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“Some of them.” He traced the outline of a bear. “Some you can only see in certain parts of the world. Or at certain times of the year.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” Their fingers interlocked, and his eyes moved from the stars to their hands, taking in the image of it. Committing it to memory lest it never happen again. “Perhaps there is some higher power that knows which stars we need to see when we look up, which stories we need to hear. That knows which constellations will lure us to travel the world so that we might see them with our own eyes, adding them to the map of sparks in our minds.”
“A map of where we’ve been,” she murmured.
“And where we might go.” He lowered his arm, keeping hold of her hand as he turned to look at her.
Kiss her.
God help him, but he wanted to. But he wouldn’t do it unless she asked, and she had not. Very likely would not.
“Where would you go?” she asked. “If you could?”
Always, the answer had been somewhere, anywhere, other than where he was. To escape.
But that had changed. “If I had the choice to be anywhere in the world, I would choose right here.”
She exhaled a soft breath, half laughter and half surprise, then curled tighter against his side as the wind gusted over them. “Show me another shape in the sky.”
Keris scoured his memory for every constellation he knew, which was many, for he’d always been the sort to look up and see things others didn’t. He spoke until his voice grew hoarse and her breathing deepened, her arm growing limp as her head drifted down against his chest, sleep taking her.
For a long time, he remained still, holding her against him and listening to the city grow quiet as the soldiers retreated back to the garrison. Soon there was only the sound of the wind and the warmth of her breath against his throat.
You need to go,he told himself.You need to get back before you are missed.
But he didn’t want to leave her. Didn’t want to let go of this woman who should be his enemy and yet had somehow become the one person he could trust with everything.
Except his name.
Chest aching, Keris eased his arm out from under her, gently lowering her head so that it was cushioned by the hood of his coat. Then, with the faint glow in the east beginning to light the sky, he traced a word in the soot of the broken chimney before abandoning the building to race the dawn back to his side of the Anriot.
26
ZARRAH
She woke to the light of dawn glowing in her eyes, a slow smile rising to her lips as she turned her head.
Only to find herself alone on the rooftop.
Zarrah’s stomach hollowed, but then her eyes latched on a word written in large letters in the soot stains on the chimney.
Midnight.
Warmth filling her, she pulled the collar of the Maridrinian’s coat up, inhaling the spicy scent of his cologne. Heat flooded through her veins, chasing away the headache caused by too much ale and replacing it with an aching need that could only be satisfied in one way.
By one person.
“You’ve lost your mind,” she muttered to herself. “And clearly forgotten the purpose of all this.”
Forgotten the reason she was seeing him, which was to facilitate an end to raids across the border. To stop the senseless slaughter of civilians.
Not to fall in bed with a Maridrinian who was more handsome than any man had a right to be.
Yet all the chiding did nothing to temper her lust, the memory of his velvet voice rippling across her thoughts, the sensation of his body pressed against hers making her burn hot despite the cool morning air. Lust in its purest form, but that wasn’t the limit of what she felt. And it was those other sentiments that simultaneously thrilled and terrified her.
Climbing to her feet, Zarrah peered over the edge of the building. Seeing it was clear of traffic in the alley below, she climbed down and headed toward the palace. Though she didn’t want to give up the warmth of his coat, wearing it would raise questions, so she tucked the expensive leather under one arm.
