And I could see Aurekdel was at a loss for any real cure.
Despair briefly overwhelmed me, and Oszin caught the look on my face. “Moth, just tell me. You did something you shouldn’t have, didn’t you?”
I reached for his fingers and clutched them. I looked at him helplessly. “Oszin…sometimes…I’m really scared. We’re leaving for Irandal any day now. I know they’re not just worried about an attack from the Traitor King—they expect one. It’s happened before. But despite the danger, we have to move, or else get sick from toxic fog. What a stupid, stupid place.” I swallowed. “I’m such an obvious target. I really wanted to feel like I was taking charge of my own destiny. Even if it’s a joke.”
He sighed. “Seron taught you some moves, huh?”
“Aurekdel.”
“Aurekdel did? Well—yeah, I did notice he’s got some skill.” I was still clutching his hand. He shifted his free arm so it was leaning on the wall behind me.
I smiled tentatively and nudged his hand with my head like Kajira. “So…are we ever going to talk about the other night?”
“No. Never.”
“You have to admit they’re not as bad as we thought, right?”
He leaned closer to me. “I don’t have to admit anything. Except that I can’t stop thinking about you.”
“Mm…” His warm body pressed gently into mine as we kissed. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited for anything in my life as I was watching you try to ‘unwrap’ me.”
“We didn’t need all that. Especially the king there,” he said, but I felt his length stiffening.
“To be honest, I liked watching you get a little squirmy,” I said. “I felt so powerful.”
“You’re a naughty little moth.”
I snorted. “Yep. The sexiest of all creatures.”
“So…I wasn’t thinking ahead when I called you that.”
“Really? You never thought one day we’d be having sex in front of the dragon king?”
His cheeks reddened. “I sure never thought about that.” Then he looked at me sideways a little. “I’m sorry I didn’t want to teach you any fighting myself.”
“You’re being realistic,” I said. “Aurekdel is more of a dreamer, I suppose. I don’t think Seron liked the idea either.”
“I know you don’t want to learn magic,” he said. “But I’ve noticed you making use of the magical plants. You’re getting more sensitive to their properties and potency, aren’t you?”
“The more time I spend with them, I guess.” I glanced over the garden with some sadness. “I will miss this place when we’re in Irandal. It was nice to play in the dirt.” I glanced up at him. “You’d much rather I be a mage.”
“Because it makes sense,” he said. “Dreams are good, sure. But from my perspective they’re a royal indulgence.”
“Uh-oh, I think I’m sensing a ‘where I come from’ speech.”
“Where I come from,” he said, glowering at me.
“We ain’t got time for dreams, what with the harvest comin’,” I supplied.
“I don’t talk like that!”
“When you first came to the palace you did, a little bit.”
He suddenly grabbed me and spun me around so he was holding me outward, looking at the water. “You’ve always been saucy but you’d better watch out. I can do things to you now and I’m not so sure the king’s going to stop me.” He squeezed my breasts and nipped the edge of my ear.
I squealed. “Oszin!”
He laughed, low and dangerous in my ear, and tingles shot from my nipples on down. How had I gone through so much of my life without these touches and teases and caresses?
“Anyway,” he said. “I want you to find something that’s truly fulfilling, that’s all. Magic will give you some power and you won’t need physical strength to do it. Does it really matter if it’s a sword or a spell? What you want is power, isn’t it?”
“Yes…”
I leaned back against him, feeling his need for me. Aurekdel and Oszin…I never would have guessed that they both understood different parts of me. One, a dreamer and an idealist, the other a man who had fought for everything he had. Then there was Seron, who balanced Aurekdel so well, and healed me with a gentle touch.
I never expected to feel so much need for each of them, and for it to feel so distinct in my mind, as if I couldn’t imagine living without any of them now.
I leaned back, lifting my hand to brush Oszin’s lips, urging him close to me. We kissed more than we gardened, but eventually we had all the beds prepared for the move. After I finished gathering the flowers I knew would give me energy, I stopped and picked some of the curious purple flowers and white fronds in back that seemed to have such a strong sense of magic.
They kept calling to me. Maybe it was time to try a more potent tea. Although Raia had insisted that she should try it first, I wasn’t very worried that the dragon queen’s garden would have anything poisonous to me in it. It just didn’t feel like dangerous magic.
I knew Oszin would not agree with that hubris, however, so I waited until I was alone. Oszin didn’t have to guard me if I stayed inside the central rooms of the palace.
I did need some hot water, though. I walked around looking for a servant, Kajira trotting along beside me with her wings folded, and when I turned the corner, I came across Seron crouched in the hallway talking to a little kid. (I think it was a boy, but sometimes it was hard to tell around here with the children.)
“You’ll be safe on the way,” he was saying. I saw that he’d given the child a little bearded lizard carved from crystal. “Keep that with you and if you do get scared, just talk to Muramu, and know that very strong dragons are protecting you. I promise. Look at me, do I look like I’d let a rock dragon get past me?”
The child shook his head vigorously, petting the lizard like it was alive. “Okay, Muramu, we’re going on a trip. Thank you, Seron.” His voice definitely seemed boyish. He suddenly threw his arms around Seron’s broad chest. The kid looked so tiny next to Seron’s nearly seven feet of muscle.
“Hey, don’t drop it, that thing took me an hour to make,” Seron said.
“Sorry!” The boy clutched it to his chest. “I’m gonna show my sister!”
“I can make her one too.”
“No, don’t make her one!” the boy protested before he ran off.
I giggled, completely understanding that mindset. I used to hate it when Rin and I got the exact same presents. Seron spun toward me as he got to his feet, and scratched his head sheepishly.
“The kids get scared when we have to travel,” he said.
“You’re good with them.” I was suddenly getting an attack of weird fuzzy feelings in my stomach, quite different from the tingles Oszin had just produced. “I’m so bad with kids.”
He shrugged. “I try. I mean, mostly I just like shaping lizards. But if I can make them feel safe, that’s…good.”
I suppressed a smile. Yeah, right, you big softie. “Could you, perhaps, bring me hot water for tea?”
“Sure. How much you need?”
Suddenly I felt like I should invite him. “A pot?”
“Go sit down, I’ll bring it to you.”
Before long, Seron came into my room with a ceramic kettle painted with a lovely green and red pattern and set it on the table. I had already set up two cups with the magical flowers inside.
“Do you want to join me?” I asked. “I’m trying a new tea blend. I’ll warn you, it might be strong.”
“These are the magic teas I’ve heard so much about, huh?” He sniffed the cup. “Sure.”
I poured out the hot water.
“It’s too bad you have to leave the garden so soon,” he said. “The same person has to tend those plants for a while to get full potency from the magic.”
“Oh, is that how it works?”
“Yep. You have to be patient. No one’s had the time for it.”
“I’ll work hard when I get back, then.”
We let our cups steep for a minute. Seron seemed nervous, like he didn’t know what to say to me. Whenever Aurek wasn’t around, he clammed up.
“Aurekdel said Irandal is more beautiful than Hemara,” I said, trying to prompt something out of him.
“Irandal has nice canals for boating,” he said, poking at the flowers in his tea cup. “I’ll take you out on my boat sometime.”
“That would be nice,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Hey, how come you’re so much more aggressive when Aurek is around?”
“I—um. Do you want me to be aggressive?”
I leaned closer to him across the table, lacing my hands under my chin in a pose I hoped looked flirtatious. “Well, sure, if you can manage it.”
“This tea is probably ready, though,” he said, taking a sip. I supposed he’d probably been told as a child, No, let Aurek do that first, and things of that nature. Maybe it made him nervous to make a move on me without Aurek around, but it was interesting to me that he was quite willing to argue over the matter of the mist dragons, even to the point of suggesting that they might have a break over it, and he could lose me. He definitely had a strong will of his own, despite his devotion.
I raised a brow at him and then I drank some too. I might just have to be aggressive myself, I thought.
Then I drank the tea.
The warm liquid had a hint of sweetness at first, but then hit my tongue with aggressive bitterness before spreading through me almost like alcohol. My head reeled.
“Oh my, this is strong,” I said, hoping I hadn’t made an awful mistake.
“What did you give me? Some kind of drugs? I think I’m—tripping.”
I’d certainly have taken a drug before, but as I paused to let it sink in, I felt like the room was expanding around me. Like I could feel the room inside my head somehow. Seron drank a little more. When he moved his arm I felt like I could feel his muscles.
“Whoa, did you feel that?”
“I feel everything,” Seron said.
I waved my arms up and down and Seron’s eyes widened. “Holy shit, do that again.”
“Do you feel it too?”
“I sense your muscles and bones moving. I sense every bit of you.” He walked over to me and picked up the ends of my hair in his hand, and then let it fall out of his hand back down across my back. I could feel the ripple of it in a weird way, like smaller movements had more force than usual. My hair falling down my back seemed to have the force of a waterfall in my mind, but I only felt it brush my back normally. It was very strange. Objects seemed to have an almost active presence, like they thrummed around me. It was almost too much.
“It’s like a sixth sense,” I said. “Think how strong you’d be if you could sense your enemy moving behind you.”
“Aurek,” he said, “could use this.”
“To fight?”
He nodded. “But it’s already fading away. Keep working on it, my lady. It’ll get stronger. Someday you might be able to give him his dream.”
“It wasn’t me. It was just the garden.”
“Maybe. But you have a gift for this. And that will matter, as far as how potent the tea could be. Besides that, how did you know what plants to blend, huh?”
“Well, I…I could sense the magic in them, after spending all those weeks there,” I admitted. “I knew these were strong and they just felt right together.”
“Like it or not, you’re a budding mage,” he said.
I had never expected this result, and I had a little twinge of jealousy and fear. Did I really want Aurekdel to fight, while I was stuck being the official cultivator of magical teas? Did I want him plunging into danger with all the vigor of a long denied dream?
Oh dear. I know how Oszin feels, after all.
But this tea could make Oszin and Seron stronger too. As Oszin said, was it better to waste my time on a futile dream of fighting, or better to make myself useful to my men?
“Pun intended?” I said, looking up at him.
He took my face in his hands. “I don’t want you to fight either. You can get angry at me and Oszin both. When I think about what you said about the emperor, I want to dig up his corpse and chop it up.”
“Ooh, that’s…sweet?”
“I don’t know how to say pretty things,” he said. “Just what I feel. And I didn’t expect to feel for you. But I do. And it’s true that for the first time, Aurekdel has something I will never stop wanting.” He turned away. “Maybe that’s why I’m so nervous around you…”
“You have me, Seron. You don’t have to want me.”
“You know that’s not quite true,” Seron said. “He is the king. You are his queen. I’m glad you don’t want children, because I’m glad you can’t have any, because if you did, I would want you to have mine.”
My heart thumped. “Don’t say that,” I whispered.
When I heard those words, when I thought of him being so tender with the boy in the hall, it did things to me and I could feel the fringe of a dangerous yearning.
“I’m sorry,” he said, rather fiercely, like he wasn’t sorry at all.
“You would make a wonderful father,” I said. “If I was able to have children, I know I would wish to give you one.”
He dropped to his knees, and when he was kneeling and I was sitting down, we were about at the same height. He put his hands on the arms of my chair, and claimed my mouth, tugging the entire chair closer to him.
“Mm…”
“I want you,” he said, clutching my head in his hand. “I want you to be mine. I never thought I’d feel this way about anyone. Aurek’s been busy all these years, but you’re my one and only.”
This was romantic and yet it also made me nervous. Sometimes I picked up on something in Aurekdel I thoroughly understood; a driving need to prove oneself, a loneliness that called for the sort of companionship that wiped the isolation of disability away. If I was allowed lovers back home, I thought, you’d better believe I would have had them too.
“Don’t be jealous, please,” I said. “I want you both. I want you all… I wish there was more of me to satisfy you.”
“Hmph.” He sat back, looking chagrined. “What kind of assholes are we, anyway, all clamoring after the last girl in the kingdom who should be trying to juggle three men? It was Aurek’s idea.”
“But I like that,” I said.
He smirked. “I suppose you do. And I can’t even do anything much now. I don’t dare push myself on you while your shoulder is still healing up.”
“Do what you can,” I said, with a wink. “I think I’ll save the rest of my tea for Aurek to try later.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Himika
A week later, we were waiting on the call to leave Hemara, once the first sign of the toxic fog was detected at a point ten miles away. I was starting to settle into my new reality, and I think the guys were too. Aurekdel, of course, remained my husband, whom I fell asleep and woke beside every day, and who generally steered the pattern of days. Wisely, I think, he didn’t try to push Oszin back into the bedroom with us, but was clearly easing him into the idea of more.
When he swept off to some business, he might press me into Oszin’s arms. “Your turn. Take good care of her.” He kissed me while Oszin gripped my shoulders. He made a few comments alluding to “looking forward to next time”.
Oszin and I had fallen easily into a friendship with more. We still did the same things we always did. Since the garden was put to bed, we walked around the castle and talked about home, and drank tea, and studied the written language together in the library, and then sometimes we would get very flirtatious with many shared kisses and occasional petting.
Seron was a little more emboldened with me every day. If we found ourselves alone in a room, we often shared some kisses and caresses, but had stopped short of more without Aurekdel around.
It was an odd balancing act. Aurekdel never acted jealous. But he was definite
ly controlling, and he also was so genuinely tender with me. I’m not sure if we were afraid of angering him or hurting his feelings.
As for the tea…
“It could be useful if I’m caught in a bind,” he said. “But I don’t think I’ll be joining the soldiers with this. I’d have to drink so much I’d be peeing more than I fought. And if I turned into a dragon it would dilute into nothing.”
“I didn’t think of that. I…thought you’d be more excited by the prospect.”
His smile was a bit distant. “The effect fades quickly, doesn’t it.”
“Seron says it will grow stronger the longer I work with the plants.”
“Then I suppose we’ll see how it works out.” He rapped his claws on the table. “Are you done with fighting lessons?”
“It seems like I have to be. I hurt myself, and it’s not much good, is it? Oszin said I’d be more useful learning magic, and he’s right. He and Seron both agree that I have some talent, I guess. I did enjoy spending time with you, though. Are…you upset about something?”
He softened, his hand going flat. “No, my gem. Of course not. I don’t like seeing you give up, that’s all.”
“I’m not giving up. I’m just being realistic. Maybe I could help you instead.”
“I don’t need any help. A gimmick spell isn’t going to allow me to fight.”
“You already know how to fight,” I said. “This spell will allow you to actually use those hard-won skills! I’m sorry if I upset you somehow. I thought you’d be pleased!”
“I’m sorry. I get tense when we go to Irandal. It’s dangerous. And even when we get there…well, I only spend two months a year there. Actually, six weeks. In Irandal, I am truly blind. It always takes a little time to remember where things are, and it’s much more labyrinthine. I’ve been dreading for you to see me there, truthfully.”
I snorted and then hurried over to him. “Me? Don’t worry about me.”
“Gods, I hate pitying myself, especially in front of you. And I don’t want to worry you either. But it’s eating me, to know that if we’re attacked, I have to trust Seron to save you. I do trust him, but it’s not the same. I want to be worthy of your admiration. This tea just—” He smacked the cup lightly with his fingers. “It’s mocking me.”
The Kingdoms of Sky and Shadow Box Set: A Fantasy Romance Page 23
