“You look at me, Elloven.” He ground himself against her to secure her full consideration.
Her focus impulsively shifted back to the woods, so he used a firmer hold to return it.
“Only me.”
She answered with a fitful nod. Her eyes fluttered up in anticipation, which he fulfilled with enough force to send her arms crawling up the beam. The sound of his name moaning from her lips was a gift from whatever gods had made them.
“He’s nothing,” he said. His fingers spread along her cheek, forming a cradle. “There’s only me. See me. Hear me.” He thrust upward until she gasped. “Feel me.”
“You.” She breathed into his palm, straining onto her toes with each plunge. “There’s only you.”
“There’s only me,” he replied. When she closed her eyes, he allowed her to, but she would never, ever look back into those woods again.
Jesstin clutched the beam to drive himself deeper. With each thrust, he whispered words he’d never imagined saying to anyone, sweet confections that sounded nothing like the man he’d created. The sensation of her muscles anticipating and moving in perfect synchronicity with his own left him blurred on the separation between she and he, if there even was any, if they were even discrete people at all anymore.
He slowed to draw out the pleasure. That morning, he’d been a virgin who had only ever given or taken gratification to uphold the lies he told himself. He knew now what to expect—how she felt, inside and out. When to move, when to still.
Jesstin leaned in to kiss her and caught the fiend staring. Just give me a reason. Make the first move so I can end your bloodline.
Was it his imagination, or was the fiend glowering with rage?
If so, good.
He had no power. Not there. Not anymore.
He’d lost. All those years Fabrien Quinlanden had spent grinding Elloven into dust had all led her to this moment, when he knew and she knew that love had won.
Jesstin returned his full consideration to Elloven, and there it remained until dusk gave way to dawn.
Chapter 11
Ignis Implaca
The days had become consistently shorter. Jesstin knew it was the spiral’s doing. It had to have been. He’d felt it the moment they’d stepped off the familiar path, which they’d traveled for weeks, to the emerald stones that had materialized when they’d passed under a spiral-bound arch.
He’d been worried Elloven might not be able to enter at all, after what Mon had said about the place being a repellant, but she’d insisted she was fine.
They’d made a nightly ritual of adding tally marks to their map. Each mark on the top indicated a full day, regardless of length. On the bottom, they placed a tick for every two thousand steps they counted. They alternated due to the tedium, and it was no more of a “science” than any other form of measurement, with Jesstin’s long stride crossing distances in less time than Elloven’s petite gait, but it was the thread holding their plan together.
By their count, they’d walked eight weeks and two days to reach the spiral, and had been inside for three days. Beyond the dwindling populace, and the niggling sense they should turn back, it didn’t feel much different from outside the spiral. There was nothing obviously circular about their path, though as they followed it, he watched for the subtle curves in the road.
“Do you hear that? It’s a river,” Elloven said. She pointed at her trousers, coated in flaking mud from their misadventures in a rainstorm the night before last. She’d swapped her dresses for more practical clothing some weeks back. He liked her in blouses and pants, but he had to work doubly hard to behave.
Jesstin whistled at the bright sky as illumina settled upon the day. “I suppose we don’t know when we’ll see another.”
They followed the water’s roar down a rough trail until they saw the rushing river through a gap in the trees. Elloven broke into a sprint, stripping her suspenders from her shoulders as she flew. Jesstin laughed and followed until they were helping each other peel away the rest of their clothing, and then he swept her into his arms for another kind of interlude.
“Swing. Swing. Swing.”
Jesstin stilled. Whoever had said it wasn’t close, but they weren’t far either. “Did you hear that?”
“What?” Elloven’s legs dangled over his arm. She nipped his neck with kisses. “All I hear is your heart going wild.”
“Wild for you.” He clamped his mouth to hers and carried her to a mossy patch, her legs kicking in glee. He knew they should wash the clothes and hang them before anything else, but he’d been holding back all morning, and if he couldn’t have her then and there, he might actually die.
He was blissfully adrift to the rhythm of her riding when he heard it again.
“Swing. Swing. Swing.”
