The Primordial Flame

Waking up alone.

Pale, slate grey dawn slants through the high, arrow slit windows of the safe house, cutting dusty shafts through the cool gloom. The great hall is bitterly quiet, smelling of cold stone, stale ale, and the powdery ash of a hearth that burned down to its last silver embers hours ago.

At the very top of the stairs, an ancient oak riser groans under shifting, heavy weight.

The sound is barely a shudder in the timbers, but Vane is already moving. Like a shadow detaching itself from the stone, he rises from the fleece without a single scrape of leather or rustle of linen.

His touch is whisper soft as he carefully draws the heavy wool blanket up over my shoulders, tucking it snugly around my neck to seal out the encroaching morning chill. For a fleeting fraction of a second, the calloused pads of his fingers graze my cheek warm, steady, a silent promise kept before he turns and slips soundlessly down the corridor toward his own quarters, gone before the dust in the air even settles.

Upstairs, the world is a brutal, pounding misery.

Bram sits on the edge of his cot, clutching his temples as a war drum beats a relentless, vicious cadence against the inside of his skull. The dwarven fire spirit has left his throat feeling like he swallowed crushed glass and dry lye, every muscle in his massive frame aching as if he’d spent the night sparring against a battering ram. He groans, a low, guttural growl, and blindly reaches behind him to find the bed.

The coarse linen beside him is flat. It is undisturbed. Cold to the touch.

The realization pierces the fog of his hangover sharper than an assassin's bodkin. He stays frozen for a long beat, his dark brow furrowing, the silence of the empty chamber pressing in on him. She never came to bed.

The memory of the previous night, the dare, the stubborn pull of the stone jug, the sting of pride, and the cold snap of his own cowardice, rushes back in a sickening wave. Cursing under his breath, he shoves himself up from the cot. His footing sways for half a second before his iron discipline locks his knees, and he drags a heavy wool tunic over his broad chest.

His boots are heavy, unhurried, but deliberately quiet as he descends the winding stone staircase, following the draft down into the empty mess hall.

At the bottom of the steps, Bram stops dead in his tracks.

There, curled small upon a bed of fleece and wool in front of the dying grate, is Amelisse.

The ash in the hearth is gray and dead, save for a solitary, faint spark winking out beneath a blackened cedar log. Her dark hair spills across the fleece, her breathing slow and rhythmic, having chosen the cold flags of the dining hall over the warmth of his room.

Bram stands frozen by the archway, his massive shoulders hunched against the pounding in his head, his jaw clamped tight as he stares at the makeshift bed on the floor a silent, devastating indictment of the night before.

For a long, agonizing minute, the Commander does not move.

The cold draft from the stone flags creeps up through the soles of his boots, but he barely feels it. The pounding war drum behind his temples fades into a dull, thrumming hum, entirely overtaken by the sick, leaden weight dropping straight into his gut.

He looks at the hearth, cold and spent. He looks at the heavy fleece and the tangle of blankets, arranged with deliberate care on the hard floor. She hadn't collapsed here in a drunken stupor. She had deliberately dragged bedding down the stairs, made a bed on stone, and chosen to freeze by dying embers rather than climb the stairs to his room.

A muscle in Bram’s jaw flexes violently. He raises a rough, scarred hand, dragging his thick fingers slowly down his face, rubbing the grit of dwarven spirit from his eyes with a low, self loathing sigh that barely carries past his beard.

Gods damn it.

He crosses the cavernous hall with slow, heavy strides, taking painstaking care to keep his boots from scuffing the floorboards. When he reaches the edge of the pallet, the sheer size of him blocks out the pale gray dawn spilling from the high window, casting a long, broad shadow over the fleece.

He stands over me for a moment, his dark eyes tracing the curve of my cheek, the dark hair pooled over the wool, the steady rise and fall of my breathing. There is no anger in his face, only a grim, brooding ache, the heavy guilt of a man who knows he swung a warhammer where he should have used a gentle hand.

Slowly, carefully, Bram sinks onto one knee beside the pallet. The leather of his bracers creaks softly in the quiet.

He reaches out, his massive, calloused hand hovering an inch above the blanket, hesitating. For a second, he looks almost afraid to touch me, as if the cold barrier he built last night might shatter completely under his fingers.

Then, his knuckles lightly, tentatively brush a stray lock of dark hair away from my temple, tucking it behind my ear with an awkward, unpracticed gentleness. His skin is rough, hot with the lingering fever of the spirits, but his touch is as feather light as his massive hands can manage.

"Ame," he rumbles, his voice thick, raspy, and scraped raw from sleep and smoke.

He doesn't pull the blanket. He just rests his broad palm flat on the fleece near my shoulder, his dark, exhausted eyes fixed on my face, waiting for me to wake up and look at him.

"Ame, wake up. It's freezing down here."

A muffled, sleepy groan catches in my throat at the sound of his voice. Still caught in the heavy undertow of exhaustion, I frown in protest, turning my face deeper into the wool and curling inward, pulling the sheepskin tighter to shut out the cold morning air and the world above.

Bram doesn't wait for me to fully wake and pull away.

Without a second thought, his massive arms slide beneath me, one thick, solid forearm cradling the back of my knees, the other hooking securely behind my shoulders. With a low, quiet grunt against the thudding ache in his temples, he lifts me effortlessly from the stone flags. The fleece trails down like a fallen shadow as he draws me up against his broad chest, bundling the heavy wool blanket around me to trap my body heat against his own.

My head lolls instinctively into the crook of his neck, the familiar scent of leather, pine smoke, and cedar wrapping around me through the haze of sleep. He carries me up the winding stone stairs in silence, his heavy tread surprisingly steady, deliberate and reverent, as if carrying something infinitely fragile that he came perilously close to breaking.

Inside his quarters, the air is thick with lingering warmth and shadowed by heavy curtains. He approaches the large cot and lowers me down onto the mattress with meticulous, agonizing care, smoothing the bunched blankets around my limbs. Before the cold air of the room can reach me, he drags the heavy down quilt and fur throws up to my chin, tucking the edges beneath my shoulders.

The bed dips deeply under his weight as Bram strips off his boots and slides in beside me beneath the covers.

He doesn't keep his distance. Shifting close, he curves his broad, heavily muscled frame around my back, radiating a furnace of heat that immediately chases away the chill of the great hall. His thick arm reaches over my waist, his broad palm resting flat against my stomach, pulling me back until my spine is pressed flush against the solid wall of his chest.

He buries his face into the messy tangle of my dark hair, exhaling a long, shuddering breath that warms the back of my neck. There is an unspoken desperation in the way his arm anchors me, an unyielding, protective grip wrapped in quiet penitence.

Lying there in the dim grey dawn, his head pounding from the spirits and his throat dry, Bram holds on with both hands, silently praying to whatever gods listen to soldiers that the heavy warmth of his bed, the quiet sanctuary behind these closed oak doors, and this desperate, selfish flood of tenderness might somehow be enough to wash away the stinging humiliation he dealt me before the fire hoping that if he holds me tightly enough now, the memory of his foolish pride will simply fade into the dark.