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Charter Castille lets Maelgywn cup her face.
The touch of skin on skin is electric. She almost recoils, manages just to close her eyes instead. Castille has never felt the warmth of a human hand. Charter has forgotten.
She cannot decide which is more devastating.
His warm, dry hand cups her cheek and she idly tries to remember if every touch was so perfect or if warm, dry hands are just another blessing.
She opens her eyes, and the desperation in his face is almost more shocking than that first touch. Charter can feel Samothes in every corner of this room, and Malegywn doesn’t care. Castille wonders whether it is her Malegywn wants, or release.
It doesn’t matter. He needs to be ready to kill his father. She can’t stand seeing him look unsure.
She feels the press of each of his fingertips on her skin, her skin, light enough that she doubts he feels the stone underneath.
Right here, she can be real again, and Charter wants.
She turns her head and kisses his palm, keeping eye contact.
Maelgywn groans and lunges towards her. Castille shudders. A hand on her elbow, gripping tight. His lips, insistent on hers, but still soft, wet. She can’t stop shaking, and Maelgwyn pulls back, smooths a hand over her forehead.
She’s freezing without him.
“I’m fine,” she says, and pulls him down on top of her.
It passes in snippets. His cape on the floor, her dress pulled up to her hips, Maelgwyn above her, desperate and brilliant, like a star going supernova. Everywhere they touch she burns. Castille moans into his mouth and then he kisses down her neck, running his hands up her sides.
Once he presses a little too hard, and feels the stone. He recoils and Castille feels sudden, utter shame, but then he looks her in the eye and kisses her until she’s gasping for breath she doesn’t need.
She reaches down and undoes the buttons on his pants with shaking fingers.
Maelgywn says Charter’s name so prettily when he comes.
Castille watches him fasten his cape. The cat curls up in Maelgwyn’s bed, and she’s jealous for a moment. It passes, and Charter narrows her eyes at Maelgywn’s back. He’s standing just off-balance, and something in that worries her more than the desperation in his eyes. He’s too human here, too mortal, and she realizes that anywhere else, this wouldn’t have happened. Castille runs a hand down her thigh, still ringing, as if Maelgywn’s touch was a clear strike from a chisel.
“Will you be okay?”
He half-turns, jerky. It’s the least graceful thing she’s ever seen him do.
“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah-I just need-”
She lets him go find the crown and the mask. She does not see the knife-sword growing. She does not wonder if the mages have tricked them both.
Instead, Charter Castille presses her fingers into her legs, hard enough to feel the stone underneath the skin, and wonders how many of them are going to make it out of this unscathed.