Page 222 of The Bone Season

I had been sure his skin would feel ethereally cold. Instead, it was a silken warmth I wanted against mine. I smoothed my hands under the doublet and shirt, reaching over his broad shoulders. I slowed when I felt the scars under my fingers.

Not just the scars of a traitor, but scars left by a poltergeist. They held the same chill as the ones on my palm.

Our gazes met. I touched his face with my left hand, tracing around his cheekbone.

‘I won’t betray you,’ I murmured against his lips. ‘I’m not him.’

Warden nodded, resting his forehead on mine. I spread my hands on the tops of his scars.

The Novembertide rebellion was history, and it would not repeat itself.

Two hundred years was more than enough.

Warden suddenly tensed. He strengthened his embrace around me, drawing me straight to his chest. That was when I noticed the æther beyond him, and followed his line of sight.

Nashira Sargas was silhouetted against the dim candlelight from above, her eyes gold and ablaze. All I could do was stare back, my blood freezing.

The Suzerain took in the scene. The red drapes. The crate. My dress, its sleeves off my shoulders, the skirt gathered around my hips. Her consort, his doublet and shirt unfastened, my fingers still trespassing on his skin.

‘So the two of you have been hiding in here,’ she said. ‘I expected a number of things when I noticed your absence … but not this degree of depravity.’

Warden lifted me straight down and swung me just behind him. ‘I forced it on her,’ he said, his voice thick and rough. ‘She refused me.’

‘I must say,’ Nashira replied, ‘that she did not look as if she was being forced.’

My cheeks burned with anger and mortification, knowing she had been watching us, and I had failed to sense it. I tasted fear, sour and metallic, as the terrible danger sank in. I had risked the rebellion for a kiss.

I might have just destroyed everything.

Somewhere in my panic-stricken haze, I found a grain of calm. Nashira still had no idea we were plotting anything. She was picturing a secret liaison. If she thought that was all there was to this, I could still protect everyone.

‘Tell me,’ Nashira said, ‘when did you first touch the blood-consort, 40?’

‘After the assignment to London,’ I said quickly. ‘He saved my life. He looked after me.’

‘Paige,’ Warden rasped.

I gave the golden cord a forceful pull, trying to shut him up. He had to let me bear the blame. Nashira was taking me to my death either way.

She also seemed to be listening. I stepped forward, in front of Warden.

‘He refused my advances, but I kept pushing. I told him I wouldn’t train if he didn’t—’ I was saying anything I could, laying my neck on the block of my acting, hoping she would stay her sword. ‘He knew you wanted me to hone my gift, so he did it. Forgive me, Suzerain.’

‘You are forgiven.’

That surprised me.

‘You are human, 40. Of course your base needs overwhelmed you, living alongside my consort for so long,’ she continued. ‘He is, after all, the most … striking of us. Many have agreed as much.’ She reached over me to take him by the chin, too hard. ‘But if your story is true, he allowed a mortal to manipulate him. He had the option of coming to me. Such poor judgement, such weakness, is inexcusable.’

I had given it my best shot. Warden cupped my elbow, as if to console me.

‘I divest you of your position as blood-consort, and the mantle of the Warden of the Mesarthim,’ Nashira said. ‘I have done all I can to bring you into the fold, to no avail. When you are sequestered, I may hang your sarx from the walls of this city, to serve as an eternal warning.’

‘So be it. Others will still rise,’ Warden said quietly. ‘I am not alone.’

‘Neither were you alone last time. You never knew when to let go of a cause.’

Thuban and Situla strode in. Situla shoved me aside, and the two of them laid into Warden, using their fists and the hilts of their blades. At once, I lashed out at them with my spirit, but Nashira was clearly at her limit. She struck me with her open hand, right across the head.

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