43
“Here it is,” Akella said, opening the door to her cell. “My majestic private apartments.”
Megs stayed at the threshold of the door as though afraid to step inside. “Apartments? Are you sure it’s not meant to be a pantry? Or a closet for linens? I hear the highborn have closets dedicated solely to linens.”
Akella chuckled. “I suggested to the Commander of the Empress’s guard that perhaps it had housed brooms in its previous incarnation. But it has a balcony, and as closets do not generally sport balconies, I am supposing the Commander was telling me the truth when she said it used to be a Wise Man’s cell.”
“A balcony?”
“With a view of the mountains, even.”
“Show me,” Megs said.
Akella stepped around Megs and opened the balcony door. The room was so small that she had to wedge herself between the open door and the wall in order to give Megs space to walk from the corridor to the balcony. Once Megs stepped onto it, Akella joined her. For once, the cramped space wasn’t such a bad thing; with both of them standing side-by-side on the balcony, there was no choice but for their shoulders to touch.
Megs put both hands on the railing. Her face looked pained.
“What?” Akella asked.
“Nothing. It reminds me of home is all. Druet Village is – was – close to the mountains like this.”
Akella nodded. She’d learned during the week of traveling with Megs that home was a sensitive topic for her. Something had happened to Megs’s family, something she’d witnessed but wasn’t willing to talk about. Whenever she spoke of home, she’d be wistful at first, then turn solemn and silent. Akella had learned not to push.
Tentatively, carefully platonic, Akella put an arm around Megs’s shoulders and gave a gentle squeeze. Then, before the touch could be misinterpreted as yet another advance, she brought her hand back to the railing next to Megs’s.
“Is your bed as uncomfortable as it looks?” said Megs. The pain was gone; her tone was sardonic once more.
“Twice as uncomfortable as it looks,” Akella answered. “But probably no worse than sleeping in a horse stall with five men.”
“Four,” Megs corrected. “Ellick is as wide as two men, so we put him outside the stall. But yes. I doubt your bed is any worse than my current situation.”
“Then let’s get you tucked in.”
Akella turned to go back inside, but Megs put a hand on her forearm. “In a moment. I want to enjoy the view a little longer first. Maybe I can make myself believe I’m somewhere else. Anywhere but Pellon.”
“Alright.”
Megs’s gaze roamed the snow-covered world beyond the walls – the abandoned hamlet, the fields beyond it, the empty roads leading in the direction of the mountains. And while Megs stared out at the landscape, Akella stared at Megs. A strand of hair had come loose from Megs’s braid; Akella longed to tuck it back behind her ear. Then she would lean forward and kiss Megs. The kiss would be transformational, somehow; it would change Akella, or it would change Megs, or maybe it would change both of them.
When she was still very little, Akella’s mother used to tell her a tale of a village girl who took pity on a particularly beautiful fish tangled in her father’s fishing net. She freed it, kissing it before she dropped it back into the ocean, whereupon the fish transformed into a handsome prince. The prince explained that he had committed an evil deed, and as punishment, a witch had turned him into a fish until someone pure of heart took pity upon him.
Kissing Megs would lift a curse somehow, only Akella wasn’t sure which one of them was the girl and which one the prince in need of redemption. Preyla knew Akella had committed her share of evil deeds, but she also knew from the haunted look that sometimes lingered in Megs’s eyes that she, too, wanted – needed? – redemption.
Megs must have felt Akella staring at her, because she turned her head, meeting Akella’s eyes. Her face, for once, was soft and vulnerable. Her hand still rested on Akella’s forearm.
Not yet,a voice inside Akella whispered. You haven’t earned your redemption yet.
Megs’s lips parted. Her dark eyes held a question.
Akella placed her hand atop the one on her forearm. “Come on. It’s too cold out here for my Adessian blood.”
She headed back inside the little room, tugging Megs gently along behind her. Megs allowed herself to be led, hand sliding from Akella’s forearm to her fingers.
Without letting go of Megs, without glancing back, because that might break the enchantment, Akella used her free hand to pull down the covers on the bed. She guided Megs around, seating her on the edge of the mattress.
“Sleep as long as you like,” Akella said, sitting on the floor between the writing desk and the bed. It was such a small space that her shins rested against the bed frame. She could feel Megs watching her, but instead of looking up, she went to work on the boot laces that went nearly to Megs’s knees. “All I ask is that you take these things off first. I’ve seen you Imperial people sleep on your beds and bedrolls with your boots on. It’s a disgusting habit, if you ask me.” She finished unlacing one of the boots, began wriggling it off. Megs didn’t fight her. “Unhygienic in the extreme. How can you bear to sleep in a bed whose sheets are covered in grit, especially after you’ve stepped in all manner of things?”
The first boot gave way with a little suck of air. Akella moved on to the laces of the second boot.
“You’re not like how I expected you would be,” Megs said, apropos of nothing.
Akella kept her eyes on the laces. “How did you expect I would be?”
“I assumed a pirate would be crueler. Colder.” She paused, perhaps thinking. “Are all Adessian rizalts as kind-hearted as you? Or are you the exception to the rule?”
Akella chuckled. She tugged on the second boot. “I’ve never gotten on particularly well with rules.”
“How did you get to be like this?”
“Like what?”
“You’re so brash and loud and superior on the outside,” Megs said. Exhaustion slurred her words now, and she pushed her fist against her mouth to cover a yawn. “But beneath that veneer, you’re as soft as goose down.”
Akella got the second boot off. As if Megs was a child, she took both her ankles and swung them up onto the mattress, then pulled the sheet and the moth-eaten blanket up to her chin. For the first time since they came inside, she dared to look at Megs’s face again. It sagged with a need for sleep, her eyes barely able to stay open.
“I think you’re delirious,” said Akella. She kneeled beside the head of the bed, hovering just over Megs.
“Why are you trying to court me? Just to prove you can?”
Akella thought for a moment. “Not anymore,” she answered honestly.
“Then why?”
“Because you are strong and brave and beautiful,” Akella answered. “Because you are clever and handle yourself well in battle. And because you’re loyal. Not loyal to the Empire, necessarily. You would give your life to protect the men who serve with you,” she added. “I understand that.”
“Are you really going to die in some faraway lost kingdom?”
Akella hesitated. She wasn’t sure why she believed the prophecy of the Terintan witch who had come to her in a dream, but she did. “Probably.”
Megs reached up, placing her fingers lightly onto Akella’s cheek. “If you die any sooner, I’ll never forgive you,” she said, and her eyes drifted closed.
Akella smiled, and Megs’s fingers moved with the muscles of her face, then fell away.
Akella sat cross-legged on the floor between the bed and the writing desk while Megs slept late into the afternoon. She occupied herself by cleaning her nails for a while, but then she grew restless and went to the balcony again, eyeing the low grey clouds with wary suspicion. Akella was no Easterner, but she was beginning to recognize what a sky prepared to dump a fresh batch of snow looked like. She turned her gaze from sky to ground, gazing down at the ruined hamlet beyond the city wall, trying to imagine what it was like when its people still lived there, and what had happened to all of them. In all likelihood, the women and children had been subsumed into the tribes as slaves, and the men, the ones either too old or too young to join the Imperial Army, had been executed. That was the pattern of the Empire’s enemy. Perhaps that was what had happened to Megs’s village, too, and somehow she’d witnessed it, and that was why she didn’t like to talk about it.
But the view of the hamlet, half-burnt, buried in snow, and abandoned, hadn’t seemed to bother Megs. If anything, it was the opposite.
I want to enjoy the view a little longer first,she’d said when Akella started to head back inside. Maybe I can make myself believe I’m somewhere else. Anywhere but Pellon.
An idea came to Akella, such a sweet and excellent idea that she grinned until her cheeks hurt. She knew where to take Megs on their first official night of courtship. She just had to find a way to get there.
Akella closed the balcony door as softly as she could and put her overcoat back on. She hesitated beside Megs, still fast asleep. The battle-hardened sergeant laid on her side, one hand beneath her face, the other hand a fist clenched around the worn blanket. Akella had an urge to lean down and kiss her, lightly, gently. Just on her cheek or her forehead.
But she didn’t.
She slipped out the door and into the dim corridor as quietly as she could. Once she woke, Megs would probably wonder where Akella had gone, but it would be alright. Megs would let herself out and make her way back to the squad of the ten boy soldiers who worshiped her, and when the time was right, Akella would find her again.
With a nod to the guard who blocked the stairs leading to the Empress’s floor, Akella turned the other direction and wound her way towards the castle’s easternmost courtyard, the one that emptied out into the silent, snow-filled lane between the fortress’s inner curtain of walls and the lower outer wall.