Aurienne sought Mordaunt’s gaze to see how much longer he wished to keep up the pretence of the dance, but his eyes were on their joined hands. Their star-crossed tācn pressed against each other’s. Their Orders were in their veins, as inescapable as their own blood. He held his arm overhead; she spun out and spun back in; pale skirts clung to black trousers. What was between them? Once it had been a theatre of war; now it was a no-man’s-land. They had grown entangled in each other through reciprocities. Healing and killing, killing and healing.
