by Ginn Hale
Kiram lowered his face, pretending to look over his notes one more time.
"I don't even know if you have anything of value in the book," Kiram said primly.
"My God, Kiram." Javier laughed. "I never expect you to take me up on these things. You seem so demure most of the time."
"I'm not demure. I just have some self-restraint."
"But not, it seems, when it comes to the pursuit of knowledge. You're willing to sell your body for a look at a book." Javier held the diary up as if it were a shimmering enticement.
"No, I refuse to sell my body." Kiram was a little amazed to realize that he'd grown used to these kinds of exchanges with Javier. "Unless you can guarantee that your book has any information that would be of use to me."
Javier bounded up from his chair and sat down on the edge of Kiram's bed, leaning in close. "If that's the case, then I propose a little demonstration of quality on both our parts."
"What do you mean?" Kiram tried to sound calm, but Javier's nearness flustered him.
"I'll give you a sample; you give me a sample." Javier slipped behind Kiram, wrapping his arms around his waist and placing the diary on Kiram's lap. He spread the pages of the book open. "I'll let you read a page and you let me-"
"-have one kiss." Kiram didn't wait to hear what Javier would suggest for fear that he would agree. "One kiss. That's all."
"All right." Javier sounded far too pleased and Kiram suddenly wondered if he'd offered too much. "You drive a hard bargain but I accept."
Kiram pulled away just slightly. "I want to read a page in the diary first. And it had better say something about Yassin."
"Don't worry. It's all there. You'll get to give me that kiss."
Javier flipped back two pages. A diagram of radiant lines illuminated the left side, while crumpled black hellscript filled the right.
"I can't read it," Kiram said.
"Not yet." Javier wrapped his arms around Kiram's chest, pulling him closer. "Relax a little. Lean into me."
"Why?" Kiram couldn't help but suspect that Javier was toying with him.
"You'll be protected while you're touching me," Javier said. "The closer the better."
Kiram leaned back but tried not to simply melt against Javier. The heat of Javier's arms and the scent of his body seemed to soak into Kiram. Javier bowed his face close to Kiram's. His lips almost brushed Kiram's ear. Kiram felt unreasonably aware of where the fine stubble along Javier's jaw brushed against his own skin.
"You're taking advantage-"
Before Kiram could finish his sentence, white bolts of light crackled up from Javier's chest and burst through his own body. Kiram expected pain and he almost jumped away but Javier held him tightly. A hot, liquid sensation flooded Kiram. He felt lightheaded, almost drunk. Strange, unfocused shadows filled the edges of his sight. He could no longer see his desk or even the corner of his bed. Bright white sparks flickered across his skin. The lights sprang along Kiram's hands and spread across the open pages of the book.
Before Kiram's eyes the diagram seemed to spread and rise from the page. What had been flat, straight lines slowly unfolded into the curving, organic form of a stylized tree, with wildly twisting branches and roots connecting through a braided trunk. He had seen a design like this on Bahiim holy books. Across the facing page, the hellscript also stretched out, spreading into beautifully ornate Cadeleonian script.
"Do you see?" Javier's voice sounded as if it were coming from inside Kiram's head.
Kiram wanted to respond but he couldn't think of how to open his mouth, how to move his lips or form words. His entire body seemed lost somewhere between the flickering light and Javier's hard muscles.
"You shouldn't stay too long. Read it quickly." Again Kiram heard Javier as if the thoughts were his own. He felt the urgency and slight worry in them and at once he focused on the diary.
^s the weeks pass I pray less and listen to Yassin more. He is not the child I thought him to be. He has seen death firsthand and does not fear it.
Beside him the holy father is a doddering coward. When we speak of death he can only think of the hells and cringe in horror. But I have seen the white void open. I felt its pull at my very soul as I lay bleeding on the dueling field.
Yassin knew what I spoke of at once. He told me that I had been on the threshold of a shajdi. It is a place where death feeds into life and life is devoured by death. It is a place of immense power.
Before Nazario's rule the Haldiim knew a way to hold these shajdi open, but the wisdom is either lost or hidden. Yassin does not know how it was done. But it is enough to know that it was accomplished. It can be done again. We will continue our attempts.
Kiram wanted to turn the page. He tried to lift his hands but he only managed to spread his fingers across the surface of the page.
"That's enough, Kiram."
No, Kiram thought, but he couldn't say the word.
Javier suddenly lifted his hands away from him and all the warmth and light seemed to be ripped from Kiram. The words and image in the book collapsed to unintelligible scrawls. Then the book itself seemed to go dark. The edges of Kiram's vision dimmed and then the whole room went black.
When Kiram opened his eyes he was lying back on his bed. Bright gold shafts of late summer sun glowed across the walls. Javier knelt beside him.
"Yassin was part of it." Kiram's voice felt rough, as if he'd just woken after a heavy slumber. He cleared his throat. "Yassin helped Calixto open the white hell. He was part of the whole thing."
"I know. How are you feeling?"
"You knew. You knew all this time and you haven't told anyone. Why?"
"Calixto never wanted Yassin's name dragged down by association with the white hell and demonic magic," Javier said. "He wanted him remembered for his genius."
Kiram sat up slowly, still feeling off balance.
"So together they found some way not only to open a shajdi, but to keep it open."
"Exactly so."
"Is it always like that? I mean, for you. Is everything so-" Kiram wasn't sure of how to describe what it had felt like to have the shajdi open all around him, "-distant?"
"Nothing about the white hell is distant for me. If you had been directly exposed to it without my protection, it would have burned your senses hollow."
It sounded so dramatic that Kiram half expected Javier to be joking but his expression was serious.
"You still look a little groggy." Javier offered Kiram a cup of water and made him drink it all. A few minutes later Kiram's head began to clear.
The diary lay in its usual spot on Javier's desk. It seemed deceptively small, almost insignificant. Then Kiram's gaze fell to the dozens of hellscript markings drawn all across the floor. What larger forms lurked within those simple dark lines? Somehow he couldn't get the idea of huge sea creatures floating just beneath the ocean's surface out of his mind.
Then he realized that he was remembering an image from a Bahiim holy book that Alizadeh had read to him when he was a young child. The caption had read: A world deeper than the one we know, where great forces move beneath us like sea serpents coiling below tiny boats.
Kiram had the uneasy feeling that many of the superstitions he had summarily dismissed might be more true than he previously thought.
"Feeling better?" Javier seated himself on the bed beside him.
"I wasn't expecting the shajdi to be like that." Kiram noticed his notes lying on his desk and then remembered that he still had a page of equations to go over. The thought was relievingly mundane. Everything was just as it had been. "I'm fine, actually."
"Good." Javier moved closer so that his mouth almost brushed Kiram's lips. "Because I would hate to take advantage of you when you were feeling weak, but you still owe me something."
Kiram opened his mouth but he knew that there was no point in arguing; he had set his own price for seeing the diary. And it was only one kiss, after all.
He started to lean forward to kiss Javier's li
ps but Javier drew back.
"I haven't decided yet just where it is I want to kiss you," Javier said. He gently pushed Kiram back down onto the bed. "I want to see what my options are."
"That wasn't what I meant," Kiram protested. Javier placed his finger against Kiram's lips and gazed down at him with a strange intensity.
"When you deal with a Hellion you should know that he'll hold you to your word, no matter what you intended." As much as it embarrassed Kiram, he couldn't think of anything but the sensation of Javier's touch.
"I'm going to take the kiss you promised me," Javier whispered over him. "There's no point in fighting me about it."
Kiram closed his eyes. He could only hope to maintain his dignity, to keep from giving Javier a reaction that he could laugh at and taunt him with. He tried to imagine that this was just another day of battle practice, when Javier's body pressed close against his own, when Javier's warm hands touched his bare skin. But Javier never would have lingered so long or caressed him so gently in battle practice.
Javier's fingers traced the curve of Kiram's lip and then dropped to the base of Kiram's throat. He unbuttoned Kiram's shirt to expose his chest and abdomen.
Kiram shivered as Javier stroked the muscles of his bare shoulders and then brushed his fingers over Kiram's nipples. He hated Javier for dragging this out and at the same time his body ached to feel more than just the gliding hints of Javier's fingertips.
Javier stroked the flat plane of Kiram's stomach. He tugged the loose waist of Kiram's pants farther down, exposing his hips. The feeling of Javier's warm breath so near his groin sent a hot ache through Kiram. He folded his arms over his face in humiliation.
"Don't do that." Javier pulled Kiram's arms aside. "Look at me."
Kiram opened his eyes, expecting to see Javier gloating over him. Instead Javier's expression was gentle and strangely serious. He bowed down and kissed his lips.
His mouth was hot and pungent with the tastes of cardamom tea and honey. Kiram opened his lips to the pressure of Javier's tongue. His entire body responded to the sensation as Javier thrust into his mouth. Kiram curled his hands through Javier's thick black hair and pulled him closer.
He felt Javier's thigh between his legs, and the intense heat of Javier's groin against his own hip. Kiram wanted desperately to arch up against him. But the slightest sliver of common sense fought against the idea. He had promised one kiss and was giving much, much more.
Kiram shoved Javier back, harder than he intended. Javier almost fell off the bed but caught himself. He looked momentarily stunned and then he took in Kiram's expression and laughed.
"Don't glare at me. I'm not the one who interrupted your pleasure."
"We agreed to one kiss. That was all." Kiram pulled his legs up, though he was sure Javier knew just how aroused the kiss had made him.
"That was all for a page of the diary." Javier wrapped his hand around Kiram's bare ankle and slowly slid his palm up along the inside of Kiram's thigh. "But we could have a little more for ourselves, don't you think?"
"No." Kiram pried Javier's hand off his leg.
"And why not?" Javier demanded. He was still smiling but his voice had an angry edge. "You think I can't see that you want me? Every inch of you is up for me."
"Whether I'm aroused or not is none of your business, Javier." Kiram tried to sound firm despite his embarrassment. "I'm not a toy for you to play with and I'm not one of the whores at the Goldenrod whose body you can buy with a few pennies."
"No, you charge much more and put out far less." White sparks jumped across Javier's left hand but Kiram refused to be intimidated.
"I gave you exactly what we agreed upon." Kiram returned Javier's hard stare. "In fact, I gave you better than you gave me. You know I'm not going to dishonor Yassin's name by writing about what you showed me."
"Oh, I see. So, you won't spread your legs unless I can give you something that will get you a better grade."
"No! You are not going to pretend that I'm just a greedy whore." Kiram was shocked at his own anger. "That is not why I stopped."
"No, I'm sure it wasn't the only reason." Javier suddenly stood and glared down at Kiram. "You like to pretend that you aren't afraid of what I am but when it comes down to it, you're as much of a coward as Holy Father Habalan."
"Are you some kind of moron? I'm not afraid of your twinkly little sparks of hellfire!" Kiram was rewarded with a look of surprise from Javier. He took advantage of it to get to his feet. He met Javier's glower with his own unflinching stare. "You want to know what scares me? It's your shallow- minded Cadeleonian law and your bigoted Cadeleonian church. You like to pretend that they don't mean anything to you but you still go to penance every single day." Kiram jabbed Javier in the chest with his forefinger. "I may find you handsome and I may enjoy your touch but that doesn't mean that I want to be lashed or imprisoned for corrupting you with my Haldiim ways. And you know I'm the one who will be blamed if we're caught. No one is going to accuse you. You're the Duke of Rauma. So, yes, I am scared. But I have every reason to be scared and I have every right to refuse you."
Kiram felt suddenly exhausted as if he had expelled all his strength and fury with those last words.
Javier stood where he was, his expression drained of anger. He studied Kiram as if he had somehow become a new person.
"You've got quite a temper," Javier said at last.
"You aren't exactly sedate yourself."
"I know. I'm too used to getting my way." Javier shrugged. "Not many people are willing to refuse the Duke of Rauma, you know."
"Yes, I gathered that."
For a long moment Javier studied Kiram in silence. Then he looked down at his hands.
"So, this is how it has to be between us?"
"I think so." Kiram could no longer meet Javier's gaze. He looked down at his bare feet and at the coiling symbols on the floor. He wanted to say something else, to somehow tell Javier that if circumstances were different, then.
There was no point; the circumstances were exactly what they were.
He wished suddenly that he had never asked about Calixto's diary. The knowledge, like his desire for Javier, did him no good and yet he could not forget it.
"I have to find something else to write about for my history essay," Kiram said at last.
Javier walked back to his desk and sat down. He didn't pick up Calixto's diary. Instead he took out his penknife and cut a new tip for his quill. "f it has to be a biography, you might try Nusrat Kir-Miakah. He was the guide who escorted the Sagrada heir and his war master to safety all the way from the academy to the western hold."
"Was he Haldiim?"
Javier nodded. "There's a little biography on him filed with the hunting and trapping texts in the library."
"I'll read it. Thank you for-"
The rest of his words were drowned out by a loud beating against the door. An instant later Elezar shoved the door open and leaned in from the hallway, though he came no farther, since even he was hesitant to step into the room where Javier slept.
The arbitrary nature of Cadeleonians' superstition was absurd, Kiram thought. They would eat and wrestle, ride and fight with Javier but were terrified of what might lurk in a room where he slept, as if his dreams might leap out from under a pillow and grasp them. Normally Kiram found it all amusing, but this afternoon it only irritated him.
"No need to look so dour, my friend." Elezar's voice boomed through the room. "Master Ignacio has invited us out for a ride."
Kiram rolled his eyes. Javier said nothing but he pulled on his riding boots and began lacing them.
"A ride to the Goldenrod, no doubt," Kiram murmured. Elezar's ecstatic expression told him as much. A week ago Upperclassman Atreau had informed Kiram and Nestor that Master Ignacio's afternoon rides were, often as not, an excuse to visit prostitutes. Apparently, the war master had taken it upon himself to ensure that the older students' physical desires found release, lest they resort to desperate acts of abno
rmal carnality.
"Who knows how far we may wander in the pursuit of healthy male exercise," Elezar responded happily. "Don't be sullen about it, Kiram. Once you've been blooded in a tournament you may be asked out on a ride as well."
"I just can't wait," Kiram muttered.
He didn't watch Javier leave with Elezar. Instead he sat down at his desk and wrote a letter to his father assuring him that he was staying out of trouble and doing all he could to keep his grades up. After he was done with it, Kiram ripped it apart and threw the shreds into the cold grate of the fireplace.
Chapter Twelve
Battle practice with Javier the next day was incredibly difficult. Kiram struggled not to notice the heat of Javier's hands on his bare chest, or feel a thrill as the two of them grappled in the wrestling ring. More than once he completely lost his concentration while gazing at Javier's mouth and remembering his insistent kiss.
If the same desire troubled Javier, he gave very little indication of it. Only once, as Kiram arched beneath him struggling to break a hold did he notice a strange catch in Javier's breath. But then Javier pinned him down-hard- against the mat and stepped back, calm and collected.
Kiram wondered at Javier's ability to so completely sublimate his desire. Of course, being Cadeleonian, he'd doubtless had a lifetime of practice. There was also the fact that he, unlike Kiram, could turn to the prostitutes at the Goldenrod for relief.
That night Kiram left the Hellions' table early and found respite in the cold pistons and bolts in his work shed. He returned to the room he shared with Javier just before the night warden rang the last bell.
If Javier thought anything of Kiram's absence he said nothing and Kiram guessed that Javier understood that keeping a distance between them was for the best.
The next day Kiram claimed illness to avoid another frustrating battle practice, but that only resulted in Javier appearing in the infirmary to inform him that they would now have to make up for the practice on Sacreday-just the two of them and Master Ignacio.