The Triumphant (The Valiant #3)(72)

When Quint strode over to her and offered his elbow, asking her to accompany him on a stroll through one of the two perfumed gardens open to the night sky beyond the pillars on either side of the hall, she nodded—devoid of any wry retort in the moment—and handed me her goblet without looking my way. Without looking any way but Quint’s. I glanced over to see Kallista struggling mightily not to giggle with delight at her uncle, and I felt the same way myself about my friend. It was nothing short of wondrous to see the two of them—each so self-possessed on their own—reduce one another to blushing and stammering.

“An ass,” Cai sighed, suddenly there at my side.

“But a loyal ass,” I said, grinning, remembering how Cai had first described his second-in-command. A small part of me wondered what Quintus would be second of now here in Aegypt—indeed, wondered what any of us would be—but I pushed away the thought.

“And a smitten one,” Cai said. Then he looked at me and took a step back, his gaze traveling the length of me from head to foot. “He’s not the only one, either . . .”

“Not the only ass?” I asked playfully, hoping to distract from the heat that had crept up my face in a blush.

“You are a goddess, Fallon,” Cai said in a low murmur, ignoring my diversion. There was heat of another kind, flaring like kindled embers, behind his eyes.

I held on to Elka’s cup with numb fingers, unable to put it down because my brain and body seemed to have completely divided themselves from each other and I suddenly found myself incapable of the simplest of tasks. The great hall of the queen’s palace seemed to grow dim and distant all around me until the only thing I could focus on was Cai. He smiled—that slow, secret smile of his—and plucked the goblet from my fingers. I honestly have no idea what he did with it or where he put it. I only knew that one moment I was standing there surrounded by a glittering crowd of Aegyptian dignitaries and warrior girls turned princesses, and the next Cai was leading me out into the moonlight—into the garden not currently occupied by Elka and Quint—his hand wrapped around mine, warm and strong, both our palms calloused from the sword.

The music and laughter carried on behind us, and the delectable smells of roasting fish and fowl slowly gave way to the scents of night-blooming flowers that perfumed the air. A pair of black granite sphinxes—with the body of a lion and the face of a man that bore a strong resemblance to Cleopatra herself—rested gracefully, watchfully on top of marble pedestals beneath the spreading branches of a flowering tree I couldn’t identify.

“I wonder if that’s her father,” Cai said, gazing up at the serene, regal features.

“I think it must be,” I said. “You can almost feel his spirit guarding this place, keeping his daughter safe . . .”

Cai looked at me and smiled. “Cleopatra, it seems, has many guardians.”

We turned from the statues and strolled deeper into the shadows beneath the trees. The night air was soft and beguiling, as different from the air of the day as moonlight was from sunlight.

“What’s bothering you?” Cai asked me.

“Why would you think something is bothering me?”

“Your hand,” he said, and held our clasped hands up between us. “You always tighten your grip too much right before a big fight.”

I looked down at his fingers. They’d gone a bit pale where I gripped them and pink at the ends. I sighed and smiled up at him, loosening my clenched fist. “I don’t know what I’m expecting,” I said. “There’s nothing for me to fight here.”

“And isn’t that just a little bit nice, for a change?” he asked.

I nodded. It was. And yet . . .

“You did what you set out to do,” he said. “Cleopatra is safe. Home. And you, Fallon ferch Virico . . . you’re free.”

“So are you,” I said, smiling up at him. “Whatever shall we do with ourselves and all this idle time on our hands, here in this strange and sandy land?”

His gaze went a bit smoldery then. “I have a few ideas,” he said, leaning down to lay a kiss in the hollow of my collarbone.

A horn sounded from inside the palace hall, calling us to the tables to feast.

Cai sighed. “Once all the festivities are out of the way, that is,” he said.

Not quite completely free, it seemed. But together nonetheless, Cai had reminded me. And we would stay that way.

“Remember what I told you that night at my father’s house,” he said. “If you want me to, I will lie beside you under thatch, under marble and glass, under stars in the middle of a desert . . .”

“I do remember,” I said, grinning a bit wickedly at him. “I never really thought you meant that last one. All that sand . . .”

He grinned back. “We don’t actually have to go out into the dunes, you know.”

“Oh good . . .”

He dipped his head back down and began nuzzling my other shoulder, sending shivers up and down my spine. “Unless, of course, you want to . . .”

“If you’re that hungry,” Elka’s voice suddenly drifted over to us from beneath an archway, “supper is served. And we’re not allowed to start eating until everyone is sitting. Apparently.”

I could tell from her tone that, having been likewise summoned from her garden stroll, Elka was torn between her love of food . . . and her blooming affection for Quint. That in itself was a drastic change in how I was familiar with the world working. But it was one I could get used to. And as Cai led me back toward the lights of the dining hall, I told myself that I could get used to all the rest too. Eventually. So long as he was with me to look up at those stars.