Elarhe wondered if he had imagined the mocking tone at the end. The sneer on Vole’s face suggested he hadn’t.
“If you’re finished interrupting us, Lord Kite, I would like to continue this interview.”
Lord Kite shrugged and returned to his book. Vole, still frowning, asked Elarhe for his papers. Elarhe obliged.
“Squirrel?” Vole asked him, looking up from the documents Elarhe had given him. Elarhe nodded and tried not to hold his breath while Vole gave the papers a second appraisal. They were good forgeries—costing twice what he had hoped. If he failed to impress the registrar, if the academy rejected him, he would be sleeping on the street again tonight. To calm himself, he stole a glance at Lord Kite, allowing himself a momentary bask.
Something about the black-cloaked man—perhaps the wise, wry expression or the confident set of his broad shoulders—reminded him of his tutor. Tylam had been shorter and dark-skinned, with a generous mouth and a quiet depth. Tylam’s lessons had sparked Elarhe’s curiosity and had set him down his current path, had made him long to be a scholar rather than a prince. Although Kite—tall, fair, stern-faced, and blue-eyed—bore little resemblance to Tylam, Elarhe sensed a similarity and felt drawn to him. Lord Kite, however, no longer paid him any mind.
Vole strode to the map spread across a nearby table and pointed to the name of a city marked by a black dot. “What is the name of that village?” he asked. The name was written plainly above the dot. Puzzled, Elarhe read it aloud. For the first time since they had met, the registrar smiled. “Very good,” he purred. He bid Elarhe wait as he swished out the door, still holding the forged documents.
“He knows,” explained Lord Kite. “Your tongue gave you away. No one born on this side of the border would have pronounced that final vowel.”
“What happens now?”
“Being that the only thing Vole loves better than a monstrous law is seeing it enforced, he has gone to alert the authorities. I am going to become single-mindedly engrossed in what I’m reading, as is my habit when obsessing over some bit of research. You, if you have any sense, will flee through the door just behind me, take the first corridor to the left, find yourself in the court among dozens of bustling students, disappear over the hedge wall, and lose yourself amid the crowds in the market square.”
“Thank you.” Elarhe started for the back door.
“Did someone say something? I didn’t notice. Likewise, I’m sure I wouldn’t notice if a few potions somehow found their way into your bag on your way out. The ones with the highest street value are on the right.”
Elarhe bristled. “I am here illegally, but I am not a thief.” He closed the door behind him and ran.
Chapter 3
Elarhe walked through Darelock’s crowded streets feeling numb. He had spent the entire day interring bodies, victims of the most recent plague. In his coin pouch he had ten pieces of silver—twice as much as he made gutting fish in the market the previous day. But this work left him feeling inhuman. He had never faced so much death.
Boar, walking beside him, gave him a friendly punch in the arm. “Cheer up, Squirrel. You get used to it.”
Elarhe didn’t want to get used to it. But he managed a smile. “Even the smell?”
Boar laughed. “What smell?” He laughed more when Elarhe rolled his eyes. “Hey, you did good. You didn’t spew your guts on any of the bodies. Did you see the vomit monster down the line from us? Even when he had nothing else to spew, he kept gagging. It was fucking nasty.”
Elarhe didn’t want to think about it. He wanted back his childish notion that every dead person in Grandimanderia was gently laid into the sod draped in a canopy of beautiful flowers—even plague victims. But now he knew they were collected in wagons and tossed into a great, festering ditch while the hapless people throwing them there vomited on their corpses.
A carriage passed through the puddle beside him and sprayed him with filthy water from the street. Boar laughed, although he had been sprayed, too. No one else even noticed. “Hey,” said Boar. “Let’s get drunk and find some bitches.”
“I’m too tired. I’m going to find somewhere to sleep.”
Boar looked at him a little suspiciously. Being gay wasn’t considered a good thing in Grandimanderia. It wasn’t a crime, but neither was beating a gay person to death for being gay. Elarhe tensed and tried not to show it.
Boar shrugged. “More bitches for me, I guess. See you on the line!” He disappeared into the crowd in the direction of the nearest tavern, a grubby building of moldering red brick called the Bone Cupboard.
Elarhe didn’t particularly like Boar. The boisterous man was one of only a handful of Darelockians interring bodies. The rest were immigrants like Elarhe. Elarhe doubted Boar would have even talked to him if his skin had been the more common color among his people, a rust brown, as opposed to his light copper.
Elarhe’s hair was uncommon among Ayklinners as well, a tawny brown instead of the usual black. So Elarhe was accepted where the more obvious Ayklinners were not. Boar and the other Darelockians acted as if they were superior to the Ayklinners, even though they were all doing the same task.
After he added the day’s pay to the rest of his earnings, Elarhe could afford a room at a cheap inn—but it would leave him broke. He decided to sleep another night on the street, in the alley behind a tailor’s shop, near the flower market. It was a long walk, but the streets were cleaner up there, and it was quieter.
To his dismay, he found someone had taken his crate and nest of scrap material and turned it over. With a curse, he righted the crate. A girl screamed beneath it. Covered in rags and papers, she scurried sideways like a crab and flattened against the nearest wall. She looked up at him with huge, terrified eyes.
“It’s all right,” he told her. “I didn’t know you were there. I sleep with it on its side. With my head inside. I’m too big to fold up and sleep in it like a house like that.” He couldn’t help snickering. “You scared me, too.”
The young woman remained braced against the wall.
Elarhe squatted. He picked up the rags and stuffed them back in the box. “We can share. I’ll take a few of the rags to make a pillow. You can have the rest. If you want to sleep in the box, maybe I can sleep against it? I like to have my back against the wall and my head against something else. It makes me feel protected.”
She stared at him with a bewildered expression. “You’re bigger than me.”
Elarhe looked down at himself to make sure. “That would seem to be true.” He smiled at her. “The box fits you better.”
“You could take it from me,” she whispered.
“Why would I do that when we can share it?” Her fear began to make him self-conscious. He held a hand out to her. “I’m—Squirrel.” He cleared his throat. His hand still hung in the air. “And you are?”
“Squid.”
Elarhe smiled. In most of Grandimanderia, people were named after small objects, like Tangle and Spoke. In Darelock, people were named after animals. He found it sweet somehow. The people he had met, by and large, were far from sweet, but the names—how could someone not smile at a girl named Squid?
He withdrew his hand and wiped his sweaty hair off his brow. “My pleasure, Squid.” He yawned. “I’m about two steps from falling over, so if you don’t mind, I’m going to join you here on the wall. The box is yours to nest in.” He sat down and leaned against the wall. “I’m so tired,” he said softly.
“Me, too.”
She scooted over the ground and arranged some rags in the box. He noticed then that one of her feet didn’t seem to turn the right way. When she moved, it simply dragged after her. “Are you hurt?” he asked her.
Squid stared at him cagily, gripping the box as if expecting him to rip it away from her at any moment. “Not anymore. When I was little, a carriage ran over me—I was playing underneath it. My leg never healed right.”
A rush of anger filled Elarhe. Grandimanderia boasted some of the world’s
best healers. Magical healers. But, like all things in Grandimanderia, healing came at a cost that was too high for most of the empire’s people to pay.
“I use this when I’m walking around.” She picked up a crude crutch and waved it at him.
Elarhe nodded. He felt so weary then. He scrubbed his face and tried to breathe. Another day in the Grandimanderian Empire.
Squid slid closer. She shoved a bouquet at him. “You want some?”
“Those are beautiful.” He took one and admired it.
“It’s a carnation.” Squid’s voice shook with excitement. “You can eat them.” She tore the head off one of the blossoms with her teeth and chewed it with exuberance.
Elarhe looked at his flower with sadness. It was the one beautiful thing he had seen all day. But he was hungry. He copied Squid.
She smiled approvingly and gave him two more. “In the morning, I go collect the overflow from the hothouses. I sell what I can in the street all day, then I keep the rest and eat them if they aren’t poisonous.” She chewed with her mouth open. Brightly-hued red and white flower petals contrasted with her yellow teeth. “Then, I sleep somewhere near the flower market, then I do it all over again. What do you do?”
He laughed. “Anything dirty and dangerous.”
She tilted her head to one side, observing him. “You don’t have papers, do you?”
“They were confiscated.”
“Oh.”
“Today, I buried bodies, victims of the new plague.”
She scooted away.
“I won’t get you sick. I know I won’t get sick, either. That plague—it isn’t like the ones that come off the ships. This one—in my land the word for it means ‘bad water fever.’ All of those tenements by the tannery are drinking bad water. It’s making people sick. As long as you don’t drink that water, you’ll be safe.”
Squid watched him, wide-eyed, as she munched on flowers. “You know a lot of things don’t you?”
He shrugged. “I know a few things.”
She handed him a couple more flowers. “You shouldn’t know so much,” she said with her upper lip curled.
He braced himself. Because Ayklinners should be stupid. And lazy. And—
“You’re too handsome. It’s wrong. You should be a dolt.”
“Thank you, I guess?”
She giggled. “You’re welcome. It’s true, though. You’re not even handsome, truly, you’re beautiful."
Elarhe ducked his head, embarrassed. "That seems a bit much."
"No. Those ebon eyes and copper skin—that thick fawn mane. You're the most beautiful boy I've ever seen."
Elarhe rolled his eyes playfully. "I'm probably also the stinkiest you've ever smelled."
Squid laughed. "Close."
Elarhe stretched out his sore arms. "I'd almost kill someone for a hot bath."
"Mmm...with steam rising from the water."
Elarhe groaned with longing. "So hot that it sends tingles up your spine."
"With soap."
"Lavender soap. And green lemon juice to strip the grease from our hair."
Squid sighed happily. "That sounds lovely."
"And there would be soft fluffy towels."
"And a chemise of finely-woven flax. With lacey cuffs."
Elarhe had owned at least a dozen soft chemises with lacey cuffs in Ayklinn. He pictured his bedroom in the palace—his big, empty bed standing invitingly in the center of the room. The opulently-sculpted fireplace along one wall. "And, of course, there would be a roaring fire."
"Of course! And a table laid out with a sumptuous feast."
Elarhe grinned. "And we'd dine until we were nearly bursting."
"And go to sleep in a soft, clean bed." She yawned and lay her head against his shoulder.
"With dozens of feather pillows."
"Feather pillows," she repeated drowsily. The next moment, she was snoring softly on his arm. He guided her head to his lap and patted her upturned shoulder. She mumbled something he couldn't discern. He smoothed her hair away from her face, wishing he could sleep as peacefully.
With a little effort, he used his magic to cloak the alley in fog, hoping it would keep away thieves and predators. Magic…. He raised his right palm and stared at it. He made a tiny green jewel of light appear in its center. He had no idea what to do with it.
He had begun manifesting powers at thirteen. Tylam, his tutor in math and language, had thought him remarkable and had taught him that his new red power could increase his strength. Elarhe learned that the orange power he acquired a few years later could create fog, and that the yellow after that could summon a shield.
But he didn't know the new green power's secret. His father had learned that Tylam was trying to help him study his powers. Magic was forbidden in Ayklinn and Tylam was executed without trial.
Elarhe extinguished the green gem. Tylam and Aben had given their lives helping him pursue his dream. But now he did whatever dirty, menial task the Grandimanderians didn't want to do. He had gone from being a prince with a dream of arcane knowledge to living on the street and dreaming of a bath.
***
The next morning Elarhe escorted Squid to the flower market, then cleaned up a bit in a fountain on his way to the mass grave. As he crossed one of the many busy streets to the jobsite, he heard someone call, “Squirrel!” A fine black coach drawn by four black horses pulled up beside him. Lord Kite leaned out the window beside him.
Lord Kite! Elarhe’s heart skipped a beat. His cock twitched. He hadn’t thought he would see the man again. He forgot that he had been insulted by the lord’s suggestion that he thieve. All he could think of were those steel-blue eyes piercing him like daggers. “A pleasure to see you, Lord Kite.” Lord Kite!
Lord Kite opened the carriage door. “Get in.”
Elarhe tried to comprehend why the mage would offer him a ride. “Excuse me?”
“GET IN.”
Elarhe leapt aboard and sat on the bank of soft pillows opposite the glorious man in the carriage. And dogs. There were two large, sleek hunting hounds sitting on either side of Lord Kite as if they were carved of white marble. They looked exactly alike, long necked and long legged with fringe on their ears and throats. Elarhe let his happy gaze rest on Lord Kite’s handsome face and heaved a breath of fragrant shaving lotion and other things—sandalwood, cedar, leather. Kite smelled good enough to eat.
“Thank you, Lord Kite.”
“No, let’s not be so formal. Please call me Kite.” He smiled at Elarhe. “They’re checking identification papers a few streets up. I wasn’t sure you had replaced the ones Vole took from you.”
“No.…” Elarhe looked out the window, his stomach tightening.
Kite pulled the curtains on either side of the carriage. “There. You’re as safe as a squirrel in a hollow tree.”
“Won’t they stop you for your papers?”
Kite gave a haughty snort. “They wouldn’t dare.” He tapped his cane on the roof of the carriage. “Wren,” he called over his shoulder. “Do you think they’ll stop us?”
Great guffaws issued from the driver’s seat.
“Oh.” Elarhe wondered if he should feel stupid. “I guess you’re very important, then.”
Kite’s hard, ice blue eyes warmed, but his scowl remained. “No. I’m infamous. It’s not quite the same thing, but with much the same effect.”
“I see.” Elarhe didn’t know what to make of that.
“Tell me where you were going in such a hurry, and I’ll take you there.”
“That isn’t necessary. I appreciate your getting me around the soldiers. That’s very nice of you.”
Kite’s glum expression changed not at all. “Where were you going, young Squirrel?”
“Our ages are not so different.”
“Where were you going?”
He couldn’t tell Kite he was going to the mass grave. He panicked. “The glovemaker’s shop on Tannery Road, near Fairday Way. Do you know it?”
“Yes.” He relayed the location to his driver, then returned his attention to Elarhe. “So, you found yourself a job at the glovemaker’s?”
“I found a job.” He smiled uncomfortably. “Those are lovely dogs.”
For the first time, Kite smiled. It was a beautiful thing to behold. His whole body changed. It was like watching a panther released from a cage. “This,” he stroked the head of the dog on his right, “is Fortune. And this,” he lovingly caressed the ears of the dog on his left, “is Omen.” Sitting on the seat with him, the dogs were nearly as tall as Kite.
“I love their names.”
Kite smirked. “You have great enthusiasm.”
“I embrace life.”
Kite nodded. “You’re a green.”
A little knife cut through Elarhe’s heart. He wished he knew exactly what that meant. Kite, as a mage, was privy to all manner of knowledge that Elarhe couldn’t even guess at. Elarhe yearned for that knowledge with an aching desire. Someday, he would have to be a mage!
Kite had grown dark while Elarhe mused. “You’re a bright light.”
“Thank you,” but Elarhe said it rather hesitantly, because Kite had uttered the compliment with such somberness.
“The shadows are even darker outside your glow.”
Elarhe looked at him uncertainly. “But they don’t rest within it.”
“I would know that glow,” said Kite in a quiet voice, staring into Elarhe’s soul. “I would bask in that heat.”
Blood rushed into Elarhe’s cock. A swarm of tingles rolled through his belly. He wanted Kite, and Kite wanted him. This was to be a good morning after all.
“I’ll give you twice what you’d make at the glove shop today. If that’s truly where you’re working. You look more like you’re digging ditches….”
“Stop the carriage. Let me out.”
“What are they paying you at the gravesite? I’ll pay twice that. I’ll throw in a hot bath and the launder of your clothes. What do you say?”
“Let me out. Now!” Elarhe was too furious to look at him.
Kite leaned over and brushed Elarhe’s knee. “Doesn’t my little Squirrel like nuts?”
Lover, Destroyer Page 2
