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Chapter Twenty-Three

Fenli

S aying those things to Axl had felt like such a victory, but it ended up being my undoing. I’d started a swell of unrest I couldn’t control, and it quickly spiraled into something none of us could.

Not even Baer.

“Could you not have deescalated the situation?” he was asking Roan.

We were in our hut. The guests from Runehall’s clan had left not long before, and the first thing Baer had seen fit to do was march over here and pound on our door.

Goose had raised unholy hell at that, and it’d sent us into chaos, leaping from our beds, me getting Goose under control, Roan getting to the door and unbolting the lock.

First the big man had ranted about the dog, then about my mattress on the floor and had we still not moved past this? Then, finally, about what had happened with the men.

“Do you really think I didn’t try?” Roan shot back. “It was a tense situation, and her uncle was an asshole.”

He hadn’t fed me to the wolves. That was nice .

“And what about her?” Baer said, turning to me. “Those men told me what you said, word for word. You won’t speak when you should, and then you go and say all that at the worst moment possible?”

And just like that, it didn’t matter that Roan had tried to play down my part, because, of course, the other two men had not. I clenched my jaw.

“She was only sticking up for herself,” said Roan.

Baer laughed, though it wasn’t a nice laugh.

“Is that what you call that?” he asked. “I heard she disrespected the elders, called her own flesh and blood a ‘piece of shit’—” I winced, “—and told those men they could go to hell while they stood here and tried to honor her with a fire in her hearth. I think she did a little more than stick up for herself. In another time, that would have started a war!”

Roan lowered his voice. “No one is going to war.”

“You’re damn straight we aren’t,” Baer said. “Not while I’m alive, and not over the likes of her .” He looked at me then. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

I lifted my chin in response.

“Marriage was your salvation from Runehall, and yet you fight it. We sought to help you, and you threw it back in our faces. We ask you to lie low, and instead you pick a fight.” His fist came down on the table, and I flinched, the pottery shaking.

My anger rose, and I grabbed hold of it. “I won’t be tread upon,” I said, voice shaking. “That man—that man was a-aw—”

“Awful? Like your father, no doubt! Why do you think we took your mother and you back? Your father was a violent drunk, and that is exactly why we tried so hard to give you a future here without picking up our metal. Is that what you want? A war fought for you? ”

I shook my head—of course I didn’t—but he wasn’t letting up.

“Because I can tell you right now, it will not happen. I have done everything I’m willing to do to save your ungrateful hide.

I gave you my son, for Toke’s sake!” He took a step closer, Roan still between us, and lowered his voice.

“If it comes to bloodshed, we stand down.” He shook his head. “They can have you.”

Roan put his hands on Baer’s chest and pushed him back.

“That’s enough,” he growled. My pulse was pounding in my ears. “She heard what you had to say. Now get out.”

Baer kept his eyes steady with mine. Then he turned and went out the door, just as quickly as he’d come.

I sat back in my chair. My mind was a blur, everything hazy. I looked at the table before me but saw through it, unfocused and unbelieving.

How had things gotten so bad? Why was I so foolish?

“Are you alright?” Roan asked.

I looked at him and blinked. Saw the split near his eye, where Axl had hit him, the bruise blooming under the skin.

He said, “He didn’t mean all that.”

I whispered, “Yes, he did.”

My shirt was red with my father’s blood, and I was screaming.

“Leave it,” someone was telling me.

The world had gone black, and my arms were being pinned down.

I fought back with all I had, twisting and pulling, trying to get away but being held still.

I only wanted to be away from the blood.

I had to be. I needed to wash it off, scrub my skin raw, submerge myself in the river until I was clean.

It was all my fault.

“Leave your shirt on. Please. It was just a dream.”

I slowed down and shook the fog from my mind. I was on my mattress, and there was no blood. It was only my own sweat. Hands loosed from around my wrists. Only then did I notice Roan.

He was kneeling beside me, leaning over, his knees pressed into my side. I could see his face, lit by the candle he placed on the floor next to us. His eyes were bright. He let out a careful breath and pulled his hands back slowly.

“You alright?”

“No,” I gasped.

He nodded. “You were dreaming of your father.”

“It was all my fault,” I said, choking down gulps of air, “when he died.”

“No, it wasn’t.” He leaned in closer, as if he wasn't close enough already. His nose lined up with mine, and his hand went to my cheek, pulling my gaze to his, not letting me look away. “He was drunk. He was hurting Indi. He fell and got what he deserved. He fell and hit his head.”

“It’s not true,” I whispered. “I pushed him. Indi didn’t tell anyone the truth, so I didn’t either. But I pushed him. I’m the reason he’s dead.”

I told Roan everything. It was madness to confess after all this time of secrets and getting away with the death of my own father. But I was feeling mad. It was pressing down on me, had been suffocating me for years, and I had to let it out.

He’d come to Toke’s clan looking for us. He’d started hitting Indi. I hadn’t thought about anything but helping her. I’d shoved him. Came from behind and put my shoulder into his side with all I had. He’d tipped, arms wheeling briefly, and then he’d fallen. His temple met the edge of the table.

Like all the stars had aligned.

Like the universe and all the gods had conspired.

To help a six-year-old girl kill a towering man.

The guilt had been instant, and it had been overwhelming. I’d killed my father, and my mother had had to lie to hide the truth. I’d burned with shame ever since.

But now, something was different. I listened to the story as I told it from my own lips—and I realized what I never had as a child: I’d done nothing wrong. I’d stepped in to save my mother. His death was not on my hands.

It was on his own.

“Toke,” I said, breathless. I found Roan’s eyes and stared. “It’s not my fault.”

He didn’t even hesitate. “Of course it’s not your fault.”

I heard the rain then, loud on the roof. It was a wonder I hadn’t noticed it before, a testament to how racked I’d been with the dream and the past come back to haunt me again and again.

I rose to stand on shaky legs.

“What are you doing?” Roan asked, but I didn’t answer.

I walked to the door, and he followed behind, watching my every step. My palm shot with pain as I grasped the handle and pushed, but I hardly cared. I stepped out into the rain and felt the shock of cold it brought.

I let it soak me. Until my clothes and my skin were wet through. Until my hair was dripping .

When I finally turned back, blinking, I found Roan still in the doorway. There was a blanket in his hands, but he didn’t usher me in. He waited, watching me, like he understood my need for this. Like he couldn’t pull his eyes away and never would.

I faltered, then felt my legs carrying me towards him. When I reached the hut, he made room for me in the doorway, wrapping the thick wool around me and rubbing my arms as I came under the protection of the roof and the walls.

He said, “You’re a wild thing and not for taming.”

And my heart gave a sad pang.

Why?

I looked up into his eyes, and I knew.

“Maybe that’s why the clan won’t have me.”

He took my shoulders more firmly and pushed me back just enough to look me full in the face. “This clan will have you, Fen. This is where you belong.”

And I almost believed him.

The next day, the delicate lie we’d been trying to preserve came apart and crumbled into ruins.

It was a crowd. They were at our door before the sun was at its height.

“Is she even trying to abide by our ways?” asked a woman. “No.”

I’d gone up into Roan’s loft, and it still hadn’t been far enough away. I could hear them all, gathered together and discussing the problem at hand: me. Roan had gone to meet them in a fury. And he’d come face to face with his own mother.

“We just want to make sure we’re doing what’s best for the clan and for Fenli. What if she’d be better off with her own people, Roan? What if you’d be better off?”

“ We are her people,” he insisted.

There had been a sharp increase in voices until Roan’s voice rose above all of them. He took them all to the meeting house where they could discuss me far enough away that I couldn’t hear.

I didn’t know whether to be relieved or furious.

I was both.

I headed back down the ladder and tended to the fire, growing it until I had an inferno I could watch rage and burn.

Yeshi came over then, and I let my anger anchor me as she went to work cutting out my stitches, not so much as flinching.

She applied the salve, wrapped the hand, and gave me instructions I nodded along to but didn’t hear.

Then she left and I was back at the hearth.

This wasn’t me. I was made of rain, not fire. But even as I thought it, I felt the heat licking inside my chest.

I wanted to prove them wrong, to make them eat their words. I wanted to be a child of Toke’s—undeniably, unequivocally. And I wanted to go to bed each night and rise each morning knowing that I was where I belonged and among the people I was meant to be with.

But it felt out of reach.

I’d just started in on my hair, spitting mad and sliding the blade through a chunk on the right, when Roan came through the door. My hand stilled, and he drew to a halt when he saw me, still holding the knob. He blinked, taking in my state, then entered, swinging the door closed behind him.

All the fight went out of me. All the rage and boldness that surged up inside when I was alone dissipated. I drew my hands into my lap, my cheeks heating. I looked down at the floor.

I didn’t know what Roan would say or do, but I braced myself for a scolding. Why, at a time like this? Do you want to make things worse?

I wouldn’t know what to say.

He walked to the table, dropped his bag, and from the corner of my eye I could see him hesitate. After a moment’s pause, he walked over.

“Do you mind?” he asked. His hand reached out, hovering in front of the knife in my own.

I bit my lip and slid the handle into his palm. I felt so small in that moment—foolish and irrational—like a child caught doing wrong.

I thought he’d take my knife and slide it into his belt, but I was wrong. Instead, he moved to my side and took up the hair I’d been cutting.

His touch sent a shock through the whole of me. He was slow and careful as he eyed my sloppy work and started in himself. He ran the blade down my hairs like he’d done this before. After a few cuts, he mussed the locks, his gaze sharp.

And my insides lit like fire.

I felt every touch, each tug and brush and cut he made. I didn’t know if he could see the gooseflesh that he caused me, but I felt it all like a storm across my skin.

Against my best judgments, I relaxed. Whatever fight I’d been considering upon his first touch had fled by his third. I was too far gone.

He made me dizzy with it. Stupidly relaxed, blissfully indulging. I wished he would never stop. I hoped he would do more .

Run his fingers down my neck.

Trail the curve of my spine.

Gods above, what were these thoughts?

I didn’t know, and I didn’t care.

A different part of me had taken over. I closed my eyes and lost myself in it.

Too soon, he’d made his way around my hair and was standing back in front of me. He tousled it a few more times, checked again for evenness, and smiled, meeting my stare.

“Looks good,” he said.

I was without words.

He flipped the knife, catching it by the blade, and held out the handle to me.

I took it.

And just like that, everything came to a head in my mind. Those who wanted me gone were growing bolder; I had never belonged here; I was starting to feel things for Roan.

Rahv was right.

I needed to leave.