“Like what?” I returned, taking time to compose myself before meeting her gaze evenly.
“Oh!” She half-snarled, half-screeched it, her high cheekbones graced with a pink flush of emotion now. “Enough with that inscrutable White Monk attitude. You’d drive Glorianna Herself to slap you.”
“It’s not an attitude. I am one of the White Monks.” A fact I’d been sharply reminded of when the father of my order arrived at Ordnung to crown our new High Queen in the name of Glorianna. As with all monks of my order, he’d taken—and kept—a vow of silence, and yet made it clear that he wouldn’t censure me for breaking my own vow. Or rather, that I’d shattered it, completely unable to resist speaking to Ami. She is ever the one who makes me abandon all resolve.
The father had let me know I’d be welcome to return to the brotherhood and renew my vow at any time. I’d always nursed the idea in the back of my mind that when Ami tired of me, maybe I’d go back there. Knowing they would have me lit a feeble candle in the well of darkness that would be life without Ami. Perhaps I could once again find solace in silence. Not speaking had worked before, had helped me circumscribe the wanting, the endless yearning for things I didn’t deserve and could never have.
“Is that what this is about?” Ami asked, voice chill. “You’re wanting to return to the order. Or you want to go back to Annfwn. I know living there was your dream and you only left it because of me. I might point out that I never asked you to. You left because Andi asked it of you, and you obeyed because you’re loyal to her.”
“Andromeda is Queen of the Tala, my people.” My adopted people. The Tala hadn’t exactly embraced my presence in Annfwn, but at least there I wasn’t branded a criminal. “Of course I follow her commands. And good thing, too—was I supposed to let you die in childbirth?” Ami had nearly bled out before I reached her. Another set of nightmare images I’d never shake.
“I’m grateful, naturally.” She stared steadily ahead now, her jaw tight, pressing her lips together like she did when she tried not to weep. I steeled myself against offering comfort. She wouldn’t want it, not from the man who distressed her in the first place. “But I can see that it’s been unfair of me to keep you with me for so long. I know I’m selfish, and I forget to pay attention to what other people want and need, but I’ve been trying to be a better person.”
I groaned to myself and concentrated on prying Astar’s chubby fingers out of my horse’s mane. The little brat had all of his mother’s tenacity. “You’re not selfish, Ami. I came to you of my own free will. And then you needed me to get Stella back. I offered to help you.”
“I know.” Her usually musical voice sounded small, and she scrubbed tears off her cheeks, just like Stella during one of her rages. “But I should have released you before this. Once we got the twins back safely, I should have told you to go.”
She shouldn’t have needed to tell me. I should have left sooner. As soon as we recovered Stella. But I hadn’t been able to make myself go. Would it have been easier then? I’d been braced for it, but then one thing had led to the next, and she hadn’t sent me away. I’d maybe begun to nurse a spot of hope that she never would, despite practicing daily for this moment.
“I’m sorry,” I told her, though for my pain or her distress, I wasn’t sure. “I should have gone then.”
She nodded, sniffling. “It would have been better.” Her voice caught on a little sob and Stella caught a whiff of her misery—a miracle it had taken that long—looked up at her, wrinkling her face in a mirror of her mother’s, the toddler’s tears welling up, too.
“Don’t cry, Mommy!”
Astar looked over and his own face crumpled, not out of the same magically fueled empathy as Stella’s, but through the nearly as magical connection to his twin. He sent up a wail, reaching so suddenly for his mother that I barely caught him before he tumbled from the saddle. Fortunately, though I couldn’t shapeshift—far too late for me to learn, if I ever even could have—I possessed enough shapeshifter speed to match his. His cries turned furious, and he fought my grip, turning into a black bear cub, raking my wrists and hands with his claws. I hissed at the sting, red blood running as if from the wound in my heart.
Stella, not to be outdone, screeched like an owl. Driven by her mother’s emotions, which she felt but couldn’t understand, she became a golden-furred mountain lion cub and leapt from the saddle, bounding off into the snow. Astar tried to follow, growing ever more furious at being restrained.
“Let him go.” Ami threw up her hands. “We won’t get them settled again until they’ve blown off some steam.”
I did as commanded, letting Astar run off after his sister. Their Tala nurses, who’d been flying above in bird form, darted after them, keeping them in sight. Ami watched them go, her face determinedly averted.
“Let’s move off the road,” I said. “Might as well take a break.”
She nodded. “I’ll bind up your scratches for you.”
“Thank you,” I answered, knowing I sounded stiff. Better, though, than asking how she planned to bandage my mortally wounded heart.
2
“I never intended to cause you pain, Ami,” I told the top of her head as she worked to clean the cuts. Brutally insufficient words to describe the depth of what I’d never intended. Beginning with laying a finger on her royal, unblemished skin. Even with her tending me out of simple sympathy, in broad view of the travelers on the main highway, the least brush of her fingers on my skin brought up the insatiable lust for her, hard and hot.
She looked up at me and creaked out a smile through still damp eyes. “I know that. And you’ve made me so happy.” She took a deep breath. “I always understood, though, that this was temporary.”
“We both understood that, from the first night by the lake.”
Her smile went tremulous. “When I seduced you, despite your better judgement.”
I laughed, though it never comes out right. It always sounds more like a groan scraping out of my scarred throat. “Everything with you has been against my better judgement, Ami. And I’ve never been able to help myself. You burn so bright.”
“Like staring into the sun,” she said, an oddly sorrowful crease at the corners of her eyes. Her innate magic made her beautiful even in tears and other extremes of emotion—and my passionate queen ranged through many extremes—so rarely did she look as she did now, smudged with unhappiness, dented by my careless handling of her. “Do you remember when you said that to me? You said you were afraid you’d come away burned and blinded.”
“I remember,” I allowed. I did so much better with silence. I should never have broken my vow. If I hadn’t, we wouldn’t have come to this pass.