I glanced down. Through the marks our boots had made in the dirt, I saw the amazing pattern of the tiles. I knelt beside him, and we both used our hands to smooth away the years of dust. The colors still thrived, each tile intricate and unique, beauty spilling from one square to the next.
“My father told me that he had many arguments with my mother about these floors,” Cartier explained, sitting back on his heels.
“Why?”
“Well, he had them laid for her, because she loved art. And she had always told him that floors were sorely unappreciated. But the conflict lay in that she wanted to be able to admire them, and he wanted rugs. Stone and tile floors are miserably cold during autumn and winter in Maevana.”
“Yes, I can imagine,” I said.
“So they argued about the floors. To cover them with rugs, or to suffer cold feet for half of the year.”
“I imagine your mother won?”
“You imagine right.” Cartier smiled. He brushed the dirt from his hands and stood. “So, my little passion. I surmise you have come to my lovely home because I still have something of yours?”
I stood, feeling my muscles pull sore and tight from the ride. I walked to the bookcases, suddenly needing something solid to lean on. My pulse was skipping, anxious, hungry, as I leaned against the wall, as I turned and looked at him, through sunlight and dust motes.
“Yes, Master Cartier,” I said, knowing it was the last time I would ever address him as such.
I watched as he moved to the other side of the room, where his satchel rested on a desk. My fingers spread behind me on the cold marble of the shelves as I waited for him. When I saw the color of blue in his hands, I closed my eyes, listened to my heart dance steady and slow.
“Open your eyes, Brienna.”
When I did, the cloak unfolded in his hands, rippling to brush the floor as the tide of the ocean.
“Aviana,” I whispered, my fingers moving to catch the rich tumble of the cloak that was mine. He had chosen Aviana for me, the constellation that accompanied his own. They were stars that, like his Verene, bespoke of bravery in darkness, of triumph. Of steadfastness.
“Yes,” he said. “And we both know that Verene would have no hope of light without Aviana.”
I stepped forward as he brought the cloak about my shoulders, as he fastened the draws at my collar. Then his hands gently gathered my hair, lifting it up and letting it fall down my back, the Corogan flowers casting a sweet fragrance between us.
A master and his passion. A passion and her master.
I met his gaze and breathed, “This is all that I am, all that I can offer you . . .”
I am broken and treacherous, I am divided . . .
But the words faded when he touched me, when his fingertips traced my cheek, down my neck, stopping when he reached my cloak strings, the very knot he had made.
For once, he gave me no words, this master of knowledge, this lord of the Swift. But he answered me. He kissed the left corner of my mouth, the girl I had once been who he had first loved, Valenian grace and passion. And then he kissed the right corner of my lips, the woman I had become, who had risen from ashes and steel, courage and fire.
“I will take and love all of you, Brienna MacQuinn, your shadows and your light, for you have challenged me; you have captivated me. And I desire no other but you,” he whispered, his fingers tangling in my hair, in my wildflowers, as he drew me close to him.
He kissed me in the quiet shadows of his house, in the sweetest hour of afternoon, when light desires to surrender to evening. His fingers trailed down my back, touching every star he had given me. And I let the wonder cascade around us as I tasted each of his promises, as I woke the fire that he had long tempered in wait for me.
Time became luminous, as if the moon had married the sun, the minutes eventually tugging on my heart to make me see how late it was, that night had almost fallen. And I remembered that I had someplace to be, that I had a father and a brother who would be watching the door for my return. Only then did I break our kiss, although Cartier’s hands pressed to my back, keeping me close.
I laid my finger over his lips and said, “My father has invited you to dinner in our hall. We had better leave now, or else he will think the worst.”
Cartier dared to steal one more kiss and then he let me go, gathering his cloak and his satchel. We stepped out into the dusk together, weaving back through the weeds; the nightingales sang for his return, the crickets chirped one final melody before the frost could officially silence them.
I mounted my horse and waited as Cartier saddled his gelding, looking up as first star winked in the fading sunset. And that was when I stated, “I am going to build a House of knowledge here.”
This was what I had told Merei before she left Maevana, hoping it would draw her back, hoping she would unite her passion with mine.
I felt Cartier’s gaze shift to me, and I turned in the saddle to meet it.
“I only want the very best of arials to teach my ardens,” I continued. “Do you know where I may find one?”
The wind tousled his hair as he smiled at me, a gleam of midnight in his eyes as he rose to my challenge. “I know of one.”
“Tell him to apply at once.”
“Don’t worry. He will.”
I smiled and nudged my horse forward, leaving Cartier behind to catch me on the road.
I wondered if I could truly do this, if I could build the first House of knowledge in Maevana, if I could inspire the passions in a land of warriors. When it felt daunting, when it felt like I was pressing against immovable stone, I imagined a group of bright-eyed Maevan girls becoming passions of knowledge, girls who wore swords at their sides beneath blue cloaks. I imagined picking their constellations from the sky, and realized that Cartier had been right at the solstice; I was a historian as I was a teacher, and I was about to carve my path.
I will raise this House. I breathed my promise to the wind just as I heard Cartier’s horse cantering behind me, closing the distance between us.
I eased, just a bit, to let him catch me.
Above us, the stars burned, slow and steady. Their light guided me home.