There was something very troubling about the idea of someone casting you into sleep with magic…something worse, somehow, than being teleported or told your destiny. Croe hesitated, searching Mallos’ eyes for something that might make her say no. But she found no such thing – his face was still open in a way she’d never seen it before this night, probably mirroring the vulnerability in her own. She realized, for the first time really realized, that she trusted him. The insanity of it made her brows knit into a highly uncharacteristic expression: worry.
Okay, she mouthed, and he kissed her, and the world went completely black.
Croe woke violently, about half hour before dawn. At first she thought she had heard something loud – an intruder, or a gunshot, or stalactites falling from the ceiling of a cave. Then she realized she was hearing her own heartbeat, pounding like a wardrum in her chest, in her ears, as if her body had suddenly become aware that it was sleeping and feared it would never wake up. She forced herself to relax her white-knuckled grip on the bedsheets. Her eyes took in the unfamiliar room – made even more alien by the change in light – and for a moment she thought she was back home, with the sick feeling that her mother might walk in at any moment and berate her for her predicament. Then she remembered where she was, truly, and felt such a flood of feeling and nostalgia and questions that her brain spun with them. She laid back down, shut her eyes, took several deep breaths.
I am in Mallos’ bedroom, in the King’s castle, on Shaman, she reminded herself. The past is not home. It is a dream.
At the thought of dreams, Croe realized she hadn’t had any during the night…for perhaps the first time in her life. And she felt rested, for perhaps the first time since arriving on Shaman, and certainly for the first time since she’d realized she was pregnant. Not for the first time, she marveled at her lover’s magic, which came so naturally to him and was so beyond anything natural. He was not there, she noticed, in her self-contained meditation. She wondered if he’d actually stayed with her. She decided it didn’t matter if he hadn’t.
Slowly, this time, she reopened her eyes and sat up, stood up, padded silently across the soft carpet to the window. The sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon. In the dim twilight, she could see rolling hills, a stable, a few guards on patrol. If she were to escape through this window, there would be nothing to prevent her flight into the wilderness. At this moment, she could leave. Nobody knew whose child she carried, yet. Maybe nobody had to know…
But they would know that Mallos had released her from her cell, she remembered. Croe wondered what the punishment for colluding with one of the King’s most wanted would be. Surely it would be less severe than the verdict of the Star Council? Her memories cycled like a movie trailer, retrieving long-buried knowledge of the last trials, the blame Mallos carried for his likeness being used, the precedents set by Aura and Gwythr. Banishment? Imprisonment? Being stripped of his powers, perhaps…stripped of his identity? Croe frowned at her hazy reflection in the window. All systems of law and order were the same. Maybe the punishments would vary by degree, but not by kind.
She turned away from the window. Folded over the arm of a nearby chair, Croe spied her clothing from the night before, miraculously cleaned and mended, looking newer than when they were new. It was a small kindness, but it still made her stomach hurt. She pulled Mallos’ shirt over her head and folded it neatly, dressed in her own clothes, and stepped out of the bedroom, half expecting to be alone and half hoping she would find him.
Her second half was rewarded. Croe smiled, surprised by his inelegant position and amused that he still managed to look handsome. As she walked toward him, she retrieved his pencil from the floor, placed it and his sketchbook on the table by the sofa. Her eyes lingered on the drawing, surprised by that, too. Compelled by some strange impulse, she found herself leaning over him, brushing the hair out of his face, pressing a kiss to his forehead. His eyelashes fluttered, and she sat back on the arm of the couch.
“I’m sorry to wake you.”
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