Witch Born(11)
His arms tightened around her. She wet her lips. Dare she tell him the next part? “Something’s happening to me, Joshen. It’s not just that my song’s getting stronger. My senses are, too. I truly hear the pain of the Four Sisters in Tarten. It haunts me.”
With the tip of his thumb, he traced the tattoo on her stomach—his touch unerringly accurate. “What can I do to make it better?”
By the Creators, she’d missed the smell of him—horses and the sea. “Make me forget, for just a little while.”
He tipped her chin up and kissed her. He was always soft and gentle, but today she felt an undeniable hunger somewhere deep inside him. He was trying to suppress it. But she didn’t want that. She wanted him to banish the lingering foulness of the curse and the fear that had never released her from its sweaty grasp, replacing all of that with the sweet taste of his mouth.
Gripping fistfuls of his dark hair, she pulled him down and deepened the kiss. His lips crushed against hers, Joshen responded, kissing her like he’d never kissed her before. The stubble along his jaw was rough against her chin. She felt herself melting, going soft inside.
Breathless, she pulled away before things grew more heated. “Mother will call out the Heads if I’m not home for supper.” She wanted to invite him, but she feared his presence would upset the fragile silence in her home. “And after, I have another class.”
With a groan that sounded like half frustration and half pain, Joshen rested his forehead against hers. “This late?”
“Three of the Four Sisters are more awake at night. On the next dark phase of the moon, the chesli harvest will begin. That lasts until dawn every night until the moon starts to outshine the flowers.” Senna let herself linger next to him. “Drenelle says communing with the earth works best at night during a rainstorm.”
“Mmm hmm.” She could tell he wasn’t really listening. He ran his fingers along the edges of her face. “How much longer until I can marry you?”
Senna licked her swollen lips, savoring the taste of him. “Apprentices aren’t allowed to marry. You know that. ”
He cradled her face in his hands. “Well then, how much longer until they graduate you to a Keeper?”
She tried to imagine their future, but she couldn’t picture spending the rest of their lives on this tiny little island, hidden away from the rest of the world. Joshen would never have his horses. She would never have the freedom she longed for.
Putting a little distance between them, she pulled her necklace out from under her dress. From it hung her pendant—a circular amber piece that had been cut into a waxing crescent and a waning gibbous.
She tried to unclasp it, but her injured hand wouldn’t cooperate. Joshen brushed her hair to the front of her shoulder and fumbled with the catch until he had it free.
With a click, she detached the waning gibbous and slipped it from the cord before settling the crescent back in the hollow of her throat. The gibbous felt warm and familiar in her palm. “I meant to give this to you earlier.”
Taking Joshen’s hand, she placed it inside. “The moon is the sign of the Witches. Each phase represents our power as individuals. The full moon is the combined power of all of us. This pendant was cut to represent that. You and I, we’re stronger together than apart. And if you ever need to find me, just tap the pendant against a piece of metal. It will vibrate and lift, pointing in my direction. I’ll be able to do the same for you.”
Joshen stared at the pendant. “I don’t know what to say.”
She smiled. “Say you’ll always be there. No matter what.”
“Always.”
She fingered her necklace. Next to the pendant was the ring Joshen had given her over two months ago. It was a simple thing, made of willow branches that Coyel had sung to wrap around a pearl.
Senna’s mother and the other Heads had had a fit over it. Apprentices weren’t allowed to have contact with men, let alone be betrothed to one. So Senna had quietly moved it from her hand to her neck. For her, the meaning was still the same, regardless of its location.
Joshen rubbed the pearl with the edge of his thumb. “If it were just you and me on a horse ranch somewhere, we could marry whenever we pleased.”
Senna leaned toward him, inhaling the air he breathed. “Someday.”
He kissed her again, but there was a taste of goodbye in it. She wouldn’t risk being late for class—not when she still had so much to prove.
4. Earth Song
A cold trickle of rain dripped through Senna’s soaked hood and slid down her back. Wishing she’d left her long hair down, she shivered under her heavy cloak. Thunder grumbled in the sky. Lightning stabbed the sea beyond Haven’s high cliffs. Senna used the brief illumination to glance back at the long line of sopping-wet Witchlings trailing behind her.