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A full day spun by.
Lia kept watch over Zane in a wing chair beside the bed, listening to the unnatural calm that had taken hold of the castle with the dawn, keeping her senses bright for any hint of coming trouble. She ate little, and slept even less.
But so far, they had been left alone.
She sat in the slow-shifting light and passed the time by deliberately considering which had been worse: watching the prince’s physician dig out the lump of lead from Zane’s shoulder yesterday, or having to help the man set the broken bone.
Zane had been awake for the bullet, his eyes fixed on hers, his skin very gray, paler than the sheets of the bed. But his lips kept a grim, narrow smile. He did not look away from her face. She’d held his hand and tried not to speak, because she wasn’t sure what might come out. Apologies, babbling love talk and nonsense. She didn’t want to break down and weep in front of the physician.
Sunlight crawled along the woven colors in the rug. She decided that setting the leg had been worse. Lia wouldn’t trust the footmen to handle him-she didn’t trust the physician either, but couldn’t see a way around that-and so she had held his ankle and Maricara his shoulders, and the physician placed his hands on Zane’s thigh and told them how to pull.
Zane’s eyes had rolled back in his head; his body fell slack. She’d been biting her lip with the effort not to cry out and was glad he couldn’t see it.
And that day had finally passed.
The death of the prince had rocked the castle society to its foundations. There had been true panic at first, the serfs converging and a rumble of ugly unrest rising through the halls. Lia had felt it, Zane had felt it. Last night, Others with rush-lights and torches had assembled outside her windows in the courtyard below, and Lia had only stood at the glass in her blood-spattered skirts, watching the people, wondering if a dragon breathing fire in their midst would force them to retreat.
But then had come the princess. Maricara, young, glassy-eyed, who had done nothing less than save Lia and Zane and perhaps all the tribe of Darkfrith as well. Maricara strode out alone into the night, into the thick of those torches, and raised her treble voice and commanded obedience.
By then Lia had the window open. She stood listening, and watching, and knew that with the candlelight behind her she could readily be seen.
Perhaps it was the notion of two dragons in their midst. Perhaps it was only that they were used to complying. But Lia thought that mostly it was the cold living flame that was Mari, pushing the restless back into their quarters, using will and daring and some God-given audacity to face a horde of Others who had lost their Alpha-to a girl-child not yet in her teens.
The serfs had gradually dispersed. The body of the prince, Lia knew, had been taken to the chapel.
She wondered if Imre would find peace in his heaven. She remembered the flames eating her skin and hoped not.
Maricara had glanced up at the window where Lia stood and Turned to smoke in front of the stragglers, probably just for extra measure. Lia had stepped back and let the girl Turn back beside the bed.
Mari touched a hand to Zane’s forehead.
“No fever,” she noted, as if she had not just prevented what promised to be a revolution.
“No.” Lia remained where she was. A pair of ladies in the courtyard scooped up Mari’s shoes and the empty orange gown, hastening back inside the castle. “The physician said the bullet wound was clean. What will happen to you, Mari?”
The girl shrugged without looking up. “Nothing. I suppose I’ll make my brother the new prince.”
“You can do that?”
Now the crystal eyes met hers. “I can do nearly anything. This is my haven and my world. Imre truly was the last of his kind, but the people will still want a male to lead. Papers can be easily forged to name him Imre’s heir. Better my brother than some new master. It will help placate them, at any rate.”
“How old is your brother?”
“Seven years.”
“You’ll have a while to reign.”
“Yes,” said the girl, and flicked her hair from her shoulder with a thin, graceful wrist.
“We’ll stay as long as we can,” Lia said. “He can’t travel yet, and you might need…extra persuasion on your behalf.”
“Yes, do.”
They gazed together at the sleeping figure in the bed, his arms lax above the sheets, his face drawn in angles and shadows, still far too pale.
“So you’re not married, after all,” mused Maricara.
“No. And neither are you.”
Silence descended. The candles flickered, very faintly, with the draft from the window. Behind walls, behind doors, the Others stirred and muttered.
“Is there a cleric for the castle?” Lia asked.
“Imre disliked having God so close. The cleric lives two villages down the mountains. It’s about a three-day ride.” The girl’s lips curved in a smile. “Less, of course, for smoke.”
Around two in the afternoon, Lia fell asleep in the wing chair. She hadn’t meant to sleep, and in fact had chosen the chair specifically for its hard horsehair base. But sleep had come anyway. She had no dreams.
When she opened her eyes again, the sunlight had shifted from the rug to the bed. The fire had smoldered out and remained dead cold. The candles had burned down to stubs. She twitched the blanket she’d found a little higher over her shoulders and shifted in her seat to check on Zane.
He was watching her. He lay very still; the light slashed hard and clear past the canopy curtains, brightening the sheets, catching in his hair, fringing color along his dark lashes. A corner of his mouth quirked.
“Hullo,” he said, husky.
“Hullo.”
“You snore.”
“I don’t!” She pushed the blanket from her lap and sat forward.
“Only a little. Very ladylike snores. I found them charming.”
She shook her head, her fingers at his wrist. His pulse felt stronger today, and a measure of warmth had returned to his cheeks.
He blinked slowly, gazing around the room. “Did we win?”
“For now. I’m afraid we might have a slight uprising on our hands, but not to fear. There’s an eleven-year-old girl on our side, so I’m sure we’ll do fine. The physician left you this.” She picked up a glass of clouded water, a layer of white powder settled thick at the bottom. “I’ve tried it, and apparently it’s not poison. Would you like it now?”
“Dear me.” He regarded the glass. “Are things that bad?”
“For a despot, Prince Imre was apparently far more popular than he deserved.”
“Let them come,” Zane said, again with that slight dry smile. “I can do amazing things with-” He cut short and jerked his hand free. “My picks. My tools.” He began to struggle to sit up. “Where the devil did you put them?”
She pushed him back firmly. “Yes, I’m quite well too, thank you for asking. Look there.” Lia opened her hand to the top of the rosewood nightstand. “This was everything we found on you. You are an arsenal, aren’t you?”
His eyes scanned the weapons laid out-slight things, deadly things, metal and bone and wire-and finally relaxed back.
“I like to be prepared.”
“So you’ve said. I do wonder what this might be.” She dangled a heavy brass key from her index finger.
His smile grew drier. “The key to my heart? No? Very well. I sometimes find that it’s more, ah, expedient to deal with shortcuts.”
“A skeleton key. That does seem like cheating.”
“I hardly ever use it,” he said, defensive.
“That’s all right.” She replaced the key on the nightstand. “I’m not above a few shortcuts myself. I’ve sent for a cleric.”
Zane took a breath. “Oh.”
“I thought that I should, since you’re already helpless here in bed. You’re quite at my mercy.”
“I know that,” he said in a strangely flat voice.
“And there’s something else.” She reached into her pocket for her handkerchief, balancing it on her knees, very carefully untying the knot. Inside the wrinkled linen sparkled the remains of a legendary diamond. She placed it on the bed beside him and stirred her finger through the splinters and dust.
Like moonshadows, like fairy song, eerie notes lifted and faded.
“There’s nothing much left for a ring,” she said quietly.
“Did I say that out loud?”
“You did. And I won’t let you steal it back.” Her eyes lifted. “Zane. What you did-” She lost the words. She felt the tears from before threaten again and had to look away so he would not see.
“Lia-heart.” His hand moved, his fingers lacing through hers. Through the haze in her eyes he was prisms and color, but his hand felt firm and strong. “I would have forsaken a thousand diamonds to save you. Ten thousand-well, perhaps not ten thousand.” He squeezed her hand, and his voice roughened. “I would have done anything. Don’t you know that?”
“No.” She wiped at her cheeks with her other hand.
“Then you haven’t been paying close attention. I love you. Even more than gold and dreams, I love you. It seems insane you haven’t realized it. You were the one who first informed me of it.”
“I broke your leg,” she said, and dropped her head to the covers.
She remembered that moment from another life; her hunger, her excitement. She’d been glad to hurt him, glad to be stronger, and larger, and faster. It shamed her more deeply than anything she’d ever known. It frightened her.
“There is another heart in you,” Zane said, after a time. “Not evil. Not bad. Just another heart. I understand that very well. You weren’t under your own control. You cannot blame yourself. I don’t.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize for being true to your nature. Not to me. I’m hardly a model of upstanding virtue. I respect the dragon. I respect the woman. Amalia, my sweet, thief that I am, I love both your hearts.”
The fabric beneath her cheek was growing damp. Zane gave her fingers another squeeze and let go; she felt his palm begin to stroke her hair.
“However…you did singe a perfectly fine coat of mine, if you’ll recall. You’re going to need a new stone for a wedding ring, and no doubt I’ll feel compelled to shower you with gifts over the years just to remain in your good graces. I fear you’re going to be a very expensive wife.” He gave a sigh. “And to think I could have had sixty thousand pounds to begin it with.”
Lia turned her face and spoke to his hand. “My dowry is thirty-five.” She waited, then looked up at him. “A year.”
His brows climbed. “You’re joking.”
“I would never joke about money with a notorious thief. Just imagine, in a mere two years you’re at a profit.”
“How I adore a woman who does mathematics in her head.”
“I can forge signatures as well.”
“Splendid. Exactly the bride I’ve been hoping for.”
She stood. She leaned over the bed and pressed her lips to his. He let her, reclining back luxuriously, his eyes drifting closed and his hand sliding up her arm. She drew away only when both of them were short of breath.
“I think you should come over here,” he said. “It’s a very large bed. Very lonely.”
“I think you’re mad.” But she did it anyway, crossing to the other side of the mattress, climbing up to him with her skirts hitched to her knees. He followed her progress with bright yellow eyes.
“Aren’t you warm in all that mess? Wouldn’t you prefer to shed a few layers?”
“It’s cold in here, Zane.”
“Not beneath the covers.”
“I admire your ambition. But I believe I’ll stay as I am.”
She settled down by his wounded side, finding his plait, curling the tip of it back and forth inside her palm. He turned his head to see her better.
“They won’t accept me,” he said, matter-of-fact. “You know that. And they’re right. I’m not good enough for you.”
“We’ll talk them ’round.”
“Silver-tongued as I am, love, I find your family a bit formidable. Perhaps it’s all those teeth.”
She stroked the plait against her cheek, closing her eyes. “Then we’ll go to Tuscany. We’ll live in caves in the South Seas. We’ll swim the warm tropical waters-you’ll have to teach me how. Zane, they will accept you. They will love you because I love you. And that’s all we need to make clear to them.”
She was granted his profile, masculine and sharp except for those long, sunlit lashes. “Do you?” he asked, in that flat voice again. “Love me?”
“Of course.” She bunched the pillow beneath her cheek.
“You haven’t said it before.”
“Oh. Pardon me.” She paused. “I thought I had.”
“Well, just that once. Under extraordinary circumstances.”
“I love you.” She sat up and tugged at his braid until he glanced back at her. “I love you. I’ve loved you since I was little. Asleep or awake, I love you. Do you believe me yet?”
“Not quite.” He caught her wrist in his hand and hauled her closer, ignoring her protests. He cupped his palm against her nape and lifted his mouth to hers, another kiss, ruthless and hard and delicious. She balanced over him, finally sinking to brace her elbow against his pillow, as he nipped and sucked and drew at her lips.
She did what she could for him. She kissed him in return. She lost her breath and both her hearts, and finally Turned to smoke and back, so she could lay atop her gown and the blankets and feel his hand upon her bare skin.
Much, much later, Lia whispered, “I don’t snore.”
And the thief angled his gaze warm to hers, offering his lazy smile. “Aye, love, but if you did, I’d still treasure every one.”