Behind him, the murmur of Fife and Lyra’s voices, gentle against the wind and the gulls and the crash of waves on the shore, a secret language only the two of them shared.
Raffe followed Kayu through the Temple door, down the hall, toward the small cloister rooms with their small cloister beds, toward the one she’d claimed for herself when it became clear they’d be staying at least one night. He didn’t think of what was coming next, though his body knew it. He didn’t let himself think at all.
It was nice, to let his mind settle. Let the rest of him take over for a while.
When the door closed behind them, Kayu turned. She was small, her nose nearly level with his sternum, and when her eyes tilted up to look at his face, her pupils were already wide. His breath went ragged in his chest as she shrugged out of the billowing shirt, the trousers, the boots, and stood before him pale and bare.
“It’s been a while,” she whispered.
“Same here,” Raffe replied.
Kayu kissed him, and she tasted like spice and like flowers. His hands wove through her hair, impossibly silky, running over his skin like a black curtain.
“It doesn’t have to mean anything.” She pulled away, tugged his shirt over his head, ran her hands across the mahogany planes of his chest. “It doesn’t have to mean anything you don’t want it to.”
Comfort. That’s what they were both after. That’s what he told himself as he kissed her again, as his hands came to her hips and lower. Comfort didn’t mean anything, did it? He’d done this before, with other people who knew it wasn’t anything deeper than solace, who knew his heart was elsewhere and didn’t mind. This didn’t mean anything beyond needing some respite. So few things Raffe knew about love, but this, he knew.
And if it did mean something more? If this was something beyond bodies doing what bodies did, what would that mean for him? For Neve?
In this moment, as Kayu backed up to that tiny cloister bed, all warmth and silk, and gulls cawed and waves crashed outside, Raffe found he didn’t much care.
She fell asleep after. They curled toward each other like the two halves of a circle, space between them, the only point of contact Raffe’s palm on the curve of her waist. Her hair feathered over her brow, caught in the current of her breath. He lifted his hand to push it away, and other than settling her head farther into her pillow, Kayu didn’t stir.
Raffe sat up, ran a hand over his face. He felt better—it really had been a while—and now his mind was coming back to him, the endless churn of worry he’d become. It’d been nice to set that aside for an hour. It’d been nice to set it aside with her.
But reprieves didn’t last long.
He was still for a moment, waiting for the guilt, waiting for Neve’s face to paint itself on the backs of his eyelids. It didn’t come. He felt warm and languid and, yes, still worried, but no part of him felt guilty.
It should’ve been a relief. An answer, finally, to the question of whether the love he and Neve had was something more than friendship. Instead, cruelly aware of the shape of the woman next to him, Raffe was afraid this realization would only make the whole situation even more complicated.
She’d said it didn’t have to mean anything. He wished it hadn’t.
Kayu shifted in her sleep, a slight smile curving her full lips. Kings, she was beautiful. Infuriating and meddling and too smart for her own good, but beautiful.
He stifled a groan in his palm.
A bag sat in the corner. Kayu’s. Lavishly embroidered fabric spilled from the top to trail across the stone. Raffe pushed up, meaning to stuff it back in the bag—the dress looked expensive, it would get ruined lying on this dust-covered floor. It didn’t seem as though the priestesses spent much time cleaning.
And he needed to get away from Kayu’s warmth before he reached for her again.
He pulled the dress the rest of the way out of the bag, intending to fold it up and put it back. But as he did, something fluttered to the ground. Frowning, he picked it up.
Papers. Bound together with twine. He could catch one line written across the top: For Her Holiness, the High Priestess.
His pulse ratcheted up in his ears.
Raffe didn’t waste time wondering about Kayu’s right to privacy. He broke the twine with his teeth, sitting naked on the floor to read over the notes.
Notes on everything. All signed by Sister Okada Kayu, novitiate of the Order of the Five Shadows.
It was like a bone setting, the awful way it all came together in his head, the ragged pain of things snapping into place. Kayu’s abrupt arrival in Valleyda right after the other priestesses left. Intercepting that letter from Kiri—except she hadn’t really intercepted it, had she? It’d probably been written for her in the first place, a convenient thing to get into his circle of trust. To get into his bed.