Two weeks after the ball, Inia still hardly left her room. It had taken her a while to recover from what had happened. And she still wasn't keen or ready to run into Tiyamike again and talk or explain or anything. If the princess had heard the rumors, she would have figured out the truth by now. In this very moment, though, she wasn't hiding. She had been asleep, caught in a messy dream, something about a present, rivers of blood, and an ancient grieving woman, when scratches on the outside of the wall had woken her up. Now, she was awake. Heart pounding and terrified. Night terrors, and the fear of what was on the other side of the wall, of skeletal hands reaching for her, voices in her ears, strangers breathing down her neck, it had never left her. And despite knowing that her window was warded and guarded, she was still afraid.

Before she had drifted into sleep, Jaro had sneaked into her chamber, as he did so often when he couldn’t sleep, but she was alone now. His presence was gone.

She laid in darkness and bit her lower lip. There it was again. Scratching, now louder. She pressed her hand on her mouth. Whatever it was, it would go away. Even the Uruduki would have a hard time penetrating these wards, and she was of no interest for that child snatcher. Unless, of course, her fear made her smell like a child.

The scratching came closer, always closer. Inia gathered her courage or rather her fear. She tried he scream. She really wanted to but all she made was a pathetic sound.

She couldn’t do anything but stare at the window, the source of the sound. She just knew it.

There! A shadow, movement. She had seen it. Now bright glowing eyes appeared, and she could see sharp teeth grin. Another movement. Whatever it was, it pulled itself on the windowsill and something clattered on the ground. She squealed. Again. That sound. Like stones on her floor. Stones. She halted for a second. Stones?

Before she could finish the thought, one of them hit her in the face. Not hard. She jumped, anyway. The stone landed in her palm. A smooth warm pebble.

“Renor!”, she hissed at the thing perched on her windowsill.

He snickered softly. “Correct, princess”, he said. “Now, please open that window.”

“I should throw you down from where you are now!”, she hissed back. But she left her warm sheets behind. Her naked feet looked almost blue on the dark and cold floor.

Renor smiled. “I wanted to surprise you”, he said.

She made an irritated sound. She was, of course, very glad to see him. “You nearly killed me”, she said.

He laughed. His laughter reminded her of earth. Warm and rough. She wanted to hit him, and hug him, and throw him out the window. But of course, she didn’t.

When the window was open, Renor swung his long legs inside. He did not touch her, didn’t even touch her floor. “I’m sorry, love”, he said. “May I come in?” She couldn’t see his ears in that light but knew him well enough to interpret that tone. He hadn’t thought it through.

She flicked him on the nose.

“Oww!”, he howled.

“Shh!”, she pressed her hands on his lips. “If my father would find out that you can somehow crawl past all that security, he would freak out.”

Renor tried to say something, but all he did was tickle her hand with his lips. She pulled her hand back.

“Sorry, what?”, she asked.

“If your father would find out that I spend time in your room unsupervised, he would freak out”, he said.

Inia smiled briefly. “True”, she said.

A strong wind blew the clouds away from the moon, and the cold air made her shiver even more.

She took Renor’s hand and pulled him away from the sill and into her room. As always, his movements were fluid, his feet made almost no sound at all.

He was so graceful.

After she had closed the window, she turned around again and saw the moonlight falling upon his body. His eyes reflected it, his golden face bathed in it. He looked eerie.

She could feel him taking her in — her simple nightgown, her naked feet — the same way she noticed his simple brown trousers, his gray shirt. The bandages on his hands.

He followed her gaze. “Oh”, he said. “Forgot.”

“Liar”, she said and pointed at his ears.

A sheepish grin.

Inia rolled her eyes and pulled Renor close.

She didn’t want to take care of his wounds. She wanted him. She had missed him. In those last two weeks, she had thought about sending a message to him. Being stopped again and again by the thought he could do something stupid. And he would have done, she knew that.

“I missed you”, he said.

She smiled. Three words and they meant the world to her. They made what they had real, not too real but real enough for her.

“I missed you, too”, she said.

She could feel his smile on her cheek.

His skin was rough, he hadn’t shaved properly. But she didn’t mind. If Etenesh wouldn’t make her wash, Inia wasn’t sure in what state Renor would have found her.

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For a second, they just stood there. Close. She breathed in his horse and earth and blood and sweat scent. And he breathed in hers. He had once said she smelled like the last sunset of a bygone age but she was pretty sure that was no actual scent.

After a while, she moved away from him, towards the bed. Her feet hurt in the cold air, and she longed to be under the blanket again, and preferably to press her cold feet against his warm shins. The pebble he had thrown at her still lay on the bed.

“You know… you were supposed to throw them at the window”, she said bending down to collect it and put it away into a drawer.

He nodded. “I’m really sorry”, he said. He looked abashed. “I … I had a lot do to the last weeks and I just really wanted to see you and … when I remembered I was already halfway up and … uh.” He shrugged.

“It’s okay but … why throw it at my face?”, she said and sat down. She patted the bed right next to her, inviting him to sit down.

He followed her, to sit beside her, and opened his mouth to answer, when she could hear the bounce loud and clear. It was a hollow sound. Renor hissed and made a face. He flinched back and felt his foot.

“Are you okay?”, she asked, half laughing, half worried.

“I stumped my toe”, he said miserably.

Now, she laughed. “Oh, I’m so sorry”, she said but couldn’t stop laughing.

“You”, he said, sitting down next to her, his finger pointing at her chest “you are so evil. Such an evil creature.”

She still chuckled. “Am I now?”, she asked.

“Yes. You and your bed, you are both evil. The root of all evil.”

“I think you’re overreacting”, she said, fighting to keep a straight face.

“Your bed attacked me!”

She shook her head and rolled back under the blanket. It was still warm and soft. She lifted it a bit. “Come”, she said. “I might make it up to you if you stop being so pathetic.”

He grinned, straightened, and made a very serious face. Way too serious for him. “Oh, well, in that case.”

“Ah wait, leave your shirt.”

He grinned even wider. “As you wish.”

Sometime later, she laid in her bed, on her back, and stared at the ceiling. She had one hand behind her head, the other one on Renor’s waist, his head was on her shoulder, his tail rested over her hip, while he was trailing her scars so very lightly.

She didn’t mind. She had never minded when he did it. Probably because he had never gasped or stared. He just touched and kissed.

“I want to paint you”, he whispered.

“You can’t paint”, she retorted softly.

“I’m sure I could learn it.”

“Mhhm. And by the time you did, I’m old and wrinkly.”

He chuckled.

She sometimes wondered how he did it. How he made her feel like there hadn’t been countless lovers before. It was such a gift. And how he could even allow himself to get close to people, knowing they would leave him, eventually. She probably wouldn’t be able to do it. Shadow, she didn’t even know how she allowed him so close.

He kissed her shoulder. “I bet, you’d still be beautiful.”

She made a dismissive sound.

“You are, Inia”, he said, his finger wandering over the loop of her ear, and back towards her nose. “I know you don’t see it because you don’t look into mirrors, but you are. And I’m not only talking about your face.” He touched her forehead.

She rolled her eyes and looked at him. “You are so cheesy, Renor”, she said.

He propped himself up on his elbow and looked at her with serious eyes. Real serious eyes, not a face. Not a joke. “I mean it”, he said. “Your mind feels so pretty.”

She raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean my ‘mind feels so pretty’?”

His tail twitched. “Nothing?”

“Renor.”

He shrugged, his head a little bit ducked. “I sometimes touch your mind, when I watch the city”, he confessed.

Inia blinked. “That is very, very disturbing, I hope you know that.”

He laughed. “But do you believe me now?”

She licked her lips. “No”, she said decisively. “You are still biased.”

He kissed her cheek. “It is true though, Inia.”

She rolled her eyes and took a deep breath. “You’re sweet.”

He really was. Despite everything else, he made her feel good. Warm. He was a bit of an idiot, a very lovable, very loyal idiot. And she was grateful for it. She was grateful for their moments, for every night, every day. For every touch. She was grateful that he wasn’t scared away by everything this affair could entail. By everything, she brought in it herself.

Those last three years, he had made them better. A lot better. And even though she tried not to think about it too often, she did now. She allowed herself that one thought: I’m scared of the day one of us will move on. Whomever it’ll be. I’ll hurt.

She heard thunder rumbling far away.

“Huh”, Renor said, his ears peaking up. “The sky is so clear right now.”