Deepwood Weald [m] and you can hold me, like he held her

conscious mind fell away to flame that laid low, and lestan responded in striking kind. she spread into a gilded map laid open for his exploration; he traversed northern climes to southern dalliance, focused entire upon whatever pleasure he could wrought in her again and again, a sweetest cruelty to them both.
as snow began to fall once more over the wilderness, lestan caught her close and took them together with his breath to singe against one ear. a song of rapture whispered to her nape, of wonder and worship; he created their union perhaps too slowly, perhaps enough to be a torment and a testing of every muscle which had ever been fevered in him for a god.
his end felt as if it might set the world afire again; he flew from his own mind and whispered she must only be a creature of magick, and she should trust him in that; after all, only a witch might know a goddessborn when she appeared in a silent wood before ancient-blooded eyes.