Chapter Forty-three

Enid jumped as she was startled awake, her breath catching in her throat, her eyes searching in the dim candlelight hoping to catch where the noise was coming from. A man further away rolled over in his sleep, coughing again before everything went quiet, and Enid sighed, relaxing back down onto the warm hay beneath her and rubbing her eyes. That was when she felt it, how everything was so warm, how even the tips of her fingers and toes were soft and not stinging.

She opened her eyes then, seeing how her head was resting in his lap, his one leg bent to stop her from rolling away, and that hay still twirling between his fingers. Enid looked up, watching him as he stared out into the barn with that tight scowl on his face, and she wondered, wondered if he was staying awake for her sake, wondered if she could really believe that after everything that had happened.

She sat up, wrapping the fur around her and rubbing her arms with her hands. Already now she felt his loss, already now she felt her teeth begin to bang together and something carve a hole in her stomach and leave it hollow.

"Go back to sleep, Enid," he said, and she looked at him, unable to move, unable to let that hollowness go.

"Why didn't you help me?" she whispered, and he stared at her a moment, his face stiff and tight, those eyes cold and sharp.

"He's the Jarl," he said. "And you're a slave. Don't complicate things."

She felt it, like all the air had been sucked out of her lungs, like the earth had been ripped out from under her. For a moment that terrible weightlessness, that suffocating nothingness was all she felt, until her eyes snapped to his face, and then her stomach was on fire, then her face was scrunching up in fierce scowl and she hated him all the way down to her bones. She grabbed the fur, pulling it around herself as she made to stand and then she felt those fingers on her wrist, still so strong, still so painful but nowhere near the ache she felt in her heart.

"Sit down."

"Let go of me, Ivar."

"I told you to sit, Enid," he pulled then, bringing her closer, a wince springing to his face with the effort. "This isn't about you," he whispered. "Stop being selfish and just do what I say."

She stared at him, feeling the colour rise to her cheeks, feeling that anger brewing inside her. "Let me go."

Those fingers gripped tighter, so tight she knew they would leave bruises, so tight she had to stop herself from crying out.

"No," was all he said.

"I meant, set me free," she said, and those sky-blue eyes went wide for a moment, those fingers loosening a fraction on her wrist as he stared straight through her.

"No."

She gritted her teeth, shoving his shoulder and hissing, "I'm going to get raped if you don't."

She felt the weight of those eyes on her then, felt them trailing her face and resting on her cheeks, and for a moment he seemed to soften, for a moment she felt her shoulders dropping and that tension leaving her.

"There are worse fates than that, Enid."

Her mind was slow then, slow to understand the meaning behind his words and slow to accept them, but then she shoved his shoulder again, not caring for how he hissed or the pain she must have caused him, and she pulled her wrist free, prying those fingers open and feeling them drag and scrape against her skin. There were tears in her eyes when she stood, kicking the fur away from her feet and reaching for her cloak.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"To get it over with," she snapped, and his face went pale, a darkness springing to his eyes as they narrowed into thin slits.

For a moment she wanted to say so much more, for a moment she almost gave into that storm brewing in her chest; but then she kicked the fur away from her again and slid the barn door open.