“I am not tired. I wish we could wander the mount,” Alba mourned. “There is so much to see, and we are stuck inside. If Bayr were here, he could accompany us. No one would dare approach if he were watching.”
“But he is not here . . . and I am weary,” Ghisla said, her tone cross, though her stomach knotted with guilt at her lie. She had no intention of sleeping.
“The queen says I can stay here with all of you tonight,” Alba said, cheering up slightly. She only referred to Queen Esa as Grandmother when she addressed her directly, which was not very often. The woman held herself apart and rarely left her quarters in the king’s castle.
Ghisla almost groaned. Alba’s presence would make it that much harder to slip away.
“You can sleep with me, Princess,” Ghisla offered. “Then Ghost will not feel compelled to let you have her bed.” And when she retired, all the beds would be full, giving Ghisla a little more cover.
“I don’t want to sleep yet,” Alba complained.
“I will sing to you.”
She would sing until they were all drunk with sleep. Her stomach twisted again. She did not like to manipulate her sisters, even with slumber, but she was growing desperate. The rune on her palm pulsed with Hod’s nearness, and she feared he would give up on her and retreat to his tent or whatever lodging Arwin had secured.
“Sing the one about the little bat,” Dalys begged. “That one always makes me smile.”
“I have not heard that one!” Alba squealed, wriggling down beside Ghisla. Elayne, Juliah, and Bashti were slower to convince, but there was nothing else to do and the day had been wearying.
They stretched out over their beds and let Ghisla sing them into dreamland, climbing and soaring above the mount with the little bat whose only mission was to be himself, a bat, free to fly and flit about, without a care in the world.
He cannot see, but he’s not scared.
He swoops and glides up in the air.
The sky is dark but he is light,
And though his eyes aren’t blessed with sight,
His joy is full, his wings are strong.
He dances to a distant song.
He flies, and he is free to play,
And at the end of every day,
He folds his wings and draws in close,
To all the bats who love him most.
Before long, the room was a symphony of deep breaths and soft snores. Her own eyes were heavy, but the rune on her hand was hot, and she knew if she rose from her bed and tiptoed out of the temple to the hillside, she would find Hod, waiting.
She’d been serious when she asked him if he was real. In her four years on the mount, she had almost convinced herself that Hod was like the blind god—like all the gods: invisible and nonexistent but for folklore and legend. Invisible and nonexistent but in her own mind. And it hadn’t mattered at all. Sanity—reality—was too painful not to have someone to talk to, even if that someone was a voice in her head. But he wasn’t an illusion. He was here. She’d seen him. And she was going to find him.
She rose from her bed, splashed her face with water, and traded her nightdress for a frock. With a prick of her finger and a quick tracing of her rune, she glided from the room, down the stairs, and out of the temple through the tunnel in the sanctum, singing his name in her mind, calling him to her.
It didn’t take long. She watched him pick his way across the hill, using his staff to inform his steps, and when he was a mere ten feet away he stopped and cocked his head, reminding her of the boy she’d first met on the beach. He was not a boy anymore. His eyes reflected the moon like water, making them more gold than green, and she rose from her crouch, wanting to greet him, but unsure of what to say. How did one greet their own soul?
“You’ve stopped breathing . . . and your heart is shouting,” he murmured. “It is even louder than your song. Are you afraid?”
“I am . . . overjoyed,” she confessed.
His smile bloomed, parting his lips and creasing his lean cheeks, and her happiness spilled out of her eyes. He sheathed his staff the way other men sheathed their swords, securing it across his back. Then he opened his arms.
She ran to him, and he swept her up, laughing as she wrapped her legs around him. It was not dignified or ladylike, but she didn’t care. He was solid in her arms. Hard and whole, his heart singing with hers, his legs planted to keep them from rolling down the hill. She rained kisses over his cheeks, his brow, and the lids of his eyes. She even kissed his laughing mouth, panting like a pup too long from its master, and he bracketed her face in his hands, his thumbs tracing her features like he was seeing her too.
“Stop wriggling,” he laughed. “You’re going to knock me over.” He unsheathed his staff again and laid it down as he sank to the grass, keeping her in his arms and making a nest for her with his legs.
When she remarked on his tendency to shelter her with nests and runes, he laughed but did not release her, and for a moment they sat, their arms wrapped around each other, trying to catch their breath, but she could not stop looking at him.
“Where is Arwin?” she whispered suddenly, fearful that he would have to leave soon.
“He is snoring like your sisters. He honks like a goose when he sleeps. It makes my head ache. I do not ever sleep at his side. I can’t if I want to sleep at all. Mostly, I do not sleep at night. I will sleep tomorrow when he is awake. It is customary for us.”
She gaped, though he couldn’t see her surprise. “You can hear my sisters snoring?”
“Not now. But I heard you. Singing to them. I have been outside the temple all day. All evening. Waiting for you to come out again.”
“You heard me?”
“Yes. And I didn’t even need our rune. I liked the song about the bat.”
“I wrote it for you . . . Have I never sung it to you before?” She couldn’t believe it.
“Sing it again, but hold my hand, like old times.”
His strong cheeks and deep-set eyes were shrouded by dark brows and bristly black lashes that made shadows like tiger stripes on the whites of his sightless eyes. She tipped his face toward her so she could look at him while she sang and then slid her hand into his.
“The sky is dark but he is light, and though his eyes aren’t blessed with sight, his joy is full, his wings are strong. He dances to a distant song,” she sang, but she could not focus with his face so near. When her voice trailed off, he cocked his head, waiting.
“I hardly recognize you,” she whispered.
“I am the same. Only bigger.”
“No. The shape of your face has changed,” she murmured.
“Tell me.”
“There is no softness round your cheeks.”
“I no longer resemble a toad?”
“No . . . you still resemble a toad . . . just an older toad.”
He grinned, the shape of his face changing again, sharp bones and unseeing eyes softened by the smile.
“You are quite handsome, truthfully,” she offered, surprising herself.
His smile slipped, like she’d surprised him too.
“Has the shrew left with the little waif?” he asked, touching the point of her chin.
“No. They are both here. I am still a shrew . . . and still a bit of a waif.”
He tested her weight in his arms, bouncing her like a child.