Adrift chapter 27) New Directions
Chapter 27) New directions
.-.-.
Utstott felt Piglet trembling beneath him. Her lap was warm, warmer than the hearth he’d perched beside last night; being able to skip through shadows had its perks- but her warmth wasn’t steady. It rose and fell, pulled tight by breath that caught in her chest. Piglet wasn’t crying, but close to it.
Downstairs, the inn muttered to itself; boots on boards, a drunken laugh, a lute playing a song Utstott had grown sick of hearing a hundred times the night before. But up here, the silence held her like a net.
Piglet sat with her knees drawn up, back to the wall, the new scarf loosened over her hair. Her eyes were wide and staring, not at the white raven, but at something inevitable.
Utstott didn’t understand the essence of Piglet’s dread, yet he was a smart bird and able to put one and one together. Although partly blind, he’d seen the way Ivar's perception of her gradually had changed over time. With his good eye, he’d seen how Ivar had fought for her security countless times.
Although Utstott had been given a very strict and simple mission, somewhere along the line the white raven had grown a soft spot for the veiled maiden, too. She’d fed him the good scraps, pet him, he enjoyed her singing voice, and she’d kept his other human alive during the long and dreadful time inside the castle walls.
She hadn't moved him. Not pushed him off, not whispered him away. Her hands lay beside him, trembling, palms up like a question. So he stayed. He shifted, his talons careful not to dig. His wing brushed the side of her arms. She breathed in. A sharp sound. Then another. The panic was trying to rise. He knew it. He saw the storm building behind her eyes.
He made a low sound, not a caw, not a cry. Just a scratch of voice, gravel and wind. It wasn’t meant to comfort. It was meant to remind her.
I’m here.
She looked down at him.
Her mouth was parted, her lips dry. Her eyes…she had the large eyes of prey, but not the heart of one. She was a survivor. He knew that in his hollow bones.
Piglet spoke, not to him, not exactly, but into the stillness he provided.
“I don't want Ivar to change. By Allah…” she whispered, voice trembling like a flame in the wind. “He's the reason I'm alive.”
Utstott didn’t move or try to grab the depth of her words. He simply remained a humble bit of comfortable weight on her lap.
“Once I was on the verge of committing an unforgivable sin,” she continued quietly, “I begged Allah for strength to carry on.”
Her voice cracked, and the fingers of one hand curled into the blanket beneath her. Her other hand moved and rested lightly on his feathers, a touch not meant for comfort, more like a tether. As if she feared floating away without something warm and solid beneath her palm.
“I was alone for so long,” she said. “All alone inside that tiny shed, without protection, without a voice, without even a name anymore. I wept for strength from Allah. Night after night until I thought he’d forgotten me. And why wouldn’t he, I disappeared to the far end of the world.”
The raven shifted slightly, his talons adjusting. He did not understand every word, but he knew the tone. The way this human prayed was a necessity, like breathing.
“And then one day…” she said, “I woke up. And Allah granted my wish.” A breath. “In the form of a broken man, maksur.”
Her eyes shone in the dim room, lit from beneath by tears that hadn’t yet fallen.
“Another cursed one.”
She looked down at him now ,the raven,not as an animal, but as something else. A witness. A familiar. A silent creature who had seen too much of her dread and yet still stayed.
Her voice dropped, a whisper layered with dread and awe.
“There's a djinn inside me, Uttstot. And one inside Ivar too. We are cursed ones.”
The raven’s head tilted.
“Something lives in him, something terrible. I’ve seen it in his eyes when he kills. Fury. Wrath. And hunger. And it looks back at me like it knows mine, the kindred spirit that lives inside me.”
Her breath caught.
“That’s why I kept him alive. I can’t be the reason for his death.”
She finally broke then, not loudly. Just a small, shuddering sound as her shoulders curled forward and she pressed her hand into his feathers gently.
“Ivar thinks he loves me,” she whispered. “But I don't know if love can grow in something cursed. I don't know if it should.”
Her voice cracked. Her fingers brushed his feathers. Not for comfort. For proof. That he was there for her.
“I don’t want love,” she whispered, in the language of her mother. Piglet, tear-streaked and full of ghosts, let herself lean back just a little, “by allah, I never wanted love.”
Uttstot didn’t move and didn’t have the answer. But she didn't need one. She needed stillness. And stillness he could give.
.-.-.
Darkness clung to the corners like smoke. No candle burned now—just the thin spill of moonlight through the warped shutters, silvering the edges of the bed, the floorboards, the soft rise and fall of Piglet’s blanket.
Ivar had ignored Valerié’s taunting order to sleep it off. Not long after Valerié had fallen asleep he’d crawled out of the bed and dragged his sorry ass back to Piglet’s room like a dog with its tail between its legs.
Ivar sat against the wall. Knees drawn up, arms wrapped tight around them to hold in the ache. The knife still lay untouched on the floor, rolled halfway under the bed, cold steel glinting when the moonlight caught it.
His head still throbbed with the low pulse of the upcoming hangover. But worse than that was the way his chest had hollowed out, as though her words had scooped something out of him and left only marrow and silence.
She hadn’t spoken to him, not since “please don’t love me.”
But she’d allowed him to stay. Before her body had been seized by the second round of convulsions, she had allowed him to stay.
He told himself that was something. Enough for the moment.
And maybe it was. Maybe that was the punishment. To sit there, hungover, half-curled like a penitent thief at the feet of something holy and damaged, watching the shadows slide across the walls.
He heard a faint shuffle.
Uttstott.
The bird blinked at him from the edge of the bed. One pale eye, the other sharp as ever. Its white feathers looked greyish in the moonlight. The bird was curled into the crook of her lap, talons tucked, head tilted toward her ribs like he was keeping count of her breaths.
The raven said nothing, only stared.
Ivar met its eye. For a moment, neither man nor bird moved.
Then Uttstott gave a soft, almost inaudible croak. Not mocking. Not cruel. Something quieter. Almost pity.
“I know,” Ivar whispered.
He let his head tip back against the wall, eyes closing briefly. The wood was cold against his skull. His legs were numb from staying still too long, his throat raw.
He had said it.
I love you.
And meant it. Yet he’d never say it again if it meant she could see him without that look in her eyes, the one that told him she thought he might turn into Ludolf after all.
He brought his head back against the wall, harder this time. He didn’t know what to do. There was no battle to fight. No wounds to clean. Just this room. This silence. Only waiting, hoping.
Piglet stirred in her sleep, a low, broken sound escaping her lips, half dream, half memory. Ivar tensed. His fingers twitched toward the knife on instinct, not to draw it, just to feel the hilt. Ground himself.
Uttstott clicked its beak and shifted slightly in her lap, feathers rustling.
She settled.
Ivar exhaled slowly, careful not to make a sound.
This was worse than bleeding. Worse than lashes. He could survive torn flesh and broken bones. But this waiting? This awful limbo where he could not protect her because in a way he was the perpetrator himself, he could not fix her, could not hold her without hurting her.
He looked at her again, at the curve of her shoulder beneath the blanket, the faint gleam of tear tracks dried against her temple. She had cried herself to sleep. Because of him.
No. Because of what he reminded her of. Men. He no longer was worthy of the title; Ivar half a man.
And that distinction, however painful, was the only thing keeping him from crawling out that door and throwing himself into the road. Because he owed it to her to prove himself to be different from all the men that had hurt her during her life as a slave inside the walls of the Castle of de Haar.
He lowered his voice to a whisper, just barely audible over the soft breath of her sleeping form.
“I’m not going anywhere, Piglet,” he said. “Even if you never forgive me. Even if you never speak to me again.”
He didn’t care if the bird was listening.
“I’m not here because I want you to love me back. I’m here because you once begged me to keep you safe. I did and I always will. That doesn’t change just because I said something foolish out loud.”
He reached for the knife, not to raise it, not to press it to anything, just to pick it up and lay it carefully on the low shelf beside the bed, out of reach. Not to scare her come morning.
Then he eased back against the wall and closed his eyes, every breath a jagged reminder of his damaged body. The shadows swallowed the room, thick and heavy, but beneath the weight of the dark, a faint whisper broke through.
“Thank you.”
Ivar’s eyes snapped open, heart hammering. “You’re awake.”
She gave him a small nod, so slight it almost vanished into the darkness. Her skin and eyes, deep and dark as the night, blended into the shadows like she was part of them. But he saw her. He always saw her.
“How much did you hear?” he asked, voice rough but careful.
“Everything,” she whispered.
Ivar’s chest tightened. A strange relief bloomed inside him. “Good,” he said quietly. “Because I meant all of it.”
“Hamar.”
The sound of it — his nickname in her mother’s tongue — cracked something open inside him.
Ivar grinned, despite himself. Then he swallowed hard, breath hitching in his throat. He didn’t look at her when he spoke next.
“When morning comes…” He hesitated, jaw working. “Can you forget everything I’ve said to you over the past two nights?”
He paused again, pressing the heel of his hand into his eyes so he could keep it all in. But the weight of it threatened to break him wide open.
“I don’t want…” His voice wavered. “I just—” He let the rest die in his throat. Too raw. Too much. “Can we just pretend none of it happened?”
There was silence. A long, thick silence that sat between them like something living. “We can,” Piglet whispered.
Relief and shame tangled in his chest. He let out a shaky breath, eyes still closed.
“Thank you,” he said. And he meant it like one of her prayers.
.-.-.
The best part of the morning was the peaceful silence.
Valerié stretched out her limbs beneath the thin blanket and exhaled, savoring the weightless ache in her muscles, just her own bones, her own breath, her own bed.
Empty. Blessedly empty.
She blinked up at the cracked ceiling and smiled to herself. It wasn’t often she got a second night without someone’s elbows in her ribs or breath on her neck. She half-expected Ivar to stay, specifically told him to sleep it off. He’d been drunk and half-dead, sprawled out like a gutted animal, after emptying the entire contents of his stomach.
But he’d left.
Somewhere during the night, he crawled back out of her bed.
Her smile faded.
She told herself it was a relief. And it was. No snoring, no drunken muttering, no risk of vomit in the sheets or God forbid her hair. Been there, done that, at least a dozen times before.
She’d slept, alone in an already paid for bed.
And still.
He didn’t want you.
No. That wasn’t quite right.
He wanted her more.
Piglet. Fragile little thing with her dark eyes and her resentful silence. The one he’d ruined everything for, or so he’d slurred. The one he chose to guard through the night like a knight.
Valerié pulled her hair back into a braid with quick, practiced fingers, tying it off with a bit of thread. She tried not to look at the spot on the bed where Ivar had lain. Tried not to feel the echo of his body in her sheets.
He didn’t even say thank you.
Fine. Let him break himself for Piglet if that’s what he wanted. Let him waste his sleep and his strength and whatever heart he had.
Valerié washed her face with cold water and dressed with sharper movements than necessary. She didn’t need to be soft. She didn’t need to be wanted. She was still the one who’d dragged his miserable carcass up the stairs, still the one who listened if his chest rose and fell just in case he choked on his own tongue. He paid her after all.
At least that was what she told herself.
.-.-.
Downstairs, the inn was half-empty. Morning light slanted through the open shutters, dust motes dancing in the beams. The inn keeper was sweeping near the back, muttering a little overly loud about cleaning up after everyone.
Valerié knew when it was wise to stay silent, she didn’t want to risk mopping the floor Ivar defiled and claimed the corner table — the one closest to the window — and sat with her back to the wall. Habit. From years of knowing better than to ever leave herself exposed. She ordered bread, water and some broth, and wrapped her hands around the hot bowl as if it could steady the dull churn still lingering behind her ribs.
She didn’t look up when she heard the steps of the stairs creak. She knew it was him. She could feel the drag of his body in the air — slow, halting, like every step was a negotiation between pain and pride. The soft scrape of his crutches on the muddy floor. The faint grunt as he leaned too far left. She still didn’t look.
Not until he reached her table.
He looked like hell.
Pale. Damp-haired. Face grey with hangover and shame, lips still healing from the boar attack. He eased himself into the chair across from her with all the grace of a man twice his age and half his luck.
Valerié didn’t speak.
She poured him a cup of water without being asked and pushed it across the table.
And then she went back to breakfast.
Let him sit with it. Let him feel the weight of her silence, the shape of her not-quite-anger. Not enough to cut. Just enough to bruise.
He picked up the cup with both hands — slowly, like even that was too much — and drank.
Some of the tension in his shoulders eased.
“Thanks,” he rasped.
She didn’t answer.
They sat like that for a while. Two people who’d seen too much of each other and weren’t sure what to do with the knowledge.
Finally, she looked at him.
“You smell worse today than you did last night,” she said mildly.
He let out a breath that might’ve been a laugh. He met her eyes then. Really met them. Tired. Empty. And something else, something quieter. Almost soft.
He opened his mouth once, only to close it. Valerié didn’t flinch. Just waited.
Then, forcing himself upright just enough to brace against the edge of the table, he tried again.
“Valerié,” he croaked.
She didn’t look over, simply stared at her steamy bowl of broth as if it had something far more interesting to say.
He cleared his throat. Regretted it instantly. His whole body seemed to wince at the effort.
“I—” He stopped. Swallowed. He rubbed a hand over his face, dragging sweat and shame down with it. “Last night,” he said finally. “Did I puke into the floorboards like some pathetic—”
“-You wept into them,” she corrected coolly, never once lifting her gaze. “Puking came after.”
He went very still. Now, he couldn’t even meet her eye.
Ivar grimaced. “Right.”
Valerié said nothing. Her hands found the piece of bread and she started to break off pieces, neat, methodical, like she had all the time in the world and none of it for him.
“I wanted to say I’m sorry,” Ivar said, voice rougher now. More raw. “Not just for last night. But for... everything.”
He let his head fall back against the wall with a soft thud. “I need you. And our journey will be less of a burden for both of us if you don’t hate my guts. I don’t know what to do in order to settle things between us.”
He didn’t expect forgiveness — which was good, because he stole her precious life in the Glambloux away from her, she wasn’t going to forgive him for that.
He did, however, expect some kind of reaction from her.
“You want to know what to do?” she said when she couldn’t take his pleading gaze any longer. “You can start by washing your face. You stink like regret and honey.”
Ivar cracked a smile; embarrassed, pained, but real.
“Noted,” he muttered.
Valerié didn’t smile back. But she poured him another cup of water.
.-.-.
The cartwright’s stall sat at the edge of the square, tucked beneath the shade of a dying chestnut tree. A line of carts stood on display, some too fine, some too rotten — and one just right. A horse-drawn cart, clean lines and solid build, with a simple canvas roof stretched tight over bent wooden ribs. The wheels were still dusted with the road, not yet cracked, and the harnesses looked freshly oiled. A bay mare stood in the traces, stocky but sure-footed, flicking her tail with quiet disinterest.
Valerié circled the cart once, then again, hands behind her back.
The cartwright came out chewing something that stained his teeth red. He looked her cart up and down like it insulted him personally.
“You’re dragging that thing across the Rhone?” he asked.
“Not anymore.”
The old oxcart sat behind her like a bad memory, which wasn’t far from the truth considering the thing had been her last reminder of her previous life in a yellow dress. Its wheels warped, its frame splintered, and the oxen chewed their cud with the slow resignation of animals that no longer cared whether they lived or died. It had done what it needed to do. So had the oxen.
Time to move on.
She approached the new cart again, this time more deliberately. The roof's canvas was dark, waterproofed with wax and oil, stretched smooth over the bent wooden ribs, reinforced at the seams with leather. It wouldn't keep out the cold, but it would do well enough against rain. Inside, the floor was flat and clean, the wood rubbed pale in the center where previous owners had knelt or slept. A small storage crate was built into the bench seat, cleverly hidden beneath a plank. Enough space for a pouch of herbs, cutlery and silver.
The mare shifted her weight, tossing her head once, and Valerié reached out to run a hand down the creature’s neck. Short, rough hair — strong legs. Eyes alert. Tired maybe, but steady. More than she could say for most of the men she’d met.
“She bites?” Valerié asked.
“Only if you insult her mother,” the cartwright grunted.
She snorted, and let her hand fall. “Name?”
The man shrugged. “She answers to whistling and food. Call her what you like.”
Valerié turned back toward the old oxen and her old cart. The thing was leaning slightly to the left. The yoke had a crack in it she’d tried to hide with rope. No surprise the cartwright was looking at it like she was trying to sell him a corpse.
Still, she was a decent bargainer when she needed to be.
“Two oxen, one cart, and two silver,” she said, voice steady, a slow smile curling her lips.
The cartwright’s brow lifted. “You’re lucky I don’t charge you extra for disposal. That yoke looks like it’s held together with prayer.”
Valerié’s eyes gleamed with mischief. “Maybe it’s prayer — or stubbornness. Either way, it knows how to carry a load better than some men I’ve met. And unlike them, it doesn’t fall apart when the weight gets heavy.”
He blinked, caught off guard, then laughed — a rough sound filled with grudging respect. “You drive a hard bargain, and you’ve got sharper wit than most.”
The coins clinked, sealing the deal.
Valerié watched them lead the oxen away, slow and plodding, as if even the beasts knew their usefulness had run out. She didn’t speak. Didn’t touch the animals for one last time. Letting go was easier when you pretend it doesn’t matter.
Instead she ran her hand along the frame of the cart — smooth, barely weathered, with only a few knicks to show for its travels. Inside, the floor was flat and clean, with room enough for three if they didn’t mind elbows, and another little dry storage tucked beneath the bench up front.
She could already picture it: Piglet curled up under the canopy like some stray cat, Ivar stretched out with his leg propped on the edge, swearing at every bump. And herself, reins in hand, head forward, moving forwards.
Valerié hoisted herself up with the confidence of someone who had no intention of looking back, settled onto the bench, and gathered the reins.
The mare flicked an ear, adjusted her stance.
Valerié clucked her tongue once, sharp and clean.
They set off with a rattle and a jolt, the sound of new wood settling into old rhythms. The canopy shifted overhead, shading her eyes just enough to make the road seem wider than before.
She didn’t smile, but for the first time that morning, her jaw unclenched.
.-.-.
A/N: New directions seemed like a suitable title. I think it’s not just a shift forwards, but inside all three main characters. I have to say I'm starting to like Valerié more and more, she’s not just an asset, she’s her own person and writing in her POV feels more natural. I think she might be a good bridge between Ivar and Piglet. I also think Utstott’s POV at the start was very important. Piglet hardly ever shares anything personal and I think for once we got a little peak inside her head through the eyes of a partly blind raven. I think what she fears about Ivar goes deeper than him being a man. And I’ll leave it with that. Oh and Ivar, I’ve been re-reading Changing Course and this young man has come so far. The way he saw Piglet as a lower life form in the first few chapters, to this. Kudo’s man, kudo’s.
Xoxoxo Nukyster
The kickass beta: @sarahh-jane
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