23. Each Inch of Starving Skin
Each Inch of Starving Skin
This must be an illusion. Seren refuses to believe his eyes. Nevander is too strong. Any second now, he’ll shove forward, unharmed, golden blade striking—
Midnight yanks the sword free, and blood paints the air. As Nevander slumps to his knees, Midnight strolls forward.
“Fear not,” Midnight says, with nauseating calm. “I haven’t yet slain your guardian.”
More threat than reassurance, but the fae truth gives Seren the breath to speak. Nevander is still alive.
Even though blood stripes the peaceful meadow. Black from the augray. Red and shimmering from Nevander. Iron and scattered rubies in the silvery light.
“What do you want?” Seren demands, dagger hilt digging into his palm. Nevander’s feather crumples in his other hand.
Midnight’s swords vanish to their scabbards. “A pleasure to properly meet you, Prince Calithel.”
“Spare the bullshit,” Seren retorts. “We’ve met before.”
Surprise lifts Midnight’s carved features. “Do you believe so?”
More fucking fae nonsense. “You appeared in my palace two nights ago. We spoke.”
But that doesn’t make sense. How could Midnight break into the palace, yet not be able to cross a simple ring of mushrooms?
How did he know Seren would be here?
“What an interesting tale.” Midnight grins, sharp, and the wind whispers with laughter. “This is our first conversation.”
Seren has only been in the Summer realm a few weeks. Apparently, that’s long enough to expect the truth.
And maybe this is the truth. Maybe the person in the greenhouse was an illusion.
Or an imposter. Certain differences coalesce.
There’s a manic redness around this Midnight’s eyes.
An energy that sets Seren’s nerves on edge, even without his empathy.
Midnight’s armor is more elaborate today, dark gems glittering along his gauntlets.
Seren could have missed those details in the dark greenhouse. He could be misremembering everything now, as Nevander struggles to stand, too far away. But one detail is clear enough for Seren to grasp.
No scar glitters across this Midnight’s face.
It could be hidden with glamour. Fae value vanity almost as much as truth.
Opportunity seizes Seren’s heart, even in his panic. Fae can’t lie—and Midnight seems talkative.
“Are my brothers alive?” Seren asks, the words strange on his lips.
Midnight regards him, motionless for a breath. “Briar is alive and well.” He extends his hand, fingertips inches away from the mushroom boundary. “Follow me, and you can meet him.”
“How ominously specific,” Seren bites out. “What of Zavriel?”
Midnight lowers his hand. “Poor Zavriel died long ago.”
Oh. Seren hadn’t expected that to hurt. Another dead stranger. An imaginary brother, never to be made real.
“Did you kill him?” Seren asks, distant.
Another smile cuts Midnight’s face. “Blame not the sword for the hand that wields it. Yet can you blame the desperate hand for grasping in the dark?”
“More bullshit.” Seren jerks back. He doesn’t know what Midnight wants, but it can’t be good. “I’m not going with you.”
“You should reconsider, Prince Calithel,” Midnight says politely. “If you value that creature’s life.”
He turns, as if Seren isn’t a threat at all. Twenty feet away, Nevander shoves to one knee. His sword braces against the earth. Blood drips from the seams of his armor.
“Stay in the circle,” Nevander snarls, bright eyes fixed on Seren. “No matter what.”
“He’s a smart man,” Midnight remarks. “Haelwen would sacrifice a pawn to protect herself without even thinking. For herself, or the good of the realm—what was the difference?”
The play is obvious. Midnight’s goading Seren into doing something different than his mother. Tugging the strings of his human-raised morality. The distress Seren isn’t even trying to hide.
Midnight snaps his fingers. The surviving augray prowls towards Nevander’s shaky form.
“I can still call her off,” Midnight says.
Sudden anger burns away Seren’s fear, leaving new clarity.
Midnight is negotiating. That means Seren has power.
“You’re wrong about one thing,” Seren says, shields unraveling.
He reaches not for the ravenous augray, nor for Midnight’s muted chaos.
Nor for Nevander, who even in his pain still locks his emotions tight.
“My name isn’t Calithel. It’s Seren. I don’t know what Haelwen would have done, but I won’t surrender anything without a fight. ”
Seren’s magic spills, like opening a vein.
As his magic gushes out, more floods in.
Like connecting to Harmony or the honeysuckles, except unfocused.
Indiscriminate. Seren reaches for anyone, anything, that can help.
Rippling grasses. Ancient trees. Singing birds shocked into silence.
Burrowing snakes pausing in their mazes, and a nearby herd of creatures Seren can’t even identify, besides knowing they’re absolutely nothing like deer.
The wind trembles with awareness. The earth groans beneath Seren’s feet.
Child of Haelwen, calls a voice. Many voices. No voices at all. What do you ask?
Seren whispers, “Power.”
Midnight’s eyes narrow. “What are you doing?”
Seren barely hears him. The voice and voices answer in a singular chorus.
What do you offer?
Midnight steps back, blades jumping to his hands. A shape stalks behind him, then disappears. The meadow wavers in a haze of magic.
“What do you want?” Seren asks.
Summer answers, Everything.
Helplessness rocks through Seren. The price is more than Seren can afford: complete surrender. He cannot tell a lie, and he cannot promise that. Not for himself. Not even for Nevander.
But he doesn’t need to. He’s stalled for long enough. A glamour breaks, and Nevander appears at Midnight’s back. His sword hooks towards Midnight’s throat.
“You will not take him,” Nevander growls.
Midnight’s fear gives way to shivering delight. “Well played, Seren Calithel.”
Then he and the augray vanish.
Seren stumbles past the mushroom circle as Nevander staggers. Emptiness gnaws his bones, yet too much burns his edges. No wonder everyone says he needs a crown for this much magic. Pure necessity keeps him on his feet.
Nevander straightens, pale with effort. “You used Summer magic.” His eyes are wide with awe that would be flattering under other circumstances.
“I tried.” Seren seizes Nevander’s arm to keep him upright. “Negotiations fell through.”
Maybe it’s still flattering, even when Nevander’s bleeding like this. The hole in his breastplate is too small for Seren to see much. He can’t tell how bad the wound is. But panicking won’t help.
“I told you to stay in the circle,” Nevander says, leaning into Seren’s support.
The pale feather is still crushed and sweat-damp in Seren’s fist. He scrapes it into a pocket so he can grab Nevander with both hands. “Too bad I’m not bound to obey you either.”
Nevander sighs. “I was dreading you realizing that.”
“Can you walk?” Seren asks.
Nevander fails to hide his wince, and more of his weight settles on Seren’s shoulder. “Yes.”
Seren’s just grateful Nevander permits the help, one shaky step at a time. Relief nearly fells Seren as they cross the mushrooms. He gets Nevander to the base of the great tree and eases him down to a cradle of roots.
Seren sits back, hands covered in blood, and breathes through the nausea. Walking should be a good sign. Except Seren’s seen farmers walk into Wymond with the most appalling injuries.
“Let me see.” Seren’s fingertips pause against embossed cuirass. “How do I take this off?”
“You don’t need to be this calm,” Nevander says, so reassuring it hurts. “I’m not dying. I just need…”
Seren pulls a glass bottle from his own carryhold. “I have an elixir. I just don’t know how to take your stupid armor off.”
Nevander’s laugh is choked. “When did you grab that?” he asks, fumbling at his shoulders. One click at a time, hidden clasps fall open.
“It’s yours. I kept it after Primrose’s haven.
” Seren sets the elixir aside to ease the breastplate away.
It’s lighter than it looks, but he still has to concentrate not to drop it on Nevander’s thigh.
Would be just like him to sever an artery as he tried to fix someone. “I wanted to be prepared like you.”
“Funny.” Nevander freezes Seren with a touch. Bloodstained fingers against his cheekbone. “You’re the one thing I could never prepare for.”
Seren’s blood heats. “Everyone’s talking nonsense today. You, Midnight, Gevain… Are we safe in this circle?”
Nevander tenses at the names, then relaxes at the mention of danger. “This is the first mushroom circle Yarrow ever set. We renewed it year after year. Layers of magic. We’re safe.”
Blood soaks the green quilting, shockingly dark.
Steeling his nerves, Seren grabs a knife from his carryhold.
“I’m going to cut the fabric,” he warns, because pointing a knife at someone’s stomach would usually scare them.
But Nevander doesn’t flinch at all. As Seren saws the quilting—more difficult than expected—he continues, “How can mushrooms keep him out, when the palace wards can’t? ”
Nevander’s jaw tenses. Stress, or pain as Seren’s efforts tug at his wound. Or both. “I don’t know.”
The injury is better and worse than Seren expected. So small an opening, yet such sickening depth. “He said today that we had never spoken before.”
Nevander’s hand falls to Seren’s thigh. Tightens in pain, perhaps without him noticing. “So, one was an imposter.”
“Or a vision.” Seren’s bloodstained fingers slip on the elixir stopper. He wipes his hands on his exquisite trousers. “But something else occurs to me. Some fae have unique talents, right?”
“Your empathy,” Nevander says. “Haelwen’s memories.”
The bottle opens. Falling silent, Seren pours its entire contents onto Nevander’s stomach. Golden liquid shimmers when it meets blood, pooling upwards against gravity to gather in the wound.
Nevander’s breath catches, then eases. Seren breathes again too. Relief hovers dangerously behind his ribs.
“I just wonder,” Seren says, hushed, as if speaking louder might make it real. “Could a high fae have the power of lies?”
Nevander touches his chest as the elixir works. His color has already improved. “I don’t know. I never would have thought of that.” Nevander tries to sit upright. “I’ll ask Ritekeeper Jasper to consult the—”
“Down!” Seren holds Nevander by the shoulders, fond and frustrated and scared. “You still have a hole in your gut.”
Yet as the elixir knits Nevander’s flesh together, his expression hardens.
Every trace of weakness blows away like dust, leaving only bright steel.
“Whatever Midnight’s power, he shouldn’t have been here.
Today’s journey wasn’t planned, and I told nobody our destination.
Unless he can track you…” Nevander looks away. “Of course.”
“What is it?” Seren asks.
“That time outside your village,” Nevander says quietly.
“He shouldn’t have known where to send the augray.
The changeling spell hid you completely.
” This time, when Nevander tries to stand, Seren doesn’t stop him.
Nevander braces one hand against the great tree.
“He followed me instead. He found you because I was watching you.”
The weight is almost too much. Missing brothers and missing realms and magic Seren barely begins to grasp.
There’s one mystery he can unravel now, if he tugs the chain hard enough. “How long were you watching me?”
“I shouldn’t have.” Nevander’s gaze darts everywhere but Seren’s face. “Haelwen forbade it, for good reason.”
“How long?” Seren repeats, undeterred.
Nevander releases the tree, supporting himself. “Two years. It took me a while to find the village.”
That’s longer than Seren expected. Far longer than he noticed.
Did Nevander get careless over the last few months, or did Seren get more observant?
How much of Seren’s pathetic life did Nevander witness?
Chatting with the neighbors. Helping Alard.
Avoiding Edith. Dunking his head in the water bucket on hot summer days.
Scratching his ass. Lonely walks along the stream.
Two years. That’s not a passing interest. Seren used to dream that someone might want him. His hand burns with the brand of Nevander’s feather. The weight of the sparring branch.
“Why did you watch me?” Seren asks, yearning to fly again.
“I needed to protect you,” Nevander answers, knocking him to earth.
Seren turns aside. Nevander’s closing off again, and Seren doesn’t have the strength to push. He can only be rebuffed so many times before he gets the hint.
He wants to be special, but he’s just an obligation.
Seren can close himself off too. “Your diligence is admirable. We should return to the palace.”
Nevander swears and grabs Seren’s arm. “That was then, but it’s different now.” Urgency tightens his brow. “You’re so much more than I imagined, Seren. And if you still want my emotions, I’ll lay them bare.”
“Yes,” Seren breathes, without needing to think. “Show me everything.”
Trepidation whispers into Seren’s lungs. He welcomes it, greedy for the faintest hint of Nevander’s secrets.
Then the storm crashes.
Bright deep soaring, gold dark dreaming, dagger claws of desperate need. Adoration bleeds from veins torn asunder, stitched anew with longing threads. Summer blooms eternal, its mysteries written clear in crystal and vine and the softest skin.
Devotion binds itself, and rather than stifling it, the control only intensifies every desire. Seren has never felt his body the way he now feels each inch of starving skin.
When they sparred, Nevander hadn’t simply wanted to kiss him. He’d wanted to own Seren, body and spirit, from now until forever.
“Gods’ mercy, you can keep a secret,” Seren says, dazed. “Sometimes I thought you hated me.”
Nevander holds him by the hips, steadying them both. “Hatred would have been simpler.”
“You want me,” Seren says, because the very idea is magical. His hands slide into Nevander’s hair. “Is there anything else I should know?”
Something dark and delicious crosses Nevander’s face. Flares across the shield before Nevander can close it off again. “If you marry Gevain, I will kill him.”
Laughter escapes Seren’s lips. “Don’t think about—”
Nevander’s kiss silences him.