“No,” Savedra said instantly. “All right.”
More ravens wheeled over the courtyard, rasping voices echoing. A few dove as Savedra and the others raced for the gate, but no blows landed.
“They’re driving us off,” Cahal said as they paused in the shelter of the gate arch.
“They certainly are. And they can keep the place.”
Raucous shrieks followed them halfway down the mountain, finally dying away. Pain and fatigue gave way to fugue, and Savedra could remember nothing until Ashlin hoisted her into the saddle. She caught the pommel right- handed out of instinct and cried out as injured muscles flexed. Sweat soaked her, stinging in a dozen scrapes and scratches and chilling quickly now that she was still.
When they passed the salt circle they dared stop. Ashlin stripped away Savedra’s blood-soaked bandages and rinsed the wound, first with water and then with whiskey. Savedra sobbed at the latter. Ashlin’s hands shook by the time she wound the fresh bandages, and Cahal had to tie them off. He cleaned Ashlin’s wound too, eliciting an angry hiss. His ministrations left one side of her face clean, the other a half-mask of filth.
“We can stay the night in Valcov,” Iancu said. “Get you looked at by a physician.”
Savedra shook her head; her eyes ached with the threat of tears. “I want to go home.” It was foolish and childish, and she winced at the sound of the words. She waited for the others to talk sense into her, but instead they exchanged calculating glances.
“It will mean riding at night,” Iancu said at last, “but I admit I find the idea appealing.”
“Let’s go then,” Ashlin said. “The sooner we get under cover the happier I’ll be.”
Savedra glanced back as they urged the horses on, and saw winged shadows circling the towers of Carnavas.
It must have been a harrowing ride back to Evharis, but Savedra didn’t recall much of it. She had confused flashes of clinging to the saddle, and later slumping over her horse’s neck, and finally of Iancu carrying her up the steps into a confusion of light and warmth and concerned voices. She regained her senses inopportunely, as the physician appeared to clean and stitch her wound. Ashlin pressed a glass of brandy into her hand, and the world dulled once more.
It wasn’t till well past midnight, after an awkward one-armed bath that nearly lulled her into sleep and drowning, that she remembered the jewel she’d found in Carnavas. She picked up her ruined coat, meaning to drop the filthy thing in a rubbish bin, and something small and glittering fell out of the pocket and rattled across the floor.
Savedra crouched to retrieve it from the shadows under the bed. She’d drunk several glasses of medicinal brandy during the stitching, and the movement nearly toppled her.
A ring. A woman’s ring, a brilliant pigeon’s blood ruby in a delicate gold band. The setting was clogged with grime, the stone dull with it, but there was no mistaking its beauty or its worth. Such a ring would be costly anywhere, but in Selafai it would only grace the hand of a mage.
Was it hers? The mysterious missing Severos sorceress?
She staggered off her knees at a knock on the door, and the ring vanished into the pocket of her robe.
Ashlin entered before Savedra reached the door. The princess was freshly bathed as well, her hair and shirt both damp and clinging to her skin. She went straight for the brandy and poured herself a tall glass. From the smell of her skin, it wasn’t her first either. The talon scratches on her face had scabbed dark and angry red.
“Are you all right?” Savedra asked, after watching the princess pace several circuits across the rug.
“I lied,” Ashlin said, jerking to a halt. She set down her half-empty glass and brandy splashed against her fingers. Her cheeks were flushed, eyes shining. “I don’t envy you. I envy Nikos.”
Savedra opened her mouth and closed it again. “What do you mean?”
Ashlin closed the space between them. The heat of her skin was a furnace, and the smell of brandy clinging to her reminded Savedra how much she’d drunk herself. It also reminded her that she wasn’t wearing anything beneath her robe; her good hand clenched at the collar.
“I watched you come to harm, and I couldn’t bear it.” She cupped Savedra’s cheek with one calloused hand. “It’s you I want, Vedra.” She took the last step, pressing the length of their bodies together. The princess was hard and lean against her, lips soft and demanding.
“I don’t like girls,” Savedra whispered when she could breathe again. But there was no denying the attraction, not with the sharp beat of her pulse, the heat and hardness of her traitorous flesh. She tried to pull away, but a bedpost trapped her.
Ashlin’s laugh caught in her throat. “Neither do I. But I like you.” She shifted her hips and Savedra gasped. Lips and tongue traced the line of her throat.
“Nikos will never forgive me,” Savedra whispered, even as she arched into the touch. Pins and combs fell away beneath Ashlin’s insistent fingers and the damp cloud of her hair enveloped both their faces.
“He will. He loves you. It’s me he won’t forgive, and I hardly care.” Teeth scraped her earlobe. “I want
A turn and gentle push and the edge of the bed met the back of Savedra’s knees. She sat, and Ashlin’s knee pressed between hers. With a scramble and shrug Ashlin cast her shirt aside and crawled forward, forcing Savedra back against the featherbed.
Curiosity and envy made Savedra raise her face to her breasts, but the shudder and moan that answered her only made the pressure at the base of her spine build all the more. “This is madness,” she murmured against clean soap-scented skin. A nipple brushed her mouth, taut and creased. “Not to mention adultery and treason.”
Ashlin pulled away, and she nearly whimpered with pain and relief, but the princess only stripped away her trousers, and then Savedra’s robe. The sour-sweet musk of her was alien but not unpleasant. Savedra slid a hand along the silken skin of her inner thigh, driven by curiosity and the insidious desire to feel Ashlin shudder again. This much she could trespass-
Ashlin knelt above her, one hand teasing her nipple rings while the other closed around her erection, calluses scraping tender skin. Savedra opened her mouth for a denial, a refusal, but all that came out was a groan. Not like this, she wanted to say, memories of the Black Orchid and the hijras’ temple house thick as opium smoke in her mind. But Ashlin was already taking her inside, all warmth and wet and rhythmic pressure, and she could only sob.
It was quick and awkward and drunken, and Ashlin swore in Celanoran when she came. It was enough to make Savedra laugh, which in turn became a breathless shuddering gasp as her own climax took her. She was crying, and both of them were slick with sweat and tears and fluids.
“I’m sorry,
“You didn’t-”
She wiped away tears with her thumb. “Didn’t I? I shouldn’t have pressed.”
“We can’t do this again.” It might have sounded more convincing had her face not been pressed against Ashlin’s collarbone, her hand cupping her hip. “What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know,” Ashlin whispered into her hair. “I don’t know.”
They lay together in silence, until pain and fatigue and brandy rolled over Savedra like a wave, and sucked her down into the dark.
