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the languisement , parting my moist nether-lips with a touch delicate as a breath, the tip of his tongue tracing the swollen shape of Naamah’s Pearl. And that is where time itself seemed to stretch and flow. I lay open beneath the sky, and everything done by the Mahrkagir was undone, every cruelty, every iron thrust-undone, undone, undone, every kiss, every lick, every stroke, imprinting love upon my flesh, until I shuddered and knotted both hands in Joscelin’s hair, calling his name out loud, and my climax followed with the inevitability of the spring-fed waters tumbling over the rocks.
    At that, Joscelin lifted his head and smiled.
    “Come here ,” I said, drawing him to me.
    He did, hoisting himself out of the water on both arms, the left as solid as the right, hands braced on either side of my shoulders. I bit my lip, reaching down to fit him into me, his phallus rigid and hard, the walls of my nether parts still throbbing. Any other man-any one I have known-would have begun, then.
    Not Joscelin. He waited, his brow touching mine, sheathed to the hilt in me and our loins enjoined. Slowly, my breathing eased to match his, and our heartbeats synchronized.
    In the space between the beating of our hearts, I felt the presence of Blessed Elua.
    I’d felt it before, that golden light filling me, the taste of honey in my mouth. I felt it now, and Joscelin’s mouth tasted of honey to me, his tongue like nectar as we kissed. I smelled lavender in his damp hair as it fell to frame my face. The world pulsed and surged as he moved within me, and I moved to meet him, hips thrusting, no longer certain where I began and he ended, my fingers seeking the line of his back, the column of his spine, his muscled flanks. His eyes, summer-blue, looked into mine, shining with Elua’s tide.
    This is how we were made whole.
    I cried out, at the end, and whose name it was-Joscelin’s or Blessed Elua’s-I could not say. It was one and the same, then. And if I had called what had gone before a climax, it was naught to what came after, welling from someplace deeper within me than I knew I had, until I could only cling to Joscelin with all my limbs and shudder at the force of it. And he-Elua! He went rigid against me, within me, and I felt the vibration all the length of his spine before his loins shivered and he spent himself within me.
    So it was done.
    “I’m sorry,” I said when we had finished, and the presence had faded. “Joscelin, I am so, so sorry for what I’ve done to us.”
    He brushed my lashes. “For what, love?” he asked, examining my tears on his fingertips. “You did what you were called to do. So did I. What is there to forgive?”
    “You know,” I said softly. “You heard ... stories. Some of them are true.”
    “Yes.” He drew a line from the corner of my eye, the left one, with its crimson mote. “Do you wish to speak of them? I swear to you, I can bear it now.”
    Remembering, I shook my head. “No. Let them fade, and be forgotten. No.”
    “Then it is what it is,” Joscelin said, “And we are what we are. No more, and no less.” He smiled. “Never less. Do you agree?”
    I did. I demonstrated to him with a degree of ferocity the extent to which I agreed, until he caught his breath and laughed, and then until he laughed no longer, but tumbled me over with keen desire. And if the presence of Blessed Elua was no longer with us, our own presence sufficed.
    I asked nothing more.
    For once, it was enough.

Seventy-One
    THERE WERE jests, of course; Jebeans speak with frank delight about the arts of love, and there are no secrets in a small campsite. But they were good-natured and I did not mind, and Joscelin bore it well. Their great fish had been gutted and cleaned, and strips of flesh hung to smoke over a second fire. We had some of it fresh that evening, fried in an iron pan with coriander and wild onion, and I thought it was the most delicious dish I’d ever tasted. Like as not it wasn’t, but it seemed so that night.
    After we’d eaten, we sat about the fire discussing plans to make ready on the morrow for the following day’s departure. Bizan shared around a skin of honey-mead he’d been hoarding, and the taste of it was sweet and fiery in my mouth. I caught Joscelin’s eye and he smiled, lacing his fingers with mine.
    “There are thorns and there are thorns,” Nkuku said judiciously, noting it. “Some are larger than others, but their prick is more pleasant.”
    At that, there was