Chapter 85. Velora Fought a Spoon and the Spoon Won, but She Never Stopped Trying

Chapter 85: 85. Velora Fought a Spoon and the Spoon Won, but She Never Stopped Trying

I sat on the edge of the bed for a long time, in the dark.

Somebody knocked, once... politely. I didn’t answer.

And they went away.

I stopped feeling hungry two days ago. In fact... I’d stopped feeling much of anything.

My hands were trembling constantly now, a fine, fast vibration that I couldn’t stop, and my vision came and went in waves.

When I stood up to look out of the window, the room tilted and the floor came up to meet me, and I had to catch the sill.

[Lust Energy: 24/100]

[Condition: Severely Exhausted. Passive decay doubled.]

I looked at it for a while. Then I looked out.

The window faced east, over the dark pine forest. Two moons hung in the sky, one pale and thin, one round and bright and near.

I looked up at the near one, and I watched it.

"He... y..." I said.

My voice cracked. I cleared my throat and tried again.

"Hey... I didn’t eat today." I laughed, a short, helpless sound. "Bonette would have yelled at me..."

"She’d have called me a Sir of Questionable Judgment and made me eat soup."

The moon didn’t answer. It hung there, calm and white, and I leaned my forehead against the cold glass.

The knock came a little after midnight.

It was soft, and slow, and polite.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Three taps, with a pause between each, like a person who hasn’t made up her mind whether to knock at all.

I didn’t answer. I sat on the floor with my back against the bed, and I stared at the wall.

I heard a key turn in the lock.

The door swung open, and Velora came in.

I... almost didn’t recognize her. She wasn’t wearing her usual uniform.

And she wasn’t wearing armor, or gold embroidery, or the long white coat that made her look like a statue of herself.

She wore a plain white linen shirt, with the sleeves rolled to the elbow, and a pair of dark trousers. Her hair was down, loose over her shoulders in a long, tangled river of silver and black.

She had a tray in her hands. On it sat a bowl of soup, a heel of bread, and a mug of something steaming.

She didn’t say anything. And so... She shut the door behind her with her heel, crossed the room, and set the tray on the little table.

Then she pulled up a chair, sat down in it, and looked at me.

"Old Tobin gave me the key," she said. "He thought I might need it."

"Go away..."

"No!"

I hadn’t expected that.

I looked up. She was sitting very straight, with her hands in her lap, and her golden eyes were calm.

"I will not talk about the moon," she said. "I will not talk about the Sovereigns..."

"I will also not talk about what you ought to do or what you ought to feel, and you guessed it... I did not come to give orders." She paused. "All I came here for is to sit and maybe... watch."

"Why...?"

"Because I want to."

It was so simple that I didn’t know what to say.

She let the silence stretch. I looked at the wall.

She looked at me. Somewhere downstairs, a floorboard creaked.

"I should like to tell you something," she said, at last, "and I would like you to listen..."

"You do not have to answer."

I didn’t say anything.

"I think... you are special," Velora said. "And I mean it for your race... a special human."

I looked at her.

She wasn’t blushing. And she wasn’t looking away.

She had the calm, direct gaze of a person reading out a report, though her ears had gone a faint, dusty pink. "I do not know when I decided it..."

"I have thought about it a great deal these last days... I believe it was in the pine wood, the night you asked about my ribbon, and I told you what it was." She swallowed. "And you did not make a joke about that."

My chest ached.

"Most people would have," she said. "I have spent twenty years waiting for somebody to say something clever about it..."

"But you did not... all you said was that you were sorry."

"I was."

"I know." She almost smiled. "That is the point."

She leaned forward slightly, with her elbows on her knees.

"I do not want you to get well for my sake," she said. "I do not ask for a single thing."

"I only want to be at your side." She chose her words carefully. "Not behind you... and not in front of you, but... beside."

I stared at her.

A long time ago, in a crowded square, I’d stood on a rock and told a thousand people that I’d be the idiot standing in front.

I’d thought it was a good line... I hadn’t known that anyone would remember it.

"I watched my own riders turn on me in the courtyard," she went on, quietly. "I watched them lift their swords... I knew their faces."

"I trained them myself." She stopped. "I came very close to killing them..."

"I do not think I could have lived with it, and that’s why... I understand what it is to nearly lose everything."

She looked down at her hands.

"My mother would have hated this," she said. "That I... have chosen a human..."

"She would have been furious, and she would likely have called me a fool." A small, helpless laugh escaped her. "But now that I think about it... she would have liked you."

"And that is... the most irritating part."

I laughed.

It wasn’t much of a laugh. It was a sort of cracked wheeze, more air than sound, and it hurt.

But I heard it come out of my own mouth, and I stared at the floor with my eyes stinging.

Velora said nothing. She reached over and pulled the tray toward me.

"I’ll feed you," she said.

I’d like to tell you that she was graceful about it.

But well... She wasn’t.

Velora Nightclaw, Duchess of House Nightclaw, and commander of the finest cavalry in Elarune, had never fed another person in her life.

She took up the spoon like a weapon. She held it in front of my mouth with the air of a woman defusing a bomb.

I opened my lips, and the soup went everywhere. It ran down my chin... it splashed across my shirt... and it even dripped onto her sleeve.

She swore.

It was a long, fluid, extraordinarily creative string of curses in the high dialect of the southern nobility, and I didn’t understand a word, but I could tell from the tone that it was magnificent.

She glared at the spoon as if it had personally insulted her. I started to laugh again to the point that I couldn’t stop.

"It is not funny," she said, with great dignity.

"It’s a little funny."

"You are an absolute disgrace."

"You’re the one who dumped it on me."

"I am trying."

"I know." I was wheezing. "I know... Keep going."

And... she did.

By the third spoonful, she had worked out the angle.

By the fifth, she was almost steady.

She wiped my chin with her sleeve, without comment, and went on feeding me until the bowl was empty and the bread was gone, and I’d drunk half the tea, which was sweet and warm and smelled of mint.

I hadn’t known I was THAT hungry. Maybe it’s because I’d been starving for days.

And I just hadn’t been able to feel it.

When I’d finished, she set the bowl aside.

She looked at me for a long moment. Then, hesitating, she reached out and brushed a few clinging flakes of snow out of my hair, with her fingertips, as if she wasn’t quite sure where she was allowed to touch.

I held very still.

"You are filthy," she said.

"I’ve been on a horse for two days."

"You are still very filthy."

"Is that a compliment?"

"It is a statement of fact."

She stood up. She went to the washstand, filled a basin from the pitcher, and brought it over with a clean cloth.

She knelt on the floor in front of me and began to wash my face. And oh my god... It was the most awkward thing I had ever experienced.

She was gentle and clumsy and terribly serious about it. And I feel like a kid who’s getting washed by my mother.

When she’d finished, she took my bandaged hands and examined them. She frowned at the dirty wrappings, unwound them with great care, and rewrapped them, tying the knots neatly, as if she had done it a hundred times.

"Just so you know that I’m not going to be good company," I said.

"Well... You are not required to be."

"I might fall asleep."

"Then fall asleep."

But I did.

I don’t remember doing it. I remember that I was sitting against the side of the bed, and then I was leaning over, and then I was resting my head on something warm and steady.

When I woke, hours later, I was still leaning against her shoulder, and she hadn’t moved.