Before Cathal’s mind could supply the word and shock him further, Sophia spoke again. “I believe I’m well supplied enough for the journey. If you think you’ll need food, waiting, I can leave some.”
Cathal shook his head. “I’ll hunt. Should I get desperate, I’ll take a sheep and leave the coin for it later. And I’ve gone a fair few days without food before.”
“If you’re in danger,” she said, “if we were wrong and he can track your presence even here, if you have to leave, you should. Leave me a sign if you can, but if I return and you’re not here, I’ll wait a night, then try to make my way back to your lands.”
“My father’s.”
Sophia waved a hand, not understanding why the distinction was important. In truth, Cathal wasn’t sure why he’d felt the need to make it just then, but it had been irresistible. “I’m only human, and there’s nothing exceptional about me. And I have coin and skills. I’ll be all right.”
“Don’t,” he said. It was almost a growl, but she didn’t flinch.
“Very well. I have as good a chance as anyone of being all right. Better than many people would have. It…” He saw the whites of her wide eyes, the swell of her breasts as she gulped air, and the swift motion with which she pushed back a stray lock of hair, as if she could tuck away fear as quickly and completely. “It shall suffice, yes?”
“It must,” said Cathal.
He wanted to tell her again that she didn’t need to do this. She could turn away from the path before her and the blighted place to which it led. She’d done enough. But that would be insulting, he knew, and besides, it was no longer the truth. The journey into Valerius’s domain was the best hope that any of them had. Sophia was the best person to make it now.
And so there was nothing more he could do.
“We will come for you,” he said. “If you’re captured. I’ll pluck Agnes out of her tower if I need to and get her to weave spells for us, or I’ll drag my father home from his treaties. Or I’ll manage what’s needed myself. I can, given time.”
Unexpectedly, she smiled again, and in her smile was an echo of those hours flying beneath the stars, with only the two of them and no need for words. Even Cathal didn’t see her move when she stepped forward. She flowed toward him, reached up, and cupped the side of his face in one hand. “I would never doubt it,” Sophia said.
“You’re wrong,” he said thickly, and clasped her shoulders in his hands. She looked up at him, startled, about to argue the point. “Not about rescue. Earlier.”
“Wha—”
“Everythingabout you is exceptional,” he said, and kissed her before she could reply.
Rather, she didn’t reply in words. Her response was as desperate as his embrace. Sophia didn’t melt into his arms so much as throw hers around him, grasping him with the urgent strength he remembered from the flight, now colored and transformed by sensuality. As her mouth opened before his, her hands roamed his back, short nails almost scoring his skin even through his clothing.
He kissed her as if by sheer force he could make them both forget what waited, as though with his lips and tongue and his hands on her breasts he could himself cast a spell to banish Valerius to whatever hell would claim him in the end. He drank Sophia’s little gasps of desire like the strongest wine and wanted nothing more than to hear those sounds, to feel her fingers twined in his hair, to think of nothing else, to think nothing at all.
When he pulled away, far more gently than he’d kissed her, it wasn’t only his cock aching. Reality sat heavily on his chest, and the sight of Sophia’s face stirred a longing even more painful than the feel of her body. He’d managed to move his hands to her shoulders once more, but couldn’t let them fall back to his sides, not yet.
“I…” Sophia raised a hand to touch her lips, swollen and possibly bruised. A chivalrous man would have apologized, but as she wasn’t complaining, Cathal couldn’t even pretend regret. “I should go, shouldn’t I?”
No, he said silently.
Aloud, forcing every syllable, he replied, “If we’re to do this—”
“Then leaving won’t get any easier for waiting, will it?” she finished, smiling sadly.
As usual, she spoke accurately. Every moment that passed made Cathal more reluctant to let her go at all. He shook his head.
“Then…stay safe, as much as you can. I’ll do the same.”
“Aye,” he said, and couldn’t get any other words through his throat.
She turned. A small path, not much more than a game trail, led off through the forest and toward what Valerius probably called civilization. Cathal watched as she walked down it: small, fragile, and valiant in the shapeless night.
Thirty-one
Over several weeks, through both analysis and experiment, Sophia had come to acknowledge that the Valerius-sent nightmares could serve her cause. She’d never been glad of them, nor imagined that she could be. Her journey into the wizard’s lands changed that.
A map of the two places would have been similar, accounting for the wayward nature of dreams: a forest on a hill, leading down to a valley with a large, dark castle in it. The dreams hadn’t shown the village and fields in between, and even from what little Sophia could see at a distance, the castle looked less dark and impregnable than its nightmare twin. More obviously, the sky was only normally overcast, the ground only vaguely damp, and no shadow-beasts chased her.
It could be worse.
