Chapter 168: The Girl and the Attack
The girl studied the strange food in front of her.
The bread was a warm golden color. She pinched a piece and it gave softly under her fingers, the tiny air pockets visible across the surface. The stewed meat had been cut into small chunks, and a thin layer of fat floated across the surface of the broth, catching the light.
She reached out and picked up a small piece of bread, pressing it cautiously into her mouth.
The next instant.
Something unimaginable broke open across her tongue.
The girl began eating faster.
She swallowed without tasting, without pausing. Even with no one trying to take the food from her, the survival rules of the pen ran in her body: finish everything in front of you as quickly as possible.
Breadcrumbs fell from the corner of her mouth and landed on her clothes. She didn't stop to brush them away. Broth spilled over the edge of the bowl and ran down her fingers. She put her fingers in her mouth and licked them clean.
Then, without warning, tears ran from the corners of the girl's eyes.
Not the kind of crying that tears the chest open. The tears just came, quietly and simply, running down her face and dropping into the bowl, dissolving into the broth.
Tears are salty. Mixed into the meat broth, she probably couldn't tell the difference herself.
Touch Me sat beside her and turned his head away.
He didn't want her to see his eyes.
But the pressure behind them came anyway. He blinked hard, pushing it back down.
Touch Me thought of himself, a long time ago.
He had been the same way, curled in the darkest alley in the royal capital, holding a half-eaten crust of hard bread he had found somewhere, wolfing it down and crying at the same time.
Why had he cried?
He turned the memory over, looking for the answer.
It was probably the faint, unfamiliar feeling of happiness, he decided. The happiness had made him uncomfortable.
When Touch Me had gotten himself back under control and turned around again, the girl had finished the last of the broth.
She set the bowl down. There was still a trace of oil at the corner of her mouth.
She had eaten faster than he expected.
Then she did something he had not anticipated at all.
She stretched her neck out, closed her eyes, and tilted her chin up slightly, baring the line of her thin throat.
The posture of someone offering their neck.
Touch Me went still.
He looked at her.
Her eyelashes trembled faintly. Her throat was thin, but he could see the small movement of a swallow: she was afraid.
Touch Me understood.
She was saying: I ate your food.
You can kill me now. I won't fight back.
Something caught in Touch Me's throat.
He wanted to say: that's not how this works. That wasn't your last meal. But every word he tried to form reached his mouth and stopped there.
She wouldn't believe it. No one had ever treated her with kindness. She had no frame for it.
It would take time. That was all.
Touch Me reached out and laid his hand gently on top of her head.
The girl's whole body shuddered violently.
Her neck started to pull back — but she forced it to stay up, holding the stretched position, waiting for what came next.
Touch Me's hand didn't move.
His palm was warm against her cold head.
Slowly, the girl's neck came back down.
She curled in on herself, knees drawing up, both hands folded against her chest, like a small animal that had finally found a safe corner.
Is this what being killed feels like? the girl wondered, somewhere deep in herself. Maybe dying isn't as bad as I thought.
Her breathing evened out, degree by degree, and she drifted into sleep.
Touch Me didn't move his hand.
He sat in the tent with one hand resting on her head and the other braced against the ground.
The oil lamp flame flickered once.
The night was long.
Touch Me had thought it was a good beginning. But what followed between him and the girl settled into a strange loop that kept repeating itself.
Every morning, the girl woke up cold and distant, barely acknowledging him.
During the march, she didn't cry and didn't cause trouble.
In the evening, when camp was made, Touch Me would settle her in the tent and go to the cook for food.
And then the girl would try to escape.
Touch Me would catch her and bring her back.
Then she would eat, and afterward assume the neck-bared posture.
And finally fall asleep under Touch Me's hand.
Every day exactly the same, cycling through the same sequence like something going around a track that had no exit.
Touch Me had worked out that she was probably too frightened to do anything else. This was the only way she knew how to handle a world she didn't understand.
But he didn't know how to help her move past it.
He could only repeat the sequence, day after day, and wait for something to change. Maybe one day she'd stop running. Maybe one day she'd say a word. Maybe one day she'd smile.
Touch Me had assumed that day was a long way off.
Right now.
The oil lamp flame jumped.
Touch Me came back from the memory.
He picked up the wooden bowl beside him and held it out.
The girl took it, lowered her head, and began eating with the same focused, rapid pace as always.
Touch Me watched her with an expression caught between tenderness and something that ached.
Still this afraid.
He reached out to push a piece of bread that had tipped over the edge of the bowl back in — but his hand stopped in mid-air.
Because he had seen something different.
The girl's hair hung across her forehead and covered most of her face. But through the gap in the strands, he thought he caught a glimpse of something in her eyes.
Mischief.
Like a small cat that had been caught sneaking honey, getting in one last lick before it was noticed.
Touch Me's fingers went rigid.
He blinked.
When he looked again, the hair had shifted back across her eyes.
The same frightened, anxious expression as before.
But Touch Me's heart was beating considerably faster than it had been a moment ago.
Had she just —
The bowl was empty.
The girl set it down and lifted her head.
Assumed the neck-bared posture.
So it was just my imagination after all.
Touch Me thought to himself, somewhere between wry and helpless.
The night deepened.
The oil lamp flickered through its last few beats and went out. The tent went dark.
Touch Me held the same position, one hand still resting on the girl's head.
The breathing under his palm had gone slow and even.
She was asleep.
Touch Me gently withdrew his hand and flexed his fingers, working out the numbness.
He turned his head and listened to the sounds outside. In the distance, the footsteps of the guard rotation changing shift. Further beyond that, from the direction of the beastman enclosure, the occasional faint clank of chains.
Everything as it should be.
He leaned back against the tent's wooden support and closed his eyes.
Under the blanket, the girl's eyes opened.
Those eyes were bright in the dark, shining like two small stars. She turned her head and looked at the boy sitting beside her, eyes now closed.
Firelight leaked in through the tent seams and fell across his face in profile.
The corner of the girl's mouth curved, just slightly.
Like the first green shoot pushing up through frozen ground in early spring — small, but impossible to ignore.
She pressed her face into the blanket. The curve at the corner of her mouth grew a little wider.
Then she closed her eyes, and this time it was real sleep.
The next morning.
The sun had climbed well above the ridge of the hills. Everything in the camp was moving through its normal rhythm.
Smoke from the cook fire drifted across the camp. The soldiers on prisoner watch had just finished their rotation and were leaning against the fence in a state of complete boredom, yawning.
"Enemy attack!"
Without warning, a shout amplified by magic cut through the quiet camp.