THREE
Sun, moon. Day, night. Light, dark, shade.
Every day, she learned new sounds, and every sound, he taught her to shape into new words. They flew like butterflies into air.
Air. Fire, water, earth. Small science. Shadow and bone.
He sat with her for many hours, cocooning her mouth. There were words for everything, for anything, and she began to look for them in the spinnerets of his voice.
Istoriya. Sankta. Koroleva. Otkazat'sya.
If she could, she would trap them all inside her so she could listen to the flutter of their wings in her throat. But she would probably choke. There were too many.
He gave her words for the direction of the wind, words for the lifespan of trees, words for the hours between dusk and dawn. He gave her words about words, too, like sprouts on a tree.
Grisha could be corporalki, etherealki, materialki. He could be general, sir, moi soverennyi.
At first, he turned sounds into nursery rhymes for her to sing along to. He would hum and she would warble the alphabet back to him, which often made him smile.
When he showed her how to write her name, he folded her fingers around a pencil and moved her hands for her. Strokes straightened into lines, lines curled into cursive, cursive interlaced into letters, letters spelled out words.
Aleksander. Aleksandra.
Writing was boring, though. She preferred looking at picture books. He let her go back to her games once she demonstrated she could write out their names by herself.
Oхюжбоѫлъ. Oхюжбоѫлъо.
It was more difficult than she thought without him there to hold her hand, and the room had darkened with her mood. She put the pencil down with an annoyed huff.
"Pictures," she said sternly.
He raised an eyebrow at her. "Where are your manners, hm?" She was still perched on his lap.
"Pictures, please," she added impatiently, and his breath came out in a chuckle.
"Well." His hand smoothed out the unhappy frown on her forehead. "I'll let your new tutors deal with your attitude. Go on," he said.
She only understood that last part. He was speaking too quickly for her to understand much, but she didn't really care what he was saying. She went to wriggle off him and accidentally slipped.
In a flash, his arms had moved to steady her, but she managed to catch herself on her hands. She pushed herself up, elbows digging into his thigh, and he grunted and shifted her off the bench completely.
Most of the time, she played on the floor of his study, which had been newly fitted with soft furs and even softer cushions for her comfort. It was her playroom during the day.
