Pain exhausted patience. Seven moved to drive slender fingers beneath calloused ones, groping for some meaning between numb and shimmering lines. It wasn’t a scratch. Scratches hurt. This had budded as warm pinpricks and drew up flesh like the cold. “Maybe I’m dying.” It was half a joke. He tried to laugh. It emerged as a labored wheeze.
Suspicion urged Seven’s hand to leave the tangle between a confused palm and an unsolved scar to cup Victor’s ear. It did not linger there long, tracing a meandering trail down a velvet lobe, past a snarl of unruly black to the line of a sticky neck. The tired halfblood exhaled when he traced a curve of similarly raised flesh. He brushed at it, as if to wipe it away like a layer of leaden dirt. It was stubborn. It remained. “You’ve got it too, it’s…”
A lump rose in Seven’s throat, unwilling to be swallowed. It was not a foreign notion, he had seen it before. His father had shared a gilded knot with the Woman; countless others from strange necks in faceless crowds flooded his memory—but was it? How could it be, and if it was, why now? His callous thumb scraped it again.
“I know what it means.”
Blind fingertips fell from the obstinate mark in defeat. He was curious as to what it could look like, if it was possible. “It…” He searched for the words, but eloquence had left him. They stumbled out, thick and clumsy. “It means that—it means that I belong to you. And that you belong to me. It means that we’re bound in the eyes of gods and men, Victor.” A wet pink tongue reached out to trace his lips, curled in a water-thin smile. “It means everything you can’t feel, or say.”
Seven took the shirt. He fumbled against the cold ground for his dagger. Sleeves parted in a sickening rip from a deflated cotton torso, and he caught the chewed flesh of Victor’s forearm. “It means hope.” Tired, bloodless fingers threaded a shoulder through a wrist’s button hole. Angry skin peered out from either side of the makeshift bandage, but the worst had been obscured by sweat-laden protection.
When posed with the daunting task of wrapping his leg, Seven rolled over in defeat. He shouldered the ground and steadied a reeling head against cold, wet cobblestone. His ankle had swollen, turned all shades between red and purple; dark scabs had already begun to weave together voids where skin no longer lived. His fingers itched. He tried to coax that protection, that shimmering violet, but it would not take.
“I hope that’s what it means.”
Suspicion urged Seven’s hand to leave the tangle between a confused palm and an unsolved scar to cup Victor’s ear. It did not linger there long, tracing a meandering trail down a velvet lobe, past a snarl of unruly black to the line of a sticky neck. The tired halfblood exhaled when he traced a curve of similarly raised flesh. He brushed at it, as if to wipe it away like a layer of leaden dirt. It was stubborn. It remained. “You’ve got it too, it’s…”
A lump rose in Seven’s throat, unwilling to be swallowed. It was not a foreign notion, he had seen it before. His father had shared a gilded knot with the Woman; countless others from strange necks in faceless crowds flooded his memory—but was it? How could it be, and if it was, why now? His callous thumb scraped it again.
“I know what it means.”
Blind fingertips fell from the obstinate mark in defeat. He was curious as to what it could look like, if it was possible. “It…” He searched for the words, but eloquence had left him. They stumbled out, thick and clumsy. “It means that—it means that I belong to you. And that you belong to me. It means that we’re bound in the eyes of gods and men, Victor.” A wet pink tongue reached out to trace his lips, curled in a water-thin smile. “It means everything you can’t feel, or say.”
Seven took the shirt. He fumbled against the cold ground for his dagger. Sleeves parted in a sickening rip from a deflated cotton torso, and he caught the chewed flesh of Victor’s forearm. “It means hope.” Tired, bloodless fingers threaded a shoulder through a wrist’s button hole. Angry skin peered out from either side of the makeshift bandage, but the worst had been obscured by sweat-laden protection.
When posed with the daunting task of wrapping his leg, Seven rolled over in defeat. He shouldered the ground and steadied a reeling head against cold, wet cobblestone. His ankle had swollen, turned all shades between red and purple; dark scabs had already begun to weave together voids where skin no longer lived. His fingers itched. He tried to coax that protection, that shimmering violet, but it would not take.
“I hope that’s what it means.”
