And then she is seeing stars. Real stars, above her. They’ve Teleported outside, onto his balcony, but Zryan doesn’t stop. He gazes down at her, in awe and some other emotion, and he thrusts into her so hard, she finally breaks, screaming his name as she shatters. He’s on her, mouth over hers, swallowing her cries as she rides out her orgasm.
She can’t speak, can’t get any air in her lungs. She pulls him closer and raises her hips, grips him inside her. Electricity skitters across her body as he calls her name into her mouth, taking long, slow thrusts until he stills above her, panting. He lifts his head and stares at Astrid, mouth slightly open.
“That was…” He shakes his head, tries again. “You are everything.” Her heart stutters as he kisses her on the brow, the place where a mate mark would be, then looks to the sky. “We Teleported.”
“We did,” she says, smiling. Because she’s never felt anything like it. Never felt anything so intense.
His eyes track from hers to the stone beneath her, and it’s only then he seems to notice that Astrid is lying naked on his balcony floor.
“Don’t,” she says, sensing he’s about to Teleport them back inside. “Please. I want to lie here for a while, under the stars. With you.”
“In that case…” He flips her so he’s on his back and she’s sprawled across his body, no part of her touching the ground now. She tucks her head beneath his chin and he kisses her hair. They lie quietly for a while, getting their breath back, his hands playing idly with her pendant.
“What is this constellation?” he eventually asks, lifting her pendant to examine it.
“The Goddess Sqaõi.”
“Why Sqaõi? She’s a huntress, isn’t she? I wouldn’t have picked her for you.”
Astrid smiles. “Ah, but she is so much more than a huntress. She’s a survivor who lives and thrives in the harshest environments, resourceful and wild. She’s the Goddess of winter, a season of contradictions and savage beauty. She’s the brightest constellation in the far northernskies—even the moons can’t dim her light. She is justice and she is balance. We don’t worship Gods in the same way you do here—we have no temples and we make no offerings, only that of our own bodies when we die. But we do pray to them each night when the stars reveal themselves.”
Zryan lifts her pendant again, compares it to the sky above them, then looks at Astrid. “I take it back.” He traces a finger along her freckles. “Sqaõi is most definitely your Goddess. Will you point her out to me?”
Astrid shakes her head sadly. “You can’t see her this far south.”
“Lucky then that you always carry her with you,” he says, releasing the pendant, stroking along her throat as he does. “Jessa wore a twin necklace.”
Astrid swallows. “Yes. She did.”
“Then you will always carry Jessa with you, too.”
Astrid could love him, she decides then. For speaking her friend’s name, for remembering her. If they’d had time, she could have loved him.
The buzzing of insects carries through the open window and she stirs, listening to the sound in the predawn light, as Zryan massages her back and dusts kisses along her shoulder blades. They lie like that in bed, Astrid’s back to Zryan while he touches her, until neither of them can restrain themselves any longer and they have slow, lazy sex. Afterward, she presses her face into his chest, inhaling him.
“Do something for me,Zryan.”
“Anything,” he says, and that one word has a little part of her heart cracking.
“I don’t want you to argue with me about any of this, or contradict me, and I definitely do not want meaningless platitudes. Do you understand?”
His hand pauses on her back. “Okay,” he says, unsure.
“You save Skylar from herself. She wants to burn and for the world to burn with her, but you don’t let her. Show her there is good left to fight for, good people left to fight for, includingmypeople. And I wantyou to help my mother, both of you. She’s a good witch, a great queen, so you help her, you fix whatever is wrong with the Heart, and you stop this Blight. You’re to save Arturea as well as Vatra, promise me that.”
She dreamt of Skylar, of milky tendrils of power, a thunderstorm and a wind so mighty it tore Astrid apart. But it wasn’t the images of herself dying over and over that had kept her from sleeping properly last night, it was the emptiness in Skylar’s eyes. The absence of humanity that Astrid’s seen before when Skylar’s power has become too much.
He shifts, pulling away from Astrid so he can see her face. He’s paler than she’s ever seen him, his golden skin looking like an Exhauster tried to suck him dry. She shudders. Why is she thinking about that now, when that is going to be her fate in a matter of hours?
“You don’t—” he begins, but she cuts him off.
“I said no arguing.”
He presses his lips together, looking like that’s exactly what he wants to do, but he’s stopped by a knock on the door.
“Prince?” a voice calls from beyond, and Zryan sits up, the sheets falling off them both.
“Who is it?” she whispers. Whoever it is has opened the door so they can be heard.
