by R. Cooper
Intimidating? Delf wanted to ask her. Spiky? Shy? There were so many words to describe Prityal that Delf was hard-pressed to pick one. “Selective?” she offered at last.
“Devoted,” Prityal went on at the exact same moment. She glanced up. “Selective?” She nodded quickly, decisively. “Yes. When I was training, it was different. But now it’s awkward, with the others. The newer ones in particular.”
Delf did not frown at the thought of Prityal being approached by worshipful squires, or at the thought of Prityal attempting some sort of flirtation with someone else only to become frustrated with her lack of experience. What made her frown was the idea of Prityal alone when she did not wish to be.
“The consequences of being a legend,” Delf murmured aloud. Some people wanted others to worship them, in bed and often out of it. Prityal might not know that, though the priests of Aji could have told her—or shown her. But that did not seem to be an interest of Prityal’s. Prityal had been at pains to make it clear to Delf that she was human, not a name in a story. “I begin to understand the difficulty,” Delf added, and meant it.
Prityal searched her expression, then sighed. “I’m sensitive about it, I know. Ran says so, often. It prevents me from…” She studied Delf’s face again, then frowned. A real frown, not a pout. “I cannot approach someone if they regard me as someone to be followed.”
Delf was not going to think of who Prityal wanted to approach. “Let others approach you, then,” she suggested, though her throat became tight and her mouth went dry.
Prityal pursed her lips, once again dissatisfied with something—someone—enough to sulk. “They do not. I think they see me as distant. Untouchable.”
“You’re touchable,” Delf whispered, a throbbing in her arm and heat in her face.
Prityal looked directly at her. It was like their eyes meeting across the feasting hall and hearing Prityal say her name when Delf had not been sure she’d known it.
She had, it seemed, and the knowledge was torturous.
Delf was the first to glance away.
Prityal began winding the bandage around the wound that had probably long since stopped bleeding.
“Perhaps we should have gone back. Found one of the other ways through the woods,” Delf commented when the quiet seem to go on.
“Maybe this was a good sign. We could also look at it that way.” Prityal tied a knot, then another, leaving the ends of the bandage to flutter down over Delf’s bicep. “Delflenor, who plays with foxes, and was rewarded for it.”
“Always hope with you, never despair.” Delf could not take her eyes from the bandage, the trailing white cloth nearly the same color as the plain surcoat Prityal always wore. If she had been in the contests, if she had the right to touch Prityal, she might wear Prityal’s colors in just this way. “But perhaps hope is what we need,” she added, and put a hand over the knot at the center of the bandage. “Thank you.”
SHE CLAIMED the slight pain in her arm was enough to keep her awake, and requested Prityal sleep first. She wondered if Prityal was actually sleeping over there on her bedroll so close to the fire. Delf was vaguely aware of the cold, but it had never bothered her the way it seemed to bother Prityal.
Unexpectedly delicate, their hero. Delf wanted her to stay that way. Wanted to keep her soft in surprising places and admire her strength the rest of the time. She always wanted that. Finding more of the soft places had only made the desire grow.
She kept her sore arm crossed over her chest, Prityal’s colors of plain white just out of view. She laid on her back to stare up at the handful of stars she could make out through the treetops. She heard no more chattering or barking from strange foxes.
Instead, Prityal let out a small snore, and Delf smiled for the first time in hours before angling her head to consider the Prityal-shaped lump beneath the brown cloak.
As far as Delf knew, only Ranalaut and Jareth had been given what she had been blessed with tonight. It might have been the situation, their proximity on this pointless quest in the middle of the struggle for Ainle’s future. It might have been because Delf had once seen Prityal with tears in her eyes. None of that mattered. Prityal had chosen to be vulnerable with her. Trusted her with that. Despite everything.
You are beautiful, Delf considered telling her. I failed you. The words were heavy in her chest.
She had always hoped Prityal had been drunk too, and didn’t remember those moments in the dark outside the feasting hall.
Delf barely remembered them. The knights had been celebrating Jolin’s baby. Celebrations were rare in these times, so the mood in the barracks had been lighter than air, brighter than sunrise. As if the joy had traveled throughout the entire Seat, one of the innkeepers had brought them cask upon cask of wine and ale. More than one mighty knight had been fast asleep in their chairs, empty cups in their laps, before the sun had gone down.
Restless and wandering, Delf had stumbled outside to the courtyard to cool off. There, her attention had been caught, as it always was, by the figure standing alone against one of the walls, lit only by a few distant torches.
Prityal, without armor, in her stark white surcoat, held a cup. She smiled when she saw Delf.
Delf crossed the courtyard to her on heavy limbs and light feet. The wall was cold against her palm when she put her weight on it to lean into the warm space in front of Prityal. The cup fell to the ground. Prityal’s smile was breathless, an excited, pretty thing.
Delf loved her. Her round nose and her tiny scar and her strong, trembling hands fitting themselves to Delf’s waist. Delf loved the shivers that followed the brush of her lips against Prityal’s neck, and the catch in Prityal’s breathing when Delf kissed beneath her ear, and the hungry, sharp tug that brought their bodies flush.
Her hand cupped Prityal’s cheek. Her lips were on Prityal’s lips, drawing sounds that made Prityal’s cheek burn under her palm. Prityal was so hot, body and breath. Delf kissed her for each flex of the fingers at her waist, pulling, pulling, until Delf had a thigh between Prityal’s and was pressed in close. The kisses were messier, her attention on the demands Prityal made with just her grasping hands and the whines in the back of her throat. But she met them, kissing her harder, slipping her fingers beneath simple white cloth to wrap around a sturdy belt, unbuckling that easily although she was shaking too. Undone by the feel of coarse hair and soft skin, and the sound of Prityal crying out.
Delf tore herself from the memory, though it was more dream than anything else. She had wanted to think that for a long time after, that she had dreamed it, except that she could recall almost too clearly the sound of Prityal’s friends looking for her, calling out from across the courtyard while Delf had stood there, staring at Prityal in shock. She had not expected Prityal to want her that much.
Prityal would not thank her in the morning if anyone had found them. That is what Delf had thought in that moment, withdrawing her hand, trailing helpless, apologetic kisses over Prityal’s hammermarks and across her stunned mouth.
No pout, though Delf would have deserved one.
“Perhaps this is not done best with drunk hands,” Delf had told her. She had not been asking for more later. Hope had existed, but she was not surprised when many morning-afters had followed and Prityal had not approached her.
She’d wanted to believe Prityal had been too drunk and had forgotten. She hadn’t liked to think of how Prityal had drawn herself up at Delf’s words, how she had not spoken in return.
Now, Delf had to live with the knowledge that Prityal would never have approached her because Prityal did not know how, and did not believe she could show weakness in front of others. She must have been relieved when someone of somewhat equal age and rank to her had made the first move. She might have welcomed Delf for the night. Delf could have been content with that.
Delf exhaled a breath so deep it left her weary.
Hidden beneath her cloak, Prityal shivered and curled further into a ball.
Delf t
railed her fingers through the ends of the bandage and thought of laughter and the bruising press of Prityal’s fingers pulling Delf closer.
No matter what Prityal, or the Three themselves, asked of her, she would not fail Prityal again.
That was an arrogant and foolish vow to make. Delf was nothing to the spirits of land, sky, and water, was barely anything to Prityal. A mere lower-tier knight with middling skills and a love of wine.
But she would not. That was her place, and she would serve in it, if Prityal and the Three found her acceptable.
Five
under the stars
DELF DILIGENTLY woke Prityal for her turn at watch the way Prityal would expect her to. And in the morning, she doused the fire and handed over some rations to a bleary-eyed Prityal and left her to clean up and ready herself. She didn’t speak of anything more than food or icors or weather until they were well on their way and Prityal’s shoulders had relaxed to something more normal. She wasn’t the only person ever to spend the hours of night regretting everything they had confessed the evening before. Delf stayed tactfully silent.
The hole Delf had tripped into was deep, but not wide, and easily avoided in early morning daylight. She cast a look about for the fox, but the creature was likely long gone.
More mindful of the danger in traveling a path so rarely used, she and Prityal moved slowly, walking the icors, testing piles of leaves and displaced earth before walking on them. It was sobering, though the mood grew lighter as the air itself seemed to brighten.
The trees were thinning, Delf realized. The path had turned to lead them out of the woods.
They might have left this path, continued through the dense forest, but they didn’t even exchange a glance in question as they went on. To the west of this part of the woods was open sky and level fields stretching to the horizon.
Prityal sighed in relief the moment open, gray skies were above them.
She’d lowered her hood and closed her eyes to bask in the autumn light and the sweet breeze, but she turned to look at Delf before Delf could pretend she had not been staring. Delf didn’t know how she would compare, wild hair and slashed doublet, her breeches still dirtied from her fall, but they shared a smile.
Prityal gave her a grin that was almost careless. “I suppose we look a disgrace.”
“You don’t smell me, I won’t smell you,” Delf promised. Hopefully, they found a farmhouse or a settlement big enough for a warm-water bathhouse. But at this point, she would take a towel and a basin of cold water and be happy.
They mounted their icors again and carried on through the fields, keeping to the lanes between the ploughing. It was an encouraging sign that they were closer to their destination, and that all was at least well enough to go on with harvest and the preparations for winter.
The whisper of hope that this quest had been unnecessary all along disappeared as the day wore on, and the fields around became progressively less tended. Delf held her tongue for a while, not certain if Prityal, who had been an innkeeper’s child in Ters and had spent her entire life in one town or another without showing any interest in the land, noticed that something was wrong.
Delf was not even certain. The wheat had been harvested and presumably taken to be processed. But after the first few fields, nothing else had been ploughed to ready for the winter crops. Some of the fields might have been intended to lie fallow. But there were no workers to ask.
They saw several figures in the distance, once, against the backdrop of the slowly setting sun. But though she and Prityal waved in greeting, the workers packed up and headed in another direction when they got too close.
The workers should have recognized the icors, ought to have been curious about new knights in their territory, or welcoming to travelers, or, worse but understandable, fearful of raiders. Leaving without even a salute felt odd, like a snub, or avoidance, like the way Ange hurried away from the stalls of perfume sellers… or how those who wished to stay out of cheve business kept a great distance between themselves and their supposed leaders.
Prityal’s humming stopped. It did not resume until they stopped in the middle of fields that showed signs of someone harvesting the wheat stubble for livestock feed.
Sometime before, they had passed a small line of trees, all them overflowing with unpicked, tart apples. Plenty had been left to fall to the ground, and the goat and the icors were pleased with what Delf gathered for them.
She and Prityal would have to change direction to find a settlement, it seemed. In the meantime, one more night under the stars.
With no wood readily available, there would be no fire. Prityal announced it flatly, setting up camp by what sunlight remained. They ate while waiting for the moon’s rise.
“I’d consider begging for a hot meal right now,” Prityal said after a long silence between them. She stared down at a hunk of bread, then tossed it to the goat. Delf handed her one of the tart apples, which Prityal bit into and then ate enough to keep Delf from protesting before she tossed the core to the goat, too. Prityal wrapped her cloak around herself when she was finished, as if that would do anything as the night grew colder and the winds sharper without any trees to break them.
She was not going to ask for help. Delf already knew that. The Ladylord of Pain had it out for Delf, perhaps because Delf had so often asked for some in the past. She was getting her full measure now.
Nonetheless, Delf offered her thanks, and breathed in deep before she spoke.
“Because you are not untouchable,” she began carefully, and felt more than saw how quickly Prityal turned toward her, “I will ask if you would like to sleep together tonight.” She returned the look only when she got no answer. Prityal had one hand on her hood but hadn’t lowered it. She seemed frozen. Delf quickly amended her statement before Prityal could misconstrue her intentions. “There is nothing to block the wind out here. We have no fire. You are already cold. I am already cold. We could lie next to each other for warmth. Use your bedroll as it was intended, use mine as a blanket.” She could almost hear the vixen’s laughter in the quiet that followed. “If the notion offends, you don’t need to worry. I won’t be bothered by a no. There are many who do not like touching, or do not like touching everyone. You barely know me. I’d understand.”
“I know you well enough.” It burst out of Prityal with surprising force. “I am not offended. I was surprised.”
Delf frowned at her, though in the dim light, Prityal might not see much of it. “You are human,” Delf answered in confusion. “You shiver in the cold and get goosebumps, the same as anyone.”
“I know. But I thought…” Prityal’s voice grew softer, then hardened with determination. “Yes.” She stopped Delf with one word. Delf sat there, shocked into silence though it had been her suggestion. “All right.” Decided, Prityal stood up to ready herself for sleep. She stretched, and lowered the hood on her cloak to finger-comb her curls before she turned to Delf expectantly. “Whenever you are ready.”
Delf blankly waved toward Prityal’s bedroll, and Prityal sat, then, just a touch stiffly, lay down. Delf’s scramble onto her knees was not graceful, but she eventually got up to shake out her bedroll, and then carried it with her to Prityal’s… where they would huddle close together.
Delf had made her vow and then tested herself the very first day.
“I can sit up.” She made the offer while arranging herself at Prityal’s side. On her back, most of her would be in the dirt; Prityal’s roll was slim. “Stay awake first.”
She made the mistake of glancing down. Prityal was lying on her back and staring up at her, curls across her forehead, eyes wide.
“If you want.” She whispered it and Delf did not question why. “But if there is no one to plough the fields, there is no one to come upon us in the night, either. No bears or wolves to worry about here. We are both exhausted. Why not be warm and sleep well, if we can?”
“Sleep well,” Delf echoed faintly to herself, but nodded because Prityal
expected an answer. She tugged her bedroll over the two of them and then lay down, half her body in the dirt as she had expected.
Prityal’s hand was close to hers beneath their makeshift blanket. Delf did not think of it, and looked up at the few stars visible through the shifting, wispy clouds. “At least it will not rain.”
Their shoulders brushed when Prityal wriggled in an attempt to get comfortable. Then their arms. Delf sighed.
“All I can smell is the dirt beneath us and the general scent of the icors,” Prityal confessed. Delf supposed she was embarrassed. “I’m sorry if you can smell more.”
Delf made a show of dragging in a deep breath. “You smell of new sweat, and old sweat, and icor, and apple. So do I. Maybe it should rain. Give us a bath.”
“Don’t joke about it,” Prityal warned, but her tone seemed freer than it had been.
“My jokes have a use sometimes,” Delf returned playfully. It was beginning to grow warmer beneath her bedroll. She hoped Prityal could feel it. Tiny shivers carried through her arm to Delf, though Prityal did not acknowledge them.
A few clouds passed overhead before Prityal decided to speak again. “Are you comfortable? I won’t have you suffer for me.”
Delf was not suffering, not in the way Prityal meant. But she would be honest. “I have been more comfortable, in my life.”
“I can lie on my side,” Prityal suggested. “I usually do, and it would give you more room.” She turned without waiting for a reply, bending her knees a little, her back a curve. Delf stared at the bunched fabric of her hood, the visible patch of her skin, and curled toward her in a daze.
She crossed her arms awkwardly over her chest, and was careful not to touch, but her first exhale raised goosebumps on Prityal’s skin.
“If I should have a nightmare again?” Prityal asked, shuddering with either the sudden warmth of a body behind her or the tickle of Delf’s breath on her neck.
“I’ll be careful.” Delf tried to be soothing. “You think I’ve never lain with another knight?”