Page 90 of The Iron Dagger
“You’re still taking herbs?” he said as he kissed her softly on her lips.
“I never stopped,” she said with a small smile.
SIXTEEN
Angharad
Hara woke to Gideon’s mouth on her breasts, gently brushing his lips on the sides and clasping his hot mouth over her nipples. He tugged and sucked and lightly bit at her, teasing until she grew so wet that she pulled him on top of her to ease the ache between her hips. It was quick and eager and silent, and Gideon’s eyes never left hers as they clung to each other.
When they entered the steaming bath, Gideon made her come again with his fingers.
“I can’t keep my hands off you,” he said against her mouth. He had her crowded against the edge of the massive tub, his fingers making burning circles under the water and keeping her breaths from settling. “How am I going to behave when we have to leave this room?”
“Remember the days I spent changing your soiled linens?” said Hara, admiring the way the water droplets clung to his chest and shoulders.
His hair stuck out every which way from a night of her grasping fingers, and Hara liked the way it looked. She was slightly disappointed when he dipped his head under the water, but her mood brightened when she thought about mussing it again later.
Her chest from the palace had been brought up from the carriage, and she selected a white fur-lined gown. Of little surprise to Hara, her room happened to be right next to Gideon’s bedchamber.
“Leave it to my mother,” he muttered as he returned to her room, buttoning his shirt cuffs. A housemaid had just delivered a breakfast spread of porridge and fruit, and Hara was helping herself.
Gideon poured a steaming cup of tea and added sugar. He brought it to his lips and took a long sip. Eventually, he said, “Have you looked yet?”
Hara knew exactly what he meant. “No. You’ve kept me rather occupied since the ball.”
“Sorry,” said Gideon with a wicked grin over the lip of his cup.
Hara took a steadying breath and let the past engulf her, feeling for the man she had met last night. She caught hold of a string of memories that grew clearer as she pulled, reinforced by her contact with his closest friend, and she began to siphon through them slowly.
Hands caked with gray and clothes stinking of gunpowder.
A well-dressed gentleman strolling by his workstation.
Buying a large dinner at a pub and eating and drinking until he was sick.
Dynamite and cannons blasting apart a rocky outcrop, men cheering.
A king with long black hair, a look of disgust on his lined face.
Showers of sparks, the deafening sound of rock shattering and the ground beneath his feet trembling.
A tall, rangy man wearing black Recruiter robes walking ahead on a mountain path, prisoners in long robes following.
The M-shaped silhouette of the mountain’s peak caught her attention. It looked like the mountain from Turnswallow’s strange memory. Hara lingered on this scene, watching for whatseemed like hours. She followed them up the mountainside until snow frosted the ground and the sun was setting directly in front of them.
To the right, a giant river of ice cascaded onto the rocky plain. Hara followed the prisoners as they climbed it, making their way to an enormous dark hole on the surface of the glacier.
The sight of it made Hara feel nauseous with fear. It was so wide and cavernous that the people looked like insects as they stood at the lip of the crater. Water trickled over the edges, streaking the walls with grooves. In the deep shadows at the bottom, something gray and crystalline glimmered. One by one, the prisoners were unshackled by the unknown Recruiter.
And then they were pushed inside.
Hara surfaced from the vision, drenched in cold sweat. She had never spent so long in a person’s past, and had no idea how much time had gone by. The light outside her windows was the dull orange of dusk, and she looked about the room. Gideon dozed before the fire, an open book in his lap.
Her stomach growled. A half-cold portion of roast pheasant sat on a table nearby, and she went to it and tore into the meat with ravenous hunger. Gideon started, and then he rose from his chair and went to her.
“Well? Do you know where it is?”
“It’s in a glacier cave,” Hara said. “Are there any glaciers that you know of?”
