To Kiss in the Shadows by Lynn Kurland

obviously meant flocks of female birds. Lianna struggled to make sense of what they said, but it was difficult. She listened to them toss insults at each other, with increasingly unpleasant curses attached, for quite some time before it occurred to her that fowl such as these were certainly not members of any angelic choir, nor were they likely to be accompanying that choir anytime soon. A slow, steady feeling of terror swept over her.
    â€œNay,” she breathed, when she could manage to find the word.
    The dark bird immediately fastened a piercing gaze upon her hapless self, as if he intended to make a meal of her.
    She tried to focus on him, but he seemed to weave about greatly, as if either he could not remain still or she could not. After trying to divine the truth of it for several minutes, she gave herself over to the only truth she knew.
    She hadn’t gone to Heaven. Heaven could not produce lute-playing birds with such foul speech. There was only one place for such as she, and she had apparently traveled there without delay. She felt tears begin to slip down her cheeks.
    â€œI’ve gone to Hell,” she wept.
    â€œWhat?” the dark one asked.
    â€œFoul notes, foul words,” she managed.
    And at that, the fair-feathered bird tossed back his head, opened his beak, and roared out a laugh.
    She watched as the dark bird reached out toward her. No doubt he intended to clutch her with that hand he had suddenly fashioned himself and carry her down with him to his fiery dungeon. The saints pity her, she was doomed.
    Blackness engulfed her, and she knew no more.
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    She woke, only realizing then that she had been asleep. She stirred, and her poor form set up such a clamor that she immediately ceased all movement save drawing in hesitant breaths. By the saints, what had befallen her? Had someone beaten her nigh onto death?
    She lay still for several minutes, searching back through her memories for one of any sense. There were dreams aplenty, ones with large birds and rather pleasant strumming of a lute, but those were surely naught but madness, Had she been ill? She had very vivid memories of the pox and how her fever had raged. This was akin to that but somehow worse, as if every part of her had been assaulted by some foul thing.
    She could make out the bedhangings above her. Heavy layers of blankets and furs covered her. She was abed, which was something in itself given that she’d passed the majority of her nights as a member of the king’s entourage sleeping on a straw pallet on the floor. The chamber was light, but that was from daylight, not candlelight. She turned her head to the right, wondering if she might be able to see out the window. But what she found was enough to still her forever.
    Jason of Artane sat on a stool not a handful of paces away.
    He was leaning back against the wall, his head tipped to one side, sound asleep. Lianna could scarce believe her eyes. How had he found his way into her chamber? And what, by all the blessed saints of Heaven, was he doing sleeping here? She looked to his right to find a serving maid curled up on the floor, sound asleep as well. Interesting though that might have been, it surely did not merit any further notice. So she turned her attentions back to the man who slept sitting up on a stool, with his hands limp in his lap and his mouth open to admit the passage of a soft snore or two.
    He was almost close enough for her to touch him.
    Deadly nightshade that he was.
    But he didn’t look deadly at present. He looked innocent and harmless and at peace. He looked like a man who would draw a child onto his lap and tell it stories for the whole of the afternoon if asked. He looked like a man who would pull his lady wife into his arms, rest his chin atop her head, and tell her he was happy to face life with her beside him. He looked like the sort of man her father would have found no fault with.
    He looked like a man on the verge of