The Crown of Gilded Bones (Blood and..

very first time in New Haven, I think…I think I saw your
memories. Or felt your emotions. I smelled lilacs then, and I
smelled them again,” I told him, thinking of the flowers that
drenched the cavern in Spessa’s End. “Were you thinking of
when we were married when I…when I drank your blood this
time?”
“I was.”
“How did I see your memories, though? Before and now?
That’s not the same as reading emotions.”
“It can happen when two Atlantians feed.” He dipped his
head, brushing his lips over my brow. “Each can pick up on
memories. I think that’s what happened.”
I thought about the first time in New Haven. He’d
stopped me just as I reached his memories.
He hadn’t stopped me this time.
“Could you read any of mine?” I wondered.
“I’ve never fed from you long enough to try,” he
answered, and I felt a strange little tumble of anticipation.
“But right now, I wish I knew what you were thinking.”
“I was thinking…” I drew in a deep breath. Gods, I was
thinking about everything. My thoughts bounced from one
event, one conversation to another. “Do you know what I did
in the Chambers? After…after you were attacked?”
He sat beside me. “I heard.”
I lowered my hands to where the sweater pooled in my
lap. They looked normal. “When we were in the Chambers of
Nyktos and that arrow struck you, and your body turned
cold and gray, I thought you died. I didn’t think I would be
okay again. I forgot about the imprint,” I admitted, turning
my hand over. There it was, the golden swirl glimmering
softly. “I kind of…I don’t know. I lost it.”
“You defended yourself,” he corrected. “That’s what you
did.”
I nodded, still staring at the imprint as my mind skipped
from the Temple to the crypts, to Alastir so confident that I
would be just as chaotically violent as the ancient ones.