Inside the tent there was darkness, then the sound of a match being struck. The smallest of flames lit up Torwin’s hands as he cupped the match and ignited the lantern hanging above. It swung, scattering light across the tent and illuminating a bedroll, a pile of folded clothes, and the lute she’d bought in the marketplace.
They stood face-to-face, Asha chattering and trembling and dripping. Torwin, waiting and silent and still.
Asha had been dressed and undressed by slaves before. But they’d always been female slaves. Torwin was not. And the dress in question was her binding dress, meant to be taken off by her husband.
She needed to turn around so he could undo the buttons. She didn’t, though. In case a better option presented itself. Maybe she could call Kozu, fly back to camp, and get Safire to help her instead. But the thought of flying wet, in the freezing wind, made her shiver all the harder.
Torwin touched the knot in her sash. When she didn’t resist, he stepped in close. His fingers trembled as they untied the knot. The wet silk slid across her waist when he pulled and the dress loosened, letting her breathe.
The sash fell to the floor.
Torwin pushed the gossamer overlayer off her shoulders. With the slightest of tugs, it joined the sash at their feet.
When Asha still didn’t turn, he touched her wrist. His fingers trailed slowly up to her elbow, turning her gently until she faced the rough canvas wall of the tent. With her blood humming, she gathered up her wet hair and pulled it over her shoulder.
His fingers started at the top of her underlayer, sliding the tiny pebble-like buttons out of their corresponding loops.
The silence grew like a storm rolling in.
Soon, Asha couldn’t bear it.
“Thank you,” she said, breaking the silence.
Her voice startled him. He fumbled, his knuckles brushing across her bare skin. Asha’s heart raced like a desert wind.
“This is no imposition,” he whispered.
As the dress loosened and air rushed against her, Asha felt his gaze trail over her. The bumps of her spine. The wings of her shoulder blades. The curve of her lower back.
“There.” He swallowed softly, undoing the last button. “You’re free.”
Asha turned her back to the tent walls. She kept her arms crossed against her chest, holding the loosened dress up as she looked at him. The light cast by the hanging lamp made his skin glow. The shadows sharpened his cheekbones. Her gaze slid to his mouth, where the line of his lower lip dipped like the mantle of the Rift.
What would it feel like to press her mouth against his? To close the space between them? To claim him right here in his tent?
As if sensing her thoughts, Torwin raised his eyes to her face. Asha turned her scarred cheek away.
“Why do you keep doing that?” His voice hardened around the words.
When she didn’t answer, he slid off his shirt.
A feeling rushed through Asha, like plunging through the air with Kozu. Dropping the shirt at their feet, Torwin turned so his lacerated back—scabbed and finally healing—was on full display.
“Do you hate the sight of them?”
Asha sucked in a breath. “What? No.”
He turned back to her, his eyes cold. “Then why would I hate the sight of yours?”
But Torwin had never been proud of his scars, while Asha had loved her scar—because her father loved it. She’d used it to justify killing dragons. Her father lied to her over and over again while she brought him their heads. That’s what Asha saw now when she looked at her scar.
Tears stung her eyes and blurred her vision. Asha pressed her hands to her face, trying to hide them.
“Asha . . . ?”
When she wouldn’t look at him, Torwin’s arms came around her, crushing her into his warmth. With his cheek pressed against her hair, he didn’t say a word. Just held her as she cried. His warm palm moved in slow circles against her back, trying to soothe her.
“I almost killed Kozu,” she whispered into her hands when her hiccups fell silent. “I nearly destroyed the old stories.”
“Isn’t that what you wanted?”
Asha shook her head. His hand stopped. He reached for her wrists, pulling her hands away from her face.
“Tell me.”
She told him everything. The truth about the day Kozu burned her and all the things that came after. All the lies she’d ever believed. All the dragons she’d ever killed. And for what? For a tyrant. For a father who never really loved her at all.
Torwin held her tighter.
After a long while, he turned his face into her wet, glistening hair. “Stay here tonight,” he said. “It’s quiet and peaceful and you’ll get a good rest. Better than you will back at camp.”
“Here?” She palmed the tears from her cheeks. “In your tent?”
“Just for tonight.” He stepped away to pull his shirt back on. The cool air rushed in, chilling her once more. Grabbing a bundle of dry clothes, he held them out to her. “I’ll sleep outside.”
Taking them, she said, “Torwin—”
“I prefer the stars.” He reached for his lute, ready to leave so she could change. “And besides, I don’t sleep much. Nightmares, remember?”
But before stepping out of the tent, he stopped and turned around.
“You don’t ever have to go back. Not if you don’t want to.”
She frowned at him.
He took a shaky step toward her. “We could leave,” he said. “We could leave tonight.”
“Torwin, where would we go?”
His mouth tipped up at the side. “Anywhere. To the edge of the world.”
That smile sent the tiniest of thrills rippling through her. Asha tamped it down.
Run away? No.
She understood wanting to run from Jarek, but he would never stop hunting them. And what of the rest? What of Dax and Safire? She couldn’t leave them to fight this war alone.
Asha stepped back. “I can’t.” She shook her head. “Everyone I love is in that camp.”
And a lying tyrant ruled over Firgaard.
“Everyone you love,” Torwin repeated.
He stood very still. Like he was waiting for something.
But Asha didn’t know what else he wanted.
The light in his eyes went out.
“Get some rest,” he said, turning to leave. Without glancing back at her, he slipped out of the tent and into the darkness beyond.
Asha stared at the tent flap until the shivering returned. It felt like the time she left him in the clearing. Something lay unfinished between them. Like they were a fraying tapestry in need of a weaver.
She changed out of her sopping-wet dress and dumped it outside in a heap. Torwin’s clothes, while far too big, were warm and dry.
Turning down the lantern, she climbed into the bedroll. She tossed and turned in the darkness, her thoughts full of thorns.
It was only when a quiet melody drifted in that she fell still. From outside the tent, Torwin plucked a familiar tune from the strings of his lute. The same tune he’d been humming ever since he’d stitched up her side. There was more of it than the last time, but it still wasn’t complete. Torwin kept falling into silence halfway through, only to pick it up again at the beginning.
She imagined those hands, so deft and sure, plucking strings as easily as they’d made a poultice and stitched up her side. As easily as they’d undone the buttons on her dress.
Swallowing, Asha imagined those hands going farther. Sliding off her dress. Moving across her bare skin.
She shut her eyes, trying to escape the thoughts, knowing the danger they put him in. But they only flared up brighter behind her eyelids.
Much later, when Torwin gave up on his song at last and went to sleep, Asha lay awake, thinking of his hands.