Bend Her novel · Chapter 10 of 24
Chapter 10: The Burned Barn
Bess put my breakfast tray down on the bed the next morning and looked at the cracked headboard.
Then she looked at me.
Then she looked at the ceiling, with great care.
"Not a word," I said.
"I've said nothing."
"You were about to."
"I was about to ask if you wanted jam." She poured my tea. "I am delighted, Princess. I have never been so delighted in my life. I'll have the carpenter in by noon."
"There is no carpenter."
"Then I'll be the carpenter."
I laughed so hard I spilled the tea.
My palm no longer glowed.
I held it up in the gray light of the window, and the scar was only a scar again, white and round, and I thought of his black one pressed against it.
I had a great many questions.
He had said not yet, and I had decided to let him have until the end of the week.
He was not in the great hall, or the yard, or the kitchen.
I found him on the north wall, in a clean shirt, with his sleeves rolled to the elbow and the mark on his chest hidden.
He turned.
For a long moment we looked at each other, and neither of us knew what to do with our hands.
"Good morning," I said.
"Good morning."
"Are you going to apologize?"
"No."
Something in my chest unclenched.
"Are you going to tell me what the scar is?"
"Not yet."
"Are you going to do it again?"
His ears went flat.
He looked out over the gorge, then back at me, and the corner of his mouth moved.
"That," he said, "I am considering."
A horn sounded below the keep.
It was a sharp, ugly note, and it came again.
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