“Don’t be silly.”
I dropped into the chair and began untying my boots. “I’m never silly.”
She crossed around the bed to me. When she came to stand afoot in front of me, the smell of her made me pause. I closed my eyes, fingers still on my boot.
Her scent had always been impossible to ignore. Bright, fresh, intoxicating. For my part, the spiritstag hadn’t even needed a magical bind to draw me to her.
“The bed’s big enough.” Her eyes were so blue, so wide. “And I’m not going anywhere with you when you’ve slept on a chair. A crick in the neck makes for terrible decisions.”
I didn’t move. Didn’t speak. She had no idea the effect she had on me.
“All right”—she turned away and unclasped her cloak—“I only wanted to be held like you did in the Eldermaze, but…”
In the Eldermaze, I’d hardly known her. Now, that request was like asking me to grip a flame. Yet I couldn’t refuse her, even if my restraint was threadbare.
I followed.
When we had undressed to our underclothes, we climbed into the bed together. She leaned toward the candelabra, blowing out the flames one by one. Darkness enclosed us, and she backed herself into me.
Her body against mine was almost unbearable. I wondered if she could feel my heart against her spine. Her loose hair against my nose, her softness under my arm—all of it made tomorrow feel too soon and far off.
Her breathing deepened, and in the quiet of the inn room I made the second vow of my life.
I would never fail her again.
I hadn’t realized I slept until I woke. A rowdy pub song filtered through the floorboards, a tune I hadn’t heard in a decade. Men used to whistle it walking home—a ditty about the wall. Most songs andpoems were about the wall. Only those of us who’d grown up under its shadow knew its power.
Eury still slept in my arms, the length of her body pressed against mine. The ache inside me was even worse now than it had been eight hours ago. A whole night of breathing her in, of her warmth against me?—
Wildmother, would her nearness always be fucking torture?
My hand lay over her forearm. I stroked my thumb over the soft skin until her breathing changed. Awake, her breaths were always short, as though she wore permanent armor over her chest.
“Has it been a whole night?” Her voice was gritty with disuse.
“A whole day.”
She sat up, her hair sliding over her shoulders in waves. She went still for a moment, no doubt listening to the song downstairs. “I know that one.”
I propped my head on my hand. “Do you?”
“I thought it was sung only in the southern district.” She let out a breathy chuckle. “This side of the wall is different, and yet…”
“Hardly different at all?”
“Drunk people worshipping stacked stones.” She glanced back at me, her lips curving. “All while wishing for something else. Something better.”
Yes, that was right. I had pushed my childhood so far down, so far back, I could hardly remember it. But her words dredged up that old feeling—the desire to see above, to see beyond the wall.
I had wanted that badly as a boy. Not to study the facets of tiny gems with a loupe, but the horizon. I worshipped the wall’s sanctuary, and yet I wanted to be free of it. Perhaps the feeling was even stronger when you were surrounded by two walls instead of one.
“You always wanted out, didn’t you?” I asked.
“Of course.” She stood and began dressing. “Now I think maybe that was the fae in me.”
“I used to climb it.” I sat up in the bed, facing away. My feet hit the floor. “The middlewall.”
She paused in her rustling. “Often?”