Maybe I should do this alone so the Holies don’t curse either of you. Yes, that sounds best.” She shooed us off. “Go sit over there. I’ll read it and let you know what I find. That way, I’m the only one in danger of being cursed. It was my idea, so here I go.”
The two fingers that held the pull-tab trembled.
She unrolled the first page of elaborate, ornamental writing, flinching as though it might burst into flames. As Kadri and I walked away, I braced myself, wondering if there really was some kind of curse on this scroll. With magic involved, there was no telling.
But nothing happened. Navara released her bated breath and began to read.
Yawning, Kadri went to stretch out on her pallet. I searched the room.
“He went outside,” Navara said from behind me.
“Who?” I asked, looking over my shoulder.
“Sev.” The hint of a canny smile tugged at her lip.
A more bashful girl might have blushed, but I just narrowed my eyes at her and strode to the door, casting a conspiratorial smile her way as I pulled the latch.
The night breeze was crisp and smelled of smoke. I saw Jeno sitting by the waning campfire with a crossbow. Sev rounded the corner, carrying the armful of firewood that he had chopped in a rage yesterday. He wore his hunting knife and a hatchet on his belt.
“Too cramped inside?” he asked, stalking the rest of the way to the fire and dropping his burden.
“A bit.” I joined them in the shuddering ring of firelight. Jeno’s dark brows furrowed as he studied the woods. Sev had said he took his role as lookout very seriously. Something told me Jeno was ready to grow up, and knew whom he wanted to be like when he did.
“I wanted to thank you,” I said to Sev. “For helping me keep calm during the ceremony when I…” I trailed off, hoping he understood.
“I couldn’t have you falling apart when there was urgent consummating to be done.”
I laughed, a curious warmth unfurling behind my navel. Even though I hadn’t known him long, it felt like a legendary accomplishment to have cracked his dispassionate fa?ade, especially when I remembered the initial disdain in his eyes. To him, I’d been nothing but a haughty, foreign elicromancer queen who had inflicted my vicious sister on his mortal nation. What did he think of me now?
“What is consummating?” Jeno asked, peeling his eyes away from the woods to look at his older brother.
Sev laughed. “Walk the perimeter, would you?”
Jeno complied with only a little protest.
I stepped closer to the fire, crossed my arms against the cool night, and realized I was still wearing Stasi’s ripped dress.
“So, your friend,” Sev said, bending to set a log on the dimming fire. “She’s not one of the all-powerful elicromancers we’ve been waiting for.”
“I’m afraid not. The rest of us have undergone extensive training, but Kadri is new at this.”
“Does she have any chance of defeating Ambrosine?” he asked.
“She can help, but Ambrosine is probably the most powerful of us all—except Valory Braiosa, who doesn’t count. Ambrosine is older than the rest of us and has been an elicromancer the longest. She gets what she wants, whatever it takes.”
“Not always,” Sev said.
“What do you mean?” I asked, my voice trembling a little. I looked him in the eye. His dark curls were thick and tousled, cutting an exaggerated shadow on the ground.
“I mean that I gave her nothing, in case you were wondering. Neither the information nor the…other thing she sought.”
I smiled in relief, not caring that it would make my feelings obvious. “It’s hard to believe anyone could reject her,” I said, collecting my thoughts. “Her heart is rougher than a pumice stone, but she’s objectively ravishing.”
“Yes, she is.” He took a deep breath. “And you resemble her.”
I looked askance at him. “So I’ve been told.”
“But you’re nothing alike. She’s a shadow wearing your skin.”
I tilted my head as my mind did its work parsing the strangely poetic words into Nisseran. Firelight accentuated the tailored lines of his face, the angular jaw and pronounced cheekbones.
This wasn’t the first time that I had thought of touching him, but it was the first time I had wondered whether my body would act of its own accord and bring me near him, make good on its own silent, daring promise. It would be too easy to fall into the refuge of a strong body, the warmth of another person.
I wondered whether there might be