9. Still Good Things
Chapter nine
Still Good Things
Rerdas’s eyes drifted open to predawn light fuzzing the edges of the curtains. Imalroc’s arm was a steady weight across his ribcage. He closed his eyes and soaked in the feeling, the memories from the night before, the quiet, the impossible peace. He eased around to gaze at the man beside him.
Imalroc slept sprawled on his stomach, one arm cradling the pillow propped beneath his head, the other hand outstretched to touch Rerdas. His hair curved loose across his sharp cheek and pooled on his back like moonlight on marble.
Marks scored his relaxed arm. Most were small, but a darkened slash bisected his forearm as if someone had tried to cut it off.
A long, raised line wound its way from Imalroc’s elbow up around his biceps and over the back of his shoulder, a coil that could only be made by a whip.
He hoped Imalroc had torn apart whoever had used it.
Rerdas lay beneath Imalroc’s hand and breathed as slowly and quietly as he could.
If he made no disturbance, held still enough, perhaps time would stop too.
The world could recede, the seeping watercolor light would never turn to the bright demand of morning, and no one would come looking for either of them.
Let there be nothing but this bed, this man slumbering safe at his side.
It was only wistfulness. Etiana would hammer outside his room at first light. He couldn’t be caught in here.
Trying not to wake his companion, he shifted toward the edge of the bed. His eyes fluttered shut as Imalroc’s sword-calloused hand slid idly across his stomach. Images from the night flashed through him.
He’d hoped that the sex might be good, but he hadn’t been prepared to be completely taken apart. He’d slept with powerful men before, and none of them had seemed so aware of his responses, or had toyed with him until it was nearly unbearable and he was blind with need. Rerdas licked his lips.
It would be so unwise to ease down to the foot of the bed and wake Imalroc up with his tongue. They’d never make it out of bed, and tempting as the thought was, he wasn’t ready to try explaining that to his cousin.
He swung his legs over the edge. The floorboards creaked under his feet as he hunted for his discarded clothing, and he looked up guiltily to see if Imalroc watched him sneak away. But his normally watchful eyes stayed closed.
With one last look at the best thing to happen in ages, Rerdas backed out of the room, shutting the door so that it barely made a sound.
Rerdas had just finished dressing when he heard Etiana’s impatient fist rapping in the hall. She strode in as soon as he answered, balancing a tray of food in one hand and a letter scrunched in the other.
“Thank goodness you’re finally awake. I’ve been waiting.” She let the tray skid onto a table.
That didn’t bode well. “It’s only just past sunrise, Eti. What’s going on?”
“Nothing. Nothing is going on, and that’s exactly the problem. Where is the battleboxer?”
“Probably still asleep, like a normal person—”
“Well, he’s got to get up.” Etiana swung back toward the door. “I’ll go get him.”
Rerdas dropped the scone he was buttering. “No!” he blurted, and then tried to cover it. “Just let him sleep. He needs rest.”
“He needs to hear this too. Start eating!” Etiana called over her shoulder.
Rerdas stood, trying to think of something else to stop her, but she marched off before he could do more than sputter.
Any moment, there would be a horrified shriek when she barreled in on a stark naked battleboxer. Or worse, there’d be a horrified shriek from a man sleeping off good sex and being jarred awake for one of Etiana’s schemes. He chewed at the inside of his lip, but the noise he feared never came.
Etiana bustled back into the room. She appeared to be unflustered.
“He said he’ll be right in, and then we can get to planning. I’ve had enough of writing these damn letters to every booker in the country. What are you standing for?” She eyed Rerdas, who hauled his gaze from the empty doorway behind her.
“No reason.” He thumped back into a chair. “What’s wrong with the letters?”
“They’re dodging us. Look at this.” She thrust a crumpled paper at him. “My friend Baroness Eamon has been trying to help me set up a fight at Tamasyad for ages, since before we arrived in Lakara. The booker agreed to it, and then canceled!” She waved a second letter under Rerdas’s nose.
“Why?” He scanned the letter. It was all flowery apology.
“Did you say Tamasyad?” Imalroc asked quietly from the doorway.
Rerdas’s head snapped up. Imalroc wasn’t looking at him; his gaze trained on Etiana.
“Yes. It’s our next best option, unless we can get another fight at Navona.”
Rerdas shook his head. “Absolutely not.”
Imalroc’s gaze jumped to him, and Rerdas’s stomach flipped. Tingling warmth spread into his cheeks.
“Morning,” Imalroc said. His voice was calm and level.
“Fair morning.” Rerdas could feel his blush spreading. He stared helplessly into Imalroc’s face like prey transfixed.
“Yes, fair morning, everyone.” Etiana’s gaze swooped back and forth between them. “Now, can we talk business, please? We’ve got another problem besides Tamasyad.”
Imalroc approached the table and sat opposite Rerdas. “And that is?”
“Manolia wants us out.” Etiana sat heavily in the chair and shook her head.
“They won’t outright bar us from the rooms, but they’ve notified me of a truly ludicrous increase in price.
We can’t stay another night. I think we should head directly to Kibo.
We can stay with the Baroness, and once we’re in the city, I can argue with the booker at Tamasyad in person. ”
Rerdas finally dragged his gaze from Imalroc and gulped his tea.
They had stayed in Lakara for much longer than any of them expected, but…
things were finally going right. He felt a glimmer of hope here.
“I don’t know, Eti,” he began. “Kibo is full of the queen’s allies.
And we can find somewhere besides Manolia to stay, without leaving Lakara. ”
“To what end? It’s only costing us onyx to stay here. We need another fight.” Etiana glanced expectantly at Imalroc, but he concentrated on cutting a flaky egg pie into smaller and smaller pieces.
Deliberately ignoring what was happening, in all likelihood. Rerdas didn’t blame him.
He wanted to ask Imalroc to enter another fight about as much as he wanted to stick a carving knife through his own eye. “What about Aunt Uralta?” he tried. “We should wait for her to be a bit more stable.”
“If the sultana’s concoction keeps working, then it’ll only get harder to hide her. The sooner we can get to our Eastern feld, the better. We’re only a few fights away from having all the onyx we need.”
At that, Imalroc looked up. “Then we go to the next place we can book a battlebox.”
“Exactly! I suppose if you don’t want to go to Kibo, we could try the southern battleboxes, but most of them have been shuttered, and I’m not sure—”
Rerdas’s stomach flopped. “We cannot go anywhere near the Southern Felds, Eti. They’re rallying for rebellion.
And the Feldlords are looking for Aunt Uralta too.
” He remembered Feldlady Prentia Tythe striding into Umber’s house as though she owned it.
That was a woman he wanted to stay far away from.
“They’re closing battleboxes in the Southern Felds?” Imalroc asked. His eyes held a spark of brightness that told Rerdas exactly what unspoken thing he was thinking about.
Eternals, this could get messy. He understood why Imalroc might be interested in the south, but they couldn’t risk bringing Aunt Uralta there to chase the rumor of a phantom Advocate. Far too dangerous.
“The smaller ones have been closed,” Etiana said. “There’s talk that the capital city, Sol Serene, is outlawing battleboxing altogether.”
Imalroc turned to look intently, pointedly, at Rerdas.
“But Rerdas is right,” Etiana continued, musing aloud. “It’s unstable. Kuraya is furious with them, and likely watching travel into the Southern Felds more closely. We could go east instead.”
Imalroc glowered. “No. Not Drida.”
“Then…” Etiana looked again between Rerdas and Imalroc. “To Kibo? It’s the easiest to reach of all our admittedly poor options.”
Rerdas watched Imalroc, torn. They couldn’t go south. But he knew saying it would disappoint the battleboxer, and he wanted to talk with him more openly than he could with Etiana at the table.
They were already staring at each other for too long, Imalroc reading Rerdas’s face, and Rerdas unable to look away again.
The battleboxer shifted to Etiana, and he nodded. “Kibo,” he said heavily, “is better than Drida.”
***
They left Lakara in the rain, squeezing into a boxy coach. Rerdas insisted they leave the cage behind and have Imalroc ride inside the coach. Etiana squinted at the awful weather and agreed to it. The coach trundled through the city and out onto the muddy roads to the mountain passes and the west.
It was a terrible journey. Bad enough that the rain turned to a wintery barrage as they climbed into the mountains and the cold invaded the coach, icing out any desire to talk, plan, or pass the time.
But the real torture was that Imalroc huddled on the bench beside him, and Rerdas couldn’t touch him.
He cheated at every opportunity. Every lurch and tilt sent him sliding down the bench into Imalroc. The fourth time he plastered his leg against Imalroc’s, the battleboxer leveled him with a look that was almost a silent scold, and Rerdas wriggled guiltily back to his side.
It was worse when Etiana dozed opposite them, because with his cousin asleep, they could look at each other as long as they liked, but it only knotted Rerdas’s shoulders tighter. Imalroc didn’t seem to want to look at him, and the softness Rerdas had glimpsed was hidden away.
He wanted to be able to talk properly. He needed to tell Imalroc that the previous night was glorious, that he wanted more, again, more and more.
“Imalroc,” he whispered. “Last night—”