It feels as if some strange puzzle piece inside me has suddenly locked into place.

I push off of him and bounce to my feet. Gathering up the skirts of my chemise, I laugh and race across the library, kicking books out of the way as I do. Who cares about books at a time like this anyhow? I feel good. I’m not tired. Not drained. Not dizzy. Not feeling as if I’m going to vomit at any moment. Is this how healthy people feel every day? Like they could just run straight to the horizon and keep running?

Lucky bastards.

“Careful, Candra,” Nemeth warns, following after me. “Don’t hurt yourself⁠—”

I surge back toward him, running as fast as I can, and fling my arms around him. The momentum of my jump knocks us both to the ground, and I laugh and laugh and laugh.

I laugh so hard I want to fling myself on the floor and kick my legs like a child. “I’m free,” I whisper, and my voice breaks on a sob. “I’m free.”

“Are you well, love?” He rolls us over, his hands skimming over my body. “Does anything hurt?”

“Mmm,” I say, my arms raised up behind my head in a sensual stretch. I feel as if I can take on the world now. I want to both laugh hysterically and sob like a child for all that this means. “I do have one particular nagging ache.”

“Gods,” he murmurs, running his hands over one of my calves. “Where? Your arm? Your leg? How bad is the ache?”

“Higher,” I tell him, helpfully pulling my skirts up a bit. When he reaches my knee, I sigh. “Keep going higher.”

“Candra,” he growls, and he looks utterly furious. “Do not make light of this.”

“You don’t understand, Nemeth,” I say giddily. I squeeze my folded arms against my chest and shiver all over like a happy puppy. “I feel good! I feel good without the medicine! Do you know how much I’ve hated every dose? How much the scent turns my stomach sometimes? Do you know what this means? It means I’m free!” I choke on the word this time. “I’m bloody free.”

Nemeth grunts, and I can’t tell if he’s pleased along with me or still mad over my joke. “If by free you mean bound to me, because now you must have my blood.”

“Oh, pish-tosh. Being bound to you isn’t a chore. I love you. I want to spend every day with you. Now I have an excuse.” I beam at him. “It’s the best of all worlds.”

He doesn’t beam back. His wings flick and then settle against his back. “You say that now, but what if you grow sick of me like Ravendor did her mate?”

Sick of him? When he’s been the only thing keeping me going for so long? I shake my head and get to my knees, crawling over to him. I put a hand on his chest, pushing him back to the floor again. “I will never, ever be sick of you for as long as I live,” I tell him. “You and I are in this together. There is nothing that will separate us.”

“Nothing?” He arches a brow at me.

“Not even the gods.” I grab the belt of his kilt and tug it off. “Now come and kiss your wife.”

“Is it kissing that’s on your mind, then?” he jokes, even as my hands steal under his kilt and cup his shaft. I tease the knot at the base of his cock, loving the hiss of breath between his teeth. “That’s not my mouth, Candra.”

“I can kiss you in other places,” I tell him, words coy. “But only if you ask me nicely.”

Nemeth sinks a hand into my hair, his fingers curling in my mane. He holds my head pinned, and I gaze down at him, curious at the pause. But he only gazes up at me with stormy green eyes, his expression full of emotion. “This might be the best moment of my life,” he tells me. “Seeing you healthy and happy.”

“You’re not saying that just because we’re surrounded by books?”

“We’re surrounded by death,” he corrects. “On all sides. And yet somehow, as long as it doesn’t touch you, I find I can manage it. I can manage anything as long as I have you, Candra.”

The look on his face is intense, vulnerable. I want to shower him with kisses and make him laugh so he’ll stop looking so concerned. “Then it’s lucky for you that you’re stuck with me, hmm?”

“I am lucky,” he agrees.

“So lucky.”

He lowers me toward his face and his lips brush against mine, just barely. “You can kiss me,” he murmurs. “Or you can ride me. Your choice.”

As if that’s much of a choice at all? “Why can’t I do both?”

“You can, if you’re feeling greedy.” His other hand steals up underneath my chemise, skimming up my thigh. “I won’t judge you.”

“You just want me on your knot,” I tease. “Lucky for you, I’m feeling good enough to ride you for hours.”

“Hours, you say?” He arches a brow at me, even as his fingers slide between my thighs. “You truly think you can last that long?”

“Is that a challenge, my mate?”

“It is.”

I do so love a challenge.

I confess that we’re shamelessly wasteful with the day. I know we should be focused on finding a boat to take us to the Alabaster Citadel. I know I should be hunting for my sister and the survivors of the sacked city. But we’ve got a bit of horse meat left and our stomachs are full. We’ve got medicine for me, and for the first time in a long time, the pressing need for survival is not quite so pressing as it usually is.

Instead of focusing on survival, we spend the day in bed.

Well…the floor counts as a bed. Most of the bedding that’s left in the palace is soaked and moldy, but when I wake up from a delicious nap, Nemeth has found blankets for us. I don’t ask what room they’ve come from—I don’t want to know. We curl up in them, eat our horse jerky, and we spend the day together, touching and kissing and loving.

I adore every moment of it, and I refuse to feel guilt. That will return soon enough. For one day, it’s nothing but pleasure.

The next morning, we wake up early and head out to the deserted stable, where the sad, lone horse waits. He’s skinny, searching the stalls for grass or hay, even though there’s nothing to be found. The constant, incessant rain means that everything is muck, and any plants drowned out long ago.

Even so, I rub the poor horse’s nose and hug his neck. “I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I’m sorry that it has to be you or us, friend.” To think that I’m feeling guilty over the slaughter of a horse. It’s just that…he’s carried me when I was too tired to walk. He’s seen the destruction of Lios and carried me this far. He’s survived until now. It feels wrong to kill him.

“Remember that this is a mercy, Candra,” Nemeth reminds me when I hug the horse’s neck again. “We can’t take him on the ship. Turning him loose here would just kill him slowly instead of quickly. There’s nothing for him to eat. Better to let his death nourish us.”

“I know.” I do. It’s just hard to watch. I bite my lip, hating that I’m so weak, but I’ve never been around death. It’s always been hidden from me, and I don’t think I can watch Nemeth slaughter the horse as it gazes on me. “Is it all right with you if I come back later? Once it’s done?”

Nemeth moves to my side. He presses a kiss to my damp forehead. “Why don’t you go search for mementos in the palace? Perhaps there will be something you can bring to your sister.”

He’s sending me away, but I’m so grateful I don’t even care. I give him a quick hug and then grab my skirts, hauling them clear of the calf-high muck at the entrance to the stable, and head back for the palace itself.

I spend most of the morning digging around in empty rooms, trying very hard to ignore all the destruction. I pointedly look away from tears in the tapestries, from dark stains on the rugs. I don’t find anything my sister would want, I think. Whatever treasures Lios had have been taken by the conquerors, and all that are left are scraps and memories. I head down to the library instead, determined to tuck away a few books for Nemeth. After all, if we’re going to be taking a boat, we can surely take a trunk full of books. I’m sure he’ll fight me on this, but I’m good at winning fights. I pick a few of the rarer-seeming books, the ones at the top of his pile that he can’t resist pawing every now and then. We don’t have the luxury of staying here long enough so he can read them all, and I’m desperately glad for that.