I woke because I was cold. The fever had peaked and broken while I slept, and I sat up in the dark, thirsty and chilled. The fire had gone out, but the night was not completely black; the clouds had cleared, and the sky through the bare trees blazed with starlight. The moon was new and had already set. I could see Lleu in the dim light; he slept profoundly with his dark head muffled in the dark leather of his sleeve, vulnerable. Cautiously, quickly, I drew the knife from his belt and cut his bowstring.
But I woke him doing this. Lleu forced his eyes open and propped his head on an elbow, shivering, to sit up suddenly as he realized what had happened. He stayed frozen, apprehensive; then, shifting his weight slowly, he marked where my hand flashed with the glimmer of silver. He leaped at me and in our struggle I dropped the dagger, but caught it by the blade with my other hand.
After a moment of absolute stillness Lleu reached down and seized my wrist. He threw all his weight against my arm, and when he had it pinned beneath him, he forced my stiff fingers shut around the dagger’s edge. Then he slowly but firmly wrenched the knife out of my hand—
Ah, God, my hand.
The blade cut through my glove, deep across my palm and the inside of my fingers. I gasped and pulled away from him, overwhelmed.
Lleu said fiercely, “That hurt, didn’t it! You’re bleeding.”
Malevolent, swift, I tore off the glove and dashed my hand across his face.
He cried out in horror and hid his face in his sleeve. Then he drove the knife through the darkness until he held it against my throat. We both were still again, poised like that: I breathing through clenched teeth in short, harsh bursts, Lleu utterly silent. He held the knife there for a few moments, then flung it skittering away into the dark. “I’ve never killed anyone, any man,” he whispered. “I cannot do it.”
“You have the skill,” I whispered in answer. I pressed my throbbing hand to my side beneath my other arm. “But you need more than skill, do you not?”
Lleu sat dumb. He rubbed his eyes. “I don’t hate you,” he said stubbornly. “I don’t want to kill you.”
“Death,” I whispered, “often has very little to do with hatred. When hunting one kills through need of food or else for sport and love of skill—never through hatred. When you hate something you do not kill u dto do it. You hurt it.” The pain in my hand made me mindless, and ruthless, and I was determined to punish him. I rested another moment; then with sudden strength I forced Lleu to the ground and held him there with one arm pinned beneath him, and drew my torn hand across his mouth and over his eyelids. Lleu screamed.
My fingers were dripping. Lleu pushed away from me with his free arm, but I caught at him with my sound right hand, and held his gloved fingers so tightly they began to feel stiff. He screamed again, out of sheer desperation.
“Wild thing,” I whispered. “I’d like to cut your hands off, burn you, blind you… I should crush your slender fingers. I could break all the bones in your hand if I closed my own around yours tightly enough. You are as pure and dangerous as an untamed cat; your beauty makes me sick. And oh, God, you have hurt me, you have hurt me…”
I steadied my voice. “But I am afraid to risk my father’s trust in me, or what is left of it. I am afraid to kill you outright. I thought of ruining you in some irreparable way, so that you could never be king, though you’d still be alive and I’d seem blameless. I could deafen you; there’s a way to direct blows against your ears that will take away your hearing.” Lleu tried to pull his hand away, and my iron hold on his fingers grew even more impossible. “Do you doubt me?” I said. “Or I could half smother you; when you go without air for too long it damages your mind, though it need not kill you. And there are things I can do to punish you that you will find more dreadful than any hurt. Be still.” I bent over, my wounded hand in his hair, and pressing my mouth to Lleu’s warm, windburned lips, kissed him gently.
He lay rigid, as though he had been scalded.
“Your mouth is sweet,” I said.
“God,” Lleu breathed. His hair was cold. He smelled of earth and snow and blood.
“Lie still,” I said. “Lie still. Am I not well armed against you even without steel? I need no more than a few drops of blood, and this…”
“Don’t,” Lleu said quietly. “Don’t, my lord.”
He spoke without fear. In his voice I heard only authority and reproach. It was as though he meant to remind me how very much I had to lose.
He struggled again to escape my grip, but I held him fast. “What do you want, Medraut? The inheritance you would win from our father will never give you power over me, me; and I will never beg for your mercy, even though you try to drive me mad. I may be afraid of death, but I do not fear you.”
“So you say,” I spat.
He winced and turned his face away. “Then do what you will with me,” he choked. “You are just like your mother. You would gently ruin me if it served your ends; and in revengeful punishment you hurt and hurt and hurt. I wounded you in self-defense, I did not mean to do it! If I must pay for that with my sight, then put my eyes out! Is that just? Is that fair? Hurting me will not heal your hand, or make me regret that I tried to save myself. By that law you should have been buried alive for your mistake in the mines at Elder Field.”
“You are right,” I said slowly, letting go of him and struggling to my knees. “But you have never been held accountable for anything you have ever done.”
He sat up also, savagely wiping his mouth, and began to say, “You thr#x2beeow this in my face as though—”
“No,” I interrupted. “I mean, you are going to atone for what you have done to me now. You are going to stitch shut my hand.”