“I’ve not yet confirmed the details of his birth,” said the man. “And we’ve no idea the implications of dual bloodlines—such bloodlines. Of course, he would be neither immortal nor invulnerable. You’ve not mentioned this to anyone else?”
“Certainly not. I’d sooner spread plague than dose idiots with more superstitions. It’s wretched enough to see their response when I confess that my employer is Magrog the Tormentor’s rival, while I am forbidden to reveal that he’s naught but a disease-ridden celibate with a diabolical bent for magic and an overgrown opinion of himself.”
“Someday, mistress, you truly will overstep.” Frost edged the man’s words, so bitter that my tattered soul curled into a ball and hid, certain I was fallen to hell again.
But my astringent angel laughed, her fearless merriment a silver sword banishing the demon gatzi that tried to take shape behind my eyelids. Pillows lay soft beneath my cheek; tendrils of warmth wafted from her hearth. Even the silken ties that bound my wrists and wrapped each finger made me feel safe and protected in her presence.
Receding footsteps crossed my muted chamber, then clicked on tile as they passed into a place of echoes. Behind my eyelids I envisioned a long, wide passage of clean white stone, bordered by arches hung with brightly woven curtains. The lamps that hung from the high ceiling shone, not with burning oil or lit fingers of wax and braided wick, but with the pure blue fire of daylight, held captive within their glass panes. The image held the same hard-edged truth as the angel’s hands and stray moonbeams.
Whence came such certainty? I could not have seen. I’d been a raving lunatic since well before they brought me here, my eyes covered, my ears and nose stopped to tame the agony of my senses.
“Someone’s coming to sit with him? I don’t begrudge you rest after this long siege, but I’d not have him left alone.” The man’s voice echoed faintly down the passage.
“The fellow must have some charm about him,” she said, sere as the uplands of Ardra. “Everyone seems eager to take a turn to help—even your little heart’s bane. I’ve made a schedule…”
Gatzi surged out of the corners of my mind, pricked at my skin, and drew me downward into the frozen bog. Mud and water filled my lungs, so I could only choke and gurgle, not scream.
“There, can you feel it, Brother? A marvel as we’ve not seen since we left Palinur. Awkward as this might be for us were you sensible, Saverian said that to expose your skin might do more good than harm, so…”
Hands drew stale linens away, tugging gently where they snarled my tucked limbs, carefully settling the scant weight about my hips. The touch of air on skin set off a defensive tremor deep within me where some primitive function kept my heart beating and lungs pumping. Yet it was merely sharp-edged heat that bathed my flesh.
Every nerve burst awake in that moment, not in the overstretched agonies of madness, but in a fevered baptism of delight. My lungs filled with light. My ears rang with its brazen song. I tasted its tart and searing flavor. And as heat filled my veins, I groaned and uncurled, stretching to gather more of it before hell’s minions snatched it away.
“Dear Brother, I’m sorry if this hurts you!”
My eyes flew open to dazzling brilliance, and a sweetly curved form shimmering red against the haloed light—my angel. The memory of her strong hands tending my naked flesh sent the liquid sunlight in my veins surging toward my groin and possessed me of such aching desire, I dared reach for her wrist, even as I breathed fire. “O blessed one…”
“Brother Valen, the Mother be praised! What are you—?”
I drew her close and kissed her—gently, for angels are but cloud and music and divine light, thus bruise easily. Her lips were as sweet and rich as heaven’s cream. Her silken gown flowed as water on my skin. And underneath that fabric…As my left hand fingered her bronze corona of soft hair, my right released her wrist and smoothed the gauzy robe from her shoulder. Great gods of earth and sky, what gift of mortal substance have you granted your holy messenger? My mouth followed my hand’s guidance, as it unmasked the tender hollow below her shoulder and the firm swell of her breast…skin so like silk…
“Brother, what magic do you wield? Ah, Holy Mother…your hands are unbound. I’ve never felt such. We ought not…”
I kissed her lips to quiet her. Suffused in exquisite radiance, she yielded to my embrace, only a sighing breath as my hands slipped away her layered raiment, until she lay entwined with me, her skin cool against my fever, no sexless divinity, but full and ripe and enduringly female.
Hands cupping her firm backside, I drew her sweet center against my swollen need and buried a groan in her neck. Gods, I had been ready for an eternity. I tumbled her over, released her to the pillows, and straddled her. She lay beneath me in the brilliance of winter sunlight, arms flung over her head. Her eyes were closed, long lashes delicate on her cheek, lips full and slightly parted, golden skin flushed. Ready, too. I inhaled deeply.
As if a finger had snatched a blindfold from my eyes, her scent snapped me awake. Fennel soap. Thyme and leeks. Woman. Elene.
I hesitated, quivering with the difficulty of restraint, trying not to let thought or fear intrude where they had no place. Naught had changed but my perceptions. I touched two fingers to her lips and drew them down the fine line of her jaw and her neck, across her breast, and down to her belly. She shivered deliciously.
I smoothed my palm across her belly…and a certainty intruded on my overcharged senses, one of those spine-rippling moments of prescience I’d experienced throughout my life. I must not lie with her. Some heated core within her insisted I had no right.
Shaking with pent desire, I snatched my hand away.
“Lady…” I drew a wavering breath and shifted to the side, making sure not to touch her again. Then I spread the fallen red silk over her, gathered the tangled bedclothes into my lap, and turned my face away as if I had not looked on her abandon. Assuredly this was not her first time to lie with a man. Was it my own past sin that burned my conscience and stayed my hand? Fire-god Deunor, what had I done?
“Forgive me, lady.” My voice sounded coarse and strange, scarcely audible. “My madness has drawn you in. Or some magic of the sunlight. Unable to control—By the Goddess Mother, I would not take you unconsenting. By magic. Even mad, I can’t believe I would.”
She stiffened and drew away, the catch in her throat no longer healthy lust, but shock. My body’s demands were not so speedily dismissed. Great gods… I clawed the bright-woven blanket and clamped it in my lap. Perhaps I’d best keep babbling.
“Your kindness seems to have brought me back to life,” I said, as hurried fumbling took her clear of the bed. “My head so muddled…a lunatic…I thought you an—”
Tell her I’d believed her an angel, and she’d be sure I was mad and have me bound again. I could scarce argue with such a judgment. I had no idea of year or season, of where we were or what had brought us here. Only now were life and memory settling into some explanation of this eternity of pain and nightmare. Nivat. The doulon. Disease.