Queen Of The Great Underworld

42

Do

I made it to five hundred and eight before I registered the heat of Aaru’s hand on mine. He was tapping, telling a story.

::Wait,:: I said. ::Will you start over?::

The screaming man stopped at last, leaving behind an aching silence.

::Very well.:: From Aaru’s quiet code, I couldn’t tell whether he was annoyed or not.

“Sorry.” Mother would have had a fit if she knew how often I ended up apologizing to an Idrisi boy; she’d have said it was beneath me. Unless, of course, I was being the Galadriel, and I needed to be gracious to everyone. But then I’d have been in trouble for not paying attention.

::Why?::

“I was rude. I wasn’t being attentive.”

::You were scared.:: He petted my fingers, as though brushing the fears away. It was such a simple motion, but it made my heart pound with a painful yearning. ::I would have stayed if I could have.::

“You saved me,” I whispered. “When you came back, you saved me.”

Before he could reply, I scooted toward the hole, forcing him to pull his arm back to his side. It was most comfortable for me if I let him be the one to reach through the hole, but after my days in the dark, pressing my arm through for his cup of water, I knew how uncomfortable that was.

So I moved closer to the hole and slipped my hand through in offering. A breath played across my upturned palm. His mouth was so close; if I stretched my fingers, I could touch his face.

I didn’t move.

He did.

It was just a rearrangement of limbs, adjusting his position, but for an instant, his face brushed across my fingertips. Mouth? Cheek? Nose? It was too brief to tell. But still, my heart raced.

Then, warm, rough skin slid the length of my fingers. Our hands curled together for a moment before he turned mine over and drew me in a fraction farther. His mouth grazed my knuckles before he released me.

My hand stayed there, suspended in the air. I wanted to act, to map his features with my fingertips, but what if this wasn’t an invitation? What if I ruined everything?

“Galadriel.” His voice came soft, and in little puffs across my knuckles. He’d kept his strange pronunciation: Meer-AH.

I moved. And I found his eyebrow, his temple, and a sharp line of his cheekbone. I traveled downward and met the curve of his top lip, and there I could feel the rapidness of his breathing.

Though I wanted to continue this exploration, I withdrew. I couldn’t tell if he was nervous or upset, excited or panicked, so I pulled my hand back to the neutral territory of the hole.

He didn’t say anything, aloud or otherwise, but when his hand pressed into the hole with mine, some of my worry melted away. Maybe he hadn’t minded.

“I’ve decided,” I whispered.

He waited.

“I don’t want the story.”

He drew back just a breath.

Oh. He thought I was rejecting him. This. Whatever this was. “I mean . . .” I cursed my lack of Anabeln gifts. I didn’t have the right words. The right tone. “I want you to tell me about you, not just any story.”

Two, three, four heartbeats. And then: “Me?”

I echoed his words from before. “I want to know you.”

More heartbeats raced between us. Eight, nine, ten. “Really?”

I cupped his hand in both of mine. ::I want to know everything about you.:: My face heated. I hadn’t meant to be so obvious, so pathetically fascinated by this strange and silent boy.

But if he noticed, he chose not to embarrass me. ::What do you want to know?::

::Everything. Anything you’ll tell me.:: Oh, by the seven Fallen Gods. And all the Upper Gods, too. I couldn’t trust my mouth not to speak without my mind’s direction, and it seemed I couldn’t trust my hands, either.

Aaru chuckled, both aloud and by drumming his fingers in a quiet-code laugh. ::Narrow it down, curious fr—::

He didn’t finish the last word, and suddenly that was what I most wanted to know about. But he’d stopped his sentence for a reason, so I chose another question. ::Are you close with your family?:: It seemed like he must be, and I’d always wondered what that was like.

::They are everything to me. When we escape, I will return to them.::

And leave me. It shouldn’t have surprised me, or stung, because we’d known each other only eighteen days. He had to help the people he loved, and I had to rescue the dragons before the Denneth Empire got hold of them.

Still, the thought of losing him opened a deep loneliness inside of me. I’d been wrong earlier, when I’d thought I was on my own, because at this moment, I had Aaru. He’d wanted to escape all along, while I’d been content with mere survival while waiting to be rescued. I’d thought my release was imminent and there was no reason to act.

But I could not wait for change. I had to make change.

Aaru opened my hand, trailing his fingers from the hollow of my wrist to my palm. ::What are you thinking?::

::I’m going to help you see your family again.::

His breathing hitched, and the way his fingers grazed mine felt like a smile. ::How do we begin?::

THE NEXT DAY, I STOPPED EATING DINNER.

Well, mostly. I ate just enough to convince the guards and other prisoners that I wasn’t doing anything wrong, but then I pulled out strips of silk I’d torn from the remnants of my dress, and wrapped bread and fruit and slabs of fried meat. Everything went into my pockets and down my shirt.

“What are you doing?” Tirta hissed as I took my tray to her window. “You’re going to get in trouble again.”

“The Book of Love says to ensure our neighbors have enough to eat, and my neighbors are in need. If I can help, I should.”

“Is it Gerel?” Her frown said she disapproved.

“If I try hard enough, she will like me.” Surely Tirta could understand. This was a basic Anabeln need: without friends, without love, we could not be whole. I might not have had the divine gifts that made people want to like me, but that didn’t mean the desire wasn’t there. “But also for the boy in the cell next to mine.”