And then Ban was kissing her back, truly and eagerly. His arms came around her, and Elia wrapped hers around his neck, leaning up onto her toes. The blanket fell away from his shoulders and flapped to the earthen floor. His skin was so cold, but he was hard and lean as a sword. She felt her belly against his, her breasts flat against his chest; but for her thin wool shirt nothing separated their skin. Elia could hardly breathe at the realization. Her fingers dug into Ban’s shoulders, both excited and afraid.
She knew—from crude things Gaela had said, from Brona and Regan that week when Elia was thirteen, from listening to her father’s retainers when she shouldn’t have, from stories Aefa told, and her own cautious curiosity—she knew exactly what her body was asking for, and what the dangers were, what the joys might be. Elia slid away from Ban and said his name softly.
He studied her face, panting barely, just enough so she could see the pink promise of his tongue and a crescent shine of teeth in the firelight. “Elia,” he breathed back.
There were so many years and lies between them. They were practically strangers, but for memory and hope.
It was enough.
She pulled him to the low bed, holding her eyes on his face because she was too panicky and delighted and inflamed to look anywhere else. He allowed himself to be led, to be shoved gently down. Elia climbed on top of Ban, stretching out along his whole body. It was so dark but for the glow of firelight, and her curls fell around her face as she leaned over him, making them a private chapel of hair and eyes, noses and mouths.
Elia kissed him gently. Ban tentatively touched her hair, petting it reverently as she kissed, as she brushed her lips on his again and again, like tiny sips, shallow gasps of love. He dug his hands into her curls until he found her skull and tilted her head before leaning up off the pillow to kiss her more deeply.
Then Ban sat up, carrying Elia with him.
Her legs fumbled to either side of his lap; she gasped at the feel of him, his skin, his strong thighs, his belly, the rough hair and flesh rubbing against her. Elia clung to him from inches away. Their noses nearly touched, and she could hardly look into his eyes for being so close.
“Elia,” he said, and she felt his voice in every part of her: her name in his mouth raised the hairs all over her body, made her neck and arms and breasts shiver, her toes flex.
“Ban.”
“Stop” was his next word, and Elia felt that, too.
She jerked. “I don’t want to stop,” she whispered. “I want this—you—I want all of it, and I know it’s dangerous, and I don’t know how exactly…” she shifted her hips forward, because maybe she did know how.
Ban pushed her farther away. “You don’t know this is what you want.”
“I do, though.” Elia smiled.
This huge feeling was not grief or fury; it was warm, it enveloped her whole being. She did not want to diffuse it or let it go, but to instead let it overwhelm her. “I do know, as sure as I know anything. I want you, and this.”
“It isn’t what I want.” His voice was scorching.
Elia froze, and so did the world. Even the fire in the hearth seemed to pause in its licking. In the next moment Elia climbed away from Ban Errigal. Her chest ached; she pressed a hand to her stomach against a blossoming nausea.
“Wait,” he said.
There was no place for her to go. Elia stood still and held herself with her back to him, her mind empty because she refused all thoughts. Ban quickly rustled about, and then appeared wearing his damp, muddy pants to face her.
Because she was the daughter of a king, Elia Lear kept her chin high and met Ban Errigal’s wretched, burning gaze.
He said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—I meant … El—Elia—I mean I don’t…” He shook his head, his mouth turned into pain and sorrow. “You kissed me, and we almost … I’ve never wanted that, except with you. But I do. Want you. I want—I just want something for myself. Free of consequences. You.”
“Yes,” she whispered. She wanted it too: no plans, no future, no consequences.
“But I can’t. I know what kind of creature a bed like that makes.”
“Creature?” she said, her voice high as a sparrow’s. “You’re not the sum of your birth and stars.”
“You don’t know what I am, what I’ve done.”
Rory Errigal’s image appeared in her mind, as did that of Morimaros, Aefa, and the soldiers she’d seen in Aremoria, the world beyond this bed, beyond Hartfare and Innis Lear. She did know much of what he had done, and she wanted him. She knew what he was, and it was enough. She reached for him.
He let her touch his face, even brought his hands up over hers.
“Do you hate me for being my father’s daughter?” she asked softly.
“I could never hate you,” Ban said, and his entire body shivered.
He kissed her gently, slow as a sunrise, and trembling. She felt tears slide under her fingers where she held his face. And then he pulled roughly away, a curse harsh on his tongue. He scrubbed at his eyes. A scratch on his forearm glinted red with fresh blood.
“Ban, I know what you’ve done. I know what you are. And I do not hate it.”
“I am what I made myself,” he said.
Elia’s cheeks remained hot, her body too aware of him; she
