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Baela reaches forward to tuck a lock of Jace’s hair behind his ear. The corner of his mouth crooks at her touch and he turns his head, brushes his lips against her thumb.
She catches her breath. Jace has oft been slow to physical affection; she knows it’s yet another anxiety due to his parentage. She knows he craves her touch as much she does his, but the moments they’ve permitted themselves are few and far between.
The corridors are quiet, though, and the flickering candlelight doesn’t disguise the heat in his eyes as he traces his hands along her arms. Baela gives in easily to his coaxing, rising from her seat to slide into his lap.
Jace dips his head to her collarbone. She feels his smile against her skin as she giggles. “Here?” she asks him. “Now?”
“Perhaps,” he murmurs, tugging at her skirts, “to start.”
“Perhaps,” Baela agrees, and leans forward to nip his ear.
***
As they stride towards the dragons, Baela catches Jace’s elbow. “It’s not too late,” she tells him, not liking the glitter in his eye. “Your mother may yet forgive you.”
“My mother will never trust me,” Jace answers, but she’s not sure he’s replying to her. “This is the only way I can prove myself.”
She bites back a sigh, as once again his doubts have taken the rein of Jace’s mind. “Heirs have no need to prove themselves,” she reminds him, because it’s what she always does when he’s like this.
Jace’s steps stutter for a moment, and he turns to draw her into his arms. “Not to the realm,” he tells her, his hands warm through the cloth of her gown, “but perhaps to myself.”
“And to her,” Baela says, unable to help herself.
Jace’s grin is wry. “And to her,” he admits.
He’s clear-eyed enough, so she hazards, “Perhaps this battle isn’t the proving ground you need?”
Jace sighs, presses his forehead against hers. She relaxes for a moment, in his nearness, in his warmth. They breathe together for a moment, for two.
“The fleet is in need of aid,” he tells her, finally. “We can be that aid.”
Baela pictures, then, her grandfather, in full armor at the prow of his ship. She lets herself feel her own battle-cravings, that itch in her palms and longing for the dip of Moondancer’s wings.
“We can be that aid,” she relents. “You fool.”
Jace pulls her closer, presses his lips to hers, to her throat, to her forehead. “Your fool,” he promises.
“The more fool me,” she responds, but squeezes his hand and steals a last kiss before they go to war.
***
Baela coaxes Moondancer to circle above the battlefield, curbing that impulse to dive, to dive, to dive.
She doesn’t want to see him sink, but she can’t bring herself to fly away, not yet.
The scorch of fire and sea fills her lungs, and she circles.
She circles.