Love's Blush

by Sabrina Zbasnik

  Even as his metaphor slipped away, she knew a blush was rising at the fact he even remembered her eye color. She'd never had anyone compare it to anything before, much less a summer meadow. "The nose is off putting," she said, tapping the top that bulged to the right. It'd gone down since the break but would never go away now.

  "Nonsense, it's character. And," Alistair scooted closer to her on the bed to whisper in her ear, "when you smile, the side with the break gets these adorable little wrinkles while the other stays smooth."

  "Really?" she gasped.

  "Yup, which I may have noticed during a few meetings when people thought I was paying attention to something other than my stunning bodyguard."

  She wanted to marinate in his compliments, let each one wash over her while she let her seedling self esteem grow but it was the bodyguard part that reminded her. "We, I would like to keep our work outside purely professional."

  "Okay?"

  "For the sake of people, I don't want everyone suspecting I receive special attention," she grimaced, aware that she'd tossed a bucket of water on the simmering coals of romance.

  Alistair nodded slowly, "So, no kissing before dinner?"

  "No," she shook her head.

  "No making out beside that ugly statue of Mafarath?"

  Reiss buried her face into his chest and mumbled another, "No."

  "No screwing on the throne when no one's looking?"

  Her face burned at the thought and she could stop from laughing out a, "Maker, no."

  "Fair enough," Alistair smiled before planting a kiss into her hair. He began to sift through the strands again as if searching for hidden gold.

  "Out there, I will only refer to you as Ser," Reiss had been working on that idea since the kennels.

  "But in here?" he asked, hope resounding in his voice.

  She met those warm eyes and smiled, "Alistair."

  "I love the way you say it," he kissed her on the lips. "Every," another kiss, "time." She giggled at his ferocity, never wanting it to end.

  "At least we have three rooms to explore to ourselves," she shrugged, trying to slip back on the coy minx.

  Alistair laughed at the idea, then frowned, "Ah, while the sitting room and fighting one would be doable, it'd probably be best if we keep the bedding parts to yours."

  "Why?"

  "Servants are always changing my sheets and they like to...inspect it for, uh," he glanced up at the ceiling, his throat bobbing, "stains. Apparently it gives them all a good laugh. Or it's how Philipe knows when to award a winner in his stupid pool. I don't know, but I doubt they'd look too closely at yours."

  Reiss nodded glumly at the idea. She wasn't sharing her bed with a sweet and startlingly handsome random man. As much as she wanted to pretend, he was the King and there would always be people butting into his life, swarming around them both and making it a challenge. Settling into his arms, the Hero's words returned to her. Was that what she meant about fighting? Accepting that it wouldn't ever be normal, but he might be worth the sacrifice of never being seen in public, or holding hands outside the bedroom.

  There was a good chance this wouldn't work. She'd be foolish to hope for anything more than a brief fling all things considered, but curled up in his warm arms and slowly shifting to a safe sleep by his protective embrace Reiss dared to dream a little.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  A Big Break

  The days were long, but the nights even longer as Reiss found herself studying every curve of Alistair's body. He had a strange mole on the top of his right buttock. When she informed him of it, he spun around fully naked to try and get a glimpse, while asking if the damn thing was a crown or other portent sign of his birthright. Reiss wasn't 100% certain what it looked like, it kind of reminded her of a bear with a credenza crashed on its head.

  She also learned more about herself in their exploring. In particular, she found she far preferred to be below, all of his best bits striking the perfect chord against hers with each thrust. Ethan had considered it a rudimentary and worthless position, preferring her on top doing all the work. Alistair clapped his hands in joy and dove straight in, ecstatic to be doing anything with her. Her first time taking him into her mouth, he began to giggle in total excitement before a never ending moan replaced the laughs. It continued so quickly, he began to sway and nearly passed out from lack of air. Reiss wasn't certain if that was the kind of thing she should be proud or ashamed of.

  Every night, after she'd stored away her armor, he'd knock upon her door and present her with a new flower. After eight days she had a bright bouquet of no two alike flowers blooming in her water cup. Whenever she was getting dressed she'd glance over at the spray of green, yellow, blue, and purple petals all competing for space and remember each moment that came after. The dark part of her that silently counted down the days until this stopped pointed out that the flowers would begin to die and all she'd have to stare at were dried out stems. Then how would she feel when the luster wore off and none would replace the desiccated ones?

  But Reiss shook most of the dour ones off, a dangerous skip in her step as she finished knotting her hair around the sheath and inserting the dagger. The King had another of his Chancellor meetings, and he entrusted her to meet with Spymaster Harding. After revealing her findings on the poison, Alistair suggested Reiss be the one to keep working close with Harding on it. They seemed to be the only two in the entire palace taking it seriously.

  She found Harding not in the old Spymaster's tower -- she cursed out the steps in four languages after scaling it to comb Ghaleb's records and refused to return -- but down by the salon. It was colloquially called the blue room because whoever put it in fashioned nothing but bright blue windows against the eastern wall. When the sun was high, it cast a crisp azure glow to everything in the room. To amplify it, all the stones and furniture were white. Coincidentally, when the sun was blocked by clouds, a dark and morose color over took the room -- rendering it down to a depressed mess. That was what Reiss walked into, greys merging into every corner while Harding sat upon a table that on a good day glittered like sapphires. Today it looked as if it grew so morose it intended to throw itself into a lumberjack's axe.

  Reiss barely stepped into teh room before Harding tossed down her paperwork, "Glad you're here. I've got some interesting developments."

  "So the King informed me of," Reiss said. She stood at full attention above the dwarf, her arms behind her back.

  Harding eyed her up and down before snickering, "At ease there recruit, we're not about to be set upon by a horde of red templars."

  "Maker's sake, I hope not," Reiss breathed while sagging down.

  Harding laughed at that and unearthed a yellow sheet. Seemed she kept some of Ghaleb's coding system after all. "I looked into the two alchemical reagents you caught on to. Confirmed that combined they made a nasty poison. Oh," she paused at running a finger down it and smiled, "it's not that I didn't believe you, just having to be thorough to have something to toss into the tall ones face as we raid their home and go searching for any ingredients to brew poisons."

  "Of course," Reiss nodded. She didn't realize she'd looked perturbed by Harding's checking her work, but she tried to shake off the foolishness at being caught thinking it.

  "The first alchemist we had a very long discussion with insisted that he had no idea the potion he brewed up to present to the King could be altered into a poison."

  "What was it supposed to be then?" Reiss asked, trying to peer overtop Harding's shoulder and read ahead.

  "A drink designed to open a man's airways, or so our shaking chemist claimed. It seemed he'd overdosed on an herb rarely added which was part of our in question poison. However, it was hard to prove as after talking to the man for a few minutes it became difficult to disrepute his alibi."

  "How so?" There'd been enough potion left in the bottles mercifully not fully finished off to at least threaten the man and see if he'd panic.

  "Well," Harding pass
ed over the yellow paper and then began to dig back through her desk. "Claims of stupidity and not realizing what he was doing, while likely to send him to the gibbet if the King had died, are not also proof of a vast conspiracy."

  "You think he did it on accident," Reiss summarized for herself, even while her eyes circled down the paper to see 'Accident?' written, followed by 'Maybe. Probably. Moron.'

  "I can't prove he didn't. While trying to scratch his nose, he forgot to lift up both manacled hands and accidentally smacked himself across the face with the chain. My bigger question is who let someone that clearly addled anywhere near the sick and dying. He's too stupid to even handle peddling snake oil as he'd be the first to try it."

  "Maker's sake," Reiss dug a gloved hand against her forehead, trying to exorcise an oncoming headache. She thought she had something, a way to tie the assassins back to someone in the palace. An inside job? While the old Spymaster turned out to be an entire different color of herring, this seemed to be the proof they needed. And the alchemist was a moron the entire time who accidentally stumbled into nearly killing the King.

  "So it was all for nothing. Wonderful. What about the other alchemist with the second potion? Don't tell me, this one claimed that on accident he mixed up the King's potion with a secret hair tonic."

  Harding unearthed a file with a seal overtop. Breaking off the secret eye, she smiled wide, "Don't know, because when we went to confront her, she was found dead in her living room."

  "What?!" Reiss tried to not stagger back.

  The dwarf's only hint at this turn in the bend was a gleam in her eyes, she was enjoying the twist in the tale. "Two knife wounds took her down. In the back, so probably not suicide and if it was an accident the Maker truly despised that woman." Harding passed over this classified report and Reiss clutched it tighter to her eyes realizing she was being let in on something very important.

  "We went digging through her things, most of it picked clean of course, the body was a good day or more dead. Seemed the killer probably knocked her off while we were dealing with the first alchemist, who's been warned but took the news without any concern as he headed home."

  "Another dead end?" Reiss groaned.

  "Not quite," Harding shifted on her feet and struggled to rise up on her toes. Her eyes barely skimmed above the paper in Reiss' hands as the dwarf pointed at a scrap of parchment. Ripped down the middle, there was nothing to it aside from a series of three lines etched in ink and all sloping at an angle downward to the left.

  "I may be new to Denerim, but I know a gang symbol when I see one. Cheap, crude, but you get the point. This was why I called you, hoped you might have some idea who it belongs to."

  Reiss twisted it around, trying to remember. It struck a soft chord but nothing was rising out of the background. "I'm afraid not. Have you tried asking anyone else?"

  Harding settled back to her feet and puffed out her cheeks in thought, "Can't. Murder of a suspect before we have a chance to interrogate her looks bad, really suspicious like. I may be new to this spying stuff but doesn't that all sound a bit..."

  "Like an inside job, like someone in the guards or the spy network tipped them off," Reiss answered.

  "Exactly, and the King did insist we keep this as much between the two of us as possible. He's put a lot of faith in you."

  "And you," Reiss said, doing her damnedest to fight off a blush rising to her cheeks. No, other people can't already know. They'd been so careful.

  "This is our only lead, short of setting the King up as bait and hoping someone's dumb enough to take it," Harding shrugged.

  "I'd prefer not, those plans always have a thousand ways to go pear," Reiss groaned. She kept twisting the symbol back and forth hoping that it'd make some sense to her. It washed up and down like...Shit, that was it! Like a wave. This wasn't the only half, there was always a match because they were...

  "Your face just lit up like the Grand Cathedral for Wintersend. I'm guessing you've got an idea," Harding chuckled, her eyes canvasing Reiss.

  "Ah, yes, sort of, but I have to confer with someone. She knows a lot more about them than I do," Reiss admitted.

  "Is that wise? Is this someone we can trust?"

  Reiss shrugged, "Well, you're sleeping with her so..."

  "Oh, well, uh," Harding's freckles burned like a beacon against her cheeks at the insinuation of Lunet. She snatched up a few piles of papers and waved them in front of her face until getting ahold of herself. "Yes, you've known her for sometime and it seems doubtful that she'd have any connection to assassins in the palace."

  "A random elven guard in the city watch," Reiss said, as if she hadn't been the same plucked from relative obscurity to guard the King and with special emphasis on his body. "Besides, if I found out she was working for a gang of assassins, Lune knows I'd throttle her myself," she smiled to herself. "Mind if I...?"

  "No, please, take it. I've got a few copies already," Harding said, officially allowing Reiss to pocket the piece of evidence. "Should I inquire of Sweetness, er, Lunet, Corporal Lunet," Harding coughed and shook her face around like mad as if that could stampede over the private pet name sneaking in.

  "I can handle it," Reiss tried to not smile at the sweet discomfort. "Lune's more likely to remember when I'm around."

  "She's certainly going to be able to focus on work more easily," Harding mused to herself, while cupping a hand against the back of her neck.

  "That..." Reiss began before uncertain how to tell the Spymaster it was why she suggested it in the first place. Her friend was a good guard, but it didn't take much to distract her off the beat. Especially if freckles were involved. "Can you tell the King where I've gone?"

  "Sure, I've got a meeting with him and the council after this. Ah, pebbles!" Harding cutely cursed while staring at the magic clock, "If I wait any longer it'll have to be during lunch. Sorry!" She began to scoop all the files she could into her arms and raced out the door.

  Reiss didn't even have a chance to ask why lunch perturbed her so, Harding scampering as fast as she could. Waving a hand in the air she shouted, "Good luck." It seemed unlikely Reiss would need it, she was going to spend to a day talking with her friend while the dwarf had to explain to a round table of humans why one of the suspects was found dead. Reiss had the far easier assignment.

  ***

  Lunet propped up a wall beside one of the viaducts down to the underside of the city. Below sewage and the occasional bit of water sloshed through, the elf barely noticing as this was part of her typical beat. She didn't glance up at the pair of men trying to step closer to her, a whistle beginning, when Reiss drew up fast on her horse. Scattering from hooves sparking against the streets, the men only caught a glance of the royal steed and uniform. They didn't have time to see it was another elf wearing it as they hightailed it far from whatever mischief they had planned.

  "What are you doing here?" Lunet called, sounding both surprised and exasperated that Reiss was bothering her at work.

  Dismounting, Reiss grabbed onto her horses reigns and tugged it with her towards the woman slowly breaking from the wall. "You're welcome, by the way."

  "What? That lot?" she jerked her thumb towards the retreating shadows. "I see those dung licking jackareses once a week. Thinks it's fucking hilarious to whistle at the lone elf on duty and sometimes throw shit. Literal shit."

  "Since when?" Reiss staggered in her tracks, having never heard this before.

  "Since always. You know what complaining gets us, or should I say, gets me, what with you being gifted a fancy fairy godmother that granted you the shiny new ballgown and a coach to the palace."

  A burn started at the back of Reiss' neck at how quickly Lunet turned her problems back on her. "Way I remember it you were in the ballgown, I was in full plate armor."

  Lunet only shrugged haphazardly at that. "Bet it fits better than this," she said before lifting up her elbow and slowly rotating the squeaking gauntlet overtop her forearm." Locking it back into place, s
he focused on Reiss, "Whatcha doing here anyway? I ain't off the job for another half the day."

  "I didn't come to catch up, Lune. I'm on the job too."

  She staggered up to glance behind Reiss into the fog crawling across the ground, "Don't seem to have your charge toddling along behind you."

  "For the Maker's sake, I'm not his babysitter," Reiss groaned, a raw anger rising from how quickly Lunet dismissed Alistair.

  "You sure about that? How many times has he asked you to carry his things?"

  "Never," Reiss said, silencing Lunet's mocking tone in an instant. Her friend's eyes narrowed at that, no doubt already calculating how many airs Reiss had gained in her time away. "Look," she struggled into the pack across her waist, feeling like a heel for reacting so, "it's about the assassins, okay. This is kinda the whole reason I got hired."

  "A'right," Lunet shrugged, "It's important palace stuff. Whatcha need a random city guard for?"

  "Did Harding happen to mention the lead we've been running with the alchemists?"

  That got her a long eye roll and Lunet shaking her head, "We never talk business, when I can see her. She's been squirreled away up in that palace for days. I couldn't even talk her into coming down for the nug races. So no, no idea what makes these alchemists special."

  "It..." Reiss realized that wasn't the important part and maybe there was a reason Harding kept things from her bed partner. "It doesn't matter, but while searching through their things, they came across this symbol," she dangled the scrap of paper before Lunet and leaned back.

  Lune picked it up and, like Reiss before, began to rock it like the waves. "Oh, this, I remember this."

  "Thought it looked familiar," Reiss said.

  "Aye, those blighters had it tattooed across every damn random inch of skin they could think of. We were pulling 'em in for days. Stupidest damn name too. Zea dogs. Seemed someone told them the z made it sound more badass but they were all too stupid to figure out which z to replace."