Chapter Twenty-Four #4
Verusias was the one to stare now.
“Can I read this?”
Verusias gestured to the heap of pillows piled onto a rug in the center of the room. Ethyr plopped into it. It was surprisingly comfortable. He opened the book on his lap and tried to decipher the handwriting.
“Ugh.” Verusias sighed, falling beside him and snatching the book up. “I’m getting a headache just watching you. It’ll take you a year to finish it at that pace. Just… listen.” Verusias snuggled deeper into the pillows, shoulder against Ethyr’s, and started reading out loud.
“In ancient black, that pitch of life, heaving forth from all that came before. Take heed, give ear, to those who have witnessed love, loss, and war.”
His voice, clean and clear, lilted through the words almost like a song. Ethyr closed his eyes and listened.
He’d never known much about the Gods’ War: he’d been taught only that the wild gods hadn’t liked sharing with humans and sought to destroy them, killing them with famine, disease, and flood, until the civilized gods fought back to protect humanity and won.
The tales were mostly exciting adventures of battles and trickery.
This written retelling was far more grandiose and romantic.
Verusias’s beautiful voice gave life to tales of the gods’ heroism and intelligence, their brilliant schemes and tender loves.
Even the wild gods were painted with some humanity, like the god of darkness wailing over Vaire’s body after being tricked into killing him, tearing out his own heart in his grief.
When Verusias read the last line, the room was dark with long shadows from a low sun. Poyut and Ithen were still standing dutifully at the door, and Ethyr had ended up with his head on Verusias’s shoulder, vaguely reading along with him.
“Is all that true?” Ethyr asked him.
“Who knows,” Verusias said ambivalently, closing the book and resting his hand on the cover.
“It’s just a story for entertainment, I don’t imagine much of it is true.
If you want to know exactly what happened during the war, you’d have to ask the gods themselves.
” Verusias glanced up at the dusky sky through the glass.
“Herith probably has supper ready by now. Let’s eat. ”
There was something intoxicatingly simple about living on the estate—even simpler than village life.
There were no chores, no concerns, no politics.
He woke and dressed and wandered the grounds with Poyut while Verusias stayed most of the morning in bed, more entertained by his guard than his grounds.
Ethyr was hosted well enough by attendants and workers, who humored his nosy curiosity and showed him the inside of the winery and how the berries were processed and turned to wine, allowing him to taste the different varieties they were getting ready to ship across the kingdom.
His request to help pick berries was met with horror thinly veiled by polite refusal.
Apparently a king doing such manual labor was unheard of.
The gardeners were bursting with pride to show him their gardens—Ethyr got the feeling Verusias never paid them much attention.
They waxed on about their choice of flower or tree, their placement in the garden or in relation to each other, their reasoning behind the garden layout, even explaining the insects they saw and their role—beneficial or detrimental—to the plants.
After dinner around mid-day—or whenever Verusias decided to finally leave his room—he spent the rest of the day with Ethyr, prying gossip and news out of him while he answered Ethyr’s questions about his time with the gods or in the temple.
When he wasn’t entertaining Ethyr, Verusias was writing letters or reading the ones that came from the capital, drawing portraits, reading books, or playing instruments.
He lived his life with carefree ease, demanding whatever he wanted even when it made the attendants get a panicked look in their eye.
It made Ethyr wonder if maybe he would get an estate after the gods released him from service; living lazily with Mikel, providing entirely for Dei and Tebhen, enjoying wild gardens that someone else had to worry about maintaining, eating luxurious food that someone else had to grow and prepare and cook.
Then he remembered what was waiting for him back at the palace, what he had to deal with between now and any potential future, and wished again that he’d never been made king.
Six days passed surprisingly quickly with how little he did. Despite the man’s self-assured ridiculousness, Ethyr enjoyed Verusias’s company, and it was a bitter ache in his chest to think of leaving him and going back to isolated boredom.
Verusias had untangled himself from Ithen to stand with Ethyr on the morning of his departure.
With his hair in a frizzy braid and his tunic rumpled and haphazardly thrown on, he watched the carriage get hooked to the horses and loaded with Ethyr’s trunk and several trinkets Verusias had gifted him, as well as the stolen book.
Ethyr turned to him, taking his hands. “I had a lovely time.”
Verusias smiled. “Good. I hope you’ll come back, it can get terribly boring here.”
“I’ll try. Thank you for inviting me, I don’t think I would have ever come if you hadn’t.”
Verusias furrowed his brow at him in confused amusement. “What do you mean? I didn’t invite you, you wrote me, asking to come.”
Ethyr blinked, taken aback. “What? I didn’t write to you.”
“Well someone did, requesting if you could visit.”
Hazy confusion dawned to choking realization. He whipped to look at Poyut, who had the same frantic understanding in her eyes.
“Kavor,” she called to the stable boy checking the horses’ hooves. Of course she’d learned all the servants’ names in six days. “Get my horse tacked immediately. Now.”
The boy looked up, frightened by the angry authority in her voice. “H-he’s already tacked.”
“Then bring him out.” Poyut turned to the other guard. “The king and I are going ahead on my horse. Stay with the carriage.”
“Is something wrong?” Verusias asked.
“No,” Ethyr said on reflex, then closed his eyes. “Yes. Just… we have to get back to the palace. Thank you for your hospitality.”
Kavor led Poyut’s white stallion from the stable, groomed, braided, tacked with the ornamented saddle and bridle for a palace retinue, not a mad dash across the Walklands.
“Your Divinity.” Poyut crouched and laced her fingers together. He stepped into them and let her hoist him onto the front of the saddle, then she swung in behind him and picked up the reins.
“It was just six days,” he said, holding onto the mane. “He couldn’t have done much damage in that time, could he?”
“Almost eight days, by the time we get back,” Poyut said grimly. “I’m sure he utilized every second.”
“Farewell,” Verusias called, voice light with uncertainty, as Poyut spurred the horse into an immediate canter.