by Devon Vesper
With that decision made, he went to check on the bags that held his various belongings. He pawed through the bundles of his father’s things that he hadn’t grown into yet, found they smelled much better than what he had just tossed onto the floor. They held Roba’s scent, though, and that made him stuff the things haphazardly back into the bags and want to scald his skin to get the scent off. But what he was actually looking for, he couldn’t seem to find. Where were his mother’s comb and handkerchief? He shuddered and searched through his own bags, the tents, the bedrolls, everything he had used in the past several months. He looked around. Every possession of his rested somewhere in the room except the gold chests, saddle bags, and the crates. He knew he hadn’t packed his mother’s things in those. But, whether at the foot of his bed, on the floor, or in his grasp, the rest of his stuff was at hand, and his heart dropped to somewhere near his feet.
“No… Gods, no.”
He searched three more times, each time his heart sank further. Just in case, he checked under the bed, in the small wardrobe, and in the desk drawers he never got the chance to touch.
Racing from the room, Valis tore through the halls, down the stairs and out the main door to the courtyard. He brushed by surprised guards as he darted for the stables and nearly knocked over the stable hand in his haste to get to Chath’s stall.
He skidded to a halt, sliding a few feet along the straw-strewn floor and scrambled into the stall. Heavy boots thudded after him, and two guards and the stable hand peered into the stall, all with wide eyes.
“What is the matter?” one of the guards asked.
“My mother’s things,” Valis whimpered as he ransacked his saddlebags, “I can’t find them! I haven’t seen them since I packed them in Evakis!”
All three sighed, and one of the guards left. The stable hand, though, came in and started rooting through the hay bedding. “I will look in here. Check your other horses’ bags. Yeag, start checking hay in the young man’s other stalls. There is a dappled mare, bay mare, silver stallion, two chestnut geldings, and a paint gelding.”
Heading out of the stall, the guard called back as he entered the next down the line. “What exactly are we looking for?”
Valis set the saddle bag aside once he was done and moaned his misery. “An embroidered white cotton handkerchief with lavender lace on the edges, and my profile sewn into it in blue thread facing right, her profile facing left in pink. The comb is silver with raised gold and silver filigree and three oval sapphires. Between the sapphires are two oddly shaped freshwater pearls in a pinkish hue. My grandmother gave it to her on her wedding day.”
The stable hand reached up and squeezed his knee. “If it is here, lad, we shall find it. Go on and look in the other saddle bags. Yeag, be thorough.”
“Certainly,” Yeag said. Though, he exited the stables and shouted out the door for others. Soon, the stable crawled with the previously departed guard and four others, and after quick orders, they all searched through the hay with militaristic efficiency as Valis checked saddle bags.
“Clear,” Yeag said from his stall’s door.
The stable hand came out as well and nodded. “Clear.”
Valis’ heart fell through the floor as he went through each saddle bag again in a desperate hope that he just overlooked them.
“Clear,” another said from the third stall.
It has to be here! He tore through the saddle bag and emptied its contents onto the floor, then sifted through them as if the items were too minuscule to see at a glance.
“Clear,” came from the fourth stall.
Panic gripped his chest and tears burned his eyes. Wiping them and his nose on his shirt sleeve, Valis tucked everything back into the last saddle bag and covered his face with both hands as he fought against the urge to cry.
“Clear,” echoed two other guards. They cast Valis pained looks, but turned to the last stall with hopeful expressions as if they really cared if Valis’ things were returned to him.
“Clear,” the last guard, a woman, murmured despondently. “I am sorry, lad.”
Lowering his hands, Valis thudded his head against the stall wall. “Thank you for looking, everyone. I am sorry to have taken you from your duty.”
Darolen came pounding through the stables and jerked to a stop when he saw the group. It took him a moment, but he found Valis sat on a hay bale in front of the line of stalls. “What is going on here?”
“The lad lost his mother’s things,” the stable hand said with a sad frown. “We helped look for them. All is well, lad. We were glad to help.”
“Good man, Kas.” Darolen sighed and reached for Valis. “Thank you, everyone. I will handle things from here.”
As they all filed out of the stables, murmuring their apologies and condolences to Valis in their wake, Darolen knelt in front of Valis and squeezed his hands. “Are you certain they aren’t in your things still in your room?”
Suddenly it seemed as if all Valis did of late was cry. His lips trembled, and he looked down. He couldn’t stop the tears, or the watery waver in his voice. “I searched five times before I came here.”
Now that he started to settle down, Valis shivered. Without realizing it in his haste, he forgot to don his winter cloak, and the chill settled into his bones. Darolen squeezed Valis’ hands, then unhooked his own cloak and wrapped Valis up in it.
“Come back inside,” he said as he helped Valis to his feet. “We will check again, and again after we bathe if we have to. I will have the launderers keep an eye out, as well, in case they are stuck to clothing, and we missed them.”
Valis blindly let Darolen lead him back to his room. While he warmed up on a stool with Darolen’s cloak about him, he watched as the Aesriphos went methodically through each article of mildewed clothing, dirty or semi-clean. He went through the bedroll, then the crates, taking out each spell book and shaking them in turn. The last was the gold purses that they all three carried. Instead of rooting through them, he carefully upended one and put the gold back in a few coins at a time.
Halfway through putting the gold back, Kerac poked his head into the room and frowned. “What is all this?”
“I can’t find mother’s handkerchief and comb,” Valis said between tear-filled sobs. “I know I packed them. I know I did! I remember doing it. I put it in one of the packs with my clothes!”
“Calm yourself, Valis,” Kerac said gently. “We can check the saddle bags next.”
“I already did that!” Valis hated the whine in his voice and modulated it as much as he could. “Six guards and the stable hand helped me search the packs and hay bedding.”
“I see.” Kerac sighed. Something passed across his face after a moment, and he frowned and went to help Darolen replace the gold. “Darolen, will you help our Love figure out the faucets so he can bathe? I’ll clean up in here and join you soon.”
Without a word, Darolen rose, kissed Kerac and drew Valis to his feet. He murmured softly to Kerac, and as his lover went to work with the small pile of coins, Darolen tucked Valis against his side and drew him toward a central room on the lower level.
Once the door shut, Darolen helped Valis undress as if he couldn’t do it himself. He didn’t stop until they both stood there nude, then he showed Valis how to work the faucets, which knob brought hot and which cold water. Throughout it all, Valis only half-listened. His mind floated elsewhere as he tried to retrace the last seven or so months to see what might have become of his mementos of his mother.
The sound of water rippling drew him out of his thoughts just as Darolen sat down. He held his hand out and beckoned Valis over. “Come on.”
Blinking, Valis looked around. All the other tubs were dry. “Uhm…”
That fatherly look came to his face, and he smiled. “Not like that, Son.”
Before he met the two Aesriphos, Valis would have run from the bathing room. Nude if he’d had to. He would have never considered such a thing. But that paternal look, the knowledge th
at Darolen and Kerac would never hurt him, the fact they had both risked their lives to save him more than once… it made every muscle in his body relax. He took Darolen’s hand and stepped down into the sunken bath, still with a bit of anxiety bubbling in his gut. But the moment he sank down into the steaming water, he let out a sigh and Darolen pulled him back against his chest so the water came up to his chin.
With the steady thump of Darolen’s heart in his ear, the water seeping warmth into his bones, and being held like a treasured child, Valis soon dozed off. He woke to murmured voices.
“What is this?” Kerac asked, his semi-scandalized tone a cross between amusement and worry.
Darolen’s voice rumbled deeply against Valis’ ear, but what he heard from the other came as, “What does it look like?”
“I refuse to say what it might look like…”
The older Aesriphos chuckled and smoothed a wet hand down Valis’ hair. “Good. That means you know me better.”
“Then what is this?” Kerac asked again. “You rarely let me bathe with you.”
A heartfelt sigh escaped Darolen, and he wrapped his arms about Valis’ shoulders. “I told you that I was the oldest middle child of six. Well, when the younger three were between birth and three years, and they became uncontrollably distraught, Mother would often stuff them under her shirt and seemingly breastfeed.”
Kerac made a strange sound that almost seemed disgusted. “You cannot produce milk, Darolen.”
The elder mate chuckled again. “No need. I later learned that her milk dried up before they turned two. She just held them against her skin until they calmed enough to resume play. I never knew any better until I had a dream a few years back. I remembered her doing the same to me. She lifted me up by the scruff of my neck, squashed me down on her lap, and stuffed me inside her shirt. I didn’t suckle. But the dark, her scent, and the feeling of her skin had me calm in moments.”
Silence drew on for a moment before Kerac laughed softly. “I see it worked.”
“He passed out before the water stilled,” Darolen rumbled. “We should wake him before he gets so wrinkled it becomes painful.”
Valis purred lazily. “I’m awake. Don’t want to move…”
Darolen snorted and hugged him tighter. “You are pruning. And we still need to get clean.”
His mind clear for once, Valis wiped at his eyes and sat up, careful not to hurt Darolen. “Yeah. No sense in getting back out of the bath still stinking.”
Kerac snickered as he strode to another tub and worked the faucets. “Drain that dirty water, and I’ll get clean tubs ready for us.”
Chapter Twenty
Fresh out the bath, Valis draped across his bed. Regardless of how comfortable or warm it was, he hated it. Darolen and Kerac relaxed in their own next door. By now, he was fairly certain they were already entangled and enjoying themselves. He couldn’t blame them though. He wished them happy. As he reminded himself over and over again, they deserved their time alone while they were able.
Valis groaned and let out a long sigh, then he rolled onto his side and stuffed his arm under the downy pillow to better support his head. As he promised himself earlier, Valis went through his feelings. Terror clawed at his mind. Last night marked the first time he slept without a nightmare in ages. He had gotten so used to waking up and falling asleep to either Darolen’s face or Kerac’s that he wondered if sleep would claim him now at all.
He tossed to his other side, half expecting to see Darolen looking back at him and frowned when he only found a bare stone wall and the other half of the bed. This is ridiculous! How can I know full and well that I’m alone and still expect to see them? And still get hurt when I don’t?
He groaned again and Valis flopped onto his stomach, pressed his cheek into his pillow and bashed his face into it a few times. And I’m stuck here alone until Kerac and Darolen are done, or our clothes are clean, whichever comes first.
His lungs burned for air and he shifted his face to the side so he could breathe again. When he laid on his stomach, he always had to shift the pillow all the way to the side until his face rested on the edge so that he didn’t smother. This pillow made it more necessary with its fluffiness. He shoved it to his right and gasped for breath.
At least I’m not ready to break anything. That became a blessing. After that talk with Darolen, and the subsequent crying jags, each day became easier to deal with. Knowing his uncle was dead, having watched his body burn to ash the night he’d killed him, lent Valis a huge well of relief. He hadn’t realized how much tension he had carried with him until it all released with each ember that floated to the sky, and with each flake of ash that coated the ground and blackened the surrounding snow. With his death, joy crept back in, in a slow, steady trickle until Valis felt somewhat normal again. Waking up without a nightmare chasing him into alertness that morning, he thought, heralded the beginning of his full recovery.
But will that recovery flee without Darolen and Kerac beside me each night? I’m not an infant! A few more months, and I’ll be nineteen. I need to grow up. What will happen when we’re at Avristin and I’m in training, and they’re called away for days, months, or a year or more? Will I just wallow in my own self-pity until they return to find me emaciated, weepy and whining? Or worse yet, incarcerated because I couldn’t hold my temper?
That thought scared him. It scared him so completely that he got up, tossed his towel onto the floor and climbed under the covers. He burrowed under that comforting weight and nuzzled into the pillow. Then Valis shifted until he found a comfortable position and closed his eyes. I begged to be left alone to sleep this morning. Mentioned I desperately wanted a nap. Only slept a short time in the tub with Darolen. By the Gods, I will nap now—alone—if it kills me.
Something picked at the back of his mind. Instinctively, Valis looked around for his sword and remembered that Darolen had him send it along with their armor and weapons to be mended and sharpened. A pang of annoyance flared in his gut, but he shoved it back down.
I’m safe here, he reminded himself. I’m safer here than I was in the tent with only Darolen, Kerac and their shield keeping us sheltered. Safer than I ever had been living on the farm under Roba’s iron fist. He huffed a bout of vile laughter. Just as well. If someone startles me awake, I’m much better off with an accidental fist to someone’s face than an accidental beheading.
As if he needed the reminder, his mind offered up the very vivid image of the bandit’s head flying off his neck to leave the still standing body pumping blood in a vertical pulsing fountain before him. He shuddered and pulled the blankets closer about him. The room was comfortably warm, but that image left a chill deep in his bones that made his insides quake.
No. Not that thought, he growled at himself. If my memory has enough clarity to give me that, it can give me Darolen and Kerac having sex.
And then he sighed and palmed his face. That isn’t a good idea, either. I need a distraction that isn’t going to make me explode.
With another agonized groan, Valis gave what he thought was a valiant effort to redirect his thoughts, and searched through his memories for something comforting that wouldn’t end up erotic. After scrolling through memories, something tugged at his heart. Darolen’s deep voice rose in his mind in song.
Memories of every time he sang it sprung forth and replayed until tears soaked the pillow under his face. Instead of sorrow, however, his heart trilled with such love that it almost smothered him.
Darolen’s voice played in his mind until Valis fell asleep. When he woke, something warm pressed to his back and feather-light touches tickled his cheeks. He shifted back into the warmth, but couldn’t get comfortable. He murmured something incomprehensible, even to himself, as he rolled over and tucked against the hard chest.
“Did you have fun with Darolen?” he mumbled, his voice still thick with sleep.
A deep bass chuckle rumbled instead of Kerac’s low tenor, and Valis pried his eyelids open. “Oh, I th
ought you were Kerac!”
The craggy warrior stretched and draped an arm about Valis’ waist. Both lay there nude, except Darolen’s towel about the older man’s hips. Darolen, though, only had a soft, amused smile and a kind touch as he petted Valis’ back.
“Kerac fell asleep, and I wanted to check on you,” he said. “When I came in, you were whimpering in your sleep. You calmed the moment I stroked your hair, so I stayed.”
Valis ducked his head as a blush crept across his face and down his neck. “I missed you and Kerac, but I didn’t want to bother either of you. I… fell asleep to the sound of your voice.”
“Oh?” Darolen asked. His eyes widened at that, and a worried frown marred his forehead and tugged his lips down. “How so?”
Valis nodded and snuggled down. “Just memories of when you sang to me. I was upset, and it calmed me so I could sleep.”
The worried frown disappeared in an instant. Darolen’s arm tightened about him and he leaned in, pressing a kiss to Valis’ forehead. “I’m glad it brings you comfort. It did to me when I was around your age, many years ago.”
That kiss warmed Valis to his toes, and he pressed his face in the curve of Darolen’s throat. Valis murmured against his skin, “How old are you, Father?”
“I—” Darolen sucked in a sharp breath through his nose and tightened his grip on Valis until he nearly crushed him against his chest. “What did you just call me?”
Fear, like acid, shot through Valis’ gut and veins and he tried to shrink back. “I’m sorry, Darolen! I—”
“Don’t.” Darolen whispered the word, cutting him off. “Don’t you ever shrink away from me like that. I won’t ever hurt you in anger. Not unless it’s for your own safety. Do you understand me?”
Valis nodded as he tried to swallow the lump in his throat. All the words he wanted to say died when he saw the shimmer of barely restrained tears in Darolen’s eyes.
“What did you call me?” he asked again, softer this time.
