She hadn’t known love would be like this. So consuming. So liberating. For the first time in her life she really was herself. Only now, with Morgan beside her, did she understand how caged she’d been. Remmie, dear Remmie, used his love like a tether, always tugging to keep her close to the ground. Remmie lived his life in fear. But Morgan… Morgan…

Morgan gave me wings and demanded that I fly.

And to think she’d cursed Artisan Master Arndel, when without his mean-spirited, short-sighted interference she and Morgan would never have discovered how perfectly they complemented each other.

Like Hahren, without Arndel we would never have met.

The moment it was safe to declare themselves in public, she’d return to Arndel’s artisanry and thank him in person. And then she was going to laugh while he choked on his bile.

Between us, there is no magic Morgan and I can’t do. Together we will save Dorana. I think it’s why we were born.

Remembering that, it was growing easier to accept what must be done. Sometimes, caught up in the power of the transmutation incant as first they perfected the melding of armoured beetle with feather, then moved on to the next, even more challenging stage of their quest, it was even possible to forget that in her determination to save Dorana she was taking lives with magic. She welcomed that oblivion, even as she accepted Morgan was right. Small lives perished so larger lives could survive. There was no shame. It was simply the rule of nature. More fool her to ever forget it.

“Barl…”

She opened her eyes to find his heavy blue gaze upon her. Traced his smiling lips with her fingertips. Smiled as he kissed them.

“Good morning, my love. I slept well. Did you?”

Hoisting himself onto one elbow, Morgan smoothed her hair from around her face then slid his hand down further to pull sheet and blanket aside. He said he never tired of seeing her naked. His desire for her was bold. Invigorating. Unashamed. It woke in her a recklessness, so that she revelled in his regard.

“I slept perfectly,” he said, trailing his fingers from her navel, between her breasts, to the base of her throat. “But now I’m awake.”

The day’s new light, filtering through the window, gilded his face and all the muscles of his arm and chest. Lifting her head, she tasted him. Felt him tremble. Felt her power.

“So I see,” she murmured. “And so am I.”

It was another kind of magic, their loving. Pleasure upon pleasure, so powerful that it hurt. There was nothing he could do to her she would not welcome. Nothing he could ask of her she would not give. And when it was her turn to demand, he gave without hesitation. They surrendered to each other. They both conquered. They both won. Her cry of release mingled with his sobbing sigh.