The girl sat silent, watching everything. Watching Marith. Marith kept trying not to look at her. She kept trying to look at him.
That is not a good idea, girl, Tobias wanted to shout. Really not. And that’s not just sour grapes on my part ’cause you’d not look at me like that if I was begging you for it on my hands and knees.
Just get it over with and get a room, another part of him wanted to shout. This is getting embarrassing here. I’ve already got you a room, in fact.
Whatever you decide to do, he wanted to shout, just do it. This is making my teeth ache. Come on. You killed a dragon, Marith boy. You’re a sodding prince. She’s whistling for you. Your life can’t be that bad.
The girl looked straight at Marith. Marith looked back. She smiled. They got up together. Walked out of the room and up the stairs. A couple of people hooted approval.
Marith hadn’t even stopped to finish his drink.
‘Bugger,’ said Rate. ‘That’s my chances blown, then.’
‘We should have warned her,’ said Alxine.
‘Your chances too. So you’re jealous of her, you mean.’ Rate tried to look nasty and witty: ‘Actually, on second thoughts, she’ll come round to me pretty quick. Just have to wait for him to puke on her or do that thing where he cries and bangs his head against the wall.’
‘Exactly. We should have warned her,’ said Alxine again.
Tobias nodded, guilty. We should. And it was going to be considerably harder to ditch her now, too.
‘Why?’ said Rate irritably. ‘Why should we have warned her? Why is she even here? Lord Prince there says she’s coming with us, doesn’t even know her name at that point, she’s standing there with dirt in her hair and eyes like a scared kitten, and we just somehow go along with it. The city’s burning around us so we take a bloody woman along when we decide to escape it, just because he says so. Why? That’s the question, isn’t it? None of us can answer it. We brought her along because … None of us know why. Because the boy would have shouted and cried otherwise. Because we’re bloody idiots. Because she’s got a truly amazing behind. Witchcraft, maybe.’ He got up. He and Marith were supposed to be sharing a room. ‘Well, I might as well get another jug of beer. I assume I’m on your floor tonight, unless our fair lovers are feeling particularly generous with their affections.’
Thalia lay awake for a long time, afterwards. Marith slept curled into a ball, his hands clenched. Occasionally he would moan or whisper, shaking his head, his face contorted with pain. Even in his sleep he sometimes rubbed at his eyes; when this happened his whole body would shudder and tense. After he had done this a couple of times, Thalia reached out tentatively and stroked his face. Marith sighed gently, the weariness around his eyes relaxing for a moment, his hands releasing. He looked very young and very beautiful, her hands were black against his moon-white skin. This, more even than what had gone before, was strange and mysterious to Thalia. Her hands had killed men, and women, and children. They had dripped with blood. They had cut her own body, over and over until the scabs would never heal. Now they smoothed a man’s face and he sighed and slipped deeper and more comfortably into sleep for a little while, his expression eased, a faint sad smile on his lips.
After a time he tensed again, twitching and whimpering, clawing weakly at his mouth. She stroked his face again and his eyes opened. They stared at each other. Then Marith’s eyes closed and he rolled over away from her, mumbled something. Thalia sat up, unsure whether to leave. It was so hard to sleep, with someone else beside her. She had not slept with anyone else in the same room as her since she was five years old and drew the red lot. The sound of Marith’s breathing was loud and almost hypnotic: she could not stop listening to it, following its patterns, trying to find words in it. Simply the sense of someone else present was haunting. Frightening. The inn itself was noisy, the night outside noisy. She was used to silence and utter darkness, the great weight of her God blotting out all sound. Marith twitched again and cried out.
Not a bad choice, she thought almost in amusement. If the High Priestess of Great Tanis Who Rules All Things was to abandon her allotted calling, it was only fitting it should be in the company of a high-born prince and one of her God’s enemies. Then the boy whimpered in his sleep again, twisting his hands, and it seemed absurd he should be either.
She slept, and suddenly there was soft grey light filling the room and the sound of voices in the road outside. A dog barked, a voice called out to it to come to heel; goats bleated; a cock crowed. Marith was sitting up, watching her. He smiled when he saw she was awake. He looked so perfect her breath caught and a stab of pain darted through her body like bright water, the dawn sun picking out the fine high bones of his face, the muscles of his shoulders, the hollow at the base of his throat. His eyes were soft and amused, cool grey like rain clouds. He blinked as she gazed at him, his eyelashes brushing the blue shadows beneath his eyes. He had long eyelashes, long as a girl’s or a child’s, deep black and almost shot with gold.
His face was slightly marred, she saw now that she was so close to him in the bright morning light. Fine silver lines, like faint traceries of lace, curled outwards from around his eyes, almost imperceptible against the creamy white skin.
‘You’re beautiful,’ she said without thinking, then blushed.
He laughed and lay back on the rough pillow. ‘Not as beautiful as you. Good morning.’
Thalia sat up in confusion, pulling the blanket around her. She was naked, and he was looking at her. ‘You don’t … you don’t mind that I’m still here?’ she said.
‘Well, I suppose theoretically I’ve wasted the money I spent on a room for you.’ He reached over and kissed her mouth, pulling her down into his arms. ‘I don’t mind in the least. Certainly not compared to some of the ways I’ve woken up …’ His eyes glittered. ‘So: in the last month I have killed a dragon, burnt a sorcerer alive with his own spells and deflowered the High Priestess of the Great Temple of Sorlost. I don’t think even Amrath Himself could make that claim.’
Thalia twisted away from him. ‘Don’t … don’t say it like that.’ Disgust and desire. Desire and disgust.
‘I’m sorry.’ He took her hand and rolled her back towards him. ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’ She frowned at him and he smiled ruefully, his eyes alight and sparkling. Why had she thought there was darkness in him? He shone with bright clear light. He looked so young, so full of pride in himself. ‘Well, no, actually, I probably did. But really, as drinking boasts go, bedding the holiest woman in the Sekemleth Empire is pretty impressive, you know.’