#vaethorn

“I like the colored lanterns to carry wishes to the sky. I like the thought that they might carry my thoughts even further than that. But as for wishes? I am not sure what to wish for. What I wanted most I have as long as you’re with me. And though I am so far from home even a wish lantern might not find the way, I am very happy when you smile.”

           Everythingwas just as he had left it. Vaelanys trailed his fingers slowly over the table,the tumble of books, the jumbled notes, and wondered why that bothered him asmuch as it did. His eyes strayed unseeing over the words on a paper, his ownhand, careful notes that no longer seemed necessary and he wondered again whythe sight of it all chilled him.

                Therewas nothing overtly menacing in the room he’d found so much joy in. Sunlightstreamed pleasantly through the windows, lighting the comfortable furniture andthose piles of books that looked as though he had only just walked away fromthem for a moment to get tea. The pleasant smell of herbs and ink filled hisnostrils, and beneath it something else, the faint familiar edge of winter. Itwas home, and he didn’t know why he was afraid of it.

                Everythingwas just as it had been. He might have picked up any of the books and found hisown bookmark tucked into the pages, the words he had walked away from. But ithad been months. Everything had changed in ways he could not even have imaginedthe last time he stood up from this table. His quill still lay where he hadleft it when he finished the last letter. He frowned as he reached for it, buthis fingers got no further than one brush over soft blue feather before hefroze.

                Therewas a cup of tea there at the corner of the table, steam gently wafting up fromthe surface. The faint tightness of unease in his chest stirred into real fearas he reached slowly for that impossible cup. He was almost afraid to touch itsomehow, though he could not have said why something as simple as a cup of teashould make dread weigh like a stone in his heart. It was the edge of thedelicate saucer he gripped, gingerly, between two fingers and thumb to tug thecup closer until he could see what it held.

                Asigh escaped him, relief, humor at his own foolishness as he realized there wasnothing more menacing in that cup than the pale amber of tea. He didn’t knowwhat he had expected to see, but it was only tea even if he couldn’t understandhow it had come to be there. His fingers shifted from the saucer to the handle,and then he froze again, brow furrowing as the liquid within began to darkenbefore his eyes from amber to pale russet and then as he watched it swirleddarker until the crest at the bottom of the cup vanished beneath crimson asdark and thick as fresh blood.

                Itwas blood, he thought suddenly, just in time for itto begin darkening further. Shadows seeped in from the edges of the cup untilthe liquid was as black as ink. He yanked his hand back as though it had stunghim, throat working with a swallow, and somehow he could not even manage tofeel surprised when a single perfect flake of snow fell from the ceiling tosettle briefly on the ink in the cup.

                Vaelanysstepped back, suddenly wanting nothing more than to be away from this place hehad ached so fiercely to return to. Everything was just as he had left it butsomehow this was no longer anything at all like home. The cup tipped,untouched. But the ink within did not spill from it, but instead shifted,curling itself like a serpent to reach for him…

                Warmthtrailed tingling along the line of his jaw, a strange heat intruding itselfinto the chill of his dreams. A soft protesting sound escaped him, his mindstill caught in the terror of that moment. Then Thorn’s mouth came down on his,hard and hot and insistent.

                Somethinglike a sob caught itself in his throat as he finished finding his way toawareness. There was no ink, no tea, no sunlit study on the shore. But therewere Thorn’s lips, pressing, urging his own to part. Untangling his fingersfrom the blanket, he lifted them to curl them into the silken length of hislover’s hair, lips parting willingly with a hunger that was as sudden as it wasfierce. His other arm slid over broad shoulders, tugging Thorn in close atophim.

                Hecould not stop touching, fingers kneading at dark hair, tongue and lipsshifting desperately into that kiss, wiping away the chill of that dream in thereality of Thorn. The man was solid, strong and real as the bed beneath him andthe warmth of possessive affection he could feel against his heart. Everythinghad changed but this. This was home, and for the first time in monthsVaelanys felt himself free of even the smallest aching for the one he had leftbehind.