by Matthew Lang
“I did.”
“Are you mad at me?” Adam asked. “Because you sound like you’re mad at me.”
“I’m not mad at you.”
“But you’re upset.”
“What’s going to happen after we win?” Duin asked.
“You mean if we win,” Adam said.
“No, I mean after.”
“We go home,” Adam said. “You know, if you’re not so angry with me that you still want to come along.”
“Joeri says you’re going to rule the new Aracao.”
Adam set the breastplate off to one side and wondered if he dared taking off the leather jerkin without removing the backplate. He was sure it was possible, but he’d always had help before. “Joeri doesn’t know me very well. Do you really think I’d want a crown and a throne?”
“I think Aracao would be lucky to have a king like you.”
“And I’d consider myself lucky not to be the king of anything,” Adam said. Giving up on the backplate, he walked over to the corner and knelt at Duin’s side. When Duin finally opened his eyes, Adam smiled and kissed him soundly, cradling Duin’s head gently in his hands. “I’m not going to abandon you, love,” he said softly. “Ever. You do believe me when I tell you that, right?”
“Yes, but—”
“No buts,” Adam said firmly. “If you believe me, then there’s no buts.” He slid his hand down Duin’s spine to his firmly muscled ass. “Well, okay, maybe one or two.”
“I thought you said someone might overhear,” Duin objected.
Adam brought his lips right up to Duin’s left ear. “Then we’d better not make any noise,” he whispered with a grin. “None at all.”
“Adam, I don’t know if I can—”
“You have to,” Adam whispered as he brought his hands around Duin’s flanks to hover over his lover’s groin. “I’m going crazy not touching you, and clearly you need reminding exactly who and what I want here.” Grinning, he rocked back on his heels. “Now will you please give me a hand with the backplate on this thing?”
Rolling his eyes, Duin got to his feet, stretched, and maneuvered Adam so he could reach the backplate. Once the backplate was off, Duin removed the greaves and cuisses of shaped spider carapace from his legs. Standing, he helped Adam unbuckle the jerkin and pull the heavy garment off his shoulders. Then he unceremoniously toppled Adam onto the bed.
“Hey!”
Grinning, Duin all but pounced onto Adam, fingers going to the waistband of his breeches. “What? I’m helping.”
Adam’s chuckle turned into a gasp as Duin unbuttoned the front flap of his pants and slid the lizard leather off his legs, leaving him clad in nothing more than his smallclothes. As one of his hands tugged on the knots that kept them together, Duin leaned over Adam’s form and kissed him soundly. “I thought we were going to be quiet,” he whispered.
Adam had to choke back a cry when the cloth fell away and Duin’s warm hand clutched his rapidly rising cock. Then his lover’s mouth was taking him in and swallowing him down, leaving him grasping at the sheets as teeth delicately scraped over the head of his cock. Somehow, the necessity of keeping quiet made his body sing, each touch eliciting a burst of heat and a quiver of need. His lover’s mouth let his cock go with an audible pop, and hot kisses were dropped up his stomach and chest before lips pressed against his mouth with urgency. Opening his mouth eagerly to accept Duin’s invading tongue, Adam nearly groaned as his lover ravaged his mouth with a passion that held just a tinge of desperation. Adam grabbed the hem of Duin’s tunic and yanked it up, forcing his lover to break the kiss as he pulled the obstructing cloth out of the way. Duin’s leggings were easier to remove. Once Adam untied the cord that served as a rudimentary belt they all but fell away, leaving just the smallclothes, which took only a few moments to untie. Then they were lying together again in glorious nudity, and for a moment that was enough. Adam looked up into Duin’s eyes, seeing the sense of wonder he was feeling reflected in their amber depths. Then Duin’s mouth descended on his again, and he was lost in the haze of their passion, all the while trying to remember that he was meant to be keeping quiet.
AS THEY basked in the postcoital glow of their lovemaking, Adam pulled Duin to him and wrapped his arms around him. “I’ve missed this,” he whispered, nuzzling into his lover’s neck. “You should sleep here tonight—this sleep.”
Duin sighed and kissed Adam’s bicep. “I can’t, you know that. And we should get cleaned up or the whole room will smell like rutting.”
“Can’t we just stay like this a bit longer?” Adam asked. “I don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve been able to just hold you.”
“Maybe afterward,” Duin said softly. “But not for too long. If we stay like this for too long, I’m not going to want to sleep in my own bed.”
Adam tightened his grip around Duin ever so slightly. “Then maybe we shouldn’t go anywhere.”
“Adam, if I stay here and you get into trouble, I’ll never forgive myself.”
“And is this trouble going to be because I love you or because they think I should marry Esmeralda?” Adam asked softly.
“Both.”
Adam sighed. “I am going to take you home to a place where we can be together like this and no one will care—at least, no one who matters. And when we get there, I’m going to hold you close and you’re not going to need to pull away.”
“Is that a promise?” Duin asked, his voice so quiet it was barely discernible.
“That’s a promise,” Adam whispered, pulling Duin closer to him. “That’s definitely a promise.”
ESMERALDA’S FAREWELL was an occasion of much ceremony, attended by almost all of the city’s inhabitants. They gathered in the council amphitheater, the people sitting in tiered seating beneath the spreading leaves, some sprouting tufts of fur as the breeze pushed through the canopy, allowing dapples of sunshine to penetrate the otherwise greenish light of the stone glows. For the first time, Adam saw the other four of the seven elders—one for each great tree pillar that made up Boolikstaad city—five of them sitting on high-backed padded stools on the balcony overlooking the amphitheater. Elder Faas and Elder Thera, as the oldest and youngest of the seven, were standing in the courtyard below, along with Esmeralda, Captain Wendell, and three other burly warriors.
As designated dragonslayer, Adam had the privilege of a front-row seat, and managed to get Duin and Joeri into seats on either side of him. As they waited for the speeches to end, Adam amused himself by watching Duin out of the corner of his eye as his lover grew the occasional tuft of fur in the sunlight that glinted through the canopy. Once, when a particularly strong gust hit, he saw Duin’s right ear creep up his head into the more pointed version he’d come to know, love, and more recently, even miss a little.
“What?” Duin whispered.
“What do you mean, what?” Adam whispered back.
“You’re staring at me.”
“You’re sprouting,” Adam said.
“Sprouting?”
“Fur.”
“I know, it itches.”
Adam’s chuckle was quickly disguised as a cough.
In the center of the courtyard, the pace of Elder Faas’s speech was quickening, and he turned to address Esmeralda and her companions.
“Princess Esmeralda of Aergon, you are charged with the solemn duty of journeying to the caverns of your people to forge an unwavering alliance between the Aergonite people and the Children of Selune in the eyes of the sister goddesses. Do you accept this quest freely and without reservation under the eyes of the goddess of night?”
“I do,” Esmeralda said.
“Blessings of Selune upon you, questor,” Elder Faas said. “May this ring of the living wood bring you safely home.” Adam craned to see the object, which, unsurprisingly, turned out to be a small smooth wooden ring that looked like it was made of a twisted twig, right down to the small green leaf buds he could see.
“Captain Wendell of Boolikstaad, you are charg
ed with the solemn duty of accompanying Princess Esmeralda as her guardian and protector. Her quest is your quest, and her life is your life. Do you accept this quest freely and without reservation under the eyes of the goddess of night?”
Captain Wendell stared straight ahead, pride filling his eyes. “I do,” he said.
“Blessings of Selune upon you, questor. Please accept the blade of Galen Haan, slayer of the kanak chief Broken-Tooth. May it serve you as well in the trials ahead.”
“Sounds like a damn wedding,” Adam whispered as Elder Faas continued to the warriors accompanying Esmeralda and Captain Wendell, extracting similar pledges and giving them gifts of fine metal-tipped arrows, rather than the bone-pointed ones that were more commonly used by the haerunwoln hunters.
“Really? What sort of weddings do you have? Ours are much more festive.”
“Never mind,” Adam said. “I’ll explain some other time, but if this concludes with a blessing for health, wealth, and happiness, I’m not going to be able to keep a straight face.”
He looked over as Joeri nudged him with an elbow. “If you two are going to whisper, either stop moving your heads so everyone doesn’t know you’re doing it, or speak up so I can hear you.”
In the courtyard in front of them, Elder Faas handed over the last quiver of arrows and stepped back to address them again.
“You have accepted your sworn duties in the sight of Our Lady and bid your families goodbye. Before you embark on your journey, is there anything else you would like to say? No? Then—”
“Waur Faas,” Esmeralda said, “there is something I need to say.”
The crowd stirred, and the whispered conversations died down as focus returned to the courtyard. Clearly this was not something that happened during these prequest ceremonies.
“I go home to the caverns of my people,” Esmeralda said, stepping forward, her voice ringing clearly through the air. “I go so I might return to bring us to our true home, Aer Goragon, where the House of Helene faces the House of Selune, where we lived before we were divided into Children of Selune and Aergonite cave dweller.
“Together we will stand, and while I am gone, I must leave in your care the most precious of treasures—he who was foretold in the prophecies of Ignatius Solmento, hero of Aracao and bearer of Wyrmbane. I have waited many cycles to say these words, to bring these tidings, and here, now, in this place under the sight of Selune, I can say to you: we will prevail. Sir Adam will lead us through the city gates to a new life without fear of flying serpents to darken our skies. And so it is with a heavy heart that I must charge you with his safety while I am gone.
“Sir Adam,” Esmeralda said. “Please stand.”
“Uh… okay, verily I… uh…what do you need? Your Highness?”
“I must leave you, my lord,” Esmeralda said formally. “But before I go, I give you this to remember me by—a token, if you will. It is an eye of the moon spider you defeated here—the first to fall in living memory.” She held aloft a small bejeweled pendant on a leather cord. It was either cut or naturally formed in a shape not dissimilar to a tiny soccer ball, and glittered strangely in the green light of the glows.
“Thank you, Your Highness,” Adam said, kneeling so she could place it around his neck. “I will remember you when I wear it and keep it close always, until we meet again.”
Esmeralda smiled and stepped back. “Duin of Boolikstaad, please stand.”
“What? Me?” Duin asked, rising hesitantly to his feet, looking around nervously.
“Duin of Boolikstaad, you have stood by my side—by our sides—from the beginning. You have kept us both alive in times when we would have faltered without your aid and asked for nothing in return. Your generosity will not be forgotten when we retake our home, and I hope that on that day, I will be able to offer you more than my favor,” she said, handing him a flimsy length of silk.
Swallowing hard, Duin took the silk in much the same way Adam would have picked up a venomous snake. He bowed low, then took his seat, trembling as Esmeralda turned and walked back into the precise center of the formal semicircle of the quest companions, leaving a stunned silence in her wake.
“I thank you, Elder Faas, for your indulgence.”
“You are most welcome, Your Highness,” Elder Faas said. “Now go with good heart, and may the grace of Selune cast the shadows from your path.”
And with that final blessing, the five mounted their steeds and rode down the great tree, with the haerunwoln following them to the lowest branches and watching through the canopy as the five rode across the leaf-littered ground and off to the south.
AFTER THAT, life in Boolikstaad went back to normal, which left Adam feeling jumpy and more than a little irritable.
“Are you all right?” Duin asked from the bed as Adam paced around their small room.
Adam shook his head. “I don’t like this. How can everyone just go back to everyday life?”
“Because we must,” Duin said. “Would you rather we sit around worrying and forget to eat?”
“Well, when you put it that way…,” Adam said.
“You have never had to wait like this before, have you?”
“No. You have?”
“When I first came to Boolikstaad, I was taken in by a hunter and his wife. They’d never had children, and in a way, they became my new parents. He was one of the men chosen to go return to Aergon and bring back any new children. He used to spend a lot of time away, and the first time I’d wait by the window every sleep until he came back. And that was fine when I was a child, because he always came back. Always. So I stopped waiting and started working and hunting the way I was supposed to.”
“But he always came back,” Adam said.
“Yes,” Duin agreed. “Until he didn’t.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”
“The others he went with made it back, along with two more children. He died trying to save the rest when they stumbled upon a kanak patrol.”
“Well, that’s something, I guess.”
“Yes, it is. My second mother died shortly after, and I’ve been alone ever since.”
“Is that why you took the job going to Aergon?” Adam asked. “To do what your dad did?”
“That was one reason,” Duin agreed.
“What were the others?”
“I was born in Aergon,” Duin said. “Plus, after people here… found out about me, no one really wanted me around anyway. I figured I might as well do something useful if I was going to go court death.”
“I’m sorry,” Adam said. “You really do hate it here, don’t you?”
Duin’s mouth twitched. “Yes.”
“Although I’ve noticed they’re all tiptoeing very carefully around you since Esmeralda left,” Adam said.
A truly genuine smile crossed Duin’s features. “Yes. She gave them something to think about.”
“I’ll say. Maybe they’ll stop picking on you now.”
“Maybe they’ll just start being very, very nice,” Duin said, although his tone was uncertain.
“Is that a bad thing?”
“It’s different. But it does not quite feel real.”
“I’ve had that feeling since I got here,” Adam said, rubbing at his arms. “What was his name?” he asked suddenly.
“What?”
“The man you were with. What was his name?”
Duin shook his head. “There was no man. I was caught looking at the wrong time, and the rumors started. That was pretty much the end of it.”
Adam shook his head. “Duin, he knew.”
“What? That’s not possible.”
“You said it yourself, rumors started,” Adam said. “He would have heard them, and if there were rumors about you, I can guarantee there were rumors saying who you were staring at, and he’d be the first person they all got told to.”
“But then, why did he never…?”
Adam stopped pacing and knelt down at the foot of the bed so he could ca
tch Duin’s gaze. “Why did he never what?”
“Say anything?” Duin twisted his hands around themselves nervously, and Adam grabbed them to still him.
“Duin, it’s okay.”
“He’s the only one who never treated me any differently.”
“Maybe he liked you too,” Adam suggested. “Maybe he was just too scared to act on it—or he was waiting for you to make the first move.”
“Please don’t say that,” Duin said.
“Why not?”
“I have you, right?” Duin said, a shy smile flickering around the corners of his eyes. “I’m not really comfortable thinking about what might have been.”
Pulling Duin’s head down, Adam kissed him gently. “Okay. Why don’t we go and jump through bamboo thickets with Joeri?”
“I’d rather not,” Duin said. “You go. I’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure? You can watch me fall over a few times. That’s always amused you before.”
“I’m sure. I’ll—stay here and meditate.”
“Okay,” Adam said. “If you need anything….”
Duin squeezed Adam’s hands. “Isn’t that what I’m supposed to be saying?”
“Hey,” Adam said, “I’m your boyfriend. If you need support, that’s what I’m here for. You don’t always have to be the strong one—even if you more or less have been for, you know, most of our time together.”
Duin’s smile was genuine. “Thanks. Train hard.”
Chapter 20
ADAM FOUND Joeri at the archery range, practicing with a shortbow. The lean man looked up at Adam with an open smile. “Sir Adam! I wasn’t expecting you.”
“I need to do something,” Adam replied with a shrug. “I can’t cope with all the waiting around.”
“I understand,” Joeri said. “Where’s Duin?”
“Meditating,” Adam said. “I don’t know if he’s good with the waiting either.”
Joeri looked at him for a moment, his gaze thoughtful. “I suppose he might not be, at that. Come, we should see how you are with the bow. Have you had any experience?”