The memory his words evoked sent another harsh shiver up her spine, but the blues, greens and browns melding within his eyes took some of the fear away. The colors latched onto a another misplaced memory within her mind. They reminded her of a meadow next to a lake with a large tree standing watch on the hill as she and her sister-
She blinked away from the thought before the memory could find its roots, and her sister’s laugh faded with it back into the inky darkness where the forgotten times before the tower existed. It felt painful to go there, to step foot where she’d been told time and time again to never venture. There would be an answer waiting there, she believed, but she lacked the courage to seek it.
“Dnara?” Athan asked, his palm returning to her cheek.
She forced a smile past her cowardice. “I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry,” he said, taking his hand away.
Despite the fever, she missed the warmth of his palm pressed to her cheek. “For what?”
His mouth opened and closed, one thought changing his expression followed by another. “I’ve frightened you,” he finally said. “You should be resting.”
“I’m okay,” she tried to assure him, but he gave her a skeptical once over. She rolled her eyes and gave in to the obvious. “All right, so I’m a bit warm, and tired, and my arms are painfully blistered.”
“That doesn’t sound okay,” he replied, but at least he smiled as he said it.
“I’ve been worse.”
His smile faltered. “Really?”
His frown hadn’t been her intention, but perhaps he needed know more of where she’d been to understand how blistered skin and a few fainting episodes weren’t the worst times she’d had. “Really,” she said, her straight face bringing an end to the remainder of his smile.
“The tower?” he asked after a breath of hesitation, as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer.
She wasn’t sure she wanted to answer the question, either, but after all he’d done for her, he deserved that much. “My keeper... He is, was, a man of strange contradictions.” And part of her couldn’t help but remember those contradictions fondly. “There were times, Athan, when I almost believed he liked my company, when he would tell me stories or ask me to sit in his library with him simply so he was not alone. Sometimes, I would catch him smiling at me. That seemed to make him the most angry.”
The fondness in her heart trembled to pieces when she remembered his rage. It came from a place she could not understand. And with it always came a sadness he could not hide, after which he would lock her away in her room for days in solitude. As punishment or to save himself from her presence, she had never been sure.
“He would beat you?” Athan asked, breaking into her thoughts.
She nodded. “He favored the lash, first to my thighs as a child, then to my back as I grew older. It stung quite harshly, much like these blisters.” She looked down to her salve coated arms and wrinkled her nose. “These would probably hurt a great deal more if I wasn’t accustomed to the pain, so perhaps I should thank him for the scars across my back.”
“Never,” Athan said, bitterness on his tongue. “A keeper is never deserving of anyone’s thanks, especially not one who would hurt a child.”
With that, she could not argue, so she merely nodded and looked to the window where sunlight mingled with the trees outside to create dancing shadows upon the glass. Her keeper had been cold; cruel even in the few moments of kindness she remembered with such clarity. Like the shadows, that kindness had been fleeting, full of false hopes that would keep her compliant, like a second invisible collar. She had begun living for those moments when he would smile, or teach her something from his books, or share his tea and biscuits. She had held onto those times with more fervor than the times that left scars across her skin, and so too the memory of them.
“Have you eaten?” Athan asked after letting her be for a quiet, reflective moment.
She shut the memories away and tore her gaze away from the dancing shadows. “Not yet, but I’m not all that hungry.”
“You should still eat something.” He stood and offer his hand. “Are you all right to stand?”
“I think so,” she answered with some uncertainty but took his offered hand up. After sleeping on the floor, her legs tingled as she stood. A warmth rose from her neck up to her head and the room spun within her vision. Her first step stumbled, but Athan caught her before she could fall.
“Careful,” he warned, his voice soft and breathless.
His hands expertly avoided her blisters, grasping her elbows instead. The hold drew her in closer, her cheek brushing his chest. She could smell the outside on his clothes; wet grass, pine, and mint leaves kept within a breast pocket. She suspected the mint had been intended to mask the smell of sweat that came from all the walking and riding he’d done that morning. She didn’t mind the proof of his hard labor, but the mint did make her smile.
“Thank you,” she managed, head ducked to hide a blush as she found her footing. Her hands, however, refused to let go of his clothing. One deep breath in, the mint tickling her nose, then a long exhale. Yes, she thought. Here is where she felt safest.
“Dizzy?” he asked when she didn’t step away.
“A bit,” she answered, but the room no longer spun, and the fever had stopped being the cause of her flushed skin. Tempted by the proximity of his face, she looked up through the loose black strands of her hair to see
