The kiss starts gentle. Her hands on my chest, my hands in her hair, the slow press of her lips.
Then her fingers curl into my shirt and the gentle part ends.
She pulls me down to her and the kiss deepens and there is nothing restrained about it.
Her body against mine. Everything between us unshielded.
I pull back.
She makes a sound of protest that I feel in my ribs.
“If we don’t stop,” I say against her mouth, “we won’t stop.”
“I’m aware.”
“The convening.”
“I know.”
She presses her forehead to mine. Breathes.
She kisses me once more. Brief. Definite.
A promise pressed into skin.
The moonlight dims. The clearing softens at the edges.
She slides toward deeper sleep, the dream dissolving.
I hold on as long as I can. Her face. Her hands in my shirt. The kiss.
I surface in the dark chamber with her in my arms and her breathing deep and even and the feel of moonlight still on my skin.
The Lithenmere hums. Low. Constant.
Tomorrow. The four courts. The truth contest Seraphina warned us about.
And somewhere in the Court of Ember’s wing, a woman with banked-coal eyes is sharpening her arguments against an alliance that was written into the stone of this realm before she had a chance to stop it.
I close my eyes.
Celeste shifts in her sleep. Her fingers curl tighter against my chest.
I let her hold on.
Chapter
Fourteen
Syrenne is smiling when we walk in.
We take our place at the edge of the floor. Maximus first, me half a step behind, Seraphina and Mira behind us. Her smile doesn’t move.
Stone to the north, gold veins bright in the walls behind them, Veyran rigid at the front. Tides to the south, Maeven flat-faced among them, mist pooled at his court’s feet. Gales to the west, elevated above the rest, Ithara at the edge of the raised platform.
The water in the channels goes still. Every silver line along the walls stops moving in the same breath. Whatever passes for silence in a room full of beings who can smell a lie forming in your throat.
His knuckles brush mine. Once. Then he’s still.
