Sin and Soil

by Anya Merchant

  It was Vel, surprisingly, who responded first. “I’m… managing.”

  “If you’re not comfortable, Vel, we can always stop and shift around,” he said.”

  She cleared her throat, her body still moving ever so slightly along the dangerous path they’d both committed to. “It’s fine. For now. I’ll tell you if I need to stop.”

  The rational part of Damon’s mind, the part that understood the complications and consequences of what they were doing, wished that she hadn’t said that. The rest of him wanted to use her like one of the cheap whores she’d accused him of bedding earlier.

  “We’re almost there,” said Malon. “Hang on. This last part is always the bumpiest.”

  She wasn’t exaggerating. The last section of the road leading through the Malagantyan Forest was riddled with rocks and potholes, so much so that Vel began to bounce up and down against Damon’s crotch.

  He took hold of her hips, pulling her down each time with firm, dominant movements. Pulling her down along the turgid length of his manhood, making her aware of it, showing her the full extent of what she’d done.

  It was as close to sex as two people could get with their clothes on. And in truth, in Damon’s firmly held opinion, it was as close to sex as he and Vel, nearly brother and sister in all but name, could ever knowingly get.

  “Oh…” whispered Vel.

  Her voice had been louder than she realized, loud enough for Malon to hear.

  “It’s rough, but we’re almost through,” she said. “Try not to fight against the bumps. Just lean into them.”

  Damon bounced Vel up and down, far beyond caring if they were caught and what Malon would say. He cupped her breasts, blatantly pinching one of her nipples while simultaneously kissing her neck. He felt Vel suddenly stiffen, squeezing her thighs tight around his cock, back arching, hips jerking for more.

  He could feel a faint moisture down there, enough to know that they’d need to do a bit of clothing readjustment to keep the wetness from showing. He was still flexing his hips, dry thrusting up into her, a finger count of movements away from making a hot, sticky mess in his pants.

  “Finally!” said Malon. “Solas, do you mind walking alongside the cart now? It would be unseemly for seta to still be in your lap when we enter the town proper.”

  Damon took a deep breath before answering in a somewhat successful attempt to calm himself down. “If you think it’s necessary.”

  Vel twitched in his lap and stayed suspiciously silent. He rubbed her knee for a second and then carefully shifted her off his lap before hopping down, hiding both his arousal and his disappointment.

  CHAPTER 18

  Damon had spent enough time traveling the greater Veridan’s Curve region to understand Morotai within the greater context of the colonized area. The defining aspect when viewed from afar was still the pale, scorch marked stone of most of the buildings.

  The direct definition of Malagantyan was “fire washed” or, in more literal terms, “hell born.” Damon still had youthful memories of intense forest fires encroaching on his peaceful life within the tower house, held at bay only by the clearing and the strange calming effects of the lake.

  Morotai was a rural town defined by the resilience of its residents. It was only when the fires grew to the point of actual inferno that they would retreat from their homes, willing to accept temporary defeat in place of loss of life.

  But the central aspect of that retreat was available only due to the town’s unique architecture. The pale stone of uncertain origin that the most of Morotai’s architecture was made of, termed rem stone by the Merinian majority population, was practically invulnerable to heat.

  The wooden buildings, often built as extensions to the native buildings, were anything but. Damon had always found the contrast fascinating as a child, in no small part due to how neatly it mirrored the contrast between the town’s residents.

  Malon waved a hand from where she still sat atop the wagon at a Vestatille, the quiet Rem scout who had served as Morotai’s unofficial town guard for as long as Damon could remember. He stood atop the lookout tower just outside the palisade, his silhouette spindly against the rising sun and recognizable primarily by the defining features of the Rem, long limbs, long ears, intricate facial tattoos.

  The animosity between the colonial Merinians and the native Remenai had always been muted in Morotai, only bubbling to the surface when outside instigators from either of the two races passed through the village. Life was simple and quiet for the towns citizens, and it was held in bad taste to judge a person on grounds outside of their actions or character.

  A group of Rem children in traditional spiral tunics played alongside a smaller Merinian boy who seemed intent on catching or at least tagging the others. An older Remenai woman watched them with a patient smile on her face, occasionally whistling when their roughhousing grew too intense.

  Morotai’s main feature was its simple market square and the free-standing wooden inn, the largest building town and a statement of the stubbornness of the Merinian majority, given how often it had been decimated by the fires and reconstructed. Half a dozen vendors were set up and tending to customers, selling their goods out of small tents or the backs of wagons.

  Most of it was local, fruit and fresh bread and simple furniture, but Damon saw imported goods as well, dyed clothing from Merinia and albino chickens from the Exodus Islands. The other traders greeted Malon with grins and waves, and in one instance, a flirtatiously blown kiss.

  “Solas, seta,” said Malon. “Can you help me unload? Denya has graciously agreed to buy our produce. The casks will go to Bart at the inn, so he’ll have his boys help us with those.”

  Vel let out an annoyed groan. Damon shot her a chastising glance. “Of course we’ll help, aesta.”

  They carried out the melons and water fruit, setting each one down at the guidance of Denya, an old farm woman who remembered them fondly from their youth.

  “These are my Milly’s favorite,” she said. “So ripe. You must have had a terrific growing season this year, Malon. I can give you twenty-five sables for the lot, easy.”

  “That’s it?” asked Damon. “Twenty-five silver sables for this entire harvest?”

  His tone carried more gall than he’d intended it to, and Denya frowned at him, tutting her annoyance in a familiar manner.

  “Damon isn’t used to how things are here in Morotai,” said Malon, apologetically. “It’s more than enough, Denya.”

  She set a hand on Damon’s shoulder and gently drew him away from the wagon as Denya proceeded to begin loading some of the choicest fruits into open spots across her stall. Malon looped her arm through Damon’s, smiling as she began guiding him toward the doors of the Smoke and Stage, Morotai’s sole inn.

  “You’re really going to accept that paltry payment?” he asked.

  “Money spends further here in Morotai, solas,” she said, brushing a loose strand of red hair out of her face. “People also have less of it. If I demanded what the same harvest might go for in a city, no one here could pay. We make up the difference with kindness when we can. For example, Denya’s son is the local butcher, and I’m sure when I buy fresh meat tomorrow, he’ll quote us a reasonable price.”

  “Yeah, but…” He shook his head, wishing he had a better way to phrase what he was about to say. “I was nearly making that much off each of my gladiator bouts in Avaricia for a single evening. If I’d known that you were only making this much off your entire harvest…”

  Malon smiled and pulled closer to him, patting her hand on his pectoral muscle. “I appreciate the thought, but I haven’t struggled, solas. I’m proud of your success, but I would never ask anything of you like that, truly.”

  She was still smiling and staring into his eyes as they passed through the door of the Smoke and Stage. The inn was run by a plump woman named Jonna, who handled all the cooking, and her heavily bearded and usually silent husband, Bart, who tended the bar.

  “
Malon!” Jonna was in the common room, attacking a dust pile with a broom. “I was starting to think that you might poke your way into town one of these weeks. It’s that time of year, yeah? And I see you finally took my advice and found a husband!”

  She looked toward Damon, who felt his face flush with heat as he realized that she was talking about him. He looked to Malon for rescue, but she was blushing even harder and struggled to get her correction out over the next few seconds.

  “Oh, no… you see, um…” She glanced downward, her face nearly matching her hair in an uncharacteristic display of embarrassment. “Jonna, this is Damon. Remember Damon?”

  Vel burst into laughter somewhere behind them, which didn’t help alleviate Malon’s flustered state.

  Jonna brought a hand to her mouth. “Oh! I am positively mortified! Damon, you’ve grown so tall! I simply assumed, given how particular Malon is about her various suitors despite being so beautiful that one of them finally… ahem. Bart! Get them some cider, will you?”

  Malon cleared her throat, walking with Damon toward the bar and regaining her conversational stride in the process. “It’s fine, really. Speaking of drinks, we also brought two casks of waterfruit wine for the inn.”

  “I was hoping that might be the case,” said Jonna. “The last batch you made was so popular that it barely lasted a month. We’ll have no trouble selling it, Malon, and can pay you a premium. I’ll call the boys to help you move it. Boys!”

  “Are you talking about Obi and the twins?” asked Vel, stepping out from behind the others. “True Divine, it’s been an age since I’ve seen them.”

  “Velanor!” Jonna grinned and pulled her into a hug. “You’ve turned into such a beautiful young woman! Malon, you must be so thrilled to have the both of them back! Is Ria…?”

  Malon gave a small, somewhat pained shake of her head, and Jonna quickly changed the subject. “How was your journey out?”

  She and Malon stepped apart from the others, but Jonna’s children stomped into the inn from outside, neatly filling the pause. The twins came first, two young boys around ten years of age with curly brown hair and ruddy faces.

  “Vel!” They both shouted, running toward her in unison.

  “Jase and Joss!” Vel flashed one of the first true smiles Damon had seen her express since arriving back at the farm. “You’re so big now!”

  Damon got the sense that he’d be hearing that sentiment expressed at least a few more times over the course of the day. Behind the boys stood a young teenager who took more after his father, with a robust frame and patchy facial hair that Damon suspected he was stubbornly refusing to shave.

  “Obi,” he said, smiling and reaching out his arm. “Remember me?”

  “…Damon?” he said. “They said you left. To be a gladiator or something.”

  “I did,” he said. “Now I’m back.”

  Obi nodded, his face turning thoughtful as he looked past Damon, toward Vel. She smiled and waved at him, and the rate at which Obi seemed to recede into a shy state of awkwardness reminded Damon of his own early teenage years.

  He was about to do his best at getting Obi talking again when he overheard the way the twins were interacting with Vel, particularly the questions they were asking her.

  “Are you a virgin?” asked Joss.

  Damon watched Vel blinking in either surprise or disbelief.

  “That’s… not the sort of question you ask a lady,” said Vel.

  “So you aren’t, then?” said Joss.

  “If you’re not a virgin, does that mean you’re going to be a courtesan?” asked Jase. “My mom says only girls who plan on making a career as a courtesan lose their virginity as a teenager.”

  “I’m not… you can’t just…”

  “Courtesan means whore!” Joss grinned and pointed a finger at Vel. “Jase, you just called Vel a whore! I’m telling mother!”

  “I didn’t call her a whore, I said courtesan!” cried Jase. “And I didn’t call her that. I just asked…”

  “Damon…” said Vel, in a pouty voice. “Help me.”

  “Hey boys, check out my sword,” he said, drawing his thankfully still blunted blade from its scabbard.

  CHAPTER 19

  Malon and Jonna eventually meandered outside along with the boys to move the casks out of the wagon. Damon made to follow and lend his help, but Malon pressed a gentle hand against his chest and shook her head.

  “You’ve done enough, solas,” she said. “Sit down at the bar and take Jonna up on the cider she offered.”

  She kissed him, pressing her lips against his for what felt like a hot instant that lasted just a little too long.

  Jonna tisked and shook her head. “And you wonder why I mistook him for your husband…”

  “Jonna,” said Mal, warning her with a frown.

  The two women departed with Jonna’s boys, and Damon took a seat next to Vel at the bar, who looked fairly out of place in her nuanced spring dress and lavishly cared for hair. She had a mug in front of her of deep amber cider and made a slightly guilty face when she noticed him watching her.

  “Aesta wouldn’t approve,” he said, pulling his own mug of hard cider toward him.

  “Are you going to tell her?” asked Vel.

  “No,” he said. “If you drink it fast enough, I bet you could down another before she gets back.”

  A slow smile crept across Vel’s face and she took another sip before letting out a sigh. “It’s really good. I suppose it has to be, given how little there is to do in this tiny town.”

  “There’s plenty to do,” said Damon. “Just nothing that interests someone of your particular…”

  He made a rolling motion with his hand as he tried and failed to find a word that was accurate without being insulting. Vel didn’t seem to notice or care.

  “Morotai always seemed so small and inconsequential when I was young,” she said. “Even when it was the only town I really knew. I was hoping that it would seem different when I came back.”

  “Different how?”

  She shrugged. “It essentially serves as a colonial outpost. A touchstone for the farms attempting to draw value from the Malagantyan’s fertility. I thought I might see it differently with a better understanding of that context.”

  “But you don’t.”

  “Do you?” asked Vel. “You’ve traveled at least some, Damon. You’ve seen real towns and cities before. What do you think of this place?”

  He could tell it was a serious question for her, a meaningful one that she hadn’t asked by accident. He ran a finger along the handle of his mug, looking into her striking blue eyes and giving her his full attention as he considered his answer.

  “It’s not about the place, but the people,” he said. “Morotai is filled with kind, honest people. What traveling has taught me, Vel, is that those are a lot rarer than you’d assume.”

  “As nice as that sounds, it’s a bit naïve,” said Vel. “There aren’t even that many people here.”

  “I prefer to think of myself as well-adjusted.” He took a long sip of his cider, savoring the conflict between the alcohol and sweetness. “I’ve got a good drink, good company. That’s enough to satisfy me.”

  Vel rolled her eyes. Damon was in the middle of anticipating her next bratty retort when a new voice drew his attention toward the inn’s entrance.

  “Damon? Damon Al-Kendras?”

  A young woman with chestnut brown hair and a sizable bust had just entered the common room with a smile on her face and a slightly furrowed brow. She wore a low-cut dancer’s dress, thin shoulder straps and multiple layers of thin, brightly dyed skirts intended to billow outward during spins.

  It took him longer than it should have to recognize her. “Bylia? True Divine, it’s been so long!”

  “Three years,” she said, nodding. “I was only seventeen when we last met.”

  Bylia was far prettier than Damon remembered, though a certain amount of that may have been due to the influence of the h
ard cider. He’d first met her in Silke, eastern Veridan’s Curve, where she and her older sister, Brienne, had traveled with their troupe for a time as songstresses.

  Austine had been a philanderer even back then, and for a time, he and Brienne had been an item. Damon had spent many quiet nights serving as Bylia’s platonic date, as she’d still been underage at that time. Still, they’d gotten along quite well, and keeping those encounters chaste had often been a serious challenge.

  “I’m surprised to see you here, of all places,” said Damon.

  Bylia flashed a smile that instantly reminded him that she had an incredible smile. “That’s my line, sir gladiator. I’ve been the resident minstrel here at the Smoke and Stage for nearly four months now.”

  “My childhood home is one of the colonial farms in the Malagantyan,” said Damon. “We came to sell produce in the market.”

  “Are you staying the night?” asked Bylia.

  It was only then that she seemed to notice and acknowledge Vel. There was a moment of appraisal between the two women, and Damon felt like the true depth of the hidden subtleties exchanged in their brief instant of eye contact and attention was lost on him.

  “Is she your…?” Bylia trailed off, raising an eyebrow.

  “This is Velanor,” he said, quickly. “We grew up together under the same aesta, Malon.”

  He pointed back through the open door toward where Malon was still helping roll one of the wine casks toward the inn. The twins were buzzing around her, alternating between helping and stealing crouched glances that Damon suspected were intended to sneak glimpses down her dress.

  “She’s your aesta?” asked Bylia, shaking her head. “She looks so young, though. Is it really just the three of you on the farm?”

  He nodded, feeling accused in a way he couldn’t quite place. “We have the horses, too.”

  Bylia and Vel both snorted in near unison, which seemed to catch them both off guard. They eyed each other again, with Bylia glancing back toward Damon first.

  “I’m performing tonight,” she said. “Will you at least stay to hear my song?”