Gown of Shadow and Flame by A.E. Marling

Author:A.E. Marling [Marling, A.E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-11-28T07:00:00+00:00

Of course, her smoky fingers would pass right through. She could not touch him. Not without making myself vulnerable first.

Beyond Jerani's shoulder and tresses of crimson hair, the ash above the volcano glowed like the dying rays of sunset. Lightning crackled in the cloud, snaking in and out with bursting rumbles. The sight entranced Celaise, and she watched orange coils seething in the black fume.

“It is beauty,” she said.

A white whip bristling with violet barbs cracked upward from the peak, the lightning cutting a crooked pattern outward before stabbing sideways into the column of smoke. For one pure moment, Celaise forgot her hunger.

Jerani turned his head from the volcano back to her. “You are the same.”

His chin dipped, and the artichoke scent expanded to a delicacy steamed and dripping with peanut oil and herbs. Celaise wondered what this flavor of nervousness meant.

“Celaise, I…is there anything you need? I mean, do you want something from my tribe? From me?”

Her stomach lurched—a wild, snarling thing. To distract herself from hunger, she considered his question. She wanted someone to watch her as she slept, so she need not fear being smothered or trodden to death. She often wished for a hand to help her during the day, to steady her. She needed him to promise to stand at her side at night, to bludgeon the Headless she was too weak to kill.

His spicy sweet aroma warmed her lungs as she breathed in to answer, but her eyes snagged on the copper hugging his arm. My bracelet. My one mistake, to trust. The memory of that betrayal prickled up her arm, and she felt as icy as when she had leaped off the cliff to escape her parents' pummeling anger.

She respected Jerani for standing toe to toe with beasts to protect his brother and sister. And he was strong, not an ounce of soft flesh. His loose clothing wrapped over his left shoulder, leaving his right arm and half his chest exposed. Muscle and tendon stretched under his skin, and his arm looked as if someone had spooled bronze wire around the bone. The next lightning bolt cast an orange sheen over him and revealed the striking redness of his hair.

Maybe if he had been my brother, Celaise thought, he would've stood by me on the cliff. Maybe it would've turned out different. Jerani might have seen that she had done less wrong than the man who had left her with the copper bracelet.

The memory of that day sat in her as a stinging tangle of confusion and hate. She could have understood villagers wishing to stone a Feaster to death, in the same way a pack of skunk pigs would trample a jaguar if given the chance. But she had not been a Feaster then, only a young woman.

She knew such musings were useless. In the end, she could only disappoint Jerani. He thinks I'm a sneeze away from being a goddess. She thought she owed it to him to prepare him for the fall.

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