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“Of course.” He ran a reassuring hand down her arm. “It would merely be a formality. A gesture. So I would have to strangle fewer mortals for uncouth whispers behind your back, and I could put my hand on your elbow in public without risking immolation.”
“That is not funny. Have you heard Tenebran marriage vows, Lio? You would hate them. All that nonsense about a wife obeying her husband.”
“I can ask Eudias if we can modify the vows and the marriage still be legal. I’m perfectly happy to swear to obey you instead.”
“You know I would never let you do such a thing.”
“It could be fun in bed.”
At last, an exasperated smile tugged at her mouth. “We don’t need marriage vows for that sort of fun, my Grace.”
“But we do need elbow touches to last us between feasts.” Lio enfolded her in his arms again, slowly.
She let him, soaking up this closeness to last her through the long hours when she would have to distance herself from him.
“Come Autumn Equinox,” Lio said, “wouldn’t you like to dance the Autumn Greeting with a Hesperine? Can you envision the look on Flavian’s face if he watched you share a promise dance with me?”
“Well, I must admit that is a very satisfying image.”
“Just imagine it,” he murmured. “Everyone in Tenebra would acknowledge our right to be together.”
“I doubt it would work out that way in practice. Is a marriage between a human and a Hesperine even legal here?”
“Eudias is willing to find out for us. Don’t you agree it’s at least worth discovering what our options are?”
“We don’t need that option. When all of this is over, we will go home to Orthros and avow each other before our people.”
“Of course we will. And I will do as many labors as I must to make sure your sister is there, congratulating us. But what about when we are here in Tenebra with her? We’re trying to build a future that is somehow in Tenebra and Orthros at the same time.”
He touched the pendants around her neck. She had been so wrapped up in him, she had not been thinking about them. But bared to him as she was, her ambassador’s medallion and the Changing Queen’s pendant were still around her neck.
“We wouldn’t have to hide,” Lio said. “We wouldn’t have to be afraid.”
Glasstongue was using his most dangerous power on her—his compelling, alluring words.
“All I’m asking,” Lio said, “is whether you are in agreement about Eudias researching it for us.”
It was not the demands of Tenebra, but pure Hesperine temptation that finally made her say, “Very well. I will consider whatever information he finds for us. This does not mean I am agreeing to go through with any of it.”
“That will be the subject of our next debate, Ambassador,” he promised.
THEIR OLDEST ENEMY
Cassia’s exhaustion was gone. Energy now coursed through her body, and she could easily forget she hadn’t slept. “There’s one more thing I want to do while we’re here.”
“I can think of more than one thing I’d like to do with you on this parapet before we rejoin the others.”
She took one more greedy kiss from him, but then disentangled herself from his lap to search for her underlinens. “I’m rather in need of a cleaning spell.”
His magic tingled over her body. He snatched her underlinens before they blew over the parapet, then handed them to her.
“Thank you for defending my illusion of modesty,” she said.
“I’ll never let your underlinens fall into the wrong hands. Unless it’s my own heretical hands when I take them off of you.”
“Those are the right hands.” She tidied her clothing, astonished to find she wasn’t sore anywhere. Between the healing properties of Lio’s bite and the exhilaration of his magic, she felt like she could conquer the world. “Now then, what do you say we infiltrate Flavian’s solar and rifle through his important documents?”
“Ambassador Cassia, are you suggesting espionage?”
