The Weight of Stars by Tessa Gratton

Author:Tessa Gratton [Gratton, Tessa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-11-17T05:00:00+00:00

FOUR.

In the morning, the wizened ragging apple is perched on the toe of my boot.

I pocket it, stretching out the bruises and aches covering me temple to toe. My body’s better than it rightly should be; berserking fever makes us heal faster, especially if we manage to sleep. I did—that hasn’t been an issue for me, though insomnia is sometimes called the berserker’s plague. The only downside of the fire healing me faster is that I’m a sweaty, ragging mess, and I’m starving.

After grabbing my toothbrush and toilet kit, I make quick work of washing in the temporary shower tent, open on one side to the prairie, with partitions for individuals and a line of Porta-Potties. I strip to bra and underpants before scrubbing down, taking care of body and teeth under the splash of cool water.

Nor do I waste energy drying off. I’ll only be sweating in ten minutes, and the water will keep me cool longer. I slick my wet hair back, dress and slap Henry’s black cowboy hat atop my head, tuck my toothbrush into my boot, and dash for the mess tent.

Visby Larue is there, a pile of eggs and skitty-looking bacon before him. I fill up my plate with more of the same plus a pancake to make a burrito with and join him. “Is that actually a shirt?” I mock before stuffing surprisingly fluffy eggs in my mouth.

He grins. In fact, it’s barely a shirt, but technically, it counts: white, ribbed, A-line, shows off his collarbone and shoulders and bronzy skin really well. The scars, too, are easy to read this close: thin, barely visible lines on his shoulder, vanishing into the shirt like a road to follow.

I’m staring. Visby’s grin has curled deeper on one side, his posture tilted into lazy arrogance. Rag me. I’m just jumping for some contact, apparently, after last night.

Huffing slightly, I turn my full attention to my food. Filling the belly will help with the other hunger, though I’m not convinced it would be a terrible thing to carve out some time to see if there are scars under Visby Larue’s pants, too.

It’s about time I ragged somebody all the way.

I recognize my own bravado speaking, and that I’m pounding food away a little too fast. There’s a huge link between berserkers and sex—and madness and death and poetry, of course. I’ve never done anything more than some amazing kissing, and once when I was fourteen, I let a visiting Matria’s daughter take off my bra. Plenty of the Devil Bears are willing, but a couple of them think that’s all a lady berserker is good for, so I just can’t. And there’s been nobody else. Berserker bands are like families, and I’ve been working harder than most to learn, to hold my own, to survive. Sometimes I’ve even wished Henry would break that boundary, for all he’s delicately implied the frenzy can overtake an unprepared berserker during sex, same as it can overtake an unprepared berserker during

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