Few women Asher's known have had soft hands; ladies don't hold his hands, Melisende, Liadan, Amalia - they have hands as hard as his in different places from where their weapons rub a groove. His mother had hands like cold cruel iron, old strong oak, sure as stone. His sisters, even little Aura, they have hands that know work on the farm in the elements but Gwen's hands are warm, and sure, and they don't shake. They don't shake and Asher will take that surety.
"Our gods aren't cruel. Capricious." Look at me, he might have said in Bloomingtide in a tent like this when the burn was livid, I know big words too. "Thought I'd made it right with Hakkon when I could lift my blade again and say the words, watch him drink the blood."
Thought the gods had understood why he'd had to leave with the announcements when the wrongness of it all had burned and friends hadn't understood: Asher you only care because you lived in Kirkwall (didn't he have the right, when it was his home, and their home, when there had been funerals and Liadan's silence, Yngvi and Gunnar's smiles sharp as unswept glass). Not for lowlanders to understand the wrongness of the spirits, even when they went about doing whatever they wanted with them.
A laugh makes it way up from his chest, one that doesn't hurt quite so much unless he's moving to a place beyond all that. "Sharper line might be for someone else. I was the punchline to a joke my mother never wanted to hear: what do you get when you're born of the Frostbacks and deny all that to the world when all the gods might see? Your firstborn comes out like a slap." It's a very good joke, right?
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"Our gods aren't cruel. Capricious." Look at me, he might have said in Bloomingtide in a tent like this when the burn was livid, I know big words too. "Thought I'd made it right with Hakkon when I could lift my blade again and say the words, watch him drink the blood."
Thought the gods had understood why he'd had to leave with the announcements when the wrongness of it all had burned and friends hadn't understood: Asher you only care because you lived in Kirkwall (didn't he have the right, when it was his home, and their home, when there had been funerals and Liadan's silence, Yngvi and Gunnar's smiles sharp as unswept glass). Not for lowlanders to understand the wrongness of the spirits, even when they went about doing whatever they wanted with them.
A laugh makes it way up from his chest, one that doesn't hurt quite so much unless he's moving to a place beyond all that. "Sharper line might be for someone else. I was the punchline to a joke my mother never wanted to hear: what do you get when you're born of the Frostbacks and deny all that to the world when all the gods might see? Your firstborn comes out like a slap." It's a very good joke, right?