Chapter Sixteen Kian
Adela stands watching the pyres burn, half-crumpled into herself. I ache to go to her, wrap her up in my arms and smooth back her hair around the phoenix skull and give her kisses. It’s the sort of caregiving and emotional support I didn’t think I was capable of wanting.
And I’m sure I’m not capable of successfully providing.
Honestly, I wouldn’t mind some soothing myself.
The funerals were gruesome.
I’m not surprised they stopped the dragon-fire burnings in the temple square if this was what they were like. The scent of rancid meat cooking mingles with the warm, pleasant aromas of the herbs and oils used to prepare the bodies.
Only this was surely worse. At least the order funerals involve whole bodies.
Today not a single body that we burned was whole.
Bile rises, remembering how they all looked up on their pyres.
Partial bodies prepared to burn. The creatures had no heads.
The former matcher and Brother Thad were both missing significant chunks of themselves to the dragon.
The only thing I’ve experienced that felt more violent was my parents’ executions.
The phoenix throws feelings at me, urging me to go to Adela. I know she blames herself for it all. But I can’t. Because there’s only the tiniest bit of dragon fire right there in front of me and my destiny waits just past the jackalope warrens. Which I now know how to get past, thanks to Cecelia.
I take a small stick and shove it deep into the embers, waiting to see if it will light and hold a flame. It does.
Thank the Goddess.
It’s a small enough flame that I think it’ll go unnoticed in the midafternoon light.
I’m sure I can smuggle it into my room and keep it burning.
I have the candles already, so I just have to wait.
Apparently jackalopes only mate during storms, and when they do it is…
fervent. So the moment lightning strikes or thunder rolls, they are too busy with their amorous pursuits to pay attention to strangers in their territories.
I’ll be able to get past them and to the hut.
And then, poof.
The skulls will be gone.
I think of Adela as I traipse back to my room. She really could use a friend. But of course, she has Cecelia. She doesn’t need me. They’re so close, and I imagine what that would be like. To have someone who actually sees all of you, knows all of you, and still loves you.
I haven’t had that since my parents died, and I don’t need it now.
Just after the midday meal the next day, I take Adela back to my room.
I offer her a bit of the whiskey that I snagged from the kitchens my first night in the valley.
She takes it with a small smile and downs it in one gulp, holding the glass out for a refill.
I oblige, nervous about how much she might drink.
“Thirsty?” I say as I pour her another glass, slightly less full than the first.
“Nervous,” she admits, and sets the small amber glass down on the bedside table beside the burning dragon-fire candle. “I’ve never been ordered to perform before.”
“Lucky you,” I reply, not thinking.
She looks at me with such an expression of horror that I can see it even past the skull covering most of her face. “That’s so hard.”
Her compassion, the easy way she seems to see me, makes me squirm. I shrug. “It’s not as bad as it sounds.”
Or probably as direct as she was thinking.
It’s not as if I’d been coerced by someone in particular into sex.
I’ve never been assaulted or had any of the tragedies that regularly happen to people happen to me.
But I have a goal I’ve been chasing at any cost since my teens.
And if using my body to ingratiate myself was required, well then, I did what I needed to.
Like with Thad.
“If you’d like to talk about it, I’d be happy to listen,” she says softly.
“Absolutely not.” I can think of nothing worse. If I open up even a little bit, she’ll ask more questions, and the last thing I need is the matcher to find out my ultimate goal is to destroy all of her precious skulls.
Or worse, to know me.
Adela’s beautifully rounded shoulders slump at my harsh tone, and I feel guilty at the cruelty of my response to her kindness. I enjoy her. I enjoy our connection.
I have a ping of worry about this community after the disappearance of the skulls is discovered. They subsist largely through the offerings of the orders, which will surely stop the moment they can no longer provide skulls for matching.
Deaths happen in the valley all the time, so it’s not as if they will permanently go away, but it will take a generation or more for them to ramp up production of skull matching to its current levels. My actions will have a broad, and devastating, impact.
I have a moment of wondering if I should follow Aunt Ujvala’s advice and abandon this path of revenge. For Adela and her community.
But no.
This is the right step to disrupt the entire system, and it can’t be a simple blip and still be effective.
The old ways have to crumble for new, better ways.
Instead of hoarded resources that prioritize the wealthy and withhold from the poor or disadvantaged, the community gardens and fresh foods could be open for all.
Education and art could have more space to exist without common laborers having to work so hard just to make their tithes.
And a more decentralized leadership could have space to form, where each of the orders had an equal voice and the ability to influence society in ways that feel good to their various missions, instead of the Huntress always having final say because they are the largest and wealthiest order.
If only Adela’s community didn’t have to suffer for the greater good.
I reach out and stroke a finger along one of those beautiful shoulders, enjoying the way she leans into my touch, like I am something comforting instead of destructive.
Part of me wishes this connection we share could be real and lasting.
“But thank you for the offer. It’s just… not something I like to talk about.”
She places a hand on my knee. “I’m here if you change your mind.” It’s an innocent enough touch. No doubt meant to comfort, but still, it enflames me. I move closer, hovering over her.
“There are more fun things we could talk about.” I wrap an arm around her back, moving slowly, unsure how she feels at this moment. Obviously she’d been eager to have her way with me just days ago, and it’s not as if we were forced into the room at knife point. She walked here willingly.
But I want to make sure she’s as interested as I am.
And I am interested.
My body instantly wants her. I love the softness of her. The smell of her. The noises she makes deep in her throat, involuntarily, as she arches into me, pressing her breasts against my arm and chest as she twists toward me.
“Hey, beauty,” I say as I lean forward to access her mouth.
She pulls back.
Instantly, I loosen my grip. I’m still touching her, but she can scoot away easily if she wants to.
“Problem?” I ask. My voice is deep and soft with desire.
“I don’t want the beak to scratch you,” she admits. Then she chuckles. “And the stubborn part of me doesn’t want to do this. Just because we’re supposed to.”
Her eyes flash with mischief. I think of the way she took me in the pantry, the way she rode me, how she came. I think Adela may like playing with power.
“Rebelling can be very fun,” I agree. “Let’s not have sex.”
Instantly, she deflates, which makes my body even more excited. She wants me, too. “Okay, sure. Let’s not.” I can hear the forced chipperness.
“Or at least, not the kind they expect.” I lean close, nearly pressing my lips to her ear. I lick at the lobe, and then say, “There are lots of other ways to find and bring pleasure.”
She exhales a shuddering breath and arches close to me again. I nip at her ear, and she gasps. “Yes.”
I reach to strip her of her clothes. Her thighs have been haunting me for days, and I cannot wait to see her body naked before me, but she wiggles away. “Yours first.”
It’s not shyness that wants me unrobed before her.
I can see it in her eyes; it’s pure, naked lust. She wants to see me.
And I want her to see me. I take off my outer robe.
As it falls to the floor, I say, “I want to taste you. I want the skin of your neck, of your shoulders, salty with sweat from our bodies moving together, on my tongue.”
She licks her lips, listening, watching. She leans back on her elbows on the bed, and it takes everything in me not to jump on top of her. “Where else would you like to taste me?”
“Your nipples.” I think of the milkiness of her breasts, with their large pink nipples and how responsive they were to my touch. “I want to make them hard with my tongue, with my teeth.”
“I want to make you hard with my tongue, with my teeth,” she replies, looking up and down my body. I am very obviously already hard. “Or harder, I suppose.”
My hand slips as I try to remove my inner robe and tunic in one motion. I get them half-twisted around my head, trip over the discarded outer robe, and nearly fall to the floor.
She chuckles, and then stops as I discard the clothes. I am now bare except for thin linen breeches. Her eyes trace the tattoos that cover my torso and arms, symbols of the Huntress that will always be with me. “Oh, you are beautiful.”
She reaches out, and though we are just supposed to be talking, I immediately go to her.
I cannot resist her touch. She traces fingertips up and down my shoulders, chest, arms, and belly.
Her touch is so light it’s nearly painful.
I feel as if she is touching my soul itself, and a part of me wants to run, far and fast.
Not from her, but from the part of myself that wants this, desperately.
“Now these,” she commands, hooking a single finger at the waistband of my breeches.
I focus on the physical and push aside any feelings.
It’s just lust.