Blood & Shadows

Five

      Gooseflesh breaks out over my body as a chilly breeze caresses me awake. I'm nude, my head upon Vrythien's chest as though I'd been posed. Knowing him and how he is it's quite possible. His arm drapes across my shoulders, an offering of tepid warmth. Again, he's staring at the ceiling, those ruby eyes of his open but not really seeing. He's lost in his thoughts and given the night before and our conversation he's earned it. My forefinger dances across that brand at his hip, the raised pink flesh of a crest. A dark secret that haunts his eyes. Do I have any similar secrets? Or rather, did I? Now, there's nothing that haunts me aside from the void where all memories of myself should be.

Why should I think of such things with perhaps the most beautiful man in the world beside me? That perfect pearlescent pallid flesh of his is cool to the touch as outside the window, gray dawn crests, and I trail my fingers up those deep defined divots that carve out his abdominals.

Everything is so very quiet. The music from the night before is gone, leaving behind only Vrythien and my slow, lazy breaths.

The table's been moved from in front of the door, carelessly pushed aside. The implications make me look up at him.

He left and came back to bed--to me.

Long, pallid fingers crook around one of my curls, shadow and light entwined as he lets out the softest prettiest practiced sigh.

I'm slow to move. No matter how cool he's gone with the dying of the fire he's still somewhat warm. For whatever reason, he kept the blanket off us. Perhaps he wanted to look at me? The thought strokes my vanity ever so slightly bringing a soft smile to my lips.

The truth comes out as I glance around the room. It was exactly as he said it would be. Rot and old wet wood linger sickly sweet on the air. The canopy of the bed we lay in now tatters, the red gossamer now blood-tainted cobwebs as we lay against the moldy fur-edged woolen blanket.

"They're alive if you're wondering," Vrythien says voice without emotion again. I sit up and he tilts his head to the side, watching me with some strange look in his eyes I can't place, his mask slipping yet again. No matter what lurks there I slip from the bed, picking up my shift from the floor. Weighty that gaze of his presses against me as I pull my shift on, veiling my nakedness.

"You don't know what caused your bruises, do you?" he asks, I turn to him. It's the first time he's mentioned them, I find myself feeling more naked around him than I did before while nude.

"I can't remember," My eyelids flutter as I twitch my head to the side, suddenly feeling exceptionally vulnerable.

"You've been beaten, by the same person many many times over years perhaps." He speaks slowly and carefully. "You should ask Faeriel to heal you."

"No." I snap. "Without their ache I'll forget."

"It's telling. He beat your body to the point that not even the bottoms of your feet were spared but he kept your face pristine. Perhaps you should forget." He shrugs a twitch of one broad muscular shoulder.

"Not even when I stand over his corpse with his blood on my hands." I smile and lift my chin. "Which reminds me I need to ask Geraent how to use a dagger."

At my words he sits up and snatches his trousers off the floor.

"No need, I'll teac--" his words are cut off as he winces and hisses through clenched teeth. His pain comes moments before my own. That spell digs further into my brain, and I fight to focus on that tether that binds us. Something stretches it taut. Magic? Distance? Noises that are far from human escape Vrythien in a deadly growl as he dresses with a grimace. Hissing through my teeth I fight to do the same, with each passing moment the pain grows as between us those threads stretch.