Chapter6 The Anchor
1844 Words
Day four in the dark.
I have stopped counting the hours.
Hours are a luxury for people who can watch the sun move across the sky.
Instead, I count sounds.
The guard outside my door has a slight drag on his left boot.
A healed injury, imperfect.
He makes his circuit every forty-three minutes.
The one who replaces him at dawn walks heavier on his heels.
Military posture.
The third shift guard, the one with the low voice who sometimes hums, is the most dangerous of the three.
He is the most comfortable one.
I have been cataloging the world in fragments.
Rebuilding it piece by piece through the senses I have left.
The Aerie smells of beeswax and dried lavender.
Beneath it, always, the faint metallic bite of the fortress itself.
Iron in stone. Iron in the air. Iron in the blood of this place.
But this morning, something was different.
Elly comes in earlier than usual.
Her footsteps have their usual whisper-soft quality. But underneath the soap smell she carries, there is something else.
She sets the breakfast tray down with careful precision.
Someone is trying very hard not to make noise.
"Good morning," I say.
She startles. The tray rattles.
"Oh. Yes. Good morning, Saint Healer."
I tilt my head. The anxiety scent sharpens.
"Is something wrong?"
"No, of course not."
"Elly."
She is still.
I can tell from the absence of her usual fidgeting sounds.
"It's nothing," she says, very quietly.
I let the silence breathe for a moment. Then I ask something else entirely.
"Do you have family here? In the fortress?"
"A brother," she says.
"He works in the lower kitchens."
"What is his name?"
"...Cael."
"Tell me about him."
I can tell she had not expected them.
Most people in this fortress treat servants like extensions of the furniture.
The question seemed to disorient her more than any demand could.
"He is... he is fifteen," she says, slowly, "He wants to train for the guard someday. He is too young yet. But he practices every morning before his shift. With a stick he found in the yard."
I almost smile.
"He sounds determined."
"He is." Something in her voice shifts.
"He is the most stubborn person I know. He is going to either save someone's life one day or cause a catastrophe. I can never decide which."
"Both, probably."
She laughs.
Then she catches herself.
The laugh cuts off like a candle snuffed.
"Sorry. I should not."
"Don't apologize for laughing," I said.
"It is the only honest thing in this room."
"The breakfast," she says.
"I should. I can leave you."
"The soup is the wrong temperature, isn't it?"
I had already registered the smell.
Soup should not carry that particular heat bloom.
It is sharp, with an overcooked edge when set down properly. It was too hot when it left the kitchen.
Elly is very quiet.
"Which is interesting," I continue, conversational.
"Because you are meticulous. You have brought me my meals for four days. The temperature has been perfect every time."
"Someone instructed you to get it too hot," I say.
"So I would burn my mouth if I drank it quickly. A small discomfort. Not enough to report. Just enough to remind me of my place."
"I am sorry," Elly whispers.
"They said it was not. I did not think it would."
"It is fine." And I mean it.
"You are here. You are navigating something I understand better than you know."
I reach for the tray and wrap both hands around the soup bowl.
Letting the heat seep into my palms. Too hot to drink comfortably.
"I will not ask you to do anything that puts you at risk," I say.
"But I want you to know. When you can, and only when you can, anything you see or hear that seems strange. That seems wrong. I am listening. You do not have to do anything with it. Just remember it. That is all."
"Okay," Elly says.
It is the first chess piece I have placed on the board.
The door opens before noon.
Not anyone I could recognize.
The footsteps are different. Carrying their owner's weight evenly across the full foot. No heel-first military stamp.
"You could have knocked," I say.
"I did." Evan settles into the chair across from me.
I tracked him by the sound of leather. The shift in the room's warm air.
The particular quality of silence he brings.
Heavy and still as a deep lake.
"You did not answer."
"I was thinking."
"About what?"
"Soup temperature."
I have the impression he is deciding whether to ask. He decides not to. Somehow, that restraint is its own kind of respect.
"I came to tell you," he says, "about tomorrow."
"Another test."
"A field assessment. Victor wants."
"I know what Victor wants." I keep my voice flat.
"He wants to know the parameters of his new weapon. Accuracy. Reload time."
"Don't apologize to him," I say, before he can.
"I am not asking you to."
"I was not going to apologize." His voice is certain.
"I was going to tell you I will be with you. The entire time. If anything."
"If you are there," I interrupt, "then I have a question."
I hear his slight shift.
The creak of the chair as he adjusts.
"The infirmary layout," I say.
"The soldiers' recovery ward. How many exit points, and which one is least monitored between the second and fourth hours of the morning watch?"
The silence that follows has a different texture than his usual ones.
"Why," he says carefully, "would you need to know that?"
"I don't need to escape," I say, "I need to understand the architecture of my situation. I need to know what is possible and what isn't. I need to know the shape of the cage. You gave me your oath. That means I need to be able to trust your information as well as your sword arm."
"Two exits. The eastern corridor and the drainage access behind the supply alcove. The Eastern corridor has a guard rotation gap between the second and third hour. Twelve minutes."
He says it very carefully.
I store it precisely.
"Thank you."
"Thea."
"I won't do anything foolish," I say.
"I told you. I just needed to know."
He stays longer than duty requires.
We don't speak much.
He brought a second cup.
I hear the quiet pour of liquid. S
Mell the sharp green of some tea that wasn't in the original tray.
He simply sits.
At some point, I move to the window. Oriented by the light and warmth.
Standing in the balcony doorway.
Feeling the sun on my face. Reminding my skin that the world is still out there.
I hear him follow. Not close. Just near.
"You can tell when it is going to rain," I say.
I had noticed a slight tension in him.
A quality of stillness different from his usual quiet.
"The air pressure changes," he says, after a moment.
"For wolves, it is stronger."
"Yes."
"What does it feel like?"
"Like a held breath," he says, "The world's pulling itself together before it lets go."
My hand, resting on the balcony railing, drifts sideways without me fully deciding to move it, and my fingers find the back of his hand where it rests on the stone beside mine.
Neither of us moves.
The warmth of his skin is startling. The slight roughness of old scars under my fingertips.
His hand is enormous. Solid as the stone itself.
Slower than mine.
I don't know what I am doing.
That is the truth. I don't know what this is or why I reached for him or what it will cost me later.
The logical part of my mind is already listing the reasons this is inadvisable.
The rest of me is noting that this is the first time in four days someone has felt like an anchor instead of a weight.
I pull my hand back.
He doesn't speak.
Neither do I.
After he leaves, I sit with my back against the wall beside the balcony door.
Letting the last of the day's warmth soak through the stone.
The soup sat untouched until it cooled.
Evan's information sits in my mind like a key I haven't yet found the lock for.
Twelve minutes.
Eastern corridor.
Drainage access.
Not for escape.
Not yet.
And power, in this place, is the only currency that matters.
I reach up and touch my own face. The one he was testing the merchandise.
Assets that fail.
I won't fail.
But I also won't be what they think I am.
The knock came just after the third guard change.
I have learned to identify the hour by the quality of the silence.
The fortress is settling into its nighttime bones.
I know who it is before the door opens.
The scent reaches me first. Pine. Iron. Cold fury.
Victor.
"You are awake," he says.
"You are here." I don't move from my spot against the wall.
"That is either important or inconvenient. I haven't decided which."
A short, harsh sound. His footsteps cross the room. Stop a few feet away.
Close enough that his presence presses against me like a weight.
"The assessment tomorrow," he says. "There has been a change."
"You will be working with Zane."
"Zane," I repeat.
"He volunteered." Victor's voice carries something I can't quite read. Irritation, maybe.
"The Mad Dog wants to be your test subject."
"That seems unwise."
"It seems like a variable I can control." He moves closer.
I feel him lower himself into a crouch in front of me.
His scent wraps around me.
That combination of cold and dominance makes my skin prickle.
"Unless you have an objection."
"Would it matter if I did?"
"No."
"Then I have no objection."
I feel his gaze on my face like a physical thing. Looking for weakness.
"You are different," he says finally.
"I am blind. That tends to change a person."
"That is not what I mean. You were afraid of me. Before. I could smell it on you."
I say nothing.
"Now?" He is Close enough that I feel the warmth of his breath.
"Nothing. Not fear. Not submission. Just." He stops. Searches for the word.
"Quiet."
"Maybe I have realized fear is a luxury I can't afford."
His hand comes up.
I feel the displacement of air. For a moment, I think he will touch me again.
The way he did during the inspection. My body tenses.
But he doesn't.
His hand stops inches from my face.
Hovers.
Then drops.
"Tomorrow," he says, "Noon. Don't make me wait."
His footsteps retreat.
The door opens and then closes.
I am alone in the dark. My skin was still prickling when he touched it.
I press my palm against my chest.
The King who broke our bond comes to my room in the night and tells me not to make him wait.
And I still don't know what that means.
- Writer
