Page 69 of A Sky of Emerald Stars

Soon, we wouldn’t have to play this game anymore. Soon, we’d both be free. Maybe we could live in the Olmderian capital, or travel in the wagon, or just findsome wayto be together. Even if it didn’t make any sense to either of us, maybe we could figure it out. I didn’t know how but felt determined to try. Navin with his songs, me with my general propensity for debauchery—maybe we could carve out a place in the world that finally felt right.

Navin pulled on the horse’s reins, slowing the mare to a stop. He pulled the keys from his saddlebag and unlocked my cuffs. I groaned as I pulled my hands in front of me and stretched my arms out. I rubbed my red, raw wrists.

“You could shift here,” Navin offered. “Heal those bruises. No one will see.”

“Except for your horse,” I replied, patting the mare on her neck. “Who will definitely bolt off into the desert if she sees me.” Sweat beaded on my brow and I blotted it with my scarf. “The Wolves’ horses are trainedextensivelyin Damrienn to not spook when they see one of us. I’m guessing the Songkeepers didn’t prepare their horses for an enemy that looks like me.” Navin sucked on his teeth at the word “enemy,” and I’ll admit to some frustration at that. Clearly, he wanted to forget all that it meant for him to be a human and me a Wolf. “Besides,” I added, “the bruisesand shackle marks will make our act more compelling. It worked on Rasil, after all.”

Navin let out an unimpressed grunt and tightened one arm around me as he dropped the metal cuffs into his saddlebag. “I hate that I put them there.”

“You put them there because I asked you to—and because Ilet you.And that’s only after I screamed in your face and demanded that you do so,” I chided. “Honestly, seeing me for five minutes in the sparring rings of Highwick would absolve you of your guilt. I don’t mind a few hard-won bruises. Thank you for sparing me from having to smash my face into the wall or something.”

“Even for a Wolf,” he said with admiration, “you’re the toughest person I know, recklessly so sometimes.” Bysometimes, we both knew he meantmostof the time. “If we pass anyone on the road to Sankai-ed, just put your hands behind your back. If Galen den’ Mora is still there, we won’t need these.” He tapped the saddlebag and it rattled. “But if we can’t locate it straightaway, we’ll find an inn and I’ll put the cuffs back on until we get to our room.”

Our room.I liked the sound of that. But instead, I nodded and said, “I hope Maez is still there.”

“I hope she wasn’t foolish enough to head to Rikesh without us.”

“Have you met her?” I let out a derisive snort. “Without her mate around to temper her, our only hope is that she is still mourning us at the bottom of a wine barrel.”

Navin’s hand splayed across my belly, rising until his thumb skimmed the underside of my breast. A cough of surprise hacked out of my throat.

“Navin,” I warned as his hand tugged up my grimy shirt and dipped under the fabric to slide up the same trail along my bare skin. “If you keep doing what you’re doing, we’re going to die of sun sickness fucking on the burning sand.”

His laughter was a hot tickle in my ear. “That would certainlybe a way to go.” His hand rose higher to skim over my breast, my nipple hardening to his touch before he let out a frustrated grumble and pulled his hand away, taking the reins again. “Why must you be right this time?”

“I’m rightallthe time.”

He chuckled, even as I felt him hard against my backside, and wondered if my hands were still bound what mischief they’d be making right now. Instead, I rubbed my hands down my sore thighs, knowing if I touched him now we’d both be doomed by our lust.

We rose up to the top of the next sand dune and finally spotted where the road to Sankai-ed joined the land. The onyx stones of the mountain glinted in the sunlight, casting rainbow spectrums onto the sand below. A donkey and cart ambled halfway up the road to the island, moving slowly up the rickety rope bridge.

Our horse kept her slow, steady pace as the sun lifted higher in the sky and the heat became scorching. I fanned out the sweaty shirt I wore, every point where Navin and I pressed together now slick with sweat. The constant wet rubbing chapped my skin and I found myself leaning forward, practically draping myself down the mare’s neck to avoid the friction.

The heat baked us as the mare clip-clopped the first steps up the rope bridge into the cloudless sky. I yearned to whip the sweaty shirt off and just ride naked, but I knew the blistering sun would flay my skin off before we got to the tented shelters of Sankai-ed.

A sudden breeze picked up and I straightened, fear gripping me as I remembered plummeting from this road only a few days ago.

Navin’s hand dropped to my hip and squeezed. “After the rains of Rahm, there will be no sandstorms for many moons,” he assured me. “We are safe. Well...” He amended, “Safe as we can be on a mission like this.”

“A mission I still think makes no sense. We will be losing the Onyx Wolves as an ally if I pull out of this marriage,” I said, reveling in the breeze that tousled my hair. Each step higherinto the air, the cooler we became, our sweaty clothes filling with wind like sails on a ship.

“I think you already lost them as an ally when King Nero offered you to Luo as a trade,” Navin said bitterly. “But you rebuffing Prince Tadei will reflect badly on the Silver Wolf pack, too. They promised they could control you, and you are showing the Onyx pack that you are not owned by anyone.”

I scowled. “And I’m not showing that by having you, a human, deliver me to them in chains?”

“It is a helpful deception. They will underestimate you at their own peril,” he replied. “And make it all the easier for us to escape.”

My shoulders tensed, my fingers curling in the breeze. “And what happens if we can’t escape?”

Navin’s arms tightened around me. “I will get you out,” he said. “I promise I won’t leave you there. I won’t leave you,” he murmured.

“You left me once,” I whispered.

“And I regretted every day after the battle of Olmdere that I didn’t turn back and make things right with you. I thought you’d never hear me out, and yet I should’ve stayed anyway, should’ve fought. I won’t make that mistake again, love. Not now that I know what we mean to each other.” One of Navin’s hands dropped to my thigh, reminding me of the way he grabbed me the night before.

Desire bloomed in my core at the memory, but I pushed it aside once more, focusing on the ever-dwindling horizon below us. “You and I always felt impossible, nonsensical even, and yet somehow inescapable, too.”

“Exactly.” Navin dropped a kiss to the nape of my neck. “I knew somewhere deep in my soul that I loved you from the very first moment our eyes met in Nesra’s Pass.” His voice flushed with mirth as he added, “When you helped me bury those bodies.”

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