wanting to greet him, but unsure of what to say. How did one greet their own soul?
“You’ve stopped breathing . . . and your heart is shouting,” he murmured. “It is even louder than your song. Are you afraid?”
“I am . . . overjoyed,” she confessed.
His smile bloomed, parting his lips and creasing his lean cheeks, and her happiness spilled out of her eyes. He sheathed his staff the way other men sheathed their swords, securing it across his back. Then he opened his arms.
She ran to him, and he swept her up, laughing as she wrapped her legs around him. It was not dignified or ladylike, but she didn’t care. He was solid in her arms. Hard and whole, his heart singing with hers, his legs planted to keep them from rolling down the hill. She rained kisses over his cheeks, his brow, and the lids of his eyes. She even kissed his laughing mouth, panting like a pup too long from its master, and he bracketed her face in his hands, his thumbs tracing her features like he was seeing her too.
“Stop wriggling,” he laughed. “You’re going to knock me over.” He unsheathed his staff again and laid it down as he sank to the grass, keeping her in his arms and making a nest for her with his legs.
When she remarked on his tendency to shelter her with nests and runes, he laughed but did not release her, and for a moment they sat, their arms wrapped around each other, trying to catch their breath, but she could not stop looking at him.
“Where is Arwin?” she whispered suddenly, fearful that he would have to leave soon.
“He is snoring like your sisters. He honks like a goose when he sleeps. It makes my head ache. I do not ever sleep at his side. I can’t if I want to sleep at all. Mostly, I do not sleep at night. I will sleep tomorrow when he is awake. It is customary for us.”
She gaped, though he couldn’t see her surprise. “You can hear my sisters snoring?”
“Not now. But I heard you. Singing to them. I have been outside the temple all day. All evening. Waiting for you to come out again.”
“You heard me?”
“Yes. And I didn’t even need our rune. I liked the song about the bat.”
“I wrote it for you . . . Have I never sung it to you before?” She couldn’t believe it.
“Sing it again, but hold my hand, like old times.”
His strong cheeks and deep-set eyes were shrouded by dark brows and bristly black lashes that made shadows like tiger stripes on the whites of his sightless eyes. She tipped his face toward her so she could look at him while she sang and then slid her hand into his.
“The sky is dark but he is light, and though his eyes aren’t blessed with sight, his joy is full, his wings are strong. He dances to a distant song,” she sang, but she could not focus with his face so near. When her voice trailed off, he cocked his head, waiting.
“I hardly recognize you,” she whispered.
“I am the same. Only bigger.”
“No. The shape of your face has changed,” she murmured.
“Tell me.”
“There is no softness round your cheeks.”
“I no longer resemble a toad?”
“No . . . you still resemble a toad . . . just an older toad.”
He grinned, the shape of his face changing again, sharp bones and unseeing eyes softened by the smile.
“You are quite handsome, truthfully,” she offered, surprising herself.
His smile slipped, like she’d surprised him too.
“Has the shrew left with the little waif?” he asked, touching the point of her chin.
“No. They are both here. I am still a shrew . . . and still a bit of a waif.”
He tested her weight in his arms, bouncing her like a child.
“You have grown.”
“Yes. I am eighteen now, and I look my age, though I will never be tall.”
“Your mother was right. Your people grow slowly.”
She’d forgotten, but as soon as he said the words, she remembered the moment her mother had said them to her, mending the hole in a dress she’d worn out long before she ever grew out of it.
“You remember everything.”
“Yes . . . but I remember you the way you were. Not the way you are. I suspect your face has also changed.” His fingertips ran over her face again before skimming the coil of her hair, feeling each woven section that made a circle around her head.