Chapter 11
"The Wanderers"
Lovisa was a small, densely packed town lying among the foothills of the mountains. It was built by shepherds, whose sheep and goats were corralled in poorly constructed stockades and feeding off what little grass had not been drowned in the rain, and weavers who would work the wool into cloth to sell at the market in the capital. When trade persisted and flourished among the southern and central countries, Lovisa acquired a new purpose as a sojourn between the exhaustive High Pass and Barion, and a fresh crop of businesses sprung up from the rocky, sparse ground to accommodate those merchants and travelers who passed through Lovisa's gates. The same brown timber walls fended off attack as it did the encroachment of the forest, and from their stance at the peak of hill, hidden by the trees, Haemon and Aurora could see the trails of smoke creeping up from the buildings inside though they hung low beneath the heavy, grey clouds crowding into the sky to block out the sun and threatening yet more rain.
A sharp crack like a whip echoed across the empty lands, a flash of white, and then the deep rumble of thunder which made her flinch and peek timidly at the sky, wondering how much longer before the seams burst. The electricity sparking through the air fed her nerves until her belly swarmed with restless energy, and her throat was too tight to attempt to speak. A rough hand tugged the hood of her cloak across her head and low upon her brow until she couldn't see the sky any longer around its edge, and instead, she peered out beneath its brim into his features. They were stony, unmoving, warning that he was as consumed by his thoughts at she was hers.
"Keep your hood up," he said even as he made more adjustments to cover her blonde strands and pulled at the front of the cloak to be sure no sign of the red dress beneath seeped through. They were fortunate Atlan packed a spare cloak for them. "No one will recognize you."
She stood perfectly still and erect as he tended to her, but the same confusion wrought her as it always did in these situations. He condemned her for not being strong enough to care for herself, yet he watched over her like she were a child, looking perturbed still but determined as if he were accustomed to this, as if he had protected many before her. This unwarranted attitude was grouped beside the comment he had made to her in the forest days ago, "We've faced worse. Had all the armies of Greece begging for our heads…" and what he had told her after their last clash, "I lost my family, my home, my future." For the hints he sporadically baited her with, he had as many secrets as her, but she couldn't voice the numerous questions swirling around her head. In the wake of their argument, as the frustration swelled between them, and as her body weakened with each day he pushed her up the trail again, silence had seeped in. Even now the sound of his voice discomforted her for it brushed against the bulwarks she had built up to protect herself, and she realized the silence was more uncomfortable to break with every hour they allowed it to pass unacknowledged. Instead, their irritation colored the silence, until she came to hate it as much as their cross words.
Haemon drew his own hood once he was satisfied Aurora had been properly shrouded, and he retied the pouch which Atlan had given them and made sure it was fastened tightly to his waist. It held some money and all of Aurora's jewelry, including the small floral earrings that had been gift from Haemon and which he hadn't seemed to realize she was wearing though he made no comment on it. They needed no reason to call attention to themselves, least of all by their riches, and they would approach the city on foot with their cloaks drawn, their weapons hidden, and their money tucked away. Still, there was no assurance they would find safe lodging or that they would have enough money for whatever their prices were this season.
The thought called a fresh shudder of nerves to consume her, and her heart quickened within her chest. Abruptly her taut throat croaked out, "Suppose they do?"
He glanced at her long enough to appraise her pale, rigid features, before he answered, "You've never left the capital. These people have no reason to know your face."
"They may," she muttered, but Haemon ignored her and took one of the packs across his shoulder. "In the palace, the servants –some of them won't look at me because of my eyes… The peasants tell stories about the night my family was killed."
With all his tasks accomplished, he turned to the Princess, and the focus of his attention solely on her made her bow her head though she continued.
"They speak of me –of the way I look. They say the Keres touched me and that is why my eyes are this way." The same mismatched orbs turned up to consider him, seeking validation for her concerns, but his face was as unyielding as his impenetrable personality. He gave nothing away.
"Keep your head down," he decided shortly and took the reigns in one hand before guiding the horse down the slope and toward the town walls.
Aurora hurried after him while holding fast to the edges of the cloak around her and worrying each time a flash of her sanguine skirt emerged in the gap of her stride. She promptly shortened her gait, forced to take shorter, swifter steps after him, but she kept her head down as instructed and watched the disruption of the fabric billowing across her feet. Every hasty step toward the walls caused her greater agitation, and when Haemon's fist beat loudly against the gate, her body shook as if she felt the repercussion hammer inside her.
A moment later there was a scratch of wood as a narrow piece of the gate was drawn away and beady, blue eyes appeared, straining beneath the weight of an uninterrupted, heavy brow.
His similarly crude voice demanded, "State your purpose!"
"We're travelers," Haemon answered with the inflexible, stout tone that too often made weaker men bend before it, "searching for shelter for the night."
"We?" the guard repeated in his wiry, shriveled tone as he lengthened his neck, his brow disappearing behind the cover of the gate while the crooked bridge of his nose peeked into sight, and he tossed his attention beyond Haemon's broad shoulder to the small figure behind him, buried beneath the weight of too large a cloak and head purposefully bent from his curious gaze. "Who comes with you?"
"My wife," Haemon responded again, but the guard continued to gaze at Aurora, eyes narrowed suspiciously and brow twitching.
Though she could not see it, she felt the oppressive angle of his gaze and glanced to the side across the rocky ground when another flash of lightening illuminated the space. A strand of blonde hair tumbled from the shroud of her cloak, and she nervously tucked it away once more and turned her attention obediently toward her feet.
The guard grumbled something intelligible, and his eyes turned once more to Haemon, discomforted to see the severe look awaiting him though the man foolishly attempted to assert his authority, knowing he was in a rare position to command someone as threatening as the stranger at his gates.
"What is your destination?" he wondered, and Aurora struggled to keep her stance from crumbling at her nerves. Did he suspect them? Had Savas' men warned them?
"The High Pass," Haemon answered yet again with not the slightest strain to his tone, but the rigidity of his posture warned of his aggravation.
Again, an intelligible grumble, and the man's brow flicked above his sharp eyes. "Many have stowed within these walls to keep out of the storm. We've not much room…"
"We'll find our keep," he said sharply with the same effect as the crack of thunder above them. "Will you stand aside?"
The guard's eyes narrowed, an angry twitch mangled his brow, and the peephole was closed in one, swift strike. Aurora's heart was a stampede of anxiety, and she carefully glimpsed from beneath the edge of her cloak to see Haemon had not moved in the slightest. Chastened by his posture, she promptly bowed her head before he took notice. A moment later there was the sound of a wooden bolt sliding away, and then the gate creaked noisily open.
Its yawning complete, Haemon could peer within the walls at Lovisa, the grimy, rowdy town that was nothing like its quaint exterior suggested. The streets were unpaved and muddy from the rain and perhaps something else. The stench impacted him first like the fragrant stool that swine bathed in, and he swallowed to keep his lip from curling as he stepped inside and tugged on the reigns to draw the horse after him. The guard who had been so reticent to allow them entry was now stooped beside the open gate and watching Haemon enter with what he imagined was an aggravation expression, though it was impossible to tell given the man's permanently sour look. Age or disease had wracked his body, and even as he stood with one hand on his hip and the other on the hilt of his sword, his shoulders sagged inward, his chest was concave, and his knees bent permanently to balance out his weight. It seemed someone had hit him over the head as a babe, causing this deformation, but Haemon did not linger on the guard any longer. Rather, he glanced over his shoulder to be sure Aurora followed and noticed inevitably how the guard's interest peeked when she stepped through the threshold, as shrouded and cloaked as possible. The guard grumbled again, almost seeming as though he might say something, but Haemon took Aurora's arm through her cloak, holding tightly and possessively, and pulled her with him. The guard held his tongue, and Haemon listened to the sound of the gate growling closed behind them. The bolt slid into place, and they were locked within the confines of Lovisa.
Aurora's face puckered with the initial onslaught of the smell, so assaulting after the crisp, clean air of the forest, and though she struggled to fight it, even breathing through her lips until she swore the foul odor tainted her tongue, she at last grasped the edge of her cloak and drew it to cover her mouth and nose. Haemon was too distracted scanning the main street to notice. With her head downcast, she was able to feel the mud sink beneath her sandals, curling around the edges to skim the outline of her arches and toes, and a sour, acidic rush of nausea coated the back of her throat. She tried to gather the bottom of her cloak and her dress beneath it to keep it from dragging in the muck, but it was impossible to manage the various layers. How could people live like this? In these conditions?
Haemon guided them on through the grime even as the first drops of rain began to fall and splatter in the mud and throw small beads of dirt onto their cloaks. She couldn't fathom a more repulsive situation and almost wished the guard had turned them away so that they would sleep beneath the canopy of trees rather than in these foul conditions. She shuddered to think what the living arrangements would be like. Perhaps they would be given a bed of damp straw to lay their exhausted heads on or offered a place beside the horses… Amid her increasingly dramatic and aggravated thoughts, she stumbled in the mud, and only Haemon's firm grip on her arm kept her from slipping and potentially falling. Her breath had taken refuge in her lungs at the possibility as though it too were disgusted to touch anything so sickening as the muck beneath her feet, and she had never been more grateful for a hand upon her than that moment. Glancing at him, his features were hidden behind his cloak, but she could imagine the expression he donned: hardened, emotionless, intimidating.
"When I fell, there was no plush bed to catch me or flocks of servants to tend to me. I had to survive."
She tucked her head away as she recalled his words and paled in shame at the turn of her thoughts. You're lucky to have your life –to be breathing and treading through the mud and the rain! This is what it meant to survive, and if she were nothing else, not a rider, not a fighter, she was at the very least a survivor. Her past had taught her that much.
The rain was beginning to fall harder and dampening the hood of her cloak until she felt the cool chill of its touch seep into her hair and brush her scalp. Her shoulders and back were similarly affected, but rather than condemning Haemon or the gods or her poor luck, she held her tongue, kept her head down, and plodded through the increasingly liquid stew of mud beneath their feet.
Around them, various buildings struck up though she did not afford herself the opportunity to gaze at them for fear of any eyes that might look back upon her, and the city echoed with sounds that were oddly familiar to her: the calling of voices back and forth, the sound of rain dropping on rooftops, the encroaching silence as pedestrians took cover from the storm…
It was all disrupted by the sudden sound of men yelling curses at each other and the crack of splitting wood. The voices reached their peak as the men tumbled out of a door and onto the mud ground, and Aurora was too stunned to remember her need to conceal herself. Her head nosily bobbed upright to look at the two men wrestling, covered, oozing mud.
"You son of a bitch!" one man growled and swung for a punch, his fist sliding along the man's now slippery face. "You thought you could have Aella!"
"She never wanted you, you dumb bastard!" the other yelled back and took the man's neck between his hands though he struggled more to gain his grip than to squeeze the breath out the man.
"What is this?" one passing spectator wondered who had stepped beside Aurora without her realizing it.
"Arsenios and Orestes fighting over Aella again," another onlooker answered and shook his head. "Poor bastards'll never learn. She doesn't give a damn which of them comes to her. Their money's just as bronze!"
The two men laughed heartily at their shared joked, while Aurora fretted to understand their meaning, having never encountered such a situation. Men did not brawl within the palace walls…
She was all too soon jerked away from her thoughts when Haemon commanded, "Wait here with the horse."
"What?" she sputtered as his hand left her arm, and in its place, he offered her the reigns.
"Wait," he repeated and tugged at his hood meaningfully when their eyes caught. Realizing she had completely forgotten to maintain her guard, she promptly drew the hood lower across her forehead and accepted the reigns from him.
"Where are you going?" she asked, but Haemon was already ducking inside the door the two men had broken through moments earlier.
They were still embroiled in their fight, no matter how poorly and foolishly they did so, and Aurora shifted uneasily from foot to foot as she recognized the small crowd gathering around her to watch the two men wrestle clumsily in the mud. More laughter rung out as one man's hand slipped, and he ended up unintentionally taking the other man by his nostril and yanking. Did no one think to stop them? Evidently not for though the crowd grew denser, those lingering about only laughed or jested about the poor combat.
Aurora frowned in disgust at their two bodies completely saturated by the thick, foul, almost black mud. The two men were indistinguishable, and she could not fathom the amount of bathing it would take to clean themselves. But she caught herself wondering if the people of Lovisa took baths. The state of their city was not promising in any regard. She was fortunate for the guise of her cloak for none of those gathered seemed to realize she was a woman, unattended in their midst, but her grip was firm and tense on the reigns as if someone might try to steal the horse from her or tear her away. She wondered how Haemon could abandon her so abruptly and what he planned to do inside this establishment. Was this where he hoped to find lodging? Perhaps he only asked advice on available rooms… Surely that was the case.
Eventually, the two men wore themselves out and had taken to lying in the muck side by side with chests heaving and mud-stained faces turned toward the falling sky. Some of the men in the crowd encouraged them to continue, but it was clear they were too exhausted, too dirty, and too drunk to be of any use. Members of the crowd trickled away to Aurora's relief, and one of the men finally staggered to his feet and stumbled away, not sparing a muddy spit toward the man still on the ground.
"You son of a…" the man growled and flailed about the mud, all writhing limps unable to get their bearings. "Run, you coward! Run!" he yelled after him, and Aurora looked away, unable to watch the man's many mortifying and ridiculous attempts to stand atop his feet. Twice he ended up face-first in the mud before he succeeded, and he clumsily took off after his opponent. The rest of the crowd diminished with him.
Aurora was the only one who remained, standing outside this building, with an old farmer's horse, in the muck and the messy streets, and progressively being drenched by the rain. The courage the memory of Haemon's words had brought her was swiftly being drowned out by the rain, and her mood soured as the chill of the storm and the approaching evening invaded her lungs, wrapped around her chest, and sent a shudder down her spine. The horse tossed its wet mane, neighing in agitation and pulling at the reigns as though frustrated by being forced to stand in the rain too.
Aurora patted its neck and smoothed her hand along its damp coat, muttering, "Easy," as she had heard Haemon often do. Its soft nostrils trembled, exhaling a steamy breath, and she added, "We'll find shelter soon," even if the words were hollow to her ears. She patted its neck once more. Its skin was cold as she imagined hers to be, and she worried the horse or she or both would fall ill from the damp and the cold. How much longer would Haemon be?
All at once, he emerged from the building while pulling his cloak on once more, looking neither surprised nor upset by Aurora's sodden body, and he merely instructed, "Go inside and wait. I'll take him around to the stable."
Yet again, he took off, the horse in tow, without waiting for a response, and Aurora was too chilly and damp to care to look after him. So they would rest inside this establishment, and she hurried through the wooden door, hanging askew from its torn hinges, and found herself in a crowded, boisterous space. The sound of their garbled conversations and of a musician playing his lyre assaulted her first for her head was bowed to avoid the stream of rain falling from the roof, and as she straightened her neck, she saw the squat tables arranged inside the room, so near one another for the walls were cramped, that men nearly sat back to back in their seats and elbowed each other as they moved. Cups filled with drink covered each table, some graced with bread and bowls of stew as well, and only one woman punctuated their ranks struggling against the pitcher on her hips to fill their cups to the brim. Despite the chill air outside, the interior was humid and stuffy from the slew of bodies packed inside and the fire pit roaring in the center of the room. The woman's hair was pinned messily on the back of her head with strands falling here and there, and she had knotted the ends of her dress to the rope around her waist so that she did not trip on its length as she rather gracefully slipped between the tables and chairs. She didn't seem to notice or perhaps care how her calves were exposed in the process and even her knees and a piece of her thigh if she stepped far enough. She hoisted the pitcher into the air, arms shaking with its weight, and puffed to blow a strand of hair from her face. As she stepped around a table, her grip shook, and some of the wine tumbled past the edge and landed on a man.
He growled in annoyance but was trapped in his seat by the crowd and could not avoid the stream that assaulted him.
"Forgive me," the young woman muttered, her blue eyes large with fear as though she anticipated retribution.
The man shook the wine from his hair, some still trailing down his forehead into his brows and beard, and he grinned licentiously when his gaze found the woman. Without hesitation his hand reached around her, trapping her waist in his grip while his palm found a handful of her backside through the fabric.
"Come close," he prompted and caused her chest to crash against his shoulder though she did not fight him off, "and I might let you make it up to me…"
"No touching!" a burly man with shaggy brown hair hanging freely about his shoulders barked across the crowd. A scar curled around his chin and up to his lip where the flesh indented at the center, and his deep, rough voice was an attack in itself though he looked ready to alight the tables if necessary to reinforce his command. "That'll cost you extra!"
The man with his wine-stained hair hanging low on his brow reluctantly released his grip on the woman who seemed to relax as she realized the man could do nothing so long as she was protected, and her lips perked up in a smile, looking so smug and pleased it begged to be smacked from her face.
"Perhaps later," she murmured and flicked her eyes toward the man before continuing her journey through the tables, pitcher in hand.
The realization dawned on Aurora like a strike on her cheek, and she understood, Oh, by the gods, how could you be so foolish! This is—
A hand took her arm, and she unconsciously jerked against it after seeing the men with greedy hands around her. Her hood fell away from her hair as she yanked her head back to face her assailant, and she realized Haemon had returned with the rain dripping from his matted chestnut curls and his cloak sagging heavily around his shoulders. He had bore the brunt of the oncoming storm, but she found it little reparation for where he had taken her.
"Do you often stay in these… establishments?" she spat out with such abrupt shame and fury, that her sodden, cold cheeks flamed like her eyes. Rather than matching her anger, he smirked in the way only a man can –so indulgent and guilty and arrogant- as if he were laughing and challenging her at once.
"You've never slept in the rain, Princess," he answered, keeping his voice low enough others could not hear him, "and you would not want to."
"I would rather sleep in the stables than here!" she hissed.
"There are some in back of this place if you wish," he offered and quirked his brow provokingly.
Her hands curled to fists at her side. Though they would not be used, she so wished she could twist back, arm at her side, and land a just blow to his smirking mouth fitted so perfectly askew within his dark beard.
"Come," he prompted, almost chuckling as he said it, and tugged on her arm to pull her with him as he guided them toward a corridor in back of the room. This required awkwardly maneuvering around the cramped tables, and Aurora cringed each time she was forced to brush against some man's back or arm, yet Haemon didn't release his hold on her and she was almost certain he might drag her after him if her feet failed her like she was a stubborn mule to be overpowered rather than his betrothed, stumbling amid a crowd of drunken men inside a brothel.
You would take me here! her ever furious mind snapped at the back of his head. His damp chestnut curls were gathered at the base of his strong neck, and she wondered briefly if she could fit her hands around that neck and how difficult it would be to squeeze the muscles between her fingers. Never in her life had she been more humiliated or enraged, and she was certain then that he must hate her to do this to her and to laugh as he did it, the arrogant sack of wine!
Her toe caught the edge of a chair, and she hissed at the pain though it was assumed into the growing pit of fury pulsing through her, and she pinned her furious gaze to the back of Haemon's head. They at last reached the corridor where she noted various rooms stemming from the hallway. The initial ones were small with only a meager cot in each, their purpose meant for one thing alone, and a thin piece of cloth hanging in the doorway to keep out wandering eyes. The sounds emitting from one as they passed were enough to make Aurora's eyes spin, her cheeks flare with mortifying curiosity and awareness, and her nails dig into her palms as her fists curled tighter. She could kill Haemon, truly.
Three rooms were situated at the end of the hallway with actual doors, perhaps meant for patrons with deeper pockets who were willing to linger about such a wretched place, and as they approached, those disgusting and haunting sounds following them as they went, a young girl slipped out of one door with arms overflowing with soiled sheets. She shied immediately when she saw Haemon first and scurried out of his path, her small hands grasping and wrestling with the fabric in her arms to keep it from falling to her feet, and she timidly glanced at Aurora, as curious and confused by her presence as the woman was by the little girl's. Seeing the absolute horror and repulse painted across Aurora's features, the little girl paled, tucked her head away, and hurried down the hall to deposit the sheets somewhere.
"They would have a child work here," Aurora almost growled in disgust, feeling a sensation swell within her to see something so pure corrupted by this place.
"No one touches her…" Haemon commented, but the way his voice faded toward the end gave her no comfort.
No one touches her –yet! the Princess understood and felt a more pervasive wave of nausea grip her. Are they grooming her to be the perfect little whore? she wondered and sensed that her skin was peeling away from her for the desire she had to leave this place and never return.
Haemon opened the last door, cautiously peeking through the threshold to be sure it was unoccupied, before he entered and held open the door for Aurora to follow. She did so without hesitation for there was nothing this room could hold that would be more repulsive than what Aurora had just seen. Like the other areas of this establishment, the room was meant for one purpose, and the sole bed was situated in the center of the room with only a small table and pitcher of water to keep it company. Otherwise the space was empty, and Aurora had nothing else to stare at but the bed with its thin mattress and heavy wool blanket atop it, noting there was no pillow upon which to lay her head.
Haemon was less affected by their sparse surroundings, and he removed the packs from his shoulders first and then his soggy cloak which he laid it out beside the pitcher of water on the table to dry. His black robes beneath were wet as well particularly along his shoulders and back, and the material clung to his skin, giving an indication of the lines of his body beneath. His feet were covered in mud as were Aurora's, but he didn't seem to notice for he ruffed a hand through his hair and shook out of the some the water onto the floor.
Aurora still stood unmoving in the doorway, almost mesmerized by her growing disgust and fury, and it was all centered on the one bed and its implications.
"You intend to sleep with me," she said, knowing it be true, but the slight inflection of her tone toward the end signaled some hope he might disparage this claim.
"What wife and husband sleep separately?" he questioned without intending an answer and untied the pouch with their money from his waist to sift through the coins and count what they had left.
"We're not yet married."
To this, he glanced at her with an unreadable expression, but the brief, unguarded look pinned the thin logic of her claim like an arrow to her chest. What were a Prince and Princess if not but titles, what were husband and wife if not but formalities, what were they if not a man and woman joined by some twist of fate and hopeless wanderers travelling through the lands?
She winced unconsciously, now sensing that the fear was seeping into her pores in the guise of the damp rain still covering her skin, and she clung to the flames of her anger for the warmth and strength to fight off the chill.
Their money counted, Haemon set the pouch atop his cloak and slid the gold ring he always wore onto his forefinger where the skin was slightly paler, showing he rarely removed it. She had noticed it upon first meeting him for it seemed so out of place against his austere appearance but had not asked of it like she had not asked anything of him. His stance warded off inquiry, and there was an air about him rough and cut in haste with sharp edges to threaten anyone from stepping too near. It complimented the perpetual heaviness to his stature that made his every step feel fought like he were constantly waging war against some unseen foe –like each day were a fresh battle to be won. She fear what lay beyond that front for she could not tell if he were guarding a secret from getting out or guarding outsiders from breaking in.
He approached her and untied the cloak from her neck, and she stood still with breaths abated as he removed the material from her shoulders. His chestnut eyes swept across her, assessing the damp blonde hair sticking to her forehead and neck. The long ends were matted and tangled from the journey, and she had nearly been forced to tear her golden diadem from her hair so that he could hide it among their things. Now the mane tumbled down her back untamed, and he brushed some of the strands idly away from her neck. She did not move in the slightest even if her neck shivered at the brief contact of his touch, and he had the inclination she tolerated more than appreciated his attention. Yet he felt a deep compulsion to tend to her in this way. The last time he had been cast out and forced to flee across the lands, he had been in the company of his family. He had watched over his little siblings as a father should, but he was only able to knot their sandals tightly so that they would not fall off, give them water so that they would not become weak, or shoulder their fears and anxieties when he could. Since then, his life was a penance for not being strong enough to protect them when they needed him most. But he was strong now, and he could protect the woman who would his wife, his family, and the mother of his children. Even if she looked at him now with those unusual green and brown eyes pulsing with unvoiced fury and hating him so vehemently he nearly felt singed by the power of her glare, he would keep her safe. He could give her a dry, warm bed to sleep in, wine to soothe her nightmares so that she might sleep, and food to fill her belly, and that fed this void of purpose and innate, almost born need to safeguard those near him since Hector left.
He looked down to her sodden, red dress that had once been beautiful and was now shredded from their journey, stained at the ends from the mud, and torn down the front so that it resembled more attractive rags hanging about her. Unconsciously, he brushed his thumb along one delicate collarbone and traced its line to the shoulder of her dress, and still she did not move. He thought how easily he could push it across her rounded shoulder and wondered whether she would stand there like a statue, numb to his touch and detesting him as if every breath he drew were an insult to her name. He took the fabric between his thumb and forefinger and tested the texture of the thin material now wet from the rain and decided instead he would need to find her something else to wear that was more appropriate for their journey.
"I'll call for some water and cloth to be brought so you can clean yourself," he said and stepped away from her to pick up his money once more and set her cloak atop his. "I'll be in the common area and bring you back something to eat."
"I'm not hungry," she countered, at once defiant and disobedient, and Haemon frowned.
She barely ate since they had been attacked days ago. She slept equally as little. Already she stood before him looking as frail and meager as a fallen leaf that he could blow across the room with one breath. She was paler than he had ever seen her, her skin so thin he was sure he could map out the blue and purple veins at her wrists. It was these times he fought the urge to reach forward and shake her until some sense rattled out of that thick, beautiful head because he did not know what else he could do. He even wondered if she were trying to slowly kill herself, but then she would show these bursts of stubborn persistence –like riding before him on the horse and trying, even though she failed, to sit up without his assistance. He couldn't understand this woman and was increasingly frustrated and bewildered by how to wake her spirit and instill her with the strength fight. He had pushed her to her limits thinking she might spin and attack him, and conversely, he carried her when she was too weak in the hopes she might borrow his strength somehow and find the will to keep on. Yet here she stood, both fragile and furious, his stolen bride, and he hadn't a clue what to do with her. He couldn't carve her into a woman she was not, but he sensed a perseverance inside of her because he held the same blind need to endure. No one who sees her family murdered as a child, survives in the forest for days, and lives alongside her family's murder for years would give up now. She couldn't realize how similar their paths were, and somehow it tortured Haemon knowing that they were both born out of the loss of everything they loved. She should be his equal.
He shook his head roughly to dismiss the thoughts for they had no answers and only caused him greater aggravation. Ignoring Aurora, for what else could he do with her, he brushed past her and out the door to the common area where men were still boisterously drinking. Haemon ordered the water and cloth to be sent to his room and sat at one of the empty tables in a back corner with a cup of wine and bowl of hot stew to keep him company, and he was grateful for the pulsing activity of the room which allowed him to fade unseen into the background.
Author's Note: Hi my loves! There is much more to come, but I thought I would upload the first part so that you guys could read it while I work on the rest. I'm very excited for y'all to see what I have planned :)
Thanks to AmyLNelson as always for the super sweet review! Yes, I was quite speedy with my last updates, but it was a great distraction from the real work I had to do...unfortunately! haha Some more Haemon and Aurora in this chapter, and I hoped to shed a little bit more light on their complicated relationship. I was reticent to upload this without the second part because I really liked the conjunction of the two, but the next chapter will finish out this night in Lovisa and also pick up with Iliana and Damian and maybe a splash of something else if I have room! Anyway, Aurora is definitely not my usual female character, and I did that intentionally. She's a real princess, she's not physically strong, and she's very emotionally tormented... But that being said, I think she'll surprise you in the next chapter. I'm very excited! As for Iliana and Damian, I also have something very unexpected coming up that I'm equally excited about. You know me... I always have a million things going on :D Thanks for the sweet words, and I really hope you enjoyed this chapter as well and are curious about what's to come! xoxo
