So she eats and, when she has had her fill, I eat as well. The sun sinks, and the room darkens, and cold creeps in through chinks in the walls and windows. Ilsevel, shivering, lies down on her pile of cloths once more.
“Will you lie with me now?” she asks, plaintively.
My throat thickens. “You need rest,zylnala.”
She wrinkles her nose at me. “Thatiswhat I had in mind. Idon’t know whatyouwere thinking, but a long sleep would suit us both, I should imagine.”
I breathe out a short, self-deprecatory sigh. “Very well,” I say, and ease myself down beside her. She tucks in close, nestled in the crook of my arm, and promptly falls to sleep once more, exhausted as she is.
I do not sleep. Not for a long while. I simply lie there, contemplating her face by firelight, marveling at the mere presence of her. Temptation is strong to let my hands wander, but I resist. She deserves her rest, and I will give it to her. I will give her everything she needs by and by.
But I let her sleep for now.
I must have dozed off at some point in the night, for I wake in the darkness before dawn, my body very stiff, my arm numb from the weight of my wife’s head. Not that I care. The pure bliss of waking with her beside me, to the sound of her soft breathing, is true heavenly grace.
I angle my head to look at her, myibrildianeyes able to discern her features well enough in the gloom. As the sun slowly rises, and light slips in through the smoke-filmed windows, it is like a divine revelation to watch the color mount in her cheeks. She looks fresher this morning: not so pale and pinched. Rest and food haverevived her strength admirably, and the pain she suffered is slowly slipping into memory. I hope someday it will not be remembered at all, though I suspect that day will be long in coming.
At last she stirs, groans. Her eyelids move several times before finally managing to open. She stares mutely at nothing for a long moment before finally tilting back her head to look at me. “Good morning,” she murmurs, then frowns and tucks her head against my chest. “Oh gods, I must look a sight!”
“You are a sight, indeed.” I rest my mouth atop her head—not a kiss, just a point of contact between us. I linger there, smelling her hair, which is still prettily scented in anticipation of a wedding night which never came.
“Have you been awake long?” she asks at last, daring another peek at me.
“Not long. And I have been much occupied.”
“Occupied? With what?”
“I have been contemplating my answer to a question you asked me once.”
Her brows knot. “I seem to remember asking you a great many questions, warlord.”
I smile and press my cheek against the top of her head again, my arm tightening around her. “You asked, if we had met under other circumstances—if I had met you as Princess Ilsevel Cyhorn, in your father’s house—would I still have loved you?”
Her body tenses. She is silent for the space of several breaths,but finally nods. “Yes,” she says. “I remember.”
“I told you no. I said that if I had met you under other circumstances, you wouldn’t have been the same woman—the wild, spirited creature I’ve come to know. I believed I could only love the version of you I had met, that the conditions of our meeting were vital to my understanding of you.”
Another mute nod.
“But I was wrong.”
“What?” She turns her head sharply, her eyes very dark despite the dawnlight bathing her face.
I look down at her, the edges of my vision blurred with tears, and speak the truth which I should have spoken long ago. “I would have loved you,” I said. “I will always love you. When I met you in that garden, when I spoke to you, and you looked upon me with such disdain—I had a glimpse then of the Princess Ilsevel you were before I ever met you. And I loved you. I loved you so much, so desperately, and wanted nothing more in that moment than to convince you to love me too. Because, in my eyes, you are perfect. I want now nothing more than to be given permission to worship and adore you. I would love you in any world, in any time, whatever the circumstances of our meeting. Were I your slave, and you the cruel queen who gripped the end of my chains, I would long only to serve you better. Were you simply the girl born in the next tribe over, I would take one look at your face and never desire to look upon any other. If you were my mortal enemy, and we met,swords-crossed, on a battlefield, I would lay down my life at your feet. In every version of every lifetime, I would know you. I would love you. And I will go on loving you, forever.”
Her eyes are like two dark moons, so round and full of luminous fire. I gaze into them, knowing the danger I am in of being lost in their depths, but little caring.
“Vel-sa almar. E luralma idor-hath.”I say softly, the words a song on my lips.
She lets out a short puff of breath. Then her hand, resting softly against my chest, slides up to my neck, to the back of my head, her fingers tangling in my hair. “Please,” she whispers. “Kiss me now, Taar.”
I roll over, caging her in my arms, and cover her lips with mine.
19
ILSEVEL
His kiss is hard, bruising, aggressive. Almost more than I can take.
