#c:pavane

She had a way of easing his nerves. 

Though he prided himself on his ability to be in command of most situations, there were two things wrong with that belief: the first being that it had only been hammered into his mind since tender youth by a man whose word he wished never again to live by; the second that, of late, his life had been a veritable unravelling of any control he might have ever had over himself and his own fate.

It was as though he’d constructed the very circumstances that were sure to make him nauseous with dread. This was not Radz-at-Han, but knowing his family’s reach, he may as well have been standing right at the heart of it. He could have picked any place—distant Kugane, some miserably dusty point in Thanalan, even drab freezing grey Coerthas—and instead he had wandered so close to home, like a lost little boy running to the last place he had seen his nursemaid.

He was halfway through regretting his choice of locale for, oh, the eighth time when the Merlose touched down at a careful distance. Nairel, bless her heart, caressed the hilts of her knives as the captain approached.

To her credit, the Merlose party only outnumbered his by one—and their third member didn’t seem a fighter at all. She was slender, slighter than the aging captain—still strong with corded muscle, and no doubt as deadly as her reputation made her out to be—and wore a complicated loupe on a threaded silver chain about her neck. Most likely the captain had preferred an appraiser to a killer for these particular dealings.

It was the long-limbed Elezen at the captain’s right hand who concerned him, but Nairel at his back lessened his fears. Even with a mess of Void churning inside him, he could still bash heads in without magic, and he had the most vicious five-fulm-and-then-some(-she-insists) forestborn in Eorzea at his side.

“Pavane Malichar,” said the captain, as though the name meant something to her.

“Captain. I trust your journey was—”

“You’ve brought the payment?” asked the Elezen, no-nonsense, eyeing the very conspicuous coin pouch at his belt. Then, evidently critical of its size: “All of it?”

Pavane untied the laces, but didn’t part with the purse just yet.

“I understand and empathize with your wariness—in fact, I very much share it. Mine is a difficult package to conceal without glamours, and I neither see it nor sense its aether.”

The aether part was a bluff, but normally, it wouldn’t have been. And that was the reason Pavane had been grinding his teeth enough to ensure they’d be worn down to nothing by the turning of the next era.

“I am not in the habit of robbing downtrodden nobles just standing on a beach,” the captain said with a dangerous smile, and paused long enough to give power to the sound of waves breaking onto shore. “Not much challenge in it.” She turned her head to the Elezen: “Bring it over, Madelaine.”

Madelaine cast him one last dark look—a pirate’s trade-tool, he supposed—then turned on her heel. Pavane tossed the captain his coin pouch, but she didn’t hand it to the appraiser until her right hand had returned with a long coffer under her arm.

Already Pavane could feel some whisper of power stir within him, stoked by a boyish excitement for the relic that was so close to becoming his.

“I understand my first mate’s apprehension, lord,” the captain said, keeping her eyes on him as she passed the pouch to the appraiser. “That purse seems quite light.”

“Yours was a steep price, Captain. I’d have broken my back carrying the full payment if it was only in coin.”

He was confident in what the appraiser would find when she opened the purse, nestled among the absurd amount of gil that was only a portion of the price. The medallion had been forged, it was said, in the stone-heart of Mhach in the last days before the Flood—the first of House Malichar had made herself, then, the inheritor of her city’s great legacy. And it had been passed down through the generations, from heir to deserving heir, to wear her two-headed serpent upon their chest and signify their birthright.

Never had it been lost. Pavane, as a student of history, knew that it had changed hands outside of his family a number of times—but any thieves that stole it had only ever met gruesome ends. That was House Malichar: his ancestors had set a horrifying precedent for the exercise of their own power, all to the singular end of its preservation.

And he was giving his birthright away for another piece of Mhachi power—to make, on his terms, his own legacy.  

The appraiser fumbled her loupe twice in her haste to inspect the medallion. She took a moment, her expressive eyebrows shifting, then whispered something in the captain’s ear; and, finally, dropped Pavane’s whole life into her weathered palm.

“This is a precious thing you are treating as currency, lord,” said the captain of the Merlose, weighing the precious metal in her hand.

“It more than covers your price.”

“To be sure. Even melted down or hacked to pieces, which would be the safest way for me to dispose of it.” Her grave eyes met his. “Are you prepared for that?”

Pavane didn’t waver, though it seemed to him she spoke from some deep place of knowledge for precious, irreplaceable things. He put on his best, most charmingly twisted smile. “Not to worry. I’ve another,” he said, pulling back his sleeve.

The black scales of the snake wound in ink around his forearm shivered and writhed, a mirage of badly-rendered aether. Even when it was wrong, it was precious. It was his alone.

Nothing showed on the captain’s face; her dark brow furrowed no more than if she were merely trying to read something in a viciously small script. Surely a woman of her age—a pirate, a liberator of immeasurably rare weapons; an Ala Mhigan, by the newly-familiar shape of her words—had seen her share of strangeness. With a small gesture of her head, she ordered her first mate to lay the coffer at Pavane’s feet.

“A deal well-struck, then,” she concluded.

Pavane crouched down with wonder coursing up and down his hands, weighting them as he opened the coffer to reveal his prize: a long-bladed scythe, unadorned in the Mhachi style he had come to know from his family’s archives, brimming with power to harness the Void.

“Indeed,” Pavane said as he rose with the scythe in hand. In his breathless appreciation for the weapon, he felt a twist of envy for the captain and her crew—and the adventure they must have had finding it. He pictured ruins, ancient knowledge, a dark thrill of threat.

The captain nodded to him, satisfied with their business, and said little else before she turned back towards her ship with the appraiser in tow. But Madelaine, the first mate, lingered. 

“Thinking of all the harvesting you’ll do, lord?” she asked with a smirk. “Grass? Wheat?”

Nairel, who until then had been so utterly quiet, said, “Or the one it will protect,” in a tone that gave nothing away. “Do Hearers’ daughters know much about harvesting, actually?”

A flash of irritation passed across her face, barely noticeable, before her expression settled into something else. Curiosity, perhaps.

“You’re Nairel?” she said, with an air like she was almost entirely sure of the answer.

“I am.”

A pause. Madelaine glanced over her shoulder at her retreating captain, then made half a step towards turning before stopping to look at Nairel again. “Is your brother well?”

“He’s alive. For now.”

“Aye,” said the first mate, nodding. She turned to walk away. “I knew he would be.”

Pavane blinked, trying to piece together the familiarity that had just passed between her and Nairel. Why had she asked about—

“Wait, what the fuck?”

Nairel stroked his arm. “Let’s go. I’ll tell you once we’re in the shade; my head’s bloody spinning in this heat.”

From the desk of Pavane Altos Dionys of House Malichar

Radz-at-Han

Grand Steward Riot,

Let it be known firstly that I am not in the habit of reading the private correspondence of any under my roof regardless of their age; however, I could not help but glance at the letter my young charge left on a chair in my study when I very nearly sat upon it. Therefore, I must assume that he has no great concerns regarding its confidentiality, and so permit myself to comment upon its contents.

You may rest assured that the boy’s needs and comforts are seen to with the highest care under my roof. In fact, I am told he haunts the kitchens at all hours of the day, and sometimes late at night. He sleeps in a warm bed, wears clean clothes, and washes daily—all improvements upon daily life alongside an adventurer whose nature you are evidently familiar with.

I have also taken upon myself to give him informal lessons on geography, history, literature, calligraphy, mathematics, alchemy, and theoretical thaumaturgy. He is an apt and eager pupil; in spite of the hardships of his childhood, he retains well the learning that was previously imposed upon him, inappropriate as it was for his age. We continue his physical training, as well, and there is not a night where he does not retire contented. His spirits are high, though he sometimes misses wandering; we have made plans to go exploring the city and its environs together to remedy this.

I was not asked to make such reports to anyone when the boy was entrusted to my care, but I hope this missive will ease your concerns and unburden you to continue your usual responsibilities. I imagine there is much for you to attend to; the management of a free company and a seat on Ala Mhigo’s council surely must leave you little time to pine for the return of our mutual friend.

Cordially,

From the desk of Ashelia Marco Riot, Grand Steward of the Riskbreakers

Keane House, Ala Mhigo

Thank you for your detailed report. I admit I was surprised to see you even had time to compose something so lengthy for my sake, what with Sihtric’s education and care taking up so much of your daily life, but it was nevertheless appreciated. It’s good to know you are both enjoying each other’s company.

Though, between you and I, I would not say I am the one who pines for Sairsel.

From the desk of Ashelia Marco Riot, Grand Steward of the Riskbreakers

Keane House, Ala Mhigo

Remember, you’re welcome at the Sandsea or at the house any time. Stella misses you.

So do I. And I miss Sairsel, too.

From the desk of Sihtric not-Salt

do you think he’s all right?

From the desk of Ashelia Marco Riot, Grand Steward of the Riskbreakers

Keane House, Ala Mhigo

I would be lying if I said I didn’t worry for him, because I love him, and that’s what you do when you love someone. 

But yes. I think he would let nothing stop him from coming home to you.

From Sihtric

Thanks, Ashe.

II.

“A duel,” Sairsel said flatly. “Your people still do this?”

“I don’t appreciate your tone,” Pavane said airily as he led Sairsel through the winding cobblestone pathways of the city. “It’s tradition—you’re familiar with the concept.”

“We don’t kill each other for sport in Felharden.”

“Sport? No, no; this is something we take extremely seriously. To settle disputes without involving courts of law, and gain prestige all the while. Challenges are made as a matter of pride—the challenger wins, they prove themselves to have been in the right to preserve their honour; the challenged wins, they show the world that their will is steel. It takes a dragon’s courage to challenge a blood prince in the middle of the street. If I win, I show the world the worth and power of my house to have chosen me as its scion.”

Sairsel wrinkled his nose. “And if you lose, you get to be relieved of your innards and it makes you that much lighter to bury. Genius.”

“Don’t be so dramatic. This sets the terms to blood and injury,” Pavane said, pointing to the crimson streak on his cheek. The man had come to him from the crowd, cut his own thumb—deep—and smeared his blood over Pavane’s skin with sharp words in the infernal tongue; Pavane had smiled at him and bowed formally, and they had parted ways. “He’d have cut me if he wanted it to be to the death.”

“Is that meant to be reassuring?”

“It’s the custom. I have no control over what you make of it.”

They stepped through a large stone archway and into an alley built alongside one of the city’s smaller canals, running with surprisingly clear water. Pavane knelt beside it and dipped his hand in to wash the blood off of his face. At the touch of his skin, tendrils of black spread into the water like ink; Sairsel watched as the colour retracted and faded away as soon as he lifted his hand from the water. He’d stopped wondering if these sorts of things were the making of Acheron, Pavane himself, or the magic that clung to him—he simply assumed it was some combination of the three.

“So, who was that man and why does he want to see you bleed?” he asked as Pavane stood and set to walking again.

“Relienas Haxcus,” Pavane said, barely glancing at Sairsel. His gaze was set to the front, his chin lifted, an unaffected veneer on his face. “We studied together at the Chain. Good family—just not as good as mine, and it bothers them, and him. We were rivals for a time, then lovers for some. I think we did part as rivals again.”

Sairsel almost stopped in his tracks. “This is about sex?”

“Hardly; I meant it when I said these things are matters of pride. I embarrassed him before I left, and now I’m back; it’s practically formality, at this point. He’d be a fool if he didn’t do it. Everyone around him would know him for a fool.”

“And  that’s all there is to it?” Sairsel asked without realizing the perceptiveness of the question. “That’s all the stakes are to you?”

Pavane glanced at him, a faint frown passing over his features. “Mostly, yes. I’m good, Sairsel—you know I am. I’m not worried about him besting me.”

“But you are worried about something,” Sairsel said. He slowed his steps, reached for Pavane’s wrist, and pulled him aside, just at the edge of the alleyway. “We said we weren’t going to be pretending anymore. What are you downplaying—why?”

 “I don’t really care to fret about the things and the people I left behind here,” Pavane said quietly, looking weighted; surely he didn’t want to be having this conversation here. “But when I beat him, something is going to break. There’ll be a new enemy at my back and it’ll remain that way for the rest of my life—maybe for generations. I liked who I was when we were friends, even when we were rivals; that’ll be gone after this.”

Sairsel said nothing. Since that man had walked up to Pavane, a quiet and unassumed dread had been building up inside him and carrying itself through his steps like a bad omen, but it wasn’t his dread to have. What could he say that wouldn’t bring it to light and make it about him? It wasn’t his place. Nothing about Acheron felt like it could ever be his place.

“Of all the things to be concerned about, yeah?” Pavane asked in the face of his silence, a self-derisive smile on his lips. “Continent’s rotting from the inside, I bust out in tentacles when it drizzles, but the real problem here is that I’m going to be giving an old classmate a beating and it’s going to start a passive-aggressive feud between our families that will result in, at worst, a few letters with veiled insults made in bad taste.”

“So don’t do it,” Sairsel said simply.

Pavane shook his head, giving him a perplexed look. “And be branded a coward so that I can terminally bring shame to my entire house? I’m a blood prince; I can afford to be perceived as a misfit in self-imposed exile, but not weak.” When Sairsel frowned, he saw the unspoken judgement in his eyes, the thoughts forming in his mind: what does it even matter? Preemptively, he took Sairsel’s hand, pressing his thumb to the covered scars on his palm. “You were afraid of the same, once. If you weren’t, you would still be with your clan.”

Sairsel slipped his hand free and crossed his arms tightly over his chest, eyes downcast. Pavane was right, and they both knew it; much as he found the conflict and utter lack of unity in Pavane’s people to be jarring and incomprehensible, there was little difference in how they had both grown under the fear of judgement. To be perceived as an outcast was one thing, but to truly be one was another—Sairsel had come to the Striders before this could come to pass. For Pavane, the lines in the sand were simply deeper and clearer. Crossing them could only mean losing everything. That, Sairsel could understand.

Without a word, Pavane started walking again, leading him in silence through the town until they came to a large mansion, built of dark stone and accented with gold. Two tall, angry spires seemed to reach for the sky; a stained glass window presented the image of a silver viper, coiled to strike. Sairsel could already feel the walls closing in around him while standing outside, but still he said nothing. Pavane took him through the empty hallways with a care that said he was taking the path least likely to make their presence known, his back straight and his shoulders taut, and did not speak until they were inside a large library, its shelves twice his height lining the walls and casting faint whisper of magic flowing through the tomes.

“I don’t need you to approve, or even understand,” he said, pulling a slender volume from the shelves. It was simply bound, with the image of a sword etched into the leather spine above the words Codex Duellis. “But there’s no one else on this rock I want by my side, right now. You’re the only one I want to trust.”

When Pavane handed him the book, Sairsel hesitated for a beat, feeling as though he should wash his hands before he touched anything in this house—it reminded him of how he had felt the first time he had truly touched him. Half a lifetime had passed since they had begun sharing each other’s bed, it seemed.

“You actually have a code about all this?” Sairsel asked as he opened the book to a random page, leafing through with little genuine interest.

Pavane gave him a small smile as he half-sat against a nearby writing desk, resting his hands on the edge. It brought his shoulders forward, put a dip in his collarbones, parted his low-cut black shirt even wider. “Of course; we’re not barbarians.”

“Of course,” Sairsel said with a snort.

“I’m not going to ask you to read the whole thing cover to cover, because I like you not wringing my neck, but it’s only right that you should familiarize yourself with the basics of the practice. If you’d be my second,” Pavane said, almost sheepishly.

“Only if it doesn’t involve me talking to anyone.”

When Pavane gave him a wincing, guilty sort of smile, Sairsel came to stand before him and crossed his arms. “Ah, about that—”

“What was it you said about your neck, again?” Sairsel asked, putting a hand to Pavane’s throat; that earned him an interested smirk. He could feel Pavane’s pulse quicken beneath his fingers as he leaned down to kiss him.

III.

The second Relienas Haxcus had chosen for himself was a crimson-skinned tiefling woman who, despite standing nearly a full head shorter than Sairsel, looked ready to slit his throat at the drop of a hat. She had introduced herself quite simply, on their first meeting, as Petrichor—and refused to address Sairsel as anything other than “Elf.” The upside of her blunt and occasionally terrifying manners was that the talking required by their positions was minimal; they’d agreed on terms, time, location, and weapons in less than fifty words and gone on their way.

As the challenged, Pavane had chosen one of the many courtyards of the Chain: it was neutral, common ground for the both of them as former acolytes, and presented adequate terrain as it was often used as a sparring ring. Occasionally, disputes were settled as duels in that very courtyard, though the Chain strictly only allowed duels to first blood to take place on its grounds—from students who could be expelled, at least. There were no such rules for its former pupils; in fact, the heads of the academy encouraged the more elaborate duels in their alumni, which was a fact that Sairsel added to his ever-growing list of baffling quirks of Acheron customs.

Pavane’s decision to choose that specific courtyard also stemmed from a care to ensure the whole affair would not be turned into a circus: it saw most of its use during the day, and was always empty at dawn and dusk. He’d expected Relienas to pick either and have it happen in peace; instead, he chose the height of the morning. Petrichor had specified no reasons, but as soon as Sairsel took the decision to Pavane, his face had darkened and his voice come quieter than Sairsel was used to.

“He wants an audience for this,” he’d said as the realization hit. “Fine. If he wants to make a show of looking like a fool, I’m not about to stop him.”

It was more of an audience than Sairsel would have wished; Pavane had made no announcement of his return to Acheron, much less of this duel, but rumour preceded him in every way. Of course there were bound to be curious onlookers come to see the blood prince of House Malichar in a duel: students of the Chain, both current and former; rivals of Pavane’s father; allies of Relienas’ family. Sairsel counted at least fifteen to twenty on each side of the courtyard, placing themselves behind the party they associated themselves with in guise of support—perhaps genuine for Relienas, but not for Pavane. The way he looked between them and Sairsel said as much, and so Sairsel remained close at his side, resting a hand on the hilt of the elven shortsword he always kept with him in a way that did not invite for conversation.

In actuality, Pavane was truly alone but for Sairsel: he had brought no other second, no witnesses; not even a healer of his own, as was the custom. Sairsel had very much read that section of the Codex Duellis.

“There’s no part of this that says it’s customary for blood princes to be stubborn fools who refuse the presence of a healer of their choice,” he’d said pointedly when Pavane had waved off his comment that they should seek a healer out. The Codex had an entire section devoted to the specifics of a blood prince’s position in dueling matters—as challenger, challenged, second, or witness—and Sairsel had read it all. It had bored him so thoroughly that he yawned himself to tears several times throughout, but he had read it.

“You’re right; there’s not,” Pavane had said. “I just don’t want one. I like my chances.”

“You really think he won’t hurt you?”

“I think he won’t be able to.”

Pavane’s confidence did little to assuage Sairsel’s dread as the entire affair grew unavoidably close. He had no desire to see his lover maimed or injured; without a healer of his own present, his chances of sustaining wounds that could prove fatal were higher than Sairsel was comfortable with. His heart was high in his throat as he and Petrichor came to stand face to face in the center of the courtyard, then turned and walked the twenty paces as prescribed by the Codex for the parties to begin. Sairsel dug his heel into the sand and traced a short line for Pavane, looked back over his shoulder at Petrichor, and they gave each other a nod.

Relienas stepped forward, bumping his forearm against Petrichor’s in friendship; Pavane took his place on the line in the sand. When Sairsel merely put a hand on his shoulder as he passed to stand behind him, Pavane stopped him with a hand on his arm and looked at him for a long moment. Then, he cupped his jaw and kissed him, in full view of all present. However Relienas reacted to this, neither of them saw.

A hush fell over the courtyard as the woman they had agreed upon as their arbiter, an old teacher of theirs, stepped forward.

She spoke in a clear, strong voice: “This is a matter of honour between Relienas of House Haxcus and Pavane, blood prince of the House Malichar, to be settled once and for good in the here and now. Both parties have agreed to a duel of staves and swords and accepted to battle until injury or complete disarming and arcane exhaustion, or to satisfaction of the offended party, per the common practice of the Codex Duellis. No quarter shall be asked, nor given.”

With the tip of his boot, Pavane removed the sheath from the blade at the end of his staff, and Relienas took his own in a battle grip. Sairsel dug his nails into the fabric of his gloves, then raised a hand to adjust the strap of his quiver on his chest only to remember he had left it behind. “If his second has any sense, she won’t let you keep your bow,” Pavane had told him before they left for the Chain. “Better it stays here.”

He felt naked.

“From this moment, there is to be no movement until the count of three.”

The arbiter’s voice echoed in Sairsel’s ears as she counted (“one”), as steadily as the rise and fall of Pavane’s chest (“two”), his entire body still but for his breath until she ended her count (“three”).

Pavane did not attack, not at first; he simply walked forward with heavy, decisive steps, and swept his arm with a burst of magical energy that boomed as he blocked the first spell that came his way. Sairsel had watched him fight countless times since their first meeting; he’d watched him stand barely a few steps in front of him, at long range from their enemies, keeping them at bay with black tendrils that sprouted from the ground; he’d watched him point a finger and send hardened warriors running and howling in pain with only a few whispered words; he’d watched him annihilate creatures with dark beams of energy from over a hundred feet away. But here, now—he wanted to be looking Relienas in the eyes while they fought.

He used little magic, and swung his staff in vicious strikes meant to destabilize his opponent. He threw his weight into every hit: aiming for his throat, his bones, his legs. What he didn’t block with magic or his staff, he took as though he were a fortress. Sairsel lost count of all that they traded.

They fought in a flurry of blows and sparks of arcane energy, but under the eyes of so many, Pavane never dared to use the powers granted to him by the pact he had made; Sairsel watched him and thought he seemed to be fighting with one hand tied behind his back. When Pavane cracked his staff across Relienas’ jaw, blood splattered across the sand from his mouth—and for a moment, Sairsel forgot that the people of Acheron found duels to first blood to be dishonorable and boring; he thought it was over.

But Relienas was far from defeated. His footing became more aggressive, looking to drive Pavane back and throw him off balance. Every hit Pavane blocked seemed to reverberate through Sairsel’s own hands; he felt his bones rattle, his muscles shake as though he was the one doing the fighting. He saw Pavane’s head snap back from the burst of a force spell he wasn’t expecting, watched him reeling for even one second too long. Relienas slashed upward with the blade of his own staff, and all Sairsel could see was that he took the brunt of it, and that his blood splashed down into the sand—he did not see not where the wound was.

Pavane staggered back, his shoulders rounding forward, pulling his back taut. The anger rolled off of him in waves as the darkly familiar black tendrils crept up from within the ground around him, as though looking to protect him, but he waved his hand down, blood dripping from the tips of his fingers. They shuddered and faded back into the sand. Without them, without the full force of his magic, Pavane fought with his own brutality alone, though his usual deadly elegance whittled away little by little as the pain wore him down.

Sairsel knew him. All the moments they had spent together, all the things they had fought, all the times he had watched him move from the corner of his eye before admitting to his attraction—he had learned him. As Pavane delivered a relentless onslaught of blows, each harder for Relienas to block than the last, Sairsel knew it was the last of him. It had to end now. Relienas’ staff flew out of his hands, well out of reach, and he did not even spare one look at it before whipping out his sword to block.

Pavane’s breathing was ragged. The next swing of his staff blade was aimed at Relienas’ hand, and Sairsel tightened his fists. That was a mistake. Relienas simply brushed it away on the backstroke of his sword, and Pavane was left open; Relienas lifted his knee and kicked him hard, driving his foot into his wound. With a strangled cry, the breath knocked out of his lungs, Pavane fell flat on his back, unable to move. His fingers reached blindly in the sand for his staff as Relienas stepped slowly towards him.

Sairsel shot the arbiter a look, his hand clutching the hilt of his sword; she did not move, watching the proceedings unfold with a steady gaze.

“Viper, get up,” Sairsel hissed desperately from between his teeth.

Pavane struggled to move. He tried to shift his weight towards his uninjured side to roll away, groaning through gritted teeth. Relienas stood above him, raised his sword, and brought the blade down into Pavane’s throat.

It met only Sairsel’s blade.

He’d lunged forward as he saw the downward path of Relienas’ eyes and understood the intent, nothing but instinct driving him as ripped his sword out of its sheath. He knocked Relienas’ blade away with a high ringing sound and watched the surprise etched clear into his face as he pushed forward, bringing his sword down again and again. Relienas’ blocks were hasty and reactionary; his balance was unsteady as he fought to adjust to Sairsel’s left-handed grip and the fury that drove him.

Not once did he find a gap in Sairsel's assault to strike back at him. As he swung his blade in a wide arc, Relienas’ arm was thrown outward with a pop. Sairsel took the opening to bring the edge of his blade against his throat, looking him in the eye. The silence was stifling.

“Tell me you’re satisfied,” Sairsel said in a low voice.

Relienas looked at the arbiter and gave a nod, the muscles of his jaw shifting as he gritted his teeth. Part of Sairsel wanted to make him say it, to force him to look into his eyes and speak up with a blade to his throat, but he wanted to be at Pavane’s side more. He gave Relienas no more of his time or attention and simply turned away, sheathing his sword as he jogged back towards Pavane.

He had managed to roll over and get to his knees, holding his injured arm curled up against his torso as he watched the aftermath of the duel play out without him. Sairsel crouched down beside him and took stock of his wound: Relienas’ staff blade had only done a shallow cut across his skin, catching mostly the length of his arm and a few inches down his side. Blood shone wet on the dark fabric of his clothes and sand clung to the wound, but he was alive.

“Stubborn fucking fool,” Sairsel muttered, ignoring the murmurs and the bustle around them. “All you had to do was pay a damn healer to stand here for half an hour.”

Pavane said nothing, only inhaling sharply and hissing out a breath when Sairsel put his hands on his cuts. Magic was far from the realm of things Sairsel could do with ease, and Acheron seemed to weigh even heavier on what power he could draw on to cast the simplest of spells, but he closed his eyes and called to the earth. Pulling at the life it had given him to try and pour it into Pavane’s wounds, he kept his hands firmly on his skin even as the healing made them shake. His blood was hot on Sairsel’s skin.

Sairsel felt his muscles ache and burn when he took his hands away and inspected his work: the wounds had not entirely closed, but the bleeding seemed to have stopped, and they looked more like bad scratches than heavy cuts. It would have to do.

“We need to get these cleaned up. Can you stand?”

“I’m not dead yet,” Pavane said indignantly, breathing hard against the pain as Sairsel helped him to his feet and kept a steadying arm at his back.

“You would be if he’d had his way.”

Pavane looked at him gravely, and spoke low enough for only Sairsel to hear. “I know. I saw.”

“What a fucking pissbag,” Sairsel said under his breath. Unsure of how to lessen the fearful, angry tension that had settled over his shoulders and between his ribs, he said, clumsily: “Couldn't you have found someone better to stick your cock into?”

Pavane snorted, too weary for anything more. “I did. I have you, now.”

“You have shit taste in men,” Sairsel said with a heavy sigh as he and Pavane began to walk away, without even sparing a look a Relienas. He didn't care if there were customs surrounding the end of a duel; if Pavane felt he was transgressing some unspoken rules, he certainly did not protest, this time. Once they were clear of the crowd, he spoke up again. “Is it going to bite you in the arse, what I did?”

“Too late to wonder about that,” Pavane said. “It’s done. Relienas did what he did. His biggest concern is more likely that I’m still alive despite his intentions, which are now very clear to everyone involved.”

There was more Sairsel wanted to say, but for now, he bit his tongue.

IV.

Pavane had sought the healer out in the middle of the night and with a care that made the entire affair quite cloak-and-dagger. It wasn’t until they reached the clinic in what Pavane referred to as “the old plague district” and he lowered his hood that Sairsel understood: all this, once again, was a matter of stature and appearances. He had gone to the duel with only a second at his back to show that the threat of Relienas Haxcus was below him, and refused to have his wounds seen to by a prestigious doctor in broad daylight to sustain an image of himself that was nigh immortal.

Looking around the dimly lit shop with dirty jars of leeches and what he suspected to be poisons on its shelves, Sairsel wondered if the alternative was wise, but he wasn’t about to drag Pavane away now that he was finally taking care of his injuries. What little healing magic Sairsel was capable of had not held long, and the cut on his arm and side was slowly reopening; his bandages were becoming more crimson than white.

“What I can do, it’s to keep myself from dying in the middle of the woods. I’m no cleric,” Sairsel had said, halfway between scolding Pavane and the feeling of utter powerlessness. Everything here, short of putting himself between Pavane and a killer’s blade, was a current he could only let sweep him away or swim against—and he’d given up on the swimming by now.

The healer was a tired-looking man with threads of silver in his dark auburn hair and whose left eye was entirely gone, covered in burnt scar tissue. At first, Sairsel struggled to trust him, but he found that the healer’s smiles were given to Pavane as though to an old friend; they were frayed and worn, like him, but genuine. He was no charlatan—merely someone who had lost very nearly everything. Sairsel pieced together his history, and that of the district, finding them to be indissociable from one another: he had once been a man of great standing, treating the likes of blood princes in their lavish homes, only to be cursed with failure when he made it his mission to cure the plague that swept across the city, years ago.

The plague had begun and ended when Pavane was still a child, but he said he remembered this man well, and trusted him more than any other he would have had to go through his family to reach. Something melancholy clung to Pavane as he explained to Sairsel that this was where he had found himself after his proving, when there were voices of something greater than the gods in his head and terrifying power in his hands. The healer bore that quiet, unassumed sorrow just as well as Pavane did, and as Sairsel watched him stitch his skin back together, he felt as though he were bearing witness to something much older than even he.

It was good work, even without the magic the healer sewed into Pavane’s wounds: over the cuts, he applied a poultice that smelled much like those Sairsel had watched his father make half a hundred times, and bandaged him up gently but snugly. Within days, the cuts were mere lines on Pavane’s violet skin.

Sairsel traced them like Pavane traced the scars on his palms and the old scrapes of near-forgotten battles and long journeys through the wilderness. His own scars, he cared little to dwell on, but the memory of how Pavane had obtained these new ones was all too fresh. He could still see Relienas standing before him, sword in hand, ready to bring it down on him a final time—and Pavane on his back, bleeding, vulnerable.

“Why did you hold back?” Sairsel asked at last, finally speaking the words he had been keeping quiet since the duel.

Pavane looked at him, silver eyes veiled in practiced ignorance. Before he could pretend he had no idea what the question was in reference to, Sairsel insisted: “You know I’ve seen you fight. You’re terrifying. You’re vicious and merciless. Relienas is not better than you.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Pavane said lightly.

“If I was trying to flatter you, you’d know.”

Sairsel considered the silence with mounting frustration, waiting for an answer that he knew was not coming. “You weren’t using your powers. You barely used any magic at all. Why did you hold back?” he repeated.

Pavane closed his eyes, lifting a hand to rub the base of his horns as he sighed. “It would have wanted me to kill him. I decided I was above it,” he said wearily. “If I’d known he wasn’t above killing me, I might have reconsidered, but I didn’t want him to see me like that. No matter where we stand now, I didn’t want him to know I broke and wasn’t put back together right. And I don’t want this whole damn country to know I’m cursed, either, if I have any say about it.”

Though Sairsel hardly knew what words would be right, he did not force himself to speak; Pavane knew. He sighed and ran his thumb over the raw lines that remained of the duel on Pavane’s arm, bowing his head to kiss it. Pavane reached out with his other hand and moved the hair away from his face.

“I don’t need to anyone else to know who I am,” Pavane said. “Not here.”

V.

Sairsel woke to the sound of voices, to the emptiness of the bed beside him and the cold night air flowing into the sanctuary Pavane kept for himself away from his family’s estates, on the fringes of the quay district. This part of Hiskaris, capital of Acheron, was just off the coast of the Sea of Swords; it was where Sairsel felt the least stifled in this bloody town, and the perceived proximity to the central continent—Felharden just out of reach over the horizon, across the sea—had lulled him into a false sense of security from the possibility that Pavane’s world could catch up to them here.

Of course it did. He was blood prince, after all.

“Have you returned to settle the score, my son?” asked the man at the door.

“You would know if I had,” Pavane said, the arrogance dripping from his voice.

“Ah; I see. You did not wish to face the music you yourself composed, and so you hide in this hovel, scurrying like a rat in the dark places where the truly great do not even look,” said the man with a similar tone.

Sairsel lay still as he listened, looking only at the shadows stretching across the ceiling; still, Pavane’s voice was clear, and the wry notes of his voice unmistakeable.

“For once, I wanted our next meeting to be on my terms. You’ll forgive me for reaching for the upper hand; I learned that from you.”

“I would forgive much if you did not make every effort to make your name—our name—synonymous with scandal. I learned of your return through the now widespread rumour of that embarrassing—shameful!—duel. After all you already did with the Haxcus boy.”

“I wanted it to be a surprise,” Pavane said, with a venomous and dishonest smile Sairsel could not see.

“It was a surprise indeed. As were accounts of the actions of your pet half-elf.”

Sairsel’s heart rose in his throat; he could almost feel the air around Pavane turn cold as ice, picture his poison-sweet smile falling away to reveal the stoicism of stone. His voice cut like a blade.

“Sairsel Arroway is a respected ranger sworn to the Striders of the Continent, and has been longer than you’ve been head of this family. You have good breeding; act like it.”

“What honours the people of the Continent grant every other commoner who sprouts up from the dirt to behead a few goblins is of no concern to me. It is of no concern to the people who witnessed that man raise his blade to a son of the nobility in the midst of a duel in due form.”

“Is it of concern to you, then, that this noble son and proper duelist was seen by all those same witnesses about to strike a killing blow on a disarmed opponent—a blood prince and your son—who had only accepted the terms of a duel to injury in due form?” Pavane asked sharply. “My second was within his rights to put an end to it when Relienas broke terms. The duel was fought to satisfaction. What do you want from me?”

“I only—”

“No, wait, don’t answer; I just remembered I don’t care. Please leave. I’m not here for you.”

“Pavane.”

“Come back in broad daylight and show your face to all who would see it if you dare. In the meantime—I’m not going to hold my breath—I’ll make sure to seek you out openly and without artifice as I said I would the last time we spoke.”

Pavane accepted nothing else, and did not speak again except to curse at length in Infernal as soon as he closed the door, perhaps a little harder than was necessary. He exhaled hard through his nose and Sairsel sat up in bed, watching him in the dark as he came back towards the alcove that acted as a bedroom; he seemed wholly unsurprised to see Sairsel awake. His shoulders only dropped as he sighed again.

“I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”

“I heard the whole thing,” Sairsel said honestly, before Pavane could wonder. “Are you all right?”

“More or less. I will be.” Pavane rubbed both hands over his face with a muffled groan and let himself fall heavily on the bed. “I’m starting to feel that our time here is nearing its very necessary end.”

Pavane began to slip his shirt over his head, met Relienas’ eyes, and paused. Caught like a prey in a net. 

He could never decide which had more power, between that rich amber gaze or the bow of his mouth. His elegant, straight nose; the sharp lines of his jaw; the smell that clung to him, spellwork incense and lilac flowers. Handsome, pretty, too charming by half. Pavane wished himself stronger as he so often did in so many ways, strong enough not to be a fool who fell to men like him—like Relienas, and like himself.

“Be kinder to me, my prince,” Relienas said, his smile twisting because he knew Pavane loathed the very words almost as much as the tone with which he uttered them. 

He reached for Pavane’s wrist, fingers against his pulse, a familiar dance from opposite ends of a room finally coming to a touch: as he had for so many years, Pavane found himself torn between wanting to blast Relienas’ jaw shut with a force spell and silencing him with his tongue in his mouth.

“I don’t need to be kinder to you, Haxcus, and I couldn’t do it without blinding myself anyhow. I see you like I see everyone else in this town; this game isn’t one you’ve invented, I’m sorry to say,” he said, tugging his hand back. When Relienas didn’t let go, Pavane grabbed his shoulder, pinning him down to the bed. “It’s a blood prince you like having in your bed, not me. And I’m in it because I don’t want to fuck any of the daughters my family’s friends are throwing at me, so let’s not pretend this is anything other than what it is.”

Relienas pressed a palm to Pavane’s chest, warmth spreading over his skin. “There’s no heart beating in here, is there?”

“You’d be a fool to think there is,” Pavane said, and caught Relienas’ lips in a bruising kiss.

Blood, in Acheron, was a thing of power. Magic flowed through it; and where magic flowed, so did power. It was a fine balance to build; many had been the fools and the power-hungry who were consumed in overuse of blood magic, and many would they continue to be. The power of blood could be a candle, a bright fire in a hearth—or it could be a roaring monster tearing through a street in a matter of hours. Pavane knew the song in his own blood, had seen it flow black from his veins since the curse had burrowed into him, had spilled it to wet the bones of the dead until he could touch spirits with only words and will.

Blood was familiar. He didn’t flinch at the sight of it, and neither did he expect others to. Not until the Continent, and not until he met the ranger; not until he found himself startled by the way Sairsel never batted an eye at the blood on his hands after a kill.

It was the strangest feeling, watching the same colour and finding that it was life and death more than it was power. Pavane felt as though the world had been turned upside down, because the familiarity was gone; it seemed to dislodge every certainty he had. If blood wasn’t power, he no longer knew what was. More and more, Sairsel—quiet in words as much as magic—seemed to be strong in every way that had never meant power in Pavane’s mind.

On his hands, blood was nothing. He didn’t mind the sight of it, but he didn’t use it, either. It simply stained until it was washed away. Every hunt ended the same way: with the peeling of his gloves, his hands bare against the red; with quiet words on his lips that Pavane didn't understand, and then a practiced knife. What he whispered then had seemed almost like an incantation, at first, but none of the magic Pavane knew to recognize stirred. He did not know how to listen for the whisper of the wind fluttering in the leaves, an answer in a voice Pavane had never known could be heard—old gods, nameless and nearly forgotten.

“Is it Elvish?” Pavane asked him one evening. It was a wonder he'd managed to make himself wait this long as a courtesy for Sairsel’s taciturn nature before his curiosity got the better of him. “Those things you say when you kill an animal. It sounds like Elvish.”

Sairsel glanced at him—sharp green eyes that never rested long enough on him. There were days when Pavane wanted nothing more than to take his chin and meet those eyes and say please, look at me, if only for a moment. He never found the courage, faltering in a way he had never faltered before.

“It's a dialect. Elvish roots, Sylvan leaves.”

Always the shortest possible answers, the least revealing sentences. After so many hours together, Pavane still felt like he knew only half of Sairsel’s voice: only the tones that were deep and quiet and felted. He wanted to hear it laugh—not just restrained half-chuckles—hear it sing, hear it soar. Every day, Pavane dared a little more when Sairsel didn’t shut himself away; it should have seemed like so much work, coaxing every little thing out of him, but he barely noticed it.

He had always been hungry in the face of a mystery.

“What do you say? Are you—I don’t know, comforting the beasts?”

“Of course not. Why would I comfort something that’s already dead?” Sairsel asked, perplexed. “It’s a prayer.”

“A prayer,” Pavane repeated. “I didn’t realize you were religious. Who do you—”

Sairsel shook his head. “I don’t pray to any god who’s got a story. It’s just—nature. The earth. It provides, so I give thanks. No death should be meaningless.”

That, Pavane understood. He had touched too many spirits of dead who had passed on cruelly, or without purpose, and they were different. Taut, like bowstrings. The first thing he had been taught was not to care, but he had never been able to tune his own spirit in such a way; it was always, at the very least, like using a knife that was too blunt, a staff that was too heavy, a current of magic that didn’t flow right.

Sairsel glanced at him again, then dipped his bloody hands back into the carcass on the ground, pulling out entrails as simply as plucking fruit from a tree. In time, Pavane found himself watching his hands not because of the blood, but because they were his hands.

“He is handsome, your friend, lord,” said the merchant from Hiskaris. She leaned comfortably against the table at her stall, fingers beside the pooling silks and flowing sheers with which Pavane laboured to distract himself. If he followed her gaze towards where Sairsel stood negotiating with a tanner—with surprising ease, given that the tanner was as reserved as he was, and they seemed to find a silent understanding in that—he feared he wouldn’t be able to draw his eyes away.

“You think so?” he asked idly.

The merchant smiled like they were lifelong friends: the warmth of compatriots meeting in a foreign land. Pavane was beginning to realize that he ached for home even only in the language of her body. “Well, not like the men back home. Not like you, lord.”

“You flatter me,” Pavane said, working an easy smile onto his lips to counter the stiffness that threatened to settle into his bones, make him stand in her line of sight so that she’d be looking at him and not across the market alley. In Acheron, half of business was flirting. He didn’t have the heart for it. 

“I flatter you and the company you keep.”

“Have a care, my friend, so that it doesn’t seem like empty guile. Most people back home would say he’s rather uncouth, and I would say from experience that they are right.”

She responded to the quirk of his eyebrow with a sly, knowing smirk. “I am not most people, and I am not back home.” If anything, Pavane enjoyed her confidence. He touched a length of patterned black gossamer, drawing her gaze down only for a moment. “Call me adventurous, but he reminds me of the shadow-hounds in the Lethan Plains. Have you ever seen them hunt, lord? True grace is in the wild.”

Pavane hummed, noncommittal. Wild grace. The back of his neck prickled, and his senses left him—and with them, his careful restraint. He glanced back over his shoulder for a heartbeat too long, and another; lingering, always lingering.

He snapped his attention back to the table. “All right, you’ve seduced me. How much for this?” he asked, running his fingers along the gossamer.

“For a countryman? Five silver, lord,” the merchant said, grinning.

On the Continent, it was a steep price—but a fair one, for something brought all the way from Acheron. Back home, Pavane would have paid twice that, even after haggling. He held the merchant’s gaze, not bothering to look down as he dipped into his coin purse and produced the silver pieces. He took up the length of fabric, stroked his thumb over it as he watched how the violet of his skin bled through sheer black between the thicker parts of the pattern.

“Fine wares,” he said, and paid her what it would have been worth back home.

“Thank you, lord. You honour me.”

Pavane smiled and draped the gossamer over the back of his neck, tucking it down the front of his coat—making no effort to cover up the skin he already left exposed. “Not really.”

His feet moved too quickly to return to Sairsel; his mind balked at it like it was a betrayal. Every day he felt more like a fool, tangled up in some pointless want for what was in front of him because he had nothing else. I think you think everyone wants to fuck you and it gets misleading. Sairsel had smiled, then, everything about him furtive, and Pavane’s gaze had lingered on him and never seemed to stop.

Coins jingled in Sairsel’s hand as though he were weighing them, a supple leather strap in his other hand.

“Fruitful trip, Master Strider?” Pavane asked lightly as he came up next to him.

“Mm. The strap of my quiver was starting to fall apart,” Sairsel said, glancing up; his eyes flicked down to the gossamer, then away. “And you’re buying dire essentials too, aye?”

Pavane smirked. The effort was wasted—it had to be; Sairsel could never look at him longer than a glance—but he still ran a finger under his collar. “Certainly. A little piece of home.”

“Feeling homesick already?” Sairsel asked, turning away without any other direction; he simply started walking, leading Pavane out of the market as he led the way on the road.

Pavane walked a half-step behind. After all the time they had spent in the wild, watching Sairsel in the city felt stifling. Perhaps it was noticeable only to him, because he couldn’t stop himself from stealing too many glances, but the minute changes in Sairsel’s gaze and his posture almost made him ache. Like a bird with its wings pinned to its back. In the crowd, they walked close, shoulders almost brushing. Pavane would have barely had to reach out to press his palm between Sairsel’s shoulder blades; he shoved them in his pockets and found dwelling on yearning thoughts of home to be preferable to thinking of how clearly he remembered the exact way the muscles of Sairsel’s back shifted under his skin for the few times he had seen him remove his shirt.

“It doesn’t take much to feel out of place out here,” he said.

That, Sairsel understood. “I could drink to that.”

“Splendid idea. I’ll buy.”

For once, his dour companion was content to follow his lead, even if the destination was a murky tavern that smelled like rain. In the low light, Sairsel looked almost like he belonged; Pavane almost felt like it was the world in which he had always lived. By their third round, the wisdom that only came to drunks hit him with the full force of a mace blow: it wasn’t that either of them belonged. Sairsel’s place was with the earth under his feet, the sky above him, centuries-old trees towering over kings and queens in their majesty.

Pavane’s place… he no longer knew. Was it back in Hiskaris, with a token seat in the periphery of the Acheronas Consul as a blood prince, finding meaning in stolen moments of study and in hiding away his lovers, a stranger to the worth of his own position outside the mere possession of power? He had run from that life as much as he had run from his father and the curse. He had run from the emptiness, the gnawing hunger. 

Even now, he no longer knew whether he was still running. The Continent did not feel much like a place for him, either: he was a foreigner here, a devil in dark finery; he was as cursed as he had been in his homeland, and no closer to answers. The great lurking thing beyond his reach, so far it sometimes seemed removed from reality entirely, still ate at him. His dreams were no more peaceful. His own mind no less maddening.

He had no place, perhaps, and neither was this Sairsel’s. 

But sitting in a tavern, deep in his cups across from a man far rougher than anyone at home would find suitable for his company—and yet, kinder and a better man than Pavane could ever be; willfully anchored in his solitude, even when it gave way to something that spoke in his ear that he was worthless—Pavane dared to think that this fleeting arrangement was where they both belonged.

By morning, they were back on the road. Even heavy with a bottle-ache but bereft of the drunkard’s wisdom, Pavane couldn’t get the thought out of his mind that this felt more right than slumming it with a surly hermit of a ranger ever should have.

And he wanted that ranger.

“We’ll be getting to that, uh, that ruin of yours tomorrow,” Sairsel had said as they finished their dinner at an inn so decent—in Pavane’s view—that he said he ‘would be better off sleeping on the floor.’ The luxury made his shoulders stiff. Pavane didn’t know whether he found it endearing or maddening; then he no longer thought of it as the realization sank with Sairsel’s next words: “Suppose this is our last night before we go our own ways.”

Pavane glanced at the map Sairsel was poring over, wrapping silks around the disappointment before it could be in his voice. “You’ll be glad to be free of me, I imagine,” he said with too easy a smile.

“Will I?” Sairsel asked, looking up. His resolve immediately faltered when he met Pavane’s eyes, and his gaze dropped down to Pavane’s neckline.

“I’m sorry, you choose to be mysterious now? What does that mean?”

Sairsel grimaced. “Means what it means. Maybe in some mad way I’ll miss having someone around to talk like they’re waiting for applause. Striders aren’t half as entertaining.”

“And I’m sure the ruins won’t be half as miserable as you,” Pavane said.

In a way, Pavane was glad to be free. This had gone on long enough; with any luck, he would find his answers and be able to return home, where he wouldn’t be eaten by this foolish yearning. He would settle back among his people, take lovers who suited him, and dispense with all the doubt. That alone was enough to put a spring in his step: he had never nurtured doubt, not in himself and not in his desires. He’d always taken what he was given, reached out for what he wanted. Around Sairsel, he was half a fool, always with unsteady ground underneath his feet. He wanted to feel himself again.

He wanted it, he knew, and he told himself that it didn’t matter that he wanted him, because it was only desperation. And Sairsel had laughed him off, and he was many things—glib, arrogant, greedy—but he wasn’t the sort of man to persist in his attentions when they were unwanted.

But there was still a part of him that always asked what if, because he had always been curious—and because, sometimes, it seemed like Sairsel’s gaze lingered, too. Pavane had lacked the courage to make something of the question every single day, every single night, and the thought of never finding its answer made him feel empty.

He didn’t want to go. He didn’t want to be alone again. He didn’t want to never see that man again.

It wasn’t just courtesy that made him walk to Sairsel’s room when the evening was done, because he was oddly, unreasonably afraid of letting this night bleed into the next day. Afraid of letting go of something without first finding out what it was—and yet not at all intent on driving towards an answer at all.

“Last night,” Pavane said, presenting a bottle to Sairsel as soon as he opened the door. “I know you won’t let me compensate you for your time with coin, so I won’t even try, but I— Well, proper thanks are only right. There is, unfortunately, not a single cellar in this town that could possibly hold even one bottle of the calibre that would be appropriate by my standards.”

“I wouldn’t know what to do with fancy wine, anyway,” Sairsel said, because of course he wouldn’t.

Pavane almost smiled, but he kept his expression unimpressed. “You drink it, Master Strider,” he said flatly, then held out the bottle. “They had this, at the very least, downstairs. I'm told it's earthy. I thought it might fit the bill."

"I like sweet wine and honeyed ale."

Sairsel held his gaze, a faint smile passing over his lips, and took the bottle—slowly, fingers curling around the neck and slipping it out of Pavane’s hand. For once, his eyes weren’t furtive; something like a lock clicking into place. He said nothing as he pressed his back to the door and held it open, waiting until Pavane was inside to close it behind them.

“Funnily enough,” Sairsel said, surprising him—speaking without first being spoken to, “I don’t even like sweet things all that much. I mean, I grew up in the woods; fruit was what we ate that was sweet. Anything sweeter than berries makes me nauseous. But we got the stuff with honey from travelers we traded with—usually Striders, in fact—and to me, it tasted like… I don’t know. Warmth. I never got tired of it, and most wine tastes like vinegar compared to it.”

In spite of that, Sairsel uncorked the bottle with a satisfying pop, and turned to a small table under the window. He picked up the wooden cup that sat there, sniffed it, and poured. Pavane watched his every move and hoped that, if anything, he seemed only to lay his gaze there because nothing else in his periphery moved. The fact of the matter was that there was something about his gestures that fascinated Pavane, like Sairsel was the only real thing he could see for miles.

Sairsel offered him the cup and raised the bottle by the neck in a toast; Pavane dared to look him in the eye, because that was the polite thing to do, as he tapped the bottom of the cup to the bottle, and drank.

It was decent wine; no more than that, certainly, and no less. Earthy, as promised, and rich in proportions reasonable enough to be on the pleasant side of surprising.

“I think this might be the first time you’ve offered up personal information without me forcing it out of you first,” Pavane said, licking his lips.

Sairsel lowered the lip of the bottle from his mouth and swallowed, taking little time to taste the wine. He had the grace not to grimace. “That’s not true. I told you I liked dogs better than your snake,” he said, in a tone that was only half-serious. His gaze flicked down for a beat. “You might have noticed I don’t much like talking about myself.”

“I’ve noticed you don’t much like talking at all.”

That smile pulled at Sairsel’s lips again: bashful, reserved, but open all the same—a smile alone said more for him than for most. Carefully, Pavane added: “And I’ve been thinking it’s a shame, really, because you have a rather pleasant voice.”

“Killing me with kindness, Viper; that’s not like you,” Sairsel said, hiding his smile by taking a drink. Viper. It was like a fist tightening in Pavane’s ribcage every time he heard that nickname, and found it to seem more fond every time. Sairsel never said it enough.

“Will I be beating a dead horse if I tell you that I rather like the things you have to say, too?”

Pavane was too bold, he knew it; too daring, as though making up for all the times he hadn’t had the courage, and now it spilled out of him so quickly that he couldn’t measure it. By the next sunset, he would be alone again, and their paths would diverge permanently. He had been many things since coming to the Continent, but he had never in his life been one to like leaving things unfinished.

For all the good it did. Sairsel’s walls spun back up around him so quickly it left Pavane dizzy for his sake. His eyes narrowed, almost imperceptibly; Pavane could almost see behind the guarded suspicion and glimpse the meaning of it, the reasons. Almost. Like sitting in a dream trying to read books in front of him, searching for answers, and never seeing anything but a blur no matter how much he focused.

“What are you doing?” Sairsel asked, halfway to an accusation; too weary to be wary enough. “What could you possibly be trying to get from me at this point?”

Pavane frowned. “I’m sorry?”

“The flattery. You usually use it to get something.”

“So that’s what you think of me.”

Sairsel’s lips parted; his eyes opened to what was beyond the walls. He looked at Pavane like he was surprised to realize that his words could offend—and Pavane, the smitten fool, could only find it endearing.

“I don’t—”

“I’ve only ever been honest with you,” Pavane said. Then he added, thoughtfully: “After a fashion. But I am honest now.”

The truth of it was that, much as he did use flattery like currency, he was well aware that there was no buying what he did want; not like this.

Sairsel looked at him in earnest; more squarely than he usually allowed himself. “I’m sorry.” 

“Please.” Pavane waved a hand and drained his cup. “You’ll have to try a lot harder than that if you want to do any real damage.”

“Of course,” Sairsel said, and there was a tight smile on his lips as though he regretted something that had yet to come to pass.

He watched as Pavane set the cup back down on the table under the window, feeling like some shadow cut against the darkening sky—and feeling, perhaps most keenly, the weight of Sairsel’s gaze. Always so heavy; so inevitably sharp. Now that it wasn’t some furtive thing, some little beast hiding in the trees, Pavane wondered how he could have thought he had it in him to bear it and let himself be bared to it.

“Go easy on that bottle,” Pavane said with an eye on the door, his tone lighter than he felt. “I won’t be around to keep an eye on you in those wilds come tomorrow.”

Despite the obvious irony, Sairsel neither laughed, nor even smiled. He simply set the bottle down, independent of Pavane’s comment, his gaze catching on the cup beside it. Watching him, Pavane wished that he could pluck the shades from his mind, to give him some freedom while someone more deserving of curses battled with them. 

Someone like you? taunted some part of him.

Someone.

He had his hand on the door, its groan the only thing that found its voice in the silence as he opened it. Sairsel’s footsteps were barely a whisper upon the floorboards; he moved like a hunter, always—like a shadow even when the earth was too far from his feet, even when he stood in the light. Like some intangible, stalking thing.

But he wasn’t a shadow when he reached a hand to the left of Pavane’s shoulder to nudge the door closed again. He felt like everything but in the way he framed Pavane’s jaw with his hands, gentle with hesitation, and kissed him.

Pavane sank into the sea of him as purposefully as breathing. 

His touch, his mouth, his closeness. It filled him up like water in his lungs, made him burn from behind the heat of his skin; his body waited to ignite, but he could only kiss him back slow and careful, as though it might cut him up to rush it.

And, hells—hells, gods, saints—he didn’t want to rush it.

He had his hand anchored near Sairsel’s wrist, fingers a breath away from feeling his pulse, when Sairsel pulled back. He pulled back, but not away, and he didn’t flinch when Pavane’s hand ran up his arm. Pavane could almost hear the breath racing up his lungs, could almost see the roots tangling around his feet. He could still feel the press of Sairsel’s lips—and the lingering wasn’t enough.

Sairsel was still looking at his mouth, and then he looked up into Pavane’s eyes, and Pavane knew he wasn’t leaving this room without having the first of his answers.

He moved his hand to the back of Sairsel’s neck, pulled him in, kissed him hard because he knew—he knew—Sairsel would answer in kind. His back hit the door, and Sairsel’s fingers curled in the fabric of his jacket; it wasn’t long before he was tugging it down his shoulders, pulling it off of him, touching the bare skin at his open collar. He laid his palm flat against Pavane’s chest, thumb and forefinger framing the hollow of his throat, and felt his racing pulse.

He left open-mouthed kisses along Pavane’s neck like a trail of fire. Every part of him burned; every part of him felt free.

Pavane tangled his fingers in Sairsel’s hair, tugged just enough to make him look up, caught his gaze with his, and then his lips.

“Tell me you want me,” he whispered, breathless.

“Fuck off,” Sairsel said, taking a fistful of his collar to kiss him again.

Pavane almost grinned against his lips. “I want you.”

All at once, Sairsel stepped back, mouth parted as he breathed. He kept his palm pressed to Pavane’s chest for one, two heartbeats; and then his touch was gone, but not his gaze. His eyes didn’t leave Pavane as he reached down, unbuckled his sword belt, and let it fall to the floor with a dull clatter.

He took off his own jacket, too, but it was Pavane who undressed him the rest of the way, because he needed to be close and to touch him and kiss the skin he bared. 

The bed was the softest thing Pavane had laid upon in weeks. He barely noticed; not until later, when he was lying on his back and Sairsel was shifting beside him, sitting up like something had bit him. Everything came back into focus: the ceiling above him, shaking with the shadows of a low-burning lantern; the warm body next to his, too far away as Sairsel swung his legs over the side of the bed to sit with his feet against the floor; the moon outside the window that counted their hours.

“What are we going to do?” Pavane asked, careful; meticulous in his distance. Sairsel’s head tilted to the side, but he didn’t look over his shoulder at him.

He ran his hand through the mess of his hair, tied it back again. “What about?”

“Tomorrow.”

Sairsel said nothing.

“Would you want this again?”

“I’d want it all night if you offered,” Sairsel said, almost scoffing.

Pavane reached out to run his fingers, feather-light, down his back; it made Sairsel shiver. It was strange to see him so still, so unburdened by restlessness, but Pavane wanted it to feel right.

He didn’t say that it was an idea. He didn’t say that he was flattered. To anyone else, he might have said half a hundred things, glib and charming and perfectly detached. None of it seemed to fit; there were half a hundred other things he should be saying now. 

He’d spent so long wanting, and now he’d had it, and instead of leaving him satisfied or disappointed, something greater than that want had opened up beneath his feet and he didn’t know how to walk around it and steady himself as he always did.

Sairsel didn’t make anything of his silence, for all that Pavane could tell. “I’ll take you to your ruins,” he said simply. “With luck, nothing will make a meal of us, and you’ll find whatever it is you’re looking for. And then you’ll go home, I suppose.”

“Almost sounds too good to be true,” Pavane said.