Asiah could only stare up at Kavaris in disbelief. His face betrayed no sense of uncertainty or deceit as he stared straight at the Head, who looked back at him, her face betraying the same amount of shock Asiah felt. When she had looked at him and found whatever she might have been looking for, she looked at Asiah for a long moment and then back at him again.
"You mean to say your thief is Ariadne?"
Kavaris frowned disapprovingly at her words but nodded.
The Head put her face in her hand, rubbing at her temples. "Gods, this whole situation is a mess."
"I told you," said Maaleshiira. She was leaning against one of the large bookshelves. In the Head's overwhelming presence, Asiah had forgotten she was there. "It's your fault for not believing me."
The Head gave Maaleshiira a look that could have curdled dairy.
***
In the end, the decision the Head came to was this: although Kavaris seemed sure Asiah was Ariadne reincarnated, there was no proof of such a thing and so, they would await the return of the Head's Eyes to perform some ritual to determine whether the soul inside of Asiah was truly the priestess of power or not. If she was, she would be exempt from her crimes as Eldyngrove owed Ariadne a great debt. If she was not, she would be imprisoned. Until the Head's Eyes returned from her excursion to the Empire, they were to stay within the walls of the Citadel.
Kavaris seemed none too pleased with this turn of events, but he seemed to accept that he could not argue further. It seemed to be dawning on him that the world did not see him as it once had. In the days of yore, his word would be taken into immediate account based solely on his status as the child of a goddess. Such was not the case now.
The room Asiah had been given was decently sized, about the size of her room back at her father's estate, but that was as far as the similarities went. The ceiling was high and on it was a painting of the androgynous god of spring and summer, Lilunn, playing his lute and dancing in a field of blooming flowers, his hair tossed in a passing gale. The bed was located on a split-level platform at the far back of the room, it was round and surrounded by a gauzy canopy.
She headed over to the twin doors at the end of the room and opened them, revealing a balcony that led to a different section of the pristine garden she had seen from the Head's window. She could hear the waterfall rushing nearby. There were no guards below to make sure she didn't escape, but she didn't exactly find that strange. Even if she climbed down from her window and ran off into the night, there was nowhere on Eldyngrove she could go that the Head could not find her, and she would never leave this kingdom. Not without her sisters.
Below her, eliacras swayed in the wind, their sweet yet spicy scent filling her nose.
They glimmered so beautifully underneath the light of the moons that Asiah found herself getting emotional suddenly. All of the ugliness from her day poured out of her at the sight of these beautiful flowers.
"Lady Asiah."
Sniffling, she wiped at her eyes and turned to look in the voice's direction. It was Kavaris standing beneath her window and looking up at her. Sure enough, they were taking extra good care of him. He was dressed in a loose-fitting shirt that exposed his chest and abdomen with loose ruffles at the sleeves and expensive-looking breeches. His tangled hair had been combed until it shone.
She was a simple woman and so she couldn't stop her heart from fluttering at the sight of him. Her eyes took him in greedily without her say so. He was a taken man, that much she knew. In his eyes, no one would ever compare to Ariadne and so there was no hope for her or any other woman, for that matter, winning his heart.
But there was no harm in looking, was there? Surely, Ariadne would forgive her this.
"Are you crying?"
"What are you doing here?" she deflected. "Your room is on the other side of the Citadel."
"I thought I might come and take a walk in this garden. I haven't seen it in...many years."
Unable to help herself, she smiled. "A thousand years, the stories say."
Moonlight glimmered off his teeth as he smiled up at her. "Would you join me?"
Her heart fluttered again, but she shook her head. "I don't know my way around this place. I'd get lost trying to meet you."
"That's alright," he said, holding out his arms. "You can jump."
Her eyes widened. "Jump?"
He nodded.
"Was the Elven woman right, and all that time spent as a statue has stripped your sanity away?"
He frowned. "Please, don't mention that woman to me. Don't mention any Elf to me, actually. They're all prickly, the lot of them. I don't understand how they were borne of Lilunn."
Fascinated, she asked, "Did you ever meet Lilunn? They were related to you, were they not?"
Kavaris stared up at her, arms still outstretched. "I'll tell you when you come down."
Her fingers tightened on the railing. "Do you really expect me to jump?"
He shrugged. "Only if you're curious to hear of the gods. And not old stories they tell to you in temples, but real stories."
She blamed her curiosity about the gods on her mother. When they were young, her mother would take her and her sisters to the nearest temple every turn of the season. She would sit in those cold, hard pews and watch the high priestess of the temple tell old tales of the god who ruled each particular season. And of course, they would tell tales of the Great Goddess Herself. Her young self had had many a question about the gods. That was the only part of her that hadn't fizzled out with age.
Sighing at her stupidity, she stepped up on the railing and kicked her foot over it, skirts rustling, until she was seated on it, looking down at Kavaris.
"Ser Kavaris, I don't suppose I have to tell you this but should you drop me, I'll make you wish your body could be made of stone again."
He laughed and the sound was like music to her ears. Her mouth pulled into a smile.
"I'll take that to heart, Lady Asiah."
She gripped the railing tighter for a second. Truly, she had nothing to lose. After the Head's Eyes returned from the Empire and performed her ritual, she would be found guilty and thrown into the dungeons. Kavaris had bought her time, but she was not Ariadne. They were only prolonging the inevitable at this point.
She squeezed her eyes shut and let go. Air whooshed around her and then she was enveloped in warmth. When she opened her eyes, Kavaris's face hovered over her. Her cheek was pressed against his chest and it, like the rest of him, was unnaturally warm. He was so warm that she would have felt the urge to check if he was running a fever had he not so clearly been healthy.
A breath of wind brushed by them. His scent filled her nose, something musky and sweet, like sun-dried flowers, but distinctly masculine.
She became aware that she was gaping up at him and she squirmed. He sat her on her feet immediately and she kept her hands firmly on his shoulders when he did. Not only was he insanely tall and she was short, but she also wanted to make sure her hands didn't grow a mind of their own and trace over the lines of his chest. Because gods was it a nice chest...
When she had been righted, she looked up at him expectantly, and he laughed again, his face warming with the expression.
"Come, I'll tell you all you ask of me."