by Victor Poole
"I'm changing," she warned him.
"Okay," he said, looking around at her.
"I change in front of the slaves," Ajalia said defensively.
"Okay," he said, gazing out the window.
"So it's not strange," she added.
"Okay," he said for the third time. Ajalia sniffed.
"That's the third time you've said that," she pointed out.
"Are you changing, or not?" Delmar asked. He lifted his head, and met her eyes.
"Go away," she said.
"Okay," Delmar said agreeably. He moved to his feet with a motion like a rolling ball, and sauntered out of the room.
"You're different again," Ajalia complained. "Why do you keep changing?" She pushed the door closed, and pulled the orange gown over her head.
"I'm the same," Delmar said. "Maybe you changed."
"I didn't change," Ajalia said defensively.
"You took in magic," Delmar pointed out.
Ajalia unstrapped the harness of her knife, and dropped it onto the floor. She pulled the long-sleeved shift back onto her body, and adjusted the sleeves. She kicked the door.
"Okay," she said. She sat on the floor, and picked up the knife harness. Delmar poked his head around the door.
"Are you finished?" Delmar asked.
"Finished enough," Ajalia said peskily.
"What's that?" he asked, sitting next to her and taking the dagger out of the sheath. "Oh," he said, looking over the blade. He turned the hilt into the moonlight.
"Is the edge sharp?" he asked.
"Yes," Ajalia said, but Delmar had already tried his thumb against the blade, and hissed in annoyance. "Don't play with knives," she told him, taking it back.
"Why do you carry a knife?" he asked, rolling onto his stomach and looking up at her.
"Stop looking at me like that," Ajalia told him.
"Never," Delmar said.
"See?" she said. "See? This is different. We came into Slavithe from Talbos, and you got vague and stupid, and the same thing happened when your father was here. Why do you keep changing?"
Delmar put the two white stones he had been playing with on the floor in a neat line. He pushed the first stone over the floor; it made a narrow grating noise against the white stone floor.
"Watch," he said, and pressed his fingertips against the white floor. Threads of golden light drew up against his skin, and formed beads on his fingertips. "Here," he said, holding out his hand.
"What is that?" Ajalia asked.
"Magic," Delmar said. He touched the golden droplets against Ajalia's cheek; her skin burned where he touched.
The slim leather book was bundled in the folds of the orange gown on the floor; Ajalia pulled on the straps of the knife harness, and buckled it across her ribs.
"Why do you wear this?" Delmar asked again. He touched his fingers to the leather.
"So I can kill people," Ajalia said. "Usually, here, I cut hair. I used to give scars, but for some reason, in Slavithe, I cut hair."
"I see," Delmar said. "You don't really kill people, though," he said. "I would be able to tell if you killed people."
Ajalia stared out of the window. She shook out the folds of the cream Slavithe robe, and put it on over her long-sleeved shift.
"What do you want from me?" she asked. An anxious ache rose up in the back of her neck when she spoke; she could not put her mind directly on the cause of her discomfort, but she could see it had something to do with the moonlight, and the memory of Delmar's tongue against her scars.
Delmar pushed his white rocks across the floor. Ajalia began to think that Delmar hadn't heard her at all.
"What do you want from me?" Ajalia asked again. She began to think about the day she had met Delmar in the trees outside the city; she began to wish she had never spoken to him then.
"Answer me," she said.
"What?" Delmar said.
"Didn't you hear anything I just said?" Ajalia asked. Delmar's eyes had gone blank.
"I guess not," he said. "Can I kiss you again?"
"Why don't you go away?" Ajalia asked him wearily. "Things were going along swimmingly before I met you."
"They were not," Delmar said quickly. "They were bad. You were sad. Your arms hurt then."
"You aren't helping my arms," Ajalia said. "I feel like they're going to open up."
"Well, yeah," Delmar said, as though it were obvious. "That's the idea."
Ajalia's mouth curled itself into a snarl.
"You're doing this on purpose?" she asked.
"Yes," Delmar said. "They have to open up so the pain can pass through. I think they'll heal without scars this time."
"And then I'll be branded again," Ajalia said. "Thank you. I almost died getting these," she said angrily, shaking her forearm in his face. "I had to cut into myself four different times to conceal all the black."
Delmar stared at her, his eyes open wide.
"Don't be mad at me," he whispered.
"Of course I'll be mad at you," Ajalia cried in exasperation. She glanced out of the open door, and lowered her voice. "You can't shove in on things you don't understand without asking. I'll have to start over on the scars now."
"No!" Delmar said. "You won't."
"I will if the scars heal," Ajalia said bitterly. "Do you know how much this hurt?" she demanded.
"But it's a brand, isn't it?" Delmar asked.
"Yes," she said, an ugly stinging in her eyes, "two giant black brands."
"But the burnt skin will heal over too. The brands will heal," Delmar insisted. "That's why I'm putting the magic straight in, with my tongue."
Ajalia glared at him.
"What?" she asked.
Delmar sighed, and climbed into a sitting position. He pulled Ajalia into his lap. He had a curious way of putting his arms around her that took her off her guard; by the time she realized what was happening, she was settled securely in his embrace, and the smell of his skin seemed to make her anger melt. She had decided twice before this that she would not let Delmar hold her again, and yet here she found herself, Delmar's arms locked tenderly around her limbs, a look of contented bliss on his face. She thought that it was likely that he was so innocent in the way he touched her that her normal danger signals never went off at all. By the time he had lifted her deftly into his lap, one arm wrapped tenderly around her thighs, the other warmly clasping her shoulders, she was somehow too warm and cozy to disentangle herself.
THE STRANGE WEAKNESS
"You have to stop doing this," she told him. Delmar pretended he hadn't heard her.
"The first time, on the road," Delmar said, "I only pushed the pain upwards. There's old pain in your arms, not just the cuts and brands, but pain from something else. Sometime when you were scared, I think."
Delmar's words made a smell like burning thatch cloud up in Ajalia's nostrils; she shuddered convulsively, and Delmar adjusted his hold on her. He was like a great tree; he seemed to have grown up around her without her noticing.
"You're very grabby," Ajalia told him. Delmar hummed. She pushed at his shoulder with her face, and he stroked along her jawline with his fingers.
"I'm snuggly," he corrected. Ajalia sighed in spite of herself.
"Pushy," she told him. "And you lick me, which is nasty."
"Mm," Delmar said, and Ajalia's stomach turned over.
"Don't," she said. He made an inarticulate grumble, and she settled more deeply against his chest. "No more tongue," she warned. "I won't stand for it."
"I pushed up the pain," Delmar said, as if speaking uninterrupted, "but the magic will make it heal upwards from the inside."
"How?" Ajalia asked. Delmar shrugged. She could feel him breathing against her cheek. The large shape of his torso impressed itself upon her senses. She ignored her senses.
"The magic puts more life into the skin," Delmar said.
"You have no idea how it works," Ajalia told him. He shrugged again.
"Let me see," he said.
"No," she said. "I can't trust you. You'll lick me again."
"Maybe," he said. "Let me see your arms." Ajalia nuzzled the delicate skin over his throat.
"No," she said firmly.
"Yes," he said.
"No," she said. He pulled her away to face him.
"Please?" he asked. She could see the moonlight shining in his eyes; something about the love in his face changed her mind. Slowly, she pulled one long sleeve back to expose a few inches of her wrist and arm.
Delmar picked Ajalia up from his lap, and set her down on the ground with a swift motion. He knelt in front of her and held her skin up to the moonlight.
"You're beautiful," Delmar said, looking at the pale mottled and raised skin inside her wrist. Ajalia laughed.
"You look at that mess, and you say beautiful," she said. "You're crazy."
"But you are," Delmar said earnestly, looking up into her eyes. "You're beautiful."
Ajalia's face felt frozen. She tried and failed to smile.
"I don't think so," she said.
"Well, you are," Delmar said peaceably, turning her wrist gently. "See that?" he said, prodding at the skin with his finger. "The mark is going to fall off."
"They're brands," Ajalia said acerbically. "He burned them into my arms. Brands don't just peel off."
Delmar chuckled. He tugged a little at a flake of dark skin and held it up in the light.
"Magic," he said. His face was impish with curiosity and delight. He looked infernally pleased with himself. Ajalia's jaw had clenched upward as though it had joined into one piece with her skull. Her windpipe was thinning together at the top. She thought that the air was going to start whistling through her like wind blowing over a broken reed.
She tried to open her mouth, to tell Delmar that she didn't feel well. She had thought that the disaster on the road to Talbos had been unthinkably bad, but in this moment she was feeling even worse. A new kind of pain was bottoming out in her heart; she had not thought such a depth of pain was possible. She told herself that she was probably going to die of an explosion in her heart. Delmar was examining her arm in the light from the window; he hadn't seemed to notice Ajalia's distress. She pulled her arm out of his hands with a ragged jerk, and moved away to the side of the room. She pressed her face against the white stone wall. She could feel a sudden buzzing at the place where Delmar had touched golden drops of magic to her cheek.
"What's the matter?" Delmar asked.
Ajalia wanted him to know what to do; she could not find the words to tell him what was wrong. She looked at him, and the things she would have said five minutes ago were lost; her mind was a wide, barren expanse. She tried to tell him that she couldn't seem to say anything, but she couldn't say that, either. She wanted him to come to her, to pick her up, to rock her back and forth, or at least to fight with her.
"Say something stupid," Ajalia rasped.
"What did you say?" Delmar asked.
"Tell me something stupid," Ajalia demanded. A glowing redness was circling out around the edges of her sight; she thought that she could feel her heartbeat, see it in the air around her. There seemed to Ajalia to be masses of obnoxious noise; everything outside scraped up against her ears; the wind and and the distant, echoing chatter of birds from outside the walls of the city, even the falling of the moonlight within the room, seemed to attack Ajalia with unbearable noise. She wrapped her elbows around her head, and buried her face in her knees. She could feel the shadowy pressure of her father's hands on her shoulders, his fingers digging into her skin.
"Say something," Ajalia whispered hoarsely.
"I don't have any money," Delmar ventured. A harsh half-laugh tore out of her throat; she pushed her forehead into the bones of her knees.
"I know what you want from me," Delmar said suddenly.
A loud slamming noise was echoing like thunder over Ajalia's head; she seemed to have been transported back in time to when she had been a child, and her mother had banged the pots over the hearth.
"What do I want?" Ajalia asked. Her voice made hardly any sound.
"You want someone to fix," Delmar said quickly, "because you're afraid of yourself, and you hope that I'll fix you, too." He looked at her with an earnest, bright look in his eyes.
Ajalia looked up at him. She felt like death incarnate.
"Get out," she rasped. She stumbled to her feet and grappled Delmar by the upper arms. "Stand up," she said, "get out of my room. Go away. Get out."
Delmar raised up half on his knees, and wrapped his large hands around Ajalia.
"Don't do this," Delmar said. He swiveled, and pushed the door closed with one foot.
"Go," Ajalia rattled. Her vision was spinning. She was holding herself upright on Delmar's shoulders. Her breath heaved in and out of her like a winter gale.
"I love you," Delmar said. "I won't go away."
"I want you to go," Ajalia said. Her legs buckled, and Delmar wrapped his arms securely around her waist. "Stop helping me," she said breathlessly.
"Hush," Delmar said. He swept one arm under the crook of her knees; she fell with a groan against him. Her spine was stiff and arched. She couldn't feel her arms.
"Stop it," Ajalia murmured, blinking. "Stop this. I have to work. I have to get up."
"You'll work when the sun comes up," Delmar said calmly. "I'll make you get up then. I'll carry you if I have to."
"It doesn't count," Ajalia gasped, "if you help me." The room was spinning and wobbling up and down around her; she wanted all of the light to stop.
"I'm going to kiss you," Delmar said, stroking her face firmly. A tense giggle, almost noiseless, burst from her mouth.
"Kissing won't help," she choked out.
"Kissing will help," he said decidedly, pressing his lips over her eyes.
"Kissing," Ajalia said, feeling the thud of Delmar's heart against her chin, "will probably make this worse. And no magic," she added hoarsely.
"Mm," Delmar said. He tilted her face up into the light, and buried her mouth in a long caress. His hands were spreading heat over her skin; the rest of her flesh was cold. She thought she could sense a hot radiance coming out of his heart, and casting a spell over her. She tried to say to him that kissing was for nincompoops and sentimental people, but he was opening his lips over her mouth, and his tongue was running along the edge of her lip.
"I am sure," Ajalia said, her whole body rocking with shivers, "that I do not like kissing."
"Yes," Delmar murmured, kissing her chin.
"Stop liking me," Ajalia told him. Delmar caught her cheek in his hand, and turned her face upward.
"I love you," he said again. Ajalia started to cry.
"I am not crying," she said fiercely.
"Go to sleep," Delmar said softly, smoothing his palm over her hair. A shuddering sigh came through her body; she pushed her face into the warm space between his jaw and his neck.
"You smell safe," she said.
"Come here," he said. He lifted her against his chest, and shifted his seat over against the wall. He leaned back against the white stone, and arranged Ajalia so that she was tucked securely over his body. Her cheek was against his neck, and her hands were curled against his chest like frail bird's wings. Delmar kept one hand firmly grasped around Ajalia's thigh, holding her on his lap.
Ajalia made a strangled noise between laughter and crying. Delmar stroked her hair, and began to hum gently.
"Are you singing to me?" she whispered.
"No," Delmar said calmly. "I am humming."
"No magic," Ajalia said again, relaxing into his embrace. "Magic is cheating," she told him. She closed her eyes, and Delmar hummed.
The night lightened when the sun started to rise; Ajalia woke up and found her hands tangled around Delmar's bicep. His head was thrown back against the wall, and his legs were stretched out on the hard stone floor. Delmar's sides rose and fell with his breath; Ajalia laid her palm against his ribs, and watched him sleep.
S
he was next to Delmar, her head pillowed on his shoulder, and her legs pressed up against his thigh. His body was warm; she felt as if she were snuggled against a pool of sunshine. He looked like a child when he was asleep; the furrows in his brow had gone, and his mouth was spread softly in a peaceful smile.
The sky out of the window was still gray with night. A short, shrill cry of birds came through the sharp cool of the air. Ajalia pushed her nose into Delmar's shirt, and breathed in the smell of his skin. He smelled like real love, the kind of comfortable love that comes with family, and a decent mother, and a proper father, and neat and tidy furniture, and a pet cat. He smelled like comfort.
"I have a horrible crick in my neck," Delmar said, without opening his eyes. He slid down the wall and put his head into Ajalia's lap.
"What are you doing?" Ajalia asked in a soft voice.
"Sleeping," Delmar said comfortably. Ajalia put her hand into his hair. She touched the part of his neck that ran up behind his ear; Delmar sighed deeply.
"I have to get up and work," Ajalia said.
"Sun isn't up," he said promptly. She smiled.
"Anyway," he said, "you're probably just making up fake work to get away from me." Delmar wrapped his arm around Ajalia's knees. "Now," he said into her leg, "you will never escape."
Ajalia pulled the sleeve away from her left arm; the skin was beginning to turn an awful dead white color. The flesh was raising up in sharp corners that threatened to peel away. She could see the skin was going to be bloody underneath the peels.
"This is going to be a mess," she told Delmar.
"What?" he asked, his eyes closed.
"Look," she said, holding out her arm. "If this peels up too much, it's going to bleed." She sighed. "Bandages," she said. She did not add that she hated bandages. "I don't know what I'm going to use to wrap this up," she grumbled, shifting Delmar off of her lap and standing up.
Delmar groaned in protest, and put his face against the floor.
Ajalia had bandages, a little bag of them, and ointment she would have put onto something like this, but it had been packed away with the other caravan things. She did not want to ask anyone in Slavithe for help. She thought that she would bind her arms hard with cloth and ignore them. She was mostly concerned with keeping the blood from staining her pale clothes.
