For Want of Attention

“Oh, you really are here!” Yevena handed him the note, beaming. The dining hall rang with its usual dinnertime cacophony, so that she had to raise her voice awkwardly to be heard. “I mean, of course you are, for me to have a note for you, right? But I haven’t had any messages for you for months, I thought you’d left the Arcanum.”

“It was just a family trip,” Ashenivir said. He tried not to get his hopes up as he unfolded the note. Almost a month he’d been back, and Master Velkon’yss had summoned him only twice, both times for tutoring. Maybe he’d been foolish, thinking they’d return right away to how things had been, but after that first day back…

“Um, it’s nice to see you again.” Yevena bounced on the balls of her feet, fiddling with the strap of her satchel. “Are you staying long?”

“Until I graduate.”

Neat, slanting handwriting; his heart leapt—then at once sank. Attend at your earliest convenience. Ashenivir sighed. More studying.

“Don’t you have other messages to deliver, Miss Yevena?” Keszriin asked pointedly. Yevena stopped bobbing in place and ducked her head.

“I…um…yes, of course. See you later, maybe!”

She darted away between the long tables and Keszriin pulled a face after her. “You’d think she’d give up.”

“She might, if Shen ever actually told her he’s the gayest thing in the Underdark,” Pellanue said grinning. Ashenivir didn’t rise to the teasing. He just stared at the note as if he could will the words to change if he wanted it badly enough.

“What did she bring you, anyway? Don’t tell me that’s Master Velkon’yss bothering you already.” Keszriin made to snatch the note from him, but he crumpled it into his palm and held it away, which didn’t stop her; she stretched up over him, making him lean back so far he almost fell off his chair. “You’ve been back five minutes, can’t he wait a little longer to kidnap you?”

“I missed six months of study,” Ashenivir protested, trying to fend her off as she pawed at the hand fisted around the note. “I need to catch up.”

“Oh please, you were years ahead of the rest of us before you left.” Pella flicked a gust cantrip at him that made his eyes water and distracted him long enough for Keszriin to prise his fingers open. She flicked her eyes over the note, huffing in annoyed vindication when she saw it was, indeed, from Master Velkon’yss. She crumpled it back up and tossed it at Ashenivir’s head.

“This better not mean you’re going to try and skip out on dinner tomorrow.” She dropped back into her chair and fluffed her snowy waves back into place. “You swore you were coming.”

“I am.” Earliest convenience. Now, then. What else did he have to do that couldn’t wait? “I’ll just see what I’m needed for tonight, though. I did ask him to start tutoring me again.”

“You asked him—Ashenivir!” Keszriin slapped his arm with a cantrip, scattering frost up his sleeve. “Goddess’ sake, you need to get over this infatuation!”

“For the thousandth time, I am not infatuated with him!”

“Obsessed, more like,” Pellanue drawled, then ducked behind an arcane shield on instinct, though Ashenivir didn’t throw anything.

“Infatuated, obsessed, whatever! If you want extra tutoring so badly, ask one of the other Masters—Nine Hells, ask the Archmage! Literally anyone would be better than that Menzoberranyr asshole!”

Ashenivir shoved his chair back so hard it almost toppled over. Pellanue didn’t drop her shield, but she at least had the good grace to look awkward behind its shimmer. Keszriin immediately folded as she took in his expression, reaching for the same arm she’d just slapped in frostbite. Ashenivir yanked it away from her.

“Shen, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it, I—”

“I’ll see you in class tomorrow. Goodnight.” He sounded almost as cold as Rizeth, and certainly he felt it. He crossed the dining hall without looking back.

How dare Keszriin talk about Master Velkon’yss like that? As if he had any choice where he’d been born, as if that mattered at all! Ashenivir tried without much success to push down the annoyance as he headed to Rizeth’s classroom. It wasn’t just the insult that stung; it was that even though he wasn’t infatuated, he was nonetheless upset at how distant Rizeth had become.

No, not just upset, he realised as he neared the classroom. He was angry. Angry that he had barely been called at all, had not been called to serve since that first day back. What had he done wrong? Rizeth had taught him how to fail when it came to his submission, but if this was a punishment for some misstep it was a new one, and Ashenivir didn’t like it.

He fingered the links of his collar. Tonight might be intended for study, but perhaps he could make something else of it. Misbehaving in Rizeth’s classroom had always been forbidden, and if nothing else he might at least provoke the kind of punishment he understood.

He might at least provoke his Master into touching him again.

Ashenivir angled his neck to better let his collar catch the light, toying with the links as Rizeth spoke. His Master paid the action no mind, continuing his lecture on…on…whatever it was he was talking about. Ashenivir hadn’t cared when he’d arrived and he didn’t care now. He put his pen between his lips and slid a goodly length of it in and out of his mouth in a slow, obvious manner.

Still nothing.

“—and what conclusion, therefore, can you draw from the apparent similarities between the runic sets, apprentice?”

Apprentice. Apprentice. He’d been Ra’soltha that first day back, and nothing but apprentice ever since. Hadn’t he earned his title well enough? Had six months away really taken it from him?

Ashenivir withdrew his pen, licking along the length of it as he did so, unsurprised that Rizeth’s impassive expression did not alter. He tapped the spit-slick end against his lips.

“I think,” he drew the words out as obnoxiously as he could, “that I don’t like runic sets, actually.”

“If you cannot focus, you may take your leave, apprentice Zauvym,” Rizeth said. He didn’t snap, not quite, but his voice was clipped and he crossed his arms, tapping his forefinger against his bicep.

Ashenivir’s chest tightened, his earlier anger uncurling again.

“But I want…” The rule was to ask for what he wanted, but he already had and he had gotten nothing. No scenes, no touch, no explanation, nothing. Rizeth regarded him in stony silence, and Ashenivir gave up. “I want to serve you, Master. I want you to fuck me again.”

The words were overloud in the suddenly too-large emptiness of Rizeth’s classroom. Rizeth’s expression did not change, a cold, blank mask that Ashenivir could not for the life of him see past. He’d started to, before he’d left—now all such ability had fled him.

“If you cannot focus,” Master Velkon’yss repeated, each word like a hammer blow, “I suggest you take your leave.”

Anger flared, and Ashenivir clenched his fist so tightly he nearly snapped his pen. “I’ve been back almost a month, Master, I assumed that I…that we…”

Would pick up where we left off. That you would want me. That at the very least you’d touch me.

“One should never mistake an assumption for fact, apprentice,” Rizeth said.

So that was how it was. Alright then.

“I think I’ll return to my quarters, Master Velkon’yss,” Ashenivir said, quiet and tight. There was too much pressure behind his eyes and he felt so damned stupid. Rizeth gave the barest nod, and Ashenivir snatched up his things in a rush, hurrying away without looking at him. There was no way to hide what he felt, his face was an open book, it always was.

So why couldn’t Rizeth see how badly he wanted—needed—their arrangement to be as it had been?

Ashenivir took the stairs back to the apprentice’s level rather than levitating, hoping the exertion would help clear his head. It didn’t. With every step he only grew angrier, and it took all his self-control not to slam the door behind him when he made it to his room. He flung himself down on the bed and crushed a pillow to his face to muffle a yell. Seconds later it hit his desk, knocking a half-finished essay to the floor.

He wants to ignore me? Fine. Ashenivir gripped his collar. His permanent mark, yes, but now that he was back in Mythen Thaelas it was so much more than that. Let’s see just how much you can ignore, Master.

Several evenings of extremely indulgent masturbation later, nothing had changed. Ashenivir motioned a cleansing prestidigitation with an irritated flick of his wrist and glared at the ceiling. What was the point of his collar if his Master was going to ignore it?

He sat up, shoving his hair back, leg bouncing with excess energy. This was getting him nowhere, and this past tenday he hadn’t even been summoned for study. Whether that was because Rizeth was annoyed at his behaviour or because he just didn’t care anymore, Ashenivir had no idea. Whatever the reason, he had to try something else.

He had needs, after all, and if Rizeth wasn’t going to fill them, then he’d just have to find someone who would.

“You get lovelier every time I see you.”

Tolothan stroked Ashenivir’s cheek with the back of his hand. Ashenivir rocked his hips up, but the large drow did not increase his pace—one did not fuck Tolothan Myarn, one always made love to him. No matter how much one begged.

“You’re so sweet,” Ashenivir said. The kiss he received in response was slow and tender, and he sighed, knowing it would be taken for passion and not the vague disappointment it was. “You can go faster, you know, I won’t break.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

But that’s what I want, Ashenivir thought. Tolothan saw the dissatisfaction on his face, and frowned.

“Are you alright?”

“Just stressed from the Arcanum,” Ashenivir said, which was almost true, and sweet, gentle Tolothan was too kind-hearted to notice the lie. He smiled, and kissed Ashenivir again.

“Then I shall endeavour to cheer you up, beautiful one.”

He made certain Ashenivir finished first, then came on his stomach. It was better than nothing—Tolothan might have been too gentle a lover for Ashenivir’s tastes, but he was an attentive and skilled one. Besides, he’d been the only one of Ashenivir’s collection of irregular bedmates who’d been free this tenday. The disadvantage of such an informal arrangement between partners was always having to work around mis-matched schedules. But Tolothan always made time for him.

Ashenivir cleansed himself and the bed with a cantrip while Tolothan wrapped his dark grey curves in a gauzy robe and went rummaging in the drawers of his lavish vanity.

“I have something for you,” he said.

“I only asked to see you two days ago, how do you have something for me?” Ashenivir craned his neck, trying to see.

“I always have something for you, beautiful one. You deserve to be treated.”

He returned to the bed and took Ashenivir’s hand in one of his own large ones. When first they had met, Ashenivir had imagined those hands wrapped around his arms, his waist, his throat, pictured the fat, handsome drow tossing him around with ease. Tolothan had turned out to be the gentlest giant in the Underdark and treated him as though he were made of spun glass, distraught at any suggestion from Ashenivir of doing otherwise.

Now he placed a golden necklace in Ashenivir’s palm, set with small rubies that glittered charmingly in the candlelight. It was finely wrought and must have cost a princely sum indeed, though such figures were half a thought at best to Tolothan.

“This will look much finer than that plain old thing,” he said, taking it up again and fastening it around Ashenivir’s neck, over his collar. “There. Gold suits you very well, Ashenivir.”

He went to find them something to drink, and Ashenivir sat there fiddling with his collar, wondering if the divinations really did make a distinction between whose hand it was that brought him to release. He might finally find out.

Then again, Rizeth hadn’t paid the slightest attention to the other times he’d set the divinations off lately, had he? That same hot anger flushed his chest again, and Ashenivir’s jaw clenched. He unclasped his collar and shoved it into his pocket as he dressed. His Master clearly didn’t care about it anymore, so why should he?

Master Velkon’yss finally called him to study a few days later, and Ashenivir wore Tolothan’s necklace in place of his collar. It hung out over his shirt, bright gold and impossible to ignore.

Rizeth glanced at it once without comment and continued his lecture on the differences between draconic and dwarven rune-sets for necromantic spellforms.

In his room that night, Ashenivir put his collar back on. Gold, he decided, didn’t suit him at all.

Nalvayat shoved him up against the wall and sucked another bitemark into his neck. His cock was hot and hard where it pressed into Ashenivir’s hip, the clumsy rut only enough to make him want more.

“Pull my hair,” he gasped. Nalvayat did so half-heartedly, more interested in continuing to grind on him. “Harder!”

“You are so demanding.”

“Are you going to fuck me or not?”

Nalvayat bit his earlobe. “I’m getting there.”

He kissed down Ashenivir’s neck before sucking another mark into it, so hard that Ashenivir groaned in delight. Then he picked Ashenivir up—the slight male was a lot stronger than he looked, praise Mystra—and tossed him onto the bed. Ashenivir scrambled up, opening his legs to Nalvayat’s rough shove of his knees, and soon had them wrapped around his back as the bedposts thudded against the wall in a hard, uneven rhythm.

They were good bedposts. The whole frame was solid zurkhwood, an ancient heirloom. Perfect to fit cuffs to, in Ashenivir’s opinion—not that Nalvayat would ever consider owning such things. He put his hands above his head anyway, wrapped his fingers around the sturdy frame, and imagined. Nalvayat didn’t notice.

He was glad Nalvayat had been free. He was clumsy, true, with an astonishing lack of skill for his age and the amount of times Ashenivir had slept with him, but his crude, rough physicality was almost what Ashenivir needed. If only, he mused, as Nalvayat grunted in his ear, he could put Zarist’s head on Nalvayat’s body. The snippy librarian was perfectly willing to order him about and berate him, yet drew the line at anything rougher than a hard kiss.

Zarist last tenday, Nalvayat this, and maybe Durthan in a few days, if he was still free. Ashenivir hoped he would be. Durthan liked to gag him when they fucked, and it had been entirely too long since he’d been treated to that.

Of course, Rizeth would have done all of it, and better than any of them. The memory of his Master’s careful hands fitting the gag into his mouth before fucking him senseless sent a wave of heat through him without his bidding it. His cock ached, ignored, and he couldn’t get his hand between him and Nalvayat properly to do anything about it. He closed his eyes and waited and, sure enough, Nalvayat soon came with a groan, biting Ashenivir’s neck yet again. He was going to have marks for days—which was exactly what he’d hoped for when he came here.

Nalvayat rolled off him, and Ashenivir sighed as he took himself in hand. His hand, Nalvayat’s, Tolothan’s, Zarist’s…it didn’t matter. Rizeth didn’t care either way.

Ashenivir finished, still unsatisfied, and lay there toying with his collar and listening to Nalvayat snoring softly in his standard post-coital reverie. He pressed his fingers to the marks on his neck, a petty sort of smile curving his mouth.

Maybe this will get your attention.

He felt like Dresvan, with his shirt so open. Nothing inappropriate, just the first few buttons—enough that the marks decorating him from collarbone to jaw were clearly visible. Keszriin shot him a knowing grin as she slid into the seat next to him at the front of Master Velkon’yss’ class.

“Oh, so you have free time for that,” she whispered behind her hand. “How is Nalvayat, anyway?”

“He’s fine,” Ashenivir murmured. He kept his eyes fixed on Rizeth as he began that day’s lecture.

“Any presents this time? Besides the vampire bites, I mean?”

“He’s taking me to dinner tonight. In Qu’ellor’harl.”

“Fancy boy. Can I come, or is that weird?”

“Apprentice Eilist’tra, do you have something you wish to share?” Master Velkon’yss said. He didn’t shout because he didn’t need to, just raised his voice ever so slightly, clear and cold. Keszriin straightened in her chair, looking as innocent as she was capable of.

“No, Master Velkon’yss. I was just…borrowing some ink.”

Rizeth gave her a hard look, then turned his attention to Ashenivir. Ashenivir wasn’t expecting an overt reaction, not in the middle of class—he was nonetheless viciously pleased when Rizeth’s eyes flicked briefly to the marks on his neck.

He barely heard the rest of the lecture, waiting impatiently for it to be done, certain he would be called back at once as soon as it was. He made some excuse to Keszriin, hung back while the other apprentices filed out. Master Velkon’yss spoke to none of them, cleaning off the blackboard with quick, methodical movements. Goddess, Ashenivir missed his hands.

And then he was the only one left, and with a sinking feeling he realised that nothing was going to happen. He slowly gathered up his things, uncertain if he was more furious or miserable, and stood there, staring at Rizeth, some sickening combination of the two filling his stomach with acid.

Master Velkon’yss glanced at him. “Was there something you needed, apprentice Zauvym?”

There was nothing in his face but cold indifference, and not the kind that made Ashenivir’s pulse race. He did not so much as glance at Ashenivir’s neck.

“I…” Ashenivir started, then dropped his gaze. “Nothing, Master Velkon’yss.”

He fled, joining the throng of students that filled the corridor, letting the crowd carry him along to his next class. He knew, he knew that Rizeth didn’t like the thought of him with other people—he’d explicitly forbidden Ashenivir from taking anyone else in Sshamath! Yet the visible signs of such actions did absolutely nothing.

Ashenivir thunked his books down onto his desk so hard the apprentice next to him jumped. Fine then. He’d just have to try harder, because one of them was going to break eventually and it was not going to be him.

It wasn’t exactly difficult to find someone to sleep with at the Arcanum. That many young drow crammed together, stressed out of their minds and high on the Weave? It would have been simpler to count the ones that weren’t interested in stress-relief in the form of a bedmate.

“We’re not supposed to be down here,” the boy, K’yozen, whispered. The words echoed in the empty stairwell as they touched down.

“Hardly any of the Masters use the southern rooms,” Ashenivir told him, not lowering his voice at all. “We can be as loud as we want—and I promise you want me to be loud.”

K’yozen chuckled. “Alright, Zauvym, find us a room then.”

The two of them stumbled through the dim halls, pawing clumsily at each other as they went. Their kisses grew steadily more heated with each step, and Ashenivir encouraged K’yozen’s attentions with pleased, reckless sounds he knew would carry.

He didn’t need to be that careful. Rizeth was the only one who kept quarters nearby.

They hadn’t gotten far when K’yozen, apparently bored of walking, abruptly shoved him up against the wall. Ashenivir gasped into his mouth and slid a leg between his thighs, gratified when the other apprentice rocked against it.

“This is such a bad idea,” he panted against Ashenivir’s ear.

“Then stop,” Ashenivir said.

K’yozen smirked, then dropped his head to Ashenivir’s neck in a wet kiss. He ground eagerly against Ashenivir’s thigh, his breath hot and fast, his hands warm and delicious where they roamed Ashenivir’s chest beneath his shirt. Ashenivir ran his hands up K’yozen’s back, wishing he was taller, wishing his hair was longer, his eyes not pale lavender but red, crimson, bright and burning—

Footsteps nearby. K’yozen didn’t notice, still kissing him, murmuring some heated nonsense in his ear about how good he tasted. Ashenivir watched the hall with his heart in his throat.

Master Velkon’yss rounded the corner and Ashenivir met his cool glance with defiant eyes, a splayed palm pressed tight to K’yozen’s back, the other tangled in his hair. Rizeth did not speak, his stride did not falter. He merely looked away and continued past them towards the stairwell in silence.

K’yozen lifted his head then, and started on seeing someone else in the hall.

“Oh, Goddess, was that Master Velkon’yss?” He looked at Ashenivir in horror. “I thought you said no-one used these rooms!”

“He doesn’t care,” Ashenivir muttered. K’yozen took it for embarrassment and laughed, awkwardly.

“I hope not. I don’t want to fail his next exam for making out with you—though it might be worth it, honestly.” He kissed Ashenivir’s cheek, then the corner of his mouth, then his mouth entire.

He doesn’t care.

Ashenivir lost himself in K’yozen’s kiss, biting at his lip and digging his nails into his neck.

“I take it we should still find a room, then?” K’yozen gasped, pulling back. Ashenivir grabbed his shirtfront and hauled him through a wasteful dimension door into the room closest to them. It was empty, dusty, the sconces unlit and the shelves barren. Ashenivir kissed K’yozen hard again, then shoved him towards the bed.

“I don’t even want to know my own name when you’re done.”

K’yozen looked taken aback for a moment, then grinned.

“Oh yeah. Definitely worth failing for.”

“When did you pierce your ears and why didn’t you let me do it?” Vuzree demanded. Ashenivir’s hand went to one of the small golden studs self-consciously. It had only been a couple of days, and they still ached.

“It was a somewhat spontaneous decision,” he said, joining Keszriin and Dresvan on the recreation room couch. Keszriin cooed over the earrings, her pitch getting higher when she saw how they matched his new necklace—also gold, this time with a crescent emerald pendant. His collar was in his pocket. Spite had made him take it off days ago, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to leave it behind entirely.

“You saw Tolothan again,” Keszriin accused, flicking the pendant.

“I might have.”

“Isn’t he like, four centuries older than you?” Dresvan said, frowning. Vuzree pushed him out of the way to squeeze onto the couch so they could examine the earrings more closely.

“I thought you were seeing Nalvayat again?” he said. “Nice clean piercing, and decent metal, at least. Silver would suit you better, but they’re alright, I suppose.”

“I can see more than one person, can’t I?” Ashenivir didn’t even try to fend his friends off as they prodded at him. His neck was still littered with fading marks from his last visit to Nalvayat—Vuzree poked one, and then Ashenivir did push their hand away.

“Hey, we’re still glossing over the four century age gap here.” Dresvan tugged at Keszriin’s skirt, sour at being ignored. Without looking back, she aimed a kick between his legs. He squirmed away.

“Tolothan’s nice,” Ashenivir said, defensive now, and almost wishing Keszriin’s kick had landed. “I don’t care how old he is, at least he—at least he’s sweet to me.”

He’d been about to say, at least he touches me. Great Goddess, he was a mess. But it had been months now, and the past two tendays he hadn’t even been called for study. Though he could hardly blame Rizeth for not wanting to see him lately, the way he’d been acting.

He was being a brat, and he knew it. The problem was that being a brat usually got him put over his Master’s knee—now all it was getting him was sleepless nights and a constant sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. And he still didn’t know what he’d done wrong in the first place to deserve this. He must have done something after he’d gotten back, why else would his Master have gone so distant to begin with?

“How come you have multiple boyfriends and yet I—the objectively more handsome one—am still single?” Dresvan complained.

“First of all, Pella’s cuter,” Keszriin twisted on the couch to face him, lifting her chin primly.

“We have the same face!”

“Yes, and Pella is cuter. And second of all, Shen is actually a nice person.” She let out a yelp as Dresvan tackled her off the couch. “This! This is why you’re single!”

Ashenivir grinned, his mood lightening as he watched the pair of them wrestling like children on the rug. Keszriin would win, no doubt—Dresvan might have been larger than her, but Ashenivir had lost too many scraps with his oldest friend to ever put money on anyone else. Vuzree elbowed him in the ribs.

“Don’t look now, but your tutor’s here, and he doesn’t look happy.”

Showtime. Ashenivir straightened up. Nothing he had done so far had gotten Master Velkon’yss’ attention, yet this was, apparently, the bridge too far. On the floor, Dresvan lay pinned with Keszriin’s knee in his stomach, and saw Master Velkon’yss first. His eyes went wide, and he shoved Keszriin away with more force than was playful, scrambling up.

“Oh, you bastard, that hurt!” Keszriin started to complain—her mouth snapped shut when she saw Master Velkon’yss.

“Please, do not stop your roughhousing on my account,” Rizeth said. His flat tone could have been disdain, though Ashenivir was certain it was simply indifference. He turned his impassive gaze to Ashenivir. “Apprentice Zauvym, I see you are alive and well.”

“Yes, Master Velkon’yss.”

“Odd,” Rizeth continued, “since the fact that your essay on Netherese spell architecture is not on my desk led me to assume you must have been taken grievously ill.”

“Well, one should never mistake an assumption for fact, should they, Master Velkon’yss?” Ashenivir said, as boldly as he dared. He refused to break eye contact and tilted his chin up, head held high so that both the new jewellery and the bitemarks decorating his neck were clearly visible.

Master Velkon’yss was difficult to read, and even before he’d left Ashenivir had not found his nuances easy to decipher. Now, though, he was watching for it, waiting for it, and so he saw the way Rizeth’s jaw tensed at his words.

“Is it finished?”

“No.”

“Then since you are not unwell, I expect to see it on my desk first thing tomorrow.” Ashenivir realised he was holding his breath as Rizeth’s gaze bore into him. It was the most attention Rizeth had paid to him in months. “Given the lateness of the hour, you had best get started at once.”

“At once, Master Velkon’yss?”

Rizeth’s eyes flicked to Ashenivir’s neck, to where his collar visibly wasn’t.

“At once, apprentice. Good evening to you all.”

He turned on his heel and strode from the room and the moment he was out of sight, the others turned on Ashenivir, all talking over one another in a flurry of questions. How could he not have finished an essay? How out of his mind was he, talking back to Master Velkon’yss like that? What kind of arcane protections had he enacted to not have been disintegrated on the spot?

“You must be ill, skipping an assignment,” Keszriin said. She climbed into his lap and squinted at him, pressing her palm to his forehead.

“I did do the essay. I finished it days ago,” Ashenivir said.

“Then why did you say—?”

“Because he promised to tutor me, and he hasn’t,” Ashenivir told her. “He’s not getting any more work from me until he holds up his promise. His tutelage was very useful the past couple of years, and if he isn’t going to give me what I want, then he cannot have what he wants. It’s really very simple.”

And it was true. What he wanted might not have been tutoring, but the exchange was the same; if Rizeth was going to deny him what he desired as Ra’soltha, then Ashenivir was going to deny him what he wanted as a teacher. He’d been quite proud of himself when he’d come up with the idea, and was even more so now that it had proven successful.

“I like this new Ashenivir.” Vuzree grinned, shifting up to make room as Dresvan squeezed back onto the couch. “Piercings and a backbone. We should ship you off to Sshamath more often.”

“Then who’d make sure you finish your essays?” Ashenivir said with a laugh, and ducked out of the way of Dresvan’s indignant firebolt. “I do have some I actually need to finish, though. I’d better get going.”

He extricated himself from Keszriin and, with triumphant terror buzzing through him, left the recreation floor. At once. That only ever meant a summons to a scene, and though he was certainly going to punishment, he didn’t care.

Take my hands, take my voice, spank me till I bleed, just touch me!

Maybe, at last, he’d get what he wanted. Because if he didn’t, Rizeth was going to be waiting a long time for that essay.

The door slammed behind him. A mage hand caught him by the shirt front and dragged him to his knees—he gasped as it grabbed his hair, hauling his head back. Master Velkon’yss stood before him, arms folded, eyes burning.

“You know the rules.”

“Yes, Master.”

Had he gone too far? No, Ashenivir assured himself, he had not. He struggled to undress on his knees with the mage hand restraining his head, and tossed his clothes carelessly to the side. He had not gone too far, because if Rizeth didn’t want to play this game, he shouldn’t have started it. Another mage hand flickered into view—this one hooked its fingers into Tolothan’s necklace as the one in his hair pulled his head painfully to the side.

“You want to flaunt such things?” Rizeth said, cold and hard. The hand pressed its translucent fingers to the bitemarks on Ashenivir’s neck. “Why do you wish so badly for everyone in the Arcanum to know you are invited into any bed you choose?”

“I didn’t know it was a crime to lie with whoever I want,” Ashenivir bit out. The hand in his hair tightened, and he gave a cry of pain.

“I believe I recall ordering you not to do so.”

“While I was in Sshamath. This is not Sshamath, and therefore I can do as I please.”

“And what you please is to throw yourself at anyone who will give you a trinket, is it?” The mage hand twisted the necklace tight around his neck.

“What I please is to be with someone who will touch me!” Ashenivir hadn’t meant to raise his voice, but the flash of feeling in Rizeth’s eyes—even if it were only anger—was worth it. Finally have your attention, do I? “If you don’t want me to do so, then command me. Order me not to fuck anyone else—it can’t make me any more miserable than I already am!”

“Ra’soltha—”

“Am I?” His own anger rose like bile in the back of his throat at hearing his title after so long. He glared at Rizeth. “Is that what I am, Master? How can I be, when you haven’t laid a hand on me in four months!” The mage hands tightened their grip. “And those do not count.”

“You are apt to lose your voice, Ra’soltha,” Rizeth snapped.

“Then take it,” Ashenivir shot back. Half a breath later he was on his feet with Rizeth’s real hand in his hair, hauling him up. His cry was silenced by lips on his own, by a furious, familiar tongue in his mouth.

“You are mine.” Rizeth tugged hard on Ashenivir’s hair, making him yowl. “You do not go to anyone else for your needs unless I give you permission. Am I understood?”

“Yes, Master,” Ashenivir gasped out, unable to keep the delight from his voice. The last time Rizeth had sounded like this had been the night before Sshamath, when he’d called Ashenivir by name and told him who he belonged to. The possessive heat in his voice, the ownership in his tone—Ashenivir hadn’t realised just how badly he’d missed it, or how much he’d wanted it, until he heard it again.

Rizeth kissed him with one hand tight on his hip and the other curved around his neck, holding him close. Ashenivir pressed his body up against his Master, hating that Rizeth was still clothed. He wanted more, he always wanted more, and it had been so long—

The next thing he knew he was flat on his back, hands pinned above his head by a yellow band of energy that looked like an earthbind spell in miniature, and Rizeth was shoving his legs apart.

“Move, and I will spank you so hard you won’t sit down for a month,” he growled.

Ashenivir lay perfectly still, heart racing as he watched his Master undress. Then Rizeth was atop him, his fingers inside him hard and fast and oh, it didn’t matter how many others he’d gone to over the past months, he had missed this. Ashenivir arched into the touch and, as his head tipped back, Rizeth’s hand found Tolothan’s necklace. With the sharp whisper of a spell, the clasp snapped.

“Where is your collar?”

“In…in my robes.”

A mage hand rifled through the messy pile he’d left them in, darting back a moment later with the collar dangling from its fingers. That clean, bright silver was soon fastened back around his neck and for a moment Ashenivir almost felt like crying. Why in the world had he ever taken it off?

“Look at me,” Rizeth said. Ashenivir gazed up at him, mouth falling open on a long moan as Rizeth slid inside him.

“Master,” he breathed.

Rizeth tossed the broken necklace aside and kissed him, stealing his breath and his voice. His cock hit deep, barely pulling out before pushing back in, slow at first but growing wonderfully faster with every second. His hands slid down Ashenivir’s sides—Ashenivir’s skin greedily drank in the touch it had craved for so long, as though with each inch of him his Master touched, he erased the touch of the others Ashenivir had gone to.

He wrapped his legs around Rizeth’s waist as Rizeth caught his hips to fuck him yet harder, the punishing pace spinning him out of his head. He fit his mouth over the bitemarks on his neck and Ashenivir moaned, for his Master’s mouth felt so much better than Nalvayat’s had, so much better than anyone else’s ever had. He strained against the binding, elation soaring at being pinned there, trapped there, fucked into the floor of Rizeth’s quarters. And when at last Rizeth slid his hand between them, wrapped his fingers around Ashenivir’s cock, he whimpered and bucked up desperately into the touch.

This, this was all he had wanted. His Master inside him, his collar around his neck, owned in every way that mattered. This was all he had needed; to be bitten so hard it hurt, fucked so hard he couldn’t think straight—to belong to someone, not just lie with them. Heat spiralled up his spine.

“Master, may I come?” He was almost too close for the question to matter. Rizeth snapped his hips faster, hitting a spot deep inside him that made him see stars.

“Why should I let you, after the way you behaved?”

“Because I’m your Ra’soltha,” Ashenivir said, and for a moment Rizeth looked at him so strangely that he wondered if he’d said the wrong thing. Then Rizeth was kissing him again and he could not hold back any longer, no matter what his Master might have wished.

His shout was muffled into Rizeth’s mouth—it spiked almost to a scream as Rizeth fucked him through the best orgasm he’d had in months. Ashenivir shook with it, arms trembling in the spell that held them. He let himself fall away then, as his Master fucked him still, took pleasure from his twitching, blissed-out body until finally he came inside him with another bruising kiss.

“Thank you,” Ashenivir sighed. All the anger, all the sick uncertainty and frustration of the past months had gone. He was right again, whole again, Ra’soltha again. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

It wasn’t enough, but it was all he could summon the sense to say.

Ashenivir knelt perfectly still as Rizeth’s magic cleansed him. The collar was a welcome weight around his neck and, as the cantrips faded, he reached to his ears and slowly removed the studs. He stared down at the tiny beads of gold in his palm—they meant so little, either to him or to Tolothan. Just trinkets, after all. Tolothan’s way of saying thank you.

“Master?” He looked up to where Rizeth was dressing, fastening his shirt with his usual curt efficiency. His expression, when he glanced over, was once more impassive.

Ashenivir resolved right then and there that he was going to learn to read him better.

“Yes, Ra’soltha?” Rizeth said. His voice was quiet, an almost unsettling calm after the storm that had just passed through them.

“Master…did I do something wrong?” Rizeth finished buttoning his cuffs and crossed to him. He put a gentle hand to Ashenivir’s cheek and shook his head. “Then why did you ignore me for so long?” Ashenivir leaned into the touch, stomach tightening—was he to go without for months again? Rizeth stroked his cheek with a thumb, then sighed.

“Before you left,” he began, “I was taking too much of your time. There was not a tenday that you were not here like this, for this.” Dread clogged Ashenivir’s throat. “You are here to study, above all else. Our arrangement was becoming a distraction from that.”

He’s going to dismiss me, Ashenivir thought with sudden, terrible horror.

“I don’t want to stop,” he burst out. His hand shot up to press over Rizeth’s, holding it to his face. The earrings clattered to the floor and skittered away beneath a cabinet.

“I know,” Rizeth said. “You have made the fact that you desire my attention abundantly clear over the past few months.”

Then, to Ashenivir’s surprise, Rizeth knelt before him.

“You have too much potential to throw away because of this,” he said. “I know you think you can do everything all at once; serve and study and not miss a step. You were running yourself halfway to ruin before you left, and I do not want to watch you do it again.”

“I can handle it,” Ashenivir protested.

“No,” Rizeth said, firmer now, “you cannot. And to that end, I am going to impose another rule.”

So long as it wasn’t ‘I am never going to touch you again whilst you’re an apprentice’, Ashenivir didn’t care what it was. He’d take a thousand more rules if it meant he got to keep serving Rizeth.

“Once a month, I will call you to a scene,” Rizeth said. Alright, so he’d lied, he did care—Ashenivir’s heart sank into his feet. “All other summons will be for study and it will be study. You can work a lot harder than you have been lately.”

“Yes, Master.” Ashenivir didn’t try to hide his disappointment, or to keep it from his voice. Once a month? That was all he got? Rizeth hooked his fingers into Ashenivir’s collar; not pulling, just holding.

“Regardless of how often you serve me, you are still my Ra’soltha,” he said. “I apologise for neglecting my responsibilities towards you. It was wrong of me to ignore your needs.”

“And I’m sorry for acting the way I did,” Ashenivir said. “It’s just…you’re my Master, and I…”

“I think perhaps we might both have behaved somewhat foolishly.” Rizeth’s mouth crooked up briefly into a smile Ashenivir hadn’t even realised he’d missed. His heart ached.

“May I…when I study with you, may I still do it on my knees sometimes? As I used to?” he asked. Rizeth was silent for a moment and Ashenivir wondered if maybe he’d pushed too far too soon. Then Rizeth nodded.

“You may.”

“Thank you, Master.”

“Go and dress,” Rizeth said, rising to his feet. “It is getting late.”

Ashenivir obeyed, but hovered by the door when he was clothed. He wasn’t certain what he was waiting for—what he wanted was another kiss, what he wanted was to be rid of the insecurity that still swarmed like lantern beetles in his chest. And a small part of him wanted, stupidly, to stay the night.

Rizeth came and checked him over, ensuring any remains of the encounter were gone. For once the bitemarks remained, since Ashenivir had arrived with them and who was to say which had come from Nalvayat and which from his Master? He thrilled at the thought of having one of Rizeth’s marks on him for anyone to see, even if it was only for a short while.

“One last thing, Ra’soltha,” Rizeth said.

“Yes, Master?”

“Do not take off your collar again.”

Ashenivir bit his lip over a smile.

“No, Master. I won’t.”