79. Time

Alric left with a touch of his brow on my own.

I was as a statue, unable to feel or move or think.

The din of a festive city eventually pulled me from the perfection of my husband’s kiss.

I looked around, hoping to see someone I knew.

I saw no one and decided to walk home, hoping the cold night would clear my head.

I wanted to be in that room when he entered it.

“Edie,”

said Helena, from nearby, touching my elbow, standing at my side.

I had not realized she was close.

“I have to get back to the keep,”

I mumbled as she leaned into me.

“So you can bed your husband?”

I put my hand over my mouth. “Yes,”

I said, my voice high and breaking.

“Gods, what is the matter?”

she asked.

“I thought— I thought you would be happy.

Caleb and I saw the two of you and, Edie, you were enraptured.

Both of you.

By each other.”

“Get me out of here,”

I begged her, my eyes shut.

I had already passionately kissed and petted in this place.

I would not publicly weep here as well.

She pushed us through the crowd and out into the street, where while the throng was even larger, the sky above absorbed more of the chatter and song, allowing for me to think.

“What is it, kindred?”

she asked as we stood amidst Brother Air’s carnival holiday.

“I love him,”

I choked out.

“And he, you.

Why do you cry?”

I could not tell her I had heard The Knelling and that my days were numbered.

So I said, “He gave his heart to the Lady Vinia already.

I am a consolation prize.”

“Over half of his life ago.

Is that why you are upset? I doubt he still—”

“I’m scared,”

I cried.

“This is so much all at once and I am scared, Helena.”

She said nothing and stood beside me, her left hand holding my right.

Then she said, “Caleb believes the captain loves you.

He has known Alric longer than Vinia.

Since Alric was twenty and Caleb thinks he was twenty.

He does not now his true age.”

“He does not know his age?”

I then remembered Cian’s story about the sergeant.

Her voice laced with privacy, she answered, “He was kidnapped by Helmsmen and raised with them until what he guesses is his eleventh winter.

Then he ran away and found a unit of Tintar infantry and they took him back to Pikestully and he was put into an orphanage.

After his majority, he used his air penchant to rob houses before he joined the army.”

I let out a gurgled laugh.

“I cannot believe you are betrothed to a former thief, who swears and drinks heartily and tries to swive you outside his bedroom.”

Before she could say anything, I said, “I cannot think he took you to the top landing in the turret just for the view.”

She removed her hand from mine and put her face in it and her other hand.

“Who knows?”

“Just me.

And Alric.

It sounded like you were enjoying yourself.”

She pulled her hands away and where I expected to see embarrassment, I saw tenderness.

“I am happy,”

she sighed.

“I am scared too.

It is, as you said, so much all at once.”

“You love him?”

“The man is flawed through and through and yet, when I look for fault, I find none.”

“I like him.

I pray he is worthy of you.”

She put her hand over her chest.

“Not only me but Maureen.

You would think a girl of seventeen would not need a father anymore, what could he offer her other than a dowry? But he has mixed her pitch for her in the throne room and listened to her go on about how to paint.

He is teaching her to ride, because she said she wanted to learn.

I cannot believe my child will have a last chance at a father before her womanhood.”

I had observed none of this in recent weeks, consumed by my despair and desire.

“Do not make me cry any further tonight.

I have regained control now.”

We stood, our cloaks drawn tightly up to our chins, smiling at each other in the way only kin can, heads tilted towards each other.

“Go home and make love to your husband,”

she urged.

“Caleb told me to stay here.

He was called away too, but said he would return to collect me.”

“Thatcher really thinks Alric loves me? What did he say exactly?”

She stamped her feet a little.

“Just that he knows Alric loves you, nothing further.

Of course, he started to laugh and said Perch owed him.

Apparently, they bet whether or not Alric would try his luck by either The Turn of Trees or The Thawing.

Caleb said the man was going mad and it had to be sooner rather later.

Perch said Alric would need to be ice cold before he sought warmth.

Then I chided him for such a bet.

Mischa is right, they really are savages.”

“Go back inside,”

I said, nudging her.

“You’re too thin to be out.

I have flesh on my bones for winter.

You slender thing, you need fireplaces.”

I left her and walked back up to the keep, the air stinging my swollen lips and wet cheeks.

I shielded my face from the celebratory Pikestullians as I passed through crowds, wanting no one to see the state of me.

I was in two places, one of ecstasy and one of agony.

I was going to lie with my beloved husband tonight and I was going to die sometime soon.

“Is this what I get?”

I snarled into the night.

“A life of rejection and then a life of hard work and then this death? Did I not suffer enough with my family and Thrush? Did I not work hard enough in Eccleston to build a life for myself? Did I not rally us all together to survive an abduction? Did I not try to worship you and be a good daughter? Why? Why do you speak to me? Why the Knelling? Give me time.

I beg for it.

Give me—”

I could not breathe.

I had found an alleyway and I stood in it, leaning against the stone of a building and looking up into a violet sky with only a speckling of stars for light.

I was out of the city center now, away from the holiday.

Echoes of music and people felt far away.

“Give me three moons.”

I glared up at the night.

I was used to praying upward as Rodwin’s face had been seen in the clouds by historic Perpatanians and recorded as a holy sighting.

As a result, I had grown up praying this way and I realized the goddess was likely in everything, the stone I leaned against, the ground beneath my feet.

It did not matter what direction I faced.

“I claim them.

I claim the next three moons as mine and my man’s.

You will give me this.

You will give me this gift, for I have had so much loss.

I claim it.

I want my time with him.

Take me when it is over, but grant me this.”

She said nothing and then, in her scratchy hag’s tone, she said, so will it be, girl.

But they will come for you.

They will come.

“Then let them,”

I declared.

“Let them come.

I know not of them, but let them come.

I will go willingly once I have had my— my happiness.”

I wiped my face and made my way home.

Once in our room, I lit a candle and drank a cup of water, trying to sober myself from drink and lightleaf.

I stood at one of the windows, peeking out over the city and I resolved to bask in the warmth of my marriage as long as I could, to drink every drop of this love, to feast on it to the bone and suck on the marrow.

I would die with satisfaction.

And with this resolution, I relived those kisses I had just tasted on my lips.

I felt his hands on my back, my cheeks, my head.

I reveled in his confessions.

If thought and deed were the same, then I have kissed you already, Edith.

Countless kisses.

I have prayed for your kiss, wife.

Never say you are sorry for touching me.

He had given me so much, a man who showed so little of himself, who spoke seldom of himself, a private man.

He had kissed me in a public place with passion and mastery and ownership.

He wanted me for his bride.

I brought my fingers to my lips, where he had branded me as his.

“I’m sorry,”

I said to the night sky through the slit on the side of the window skins.

“I’m sorry.

I know you cannot change fate.

I’m so sorry.”

I swore I saw a star dim before her voice came to me.

I know.

I too weep at what comes.

“I love you,”

I said.

“You have healed wounds I did not know still bled.”

And you have brought me jubilation, girl.