Page 84 of Of Iron and Moonlight

Njall woke with the taste of wet sand on his tongue, a dream slipping away like frost at sunrise, and a hollow ache where a lullaby ought to have been.

He had dreamt of his mother again.

Or rather, of the female he had assembled from fragments and longing. She had died in childbirth, leaving him no memory of her beyond the awareness of her absence and an Aurumierran inheritance threaded through every strand of his hair.

Each dream was the same. She stood on a distant desert dune, just beyond his reach, watching him with eyes like the molten gold of Amerieth on a clear night. Her face remained blurred. Yet it shone with affection, as though she alone held answers to the questions plaguing him without mercy. When he stepped toward her, the hot air between them folded into a sudden snowstorm. The world erased in white.

He turned frantically, unable to tell which way led back to her.

Then he would wake.

Njall dragged a hand through his hair. Hair like hers. A reminder impossible to escape: he had been born of two kingdoms and belonged fully to neither. No title—not even that of the King’s Champion—would spare him from being an outcast wherever he went.

A soft scrape pulled him from his thoughts. A whimper followed. Then a cough.

Right. The girl.

He blinked away the remnants of sleep and turned toward the small bundle of blankets and defiance tucked against the far wall. The muffled sounds slipped past the strip of cloth tied tight across her mouth as she strained, bound wrists and ankles working in restless protest, demanding his attention.

“Fine,” he muttered, pushing to his feet.

He crossed the room and crouched beside her, narrowing his eyes in suspicion.

Up close, the contrast between fae male and human woman was almost absurd. His shadow swallowed her, yet she met his look without flinching.

Njall grunted and reached for the knot at her mouth, then drew the cloth away. “What is it you need now, Elara?” he asked, annoyed with himself for asking.

“Two things,” she said at once. “First, your bathing chamber. Please.”

“And the second?”

“Air,” she said, the word leaving her like a plea. “A walk. A stroll. Anything.” She narrowed her eyes, accusing. “I have only breathed your walls for weeks, Njall. Keep me hidden. Keep a sword at my back. I won’t run. I won’t scream.” She tipped her head, mutiny threading the motion. “I’d ask for pleasant conversation too, but I know better than to press my luck.”

Njall huffed. “You promise compliance,” he flicked his chin toward a broken shelf that held only two books, “yet the first time I unbound you, you made a ladder out of my bookcase to pry the shutter. The second, you feigned a faint and stole my boot knife with your toes.”

She shrugged, unrepentant. “You left your knife where someone with toes might reach it.”

“And the third time,” he went on, “you braided twine from the bread loaves into a line and caught the latch. You nearly hanged yourself in the effort.”

“I would have managed it, if your floor weren’t so slick that I slipped.” The ghost of a pleased smile touched her mouth.

He should have been furious.

He found himself impressed.

Her resourcefulness surprised him. Her ingenuity kept him vigilant. Both were the reason he kept her bound and stripped the room of anything that might be turned to use. The girl could make a weapon out of a twig and prove it lethal.

Njall worked the cords free at her wrists and ankles, then drew her to her feet. “The bathing chamber,” he said. “After that… we’ll see.” Even as he said it, he knew he could not risk Oorlon’s wolves catching her scent about the castle.

Brown eyes searched his face for further concessions.

Finding none, she nodded once. “Thank you.”

While she bathed, he leaned against the doorjamb and thought of the day ahead. The past month had been quiet. Oorlon’s missions had slowed to nothing, and Oorlon himself had seemed distracted since the Festival of Selvara. Njall’s time had been filled instead with glima, sparring with Pietre, and the constant vigilance required to manage a human girl who turned everything into a contest.

Today’s summons felt oddly abrupt. Oddly disruptive.

Elara stepped out with a rush of steam, blonde hair damp and braided, her expression already pleading not to be bound again. He met her look with one that said there was no goddesses-blessed chance of that. She answered with an exaggerated frown and held out her hands without a word. The usual exchange.