“Stop” was his next word, and Elia felt that, too.
She jerked. “I don’t want to stop,” she whispered. “I want this—you—I want all of it, and I know it’s dangerous, and I don’t know how exactly…” she shifted her hips forward, because maybe shedidknow how.
Ban pushed her farther away. “You don’t know this is what you want.”
“I do, though.” Elia smiled.
This huge feeling was not grief or fury; it was warm, it enveloped her whole being. She did not want to diffuse it or let it go, but to instead let it overwhelm her. “I do know, as sure as I know anything. I want you, and this.”
“It isn’t what I want.” His voice was scorching.
Elia froze, and so did the world. Even the fire in the hearth seemed to pause in its licking. In the next moment Elia climbed away from Ban Errigal. Her chest ached; she pressed a hand to her stomach against a blossoming nausea.
“Wait,” he said.
There was no place for her to go. Elia stood still and held herself with her back to him, her mind empty because she refused all thoughts. Ban quickly rustled about, and then appeared wearing his damp, muddy pants to face her.
Because she was the daughter of a king, Elia Lear kept her chin high and met Ban Errigal’s wretched, burning gaze.
He said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—I meant… El—Elia—I mean I don’t…” He shook his head, his mouth turned into pain and sorrow. “You kissed me, and we almost… I’ve never wanted that, except with you. But I do. Want you. I want—I just want something for myself. Free of consequences. You.”
“Yes,” she whispered. She wanted it too: no plans, no future, no consequences.
“But Ican’t.I know what kind of creature a bed like that makes.”
“Creature?” she said, her voice high as a sparrow’s. “You’re not the sum of your birth and stars.”
“You don’t know what I am, what I’ve done.”
Rory Errigal’s image appeared in her mind, as did that of Morimaros, Aefa, and the soldiers she’d seen in Aremoria, the world beyond this bed, beyond Hartfare and Innis Lear. She did know much of what he had done, and she wanted him. She knew what he was, and it was enough. She reached for him.
He let her touch his face, even brought his hands up over hers.
“Do you hate me for being my father’s daughter?” she asked softly.
“I could never hate you,” Ban said, and his entire body shivered.
He kissed her gently, slow as a sunrise, and trembling. She felt tears slide under her fingers where she held his face. And then he pulled roughly away, a curse harsh on his tongue. He scrubbed at his eyes. A scratch on his forearm glinted red with fresh blood.
“Ban, I know what you’ve done. I know what you are. And I do not hate it.”
“I am what I made myself,” he said.
Elia’s cheeks remained hot, her body too aware of him; she was flooded with embarrassment and desire still, and most of all, joy. Elia wanted to make Ban feel better, be better. She wanted him to see what she saw, but she didn’t know how.
Grief or rage or love: why did Elia never have the right words to speak?
A queen would have them.
So that was what she decided to say.
“Everyone wants different things from me, and it is never enough: my father wants that I be a star, only his, and not even my own; my sisters require that I submit to them, or to never have existed at all; Morimaros wishes that I be his queen; and Brona and Kayo want that, too, but for them! Even Aefa wants me to rule, if it makes me safe. You’re the only one who ever asked me to be something for myself. And there is a chaotic web of danger all around us—war and spies, dukes and kings, and even just this storm, this breaking island—and I don’t know how to make any of it better. I just know that I want to. I want to make Innis Lear strong, to help the land revive and the rootwaters clear, and I want you to kiss me again, and always.”
“Why?” His voice cracked.
“Because I…” Her shoulders lifted; her voice drained away. “Because this is the only way I know what to say to you. We’ve never needed words.”
“I think you’re so beautiful, Elia, it hurts me sometimes.”
