by Lana Popovic
As if it were always a single owl simply wearing different feathers.
And the longer we wandered, the stranger I felt, even holding tightly to Fjolar’s hand.
By the time he brought me to a thundering waterfall, backed by basalt columns formed from lava and hardened into a scored sheet of rock, I realized I could barely stand on my own any longer. “What’s wrong with me?” I drawled, sagging boneless against him. “My brain feels like it wants to slither sideways. Does that even make sense?”
He hitched me up against his side with an arm around my waist. “I think you’re very tired, flower. Maybe even past exhausted. We might be outside of your world’s time, but time here does pass in its way—and you’re still a human girl who hasn’t slept in a very long while. Why don’t we rest here for a bit?”
“No,” I protested. “There’s nothing here; we’ve already searched. We have to move on, we have to keep looking—”
He didn’t try to contradict me. Instead, he simply withdrew his arm and took a single step away from me. Without his support, my knees gave way like melting rubber, and I tumbled hard to the ground. It wasn’t that I could barely stand. I actually couldn’t stand at all, without him to bear me up.
And that was all it took. I burst into loud, messy tears like a stupid little girl, until I was sobbing so hard I choked on each breath.
“I’m so tired,” I wept, smearing a shaking hand across my face. “So tired, and so fucking useless. I can’t do anything to help them, I—”
Silently, he dropped down next to me and tugged me onto his lap. I clung to him and cried shamelessly into his chest, my shoulders heaving so hard they hurt, salt clogging my throat. He rocked me, murmuring soothing nothings into my hair, until the storm of tears passed over me.
“Come on, flower,” he said quietly, between my hitching gasps. “There’s something spectacular at the top of this waterfall, and I think you need it. You’re no good to Lina like this, are you? You have to let yourself rest.”
I shook my head once, and even that slight effort made me want to curl up and die in the root ball of some welcoming tree. “But I can’t even climb up there.”
“You don’t have to climb anything, flower girl,” he said. “Not when you have me.”
With Fjolar carrying me half slung over his shoulder, we made our way up the hiking trail that wound to the top. I nearly gasped when he set me back down on my feet. A hot spring like a natural infinity pool crested over the waterfall’s crown, the cascade blurring the edges where the basin dropped off into nothing.
Fjolar gave me a lazy half smile, pleased with my pleasure. “The original Svartifoss waterfall doesn’t have this added feature, but I thought you’d like it. Why don’t we get you in, for a hot soak? It’ll melt away some of that fatigue.”
I couldn’t think of anything I wanted more.
“Just for a bit, though,” I said weakly. “And then we start again.”
“Of course, flower. Just for a bit.”
Sitting near the pool’s edge, I peeled my clothes off, awkwardly listing from one side to the other. Once I’d shed everything except my bra and panties, I stole a glance at Fjolar over my shoulder. He’d already stripped down to his tapered waist, his flower-tattooed arms bunching with muscle and his chest absurdly sculpted. His platinum hair was scraped back into a knot, revealing the shorn undersides and the helices of those gauged earrings he always wore.
I felt a familiar tightening at my center, directly linked with how much I wanted to run my palms over that known softness. Apparently not even debilitating fatigue could dispel that want.
“No need for modesty, flower. Nothing I haven’t seen before.” He began unbuttoning his black slacks, and I looked away. “But keep them on, if it makes you comfortable.”
Throwing caution to the winds, I stripped down to the skin. What did it matter, anyway? It was just the two of us here, like it always was. Like, it seemed to me, it had always been.
I scooted myself gingerly to the pool’s lip. The ground was strewn with sharp, glittering chips of the same basalt that formed the fractaling columns dripping behind the water’s plummet. Fjolar already sat half submerged, his arms draped over the pool’s non-existent rim and curls of steam coiling up around his face, pinking up the fair Viking’s skin along his throat and slanting cheekbones. A cloudless, twilit sky stretched out like a peachy pennant to the horizon behind him, farther than the eye could follow.
He smiled at me, and I pretended not to notice the rake of his gaze from my temples to my toes. “Come join me, flower girl. The water’s fine, I swear.”
“Well, you would say that either way, wouldn’t you?” I countered, but I was already one foot in. The pool fell perfectly short of scalding, seeping through fatigued muscle all the way down to weary bone. Instead of easing the rest of the way in, I sank into a crouch, until the steaming water touched the underside of my chin. The heat swirled around me in natural currents, lapping at knots and snarled, sore muscles I hadn’t even known I carried.
An inlaid ledge circled the pool’s circumference, and I scooted up onto it, next to him, with my leg pressed against the length of his. A breeze lifted a wisp of hair at my temple, leaving goose bumps in its wake, and for a moment I let myself savor how incomparably delicious this world made for me could be. Sitting beside him felt so right it almost ached.
The usual guilt reared up. I wasn’t supposed to ever like being stolen away, being secluded here with him. Not when I had so much responsibility to everyone left behind. So what was I meant to do with these rare gems, the times I liked it more than anything? The times that I liked him?
“How real is this lovely little wading pool?” I asked, clearing the sadness from my throat. “I know it must be, at least in part.”
He rearranged the arm behind my shoulders so his hand rested behind my neck. “There’s a rock pool at the top of the Victoria Falls, in Zambia. Called the Angel’s Armchair by some, and the Devil’s Punchbowl by others. I’ll let you guess which I prefer.”
“Real puzzler there,” I murmured, tipping my head back to dip the full length of my hair in the water. It didn’t smell like sulfur, though I knew it should. More like the clean scent of running rivers on the hottest summer day.
Something twinged painfully in my neck. Wincing, I tilted my head from side to side, trying to release the tightened tendons.
“If you move a little, and slide in front of me, I could help with that,” he offered, all innocence. But I knew he knew I heard it, the undertow of invitation in his voice. No less beguiling now than the first time, and maybe even more given how alone we were. There was no one here but me and him. No sister to demand explanations, no would-be lover lurking on the periphery, making me feel like I had to justify myself.
Without speaking, I pushed off the ledge and landed lightly on my knees. As I shuffled my way in front of him, he sank down behind me. I swept my wet hair to one side as his knees closed tight around me, my back pressed against his muscled front.
I heard the soft release of his sigh. He circled his fingers around my throat, running them lightly along its line, then bore down hard onto the burled mass of my shoulders. His thumbs dug into the tender points where my shoulders met my neck, and I couldn’t bite back a moan.
“It’s all right, flower,” he whispered into my ear. “I know you hurt. Let me help you mend, just for a while.”
“Just for a while,” I agreed, hazily, my head lolling. “A little while.”
He chuckled, low, into my ear, and continued with his work. His hands were staggeringly strong, and he didn’t treat me like a doll. He drove his thumbs down the length of my shoulders, then moved up my neck with a lighter touch, until he found the twin spots beneath the base of my skull and pressed hard into them.
A dusting of stars filled my vision like a sparkling rain. I arched back against him involuntarily, tipping my head against his shoulder.
His hands stilled. “Flower girl,” he said h
uskily, and I recognized that rasp. “Are you sure you want to move like that?”
I rolled my hips back against him in answer. One of his hands drifted across my chest, tracing my collarbone. His other hand tangled my wet hair into a knot that he could grip, and he turned my face toward his for a kiss.
There was nothing delicate about it. Both of us had waited for so long, and I was done with fighting. Whether it was the world itself nudging me toward wanting him, or simply something I wanted for myself to salve all this hurt, I was so tired of denying how I felt.
He kissed me deep, my head pinned back with the force of his grip. I remembered that first time, when he’d let me take the lead, made me perform for him. Now his breath tangled with my breath, and everything I felt was open mouths and questing tongues. I twisted around in his arms and twined my own around his neck. He lifted me until I straddled his lap—then his hands tightened on my waist.
Frowning, I met his eyes. They were glazed with desire, and something deeper than that. “What’s wrong?” I whispered, leaning in for a kiss like a hummingbird sip. “Why are we stopping? Do you not—do you still want me?”
“Of course I want you—how could I ever not?” He cupped my face with warm hands, tracing my lower lip with his thumb. “But before we go on, I want you to know. I want you to understand.”
“Understand what?” My belly tightened. What else was there that I didn’t know? What else hadn’t he shared with me?
“That I love you, flower girl,” he said, and I nearly quivered at the fervor in his voice. “All of you, so here and real. The strength and fearlessness, the tenderness and sass. And that shining, curious mind. And I want to know . . .”
“What?” I nudged his nose with mine. “What do you want to know?”
“If you think you could love me, too, at least a little.” The fine planes of his face glistened with pearled heat, moisture clinging to that soft lower lip. “At least while you’re here. I know you miss him, that boy back in your world. But I want to feel like I truly have you, for however long you stay with me.”
“Well,” I said lightly, “there is the tricky part where I can’t actually leave.”
As soon as I said it, I winced at the glibness, and the pain that arced across his face. “I don’t want you to love me like a prisoner, flower. Maybe once that would have been enough. But it’s not anymore.”
“I don’t feel that way.” I tilted my forehead against his without closing my eyes. His were open too, unflinching, so close I could see every spoke in his azure irises. “I promise. It’s all been so complicated, but it’s different now. I feel it too. You’re different than you used to be. And whether it’s because of this place, or because of me . . .”
It wasn’t an easy thing to say—like it hadn’t been easy to say to Luka, whom I wouldn’t, couldn’t, think about right now, even if it made me a traitor. I’d spent my life like a watchdog keeping guard over my own heart. Yet here we were, and I couldn’t bring myself to lie.
“I could love you, for what that’s worth,” I finished. “I don’t yet, and it doesn’t change what I need to do, or how much I want to go back to where I belong. But yes, I could. I could, very much.”
“Thank you for that, Iris, my flower girl,” he breathed against my lips. “Could is enough, for now.”
Eighteen
Malina
WE SPENT TWO DAYS WITH JASNA. SHE PUT NIKO AND LUKA to work, harvesting her herb garden and distilling the plants to tinctures, while she tried to teach me to harness my will. But without her lighting the way for me like a torch, I couldn’t even find that cavern of potential. I could will my bubble—my shield—into being, but only because I’d already done that for years. Otherwise, it was just so much easier to tap directly into the sweet sap of my gleam.
When push came to shove, I defaulted to the gleam every time. I didn’t know how to stop myself.
When my frustration finally threatened to crush me, Jasna laid a coarse, work-worn hand over mine. “Let’s stop for a while, little bird. Enjoy a change of scenery, get a little food in you. Chat a bit.”
Niko looked up from where she sat, grinding herbs into the incense that Jasna used to hone focus. Stray dried leaves dusted her dark hair, and she looked like something that made its home in forests. “I’ll come too. I could use the break from grinding my fingers into nubs.”
“You won’t, you fiery kit,” Jasna responded tartly. “You’re not attached to this one at the hip, are you? And if you are, that’s part of the trouble. You’ll stay with your brother, and keep at what you’re doing.”
“But I—”
“But nothing.” Jasna chopped a definitive hand through that air. “Just Malina and me. She’ll survive without you for an hour, I promise.”
“I’m coming too,” Dunja added, dropping down smoothly from above our heads with barely a sound, like some kind of avenging angel. She’d developed the unnerving habit of prowling the rafters high above us, walking them toe-to-heel like a cat. She liked the vantage point of the height, she said. “Baby witch doesn’t go anywhere without me. Not when there are demons to consider.”
Jasna planted her hands staunchly on her hips. “And if I say no to you, too?”
Dunja returned a gimlet gaze. “Try me, granny. Besides, these are Mara’s orders.”
Jasna scoffed, rolling her eyes. “As if you follow hers, or anyone’s, instead of making up your own. Fine. You too then, ghost. But only because I’m too old for brawls I’m bound to lose.”
In a wheezing yellow Fiat possibly older than I was, she drove the three of us to a brick-house tavern in the village. Empty so early in the day, it reeked of years of cigarette smoke sunk into its yellowed, lacy curtains and popcorn ceiling, and of home-brewed beer and stewed lamb. The sole server, a gawky teenage boy with a shock of dark hair, gaped slack-jawed at Dunja and me as he sat us.
For a moment, I couldn’t even figure why. I’d been surrounded by unfathomable beauty for so long that I’d almost forgotten a normal world even existed beyond us.
One that would fall to Herron if I failed, I thought, withering into myself. There was so much more at stake here than just people I loved.
“Have whatever you want, bird,” Jasna said, sipping a dark, frothy beer. “It may not smell like it in here, but everything is surprisingly good.”
I ordered beef, cooked beneath an iron bell dome buried under embers and ash. It was as delicious as she’d said, the stewed meat melting down buttery in my mouth, the crisp potatoes salty with savory grease. But for once, I could barely eat. At least Dunja made no pretense at eating, either, glaring disdainfully at her pork loin. She did eat sometimes, I’d seen her do it. She just didn’t like to anymore. The necessities of sustaining her physical body offended her in a general sense.
Jasna paused, a hearty forkful of cheese and prosciutto halfway to her mouth, her ocean eyes shifting between us. “No food for either of you, eh? I know ghost hates deigning to eat, but what’s stolen your appetite, bird?”
I swallowed hard, biting my lip to keep it from trembling. “I just . . . I can’t do anything more than what I’ve already done. Not by myself. I don’t know how. I’m not strong enough, obviously, and there’s not enough time to learn. I’m going to fail everyone, and I—”
“I don’t, I can’t, not by myself, pretty please, everybody help me,” Jasna mimicked, jabbing the air with her fork at each point. “That is your problem, little bird. You’re always waiting to be shown the way, to be led neatly by the hand. Of course you are, when you’ve always had someone to lean on. It’s only natural that you’ve come to rely on help. But I—or anyone else—can only take you so far. The rest is on you, after that.”
I dropped my fork and gripped the table’s lip. “That’s not fair. I’m trying. Maybe I’m just no good for this one thing. The thing we just happen to need very badly,” I added bitterly.
“You’re spoiled, is what you are,” Jasna replied, without rancor. “You’re not u
sed to magic being the toil and trouble that it is for the rest of us mortals. And you might not recognize it, but you’re in a snit over having to really work at something, for once.”
I gaped at her, my insides churning with hurt. “Are you calling me lazy? I’ve worked so hard for you, and for Mara—”
“Then work harder,” she interrupted briskly. “Work differently. If you don’t even trust yourself to lead, why would reality follow the likes of you anywhere? Master yourself, little bird. Learn to stand on your own feet.”
“You’ve no idea what hell she’s already walked through on her own feet, granny,” Dunja broke in, her voice low and dangerous. Her delicate profile looked like a coin cameo, minted from steel. I could hear the threat of her, a metallic swish like a knife drawn from its scabbard. “So why don’t you take it a little easy on the guilt? And if you can’t restrain yourself from dealing out more wisdom, why not share some with me instead? I, for one, would relish hearing what you think of a thing like me.”
Jasna smiled at that, wide and genuine, crow’s-feet wrinkling into a crosshatch around her mutable eyes. “Pick on someone my own size, you mean, ghost? And why would I do that, when you’re making my own point for me? Though it’s sweet to see you so ready to protect your niece however she needs. As for wise words, you don’t need any. You’ll know your purpose just fine when you see it, I think. And though you didn’t hear it from me . . .”
She leaned forward conspiratorially, but I could hear the sincerity sluicing off her like clear water. “You’re still a person, ghost, not a thing. No matter what anyone did to make you so convinced otherwise.”
HOURS LATER, I was back in the Great Hall where I’d let Oriell fall, intent on trying again. Jasna had hugged me before we left, pressed a fragrant, parchment-wrapped parcel of incense to my chest. “You can do it, I know. The Lady doesn’t choose the weak-willed for her own.”
