“Which one?” He released my chin, reaching for the last of his vambraces and strapping it to his arm.
“All of them.”
Vambrace secured, he rotated his neck and rolled his shoulders. “I will tell you some truths later,” he promised to the beams. “You will put your hand on my heart and ask of me whatever you wish.” The mesh lowered. Behind it, there was no sign of the pinpricks of light I thought I had glimpsed before. “I really must go.”
“What…” My question crumbled like mortar, for in the span of a blink, he’d closed the distance between us. Stumbling back into the wall, his body wedged itself between mine and the bed. I could have told him to go, to back away. I should have pushed my palms to his chest and urged him to move, but they fell to my sides, fisting the cotton that brushed past my knees. He leaned closer, closer, until chainmail coated my shoulder like liquid.
“Just so you know…” His breath filtered through the mesh to fan over my cheek. “What happened—what wasgoing tohappen—before the sister…when youmewledbeneath me…” I bit down on my lip, tempering another. “That was my fault as well; all of it. It seems I cannot help but rile up the darkest parts of you, Seamstress. But I shall strive to walk the light from now on.”
My fingers edged to the chainmail, testing the weight of its hem. I lifted the edges, slowly, carefully, like peeling an orange. Then, he was gone.
As the iron door swung shut, latches clicking and whirring, so did my wits.
***
Time dripped like wax, and alongside the fire, I drifted to sleep. It wasn’t until the groan of metal hinges that I finally pulled myself from the dark, a welcome sense of relief rising in my chest.
He is back. Perhaps Falstaff is dead. Soon, we’ll leave.
“Lycandor?” I yawned into the gloom, too tired to try to smother the hope in its lilt. In the low light of a dwindling sconce, his tall shadow loomed by the hearth. I raised up to my elbows.
“Lycandor?” I repeated, the beginnings of unease stirring somewhere near my ankles, climbing up, up, and up. Squinting, I tried to spy the telltale points of his helm or the bulk of armour, but…were theybreasts? The pad of slippers, not the thumping of boots, approached the bed, a sister’s headdress materialising under the struggling flame.
“Lycandor? First name privileges with the Butcher, darling girl?”
Every drop of blood I had somehow managed to keep from Falstaff and his acolytes drained to my soles. A loose curlescaped the wimple to fall over his brow, as it always did. Warm eyes sparkled beneath it, a full mouth curved into a familiar, smackable, side-long grin.
“And in his bed, no less?” He tutted, padding closer. “Oh, I don’t mind, clever girl, your wiles may just save us all. Though, I do hope his cock isn’t bigger than mine—I fear I’ll never recover.”“Demetri?” I squealed, disentangling myself from the linens to press my bare feet upon stone.
He opened his arms. “Found you.”
I ran.
My body collided with his like a lance, hurtling into the mould of him. Each of us yelped as two rock-like spheres rattled my collarbones.
Pulling back, I rubbed tender spots at the base of my throat. “What in the—”
Two rounded breasts jutted from his chest, implausibly pert.
“Oh, shit, the apples.” He fiddled with something at his back before, one after the other, two green applesplonkedto the floor, one rolling under the bed.
A smile, so wide it hurt, spread over my cheeks. I laughed, the sound rebounding around us until it tempted Demetri to join, catching in its abandon.
Still laughing, he yanked me back to him, so tight I could barely breathe. I nestled into the crook of his neck, inhaling his scent: wine and forge-fire and lard soap. There was a distinct Demetri-ness to it, under the cloy of the templum, and suddenly, we were there again; in the daisy meadows, playing Kings and Queens with crowns made of flowers as he bent on one knee. We were wrestling in the grate of the hearth, sooted from ash as our mothers sewed into the night. I was there, on my knees in the smith’s yard, his hands roving into the roots of my hair, pulling me closer, taking him down. I gulped down another thick breath. He smelt like home, likebefore. My laughter bled into acry, a wail I tried to smother against his shoulder, lest it wake the whole templum.
“Shh,” he soothed, stroking the back of my head the way he used to. “It’s okay, darling girl. I found you. It’s okay.”
We clung to each other like that, my nails digging into his flesh, his hand a vice on my nape, as I came undone. After a breath, or a turn, or an age, I drew back, the patch of his shoulder darkened with drool, tears, and snot. Demetri wouldn’t mind; he never cared about mess, only the fun of making it.
“The door… Who brought you here? How did you—” I started, but he pressed a finger to my lips, shaking his head.
“We don’t have time, Ashara.” He brought his cuff to my nose, wiping at it before tending to his own. “Are you harmed?”
I shook my head. My injuries were healing, mostly numb. And what was done was done.
“Has he hurt you?” he asked, unsatisfied.
“The Butcher?”
