Chapter Fourteen
The chain breaking hadn’t hurt him, but it had put a rapid end to the scene. It wasn’t his fault, Ashenivir knew that; these things happened. Why they had to happen when he was half a minute from orgasm, though, he couldn’t help but pout about. Rizeth, after ensuring he was alright, had gone off to find one of the House servants to inform them of the damage, but by the time Ashenivir was dressed and the playroom tidied, he still wasn’t back. Ashenivir, buzzing with unspent energy, decided to go wandering.
Most of the playroom doors stood open, green markers tied around their handles. He’d left theirs with a black tie, the only one so marked, but at the far end of the hall another unique colour stood out.
Blue.
He’d seen the colour often, but never dared to take up its invitation since he’d walked in on the end of River and Cain’s scene all those months ago. Ashenivir chewed the inside of his lip. He was allowed. He’d always been allowed—what was he so afraid of?
While he was debating with himself, the door opened and a woman stepped out—in that brief moment, he heard a shout of pain and the crack of leather hitting flesh. His curiosity burned as strong as the sudden jolt in his stomach. The woman smiled as she passed him.
“Mistress Honey’s very good with the cat,” she said, motioning behind her. “It’s a real treat to watch.”
He could walk out if he didn’t like what he saw. With two fingers hooked into his collar, Ashenivir went to the blue-marked door and slipped inside.
Low red flames cast the playroom in a sensual glow. A half-dozen people clustered in the dark space, but no-one so much as glanced at him—unsurprising, given what they had to hold their attention. Bound to a free-standing wooden X in the centre of the room was a human woman he’d seen a few times before; tall and fat, her fair skin often sported either rope marks or elaborate harnesses designed to emphasise her curves. Her Mistress was always the same elf, who today had poured herself into skintight leathers with her hair tied back high in a way that reminded him uncomfortably of the Lolthite at the Hot Springs. But she wasn’t drow; her skin was earth-brown, her hair a shade darker, and her voice was rich and smooth, filling the playroom with its confident roll.
“That’s it pet, scream for me.”
Mistress Honey’s wrist span in a tight circle, and the cat-o’-nine-tails lashed across the human’s shoulders. She cried out as it struck; she was angled side-on to the door, but even from where he stood, Ashenivir could see the fresh set of red welts that rose atop the ones already striping her skin. Mistress Honey trailed the cat’s tails over her rear and down her thighs.
“Louder next time.”
“Yes, Mistress.”
He knew that panted tone. He knew the glazed look in her eyes, the way her lips parted over hard-fought breath. Ashenivir gripped his collar tight, enraptured as Mistress Honey delivered another blow. What did that kind of pain feel like? Sharp like his Master’s hand? A thud of solid hurt like his paddle?
“Mercy, Mistress!” the woman cried, and Mistress Honey aborted her next strike in a confident spin of the cat, ending with the tails captured in her other fist. Her pet’s breath was ragged as she shuddered in her bonds.
“Good girl,” Mistress Honey purred. She stroked along her human’s side, far from the welts she’d raised on her back. “Breathe deep for me, pet.”
How much better did her Mistress’s hands feel, with all these eyes following them? To stand there and take the pain—and to show how well you knew yourself and your rules to pull back like that. To display to a room full of strangers how well-trained you were, how excellently you took your Master’s ministrations, have them all hear him say good, Ra’soltha, how perfectly you scream for me—
A hand touched his shoulder, and he yelped. Fortunately, Mistress Honey chose that moment to bring her cat back into play, and her pet’s pain drowned out his alarm. River gave him an apologetic smile, keeping his voice low. “Sorry. They’re good, aren’t they?”
The cat lashed down again. The cry that followed was exultant pain; the accompanying praise a part of the beautiful rhythm of each strike.
“Very.” Ashenivir twisted the links of his collar between his fingers. “You and Cain use a cat, don’t you?”
“Sometimes.”
Crack-cry-good girl. Hurt made him soar out of his head, higher than sex did. There was something about pain that unravelled part of his mind, stopped it dead in its tracks. Put it right up against his skin, ready to fracture and reform at his Master’s whim.
River elbowed him in the ribs. “You never mentioned you were into that.”
“I…is he here? Could I ask him about it?”
River made a face. “He’s here. But maybe we don’t talk to him today. Or tomorrow. Or ever.”
The door clicked behind him, and Ashenivir sidestepped whoever it was without looking. A whole host of worst-case scenarios flashed through his mind. “What happened?”
“I might have told him I had a place for the dedication ceremony.”
“That’s great!”
“Yeah, it would be,” River said. “If I actually had one.”
“Well, what did you go and lie for?” Both of them jumped this time, as Mara inserted herself between them. That explained the new arrival. River tapped her on the forehead.
“Mind your business, princess.”
“Your business is going on inside my business.” Mara gestured at Mistress Honey, who was lashing skilfully aimed figure-eights over her pet’s backside and upper thighs. By the look on said pet’s face, she was greatly enjoying the treatment. “So now you have to tell me why you’re being stupid.”
River scratched at his neck. “I don’t know, I just…he asked me again yesterday and it’s happening in literally a tenday and I didn’t want him to be worrying about that when he’s got so much else to take care of, but nowhere feels right, and this has to be perfect, you know?”
“Why do boys always have to make things so complicated? Honestly, just go to the Haven.” Her eyebrows went up at River’s open-mouthed silence. “What? Xalin’s really nice, Lady Alvanriel loves an excuse to throw an elaborate party, and Ashenivir goes there all the time. Just get him to ask.”
“Mara,” River said slowly. “Mara, you’re a genius.”
She fluffed her hair. “I know.”
Ashenivir realised then that a deep silence had fallen over the playroom, and that there had been no cries or sighs or smacks of leather on skin in some time. He looked up, right into the cold, hard eyes of Mistress Honey.
“If you so desperately require a place to speak, there is an entire empty ballroom downstairs,” she said, punctuating her words with a slap of the cat across her palm. “I suggest you make use of it.”
The three of them scurried out of the playroom, Ashenivir with his face on fire. The door had hardly swung shut behind them when Cain appeared in the corridor, Rizeth alongside. Cain gestured with his chin at the blue marker.
“In a sharing mood today, puppy?”
“Just an observant one, Sir,” River said. All his anxiety had vanished beneath his usual demure House posture, head bowed, shoulders relaxed. He shot a quick glance at Mara, mouthing thank you, before Cain leashed him and led him away into a playroom. Mara huffed.
“That boy’s lucky to have me. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
In a swirl of skirts, she flounced back into Mistress Honey’s room. Rizeth arched an eyebrow at Ashenivir, tilting his head in silent question.
“Just helping with the wedding, Master.”
His hand slipped easily into Rizeth’s as they made their way down the stairs—as easily as Fellanistra’s had fit with his brother’s during their joining dance. Ashenivir banished the thought before it could show on his face. One thing at a time, Ashenivir. Dirius had courted Fellanistra for years before she proposed, and then they’d waited years longer for Ashenivir to finish at the Arcanum before they actually married. It took time to be sure about something like that. More time than he’d been with Rizeth, certainly.
Still, it was a nice thought to skirt the edges of. The dance, that was. He’d enjoyed getting Rizeth to dance with him at the solstice.
Just the dance. That was all.
When they arrived home, and Rizeth sat, Ashenivir did not come to kneel. He went wandering about the apartment instead, fetching out tea and mugs, picking up his discarded serial from the table and flicking through it to where he’d left off with one hand heating the kettle. Rizeth drummed his fingers on the arm of the couch for two minutes before calling him.
“Ra’soltha.”
The sharp, commanding bark came out harsher than he’d intended, but it had the desired effect. Ashenivir started, snapping his book closed. Rizeth’s stomach twisted—it had only been two days, and this was the first slip. Rules took time. He started to apologise, but Ashenivir got there first.
“I’m sorry, Master,” he said, and though his voice was soft, there was power in it; the kind that could never be taken, only given, and it snagged Rizeth as effectively as any lure. “How should I make up for my disobedience?”
Rizeth took a breath, and when he let it out, he let all his fear go with it.
“Come here, Ra’soltha.”
Ashenivir knelt before him, waiting, the same patient submission in his eyes as had been present in the playroom earlier. No, not the same—that had held an expectation of sex. This was deeper, more intimate, and all the clamouring mistakes of Rizeth’s past couldn’t stand against how very right it felt to be like this, to love like this.
“Display,” he said.
Despite his insistence on taking things slowly, he’d let Ashenivir persuade him to teach him a new posture the previous day, and he’d taken to it with as much eagerness and dedication as any spell. It wasn’t anything complicated, just a modification of his base kneeling, but it would suit for now. Ashenivir shifted into it smoothly, widening his knees and arching his back, chin tilted up to emphasise the beautiful line of his neck. Naked, he was breathtaking, but this was a punishment. There would be time to indulge in his body later.
“Take out your cock—look at me, Ra’soltha. I want you to pleasure yourself, and I want to hear you. Hold nothing back.”
“But I disobeyed, Master.”
“Yes,” Rizeth said. “You did.”
Slowly, as if wary that moving too fast would invite more trouble, Ashenivir began to stroke. When no consequences rained down upon him, his motion sped as he hardened under the combined force of his hand and his Master’s eyes. His lips parted over a moan as he slid his thumb through the wet gathered at the head of his cock.
“Good. Continue.” Rizeth kept all desire out of his voice, as though he were thoroughly uninterested in the proceedings. His own cock stirred in response to Ashenivir’s performance, but he felt very little urge to do anything with it. Having Ashenivir spellbound was satisfaction enough.
In the quiet of the apartment, the slick sound of Ashenivir’s self-pleasure was deliciously overloud. How beautifully debauched he looked, knelt there fully clothed, his cock hard and dark in his urgent hand. Rizeth followed him up, knowing Ashenivir’s reactions as well as his own, up and up and then there. The catch of breath before it sped, mouth widening, tongue pressing over his lower lip, eyes locked on Rizeth’s but hardly seeing him at all. All that mattered was getting where he wanted to go.
“Stop.”
Ashenivir froze.
“Hands behind your back.” A whine, as expected. “Are you going to make me tell you twice?”
He didn’t. Rizeth sat, letting the seconds stretch out, drinking in the high of control. Finally, after a solid minute of silence, he leaned forward and hooked his fingers into Ashenivir’s collar. With a sharp tug, he pulled him closer, keeping his voice low and hard as he spoke.
“Now you know how it feels to expect something and not receive it.”
Ashenivir whined again, but, obedient to the last, remained in position as Rizeth stood. He made no move to touch himself, the cadence of his breath shifting from needful to deliberate as he calmed himself, working his way out of the arousal and back to a clear mind.
With the headspace of the scene receding, Rizeth’s own thoughts began to snarl, the fading high leaving anxiety in its wake. In search of something to occupy his hands, he took over where Ashenivir had started making tea, fumbling with the kettle, fingers tingling as they passed the nearly invisible scar where Lyzira’s mending spell had fixed the crack he’d put in it. He should ask. He knew he should just ask, but words were as beyond him as they were Ashenivir, snagged at the back of his throat, and he reached for the mark instead with fearful, clumsy magic.
Frustration-lust-satisfaction, tangled, as they always were, with—
Arms wrapped around his waist. Ashenivir’s cheek pressed to his back, between his tense shoulders.
“I love you.”
He let the kettle be and fit his hands over Ashenivir’s. “I do not recall giving you permission to rise.” That was neither what he ought to have said nor how he ought to have said it, jagged as smashed granite. Ashenivir only laughed, the sound vibrating through Rizeth’s ribs.
“Then punish me again, Master.”
“I think you have suffered enough for one day.” Rizeth turned in his arms, searching his face, even though the mark still pulsed its truth at him. “Ra’soltha, you must tell me if I go too far.”
“I will,” Ashenivir said. “But Master, this has to go both ways. I need you to trust that I can handle whatever consequences I bring upon myself. I know how to make you stop.” A smile, full of tease. “And how to make you start.”
So he had done it on purpose. Rizeth had half-suspected as such; it seemed wholly unlike him to forget something so fundamental so soon after learning it. “I do trust you.”
“Then don’t hesitate when I forget a rule. I agreed to them—to this, to you. It’s what I want.”
Rizeth kissed him, sweet and slow. “I command, you obey. As simple as that.”
Ashenivir sighed into his mouth. “Exactly.”
He had overcome so much for Ashenivir. Could love him now, even if he was still a tongue-tied fool who couldn’t say it; could touch him in public—kiss him in public. Ashenivir knew most every fractured piece of him, and had shared as much in return. And although fear of how ruinous his desires could be still made him want to flee, after all his centuries, Rizeth was beginning to tire of running.
Lady Alvanriel had been delighted to be asked to perform a wedding dedication. Apparently this was the first time anyone had approached her with such an idea, and she’d taken it as a sign the Haven was finally a place of significance in the city. That neither River nor Cain followed Eilistraee was of no issue—the Lady was for joy, and welcoming friends to express that joy amongst her faithful was as sacred as if it were for those who’d danced for her all their lives.
In the end, Ashenivir hadn’t had to do all that much. He’d gone to the Haven the day after Mara had suggested it, received a most emphatic yes, then handed the whole thing over to the High Priestess. He’d come by this evening to dance where he hadn’t this morning before his studies—Rizeth had preoccupied him, and to his Master he would always defer—and seen her deep in conversation with River and Cain as she walked them through the gardens.
He smiled as he approached the altar. He was glad to have helped—even if it had been Mara’s idea, really—and was more excited for River’s wedding than he’d ever been for his brother’s. Maybe that made him a bad brother. Regardless, despite the ending the ceremony marked for his time on the surface, he was looking forward to seeing River and Cain happy.
He’d just finished unlacing his boots when he heard footsteps behind him. He expected River, slipping away from anxiety-inducing discussions of the organisational variety. Instead, he found himself face to face with Elian’la.
“Can we talk?” she asked.
He crossed his arms, as much defiance as defence. “I don’t see that we have anything to talk about. And even if we did, I’m not talking to you unless Rizeth knows about it.”
“Maiden’s sake, you don’t need his permission to hear me apologise.”
That gave him pause. She sighed, running a hand through her hair. No circlet today, just a spill of tangled white over her shoulders. She looked tired.
“I don’t know how much you heard the other night,” she said. “And I assume I didn’t completely fuck everything up, since I hear you’re back together again, but I know I probably didn’t help matters.”
“You made him shout. He never does that.”
“I didn’t make him do anything. He does whatever he wants, he always has, and I just…” She shook her head. “I saw how miserable you were, and I couldn’t help seeing myself after every fight we ever had. Hells, half the time I started them—I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I have a hard time keeping my mouth shut—but even when I didn’t, he..” Her gaze drifted, eyes on the darkening sky, mind somewhere further. “He’s so fucking bad at saying what he’s feeling. He just shuts down, and then it’s someone else’s job to do emotional surgery to figure out what the problem is.”
“Saying it, yes,” Ashenivir said. “No, he’s not the easiest person to read, but if you care enough to try—”
“He’s transparent as glass.” Elian’la shook herself, and her usual irreverent smile reasserted itself. That, Ashenivir thought, was as much a mask as Rizeth’s careful blankness. “I am sorry, though. I never meant to make things difficult for you, I just wanted you to be careful.”
“I am. And so is he.” Ashenivir hooked a finger into his collar. “He’s petrified of hurting me because of the mistakes he made with you. I don’t know everything that happened between you two, but whoever he was then, he’s changed. How much I can’t tell, but honestly I don’t care. I love who he is now.”
The edges of her smile softened. “Yeah, greenhorn. I know.”
Lady Alvraniel’s voice cut through the night, and a moment later she appeared, River and Cain still alongside her. She threw a broad smile their way, gesturing towards the altar as she explained the structure of the ceremony. When she got to the part about traditional Eilistraeen customs and how much nudity was involved, Ashenivir had the misfortune of meeting River’s eyes, and had to stifle a laugh at the look on his face.
“Friends of yours?” Elian’la asked.
“They needed somewhere to make their dedications.”
“Well, that explains why Lady Alvanriel wanted me to teach the younger ones the old joining accompaniment routines.” She snorted. “As if anyone’s used those in the last four centuries. Your friends don’t know what they’ve let themselves in for, letting the High Priestess get involved.”
Lady Alvanriel called her name then, beckoning to her. With a mostly good-natured sigh, Elian’la stepped down off the altar.
“Elian’la?” Ashenivir said. She paused, glancing over her shoulder. “I appreciate your apology, but I don’t think it’s me you need to talk to.”
She huffed a laugh, though her eyes held no mirth. “You might be right about that.”
He stripped out of his shirt as she headed off. There was a touch of chill in the evening as summer took its last turn toward autumn so he kept his breeches on, but otherwise savoured the slight bite to the air as he moved through first a few warm-ups, then into an actual dance.
Of all the things he’d expected from Elian’la, an apology hadn’t been one. He wondered what Rizeth would say about it—because he would tell him, as soon as he got home. No more secrets, no more lies. That rule might not be formalised, but it hadn’t changed. Ashenivir intended to stick to it from now on.
One last pivot brought him to the end of the routine, and he paused to stretch, arms high before bending almost fully in half. His thighs strained in protest, but he almost had it. Dancing again had reshaped him—his legs were stronger, his arms firmer, his whole self more flexible and fluid. More than he had in many years, he felt as though he fit inside his skin; that every part of him was Ashenivir, wholly and entirely.
When he straightened up, Zelka was stood by one of the pillars at the edge of the altar. Watching him. Ashenivir froze. All the small illusions hiding his bruises and scratch marks and the welts the paddle had raised on the backs of his thighs from their scene this morning seemed to buzz at once and he couldn’t tell if she’d cast something, or simply made him paranoid.
He grabbed up his shirt, feeling much too exposed. Lady Alvanriel and the others had vanished; somewhere in the gardens or maybe back in the villa, from whose warm-lighted windows drifted distant laughter. “Sorry, Zelka, I was just finishing.”
“Show me your neck,” she said.
“What?”
She stepped onto the altar, raising a hand—she clutched a fistful of papers, their edges ragged, as if they’d been torn from something. “Show me your neck, Ashenivir. I need to be certain.”
“There’s nothing on my neck.”
“Don’t lie to me, not here. I’ve seen it when you dance, when you bathe in the pools.” She shuffled one of the papers to the fore, holding it out so he could see. “It looks like this, doesn’t it?”
His mark—or a version of it—stared back at him from the page. A page torn from a book he’d found in Kelran’s library; the book Kelran had complained about having gone missing. “Where did you get that?”
“A slave brand…” Zelka said, as if he hadn’t spoken. “That he would be so audacious as to let you come here with such a thing burned onto you. As if none of us would sense its magic!”
“It’s just a tattoo,” Ashenivir said, unable to keep from pressing a palm over the mark. How had she gotten her hands on those pages? How had she even known where to find them? Kelran’s House wasn’t a secret, but it wasn’t exactly well-advertised.
“It is not a tattoo, it is an enslavement! I have read its ritual, its purpose.” She shook the pages at him. “Let me help you, Ashenivir—I can fetch Lady Alvanriel right now and she can fix—”
“It is a tattoo.” He started to back away—he’d run all the way to the apartment barefoot if he had to—and made it two steps before she caught his wrist. He tried to pull free, but her grip was as strong as Rizeth’s—as strong, his quickening heart-rate reminded him, as the Lolthite at the Hot Springs. The distant laughter in the villa seemed miles away. They were alone out here, and Ashenivir knew exactly how well he couldn’t cast under pressure.
“Zelka,” he said, fighting to keep his voice steady as her thumbnail dug into his wrist, “you’re hurting me.”
She snatched her hand away as if scalded. Her fingers flexed into her palm over and over. “We’ll be here for you when you’re ready,” she said. “I will be here for you. I promise.”
She strode off the altar and towards the villa, vanishing into the gloom. Ashenivir sagged against the nearest pillar, cradling his wrist. Promise. It felt more like a threat. He hurried into his boots and then out of the side gate.
He needed to talk to Rizeth.
When Ashenivir didn’t even take off his boots before coming to kneel, Rizeth knew at once something was wrong. He’d gone to the Haven—Elian’la must have been there, something must have happened; gods, was his past ever going to let him be? He set his half-completed report aside, turning in the chair to better allow Ashenivir to lean against his legs. His fingers drummed a nervous rhythm atop his thighs as he pressed his cheek to Rizeth’s knee.
“Tell me what happened,” Rizeth said, stroking a hand over his hair.
“I…it...do you remember Zelka, from the Haven?”
“She is one of the priestesses you dance with, is she not?” Rizeth had met—or at least seen—her a handful of times when he’d gone to meet Ashenivir at the Haven. “The one from Menzoberranzan?”
“Yes. She…she’s been strange about you for a while—when we argued she kept saying we should break things off, and she noticed my illusions, said she’d seen them in Menzoberranzan. She thought you were hurting me; got the wrong idea from a few bruises—”
“Why did you not say anything to me? I could have healed you properly if it was causing an issue.”
“I thought it wouldn’t be one.” Ashenivir lifted his eyes to Rizeth’s. “But today she had pages from that book Kelran told us had gone missing. The one with my mark in.”
“How did she manage to get hold of that?” Rizeth’s blood ran cold. Zelka’s devotion now might be to Eilistraee, but they’d both been raised in the crucible of the Spider Queen. If she’d decided he still followed that which she’d abandoned...
There were few in all the world possessed of more zeal than those trying as hard as they could to escape their past.
“I have no idea. She was ranting about it being a slave brand, wanting to help me.” Ashenivir rubbed his wrist. There were no marks on it, but Rizeth felt a surge of anger. What had she done?
“Are you hurt?”
“No, just…I’ve never seen her so worked up before. I don’t know if she’ll do anything, but I…I don’t want her to hurt you.”
Rizeth reached down, letting his hand come to rest over the mark. A brief flick of awareness connected them; Ashenivir’s worry, a thrum of fear, and a settling of both to calm at Rizeth’s touch. Rizeth rubbed his neck, massaging in slow circles. “That will not happen.”
Ashenivir rested his head against Rizeth’s knees. “I hope so.”
“At any rate,” Rizeth added, “we are only here for a few more days; I doubt she will have the time to try anything untoward. Though perhaps you ought to forego any more visits to the Haven in the time we have left.”
At the mention of the Haven, the tension returned to Ashenivir’s shoulders. He shifted in place; not worried now, but trying to work out how to organise his thoughts into words.
“Zelka wasn’t the only one I talked to at the Haven tonight,” he said eventually. “Elian’la was there too.”
All Rizeth’s original fears came rushing back in; a thousand things Elian’la could have told him, all of them awful. “And what did she have to say?”
“She wanted to apologise.”
That was not what he’d expected.
“I told her it was you she needed to talk to, not me,” Ashenivir continued.
“That would be a profoundly bad idea.”
“I know you argued last time, but—”
“There is nothing left for us to say to one another.” It came out snappish. He took a breath, forcing his hand to relax where it had grown tense over Ashenivir’s neck. “I appreciate your intentions, Ra’soltha, and you may speak with her whenever you wish—I never should have forbidden you from talking with anyone—but it is better for all of us that she and I stay far apart.”
Ashenivir fell silent. Rizeth continued to stroke his neck and this time, by degrees, he really did relax, until low hums of contentment vibrated against Rizeth’s knees. Floating a little, judging from the hazy edges of the sound. With any luck, keeping away from the Haven for the remainder of their stay would ensure no further trouble came upon him.
An apology from Elian’la, though—that was almost more disconcerting than Zelka’s accusations. ‘Sorry’ had never featured much in her vocabulary when Rizeth had known her.
Then again, it hadn’t featured much in his, either. He returned to his report whilst Ashenivir half-dozed at his feet. For all the mistakes he’d repeated since he’d returned to the surface, he wasn’t the same person he’d been all those decades ago. He’d changed.
Maybe she had too.