I nodded.Norsern had a handful of these double words.They would saywind, when they meant wind but also when they meant breath or air and a listener would just have to know which meaning they intended.“I cannot… be fearless,” I said, feeling like I wasn’t speaking about swimming at all.“I will drown.”
He shook his head.“No, there is no undercurrent.You would have to try very hard to drown in Odae.”
“I am not speaking it rightly… I do not knowhowto be fearless.I have never done it.”
He stopped swimming and stared at me.“Truly?”
I nodded.
“You are very brave to be living in the palace then.With the sea below you at all times?You know pieces of Aalt fall into the sea once or twice each year, yes?”
I hadn’t known that.
“I can teach you.It is very easy.”
Absolutely not, I thought.But then, he was coming closer and holding his hands out for me to take.I stared at him, thinkingCatseye wouldn’t like it.Neither would Loric.
“I am sworn to defend you.This would be easier if you could keep afloat in water,” he said.
I was wearing three dresses and quickly removed the outer two.I reached for his hands because I am a wretched, vile temptress just as they say.My fingers met his, and he led me into the water, so gently and so slowly, my dress floating and swirling around my legs.I was flooded with a feeling of rightness so strong it felt like I was made of earth or water or something else that could make no error ever.I kept thinkingWho is this brazen fool?And why, for all that is sacred and prescribed, am I listening to him?Why am I so unafraid?
The lack of fear wasn’t to last.The fearlessness I’d borrowed from King Arik by reading for him wasn’t enough to combat my true feelings as I went deeper into the water.My heart raced as the pool’s surface came up past my chest, to my throat, my chin… I gripped Fell’s hands so tightly it hurt.
He kept his eyes on mine, just as he’d done when we were at sea together, promising no harm.“I will not let you sink.I did not let you sink when you were the weight of ten Norser, did I?”He offered the softest, half-smile.“I will put my hand here on you,” he said, releasing one of my hands and touching his own ribs.“You are unbothered by this?”
I wanted to say I was terribly bothered by it, but also, I didn’t want to say that at all.I said, “Proceed.”
He set his hand on my ribs on the left side and then on the right side.
“Water is very wise,” he said.“If it knows you are scared, it will let you sink.If it knows you are unafraid, it will hold you up.Understand?”
I understood nothing but the feeling of his hands on me.
“I will hold you along with Odae, but I will hold gently, so you can feel her holding you too, so you can see she is trustworthy.”
We were so close my dress brushed against his legs.
“It is easiest to start on your back, so your face is always where the wind is.”
I nodded, completely enchanted by the closeness.How was he able to carry on speaking when we were touching so?
I leaned back as he seemed to be directing me, and he shifted his hands to beneath my back, holding me atop the water’s surface until I was entirely calm.He took one hand away and I stayed—feeling the strength of the water beneath me, just as he said I would—and then he took the other, and I panicked and scrambled to right myself and grab onto him before the water filled my lungs and ended my pathetic life.His hands were back on me before I sank.
“She will hold you,” he whispered.
Again and again we did this until I lost my fear, certain Fell would catch me should I start drowning.I floated.As someone who has felt heavy their entire life, I can’t explain the ease that seeped into me from that.It was magic—healing just as Fell had promised Odae would be.
The moon had moved half across the sky by the time we climbed out of the pool and hurried back to the palace.We’d spoken to each other all evening, about what, I can’t even recall.Words came easily, and everything he said I enjoyed, and everything I said he listened to as if it were interesting.I think it was the most I had ever said in one evening.
Twenty-Five
An eclipse was to come in early spring that year, and the amount of visitors seeking Jorn’s advice multiplied.The city of Aalt swelled with newcomers, fires and large brawls becoming part of the daily news.Every morning approaching the eclipse, I heard gossip of lovers discovered or scorned, this-such-and-such person arriving, that-such-and-such ware for sale.
King Arik had warned me that I might want to hide in my chamber during the eclipse, that I might breathe in some of the smoke that would be everywhere, causing me to dream while awake.That wombed beings would be looking for anonymous lovers, hoping to conceive a child on the most special day, unworried entirely about where they had to lay to make it happen.That travellers would be selling their works aggressively.
“Of course, Gentlewoman, if you want to have fun and explore but would like a guard, I can arrange this.”
I smiled.It was the same warning and offering he’d presented me with for the winter solstice and spring equinox.I gave the same response I had then.“While it does sound…interesting.I expect a quiet evening would suit me more.”
