“Ruins aren’t the best place to run around. Even for me.”
“Which ruins?” Katrine asked.
“Klaishil.”
“Truly?” The other woman’s eyes widened. “I wish I’d gone. What was there?”
The handsome warrior my sword-spirit was in love with. The end of the world. The usual.
Hysterics would spread the word too much. The Sentinels were discreet, but there were limits. Besides, one never knew how sound carried.
“You’d be amazed,” said Darya, and sank down under the water.
* * *
The bathing pools at Oakford were underground, and the light on the staircase and the passage beyond was dimmer than it had been in the servants’ passage. Too weary to trust his feet or his reflexes, Amris made his way carefully, trailing his left hand along the wall as a guide.
Still, Darya seemed to come from nowhere. A door opened and she slipped out into the hallway, wet hair hanging down her back, skin radiant where her slim arms and legs emerged from a short, sleeveless robe of the sort Amris himself wore. Her mouth opened in surprise when she spotted him, letting out a surprised “Oh!”
The sound Amris made was similar, but he thought it was further from any precise word. He cleared his throat and remembered that he was a rational man with a vocabulary. “We had the same thought, so it seems.”
“Great minds. Or sweaty people.” Darya laughed breathlessly. Her gaze dropped to the open neck of Amris’s robe, and though she quickly brought it back to the level of his shoulder, Amris couldn’t resist his own look in return.
The robes didn’t conceal much—modesty wasn’t valued nearly as highly as fabric in a military outpost—and Darya’s showed everything from the curve of her long neck into her square shoulders down to the sides of her breasts, shining with the heat and moisture of the baths. The hem fell only as far as was essential, exposing most of her sleek thighs, and when she shifted her weight, it only revealed more. It was like the stream all over again, but without cold water close at hand, and Amris’s own robe did very little to conceal the way he was responding.
Keeping a clear head in the face of danger had always come easily to him and was second nature by now. Doing so when the danger was so damnably pleasant was new, and far more difficult.
“I…” he said hoarsely, and then had to remember what he’d been going to say. “I shouldn’t detain you from food, or rest.”
“I do need both,” Darya said, and still it was a moment before she started to move past him, or he started to get out of her way.
The hallway was narrow, and each of them went the wrong direction at first. Darya’s shoulder bumped lightly into Amris’s chest, and reflexively he put a hand out to steady her. It fell low on her waist, and for only a second he gave in, spreading his fingers and letting himself feel all the yielding firmness below his palm. She gasped, not in shock—the woman, as far as Amris could tell, was unshockable—but in obvious desire.
Another few breaths and he’d forget their weariness, forget how public the hallway was, forget that he and Gerant still needed to have a long and awkward conversation. He’d have her up against the wall, legs locked around his waist, nails digging into his spine. Amris could almost feel them.
He dropped his hand to his side and lunged for the door.
Chapter 27
Sleep ebbed away slowly. First Darya knew that she was conscious again, not drifting in the murk of dreams that had been just short enough of nightmares not to wake her. Normally, remembering the frog-creature’s dead eyes as it dropped down in front of her, and seeing what might have happened differently, would have at least brought her awake enough to realize she’d dreamed, curse, and turn over. She’d been too tired for that.
She’d been too tired to do anything. When she woke, the light from the window was the deeper gold of early afternoon. A tray by her bed held bread, cheese, and fruit. She vaguely remembered that from the night before.I’ll eat in a minute, she’d muttered into the room,just want to lie down first.
Then, dreams.
Now, the room, after at least fourteen hours of sleep, with untouched food and a glass of wine nearby, and the quiet flick of someone turning pages. Darya pushed herself upright and saw Branwyn sitting cross-legged on another bed, bent over a small book.
We both pushed ourselves considerably harder than usual, didn’t we?
Gerant’s voice in her head sounded like it usually did. It had never been absent for so long, though. As confidently as she’d told Amris that he was fine, Darya felt an instant and consuming relief—the spiritual equivalent of unknotting a muscle in the back of her neck—as she looked over by the side of her bed and saw the emerald in her sword glowing.
“Damn straight,” she said quietly. “But we’re here. How are you?”
Branwyn nodded a greeting, but didn’t ask questions. That was one of the reasons Sentinels roomed together when they could manage it; they were all used to what sounded like their comrades talking to themselves.
Well, now. And intrigued. If I’m not wrong, spreading the connection to Amris gave me a wider power base to work from. That’s why I could target both of those creatures at once. I’d give a good deal to research further, if we have time.
“Pretty useful, in the circumstances,” Darya agreed. She took a sip of the wine. Neither warmth nor exposure had made it worse. It was wet, and better than the lignath, which was all she needed. “Time… I’ll figure that out.”
