So I hold her tight, one hand wrapped around her waist, molding her resistant body against mine, the other hand gripping the side of her head, forcing my mouth hard over hers, pressing her lips open.
I feel the moment when defiance transforms to connection.
When suddenly she no longer struggles, and her clawing fingers instead clutch at my hair, pulling me to her.
When, with a little hitch of breath in her throat,she kisses me back.
I do not want the moment to end. But I must see, I must know. Drawing away, a ragged breath in my throat, I stare down into her eyes. Eyes, which myibrildiansight can see clear as day. Deep dark pools, full of starlight and song, gazing up at me.
“Ilsevel,” I rasp in an agony of suspense. “Ilsevel, do you know me?”
Her lips, swollen from my kiss, move soundlessly. Then she gasps. “Taar!”
No sooner has my name burst from her tongue than she utters a cry so excruciating, it seems to lance straight through my heart. She doubles over, her body spasming with pain.
“Ilsevel? Ilsevel!” I catch her as she collapses in on herself, determined to keep her from falling on the hard paving stones. There’s movement in the air, in the ether, the sensation of shifting dark magic all around me.
Snarling, I turn, look sharply over my shoulder to where Artoris stands at the far end of the gallery, pale as a phantom in a pool of moonlight.
15
ILSEVEL
Like the sun breaking through the poisonous clouds of my mind, his face appears before me.
My lips, bruised from his kiss, form his name: “Taar!”
Taar.
My husband.
My love.
Some small part of my mind holds onto memories of hurt, of pain, of betrayal . . . but in this moment, I simply cannot recall any of it. I feel nothing save the absolute glory which bursts in my heart at the sight of his face, and the realization that I know him. Know who he is and everything he means to me. Taar—my Taar. Not some stranger, some terrifying fae warlord. My magnificent lover, the keeper of my heart.
For the first time in I don’t know how long,music explodes in my soul. Music such as I have never heard in this cold, mortal-bound world. More profound, more glorious than anything my gods-gift ever hoped to achieve. The song of my love for him, rising to my lips, aching to be sung.
“Taar,” I breathe.
A sword-thrust cuts through the song, the joy of the moment, piercing my abdominal wall. I choke on the pain . . . and suddenly, I am back on that battlefield. The face before me isn’t the face of my lover, but a virulium-ravaged monstrosity. My ears are filled, not with song, but with the sounds of war, the pulse of my own blood, the thud of my spasming heart ramming against my breastbone. It hits me all at once, an inescapable cataclysm, and I fold up on myself.
Somewhere in the distance, Taar’s voice cries out: “Ilsevel! Ilsevel, no!”
Pain claws at my mind, ripping through my consciousness without remorse. Though Taar’s strong arms support my mortal frame, I feel myself being dragged down, down into the pit. Desperately, I claw at consciousness, even though it means enduring agonies. I know once I succumb there will be no escape.
Then suddenly, I feel his presence:Artoris.
My gaze seems to clarify into a single pinpoint, fixed on that place where he stands at the end of the hall, one hand upraised. Though my mortal eyes cannot see it, I feel the death magic spooling out from me, returning to his palm. The profanereverberations of un-song clatter in my head, the voice of the dark power he wields without thought for consequences.
Taar lowers me gently to the floor, then rounds on Artoris. “You’re killing her!” he snarls.
“I?” Artoris tilts his head, the picture of wounded innocence. “I think not. It isyouwho kill her by daring to embrace my beloved wife.”
“She is not your wife.”
“I would beg to differ.” He smiles, his handsome face a demonic mask of cruelty. “We just made all the solemn vows before the altar of Nornala but a few short hours ago. In the eyes of king and goddess alike, we are one flesh, one soul.”
“Those vows mean nothing,” Taar declares, rising to his full height, his shadow stretched long before him. “She is already sworn to me.”
