Erato’s eyes tried, with great difficulty, to remove themselves from Devmond, but the task proved to be impossible. The mere inches he moved closer seemed to bring his golden eyes a mile nearer, as if they had been occluded by the slope of some horizon formerly unknown. Though his voice was softer, they echoed far longer, and suddenly the smooth movement of his lips was fascinating. The divide of attention brought further difficulty in the konti’s comprehension (save for her unspeaking gut, which knew precisely what was going on due to much lesser anticipation learned from the reading of romance novels that would never be admitted to), and for a few very long moments, she did nothing but stare with steadily widening eyes.
Men weren’t supposed to look like that—not at her. Anger she could react to, reason she could respond to, but she had never had an interaction quite like the one she found herself in now. Part of her brain had registered his words as a compliment while the rest was trying to pay attention to the steadily strengthening tingling of her scales. The problem with that, however, was that its message was terribly confused because her chest was growing warm at the same time chills were running down her spine, which also happened to occur at the moment Erato realized that she was blushing again. The sensations made her dizzy, but a more pleasant kind of dizziness where, rather than not knowing the difference between up or down, she wasn’t quite sure if she was up or down. There was a kind of lightness to the new speed her heart had started going, and to actually remain on the ground with this very strange buoyancy seemed to be a blatant disregard of logic.
As for what was going on outside of her head, she wasn’t quite aware. Her eyelids had drooped slightly, shoulders curving inward. She couldn’t remember feeling particularly tired, but remembering that wasn’t important because she could see and comprehend little more than the face in front of her. What was that he had said about healing? She only hoped he wasn’t about to mention the akalak again.