The queen placed the object with care into a box next to her throne.
“Is that? I mean, is…. I don’t understand,” Landa stammered. She looked to Gavin, who smiled from ear to ear with such joy as to light the whole world. Orion appeared to be in the same bliss. Lucas rubbed Gavin’s back as Riley did much the same to Orion.
“Is it?”
“It is the birth of hopes and dreams and wonder returning to the world,” Siobhán said as she returned to her throne and sat. “For too long machines and misused magick have clouded judgments and destroyed the fabric of what we truly are: beings of wonder. This begins to make right what Gregor Travail set asunder so long ago. Tell him, young clockwork magician, tell him when you see him again that, thanks to his aid, we are on the path.”
“Gregor?” Gavin asked.
“The Monk,” Orion answered.
“The Monk? How?”
“Magick,” Wish answered, stunning them all.
“Cursed to live forever,” Landa said with awe.
“Wasn’t he a knight?” Lucas asked.
“Time changes many things,” Siobhán proclaimed as she patted the box next to her throne.
“And the power of the heart,” Orion added.
“And the faith of a warrior priest,” Siobhán said.
“Wh… when will it…,” Gavin finally started.
“There is more to do, more to unite, but soon, my child. Soon.”
All Things….
ORION AND Gavin walked close to one another along the garden path that led to the ships. Each one dreaded the coming parting, knowing the inevitability of it. That never made it any easier.
“Would you have stayed, had I asked?” Orion said.
Gavin looked ahead of them where Lucas walked behind Wish and Landa, who were close enough without actually touching. He wondered if the big lout had changed enough for Landa to give him the attention he so clearly wanted.
“Why didn’t you?” Gavin asked after shaking his head. It was Orion’s turn to look at Lucas.
“As much as we were fated to do this together, there is so much left to be done, and I cannot leave my queen. She will need my help in rebuilding. And it wouldn’t matter if I had asked. I see the way you look at him now.”
“Does that anger you?”
“No. Probably it should, but the way your magick poured from you when danger fell upon him blazed with truth. You cannot hide such a love.”
“I… I didn’t know,” Gavin confessed. “Not when we…. I wasn’t sure, is what I mean. Not until the thought of him being taken from me….”
“It is fate’s hand.”
“I knew then as I know now. I will ask him if he still wants to be with me after everything I have put him through. Is that all right?”
“It is all right, Gavin. The heart, even a British one, is a complicated thing. Lucas is a gifted, smart lad. And a lucky one as well.”
“And so is Riley.”
“What?” Orion stopped walking.
“Ha-ha. Don’t play coy. Your aunt seemed to make things clear enough when she granted him his cloak. Which makes him a full warlock, right? No longer a servant?” It was Orion’s turn to blush. “Fate’s hand?”
“Like you, we will have to see if I can be forgiven as well.”
“YOU HAVE friends in the Emerald Isle, now and forever,” Orion said to the group of weary Brits, making an oath to them. Wish begrudgingly shook hands and wished Orion luck in rebuilding. “Wish, may you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you’re dead.”
Wish began to thank him, stopped, and cocked his head, an offended turn of his lips not matching his eyes.
Landa hugged Orion tightly. “I’m glad I misjudged you.”
“Take care of him for me. Of both of them.” Landa looked quizzically toward him as they parted.
Lucas stuck out his hand to Orion but instead found himself in a full embrace. Orion whispered, “Love him each and every moment, as if the sun was set ablaze in his eyes before thrown into the sky, and love deeply until the sun sets no more.”
“I will,” Lucas responded as they separated.
Gavin and Orion stared at one another for too long, finding no words to say or that needed to be said. Instead they embraced deeply until Orion spun Gavin around and pushed him on his way up the gangplank.
“Come back soon. You need to continue your lessons.”
“I will.”
And with that, Gavin busied himself ordering the others to set about their tasks. They readied the airship for takeoff. They soon were waving at a disappearing Orion and Riley standing a little closer than when they lifted off.
Lucas called out that they were approaching the Welsh coast. Gavin asked Wish to man the steering column. He looked bored, having nothing to shoot at now.
Gavin eyed Lucas, who had been standing at the bow of the airship being lookout. He walked up next to him and cleared his throat. Lucas turned around to find himself face-to-face with a serious-looking Gavin.
“I wanted to talk to you,” Gavin began. Lucas said nothing. He simply waited. He would not make this easy.
“About what?”
“I have been a fool,” Gavin continued. “I didn’t know… that is… er… I wasn’t sure what I wanted. My father—”
“We’re talking about your father now?”
“No, I mean… ugh. This is difficult.”
“No, it isn’t,” Lucas clarified. Gavin lowered his head.
“You’re right, it isn’t,” Gavin said. “You are amazing. And I was afraid of you.”
“Of me?”
“Don’t pretend you didn’t know,” Gavin reprimanded.
Lucas smiled for the first time in a long time. “Maybe a little.”
“Yeah, you scared me, knowing what you wanted, not caring what people thought. It terrified me.” Gavin reached for Lucas’s hands, and Lucas let him hold them. “Your strength, and your patience with me… I don’t deserve it, or you.”
“You don’t.” Lucas grinned.
“Will you have me?”
“Don’t you really want Orion? I mean, if he’d even asked you to stay.” The hurt came through his words.
“Lucas, I deserve that, but I know what I want—it isn’t Orion. I guess it never was.” Lucas stared at Gavin, who kept watching Lucas’s face for something.
“You guess?” Lucas said and turned to leave.
“I know.”
Gavin spun Lucas around and pulled him in fast and hard, locking their lips in a true, passionate kiss. He caressed Lucas’s back and shoulders until he threaded both of his hands into Lucas’s shaggy brown hair and used the hold to kiss him completely.
When they finally parted, Gavin kissed Lucas lightly a few times and touched their foreheads together. After a moment, they stood side by side, hands clasped. They looked out at the coast, bringing with it a new age, an era of peace. The prospect was of a country whose future would not be bound by wickedness and abusive power, but by the true genius of inventors and maybe a little magick from a former councilman’s son.
Landa had joined them at the bow. Her hair was stuffed under her new leather cap she couldn’t seem to get to sit right, and the rest, as always, was smudged by thick cog grease. She held Gavin’s free hand and ignored, with a smile, Wish’s comment about feeling left out holding the big wheel.
Gavin turned to them and looked them in the face, one at a time. “Wish, thank you for protecting Landa. And for helping.” Wish beamed, his past slipping far behind him with every tick.
“Lucas. My Lucas. I can never repay you.”
“You did magick for me.”
“Yes, I guess I did.” Gavin smiled at Lucas. Lucas smiled back.
He turned to his dearest friend.
“And Landa,” he continued.
“Wait,” Landa said.
“No, I have to say it,” Gavin kept on. He fought the urge to stop, to allow her to take care of him like she always had. It had
grown far past time he showed remorse. “I was wrong. I should have told you.”
“Which thing?”
“Everything. I should have trusted you about liking boys, and about magick. I hope you can forgive me. I was….” He paused to search for the right words, of which there were none.
“Terrified?” she said. He nodded.
“You’re my family, and I can’t imagine what I’d do if….” She reached out and touched the hand that wasn’t in Lucas’s and held that one.
“There is nothing to forgive,” Landa said.
“Hey. Are you into lads or not?” Wish asked jokingly. Landa rolled her eyes, but they all laughed, the others more so than Gavin. His heavy heart struggled against the memories of the day.
Gavin looked at Landa a tick, and then at Lucas. Lucas rested his head on Gavin’s shoulder. Gavin squeezed his hand.
“I love you,” Gavin said to make things clear.
In unison, as if practiced, Landa and Lucas replied together.
“You better.”
MICHAEL VANCE GURLEY writes fiction with unconventional settings. Whether he is writing about hockey players in the Roaring Twenties or magicians in Victorian England, he promises something different. His first novel, The Long Season, discovered the secret world of professional athletes from the Jazz Age who fall in love with one another. Traveling around the world with a passion for history brought about a kiss of the Blarney Stone, which sparked the steampunk/magic blended Absolute Heart.
Michael won a “Pitchapalooza” literary event and garnered high praise for his books from readers and authors such as Jeff Adams, Brent Hartinger, and Jay Bell. His work with children in schools and LGBT outreach allows him to tap into the YA genre with authenticity and the respect of others. Michael has written short stories, comic books, and poetry since he was a little kid, eventually owning his own comic book publishing company. Not so secretly, he wants to be Green Lantern.
When not writing or working, Michael wanders from Chicago and the best pizza in the world to see Broadway plays, Alaskan glaciers, penguins in Antarctica with his husband, and once sang in a band in Italy. He reads constantly, takes photos with stars, and plays with his dog, Finnegan.
By Michael Vance Gurley
INFERNAL INSTRUMENTS OF THE DRAGON
Absolute Heart
Published by HARMONY INK PRESS
www.harmonyinkpress.com
Published by
HARMONY INK PRESS
5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886 USA
[email protected] • harmonyinkpress.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Absolute Heart
© 2019 Michael Vance Gurley
Cover Art
© 2019 Jason Burian
Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.
Interior Art by Jason Burian
All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Harmony Ink Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or [email protected].
Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-64080-992-5
Digital ISBN: 978-1-64080-991-8
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018957873
Digital published July 2019
v. 1.0
Printed in the United States of America
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