The clash of steel was what I craved. Battle always made more sense than peace and I often found pain more welcome than pleasure. Perhaps it was unwise, though, to push at those ragged verges, raw like scraped flesh. Yet I did it all the same, as only a creature who has never known contentment could do.
“Again!” I barked, hurling Shira’s training waster back at her as she stumbled backwards.
She caught the blade by the hilt, taking up a stance again. This time, she raised the blade towards the roof, taking a high guard since the fool’s guard had done her no good. Determination and no small amount of frustration sparked in her sapphire eyes. A war played across her face between those darker shades and her own inherent gentleness. Again, she was struggling to find her killer’s edge.
“You cannot live by half measures and moderation always, Shira. The universe does not deliver all that you desire on a silver platter—if you want something, reach out and take it!”
Shira narrowed her eyes and I saw something click into place in her head. She came at me with the speed of a summer storm, the fury of tempestuous waves, the relentless barrage of a torrent in her blows. It was the best assault she’d ever managed, a combination of feints and thrusts as she tried to force me backwards.
I retreated just far enough to let her think she had me on the run before abruptly breaking tempo. As she struck from the heights with a wicked cut, I leapt forward at an angle, blade swinging horizontally towards her head. The point wasn’t really to hit: it was to force Shira to defend and place herself at disadvantage while keeping myself protected, my crossguard between her blade and my head.
She caught me in a bind, trying to wind steel against steel, seeking my face with the tip of her blade. It was quick thinking, but I trapped her blade against the strong of my own weapon, just at the crossguard, and twisted viciously enough to send the weapon flying from her hands.
Shira didn’t stop, even disarmed. She ducked the sword and charged inside my guard, narrowly avoiding getting her nose slammed flat by my pommel. The young woman hit me low in a grapple, disrupting my center of gravity. I was carried along with her as if by a wave.
We hit the ground in a tangle hard enough to knock the wind out of both of us. I recovered first, grabbing her wrist as she fumbled weakly for her practice dagger. It felt in that moment almost like there was no separation between us, as if the blazing heat of her fury had collided with my icy self-control, and everything warred on the precipice to see whose energy would destroy the other’s.
Fingers seized the collar of my doublet and then lips collided with my own. It was harsh and passionate, not at all the demure expectant inclination of a head I’d seen in the vision. Shira kissed me like she was dying and I was her breath, her light, her life. The desperation had an edge of fear to it.
I don’t know what I was expecting, but that was not it. I bit down hard on her lower lip, tasting a trace of copper as she gasped, flinging her dagger away in the same movement as I rolled on top of her. Sapphire eyes deep and dark with unspoken desires looked at me from beneath hooded eyelids. Her lip would bruise, already bearing the marks of my teeth. Judging by the flush on her cheeks, she didn’t care, wild and half undone.
My mind struggled to grasp what had just happened. I’d been so careful to push away, but perhaps she had seen too much of Aleyr the woman to recognize the Butcher of Stonepoint, the Beloved of the King in Black. I trapped one of her wrists over her head, but the other hand slipped my grip to tangle in my hair and pull me down into another kiss, no less demanding and ferocious.
It felt so good, even the wrongness of it. It didn’t matter that it was battering at the last bonds of my fidelity—it was real after centuries of a hollow facade. The spark of competition burned now as an all-consuming fire of desire. From her held position, Shira tried to control the kiss, holding me close as she parted her lips. It would have been easy for me to wrestle control back, but I still knew what Varys had done to her.
I yielded to the sensation, the temptation of warmth and want and passion. My hold on her other wrist softened and she pulled free, joining that hand to the other in my hair.
Breath came as a gasp for both of us when the kiss broke. She shifted underneath me, using her hips and her hold on my hair to reverse our positions. Now I had my back against the mats, her lips swiftly seeking mine again. I think she expected me to resist, to push her away and scorn her. I could feel it in the tension of her body against mine.
I splayed my hands low across her back and hips, holding her more tightly against me, but that was all. I tried to soften my kiss, only to feel a tug in my hair. All the bitterness and contention was still there, and for a moment I understood Shira better than I had since pulling her out of Varys’s tent. Hers was the feeling nursed in secret that had finally broken open like an old wound, full of pain as much as love. I had hurt her so profoundly with every rebuffing comment, with every forced distance, and the feelings had only grown anyway. Maybe she hated me, I didn’t know at that moment, but she had to hate how I could make her feel.
Everything in me thawed at that realization. I had abused my power over her too cruelly, too blindly—it hurt me to the quick.
I turned my head abruptly, breaking the kiss. “Shira, you don’t—”
Her teeth tugged at my earlobe, sending a shiver down my spine. My fingers were probably leaving bruises on her hips, they had dug in so hard.
“Shira, stop.” This time the words came with Frostborn’s cold.
She recoiled back as if stung, tears already welling in her eyes at the rejection.
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“Not like this,” I said more gently, leaning up into her. This time the kiss was soft and sweet, tender in a way I had thought myself dead to. I gently eased my hand from her hip, loosening my own death grip, and cupped her chin. Salt mingled with the copper taste, and I felt the desperation uncoil in her body, releasing its grip on her by inches even as the tears spilled over. I wrapped my arm around her, cradling her close with a hand between her shoulderblades.
She broke away, her tears splashing against my cheeks. Her hand quivered like she wanted to sign, but didn’t know what to say.
“Let me soothe where I have stung,” I said gently, thinking of nothing but her. I brushed away the tears with one hand before kissing where her cheek was stained.
A broken sound tripped over her lips and she trembled like a reed, conflict warring in her eyes between wanting sweetness and wanting everything she could get while she could get it. I had hurt her so, changing from kind to cruel in instants. Why would she expect any different now?
“I should have protected you,” I murmured, eyes softening as I looked up at her. “I was thoughtless with you, too absorbed in my own pain.” I kissed her softly, gentle against her bitten lip. “No more.”
I don’t know how long I stayed on those mats with her, kissing away tears and trying to soothe the hurt. It felt like hours and moments at the same time, each one as delicate as spun glass. Her tears faded gradually, but I knew it was not a pain that could be undone in a day. Maybe not even in a lifetime. Still, I stayed and whispered sweet nothings and stroked her hair as if it would make a difference, as if I could heal the bloody past. If there was one thing a long lifetime had taught me, moving too quickly towards joy did not allow grief its season.
“My lady?” Vex’s query sounded from around the corner, from the armory door. We were out of her line of sight, but we wouldn’t be for long.
Shira froze, and I saw it rear its head again: the expectation that my frigidity would return.
“Shh, blossom,” I murmured to her before clearing my throat and taking a far more brusque tone. “Vex, I do not wish to be disturbed. Can you not handle whatever matter has arisen?”
“The clergy of the Dark Mothers have come seeking an audience. I gathered it’s about the favor you owe them.”
“They can wait,” I said sharply. “Favor owed or not, I am not at their beck and call.”
“Shall I offer them your hospitality, my lady? It will only contain them temporarily. They’ve been very impatient.”
I sighed and stroked my thumb across Shira’s cheekbone. Those vultures could wait until the end of the world for all I cared, but they would need to be dealt with. “I have a more important matter in my hands. They can wait.”
“Of course, my lady. Shall I seal the doors to the training room lest someone disturb you?”
I smiled slightly despite myself. Faithful Vex, ever ready to oblige. “That would best, Vex. Thank you.”
I heard her retreat and the doors closed again, followed by the soft click of a lock engaging. Shira relaxed slightly, bringing up her hand to sign. Do you need to go?
“I meant what I said, blossom. You are more important. This is more important.”
She nodded, relaxing more. Her fingers, instead of signing, combed through my hair and the faintest hint of a smile touched the corners of her lips. This time when she kissed me, it was slow and searching, almost tentative. She drew back after a long moment, fingers coming up to sign. I’m sorry for how sudden—
I shook my head. “Your fire is the most beautiful thing about you, Shira. But this is about what you need as well as what I desire.” When she hesitated, I cleared my throat. “Varys.”
You are not him. I want this.
“And how do you want it, Shira?” I studied her expression, caught as it was in a sort of exquisite torture by the proposition.
The blush that spread across her face was an education to watch. She leaned down to kiss me, but I pressed a finger to her lips just before they met mine. “I think those clever fingers of yours are more than capable of words. Do you want me to be gentle, Shira? I can play the courtly lover.”
She hesitated, then signed, I…I don’t think so.
“Be certain,” I said firmly, almost harshly, and felt a shudder through her body that told me more than her signing had. I hooked a leg around hers and rolled us again, catching my weight on my forearms as I settled above her.
Her fingers flicked in a flurry. Frostborn—
“Aleyr,” I corrected.
What about this? She brushed her fingers across the back of my left hand, just below the ring fused with my flesh.
I stilled, reminded all too well of my last private audience with the King in Black. As much as I had loved Him, that person was gone forever. I had only the dregs of memory, the illusion of His adoration. A bitter grief scorched its way up my throat. “He never loved me as I loved Him. No more ashes, no more cold, no more emptiness.”
Shira signed my name so delicately, watching my face. Aleyr, I don’t want to hurt you more.
“That bridge has already burned, blossom,” I said, the last word lost against her lips. The kiss heated us both with that unquenchable fire and I felt her melt beneath me, her hands knotting in the sides of my doublet.
I felt again. Perhaps the absence of it for so long was why it hit me in a torrential rush, a devouring hunger for the love I had been denied so long. The part of me that knew Shira was fragile and wounded was a dam barely able to contain the floodwaters, controlling the kiss carefully to avoid hurting her bruised lip.
She had no such caution, arching up into me as our duel resumed in a very different way.
I knew it was going to destroy me, even then. Shira kissed me until I did not care, until my lips were wandering down her neck, until the thunder of my own heartbeat in my ears drowned out all the doubts. The soft, pleading sound she made when I reached her collarbone and the insistent fingers in my hair were all that mattered. It had been such a long time since I’d been desired or given over to desire.
For a moment, Aleyr Frostborn remembered what it was to be alive. I felt again.
My lips stopped at the scars on her collarbone, twin lines where Varys had drug his fangs across her skin. “We have to stop this, blossom,” I said, forcing myself to let go and sit up, knees on either side of hers.
Why? she signed, expression plaintive and pleading.
I sighed, touching her cheek with one hand. “Do you really think I would even dream of more than this on the training room floor?”
She turned her head, pressing a kiss to my palm as she signed again. Will there be a later, Aleyr? Or will you turn cold and cruel like you always do? Again, she signed my name so delicately.
“Midnight, blossom,” I said softly. “Come to my room. I have a gift for you anyway. You should know me well enough to know that when I set my mind, I pursue it with intent and purposeful action.”
And your heart?
I took a deep breath. “We will see, won’t we?” I helped her up off the training floor. “Go see Haven for a cold compress for that lip. I apologize for hurting you. I will do all in my power to ensure it does not happen again.”
Promises were such deadly things.