by R. G. Green
Because now it was Derek who held him in his arms.
That revelation was stunning the moment it hit him, but even more surprising was the certainty that now that he finally knew the pleasure of giving himself to Derek—and the thrill of Derek taking him—he knew he didn’t want it to be with anyone else. Not in this kingdom nor in any other. That was something he had never expected, something that he and Derek had never talked about in any of their arguments leading up to this—something that would shock everyone who had ever shared his bed in Delfore. But it was the truth.
And the rightness of it made him tighten his arms as he pressed into the trader’s warmth—even as his heart was ripped with the knowledge that this moment wouldn’t last.
Because even as the candle was extinguished, even as Derek gently nuzzled his hair before he pulled the blankets over them, and even as the sound of Derek’s heartbeat murmured in his ear as he rested his head on the trader’s chest, his traitorous thoughts reminded him the light of morning would see the trader gone from his life again.
And there was nothing he could do to change it.
Chapter 15
THE early morning air was gray and misty, although the rain that had plagued the city of Gravlorn nearly the entire time he had been here was thankfully absent. Derek’s packs were already strapped to the gelding he had ridden into the Defender city what seemed like ages ago, but he had not yet mounted the sturdy beast, and so had yet to begin his travel to Dennor.
Kherin waited silently in the shadows of the Defender stables as the trader made a last check of his supplies, and he was aware of the soggy ground under his feet as clearly as he was aware that the time of departure had finally come. Derek had already paid the innkeeper his due from the accounts he kept in the city, and they had both visited the hospice so Derek could say his farewells to Adrien. And though Adrien hadn’t been fully awake, Derek had spoken to him as if he were, and had settled the blankets around his brother with a care that spoke of the farewell it was. Kherin had walked with Derek to the door when he was ready to leave, and Derek hadn’t argued when Kherin continued to walk with him from the hospice to the stables.
Talk of the previous night had been absent through it all, and Kherin wasn’t sure whether to speak of it, or what words he should offer if given the chance, or even if he would have the courage to do so at all. Derek had been dressed and absent by the time Kherin awoke, and the dread he had felt following their night at the way-stop surfaced again the moment he learned he had awoken alone. Though he knew now that Derek had acted willingly, both here and there, the worry that Derek would regret what they had done last night in the light of day—or worse, relegate it to the mere satisfaction of the prince’s lust and curiosity—had already begun gnawing at his stomach by the time the trader had returned bearing food.
The sound of the trader stepping up beside him was so sudden, it nearly startled him, and the amusement in the trader’s eyes said Kherin’s thoughts must have been written on his face. He felt his cheeks flush, but Derek only gave him a quiet laugh.
“Ah, my prince, if a single look could defeat the northerners, you would destroy them in a matter of moments,” Derek told him teasingly, joining Kherin in the shadows of the stables, though not out of the eyes of the duty-bound Defenders assigned to guard the stables this early. “However, since it won’t, you should be careful about glowering at your fellow Defenders like that, or you may find few willing to fight at your side.”
Kherin snorted softly at the jest. “Any Defender intimidated by a glower has no business on the border to begin with, although judging by the way some of them fight, it would probably be more effective than their swords anyway.”
Derek’s laughter was warm, though it held a touch of sadness as he gave the bordering river and the hazy land on the other side a final, encompassing look, and the sound had trailed into a quiet smile by the time he brought his gaze back to Kherin. There was nothing more to do, and the road to Dennor waited. Kherin swallowed, knowing this was it, and he took a breath to brace himself for whatever the trader would say.
“I will be in Dennor in no more than a few days’ time, and if Dar has any information of worth, I will see that it gets to you,” Derek said softly, sweeping the fall of hair away from the prince’s face. “But you know I must take it to your father as well. It is more than Gravlorn that is at risk.”
Kherin drew a breath as he turned to look at the northerner land across the river, and exhaled a moment later with a weak nod of resignation. Everything Derek said was true, and he couldn’t demand—or even ask—that Derek return here, not when the security of Llarien may be in the balance. The world was larger than his self-interest, as his father, his brother, and even the trader himself had told him for years, though the reality of it was as bitter as it was enlightening. He knew he would see Derek again in the capitol city once his tenure at the border ended, and once Derek’s travels brought him back to the capitol city, but he knew the chances of building on or even repeating what they had experienced in Gravlorn would be bleak once they were inside the royal city. He swallowed as he felt the tear in his heart with the thought that what had begun in the way-stop may likely end here.
“Do you still hold no regrets?” he asked quietly, bringing his eyes back. He knew the answer he hoped for, but knew as well that it most likely wouldn’t matter. Derek would go, and his own life would go on, regardless of the answer Derek gave. He was surprised when Derek’s smile deepened, and he didn’t move away as Derek’s fingers brushed his cheek before coming to rest in a gentle touch to his chin.
“No regrets, my prince. Not then and not now.”
The words were sincere, but they didn’t give Kherin the hope they would have the day before. Because while it had been what he had wanted to hear, it wasn’t everything he had wanted the trader to say.
“What about later?” he pressed. “After you leave this place and continue your work for my father. Are you going to go back to claiming it shouldn’t have happened, that even if it wasn’t a mistake, it was still poor judgment?” He saw the change in Derek’s eyes, but he paused for only a moment before he asked the question he really wanted answered. “Are we going to go back to simple friendship, and share stories and meals and drinks at the taverns, but never anything more than that?”
“There is nothing simple concerning our friendship, Kherin,” Derek told him without hesitation, his tone firm, his fingers stiffening to keep Kherin from looking away. “And there is no question that any road beyond friendship will only make your life more difficult in Delfore… but no.” His voice softened then, and he eased his fingers into the familiar pattern of smoothing the hair that fell over the prince’s ear. “If the choice were mine….” Derek paused, then continued with a gentle smile, “If the choice were mine, I would spend every moment I could spare with you, and every night in your bed if you would have me. But the choice isn’t mine, and it isn’t yours. We must deal with the circumstances as they are given, nothing more.”
“Meaning you go on about your travels, and I go back to Delfore, and this becomes a pleasant memory, but nothing more.” Kherin’s voice was quiet, but the tone was bitter as he repeated the trader’s words.
“Ah, Kherin,” Derek sighed softly, caressing his cheek. He leaned forward to press a light kiss to the prince’s lips, but Kherin caught and held it, taking in the warmth and pressing into the trader as he drew it out longer than the trader had intended. Derek’s surprise was only momentary, and then his arms slipped around Kherin, even as Kherin’s slipped back to find the tail Derek had again tied at his neck. When they separated at last, the trader moved only enough to rest his forehead against Kherin’s.
There was nothing to say that wasn’t said in the kiss, and Derek finally pulled Kherin into a warm embrace, one Derek seemed to cling to as tightly as Kherin. When the trader pulled back this time, his eyes had lost their teasing.
“Guard your words and your actions, my prince, and trust
no Defenders save those from Delfore. If you need an ally, seek Jarak. He is loyal and reliable and holds no illusions of the moods of those around him. And stay cautious around Gresham. He may be intimidated by royal blood now, but he will likely toss in his lot with those who favor self-preservation should sides be taken. You are outnumbered here, and believing otherwise will be dangerous.”
Kherin nodded his understanding and offered words of his own, though ones far more personal. “Be careful, Derek, on the road and in the city. And whatever else happens, come back safe, here or in Delfore.” Then Kherin backed up to let him go, pulling the tail over the trader’s shoulder one last time, letting it trail from his fingers as he stepped out of reach. He tried to ignore the stinging in his eyes and hoped he had retreated too far for the trader to see it.
But the gentleness with which Derek watched him said how the trader also wished that at least this could be different, but he left those words unspoken, choosing others in their stead as Kherin put more distance between them. “I do love you, Kherin. Whatever happens, that will never change.”
Kherin felt the pain in his heart begin anew when the trader turned away from him at last to return to the horse he had made ready, and then he was at his side without having made the conscious effort to move. His hand covered Derek’s just as Derek took the reins, and he leaned forward to capture the trader’s lips in a last unexpected kiss.
“I love you too,” he whispered before their lips fully separated, and he swallowed as he saw the familiar tenderness deepen in the trader’s eyes when he did pull back at last. He released the reins to allow the trader to mount, and he didn’t shy away as Derek extended a hand to brush his cheek a moment before he climbed into the saddle. Then with a forced smile and a familiar wink, Derek turned the horse away and urged it along the beaten path that would take him to the Defender road, which would then lead him on to Dennor.
Kherin felt the emptiness inside grow the instant the gray mists swirled and thickened behind the trader’s back, and he didn’t move away from the stables until long after Derek had vanished from sight.
Then, with a sigh laden with the pain of loss at knowing Derek was really and truly gone, he decided an early morning shot of the nearest tavern’s strongest ale would be the perfect way to start his first day without him.
Epilogue
MORNINGS were when crowds gathered the thickest in the markets of every city, and thus it was also when the gossip was often the loudest. But this morning in Dennor, while most people milled and shopped, others had gathered near a stall selling meat pastries and warm cakes, along with other goods brought out from the bakery set a short distance behind it—two men and two women, with four children surrounding them and the stall.
It was here that the mention of the Akhael was first used without hesitation by common tongues.
“Magic has been lost from this land way too long for it to suddenly appear out of nowhere,” one said between bites. He was an older man, dressed plainly with thinning brown hair, most likely a shopkeeper out for a stroll.
“Lost doesn’t mean gone, Father,” the boy standing beside him said, assuming a patronizing and mature tone despite his young age. “Maybe it just took a little while for someone to find it again.” The boy shrugged and raised his hand to lick the juices that fell from his meat pie, and then took a bite that was far larger than his mouth.
“Don’t talk to your father that way,” admonished the woman standing over him. Her tone made it clear she was the wife of the man who had spoken and the mother of the boy she looked down on. Then with a sidelong look to her husband, she added, “Even if what you say is true.”
The boy and his friends—another boy and two girls—dissolved into barely hidden giggles, drawing frowns from adults but smiles from passersby.
“Well, if the Akhael are here and bringing magic back to this land, I say it’s about time,” said the second woman of the group as the laughter trailed away. She was several years younger than the first and may have been a relation, given the similarities in their appearance. “Maybe if we had some magic here, we wouldn’t have to be sending our men to the border every year.”
The second man of the group was considerably older than the others, and he harrumphed loudly at this proclamation, drawing the other grown-up eyes in his direction. He was likely the father of either the other man or the older woman, but seemed unquestionably the grandfather of the younger woman, and great-grandfather of a least one of the children. “I couldn’t say I would have complained if they had brought the magic back sooner. The Gods know I spent more time at the border than I had a mind to.”
“I wouldn’t complain if they brought it before next month,” the first man added firmly. “I don’t know how I ended up spending each winter at the border, but I would just as soon stay home by the fire than pass my days staring at the barren northern wasteland.”
The two boys in the group looked at him, horrified. “But it’s only a few more years before I can go to the border,” one of them said, sounding stricken. “If they bring back the magic, will I still get to go?”
The older man chuckled, but the younger man frowned in mock severity. “You’re a bit anxious to see a northern winter, aren’t you? You’ll change your mind once you lose a few toes to frostbite.”
“Stop that, Herrik,” the wife said firmly. She turned to the boy. “Now, Nolan, why don’t you take your friends and go see what is happening at the square? I heard there is a new magician there today.”
The boy snorted. “He’s not a real one. Not like the Akhael magicians. I can’t wait until they put on a show!”
“Go!” his mother told him again, waving her hands to shoo them off.
The four children turned with sour expressions, though they were laughing again even before they pushed their way to the center of the crowded square.
“The Akhael would be a godsend,” the mother murmured, watching her son move away. “Magic is what this kingdom could use.”
DAR closed his eyes as the words of the woman were carried into his alley on the breeze. He wasn’t surprised word of the ancient people had spread from the mouth of the fool councilman’s son to the streets of the port city, or that it had breached the strictures of class to encompass the poor as well as the wealthy. Magic, they thought, would be the answer to the threat of the northerners, the key to their safety and the safety of their children, the security they needed to ensure that their present way of life would be preserved while their men remained home to tend the farm and help raise their children.
Fools, all of them. For all their cries for magic and the promises they were so certain it held, the most important part was the one thing they incessantly ignored.
Magic had been banished from Llarien lands hundreds of years ago. Did no one ever stop to wonder why?
THE morning air bit sharply into Tristan’s senses as he pushed the stable doors open, but the feeling of victory set a fire to his blood that warded off the morning chill. He would meet with Sethan today, and be welcomed into the ranks of the army that had only begun to form. Welcomed with open arms and the promise that the royal house of Delfore would fall before their might—and soon. Talk of the Akhael and their magic was reaching the masses now, after all, and once the masses had joined their cause, the army would be complete—and he would have gotten in early enough to claim rank over those that joined later. The prestige he had lost with his dismissal from Delfore’s royal stables would be returned.
And he would have his revenge on the prince that had ruined his life.
He let his gaze trail along the group of passersby who wandered in the direction of the seaside market, though none of the group gave him more than a furtive glance as they hurried on their way. None of them were close enough to see inside the stable stall he had just left.
He had paid well for the services of the whore still bound behind him—a young man named Ciran, though Tristan had cared little for his name. And they had both known what was
to be expected when Tristan had caught his eye at the Mast and Sail near the harbor. The stables where Tristan had found work were far enough from the city proper to ensure that any sounds made inside the stout wooden walls would not draw undue attention, though the riding crop and leather straps had to be brought from his rooms, as none from the stables engaged in that kind of punishment.
Tristan lifted his face to the winter sky as he smiled at the memory of the night before. Ciran’s delicate white skin had been as red as his hair long before he had sated himself—cruelly and repeatedly—in his body.
And yet the whore remained oblivious even now to the visage of the chestnut-haired prince that had replaced him in Tristan’s mind as Tristan relished every scream he had made.
“YOUR men will be leaving for Gravlorn before midday.”
The words from the king were stated coldly, and the captain of his guard who stood stoically before him only said, “Yes, Your Majesty,” as the order was given. The message that had arrived from the Defender city remained ignored where it lay crumpled on the floor.
The king’s final order held more chill than the bitterest winter air.
“If Adrien is too ill to return, so be it. But you will return my second son!”
About the Author
R.G. GREEN grew up listening to the continuous tap of a typewriter as her dad threw out page after page of captivating stories, giving root to her love of books and her absolute fascination with writing. Now older, with marriage, overseas living, and a host of wonderful experiences under her belt, the self-proclaimed book fiend has finally settled down enough to give the writing bug its due. Currently living in a small mountain town where peaceful quiet is the norm, R.G. Green now spends her time away from her day job doing the things she loves the most: reading, writing, and spoiling the two barking, fuzzy critters who can make her laugh no matter what.