They were among the last customers to leave the restaurant. They walked back to the inn along roads without streetlamps under stars pulsing raw and real overhead. So many stars, undimmed by human light, Lara could almost imagine herself in Heaven. In the near darkness of their room, he undressed her, revealing her pale body in the silver light that slipped through the window. He laid her back on the soft white bed, spreading her legs wide, easing inside her.
Her sore muscles tensed against his blunt intrusion.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
He kissed her, stroking her hair back from her face. “It’s al right. You’re al right. You’re perfect.”
“I guess I’m not used to. Oh,” as he slid careful y deeper, as her tender flesh yielded around him.
“I’l go slow,” he whispered wickedly, and he did, teasing her with his hands and his body, making her tremble, making her moan and clutch at him with anxious hands.
He pressed deep inside her, holding himself stil inside her, until she shimmered with impatience, until she twined her legs around him, pushing her hips against him, nudging in restless rhythm, I want, I want, I want, until his control broke and he gave it to her, stroking into her, thrusting into her, driving deep and hard.
She came so hard she saw stars. With a groan, he plunged once, twice, again, before he final y let himself go and fol owed her into oblivion.
Afterward they lay in silence, her head on his shoulder, his hand in her hair.
Lara closed her eyes, holding thought at bay.
Iestyn kissed her forehead and got up and went into the bathroom. The light shone under the door, dimming the glow from beyond the curtains.
He was gone a long time. She lay motionless, listening to the sounds of running water, a muffled thump, almost glad for the respite. Not for her body, but for her heart. She could handle a little soreness from their lovemaking. She was unprepared to deal with these extremes of emotion, the delight and the pain of loving him so much. But after a while, a niggle of discomfort made itself heard over the twinges of her muscles and the ache of her heart.
What was taking him so long?
Plucking his T-shirt from the floor, she pul ed it over her head and fol owed him into the bathroom.
Iestyn stood leaning over the sink, looking at himself in the mirror, his back to the door.
She met his eyes in the glass. Around his throat, the angry red line of the heth burned. New blisters puffed and oozed on his skin.
She inhaled sharply, taking in the lines of pain on his face, the open tube of burn ointment on the sink. “You should have cal ed me.”
“I thought you were asleep.”
“Then you should have woken me up.”
“Why?”
“Why?” Her voice cracked. “To help you. To do what I did before.”
“How many times?” he asked wearily.
“As many times as it takes. Until your burn gets better.”
But the burn wasn’t getting better. It was worse, had been worse since they were on the ferry to the island, and they both knew it.
Iestyn scrubbed his hand over his face, a tired gesture that made her heart contract. “I’m not bothering you every half hour because of a damn necklace.”
“Then we need to take it off,” she said steadily.
“How?”
“Soldier said. ” She struggled to concentrate with the image of his raw, wet wound seared into her brain. “Any way we can. It’s glass. It can be fractured.”
“I’ve tried,” he said. She recal ed the muffled thump.
“It’s not so easy.”
“You said yourself we can do more together than we can apart,” she reminded him.
He turned to face her. “Unless I don’t know what the hel I’m doing.”
“I do.”
She wasn’t a chemist. She wasn’t an artist or a magic worker. Simon had never recommended her, Zayin had never recruited her, to work in the factory. But she had a good memory. She’d taken theory classes with the rest of her cohort. For years, she’d listened to Jacob and David argue about glass over breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She could do this. They could do this.
She hoped.
“The spell is in the bead,” she explained. “If there are flaws in the glass, if we put the right pressure on the flaws, the bead wil crack. The spel wil be broken.”
“Just like that.”
She bit her lip. “It’s worth a try.”
His eyes warmed as he looked at her. “Yeah, it is. Tel me what you need me to do.”
“Sit down?” she suggested.
He sat on the closed lid of the toilet, his large square knees jutting into the confined space.
She swal owed. “Do you want to put on some clothes?”
“Wil it make a difference?”
“Probably not. Okay.” She looked into his steady eyes and felt the knot of nerves in her stomach relax. Taking a slow breath, she tried to imagine What-should-be.
Iestyn, free.
He held her hand. The way they did before. Yes.
She closed her free hand on the heth. The bead was smooth and strong, hot against her clenched palm. She felt the power col ecting in the pit of her stomach, at the nape of her neck, from her hand joined to Iestyn’s hand, felt the pressure building, moving up from her gut and down her arms. Her heart pounded.
But there was no place for the power to go. The bead was smooth and black and impenetrable. Their combined magic slid off the polished glass surface.
Her palm burned as if she held a live coal. She gasped and dropped it.
Iestyn tightened his grip on her other hand. “Easy.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“You’re doing great. Is there a sign for this?” he asked.
“Like there was for water?”
She stared at him, considering. “Wel. Heth means
‘wal.’ ” She thought. “Or ‘fence.’ A spel of binding and containment.”
“So al we need is a door,” he joked.
A way in. A crack. An opening.
She felt a glimmer of hope. It was worth a shot.
“You’l have to hold on to me,” she said. “I need both hands for this.”
Wordlessly, he wrapped his arms around her waist.
She took another deep breath that did nothing to settle her stomach and grabbed the heth again, trying to remember the ancient symbols.
What can be.
Daleth, door. He, window. She pictured the runes in her mind, scratching them into the surface of the glass, probing it for weakness.
Iestyn, free.
Daleth, door, he, window, over and over again like a madwoman scribbling on the wal s of her cel. A great surge of power pushed from her heart and her stomach, from Iestyn’s arms around her waist, ripples of power flowing through her veins, racing along her nerves, shooting into the heth.
What must be.
Free.
And power exploded under her hand, red hot, white hot, scalding, boiling out of control.
Glass cracked.
Sharp pain cut across her palm. Blood dripped between her fingers. The room stank.
Lara shuddered. She uncurled her bleeding hand, and the shards of the heth fel dul y to the bathroom floor. She touched her other hand lightly to Iestyn’s hair, wil ing him to look up and reassure her.
“Wel, we did it,” she said shakily.
“Oh yes.” He raised his head and smiled a terrible smile, and his eyes were not Iestyn’s eyes, and his voice was not Iestyn’s voice. “We certainly did.”