“I swear to Orholam, by all that is holy, by all my power and light.” And finally, as that oath passed her lips, as she finally felt that she had done one good thing for him in her life, even if it was only utter some words, something loosened in her chest, and her throat allowed her to say the word that had been denied her too long. “I swear it… son.”

Chapter 7

“Kip, it’s been four days. Four days since our wedding, and we still…”

“I know,” Kip said. He was sitting on their little bed in the captain’s quarters. Another dread night was falling, and the back slapping and jokes about being a sneaky little bugger from the captain and the mate and the squad had been endured already. The public torture ended, the private one begun.

“We don’t have to try again right away,” Tisis said.

“And you wore that because you wanted to wait until tomorrow?” Kip asked.

In her initial excitement and ardor at Getting Married and Not to Some Old Guy, Tisis had packed all manner of lace and silk lingerie. She was wearing a celadon nightgown now that showcased her cleavage and curves. Kip’s new wife was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen—even during the day, when she wore baggy men’s trousers and a tunic too large for her and no cosmetics. Seeing her like this only made everything more painful. “You know the law…” she said.

“I didn’t until you told me!”

She pursed her lips. She didn’t like it when Kip raised his voice at her. “Fine, then. We wait three more days, and it’s over. We’ll just… have to figure it out from there. I don’t think Andross Guile will do anything rash—”

“No, not rash. His vengeance is anything but rash.”

She lowered her head, and Kip saw her swallow quickly. She looked at her silk nightgown. “I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have worn this, but I didn’t want to tell my sister’s slave to bring me something plainer. She’d ask more questions than they already have.” She mimicked the room slave Verity’s nasally voice: “‘Is mistress’s lord husband gentle enough?’ ‘Does mistress have any… delicate questions?’ It’s not supposed to be like this, Kip. What’s wrong with me?”

“Tisis, quieter? Please?” Kip said awkwardly. “Remember…” Sound went through the walls of the captain’s quarters as if they weren’t even there. Maybe that was where their troubles had started. Maybe if she could just relax…

And maybe this was the stupidest thing in the world to worry about right now. The world was falling apart, and Kip—who had fought an immortal and stolen the master cloak from him, who was a full-spectrum polychrome, who was maybe, just maybe, the Lightbringer—Kip who had killed a king and a god and escaped the Chromeria itself with all the Lightguard after him, who had brought along with himself the best and brightest the Blackguard had to offer—Kip, the son of Gavin Guile, couldn’t make love. With his own wife. Who seemed entirely willing—at least on one level.

It was as if her body itself was rejecting Kip.

It had all been merely mortifying until Tisis had told him that their wedding contract was automatically revoked if they didn’t consummate the marriage within seven days.

“I’m a failure as a woman.” As she stood outside the covers in her barely-there nightgown, Tisis’s skin was covered in gooseflesh.

She bares her heart to you, and you stare at her nipples. Nice.

“Maybe it’s not you. Maybe I’m doing something wrong,” Kip said lamely. Neither of them believed that, now.

They were really great nipples.

She lifted her eyebrows and pulled back the covers he had bunched over his lap. His tunic covered his arousal about as effectively as Tisis’s nightgown covered the fact that she had breasts. He bloused the fabric gingerly and cleared his throat.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you. I was just… Your body is doing what it’s supposed to, Kip. I’m the problem. I mean, there are jokes about how all a woman has to do is lie there. ‘Easy as falling off a log.’ Ha!”

Kip could tell she was heartbeats away from breaking down. Tears were not going to help their problem. “Tisis, maybe we should slow down, take it—”

“Slow down? Kip! We’ve only got three days left!”

The law had been passed to protect children from being married off too young by their parents or to prevent marriages of convenience—part of some long-ago fight about taxation or boundaries or testimony compelled by a satrap, Tisis had said.

“Tisis, it’s freezing out there. Come here. We’ll figure this out together.”

She puffed out her cheeks and crawled into the narrow bed with him. He threw the covers over her. He’d been thinking she would lie down with her back to him so they could talk and cuddle, but she lay down face-to-face with him instead.

Before he could say anything, she kissed his neck, and all hope of rational conversation dimmed quickly. Kip still hadn’t blown out the lamp. But her kisses were perfunctory. She broke away almost as soon as Kip went hazy. She reached for a vial on a shelf. Her expression was determined, not impassioned. She poured olive oil into her hand and tugged his clothes out of the way.

Her touch was a shock of pleasure, despite everything, as she spread the oil on him. If she’d continued for very long, Kip would have lost control. But rather than saying, ‘I want to make love with you,’ the expression on her face said, ‘I will not fail my family.’ She rubbed the rest of the oil on herself, and straddled Kip, hiking up her nightgown just enough to get the work done.

There were no more preambles. No soft words or touches. She held Kip in place and lowered herself onto him.

As before, he was stopped almost immediately. She grimaced and pushed harder, harder until she was hurting both of them. She eased off, adjusting him, making sure he was in the right place, and then she banged down again, wincing each time.

Andross Guile had once used a euphemism, calling a woman’s quim the Jade Gate. Kip had thought it embarrassing. Of course, talking with your grandfather about lovemaking was bound to be embarrassing, but why did all the euphemisms have to sound either dirty or childish?

Now he felt as if he were bringing a battering ram to the Jade Gate. The gate was winning.