Welcome to another weekend sneak peek! In this scene from Sarya's Song,
Adan is being punished for attacking Master Uldo over something that
Uldo did to Sarya, and Sarya has come to offer moral support:
Adan was kneeling in the center aisle before the altar, wearing only a
pair of knee-length linen underdrawers, chanting the tropes of
repentance in an undertone. Sarya looked at his lean, muscular back. His
skin had a natural light bronze tone, and there was a dusting of
freckles across the tops of his shoulders. She wondered what his back
would feel like under her hands. Then, appalled, she scolded herself.
The man was in Penance because of her; she was here to offer support,
not to lust after him. She was only having those feelings because she
was slightly – just very slightly – drunk and she had never seen his
bare back before.
Carefully turning her mind to more virtuous thoughts, she examined his back for signs that he had been lashed too hard. In the low light, she couldn’t see any sign of lashing at all. The Hierarch must have been smart enough to not put Master Uldo in charge of Adan’s Penance. That would have been a disaster.
She tore her eyes away from Adan’s back. “Idiot,” she said. “You didn’t have to go and get yourself in trouble on my account.”
He stopped chanting. “It’s no trouble.”
“Why did you do it?”
“If you don’t know, there’s no point in me trying to explain it to you.”
Carefully turning her mind to more virtuous thoughts, she examined his back for signs that he had been lashed too hard. In the low light, she couldn’t see any sign of lashing at all. The Hierarch must have been smart enough to not put Master Uldo in charge of Adan’s Penance. That would have been a disaster.
She tore her eyes away from Adan’s back. “Idiot,” she said. “You didn’t have to go and get yourself in trouble on my account.”
He stopped chanting. “It’s no trouble.”
“Why did you do it?”
“If you don’t know, there’s no point in me trying to explain it to you.”
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