Chapter Eighteen
Emmyr didn’t have a shop as such. They worked instead out of the back room of the narrow, four-storey town house they shared with the rest of clan Lightfist, squeezed between two shorter residences at the north edge of the Trades Ward. Said clan was a loose collection of dwarves and halflings, all of whom frequented Kelran’s House—many having done so for nearly as long as Rizeth—and most of which plied a similar trade to Emmyr. Three of the clan, shirtless for the heat, were presently sprawled on the floor of the living area adjoining Emmyr’s workshop, engaged in a lively debate about the various merits of wyvern leather. Rizeth tuned them out.
“Alys sent her deepest apologies along with it,” Emmyr said, handing him the bit gag. “Shouldn’t be any problems with this one, not with one of my boys helping out.”
Rizeth cast two divinations this time, examining every last thread of magic set into the bar. He could find nothing wrong, but then he’d found nothing wrong the first time and look how that had turned out. Still, one did not look a gift gag in the mouth.
“She’ll get there,” Emmyr said quietly. “Give her time. She’s got big shoes to fill.”
Rizeth dropped the gag into his bag of holding. “You may send her my thanks.”
“Will do. Need anything else whilst you’re here? A leash and a paddle do not a full collection make.”
It was tempting. But he didn’t need a new collar, or new manacles, and Emmyr’s other main trade was in floggers, which Rizeth was not inclined to touch. The half-finished cat-o’-nine-tails on the workbench was a thing of beauty to be certain, but too many priestesses had wielded weapons too similar for it to appear anything other than an instrument of real torture to him.
“Another time,” he said. Emmyr shrugged.
“You know where I am.”
The sun was almost intolerably bright as it neared its zenith. Rizeth kept to the shade where he could on his way to the market; fruit, he wanted to get—strawberries were in season now, and he wanted Ashenivir to try them—and they were almost out of the ginger tea Ashenivir liked; and they needed eggs, and bread, and soap, and Goddess, he missed this already. Tomorrow was Midsummer. Almost a year gone from Mythen Thaelas, and that meant it was time to stop pretending and start making arrangements to go home.
He didn’t bother to haggle for the tea. Home didn’t make him think of Mythen Thaelas any longer. Home was the apartment, with his abandoned notes and Ashenivir’s mess of books. Home was a leash in the entryway and manacles on the bedframe, his cufflinks and Ashenivir’s hair ties on the nightstand; it was tangled sheets and sunlight glinting on the links of a collar, the mark beneath his hand and Ashenivir on his knees with hungry eyes and an eager smile.
Mythen Thaelas without him would never be home at all.
But Ashenivir of late was a hot and cold thing, vacillating between an unsettling desperation to not end scenes and a worrying habit of flinching from every touch. After his birthday, Rizeth had feared the worst, that he’d pushed when he shouldn’t have, read the mark wrong—but it had begun before that, hadn’t it? It was only that now it was more obvious, or perhaps simply that he was finally paying attention. Ashenivir was uncomfortable with him, growing more so by the day, and Rizeth could think of only one reason for his being so. Master and Ra’soltha, that was all they were supposed to be, and now his foolish longing for more was about to lose him even that.
He was halfway out of the market when he passed the bookstall. The seller was hawking the newest instalment of a series, and if he hadn’t known the name Tethras before he came to Waterdeep, he certainly knew it now.
“Last part of Hard in Hightown !” she called, raising her voice as she caught him eyeing the stall. “A stunning conclusion, you don’t want to miss it!”
The book joined everything else in the bag of holding, and soft pleasure bloomed at the thought of Ashenivir’s reaction on receiving it. The feeling faded as he left the market. Going too far again. No wonder Ashenivir had realised—he was as obvious about this as Kelran accused him of being.
He’d make arrangements tomorrow. A caravan heading north shouldn’t be hard to find, and he had access to the Watchful Order’s resources now, so if Ashenivir…if he wanted to go directly to Neverwinter and avoid a painfully drawn-out journey on the road with him, then Rizeth would provide him with the means to do so. No matter how much it hurt.
Tomorrow was midsummer, and the end of everything.
Ashenivir acknowledged that he was, perhaps, being a touch melodramatic, but with his brain and body nearly liquefied in the frankly unnecessary heat, he gave himself some leeway. In search of relief, he found himself at the Dancing Haven—they had pools there, not enchanted as the moon pools in Mythen Thaelas were, but cool and shaded and, importantly, not at the apartment.
He knew Rizeth had noticed his inconsistent behaviour, his unexplained swings of mood, but he hadn’t said anything. Hadn’t so much as tapped the mark; waiting, as he had before, for Ashenivir to come to him with whatever was wrong. Well, tomorrow he would, and then…
He sank deeper into the cool water with a heavy sigh. Then he’d find out if he was going back to Mythen Thaelas alone.
“Do you mind if I join you?”
He glanced up. Zelka stood at the edge of the pagoda housing the pool, her long hair tied in a high tail, a small wicker basket hung over one arm.
“Not at all.”
She took a seat, her movements carrying a neat grace. After the solstice, he’d spoken to her only once or twice; it wasn’t that she was unfriendly as such, more simply quiet. She dipped her bare feet into the water and leaned forwards to splash some on the back of her neck.
“Surface weather is more trouble than it’s worth, sometimes,” she said. “How are you coping?”
“Coping is the word,” Ashenivir replied, and she hummed in amusement. The basket turned out to contain magically chilled wine, fresh bread, oranges—she offered him one, and he took it, flushing as he thought of his first encounter with the fruit back in Neverwinter. It seemed a lifetime ago.
Zelka peeled her own orange in careful stripes, setting each piece back into the basket. “Are you staying in the city much longer? Xalin mentioned you were speaking of returning to Mythen Thaelas.”
“I will be soon,” Ashenivir said. “Master Velkon’yss only intended to be here for a short sabbatical from the Arcanum. We both have responsibilities to return to.”
What manner of sabbatical it was meant to be, Ashenivir had never determined. Rizeth’s research—and the spell he’d been developing—seemed to have gone nowhere. Ashenivir hadn’t questioned it. He’d been too busy enjoying himself to care.
“That’s your friend, the one who attended the solstice with you?”
“Yes.”
“You seem sad about it.”
“I like it here. It’s my first time on the surface, there’s so much more to see.”
He didn’t want to see any of it if he couldn’t see it with Rizeth. His throat tightened, the orange sticking, sickly and stubborn. He forced it down and ducked his head beneath the water to hide his face. The cold shock spiked his head almost clear, and he scrubbed sweat from his scalp, his neck, hand lingering over his mark.
He didn’t know if he wanted Rizeth to tap it and see everything. Would it be easier for him to find out that way? To know without words, the way he knew most everything else?
When he surfaced, Zelka was frowning at him.
“Your arm.” She reached for it, stopping just short of the fading ring of bruises encircling his bicep. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine.”
He’d never worried about them before, but now he was keenly aware of every bruise and bite and scratch scattered across his body. He hugged his arms to his chest and tried a smile. It felt too narrow, too tight. Zelka returned it without further comment, and passed him the wineskin.
‹Are you still at the Haven?›
The sending made his heart leap, thoughts tangle. Wine spilled over his chest.
‹I…yes, Master.›
‹Then I will meet you there.›
And that was it, that was all. He couldn’t tell tone in the mental messages, not yet anyway. He scrubbed at his mouth, splashed the spilled wine off himself. How far away did that mean Rizeth was? Right outside? A half hour, an hour; what he wanted to know was how long he had to pull himself together. Zelka took back the wineskin, faint concern creasing her brow.
“My friend is on his way,” Ashenivir explained. He tried not to scramble, fumbling the prestidigitation to dry himself three times, conscious all the while of how intently she was watching him. He managed to dress without incident, and was fastening his shirt when Rizeth appeared.
It was so hard to look at him now. All Ashenivir wanted to do was fling himself into his arms and kiss him over and over and never stop.
“Apprentice,” Rizeth said. He clasped his hands behind his back, nodding to Zelka. “Priestess.”
“How was your afternoon, Master?” Ashenivir asked, then winced internally. Had he sounded too familiar? Too affectionate?
“Unpleasantly warm.”
They wound their way back through the Haven’s gardens, where puddles of lazy priestesses pooled beneath the trees. Xalin lifted a languid hand as they passed, mumbling something that was probably a blessing. He nodded to her, thankful he didn’t have to try to make small talk; if he opened his mouth, who knew what nonsense would come spilling out?
As they stepped into the villa, Rizeth drew something from his bag of holding and held it out to him.
“This was at the market. I thought you would want it.”
It was a book. A serial. A Varric Tethras tale, the final part of Hard In Hightown. Ashenivir gripped it tightly as a dreadful, howling ache shrieked around his ribs. He missed when it had simply been incomprehensible moths that lived there, a warmth he enjoyed without understanding. Why did knowing how he felt make everything so much worse?
“Thank you,” he managed, though it came out strangled.
“You may thank me at the apartment,” Rizeth said—it sounded more of a question than the usual order, and little wonder, given Ashenivir’s fluctuating ability to stand touching him without his heart nearly stopping.
Tomorrow was midsummer. After that, he might never get to touch him again.
“Yes, Master,” he said. “I will.”
Rizeth took him to dinner, and Ashenivir was sure something was wrong. Rizeth agreed to his request to walk up to the cliffs that edged the Sea Ward, and Ashenivir was sure something was wrong. “We need to talk,” Rizeth said, and Ashenivir knew something was wrong.
He hugged his arms tight to himself, heart an unstoppable thunder. All the city lay behind them, the wide expanse of Deepwater Harbour ahead, afire with sunset light, red and blazing orange caught in swirls of cloud low on the horizon, scattered with paint splash whorls of seabirds along the deepening blue.
“I know you are enjoying it here, but the year is getting on,” Rizeth continued. “There is a caravan bound for Neverwinter that leaves in two days, with places secured for us in it. Or, if you wish to return sooner, there is this.”
He handed Ashenivir a scroll, and even just touching it, he could feel the power in the runes. He recognised the spell at once.
“A teleportation? But we didn’t use one on the way here.”
“I wanted you,” Rizeth said, and Ashenivir would have given anything for him to have stopped there, “to have the opportunity to learn the language, and experience the surface fully. You have now done both and, as I said, if you would prefer to return more swiftly—”
“Why would I want to do that?”
Rizeth clasped his hands behind his back. “You have been uncomfortable lately. I have no desire to make you more so.”
He knows. Oh, Goddess, he already knows.
The sea breeze lay salt upon Ashenivir’s tongue, dissolving all the words he’d had half planned. The cliffs fell away before them, a perilous drop to vicious rocks—and the crashing defiance of the surf.
“In that case, I need to tell you something.”
Rizeth tipped his head, waiting for him to go on. Those inches still between them, a gap it seemed he would now never cross. Ashenivir hooked his fingers into his collar, hand trembling as he turned to fully face his Master; faced him because he had to, because he was Ra’soltha, and that had given him more strength than he’d ever believed possible.
“Master,” he said, “I love you.”
Silence. The cry of a gull, the rush of the ocean, and from Rizeth only dead and ruthless silence.
“I know it’s not what you want, and I never meant…I never…” He swallowed back the tears that suddenly threatened. “Everything you gave me, I…it was enough until it wasn’t, but now...”
He took a breath. Looked up at Rizeth, utterly incapable of deciphering his face. His fist clenched around his collar.
“I want to be yours,” he said. “Master, may I have what I want?”
A seabird shrieked, mournful until it was joined by another, then another, an entire flock of them wheeling overheard. Time stretched long, elastic, taut enough to shatter.
“It was enough until it wasn’t,” Rizeth said quietly. He shook his head, a broken breath escaping him that was almost a laugh, and then he reached out and took Ashenivir’s face in his hands, and they fit as perfectly as if they’d been sculpted to hold him.
“Ashenivir Zauvym,” he said, “have you any idea what you’ve done to me?”
The sun sank beneath the horizon in a ferocious blaze as Rizeth kissed him. Ashenivir flung both arms around his neck, the teleportation scroll falling from his hand. He melted into Rizeth’s arms, the onrushing twilight blurring them together on the clifftop, and they might never have kissed before, so impossibly new did this feel; lips that knew his in every way finally meeting them at last.
He had him! His Master, his Ehmtua, his Rizeth, his for all to see—he had him, and he was never going to let him go.
The need for breath and only that made him break away. Rizeth leaned his forehead to Ashenivir’s, eyes closed, gripped by the sudden fear that if he opened them he would awaken alone, that all this would be nothing but some torturous vision of reverie. Ashenivir’s arms tightened around his neck, an anchor to reality. This was real. It was real, somehow it was real, how could it be—
“Rizeth?”
How could the sound of his own name do that, make it as though someone had conjured faerie fire around his heart?
“Yes?”
He loves me. He’s real and he’s mine and he loves me!
Ashenivir drew back, enough to look him clear in the eyes. “I need you to take me home right now.”
The want in his gaze, the love scrawled across his face—how had he not seen it? Rizeth set his hands at Ashenivir’s waist and pulled him close.
“You are giving the orders now, are you?”
That made him flush, made him stutter and stumble over his words, and it was so wonderful that Rizeth swept him up into another kiss, deep and devouring, the concept of breathing a mere inconvenience. Ashenivir’s hands slid beneath his shirt, his into Ashenivir’s hair, and yes, no, he needed to take him home right this instant.
“Scroll,” he gasped between increasingly hungry kisses. Ashenivir’s mage hand fizzled out at the last second, and Rizeth snatched the scroll from the air without looking, more concerned with the taste of Ashenivir’s neck. “Cast with me, Ra’soltha.”
Their voices rose entwined into the gathering night, and teleportations were always risky but there was no place in all the world he was more familiar with than their bed.
They fell out of the magic and into the apartment, half off the bed, almost on the floor before Rizeth caught them. He hauled Ashenivir on top of him, tugging at his shirt even as Ashenivir fumbled with his belt, both of them clumsy and starving, heat and hands and mouths and, “Master,” Ashenivir sighed, and never had the word tasted so sweet.
Ashenivir’s hands in his hair, a thigh between his, rocking against him—Rizeth wanted to have him right then and there without a thought or a word, just the two of them, one body, one breath. Such a thing would not be nearly as satisfying as what he knew he could do instead. He could take Ashenivir, take them both, so high right now they might never come down.
Rizeth kissed him again, drinking in the taste of him, then rolled him to his back.
“Hands above your head.”
He forced his movements steady as he fastened Ashenivir into the manacles. Deliberate motions, building the anticipation they both loved with each tightening tug. Rizeth kissed his wrists where leather met skin.
“Open your mouth.”
Ashenivir took his fingers with a soft moan, sucking at them eagerly. Rizeth fucked his mouth like that, eyes holding him in place as much as the restraints did, until the shift into submission transformed his face from simply beautiful to something near transcendent. Then he withdrew his hand and gently stroked the pad of his thumb over Ashenivir’s cheek.
“Close your eyes.”
“But I want to see you, I want—”
A light slap silenced him. “Close your eyes, Ra’soltha.”
He obeyed, a willing expanse of violet skin beneath Rizeth’s hands, gilded in the sunset light, patiently awaiting his Master’s orders. Rizeth kissed his mouth, then along his jaw and down his neck, licking over his pulse, biting softly at the tang of sweat that clung there. He continued the path down his chest, tracing every muscle, every rib, each press of lips lingering to savour the gasp and sigh it brought. A bite to his hip drew a moan; a second to his inner thigh made him arch off the bed.
“Do you want something, xi’hum?”
“Yes, Master.”
Rizeth dragged his tongue along the hot, hard length of Ashenivir’s cock.
“Then beg for me.”
His dislike of how oral felt washed away in the tide of pleasure that rushed from Ashenivir’s lips. The sound of him begging for his Master to suck his cock, take him deeper, hold him down—Rizeth rode the audible wave of Ashenivir’s desire until his entire body sang with it. He teased at the head of Ashenivir’s cock with his tongue, all his ideas shamelessly stolen from his Ra’soltha, but no-one had ever called him a slow study. Slick bitterness on his tongue, and call it honey for the way it turned to sweetness as Ashenivir cried out and took all he gave with an endless litany of thanks.
It took two hands to hold him in place, he writhed so much. The force only made him arch up more, pushing deeper into Rizeth’s mouth, and perhaps he could grow to enjoy doing this for its own sake, with such a reaction as this as reward.
“Please may I open my eyes, Master?” Ashenivir gasped, hands flexing around the bedframe.
“Not yet.”
“When?” Rizeth slapped his inner thigh, just enough to sting. “When, Master?”
“When I give you permission.”
Ashenivir groaned. He tipped his head back in frustration and kept his lovely eyes closed because his Master had told him to.
“Please don’t make me wait all night,” he whispered. Rizeth kissed his hip.
“I won’t.”
He returned his mouth to Ashenivir’s cock, and brought him close before finally releasing him, leaving him shuddering, fighting for breath. He was desperate for more himself, and only half a lifetime of learning control kept him from giving in too soon to his desire. The manacle chains clinked as Ashenivir shifted—Rizeth ran light fingers quickly along his arms, a touch to make him shiver and a brief press into the mark to make certain, absolutely certain, he was alright.
A burst of bright, bold feeling rushed through his mind, a mental sunrise that took his breath away. Ashenivir had hidden all this from him? For how long?
Ashenivir’s legs hooked around his waist, tugged him nearer. “Master, I want you.”
“Behave, or you won’t get me.”
“You’re not supposed to lie.”
His smile was too sweet to punish, so Rizeth kissed him instead, shifting closer until he was positioned just as he wanted. He kissed the corner of Ashenivir’s mouth, his nose, his cheek, his brow, his temple; grazing teeth over his earlobe before whispering the next command. “Open your eyes.”
Ashenivir’s eyes widened beautifully as Rizeth slid into him, lips parting over a satisfied, sighing moan. He fit his hand to Ashenivir’s flushed cheek, and Ashenivir turned his head to press a soft kiss to his palm. “Thank you, Master.”
“You are welcome, Ra’soltha.”
Rizeth fucked into him slow and steady, with Ashenivir’s heels digging into his back to pull him ever closer. He left dark bitemarks all along the column of his throat, each one drawing thanks and pleas for more. But every time Ashenivir begged for deeper, harder, faster, please, Rizeth slowed his pace further, until words failed entirely and Ashenivir was reduced to tugging at his manacles, tossing his head back and forth and arching his back in search of what his Master denied him.
“Please, Master, please make me come, I’m so close, please.”
Those wide-open eyes were hazy now, glazed with want; so pretty, so perfect, and beneath it all, soaring through the mark, that brightness continued to shine. Why had he been such an idiot? How had he not seen the way Ashenivir looked at him? All that time, all those months, those years—
“Master, please!”
He’d wasted enough time. He would not waste any more.
“Come for me, Ra’soltha.”
The manacles rattled against the bedframe, counterpoint staccato to the frantic moans that soared from Ashenivir’s lips.The barest touch carried him over the edge, and the feel of him coming apart drew Rizeth to his own end. He kissed him as he came, and kept on kissing him, unwilling—unable—to stop.
Mine, he thought. He’s mine.
He pressed his face to Ashenivir’s neck, half collapsed, breathing in the post-sex perfection of him, surrendering coherency to the race of a pulse that matched, beat for beat, his own. He’s mine—yes, sweet yes, but that was only part of it, wasn’t it? The whole truth was far, far better.
I’m his.
Rizeth’s arm around him was a warm, safe weight. Night had truly fallen now, the desaturated darkness comfortable in a way the daylight—however lovely—could never be. Their hands were linked together, held to his chest, Rizeth’s thumb brushing back and forth over his knuckles. He pressed back into the embrace, and sighed in contented relief as Rizeth held him closer. Countless scenes, countless comedowns, and never had they lain together quite like this. Ashenivir was already addicted to it.
“Kelran is never going to let me live this down,” Rizeth murmured.
“What?”
Ashenivir turned in his arms. Rizeth took the opportunity to kiss him, brief but sweet.
“He knew how I felt about you from the moment we arrived. He’s always been far too perceptive, particularly of me. He told me over and over to say something to you, but…” Rizeth shook his head. “I was so certain it would be pointless.”
“Pointless?”
“Because you did not want such things from me, and if I told you, I would lose you,” Rizeth said. So matter of fact, yet Ashenivir could see the tension in his face, the worry still lingering in his eyes. He traced the line of Rizeth’s cheekbone to his jaw, marvelling that not only did he not pull away, but angled his head to the touch.
“I think Kelran might have been an inch away from strangling the both of us,” he said, and now Rizeth frowned. “He confronted me about you,” Ashenivir continued. “‘Tell him or leave him’, he said. He didn’t want me to hurt you.”
“That wretched busybody, I told him not to meddle—”
Ashenivir laughed, daring to lean in and kiss the irritation away. Rizeth relaxed at the touch of his lips, a hand splaying over his back, solid, firm with the promise of never letting go. He wasn’t angry with Kelran, and didn’t think Rizeth really was either. How beyond frustrating, to have both of them so apparently obvious in their feeling to all but each other.
Control of the kiss soon turned to his Master, with claiming tongue and a graze of teeth. Ashenivir parted lips and legs, the two of them tangled together until Rizeth rolled them over, trailing a hand down his side. There was no urgency to the touch, and no command either, just an almost revelatory enjoyment of his form.
“We are not returning to the Underdark,” Rizeth said, when they paused for breath.
“But it’s been almost a year.” Ashenivir hated to remind him of it, but the fact could not be ignored. “It’ll be more by the time we get back, even if we get another teleportation scroll; the Arcanum—”
“—will wait. We are staying.” Iron in his voice, and Ashenivir wondered how much of it was for himself. He rolled his thumb over the top of Rizeth’s spine.
“How long?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think I know much of anything anymore.”
Ashenivir reached up to slide his fingers into the tangle of Rizeth’s hair. Tangled because of him. He could tangle it, touch it; touch whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. Only no, not quite: he was still Ra’soltha, and even with this new dimension of feeling between them, he didn’t want to be anything else.
“We don’t need to know anything,” he said. “You’ll command, and I’ll obey. It’s as simple as that.”
Rizeth smiled, and a wild swarm of moths erupted from Ashenivir’s heart. They flooded his lungs and his throat and his head, filling him top to toe with wings and warmth. He wanted to kiss Rizeth again then, so he did, and Rizeth kissed him back, and if the world had ended right then and there he wouldn’t have known or cared.
“As simple as that, is it?” Rizeth whispered against his lips.
“Yes, Master. As simple as that.”
—the end.