Sometimes there was a comfort in dealing with Sensitives; they were very good at telling the truth. Merrick folded his hands behind his back. “That’s very good, Raed, but you will still want to find Sorcha. She does worry about you . . .”
“I will,” the Young Pretender assured him. He pushed his hair out of his eyes and sighed. “You know, I don’t want to make things harder for her . . .”
Merrick patted his shoulder, turned to leave, but then stopped and glanced back at the bed. “What is that?”
It was then that Raed noticed the Sensitive was no longer wearing the green cloak that had seemed part of him. The Young Pretender opened his mouth to tell Merrick the whole story, but something very strange came out in its place. “I found it in one of the lower floors of the citadel. It’s a rather fine old cloak, don’t you think?” A warmth ran up his spine, and he knew that he had to do something nice. “I’m not in need of a new one, though, so why don’t you have it?”
“That’s . . . that’s very generous,” Merrick replied, already taking up the fur, and running his fingers over it. “It is a beautiful gift.” He did not ask if Raed was sure about giving it, but instead unwrapped it and swept it around his shoulders.
“It looks good on you,” Raed had to admit. “You’ll be quite the envy of the Deacons.”
The Sensitive shook his head, even as he wrapped the fur cloak around himself. “Good point . . . I must return to the Conclave.” He paused. “Thank you again Raed, it shall definitely keep the cold out.”
Once Merrick had left, relief flooded Raed; he felt that he had done something good. The strange circumstances of the fur didn’t seem to matter and faded from his memory the more time passed since he had seen it.
By the time he had climbed the steps to the wind-battered upper battlements, he had other concerns to occupy his mind. He knew he’d been pretty lucky to have gotten away with his midnight excursions this long. Sorcha and the rest of the Deacons had been working hard—both physically and mentally—and she’d come to bed late and exhausted. Otherwise he was sure she would have found out before now that he’d been absent from their bed on other nights as well.
Now, with this attack last night, there was no way she would have been able to miss that he wasn’t there. When Raed reached the door to the battlements, he paused, took a deep breath, and then unlatched it.
It was a relief to see they were alone, except for the view. The Native Order had chosen a magnificent spot on which to build their Priory. The citadel stood at the high end of a long river valley, with the waterfall slicing its way over the top of it but under the walls of the citadel. From these battlements Deacons would have been able to see anyone coming for miles, and the running water provided protection from geists. At least it had in the past.
The sound of the waterfall’s descent masked his approach, and he was glad of that. Sorcha was leaning against the crenellations, her back turned to him, watching the smash of the water below.
As Raed approached her, he observed the tiny water droplets that had caught in her flame-colored hair, the curl of smoke around her head, and the fact that she too was no longer wearing a cloak. She was smoking a cigarillo, and Raed knew Sorcha only did that when she needed to think, or was feeling particularly melancholy.
He got within a few feet before Sorcha spun around. Given that she had to have discovered his secret outings, Raed expected anything but what happened next. Sorcha threw herself into his arms; clutching him to her tightly with one hand, while the other held the lit cigarillo. Her face and form pressing against him was a welcome distraction.
She pulled back and kissed Raed. Her firm mouth against his tasted of smoke and salt. He wondered if all of the water on her face was from the waterfall’s embrace. It would be typical of Sorcha to come up here, where no one could tell, to let some of her pent-up frustrations and fear out.
He decided not to mention it—instead he enjoyed the kiss. He clasped her close, feeling her greatly diminished form under her clothes. Sorcha had always been delightfully curvy, but the rigors of their constant flight had whittled her away—as it had all of them. Still, it just made him want to look after her more and feed her properly as soon as possible.
Finally, even they had to admit defeat though. Sorcha pulled back, giving his bottom lip a final reminder of a nip.
“What has your cigarillo done to deserve this?” Raed asked, gesturing to the sad, damp thing she held in her hand.
Sorcha shrugged. “It was a bit wet already, and I needed it more than I can say.” She shot him a look with the faintest hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth. “Just like you.”
Raed waited for the inevitable question. It didn’t come. Her blue eyes were locked with his, waiting for an explanation.
The Young Pretender wanted to be perfect for her. He most certainly did not want to add to her already monumental list of problems, but neither could he lie to her face. She was the one person in the world he didn’t want to deceive.
“The Rossin came,” he began, watching for any reaction from her. When Sorcha didn’t move, Raed went on. “He didn’t kill anyone. I think he just wanted to run, because when I woke there was no taste of blood in my mouth.” Something else had happened, but he couldn’t quite remember what. It couldn’t be that important.
He cleared his throat. “The Rossin has been coming out these last couple of weeks. I can’t help it. I’m sorry—very sorry—that I didn’t tell you.”
Sorcha nodded somberly, but her hands clasped his tightly. “We should have expected that I guess. The Otherside is so close now that the Rossin is much more powerful—all the geists are.”
Raed had never heard Sorcha sound so defeated, and he did not like it one little bit. He wanted the fire and passion to kindle in her eyes again.
“And you’ve been pulling away from me.” Sorcha touched his face, a look of fear flickering across her own. “Don’t do that. I need you.” That those words came out of the Deacon was a precious thing. He most certainly would not have ever imagined them appearing from the woman he had first met, soggy, and trembling with outrage after being fished out of the ocean. He loved that she finally had let him see her softness—though she would never do it in public.
He picked up her hand and kissed its palm. Her flesh felt good against his lips. “What’s happened?” he murmured into it, before guiding her away from the edge of the battlements. The sound of the waterfall was a little less loud to the cliff face, and if anyone came through the door as he had they wouldn’t be able to see them immediately.
Raed held her against him as he leaned against the wall of the citadel, and she leaned back so that only their lower torsos were touching. It was comforting, but not so distracting that either of them couldn’t think.
Sorcha closed her eyes for a moment, raised the pitiful cigarillo to her mouth, pulled the smoke into her, and then exhaled it away from him. She spoke softly. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to us . . . to the Order . . . or whatever we are now.”
They had been running, in danger for their lives from both the Imperial army and the Native Order for months, but he’d never seen her so concerned as she was right now. He squeezed her just a fraction. “With you able to open the Wrayth portals, we can go anywhere we like. We can rebuild the Order with time . . .”
Her full lips twisted. “That is what we don’t have, my love. Last night’s attack drove home that point very well. The barrier between this world and the Otherside is incredibly weak now. Derodak has done something—something awful—while we have been running, and soon it will reach a tipping point.” Raed felt a long-held-in sigh ripple through her body. “Merrick is in a Conclave with some of the other Sensitives right now. They are trying to use runes to see which way forward we must go. I don’t like relying on foresight—but what other option do we have?” Her eyes held his, and Raed realized she was actually asking him about the future of the Order.