Tears pricked at Tasia’s eyes, and she felt one of them roll out of one corner and down across her temple.
It must’ve been the sight of her mistress’s tears that made Mylla’s own eyes water. “Oh, Tasia,” she said. She bent over the Princess’s face, gently kissing her forehead and stroking back the hair from Tasia’s face. “I can’t lose you. What would I do without you?”
“Go home to Harthing and marry some rich lord, most like,” Tasia said in her best Port Lorsin accent.
Both girls laughed wetly.
Mylla sniffled, wiping both eyes with the heel of her palm before going back to stroking Tasia’s face. “Well, that’s going to happen eventually, anyway,” she said. “But unlike someone else in this bed, I’m not quite of age to marry yet, so you’re still saddled with me. For a while. Even if you’d rather be rid of me for Markas.”
“Don’t say so. You know I’d choose you a thousand times over Markas.”
Mylla gave Tasia a devious smile, leaned down, fit her lips against Tasia’s. The girl’s dark hair fell in a curtain around Tasia, blotting out the rest of the bedchamber and what little light there was coming from the low-burning candles still flickering in the window. Tasia closed her eyes, letting the blackness become complete, disappearing for a sweet moment into a world where there was no Empire, no Markas, no assassin, no Cole, no Father, no Mack or Dawkin or Grizzle. Disappearing into the world which contained only her — her, and Mylla.
The world where she wanted to live forever.
Mylla broke the kiss too soon, pulling back and sweeping her long hair to one side. She grinned at Tasia. “If you’d choose me a thousand times over Markas, why’d you pick his bed instead of mine tonight?”
Because you would choose Markas over me, if given the chance, Tasia thought bitterly.
But rather than say it, she said to her handmaid, “Your bed? Are you forgetting your station, Lady Mylla?”
Mylla huffed. “Fine, then. Your bed. I would sleep in mine occasionally if someone would remember to tell the chambermaid to replace the mattress. It’s far too lumpy to get a good night’s sleep in.”
Tasia rolled over swiftly, knocking Mylla off-balance and pushing her onto her back. “Maybe that’s exactly why it keeps slipping someone’s mind,” she said, pinning Mylla’s wrists beside her head. “Maybe I’m afraid you’d stop climbing into bed with me in the middle of the night.” She slipped a hand beneath the opening of Mylla’s robe, running it up the girl’s ribs until she found a bare breast. She cupped it, then gave the nipple a gentle pinch.
Mylla smiled, watching Tasia’s face. “Markas. An assassin. Your father. Six-of-the-clock already, with the sun about to rise. And yet you still have energy enough for me?”
“I will always have energy enough for you.”
“And what if I said no? If I told you it was more important for you to sleep — to let me sleep?” Mylla asked.
“You’ve never said no before.”
“But if I did?”
Tasia took her hand out from its spot beneath Mylla’s robe and tugged at the loosely tied sash around the girl’s waist. It gave way easily, and Tasia pushed both sides of the robe apart, admiring Mylla’s smooth, unblemished skin under the warm glow of candlelight.
“If you said no,” she said quietly to Mylla, “I would be forced to remind you that I am your princess, and you are my handmaid, serving at my pleasure.”
“And where is it written that handmaids cannot tell their princesses ‘no’?”
Tasia ran her hands lightly down Mylla’s sides, stopping on the curves of her hips. “It does not need to be written. It is something everyone knows.”
“Maybe I’ll say no anyway, just to see what you will do.”
Tasia reached between Mylla’s legs. “You wouldn’t.” But then she gave Mylla a quizzical look and removed her hand. “Are you really saying no? I hope you know I would never force you to do anything you don’t want.”
“I know.”
“Good,” Tasia said, and her hand caressed the inside of Mylla’s thigh again.
Mylla grabbed the wrist disappearing between her legs. “Tasia, stop a moment.”
Tasia laughed. “Now you’re saying no? I thought you just said yes.”
“I did. But now I’m saying no. Temporarily.” Mylla sat up, crawled on hands and knees to the other side of the bed.
Tasia’s brow furrowed. Sometimes she feared Mylla actually did acquiesce to her wishes simply because Tasia was her superior. It was another one of those consequences of being royal — always wondering if one’s friends were actually one’s friends, or mere sycophants.
Always wondering if one’s love truly loved one back.
Mylla reached beneath the bed, grunting as she fished for something.
“Mylla?”
“Give me a moment, Tazy… I know I put it between the mattresses somewhere around — ah!”
Mylla sat up, holding something triumphantly above her head. Tasia squinted at it, but couldn’t make out what the dark shape was.
“I picked something up for us today while I was out,” Mylla said, walking back to Tasia on her knees across the mattress. “Look.”
She held the object out, and Tasia took it from her automatically. It was leather, she saw, cylindrical and a few inches in diameter, but curved. One end was attached to what appeared to be a complicated belt of some sort.
“What is it?” Tasia asked, turning the leather thing and its straps over in her hands.
Mylla gave a delighted laugh. “You’re the naughty princess who sneaks out at night to rendezvous with boys who catch your fancy only to nearly get yourself killed, and yet you’re asking me what this is?”
“Mylla, that’s not funny. I thought I might never make it home to you tonight.”
Mylla took the mystery object from Tasia’s hand and bent down, untying Tasia’s linen underwear at both hips before tossing it aside. She busied herself with the leather straps, wrapping them around Tasia’s waist.
“I know, Princess. I would have been heartbroken if you’d left me without so much as a warning. But you didn’t. So I say that’s reason enough to celebrate,” she said, cinching tight one of the leather straps now encircling Tasia’s thighs. She tilted her head up. “Is that too tight?”
Tasia shook her head. “No, but — oh.” She gave a soft gasp, forgot completely what she’d planned on saying as Mylla reached between her legs and pressed something soft just inside her. She looked down, assuming Mylla was teasing her with a finger, but Mylla’s hands were both adjusting the leather cylinder.
Mylla sat back on her heels, letting the silk fabric of her night robe flap open. “There,” she said, sounding satisfied. She looked down at Tasia with the slyest of grins.
“What have you… what in the name of all the Gods is that?” Tasia said. The curved leather cylinder jutted up from her crotch, and as she sat halfway up to get a better view, it bobbed slightly, like a dog’s wagging tail.
Still grinning, Mylla inched forward on her knees. She put a hand around the curved leather cylinder, stroked down the thing suggestively. When she reached its base, she pressed lightly, and whatever was inside Tasia dipped in a little further.