Elrik had been traveling with Arasa for three weeks now, enduring the thankfully lessening heat of midday as autumn progressed, though it meant the nights were correspondingly colder. The air around them was warm enough to cause heat shimmers and trickles of sweat, but whenever he thought about the chance of being with her intimately, shivers of anticipation, fear, and desire prickled down his spine. Three weeks was enough time to become fascinated with the woman, even infatuated. Ever respectful, since she hadn’t behaved with anything above a warm sort of friendship so far, but he was drawn to her all the same.He hadn’t noticed her eyes at first, since they had initially met in a lamp-lit tavern. They were taupe, a light grayish-beige, bland, yet undeniably unusual. He’d heard that some Imperials had odd, desert-hued eyes, but this was the first time he had actually seen such a thing. Her hair was pale even for a desert-dweller, platinum-blond and almost white. Most of the time she wore it wrapped up in her turban, but she unbound it each night and morning so she could unbraid and brush out her rib-length locks, then replait them again to keep them tidy while riding or sleeping.Her soft waves were very different from his own vigorous, crinkly, coppery curls, though the lengths were about the same.
