Page 71 of The Shape of Silence

“Okay,” she said, her voice small now, lowering her gaze to the ground between them.

“Avery?” he called her attention. “Something is amiss,” he guessed.

When she looked back up, she forced what she hoped resembled a smile, though it felt stiff upon her face.

“No. I... I'm fine. Or, actually,” she said, drawing a slow breath, “I'm not feeling very well. I'm glad you're all right, but I think I'd like to lie down for a while.”

For several seconds he simply regarded her, saying nothing at all. His gray eyes moved quietly over her face as though searching for some explanation for her behavior. Then he closed the small distance between them and took one of her hands in his before laying the other gently against her forehead.

“Nae fever,” he murmured, more to himself than to her.

“No.” She managed a faint shake of her head. “I'm only tired.”

His hand lingered another moment before she caught his wrist and pulled it away and down between them. His touch was too distracting, only adding to the chaos of her brain. She simply couldn’t handle that now.

“Really, I’m fine. I’m just tired.”

The look he gave her was skeptical. “Ye seem troubled by the answers I’ve given to yer questions. If something weighs upon ye, Avery...”

She wanted desperately to ask him outright, What year are we in?

Instead, she heard herself say, far too quickly, “Nothing's wrong.”

His expression altered only slightly, a bit darker now, and she knew he didn’t believe her. But then, he didn’t challenge the lie.

He merely regarded her another long moment before lifting one hand to brush an errant strand of hair behind her ear. Then he bent and pressed a kiss against her forehead.

“Rest, then,” he said quietly. “I'll come by later and see how ye're faring.”

Only after the door had closed behind him did she allow herself to lean heavily against it, pressing trembling fingers against her mouth while the impossible truth she had been resisting for days gathered yet more evidence to terrify her.

***

The very next morning, Avery had only just finished rekindling the fire inside, listening to sounds of the armies readying to depart for the day, when a knock came at her door.

Being that it was the same short set of raps she’d heard last night, she guessed it was Morggán and crossed the room barefoot while twisting her hair into a knot at the back of her head. Holding her hair with one hand, she lifted the latch and pulled open the door with the other.

Morggán stood outside, half turned as though watching or listening to something else but then turning to face her when the door opened. A gray morning fog enveloped the area, nearly shrouding everything beyond him.

“I left my gauntlets,” he said, his eyes searching her face and taking in the hair she’d not yet bound.

Avery turned, stabbing the bone comb into the bun she’d made in her hair, and spotted his gauntlets resting on the stool, wondering how she’d failed to notice them before now.

She collected them and returned to the doorway. “Here you go.”

Morggán took them from her slowly enough that his fingers closed briefly around hers.

Avery looked up sharply and found him watching her with that same concentrated intensity that was always so difficult to endure calmly. And then, as if her hair and the comb were as rattled by his piercing regard as all the rest of her, the comb—obviously not secured well enough—simply fell out of her hair, dropping the length all down her back and over one shoulder.

Morggán’s eyes darkened immediately. The shift in him was not at all subtle. His gaze moved over the loosened strands with open fascination before returning to her face again. Avery had the absurd fleeting impression that the fog itself had thickened around them, narrowing the world down to the doorway and the two of them standing within it, he appearing to have forgotten entirely about the gauntlets.

And then his dark gaze drifted lower, over her lips.

She knew before he touched her what he intended, and her pulse stirred in anticipation.

His hand settled lightly against the side of her neck before he bent and kissed her.

The familiarity of it startled her almost more than the shock of the first kiss had. It didn’t feel any less hungry or thrilling or perfect, but perhaps a bit more so. His mouth moved against hers, neither too fast nor too slow but thoroughly, entirely too capable of making her completely unaware of the rest of the world.