would open the stiff barrel taps of a hard man s eyes, as the poet has it.
Ringil grimaced, because that sounded alarmingly like a line out of early Skimil Shend.
And now? You can make men weep with your music?
Another small, painful smile. Now I can crack a man s heart to a halt with my music, if I choose. Spill out his soul and send it on to the crossroads. Women are harder, but that, too, can be done with a little effort. A gift of somewhat limited application, of course, if you plan to keep your audiences happy. But, as I said, the creature has a sense of humor.
It s not what you wanted?
Am I so obvious? For the first time, there was a trace of real bitterness in Hjel s voice.
What did you want, then?
But the answer already loomed. Ringil s gaze fell to where the Ravensfriend lay at his side in its scabbard and the loosed coils of the shoulder harness rig. And he knew, without looking up, that Hjel had seen it, too.
A bloodline in exile, the dispossessed prince murmured. What young man does not dream of bringing his family back to the glory of earlier days? What young man doesn t want the cold command of steel in his clenched fist? Something sharp and powerful. Something to hold.
You asked for that?
Yeah, I asked for that. A sword of power, to lead my followers and carve out a new kingdom. An ironic gesture around. To build these ruins back up, to raise new towers on the marsh horizon. Instead, I get an improved facility with stringed instruments and a better singing voice. You got to laugh, right?
Ringil met his eyes and held them. The need was out now, painted on the lean face like the yellowish glare of the firelight.
Come here, Ringil told him softly. I ll give you something to hold.
In the canvas confines of Hjel's tent, they cling and bend each other to the old, old task. The old hunger gusting, and garments fumbled loose. They ve left their boots outside, draped and tumbled over each other in untidy haste, as the two of them stumbled in, all searching mouths and hands. The lack of easy space in the tent seems only to add fuel to the passion. Both kneeling upright now, pressed awkwardly together as Ringil reaches around from behind, slides one hand up under the other man s unbuttoned shirt, rakes nails across the flat, muscled flesh of belly and chest. Hjel turns his head back to find Ringil s mouth, fastens his own lips across it. His hand gropes into Gil s loosened breeches, finds the hardening bar of his prick chuckle of lust, bared teeth into a sucking kiss as he squeezes and tugs at the shaft. Ringil grunts and arches his back with the wash of sensation, falls forward again and bites hard into Hjel s shoulder. His own hands drop lower, seeking.
After the marsh, after the Margins and the Gray Place ghosts, after all the groggy wandering, this is waking up. This is light pouring into morning chambers, and the stir of rested limbs against the sheets.
This is life again.
They twine around each other, hands restless and working, mouths biting and sucking, and finally, breeches pulled entirely off, Hjel s shirt peeled and flung away, Gil s flapping carelessly undone, a cupped right hand to spit in and the other pressing down as Ringil bends Hjel forward before him. Stroking himself slick with the spit, reaching in between the tight, scalloped buttocks and
Across Hjel s shoulder blade, the fingers of his dry hand find the scars.
He stops what he s doing muffled grunt of frustration from Hjel brushes his fingers across the raised scar tissue again, exploring at the edge of some black epiphany.
There at the inner edge of the shoulder blade, a thick finger broad, and crawling down Hjel s back the length of a child s forearm. He remembers this scarring from before, remembers Hjel s hushing evasion of the question that rose to his lips then, but never spilled over into speech. But now
Comprehension dawning, but still a fingertip out of reach
Hjel twisting impatiently about, voice thick with desperate lust.
Don t that s not don t stop
Ignoring him, spread fingers out now to the other shoulder blade and the identical scar carved there
Like angel wings, torn out at the roots. But
Ringil remembers, feels himself wilt with the memory. The creature s arms, the two that settle on his back just below the shoulder blades, pressing in and up like hooks.
The sibilant voice.
I should hate to tear you asunder. You show a lot of promise.
And now Hjel has worked himself around and seen the look on Ringil s face. The lust flutters away, gone like mandolin notes into the dark. He s working on a crooked smile, and for that alone Ringil wants to weep and hold him tight.
Gifts at the crossroads are not cheap, Hjel says quietly. Everyone must pay. And most of us heal somewhat with time.
Ringil shakes his head. Mouth tight words are hard. He forces them out.
I didn t pay.
Hjel reaches out, suddenly tender after the harsh impatience of their grappling. His hand touches Ringil s cheek, touches the scar along the jaw.
Perhaps you already have, he says. Or will later.
Ringil tries his own bent smile. What else could they take from me now?
But Hjel only puts rapid fingers across his lips, as if to seal the words back in, and pulls him back down into the shadows on the floor of the tent.
Slower this time.
Ringil uses the tricks he already knows from his other, yet-to-happen couplings with the dispossessed prince, the things he remembers that Hjel likes, the pressure of teeth and tongue like this that makes him writhe left and right like a severed snake, the delving fingers doing that so they make him stiffen and gasp
He understands now that at least part of Hjel s allure when he first met him must have been a similar prior knowledge to this, inverted. And understanding this, he shows himself to the other man more intimately than he might otherwise have done, offering the gates to his own seduction with an abandon that is at least half sly investment in his own future pleasure.
And half, perhaps, the understanding that this, all of this, cannot last.
When, finally, he thrusts into Hjel from behind, it s done almost gently, and still they both come in seconds. Clenched teeth and groans, the sorcerer bucking back against him like an unbroken pony. Hjel s slim cock, pulsing suddenly sticky in his hand.
As the spasms ebb, Ringil wraps his arms tight around the other man s torso, hugging him up close, pressing face hard against the scar tissue etched into Hjel s back. Closing his eyes for what thin escape there might be.
Something to hold.
CHAPTER 24
It wasn t a long list:
Andal Karsh
Mahmal Shanta
Yilmar Kaptal
Nethena Gral
Shab Nyanar
Jhash Oreni
Klarn Shendanak
You know, you d have thought we d have a lot more rich fuckers than that in an Empire that spans the known world was Jhiral s sour opinion when they d finished. He leaned over her in lamp-glow at the desk, glowering at the parchment and the names it held. I ve certainly handed out royal charter to five times that many, and I ve only been on the throne two years.
