resolve, only by sheer luck avoiding bashing himself into anything on the way out. It would serve me right if I did, he thought bitterly. She’s well on her way to talking herself into believing me to be some sort of tragic hero. Of all the girls to be dragged here by wolves, it would have to be the village idiot. Maybe I should just tell her, to shut her up and motivate her to get out of here as quickly as she can.

  But he could vividly imagine what her reaction would surely be; he did not really think she was all that stupid. She would panic, possibly try to flee the tower and break her neck on the stairway or freeze to death in the storm he could still hear raging outside. She was in no condition to even attempt to leave, even if the weather would have allowed it, even if she had provisions to aid her, which she did not; she may not have much of a chance with him, but she had no chance at all without him. He would be as guilty of her death as if he had just cut her throat when she’d first arrived, and far less merciful than he would have been if he had.

  He went straight to the workroom (for she was occupying his own bed) and groped his way into a chair, burying his head in his hands. His throat ached suddenly. Guilt was beginning to creep in. He had surely frightened her with the things he had said, he had not meant to let her
know how dire the situation really was until he was left with no other choice. It would do her no good to know this now, to fear the future even more than she already did, left helpless as she was in a strange man’s care. Even a girl from an obscure farming village would not be so naive.

  I’m not a hero and you owe me nothing whatsoever, he wanted very badly to tell her, but I’m not going to hurt you either. I don’t want anyone else to die because of me. I will do whatever I can to keep you alive for as long as I can. I will even stay alive myself, for that long, and you have no idea what that will cost me.

  He fell asleep to the inner monologue of his own remorse.

  Grace drifted in and out of sleep. She had eaten some of the meat she’d been given, just a few bites, and managed the water as well, now that her hands were no longer bandaged. She watched for the stranger when she was awake, and dreamed feverishly about him when she fell back to sleep. She dreamed he never came back. She was growing colder again, although the fire lingered, and her cough soon returned in full force whenever she moved, or tried to sit up, or breathed too deeply. Soon her head again began to ache, and the room swam when she tried to get up.

  She wasn’t sure how long had passed before he returned, only that it could not have been terribly long, because there was still a significant fire in the hearth. She knew she’d made him angry, and she couldn’t imagine what had gotten into her that she had actually argued with him. She had not survived for almost two decades by standing out in any way, and absolutely not by openly disagreeing with anyone.

  It’s the fever, it has to be, she thought blearily. Just the fever. I of all people should understand someone not wanting to distinguish themselves in any way. He doesn’t think what he did means anything, and maybe it really doesn’t. No one will thank him for saving me. Perhaps if he knew, he would not be so upset.

  No, he would be more upset, she realized miserably, for having wasted his furniture and what little food he had, not to mention all the trouble he’d taken on her account, to save someone who had fled like a coward. Her village might well be burning to the ground, even as she laid there in relative safety, because of what she did. If he had left her to die, no one would have blamed him. If he cast her out now, it was the same.

  I should go, she thought suddenly, struggling to sit up again as coughs wracked her body. I should leave now before he wastes anything else on me. It’s not fair to risk his life so that I can live…haven’t I done enough of that to other people?

  “What are you doing?” his voice intruded sharply into her thoughts. She looked up, startled, but the room was spinning, and she only vaguely made him out in the resulting blur, standing next to the bed.

  “Don’t want to kill you,” she mumbled, pressing a hand to her head. It pounded relentlessly. Another fit of coughing overtook her. She managed to focus on him enough to see that he looked perplexed, but he put the cup down carefully on the bedside table and reached a hand out toward her head. She shook it vehemently, despite the pounding. “You don’t have enough as it is, and I’m…not worth saving. I’m sorry.”

  His hand grazed her forehead clumsily. “You’re burning up,” he said in a gentler tone. “You need to drink what I brought. Don’t worry about the things I said before. Worrying isn’t going to help.”

  “Neither is me staying here eating your food,” she pointed out tiredly. “It isn’t your fault that I ended up here.”

  “It’s not yours either, you were very much unconscious when you came,” he said. “Drink.”

  “It isn’t right,” she said weakly, but he had picked up the cup again and was holding it out to her awkwardly.

  “Right or wrong, you need to drink this,” he insisted. “It’s not going to do me any good, or prolong our supplies in any way. It’s already made up. So drink it, or it’s wasted and no one is helped.”

  Grace had to admit, if only to herself, that this made sense. Reluctantly she accepted the cup and downed its contents, which again burned their way down to her belly. The taste somehow managed to be even more bitter than the first one she’d drunk. She managed to clumsily set the cup on the table before she laid back against the pillow again, exhausted.

  “I’d leave if I could,” she told him as firmly as she could. “But I don’t think I’d make it out of the room. If you dragged me though-”

  “I’m not dragging you anywhere,” the man shook his head, sounding slightly affronted by the suggestion.

  “I’m not what you think,” Grace said bluntly. She stared at the fire across the room, unable to look at him while she said what she needed to. The room was beginning to cease its spinning, but her eyes were growing heavier at about the same rate, so she hurried on. “I’m telling you, I’ve done something bad, and you should throw me out.”

  The man was very quiet and still beside her. She risked looking at him, her heart in her throat, but his face was entirely unreadable. Finally he said quietly, “My name is Hadrian.” He stood there and she got the feeling he expected something, a reaction perhaps, but the name was unfamiliar to her.

  “Should I know you?” she asked tentatively.

  Unexpectedly he laughed.

  “I suppose not. Don’t worry about it.” He shook his head. “What shall I call you, then?”

  “I just told you I’ve done something-”

  “Yes, yes, it doesn’t matter to me,” he said, shaking his head again.

  Grace frowned a little. “My name is Grace.”

  “Grace,” he repeated. “I haven’t heard of your foul misdeeds from up here, Grace, but be assured, we’ve all done things we regret.”

  “Not like this,” she said weakly. “I’m sorry I argued with you before…I don’t know why I did that. I never do that. I don’t mean to be ungrateful.”

  “You never argue?” he sounded distinctly skeptical. “Are you sure you’re female?”

  Grace frowned at him in vain. “I don’t normally say much of anything. Nothing much to say and nothing worth upsetting people over.”

  “So there’s nothing you feel strongly about?” Again, his voice was thick with skepticism. His glassy eyes squinted down at her blankly.

  Grace shrugged before she remembered he couldn’t see her. “What is there to feel strongly about? The sheep? The weather?”

  “The tyrannical oppression of your overlord?” Hadrian suggested.

  Grace’s eyebrows shot up. “I thought you’d never heard of Haevor?”

  “I don’t need to have heard of Haevor, it’s enough to know that I haven’t heard of it, and it’s a farming village.”

  “Are you saying all farming villages are like mine?” Grace tried not to yawn, and failed. She couldn’t seem to keep her eyes all the way open now. Her limbs felt warmer, and heavy.

  “Well, aren’t they?” Hadrian’s voice sounded like it was coming from far away now, even though he hadn’t moved.

  She tried to reply that she didn’t know, but it came out as an incoherent mumble. She felt his fingers brush her forehead again, then something cold and damp pressed against it. She shivered.

  “Surely you felt strongly about your family,” he continued. “Or your suitors.”

  She shook her head slightly, the only denial she was presently capable of. Yes, she felt distinctly warmer now, in spite of the cold thing on her forehead.

  “Never argued…well, we will see,” she heard him say, as she fell back into sleep.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Time passed. It was difficult for Grace to judge just how long she had been there. She slipped in and out of sleep at all hours, and now that Hadrian had evidently found the means to make an ample quantity of medicine, she was always drugged now. It calmed her coughing and cooled her fever, but it also made her groggy and sleepy. The blisters on her hands healed, and the skin slowly began to return to normal, the ache fading. The days melted one into another; the snow continued to fall. She could not see out of the window on the other side of the room for its icy coating, but wheneve
r she listened for it, she could hear the wind. It howled like an angry beast, lashing futilely at the stones surrounding them.

  Hadrian was nearly always there when she was awake. He brought the medicine, and continued to bring meat and water. Eventually he’d found some potatoes somewhere, and once he produced something that she thought was supposed to be bread. She crumbled it surreptitiously behind the bed, not overly concerned with the mess given the state of the rest of the room. She never saw him eat or drink anything himself. One day she had asked him about it.

  “I eat,” he’d said. “I don’t have much of an appetite.”

  Grace had surveyed his gaunt form. He was tall, at least from her perspective on the bed, and very thin, his bones pressing clearly against his pale skin. She had wanted to ask why not, but she didn’t want to offend him. Instead she had said, “I just hope you are not going without to feed me….I told you before-”

  “I know what you said,” he had interrupted brusquely. “And you don’t need to worry about that.” He had turned his back to her then, clearly declaring the conversation to be over.

  The rest of the time, he was more or less silent. He would sit in the chair by the window, gazing blankly off at nothing for long stretches seemingly undisturbed, or feed things to the fire. She found herself hoping for both of their sakes that there was quite a bit of furniture in the rest of this place; she’d lost count of the number of chairs that had been hacked to pieces. Even half asleep, she could hear the noise when he started hacking things apart for fuel. The first time she’d been awake for it, she’d been irrationally afraid that someone or something was trying to break in, until he came in carrying what looked like a wooden drawer split in half and shoved it into the hearth.

  From time to time, sitting or standing or feeding the fire, he would mutter to himself as if she wasn’t there; if she made any sound, even just changing position in the bed or letting out an involuntary yawn, he would immediately stop, as if only then remembering she was there.