Page 74 of The Dryad Storm

She gives him a slow nod, a momentous tension burgeoning in the air between them.

Mavrik gives her a deeply searching look. “Gwynn, if we’re wrong and we... consummate this fasting—” He shakes his head, glancing down at his fastlines before bringing his gaze back to hers, his expression fraught with concern. “Your hands and wrists could be painfully scarred.For life.”

“And I’m safe now?” she challenges, defiance flaring. “Are either of us ‘safe’ if Vogel takes hold of our Sealing? You know as well as I do that the Sealing spell is a stronger spell. It can overtake the fasting spell in aheartbeat.”

Mavrik tilts his head in grim acknowledgment, his gaze riveted to hers.

“We need to Seal this fasting,” she insists as her heart thuds and her emotions storm. “We need to Seal itnow, before Vogel draws up enough power to overtake us again.”

“Gwynn...” Mavrik starts, his tone troubled as his magic churns fitfully against hers.

She rises and draws off her cloak, fingers trembling, then hangs it over the cavern’s narrow, arcing entrance and raises her wand to affix it there with three small bolts of earth magery drawn from Mavrik’s lines. Then she lifts the edge of her tunic and marks a small Issani contraceptive rune just above her hip, conflict twisting her heart as she beats back a memory of Geoffreybeforehe fully joined with Vogel’s forces. Caught up in a wilderness of feeling, she turns to Mavrik, hopinghe’ll make the first move, because she finds herself unable.

“We need to do this,” she says in a tight whisper, unable to reconcile how much she wants him. Warring against how much she wants him. “Please, Mavrik.”

For a moment Mavrik doesn’t move. But then he gets up and draws near, his hand gently finding hers, prompting a welling of tears in Gwynn’s eyes.

“You know,” Mavrik says as he lifts her hand and gently traces his thumb over one of her golden, color-limned fastlines, “in Noilaan, instead of fasting at thirteen, when Noi’khin reach eighteen or older, they decide how they’re going to ‘dwell in the garden.’?”

Gwynn stares at him in bafflement, thrown by the direction of this conversation. “The ‘garden’?” she asks, swiping away a tear streaking down her cheek.

“It’s a euphemism,” he clarifies with a slight smile, compassionate warmth sparking in his golden eyes. “Meaning, ‘ways to be romantically intimate.’?”

Her flush deepens. “What are the ‘ways’?” she asks, grateful for his momentary foray into unexpected terrain.

He shrugs. “There are quite a few of them. Some choose ‘one flower, and to dwell in a single aspect of the garden.’ Some opt to ‘create their own garden.’ Some decide to ‘gather many flowers.’?”

“Many flowers?” Gwynn repeats, thrown.

His lip twitches up. “More than one partner,” he clarifies.

“Ancient One...” Gwynn huffs, unable to get her mind around such an idea.

“They accept men with men, as well,” he says as he continues to caress her hand with a gentleness that stays some of Gwynn’s emotional upheaval. “Women with women. They have these concepts of some who are fluid in their gender. It’s complex andverydifferent.”

“Quite a bit different from our upbringing,” Gwynn notes as they share a small smile, the Noi traditions sounding truly astounding. But then a shard of pain intrudes. She can sense it cutting through the small flare of humor for both of them. She holds up her hand. “No fasting at thirteen for them, then?” She immediately feels an even deeper jab of pain, along with another rush of longing for Geoffrey. For what he was,before.

He’s gone, she reminds herself, the ache cutting deep, her throat closing around it.Forever gone. And he chose the Shadow of his own free will.Tears well in her eyes as she looks at Mavrik, finding the same unsettled conflict in his gaze.

And understanding.

“If you were Noi,” she asks, voice rough, “what part of their garden do you think you’d choose?”

Their magical draw shimmers in the air between them as Mavrik holds her challenging stare, the intensity in his eyes remaining unbroken. “Oneflower,” he states with unsparing emphasis. “Onegarden.”

Her heart trips into a faster rhythm. “That’s what I want, too,” she says, tears coming to her eyes as they consider each other. “My pull to you keeps intensifying,” she shakily admits.

“It’s not just the magic, Gwynn,” he states, eyes burning with certainty. “If we were magic-free, I think I’d be drawn to you just the same.”

Gwynn instantly grasps what he means, the two of them a perfect intellectual and emotional match. So easily getting lost in each other, despite having known each other for only a few days. Complete harmony on every level.

Still... the thought of being intimate so soon...

But if they’re going to truly wall Vogel off from their lines, it has to be done.

Andquickly.

Mavrik reaches up to gently caress her cheek, and a pleasurable frisson courses over Gwynn’s skin that only intensifies her searing guilt. “Gwynn,” he says, voice low and serious. “We’ve both done this before.”

---