Page 138

The Hare and the Crown

We stayed like that for a long time, both of us still aroused and yet our minds clear enough to talk. I told him everything I could remember from the memory stones. Avaneer. Edrin. Ivanoxa. The Arrolyn and why it mattered. I told him about the strange nightmares I had immediately after the poisoning and about King Orsin grabbing me and the North Tower and the yellow room and Ivanoxa and everything else I could think of.

Everything except for the more painful details of my mother’s story. I was not ready to repeat it out loud. I did not know if I could. The images in my mind of them cutting her open had given me the sort of anger that could only be fixed with revenge.

Orsin would die, of that I was certain.

The knot slowly went back down as we talked. He stayed inside me anyway.

I told him about Teorin carefully and felt his body tense. I pushed the copper strand of hair that always fell in his face back and reminded him that Dali had taken care of it for her own selfish reasons. He asked how. I shrugged. "I do not know. And I do not have room to care. I just know that when I return from the treatments with Eravic, he is not in my bedroom.”

His eyes searched my face.

"In my mother's memory," I said, "she told Axar that she lived by loyalty and sacrifice. And that she hoped I lived by loyalty and selfishness." I drew in a breath. "I think that means be loyal to those that matter most. At any cost." I paused. "I feel different after all of this."

He rolled me to my side and kissed my forehead. "If part of being different is what made you slap me, then I do not think I mind at all."

I raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

I felt him grow harder again inside me. His mouth pressed against mine and I began to moan softly.

"The siakar in me liked it," he said.

I sat up, propping myself on one elbow. "I want to ride you. Will you let me? The whole time?"

He looked at me, his face difficult to read. "We have never done that." He paused. “Not successfully, anyway.”

"I know. That is why I want to."

"My concern is not that."

"What then?"

"You are supposed to rest. Technically you should not even be here on this side. We do not know what happens once you go back to Morrath. What if you collapse in that tunnel from exhaustion? I will not be able to get to you."

He ran a hand through his hair. “I—we—were both overcome with emotion but it was not the responsible thing to do, Asha Bear. We do not know what will happen from here.”

I turned to him. "If I am strongest at night and will be weak in the day, then I can leave now." He sucked in a breath. "Or I can stay in this bed with you all day. Then tonight I will go to the shoreline for Eravic's treatment before I return to the Darkway. We will make sure I eat and feel strong before I leave.”

“And if you do not?”

“Then one of your birds can find a healer to fix me.”

“Wanderers,” he said quietly. “That is what they’re called.”

I sat up. “What are those?”

“Large birds. Smart birds. They are strong, can be ridden, are intelligent.”

I nuzzled my head into his chest. “And of course my husband can summon them because he is strong and handsome and just the very thought makes me want to make another baby right this very moment.”

He grabbed my wrist. “Asha. Do not joke.”

I kissed him softly. “I am not. Once I am no longer dead we can have as many as you want, just in case one of us dies again⁠—”

“Asha.”

I giggled. “Truly. I want everything.”