A Love Like Fire: High Fantasy M/M Romance (Juxtan Book 1)

by Tricia Owens

  Gavedon eyed the ball skeptically. To an untrained eye, the glass looked like nothing more threatening than a paperweight. "What do you require of me?"

  Midagon held back his excitement. This was too important for him to ruin by giving the game away.

  "Place a Cast of Illusion on the ball, but alter that with a Cast of Transfusion so that the images in my head will transfer into the glass. Once Hadrian sees what fate awaits you, I promise you he will submit."

  Midagon counted his heartbeats as Gavedon considered the offer. When he had reached seventy-three, Gavedon nodded.

  Midagon nearly crowed in triumph. He held little doubt that on his own, Gavedon would eventually force Hadrian to his will. But such force would break Hadrian. It would alter him in ways that wouldn't be revealed until much later in his future. By his expression, even Gavedon feared that.

  What Gavedon didn't suspect, though, was that Midagon had seen multiple futures at the tail end of his last scrying for Gavedon. Versions in which Hadrian went willingly to Rhiad. Versions in which Hadrian did not go at all. Midagon had been careful not to share these periphery visions with Gavedon and was thankful now that he hadn't. That knowledge was the only power left to him and he intended to use it to his full advantage.

  "Make him see that there is no other option but to obey me," Gavedon told him gravely.

  "I will show him," Midagon replied. But to himself, he thought, Yes, I will show him his options, Gavedon. And we will see what your treatment of your son has wrought.

  ~~~~~

  Hadrian tensed as the door to his room opened. He relaxed in his bindings when he saw that it was only Midagon. Seeing the old seer as a much younger man was still disconcerting to him. Such transformation was not natural. Though his father had been the one using such magick, it still left Hadrian ill at ease. Especially since Midagon did not appear to be pleased by the change. The seer stalked the halls of the castle carrying a palpable cloud of negative energy over his head.

  "Midagon, have you come to untie me?" Hadrian asked hopefully, tugging at the ropes.

  "I'm afraid not, my dear boy." Midagon stopped before the chair. He held a ball of glass in his hand which he held up before Hadrian's face. "Your father asked me to help change your mind."

  "You know what he asks of me?" Hadrian blurted incredulously. "Don’t tell me you agree with what he wants?"

  "You know that I’m a seer," Midagon said, the corners of his eyes pinching with a mysterious pain. "I’ve seen the future for both of you. Rhiad cannot be avoided."

  Hadrian sagged, his eyes filling with grief. "But someone there is important to me."

  "What he asks of you will be difficult, and I’m sorry for that. This is not something done lightly and without suffering. But you’re a grown man and you’re not wholly innocent, are you, Hadrian?" Midagon smiled, not unkindly. "You’ve been stealing magecraft books from the library. You have one beneath your bed as we speak. It is thievery, but I know you stole because you wish to learn. In that same vein, one may argue that there is a valid excuse for every crime. Including this one."

  "Murder is never excusable," Hadrian argued vehemently.

  "What if it prevents further atrocities?" Midagon suggested with an arched brow. "I’m here to show you that there are options in this situation, Hadrian. There are also consequences to those options." He drew Hadrian's attention to the ball. "Watch here. This is what will come to pass if you refuse to assist your father and you instead leave the island on your own."

  Hadrian watched the glass, his eyes growing round as a nightmarish scene unfolded within the ball.

  "No," he protested, his heart cracking. "No, I don’t want that!" He strained against the ropes binding him, his eyes filling with tears. "Please, Midagon. You can't let that happen. You can't! You don't understand!"

  Midagon waited out his struggles until Hadrian slumped in his bonds. He lifted Hadrian's chin with a finger, directing his eyes to the glass again. "Dear boy, this is what the future holds if you do return to Rhiad and does as he demands."

  Hadrian blanched as a new scene unfolded. He thought he might be violently ill. The only thing controlling his gorge was the certainty that he would be left to sit in his own filth. The tears that had wavered in his eyes fell free to chase each other down his cheeks. His mind could barely comprehend what he was seeing. But his heart knew. His heart screamed its denial.

  Midagon lowered the glass, his face expressionless. "I'm sorry for your choice," he said quietly.

  Hadrian blinked up at him through blurred eyes. "I can’t make that choice. You ask the impossible. You can’t ask me to choose between such terrible fates. Midagon, you know I can't do it."

  Midagon frowned. "Gavedon didn’t mean for you to have a choice at all. He didn’t send me in here to offer you an alternative. I am supposed to make certain you do what he says." For a fraction of a moment, Midagon's face softened. "But I am giving you a choice, Hadrian. I’m allowing you some free will in this, so I suggest that you use it. You may either go through with what your father wants, or I will help you to leave this island and let things fall where they may. Your decision alters your future. I'm giving you the chance to make it what you want. There is nothing worse than being a man who lacks control over his life. Believe me in this."

  Hadrian heard the bitterness in the words and he realized that his father had betrayed Midagon. He wished he could be surprised, but what he had learned of his father this day had come to change many of his perceptions of Gavedon.

  "But both of those fates are worse than my own death," Hadrian replied, devastated in heart and soul. "Surely you understand that. I can’t be a part of any of this. I refuse to willingly blacken my soul. I would rather―I would rather die."

  The door to his room banged open and Gavedon stormed inside, his face a stone carving of rage.

  Midagon fell back nervously. "My lord! I didn't realize you were listen―"

  "You insolent, spineless whelp of a boy!" Gavedon snarled. His meaty palm connected with Hadrian's cheek, shocking both Midagon and Hadrian speechless. "What gave you any reason to believe that any of this revolves around you? This is about the Order of the White Shard. This is about the men and women who will be shaping the future of sorcery in Juxtan for generations to come. This is about more than your whiny, pitiful little self." He glared hotly down at Hadrian. "Take your own life? How dare you be so selfish! I have long worried that you’re my son in little more than name. The cowardice and disloyalty you’re showing to me now makes me believe that I was right to think such. "

  Hadrian shook his head. Gavedon's words sliced away pieces of his heart. "Please don't say that..."

  "Then prove me wrong," Gavedon hissed, grabbing a handful of Hadrian's hair and yanking his head back. All Hadrian could see was the fierce light in his father's eyes. If it was madness or passion, Hadrian couldn't tell.

  "Don't make me bind you to me, Hadrian. Come with me willingly and assist me in this. Two sorcerers are needed for this. I need the other to be you. Prove your loyalty. Be a good son for once in your useless life. Give me one blasted reason to be proud of you."

  The words ate away at Hadrian's soul. Yearning and anger warred within him―yearning for his father's approval, anger that that very need was being used to manipulate him. Against the painful pull of his hair, Hadrian managed to lower his head enough to look at Midagon, standing tense behind Gavedon.

  The seer appeared troubled by the scene before him, but the man's blue eyes held the stark truth. He had shown Hadrian the possibilities for the future. They burned across Hadrian's eyes, each as terrible as the other. Make a choice, Midagon had said. But Hadrian could not decide between those fates. No man could. In one vision, Hadrian fled the island and Gavedon burned Rhiad to the ground, killing all of its inhabitants. In the other, Hadrian joined his father and became a murderer, but some might have survived…

  "I won't do it," he whispered, raising his gaze back to his father. "I can’t. I re
fuse to be a monster."

  He had caught Gavedon by surprise for perhaps the first time ever. Again, Hadrian glimpsed that odd fear in his father's face that Hadrian thought he'd only imagined before. There was no mistaking it now. Hearing Hadrian disobey him had disturbed Gavedon.

  But that unexplainable fear swiftly morphed into fury. Gavedon's fingers tightened, making Hadrian grit his teeth as his eyes teared.

  "Perhaps fate is not so easy to change, yes, Midagon? I'm beginning to think I didn’t curtail your first reading after all." The mysterious comment confused Hadrian as Gavedon released him and glared down at him. Behind Gavedon, the seer didn’t respond. He stood, waiting warily for Gavedon's next move. "I had hoped to use this opportunity to tighten our bond," Gavedon continued. "To secure ourselves as father and son once and for all."

  Hadrian felt the tears drip steadily down his face.

  "But you're not the son I want. You refuse to be."

  "That's not true," Hadrian argued, his voice small. But inside, he knew his father was right.

  Gavedon stepped away from him. "I will give you the night to reconsider, Hadrian."

  "I won't change my mind!"

  Gavedon's smile broke across his lips like a splitting sausage. "Don't be so certain, my defiant son." He paused at the door and turned. "But if you insist on putting up a fight, I'll add a little incentive to speed along your compliance."

  Hadrian felt his head begin to tingle with the touch of magick. "What are you doing?"

  Gavedon watched him expectantly. Hadrian began breathing faster in fearful anticipation of what his father intended. Hadrian's eyes swung to Midagon. The burgeoning horror on the seer's face pushed Hadrian swiftly into panic.

  “What is it? What has he done to me?”

  Then he felt it: a tugging at his scalp, a movement like fingers through his hair. Many fingers. Writhing fingers. Fingers that slithered and entwined across his skull.

  Choking on his fear, Hadrian snapped his eyes to the side as something dark dropped into the corner of his vision. A small black snake, the exact color of his hair and no thicker than his finger, danced beside his face. Another dropped down, hissing and wrapping around the first snake. Something slick slid down his temple and tried to worm itself into his ear. Hadrian cried out and thrashed wildly, tearing the skin of his wrists. He could feel his entire head moving, ropes of snakes slithering down his neck and curling around his throat. The tugging on his scalp grew stronger, pulling the skin in a hundred different directions. Hadrian heard himself babbling.

  "Ohgodsohgodsohgodsnonono!"

  "Accompany me to Rhiad willingly," Gavedon said. Hadrian barely heard him, his ears filled with a sibilant whisper. "Maybe a head full of snakes will convince you that there are worse fates than saving your father's life."

  Gavedon ushered a horrified Midagon out of the room and shut the door. The latch clicked just as Hadrian began screaming.

  ~~~~~

  Gavedon didn’t leave him the night as he'd threatened. Though Hadrian would have claimed he'd suffered for a hundred years, sunlight hadn’t yet stolen into the window of his room when he heard the sound of approaching footsteps.

  The door to his room opened. Hadrian kept his eyes tightly clenched, unable to stand the sight of the snakes that grew from his scalp. He feared he teetered on the edge of madness. He knew he was only a few minutes away from using his magick to set his own head aflame. It would be a blessing if it killed him.

  For the last several hours, he had gritted his teeth to endure the writhing horror growing out of his head. His jaw ached so badly he thought he'd cracked his teeth. His nails were broken from digging into the arms of his chair, and the cords of his neck stood out so thickly that pain lanced down his spine and back up into his head.

  "Do you wish me to make it stop?" Gavedon asked softly.

  Hadrian tried to answer coherently, but babble spilled from his lips as soon as he peeled them apart. "Please, please, stop it, make it stop, oh gods, I'll do anything, just get them off of me, get them out of me! OH, GODS, THEY’RE IN MY HEAD!"

  A hand grabbed his chin. "Open your eyes, Hadrian."

  He couldn't. He couldn't look at those snakes again because then it would be real and he would feel them sprouting like weeds from his skin, like worms wriggling out of his flesh, like horrible, crawling, hissing things, and oh, gods, they were in his skin—

  "Open your eyes!"

  Hadrian cracked open salt-crusted lashes. He found his father gazing at him with pity.

  "I can make them go away, Hadrian. Just agree to go with me to Rhiad and do as I say there."

  Go to Rhiad, why go to Rhiad―make them stop biting me!

  "Why?" he croaked.

  Gavedon smiled. "To eliminate the mercenaries who threaten my life, remember?"

  Oh, yes, Gavedon wanted him to help kill the mercenaries. Help kill them all with sorcery. Help kill―Caledon. And at the memory of his blond-haired lover, Hadrian recalled the futures Midagon had laid out for him. Escape with Midagon's help, spare himself and doom the entire town to death, or go through with Gavedon's plans, become a murderer, and perhaps spare a few. Each was a choice from hell. They were not choices at all.

  But as a snake bit his earlobe, sinking tiny teeth into already abused flesh, Hadrian gradually realized that in the course of the last few hours of his torture, one choice had slowly become less awful to him.

  "Go to Rhiad," Hadrian whispered in a voice raw from screaming. He blinked, expecting more tears. But he had wept himself dry.

  Gavedon smiled. He stroked Hadrian’s chin with his thumb. "Yes, Hadrian. Will you do it willingly?"

  "Kill them," Hadrian said dully.

  He was tired. Too tired to think. Too tired to fight. Too tired to care what he was surrendering to. He just wanted an end to the misery, an end to the turmoil in his heart. Please stop the snakes. I'll do anything. I'll do anything―

  "I'll do it," he moaned.

  Tendrils of black hair, stringy with sweat, fell around his neck, their touch as soft as velvet. Hadrian sobbed with relief, his chin hitting his breast when Gavedon released him. A warm palm cupped his head and gently stroked through his hair.

  "You're a good son, Hadrian. I always knew you were." Hadrian's tension-strung body slumped like a dead man's in the chair. He found himself nuzzling into his father's hand in search of comfort. "I'll have a servant draw you a bath and bring you up some food." A dry kiss was pressed to his forehead. "I want you to rest, Hadrian. We leave for Rhiad soon. Once we do this, you and I will have nothing to worry about ever again. Our bond will be solidified, and you will never know such pain again. My poor, dear son."

  The endearment echoed in Hadrian's head. He clutched it like a hand in the dark as he sank into blessed unconsciousness.

  ~~~~~

  "If you’re going to survive this, dear boy, you need to lock yourself away."

  Hadrian had bathed and tried to eat after his father had left him. During his bath he had touched his hair continuously to reassure himself that the strands hadn't reverted to snakes. Now, he should have been in bed, resting up for the voyage back to Rhiad in the morning. But of course he couldn't sleep. Not when he knew what he was going to do.

  Midagon had entered Hadrian's room without knocking, knowing, it seemed, that Hadrian would be unable to sleep. The seer stood behind him now as Hadrian gazed out of his bedroom window in the direction of Rhiad.

  "If you want to emerge from this atrocity with a shred of your sanity intact, do not be Hadrian ni Leyanon when you do this," Midagon urged him.

  "And who am I supposed to be if not me?" Hadrian snapped in a voice that cracked. "It will be my body there. It will be my magick that delivers the pain."

  Midagon stepped forward and laid a hand upon his shoulder. "Be what your father wants you to be: a tool, nothing more. Don’t be a man. Don’t be a son. Be a tool: heartless, remorseless, without conscience. If you allow 'Hadrian' to do the things your father desires, you
will be destroyed." Midagon squeezed his shoulder. "He has forced your hand as it is. Don’t give him the power to ruin you. I’m begging you."

  Hadrian turned, bemusement on his face as he studied the seer. "Why would you beg such a thing? Why would you care what happens to me?"

  "Because Gavedon ruined me," Midagon hissed. "And I have vowed with all that remains that he will not do it again while I have the wits and wherewithal to stop it." He looked deeply into Hadrian's eyes. "I’ve watched you being raised in a manner unfit for a child. I’ve seen you stalk these halls as quiet as a shadow and as fearful as one chased by the sun. I've seen your face become a mask that shows nothing of the pain you feel when your father mistreats you, and we all know that he does," he added when Hadrian flinched. "You've a mastery of ice, Hadrian. Pull that ice around you in the days to come. Hide yourself behind the snow. Don’t let your heart thaw until you’re standing upon these shores again. Then―" Midagon's expression hardened, "―then you may unleash the fire that is within you, dear boy. Then you may exact your revenge."

  "Revenge," Hadrian whispered, shocked at the concept.

  Midagon nodded soberly. "It may not find shelter in your mind now, but it will. Once you have done this with him in Rhiad, your heart will demand it. Be sure you have the strength to answer that call, Hadrian. Lock yourself away until then."

  Lock yourself away.

  Hadrian turned back to the window, the words ringing in his head. He felt the chill night air sweep over his face as if in welcome.

  ~~~~~

  In the early morning hours, he gave up all attempts at sleep. He made his way silently through the castle and stood upon the shores of Shard's Point. Across the waters, golden fires danced within the guts of the Graying Cliffs. The drums of the Dimorada carried hauntingly across the surface of the sea. Hadrian could hear the men and women who lived in those cliffs singing a wild, unrecognizable song.

  Did they know what he and his father intended within a few days? Were they celebrating the coming destruction? Or were they condemning it?