Dreamspinner Press Year Five Greatest Hits

by Tinnean

  Mycah moved to Ram, greeting the shield bearer, the Prefect of the Fourth Legion, warmly. They grasped wrists hard, each smiling at the other. Then it was time for Mycah to take the hand of the Warlord of Rieyn.

  “My dear lord,” Mycah croaked out, overcome with emotion suddenly, knowing that this power was now within his reach.

  Nictorus slapped him across the back hard. “Go and greet your father. He waits on you.”

  Mycah reached around Nictorus first and grasped hands with Hanjer Yol, triari of the Fourth Legion, and then Akasus Jaan, Prefect of the Third Legion and his triari, Butero Muss. When Mycah turned and went into his father’s arms, another cheer went up.

  It was time then for everyone else to make his or her way up the dais to the archlord. Torbald led his family to the dais, while Penn stood back and held the reins of both Gareth and Torbald’s horses. He stood silent and watchful beside Daemon, having reappeared out of the night with him.

  Torbald and Odessa walked up together, followed by Gareth and Amelina. Cerus met them graciously, as did Faroyan, Phylsytah, and Alcoban. Cerus then stepped away to greet his daughter.

  Llyan Tapal took the steps to the dais as though she were a queen, fairly glowing with the love that infused her. Instantly Cerus noticed the way she clung to the arm of the Prefect of the Fifth Legion. When they were close enough, she flung herself into her father’s waiting arms. Ehron went down to one knee and waited.

  The crowd got quiet, the anticipation of an announcement hanging heavy in the air.

  Ehron lifted his head and asked for the hand of the archlord’s daughter. When Cerus turned his head to look at the face of his child, he saw her face alight with hope. He had hoped for her to marry either Mycah Ilen or Ram Troen, either the new overlord or the new warlord, but this was apparently not to be. He had even hoped to offer her as a branch of peace to the new emperor of Narsyk. He had not known that she even knew Ehron Terhazien, but her love was etched on her face, clearly visible to anyone that looked at her. How that had been accomplished he had not the faintest idea.

  The archlord had purposely kept her away from court. When he had been told that she was traveling with the family of the Baron of Kasan, he had thought nothing of it, believing it merely a chance meeting along the road. Now the archlord understood that the encounter had led to his girl losing her heart. And the child Llyan bore Ehron Terhazien would be archlord after Cerus. Turning, he gestured for Ram.

  “Aye, my lord,” Ram said, moving up beside his sovereign.

  Cerus Tapal regarded his new warlord, the man with the same strong jaw and piercing blue eyes that his father had as well as the towering height and breadth of shoulder and chest. He looked every bit the leader of the military might of Rieyn. “As we are in agreement, you and I, would you make both announcements?”

  Ram smiled down at the prefect of the First Legion, at his friend, Ehron Terhazien. “You and your servant, your clever plotting consul—you two make quite the pair.”

  Ehron’s eyes glinted, catching the light. “Aye, my lord.”

  Ram turned and shook his head before suddenly lifting his hands, walking forward to the edge of the dais. As the crowd quieted even more, his voice rose. “This set you will all bear witness to the handfasting of Ehron Terhazien, Prefect of the First Legion, son of the Baron of Kasan, Torbald Terhazien, to Llyan Ander, daughter of our sovereign lord the Archlord of Rieyn, Cerus Tapal. Blessed are we all to share their joy.”

  The cheering was a wave of sound as Ehron rose and Llyan rushed into his arms, clutching him tight. When he bent to kiss her, another wave exploded over the powers of Rieyn.

  It took Ram long minutes to settle the crowd enough to hear his second announcement.

  “This rise also marks my choice for my soon-vacant seat, and I will pass that mantle of command to my friend, the future husband of the daughter of the archlord, Ehron Terhazien. He is now named Shield Bearer of Rieyn.”

  The courtyard exploded in sound, petals again fell from the sky, and Torbald Terhazien trembled with relief and happiness and absolute awe. He looked for Daemon in the crowd, for surely this was his triumph as much as Ehron’s. His son’s life had been a chess match that Daemon had expertly played. He would thank him as soon as he saw him.

  Torbald’s smile was wide as he drew Janah Ilen, Mycah’s father, to him, as the man had descended the dais to greet his oldest friend and his family. Their brief embrace was crushing. Daemon watched the Baron of Kasan and saw his contented expression as he continued to smile at Janah Ilen. He knew that all would be well for both Ehron and the Terhazien clan as long as war did not settle on the Rieynan shore.

  “Come, Penn.” Daemon smiled over at him. “Let us retire the horses to the stables and find our beds.”

  He followed Daemon without hesitation, and no one saw them disappear with all the other servants leading horses, wagons, and chariots from the field.

  There was a flurry of activity as guests of the castle began to be shown to their quarters. The Terhazien family was given a suite of rooms in the west wing of the castle, three as sleeping quarters and one as a meeting room. The Ilen family was quartered above them, directly beside the rooms of Hektar Prahna and Akasus Jaan. When Hektar asked Akasus if he was surprised that he would not be shield bearer, he replied that with the rat-catcher plotting Ehron’s rise to power, he truly had never thought he stood a chance.

  “Agreed,” Hektar chuckled, clapping his friend on the back. “You were routed before you began.”

  “The consul of the prefect is far too clever for me.”

  “And me.” Hektar smiled. “Perhaps for all of us.”

  Akasus agreed with a heavy sigh. “I will marry and grow fat in the country on the barony I will inherit from my father.” He smiled at his friend.

  “If there comes no war, then you shall.”

  “Aye, my friend,” Akasus agreed. “If there is no war.”

  Seven

  THE FOLLOWING weeks were a blur of activity that everyone found hard to keep straight from one day to another. A festival descended on the castle, and time went from being meaningful to meaningless. No one could keep track of the day or the hour or the minute. They all drowned in celebration.

  The doors were opened for the people the very next morning after the arrival of the barons, and everyone came and went to and from the great castle as they pleased. Every quarter of the grounds was mobbed with people, the crowds thick at every turn with artisans, musicians, gypsies, jugglers, soldiers, magicians, tumblers, fortunetellers, and peddlers selling all manner of wares. Animals were brought to the castle in droves—sheep, pigs, cattle, chickens, and goats as well as bees in wicker hives, pheasant, and rabbits. The elite of Rieyn mixed with the citizens, the merchant classes as well as the local gentry and the lower classes. There were imperial guards at every turn, always ready to step in and separate, threaten or cajole, or imprison with impunity.

  With throngs of people, it was impossible to keep track of any one individual if you became separated and useless to think of seeking someone out. The days were spent at festival or with becoming reacquainted with those last seen years and years ago. Odessa and Amelina were asked to so many sittings that they quickly had to start writing their appointments down. Torbald and Janah spent every waking moment together hunting, riding, and walking through the grounds of the castle and through the town of Tristan itself. Gareth spent the bulk of his time with Mycah and his brother, following after Ehron as he drifted through his circles: the archlord and his son; Nictorus and Ram; their fathers and endless hunts. The castle fascinated Gareth, and listening for hours to the history of the building as Mycah recounted it was riveting for him. Or so he made it seem. Gareth’s real interest was in only one pursuit: finding Daemon.

  He looked for the former consul in every crowd but was never rewarded with finding him. Gareth had thought he had seen him once or twice, but when he reached the spot where he had seen him, he was never there. He was sure he had seen
him at the ceremony transferring power from Nictorus to Ram and from Janah to Mycah, the offices of warlord and overlord now officially changed, but when he reached the spot where he had thought Ehron’s consul stood, he was gone. Ehron had reached the spot by different route at the same time, and both men agreed that the shadow had been there but had disappeared like smoke in the air.

  Every evening the nobility of Rieyn was ushered into the inner sanctum of the castle, sequestered from the rest of the citizens, and treated to the most exquisite delicacies in the main dining hall. Tables overflowed with food brought by the endless stream of servants carrying trays, jugs, plates, and wine. So plentiful was the banquet that most of the food turned up the following day on the eating tables for the public, and after the meal there was always dancing and drinking.

  In the great hall hung velvet tapestries so intricate and rich with color that many of the women and men stood mesmerized at their beauty. The beams in the ceiling were draped with a shower of silk, shimmering in the candlelight from thousands of candles that lit the room. The walls were covered in thick-textured crimson-and-gold embroidered fabric. Enormous paintings and mirrors hung from the walls in heavy gilded frames. The marble floors shone like glass, giving the whole room the feeling that it glittered and sparkled, ablaze with light.

  Servants carried trays of blood-red wine in delicate hand-blown goblets, each a different color, flecked with gold and silver. Men and women floated across the floor in a dream of swirling color, everyone stunning in their finery. In dark, quiet alcoves of the room, lovers pressed desperately together, caught up in the lure of flesh and the flight of their inhibitions, desire and heat unlocked by the archlord’s private reserve of red hironberry wine.

  Amelina gave urgent first kisses to a desperate Alcoban. Gareth was hunted by many a breathtaking beauty but slipped through all their fingers like water. Mycah danced a new woman to his bed nightly, and Hektar and the other prefects stole away to the gambling tables.

  There were the sights and sounds of the great city to be taken in, and Amelina delighted in being escorted to the theatre and the circus as well as the boat races and the great marketplace at Cresey. She forgot about Daemon as her thirst for the archlord’s illegitimate son grew. It was understood that though he would never be archlord, he would be rich in gold and land. Torbald was pleased with the match.

  The prefects of Rieyn were escorted under cover of darkness to the silk houses in the blue flame district of the city. There stood opulent brothels where the finest courtesans in all of Rieyn resided. Each woman was exquisite, each gifted in the art of seduction. Gareth begged off nightly, absorbing the taunts of the other men as he retired to his room or walked the darkened streets alone. His favorite place was the Steppes of Shanguard. The stairs began at the top of a steep incline and descended into the fog. The steps were cut directly through a heavily wooded area, and during the day it was quite safe, but at night, all manner of thief or cutthroat could be lying in wait. Gareth found it serene: the darkness, the shrouded stairs, the still and quiet. Each time he got closer to the bottom, he wondered what he might find there. Always he turned into the pub that was just around the corner, stopping for a warm cup of steaming cider. He enjoyed being alone, but he knew he would enjoy company more, if it were the right kind. If it were Daemon’s.

  By the beginning of the third week, Gareth was desperate to find Daemon. The man’s absence was taking its toll on him, body and soul. As he stood on the enormous patio and looked out across the bay, he heard his name whispered on the night air.

  Turning, he saw the darkness move beside a pillar. He bolted around the corner and came to a sudden stop when hands clutched at his doublet. He saw nothing, and then suddenly half a face appeared out of the shadows. One golden eye narrowed, half a curving mouth lifted, and he caught his breath.

  Daemon had moved the cowl for him, allowing him to see his face, a gift he bestowed on no other. Gareth was momentarily overcome.

  They stood there for long moments, silent, eyes locked together.

  “I missed you.”

  “And I you,” Daemon replied huskily.

  “You look hungry,” Gareth said, licking his lips. “Are you, rat-catcher? Are you hungry?”

  There was a shadow of a wicked smile before Gareth was yanked deep into the shadows and thrust back hard against a wall. He felt the lacings on his breeches tugged on as he let his head drop back against the hard, cold wall.

  “Where have you… been? Where… I… Daemon!”

  There was light suddenly, and Gareth realized that Daemon had pushed him down to the very end of the portico, where a lone lantern hung.

  “Push back the cowl so you may see.”

  Gareth did as he was told, freeing the mahogany curls, watching them catch fire in the light, and when Daemon looked up at him, he was swallowed in gold.

  “Watch me; don’t take your eyes off me.”

  As though Gareth would have to be reminded not to look away. He reached out and brushed the curls from Daemon’s face so he could see the man’s lips slide over the head of his cock and slither down his shaft. Daemon swallowed the length down the back of his throat, and Gareth felt his body convulse against his lover. Watching Daemon suck and lick and lave his cock, feeling the saliva running down his balls, his thighs, was making it hard to breathe. The way Daemon stroked him, tugged gently, increased his suction, taking him deeper inside, his eyes glazed over with desire as he moved with fevered need and heat all the while, was more than Gareth could bear.

  “I cannot… Daemon!”

  The head of his cock pounded against the back of Daemon’s throat, and the surging orgasm ravaged him as he shuddered with his release. Never, ever, had Gareth had such a demanding lover, and the way the man swallowed down the thick, hot spend brought a loud moan from his chest. Daemon didn’t move until Gareth was completely drained, panting, the wall bracing him up, standing in for his deserted strength.

  When the heavy-lidded eyes were slowly raised to meet his, Gareth fisted his hand in the man’s hair, tugging gently. “Come kiss me so I might taste myself on you.”

  Watching his flaccid shaft slide from between the man’s parted lips was the most arousing thing Gareth had ever seen. “Come here,” he growled.

  His cock was tucked back into his breeches, the lacings done quickly, efficiently, before Daemon rose in a seamless, fluid motion. Gareth bent his head at the same time, and when the swollen lips met his, he gasped with the contact.

  Daemon Shar tasted like come and tart ale and honey. The longer he kissed him, the longer their tongues tangled, the longer he sucked and bit, the more he realized that the man was the sweetest thing he had ever tasted.

  “I forbid you to leave me,” Gareth rasped, arms wrapping around Daemon fiercely, tightly. “I forbid it…. Do you hear me?”

  Daemon tried to recapture the lips, but Gareth’s hands were suddenly on his face, stilling him, staring deep into the beloved eyes. “Did you hear me? You cannot leave me. You’re mine, and I will have you.”

  “You do not know who I truly…. I tried to leave. I tried to see if I could avert the coming of…. But I don’t. It’s been so long that I no longer know any who—”

  Gareth bent and kissed Daemon breathless, the kiss claiming and devouring and utterly draining, drawing from the smaller man all the fight that was left in him. When Gareth finally lifted his lips from Daemon’s, they were both panting.

  “I tried to find a charter to sail to intercept the lead ship, but all is lost, Gareth,” he moaned, staring up into the man’s eyes. “I was a part of a reign that no longer exists. The Narsyk I knew is no longer. I’m too late.”

  He could not explain that he had paid handsomely, the balance of his war purse, to hire a ship and a captain to find the corsair from Narsyk flying under the sail of truce and intercept it. But where it should have been, it was not, the intelligence that Hektar had faulty. The fleet was closer than anyone knew, and so, for Daemon, there was
no recourse but to return.

  “No,” Gareth comforted him, reclaiming his wandering thoughts as he molded the man’s body to his. “You are not too late. All is well. You’re mine, and I’m the brother of the shield bearer, brother of the man who will marry the daughter of the archlord. And he bears you so much love—they all do. To hear them speak of you, speak your name…. Daemon.” He exhaled deeply, taking the face he loved in his hands. “Please, stay with me, have faith.”

  Daemon stared up into Gareth’s face, and the truth hit him hard. He could not bear to say goodbye to the man. He simply could not. “I want… I….”

  Gareth’s eyes raked over Daemon’s beautiful face, the eyes, the lips, and in that moment, his resolve turned to stone. “If you test me I will tie you down, and while I am loathe to do so, there is, I admit to you, some desire for the deed as well.”

  Daemon was stunned at the admission of the baron’s son.

  “To have you shackled to my bed”—Gareth took a steadying breath, staring down into the molten gold of Daemon’s eyes—“is such that I have only dreamed of.”

  Daemon trembled under the man’s hands, the idea of being chained to the man’s bed thrilling him, heating his blood, and filling his cock.

  “You will not leave me,” Gareth told him. “Swear it.”

  Daemon nodded, and Gareth pulled the cowl down over his face, grabbed his hand, and dragged him to the entryway to the ballroom. It was late, and the lanterns were low, and Gareth moved quickly, keeping Daemon in the shadows on the edge of the dance floor. They were outside in the hall moments later.