First, Become Ashes

by K. M. Szpara

  “See, I brought my own magic wand.” Zephyr spoke his words loud and rough against Lark’s ear. Rolled his balls gently in his free hand. Maneuvered the wand up and down the caged length of his cock.

  It didn’t take much. We only removed our cages once a week for cleaning, and did so as chastely as possible, never touching our own genitals. Sometimes we even used the ropes to ensure discipline. Nothing we did could have prepared Lark for Zephyr, who dropped the wand and wrapped his fist around Lark’s cock, pressing the bulging skin back into its place. He rubbed, and Lark thrust. He pressed his entire mouth against Lark’s neck and sucked.

  White seed leaked from Lark’s cock as he cried out. An open-mouthed cry, ugly and warbling. Round. His wrapped hands pressed against Zephyr’s thighs as he relaxed, seating himself fully on the Elder’s cock.

  I couldn’t watch the rest, but I heard Zephyr moan a few minutes later as he came deep inside Lark. Inside my partner. A blessing.

  “I can feel it,” I heard him say. “Thank you, Meadowlark, for blessing me. I trust you won’t discuss the details of our ritual with Nova. It was too beautiful for words, do you understand?”

  Lark didn’t answer.

  “I’ll let her know we’ve finished, after I’m cleaned up.”

  I waited, listening to the shuffle of bodies and robes, of feet over blankets and then earth. I listened until the only sound was the low, raspy breathing of an exhausted man. I should’ve left then. Gone back to bed. For Lark’s sake, I should’ve pretended I never saw anything. But I couldn’t leave him like that.

  With a deep breath, I stepped out from behind the tree and scanned the silent hills for any sign of Zephyr or Nova. Finding none, I hurried into the gazebo. Lark looked up at me, blinking as if I’d woken him from a deep sleep.

  “Shh,” I said, finding the buckle behind his head and releasing the gag. He cried out as he closed his mouth for the first time in—I didn’t know how long it lasted, and didn’t want to. “Quiet,” I whispered as I sat him up. He placed his hands in mine and I unraveled the wrappings one at a time. My hands were shaking; I tried to still them.

  “I told you not to come with me,” he said, but the anger from earlier was gone. “Nova will be here soon.”

  “I was on guard duty, anyway,” I lied. “So she sent me instead.” We both knew I was only there because of him, but he must not have minded, because he just nodded and rested his head against my shoulder as I finished.

  Lark held his hands out and flexed his fingers. “They were wrapped for his protection,” he said. “So I didn’t accidentally cast a spell. I could have hurt him—or myself.”

  “Yeah.” I helped him stand, no other words to offer. It was hard not to tell him how much I wanted to kill Zephyr.

  Lark looked down his naked body before I slung the robe back over his shoulders. “I came,” he said, as if it were his fault.

  “It’s okay,” I said.

  “No!” He looked at me with the same shock as when I asked to accompany him. “It’s not okay. The Elder was only supposed to deposit his seed inside me. That was the blessing, not me coming. We were selected for a beautiful ritual and he ruined it.” Anger creased Lark’s face as he pulled the robe tight around him. “And he trusts I won’t discuss this with Nova.” He rolled his eyes.

  It wasn’t my place to tell him how to feel—what version of hurt or anger to carry. I hated every second of that, even if he didn’t. Even if Lark was so wrapped up in magic and monsters that he couldn’t name what Nova was doing to him. The abuse. The result for Zephyr was the same either way.

  The next morning, Lark told Nova what happened and gathered the Anointed whose powers had manifested. Together, we performed a ritual binding Elder Zephyr. Not an hour later, Nova opened the gate and put him out with nothing but a robe. Lark was deadly serious about the rules. No one broke them if he had anything to say about it. No one messed with the Anointed.

  I don’t know what happened to Elder Zephyr after that—I never saw Nova kick anyone else out. It wasn’t even talked about. He was written out of our rituals. Forgotten. That was when I decided to leave—to end to her dominion over us. It was the only real way to help, and I was the only one who could do it.

  22

  CALVIN / NOW

  Oh my god oh my god oh my god. I can hear every breath in my ears, hear the blood rushing through my veins. Adrenaline surges through my body, which is not great considering I’m sitting in the driver’s seat of a car. The only outlet for my panic is to step on the gas.

  I race down the shoulder, the wailing of sirens behind me—are they fading? I think they are—maybe they aren’t after us. There was an accident, after all. When I check my mirrors, I no longer see flashes of blue and red. Don’t hear a second gunshot. My ears are still ringing. Was it really that loud? I never heard a gunshot at close range before meeting Lark, let alone one aimed in my direction. I pull back into the right lane, not trying to look any more suspicious than we already do.

  The FBI shot at us, oh god oh god oh god. We’re wanted. I’m an accomplice. Lark warned me before we started. Why didn’t I take him seriously? It feels so fucking real now.

  I glance into the back seat. It’s quiet. How is it so quiet? Lark bumps against me, squeezed half-between the front seats, bent over Kane’s leg. A Honda Fit is very little like an ambulance; it was never built to accommodate a surgery. Lilian leans up against the door, holding Kane against her, on her lap. He’s huge. Way too long to lie in this car, and so thick with muscle. I imagine he’s crushing Lilian, but she doesn’t seem to mind. They’re all focused on Kane’s wound, and no one is buckled up.

  I almost ask them to, as if that could make this whole thing safe. But I can’t ask Lark to leave Kane like that. I turn back to the road, blocking out their conversation while I try to remember how to read. I can’t focus, can’t make out the company logos on the green exit signs. I can’t do this, I can’t keep going.

  “We need to stop,” Lark says, but I hear his words as if they were my own, projected into his mouth. “I can’t heal you in this damn car.”

  Okay, that wasn’t exactly what I was thinking.

  I hear Lark whispering, unsure if he’s resuming a spell or starting something new. I can’t watch while I’m driving. I can only feel my seat move as he leans against it, hear his urgent, “Come on!” and then, “Dammit.” He sighs.

  “He’s bleeding pretty bad,” Lilian says.

  “I know.” Lark sits on the console between our seats and wipes his hands on his shirt. Blood glistens wet on the scarlet fabric. “I can stop the bleeding, but I need space. We have to take him outside, lay him flat.”

  I swallow a mouthful of air, trying to keep down the nausea that threatens me. I don’t think of myself as squeamish, but there’s so much more blood than I expected. What did I expect? There’s an arrow lodged in Kane’s thigh.

  “How about a hospital?” I can tell Lil is suggesting it with as much kindness as she can manage. Her eyes are on mine in the mirror, but I can’t look up the nearest hospital on my phone. If I let go of the wheel, I’ll see even more blood on my hands.

  “No,” two voices say. Lark and Kane in unison.

  There are two Anointed in my car, right now. It hits me all at once. There’s two of them, and two of us, and if we needed the numbers advantage, we don’t have it anymore. Even though he’s injured, Kane is Lark’s partner, and I have no idea what they could do together. Seeing their relationship overwhelms me with memories. I touched Lark in the shower and flogged him in the woods. I sat with him while he healed himself, helped him work magic. It felt intimate to me, but to him?

  Lark and Kane’s intimacy radiates throughout the cramped car, in a way I didn’t expect. Before, Lark talked about Kane almost as if he were dead. I thought they’d both changed too much for them to fit together again. But they do; they fit together as well as any couple I’ve met. You can’t erase a dynamic like they’ve built together, especially not in t
wo days.

  But Kane betrayed the Fellowship. Left Lark to go on his quest alone—except he’s not alone. I’m here. Lilian’s here, even though she has doubts; she’s still helping. What’s Kane doing?

  “Aren’t you the one who left the Fellowship?” I can tell, after I ask, that I shouldn’t have. Even the shuffling in the back seat stops.

  Ten slow seconds pass. Kane says, “Yes.”

  I ask, “Why?” on autopilot. My brain wants to know, and my mouth reacts as if this is a normal conversation. As if Lilian and I aren’t two fugitives chauffeuring a couple of renegade wizards cross-country.

  None of the fantasy I’ve read has prepared me for this. For real danger and magic and blood—so much blood. For tangling with people and their histories. Reading is not the same as experiencing. Cosplaying a warrior is not the same as going into battle. Writing smutty fanfic is not the same as negotiating real intimacy. Lark and Kane are not characters in one of my books. They have roots, friends, family, regardless of whether those words mean the same thing to them as they do to us. We can really get hurt on this quest. By weapons and words.

  “We need to stop,” Lark says, sparing us Kane’s answer. “Get this arrow out.”

  “We aren’t taking the arrow out,” Lilian says, and Kane looks at her, away from me. I’m relieved. Even though I’m part of this, I’m not sure it’s my place to have that conversation. “If we take it out, he’ll bleed more. Look, I made my surgeon girlfriend watch fourteen seasons of Grey’s Anatomy with me, and I’ve heard like a hundred hours of doctorly complaints about the inaccuracies of medical TV shows. There are a lot of veins in the leg that, if you nick them, will one hundred percent kill you. Now, Kane is obviously not dead, but—”

  “That ‘but’ doesn’t sound good,” he says.

  “—well, you could die still. I just want to throw out how very real that possibility is. The human body only contains so much blood. Hospitals have more. They can take care of you.”

  “No!” Lark shouts. “We’re not going to a hospital. Those doctors are outsiders. They’ll open Kane’s body, put their hands inside him, expose him to all kinds of corruption. It’s not safe. Only I can help him. I know how.”

  Lilian pleads with me wordlessly in the mirror, but I don’t have the answer. All this time, I thought I believed in Lark. I realize I’ve been practicing my belief, trying to believe. Lark’s belief is unconditional. Mine’s not. When he got us through the fence to Druid Hill, I was surprised. When he healed himself in front of me, I was in awe. From the start, I wanted magic to be real, and I still do. I wanted to be the person Lark needed, who would take him seriously, the way I needed to be taken seriously once. But what if Kane dies? Can I weigh Lark’s need against Kane’s life, when we could choose the option that I know will definitely save him? Can I risk Lark’s partner’s life to protect Lark’s feelings?

  “Look,” Lark says. “If my healing spell doesn’t work, we can discuss other steps. But I know I can do this. I already lost you once,” he says, and I hear his voice change for the man who kept his chastity and flogged him bloody. Is that a healthy relationship? Should I even encourage it? What right do I have to judge Kane, when I stepped right into his place?

  “How did you even find us?” Lark asks him.

  Kane forces a smile through his pain. “Magic.”

  “I’m stopping,” I say, because someone needs to make a decision and I’m the one at the wheel. I take the most boring-looking exit. One without any logos splashed on its sign. No fast-food chains or motels. No scenic spots to draw Instagrammers, I hope.

  “Where are we going, Cal?” I hear what Lilian is implying. That there’d better be a hospital nearby.

  “I don’t know. I’ll have to check my phone when we stop.”

  She sighs. “Okay. You’re going to be okay.” That was for Kane. The way she’s talking to him worries me. I was her roommate, so I’ve also watched fourteen seasons of Grey’s Anatomy, and she sounds like a doctor calming their dying patient.

  Kane doesn’t respond—at least not out loud. Lark slumps back into the front seat, beside me. I glimpse his bloody hands before fixing my eyes on the exit. I follow the narrowing road to an empty intersection and pick a direction without asking anyone’s opinion. I turn right, taking us off the main road, and pull onto one of those winding country roads that go for miles without anything to see.

  I slow to a stop on the side of the road. No other cars pass. We’re not too far off the main drag but enough that I can breathe and assess the situation. What now, Calvin?

  Lark climbs halfway into the back seat, never having buckled up. “I’m going to clear a space and find some herbs to make a salve.” He has a plan, even if I don’t.

  I watch Kane nod. “Okay.”

  Lilian tightens her grip on him and looks at me. Her bun is destroyed, hair falling loose across her shoulders. Her makeup is still perfect. Whichever setting spray she uses should offer her an endorsement deal.

  Lark takes Kane’s hand and presses his lips against it. Then, he kisses him as if Lilian and I aren’t there, as if he and Kane are alone in the world. “I started this quest for you,” he says. “I’m going to kill whichever monster got its claws in you.”

  “Lark…” Kane tenses, sucking breath through his teeth. He’s in pain.

  “We’re going to finish it together, okay? I’m going to heal you, and we’re going to finish our quest together.” He squeezes Kane’s hand and kisses him again. “I’ll be right back. I love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  Then, Lark is gone. His hand slips through Kane’s and he jumps out of the car, pulling on his borrowed hoodie as he runs into the trees. I watch until I can’t see him anymore.

  “Calvin, look up the nearest hospital,” Lil says.

  I unplug my phone from the cup holder, where it’s been charging since before the traffic jam. Open the maps app. The road appears pixelated—service must be terrible out here.

  I need to know. “You never answered my question.” I turn to look at Kane. He really is tall. If he were in better condition, I probably wouldn’t confront him, but the question has been weighing on me since before we met. If you can call it meeting; he never introduced himself.

  Lilian smooths her hand through the length of his unbraided hair. “Find it yet?” she asks, looking urgently at my cell. I know this isn’t the time, but it’s not loading and I want to know.

  “You left him, and I don’t know if you realize how much that hurt him,” I continue. “Why are you here now? Why come after him?”

  “You want to know why you should trust me,” Kane says. “That’s your real question.”

  I shrug. I suppose, underneath it all, that’s what I’m asking, but the “why” is much more complicated. I wouldn’t dare tell Kane, after watching them together, how much I wish I were in his place. How I want to learn magic with Lark—maybe not with the chastity and cat o’ nine tails, but we could find healthier methods. If I were his partner. I stare at the makeshift bandage stemming the flow of blood on Kane’s leg rather than at his face; I can feel my own face burning.

  “You have no reason to,” he says, voice quiet. “But I don’t need you to trust me—I don’t expect Lark to trust me either. I know that’s not what you want to hear.”

  “Not really.” I glance out the window. Still no sign of Lark.

  “I love him unconditionally.”

  “But you didn’t support him unconditionally.”

  Kane huffs a small laugh that turns into a whine.

  I hear a slapping sound, and Lilian snap, “Don’t touch it! Cal?” She nods at my phone again, and I make a show of restarting it. It’s not my fault there’s no signal out here.

  Kane continues: “I did, for years. I don’t know how much he’s told you about our lives, what it was like living as an Anointed member of the Fellowship, but it wasn’t all magic tricks and archery. Nova used us. She hurt us.”

  “I thought tha
t was your job.” I clamp my hand on the console to stop it trembling, to banish the memory of worn leather in my fist and the feeling of impact when barbs lodged themselves in flesh.

  “It was,” he says. “And it was his job to return the favor, not that it’s any of your business. I hated it, but I knew Lark loved it. I didn’t leave because I didn’t support him. I supported him by leaving. I left because Nova was abusing us, and Lark couldn’t see that. I left him even knowing that once I did, he might not love me anymore. Believe me, I wish I could’ve told him beforehand. I wanted to so badly, but I couldn’t. He would’ve told Nova, and who knows what would’ve happened—I certainly wouldn’t have been allowed to leave. Feel free to imagine what that would’ve looked like for me.” His chest heaves as he grasps for a breath.

  Lilian tightens her hold on Kane and looks desperately at my phone. It’s on again, and the signal isn’t any better. I try the map one more time, unsure what I’m hoping for. That I’ll find a hospital close by and we’ll save Kane? That Lark will return and heal him? That he’ll die …

  I bury the thought, never having felt more ashamed. Of course I don’t want Kane to die; I just don’t want him here, pushing me further from a life full of magic with Lark.

  “Maybe it was selfish,” Kane says. “Maybe I should’ve just gone on my quest and waited for Lark on the outside. Maybe I should have trusted him—I don’t know. The only thing I regret is that you two are on this quest with him now. Should’ve been me. Once we were both on the outside, I should’ve gone with him. He’d have been safer with me. I don’t have money for food or a hotel, and I don’t know how to drive or use your phones, but I know him. That would have been enough.” Kane’s eyes flutter shut.

  “Calvin,” Lilian says quietly. She mouths, “He needs a doctor.”

  I look at him for a long minute. Am I qualified to judge how he’s treated Lark? Does my opinion matter? I promised Lark I wouldn’t get in the way of his quest. Is that still the support he needs? Do I trust that he can heal Kane? Do I need to believe in him? Or should I do what’s best for him, even if it hurts?