A Sword from Red Ice

EIGHTEEN The Birch Way

It was the fourth day amongst the birches. The mist that had formed overnight rolled through the forest in breaking waves. It was a landscape of ghosts, pale and silvery, with nothing green or blue to be seen. The trees disappeared into the clouds, their straight white trunks the same thickness from base to crown. Hundreds of thousands of birches had seeded from a single mother tree, and the dark charcoal-colored scars where limbs had broken off were the only way of distinguishing one tree from another. Minute differences in spacing and light had produced branches at differing angles and heights, and the marks they'd left behind dappled the bark like paw-prints. Lan Fallstar read these prints, and they appeared to provide him with enough information to navigate the unchanging landscape of the birch way.

Ash March tracked the Far Rider's gaze as it jumped from tree to tree, noting the birches it settled upon and attempting to discern a pattern in Lan's choices.

They were walking their horses through the mist. The sun was a diffused steel disk low in the east. The air was damply cold. Underfoot the snow was wet and uneven. Ash had learned it hid potholes and pools of standing water. She was cautious as she placed her feet. The birches had grown on low-lying saturated topsoil, not all of it frozen. Often brown water oozed from the snow as she stepped upon it. Other times her feet would sense give followed by traction followed by more give, as the soles of her boots pushed through sloppy layers of snow, sedge, water, mud and dead leaves. Today she could not see her feet and relied upon following Lan's path as closely as possible.

She had not realized it would be such a long journey through the trees. Nor had she imagined that walking through them could make her feel as if she were imprisoned. The birches were like iron bars. Fifty feet tall and stripped bare of leaves, they stretched in all directions as far as the eye could see.

She could not escape them, not on her own. While she was here she was dependent upon Lan Fallstar. If the Far Rider were to walk away and leave her she could be lost forever in these trees. Every birch and square foot of land looked the same. She had tried to apply what little she knew of the Sull path lores, looking for chips in the bark two feet off the ground, double nailheads sunk into the wood that looked like beetle holes until you stopped and inspected them, and subtle yellow burns in the tree moss where flames had been brushed against them in curving motions to form moon-shapes, but she had yet to spot anything so far. Most blazes did not seem to apply here. She knew the Sull often selected a single branch on a tree, stripped it bare of twigs and leaves and used it as a signpost to point the way of a trail, but the spindly crowns of the birches were as good as bare to begin with. And the slim, branchless trunks would be almost impossible to climb without spiked boots or ladders. They offered no footholds or handholds to aid an ascent. Rock blazes, bush blazes and fallen log blazes did not seem to apply either, as there was not a single fallen log, bush or rock to be seen in the entire forest. Snow, sedge and trees: they were its only features.

She had noticed osprey nests in some trees, big whirlwind-shaped constructions built out of twigs and scraps of sedge, and had spotted frequent elk and bear tracks, but although she suspected there was something to be learned from their presence she was unsure what that might be. Ark Veinsplitter would have helped her if he'd lived, explained how it was possible to navigate this land of phantom trees. He had made her Sull, drained her human blood to make way for Sull blood. He would have trusted her with the secrets of the birch way.

Lan Fallstar did not. She had asked him outright last night as they'd made a miserable and tentless camp in the mist. The fire had slowly reddened and died, suffocated by the film of mist that coated every log. "How do you find your way here?" she had said. "I should know in case anything happens to you."

The Far Rider had been rubbing clarified horse fat into the crusted and canyonlike bum on his left arm. He stopped and turned his deeply angled face toward her and said, "Nothing will happen."

"That's no answer."

The horse grease was stowed in a horn of fossilized ivory and he sealed it before speaking, thumping a stopper into the opening with the heel of his hand. "This Sull does not believe he has need to answer questions."

She had not argued with him. The tone of his voice was clear enough. He believed her to be an outsider, and he was right. In a way she could not fault him. The one clear thing she understood about the Sull was that they believed themselves to be a people under threat. They had once claimed the vast continent to the south; glass deserts, warm seas, city ports, rain forests, salt flats, marble islands, grasslands, high steppes, vast snaking rivers and mountains so tall their peaks could only be seen on a handful of days each year. And then there were the places beyond this continent, places with names that sounded alien and threatening to Ash. The Unholy Sea. Sankang. The Spoiled Lands. Balgaras. The Ore Islands. All this and more had once belonged to the Sull. Now they were reduced to a strip of land in the the Northern Territories, perhaps a third of a continent.

And they lived in fear they would lose it. Ash had grown up hearing stories of the Sull's ruthlessness. Tales of the bloody battle at Hell's Core, where the Sull slaughtered the Vor king's son and ten thousand of his men and then refused to allow Vorish priests onto the battlefield to collect the bodies; tales of the massacre of innocents at Clan Gray where eight hundred women and children were killed in under an hour for daring to set foot on Sull land; and tales of the great burning of ships on the Sea of Souls where thirty-one vessels went down with all hands. What she had not heard at Mask Fortress was the other side of the tale. Of Sull dispossession and defeats, and of their great and driving fear they would one day lose their home. Every slaughter they carried out was defensive.

Ash raised a hand as she passed one of the trees and touched its flak-ing and silvery trunk. These birches were part of the Sull's defenses. They were an impenetrable wall guarding a vulnerable portion of its western border, and it wasn't surprising that Lan Fallstar would not share their secret with someone who claimed to be Sull, yet neither acted nor looked like Sull.

Glancing at the Far Rider, she wondered why she hadn't told him about Ark Veinsplitter and Mal Naysayer, about the mountain pool where she had been made Sull, and about her journey east across the margins of the Want. There was still a chance that the Naysayer was tracking both of them… and she hadn't mentioned that either. Lan had not asked about how she lhad come to be in the Racklands south of the Flow, and she wondered about that also. What did he know or assume about her? She tried to think back to the moment she had given him her name. She had been so nervous, so determined to stand her ground, that she had not thought to read his reaction. Had it meant something to him? Had word of Ash March, the Reach, traveled ahead of her?

Lan Fallstar was walking beside his fine black stallion and occasionally he would raise his hand to touch the horse's neck. He was dressed in serviceable riding clothes, deerhide coat and pants, a cloak collared in marten, and stiff boar's-hide boots. If he had been wearing a hat he might have passed at distance for a ranger or hunter. His black hair, gleaming with bone oil and part braided with lead clasps, gave him away. A bluish tint flashed when the sun hit it. That, together with the lead clasps that had weathered to a color and texture not unlike the surface of the moon, pronounced him as Sull. Only when you drew closer did you see the faint goldenness of his skin and the deep triangular shadows cast by his cheekbones upon his cheeks.

He knew she was minding him, yet said nothing and did not turn. Ash wished she were the sort of person who found conversation easy, who could say the kind of interesting and clever things that left people wanting to reply. Right now she could think of nothing but trees. Trees and more trees. And as they all looked the same she could hardly say, Look at that one. Isn't it unusual?

Frowning she kicked up the mist and watched as it swirled like grease on water. She wondered why she didn't trust him.

And he didn't trust her.

"How long before we leave the birches?" she asked.

Something about his shrug made Ash think he'd had it ready and waiting. "The birch way is long and not all paths are open. We travel as we must."

Snow squelched beneath Ash's feet and she lifted the hem of her lynx fur off the ground. The Far Rider had told her nothing, and she doubted whether the subject was worth pursuing but went ahead and spoke anyway. "How long did it take you last time?"

He turned to look at her, his expression cool. It took a moment before she realized that this look was to be his only reply.

Just like her foster father. Penthero Iss seldom deigned to answer questions he judged beneath him. It was a fact she had realized early on. As a young girl she'd worked hard to ask her foster father intelligent questions. Why did the ambassador from Ille Glaive ask not to be seated next to the Whitehog at dinner? If the crop fails in the eastern bread plains where would the city buy its grain? She'd wanted to please him so badly, wanted desperately to hear those rare words of praise: Almost-daughter, you're such a good girl.

Halting memories of her foster father before they could hurt her. Ash rubbed the nose of her gelding. On a whim, she held the horse back, opening some space between herself and Lan Fallstar. Gray mist poured in to fill it.

Why did she feel the need to talk to him? And why was she disappointed when he dismissed her? She didn't understand it His coldness should be repellent, but it wasn't.

Suddenly she missed Ark and Mal very much. While she was with them she felt as if she were part of something. Included. They might have only revealed a small portion of their knowledge and secrets, but it was enough to give her hope that over time she would learn more. Ark Veinsplitter and Mal Naysayer were the reason she had become Sull. The two Far Riders were honorable and full of purpose, and she had assumed that all Sull were the same. Lan Fallstar was different. He kept her on the outside, withholding information. Keeping secrets.

She'd played this game before with Penthero Iss. Her foster father had been a master at keeping secrets. For seventeen years he'd concealed the true reason he'd adopted her as his daughter. Was something similar happening here? Did Lan know she was the Reach? Ash watched as Lan rode ahead of her into the mist If he suspected she was more than she appeared, he was doing a fine job of feigning ignorance. He treated her as if she were a lesser being; someone just pretending to be Sull, Last night when she had asked Lan to raise the small wolfskin tent he carried in one of his saddlebags, he had told her they would sleep out in the open. "If you want to lie in this mist then go ahead. " she had replied. "I'll sleep in the tent"

No," he had told her coldly. "Sull need no cover on a full moon."

It had felt like a slap in the face. If there was a custom here she was not familiar with, why could he not simply explain it? Why did he treat her with contempt? And why did she let it hurt her?

She had spent a miserable night, rolled in her cloak and drowned in vapor. When she'd woken, her hair was glistening with thousands of tiny drops of moisture. The Far Rider was sitting on his saddlebag, facing southeast. Fingers of mist were curling past his blank and open eyes. As soon as she moved he stirred. His face was pale, the skin around the jaw oddly slack. He asked her to tend to the horses while he rebuilt the fire. She had been eager to do his bidding.

By the time she'd returned from feeding, watering and brushing down the horses Lan was back to his normal self. He did not speak to her as they ate their breakfast of dried horsemeat and raw and fertilized snipe eggs.

Disappointed, Ash had looked out at the prison of trees and wondered when she would see the end of them. The first night she had met Lan Fallstar, he had warned her about the birches. What day had he said the insanity set in? She knew he had been referring to a person traveling alone and without knowledge, but she felt it anyway. He rarely spoke to her, and as she had no understanding of how the forest was laid out she was left with the dizzying sense that she was walking the same path over and over again. It was as if the birches were revolving in a great wheel around her. She had no way of gauging her progress.

Today, with the mist swirling at knee height and the clouds low and hazy, the world had been reduced to a band of stakes. She couldn't even carry out her normal job, which was to collect any stray branches that had snapped from the trees—she could not see the forest floor. From time to time, she would step on a branch, snapping it in two, and would pick it up and add it to the bundle on the gelding's rump. She had a sense that by gathering the fallen branches she was doing more than merely collecting firewood. The task had the feeling of housekeeping about it. It was as if by removing any identifiable marks, she was maintaining the birch way. When she had asked Lan about this his only reply had been "It is forbidden to cut down the birches."

Ash wished she knew more about the Sull. Her lack of knowledge made her vulnerable. Right now she existed at Lan's mercy, and she did not know enough about men and Sull to judge whether this made her safe or unsafe. She did not know her own worth.

She knew he watched sometimes; when she slipped off her cloak and dress to wash and sleep, when she rubbed grease into her arms and legs, and loosened her hair. During her final year in Mask Fortress, she had grown accustomed to frank attention from men. Some had told her she was beautiful, others had whistled as she rode across the quad. She had not disliked the attention. Sometimes she had even invited more of it. It gave her an intoxicating little thrill of power.

Whenever she caught Lan watching her she made a point of prolonging whatever action she had been doing. She was not fully Sull and he disdained her for that fact; but here was something that she had that he desired. There was more to it than that, though. That was the confusing thing. She felt attraction toward him too.

Whenever they shared the small wolfskin tent she found herself thinking about him. The tent was raised on a frame of hollow canes and the skins had been expertly cut and stitched to fit it snugly and seal out rain and wind. When you were inside you felt closed off from the world. Light coming in through the skins was amber and golden and strangely shaped; the skins acted like stained glass. The sleeping space was small, perhaps eight feet by six, and when they were both lying within it, Ash became herself acutely self-aware. Roll over just half a foot and she would touch him. The thought disturbed and excited her, and two nights back when they had last shared the tent she had spent several hours awake, resisting the urge to push herself closer. Even through the thickness of her blankets and furs she could feel his warmth. Or imagined she felt it. She also imagined that he was in the same state of awareness that she herself was. There was a false evenness to his breaths, not unlike her own, and a stillness to his body that seemed too controlled for someone who slept.

When Ash awoke in the morning she saw that the half-foot of space separating them from each other had been expertly maintained.

They had not shared a tent since then, but even this morning as she washed her face and neck with snow he had watched her through the flames of the fire. Later as he helped her saddle the gelding he had leant in toward her as she leant toward the horse and she had felt his hand touch her hip. It could have been an innocent miscalculation, but Lan Fallstar did not strike her as the kind of person who would mistake what he did with his body.

The touch had left heigh a queer state of shock and restlessness. She was beginning to think the birches were getting to her. Nothing was making any sense. If Lan had wanted to touch her why hadn't he just come out and done it openly? And why had he treated her with contempt since then, answering her questions with the shortest possible responses and sometimes not even answering at all?

Ash ran her hands down her long blond hair, wringing it free of mist. The gap between her and Lan Fallstar had widened and she found herself not anxious to close it. It had to be close to midday now yet the sun remained a distant and shadowy presence keeping pace with them through the trees, and the mist continued to thrive. She was only just beginning to comprehend how little she knew of anything in the world beyond Mask Fortress. Her maid Katia had coupled with dozens of men—and she had been a year younger than Ash. Katia would have known what to make of Lan Fallstar's behavior. She would have taken charge of things and turned the situation to her be§t advantage. Ash paused to think about that. No, Katia wouldn't have really acted that coldly. She had enjoyed coupling with men. "Sweet and delicious as peaches," she'd told Ash once once. "You should try it when you get the chance."

Flustered, Ash set aside the subject. She glared at the trees. She was beginning to hate them. The ground was spongy here. It was strange to crunch through hard snow and then feel the earth spring back. Perhaps that was one way Lan navigated, the texture of the earth beneath his feet.

Deciding she'd had enough walking, Ash stilled the gelding and mounted. The sound of leather snapping and metal striking metal broke the silence like a series of small explosive charges. She had not realized how quiet the forest was until that moment. Birds weren't even calling.

"Stay where you are." Lan Fallstar's voice came from a white and hazy point in the distance.

She could not see him, even with the extra height of the horse. With an expert adjustment of the reins she turned the gelding in the direction she hoped was east. Away from Lan Fallstar. The sturdy little horse seemed up for a trot and struck a path through the mist. The crowns of the birches were so high that hitting branches wasn't a problem, and the birches themselves were spaced well enough apart that a way through could be navigated at a trot. It felt good to ride away. She had agreed to become Sull at an unknowable cost to herself and Raif Sevrance. She had not agreed to trot behind a Sull Far Rider like a.

She was Ash March, foundling, left outside Vaingate to die. That had not drained away with her blood. She was almost-daughter to a surlord, and that had not changed either.

Ark Veinsplitter and Mal Naysayer had treated her with respect. Daughter, Ark had called her. Lan Fallstar didn't even use her name. So why was she so anxious to please him?

It was all very confusing. Like the birch way. Glancing around, Ash realized she had no way of telling how far she and the gelding had come. Every tree looked like the one she had just passed. A stirring of wind had made the mist choppy, and clouds sprayed up in loose waves. Slowing the gelding to walk she breathed it in and tried to calm herself.

She could hear no sound of pursuit. Now that the heat was leaving her she felt foolish and a bit afraid. Would it be possible to retrace her steps? A look over her shoulder revealed a landscape of haunted trees. If Lan Fallstar stood amongst them he was hidden by the mist.

The stubborn part of her wanted to continue on her path, just carry on going and somehow muscle her way out, but the practical part warned her to go back now while she was still pretty certain how far she had come. This was Sull land, she reminded herself. She could not be entirely sure that the mystery of the birches was purely physical. Strange sorceries might be woven between the trunks. Ark had told her about the Sull maygi and necromancers, men and women who birthed ancient magics by the dark of moon and lived apart in high sea caves and open towers. It would be only natural that such powers be used in defending the one thing they cared about above all others: defending their borders. What if she could never escape?

"Come on, boy," she said, kicking her heels into the gelding's belly and making the creature turn. This wasn't going to be pretty, having to return to Lan Fallstar with her tail between her legs, but it would be a lot less pretty if she turned insane and started loving the trees.

It took her over an hour to find him. Lan Fallstar was leaning against a birch, peeling an apple with her sickle knife. The knife's weighted chain swung lazily between his legs as he cut a continuous strip from the fruit. He studied Ash as she approached but did not speak. Ash pressed her lips together and made herself busy dismounting the gelding, removing its bit, and loosening its belly cinch. "This Sull hopes you enjoyed your ride." Ash had been in the process of unfastening the saddle straps and she had her back toward the Far Rider. She paused, fingers on the brass buckles, and thought of several ways to reply. None of them friendly. He had known she would come back. This annoyed her. She was annoyed also by the fact that he was using the knife that had been given to her as a gift by Ark Veinsplitter.

As she turned to give him a piece of her mind, he held the peeled apple and the knife out toward her and said, "They are yours." His sharply beautiful face was hard to read. "Take them."

Ash came forward and stopped a few feet before him, suddenly awkward. He pushed himself off the tree and took the remaining steps to meet her. Holding out his palms he offered her the apple and the knife. The exposed meat of the apple was starting to brown. If there was a trap here she could not discern what it might be. Quickly she took the items from him. Their hands and wrists touched briefly, and the contact and the whole situation felt so confusing she had to turn away.

"You can give the apple to the horse. This Sull will not be offended."

Surprised by the humor in his voice, she looked over her shoulder. Lan Fallstar was smiling, and it was such a warm and unexpected sight that she smiled right back at him. She was aware of an immense sense of relief, but hardly knew why.

"When two people are parted in the birch way it is best if one stays close to the original point. That way it becomes possible for the second person to find her way back."

Ash nodded softly. After days of short and impatient replies, his explanation seemed like a kindness. Now it was she who had nothing to say to him, and she wrapped the chain carefully around the sickle blade's handle and went to feed the apple to the gelding.

Not long after that they headed on their way. The mist was finally breaking up and cold white sunlight slanted through the birches. Lan's pace was a fraction slower than before and she found herself drawing abreast of him more often. Briefly Ash wondered why they had to walk the birch way and could not ride. She thought about asking him, but stopped herself. She did not want to test this new goodwill between them.

With the mist gone the birches began to gleam like bones. Thousands became visible, layers and layers of trees stretching toward the horizon on all sides. Ash was glad to see her feet and found herself looking at them often. The variety of materials squelched by her boots was the only thing that changed in the landscape. The air smelled faintly of methane, and she wondered if part of the birch way was a bog. If they strayed too far off course here might they sink? For a while she tracked Lan's gaze as it slid through the trees, hoping to discover something about his methods of navigation, but she lost interest after a while. Her hands and wrists still felt hot where he had touched them. Lan said, "Let us stop here."

It was earlier than they would normally stop, but Ash was glad. She was hungry, and tired of looking at trees. As she unstrapped the fallen timber she had collected, the Far Rider set about unpacking his saddlebags. When she realized he was sliding out the tent, muscles in her stomach contracted in a way that made her feel half sick and half excited. Fumbling with the logs, she managed to drop a couple against the gelding's back hoof. "Sorry," she told the horse, kneeling awkwardly to pick them up.

After she'd built the fire and lit it she waited to feel more relaxed. The ground was dry here and she threw down her saddle and sat on it. Lan had finished pitching the tent and was now preparing their supper. She had come to him empty-handed—her saddlebags had been lost south of the Flow—and she was dependent upon his cooking utensils and food to eat. When she had met him she had been living on horse blood for seven days.

Lan cut up slices of cured horsemeat and dried mushrooms and put them in a pot with rich yellow kidney fat, cardamom seeds, and snowmelt. He worked quickly and with precision, using the same knife he had burned his skin with the night they first met. When he was done he cleaned the blade with oil that smelled of cloves, and a scrap of deerskin, and then sat in silence while the water in the pot came to a boil. A full moon rose as they waited.

"Take," Lan said, homing out a bowl of steaming and fragrant soup. She took it and their fingertips touched across the smooth glazed warmth of the bowl. The Far Rider watched her take her first drink. "Good?" he inquired, his voice almost gruff.

She nodded. It was bitter and rich with fat. She drank it all and then took her knife and speared the meat and fleshy mushrooms left at the bottom. It must have given her courage, for she said, "Why put up the tent? The moon is still full." Blood came to her face as she asked the question and she wished she could take it back. It seemed bold and reckless. And he would make her pay for it.

Lan set down his soup, long fingers carefully cupping the bowl. The lead clasps in his hair clicked together as he moved. "It is the first day of the full moon that is most sacred. We cannot count ourselves Sull unless we feel its light upon our faces thirteen days a year." His voice was stiff but she recognized he had made an effort.

She wanted to know more, but had no way of gauging how long his new patience would last so she said nothing further. When she leaned toward the fire and poured herself more soup it seemed to please him. Absurdly she felt glad.

Later, as she rose to tend the gelding, he stood also. "I will feed and water your horse," he said. "It is owed."

From this morning? How could such a small thing incur debt? Baffled, she bowed her head, and watched as he crossed to the area where the horses where pulling seaweedlike sedge from beneath the snow. After a few moments her gaze jumped to the tent.

She breathed deeply and went for a pee. Squatting in the shadows behind the tent, she hiked up her cloak and dress and relieved herself. When she was done she took a handful of snow and rubbed it between her legs.

When she emerged into the light of the campfire her face and neck were icy and dripping; she had washed them for good measure as well. Glancing at the Far Rider she saw that he was intent on picking out twigs from the hoofs of his stallion. He did not look up as she slipped inside the tent.

It was cool in here, and smelled of wolf. Light from the moon pierced pin-size holes in the skins. Quickly Ash stripped off her clothes and made a bed for herself out of blankets and furs. Snuggling down she curled into a ball. And told herself she wasn't waiting.

She felt peculiarly excited by her makeshift preparations. Their practicality seemed audacious. In her mind she had borrowed some forwardness from Katia. It seemed necessary.

Time passed and the pinholes of light changed angles. Noises occasionally sounded from outside; horses blowing air, the hiss of snow on the fire, the mournful call of the great white owl. Ash listened intently at first, her body shivering with restlessness and cold, but when every new sound failed to produce Lan Fallstar she gave up. It didn't seem possible but eventually she slept.

Her dreams were of the grayncss that touched everything yet no one but she could see. The creatures that bided there uncurled their rotting limbs and claws as she passed. Some hissed. They watched her with narrow and glinting eyes, glad that she had not come in the flesh. Beyond them, a dark and immense presence was moving just beyond her perception. She felt its great age and momentum, and perceived the utter coldness of its purpose. Mistressss, it called through shadows that swarmed it like wasps, Do not wake.

Ash awoke. She was not alone. Lan Fallstar lay beside her. his body still, his breathing metered. The moon had set but it was not wholly dark; starlight blued the tent.

What am I? Ash wondered. She had been told she was a Reach by Heritas Cant and Ark Veinsplitter, but she did not know what that meant. She was shaking, she realized, her chest and stomach vibrating intensely. Do not wake. The words had been a warning. Did that mean the creatures in the Blind were afraid of her? Why? Ark had hinted that she could track the shadow beasts, perceive them over distance. Was that reason enough?

Teeth chattering, she rolled over, twisting the blankets and lynx fur around her body. She felt icy cold. The nightmare had sucked asvay her warmth. Do not wake.

She reached for Lan Fallstar in the dim blue light of the tent. She hardly knew what she was doing but she craved his warmth and was desperate to feel his live body pressing against hers. He gasped as she touched him, and she felt him hesitate. He had not been asleep, she was sure of that. A moment passed where he might have moved away from her, where his hands were up and touching her hands and it would have been a small thing for him to push back. He did not push back, instead he sighed sharply, parting his hands and sliding them down to her waist. A quick, almost violent flexing of muscle brought her next to him. Ash smelled him, the altenness of his skin and sweat. As he thrust through blankets and furs to grab her buttocks she kissed him. Her mouth was wet and full of saliva and it coated his lip before he opened them to kiss he back. Their teeth knocked together with an odd dissonance, and it slowed her for a moment. Lan's hand was moving between her thighs now and she could not understand why it was taking so long to reach where it needed to be. Her sex was hot and wet. It ached, literally ached, to be touched.

He did not taste human and that excited her. As she curled her tongue against the roof of his mouth he slid his hand against her sex. Ash opened her legs wider. Her tongue stiffened. Hot pulses passed along her belly. One finger found a sweet spot and rubbed it softly but insistently. She could hear the wetness swish against his hand. Grabbing him firmly she arched her hips toward him. The finger moved faster, its pressure increasing. With her free hand he squeezed her buttocks, his fingertips jamming into the point where they met. Ash gasped. All she wanted him to do was not stop. The finger was creating delicious friction deep beneath her skin. Suddenly the tension broke and her legs and hips started jerking. Heat pulsed down her thighs and up through her belly and she lost control of herself, grasping at his ribs and pushing against his hand. She did not breathe until it stopped.

Afterward he pulled himself on top of her and pressed his hard sex against her own. As he broke the fine membrane of skin that protected her body and entered her, he murmured, "Ish'I xalla tannan"

I know the value of that which I take.

Outside the tent the wind began to rattle the birches.