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Alindra’s face wrinkles like a used dishcloth.
“But,” she stammers. “Dying in childbirth, that’s— that’s what happens to horses. And humans.”
I shake my head. That’s what I’d believed. It never would have occurred to me to think my mother would die like that. It never would have occurred to any of us.
“We think it was the void,” I say. “Being too close to that place, down in the Lands Below, it— It seems to damage us somehow. It was too much for her.”
And it’s not like Rowan escaped unscathed. But I keep my mouth shut; it’s bad enough to be talking about what happened to my mother without bringing Rowan’s magic into this.
“Stars,” Alindra whispers. “I— I didn’t know.”
Her lip trembles, and I squeeze my eyes shut as if that’s going to help the gnawing ache inside my chest. First Shenarah, then my mother. Is there any other trauma in my life that I could drag out into the firelight this evening?
But I shove that thought down and turn back to Alindra, who looks like she’s holding herself together by sheer force of will. Something inside my chest softens as I watch the little muscle in her jaw clench and then relax. This is a woman who wanted to throw herself through the portal. She had a plan to run to the Lands Below even before I showed up. She’s a woman with steel in her spine, whether she knows it or not.
“It’s okay,” I say, feeling like an idiot.
Nothing is okay here. I take a deep breath, then start again.
“Look,” I begin. “You seem like a woman who’s found a way out of every trap life set for you.”
Alindra’s head jerks up, and she looks at me with surprise.
“I mean, look at this,” I continue, waving a hand at her ridiculously heavy bag. “You were going to use that gold to start a new life in the Lands Below, but I bet you can spend it just as easily in the Silver City.”
A strange look crosses her face, and she turns back toward the fire.
“I’ll help you,” I say, and the words come so naturally that I find I’m not even surprised by my own ridiculous offer. “Let’s find a place for you together, while we’re looking for the, uh—”
“Power source,” Alindra whispers.
I nod. I seem to remember calling it something a bit less crass, the magical reservoir in the Towers of the Silver City that we’re hoping to somehow access so that Alindra can open a portal to the Lands Below. The whole point was to bring Alindra with me so she could help us find Rowan, but voids below, that’s not going to work now, is it? Now it’s just going to be me, useless one-armed Phaedron, blundering back into the Lands Below with no magician and no damned plan. And that’s going to have to be enough.
Alindra turns to me, blinking furiously. The tears in her eyes gleam in the fading light.
“Why would you help me?” she asks. Her voice snaps like a twig in the fire.
I shrug.
“Because I like you,” I say.
Her mouth drops open, and I turn away before she can see me smile.
“Now,” I say, waving my hand over the still-steaming fish on the stone, “let’s eat something.”
* * *
I rise slowlythrough the misty tangle of my dreams, not wanting to leave. I’d been dreaming of sex, of another body pressed to mine, of sweat and heat and dark hair tangled in my fingers, and voids, the dream was so vivid I could almost taste it. Even now, even as I know I’m waking up, the scent of the dream woman surrounds me, and I still feel the warmth of her curves against mine—
Oh. My heart thuds against my ribs as reality slams into me.
I was dreaming about Alindra.
It comes back to me in a heady rush, Alindra’s body in my arms, her eyes closed, her soft lips parted as she gasped in pleasure, her scent thick in the air between us. Her hair against my lips.
My breath catches in the back of my throat, and my cock is so stiff it aches. Because there is something soft and warm in my arms, and there is hair on my lips. I turn slightly, knowing what I’ll see even before her dark curls fill my vision.
Voids below, what have I done? I hadn’t meant to wrap my arms around her, to fall asleep with our bodies locked together like two pieces of a puzzle. I hold my breath as half the blood in my body thunders through my cock, screaming with the awareness of Alindra’s curves, her heat, and her soft, delicate scent.
