NOAH SPEAKS

I was shaking with nervousness. I knew what had happened—my friends had formed the Circle, almost certainly with the aid of Long Tom, for I could feel Sidlesaghe power in this—and had “arranged” for me to meet with Brutus here, in the magical waters of Mag’s Pond. I was both exhilarated and horribly nervous all in the same moment. Would he speak loving words to me?

Or would he condemn me?

We’d always parted in life with such bitterness. In our first lives he’d hated me so deeply he had refused to speak to me for almost twenty years. In our second lives he had finally kissed me, but then spat at me, and said I tasted corrupt, and that I had allowed myself to become Asterion’s whore.

Now here we were to meet again, through the magic of the Circle and of Mag’s Pond.

I was terrified, more of my own appalling hope than of what he might do or say. I cared not about healing old wounds or bridging ancient rifts. All I wanted was for Brutus to love me, and I was almost panicked that this could never be.

The water was cool as I stepped into it, its wetness tugging at the hem of my linen skirt, but as I stepped further into its depths that water took on a faint sheen, and became as if dry, and the linen of my skirt wrapped about my legs as if driven by a breeze rather than by the weight of water.

I walked through the water, and I stepped into…I stepped into…

Oh gods, I stepped into the chamber that had been mine in Mesopotama when I had been the spoiled princess Cornelia, and Brutus…well, when Brutus had been Brutus.

It was fitting, somehow, that we try to heal this wound in the place where it had first opened.

The chairs where Brutus and I had sat to sup of our first meal together were there, the food still spread upon the table between them. The bath that Brutus had caused the servants to pour was there, steaming gently. The bed where Brutus had raped me was there, its covers smooth and pristine, as if once again they awaited the press of our struggling bodies.

My throat felt dry, my heart was pounding so fast I thought my entire chest must be shaking with its efforts.

“Noah,” said a voice, and I started.

The voice had come from the windows, and I turned to look.

He was there, and had been for some time, I think. He must have observed me arrive through whatever magic portal had carried me here.

“Noah,” he said again, and I thought I heard a catch in his voice. Nervousness, almost, if I could believe that of him. I tried to arrange my face into a smile, but I was too anxious to make any great success of it. I must have looked pale and apprehensive and likely to run at any moment, and I thought this was not a good start.

He moved, and I tried to focus more clearly on him.

This was difficult, for the light was behind him, and I could not immediately discern his features. I could, however, see that he was dressed as I had originally known him to be, in a white hip wrap and with sandals upon his feet.

His limbs were bare of their kingship bands, but I could just make out the paler flesh where once they had been.

“You are Brutus?” I said, calling him for some reason by his original name and not the one he bore now (it seemed fitting, somehow). My voice struggled as much as had his, and I had to gather my strength in order to continue. “You are not some terrible glamour come to trap me?”

Gods, I couldn’t believe I had said that. I sounded accusatory where I think I had meant to sound humorous. What a fool I was to try and jest at this moment.

He made a soft sound (of exasperation?).

“I am truly Brutus,” he said. Then, “Is there someone else you’d prefer to be here?”

Oh, this was Brutus well enough. Here we were, making the same mistakes all over again, letting our mouths say words our hearts denied.

“There is no one I would prefer to be here more than you,” I said, and I was relieved to hear that this time my voice had a level of sincerity and emotion underscoring it.

He smiled—at least I saw the flash of white teeth as he walked a little closer to me. Finally, I could more clearly see his features. His hair was as black as ever, falling over his shoulders and partway down his back. His eyes were very dark, black mysteries, as they always had been. But there were differences. In this rebirth his build was finer, not so muscular as he had been in his two previous lives, but he was just as tall and just as beautiful to me.

“You grow more lovely with each life,” he said, and he smiled again. Now I could see that it was a smile. “Noah…”

Terrified of what he might say, I rushed in. “Long Tom said we must heal the wounds between us. Brutus, I am so sorry that I ever denied you the right to kiss me, or that I said to you such foul words about Melanthus, or that—”

“Noah, do you loathe me?” He seemed to have disregarded every word I’d said, which made me cross, because it had taken all my effort to force them out. Gods, they’d been sitting unsaid in my mouth for two and a half thousand years and they had not easily leapt forth into voice.

Finally what he said sank into my consciousness. “Loathe you? Why?” How could he possibly think that? Hadn’t I spent two lifetimes throwing myself at him in one form or another?

“After what I said to you, when last we parted. After what I did.”

“Brutus, I begged you to kill me. I thought you loathed me. You said—”

“I said stupid things.” He suddenly reached out a hand and ran it through my hair. I shuddered, and I know he felt it, for his eyes widened in an almost stunned disbelief.

He hadn’t thought I would respond so readily to him. He had been scared, and was scared. Could it possibly be that he was as apprehensive as I? As terrified of failure as I?

His hand came to a halt at the back of my neck, his fingers so warm and strong.

“I have always said stupid and hateful things to you,” he repeated, “because I was so frightened of you.”

“Frightened of me? Why?” His fingers were now stroking at the back of my neck, and I wished to every god in heaven and hell they would never stop.

“I was frightened of you because I felt too deeply for you. I was scared of loving you. I was terrified of you the moment I first laid eyes on you, I think. You stood there so proud and sure in your father’s megaron—” he half laughed “—having just kicked one of my guards in the shins. I was scared of you, and of your father, and that is why I acted as I did. I demanded you as my wife, for I think I knew even then I could not bear to lose you to another.”

I could say nothing. I could hardly believe I was hearing these words.

“I would murder the world, if ever I lost you to another,” he whispered, and I shivered.

He was so close now, and our bodies touched briefly, with this breath and that, at breast and chest. I could feel his heat, see his heart skittering in his rib cage, and without thinking, acting only on instinct, I put out a hand and rested it on his chest.

His skin jumped under my fingers. “I am sick of being scared of loving you,” he said. “Noah, please…”

And then I knew that he truly was scared and I could stand it no longer. If he wanted a new beginning, then so be it. I did the one thing I had denied him in this chamber so long ago, the one thing our relationship had foundered on for so many lives.

I leaned against him, pressing my breasts against his chest, ran my hands down to his hips, and raised my face to his.

His hand tightened against the back of my skull, and somehow we were doing so easily what we had never allowed ourselves to do before: kiss.

It began gently and nervously, trembling tentative movements of mouth against mouth, each of us almost too scared to touch the other, but then suddenly he grabbed at me with his hands and body and mouth.

Oh, gods, this was not like the kiss he had given me in the death chamber under Tower Hill. This was the kind of kiss that could found empires and tear down skies all at the same time.

I would settle merely for the founding of an empire.

“Do I still taste foul?” I asked eventually, pulling my mouth away from his.

He paused, as if thinking through what he had felt.

“I tasted you, and all that you are,” he said, kissing me softly on the top of my nose, and then again behind my left ear.

Ah, I almost melted at those brief caresses.

“I tasted the land and its rivers and the tug of the moon; all this in your mouth.”

Again he kissed me, more deeply this time, and with enough passion that I moaned. Suddenly all this kissing was not quite enough for me.

“And, yes,” he said, pulling away just enough so his words could play across my upturned face. “Yes, I can taste that imp within you, but in you it does not taste foul. What you are overcomes all that the imp represents. When I kissed Swanne, then I tasted all that she had become, and it was foul.”

“But you said that I also—”

“I was a fool. I tasted only what I wanted. I was so angered, so terrified, and so lost when I realised how Asterion had tricked you, that all I could taste was foulness. But that foulness was my foulness, not yours.”

“But this imp remains within me, even in this enchanted place. Are you not afraid of it?”

“Oh, gods, Noah. I am afraid for you. Long Tom has told me that you are destined to become Asterion’s whore in this life, and—”

“Hush,” I said, laying fingers against his mouth, “do not speak of that now.”

“I cannot allow it.”

“You must, my love.”

“I will save you. Somehow. I will.”

His fervour touched me deeply. I knew that he could hate well. I had never realised until now how well also he could love.

“That is far into the future,” I whispered. “Pray, let us not talk of it. But…we do need to speak of the imp. I need to know if you are willing to—”

“I am not willing to allow this imp to keep me from you,” he said. “Not ever again. If it snatches, then so be it.”

“That is not the Brutus I knew and loved,” I whispered.

“Then can you know and love this one?”

“Truly,” I said, “I think I might be able to manage.”

And with that, he picked me up, and carried me to the bed. “Cornelia,” he said, naming me by my ancient and first name as he laid me softly down, “will you be my wife?”

“Yes!” I said.

“Cornelia,” he said, “will you love me?”

“Yes!” I said.

“Cornelia—Caela—Noah,” he said, and he was laughing and weeping all at the same moment, “and Eaving too, if she wants to hear it, the depth of love that I feel for you has been exceeded only by the stupidity I have shown in not realising it.”

“You love me?” I wished he’d just say it, three simple words, and not wrap them about with all this elegant court-speak.

“Most exceedingly,” he said.

“Then, dear gods, just say it!”

He laughed, and kissed me, softly. “Aye, I do love you, Noah. I always have.”

“Well, that is good,” I said, and I felt emotion choke my voice as I spoke those practical words, “for I happen to discover that I love you, too.” I paused, then continued in a whisper, “And always have.”

I reached out and undid the knots of his linen waistcloth, then allowed him to divest me of my skirt, and he lay down beside me and cradled me in his arms.

“Asterion be damned,” I whispered, and he laughed, and then kissed me, and all was very well.

When, eventually, he rose above me, and entered me, I ran my hands through his hair and pulled his face back to mine, and let him kiss me all he wanted.

“Shelter me,” he whispered, raising his face slightly, and I did, and so much of my worry and apprehension slid away as, together, in this place that was both Mag’s Pond and the bedchamber where we had originally made so many mistakes, we finally did something right.