Penumbra

by Dan Ackerman

  “Hmm?”

  “It’s not like you.”

  Rhys wrapped an arm around his neck and pulled him into a headlock, gentle but still playful. “Maybe now that I get paid like a peer, I can afford to stay home once in a while.”

  Arden squirmed out of his grip and pushed him.

  Rhys pushed him back.

  They roughhoused for a few minutes, dissolving into to giggles when Rhys scooped up Arden and threw him over his shoulder.

  He hurried to put Arden down when someone rang at the door.

  Arden straightened his clothes. “What!”

  A safety officer, followed by Mara, stepped just inside his rooms. “Your Eminence, uh, this thrall has been looking for you. Normally, we’d send her away, but…” The officer glanced at Mara. “She said—”

  “I said you be pissed if they did that,” Mara answered.

  The officer said, “Ah, I know Your Eminence was involved in her trial.”

  “Barely!” Arden protested.

  “I can take her away.”

  “No, don’t be stupid, she’s all the way here already and you’ve ruined the mood,” Arden said. He waved away the safety officer.

  “What mood?” Rhys asked.

  Arden rolled his eyes and smacked Rhys’s arm. He gestured to the couch. “What can I do for you, Mara?”

  She sat. “This community service bullshit.”

  Arden grinned and settled beside her, casual and relaxed. Cool-looking, he thought.

  Rhys choked on some half-formed word.

  “What about it?” Arden asked.

  “I don’t have time.”

  “And you’d like me to…?”

  “Get rid of it!” she demanded.

  “Give an inch,” Arden murmured.

  “You can,” she insisted.

  “Well, yeah, I can. Why should I? You did pick a fight with that other girl.”

  Mara shook her head, blond wisps flying about her face. “She picked a fight with me.”

  “Arden, maybe…” Rhys began, then clamped his mouth shut.

  Mara gave Rhys a horrible look, the kind of vicious hate for which only young people had the energy. “I don’t need you sticking up for me, either!”

  Rhys pursed his lips, then paced over to the bar. He didn’t do anything over there except look put off.

  “Is that what it takes to get something out of you?” Mara asked Arden. She still had those cold, pale eyes fixed on Rhys.

  He had an uncomfortable idea of where this would go. He straightened up. He didn’t think he looked cool anymore.

  “I’ll fuck you if I have to,” she growled as though he’d propositioned her.

  “Ew!”

  From the bar, Rhys echoed, “Ew,” though more quietly.

  Arden told her, “I don’t want to have sex with you.”

  “You did it for him.” She slung her glare towards Rhys again.

  “That’s different.”

  “You don’t like girls?”

  “Listen, that’s…that’s personal. And also, I already said no, so…just. No.” Her age had firmly removed her as a person of interest for him, and it had only been a passing interest in the first place. “We’ll figure something out.”

  “How? You can’t add more hours to the day.”

  Arden considered that option. “I actually think I could. But, how about…How about!” Arden grinned at his idea. “I’ll commute your community service on the terms that you supply me with information gathered in the course of your usual work.”

  “What kind?”

  “Like the kind that drunk, unhappy peers might let slip at a bar. You do work at that bar regularly, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “So?” he asked.

  She rolled her eyes. “Fine.”

  “Good! Uh, weekly reports. Go down and get a refurbished tablet.”

  “How long am I on the hook for?”

  He shrugged. “Until I’m satisfied that I don’t need you gathering information for me anymore.”

  She looked livid.

  “Or you can go scrub the blood off the floor in a med center!” Arden threatened.

  “I said fine.”

  “Alright, then go away.”

  She stalked out.

  Rhys came back over to the couch and took her spot. “Well, fuck.”

  “I know. Were you that angry?”

  “I was better at hiding it, that’s for sure.” Rhys scooted closer to Arden and poked him in the side. “You really are a big softy.”

  Arden blew a raspberry.

  “Or do you just like people who are mean to you?”

  “That’s the one.”

  Rhys rested his head on Arden’s shoulder.

  “You could be mean to me right now, if you wanted,” Arden suggested.

  “Arden, I’m so tired…”

  “You do look like shit. I wasn’t going to say anything.”

  “Ugh, I get the worst bags under my eyes. You should have seen me when I was fifteen; I looked like one of those old horror characters they show around Hollow Night.”

  Arden pictured him as one of the spooky wraiths that parents used to threaten children. The tradition of Hollow Night came purely from Eden, started by a small group of peers with an affinity for all things dark and gloomy. They’d had movie nights which had grown and grown until now every year on Hollow Night, teens and adults stayed up scaring themselves silly while their children tried to sneak glimpses of the screens.

  Arden hated it.

  He offered, “Do you want to take a nap?”

  “I should get home.”

  “What’s so great about home all of a sudden?”

  Rhys smiled hazily, eyes closed. “No place like home.” He nestled his cheek against Arden’s shoulder. He yawned.

  “You’re not getting sick, are you?”

  “No.”

  “You should go to a med center.”

  “I’m not sick. Just sleepy.”

  Arden kissed the top of his head. “Go home and get some sleep.”

  “You don’t mind?”

  “No.”

  Rhys didn’t move for some time, but he did eventually stretch and yawn and rise from the couch. He gave Arden a peck then ambled out.

  Arden didn’t know what had gotten into him. This tired, playful contentedness lasted for a few weeks and lingered, generally, as part of Rhys’s personality.

  Arden liked it. He liked that Rhys seemed happy. He felt happy, too, and hoped that they were happy together.

  Each week, Mara had sent in her reports, short and begrudging.

  A big blonde lady said you suck. Her husband thought so too.

  Four teenagers bet each other they could fight you but they were pretty drunk.

  A man named Praetor said you’re ruining everything.

  Fallon Thomas said you’re a piece of shit.

  Arden didn’t know what he’d expected, asking her to tattle on drunken peers. Today, though, her report came early, long before her shift ended.

  A couple of old guys said they were going to ‘get rid of that thrall bitch’ you’re fucking and I think they meant it.

  Apparently, her dislike for Rhys didn’t extend to wanting him dead.

  He made his way to the bar she worked at and sat for a drink.

  She came over to him right away, not unusual for his station, but she did elbow someone out of her way to get to him. “You got my message?”

  “Mhm.”

  She glanced towards a pair of older, but certainly not old, men.

  Arden’s stomach hurt upon seeing the younger of the two, about thirty years his senior, but still spry and shrewd.

  Morris Torre had been born years after Arden’s mother had become Autarch, the last son of an ancient father. Unattended by anyone but thrall nannies who hadn’t known how to discipline him, Morris had grown from brat to terror to active threat to those around him.

  His elder sister had never cared
much for him, his father had died, and his mother didn’t exist as far as Morris was concerned. Popular rumor said she lived below deck six.

  Arden wondered if she knew what a horror her son had become.

  “You didn’t want to mention which old guys it was? And, a pink ivy, too.”

  As she made his drink, she said, “I don’t know who the fuck they are.”

  “Alright, well, here’s a bit of advice, if you’re ever alone with the tall one, run.”

  She placed his drink in front of him.

  He winced. “Little heavy on the syrup.”

  “Do you want to know what they said or not?”

  Now that he knew it had been Morris, he worried in a different, but less immediate, way. Morris made threats and often followed through with them but in an unexpected manner. “What did they say?”

  “That you’re thinking with your dick.”

  “Oh, probably.”

  “They mentioned getting rid of your current pet and replacing it with one who’d influence you in a different direction,” she confided.

  “Don’t call him my pet.”

  She raised an eyebrow. She topped his drink with an aggressive splash of bubbly water. “That’s what you’re worried about?”

  “Morris is scum but he’s not stupid. And he won’t get his hands dirty with murder. Those charges stick better than the skeezy, backhanded shit he does.”

  “Hm.”

  “Keep me posted.”

  “Sure.”

  “Don’t you mean ‘of course, Your Eminence’?” he asked.

  She narrowed her eyes.

  He took his drink and headed out into the crowd. He didn’t want to bump into his uncle and knew he had to have friendly acquaintances out here somewhere. He’d gotten dressed for this, after all. He’d expected a dangerous plot on Rhys’s life, not some petty plan to infiltrate Arden’s bedroom.

  He found Zira looking abjectly alone with a drink and no friends at her table. He sat across from her.

  She glanced up.

  “Don’t look happy to see me or anything.”

  “Hi, Arden.”

  “What’s that look?”

  “It’s the look that says my husband moved out and filed for divorce last week.”

  He grimaced. He had heard about that from Cole. Cole had seemed pleased with the change, even mentioning that he had finally gotten to spend time with Alexander and his daughter as a provisional sort of family unit.

  Alexander and Zira still had to work out a custody agreement, but the girl had spent a few nights with each parent over the past week.

  “I guess there is that,” he admitted. “How…How are you?”

  She heaved a sigh and rolled her eyes at him.

  “That’s why no one ever asks how you’re doing, you know!” he accused. “It’s got to be hard, Zira. Go ahead and say it’s hard.”

  “It’s fucking awful.”

  “It’s got to be.”

  “Cathie said I should find someone new, get back on my feet.”

  “Or off your feet,” Arden suggested with a silly, sort of louche smile.

  She glared. “That’s not funny.”

  “I thought it was. Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No.”

  He sipped his drink.

  After an awkward silence, she declared, “I just don’t understand! I did everything. I did!”

  “What’s everything, exactly?”

  She sipped her drink and stewed.

  “Zira.”

  She huffed.

  Arden stretched across the table and held his hands out. He pouted at her. “Zeenie-beenie, come on, if you can’t tell me, who can you tell?”

  She glared, then put her hands in his. “I don’t know what went wrong.”

  “Does Alexander have any insight?”

  “He says we started fighting one day and never figured out how to stop.”

  Given what he knew of their relationship, the assessment sounded accurate. “You guys were really young when you got married. Maybe too young,” he said. “Maybe you didn’t know what you wanted yet. I mean…who even gets married in their twenties!”

  “My parents did.”

  “We are not our parents,” he reminded. He could see how Zira would want to be like her parents, though, deeply infatuated with each other after fifty-plus years.

  Married young, children young…The pieces settled into place.

  “The good news is you have lots of time to find someone new. Or take time for you. You and Alexander…Shit, I mean, did you two even date other people beforehand?”

  “Not seriously.”

  “Mmm.”

  “My parents didn’t.”

  “Oh, I thought your name was Zira, not Sharie,” he said.

  She yanked her hands back. “You know, you always were my least favorite cousin.”

  “But am I your favorite second cousin?” he asked.

  Growing up, he and Zira had seen a lot of each other. Mama and her cousin, Sharie, had grown up close and shared the same predilections for shimmer and shine, for dressing up their little doll-faced children, and watching silly old shows. Zira and Arden had called each other’s mothers auntie, snuggled in on the couch for movies, and secretly helped each other out of the itchiest parts of their outfits.

  It had been Zira that had spread the nickname ‘Ardi’ to the rest of their friends.

  As they’d gotten older, they’d drifted in and out of each other’s lives. Sometimes friends, sometimes less.

  Right now, he thought they might be less than friends. He had a hand in that, but Zira did, too.

  “You know none of us are picking sides, right?” he reminded.

  “It kind of feels like people are.”

  “We’re still friends,” he told her.

  “That’s what Cathie said.”

  “And Cathie’s usually right. Do you want another drink?”

  “No, Lexira’s at home. I should go soon.”

  “You don’t like me, do you?” he pouted.

  “Not really.” She smiled, though.

  “Zira?”

  “What, Ardi?”

  Very seriously, he said, “Promise me something.”

  “What?”

  “Promise me that Lex’s dresses aren’t as itchy as ours were.”

  She snorted. “Do you remember Founder’s Day, that poufy green skirt?”

  He giggled. “Yes! Oh, you tore the shit out of it climbing up onto the railing.”

  “No, sliding down it.”

  “Oh, yes, right, right. Auntie Sharie was livid.”

  “Not as angry as the Autarch was when you chipped your tooth the day before your birthday party.”

  “I spent the whole day in a chair getting it fixed.”

  “Your face swelled up so bad,” she tittered.

  They reminisced for a little while longer about clothes they’d ruined, times they’d cut their own hair, things they’d gotten stuck in their hair, and the other mischief they’d caused. She teased him about his temper tantrums; he teased back about her being such a brownnoser. Finally, she said she really had to go.

  He walked her home and hugged her goodbye. He told her, “If you ever need a night out and want someone to watch Lex, let me know. I hear trauma is formative for children.”

  That made her laugh.

  She didn’t take him up on his offer to keep an eye on Lexira, which he hadn’t expected her to.

  He thought about it, though, for the following week. Maybe it would do him some good to spend time around children, start considering if he wanted some of his own one day. It seemed like a venture one should go into with a general knowledge of children. He likely wouldn’t do it by accident, he rarely slept with people who had a womb, and even if he had, he didn’t know for sure that he could get anyone pregnant.

  Other options existed and the whole thing was so far off that he didn’t think about it too much.

  He did think about i
t now, lazily content as he cuddled up to Rhys. They’d really gone at it and Arden thought he might fall asleep. He snuggled a little closer. “Hey.”

  “Hmm?”

  Arden gazed at him for a little while. He looked so calm. Eyes closed, his arm around Arden, skin against skin. He even smelled good. It made Arden warm, not the overwhelming heat of lust, but a different, smoother warmth. This feeling, this warmth, was not entirely foreign to him, but he hadn’t encountered it for a long time. “Do you want to meet my Uncle Winnie?”

  “What?” Rhys’s voice came soft, not quite fully awake.

  “We could drop by sometime tomorrow. Take him out for lunch. He’d like that.”

  “Oh. Does he not get a lot of visitors?” Rhys asked. He opened his eyes.

  “No, not…I meant you should come meet him.” Arden sat up a little. He adjusted a lock of Rhys’s rumpled hair. “I’d like that.”

  Rhys sat up all the way. “Arden.”

  “No, just, Rhys. I really like you.” He kissed his shoulder. “Maybe, you know. Definitely more than—”

  Abruptly, Rhys pulled him into a hug. He looked miserable as he crushed Arden against him. “Don’t.”

  “What?”

  “Arden, I’m so sorry. I am. I can’t.”

  “Winnie’s really nice! He’ll like you, too,” Arden insisted. He understood where Rhys’s concerns lay.

  “You don’t understand.”

  Arden hugged him back. It would terrify him to meet Rhys’s family if Rhys had ever been inclined to make those introductions. “No, I do, it’s scary meeting someone’s family but I promise—”

  “I can’t do this anymore.”

  Arden squirmed out of his arms. “What!”

  “It’s not right. I’m sorry, I thought…” Rhys licked his lips and swallowed.

  Arden stared. His whole body flipped between hot and cold. He couldn’t think. “I’m confused,” he whispered.

  “This…this relationship means something to you. Something more than what it means to me,” Rhys said. He spoke in exactly the same way Mother’s doctor had when she’d told them she couldn’t help anymore. “I can’t do it anymore.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Arden pushed him, not hard, nothing more than palm to shoulder. “Why would you say that!”

  Rhys pressed his lips together.

  “You said you like me!”

  “I do.”

  “I said don’t do this, I said don’t if you don’t like me!” Arden insisted.