Page 220 of Mother of Death and Dawn

I stared at him, stunned that he would even say such a thing. Ela’Dar was magnificent, but this landscape said nothing of the way Caduan’s eyes looked when he was deep in thought.

“You do not feel that way,” I said.

“What way?”

“That nothing else matters but Ela’Dar.”

His face, still, had been tilted out to the horizon, but now his eyes slipped to me. I could not decipher the emotion that shadowed them as he rose and approached me.

“Some things, perhaps,” he said, his voice rising slightly over the intensifying sound of the rain.

I was going to ask him what he meant, but then he kissed me hard enough that it didn’t matter anymore, anyway.

* * *

Meajqa,quite literally, interrupted our days of strange, suspended peace.

Caduan and I barely left his chambers, though he often disappeared for short stretches of time to deal with some business or another. The hours passed in either deep planning, thoughtful conversation, or, of course, physical pleasure. A strange balance of activity by some standards, perhaps, and yet it seemed oddly fitting for these times. I understood now what Meajqa had said the night of the Feast of Occassus. When the line between life and death was thinnest, everything felt more… intense.

“Caduan, there is—oh.”

We were on the balcony when Meajqa arrived, Caduan lost in research and me looking out over Ela’Dar. I was naked—I realized it was very comfortable, and Caduan certainly did not seem to mind it, though he always remained clothed himself.

At the sound of the new voice, I whirled around to see Meajqa hastily turning his back, leaning against the frame of the open balcony door.

I crossed my arms over my naked body.

“Consider knocking, Meajqa,” Caduan muttered, putting aside his parchments.

“Ididknock. I see why there was no answer now, but I did not expect to find everyone frolicking naked.”

Caduan retrieved a robe for me, which I wrapped around myself before we returned inside. “It is safe,” I said, and Meajqa turned around again. He glanced between me and Caduan with a strange expression on his face.

“So this is why both of you have been so mysteriously absent.”

“I have still attended every meeting, Meajqa,” Caduan said. “It is wartime. I have work to do.”

He spoke very sternly, and yet, did I imagine that he seemed, perhaps, a bit pleased with the way Meajqa was looking at us? Like he wanted Meajqa to know what had changed between us. When Caduan crossed behind me and brushed his hand across my back, in full view of Meajqa, my suspicion became certainty.

I liked this.

Meajqa cleared his throat.

“Well?” Caduan asked. “What was so important?”

“Two things. First, interesting rumors that our spies have heard whispered in the south. Some say that Maxantarius Farlione and Tisaanah Vytezic are currently traveling to Ara, with the intention of taking advantage of our…guest’sabsence.”

My ears perked.

Caduan’s brow twitched. “Hm. And second?”

“As long as we’re speaking of attempted coups,” Meajqa said, coolly, “I am pleased to report that we now have Ezra in custody. It was so very difficult to find him, stumbling around Ela’Dar’s streets like a drunkard, trying to meet with all of our highest-ranking generals.”

“Ezra?” I asked. The name sounded familiar.

“A madman who used to be a king, a very long time ago,” Meajqa replied. “Somehow, he seems to think that means he has a right to Ela’Dar’s throne, which is ridiculous for all the obvious reasons and more.”

A wince flitted across Caduan’s face. “You have him now?”

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