by Dani Smith
A disjointed thought washed through his mind as all of this flashed by, “Her magic is the magic of Life.”
Iona’s memories splashed against his and he saw her gazing up at Shiva’s kind, beautiful face, arms raised, a small orphaned, ginger-haired child chosen to learn the greatest secrets of the Yellowseed tribe. He felt her ripen to womanhood as she learned to make flowers burst forth in early bloom, to awaken the secrets of the earth even as nature slept in the dead of winter. He danced with her has she whirled in nude glory before the towering statue of Kitsune, felt her body bend and leap and spin in dizzying feminine joy as her Kit sisters chanted languidly around her.
He heard Drake’s war machines, pistons whining, heard the terrified screams of villagers unprepared to defend themselves against such an onslaught. He ran with her down the corridor to the crypt where the Kit saints slept, hiding the Jade in the prayer fount, watched through her eyes as she stepped in front of Shiva, staring defiantly up at Drake as she offered herself as sacrifice.
He saw himself through her eyes as she walked into the Bargsea hall, felt her heart flutter briefly at the sight of him before a darker, more terrible vision swept everything away: Drake raising a powerful arm, the blinding crack as he backhanded her hard, pitching her back onto his bed, and then there came the pain, the disgust, the shame—
“STOP!” he cried, tearing his hands away from hers. The library flooded back into view, along with Iona’s face, the colors of her eyes no longer swirling. Ashe doubled over, hugging himself, rocking as the horrible visions faded from his mind. Iona reached for him, brushing her fingers across the smooth curve of his skull.
“I can’t see that!” Ashe cried. “I can’t see what he did to you!”
Vaguely he became aware of her arms encircling him. He sat up and pulled her into his arms for the first time, hugging her hard.
“We are orphans, twice over,” Iona murmured against his neck. “You and I.”
He turned his face against her hair, breathed in the scent of some ridiculously expensive perfume no doubt given to her by Drake. She turned her face to his and for the second time her lips pressed against his, but there was more passion this time, more need. Ashe felt her fingers come up and caress one of his goat ears, gingerly moving over the multiple piercings lining it. He opened his mouth to hers, his tongue probing, his belly and groin a knot of sexual excitement. He reached down and fumbled the top button of his trousers; he was ready to lay her back onto the library floor, to push her nightdress up above her hips and bury himself in her like a knife thrust into hot, packed mud.
“My queen!” The hated voice came echoing down the hall, shattering the tender moment like a dropped glass. Iona pulled away from him abruptly and he groaned.
Chapter 18
Thorn paused outside the library doors and knocked with a big knuckle. “My lady queen, your husband seeks you!”
He pushed the door open with a dusty creak. The light from the hallway spilled across the polished wooden floors and fell on Iona sitting in a high-backed chair, Ashe sitting on the floor across from her. A book was open in Iona’s lap and she was reading out loud. Thorn took brief note of the flush on her cheek and the hurried way that she seemed to be reading, his mind fluttering briefly on something that was there and then gone.
Iona and Ashe both looked up, blinking.
“My Queen!” Thorn repeated, agitated. “Your husband summons you!”
Iona snapped the book shut in her lap and stood, leaving it lying on the chair seat. She gathered her cloak and hurried past Thorn; her head ducked. Thorn watched Ashe rise, unable to hide the grin stretching across his face.
“You’d better button your trousers, there, Goat Boy,” he sneered before he turned and marched after Iona, letting the library door swing shut behind him.
***
Iona made her way up the staircase to the rooms she shared with Drake when he came calling, pawing at her hair, hoping it didn’t look too disheveled. Her memory fasting with Ashe had left her out of breath and she hoped it would not show. Thorn followed close on her heels.
“And what was going on down there, little queen?” he sneered. “Reading to your guardsman at midnight?”
“Ashe is my keeper, as Drake has commanded it,” Iona snapped back. “He is protecting me. Are you questioning your boss’s choices?”
Thorn grunted but said nothing more.
Drake was standing in the bedroom by the open balcony door, his massive form outlined in the light cast up from the city below. He turned when Iona and Thorn entered, his ember eyes crinkling as he grinned.
“There’s my favorite wife,” he chuckled, a sound that had become only one black horse in the vast stable of her nightmares. He nodded at Thorn. “And where is Ashe? I told him to keep watch over this one.”
Thorn’s eyes narrowed, his mouth working. “He was watching over her in the library.”
“Ah, good enough. You may go now, Thorn.”
Thorn raised his chin, staring hard in Drake’s direction. He glanced at Iona, then back at Drake again before wordlessly slinking from the room.
Iona scanned the room for what Drake might have brought back from the markets, catching sight of a knee-length gown of pale, silky yellow hanging on the wardrobe door, its hem woven with ornate dark red embroidery and decorated with what could only be real garnets, like drops of dark glistening blood. Drake gestured toward it.
“Come, see what I’ve brought you.”
Iona stepped forward slowly, her eyes fixed on the dress. Drake pulled it from the hanger and held it up to her, beaming with an almost boyish pride.
“It’s beautiful,” Iona murmured.
“I would very much like to see you in it, my queen.”
She stared at him briefly, pushing her hatred down as low as she could. She snatched the dress from him and turned away, draping the frothy garment across the bed.
She could feel his eyes on her as she changed, stepping from one gown into the other, covering her breasts as well as she could. As she stepped into the new dress and pulled the straps up, she felt Drake’s big hands brush against her waist.
“You look ravishing,” he breathed. Iona squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for him to shove her onto the bed, to make use of her as he had since her arrival in this hellhole. Instead, he backed away, his hands dropping from her bodice. She turned to him, blinking, astonished and relieved. “It is my hope that you will soon share with me what I most desire. I am not known for being a patient man.”
His eyes focused sharply on her.
“But you, I know I can trust, little Kit.”
Chapter 19
The weather turned cool that night, summer inexorably ripening toward the careless gold of fall. As the air sharpened, the shimmering stench of the city seemed to lessen, the air washed by soft chilly breezes that swirled above the belching chimneys and sharp slate roofs.
Drake and Snow left Bargsea after the first cold snap struck, exchanging war machines for wagons loaded with bare necessities meant as gifts for the poorest citizens of Shale City: cheap bread and beer to be handed out in the fey slums in order to gain favor for the Doomhand chief. Drake would also visit the merchants and the markets, where he would purchase ridiculously ostentatious gifts for Iona, gifts that she would shove aside as soon as he was out of the room.
Iona watched from her balcony as her husband and owner marched from the compound, her heart fluttering, her fingers twining.
Go, go, get out, get out …
“Iona!”
Omnia swept out onto the balcony, raising the hood of her cloak as she did. A soft, barely-there rain had begun to whisper from above, and the droplets caught along the unicorn maid’s horn, sparkling in the neon light washing up from the city below.
“He’s meeting you in the library?’ she asked softly.
Iona looked down at the yellow dress she wore, at the dark red garnets winking in the night along its hem. She thought of Ashe, coming to her wit
h blood seeping from his nose and his eyes flooded with shame, at his words, “Drake kissed you, and it angered me,” and she smiled a little.
She walked back into the room, loosening her hair as she did. Omnia followed her, clucking her tongue lightly. “What are you planning, Iona?”
Iona sighed, sitting down at the vanity. She began to brush her hair brusquely, smoothing out the lush copper wave until it gleamed like molten metal.
“What I should have done long ago,” she said.
“You love him, don’t you? You love Ashe.”
“I don’t know completely. But he is kind, and he is my friend, and I want him. And I know he wants me.”
Omnia sat on the edge of Drake’s bed, shaking her head slowly. Iona watched her through the vanity mirror, a small smile playing on her lips as she brushed and brushed.
“You smile, but you’re playing a dangerous game, dear sister,” Omnia cautioned. “I will not bar you from what you choose, but I ask you to keep your wits about you.”
Iona set the brush down and gazed at her slave sister, seeing the sadness flooding Omnia’s pink eyes, the droop of her delicate white doe’s ears.
“You had someone, didn’t you?” she asked softly. “Before Drake took you.”
A sad smile touched Omnia’s wan lips, and a little rosy color bloomed in her ivory cheeks. “Yes. The chief of my tribe. He was bound to me.”
Iona turned in her seat, her brow furrowed. “Did Drake—”
“Kill him? I have no way of knowing. But he took me with the promise that he would leave my man alive in exchange.”
Iona groaned tiredly. “That seems to be Drake’s pattern.”
Omnia shrugged wistfully. “I still have hope. I can feel him still bound to me through this.” She pointed at her horn, which glittered briefly. “If he were not still alive, I would feel nothing.”
Iona rose and pulled her cloak around her shoulders, pulling the hood up over her bright crimson tresses. She knelt before her slave sister, taking Omnia’s hands in hers.
“Then I will hold the same hope in my heart for you,” she declared, grinning. Omnia squeezed her fingers gingerly.
“You’d best get moving, little Kit!” Omnia laughed. “I will hold down the fort here. Just please, please, be careful.”
“I will, I will!” Iona laughed, gathering some loose furs up in her arms before swinging the bedroom door open and dancing from the room. On the stoop outside, she glanced furtively around her before scurrying down the stairs, her cloak rustling softly around her feet.
She did not see the shadow that crept out from behind a nearby wall, did not see the dark blue eyes that followed her from a safe distance as she went forth to stain Drake’s pride.
Chapter 20
Ashe arrived at the library late, muttering and cursing himself. He had spent the early evening splashing himself with too much water, fretting over how perfectly his mohawk crested, and scrubbing any small spot he could find from his vest and boots.
The little red poetry book sat at the edge of his bed the entire time he prepared. He had been reading it over religiously, and now, as he entered the gas lit library, he clutched it as tightly as he would any weapon. He slipped it into his pack with the Jade, for tonight he planned to return it to her for good.
Iona met him with a flourish at the library doors, and her beauty dazzled him. She wore a knee-length dress of pale yellow, dark red jewels winking along the hemline, and her hair was loose and full, flowing down to drag on the ground behind her like a spill of molten metal.
“Ashy!” she cried and threw her arms around him. He stepped back, unsure, his eyes widening.
“You’re dressed well for reading,” he laughed. She twirled around playfully, the skirt of her dress billowing out around her.
“Have you been drinking?” he stammered. She tossed her head and bowed to him sardonically, her freckled cheeks flushed and blooming.
“Why, yes! The finest Pale that Shale City can offer, per our great master Drakie.” She dipped in a clumsy curtsy. “Come here, I want you to see something.”
She giggled and twirled about again before grabbing his wrists and pulling him back between the book-lined shelves, back toward the nest she had made of her cloak and the furs she had stolen from Drake’s rooms, her peacock eyes sparkling. Her beauty glimmered before him like the finest crystal and he was utterly awestruck.
“See?” she whispered. “I prepared it for us.”
“Iona,” he said softly, uncertainly. “I—”
She seemed to sober up then, shaking her head doggedly. "“Please … no more words … no more thoughts … don’t deny me this one choice.”
She took the book out of his hands and tossed it unceremoniously to the floor.
Ashe pressed forward at her invitation and kissed her, raw emotion bursting forth between them like bright, white-hot flowers. Iona’s fingers moved up and shyly touched the proud spikes of his sable mohawk, the firm hard line of his jaw. As their kiss deepened, her fingers wound into his hair and pulled, something that both hurt and felt wonderful. When Ashe pulled away, he was panting, his bright gold-ringed eyes shining. More, he wanted, no, needed more. She was like an oasis in the desert, and he was a man dying of thirst. He bent near her again and she managed to murmur one last sentence before he pressed his lips to hers once more.
“Let us defy him together.”
They moved as one toward the makeshift bed on the floor. She pushed his vest from his shoulders, and it draped across the floor, a ragged leather shadow on the white furs and beaded cushions. They undressed each other as slowly as they could stand it, two slaves standing together on the precipice, at the very edge of some forbidden abyss that meant a new kind of freedom.
Ashe’s breath had become ragged, urgent. He was feeling intense sensations that he never knew he could feel for anyone, and he wanted to dive in without a glance back. When Iona unlaced her silk dress and it fell away, crumpling to the floor by his discarded vest, he moaned softly, helplessly, at the sight of her lean curves. Her skin was creamy-pale and softly freckled in the dim light of the library, bars of jeweled color falling across her face from the stained-glass window behind them. Her eyes were like stars.
Almost as a reflex, he reached out and grasped the pearl necklace strung around her throat and yanked. The strand broke, sending pale lavender pearls pattering across the wooden floor, rolling under shelves, lost in the library’s dusty gloom.
They would stain Drake’s pride as one.
Ashe pressed his lips to hers, cupping her face in his hands. She shyly flicked her tongue against his lips, and he responded by opening his mouth and letting her probe deeper, his own tongue warm and velvety against hers. She sighed, murmuring his name against his lips.
Her reaction excited him, sent his heart pounding.
“I’m scared,” she whispered, and her words terrified him.
“Why?” he breathed, pressing his forehead against hers and gazing down into her eyes.
“I have only known violence,” she whispered. “Only Drake—"
Ashe shook his head doggedly. “Don’t even say his name,” he breathed. “You’re mine.”
“I know. Just please … be gentle. As gentle as you can be. I trust you.”
Their lovemaking was slow and sweet and incredibly good, and when it was over, they lay holding each other beneath a tangle of loose furs and the drape of Iona’s cloak. After a while, Ashe raised his head and gazed down at her. She smiled at him, and her eyes shone like precious rainbow gems, one hand moving up to playfully ruffle his mohawk.
Finally, he eased off her and they lay together, side by side, staring up at the library ceiling.
“You were my first,” Iona said softly. “You have honored my body and my soul. Kitsune surely smiles down on us tonight.”
“Drake was your first,” Ashe murmured bitterly.
“No. Drake doesn’t count.”
At those words, Ashe slipped an arm around
her and she tucked her head into the crook of his shoulder, gazing at him. He rolled onto his side and pulled her closer, and Iona sighed, arching slightly against him.
“I want to leave this place, with you,” he whispered, and the joy in her eyes deepened.
Iona giggled at that, her fingers rising to brush her lips. Ashe leaned in and kissed her fingers, the corner of her mouth, her flushed cheek.
“Ashe,” she whispered. “Help me run.”
Gently he hushed her and rolled her onto her side, and she fell asleep again with her face buried against his chest.
Dawn broke fully, and Ashe finally tucked her into the furs and blankets, rising, for as much as he wanted to stay, it wasn’t safe for either of them. He yanked on his clothes and vest and boots, buckling his belt and sheathed kukri around his hips. He gazed down at her longingly, watching her sleep with her mussed hair tumbled around her.
The little red poetry book was lying where she had tossed it the night before. He plucked it up and opened it, his gold eyes flickering over a few pages.
Finally, he snatched a pencil stub from a small study table nearby, scribbling a few words onto the first page.
You are my dream, and I, yours.
May we never wake.