My first night in Glasshold, I did not sleep.
The keep breathed around me, warm and strange, and my wrist would not stop tingling.
I went down for water with my boots in my hand, because I did not know where the servants kept their ears.
Near the kitchen, a cabinet knocked against a wall. Then a woman laughed, low and breathless.
The kitchen door stood open a hand's width. Warm light spilled out, and so did a voice.
Calder: Hold the shelf, Zelka. I have wanted this since the gate.
Zelka: Then stop talking and fuck me, Calder.
His hand went under her apron and up her thigh. Her leg hooked around his hip.
The cabinet struck the wall again, slow and sure, and I stood there like a fool with my boots in my hand.
Calder: Unless you want to watch, bridge girl, shut the door.
I shut it so hard the latch sang. My face burned.
I had heard enough to know the keep had appetites.
The great hall was worse. The hearth roared like a beast with a stone in its paw.
Vareth stood before it with his coat still on, and his hands were shaking.
Vareth: Stay back.
I stopped at the edge of the hearthstones. Heat rolled over my face, dry and sharp.
Sorrel: You are burning the air.
Vareth: I know.
Then the fire climbed all at once, too fast for the chimney, and a tongue of it lashed across the room.
It caught my wrist. Pain went up my arm like a wire pulled tight.
Sorrel: Vareth.
I crossed the stones and put my hand on his arm.
The fire went quiet. Not out. Quiet, like a dog at a word it knew.
His skin was hot enough to hurt. I did not pull away.
Vareth: What did you do?
Sorrel: I do not know. You were burning.
His eyes went to my wrist, and his face changed. Not soft. Worse than soft. Certain.
He took my wrist in his hand. His thumb rested just under the burn, and I felt every finger.
Vareth: You should not have touched me.
Sorrel: You were on fire.
Vareth: Yes.
He pressed his palm over the burn. Heat moved between us, wrong and intimate, like a secret passed hand to hand.
My skin cooled. His jaw went tight.
Sorrel: Stop. You are hurting yourself.
He did not stop. The burn left me and went into him, red and blistered across his palm.
Vareth: I did this. Not you.
He said it like a rule he was writing on both of us.
We stood too close. His breath moved my hair, and my body leaned toward him before I told it not to.
Sorrel: Why would you do that?
Vareth: Because I could not stand to see it on you.
That was not an answer. It was a door shut in my face with a kind voice.
Sorrel: You do not get to take things from me and call it kindness.
Vareth: Go to your room, Sorrel. Now.
I went. My wrist was whole. His hand was ruined. No words for either.
Behind me, the hearth cracked once, like a laugh in stone.
I had come to keep my secret. He had put his hand through it.