“Why didn’t this place break apart too?” Amber asked in a small, shaky voice.

“Because we were in it.” He glanced behind him, only to see her still standing in the doorway. He sighed and reached out his hand. “We have never left His sight, Soft-Skin. We walk there still.”

She didn’t move.

“The under-levels are filled with dead people,” he reminded her.

She eased out half a step.

“And now the doors are broken open and they’re going to get wet.”

Her whole face puckered and she finished her approach in a clumsy leap. “I’m not scared of dead people!” she snapped, clutching at the back of his belt.

“I never said you were.”

“You implied it.”

“I did.”

They didn’t talk until they were out of the ruins, unless one counted Amber’s harried expletives as speech whenever her footing slipped on the loose rubble, but it was a comfortable quiet, comfortable cursing. Once back in the relative stability of the open plains, he had to stop and let her look back, which she seemed perfectly content to do all day. His pointed sighs had no effect on her. In the end, he just started walking and let her decide whether or not to follow. Of course she did, if not quietly. He could hear her back there, muttering in ways that suggested she wanted him to hear at least some of the unladylike things she said, but she didn’t let go of his belt. His Amber, fearless once more in the morning light.

“Do you think they’re okay?”

His smile slipped. He was glad she was behind him, where she couldn’t see it. “I think we survived the storm,” he said. “And so it follows that others could as well.”

“That isn’t exactly what I asked.”

“What you asked, only God could answer.”

“But if you had to answer—”

“If I could give them back to you, I would,” he said, honestly enough. If he could have cut them from her heart forever, he would have done that too, but he kept that to himself.

She let go of the back of his belt, which seemed bad until she took hold of his hand. When he looked at her, she stretched up and pressed her mouthparts briefly to the side of his snout.

“What does that mean?” he asked curiously.

“Just a human thing.”

“All right, hold a moment.” He leaned in and returned the gesture, taking the precaution of holding her face firmly between his hands. He had very little sensation around his mouth.

“Your first kiss?” she asked when he started walking again. “What did you think?”

“You smell nice.”

“Ooo, lies.”

“Under that,” he said with a flick of his spines. “The you-part smells nice.”

“Wow. You charmer, you.” She nudged her elbow into his side. Deliberately, to judge by her broad smile. “You need better compliments than that if you’re going to get lucky tonight.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Now you really do.”

“No,” he said with a snort. “I still don’t. I am Sheulek and all things within my camp are mine. Besides, you’re my wife and it is your divinely-ordained duty to serve my needs, whatever they may be. Besides that, you want me.”

“Not at the moment.”

“Always,” he said, but he stole a covert glance to make sure she didn’t mean it. She didn’t. He grinned and thumped a knuckle playfully on her scarred shoulder, saying, “I must be among the very best of men, eh? To possess so fine a wife.”

“Yeah, thanks, but we’re not really married.”

She was still smiling, but it wasn’t a joke. Meoraq thought about it, then stopped walking and turned on her. “That’s not the first time you’ve said that,” he said, then thrust his face very close to hers. “Why do you keep saying that?”

She seemed startled at first, inclined to laugh at him, but her eyes darted up to take in his low spines and she decided to become defensive instead. “Because we’re not! You can’t just say something and make it true!”

“Yes, I can.”

“No, you can’t!” she snapped. “Anyway, there weren’t any witnesses or anything to prove you even said it.”

He rocked back onto his heels and stared at her. “A witness?” he asked incredulously. “Woman, I will do many things to humor your human whims, but inviting in an audience while I am having sex will never be one of them!” He paused, then leaned in again. “You were there. Why didn’t you protest at the time if you had such objection?”

Pink color touched at her cheeks. “I wasn’t exactly paying attention to what you were saying at that point.”

He smiled.

“Oh shut up,” she snapped, ducking around him to keep walking. “We’re not married and I’m not arguing about it anymore. We’re just not.”

He snorted, but came after her, falling into step at her side instead of taking the lead. “This is not an argument,” he informed her. “There would have to be a dispute in order for there to be an argument and it is not possible to dispute the facts. But now I am curious. How do humans make a marriage bond?”

“With vows, I guess, but there has to be a priest there, or at the very least, a judge.”

Meoraq peered at her, then struck himself on the chest and flung both arms out, putting his whole body on display.

“Not you!” she yelled. The color in her cheeks was very bright now, a bold red that painted her all the way up to her eyes. “You don’t count! It has to be another priest or another judge!”

He flicked his spines, still grinning. “When we return to Xeqor, I will have our bond formally witnessed by the abbot and the high judge both if you like. Does that satisfy you?”

Amber walked a little faster. “You didn’t even ask me if I wanted to marry you.”

“Why would I do that?” he asked, amused. He didn’t have any trouble keeping pace at her side.

“Because you can’t marry someone against their will!”

“Yes, I can.”

“You can be a real prick sometimes.”

Meoraq snorted. “That is the sort of thing you say when you can’t think of anything else. If this is an argument, I think I have just won it.”

She threw him a glare and tried to walk even faster. He had only to wait. Eventually, his same even strides were enough to bring him up beside her. She glared straight ahead, her back stiff and her mouthparts pressed together.

“Well?” she said, after a few minutes of what had been for him a fairly comfortable silence. “Aren’t you going to tell me I’m beautiful when I’m angry?”

That was a trap if he’d ever heard one.

“No,” he said. But took the risk and bent in swiftly to sweep his scent-cavities along the side of her throat. “But you do smell nice.”

He gave that a moment more to settle, then put out his hand.

Her mouthparts twisted, but she took it.

* * *

The journey resumed. With the wind at their backs and the ground drying out and chilling hard beneath their feet, their speed greatly improved. The plains rose and became the foothills. Dead grass thinned over the stony soil. The earth took on the strange greenish-grey tint unique to the border between Yroq and Gedai. They made six spans that day at his estimate, six spans and still it was light when he called camp. And yet he lay awake that night with Amber tucked up against his side in a bed warmed by his fires, thinking.

Meoraq knew of no roads through the mountains, which was not to say there were none. From the moment the mountains were in sight, he had been looking for evidence of a pass. The relatively low peaks and shallow grades of this particular slope had brought him here, where he found the remnants of a road, but nothing that had been cleared or remade in years. Carving out a road, even in the plains of Yroq, was no casual undertaking and they were not abandoned on a whim. The inescapable conclusion was that there might be something wrong with this one and furthermore, that there must be a better crossing somewhere else, but he didn’t know where, didn’t even know whether to search for it north of their position or south.