‘Maybe. Bit by bit.’
She did his belt up for him, dragging the scarred leather through the scarred buckle while he stood with his hands dangling. Never thought much about having a woman fastening his belt, but he found he liked it. Never had anyone to take care of him. Except Rakki, maybe.
But Rakki was dead.
When she looked up her face was tear-streaked too and he reached out to wipe it, tried to be as gentle as she’d been. Didn’t feel like those aching, crooked, scabbed and battered fingers of his had any tenderness left in them. Didn’t feel like his hands were good for aught but killing. His brother had always said he was no lover. But he tried.
‘I don’t even know your name,’ he said.
‘I’m Rin. You’d better go.’ And she pulled back the curtain of the little alcove her cot was in.
He limped up the steps from the forge, one hand on the wall. Past a domed oven where three women were baking bread, men gathered waiting with their platters in a hungry crowd. He limped across the yard, lit silver by high, fat Father Moon, and past the burned-out stables. As burned-out as he was.
Raith heard someone laugh, jerked his head towards it, starting to smile. Rakki’s voice, surely?
But Rakki was dead.
He hugged himself as he trudged on past the dead stump of the Fortress Tree. Wasn’t a cold night but he felt cold then. Like his torn clothes were too thin. Or his torn skin was.
Up the long stairway, his feet scraping in the darkness, down the long hallway, windows looking out over glimmering Mother Sea. Lights moved there. The lamps on Bright Yilling’s ships, watching to make sure no help came to Bail’s Point.
He groaned as he lowered himself slowly as an old man beside Skara’s door, everything aching. He drew his blanket across his knees, let his skull fall back against the cold elf-stone. He’d never been interested in comforts. Rakki had been the one to dream of slaves and fine tapestries.
But Rakki was dead.
‘Where have you been?’
He jerked around. The door was open a crack and Skara was looking out at him, hair a mass of dark curls, wild and tangled from her bed like it had been the first day he saw her.
‘Sorry,’ he stammered out, shaking off his blanket. He gave a grunt of pain as he stood, clutching at the wall to steady himself.
Suddenly she’d slipped into the corridor and taken his elbow. ‘Are you all right?’
He was a proven warrior, sword-bearer to Grom-gil-Gorm. He was a killer, carved from the stone of Vansterland. He felt no pain and no pity. Only the words wouldn’t come. He was too hurt. Hurt to his bones.
‘No,’ he whispered.
He looked up then and saw she was wearing just her shift, realized with the torchlight he could see her lean shape through it.
He forced his eyes up to her face but that was worse. There was something in the way she was looking at him, fierce and fixed as a wolf at a carcass, made him suddenly hot all over. He could hardly see for her eyes on him. He could hardly breathe for the scent of her. He made the feeblest effort to pull his arm away and only pulled her closer, right against him. She pressed him back, sliding one hand around his sore ribs and making him gasp, putting the other on his face and pulling it down towards her.
She kissed him and not gently, sucking at his mouth, her teeth scraping his split lip. He opened his eyes and she was looking at him, like she was judging the effect she’d had, her thumb pressing hard at his cheek.
‘Shit,’ he whispered. ‘I mean … my queen—’
‘Don’t call me that. Not now.’ She slipped her hand up behind his head, gripping him tight, brushed her nose up along the side of his, down the other, kissed him again and left his head light as a drunkard’s.
‘Come with me,’ she whispered, breath burning on his cheek, and she drew him towards her door, nearly dragged him right over, blanket still tangled around his legs.
Rakki had always told him he was no lover. Raith wondered what he’d have to say when he heard about this—
But Rakki was dead.
He stopped short. ‘I need to tell you something …’ That he’d just been crying in someone else’s bed? That she was promised to Grom-gil-Gorm? That he’d nearly killed her a few nights before and still had the poison in his pocket? ‘More’n one thing, really—’
‘Later.’
‘Later might be too late—’