Free Last First Snow by Max Gladstone Page A

faucet shut off and Caleb returned.
    Temoc let the boy climb into bed himself. Mina kissed their son, and so did he, and hugged Caleb back when Caleb threw his arms around Temoc’s neck. There was no word in High Quechal or any other tongue Temoc knew for the way his son smelled.
    â€œGood night. Sleep well. Dream noble dreams.”
    â€œYou too, Dad. I love you.”
    â€œWe love you, too,” he said, and they left his room, closed the door, and took the lantern with them.
    Mina led him down the hall, silent.
    â€œGood day for you?”
    â€œI’m worried about my translation of the Oxulhat cenotaph.”
    â€œIt’s fine.”
    â€œI know. I’m still worried.”
    Their bedroom lacked lizards. A painting of her family hung from the off-white walls beside a pre-Wars lithograph of his. She closed the door behind him, and set the lantern on the dresser. Lamplight painted her sandstone colors. Shade-swathed, she might have been a bas relief on an ancient temple, or one of the cave-wall paintings she studied. Beautiful, raw, and real.
    â€œYou didn’t have to wait for me,” he said.
    â€œI know.” She rushed against him like a wave, and, as always, he was swept away.
    He stumbled back, tossed in her embrace, in her kiss, his hand under her shirt, on her spine. Flame flowered in her eyes. Her smooth lips found his cheek, his mouth, and still stumbling he lifted her and they fell together to the bed. They kissed again, and he held her harder, as if she might slip away and leave the world in shadow. Her fingers caught in the buttons of his shirt; he pulled hers up over her head in one motion, and she laughed.
    But as they moved together on the bed, the red glow of her recalled bonfires reflected on the Major’s armor, and the Wardens’ silver stares. Sunrise flickered on the edge of a knife. He pulled her to him, his line out of the depths, the rope a goddess cast down so poor Temoc could climb out of the maze of his own bad choices.
    He clutched her, hard—then let go, and let himself fall.
    She felt him change. He watched for disappointment, but saw only a slight, sad smile before she bent close and ran her cheek along his, smooth skin against smooth. He’d never been able to grow a beard. “It doesn’t need to be everything,” she said. “Just be here, now, with me. Please.”
    She kissed him, and he kissed her back. Outstretched, they explored each other as if wandering through their house on a moonless midnight. No Wardens, no knives, no sacrifices, no battles to fight. Only her.
    After, they lay sky-clad amid strewn pillows. His fingers trailed over her stomach, and she stretched like a cat to his touch. “We don’t do that enough,” she said.
    â€œWhat would be enough?”
    â€œLet’s experiment.”
    â€œA scholar even in the sheets.”
    â€œMankind deserves to know. Womankind, too.”
    â€œThe boy might notice.”
    â€œHe needs to learn the facts of life someday.”
    â€œI thought that was your job.”
    â€œYours.”
    â€œI missed you.” He did not know why he said those words. They saw each other every day, unless she was on a research trip, or he on retreat. But still, they sounded right.
    â€œI missed you, too.” Her fingers rested against the inside of his thigh, not sensual so much as there. “Sometimes I miss you even when you’re around.”
    â€œI worry.” Hard to say, harder still to hear himself say. But no one in this room could hear them.
    Her hand tightened on his leg. She climbed cliffs for fun out in the desert, a regular patron too of the university climbing gym. She was strong enough to hold him. “You don’t need to be a part of this, if you don’t want to be.”
    â€œI told Elayne I would bring the camp together, to compromise. It might work.”
    The warmth of their sex had faded, and sweat cooled them both. That was