Like Fire Through Bone

by E. E. Ottoman

  VASILIOS gasped and woke to pain. He lay on his stomach on a bed and his back felt like he’d had all the skin and a large part of the flesh torn off. He bit his lip hard to keep from making any sound and then slowly turned his head.

  He was in his room in Panagiotis’s house. The room was more barren. Many of his things, including the writing desk, had been removed, and the bed he lay on was smaller than the one that had once been there. The room, though, was unmistakable.

  Vasilios frowned and squinted, unsure what to do. He had no idea how he’d gotten there, or why he was there at all. It made no sense. He tried moving a little, and his body screamed at him to stop, but it was definitely not as bad as he’d thought when he’d first woken. His entire chest and back were bandaged, but he could feel the wounds had already started to heal. Frowning, he wondered how long he’d been unconscious to allow that to happen. He turned his head again and managed to make out someone by the window where his desk had once been. After a moment, he realized it was Nereida. Dressed simply in dark-blue linen trousers and long tunic, she stood staring out the window. He must have made a small noise because she turned toward him, her eyes widening, and then a smile spread across her face.

  “Vasilios.” She moved across the room to the bed. “You’re awake, thank God. You had a fever and wouldn’t wake, and I feared the worst.”

  “What?” Vasilios tried to say, but his voice came out in a hoarse whisper. Nereida reached over and picked up a cup from the bedside table and helped him drink. “Why are we here?” he finally asked, when his voice was a little stronger. “How did we get here?”

  “I brought us here,” Nereida said. “After Anthimos beat you, I didn’t know where else to go. My parents are dead, and my older brother is still alive, but he would refuse to take us in no matter what Anthimos had done. I know, I’ve tried to go to him before.” She shook her head. “Eudoxia owns this house, Panagiotis gave her rights over it until her death, and she took us in. She’s been good to us, actually, she’s kept Anthimos away from both of us every time he comes here. She told him if he wants either of us back, he needs an order from the Emperor himself to do it. Until then he can’t so much as see us.” She helped him drink again. “And General Markos has been here too, twice, but she hasn’t let him see us either. I thought—” She shook her head. “Never mind. I’m glad you’re awake now.”

  “I need to see him.” Vasilios licked his dry, cracked lips and began piecing together the strange dream he’d had. “There’s something I need to tell him.”

  “I can tell Eudoxia that’s what you wish, but it’s up to her if she allows it or not.”

  “Yes.” Vasilios turned his face away. “I know.”

  “I’m going to get you something for your pain and some food, if you feel like you will be able to eat it.” Nereida stood and headed for the door.

  Vasilios lay there, listening to her leave, and tried not to move or jar anything. There was a cross on the wall right next to the bed that hadn’t been there when he’d lived here before. A small table had been moved beside the bed with a pitcher of water, a basin, some bandages, a candle, and a small painted icon of a female saint he couldn’t identify.

  He needed to talk to Markos and tell him about the dream. He wanted to see him, let Markos know he was all right, and talk to him a little. If he thought he’d be able to move, he would have gotten up and gone to find Markos, no matter what anyone said or thought. He was tired. Tired of thinking that if he put his head down and did what he was told things would be all right. They were not all right, might never be all right again. The realization was terrifying but also made him feel light, as if his insides had been hollowed out and rinsed clean. If Anthimos wanted him back, he would need to kill him this time. Strangely, that thought made him feel lighter too.

  The door opened, and Nereida came back into the room carrying a tray. She put it down on the small table beside the bed and picked up a cup from it.

  Vasilios tried to sit up enough to drink but fell back, gasping in pain as fire tore at his back.

  “Here,” Nereida said, helping prop him up with pillows and cushions under his shoulders and chest. Vasilios bit his lip against the pain and the awkwardness of the position, but at least this way he wouldn’t choke on whatever was in the cup.

  Nereida held the cup to his lips finally and helped him drink. It was wine, strong and tart with a darker, bitter taste underneath he couldn’t identify. It made him feel extremely light-headed, but the pain receded to an uncomfortable buzz at the back of his mind.

  “Thank you,” Vasilios said when Nereida put the now-empty cup back on the tray. “The pain is not so bad now.”

  “Good. Would you like to eat some food? The doctor said you shouldn’t take the medicine on an empty stomach,” Nereida told him, and Vasilios nodded. He didn’t really feel like eating, but at least now that the pain was not so bad, he could probably stomach a little food.

  The tray contained stew, cheese, grapes, and a honey-coated pastry. With Nereida’s help, Vasilios managed to eat a little stew and some of the grapes, and Nereida ate some food as well.

  “Would you like some pastry?” She pointed to the sweet, and Vasilios shook his head, lying back and closing his eyes.

  He drifted in and out of sleep while Nereida quietly moved around the room and then left again. The combination of wine and medicine made him feel warm all over, and weightless, as if his body was not at all his own. The pain, at least, no longer truly bothered him. He floated in sleepy warmth, while thoughts at the back of his head nagged at him. Images drifted through his mind—a snake in the desert, a monastery perched high on the edge of a cliff, a figure made of shadows and darkness. He needed to tell Markos about his dream, he thought hazily. He really needed to do that. Maybe after the way his hands felt against the linen of the sheets stopped being so tantalizingly interesting—and rather sensual, now that he thought about it. He ran his hands across the cloth, the movement made a little awkward by the way he was still lying on top of most of his pillows. It felt nice anyway. He rubbed his hands back and forth across his blanket a few more times and then drifted into sleep.

  He woke to the sound of people arguing.

  “It is not that simple,” a rich, woman’s voice said, sounding annoyed. “I do not control this. It is not as if I choose to use it or not. This is not a skill I possess, or a spell I can cast. All I can do is ask to be used by our Beloved.”

  “But you have done it before,” said a man’s voice, rich and deep, and Vasilios was wide awake because that voice he recognized. Markos.

  Vasilios turned his head toward the voices. He didn’t feel as light-headed or as weightless as he had before, although his thoughts and sensations were still blurry. Likewise, the pain was not as dulled as it had been when he’d first drunk the wine. He could definitely feel the aching burn with a sharper painful pull when he moved. It was not the stabbing red-hot pain it had been before he’d taken the medicine, though. He licked his lips and then cleared his throat, trying to work out how long he’d been asleep this time.

  Markos, and whoever he was talking to—Vasilios thought it might be Aritê—stopped talking. Markos moved into Vasilios’s line of sight.

  He looked tired and concerned, dressed in stately dark gray and a long red silk tunic that Vasilios didn’t think suited him at all. There were dark circles surrounding his eyes, and the lines around his mouth were more pronounced than Vasilios liked.

  “Vasilios?” Markos’s voice sounded almost tentative. “Did we wake you? Are you in pain? I can send someone for more medicine if you need.”

  “No.” Vasilios shook his head. “No need. I’m fine.”

  Markos nodded and then sat on the bed next to him, and Vasilios heard someone move across the room and then the door open and shut.

  “Are you sure there is nothing you need?” Markos asked. “I could call for some food if you’re hungry.”

  “Really, it’s all right.” Vasilios shifted a
little and winced. “I’m fine.”

  “The Lady Nereida told me what happened the second time I came,” Markos said looking down at the bed and not at Vasilios. “I was frantic by that point.”

  “I was not conscious,” Vasilios said, feeling a little guilty anyway for worrying Markos so. “I’m sorry they would not let you in.”

  “I….” Markos reached up and ran his fingers through his hair in a gesture Vasilios had missed seeing so much. “I hate that this happened to you.” Markos’s voice went deeper as he said it, filled with emotion, sadness and anger. “I hate there was nothing I could do, still nothing I can do.” He moved his hands across the small distance between them to cover Vasilios’s hand.

  “You’re here,” Vasilios said, turning his hand so he could lock his fingers with Markos. “That’s something. It’s a lot actually. I’m glad. I wanted to see you.”

  Markos didn’t say anything to that, looking down at him, eyes dark gray and intense. Vasilios felt his stomach turn over and his chest tighten with something akin to fear, but wasn’t. It had been so long since he’d felt true desire. He’d found Markos beautiful for a long time, admired him as a person, but not until now had he truly wanted to kiss him. Markos gently squeezed their entwined fingers and brought his free hand up to cup the side Vasilios’s face. Markos’s lips were a little thin but soft-looking and pink. Vasilios thought that if Markos kissed him now, he’d like that.

  Markos shook his head then, and drew back a little, and Vasilios stifled a sigh.

  “I had another dream,” he said after a minute. “I think I know where to find the person Aritê needs to help cast out this demon.”

  “Tell me,” Markos said.

  It sounded even odder when he recounted it, but Vasilios did so anyway, in as much detail as he could remember.

  “I am going to need to talk to Theofilos and Aritê, I think,” Markos said when he was done. “I myself am not familiar with the monastery you’re describing, but one of them might be. If not, then I can always go to the Bishop and see if he knows.”

  “I wish I had more information, but that’s all,” Vasilios said, tentatively trying to move, and finding that although it hurt to shift on the bed, the pain was not unbearable.

  “Careful.” Markos’s tone held concerned warning, and Vasilios managed to struggle up into a sitting position before collapsing back with a pained whine he couldn’t stifle.

  “What are you doing?” Markos eased him back gently to lie on his stomach, half supported by cushions again.

  “I can’t just lie here,” Vasilios said, teeth clenched against the pain stabbing along his back. “The voice in my dream said the demon would come back to feed.”

  “What you need to do is to heal.” Markos smoothed his hands across Vasilios’s hair, now a little longer than he usually liked to keep it. “I know what condition that kind of beating leaves a man in, and the Lady Nereida said you were sick with fever. You need to rest, or you will put yourself even more at risk.”

  Vasilios moved his head restlessly against the cushions, feeling helpless and frustrated with his inability to act or even to sit up. He was angry at Anthimos for putting him here, at Damianos for sending him to his brother in the first place, and most of all at the entire situation. After so long pushing the anger and humiliation back, hiding it away in the corners of his mind because there was nothing he could do to change his position, it all seemed to have come crashing down on top of him. He clenched his jaw and screwed his eyes shut, praying he wouldn’t begin to weep. As it was, tears pricked at the corners of his eyes, and he struggled against them, pushing them away, trying to get a handle on the mixture of emotions rushing through him.

  “Vasilios?” Markos asked softly, and Vasilios could feel Markos’s fingers rub a little at the back of his neck. “Are you in a lot of pain? Should I get someone?”

  “No, it’s not—it’s nothing.” Vasilios struggled for words or a way to describe this feeling. To his complete mortification, a tear slipped out and trailed down his face. Turning his face away, he bit his lip hard, trying to hold the rest back.

  Markos pressed his large hand along the back of his neck and across his head to cup his cheek again. “It’s all right,” he said softly. “Whatever it is, I swear if I can fix it, I will. Please tell me what’s wrong?”

  “I’m so useless.” Vasilios’s voice came out sounding strangled and far too fraught with the emotions he was trying to hold back. “Useless lying here, useless before too. I was completely incapable of stopping him from doing this to me—no, I didn’t even try. And I knew, I knew when Damianos told me, that Anthimos would do this, and I didn’t even say a word, I went where they sent me. And I just—” He fought back more tears.

  Markos had moved closer to him on the bed, and he tugged Vasilios slowly and carefully until Vasilios’s head and shoulders rested in Markos’s lap. Markos carded his fingers through Vasilios’s short hair, smoothing it way from his face. Markos’s hands were warm, and this close he smelled of soap and freshly washed linen, and Vasilios gave up and wept.

  “You are not useless,” Markos said, voice quiet when Vasilios had calmed a little. “In fact you have been of far more use than I have during this entire investigation. It has been your seeings which have led us down the right path, time and again, I would still be at a standstill, unsure of what I was even looking for, if not for you. As for the rest….” Markos’s voice grew hard with anger. “You are not the one to blame. You have been badly treated for a long time, and you have done what you needed to do to survive, and there is nothing about that to be ashamed of.”

  They sat in silence for a few minutes. Vasilios felt awful. His eyes stung and his mouth was dry, his throat sore, and he had tear tracks drying on his face. He cleared his throat, and Markos shifted on the bed so he could reach across to the table and pick up the cup of water. He held it as Vasilios drank.

  “One of the things that attracted me to you first, back when I saw you from a distance when I had dealings with Panagiotis, was your strength and your grace,” Markos said after another long minute. He shook his head, his hand going to cover Vasilios’s again, entwining their fingers. “I have unfortunately met too many men taken in battle to be eunuchs or slaves, and usually if they survive, it is with the will crushed out of them. Not you, though. You have held your own. Even while kneeling, even while following every rule and order, you are still your own person. And that is amazing.”

  Vasilios tried to laugh, but it came out sounding watery and weak. “I just did what I thought I needed to do to survive, to not get beaten, to be the best.” He took a long deep breath. “I wanted to be the best. I wanted to have it all mean something, anything really. But now I’m tired.”

  “I wish…,” Markos started, pain evident in his voice, and then he stopped and shook his head.

  “I can’t go back,” Vasilios said, even though he hadn’t meant to say it out loud. “If I go back to him, he will crush the soul out of me. I’m not that strong.”

  “I wish I could have helped,” Markos said. His fingers squeezed Vasilios’s tight. “I went and spoke with Damianos, made him an offer—but he all but laughed in my face. He refused to tell me what he’d done with you or where you were.”

  The pang of what could have been washed over Vasilios. He had known that Markos’s ultimate failure to buy him would hurt, but knowing did not lessen the pain. He pulled his hand away from Markos’s and tried to push himself upright again, gasping and hissing with pain as the movement pulled at his torn back. Markos reached out to stop him, but Vasilios grabbed his hands, panting hard, and managed to get into a sitting position. He had to lean against Markos for support or he would have fallen back over again.

  Someone knocked on the door, and they both turned to see Nereida push it open. “I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said, smiling. “But I brought more medicine for Vasilios. The dose you had before should be wearing off soon, and I don’t want you to be in too much pain.”r />
  She came over to the bed, set the tray down on the table, picked up the cup, and helped him drink the wine and bitter herbs. The light-headedness swamped Vasilios’s senses as he lay back, but the pain receded as well.

  “I should let you rest and pay a visit to Theofilos and Ilkay,” Markos said, making to stand, and Vasilios reached out to stop him. His fingers skimmed across Markos’s cheek to end up lightly touching his lips, he let them linger there. It was as he had thought. Markos’s lips were soft.

  “You need to sleep,” Markos said, breath ghosting over Vasilios’s fingertips and a faint smile curving the corners of his mouth. Vasilios made a protesting noise, but Markos reached down, fingers warm against the side of Vasilios’s face. His thumb stroked across Vasilios’s lips before he pulled away. “I’ll be back soon,” Markos said and then stood and moved toward the door and out of Vasilios’s line of vision. Nereida stood too, throwing Vasilios a quick smile before following after Markos.

  Right before the door closed, he heard her ask, “Do you really know Theofilos Yalim?”

  VASILIOS lay in bed, letting himself drift, thinking about nothing in particular until sleep took him.

  He woke lying beneath the same pomegranate tree in the desert. He was once more fully clothed, although this time his back burned with a hot stabbing pain, and he could feel the wounds pull as he tried to move. They didn’t seem to be bandaged anymore either. He gritted his teeth and struggled into a sitting position and looked around. He was alone. No voice spoke, and he could see no one, not even the snake that had been there before. At least, he thought, the tree provided him with shade from the sun.

  He looked up at the branches above him. He could see fruit hanging there, but reaching it would involve standing, and he was not sure he could manage that. Instead, he looked out across the desert again and then frowned. There was something coming toward him across the sand. Vasilios’s heart started beating hard. The only person he’d actually ever met inside one of these dreams was the demon. He was not sure what he would do if it was the creature coming toward him. He had no way to fight or defend himself, weakened as he was now.