He obliges while I set about gathering a small meal. There isn’t much on hand—some premade ume cakes and a bit of driedkhiirlamb meat. I assemble it on a wooden board along with a skin of wild berry wine.
“You know,” he says, watching me as the fire catches on the little pile of dry kindling he’s assembled, “you don’t need to fuss over me.”
“It is my wifely privilege to fuss if I so desire, is it not?” I sniff. “Don’t worry—I’ll expect reciprocal fussing at first opportunity.”
He smiles and allows himself to recline by the fire and nibble from the board I place in his hands. I go about finding a green clay pot, filling it with fresh stream water, and adding a handful of some dark leaves from a lidded basket, as I’ve seen Tassa do on occasion. I’m not sure what the leaves are exactly, but the end result is a fairly drinkable tea. A smile pulls at my lips as I go about these homely tasks. No one from my past life would have believed I could be so domestic! There was no need for domesticity in Beldroth Castle where I grew up surrounded by servants. All my training to become someone’s wife focused more on the virtues of decorative silence and the production of children. I would have scoffed at the idea of taking pleasure in doing sweet little caretaking things for a husband.
But I find now that I . . . rather like it. I know it’s useless. Pouring this cup of tea, applying a littlekiterihoney, and stirring it up before handing it to Taar, won’t in any way alleviate the weight on his shoulders. But I want to do it. To pretend I can somehow make life a little better for him in this awful world. After all, he’s risked absolutely everything for me.
My hands still at last, I sit down beside Taar and watch him eat and drink in silence. His mind is very much elsewhere. I can almost hear the silent calculations he’s making as he seeks to comprehendhow he will feed, arm, and shelter the large force he’s preparing to march across Cruor. If only I could offer him some solution to this unsolvable dilemma.
Suddenly he looks up, catches my eye, and gives his head a quick shake. “I fear I’m not good company tonight, myzylnala.”
I smile. “I don’t require entertainment, warlord.”
He sighs and sets aside his half-empty cup of tea. “Thevelra. . . it strained to the point of unbearable.” He looks at me again, an expression of such vulnerability in his strong features. “I needed your presence. Badly.” Almost unconsciously he reaches out to touch me, fingers lingering on my cheek. Then, though we both know it’s playing with fire, his fingertips trail down my throat to the front of my gown, resting on that place over my heart where theruehnarsigil burns beneath my skin. I long to open my bodice and feel his hand on my bare flesh. His eyes flick to mine, reading that desire as though I’d spoken it out loud. I hold my breath.
In the end, however, he pulls away. I know he must—I know the vow he made to Halaema is the only thing keeping me alive. I know that, even though there’s no one here to see us, to discover what we do in the privacy of hisdakath, a broken vow will be discovered, and my life forfeit. But why is it that I can’t seem to care as I should?
I turn away from him, facing the fire, draw my knees up to my chest and wrap my arms tightly around them. A question burns in my brain, and I turn it over several times before deciding whether to speak it out loud. In the end it falls from my lips in little morethan a whisper: “If we had met under other circumstances, do you think you would love me?”
Taar is silent. Watching me.
I glance his way, eyebrows raised slightly. “That is not the immediate affirmation a girl might hope to hear.”
He holds my gaze, his mouth downturned at the corners. “I’m trying to puzzle it out,” he says. “What other circumstances do you mean?”
I shrug as though it doesn’t matter, though my heart is racing. “If you’d met me as Princess Ilsevel Cyhorn, in my father’s house. Would you have loved me?”
“No.”
My stomach knots. I turn away from him, not angry, but resigned. The hard truth is unpleasant to hear, but that doesn’t make it less truthful.
Taar, however, chuckles unexpectedly. He reaches out, touching my hand with his. “Zylnala,” he says, “if I had met you under those circumstances, I should never have perceivedyou.Not the you I now know. I would have seen only your title, your position. Your blood. I would have missed that fiery spirit of yours, that soulfire which sears me to the core.”
I bite my lip. “I’m afraid you are a victim of circumstances. Our rash marriage. Thevelraconfusing every sense. The desire we both felt. Feel.” I drop my gaze, breathing out slowly, though it does nothing to calm my thudding pulse. “It all happened so fast. Likebeing swept away in a rushing river. But now we’re washed up on shore, what is left? Is there anything real worth saving?”
“Can you doubt my love for you, my songbird?Even now?”
The pain in his voice leaps along thevelra, traveling through its coils to stab me in the heart. I turn to him quickly, once more resisting the urge to throw myself into his arms, to grab his face between my hands and kiss him as hard as I can. Anything to make up for my thoughtless words. Because the truth is I don’t doubt. Not really. He loves me. Truly, deeply, with the kind of love upon which a lifetime might be founded. Perhaps it’s a love born out of desperation, but it is real. More real than anything I’ve ever known or will know again.
But will love prove enough to sustain us in the end?
Giving into impulse, I take hold of his hand. “Lie with me tonight, Taar.”
His pupils dilate. “You know I can’t,” he answers huskily.
I shake my head. “No. Not like that. Let us simply lie together. Share a bed. Be close to one another. It may be our last chance.”
“Oh,zylnala!”he groans. “The temptation . . .”
“You can bear it. For me, Taar. Please.”
He looks at me long and hard. “Very well,” he says at last. “But not in the bedchamber. Here.” A rueful grin pulls at his mouth. “Where someone may walk in on us at any moment. I need something to keep me accountable.”
I accept this and leap up at once to fetch cushions and a rug.We arrange ourselves before the fire, and I curl up against his powerful torso with his arms wrapped around me and his face buried in my hair. I wish his hands would wander, wish it more than I dare admit. The urge is strong to wriggle my hips and feel that immediate reaction from him which I know I can stimulate.
But I don’t. I hold myself very still, watching the dancing flames until he, exhausted, begins to snore softly. Then and only then do I allow the tears, which have been gathering all this time, begin to fall.
