She swallowed. “I know, I know the madness was control, too—worse control than that. But it never felt like it. It felt…”
“How did it feel?” His voice was very quiet, steady in her ear.
“Like freedom. Like flying. Like being a hawk or an eagle, unfettered, unchained. Chimes like music in my head… Afterwards we’d be sick and weak and scarred. But it was worth it. Every time, it was worth it.”
“And now?”
“And now I’m weaker than everyone. It would be bad enough back in the city, but here, when so many of you have gifts of your own… Aera could kill me with a fingertip, Leos and Coram could crush me, you could take over my mind—”
“But I won’t.”
“I…” The fear she’d tried to suppress came tumbling out in speech. “I could become maenad again. When we go to the temple, if the priests get hold of me, I could— All it takes is the volcano’s blood, and they get that so easily, it comes up from the mouth of the volcano, forms in liquid on the rocks—”
“That’s what you’re afraid of?”
She shook her head, ashamed. “No. I told you. That felt like freedom, like power. I’m afraid of your power. I’m afraid, if I turn maenad, you’ll use that power on me. You did it before to save your life. I cannot blame you. But knowing that, if you need to, you’ll do that again, enter my mind…”
“No. I won’t.”
“You will. If you need to, if it’s to save your life—”
“Maya. I said, I won’t use that power on you. If I’m fighting—against the priests, the soldiers, the other maenads—yes, I’ll use what I have to. But not with you. I swear it…” he hesitated, then finished the sentence, “…I swear it on my father’s life, I will never use that power again on you.”
Her head jerked up. She stared into his face. That oath. The oath he’d made before, but about something so much less important, so much less…lethal.
“What?” she said. “You… Why? Why would you offer me that oath? If I ever become maenad you know I’ll try to kill you, and you’ve just made it so you can’t defend yourself.”
“Am I crippled?” There was laughter in his voice, laughter that invited her to laugh too. “As you told me some time ago, I have a knife, and hands—”
But that wasn’t funny. “No.” Her voice rose. “You said it yourself—what use will that be against a maenad? Against me when I am a maenad?”
He would not know that as she said the words the terrible pictures came into her mind. Herself, in the river, using his own hair and body to climb up to kill him, gouging blood from his arm and chest, drunk on power and cruelty. Herself, one day in the future, lost in madness, doing the same thing. Having to wash his blood and skin from her nails, having his screams etched forever in her brain…
A minute ago she’d told him she didn’t fear the madness, even if it was from the priests, even if it was them controlling her. But now, suddenly, she did.
Don’t let me. Don’t give me the power to kill you. Because if you let me I will, and I cannot bear it.
Philos knew that if he was sensible he would move away. Sitting this close to her, he had not been able to escape the weight of her pain. Just as he could not escape her fear. He’d thought it would help if she knew that, whoever else might seek to control her, he never would. But all he’d done was tip her from one type of panic into another.
She trusted him as she trusted no one else, and Aera had given her sanction to him staying with Maya, trying to help her get through this first difficult time of shock and disorientation. He could not give up now. But sometimes, feeling what she felt, knowing the anguished detail of what she was going through, he wondered if it made him less use to her, not more.
All the same, if sitting here, feeling her pain, sharing it—if it helped her, even a little, it was worth it.
He remembered now, hiding in the ravine, the first time he’d picked up her emotions. The sound of chimes ringing behind his eyes, the savage itch in teeth and nails. To him, the madness had felt terrifying. But for Maya…
He wasn’t sensible. He didn’t move away. Instead, he shifted, just enough that the back of his hand touched hers.
They hadn’t touched since that night, seven days ago. The night that burned in his memory, not because of what had happened but because of what he’d been sure could have happened, if he’d done what she’d asked and unchained her.
As he touched her, he felt her quiver next to him. Where their hands touched, heat flared, striking right through his body. He’d been forming words of comfort, but they vanished, leaving him with nothing to say. He chanced a look at her and found her watching him, her eyes wide and dark.
Her panic had gone, as if whatever had wiped the words from his mind had wiped that out too. But he couldn’t tell what she might be feeling instead. He only knew his heart was beating faster, the heat in his body spreading in his chest until it made his breath halt, and his hand, as if of its own accord, turning so he could clasp hers.
“I don’t want to kill you,” she said.
“I won’t let you.”
Her rare smile crept into her eyes. “Philos.”
“Trust me, Maya. I didn’t let you kill me before. Now it’s for your sake as well as mine, and I’ll let you do it even less.”
He thought the moment he said it that it was a singularly stupid thing to say, and expected her to meet it with either laughter or irritation. But she did neither. “Why?” she said. “I’ve done nothing to deserve that—that oath, or any of this. Why are you giving it to me?”
Sudden fear, the feeling of standing at the edge of a precipice, impelled him to flippancy. “You’ve already forgotten you saved my life? You can call that nothing if you like, but—”
She held his gaze, her face pale and defenceless. “Is that what this is?”
His desire to be flippant died. “No. No, it’s not.”
“It’s your gift, then? The…what you said…feeling what other people feel?”
“No. I mean, yes, that’s happening, but I—” He stumbled, unable not to answer her questions but afraid of getting it wrong. “Maya, I—I don’t know. This is new to me.”
“To me too.” Her gaze dropped.
Even newer to her, growing up as she had in the maenad compound, the only men she saw the priests, the temple guards. He was older, more experienced. A bit, anyway. He should not be just sitting here, his heart banging so hard he could feel it in his ears, so uncertain of himself, so unsure what to say.
It was a call from the camp below that rescued him from needing to say anything. They both glanced down and saw Coram signalling to Maya.
“Oh.” She made a move to get up. “I have to— We weren’t finished.”
She began to slide her hand from his, but he, again without making the choice to do so, without thinking it through, closed his hand more firmly about hers. “Wait.”
“I can’t. Coram still needs me.”
He knew that. Knew, too, that it was better for her to help than to just sit talking with him, even if he’d known what to say next. But all the same, he didn’t want to let her go.
“Will I see you later?”
She smiled a tiny bit. “Well, at the end of the day, when we eat?”
“I know that. I mean—”
Their eyes met again. She was no longer pale; colour had risen into her face and her eyes were bright. “Later? Up here?”
“Yes.” He let her hand go and watched as she walked away, her feet light on the rock, the wind blowing the fabric of her tunic against the slight curves of her body. She glanced back just once, saw him watching, and the blush returned so her face glowed, flushed and beautiful in the sunlight, the wind tangling her hair, her body outlined against the blue blaze of the sky.
Chapter Fourteen
The rest of the day dragged as Philos only remembered his childhood’s school days dragging before. He had his own tasks to do, his own part to play in the life of the camp, but whe
rever he went he found himself constantly aware of where Maya was. Every time he saw her his heart kicked up to double-time, and he lost track of what he was doing, or stopped midway through speaking to someone.
For days he’d kept his feelings at bay, pushed them aside. Quite apart from her intense vulnerability at the moment, and his fears of getting it wrong, of doing it wrong as he had before, now was no time for anything like courtship. They were on the edge of a war, for the gods’ sakes. He didn’t even know if he’d be alive a month from today.
If Maya had stayed savage, furious, the way she’d been to start with, he would not be feeling this. Or if, once the change was complete, she’d become like everyone else, keeping that automatic distance no one but him seemed aware of. But she hadn’t. Even when she was afraid of what he might do, she held on, fought through the fear to explain it to him and let him give her the reassurance no one else had even asked for.
It was something he’d not met in any other woman. Aera, temple trained to invulnerability, had never been afraid of him. And Venli had tumbled headlong into infatuation before it crossed her mind there was anything to fear.
But Maya had known there was, and she’d been terrified, and yet she’d fought through the terror the way she’d once fought through a rush of stone-cold water. Fought to stay with him as no one else had tried to do.
Ah gods, though. It was too soon. Only a few days ago she’d been a sworn virgin, permitted contact with no one but eunuchs, priests…and with her victims. Could she be sure what she wanted—could she be sure she was reacting to him, Philos, or whether she would react similarly to any man near her own age? Sometimes he found himself thinking, She has been kept in something like childhood, expected to be asexual, for so long, what would that make me if I so much as kissed her?
But earlier, sitting with her, feeling her hand within his, aware of the slight scent of her hair, all his defences had gone down, his reservations vanishing like dust swept away by the wind, and all he’d wanted…
Well, he still wasn’t sure what he wanted. But he hadn’t wanted her to move away, that he was sure of.
He went up to the ledge that had become hers a little while after they finished eating and the bowls had been cleared away. She was sitting, her legs dangling over the edge of the shelf, her face lifted to the reddening light of the setting sun. It looked as if she were blushing, but when she lifted her gaze to his her face was composed and her eyes steady.
Philos sat beside her, not too close. Not as close as he wanted. The whole day to think about this, and he still didn’t know what to say.
Maya pulled her knees up, wrapping her arms around them. “What’s happening?” she said. “What’s happening to us?”
“I don’t know.” Honesty might not be any kind of answer to what she was asking, but that was all he had to offer. “I don’t know what this is. Last time I felt anything like it, it was a mistake. And this—I’ve never had this happen to me before. Not like this. It’s come so quickly I…don’t know what to do with it.”
She put her chin on her knees so she had to slant a look up at him. “I know. A few days ago I was determined to kill you.”
He gave a short laugh. “That would, alone, be enough to deal with. But for you, you’ve only just come from a different world, the world of the temple.” His eyes met hers and his breath caught. “Maya, for me to…take advantage of you, now…”
“You think I can’t decide that kind of thing for myself?” Her head came up, defiance flashing in her face.
“How can you?” His own frustration lent the words more fire than he meant to give them. “You’ve been in the outside world no more than ten days. If I—did anything, anyone would say I was little better than the man who decides he can take his pick of his war prisoners.”
“Really? Even though I’m free, and more than able to refuse you? And—” she stumbled, the look of defiance crumbling to something far more vulnerable, “—and willing?”
“Willing?” Until now, he’d had moments of talking himself out of it, trying to get himself to believe he wasn’t really sure what he wanted, wasn’t really sure he felt anything at all. But at that, at the blaze of honesty in her face, he knew he’d been fooling himself.
“Maya, gods, don’t think I don’t want you. I may not be sure what this is, or whether it’s something I should give in to, or—” He forgot what he’d been trying to say. Her eyes were on him, and he forgot everything apart from the look in them. He held out a hand. “Everyone can see us here. Come farther back.”
She got to her feet without touching him, turned to walk over to the entrance of the cave. But as she did so her hand brushed against his, the smell of her hair drifted past his face, and something leapt, like lightning leaps to strike the ground, sizzling white-hot through the air.
He leaned forward and kissed her.
Her lips were cool, and for a moment unresponsive against his. But they were soft, and her hair blew against his cheek with the silky touch he remembered from before. She smelled of spice and lemon, with an undernote of sweetness that took him straight back to when they’d stood on the cliff edge together, a fragrance that was just her.
“Philos—” she said on a caught breath, so faintly he felt more than heard it, and her hands slid to his chest, fingertips gripping just the edges of where his tunic opened at his neck. Something seemed to echo in his ears, a sound like the surf rising against the cliffs. Then her lips opened, warming under his. Her hands opened against his chest and the surf broke over him, dragging him under to where there was nothing but the scent of her, the warmth of her mouth, the incredible slim curve of her body as he reached for her, blindly, and drew her into the cave with him.
His thoughts dissolved. His scruples had…not gone, but dwindled to insignificance, irrelevant fragments floating and disappearing in this new certainty. This was real. It wasn’t just him, nor was it confusion born out of loneliness and pity. This had been happening between them since almost the first day they’d met, a rising tide they were helpless to resist.
The blankets she’d been sleeping on made a bed, something to cushion them from the harsh ridges of the stone floor. Philos drew Maya down to it and she came, unresisting, her hands locking behind his head to pull him to her.
Outside, the last of the daylight died. The night crept up to enclose them both. Like silk sliding over them, like the water at the edge of the ocean, warmed all day by the sun, so close to blood-temperature that when it glided over the skin it felt like a caress.
In the dark, the world contracted to nothing but him and her, the rough blankets they lay on, her skin, her scent, the soft noises she made when he touched her.
He slid his hands over her and heard her gasp in his ear. She was all smooth curves, dips and secret hollows, and as he touched her he saw, behind his shut eyelids, the lines his hands made blazing in trails of light, like trails of ocean luminescence, burning her shape into his memory forever.
He’d thought he’d known desire before. There’d been Venli, and others whom he’d wanted and had had to watch choose other men. He’d thought he’d known what it felt like. He’d been wrong. He’d never felt this before.
She was untouched and he, the gods knew, hardly experienced, but it didn’t matter. Instinct took them both, as sure as birds circle to fly north, dolphins curve as one creature in the waves, making her hips tilt to meet his, drawing him unerringly towards her, feeling his way as if he’d never needed any sense but the sense of touch.
Then, at the last moment, as she melted beneath him, as warmth became heat, as he gathered every last possible scrap of self-control to force himself to go slow, to not hurt her, she went suddenly still. “Oh gods,” she said. “Oh gods, what am I doing?”
If she’d gone cold as stone against him, it could not have brought him to more of a halt. He stopped dead, head pounding, every nerve in his body screaming, then pushed himself away from her.
She drew back as he did. He heard her
move. She’d be huddling her knees up to her body, wrapping her arms around them, stiff and withdrawn.
“Maya…” But it was too late. The trails of light died like the false fire they were, dissolved and slid away in vanishing ripples, leaving no trace behind. He felt blind, chilled.
Her voice was muffled against her arms. “In the temple, if I did this…”
She didn’t need to finish the sentence. He knew. It would be death for her—a blasphemer’s death, no more merciful than the one they’d meant for him.
“And if I…if now I…it would mean I could never go back.” Her voice was a wisp of sound, so thin it seemed it, too, would dissolve into the rippling darkness and disappear.
And you want to go back. Despite what had just happened between them—what had been happening for days—she didn’t want to stay. Not for freedom. And not for him.
“You don’t want—” He couldn’t say it. Couldn’t hear her say what he already knew, that in a choice between him and the god who was the source of her power, she would choose the god. Unseen in the dark, he clenched his hands, forced himself to breathe properly. It’s my own fault. I’m a fool.
The darkness no longer seemed to hold them in a close, private world. He felt as if it smothered him, thick with pain, sand that swirled in gritty clouds to catch in his lungs and sting his eyes. He fumbled to light the lantern, unusually clumsy, scraping his thumb on a sharp metal edge.
The flame flickered, climbed higher. The darkness ebbed. He could breathe again, and speak.
“Maya, I’m sorry. I should never have—”
Blood of the Volcano: Sequal to Heart of the Volcano Page 15