“Okay.”
Daks blew out a breath and rolled onto his back to stare at the ceiling because he couldn’t stare into those damned gorgeous eyes anymore.
“This isn’t easy for me, talking about feelings. There are reasons I don’t do this anymore,” he admitted reluctantly, waving a helpless hand between them.
“I’m not asking you to write me a poem, Daks,” Ravi huffed back at him. “Just be honest with me. I need to know I’m not making a complete fool out of myself. That’s all. I’m not exactly an expert at this kind of thing either.”
“You’re not… making a fool of yourself, I mean. But there’s things you don’t know. Even Shura doesn’t know all of it, whatever she might have told you about my past.”
“She didn’t say much. All she said was that you nearly drowned and that it had cost you a great deal more.”
“Well, she’s guessed, but she doesn’t know. I met her after, when I was a little reckless and didn’t give a damn anymore if I got hurt.”
“What happened?” Ravi prodded after Daks stopped there.
Daks’s lips curved despite the twisting in his gut. Ravi wasn’t the kind of man to let him off easy, particularly when there might be a story involved. But Daks was no storyteller, and his hesitation had already made a way bigger deal of this than it was.
“Look, it’s not some great mystery. I just don’t like to talk about it. I fell in love a long time ago… when I was first sent to the Scholomagi for training. Jos was older than me. He had some small talent with magic, but not enough to ever earn him a spot on the High Council or anything.” Daks risked a quick sideways glance and found Ravi watching him intently. “He was originally from Rassa. He’d escaped all on his own, so that’s why he’d pushed for the program to rescue others like him from the Brotherhood. He’s the reason I got involved in it. I would have followed him to the Seventh Hell if I had to.”
The old pain had dulled considerably over the years, along with memories of their too brief time together. Sometimes it seemed like another life entirely, but if that was true, what did he have left to keep him going? This was why he didn’t look too closely inside. He might not like what he saw.
Clearing his throat, he continued, “When I fell through the ice on a mission in Samebar, I was sick for a long time. Jos stayed with me while I recovered, until he received word from his family that a cousin had shown signs of a gift. I couldn’t go with him, and he couldn’t wait until I was better. My family had to drug me to keep me from trying… and then I never saw him again.”
“He died?”
“No. Well, yeah, I guess he had to have, but I never found out one way or the other.”
Ravi placed a gentle hand on his arm and squeezed. “I’m sorry.”
Daks laid his hand over Ravi’s and gave him the best smirk he could manage. “I’ve spent the last ten years of my life looking for a man I knew, deep down, I wouldn’t find, obsessed with keeping his mission alive while our support and funds from the Scholomagi dwindled and finally disappeared. No one cares about what I do anymore, but here I am, still trying to do it. Heh. You might say I’m just a tiny bit slow to get the hint.”
“I care,” Ravi said, pressing closer. “I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t—”
“Screwed everything up?”
“Given a damn,” Ravi corrected with a glare. “I meant what I said on the ferry. I’m sorry for putting all the blame on you, for not being more grateful for everything you tried to do for me. I can admit that now… and more, if I thought you wanted to hear it.”
Ravi bit his lower lip then, and his stern gaze softened into vulnerability. That feeling inside Daks, the one he’d experienced only once before and had been fighting to keep buried even deeper than his fears, struggled to break free. But now wasn’t the time.
He rolled them until he was on top of Ravi again. Ravi opened so sweetly for him when Daks pressed their lips together, and Daks tried to say all he could without words.
When he pulled back to allow them to catch their breaths, he whispered, “I do want to hear it, whatever you want to say to me, just not yet, not until Shura is safely home and I can put all that behind me for a while, okay?”
“Yeah?” Ravi asked uncertainly, his pupils blown wide, his lips swollen and pink.
“Yeah.”
Ravi swallowed and nodded. “Okay.”
They never got around to eating breakfast. By the time Daks clambered out of bed on somewhat shaky legs and pulled his trousers back on, the inn kitchens had already started preparing for supper. The best he could wheedle out of them was a tray of cold meats, cheese, dried fruits, and bread.
As they ate, Ravi seemed pensive, but not nearly as sad as earlier. Daks sure as hells hoped he’d done the right thing. Shura would laugh her ass off at him when he told her… or maybe she wouldn’t, given how she’d been acting with Fara.
After lunch, Ravi insisted on accompanying him down to the river to see about hiring a boat to the other side. It took a little while to find someone willing to take a promise of reimbursement from the High Council in lieu of ready coin. Daks had to save what coin he had for the trip back, in case they couldn’t rely on Fara’s coin for any reason he refused to contemplate.
Eventually they found a merchant who already had a trip planned to sell his wares at the market in Traget and was willing to take Daks along—if he helped row and unload on the other side. Daks reluctantly agreed.
Beggars can’t be choosers, after all.
“I’ll help too,” Ravi offered, and Daks jolted.
“Uh, no, you won’t.”
“Yes, I will.”
“Excuse us a moment.” Daks gave the merchant a tight smile before taking Ravi’s arm and walking them out of earshot.
“You’re not going,” Daks said flatly.
Ravi lifted his chin, his amber eyes flashing as he yanked his arm free from Daks’s grasp. “I am.”
“Have you lost your mind? We just spent the better part of two weeks in misery, running from the guard and the Brotherhood, to get you here, and you want to go back? In case you haven’t forgotten, you nearly drowned a few days ago crossing this very river.”
“I haven’t forgotten you nearly drowned too,” Ravi shot back.
“All the more reason for only one of us to risk it.”
“I know why you have to go, but you shouldn’t have to do it alone,” Ravi practically growled.
His gold eyes had drawn to narrow slits, his jaw clenched, and his pretty lips pressed in a stubborn line, and Daks was entirely unprepared for the little baby bird flutter behind his ribs. This was probably not the correct response, but he couldn’t seem to help it. His lips curved in a sappy little smile, and he rushed in to steal a kiss.
Caught off guard, Ravi sucked in a breath, and Daks chased it with his tongue. Despite his anger and frustration, Ravi didn’t shove him away. He melted into the kiss, trembling just a little, and Daks’s heart twisted some more. Even if the thought of crossing the river alone again terrified him. Even if he knew having Ravi next to him would help immensely, he’d never let it happen. Ravi was just as scared as he was and fighting hard not to show it.
Though it pained him, Daks ended their kiss and took a step back. Ignoring his first impulse to deflect from the emotions swirling inside him by poking the bear a little more, he blew out a breath and decided to be a grown-up… just this once.
“I can’t tell you how much it means to me that you’re willing to risk so much, but you’re not thinking clearly,” he murmured as kindly as he could. “You may not have had a Vision in days, but the risk is still there. We talked about this before, remember? With a rogue wizard or a rogue brother only a day’s ride away at this supposed barbarian encampment—or even in town if the new rumors are to be believed—the Brotherhood is guaranteed to have a Finder here, and we’ve no quick way back across. You saw the number of brothers and soldiers in the market.”
Ravi’s eyebrows drew toget
her, and he worried his lip. He wanted to argue, Daks could see it in his face, but he had to know Daks was right.
“I’m going to be okay,” Daks continued, closing the distance between them to cup Ravi’s cheek. “I’m not any happier about crossing over again than you are, but I’ll be quicker and less noticeable on my own.”
“You’re barely healed,” Ravi protested weakly.
“I’m healed enough. It’s just a boat ride. I’ll ride over, find out what happened to Shura, and ride back. No one’s looking for me in Traget, and I’ll feel that much better knowing you’re tucked up safe and comfortable here. Do it for me, okay?”
Daks fluttered his eyelashes for dramatic effect, and Ravi’s lips twisted sourly. He glared at Daks for a few beats before he huffed out a breath and folded his arms across his chest.
“You better come back, and quickly. You still have to get me to that magic school you’ve been bragging about,” he huffed.
“I will,” Daks replied with a grin. “There and back again… that’s it. And—”
Ravi clapped a hand over Daks’s mouth. “Don’t you dare say a single word about how easy it will be or ‘with any you-know-what,’ or I swear to the gods I’ll deck you.”
Since he had been about to say something along those lines, he wisely kept his mouth shut when Ravi removed his hand.
“Come on,” Ravi ordered as he spun on his heel and headed back to the boatman. “Let’s get this over with and go back to the inn. I’m tired and hungry.”
Chapter Fourteen
RAVI DIDN’T accompany Daks down to the river the next morning. They said their goodbyes without words while they were still in bed, Daks insisting Ravi naked and freshly fucked was the picture he wanted to take with him over the day or two they’d be separated.
Ravi hadn’t argued; he wasn’t sure why now. It probably had something to do with Daks’s admittedly impressive skills in the bedroom. Daks might be an impetuous walking disaster anytime other than when he was fighting or fucking, but damned if he didn’t make up for it.
Daks had kept him up half the night—literally and figuratively—possibly to distract himself as much as Ravi. It had worked… mostly. But now that Ravi was alone, the anxiety he’d managed to ignore for hours came back full force. He tried to tell himself he was being stupid and overly dramatic. His emotions were all over the place because of the idiot now trying to get himself killed… again. If he’d ever needed a reminder that real life was nothing like the stories he loved, the gods were making it perfectly clear to him now. He and Daks had made it out of Rassa. They’d survived a flood together. He should have his happily-ever-after by now, shouldn’t he?
Unable to stand the close confines of their room any longer, Ravi got dressed and headed down into the slowly awakening inn. Without being asked, Eben brought him a light breakfast, which Ravi managed to eat half of before his stomach threatened mutiny. He pushed the remainder around his plate while he eavesdropped on the steadily increasing conversations around him as the common room filled. He heard smatterings of Sambaran, trade tongue, and even a little Rassan, the latter making his heart constrict with a longing he hadn’t expected. Alone in a foreign kingdom, without Daks’s seemingly endless energy to distract him, all that he’d sacrificed started hitting home.
He wasn’t given much choice in the matter. If he hadn’t left his old life, the Brotherhood would have taken it from him eventually. But still, he could mourn just a little, in private, all that he’d left behind. He missed Vic and the others terribly.
“Daks won’t be too happy if I let you waste away to nothing while he’s gone,” Eben said gruffly as he held out a hand for Ravi’s plate.
“Sorry. I’m not particularly hungry today, I guess.”
“You’re not ill, are you?”
“No.”
Ravi tried to think of something else to say but came up empty. He shifted uncomfortably under Eben’s scrutiny.
“He’ll be back, you know,” Eben finally said. “Like weeds in the cobbles, that one always springs back, no matter how many times you think he’s gone for good.”
Ravi’s lips curved fondly at that. “Have you known him long?”
“Ten years or so, I guess. He comes through at least a couple of times a year on his way to Samet or back up to Scholoveld. We’re not close, mind, but he’s the type of man that leaves an impression.”
Ravi’s smile widened. “He is.”
“He told me to take care of you while he’s gone, so if you need anything, food, drink, more clothes, another hour in the bath house, you just let me know.”
“I don’t have any coin for such things,” Ravi admitted.
Eben grinned, baring slightly crooked teeth behind his beard. “Don’t worry about that. We’ll be billing the Scholomagi. They may be tight-fisted, covetous old bastards, but they always pay their debts. I have a letter of approval from Agent Daks that’ll cover everything you might need, here and on the road to Scholoveld—” He cut off with a grimace and shrugged apologetically. “Only if you need it, that is.”
Ravi frowned as Eben’s words sunk in. “If I need…? Wait, you mean if I need to go the rest of the way alone?”
Eben cringed. “I just meant you’re taken care of, no matter what.”
If the man had hoped to ease Ravi’s anxieties, he’d done a crap job of it, but Ravi forced a smile and nodded. “Thanks.”
“Just, uh, let me or one of the others know. Whatever you need,” he finished awkwardly as he backed away.
Ravi returned to their room and started rummaging through their belongings to see if Daks had left any other notes or provisions behind, but he found nothing, and he rolled his eyes at himself. What had he been expecting? A romantic farewell letter urging Ravi to go on without him should he never return? Declarations of undying love? A single rose?
Sometimes he thought those stories he loved as a child had ruined him for real life.
He slumped onto the bed and put his face in his hands. What was the matter with him? Daks had been gone less than two hours and he felt like he was losing his mind. The man’s scent hadn’t even had time to fade from the bedlinens.
He buried his face in those linens and breathed, trying to calm down. He was so wrapped up in inner turmoil, he missed the first tingling along his nerves. By the time he pulled his head out of his ass enough to realize what was happening, he was too late to even try to stop the Vision from barreling through him. Luckily, he was already on the bed, so he didn’t have far to fall when his world spun out of control.
Daks stood alone in a forest. The setting sun cast long shadows around him, but Ravi could just make out Daks’s face. It bore the exact same expression it had when they were together on the ferry and the flood was raging toward them—controlled terror. He held a dagger in one hand and a short sword in the other as he faced off against something hidden in the darkness. Ravi’s perspective suddenly shifted, as if he were now looking through Daks’s eyes, and what he saw made his heart stop. Peering out at him from between two trees was a pair of glowing red eyes, eyes anyone would recognize even if they’d never seen them in real life—Riftspawn!
Ravi rolled off the bed and onto the floor, gasping and fighting the last clinging tendrils of his Vision. As soon as he could get his limbs to obey him, he got to his knees and used the bed to push to his feet. He staggered out of the room and down the stairs. When he spotted Eben, he rushed the man.
“Eben! Please tell me there’s some way I can get a message to Daks.”
The big man looked at him, confused. “A message? Sorry, I don’t think so. He didn’t know where he’d end up, or at least he didn’t tell me.”
Ravi groaned. “Please. This is Samebar. Don’t you have some sort of magic you can use? There has to be something. Daks showed me the message stones.”
Eben shook his head. “They only work if you’ve got the matching stone with you. Daks wouldn’t have taken anything like that into Rassa. It’s too dangerous
, if you’re caught.”
“Then I need to get across.”
“He said you should stay here.”
Ravi barely came up to the man’s collarbones and probably weighed half of what Eben did, but he was sorely tempted to punch him. “I’m going. Either you help me or I figure out a way to do it on my own.”
Eben gaped at him, doing a fair impression of a landed fish, and Ravi threw up his hands in frustration and stomped off. Following the path down to the river he’d taken with Daks yesterday, he managed to locate the same boatman. After the fourth rejection he received, he was getting desperate.
“No coin, no passage,” the asshole said, repeating the same line he’d heard far too many times already.
“You took the note from my friend,” Ravi insisted.
“Aye, a note for passage from an agent of the High Council. You’re not an agent of the High Council.”
“If I don’t get over there, he might not make it back to make sure you get paid,” Ravi gritted out through clenched teeth.
“Don’t need him to. I got the note.”
Ravi wanted to scream, but he forced his anger and panic down, desperately trying to come up with a solution.
“What if I had something to barter?” he asked hopefully as a thought occurred to him.
The grizzled older man eyed him skeptically. “What?”
“A horse. A magnificent stallion, strong, healthy, smart, with the endurance of ten horses. He’s sitting in a stable up at the inn as we speak.” As the man’s eyes lit up with guarded interest, Ravi leaned forward. “If I or my friend don’t make it back to see you’re paid in full from the Council, the horse is yours. I’m sure it’s worth at least twenty times one little passage across the river, right?”
The man sucked his teeth for a moment before he gave Ravi a begrudging nod. “Bring me the horse and you have a deal.”
“What? No.”
He shrugged. “No horse, no deal.”
Ravi’s teeth were going to crack if he didn’t stop clenching his jaw so tight. “Fine,” he huffed and stomped his way back up to the inn.
The Seer Page 27
