~ 2 ~
“I never intended to cause you pain, Ami,” I told the top of her head as she worked to clean the cuts. Brutally insufficient words to describe the depth of what I’d never intended. Beginning with laying a finger on her royal, unblemished skin. Even with her tending me out of simple sympathy, in broad view of the travelers on the main highway, the least brush of her fingers on my skin brought up the insatiable lust for her, hard and hot.
She looked up at me and creaked out a smile through still damp eyes. “I know that. And you’ve made me so happy.” She took a deep breath. “I always understood, though, that this was temporary.”
“We both understood that, from the first night by the lake.”
Her smile went tremulous. “When I seduced you, despite your better judgement.”
I laughed, though it never comes out right. It always sounds more like a groan scraping out of my scarred throat. “Everything with you has been against my better judgement, Ami. And I’ve never been able to help myself. You burn so bright.”
“Like staring into the sun,” she said, an oddly sorrowful crease at the corners of her eyes. Her innate magic made her beautiful even in tears and other extremes of emotion—and my passionate queen ranged through many extremes—so rarely did she look as she did now, smudged with unhappiness, dented by my careless handling of her. “Do you remember when you said that to me? You said you were afraid you’d come away burned and blinded.”
“I remember,” I allowed. I did so much better with silence. I should never have broken my vow. If I hadn’t, we wouldn’t have come to this pass.
“You said that if you stared into the sun too long, you’d be immolated, and the only freedom for you would be to stay far, far away.”
Never mistake that a mind sharp as a sword lies behind that pretty face. She likely remembered every word I’d ever said to her, both the wise and the incautious.
“When we said goodbye back then,” she continued softly, giving me a sharp look to point out that she noticed I hadn’t replied, “I thought I would never see you again.”
I found my voice to answer. “I thought so, too.”
“There, all better.” She patted the bandages and stepped back. I flexed my fingers, as if checking the tightness, but truly to keep myself from reaching for her, from dragging her against me and begging her to let me stay forever. “When you first said that to me,” she continued, “I told you not to look. If you don’t look at the sun, you won’t be burned and blinded. Remember?”
I nodded, remembering everything about that night with crystalline clarity. The moment she offered herself to me, she who’d always been as far beyond my reach as Glorianna Herself, all that is both softly and fiercely bright in the world.
I’d been in prison when I heard the first bard sing her praises. They’d thought to soothe us savage beasts with pretty songs. Unwise musician, however, to instill in us images of a nubile young maiden, beautiful beyond mortal comprehension. Not what you offer the hearts and minds of men little better than animals. They’d thought the minstrel well-protected, set above and apart from the mass of crippled shapeshifters and mossback criminals.
Always underestimating the depths to which men can sink. Those who only appear to be men, anyway.
I’d held back—not because I exercised more self-discipline than the others. As a boy of only fifteen who’d never so much as held a girl’s hand, I’d been a seething, feral mass of longing. I hadn’t even been sure what I wanted, only that the dark needs drove me beyond rational thought. Along with the others, I’d lunged for the source of the fantasy, but I’d been too scrawny, too weak compared to the rest, trampled and pushed to the back.
One of many stories I’d never told Ami.
Remembering, I flexed my hands again, surprised to see them clean and bandaged, rather than covered in blood. Impossible that I’d come from that and now shared a bed with the object of my obsessive and tainted lust. Though I tried to resist her, I never could. And that inability brought me to her bed, time and again.
And every bruise I left on her fair flesh in my coarse impatience felt like yet another scar on my twisted soul.
“Ash—where did you go?” Ami asked softly, and I focused on her face.
“I was remembering,” I said, hoarse with need and self-loathing.
“I don’t regret that night,” she said. “Or anything since, but I think I was wrong to say that to you. It was never a permanent solution.”
“It wasn’t?” I wanted so badly to touch her, to at least hold her one last time. The Tala nurses emerged from the woods, back in human form and carrying the twins, still in their animal shapes but apparently more docile.
Ami shook her head, hair catching the light like living flame. “I’ve really tried to give up feeling sorry for myself, as I know I’m blessed and should be grateful, but sometimes this beauty feels more like a curse, like people only see the pretty exterior and don’t see me.” She glared at me, defying me to argue with her.
I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing and she huffed out an exasperated sound.
“The point is, Ash, that it’s not enough for you to close your eyes. I need you to see me.”
“I see you,” I replied, my whisper harsh as the ravens calling in the trees.
Her face crumpled a little and she looked down, worrying her fingers together, pale with chill as she’d taken off her gloves to tend me. “Do you? Sometimes I don’t think you do. I know it’s… difficult for you to be with me, even though you love me.”
“I do love you, Amelia. I love you more than my own life.”
She glanced up at me again, her face wet with renewed tears, and she smiled through them. “I know you do. And I love you—but it’s not enough, is it? I know you’re not happy.”
“Maybe I’m just not a happy person,” I offered.
“Is that all?” She searched my face. “Be honest with me, because I know there’s a lot of stuff that goes on in your head that you don’t share with me and that’s fine—” She held up a hand when I tried to speak, then pulled her gloves from her pocket and yanked them on. “Really, I’m fine with that. I’ve reconciled myself to it because if you wanted to let me in, you would. The thing is, you clearly don’t want to. For a while I thought, well that will change, but it hasn’t. If anything, you’re more closed off than ever. And… this isn’t enough for me anymore. Ironically enough, you were the one to open my eyes and make me want more than the fairytale. My marriage with Hugh was a lovely fantasy, and maybe if he’d lived, we would have found something real there once the shine wore off. All I know is that I loved him, and I love you, but love doesn’t solve everything. It doesn’t make us good for each other.” She wiped her face and pulled up the hood of her cloak, taking refuge in the deep cowl.
No, I wasn’t good for her. And love was never enough. It hadn’t been enough to save my parents. They’d loved each other, and so my father had stopped looking for Annfwn, and stayed with her, they’d had a baby and raised me together. Then the priests had come for him and burned him at the stake for being a shapeshifting demon. At thirteen, I’d gone to prison. And my mother had died, alone and undefended.
Love never saved anyone, and it couldn’t make me into someone I wasn’t.
“You’re right,” I told her. “It’s time for us to say goodbye.” It came out well enough. Glorianna knew I’d practiced the line enough times.
“I think so,” Ami finally said. When she faced me again, she’d composed herself and stopped actively weeping, though her eyes seemed even larger and bluer with the glow of unshed tears. “Delaying this has only brought us both pain.”
I nodded slowly. For once we understood each other perfectly well.
Our entourage was reassembling, the Tala nurses back in human form and taking the twins into the carriage, hopefully to coax them into a nap. Ami followed the direction of my gaze. “Maybe I’ll go ride with the kids.”
“All right. I’ll take care of your horse.”
She took a step. Turned back. “Are you—are you leaving now?”
It would be easier. Though I’d have to choose—through the mountains to Annfwn or east, to the temple of the White Monks. Neither held appeal. I also had a responsibility to fulfill. I might be prison scum who’d battered the heart of the only woman—maybe the only person—I’d ever loved, but I wouldn’t take a chance on her safety just to make things easier on myself.
I cleared my throat. “No. I’ll see you safely to Windroven.” I tried for a smile. “Since you’re so determined to go.” Odd where this argument had begun and how it exploded from there. But then, this moment had been inevitable all along. All those problems between us we’d ignored, drowning them in kisses while they grew in the shadows we shoved them into. Showed how nicely fermented shit can make the smallest seeds grow into an impenetrable hedge of thorns, slicing you no matter how you tried to extract yourself.
Ami didn’t smile back. Instead she simply nodded. Then walked away.