“I don’t believe you.” It was winter, and very cold. They were nesting among the down-filled pillows and quilts in his bed. A solitary candle burned on a nightstand, outlining his profile in gold. “You’re not the type to fall for anyone quickly. And it took you months to say it out loud.”
He laughed softly at that. “I didn’t want to admit what it was, then. And I certainly didn’t plan to do anything about it.”
“So it was just a strange itch you ignored? A flea bite where you couldn’t reach and scratch yourself?”
He turned to face her, upsetting the perfect cocoon of warmth. “Vivid, but untrue,” he said. “No, it was love. You rode out of that snowy thicket, already wary of me although we’d never met, and you removed your hood and I thought,This is who I’ll dream of every night, for the rest of my life.”
• • •
“Oh,” Amron said,his eyes glued to her face.
Hope flickered in her heart. Some things were always true, even if he couldn’t remember them.
“I don’t think we’ve met.” He frowned. “Yet you seem familiar.”
“My name is Liana.” It was all she could say, sitting so close to him she could feel the warmth radiating from his body. She hadn’t prepared her words in advance; she’d thought it would be easy. She’d been talking to Amron for half her life. But she hadn’t been talking tothisAmron—this preoccupied young man, obviously attracted to her, but wary of strangers and still uncomfortable in his own skin.
The lanterns gave off a subtle golden light that warmed his pale complexion and flirted with the sharp lines of his face. His eyes, the color of the winter sea in daylight, turned nearly black in the pooling shadows. She wanted to touch him so desperately her fingers ached, but he hated being touched by strangers.
“Liana, I’m flattered, but you’re wasting your time.” He set his glass down, ready to flee. “You are beautiful, but I never touch Celandina’s girls.”
Of course he didn’t, damn him. He avoided courtesans because their feigned willingness burned him like acid. Neither her beauty nor the sweetness of her smile would change that, not tonight. He abhorred it when people took liberties with him, he despised over-familiarity, he loathed advances. The situation slipped out of her grasp as he rose to leave.
“I’m not one of Celandina’s girls,” she said.
Any other man in that garden would probably laugh it off as a joke, but not Amron. He paused, his expression visibly cooling down. “Who are you, then?”
“I am—”I’m your wife, dammit. I’d burn the world to ashes to get to you, why can’t you see it?“I’m your friend.”
He raised his eyebrows as he sat back down beside her, and she could almost see the thoughts rearranging themselvesbehind his curious gaze. He was young, but he was not naïve. By this age, he’d already been well-versed in both fighting and diplomacy, he’d lived in every corner of the kingdom from the snowy mountains of Virion to the arid plains of Elmar, he was a courtier and a military commander. And if he still hadn’t learned to trust his second sight, he was certainly not foolish enough to ignore a broken thread in the pattern of the world.
“Why are you here?” he asked.
She was here to kiss him and whisk him off as soon as possible, out of this place that vibrated with the low rumble of impending doom. But Amron wasn’t willing to be whisked off, seduced, kissed in a dark corner until he moaned with desire. No, not him. He wasn’t going to be feckless and frivolous, not even for one night at his brother’s party, while everyone around him sank into a haze of wine-fueled debauchery.
No, Amron was not going to be coaxed into kissing a strange girl, no matter how much he liked her. And he was not going to accept lies.
“I need to warn you.” She paused; she didn’t want to sound like one of those crazy prophets on the street corners, foretelling doom. The idea of the catastrophe rolling towards them was vague in her head, she had nothing firm to grasp, no clear details to nail the story down.Bloody Perun and his tricks.“Your brother’s wedding. Something will go wrong and there’ll be bloodshed.”
He blinked, weighing her words. “I don’t know what to think about you, Liana. You look like a vision, you talk like a madwoman. Is this some elaborate prank?”
“It’s the truth, I swear.”
Later in his life, Amron would hone his knack for reading people to a sharp, infallible blade. This Amron, though, was still learning how to wield it. “Why should I trust you?”
Why, indeed? She needed something true, and hidden, andshocking. Something intimate, something whispered in the darkness, his mouth touching her ear, his limbs entwined with hers. “If I tell you a secret, promise me you won’t panic.”
“Now you’re just being dramatic.”
She took a deep breath. “You have a crescent-shaped scar on your left thigh. Amril pushed you through a window when you were five, and a shard almost cut your artery and killed you. He claimed it was an accident. You know he did it on purpose, and yet you never told anyone.”
Color drained out of his face. “Who are you?” he whispered.
“I am your friend,” she said, covering his hand with hers, gentler than a butterfly landing on a blade of grass. “Bad things are coming.”
Slowly, slowly—his gaze never leaving her face—he wrapped his fingers around hers into a tight grip. “Come.” He rose to his feet, pulling her up. “Whatever you know, the captain of the guard needs to hear it.”
To get to the gate, they needed to push through the well-lit crowd gathered around two girls who danced in a manner that left little to imagination. Liana kept her head down, trailing in Amron’s wake, holding his hand.
