“Oh, Moirin!” Amrita fussed over me, wiping my tears away with the draped hem of her sari. “Of course you do. Forgive me, I did not mean to make this harder for you.”

I smiled at her through my tears. “You didn’t.”

“I did.”

“No.” I shook my head. “It was a kindness. And I am always grateful for your kindness.”

“Ah.” Unexpectedly, Amrita kissed my lips, sweetly and gently. “Yes, I know. I have not forgotten. Your demonstration of gratitude was very memorable. Will your gods let you stay a while, at least? Until spring comes? It will be much easier to travel then. I would be grateful for your aid in changing the world, Moirin. And I have promised to see you and your Bao wed. I would like to see it done when all the flowers are in bloom.”

My diadh-anam did not speak against it.

“Yes,” I said gratefully. “We will stay until spring.”

Bao fetched up alongside us, sweat glistening on his brown skin. “I am too old for such acrobatics,” he announced. “It makes my bones ache. Moirin, why are you crying?”

“Because we will have to leave this place,” I said.

He frowned and glanced unerringly toward the west. “Not yet, surely?”

“No.” I rubbed my face. “But it makes me sad to think on it.”

“I know.” Bao stroked my back. “We’ll just have to make the most of our time here, all right?”

I nodded. “That we will.”

SEVENTY-EIGHT

Alone in the bedchamber with Bao that night, I found myself feeling suddenly and unwontedly shy for the first time since….. ever.

It had been so long since we’d been intimate, and so much had happened to us both. He had survived Kurugiri and Jagrati’s favoritism. I had been the instrument of Naamah’s blessing, and the near-victim of Kamadeva’s diamond. As much as I wanted this, I didn’t know how to be an ordinary, mortal lover anymore.

Bao sensed my uncertainty. “Do you want to wait until after we’re wed?” he asked. “I can if you can. I have great strength of will, you know,” he added, making me smile.

“No.” I took his hand, traced the creases on his callused palm. “No, it’s just…..” I shrugged, lacking words. “I feel strange. Unlike myself.”

“Come here.” Bao tugged me close to him. I slid my arms around his waist, pressing my palms against his back, burying my face against his shoulder. He held me and breathed the Breath of Earth’s Pulse, one hand sliding through my hair, lifting it and letting it fall, a motion rhythmic and soothing, as though he were petting a cat. “Do you know why I was unkind to you when we first met?”

“Because you hated Raphael de Mereliot,” I said in a muffled voice. “And you didn’t think I was deserving of Master Lo’s attention.”

He laughed deep in his chest. “True. But there was another reason. I did not like D’Angelines very much. They think so highly of themselves, of their beauty.” His fingers slid through my hair, rising and falling. “Maybe it would have been different if I’d let myself get to know some of them. Too proud, I know.”

“They probably didn’t encourage it,” I murmured.

“No,” Bao agreed. “But I did not find them all so beautiful, either. To a Ch’in eye, it is a hard, sharp beauty, deadly as a blade. You….. you were different. You looked like them and unlike them all at once, a more subtle blade, exotic to them, but a blend of the familiar and the strange to me.” He lifted my face, stroked my cheekbones with his thumbs. “You wanted me to speak of desire, Moirin? You were the most desirable woman I’ve ever seen, and I resented you for it. Foolish, but true.”

“Oh,” I whispered.

He kissed me softly, and I felt Naamah’s gift stirring at last. Doves—the wings fluttering in my belly were doves, not ravens. “If I were a poet, I would write poems of praise to your golden skin and ebony hair and green, green eyes,” he said solemnly. “But I am not a poet, Moirin. Only a peasant-boy risen high above his station.”

My throat tightened. “No, you are a great deal more than that, my magpie.”

His mouth quirked. “Oh, aye?” he asked, mimicking my inflection. “Am I?”

“Aye.” I wound my arms around his neck and kissed his lips. The feeling of strangeness had fled. “You are.”

Bao’s eyes gleamed in the lamplight.

The bright lady smiled.

It was slow and gentle and glorious. Cupping my face, Bao kissed me until I was dizzy with pleasure, his tongue delving into my mouth, teasing my own. Our flickering diadh-anams entwined in a private celebration, echoing the dance of our bodies. Liquid heat uncoiled in the pit of my belly, spreading languorously to my limbs. With careful reverence, he unpinned my sari, unwinding its complicated folds, kissing the skin he unveiled. The hollow of my throat, my collarbones.

Sinking to his knees before me, Bao traced patterns on my taut skin with the tip of his tongue, probing my navel and making me giggle breathlessly. He tugged down my fine linen underskirt, his deft tongue parting my nether-lips and darting between them.

“Oh!” I caught my breath, sinking my hands into his hair. My knees felt weak. “If you’re going to do that, I cannot keep my feet.”

He rose gracefully, his hands catching the hem of my cropped undershirt and easing it over my head, caressing my aching breasts in the process. “Lie down on the bed.”

I did.

Bao gazed at me, hot-eyed and infinitely patient. After all, my boasting boy did have great strength of will. He stripped off his tunic, revealing a sculpted brown torso corded with lean muscle. He shucked his loose breeches, his tight flanks rippling, more lean muscle on his thighs and calves. Ah, gods! He had a gorgeous body, the most beautiful I’d ever seen on a man. His erect phallus was drawn as tight as a bowstring, curving toward his flat belly, the swollen head as dark and ripe as a plum.

As he slid into bed, I reached for him.

“Not yet.” Bao shifted, straddling my body and pinning my arms. “I need to relearn you. Every part of you.” He smiled down at me with rare sweetness. “It is part of learning to live in brightness, Moirin. Do you mind?”

I laughed. “Stone and sea! No!”

So many times, with so many lovers, it seemed I had been in charge, in control. Naamah’s child, taking as much or more delight in bestowing pleasure as receiving it. It was a relief to surrender for once, to let Bao take the reins.

We kissed and kissed, until I thought I would melt. He worked his way down my body, laying a trail of kisses along my throat.

He suckled my nipples, hard. I groaned, my back arching.

He pressed kisses against the soles of my feet, the backs of my knees. He parted my thighs, kissing them. “This, here.” His tongue teased the place where my thigh met my groin. His voice was thick. “I would write an ode to it.”

I made a wordless sound.

His mouth moved higher, tasting me, his tongue exploring my depths and retreating to flutter against Naamah’s Pearl. Pleasure broke in waves over me, my hips rising involuntarily to meet his mouth. He did not stop for a long, long time.

“Are you sufficiently reeducated?” I asked breathlessly when he finally did. “Because I feel very, very thoroughly relearned.”

Bao grinned. “It’s a good start, anyway.” Effortlessly, he turned me in his arms, pulling me atop him. “Now I want to watch you.”

Kneeling astride his waist, I leaned down to kiss him, tasting my juices on his lips, my hair falling to curtain both our faces. The tips of my nipples brushed his chest in a tantalizing manner. I bit his throat softly, sucking on the warm, smooth flesh. I kissed the hard, sleek planes of his chest, bit and sucked lightly on his small, flat nipples until he groaned, his hands clutching hard at my hips.

Only then did I sit up, rising a little on my knees and taking his phallus in my hand. It was warm and throbbing, the thin skin velvety-soft. Bao watched me, his eyes gleaming beneath heavy lids as I fitted the swollen head between my slick nether-lips. I sank down on him slowly, letting him fill me inch by delicious inch—and our shared diadh-anams merged in a silent starburst. I had forgotten how profoundly intense the sensation was, startling us both into a moment of stillness.

“Do you think we’ll ever get used to it?” Bao whispered in awe.

I smiled. “Mayhap if we try often enough.”

Slowly, the glittering intensity faded, and I began to move again, moving my hips in a small circular motion, reveling in the feeling of his shaft deep inside me, filling me, its angle changing subtly as I moved; of his strong fingers digging into my hips, encouraging me. Gasping with pleasure, I came again.

“Beautiful,” Bao murmured. “So beautiful.”

When I caught my breath once more, I leaned forward a bit to brace my hands on his chest and changed to a different motion, rising and sinking along the length of his phallus, creating a glorious friction that pleased us both. Finally, Bao’s formidable strength of will began to crumble. With a low growl that echoed in the pit of my belly, he rolled us both over once more, his shaft still buried inside me.

He rocked between my thighs, propped on his forearms and watching my face. I closed my eyes, drinking in the sensation of being filled and emptied, rising to meet his thrusts until the waves built and built again, breaking over and over, my yielding flesh convulsing in honey-sweet spasms around his hardness, my ankles hooked around his buttocks.

It was good, so very good.

And it was good in a different way when Bao gave himself utterly over to his own desire at last, his breath coming in hard pants, his hips thrusting hard and fast, driving me to yet another climax as I felt his phallus tighten and swell within me. He gave another low growl, shuddering and coming, his chin grinding into my neck.

In the aftermath of love, his face was soft and vulnerable. I lay propped against his bare chest, stroking the unruly hair out of his dark eyes, wondering what he was thinking. “Are you happy?” I asked him.

Bao laughed. “Happy?” He trailed the fingers of one hand along the curve of my spine, making me shiver a little. “I think that is a small word for what I am feeling, Moirin. Are you happy?”

“Aye,” I said simply. “I am.”

“You should always be happy.” He flattened his palm against the small of my back. “I do not tell you often enough that I love you. I am not good with pretty words and flattery. But when I hold you in my arms, I feel as though I hold everything that is good and bright in the world.”

My eyes stung.

“No tears, Moirin!” Bao said in alarm. “I am not good with tears, either.”

“They are happy tears,” I assured him, stretching to kiss him. “I’ve missed you, that’s all. Even though you’ve been right here.”

He returned my kiss. “I have missed you, too.”

It was enough.

Happy, sated, and languorous with pleasure in every part of my body, I drifted into sleep wrapped contentedly in Bao’s arms, one leg flung over his, my head pillowed on his shoulder, breathing in the familiar hot-forge scent of his skin. My diadh-anam burned brightly alongside his. We were together at last, every shadow between us banished.

I slept, and dreamed.

I dreamed of Jehanne.

In my dream, she came to me clothed in the attire she had worn on the Longest Night—the costume of the Winter Queen, a collar of snow-white ermine framing her exquisite face, her silver-gilt hair piled in a high coronet. In my dream, Jehanne was alive, her blue-grey eyes sparkling at me.

“I have missed you, my beautiful girl,” she said to me. “Have you missed me, too?”

I could not lie to Jehanne. “Yes. Oh, yes!”

“My sweet witchling,” my dream-Jehanne said fondly, sliding one hand around the nape of my neck. “My lovely Moirin, my gorgeous savage. Preparing to wed, even!” She gazed deep into my eyes. “I do not begrudge you your pretty ruffian, my beautiful girl. Only promise me it will change nothing between us.”

I paused, enveloped by her intoxicating scent. “But this is not real.”

“Does it matter?” my dream-Jehanne asked, toying with the tendrils of hair at the back of my neck. “I am here with you now.” Her sparkling eyes widened, searching my face. “Would you truly say no to me, Moirin?”

I didn’t know how to answer her. A part of me knew I was dreaming, knew I was lying asleep in Bao’s arms; and I did not want to betray him before I’d even wed him, even in my dreams. “Why are you haunting me, Jehanne?” I asked. “Are you angry at me for leaving you? Angry I was not there when…..?” I couldn’t say the words, and a part of me hoped that my dream-Jehanne would deny the entire thing, would tell me that her death was a cruel lie told me by the Patriarch to break me down and weaken me.

She didn’t. Instead she pulled away from me, looking hurt. “If that is what you think, mayhap I should leave.”

“No!” I couldn’t bear to lose even a dream-Jehanne. I caught her hand. “No, please. Stay.”

“Then you won’t say no to me?” Jehanne asked, smiling. “I beg you, don’t make me pout, Moirin! It’s tiresome, and it never worked very well on you anyway.”

I laughed.

Still smiling, Jehanne regarded me beneath her lashes with those star-bright eyes. My heart ached with loss and yearning, and I knew that even though none of this was real, there was no way I could ever say no to her.

“No.” I touched her cheek, her skin as fine as silk. “No, Jehanne. I will not say no to you.”