Page 89 of As Many Souls as Stars
‘Maybe,’ she said, ‘youshould be afraid ofme.’
Miriam slipped into the pool. When she stood, she was only semi-submerged, the water lapping at her ribcage. Rosamund watched her, then leaned back against the tiles, exposing her breasts.
Lust curled in Miriam’s core. She took a step forwards, her movements slowed by the water. ‘I don’t feel particularly frightened,’ she said.
‘That’s because you want me—and that’swhyyou should be afraid.’
‘Oh?’
‘I may not be cursed, but there’s a reason why all those men wanted to leave me to the wolves.’
‘I am not a man.’
‘That’s true,’ Rosamund said. ‘But I still have power over you, Miriam Richter. I’m the only person who ever will.’
Miriam finally broached the space between them, sinking into the water so their faces were level. She cupped Rosamund’s cheek. Her thumb skimmed across her lips. It was the same face as Cybil’s, as Esther’s: the same mouth, the same upturned nose.
Why did it feel so different?
Rosamund shivered, despite the warmness of the room. Miriam smiled. ‘This won’t save you,’ she said.
Rosamund smiled back. ‘I know that. I don’t want to be saved. Not anymore.’
‘No?’
‘No.’ She arched her back, bringing her face towards her. ‘I want to bedestroyed.’
Miriam kissed her. Rosamund moaned, pushed into her, warm and willing. Miriam raised her up, carrying her to the edge of the pool, sitting her on the tiles so that her feet were dangling into the water. Then she stood between her legs and kissed her more, until they were both gasping, all breath and dizzying heat—Rosamund’s hand slipping down Miriam’s chest, past her stomach, her fingers sinking into soft curls and wet skin.
Miriam felt a sudden conviction that if she had a heart, it would be beating fast enough to feel—that if she breathed, her breath would now be gasps. The warmth of the air around them made it feel as if she were alive, as if she were as flushed as Rosamund was, blood instead of shadows running through her veins. The pleasure of Rosamund’s touch was too much, so unbearably powerful in sensation that it was painful. Miriam pushed her hand away.
‘Shall I stop?’ Rosamund asked, her fingertips pressing into Miriam’s side.
Instead of replying, Miriam sank down halfway into the water, so that her head was level with the edge of the pool. Then she gripped Rosamund’s knees and spread them apart, trailing kisses up the insides of her thighs. When she tasted her, salt and sweet—her tongue inside her, gentle and searching—Rosamund gasped, tipping her head back. She twisted her fingers in Miriam’s hair, hooking her legs over her shoulders. She was so lovely, so willing; it was just as it had been before, just as it always should be.Mine, Miriam thought, deliriously,always mine, she always will be, always has been—finally, finally, mine.
The air was heavy with steam, the ship rocking beneath them. Rosamund whimpered and begged, but Miriam refused to speed up. There was no urgency to it, no demand. She wanted it to last forever. She wanted to keep Rosamund at the cliff’s edge: to allow her to stumble, but never to fall. The longer she had her there, the longer she would be hers entirely, with no thoughts except the pleasure shebrought her. Time wouldn’t pass; the deal would never come to fruition. She could have her forever.
But Harding denied her, as always. Miriam was a fool to think she wouldn’t. Eventually Rosamund cried out, legs convulsing around Miriam’s shoulders; then she died again, a little death, a perfect one, as Miriam’s hands twisted around her ankles like a pair of chains.
23
‘We are losing ourselves,’ Esther said, and Cybil and Rosamund said it, too. They were in the many-mirrored corridors of Rosamund’s dreaming mind, in which all of them were reflected, and all of them had the same voice.
‘It’s part of the plan,’ Rosamund replied.
‘Has time so eroded us?’ Cybil asked. ‘That two days of her attention might undo our victory?’
Rosamund said, ‘Nothing is being undone.’
Cybil said, ‘Allis being undone.’
Esther said, ‘We love her. We believed we could forget that, but we can’t.’
They were silent.
Rosamund pressed her hand to the mirrors, one on her left, one on her right; Cybil, in her golden gown, her drooping-petal ruff, raised her hand simultaneously to meet hers. On the other side, Esther did the same. She was in the green gown she had worn that night in the Dark Walk, pearls still stranded around her throat. Her long, loose hair somehow felt like a mockery of Rosamund’s chin-length bob. Rosamund painstakingly curled it every morning, burning her fingers on the iron, holding it in place with chemicals that made her eyes water. She had lived this long, and for what? To prim and pluck herself as she always had, a goose for the table, and hope that Miriam wanted her still?
‘We wanted revenge,’ Rosamund said. ‘To give her hope, so that we could break her as she broke us.’
