Duty-Bound [ Lore of Penrua: Book II ]

51

Unaware of the quarrel between the sovereigns elsewhere in the palace, Kaori stood at the window of his bedchamber that night, reflecting. Months had passed since the coronation, and he still struggled to understand his place in the palace. Occasionally, he attended the Integrated Council, but now that the greatest conflicts had passed and Matei and Mhera had taken most matters in hand, he seldom lent his voice to the proceedings. The former High Council—those members of the Starborn nobility who had served Emperor Korvan in his time—still bickered freely with their Arcborn peers, but the emperor and the empress had developed a knack for diffusing the worst of the arguments.

The city was rebuilding. The world was turning. The new age had dawned, and Kaori could not see quite where he fit in.

"Kaori?"

The sound of Aun's voice brought peace to Kaori's mind. One thing he was certain of was his feelings toward her; she had stayed in the Holy City, trading the time she'd spent as his nurse for more ambitious projects, such as the building of a hospital in the Arcborn Quarter, and he admired her more with every passing day. He had never met a woman like her, and he knew he never would again.

He closed his eyes as Aun's gentle hands came to rest on his shoulder blades and then slid down to the small of his back and around his waist. As she clasped her fingers at his navel, he lowered his hand to rest on her wrist, looking down at their three hands together. "I had wondered where you were," he said.

"Working." She lay her cheek against his back and gave a soft sigh of contentment. "We've chosen the place for the hospital, and building will begin in earnest soon."

"That will keep you busy."

"And what have you done to keep yourself busy today, my prince?"

She had taken to teasing him with this nickname, and he couldn't hold back a smile as he turned in her embrace, lifting his arm to settle it around her shoulders. Under the subtle glow of the spirit globe standing by the window, Aun's features were bathed in lavender light. He said, "Precious little. What can be done with a prince made redundant, I wonder?"

"Hmm. You could become Eovin's official shelf-duster," Aun said, adopting a thoughtful expression. "Or perhaps you could supervise the scrubbing of vegetables in the kitchens. I heard that woman Gella making a fuss about improperly-washed carrots yesterday. I'm sure she'd be glad of the help."

Kaori laughed. "Is that so?"

"It is indeed. There's time yet for you to learn a useful occupation. If the vegetables prove to be beyond you, what about Royal Pigeon-Chaser?"

"The pigeons answer to no man under Zanara's heaven," Kaori said.

"They've answered to no man until now. I'll bet there's never been a Royal Pigeon-Chaser before. The battlements will never have been so tidy."

Kaori could not help himself. He leaned down to kiss Aun's forehead. Her irreverent humor had lifted his mood, and he pushed aside his gloomy musings to be considered another day. When he aimed a second kiss for Aun's cheek, she turned her head, intercepting his lips with hers.

Aun's kiss never failed to bring heat to Kaori's cheeks. He was amazed by the infinite variety of her kisses and by how he could interpret her thoughts and her desires from them as easily as if she had spoken aloud. Some of her kisses were sweet and brief, and they said, Good morning, dear heart. Others were smiling kisses, punctuated with giggles, and they said, You're a fool, but you are my fool. And other kisses were deep and urgent, and those kisses said, I need you. Such was the kiss Aun gave him that night.

Aun was not Kaori's first lover, but he had never had a love like he shared with her. She was the first woman with whom he could see a future; he could envision her before him in the great Imperial Temple, a crowd of witnesses standing by as they traded their vows, her marke dark against the pale, freckled skin of her face. He could see her standing at his window of a morning as he lay in bed, talking of simple things, and when she turned toward him, it was always to look over her left shoulder, the dots of her marke visible even in the shadow as she was silhouetted by the dawn light. He could see her, laughing with delight, as she sat on the floor, her arms outstretched toward a child taking his very first steps, and when she swept the babe into her arms, he laid his tiny hand, a plump little star, over the tattoo on her face.