A Personal Eden
He kept to the other side of the hall, stalking her along its length, his eyes never moving from her. When she paused to exchange greetings with someone, he waited. As soon as she moved again he did too, matching his pace to hers.
Sorrow’s heart thrummed in her chest. What was he doing? Why was he doing it? Starwater, she assumed, it had to be. He’d drunk the liqueur again and it had made him reckless. But how reckless? Did he plan to confront her, in front of his family, and their guests? Or perhaps he was trying to intimidate her, remind her this was his place.
She weaved through the dancers, but her dress made her feel like a target, and she knew he was still there, waiting for her to emerge. As she freed herself from a twirl Fain Darcia had drawn her into, there he was, lips slightly parted, eyes unblinking.
Enough, she decided. She didn’t need this, not today.
She glanced around and spied the bubbling pool she’d heard earlier, hidden away behind a trailing curtain of ivy. She looked at Rasmus and jerked her head towards it, before making her way over, disappearing behind the greenery.
A moment later he joined her.
“What are you doing?” She went on the attack immediately. “You made your thoughts about me perfectly clear. I’ve been trying to stay out of your way.”
He fixed her with glittering eyes. “People think it’s strange we don’t talk. They’re speculating we fought, and that’s the real reason I left Rhannon.”
“If you wanted to avoid rumours, you should have spoken to me openly, not hunted me across the hall.”
“That’s not what I want.” His voice was low, his expression searching as he looked her up and down, scanning the dress that now felt too flimsy.
“Then what?” She forced the words out through a mouth suddenly as dry as Astria.
“I was…” He turned away, walking to the other side of the pool. “I spoke to Irris earlier, after the Naming. She asked if I’d spoken to you and I confessed I had. And not very well. My behaviour two nights ago was hideous. I was hideous. The Starwater…” He trailed off. “Clichéd to say ‘I was drunk’, but it’s not totally a lie.”
“Are you apologizing because Irris told you to?”
“She told me to leave you alone, actually. But I can’t. Not until I’ve apologized. So, on that note, I shouldn’t have spoken to you as I did. I was drunk, and childish. I beg your forgiveness.”
Sorrow left it a beat before she replied. “I understand why you acted like you did.”
“That doesn’t make it right, and I’m sorry,” he said, emphasizing the Rhannish word. “Especially for my parting shot. That was low, and untrue.”
“It was,” Sorrow agreed.
Rasmus lowered his head, and Sorrow walked around the pool to face him.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry too. For not telling you straight away when I knew what was going to happen. I should have. I owed you that. And I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you, when you asked me to. I think I knew how it was going to go, and I knew if we spoke I’d have to say something then. It was cowardly, and you deserved better.”
He was silent for a long moment. “Forgiven, then?”
Sorrow held out a hand and he took it.
The second his fingers wrapped around hers she knew what she wanted. Needed. He could fill the chasm that was threatening to split her in two; hadn’t he always been able to distract her, to soothe her? Heal her?
Her eyes locked with his, and then they were moving, as if they’d planned it that way all along: Sorrow reaching up as Rasmus bent down, their lips finding each other’s as though they’d never known anywhere else.
He moved her back, back against the wall, and the leaves welcomed her, welcomed them both as he kissed her.
Their hands returned to those places they knew so well, falling back into a rhythm that was part dance, part homecoming: hers in his hair, cupping his face, his at her waist, pulling her flush against him, her skin humming under his touch. He moaned when she pressed into him, breaking the kiss to lick her throat, grazing his teeth over her collarbone as she let her head fall back and her eyes flutter closed.
A loud laugh nearby forced them apart, the jewel-coloured birds above them twittering loudly as they flew away. Rasmus’s eyes were glazed, his face flushed. They looked at each other for a long moment.
“That was foolish,” Sorrow said. “If we’d—”
“Leave. Leave the ball.” His voice was whisky-rough and rich. “Follow me.”
Sorrow nodded.
He tore a handful of leaves from the ivy and left her. She crouched down, splashing her face with the cool crystal water. She couldn’t go. She shouldn’t go.
She went.
She was blind to the rest of the party as she made her way after him, and this time no one stopped her, as though they couldn’t see her either. Within minutes she’d left the indoor garden behind, stepping out in the cooler air of the corridor. Two guards nodded to her as she passed, and she inclined her head, wondering where Rasmus had gone.
On the floor ahead was an ivy leaf, and Sorrow went to it, spotting another a few metres away.
She followed the trail he’d left, tracking him through the discarded ivy leaves, deep into the royal palace, until she found a final leaf outside a door. She opened it without knocking, arriving in a small study, complete with a desk, a chair, shelves full of identically bound books. And Rasmus, standing in a patch of moonlight, his back to her.
He turned when she entered, but remained where he was as she closed the door behind her.
“This is foolish,” she said again.
“We’re fools,” he agreed.
There was a moment, as long as a hummingbird’s heartbeat, when it seemed they might resist temptation.
Then he was beside her, cupping her breast, his thumb grazing over her nipple. Need flashed through her body, and she ground against him drawing a moan from him.
He peeled the dress from her body and threw it somewhere behind him, and she tried to undress him, fumbling with the buttons on his frock coat. Frustration made her clumsy, and she was grateful when he took over, ripping the last few buttons away and shrugging the coat to the ground. His shirt followed suit and soon her breasts were pressed against his chest as his mouth sought her lips again. He found her tongue, coaxing it with his own, sucking it gently before he returned his attentions to her lips.
One hand slipped lower, and she pushed into the pressure, whimpering against his mouth. She reached for the waistband of his trousers then and began to tug them down, eager to touch him as he touched her.
He pulled away and the loss was unbearable, until he dropped to his knees to kiss a path along her inner thigh that made her tighten her grip in his hair, heat at her centre demanding more, insisting on it. He obeyed her unspoken command and lifted her easily on to the desk, his hand returning to between her thighs as his mouth met hers. She arched into him, gripping his shoulders so tightly she was scared she’d wound him as he stroked and caressed her, his fingers discovering her once again, her body delighted to welcome him back. Then he was covering her, fitting together as easily as they always had.
Her back and shoulders were stiff from being pressed into the hard wood of the desk, but the rest of her felt like liquid gold as she lay beside him, her head back in its old place on his chest, his arms around her as though they had no business being anywhere else. Neither had spoken since they’d separated, both remaining prone on the table. She didn’t want to be the one to break the moment, though, and from the way his grip on her remained resolutely tight, she assumed he felt the same.
Finally he released her, and she immediately became aware of a sharp pain in her neck, forcing her to sit up.
“Ouch,” she gasped, rubbing it, and then his hand was there, the pain fading away.
“You’re good to me,” she said.
He pulled her to him and kissed her forehead, her cheek, the tip of her nose, and each eyelid. Then he hopped down from the table, finding his trousers, and she watched as he pulled them up over his long thighs. He bent to pick up her dress, and she put it back on, before helping him find the buttons from his coat.
“Can I keep one?” she asked, without knowing why she wanted it, and he handed one over without comment.
When they’d tidied up, removing every trace of themselves from the room, they stood in silence, not quite able to meet each other’s eyes. It had never been awkward between them before, but as the euphoria ebbed away, Sorrow realized that once again they’d been unutterably reckless. And once again, minutes after apologizing for her behaviour, she’d used Rasmus to drive out some of her own misery, used his touch to mend her—
She froze, as a terrible, unthinkable thought dawned on her…
How could she be so stupid? His touch removed her pain. Made her feel better… She craved him every time she felt sad, or lost, or scared…
She’d always thought it was just her physical pain he healed – after all, he hadn’t been able to soothe away her grief after her grandmother died. But maybe that was a different kind of ache; maybe that was something nothing but time could heal. Whereas doubt and worry and fear – pain – they were all more tangible. All easier to explain. To heal. And her body knew it. Even as she’d tried to pull away from him, her body craved him, drove her to him whenever she was hurting, however she was hurting.
Like today.
Rasmus frowned. “Are you well?” he asked.
She nodded mutely, but it wasn’t enough to convince him, and he reached for her, stopping dead as she recoiled.
How could she have been so blind?
Never again, she vowed silently. I can’t do this to him again. Or to myself.
“Rasmus…” she began.
“It’s all right.” He spoke quickly. “I know. This was a goodbye, wasn’t it?”
She nodded. “It has to be. This… This is wrong. Not because of laws, but because … I’m using you.” There was a relief in saying it aloud, even as she hated herself for the truth of it. “Every time something goes wrong, it’s you I run to. Not even you, but this… Being with you. I use it to fix me. I didn’t know before now, I swear it. If I’d known I wouldn’t have…”
He was silent for a moment. “I never minded,” he said softly.
The floor beneath her seemed to shift at his words. He’d known. All along, he’d known. And he’d let her do it.
“So, if you did ‘use me’, which isn’t how I’d phrase it, then I consented,” he continued. “In fact more than consented. Encouraged. I was willing to take you on whatever terms I could. It’s not a great look for me, either.”
Sorrow knew what he was trying to say, and do, but it didn’t stop the shame that heated her skin.
“I’m sorry.”
“Please don’t be.” He moved as if to stroke her hair, and then stopped, lowering his hand. “I don’t regret a moment of it.”
“I don’t either. I never will.”
“One day, we’ll be able to be real friends,” he said softly. “Not for a while, I think. But one day.”
“I hope so,” Sorrow whispered.
“I know so. I just need a few centuries to get over you first.” He tried bravely to smile, and Sorrow nodded.
“Will you go back to the ball?” he asked.
“No,” Sorrow said. “Will you?”
“No.” He walked to the door and peered out. “It’s clear, you’re safe to go.”
“Goodbye, Ras.”
“Goodbye, Row,” he said. His mouth curved gently, then he turned away from her.
Sorrow stayed where she was for a long moment, mastering herself, before she stepped into the hallway. The ball sounded as lively as it had when she’d left it, and she saw Luvian talking to Eirlys and the baron as she passed, all of them smiling.
Luvian spotted her and came after her, catching up to her in the main doorway of the keep.
“I thought you’d gone back to our rooms. I sent Irris after you.”
“No. I went to get some air. I’m going back there now.”
“The fireworks are about to start; don’t you want to watch them?”
Sorrow shook her head. “I’d better find Irris.”
“All right.” Luvian nodded, his eyes sad. “I’ll be back soon.”
As the carriage pulled up outside the little palace, there was a whistling sound above her and she looked up, in time to see an explosion of colour across the sky, reds and greens cascading out, then fading. A split second later two more starbursts appeared, accompanied by echoing pops. She paused on the stairs and watched as the sky lit up, over and over, with coloured lights, the scent of smoke on the balmy summer air. For some reason they made her throat tight, her eyes prick with tears. When they finished, the final wisps of smoke drifting across the crescent moon, she turned and continued, feeling strangely bereft.
It was quiet inside the small palace, and she made her way straight to her rooms, only to find them empty. She must have missed Irris. She debated whether to go and find her – she knew she should; she’d hurt enough people for one day, without alienating Irris too. But all she wanted was a bath, and to sleep. Maybe a good night’s rest would wipe away the despair that she couldn’t quite keep down.
She sat on the side of the bath as it filled, the sound similar enough to the pool in the hall to make her flush at the memory of what had just happened. She stood abruptly and began to braid her hair, crossing to the mirror to pin it to her head, before slipping off her dress and pulling on a soft robe.
The main door to their set of rooms opened. “Irris?” she called.
When he didn’t answer, she turned off the taps.
“Irris, is that—”
A giant hooded and masked figure appeared in the doorway.
The Sons of Rhannon.