The Voyages of Trueblood Cay

by Suanne Laqueur

  Trueblood’s hand pretended to slip beneath the covers and make the brave son of Khe rise up. “Look at you all full of truest blood.”

  A rustle behind him. “Did you say something?” Bel mumbled.

  “No. Goodnight.”

  Gods, do people in love get anything done, or do they just lie around being idiotic?

  He tossed and turned through the dark hours, not so much sleeping as chaining together a few catnaps. Finally, a little before dawn, he slipped out of bed and pulled on clothes. He headed down to the beach. Maybe the water would have some answers.

  Or he could just drown himself.

  The gods, legantos, have a terrible sense of humor. Often their idea of solving a problem is putting the problem directly in your path, then laughing as you deal with it.

  Trueblood stripped down and was about to wade into the pool when he realized Fen il-Kheir was there. Submerged to his chin and looking like he could strangle a kitten and feel nothing.

  Fuck my life, Trueblood thought. The thing he dreamed of all night was the last thing he wanted to see this morning. But it was too late now, his balls were literally out.

  “How’s the water?” he asked.

  “Wet.”

  “Good one.” He stepped into the cool depths and dove deep. He rolled and floated, letting the drink flow through body and mind. Turn a page and start fresh. He emerged with a gasp and swam toward a pile of marble, keeping his distance from the kheiron.

  Think before you speak, a wise voice within said. Not speaking is also an option.

  The hoop in Fen’s eyebrow was gone. Where it once hung was a healing gash, bisecting his eyebrow.

  Without moving his head, Fen’s gaze swiveled to Trueblood, then looked away again. “Did you come to gloat?”

  “No. Rather the opposite.”

  “Can’t see why. You got the better deal in this story’s ending.”

  “You think?”

  “Spare me your wide-eyed charity.”

  “Look, I—”

  “Spare me your thoughts as well. I’m not interested in anything you have to say right now.”

  “If you think this is easy—”

  “Oh fuck you,” Fen said. “Easy is your middle name. You just sit there and look cute while the world arranges itself around you. You got my stone and my ring. You got a brand new ship and a crew who adores you. You got to fuck a queen and now she’s paying the top whore in Valtourel to keep your cock wet.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Fen stared at him a beat, then chuckled out his nose. “Gods, you are stupid,” he said. “They want you to find a colossal tree when you can barely see past the end of your nose.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Belmiro’s a prostitute. Oh wait, sorry, I believe courtesan is the polite term. A top-tier, extremely expensive courtesan, but let’s be real. He’s a whore. He used to turn tricks on the wharves in Alondra, now he’s being paid to fuck you.”

  Trueblood stared. Then he sliced his hand through the water, sending a wave of it in Fen’s direction. “You are so full of shit.”

  “Naria told me herself. She thinks you’re a great lay but she doesn’t have time or energy for the amount of attention you need. So she delegated the job to Bel. Both jobs.”

  “Get the fuck out of here.”

  “Better grow up, Trueblood. You can’t shelter under the queen’s skirts forever. Although right now, they fit you better than Ikharus’s pretty blue coat.”

  The skirt comment didn’t bother him, but his father was off limits. His fingers closed around a loose hunk of marble and fired it at the kheiron. He wasn’t angry enough to aim for Fen’s head. He wanted to put the kheiron back in his place, not kill him. He popped the rock on the meaty ball of Fen’s shoulder, hard enough to break the skin.

  “Son of a bitch,” Fen cried.

  “Your face was getting crowded with your finest moments,” Trueblood said. “Thought I’d spread them out a little.”

  Sparks were in Fen’s blue eyes. “Try that again and you won’t have a face left.”

  “Wrap your mouth around my father’s name again and you can kiss your pretty silver ring goodbye.”

  Oh fuck I’m dead, he thought as the kheiron lunged at him. He flexed his knees, pushed off and dove out of the way. He kicked hard as he headed for shore, expecting a hand to close around his ankle at any second.

  He’ll kill me and throw my body over the seawall. No, first he’ll break every bone in my body, then throw me over the seawall to drown.

  And he’ll enjoy it.

  When the sand of the shallows scraped his chest, Trueblood came up, braced for attack but also considering running for his life.

  From the deep water, Fen stared, his malevolent gaze a strung bow, the arrow pointing straight at Trueblood.

  Fire away, the kepten thought, letting the narrow escape make him cocky.

  The kheiron slowly shook his head. “Go back to your whore, Kepten. Wasting the queen’s money has to be some kind of capital offense.”

  Shaken, stunned, and more pissed off than he could remember being in his life, Trueblood seized his breeches, turned his back and dragged them onto his wet legs. He needed to get to the bottom of this whore shit.

  “This whore shit is horseshit,” he mumbled.

  It had to be horseshit, right?

  He’d find out.

  “How do you even initiate that conversation?” he said, untangling the sleeves of his shirt. “Héjo, Bel, can I ask you something? Are you a prostitute? Oh, no reason, just wondering.”

  Chaotic splashing made him turn around. Fen was pulling himself out of the pool, muscles standing out in long cords on his arms. With a final grunt, he toppled on the grass.

  “Oh,” Trueblood said, stupidity putting an arm around his brain. “You have your legs on.”

  Fen shook the water off his head, then glared at him. “My legs on?”

  “Sorry, I meant… Sorry.”

  “You really are too stupid to live.” He dragged his hands over his face, then he stood up. Blood dripped from his shoulder wound and water sluiced down his skin. One of the art books in Abrakam’s library couldn’t have constructed a more perfect specimen of man, down to the last pubic hair.

  Trueblood quickly dropped his gaze to Fen’s legs. Mighty and mythic and immutable. Then they buckled beneath him and he crashed forward into the grass.

  “Careful,” Trueblood said. “You need help?”

  “I don’t need anything from you.” Fen stood slowly, took one wobbling step and halted. His long legs rippled as he locked his knees. The muscles in his jaw bulged even tighter.

  Is it painful for him to walk? Trueblood thought. Or just difficult?

  His eyes widened then, locking onto Fen’s waist where a silvery line traced. Fainter than the etchings of his retracted wings. A pale demarcation line across the small of his back, hugging each hip and curving along the iliac lines that framed his abdomen. The boundary where man and horse met.

  Trueblood’s fingertips itched and his mouth watered. Belmiro didn’t have a line like that. Or maybe he did, but his pale skin made it indiscernible. Fen’s skin was the warm, pale brown of an eggshell and through it, the silvery belt glistened like magic.

  “What the fuck are you staring at?” Fen said through his teeth.

  “Nothing,” Trueblood said, noting that like Belmiro, Fen was shorter when he was in humos.

  “Want me to hold still while you make an oil painting?”

  “Sure. You can hang it in your cabin and then you won’t have to talk to anyone you don’t like.”

  Fen’s hands went to fists. “Let’s get a few things straight, sailor. I’ll get on your ship but don’t expect a damn thing else. My father’s got my charm hostage and I’m doing it for them. You�
��re not my kepten, I’m not your subordinate. We’re nothing close to friends and just so it’s crystal clear, I don’t bed men. So close your fucking mouth and get that idea out of your head.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself it was ever in my head.”

  “Good. Because bottom line, I hate your guts.”

  “The feeling’s mutual.”

  “Glad we agree on something, man.”

  Man was spit out like the vilest of insults, landing wet and contemptuous on Trueblood’s face. He yanked his shirt on and started up the path toward the palace, kicking rocks out of his way and muttering under his breath.

  It took all of twenty steps for him to start feeling like shit. He stopped in his tracks and sighed, painfully aware of Fen’s situation and the kind of man his father raised him to be.

  I should help him.

  No. Right now, doing the right thing will only make things worse. Leave him be.

  His neck ached with the effort not to look around and see if Fen was all right.

  Don’t look back. You can help him by not watch him stumble and fall. Don’t fucking look at him when he’s like this.

  Because he’d rather die.

  He walked on, conscious of every step. The precise physics of locomotion he normally gave zero thought. He imagined every heel-to-toe roll feeling like broken glass or knives in his soles. Every foot fall costing a monumental effort.

  He walked on, pondering all these things in his heart, where anger and confusion battled with compassion. His pride smarted and sulked, licking its wounded feelings. Yet each footfall was a kick to Fen’s pride. He had suffered injuries Trueblood couldn’t even imagine.

  He was pissed off enough to throw another rock at the kheiron, and at the same time, he felt compelled to protect him.

  And when he thought about the pale silver line circling Fen’s waist, he desperately wanted to touch it.

  Belmiro was awake and sitting up when Trueblood returned to his room.

  “Where’d you go?” he said through a yawn.

  “Oh, down to the grotto to have a swim and get in a fight with Fen.”

  “For real?”

  “Yeah. It was epic.”

  Belmiro scratched his stubble. “No offense to your masculinity, but I’m shocked you got out of it unscathed. He’s one sick stallion when he’s pissed off.”

  “He’s also at a slight disadvantage right now.”

  “Oh.” Belmiro drew the word out long, nodding. “You’re right.”

  “Still, he’s got interesting psychological warfare skills.”

  “Yes, our Fen does know how to find a person’s weakness.”

  “Mm.” Trueblood dug in his dresser drawer for a dry shirt.

  “He get under your skin?”

  “Sort of.”

  “You want to talk about it?”

  Trueblood turned around to face him. “How much does Naria pay you?”

  “Pardon?”

  “How much do you get paid to sleep with me?”

  Belmiro’s mouth hung poised above his chin, then slowly closed. “Fen, you unbelievable bastard,” he murmured.

  Trueblood stared. “He was telling the truth?”

  The kheiron exhaled roughly. “For the first time in my life I’m speechless.”

  “That makes two of us.” He picked up Belmiro’s breeches from the floor and handed them to him.

  “Are you throwing me out?”

  “No, I just think this is a conversation better had with pants on.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Watching Bel dress, Trueblood’s mind flipped backward through the affair. The fun, the laughs, the questions and answers. The rare serious moments and the rarer tender ones. And the sex.

  All for money? Only for the money?

  “It’s not like I was thinking we were in love,” he said. “But Khe, I did think you were in my bed by choice.”

  “I was,” Belmiro said.

  “Then what the fuck was the money for?”

  “Because… Gods, how do I even explain this?”

  “This? You mean the job?”

  “It wasn’t a job.”

  “You can argue semantics all you want, but sleeping with me had a price. You were paid.” Trueblood motioned to the bed. “This was paid for. You joked about not doing a good job the other night but it wasn’t a joke. I was a job.”

  Belmiro scrubbed his hands through his hair. “I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry.”

  Trueblood felt both sorry and sick. All the decadent sex sat in his gut like a rich dessert eaten too fast. Washed down with money and giving him indigestion. “Thanks a fucking lot,” he said.

  Belmiro was fidgeting foot to foot and glancing repeatedly at the door. “I should go,” he said. “You probably want to think about this and I have one—”

  “One or two things to do in town,” Trueblood said. “Does that mean customers?”

  Bel’s chin raised a hair. “Clients,” he said, the S crisp behind his teeth. “And if you want to shit on my profession to make yourself feel better, I suggest you save your breath.” He crossed his arms, fingertips drumming on his bicep.

  “Why do you do it?” Trueblood asked.

  “For the money.”

  “You have no other way of making money?”

  “Not the amount I need.”

  Trueblood shook his head a little. “What are you buying?”

  “Fadara.”

  A long, swollen silence.

  “Do you get it now?” Belmiro said quietly.

  “I…”

  “I’m addicted to fadara. I’ve been addicted since I was sixteen.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you get I fuck for a living so I can buy the shit that helps me live?”

  “I do now,” Trueblood said.

  “Then know I’m in some kind of pain all the time. When I say all the time, I mean every minute of every day.”

  “From your legs?”

  “Yes. Doesn’t matter if equos, humos, kheiros. It hurts all the time. It’s not your fault, I’m just explaining my situation. If I’m on fadara, I can function in polite society and play nicely with others. If I’m coming off it, I become extremely unpleasant. If I’m not on it, you don’t want to know me. My life is pain management on a really desperate scale. The kind of scale where selling myself is a viable option. Plus I have no problem admitting I’m good at it.”

  “Have you ever tried to stop?”

  “Oh Gods, Pé, grow up.”

  Stung at being told twice in the space of an hour, Trueblood walked away to the window.

  “Sorry,” Belmiro said. “That was harsh and I’m between doses.”

  “I wondered why you were always so surly in the mornings.”

  “It’s a mean withdrawal.”

  “Apparently.”

  “Pé.” Belmiro’s hands settled on Trueblood’s shoulders. “I’m sorry. I meant it when I said you were something. I meant everything I said to you.”

  “When you were high and fucking me for money.”

  A long sigh against the back of Trueblood’s neck. “I’m sorry it ended up this way.”

  “Did you ever plan on telling me?”

  “No.”

  “How much did she pay you? No, don’t answer that. Forget I asked. I don’t want to know.”

  He drew a deep breath, flicked off Bel’s hands and turned around. “Look, I don’t know much about addiction but is there anything that can help you?”

  “Think I haven’t looked?”

  “I said I don’t know a lot about this, all right? Don’t rub my face in my ignorance and then kick me when I’m trying to get informed.”

  Belmiro squeezed his eyes shut. “Sorry. I’m coming down into unpleasantnes
s and starting to crave. To answer your question, what could help me is Nye. But as you know, not much of it is in the world.”

  “Despite being the village idiot, I do know this.”

  “I stole some once,” Belmiro said, drawing his toe along the carpet.

  Trueblood’s eyes widened. “You stole Nye?”

  “Yeah. I lifted Torenn Treeblood’s keys to the vault.”

  A sudden anger surged behind the kepten’s eyeballs. “My mother used to wear those keys.”

  The blood drained out of the kheiron’s face.

  “I was hiding in her wardrobe when the minotaurs killed her to get them. Then they set the palace on fire. The kheirons —”

  “I don’t need a history lesson, Pé.”

  “Those were my mother’s keys.”

  Belmiro stepped back, palms in the air. “I’m sorry. I returned them and didn’t kill anyone.”

  “Doesn’t make it right.”

  “I know. I’m not making excuses. It’s a capital offense and if I got caught, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. The point is, I was clean for a month. Best month of my life. At that point, I hadn’t been pain-free in ten years. I took one grain of Nye and it was like a war ending. I forgot what peace was. I cried every day because everything was so beautiful. No withdrawal. No craving. No fixing. No pain. I tried to make it last. I held onto the last grain until I was foaming at the mouth, I hurt so much. Then it was gone and I had to go back to fadara.”

  “Oh fuck everything everywhere,” Trueblood said. He sat on the bed, feeling like holy horseshit.

  “I know. So.” The kheiron took a deep breath and made a vague gesture toward the window. “While you’re out there, if you find all this woo-woo prophecy written in stone actually has some weight, and you find nine stars to reattach a tree to the sky and make Nye grow again… I’d be grateful.”

  His tone began sardonic but trembled with a simple sincerity at the end. It was a quiet entreaty, and Trueblood’s soul wrapped around it. Here was a task for him. Maybe not the most lofty or noble, but it was a purpose. A job that could be done well.

  “What are you smiling about?” Belmiro said.

  “I’m the kind of lad who does best when he has a set goal,” Trueblood said, standing up. “I think you just gave me one.”