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or a slice of bread. “If we were joined, I could see more of you, I could know the darkness you battle in a more complete way.” She licked her lips and tilted her head, and her hair swung forward and brushed against him. “I would also know all that you most desire.”
    In spite of the earlier, less pleasurable subject of their conversation, Alix was hard. Perhaps it would be worth death to lie with such a woman. Perhaps it would be a fair trade—her body against his for the blade of her keepers’ swords. His breath did not come easily, and he could feel his heart pounding in his chest. His mouth was dry, his hands trembled, and in his mind he could see the two of them together, their bodies bare and joined and screaming. He felt, almost as if it were real. He saw her blue body and his ordinary flesh meeting and joining, felt the heat and the pleasure she promised.
    She was a sorceress, that was the only explanation.
    “The darkness is a part of you, Prince Alixandyr,” Sanura whispered. “It cannot, will not, remain buried forever. Claim the shadows and control them, or they will win the battle for your soul and the man you have become will be no more. The man you have become will be buried, struggling to rise to the surface as the darkness now struggles.”
    “I won’t allow it,” he insisted hoarsely, as Sanura moved impossibly closer. She was all but straddling him, and though her skin did not touch his, the loose golden skirt she wore brushed against him.
    “Perhaps if your brother does not wish to keep me for himself, he will give me to you, as the king gave me to him.” She licked her lips. “In the world I left behind, men do not so easily toss away a treasure such as a woman of the Agnese. All my life I have been told that I am precious and special, that all men will want me for their own. It is disconcerting to be unwanted. Untouched. If I were your gift, would you give me away?”
    “No,” he whispered. “I could not.”
    She smiled a slightly crooked, almost sad smile. “That is good.”
    He knew the blue before him was a powder, but it was so perfectly applied that it looked as if her skin were actually that sapphire shade. Was the cosmetic applied to the swell of her breasts, which he could not see beneath the low-cut gold blouse she wore? Were the nipples blue, or did they blush a soft pink against the unnatural color, the way her tongue blushed between the parted dark lips? Were the most private parts of her body covered in that powder? He wished very much to know, to see, even to touch.
    Sanura pulled away, slowly but decisively. “I can see no more,” she said as she resumed her seat a safe distance away. A moment later she rose to her feet, moving more quickly than usual, and turned from him. Without another word she walked away, leaving Alix to the solitude he so needed.
    SANURA walked away from the prince without a glance back. No one would know, by looking at her face, that the man by the stream left her confused and unsure, and somehow heartbroken.
    Her heart never came into consideration. She was of the Agnese, a gift to be owned, a treasure whose concerns were never for herself but were only for the man to whom she belonged. At the moment she did not even know the man to whom she belonged. Was the emperor kind or brutish? Would he care for her and be glad he had received her, or would he dismiss her with barely a thought? Would he be thankful for her, or would he toss her away? This part of the world was strange. Men did not always behave as they should, and at times like these she wished only to go home.
    Home, where she was wanted. Home, where the sun always shone and men and women bowed to her when she passed. Home.
    She had never before questioned the way of her life. She’d never wondered why she could not be like other women and choose her own lovers. Prince Alixandyr made her wonder. His complicated nature intrigued her, but she would notice him as a fine specimen of a man