The Blinding Knife
Page 144

He kissed her again, tenderly, but drawing her in. But what began as a gift for her benefit, a smooth, strong seduction soon morphed. He folded her small form into his, wrapping protective arms around her. As they kissed, he could feel a tension loosening in him, a tension that had been knotted for so long he’d come to think of that pain as part of the pain of being alive.
She pulled back, and instantly back on guard, fearing rejection, Gavin pulled back, too.
But Karris murmured, “I’m afraid you’ve left me breathless, Lord Guile—”
“Well thank you.” Relief beneath his grin.
“—because I can’t breathe through my nose right now.”
She laughed and he joined her ruefully. “You are so beautiful,” he said. He felt as if his heart had swollen too large for his chest.
A dubious look. “I might be part blind right now, but you shouldn’t be. I got beat up, what’s your excuse?”
He chuckled. “I didn’t mean particularly, precisely at this moment—You know what? I think my lips can make a more convincing case without words. Come back here.”
They kissed, and kissed, and chuckled together about Karris needing to take little breaths and Gavin misreading her little moans of desire and her little moans of pain when he got too passionate. The world ceased. No worries, no cares. That knot Gavin hadn’t known he carried eased and opened and disappeared, and he felt suddenly stronger than he had been in his entire life. Free. The power of the secret broken, chains shattered.
“Orholam have mercy, how I want to make love with you,” she said.
“I can be persuaded,” Gavin said quickly.
She made a little sound of frustration. “If only my body were so amenable.”
“I could be… gentle,” he offered, giving a roguish grin.
She pulled him close and whispered in his ear, “After sixteen years of missing you, Dazen Guile, the last thing I want from you is gentle.”
He swallowed. Speechless. “Will you marry me, Karris White Oak?” Damn. He could have done better than that. Such questions should have some eloquence.
Then again with his history with Karris, perhaps a simple truth was better than an artful one.
“Karris, why are you crying?”
“Because it’s past time for my pain medicine, you big idiot.”
There was a knock on Gavin’s door. “Oh, you have got to be joking,” Gavin said, looking at the door like he could kill it with his eyes. He turned back to her. “Does that mean yes?”
“You’ve worn me down and taken advantage of my incapacitated state, so…”
“So that means yes?”
Another knock on the door.
“You stupid, stupid man, of course it does.”
“I love you, Karris White Oak.”
She smiled mischievously. “You ought to.”
The door opened, and a Blackguard wheeled the White in. Gavin couldn’t keep the huge grin off his face.
“Oh dear, have I interrupted something?” the White asked.
“No,” Gavin said. At the same time Karris said, “Yes.”
“I see.”
“You were just the person I was hoping to see,” Gavin said. “High Mistress White, would you be so good as to marry us?”
The White inclined her head, looking over the corrective spectacles she was wearing. “Well, Gavin Guile, it certainly took you long enough. And Karris White Oak! Slowest seduction in history! A woman with your charms.” The White sniffed.
“Is that a yes?” Gavin asked.
“Of course it is,” Karris answered for her. She was grinning from ear to ear.
“I imagine that Gavin’s heading straight off to war, and that you’ll want this done as soon as he gets back?” the White said.
“No,” Gavin said. “Right now.”
“Right now?” Karris said. “Don’t you want to give this some thought? We have no idea what we’re getting into.”
“And when will we? Some things you can’t know until you’re in them. I’ll be in it with you. That’s more than enough for me.” Gavin turned to the White. “Right now.”
The White grumbled. “Figures.” But she smiled. “Gavin, you’re willing to have your father disown you over this?”
“I’m feeling invincible right now,” Gavin said. “How’d you know about that, Orea?”
“Disowned?” Karris asked.
“I’ll explain. Later,” Gavin said.
“Me, too,” the White said. “Karris, you know what this may mean for your tenure?”
“Yes,” Karris said.
“Rules are made to bend for the right people,” Gavin said.
“Promise me a big wedding when you get back,” Karris said.
“Huge.”
And so they were wed. The vows were simple. In the discharge of his normal duties as Prism, Gavin had prompted brides and grooms through the vows himself, but today he forgot them. And as soon as they were out of his mouth, they became a blur. He was barely aware even of the White, he had eyes only for Karris. He was filled with an inexplicable tenderness for this wild, frustrating, beautiful, stubborn, amazing woman.
He kissed Karris again, and she grimaced under her smile.
“Time for more medicine?” he asked.
She nodded, apologetic.
He found the tincture and poured her the dose. She accepted it gratefully and lay back on her pillows. “Come back to me, my lord. Come back soon, you hear me?”
“Yes, my lady,” he said. He couldn’t stop grinning.
She was asleep in less than a minute.
Finally, Gavin turned to the White. “Well done, Lord Prism,” she said. “Perhaps I was right about you after all.”
“I do my best.”
“I hope your best is enough to save us.”
And with the quiet moment, he remembered why he had worked so hard not to have quiet moments with the White. She would ask that they go to the roof and that he balance. She had all sorts of reasons. She would have heard all the stories that Marissia had told him. She would know what they meant.
“Do you know,” she said, “I was on the roof the other day. And do you know what I saw? Cranes. Thousands of them, migrating. Have you ever seen them?”
“Not that I remember.”
“They fly in Vs. Something about it makes it easier.”
It was an odd thing to say. Like you’d explain to a child. Gavin had, of course, seen migrating birds before.
“This year, they weren’t flying in a V. They were flying in a single line. Thousands of them. So odd. Cranes never fly over water for long when they migrate. I could see they were struggling. Without the efficiencies of their normal formation, birds were dropping out, falling, dying. They flew straight toward me. And then, suddenly, as they reached Little Jasper, that odd line broke apart. The cranes rested that day on the Jaspers, as they have not for many years. And when they left, they flew normally.” She didn’t really finish her story, she simply stopped talking. “Regardless, they were saved.”
He’d broken the bane—and saved some cranes. Orholam’s nipple. “That’s marvelous,” Gavin said.