“I don’t know.” Their fingers interlocked, and his eyes moved from the stars to their hands, taking in the image of it. Committing it to memory lest it never happen again. “Perhaps there is some higher power that knows which stars we need to see when we look up, which stories we need to hear. That knows which constellations will lure us to travel the world so that we might see them with our own eyes, adding them to the map of sparks in our minds.”
“A map of where we’ve been,” she murmured.
“And where we might go.” He lowered his arm, keeping hold of her hand as he turned to look at her.
Kiss her.
God help him, but he wanted to. But he wouldn’t do it unless she asked, and she had not. Very likely would not.
“Where would you go?” she asked. “If you could?”
Always, the answer had been somewhere, anywhere, other than where he was. To escape.
But that had changed. “If I had the choice to be anywhere in the world, I would choose right here.”
She exhaled a soft breath, half laughter and half surprise, then curled tighter against his side as the wind gusted over them. “Show me another shape in the sky.”
Keris scoured his memory for every constellation he knew, which was many, for he’d always been the sort to look up and see things others didn’t. He spoke until his voice grew hoarse and her breathing deepened, her arm growing limp as her head drifted down against his chest, sleep taking her.
For a long time, he remained still, holding her against him and listening to the city grow quiet as the soldiers retreated back to the garrison. Soon there was only the sound of the wind and the warmth of her breath against his throat.
You need to go, he told himself. You need to get back before you are missed.
But he didn’t want to leave her. Didn’t want to let go of this woman who should be his enemy and yet had somehow become the one person he could trust with everything.
Except his name.
Chest aching, Keris eased his arm out from under her, gently lowering her head so that it was cushioned by the hood of his coat. Then, with the faint glow in the east beginning to light the sky, he traced a word in the soot of the broken chimney before abandoning the building to race the dawn back to his side of the Anriot.
26
ZARRAH
She woke to the light of dawn glowing in her eyes, a slow smile rising to her lips as she turned her head.
Only to find herself alone on the rooftop.
Zarrah’s stomach hollowed, but then her eyes latched on a word written in large letters in the soot stains on the chimney.
Midnight.
Warmth filling her, she pulled the collar of the Maridrinian’s coat up, inhaling the spicy scent of his cologne. Heat flooded through her veins, chasing away the headache caused by too much ale and replacing it with an aching need that could only be satisfied in one way.
By one person.
“You’ve lost your mind,” she muttered to herself. “And clearly forgotten the purpose of all this.”
Forgotten the reason she was seeing him, which was to facilitate an end to raids across the border. To stop the senseless slaughter of civilians.
Not to fall in bed with a Maridrinian who was more handsome than any man had a right to be.
Yet all the chiding did nothing to temper her lust, the memory of his velvet voice rippling across her thoughts, the sensation of his body pressed against hers making her burn hot despite the cool morning air. Lust in its purest form, but that wasn’t the limit of what she felt. And it was those other sentiments that simultaneously thrilled and terrified her.
Climbing to her feet, Zarrah peered over the edge of the building. Seeing it was clear of traffic in the alley below, she climbed down and headed toward the palace. Though she didn’t want to give up the warmth of his coat, wearing it would raise questions, so she tucked the expensive leather under one arm.
But she took the book out of his pocket first.
As she walked through the streets, Zarrah flipped through the pages, her eyes drifting over the writing, the stories making her smile.
It was a forgotten joy, reading for pleasure.
One of many things she’d given up in her desire to be strong, in her desire for vengeance, in her desire to please her aunt.
When was the last time she’d done something for no reason other than it made her happy?
Seeing an approaching patrol, Zarrah tucked the book back into the pocket, nodding at her soldiers as they stopped to salute. More salutes as she strode through the empty gates, and Zarrah forced her thoughts to what needed to be accomplished today. To the endless reports she needed to read and drills she needed to oversee.
“Where in the name of God have you been?” Hands closed over her shoulders, pulling Zarrah sideways into a corridor.
Yrina.
Her friend shook a finger in her face. “All damned night, I’ve been searching for you, Zar. All. Night. Had to organize a bloody roundup to hide what I was doing, but you were nowhere to be found.”
Zarrah opened her mouth to lie about where she’d been, but Yrina’s eyes latched on the Maridrinian’s coat. “What’s this?” She jerked it out of Zarrah’s grip, holding it up. “This is a man’s coat.” Her fingers moved over the leather. “An expensive man’s coat. Does it belong to your lover?”
“Give it back, Yrina.” She reached for the coat, but her friend danced backward. “I borrowed it from a civilian friend and didn’t have the chance to return it.”
Yrina lifted the leather to her nose and inhaled. “Bergamot. Ginger. And red cedar, if my nose does not mistake it.” She inhaled again, then rolled her eyes back, groaning. “My God, Zar. If you aren’t sleeping with whoever owns this coat, there is something deeply wrong with you.” Then she frowned. “Except this isn’t… this isn’t a Valcottan cut. It’s—”
“Harendellian,” Zarrah snapped, trying to curb the rising panic in her stomach. “And it takes more than expensive cologne to get my trousers off, Yrina. Now perhaps you might explain why you organized a roundup of Maridrinians for the sake of tracking me down?”
All humor vanished from her friend’s face. “Because she’s here.”
She. The Empress. “When? And why? She was supposed to return to Pyrinat.”
Yrina exhaled a long breath. “She does not keep me in her counsel, Zar. All I know is that she was not pleased to discover you absent, especially given no one knew where you were. And I’m not sure there is a lie in the world that’s going to get you out of this one.”
Shit. Zarrah closed her eyes, knowing that she’d gotten herself into this mess and had no one to blame but herself. “Put those in my room for me, please. Somewhere the servants won’t find them.”
“Those?” Yrina lifted one eyebrow, then fished the book out of the coat’s pocket, reading the cover. Her other eyebrow rose to join its mate. “Stars,” she murmured. “Color me intrigued.” Then she wandered down the corridor, flipping through the pages of the Maridrinian’s book.
Straightening her clothing and praying the smells of her prior night’s activities didn’t cling too strongly, Zarrah headed to the training yard to face her aunt.