“Satisfied?” she asked as I closed my chamber door behind us.
“Not even a little,” I said, purposely mistaking her meaning. “Are you offering to attempt to rectify that?”
Her laugh filled my bedchamber in a way nothing had for some time.
“Attempt? I can assure you, my prince, if I chose to rectify that situation for you, it would be more than anattempt.”
The prize in my leather pouch momentarily forgotten, as was perhaps Lyra’s goal, I took a step toward her.
“So I am your prince now? How very… deferential of you.”
The air had shifted. My senses heightened from what we’d just done, and from the dance Lyra and I had been playing all night, I moved even closer to her.
Lyra held her ground, not moving, but also not dropping her Aetherian air of indifference.
“You clearly missed my tone, if not my words. I have no prince, or king, but Galfrid and his daughter.”
“I do not doubt your loyalty to them. Your willingness to serve is on display.” I purposefully lowered my gaze to her ample bosom. “Even now.”
“You think I meant to seduce you into securing the Stone of Mor’Vallis? And then, pray tell, what was my plan? To attack you, steal it, and flee north?”
“Precisely.”
“I’d have done so by now.”
I had always found Lyra’s overabundance of confidence irritating. Aetherian. Yet at this moment, it was just the opposite.
“How would you have done so?” I challenged.
I watched Lyra’s fingers closely. They barely moved. And yet, a soft current of air, like an intimate whisper, brushed along my ear. Her fingers did move then, just slightly, as every candle in the chamber dimmed. A maneuver I’d seen much less often than the first one, requiring a high measure of control over the air.
In response, I planted my feet, channeling the stone beneath the floorboards to anchor myself. When the blast of air came, pressing against my chest, my stance held. Behind Lyra, a floor tile cracked with a small ridge of stone jutting up behind Lyra to trip her if she backed up.
In response, she didn’t back up. But Lyra did take a step forward toward me as she used a thin whip of pressurized air to flick a nearby candle’s flame sideways, the heat catching my attention. Any stronger of a gust, it could have burned me.
“You’ve made your point,” I said, resting the tile back down with a flick of my fingers. “We’ve established your skills are more advanced than most.” I closed the gap between us, itching to grab a fistful of that silvery hair and make Lyra beg for me. Instead, I placed one finger beneath her chin, forcing it upward until she was looking directly into my eyes.
My finger remained there, but I didn’t move otherwise.
“But so are mine.”
She didn’t move. Or push my hand away.
“I don’t doubt it, but surely you realize by now I have no intention of attempting to take that Stone from you.”
I stroked my thumb across her chin, and then upwards, along the outline of her cheek, as I did before. Though her eyes blazed, Lyra gave no other indication she felt anything at all, as if my touch didn’t affect her.
“Then what do you intend, Lyra?”
“To convince you to come with me.”
I brought my thumb back down, this time, running it along the bottom of her lower lip.
To come with me.
“You know I will do no such thing.”
Lyra allowed my touch but made no move of her own.
