Chapter 25
Masks and Promises
Chyr
W
armth blooms like magic from Flora’s skin. She sleeps nestled against me beneath the tangled plaids that cover us, and waking beside her after what we did is a bittersweet ache. I was selfish to bed her, but I wanted—want—her more than I can remember ever wanting a woman.
The weight of what I’ve done tightens my chest, crashing into me all at once.
Flora will be furious when she learns the truth. She won’t care that I tried to warn her.
As if she feels me watching, she opens sleep-soft eyes and blinks up at me, her colour rising as the memories surface.
“Hello,” she whispers with a fragile smile.
The sun is setting, warming the light within the cavern and setting her hair on fire. I drink in the sight.
“How do you feel?” My voice sounds rough.
“Good.” She tips her head, considering. “Stronger. Your magic did more than give me pleasure, didn’t it?” Raising herself on one elbow, she places a palm across the healing scar that cleaves my chest. “Did you give me more than you could afford to give?”
“No.” I trace the line of her jaw, then cup her cheek. She relaxes into the contact, and I lean in and claim her lips. She answers for the space of a heartbeat, meeting my hunger with her own. Then she draws back and catches my hand, turns it, and kisses my palm before letting it drop.
I’d like nothing better than to pull her back to me, to kiss my way back down her body until sounds of pleasure escape her lips. But she gets up, taking the plaid with her to wrap it self-consciously around herself as if she wants to hide her body from me.
Without the plaid, I’m bare. Flora blushes furiously and starts to turn away.
Then she stops, and her eyes trace a slow path from my head to my feet instead, as though she’s painting a memory in her mind.
My body can’t help hardening even more in response to that, and a smile of something that resembles pride tugs at the corners of Flora’s lips.
I lie back, arms folded behind my head, giving her a good look. “It’s still early, you know. We could find some new ways to use magic that we didn’t get a chance to try last night.”
Her eyes widen, and her lips part slightly, then she goes still. I see the war inside her. Denial and duty, but also curiosity, temptation. Passion. That’s there in everything she does.
Flora holds nothing back—except from herself.
That self-denial is what wins out this time, too. I see her pulling away even before she shakes her head.
“We need more food,” she says. “There’s a village not far from here, but we’ll need to get there before everyone goes to bed.”
Her voice is flatter, cooler, and she doesn’t meet my eyes. The distance between us suddenly feels more than physical.
Outside, the sun hasn’t yet fully set. Pools of light and dark still stripe the cavern floor, and I shadow-walk to stand beside her. Clasping her chin, I turn her to look at me, then I shift my hand to lay my palm along her cheek.
“What’s wrong? Do you regret what we did, sweetheart?”
She groans and tilts her head, leaning into my hand, chasing the contact. Then she rises on her toes and wraps her hands around my neck to bring her mouth to mine. It’s a deep kiss, claiming and angry, but it’s over too fast.
Her grey eyes are glazed and stormy. “It was unfair of me to ask that of you.”
“I can speak for myself. Did I not give you pleasure?”
“Too much.” She blushes again, pink racing up the long column of her throat and spilling across her cheeks. “I needed a choice, a memory, and you gave me that. I will never regret what we shared, but it can’t happen again. I have to marry—”
“No. You don’t.”
“I do.” She shakes her head and gives me a smile that tugs at my heart. “I will have to live with another man, and I have enough good sense to know the limits of what I can bear. The more I give myself to you, the more I’ll hate having to give myself to someone else.”
The thought of another man touching Flora is like a spear of ice in my heart. That’s followed by an ache of loss as I think of never being able to touch her again, never burying myself inside her, or losing myself in her fierce, generous heat.
I swallow the blow, but it settles in my chest.
Still, I’ve never yet had to talk a woman into my bed, and I won’t start now.
“If that’s what you need, that’s what will happen.” I drop a kiss on her hair, pretending to both of us that it will be as simple as that when we both know there’s still the rest of the journey to get through.
How do I turn the clock back on what I’m feeling?
I brought the horses in before we went to sleep, and I bedded them down with forage I gathered for them.
Now the cavern smells of wet stone and manure, but the mares are still drowsing, their right hind legs resting on their toes and their hindquarters steeply angled.
A tail twitches, and even that small sound suddenly seems too loud.
My eyes are locked on Flora’s, arguments milling in my head. Arguments aren’t what she needs, though.
I manage to smile and nod. Then, taking a clean shirt from the pack, I leave her with a bit of privacy while I retreat to the pool farther along the hillside and wash up as quickly as I can.
The dress, shift, and stockings that Flora left laid out on a rock in the sun are still too damp. I use a bit of magic to dry them with heated air before returning to the cavern and giving her a turn to bathe.
My regret at the situation between us hasn’t diminished, and I’m angry at myself for having allowed things to go so far. I should have expected that Flora would have regrets—and I wasn’t entirely honest with her. That thought alone unmans me.
I pack our supplies and saddle the horses while Flora has her bath, and by the time she is dressed and ready, I have my expression well-schooled and my feelings buried. I won’t make this any harder for her than it has to be.
Yet the blows keep coming.
“You should probably ride Bramble on your own now that you’re well enough,” Flora says when it’s time to leave.
She watches me carefully, biting the inside of her lip as though the suggestion makes her nervous. As though she expects me to argue.
I find my fist itching to crack the stone in the cavern wall. Not because of what she’s asking. I hate that she feels she has to tiptoe around me. I release a long, slow breath.
“If that’s what you think is best,” I say.
“With the watchfires on the far side of Loch Seil, we’ll need to take the harder route along this side. We’ll stand a better chance of outrunning patrols if we don’t ride together.”
We both know that’s not her only reason.
Partly from necessity and partly to help smooth the tension, I remove Oran’s Veilstone ring from my finger.
“We were going to experiment with your magic tonight,” I remind Flora. “And test the way you’ve been diverting it from the Veilstones—”
She looks up, her expression panicked. “No—You mean I was stealing magic from you? I didn’t think of it that way.”
“I’m not accusing you.” I shake my head. “But since you’re getting stronger, it makes sense for us to see what else you can do. We need to understand how closely your powers mirror Siorai abilities.”
Her hands are so small that the ring is too big for her thumb, much less her fingers. She folds her fist around it. “Does it matter where I put it?”
“If we’re right, you’ve been drawing on it even when you weren’t the one wearing it.”
She tucks it between her breasts and laces her bodice tight. I drag my eyes away, feeling as callow as a half-grown cub.
We ride out as the last of the sun fades, keeping to the birch woods as long as we can. A last few glints of gold and red still gleam on the dark water cradled by the shadowed hills.
The low knoll at the head of Loch Seil is too familiar, its memories tainted by trampled banners, defeat, and broken promises.
I pull Bramble to a halt, and Flora stops a few steps ahead, looking back at me with her eyebrows raised.
“This is where we planted the Sun King’s banner,” I say, “and the chiefs of the clans who rose for us came to take their oaths.”
“My father was there. He wanted to hear what the rebel had to say.”
I hate the dismissive tone she uses. “He has a name.”
“One that his followers use with a title he hasn’t earned in front of it. He’s king of nothing yet.”
“Vheara has to be stopped, regardless.”
“I won’t argue that.” Flora’s eyes are as hard as flint. “But we’d have had a better chance of stopping her before so many lives were squandered at the altar of another pretender with a pretty flag.”
My oathbands warn me that’s another dangerous topic. I take a breath and steer the subject in a slightly different—but no less painful—direction. I can’t avoid the truth.
“Vheara will consider both Bhoradail House and Gleannadail to be targets for retribution for their owners’ part in the war. It’s probably best to avoid passing near them.”
“We’ll need to avoid everyone—regardless of who they fought for. For their safety as well as ours. All the Domhnalls in Ehrugael rose for your king—”
“And I don’t want them dying for it.” The words come out more forcefully than I’d meant to. My cheeks heat, and Flora studies me with those calm eyes that see too much.
“There are no settlements on the eastern route along Loch Seil until we reach the southern tip,” she says. “It won’t be travelled much this time of year.”
She watches me as though she expects me—dares me—to argue, and the wind blows back the plaid she wears wrapped around her shoulders. She’s magnificent, and the risks I’m taking with her suddenly kick me in the chest. I’m gambling with her life and so much more.
She shouldn’t be here. Not with me.
“If you show me where to find the track, I can follow it on my own,” I say. “Regardless of settlements, you’ve seen the watchfires. We’re getting to the most dangerous part of the journey.”