We stopped several times to eat and for me to rest. He seemed confused every time I asked for him to boil my drinking water for me, but he did it anyway, thankfully, even though he often turned away when I began to drink it. So far, neither the water nor the fish seemed to be having any adverse effects on my human body, one small mercy I could try to be thankful for. The alien ate a lot, but he didn’t take much time to rest like I did. When I sat in the shade to take a breather, he prowled the banks of the river, hands knotted behind his back in a shockingly human gesture of intense, frustrated focus. Sometimes, when he seemed to reach a pinnacle of exasperation, he’d abruptly turn and stride towards me and put his hands on my body. He’d clasp my shoulders, or rub a few strands of my hair between his fingers and thumb, staring at my face like it could tell him what to do.
I was never really sure what he saw there.
Towards the afternoon, when I realized I was getting a sunburn and I started trying to ineffectually shade myself by holding my boots above my head, he noticed. Wordlessly, he lifted the wing closest to me and held it over my head as we walked, creating my own personal parasol of green flesh. His wingspan was very large, but in order to shade me fully he had to get quite a bit closer to me. I eyed him from the side, taking in the long, powerful line of his arm and the hard planes of his chest and abdomen. With the emerald scales so hard and shiny, his chest reminded me more of sculpted armour than actual flesh.
When we stopped for an evening meal at dusk, I let out a weary sigh and started regretting my too-proud-to-be-carried stance. I didn’t want to rely on the alien, but maybe I was just making myself suffer needlessly at this point. My feet were throbbing, and even though I hadn’t been wearing my boots, my blisters looked worse than before – angry and red. Fantastic. I didn’t have a first aid kit and I couldn’t even look at the plants to figure out which might have had natural antiseptic properties because I was on a fucking alien planet with no clue as to what was going on.
The alien built a small fire and boiled water for me, as had become our routine. But instead of letting it fully cool to drink, I directed him with limp gestures to dump warm water on my feet instead. He followed my pointed finger and when he noticed the redness, his eye immediately narrowed. In an instant, he was on his knees in the sand before me, gripping my ankles firmly and lifting my feet to inspect the blisters on the backs of my heels, the water levitating beside us for the moment.
“Yeah, this is why I have to boil the water. That river is teeming with bacteria my human body can’t handle,” I sighed at him. I should have taken off my boots last night, the moment I felt the blisters beginning to form. Sleeping with the soaking wet socks and boots when I’d developed open wounds on my feet had been a catastrophically stupid decision. Not that it had necessarily even been a conscious decision in the moment, but still.
Ugh. If my feet weren’t so sore I would have kicked myself.
“Staring at it isn’t going to help. Unless you have magic healing power on top of your interplanetary teleportation and telekinesis abilities,” I muttered peevishly. I tried to pull my ankles from his grasp but it was no use. He was too strong, and I was too fucking tired.
His expression was unreadable as he examined my feet from every possible angle. Eventually, though he didn’t exactly seem satisfied, he stopped his inspection in order to slowly let the warm water rinse my skin. I gasped, flinching against his hold at the hot sting of it.
He kept his hold firm as he controlled the flow of water, creating twin taps in the air that slowly poured over my feet. His thumbs gently rubbed my inner ankles. I realized he was softly muttering something, something that almost sounded soothing. He called me a little star again, and then his eye met mine.
“Suvi.”
Goosebumps broke out over my skin, and I swallowed hard.
“I wish I hadn’t told you my name,” I said quietly. “I wish you’d keep calling me aerra bai and that I could be just as unknown to you as you are to me.”
But that was impossible now. He knew my name. He knew what I needed to eat and drink. He knew what my body looked like when it tore and when it burned.
He knew too much and nothing at all.
After rinsing my feet, he pushed my knees towards my chest, saying something that seemed to be a reminder to keep my feet elevated. He’d get no complaints there. I wasn’t about to stick my newly-cleaned blisters in the sand. Leaning back on my elbows, my dripping feet in the air, I watched him as he sliced several river rushes at their stalks and brought them back. He pulled soft fluff from the cottony tops, avoiding the metal strands, and once my feet were dry he pressed the white stuff to the blisters on my heels, binding them in place with long strips of the green stalks. It was actually a pretty decent patch job. The cottony stuff was very gauze-like and he’d tied the strips of green stalks around my feet with a precise competence.
“Is there anything you can’t do?” I said, gingerly placing the soles of my feet on the sand. “Seriously. You have the powers of a fucking god and yet here you are bandaging my mere mortal feet.” I wanted to hold onto my anger, but I couldn’t. I was too tired, and a part of me was pathetically grateful that he’d helped bandage my feet even though he was the reason the wounds were even there.
“Thank you,” I whispered, my throat feeling tight.
I always found ways to excuse the people who had hurt me. It seemed this big green idiot was no exception.
I couldn’t even call him an idiot, to be honest. There was no denying the fierce intelligence in his lop-sided golden gaze. He wasn’t stupid. Brutal maybe, but not brutish.
Strong and stubborn Suvi made way for practical Suvi when the alien scooped me up into his arms once more. I didn’t fight him. The sun was beginning to set and I was cold and he was warm and there was nothing else to be done.
He kept carrying me until long after the sun had set. I dozed off a little bit in his arms, not realizing just how much the day of walking in the sun had taken out of me until now. The rocking rhythm of his steps lulled me.
It was when those steps came to a jerking halt that I woke up once more. The alien practically vibrated with tension, staring at something in the distance. I twisted in his arms to follow his gaze. My breath snagged painfully in my throat when I registered the unmistakable shape in the distance.
On the top of a low, grassy hill ahead, bathed in moonlight, was a building.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Skallagrim
Araider warlord’s house.
It was not the palatial home from my memory with the white-haired male in the river. It was not the house I was searching for, the one that felt like it meant something. This house was completely unfamiliar to me, and yet I knew instinctively what it was. I knew, somehow, that the main building would have housed a raider warlord and his family, the smaller rooms at the back serving as barracks for his mercenary followers.
I also knew, without exactly understanding how, that the people who lived there would be viciously territorial and likely would not welcome us.
I did not care. I was a stone sky god and a Bohnebregg prince, and if they did not let me in to shelter Suvi for the night then they would die for their disobedience.
A prince?