“Oh.” Karis scuffs his boot along the damp earth. “I’d like to meet her someday. I’d like to visit Praia.” He freezes, then flushes. “Is that too fast?”
Ronan has to work harder than usual to muffle his laughter. He doesn’t know if the residents of this well-gardened townhome are around. “She’ll like you,” he says softly. “But fair’s fair—I’ve met some of your teachers already, unfortunately, but do I get to meet your parents too?”
Karis’s eyes narrow. His expression’s unreadable for a moment, before he gives a blinding smile. “Of course.” His fingers curl into Ronan’s collar. “They’d hate you. It’ll be amazing.”
A pale yellow flower falls into his hair. Ronan brushes it aside, then lets himself fall into the waiting kiss. By the time he pulls away, they’re both scattered with petals, and there’s no sign of the guards.
***
The night before the operation, in the heavy hours after midnight, Ronan dreams. In reality, he’s warm and comfortable, nestled in a pile of musty blankets and sweet-smelling hay, with Karis spooned in front of him. His dream is the same at first, so similar he doesn’t realize he’s dreaming. Comfort. Calm. His lover in his arms.
Except the room is too bright. The bed is too soft, simple cotton sheets and a pillow. The body in his arms is too tall and broad, and the hair tickling his nose isn’t auburn or brown, but sunlit blond.
His hand slips against his lover’s stomach. The sensation is wet and warm. Fear chills the depths of his marrow, stabbing into every sinew and nerve. His breath frosts through the air, leaving crystals of ice in his lover’s blond hair, and the only warmth in the world is the blood that spills and spills.
Ronan sits up slowly, his limbs too numb to move any faster. His hand doesn’t move from Arthur’s stomach. He pulls his arm, and it still doesn’t move. His vision focuses. He sees his hand is wrapped around the hilt of a knife, and the knife is stuck in Arthur’s gut, and every time he tries to pull away, it slices deeper.
This isn’t right,Ronan thinks.I stabbed him from behind, not the front.
And Arthur’s eyes were green, not gold. He didn’t have freckles like this. He was taller. Ronan’s vision wavers. He blinks, and the body before him is Arthur’s. He blinks again, and golden hair darkens to auburn. He chokes on the cold, his lungs wracked and wrecked with it. His traitorous hand refuses to unclasp the knife.
Karis lies in a pool of blood and shadow. His amber eyes are dull and glassy, and his chest doesn’t move. But his hand rises slowly to touch Ronan’s cold heart, and his pale lips move to say—
“Wake up.”
Ronan jolts awake to the warm and sleepy words, and damp breath along his jaw. His vision blurs with the transition from painful brightness to the comforting shadows. No frost, no blood, just a safe, warded nest, and Karis’s warm body pressed against him.
The hand on his heart is real.
When he can move again, his arm curls around Karis, and he strokes the lines of his back. “Did I hurt you?” he asks, his voice ragged.
“What?” Karis’s hand tenses on his heart, before he melts further against him. His voice softens into a coquettish mumble. “I woke up because you let go of me. Come here.” He tugs Ronan’s arm until they resume their previous position, tucked against each other.
Ronan stays awake long after Karis returns to quiet sleep.
The dream feels distant by the time the sun rises. As light fills the loft, Ronan leans over Karis and pushes his hair back. Brushes a kiss over his brow. “Time to get up.”
Immediately, his face is seized by greedy hands. The kiss Karis drags him into is far less tender. Karis releases him only enough to pant against his lips, “I’m still asleep. Can I stay in bed for five more minutes?”
The fire in his eyes has nothing to do with sleep, nor does the answering fire flickering through Ronan’s body. The operation won’t start until noon. They have time to spare. Ronan’s hand drops to Karis’s hip and wanders under his shirt. “Just five minutes?”
Karis hums with pleasure. “Maybe ten.”
They take an hour.
?
CHAPTER NINETEEN
KARIS
“Whenever you’re ready,” Ronan whispers hot in his ear. They’re close together under a restaurant awning, pretending to look at a wooden sign in the window. With a look-away spell in place, nobody pays them any attention. Karis pushes down the very distracting urge to whirl around and kiss him. He feels the same thrill of anticipation as he did facing down the vaidkos.
Ronan apparently feels a similar thrill. A quick kiss lands on his cheek before Ronan melts away with a group of passersby.
Touching his flushed face, Karis starts counting the agreed-upon hundred seconds.
Most Songbird chapels are more performance stages than proper churches. Pocket gardens bringing song to crowded city districts, pavilion altars built between taverns. Melody has plenty of those, too, but they’re hardly secure locations, and the high bards would never keep a relic there.
