A huff, “Yes, you,” Grimult repeated, although the temporary frustration was smoothed with a kiss to her temple. “How are Lightkeeps chosen?”
She did not like to think of that part, and it sent an ache through her even now to do so. “They make it all very mystical,” Penryn answered bitterly. “Talk of stars and alignments, of a soul needing a bearer.” She turned her head, trying to see some recognition in Grimult. He nodded, but did not seem to remember such talks. Were his sisters her age? She felt for their mother, if so, for the fear to have been present while she carried a tiny life inside, that they might be born at just the right day, just the right hour, to be plucked away under the claim of honour and duty.
“They do pick a day and a time,” Penryn conceded, “but it is hardly any great mystery. They know when they need a Lightkeep to come here, and then calculate how old they should like them to be. The rest is arbitrary.” She grimaced, plucking at the quilt above her and pulling it higher toward her chin. Grimult must have taken the action to be a sudden chill for he stroked her arm, and did not object when she burrowed even further into him. “The midwives swear an oath,” she clarified, lest it confuse him how they should hear of the births. “They pass along who is expecting and when the birth might take place, and then the sages are on call to intervene.”
Intervene in the perfectly natural bond of a mother meeting their babe for the first time. Of loving and greeting and rejoicing and crying and...
She did not mean to cry, but there was always an ache when she thought of all she had lost, all that had been taken from her when she had barely drawn her first breath.
“That should never have happened to you,” Grimult told her, his arm coming about her middle and holding her close.
He did not elaborate. Did not try to tell her of all the different ways the sages might have concocted to bring a delegate beyond the Wall. And for that, she was grateful. She had thought of that often in her younger days, when anger and resentment had festered. She had even drawn up a list and presented it to one of the sages on a particularly difficult day, and she remembered nearly screaming at him when he had smiled at her so patronisingly and told her he would review her proposals before they chose the date for the next selection of the Lightkeep.
Her stomach gave an uncomfortable twist as it always did when she imagined the one that would follow her. There was so much she wished she could say to them, to prepare them for the realities of their position rather than the fantasy strung along by the sages throughout the whole of her maturing years.
“I do not wish it for anyone,” Penryn murmured back, turning over so that her they were now facing one another. “When I was... particularly resentful, I would get so angry about what had been chosen for me.” She leaned forward, her forehead pressed against his chest. “But if it had not been me, then someone else. And it felt as if I was asking to rob someone of their happiness, and that seemed very wrong.”
An arm pulled her close, a hand stroking the back of her head through the long tresses there. She never had found the comb, but Grim’s ministrations had seen to most of the tangles, plucking and smoothing until the touches were languid, lovely things that spoke of more comfort than she could possibly have imagined.
“I do not blame you for wishing things were different,” Grimult assured her. “It is one thing to choose to be selfless, it is another for it to be demanded of you, time and again.”
She hummed a little in agreement, uncertain what to say. There was a confession at the tip of her tongue, one that would show him how very selfish she truly was, and she was not certain she should share it with him.
But this morning had already been about secrets and histories long buried, and she supposed her deepest feelings could be included in bringing Grim into her confidence.
“There is a part of me,” she began, not looking at him, closing her eyes and relishing how it felt to be held. “That wishes we could stay here. Pretend that we had never been attacked, that we do not know that there is danger waiting for your people and just...” A breath, her finger fiddling with the lacing of his shirt. “Just be.”
But even as she spoke, she imagined another slaughter, of a displaced people with centuries to stew on their anger and the injustice, finally pouring out their fervour on Grimult’s unsuspecting kind.
And if his family was hurt in the process? Could she truly be happy to live, sequestered in a forgotten dwelling, hiding him away for the whole of their days?
It was selfish in the extreme, not only to Grim’s people, but to him.
He should live nestled on a precipice, where his wings could be used even for the simplest of tasks. Not bound to the ground with her.
“They are not only my people,” Grim reminded her, his thumb delving and wheedling, finding her cheek and lifting her face up so he could look at her. “They are yours as well.”
Her mouth thinned, and she did not immediately reply, although the denial was already on her tongue. He raised an eyebrow, hand drifting to her back, where he knew her scars to be. “You think this changes who you are? Who you were born to? They took your wings, Pen, not your people.”
She had remained remarkably dry-eyed until then, and she did not know if it was the tender sureness with which he spoke or the shortening of her name—a name she was not even supposed to have—into something warm and familiar, or the suggestion that his people were not his, but theirs.
Except they were not. She did not live and work amongst them. None knew her, not truly, and none missed her when she was parted from them.
“They took both, then,” she countered, her eyes welling, but not quite filling, and she buried her face back in his chest before he could see. A sigh, deep and heavy, and he was back to smoothing his fingers through her hair, silence coming between them for a time. Not uncomfortable, a pleasant stillness as they both kept to their own thoughts. She felt strangely spent, as if the burdens of too much knowledge had finally been lifted. But rather than feeling free, she merely felt all the more tired, and she was certain if he allowed the quiet to continue, she could happily drift off yet again, content to pin him beneath her so he could not slip away unnoticed.
“In all those texts of yours,” Grimult mused, and she forced one eye to open, the better to try and listen rather than succumb to just a bit more slumber. “What did they tell you of family?”
Her brow furrowed, and this time he did not have to coax her to look at him. “What do you mean?”
“They were our peoples’ histories, yes? A simple recounting of what has been?” Penryn gave a shrug, uncertain of his intention.
“Some. There were a few journals as well.” She shook her head, remembering how excited she had been to read a first-hand account of a person beyond the walls of the Keep, and even now she could not name how their personal recountings had found their way into the library there. “It was some of the most tedious reading I have ever done, I assure you.” Long, winding laments at every disappointment that he had faced, and although Penryn had some compassion for the first few, it soon became clear that he was merely one with a fondness for complaint, and when he felt the need for three paragraphs at how his wife had cooked the same meal for the fourth night consecutively and how she must not love him very much at all any longer, she had put the book down and never returned to it.
Grimult gave a low hum, and was quiet again, his fingers never ceasing their work. But she was intrigued now, and she propped herself up, the better to look at him, to try to understand what he might be thinking. “Why?”
“I was merely considering,” Grim began, “that you put a great deal of faith in those books. That you believe what they say even more than my own word.”
Her eyes widened. “I do not!” Her denial was adamant and sure, yet still he gave her a pointed look.
“Then hear me when I tell you that even now, I can say with certainty, that if your mother still lives, she misses you. That your father thinks of you as often as he can bear.
That you were loved, and loved fiercely, and I am not the first to have done so.” His hand, cupping her cheek, holding her steady as the first few tears escaped, kept her from hiding again. “So I asked if those texts had spoken of family, because if they had, and if they had done it well, you would have known that all along.”
It was not the texts that had made her believe otherwise, but there was a lump in her throat that made it impossible for her to tell him so. She had asked the sages, and they had assured her that her parents had been most willing participants, that they had been honoured for their daughter to be chosen and she was wrong to ask questions of them. They had seen to their duty, why did she try to do otherwise?
“So I say again, they are our people, Penryn. And if what you say is true and there are dangers out there, they must be warned.”
She nodded, her thoughts and feelings all jumbled. But Grimult was there, coaxing and soothing, touching and placing tender kisses until she was able to look at him without worrying she would blubber all over him again. “I did not mean to upset you,” he murmured, and she shook her head.
“I needed to hear it,” she assured him, and she realised it was true. It was a morning for truths, even if they were difficult ones. She did not like to dwell on the subject of her birth, nor of the parents that perhaps, loved her after all, and even now it grew all the more painful.
Penryn’s stomach gave a low rumble of protest, reminding them that hours had passed since they had first begun their conversation and she had eaten little the night before. She had grown used to copious foods, although she would not admit that to Grim. Not when he likely was forced to make do with little either because of injury or simple necessity, hidden away as he had to be during waking hours.
“Where do you think you are going?” Grimult asked, catching hold of her good arm as she sat up, ready to get a fire going and bring warmth back to the cottage before looking at the provisions and seeing what might make a proper meal.
“Beginning the day?” Penryn answered, more question than statement as she looked back at him. She had assumed he was teasing when he had threatened to keep her in the bed until he had all the answers he desired out of her, but perhaps she had mistaken him and he had been quite serious. “I am hungry,” she clarified, although the admission felt like a sudden show of weakness that she would rather have kept to herself.
He nodded in understanding, but did not release her, instead propping himself up so he was comfortable, and she hoped they had not crushed his wings too much as they lay and had their talks. “As am I,” he agreed. “But there is one other subject that requires our attention.”
She blinked, trying to remember what she could have left out. She had told him of the talks, of the land-dwellers and her position amongst them. He had frowned deeply when she spoke of how the cottage would be hers until the end of her days, and he grumbled at her that it was a banishment, even if they had made it more desirable with hot water that came on command and a chamber pot that cleaned itself.
She had told him of her discussion with the sages, of those beyond the Wall, living and perhaps even thriving in seclusion, tucked away from anyone’s memory just as firmly as each group of sages had attempted to do of the other.
Except, with that attack they had shown they were no longer content with their hidden corners, of land claimed out of necessity rather than ancestry.
And that would have to be dealt with.
Penryn sat back on her heels, looking at him. “You will have to tell me the nature of the subject, because I cannot think of what I have yet to share with you.”
Grimult gave her a half smile, and if she was not terribly mistaken, there was suddenly a hint of trepidation in him. Odd, when he had been so sure of himself, of asking his questions in plain speech, boldly and commanding that she no longer shirk his enquiries or put him aside.
It was clear that he had been preparing for their eventual conversation, of all he wished to know and would have her answer.
And it became all the more apparent how she had hurt and frustrated him as she had tried to do as she had been taught and deny any who asked more than what the sages wanted for them to know.
She felt a pang of guilt for that even now. She did not want him hurt, either physically or otherwise, because of her. Even now, she worried for their futures, what would become of them when they returned. He was expected back, would be welcomed if he maintained the story that he had left behind, finished his task, and all went well.
But that would mean taking separate journeys on the return, to allow her to go alone and on foot, to bear all of the scrutiny, and, inevitably, all of the anger that she had broken so fundamental a part of her instructions.
“You look worried,” Grimult commented, a long finger coming and pressing at the line between her brows. “What are you thinking about?”
She took a breath, not certain she wanted to tell him of her concerns, but knowing they would need to form the plan together. She wanted him to be safe, needed him to be safe, and she also well knew that he would want to protect her at all costs, regardless of the risk to his own self.
“Going back,” she answered simply. “Of... what it means. For... me. For us.”
He must not have followed her thoughts to their gruesome conclusion, for instead his eyes softened into the tenderest of looks, and he was tugging at her, pulling her close. “I have thought of that as well.”
She tried her best to shove her own worries aside and listen to him, but there was a knot of dread in her belly that that did not quite want to loosen. “Really?”
“Yes,” he confirmed, his hand returning to her tresses, and she wondered if a day would ever come when he did not like to play with her hair. The thought of that made her sad. “Another question for those books of yours.”
She did not bother to suppress her groan. “I am surprised you would voice one. You did not like the answer from the last.”
He tapped her arm, humming in agreement. “That is true. So let us hope this is a better one, otherwise I will have to conclude that they are foolish books with little value.”
Penryn rolled her eyes, feeling strangely protective of her books. They were all she had for the longest time, the only glimpse into a life different from her own, and however sad someone else might see it, they were her friends.
He could not know what was in all of them, so it was hardly worth dismissing them as a whole because he disagreed with the contents of a few.
He tugged at her hair, a playfulness in the action that she took to mean he was testing to see if she was truly cross with him or if it was a temporary state, easily persuaded from her with touch alone.
Perhaps she should be ashamed of it, perhaps it was some failing to her self-governance that it worked so readily. She had wanted this, wanted a friend to not have to be so very serious with, where speaking came easily, and jest was a possibility. The sages had never much cared for it, when she had been young and quips had bubbled out before she could stop them.
But Grimult was more than a friend. She could see having others, if they were brave enough to attempt a relationship with her. Mara might have been, if circumstances were different. She could have seen them sharing stories of their loves, the qualities that they most admired as well as the ones that were less favourable. She had seen such things between the kitchen maids when she would creep along and spy, longing with all her heart that she could be one of them.
Grimult did not require she be someone else.
And that softened away the edges of the insult to her books.
“And what was this question?” she urged, truly wanting breakfast, but willing to play his game a little longer.
His fingers drifted along hers, and she wondered if he felt the same shivers at the sensation that she did, although he always appeared so remarkably composed, his eyes the only thing reflecting the state of him when she was brave enough to look. She had to bite her lip to keep back the whimper. How could he affect her
so? He was not even touching something untoward, only the brush of his fingers as they traced along the delicate lines of her palm, then back again.
“Many marriages are arranged between parents. Did you know that?” He was not looking at her, instead his attention solidly placed on their hands, his fingers suddenly coming to twine fully between hers, satisfied with his exploration. “When they are not, a couple may plead to a sage and he will petition their families on their behalf.”
Penryn blinked, her heart suddenly beating very quickly, although she could not name why. “I did not know that was still the way,” she answered, her mouth dry. Tea would help, or even a sip of cool water, but she had been forbidden to leave just yet, and she was not certain her limbs would support her even if she had chosen to flee.
He had told her once that if they were different people, he would have petitioned for her. That he would have done things properly, or as things were done for his kind.
Their kind?
He was speaking, but she did not seem quite able to hear, her pulse flooding her ears and blocking away the meaning of his words, and she was forced to shake her head, stopping him. “I am sorry, would you be willing to repeat that?”
He gave her a quizzical look, but acquiesced. “There is no sage here to ask for aid, nor would they give it in any case. And I cannot ask my parents to confer with yours for... obvious reasons.” He squeezed her hand, and she swallowed thickly. He was not wrong. If those were the means of a marriage being recognised, they were absent for any possibility between the two of them. She could not quite believe they were even broaching the subject, not when she was so absolutely certain Grimult’s instructors had explained time and again that Penryn was not available for...
The Lightkeep was not.
The Lightkeep could not marry, because they were a mythical figure sent for reasons concocted an age before, none of which were real.
He spoke of her parents, of his meeting with hers, as if she was any other girl that who could marry if she loved and wished it to be so.
The Lightkeep Page 15
