the fabric, the pair of us catching our breaths. I leaned in as he cupped my cheek, ready for his kiss, wanting the sweeter, softer connection to help me come down from the intensity of the moment before. His nose nudged against mine, and he grinned as I nudged back.
"Mmm, I think I did better than I expected," he teased.
I laughed and tucked my face back into his shoulder. "I agree." I circled my arms around his shoulders, and Cosmo petted my back.
"You liked it?"
I laughed and lifted my head, surprised to find the little hints of worry on his face. "Cosmo! I…I don't have words, I…"
He grinned and relaxed. "I agree. Feel free to stroke my ego if you find them though. For instance, I have never found such sweet satisfaction in my life. Your thighs were made to hold me."
I blushed and pinched his skin. Cosmo was deadly with flattery. He'd have made a good courtier if it suited him. "I thought you made the earth move," I said.
His eyebrows raised. "Ah. About that. I think that might've been you, little muse. Look," he said, nodding behind me.
I twisted to glance at the pond and froze in Cosmo's arms. There lay the green lily pads we'd passed earlier, and now they were dressed in full blooms, creams and pinks and yellow water lilies bright and open, teacups on saucers.
"But…"
"Also, the meadow," Cosmo murmured, nuzzling my throat.
He leaned back as I turned and stared at the sudden burst of color through the grasses, yellow daisies and red poppies and purple coneflowers.
"Whatever happened with Owen, that's not all the Hunger does," Cosmo said, waiting patiently for me to stare my fill through the meadow and back up to the oak on my left, the previously dead and undressed one that was now rich with new growth.
"It works," I whispered. "It works. My family has just been using it wrong?"
Cosmo hummed and kissed my lips. "You can bring the north back to life, Bryony."
17
Bryony
“Nothing like that happened in the stables though, so we can't—" I started, glancing at the others around the low table filled with books.
"Actually, I meant to tell you," Owen said, interrupting me with a kiss on my cheek. "I didn't notice it at the time, but when I went in the morning, it looked as though someone had gone over the place with a fresh coat of paint. Everything was tidy and fresh, right down to the hay in the loft."
I gaped at Owen. What was he saying? I had worked some kind change over the stables too?
We were gathered together, my Chosen and I, in the Winter Palace library, a place that smelled of mildew and which I'd outright refused to enter until Owen had run through, laughing as he cleared away genuinely monstrous cobwebs. I was still feeling itchy, waiting for whatever beastly spider had fashioned those cobwebs to come out of its hiding spot.
"Here's a record of royal stays in the Winter Palace," Wendell murmured, sitting up in his armchair, raising the book he held. "It marks it by the final harvest, a festival, and then through the winter until the 'Ground Blessing.' But it appears to have stopped…over one hundred fifty years ago. I wonder why."
"I've never, in all my life, heard any mention of my grandmother or my mother having actual…contact with the land we were supposed to be gifting with prosperity. I feel so stupid not to have thought of it," I muttered, flipping blindly through the pages in front of me before taking a deep breath and sinking back into the chair.
My body was still thrumming with the rush of sex with Cosmo, and when he reached over and soothed his hand down my arm, the Hunger panged softly inside of me, tugging me in his direction.
"Traditions get watered down all the time. The meaning may have gotten lost," Cosmo offered.
"Perhaps there was an especially lazy queen in your ancestry," Thao offered with a shrug. "Not all royalty chooses to do their duty. My great-great grandfather was a resounding disappointment to Mennary."
My lips twitched, and Thao smiled back at me, sitting next to Wendell but not bothering to look at the book in front of him. Owen was on my other side, his legs spread and his knee resting against my thigh. Cosmo and I had snuck back to the palace in our wet clothes, washing the sand and grass away quickly and redressing before going to find the others.
"Are