Parneres gave me an unguarded look from the bed. I sat on the corner and clasped his hand in mine. He lifted up on the elbow to kiss me.
"Wait," I whispered, as his mouth softened under my lips.
A small oil-jar sat in a mound of flowers on the floor. I plucked it out and showed to him. "This is an infusion of midnight violets."
I moved the sheet aside, dripped the oil over my palm, gave it a moment to warm up and slipped it along his ankle, anointing his skin.
"This won't erase magic from your skin, but it'll dull its influence. For both of us."
The tattooed lines dimmed, but tracing his long limb from calf to thigh filled me with jitters. "Because you see, I don't need magic to covet you."
Magic weakened so much that I could see scars on him, some fresh, some faint, the relics of wicked things. My fingers lingered over them. "I'm sorry for leaving so much to chance. I should have looked harder for you."
He threaded his fingers through mine, catching them at his chest, next to his heart.
"I should have had more faith. I should have recognized my destiny when Peleth went mad. Hurting me was no longer just a game, it was payback for the moment of hesitation before I had helped her, for the glances I threw over my shoulder when we raced out of Palmyr. For regrets I had never confessed. I should have run the moment I understood."
"Shh... it's all in the past."
"I was too afraid of the trial by freedom--only to come to you ruined."
I stretched across his chest, reaching for his lips with mine. "I'm madly in love with you, then and now. She twisted your mind, but there is no ruin, Parneres. No curse. No pain. I had removed all barriers. Swept every obstacle away. You're... are..."
His mouth parted, responding to each touch of my tongue with a soft moan. "You're mine."
Between kisses, I smothered oil on the swirl that went up and around his neck and dabbed some on his chin, even though his face was untouched by the horrible patterns. I leaned back to admire both my handiwork.
Breath caught in my throat. Was I the only one who had ever seen his beauty like this, unmarred?
"I want you far more without the magic lies," I whispered. My voice was so hoarse with desire that there could be no way he could have thought I was pretending.
Under the gentle pressure of my hand, Parneres turned around. After a few strokes down his back, and lower, the jar slipped out of my suddenly clumsy hand, drizzling the sheet with the last drops of its fragrant bounty.
"Mythra's fangs, good thing I'm not holding a sword about to do battle." I covered him, kissing his neck, ear, the side of his cheek, and promising, promising, promising... That I'd be gentle, that he'd never hurt or want for anything, and that I loved him. Or something like that. Words evaporated faster from my lips than the violets' fragrance from his skin.
Without any special efforts on my part, the life-giving blessing flooded my womb. It would quicken if I took this man, my husband.
I slipped down the oiled skin, breathing in oil and flowers, and what he smelled underneath it. Pressing himself to my side, Parneres buried his face in my neck, lips to the cove at its base, and his hips moved between mine.
The touch through the middle was tantalizing, but I waited to catch him, too afraid to rush and make our coupling into anything resembling a transaction. Perhaps it was insane between a wife and her husband, but until he lifted his face, until he looked upon me... I just couldn't.
I let him grieve his lost innocence because I didn't know what else to do or say. Finally, his lips traveled up, his eyes still wet... the words and kisses lost all cohesion, and the joining was the only way to ease the pleasant strains of our taut, interconnected bodies.
He was willing; he was yielding and my every move was mindful of avoiding the slightest possibility of hurt.
And something was missing.
"In my next life," he murmured instead of the ecstatic smile of the satisfied desire, "I would die rather than let my corruption affect you. In this life, I won't leave the male apartments of your house, so no other woman can ogle me on the streets."
"That's not what I ask of you!"
He winced, and I lowered my voice, relenting. "Perhaps, until you're comfortable with this city?"
He said nothing, the argument dissipating into thin air before it kindled into a sizable fire. I clenched my teeth and stroked the curls adhering so tightly to his skull until he had fallen asleep.
I wish he threw himself into loving me, not tangled in a dream where he was worthy of loving me first.
The Divines only knew what I had to do to tear him out of the jaws of his past! Why was this ridiculous idea of unworthiness wedged so deep into him? Why, O why? I couldn't be mad at him, but I was mad at myself. At myself and at Peleth, and all the faceless women who collectively eroded my hard-earned wedding night. We turned Parneres into a grateful pet.
The fault was all mine—I took too long. I was in debt, supporting two husbands and with Marezhka on the way. I couldn't afford him. Now I could. Only it was too late.
I couldn't fall asleep with regret gnawing my mind more determinedly than a termite does a wall. My arms went numb from holding Parneres—and I was no closer to figuring out how I could make him happy. How I could force the Knowable World to turn back in its tracks so I could save my beloved from this gloom. The crones would advise me to treat it with time, patience and prayer. Perhaps a dozen cold showers too...
I slipped my hand out of his before leaving our nuptial bed completely.
My foot found the nightgown I had discarded so eagerly only a short time ago. I pulled it over my unsatisfied body, raging with the Divine's flood. And went to the place where a woman could cool off better than in a shower. The library. There, a few months worth of bills and letters waited for me in quantities therapeutic for even the most agitated of loins.
As I made my way down the covered gallery dappled with the moon's shadows, a black shadow slipped out of one of many alcoves in the wall. He fell in step with me. Taffiz, who else!
"You engaged me as a concubine. Do you require me in this capacity?"
The words had the same sweet, poisoned tang as the smell that coated him. Always with his bloody Ashanti! The memory of his snide prediction about Parneres' virility rang in my ears.
I whirled. "I gave you the position you had asked for. But you'll never see the color of my bedsheets. Never."
He had the audacity to giggle. "Good thing your sheets don't interest me."
And he swayed on his feet. Taffiz, unsteady? So, this wasn't audacity talking. I rolled my eyes at the absurdity of the scene. "You're no use to a woman, even if I lost my mind and ignored everything that revolts me about you. So much for being impervious to Ashanti intoxication. It's just one of your insipid boasts. Go crawl under whatever rock you were sleeping under. And don't bother coming out—"
Taffiz grabbed a skinny column supporting the roof to keep upright, but he lost none of his boldness. He interrupted my tirade with an egregious wave of the non-anchoring arm.
"Not a boast, Ishmara. No. Never that. I'm not Ashanti-addled, just drunk. In hindsight, it was a bad idea to prove to Ondrey—
He blinked at me from the shadows.
"I... I forgot what I was trying to prove. But it was a terrible, terrible idea."
"Evidently."
I stared into his owlish eyes, wondering if it was worth checking on Ondrey's well-being, since my second-husband was rarely in his cups. But if he held his wine better than Taffiz, if he followed tradition and found solace in the arms of an eager bachelorette—
I didn't want to find out who it was.
Taffiz lifted a finger to better impart the last bit of wisdom on me. "Never get into a drinking contest with someone from Tverizh."
He hiccupped. "A patently bad idea. Speaking of bad ideas, Ishmara, if I tied myself by my belt to a cliff at the end of the world and screamed loudly for you to roll in as a savior, would that make you love me?"
He slurred his words, but otherwise his eloquence emerged unscathed from the duel with wine.
"Oh, beat it," I muttered.
He pouted. "Is this your deepest heart's desire? Otherwise I refuse to obey."
I left him to hug his favorite column and giggle. This was the first of my three weddings that was carefully planned—and it was turning into the least predictable.