As I stir the ashes in the fireplace one chilly evening, I wonder once again if Dane will join me tonight.
The month that elapsed was like I stole away a few chapters from another person’s life. I discovered that for all my nineteen years on Earth, I don’t know half of my body’s wonders. Thanks to Dane. I discovered that even the most menial of tasks can become a full-fledged adventure with the right person. Also thanks to Dane.
I haven’t left the lands where I took shelter five years ago, yet my world has been turned upside down.
But it’s been ten days since Dane last came. I miss him.
Maybe he’s grown tired of you. Maybe he’d rather spend his time with a woman who isn’t in the middle of nowhere, not only in location but also in life.
I poke the fire with a vengeance, willing the mopey thoughts away. No, Dane never gave me a single indication that he doesn’t enjoy my company. If anything, the lapse of time between his visits only grew smaller… Until he stopped coming at all.
He must be busy, I reason with a firm nod. Dane earned my trust a thousand times, from the time he fretted so sweetly over my virginity to the last time I saw him, tasting a mushroom for me to double check that it was safe to eat. At the very least he’s earned the right to not have me doubt like a madwoman whenever something keeps him away. I have faith that he’d care enough to tell me if he decided never to stop by my cottage again.
A knock resounds on my door and my heart lifts. At this rate I don’t want to get my hopes up and expect Dane, but a visit from the Hunters would certainly not be unwelcome.
Yet as I peer through the peephole, I nearly hop in excitement when I recognize the familiar figure hulking outside. I swing the door open, ready to gather Dane in my arms, if only they could fit around him.
He beats me to it. Dane smothers me in his warm embrace. A silly grin stretches across my cheeks. But I can’t help it – everything finally feels right, and better than that.
“You must’ve thought I would never return,” he murmurs into my hair as he rests his chin on top of my head.
I nudge away and make a show of rolling my eyes. “Of course I knew you’d come back.” Well that’s not exactly true, but he doesn’t need to know that. “How could you possibly resist my fish stew any longer?”
Dane doesn’t even glance at the pot I point to. His eyes are steadfast on me, skeptical, searching for the slightest hint of anguish. But I won’t show how his absence affected me. I don’t want him to feel guilty.
“You took your own sweet time though,” I finally admit with a sigh. “I was growing a little concerned.”
The light dwindles in his stormy gaze, as if he can sense that I’m underplaying my distress. “I’m so sorry. I was… sick.”
My heart misses a beat. Of all the excuses I came up for him, from harvesting crops to marrying the prettiest woman in his village, I never once suspected he may be ill. Something about the sturdiness of Dane’s frame but also of his character made me assume he was invincible. That’s crazy. He’s human, just like you!
I anxiously study him from head to toe, trying to detect any sign of fatigue. And that’s when I notice that indeed, Dane has changed.
It’s a subtle difference, one that I can only detect because I spent so much time gazing adoringly at his face. The last of the boyish softness that underlied his features is gone, and now Dane is all man. The planes of his cheekbones are somehow sharper, each of his traits slightly more harsh and distinct. He even seems to have gained in bulk, though it may be the thick mantle he wears.
“You should take this off,” I mutter as I pull at the fabric. “The fire has made it quite warm in here.”
But Dane grabs my wrist before the cape slides off his shoulders. “I’d rather keep it.”
Dread spirals through me. “Because you’re unwell?”
He wedges a finger between my brows like I’ve done dozens of times to him when he frowns. “Don’t worry. I’m fine. I just need to stay covered for a while.”
I flex my fingers nervously. A common cold doesn’t keep a person in bed ten days, especially not a strong male like Dane. There’s something he’s hiding from me. Something important.
“Dane, tell me what’s wrong.”
He flees my gaze, fixing some point above my forehead rather than my eyes. “Your hair looks beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Pinkness creeps up my cheeks. Today I wove shells into my brownish-blonde strands after bathing in the Sōlenz. Silly as it is, the compliment makes me stand taller.
“You’re avoiding the subject. And you can’t fool me. It was only a month ago that you said my hair looks like a bird’s nest.”
A grin tugs at the corner of Dane’s lips. My heart slows down to a more normal beat. Nothing can be too wrong if a smile can break through that permanent scowl of his.
“I was a stupid man a month ago.”
I cross my arms, refusing to be sidetracked. “Dane–”
“Did you think of me when you did these?” He whispers as he takes a step forward and plays with a small shell right above my ear. The slight contact sends a shiver down my spine.
My lids flutter closed. “A tiny bit.”
The truth is I painstakingly tressed each shell into my plaits with Dane’s handsome face in mind. I figured that once he finally came back, I might as well look my best.
“Well I thought of you every single second I couldn’t do this,” he whispers before hunching down to my height.
He ambushes my lips with a searing kiss, prying them open so he can explore me with his tongue. I whimper, the fire he kindles within me somehow even stronger than ten days ago. My nipples instantly harden as they press into his strong chest. My legs, on the other hand, drop as limp as a wet rag.
Dane grunts and keeps me from falling by wedging a knee between my thighs. As he proves how much he missed me with his mouth, I can’t help but writhe from the sensations. My acrobatics cause me to grind my most intimate parts against his knee, teasing that small nub in my core that drives me wild every time Dane and I make love.
My hands travel of their own accord to untie his mantle.
“Isobel,” he warns in a groan. All of a sudden the kiss comes to an end. Dane grabs my fingers and secures them in his fist. “Not tonight.”
Why not?, I want to wail. I can feel his arousal digging into my flesh. His eyes look more tempestuous than a tornado. His firm lips are slightly swollen, begging for more passion.
That nips my burgeoning sense of rejection in the bud. Dane desires me just as ardently, I realize. It’s not because he doesn’t want me that he pushes me away.
“Alright,” I chime as brightly as I can muster. “Not tonight.”
One thing I cherish so much about this man is that he’s as reliable as a timeworn tree. Though Dane doesn’t want to go any further this evening, I have no cause to doubt the fact that he likes me. Even if he won’t give me the full explanation of why he disappeared for so long, I trust that he has his reasons.
“But if that’s the case, then I’m afraid you’re going to have to ease my hurt feelings with a bowl of my stew.”
He grimaces but doesn’t protest as I trudge to the kitchen and stir the concoction. I take my time seasoning and preparing our meal until the burning between my thighs becomes more tolerable.
Dane doesn’t take the bowl when I hand it to him. He eyes its contents like I’m trying to feed him mud.
“Remember,” I say sweetly, “you were a stupid man a month ago.”
He accepts his serving with a grunt. The instant he gulps down a spoonful his face twists in horror and he stops himself short from gagging. At least he tried to be more polite than the first time, when he actually spat it out.
“Still that bad, hmm?” I ask solemnly, though I’m on the verge of laughing out loud.
Dane screws his lids shut as he stomachs the aftertaste. I can tell he’s trying to come up with something nice to say.
“The best part about this stew is that you made it,” he says in a tight voice. Then his eyes fly open, and his brows knit together in confusion. “But Isobel, if this is the best food you can find in Sōlenz, why do you even choose to stay here? It’s no place for someone to live, least of all… someone like you.”
I pause, my spoon hovering mid air. “Someone like me?”
A ruddy hue washes over his cheeks. “My brother always says I have no sense of humor, and yet you even make me laugh. You’re meant to be around people.” Dane’s face only turns more crimson as he struggles with so long a speech. “You’re meant to make others smile.”
I can’t answer as I feel myself blushing as well. Dane looks as fierce as an eagle, yet sometimes he says things sweeter than I’d ever dare say. Coming from Dane though, his compliments sound more heartfelt than sappy.
“Won’t you tell me what happened to you, Isobel?”
I’m about to deflect the question, but the look on his face makes me waver. Gentleness, concern, perhaps something deeper…
I’m not sure anyone has cared for me as much as Dane since I lost my parents. And a part of me wants to talk, wants to share the tale I only glossed over with the Hunters. To free the monsters so they’re no longer caged within my memories.
“I didn’t always live here,” I start quietly, setting aside my bowl of stew. “My parents and I come from Grōnlund. Did you ever hear of Grōnlund?”
He nods without a moment of hesitation. “It was the region of Sōwilō where most humans dwelled, down by the southern shore. Mainly fishermen.”
Wistfulness enters my chest as I envision the azure shores and our small house that looked over the sea. “My parents were fishermen. So were all the generations before them.”
Dane weighs my words, adding the new details to what he already knows about me.
“That’s why you’re so nifty with a cast net.”
I grin, though it’s not as wide as I wish. “My parents taught me many things. In my mind they’re still with me, because I make use of their lessons everyday. I never would’ve survived here without them.”
The fact that my mother and father are no longer of this world is something that I deal with every minute, every second that goes by. After a couple of years the raw horror dulled down to a more bearable emptiness. Their absence simply became part of my life, and though at times I still break down, I’ve learned how to find their warmth and comfort elsewhere.
I still hear my father’s instructions every time I cast a net. When the wind keeps me up at night I like to sew by the fireplace, as I found my mother doing each time I was afraid of a storm when I was little. I’ll never have her talent as a seamstress, but with each stitch I remember the stories she told me to make my fears go away.
But just because it’s my story and I’ve grown to endure the bite of it doesn’t mean it won’t terrify others. I look at Dane grimly, sorry for the anguish I put on his face. Moments ago I had a taste of what it feels like to panic about the wellbeing of someone who means the world to you – more frightening than if you’re the one hurting, because you’re virtually helpless.
“Where are your parents?” Dane rasps in disbelief, visibly hoping he misunderstood.
“They’re dead,” I say bluntly. “I was fourteen.”
I’m nearly knocked off my chair as Dane scrambles to my side and scoops me into his embrace. The clatter of terracotta resonates on the floor as he flings his bowl away, stew included. I’m too overwhelmed by his presence to harp about the mess.
“I’m so sorry, Isobel,” he croaks, clutching me as close as physically possible. “I wish I’d met you sooner… That I could’ve been there…”
I rest my head on his arm. Given that his face is buried in the crook of my neck, I hope that he can feel my grateful smile on his skin.
“You’re sweet,” I breathe, silently thanking the Gods for sending me this man, no matter how long it may last. “It’s over and done though, and all you can do is build upon the past before it gets a chance to drag you down, right?”
His fists clench until his veins pop. “That doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to be sad.”
Dane is right. If there’s one lesson I learned from the years it took to heal, is that grief is a beast better tamed when unleashed rather than stowed away into a dark corner.
The first months after the death of my parents, my mind was filled only with survival. I refused to shed a single tear, to think once about the faces I missed so bitterly. I thought I’d conquered my misery, until one day I slipped into the lake and dropped deep into its depths.
You let your parents die, you ran away to hide, hissed the small voice in my mind. You deserve to die too.
The sheer bitterness of the thought caused me to swim back to the surface in panic. That’s when I realized guilt had been gnawing at me from the inside from the beginning, all because I didn’t dare face my sorrow.
“I am sad” I respond with a vigor that startles him. “I’m angry, even. But it’s not my fault. It’s not yours. It’s not my parents’ fault either.” My throat constricts with resentment. “It’s Østrōm’s fault.”
I’m too overcome with a surge of blind, crushing rage to think much of the way Dane freezes around me.
“Østrōm?”He echoes hollowly.
“The Phoenix King sent the fort’s Gargoyles down to Grōnlund,” I explain in a voice that sounds rough even to my own ears.
“G-gargoyles? You mean, the ones that stand guard around the fort?”
I nod briskly. “They’re enchanted to come to life only when their master orders them to awaken. That’s why they make such cruel servants.”
“But they were only unleashed once,” Dane blurts in a strangely shaky voice. “I remember. I had just turned fifteen. It was –”
“Five years ago, yes,” I finish bitterly. “One broke into our home while we were asleep. Tore my parents apart while they were still in bed. Their screams woke me up.”
His tight embrace slackens as if he was just dealt a blow. For a moment, I’m not in the warm shelter of Dane’s arms anymore in my faraway cottage. I’m back in the stone and slate house of my youth, where the most horrendous sound ever resonates in my ears. It’s dark and all I can see is the outline of a gnarly winged creature ripping flesh open.
“My instinct was to run,” I force myself to say, grateful after years of guilt that I fled, because deep down I know my parents would’ve wanted no less. “I made it to the barn by the time I heard the Gargoyle crashing through the wall. I had little choice but to hide.”
My heart slams as hard as it did that night, afraid to even breathe as a monster gutted my home. “I was crouching underneath a table when the Gargoyle found me.”
Dane seems to have found his voice again, but it holds none of the gruff fortitude that usually underlies his tone. “How did you make it?” He asks in a whisper that’s barely there. “I’ve never heard of anyone who survived a Gargoyle.”
Indeed, Gargoyles have a brute force that makes them nearly invincible, but their talons hold a poison that finishes off their prey, should their unfortunate victim slip through its claws. Within hours the slightest scratch spreads, turning flesh to stone until it disintegrates into particles as fine as sand.
I should know, because I found nothing but dust when I finally headed home to bury my mother and father.
“My parents were fishermen,” I repeat emptily. “The barn is where they dried and salted fish to preserve it. When the Gargoyle lunged at me, it made all their sacks of salt fall.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Salt causes an adverse reaction. I guess it’s a little known fact because you need more than a salt shaker to make a Gargoyle so much as sneeze.” My mind goes back to the cascades of white descending from the shelves, a gift from the heavens – or my parents, I like to think. “But there was a lot of salt. Mountains of it.”
“And it killed the Gargoyle?”
I shake my head. “I don’t think so. I saw it crystallize before my very eyes, and it was just enough time for me to escape.”
“That’s incredible,” Dane breathes. “Isobel, you’re incredible.”
I shrug. “All I did was run. I was covered in salt myself, so it took me a few hours to realize the Gargoyle had left its mark, because the iodine was slowing down its spread.”
Dane’s fingers tremblingly search my scar under my clothes. “But how did you stop it altogether?”, he asks, awe lacing his gravelly timbre.
I gulp. I don’t want to tell him that the gash continues to grow every day. That five years ago the stone-like cut barely ran above my belly button, whereas today it nearly reaches my breast. I’ll tell him another day, if Dane is still in my life by then.
“After seeing what happened to the Gargoyle I had a rough understanding of the effects of iodine, and I’d heard many tales of the barren lands up North.” I watch the understanding mix with admiration in his flint gaze. “Barren, because the lake is too full of salt for most creatures to live.”
Dane’s jaw drops. “And that’s why you live here. That’s why that first time I came looking for you, you were bathing in the Sōlenz.”
I nod, and I can’t stop myself from mirroring the victorious smile spreading across his lips. Even if I know there’s one last twist to my story. Even if the end can never quite be a Happily Ever After.
“The waters of the Sōlenz are what saved me,” I explain quietly, “and that’s why I can never leave this place, because the wound spreads if I go too long without salt. I need a lot of salt.”
“And you found a whole lake of it,” Dane finishes with a beam much too radiant for such a surly man. He kisses my forehead, my nose, my lips. “You’re so smart, so strong. Nobody would’ve made it, I wouldn’t have made it, but you… all by yourself, you…”
I cut his raving praise short before my cheeks catch on fire. “I don’t always want to be by myself though,” I confess. “Having you in my life made me realize I was so lonely before.” I swallow with difficulty, cursing myself for burdening him. “When you were gone, and I wasn’t sure you’d ever come back…”
A groan rumbles and I’m pulled back into his solid embrace.
“I’ll always come back,” he pledges with such raw vigor that I can’t possibly doubt him. “I promise that no matter what, I’ll always return the minute I can.”
I melt against his chest as the last shreds of doubt wither away. I never would’ve dared hope for so much, yet with his words he just gave me a gift like no other – a shoulder to lean on, and I don’t even have to fret about when it may disappear.
All of a sudden Dane tenses, and a look of guilt passes over his face.
“Actually Isobel, there’s a reason I came.”
Toying with the buckles of his vest, I try not to fall back into the insecurity I vanquished seconds ago.
“Yes?”
“I won’t be able to visit for a few days. Maybe a week,” he grunts with an anguished air. “I probably shouldn’t even be here right now, but I needed you to know.”
I grin, that fuzzy sensation warming me more thoroughly than the flickering fireplace. I think I love him, I realize giddily. But now isn’t the moment to tell him. I don’t want to weigh Dane down when he’s already so torn between his life beyond the steppes of Sōwilō and me.
“It’s fine as long as I know I’ll see you again,” I assure him. “Thanks for warning me.”
Dane’s charcoal eyes twinkle as he brushes the loose strands of my braids behind my ears, and I can only wonder if there isn’t more than the reflection of the flames in that deep, tender gaze.
“And I really needed to see you, too,” he confesses huskily.
I sigh, savoring his touch and wishing I could feel it for many more hours, days, years to come.
“Do you have to go already?”
Dane’s fingers curl around my shoulder, tugging me closer so I fit perfectly against him. I’m trapped between the heat of his body and the blazing furnace. Not too bad a spot.
“Just a bit longer.”