Threads of Desire (Spellcraft) - By Stone, Eleri Page 0,28

crooked seam in the white plaster. It felt strange to sit again on the bare ground without a pillow to cushion her. How quickly she’d grown soft.

Kal lifted a tendril of loose hair from her cheek and pushed it behind her ear. “Tell me about the magic then. How does it work that you can close your eyes and color flies from your fingertips?”

“It doesn’t.”

“It appears to. The thread moves so quickly, it blurs. Dizzying to watch. Wondrous.”

She blushed and looked away from the open admiration in his eyes, past the fountain, toward the steps leading down to the sea. “Every creation is a piece of the artist. You draw from within yourself—the shape and color and pattern. From someplace deeper than thought.”

She’d always thought that had been her problem under Lanel’s tutelage. When you were living so completely to please someone else, there was no...you. The guildmaster had made her lose herself. It’s why she’d rejected him so completely and the guild. She’d tried to secure patronage from another source, but Lanel had blocked every attempt she made to leave. He’d barred her from the thread room without his approval. No thread meant no castings, meant no money to move from her quarters at the University. He’d blocked every path save the one that ended with her kneeling at his feet. She’d had to leave, deciding she’d rather starve than continue to live like that. And starve she had. For years.

She knew Lanel had expected her to come back to him begging for shelter, but she refused to be owned by anyone. Not ever again. Not even by someone like Kal.

He rolled onto his back and looked at the clouds. “You’re talking about the soul.” He glanced at her and his lips quirked. “Some people say that’s why the barbarians have no magic. That they’re soulless, the lot of them. Is that what you think?”

“You have no magic,” she said. “And you have a soul.”

He touched his hand to his chest. “Five weeks ago you told me I didn’t even have a heart. Now you’re granting me a soul? Ily, I believe that’s the kindest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

She might grant him a soul, but she wouldn’t grant him her laughter. He’d think that their conversation was over and she didn’t want it to be. She liked to talk with him, even when—especially when—they disagreed. He had a very fluid way of thinking that challenged her but never demanded her submission.

“Everyone has a soul,” she said, tracing a triangle in the sand with her fingertip, even angled, even sided. The mark of the guild. The same mark that was tattooed on her wrist as proof of her position. “At least that’s what they teach on the temple steps. That Mehan, who made the sun and stars, breathed that same life into every person. A man without a soul is a corpse. At its core, craft is the ability to join mind, spirit and body and to manifest that connection outside of oneself.”

His eyes glinted. “So if I follow, it would be more accurate to say that you, the guild, and all of the gifted are more like to be soulless since you’re always pouring yourself out into the world.”

She arched her brows. “Perhaps we have more soul to begin with and it overflows us like water from a fountain.”

He laughed and caught her wrist, tugging her closer until she sprawled across his chest. He nudged her chin up and pressed his mouth to her throat. “I’d believe that of you. Not of Lanel.”

No wonder he’d chosen this secluded little spot against the wall, lovers often withdrew to these bowers for private conversation. But they were still within sight of the fountain, and the greenery and flowers could only be so discreet. She should push him away. He licked the shiver from her skin and she was suddenly anxious to return home. His home, that tranquil, private, magical house that was the first place she’d felt safe...ever.

She glanced back at the fountain—the children playing, the young couple sitting on the bench nearest them with their heads touching as they spoke in low voices, the sea bright and shimmering beyond it all. It was a perfect day to laze in the sun and attempt to convince Kal to swim in the water when it grew dark. It would be a very long time until sunset.

“Kal?”

As if he could read her mind, he was already rising to his feet. He