Aerhril was too young to know that Galadril was only half asleep and exhausted, not quite herself, that Galadril was exaggerating for effect. No, little Aerhril took the other girl very seriously. She took to waiting until Galadril was asleep and then getting out of her bed and carefully and quietly leaving the room to go and find somewhere else to sleep.
At first she went outside, taking a blanket and curling up on a bed of wildflowers and clover outside the keep. If she woke and screamed, she bothered no one out here.
But then, the nights began to grow colder, and her teeth chattered so much that she could not sleep, and she had to go back inside, go back into her bed and face Galadril’s wrath, Galadril’s threat.
One night, as she was shivering her way up the stairs, he was there.
Dathor was only a hulking shadow in the darkness, standing at the top of the steps.
Perhaps he should have reminded her of the images from her nightmares. No, perhaps in some way, at the back of her head, he did. Some part of him always seemed a bit frightening to her, a bit monstrous, but there was something quite appealing about having a monster at one’s beck and call.
Not that he was hers, then.
“What are you doing out of bed?” she said to him, not accusing him, simply asking, simply curious.
He was silent, and then he stepped forward out of the shadow, and a shaft of moonlight from one of the windows illuminated half his face, his green-gray skin, his boyishly solemn features. “Heard you.”
“I woke you?”
“I hear you every night,” he said.
“I’m frightfully sorry,” she said. She liked him because hewould stop Celedin from pinching her, after all, and she felt awful for having woken him. “I do not mean to disturb anyone, but I seem to be entirely in everyone’s way.”
“You’re not in my way,” he said.
She smiled at him, grateful for that.
“Where do you go each night?”
She let out a breath. “I have nightmares. I wake and scream.”
“Ah, yes, I used to hear you, I remember, but not anymore.” He put it together, backing away, back into the shadows. “You have been going elsewhere to sleep, so as not to wake anyone.”
“Yes, but it’s grown so cold outside, and I cannot sleep out there anymore, and Galadril says she will smother me to death and no one will even blink at it, and I know she is right, for no one likes me and everyone hates me and everyone wishes I was gone.”
“I don’t hate you,” he said.
She moved into the shadows, closer to him. “I suppose they don’t like you either.”
“They don’t,” he said. A pause. “You can sleep in my bed.”
“I couldn’t!” Her response was immediate, shocked, insistent.
“Well, not every night,” he said. “But tonight you could, and I will sleep beneath you on the floor, and if you make any noise, I will spring up and cover your mouth and muffle your scream.”
“But—”
“I’d get in trouble for letting a girl sleep in my bed, so you know I would silence you before anyone would find out.”
She supposed this was true. She was used to the idea of people making sacrifices for her happiness back then. That was why the change to the north, to this hostile group of people, was such a blow to her. She had been doted upon by her mother in the south. She had been the cherished only child of a successful elvish businessman. So, she supposed that was why she didn’t protest that he shouldn’t have tosleep on the floor or that he shouldn’t have to inconvenience himself for her.
“And tomorrow,” he continued, “I will take you to see old lady Nilhin in the wood, and she will make up a poultice and drive out whatever evil spirits bring you bad dreams.”
If it hadn’t been dark, she might have scoffed at the idea of evil spirits, but it was dark, and she was cold and tired, and she did not. She was only relieved and grateful, so grateful she wanted to sob it out. She smiled at him in the darkness. “Thank you ever so much, Dathor. I will be in your debt.”
“All right,” he said. “I don’t mind that, I must say.” He smiled shyly at her.
His bed was warm, and he had a room all to himself, so small, though, that only a child-sized bed fit. He slept on the floor, but he was obliged to sleep practically under the bed. She had brought her own blanket from her bed, so they were covered.
