Corsets and Comfort
ERAVIC
Eravic watched her carefully, sure to keep his expression as unreadable as possible. Not an easy feat for a man with Vaelor blood, but he made a valiant effort nonetheless.
She removed her cloak. "What happened?" he said, one eyebrow raised.
You know what happened, you shit, he told himself.
The dress was quite literally lopsided, and was the same one she had left him in yesterday.
"I am no good with the leather fashions of Morrath," Asharin said with a shrug.
He wondered if she knew she was a terrible liar, or if she simply did not care. He had known she was a terrible liar since the first time she came out dressed as a boy that did not look like a boy at all.
Eravic focused on keeping his face blank. Inside he was seething, although he had no right to be. He knew exactly what had happened. She had clearly found a way to reach Colsar. Despite his warning that she should not exhaust herself she had pushed through the wards to get to him.
The thought annoyed him. Exasperated him, even.
Eravic did not get angry often. But her appearance tonight made him angry. She was weak and exhausted after fighting for her life for weeks.
Fighting for her life.
And what does Colsar Rathmor do?
He had likely fucked her into a deep sleep she was only recently rising out of. And then did not even have the decency to tie her dress correctly.
He knew he was not being entirely reasonable. Colsar Rathmor was not necessarily a bad man. Nothing about him seemed deserving of Asharin though.
He studied her carefully as she eased herself into the chair in front of the hearth. He had spent hours trying to perfect the fire so it provided exactly the right amount of warmth. He had rebuilt it twice before she arrived. He was not going to tell her that.
"A bigger vial this time?" Asharin grimaced.
"They get bigger each time," Eravic said. His voice was not apologetic. You need as much of it as you can get if you are going to destroy yourself for him each night.
She shifted in the chair and more of the leather slid. One of those perfect breasts was halfway out of the dress.
"Come here," Eravic said.
She eyed him suspiciously. "Why?"
"Your dress is ridiculous. Let me retie it."
She nodded and stood in front of him. He noticed how wobbly her knees were as she walked. He undid the uneven ties of the corset strings and carefully looped them, his hands moving efficiently, not lingering anywhere they had no business lingering.
"I will leave the corset loose since you will be napping, princess."
"It will not fall off?"
"No. It will be securely on. Just—" He paused. "I want you to be comfortable." Something about the admission made him feel more vulnerable than he wanted. He almost kicked himself for it.
It did not take long to tie the strings. When he was done he let out an audible breath of relief and almost kicked himself again. She did not comment and he could only hope she had not heard it.
She plopped back into the chair. "Ale?"
"Aye," he said quietly. "But not for you." He studied her. "You look worse than yesterday."
"How kind," she said calmly. "Lord Eravic, your charm grows with each passing day."
He snorted and handed her the vial. "Drink."
The first time she had made a face he had privately found entertaining. Tonight she simply swallowed it and handed the vial back.
"Worse each time," she said.
He frowned instead of answering.
"Have you been coughing?"
Her expression didn't change.
"A little."
"Blood?"
She was quiet just long enough to answer the question.
"...Yes."
He closed his eyes briefly.
"Asharin."
"I'm taking the treatment."
"I know." His voice was calm, but tighter than before. "It was never meant to hold the poison back forever. Only to slow it."
"Perhaps Axar will find the antidote. Or one of your people. Or one of Colsar's."
Perhaps. But each day the poison reached a little farther.
"Perhaps." He held her gaze. "But until then, you need to stop spending what little strength you have left."
She gave him a look.
He gave her one back. She looked away first, which he also privately found entertaining, and said nothing more about it.
He pulled the second chair closer to the hearth and sat. The fire was doing what he had spent the better part of an hour making it do — throwing heat without smoke, burning steady without crackle, the kind of fire that was useful rather than simply decorative.
"How long before I feel it?" she said.
"Not long. Rest while you can."
She tilted her head against the back of the chair and looked at the ceiling. He looked at the fire.
"Eravic."
"Mm."
"Why are you angry?"
He kept his eyes on the fire. "I am not angry."
"You have been angry since I took the cloak off."
"I have been focused."
"You have been angry," she said simply. "I have known you long enough to tell the difference."
He said nothing.
"Is it the dress?" The corner of her mouth moved.
"The dress," he said, "is a separate issue."
She laughed. Soft and tired. He felt it somewhere he was not going to examine right now.
"I had to see them," she said. Quieter. "I know what you said about exhaustion. I know. But I had to."
"I know you did."
"Then why are you angry?"
He looked at her. She was watching him with those gold eyes that had been catching him off guard since before he even knew they were gold. Even when they were glamoured into a warm brown and he had seen her that first time across a tavern and even then had wanted her more than he cared to admit.
"I am not angry at you," he said. "I am angry at the situation."
"That is a very diplomatic answer."
"I am a very diplomatic man."
She snorted. He almost smiled.
He looked back at the fire. The thing about retrieving the Arrolyn was that he had always known what awakening it would do and what it would not do. It would make her whole. If awakened, it would cure the poison. It would give her back the part of herself she had been missing for her entire life.
It would not make her his.
He had understood that from the beginning.
He had not anticipated that the wanting would get worse as it went on. Proximity was supposed to help. Usually when you saw something up close long enough the wanting became manageable, incorporated itself into the background of things. Usually.
This had not done that.
"Sleep," he said. His voice was even. He was grateful for that.
"I am not tired."
"You are exhausted."
"Those are not the same thing," she said — which was his line, and she knew it, and from the look on her face she knew that he knew it.
"Sleep," he said again.
She shifted in the chair, pulling the loose corset around herself, and closed her eyes with the expression of someone doing it to humor him rather than because they intended to actually sleep.
Within three minutes she was asleep.
He sat in the other chair and watched the fire and did not examine any of the things he was not going to examine tonight. There were several of them. He was practiced at this by now.
He simply sat. He watched the fire. He waited for the treatment to do what it was doing and for the night to pass and for her to awaken so he could watch her walk back through the dark toward a ward he could not cross to reach a man he had never met and had no particular quarrel with and yet.
He put another log on the fire.
He waited.