The Onyx Throne - Book One

Just inside the gate was an open square that had three roads leading off from the entrance. The left and right diverged off at roughly forty-five-degree angles into the city and the other went straight ahead. The streets were cobbled and worn smooth by the passage of thousands of feet and wagon wheels. As Mitchell gazed down the avenue, he saw that further into the city, there were taller buildings with greater architectural variation.

Mitchell knew he was gawking but he couldn’t help it. As Lethelin pulled him along, her desert-tan cloak billowing behind her, Mitchell was trying to look everywhere at once. There was simply so much to see.

The buildings themselves were not all that interesting, at least not just inside the gates. Walls, windows, doors, etc., made of the same sand-colored stone found everywhere and all of it geared more toward functionality than decoration. Most of the buildings were plain squares or rectangles with only a few being more than four stories tall. All the windows were open and Mitchell saw shutters attached to each, but it was the people that drew his attention.

All around Mitchell, there was some new shape of humanoid to be found. The bulk of Basari’s population was human but there were also elves and dwarves, and a small race of people Lethelin called halflings. They looked like miniature humans but had slightly more elfin features with their pointed ears and eyes that were angled just a little too sharply. In addition, he saw two cambions like Revos, only their skin tone was different. The male was a more reddish-purple color with midnight-black horns that curved up over his head in a more traditional devilish style. He had two swords made of some sort of black metal in a harness across his back. The other one, a female, was an almost midnight blue with glistening ebony gold-tipped horns that curled around behind her ears. Crowds gave them both a bit of space as they walked through. He even saw a race of reptilian people that made no sense to him from an evolutionary perspective but he’d given up on trying to square that circle a long time ago.

Despite numerous races and cultures present, everyone seemed to be getting along reasonably well. Commerce was ubiquitous and it was happening at a brisk pace.

After days spent in relative isolation, he found the din and press of the crowd somewhat disorienting, but it didn’t take him long to adjust. He was a city boy, after all. The noise seemed a little more subdued than outside the walls, which had an almost Arabian bazaar quality about it, with people calling out, advertising their wares, and trying to grab the attention of passersby. Their tactics were noticeably more aggressive outside the gates than in but trade was still happening.

The shops that lined the cobbled streets just inside the gate seemed to be designed specifically to attract travelers. While Mitchell couldn’t read the language yet, he thought he could still identify the types of businesses. The inns and taverns were easy enough to spot given the sounds of revelry from inside even at this early hour.

There was also the strong scent of strange foods wafting from cafes and restaurants. Mitchell’s stomach rumbled at the idea of eating something besides their trail rations and the occasional bit of daka meat or some other small desert animal they would serve up, but Lethelin didn’t stop or waver. Her grip tight on his hand, she set a brisk pace and picked the center road straight into the heart of the city towards the spire.

“Stay close,” was all she said as she deftly maneuvered through the throngs of people that crowded the square.

Mitchell noticed - and not for the first time - the fluidity of her movements. She had a definite grace about her - a lightness on her feet. She walked with a confidence and a purpose that made her seem taller than her modest height. If Mitchell had to guess she was only about five-foot and six inches. The cowl of her sand-colored cloak was down and Lethelin’s coppery-red hair was pulled back in a no-nonsense ponytail. As he glanced at her, he saw that her eyes were ever watchful.

“Are you expecting problems?” Mitchell asked her, picking up on the slight tension.

“I always expect problems,” she told him with a sidelong glance before resuming her scanning. “If something is going to happen it’s usually in the press of people just inside the gates where there is a lot of activity. It’s the easiest place to steal a purse or slip a knife between someone’s ribs. Once we get a little farther into the city, it will calm down.”

“You sound like you speak from experience.”

Her mouth turned up in a smile but she didn’t look at him. “I’ve been known to use the confusion of crowds to my advantage more than once.”

Something caught her attention then and she pulled up short. Glancing around quickly she saw a small shop just to their left that was selling textiles.

“Here, I’ll show you.”

She pulled him over to the racks of brightly decorated cloth and started to examine them. The shopkeeper, a human woman who was sitting in the shade of an umbrella out of the harsh sunlight watched but didn’t comment.

In a somewhat lower voice, Lethelin said, “Look casually to your left. You’ll see a boy about twelve high suns or so wearing a white cap, a red vest, and brown pants standing in the alleyway.”

Mitchell, curious, looked to where she indicated and saw him right away leaning on a wall just inside and watching the crowd.

“I see him.”

“Now…” Lethelin said, scanning around. “There.”

She tugged at Mitchell’s sleeve and he turned to look up the street. He saw a procession of five well-dressed men and women walking toward the gate. They were wearing flowing white robes with ornately decorated hemlines. The men’s heads were shaved, tan, and glistening in the sun and the women had their hair pulled back into a single severely braided ponytail. They walked with an imperious air.

“That would be my target,” she said conspiratorially, “if this were my job. Merchant lords with heavy purses. Watch.”

She made a show of picking up a roll of bright red fabric with gold leaves embroidered into it. “What do you think about this for a sleeping gown, dear?”

“Oh, um. Yeah, it’s nice,” Mitchell said, trying to look like a shopper while also watching the group of rich people walking toward them.

In just a moment they walked past the stall where he and Lethelin were browsing and approached the alley where the young boy was standing. Mitchell saw him take his hat off and, just a few moments later from deeper in the alley, two more small children near in age to the first came out carrying a cask between them secured with some ropes. They made a show of struggling with the weight and not looking where they were going before “accidentally” walking right into the middle of the group of merchants where they immediately got tangled up as the clay vessel dropped among them. It hit the ground with a crash and broke open spraying everyone with a dark and foul-smelling liquid that made Mitchell’s eyes water.

Amid the screams of outrage from the merchants, one of which had fallen and now lay in a spreading puddle of the nasty stuff, the boy in the alleyway began to move. In the bustle and confusion of people either gawking or moving in to help, he stepped between them like a ghost. Mitchell saw his little hands dart in and out, plucking things from pockets. He only saw it though because Lethelin had told him to keep an eye on the prepubescent thief. If he hadn’t known to watch for him he would have been just like all the other gawkers looking on partly in fascination and partly in disgust.

As the man who’d fallen picked himself up the little pickpocket stepped out of the melee and slipped off into the crowd.

The two boys who had been carrying the cask and who were also covered in whatever they’d been carrying looked suitably horrified and evaded the hands of the now-reeking merchants as they darted back into the alley. Moments later the cry went up that coin purses were missing and people began calling for the guard.

Mitchell looked at Lethelin who was grinning openly.

“Shouldn’t we say something?”

“Why? Those kids will be long gone by now. They’ll have half a dozen bolt holes to lay low in, if not more. And the merchants can afford it.”

She sounded like she admired them and he commented on it.

“They did a good job. The kid was a little slower than he should have been but he shows promise. The clay pot of fermented jivi piss was good planning on his part.”

“Is that what that was? It smells disgusting.”

“Yeah, it’s used in the tanning of some animal hides,” Lethelin answered as she dropped the cloth back onto the table. “But it did its job. If he doesn’t get greedy and wind up in a prison or standing in front of an executioner, he should do alright.”

“Greed is usually what gets most thieves in the end,” she continued. “They don’t know when to quit or they take a job that they’re not prepared for.

“The myth of the last big job?” he asked her.

“Yeah, something like that.”

“You gotta know when to fold ‘em,” he said more to himself than to Lethelin.

“What does that mean?” Lethelin asked, slipping them beside a wagon that was selling some sort of fruit.

“It’s a famous song where I’m from. It’s about knowing when to quit while you’re ahead.”

“It’s important,” she nodded her agreement.

“You know, one day I’d like to hear about how the daughter of a city guardsman became an accomplished thief and assassin.”

“Part-time assassin,” she corrected him with a grin. “Come on. The bathhouse is near the wellspring toward the center of the city.”

They walked on for another ten minutes or so in silence and the crowds thinned out as they pressed on. Lethelin’s hand on his became less insistent as she relaxed and Mitchell noticed that it had started to feel almost casual. If Lethelin noticed the difference she didn’t say anything. He didn’t pull away and neither did she. When he gave her hand a gentle squeeze, she squeezed back.

Something had changed between them since he’d made the deal with her. He couldn’t put his finger on it but, oddly enough, she seemed more relaxed around him than before, which he couldn’t figure out. He had essentially threatened her with death but rather than pissing her off, she seemed to warm to him.

Around them, the street had widened and the buildings began to look a little more architecturally interesting rather than the basic blocks like the ones that dominated the neighborhoods near the walls and gates. They walked through several intersections that had large fountains at the center which seemed to be both decorative and functional. There were brass ladles on hooks for drinking. Both he and Lethelin stopped at one and she invited him to drink.

He brought the public serving cup to his lips and sipped at the water but immediately jerked his head back, his eyes going wide.

“What is this?”

Lethelin finished her ladle in a long pull.

“It’s water from the wellspring. It’s good, right?”

“It tingles,” he said and couldn’t suppress a grin at the feeling. It reminded him of a liquid version of the Pop Rocks candy he used to eat when he was a kid.

“It’s the minerals that come up from deep underground. It’s supposed to have amazing restorative powers. Wait until you have a bath in it!” she said enthusiastically. “It feels amazing!”

As they continued on toward the center of the city, the spire that was the wellspring began to grow larger. It towered above everything and must have been seventy meters high. It glistened in the afternoon light as water burst out from several holes that were visible all up and down the natural formation.

As they walked on and the haze cleared he could see that the structure was a rainbow hue of mineral deposits all swirled together. He was essentially looking at a massive stalagmite that had grown up out of the desert.

The buildings in this part of the city began to take on a more palatial feeling. People had parasols and their clothing was noticeably nicer. He saw a mix of construction materials and more flourishes in the designs. Lethelin pointed out the occasional building of note. Alien world or no, people were people it seemed. There were banks, fancy clothing stores, several gemstone dealers, and progressively higher-end restaurants and inns.

She also began to point out people of interest. In this quarter of the city, there were more merchant lords about, and more Scorpion guards, but they didn’t seem to bother anyone unless someone started trouble. Lethelin explained that the merchant lords were really nothing more than well-to-do tradesmen and women who liked to pretend at being noble. But the only ones who could be called lords were people of the royal line, so it was all for show. Most people ignored their attempts at nobility but it didn’t stop them from trying. The actual governor of the city was a cousin of the current queen and the Scorpion Guard answered to him, not to the merchant lords.

“Stollar’s perky nipples!” Lethelin exclaimed suddenly.

“What?” Mitchell said, looking around as if they were about to be attacked.

“Gawan cakes!”

Lethelin gave his arm a firm yank as she dragged him over to the opposite side of the street to a food cart that was selling various sorts of baked goods. The proprietor was what really caught Mitchell’s eye though. It was an orc. A huge one. He had almost half a foot on Mitchell and looked like he could squat a cow. The massive creature was wearing a tan-colored apron stretched over a hugely muscled chest with arms bigger than Mitchell’s thighs. His face was flattened with a nose that looked like it had been broken more than once and one tusk about three inches long curled up from his lower lip. There was no second tusk. His hair was black and cut short in what reminded Mitchell of a high-and-tight, a style worn by the Marines from back home. Mitchell tried not to stare and his appearance didn’t seem to bother Lethelin in the slightest. His only experience with orcs thus far had been people who wanted to kill him so he couldn’t help but be a little nervous.

As the customer in front of them made their purchase Lethelin almost jumped to the front.

“Do you have any gawan cakes left?” she blurted out before the baker could even greet her.

The tall orc looked down at the little human in front of him, not unlike how Mitchell might look at a child, and a friendly smile curled his ugly face. Mitchell wasn’t sure how such a face could be friendly but that was the impression he got.

“Stollar’s blessings to you, young miss,” he said, his basso voice somewhere between a lion’s warning growl and boulders crashing down a mountainside. “It just so happens that I do. You are lucky to catch me so early as they sell–”

“We’ll take whatever you have left!” Lethelin said, cutting him off once again.

The big orc, not put off in the least, chuckled and Mitchell thought he could feel it in his chest.

“As the little miss desires, so shall it be.”

The big man lifted a delicate cloth up off a tray and Mitchell saw three tarts, each about the size of his palm. The pastry was golden brown and flaky and there were thin slices of a pale fruit arranged around the center in such a way as to resemble the petals of a flower. A golden-colored sauce of some kind had been drizzled over in a crisscrossing pattern. They did look delicious.

“My last three,” he said. “I started the morning with thirty. As I said, they sell quickly.”

“All of them, please,” Lethelin reiterated and released his hand to fish out her coin purse.

“That will be three silver scales.”

Lethelin froze in the process of opening her purse and gave the baker a hard stare.

“Three silver scales? Stollar’s hairy taint, have you got sun sickness? Has that orcish ale pickled your brain? Should I call for a healer? I’m not paying a silver scale each for these unless you’re throwing in an Iletishian flower maiden to rub my feet while I eat them!”

The big orc gave her an apologetic smile. He didn’t seem upset or surprised at all by her invective.

“I am sorry, young miss, but gawans have not been easy to acquire since trade with Awenor has been disrupted. This is the first batch I have been able to make in almost six weeks.”

Mitchell spoke up then.

“Is that a lot?”

Lethelin gave him a sidelong glance, seemingly reluctant to break her stare with the shopkeeper.

“These should go for three copper talons each, at best. He’s asking more than triple the price!”

The orc glanced at Mitchell and actually managed to look somewhat sheepish.

“The young miss is correct. The price is high, but gawans make it across the peaks so infrequently these days and we can’t grow them in Iletish.”

Lethelin narrowed her emerald eyes.

“Two silver scales,” she countered.

The orc turned his attention back to the flame-haired assassin and a glint seemed to appear in his gray eyes.

“Young miss, do understand,” the orc pleaded as he spread his arms. “these could be the last gawan cakes I’m able to make for weeks. And my wives would snap off my tusk if I sold them for so little. But I can see how much you want them and I live only to serve. I could soothe the wrath of my wives if you could agree to pay two scales and seven talons.”

“You could rent a day in the spas for all your wives for that much! Two scales, three talons!”

“The spas would help to calm them after I tell them I allowed myself to be swindled for my last few gawan cakes, but would not save my tusk. As you can see, I have only the one remaining.”

The orc gestured sadly to the left side of his mouth where the large tooth was missing.

“An orc without tusks is no orc at all,” he continued. “Two scales, five talons. That is the lowest I can go.”

“Stollar’s sweaty ball sack,” Lethelin muttered as she fished out the coins. “You had better be naming a daughter after me for paying this price.”

The orc accepted her coin with a gracious smile and then, displaying a nimbleness that didn’t seem possible with such large hands, placed each gawan cake into a small box that he presented to Lethelin.

“Please visit again,” he gave a slight nod of the head. “Stollar’s blessings upon you this fine day.”

“Let’s go,” Lethelin said, giving the massive baker one final indignant glare before they continued up the street.

Once they were out of sight of the pastry cart Lethelin tore open the box and shoved her nose in, inhaling deeply.

“Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve had one of these?”

Mitchell only shrugged.

“Are they that good?”

“Here, one for you, two for me.”

He chuckled. “Seems fair.”

They found a bench at the next intersection and sat down after she handed him his pastry from the box before taking one for herself. Not pausing, she opened her mouth wide and consumed half of the cake in a single bite, little flakes of crust breaking off and dropping onto her shirt and sticking to her mouth. She let out a groan of deep satisfaction. Mitchell just watched in amusement.

“Good?” he asked even though the answer was obvious.

Lethelin’s eyes slid up and her lids closed as she slumped back into the bench.

“Mmhmm,” was all she could manage.

Mitchell sniffed his own and something about it was very familiar. And there was the unmistakable scent of cinnamon coming from the golden sauce that had been drizzled over the top. He took a bite, perhaps not as big as Lethelin’s had been, and once he began to chew he knew what it was. He’d eaten this before.

Swallowing, he said, “It’s an apple tart!”

Lethelin looked up from where she was licking the cinnamon glaze off her fingers.

“Appleeteet?” Lethelin said after swallowing the remaining portion of her first gawan cake. “What?”

He pointed to the fruit on top of the pastry. “This is an apple! It’s a fruit from my world. How did it get here?”

Lethelin picked up her second cake and shrugged.

“Don’t know,” she said simply, before taking a more measured bite.

After swallowing, she added, “But thank your world for me. Because gawans are my favorite. I prefer a citreon glaze but people in Iletish make the glaze with quinnamon powder. Still good, though!”

Mitchell knew there was no way this was a coincidence. There was some sort of travel back and forth in the past. It was the only thing that made sense.

Mitchell was enjoying his gawan cake but clearly not as much as Lethelin had enjoyed hers. He saw her eyeing his last bite hungrily and decided to let her have it. He held it out to her but instead of taking it she leaned forward and took it from his hand with her mouth and paused long enough for her tongue to collect some of the cinnamon--or quinnamon, as Lethelin had called it--glaze that had dripped onto his fingers. Her tongue lingered and Mitchell felt a slight pressure on the tip as she sucked on him ever so gently. The contact sent a shiver down his spine. The moment was not lost on her, either as Mitchell saw a blush spread on her cheeks as she sat back on the bench avoiding eye contact.

“That was…” Lethelin said, hesitating. “Um… That was really good. Sorry, I haven’t had a gawan cake in a long time.”

He couldn’t help but grin when she wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“It’s okay, I didn’t mind.”

“We should get to the bathhouse. If Allora gets there first and has to come find us she’ll gut me like a river carp and feed me to the clorvol,” she said standing up and brushing the flakes of pastry off her leather vest.

Mitchell agreed that it probably wasn’t a good idea to risk it and, after taking along drink at the intersection’s fountain, they pushed deeper into the city.

“Are Onyx Knights really that dangerous?”

Lethelin glanced at him briefly before her eyes resumed their scan of the crowds around them.

“It’s hard to believe that you don’t know about them. But yes, they are. Or were, anyway.”

Something passed over her face that Mitchell read as grief or sadness.

“I wouldn’t expect you to feel so bad about them being killed,” he said. “You’re an admitted thief and assassin.”

Lethelin gave a slight shrug.

“More than the monarch, the Knights were a symbol of Awenor,” she explained, her voice somber. “We’ve had good and bad rulers in the past but the Knights were always there in the background, keeping watch. When they were all killed it was like…”

She paused, searching for the words.

“It was as if the Skybreaker Peaks had suddenly crumbled to dust. My–” she paused and looked at him again and reconsidered something. “Our people lost hope. The Knights had protected us for hundreds of years and it seemed impossible that they wouldn’t be there forever.

“But now they’re not.”

“As far as anyone knows, Allora is the last one. Somehow she survived when all the rest were killed.”

“And she could defeat you in a fight?’

Mitchell had threatened Lethelin before with sending Allora after her if the thief betrayed them but that had been mostly instinct on his part. He’d seen the way Lethelin tensed whenever Allora drew her sword. It had worked, given the way Lethelin had looked slightly ill at the thought of being hunted by Allora, but he’d only been guessing at the time.

Lethelin snorted. “If I had five others with me, I still wouldn’t want to go up against her. Not seriously. I’d love to spar with her but fight her?” Lethelin wobbled her head. “She’s a warlock and a blade master. That’s what that sword means. Did you see the gemstone in the pommel?”

“Yes,” Mitchell said, very curious now.

“It’s a piece of Awen herself! It’s presented to the knights when they complete their training. It takes years of study to get it and it’s worth a small fortune. Revos told me that both of her parents were Knights, which is how it usually happens. But that means she’s been learning the blade and every other weapon since she was old enough to make a fist. And magic since her seventh name day. No… I would not face off against her. I would run. I would run very fast and very far.”

Mitchell went quiet for a while and thought about what he’d just learned. Things with Allora began to take on a new light. Most notable was the way in which Ivaran’s men had always acted around her. Even chained and without the use of her magic, they had been terrified of even getting close to her. The one who got handsy with her being the lone exception and he hadn’t tried again. He remembered that first day. When they’d tried to get her out of the cage, they hadn’t even wanted to stick their hands inside.

He wondered if she could have found a way to escape if it hadn’t been for him. Given how nervous their captors had been anytime they were within arm’s reach of her, he suspected she could have found a way but he had been a liability. Instead of feeling bad about it, he resolved that he would work harder so that it wouldn’t happen again.

They walked on and Lethelin resumed pointing out curiosities and other points of interest to him. He saw several side streets that he wanted to explore but Lethelin didn’t let them wander off the main road. She was serious about getting to their destination well before Allora.

One thing that brought him up short was a group of about twelve naked men and women walking down the center of the street. They were totally nude and hairless except for some sort of leather sandals that only covered the soles of their feet. As they walked, they chanted something Mitchell couldn’t understand. The crowds mostly ignored them except for moving aside when the group walked too close.

“Who are they?”

Lethelin rolled her eyes. Another universal gesture, it seemed.

“Haliks,” Lethelin said with a fair amount of scorn in her voice. “Religious fanatics. Brains like week-old fish guts.”

“Like a cult?”

He didn’t know the word for “cult” so there was a brief exchange back and forth as he explained what it meant and then she gave him the word in common.

“They think clothing blocks Stollar’s blessings from entering their souls,” she explained. “So they go around bare-ass believing Stollar’s light will cleanse them and that they will earn rewards after they die. It’s all blood pike shit if you ask me. You never see any Haliks in the north. The jivi fuckers would freeze to death.”

That got a chuckle out of him.

“They’re mostly harmless, though. The Guard tolerate them as long as they don’t make a nuisance of themselves.”

“And the no-clothes thing?”

Lethelin shrugged.

“Just a naked body. We’re all naked under our clothes, aren’t we?”

Mitchell couldn’t really argue with that logic. Nudity apparently wasn’t such a big taboo here as back home.

As they approached the city center the street became dominated by estates and manors. Lethelin explained that most of these homes were for the merchant lords and high-level government officials. There were also some small embassies and temples to Stollar, Denass, Ithstasy, and Vish.

Before long Mitchell noticed the air had become noticeably cooler. There was a fine layer of mist settling around them. The spire of the wellspring had grown to dominate his vision for several minutes and they were close enough now that they were getting spray from the continual flow out of the geyser.

The palatial buildings around them also began to display much more greenery on their terraces and balconies. Large, lush plants that Mitchell had no name for were hung all over the place to take advantage of the near continual precipitation from the wellspring. The air became heavy with the scent of growing things and the humidity spiked noticeably. As they walked closer and the moisture began to condense enough to run down his exposed skin, he felt a slight tingling sensation as the strange minerals reacted to his body. Mitchell began to get an idea of what Lethelin had told him about taking a bath in the wellspring water.

Up ahead, he could see the road dead-end into some sort of green space or park. Lethelin picked up her pace and seemed eager to get there. They went the last few hundred meters in silence as the mist started to feel like actual rain. It had been so long since Mitchell had felt the sensation of raindrops on his body that he started grinning like an idiot. At least he wasn’t alone. Lethelin was smiling along with him as the water dripped down her cheeks, and the tip of her nose, and flattened her hair to her scalp. The tingling sensation seemed to energize both of them. They were sprinting the last fifty meters or so to where the road ended and the parkland began.

“Oh wow,” Mitchell said in awe as he slowed to a stop. He had never seen anything like it in his life. Flowers with petals as large as his head sagged under the weight of the nutrient-dense water and thick trees with oddly-shaped leaves and trunks swollen with moisture erupted from the soggy ground. Lush green grass and flowers Mitchell had never seen before grew wild along each paved path that meandered through the almost rainforest-like environment that spread out in front of him. The air was thick with the scents of earth and forest.

Both he and Lethelin were drenched, but her cloak seemed to shed the water easily enough. However, his loose-fitting desert attire was plastered to his skin. His whole body tingled now. It felt not unlike a very small electrical current as the droplets ran down his exposed arms, neck, and head.

About twenty or thirty meters straight ahead, a fence had been built and, beyond that, there was an open space. Further still, the spire erupted into the sky. The bit that he could see through the foliage looked as thick around as a redwood tree and it towered above everything else. There was a steady roar of flowing and crashing water. He wanted to go to the fence and see what lay at the base of the wellspring but his eyes found Lethelin instead.

She had walked a bit off to the side and was standing under the fronds of some large tree. As he watched, she tilted her head back and let the water that was running down the leaves pour into her mouth until it overflowed and she began to splutter and laugh. Her wet hair had turned a deep blood red and the contrast with her pale skin was striking. He walked to her as she grinned up at him and tried to catch her breath. His body thrummed with the tingle of the strange water pouring down all around him and he had the sudden feeling that everything was going to be alright.

“It’s going to be okay,” he said, more to himself than Lethelin but her ears caught it anyway.

As he looked into her emerald eyes, he suddenly realized how close she was to him. Just inches away, both of them trembling with the effects of the cool, clean air–the first either of them had felt in weeks–the electric current running over their skin, and their proximity to one another.

He held her gaze and he saw her moist lips part ever so slightly and, before he could second guess himself, he leaned down and kissed her. And instead of pulling away, she leaned into it and kissed him back just as hard.