“Do you like it?” Taroc asked.
“Sure,” I said. “It's beautiful. Where are we?”
Taroc took my hand and led me out of the room and into a large kitchen. The nature-inspired, swirling designs continued in there, with a dining set similar to the furniture in the living room. The wood cabinets matched too, though their swirls weremore subtle, and the counters were slabs of polished stone. A wood carving block stood in the center of the space with a knife block on top.
“The kitchen,” Taroc said.
“Uh-huh. Very nice.”
He waved at a doorway. “Spare rooms down there.”
“All right.” I was getting more and more curious.
Taroc took me through an open doorway and into an entry space with a stairway and a door opposite it. He motioned at the door as we went up the stairs. “Front door.”
The stairs were solid, no squeaking, and the walls were painted a pale blue. A couple of framed pieces of art hung on them, both landscapes—one a forest and one a beach. At the top of the stairs, we entered a narrow hallway with doors to either side.
“I left some rooms open for you to designate,” Taroc said as we passed a couple of empty rooms.
“For me to designate,” I murmured.
“Yes, I thought you might have some ideas.”
“Oh.”
He passed a few closed doors and went to one at the end of the corridor. The one the hallway ended in.
“Lights,” Taroc said as he opened the door and took me inside a huge room with a vaulted ceiling supported by wooden beams done in the same swirling style featured downstairs.
Here, the swirls were put to use, holding several crystal lanterns made to resemble stars. The ceiling between the beams was painted deep indigo. Below that painted sky lounged a broad bed with four posters but no canopy. Instead, the posters and crossbeams were carved to resemble trees and branches, with leaves made of thin pieces of green stone. It was expertly done. So much so that upon first glance, it looked as if Taroc had planted four trees around the bed.
But that wasn't the only wonder the room held. To the right of the bed stood another fireplace, no doubt directly above the one in the living room, and it boasted the same stonework as its sibling. But this one's carved mantle was made to resemble twined branches, spotted with more of those leaves. Before the fireplace was a wide couch, large enough to sleep on, and from one arm grew a slim tree to branch over the couch like a canopy.
On the other side of the room, a pair of doors waited. Taroc led me over to them, opened one, and took me out onto a balcony. It overlooked a fenced-in vegetable garden. Beyond the fence was a clearing and then a forest.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“Basarr,” Taroc said, his blue temple scales glittering in the moonlight. “On Xae Gant.”
“Basarr?”
“It's near the southern coast.”
“Taroc, is this your house?”
“I bought it for us.” He slid an arm around my waist and pulled me in against his side. “Unless you don't like it.”
“For us?”
“Yes. For now, we can come here to be alone when we have time. But after the war is over, we can live here.”
“Live here?” I glanced over my shoulder, back inside. “Just us?”
“I don't want to share a house with the others. But we'll still be able to fade, so it won't matter. You could stay a day with me, then go to the others.”
“And you'd be all right with that?”
“I'd prefer to have you all the time, of course, but this is the best we can do.”
