Tavi smiled. “What was that for?”
“For forging your own wisdom,” she said, and smiled. “There may yet be hope for you, chala.”
Tavi snorted as they approached the second stone building the engineers had constructed-a command center. They had built it out of the heaviest stone they could draw from the earth, and set most of the building so far into the ground that its lowest chambers, including its command room, were actually below the level of the river. Tavi hadn’t wanted that building to get priority, but Magnus and the rest of his officers had quietly ignored his authority and done it anyway. It would take more than one of the Canim’s vicious bolts of lightning to threaten the building, the engineers had assured him.
Tavi had to admit, that it had been extremely helpful all around to have a solid location for organizing the Legion. The rest of the Legion had laid their tents around the command building and hospital in standard order, and though the fallen and injured were sorely missed, a sense of normality, of continuity had returned to the First Aleran. He solved problems as they arose, though most days he felt like some kind of madman beating out random brush fires with a blanket before sprinting for the next source of smoke.
If he’d known that they were going to build an apartment, complete with private bath, into the command building, he’d have told them not to do it. But they’d simply walked him there at the end of the tour. He had a small sitting room, a bathing room, and a bedroom that would have been of distinctly modest size in any setting other than a Legion camp. As it was, he could have fit a standard tent into it without trouble, and his bed was wide enough to sprawl carelessly on, a distinct difference from the standard Legion-issue folding cot and bedroll.
Guards stood outside the command building, and saluted as Tavi came walking up with Kitai beside him. He nodded to the men, both of them Battle-crows. “Milias, Jonus. Carry on.”
The young cohort had taken the duty for guarding the captain’s quarters upon themselves with quiet determination, and the men on duty were always careful that their uniforms were immaculate, and that the crow sigil the cohort had taken as their own was obvious upon their breastplates and, in more stylized detail, upon their helmets and shields. The burned standard had been duplicated many times, always with the black crow and not the Crown’s eagle, and one such standard hung on the door to the command building.
He passed inside and headed for the rear area on the first floor-his apartment. It was plainly, sensibly furnished with sturdy, functional furniture. He had dropped off several things there earlier in the day, but this would be the first time he had stayed the night. “So what is this idea?”
“To me,” Kitai said, “it seems that you have a problem. Your scouts are not swift enough to evade the foe if discovered. Nor can they see in the dark, while your foe can.”
“I just said that.”
“Then you need swift scouts who can see in the dark.”
Tavi shrugged out of his cloak and tossed it onto a chair. “That would be nice, yes.”
“It happens,” Kitai said, “that my mother’s sister is just such a person. In fact, I believe she knows some few others who share those qualities.”
Tavi’s eyebrows shot up. Kitai’s aunt was Hashat, leader of the Horse Clan of Marat, and likely the second most influential of the Marat clan-heads.
“Bring a Marat force here}” he asked.
“Evidence suggests it may be possible for them to survive,” she said, her tone dry.
Tavi snorted. “I thought Doroga needed Hashat to keep things in order at home.”
“Perhaps,” Kitai said. “But you would not require the whole of the clan. A herd or two of riders would be adequate for your needs. That much strength could be spared, if needed to ensure the stability of your mad Realm, Aleran. The order of Alera means as much to the Marat as our stability means to you.”
“True enough.”
“And cooperation between your folk and mine, even on a small scale, could be an important step in solidifying our friendship.”
“It could,” he agreed. “Let me think about it. And I’ll have to speak to the First Lord.”
“And it will save lives you would otherwise be forced to sacrifice.”
It would do that, Tavi thought. But then a notion struck him, and he arched a brow and tilted his head at Kitai, grinning. “You’re just doing this so you get to ride around on horses more often.”
Kitai gave him a haughty glance. “I wanted a horse. But I got you, Aleran. I must make the best of it.”
Tavi went to her, pushed her against a wall with a certain amount of careless strength, then pinned her there with his body and kissed her. The Marat girl’s breath sped up, and she melted into the kiss, hands lifting to touch, body moving in slow, sinuous tension against his.
Tavi let out a low growl as the kiss made him burn for her. He lifted the hem of the tunic and slid his hands over the soft, feverish skin of her waist and lower back. “Shall we try the bath?”
She broke the kiss long enough to say, “Here. Now. Bath later.” Then she took the front of his tunic in both hands, her canted green eyes intense and feral, and started pulling him to the bedroom.
Tavi paused in the doorway and let out a groan. “Wait.”
The look in Kitai’s eyes made Tavi think of a hungry lioness about to pounce, and her hips swayed toward his, but she stopped, waiting.
“The furylamp,” Tavi sighed. “As long as it’s on, the sentries know I’m available and receiving visitors.”
Kitai’s eyes narrowed. “And?”
“And there’s not a lot I can do about it. I’m going to have to go find Max or someone.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s not as if I can just tell the light to go out.”
Blackness fell on the room.
Tavi fell to the floor on his rump in pure shock.
He sat there feeling an odd, fluttery sensation in his belly, and his scalp felt as if something with many sharp little legs was running over it. He felt the hairs on his arms stand on end.
“Aleran?” Kitai whispered, her voice low, even awed.
“I…” Tavi said. “I just said… I wanted it to go out. And…”
The enormity of that fact hit him, hard and all at once. He found himself wheezing, unable to get a full breath.
He’d told the furylamp to go out.
And it had.
He had made it go out.
He had crafted it out.
He had fury’crafted.
“Light,” he managed to whisper a moment later. “I need it to turn on.”
And it did.
Tavi stared at Kitai with wide eyes, and she returned the same incredulous look.
“Kitai. I did that. Me!”
She only stared at him.
“Light, off!” Tavi said. It flickered out, and he immediately said, “Light, on!” And it was so. “Bloody crows!” Tavi swore, laughter bubbling through his voice. “Off! On! Off! On! Off! Did you see it, Kitai?”
“Yes, Aleran,” she said, her tone that of one who has been abruptly and deeply offended. “I saw.”
Tavi laughed again and drummed his heels on the stone floor. “On!”
The light came on again, to reveal Kitai standing over him, hands on her hips, scowling.
“What?” Tavi asked her.
“All this time,” she said. “You moping around. Sad about it. Sure it was so awful. For this}”
“Well. Yes. Off!”
Kitai sighed. “Typical.” Cloth rustled.
“What do you mean?” Tavi asked. “On!”
When the lamp came up again, she stood before him, naked and beautiful, and Tavi nearly exploded with wanting her as a surge of lust and joy and love and triumph blazed through him.
“What I mean, Aleran,” she said quietly, “is that all this time you were acting as if it was some kind of monumental task. When it is so simple” She turned her head enough to regard the furylamp and said, firmly, “Off.”
The lamp went out.
And before Tavi’s utter shock could really register, Kitai pressed him down to the floor and stopped his mouth with a kiss.
Tavi decided the crowbegotten lamp could wait.
There were more important things.