‘It was obvious what it was,’ he mumbled, but he sat back down. ‘I don’t want to fight with you.’
‘Then stop saying such stupid things.’
He opened his mouth, closed it again, and laughed softly, shaking his head. ‘You sound exactly like Kizzy.’ He put his face in his hands, pressing hard. ‘I miss her, Lil.’ His voice was muffled and sad. ‘I want her safe.’
‘Me too,’ I said, and reached out to him, my anger fading already.
He went on. ‘Remember what Old Charani said? That a girl would be putting a promise ring on my finger before the year was out?’
I nodded and swallowed, remembering Cook’s reading for Kizzy. No husband, no children. I could not tell him; it was too cruel. And besides, Old Charani had seen the ring, seen a marriage for Fen. Whose reading did I trust more, Cook or Old Charani’s? I traced the lines on my palm. Would Old Charani have seen the same fate for me, as a lăutari?
‘We should at least try to sleep,’ said Mira.
Fen curled up where he sat, rolling away from us. His shoulders were shaking, and I wished his pride would let him ask for comfort, and that mine would let me give it unasked.
Mira and I lay down facing each other, her head on my arm. After a long while, the fire’s warmth sinking into a steady, reddish glow, I heard Fen start to snore.
My eyes adjusted slowly to the darkness. Mira was still awake, still looking at me. Her eyes were glinting wells of silver moonlight. I could feel her breath, warm and alive, ruffling strands of my hair. They tickled my nose, but I didn’t dare move. I didn’t want to break the spell of her watching me, of her attention binding us like silver thread.
She reached out and brushed the strands away. Her fingertips were calloused with kitchen work. She still smelled faintly of sage and willowherb, and the green, living things of the forest.
Even in the dark, I could tell something in her gaze was different. Fierce and tender at once, mixed up inside one another. She did not take her hand away, but began to trace from my cheek to my ear. My skin tingled beneath her fingers, and I banished thoughts of how I had touched the child’s fading face. I wanted to exist only in this moment, with this woman, in this forest, beneath the endless, starlit sky.
I was almost scared to breathe, and she hesitated. I placed my own hand over hers, to show I did not want her to stop. She edged a little closer, and her hand spread over my cheek. I nestled into it.
‘Lil?’ she said. Her voice was a soft breeze, her breath was the wild mint we chewed each night. I could taste it in my own mouth, was painfully aware of my breath coming a little louder, my heart hammering in my chest. There was warmth spreading through my entire body: I felt I could feel my blood pushing into all the edges of myself. I wanted to fold myself into her, to press along the length of her body, but not how the Iele had cleaved to me in the clearing. I wanted to feel her, warm and solid, against me. After our brush with the undead, I felt it was the only way to be sure I was alive.
‘Lil,’ she said again, and it was almost a sigh. Her hair was soft on my palm. Her smile was brief and sad. I moved closer, and our lips brushed. I paused for only a moment, before pushing my lips fully to hers. They were warm as blood.
The world melted away. I was smoke, or wind, held human only by the places our bodies touched. I had never kissed someone before and couldn’t imagine ever wanting to kiss anyone else. She brought her leg between mine and I wanted to disappear entirely, the ache of wanting more was so painful. I pulled her to me, as quietly as I could, and a moan caught in my throat as her lips parted. We kissed as though we were born to fit together like this, as though my body was made for hers—
Fen shifted in his sleep, and we lurched apart. The night air was full of the murmurings of trees, the creaking of insects. I felt it was full of eyes, of judgement. But I couldn’t feel ashamed. I could only feel Mira’s heart pressed into my chest, hammering, and she threaded her fingers about mine as though we were woven together and could never be parted.
‘Mira,’ I started, but she closed my mouth with another kiss.
‘Sleep, dragă,’ she said. ‘There is time enough.’
There would never be enough time: not for all eternity.
I rolled over and she moved up close to me, nipped my neck playfully. I melted like a kitten carried by the scruff. I wanted to weep, to feel such tenderness after our time in the castle. I thought I would never again know it. It was a gift: she was a blessing. But I had no words to tell her, and as tiredness pulled my lids closed, I prayed to the Iele to keep her safe, to keep us together, in this world where there was no place for us.
If Fen noticed the change between Mira and me, he said nothing. I thought it more likely he was simply too caught up in his own thoughts of Kizzy. And though every step brought us closer to danger, and though all our talk was of Kizzy and Kem and the Dragon, I could not help feeling – there was no other word for it – happy.
The guilt of feeling this way whilst Kizzy was in the Dragon’s clutches was nauseating, but whenever Mira brushed her hand against mine, or pushed back into me as we rode, I felt a joy spreading through my body that was unlike anything I’d experienced before. It could not be love just yet, but it was something approaching it: a kinship deep and bright and strong.
Her hand in my hand, her lips against my lips, her thigh between my own, her heart beating in time with mine: all of it was a promise I could not keep. But I made it anyway, again and again. She brought me peace, even as we rode towards a sort of war.
But my dreams were far from peaceful. The closer we drew to the Voievod’s lands, the worse they became. I saw, often, the castle, thrumming like a diseased heart, my sister and Albu dancing, the Dragon turning to smile at me, the line of red drawn between his and Kizzy’s mouth snaking towards my own.
I’d wake screaming, and only Mira’s forehead pressed to mine could comfort me. She’d stroke my nose with her rough finger, and though we could not kiss – I would wake Fen too, and besides, in those terrified moments I couldn’t stand the thought of anything covering my mouth, even her lips – she’d flutter her wild mint words over my nape, or my wrist, and my heartbeat would slow.
The terrain grew more vertiginous. The forests became sparser, the hills cultivated in square pockets of green and gold, and we passed more people on the road. They watched us with wary, weary eyes, but there was nothing new in that for Fen and me.
Mira found it more unsettling.
‘Why do they cross their fingers at us?’ she said, as an elderly couple, their donkey bowed beneath kindling, hissed and made the gesture as they passed.
‘I’ll give you one guess,’ said Fen, gesturing at his face. She blinked at him. I think she forgot we were Travellers, a people marked apart from the rest of her countrymen. I loved her all the more for it, but still, it frustrated me how easily she could pass by with her head held high, and how Fen and I must shrink to make ourselves unnoticeable as possible. At night I felt we were growing together, entwining like roots supping the earth, but the looks in the daytime cleaved us again.
A full week and a day since Kizzy had been taken, we came across a village, nestled at the base of a hill. The road took us straight through, and though we had largely skirted any substantial dwellings, we needed supplies as the forest’s shelter and provision dropped away.