pang and power

by Saintcrowe, Val

  “I don’t need to be that,” said Revel. “After all, there is Pati.”

  “Oh, but that’s different,” said Xenia.

  “How is our wayward daughter?” said Revel. “Have you spoken to her about what she was doing when she discovered Nicce and Eithan? Didn’t she come back with a sword strapped to her belt?”

  Xenia sighed. “She says she was just out practicing, and that there are no nightmares out in the daylight, anyway.”

  “Well, that’s true,” said Revel.

  “But we both know she’s finding whatever way she can to go out there and put herself in danger,” said Xenia.

  “Are you still thinking about sending her away?”

  Xenia’s shoulders sagged. “It would be best for her, wouldn’t it? She shouldn’t be around all of us. We’re wrong. We’re mutated by gods and goddesses. She’s a beautiful, young girl, and she should go off and have a real life.”

  “What’s a life without her mother?” said Revel.

  “Oh, she’d be fine without me,” said Xenia. “It’s I who’d be destroyed by the loss of her.”

  “We could go with her,” said Revel. “We could leave this keep, leave this castle, find someplace quiet and relaxing.”

  “Leave the king, you mean,” said Xenia.

  Revel shook her head. “No, no, that’s not what I…” She sighed.

  “It wouldn’t matter, anyway,” said Xenia. “Because we’d be there, unchanged, unaged, and she’d…” A lump rose in her throat. “Very soon, she’s going to look older than us, Revel.”

  Revel didn’t say anything.

  “I don’t want to be away from her, but I can’t watch her die,” said Xenia.

  “Shh,” said Revel. “Let’s not think of that.” She took Xenia by the hand and tugged the other woman against her.

  “You always say that,” said Xenia. “But we can’t just ignore it all forever.”

  “What else are we going to do?” said Revel.

  Xenia buried her face in her wife’s shoulder.

  Revel held her tightly.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “The king is the least of your problems,” Absalom was saying.

  Eithan was with the other man in the nearly empty dining room. It was night. At some point, everyone else had gone to sleep. But he and Absalom were still awake, drinking and talking, and Eithan wasn’t tired at all, so he didn’t want to stop. He had missed Absalom.

  He’d explained what Feteran wanted them to do. He’d expected some kind of censure from Absalom for agreeing to it, but the other knight seemed to be only examining the idea for its efficacy.

  “Certainly,” Absalom continued, “he’s got a weak mind. He could easily be convinced to do nearly anything. But it won’t matter, because the minute he dies and the succession changes over, the people will demand that Prince Graydon take the throne.”

  “Truly?” said Eithan, furrowing his brow.

  “Yes,” said Absalom. “Feteran is not popular. Everyone hates him. They think that he has manipulated the king and that he whispers poison in the old man’s ear. The people want Feteran dead.”

  “And they like Graydon,” said Eithan, considering this new wrinkle.

  “Well, it’s not so much a matter of Graydon himself as it is that the people think of him as the rightful king. They’ve been fed all sorts of superstitions, that Garr and Oea themselves make sure that the new heir to the throne is born to the current king, that the prince is kissed by the divine, you know?”

  “Right,” said Eithan, shaking his head. He well knew how tightly people could cling to superstition and religious beliefs. Sometimes, it seemed to him that even in the face of evidence to the contrary, they clung harder. The gods comforted them. It meant they weren’t alone, that there was purpose to their lives, and that death wasn’t the end. They tended to graft onto anything connected to the gods with fervor. “So, if I put Feteran on the throne, there will be an uprising?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Absalom. “And the army, all the gathered fighting men, they will back Graydon without any question.”

  “It’ll be war.” Eithan was grim.

  “Yes,” said Absalom. “If you want to do it, it’s not enough to convince the king.”

  “I have to convince the people,” said Eithan, stroking his beard. “Hmm. That’s a much different proposition.” But he found it even more exciting than the first. It was a greater challenge. How to do it?

  Absalom laughed. “I should have known I couldn’t discourage you.”

  “Should I be discouraged?” Eithan drained his goblet and set it down. “If you think I should let it alone, tell me. You’re the one who’s been here. Is Feteran evil?”

  “Oh, anyone with that much power is going to be evil, Eithan,” said Absalom. “It’s a corrupting force. You can’t have a good ruler. It’s a contradiction in terms.”

  Eithan laughed. “So, it doesn’t matter who sits on the throne?”

  “It doesn’t,” said Absalom. “Not truly. For most people in the kingdom, it will change little. They will still live out meager existences, eking out what little survival they can from the land or the sea or some punishing trade. They work all day, and they have only energy to screw each other and make more mouths to feed before they fall into exhausted sleep every night. To make things better, really better, you’d need to uproot the entire system.”

  Eithan furrowed his brow. “I wouldn’t even know how to go about—”

  “No, of course you wouldn’t,” said Absalom. “No one would.” He laughed again. “Trust Eithan Draig to think I meant that comment as a suggestion of what he should do and not a commentary on the pointlessness of everything.”

  Eithan raised his eyebrows. “Pointless? This is the man who convinced me we must have hope against Ciaska.”

  “Yes, Eithan, we did it. We did one enormous thing. We killed Ciaska. We changed our own fate. It’s enough.”

  Eithan didn’t answer.

  “More wine?” Absalom picked up the bottle.

  Eithan held out his goblet. “Speaking of wine, I have a question for you.”

  Absalom filled Eithan’s glass. “About wine? This is quite a change in subject.”

  “About the wine in the Nightmare Court,” said Eithan. “It rendered everyone sterile.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Absalom wistfully. “What lovely stuff that was. Of course, it’s all gone.”

  “Of course,” said Eithan, taking a drink of wine. That would have been too easy.

  “We tried to figure out how it was made,” said Absalom. “Everyone from the court, they’ve scattered now, but some stayed in the palace for a very long time, because they simply had nowhere else to go. We questioned everyone. We thought certainly someone must have been involved in making the wine. Where did it come from?”

  “No one knew.”

  Absalom shook his head. “Not a soul. We were working on a theory that it was somehow made from the fruit that grew outside the palace?”

  “Yes, the dark orbs.”

  “Well, we managed to make a wine of sorts from them, but it was not the wine from the court.”

  “Perhaps it was mixed with regular wine, and it was only a small component of the wine there?”

  “Well, regardless, it did not render anyone sterile,” said Absalom.

  “Oh,” said Eithan. He shook his head. “Maybe it was something that came from across the sea, like the spigots.”

  “What?” said Absalom.

  “I don’t know,” said Eithan. “It doesn’t matter, I suppose.”

  “When there was a supply of it, I felt quite free to do whatever I pleased,” said Absalom. “But now, I feel that I should only take up with married women.”

  “Absalom!” Eithan gave him a look.

  “Unhappily married women,” said Absalom, defensive. “And I don’t… I am careful. But I have no wish to be forced to marry anyone, and if I did accidentally impregnate someone—”

  “Oh,
she’d already be married, and so some other man would be raising your child?” Eithan shook his head at him.

  “You make it sound awful,” said Absalom. “I’m not forcing myself on these women. They are willing enough. They know the risks.”

  “You would never settle down with anyone?”

  “I don’t think so.” Absalom shook his head. “I get bored.”

  Eithan laughed again. “Maybe you simply haven’t met the right person?”

  “I’ve met a lot of persons,” said Absalom. “Met them rather thoroughly. I’m not made that way. It’s all right. Not everyone is. What I suppose is more curious is that you’re trying to find some way to wriggle out of giving poor Nicce the babies she desperately desires.”

  Eithan nearly choked on his wine. He set down his goblet. “It’s not like that at all.”

  “No?” Absalom lifted his chin thoughtfully.

  “She’s very young, isn’t she?” said Eithan, running his finger around the top of the goblet. He’d once thought that his longer life didn’t mean anything, because he’d been frozen in time with Ciaska, unchanging and wretched, but he wondered about that now.

  “Everyone’s young compared to us.”

  “I’m old and tired and… broken.”

  “What?” Absalom was amused but concerned. “You look together enough to me.”

  “In the dungeons, I…” He shook his head. “I don’t know, but I’m not together.” He rubbed one of his temples. “I was seeing things, Absalom. Things that weren’t there. Having conversations with…”

  “Oh, Gods, Eithan, it was fifteen years. I’m sure anyone would crack up. That’s certainly not a failing that’s going to be passed on to your children.”

  “No.” Eithan laughed again, helplessly. “You don’t understand at all. She’s strong and young and ambitious, and I don’t know if I’m good for anything. I told her I didn’t want to fight, that I wanted a quiet life and… and…”

  “Children?”

  “I don’t know why I said it.” He shook his head. “It’s ridiculous to ask of her, far too much to ask of her. It’s her godstaken body. And if I really am broken, then how could I be a father? And why would she want—”

  “You’re not broken. Stop saying that,” said Absalom. He furrowed his brow. “Gods. All is not well between the two of you.”

  “Everything’s fine,” said Eithan.

  “I know of something that might help,” said Absalom. “Come by my room later, I shall give you something. It’s sort of a sheath made from animal intestine.”

  Eithan set down his goblet, vaguely horrified. “Made from what?”

  “You just wear it and it catches—”

  “Please stop talking about it,” said Eithan.

  Absalom shrugged. “You still want me to give it to you, though?”

  “Yes, fine,” muttered Eithan.

  Absalom laughed again. “Do you want me to talk to her?”

  “No, I don’t,” said Eithan. “There’s nothing wrong, and you and I don’t have to talk about it any longer either. It’s all… fine.”

  “A large number of things appear to be fine,” said Absalom with a chuckle. Then he softened. “I have missed you, Eithan, as prudish as you are.”

  “Prudish? How is that fair? Simply because I don’t wish to have conversations with you about sheathing my…” He grimaced.

  Absalom laughed.

  Eithan laughed. “I missed you, too. I’m impressed. You, Guildmaster, head of all of this?” He gestured around.

  “We owe you, you know,” said Absalom. “You and Nicce both.”

  “You don’t,” said Eithan, shaking his head.

  “We do.” Absalom was quite serious. “Ciaska’s death was the best thing that happened to all of us, and we are all grateful. We will always be in both of your debts.”

  “Stop,” said Eithan.

  “Never,” said Absalom. Then he drew in a breath, looking around. “Where’s that bottle of wine got off to? We both need to refill our glasses.”

  * * *

  Nicce woke up the next morning and crawled over Eithan, who had come to bed very late and very drunk, and who was still asleep in her bed. She was going to ask someone about bringing his clothes into this room, because it was stupid for them to have different rooms if they were always going to sleep together. It was inconvenient for him.

  She surveyed herself in the mirror that was affixed above the washbasin in her room and her hair was tangled again. She had taken it out of her braid before going to sleep and it was horrid. There were still clumps of awful tangles she had yet to comb through. Taking a deep breath, she gathered her hair into one hand and then found a dagger. She sawed through her hair and then stood there dumbly, staring at the hunk of her hair that she’d removed from her head.

  Oh.

  She’d done it.

  She turned to look at herself in the mirror, turning her head to one side and then the other.

  It was uneven.

  Her stomach turned over. Sun and bones, maybe this had been a bad idea.

  On the bed, Eithan rolled over, groaning.

  She didn’t want him to see her yet, and she looked around for somewhere to hide.

  But his eyes fluttered open and he looked her over.

  She pulled her handful of hair to her chest. “Good morning,” she said in a quiet voice.

  He sat up, pushing the covers back.

  “It was tangled, and in the way, and I’m just sick of it.”

  He nodded. “All right, well, that makes sense.”

  “Does it?” She looked back at the mirror, and she was horrified that she might start crying. “It’s crooked.”

  “Would you like me to even it out?”

  She looked back at him, biting down on her bottom lip.

  “I did it for my own hair,” he said, getting out of the bed. He was naked, and she blushed for some reason, even though she should be used to his body by now. She averted her gaze.

  He seemed to find this amusing. “Am I making you uncomfortable?” His voice was soft, because he was close now, his hands in her short hair.

  She let out a little noise. “No, of course not, it’s just…” She didn’t know what was wrong with her. “Sometimes, I’m impulsive.”

  “I’ve noticed this about you,” he said, picking up the dagger. “It’s really only this piece here. If I just…” He steered her back to the mirror and cut at her hair. He was pressed against her back, and his closeness was reassuring.

  “I kept thinking about doing it,” she said, looking at her reflection, which did look better now that her hair wasn’t horribly askew. “I don’t know why I didn’t consider the possibility I would regret it. But it doesn’t matter. It’s done now.”

  “It’s only hair,” he said. “It draws attention to your face.” He was running his fingers through it, cutting little pieces here and there. “I like it, if it helps at all.”

  “You’re just saying you like it because I’m upset,” she said.

  “I’m not,” he said. He kissed her neck. “I like your neck, and it shows that off…” His voice was teasing.

  She shook her head. “When I was at the Guild, some of the women had short hair, but I had to keep it long for you.”

  His lips moved away from her skin. “Well, that just goes to show how little Diakos knew of me, then.”

  She sagged against him.

  He put his arms around her waist, resting his chin on her shoulder. “You’re beautiful.”

  She shut her eyes. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  “Well, luckily I’m not going anywhere,” he said.

  “Do you want to bite me?” she whispered.

  “Always,” he said in a low voice.

  Biting turned to kissing. Kissing turned to touching. Touching meant they were back in bed without clothes.

  In the middle of it Eithan brought out some sort of barrier thing that was meant to prevent the creation of
babies, and she was touched that he’d gone looking for solutions for her when he wanted the opposite of her, and she thought she was going to burst with her love for him as they moved together on the mattress.

  She had that feeling again, like they were merging into each other, like they had become one, and it didn’t go away. They climaxed together, or very nearly, she thought, within seconds of the other one.

  When it was over, she clung to him, and they lay entwined in the bed.

  Don’t ruin this, she thought at herself. This is what’s important. This.

  Eventually, it was Eithan who moved, kissing her forehead and telling her that they should get out of bed and go find Feteran, because they had things to discuss with him.

  * * *

  Feteran met with him in the castle, in his own private study, which was fairly large. It had a desk and a sitting area and a wide window that overlooked the grounds. Nicce remembered that most of the windows in Castle Brinne were narrow, so this window was a luxury. Of course, it was probably also vulnerable to arrows during an attack. She decided it was best not to mention that to Feteran.

  “What do you mean, I have a popularity problem?” Feteran was saying, leaning against his desk.

  Eithan, who was sitting in a chair in front of the empty fireplace, spread his hands. “Your problem isn’t King Timon. It’s the people of Rabia, who would rise up in rebellion against you if you tried to take the throne from Prince Graydon.”

  “Oh, please,” said Feteran. “The people will do as they’re told.”

  “Not from what I understand,” said Eithan. “I hear that they hate you, and they think you whisper poison in the king’s ear.”

  Feteran narrowed his eyes at Eithan. “I see, so you’ve come here to try to worm your way out of our understanding. I shouldn’t have expected better. What other excuses do you offer?”

  Nicce was sitting opposite Eithan, and she was quiet, just watching him. He was up to something, and she knew it. She liked watching him work. He was really magnificent, her Eithan.

  “Not excuses,” said Eithan. “And I don’t want out. I’m only saying, we need to focus on the true obstacles to accomplishing our goals, and Timon is not an obstacle.”