But everything was too much.
She tucked the blankets beneath her chin, stared at the shadowy silhouettes of drying rue and late roses, strips of mint, dill, starweed, and rowan berries. They hung in clusters and bouquets from the rafters, filling the cottage with a delicate perfume that held its own even against the ash of the fire and the wet, angry wind slipping fingers of peaty air under the door.
Elia closed her eyes. This dark cottage in the center of the storm was like the heart of an old oak tree, its damp, warm, black womb hollowed out for a nest, readied for a long winter’s sleep. She’d huddled inside such an oak before, listening to its heartbeat, to the slow drawl of its dreams. There had been tiny green beetles and glittering dirt, the impossibly slow growth of roots, and the strong walls of the tree around her, reaching up and up into the night sky, a protective ceiling of black branches. And she had shared it with Ban.
The Fox is my spy.
A crack of wood and gust of wind startled Elia up.
She scrambled to her feet, blanket pulled tight to her chest. The cottage door hung open, and a man stood there. Lightning flashed behind him, presenting him as a solid black creature covered in streaks and droplets of water that glistened like the stars in the sky.
He stepped in. Wind picked water off his hair and shoulders, flinging it at Elia, as he struggled to shut the door against the gale.
It slammed closed, and there he braced against it.
This star-shadow man had on boots and a soldier’s trousers, a linen shirt molded by water to his shoulders and back like a thin second skin. No coat or hood, no sword even. His black, choppy hair stuck out in thick twists and tattered braids, all of it heavy with rain. An earth saint, regurgitated by the storm.
Elia stepped forward. Her throat tightened; her fingers went cold and her face hot.
He groaned, his shoulders shaking like a sick man’s.
“Ban?” she whispered.
His head hung as he pushed away from the door, turning. He stumbled, and Elia caught him around the waist with a grunt. Cold water soaked the long wool shirt Brona had given her to sleep in. She half dragged, half led Ban Errigal to the bed. “Sit.”
He collapsed upon it.
“Get this off,” she said firmly, struggling to lift his shirt. Clumsily, he helped. She pulled it over his head and threw it aside, crouching to begin the arduous process of untying the wrapped, tall boots. His breath rattled harsh in his mouth and teased the curls atop her head. Elia’s fingers were dull and heavy, but she got one boot undone and tugged it hard. His hand fell against her hair, and Elia tilted her chin up to look through the darkness at Ban’s face.
“Elia?” he whispered. Passion or fever or some desperate thing burned in his ghostly eyes. Ban did not seem so wildly beautiful as that day so many weeks ago when she’d last seen him. Tonight, he was desolate, young, and lost.
“Help me get this off,” she said. “You need to be warm.”
She focused again on the other boot, struggling to accept that Ban Errigal, the roots of her heart—and yet an Aremore spy!—was adrift, and breaking, and here.
After a moment, he obeyed her, removing his boots. “Now out of those pants,” she said, going abruptly to the fire. Her hands were dirty with mud and bits of the forest he’d brought inside with him. She grabbed a handful of tinder and threw it into the hearth, then poked at the embers with an iron rod to wake them hurriedly. There was plenty of wood to feed it, if she could get it going again.
He stood up behind her; she heard a quiet rustle as he did what she’d instructed. Elia’s breath was taut and fast, and as she listened she pictured it; pictured Ban stripping off his trousers and smallclothes, hopefully wrapping up in a blanket or something Brona kept, for surely he knew where such things might be found.
The fire’s heat tightened the skin of her face, especially her dry lips, but Elia built it up, unblinking, no matter how the flames blazed in her eyes.
“Are you real?”
Ban’s voice, so close behind her.
Elia dropped the iron rod as she stood and turned to face him.
He was naked but for the blanket around his shoulders like a cloak. Barely taller than her, barely broader, and bruised, scraped raw, and dirty. His brow furrowed and he watched her with those forceful mud-green eyes. Firelight caught in them: the flicker of a faraway bonfire through miles of black forest, a candle trapped at the base of a well.
“I’m real,” Elia whispered, finally.
“I didn’t expect … to find you here.”
She stepped nearer to him. “Nor I you, but it is … right. This is where you’re from, and the storm…” If it had brought them both here, was the island itself responsible? Here, the person she needed most right now. Ban was everything wild and cherished about Innis Lear: the shadowy trees, the harsh stone pillars, the windy moors and deep cutting gorges. The aching, curling waves of the sea. The danger and secrets. Of course he appeared tonight, reminding her what she needed—loved—about this forsaken place. Compared to the sun-warm coast of Aremoria and its equally bright, powerful king, Ban Errigal was everything she’d missed of her home. No matter his intentions, or perhaps even more because of them. Lies and secrets were part of Innis Lear, too.
“It brought us here,” Ban murmured.
Elia kissed him, surprising them both.
She pressed her entire body to his, and grabbed his sopping, unruly hair.
His lips were cold, but he opened them, and his mouth was hot.
Elia had never kissed anyone like this: hungrily and in a rage of sudden passion. It overwhelmed her, and she clung to Ban’s head, to his neck. She kissed the corner of his mouth, sucked at his bottom lip. He tasted like mud and salt, and ever so slightly of blood. She wanted all of it, to consume him, to make him part of her, like the island was part of her.
And then Ban was kissing her back, truly and eagerly. His arms came around her, and Elia wrapped hers around his neck, leaning up onto her toes. The blanket fell away from his shoulders and flapped to the earthen floor. His skin was so cold, but he was hard and lean as a sword. She felt her belly against his, her breasts flat against his chest; but for her thin wool shirt nothing separated their skin. Elia could hardly breathe at the realization. Her fingers dug into Ban’s shoulders, both excited and afraid.
She knew—from crude things Gaela had said, from Brona and Regan that week when Elia was thirteen, from listening to her father’s retainers when she shouldn’t have, from stories Aefa told, and her own cautious curiosity—she knew exactly what her body was asking for, and what the dangers were, what the joys might be. Elia slid away from Ban and said his name softly.
He studied her face, panting barely, just enough so she could see the pink promise of his tongue and a crescent shine of teeth in the firelight. “Elia,” he breathed back.
There were so many years and lies between them. They were practically strangers, but for memory and hope.
It was enough.
She pulled him to the low bed, holding her eyes on his face because she was too panicky and delighted and inflamed to look anywhere else. He allowed himself to be led, to be shoved gently down. Elia climbed on top of Ban, stretching out along his whole body. It was so dark but for the glow of firelight, and her curls fell around her face as she leaned over him, making them a private chapel of hair and eyes, noses and mouths.
Elia kissed him gently. Ban tentatively touched her hair, petting it reverently as she kissed, as she brushed her lips on his again and again, like tiny sips, shallow gasps of love. He dug his hands into her curls until he found her skull and tilted her head before leaning up off the pillow to kiss her more deeply.