Pomegranate Kisses

The first time Ezmael de Ayo tried to kiss her, Ysa Bernal knocked his tooth out. He’d done it to make her mad, and it worked. Every ounce of her fourteen year old fury flowed into her balled fist and showed the boy who fancied himself king of the streets that she’d had enough of his behaviour. Oh, she’d certainly gotten in trouble with her parents, but she got no more trouble from Ezmael. The only thing he dared do after was bare a grin at her that showed off the gap in his teeth where his canine should have been.

For ten years, she never assumed there’d be a second time. She never assumed she’d be raising children with him, for that matter.

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“She’s finally asleep.” Ez said quietly, descending from the narrow steps to the loft.

“How’d you manage that?” Ysa asked from the window seat, watching the night sky explode in light and color. Fireworks to celebrate a new year rattled the stars. Nerea had wanted to stay up and watch, and was dangerously close to tears when Ez had taken her upstairs.

“With the promise of a game of hawks and foxes before I leave tomorrow. She settled down without a peep.”

Ysa chuckled. The four-year-old Nerea was, unfortunately, already an excellent negotiator who knew her papá was a pushover. “Will you have time?”

“It’ll be fine.” Her husband sat on the other side of the seat, groaning around his sore muscles. He didn’t need to explain it to her. If he had to, Ez would find a way to move heaven and earth to make sure they were safe and happy. For their girls, the world.

She glanced at him from the tail of her eye. His hard headed stubbornness once drove her up the wall, and she’d tie herself in knots trying to show him up. She hated him for every moment that he made her feel inadequate. A street rat, making a noble’s daughter feel inadequate.

Now, she saw it for what it was. Determination. The same fire that drove her to seek a life at the palace roared even hotter in him. He dedicated everything he was to protecting the king, to prove that he was more than his past. It killed him to leave the king behind during the coup, even to protect the two tiny, terrified princesas. Now, that dedication had turned into love that defied his fear, and he lived and breathed for those girls.

Ysa resented it, at first. Then, respected it. Admired it. Now, she was endlessly grateful for it. It had taken her too long to admit to herself that he was a good man.

His light eyes went all shades of yellow, red, and green in the light of the fireworks. He stared through the wobbly diamond panes of glass, shoulders drooping ever so slightly. Never would he admit that he was tired, but she could see the bone weary way he lay on his pallet at night, sleeping like the dead. It was in those times that she felt a twinge of guilt at making him sleep on the floor while she claimed the bed with the infant Alaia, but the arrangement, much like their marriage, was made and then simply never spoken of again.

Something had changed in the months since they’d taken up exile in the mountain valley. The defensiveness in the pit of Ysa’s stomach had loosened into a feeling resembling safety. Her life’s purpose, to protect the deposed princesas, had opened up a well of love in her heart that she hadn’t even known was there before. It was deep, deep enough perhaps, to include Ez.

He smiled softly, his lopsided grin more charming than she’d ever seen it. Had she ever truly hated it in the first place?

She realized she was staring. And he was staring back.

“Do you remember the fireworks at the palace?” She said hoarsely, flushing as she turned to the window.

He shifted on the thin seat cushion. Was his knee suddenly closer to hers? “I’ll never forget. They were the first thing I ever thought was truly beautiful.”

“Hm.” Her stomach filled with butterflies. “What else then, if that was only the first?”

“Good steel.” His fingers flexed, missing the weight of his greatsword. It was long lost in the ruins of the palace.

She suppressed a snort. Truly, a man.

“The rose garden in full bloom.”

Ysa could smell the memory. It was her favorite place in the capitol.

“The sunlight in Nerea’s hair.”

The girls had the same golden hair as Ez, further selling the story that they were related. Ysa, with her thick black hair, was only slightly jealous.

“Alaia’s laugh.”

The first time Alaia laughed, Ysa cried happy tears. It meant her little family was going to be alright.

“And-” Ez went silent. He was looking down at their touching knees, picking absently at the frayed edge of the cushion.

“And?” She prompted, a whisper. She leaned closer, hardly meaning to. The silence stretched, punctuated by the distant booms and pops of the fireworks.

His river-green eyes flicked up to hers, intense. Determined, as though he’d made up his mind on one thing or another. Then, they softened.

“Ysa Zugasti.”

He used the name they’d married with. Their name.

“May I kiss my wife?”

He was so close. Their breath in sync. Her heart raced.

“You may.”

Their wedding day didn’t count as a proper kiss. He’d wrapped an arm around her shoulders and gave her a peck on the forehead as she took his free hand and brushed her lips over his knuckles. As the priest reminded them, the husband was to guard his wife’s mind against the whispers of evil in the world, and the wife was to protect everything her husband built with his hands. She hadn’t much heeded the words, the girls had worked themselves up into a squall in the heat of the church building and they’d broken apart as quickly as they came together. It had been a tactical move, the marriage. To make sure no one could take their hastily adopted daughters away. A truce for the sake of their tiny charges, and nothing more.

This kiss was nothing like a truce.

They’d eaten the last of the season’s pomegranates after dinner, and the taste was on their lips. One of Ez’s hands cradled the back of her neck, burying his fingers in her loose hair. Her hands pressed against his solid chest, bracing against the onslaught of emotions that threatened to drown her. She wouldn’t have minded drowning in this feeling.

Ez chuckled against her lips, and she pulled away. “What?”

He shook his head, still laughing under his breath. “I was so afraid you were going to knock another tooth out.”

She dropped her head on his shoulder, embarrassed. “You only have so many, I can’t punch them all loose,” she mumbled.

Fizzy yellow light flooded the plateau, a million sparking points of fire rivaling the stars thick above. The fireworks blew out in a golden finale before plunging the valley into deep night beneath a veil of powdery smoke.

“Nerea is going to be so sad to have missed it.” Ysa sighed.

“Hm,” he replied, rubbing a small circle between her shoulder blades.

A thud and a low snap came from outside. In an instant, they were on their feet, routine they’d drilled into one another moving them before they could think. Ez snatched his sword from beneath his sleeping pallet, and Ysa produced her long hunting knife from a cupboard. He nodded to her, eased open the door, and slipped into the night.

Ysa leaned heavily on the table, the knife at her fingertips, and waited, the taste of pomegranate and Ezmael’s kisses fading from her lips.