Page 132

Offerte

CORA

Yves set out two crystal glasses on the sideboard while the wine decanted. I wandered over, not wanting to wait, and discovered a small clamshell filled with candle wax. A black sea stone and a sliver of moonstone were pressed into the melted wax.

It looked like an altar offering.

“Which god is this meant for?” I asked.

“Whichever one happens to be listening.” He came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my middle, holding me against him. “You will find that Valemerians are a different sort of people. We do not worship only one god. We give all of them their due.” His lips grazed the side of my neck. “Indiscriminate worshipers, we are.”

I chuckled.

He pulled back my hair and pressed a kiss against my skin. “Is that amusing?” he asked.

I leaned into him. “No. It’s not amusing. It’s…” I paused before choosing, “Convenient.”

“In what way?”

I spun in his arms until I was facing him. “You benefit from worshiping everyone.”

A grin lifted the corner of his mouth. “Is that so?”

“People come here from every corner of the Unified Territories and beyond. Different ships. Different tongues…”

I let the word hang between us until his gaze dropped to my mouth.

“Different candles burning on your little clamshell altars. A city built on trade cannot afford true devotion to one god. Not if it wishes to keep the coin flowing.”

I couldn’t stop staring at his mouth. I knew what his lips felt like against my throat, my breasts, and the trembling skin inside my thighs. I knew every place he had put them.

“You have no idea just how devoted we Valmerians can be,” Yves said.

Kissing had always been far too intimate for me. Yet as his tongue passed over his lower lip, I wondered what it would taste like to kiss him again. Whether it would have the same magick as the first, or feel completely different.

“Then show me.”

Hunger flashed in his eyes, and Yves walked me backward until my shoulders met the wall beside his altar. He placed one hand beside my head and covered mine with the other, guiding my palm to the center of his chest.

“All you have to do,” he said, “is look closer.”

I traced the lines of his face with my fingertip, then said, “Let me remove the glamour.”

He allowed me space to slip by him. I dampened a cloth at the washstand and wiped the silver powder. When the skin was clean, I set the cloth aside and lifted my wand, touching it beneath his jaw and drawing a circle around his face, correcting the narrowness of his jaw and nose until it was as I remembered.

I ran my hand through his pale hair next, which darkened as I combed my fingers through it. The straight strands recovered their usual wave.

“Done?” he asked. His voice had lowered.

“Not quite.”

I traced the charm along his throat, restoring warm bronze and the tattoos there. At last, I placed two fingers against his temple and released the glamour over his eyes.

Gray gave way to green, and there he was.

Yves.

The man who had listened while Hartley tried to turn my past into a weapon and never once looked at me as though it made me less. Who had placed stones for both our gods on his altar.