After that they talked about names and clan connections and how important it would be for a half-Lirren child to spend at least some time across the Lireth Mountains. By the time the cooking lesson was over, Senneth not only knew how to make salt bread and spiced pork roast, she found herself feeling closer to Ellynor than she ever had.
Tayse was amused to learn that she had prepared the evening meal and careful to seem appreciative. Although he rarely had much interest in food outside of its usefulness as fuel, he praised every dish extravagantly.
“Thank you,” she said, once the meal was over and the dishes were washed. “But I don’t know that I’m going to spend much more of my time in the kitchen. I think I like it much better when someone else cooks for me.”
She settled down on a plush rug laid on the hearth, and Tayse built up the fire. No need for it, of course, on this early summer day, but Senneth never felt quite right unless there was a fire somewhere in her vicinity.
Tayse carefully laid another log on the blaze, then moved back beside her. Drawing her against his chest, he extended his legs on either side of her body. She leaned against him, folded her hands over his forearms as they crossed over her waist, and experienced a moment of utter satisfaction.
“But if I’m not going to cook, and I’m not going to fight, I need to find some other activity to keep me occupied,” she continued after a moment’s silence.
“You’ve worked harder than anybody,” he replied. “I think you might have earned the right to a year or two of complete slothfulness.”
“I don’t think I’m the kind of woman who can sit idle for more than a day,” she said. “Maybe I’ll take up blacksmithing again. I always enjoyed that. Maybe I’ll forge a sword for you.”
“A dagger, perhaps,” he said. “To start with.”
She laughed at him over her shoulder. “What? You doubt the quality of my workmanship?”
He was grinning. “It’s just that it’s really important that a sword be of the highest caliber.”
She settled back against him. “I’ll forge a sword for myself and challenge you to a duel. Then you’ll see how good I am at smithing.”
He kissed the top of her head. “But I would appreciate a dagger that you crafted with your own hands. You can set a Brassenthwaite sapphire in the hilt and etch a raelynx along the blade. That would be a knife worth carrying.”
She liked the idea. There was a blacksmith on the palace grounds, of course, a wiry middle-aged man who won every arm-wrestling challenge, even against Riders. “I’ll look into it tomorrow.”
They were quiet a moment, relaxed, at peace. It might not be so bad after all, Senneth thought, to share an uneventful life with Tayse, puttering around the cottage, helping Amalie when requested, setting off on occasional visits to Danalustrous or Brassenthwaite or Rappengrass. Playing with Justin’s baby. Babies, perhaps, and soon, she corrected herself. The thought made her smile.
The heat of Tayse’s body soaked through her clothes to warm her back. Her face and hands prickled from the nearness of the fire. It had been weeks since her skin felt flushed with fever, since her body had run at a dangerously high temperature. But now all the forces of the day seemed to combine and combust inside her-happiness for Ellynor, contentment with Tayse, serenity, security, a sense that her life had been graced by so many gifts that they spilled around her with abandon. Who could want more than this? Why had she been given so much?
The top log shifted and collapsed with a shower of sparks. Senneth held her hand out as if to catch any fiery splinters that might fall so far from the grate. None did, yet she kept her hand extended, palm turned upward, feeling a line of heat track across her skin. She cupped her hand and felt the bones kindle. A tiny flame danced in the center of her palm, eager yellow, intemperate red. Only a moment, then the fire disappeared. The scent of smoke was fragrant in the air.
“Very pretty,” Tayse said.
Laughing, she turned in his arms to kiss him on the mouth. The hand that had summoned fire she laid against his cheek; her other hand she slipped beneath his shirt. Desire raced through her with a leaping grace, and she welcomed it, this parallel manifestation of fire. Tayse had long ago proved he was not afraid of conflagration, and he kissed her with a passion to match her own. Soon enough it was impossible to tell where flesh ended and flame began, or maybe the whole world was ablaze. If she could call no other fire for the rest of her life, Senneth thought, she would be content with this one, a fire that melted her bones and turned her skin opalescent and lit her heart so brightly from within.
About Sharon Shinn
Sharon Shinn is a journalist who works for a trade magazine. A graduate of Northwestern University, she has lived in the Midwest most of her life.
Sharon Shinn won the William C. Crawford Award for Outstanding New Fantasy Writer and was nominated for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.
