The Half King

19

As Nero had warned them, the trail to the southwest grew rougher and more difficult to follow the next day. At times, the path disappeared completely, and the group was forced to leave behind the supply wagon and then dismount the horses and cajole them through sections of dried bramble and brush that were littered with razor-sharp petrified log fragments. But though the hours were slow and tedious, the caravan completed the first day without injury, and then Cerise cast the runes again shortly before twilight.

The runes sent the caravan southwest for another two days. Each night, the group camped under Father Padron’s protection, and Cerise continued to drink arrowroot syrup with her dinner so she could fall asleep by sunset. Fortunately, General Petros had plenty of syrup to share, and no one in the group questioned her consumption of it. As strenuous as the journey had become, they all understood the value of a good night’s sleep.

But in truth, each night at sunset, Cerise wanted only to follow Kian into the Mortara underworld, where they sought out the most quiet, secluded chambers and passed the hours sharing stories and body heat and kisses that were more or less chaste. Every moment she shared with him was as precious to her as the sunrise that returned them to the tent in the morning. She even came to prefer dusk over dawn. During the day, she and Kian had to share their time with others, but the nights belonged only to them. The nights were her haven, her sanctuary.

It was then that she fell completely in love.

And the emotion really did feel like falling. The exhilaration that lifted her ribs reminded her of the rare, secret opportunities for sledding at the Solon temple. When enough snow had fallen to cover the ground, she had borrowed a flat baking sheet from the kitchen and snuck outside to the hill behind the courtyard. While the others had slept, she’d skidded down the hill at breakneck speeds. In addition to it being a most unladylike thing to do, there had always been a moment when the frosty wind had watered her eyes and whipped her hair and she feared she had gone too fast. But each time she had been tempted to dig in her heels and stop, the thrill of flying had outweighed her fear of the fall, and she held on until the very end.

She held on like that now.

That didn’t mean she had deluded herself into thinking her time with Kian could last forever. He was still a king in need of a legitimate heir, and she was still a second-born given in service to the temple. But the way she saw it, she had two choices: she could dig in her heels and protect her heart, or she could dive headlong into love. To her, the choice was clear. There was no thrill in falling slowly. Pain was a natural part of life, so she reminded herself not to fear it. She loved boldly, and by the fourth sunrise, she could honestly say that her heart—the part Blue hadn’t claimed—belonged to the king.

She would face the consequences later.

When the dawn of her Claiming Day finally arrived, she awoke in the tent a few moments ahead of Kian. She opened her eyes and held her breath, half afraid of what she would discover. This was the day she had been waiting for…and dreading for most of her life—the day she would learn who and what she was destined to become. But as she sat up in the darkness, she didn’t know what outcome she wanted.

A cloud of shadow drifted through the tent flaps and quickly took form into the king’s lean, muscled body. At once, he turned to face her, and they sat on the floor, their gazes locked.

“Well?” he whispered. “Do you feel any differently?”

Cerise probed her chest as though receiving the Sight might have physically altered her. She shook her head. She didn’t notice any new sensations.

Kian went thoughtful for a moment. “Let’s try a test,” he whispered. “I’m going to do something. I’ve already decided what it is, and I’m picturing my actions right now. See if you can predict my path.”

Though he couldn’t have possibly known it, his suggestion triggered a pang of fear that she recognized all too well. It was the result of having tried—and failed—that same basic test hundreds of times at the temple. But she nodded and began the process. The steps were so ingrained that she performed them without conscious thought: closing her eyes, clearing her mind, and focusing on the warmth and compassion she felt for the king. After she had settled into a state of relaxation, she silently asked the goddess to show her Kian’s path.

One moment passed, and then another. She could hear a faint bird call echoing in the distance. She could feel Blue’s body heat from where he slept beside her. But the darkness behind her eyelids remained blank.

She inhaled and exhaled slowly. Then she tried again to coax the answer from her mind’s eye. What will the king do? Show me his path.

Nothing. Not even a flicker of divination passed through her.

She opened her eyes just in time to watch Kian kiss his fingertip and then press that same finger to the bridge of her nose.

“Did you predict that?” he asked.

The familiar sting of failure pricked behind her ribs, but this time, it was multiplied by a thousand. She was giftless. The goddess had deemed her worthy of the sunset runes but not faithful enough to bless her with the Sight.

Maybe the Order had been right after all. Maybe her passion for Kian, even though she hadn’t fully acted on it, had distracted her enough to offend the goddess.

Would she be able to break the curses now?

“Do you See anything?” Kian whispered. “Anything at all?”

Cerise peered around the dark tent, looking for a vision or a sign—some hint of a change in her perception that might mean her inner eye had opened. But she saw only the shadowy outlines of her bedding and of Blue resting his head on her blanket pallet.

“No,” she told him. Now as much as ever, she was ordinary.

She hadn’t received the Sight.

Wait .

She hadn’t received the Sight.

There was nothing holding them back anymore.

One good thing could come from her failure.

Tossing a blanket onto his lap, she told him, “Put this on,” and then she grasped his hand and towed him out of the tent. She had learned the hard way that noise traveled through canvas walls, and she had no intention of giving anyone a show.

In the dim purple of dawn, she found the other tents tightly closed, but the group would awake soon and begin the morning routine of restarting the fire, preparing breakfast, feeding the horses, and packing up the camp for the day’s travel. Wherever she took Kian, they couldn’t go far without their absence being noticed.

“Where are we going?” he whispered, doing his best to wrap the blanket around his waist with one hand.

She shushed him and held out a palm to Blue in a command to stay. Blue hesitated briefly, tilting his enormous head at the king as if assessing his intentions, and then he gave a great yawn and padded back into the tent.

Without wasting another second, she towed Kian farther away from camp. She continued to the east, taking him back the way the caravan had come the day before, until they reached an enormous boulder that stood at the head of the trail. She remembered seeing the boulder when she’d passed it on her horse. At least ten feet tall and half as wide, it should block their noise as long as they were careful.

“What are we doing here?” he whispered.

“Gaining distance,” she told him.

He opened his mouth to speak but closed it again as she pulled him into her arms. He seemed to get the message then. His blanket fell to the ground. Less than one heartbeat later, she found herself pressed between two walls: one of smooth, solid stone, and the other of hard, naked flesh. With his mouth so close to hers and his warm breath stirring against her lips, all thoughts of failure vanished from her mind. The way he looked at her now—as though she were the only star in a black and endless sky—made her feel anything but ordinary.

“There’s not much time,” she whispered, running her hands down his back. “Do you want to make the most of it with me?”

A deep rumble sounded from within his chest, and then his hands were in her hair and his mouth at her ear, where he whispered her name with an urgency that brought every soft part of her body to life. He trailed one hand down her arm to her breast and then he palmed it gently, using his thumb to tease her nipple until she groaned and arched against him.

Her reaction seemed to please him. He nuzzled her ear and murmured, “Do you want more, my lady of the temple?”

“Yes,” she breathed.

“What shall I do next?”

“Kiss me,” she told him.

And so he did. He tipped up her chin and moved his mouth to hers, slow and sweet at first. The brush of his lips was indescribably soft, one tender sweep and then another. He skimmed the tip of his tongue along her upper lip, and when she opened to him, he explored her with shallow licks that tempted her to taste him in return. Their tongues danced and curled. With each warm, wet stroke, she felt her blood heating and rushing through her veins. They went on like this until their mouths moved in desperation and their breaths came in stolen gasps.

Breaking for air, Kian moved his lips to her earlobe and then kissed a trail down the side of her neck. When he reached the middle of her shoulder, he bit down hard, and a loud groan of pleasure arose from her throat. With a growl of his own, he suckled the spot, alternately ravaging it with the scrape of his teeth until she writhed in his arms. He drove her halfway to insanity with his mouth, and when he pulled back, she was dizzy and panting.

“More?” he asked, his eyelids heavy.

She licked her swollen lips and nodded. Whatever he was offering, she wanted it.

Any sliver of space between them was eliminated when he kissed her again. His hands traveled over her curves while he crushed her between his body and the wall of stone. Somehow, the nearness wasn’t enough. She tightened her arms around his broad shoulders in a compulsion to feel more of his weight, more of his skin. He seemed to share the same need, because he grasped one of her legs and hooked it around his hip, his fingertips biting into her thigh, his heart thundering against her chest. She could sense his control slipping, and the mystery of what would happen next, of what he would do to her, sent a jolt of anticipation down her spine.

This time, he didn’t have to ask what she wanted. She told him, “More,” in a voice she barely recognized as her own. She wanted more of the hot rush through her veins, more of his touch and his scent.

She wanted more of him .

He released her thigh and grasped the hem of her blouse, which he then lifted over her head with a roughness that thrilled her. After tossing aside her shirt, he hooked his thumbs around the waistband of her linen pants and pushed them to the ground in one swift motion. She kicked them free. Both of them fully naked, he took a step back and admired her. Though his attention made her blush, she fought against her fear and resisted the urge to hide herself. Kian cradled her waist between his hands and gazed at her reverently, taking in the dip of her navel and the outside swell of her thighs. The rising sun cast a glow over his face, highlighting the emotion and the desire etched there as he gazed at her with a silent question.

“More,” she commanded again and pulled him back to her with a kiss.

The hair on his body tickled her exposed flesh, and for the first time, she let her hands explore him, fully explore him, starting with the contours of his chest and his shoulders, moving lower to trace his rounded backside, and finally trailing a fingertip along the ebony hair that encircled his navel. But she stopped there. She didn’t know what to do next, how to touch him. A sudden flush of shyness crept into her cheeks.

Kian seemed to understand. He guided her palm lower and then wrapped her fingers around his flesh. The feel of him was different than she had expected. He was rigid, and yet his skin was softer and more delicate than the rest of him. She loosened her grip, afraid she might hurt him, but he tightened his fingers around hers and then moved her hand slowly up and down. He removed his hand, and she stroked him on her own, letting the sound of his breathing guide her movements. She caressed him until she could hear nothing over the choppy pull of air into his lungs, and then he abruptly stilled her hand and looked to her with the same question in his eyes.

“Yes,” she told him. “More.”

Now it was his turn to explore her body. She held still, uncertain of what to do as he skimmed one hand down the length of her abdomen and to the juncture of her thighs. Before she could prepare herself for what might happen next, he cupped her in his palm and pulled ever so slightly upward with a firm but gentle motion, and there was no standing still after that. She arched against his palm as he went on massaging a delicious tension into her body. Just when she thought the act could feel no better, he replaced his palm with his fingers, and she tipped back her head, delirious with the sensations of his fingertips stroking and circling and dipping inside her.

She made embarrassing noises—whimpers and whines and guttural moans—but she couldn’t bring herself to care about anything except his touch. She didn’t know how he did it, how he had mastered her body as though it belonged to him. The longer it went on, the weaker her knees became.

“I can’t…” She panted, her legs wobbling.

Kian grasped her by the bottom. “Wrap your legs around me.”

She did as he asked and locked her ankles behind his back.

“Are you sure you want this?” He licked his lips and swallowed hard, looking to her with a hunger bordering on desperation. “If not, tell me now.”

“I’m more than sure,” she whispered. “I want you. All of you.”

He settled himself between her thighs, and she felt the smooth tip of him pressing against the slick flesh where his fingers had just been. He lingered there at her entrance, barely nudging inside her, teasing her until she felt swollen and throbbing with need.

“This might hurt,” he warned her.

“Oh, stars, I don’t care,” she breathed. Any discomfort she might feel couldn’t possibly be worse than the ache of longing between her thighs. She gripped Kian’s shoulders and begged him with her gaze, and then, with a gentle upward motion, he made them one.

She gasped, more at the sudden sensation of fullness than from the brief stab of pain. He stayed still for a long moment, motionless except for his breathing. He let her body adjust to him while he held her gaze, waiting as patiently as ever. When she gave him a nod, he tipped their foreheads together and began to rock gently in and out of her. His rhythm was slow and steady, and even though the motion hurt at times, the pain was mingled with an indescribable pleasure, a sensation that bloomed and strengthened each time he buried himself all the way inside her.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Don’t stop,” she told him.

The wildness in his eyes told her he had no intention of stopping. There was something primal between them now. She felt it in the way she dug her heels into his backside, urging him ever closer. A heavy tension was building inside her, heightening to a near painful intensity. Kian drove her higher with each slow, deliberate stroke. Just when she thought she couldn’t bear it another second, he groaned and thrust into her one last time, deeper and harder than before. The pressure between her thighs broke into the sweetest release she had ever known—a set of involuntary tremors, like a convulsion from deep within her core.

She closed her eyes and tilted her face to the heavens, her lips parted in a strangled cry. Her body clenched like a fist. She couldn’t move or breathe or think beyond the continuous waves of pleasure washing over her, each one more exquisite than the last. The sensations were so intense that she was almost relieved when the quaking ceased and she drifted back down to herself.

She unlocked her ankles and placed her bare feet on the ground, her legs still weak and trembling. She opened her eyes and peered at Kian to find him watching her with a tired grin, a sheen of sweat glistening on his brow. There was an unmistakable look of satisfaction on his face, and she glowed with pride to know she had put it there. But before she could return his smile, several things happened at once.

A metallic tang of copper coated her tongue. An electric charge lifted the tiny hairs at the nape of her neck. A surge of energy flowed through her from the soles of her feet to the crown of her head, and then a loud crack sounded from the tremendous rock behind her.

Kian pulled her out of the way, and she whirled around just in time to watch the stone slab split apart and fall to the ground with a thud that shook the earth beneath her feet. She scurried backward and noticed a stream of water bubbling up from the ground where the boulder had just stood.

The water streamed over the cracked, arid dirt, and as Cerise crept closer to the spring, she saw that several green sprouts had already pushed their way up from the soil. She stared in awe as life bloomed in front of her. Two heartbeats later, the sprouts had grown tiny lavender blossoms—exactly like the flower she had offered to the Blighted Shrine.

She felt the sensation of being watched and turned to meet Kian’s wide-eyed gaze. The two of them said nothing at first. Then Kian began, “Was that…” He trailed off, shaking his head as though he didn’t believe what his eyes had shown him. “Was that you ?”

“Me?” Cerise touched her chest and remembered she was naked. She darted to her pile of discarded clothes and gathered them up before the water reached them. “How could that have been me?”

While she dressed, Kian retrieved his blanket and wrapped it around his waist. “I don’t know, but right before the rock split, I swear I saw you light up.”

“Light up?” she asked. “What do you mean?”

“I mean it looked like there was a second sun rising under your skin. At first I thought I imagined it. But then…” He gestured at the split boulder. “But then that . It can’t be a coincidence.”

Cerise absently straightened her blouse while she tried to remember exactly what had happened. She recalled feeling a great surge of pleasure, and then afterward she had tasted copper. “Magic,” she realized. “There was magic here. I tasted it in the air. I felt it, too. It was electric. It came up out of the ground and moved through my body.”

Kian raised his eyebrows as if prompting her to make a connection.

“Maybe it was Nero,” Cerise guessed. “He opens up a spring at every camp.”

Kian spread his arms wide. “Do you see our guide here? Because I don’t. I think he’s still in his tent, like everyone else.”

“Maybe he opened the spring from a distance,” Cerise said, but even as the words left her lips, she knew that Nero wasn’t powerful enough to cast his energy remotely like Father Padron could.

Kian seemed to share her thoughts. “It wasn’t Nero, and I don’t think it was Father Padron.” He thumbed at himself. “And it certainly wasn’t me. It’s not my Claiming Day.”

Cerise blinked at him. “Are you implying that instead of the Sight, the goddess gifted me with”—she lowered her voice to a whisper—“magic?”

“You glowed,” Kian reminded her, and then an impish grin played on his lips. “And not just because of my superior lovemaking skills.”

She didn’t return his smile, because unlike Kian, she knew the danger of what he had suggested. Even if he was right and the magic had come from her, for a woman to possess the same gift as priests was unheard of. The Order would consider it sorcery.

Oh, goddess, the Order . Was this why they had tried so hard to keep her a maiden? Not because the act of love was forbidden by scrolls but because of what it might awaken? Had this happened to any other ladies of the temple? She had no way of knowing. There were no oracles around to ask, and even if there were, she didn’t know if she could trust any of them with the truth.

One thing was certain: she would never be safe again.

“It’s all right,” Kian said. He drew her into his embrace, and she nestled her cheek in the hollow where his shoulder met his chest. His touch held an unspoken promise of protection…for as long as his dominion over the priests would last. “There’s only one way to know for certain if the magic came from you,” he murmured into her hair. “Can you do it again?”

She peered blankly up at him. She didn’t know how—or if—she had done it in the first place. “Not here. Not now. Someone will come looking for us.”

“Very well,” he told her. “Until we know more, we should probably keep this between the two of us.”

“And Daerick,” she said. “I trust him.”

“And Daerick,” he agreed. “But if anyone else asks what happened here, we’ll tell them you came to the rock to pray for protection, and the goddess gave you a sign.”

“A miracle,” Cerise muttered.

“No one would question it—not after what they witnessed at the shrine.”

She dipped her chin in agreement, but she hoped no one would notice the spring or the lavender blossoms. She didn’t want to lie. She wasn’t very good at it.

Kian cupped her cheek and lifted her gaze to his. “I won’t let any harm come to you. Not as long as I’m alive. I swear it.”

“I believe you,” she told him.

“Then try not to worry,” he said. “At least not in this moment.” He brushed a thumb over her skin. “Give this moment to me. One last time before we go back to the others, let the world exist for only the two of us.”

He didn’t need to say another word. She was already rising onto her toes and circling her arms around his neck. She gave Kian what he wanted—a kiss with her whole heart behind it. She might have little understanding of the ways of the world, but if there was one thing she knew how to do, it was love him.