Thrones of Desire

by Mitzi Szereto

  “I’m sorry!”

  “It’s fine. You didn’t mean to hurt me.”

  “Nevertheless.” His brows were knitted. “I will make reparation.”

  “It’s no problem,” said Emlhi, smiling. “You weren’t to know.”

  “I’m a Knight of Helion,” he corrected her. “We must take responsibility for what we do.”

  It was hard not to mock him. “Even in your dreams? You must be forever doing penance.”

  He smiled wryly, then his gaze slipped away and a shadow tainted his expression. “I had such terrible dreams.” He looked into his beer as if scrying through the dark surface. “About the battle of the Stone Gate, the lizard-riders there, the dragons…” He shivered. Emlhi patted his foot, though she thought maybe she shouldn’t do that, not to a knight. Gareth didn’t seem to notice. “And there were dreams that weren’t dreams; I saw things. They seemed so real at the time. I remember snakes crawling out of the walls and terrible faces leering at me from the angles of the roof…”

  “It was only fever visions. You shouldn’t worry now. It’s all over.”

  His face, pale to start with, was ashen now. His scrubby beard, which she’d patiently clipped with her needlework shears back to a stubble, stood out like it had been drawn on his face with charcoal. She bit her lip, wondering if he was going to faint. It could take a long time to recover from an infection of the blood.

  “There were things, too, that seemed like dreams at the time, but now…” He lifted his gaze to meet hers, his eyes dark and filled with dread. “I hope that they were dreams.”

  She could feel the blood running out of her own face and she looked away across the yard.

  “Emlhi…”

  “Fever makes you imagine all sorts of nonsense.”

  “Emlhi… Did I…?” He struggled for the words, and when they came out he spoke so softly she could barely hear them. “Did I despoil you?”

  The color seemed to drain from the bright day. “Don’t worry about it,” she said creakily.

  “Oh, gods. Look at me, Emlhi.”

  She obeyed. She felt dizzy. There were two burning patches on her pallid cheeks. “It was nothing,” she said.

  “Really? That’s not how it looks.”

  She had no reply. It was everything, she thought. It was the moment I will carry all my life.

  Slowly, Gareth put down his beer, pulled himself up against the nearest pillar and walked away back into the house.

  She remembered the day of their wedding. How the sail of the small boat waiting to take them on board had snapped impatiently behind them in the breeze. How Gareth had held her hand on the quayside as he spoke his vows, with the whole of the village as witnesses. How he had never touched her again, not once, since that moment.

  Gareth returned to their chamber in the Citadel of the Knights, in High Elerath, while the morning was still young. He’d clearly been out in the practice yard; he laid his sword aside and stripped off his damp shirt to reveal muscles standing proud from exertion. He’d started putting more bulk on, Emlhi thought; the gauntness was lifting from his face. But he didn’t turn that face toward her, and he didn’t speak.

  “Are you feeling stronger?” she asked huskily from her seat on the bed.

  “A little better every day.” He tipped water from a bucket into the wooden tub and unlaced his hose, deliberately turning his back on her.

  “That water will be cold. Let me send for more.”

  “It’s fine.”

  He washed standing up in the tub and she watched as he poured water over his hair and shoulders, scrubbed his neck and underarms and crotch, then scoured his feet. She wanted to ask if she could help wash his back, but she didn’t dare face his chill rebuff. When he’d finished he wiped himself off and then took an apple up from the platter and went out onto the terrace, into the sun. He ate it, core and all, while he waited to dry, the light picking out his well-defined musculature and the contrasting black sheen of his hair. Damp locks loosed stray droplets of water to trickle down his back. Emlhi felt her stomach clench with yearning. She imagined how those long, strong legs and those hard forearms and that taut belly would feel under her hands. Gareth paced back and forth, his eyes roving the city below. She wondered who he was looking for. There were few knights left in High Elerath; war still raged across the islands.

  When he’d devoured the apple, Gareth came back in from the terrace and poured himself a cup of wine. He’d seemed unselfconscious of his nakedness, but he drank with his back to her, looking at a blank patch of wall. His bare ass was as hard and discouraging as two clenched fists.

  “My Lord,” Emlhi said humbly. “May I ask you a question?”

  “Of course.”

  She slipped down to the floor, feeling the sheepskins beneath her bare soles. “Which one of us is it that you’re punishing?”

  The flagon clinked on the edge of his metal wine cup. He took a moment before replying. “Why should I be punishing you?”

  She could think of far too many answers to that. “For being of common stock, not fit for a Knight of Helion?” she suggested. “For being the daughter of a village priest? For bringing you neither dowry nor title nor renown?”

  He looked over his shoulder at her, his black brows drawn together, anger snapping from his eyes. “Is that what they are saying in the Citadel? Don’t listen to them. You’re my wife and that’s all the status you require.”

  “Then, my Lord,” she asked, her heart in her mouth, “why is it that you don’t treat me like your wife? You married me to make everything all right, but this is not all right. Why won’t you even look at me?”

  His mouth tightened. Then, as if acknowledging her words, he turned away again. She read the anger in the set of his shoulders. “It’s not your fault,” he said in a low voice. “I can’t look at you without shame.”

  “Shame?”

  “Not you. Me.”

  “But why?”

  He pressed his clenched knuckles to the wood. “I’m a Knight of Helion. The order was founded to bring light and order and hope to the world. I’ve made my vows. I’ve always tried to be true to the standards set for us. To have fallen so low—to have taken a woman by force—do you think that’s what I intended when I received my sword?” He snatched up his cup and smacked it at the wall; it rebounded, but left an indelible red smear across the plaster. “How am I supposed to live with myself?” he demanded.

  “You were ill,” Emlhi reminded him. “You had a fever.”

  Gareth laughed harshly. “A knight is judged by his deeds, not his excuses.”

  She took a pace forward, her heart pounding. “Please look at me. Please.”

  He shook his head, dismissive.

  “Look at me!” she commanded, her voice cracking, and he swung around to face her. He was a knight, not used to peremptory orders from civilians and certainly not to taking them from a slip of a girl; barely curbed ire was visible in his expression.

  “I tended you when you were ill,” she said. “I gave you my own bed and fed you and dressed your wounds and cleaned you and helped you make water.” She plowed on, ignoring the pain she knew she was causing his battered pride. “Do you think I did all that from my pure compassion? Do you think that when I washed the sweat off your naked body I didn’t see what was under my hands? Do you think I am some sort of…saint?” Her face was burning. “In your fever you caught me and put my hand upon your pizzle. Do you remember that?”

  “Oh please, gods, no more,” he protested.

  She pressed on. “Do you know how much I liked it: to feel your heat, to know the release you felt, and to know that I was giving it to you? I took such pleasure from you! Oh, I was a maiden and I didn’t know how to get what I wanted, but I was no child. When you sweated I laid you bare, and when you shivered I’d get into bed with you and wrap my arms around your naked body and soothe your shaking. It wasn’t pity that moved me to that.” She was trembling with the strain of confession. “When
you…when you lay upon me…when I felt you…I didn’t try to escape you.”

  “You begged me to stop,” he whispered. “I remember that much. And I did not stop.”

  “I was frightened. And it hurt; it was my first time with a man. You were…too rough, for a maiden. But I wanted you. I wanted you so much. You didn’t force me. Believe me in that, my Lord.”

  “Then,” he said, and his low voice was terrible, “you surely misled me afterward.”

  “No. Please don’t. Why do you have to do this?” Emlhi’s voice shook. “Why do you have to find someone to blame? I desired you and I thought that you desired me. Isn’t that enough? I would have yielded to you a hundred times—or once, if that was all you wanted. You could have left me there. I’m sorry that your marriage is no joy to you, but I told you over and over that it wasn’t necessary to redeem my good name.”

  “You let me wed you, out of shame.”

  “I was blind with love.”

  “Love?” He breathed the word incredulously.

  “And I thought that you did desire me, at least. It would have been enough for me!” She was trying desperately hard to keep her voice under control but it was wobbling now and tears were welling in her eyes. “Of your pity, my lord, if you cannot desire me then repudiate me and send me home. I cannot bear this.” There was a great hollow pain in her breast. “I am burning, and you will not touch me.”

  She shut her eyes tight, trying to hold back the tears. So loud was the blood in her ears that she didn’t hear his bare feet on the sheepskins, didn’t know he had crossed to her, until she felt his touch on her face.

  “I never meant to hurt you.” His voice was ragged. The brush of his fingertips made her heart leap painfully. She opened her eyes and the tears spilled out down her cheeks, and then he stooped to kiss them away. His mouth was gentle, but it didn’t stray near hers. “Don’t weep, Emlhi.”

  It was an easy role for him to play, she thought with tormented joy: he the rescuer, the comforter of her weakness. It was how he wanted to see himself. Elation and outrage crashed in her breast—but stronger still was the terror that he might stop, that he might be knight enough to resist, even now, the lure of desire. She took his hand from her cheek and laid it softly on her breast. Gareth the man responded at once; she could feel the lightning flicker of arousal as he stiffened. Gareth the knight was another thing entirely, and looking up into his eyes she saw the conflict raging there. In his mind there were only three kinds of people: victims, their oppressors and the heroes that saved them. He couldn’t envisage a world in which these roles were confused. He couldn’t understand how such categories were meaningless to her.

  She touched his lips, her fingers trembling. Let me show you, she begged silently.

  “You burn?” he whispered.

  Couldn’t he see it? She nodded and stretched up to kiss his lips. He responded cautiously, almost fearfully—but he did respond. His hand closed upon her breast, kneading the soft orb, finding lone resistance in the puckering tightness of her nipple. Emlhi let slip a helpless noise of nervous pleasure, but his mouth was on hers and he swallowed it. Then he released her just far enough to draw out the short lace at her neckline, looking all the time searchingly into her eyes, his disbelief and mistrust warring visibly with his growing urgency. With two hands he smoothed the shift over her shoulders. It fell to the floor and Emlhi, to her own confusion, blushed beneath his gaze.

  Gently Gareth slid to his knees, naked before her nakedness. He kissed her breasts, then her navel, then knelt even lower to press his lips to her pubic fleece. His beard was soft on her skin. Emlhi wound her hands in his unruly hair and surrendered to the bliss of his embrace. His tongue swept her clit, describing exquisite circles until the wetness blossomed between her legs. She nearly overbalanced and he had to support her, his hands strong on thighs that suddenly felt as shaky as a new-born filly’s.

  “Forgive me,” he whispered, pressing his temple and cheek to her belly.

  What is there to forgive? she wanted to ask. But the words that came out of her mouth were, “I did. I did it the first time you opened your eyes and asked my name.” And suddenly her own tears were falling, on her breasts and on his face.

  He rose to his feet then, slipping his strong hands about her waist. But he didn’t pull her against him as she hoped; instead, subtly, he held the distance between them. His eyes bored into hers, his expression intense. Suddenly Emlhi was seized with terror: he had, after all, got what he wanted from her—forgiveness.

  He was going to send her away.

  She put her hand to his groin. His cock, erect and burgeoning, nuzzled her palm. She pressed his shaft to her belly and he closed his eyes momentarily.

  “Let me try again,” he whispered. His mouth brushed hers. “Please. I want to get it right this time.”

  “Yes,” she breathed, opening to his lips and his tongue.

  The gap between them closed.

  AT THE SORCERER’S COMMAND

  Kim Knox

  The air reeked of blood and tar, wrapping around me, mixing with the distant flared hiss of fire. I shivered. I should’ve been in my master’s rooms, hunting through ancient scrolls for a defense against the sorcerer, Kiritan. Not here, lost in a sea of tents flapping in cold, night winds. The creak and thwack of the timber-framed mangonels ran ice through my blood. I wasn’t a soldier. Far from it.

  Panic whipped my nerves, my heart beating hard. I hadn’t volunteered for this sortie. I was an apprentice, barely that, with the first swell of magic in my blood. But I’d also shown another skill in the first few weeks of my training. A skill the Duke’s new paladin, Varun, commandeered as he fought back against the besieging army.

  “Keep up, Miar.”

  Varun’s low voice cut into my thoughts and he grabbed my arm. His strong fingers bit into muscle, heat bleeding through the thin sleeve of my shirt. The familiar scent of leather, metal and skin wiped away everything else. He pulled me close and his breath brushed my temple. “You know the drill. Concentrate. Stay close. Try not to be stupid.”

  I stiffened. “Then you should’ve left me behind.”

  His grin burned, the heat of his mouth taunting me. There was that hint of a growl that hollowed my legs. “I’m not letting you go, Apprentice Miar.”

  His words sank into my belly, shoving aside my fear for a much darker want. I’d lusted after Varun from the minute he’d appeared in the Hall of Magic. Not that I could have him. My untouched body was promised to my master when my studies were complete. Payment for his skill and time.

  “I have a promise to keep to you. After this.”

  I frowned, even as my heart drummed. “What promise?”

  His full, low growl pushed desire deep into my flesh. He wanted me to concentrate, whilst whipping my body with forbidden need. “Varun…”

  “That’s Commander to you, Apprentice Miar.”

  He tugged me forward, broke into a run and with swift signals, directed his squad as we swept through the maze of tents. The lust fell back and fear ran thick through my blood again. Every shadow was a threat and I strained past the snap of tent canvas for the slightest sound. Varun’s men were silence itself, the soft thump to muddied ground the only sign that another Rahimani sentry had met his death—

  A hand. A knife. I saw a face.

  “Senecae,” I gasped without thinking.

  “What?” Varun turned as a man collapsed to his knees beside me.

  “You know my—”

  A dagger silenced the officer as he gave me his soul. I watched the man wilt to the ground. Watched his night-blackened blood ooze into the sand. I told myself that he’d been about to plant a blade in Varun’s back, slit my throat. It was kill or be killed as we moved toward the sorcerer’s tent.

  It didn’t help.

  Varun frowned. “You used your skill. Now forget him.”

  One of his men appeared and dragged the body away, his boots kicking over the stained sand. Blood smeared his
cheek. It was a jolt. So many were casually dying around me. And soon it would be my turn to kill.

  “There,” Varun muttered.

  Grit blew in a whirl around the clear patch of ground separating the officers’ tents from those of the nobility. Bored sentries stood outside each one, slouching on ornate spears.

  The guards who crept up on them mixed with the shadows, silent and lethal. My heart was a knot of pain in my chest. I had to watch, even as I wanted to run and Varun’s fingers formed a vise around my arm.

  With muted grunts, the sentries were dead. His men dragged the bodies away into the darkness and three reappeared in the gaudy tabards of the dead soldiers. The guards leaned on their ornate spears, mimicking boredom.

  The way was clear. My stomach turned over. I wasn’t one of his men, trained in the arts of killing. I was a potion-stirrer, an apprentice ruining my eyesight as I pored over ancient scrolls by the flicker of tallow candles. I wasn’t ready for this. Ready to kill.

  Varun’s gaze flicked around the deserted area, his mouth thinned, his body tense, before he ran, shielding me from possible attack. He stopped before the canvas of a darkened tent. With his hand tight around my arm, he parted the flap and peered within. With a final glance at his men, he dragged me inside.

  Varun tilted my head up. “Do it. Find the inner name of the sorcerer.”

  In the heavy darkness, filled with the hot scent of ginger and turmeric, I froze. I’d worked with Varun for days, but he’d never listened, not once, as I tried to tell him I had no idea how my talent worked. My ability to find the inner name—the secret name everyone was born with—was something that simply appeared. A sudden bolt. I had no control over it.

  “I don’t—”

  Light seared my eyes, blazing around the tent, fierce and white. I shrank back, only Varun’s hard grip keeping me from running.

  “Shit!” Varun’s voice cut through the sudden panic biting at my flesh.