by A. H. Lee
“Maybe if you’d told her about your own potential for blackmail, she’d have been more forthcoming,” said Sairis in a nastier voice than he had intended.
Marsden hunched inside his coat.
Roland swallowed. Sairis could feel the motion through his whole body—as though Roland were swallowing so much more than spit. “So...everyone knew Uncle Winthrop might betray us. Everyone except me.”
Sairis could almost hear Winthrop saying, “Oh, I know my nephew. He would take you back even if you spit in his face. He is a trusting creature and loyal to a fault.”
“You’ve been gone for four years,” said Marsden patiently. “You cannot expect to follow the machinations of a court under pressure from such a distance, Roland.”
“I was never very good at machinations.”
Sairis decided they’d spoken enough about Winthrop. He turned to Marsden. “Do you really have the sword?”
“I do.”
“Do you think it’s Hastafel’s focus?”
Marsden pursed his lips. “That seems unlikely. It’s certainly a magical artifact of great power, but I cannot imagine that Hastafel gave us anything useful. It seems likely to be a trap.”
Sairis rocked his head. “I’m not convinced he left it behind on purpose, but you might be right. In any case, it’s a spirit vessel with ghosts trapped inside. I wanted to have a look from the Styx.”
“I would prefer that you didn’t.”
“You could come with me. Keep an eye on me.”
Marsden shook his head. “We’re not doing anything with the sword tonight. We need to get some sleep. Roland, do you intend to try to catch up with your sister?”
Roland considered. “It will be difficult at this point. Maybe impossible. If we ride across the open plain, we’ll run into Uncle Winthrop’s column. I’d rather confront him again with Daphne at my side.” He licked his lips. “We could stay in the hills and keep following the border, meet them in the pass itself.”
Marsden nodded. “So we ride hard tomorrow.” He rose and started spreading out his sleeping pallet. “I’ve shielded us tonight with magic. That means no one needs to lose sleep keeping watch. I can’t do that every night, so I suggest you take the opportunity to rest.”
Chapter 16. Warmer
The effects of the alcohol had dissipated a bit, and Sairis was feeling sufficiently modest that he took himself a short distance from the fire to try on the new clothes before going to sleep. They were plain linen issued to soldiers at the castle. The trousers were slightly too large, but nothing that couldn’t be fixed with a belt. The shirt and coat were adequate. The boots, on the other hand, were more than a little too big. Sairis sliced up some of the rags from his former shirt, stuffed them into the toes, and hoped that he wouldn’t have to walk very far.
He returned to the fire to find that Roland had made him a pallet alongside his own a few paces from the fire. Marsden was a shadowy bulk on the opposite side of the coals, already softly snoring.
Sairis wasn’t sure whether to be disappointed or relieved that Roland hadn’t invited him into his bedroll. True, they had slept in each other’s arms last night, but that seemed like a dream now. Sairis had been half out of his mind with pain, fear, and anger. He’d been so determined to get clean away from all this.
And somehow I’m still here.
Roland was not asleep when Sairis knelt and slipped into the bedroll a couple of feet away. He’d been fairly quiet since the revelation about his uncle, and he lay on his back now, staring up at the stars. The sky was clear, but distorted by Marsden’s barrier.
“Do the clothes fit?” asked Roland without taking his eyes from the sky.
“Well enough,” said Sairis. He was still wearing the shirt and the trousers without a belt.
After a moment, Sairis asked, “Were you close to your uncle?” Immediately, he heard his own voice snarling, “Did you love your father?” Sairis shut his eyes and hoped Roland wouldn’t draw the parallel.
Roland seemed to consider. “I thought so.” He didn’t sound angry, only sad—something deep and complex and probably older than this evening’s revelation.
Sairis had a sudden, insane urge to hunt down Winthrop and punish him for betraying Roland’s trust. There is no such thing as loyal to a fault. Sairis turned over on his side, facing Roland, and said, “Can we just pretend that when I said, ‘See you tonight,’ that was this morning?”
Roland turned away from the stars and gave a crooked smile. “Except that somehow instead of the Tipsy Knave with Daphne and Anton, we ended up in the woods with the dean of magical studies?”
“I admit that the company and venue have degenerated.”
Roland reached over and ran the knuckles of two fingers over Sairis’s collarbones. “That’s looking better.”
Sairis supposed that it was. The skin didn’t hurt and wasn’t numb. Sairis was suddenly conscious of how much better he felt all over. Something stirred between his legs. Do I have extra blood for that now?
Roland smiled.
How does he know?! Sairis was still tipsy enough not to care. He caught Roland’s hand in both of his. “It is really absurd how easily you can get me excited.”
Roland smiled again, but he still looked sad. He extracted his hand from Sairis’s. “You were going to sign Marsden’s contract. Because of me.”
Sairis looked away.
“You were going to let them—”
“You came after me,” interrupted Sairis. “I hurt you, and you didn’t know why, and you still—”
“I am dangerous for you.”
Sairis gave a bitter laugh. “Your uncle painted a pretty clear picture of what might happen to you if people found out about me.”
A pause. Sairis could tell that Roland was not accustomed to thinking of himself as vulnerable in this way. After a moment, Roland shook his head and repeated, “I am dangerous for you—”
“And yet you make me feel safe.” Sairis was surprised at his own bravery. Too honest.
But it stopped Roland’s line of thought in its tracks. After a moment, he said, “That means a lot...coming from you.”
“Yes, it does.”
Roland’s fingers reached out again to caress Sairis’s cheek and jaw. Sairis kissed his palm. “I don’t know if I can do this with Marsden right over there,” he whispered.
Roland laughed. “I wasn’t trying to start anything.”
“Really? You seem bent on making it difficult for me to fall asleep.”
“I take it you’d rather not crawl in with me, then?”
“Oh. Um...”
“The night’s cold,” said Roland with mock seriousness. “We’ll be warmer together.”
“You are infinitely practical.”
“Infinitely.”
So Sairis crawled out of his own bedroll and into Roland’s arms. Roland proceeded to pull Sairis’s blankets over both of them. Halfway through this process Sairis made a discovery that he probably should have guessed earlier. “You’re naked!”
Roland smirked. “You’re not.”
“Yes, well... It’s cold.”
“It’s actually warmer if you’re naked.”
“How is that possible?”
“I don’t know. Something about trapping body heat.”
The firm curves of Roland’s muscular body certainly felt hot to Sairis. The shifting planes of his back and stomach were utterly fascinating. Roland gave a gentle tug on his shirt. “Do you want to get this off? You don’t have to, but it’s...nice.”
Sairis swallowed. He wanted to say, My body isn’t as pretty as yours.
But if a beautiful man wants to get you naked, why argue with him?
“Alright.”
Roland proceeded to strip Sairis’s shirt off over his head with unhurried movements. He reached down and unlaced Sairis’s trousers, then worked them off as well. Sairis tried not to jump at the casual slide of Roland’s thigh between his legs. Roland clearly wasn’t trying to to
uch him, but he wasn’t trying not to touch him, either. Roland folded Sairis’s trousers, set them aside, then settled back down and gathered Sairis into his arms. Sairis let out a long breath. The sensation of so much bare skin against his own was almost overwhelming. Roland stretched out on his back with Sairis half on top of him. His fingers carded through Sairis’s hair, big palms running up and down his back, over his flanks, up his spine.
Sairis couldn’t relax at first. His earlier arousal was entirely obliterated by his anxiety, and he lay there tense as a nervous cat. However, as Roland kept stroking his body, he began to unclench. He let his own hands explore, tracing the muscles of Roland’s shoulders and arms, the wiry curls across his chest and down his stomach.
“See?” murmured Roland, his voice a deep reverberation against Sairis’s ear. “Nice.”
“Mmm.”
“When we met, I got the idea you’re not accustomed to being touched—not just sexually, but ever.”
Sairis nodded.
“Do you want to be more...accustomed? I know some people just don’t like being touched, and if it’s like that—”
“It isn’t.” Sairis wanted to say, This is wonderful. He wanted to say, Don’t ever stop touching me. But a voice whispered that he was very close to making a fool of himself, and so he just kissed the hollow of Roland’s throat and laid his head down on Roland’s chest.
He could hear the smile in Roland’s voice as he murmured, “Alright.”
Sairis thought it might be difficult—sleeping with Roland’s naked body pressed against his own. He thought that once his nerves stopped twanging, the whole situation might be too stimulating for sleep. Sairis had no sooner had this thought than Roland’s hands stilled against his back, Sairis shut his eyes...and the next thing he knew, it was morning.
Chapter 17. The Ridge Road
Roland woke in the dewy, pre-dawn darkness to the crunch of a stick. A large stick. A heavy crunch.
He lay still, instantly alert, trying to remember why his sword wasn’t to hand. Who’s on watch? Have they been killed? Am I being stalked? Is it inside the walls?
No, that wasn’t right. He was outdoors, not in a fort. Was he on patrol?
There was a warm weight against his body, other limbs tangled with his own. Roland’s head cleared a little. Sairis. The prickle of his short beard against Roland’s bare chest and the trusting, sleepy weight of him would have made this a perfect waking, if...
If that crunch hadn’t been real. Did I dream it? He’d been prone to nightmares over the last year. I probably woke myself up. It probably wasn’t real. Roland lifted his face towards the dark meadow, barely illuminated by the first soft glow of dawn. He froze. Two points of reflected light glinted amid the deep, shadowy grass. They were blurred by Marsden’s barrier—greenish, indistinct. Roland blinked hard and the lights vanished.
He lay there, heart thumping, staring into the darkness. He listened for footfalls or breathing or snapping twigs. He listened for cries from the horses. But the night remained quiet until the first morning birds began to sing, at which point Roland decided it was time to be on their way.
* * * *
Sairis woke with difficulty from a pleasant dream into a cold, damp morning, barely light enough to see. He was still sluggish from healing, but managed to dress himself in a groggy daze. He drank a canteen of water, ate the dried fruit and sharp cheese that were offered, and did not come fully to life until he was nose to nose with a horse. Sairis jerked back, nearly stepping on Roland.
“Did you hear what I said?” asked Roland patiently.
“Wha—?”
“I need you to ride behind me. The weight will be easier on Cato, but we still need to get you your own horse at the first opportunity.”
“That’ll be interesting,” said Sairis faintly. The horse’s eyes looked very bright, its nose very soft. Contrary to Sairis’s first impression, the animal was not entirely white, but had a black spot across part of his face and mane.
Roland peered at Sairis in amazement. “You’ve never ridden a horse before?”
“Not a live one.”
Roland passed a hand over his face.
“It’s much the same as a dead one,” said Marsden behind him.
“How would you know?” asked Sairis.
Roland sounded offended, “Cato is not in any way comparable to a dead horse!”
The animal snorted, showering Sairis with a fine mist. “He’s certainly wetter,” said Sairis with a grimace.
“He is an excellent animal who has seen me through difficult times,” said Roland. “However, he is a warhorse, so he is trained to bite and kick. He doesn’t usually do it unless commanded, but I wouldn’t stick my hand in his mouth if I were you.”
“Wasn’t planning on it,” said Sairis.
Mounting a live horse turned out to be a bit trickier than mounting a dead one, since a live horse tended to dance around a lot more. Sitting behind the saddle was a little awkward. However, wrapping his arms around Roland’s waist improved the entire experience by orders of magnitude. Sairis couldn’t see much over Roland’s shoulders, but he supposed that was a price worth paying. Marsden’s dun colored animal trotted up beside them, and they set off just as the sun was peeking over the horizon. They hadn’t gone more than a short distance into the meadow, however, before Roland stopped and pointed at something on the ground.
Marsden trotted up beside him and swore when he saw what Roland indicated: enormous pawprints. No one said anything for a moment, and then Sairis murmured, “I don’t have much experience with illusory folds, but I didn’t think they kept anything out. Just...made us harder to see.”
Marsden nodded. “I confused our trail from the river. I knew ordinary dogs and hunters wouldn’t find us. I didn’t think about...that.”
Another pause. “Maybe it was an ordinary mountain lion,” offered Roland. “Is there a way to tell the difference?”
“If I were looking at the creature, yes,” said Marsden. “From a track? Well, I can’t tell. Sairis?”
Sairis shook his head. “I’m an expert in ghosts, not demons.” He frowned. “Candice and the demon wanted the sword. They wouldn’t say why. I think Hastafel promised her the demon’s name in exchange for victory in Mistala. She’s a sorcerer without a bound demon, and that’s a vulnerable position. But I don’t know how the sword figures into it. Or, come to that, why the demon hasn’t killed her if it’s not bound to her will.”
“Maybe it has killed her,” said Marsden darkly. “Or possessed her.”
They were all silent for a moment. At last, Roland said, “If the demon came here last night looking for the sword, what would have stopped it from attacking us?”
Neither Marsden nor Sairis had an answer.
“Maybe we just got lucky,” said Sairis.
“Maybe.” Marsden gave an uneasy look around the meadow. Suddenly the dawn light didn’t seem nearly bright enough. Every shadow seemed a little darker. “I’ll use some tricks today while we ride. If someone—or something—is following us, it’s going to have a difficult time.”
* * * *
Roland forced himself to stop thinking about being stalked by the enormous demon leopard that was also a boy and also a woman and who might have done something terrible to poor Uncle Mani. He focused on the task at hand. I’ve got to reach the pass so that I can help Daphne. Roland wasn’t naive enough to suppose that his own sword, however skillfully wielded, would make the difference. But Sairis could change everything. And I should be there in any case. I should be with the men who’ve stayed at my side these last four years. And if there is any unpleasantness with Uncle Winthrop, I want to be present to speak for myself and for Sairis.
Roland guessed that the plan he’d outlined at Carmath would still be the one in use. He supposed that things might change when Daphne and Winthrop spoke—a meeting that might be happening this very morning on the plains west of Chireese—but Roland thought it likely that the final decision
would be as he’d outlined: a full frontal attack with Anton’s troops reinforcing Uncle Jessup’s men in the pass, while Winthrop brought men from the border garrisons down the treacherous Valley of False Hope. Hastafel would expect the first move, but not the second.
Unfortunately, if this plan remained in effect, it put Winthrop’s men between Roland and Daphne for the duration of the march across the plain. Roland could not think of a way to get in front of them. He wouldn’t even be able to catch them up unless he found the road that wound between the border forts in this stretch of wilderness.
He hadn’t traveled through this area since he was a teenager, but the maps of his country had been embedded in his head by faithful tutors. After what seemed an interminable climb up heavily wooded slopes, they came out on a ridge, where the wind murmured among lofty pines. A trail followed the high ground. To their right, glimpses of the patchwork fields of Mistala were occasionally visible far below. To their left, the rugged slopes of Zolsestron’s least habitable reaches stretched to the horizon. The soil was dry and rocky, and any farmer would be hard-pressed to find so much as a garden plot flat enough to till. Nevertheless, the rugged slopes were greener than the once-fertile plains of Mistala and peaceful in their solitude.
“This is the Ridge Road,” said Roland with satisfaction, “our southern border. It’s normally patrolled, but since Uncle Winthrop emptied the forts, we’re unlikely to meet anyone out here.”
None of them had spoken much during the climb. It had been hard work for the horses with plenty of spots where they’d all had to dismount and scramble. Now they were able to pick up their pace, cantering along the high, smooth trail in the cool, pine-scented air. Sairis had spent much of the earlier ride with his hands curled into fists around Roland’s waist, clearly trying not to fall off. Now, however, his nervy grip relaxed a little.
