23 Understanding
She woke to the realization that she had seen someone else’s dream again.
She finally knew whose it was.
Night had fallen outside Méherre’s domus. The cozy space lay on the very edge of Aelius’s Quarter, surprisingly close to the Grains Guild horreum that had begun the past month of terror. Here, in this strange quiet gifted by snow and seclusion, she could almost pretend that none of it had happened.
Upon arrival, Harion, Cassandane, and Anek had discarded their robes for cloaks and a determination to drink themselves insensate at the closest tavern.
She had lain on one of the couches, meaning to join them.
Looks like I fell asleep first. A thick blanket curled under her shoulders, and she knew who that would have been too.
He stood outside, staring at the gloaming, the eyes long since having disappeared from the sky.
No one had wanted to speak of it. She finally understood what might have made Kadra keep the fact that he was Godstouched from her. And the rest of it.
Still covered in soot, she washed her face and pilfered Méherre’s well-stocked cupboards to prepare a simple vegetable stew. Despite her dislike of the south, the Bridger seemed to have been planning to move here, given the extensive array of herbs and spices arranged neatly on the shelves.
The front door parted. Kadra’s near-soundless steps came through the atrium and halted upon sighting her ladling stew into two bowls.
“I’m a little out of practice,” she admitted. “But Arsamea never complained about my cooking.”
His throat worked for a moment before he sat across her. The spoon dipped past the stern line of his lips and paused. His brows rose.
“I can see why.” His arresting eyes traced her with soft indulgence. “Do you enjoy cooking?”
“More so now when I don’t have to do it,” she mused. “I wonder if that’ll be the same with this job.” Unspoken was the question of whether she had one anymore. If the land even had a government now.
“It will be.” His gaze grew tender. “And you’d still want to do it.”
Heat built behind her eyes. Worry. Fear. Gratitude that they were here together. “When did you first fall in love with me?”
His fingers paused on the spoon. Black eyes found hers. He smiled slowly. “Hmm?”
“Never mind,” she muttered, flushing when his eyes traced her like silk, amusement flaring in their depths when she hurriedly stood to search for a mysterious third spoon they didn’t need.
“This is unexpected.” He prowled after her, lifting her on top of the table when she tried to sidle away. He caged her with his arms, his smile widening. “My stoic Petitor seems to have vanished.”
“You’ll have her back if you let me off this table,” she grumbled, embarrassed. “I don’t mean to pry. You don’t have to—”
“The day we sheltered under a tree during stormfall,” he said in the slow, deep timbre she loved. “You looked up at me, and I craved you. I didn’t want you afraid of me.” The humor faded from his stern face. “I wanted to shield you from everything, and I knew I couldn’t.”
Oh. Heat suffused her face as she realized that she was grinning ear-to-ear. He looked fascinated at the sight.
She leaned in. “I loved you first. Since the night you took me to free the Metals Guild debt-slaves.”
“Six days.” A world of surprise in his voice. He stroked her cheek tenderly. “Even after the Fall, Sarai?”
She leaned against his forehead. “You’re everything I’ve ever yearned for.” His sudden harsh breath against her mouth told her just how much the words had affected him. She found herself crushed against his chest, his mouth moving ardently over hers in a kiss so hungry that she went liquid.
“Dinner, first, yes?” she finally tore her mouth away to whisper.
He reluctantly set her free. They ate in companionable quiet.
“Do you think people will flock to the Elsarian Order and Noceo now that they’ve been proven right?”
His teeth flashed in a rare, genuine grin. “It’s a terrible time to be the Order. The populace will be looking for divine solutions to a divine problem. And the Inquisitors won’t be able to offer so much as a Summoning.”
Sarai nearly choked on her stew with a laugh. “Gods! I shouldn’t gloat, but it serves them right.”
“Let them do as they wish and run amok with religious authoritarianism for the next few days. We’ll find who called this god and why.”
Her spoon clattered against her bowl. “You don’t think I caused it?” she asked quietly.
“No.” He reached for her hand with a hesitance that she hadn’t ever seen in him and exhaled heavily when she took it.
“How old are you?” she asked after a moment. “There’s so much I don’t… know.”
His jaw tensed, but his answer was soft. “Almost twenty-five.” A corner of his mouth rose at her doubletake. “Too old?” he asked whimsically.
“It’s just odd to hear you say it aloud. You’ve the gravitas of the Kaycakh Mountains, and it turns out that you’re barely a quarter century? It boggles the mind.”
He traced the back of her hand like she was infinitely precious, absently following a scar’s weave.
“How does one fight a god, Kadra?”
“With another god,” he said, low and quiet. He’d already thought this through.
Anguish boiled in the back of her throat. “You never did say which god claimed you.”
The smile faded from his face. “Do you truly want to know?”
She understood what he really meant. “Yes.”
His hand stilled on hers. All levity vanished, his features could have been carved from slate.
Tension built in his shoulders as they finished their meal, seeping to the lean muscle of his forearms. By the time she had reached the bedroom Méherre had indicated they could use, her perennially trembling fingers shook even worse with nerves.
Inhaling deeply, she turned to Kadra. “We should probably…” The words died in her throat.
He stood before the wardrobes, hands fisted, knuckles straining against the skin as he fought to collect himself.
Well, shit. One way or another, this would be a reckoning.
There was no one to interrupt them. The adrenaline she had tried to contain finally wrested control, turning her limbs into springs of unreleased tension when he turned to her.
“I said I would give you everything.” Limned in the wintry glow of twilight, he seemed hewn of ice and granite. Only the sparks hissing the air spoke to his fraying control. “Eleven years—”
“Not out of guilt,” she bit out. “I won’t have you this way.”
The silence between them was thick, fiery. The last time she had seen him like this had been when he had believed her a spy, but tonight, his anger was directed inward.
“How?” The words were too quiet for all their weight. They struck like ice—a gradual slither down her body.
“Obligated.” Her throat locked until she almost couldn’t speak. “Yes, I want to know. But when you tell me, it’ll be because you want to. Not because I forced the words before you were ready.”
“I hurt you.” There was a darkness to his eyes now. “And he did too.”
Her throat closed, not ready to think about it yet. “And I’ll make him pay. But Noceo doesn’t matter to me. You do. I think I know why you didn’t tell me, and that’s what burns, Kadra.”
It would have mattered little if he weren’t ready to speak of his past. She knew all too well what it was like to hold a secret that was hard to utter. But that wasn’t why he had kept these.
“We can speak of your reasons.” Her heart felt like a thousand boil beetles had torn through it when he stayed quiet. “But do not give me your secrets until you acknowledge that you hid them because you thought that I wasn’t strong enough for them.”
“Never.”
While she struggled to understand that, he flicked a finger at the silent hearth between them, and it roared to life to paint his face in grim swaths of red and umber.
Warmth foolishly uncurled in her gut at the familiarity of the sight, at the knowledge that she could make the cruel slash of his mouth tip upward in a smile.
He watched her too, something raw and fierce painting his hard face with a flush.
She didn’t move when he took a step forward, and cradled her cheek in his palm, holding it featherlight. He gripped her hand and brought it to his pulse. It throbbed beneath her fingertips, sending hunger arcing through her veins.
“I say this, because I want you to know.” The voice she adored devolved to a scarred rasp. “I have never had anyone to call mine.”
Her pulse stuttered against her sternum, memories besieging her of the nights he spent in her, his guttural praise, the desperate, hungry way he took her, and one word. One vow. Every time. Yours.
Yours.
He tilted her head up, his hand tightening on her cheek when her breath hitched. “I’ve been… happy.” He said it with the wonderment of a man who was new to the word. “Since the first night you crossed the threshold into Aoran Tower. I didn’t want it to end.”
She wet her lips with her tongue. His thumb traced the motion. “Why would it end?”
“You’ll—”
“Leave? Have you tried and convicted me already?” She fisted a hand in his soot-stained robes to pull him closer. “At least, allow me to plead my case.”
His eyes glittered. “You aren’t on trial.”
“So, you are?” An aching warmth hummed over her body, seeping down to the spaces between her toes. She flattered her grip on his robes to press her palm to his chest. “And have you gone and found yourself guilty? Or did you assume that I would?”
His rough exhale said that her reasoning had struck home. Broad fingers slid over the ones she had splayed over him, nudging her grip wider so he could interlock their hands. Every bone in her body begged her to draw closer.
Letting go, she stepped back. “I’m yours,” she whispered. “Let me know when you decide to believe it.”
Fighting tears, she pushed open the door to the adjoining bathing room, and stripped off her blood-and-dust-covered clothes to sink into the granite bathtub. She loved him. She craved him. But it wasn’t enough for her to have his heart if he doubted that he had hers.
“Noceo and I aren’t too different.”