Redamancy

by T D Cloud

  Navidae opened his mouth to say something but when he tried to speak nothing came out. Khouri settled into the bed, arms wrapped around his legs. He kept his back to the door, to Navidae. The air hung heavy with awkwardness. Navidae quietly closed the door behind him, leaning against the wood as he tried to figure out where to go from here. It seemed that getting inside wasn’t the hardest part of all of this. He almost wished it had been.

  “Is your foot alright?”

  Khouri flinched at the sound of his voice. He held a little tighter to his knees, making sure his feet were covered completely by the skirt. Navidae sighed.

  “We need to dress it,” he said quietly. “It’ll be bad if it gets infected—”

  “I already took care of it,” Khouri said sharply before burying his face in his knees.

  “Oh. That’s… good. Is there a reason why you’re still in your gown?” Navidae asked quietly, because what else could he say? He ran his fingers through his hair and pushed off the door to edge a little closer to the bed. “You can’t be very comfortable like that.”

  Khouri took a second to answer, and when he did speak, it was muffled. “Couldn’t unlace it alone,” he muttered, hiding his face from Navidae, the room, the world.

  “Ah.” It hurt a little to know he’d tried. Navidae could see it now that he was closer. Khouri had tried violently; the laces along his spine were tugged and yanked, loosened in spots but tightened in others. The even, crossed lines from before were no more. It wasn’t the sort of outfit meant to be put on and taken off alone.

  “Do you want me to unlace it for you?” he asked, pausing at the side of the bed, just a few inches from where Khouri was huddled. “Will you let me?”

  Khouri shrugged. Navidae took it as a yes. As much of a yes as he was likely to get, anyway.

  The silence grew stifling as Navidae set to work undoing the intricate laces of the gown. Khouri had made a mess of them, adding knots and kinks to the slick fabric that caught at every turn. He began at the top and worked his way down, slowly opening the gown and baring Khouri’s skin to the open air.

  Khouri shivered from the cold. Navidae ached to kiss him warm.

  Instead he rested his forehead on Khouri’s shoulder, his hands settling on Khouri’s hips. “Do you want to talk about what happened earlier?” he made himself ask, dreading it with every fiber of his being.

  Khouri stiffened. “Do you even care about what I want?” His shoulders hitched on a weak laugh. “You kept it a secret from me, so why should I think you care at all about what I have to say?”

  “Khouri, that’s not—”

  “That’s not what?” Khouri bit, his muscles tensing. “Not what you meant? Not what you wanted me to feel? How did you want me to feel about this, Navidae? Good? Like you gave a shit about my feelings?”

  Oh, Gods. Navidae wasn’t ready for this conversation. He’d thought about it; Gods, had he thought about it while trying to find elusive sleep, but to be in it? To finally have it happening…

  He yanked at another knot and pulled it loose. The gown opened up entirely, a sight that should have inspired something very different from the mood they were in now. “I didn’t want you to know at all,” he admitted, closing his eyes as he exhaled sharply. “I didn’t want you to worry—”

  Khouri didn’t let Navidae finish. He jerked himself free from Navidae’s loose hold, tearing himself away to drag the gown off his shoulders. Navidae pitched forward onto the bed without Khouri’s support, and he watched silently as his lover stripped and threw the gown as far from himself as he could.

  With the skirt out of the way Navidae could now see Khouri’s feet; they were bandaged messily with white gauze stained through with red.

  Navidae looked higher, regretting it instantly. The look Khouri shot him was as cold as the deepest pits beneath their feet. Lines of the galena bled from his eyes, showing just how much he had cried tonight.

  “I can’t believe you think so little of me,” Khouri said softly, his voice like crushed velvet and silk draped over a blade. “After all this time. Has it meant nothing to you?”

  How could he even think that? Clearly, he had hurt Khouri, but to think that of all things… Navidae sucked in a breath.

  “Khouri, you’re not being fair.”

  “I’m not being fair?” he barked, tearing the blankets from the bed to wrap them around his body. Moisture gathered in his dark eyes, threatening to spill over at any moment. “You wouldn’t even give me the chance to fight with you! You just— You just want to send me off so you can do everything on your own!”

  Navidae pursed his lips, a thousand rebuttals itching in his gums to be let loose. Arguing wouldn’t accomplish anything, especially when Khouri had the higher ground. “You don’t understand,” he said quietly, looking away when Khouri positively seethed.

  “And whose fault is that?” his lover asked dryly, his voice colder than the stone around them.

  “It’s mine, alright?” he snapped, hating himself even more for giving in. He covered his face with his hands, dragging them down his cheeks with a furious sigh. “It’s all my fucking fault. Everything. But please, in Inden’s name, just listen—”

  “Stop.”

  It felt as if Navidae had swallowed his tongue. He looked at Khouri, his heart in his throat. Khouri sat as still as a statue before him. His glare was hot; his knuckles were grey against the red of the sheets. Khouri licked his lips and let out a short breath of air. “I don’t want to hear your excuses,” he said carefully. Navidae was hit with the sudden realization that Khouri was as close to losing control as he’d ever seen him be. “Just… Just tell me what it is that’s going on. Tell me why you think the best course of action to take is sending me away and leaving you behind.” The pronouncement stole what little strength Navidae had left. He knelt fully on the cold stone floor, burying his face in the sheets. He clenched his hands around fistfuls of silk, breathing in the scent of himself, of Khouri, of the time they had spent making this bed their own. “It wasn’t what I wanted. It wasn’t my first choice. I’m trying, Khouri,” he breathed. “I’ve tried everything I can think to do to avoid this. But I have no favors to trade, no friends to lean on. The Council is bloodthirsty. And she…” Navidae turned his head to the side, his cheek against the silk. “She won’t let it die.”

  Khouri narrowed his eyes. “Who?”

  “That’s…” That was the one question Navidae really didn’t want to answer. He sighed, letting go of the sheets to fist his hair instead. “Have I ever told you about my parents?” he asked dully. The time to run from this was… Well, it had long since past, if it had ever been here to begin with.

  Khouri was quiet for a moment. The bed dipped as he inched closer, his curiosity palpable. “Your parents? No. You’ve never told me about your family— about anything before I came into your life.”

  “Yeah, well,” Navidae chuckled mirthlessly. “There’s a reason for that.” There were many. Some were better than others, but he had a feeling Khouri would insist on hearing them all regardless.

  “Then explain it to me,” Khouri demanded, just as Navidae expected him to. His hand was clasped tightly around the sheet, holding it close to his sternum. Despite the vulnerable picture he painted, he looked far more steady than Navidae felt by far. “If you have a reason for all of this, then tell me it.” It wasn’t that easy. Navidae kept his eyes on the sheets beneath his hands. “I killed my father,” he said simply, figuring there was no better place to start than there. “My mother and I. We killed him together. When I was around twenty years old.”

  Khouri stiffened. Navidae didn’t bother to lift his head to see his expression. “Why are you telling me that?” Khouri whispered. “Why does this matter now?”

  “Because I should have told you before. I should have told you so many things but I never did. I never wanted you to worry or to think less of me.” Navidae tightened his grip on the bedding. “My father was a horrible man. He hated us as much a
s he hated his enemies, and he threatened anyone who got in his way. He’d get rid of them in the next breath if the fancy struck him. We… My mother and I. We couldn’t live fully under his heel. He put us at risk living the way he did. It was…” He paused, giving a feckless laugh. “It was terrifying. So, we took action. We staged an accident and we got rid of him. Poison.”

  Navidae let out a shaky breath, smiling though he felt not even an ounce of joy remembering any of this. “I took the family name. I became who I am today, and my mother…”

  He snorted and Khouri jumped. Navidae lifted his head, knowing the sneer on his face was ugly. “My mother, the Lady Lichenith, married the woman most at risk from my father’s fury. They had been lovers long before that. Left me to clean up the mess as she finally built herself the family she’d always wanted.”

  He frowned when he saw confusion in Khouri’s eyes. “You’re still wondering why I’m telling you this,” he guessed, running his fingers through his hair until it was no doubt the mess he felt himself to be. “It’s because I want you to understand that what’s happening, all the problems and risk we’re suffering from— It’s not some random noble House targeting me.”

  Navidae sucked in a deep breath, yanking so hard on his hair that he felt more than a few strands part with his scalp. “It’s my mother, Khouri,” he snarled, angry at the situation, at her, but more than anything mad at himself. “She must have heard of what I did when I thought you were stolen from me, and she took the chance it gave her to sell me out to the Council. She threw her influence around, threw me on the chopping block by citing some damages she had suffered, and now she won’t stop until she sees me fall. And nothing I’ve done so far has helped my cause in the slightest. No one will stand against her; no one will support me when they could so easily be next.”

  There was silence. Navidae couldn’t bear to open his eyes. He yanked at his hair and fought the pain building in his chest, sick and thick and cloying at all at once.

  A warm hand reached out though, and Navidae was too surprised to resist as Khouri pulled his hand free from his hair.

  “Don’t do that,” Khouri whispered, his words an echo of a memory from long ago. Navidae dared to lift his head, and he saw dark, melancholic Khouri cradling his hand in his own. The tips of his fingers played with the shells of the bracelet he’d made. The one he made special for Navidae. “Don’t let my bad habits become yours.”

  It broke something in Navidae.

  His lips burned. His eyes pricked. He sucked in a rough breath of air and nodded his head.

  “Now... Why wouldn’t you tell me that?” Khouri’s words were so quiet in the overbearing silence. His eyes were wide, his lower lip flushed from being caught between his teeth. “She won’t stop until she gets what she wants, right? Why wouldn’t you tell me? I don’t—” He shook his head harshly, squeezing Navidae’s hand tight. “I don’t understand why you wouldn’t trust me with this. I… I could have helped. Why would you tell Sorin but not me?”

  Navidae shrunk in on himself. His shoulders tensed; his head bowed and he held onto Khouri’s hand like a lifeline. Because there’s no helping things, he longed to say. The words formed on his tongue but he didn’t have the bravery to say it out loud. “She hates me, Khouri,” he said instead. “She’s had centuries to build a name for herself, to gain favor with the Council. I’ve no aid among my fellow nobles. I’ve no support. It’s simply courtesy that I’ve been given any warning at all of what she intends to do. And I...”

  He glanced up at Khouri, mouth as dry as sand. “I didn’t want you to worry. I didn’t want you to fear for the life I’ve given you. I knew if I left you on the surface that others would come for you. They’d strike where I have no control, and they’d do what they wanted with you while I remained down here, trapped in this— this losing battle. So, I brought you down. To warn Sorin. To… To prepare for the worst.”

  To say goodbye.

  Khouri’s other hand reached out, resting on Navidae’s forearm. He blinked and moved his lips, but couldn’t seem to form words. Slender fingers wrapped around Navidae’s arm tightly.

  “I had no idea,” Khouri finally whispered.

  “I knew if you knew you’d never let me send you away. But I can’t let you fall with me. Not like this. What they’d do to me…” He looked at Khouri, seeing more tears in Khouri’s dark eyes. “What they would do to me is nothing compared to what they’d do to you. Not much in this world can hurt me...”

  He stared into Khouri’s eyes, licking at his lips nervously. “But it would break me, Khouri. If I let that happen to you, it would break me completely.”

  The sheet slid down one of Khouri’s shoulders. His lips parted and his eyes went wide. The muted silver of a bite mark teased the open air. Khouri was too stunned to pull it back up.

  For good reason; that was probably as close to an I love you

  as Navidae had ever come close to saying.

  For some reason that destroyed the last bit of control Navidae had in him. He scrambled onto the bed, grabbing for Khouri with an energy that felt almost manic.

  “That’s why, Khouri,” he rushed, taking his lover by the shoulders, staring into his eyes. “If I’m stripped of my title, stripped of my power, you won’t be protected. It won’t matter if you’re here in the Duskriven or up on the surface. I won’t be…” His voice threatened to crack. “I won’t be able to keep them from hurting you.”

  Khouri stared at him, his cheeks flushed, his eyes wide.

  He’d never looked more beautiful if only for the threat of losing him so close. “I can protect myself,” Khouri said, taking Navidae by the cheek, his soft hand stroking as if to comfort. “Navi, I’ve fought my own battles long before I met you—” “Khouri, you don’t understand. You’ve never understood even though you know how the other Houses want you. The only thing keeping them from taking you is the threat of what I’d do to them if they did.” Navidae felt a pit open up beneath him, a spiraling, deep pit that was keen on seeing him fall. “If I lose my standing, you won’t be able to deal with it on your own. The watch won’t hesitate to throw you to the auctions.

  You aren’t safe in the Duskriven, Khouri. You haven’t been safe down here since the moment you became mine.”

  And that was it, wasn’t it? He’d clung so hard to Khouri thinking that they would never be parted but reality didn’t seem to agree.

  Navidae covered his face with a hand. “Maybe it was wrong to want you like this,” he whispered, more to himself than to Khouri. He had so many enemies, and even more he hadn’t known to account for. Was it just folly? Stupidity on his part? It was impossible not to take it personally when it threatened everything he held dear.

  Khouri settled his hands over Navidae’s, pulling them away from his face. The bracelet of shells clinked quietly from the movement, louder than their breathing, louder than the ghost of Navidae’s words still hanging so heavily in the air. The red looked so dark in the confines of their bedroom. As dark as Khouri’s red-rimmed eyes when he met Navidae’s resolutely.

  “Navi,” he said, a pronounced tremor taking over his body. “Navi, I love you.”

  It landed like a blade straight through the heart. “Khouri—” “No,” Khouri cut in, leaning into Navidae for a messy, tear- soaked kiss. Warm arms wrapped around his shoulders. His weight tipped forward, slight as it was, but Navidae was weak. So weak. It took nothing at all to push Navidae into the sheets, and instinct rolled them over as soft thighs hooked around Navidae’s hips.

  “I love you, Navi,” Khouri insisted, crying as he pressed his lips to Navidae’s cheek when he grew too overwhelmed to kiss properly. “I want to say it. J-Just let me say it, you idiot.”

  No matter how much Navidae hushed him, Khouri just kept crying. “You can say it,” he breathed, rocking Khouri carefully, stroking his hair, down his back, raining kisses down on his cheeks and lips and head. “Please, Khouri; say it. I love hearing you say it.” For all he had fucked
up, for all he had done and had yet to do, he still knew how much he needed this. To hear those words, to feel this warmth, to smell the heady scent of Khouri’s skin against his own.

  “I love you so much,” Khouri rushed, taking fistfuls of Navidae’s clothes in hand to yank and tug. “Take off your shirt. Don’t ever think of leaving me. You can’t leave me, Navi. I won’t let you.”

  They may not have a choice in the matter, but pretending otherwise, pretending that Khouri might be able to hold on that tightly was something Navidae needed to put his faith in if only for a night. A moment. For however long this would last, if it was meant to last at all.

  It took no effort at all to tear away the sheet clinging to Khouri’s hips. It took considerably more to pull away enough to remove his own clothes. He stripped off his shirt and tossed it behind him.

  “I’m here, Khouri,” he promised, losing himself in the familiar warmth of Khouri’s skin. “You have me. I’m not going anywhere.”

  Khouri couldn’t quite seem to believe him. He held onto Navidae as tightly as he could, wrapping his arms around his chest first and then his neck when he finally moved to kiss him. Salt flavored it. Navidae felt the dampness of Khouri’s cheeks against his own. He moved his thigh between Khouri’s legs. He kissed down his neck and tried not to miss the warmth of Khouri’s embrace when he finally loosened his hold enough to allow Navidae to go lower.

  He trailed his lips against the raised grooves of Khouri’s scars. There were dozens of them, all layered over one another, marks and testaments to Navidae’s claim. He kissed them gently, tracing them with his tongue. First the ones at his neck, then down his shoulders. He nipped and sucked bruises along Khouri’s soft stomach, and then paused between his thighs to worship the scars they cradled so well. Khouri trembled and tensed, no doubt waiting for him to bite. He wouldn’t, though. Not tonight.

  “Navi?” Khouri stared at him through his parted legs. His chest rose and fell quickly; his cheeks were flushed high with color.