Daughter of Smoke and Bone(76)
“Akiva,” she murmured, her tone no longer fearful, but low and ardent and sweet. “What is it?” Her hands climbed him, over the steel of his arms and shoulders, up ramps of trapezius to his throat, his rough-smooth jaw, and then her fingertips were on his lips, so soft by comparison. She felt them tremble. “Akiva,” she repeated. “Akiva. Akiva.” She seemed to be saying, Enough of this; stop pretending.
And so, with a shudder, he did. He dropped the pretense, and dropped his head, so his brow came to rest against the sun-warmed top of hers. His arms went around her and drew her in, and Karou and Akiva were like two matches struck against each other to flare starlight. With a sigh, she softened, and it was pure homecoming to melt against him and rest. She felt the coarseness of his unshaven throat at her cheek as he tested, against his own, the perfect water-smoothness of her hair. They stood like that for a long time, and they were quiet but their blood and nerves and butterflies were not—they were rampantly alive, rushing and thrumming in a wild and perfect melody, matched note for note.
The wishbone, small but sharp, was trapped between them.
42
ACHE AND SALT AND ALLNESS
“In here,” Karou said, leading Akiva to a sky-blue door set in a dusty wall. Their fingers were laced together. They couldn’t not touch, and guiding him through the medina, Karou had felt like she was floating. They might have hurried, but instead they drifted, pausing to watch a carpet-maker, to peer into a basket of puppies, to test the points of ornamental daggers with their fingertips—anything but haste.
But as slowly as they went, they still arrived at their destination. Akiva followed Karou down a dark passage, where they were spilled into the light of a courtyard, a hidden world open only to the sky. It was fringed with date palms and brilliant with zelij tiles, a fountain plashing in its center. A balcony ran around the second story, and Karou’s room was up a twist of stairs. It was bigger than her flat, with a high, timbered ceiling. The walls were vermillion tadelakt with a deep, earthen glow, and a Berber blanket on the bed spelled out some mysterious blessing in a language of symbols.
Akiva closed the door and let go of Karou’s hand, and the moment that she had been pushing ahead of them, forestalling—the breaking of the wishbone… It was here.
This was it.
This was it.
Akiva paced away from her, looked out a window, raised his hands and raked his fingers through his hair in a gesture that was becoming familiar, then turned back to her. “Are you ready, Karou?”
No.
Suddenly, no. She was not ready. Panic, like a chaos of wings in her rib cage. “We can wait,” she said with artificial brightness. “We don’t want to fly until nightfall anyway.” The plan was to fetch Razgut once the sun went down, and to fly with him under cover of darkness to the portal, wherever it might be.
Akiva came back toward her, a few halting steps, and stopped just out of reach. “We could wait,” he agreed, seeming lured by the idea. Then he added, very softly, “But it won’t get any easier.”
“You’d tell me, wouldn’t you, if it was something awful?”
He came closer, reached up and stroked her hair, once, slowly. Feline, she leaned into his touch. He said, “You don’t have to be afraid, Karou. How could it be awful? It’s you. You can only be beautiful.”
A shy smile tugged at her lips. She took a breath and said with resolve, “Okay then. Should I, um, sit down?”
“If you like.”
She went to the bed and climbed to its center, curling her legs under her and tucking down the hem of her orange dress, which she’d bought in the souk with the thought of Akiva seeing her in it. She had bought more practical apparel, too, for the journey and whatever might come after. It was packed in a new bag and ready to go, along with such mundane necessaries as she’d had to leave Prague without, having fled town so abruptly. She was glad Akiva had brought her knives—glad to have them, that is, and afraid of needing them.
He sat facing her, his legs long and easy, shoulders rolled forward in a way that accentuated their breadth.
It was then that Karou had another flash, a split in the surface of time, and a glimpse, within, of Akiva. He was sitting just like this, his shoulders heavy and relaxed in just that way, but… they were bare, as was his chest, and he was all tawny muscle, the right shoulder a snarl of scar tissue. Again, on his face, the smile that hurt with its beauty. Again, an instant and it was gone.
She blinked, cocked her head, and murmured, “Oh.”
“What?” Akiva asked.
“Sometimes I think I see you, in another time or something….I don’t know.” She shook her head and waved it off. “Your shoulder. What happened to it?”
He touched it, watching her intently. “What did you see?”
She blushed. There had been something so sensual about that moment, him sitting there shirtless and happy. She said only, “You… smiling. I haven’t seen you smile like that, not really.”
“It’s been a long time.”
“I wish you would,” she said. “For me.”
He didn’t. Pain flashed over his face and he looked down at his knuckles and then back up at her. “Come here,” he said, and reached out, easing the wishbone’s cord up and over her head. He hooked a finger around it. “Like this.”