Passion Play (River of Souls 1)

hard gaze, Raul’s stone-faced expression as he listened, the shock in his eyes when she said she would leave. It didn’t matter if she closed her eyes. She could not blind herself to memory.

One hour passed. Then more bells rang. Ilse tried to count, but lost track. She heard a tentative knock once, but did not answer. The second time, a voice called out her name—Kathe, chasing after her again. Kathe would be worried. Had she pieced together what happened? Probably. Kathe knew far more than Raul credited her for. Or perhaps he knew and trusted her. That was why he gave Kathe the task of tending Ilse when she first arrived, bloody and near death.

The door opened. She caught a whiff of cedar and wood smoke as Raul knelt by her side.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I should not have left.”

Ilse blinked. “Where did you go?”

“Everywhere. Up into the hills. By the docks. I had to walk. I could not stand it otherwise.”

“Did you take a guard?”

“I don’t know. I must have. I didn’t notice. Come.” He helped her to her feet. “Let us sit in the gardens a while.”

They had a supper outside, then walked beneath the green-leafed trees, along graveled paths lined with late-blooming roses and other flowers Ilse could not identify. Russet and orange and deep gold blossoms, arcing from long graceful stems. Rains had come and gone during the afternoon, leaving the air cool and fresh.

At the garden’s far edge, they sat close together on the stone bench. Sunset was just settling over Tiralien, gilding the rooftops and towers with its ruddy light. To the east, the skies were turning dark; the seas were the color of a dark blue wine. Raul said nothing, but gazed over the cityscape toward the coast. His mood was quiet—there was no trace of the morning’s crisis, except for the faint lines etched between his brows.

“Raul …”

“Hush,” he whispered. “We can talk later.”

Before she could answer or refuse, he had folded her into his arms and was kissing her hard. In between, he was murmuring the words no and never and then now, please now.

* * *

MORNING CAME WITH the pale sunlight glancing through the windows. Ilse woke to find Raul studying her with wide golden eyes. Like twin suns, she thought. Like Toc’s points of lights, when he opened his eyes to Lir. Her heart contracted at the thought. We are, both of us, Toc, sacrificing our sight to our beloved.

Then Raul sighed and closed his eyes, turning away from her.

“You said you would never run away again.”

“You said you would never lock me in a cage,” she replied.

His only answer was a helpless gesture, hand turned outward.

Raul said nothing more about it for the rest of the day, but Ilse watched the minute changes in his expression throughout the morning and afternoon. She saw how he winced at times, as though catching himself on an invisible wound. Her own eyes were dry. Her grief hidden within, the tears filling her heart until she thought it might burst.

When twilight was falling, she led him outside to the wilderness gardens, where the servants had spread thick carpets over the grass. They leaned against the tree trunks and gazed upward at the star-speckled skies. Ilse knew there were guards about them, but they had withdrawn to a discreet distance. She and Raul would have at least this small circle of privacy outside.

“Even here,” he murmured.

“What about here?” She could feel his heartbeat, quick and strong, against his chest. If she left him—once she left him—she would miss this the most.

“Even here we are not really outside. I sometimes wonder what it would be like if we, just the two of us, vanished into the hills for a month.”

“Wouldn’t we be hungry?”

“I would hunt for you. And you could bring your stone knife.”

“My famous stone knife. I lost it my first night in Tiralien.”

“And I didn’t buy you another? How careless of me.”

A leaf whirled through the air, landing at their feet. Another one followed. Autumn was approaching, the warm mild autumn of the southern coast. Though as Josef often reminded them, Tiralien was the north to him. He, like Raul, came from the hot southwest provinces, where winter was a wet and stormy season.

“Winter soon,” Raul said, echoing her thoughts. “Two years since you came to me.”