“You saw?”
“For two hours, around that same time frame that you’ve just described, I could see.”
“I gave you my eyes?” she said, flabbergasted.
He could not stop the bubble of incredulous laughter that escaped his throat.
“The rune of the blind god does not seek sight or take sight. It gives sight to the blind,” he explained, awestruck. “It is not a seeker rune . . . it is a sacrificial rune. You carved it into your hand and then . . . said my name?”
“Yes. And I was immediately blind.”
“You gave me sight that day, Ghisla. For two blessed hours, I saw the sky and the hillside. I saw Arwin and the runes. I saw my reflection in the glass. My hands and skin. My . . . life. And I didn’t know why. It was a gift amid a very bleak time. I was . . . devastated by your absence. And then, out of nowhere, the blind god gave me a respite from the darkness. You gave me a respite. I did not let myself mourn when it was gone, though I hoped it would return someday. You gave me a thousand pictures that day, Ghisla, and I didn’t even know it was you.”
Banruud was irritable, demanding comfort from her presence as well as her voice, while he stewed over whether he could bring her with him to Berne. He abandoned the idea only after Hod quietly reminded him that it would not be safe for “the Songr.”
“If you value Liis of Leok, Majesty, it would not be wise to put her anywhere near the North King. He will not hesitate to take what he believes is his.”
The king dismissed Hod with a surly “Get out,” but he did not persist with his plans. She would stay on the mount. When Liis left the king’s chamber near midnight, she was worn from evading his hands and his mouth and weary from trying to sing him to sleep. He was a child throwing tantrums, and when he finally succumbed, she washed herself in the basin in his chamber, though she feared he might wake and she would have to do it all again.
Hod waited for her in the hallway, his face pensive, his jaw tight, his staff in his hands, and his shield on his back.
“There must be somewhere we can go,” she whispered. “Surely . . . there is some place where we can lie behind a locked door. Where we don’t have to run. Or fear. Or speak in whispers. Where you don’t have to carry your shield and staff. Just for a while.”
She didn’t want to run to the hillside or hide in the Temple Wood. To be gone too long would result in chaos, and to go too far was too great a risk. And they had so little time; Hod would leave in the morning.
He turned, listening to the sentry who nodded off in the alcove, and then took her hand and pulled her down the corridor and up a flight of stairs. He stopped beside a small room at the end of a hushed hallway.
“There is no one on this floor but me, and those stairs lead all the way down to the yard at the rear of the castle.”
He ushered her inside, barred the door, and set down his staff and his shield as she surveyed the simple space.
A surge of tenderness welled in her chest. He always asked for so little, and he’d been given even less. A bed with a worn blanket was neatly made. A tub filled the corner, and a set of three drawers stood against the back wall. A basin sat atop the drawers; a bar of soap and a neatly folded towel were placed beside it. Everything was ordered and nothing was extra, except for the long, oval looking glass that hung on the wall adjacent to the door. She turned toward it, and he moved behind her, resting his cheek in the crown of her hair. It was odd to look at them together this way, framed in glass, as though they were a painting, permanent and fixed.
“There is a looking glass on your wall,” she said.
“I thought it might be,” he murmured. “It’s broken, though. When I look in it, I can’t see anything.”
He began to take down her hair, and she watched him, her blood warming beneath her skin. When he ran his fingers through the tresses, spreading them over her shoulders, she loosened the ties between her breasts.
There was no question, or even caution, no hesitation between them at all. He did not ask, and she did not instruct. He was suddenly impatient to touch her skin, and she didn’t shimmy or shy away or giggle at his urgency when he drew her skirts up in his hands and pulled her dress over her head. She helped him, tugging at her stays and loosening the sash at her waist.
Her underthings intrigued him, but only for as long as it took to remove them, and then she stood naked in the looking glass, shivering with anticipation, the cool night air whispering through the shutters that kept the wind from watching them.
“I want to see you,” he said.
She brought his palm to her heart and stroked the back of his hand.
“I have no songs that describe my flesh,” she said, “or capture the look of my face. But if you look into the glass while I sing, maybe you’ll see us the way you saw my sky.”
“Violet,” he breathed, remembering.
“Yes.”
He lifted his face and waited, hopeful.
“I am Ghisla . . . I am . . . small,” she sang, feeling her way into a song. “I am . . . summer . . . more than fall.”
He smiled. His grim face and empty eyes were transformed by the flashing of his teeth and the parting of his lips.
“There you are,” he cried. “There . . . we are?”
She nodded, humming softly.
“My eyes are blue, just like the sky. My hair is gold . . . don’t . . . ask me why.” She wrinkled her brow, trying to write lyrics even as her breath caught and his hands began to rove.
“Your waist is small, your hips are round,” he murmured, helping her. She repeated his line with a bit of melody and a smile.
“Your beauty doesn’t make a sound,” he added.
“Very good,” she said, and sang it back to him.
“Your breasts are full enough to hold,” he composed, and she moaned the words as he tested their weight.
“And these?” he asked, stroking the peaks of her breasts with the tips of his fingers. “Tell me about these.”
“Pink berries . . . on a . . . bed of . . . snow,” she sang, her face flushing.
The song was silly and she felt like a fool, but watching Hod’s face in the looking glass as his hands moved down her body—not just touching her, but seeing her, seeing them, their bodies together—made the song feel almost sacred, like the keeper’s praises at the end of the day.
“You are looking at me . . . and I am looking at you,” he marveled.
She nodded, overcome, and they began again, her song and her eyes, his hands and his touch. She followed his movement, letting him match sight with sound, resisting the urge to direct his hands.
“I hear your blood coursing and your heart galloping, but I see the flush of your skin and the heaviness of your lids. And I see myself, loving you,” he rasped.
She continued on as long as she could, letting him see what he did to her, what she did to him, but when he found the place where her pleasure was centered, she couldn’t sing anymore, and she closed her eyes against the onslaught of sensation.
“Your eyes are my eyes,” he implored. “Don’t close them. Let me see you.”
She opened them again, searching his face in the mirror, and he waited for the image to return, his arms wrapped around her, his lips to her hair.