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  There was the scrape of a chair, and Sairis divined that Daphne had stood up. “Magus Marsden, my father did not ‘honor the memory’ of his own father in regards to magic. He made the revolutionary decision not to hang you.”

  Marsden gave a rumble that sounded like the prelude to a long-winded reply, but Daphne continued. “Like the Malconwys before me, I will think for myself and make decisions and laws that seem right for me and my people in the time and place in which we find ourselves. We live in a post-Sundering world, sir. A world of magic. And we will be overwhelmed by it if we do not learn to use it more effectively than we have thus far.”

  Oh, she is really making him angry. Sairis felt certain of this even without trying to peek past the door.

  After another silence, Marsden muttered a final, “Yes, Your Grace.” The outer door clicked open and shut.

  There was a long silence in the kitchen. It was so complete that Sairis thought for a moment Daphne might have gone out with Marsden. Then she said softly, “Sairis?”

  He swallowed and stepped around the door.

  Daphne was sipping her tea, looking thoughtful. “I am going to my father’s funeral today. I will take the blood oath and then ride out with Anton and my personal guard. We will meet five thousand mounted troops from Lamont on the road, along with reinforcements from our border garrisons. We will join Mistala’s army in the pass and crush Hastafel’s troops once and for all. I hope that you and Roland will accompany me. I would like to know what Karkaroth will think of all this, whether he might be induced to join us.”

  Sairis took a deep breath. “He is very ill, Your Grace. He cannot come.”

  Daphne nodded. She gave him a piercing look. “And if he could?”

  Sairis looked away. “I cannot say, Your Grace. He has good reasons to distrust your family.”

  “But he will not object if you accompany us?”

  Sairis felt like a wretched, creeping thing. “No, Your Grace.” He met her eyes. “I would advise you to be careful of Marsden.”

  Daphne smiled. “I believe he just told me the same thing about you. You think that he and his magicians can deal with the demon?”

  “Yes. Probably.”

  Daphne made a motion with her hand. “There’s a plate of sausages on the sideboard and bread warm in the oven. Get yourself some food. Sit down, eat, and talk to me about magic.”

  Chapter 29. Unguarded

  Roland found the tavern empty as expected, the chairs stacked, the front door locked. November and Hazel were asleep at this time of day. Light came dim and filtered through the high, clouded glass of the windows, illuminating dust motes in the quiet room.

  It was easy to find enough space on the dance floor for exercise. Roland began moving through sword forms—first simple warm-ups, then the more rigorous forms that simulated real combat. His mind quieted as the exercise grew more intense, calling for his full attention, leaving him no space to think. After a while, he grew warm enough to take off his shirt.

  He could not have said how much time had passed when someone coughed. Roland glanced towards the bar. Sairis was standing there in his socks and shirtsleeves. He looked like he’d been about to say something, but when their eyes met, he just swallowed.

  Roland laid his sword on a table. He crossed the floor, still breathing deeply. Sairis took one step back as Roland approached and fetched up against the counter. The silver rims of his glasses caught the light as he tilted his head up. His eyes looked huge and dark.

  Roland looked down at him. Well, maybe you’d like me to just throw you over the bar, but I don’t work that way. You have to ask.

  “I—” began Sairis.

  Roland didn’t try to fill the silence.

  Sairis’s eyes slid down as though he couldn’t help himself. He spoke to Roland’s chest. “I was talking to your sister... Are you going to your father’s funeral this afternoon?”

  “Yes.”

  “And to the border afterward?”

  “Yes.” Roland put one hand on the bar and leaned forward, bringing his face even with Sairis’s. “Where there is not likely to be a lot of privacy.”

  Sairis swallowed again, his throat a sinewy ripple under his short, dark beard. His eyes flicked to Roland’s face.

  “Why did you come here that first night?” asked Roland.

  “I wanted someone to kiss me,” said Sairis, his voice a murmur like the rustle of pages.

  “Do you still?”

  “Yes.”

  Roland leaned in and took his mouth. In spite of Sairis’s prevaricating, there was no hesitation this time. He kissed back with gratifying intensity. His hands came up to rest on Roland’s shoulders—delicately at first and then wandering up and down in hesitant fascination.

  Roland’s hands slid down to Sairis’s hips and lifted the smaller man easily onto the countertop. Sairis’s arms went tight around Roland’s neck for a moment, then loosened, and he laughed against Roland’s mouth.

  Roland drew him close, hands spreading over his back, kissing his way over Sairis’s jaw and the side of his neck. After an instant’s hesitation, Sairis wrapped both legs around Roland’s waist. That felt almost too good. “Oh...” breathed Sairis against Roland’s ear.

  Roland laughed—a rumble that made Sairis shiver. “It seemed like you wanted to do that yesterday.”

  “Yes.” Sairis caught his breath. Words came in a rush as Roland rubbed against him through the fabric of their clothes. “Roland, you are so beautiful.”

  Now Roland was really laughing.

  Sairis trembled with some combination of arousal and embarrassment. His words stumbled over each other. “Why do you even want to do this with me?”

  Roland was in the act of untucking Sairis’s shirt. He pulled back a little to look him in the face, his hand sliding over Sairis’s ass and the warm skin at the small of his back. Sairis had a flush of color in his cheeks. His lips, framed by his dark beard, looked pink. “You are smart and funny and absolutely adorable,” said Roland.

  Sairis’s eyes slipped down again, over Roland’s chest and arms. “I’m a scrawny magician who plays with dead things. You—”

  Roland felt a twinge of frustration. “I would gain a hundred pounds of fat and never swing a sword again if it would bring my friends back.” He snapped his mouth shut, surprised he’d said such a thing at such a moment. Sexy, Roland. You are a true charmer this morning.

  Sairis blinked.

  Roland looked away. “I’m sorry. I—”

  Sairis’s hands cradled his face. Roland hadn’t been expecting that. Sairis’s fingers stroked the hair at his temples. Roland dared to meet his eyes again. “I want you to kiss me,” said Sairis softly. “Please?”

  Roland kissed him. His hands found their way under Sairis’s shirt again, stroking his back and sides. The two of them were finding a rhythm. Sairis’s breathing deepened. He pulled away at last and said hoarsely, “Roland...what do you...want to do?”

  Roland nuzzled down his neck to trace Sairis’s collarbone with his tongue. Sairis’s hands tightened in his hair.

  “I want to get you off,” purred Roland. “Again.”

  Roland fancied he could feel the blush beneath his lips. “I really liked doing that.” He made enough space between them to run his knuckles over Sairis’s chest and stomach.

  Sairis’s legs tightened convulsively around Roland’s waist. “Yes, but... Roland, for gods’ sakes stop tormenting me so that I can think.”

  Roland stopped tracing his navel and kissed his ear. He ran his tongue around the rim.

  Sairis let out his breath in a hiss. “You are going to make me climax in my clothes again, and this time I refuse to feel bad about it.”

  Roland laughed. “You shouldn’t have felt bad about it last time!”

  “I didn’t even...finish you!”

  “Sairis, I haven’t been able to get off, even with myself, more than a handful of times since Marcus died. I tried once with this village lad. It
was the worst time I’ve ever had with a partner. I’m really enjoying myself with you. If I want something, I’ll ask for it.”

  A moment of silence and this time, Roland just let him think. Sairis’s fingertips traced Roland’s jaw and cheek again—an instinctive gentleness that Roland found unexpected and touching. At last, Sairis said, “Are you usually the...the active or passive partner?”

  “I’ve done both. I can enjoy both. May I unlace your trousers?”

  Sairis nodded.

  Instead of doing that immediately, Roland pressed his hand between Sairis’s legs and kissed him again. Sairis whimpered. His cock twitched under Roland’s palm. Sairis was panting when Roland pulled away. “Please, Roland, please,” he muttered, clinging to his shoulders. “Whatever you want. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

  “And you hate it,” said Roland with a smirk. “Not knowing what you’re doing.”

  “Gods, yes.”

  Thank you for letting me see you like this. Thank you for trusting me. He didn’t dare say the words aloud. With Sairis’s trousers unlaced and opened, Roland tugged a stool over and sat down. He grinned up at Sairis’s flushed and slightly startled face. Roland ran his hands up and down the taut muscles of Sairis’s thighs. He wrapped one arm around his waist, stroking up the inside of his leg with the other hand, and then lightly over his rigid cock.

  Sairis’s eyes snapped shut, his long lashes dark against his cheeks.

  “Just relax,” Roland murmured. “Enjoy it and don’t feel bad about anything.”

  Roland ran his tongue around the head, one hand firm on the shaft. Sairis’s hands fisted in his hair, his ragged breathing the only sound in the quiet room. As Roland moved and licked, Sairis’s legs wrapped around his head. Roland could feel Sairis’s toes curling against his shoulder blades in a gratifying display of unconscious pleasure. Roland’s free hand spread over Sairis’s lower back, pulling him closer, feeling the muscles shift and tense as Sairis’s panting breaths grew faster.

  When he spilled, hot and salty, into Roland’s mouth, Roland stayed on the stool for a moment. He pushed Sairis’s shirt up with the vague idea of kissing him on the navel because he’d liked being petted there. Roland glimpsed a long scar on Sairis’s rapidly rising and falling stomach—the spot where Hastafel’s sword had pierced him. He kissed that instead and felt him shudder again.

  Roland glanced up. Sairis was leaning back on his hands against the counter. His glasses had slid down his nose. His parted lips and wide eyes looked charmingly artless and as unguarded as Roland had ever seen him.

  Sairis’s eyes followed Roland as he stood up. He didn’t move, as though he were genuinely uncertain of what came next. Do you really think I would just leave you sitting there? Or say, “Get on your knees; it’s your turn?”

  Roland scooped Sairis into his arms and folded him up against his chest. Sairis crumpled against him. His breath hitched in a way that made Roland wonder whether he might actually cry. You need to be held even more than you need to be fucked.

  After an instant, Sairis brought an unsteady hand to his own face and took off his glasses. He set them on the counter without looking at them. Roland would remember that later—the way he just let go and pushed them away. Sairis buried his face against Roland’s chest and shoulder, his arms curling around Roland’s sides. Roland held him until his breathing became even again.

  He was stroking Sairis’s hair when Sairis said, “May I...touch you?”

  Roland smiled. “Anything you like. I can’t promise I’ll respond as I normally would. Like I said, I haven’t...been myself lately.”

  Sairis’s hands ran over the naked skin of Roland’s back and sides, caressing curves of muscle, tracing the scars. He took his time. Roland had to admit, there was something flattering about being explored in this way. Sairis had a kind of clinical curiosity that might not be wholly erotic in nature. Roland suspected that Sairis would have dissected a dead bird with the same inquisitiveness. Still, the feel of his delicate, clever fingers tracing the muscles of Roland’s stomach was...stimulating. By the time Sairis got to the laces of Roland’s trousers, Roland’s cock was tenting the fabric.

  He shut his eyes with a soft grunt as Sairis’s hand stroked over his shaft. Sairis really was just exploring. His fingertips caressed Roland’s balls, then cradled his cock as though he were enjoying the weight of it. “You are proportional everywhere, aren’t you?” muttered Sairis.

  Roland gave a shaky laugh without opening his eyes. “Is that a compliment?”

  “It is.”

  The mounting sense of tightness in his balls made him think of Marcus. Marcus kissing him, fucking him, whispering hilarious, filthy things during boring state dinners. Marcus dying in his arms. A different bodily fluid—hot blood—soaking through Roland’s shirt and trousers.

  “Roland.”

  Roland opened his eyes. Sairis was nose to nose with him. He searched Roland’s face. “What are you thinking?”

  Roland felt certain that speaking his thoughts aloud would kill every trace of the erotic charge between them. Instead, he said, “Do you want me to fuck you?”

  Sairis’s cheeks went a little pink again.

  “Or,” continued Roland, “did you want to fuck me?”

  “You got it right the first time.” Sairis’s hand tightened around Roland’s cock, rubbing him in and out of his sheath. Roland’s breathing stuttered, sped up a notch. Sairis noticed. Roland could sense his pleasure in having produced an effect. His hand moved a little faster.

  Roland leaned forward with both hands on the bar, his forehead against Sairis’s, focusing on the sensations. “Is that...always what you’ve wanted?” asked Roland between breaths.

  “No. You just...seem like you’d be good at it.”

  Roland choked on a laugh. Sairis paused in his strokes to run a thumb back and forth over the sensitive head. Roland groaned. In a moment of sudden bravery, Sairis leaned forward and murmured in his ear, “You could have had me the night we met if you’d wanted. Or any night after. Over the bar, the bed, the godsdamned strategy table.”

  Pleasure spiked through Roland’s belly and groin—a sweet, sharp shock that made him gasp. It hadn’t happened that way in so long—no struggle, no inner turmoil, no dark well of sadness. When he opened his eyes, Sairis was grinning at him—that mischievous grin that Roland had loved on the night they met.

  “You are so cute, Sair.”

  Sairis kissed him. Roland covered his mouth, folded him up in his arms. Sairis’s heart beat hard and steady against his chest, and Roland felt at peace for the first time in a long time.

  Chapter 30. Spirit-walking

  Sairis had been thinking about all kinds of things when he went upstairs to talk to Roland—magic, Marsden, Daphne, the border, Hastafel, ghosts... When he walked back down, he wasn’t thinking about much of anything. He felt as though he’d been hollowed out and filled with white light. No wonder people are willing to risk so much for sex.

  The look in Roland’s eyes when he’d crossed the empty dance floor... Sairis swore that he would never forget it as long as he lived. Heat and certainty and that confidence that powerful men often radiated. Sairis had seen it before, but never turned to kindness or even to lust, only to violence. He’d never been the object of that kind of desire.

  And Roland with a sword, sliding through forms like a dancer, every line of him like a painting. Sairis wanted to shut his eyes and relive the entire last hour over and over.

  But he couldn’t. He needed to take Hastafel’s sword into the Shadow Lands and figure out how it had trapped its victims. Ordinarily, that would have filled Sairis with keen academic curiosity. Now he could barely drum up interest.

  How do people go on with their lives?

  He wanted to ask Roland. He wanted to know whether his feelings were reciprocated or whether he was...what? Abnormal? Foolish? Unbalanced? Well, I already know the answer to that.

  But Sairis didn’t dare. What if I aske
d and he didn’t know what I was talking about?

  Roland certainly didn’t seem burdened with introspection. He followed Sairis into their room, his shirt bunched in one hand, his sheathed sword in the other. He yawned and rubbed at his eyes. “Gods, what am I going to wear? I suppose I’ll have to change at the palace.”

  Sairis set to work chalking runes for a new circle beside Hastafel’s sword. Roland paused to frown at him. “Are you still going to do the...the spirit-walking?”

  “Of course.”

  Roland said nothing for a moment. “How dangerous is it truly?”

  Sairis glanced at Roland over his spectacles. “Roland, I’ve been doing this for almost as long as I can remember—since before I had a mentor or properly knew what magic was.”

  Roland cocked his head. “With a... What did you call the sword? A spirit vessel?”

  “No, that’s new.” He scratched his head. “The sword makes me think of a focus. If it is Hastafel’s focus, we could really hurt him with it. Although using a spirit vessel as a focus seems strange, and I can’t imagine why he’d risk losing it.”

  “What’s a focus?”

  Sairis licked his lips. Careful. “Magicians often use an object to channel and store magic. A focus can protect a magician from many forms of magical attack—certain kinds of binding, for instance. It’s difficult to collar a magician who has a proper focus.” Sairis went back to drawing runes. He thought Roland might ask a question, so he kept talking. “It’s a relatively new technique, not common before the Sundering. Not everyone uses such tools, but a sorcerer like Hastafel—someone who can’t make much of his own magic—he seems even more likely to employ a focal instrument.”

  “Do you—?” began Roland and then broke off with an intake of breath.

  Sairis looked up. The mouse was back. Its shadowy form darted to and fro across the mirror, pawing at the glass as it attempted to fulfill its contract. Sairis rose slowly, dusting the chalk from his hands. “Well. That’s interesting. I didn’t expect it back so soon.”