heal quickly once they took shelter for the night, but that didn’t mean it hurt any less in the moment. The agony built until she was burned by hot coals with every step.
“I need to stop,” she said abruptly.
He eyed her as if she were a tree that deigned to speak. “Are we far off?”
“No.”
“Then we keep walking.”
“I’m stopping.” She sat as abruptly as she’d spoken. Immediately she pulled one foot cross-legged into her lap. Blood covered her fingers.
“What in the Dragon?” Tallis squatted and balanced on the balls of his feet. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“You’re the one in tune with the physical world. Or maybe that ebbs for a while after you come.”
“So mouthy now that you know what you’re talking about.” He stared back along their trail. The tight defensiveness in his expression fell away. “Fuck.”
Kavya followed his line of sight. Smears of blood marked their progress. “Do you have any water left in the bottles?”
“Yeah. Give me one foot.”
“Why?” She pulled her stinging foot more closely against her body. “Just give me the water.”
“No.” He proved his will by pulling her leg across his lap. His strength was always such a glorious surprise. In this case, however, it was also infuriating when he tended her feet as if she were a child with a scraped knee.
“Fine,” she said tartly. “Start working on that plan.”
“You still want to unify your people.”
“Of course. Pashkah killed my allies. Now I look like a victim, a traitor, or a cohort. I need to restore that faith and work to fix the chasm between the factions.”
“Say that again,” he said, his blue-eyed glare made indigo by the shadows cast by the sun at his back.
“To fix the chasm? What of it?”
He drizzled water on her feet until the worst of the grit and blood washed onto the ground. Then he removed one of his seaxes and cut the wool lining from his jacket. Efficiently, he tied the wool in a field dressing that offered both absorption and padding. A layer of sliced leather followed, to give the sole more protection. Head bent, he concentrated on his task. His hands were respectful, if that was possible, but Kavya couldn’t help responding to the sensitive way his skin slipped along hers as he held her calf, her ankle. She wanted him to push farther up her legs and keep touching, to put his mouth on her again—or, more daring, to take what they both wanted. They both wanted Tallis to claim her virginity.
Kavya was tired of his erratic behavior, which seemed to include pampering her. She’d never been one to indulge her own needs. “You’re still being guided by forces I can’t understand,” she said. “I’ve been nothing but frank from the start. Start talking, or we part once we reach Jaipur.”
“We part when I say so.”
“I know these cities. I know their alleys. If I want to disappear, I will. You’ll never see me again.”
He offered a surprising nod. “Fine.”
“Fine that we’ll part or fine, you’ll talk?”
He tied off the second leather dressing, his expression grim. “The vision I’ve dreamed about . . .”
“The one you thought was me?”
“She planned to see the Five Clans unified. That was her phrase: the Chasm isn’t fixed. Every action I’ve taken was in deference to her larger vision. In a way, I was one of your people. A true believer.”
“What changed?”
“Anyone can lose faith. The particulars are just that. Particulars.” He rubbed a hand over his face, then around his grit-smeared neck. He was more than a man; he was an explorer from another century. “The issue is what to do now. If I help you, I’m helping whoever’s been infecting my dreams. I won’t risk that. I’m no longer in her service. Once I figure out who or what she is, I’ll leave you to your mountain to climb, and get my life back.”
“Your
“What I do with my life is my choice.”
“Great plan so far, Tallis.” She grabbed the water bottle and took a hefty swig. That didn’t help swallow the fear that had balled in her throat. After wiping her mouth, she eyed him. “Why protest her goal of unification but support mine regarding the Indranan? Or are you just tagging along for the sex?”
Dust had filled the tiny lines at the corners of his eyes, and had cast an unnatural hue across his skin. “No,” he said darkly. “It’s because you’ve never commanded me to kill.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY
An hour after Tallis stole a moped, they arrived in the Old City of Jaipur.
Kavya had passed through Jaipur on occasion, always on her way to another place to regroup. Holding on to Tallis around his waist, she took the time to do what she’d never been able to. She soaked up the flavor of the famed Pink City. Clean, square-cut sandstone was the architectural theme, but that austerity was made romantic by pink paint on every possible surface. She’d never seen such a seamless blend of modern and ancient India. Neither era suffered. The union was unusual and beautiful, in ways that brought unexpected tears to her eyes. She was just tired. On so many levels. Being pressed against Tallis’s broad back for the duration of their trip hadn’t been relaxing. She’d spent that time poised between wanting to melt into his comfort and holding herself at a distance after the chilly end to their hours in the cornfield.
Tallis parked among a cluster of no fewer than a hundred other mopeds. They were within walking distance of the Johari Bazar. He craned his neck, circling, a frown creasing his dusty brows. “Why pink?”
At least the bitterness was gone from his voice. The longer they were in each other’s company, the more he seemed willing to admit that she was not the woman haunting his dreams. Perhaps he’d spent those miles on the moped reliving her intimate initiation, not cataloging the rifts between them.
“Some believe it is a color of welcome, and that a raja doused the whole city before welcoming the Prince of Wales.” She smiled and leaned closer, as if revealing a conspiracy. “Some think it was simply the cheapest, most prevalent color he could find.”
Tallis smiled, too. “It’s just so very . . .
“Don’t let the whimsy fool you. There are forts and fortifications everywhere.”
“Are they pink, too?”
Feeling lighter—a welcome return to the rapture he’d offered as a gift—she tucked her fingers into the folds of his shirt. “Some of them. But beautiful things can still be dangerous.”
“Don’t I know it. You know what else I know?”
Kavya shook her head.
“I’m sleeping in a bed tonight. Period.”
“Alone?”
He grasped her lower back and brought their hips together. “Of course not.”
“You think you’re in charge,” she said, her heart speeding. “Here. Kiss my fingertips.”
Tallis did without hesitation, just a brush of warm skin across each tip. Then he stared into her eyes until she was too hot, too tight, too much in need of him.
“So bossy,” he said quietly.
She pulled away but kept hold of his hand. “The bazaar is this way.”
