by Amy Lane
“You did,” Taern murmured. “Did it work?” He was fascinated.
“Oh yes,” Dorjan said, nodding. “From that moment on, until we joined the military, he never left my side.”
On and on into the night, Dorjan talked, and when he finally closed his eyes, midsentence, talking about giving Areau advice about girls of all things, Taern lay there in the dark, weeping quietly against Dorjan’s chest without sobbing. He’d truly listened to Dorjan and had heard love and longing in Dorjan’s voice, and for the first time had seen the life of a fine and clever mind, of a stalwart friend, of a noble, good man, who was worthy to be mourned.
Ten Months After
DORJAN’S room at Kyon’s Keep had been redone after Taern left the first time. When Taern had seen it, it had a bed barely big enough for the both of them and muted wood paneling, the kind easily sanded when, say, a rambunctious child rammed his metal bed frame against the molding. (Dorjan had not yet confessed what he’d been doing when that happened, which made Taern even more curious.)
Now, ten months after the death of Areau, son of Coreau, Dorjan’s mother had painted the walls white and added a bare navy trim. She’d also moved in a bed big enough for the two of them—although not quite as big as Dorjan’s back at the town house, which was a relief. Dorjan still had nights where he slept curled in a ball, and Taern enjoyed a reprieve from chasing him over to the other side of the bed.
She had also added a mirror so that two gentlemen might ready themselves for a formal family gathering without squinting into a shaving mirror, which is what Dorjan claimed he’d been doing since his teens.
Triari Dorjan had claimed privilege and had taken an extended leave at the birth of Krissa’s child. He’d communicated with the Forum almost daily, and there was always a soldier—one of the ones who hadn’t left the military as soon as the farming and food situations stabilized somewhat—running a packet of parchment to the door of Kyon’s Keep, but Taern refused to let him spend more than an hour per day at his desk.
“Holiday, Dorjan. You made it more than clear, remember? I was there. You told them you took the mantle reluctantly and that you needed to rest. They said, ‘Oh Forum Master Dorjan, we’re so impressed by your ability to see right and wrong and blah blah blah blah blah we’ll bend over and suck your arse if only you don’t make us think for ourselves!’”
Dorjan had quill to paper at that moment, and at Taern’s rather rude (and dead on) impression of the Forum Master who had, indeed, told Dorjan he’d be a nominal leader only, he arched an eyebrow. “I don’t believe those were Chamber’s exact words.”
Taern shrugged. “They were close.” He made Dorjan smile, and Dorjan allowed Taern to seize the sheaf of papers from his grasp, and that was that. A one-hour limit on work for the entire three-fortnight stay.
They had visited the outer keeps, discussed how to farm next spring, and assessed their stores to see if they could send some to Karanos and Gretzky, as both provinces were struggling to recoup their losses from the war.
And, of course, Dorjan had taken Taern to the mines to bond with the niskets some more.
Taern was reasonably sure they fucked like rabbits—when the nisket cloud finally receded, they’d both been sore in all the appropriate muscles and covered in each other—but that’s not what he remembered. What he remembered was the feeling of well-being, of freedom, of joy. After he and Dorjan cleaned up and made it down the umbilical, he looked around Kyon’s Keep and realized he could, at any moment, think of a place and know which tiny metal creature was there, and what it was doing. He looked at Dorjan in wonder and then looked at the giant rock pile of wreckage they’d already started to mine.
“No wonder,” he said, thinking hard about Areau’s sacrifice. “No wonder he died to protect this. This… this feeling, being part of your land—it makes me whole!”
Dorjan looked out at the rubble pile too. “That’s not what they would have felt,” he said, his voice hollow, and Taern knew he was right. The feeling of the niskets in his blood was powerful—in the best way. To people who wanted power so that other people wouldn’t have it? It could be deadly. Taern understood, now, why Kyon’s Keep kept the niskets on the level of fairy tale for the rest of the world. It was a very important secret to keep.
But that had been their first week back, before Krissa had given birth and before Taern had seen the effect that fresh air, moderate exercise, and happiness had on Dorjan.
His chest had finally filled out enough to showcase his muscles, and his ribs were finally not able to be counted under his skin, and his smile, though still guarded with almost everyone but Taern, Krissa, and her newborn son, was becoming more and more whole. This day, as Taern tied his cravat—a bright lime green, in spite of the somber month and the sober occasion—Taern thought he had never looked more beautiful.
“What?” Dorjan asked, checking his cheeks in the mirror. He had shaved in the morning as he’d overseen the preparation, and come back in to bathe and shave before dinner. Taern had cut his hair for him the day before, and he looked every inch the young Forum Master and gentleman.
“What nothing,” Taern replied evenly, settling him back square again so Taern could finish his cravat.
“You’re looking at me strangely. I thought my hair was crooked or there was something on my—”
“Hush,” Taern said, holding his hand to Dorjan’s lean mouth. “I’m thinking good thoughts about us being this child’s guardians with Krissa, and about how you are too beautiful for words. Don’t ruin it by self-deprecation, not today.”
Faint red crescents appeared on Dorjan’s cheeks, and Taern finished tying his cravat and rubbed a thumb over them.
“Remember once, we talked about the provinces and how you thought there was a power beyond the founders?”
Dorjan grimaced. “Yes—a divinity, a guiding force. Yes, I still believe it.”
“So do I. You could have died a thousand times between the first time I met you and the second, but you didn’t. I think that divinity must have saved you until I could take over.”
Dorjan’s blush deepened. “I think you would be happy living at Madame M’s and enjoying the hell out of yourself without me,” he said, obviously embarrassed, and Taern smacked his cheek lightly.
“Don’t make me get serious with you, Nyx. This thing I’m feeling right now, before we go take custody of our son with Krissa, in front of your mother and Areau’s parents and your keep and my sisters? That’s a tremendous thing.”
Dorjan laughed a little and looked at Taern with that shyness that could still peek out from time to time, and which dazzled Taern whenever it did. “I’m terrified,” he confided. “Taern, that’s Areau’s child—I have such a debt to that tiny person, to his mother—”
“So do I,” Taern said soberly. “You’re not in this alone, Nyx. I’m there too. You think Krissa’s not frightened to death? She’s got a task planned when we get to the city as well, and she’s depending on us to help pick up the slack!”
Madame M’s brothel hadn’t just been a whorehouse, it had been a sanctuary and a place where sex was not just practiced for a fee but celebrated, and where differences in sex weren’t abhorred, they were welcome. Yes, all cities had whores—it was a fact of humanity. Very few cities had a celebration of sexuality, and Krissa thought that sort of business was necessary too. She’d asked Dorjan for the start-up money to go back to work—in an administrative capacity only—to build the brothel back up. Dorjan had agreed, with the caveat that she make sure the ones who truly wanted to were the only ones who were trained up, and the ones who simply wanted shelter be referred to the schools and shelters instead.
It was an amicable bargain, and Taern thought that in its own small way, the new Madame’s, as Krissa planned to call it, would be a necessary part of building Thenis back up to a city in its prime. Hell, they’d already cleaned out the monorail so the rabbits could continue to run; Taern was optimistic about anything at this point.
> Dorjan nodded and took Taern’s hand from his cravat—Taern was just fussing with it now anyway—and held it up to his cheek.
“Beloved?” Dorjan said softly, and Taern knew that all of his briskness and business-as-usual drained from his spine like starch from a wet shirt.
“Yes?”
“You need to know—I mean, I can’t think of words to tell you, but I think I should before we go out there. Every good thing in my heart right now, every joy, every hope for the future, every pleasant memory of a very dismal past—I owe those to you. You’re their keeper. You’re the one who makes them real. This moment here, this joy, this celebration, it would not be possible, it would not be possible for me, if you had not seen something in me in that back alley of Thenis and set about to show me that I was good too. I just thought I should tell you, since we’re in this together.” Dorjan smiled shyly when he finished, and bobbed his head like a nervous boy, then bent and planted a quick kiss on Taern’s slightly open mouth.
“Shall we go, then?” he asked, heading toward the door and pausing to look behind him as though he hadn’t just decimated Taern, annihilated him, destroyed the boy he’d been and remade him into the man who could stand by Dorjan’s side, all in one casually delivered sentence.
“You git,” Taern said, his voice unapologetically thick. He wiped his cheeks with the back of one hand and then put the hand in Dorjan’s as he stood waiting. “I can’t even believe you’d tell me something like that now.”
Dorjan chuckled then and bent down to whisper in Taern’s ear. “Well, when we’re alone, Cricket, I seem to find better things to do.”
Taern beamed up at him, thrilled and happy, and then followed him out the door. Their future was waiting, chubby fists, wrinkled little toes, furious temper, and all, and Taern couldn’t wait to hold him again.
About the Author
AMY LANE is a mother of four and a compulsive knitter who writes because she can’t silence the voices in her head. She adores cats, knitting socks, and hawt menz, and she dislikes moths, cat boxes, and knuckle-headed macspazzmatrons. She is rarely found cooking, cleaning, or doing domestic chores, but she has been known to knit up an emergency hat/blanket/pair of socks for any occasion whatsoever or sometimes for no reason at all. She writes in the shower, while commuting, while taxiing children to soccer/dance/karate/oh my! and has learned from necessity to type like the wind. She lives in a spider-infested, crumbling house in a shoddy suburb and counts on her beloved Mate, Mack, to keep her tethered to reality—which he does while keeping her cell phone charged as a bonus. She’s been married for twenty-plus years and still believes in Twu Wuv, with a capital Twu and a capital Wuv, and she doesn’t see any reason at all for that to change.
Visit Amy’s website at http://www.greenshill.com. You can e-mail her at [email protected].
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