11

He walked through the quiet grounds toward Azurae Palace with her in his arms, its white marble halls gleamed beneath the night as magic cressets burned along every path, their golden flames washed the pillars, flowering vines, and ancient trees in living amber. His stride never faltered until he entered his chambers and unlike the rest of Azurae Palace, whose halls were carved from white marble and clothed in quiet elegance, these rooms were alive with color. Every wall had been painted by hand, blooming with gardens, birds, stars, and ancient tales worked into pigments so vivid they seemed to breathe beneath the cressets’ glow. Rich silks, carved cedar, and woven tapestries softened the white stone until the chambers felt less like a palace and more like a world gathered from a hundred artists’ dreams.

He crossed the outer chamber and passed through the carved doors into the inner chamber, where his bed awaited beyond gauze curtains stirring by the sea wind. There, he finally bent with the care one reserved for something breakable and set Ryska gently upon the bed.

“Do you want to sleep now?” Valere asked softly.

“You will be gone,” Ryska shook her head and buried her face deeper into the crook of his neck.

“I will not,” Valere drew her closer.

“You lie," her fingers tightened around his shirt. “I will not sleep.”

“Then fall asleep after I do,” Valere said, patting her head. “I sleep through storms, battles, and the end of the world itself.”

Ryska pulled back just enough to look at him, weighing trust against fear, as though deciding whether to believe him or hold him tightly enough that leaving would become impossible. She decided he would be gone if she slept, just as everyone else had been, so she pressed her face deeper into the crook of his neck, and his warmth reached her first, followed by the quiet scent that belonged only to him.

“Why are you so hot?” Ryska murmured, rubbing her face against the crook of his neck.

“You mean warm?” Valere understood that kind of seeking. Grief had always driven him toward warmth too, as though a living heartbeat could remind a broken one how to keep beating.

“Warm?” Ryska pulled back, lifted his hand to her face, and held it beneath her nose. The same scent lingered there as well, yet it was not as warm as the crook of his neck. She let his hand fall and nestled against his neck again, choosing that warmth over everything else.

Valere leaned back against the headboard and let her stay where she had settled, offering her every bit of warmth she seemed to be searching for until her mind found its way back from wherever it had wandered and Ryska remained tucked against his neck. Her fingers slipped beneath the collar of his shirt; her tongue brushed the side of his neck, and Valere felt the jolt race through his body.

“Ryska...” His voice caught for a heartbeat.

“You are hot,” she repeated, trusting what her glands and senses had told her.

Gods, she is like to slay me, Valere thought, clinging to the last of his reason. She was seeking comfort without knowing what she was doing, while every brush of her lips against his skin demanded that he keep hold of the senses she was unknowingly stealing.

“I like you,” she declared, her senses having finished their search, her glands had judged him wholly safe. "Safe human."

“I am glad,” Valere answered, and a helpless smile found its way onto his face.

Her lips sought the hollow of his neck, searching for his warmth, for the certainty of his presence, while her hands slipped beneath the hem of his shirt. Valere stopped her wrist as her lips traced the line of his throat in slow, deliberate strokes, then her tongue brushed his skin.

“Rys...” His voice frayed at its edges. “Ryska.”

“Why do you bear this scent?” she murmured against his neck.

“What scent?” he managed between rough, uneven breaths.

She guided his hand beneath his own nose, and he drew a slow breath, searching for whatever it was she had sensed, yet found nothing beyond the familiar scent of his own skin, warmed by sweat and the day’s exhaustion. “It is merely how a body smells,” he said.

“I have never seen a person carry their own scent with them,” she murmured, breathing him in as though the air itself lived upon his skin.

“Do Draconians bear none of their own?”

“No," she cupped his face and guided it to the curve of her neck. “Breathe me.”

Gods, she is going to kill me before dawn, Valere thought, as he drew a searching breath against her skin and found nothing.

“It is strange,” he eased onto his back and took her with him until she settled against his chest. “Then you never smell pleasant or unpleasant?”

“No," she returned to the hollow of his neck. “Scents belong to flowers.”

“They belong to humans too.”

“Strange humans,” she answered with the faintest laugh, and the sound reached his heart far more easily than reason ever could.

“Ryska...”

"What after Ryska?" she whispered. "Tell me, Valere."

The sound of his own name upon her lips struck him with a force no blade had ever wrought. It was a wound he could neither see nor find, nor did he possess the will to search for it, for his faithless heart desired only one thing: to hear her speak it again and again, until Valere ceased to be merely a name and became a prayer upon her lips, a habit of her breath, a fate from which he would never wish to be freed.

She looked at him, and his gaze wandered across her face before finally meeting hers. She pushed herself upright and settled over him, reaching for the laces at the collar of his tunic. Her fingers worked at them with determined slowness until he helped her, and together they drew the tunic over his head. The movement twisted her injured arm, and a sharp hiss escaped her lips. His hand came to rest beside the bandage at once, his fingers brushed only its edge with the lightest care while his gaze had forgotten everything but the woman before him.

Ryska pressed her face against his bare chest and found he was hot, the way Viana’s geothermal springs were hot. “You are hot, like a hot spring,” she murmured, wrapping her arm around him.

“Do you like hot springs?” Valere pulled the blanket higher around them.

“We have them everywhere at home,” Ryska said. “They keep pouring heat out of the Myris.”

“So Viana is hot?” Valere asked, already beginning to sweat beneath the blanket now wrapped tightly around them.

“It is hot," she smiled. “I only learned that after I left Viana, I...” Her words faded. “What is this?” Ryska frowned at the tiny droplets glistening across his chest.

“I am sweating because I am hot,” Valere said, then huffed a laugh at his own unintended jest.

Ryska lifted her face and stared at him for a moment. “So, you favor the cold?”

“I do," he nodded. “I have always been fond of cool, wind-blessed weather.”

Ryska threw the blanket off at once and shifted from atop him to curl against him sideways, tucking herself into his side instead, and Valere’s heart stumbled somewhere within his ribs. Even lost in fear, she had thought of his comfort; she heard that he was too warm, and without hesitation had changed everything to ease it. How could a heart not love a woman who carried such quiet kindness so instinctively?

Ryska listened to his heartbeat for a long while, then she slowly pulled back and looked into his eyes before lifting a hand to his cheek. Then they slipped toward the ribbon tied at the end of her braid, he helped her and pulled it free, and she tried to wind it around their wrists.

“I will lock the door, return to you, and then you can do it.” Valere said.

“No,” she whispered, tightening her grip upon his shirt.

Valere gathered her into his arms and carried her across the chamber, securing the door before returning to the bed, then he helped her fasten the ribbon around their wrists, and when it was done, Ryska pressed her lips against his chest. For a time, his restraint endured, but then slowly it gave way and he turned her onto her back, drawing the blanket over them as his weight pressed her deeper into mattress.