“I’m aware,” I say, trying to not sound like I’m boasting. “But I saw him and I didn’t die.”
She blinks at me rapidly then gives her head a shake. “I can’t believe it. You…out of everyone, you? Fuck, now I’m really wondering who the hell your mother is.”
I don’t take offense to any of that. I’m just as surprised as she is.
“That makes two of us,” I admit.
“So, what did he look like? Or will I die if you tell me?”
I laugh. “He looked like light. Like a giant mass of light hundreds of feet tall and wide. That’s it. Just light.”
I can see her trying to picture it, her brow scrunched up comically. “Light? That’s not what I expected. I knew he gave off light, I could tell around the edges of the mask, but I didn’t think he would be just light.”
“Obviously it seems he can change, maybe shrink or become solid when he’s fighting us, but yeah. Big ol’ giant lightbulb.”
She laughs at that, but I still see the awe in her eyes as we ride into the castle. Like she still can’t believe it. I can’t either.
And I am dying to tell Death. I can’t wait to see his reaction.
“Do you know where your father is?” I ask Lovia as I dismount in the stables, giving Frosty an affectionate pat and plant a kiss on his velvet muzzle.
“He’s been in the library all day,” she says. She gives me a warning look. “And he said that no one can disturb him.”
Yeah. That’s what he’s been saying all week. I’ve been busy training all day and into the night, so I’ve barely been around anyway. I don’t even see him at dinner. I usually eat it in my room alone, or with Lovia and Kalma in the dining hall.
Speaking of rooms, I’ve moved into his. Unofficially. I still have my room because it turns out, when push comes to shove, I actually enjoy having a place to myself where I can think and feel like I’m not getting in the way. There’s not a lot of privacy in Shadow’s End, or at least something that feels mine, so I cling to what I have. Plus, I’ve seen Death’s closet. It’s large, but in no way big enough to accommodate all the dresses I’ve been accumulating since I’ve been given access to the seamstress.
But I have been in his bed each night. We talk, just a little, his mind is preoccupied with whatever he’s doing in the library, and my mind has been focused on my training. But where our words may fail us, our bodies never do. We come together each night in heat and desire, animalistic cries, gloved hands on soft skin and limbs sliding along silk sheets. He makes me come over and over again until the morning and yet, even with so little sleep, I wake up more refreshed and recharged than ever. I know that in time we may become something more than a physical need to each other, but for now it’s how we connect. It’s almost…necessary for our connection, for our evolution as a couple. I feel like the more he’s inside me, the closer to him I get, and the more I understand him, and I can only hope it’s the same for him. If we are to rule together as king and queen then we must be united, and there is no greater union than the one of our bodies in bed.
I head into the castle, wandering the halls, hoping to run into my husband somewhere. Though my training ended earlier today, it’s still getting quite late and I’m hungry despite being so excited about everything.
I go to the kitchen and pester Pyry into cooking faster, then take my plate of mountain rye slabs (basically a flatbread with some tart tomatoes and melted slices of renost, or reindeer cheese) and a cup of lavender ale and go up to my room.
When I’m done, Raila runs me a bath and I have half a mind to tell her what I learned from Vipunen. But for some reason I don’t. I guess because I already told Lovia and I feel bad Death doesn’t even know yet.
Or maybe it’s this small kernel of a feeling that I can’t completely trust her.
“Where is Tuoni?” I ask Raila after I’ve dried off and she’s slipping a soft, long-sleeved nightgown over me. “Still in the library?”
He is. He is not to be disturbed, she says.
Jeez. How many times can I be told that I can’t go and bug him?
Naturally, the more I’m told not to do something, the more I want to do it.
I go up to his room after and wait for him in bed.
Eventually I fall into a deep sleep, the exhaustion from the day hitting me all at once.