The sudden memory of his touch sent a pulse of aching urgency through her. She drew back from him, though her legs wobbled without his support. Hero finished his bread and scrambled down from Kaelan, up onto Gur’s head.
Kaelan closed the distance between them, hands on her hips. Her eyes threatened to close as though she’d been drugged.
“The thing is Magda... I wanted to,” he said in a barely audible voice.
“Of course you did,” she said wearily. “It’s only natural. It’s our instinct. That’s why Eris chose that temptation.” She let out a heavy breath. “Did Eris drug me or something?”
“Eris said that witnesses to the spells sometimes are... incidentally affected, but it will wear off.”
“Oh.” She rubbed her eyes. “Well, the fog won’t hinder us from leaving. All we have to do is fly towards the sun. But we need to leave before its light is gone.”
Gur sauntered up next to them. With Kaelan’s help, she mounted. He slid up behind her, arm around her waist, face turned towards her cheek. “About what I said at Eris’s...”
She peeled her eyes open, straining to keep from settling back against him.
“It was just Eris’s insidious magic,” she said, losing her battle and resting her shoulders against his chest. Her forehead cradled against his neck, his sweet warm and smoky musk lulling her. “We all know you love Honey.”
“About that—”
Gur galloped into flight, Anqa already up in the air. Her eyes drifted shut as Gur gained height and then settled into his flying rhythm.
“Let’s just forget it, all right?” she said.
His fingers dug into her side. Another wave of esurient heat flowed through her as if defying her suggestion that they forget. But whether it was her heat or his, she couldn’t tell and didn’t dwell, because she was sinking away into the dreamless depths of sleep.
Sunlight flooded across her face, rousing her. A chilly breeze sent a shiver down her neck and she burrowed under the blanket. A soft susurration nearby called her back to sleep, until a crack, followed by a thud and a groan, brought her back to herself.
She pushed the blanket—no, Endreas’s coat—away, blinking against the slicing gold beams of dawn cresting over the grass-covered berm. Her skin broke out in goose bumps as the cool air wrapped around her. Hero stirred from under the coat and darted off into the grasses.
“Up,” Damion barked, backing away, lifting his sticks. “Again.”
Kaelan pushed himself off the ground, holding two sticks of his own, and took guard. In a shallow hole at the bottom of the dune, a fire ebbed, hissing as it licked through blackened curls of grasses, biting at a large log of driftwood. On the other side of the fire pit, Honey lay on her side, eyes open, face covered in scabbed slashes, staring into the fire.
Damion stuck out his leg and delivered a blow to his chest, knocking Kaelan onto the ground again.
“This is hopeless,” Kaelan said as Damion reached down to help him up.
“Practice every day,” Damion said. “Fighting is as much habit as skill. You are training your body, like a dog. You hear the whistle and you react, no thinking. When you think, you slow down. Your opponent will not be thinking. Train every day for the next year, and you will be better. For two years, and you might even be good.”
Kaelan grinned. “Good enough to beat you?”
“No,” Damion said, stepping back. “That will never happen.”
He and Kaelan chuckled.
“We will repeat...” Damion noticed Magda watching and lowered his makeshift wasters. “Oh, you’re finally awake.”
Magda ground the heels of her hands against her eyes. “Where are we?”
Damion pointed to the west with his sticks. “Spire that way.” He pointed towards the sunrise. “Water that way.”
“I’m cursing the day your mother took pity on your father and invited him into her bed,” she said, pushing up to her feet.
Kaelan’s gaze made the stiffness in her neck worse.
“What?” she asked. But before he could answer, she said, “You still look like you.”
“Yes,” Damion said, leaning lazily upon one of the sticks. “Have you decided what your new appearance should be?”
