Every nerve in her body arched. Was it Tristan? She listened. Another snap.
Her eyes swept the camp. The others were sound asleep. Dom lay under the tarp with two hands on his belly. Pilar was sprawled across the earth, good at taking up space. Zaga was still sitting against the tree, spine curved like a scythe.
Quin was gone.
She heard the branches being shoved aside, footfall, breathing. Something heavy splashed into the river. No one else stirred as she stood and slipped soundlessly between the trees.
The forest floor was caked in green mosses and white lichen blooms. She passed leaning towers of ivory shale, gneiss, and quartzite marked with glacial striations like a lady’s pocket fan. Mia imagined the river goddess, banished from her three sisters and their volqanic paradise. She saw her roaming this strange, stony kingdom, tears rolling off her cheeks and sluicing down the rocks until they swelled into the Natha.
The earth grew pliant, sifting to fine granules. She’d made it to the river.
She heard a swash, then saw a blur of gold against the black. She took a breath and stepped out of the trees.
Quin was sitting on the riverbank, throwing rocks into the Natha. His shoes were lined up neatly on the sand and his feet were bare; they dangled in the water. He bristled when he saw her.
“It’s all right.” She held up hands in surrender. “Zaga didn’t send me to spy on you. I’m here as a friend.”
“Friend.” He smiled sadly. “Since when have you and I ever been friends? Refugees, maybe. Partners in crime. Questionably married. But never friends.”
“Can I sit?”
“You can do whatever you like. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about you, it’s that you will anyway.”
She sank into the sand. Together they watched the water surge past their feet. The air was rife with all the things they did not say.
“It’s funny,” she said at last. “I used to find such comfort in the trees. My mother always loved trees, and I think I loved them because she did; these big friendly giants watching over me as a little girl. But I think that was a lie. So much of what I believed was a lie. Now the water seems truer. Black and murky and able to kill you in the blink of an eye—and far more honest.”
Quin stared into the dark swirling river for a long time.
“I don’t want to go back, Mia.”
“I don’t blame you.”
“Let’s say Zaga doesn’t kill me. That I make it back to the Kaer in one piece. If I go back there—back to my father, to that world—they’ll crush me. They’ll make me into someone I don’t recognize.”
He dug his fists into the sand. “I know you want to save your sister. And I don’t want anything to happen to Angelyne. But I can’t shake the feeling I’ll die if I go back.”
The blackthorn blossoms clung sweetly to the cool night air. The scent had been a staple of her childhood, a simple pleasure. Now it smelled of loss.
“I’m sorry.” She looked down at her hands. “I’ve brought nothing but fear and terror into your life.”
“No. The fear and terror were always there. I was scared of you, yes, but I’ve spent most of my life afraid of my father. After what he did to Tobin . . .” He shook his head. “I don’t know why it surprised me. For years I’d watched him string up the hands of the women he killed. Girls. Such little girls . . .”
He choked on the words, unable to finish.
“I’ve spent my whole life scared of my father. But I’ve also been scared of turning out like him. Scared that sitting on the river throne would make me ruthless and brutal, someone who built a kingdom on bigotry and hate.”
“Quin. Look at me.” She cupped his chin in her hand. “You could never be like your father. Never. You are good and kind and generous. You care about people. Back in the Kaer, I thought you were selfish—just another coddled prince. But I was wrong about you. I was wrong about a lot of things.”
He pressed her hand to his cheek. “You broke me out, Mia. You took me places I’d never been and gave me a taste of freedom. You showed me what my life might have been like. What I might have been like.”
“Your life isn’t over.”
“It might be, depending on what happens tomorrow.” He dropped her hand, reaching for a pebble and smoothing it with his thumb. “I never expected to be here. I couldn’t have imagined it in a million years, not in all my pretending and my make-believe. But I don’t regret it. I don’t regret a single minute of getting to know you.”
Mia wondered why she had regrown a heart if just to break it.
“I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” she whispered. “I swear it.”
He smiled. “You’re beautiful when you lie.”
When she flushed, he quickly added, “Not to diminish you or suggest that beauty is an indicator of your worth.”
She didn’t understand what was happening in her body. It wasn’t the honeyed melting of an enthrall, but a feeling of spinning in midair, weightless. She imagined this was what desire felt like.
“But what about Dom?” she said.
“He’s beautiful, too.” Quin tossed the stone across the water, where it glided like a crane. “More than one person can be beautiful, you know.”
“But do you . . .”
“I’m in love with you, Mia. For all your magic, did you really not know?”
She leaned forward, raked her fingers through his curls, and pulled his lips to hers.
Desire licked her collarbone, curling through her limbs. She hadn’t known she could want someone. Not like this. Quin’s mouth was soft, his lips warm and salty. He cradled her face in his hands and ran his thumb down her jaw, her skin melting into his touch.
She pulled back. “I’m not enthralling you. I don’t want you to think . . .”
“I know.” He fished a chain out of his pocket. A piece of uzoolion swung from the end. “A parting gift from Lauriel,” he said, and snapped the clasp around his neck.
She held her breath, terrified that the desire would seep out of his eyes, that maybe she was enthralling him after all. But she felt steady in her body, powerful in a way she never had during an enthrall. She wanted him. That wasn’t her magic; that was her.
“I want this,” he said. “I want you.”
She felt it pouring through her, the spiced fire of his want. When she’d enthralled him, it was artifice dressed in a pretty gown. It was manipulation masquerading as desire, and from the outside, it was lovely, even bewitching. But the feelings were manufactured, born of magic, not need.
This—now—the heat she felt pulsing through her, quivering in her fingertips, pulsing in her hips—was real.
He dug his hands into her curls, transforming her hair into streaming sunlight. With his other hand he swept his fingers across the soft skin of her nape. Gently he tilted her head back and pressed his lips to her cheek, her jaw, her neck. He traced the top of her shirt as he planted kisses on her collarbone like sparks. He was setting her aflame.
“Too warm,” she murmured.
“What can I do?”
“Cool me off.”
He peeled her shirt down at the neckline, just an inch, and blew cool air over her sweltering skin. Delicious sensations shivered down her spine.
“The river,” she said.
They eased themselves into the Natha, the cool rush of water spilling over them. Their clothes clung to them like a second skin. Mia dug her fingers into his curls, mashed wet against his forehead, and tasted the plumpness of his bottom lip. She dragged her palms down his chest and stopped where the crest of his hip bones met the top of his trousers.
“Is this what drowning feels like?” he murmured. “Because I think I’d like to drown forever.”
She laughed. “Sorry. I’m sorry. But I swear I read that exact line in one of my sister’s novels.”