House of Sand and Secrets (Books of Oreyn #2)(32)

I have to strain to hear that.

Isidro hisses, a sound of physical pain. “And you? You will run back to your House and beg your mother’s protection? I don’t have that f*cking luxury, Jannik. My family would only assume I got what I deserved. It would take more than this to make me go crawling back to them.”

“If we stay here, we’re as good as dead – the bodies, this new law–”

“Jannik.” Isidro takes Jannik’s hand in his and rips it from his lapel. “There is no ‘we’ in this. You are worrying over nothing. The ones who died were rookery trash, and this law Eline wants cannot be passed unless all the High Houses consent. I know of two at least that will not.” Isidro’s smile is an eerie mirthless baring of fangs that manages to not ruin his perfect features. “So what, exactly, are you running from?”

My husband does not move. He does not answer.

My heart is thudding so hard I am certain they must hear it. Perhaps their own symphony of heartbeats and hammering blood has drowned out mine.

“You want what you can’t have,” says Isidro. “And I assume that’s always been your problem. You think because you come from House Sandwalker you can buy whatever it is you decide has taken your fancy–”

“I’ve never thought that–”

“And,” Isidro continues smoothly, “now that you finally understand that you can never have what it is you want, instead of dealing with that reality you will act like the child you still are, and run from it. You don’t realize.” Isidro reaches out, touches Jannik’s chin and tips his head closer. “I am not going to replace anything.”

“Fine, then you replace nothing.” Jannik’s voice is even, not resigned or sad, just calm. “But it will still be better than what I have now.” He pauses to look at the ground, his mouth twisted in a thoughtful frown. When he looks up, he speaks softer than ever and I barely hear the next thing he says. “I’m not expecting you to leave him.”

“You should learn to expect nothing at all.”

“True.” Jannik seem incapable of raising his head. “But would you leave?”

Isidro laughs, a sharp-edged sound in the sweltering dark. “He hasn’t given me reason enough. Yet.”

“And has he given you reason enough to stay?” Jannik says it so archly that for a moment I can’t believe it is him speaking. There is a sea’s worth of bitterness under that question.

“For now,” Isidro answers after a long moment. “We are both kept on short leashes, it seems.” He laughs again in something that almost approaches amusement, were it not so loaded with regret.

“This should stop,” Jannik says, though he makes no move to draw away. If anything, it seems to me that their bodies are closer, drawing imperceptibly nearer to one another.

“Should it? Or is this what you want?” Isidro leans forward and presses his mouth against my husband’s.

I turn to sandstone, am worn down and destroyed before the kiss has ended.

“Does it matter?” Jannik says after he breaks away. His hands are curled in Isidro’s long dark hair as if he means to pin him there forever. He kisses Isidro back, soft and fast as a darting bird. “Harun knows.” He sounds almost sad. Is this what Jannik is like under his masks?

“Of course he does. He’s awake now, lying in the dark and hating you.”

Jannik laughs bitterly. “Not you?”

“Of course not. Never me. Harun knows exactly what I am. He’s told me so often enough.”

At least Jannik has the grace to look guilty. Harun and Isidro are bonded enough that they can feel each other’s pleasure. Each other’s hurt. How callous must Isidro be that he doesn’t care what Harun knows? And what makes someone that dead inside – even I have not managed to become so empty and careless.

I once thought the same of Jannik. Perhaps I have always been wrong about everything, like my brother insisted.

When they kiss again, I wish Isidro dead.

Keeping silent, I make my way back through the tangled garden, through the once-golden curtains and the labyrinth of the Guyin house, back to my waiting carriage. Let them do what they will. My marriage, after all, was never anything more than a set of signed papers and a shared territory.

“Home, my lady?”

“No.” I order Master Sallow to take me down to the edge of the city, to where the nearest of the Seven Widows stands sentry.

“It’s Hoblands there.”

“I’ve given you an order.”

He bows stiffly and a few minutes later, the carriage is off through the early morning darkness. I am running again, like I always have. Never safe or wanted in any one world, I seem to be doomed to race from one to the other, and never rest in either. I press my hands over the curve of my belly and let a fierce and useless want rush through me. If I had a child, I wouldn’t be lonely, and I would have a compass point around which I could revolve my life.

Jannik found my confession about children amusing rather than serious. That’s what happens when one is honest, I suppose. He never understood that I wanted to bury my loneliness.

As a child, I was so certain that my mother loved my brother more than me, but looking back she gave me as much freedom as was safe for her to give. She was as caught up in the rules of the Houses as I am, and even so, she gave me little spaces of safety. My mother gave me the turret room when I should have had a room in the family wings, close to her. She taught me to ride, was the first to teach me to close my eyes and see the shape of the air under scriv.