“Ilain?”
“I can’t,” she whispered.
“Can’t what?”
“I can’t do this.”
Ethenn furrowed his brow. “I hate to inform you, love, but we’ve already done this about a hundred times.”
Ilain turned to him with a scrunched-up nose. “We’ve only been married for a month,” she said.
He shrugged lightly. “I rounded up.”
She smirked. “That isn’t what I was referring to, anyway.”
“What were you referring to?”
Forcing herself to sit up, Ilain pulled out of his arms. She shifted on the crimson settee to face him fully. “I made a promise to Auden,” she said.
Ethenn’s chin lifted with ready understanding. He took her hands comfortingly.
“I told you about Maura,” Ilain began. “She’s locked in the Deep, dying slowly. If she isn’t healed, she’ll be lost forever. It was Auden’s aim to save her.”
“By Bonding,” Ethenn noted.
Ilain nodded. “He thought that if he became the Day Chancellor, with the power of the Relic and his amplified magic, he could find a means of a cure. That’s what Day does, after all. It heals.”
Staring into Ethenn’s dark eyes, Ilain knew he understood without her even having to say the rest. But she continuedanyway. “I have to use the Alliance’s favor to press for this cure. They’ll try to help, yes, but... If I don’t put my everything into it, it may never happen. Maura can’t wait much longer. And I must save her. For Auden.”
Ethenn nodded. “They’ll agree, of course,” he said. “But you’re not a Day Mage, and only so much can be done.”
“But if you and I go to the Order of the Day,” she said, “if we add our powers and skills into searching for this cure alongside the Day Chancellor and Commander, we can ensure that it comes.”
Slowly, Ethenn lifted his chin. “That will only take a few years, Allore willing. What will we do then?”
“Rejoin our friends?” Ilain suggested.
Ethenn smiled. “I’d be happy with that.”
Still, Ilain was unsettled.
Ethenn tugged on her hand gently. “Tell me.”
“It’s nothing. I just—” Ilain stared at their hands. She wore only two rings now: the white and black moonstone, shining in its elegant gold and silver fitting, and her wedding gift from Ethenn—an intricate golden band designed to look like two gilda lilies holding a ruby between them. She’d already begun to slowly infuse power into both rings, storing it up for a time she might need it most.
“For the past thirty years of my life,” she whispered, almost to the rings themselves, “thisis who I was meant to become. I was supposed to be Highlady Chancellor. Now...”
She met Ethenn’s patient gaze again. “What will I be when this is over?”
Tenderly, Ethenn lifted her chin, his thumb grazing her jawline. “Who you’ve always been,” he said. “Highlady IlainLoxley, the most powerful Fire Mage in two centuries, a bloody goddess, and...” He leaned closer as he whispered, “My wife.”
A bashful smirk came to Ilain’s lips. “I still think we should have taken my last name.”
“I’m not that progressive,” he said, closing the gap.
Just before their lips met, she murmured, “Bloody prude.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
