“Vessar implies the agreement to raise a child,” he reminded her. Carefully.
They fell silent for a moment, looking into each other’s eyes. When he next spoke, Auryn already knew what he was going to say.
“Is that what you want? A child with me?”
She tried to imagine it. A small little person with silver eyes and black hair. The thoughthurtin a place she didn’t expect. She couldn’t answer him. Not yet.
“Auryn,” he sighed. “As the Resh’Agar I am—” he paused. “Because of my Runesgram, my seed cannot quicken in a woman’s womb.”
“Like the Reskala?”
He nodded. “I was forged to protect, not to create.” He cupped her jaw. “Even if I could, you’re so small and delicate, love. And until we understand more about your Flares, I wouldn’t risk it.”
Her hand covered his. “Would you want it? If we could?”
He was silent a long moment. Then his hand trailed down, settling on her belly. The azure of his eyes brightened to aquamarine, and when he looked at her again, her heart squeezed once again.
“Yes,” he said. “With you. Only with you.”
Auryn couldn’t understand why, but her eyes filled with tears. A strange new sorrow suddenly hung suspended between them, and they leaned into each other, both wanting to sweep it away with something more certain, something more familiar.
He kissed her temple. Then her brow. Then lower, lingering at the corner of her mouth until she turned into him, lips meeting his. The kiss was soft. Then deeper. Then hungrier. His hands roamed her back as hers found his shoulders, slipping beneath his arms, greedy for warmth and grounding. He rolled them until she lay beneath him, framed in moonlight and shadows, her breath catching as he kissed the line of her throat.
Her fingers threaded into his hair, tugging carefully on his unbound onyx waves.
“Breathe for me?”
He did.
Her Silari’s breath moved through her like a tide, slow and warm, anchoring her soul to his as mana wove between their bodies. Her dizziness abated, replaced with the heat of something deeper, something urgent and needful. Her hands slid across his back, fingers brushing the runes she’d just soothed, and he groaned as they flared in response, hips pressing into hers. He lifted her nightshift and she arched into him, welcoming.
Their mouths never parted. Their hands never stilled. They fell back into the familiar ocean of their adoration, moving with its tides, with the kind of patience that burned hotter than haste. He worshiped every inchof her with touch, with breath, with the subtle glow of magic flowing between them, and she marveled at the beauty of his runes when they glowed white instead of red or azure.
White. The color of the Sokâr. The color of her love.
And as her head tipped back, lost in the depth of him, a voice rumbled through her mind like the growling of a coiled beast.
What you call love is madness wrapped in the illusion of choice.
I will show you what such delusion can cost.
But she did not flinch. Did not stop. Did not fear a thing.
Because Kailorien’s heart beat beneath her ribs. His hands were her tether, his breath her anchor in all things.
And she would always choose this madness.
Again and again.
No matter the cost.
28
The Veilweaver
Recovered from within a folded tunic, slipped beneath a ceremonial sash. Written in the Prismatum cipher, its angular loops and mirrored glyphs disguised it as a devotional prayer.
Auryn translated it with shaking fingers.
