Page 105 of North Is the Night
“Where is the moon?” he says in my ear.
With my eyes shut tight, I smile and lift my hand, pointing up and to the left.
“Good,” he says behind me, his hands dropping to my hips. “You will come to feel the sun as well. In time, you’ll hardly notice the darkness.” He steps away, leaving me craving the warmth of his closeness.
“It’s beautiful magic, my lord. Truly.” I rest my hip against the sill as he sheds his cloak. “Whose is it?”
“Tuonetar’s,” he replies, tugging the axe loose. “For all her violence and madness, she has a deep love of flowers and growing things.” He sets the axe down with a clatter and helps himself to a cup of wine.
With his back to me, and his cloak shed, I admire the shape of his shoulders, the set of his hips, the length and strength of his long legs. All the other gods of the underworld are haunting in their strangeness. He looks so... normal. How can it be that his broad hunter’s shoulders and raven-dark hair cause me as much disquiet as Tuonetar’s cracked teeth or Kalma’s skeletal hands?
“You watch me, wife.”
I jump, my eyes darting away from him to look instead at the rug on the floor.
“What are you looking for in me?” Slowly, he turns, offering me a cup of wine. “I disappoint you in this form?”
“No,” I say, quickly, accepting the wine. I step away and his frown deepens.
“I frighten you.”
I take a nervous sip of wine. It’s delicious—rich and red, with fine notes of sweet plum. “‘Fear’ is not the proper word, I think.”
“Which word suits better, wife?”
I take another sip, stepping to the right to put the table between us. “You intimidate me, my lord.”
“Are they not one and the same?”
I place a hand down on the wood of the table, taking solace in something solid. “Fear implies a risk of pain. It assumes you are a danger to me. It assumes I will act against my will or character to avoid such threat of pain.”
“You do not fear pain by my hand?”
Feeling no need to lie, I say, “I believe you would cut off any hand that caused me pain... even if it be your own.”
A darkness flashes in his eyes at the mere thought. Behind him, the fire sparks. He sets his cup down, making no move to step closer to me. “I would do that and more, wife.”
I drop my gaze away from him. “You keep using that word.”
“Which word now offends?”
“Wife.”
“Youaremy wife. There is nothing wrong in me calling you what you are.”
“It is your very use of the word that intimidates me,” I admit.
“And why does my calling you ‘wife’ intimidate you?”
I swallow my nerves, looking for the right words to explain. “I have been afraid all my life. The sensation is known to me, as known as my name. When you call me ‘wife,’ when you show me kindness, when you look at me as you are looking at me now...”
“How am I looking at you?”
I shake my head, not daring to raise my eyes.
“Aina... look at me.”
I close my eyes, denying him what he wants. “I cannot,” I whisper.
