Two Eyes Cenote [m]arrow & spit

she looked at him with that same dazzling, and khusobek understood that inji had made more of him than he was. than he could be. he had told zaahira he would not plague another wife with his debauchery. break inji's heart, then, drive her away from he and this delicate moment that pulled painfully at the strings of a heart he had thought was dead.

a dream.

this was all it was.

could he dash it beneath his heel?

"i never intended to marry. i am not sure i mean to now, inji." honest, quiet. "i have seen how marriage transforms — this —" the languid sprawl of her body against his, the light of her eyes, the adoration upon her mouth, "into something bitter. something sour."

he had already had the things inji craved and they had not satisfied him. the idea of tying himself once more to any place, to any woman, reminded him of what hatshepsuun had taken from him. he belonged to her in a way he could not to anyone else, a servant willingly notched. "pharaoh would allow us to marry. but no rationale says i am a husband."

he would not speak of rashepses, not now; was this not what she wished? security beyond that of a mazoi who would never be more and aspired to nothing else?