WARNING: This chapter contains cursing and sexual content.

Part 4: Reincarnation

Ch.1- Shira

When I wake for the first time, moonlight still gilds the window beside the bed a faded silver. The bed itself, a sumptuous monstrosity of rich red velvet and gold brocade, looks almost black beneath my fingers. I just lie there for a moment, watching the darkness beyond the window, and the light, too. Seeing so much and so little all at once.

Under the roof of a hotel built by a consummate madman, a place so idiosyncratic that it would be completely unique were it not for the four other locations tessellated across three continents, I saw a play. I met an actor. He broke us into the penthouse suite, and I laughed when he kissed me.

When Irei Nara kissed me, I didn't laugh. I didn't even breathe.

I turn over in bed, half expecting to see it empty, to have this night become nothing but a particularly vivid dream. But he's still as a stone beside me, snoring lightly, dark lashes brushing his cheeks as curls of onyx hair fall in messy whorls over his sleeping face and the pillow beneath.

I've always liked the night. The setting sun obscures the landscape, casting shadows where there were none, but I still think there's something strangely honest in it. Like you can look into the mechanical heart of the world as it lies still and sleeping, trace the path of its gears so that when the sun rises you understand the mechanism by which the whole thing turns.

I've always liked night, but this night I like most of all. It's perfect in a way nothing has been since the night my world came crashing down, and I realize I'm holding my breath again, waiting for something to shatter the stillness and silence. The peace. An assassin with a curved blade, a Grand Counselor about to throw me out of Kama, my mother returning to me either empty handed or with an army at her back. And I think that I would do almost anything to keep the truth I found in this particular darkness safe.

Irei pulls me against him, mumbling in his sleep. My arm cramps, but I just smile and wade back into dreams I won't remember when I wake.

When I wake for the second time, the sunlight is so bright I draw the heavy duvet up over my head. "Shut the fucking window, Rei," I mutter. "I'm going blind here."

"Well, aren't you just an angel in the morning?" he taunts, smiling wickedly but mercifully drawing the blinds. When I come out, the light in the room is muted, almost golden. It makes his dark skin glow, accentuating the sharp jut of his cheekbones, the curve of his jaw, the elegant slope of his neck.

"What're you looking at?" he asks me, quirking a dark brow. "Is my hair mussed and sticking up in all directions?"

"Your hair is fine," I murmur, giving him a soft smile. "I was just..."

"Just?" he prompts, raising his brow a little higher. "Well, out with it, Moonbeam."

"You're just... you're fucking beautiful, Irei," I admit, blushing despite the fact that I'm already naked in his bed, my thighs smeared with the evidence of what we did last night. "The sunlight makes your skin look golden. You have a severe profile, but it softens the edges and you just... you glow."

He actually blushes. I smirk, proud I was able to fluster him. There's a mischievous side to my personality that I didn't know about until he kissed me. It's impish, delighting in the way a swath of exposed skin turns his eyes heated, or how an unexpected vulgar comment shocks him to a hungry silence.

Now, though, he just regards me for a long moment, expression inscrutable. He comes to stand next to the bed, stepping close enough to me to twine a strand of my light hair around his wrist. "And everyone knows that silver compliments gold, don't they, Moonbeam?"

"Perhaps not everyone," I breathe back, feeling my expression shift to something coquettish. "I've not had a chance to make a complete survey, my lord."

"And after I funded all of those ships..." he murmurs silkily, running his fingers through my hair as it tumbles tangled down my shoulders. The way he's looking at me, though, I know he doesn't see the messiness, or the dark circles beneath my eyes after a nearly sleepless night. "How will you ever repay me, h'yonmi?"

"After last night, are our debts not settled?" I ask softly. "Do I not own you, ships and all? Did I not buy your gold with my silver?"

"Oh, if I still have a soul, it's yours," he replies smoothly.

"So long as I have your body, too," I say with a suggestive smile

"Be careful what look you give me, Amshira, or I'll have to take you back to bed."

"It's a good thing, then, that we never left it."

He smirks. "It's a fine thing indeed. A finer thing to be inside of you."

Now I blush. "Wasn't waking me every three hours enough, Ambassador? I'm still sore from your attentions." When he roused me, I couldn't bring myself to say no once, not when he told me he had to be inside of me or he'd go mad. Refusing him when I wanted him so badly would've been madness in itself. But I don't have to tell him that.

He steps closer to me, his dark eyes burning even in the muted light. I wish for a moment that the blinds were open so I could see him more clearly, then think better of it. Like I said a long time ago, some things belong in the dark. And I don't want last night to end. I want to grab it in my fists and drag it over me like the red velvet duvet, cocooned in softness and starlight and the woodsmoke musk of Kama's ambassador. My lover.

"Look at me," he says huskily, stroking the curve of my jaw with his calloused fingers before lifting my face to his. I expect him to kiss me, but he pauses when we're mere inches apart and just watches me. My eyes flutter open and I'm staring at eyes of the richest brown, one shade shy of black. My breath hitches in my throat and he leans forward, pressing his forehead to mine.

"It is enough," he says softly, and I know we're no longer talking about the hungry way he took my body beneath the light of the Liar's Moon. This is something else, a confession and a promise all at once. "For me, Amshira, you are so much more than enough. You're everything."

I close my eyes and roll my cheek into his hand, feeling the brush of the ceremonial scars braceleting his wrist against my soft skin. Brutal and beautiful, foreign and familiar all at once.

"I love you, Irei'kionaxi Nara," I breathe out, soft as a whisper.

"Say it again," he practically growls, the intensity of his voice at odds with the gentle way he holds my face. His free hand traces whorling patterns across the exposed skin of my neck and chest as I shiver beneath his caress.

"I want all of your gold and silver, my lord," I murmur silkily, "and all of your ships, too."

He grins down at me. "You drive a hard bargain."

"I think you mean that I drive you mad and make you hard, Ambassador." I touch the straining front of his breeches, raising my eyebrows.

He barks out a laugh as his eyes darken with a familiar hunger. Then all of the sudden, it's not so funny anymore. There's just he and I and the warm light of morning gilding his skin a rich gold. The bright tones of his laugh fading in my ears, replaced by the ringing of birdcalls and a heavy silence. A silence made of absence that demands to be filled.

I go up on my tiptoes and kiss him, throwing my arms around his shoulders and dragging him down onto the bed with me. His tongue surges against mine, pushed and pulled by the tide of lust saturating the room. We're drenched in it, the rich ambrosia overflowing from our lips like honeyed wine. And nothing has ever tasted so sweet. So right.

But it's not enough, I think as I wrap my legs around his waist, my heals pressing into his lower back and urging him forward. Faster. Closer. Harder.

It's not even close.

"Shards, Shira," he says a hairs breadth away from my lips, voice raw, hands raking across my skin like he breathes through it. Like stopping would be an act of suicide.

When Irei's name is spoken, though, it comes from the other side of the door instead of my parted lips. I groan, and not in desire, as a familiar voice shouts through the wood at full volume, his knocking fit to wake the dead.

"Irei'kionaxi Nara, you smug, lying bastard!" Esato Lyu calls. "Come out here so I can punch your sanctimonious face. Lecturing me about propositioning your pure little guest, then sneaking away to the penthouse yourself to-"

"If you keep beating against the door like that, Lyu," Irei calls back calmly, "you won't have enough energy left to jack off. And that would be a shame, seeing as it's the only action you're likely to get today."

I put my hand over my mouth, smothering my shocked laugh. First Irei yells at Yelem Chios and storms in here, practically yanking Meprizio off of me, and now the minister of finance is breaking down the door while he spouts obscenities Irei gleefully returns.

I frown, my heartrate picking up as I consider the gossip that will soon be spreading across the island like the venereal disease Esato undoubtedly carries. I remind myself that I'm not in Shikkah, where being caught in bed with another man would ruin my life and probably endanger my immortal soul. Such things happen in Kama all the time, and if what Irei said is anything to go by, the light of the Liar's Moon is its own justification.

"Go home, Esato. You're drunk," Irei commands imperiously, "and you're making a fool of the both of us."

"Yes, a fool!" he returns. "I am a shattered fool for believing your overprotectiveness stemmed from something as noble as honor or hospitality. Tell me, do you usually give your guests a seat at your table, or on your cock?"

"Why not both?" Irei banters, and this time I let myself laugh out loud. "What are you throwing a tantrum over, anyways, Lyu? As of last night, you're engaged to Tipari Kaldaxi."

"Exactly," a plaintive voice whines through the wood. "I am engaged to the most beautiful woman in Kama, and she has told me on no uncertain terms that the first time I leave her bed, she'll, what was it? Oh, yes," he continues, "geld me and then feed me my own balls. If you hadn't interfered, I might have had one last dalliance before she put a leash on my cock."

"Pity she didn't do the same to your tongue," Irei remarks dryly.

"The clock on my bachelor days was ticking down to zero, and you took an unfair advantage, beat me back with your talk of scruples before crawling into bed with him yourself!"
"We're not in bed, Esato," I reply smoothly, unable to resist having a little fun with the situation. "We're tangled together naked on the floor. You should see the way my skin shines with sweat in the afternoon light, it almost looks oiled..."

I expect him to reply, but there's just a stretch of silence, then a loud thump. It takes me a moment to realize that he's let his head fall forward against the door. I can't help but laugh into Irei's chest, which is already shaking with mirth. This should be mortifying, but here, there are no stakes. No reputation to protect, no royal expectations, no need to keep this love a secret. And I find I'm not half as embarrassed as I should be. A not inconsiderable part of me is thrilled that the island will soon know whose bed I share. He's claimed me, but goddess damn us both, I'm also claiming him.

After a long pause, Esato finally speaks. "You never had a chance, did you, you poor bastard? A wicked heart beating beneath a face artists would paint. What man is strong enough to resist that?"

"And he hasn't even heard you moan my name," Irei murmurs in my ear with a defiant smile. "Shards, the poor bastard has no idea. Such music..." he trails off, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. "He's right. I'm not responsible for my actions. Not when it comes to you. I lay all of my sins at your feet, an offering to some fae deity. Have mercy on me, Amshira."

"No mercy," I murmur against his lips, smiling devilishly. "But what you lay at my feet... what you offer... it is enough."

"Well thank the shattered god for that."

"Why thank the dead for what the living bestow?"

Irei smirks. "What? Should I worship you then?"

I smile back, eyes lingering on his lips. "Oh darling, I think you already do."

He laughs as his hands thread through my hair, pulling my face back to his. "Mouthy thing."

"So shut me up, Ambassador."

"Oh darling," he grins down at me. "I think I'd rather make you scream."

"I'm still here, you know," a voice on the other side of the door harumphs.

"Still pouting, yes," Irei throws back. "It's giving me time to consider what Tip will do to you when I tell her where you've been this morning. Whose skirts you've been chasing."

"Shards, is he really in skirts?"

"Lyu. Go. Now."

A somber sigh. "Fine. But if you tell Tipari, I'm going to tell Shira about-"

"Out!"

"Tell Shira what?" I ask, curiosity piqued, as Esato's trudging footsteps leave the hallway.

Irei rolls his eyes. "That we were lovers once, I'm guessing."

I shake my head, laughing. "He doesn't know that you already told me."

"Lyu doesn't know a lot of things, Amshira. Honestly, some days, I'm surprised he remembers how to wipe his own ass."

"I'm surprised you're talking about his ass when I'm naked in your bed, Irei'kionaxi," I tell him, widening my eyes and biting my lip. "Should I be jealous?"

"You should be quiet, h'yonmi," he whispers in my ear, letting more of his body weight fall on me, pressing me deeper into the mattress. My body is already sore from his attentions, but I press myself back against him without a second thought. Or maybe even a first.

When we leave the hotel hours later, we find the room already paid for, courtesy of the Minister of Finance.

Irei Nara moves like a shadow through the bustling streets of the market district, slipping between stalls and down back alleys, forcing his way through busy intersections so gracefully that only a few people notice and throw curses our way for displacing them. He dodges rickety carts laden with food and pits of open flame where all manner of delicious morsels are being cooked.

I trip after him, trying to keep up, accidently knocking a steaming plate of freshly baked flatbreads to the ground in the process. The vendor gives me a death glare until Irei drops a few talazuri into his hand. Then he's smiling, holding out all manner of dainties, trying to catch our interest and tempt even more coin from the Ambassador's hand.

When we walk away, our hands are filled with zalxa. Little balls of fried bread rolled in jesat seeds and dusted in powdered sugar that melt on my tongue, warm and nutty and delicious.

Irei stops by several stalls, haggling with the vendors before exchanging a few coins for a mouthful of different treats. He's part of the upper echelon of Kamai society, an ambassador with old money at his back and a dagger-sharp tongue by his side, but he moves through the market district like he's at home here. He's as comfortable haggling over pastries and smoked meats and chatting with vendors as he is working with the grand council, and something about that is intensely attractive.

I'm used to wealth and status meaning removal, calm words and cold eyes, holding yourself apart from others lest they sully your holy presence, but that's not how it is in Kama. Here, the people are carved from the same dark rock making up the island's craggy shoreline, unadorned but unbreakable. Honest in a way Shikkah never was.

We walk lazily through the bustling city, enjoying the afternoon sunlight and the salt air wafting in from the eastern harbor. As we walk, we talk, but every so often Irei dips away before returning triumphantly with some mouthwatering morsel clutched in his dark hands. He presents each to me like it's a gift, placing small pieces in my palm and watching my face as I taste them. When I like them, he winks. When I don't, he just smirks. When I spit one particularly nasty bite out, wiping my tongue on my sleeve, he laughs out loud.

"You're acting like I've poisoned you, Shira. It's just a meat cake."

"Whatever it is, it's foul."

"Certainly not fit for a prince," he says, eyes sparkling. I open my mouth to reprimand him, to urge caution, even if that's usually his role. But who will hear? Everyone is caught up in their own current, busy with their own tasks and lives, thinking their own thoughts. Anyone who does will think it a term of endearment, or a joke among friends. So, just this once, I let myself believe that there isn't a sword hanging above my head, ready to fall at any moment. As I look in Irei's dark, laughing eyes, the taste of sugared fruit bright on my tongue, I dare to believe that I might have a future that isn't dictated by my past.

I look up at him as he recounts a slew of diplomatic hijinks. A trip to Kostayssau when he was honored by being given access to the royal harem. Being expected to participate in ceremonial fire dance in Tal-Yb and setting his robes alight, burning straight through to his underclothes as the village elders watched and hid their laughter behind their hands. A slight mispronunciation that changed the meaning of a Mirrenovese greeting from "may the rising sun grace you with its light" to "may the rising sun grace your lover's wife." Having to talk his way out of a Bremeji orgy held in his honor, and Esato Lyu's reaction when he realized what he'd missed by electing to stay in Kama.

I laugh at each story, but I'm only half listening. He's so animated as he talks, his voice full of feeling, his hands gesturing wildly, almost dancing through the salty air. My face heats when I remember those same hands tracing whorling patterns across my skin. Pulling off my clothes and running down my body while I moaned his name into the pillows until he threw them on the floor and demanded I let him hear me. That mouth kissing a trail down my stomach, quirking up at the corners as his head slipped lower, teasing me-

"What're you thinking about, Moonbeam?"

Your cock is probably not a socially acceptable answer, even if it is the truth. Neither is your mouth on me, tasting me like we're tasting these pastries.

"Things we can't do in public without being arrested," I inform him with a small smile, taking another bite of the flaky dough in my hand. His eyes are drawn to my mouth, lingering on my lips and throat as I chew and swallow. I see him swallow, too, a muscle in his neck twitching.

"I have diplomatic immunity, darling," he murmurs, hand tracing a lazy trail down my back. My spine straightens as I lean into the touch, into him.

"Doesn't that just apply when you're in other countries?"

"If we're arrested, I can call in a favor or three," he returns with a lascivious grin. "Shards, I know the deepest, darkest secrets of half the power players in Kama. A few thinly veiled threats and we'd be out."

"Secrets, hmm?" I ask, eyes sparkling.

Irei leans in conspiratorially. "I have... informants. Mirsi is just one of them. Anything a powerful client of hers lets slip in a weak moment, when he spills his secrets with his seed, comes back to me. Taís knows everything about the grand council, and Lyu has an eye for scandal, if you can believe it. Tyro is quiet, so people forget he's there, then they talk. He whispers their words into my waiting ear. Even sweet, blooming Avamir passes messages between Mika and I."

"Tell me what they tell you," I murmur softly. "Tell me their secrets."

He cocks his head to the side and grins back at me. "Alright. But only if you'll tell me one of your own. One of my choosing."

I narrow my eyes at him, but I'm feeling brave. Reckless, even. I'm not scared of him knowing me, seeing the parts of myself I don't share with anyone else. I fear his indifference. I fear the day his eyes look at me without that hungry glint. And I'll do everything in my power to make sure that day never comes. To make sure he's mine to his marrow, because damn it, I'm his.

"The most conservative Grand Councilor pays whores to let him lick their feet while they degrade him. Another is having a long-term affair with the husband of a prominent businesswoman. That same woman props her legitimate businesses up with drug money, and she's been embezzling for years. A prominent city official pays monthly stipends to support a child he created when he was just a child himself. The junior minister of finance lives with three men, all of them lovers. The mayor has a Lirium habit. Oh, and his wife probably murdered her sister."

"Oh, is that all?" I joke as the secrets spill from his lips like water from a tap.

"I've also heard the Kamai ambassador is fucking Shikkah's lost prince," he whispers, brushing his lips along my ear in a way that makes a shiver race through my body despite the day's heat. "But now, I'm sure that's just a rumor, hmm?"

"Maybe, maybe not," I murmur, biting my lip and looking up into his eyes. "Because I heard that Kamai ambassador fell in love so hard it bruised him. Not with the Shikkan prince, but with the man underneath the title."

"The ambassador wasn't the one who was bruised," Irei says huskily. "He left handprints and bite marks all over that prince's perfect white skin. And when they began to fade over time, he darkened them all over again."

This morning, I stood in front of Etaín Kaldanza's gilded mirror bordered by snarling lions and saw those marks painted across my skin, at once harsh and perfect, macabre and tender. Because he wasn't gentle, but then again, I didn't want him to be. For once in my life, I didn't want to be treated like something breakable. Didn't want to have to pretend to be stoic and strong while they whispered behind my back that I wasn't what I should be. Irei only whispered in my ear, his words full of love and lightning. His hips slammed into me with all the force of rolling thunder, his desire a deluge I could drown in after a lifetime of living a lie in the parched desert.

I meet his eyes and pull a thin strip of leather from my pocket, lifting my hands to my hair and gathering it back before tying it loosely at the nape of my neck. I can't say why I do it. Maybe I'm pushing him, trying to transform the banked fire in his eyes back into an inferno. Maybe I'm pushing myself to be unashamed and unapologetic about my feelings and the beautiful damage they've wrought.

Maybe I'm just crazy.

Either way, I don't care. I just care that he's looking at me like I'm something to eat, completely ignoring the last bites of the crusty bread in his palm. I lean forward and bite into it, eating out of his hand while he stands there stunned, my mouth slipping over his fingers as my tongue licks away the crumbs.

"Fuck, that's delicious," I say, watching his eyes. His pupils are blown wide with desire that has nothing to do with street food and everything to do with my lips still wrapped lewdly around his thick fingers.

What's gotten into me? I smirk. I guess he has.

It happens so fast. His fingers slip free with an audible pop. Before I have a chance to regret their absence, though, his tongue slams down my throat. I'm pressed against the rough-hewn wall of a building, the cool stone biting into my lower back as he leans into me, using my low ponytail to hold my head in place while he tastes me. His body is hot against mine, and I should be embarrassed because we're in public, but I'm burning up for an entirely different reason.

"You Kamai have such strange customs," I murmur into his open mouth, laughing breathlessly. "I won't question them, though. I'm the foreigner, after all."

"You are not foreign," he returns with a smirk that makes my knees weak. "You might have a Shikkan face, but those dark eyes are pure Kamai. If you were still who you were when you first arrived on this island, you'd have pushed me away by now, mortified at the thought of others seeing us together. Instead you put your hair up so they would notice the marks on your neck."

"My hair was in my eyes, Irei," I lie smoothly, leaning in and kissing the hollow of his throat, unable to help myself. "I was just tying it back."

"You're a miserable liar, Shira."

"I'm not miserable, Ambassador. Not in the least. I don't think I've ever been so happy."

Something in his face hardens, a decision being made. He grabs my hand and pulls me after him, moving with singular intent through the throngs of people before turning left down a narrow alley between the buildings. We weave through the side streets of Kama like we're fleeing from someone, then we're standing in front of a dark wooden door and he's knocking. Hard.