Victor Rosevale's Arc

Chapter 10 of 18

Months passed. No soldiers came to the door. Victor learned later that the captain had struck his name from the rolls without a hunt, glad to be rid of a guard who talked too much. Victor took work at the castle kitchens hauling crates and mending carts. The pay was smaller. The hours ended before dark. He came home to the timbered house each night and found Sable on her feet a little longer than the day before. Her leg had almost mended. She still favored it on the stairs, but she walked the lane to the market and back without the cane. She hung her flight vest on the peg by the door again. She said she would be in the sky by spring. Victor believed her. That night he banked the fire and climbed the narrow stairs. Sable sat up in bed brushing her red hair out with her fingers. She had pushed the goggles off the bedside table and onto the quilt. He picked them up and set them on the chest. "Come here," she said. He came. He kissed her once, careful, the way he had kissed her every night since the river. She caught the back of his neck and kissed him again, not careful. He laughed against her mouth. "The leg," he said. "The leg is fine." "Sable." "Victor." She pulled him down. "I am telling you it is fine." He let her. He was careful anyway, out of habit, and she knocked his hand off her thigh and put it back higher. The quilt slid to the floor. The fire in the grate downstairs settled with a soft crack. He kissed the scar on her leg. He kissed her hip. She said his name once, quiet, and then not quiet. After, he lay on his back and she lay across his chest. Her hair stuck to his collarbone. His heart was still loud in his ears. He thought about a child. He had not said the word. Neither had she. But he had not reached for anything to stop it, and she had not asked him to, and they both knew. "If it takes," he said. "If it takes." "I want it to." She was quiet a moment. Her thumb moved once against his ribs, the way it had the night he came back from the tavern. "Then we try again tomorrow," she said. "And the day after." He stared at the ceiling beams. He had spent four years standing at a gate for a castle that had already forgotten his name. He had a house with a steep roof and a woman on his chest and a leg that had healed under his hands. He had asked for a child out loud. "Sleep," she said. He did.