“Zurron,” Darshan blurted, making everyone around him jump. He turned to the head priest. “It has come to my attention that the man has warned you as to the potential of this outcome in regards to the pulley on numerous occasions. You would do well heeding his words. Knowing you have taken measures to ensure this never happens again shall be payment enough.”
Flustered, the head priest bowed in a similar manner as before. “You humble me, your highness.”
Darshan waggled his finger. “I am not quite finished. I require a meal, preferably one with a lot of protein. And a full account of whatever arcane healing knowledge you could share with Udynea, who is all too happy to reciprocate in kind.”
The priest bowed once again, taking a step back towards the door whilst still bent over. “I shall see to those promptly. Please, wait here whilst I send someone up with food.” With that, he scurried off out the door, the susurration of his feet echoing down the corridor.
Hamish took one final glance around the room. Apart from the sleeping wounded, they were alone. His gaze landed on Darshan, who had opted to claim one of the precious few chairs in the area. His lover looked for all the world as if he was about to fall into as deep a sleep as those surrounding them.
“I think,” Gordon said. “You two should start explaining just what happened.”
Hamish stared down at his hands, currently doing nothing extraordinary beyond holding his mare’s reins. The horse plodded alongside the others, her shod hooves clopping sharply on the cobblestones that paved the road leading to Mullhind. They would veer off from the road in time to travel the less-trodden path that snaked along the base of the cliff. Home would come soon enough, no point in speeding the inevitable.
Because of their delay in getting Darshan warmer clothes, coupled with the attack on the spellster at the guard outpost, they had been only two days to spare at the cloister before further dallying would have his mother issuing the call for is retrieval.
Darshan had spent a great deal of that time conversing with the priests and older healers, even through the evening and morning meals. Whilst the grey pallor that’d claimed the customary olive-brown tone of Darshan’s cheeks had vanished during their stay in the cloister—a point Hamish was more than delighted to witness—the act certainly hadn’t dulled the man’s keenness. It had been an intoxicating sight.
One that Hamish wished they hadn’t needed to be done with so swiftly.
When the time to leave had arrived, they had lingered at the base of the cliff for a few more hours whilst Zurron finished assisting with the pulley’s reconstruction. Even though that had been a week ago, Hamish could still hear the elf stressing the mechanism’s limits as he worked. Unlike in the past, his words seemed to garner more attention and less eye-rolling. Hopefully, it would also mean no repetition of the accident.
The week-long trip back home had been its customarily uneventful passage. Despite his brother’s concerns, they met no guards on the way back down the road. Not even when they reached the outpost at the intersection, which had been eerily absent of a single soul.
Hamish wished all their days could’ve gone as placidly as they did now. But in the days since leaving the cloister, a far more insidious thought had plagued his mind.
It had started out so innocently. And only on their second night away from the cloister. The farmer hadn’t been able to spare room in his stables and Hamish had gone to fetch wood to stave off the night chills. Darshan had tagged along, helping mostly by keeping an eye out for any wildlife that could’ve posed as deadly.
The stint in the cloister seemed to have made the man impatient. Or perhaps it was the bundle of papers he now carried, copies of ancient texts and strange drawings. He hopped from one foot to the other like a child itching to head out on their first hunt. “Surely we need but only one armful of logs to carve up for the night.”
“It’s going to be an icy one.”
Darshan pulled a face. Whilst he had never verbally complained during the sodden days their group had spent on the road towards the cloister, his distaste for the less-than-agreeable weather had been palpable. “I see. Well, cold or not, I look forward to resuming our prior sleeping arrangements.”
“Was there something wrong with your bed in the cloister?” He found them a little on the softer side, but serviceable.
“It is not so much that—although I have certainly slept in better and the blankets could have been thicker—it is more the fact I have never spent a night in a mountain.” He glanced over his shoulder, as if somehow able to see any evidence of the Crowned Mountain through the dense canopy. “And I shall be quite happy to never do so again.”
“You’re still meant to sleep in your own bed.” Hamish’s thoughts swung back to their first five days of travel. Of how his lover would snuggle against him, shivering with the cold even through three layers of clothing whenever Hamish dared to move any more than a few inches away. How warm were Udynea’s southern lands? Hot enough along the border of the Stamekian deserts. Nae wonder he keeps the fire lit in the guest quarters.
“I vastly prefer being entangled with you in yours.”
“Nae sex, though. Nae here.” He’d never live down knowing his brother had actually heard them.
“What?” Darshan chuckled, his moustache twisting as his brows lowered in bewilderment. “Mea lux, I would not dream of proposing sex in the middle of the wilderness, nor am I looking for it. I meant only that I find the comfort of your presence preferable.” He rubbed the very tip of his nose with a forefinger. “And I missed your warmth.”
“Sharing me
