Hearts in Zenith (Four Husbands and a Lover)

11. Our Salty Moon

Let the poets say that the moon is cold. I welcomed its pale light on my body, and the frigid water from the fountain—even more so. I dipped the jug again and again, then let the thick ribbons wound between my breast, down my belly and legs till the water ran clean to the narrow drain. Its cool flow carried away the itchy salve. My skin sprung back once the dry cake was washed off.

What I said to rebuke Anastasia was coming true. I emerged as a newborn snake, smooth and glossy in my freshened skin, not a hair left to soften its appearance. Underneath the skin, flesh still burned after the shedding, so I poured more and more water over myself.

The goosebumps rose on my skin, but the heat didn't dissipate. It was coming from deeper inside me. The lust Parneres woke, wouldn't go back to sleep with a handful of cold water! It found an object of desire to toy with, like a toddler who turns to what's within reach. I was right to ask Kozima to climb on the roof and join me. I needed a man more than water.

It was fair to him as well. The man must have invested oodles of time into bringing blankets and cushions to the roof, then returning them to wherever they rightfully belonged. Why would I deprive him from his cozy nest?

After my nights in Palmyr, the red tiles strewn with a quilted blanket made me kneel and draw my hand over the silk. Kozima, you little fox! Where did he even get something so rich? The orphans and acolytes didn't sleep on silken featherbeds!

There was also a round cushion, three square ones and a long, narrow head-roll. Their gold-threaded patterns glittered dully in the moonlight. Nothing matched. The corners of the pillows weren't crisp, the way they taught us to make our beds. But in exchange, a myriad of Yansara's stars dotted the domed ceiling of Kozima's improvised bedchamber.

I was still sitting in the middle of the Knowable World with my knees tucked under my chin, watching the slowly circling sky, when Kozima's curls crested the roof's edge. Then his brows. Then his eyes.

Then his ascent stopped.

"Come here," I called him.

Voices carry in the night, so I made the command as soft as possible. But even then, hesitation shadowed his every movement. But nothing could shadow the glimmer in his eyes, not even his thick lashes.

I got a hold of his hand and made him sit next to me, then reached out to cup his cheek.

He drew his face away from my touch. "Ismar, don't tease me."

My fingers found his jaw and followed it to the nape of his neck, under the warm curtain of his hair. "Teasing you?"

When is a kiss—a kiss?

Our breath touched, our lips brushed with every word. After all the stinking salves plastered over me, my nostrils rejoiced at the faint herbal scent he picked up in the medical store room. His chest shivered from a shaky laugh.

"The Temple took me in when I was nine and my mother died," he said. "My aunt took in my sister, but not me. I came here, with the Divines looking down from the walls, acolytes chanting and everything everywhere—so large, so grandiose."

I didn't understand how this was relevant to kissing. I rolled a strand of his hair round my fingers, let it unroll, then slip away. I liked it, so I did it again. Patience was the mother of strategy, said one book I had dug up in the library. I could be patient, even though the nights were short in Palmyr.

His breath caught, our foreheads touching. I discovered that I wasn't the only one feverish from inner heat. He was burning too.

"Just when I wanted to curl into a ball, intimidated, I heard you laugh," Kozima continued. "Among the bronze, stone and incense, you laughed at ease, as if it were your home. And you made me feel that it could be mine home too."