* * *
They walked along roads and across fields, following the horizon. Screams of terror preceded them; whispers of speculation followed. They ignored it all. They walked until the sun sank into a pool of color, until they reached a stretch of empty forest.
In a clearing painted orange by the day’s last light, they stopped. Lucia dropped his hand; instantly the cold of the forest settled in around her.
Rikkan turned slowly in a circle. “We’re free,” he said in a voice of wonderment.
Lucia smiled. “We’re free.”
Rikkan paused, his brows twitching downward. “We have no home.” His voice, which had a moment ago been filled with nothing but happiness, now grew heavy with the reality of their situation. “We have nothing.”
We have each other, Lucia almost said. She bit her lip to hold back the presumptuous words. “Do you regret it?” she asked instead.
“I left my journals behind.” He looked through the trees in the direction of the palace. “I’ll need to recreate them. I can still remember most of the spells, I think… of course, I won’t need to include the incantations now that I have the symbols…” He clacked his claws together in an absentminded gesture. “I can refine the shield spell. Make it stone instead of air. Maybe a water variation. I’ll need a workshop—a real one—no more hiding my supplies in my closet. I could work with actual tools—” His gaze lit on Lucia, and he jumped slightly, as if he had forgotten her presence. His lips pulled back in that strange toothy smile. “No. I don’t regret it.”
Lucia hung back, afraid to speak. Would he ask her to leave now? Where would she go? She could never return to her family, not after what they had done—but she, like Rikkan, had nothing. She could travel to Qurilan Mari, but she had no payment to offer the mages there—and could she content herself with learning only what they knew, after Rikkan had opened her eyes to such vast possibilities?
Could she content herself with living apart from Rikkan, after discovering another heart that beat with the same cravings as hers?
“And you?” Rikkan’s brows creased in concern, as if he could see her distress. “Do you regret it?”
Like him, she didn’t need to think about her answer. “Never.”
“You don’t look happy.”
Only twice in her life had she wished to share her sister’s talents, and never more fervently than now. “The curse.” She looked away. “You don’t need it as protection from your father anymore. Do you still…” Her voice trailed off into incoherent stammers.
Rikkan cocked his head. “I don’t understand.”
Lucia forced the question through her lips. “If I tried to kiss you, would you trap me in the air again?”
“Oh.” Rikkan lowered his head. An absurd sight, a monster appearing shy. With visible effort, he lifted his gaze to hers. “No. I wouldn’t.”
She took a halting step forward. And another. She had none of her sister’s grace, none of her charm. She had nothing but the strange stirrings of her heart, whispering like the wind, and Rikkan’s fearful hopeful gaze pulling her forward.
He lowered his head to meet hers as she closed the distance between them.
Her lips met fur and fangs and cold slick scales—and then lips, human lips, soft and warm, meeting her kiss with his own. Current joining current. Passion joining passion.
After an endless moment, she drew back.
The monster had vanished. In his place stood a boy. A boy with night-black hair and piercing blue eyes. A boy who, despite his tattered rags, made Marisela’s lost puppies look like half-drowned mongrels.
A boy who wouldn’t meet her eyes as a troubled frown spread across his face.
Lucia’s heart clenched. She had done it wrong. She had stepped into Marisela’s territory, and she had gotten it all wrong…
“Do you regret it now?” Rikkan’s new voice flowed smoothly from his lips, melodious next to his former growl. But the ache in his words sank into her bones every bit as deeply. “Do you wish you had done what my father asked? Do you want to stand by my side in the palace, the envy of every girl in the kingdom?”
The fist gripping her heart loosened. She hadn’t disappointed him by playing Marisela’s role badly. No—she had frightened him by playing it too well.
“I want to stand by your side in your workshop,” she answered. “I want to add my journals to yours. I want to take that shield spell apart with you and see how many ways we can put it back together.” She paused. “If you’ll have me.”
The tension melted from his body along with his frown. A spark of joy danced in his eyes.
His lips curled in a smile. “Where should we start?”
In response, she raised her mouth to his once again.
Their lips met. Their power met. Passion to passion.
And they flew.
About Zoe Cannon
Zoe Cannon writes about the things that fascinate her: outsiders, societies no sane person would want to live in, questions with no easy answers, and the inner workings of the mind. If she couldn't be a writer, she would probably be a psychologist, a penniless philosopher, or a hermit in a cave somewhere.
While she'll read anything that isn't nailed down, she considers herself a YA reader and writer at heart. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband and a giant teddy bear of a dog, and spends entirely too much time on the internet.
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