The Sixth Strand

by Melissa McPhail

  He spied Loukas hawkishly as he said this, seeking any hint of familiarity in Loukas’s expression. “The family hasn’t seen or heard from the boy in five years.”

  Tannour Valeri.

  Loukas kept a straight face, but his heart did a little leap upon hearing the name. To know it finally, after so long, somehow made him feel closer to the Vestian, as though they’d been sharing a secret bond all this time. He supposed that, in a sense, they had.

  Yet mention of the Sorceresy...these words cast a pall upon his heart. He understood now where the Vestian had been going when he vanished for weeks at a time. And he was a baddha, as Loukas had recently suspected, though he found it a painful truth to accept.

  The Lord n’Abraxis turned from the fire, his face reddened—by flames or by anger, Loukas couldn’t say. “You will give me the name of this boy who pulled you from the Ver, Loukas.”

  Loukas gaped at him. “But father—”

  “Was it this Tannour who saved you? A Vestian baddha?” he snarled the word with disgust.

  Loukas whispered, growing ever more fearful, “I don’t know, father.” But he did, of course. His friend had to be Tannour.

  “Baddhas are freaks of nature,” the Lord n’Abraxis spat, as if one of them wasn’t standing right there, “and the Vestian baddhas are the lowest of all. Useful, yes. A six-legged horse is useful when you need to get somewhere fast, but nothing changes the fact that it’s unnatural. Was it this boy, this Tannour, who saved you, and in whose dubious dwelling you spent three days?”

  Oh, how careful Loukas had to be in skirting this truth! He managed weakly, “I never knew his name, father.”

  The Lord n’Abraxis shifted a boiling gaze to the Adept. “Beat him until he admits it.” He turned back to the fire.

  Loukas was staring at his father in disbelief when the baddha ripped off his shirt and the first blow of the cane landed across his bare back. After that, he had his eyes shut so tightly that all he saw were stars.

  “What is his name?” The cane striped him again, spreading fire and lancing pain. “Is his name Tannour?” Chilling heat ripped through him.

  “I don’t know!” Loukas cried.

  “What is his name? Is his name Tannour?”

  And so it continued until Loukas was weeping—from the agony radiating through his back, or from his father’s distrust, or the contempt in his gaze...any or all of these.

  Seven blazing lashes, eight...nine...each one just shy of breaking the skin, expertly wielded to raise welts the size of snakes from shoulders to hip bones.

  “What is his name?” Lancing fire shot through him. His knees buckled and his breath left him, but the swaying chains held him up. “Is his name Tannour?”

  Loukas’s arms felt ready to rip from their sockets. His back burned a solid flame. He thought he might throw up. “I don’t know!”

  “Enough.” His father’s voice came low and brusque, yet Loukas thought it the dulcet tone of an angel in that moment.

  A whimper escaped on his shuddering exhale.

  The Lord n’Abraxis turned from the fire to stare at the baddha. “What say you, Ianver?”

  The baddha satya lowered the cane to his side. “He did not know the boy’s name, en Furie...”

  Loukas felt huge relief upon hearing this statement.

  “...but he maintains some deep, undue loyalty to the boy, whoever he is.”

  Loukas heard this with rousing desperation. “He saved my life!” he protested. Surely they could see he owed even a Vestian his gratitude!

  He kept this idea at the forefront of his thoughts, pushed it there like a mound of sand against a leaking dam. For he truly feared that the baddha could read his other thoughts, the deeper truth: that he wouldn’t have given Tannour’s name to his father, no matter what they did to him.

  Not all of this determination spawned from loyalty to the Vestian. A fair chunk of it derived from self-preservation. And while honor surely played some part, so did sheer willfulness.

  Loukas knew his father’s prejudices. The Lord n’Abraxis would leap on any excuse to start a blood feud with a prince of Vest. Loukas wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction.

  “Perhaps they have become lovers,” the baddha suggested.

  His father’s gaze narrowed upon him. “Did you lay with that boy?”

  Loukas blanched. “No, father!”

  His father’s gaze grew darker still. “If I ever learn that you’ve stuck your cock in a Vestian baddha, Loukas, the only thing you’ll fethe thereafter is the dog!” His dark gaze shifted appallingly to Ianver and back to Loukas, and he added in an acid snarl, “Livestock will be all you’re fit for.”

  Loukas stared at him, feeling raw.

  His father waved absently. “Release him.” He flung the poker at the hearth and made for the door.

  “Shall I send for the baddha bhisaj to heal him, en Furie?”

  His father turned in the doorway. He looked Loukas up and down, and a hundred shades of disdain shadowed his gaze. He clearly didn’t believe Loukas’s story, even with the baddha standing right there to confirm it.

  And perhaps...well, Loukas admitted his father would’ve had every right to doubt him—every right to beat him—if he’d known the whole truth of his interaction with Tannour. But the Furie didn’t know the whole truth. He only suspected it. Thus this beating was wholly unjustified by the codes of their land. Loukas vowed never to forgive him for that.

  As if seeing his guilt mirrored in Loukas’s accusing gaze, the Lord n’Abraxis said contemptuously, “Let my son stew in his misdeeds. Lock him in his rooms—a ten-day should be time enough.”

  A ten-day. It was the standard punishment for first-time offenders...but Loukas’s only offense was surviving the flood on the wrong side of the Ver.

  His father left with a slam of the door.

  Ianver unshackled his wrists, and Loukas dropped to his hands and knees. He stayed there while the baddha called a pair of guards to haul him away. He went without complaint, though his back was a fiery agony, he could barely move his arms, and his legs felt like jelly. They carried him to his rooms and dumped him inside. He lay on the floor breathing shallowly until he heard the click of the lock in the door.

  Yet the tumblers of Loukas’s defiance had already locked into place.

  What kind of man beat his child for returning safely home? What deep-rooted iniquity would drive a man to start a war with the family of the boy who kept his son safe?

  Loukas’s father suddenly seemed the epitome of everything he despised about the Fire Courts. And he certainly wasn’t spending ten days rotting in his rooms because his father couldn’t see out of the trench of his prejudices.

  He knew his way across the rooftops as readily as Tannour...and with Tannour was suddenly the only place Loukas wanted to be.

  Tannour, who understood him, who would be happy to see him, who shared his views on the idiocy of their two kingdoms’ mutual enmity.

  Tannour Valeri.

  His friend’s name rang in Loukas’s head like summoning bells, rang with clarity, as if now he knew everything there was to know about the Vestian. Ten days with Tannour...the very idea seemed heavensent.

  As Loukas secreted himself out of his father’s estate, he recognized the choice he was making and how it would appear. They would eventually know he’d left his rooms, but what could they do? So long as they didn’t catch him sneaking out, he’d be free to spend the time as he chose. And after the requisite ten-day period of punishment, his father couldn’t punish him again for the same crime. The Lord n’Abraxis would need a new accuser and new proof to call his son to heel, and Loukas would take steps to ensure he never got them.

  Before long, he was running awkwardly for the river, with his back a solid, searing mass of fire and his breath coming raggedly. Every step angered his tortured flesh, sent painful chills into his limbs and weakness into his legs. But to stay and endure the denigrating days of his father’s displeasure would�
��ve been much worse.

  He knew exactly how to slip unnoticed past his father’s guards and precisely where to jump into the Ver so the current would carry him to the far bank without ever having to lift an arm out of the water. On the Vestian side, he dragged himself into the cover of long grass and lay still in the moonlight while his back ached and his breath returned.

  Then he found his staggering way to Tannour’s lodge.

  The Vestian looked stunned when he opened his door, but not as stunned as Loukas felt when he heard Tannour say his name.

  Suddenly frozen to the bone, Loukas turned a wide-eyed look over his shoulder. “How did you know my name?”

  Tannour was staring at him as if every welt on Loukas’s back had his name written on it. Regret shadowed his gaze. He answered hollowly, “I’ve known your name for a long time, Loukas.”

  Loukas felt the energy of defiance suddenly draining out of him. His arms trembled at his sides. “I only just learned yours tonight.” He met Tannour’s gaze haltingly. “Tannour Valeri.”

  Tannour flinched. “Names aren’t supposed to matter to us.”

  “My father beat me for your name,” Loukas whispered.

  “It’s a good thing you didn’t know it then.”

  Loukas dropped his chin to his chest. “Look at me,” he choked out, hating how broken he sounded. “Look what he did to me.”

  Tannour arched brows resignedly. “What would he have done if he’d learned the truth?” He took Loukas’s arm gently and steered him towards the table, where he sat him down. “These wounds at least will heal.” He walked into his pantry, ostensibly to get something to treat said wounds.

  “My father told me you’ve been at the Sorceresy, that your family hasn’t seen you in years.”

  Tannour emerged from the pantry carrying several jars. “My family doesn’t know I’m here.” He set the jars on the table and opened them all, releasing pungent scents to mingle with the smells lingering from his evening meal. “The Sorceresy sends me out with specific tasks to accomplish. I can’t return until they’re completed.”

  Loukas looked over his shoulder at him. “What kind of tasks?”

  Tannour exhaled a slow breath. “Dangerous ones. Fethe, I shouldn’t be telling you any of this.”

  Loukas’s brow furrowed. “Why are you, then?”

  Tannour looked down at the jar in his hands. “Because I want to?” His blue-rimmed eyes lifted and held on Loukas. “Because I’ve wanted to for a long time. Because your father beat you for my name and you didn’t give it to him, and I owe you for that at least.”

  “How do you know I didn’t tell him your name?”

  Tannour blew out his breath. “By the Two Paths, Loukas, you sure wouldn’t be here if you had.” With a few quick, competent strokes he mixed an unguent out of the various concoctions, then began smearing it on Loukas’s back with his fingers.

  Loukas sucked in his breath with a hiss. “Fiera’s ashes, that stings.”

  Tannour just gave him a shadowy smile and kept at his work. His touch was uncommonly skilled, careful, and unless Loukas was reading him wrong...tender. As the unguent took effect, cooling the heat searing his flesh, soothing his aggrieved muscles, Loukas felt a different kind of heat stirring.

  He made fists of his hands and tried to focus on something else. “If you can come and go so freely, why don’t you go home?”

  “It’s forbidden.” Tannour smoothed the unguent over a welt behind Loukas’s shoulder blade, then moved to one along his spine. His thumbs caressed, his fingers soothed. Heat and pain vanished beneath his touch. “No ties. No family. No friends.”

  Loukas turned his head to capture his gaze. “What are we then?”

  The ghost of a smile hinted on Tannour’s lips. “Dead, if they discover us.”

  Loukas frowned at him. “That’s comforting.” He turned away again, feeling hostile towards the world in general and his father and the Sorceresy in particular.

  But Tannour’s unguent took rapid effect, and by the time the Vestian finished coating all of the welts, the pain in Loukas’s back had greatly diminished.

  Tannour brought him dry pants and set his boots by the fire. Then he served up a plate for him with the remains from his dinner and opened a new bottle of wine. A meal and three glasses of wine later, Loukas felt mostly restored of body and much restored of spirit.

  For a long time then, they sat in silence, staring at each other across the table, and not staring at each other across the table, and staring while trying to seem like they weren’t staring, all the while equally aware of each other’s presence, of their self-imposed silence, and of the unspoken thing dominating the space between them.

  Loukas ran a hand along the back of one shoulder and felt the welt nearly gone. The ointment that came away on his fingers smelled of lavender and rosemary and had an opaline sheen.

  He looked to Tannour.

  The Vestian felt Loukas’s eyes upon him and met them with his own.

  Loukas saw as much expectation as apprehension in Tannour’s gaze. He wondered which part of the unspoken thing between them made the Vestian apprehensive and which part made him hopeful, but he asked him only, “Is there magic in this stuff?”

  Tannour sipped his wine. “What would be the point of a healing salve that didn’t heal?”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  Tannour smirked. “It’s a kind of answer.”

  “If by answer you mean not answering the actual question, then sure.”

  Tannour’s eyes tightened, and their brief moment of levity faded. “Loukas...it might seem like we’re alone here, but we’re not. There are things I can’t say, and things I shouldn’t say, and things I simply won’t say. You have to make your peace with that if we ever have a hope of staying...friends.”

  He said friends, but Loukas heard together.

  Loukas ran his thumb along the lip of his goblet. “Because of the Sorceresy?”

  Tannour just looked at him.

  “Surely you could’ve told me that much at least.”

  “Better to say nothing than lie to you.”

  Loukas dropped his gaze to his wine. After a time, he offered quietly, “My father accused us of being lovers.”

  Tannour for once actually looked astonished. “Why would he think that?”

  “His baddha satya claimed I was showing an undue level of loyalty towards the boy who saved my life.”

  “Undue loyalty...” Tannour fell back in his chair. “You didn’t tell him anything about us while he was beating you? With a lightbender—I mean, a baddha satya standing right there?”

  Loukas shook his head.

  Tannour stared at him. “Why?”

  “It’s none of his business.”

  Tannour cracked an incredulous smile. “I think the Lord n’Abraxis would probably disagree with that.”

  “Fethe him,” Loukas growled into his wine. “He had me beaten for not dying.”

  A shadow passed over Tannour’s expression. He studied Loukas with deep silence in his gaze. He was utterly unreadable when he looked like that. “So what now?”

  Loukas shrugged. “I have ten days before I have to go back.”

  Tannour again looked surprised. “And you think to spend them here?”

  “Unless you don’t want me to.”

  He opened his mouth and closed it again. Then he stared at Loukas, clearly wanting to say something, and finally pushed out of his chair. “I’m not sure you really know what you’re doing.”

  Loukas followed him with his gaze. “What am I doing?”

  Tannour used a new log to adjust the ones already burning, then tossed it on top of the rest, releasing a flurry of sparks. Loukas could tell he was stalling—five years they’d spent with each other. He knew him better than anyone, even though he sometimes felt he didn’t know him at all.

  Finally, Tannour straightened, wearing a troubled look. “Do you really want to risk your father’s wrath?”

 
; He didn’t say for me, but Loukas heard it clearly enough. So they were coming to the unspoken thing at last.

  Loukas’s heart started beating faster. He set down his goblet and rose from his chair. Tannour watched him crossing the room towards him with an unreadable veil across his gaze but apprehension in his breath.

  Loukas stopped close enough to feel the fire’s heat trapped between them. They stood eye to eye. “Leave my father out of this,” he said, but what he meant was, This is between us.

  The Vestian’s dark silver tattoos seemed alive in the firelight. He watched Loukas closely, reading well the unspoken communication in his gaze. Tannour had always read him well.

  Then he shook his head, looking partly mystified and partly pleased, not so much uncertain as undecided. “You would take me for your lover.” He looked Loukas over intently. “Why? To get back at your father?”

  Loukas held his gaze. “I won’t deny it would anger him.”

  “Anger him. He might kill you.”

  “He would definitely kill you,” Loukas said.

  Tannour shook his head. “That’s harder to do than you think, Loukas, but you’ll be in real danger if we do this...” his brow furrowed, “and not just from your father.”

  Loukas shrugged. “He already believes it of me, so why not be what he thinks I am when...” he exhaled a slow breath, “when it’s something I’ve wanted for a long time?” Longer than he cared to admit, in truth.

  Tannour had the grace to look surprised. “And here I always thought I’d be the one seducing you.”

  “Tannour, you’ve been seducing me since the day you fired an arrow across the Ver.”

  The Vestian’s mouth curved in a dark smile. “True.”

  Their eyes held for a moment before dropping to each other’s lips, and then Tannour had his hand fixed around Loukas’s head and his mouth on his...and neither of them needed words to know where to take things next.

  %

  Loukas roused from the memory with that selfsame ache in his heart that always accompanied thoughts of Tannour, painful for the loss of their fraternity and for the betrayal that followed.

  Yet, even seeing the shockingly large pool of blood on the floor, Loukas couldn’t bring himself to believe that Tannour was gone. Tannour could heal himself from nearly anything if he communed.