window.
Niko gazed after Randal as the mage ran, full-tilt, into the bushes. He nodded.
“Now it’s just the two of us, is that it?”
“Well …” she temporized, “there are my snakes, of course.” She was primping up
her beauty in a way he couldn’t see, letting her young and girlish simulacrum
come forward, easing the evil and the danger in her face and form. By all she
revered, did she love this boy with his hazel eyes so clear and his quiet soul.
By all she held sacred, the feel of his hand on her back as he ushered her into
her own house in gentlemanly fashion was unlike the touch of any man or mage
she’d ever known.
She wanted only to keep him. She sent away the snakes, having to discorporate
one who objected that she would then be defenseless, open to attack by man or
god.
“Take that silly armor off, beloved, and we’ll have a bath together,” she
murmured, preparing to spell water, hot and steaming, in her gold-footed tub.
And when she turned again, he’d done that and stood before her, hands out to
strip her clothes away, and his body announced its intention to make her
welcome.
Welcome her he did, in hot water and hot passion, until, amid the moment of her
joy and just before she was about to begin a rune to claim his soul forever, a
commotion began outside her door.
First it was lightning that rocked her to her foundations, then thunder, then
the sound of many running feet and chanting priests as all Vashanka’s priesthood
came tramping up her cart-track, battle-streamers on their standards and horns