Chapter Seventeen Wayland
Chapter Seventeen
Wayland
Wayland meandered toward the library, cursing as he tried to stanch the blood oozing plentifully from his damaged nose.
His first thought upon Irian’s fist colliding with his skull had honestly been Oh no, not my pretty face.
But since approximately one split second after that, all he’d thought about was how much his pretty face fucking hurt.
Despite all his bravado in the aftermath of their tussle, Wayland felt strange.
As the adrenaline leaked from his veins, rendering his limbs weak and his heart hollow, he couldn’t help replaying some of the horrendous words he’d thrown at Irian and the dreadful wrath that had come crashing back on him.
He’d thought a physical battle might scour a slate so grimed with years of grief and guilt that neither man knew how to wipe it clean. The clash had certainly brought animosities to the surface. But had it resolved them?
A brother cannot be replaced. Do not forget that again.
He supposed only time would tell.
Wayland wasn’t sure why his footsteps were carrying him to the library, of all places.
Gods only knew he’d spent enough time on those uncomfortable draig-stone chairs with his nose crammed in a book.
But although he had his own chambers in the Cnoc—complete with piping-hot water, mountains of pillows, and precious little else—they felt far less like home than this library now did.
Maybe it was the honeyed glow of a hundred beeswax candles reminding him of his bedroom in Aduantas, sunken now to the bottom of the sea.
Maybe it was the way Hog liked to drape herself along the mantel above the hearth, belly up, wheezing little puffs of smoke from her nostrils. Or maybe it was—
The door to the library shoved outward with the force of Idris’s shoulder.
Between the hair falling over his face and two leather-bound tomes clutched in his arms, the younger man’s vision was obscured, and he didn’t see Wayland until he was nearly on top of him.
He jerked in surprise, then gasped when he took in the sight of him, sweat-stained and bloodied.
Idris’s face blanched white. He dropped the oversized volumes dangerously close to Wayland’s toes, even as he reached out gingerly for his face.
“Gods alive, Wayland,” he breathed. “Your nose, it’s—”
“Destroyed?” Wayland’s voice came out thick. “Mangled? Mutilated?”
“Broken.” Idris’s cool fingertips were faintly scented with dust and ink as he very gently prodded the screaming contours of Wayland’s nose.
Wayland fought the urge to push him away—for what might be the first time in his adult life, he had no desire to be touched.
“Not badly. Laoise’s had worse—those Twilight Sisters at Dún Scaith are notoriously vicious. Come on—let’s get you cleaned up.”
Wayland prepared to march into the library, but Idris planted his feet and gripped Wayland around both biceps.
“Oh, no.” He pushed Wayland bodily down the hallway in the opposite direction. “I’m not going to explain to Laoise how someone got blue blood all over her priceless scrolls. And you don’t want to either. Or did you not hear what I said about the Twilight Sisters?”
Wayland laughed, but the movement dislodged whatever clot had formed in his nostrils. Fresh blood splattered over his lips and his already ruined shirt.
At first glance Idris’s chambers were more or less identical to Wayland’s.
But as he looked around in interest, he noticed small differences.
A wall of hanging cavern plants arranged in a gradient of umbers and ochers and reds.
Pots of brightly colored paints arranged in neat stacks beside hand-stretched canvases with their faces turned to the wall.
Pallets of tiny button mushrooms growing in orderly rows beside a beveled window cut into the stone.
Beyond, Wayland heard the sound of water rushing somewhere far below.
“Sit.” Idris pushed him. Wayland reeled back, caught his heel on the platform of the bed, and obliged with a thump.
The bed was, perhaps unsurprisingly, meticulously made, each pillow fluffed and all the coverlets carefully tucked.
Normally, this degree of orderliness would have compelled Wayland to disturb it by any means necessary.
Preferably involving a great deal of disrobing and rolling around naked between the sheets.
Perhaps it was the blood loss talking, but when it came to Idris, Wayland couldn’t help but find such neatness charming.
He kept his bloodstained palms carefully upturned as he listened to Idris move around the rooms, rummaging in the bathing chamber and clattering in the wardrobe.
After a moment, he returned with a bowl of steaming water, a stack of frayed rags, clean bandages, ointments, and a few long, narrow sticks.
“I know I said I enjoy some light punishment from time to time.” Wayland raised his eyebrows. “But I’m not sure about being whipped twice in one day.”
Idris flushed, but barely. He dipped one of the rags in the steaming water and leveled a no-nonsense gaze at Wayland. “Shut your mouth. If you even know how.”
Wayland obeyed, surrendering himself to Idris’s ministrations.
The rag felt blisteringly hot on his skin, but Idris was gentle as he cleaned crusted blood from Wayland’s chin and lips.
Wayland winced when Idris wiped the tender, swollen flesh of his nose, but even that became tolerable after a few moments.
Idris uncorked a few of the unguents, sniffed them speculatively, and selected one to pour onto a bandage.
It smelled like cedar and spiced wine, and between the soothing scent, the sound of rushing water, and Idris’s cool, deft fingertips on his skin, Wayland felt suddenly and completely at ease.
His eyes drifted closed, and he relaxed.
Idris closed his forefingers around the bridge of Wayland’s nose and shoved the whole structure back into place.
Renewed pain screeched from jaw to temples. Wayland’s eyes flew open as he grunted in pain, but Idris just smiled, calmly holding a new rag beneath Wayland’s nose to catch the latest gush of dark blood.
“Sorry,” Idris said, not looking even the slightest bit apologetic. “Just a mild sedative so you wouldn’t fight me. Unless you wanted a crooked nose?”
Wayland huffed. “Are you calling me vain?”
“I suppose I am.” Idris’s smile was the perfect level of crooked, giving his handsome face a haphazard impishness. “Very vain indeed.”
When the bleeding stopped, Idris broke one of the long sticks into shorter lengths, rolled narrow bandages around them, then gently splinted Wayland’s nose. He finished by affixing the whole contraption to his face with some kind of adhesive.
“Finished.” He sat back on his heels, his eyes lifting to collide with Wayland’s own gaze.
Wayland inhaled. Despite all their hours together in the library, he could count the number of times he’d actually made eye contact with Idris.
The other man so often kept his gaze downcast, his features hidden behind his spill of hair.
But his eyes were beautiful—a deep, rich brown shot through with tiny threads of amber.
Wayland had originally thought Idris did not share Laoise’s ember eyes.
But while the heat in his gaze might be buried deeper, it simmered with an intensity that conjured an answering blaze in Wayland’s stomach.
“Now. Are you going to tell me who did that to you?”
“Irian.” Wayland shifted his weight and made a rueful face. “I deserved it. Although he didn’t have to hit me quite so hard.”
“Irian?” Surprise punched a fetching dimple in Idris’s cheek. “Isn’t he your… brother?”
“Foster brother,” Wayland corrected. “And if you don’t think brothers fight, then you clearly don’t have any.”
“No—only sisters.” Sisters… plural? “Why were you fighting?”
“Because—” Wayland almost told Idris about Fia, about the bargain they’d made.
About the kiss, and the swift rejection that followed.
About the blade-sharp sting of being second best. Runner-up in every race he’d ever run, every contest he’d ever competed in, every battle he’d fought.
But with startling prescience, he knew how Idris would react—disgust at the whole sordid drama and then, most likely, pity.
Wayland wasn’t sure he could bear seeing that kind of condemnation on Idris’s face.
“Family is a funny thing, Red. Blood family is the tether we’re born with, but that rope is not always woven with love.
Chosen family, though—some people stitch themselves into the gaps left by blood, and love by choice instead of duty.
Even then, it’s a gamble. Those who choose to love you can just as easily choose to stop.
And the ache of love unreturned is the most profound wound. ”
Idris stared at him with surprise verging on wonder, as if he hadn’t realized Wayland knew so many big words. Gently, Idris dipped another rag in water, then took one of Wayland’s bloodstained hands.
“You believe the people who choose to love you are your real family,” Idris said carefully as he wiped away more spatters.
“I believe they are the people we choose to love—those we seek out as mirrors for ourselves. Those who reflect our best qualities back at us and let us forgive ourselves the worst. If someone chooses to stop loving us, it is not the measure of how undeserving we are of love. Rather, it must be the measure of their own lack.”
It was Wayland’s turn to stare. “You are wise for one so young.”
“I’m four-and-twenty.” Idris lowered the rag, but his hand lingered on Wayland’s wrist. “I’m not that young.”
Wayland shouldered through the brief, buzzing apprehension of dangerous territory into the glossy, sugar-coated paradise beyond.
The land of desire was a place he was intimately, gloriously familiar with, and it felt unspeakably good to return.
He forgot the pain thudding in his face, forgot Irian and Fia, forgot the Treasures.
His blood roused in his veins, throbbing and eager, and he slid his hand along Idris’s wrist, grasping him below the elbow and pulling him closer.
The other man swayed toward him, steadying himself with a hand on Wayland’s thigh.
When Idris looked up at him with those deep, burning eyes, Wayland dared to touch him—his thumb grazing over the elegant point of his chin, then ghosting over the soft pillow of his lower lip.
Idris’s mouth parted, his breath warm on Wayland’s knuckles.
Blood hammered at his temples and blotted out all rational thought, and he settled deeper into the tantalizing sensuality of touch.
He lifted his other hand to Idris’s jaw, sliding back the curtain of hair—
Idris jerked, whipping his head away and throwing himself backward. “Don’t!”
Wayland froze, both arms arrested in midair. Confusion and alarm gushed over him like ice water. The imprint of Idris’s hand on his thigh felt like his own dashed hope—fading so swiftly it might never have existed in the first place.
“I’m sorry.” He meant it. “If you tell me what I did wrong, then I promise never to do it again.”
Idris, flattened against the wall and breathing hard, unconsciously smoothed the long side of his hair more securely over his face. Wayland began to understand.
“I’m sorry, Idris,” he said again, with more significance. “But you don’t need to hide from me.”
Idris hesitated for one more moment, then ducked his head and began gathering his scattered medical supplies.
“This was a bad idea.” He grabbed for the bowl of bloody water; it spilled, sloshing aquamarine fluid over Wayland’s boots. Wayland tried to help; their hands collided. Again, Idris shied away, reaching for the soiled rags strewn on the floor. “You should go.”
Wayland levered himself off the bed. He paused by the door, slinging one arm up onto the doorjamb, to watch Idris gather bandages to his chest, his shoulders hunched protectively and his hair swept over one eye.
No, Idris was not particularly young. He was older than Fia, older than Sinéad. But he had spent the past thirteen years entombed in this mountain with no one but his sister and a brood of baby draigs for company. He was clearly inexperienced. Vulnerable. Possibly traumatized.
And Wayland could not bring himself to mind. He rubbed a still-bloody palm over his aching head and wondered whether he had shite for brains or just the worst luck in the entire world.
“Idris.” He pitched his voice to be heard over the rushing water far below.
Idris turned in surprise, as if he had expected Wayland to be long gone. Wayland met his eyes and chose his words carefully, fighting tooth and nail for a sincerity that did not come naturally.
“Whatever might have happened to you.” Don’t make a joke. “Whatever you look like.” Don’t make a fucking joke. “I think you’re beautiful.”
Idris stared at him.
“I’m not afraid to see you, Idris. Whenever you are ready to be seen.”
Then Wayland shut the door and wobbled off toward the kitchen in search of a bottle of mushroom whiskey to dull the pain.
To dull all the fucking pain.