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“Magic of old,” Valdus murmurs.
“Yours is too.”
“Somehow it feels…just less, I guess.” He looks down at his hand, curling fingers of metal and gears over thin air. He turns to me, and adds, “I have something for you.”
He walks toward the table with the schematics, crates, and tools spread over its sagging surface. The mist swallows his figure, and for a moment I’m alone with only a clamor of voices, marking the start of a celebration that will last into all hours of the night.
It all fades away as Valdus reappears. His metal skin catches a sparkle of moonlight just below his rolled-up sleeves as he offers me a bundle wrapped in cloth with greasy stains and holes.
I let out a nervous chuckle and point at the closed door at the end of the backyard. “The laundry room is right there.”
“Just open it, will you?”
For once, I have nothing smart to say and do what he has asked. Two stripes of black metal reveal themselves under the dirty piece of fabric. I run my finger on what appears to be a grip of a sword, where patterns of flowers are delicately engraved into the steel. Valdus picks one of them up and slides it into my hand.
The metal unfurls to form a dark blade, and it swallows the silver light filtering through the glass dome. I pick up the other grip, and a second sword unfolds in my hand.
I swing one blade and then the other, testing their weight and balance. A sequence of steps I’ve used in practice back in the palace strain my muscles in their dance. Step, feint, lunge, and disengage. I come back to a halt and run a finger over the blade. Metal splits my skin, blood beading on its sharp edge.
Valdus is at my side, but I barely feel the pain, a giddy smile splitting my features. “You’ve made me swords.”
“I wanted you to have something only you could use.” Valdus wraps my finger in a makeshift bandage, even though I’ve already healed the wound. “It would have been wiser if the blades would do no harm to you instead.”
I pull my hand out of his. Under the bandage, only a fading line remains, and Valdus traces its pattern, sending pleasant shivers up to my elbow. I look up, and our faces are only inches from touching.
The pull is so strong that I don’t know for how much longer I’ll be able to resist. I’m not even sure I want to. Rising up to the tips of my toes, I close the distance between us. A faintest brush of our lips that sends warmth over my skin.
Valdus doesn’t move a muscle, and I pull away, a blush warming my cheeks.
“I shouldn’t have,” I say as dunes of embarrassment bury me under their weight. I run my hand through my hair, hiding behind my bangs. “You told me so yourself, and I didn’t listen.”
Valdus doesn’t let go of my hand and pulls me back until my palm rests on his chest, and I can feel his heart echo the frantic rhythm of my own.
“To eternity with what I said,” he murmurs before his lips find mine again.
His kiss is gentle, tentative, until it’s not and we savor each second of the impossible. We should be sworn enemies. Instead, we’re just a girl and a boy kissing in a garden built with our sweat and blood.
When he tugs me even closer, I can’t think about anything else but his hand resting on the small of my back, his finger running deep through my hair. I sigh against him, and I can feel him smile.
His lips leave a blazing trail from my chin all the way to the crease of my ear.
“My Rebel Princess.”
“Only if I can call you The King of Rebels.”
“You can call me whatever you want.” He leans his forehead against mine, the tip of his nose tickling mine. “I won’t ever be able to stop you even if I try.”
I wake up with a headache having nothing to do with my binding, but the copious amount of liquor Lara has made me drink as we danced late into the night. My mouth tastes of too many words said and too little sleep. I trudge to the bathroom where Lara is already washing her face. A fine ring of black is etched into the skin of her index finger, matching Numair’s tattoo, and it reminds me of my own rising sun symbol at the back of my neck.
“How does it feel to be married?” I ask.
Lara shushes me, crinkling her nose, but letting me pass to the sink where I rinse my mouth and wash my face until I can stand looking at myself in the mirror.
“Don’t let me drink that much ever again,” Lara says from a chair where she’s leaning on the tiled wall, pressing her temple to the cool surface.
“Come on,” I say and pull her to her feet. “We have to get some food into you.”
Tugging trousers and loosely cut shirts over our bodies, I pull us toward the kitchen where a chatter of voices and savory smells establish their reign.
