12
" Are you unwell, Paige?”
“Fine. My uterus is just confirming that it will not be growing a baby this month. With good reason,” I said, “since a tiny, defenseless human is not really what I need while I’m on the run from agents of tyranny.”
“You are menstruating.”
“I am menstruating,” I confirmed gravely.
“I see.” His eyes darkened. “Is it very painful?”
I considered.
“I’ve never had to describe it before,” I said, musing. “I suppose it’s like having all my lower organs crammed right down into my pelvis, then soaked in boiling water, so they’re sore and swollen. It’s a heavy, aching…downward-ness. But then it also feels like I’ve been kicked in the back. And the stomach. And the legs. Oh, and I’ve got a splitting headache.”
Arcturus had stopped plunging the coffee.
“And you feel able to train,” he said, after a long pause. “While experiencing those sensations.”
I rubbed the corner of my eye. “I’m grand. "
― Samantha Shannon , The Mask Falling (The Bone Season, #4)
16
" He looked up. I had seen him bare-chested before, but this was the first time I had really noticed that he had no navel. His sarx—the warm gold of brass— was taught and seamless over slabs of muscle, limned by the dim light from the lamp.
“Paige,” he said, his tone questioning.
I realized I was staring like a gamal at him.
“Sorry,” I said, face warm. “You just don’t have—” I indicated my own abdomen. “But you wouldn’t, I suppose.”
Rephaim were not born. He had never been tethered to a womb, nor grown inside someone else. When he had first emerged, alone, he had looked exactly as he did now.
“You are curious about the other differences.” Arcturus closed his book. “There are none. Externally, at least.”
“But Rephaim don’t reproduce,” I said thinking aloud. “So you probably don’t have a— "
― Samantha Shannon , The Mask Falling (The Bone Season, #4)
19
" When he gently tipped his forehead onto mine, I grew still. This close, I saw every detail of his face. The bow of his lips, cut as if with the tip of a knife. The eclipses of his eyes.
“Let the aether bear witness,” he said. “I will never keep from you what you should know.” I closed my eyes. “I will never conspire against you, nor betray you by word or thought or deed. I will never, by choice, abandon you to your enemies, nor forsake you in adversity.”
The cord shivered. I could feel the heat of fever in my breath, caught in the space between us.
“In body and spirit, I am bound to this oath.” He clasped my hand to his chest. “Seo í mo mhóid shollúinte. "
― Samantha Shannon , The Mask Falling (The Bone Season, #4)
