17. Epilogue
Epilogue
Viau put a hand on the top of Rafi’s head the moment Rafi knelt between his thighs.
He would have heard Rafi moving from the bed unless he’d been lost in his study of the buds that had appeared on his Lowland False-Fern, but even if he had been so intent on his work that he hadn’t heard a sound, Rafi never startled him, couldn’t, with Rafi’s aer calling to him.
Viau hummed and slid his fingers into Rafi’s hair while he moved his legs farther apart to accommodate him. He hummed the same way sometimes upon waking, after Rafi had snuck into his room in the palace to curl up next to him.
They could share a room. But Viau insisted that Rafi should have a space for himself, for some reason believing that every young person needed that, although Rafi suspected it was Viau’s way of sparing himself future pain if Rafi wanted to leave him.
Viau would probably disagree. He also forgot that Rafi had spent much of his childhood on his own. Space was not something Rafi had been lacking.
So he found his way to Viau’s room at the palace or the academy, or Viau found his way to his, scratching at the door in the manner of a kitten despite how people called Rafi a cat.
The palace was vast and many of those who lived within its walls traveled on the king’s business, so though Rafi had found a placement there, he and Viau did not see each other every day.
Which was why Rafi saw no point in pretending that he didn’t need their nights together.
Nonetheless, Viau would hum as he stirred to wakefulness and then greet Rafi with a rasp in his voice and arms already pulling him close.
A year apart is reasonable, he’d insist anyway come morning, as if Rafi didn’t know the warm pool of his aer by heart and couldn’t feel the small eddies of worry.
That was poetry but the kind Rafi understood.
He hummed back, rubbing his cheek on Viau’s knee before looking up.
They’d returned to the academy shortly before midnight and fallen asleep almost immediately.
Naturally, Viau had run to his plants before bathing or shaving or even dressing.
He paid one of the gardeners to care for them in his absence but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t want to check them himself and make notations.
He was somewhat anxious, the ideal, for all that he acted at ease in public.
Rafi let him brush messy curls from his eyes with ridiculous levels of care.
Well, for that, and because Rafi enjoyed the ridiculous levels of care.
In the end, Rafi was not much different from any of the plants in the windowsills.
“I thought you’d sleep more, beautiful.” Viau smiled ruefully down at him, as if he was the one at fault when Rafi had interrupted his work to force him from the desk so he could kneel at his feet.
“I was going to finish this and then wake you to get breakfast… or perhaps an early lunch if we were delayed.” He arched an eyebrow.
Rafi gazed back with his cheek on Viau’s knee.
He debated cooing but didn’t think it would be necessary to get what he wanted.
“But I should have known,” Viau continued, cupping Rafi’s jaw with his other hand.
“You aren’t nervous? This is excitement? ”
Rafi fought the urge to frown.
“We got here late,” he explained himself while dancing his fingers up Viau’s bare thigh. Once again, Viau had rushed to his work wearing only the shirt he’d worn to bed. “And before then, when I snuck into your room, you weren’t there. For four days, Vi.”
He did coo. The more time he spent in the capital, the more he learned that there were people who mocked miná and nex for that. He had also learned that they would not do it if Rafi turned to them with his hand on his hilt.
“Menace,” Viau named him, shivering but letting Rafi put his fingers where he wanted them. “Killer. Ruthless beauty. It’s no wonder they fought over you.”
Rafi rather thought nobles had fought over his placement—if that was even true—because it was a coup to get Viau’s lover for one of their swersoldi. But he didn’t say so, using his aer to push the hem of Viau’s shirt up and out of his way.
“You don’t need to sneak in,” Viau continued, dragging his hand down the side of Rafi’s face and then offering fingers for Rafi to suck.
“Which you know, clever beast. You say that to torment me. As if I don’t want you with me every night.
As if I have not spent two ruts bruising you and don’t dream of the next. ”
Rafi pulled his head back and swallowed the spit pooled beneath his tongue. “You could bruise me now.”
He had become quite skilled. If not the best, then close to it. He had discussed the matter with courtesans but mostly found practice to be the best instructor. He learned best through action.
Viau rubbed his thumb over Rafi’s wet lips, then sighed with pleasure or longing when Rafi sucked his fingers in again. “I wish for you to know all of palace life. To become a legend if you see fit, a legend separate from me.”
Impossible, even if Rafi wanted to leave him. If Rafi gained such status—as Bellai seemed determined to make happen, with his storytelling and love of drama—it would be because of Viau, always. Rafi didn’t mind. Viau’s Rafi was a nobler name than Tizzan would ever be for him.
He demonstrated that with a pleased rumble and a curling of his tongue.
“We might be late,” Viau warned fondly. “We might get looks.”
The miné who had worn Rafi’s bites at his throat before the entire court didn’t care much about those looks, but Rafi still flinched from them.
The king had a cool, hard-to-read expression, more impassive than any swersoldi. But the first time Viau had let those mouth-shaped bruises on his neck show, the king had turned to look over the back of the room until he’d unerringly found Rafi even though they had never been introduced.
Rafi was perhaps not meant to mark the favorite.
Viau had drawn Rafi’s mouth back to his throat a week later, so Rafi left the matter to be a dispute between the cousins and, for his part, worked to keep away from the king’s notice.
Bellai insisted that could not stand, not if Rafi wanted his name to become known, and had taken it upon himself to do something about it.
Viau slid a hand to the back of Rafi’s head and gripped a handful of his hair, stopping Rafi before he could inch forward to get Viau’s cock in his mouth.
“Purring cat.” The fond warning was back.
Rafi stopped teasing Viau’s fingers to glare at him.
“Pareli is the cat.” A side character in one of Bellai’s newer plays.
A swersoldi who stalked about the stage, studied everyone, and spoke rarely.
He was also in love with the hero, or so everyone in the audience believed, somehow gathering that from his gait or the cautious way he spoke.
Rafi only understood it because the hero was not Viau, but he might have been.
In the play, that character who was not Viau was a king, of course. Well, a prince but soon to be the king. With his faithful swersoldi, Pareli the Cat, there to support him.
“I am not a cat,” Rafi went on, as though he were not being petted as he sat at his master’s feet. “I’m your storm cloud. Your tumbling rosikai vine. Your Rafi. But no cat.”
Viau made a sound, neither a rumble nor a growl, then released a long, slow breath.
“And I’ve no choice but to let you have your way.” A complaint uttered with a smile and a push at the back of Rafi’s skull to tell Rafi he could have what he wanted.
“You won’t stop petting?” Rafi had only that question. Viau drew him in, and stroked a slow, shivery touch down his cheek all the way to his neck, until Rafi dropped his jaw and surrendered himself to be used.
Sometime later, dressed, bathed, Viau freshly shaven, Viau pressed a kiss to the back of Rafi’s neck before tying a ribbon into his hair for him.
Rafi fussed unnecessarily with his coat.
The coat was meant for traveling and thus was sturdy and well made, but not as well made as the one he wore to court, which was still nowhere near as fine as anything Viau wore.
Viau said that was a matter of time. That Rafi would learn his own tastes now that he earned his own money, and anyway, noble families liked their swersoldi to dress well, especially the pretty ones, and would have clothes made for him soon enough.
All the same, Rafi was grateful the coat wasn’t too out of the ordinary for the academy, and that his curls were as arranged as they could ever be.
“I can feel your nerves,” Viau murmured above his ear before coming around to look Rafi over in a professional manner.
Rafi stood still for the inspection, though he was being chided. He had been nervous before, but it wasn’t as if nerves were the only reason he wanted to have Viau’s hands on him.
“I’m acceptable?” he asked, disliking the flutter all through him, although it did earn him a gentle kiss on his forehead.
“More than acceptable.” Another kiss. “My aertotius.” Viau always whispered that word, as if it frightened him. If he was like Rafi—and he was—it was out of fear that was he mistaken. That Rafi still might someday throw him away, that he might do the same to Rafi.
Rafi grabbed Viau’s fine coat to keep him close for another moment, comforted by how aer was given to calm him, and how it felt to have that trust and warmth near his own. Then he sucked in a breath, straightened his shoulders, and pulled back.
“All right.” He made his voice firm as if Viau would ever be fooled, then led the way from the room. Viau’s hand found his, making his cheeks burn, but Rafi didn’t shake the touch away.
His heart was thumping. The sting in his face almost a distraction as he walked through the academy grounds, still familiar from all his visits though he had left for his placement half a year before. A few nodded to them, to Viau, mostly, but some had a friendly greeting for Rafi.
“Not a cat,” he insisted again after Viau had paused to exchange a few words with one of the gardeners.