Page 75 of What Blooms in Barren Lands

I stood on my tiptoes, trying to reach cobwebs like net swings in the corner of our new living room, when I heard the front door open and shut.

“It’s just me,” Einar announced.

He walked behind me and, embracing me with one hand, he took the duster from me with the other and achieved the task in less than a second.

“Thanks.” I took the duster back from him and proceeded to clean the walnut coffee table, throwing the doily from it onto a pile of cloths to wash.

“Josh and Russ just left for the Rotunda. We’ll hold the funeral tomorrow, once everyone’s settled.”

My airways constricted at his words, and I only made an indeterminate sort of noise at the back of my throat in response. I carried on with my dusting stubbornly, not meeting his eye.

“Love, you have to put what happened behind you.”

“I know.”

“Ren, stop. You’re the messiest person I’ve ever met. We both know you don’t give a toss whether it’s dusty in here.” He took me in his arms by force to make me abandon cleaning the bookshelves for about the tenth time. “What can I do to help?”

“Take me somewhere private,” I replied to him without even thinking about it first, not knowing that I would say it, but sensing that it was what I needed, regardless.

“Alright, let’s go. Don’t forget your bow.”

We set off on an uphill path through the forest in the direction of Mount Oro, a rocky giant that dominated Vizzavona’s skyline. We didn’t aim for the top, though, just for the first clearing above the tree-covered area. It was a rocky outcrop sparsely covered with grass and enclosed by an alder alcove.

On the rough ground we spread out a blanket that Einar had carried up in his backpack. He took off his own T-shirt and made to undress me, but I stopped him.

I set my bow aside, unzipped my fleece jacket, and peeled off my tee and my sports bra in a single, practised movement. He watched wordlessly, caressing me with his sight. I undid the button on my trousers and turned around to give him a full viewof me as I slid them and my underwear down my legs, bending over in doing so.

The rumble of a waking lion sounded behind me.

I stepped out of the crumpled fabric and turned back around to find his pupils sufficiently dilated by raw lust, as if a night had descended onto the icy pools of his irises.

Pleased, I dropped to my knees very slowly, my eyes spearing his until my shins rested on the ground, its hardness only somewhat softened by the blanket. Then I lowered my sight demurely, my hands flat on my thighs.

“Sir,” I addressed him, aiming for a tone of submissive assertiveness that was by no means easy to achieve. “Punish me. I want you to. I deserve it.”

He let out a sound close to a strangled cough before sitting on his heels opposite me.

“Ren ... for what? For yesterday?”

I shot him a look of mutinous displeasure, firmly deciding to slap him if he tried to coddle me in any way. But Einar was no fool and rarely made mistakes where my desires were concerned.

“Yes, Sir. Please. Punish me,” I repeated firmly, my refusal to meet his eye a rebellion in its own right.

He breathed heavily through his nose with the air of a man settling down to a job. I half expected him to flat out refuse, but instead he asked in a measured tone, “And if I do, will you promise not to blame yourself anymore? Will you accept that, doing what we do, horrible things will happen, and that you cannot be responsible for every single person with you?”

“But I was responsible for him! They aremyarchers. It ismyfault!” Guilt and sorrow swelled uncontrollably inside my chest, and I had to bite my lip to prevent myself from crying. “Ishould have checked the inside of that building better.”

“No,theyshould have checked it better. You are responsible for training and instructing them to give them the best chances out there.” He spoke patiently, wiping a stray tear that rolled down my cheek with a tender brush of his fingertips. “But, my love, you are not responsible for keeping every single one of them alive. That’s not your job. It cannot be anyone’s job. You can grieve what happened today, but you cannot hold yourself accountable for it. Aye?”

I kept my eyes stubbornly downcast.

“Won’t you do it?”

“I will,” he said, and I exhaled deeply with relief because his voice finally obtained that cold, flat quality I had been waiting for. “On two conditions. The first one is that your tears are my hard limit. You will tell me to stop if I get close to making you cry.”

“You won’t,” I assured him matter-of-factly, glancing up at him.

Something menacing flashed through his face, challengingly, and there was no doubt in my mind that, at that moment, he wanted to prove me wrong. But it passed quickly.