the proud towers of Feruche. The garrison below was dark and deserted, but the castle windows shone with light.
Both approaches were indeed closely guarded. There were no weaknesses. She should have known better than to hope arrogance had made Ianthe careless. She had thought to use her skills to slide into this place somehow, divert guards and servants with the Fire and Air she could summon, frighten them into mistakes that would leave her free to enter unnoticed. But as she counted people and observed their actions, she knew that such subterfuge was impossible.
Which window? she wondered, hovering within the moonlight. Or was there any window at all where Rohan slept? Was he high in a tower, or down in a stone cell without light? Anger surged up and her control wavered, and she took some moments to steady herself.
She peeked into rooms at random, noting which held sleeping servants, which were empty, making mental adjustments to her memory of Tilal’s map. She could only go as far as the moonlight reached into each chamber, but that was enough. One room contained three ornate beds, each occupied by a sleeping child. Ianthe’s sons, Sioned thought, and just like her, for even in sleep the faces were willful and sly. How Roelstra must treasure them; thwarted of sons of his body, he had grandsons now that Ianthe would train up in his image.
She searched all the windows facing the moonlight, more and more afraid that Rohan was indeed in some belowstairs cell or a room on the other side of the towers where she could not go. But at last she found him. Rohan! she cried. But no one heard.
His sleeping face had been ravaged by pain and fever that had left deep bruises around his closed eyes. The fine, strong bones of brow and cheeks and chin were too sharp, his mouth a line of tense exhaustion. A dark silk sheet was pushed down around his waist and as he turned restlessly onto his side she saw the dressing wrapped to the wound in his shoulder. Moisture shone dully on his skin, blond hair dark with sweat. He was out of reach of the moonlight that pooled on the carpet beside the bed but did not touch his body or face. If it had, she might have touched him, that part of him that held some trace of the faradhi gift. But she could not.
Someone moved into the light, a curving shape, nakedness half-hidden by a cascade of dark hair reaching to her hips. Sioned trembled, felt her rings bite into her clenched fingers back where her body sat in Stronghold. Ianthe slowly insinuated herself beneath the sheet, sliding close to Rohan’s body. She placed one hand on either side of him, shook her hair down so it covered his bare chest and belly, then lowered her head to his.
“No!”
The raw howl of her own voice snapped Sioned too abruptly back into her body. Colors whirled around her, confused, chaotic, refusing to form their familiar pattern. Her rings spat emerald and sapphire and amber and onyx fire into her aching eyes, became burning circles that ignited her flesh to the bone. The great emerald pulsed as if it would fill to bursting with light. It swelled and became the only thing she saw, plunging her into its glittering green depths as she sobbed aloud in terror.
Yet in the brilliant stone she saw again herself, burned by her own Fire, holding a newborn boy-child with Rohan’s golden hair.
Rohan’s son. And Ianthe’s.
A long time later, when she remembered who and what she was again, she lifted her hands. There were no charred circles of skin beneath her rings. Cool silver and gold they clasped her fingers, mocking her. Sunrunner enough to watch, but not to prevent by any arts what Ianthe was about to do.
Sioned covered her face with her hands and wept.
Coaxing, knowing fingers brought him to life. He could barely see her, backlit as she was by the moons, but he felt the familiar sweetness of her in his arms, the silk of her skin and hair.
“Sioned,” he breathed against her mouth.
“Love me! Rohan, love me—now!”
Fire blazed up between them. Her thighs parted and her breasts strained up against him, and he lost himself in the taste and scent and warmth of her, startled by her desperate urgency. But there would be time later to caress her, renew the magical joining he had known only with her and wanted only