Varius turned back to regard her cautiously.
Theira had already turned away and wasn’t waiting on him.
“Don’t puncture a lung on my account,” she said coolly, “especially when I’ve already said I’d patch you up. I’m confident you don’t need to add more injuries to my workload. This way.”
As if in a dream, Varius followed her. The house was clean—somehow he’d always imagined she would be messy—and the walls were bare. But when they got to the kitchen, Varius stopped suddenly enough to make himself wince as he took it all in.
Plants bloomed on shelves around the room, and others crowded among all manner of bottles and jars. This space, too, was clean, but overflowing. This was a place where she spent time, let herself flow into the space around her.
And Varius was totally unprepared for how relieved he was to see it. The signs of life, of flourishing, and ofher, in this cozy, overflowing kitchen.
“Varius.” He shivered at the sound of his name in her rich voice and looked up; Theira pointed at a chair. “Sit down before you fall down.”
The chair looked so soft and plush he was worried he wouldn’t get out of it once he got in. Not what he would have expected in an Aurelian kitchen, but after all she’d been through, maybe she’d decided she deserved comfort wherever she could find it. Varius certainly wasn’t going to gainsay that.
He wanted to protest he’d stain it with blood, but she wouldn’t think well of him wasting her time with the same argument twice. She was a sorceress adept of the first tier; her cushions wouldn’t stay blood-soaked unless she wanted them to.
He grunted as he settled himself carefully down, his breath hissing out when his armor settled on him. He almost sprang back up, but then Theira was there, kneeling before him.
His heart thumped again.
She frowned at his armor, then looked up at him through her lashes full of teasing challenge.
Varius could feel his blood pounding in his veins as, with a smirk, Theira raised one finger, holding his gaze, then drew it down in a careful line against his chest.
How he wished he could feel that finger.
His armor crumbled off him like she’d sliced through it at the nonexistent seams.
Varius knew his eyes would be darkening. It was probably for the best he was so exhausted she wouldn’t be able to see visible evidence of his lust surging in response to her.
Still, he held himself unmoving, waiting for her. Not just because he’d put himself in her copious power out of desperation, but because he couldn’t imagine what he could offer her, now or ever.
No, that wasn’t true. He knew cursed well there was nothing.
But they’d been watching each other, teasing, challenging, for years across battlefields, and he’d never been sure if he was the only one who felt, whodreamed,of more.
Theira was probably just playing with him, and that was fair, all things considered.
But she had opened the door.
Varius looked like a ghost of himself.
Theira had always found him beautiful, like he’d emerged from the earth itself. Skin bronzed from the sun, deep brown hair, sturdy as a rock and just as unmovable. When you faced him across the battlefield, you knew he’d dig in and dig deep and it would require heroic force to move him.
Something had moved him today.
Varius had been looking more and more tired as the years went by. At some point she’d realized he was her reflection, and if she was going to save herself, it would have to be soon.
He’d apparently missed his cut-off date—or maybe that was why he was here.
Here, in her house.
He’d come to her, put himself where she could reach him, touch him, and he’d done it on purpose.
Theira had lived for years under the terrible scrutiny of the most powerful sorcerer in the world, so she didn’t fidget as she made him a cup of tea and tried not to worry about what he thought of her house.
He was silent, which was probably because he was on his last legs and not because he was judging her. For escaping, or for managing to and living in a place that looked like this. What did she know of normal houses, growing up in the vicious training halls in the bowels under Castle Korossia?
