Authors: Pauline M. Ross
His eyes were wide but he said nothing. On impulse I rushed round the table and hurled myself onto his lap, throwing my arms round his neck. I didn’t understand him, but then I didn’t understand myself either, I just knew I couldn’t cope without him. I sobbed on his shoulder for a long time, while he held me tight and murmured endearments into my neck. When I’d cried myself out, I lifted my face to his and he kissed me long and hard, and the world was right again.
“How about Zendronia?” he said when we eventually surfaced.
“What?” He made my head spin with his abrupt shifts. “Oh, the new town along the river. Your brother’s there, isn’t he?”
“Yes. My whole family’s not far, no more than a few hours away. Does that make a difference?”
“Maybe.”
“It’s a pretty wild place, not civilised like here or Ardamurkan. There are no mages there, and the Kellona’s been asking for some for years, but no one wants to go there.”
“Because it’s not civilised? It might suit me, though.”
“Us. Might suit
us
. Darling...” He gently tipped my face up so that I couldn’t avoid looking at him, and even I could see the fear and anguish written there. “I – I’m not sure I want to do this at all if you’re going to break my heart like you did before.”
“I broke your heart? I didn’t mean to.”
“I know, but you did, when you went off with Drei. I thought we were reasonably settled, you and I, but then you left me alone, and – and don’t you
dare
mention Raylan! I know I’d treated you badly, but you were – very accommodating, you never showed any resentment, so I thought perhaps in time... But then you went off with
him
, with no warning, and I—” His voice shook, and he took several deep breaths.
“I’ve told you, I wasn’t in love with him. He offered to take me along so we could find out about our abilities, that’s all. He was kind to me, teaching me things, giving me books I ought to read, that sort of thing.”
“I daresay it made him feel superior.”
“Oh. I never thought of it that way. But it wasn’t romantic or anything. We didn’t even sleep together, not at first.”
“Really?”
“He was afraid the excitement would start an outbreak of flames and burn the place down.”
Cal started to laugh, and that set me off, and then we couldn’t stop, rocking with laughter so hard I thought the chair might break.
Eventually, he sobered enough to gasp, “Oh, that’s beyond price! The great and noble Axandrei, the man who would be emperor, afraid to have sex in case he set fire to the bed!”
It was a while before we could be serious after that. But suddenly his mood shifted again, and he said quietly, “I do love you, you know, and it’s not just because of the renewal. I was well on the way before that, only – I’d set out to make you hate me, so you wouldn’t end up mooning round after me like Raylan, and it didn’t seem right to stop just because I was falling for you. But something you said one time made me realise – that you were still untouched. I hadn’t considered that, with you being a village girl; I thought they all started early. I didn’t want the renewal to be your first experience. It’s so – so overpowering, it’s better if you have something more normal to compare it with. But then, I didn’t want to suddenly become considerate...” He shivered and buried his face in my scarves. “I still can’t bear to think about what I did to you that night. I – That’s not what I’m like, not really.” A sob escaped him.
“Shh. I know. It’s all right. I didn’t mind.”
“You must have hated me.”
“I never hated you. I disliked you for a long time, but it wasn’t until you turned up here that I realised how different you were from Drei. Where he was always a bit unsettling, with you it felt like coming home.”
“Oh!” His face lit up like the moon, then fell again almost as quickly. “Dearest—” He chewed his lip. “No, I can’t ask you to make promises. I can see that you don’t want to get married, or be tied to a drusse contract again, but... I need
something
I can hold onto, something to stop me waking at night shaking from fear, and looking at you over morning board thinking: will this be the sun she leaves me?”
“I can do that,” I said, getting up. I returned to my own chair, and pulled a blank sheet of paper and a pen to my hand. After a few moments of frowning thought, I began to write. I scratched away for some time, the only sound the rumble of snow slithering from a roof nearby. I set down my pen and pushed the paper across to him.
“There. Will that be enough, do you think?”
He read in silence, then looked up, puzzled. “A contract? This has no legal force, you know.”
“I know. It’s a friendship contract. Well, with sex included, naturally. A contract just between the two of us. It’s the only sort of commitment I understand.”
“There’s no time limit on it.”
“You can decide that. What do you need to feel comfortable?”
“Forever?”
I laughed. “Why don’t we start with a couple of years?”
“Five?” he said hopefully.
“Three? Oh, all right, five, then. And we can renew it when it expires. If we both want to. Here.”
I slid the pen across to him, and he picked it up, then looked at me, uncertain. “Are you sure this is really what you want?”
I was sure, suddenly. How could I ever forget my desperation when he’d disappeared in the city, and my misery when he’d seemed to hate me? I couldn’t bear to imagine him not being around. When we were together, everything in the world was in harmony. Happiness bubbled up inside me, and overflowed into a wide smile.
“Yes, I’m sure. I want to be with you.” He watched me, waiting. “I – I do love you, you know.”
There! That wasn’t so hard to say, and no blue flare. It wiped the anxious look from his face. “Thank you, my angel. I promise I’ll—”
“Shh! No promises. Just the contract. And then we’ll see.”
He nodded, and bent his head to write his name and the dates. Then he looked up at me. “You forgot to put in a ‘no children’ clause.”
How to explain that, for some reason, the prospect of children no longer filled me with dread? I smiled, thinking of the image I’d had in my head for a while now, of Axandrina running barefoot through the meadow, her dark hair flowing behind her, and running after her another child, this one with blonde hair and piercing blue eyes.
“I didn’t forget.”
His face softened as he smiled. “Zendronia, then?”
“Why not?”
“So that’s settled.”
“Good. Can we go to bed now?”
THE END
If you have enjoyed reading this book (or even if you haven’t!), please consider writing a review on Amazon, Goodreads or wherever you hang out online, to help others decide if they would like it. You can find out about and buy other books in the Brightmoon world, find bonus scenes and background information, and sign up for occasional Brightmoon newsletters at
http://paulinemross.co.uk
.
The Brightmoon Annals is a series of books all set in the same world, some five thousand years after it was reshaped by a magical catastrophe. The disaster almost destroyed magic – but not quite. The many different ways in which the pre-catastrophe mages tried to keep magic alive forms the theme of the series. Each book can be read independently of all the others, but some characters and artifacts from earlier books make an appearance in later books, so there are fun references to enjoy for those who read the series in order. Here is the sequence so far:
The Plains of Kallanash
, published September 2014
Multiple marriages, a secretive ruling religion and a mysterious tower.
Buy at
Amazon
.
The Fire Mages
, published January 2015
A determined girl, a mage, an heir and a mysterious magical city.
The Mages of Bennamore
,
to be published mid-2015
Bennamore clashes with the coastal ports; two different cultures, two forms of magic.
The Mines of Asharim
,
projected publication late in 2015
A woman with dark secrets, a man with a strange talent, and some bizarre magical creatures.
Find out more and link to buy at
http://paulinemross.co.uk
.
Any questions or comments about this book or the Brightmoon World? Email me at
[email protected]
.
I live in the beautiful Highlands of Scotland with my husband, my grown up daughter and a mad cat. I like chocolate, whisky, my Kindle, massed pipe bands, long leisurely lunches, watching TV with my daughter, chocolate, going places in my campervan, eating pizza in Italy, summer nights that never get dark, wood fires in winter, chocolate, the view from the study window looking out over the Moray Firth and the Black Isle to the mountains beyond. And chocolate. I dislike driving on motorways, cooking, shopping, hospitals. ‘The Fire Mages’ is my second published work.
Thanks go to:
Lin White of Coinlea Services (
www.coinlea.co.uk
) for beta reading and proofreading.
Streetlight Graphics (
www.streetlightgraphics.com
) for the cover design.
Beta readers: Lee of Frostbite Publishing (
www.frostbitepublishing.com
), Mark Force, Daphne May Hastings, Miranda Honfleur.
The good people of Scribophile for critiques, especially Bartholomew Lander, Cormac O’Hugh, Erasmus Ravn, Ernesto Victorio.
Last, but definitely not least, my first reader: Amy Ross.