The paint had begun to wear away on her lips, revealing rosy skin underneath. Was the rest of her flushed beneath all that powder? He dragged his fingers back and forth over her side, feeling hard ridges beneath the heavy, embellished fabric. “Corset?”
She sucked in a breath, and he knew he had shocked her. Innocent. He collected each morsel of her identity like a scavenger in the jungle. He saw just a sliver of panic before she hid it away and met his gaze.
Brave little bird.
“It will have to be like this.” Before she could change her mind or reason could catch up to his own actions, he bent, winding his arms around her thighs, and lifted. She was tall but slight, and he held her tight against him so that her hips pressed against his chest and her stomach hovered in front of his face. She gasped and braced a hand on his shoulder, reaching up to balance her headdress with the other. He could not see her face like this, but he imagined she was scandalized. He chuckled. “I suppose I should have given you some warning.”
He risked offending her or word getting back to her mother through the guards that followed them. Both of which paled in comparison to the risk of his father hearing of his actions. He was a child, poking at a fish with a stick, rather than reeling it in the way he was supposed to. But he could not seem to help himself.
With some measure of urgency, he started up the stairs. Her body swayed toward him, her beaded dress scraping against his chin. This close, he felt her breathing speed up. The hand on his shoulder migrated to her chest, doing her best to cover the cleavage that was only just above his line of sight.
His instincts said to push again, but this time he reined them in. He kept his head down and quickened his feet. Again, the movement made her sway toward him, harder this time without her hand on his shoulder as a brace. He turned his face to the side, and her belly pressed against his cheek just for a moment before her hand was back at his shoulder, righting her position.
He took the last few steps at a pace that was nearly a jog, and when he reached the top, he looked up at her face. Her mouth was open and soft; he knew by the rise and fall of her body against him that her breaths were ragged, and in her eyes was a gleam. Not fear. Not panic. Not even anger.
Want.
He could work with that.
The capital city of the Locke kingdom seems to lie at the very edge of all things. Jutting out into ravaging sea and hemmed in by wild jungles, it is the edge of the world, the edge of beauty and danger and power. It is a gleaming gem cradled in the jaw of a predator, and to touch it, to live there on the edge, is to know life and death and command them both.
—The Perilous Lands of Caelira
2
If Rora’s eyes had been closed, she might have believed that a firestorm had struck indoors and that embers were scorching along every surface of her skin, burning and burning and burning until she turned to ash. Cassius’s hold loosened, and Rora’s body began to slide down his toward the floor.
His eyes were not black as she thought before, but a deep blue. Like the ocean in the midst of a storm. Or how she envisioned the ocean to be, since she had only ever read about it. Her favorite book was about an explorer who sailed the sea in search of a safer land; she had read it so many times that the spine was broken and the pages soft. She would like to know how it felt to stand and feel the crash of waves against her knees. Maybe Cassius would take her someday.
She felt the future rolling out in front of her, like the wind moving through the wheat fields. Too fast. Everything was too fast. But he looked at her mouth, and she looked at his. A spark burned up her spine, and for the first time in her life she could imagine exactly what it was like to control skyfire.
To be powerful.
Just when excitement overtook the fear, and she started to want things to be too fast, his hands slid away and he stepped back. Taven and Merrin had been maintaining a discreet distance until Cassius had lifted her, and now they waited only a few steps below them.
She was certain her guards could see the red flooding her cheeks, that they all could see, even through the layers of powder. In her mother’s efforts to seclude her and protect her secret, Queen Aphra had effectively cut Rora off from almost all personal contact. She’d traded friendship for solitude, social interaction for books. At her mother’s insistence, at her queen’s demand, Rora alienated everyone she knew to keep a secret that weighed on her more than this gown and headdress ever would. Even the maids who assisted her rotated regularly to prevent anyone from getting close enough to learn the truth.
Rora had certainly never been pressed against a man as she had been in Cassius’s arms. She was terrified that he would be able to see her nerves, that this would be one more area where she would be found lacking. But he didn’t laugh or tease her. Instead, Cassius knelt at her feet. Her heart skittered up into her throat as he carefully straightened and smoothed the mass of black fabric at the bottom of her dress. When he looked up, her thoughts tangled over their imagined wedding night. About how she would have to get used to him being even closer and more intimate than this.
Her thoughts spun out of control, but below her Cassius was unhurried and unembarrassed. He offered her the softest smile, softer than she would have thought him capable. Maybe her mother was right. Cassius had his rough edges, but perhaps there was happiness to be found with him.
“There,” he said, straightening in front of her again. He touched the curve of her chin, tipping it up slightly. His hand left her chin for the smooth crystal of a skyfire bolt on her necklace. His finger ran along the edge, and though it didn’t touch her skin, it was close. Maybe the crystal was crooked and needed straightening too. Or maybe it wasn’t. She only knew that she wanted him to do it again. He gave her a cheeky wink and said, “Your mother will never know a thing.”
Before she could make sense of her flurry of emotions, a door beyond them opened. A servant asked if they were ready, and Rora nodded shakily. Moments later cheering could be heard within the great hall beyond. Cassius clasped her hand and pulled her forward.
When they stepped through the doorway, Rora’s heart caught in her throat. Hundreds upon hundreds of people were crowded into the room to celebrate her betrothal to Cassius, smiling faces as far as she could see. The applause echoed around the room, filling her ears until she could not even hear herself think. Her favorite thing in the entire palace was the chandelier her great-grandfather had constructed by trapping the magic of skyfire in an elaborate glass structure, and she fixed her eyes on it. Tonight it shone brilliantly—lightning frozen behind glass as if the goddess herself had plucked it from the sky.