by T. A. Creech
“I enjoyed the work,” Alegan rushed to explain. “Making even a small difference for my fellow beings was worthwhile, except it made spending time with my family difficult on the good days.”
“You needed assistance where no one could give it,” Catli said. He seemed to understand what a problem his struggle had been. “I am luckier there. If I need help, I can call for it. Help takes a little time to arrive, but I am in easy reach other of mages.”
They fell silent after that, a natural end to their conversation. Alegan didn’t dare tell Catli, but he felt less haunted. His memory of his family was still good, at a fundamental level. He still recalled the way the daisies looked in Jasa’s hair and the pale blue dress his wife wore for the occasion, every year since Tima was born.
He found he still carried a smile in him for them, and he still had a smile for others. Breathing didn’t hurt as much.
Chapter 7
Catli kept his eyes glued to the distant horizon when Alegan pulled out of the water. The effort was unbearable. His friend was handsome, holding a glow of dawn’s gold with fair, sunlight hair. Eyes beautiful as a tiger’s eye. He was tall and wiry, strong. Only the soft bits around his middle, swelled with a slight curve, told Catli that Alegan was on the mend and eating well.
When Alegan came into his care, he was almost skeletal thin. The curve in his waist was a great thing, to Catli’s healer instincts. It also made his mouth water with the urge to mark.
A hand rested on his shoulder and he tilted his head back. Alegan’s hair dripped clear drops onto Catli’s upturned face, but he ignored the way they traced down his cheeks to keep his eyes on Alegan’s smile.
“Are you done?” Alegan asked.
“Yes,” Catli answered. He couldn’t move just yet, though. Not with Alegan’s eyes and smile holding him enchanted.
“Good, because I think there’s a storm on the way.” Alegan stepped back and pointed off to the south, the sky a dark gray, bruises of purple and black laid into the underside. Hurricane season would be on them soon, howling over the islands. The storm was a precursor.
Catli waited for a moment, until Alegan turned away. The water slid down in a cool cascade, hugging the lines of his frame, but dripped with a steady beat from the tip of his hard shaft. He patted along the edge of the pool, until he skimmed over the coarse sheet. Good thing standing on the shelf seat brought most of his body out of the water, only to his knees. The fabric unraveled with a quick flick of his hand and Catli wrapped it around his body, hiding his physical desire from view.
The undyed fabric wicked up some of the warm water, snapping against his thighs when he struggled out of the pool. Alegan wore a smile as Catli stood up straight, their eyes on each other. Catli smiled back, chin tilted down to hide the heat he felt in his face.
“Supper hour is almost on us,” Alegan murmured. “Maybe I can feed you for once?”
“I would enjoy that.” Catli waved him on, to take the lead, but Alegan fell into step next to him. Inconvenient, though Catli held his smile in place. If he was lucky, his friend might fail to notice the deeper shadow between his legs brushing against the inside of the drying sheet. As if waiting for that moment, his cock flexed, proud and obstinate.
Alegan’s eyes were busy on their path, thanks be to the Powers. Dark eyes bounced from the clouds to the village and back, like a dance only he knew the rhythm of. Catli was a little thrown when Alegan asked a question. “I’ve heard of the great storms of the Fire Stars. How are the buildings able to stand under such fierce conditions?”
“The homes are built to bend under the fury of the wind,” Catli said. From time to time, visitors had asked the villagers that exact question. The rumors of a hurricane’s power were underplayed, for the most part. Catli had found, over the years of these conversations with mainlanders, no one had the frame of reference to compare to such power. It was an event to live through for any newcomer. They were forever changed after witnessing the raw natural force with their own senses.
“But not the water?” Alegan cut his eyes to Catli, tone shrewd with the suspicion he wasn’t telling Alegan everything.
“For the most part, we are partially lucky and partially strategic with our planning. The mountain shelters us.” Catli pointed to the great face of Toa’s western slope. “The lay of the peaks and crags that one moves from the mouth of the volcano to the village is not a straight line. Water splits against the stones as it tumbles down. Many small rivers of runoff instead of a large one, which would overrun us.”
Interest sparkled in Alegan’s eyes as he glanced between the mountain and Catli. Now that Catli took a moment to notice it, Alegan soaked up all of the information given to him about the island. Was it possible Alegan planned to stay, even after Catli had finished his work?
The other mage smiled and pointed at some portion of the steep peak. The question was lost in a moment as they passed into the inner ring of the village to a crowd. Eshe stood in front of the people, in a whispered, heated war of words with Zusah. All eyes, except Eshe and the Latten, turned their way once they were free of the buildings.
Muttered words raced through the crowd, some eyes rounded with concern while others narrowed. Catli frowned and shared a glance with Alegan, whose face was folded into confusion. His people weren’t prone to mob justice, but tension had the ground vibrate with the faint shifting of feet and indistinct swell of sound. No one shouted yet. Catli wouldn’t be surprised if the unease spiraled into raised voices, though.
Zusah caught his eyes over Eshe’s shoulder and huffed in an annoyance so clear, even Alegan snickered in response. Catli groaned and rocked back onto his heels, letting the tension run out of his shoulders. Asking ‘why now’ was pointless. He knew.
Alegan touched his wrist with a couple of fingers. “What’s going on?”
“The woman talking to Zusah?” Catli jerked his chin in her direction, to make sure Alegan caught who he was meaning. “That is Eshe. And she is about to cause more mischief.”
“She is?” Alegan’s whole countenance changed. Gone was the happy, engaging man he had been with the entire day. Something far more dangerous stood next to him now, heat pouring off his skin and eyes turned to smoldering coals in a grim face. “She was the one who tried to chase me from Toa.”
Catli nodded and felt frustration rise up in his heart. Why would she interfere? He hadn’t done any harm to her in all the years he had known of her, but she worked to make his life harder than it was. Now was the worst possible time for Eshe’s games. Alegan had begun to open up and find peace with his life. He had expressed an interest to stay on the island with the village, much to Catli’s delight. Another master mage would be a blessing to their people, and Alegan seemed like a boon to Catli’s personal life. For some reason, Eshe wanted to tear Catli’s life apart.
Red, bubbling anger seeped out of the cracks of his calm, forced out of his heart and turning his blood to fire. She had no right. Catli had enough.
“What is this?” Catli called as he strode up to the group milling between the troublemaker and Zusah. His sheet snapped around him, the earthquake preceding the eruption. Every pore of Catli’s skin trembled.
Eshe turned his way and sneered, falling back a step when Alegan came up beside him. Catli felt the heat burn the air between them, mixing in the hand-wide gap separating their shoulders. The same burning rage leaked into Alegan’s and turned the air to a fiery whirlwind, sharing and doubling back on each other. The heat threatened to peel the skin off his bones.
The entire crowd shuffled away from them in a slow panic. His and Alegan’s combined power must have done the deed. The amount of power they had on display, combined, was heady and delicious.
Alegan’s tasted like a thick wood fire to his sulfurous smoke. Did his skin taste the same as his power? The ache to find out almost derailed him from the crowd in front of them.
Movement drew his attention back to the viper Eshe. She had shifted with discomfort from the
heat, but had not stepped as far back as the rest of the villagers. Whatever plots she had hatched, Catli was about to crush them into the ground, and burn the little upstart for the insult.
“You’re bewitched!” Eshe cried out, so her voice carried to the huts circled around and the villagers behind her. There was a wavering note under her lovely alto. Catli couldn’t be the only one to notice it and Alegan’s unimpressed stare answered that question, when Catli chanced a sidelong look.
“And you’re evidence of such is what?” Catli returned, flat in an effort to suppress his desire to explode. Whether the explosion was physical or verbal, Catli had no honest idea. Both were possible and not unheard of.
“Toa came to me.” The lie was evident in that moment, Eshe’s voice caked in tears. The crowd murmured and stepped away from her in a rush.
The God-Child was not subtle. When Catli was called as a child by Toa, the volcano had marked him for weeks with the ring of fire about his crown. He had heard the hissing pops of Toa’s voice since that day, all those years ago. Eshe had never received Toa’s call, not as a child, and not now, either. The sole reason she was in line for his position was because no other fire mages had been presented to them with the fire crown.
It was too late for her to back out of her accusation now, however.
“The great Toa has told me of the stranger’s desire to steal the God-Child’s power for his own.” She spit the charge between them. “That one wants to steal our wills and chain them to do his bidding.”
Alegan snorted next to him. Much as Catli wanted to do the same, he refrained. The lie was outrageous to him, but he saw where others might believe it.
An unknown master mage, with unknown methods of magic, found injured on the mountain? The circumstances were suspicious to those with no training in power. Added to that, Alegan was just beginning to venture into the village proper and become acquainted with others besides Jari and his husband Mota, along with Kota. Those three were the souls of discretion about potentially sensitive details, which meant the gossip the people had received were the pieces they observed with their own eyes.
Catli understood and Eshe was the only one speaking on the matter of Alegan in their midst. Her presence and banishment from Catli’s workroom wasn’t a secret. In that light, the villagers would see her as one with special information. Too bad she twisted her position as successor to her own ends.
“I haven’t bewitched Catli.” Alegan stepped into the clear space of the middle and tightened his hands on his sheet. “I came here to commune with Serena, in the hope She would give my family back to me. Toa was the only power source strong enough to fuel my call to Her.”
Whispers broke into a cacophony of sound. The noise rose and fell in great waves, breaking in a jumble of nonsense against Catli’s ears. If there was any chance to walk away from the crowd without details, Alegan had dashed that hope to pieces.
Catli moved to Alegan’s side. He would bolster Alegan’s strength as the sorry tale spilled onto the verbal battlefield, ready to defend his flank, just in case.
“Then why did Toa reject you with such harm?” Eshe pointed a finger at Alegan’s face.
“Because my petition was wrong.” Shaking fingers danced down the silver scars along Alegan’s forehead and cheek before he ducked his head. “Toa saved me from myself and gave me this as a reminder of my limits. Because of my marks, I will never forget the God-Child’s mercy and warning ever again.”
The villagers quieted down in the face of Alegan’s shame.
With gritted teeth, because Alegan had no reason to be ashamed, Catli placed a hand on Alegan’s back. He wanted nothing more than to pull Alegan from view of these voyeurs and shield him from their judgment. Years had passed since the last time an islander had died when they weren’t supposed to. If they took the simple action of placing themselves in Alegan’s steps, would they not do the same?
Alegan glanced up at him from beneath his eyelashes, head still low. Gratitude shone syrup sweet for Catli, clear as the sun spilling down on them. All he had to give was a smile of encouragement. His friend had taken on this fight by his own volition, but Catli was stalwart in his support.
Really though, Eshe’s problem was with him, not Alegan. His pride stung at the furtive looks cast his way from people he knew. These were his friends, distant cousins; honored elders who had helped raise him when his father had passed into the Great Field. How dare they?
Black scorch marks smoked into existence where his fingertips clenched his drying cloth shut around his throat. The final piece of the whole farce was that. Having to stand without the dignity of proper clothing and be reduced to some enchanted fool in some veiled attempt to usurp his place. The gall of it.
Catli took in a deep breath and released his hold on the anger popping like burning wood under his skin. A display of his outrage would gain him, and Alegan, nothing in the end. He stepped sideways, half hiding Alegan’s dejected form with his body.
“Now that you’ve maligned a good man with your petty power play, Eshe, I think it time you take your small victory and leave us in peace.” The words of concession scraped his throat, a rasp of scalded pride across his voice, but better this than allow Eshe to continue with her notions. Alegan couldn’t take it and that one look of piteous misery told him so louder than any words.
“What?” The word crackled the air with heat. Grass singed at Eshe’s bare feet. “Petty? You are the one who brings this stranger here and risks us all!”
“If that is how you think, perhaps you should challenge me. I must not be fit to serve, if I’m so easy to manipulate.” Catli threw down the words like stones, heavy and simple.
Eshe blanched. The rest of the villagers didn’t see the panicked look on her face, but Catli crowed inward, triumphant. The upstart hadn’t the power she needed to remove him, whether she had the support now or not. Perhaps she figured he would be so ashamed of her accusations, he would step aside without a fight? Laughable. Catli wasn’t about to let Eshe force him out of his duties to his people.
But his words left Eshe no choice, and the knowledge sat in the deep lines around her eyes, the slackness of her open mouth. A chorus of voices came on the heels of his remarks, encouragement for Eshe. Those who spoke to her were earnest in their belief, that Eshe could beat him in a contest.
It didn’t matter at all. While he waited for her inevitable answer, because she was just as proud in her own way, like he was, Catli turned a little to the side. Alegan had straightened up at some point.
“What are you doing?” Alegan whispered, fear darkening his eyes into the color of dark caverns.
“I’ve grown tired of her sniffing around my position.” Catli shook his head and grinned, fierce glee thrumming in his heart. “This little display has given me the opportunity to quash her outgrown ambition without hurting anyone in the crossfire.”
A frown was added. “So this is some attempt to crush another, for what? Politics?”
“No.” Catli stepped back once, until he had locked eyes with Alegan. “This is about a young woman who doesn’t have the discipline or control or power to handle the responsibilities to Toa yet. I want to stop her from harming herself and our people until she has learned what she needs to know.”
Understanding dawned a second before Eshe’s acceptance cut through the air.
“I shall meet you at the Phantasm,” Eshe answered. The traditional response still trembled as it came out of her mouth. “Tomorrow, at the third hour after sunrise.”
“Be ready,” Catli shot back. He couldn’t help the cutting response, though the challenged usually offered a simple yes or no.
Alegan sucked in a breath behind him. A touch to his elbow drew his attention back to his friend. The wide eyes and shocked pinch of his lips were a surprise. “I didn’t think she would actually do it.”
“She has no choice in the matter, if she wants to keep her standing.” Catli tugged at the edge of Alegan’s sheet and smiled, wick
ed in the dimming light as the sun disappeared behind the bruised clouds. “Now, let’s get dressed. I have stood for too long in this farce of a cover and would like some clothes.”
“After you,” Alegan murmured, a hint of pink dusting the rounded tops of his cheeks.
A grin broke out on Catli’s face as he turned away and headed toward home, steps lighter than the air. That faint pink on his friend’s fair skin held promise, if Catli could figure out a way to bring Alegan’s heart out into the open. He fixed that goal in his mind, something for him to look toward after the nasty business with Eshe’s schemes was dealt with in the morning.
However, a prickle of disquiet sprang up along the back of his neck like a host of stinging bugs settled there. Alegan was silent on their way through the village, when Catli expected him to be brimming with questions. A master mage was so since birth, but it took a thirst for learning to make ones of their caliber great. Alegan proved he already loved knowledge, so why was he silent when he had a ready suppler of answers about the trial tomorrow?
Once they stepped inside the warm flickering candlelit of his home, Alegan urged him to stop with a touch to his arm. Catli turned and waited.
Chapter 8
The molten ball of panic lodged thick in Alegan’s throat. All he managed were a few ragged breaths as Catli looked on, a warm, patient expression dancing in the light of the two candles left to burn before they had gone to the pool. No matter how hard Alegan tried to swallow down the obstruction in his throat, words escaped him.
“Relax,” Catli murmured. “Take a moment.”
A hysterical giggle came out of some dark part of his body. There was no reason to be calm. Catli shouldn’t be, certainly. A magical duel in the morning. Over him? The whole idea was preposterous from start to finish. People died in fights of power.
Catli must have seen some change in his face, because he stepped forward and slid an arm around Alegan’s back. He fell, limp with worry, into Catli’s chest. Meaningless words floated about the sticky air over his head, no more intelligible than birds’ wings passing by. Alegan fisted his free hand into the edge of Catli’s plain cover. He breathed. The scent of sulfur and ocean filled his lungs until they hurt. It was a distant pain. Nothing matter except holding that piece of Catli in him forever.
