by T. A. Miles
Merran responded to Korsten’s efforts slowly, indecisively at first and then with caution, as if his fellow mage were made of glass. He touched but didn’t hold, enabling Korsten to slip away from him and guide him down onto the bed. He stole Merran’s boots from his feet then joined him upon the mattress, hovering over him, gazing deep into his very blue eyes while unlacing his breeches. Eventually they came to be lying nude beside one another, hovering on the threshold of intimacy. Korsten slid himself carefully into Merran’s arms. They were strong arms, but their embrace one of unsureness.
Korsten quickly determined that this was a first for Merran. Not a first lover, but his first time with another male. Korsten set about instructing his partner. And he took his time doing so. They had all night and the new level of healing that came with Merran’s touch was nothing he wanted to end soon.
Again, Merran answered slowly to Korsten’s affection, in spite of the desire that soon became very physically apparent. Korsten didn’t allow the other man a moment to become embarrassed. He rolled onto his back and lured Merran on top of him, then turned his face away to make his newly discovered lover kiss him elsewhere besides on the mouth. Merran did, and that felt glorious. He was growing more confident with each caress and more eager. Soon the eagerness threatened to overtake them both. Korsten was beginning to feel as if he’d somehow redeemed himself and had all of his depression and loneliness cast off. How it was happening didn’t matter. He only wanted it to continue. Gods, how he wanted it, knowing there was so much more to discover here. They had barely begun.
Sighs of pleasure and relief escaped Korsten as Merran’s touch wandered and soothed. He knew better than to think he could be healed, but even this brief time away from pain was more than he would ever have hoped for.
“I feel like I’m going mad,” Merran whispered, lifting himself up a little, pushing Korsten’s stubborn forelock away from his brow. “I don’t understand myself. I don’t understand wanting you like this.”
“I don’t understand it either,” Korsten whispered back, wondering if he was being just a little dishonest. “Maybe there is no explanation. Does it matter?”
Ever the pragmatist, Merran said, “I think it will … in the morning.”
Korsten felt himself actually smiling. “Well, in the morning, you bastard, you can be sure that I’ll roll you out of my bed with firm instructions never to come so near me again. But for now….” He rose to kiss Merran, then said softly, “I want you to make love to me and then to let me lie in your arms and to escape from the hurting just for one night. We’ve come this far. Stay with me, please.”
“I think perhaps we’ve come too far,” Merran told him. “But I don’t feel as if I could turn back … even if I wanted to.”
Then stop debating it, Korsten wanted to say. He was beginning to feel like he was going mad himself, knowing that he didn’t love Merran and wanting him all the same … wanting his touch, his power to steal away pain. If there was any wrong to it, it didn’t cross his mind now. I don’t want to cry tonight. Not tonight, please.
As if in answer to his silent pleading, Merran lowered back down and kissed Korsten’s shoulder lightly. “I don’t want to turn back,” Merran whispered. And then he knew what to do.
Morning offered gray skies and new snow. The stillness of the room that wasn’t his was great enough that Merran could hear the large, clumped flakes falling outside. Far across the bedroom, remnants of last night’s fire smoldered in the large hearth. In the bed, beside him … in his arms, Korsten lay quietly breathing. Still asleep. The other man had his back to him, his arms loosely hugging the pillow beneath his head with Merran’s arms around his middle. The arm pinned beneath the slighter man had lost feeling, but Merran didn’t try to reclaim it. He could suffer the discomfort to the arm since the rest of him was comfortable … satisfied and content, actually. He wasn’t embarrassed, and he didn’t regret what he’d done.
It feels good to hold someone. He buried his face into the white shoulder in front of him. Don’t lie to yourself. It feels good to hold him.
There was something strange, unfamiliar, about waking up with someone beside him. Korsten had always greeted the late dawn alone. Not this time. There were arms around him and someone breathing softly into his shoulder. And so long as Merran was touching him, there was no guilt. But how can that be? He’s asleep. Whatever spell he was invoking should be asleep with him. Unless he’s doing it subconsciously. Can that be done?
Gods, I’m not going to complain. I slept soundly, free of nightmares, for the first time since … I can’t even remember when. Still, I have to wonder … what’s going to happen now? I love Renmyr. I can’t keep Merran. And I’m not so sure the man wants to keep me anyway. I seduced him. There’s been a change in me. I can feel it. Allurance must have finally Resonated and..to Hell with me, I used it against a friend.
The body behind him stirred. Korsten didn’t move, though he felt points of contact shift just a little. The salve of that contact remained active. It was better than being drunk, though perhaps more dangerous in consideration to repercussions following too much indulgence in this instance. Korsten’s nerves weren’t deadened and his mind wasn’t clouded. He was simply saturated with a pleasant warmth and wondrously free of pain. He had a feeling it would all come back at him twice as hard when Merran finally left him.
Several moments of lazy silence passed. Korsten watched the snowfall through the frosted glass that lined his balcony and waited. For what, he wasn’t sure. For realization to suddenly strike Merran, perhaps. Will he attempt to sneak away or just flee in terror? Ashwin’s open about what he wants. I would be the one upset if I’d awakened with him beside me, knowing fully that I had betrayed Renmyr. But this is Merran, the strange and quiet fellow with haunting eyes, who’s done nothing but get under my skin from the moment we first met. This is the very last place I would have expected either of us to end up.
Finally, Korsten could take the silence no longer. He’d given the man plenty of opportunity to get away. “Are you asleep?”
“No,” Merran answered quietly.
And what does that mean? Are you too embarrassed to move? No, you’re thinking, aren’t you? I can feel the thoughts forming.
He was sure that the man generated some manner of unseen energy when he set his mind to work. And after last night, if he wasn’t stunned beyond the capacity for coherent thought, then his brain must have been generating with the force of a dozen mills. Korsten knew he hadn’t read him wrong. Merran didn’t happen to prefer his own sex and he had every right to be upset, just as soon as he was through being embarrassed. Strangely, however, he appeared to be neither, not in the least scandalized. He was just quiet, contemplative. Renmyr and Firard had never acted this way. After a night of lovemaking they had both behaved rather like contended predators, satisfied after having stolen a sheep from the pasture. It never really bothered Korsten. Listening to gossip among the ladies at Cenily he was given the impression that most men behaved in such a manner immediately after sex. Korsten didn’t, but then he was not like most men.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been with anyone,” Merran finally confessed, his voice little more than a breath against Korsten’s hair. He added needlessly, “I’ve never been with another man.”
“And I’ve never been with a friend,” Korsten replied. “Not someone who was my friend first, at any rate.”
“Are we friends?” Merran wondered aloud, emanating more of his loneliness, even as he took Korsten’s away.
“We are, Merran. I’m sorry if I’ve made you feel otherwise.”
“You have difficulty trusting others,” Merran said. Then he added, “So do I.”
“And you let me hurt you.” Korsten finally shifted so that he could look at the other man. “You know….”
“I know who keeps your heart,” Merran finished for him. “And I knew what
I was doing last night. You were in pain. I found myself suddenly with the means to soothe more than the surface aches … and so I did.”
“How?” Korsten asked.
Merran lifted his hand to his patient-become-partner’s face. “When you touched me last night, my talent for Empathy Emerged, linked with white on the Spectrum. And now, beyond your physical or emotional state, I can feel what torments your spirit. Our actions brought the gift to Resonance and opened up a new aspect to my Healing talent, one beyond physical.”
So it was only comfort, Korsten reasoned to himself, relieved. Nothing to be concerned with. I still love only Renmyr and I don’t have someone else’s adoration on my conscience. It was a particularly stimulating healing ritual … nothing more. Trust Merran to boil something down in his mind to its barest and most harmless truth. Trust me to still have more questions.
“If your gift Emerged, then why aren’t there any marks upon you?”
Merran almost smiled. “No one suffers full Emergence twice. Even talents that remain dormant afterward are displayed in some way that can be deciphered the first time. They are simply impotent, needing further stimulation to become fully functional.”
Korsten stared at him, mouth gaping just a bit. And then he said, “Good gods, if I’d have used such terms to explain anything to one of my female students at Haddowyn, I’d have been either soundly slapped or chased around the library for hours. Has anyone ever mentioned that you have a way with words?”
Merran’s skin reddened. He decided in the next moment to sit up, and that was when, in the act of helplessly staring at the other man’s modestly muscular frame, Korsten noticed a wound of some kind on his shoulder.
Korsten sat up to examine it closer. “Perhaps you ought to take back that vivid explanation. There is a mark upon you.”
“Don’t touch it, please,” Merran said. He added unhappily, “It has nothing to do with Emerging gifts.”
Korsten had been considering touching the mark and decided to let his fingers fall upon a random space of the Mage-Adept’s otherwise undamaged back. The irritation on his shoulder did indeed appear to be a wound, one made perhaps by a demon with terrible penmanship or a demonic child just learning to form letters by carving them into the flesh of others. That ridiculous thought formed continuing images that Korsten decided it was better not to dwell on. “Did you acquire this in Sulerese?” he asked.
“No,” Merran answered and seemed determined to leave the discussion at that.
Korsten respected his wishes. He withdrew his hand, lay himself back down, and let Merran leave.
By midafternoon there was no telling that anything abnormal had gone on in the night between Korsten and his appointed physician. The matter was effortlessly put aside, each of them seeing to their own affairs and reacting to each other’s presence as unenthusiastically as they ever had in the past when they met again in the library.
Korsten walked the second level balcony slowly with a book cradled in his arms. Merran found a staircase to sit on and fell into typically silent and mysterious rumination. Eolyn currently occupied a space of his sleeve and Analee fluttered along in Korsten’s wake. Korsten wondered helplessly what the two creatures thought of their bond mates becoming bedmates, but didn’t dwell on it, concluding that, since Analee kept his soul, she must have felt incredibly good for a span. And then it was on to other matters.
“I haven’t heard from Ashwin at all today,” Korsten said to the Mage-Adept perched below. “What do you suppose has happened with Sharlotte? Why isn’t anyone saying anything?”
Merran waited for Korsten to finish before giving his answer. “The Council doesn’t make examples. The matter will be resolved discreetly and no one who wasn’t a witness to what happened to you will be made aware of it. Imagine the discord, possibly dissolution, if it were to be publicized throughout the Seminary. Friends and allies of Sharlotte taking her side, along with others. People who may be convinced not to trust you simply because you haven’t been here long enough for them to know you. Ashwin gaining enemies, trying to insinuate himself between his spouse and his obligation as Mage-Superior, which is to ensure the safety of his students as well as to educate them.”
Something occurred to Korsten just then. “Lerissa doesn’t know, does she?”
Merran shook his head. “There was no need to wake her, since I had returned and was able to resume my post as physician.”
I wonder if she’ll tell Lerissa. I wonder what Lerissa will think. She’s liable to be upset with me. Korsten walked to the railing and braced his book upon it. “You know, I don’t blame Sharlotte for what she did to me.”
“It cannot be condoned,” Merran answered. “And had no one been around to mend your ribs and put your face back to its flawless state, you might not find yourself so forgiving.”
Korsten’s eyes narrowed, but he decided not to admonish the man as the library doors swung open, admitting the very person Korsten wanted to see. He closed his book and headed for the nearest spiral staircase, which happened to be across the room from the one where Merran sat. “Ashwin, what’s happened? Is Sharlotte all right?”
The blond man stopped just inside the library. After a period of simply staring at his student, his expression for once unreadable, he tucked his hands into the overlong sleeves of his robes, then made his announcement. “Sharlotte has chosen to leave the Seminary.”
Korsten dropped the book in his hand and froze at the top of the stairs.
“That seems drastic,” Merran commented, seeming a little surprised himself.
“No more so than her previous actions,” Ashwin said quietly, to Merran.
“She’s unwilling to atone?” the lower-ranking mage asked next.
“She is unwilling,” Ashwin answered. “As she always has been.”
“She’s seriously going to leave?” Korsten said, when it appeared that the other two had forgotten him. “Because … of me? She can’t. That’s—”
“Not only because of you,” Ashwin said. As his green eyes lifted to meet Korsten’s darker gaze, the pain in them was evident. He did love Sharlotte … and she was leaving him.
“She may choose to become an enemy,” Merran suggested reasonably.
“She has already chosen to be an enemy, by attacking one of our own,” Ashwin answered.
Korsten started down the stairs, able to move again as the initial shock subsided. “That wasn’t intentional,” he said as he descended. “She acted out of anger, out of an unplanned….”
“Unplanned?” Ashwin interrupted, looking at Korsten with his patience noticeably slipping. “She summoned you out of your bed in the middle of the night and ambushed you with a spell of Shadow. You were unprepared for her attack, but you might have been able to fend her off anyway, if she hadn’t followed through with a Megrim spell. You were confused and helpless when she struck you—”
“It could have been an accident that the blade hit my face,” Korsten suggested.
Ashwin spoke over him. “…deliberately at what is considered an improper target during any weapons training. She could have stopped there, but she elected instead to invoke a Reach and then to cast Wind strong enough to not only hurtle you through the portal into a random district of the town below, but to damage your ribcage as well. She made no attempt to correct the situation and made no announcement as to what had happened, not even in an attempt to make it appear an accident. In your condition, lying exposed in the snow and cold night air, you’d have died if no one discovered you. She knew that and during her hearing before the Council, she showed no measure of remorse for the deed. None whatsoever.” The Mage-Superior drew in a breath and let it out slowly, concluding, “It is for the best if she goes.”
Korsten arrived at the main floor. He watched Ashwin for several moments, waiting for the words he had given to change somehow or to be taken back. They didn’t and they
weren’t.
“Excuse me, please,” Korsten said suddenly, and he left the library. He wasn’t sure which direction to go once in the hall. He wasn’t sure where Sharlotte would be, but he knew where she would likely end up. By casting a Reach, Korsten went there. It was quicker than running through the passages of the Seminary.
The Mage-Adept with green eyes that betrayed her sadness was already at the stables, leading a brown mare out. She took one look at the redhead coming toward her and produced a look of murder so intense as to momentarily halt Korsten in his tracks. This was strange to Korsten. He’d never actually had a female enemy. But then, no female had ever been convinced that he was determined to steal her love away from her. Wrongly convinced.
Korsten resumed his path toward the woman. “Sharlotte, you can’t do this. Please, reconsider.”
“Get away from me,” she growled. “If you really wanted to impress someone, you’d succeed in your next attempt at suicide.”
“Is that what you think I’ve been doing? Pleading for attention?”
Sharlotte glared at him. She made a point of doing nothing else for several moments. After thoroughly stifling Korsten’s momentum with her intense hatred, she returned her attention to the mare she was set on mounting and riding away from the Seminary.
Korsten didn’t know what to do or say. He didn’t even know why this mattered so much to him. When he’d recovered from her emotional assault, he tried reasoning with her again. The words simply spilled out of him. “Sharlotte, please listen to me. I know you’re intent wasn’t to murder, only to protect your love. You had every right. I hold nothing against you. I understand your feelings. And you must understand that there is nothing between—”
“Shut up! I won’t hear your lies!” There were sudden tears in the woman’s eyes when she glared back at him again. “Ashwin is one of the wisest men in Edrinor … in the world! He’s not a confused, impassioned adolescent, pining after hopeless romances. Love is a science to him, a careful administration of emotional and physical comfort. I know by now that he gives love to whoever he thinks requires it most. It’s pity that he gives. It’s pity that he offers you, so don’t flatter yourself!”