Page 123 of Sunder

Orma grew very still.

“I keep telling myself it should not matter. I am grateful for their welcome, but I... wonder.”

He leaned down and placed a kiss to the top of her head. “I am sorry.”

Orma swallowed, her throat tight. “For what? It is a fair question. Only... it is one that I am loath to answer.”

Athan sighed, nodding into the dark. “I supposed as much.”

She hated how he simply accepted it. He’d convinced himself even before he knew her, before he thought anything of old families and high towers. A healer was well respected, valued, but not for one’s daughter. All those people, the time shared...

But that wasn’t why. And she didn’t want to explain it. The thought of it dried her mouth and made her angry for the old lessons that had been drilled into her before she’d even grown her flight feathers.

It was all right to play with the help’s children, but only because the rest of the family was so much older. Orma mustn’t grow too attached. They were not her friends, not of her circle. Those would come later. Didn’t she want to please her parents and find someone of appropriate blood? Have him work in the Hall as was proper? Where he could devote the proper time and attention to her and their children, not like the ones that had to scramble for coins in the market.

Orma had nodded because it was expected of her. Had never questioned if perhaps there was somethingniceabout working there. Of knowing people. Of being known.

She did not fit with those of her circle. They’d been cordial to her, and even now when her presence was required and she could not even feign a fever to get out of it again, she would go and they would press a cool cheek against hers in greeting before wandering off into their respective corners. Ignoring her.

“Do you know why this city was built?”

Athan did not take long to consider his answer. “Why is any city built? For shelter. For its citizens to prosper.”

Orma hummed. Made a little pattern with her finger against his chest. “Not this one. According to the oldest history books, at least. It was an experiment. For rehabilitation of convicted criminals.”

She couldn’t see his frown, but she could feel it. “I’ve heard nothing like that.”

Orma’s wings rose and fell before she purposefully tucked them back in closer to her back. “Well, that’s not a very nice story, is it? That my family, the ones in the towers. The keepers of the Hall and their offspring. They... weren’t. Prisoners, that is. They were to keep order, and take notes on the successes of the city, and keep it all running smoothly. Which they did. Until they didn’t.” She didn’t want to go into the messiness of it. All the children born to the towers had to learn the histories, and they were bloody and involved a revolt, and much negotiation, in order to keep hold of what power they could.

“That is...” Athan began, voice as stilted as his fingers through her hair. “Absurd.”

Orma tilted her head, trying to catch some hint of his expression. “Which part?”

He blew out a breath, shaking his head. “When was this?”

Orma laughed, although it truly wasn’t funny. “Don’t ask me for dates, please. I never could remember them.” She rolled so she could drape herself across him. Because they would not quarrel about this. They would not let old troubles influence them now. She reached up and found one of the ties of his nightshirt and tugged it open. Burrowed in and found warm skin and kissed him there. “A long, long time ago,” Orma offered, because that’s all she could. There’d been talk of moons and cycles and how years were separated into lifetimes of the judicators, but he’d need a book for all that. It meant nothing to her. Hadn’t then, and certainly didn’t now.

“Well then, how can it possibly matter?” Athan asked, his hand coming to cup the back of her head while she nuzzled about what bits of skin she could find.

“It doesn’t,” she agreed. “Or at least, it shouldn’t. And obviously,” she continued, finding another tie and tugging itfree. “The Maker agrees with me, because my mate wasn’t in one of those towers, was he? He was a healer. Born of two perfectly ordinary people that I am so very sorry I was not privileged enough to meet.”

Athan swallowed, and she kept going. Another tie, this one closer to his throat as she kept making her way up his body. It wasn’t even a hunger for pleasure that kept her moving. Kept her kissing. It was for connection, for him to know they were all right. To soothe and be soothed, because she couldn’t bear any upset between them.

She could tell him about the garlands hung across the ancient arches at the solstice. Could tell him how they’d once been the supports for the great cage that went across the top of the city, torn down during the revolt.

But she wanted to see the city through his eyes. Experience their first festival with moonstones glittering in heavy boughs all across the city sky. Enjoy the beauty of it, not have her joy polluted with talk of lesser men and their attempts to bring false meaning to what had been.

So she didn’t.

Pulled free the last of his knots and kissed at his throat, feeling his thoughts whirl and tug and try to decide if he should pry further or give in her attempts at seduction. They needn’t do it again. They’d already indulged earlier. And then they’d have to wash—again—and she really should sleep if she didn’t want her day to be ruined come morning, but it was so very tempting to do this instead.

“Do you have any more questions?” Orma asked, knowing she could say the rest of it. That no, her siblings would not sit at a table with the two of them if there was the chance of children. That they were hard-hearted, that they cared too much for power and station, with little room for even the Maker’s will if it interfered with tradition.

She could tell him she was sorry. That she would change it all if she could. That he deserved to be loved by her family for the whole of him. Because of who he was in all his parts, not despite perceived failings of birth.

There was much she could say, and perhaps she would, eventually. Because some things needed to be spoken aloud.

But there was time for that yet. And for now, she needed to kiss him. “Well?” she prompted, because she wouldn’t have him lying there in the dark, needing more answers. She would pry into the recesses of her memory if it would help him.

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