“It seems so,” she agrees, panting. “And that is a problem since he has done nothing to prevent me from turning the course of my heart toward you.”
Is it braver to admit that now — to me, her would-be murderer — or to have spread her arms to receive my killing blow?
This seals it. She will be my undoing. She is more of a trap than this place ever could be.
I can bear it no longer.
I kiss her.
It is not a soft, hesitant kiss, as perhaps it should be. It is not sweet and savoring as I might have dreamed of in the dark of the night. It is violent and immediate. A confession and an anguished plea all in one. And when I break away from her lips, my eyes smart.
My voice sounds half like a snarl. “If he will not permit me to kill you, then he must suffer me to love you.”
“Must he?” she asks, pushing a hand against my armored chest. My heart seems to thump against my breastplate, my breath trapped between my lips as her tongue had been only a moment before. The whole world is too hot. Her wicked lips curve into a wry smile. “That seems a terribly twisty way to look at things.”
I let out a huff of air as I fight desperately for control, to regain mastery of mind and body from this drunken moment that snatches and claws at both.
“It is the only way I have,” I confess, and then I place my forehead against hers with slow deliberation — a chaste choice amid a sea of lustful ones — and I shudder a gasp when I feel her fingers twist into my hair, tugging lightly.
But she is not content to let things lie.
“And what of my evil deeds? What of the demon I permitted to live?”
I groan in misery.
But I kiss her again before I answer, and this time I am tender about it, mindful, gathering her into my arms as something precious, and sitting us both upright. I am also thorough. And it is only when we are both breathless and gasping that we break apart and meet each other’s eyes. It’s a moment of such painful cherishing. A tiny stolen snatch of life as a drowning man snatches a last breath. I think I’ve put my whole heart into this moment. It’s a pitiful heart, guilt-stained, broken, and rotting in some places, but hot with desire, tremulous with hope.
“What have you done?” she asks me, a little shakily. “Are you not forsworn against affection? First, you fail to kill me, then you confess love to me, and now you do as you have vowed not to?”
I clear my throat, draw back a little farther, though one hand remains on her waist, unwilling to leave her. “Yes.”
“You have kissed me. And you have done it with aching sweetness.”
I feel raw and open as her words drag my actions into the light. Anyone on the outside would judge me a fool for falling so hard, so fast, and in such circumstances. I hardly understand it myself, but I have learned not to question what is plainly true.
“What does this mean for you?” she pushes.
I open my hands wide. “I have lost all the focus I have built up to heal others — which was little after expending myself as I have these past days and nights. If someone needs healing, I will not be able to help.”
She looks at my hand, and is that wistfulness I see when she takes it gently in her own and removes it from her waist and hands it back to me? It is not rejection. She has told me her heart is mine for the treasuring.
“Then I think we dare not do that again.”
And I should be glad she is sensible and has saved us both. But I do not feel glad. I feel as though I have been left for dead upon the battlefield. I am bereft.
I pull myself to my feet and turn my back to her.
I do not know what to say. It feels like lying to agree to that. I busy myself with pretending to flip through one of the books on the altar. What is this rubbish? One look at one of the woodcuts within and I toss it from our perch. I don’t care if we need it later. No one should ever look at a book such as this.
“Adalbrand?”
My name on her tongue seizes my breath in my chest.
“Mmm?” I dare not permit myself words. They will only trip me.
“Will it come back?” She pauses. She sounds concerned. “Your power? Have I damaged you forever?”
I turn abruptly, startled by the choke in her voice.
