by Kim Wedlock
Her eyes trailed back onto him. She watched his gaze draw further away, his frown loosen, and his mind become finally and totally swallowed by his thoughts like a drowned body giving up its last struggle and dropping beneath the surface of a lake.
Taliel rose decisively from her stool, dug into her pocket and dropped a few coins onto the counter before turning back to him with purpose in her suddenly lively eyes. He frowned back, puzzled and disappointed, but she didn't leave right away. Instead, to his visible curiosity, she smiled and extended her hand. "Come with me."
Towering beech and chestnut trees concealed what little light the late evening had to offer, and the thick, victorious darkness of the forest amplified its habitual chill and stillness. Nothing could be seen or heard moving within its grasp, but it was far from as empty as it appeared, the haunt of all kinds of clawed and taloned creatures whose watchful, unblinking gazes surveyed the comings and goings of the few authorised to tread within Blackbrush's dense confines.
But despite that fact, Salus's every step was hesitant, and his eyes flicked around uncomfortably from shadow to shadow as if searching for something that shouldn't be there. But there was certainly nothing - if there was, he wouldn't have been looking around so openly.
Taliel shook her head wearily as she walked slowly over the cluttered forest floor beside him. "Relax."
"I am relaxed."
"You're absolutely not. Look, just breathe," she demonstrated the action for the fifth time, "and leave everything behind. I've told you, there's nothing out here but presence."
"Which still doesn't make any sense..."
"It makes perfect sense, you're just over-thinking it--" She stumbled suddenly at her own words, but Salus was quick to catch her. He looked down to locate whatever root had tripped her, but she shook it off and cursed aloud her own feet to dissuade him as she righted herself. He seemed to accept it.
"Then explain it to me," he said as they continued, intrigued, and waited patiently as she thought for a long moment to form an explanation that wouldn't require five more.
"Presence," she began slowly, "time...existence. Nothing but 'now'..." She cast him a musing look. "For example, you have no way of working out here, do you? No one to issue orders to, no reports to read, no meetings to attend. You have no entertainment, either - no books, no instruments, no pencils. No food. No distractions." She passed a brief, wide look over their surroundings and couldn't help a soft sigh of contentment. "All that is out here is now."
Her eyes turned back to him when he didn't respond, and she found him watching her with interest and the slightest of smiles. "That's..."
"Profound?"
His smile widened. "A bit chilling - but...I think I like it. It's true escape... Though you did get one thing wrong."
She frowned. "Oh?"
"We're out here."
A laugh escaped as a smile curved her frown away. "What does that have to do with anything?"
Salus was suddenly in front of her, forcing her to a short stop as he blocked her path, but she didn't try to find a way around, nor shrink from the new kind of curiosity that intensified in his eyes. "It's a distraction," he stated plainly.
"Would you like me to leave?"
"I'd like to be distracted."
She considered him for a long moment, a soft frown once again playing on her brow. There was a confident weight to his words, but it was one she was sure was feigned. At that moment, he sought only distraction, something or someone to steal away his attention and silence his mind if only for a while. And something about that insulted her.
She hid behind a pleasant laugh, brushing the words away, and stepped past him to continue leisurely through the trees. He made no attempt to stop her, but disappointment didn't soften the keen edge to his eyes as they tracked her, and he shortly fell back in step alongside. They walked on in silence, acutely aware of each other's company even as they attempted to distance themselves for comfort, but Salus's watchful eyes were soon quietly analysing her again. "Can I ask you something?" She nodded her consent. "Does your work cause you stress?"
She trapped her reflex answer behind her teeth. The question wasn't as simple as it seemed. Posed when, where and as it was, it required careful thought, not obedience - a fact he confirmed with patience.
They reached one of the countless streams that engraved the forest floor, flowing around rocks and broken trunks and beneath ancient, cage-like roots, and they crossed it with a light jump.
"My work is necessary," she stated at last. "I'm aware of its importance, and if I notice the pressure, it never gets in my way. I'm phidipan. I can always shut it out."
"That's not what I asked."
Her eyes flicked towards him, noting the growing pressure of his gaze. "I know. But I'm not entirely sure what it is you want me to say..."
His lips parted, their corners turned downwards, and hesitation stayed his tongue for only a fleeting moment. Then he spoke without apology. "I want you to tell me that your work stresses you out. That the pressure gets too much sometimes, and that, once or twice, you have doubted your abilities or decisions on a task because of it. And that it happens to everyone. And that it doesn't make you any less competent, or cast shame on you, when it does." A wild and desperate spark ignited in his eyes, and he took a restrained half-step towards her. "Taliel, I feel...too much. I can't make sense of it. Some of it is good, like when I'm around you and I feel calmer, happier...but the rest...I can't concentrate. At night, I doubt my decisions - I know they were the right ones when I made them, but what if there had been a better choice, a simpler, quicker, more certain choice, but it just didn't occur to me? What if I could have saved even just a few more lives by issuing different orders? What if I could have eradicated Doana as a threat or even stopped Skilan's attack right from the beginning if I had just chosen something else--"
Taliel's lips silenced his growing exasperation. Surprise stalled him, but he was quick to overcome it. He returned the kiss eagerly, and his softness surprised her again, overriding her pity for his unending torment. Just like those few nights ago, she had expected his lips to be as rough and rigid as his temperament, but instead they were tender, pleasant. Enjoyable. The sad, sympathetic knot in her brow loosened as she leaned into his warmth against the surrounding chill, and he into her, and she felt the soft and uncertain pressure of his hand soon move onto her waist.
Shame surged through her like an explosion in a mine, stunning her back to her senses, and she suddenly heard the voice in the back of her head that had been screaming Rathen's name and the reason for her own tensions. Nausea was quick to follow, worsened by self-reproach, but somehow she managed not to push him away in disgust. She pulled away softly instead, and smiled reassuringly for both their sakes, desperately trying to regain control of herself. "Everyone has doubts," she promised him, successfully feigning composure. "Everyone wonders if they couldn't have done a better job if they'd gone about things in a different way, or if there wasn't an easier, safer or more convenient option. But only the people who let that doubt cripple them, who obsess and can't accept the choices they've made, become incompetent. The decisions you have to make are harder than most, but the fact that you make them and then turn your attention onto dealing with the next situation proves your strength." Her eyes, calmer now, gripped his troubled gaze. "These aren't concerns you need to burden yourself with. They're not weaknesses you will ever succumb to. You're too strong for that."
Salus didn't speak. He stared at her through a lingering flicker of surprise, weighing her words, searching them for any falsehoods or threads he could pull to unravel her sureties, perhaps out of self-pity or perhaps just to encourage her to kiss him again. She in turn maintained her confidence, trying at the same time to read his thoughts and silently assure herself that the kiss had been only to quell his rising desperation. And that it had been successful in doing so.
A breeze picked up around them, carrying the scent of damp moss and dirt from the wid
e river that cut through the forest a quarter mile away to water distant Kulokhar. In the still of the ageing evening and against the rustle of the disturbed leaves, they could almost hear its rush, along with the hoot of stirring owls and alarmed patter of the mice that hid from them. And if one concentrated, the scent of ripening apples from a nearby orchard and the wild lavender that grew beneath them, and the distant, lilting, territorial songs of unknown birds.
She noticed something change in Salus's pensive expression; a flash of realisation passed through his widening eyes, and a slight but visible jolt rocked his body, as if a thought had physically struck him. His gaze shifted briefly to the forest behind her and changed again, too quickly for her to be certain if it was recognition or fright, but when they returned to her they held a suddenly unmistakable longing. One powerful enough to freeze her heartbeat.
He closed the distance she'd put between them in a single, impulsive stride and pressed his lips against hers. She hadn't a moment to respond, and his sudden confidence, fuelled by something known only to him, confused and slowed her reflexes. But this kiss wasn't like the first, nor was it like the second, and not because it had been at his whim rather than hers. It was firmer, decisive, self-assured to the point that he believed there could be no repercussions. That it could just happen, that no one would see them, that they would both abandon their inhibitions and embrace one another, because what consequences could come from something the world didn't know about?
The kiss deepened, his force growing until he pushed her back a step. She staggered with the movement until her back found the trunk of a tree, unable to find the mind to resist, and he pressed himself still firmer against her. But she still didn't try to push him away.
His hand moved back to her waist and rested there with a permanence, and his other slipped behind her neck, his fingers entangling in her hair and pulling her closer. Her own sought the same hold even as that same voice resonated in her mind, screaming louder this time, determined to be heard. His touch was intoxicating, but this time she was aware of it, and she wouldn't succumb. The voice made sure of that, setting loose the reminder that it was Malson's wish and Rathen's safety that had put her in the path of its influence. Nothing more, for she felt nothing for him.
The pressure of the kiss increased as she ran her fingers through the back of his fair hair, and they breathed in the heat and scent of the other, moving ever closer, their lips parting for more.
If anything, she hated him. Salus had complicated everything. She had done all kinds of awful, necessary things for the sake of the country; she had stolen things, seduced nobles and royals for information, misled foreign authorities and planted seeds of dissent, endangering innocent people for the safety of her own, and even assassinated people of high status, ending their lives with clinical precision. Because that was her job. One she had entered into willingly. These were the things she had to do because so few others had the resolve to do them. And that had never bothered her before.
But it had never been personal before.
Rathen had never been involved before.
Salus's hand moved up from her waist while their lips remained locked, tracing her shape and pulling her away from the tree to glide back down her spine. He grasped her at the small of her back and pulled her torso against his, and she in turn dared to slip her arms under his and grip him by the shoulders, pressing her chest into him.
But it wasn't just Rathen.
Salus lived for his work. He had been portian from a young age, and with such mental retraining he could never have truly had anyone; the only closeness he'd have experienced would have been for the good of a task, the success of a mission, and he wouldn't have been Salus in those moments. Just as she hadn't been Taliel when such a duty had fallen to her. He would have been whomever had been required.
He'd had nothing genuine. And now the repercussions were finally coming around. He had no release, and so had latched onto her to finally find it, and his intoxication, his poison, was seeping into her, bending her to his will.
She grunted into the kiss as her back struck the tree again, but still she didn't push him away. She didn't pull back as his tongue slipped over hers, and she didn't try to wriggle out of his powerful grip as his fingertips squeezed desperately into her flesh.
And then, without warning, he broke the lock, stepping back and leaving her staggered against the tree. She tried to recover her scattered bearings and work out what had caused him to stop, what accidental thought she had relayed through a half-second's hesitance she couldn't recall. But before she had the chance, she caught the question laid bare on his face, his eyes fogged by fire. He took another step backwards, posing the question again, and she followed in answer, grasping his hand in relief as he led her with haste back through the woods, taking paths and dubious shortcuts to avoid any over-inquisitive eyes.
She wouldn't let that poison grip her, but she would answer his needs. It was for the good of all. She provided Malson with an intimate resource, one that could discourage suspicion and lead him down other roads if their dissented group began to draw his attention; she could protect Turunda from an internal threat by advising Malson on his unorthodox plans, or perhaps even dissuade Salus from them herself.
And...it could be good for him, too.
They blustered through the trees, finally stumbling out onto the hidden gardens of the smaller, private building the keliceran called home, far from the sight of his all-seeing subordinates. He led her feverishly towards the back door, their footsteps, though rushed, silent even across the stone path, and remained so as they slipped inside and vanished from the moonless night.
No one under so much pressure should have to face it alone. And perhaps that's all this was: an obsession to protect because that was all he had to live for.
His lips found hers again the moment the door was closed, and they travelled softly across her cheek and down along her jaw. She tilted her head as he brushed her hair aside and began kissing her neck, and she felt him smile as a slight murmur escaped her at the delicate sensation. Encouraged, he tugged her away from the door and led her through the darkness to the staircase, which they ascended in a fervent, breathless stumble.
She pitied him. Even empathised. When Rathen had left, she had nothing but work and had thrown herself into it. But she'd never been weighed down by the same expectations that Salus was.
They reached the top and covered the hallway, and he paused not even to open the door. He kissed her again as he groped behind himself for the handle, and almost fell through when it gave way. But neither of them noticed. He dragged her inside and began pulling at her clothes, their lips parting only as she removed her shirt for him and his hands and lips began exploring her body instead.
Was this what came from such a loneliness? Could it truly destroy a person to such an end?
Or was this 'such an end'? Could the devastation go further?
He encouraged her back a step, and she felt the soft sheets brush against her legs as she took it. She let him lay her down upon the oversized, empty bed and strip her to her delicates, but she couldn't suppress the shudder that finally escaped her lips as he climbed on top and pressed his warm, bare skin against her.
She lost her grip on herself as he kissed down her body, succumbing to the exhilaration.
To make him feel better. To clear his mind.
Because the world knew nothing of the Arana. The world knew nothing of them.
The world would never know.
Chapter 55
There was nothing around for miles to complicate the dead of night. There was no clamour of wild animals, no tangled perfume of damp wood, dew, flowers and earth, no flashes of lantern-light from nearby settlements or passing travellers. There was absolutely nothing. And that lack of variety, out in the middle of absolutely nowhere, painfully enhanced the simple elements that did manage to dog them, rendering them almost unbearable.
Salt permeated the air, present with every breath
, never once varying in intensity. The predictable pattern of creaking wood groaned over the constant, droning sound of the waves. The monotonous rocking from side to side, gentle but tiresome in its inescapability, knocked the balance of one even already lying down.
Rathen pressed his pillow over his face, bracing himself against his lurching stomach, and tried to block it all out. It was thick and plump enough to deafen him, but the near-silence of the world was louder, and though its coverings, like the sheets, were unnaturally soft, not even they could tempt his weariness and lull him to sleep. He just couldn't escape the glaring fact that something vital was missing. His room was too quiet. Too empty.
Finally, he gave up. With a huff, he tossed away the pillow and kicked the sheets aside, threw on what clothing he could be bothered to and escaped the oppressive confines of his cabin to the dark, open deck above.
A breeze sharpened by salt stung his skin the moment he stepped out of the quarterdeck, but even so he felt his tensions ease at the change of scenery, and further still as he saw the ombre pass of azure to indigo on the north-eastern horizon. Dawn was closer than he'd guessed.
Relief loosened his shoulders as he moved out into the remaining starlight, a little more spirit beneath his feet, but he discovered right away that he wasn't alone.
Perched precariously upon the edge of the bow, Eyila had barely moved in the hours since he'd gone to bed. She remained directly in the path of the sharpened elements, and though she wore more against the sea's lingering winter chill than she had in the forest, she had since exposed more bronze skin in the night's privacy.
He'd have felt he was compromising that privacy had he not then noticed Anthis sat at the furthest end of the deck behind him, accompanied by his now pitiful collection of books. He was on shift that night, keeping an easy watch over their bleak, flat surroundings from up beside the wheel, a tiresome duty that had fallen to all of them after Petra had demanded in a frightfully unrefusable manner that Garon actually rested at night. But he was also positioned where he could keep a more subtle but ever-present eye on Eyila - something which made Rathen's skin itch. But despite his strangely paternal disapproval, even he felt it was still necessary that she wasn't let out of sight.