“The citadel is still such a long way from here,” he says, rocks and sand crunching under his boots. “Tomorrow, I’ll transport you to the citadel. Once you get a good look, we’ll return here, and then you can bring us back.”
A thrill chases through me. We’re so very close.
We find a sandy clearing surrounded by more woody bushes. Under the warm glow of Alexus’s starlights, we carefully rip out old growth and thorny branches and find stones to create a place for a fire. It doesn’t take long before we have heat and a way to dry ourselves.
“Should we find everyone?” I sign, the cold finally starting to leave my bones. I’m standing by the fire facing the river, glancing from side to side of the riverbank to see if I can detect any movement in the darkness. I swear a small fire burns in the distance. Hel?
Alexus finishes spreading out the only two blankets we have and walks up to me, placing his hands on my hips, his body limned in firelight. “I have a feeling that Callan and Zahira are probably going to come back with some inventive idea for sleeping tonight, and I also have a feeling we shouldn’t interrupt Rhonin and Hel. They are together, forced to be naked, and Hel can keep them warm. I doubt we’ll hear from them until much later, if at all. As for your sister and Joran? If he’s pestering her, we might never see him again, but they’re quiet, so that must mean something.”
I laugh at that and slip my hands up his chest, over his shoulders.
He pulls me close, clasping his wrist at the small of my back. “The fire will guide them here when they want to come. But until then…” He slips his hand beneath my tunic and pauses with his fingers grazing my waist. “I would kiss your neck, but I’m afraid you still have guts on you.”
Again, I laugh, loving that he can do that—bring humor into an otherwise difficult situation.
I take his hand and drag it up under my shirt, urging his warm fingers beneath my undergarment. No gore there.
He groans a little, staring into my eyes, and teases my already hard nipple. “I would very much like to have you in my mouth.” He pinches my nipple with the pressure he knows I like. “That might make me forgive you for calling me a prick, threatening to kill me, throwing a mug at me, getting me stabbed, and dropping me in a nest of briars. Am I leaving anything out?”
Smiling, I give him what he wants, what I want, tugging my tunic up to allow better access. He sucks my flesh into his mouth like I am all the sustenance he needs, and I bury my hands in his hair, holding him tight against me.
He lowers me to one of the blankets and kisses my mouth, deeply, lying beside me, just touching and teasing, playing, wearing a beautiful smile, joking all the while to make me laugh.
Tomorrow, we reach the City of Ruin and all that entails. But tonight, for a little while at least, it’s just us.
VI
CITY OF RUIN
58
RAINA
The City of Ruin
Outside the Wall
* * *
The view from the sky at dawn is magnificent. The river is an emerald serpent slithering from the mountains through golden dunes that sprawl toward a distant sea in three directions. The west is an expanse of rocky, rugged mountain peaks coming to life under a quickly rising sun.
And right in the middle of it all is the jewel: the walled City of Ruin.
I expect crumbling ruins, like the old Quezira in Alexus’s dreams. I expect a war-torn wall, and a temple in near disrepair after so many years, and something very similar to the mud-brick homes of Elam. I expect simple and old, a faded ghost of the city Alexus described in the cave in Frostwater Wood.
The wall is a stunning piece of architecture circling the city within. And there are indeed temples—not one, not two, not three, but four, standing at the cardinal points, each one cast in shining white marble. In the middle stands what can only be a palace—the Fire Queen’s home—made of more white marble, its center-domed structure capped in gold.
The hundreds and hundreds of homes are much like Alexus described, but only more lovely: freestanding mud-brick and sandstone houses with square bodies, surrounded by colorful red and yellow flowers. More homes are built into the southwestern cliffs, windows spilling with blooms, and other houses are nestled under rocky overhangs. Some are even crafted into the side of what must be Mount Ulra, because even from here, I can see what can only be the Grove of the Gods.
It looks like someone painted a swipe of forest across the mountain. The trees are massive, their boughs wide and dome-shaped, their leaves sparkling green. I try to absorb more details, but suddenly, Alexus banks left against a western breeze and we’re descending. Quickly, I realize why.
With the morning’s hazy heat beginning to rise from the desert, and the fact that I sense magick everywhere here, it was almost invisible before. But now that we’re closer, I can clearly see the magick surrounding the City of Ruin. I hear it too. What I thought was wind roaring in my ears is a mixture of wind and the hum of Fia’s veil.
A protection. A shield. A barrier.
The final battle separating us and the queen.
This time, Alexus doesn’t lose momentum when he lands, he controls it and sets my feet on soft sands with all the grace of a bird settling on a tree limb.
