Page 69 of Reap & Sow

He is one of your darkest secrets, that oily voice reminded her.

Someone plucked at a lute. Another tapped rhythmically on a kettledrum. A cheerful, jaunty tune filled the clearing. Drink flowed well enough by now that folk danced about the fire. A woman in layered skirts shrieked as she twirled arm in arm with a friend, feet bare in the dirt. Eda ached for the carelessness of it.

Kit snatched her cup.

“Hey—!”

“This morose mood of yours depresses me.”

“I’ll go somewhere to be morose alone, then.”

He pulled her to her feet, fingers curled about her elbow. “Too late, darling. You’ve already infected me with your maudlin. We’ve no choice but to correct it at once.”

“Oh?”

Without taking his eyes from hers, Kit stepped back and lowered himself into a deep bow. Eda swallowed. A tiny thrill raced up her spine.

“Will you dance with me?”

She scrambled to recall all the reasons why she should not wish to dance with him. Eda’s mouth opened. Closed. He held perfectly still. There was something illicit about a demon lord bowing at her feet like a common suitor. Looking up at her with such…unwavering focus. As though she were a lodestone amidst a vast, labyrinthine darkness.

“I—I don’t know any dances,” she stuttered finally. Around them, a small crowd spun and jumped as a pan flutist joined the melody, merry and fast.

Kit’s lips curled. “You don’t need to. Not with the right song and the right company.”

A dare. A flirtation. Were Eda sensible, she would return to the Oriana and leave him there. Dancing around a fire hand in hand with a demon beneath the moonlight would make a real witch of her. But she was pettier than she was sensible.

She snatched up her cup, took two great mouthfuls, then swapped it for his hand. “All right, then, my lord,” she said. “Show me how well you dance.”

Kit’s expression turned slightly lax when she called him lord, which Eda tucked away for future reference. Then his eyes narrowed, and he whisked her off.

She yelped in surprise. He pulled her close. Eda didn’t know much about dancing, but it hardly mattered. Kit guided her deftly among the other whirling bodies, following no particular pattern but matching the tempo of the music all the same. They came perilously close to careening with other dancers before he steered them away, fluid as water. They spun. Twirled. It was effortless, as though their feet hardly touched the ground. Perhaps they didn’t. Perhaps they were both dancing on air.

The ale and the firelight and the cheerful music filled Eda up like a thirsty, barren well. She basked in the fragile loveliness of it and realized she was grinning. As the music swelled and people began to clap, Kit suddenly lifted her by the waist. A delighted squeal ripped free as he spun her round, her hands on his shoulders. The gathering passed in flashes around them—smears of color and light. Eda slid back down, chest-to-chest, and found herself wrapped in his arms. Her toes barely grazed the earth. His heart pounded against hers. She hadn’t expected that. Why should a simple dance rouse him so?

Kit seemed to forget they were standing among the dancers. He simply held on to her, lips parted. His eyes were raw lava as they flitted between her own.

Eda’s smile slipped. “Your eyes. Someone will notice.”

Apparently, he did not care. His arms tightened like greedy serpents. “You look different when you laugh,” he said, low and gravelly.

They stared at one another. A thumb rubbed at the dip of her spine, perhaps without his realizing. If you stay here a moment longer, some distant voice warned, you will kiss him, and then you’ll never stop.

Eda pushed against his chest, heart racing. He let her go after a moment’s hesitation.

“I…Thank you. For the dance. I should get some rest.”

Eda fled. No, she wasn’t fleeing. She’d simply stayed up too late already, and the quicker she curled up beneath her blanket, the better.

Robin’s warning rang in her ears all the same. A heart is more valuable than any number of years, and harder still to get back.

It took all her willpower not to look back at Kit’s silhouette against the bonfire’s blaze. Perhaps she should. Perhaps the sight would have helped remind her of what he was. Instead, Eda fell asleep with only the ghost of his arms around her and the guilty wish that tomorrow never came.

Nineteen

They bid farewell to Robin, who murmured an Old Weslic blessing and squeezed Eda’s hands before letting her go. Good luck to those who do good deeds.

As they neared the city, Eda considered that she might be riding straight toward her own demise. A cowardly part of her yearned to step back into the shadows of the night before, when nothing beyond the circle of firelight had been real.