So much history and knowledge have been lost. Lorcan held me while I cried. I’ve missed my mother on every level, every day, for so long, but never more than in this moment. What a loss, for all of us.
“You’re probably the only man who’s set foot here in thousands of years,” I observed, once I’d calmed.
He grinned lopsidedly. “The Goddess likes me.”
I know he means me. He wouldn’t be here without me, nor would I have found this without him—that jump is a big gap even for me as an adult; I never would have tried to cross it on my own as a child who simply wanted the misery of being cold to end. It’s still an arrogant thing to say, so I smacked his shoulder lightly and was rewarded with a kiss. Our first kiss since this whole reunion started. I sank into it, wrapping my arm around his neck, opening to him without prompting. When we pulled back, both a little breathless, Lorcan tilted his head and asked, “Shall we go in?”
“I guess that’s what we’re supposed to do.”
We stripped down. I removed my woolen outer gown and sandals, leaving the linen shift in place. Though it will turn transparent in the water, I don’t feel ready to be naked in Lorcan’s presence quite yet. Lorcan has never been self-conscious about his body, so he went down to his underwear. They hug his ass as lovingly as I’d like to. I was not remotely insulted to note that his semi-hard cock pointed to his hip bone.
Warm water caresses me like five thousand years of love.
I kicked across the pool in delight.
Violet blue. The color is unmistakable. The same as the diluted version that filled Lorcan’s tank while he healed. The color of Saskaya’s energy ink, only brighter.
Whatever bubbles up from the depths below is tinted with the same stuff that powered the Sentinels, that powers Saskaya’s adapted dirt bike engines, and creates the blast from that gun prototype Keryn was testing. It heals. It is power. It is the essence of the Goddess Auralia. It has the potential to save the world, if enough of it exists.
The Sentinels were a warning from the past.Be careful of how much you rely on technology. Trust in your people first.One I didn’t know how to heed, because I had neither the knowledge nor the power to make a difference.
I do now.
I laughed.
“You were the key.”
“What key?” Lorcan, an Olympic-level swimmer, cut through the water toward me. His shoulders are defined by water and archery and the thrust of blades into flesh. I want to run my hands over them. I will, but for now, I was content to observe.
“The key to the gilded cage.” How do I explain this? I tried once before, the night we fought and he left.
Lorcan paused beside me, one hand on the stone, legs churning to keep himself afloat. My shift floats around me; if he is a shark, then I am a jellyfish. I kicked away into the center of the pool. I am not an Olympic swimmer. I am merely average in all things physical, but I can accept that. My greatest ambition, after all, has always been to be normal.
“The castle is both a nest and a cage. I can’t leave it safely without you. I’ll be killed. I want you to live there with me, and I want to be out here, among my people, as much as possible. But to do that, Lorcan, I need you to understand what it is to be a public figure.”
He listened, holding onto the side of the pool. I find an outcropping to perch on, submerged from the neck down.
“If you still want that life, Lorcan—and I would not blame you if you turned it down—you need to understand that you’ll always have to stand a bit apart from the world. It can be very lonely. You’ll have me, of course, but…”
“I can’t be as accessible to everyone the way I was this summer,” Lorcan finished for me. “Letting Tahra follow me around the way I did, for starters. I set an expectation. If the person closest to you doesn’t put you first, why should anyone else?” He shook his head. Water drips down his neck. Droplets traced paths down his chest that I would like to follow with my tongue, but we aren’t there yet. “I undermined you without intending to. Again, no wonder you didn’t trust me.”
“I did in most ways.” Aimlessly, I kicked my feet in the blue water, not paddling, just to feel it.
“Not with anything related to sex.” Lorcan’s gaze slides to my shoulder and the strap of my linen shift.
“No. I wanted to.” Tears burned my eyelids again, but I’m done crying, at least for now. “In fairness, my issues long predate our being together. I’ve never felt like I get to live in my own body. I belong to everyone but myself. Especially being the last of Auralia’s line.”
“It’s a lot of pressure.” Lorcan waited for me to continue. “I know that feeling, a little bit. Of belonging to everyone but yourself.”
I shot him a look, and relented when I saw his sincere regret.
“Back in Scotland, when I still thought the only future available to me was to marry for political reasons, I was desperate to claim some positive experience for myself. My mother did. My grandmother was notorious for putting off marriage for years.” I smiled faintly. “It’s sort of expected, on the theory that young princesses will be more inclined to choose wisely if they’re permitted to make a few mistakes first.”
“But I got in your way.”
I nudged Lorcan’s knee with my toe. “You certainly did. And I resented you for it, as you know, especially at first. Not that the few experiences I did get were very positive. It was so frustrating, a feeling worsened by the fact that you kept turning me down.”
He nudged me back. “I had my reasons.”
