As the greenish liquid hit her skin and the exposed tissue beneath, there was a moment of blessed numbness, then a hot flash of agony as the flesh of her fingers regenerated and grew back together, like she’d thrust her hand in the hearth fire or in the icy waters of Karrn Bay.
She bit her tongue to keep from crying out, or flinching, but she couldn’t keep the pain from her face, and Elix looked at her sympathetically.
“I know it’s stronger than what you’re probably used to, but it’ll only hurt a moment, Saba,” he said, still holding her hand and beginning to stroke the inside of her wrist with his thumb. Sure enough, once Sabira focused on that rhythmic motion, the pain did begin to ease.
Only to be replaced by a sensation that was far more alarming. As a different sort of warmth began to spread through her, Sabira was assaulted with memories of her last night in Vulyar, seven years ago.
They’d had the remembrance service for Leoned at Elix’s father’s manor estate, and she’d polished off an entire bottle of Frostmantle Fire by herself. She’d been drunk enough to be an embarrassment, and Elix had taken her up to his rooms, intending to put her to bed so she could sleep it off while he went back down to the service. But somehow, they’d wound up in his bed together, limbs tangled and slick with sweat, her needing to drown her grief in something stronger than drink, and him needing …
Her.
She looked up now into his concerned hazel eyes and saw the same swirling maelstrom of emotions she still remembered from that night. If she were honest with herself, it had been that storm that she’d been fleeing from when she’d left Vulyar, as much as any memories of Leoned—the vortex created when her abiding guilt and anger met his deep longing and need to protect and defend. It was a tempest that threatened to swallow them both whole, then and now.
And it was why he’d lied to try to get her back there, when his letters and messages pleading with her to return had gone unanswered. Not to protect some mercantile alliance with the dwarves, but just to see her, to make sure for himself that she really was well, and to do whatever was in his power to fix it if she weren’t.
“Oh, Elix,” she whispered, brought to tears for the second time today.
It was too much for him. Her proximity, her warmth beneath the thick Brelish cotton, her pain and sudden tenderness. He groaned and wrapped his arms around her, his lips finding hers in a desperate, frenzied kiss.
It would have been so easy to lose herself in him. A quick tug and the towel would pool at her feet, and there would be nothing separating them.
Except for the job she’d just signed on for, and the debt she needed to pay. And Leoned’s ghost, still haunting them both because neither one of them truly knew how to let him go.
She allowed herself one long, sweet moment to return the kiss and luxuriate in the strength of his embrace. And then she pulled away as gently as she could.
“We can’t do this, Elix. Not now. Maybe … maybe when I come back from the Holds. Maybe I can stay in Vulyar awhile and we can … talk.”
It was the most she could offer him, but for a moment as his eyes swam with desire, frustration, and hurt, she thought he was going to refuse her.
“It’s because of the letter, isn’t it?” he said finally, releasing her and stepping back, needing to put some distance between them.
“No.” Not now. Not anymore. “Elix … no.”
He held her gaze for a few moments longer, disbelief plain on his face, then looked away with a sigh.
“You’d better get dressed. You wouldn’t want Greigur walking in on you like that.”
As he turned to walk away, she reached out to touch his shoulder, stopping him. When he looked back, she gave him a small, crooked smile.
“Thank you.”
He regarded her for a silent moment, then a mischievous and welcome glint began to grow in his eyes. Finally, he smiled back, roguish, his disappointment firmly relegated to the corners of his mouth.
“You can thank me properly when you come back home,” he said, capturing her hand in his for a quick kiss before releasing it and making his way to the door.
Once there, he turned back to look at her, his gaze intent, as if trying to etch her every feature into his mind and heart.
“Just make sure you make it back. That’s an order.”
He stepped out of the room before she could reply, perhaps not trusting himself to leave if she spoke again.
As she stared at the darkwood paneling of the closed door, she pondered his words, her hand moving almost unconsciously up to touch her aching lips.
Home, he’d said. Twice now. Karrnath hadn’t been that to her in a very long time, but so many things had changed since she’d left. Maybe, just maybe, that could change, too.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Sabira stopped by Falconer’s Spire at half past the third bell, to find Elix waiting beside the Inheritance, a sleek Sparrow airship that bore the crest of the Tordannon clan on either side of the hull. The smallest of the Windspyre models, the ship nevertheless boasted an impressive deck more than a hundred feet in length, with sizeable control fins that had been fancifully shaped to resemble the wings of its namesake. More impressive still was the huge fiery ring that crackled and spat as it circled the vessel’s middle, the bound elemental inside serving as the propulsive power behind the legendary speed of any airship.
“What’s with all the security?” she asked as soon as she was within earshot. There were twice as many Deneith mercenaries milling about as usual, and she’d had to flash her brooch three times on her way up because she wasn’t on the passenger manifests of any of the waiting airships. “This can’t all be for a Mrorian Envoy.”
“Hardly. A delegation from Droaam is coming in early tomorrow.”
“I heard about that.” Indeed, she couldn’t have escaped hearing about it; it had been the buzz of the Bogwater for the past week. “But I thought they were coming by sea …?”
“They are.”
At her questioning look, Elix just shrugged.
“Greigur,” he said, as if that explained everything. And, given rumors of the Stormreach captain’s aspirations, it probably did.
“Where’s Mountainheart?” she asked, noticing for the first time that the dwarf wasn’t there.
“He remembered some urgent errand he had to run at the last minute.” His tone was even, but Sabira could see his irritation in the sudden tightening of his jaw.
“I wonder what her name is,” Sabira quipped, earning her a quick upward twitch of Elix’s lips, there and gone again. But the glimpse of a smile was more than enough to set her heart to doing uncomfortable things, so she was almost glad when Mountainheart’s voice sounded icily from somewhere behind her left shoulder.
“Gunnett. And she’s my wife.” As Sabira turned to face him, more grateful than sheepish, he added, “I promised her I’d send a message via speaking stone when we were about to leave. And I had to tell her about our little detour to Sharn.”
Ah, Sabira thought. Newlyweds.
But … wait. Her name was what?
“Doesn’t that mean …?”
“No, it does not,” the dwarf interrupted testily as he made his way toward the gangplank. “The word you’re thinking of is gunnegdh. My wife was named for the gunethe, a rare flower with white petals and black thorns that grows only in the caverns of Noldrunhold.”