I grab his face. Make him look at me.
“Stay with me,” I say.
His eyes lock on mine. Open. Wrecked.
“Minän,” he says. His voice cracks. “Minän. Minän.”
His hips stutter. My body clenches. I feel the crest hit and I don't go quiet this time. His name comes out of me, rough and loud, and his arms crush me against his chest and he follows me over and his roar fills the hall and the stone walls take it and send it back and the fire flares white-hot and settles.
He stays inside me. Neither of us moves to separate.
His arms around me. My face against his neck. His heart hammering. Mine hammering. Both of us shaking.
After a long time, he stands. Lifts me with him, still holding me against his chest, to the platform. Lays me down in the furs. Pulls them over both of us. Settles behind me, his chest against my back, his arm around my waist, his hand spread across my stomach.
The hall is warm. The stone walls have absorbed the heat. The air itself is soft.
I lift my head. Look around. Look at the windows, the meltwater still running. Look at the fire, burning higher than it should.
“Did you do that?”
“I think so.”
“You heated the whole hall.”
“I think so.”
I put my head back against his chest. His arm draws me closer. I'm small against him. Small and warm.
“Don't let me dream,” I say.
“I'll wake you if you start.”
I sleep against him. His arms around me. His heat surrounding me. The fire doesn't need tending and neither do I.
ESELD
Iwake before dawn, and he is asleep.
His arm is around me. Heavy across my waist, his hand spread flat against my stomach, his fingers reaching from one hip to the other. I'm pressed against his chest with my back to him. The heat of his skin soaks into my spine.
His breathing has changed. Slower. Deeper. The careful control gone from his body. His muscles are loose against me. His face is tucked against the top of my head and I can feel his jaw relaxed, his mouth slightly open, his breath warm in my hair.
He has not slept like this since I've been here. I've heard him in the dark, night after night. The creak of his chair. The shift of his weight. The sound of a man who keeps watch because he’s afraid of what happens when he stops.
Even after he left the chair. Even after he started sleeping on the furs beside my platform. I'd hear him shift in the dark, hear his breathing stay shallow and alert. Resting, not sleeping. Guarding something he was afraid to lose.
I did this to him. Wore him out. Gave him something warm to hold onto and let him close his eyes.
The fire has burned low. Embers and a soft orange glow. The hall is still warm from what he did to it last night. The stone walls releasing his heat slowly, reluctantly, the way stone releases anything.
I lie still and let the quiet settle.
The dead come. They always come when I'm still. I don't see the images anymore. I don't need to. The weight is enough. It sits on my chest and it doesn't care that his arms are around me.
I am lying in the arms of a man who carried me out of the snow and fed me and watched me for weeks and gave me a comb with birds carved into the handle. A man who told me his worst thing and then listened while I told him mine and didn't move his chair back across the hall.
A man who held me last night and burned so hot the ice on the windows ran and the fire climbed on its own and the whole hall filled with a warmth that had nothing to do with wood or stone.
