by Owens J. C.
Rian’s eyes snapped up, staring at him incredulously.
Telan and Zacar were swift and vocal in their outrage, but Hamon simply crossed his arms, and shrugged, his gaze never leaving Rian.
“Either that or sleep with me on the floor. I care not. I WILL be sleeping next to you, or as an alternative, I can bind you to me for the night. Your choice.”
Rian kept his voice equally as nonchalant despite his hammering heart. “Why would you wish to sleep so close?”
Hamon’s hooded eyes regarded him. “This is how the Zala protect against assassins. We are closer to you than your shadow.”
The complete lack of emotion made Rian’s decision easier. He was exhausted, and Hamon appeared just as weary. He had absolutely no desire to endure a hard floor. His back and shoulder begged for the softness of his bed. There was no lust in those dark eyes, only a visible need for sleep as great as Rian’s own.
Telan looked ready to start a confrontation anew, until Rian held up a hand to halt hostilities. At another time, he would have been terrified of this enemy so intimately close, or indeed any male at all, but now, sleep beckoned him more closely than any fear could. He allowed himself a bitter smile. Perhaps, in the end, an enemy would turn out to be safer than his own family had ever been.
He removed only his boots, uncomfortable with more nudity than that, before sinking down into the bed with a heartfelt groan of utter relief.
Vaguely, he saw Telan seat himself across the room, piercing eyes intent and cold. Rian knew his guardian would not sleep and his worry lessened.
He felt the bed compress behind him, but by then, his eyes were already sliding closed.
* * *
Rian woke with a pained sigh and a grimace of discomfort.
His mind was slow to interpret the warmth along his back, but when memory sprang to the fore, he went rigid with tension, eyes wide.
He had expected close supervision, but this was beyond all reason. Not only was the man in his very bed, but a heavy arm lay across his waist, holding him gently against a hard, muscled chest that radiated warmth. Close but not painful against his wounds.
Rian breathed, in, out, his muscles quivering.
There was no response behind him. The soft breathing near his ear remained steady, deep.
He took a shuddering breath, letting his body slowly calm from its preparation for flight.
Across the room, in the slowly gathering light of the early dawn, Rian saw Telan rise to his feet and slip silently through the curtains, no doubt to rouse Zacar so that his food would be brought to him.
He watched him go, surprised to feel no resumption of fear as his guardian stepped out. It would be several minutes until he returned, yet Rian found himself content now to lie still, tension slipping away, despite his newfound bed companion. The wraith had not come. He had slept through the night.
Now that reason had returned to the fore of his thoughts, he discovered that he felt refreshed, as though he had slept deeply, something rare and precious. As though he had felt protected, in a way that not even Telan had managed before. Perhaps Hamon had kept the wraith away, kept him safe.
He scoffed silently at his foolish fantasy. Safe. With a Hawk at his back. His enemy.
But then the line of enemy and friend had long been blurred in his life, so perhaps an enemy could be safety, if such a thing was even possible for him when there had been no safety in his past.
And none in the future, if Arran had his way…
Soon Arran would arrive and his future, so bleak, would be sealed.
He shivered.
The arm around his waist tightened before the long, powerful body stretched, a low, growling yawn breaking the morning peace.
“You wake, then immediately overthink,” Hamon said. “It practically radiates off you.” The comment was anything but amused.
The leader of the Hawks, it seemed, was no more a morning person than Rian himself.
He grunted in return. “No one asked you to invite yourself into my bed. You don’t like it, get out.”
Rian found himself flipped onto his back, Hamon over him, the movement so swift that he did not even react to the flaring pain, lying breathless, grasping the other man’s forearm in silent protest, fear beginning to find a new foothold as the large form loomed over him, pinning him to the bed…
“Stop.” The man’s sharp tone snapped Rian out of his incipient panic. The sharp, strong features above him were not his brother. Hamon’s next words only confirmed the impression. “I am not Arran. I have no intention of harming you, unless you force my hand.”
“That’s not the impression you gave earlier,” Rian snapped, some courage rising.
Hamon stared down at him in silence, Rian glowering at him in return.
“That was a mistake, to listen to your brother. A great mistake.”
Rian’s jaw snapped shut. He could only blink, stunned, shock rendering him mute. He could not believe that this man, so stubborn and proud, had admitted that believing the king had been an error.
What trickery was this?
Hamon’s expression was grave, none of the usual mockery evident. “I overheard what you and your servant spoke of.”
Rian paled, shame flaring through his thoughts, and he rolled, trying to escape the accusation and disgust that were sure to follow such a statement. It was bad enough to endure all he had, but to have these strangers judge him for it was more than he could bear.
Hamon held him back with negligible strength, but seemingly careful of his shoulder.
“What he does to you is more than wrong. In our culture, he would be shamed, judged, and exiled. It is an atrocity of its own that your people have allowed this to continue, King or not.”
Rian stilled, blinking up at his captor in disbelief. He had to be dreaming. There could be no other explanation for what he had just heard. Apart from Zacar and Telan, no one had ever voiced their disapproval of Arran’s actions. Rian had always assumed that any glances or whispers had been judgment against Rian himself.
But if the Hawks, newcomers and enemies both, could come to this conclusion, then was it possible that there were others…
He shook off the hope.
He knew better than to believe in such a fragile thing.
Hamon stared down at the prince, savoring his shock. Never let it be said the Hawks were predictable.
Rian’s eyes narrowed. “What do you hope to accomplish with this fallacy?”
Hamon found a small smile tilting his lips. The boy was displaying more fire in his responses, more reaction to any prodding. Satisfying, if for no other reason than to jar him out of that disturbingly blank apathy he had first displayed.
Why this should matter in the least was highly puzzling. Perhaps it was simply the importance of finding the soulseeker. Somehow, the initial disbelief that Rian could be any such thing was settling into cautious hope.
If the gods had chosen Rian to be the soulseeker, arranging for the Hawks to find him, then surely they also had provided a path for them to return to the lands of the Zala. Hamon had to have faith that he could discover that path, no matter how impossible it might currently seem.
Faith he had never been particularly strong in.
“It is no fallacy,” he finally answered. “I will believe no man that treats his own kin in such a way.” Hamon leaned back on his heels, releasing Rian.
They stared at each other before Hamon slid away, rising from the bed, even as Telan entered, a large tray of food in his hands, eyes flicking between them with a strange lack of concern given his former hostility.
Rian flushed. His sprawled-out posture could lead to endless speculation on Telan’s part.
He scrambled gracelessly off the bed, surprising a small hint of a smile on Telan’s lips. His protector seemed more at ease, his temper leashed. Strange, when he had been so suspicious toward Hamon the night before.
The two men exchanged a single, speaking glance, and Rian became certain
that sometime during the long night they had hashed out some form of understanding or possible truce.
His lips thinned with a sudden surge of annoyance. Telan was not given to speaking with people in general, so what was it about the Hawk leader that he had seen and responded to?
For himself, Rian did not want to view anything positive in his current guards. No matter Hamon’s words, Rian still believed that, in the end, they would chose to follow Arran’s wishes, turn against Rian. If not now, then certainly when Arran’s powerful presence arrived. After all, they were mercenaries and were being paid very well.
There was no trust that could be forged here.
Zacar appeared, helping him to change into fresh clothing behind a screen, checking the wounds, ensuring the sling hung properly and comfortably against his chest. The arm at least, felt considerably better. Rian savored the brief, fragile sense of privacy. He tried to draw calm strength around himself, knowing the day would be long and the list of things he must do was daunting. His absence following his failed escape attempt meant that the camp had not yet been moved northward, closer to the current conflict with their fiercest enemies, the warlike and frustratingly persistent Marshfolk. They had attacked border towns since Rian’s father’s time, leading to a decades-long war that continued to decimate both sides to the present day.
Mere months ago, Rian had finally dealt a strong, tactical blow, having killed the High Chief of the Marshfolk tribes. Without his strong and brutal rule, the tribes had split into warring factions.
Arran had swiftly used their advantage, finally managing to get spies into the country, gaining information, before the final decision would be made. They would either invade and crush the Marshfolk once and for all, or, at the very least, set a powerful, terrifying example of why they should never threaten Rashmaian borders again.
Surprisingly, given Arran’s conquest-driven reign and his brutal training under their father’s control, he seemed to have little desire to invade the lands of the Marshfolk. In one of their rare moments of personal peace, when the king would hold Rian close and did no more than comb gentle fingers through his hair, he had explained the reasoning behind his reluctance to conquer their neighboring country.
First and foremost, Flaren, the land of the Marshfolk, was just that, marshes and low lands. Terrible and foreign conditions for the desert-bred Rashmaian troops. Secondly, he had stated that only so much territory could be taken over before you created an imbalance.
“We have as much territory as we can at this moment and still govern them well, have enough troops to maintain order.” Arran’s voice had been gentle, yet serious, as it was when he was seeking to teach Rian something. “A conquered region is a drain upon a country. There will be unrest, rebellion there for some time, and perhaps even through generations. I would have to garrison permanent troops there, far away from family, always hated, always in danger. It is easier to defend your own borders, with your own people defending your back. The Marshlands have resources we could use, water, vast areas suitable for rice production, but in the end, we have enough of our own resources for our own needs. My hope is that once we prove our strength, and that conflict brings them nothing but useless death and destruction, they will finally come to understand that a truce will benefit us all. Trade and travel would bolster both lands and all the people of both cultures.” He had bent his head then, laid a loving kiss upon the crown of Rian’s head. “I want to bring peace, brother. Peace for us, peace for our people. By the end of my lifespan, I want war to be a distant memory for us all.”
It was those rare and precious times, when intelligence and sanity itself, shone through, that Rian could almost work past the abuse and feel the flickering embers of the love that still existed within him for the brother he had known and adored so long ago. Until that had changed into something dark and destructive. Until Arran had become the image of their father: cold and without mercy. A perfect Rashmaian king, from a long line of warrior tyrants.
It made him wonder, despite all that had occurred, exactly how much of his true brother remained. Surely, his plans for the war to end, perhaps even with a truce, indicated there was much more there than mere insanity.
Then again, Rian also wondered if the faint hope he held was a sign of a descent into his own well of that same madness.
He could only pray that his own children would somehow, miraculously, avoid the mental instability that seemed to mark their line so thoroughly. Perhaps, blessedly, their mother’s blood would prove strong enough to protect them.
For himself, the time for hope was long over. Whatever madness had taken hold of his brother so long ago had spread to him during the strange, dark dance between them.
He would never be clean, nor whole, again.
He shook off the mantle of despair with grim determination, stiffly seating himself at a small table in one corner of the canvas room as Telan laid the tray before him.
There was more than enough food for two, showing that it was expected that Hamon would dine with him. He tried not to resent the inclusion. It was no more than good sense. The Hawk leader would be at his side as ordered until Arran arrived to take over.
Rian shivered.
Hamon eyed him as he slid into the other chair, then turned his attention to consuming his own food, obviously hungry.
“What plans do you have today?” Hamon asked. “Telan says that camp must be moved before the army’s presence damages the land. You need new pastures for the horses.”
Rian paused, fork held midway between mouth and plate, as he turned wide eyes upon Telan. The Hawk used first names? Since when did Telan allow such familiarity from anyone but his closest friends?
Telan merely nodded to him, expression calm and composed. Rian tried not to feel betrayed at this sudden, unexpected collusion.
He dropped his eyes to the plate, took the forkful of food, and chewed it sullenly before swallowing and answering the question, little though he wished to.
“I need to speak to my captains. They will have sent scouts out to find an appropriate site and will advise me whether to move today or wait for first light tomorrow.”
Hamon nodded, and they finished their meal in silence, Rian’s meager appetite fleeing completely, though he kept on eating, knowing he needed sustenance. He wished he understood why this man, fierce, initially hostile, now seemed so acceptable both to Telan and in some degree to Rian himself.
It made utterly no sense. He should feel more fear, and yet his emotions seemed run more toward a wary respect and perhaps even a burgeoning curiosity.
This man, this stranger, had slept at his side and done no harm.
In fact, Rian had slept deeply and well, for the first time in far too long, and Valen had not come with protective fury…
His mind needed to work with that mystery for a while.
Hamon discreetly adjusted himself in the confines of his leather pants. He had no wish for the boy to discover the affect he had had upon him. That moment Hamon had held him down to the bed, the smaller body splayed out beneath him…
He shook his head, clearing his thoughts with difficulty, meeting Telan’s amused stare with a faint flush making him suddenly far too warm.
The large guardian had finally unbent enough last night to speak during the seemingly endless hours of the night. Both warriors, the conversation had been halting and cautious to begin with, but when Hamon had confessed his change of heart regarding Arran’s orders, Telan had deigned to hear him out. That had been followed by a discussion of some depth, mostly about cultural differences. Central in it all was the possibility that Rian might possess the talent of a soulseeker.
Telan had been less skeptical than Hamon would have expected, perhaps because he was a southerner. His own people believed that the gods themselves plucked souls from the world, but the notion that there could be someone who aided that procedure did not seem to startle him. He merely grew thoughtful and considered the matter for some time. It soon became
clear that Telan knew Rian well, better perhaps than the boy realized, and he had seen and heard enough to believe completely that the prince was intimately connected to the otherworld in some fashion.
By the time the moon had set, they had come to a cautious understanding of where they each stood and that between them, Rian would come to no harm.
That had been made very clear on Telan’s part, and Hamon held no doubt that should he, or any of his men, follow Arran’s original orders in any degree, they would meet the full fury of Telan’s martial abilities.
Hamon had made it equally clear that if Rian was truly a soulseeker, then the whole of the Zala would be at his feet, vowing protection. Surprisingly, Hamon had found himself confessing how worrying he found that fact when Rian’s mad brother sat the throne. Telan proved to be a mostly silent, non-judgmental listener, with genuine intelligence and hard won wisdom. Still, Hamon had been stunned that he would confess such a thing to a total stranger, yet it felt right, in the strangest fashion, as though he had known Telan for years rather than a single night.
He could not wait for Wravon to meet Telan properly and give his empathic opinion of the huge man. Hamon’s own senses were insisting this newcomer was a valuable ally in what was to come, a piece of the puzzle of how Rian might begin to truly step into the role those of Zala so desperately needed. Telan had offered a simple rule in his dealings with Rian. He must not rush the boy. Rian was not ready for the demands of such a taxing, spiritual position. Hamon was going to have to be slow and cautious in his attempts to bring the prince to a true understanding of what he was. How he could be a blessing for an entire nation that was not his own.
Then there was Arran: deadly, powerful, and insanely possessive. He had long ago proven he would kill anyone who sought to aid Rian in leaving his side.
For Hamon, beyond all of that was the fact that the prince had felt so good, so frighteningly right in his arms. The smaller, lithe body had fit so well against his large body, and he had found himself inexplicably regretting the approach of morning.