At Velderrey, I butchered demons until the stones dripped with gore. My sword blackened with ichor, and my boots slid in the blood of my fallen comrades. And I fell into a kingdom.
~ Private writings of Ormonde
THE CHARIOT, WHICH was really only large enough to hold an armored hartier and some extra root treats comfortably, was already overflowing with Dyania and two others. I balked, but the lady reached out to haul me in.
“We must go,” she urged. “The faster we go, the quicker we can send back the conveyances.”
Another body wedged up behind me, large and strong, and suddenly I had a lot of space as the other two passengers cringed away.
Aric, of course. “Hold on,” he said tightly. Giving no one a chance to respond, reconsider, or run, he flicked the reins over the hart, urging the beast into motion, falling in behind dozens of other conveyances, and we fled beyond the walls.
I looked back—yes, he’d told me not to, but warnings had rarely stopped me so why start now—but the contrast of midnight and flames confused my eyes. Even the majesty of the obsidian spire was lost in the crackling darkness.
As the ragtag cavalcade sped away from the High Keep, each conveyance jockeyed for position. The heavier wagons with more people fell back, while the lighter carriages pulled ahead. Chariots like ours sped to the front; maybe not the safest place to be with demons about.
Even assuming no attack plus the downward slope of the hill as well as the earthbone to hurry us along, it would be mid-day at least before we reached Velderrey and could send the chariot back for stragglers. The poor hart.
There would be no root treats or anything else awaiting us in the derelict lightkeep of the damned.
Dyania was wedged into one corner, and the other two passengers were huddled across from her. I finally recognized them as the Chosen Ones of other lightkeeps although I hadn’t had a chance to formally meet them, just pick up their names from conversations as part of my usual gatherings. They were as close together as they could get, and as far from Aric as they could get; not that I blamed them, considering what their fate would’ve been.
I sidled up beside Aric, bracing myself on the driving rail beside him. We were going too fast, the chariot was overloaded with the wheels crackling over icy potholes, and the descent toward the plains was precipitous, but as far as peril went, this didn’t even register with me. “How do we get back to release the dragon?”
“We don’t.” His voice was so soft the wind of our passage almost made me ask him to repeat himself.
But I’d heard him well enough. “We don’t? Isn’t she our most dangerous weapon?”
“A weapon, yes. Dangerous, immeasurably so. Ours?” He shook his head, his dark hair whipping around him, harsher than his urging reins on the galloping hart. “I needn’t remind you again, we’ve no way to get to her, no way to call her, and even if we did, I’m not sure we should. Who would she fight for? She might’ve been our monster while Ormonde’s relic compelled her. But she was a thing of the darkness first.”
He looked away, as if there were anything to see out there. “We may be truly on our own now. And we’ll be lucky if it is so, because it will be worse if she aligns herself with them.”
I wasn’t wanting to think of all the ways things could be worse since that was always just too close, so I pulled myself up straight. “I’ve always been on my own and I made it this far,” I told him, boasting a bit. “You’ve been even more alone, and yet here we are—still fighting.”
He gave me a look as if that were not at all a consolation, and yet the hard set of his mouth eased.
We were packed too tightly for any of us to relax, but in some ways the close quarters felt more secure, since it was almost impossible to be jolted out of the awkwardly low-sided conveyance. There was just enough room for one of us at a time to crouch down and rest, stuffed against the prince’s legs. I did so first to show his harmlessness—neh, perhaps harmless was overstating, but he was too preoccupied at the moment for even a sarcastic comment or cold look—and then Dyania took a turn. When the sky paled with the first hint of morning, the other two gave in to their numb and stiffened limbs and huddled in the shelter of the driving rail.
Aric never budged from the reins, his only movement a rapid flick of his wrists when the hart faltered.
I stood swaying next to Dyania, the prince’s cloak wrapped around us both. She’d conceded to the necessity when we finally descended to the plains where the wind blew swirls of powdery snow in pretty circles—and at our passage flew up to sting our cheeks in swarms of tiny winter bees. The ache in my knees and spine was a fire that did nothing to keep me warm. Behind us, I’d seen a few flickering lights from wagons with lamps, picking their way down the mountains. But there was only the shadowed plain ahead of us. “Will we be first into Velderrey?”
Her shrug bumped my shoulder. “First except for ghosts and demons?”
Refraining from bumping her back, I settled for a disheartened groan. “Retreating to a stronghold lost so long ago doesn’t seem worse?”
“It’s all worse, Fei.” She tipped her head toward me, not quite sagging. “I left them behind,” she whispered. “Zik, my sister, the little Rokynd…”
“You didn’t leave them behind,” I said in as bracing a tone as I could muster. “We all did. And I’m not sure that’s worse than here.”
Because as the remains of the outermost wall rose up from the grasslands just as a wan winter sun broke through the low clouds, in some strange way, the gray light made me feel more exposed.
Perhaps I’d been with the dreadmarked prince too long.
Aric stopped the chariot just within the boundary, then leaped down, sword at the ready. With a shrug, I jumped down behind him, the animdao blade lowered but prepared.
“Circle around and meet me back here,” he said curtly. “Scream if you find trouble.”
I wrinkled my nose at him. “I haven’t screamed that much, have I?”
“Now might be the time.” He quirked his lips just the smallest bit before striding off.
I knew well enough how to reconnoiter—and I rather appreciated that he assumed as much. I was quick but thorough before coming back to the main gate. Aric returned just a few moments after. And the first of the chariots that had been behind us were coming close.
“Nothing?” he asked me.
I shook my head. “Does that seem unlikely to you?”
“Fortuitous, and that is indeed unlikely these days.” He sheathed his sword. “But this is the king’s plan.”
I gazed back along the line of miscellaneous conveyances coming across the plain. “The horde wasn’t waiting for us, not even a token rearguard or at least a malicious trap or two,” I mused. “Claeve had to know this is where we’d retreat, the closest even somewhat defensible spot. This would’ve been a simple sabotage. And not one of the other carriages was waylaid?” I waved toward the line of conveyances. “That seems like all who made the escape.”
Aric followed my gaze grimly, and I wondered what he saw with his dragon-touched eyes. “Why did the horde even take the lightkeep? What prize an empty palace with no auras?”
We didn’t have time for more speculation as the frightened, exhausted nobles of the High Keep poured into dead Velderrey. Once again, Lady Dyania stepped smoothly into the scion’s role, identifying the strongest to see to the welfare of the burden beasts while the next most steady helped the elderly and panicked find some shelter in the ruins. What were all these people going to eat? Was there even a source of clean water in the ruined lightkeep? I wondered if Mikhalthe knew that there would be no fountain of spirited drinks pouring out at his arrival.
Neh, I definitely been with Aric too long if I was thinking acerbically of the king of the Living Lands by his first name.
As if I’d summoned him, I heard a call from the front gate, such as it was, where Dyania had posted a few people to keep watch. “The king! King Mikhalthe approaches.”
The white stallion he rode was streaked in black and gore, but the king had his blade out—a mighty two-hander, although it seemed an unnecessary flourish with no enemy to menace at the moment. But our weary survivors cheered—perhaps a tad weakly?—at the sight of him, so maybe he flourished with a purpose after all.
“To the light everlasting!” he cried. As the stallion reared up—also somewhat half-heartedly, it seemed to me—the king pinged a smaller blade against his sword, striking a shower of white-gold sparks round him.
A pretty trick, but of course on this cold, rocky plain, the sparks went out in an instant.
At least he’d brought help along with his convenient way to start some warming fires if we could find enough kindling. The guard around him were quick to secure the perimeter, pressing a few of the nobles into service, despite some quarter-hearted grumbling, and organizing the rest into groups to keep them out of the way. The whole time, more conveyances kept arriving, dumping passengers into the confusion.
As the day wore on, a particularly large wagon trundled through the Velderrey gate, no driver at the rail, just a hunched figure trudging along in front, tugging on the lead yaxen. “Lisel!” I hurried forward, wedging my shoulder under hers as if I could lend her some of my strength that she could pass to the struggling beasts.
Her face was even more drawn than before, even her great steadiness finally shaken. “This is water. Sundries from the kitchen. There were two more wagons similarly laden behind me. But people were throwing off the crates to climb aboard.” She shook her head, her blue eyes gray with shock. “I don’t know what will make it through. But I have to go back, with another wagon, pick up the stragglers and the supplies.”
I lifted my hand to flag down a soldier, and it was perhaps a mark of our desperation and confusion that the young man responded to me, coming to take the reins from Lisel. “Make sure this gets to the granary,” I told him, “that building over there with half a roof.”
At least it had four intact walls, which is more than could be said for many of the buildings in Velderrey. Not that attacking demons would care about flour and water, but desperate nobles might be even more of a problem after missing a meal. The soldier nodded and tugged the beasts back into reluctant motion, while I did the same with Lisel toward our makeshift infirmary.
She saw the white-clad Berindo and balked. “I don’t need blessings,” she snapped. “I didn’t see a single demon on the way.”
I kept moving forward. “The lor has bandages and a bit of dinzah to get people back on their feet.”
She glared at me. “I’m on my feet already, aren’t I? What more can I give?”
I squeezed her arm. “With that wagon you brought, you’ve given us at least some breathing room,” I said soothingly. “Maybe you can help Lady Dyania identify the burden beasts that can go out again.”
Lisel drooped. “The lady is here and safe?” She straightened her shoulders a little. “If she can point me to a beast and a conveyance, I can go again.”
That was a scion trick I hadn’t appreciated, a mere presence that inspired others to be better. No, that wasn’t a scion trick; it was the lady’s aura, bright and strong.
Since Lisel’s malaise was as much spiritual exhaustion as bodily, I redirected us toward the temporary stables—really just a line of broken walls where the exhausted burden beasts were hobbled in rough rows. Even Dyania’s usually flawless presentation was besmirched now, her white skirts grayed with smudges and rusted with dried blood.
Lisel sank to her knees in front of the lady, her head bowed. “I looked for Zik and Nenzo, asked if anyone had seen them. I hoped maybe they had gotten your sister and the others.” She curled more tightly into herself. “But no one had seen them, so I don’t know. I don’t know.”
Dyania looked over Lisel’s bent head at me, her eyes, dark and light, welling with tears. She laid her trembling hand on the hartier’s shoulder. “You did everything you could, I know. And you’ve brought us more than we had, for which everyone will be grateful.” Her voice shook, making the words not a lie but bittersweet nonetheless. “We can but pray that the light shines on those left behind.”
Lisel raised her head to gaze at the lady, and the flicker of emotions across her open-hearted face probably reflected my own—wistfulness, doubt, and fear, always fear.
Dyania straightened as she tugged Lisel upright, seeming to take some strength from the hartier the same way the yaxen had. “I have speridia rind in my pocket. It’s not much, but a little salt and sugar wouldn’t go amiss, I think.”
How far she’d come from the lady who’d turned up her nose at dried fruit chunks in the fine carriage taking her to her death.
I wasn’t sure how far in which direction I meant.
But judging by the trembling gratitude on Lisel’s face, it was something. I left them huddled over the small treat, likely the last of it. My own throat was too tight for even those pathetic slivers. We’d left people behind. Not just people, our friends, and Dyania’s vulnerable sister. Maybe it was better if the obsidian tower had fallen than for them to realize they were alone, the rest of us fled without them.
Even as I thought it, I rejected the bitter notion. Yes, I’d been left behind, and it had been like a stab wound that never healed. But would I really rather be dead? No. I’d even come here thinking I still had a chance to find my missing family.
I didn’t even realize my own stumbling steps were taking me away—running away again?—until I found myself pressed up against a half-fallen wall. The winter sunlight seemed too bright to my teary eyes, the broken mortar sharp and the rock especially cold against my backside as I crouched down. This felt too familiar.
Oh yes, when I hid in the Sevaare alley, avoiding Orton’s headthumpers, as the cavalcade for the Devouring went by. I was so far from that moment, and yet somehow I found myself all but back there again.
But then over the wall, Prince Aric’s voice reached me, and strangely, some part of my sorrow and hopelessness eased at those deep tones. He of all people would know what I was feeling.
But before I could stand up and go to him, his furious words reached me.
“What have you done? Why didn’t you stay and fight? Bringing them here, like yaxen calves herded to the slaughter—”
“And what would you rather have had me do? No, don’t answer that. Where were you, brother, you and your monster?”
The rough voice didn’t even sound like the king, but I peeked over the wall to confirm the two royals bristling. Off his stallion, Mikhalthe looked not just smaller, but reduced, as if the defiant sparks of light he’d shown off to his remaining people had drained him.
Maybe it had. What did I know about the auric energy of royals?
“I thought you were seeking another strategy against the horde that didn’t involve my monstrousness, brother.” Aric’s harsh tone matched the king’s for jagged anger, just with different angles.
“Isn’t that what you wanted too? An escape from the dragon?”
The silence seethed with a vicious life of its own before Aric said tightly, “Not at the cost of the High Keep.”
After another pause, the king asked almost softly, “Where were you?” There was a plaintive note to the query that raked at me—because it was my fault no one could summon the dragon.
“I was away from the tower and saw the attack from afar. By the time I made it back, the passageway to the spire was blocked and I couldn’t reach her.” Again, the silence stretched, and I wondered if Aric would repeat to Mikhalthe his fear that the dragon was beyond his reach, not just physically but to command. Instead, he added, “Without the balanced auras of the Devouring, I can’t be certain summoning the dragon would’ve been a wise choice. Speaking of questionable wisdom, where is Kalima?”
The king waved a hand behind him. “Several of the carriages were set aside for the haloria and their people. With their blessings to preserve them, I thought they didn’t need my escort.”
The two men exchanged a cynical glance, but after a moment the wry amusement faded from the king’s face. “What happened, Aric? There was a time we were going to save our world together.”
I held my breath, my gaze fixed on the prince’s face. But there wasn’t the slightest flicker in his icy eyes, and the sardonic quirk of his mouth didn’t ease. “That was before,” he said. “Before the dragon, before we both knew what it would take to even hold the line.”
It was the king who looked away first, and I found my heart aching a little for him, that he’d reached out only to be rebuffed. But in all those years, he’d presided over the festivities while his brother had suffered the bloody aftermath of the Feasts.
“So that was before,” the king mused. “What about after?”
It was Aric’s turn to look away. “I don’t know. All those years, I had only one task, gruesome but simple. What do your advisors tell you about the rest?”
The king rolled his eyes, and in his expression I caught a glimpse of the carefree, reckless, noble-born boy he must’ve been, rampaging the palace halls with his adopted brother, before… “They have so much wise counsel about what I might do,” he said, emphasizing the words with a bitter drawl. “They are less clear on exactly which way to turn. I’ve always been ready and willing to fight, you know that, but maybe it’s true that my studies of history and strategy haven’t always been as diligent as the marshal and Kalima and no’Maru might want—which you also know.” That charismatic smile flickered back, like the sparks he’d drawn from his sword. “Remember that time we—”
“Don’t,” Aric said harshly. “Don’t do this, not now. Nothing good can come of it.”
I winced. That wasn’t just a rebuff; that was a dismissal outright.
Mikhalthe looked down at the sword he’d been cleaning with a soldier’s diligence, and I liked him a little better for not leaving the task to one of his underlings—although maybe he understood well enough what mattered most for his survival. Except a sword alone wouldn’t save us, would it? “No palace, no plan, no Dragon Prince,” he murmured. “What possible good—or impossible bad—remains?”
I didn’t like the edge to his tone, not hopelessness, but something even more hazardous—the sort of futile recklessness I’d heard in the voices of street-sneaks in debt to Orton and frantic for the big score that would keep their heads above water and attached to their shoulders. That sort of desperation led to poor choices. I knew that all too well.
So with my own bit of rash unruliness, I popped up from my side of the wall. “We can’t just rush back,” I blurted out, hurrying to the prince’s side. “But we could sneak back.”
The king had stiffened at my abrupt appearance, his fist closing around the hilt of his sword, although he relaxed as soon as he saw me as the amount of threat I was—which was none. Aric didn’t even twitch, as if he’d known I was there all along.
“Feinan, this isn’t the time for one of your pithy, inspirational asides,” Aric said.
I wrinkled my nose at him. “What else have we got?”
His lips curled back at me, not in that sarcastic way he’d mastered, but in the way it seemed he reserved for my own personal stamp of ridiculousness. “True.”
Before I could explain, the pitch of annoyed voices reached us just as no’Maru stalked into the shelter of broken walls with Lor Berindo tagging behind.
The old lor was saying, “It was not my place to ask. I do as the numinlor tells me—”
“Kalima is missing,” no’Maru snapped. “She and the youngest lor weren’t in the carriage with the rest of the haloria.”
I froze. Imbril hadn’t made it out of the lightkeep? He would be so frightened.
I felt the brush of Aric’s attention before he turned to face Berindo. “Where is Kalima? And don’t pretend you don’t know something. You’ve been around too long for that.”
Berindo raised his chin. “I could’ve been numinlor,” he said in a petulant tone. “She shouldered right past me, no respect at all, told the other lors she had insights into the auguries none of the rest of us could claim.” His face scrunched up like a speridia rind left out to dry. “And everyone else seemed to agree. Unless they were just too cowed to say otherwise,” he finished with a dismissive sniff.
“That’s ancient history,” the king growled. “What do you know about where she is now?”
The lor glanced sideways at no’Maru, then blew out a ragged breath. “She questioned the advice you were receiving, Your Illuminance. She feels her auric duty to the Living Lands deeply, and she believed there would be those left in the High Keep who would need her blessing and protection.”
The king stiffened. “The High Keep was supposed to be evacuated,” he growled. “Those were my explicit orders.”
Berindo gave him an arch look. “Not everyone could comply, Your Illuminance. And as I told you, not everyone believed that was the best choice.”
I stared at the defiant old lor. Did he know about the sleepers? Or was he talking about servants and the like, not privileged enough to claim a spot on the escaping conveyances? Or did he mean something else entirely?
“The numinlor would do anything to preserve the Living Lands,” Berindo continued. “Clearer than most she sees the shadows that threaten us.”
“She killed everyone demon-touched,” I whispered. “How can that be right?”
Though I was once again speaking out of turn, no one silenced me. “She knows the price to be paid for our very lives,” Berindo said, as if the numinlor had some cart in a market row weighing out speridia rind down to each salt crystal. “She has had to spin and knot the spectrum threads of our survival for more years than you’ve been around, child. Not just anyone can weave around the wounds of an unending war.”
“But Kalima isn’t here,” no’Maru pointed out. “What we do have is a handful of fighters trapped on these dead plains, and no time to summon tithed troops from the other lightkeeps.” He shook his head. “We make our stand here, like Ormonde of old, engaging the horde. We win back the High Keep, and the rest of the Living Lands will bow to the king of the Living Lands once again.”
“No one would dare question me,” the king growled.
No’Maru bowed shallowly. “Of course not, Your Illuminance. Not once you defeat the horde forever.”
I’d heard so much of forever and everlasting and eternal since coming to the High Keep, considering our situation seemed more tenuous than the happiness of the sorriest urchin in Sevaare’s alleys.
“Why didn’t the horde follow us?” Aric asked abruptly. “Why do demons want an empty lightkeep?”
The king snorted. “It’s the heart of our kingdom.”
Aric shook his head. “Demons don’t care about hearts.”
“Maybe Claeve does,” I muttered. “He dons the color anyway.”
Apparently loud enough for everyone to hear, and this time they all looked at me.
No’Maru scoffed. “This supposed demon master? The horde doesn’t have a master. Vreas was just seeking to excuse his failure.”
“You weren’t there when the caravan salvage was attacked,” Aric said, no accusation in his tone but no room for argument either. “Nor was Mikhalthe, nor I for that matter.” He looked at Lor Berindo before deliberately not mentioning the haloria, then turned his icy gaze to me. “Tell them what you saw, Feinan.”
Managing not to gulp, I kept my focus on the prince to avoid meeting the skeptical and hostile stares of the king and his advisor and the old lor. “Claeve wasn’t a demon. He was…like us. He spoke to us, told us…” I frowned, sifting through the frightening memories. “He offered salvation, said our auras would shine forever. Then he killed some people, of course. Never said he wanted the castle, but he didn’t seem the sort to be satisfied with a red cloak and one moonglow sword.”
Aric twisted around to face the others. “The High Keep isn’t geographically central but it’s vital to the Living Lands. And since the Great Gorging, the High Keep is central to the king’s rule. If this Claeve claims it…”
“You think he means to style himself as king.” No’Maru rubbed his chin.
Mikhalthe bristled. “This pretender might have taken the walls, but there is more to rule than sitting on a throne.”
“Is there?” I almost winced at the words that popped out of me. But I was picturing the stripped-down chair in the black tower, jewels stolen for the seat in the palace throne room. “Because the people of Osiroon haven’t seen it. They’ve been suffering horde attacks awhile now, but nothing’s been done, no one’s come to save them.”
No’Maru shook his head. “And you and the Osri think some demon-wielding pretender—very likely the same one who has preyed on them—will be your savior?”
“I won’t speak for the Osri,” I told him. “I’m just saying the High Keep has felt out of reach to many in the Living Lands for a long time.”
Lor Berindo snorted. “And we should take such criticism from a lightkeep-named urchin?”
The prince glanced from me to his brother. “She is one among your people, Your Illuminance.”
For a moment, my presence felt more tenuous than any shadow. What was I doing here among the most important people in the kingdom? The lor wasn’t wrong that if I had anything to say, the Living Lands had fallen very far indeed.
“If this upstart Claeve thinks to make a play for the Radiant Throne, then we will fight him as any traitor, with the horde or no.” The king pulled out a whetstone and began to sharpen his blade with decisive strokes. “They surprised us once, but it won’t happen again.”
Since we’d already lost the High Keep, I didn’t see how we could lose it again. But sometimes I was able to keep my mouth shut.
“Feinan, come with me,” Aric said. “We should check on the next wave of refugees.”
The king scowled at him. “You aren’t the only one who cares about the people, brother. When you are talking to them, find a few riders and put them on the fastest steeds. We need to send word to the other lightkeeps to let them know what’s happened here and to call in our reserves.”
I stared at him. “So caring about your people means summoning them to the slaughter?” Neh, so much for keeping my mouth shut.
But Mikhalthe merely inclined his head. “We have the flamecasters and the bloodrunes. Though it may not be enough, we won’t give up and abandon our kingdom. Claeve might hold the High Keep, but there is more to the Living Lands than an empty palace.”
Though I had my own thoughts about abandonment, I couldn’t answer that before Aric wrapped his fingers around my arm and hauled me away from the sad impromptu throne room.
“I have made many poor choices,” I told him. “But it’s never mattered to anyone but me before.”
“You mattered,” he said. “You just didn’t know it then.”
Before I could decipher his meaning, he’d pulled me into another building that was much smaller but almost intact with a dense circular wall holding up most of the roof. I guessed it was part of the wall watch complex where guards would’ve sheltered in the night and bad weather while they stood sentry by turns. For now, it was a place where the prince and I hunkered down out of the wind and any watching eyes.
“You have no fear, do you?” He shook his head.
“Oh, I fear, very much,” I said sincerely.
“And yet you talk back to the most powerful nobles in the Living Lands.”
I lifted one shoulder helplessly. “I’ve always been good at running away, but sometimes my mouth runs faster.”
He snorted. “I don’t think they are yet ready to hear anything anyone else might say. They’ve had their way for so long that any change seems impossible.” He let out a slow breath. “And yet here we are, exiled.”
I found myself leaning toward him, my shoulder just barely brushing his. “Now the rest of them can know what it’s like.”
Slowly, he swiveled his head to look at me. Since he was taller than me on all levels, he still looked down at me though we were side by side, and another one of his soft snorts brushed across my head. “I wouldn’t wish our fate on anyone else,” he said softly. “I just wanted to free myself, not drag them into the darkness too.”
“Neh, I guess you’re just a better person than me,” I drawled. “And even though you were banished to the black tower, at least you had the hot bubbling pool.” I let out a despondent sigh of my own. “That would feel good right about now.”
“You are filthy.” His tone pitched in a way that reminded me of the bubbles rising through my blood. He reached for me, his hand hesitating just a moment, with just the slightest tremble, to skim the pad of his thumb across my cheek bone. “Did you fall face first into yaxen dung?”
I gave my head just a small shake, letting his fingertips ride the wave of my gesture, the skimming contact of his skin igniting bright sparks within those secret bubbles within me. “No, feels more like the yaxen kicked me in the head.” When I let my head cant to the side, resting against his hand, he curled his fingers to cradle my cheek.
“It seems like forever ago that we were in Daoja’s valley,” he murmured, “with nothing more to do than shuffle rocks. For just a moment, I thought maybe… It felt like we could’ve been just two Osri herders, maybe, clearing a high field for our flock. A hard day’s labor, a flask of ale, maybe just one bucket of lukewarm water, but it would be our life, just ours.”
I blinked at him, mesmerized by the low cadence of this vision he’d had. “I would be a terrible herder,” I confessed. “Most animals know I’m not good with them, except for vermin which don’t care how much I scream and wave, and you already see how dirty I get. But you, you are very good at hefting heavy rocks. Why, some of them seemed almost bigger than you, and I saw how your muscles bulged under your tunic.” That sounded odd to me, so I quickly added, “Just mean to say that you could definitely be a mason, if you wanted to, not that I was judging your muscles.”
He let out another soft breath and let his thumb fall to my babbling lips, stoppering the flow of nonsense words. “No, you are not a herder and I am not a mason, are we?”
When I shook my head again, his calloused thumb abraded my lips, and my whole body tingled, like a velvety version of the king striking sparks from his mighty sword. “We are just us, I suppose,” I whispered.
It wouldn’t be enough, of course, not a thief and a dreadmarked prince, but it wasn’t like anything else mattered either.
We were filthy, exhausted, and hungry, or maybe that was just me because he seemed as princely as ever as he slid his hand behind my nape and gently tilted my head back.
From this close distance, the shadows within his scarred eyes were like clouds shifting slowly in the highest sky, calling to mind fantastical shapes and impossibilities that could never be. Blade to bone, I knew better than to dream, but his touch wasn’t a dream, so it wasn’t impossible to want that.
“True,” he said, and I realized I’d spoken aloud. “It’s not an impossible dream if we both want it. And if I may kiss you…”
“Yes,” I whispered. “That I want that even more than a bath.” I hesitated, not wanting to sully this moment with my lies. “Or maybe as much as a bath.”
With a soft laugh, he lowered his mouth to mine.