“You,” Lina mustered, rocking a little against Ione’s hand, her own hand working, working, “are doing just fine.”
Ione smiled against her skin.“I’ve thought long and hard about it.”
Heat dripped down Lina’s wrist.Her breath hitched, unable to take it anymore, and she pulled Ione’s arm away and lowered, pressing her hips into Ione’s.Ione lurched, biting her mouth shut to muffle a surprised gasp as Lina moved against her, desperate and in love with every needy sound she could coax from her.
Every breath was like fire in her lungs, her core molten as she inched closer and closer to climax.Ione cried out first, nails digging into Lina’s hips, and Lina followed, felt like she was diving off a cliff into the sea as hot waves of pleasure barrelled through her.Her vision blackened at the edges until she was aware of nothing but the feverish pulse between her legs.And Ione’s sweet voice, calling her name.
They returned to themselves in dribs and drabs, their chests heaving, their skin slicked with cool sweat.Ione pressed a kiss to Lina’s lips, to the base of her throat, to the space between her breasts, right over her pounding heart.
“Tomorrow,” she whispered, breathless.She slid an arm beneath Lina’s head and curled up tight against her, the worn duvet suddenly pillow-soft in their exhaustion.“Tomorrow, we’ll go to Caelos.”She smiled, glittering with certainty.“We’ll be safer there than here.And soon…”
She trailed off, her eyes falling shut, and Lina swept a strand of hair behind her ear.Soaked her in, the tranquillity of sleep, the peaceful rise and fall of her chest.
Soon, Ione had meant to say, they would have their revenge.And while that made some deep, dark part of Lina’s soul sing, it would not release Sowelan from her, nor Menon from Kai.
Be good, she thought when Sowelan resounded, a single sharp bolt that made her bones quiver.This is my body, godsdamn you.
They would meet Kai soon.Menon.And Lina prayed to Sowelan, to any god that might be listening, that Kai’s face wouldn’t be the last thing she ever saw.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ione
Seafoam licked at their feet, tinted gold in the dawn light.Beside her, Lina scanned the narrow stretch of beach behind them for any sign of Rigel or his men.Nothing, evidently; she pressed herself into Ione’s arm, both of them shivering in the shadow of the craggy cliffs jutting into the sky above.
“Are you sure about this?”Lina pulled anxiously at the hood of her cloak, her discomfort clear.“It looks good at a glance, but it won’t last if we take this… route.”
Red lip paint, cheap face cream, and cocoa powder.That and the innkeeper’s silence was all the necklace Ione had stolen from her mother’s room could buy, but mixed and daubed just so on half of Lina’s face, the ingredients changed her appearance entirely.Now to any passers-by, Lina looked like an unlucky Menon-worshiper: wrapped in a threadbare cloak, her hair pulled back and hidden by a hood, and her face appearing to be burned.
See, Ione planned to say to her parents, to anyone who asked why she had gone.My attendant was taken from Oseidos that night.I suppose I walked right into Soliz’s trap, but I couldn’t very well leave her, could I?
It sounded fool-proof unless she thought too much about it, so she didn’t.She had to get to Caelos first at any rate.
Ione squinted above them through the hem of her own hood, although there was no way she’d see Caelos from here, practically right overhead but hidden by a rocky outcrop.A breeze swept over them and she breathed deep, once again certain of what she smelled: the sea-salt twinge of hydromancy, high above.
Wards.Even if they made it up the mountain without getting captured by Rigel’s men, who no doubt watched, they had no chance slipping through wards strong enough to be sensed from the ground.
“This way,” she said, “we can’t be followed.”
“True.”Lina’s hand trembled in hers.“But I don’t like this.Henceforth, as my heliade, I’d like you to practice something a little more wholesome, like immolation, or perhaps burning down orphanages.”
Ione sniggered.“Itisselfish of me not to have completely changed my magical class, yes.”She stood on tiptoe and kissed Lina’s forehead.“I can do this.And once we return to Caelos, you can resume your ordering me around.I think I might enjoy it.”
The surf parted for them, and step by step, Ione led Lina into the briny depths.
It was a gentle slope down, their feet sinking into the squelching sand.The water closed overhead, forming a protective bubble around them: one of the most versatile skills, Kai had said, and something that Ione ought to master.She had.
Or at least she better have.
“Wow,” came Lina’s voice, awed.“Is – is it fine if I talk?Or is it distracting?”
“It was,” Ione managed, “when I started out.Now, I find it helpful.”She squinted, to no avail: while plenty of sunlight filtered in at this depth, the world bathed in jewel-blue, she couldn’t see a thing beyond her shield.
“Keep talking,” she instructed.“Tell me what you see so I can focus.”Her foot slipped, pitching her forward before she righted herself; around them, the shield tremored.“And – ” She caught her breath.“Guide me so I don’t trip and kill us.”
“You inspire such confidence,” Lina said dryly – but still, she snaked an arm around Ione’s shoulders.Kept her steady, moving ever further from the surface.“It’s beautiful,” Lina said, her voice falsely-light, like this was a quaint park and not a mire of sand and seaweed a hundred metres below sea level.“I wish you could see it.”
A shadow passed over them and Ione tensed, but Lina rubbed her back.“That was a school of fish,” she assured her.“I dunno what.Small, silvery ones.They avoided us.”A pause.“What… happens if something hits us?”
