Flight Into Darkness by Sarah Ash

nation. Their communications network functions far better than ours.”
    “Suspiciously better. We're still dependent on carrier pigeons and swift horses.”
    “And your theory?” Jagu sounded drowsy. Maybe the local beer was more potent than he was accustomed to.
    “My father's invention. The one Kaspar Linnaius stole. The Vox Aethyria,” she whispered. “The device that enables the human voice to be carried hundreds of miles through the air. If only we could find out…”
    “Lend me your cloak.”
    “What are you doing, Jagu?”
    “Just making sure we're not disturbed.” He rolled up her cloak and inserted the precious metal cylinder in the middle. Then he lay down by the door, pillowing his head on the bundle. “Now that we're ashore, we'll have to take precautions to make sure they don't try to rob us in the night.”
    She stared at him. “You can't go to sleep down there,” she said after a few minutes. “There's a howling draft. Your back will be so stiff by morning that you won't be able to move.”
    “I'm fine.” He turned on his side, away from her, and snuffed out the lamp wick. Why did he have to be so stubborn?
    “Listen to the wind. Such a lonely sound. There's nothing out there but the sea and the night.” Suddenly she felt so small, so vulnerable, an insignificant grain of sand blown along on the fast-flowing current of time. “We're so far from anywhere here, on the edge of the known world. If you get sick, how can I carry on this mission alone?” she said into the darkness. He did not answer. “I'm cold.” Which was true. “I need my cloak. What's the harm in sharing the bed? It's not as if we're going to take our clothes off and lie naked together. It's just to keep warm.”
    She heard him sit up. He let out a sigh. Next moment she felt the wooden frame creak, then shudder as he sat on the edge of the bed.
    “Move over,” he said in resigned tones. He wrapped her cloak around her, then lay down beside her. She snuggled down, her earlier sense of desolation melting away in the warm shadow of his long, lean body. The bed was so narrow it was impossible to lie side by side without touching.
    “Jagu?” she said softly. All she heard was his breathing: slow, regular, reassuringly soothing. Asleep already? Or just feigning it? She closed her eyes, smiling to herself in the darkness.
    The sharp light of dawn pierced the cracks in the shutters. Jagu opened his eyes. For a moment he lost all sense of where he was, aware only of an unfamiliar feeling of warmth and contentment. Then he saw the golden head lying so close to his.
    Gently yet swiftly, he drew back his arm which in sleep he had unconsciously, protectively, wound around her. She was so deeply asleep that she only murmured like a dreaming child, nestling closer to him. She must have cuddled up to him in the night, instinctively drawn to the warmth of his body.
    He pushed himself up on one elbow, gazing down at her as she slept on, oblivious to his presence. The urge to touch those tousled strands of golden hair was almost too much to endure.
    His hand crept out, hovering over her.
    What am I doing? Surely I'm old enough now to control these urges! It's not as if I'm still a boy, cursed with wet dreams.
    “You awake, Father?” The innkeeper's shrill voice called. He started, hastily withdrawing his hand. “Chaikin's ready to leave!”
    “We'll be down right away,” he called back.
    “I want a bath,” grumbled Celestine, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. “I stink of travel. So do you,” she added pointedly.
    “They have communal bathhouses in Azhkendir,” Jagu said, suspecting that she was trying to provoke him. “If you went in with me, Celestin, it wouldn't be long before—”
    “Yes, yes, I understand.”
    Celestine had no option but to settle for a perfunctory wash in a bucket of ice-cold well water that left her gasping but fully awake. Will I ever get properly clean again? Perhaps after a while, they would become