Chapter 12
Carriages of every shape and size lined the street outside Stillgleam Villa, disgorging from their plush interiors what seemed like half the nobility of Waterdeep. The endless stream of guests flowed through the entry hall, where an equally endless rotation of servants collected cloaks beneath the twinkling lights of glittering chandeliers.
“Welcome, welcome, Lord Stillgleam bids you all welcome!” A proud-voiced butler reigned over the near-chaos, an unflappable smile fixed firmly in place above his stiff white collar. “Upstairs to the ballroom, or if it please you to smoke, through this way to the parlour!”
Ashenivir stayed close to Rizeth as they ascended the stairs. Everything dripped in golden opulence, including the guests. He’d thought himself fine enough before they’d left, but now he felt underdressed; there was nothing on display among the other attendees that couldn’t have cost a small fortune. Keszriin’s gifted moonstones in his ears and the simple gold thread in his half-braid seemed petty in comparison.
Rizeth, though…Rizeth looked as though he belonged here. His dark shirt and long-tailed waistcoat with their subtle gold embroidery weren’t overly elaborate, but the cut of everything spoke of expense and good taste. Not to mention the fact that they displayed his shoulders and back to a frankly obscene advantage—Ashenivir had been suppressing the urge to provoke him all evening. He wanted to hold all that narrow-framed muscle to him, pressed up against a wall, a leg between his thighs, lips on his neck—
He almost walked into the back he was fantasising about. Rizeth shot him a look that said he knew exactly what he’d been thinking, and Ashenivir discovered a sudden pressing need to carefully examine his boots.
The door to the ballroom had become something of a blockade, the tide of High Coin celebrants held back by a woman in a golden gown with a lengthy scroll. She announced each arrival as they entered in a clear, crystalline voice, though the music and chatter in the ballroom was such a wall of sound, Ashenivir doubted anyone could hear her. The two couples in front of them stepped through arm in arm, and suddenly the half-foot gap between him and Rizeth felt cavernous.
“Master Rizeth Velkon’yss, and Master Ashenivir Zauvym, of the Mythen Thaelas Arcanum,” the woman pronounced.
“I still don’t like that,” Ashenivir muttered under his breath as she ushered them through. Rizeth made a low, amused sound.
“Perhaps you ought to have spent a little more time as an apprentice then, Master Zauvym, if you do not enjoy what graduation has bestowed upon you.”
“Master,” Ashenivir complained, and Rizeth laughed, short and quiet. It was enough to make the wretched title worth it.
The ballroom proper was an exercise in opulence. White marble gleamed underfoot, and overhead a vast illusion of tumbling golden glitter refracted the candlelight, turning it dream-like and fey. Dim figures wove in and out of sight within it, wandering the narrow balcony that ringed the room. Before they’d made it far, Ashenivir spotted a tiny blonde arrow rocketing towards him, with an eye-roll in tow.
“Isn’t Kelran’s villa so perfect? ” Mara squealed. She bounced up on tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “Doesn’t everyone look just incredible? I’m so glad I commissioned a new dress, I’ve been getting compliments all night—Lady Rosznar said she liked it!”
“Yes, yes, everyone’s very enamoured of you.” Verin drew her back and gave Ashenivir a once over. “Looks like they’ll be enamoured of you as well, boy, damn!”
He hoped so, given Rizeth had dressed him again just as he’d asked. Similar to what he’d chosen for himself, but with a shirt open enough to show off his collar, dove-grey to Rizeth’s black. If he’d felt underdressed before, though, the feeling doubled now, seeing Verin. His horns were draped with golden beads, his eyelids dusted with metallic powder, his nails like gilded claws. Mara, equally decorated, pouted her painted lips at Ashenivir.
“You have no gold!”
“Yes I do, see?” He turned his head to show his braid. Mara huffed, hands on her hips.
“That hardly counts! It’s High Coin—let me make you sparkly.”
She grabbed at the small clutch bag under Verin’s arm, rummaging through it with reckless abandon. Verin’s tail twitched.
“You’re paying for that later, princess.”
Mara ignored him. “You have to bend down, I can’t reach.” She tugged at Ashenivir’s shirt front. “Please, please, pretty please?”
Rizeth, silent through the whole exchange, merely raised an eyebrow at Ashenivir’s pleading look. Ashenivir sighed and bent forwards, closing his eyes at Mara’s direction. She brushed something over his eyelids, cool and slightly damp, followed by a huff of air as she blew at his face. Next came a tickle of something powdery, scattering over his cheeks.
“Mara—” he started. She shushed him.
“Open your mouth,” she said. Ashenivir chuckled at the order coming in her dainty little voice. “Don’t laugh! Stay still!”
“Yes, princess.”
He heard Verin snort, and could well picture Rizeth’s amused expression. But he did as he was told, and let Mara swipe something over his lips. She gave another squeal when she was done, a high-pitched noise of delight that made his ears twitch.
“Oh, aren’t I so good at this? Look, look!”
Ashenivir opened his eyes in time for her to smack him in the face with a pocket mirror. He managed to take it before she could do it again and leave him with a black eye instead of whatever decoration she’d just applied, and examined her handiwork.
Shimmering gold shadowed his eyes, striking against the deep violet of his skin. Glitter dusted his cheeks like freckles, and his lips matched Mara’s; dark gold, not shiny, but still bold. It was pretty. It was very pretty, and it wasn’t something he’d done in a long, long time. He snapped the mirror shut.
Mara beamed. “Don’t you just love it?”
“I…I don’t know…” He shot an uncertain glance at Rizeth.
“You look very fine,” Rizeth said.
His tone was formal, bland even, but Ashenivir thought that if this had been the House, he would have been leashed and halfway to a playroom already.
“That’s more like it.” Mara took her mirror back and wrapped herself around his arm. “And now that you’re properly festive, you have to come dance with us!”
“No, that’s alright, I don’t—”
“Oh, come on, pretty boy,” Verin drawled, flicking his eyes at Rizeth. “Don’t say your Master forbade you to have any fun tonight.”
Mara had managed to pull him a half-step forwards, but at Verin’s words, Rizeth’s hand caught his shoulder. That single point of contact became Ashenivir’s whole world, as if it were the only real thing in the room. His pulse thudded in his throat.
“He prefers not to dance.”
There was enough iron in Rizeth’s voice to make Ashenivir weak at the knees, and it had the desired effect on Mara. She let go, pouting.
“Just so you know, I hate it when men do that.” She stuck out her tongue. “Maybe change your mind later?”
“Maybe.”
With a waggle of fingers, she and Verin swept away into the party, and Rizeth’s hand fell from his shoulder. Ashenivir wished he’d put it back. Hells, he wished he did dance, so he could ask Rizeth to—that way they could keep touching. The music soared, light and elegant, bright little violin runs over lush cello intermingled with airy flute trills; not the sort of music he’d ever danced to, anyway. He’d only make a fool of himself if he tried.
“I will fetch us something to drink,” Rizeth said, and before Ashenivir could say anything, he too had vanished. Ashenivir hooked his fingers into his collar, pretty and painted, surrounded by all the beauty Waterdeep’s gentry had to offer, entirely—and somewhat terrifyingly—alone.
Why was it so hard to find a damn drink? Every guest he passed had a gold-rimmed glass in their hand, yet not a servant could he find. Two minutes he’d expected to be gone; he didn’t like leaving Ashenivir alone. Not when he didn’t know where Kelran was. He’d been avoiding—ignoring—Kelran’s frequent requests for dinner and coffee and ‘catching up’, and the last thing he needed was him cornering Ashenivir for an interrogation.
He cut as clear a path across the ballroom as he could, overhearing far too many compliments on the over-the-top illusion overhead; truly, there was no accounting for the tastes of the petty nobility. The crowd thinned out towards the edge of the room, but he still didn’t notice River until he was almost on top of him, and then it was too late to do anything but greet him.
“Let me guess—looking for a drink?” River asked, smiling wryly. He wasn’t wearing his collar, making his neck seem oddly bare.
“There is enough of it to go around, by all appearances.”
“You’d think. Cain went to find us some ages ago.” He rose onto his toes, scanning the packed ballroom, then dropped back down with a huff. “So now I’m stood here on my own like a prize idiot. Where’s Ashenivir? I thought I heard them announce the both of you.”
“Waiting, as you are.”
“Should’ve brought him with you on your drink quest. At least then I’d have someone fun to talk to.”
Jealous little tendrils, digging thorns into his heart. Futile to fight them—they’d been needling him from the moment they’d walked into the ballroom. Ashenivir looked like a dream, at his own design, and it would almost have been worse if no-one had looked twice at him. Rizeth would prefer, however, that River not look at him at all.
“I return victorious!”
Beaming, Cain pressed a glass into River’s hand. White wrap shirt, dark blue sash matched to River’s half-cloak, sleeves rolled up to show off the silver cuffs adorning his wrists—Rizeth was surprised to see him wearing them. He’d thought them the same as River’s collar, something for the House, not for public. Cain slung an arm around River’s shoulder. “Master Velkon’yss, how goes it?”
“He’s searching for drinks,” River said. “Tell him where to get some, Sir, he’s left Ashenivir on his lonesome.”
“Oh, well, we can’t have Ashenivir dying of thirst, can we? That would throw a pretty wrench in your plans to elope.” He kissed River’s cheek again and again, until River shoved him away, laughing.
“As if I’d run off after how much work you were to catch.”
“Says the one who played so hard to get I thought you actively wished death on me.”
“He’s going to propose any day now.” River leaned towards Rizeth as he spoke, as though imparting a great secret. Cain chuckled. “Stop laughing and buy me a ring already.”
Relief warred with envy in Rizeth’s stomach. They weren’t simply play partners—their affection ran deep, that much was painfully clear. And whilst a relationship didn’t necessarily preclude interest in Ashenivir, Rizeth got the sense, watching them, that they were concerned only and entirely with one another.
He and Ashenivir, of course, wouldn’t even touch until they made it to the House later tonight.
“East wall,” Cain said, gesturing with his glass. “Bunch of nobles have got half the servants cornered there. Barely letting them out of the kitchens, the ravenous vultures.”
“My thanks. Enjoy your evening.”
Rizeth tried to catch a glimpse of Ashenivir as he worked his way to the eastern side of the ballroom, but he wasn’t where he’d left him. He got halfway into the mark’s divinations before he realised what he was doing and snapped out of the magic.
He found the cornered servants, acquired two drinks and very nearly a bloody nose from a wayward lace-clad elbow, then began the arduous trek back. The music shifted faster, encouraging dancers to take over more and more of the ballroom floor. Mara and Verin were cavorting like jesters, spinning each other back and forth; River and Cain had joined the revellers now, and he even saw Ms Thorne, light in the arms of a tabaxi in a purple gown.
But where the Hells was Ashenivir?
“Master Zauvym, how lovely to see you! How’s the ankle?” Lord Stillgleam practically glowed beneath the candlelight—his bronze skin shimmered as though burnished, his fingers sparkling with jewels. He met Ashenivir’s confused look with a bright smile.
“Mara told me. And in case Verin hasn’t kept you informed; everything else relating to that little matter is well taken care of.”
“He mentioned as much, Lord Stillgleam,” Ashenivir said. Then, since he supposed he ought to be polite, “Thank you for inviting us. You have a beautiful home.”
“It’ll do, I suppose.” Kelran’s eyes gleamed with amusement. “Did Rizeth also accept my invitation, or has the old misery elected to stay at home and brood instead?”
He glanced about in an exaggerated fashion, and if he hadn’t been a Lord, Ashenivir might not have resisted the urge to roll his eyes. There was no way he hadn’t seen them together, and Rizeth had been gone hardly a minute before he’d shown up.
“You were waiting for him to leave, Lord Stillgleam.”
Kelran tipped his head in a shrug and sipped his wine. “Perhaps I wished to speak with you alone.” Ashenivir’s spine prickled, shoulders tensing. “I have no ulterior motives, I promise. I’d never stray into Rizeth’s territory without express permission—I have no desire to end the evening as a fetching smear on my ballroom floor. Come, it’s a little loud here.”
He took Ashenivir’s elbow, and what could he do, dig his heels in and cause a scene in the middle of the party? The music grew louder, deeper, with a faster beat and the addition of drums like distant thunder. He searched the gilded throng for Rizeth, but had completely lost track of him.
Kelran drew him to the edge of the room, where the crush was less, the air cool by the open window. Outside, a thin spring drizzle dampened the air.
“I’ve been friends with Rizeth a long while,” Kelran began, idly. Ashenivir didn’t buy that tone for one second. “This despite the fact he decided to hide underground for the last thirty years. Regardless, I am still somewhat invested in his life, which you seem to be a part of now. He certainly spends more time with you than with me.”
“He’s tutoring me,” Ashenivir said.
“So I’ve heard.”
Kelran’s lips twitched in an amusement Ashenivir didn’t entirely care for. Rizeth had never seemed particularly happy to see him on the few occasions they’d run into him at the House, but despite his curiosity, especially knowing how the two had met, Ashenivir hadn’t pried. If Kelran was a danger, Rizeth would say something. As it was, whatever had transpired between them remained none of his business.
“I’ve wanted a chance to speak with you for a while,” Kelran continued. “Without Rizeth around to leap all over everything I try to say. You never come to the House without him, so I thought tonight might be the best opportunity I’m likely to get.”
“What do you want to ask me that you don’t want my Master to hear?”
“Oh, stop assuming I’m so scandalous. Three questions, that’s all I have for you, then I’ll leave you alone. Fair?”
His gaze was a piercing, emerald thing. Not iron the way Rizeth’s was, but close, and for the first time, Ashenivir found himself wondering where exactly his Master had learned all he knew. A chill wind slipped through the window, prickling his skin. He shivered, hugging his arms to himself.
“Alright.”
“The first is simple enough; how long have you been playing with him?”
“A bit over five years.”
“That collar.” Kelran motioned at it with his glass. “Rizeth tells me it’s a toy. That being the case, why are you wearing it now?”
Ashenivir tangled his fingers in the chain, as though Kelran might leap forwards and snatch it from his neck. “Because it’s mine. One more question, Lord Stillgleam, then you should probably get back to your guests.”
“Oh, the boy does have a spine! No wonder he likes you. One more question…” He tapped his lips with a well-manicured finger in a pretence at thought. “Your Master has been visiting my little House for over a century, did you know that?”
“Is that your question?”
“No.” All teasing faded from his face entirely, replaced with an unnervingly serious expression. “My question is this: did you know, in all that time, he’s never once brought anyone in a collar with him?”
The music, the heat, the crowd; all of it ceased to matter. Ashenivir stared at Kelran, and the back of his neck burned. Rizeth trying to find him? Or just his imagination? His mouth had gone dry, bereft of words, and the only answer he could give was to shake his head.
“You see, then, why you catch my interest,” Kelran said.
Before Ashenivir could even contemplate a response, a lull in the music and a gap in the crowd at last returned Rizeth to him. He had a glass in each hand and a frown on his face, and on seeing Kelran, quickened his pace. He was at Ashenivir’s side a moment later.
“Ah, it appears I’m caught out.” Kelran gave a half-bow, an odd smile dancing at his lips—not quite a smirk, but close. “Don’t worry, he’s unharmed by my terrible manners. I shall take my leave. You wouldn’t believe how many nobles I have to make nice with tonight.”
Once he was gone, Ashenivir felt again the prickle of magic on the back of his neck. Rizeth handed him a drink, sweeping an intent, searching gaze over him as though they’d just finished a scene.
“He just wanted to talk,” Ashenivir said.
“He always does.”
Ashenivir sipped his wine and found it sweetly overbearing; a perfect fit for the host providing it. Out on the dance floor he picked out Mara and Verin, the tiefling twirling the tiny half-elf about with ease. And there was River, dancing with Cain, the two of them going far slower than the music warranted, Cain’s hands on River’s waist. River wasn’t wearing his collar tonight, but it was clear to everyone who he belonged with.
Rizeth hadn’t put a collar on anyone else. Ashenivir knew he’d played with others, that had never been in question. He’d had his own bedmates, after all, he could hardly have imagined that someone like Rizeth had spent his life doing nothing and no-one up until him. But what about him had interested Rizeth enough to collar him, if that wasn’t something he did? What about him had interested Rizeth enough to mark him?
He hooked his fingers into his collar. Whatever Kelran thought, he wasn’t taking it off. He liked wearing it, and he liked that now, with those he knew from the House, there were at least a handful of people in the room who knew exactly who he belonged to. Without it, there was no way for anyone to know, not without…
Ashenivir took a large swallow of wine. Not without their being involved, in a way they simply weren’t. How good it would have felt, though, to have been announced as more than Masters of the Arcanum. To have the whole ballroom know he was Rizeth’s, and that therefore the inverse must also be true—that Rizeth was his.
He snuck a glance at Rizeth and met hungry crimson eyes that made him all at once extremely aware of the makeup on his face. His Master clearly very much liked the way he looked, and Ashenivir wished he knew what time it was, so he’d know how long he had to wait for the afterparty at the House, where they could vanish into a playroom and leave everything else behind.
He was Rizeth’s. Rizeth was his. What did it matter if it was only really real inside a scene? What more did he need?
His hand in mind, regardless of who can see.
Ashenivir broke eye contact, distracting himself with watching Mara and Verin sending nobles scattering like frightened pigeons in their mad spin across the floor. Rizeth didn’t want that from him. He wasn’t interested in any kind of relationship beyond what they had—it had been five years, after all. If he wanted more, he would have said something by now.
Wouldn’t he?
Rizeth was tired of being restrained. Ashenivir had put his hair up on the carriage ride over to the House, and the high ponytail swung back and forth across his neck, offering tantalising glimpses of the mark. With that and the damnable golden paint Mara had put him in, he was something approaching divine, and the fact that everyone here knew exactly whose he was made him all the more enticing.
He was talking with Verin at present, laughing at something the tiefling had said. Rizeth didn’t say a word, just took out the leash—which had been burning a hole in his pocket all evening—and clipped it to his collar. Ashenivir turned all his glitter towards him, and Rizeth’s heart almost stopped in his chest.
“Master,” was all he said. It was all he needed to say; he knew what his Master wanted, and Rizeth saw desire bloom in him at the knowing. He tugged the leash.
“Don’t break anything!” Verin called after them, cackling. Rizeth ignored him. He pulled Ashenivir through the ballroom towards the stairs, just as Ashenivir had once asked him to do. It was less packed than the one at the villa, but there were still plenty of people to see them pass. And here it didn’t matter. Here he could have what he wanted. Reality didn’t exist within the House. It was a scene in and of itself, half-real, and here Ashenivir was his.
All the doors in the playroom corridor were marked with anything but green, anything but available. Of course they were, on a night like tonight. But if Rizeth remembered rightly, and if Kelran hadn’t made any more unnecessary changes to the way things worked around here…
“Master, where are we going?”
At the far end of the corridor, the hall turned off to a shorter passage, the lights low and the doors without markers. Private rooms, guest rooms—the House was for more than sex, and Kelran liked to have ample lodgings for all who needed them. Not playrooms by any stretch, but they would suit Rizeth’s purpose all the same. The first door he tried was locked.
“Master?”
The second was not.
He hauled Ashenivir through and slammed the door shut, then yanked him close with the leash to kiss him, hard and hungry. Ashenivir let out a startled yelp before melting into him with a pleased hum.
“Who gave you permission for this?” Rizeth kissed along his jaw, getting glitter on his tongue. “Who allowed you to look like this where anyone but your Master can see you?”
“You said…you said I looked very fine,” Ashenivir panted out as Rizeth kissed his neck.
“That was not permission and you know it.”
Ashenivir arched against him, tilting his head. Rizeth tasted sweat, the tang of metal as his tongue crossed the collar. Fire in his spine, heat haze replacing his thoughts—he had to pull himself together, and soon, before he lost control completely. He drew away, dropping the leash.
“Strip,” he ordered. “Slowly.”
Fighting to regain breath and sense, he circled Ashenivir as he stripped. Every wretched fastening took an agonising age—Rizeth wanted hands on him with a dangerous immediacy. Bruises littered his body, revealed piece by piece as shirt and undershirt and breeches fell to the floor. Dark marks scattered over his chest, old bites mingled with fresher ones from this morning. Parallel lines of scratch marks streaking his back, yet more lovely dark imprints on his waist, his hips—the passage of Rizeth’s hands and mouth written clear across his skin.
And, still nothing more than a tease beneath the sway of his hair, the mark. The only one that really mattered.
Rizeth lowered himself to the edge of the bed as Ashenivir cast aside the last of his clothes. His heart thudded nearly hard enough to crack his ribcage.
“Come here.”
Ashenivir toyed with the leash as he padded over, holding the end out to him. Rizeth wrapped the chain around his hand to pull him closer, inch by inch by inch.
“Kneel.” His voice was hoarse, his chest hollow. Ashenivir was gold and silver between his legs, too precious to be real. “My Ra’soltha, you do look very fine.”
“Thank you, Master.”
“You have not eaten all evening,” Rizeth said. “I expect you are quite hungry by now.”
“Starving, Master.”
The low lilt of Ashenivir’s voice sent a jolt straight to his cock. He kept hold of the leash as he unfastened his breeches, keeping Ashenivir in place with his gaze. All he had to do was tilt his head, and Ashenivir parted his gold-painted lips in an invitation it would be a crime to refuse. Rizeth exchanged leash for ponytail, and twined it around his fist slow, slow, because to rush this would be to ruin it.
“Please, Master,” Ashenivir whispered. Rizeth held him still, mouth an inch from his cock, savouring the way he strained in his grasp. “Please.”
“Since you ask so nicely.”
Ashenivir took his cock with a satisfied hum as Rizeth hauled his head down. The feel of his mouth was so familiar, the only thing he thought of now when he thought of this. He tightened his grip on Ashenivir’s hair, fucking his mouth deep enough to make him choke—Ashenivir’s eyes watered as he gagged, tears tinted with metallic shimmer as they ran down his cheeks, and his lips left smears of gold on Rizeth’s cock, like veins of ore. His legs were parted enough in his kneeling posture to let Rizeth see how beautifully hard he was, his cock already wet and twitching with need. His hands, as always, were obediently tucked behind his back, and they would stay there until his Master said otherwise.
No-one else in this entire building—this entire city—could possibly look as good as Ashenivir did right now.
The greedy sounds issuing from him were so loud that anyone in the corridor would doubtless hear them. Kelran didn’t soundproof these rooms, or hadn’t when Rizeth had been here last. Tonight, he didn’t care. His cock hit the back of Ashenivir’s throat again and again, Ashenivir’s tongue doing absolutely unspeakable things, every breath a whimper, every moan vibrating through Rizeth’s body, white-hot and irresistible.
He dragged Ashenivir deep onto his cock as he came, then hauled him up before he had a chance to swallow. Spit and cum slicked his mouth, lip-stain smeared across his chin. Rizeth kissed him deep, tasting himself, and he’d never enjoyed that particular flavour, but from Ashenivir’s lips tonight it was ambrosia. A small, surprised noise slid into his mouth along with Ashenivir’s tongue, impossibly perfect, and Rizeth knew—as he had for too long now—that he would never, never have enough of it.
He broke away, licking gold from his lips. Ashenivir fought to recover his breath, swaying in place, his eyes glassy.
“Good, Ra’soltha,” Rizeth said. “Do you want to come?”
Ashenivir nodded. He was beyond words, gone to that place where he was nothing but need. Rizeth caressed his cheek, staining his palm with golden tears and glitter. “What would you like, xi’hum?”
In reply, Ashenivir climbed into his lap, took his hands, and put one to his cock and the other to his neck. Rizeth curved his fingers around his throat, not squeezing, just holding, just enough for the pleasure of a pulse thumping beneath his palm. He teased with his strokes, sliding his thumb across the slick head of Ashenivir’s cock, carrying him up to the edge until he whined and writhed in wordless want, pliant and desperate and so, so beautiful.
Rizeth bit his earlobe, right over the moonstone studs he’d last tasted at the graduation ceremony. “Come for me, Ashenivir,” he murmured, and, as always, Ashenivir obeyed, with his head thrown back and a gasping cry.
“Thank you, Master,” he mumbled, half-slurring the words as he collapsed, pressing his face to Rizeth’s neck with a contented sigh. Goddess, he loved having him like this, caught up on the comedown, tangled in pleasure, a tender thing of sated desire. He held Ashenivir close and closed his eyes.
It wasn’t only like this that he loved him.
Reality didn’t exist within the House. It was a scene in and of itself, half-real, and Rizeth wished they never had to leave.