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“You’re alive.” He nodded back, his smile like honey in warm milk. His voice was low, husky.
She tried to lift her head to see Selis, but a pain shot from the back around the sides, stabbing at her temples. Reaching toward the pain, her hand found a crusty scab beneath her hair. Groaning, she dropped her head back, appreciating the cushion that cradled it now. Her injury was not a minor one. What had she been trying to see again? “Selis… Is she…”
“She’s fine. Out gathering some herbs.”
“In winter?” she murmured. “Or have I been asleep so long it’s spring?”
“It’s been three very scary days,” he replied, voice warm, “and I’m glad they’re over.”
“So we’re… all okay?”
“Yes. We are.”
For some reason, that made tears well up in her eyes.
“Iseris? What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”
“I’m so sorry, Jav. I’m so sorry. I brought you to this place. To this point. It’s all my fault. We could have died.”
“Hush, now. Don’t cry. We could have died, but we didn’t. And it’s not your fault. I made my choices. And I’m glad of them.”
“Well, I’m not. I wish you’d never known me.”
His eyes darkened. “Is that true?”
“Yes. Then none of this would have happened. Then you’d have the life you always wanted.”
“I don’t think you have any idea about what kind of life I’ve wanted, Iseris,” he said. His smile went crooked.
Both the bluntness of the words and the sound of him saying her name made her go still. “But you told me…” She swallowed. “You’ve told me before. You always loved serving the temple.”
“I did. But… not because of the temple.”
“Because of what then?”
He tilted his head. “You really don’t know?”
She hesitated. “I… I don’t know.”
He leaned closer now, his face just inches from hers. His smile was gone, now lips serious but just slightly parted. Those blue eyes had always been intense but now they seemed to shoot sparks, to search her expression like a man desperate to find a path in a darkened wood. What was he looking for?
“I said that because I had promised myself I’d never speak the real truth out loud.”
She swallowed. “The real truth?”
“The real truth is that it is you who have been the sunlight in my dark winter days. And it’s you Nefrana puts in my dreams at night.”
Some of her despair melted. “That’s beautiful, Jav. I—I wouldn’t have made it this long without you.”
“Iseris,” he said softly, carefully, as if he was savoring that there was no one to stop him from saying it. “May I kiss you?”
Words would have been lovely at that moment, but they failed her. Instead, she bit her lip, and then nodded, a smile stealing across her lips.
His own pressed against hers sweetly, almost chastely. Her pulse pounded in her ears, her heart racing. He lingered, breathing her in, but a sudden rustle outside the cottage made him back a hair’s breadth away.
“Selis is coming back,” he murmured. He was crookedly grinning like a fool and struggling for composure as he leaned back into his seat.
She wasn’t quite so giddy, but she was stunned, and a little amazed… And a little afraid at what awaited them.
