They reached shelter near dusk: a ruin half-swallowed by snow. Pillars of carved stone marked the entrance, their faces smooth, but beneath the frost she could still make out the faint traces of an older script. The lintel bore the image of a bell entwined with a serpent, both rendered in curling lines too fluid to be Dagorlind work. She put her hand to her pocket, the bell still tucked away there, and her breath quickened.
Kelthi, she thought. A shrine of her people.
Mallow pushed open the remnants of a door that hung crooked on its hinges. Inside, the air was still. A few scale-lights, long since dead, lay in niches along the walls. A stone altar stood at the far end. The roof above was intact.
“Good enough,” Mallow said, setting down his pack. They gathered what branches they could from outside, striking flint to spark a small fire in a shallow basin that might once have held offerings. The light licked the walls, illuminating carvings half-buried beneath grime of coils, eyes, and curling sigils Lain did not recognize.
Lain sat a little apart from him, her cloak tight around her shoulders. Even with the fire, the cold found every seam in her robe. The air smelled faintly of dust and pine, but the Heat drew her attention to another scent: that of Mallow’s sweat, salt-laden and mild. Every inhale filled her chest with the taste of salt and smoke.
It had been too long without the draught. Her body was remembering itself.
She pressed her palms together, trying to steady her breathing, but the warmth only deepened.
“Fire’s poor, but it’ll hold,” Mallow said, rubbing his hands together. He looked up. “You’re shaking.”
“I’m fine,” she lied.
He raised an eyebrow. “Fine looks different where I come from.”
“Then perhaps you should go back there.”
He gave a low chuckle. “There it is again. The teeth.” He leaned back against a fallen column, stretching his legs toward the flame. “I’ll take it over silence.”
The firelight flickered over the carvings, catching faint glimmers of green and gold in the old stone. As she shifted, her hood slipped again, and the glow revealed the small curve of her antlers and the soft angle of her ears. The pressure behind her small antler nubs was building. She wondered if they’d grow more in the night.
Mallow’s gaze landed on her ears, her antlers, but this time she couldn’t conjure the energy to cover herself. He’d already seen all he needed to. He brought out his rations.
“You should eat something,” he said, offering jerky to her. “Keep your strength.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“That’s not what your body’s saying.”
Her eyes lifted sharply. “You don’t know what my body’s saying.”
He hesitated, then exhaled through his nose. “Fair enough.” He tore a strip of dried meat with his teeth. “Suit yourself.”
The wind moved through the cracked roof, making the old shrine groan softly. The fire guttered, then steadied. Lain stared into it, trying to lose herself in the motion, but the Heat would not relent. Her body felt alive in ways it shouldn’t. Too alive. Too aware.
After a moment, Mallow said, “You’ve never told me your name.”
She looked up, startled. “You didn’t ask.”
“You may recall I did, in fact.” At her confused look, he raised an eyebrow. “At the inn. Last night.”
She hesitated. Her name had been something used by those who knew her closely – the Dagorlind, Elder Tanel. Outsiders knew her by role only: Sister, Glinnel, Bellborn. Her name was something owned, secreted away behind the walls of the Dawn Spire. Not even the Brighthand had asked for it.
Would it belong to her, now that they no longer wanted her?
She wasn’t certain that was true. The Brighthand might have acted on their own, because she was Kelthi. They may not have been following orders at all.
“Lain,” she said at last.
He nodded once. “Lain.” He tried it, and hearing the sound of her name in his accent gave her a quiet thrill. “Suits you.”
“How would you know?”
He gave a half smile. “Because of Saint Fillain, of course. Isn’t that where the name comes from? You’re Dagorlind, aren’t you? As far as I know, followers of Saint Fillain are called Lain.”
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She looked back at the fire, uncertain what to make of that, but the sound of her name still lingered in the air between them, fragile, too warm, and very alive. She wondered what it would sound like whispered close to her face, recalled Tanel’s gasp of it the only time he’d ever relinquished control and succumbed to her wanting.
She had to think of something else. She thought of the cold. The snow. Her ears in the wind.
Darrin standing over her bound and helpless form.
Thomas turning his back so he wouldn’t watch the girl die.
Her breath hitched, sharp and shallow. The image of the sword against her throat returned so vividly she could almost feel the pressure, and one hand flew to her neck in reflex.
“Lain,” Mallow said quietly.
She blinked. He’d moved closer, crouched before her, the firelight catching a pale scar on his cheek. They weren’t touching, but he was near enough that she could feel the heat of him.
“You’re safe,” he said.
Something inside her broke. The words were too gentle, too human. She didn’t know what he meant to do – whether she leaned toward him or whether he did first – only that when his hand finally touched her wrist, the world snapped into focus.
The Tuning flared through her like lightning.
Her grief, her shame, her want all surged outward, raw and unguarded, riding the pulse of her Heat. In return came his confusion, fear, and an answering spark of desire, bright and startled.
Mallow’s breath caught. His hand tightened on her wrist. For a moment neither of them moved as the air between them pulsed with aching light.
Then he flinched as if stung, and drew back fast, breaking the connection. The loss of it was a cold shock.
He dragged a hand through his hair. “That was –” he stopped, shook his head, tried again. “Lain, I don’t feel that way –”
She swallowed hard, unable to meet his eyes. “Of course you don’t. Neither do I.”
“No,” he said roughly. “I mean.” He kept his gaze fixed on the fire, jaw tight. “Whatever that was, it wasn’t…” he trailed off, venturing a look at her face again. “You’re flushed. And your pupils – saints, they’re wide as coins.”
“It’s nothing,” she whispered. “It will pass.”
He frowned. “Is it a sickness?”
She shook her head. “No. It’s…” she faltered. “The medicine I left behind. It kept me steady.”
“What sort of medicine?”
“I’m not sure what it’s made from. Licorice root. Fen bark. Other things.”
“What’s it for?”
“I’m Kelthi.”
He frowned. “Yes, I know that. But what does the medicine do?”
“It’s for when the body… moves toward its cycle. It keeps the Heat down.”
A long pause followed.
Then, quietly, Mallow said, “Ah.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “That explains the hungry looks.”
She flinched. “You think this is funny?”
“No,” he said quickly. “Just my luck. I drag a half-frozen slewfoot out of the grip of the Brighthand, and now she’s about to combust on me.”
Lain drew back, mortified. “Don’t,” she said sharply. “Don’t call me that.”
“What? Slewfoot?”
She nodded, recalling a thousand days of teasing in the cloisters, the others chasing her. Clop-clop was their lighter fare; slewfoot was reserved for when they were feeling particularly cruel.
He seemed about to say something – to tell her he could call her what he liked, perhaps – but something shifted in his expression, and he sighed. “Right. Fine.” His shoulders dropped. “Well. How long does this last?”
“A month.”
“A month!” His mouth fell open. “You feel like that for a whole month?”
“Three times a year,” she mumbled, wishing the wall at her back would absorb her. “That’s why I need the draught.”
“But the Kelthi don’t typically feel it for a whole month, surely.”
Her brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“I just mean – it seems excessive,” he said, though he didn’t sound certain anymore.
“I told you,” she whispered. “The draught keeps me steady. Without it, I can’t – it’s not something I can control.”
They sat in silence after that. The fire snapped, and somewhere high in the rafters a bit of snow fell through the crack and hissed into the coals.
Lain turned slightly away, drawing her cloak tighter once more. Her skin still hummed from his touch, her pulse too loud in her ears. The shame of what he’d felt through her, of what she couldn’t hide, made her eyes sting, so she closed them.
She thought she could almost hear something faint and rhythmic beneath the wind: the sound of bells, deep and low, echoing from within the stone.
When she opened her eyes again, Mallow had wrapped his coat around himself and was leaning against the altar.
“You should sleep,” he said, without opening his eyes.
“I won’t,” she replied.
He nodded once, as if that made sense to him. “Then keep the fire up.”
His breathing slowed. Lain watched him for a long time, the rise and fall of his chest, the pale reflection of firelight across his face. She wanted to hate him. Instead, she envied him: his ease, his untroubled body, his ignorance of what it meant to burn and not be consumed.
Lain drew her cloak close and whispered to herself, Give no shape to want. But her body no longer obeyed. It remembered warmth, the briefness of touch, and the confusion of mercy mistaken for something else.
Outside the wind keened against the stones. The carvings on the wall seemed to dance in the firelight, serpents coiling, eyes half open, listening.