So does Senneth, Cammon thought. “They’ll be on their way tomorrow.”
THE next day, Cammon was briefly confused by the pace at which Senneth and Tayse were covering the ground on their return journey, for he could tell they were keeping up with Kirra and Donnal, which was hard to do.
“They’ve been changed,” he told Justin that night. Just the thought of it had given him his first true smile of the day. “Tayse let Kirra change him! Can you imagine?”
“Are they birds, then?” Justin wanted to know. “Because that’s fast, but, gods! It’s a tricky body to master.”
“I can’t tell what they are. Just that they’re all together and they should be here tomorrow night.”
“Finally you have good news.”
Ellynor made him bundle up for the long walk back from the cottage to the palace. It was almost spring, but the nights were still uncomfortably cold, and Cammon moved as briskly as he could without actually breaking into a run. By habit, he let his mind search the palace to locate the people who mattered to him. For once, Valri did not seem to be in the same room as Amalie; he thought she was with the king, for he could catch the stately aura that he associated with Baryn.
I’m on my way back to the palace, Cammon sent hopefully to Amalie. If you’re alone and you’d like to meet me somewhere. But she stayed stationary in her room, and he sighed. She might be asleep already. She might-with the kingdom in such turmoil already-be unwilling to add any more drama to her life. He couldn’t say he blamed her.
But as he entered the palace and climbed the stairs, it became clear that each step was bringing him closer to Amalie. As he turned down the hallway toward his own room, he felt her presence more strongly still. His pace quickened; he was almost running as he reached his door and pulled it open.
Amalie stood inside.
Even more hastily, he shut the door behind him.
Then he turned to stare. She was wearing a long white nightdress and holding a single white candle. There was no other light in the room. She looked like a column of moonlight topped with a halo of sculpted fire.
“How long have you been here?” he demanded.
“Maybe an hour.”
“If I’d known that, I would have come back much sooner!”
She smiled. It occurred to him that she was a little nervous. “I hope you don’t mind. I couldn’t exactly ask you.”
“Of course I don’t mind! But are you sure Valri won’t come looking for you?”
“She was pretty tired. I think she’s had so much else to occupy her thoughts in the past few days that she’s forgotten to pay as much attention to me.”
But she still seemed tentative. He went straight up to her, pushing aside the hand holding the candle, and kissed her soundly. That made her smile; that made all her uncertainty disappear. The glow that seemed to emanate from her very skin intensified.
“I like that so much,” she exclaimed in a low voice.
He laughed. “Time to put the candle aside, I think.”
She blew it out and let it fall to the floor with a clatter. Now they were both laughing. He put his arms around her and gathered her close, his mind again filled with imagery of moonbeams and reflected fire. She lifted her face and responded to his kisses with curiosity and delight and awakening desire. He was being careful, keeping his hands primly around her shoulders, but she was starting to explore. Her hands slipped under his shirt and flattened against his back. He could feel how much she liked the sensation of skin on skin, how marvelous it seemed to her, how extraordinary. Every kiss seemed to turn her a little brighter, as if she was absorbing all of his own sensations and turning them luminous.
“This feels wonderful,” she murmured against his mouth.
“A little too wonderful. We need to stop a moment.”
She clutched him tighter. “No. No, not yet.”
He kissed her. “I just want to build up the fire. It’s freezing in here.”
So he knelt at the hearth, blew on the coals, and built a fine fire that would burn a good long time. He could hear Amalie moving around the room, and before he could stand up, she had dragged over a thick blanket and began spreading it before the grate.
“Let’s sit and watch the flames,” she suggested, and dropped down beside him. He put his arm around her and felt heat from all directions-from the fire, from her skin, from his own body.
“More kisses,” she whispered, and twined her arms around his neck.
Easy to comply; easy to toss aside thoughts about what anyone else might think of such an assignation. She was so pleased to be with him that his own happiness multiplied. They could have been mirrors, each endlessly replicating what they found inside the other. She was like the moon itself, he thought, taking whatever he had to offer and making it visible, reflecting it back to him. And she liked all of this, every touch, every murmured word, every caress.
“When do I take off my nightdress?” she whispered against his mouth. “I will even take off the sheath with my knife in it, but I will mind Wen’s instructions and leave it nearby.”
He laughed against her lips. “I think you don’t take off the nightdress or the weapon,” he said. “And I don’t take off my clothes. And soon you go back to your room.”
Now she pouted. Instantly, much of the light faded from the room. “You don’t want to make love to me?” she asked.
He sucked in his breath, caught completely off guard. “Amalie! I didn’t-you-is that why you came here tonight?”
She pulled back, affecting haughtiness to hide her disappointment. “Naturally not. I simply came to your room because I was bored.”
He caught her and drew her closer, giving her one hard squeeze and dropping a kiss on the top of her head. Surely it was his imagination that even such a small mark of affection could make some of that glow return to her skin. “Don’t be hurt. Don’t be offended. You have to speak plainly. This is risky for so many reasons. I need to know what you want from me.”
She peered up at him through red-gold hair that was rather mussed and disordered. “But what if I say something and you don’t like it?”
“Well, that happens between people all the time. And sometimes it turns them awkward with each other, and sometimes it makes them angry, but unless they tell the truth it’s all just guessing and mistakes anyway.” He pressed his lips against her cheek. “But I don’t think anything you say will make me angry.”
She leaned into him, comforted but still unsure. “I am terrified that war is coming, but a very small part of me is glad, too,” she said in a soft voice. “Because there will be no more lords arriving at the palace to court me. And there will be no time to arrange for my wedding. And I don’t want to get married.”
“You don’t ever want to get married? Or just not now?”
She spoke slowly and deliberately. “I’m pretty sure I’ll marry someday for the sake of the throne. But I want to know what it’s like to love a man before I end up married to one I don’t love for the rest of my life.”
“You might end up loving the man you take as a husband,” he pointed out.
“Not if I have to pick from the ones I’ve seen so far.”
“There must be dozens of eligible men who haven’t made it to Ghosenhall yet.”
“I want my first lover to be someone who isn’t thinking about a throne when we fall into bed. I want him to be thinking about me.”
“Speaking for myself,” he said, “I find it hard to think about anything but you.”
She shifted in his arms to look him more fully in the face. “You don’t sound shocked.”
“Nothing shocks me,” he said.
She lifted her hands to put them on his shoulders, watching him intently. “But you’re not sure this is something you want to do.”