temple and by the king. If a child swelled her stomach, the keepers would call it miraculous and praise the gods. It would be Saylok’s child. Mayhaps it would even be . . . a girl child. It would be Saylok’s child. Not his child. He and Ghisla could not be together.
With that thought, reality tried to intrude. He was a fool, and there would be a consequence for the joy they had taken. Every action begat a reaction.
Men who need kisses
Make babes who need kisses.
Babes who grow up
Become men who need kisses.
Men who need kisses
Chase women for kisses.
And . . .
Begetting begins again.
He grinned up at the boughs above him. He was not thinking straight.
He was flat on his back, Ghisla on his right, his staff on his left, and he stretched his hand, patting the ground beside him, trying to find it without disturbing Ghisla.
The pads of his fingers brushed a whorl in the dirt, a singed circle, like the fairies had gathered beneath the tree and danced around a tiny fire. The grass that bristled around the edge of the circle was sharp, and he cursed as a blade nicked his middle finger. It was the curse of the blind to be constantly bleeding. His hands were as scarred and calloused as the bark of the tree above him, but still he bled. He perused the area more carefully, using the palm of his hand instead of his fingers. There were two singed circles . . . but where was his damned staff?
His finger stung with all the ferocity of a tiny cut. He’d found dogs and wounds were alike; the little ones barked the loudest. He curled his finger toward his palm and searched the tip with his thumb, looking for a sliver or a thorn.
An image flashed behind his eyes—trees, earth, sky—and he froze.
He realized with a start that he was bleeding into his rune. But Ghisla was asleep beside him—she was not singing—and he’d never been able to see anything without her. Was it his rune? Or was it his rune . . . and his blood . . . dripping onto the strange circle burnt into the earth?
He turned his hand and patted the ground once more, careful. Careful.
The whorl of burnt earth sizzled against his bloodied rune. The image flashed again, and this time, it held.
He was in the clearing. This clearing? It felt the same. It sounded the same. The tree at his back murmured the same low tone.
But the woman who lay beside him was not Ghisla. Her hair was dark, her skin was pale, and her dress was . . . blue. Blue like Ghisla’s eyes. Blue like the sky. Like the mountains near Tonlis. Like the robes of Dolphys.
She held a babe to her chest.
The babe was covered with gore, like he’d just been born. His little arms flailed, and his cry was lusty, and the woman said his name.
“You must take him, Dagmar. And you must call him Bayr. Bayr for his father’s clan. Bayr . . . because he will be as powerful as the beast he is named for.”
Hod withdrew his bleeding hand with a gasp, and the image was instantly doused. He wiped his bloody hand on his breeches. He did not want to see more. He knew who the woman was. He knew her story. He knew her child.
The circles in the earth were Desdemona’s runes.
Ghisla stirred, and he heard her indrawn breath and the quickening of her heart as she woke. His movements had roused her.
She said his name, the word full of love, like she was remembering what had transpired between them. He instantly abandoned the woman in his thoughts for the woman in his arms. He turned to her, rolling onto his side, and gathered her close.
Ghisla’s hand curled against his chest and he pressed his lips against her brow, greeting her. She moaned and burrowed her face into his neck, wrapping her arms around him. She opened her mouth against his throat, as if she wanted to sink her teeth into his veins and draw him—blood, body, and soul—into her lungs.
His love for her was an inferno, scalding his throat and burning his chest, and he ran his hand over her rumpled hair and down her back, memorizing the way she felt against him, the swell of her hips, the length of her legs entwined with his. He would relive their union on an endless loop, the stars exploding