by Devin Madson
“Katashi!”
He lifted his head, all lopsided smile. “What? Don’t turn prudish on me now, love, you were doing so well.”
“Prudish? I’m the one lying here all but naked, while you haven’t even—”
Before I could finish, he was on his feet, the knot of his black sash half untied.
“I didn’t mean—” I faltered. “You don’t have to—”
But his sash joined mine upon the floor, and with a sigh of shifting fabric, he dropped first one robe and then the other. He was magnificent, from his powerful thighs to his broad shoulders, every muscle carved from weathered bronze. “Better?” He held his arms wide, inviting my gaze with a complete lack of modesty or shame, though his hair had come free of its topknot and his manhood stood rigid.
I wanted to answer, but air seemed to have abandoned my lungs, and all I could do was stare as heat stirred once more inside me. With shallow little breaths, my chest rose and fell, and I could not be calm, fearing what was to come as much as I desired it. He must have sensed the change, for amusement drained from his smile, leaving something far hungrier in its wake.
All lithe grace, he dropped back down at my side and, threading his hands into my hair, drew me close. I knew not whether he kissed me or I kissed him, only that it was filled with such ardour I could barely breathe. Pressing against him, our skin met along the whole length of my body, every part of him warm as though it were aflame. And against my leg, the stiff weight of his manhood—a feeling I had once before had reason to fear.
Perhaps because he didn’t know that, or perhaps because he did, he gently took my hand and pressed it to the hardness between us, its length far smoother and softer than I had expected.
“I want you, Hana,” he breathed against my neck. “I want this. May I?”
Surprised by the question, I drew back enough to see his face. “May you what?”
“Make love to you. I won’t without your permission.”
My fingers stilled their tracing of his soft skin. I owned just enough fear to consider his words, but my ache for him was too deep to be quieted. “Yes,” I said, little more than a breathless gasp. “Yes. Please.”
He let out a slow, steadying breath that danced across my cheek. “Don’t let me hurt you, all right?”
A little shake of the head was all I could manage as he moved once more between my legs, the bunch and ripple of every muscle owning such animal grace. His hair too, loose to his shoulders, had the look of a dark mane, and I could catch no breath at all as, with his eyes not wavering from my face, he guided himself inside me. My gasp drew in all the air I had been missing and more as slowly, bit by bit, he filled me. It stung more than I had expected, but though he had told me not to let him hurt me, I didn’t want him to stop. I wanted him inside me as far as he could go, and I wrapped my arms around his neck and clung to him. He pulled me closer, his palms upon my back and his chin on my shoulder, and there we stayed a long moment just breathing in and out in time, our chests pressed close.
When again he moved, he did so slowly, letting me keep clinging to him as he set up a slow rhythm, seeming to pull my breath out with him only to thrust it back in. His breath huffed hot against my skin, and as he slid all the way back inside he gave a little grunt of pleasure. Liking the sound, I pressed my hips up into him and was rewarded with a groan.
He pressed deeper and harder as if in payback, and I let out a cry equal parts pleasure and pain. Pausing, he kissed the tip of my chin and went on kissing all the way down the ridge of my throat until he could reach no farther without loosening my grip.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Do you want me to stop?”
I tightened my hold around his neck. “Don’t you dare. Don’t forget I know how to slit throats.”
His body shook with laughter, and thrusting upon each word for emphasis, he said, “You. Wouldn’t. Dare.”
“Not if you’re going to keep doing that,” I said with a moan I could not contain.
“Doing. What. This?”
“Yes, yes, that! Please keep doing that.”
He complied, speeding his pace, and I could not tell when pleasure had started to outweigh the pain, only that I wanted that burst of rapture again and urged him on. I didn’t care how loud my cries were or how tightly I gripped his arms, his shoulders, his back, anywhere I could reach, so long as he didn’t stop and kept pushing me toward the edge.
It came all of a sudden and with the same shock wave, ripping through me from head to toe. I cried out, and my body tightened around him, but he did not stop. Each thrust began to ache, but the little notches of pleasure between his brows were as glorious as his own rising series of moans, and when he did at last reach his climax, it was with so heartfelt a cry that I pressed into him with resurgent need.
Having thrust deep, he stayed there, breathing heavily as the last of his own pleasurable tremors faded away. Then letting out a groan, he dropped more of his weight onto me, our bodies entirely aligned and finally at rest. Except for my inability to take a deep breath.
“You’re heavy,” I said.
“It’s all the muscles.”
“Then can you move some of your muscles off me?”
He laughed. “Being kicked out already?” He slid back, and though he pulled out of me slowly, it hurt a lot more than I expected, and I winced. Something wet dribbled after.
“Oh shit, hold on,” he said. “I didn’t think of that.” And with a tired groan, he reached for the linen cloth on the wine tray. “Here, you might need to clean up.”
“How glamorous.” I pressed the cloth between my legs as I might have done had it been a bleeding day, but if he found anything incongruous or displeasing in the sight, he didn’t say so, just lay back beside me with a contented sigh. He wriggled an arm around me, and I found a comfortable spot with my head on his shoulder.
He was warm and soft, and for a time, the sound of his breathing was more delightful than the cheery songs echoing from the distant campfires.
“Is it… normal for men to ask permission like that?” I asked after a while, still holding the linen between my legs.
Beneath me, his shoulder jerked a little shrug. “I haven’t been in another man’s bed to know, but I doubt it. When… when my father was executed”—the word came hard from his lips, a jagged edge to its syllables—“we were left with nothing. In the beginning, there were a few lords willing to feed us and house us, but the longer Kin sat on the throne, the less trouble we were worth. We were poor, forced to move constantly, and Kimiko and I were only children. My mother did what she had to do to feed us, but the men who took joy in breaking her spirit slowly succeeded. And there was nothing I could do.”
I rolled to look at him, but he kept his frowning gaze upon the tent ceiling. “I’m sorry,” I said, unable to think of words that could ever bring comfort.
His arm tightened around my shoulder as though in thanks, and I pressed my lips to his cheek, lingering there as I breathed in the scent of his skin and ran my fingers through his hair.
From outside, Wen cleared his throat. “Your Majesty?”
“What is it?” Katashi called back, not moving.
“The messenger has returned from Suway with responses to your ascendance, Your Majesty. It is quite a full sack, and the messenger thought you might want to have them brought to you at once in case—”
I prepared for Katashi to leave, but keeping his arm around me, he called back, “Are the contents of those letters likely to change between now and morning?”
“Um, no, Your Majesty.”
“Then they can wait until morning.”
“Very good, Your Majesty.”
“You don’t have to stay,” I said as Wen repeated this to the unseen messenger. “I know you have a lot to do.”
He turned his head, mussing his hair even more. “I know I don’t have to stay, but you wanted me to and I want to. Unless you wish to see the back of me.”
“You do have
a very nice back.”
His smile flickered, though he tried to keep a straight face. “Archery will do that if you work hard. See this muscle here—” He rolled, pointing to one on the broad expanse of his back, but his shoulders shook with barely contained laughter and I slapped his arm.
“Very funny. Of course I want you to stay,” I said. “Even if all you talk about is archery and Hacho, I still want you to stay.”
Katashi rolled back, and kissing first my cheek and then my lips, he said, “One should never talk about their first love.”
No more messages came, but although we spent the night lying upon my sleeping mat, neither of us got much sleep.
Chapter 8
Darius
I woke with a dry mouth and the taste of horse on my tongue. When I drew a breath, there was still more horse, and I seemed to be rocking back and forth to the rhythm of clopping hooves. The sound hammered into my aching head, but the crowning agony of all was the throaty warble of someone singing.
I groaned and tried to open my eyes, but the light was too bright and I closed them again. At least the singing stopped.
“Awake, are you?” said a familiar voice. “Pity. I was enjoying the peace and quiet.”
Licking my lips was like rubbing sandpaper on sandpaper. “Water,” I managed.
Lady Kimiko sighed. “Fine, I guess we can stop for a bit.”
The horse began to slow, and shade soon darkened the world behind my closed eyes. Grass muffled Kimiko’s footfall, then as we stopped, her voice sounded behind me. “Need help getting down?”
Despite my uncomfortable position, the very idea of moving made me cringe, but without waiting for an answer, she gripped my hips. “Don’t fall on your arse now, will you, my lord,” she said as she pulled and I began to slide backward. My feet met the grass, but my knees buckled and I fell, hissing in pain, onto my hands and knees.
“What,” I said when I had regained some breath, “did you punch me with?”
“Not sure what it is,” she replied as she rustled about. “But your lovely brother gave it to me, so I figured it wouldn’t kill you. I made you drink it when you came around a few seconds after I punched you, which felt really good by the way. I’m hoping to get another chance at it.”
“You… made me drink borabark?”
“I said I don’t know what it was, only that he said I could use it to knock you out if I needed to. If you were being… recalcitrant I think was his exact choice of word.”
A waterskin was thrust into my hand and I drank, so desperate for the water that some poured down my chin and onto my robe.
“Hey, watch it.” Kimiko snatched the waterskin away. “We don’t know how far it is to the next water source.”
I closed my eyes at the endless drumming in my head and a body that seemed more ache than flesh. “Borabark,” I said. “And you call me a monster.”
“Did I? Well honestly, if I’d had to listen to you say another word, I might have strangled you, so really the bark stuff saved your life.”
“It’s not even made from bark, it’s made from sap, but when Master Yoto asked the people of the Eppachi tribe about it in 1102, they pointed at the bora tree, which has very unique and spiky—”
“Darius. Shut up or I’ll make you drink the rest.”
“That would only make it worse,” I said. “One of its side effects is making the brain… spin faster.”
“Brains don’t spin.”
I sighed. “Not literally. Oh gods, I think I preferred your singing.”
“Monster.”
My mind went on freewheeling through lines of unconnected thoughts, jumping around inside my head even as my body melted into the grass hopefully never to move again. We had given borabark to potential Vices in the early days, needing to keep them dopey and compliant while we worked, but it had only ever been a small dose. Consuming too much could knock someone out for days.
Kimiko had moved away and seemed to be talking to the horse. Where had she gotten it? At Koi? How had we even gotten out of the castle? Had she dragged me through the walls? Which way could she have escaped unseen carrying a dead weight? The questions piled around me as my thoughts went on dancing, but when at last I managed to open my eyes, the one I uttered was, “Where are we?”
We looked to have stopped on the side of a country track, the view nothing but fields and hills and trees and little flowers dancing in the breeze. A bird fluttered past, followed by its mate.
Kimiko stepped back from the horse’s head and set a hand on her hip. “I don’t know,” she said, tossing her wild curls as the wind tried to push them into her face. “You’re the one who’s telling me where to go, aren’t you?”
My confusion must have shown on my face, for she pointed at her heart where I had corrupted Malice’s mark the night before. Or had it been the night before that? Time felt slippery like an eel.
“First I tried leaving you there,” she said, counting this attempt on a finger. “When that was agony, I got you out of the damn castle and tried leaving you in the woods.” She checked off another finger. “Then I thought, hey, I’m not marked by Malice anymore, maybe I’ll go find Katashi. That one really hurt. So I tried to make it to the north road to head to Ji, but even dragging you with me, that was excruciating. So I tried doing nothing and just sitting there, which was soon almost as bad. Then I tried to kill you.”
She had recycled fingers by this point, and every breath she took seemed to be swelling her fury. “But that was even more terrible than all the rest, so I guess despite your self-professed willingness to die, you didn’t actually want to, so I stole a horse and have been taking you in the only direction it doesn’t hurt to travel. I have no idea where we are anymore, because I turn whenever there’s a tug of pain, and the rest of the time I daydream about all the ways I’d like to see you die.”
Kimiko turned away, a hand to her mouth as the last of her words lashed out, and I felt their sting as they hollowed my stomach and reddened my face. She had said nothing I had not deserved.
“I’m sorry,” I said, the words so weak and useless that I may as well have left them unsaid. “I didn’t know that would happen. I can’t even think where I’ve been unconsciously ordering you to take us.”
“Somewhere that’s ‘better for both of us,’ I imagine,” she said with a bitter laugh.
I set my head in my hands and wished the headache threatening to split my skull in two would just get on with it. “I said that, didn’t I.”
“You did. And that you had no choice and there was no other way, and you know what?” Kimiko turned back, her eyes red and her jaw pugnaciously jutting. “Had you said as much and we’d sat down and had an actual conversation about it and made a plan, I probably would have agreed and we could have avoided all of this. But no, you just had to go and do your—” She wiggled her fingers at me. “—thing without even letting me know, let alone asking for permission.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again. “I’m sorry, all right?”
“Not all right, no. Sorry isn’t good enough.”
“I panicked! All I could think about was that I didn’t want to go back to Malice—couldn’t—not if there was to be any chance of still being—”
I broke off. Even with the effect of the borabark, it was foolish to spill such truth to someone I had only just met and had no reason to trust.
“Of still being—?” she prompted when I shut my mouth with a snap. “Do please go on, because right now, I can’t make sense of you at all.”
I could refuse, could brush her off, could accept her hatred of me as the price I had to pay to safeguard my soul rather than let her in, but that was a choice I hadn’t let her have when I’d marked her.
“Good,” I said. “Me. Still being… this. I don’t know how to explain it to someone who isn’t an Empath, but…” I leant back against the trunk of the tree and closed my eyes. “There is… so much power in being able to feel every emotion and read people’s hearts,
being able to… inject emotion into people, to change their behaviours, to modify people to your exact specifications or simply break them by overloading their hearts.”
I paused, but she said nothing, no sound remaining but the rush of the wind through the leaves.
“We revelled in it when we were younger. We discovered we could mark people. We discovered we could give people an odd assortment of abilities, and we started testing to see how it worked. We took joy in the manipulation we could achieve with a single glancing touch or a drop of blood, and our enthusiasm fed one another. It was…” I drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Wonderful.”
A little crease appeared between her brows, but there was no judgement, no anger, just curiosity, and explanation went on pouring from my lips.
“I had been sick and weak and alone all my life, and now here was this brother who loved me and this strength I’d never had, and I didn’t have to be the boy who cried himself to sleep beneath a rotting blanket again. I could be whatever I wanted, whoever I wanted, and no one could stop me.” I sighed. “If you had taken me back to him, I’m afraid I wouldn’t have had the strength to keep telling myself that it’s wrong. I have been a monster too long to ever forget how much I loved it.”
When still she made no answer, I smacked my hands on my thighs. “Now why don’t you tell me which daydream you liked best so we can get my death over with?”
Kimiko tilted her head to the side, a curious little sparrow twitch at odds with the fierce glare of her bright eyes. Eventually, she shook her head. “No, even if you deserve it, you don’t get to escape that easily.”
“Why not? You tried to.”
She had turned back to the horse but looked over her shoulder at that. “What do you mean?”
“The borabark. You had it the whole time, yet you didn’t use it on me when I refused to go with you. You chose not to use it.”
A little smile twitched on her lips. “Yes,” she said. “I suppose I did.”