I said it would be less of a wait for this chapter, and I lied. Sorry. Writer's block. Next chapter is back to O'otani and all of her drama. The same content warnings apply to this chapter as the previous few. Let me know what you think.

- S.

Then she's gone and we're alone again. Her exit leaves behind an emptiness far larger than the space her slight body occupied. She's a storm of raw emotion, all teeth and tension, with the imperious arrogance of a Grand Councilor draped over top like ceremonial robes. There's a certain violence to even her stillness, and even laughter could only soften her face so much.

But it did soften. She did laugh. She called me by my name and told me I was salvageable, which is one of the most backhanded compliments I've ever received, yet still miraculous for the olive branch it offered.

"So she is human," I muse, leaning back against him. "If I hadn't seen it myself, I'd never believe it. The demon queen has a living, beating heart in her chest."

"I often think her humanity is what galls her most of all," Irei remarks thoughtfully, perhaps ruefully. "If she could cut her heart from her chest and live inside that hollow coldness, sometimes I'm certain she would. She feels too much and doesn't know what to do with any of it, and sometimes that gets tangled into cruelty by the alchemy of her wild, erratic heart."

"O'otani wore her heart on her sleeve and her love in her eyes and her rage in her fists," I say with a soft smile. "When you called Taís a severely peeved badger, I remembered my Aunt Jinn describing her as three angry ferrets sewn into a dress. That was probably the nicest thing Jinnra ever said about O'otani. Her go-to endearment was kazinsera." I grimace. "It means mad dog."

"If someone other than me called Taís a mad dog, there'd be hell to pay."

"Jinnra... she paid," I say quietly, and for a moment I can almost feel the stone railing of the fifth-floor balcony beneath my fingers. Nearly hear the concussive blasts of the fireworks blooming above me, caustic flowers I could so easily choke on. I choke on memory instead, their deaths thick in my throat, the one taste cutting through the metallic tang of fear. "They all did. They paid in blood. O'otani made sure of that."

"I didn't mean to remind you of her," Irei says with an apologetic grimace. "And I certainly didn't mean to suggest that the price you and your family paid wasn't dear enough."

"Everything reminds me of her," I reply honestly, reaching forward and lacing my fingers through his. I remind myself where I am, turning stone back into flesh, replacing the dull throbbing of the fireworks with my pulsing heartbeat as his lips graze my neck. "I'll find a way to deal with that eventually, but sometimes I wonder..."

"Wonder what?"

"If we deserved it," I say so softly I can barely hear myself, as if whispering will obscure the blasphemy. Though perhaps we were never holy enough to merit that word.

"Shira-"

"She spent her entire life fighting my battles for me and I repaid her by stealing her birthright," I murmur, running my free hand through my hair and pulling like it might settle the chaos rioting just beneath my skin. Or even focus it. "She was two months older than me and yet they called me Izsai. They made her my protector, my guard dog, when birth declared her my queen. Then they demanded she cage that wild animal in her chest, that madness that I'm just now realizing was probably rage at being continually rejected."

"You were a child, Shira. You stole nothing, merely took what you were handed, as all children do."

"Then why didn't I hand it back?"

"You trusted your family because they were all you knew," Irei insists.

"But I should have known more!" I say through gritted teeth. "We're bloodbound, Irei. Our very souls are joined, our bodies be damned. Yet somehow I never saw that she was bleeding out. She clung to her loyalty like it was the last thing she could grab onto before oblivion. She must have been out of her mind with pain to turn her back on that, on us. We must have broken her heart," I murmur, my own heart beating double time in my chest. Stupid, silly boy. Beautiful and useless. It's a mercy you'll never lead men when you couldn't keep the woman you loved most from losing her mind. "So how come I never saw any of it? How come I never saw anything? She killed them! And I- I-"

"You loved her the only way you knew how," he says.

"But it wasn't enough, was it?"

"No," he admits, "it wasn't enough. She killed your entire family to take the throne and

she came damn close to killing you, too, yet you still believe in her and blame yourself. They say love is a blind fool. Grief makes that doubly true."

"So what you're saying is that I can't see clearly even now?" I ask him, piqued, "but, miraculously, you can?"

"What I'm saying," he replies a little sharply, leaning into me so that his breath falls hot against my cheek, "is that there was absolutely no way you could have known about the things you didn't know you couldn't trust, my prince."

"I'm not a prince anymore, Irei."

His fingers curl around my wrist possessively. "But you are mine, are you not?"

"What would you do if I said no?" I ask, recklessly. The strong emotion Taís stirred up runs riotous between us, myriad micro-frissons of electricity that somehow, disturbingly, turn to desire in the space between his lips and my ears.

It would be so easy for him to lean forward and capture my lips with his own. To cradle my face in his hands while his tongue traces the seam of my lips, demanding entrance like a conqueror at a castle gate. And if he closed the distance between us, I'd cleave to him. I'd come apart in his hands, unwind like silk.

But somehow the desire is contingent upon the tension, the wanting but not having, the whisper of space between us. Instead of kissing me he settles for tangling his calloused hands in my hair, running the silvery strands through his fingers again and again. This could be my eternity, I think, and I'd be perfectly content.

It seems a light thought at first. But as I look up at him, smiling as his fingers trace a whirling pattern across my slightly sunburned cheeks, I follow it, and find it rooted unfathomably deep in my chest. The same sun that scorched my cheeks has brought something to fruition between us, to bloom, and suddenly that feels very heavy.

You are mine, are you not? For a moment, I want to say no. Not because I love him any less, but because I suffer from the same affliction as Taís. I feel too damn much for him and I don't know what to do with it, where to put it. This morning I was tying my hair back, happy to share the marks his hands and mouth left on my pale skin. I felt reckless, careless, so long as I knew he cared for me. But right now, after thinking about O'otani, I feel a thrill of fear. Terror, really. Because the last person I would have answered yes to if they asked you are mine, are you not? nearly killed me. And if Irei is false or fleeting, I know he'll finish the job.

His words are a whisper at my ear. "What would I do if you said no?" he repeats. I don't have to see his lips to know he's smirking. "I'd love you the best way I know how," he says, drawing back slightly so I can see the glint of light in his umber eyes, "and soon you'd be screaming my name all over again."

"But if there's no way I could have known about the things I didn't know I couldn't trust, if love is blind and grief doubly so, how can I trust you?" I ask, letting the façade drop further, letting him see the tangled things inside my head and heart.

He tries, but he can't quite hide the hurt in his eyes. I hear the cruelty in my words the moment after I speak them, and immediately wish them unsaid. I'm asking for reassurance that I shouldn't need, not with him, not when he's done nothing but support me and care for me after that first hateful meeting so many months ago.

The delicious tension of desire unfulfilled is now just tension. The hand petting my hair stills and drops to his lap. Irei leans back subtly, putting a little more space between us. It feels like miles, a chasm opening, and I won't let it swallow this moment. I felt I couldn't stand his nearness, his gravity, but the reality of that little bit of distance far eclipses my earlier fears.

"What are you doing?" I ask sharper than I intend to.

"You asked me how you could trust me. I figured that you could trust me, and yourself, a little more when I wasn't touching you like that. I was just giving you space."

"Shards, Irei! I don't want you to give me space!"

"What do you want, then?" he asks, sounding very confused.

"I want you to press your body against mine until there isn't an inch of space between us while you whisper the promises you'll keep into my ear. I want you to show me that I am yours, whether I want to be or not, that my body and your body are not capable of being strangers to one another," I confess, drawing in a ragged breath. "I want you to fuck me like I've never seen the inside of a palace."

This time I'm the one who leans in and runs my hands through his hair, pulling at the dark locks harshly as I angle his gaze down to meet mine. What I see there nearly leaves me breathless.

"Whether or not you can trust me isn't a question I can answer for you," he says softly, but his eyes are burning. "But tell me, my prince, how am I supposed to trust you?"

I frown, feeling the sharp edge I turned against him only a moment before pressing against my throat. "When have I ever given you a reason to distrust me? Shards, when have I ever given you less than everything you asked for?"

"You are the Amarin heir," he mutters. "You told me that you wouldn't go back even if your mother returned with an army. But power is a heady, heavy thing. How am I to trust that the boy who was groomed from birth to rule will be happy as the aid to a Kamai ambassador? How could you possibly know that this- that what we are together- is enough?" he pauses, still not looking away, and I can see every snag and tear of feeling, every doubt, every scar. "How am I to trust that your reliance on me these past few months hasn't laid a golden haze over me that will dissipate as the dawn of desire burns on into midday? And let's not forget that I'm fourteen years older than you!"

I flinch. "Do you really doubt me so much, Irei?"

"Not you, Xoxi," he murmurs back, gentle but insistent fingers lifting my chin so our eyes once again align, and this time he lets me see the need he has for me alongside the fear. It feels like a gift to witness him so undone. "Myself. I doubt myself."

"What does Xoxi mean?" I ask.

He pauses for a moment before answering. "There is no true equivalent in Alyezsani. The closest translation would probably be 'piece.'"

"If you add 'of ass' on to the end of that statement, I'm vacating your lap, Ambassador."

He chuffs, grinning. "No, not like that. Not just 'piece' as in a part of the whole, ass or otherwise. 'Piece' here implies fundamentality and immutability. It is the smallest part of a thing that, being removed, unmakes that thing. It's what cannot be taken away if the whole is to remain, well, whole. When we call our family and lovers Xoxi, we're saying that they cannot be taken away from us without taking us away, too. That to our very core, we know them, we need them."

He looks almost sheepish, like he just realized the intensity and gravity of his words. For a moment I think he wants to flinch away, to bury them in additional sentences or a dry joke or just bury himself in me and forget words altogether. But Irei Nara isn't a coward. He doesn't push me away or pull me closer, just watches me, waiting for what I'll do next.

I reach forward, gripping the back of his neck, and draw his face to mine. "Listen to me carefully, Ambassador Nara, because I have better things to do than repeat myself," I say smoothly, using the same words I threw at Taís earlier, though this time the heat behind them is not anger, but desire. "You're rooted in me so deeply I can't tell where you begin or end, but I know where I end. With you. Here. And that," I promise him, "that is enough for me. Fuck, it's more than enough. It's everything."

I feel those roots tugging at me now, dragging me down to the rich, dark soil. I go willingly, pulled ever deeper through layers of bedrock veined with precious metals. Soon I can feel the heat radiating from the molten core that keeps this planet forever burning. I embrace it, giving myself to the fire in his eyes.

"I trust you," I tell him, at once a confession and a promise, "and I think I always will." A fragile voice in my head says it's too soon to talk about forever, that this is a cup that will overflow and drown us both, but my heart won't hear of it. I've been cautious for my entire life, and now for the first time, my life is actually mine. "I choose you," I finish, swallowing down my discomfort, my fear he'll laugh at my stupid, reckless heart. "You're the only thing I've ever chosen entirely for myself. I don't know if you understand how rare and precious that is to me."

"I understand rare and precious," he says, and he's looking at me like I'm all the sum of the west's wealth. Like my hair is spun silver and my kiss-swollen lips, rubies as rich and red as blood, and the blue tinge to my veins sapphires glittering beneath my skin.

I don't know how he's looking at me the next moment, because I'm leaning in to kiss him, his dark eyes fluttering closed in anticipation. I expect the joining of our lips to be frantic, but he's slow instead. Each movement is deliberate, as if he's saying I know exactly what I'm doing, and I choose you, too.

He tastes clean and sweet, the bite of the y'xala still lingering on the tip of his tongue so that I taste it when he spears my mouth. I try to increase our tempo, but he resists, instead stoking the fire between us gradually with each soft, brutal movement. He holds my face like I'm something fragile and kisses me like he wants to break me himself.

"My imperious Amshira," he murmurs in my ear, voice warm and sticky as honey, "looking down your nose at a Grand Councilor and passing judgement from atop your throne, asking her why she dared disturb your peace."

"I'm not atop a throne, Irei," I laugh, half-breathless, all wanting, "I'm atop you."

"And that suits you far better than a lovely chair, does it not?" he asks, taking my earlobe in his mouth and biting while he rolls his hips beneath me, pressing his hard length against my ass through our clothes. I gasp in pleasure and he smirks, very satisfied with himself. "Yes, from your reaction, I'd say that suits you just fine."

"I'd have enjoyed the throne a great deal more if it was a euphemism for your cock," I joke. "Now that is a birthright I would fight for."

He laughs. "I'm imagining a whole army assembled for the sole purpose of defending your right to fuck me silly. Imagine what their rallying cry might be! Or what standard they might fly. We could be talking about a very different type of flag, no?"

"If I ask nicely, I'm sure Reesah will stitch together something modelled after those winged dicks her mother seems so very fond of. I think she called them kakaraska?"

"If you put one of those damned ornaments in my office, Shira, I swear..." he grumbles, scowling but unable to keep a degree of amusement out of his voice.

"Then swear," I reply provocatively. "Swear your eternal devotion to me. Swear when our bodies collide with such beautiful, bruising intensity. Swear that this could be our forever, Irei, and I'll believe you. I'll believe us."

He stares back at me, shock and pleasure mixing in his dark eyes. A long silence stretches between us, as heavy and comfortable as a thick blanket pressing you down into your mattress on a particularly cold night. When he finally speaks, there's an undeniable smile in his voice. "Do you truly think you'll want me forever, or is that merely lover's talk?"

"Do you remember the conversation we had after leaving Belkau House for the first time?" I ask. "When I apologized for running out of the Grand Council session like a fool and you said you preferred my foolishness to my artifice? I made you a promise then, and I've kept it."

"You promised never to pretend with me," he adds, remembering.

I nod. "I'm not telling you what you want to hear, Irei, I'm telling you the truth. Whatever I am, I am yours. And I can't imagine anything changing that, short of you trying to kill me, too." I say it lightly, but there's a sting to it, still. Because I was hers, and part of me always will be.

And she will always be the one who burned everything I knew and loved to the ground and made herself a crown from the ashes.

I can feel that ash clinging to me now, smudges of smoke and darker memories all clambering to the fore. They don't want to let go. They scorch those deep-seated roots, but only the outside burns.

I lean forward and reach down. Irei shifts, giving me access, and looks comically disappointed when I only reach into his pocket. I pull out the pocketknife he always carries and, before he has a chance to protest, draw it across my palm in one smooth motion.

"Fuck, Amshira!" he exclaims, reaching for the knife. I let him have it; I don't need it anymore. "What are you doing?"

I'm consecrating myself.

I meet his confused, panicked eyes as he reaches for my hand, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket like he intends to bind the wound. Something in my gaze stops him, a certainty that wasn't there before. He just stares up at me in silent question, looking as lost as I feel found.

"By the water of the holy river and the iron of my blood, I sanctify this covenant. May the Goddess witness my truth and hold it forever in her eye unblinking, as unchanged and unchangeable as her eternal grace. On this day I, Amshira Lyuren Amarin, do renounce all rank and titles conferred upon me by my birth."

"Shira, what-"

"I proactively abdicate all rights of kingship and all claims to the throne of Shikkah. Let both pass to the next heir according to the laws of succession and the rite of blood. May I die before I break this vow. Blessed is the Lady of the Rivers, the Goddess of Light, yet harsh is her burning gaze, and her water will never quench an oathbreaker's thirst. This is my truth, so be it witnessed, so be it writ in the books of gods and men alike."

He sits there silently, thunderstruck. For a moment I worry that I've made a mistake. But then he lifts my hand and presses his lips to my cut palm gently, smearing his chin and lips with my blood. Something about the act is so intimate that I shudder against him. We pause there for a few ragged breaths, the moment stretched taut between us, before I bring my lips back to his, tasting the iron of my blood in his hungry kiss.

"And just when I thought you couldn't find any more ways to consume me," I murmur playfully, but my voice has a slight quaver to it. He presses his palm against my cheek, steadying me, eyes so warm I forget to be embarrassed by any of it.

I suck in a breath, trying to calm myself despite the weight of the words that just fell from my lips and the tang of my own blood now staining them, left there by his bruising kiss.

"I know it must seem foolish to formally abdicate when I have no title and no throne," I begin haltingly, my heart still in my throat. He moves his hands slowly over my hips, providing another layer of distraction, albeit delicious distraction. "And I know how unlikely I am to ever regain them. But you asked how you could trust that I wouldn't choose power over you, and I cannot give you certainty, but I can give you this," I say, watching his brows raise in silent question. "Tell them I made a vow of abdication in your presence and sealed it with my own blood and they cannot place a crown on my head. To do so would violate a blood oath made to the goddess herself, and in Shikkah, divine law always trumps civil law," I finish, then smirk. "Of course, you could just tell them that you fucked me silly inside a whorehouse and achieve the same result. But I wanted something solid, indelible."

"Amshira, I- I don't even know what to say."

"Why say anything at all?" I ask with a small smile, threading my fingers together behind his neck. "I'm sure we can think of more creative uses for your silver tongue, Ambassador Nara."

He snorts. "I swear you only call me by my title to taunt me."

"And four of the last five times you've called me 'my prince' have been when you were inside of me or about to be. It goes both ways."

He barks a laugh. "A commoner for two minutes and already you've got quite the mouth on you."

"No, you see, that's the problem," I confess, leaning forward until we're only inches apart. "Your mouth is nowhere on me, and after what I just did, it really should be."

"So this was all an elaborate play to get me to bed you."

Now it's my turn to snort in disbelief. "I don't need to do anything to get you to bed me, Irei, except breathe."

"Yes," he jokes, "it was always the breathing that got me. Anyways, fucking the ones that aren't breathing isn't practical. They seize up and quickly start to smell."

"Does Kamai depravity truly know no bounds?"

"Oh, darling," Irei growls, "you don't know the half of it. Up until now we've been rather civilized. But since you've become a commoner, well," he adds with a wicked grin, trailing a fingertip lazily down the curve of my back until I arch into him. "We can explore that depravity at our leisure."

"A commoner, maybe," he breathes softly into my ear, kissing the tender skin where neck meets shoulder, "but far too beautiful to ever be truly common."

"You flatter me," I huff, trying to sound anything but breathless as his lips skate across the curve of my clavicle, lingering on my bloodbinding scar.

"It's not flattery if it's the truth," he says with a simplicity that takes my breath away. "As fundamental and immutable as the ground beneath my feet."

"Charming bastard," I murmur, half statement and half accusation. "Petty diplomat with pretty words ever-ready at his elegant fingertips."

"And a very uncommon commoner ever-ready beneath them," he grins. "Or do I have to remind you of that fundamental, immutable truth?" he asks, his hand slipping lower, caressing me so suddenly and intimately that I shudder. "You want my pretty words and my elegant fingertips, Amshira. Forget many things, but never let yourself forget that. If you do," he breathes, his voice barely a whisper at my ear, yet carrying all the concussive force of a blow, "I won't be particularly diplomatic."

"A pity. I've heard diplomats have certain... privileges."

"You are mine, privileges or no, Amshira Amarin," he growls back at me, gripping the back of my neck so hard I wince. It's a good pain, though, bright and clean. "Shikkan or Kamai, prince or commoner, citizen or stowaway, saved or damned, you are mine."

"And you are mine, you taciturn diplomat. And if you forget that, I will take that pretty knife out of your pocket again and carve my name into your skin right above your ceremonial scars."

His eyebrows raise in surprise. "Vicious little thing, aren't you?"

"Oh, come now," I tease with a roll of my hips, "you like it when I bite."

He chuckles, tugging at the ties of my breeches. "Oh, believe me, I fully intend to come now."

"Dirty old man."

He slaps my ass, laughing as I yelp. "Impertinent little tease!"

I lean into him, looping my arms around his neck, burning with a wanting that could eclipse the sun. "I'm not teasing, Ambassador Nara."

The grin falls from his face and shatters between us, but I'm not afraid of the sharp edges. I'm not afraid at all.

"Good, Xoxi, because neither am I."

"The good news is we managed to avoid getting blood or anything else on your couch," I say conversationally, "the bad news is the carpet wasn't as lucky."

"So long as I get lucky, I don't give a damn about the furniture," Irei laughs. "Wait, is that why we never made it to the couch? You were protecting it from us?"

"Forgive me for giving a shit about your possessions," I huff. Still, the smile doesn't leave my face. It's as stubborn as he is, I think.

"If anyone is possessed, it's me. An impossible spirit has me twisted up in his merciless grasp."

"You were begging for more, Irei, not begging for mercy," I remind him with a sly grin. "And if you think me an impossible, merciless spirit, I fear you've confused me with your sister."

Irei's chest shakes with laughter. "Well, her childhood nickname was Kiraxin. It means wild or dark," he explains. "The sky before a great storm is kiran'zoxin. Taro'u zoxía is black magic." He rolls away from me and sits up with his back against the couch. I shiver slightly at the loss of his warmth, but before I can protest the separation, he pulls me up with him. I let myself lean against him, still silly with afterglow.

Taro'u xoxia, indeed. What else could explain my transformation from a proper Shikkan noble into some feral stranger who likes to be forced up against the side of a building and kissed silly by a Kamai man with laughing eyes? Someone who freely chases pleasure inside a brothel he was once loathe to set foot in?

I know we've been excessive. Foolish. Perhaps even mad. But some part of me still believes that this is too good to be true. Sooner or later, something will come along and ruin this microcosm, so I let myself revel in every heated glance, every touch, every single moment when I'm happy and free and his. Because things like this don't happen to people like me. We do not get to choose. We do not get to lie naked atop a Kamai ambassador's sumptuous Seramichen rug, talking of life and death and the wild, dark things between them.

"Speaking of dark and wild magic," I say, "why don't you tell me about that blood tithe Taís mentioned? I'm curious."

Irei nods and starts speaking, his rich, resonant voice well-suited to storytelling. "Soriko is a major trade hub, and at first glance the city is thoroughly cosmopolitan. But look for a moment longer, let your eyes adjust, and you'll see that all our modern sensibilities are mere tracings on the surface of something far deeper. Kama and its people are ruxa kirixana. Of old and wild blood. The descendants of warrior kings. We have certain traditions it's hard for foreigners to understand, like ceremonial scarification."

"Or the blood tithe," I guess, and Irei nods.

"Positions in Kamai government are a mix of elected, appointed, and inherited," he explains. "If the elected officials fail to live up to their promises or misuse their power, they're simply voted out. Appointed and inherited positions, though, lack that easy check. The tithe is an attempt to hold us accountable."

"We each carry within us a piece of god, and it can be ruined if we act without honor or shame. The old belief is that this change, the death of the godhead within an individual, sours their blood. By extension, if our blood is pure, it can be assumed that our shard of divinity is intact, which would be destroyed by any undo corruption, bribery, or abuse of power."

"And how does one determine if blood is soured or pure?"

"There's a ceremony. But basically, they taste it. They being the clan matriarchs. They're the closest thing we have to priestesses, really, and tradition says they can taste sin."

"So, once a year, you travel to the seat of your ancestral clan, and someone... drinks your blood?"

"Yes, though taste is a far better term. They're not downing full glasses of the stuff," he adds with a smirk. "They consume no more blood than I did when I kissed your cut palm earlier tonight. Taís will be tithing in absentia, so I'll stand in for her during the ceremony, and I certainly won't be travelling home with pints of her own red blood in tow. Just a small phial."

"I can see why that would make some foreigners squeamish," I muse, "but blood is used in similar ways in Shikkah. A promise, a seal, a source of magic. Our oaths are marked with blood, and bloodbinding is the oldest and strongest vow we have. Your tithe is not so very different from the priestesses holding O'otani and I in the holy river and cutting above our clavicles until the red ran together and our souls supposedly intertwined."

"You're taking this surprisingly well, Shira," Irei says with a soft smile. It widens to a blatant grin as he tells me "Taís will be so disappointed by your lack of horror. She's going to ask if you swooned or cried or gasped behind your lily-white hand, and I'm going to tell her that you barely batted an eyelash."

"Tell her whatever you like," I say blithely, "I don't give a damn. I'm not her amusement."

"No, you're mine," he corrects. "Such a pleasant creature, and so very diverting..."

"Diverting the blood flow away from your more sensible head," I mutter, but my voice lacks any true censure. I like the lightness of flirting, of jests, the pillow talk that soothes me and the innuendo that stirs my blood. "But I have another question to ask you before you brag to your sister that none of this phased me. Who is Atreyas, and why are we visiting him?"

"I am visiting him," Irei corrects smoothly. "And he's a contact of mine, in the same way Mirsi is. Well, in a similar way," he amends with a small chuckle, "the secrets he supplies aren't gleaned from men in the throes of passion by enterprising courtesans. To be completely honest, I don't really know where or how Atreyas gets his information, but it's always reliable, and he's more than willing to trade secrets for secrets."

"You take information from a madman?" I ask, quirking my brow. "That seems ill-advised."

"Taís is wrong," he tells me, "Atreyas isn't mad. Damn eccentric, sure, but the rest of it? Let's just say he's a finer actor than your Meprizio Trisenti could ever hope to be."

"Why fake insanity?"

Irei smiles, and for a second that's all I can think about. Taro'u zoxía, I think again. My feelings for him are magic and madness and everything in between. Then he's talking and I'm staring at his lips, trying to listen to his words, a flush spreading over my cheeks.

"Because a crazy old recluse isn't a threat. He hides his secrets and his cunning intelligence behind a mask of theatrical quirks and confused mutterings that start to make sense if you take the time to untangle them, and he fools the world. It leaves him be, and he gets one more year where his past doesn't catch up to him."

"His past? You mean the Lineari trying to assassinate him twice, like Taís said?" The Lineari is Kostayssau's version of the Shikkan Noraya, but state sponsored and far more brutal.

Irei's smile fades. "Not my secret to tell. But his paranoia is only half an act, and even then, I don't think it's unwarranted. Not knowing the resources of some of the people looking for him and the scope of their violence."

"So let me get this straight," I say, "we're going to your home, which is named 'he who hunts the hunter,' which is a euphemism for god, so that a clan matriarch can taste your blood and infer from it the status of your inherent divinity, and while we're there we're visiting a man who pretends madness to protect himself from his enemies, real or imagined?"

"Well, yes."

"That's fucking bizarre," I reply with a shake of my head and an amused snort. "But a change of scenery would be nice, and I'm curious about where you grew up. Tell me, what is it like at Oxor... Oxorav..." I trail off, biting my lip and looking to him for help.

"Oxorovanxa," he says slowly, softly, tasting each syllable. I repeat it several times until he approves of my pronunciation, however clumsy.

He grins, clearly pleased by the question, and his eyes get this glassy, faraway look that tells me he's wrapped up in memory. "About as far from the desert as you can get. A manor house nestled in the same grove of ancient trees its walls were made from. A river cuts through the property, and you can hear it everywhere you go, especially the gardens. The house itself is richly built yet simple, in Kamai style, but the gardens... the gardens are an extravagance. Rhyda gave them to his first wife as a wedding present, and he couldn't stand to let them grow wild after she died. Now he's dead, too, but the gardens still tell a better love story than almost anything else. A story about growing things and shared roots."

"I think I'd like that story."

"I love it," he admits. "Taís avoids going back, though she swears she doesn't. To her, it will always be the place where our father and brother died, where our childhoods ended. I know she sees their ghosts too strongly to relax there, and you've seen how Taís reacts to intense emotions. She's a terror."

"So what is it like for you? What do you see?"

"I see the window I looked out of as a young boy daydreaming when I should have been doing my lessons. The tree I used to climb and nap in. The creek where we fought duels with sticks and the high, flat rock next to it where we sunbathed naked as the day we were born. The grove where I wove myself a crown of branches and proclaimed myself king. The honey we stole when the bees were drowsy. A rich blue sky, and a feeling of history permeating it all. It anchors me."

"It sounds beautiful."

"Come see it with me," he asks, and there's something both excited and shy in his voice. "Even if there wasn't the tithe to consider, I'd want to take you there. It's a part of me, and you're the man I love."

"Not a man, remember?" I joke. "An impossible spirit entirely without mercy."

"You are the greatest mercy I have ever experienced," he admits softly, and it almost hurts to hear. It's too honest, too intense, too perfect; I can feel my own heart breaking in my chest, at once overwrought and underprepared to feel anything of this magnitude.

There's so much I want to say. So much I could tell him. Promises and prayers and threats and pleas for mercy that will not come. Declarations and love songs and the ache in my very marrow when he looks at me with that expression in his endless eyes.

But all I say is, "and you are my home."

His arms just tighten around me.