“We knew from the first that this wouldn’t be easy,” he told her with a rueful smile. “I promise to keep my hands and my eyes to myself.”
“Ah, now there you are, making hasty promises,” she teased.
“Everyone will think you have some sort of disease if I never get within arm’s length of you!”
“I get hives when I eat marsh apples,” she said gravely, her dancing eyes belying the tone. “Shall I eat a few and turn lumpy and splotched? Would that make things easier?”
“Splotched if you must, Sioned, but not lumpy.” They laughed together and he exclaimed, “Do you know, I feel as if I’ve been married to you forever!”
“You don’t know me, either, Rohan,” she reminded him.
“Maybe you’ll find out I’m a—”
“Witch,” he finished for her. “I decided that when I saw you in the Fire. But I have a little magic of my own, you know. Come with me, I want to show you something.”
She walked with him deeper into the grotto toward the cliff walls. Giving him a sidelong glance, she said cautiously, “You must have something of the gift, you know. Your mother is Andrade’s sister.”
“What of it?” he asked in casual tones.
“Nothing.”
Rohan hid a frown. She knew as well as he did that Andrade wanted faradhi children from their marriage. Why couldn’t she trust him enough to tell him? He decided to talk more about his own plans—as much as he dared right now—and acknowledged that he didn’t yet entirely trust her, either.
“Roelstra will tempt me with treaties and agreements that I intend to make him sign before we get around to discussing his daughters. But I swear to you, Sioned, that after I’m through with the game, I’ll claim you in front of everyone.” He stopped walking and said, “Here—this is what I wanted to show you, before anyone else could.”
Trees parted around a silent pool for the long, pale waterfall that appeared from nowhere high above their heads. Flowering mosses and ferns softened the ragged rock, and moonlight turned the water to a ribbon of silver. This was the life of the castle, this precious water from the north. It ran underground, protected from the heat, then tumbled down to nourish this one hollow in the rock. Rohan glanced at Sioned’s eyes and suddenly knew what his ancestors must have felt when they had first discovered this gift of cool, sweet water in the Desert.
But when she spoke, it was not about the miracle before them. “Does my being faradhi make you uneasy?” she asked softly.
“No,” he answered honestly. “Why should it?”
“It will give your people pause, you know. A Sunrunner witch married to their prince, mistress of all this wealth, helping you rule the Desert.”
“You’ll win them as quickly as you’ve won me,” he said quietly.
She glanced at him, then turned to the water. Lifting her hands, moonlight sparkling off her rings, she wove the silver moonrays into a conjuring over the pool. He saw his own face and hers, and a single burning red-gold strand that formed the circlets that were their crowns. After a moment the conjure faded and Sioned met his gaze once more.
“I had to do that to prove something to myself. I lost control of a Fire-conjure on the way here, and I’ve been afraid to try again. But I’m not afraid anymore, Rohan. It’s too soon for me to trust you. My brain keeps saying that, and I have to listen. But in every way that counts, I do trust you.” She shrugged slightly. “I probably shouldn’t have said that, and I know I shouldn’t be doing this, but—”
Her kiss on his mouth was as swift and startling as heat lightning across the Desert sky. But before he could reach for her, she was gone.
Chapter Seven
News of Prince Zehava’s death reached Castle Crag on the morning sunlight. Crigo’s contact with the wine steward at Stronghold incapacitated the already overwrought Sunrunner, who took to his bed after downing a large cup of wine laced with dranath. Roelstra celebrated the news with a good long laugh and a lavish breakfast, then closeted himself with his ministers for the rest of the day. It was left to Palila to arrange the evening’s ritual and make sure all the daughters dressed in mourning gray to honor their royal “cousin.” A piece of nonsense as far as Palila was concerned, and doubly irritating because gray was not her color. But grief must be