She lay a while, too restless to sleep, although she was tired. Where was Kem sleeping? Was he on watch? That he was angry at her was clear. Had she made the wrong choice to keep the truth from him? But she had done what Aoving had demanded, and Kem was Ao’s child, not hers, even if in every other way he was her child too.

She’d had to respect Ao’s wishes. Hadn’t she? What if Kem refused to forgive her?

Far earlier than she expected, the rousing celebration came to an end. A dull silence settled over Sfendia Moat. Her troubled thoughts calmed as the fountain’s music eased her, and her eyes closed.

She startled awake. The rhythm of the fountain’s falls of water had altered. A splash sounded, movement rippling the waters in the basin. Elen raised herself onto an elbow so she could see out the window’s shutters. The moon was only one day past full. Now at zenith, its light drenched the courtyard in a silvery glamor, as if the High Heavens had poured an irresistible enchantment directly onto the earth.

Maybe they had.

Because standing in the basin with the water spilling down around and over him, facing away from her, was a naked man.

29 A PERILOUS DELIGHT

Elen thought her heart was going to pound out of her throat. With an effort, she swallowed, trying to calm her racing pulse.

“Ah, you’re awake,” said the man in a soft voice, though she hadn’t spoken.

She eased up from the bunk, tucking her knife into her left hand. After smoothing her shift down over her thighs, she padded barefoot out the door and into the courtyard. Because he was still facing away from her, she had a splendid view of his broad back, narrow hips, superb buttocks, and muscular legs. He extended his arms as Prince Gevulin had done at the Halt while his concubines had washed him. His posture was one of ease, not of tension.

“I’m finally getting a good look at this body,” he remarked, sounding amused as he studied himself from tip to toe. “It seems quite … serviceable. What do you think, Deputy Courier? Is this body a healthy and creditable example of its type?”

He turned to face her, his arms still extended, everything on display and he with no apparent self-consciousness. The moonlight gilded him. Prince Gevulin was a handsome man in the way a masterfully crafted statue is handsome, burnished and painted so all may admire it, and its workmanship and polish more important than the core of its essence. The haunt—whoever or whatever he was—was dangerously beautiful not because of his features or proportions, but because he was smiling with a perilous delight, mischief in his eyes that could as easily turn to rapacity.

Well. Two could play this game.