more than three or four months from the time when they admitted their love, to when Dedrick first approached Raul about spying in Duenne’s Court, and yet to memory’s eye, the interlude seemed an endless ribbon of pleasure and passion and contentment, which curled back upon itself and so continued forever.
We were Anike and Stefan, she thought. Two ordinary people without any concerns for the empire or magic.
Remembering those days, Ilse insinuated her arms around Raul and drew him tight against her chest. His smooth skin—unlike any other man’s—was like fire-warmed silk. His heart beat swiftly against hers, a mirror of her own painful emotions.
“I love you,” Raul whispered into her ear. “I always have.”
“Impossible. You loved Dedrick.”
Dedrick, once Lord Kosenmark’s beloved. Then his friend and spy. Now dead because of that love. For many months, Ilse had not been able to mention Dedrick’s name. Nor could Raul.
We were too new to love, in this life. We had to learn how to trust all over again.
Raul rolled onto his back, a familiar movement that brought her, by habit, to settle under his arm. It was like one puzzle piece fitted to its mate, one word linked to its proper companion.
“No,” he said. “I meant that first time in Andelizien. You were Sonja and I was Andreas. Or at least, that is the first I remember us together. Later, I came to Zalinenka from the emperor as an emissary to the court of Károví. You and he were prince and princess together. I was nothing but a messenger, stupid and young and homesick, but you were kind to me. I thought I would kill myself from desire.”
Her skin prickled at this host of images from her life dream the night before. “You were there? You remember?”
“Of course I remember. And yes, I have always been there.”
Like the earth beneath her feet.
“I’ve dreamed of those days,” she whispered. “Of Leos Dzavek. I had not known…”
“Nor had I.” His voice, high and fluting, whispered back to her. “But lately I’ve dreamed more of those past lives.”
He pulled her close, but not for lovemaking, only to hold each other in warmth while the stars wheeled overhead and the moon swept down to the horizon. They slept, limbs entangled, as in the olden days, days from just a year ago. Toward midnight, Ilse stirred and woke, to find Raul awake. The sky had cleared and a bright moon shone through the canvas. He rested his head on one hand and gazed upon her with a foolish grin. “I should not have such joy within me,” he said.
She kissed him, tasted the salt of his skin, the sweetness of his mouth. “We take joy as we take the sun-bright days of summer.”
Joy.
Unexpectedly, a pang shot through her—so sharp and strong, she had to bite her lip to keep from weeping. She shook her head and her unruly hair tumbled loose between them. Later, she would have to braid it fresh for the night. Such an ordinary thought, for such an extraordinary day. She found she could not hold back the tears, and she wept. Wept for their newly rediscovered love, for the new exile she had chosen, for any number of reasons that she and he could not be Stefan and Anike, simply living together.
I chose my new exile, she told herself. I chose it, and he agreed.
And yet she could see no other path.
“Hush,” Raul whispered into her ear. “We have not reached the end of this life together. Do not give up hope.”
“How long?” she managed to say. “How long until the ship comes for our queen?”
“That depends on my secretary.”
The words acted like an antidote to sorrow.
“You have a new secretary?”
Raul laughed softly at her surprise. “It wasn’t my idea. He came to me three months ago with a raft of well-written recommendations and a story of how he disliked the northern winters and wanted to try a post in the south for once. He was very clever. It took me weeks before I discovered he was Dedrick’s cousin.”
A cousin? The news shook her unaccountably. She had known about Dedrick’s sister in court, and his unrelenting father, but she had not suspected a wider world of relatives. It was a fatal error to think all families were like her own, small and insular.
Raul went on to describe the new secretary. He had given his name as Gerek Hessler, but his true name was Lord Gerek Haszler. He was Dedrick’s second cousin, from a