She rolled her eyes.“Fine.No one back home could ever find out.But fine.Be cold and dead like a void.”
She left me near the brazier, clutching my lyre, trying to keep my mind empty.
The wordvoidsettled in my chest, stinging for several moments straight.
But then, there was a small, pleasant warmth.Inga and Fell are not committed to one another.
I took a drink, and I took it quickly.I was entirely sober, and I didn’t want to be drunk, but I needed to know there would be some softening of my feeling later, depending on how things went.
I had decided on a course of action, but I’d decided it in a tricky manner, without actually thinking through any of it in the front of my mind.There were too many things that could go wrong for me to think about it too carefully.All the same, my heart felt skinned raw.Not acting was its own misery.It had been nine days since the eclipse, and I’d been lost in rumination the entire time.Arguing with myself.Unable to ignore what I’d become aware of.
I walked with haste through the palace, passing windows open to the sea, the last hint of the setting sun still reflecting on the water.I knew where I was going.Not because someone had shown me this particular chamber, but because I had paid attention.Because my mind needed to know everything about him that I could.
The door was open, and I poked my head inside.
Fell sat at a small table, sharpening one of the daggers he kept on his person.
His endless blue eyes settled on my face as his brows rose a little.“You need something?”
I hesitated before stepping into his room, a place I had never been.Everything was brown or beige in the dim glow of the setting sun and the single brazier.His blankets looked soft but simple.I am looking at his bed.I forced my eyes back to Fell.I’d pictured him standing when I’d made my decision.I’d also pictured the door closed already.I hesitated again.Already nothing was according to my plan.
I swallowed and straightened my neck.
“You could name me Norsen now,” I said.
He looked at me for three beats of my heart.
“It is done,” he said.
I remained poised and rigid, expecting something else to follow what he’d said, but he stayed quiet.
“That is it?”
He nodded, the corners of his lips lifting.
“There is no ceremony or special words or…”
“No, though some get a tattoo to mark the transition.Soternare not allowed tattoos anywhere but on the hands and face.Sometimes people throw parties…”
“So, I am simply Norsen now?”
He nodded.
And then neither of us moved.
I looked at him, and he looked at me and I realized what a terrible predicament I was in.It had taken all of my strength to come to him like this.My whole life—I hadn’t known it, but my whole life, I’d been saving up droplets of strength, resistance, desire.I’d saved them for years, hidden them deep within myself, and here I was, spending every last drop at once.If he refused me or laughed at me or did anything other than welcome me, I would never be able to muster so much courage again.It was my life’s savings.
The corners of his lips twitched again and his brows raised the smallest bit.What are you still doing here?his expression seemed to be saying.
I glared at him, terrified.You know very well what I’m doing here.
He stood slowly—brutally slow.And as he walked toward me, his feet dragged a little.Not in a way that made me think he didn’t want to come nearer, but in a way that meant he knew coming near would be, as the Norsern call it, a twist ofskael.My heart hammered as he got closer and closer, his eyes so blue they didn’t look real.As the distance between us disappeared, I knew I’d been called to this man’s side.He’d been called to mine.The rest of the world could be burning, and we would end up just as we were then.I tilted my face up to keep looking at him as he stopped shy of our chests touching.
And then, quite inexplicably, but also not at all surprising, we were kissing.
Heat.
Rush.
