Page 20 of Midnight in the Garden of Okay and Meh
“Here are your furs and weapons,” Mags said as she marched up with one of our storage baskets, dumping the things at his feet before giving him a righteous sniff. “Now you may leave and allow the Sovereign the peace you have so clearly disturbed.”
I helped Desi gather his things together, and even assisted in strapping on the various pieces of fur that he wore over his braies and stockings.
“I will see you to the rise to the south,” I told him before shooting Mags a look when she started to protest at me accompanying him. “It has an excellent view of the valley. You should be able to get your bearings from there.”
“I would be most grateful for your help, and since I can see the words trembling on your serving woman’s lips, I will keep myself from abducting you with an eye to seduction, and instead leave you as you are.”
It was a near thing, but I managed to keep the words, “But what if I want to be seduced?” behind my teeth, and instead accompanied him out into the frosty morning air.
The sun was just rising, stretching soft peach colors across a lightening sky, the snow that had yet to melt crunching underfoot as I grabbed my sled and gestured toward the south, where my favorite thinking place had the view of the entire valley.
There was little conversation, since it was still cold enough to strip the breath from our lungs, and Desi was obviously not completely recovered. We had to stop twice on the way up to the ridge so he could rest, and when we reached the top, we both sat on the sled to examine the view.
“I was serious, you know,” Desi said after a few minutes’ silence.
“I know,” I said, my eyes on the frosted green and brown of the landscape laid out before us like some sort of a garment stitched of a hundred different pieces of cloth. “I’ve never had a reaction to a man like I have with you, but that doesn’t change the facts.”
He nodded slowly before turning to me, taking my hands in his. I tsked, and peeled off the scraps of linen and wool that I used to protect my hands in the cold, and retook his, his fingers twining with mine in a way that filled my heart with mingled hope and regret.
“It won’t work between us, will it?” he asked.
“I’m the Sovereign,” I answered, my gaze dropping to our hands. I didn’t even feel the cold with him holding them. “You are lord of Abaddon. By rights, one should be trying to kill the other.”
“Demigods are not so easy to kill,” he said with a wry smile, but there was emotion in his eyes that fit perfectly alongside my own despair. “You could try, but I fear you would be wasting your time. You wouldn’t consider leaving the Court?”
“No more than you would leaving Abaddon,” I said lightly, feeling as if a cage of ice were slowly being constructed around my heart.
He was silent for a moment, then shook his head. “No. It wouldn’t work. Hath and Wat would never tolerate us being together, even if I was to leave the running of Abaddon to them. Not that they could so long as I have the blood moon.” He tugged on the chain around his neck and pulled up a red stone pendant, shaped like a crescent moon and scribed with runes the likes of which I’d never seen.
“It’s very pretty,” I said, my mind troubled with the fact that I truly felt a deep regret that this man was passing out of my life. I’d had dalliances before—I was prone to warm emotions upon first meeting if the recipient took my fancy—but none had come close to seeming so right as had Desi.
“It is a pale imitation of beauty when seen next to you,” he said with another of his half smiles.
“Flatterer,” I said, pleased with his words nonetheless. “I have seen my face in the scrying bowl, and it has yet to cause men to fall to my feet panting with desire. You, on the other hand, are the handsomest man I have ever seen, and at least three of the maidservants tried to change the warming rocks we used to keep you from freezing, all so they could admire your form.”
He gave a little eye roll, then stood, and held out a hand for me. “Come.”
“Where?” I asked, slowly getting to my feet and rewrapping my hands before taking the leather thong attached to the sled. “To Abaddon?”
“No. I have my bearings now. I left a camp to the west, near a copse of trees with a frozen stream. It was that I was seeking when I fell afoul of the storm, and must have stumbled in the wrong direction.”
It occurred to me that Mags would be very interested to know where Desi had set up camp, since he would do so only if he intended on placing an entrance to Abaddon there, but as with many other thoughts, I kept that back, and instead took his hand and walked with him.
“Why the sled?” he asked at one point, when I tsked as, for what seemed like the hundredth time, it ran painfully into the backs of my legs.
“To carry things I find. Also, our sheep broke out of their pen a few moons ago, and we’re still trying to reclaim them. Some have lambed early, and we were caught by this storm. It is seldom we see snow after the equinox.”
He agreed that it was unusual, and kept mostly silent during the walk to his camp. The snow had melted some the previous day, and the pale sunlight gave me hope that the rest would soon dissipate, as well.
I had envisioned a tent made of bent branches and furs, but when we crested a small hill that was crowned with tall oaks, I stopped at the sight of the stone building. It was square with a flat top, like a tomb built for the Old Ones who ruled the earth before the race of man.
“Come in. You can rest for a bit before returning to your compound,” he invited, heaving aside a thick door that he’d evidently made by tying together several saplings.
“You’ll just seduce me if I do,” I told him, moving toward the doorway to peer inside the structure. Instead of a central fireplace, he had built his firepit into one end of the building, and encased it in a tall stone barrier. I couldn’t figure out its purpose, and studied it with much attention.
“Perhaps I’ll let you seduce me, instead. What intrigues you about my chimney?” he asked, kneeling before the firepit to assemble twigs and some dried bark before striking a flint several times until the twigs and bark began smoking.
“Your what?”
