The Cursewright's Vow

Chapter 23: The Cursewright's Confession, Part 7

 Ammas cast her a sidelong glance. Somehow she had moved much closer to him on this uncomfortable wooden pew than he had realized. Shaking his head he rose to his feet, indicating she should follow him, drawing the airy spirit high in the air. 

"You're kinder than I ever expected you to be, Carala. And in the end maybe this will all be for nothing. If you are right about how many wolves are in this city, then our ritual wolf is almost certainly here. And once we've done what is necessary you will be back safely in the Chalcedony Palace, and there will be no need for you to come to Munazyr."

"Perhaps," she said, half to herself. Privately she was not sure how she could bear to be in that palace ever again, or sit at high table with the man who had ordered Ammas's mother torn to pieces by hungry dogs. "There might be more pleasant reasons to visit."

"There might," he agreed. As he set the caged spirit on one of the empty torch brackets, Ammas's hands shook again, a coiled tension he had only barely been aware of slowly draining from him. Though there had been no opportunity to speak to Carala alone during their trip from Vilais, he thought it likely he would have avoided this conversation as long as possible even if they'd had no companions at all. That she had been so understanding seemed miraculous. He wondered what her relationship with the Emperor was like; if perhaps some part of her not only understood why someone in his position might desire to strike at Somilius Deyn in such a fashion but approved of it.

The cells were choked with dust and cobwebs, and they had a considerable job cleaning one of them to make it suitable for Carala's imminent metamorphosis. There were no cleaning supplies to be found in the house, but there was running water, and Ammas had enough rags to give the place a decent scrubbing. She kept stealing looks at him as they washed and rinsed, wondering if she ought to bring up the kiss, or if he had dismissed it as part of Othma's scheme to bond her to him. It would be some time before she really knew how to feel about that, she supposed, but for now it mostly struck her as more Othma's idea than Ammas's, and one he had soundly rejected. Certainly she did not feel as if the cursewright had addled her mind in any way. If he really had done such a thing, though, she guessed she would never know it. 

So preoccupied was she with the run of her thoughts that she barely listened as Ammas described to her how these cells were largely designed for noble prisoners, and thus were far larger than the ones in the Grand Curia or in Stonebrow Prison out in the harbor. "They were furnished when I lived here, if you can believe that," he had said, panting a little as he scrubbed away the cobwebs. "Better furniture than in most of the house, really. I think my father wanted them to look as little like a dungeon as possible."

She smiled a little, thinking not for the first time how much she would have liked to have met Senrich Mourthia.

The cleaning raised a powerful hunger in them, and they set to lunch around one o'clock, having brought a number of pasties, fruit, and bottles of wine from the Steadfast Shield, the inn where their companions would remain until the next morning. Vos hadn't liked the idea of them splitting up, but Ammas pointed out reasonably they had already done so when he and Casimir had ventured into the Foreign Quarter to purchase the herbs and other ingredients necessary for the curative potion, which he hoped he would be brewing very soon. That Carala had sensed no wolfish presence in his old home buoyed Ammas considerably. He was pondering the wisdom of moving all of their companions here if an extended stay in Gallowsport became necessary when Carala cleared her throat.

She was perched on the edge of the wooden bench built onto the far wall; Ammas was seated on the floor with his back against the adjoining wall, his legs stretched out before him. Beside him was a thick bedroll. He intended to spend the night in the cell with Carala in her wolfish shape, both in case his ministrations were needed and, hopefully, to appeal to the human side of her as much as possible. Being caged together should remind the wolf that her imprisonment was not punitive in nature. That was the theory, anyway. Certainly she had seemed fond of him in the Heptarch's forest. How she would respond to the bars of a jail cell, however commodious, remained to be seen. 

Ammas offered a thin smile, frankly still a little anxious over what she might have to say about the matter of the bond between them. "Is there something you wanted? More wine?"

"I have had enough, I think," she replied softly. "Ammas, I think we should talk about -- when I changed back that morning, and -- "

Ammas shook his head, turning his attention back to the bunch of grapes he had been picking at. A blush reddened his cheeks and neck. "There is no need. The wolf was still heavy on you. I took it as no more than that."

"The wolf was not heavy on me."

Ammas looked up, almost wary.

Carala slid down off the bench, kneeling at his side. "Ammas, you do not know what it is like to be the wolf. When I told you I remembered everything that happened that night, I meant exactly that."

Ammas swallowed hard, knowing full well -- if what she said was true -- that both of them were remembering how she had lounged atop him, one paw caressing his hair; or the way she had lapped at his scarred hand. "And?" he said, a little hoarsely.

Carala lowered her eyes, summoning up her courage before looking directly into his. There was not so much as a trace of amber in them. "And I know what I felt as a wolf, and what I felt in the morning, and what I feel now. And I know how much danger we are in -- more than you, even. You cannot smell them, Ammas. They are not just everywhere. They are watching. Maybe not here, I think they fear this place for some reason -- your father's magic, maybe -- "

Ammas shook his head. That had not been the nature of the seer-magistrates' gifts, and in any event he could not detect so much as a whiff of enchantment in the old house. But more importantly, he was under no illusions concerning their peril. "I know better than you think, Carala. The things they have done . . . whatever Swiftfoot is, they are surely as large as any of the old cults or tribes."

Carala nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, I think they are. And I know none of us may survive this. And even if we do, you may not be able to cure me, and -- and what I will do after that I do not know." 

She reached out one hand, kneading her fingers slowly through his curls, tracing behind his ear. A soft sigh trembled through his lips, but he did not stop her. "And if I do go to my end, if you go to yours, I want us to go hand-in-hand. You swore to die for me, if you needed to." She leaned in close, that woodland scent nearly as strong as it had been when she had become the wolf. "I want you to understand what that means to me."

Ammas, who -- not for the first time in Carala's presence -- was feeling a stirring in his body he had not felt in twenty years, was not quite as dumbstruck as he had been when Lena had cornered him in the temple garden, but his voice quavered almost with terror. "You don't owe me that. I -- I wouldn't presume to think -- "

Before he could say anymore her lips had touched his, and Ammas had once again surrendered to her kiss, his hands rising up and caressing her shoulders, her midnight hair, lightly throwing back her cloak and cupping her breasts through her cotton blouse, kneading with a hunger he had not known in years. And she did not shy away from his touch, instead moaning against his lips and arching closer, breaking the kiss to whisper fiercely against his mouth.

"You do not owe me anything, no. And I would be taking as much as giving."

"What do you mean?"

She drew back, just far enough so she could look into his eyes, her own flashing amber for the briefest of moments. "If I am to die, or to remain with the wolf's blood for the rest of my days, I do not want my only lover to have been the monster who did this to me." 

Again she kissed him, more forcefully this time, her tongue lashing into his mouth briefly before she broke the kiss, breathing shallowly, her forehead pressed to his.

A thousand different arguments against doing this roiled through Ammas's brain. She was his client, she was the Emperor's daughter and he was considered a traitor, she would become the wolf soon and so he could not be sure this was something she truly wanted, she was far too young for him, she was still promised to Denisius. None of those things seemed to matter in the amber-hazel gleam of her eyes, or in the sweetness of her breath on his mouth, or in the woodland aroma that clung to her. 

So many demurrals flailing on his tongue, his hands going out in protest -- and finding her cheeks, cupping them, plunging his fingers into her midnight hair and pressing his mouth to hers, hungrily, eagerly, and she meeting him with equal fervor, her hands tugging at his mendicant's robes, undoing the rope belt at his waist, pushing them off his shoulders and gliding her hands under his thin shirt to caress the bare skin of his back and shoulders.