The Fire's Stone

Four

Pain. Old pain, constant pain, and for that Aaron was grateful. The body could get used to anything in time, even, given a chance, the searing agony that existed where he thought his chest should be. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to think about breathing. Blind instinct tried to move him out from under the hurting. Training told him to be still. It was always better to be still, until you knew.

"He's conscious, I'm sure of that."

"He looks the same to me."

"You're not a healer, Highness." The middle-aged woman sat back on her heels beside the pallet and stretched. Formidable brows drawn down, she studied the work already done, then reached into the wicker basket resting on the floor by her right knee.

The prince peered over her shoulder. The thief had been under the healer's care for almost an hour but, Darvish had to admit, he still looked like shit. Between the twins and the wizards and the guards who had found him originally, there was hardly an inch of his pale body that wasn't coming up in purple and green bruises. His wrists and ankles wore bracelets of raw meat where he'd tried to twist free of the manacles and his chest was a bubbling mass of blisters and destroyed flesh.

"Can you fix him, Karida?" he asked.

The healer snorted as she eased the cork out of a squat clay pot. "He's not a toy, Highness, that careless playing has broken and a glue brush and a steady hand can fix. He's a man. A young one, but a man. I wonder if you realize that."

"Of course I do," Darvish replied, mildly indignant.

"Then what do you plan on doing with him?" Karida set the cork to one side and dipped the first three fingers of her right hand into the pot.

"You mean after you've finished gluing him back together?"

The tone was so guileless, she had to sternly suppress a smile. "Yes."

"I'm not entirely certain."

She glanced up, although her hand continued to gently spread the salve over the thief's burned chest. "You're not?"

Darvish smiled his fecklessly charming smile. "Why worry about it now."

The pain was cooling. Dulling. Drawing back its edges until it no longer was all that Aaron was. Groping like a blind man in new territory, he tried to find the rest of himself. Something firm but yielding cradled his back and head. A bed? Perhaps. It didn't fit where he felt he should be, but it seemed most likely. He began to distinguish separate pains in his arms and legs, but next to the great pain, they were nothing, so he ignored them.

Then he remembered.

He had failed. Again. And he hadn't died. Again.

And now it seemed he wasn't likely to.

The physical pain no longer seemed so great.

The moan escaped before he could stop it.

"He moaned!"

"You sound, Highness, as if you've taught him a new trick." Karida restoppered the jug and replaced it in the basket, then rose lithely to her feet in a single, fluid motion. "He is very ill. I will be staying."

"You don't have to," Darvish began, but she cut him off.

"I know I don't." The healers enjoyed relative autonomy within the palace hierarchy.

His smile softened for a second into an expression few were permitted to see. "Thank you for coming."

"You're welcome." She looked him up and down with a critical eye and added, her tone dry, "Besides, it makes a nice change from the lover's complaints you usually call me to take care of. How is that by the way?"

"All better." Darvish spread his arms as if inviting her to see for herself.

She declined the invitation. "And if you'd keep away from those cheap whores, you'd stay better. If you must visit the marketplace, why can't you stick to the expensive establishments? The One knows you can afford it."

"Because high-class whores," Darvish told her with a wink, "are too little different from the ladies of the court. I'm looking for a change of pace after all."

"Highness." Oham bowed when the prince acknowledged him and continued, holding out an armload of red silk. "It is time to dress for evening court."

"And for my most exalted father..." An eyebrow quirked at the healer. "Maybe it's a good thing you're staying."

"Darvish."

"Shahin. What a pleasant surprise." Darvish smiled at his eldest brother and extended the smile to include the guard that followed the heir even into the royal wing. The guard returned the smile. The heir did not. The heir merely looked down his hawklike nose with the expression of disgust he always wore in Darvish's presence.

"Are you drunk yet?"

"Please, at this hour? Give me credit for an ability to pace myself, at least."

"I heard about what you did today."

"Of course you did." Darvish kept the bright smile pasted in place, but behind it he tried frantically to figure out his brother's interest. Years ago, before the wine, they had been friends—as much friends as the difference in age and the heir's position had allowed. Was there enough of that friendship left for Darvish to appeal to it? For him to ask Shahin to intercede with their father for his thief's life?

He forced his eyes to meet Shahin's for a heartbeat and then he allowed his gaze to drop. The older prince's face showed no indication he remembered anything but the wine.

"Why did you do it?"

The tone and the expression reminded Darvish so much of their father that his palms grew damp. "Save a man's life?" The laugh sounded false, but it was the best he could do at the moment. "Oh, I don't know. You've got Yasimina, she's got her peacocks, maybe I wanted a pet of my own."

Shahin's lip curled up, teeth very white against the black of his beard. "You're a disgusting..." Words failed him and with a final withering glare, he strode into his own apartments.

Darvish shrugged as the door slammed shut and the guard took up position outside it. "Nobody understands me," he sighed melodramatically, and, with his heart curiously heavy, continued down the corridor. He needed a drink.

From his position at the far end of the long audience hall, Darvish could barely see the great black throne let alone the man sitting upon it, but even through the milling crowds of courtiers he could feel the king's presence. He snagged a drink off a passing tray and let the familiar taste of the wine soothe him while he contemplated strategy. Sooner or later, one of his most exalted father's pages would find him and request that he approach the throne. Darvish harbored no illusions that the king remained long ignorant of anything that happened within the palace and his actions of the afternoon had probably been reported by several different people, those watching him, those watching the twins, the lord chancellor himself. Given that Shahin knew, the king certainly did. The question became, did he stay as far from the throne as possible, assuming out of sight out of mind, thus putting off the confrontation? Or did he begin now to work his way through the crowds so that when the summons came he had less far to walk under the eyes of the court.

He exchanged his empty goblet for a full one and decided on the latter; he had no objection to being talked about but he preferred to have more choice over the subject.

"Highness."

The low, throaty voice drew his head around in an almost involuntary action.

"Lady Harithah." He caught up the dimpled hand she held out and brushed his lips across its back. She tasted of some rare spice that set his pulses racing.

Eyes that sparkled like amethyst in sunlight looked up into his for an instant with unmistakable desire, then curved lids stained violet were quickly, and demurely, lowered. "I trust this evening finds you well, Highness."

"It does now," Darvish murmured, watching the almost sheer silk rise and fall across her breasts. He'd been admiring the lady from afar since she'd arrived at court, her much older and very protective husband in tow. Up close, she was unbelievable, with deep curves a lover could get lost in. He had smiled at her but nothing more, for even a royal prince does not cuckold one of the First Lords of the Navy. Except that now the lady seemed to be offering.

"I have heard your Highness has an interest in antique weapons. I have a sword of my husband's in my suite, if you would care to see it after court."

It still wasn't a good idea. "And your husband?"

The tip of her tongue lightly touched the full center of one moist lip. "My husband is at sea, Highness."

And when the Nine drop paradise in your lap it is not a mere mortal's place to say it's a bad idea. "I would be honored, Lady Harithah. Your room," he kissed the back of her hand again and turned it over and laid his lips gently against the palm, "after court."

As she walked away, each rounded buttock imprinted the silk of her full trousers for one warm second. Downing the wine remaining in the second goblet, Darvish reached for a third. And then he remembered.

The thief. When court ended, he should return to his injured thief. Why? He tapped the nails of his free hand against the embossed bowl of the goblet. He's unconscious, he won't even know you're there. And Lady Harithah most certainly will. His stomach growled and he headed for the nearest of the small circular tables piled high with delicacies. Besides, Karida's with him. Picking up a pastry, he shrugged off the memory of silver-gray eyes. He doesn't need me.

The evening had advanced well into night by the time Darvish felt the light touch on his elbow and the murmured "Highness" that meant a summons from the throne. He finished reciting the bawdy verse he had just composed for a limpid-eyed young lady, who blushed at the attention while her friends shrieked with laughter. He bowed theatrically at their applause, red silk sleeves billowing with the motion, and, when he straightened, took a kiss in payment. Then he turned—calmly, as if his heart had not begun to pound painfully behind his ribs—and acknowledged the page.

She inclined her head, fingers properly laced against the pale gray tunic, body positioned the requisite two paces away—close enough for privacy, far enough for movement. "My lord would see you now, Highness."

He bowed again, a gesture just on the verge of mocking.

Composure unruffled, she turned and walked away, knowing that whatever he felt, however he acted, the prince would follow.

The throne had been carved many, many years before from a single block of obsidian and as he approached, Darvish kept his gaze on the gleaming black stone rather than the man sitting upon it. It was supposed to be a symbol of how the king controlled the volcano, and it impressed most people as it had been designed to. Darvish, however, had sat upon it. He had been very young and had been beaten for it afterward, but he remembered how cold and hard it had been and at that moment he gave up any desire to ever sit upon it again.

Of course, I'll never convince our most cautious lord chancellor of that...

The lord chancellor stood to the left of the throne, his plump hands tucked into the full green sleeves of his robe, his round face serene. The serene face, Darvish well knew, was the most dangerous. The serene face meant his mind was already made up and only an act of the One Below could change it.

To the right of the throne, one hand resting lightly upon the stone, the other folded behind his back, stood Shahin, Crown Prince and Heir, Light of his Father. His expression had not changed since their earlier meeting.

I have not had enough to drink. I thought I had, but I was wrong. Too close to the throne for serving tables or servants, Darvish slipped a nearly full goblet of wine from the surprised fingers of an elderly lord and tossed it back. It was sweet and cloying, not the light mountain wine he preferred. Still, princes can't be choosers. And anything's better than no wine at all. He winked at the lord as he returned the goblet.

Then nothing stood between him and the throne. Even the page had faded away.

Heart beginning to pound, he continued forward, eyes on the tiles in the floor. When he caught the gleam of gold, the outermost edge of the royal crest that marked the actual boundary of the throne, he dropped to one knee and rested his head for an instant on the other. As a member of the royal family, he did not have to wait on the king's grace to rise, but the timing was delicate—too short a time and he was accused of being disrespectful, too long and they accused him of sarcasm. Either charge was usually true. Often, both were. Tonight though, for some reason, he felt tired—nothing more, nothing less—so he stayed down a little longer and figured they could make of it what they would.

He lurched slightly as he rose, the most recent wine shifting queasily in his stomach, but his voice was steady as he spoke the ritual words.

"You requested my presence, Most Exalted?"

Darvish couldn't remember the last time he'd called the man father to his face. Tradition called for him to keep his eyes lowered until the king spoke. He didn't. He never did.

The king's eyes were as obsidian black as the throne he sat on and showed as much warmth as he looked down at his third son. "You took something from the Chamber of the Fourth this afternoon," he said without preamble and without emotion. "Why?"

"Not something, Most Exalted. Someone."

Long fingers stirred on the broad arm of the throne. "Do not make me repeat my question."

As if I could, Darvish thought and barely stopped the wine from voicing the thought aloud. He drew breath to tell the story he had concocted over the course of the evening's drinking and dallying, paused, and said instead, "I didn't like what was being done to him."

"It was no more, Most Exalted, than what is done in the Chamber of the Fourth," the lord chancellor interjected smoothly.

"I didn't like what was being done to him," Darvish insisted.

"Is he your lover?" The question was asked without curiosity or caring; only because it was inevitable the question be asked.

"No, Most Exalted, just a thief who fell from the night onto my balcony."

"Why, then, did you take him from the Chamber of the Fourth? Merely because you could?" The lord chancellor leaned a little forward, his position challenging.

He wants me to say yes, Darvish realized, so that they can come and take the thief away. Merely because they can. And out of the blurry memories of the night before came the sight of the thief's face, just after he'd opened those amazing silver-gray eyes. Something... Darvish raised his head and looked the king full in the face, speaking slowly as he sorted his feelings into words.

"There was already so much pain, I couldn't let them add any more..."

"So you took it upon yourself," and the tone asked, who are you, "to stop it."

"Yes, Most Exalted." It was the only honest conversation he'd had with his father in years, and Darvish could see the man was not impressed. What do you want from me? he wanted to ask. But he didn't. He knew the answer. Nothing.

"Let him keep the thief, Father."

"What?" The king echoed Darvish's thought. He turned to stare in puzzlement at his eldest son.

Just for an instant, Darvish saw a speculative look in Shahin's eyes he'd never seen before, then it passed, replaced by the scorn he recognized only too well.

"If nothing else, it will teach him he must accept responsibility for his actions."

"But my prince," the lord chancellor protested. "A thief. Loose in the palace. An outland thief."

The emphasis drew the king's brows down, as it had been intended to, Darvish was sure.

"What of it?" Shahin's hawk gaze crossed the throne and pinned the older man. "It is not as if he will ever be unobserved."

Darvish wondered if he heard another meaning beneath his brother's words, if the "he" Shahin referred to was not the thief but Darvish himself. He turned the words over, but the wine frustrated his search.

"I have thought on this matter."

The ritual words jerked Darvish back to the question at hand.

"The thief should have died had you not saved him. He therefore has no life save what you give him. If..."

The tone said, When.

"... you tire of him, he dies."

"As easy as that to dispose of a life, Most Exalted?"

Even the background babble of the court seemed to fade as Darvish watched his father's brows draw in. He wanted to say something to cancel the comment, but anything he could think of would only make matters worse.

The crown prince gave a snort of disgust before the king could speak. "You should know," and his voice cut like a scimitar's edge, "you've disposed of your own."

The danger passed and the king nodded slowly, acknowledging the wisdom of his heir's remark. This third son was not worth wasting anger upon. "I have finished with you," was all he said and he would have said the same to anyone as he dismissed them from his presence.

Darvish dropped to his knee again, then stood and backed the nine and one paces away. With the suggestion of a nonchalant smile carefully pasted on his face, he turned and plunged into the crowd of courtiers.

Frowning thoughtfully, Shahin watched him go. For years he had been convinced that Darvish was nothing more than he seemed; a wastrel, a buffoon, an embarrassment. Tonight—earlier in the corridor, and here—he thought he saw something more, that perhaps there was still a prince left inside the fool.

"You look worried, Highness."

"Do I?" While Shahin recognized that the man excelled at his job, that he had guided the king and therefore the kingdom on a prosperous course for years, he couldn't warm to him. Back when Darvish had first begun to drink, Shahin had asked the lord chancellor if something worthwhile could not be found for the younger prince to do.

"You'd trust something worthwhile to that?" the chancellor had replied as they watched a giggling Darvish being hoisted out of a fountain.

"No," Shahin had answered, and turned his back.

But now he wondered if perhaps he should have said yes.

"You're worried about something, Highness."

"Nothing," the heir lied and, warned by his tone, the lord chancellor backed away. Shahin watched his brother accept a goblet of wine and drain it. Was it too late?

Once they knew he was not likely to bring down the king's wrath upon them, Darvish was quickly surrounded by laughing young men and women who pressed food, drink, and themselves into his hands. He lost himself in their circle for a time and then danced his way to the Nobles' Quarters where the Lady Harithah kept the promises of her smile.

Darvish responded with enthusiasm—a dead man would've responded with enthusiasm—but somehow, his heart wasn't in it.

"Highness, the thief is awake."

Darvish stretched his toes out over the edge of the bath and regarded them sleepily. "Thank you, Fadi," he said when Oham had moved the razor far enough from his throat for speech. "I'll see him when I'm bathed. Has he spoken?"

"No, Highness. He just lies and stares at the ceiling."

"Go back to watching him," Darvish yawned. "Tell me if there's any change."

"Yes, Highness." The boy bowed, his gaze dropping from the rim of the tub where he'd anchored it to the prince's body shimmering under the water. He flushed, turned quickly, and began to hurry out of the room.

"Fadi."

He turned back slightly more slowly than he'd turned away.

Darvish grinned. He wished he had the energy to tease the boy, who was curious, obviously, but who was still considerably too young. And I am too exhausted to live up to the expectations of a thirteen year old. He'd gotten even less sleep than usual the night before. Nine Above, it's no wonder her husband spends so much time at sea. "Is Karida still with him?"

"No, Highness. She left this morning. Just after you..." Fadi paused, unsure of how to describe his prince being all but carried in by two grinning guards wearing only his shirt and his sandals. Squirming a little under Oham's gaze, he settled finally on, "... returned."

"And I'll bet she had a few things to say about my return, too."

The young dresser opened and closed his mouth. He couldn't repeat what the healer had said. Not to his prince. He squirmed a little more.

"Go." Darvish took pity on the boy and, with a wave of his hand that arced a spray of scented water through the air, dismissed him. "I can pretty much guess what she said anyway. Watch my thief for me."

Thankfully, Fadi sped out of the bathing room.

The ceiling was stucco. Aaron knew stucco. It crumbled under probing fingers and left its mark on hands and boots and clothing. A good thief stayed away from stucco. And Aaron was a good thief.

"You're too good a thief, Aaron, my lad."

"Not too good, Faharra," he told the memory. "Or I wouldn't be where I am." He was in the palace although he didn't know where and he still lived although he didn't know why. The angle of the wall told him he was low, on a pallet, not a bed. The pain that rose and fell with each breath advised against movement, but he tried to rise anyway, to see more of his failure. Teeth clenched, fighting the agony, he got his head up, but it did him no good as his vision blurred into jagged slashes of red and yellow and they became all he could see.

"Hey." A gentle hand pushed him down. "You're not supposed to do that. Karida'll have my butt if you undo all her hours of work."

Aaron struggled to focus on the speaker suddenly perched beside him. The large block of cream was a robe. The black above it, a tangle of damp hair. The blue—the winter blue—eyes. He closed his own.

"Are you in pain? I can call the healer."

It was a man's voice. Ruth was dead. He opened his eyes again.

"That's better."

The brilliant white smile that accompanied the words drove the image—no, the man—further from Aaron's memory of his cousin. She had never smiled like that in her entire too brief life.

"Look, have you got a name? I can't go on referring to you as the-thief-that-fell-onto-my-balcony indefinitely."

He swallowed, once, twice, before he pulled a voice up out of the knife edges in his throat. "Aaron." It didn't matter what he told them. Not any more.

"You sound worse than that One abandoned peacock, Aaron. Here."

One large hand slid behind his back and the other held a metal rim against his lips. The pain of being moved was nothing against the feel of the chilled water in his mouth, cooling and soothing the abraded tissue.

"In case you're curious..."

He wasn't.

"... my name is Darvish, these are my rooms, and I pulled you out of the Chamber of the Fourth. You owe me your life."

Why didn't you let me die!

Something of the thought must have shown on his face, for the voice hardened slightly.

"If you want to die, just say so. You aren't that far from it."

One word would bring him the death he craved, but Aaron couldn't speak it. Had never been able to speak it. He'd lived with the knowledge of his cowardice eating away at him for years. Not even this close to death could he just give up and slide past the barrier. He would have to live. Again.

Darvish hadn't quite known what to expect from his thief, gratitude maybe but certainly not such bleak and utter despair. He'd seen men and women go to the volcano with more joy. It made him profoundly uncomfortable. He stood and frowned down at the young man on the pallet. "The healer says you can have as much fluid as you can handle..."

There was no response. No reaction at all, as if the inner misery left no space for anything else.

Darvish suddenly didn't want to be in the same room with all that pain. It made him feel guilty, although he didn't understand why. He had nothing to feel guilty about. He'd saved Aaron's life.

"Oham!"

"Yes, Highness."

With the robe billowing out behind him, he strode back into the bedroom, heels slamming down into the brightly patterned rugs. "Get me my leathers. I'm going to the training yard."

Three hours later, winded, bruised, and aching, he felt a little better.

Nothing like getting your ass kicked, Darvish thought as Oham spread liniment over a battered section of ribs, to get rid of guilt. You're in pain. I'm in pain. So stop looking at me like that.

Aaron actually seldom looked at Darvish at all. Over the next few days he lay quietly, wrapped in almost tangible despair. He remained stoic while Karida treated him. He almost never spoke. Fadi brought him the waste pot periodically and if he needed to, he used it. He never asked for it. He never asked for anything.

Standing motionless and unseen in the shadow of a building, Shahin watched the arms master criticize Darvish's last session.

"... and much too slow," he finished as the panting prince held out his hands to help the defeated pair of guards to their feet.

It hadn't looked too slow to Shahin, he'd been impressed by his younger brother's skill. For too long, he'd lumped Darvish in with the twins as unsalvageable, cursed by the wine as the youngest members of the royal family had been cursed by their birth—his hand sketched the sign of the Nine and One—but that would have to change.

Darvish, strangely unwilling to put up with the pointed questions and snide comments of his friends, spent a lot of time at the training yard.

"Looking at the bright side," he grunted as Oham wound a dressing about his throbbing knee, "if this keeps up I'll soon be back in shape. Or in pieces," he added, sighing, sticking a skinned knuckle in his mouth.

Even the wine held less allure than usual.

And then his most exalted father met him one afternoon in the corridor, ran cold eyes over the grimy and sweat-stained leathers and said with no discernible emotion at all, "It appears that thief will be the making of you."

Darvish made no reply, but that night he put on his gaudiest silks and he didn't sober up for three days.

"You look like shit."

Darvish belched, handed the cup now empty of wizard's brew to Oham, and squinted in the direction of the voice. For reasons he could no longer remember, although he assumed they'd made perfect sense at the time, he'd had Aaron, pallet and all, brought from the sitting room to the bedroom. It must have been a good idea, the thief was talking.

"You don't look so terrific yourself," he pointed out, balancing precariously on one leg as Oham stripped off his filthy trousers.

Aaron, reclining against a massive mound of pillows Fadi had piled at one end of his pallet, dropped a shoulder slightly, the closest he could come to a shrug. Any greater movement pulled at his healing chest and threatened to send him back into darkness. His lip curled as he watched the activity by the bed. "You're one of the royal princes," he said.

"Right first time," Darvish agreed, scraping at something he couldn't identify that was caked on the back of his left hand.

Aaron's brows drew down as he tried to remember. "Darvish..."

Oham whirled about, the chains that held his sleeveless vest in place straining against his indignant breath. "You will call him Highness."

"Why?" Aaron asked dryly, lids falling to hood his eyes. "What will he do to me if I don't?"

"You can die!" Oham snapped.

"Yes. I can." But I won't, he thought, my father's god isn't done with me yet. The thought didn't bother him. Nothing bothered him any longer. He had no feelings, he had no life. He'd spent the last few days cutting all that loose. Let the hand of his father's god fall where it would. It didn't matter.

"He can call me what he wants," Darvish said, weaving his way to the bath. "Stop glaring at him, Oham, and come here. I'm likely to drown this morning without help." And besides, leaning heavily on the dresser the prince managed to get first one leg then the other over the edge of the tub, I think I'd like to be called by my name for a change. And it looks like that black cloud he had himself wrapped in is finally gone, thank the One. The cloud had been replaced by nothing at all, but Darvish was used to that.

Bath over, and feeling if not better at least as if death was no longer imminent, Darvish sat quietly watching the thief while Oham tried to work the tangles out of his hair. "So," he said at last, more because he wasn't up to silence than because he wanted to know, "what were you after that night you fell at my feet?"

Aaron dropped his gaze from the patterns of sunlight and shadow playing across the ceiling to Darvish's face. Why not tell him?

"I was after the emerald on top of the royal staff."

Oham made a choking noise and across the room, Fadi almost let a platter of bread and fruit drop to the floor. From where he was cleaning the bathing room, the lord chancellor's man strained not to miss any further confessions. Darvish only grinned.

"I figured you couldn't be after The Stone, being as how you don't strike me as a complete idiot. The emerald, huh?" He shook his head admiringly. "Why?"

Aaron's lips thinned. "Personal reasons," he grunted. Faharra was his; her memory only the second thing worth keeping in a life of failure.

"Suit yourself." Darvish took a peach from the offered platter and began to peel it fastidiously. "I'd ask you to join me," he said as Fadi gathered up the fallen peel, "but Karida says you're on fluids for a while yet. I think she's expecting you to regain your color." A drop of juice splashed against the wall over Aaron's head as Darvish gestured with the dripping fruit. "Of course, you being an outlander, this is probably as much color as you'll get."

It could have been an insult. Guided by their king, the people of Ischia tended to think outlanders were little better than barbarians and at best they treated them with patronizing tolerance. The attitude had made much of Aaron's thievery easier. "Your eyes are blue," he said mildly.

Darvish wiped his chin. "My grandmother was from the north. Fairly far north. A treaty bride."

"The king is half an outlander?"

"I suppose that is what it means, yes." The peach pit sailed over the balcony railing. "But never mention it to my most exalted father."

Aaron shrugged his minimal shrug once again. He doubted he'd be mentioning anything to the king. And if the king's third son, his blue-eyed son, failed to see that his very existence reminded the king he was only half of the land he ruled, a land he had tried to empty of other reminders, well, it wasn't Aaron's business to point it out if said third son was too blind to see it on his own. And frankly, he could care less. The insecurities of the king were not his problem.

"What are you going to do with me?" he asked instead. Not that he cared anything about that either—although his heart, apparently unaware of his feelings, beat faster while he waited for an answer.

"You mean when you get better?"

"Yes."

Darvish studied the way the sunlight turned Aaron's hair to burnished copper, the way the slightly lighter brows rose at the outer edges then tufted thickly over the center of those amazing gray eyes. It was a pity about the scarring but even so the lithely muscled body had appeal. He grinned, his meaning very evident. "I'll think of something."

Aaron's lips drew back off his teeth. "I'll see you in the Lady first."

Oh, so it's like that, is it? Pity. Darvish stretched and reached for another peach. He'd never taken an unwilling lover, and he had no intention of starting now. Enough men and women threw themselves in his path that he had no need to exhaust himself seducing one skinny thief. "Well, as long as we understand each other," he said.