“But not on objects?”
There is no resistance with inanimate things.
Tiras nodded, as if that made perfect sense, and I relaxed further, enjoying myself.
“I want you to try again, but don’t let me hear. I want to see what you are capable of,” he urged, and my joy became reluctance once more.
I was allowing him to hear my rhymes, the little spells I flung into the air. If I instructed him to act and kept it from him, could I actually influence him in some way? Could I make him love me? The thought whispered through my heart and mind unbidden, and I turned away, embarrassed and rather surprised at myself. I wouldn’t want that.
“Try again,” he demanded, as if he’d heard my inner monologue.
My heart pounded in my chest, and I shook my head. Compelling someone was repugnant to me.
I don’t want that much power. I don’t want to bend people to my will.
“I give you permission,” he murmured. “Don’t you want to know what you can do?”
Not knowing is so much easier. So much safer.
“Focus,” he commanded, ignoring my misgivings. I wondered briefly if his power to compel wasn’t a great deal stronger than mine. I always seemed to obey him.
“What do you want, Lark? What do you want me to do?” he pushed, waiting, his posture tense as if he expected me to send him careening into a wall. As if I could.
I closed my eyes to create some distance and, keeping my feelings in my belly rather than my head, pushed outward, urging Tiras without even knowing specifically what I asked of him. I was trying so hard to hide my words from him that the command was more a base desire than a neatly formed spell. I hardly knew what I was attempting, when suddenly Tiras was looming over me, pressing his mouth to mine. I froze and opened my eyes.
The brush of his chin was slightly rough, his mouth insistent, almost angry, as if he sought to conquer rather than convince. He held my face as he had before, fingers splayed into my hair, but when I failed to respond, he immediately pulled back, but not much. His eyes glittered, and his hands stayed buried in my hair.
“Why ask for something you don’t want?” he whispered, the words tickling my lips.
I didn’t ask. I would never, ever ask for something like that.
His eyes narrowed further, and his hands fell to his sides, releasing me as suddenly as he’d kissed me.
I hadn’t asked . . . had I? I would never, ever ask, no matter how much I wanted something. Or someone. I’d thought about love. That was all. Then he’d kissed me. I didn’t know how to kiss, and I had responded with all the ardor of a rock wall.
I didn’t ask, I repeated.
Tiras looked puzzled for a moment, then contemplative. He folded his arms across his chest, and I could feel him listening intently, like he was trying to peel back my protestations and uncover all the things I wasn’t saying.
“I’m going to kiss you again,” he murmured finally. “Unless you tell me no.”
My mind was a huge, white wall. No protestations. No thoughts. No words at all.
“Breathe,” he whispered, and I obediently sipped the air. “Come here.” Again. Immediate compliance.
He didn’t reach for me or pull me to him, didn’t crush me against his chest. He simply tipped my chin up and brought his mouth down.
Then he coaxed cooperation with gentle conviction.
Sweet rose from his consciousness, and wonder limned the word.
He wheedled entry, pulling my top lip between his, tugging and tasting, only to slide past it to seek my timid tongue, plying me and playing me, until I was matching the pressure of his lips and exploring the heat of his mouth with eager strokes and breathless wonder.
I heard his decision to cease before he pulled away, leaving me with my chest heaving and my lips wet. Bereft and immediately embarrassed, I couldn’t meet his eyes, but could feel him considering me, even as a decision was reached. Then he spoke, drawing my gaze.
“Kjell is right. You are a dangerous little bird. But I think I will keep you.”
The king escorted me back to my chambers and put four guards at the door.
“For your protection, and for mine,” Tiras explained. I didn’t respond, and I still couldn’t look at him. My heart felt strange and my hands shook beneath the long drape of the bell-shaped sleeves. I could still taste him, heady and strong, and though I longed to run my tongue along the seam of my lips to relive the moment, I felt claimed without being wanted. It was a feeling I knew well. It was a feeling that made me long for Boojohni, the only soul on earth who loved me.
I waited up, trying to read, trying harder to listen, but the castle was quiet and when Pia and Greta came to attend me, removing my dress and brushing my hair, they seemed tired and irritable, but nothing seemed amiss, and they chattered over the evening’s events and the work that still needed doing. I didn’t know whether my father had crept away, fleeing to Corvyn without me, or if he, like the rest of the delegation, had retired to his chamber to plot again.
The castle was full of secrets and schemes, full of people hungry for power and afraid of magic. Much like me, the castle hadn’t learned to speak. I listened to the walls and collected random words until the dawn crept in and the city awoke.
The following evening, I was primped and adorned and escorted to the hall once more, seated to the left of the king as if all was well. The delegation seemed slightly less travel-weary, and eyes were sharp and conversation stilted. My father hadn’t left for Corvyn. His face was just as drawn, his gaze as fleeting, but the death that had hovered around him the day before had fled.
The king neither ate nor drank, but engaged the gathering in trivial conversation and mild discussion of the happenings in the kingdom. As the meal was consumed and the hour passed, Lord Gaul rose, and with a weighted look around the gathering, he addressed the king with false solemnity.
“There are ten provinces—Kilmorda, Corvyn, Bilwick, Bin Dar, Enoch, Quondoon, Janda, Gaul, Firi and of course, Degn.” He inclined his head toward the king when he said Degn. Degn was the province of Tiras’s family, the province that surrounded the capital, the province of kings. “There are five representatives here tonight.” He counted them off on his fingers. “Firi, Corvyn, Bilwick, Bin Dar, and Gaul.” He inclined his head again. “Six, if we count Degn. If we count you.”
The king waited.
“The representatives from Janda, Quondoon and Enoch, to the south, don’t feel as threatened by the Volgar as those of us farther north. They weren’t interested in . . . attending . . . this summit.”
“They weren’t interested in a coup?” The king asked, his mild voice dripping with false calm. “And the rest of you?” Tiras moved his eyes around the table, lingering on every member of the council, one by one, demanding a response.
“If this is a coup, then I have no interest in it either,” the lovely ambassador from Firi interrupted, rising from her chair. “I am here to support King Tiras in his efforts to push back the Volgar. I am here to commit my province to the defense of Jeru. All of Jeru.”