Chapter Three
She heard Coram’s voice from a long way away, as if somewhere it ebbed and flowed like the tide, the words all dissolving into vagueness. She tried to hear them, but they reached her ears only momentarily before being sucked back into the waves. At least she could feel all her limbs, the floor cold beneath them. She hadn’t burned up, after all.
And Coram was free.
She must listen to what he was saying. She must keep hold of his words.
She realized her eyes were shut, and forced them open against the weights that lay on her eyelids. Outlined against the far-off glimpses of burnished-metal sky, Coram’s face seemed very close. His mouth moved, and words swam out of the air, sticking together like flakes of dust floating in water.
“…happen a lot?” he said.
After a second she understood what he was asking. “No. Only when I… It takes energy, and if I use too much…”
“Is it dangerous?” Emotion swam into his words now, sharp-finned concern, even something that sounded like fear.
“Of course it’s dangerous.” She was lying on her back; she pushed herself up onto her elbows. “But not unreasonably so.”
“Not unreasonably.” His teeth shut with a snap. “Aera. I thought it had killed you. I thought I’d got you to make me free, and you’d died of it. I even—I looked for the god, I thought it was his revenge.” He swallowed, scrubbing his dust-grimed hands over his face. “You’re sure it’s just lack of—energy? Of food and rest?”
“Yes.” She lifted a shoulder. “If I eat now I’ll get the gift back sooner. But if I can’t I need only to rest and in a few hours I’ll be able to shift again. Not forever—I’ll have to eat tomorrow, when I get out, or I’ll start to lose the gift.” She stopped, swallowed. “Coram…”
“Yes?”
She couldn’t ask. Couldn’t say Did you mean it? Now you’re free, do you still want me?
Ridiculous, half an hour and what he says, what he wants…whether he wants me—it matters too much. I should be ashamed…
She shook her head, pushed herself upright, beginning to get to her feet. “It’s gone. I don’t know.”
“Aera, don’t get up yet.” His voice had an irritated snap to it. “You’re not recovered. You shouldn’t have done it if you knew it’d do that to you—”
“You asked me to,” she said, stung.
“You should have told me—”
The aftermath of fear, fatigue, the tamped-down questions she couldn’t ask, ran together, flared into sudden anger. “That’s not for you to say! You asked me to, I did it, you’re free. That’s enough—”
“It’s not.”
“It’s not enough?” She stared at him, outraged. “What else am I supposed to do for you?”
His voice rose, loud with as much anger as hers. “You could stop avoiding what I asked you!”
“What? What did you ask? You asked me to melt your chains.”
“I did. And you did melt them. But you never answered my first question. I asked if you’d come with me, Aera.”
All around her, the air fizzed, as if the dust motes had picked up invisible lightning, as if they vibrated against her skin. She couldn’t look at him. “Why?” she whispered.
“Why?” His voice seemed to vibrate, too.
She nodded, not looking up.
“Because I missed you,” Coram said. “Every day for five years, I missed you. I knew as far as I was concerned you’d gone forever so I tried to forget you and I couldn’t do it. I thought you were dead and still I missed you. And now, seeing you again—” he gave a short, mirthless laugh, “—it’s like the god is taunting me. If I stay they’ll kill me, I have to escape, but I…” He paused and she couldn’t help it, she had to look up to see his expression, had to meet his eyes.
She did so, and was caught, waiting, helpless for what he was going to say.
“If I leave without you,” said Coram, “I’ll miss you for the rest of my life.”
His words filled the sky so she could think of nothing, see nothing but him. She got up onto her knees, their hands met, and again his touch raced through her, heating every nerve. For a moment the long-familiar touch of his hands conveyed nothing but friendship, but then the heat rose higher, sizzling all over her body, set alight by shock and danger and the way his eyes fixed on hers so she couldn’t look away.
It wasn’t just friendship. It had already been changing before she left, already she’d known he was no longer just a friend, a companion, someone to stand beside her as she looked out at the world. Already she’d known she no longer wanted to look out at the world, she wanted to look at him, wanted him to look at her and see more than the scruffy little girl he’d fought and played with and spent his childhood championing. She’d never known if it was changing for him, too. Her gift had overtaken them and she’d never found out.
He leaned nearer now, his hands suddenly trembling on hers, and she couldn’t speak, couldn’t think, caught in heat like the heat when the lava rose through her.
“Aera,” he said, his voice shaking like his hands, and their mouths met.
The heat filled her body, and her skin came awake, so aware of him, of where he touched her, that it was as if the heat came from him, her body following it like a flower tilts to follow the sun. Her fingers wound into the shoulder of his tunic, her eyes slid shut, her mouth opened against his.
His arms closed round her, so hard it almost hurt, so hard it jolted her breathing and she gasped into his mouth.
“Aera. When you left—”
“I missed you the worst,” she said on something like a sob. “I didn’t know what you were to me, not properly, not before I had to go, and then it was too late. I tried to forget you. I thought you must have married.”
“I tried to forget you too. I tried—but other girls, other women—I couldn’t see them, they never seemed more than mirages, something you think is real, you think it’s what you’re looking for, then you get closer and it’s—it’s nothing, vapour on the wind.” His hands left her back, ran up into her hair, angling her head so his mouth fitted more closely against hers.
And underneath the glow of light and heat like sunlight and lava, the glitter like sun on sand, the flare of excitement like nothing she’d ever felt…underneath it all was a familiarity, a safety, a feeling like coming home, a feeling she hadn’t even known she’d wanted, that could come from no one and nothing but Coram.
She untangled her fingers from his tunic, slid them up behind his neck, pulling his mouth down against hers, forgetting to breathe, wanting to soak him in like sunlight, like air, like everything she needed to stay alive.
“I’ll look after you,” he said, his lips against hers, his hands urgent on the back of her head. “I know it’ll be like nothing you’ve ever known, I know you’re leaving your whole life behind you, but I swear I’ll never let you regret leaving. I swear it, Aera.”
A thunderbolt from a clear sky, a shock that hit her in the pit of her stomach. She stiffened in his arms, eyes jolting wide.
“I can’t. Oh gods, I can’t.”
He didn’t say anything. On her arms his hands went as rigid as if he were turning back to stone.
She leaned back to look up at him, needing to see his face and scared to all at the same time. “Coram—” Then she did see his face, and for a moment she couldn’t speak.
“It’s my family,” she said, pleading, willing him to understand so she wouldn’t have to insist, wouldn’t have to hurt him worse by saying it again. “A foresworn priestess…”
He put her away from him, the movement gentle despite the rigidity of his hands. “Is worse than outcaste. I know.”
“Is worse than anything. Coram, you remember how it was for all of us before my gift.”
“I remember. I know.”
So he wasn’t going to make her explain. She should be grateful, should be glad he was making it easy for her. Except it wasn’t easy. It was horrible. His hurt ca
me through his face and hands like acid, hurting her even as it hurt him.
“If it were just me…” she said, the words clumsy, inadequate. “Coram, I’m sorry, I should never have let you think—”
“Don’t. I should have known for myself. I—” He looked down at her. “Aera, don’t agonize. I know. If my father were still alive…”
She didn’t know she was crying until she tasted salt. She hadn’t cried for five years, and she’d forgotten how it hurt, how it wrenched at her chest and made it difficult to breathe. “If there were any way, any way to leave without dishonouring them… But the priests will know. If I’m not here when the lava has swept through—”
His hands tightened. “If you’re not here… Aera, what if they thought you’d failed the test, if they thought you’d died? That wouldn’t dishonour you or your family—”
“It’s no good.” She spoke across him, unable to bear seeing the hope flare in his face. “They’d know. My bracelets—” She moved in his grip to hold up her wrists. “They’re coldsteel, like the labyrinth walls. They were taken off the dead body of the last fire-priestess, locked on me when I came—they’ve not left my arms since. If I’m not here when the lava’s come they’ll be the first thing they look for, to take them, give them to the next priestess elect. And if they’re not here, they’ll know I deserted, they’ll know I’m apostate. I—” She looked up at him. “If I could do it that way, I would.”
He slid his hand up her raised arm to the close-fitting, polished metal of the bracelet. “If I could break them…”
Now she had to fight the hope rising within her. “You can’t. It’s so strong lava can’t melt it. I can’t melt it. They carve them with steel and diamond—”
“That’s not strength, that’s melting point.” He ran his finger over the edge of the bracelet. “When I shift, I’m stronger. If I could find a way without hurting you…”
“You can’t. If they find the bracelets broken they might just as well find them gone.”
Incongruously, amidst all the despair, embarrassment swept over his face. “Of course. I’m not thinking.”
The hope rose all the same, irresistible. “Coram, could you stretch them? They only need to be a little bigger…”
“They’re so close round your wrists.” He fitted just the tip of his thumbnail under the edge of the bracelet, braced the pad of his thumb against her wrist, and pushed.
“You see—you could.” Hope made her voice spark like the sparks that fly from hot metal. “All it takes is for you to—” Her voice broke off in a gasp as the grey colour of stone flowed through his thumb, up into the rest of his hand and arm. His grip bit into her skin, driving all the blood away in a white patch around where his hand touched her wrist.
“I’m hurting you—”
“It doesn’t matter.” She tensed, willing herself to bear the pain, to not flinch, not make a sound. “I don’t care if you do hurt me. If you can get me free you can break my wrists if you like—”
His body, still so close against hers, stiffened. “Don’t.”
“No, really, Coram. I’ll heal. I mean it. If you can get me out of these I don’t care what you have to do to get there. Coram, do it. Do it—” But then his thumb crunched down into her wrist, pain screamed across her brain, and, helpless to stop it, she shrieked.
“I can’t. Aera, I’ll hurt you too much.”
“You can. Try again. I don’t care, it doesn’t matter.”
“Aera—”
“Try again!”
His face set, as if he felt as much pain as she did, and he looked away from her, but he did what she’d told him: his grip tightened, his fingers digging up into the underside of her wrist, his thumb pressing down, feeling as if he’d tear the flesh apart, feeling as if any minute the bone would crunch into shards—
She shrieked again, her whole body throwing itself into an involuntary spasm she was helpless to stop.
He dropped her hand, looking sick. “Aera, I can’t. I’ll crush your wrist.”
“I don’t care!” She hadn’t known she’d gone so far past reason till she heard herself say the words—and knew she meant them, knew that right now the fear of losing him was worse than the fear of what his huge stone hands could do to her bones. “I don’t care. You have to try. You can bend the metal, stretch it—”
“I can’t. Look at it—it’s not budged. And look, Aera—look at what I’ve already done to your wrist. I do what I need to to get you out, I’ll hurt you so badly you’ll die of shock.”
“I’ll shift. If you do it while I’ve shifted it can’t hurt me at all—”
“You’re not thinking. I can’t touch you when you’re shifted—”
“Just try!” She shoved her hands, wrists uppermost, into his chest, and almost cried out again when the movement jolted the bracelet into the bruises already springing up dark on her skin. “This is my life, my freedom, and you don’t care enough to try! You didn’t try to keep me back then, you won’t try to help me get free now—”
One of his hands closed over her unhurt wrist, so hard for a moment she thought that hand had shifted to stone, too. “Is that what you think? That if I’d cared I’d have tried to keep you?”
“If you’d missed me as much as you claim to—”
“And what about you?” His eyes blazed down into hers. “Should you have tried to stay? I didn’t notice you telling the priests you couldn’t go with them!”
“I knew I was marked by the god—”
“And I knew that too!”
She stared up at him, wrist trapped. For a moment he wasn’t Coram the man, but Coram the fifteen-year-old who’d watched her walk out of the charred ruins of her house, watched her the next morning as she left flanked by white-robed priests, watched her, silent and helpless, because their world was the way it was and there was nothing else for him to do.
The blind, frantic anger cleared. She followed his gaze down to her wrist, and his hand on it, loose now, an embrace not a trap.
“We were never free,” he said. “Even before they put these on you. Our world… I never thought to question it till it set its teeth in me.”
“And I never questioned it at all. If I had…if I’d thought… But it’s too late now.”
Above her, his body tightened, as if bracing against sudden pain. “No. No. I can’t leave you.”
She put her hand up to twine in his tunic. “Coram… You have to. If you stay you’ll die.”
“But I—Aera, what’ll happen to you? If you haven’t killed me you’ll have failed, they’ll kill you instead.”
She shook her head.
“They will. Aera, how many fire-maidens have made it this far? Why do you think I was so ready to believe you’d died? Most of them have, you of all people must know that. If they don’t lose control and kill themselves, they break and the priests destroy them. They’ll do it to you. As soon as they find out you’ve let me go—”
“They won’t know. If I’d killed you there’d be nothing left. As long as you leave while it’s still dark, they won’t see. As far as they’ll know I’ll have killed you.”
“You’ve worked it all out, then.” His voice sounded dull.
“I have to.”
“And what about you? You’ll have passed the test, you’ll be the fire-priestess. What then? Will you just go back to serving the—”
“No.” The reply came before she thought, then she stopped, her hand twisting in the fabric of his tunic. “I—I don’t know. I can’t think that far.”
“Aera, you must. You’re staying here for your family’s sake, but how far will you go? Will you become what they want of you, the executioner? You’re letting me go—but will you do the same for other blasphemers, condemned by the gifts they didn’t ask for?”
She jerked away from him. “I don’t know. I told you, I can’t think—”
“You have to. If you’re to survive—”
“I can’t!” Her voice caught halfway,
choked and cracked. Tears swelled her throat, made it ache. “I can’t think, Coram. I can’t think about after you’ve gone.”
“Aera, don’t—”
His arms closed around her and then her breath was coming in sobs, her face pressed against his chest, arms a stranglehold round his neck, and he was holding her so hard she could hardly breathe and still it wasn’t hard enough. This, these last touches, were going to have to last her forever. Her world had changed, everything had changed, and she couldn’t see the future without him in it, but he was going to leave, he had to leave…
She pulled his face down to hers, needing to blot out the world, the future, everything apart from him, the smooth bulk of his muscles under her hands, his mouth against her neck, his skin against hers, needing to be closer, still not close enough, never close enough.
His breathing changed, she felt it against her throat, and her heart raced as the desperation of grief, of loss, flared into something else, making everything disappear. The world narrowed until there was nothing but Coram, kissing her hard, driving his fingers up into her hair, dragging her against him, his breathing unsteady in her ear, his voice roughening as he said her name.
He smelled of sweat and dust, but under that she could smell his skin, just him, so familiar it caught in her throat, so familiar it would have made her cry except in this new urgency driving them there was no room for tears. When he kissed her again, her mouth opening under his, he tasted the way he smelled, sun-warm, cloves and cinnamon.
She ached for him. Ached to have him closer, holding her harder so every inch of her body could feel every inch of his. She clung to him, pushing the toga-tunic off his shoulder, thrusting her fingers through his hair to drag him nearer, breathing in the scent of him.
Her hand brushed his chest and she felt him tense all over, going still, muscles tightening. “Rae. I—my self-control is all frayed thin. If you don’t—”
“I do.” Her breath caught as she said it, part fear, part need, part the sudden, utter certainty that if this was it, if this was goodbye, she must have him now or she couldn’t bear it.
Heart of the Volcano Page 4