Chapter Three
“The thing is,” River said, “is that he’s being sneaky.”
“You think he’s doing something bad? Wait, slow down, Ashenivir, I didn’t get that at all—show me again.”
Ashenivir took Mara’s hands and moved them back to the starting position. Her frown of concentration included her tongue poking out the corner of her mouth, and was the kind of adorable he didn’t want to mention in case it distracted her. They’d cleared enough space in River and Cain’s small kitchen for him to teach—well, try to teach—her a few basic patterns. She’d begged to learn, because she’d gotten entirely too enamoured with Xalin at the welcome dinner and wanted to impress her the next time she visited the Haven.
“No, I don’t think he’s doing anything bad.” River flipped another card over. He was sat on the kitchen table—now shoved up against a wall with no space for its own chairs, which in turn had been exiled to a precarious stack in the living room—entertaining himself with solitaire whilst they practised. “But I do think he’s up to something, and that has me worried.”
“Maybe it’s a birthday thing,” Mara said. River shook his head.
“It’s not either of our birthdays anytime soon.”
“He could just be planning a surprise for you,” Ashenivir said. “Like this, Mara; keep your hand in mine, then you go under when I lift my arm. Just walk through, and turn back to face me.”
“I hate surprises, he knows that.”
Mara managed to get through the under-arm pass without incident, and bounced delightedly when Ashenivir told her so. “River, did you see that! I’m going to get so good at this!”
“Don’t you already know how to dance? You and Verin cause fourteen-noble pile-ups every time Kelran throws a party.”
“That’s different.” Mara fluffed her hair. “Ellustray…Eilistra…Elly…shrine dancing isn’t the same as courtly dancing. It’s improvised. There are all kinds of different moves and then you just put them together how you feel when you dance—it’s so romantic.” She sighed. “And Xalin was so good at it.”
“Given the size of the lovebites on her neck yesterday morning, I’m surprised she had time to show you much dancing at all,” Ashenivir said. Xalin had stuttered and blushed at his teasing, which he didn’t feel bad about at all, given that she’d greeted him by teasing him about the marks on his own neck. Mara only grinned.
“She’s good at lots of things, as it turns out.”
“She’s not going to whip you, princess, she’s an Eilistraeen priestess,” River said, flicking a card at her.
“I wasn’t going to ask her to,” Mara said primly. “If I wanted that I’d ask her friend, the serious one.”
“Zelka?” Ashenivir supplied.
“Yes! She’s from Menzobe-thingy, like your Master. She’d whip me. But maybe I don’t want to be whipped all the time, River. I have other interests.”
River started counting on his fingers. “Flogging, caning, needles, clamps…”
“That’s not why Rizeth’s like that,” Ashenivir cut him off. “Where he’s from has nothing to do with anything. You have no idea what he went through to get out of there, or what Zelka went through, for that matter.”
He might not know all the details of Rizeth’s escape himself, but he didn’t have to. He knew enough of Menzoberranzan, and of the turmoil seeing just one Lolthite had caused, to know that it was unkind in ways even other drow didn’t understand. Its cruelties were responsible for fears even centuries hadn’t fully erased, and Zelka was only a few decades free of the place. She didn’t need surfacers making assumptions about her because of where she came from.
“Sorry,” Mara said, sounding so contrite he felt bad for snapping. He shook his annoyance away and took her hands.
“It’s fine. Come on, I’ll show you the heartbeat-step.”
It took the better part of an hour, but eventually Mara could follow him through at least the four foundation patterns, which would be enough to impress Xalin with her effort. She had enough energy about her to improvise, Ashenivir felt, and that was at least half of what was needed. After that much practice, though, even in the cool of River’s kitchen they were too hot, so River went out and got them chilled fruit juice from one of the stalls on the street outside.
“What were you talking to Catriona Hanali about?” Mara asked, sipping her juice. Ashenivir blinked at her.
“What?”
“At the Haven party. I saw you two together while I was dancing with Xalin. I didn’t know you knew her.”
“I don’t. I mean, I met her at the House the other night, and she came to talk to me again. I think she knows Rizeth. Or knew him, a while ago.”
River fished a blackberry out of his cup and dropped it into Mara’s. “You want to be careful with her. She’s an evangelist.”
“About what? She’s not Eilistraeen, she’s just friends with one of the priestesses.”
“Not about a god, about her dynamic.”
“Yeah, she acts like she’s so much better than everyone else because she’s full-time with her Sir,” Mara said, wrinkling her nose.
“Full-time?” Ashenivir asked.
“They don’t stop playing when they finish scenes,” River explained. “Only she wouldn’t call it playing. It’s her lifestyle. And they make it work, which is worse. She’s so disgustingly smug about it, like the rest of us just aren’t trying hard enough if we don’t want to commit to a role all day, every day.”
Ashenivir circled the rim of his cup with a finger. “Don’t you and Cain do that, though?”
“Do what?” Cain asked. River nearly knocked his drink over, he leapt up so fast. He tackled Cain in a hug, sending him staggering back through the kitchen door, laughing.
“Easy, puppy!”
Ashenivir watched them, trying to decipher how this was any different from being ‘full-time’. They still used titles, and Cain swatted River on the rear to get him away long enough to get himself a drink. Was that not dynamic at all? It was admittedly more boisterous than the way he was with Rizeth, but they used their titles all the time too, and he’d had a punishment yesterday—that hadn’t been a scene. Or at least, he didn’t think it had been.
There was no chance to ask, not with Cain home and River thoroughly distracted. He and Mara made their farewells, and the two of them squeezed into the last free seats of a dray just before it left up the High Road.
“You want to come to the House with me?” Mara asked. “Miss Honey’s meant to be doing a demonstration today.”
“No, I need to get some things from the market.”
“Suit yourself.”
He leaned his head against the window, just cool enough to ease the confined heat of the packed dray. If how River was with Cain wasn’t full-time, then what was? What made Catriona so different as to be annoying? She’d been obnoxiously mysterious, true, but she hadn’t mentioned…
I only wondered if you and I were…alike.
Is that what she’d meant? And if it was, what did it have to do with her trying to warn him away from Rizeth?
He’d forgotten to bring his bag of holding, and was therefore carefully negotiating the packed market with a too-small basket piled precariously with eggs and wax-wrapped cheese when he saw them.
Catriona walked a pace behind her Sir, one hand lightly tucked into his. It was the most dressed he’d seen her; Waterdhavian summer styling of sky-blue skirts and low-cut bodice, and though he couldn’t see her ankles, her bracelets were visible so he presumed she wore them. Her hair was down, though, which very much wasn’t the fashion so far as he could tell—most of the other well-dressed women he saw out and about had it fastened up in some form or another, some with sun-veils draped over the backs of their necks.
They stopped by a stand selling candied sugar, one he and Mara had patronised many times. Her Sir stepped to the side to allow her in front of him, then remained at her back, one hand on her waist. Ashenivir bit his lip and shifted behind a nearby food-cart, keeping out of sight. There was nothing in their actions out of the ordinary, but a flutter in his gut told him otherwise. Keeping careful hold of his basket, he worked his way nearer, using the summer crowd to his advantage.
“All made right here in the city, my lady,” the stallholder, a russet-furred tabaxi, said. He handed her a small tray filled with what looked, in the light, like jewels. Ashenivir had sampled them with Mara; it was all sugar, hard outside and inside melting to sweet water. “These are a particular speciality.”
“How lovely,” Catriona said, the hint of a smile at her lips. She turned to her Sir. “What do you think?”
Ashenivir hooked his fingers into his collar as he took in her Sir’s face. He knew that look; the hardness of his eyes, the way he fixed them on Catriona’s so intently, as though the rest of the market didn’t exist—the way his hand flexed at her waist, a brief tightening of his grip.
“I think not,” he said. Catriona’s lips pursed in a pout, and Ashenivir was certain she was about to say something—her Sir merely cocked his head ever so slightly, in the exact way Rizeth had done to him a hundred times or more in their scenes, and it meant something different to them, it must do, but what it meant didn’t matter. It was that he did it, right there in the market, and Catriona dropped her pout and lowered her head just a touch as she handed the tray back to the tabaxi.
Ashenivir only saw it because he was looking for it. Her Sir squeezed her waist and stroked it once, very gently, then leaned in and kissed her temple, and they were too far for even his keen drow ears to hear a whisper, but he could guess at it. Good girl.
Then her Sir picked up a small glass vase, whose stems held not real blooms but candied ones—Verin had eaten a whole bouquet of them once and made himself absolutely sick. He plucked one out and held it to Catriona’s lips. “These will do far better, salen’cath.”
The thing about Elvish was that it didn’t use a lot of pronouns. It used proper names, or left them out altogether—you worked out what was being referred to by context, which made translations without context a headache and a half, and which meant that the aasimar’s use of my was deliberately chosen because she was very obviously his cat, and the emphasis was something no-one who didn’t speak Elvish would notice or care about.
Ashenivir spoke excellent Elvish. His cheeks burned and for a moment he was back in Neverwinter, with Rizeth telling him to buy oranges in Common; his fingers on Ashenivir’s lips, the tang of citrus on his tongue—Rizeth had called him apprentice, not Ra’soltha, but for how long now had those meant the very same thing?
Something beneath his ribs felt the way his hand did without Rizeth’s in it. Ashenivir gripped his collar so tight the links dug into his palm and turned away, leaning heavily against the side of the food cart. His heart was thudding out of all proportion—it was too hot today, too hot by far.
He still had things to get. He shook himself off and went to track down the tomatoes Rizeth had asked for, keeping a careful eye out for Catriona and her Sir so that there would be absolutely no chance at all of his running into them.
The kettle sang to a boil. Rizeth started to set down his knife, but Ashenivir stopped him with a brief touch to the small of his back.
“I’ll get it.”
Comfort under his ribs, as warming as the ginger scent of the tea Ashenivir carefully poured into their mugs. He hummed idly under his breath as he stirred entirely too much honey into his cup before bringing both to the table. Had he any idea the effect those small touches had? That such domesticity as this had Rizeth certain he’d snap out of reverie at any moment, so unreal did it seem.
It was real. And he’d kept to his own promise the past few days, so there was hope that it would stay real. He gathered a small pile of tomatoes onto his chopping board, and set about dicing them. After a moment, he grew aware of the keen eyes on his movements, and paused.
“You are staring.”
“Mm-hm,” Ashenivir acknowledged vaguely. He had his chin in his hands and his eyes fixed on Rizeth’s hand where it gripped the knife. Rizeth flexed his fingers around the handle, and noted with some amusement how Ashenivir fixated on the motion, lips slightly parted. He resumed his chopping.
“You enjoy watching me cook?”
“You’re good at it.”
“Flattery and exaggeration. I know the basics.”
“More than I know.” A pause, that sweet hesitation that came before saying something that would have him blushing. “And you rolled up your sleeves.”
Rizeth had never been self-conscious about his arms before. He slid the chopped tomatoes into a bowl, and set about cracking eggs for the omelettes, concentrating on keeping the shell out of the yolk. “You like that, do you?”
“I love your arms. And your hands. You have very confident hands, Master.” Ashenivir’s voice had gone flirtatiously low. Rizeth told himself the heat in his face was from the pan on the stove and nothing else.
“Then I shall have to do this more often.”
“Roll up your sleeves, or cook for me?”
“Both.”
Ashenivir watched him intently as he finished making their lunch, and there was more than attraction and flirtation in his face. It was the look he got when he was working out how to ask for something. Rizeth didn’t press. He ate quietly, waiting for Ashenivir to find the words for it.
“I saw some people from the House at the market today,” he said eventually, as he poked the remains of his omelette around on his plate.
“I assume you aren’t speaking of your usual companions.”
Ashenivir shook his head. “Different people. And they…” He looked up. “You said I wouldn’t like you being my Master in public, but he was hers, I could tell from the way they…and I…and it made me…I liked how it looked, and River said there’s something called full-time, where you keep titles and roles all the time, and I think…” He took a breath, even as Rizeth’s caught like a fishhook in the back of his throat. “I think we do that already.”
“We most certainly do not.” It took a heroic effort to keep his tone light.
“But you choose things for me, like the Sir I saw in the market! He told her which sweet she couldn’t have and then picked a different one for her, just like you pick food for me sometimes. And I call you Master all the time, and…and you tell me what to do, and punish me if I don’t behave, and...” He made a frustrated motion with his fork, as if the words he wanted were just out of his reach. “We do it already,” he repeated. “I know we do.”
“Then I apologise,” Rizeth said tightly. “I will make a better effort not to blur the lines between our play and reality.”
“No, I want them to blur, that’s what I’m trying to say—”
“Is that so?” Rizeth said, and it came out too harsh—he saw Ashenivir flinch, but he couldn’t stop himself. “You want me to tell you what to do, what to eat, what to wear, how to move? To decide where you can and cannot go, what you spend your money on, which spells to prepare? To be punished for every tiny slip of behaviour, regardless of what caused it or where you are? For me to take what I want from you whenever I might want it, to have no life of your own outside of the orders I give you? Is that what you want?”
Ashenivir stared at him, clearly overwhelmed. The silence between them was painful, more so for the fact that in a part of his heart he refused to acknowledge, Rizeth wanted more than anything to give him what he was clumsily asking for. He couldn’t have it. Oh, things might begin perfectly fine—they always were when the game was new and sparkling, something fun to play with, but they didn’t stay that way. Enjoyment turned to frustration, annoyance hidden beneath brittle humour—sometimes I think you don’t love me unless I’m tied up and covered in bruises—the complaints building silently until there were too many to hold back.
Rizeth forced his shoulders to relax, and took Ashenivir’s hand.
“A full-time dynamic is not what we have,” he said, as gently as he could manage, which wasn’t very. “And it is not a concept to take lightly. I have seen the desire for a life like that fall apart quite comprehensively.” He kissed Ashenivir’s knuckles. “I enjoy the way we are very much. Is it not enough for you?”
Ashenivir didn’t meet his eyes. “Yes, Master.”
The title made Rizeth wince. They finished eating in silence, and he had to rush off afterwards, late for the work he’d agreed to do for the Watchful Order. It was only cleaning up loose Weave from old spell scrolls, but it took twice as long as it ought have, for he was distracted the entire time thinking of Ashenivir. He hated to have been so harsh, but what else could he have done? It was better this way, for both of them.
Ashenivir was in bed when he got back. Rizeth almost woke him to apologise, then thought better of it. He’d make up for himself tomorrow. Not simply say he was sorry, but show it, the way he was supposed to.
If he wanted to be more than a Master, it was time to start acting like it.
The book lay in his lap, one hand limply holding down the pages as he continued to not read in favour of pretending he wasn’t watching Rizeth. He’d gnawed most of his thumbnail off, and still a persistent anxiety knotted his stomach. Rizeth hadn’t said a word about yesterday—had, in fact, been nothing but sweet this morning. Had kissed him, called him xi’hum and brought him to orgasm and then brought him breakfast in bed—in bed!
Now he sat with his tea—which he’d refused to let Ashenivir make for him—and his book at the kitchen table, wearing his silver cuffs and looking absolutely wonderful, and Ashenivir chewed what was left of his nail and stewed in unease. Was there irritation in the set of his brow as he turned a page, or merely concentration? Tension in his shoulders, or just his usual good posture?
“You are staring again,” Rizeth said, without looking up. Ashenivir started, and his book thumped to the floor.
“Sorry.”
“What for?”
“I…” Ashenivir hugged his knees to his chest. “Staring. I didn’t mean to bother you.”
Rizeth set his book aside. “Would you come here, please?”
Ashenivir did as he was told. Please. What was that about? It certainly did nothing to rid him of the sense that he’d made a mess of things. All this…this niceness felt unnatural, like someone had replaced his Master with some very kind, very caring stranger. He settled uncertainly onto Rizeth’s lap. Rizeth tucked his temple braid behind his ear.
“Do you think I am angry with you about yesterday?”
If he wasn’t, why was he acting like this? Overabundance of kindness after an argument, in Ashenivir’s experience, was merely prelude to the next. Matron Zauvym had taught him that lesson repeatedly. He shrugged.
“If I were angry, I would tell you,” Rizeth said. His thumb brushed Ashenivir’s cheek. “May I kiss you?”
Ashenivir nodded and, as Rizeth kissed him, decided he wanted his Master back. Breakfast in bed, saying please, Rizeth asking him permission—none of it was right, and none of it made him feel the slightest bit better about what had happened. He deepened the kiss, nipping at Rizeth’s lip. If his Master was still his Master somewhere underneath this strangely soft veneer, there was a simple enough way to get what he wanted.
He slid his hands into Rizeth’s hair and, as Rizeth’s arms came around him, drawing him closer, he mentally took a deep breath—and yanked.
To his surprise, Rizeth gasped, nearly moaning, and Ashenivir filed that away for later exploration. Then a hand in his own hair hauled him back. His pulse sped, and he fought to keep from smiling—that look, so physical it made his skin tingle...he had his Master’s attention alright.
“Just what do you think you’re doing?” Rizeth said, sharp and hard and exactly how Ashenivir wanted him to sound.
“Nothing.”
The grip tightened, sending a light spray of pain over Ashenivir’s scalp. “Kissing you, that’s all.”
“Pulling my hair is a form of kiss now, is it?”
“You liked it.” He gasped as Rizeth hauled him closer, their lips an inch apart. “You did, I heard you.”
“Whether or not I liked it is beside the point, you—” he cut himself off, and Ashenivir wanted to bite him, and not just to be a brat. What was wrong with him this morning? The next words should have been didn’t ask permission, but in their place hung this resistant silence.
“Then give me permission,” Ashenivir whispered. “Give me permission, Master, or teach me not to do it.”
The air between them thrummed. Rizeth’s eyes darkened, and he urged it on as he felt a light brush of magic in his mark. Yet still Rizeth only held him, and maybe he was building tension, but Ashenivir didn’t want to wait. He grabbed two fistfuls of Rizeth’s hair and pulled, hard.
In one surge of smooth motion, he was laid over his Master’s lap. Ashenivir’s heart soared as his shirt was shoved up, his breeches down, and his wrists caught up behind him in an unyielding grip. Rizeth’s hand swept up in a smack—not painful, not yet, but enough of a jolt to make him yelp.
“I am certain you used to be better behaved,” Rizeth said. That roughness in his voice, the near-growl of it…Ashenivir closed his eyes. He was about to hurt, and nothing felt better than knowing it.
“I haven’t had your hand to guide me lately, Master.”
Rizeth spanked him again, even strikes either side, steady and stinging. “You need such frequent reminding, do you?”
“Every day, if it pleased you, Master.”
The blows stopped. The empty air above his throbbing backside wasn’t a delayed strike, Ashenivir could feel it. It was hesitation. Uncertainty. He swallowed. Rizeth never hesitated.
He wriggled in place, as though trying to escape, and that seemed to focus Rizeth back to him. A set of harder hits made him whimper, and four in quick succession to the tops of his thighs made him cry out. Heat raced through him; it was electric, this feeling, and when Rizeth tapped his mark again, he clung to it as hard as he could so his Master would feel it too.
Twice more Rizeth hit him, right beneath the now tender flesh of his ass, in a place that made him shout, and then stopped. Ashenivir lay there, throbbing, a sweet ache radiating through his thighs as he caught his breath.
“Thank you, Master,” he panted. Carefully, Rizeth drew him up into his lap, and held him close. Ashenivir burrowed into his neck. “Thank you. I…I needed that.”
“Ashenivir—”
“I’m not pushing for what I asked about yesterday, I promise,” Ashenivir said quickly. “I just…needed you.”
They sat in silence for a few long minutes, with Rizeth stroking his back. Finally, Rizeth set him on his feet, and he re-dressed, feeling far more at ease than he had done all morning.
“I’m afraid I must be off soon,” Rizeth said then, rising. “I have a meeting at the Tower of the Order. I received word this morning, whilst you were bathing. The Arcanum has some new project or other they intend on undertaking in the city, and apparently they wish me to be their agent in such matters.”
Ashenivir didn’t even try not to pout. “We’re not even in Mythen Thaelas and the Arcanum is stealing you from me.”
“Such is the nature of wizardry, Ra’soltha, as you very well know. And speaking of work…” He tapped Ashenivir’s forehead. “Both you and I have some left woefully unfinished. You have proven something of a distraction.”
“I’m not sorry.”
“Neither am I.” The look on his face made Ashenivir burn, even as moths spiralled under his heart. “But I have a new word of power to finish developing—”
“—to test on me?”
“To test on you,” Rizeth confirmed. “And you, apprentice, have the finer details of extradimensional spaces to master.”
“If I learn to create a demiplane, may I have a reward?”
“Ra’soltha, is the reward that you want me to fuck you inside of one?”
Ashenivir grinned. “You know me so well, Master.”
Rizeth looked for a moment as though he weren’t sure what to say, then drew him into a tight hug. The comforting thud of his heart settled Ashenivir’s own, and he sighed. They were back to normal.
“I need to go,” Rizeth murmured and, with great reluctance, Ashenivir released him. He gathered the rest of his robes and left. Ashenivir stretched, and set about tidying the apartment, the pleasant sting lingering in his rear all the while. As he was collecting up his notes ready to get back to work, he chewed the inside of his cheek. Extradimensional spaces weren’t the only thing he could research.
It had nearly caused an argument. He shouldn’t, but…he wanted to know. Everything Rizeth had thrown at him, it couldn’t all be like that. There was nuance to the way they played, to the way everyone played—he’d seen enough at the House over the past few months to know that. There had to be a balance between giving up all control of his life and giving up enough of it to feel the way seeing Catriona and her Sir had made him feel.
When he’d gone after Rizeth at the Arcanum, he’d done his research before approaching him. If he wanted this, he’d just do the same. He’d give the situation some time to settle, then try again, armed with as much knowledge as he could get his hands on.
Ashenivir shuffled his notes into order and laid out his inks. Time to study up like a good apprentice, just as his Master would want.