Chapter 5
CHAPTER 5
T omorrow, Leofric would have to see if the Medicus had any way to test for madness. Surely that was the only probable cause for his current actions. He hefted a few practice swords, checking the balance. They were made of wood, but filled with cores of lead to increase the weight, carved in the shape of a true blade. They wouldn’t cut a man’s head off, but they could offer one hell of a beating.
He had sparred with His Highness and Auro, so he knew the strength present in the man undressing opposite him. Auro wasn’t a martial sort, but he held immense power in those soft hands of his, and Leofric already had a taste of what Cosmo could do. He tried a practice swing with his left hand. It had plenty of strength behind it, but it was still slower, more cumbersome than a similar blow with his right. Even a second or two could mean his life in battle, and while Leofric didn’t think Cosmo would try to kill him, the risk of injury was great. It wasn’t just his pride that would be singed if he lost here. Risking injury sparring with a volatile demigod wouldn’t help feed his sister-in-law or her son. The King would surely dismiss him immediately if injured. What good was a maimed man for protecting the prince?
He should not be doing this.
The sun was setting, but Leofric’s eyes adjusted well to the dark, and Cosmo seemed likewise unaffected. They readied their weapons, facing one another across a circle drawn in the sand floor of the practice yard.
“Ready?” Cosmo asked him.
Leofric nodded, adjusting his grip on his sword. “Come,” he said.
Cosmo sauntered around Leofric in a circle. His form was impeccable, Leofric had to admit, as he spun on his heel, tracking the movement of Cosmo’s blade. His steps were so languid, so casual that Leofric almost missed the tell. Almost. Cosmo made to continue his sunwise circle, but his eyes gave him away. He pivoted, faster than Leofric expected, but he got his sword up in time to block the blow. The force of it rang through his whole arm; Cosmo was stronger than he looked. Leofric had the reach on him, and at least two stone of weight if he were any judge, but beneath the freckled skin Cosmo was surprisingly sturdy.
“Very good,” said Cosmo, his tone light and mocking as he backed off a step. “A bit slow.”
Leofric dodged sideways as Cosmo lunged, went to one knee and tangled his practice sword between Cosmo’s legs to send him sprawling. “I’m quick enough.”
Cosmo spat out a mouthful of sand. “I’ll bet.”
Leofric watched as Cosmo got to his feet and regained his fighting stance, sword ready. When he charged, this time he was ready for Leofric’s dodge and mirrored it, bring his sword up to catch Leofric’s blow. Neither stepped back or gave ground, and their swords came together again, and again, and again. Cosmo plainly had exquisite training, and he was quick as a cat—but Leofric could also see he was rusty, like perhaps he hadn’t lifted a sword in the last several decades—or centuries. “You’re not half bad,” he called to Cosmo, when he finally shoved him off a few steps. He pointed at him with his blade, panting. “For someone so old.”
The hilt of Cosmo’s wooden sword smoked beneath his hand. “You’re the one breathing like a sow in labor,” Cosmo shot back.
It was true. Leofric had lost track of things, somewhere during their dance. The sun had truly set, and the torches lighting the walkway seemed unusually bright. How long had they been at it? His arms suddenly felt as lead, but unfortunately, Cosmo still bounced lightly on the balls of his bare feet. Cosmo might have been getting more angry, more reckless, but one thing he hadn’t gotten more of was tired. Leofric might well have to yield this fight, or risk being seriously hurt. The thought tasted like bile, and he shook the ache from his limbs as best as he could and readied his sword. “Aye,” he agreed. “It’s my imitation of your mother.”
It was a cheap tactic, and hardly an honorable one. Leofric knew that, but fighters were just men, after all. And men were fools. Cosmo flew at him, as Leofric had known he would. Fast, erratic blows rained down upon Leofric like hailstones, but they didn’t land as true as the ones Cosmo had used to open the dance. Leofric cursed, half a dozen opportunities coming and going to strike a blow that his right hand could have seized, while it was all his left could do to keep the sword aloft. His plan to goad Cosmo into making a reckless mistake suddenly seemed foolish, foolish and possibly deadly.
And then Leofric was on his back, staring up at a bruise dark sky. Cosmo stood over him, practice sword ready to core the apple of his throat. “Do you yield?”
The wooden hilt beneath Cosmo’s fingers had blackened, Leofric saw, with a thrill of fear. He held his tongue.
Cosmo dragged the blunted point down Leofric’s chest, letting it rest on a fresh bruise that had already formed along his ribs. He squatted in the sand, stared into Leofric’s face as he eased just a bit of his weight onto the sword, pressing it into the tender flesh of Leofric’s side. “ Yield, ” Cosmo hissed.
Leofric pressed his lips together and shook his head. The point of the practice sword pressed into the bruise, and the sweet, delicious ache spread down his side from armpit to hip, and Leofric shivered.
Cosmo startled, his face transforming into one of astonishment.
They stared at each other in silence for a beat, but Cosmo recovered himself first. “Oh,” he said softly, his wicked smile returning. “Is that the way of it?”
Leofric’s retort was lost on a choked gasp as Cosmo leaned more of his weight onto the sword, pressing it harder and harder into the bruise. The pain was bone deep and exquisite.
Then, all at once, the pain, the weight, the smell of Cosmo’s sweat, all of it vanished. Cosmo stood and tossed his sword aside, laughing. “I yield,” he said.
Flustered, Leofric scrambled to his feet. “What?”
“I yield,” said Cosmo, the torchlight dancing in his hazel eyes. “No victory could be half as sweet as this.”
Leofric watched, furious and bewildered, as Cosmo sauntered back up the path toward the barracks.
The royal villa was in an uproar. Preparations for the arrival of Queen Dafina had the place boiling over with activity as every inch of the villa was scrubbed and polished in advance of her approach. The welcome feast for her entourage would be staggering in its extravagance. Cosmo spent a fair amount of his extra time down at the kitchens, sweet-talking the cooks into sharing some of their choicest morsels as they tested recipes and gathered delicacies to please the foreign queen, all at Prince Alexios’s behest.
“Doesn’t it bother you?” Cosmo asked his brother.
“Does what bother me?” Auro frowned over a pair of ancient, crumbling scrolls spread in front of him. Cosmo was supposed to be helping him search for any clues that might assist them in their quest to break the curse, or understand the nuance of their mother’s attempt to break it herself. Auro loved studying about as much as Cosmo did, which is to say, not at all. Cosmo preferred stories with a lot more pictures, especially if the pictures were of naked people. If ever dragged to the library by in his youth, Cosmo would soon peel off and spend the hours searching the books for old works of art that contained breasts or cocks or something else diverting to look at. None of these dusty old histories had illuminations like that, sad to say, so they did little to keep Cosmo’s interest.
“Your prince,” said Cosmo. “Going to such lengths to impress this girl.”
Auro bristled. “It’s expected of him,” he said primly. “He doesn’t enjoy it.”
“Hmmm,” said Cosmo, flipping idly through a book. “Are you certain?”
“If you’re not going to help, please at least stop distracting me,” said Auro, refusing to take the bait.
When he looked up from his scrolls though, Cosmo saw that his blows had landed, and he felt guilty. “I’m trying to help,” said Cosmo. “I just don’t think the answers to our plight will be found in any of these books.”
Auro frowned at him. “Well, they certainly won’t, if we don’t look.”
Cosmo rolled his eyes and heaved to his feet, too restless to remain indoors. Perhaps he could convince Leofric to spar again. Cosmo had thought of little else since their bout a few days ago. “I need to stretch my legs.”
“While you do, could you try to give some thought as to where Kryos’s grace might have been hidden?”
“Me? How should I know?”
“Because,” said Auro patiently. “ You are his counterpart. I’ll put my mind to it, as well but…”
“But what?”
“I don’t think our counterparts are so arbitrary. When I truly thought about it, I figured out where Cedras’s grace was hidden. I am certain you know, deep down, where Kryos’s might be.”
“There’s no way?—”
“ Deep, deep down, perhaps,” said Auro.
Cosmo could tell he was being dismissed. He ventured out onto the balcony, letting the sun warm his face and inform him as to what the world might need. It was a meditative task, helped him clear his head. Unfortunately, when his head cleared, his mind showed signs of returning to his sparring session with Leofric. If he were being honest with himself, it hadn’t really left his mind at all.
Leofric was an expert fighter, Cosmo had understood that immediately. He would have to be, to have earned his current position, but seeing him in action had been something else entirely. He had been poised, focused, graceful. Every movement was like a dance. Even fighting with his off hand, Leofric had tested Cosmo sorely. Had Leofric been fighting with his dominant hand, there would have been no contest—Cosmo had used all of his self-control to fight as a mortal man, not to allow his temper to release his grace. All of that was well and good, but it wasn’t what had kept Cosmo awake the last few nights.
The arousal in Leofric’s tightly wound body had been unmistakable. Cosmo could smell it on him, could feel it humming through the air when he’d pressed his practice sword into Leofric’s bruise. It had staggered him, the strength of that want, braided inextricably with the pain. Cosmo couldn’t shake the notion, not that he tried all that hard. He wondered if Leofric had already known that about himself, the connection between pleasure and plain. He thought not. Leofric was not the sort to idly pursue his own desires. Before that night, Cosmo would have found it easier to believe Leofric didn’t even have any of his own desires.
Cosmo would be the first to admit that he was a lover, not a fighter. There were so many far more pleasurable things one could use one’s body for than the swinging of swords or the shooting of arrows. However, he had trained relentlessly as a boy, desperate to be like his older brothers. Desperate to be as strong, as fast, as…he frowned, remembering. It had been Kryos who had trained him, alongside Ozias and occasionally Cedras. Despite his bookish nature, Cedras had been a terror in the practice yard. His enormous reach and sharp mind had lent themselves well to developing martial skill. Auro usually hid whenever they were summoned to spar with one another. And over all of them, Kryos ruled, serving as master at arms, as no mortal had the stomach to train five Godlings, and their father hadn’t the patience. The only times Cosmo could ever remember seeing Kryos smile were when one of them performed some stance or step correctly, when one of his lessons had found its mark.
And there was one other time, too, that Kryos had smiled. At least, smiled where Cosmo could see it. The memory was a dim one—it had already begun fading into the annals of lost childhood moments even before Cosmo had been cursed, but he tried to chase it now, tried to catch what remained of it. It was important, he felt, though he could not have said why.
Cosmo and his brothers had not fought much, as children—at least, not anything approaching the animosity of their adolescence, or young adulthood. He had idealized Kryos, at that time. He was older, stronger, taller. He was so fierce. Cosmo couldn’t help but admire him. While Auro was like to run to their mother for protection, there had been a long time when Cosmo would have hidden behind Kryos. He’d defended Cosmo from their father’s wroth, from scoldings and punishments beyond count.
Kryos had been the first to drink from the chalice of their father’s grace. It was his right, as the eldest son. Cosmo had been beside himself with jealousy when he’d found out. Anything Kryos did was something Cosmo wanted part of, too. He couldn’t have been more than eleven, Kryos around fifteen. Cosmo sat heavily on a stone bench, smiling to think of it. Kryos was scarcely more than a boy, but at the time he’d towered over Cosmo, seeming like a man, not a child. Father had summoned Kryos, told him they were taking a special journey together to mark his ascent into manhood. Cosmo had not seen why he couldn’t have gone, too. He’d followed them.
Never in his life had Cosmo gotten in as much trouble as he had then—somehow, he’d nearly forgotten. They’d been on a mountain top. To young Cosmo it had been a frigid and terrible place but to Kryos… “ Auro! ” He leapt to his feet and ran back inside. “Auro, I think I have it!”