*Warning: this chapter includes a mature scene of a sexual nature. It isn't very explicit.*

She excused herself from the receiving room the moment Mai released her hand, stepping between the columns and into the garden. The marriage wouldn't be accepted, at least by many. As people defied Mai, there would be more death, and once again, she would be to blame.

She took a path away from the palace, entering and exiting small enclosed gardens. Something tickled at the nape of her neck—the scrape of unseen eyes. A chill rolled down her skin, like marbles bouncing down a flight of stairs. She stopped.

Silence.

Stop it, you fool.

Here—in the shade of Mai's palace, at least—she was safe. Mai would have her shadowed at all times, and she needed to grow used to it.

She opened and closed an iron gate and found herself on a broader path. The sky before her. The air fresh. The heat of the day absorbed by her thin soles. Even high above the bay, she tasted salt. She was vaguely aware of passing Queen Kiera's garden as she continued toward the edge of the plateau.

The niggle at her neck continued. She turned to look behind her. Nothing. She walked faster. The stones crunched like rocksalt between a mortar and pestle.

She stopped suddenly. Crunch.

She spun on her heels and thought she saw a flash of tan and white vanish behind a bush, but lights frequently shot across her vision now, whether or not she stepped into that other spectrum. It could have been that. It could have been an animal. It could be paranoia. Shaking her head, she resumed walking.

The ninth level of the mountain city was much smaller than the lower ones, and it didn't take long to approach the edge. A waist-high stone fence rose a meter before the cliff edge. She lifted her skirts and swung her legs over.

The world yawned before her.

She peered down. A thrill streaked through her veins at the sight of a rock shelf metres below. After a moment of searching, she found a goat path leading down. Unmindful of her silk dress and delicate shoes, she hurried down and sat on the stone. She swung her feet back and forth and closed her eye. The afternoon sun warmed her back and she forced herself to focus on it rather than the life bubbling through her blood like an untended pot.

"That's dangerous," said a voice after a time.

Rina snorted, not bothering to open her eyes, letting her heels bounce against the rock. "You wouldn't let me fall, would you?" she said.

"Of course not, my dear."

Mai sat beside her, and she faced him. "So it was you who followed me," she said. "Why did you hide?"

Mai frowned. "What are you talking about? I don't need to follow you." He tugged at that phantom line between them to demonstrate his point. He could find her—so long as she stayed close enough.

"When I passed your mother's garden," she said, "there was someone else." She gave a shrug. "It was probably a guard. Or a gardener."

"I'll need to speak to the captain," said Mai. "If you saw or heard one of his men, they aren't doing their job."

Rina rounded on him. "So you are having me followed."

A self-deprecating smile spread across Mai's face. He shrugged out of his dark robe, removed his crown and set it on the fabric. He wore a white shirt, the ties at his chest undone, and his black suede trousers. Just a man. A beautiful, ageless man, with skin that glowed like alabaster before a flame in the sun.

He raked his fingers through the black spirals of his hair. "Don't hold that against me," he said and cupped her face, his skin blissfully cool.

"How can you stand the heat all year round?" she asked.

A bead of sweat ran down her temple, and Mai kissed it away. "I grew up in Hypat. There was no escaping it. Besides, since the Devastation, my blood has run cold."

He took her hand and placed her thumb on his pulse. The blood flowed below his skin like the chill trickle of a thawed stream. A hand reached her neck and swept back her hair, his calloused thumb settling over her pulse. Leaning in, he said, "Around you, I finally feel warm again."

She burned. Condensation beaded across her skin. She pulled up the sleeve of her dress, half-expecting to see crimson droplets pushing through her pores.

"You were ruthless in there."

His nose brushed against her ear. "It's all an act, my dear. One cannot lead without a show, and an emperor cannot display doubt or weakness. Sometimes, I must be ruthless. As my empress, you'll soon learn this for yourself."

Something scuttled down her back at the word empress. "They won't have me."

"Oh, but they will. I assure you."

His teeth scraped against her throat, and her crystal sang. You took too much, he said down the line. After you use the consumption, you have to use the Carnelian Way you ingest or find a way to release it.

Her breath hitched. Another flick of his tongue across her skin and a slipper fell from her foot.

"Tell me, dear one, another lesson, or would you like release?"

Her blood pounded against her skin, shouting Yes! as pins and needles pricking the tips of her fingers and toes. His teeth grazed her skin again.

She inhaled a short, sharp breath, then said, "Release," her voice breaking. "Please."

She felt the rounding of his cheek against her own as he smiled and said, "As you wish." His fingers fisted into her hair, bringing her to the brink of pain.

It hurt when he bit her. Gods, it hurt. Like two rose thorns had punctured her. He groaned as he drank, his hand tilting her neck to the side, the nail of his thumb running down her larynx.

Relax, he said down the line. Trust me. The hand lowered further, along her collarbone and moving to cup a breast in one hand.

She moaned as her blood slowed and her bones loosened, as he guided her down until her spine was against the stone. A final sweep of his tongue on her skin and his mouth was on hers, filling her with the taste of her blood and Ro's essence. His body pinned her, teeth scraping against hers.

"Rina," Mai breathed.

"Your—"

"Mai, call me Mai."

"Mai," she repeated in a whisper.

He stared down with his cerulean eyes, amber lights dancing about him, about the world.

"Do you understand what we need to do?"

She nodded. They needed something to join their lines, their people. She remembered that spark between her and Fin and the spark Elia had ignited when she lay with Arkis.

"Will you have me?" he asked, voice hesitant and breathy, a second question under it. Do you want me?

In answer, she moved her hands under his shift and across the ridges of his abdomen. He shivered and lifted his body as the tips of her fingers roved over and around his ribs, up to his back, hoisting the material up and up and up.

His body was in shadow, the sun burning behind him. She squinted to make out the planes of his form as her palms moved from his collarbone to his chest.

A hand shot out and took hers, stopping her. He shook his head and smiled that crooked smile, and her mouth went dry.

My turn, he said down the line as his fingers moved to untie her robes. They burned across her skin, his lips scalding her as he kissed her roughly, trailing fire from her mouth to her throat to that sensitive spot between neck and shoulder.

He paused, waiting.

Hurry, she said. And he did, incisors sinking into her flesh as he claimed her two times over.

They moved in a dance, and he took and took: her body, her blood, the remnants of Ro's èlan vital. All the while, a pinprick of energy sprouted deep within her.

After a time, he stopped. His lips were red as a rose and his teeth pink as he considered her with his blue eyes, then he grinned and said into her mind, Your turn.

He rolled until he was below and she atop him. Now she controlled the rhythm. Hollow and hungry with the need to be filled again.

Her tongue traced her lips, the lengthened incisors of her teeth. Gripping Mai's shoulders, she dragged him upright, clawing at his neck as she shoved his hair to the side. He said nothing, did nothing but follow her rhythm, bracing his hands against the ground and tilting his head to the side so she could drink from him.

Electricity filled her. The blood in her veins snapped again, fizzing and crackling as amber rushed through her body. Her fingers tingled. Her toes curled. The pressure in her built and that spark became a point of heat in her womb.

Hot blood dripped down her chin. She felt it on her stomach and thighs as it dripped between them.

Mai began to shake. His movements became erratic and he whimpered as her teeth pressed deeper.

"Please, I can't much longer," he rasped.

Grunting with reluctance, Rina retracted her teeth. Her fingers slipped against the sweat of Mai's skin. She dug her nails in to keep her grip, ignoring his sob and continued to move, not wanting to let go of the feeling, like infinity.

A blush of approaching sunset kissed the sky and streams of light crackled through the air. She released one hand and extended it, flares of light rushing to the tip of her index finger like metal filings to a magnet. She swirled her finger, and the light shadowed it, then she tilted her hand palm up, holding a ball of energy.

All the things she could do with it. That city sprawled beneath her, the red-roofed manses of the Euran nobles who had rejected her, and lower, the ships—with captains and sailors visiting their mistresses while their wives or promised ones waited at home. She could burn them to dust if she wished.

"Please," Mai begged. He was trembling now.

She blinked at him. He was covered in a sheen of moisture, his face paler than she'd ever seen, and a wide smear of that delicious blood ran down his neck and torso. She wanted to lick it from him. But those blue eyes begged.

The light in her womb became the point of a needle. Life, she needed to think of life. Of the future.

Closing her eyes, she forced her awareness to her centre, while her arms stretched out. Her fingers clawed, raking at each scrap of èlan vital until something in her marrow sung it was time.

Now, she shot down the line to Mai.

He breathed in one ragged breath and shuddered, as he did, she clapped her hands together, forcing the energy into that seed.

The seed gobbled the light, and the world spun.

She fell to Mai's chest. Air wove across her skin, sprouting goosebumps. Mai was slick with sweat and blood and his heartbeat was a slow, distant echo in her ear.

A seabird whirled overhead, circling until it hovered but a few metres above them, encircled by an amber corona. Squinting, Rina raised her hand and called the light. The bird shrieked and stilled, hanging limp in the air as streaks of life bled from it and into her hand. A crackling sphere of energy that grew and grew until the bird was nothing but a husk of skin and bone and ash that was swept away by the wind.

She stared at the power in her hand, saliva pooling in her mouth.

Mai groaned. His heart had slowed, coming in an irregular pattern, and his skin was ice. Swallowing, she pushed up on one shaking hand, his chest bared before her and lay her palm over his heart. His skin radiated amber as his body ate the light, revealing the shadows of his ribcage.

He sighed. His eyelids flickered, then he opened them, pinning her.

An exhausted grin twitched across his face as he brought his hand to her womb and said, "Bringer of life."

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Rina didn't remember when she fell asleep, but she knew she had when she opened her eyes to that strange room in a tower high, high above a foreign city. Hypat—in Old Denea. The Devastation.

Her limbs were heavy as she turned to the side. After what she'd done—they'd done— igniting that spark, and creating Nebia's heir, it was to be expected. And yet there was an unfamiliarity to the way her body moved. Smooth. Sensuous. With snake-like grace. The oiled skin of her calves slipped across each other as she reached out a hand—the fingers too long, the nails unchipped, the skin too pale—and brushed back the waves of lank black hair.

Midnight lashes fanned the dusky skin of his cheeks. So perfect. But not Mai's—so who's?

Then her foggy mind remembered where she was. Who she was. She was Rina—not Elia.

The man's eyes opened, twin yellow suns. A smile sliced his face, so white against his brown skin, with the sharp incisors of a predator.

She looked at the space between them, her heartbeat flaring, as he reached a hand and placed it against the skin of her hard, just-distended stomach and said in a voice full of reverence, "Bringer of life." 

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A/N: Many thanks for reading! Please consider leaving comments, suggestions (every one will be considered when I redraft) or voting.