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Creon had closed his eyes, that beautiful, sharp-lined face suddenly a maze of shadows.
‘You have thought about this, too.’ There was no other way to interpret his expression, the exhaustion etched in the lines around his lips. ‘About where in hell we should go when all of this is over, if we don’t want to spend the rest of our lives surrounded by people who’ll never feel completely comfortable about us.’
‘A little.’ It came out reluctantly, like a confession, and when he hesitated, I couldn’t help feeling as though he was swallowing something he’d almost have said. Then he opened his mouth again, and it faded. ‘But only recently. Before these months … well, I never really assumed the future would be that relevant to me.’
My breath caught. ‘Because you assumed you wouldn’t survive the war?’
‘That.’ He shrugged, opening his eyes. There was an apology in the night-black of his irises, in the joyless twist of his lips. ‘Or else I assumed I wouldn’t survive peace.’
The war is in his blood and bones.
I couldn’t breathe for a moment – couldn’t move a single muscle in my body as the sight of those blood-stained arrows returned to me with undulled sharpness. The questions I’d managed to ignore for a day reared their deadly heads again, demanding answers I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear.
‘Please tell me that wasn’t the reason you threw yourself at the Moon fleet.’ The words tumbled out of my mouth, tasting like bile. ‘Because you were scared of—’
‘No!’ He shot up straight, eyes widening abruptly. ‘Good gods, Em. No. I worry about the future, but not so much I’d rather end myself – nothing like that. You’d march straight into hell to drag me back out anyway, and I’d rather spare you the effort in the first place.’
I should have laughed but couldn’t – the boulder in my stomach wouldn’t let me. ‘Even … even if …’
‘Oh, fuck. Em.’ He rose in one supple motion, holding out a slender hand as he took two steps toward the bed. ‘Listen to me. No, I don’t have the faintest idea of where I want to end up in life. Yes, in the past, I spent most of my days being violently unhappy, and yes, Ihavewondered at times if it was even worth going on. But I’m happier now than I’ve ever been, do you understand? Every morning that I wake up with you in my arms, you change the world all over again, and I wantmoreof that – more of everything you make me see and feel. So I’m not going anywhere – not as long as you’re with me. Do I need to make that any clearer?’
Again my lungs refused service, an entirely different feeling tightening around my heart this time. All that managed to leave my mouth was a breathless, feeble, ‘Oh.’
He knelt before me, interlacing our fingers – my smaller, lighter hand so very vulnerable against the calloused, ink-scarred bronze. ‘Tell me what you want.’
‘Home,’ I whispered.
He waited, eyes seeing straight through me as I wrestled down my fears, my memories, the barbed thorns that surrounded the sound of that single word.Home.A place where no one stared or whispered. A place where I couldn’t embarrass anyone, too. But the future had to be more than a mere collection of things itwasn’t– more than a flight from all that had ever hurt me in the past.
So what did I want?
‘The sea.’ I didn’t know why it was the first thing that popped into my mind – Cathra’s pale beaches, the hours and hours I’d spent playing in the surf, running through the dunes. ‘I’d like to be close to the sea again.’
‘Well, that should be doable.’ A hint of a wry smile returned to his lips. ‘Plenty of shore to choose from, I’d say.’
I somehow managed to scrape half a chuckle from the bottom of my soul. ‘If you want something more specific, perhaps you shouldn’t be leaving all the thinking to me, Your Highness. What doyouwant?’
‘Oh, gods.’ He rose, pulling me with him so that I ended up standing flush against him, his free arm around my waist. ‘Does it count if I just want to bury you in silks and watch those pretty seamstress hands of yours while you work?’
‘I suppose it’s a start.’ My thoughts were coming more easily at that image, somehow – a blurry vision of sun and azure water, of freshly baked bread and ink-stained fingers browsing scribbled pages. ‘I … I think I want a library.’
‘Alibrary,’ he repeated, the amusement in his voice the warmest, most addictive medicine. ‘But of course. Let’s go get ourselves a library. Any particular requirements?’
‘It should have a secret door somewhere,’ I said, burying my face against his shoulder, ‘and behind the secret door should beanotherlibrary, where I can collect all my favourite filthy novels without Agenor ever laying eyes on them. And …’
He was laughing openly now, wrapping both arms and wings around me. ‘Could I request a few shelves for my books on astronomy, or is that too much to ask?’
‘You can have all the shelves you want.’ I lifted my head to meet his gaze, but found myself pressed so close against his muscular body that I saw little but a pointed ear and a sharp-edged jaw; his arms didn’t budge. ‘And I want large windows with stained glass, just like you had at the pavilion. And a balcony where we can have breakfast in the sun. And …’
‘I would appreciate having a decent kitchen,’ he admitted, sounding thoughtful, as if the concept had never occurred to himbefore. ‘An icehouse, too. I’ve missed having one when I lived at the pavilion.’
My heart clenched with almost painful affection. ‘Excellent. I’ll dig you an icehouse with my own bare hands if I have to. How do you feel about those closets that are practically entire rooms to walk around in?’
‘Utterly ridiculous,’ he said dryly. ‘Let’s get one.’
There was no stopping my laughter – giddy, breezy chuckles bubbling out of me, driving away the lingering darkness. It wasn’t takingshapeyet, that home in my mind – it wasn’t a shape at all. It was a collage of loose impressions, of beauty and joy, and somehow all the more tangible for that reason. ‘We could get a cat?’
He choked on his amusement. ‘Em, you have a bird familiar.’
