#arsa'olakai

[u4bik]

Skinny puppy

“Come on, come on,” Gaiol hisses at the warden’s back. “You don’t want to hack off Seiyslos, do you?”

The warden’s torso inflates and deflates with a sigh. “It’s been three years, what’s three more minutes? Besides, last I knew you were clanless when your little womb-dropping was checked in here. Technically he’s still clanless.”

Gaiol grinds his teeth. Old clanless habit locks his jaw against his usual cockiness. “He’s doing good, yeah? Gotten big?”

The warden stops before a barred gate. It takes a key and a spell to open the way. She pauses before leading the way through and Kaiol sees a deep and dark weariness in her as she turns to him.

“People don’t usually come here for their children, Gaiol Seiyslos.” Her red eyes look through him and give him the gift of fear. “Lower your expectations.”

Gaiol feels the air leave his lungs and the heated air push down on him. “What have you done?”

“Lower your expectations.” She turns back and resumes leading.

The new passage is smoky and humid. Drops of sooty black water roll down the walls and drop from the ceiling. Gaiol’s heart speeds the further they go. The air isn’t good here, worse than the clanless slums where he gave birth to his son.

His boy doesn’t deserve this. It’s so unfair. But at least that‘s over now. He earned the money needed, did his community service, and got adopted into one of Ilchathm’s top clans. Life has changed and his little Sasra gets to ride the momentum.

The warden takes another turn, unlocks another gate. This passage is even more humid, but the smoke isn’t as bad. The airflow is terrible. Sas wouldn’t do well in this kind of humidity without decent ventilation. Gaiol’s expectations plummet as advised. Sas would be sick. Maybe worse.

“You keep children in these conditions?” Gaiol clenches his fists. His hands are already sweaty from the humidity and his hair sticks to the back of his neck.

“No,” the warden replies without looking back, “just yours.”

Gaiol’s lips move around curses but he makes no noise.

They pass one of the big holding cells. It’s half empty, the prisoners off on their community service or something of that nature. “He’s not with the others?”

“No,” she replies and glances back with a smirk. “You really want your kid in with a bunch of clanless criminals?”

“Choke,” Gaiol hisses. He was, after all, a clanless criminal when all this happened. It’s the whole reason it turned out the way it did.

The warden snorts a soft laugh and halts in front of yet another gate. The smile fades abruptly from her face and the weariness returns. “You lowered your expectations, right?”

Gaiol nods. “Yeah, sure. They’re slumming somewhere with my opinion of this place.”

The warden surprises him by closing her eyes and shaking her head in what he perceives as sympathy. “Lower. Make them even lower.”

Terror begins to swell into a lump in his throat. His nose starts to run and his eyes itch with growing moisture. “Fire and fury, what have you done to my boy?”

She unlocks the door with a key and a hefty spell. “He might not recognize you. In fact, he’ll probably bite. He’s like an animal.”

Gaiol’s eyes widen in horror. He wipes tears from his eyes with the backs of his hands.

“Don’t act so surprised,” the warden says and turns from the gate. “You’re no pure blood, and his other father sure as hell wasn’t either. You did this. That’s why people like you lose your right of procreation.”

Gaiol presses his fists to his eyes. The guilt rolls over him and nearly crushes him down to the damp floor. It’s so bad he nearly misses the sound of the gate opening.

“It would’ve been better if you’d signed him away to auction. Now you pay the consequences. Go get him.”

It’s hard to swallow down the guilt but Gaiol gave his little boy his word. He gave his word to return for him.

He takes a steadying breath of heavy air and dries his eyes.

The holding cell is large, obviously meant for a large group, not one child. It’s empty of most furniture, but there’s a heap of pallet bedding in the furthest corner. In the middle of the room is a pool of bubbling water for bathing or drinking. Right next to the gate is a scattering of excrement and urine.

Gaiol crouches to take a look for blood in the refuse. There’s none but he sees tiny pale curved shapes moving in the freshest stool. “Why does he have grubs? What have you been feeding him?”

“He likes to play in his own filth,” the warden says. “We degrub him every thirty days. He’s due next week.”

“Doesn’t anyone ever come down here and play with him? Teach him?”

She doesn’t answer. She doesn’t have to. Nobody cares about a little mongrel boy, just his debt to society.

“Sas?” Gaiol says and stands. “Sas, it’s me. Gaiol, your baba.”

There’s a rustle from the pallets. Gaiol moves slowly toward them, crouching a little in case his height intimidates his estranged child.

“Sas? Arsasra? Let’s go home.”

A pallet tumbles back from the heap. In the darkness Gaiol sees two squinting red eyes. He swallows down more guilt at the blank stare. Gaiol stops next to the bubbling pool.

“Want to swim with me, Sas? Remember when we went to the sea? Remember the little fish? The tube worms? The little salamander I caught that burnt my fingers?”

He sits next to the pool and unstraps his ankle boots. “I’ll get you another salamander. Two or three. I’ve got the money and space for a little enclosure.”

The child crawls from the heap of pallets. It’s Gaiol’s son only taller and balder. Sas’s hair has been shaved to the scalp. He’s naked but for a dirty bandage plastered to his forehead. He’s skinny. Filthy. There’s crust around his dull eyes. His skin is ashy and cloudy with bruises, scattered scrapes, and sores. And on his abdomen a glowing cyan tattoo mars his skin.

How could they? Sas isn’t even eight years old!

Gaiol can’t breathe, but he slips his feet into the water. He has an identical brand on his abdomen: proof of sterilization. Sas is marked to receive the brand when he’s of age. “Come on, Sas. I gave you my word, didn’t I? I gave you my word I’d come get you.”

A little recognition passes over Sas’s face. He drops to all fours and approaches with caution.

Gaiol is at a loss. This isn’t the happy reunion he expected. He turns his face down to the bubbling pool and swishes his fingers through the hot water. “I’m sorry it took so long, Sas, but I have a home for us now. It’s all the way in the heart of the volcano. You’re not clanless anymore, either. You’re Arsasra Seiyslos. Doesn’t that sound good? Say it with me: Arsasra Seiyslos.”

Sas says nothing. He’s close, though. He sprawls on the ground just out of reach and drops his hands in the water.

“I’m sorry, Sas,” Gaiol says. Tears well up and roll down his cheeks. “I’m sorry.”

Sas turns onto his stomach and pats the surface of the water with his palms. Then he rubs his eyes with his wet hands. Some of the crust comes away and some of the dirt smears off his cheeks.

Long dormant habit returns to Gaiol. He dips his hand into the water and turns to wash his son’s face.

Five wet nails rake across Gaiol’s face.

Water drips from Gaiol’s hand, he’s frozen solid in wide-eyed shock. Sas’s fingertips drip blood. He pants in distress, eyes equally wide and staring. Then he falls back on his rump and bursts into silent tears. He makes very little noise, just gasping hiccoughs for air. Sas used to be damn loud. Why is he so quiet?

Despite the danger, Gaiol reaches for his little boy. Only weak resistance is given. While Sas cries, Gaiol begins washing the dirt and feces away.

“I can’t believe they cut your hair, Sas,” he murmurs. “Your beautiful hair. I’ll get a brush just for you. We’ll get it on the way home to Seiyslos.”

Sas leans toward Gaiol’s body and quiets down. His eyes are dull and he doesn’t make any eye contact, but he relaxes across his father’s bare legs. Another tear falls down Gaiol’s cheek. Sas has grown. He’s almost twice as tall. He doesn’t weigh much, but there’s good muscle tone. They fed him reliably and appropriately, it seems.

Once he has Sas clean, Gaiol inspects the bandage on his forehead. It’s padded out and though its surface is dirty, no blood shows through. It’s placed square in the middle of Sas’s forehead, as if to cover the scar, but the scar runs all the way down Sas’s nose.

He’ll never forget that day. The day a cleaver was brought down on his baby boy’s face. He’ll never forget the sound it made or the sight of his son’s strangely calm, yet surprised, expression. Sas’s eyes had crossed as he tried to look at the blade bisecting his nose. And then the blood, all the blood, that spattered and gushed everywhere.

Gaiol turns to the gate. The warden is watching, her body language projecting boredom, but her expression is tight. Pinched.

“What’s the bandage on his head for?”

The warden sighs through her nose. “He has a habit of rubbing or bashing his forehead into the walls. I think the scar itches. We had a doctor in for shirking public service. I brought her to see him and she thought it could be his bone knitting up from any disintegration eye formation may have caused.”

Right. “Did he spend all three years alone?”

“Mostly,” the warden says. “This isn’t a care home. Jail is no place for a child. You should have put him up for auction like we told you three years ago. He’s, what, seven? Eight? Kids need to be with someone.”

“Nobody told me he’d be alone.” Gaiol runs a hand over Sas’s shaved head. He used to brush his hair every time before bed and braid it after they woke up. He’s got silky hair, this kid, just like his other father. “You’re the people that failed to put him in with the others. Why would you torture him like that? It’s not his fault he turned out a mongrel.”

“What, house an innocent with all those criminals?” The warden snorts in disgust. “No, that’s not how it works. You know what else doesn’t work? Taking this long to check him out. Let’s go, Gaiol Seiyslos.”

Gaiol knows it’s useless to keep fighting the warden. He presses his lips to the top of Sas’s head. “We’re leaving, Sas. I’m going to pick you up and we’re going to go home. You don’t ever have to be away from your baba.”

Sas says nothing, gives no indication of understanding. He doesn’t resist when Gaiol straps up his boots and picks him up. Gaiol hopes that in time the crazy daredevil kid of before will rise to the surface.

He holds Sas close as they leave. The bandage chafes his neck as they go, but he allows it. “When did he stop talking? He used to be chatty as. He’d even talk in his sleep.”

The warden shrugs one shoulder. “He was pretty noisy to start off, but he stopped after a couple months.”

“And his hair?”

“Coal lice,” she says. “We had to delouse a lot of people in detention a few days ago. As for the scabs and scrapes, your boy is always highly physically active, he even catches and eats vermin. His magic is on a steady redevelopment track, too. If Seiyslos wants a mage, he should get in fine.”

They stop by the detention centre’s office to finalize the release. The clothes Sas arrived in are long gone but the warden scrounges up a soft gauze poncho so Sas isn’t completely naked.

She stops Gaiol before he heads out into the city and hands him a packet of strong-smelling herbal medicine. “His stomach’s weak from all the degrubbing. Give him this after you degrub him and keep him from playing in shit or there’ll be permanent damage.”

Gaiol tucks the packet into his loose shirt and sneers. “I’d thank you but it’s the least you could do after isolating my kid for three years.”

“I’m not the one that fucked a deep gnoll or whatever,” the warden scoffs. “Good luck with the adoption.”

Gaeol clears his throat and spits on the ground at the warden’s feet. “Fire take you.”

Sas keeps his face tucked into Gaiol throat as they walk. He’s long and gangly and Gaiol has to relearn the shape and heft of him. He keeps up a steady flow of murmured commentary along the way to keep his boy calm.

It’s unusual for a child Sas’s age to be carried, but they don’t attract attention on the pathways and open lanes. A mounted Ring patrol passes them without heed despite the scratches on Gaiol’s face. Ring patrols still make Gaiol feel uneasy. Old fears linger.

Along the way to Seiyslos, Gaiol stops for an expensive brush, healing salve for the scratches, and degrubbing medication.

At each stop Sas shows no interest, he hardly even squirms. If he wasn’t holding on to Gaiol’s neck so tightly he would think his little boy had fallen asleep.

The final stop is an aquatic animal store. If Sas doesn’t show interest here, it’s probably hopeless.

Sas stirs slightly as Gaiol walks around the stone alcoves. Excitement floods Gaiol’s veins. Sas lifts his little face but quickly drops back down into Gaiol’s neck. His mouth moves.

Gaiol stops and strains to hear if Sas is talking but, no, he’s sucking at his father’s neck. The excitement Gaiol felt before turns into disappointment and concern. Sucking on him like a little leach is a weird thing to do.

“We’ll come back when you feel better,” Gaiol says. “You can get whatever you want.”

Sas keeps sucking. It’s going to bruise and look like an aggressive love mark, Gaiol lets him do it.

Sas is asleep by the time they get to Seiyslos’s estate. The security guards give Gaiol judging looks but don’t get in the way. He takes Sas to the quarters he’s been allotted as a lesser member of the clan. There are opportunities to move up in rank, but for now Gaiol thinks it’s good to be on the periphery until they need his expertise.

It’s a challenge to put Sas to bed on his pallet. He doesn’t want to let go. He grabs Gaiol’s hair, shirt, even throws himself down to grab his ankle. Throughout the desperate tantrum, Sas makes no noise. Silent in a way that Gaiol finds intensely disturbing.

At last Gaiol scrounges up some steamed root vegetables and offers them to Sas. Sas clings silently, but releases Gaiol’s ankle.

“Sit on the pallet, kiddo.” Gaiol gestures carefully to the thin mattress.

Sas’s eyes fill with moisture, but he obeys. With remarkable agility for anyone, let alone a child, Sas moves backwards on all fours and climbs up the platform without turning.

His kid has gotten weird, for sure, but that’s okay. All that time alone, nobody there to love him, Gaiol figures trust issues are going to be hard to deal with.

“Just a sec, Sas,” says softly. “I’m going to be right over at that bench. Just as long as it takes to get some of your medicine prepped, yeah?”

Sas‘s lip trembles but then he flops on his back and stares blankly at the ceiling. He doesn’t move and his breathing is shallow.

Gaiol makes the preparations quickly.

Giving Sas the degrubbing medicine is easy. So is giving him the herbal medicine that should help his digestive track recover from the damage the grubs and the degrubbing medicine have done. Having had grubs once himself, Gaiol smears some salve all over Sas’s rump to cut down on the itch.

It’s easy to see Sas has been scratching himself bloody back there. Poor kid, it’s no wonder he had successive colony infestations. He didn’t wash his hands each time he scratched at his ass.

For a few hours Gaiol joins Sas on the pallet. He pulls the gauze poncho off and strokes Sas’s scalp, trying to settle down. It’s hard to believe he has his baby boy back, but here he is. That same sweet face, the huge red eyes. The faint trail of hair that no other kid has growing down to the prominent knob on the back of his neck. His skin colour is the same, though the vague blotches of darker skin have faded an awful lot.

Parts of Sas’s body have always had strange colouration. It’s almost as if Sas was made out of grafted pieces from both his fathers. Tukla wouldn’t like that idea, but Tukla doesn’t know he helped make Gaiol’s son. Better if the halfbreed gnoll never finds out.

Gaiol stills his hand on the back of Sas’s head and presses his lips above the bandage. The little boy huddles close and Gaiol gathers him in. He whispers, “I love you, Sas.”

The boy trembles and they both cry.

[u4bik]

Mongrel Ilchathmyr

Ilchathmyr have been living in their volcanic habitat for millennia. They are uniquely adapted to the volcano and the magical radiation it produces.

In some instances, chimeric children result from a mixed race union between Ilchathmyr and surface-dwelling races. These offspring are called mongrels by Ilchathmyr. The unique problem for a mongrel is the inability of their surface-heritage body/magic to adapt to the volcano’s radiation.

Normal Ilchathmyr are physically and magically in harmony with the volcano’s magical radiation, but mongrels (being chimaera) have bodies that are simultaneously immune and susceptible. For this reason mongrels are magically volatile at conception and can become magical radiation disasters without outside intervention.

If left unchecked, the innate magic within the mongrel’s body is irradiated by the volcano’s magic. The two forms of magic develop dangerously, unable to achieve equilibrium within the chimaeric body. And while volcanic magical radiation is responsible for the socially acceptable markings of so-called nobles, the mongrel’s notorious mark is cause for alarm throughout Ilchathm.

As the magical radiation builds within the mongrel, it warps the child’s innate magic and body. The mongrel’s physical change is always the body’s site of magical focus: a third eye develops in the mongrel’s forehead. The eye begins as a small bump on the forehead, but grows in size to match the mongrel’s other eyes. As the child grows, the bone under this bump begins to recede and deteriorate to form a third socket. This stage in particular subjects the mongrel to debilitating headaches and may result in unpredictable magical outbursts as their innate magic is irradiated. These outbursts are mere forerunners of coming destruction.

If found before the third eye is fully formed, there is a ritual to disperse the volatile radiation build-up permanently. The ritual isn’t prohibitively complex but the final step requires the caster to symbolically strike the center of mongrel’s forehead with a sharp blade such as an axe, delivering a single shallow vertical blow.

Great care must be taken not to kill the mongrel with this strike or the resulting blast from the magical dispersion could decimate the area physically, magically, or both. Not all mongrels cause such damage but Ilchathmyr don’t take chances.

If the procedure is successful, the mongrel can continue to live within Ilchathm without further problems. However, the mongrel’s birth parent (and sire, if parentage can be confirmed) will be required to submit to exile or sterilization as well as any other reparations deemed appropriate. Consequently, many mongrels are abandoned and assumed clanless, though there are rare cases of mongrels kept as low-ranking members of their birth parent’s clan.

The exceedingly rare mongrels in clans are considered little better than the clanless. The few clanless mongrels in existence are usually sold off to pay their debt to society (the cost of the ritual and any reparations the parent/guardian owe) at public auction.

In Arsa’s case, his scar isn’t disfiguring though it runs from his forehead all the way down his nose. It’s likely he was bought at auction as a cash-earning novelty for the salamander pits.

[u4bik]

Loose stuffing

The military tent Arsa’olakai shares with five other soldiers is the only one in the encampment that has ever been cited for using too much lamp oil. Even now the tent is lit in flickering oil-fed light. It illuminates the six of them and their injuries.

Arsa snorts and a spray of blood and snot showers his hands. “Stupid fucks, it’s on you if I’m late to Athem’s chores. I told you I don’t do magic.”

They barely offer a noise, let alone a word of understanding. Arsa’s beaten the guts out of the five until they opted to stay down or were physically unable to stand up again. Demerits and possible stripes for any infraction of military supplies are a given. They could have just taken the stripes instead of trying to jump Arsa for continuously dousing the magical lights they cast. Now they’ve had a vicious beating and they’ll get stripes or demerits regardless.

Arsa is hoping for stripes. It’s been too long since he’s had a decent whipping. If he’s late to Athem’s quarters maybe that’ll seal the deal.

It’s another night Arsa’olakai is scheduled to warm the General’s bed. It’s another night Arsa’olakai wonders if this is supposed to be a punishment rather than some kind of privilege.

He snorts again, this time into one of his comrade’s bed clothes. “Any of you ever had to warm the General’s bed?”

One of the more coherent soldiers look at Arsa incredulously. “The General is fucking you?”

“Hah! I wish,” Arsa says. He turns to rifle through his meagre possessions for whatever passes for clean clothes. “I just lay in the bed to get it warm because I run hotter than you Surface types. If you weren’t all so weak, you’d’ve gotten a dick in me and figured that out by now.”

Despite the beat-down the soldier, Antilles, scoffs. “General Athem has you sleep in his bed? You’ve got one hell of a bizarre imagination, dog brains.”

“Gets me through a night of jacking off,” Arsa replies and begins to strip out of his standard issue uniform, “looking at you.”

As far as comrades or whatever they’re called go, the bunch of them aren’t too bad. Boring, though, for people that hate his guts. Boring. Arsa pauses naked beside his messy bed roll and considers the battered and stained pack he escaped Ilchathm with. Boring...

It’s stupid, he knows it’s stupid, but he reaches inside the bag anyway.

Arsa arrives quite late, but he’s clean, if a little damp still, and his hair is freshly brushed out braided in a fancier style than usual. The full length of it swings behind Arsa as he reports to General Athem’s quarters.

The general is usually at his desk when Arsa enters, but tonight he’s stoking the brazier with its iron poker. The sparks are nostalgic but the heated iron makes Arsa ever so slightly uncomfortable. His left leg twitches involuntarily.

“Sorry I’m late,” Arsa says. “Me and my bunkmates had a fight.”

“Oh?” Athem doesn’t look up from the coals he’s turning. “An incident related to the lamp oil, I suppose.”

It’s such a mundane detail, but of course General Athem knows about the lamp oil. Arsa moves closer to the General but remains out of the poker’s reach. “Yeah, I had to teach ‘em a lesson.”

“I see.” Athem pushes the poker slowly, deeply, into the coals. “How does your group go through so much lamp oil?”

“Couple things.” Arsa says, eyes on the poker as Athem pulls it out just as slowly, then pushes it in again. Is it supposed to be erotic? Because it kind of is. “Magical disruption and masturbation.”

“Culprits?” Athem asks, never ceasing his prodding of the fire.

“Me and Antilles, probably.” Arsa can’t look away from the coals; they’re getting more action than he is. “Nobody wants to have sex with me and Antilles is embarrassed about a birthmark on his junk.”

“Tell me about the magical disruption.”

Arsa shrugs, still watching the coals and beginning to feel his stones tingle with want. “I don’t use magic.”

Athem finally pulls the poker from the brazier. “You disrupt it.”

This isn’t something Arsa wants to discuss at all. He reaches down to the frayed hem of his shirt and pulls it up and over his head to best reveal and showcase his lean abs and broad chest.

Once the garment clears his head he sees General Athems gaze has shifted and he’s taken a step closer. His cold eyes are exactly where Arsa wants them; running over Arsa’s chest and down his body. “Is the magical disruption intentional?”

Arsa smirks. He sets one foot behind the other and sets the toe of his boot down on the heel of the other. It makes it easy to slip out of his boots when he’s just wearing leggings.

The iron poker swings round and settles above Arsa’s left knee. The step Athem took placed him neatly into striking distance and now Arsa feels the heat from the iron through his leggings.

Arsa tosses his head in irritation then shrugs, “Probably, but it’s dangerous to check.”

“What are the dangers?” Athem asks, but his gaze seems to have fallen down low to Arsa’s crotch. Arsa can do nothing to prevent the renewed surge of want and blood that surges to his cock and stones.

“Magical irradiation...” Arsa says a little breathily. “The spell could fail or change or backfire. It’s unpredictable. Sometimes healing potions don’t work, sometimes only limited effects, I had one that nearly killed me.”

“Intriguing.” Athem moves the hot iron up Arsa’s leg to the swell of his dick. “That arouses you?”

“A breeze can get me hard.” Arsa shifts his weight from his sock-clad foot to the booted one. The heat bathing his cock feels so good. “I haven’t had a decent fuck since Ilchathm burned.”

“Your arousal has nothing to do with the magical disruption.” The red hot iron moves away and so does The General’s interest. “Do you prefer demerits or lashes?”

“I prefer a good, hard fuck!” Arsa reaches for the iron but finds the business end headed straight for his face. It stops near his nose. Arsa grabs it anyway.

Not even an Ilchathmyr can withstand red hot iron. It hurts. Arsa takes a shuddering breath as Athem stares into his eyes.

Instinctively, Arsa settles. He releases the iron and looks away. “Stripes.”

“Demerits for you,” The General replies, “and lashes for the others. Clean your hand and dress it, then warm the bed. No blood, no semen, no marks on the bedding, Arsa’olakai.”

Arsa warms with anger but he obeys.

The wound looks like the type of burn that will blister, but Arsa is too impatient to submerge his hand for more than five minutes in the General’s wash basin. He dresses it, strips, and slips beneath the sheets.

And when boredom and restlessness come, Arsa undoes some of the fancy braid at the back of his neck. From beneath the braid he pulls a small, battered cloth bundle. He couldn’t bring the whole bunny, but he has it’s head.

“Sorry friend,” he murmurs to the yellow bunny head, “I’ll sew you together again. Promise.”

The difference is quick and easy. Instead of the usual tossing and turning and restlessness, Arsa presses the stuffed rabbit head under his chin and immediately feels calm. He’s not alone. Bunny is there and that means he can finally rest.

When Arsa is roused, he’s often a little groggy but he doesn’t feel quite so confused this time. At Athem’s command, Arsa rolls off the side of the bed and comes to his feet. His clothes are where he left them on the chest at the foot of the bed.

Arsa looks askance at Athem and begins one last seductive stretch to showcase his naked body. But the General doesn’t spare him a glance, he’s turned away, looking at something he has in his hand.

Frustrated and angry, Arsa sneers and dresses quickly. It’s not until he gets back to his bedroll and the headless bunny in his pack that Arsa realizes his mistake.

[u4bik]

Deeper

Hair half-braided and damp, skin wet, wounds stitched and poultices applied, Arsa’olakai makes his swift way back to General Athem’s quarters. People know him well enough to move aside, the unfortunates that don’t see him are plowed through. Arsa only pushes or shoves for effect or impulsive amusement and he’s interested in neither today. He simply collides and moves through to appease a lingering notion of what is polite.

The collisions jar his wounds and threaten his fresh stitches, but each burst of pain is a welcome blast of lightning to soothe the ache he’s unused to. It’s easier to take that pain than the headaches. It’s not the stabbing headaches, those he can appreciate. No, this is the dull kind that make him nauseous.

There’s no resistance beyond raised eyebrows when Arsa encounters and blows past the general’s guards. He’s expected.

General Athem had sent Arsa away to clean up after a lengthy group debrief. Arsa hates group debriefs. This one was so torturously long and boring that Arsa chewed off a scab on a half-healed wound and started it bleeding again. He’d said he’d return after the meeting broke up, but his stated intentions are often subject to Athem’s will, not Arsa’s.

The dim lighting within the space envelops Arsa as he steps in. It soothes some of the ache, but he sees General Athem is not alone. He pauses briefly to assess.

Secretive, aloof Vice-Commander Vendalot and his Commander are present. Neither of them have given Arsa any true trouble, Vendalot’s casual distaste is more of a perk than a detriment when it arises. The conversation between the three is serious, but by the tone it’s tapered off into the latter stages.

Drinks are on the table; the ornate bottle and sleek metal cups are from the general’s stock. As always. There is no cup or seat set out for Arsa. Arsa knows where both items are and he could easily fetch either. He doesn’t. He craves Ilchathmyr home habits and something to ease the blunt pain dimming the edges of his vision.

Assessment complete, Arsa moves to take what he wants. His long strides deliver him quickly to General Athem’s side of the table where he drops down heavily onto the ground beside Athem’s chair in a cross-legged position.

He leans against the wooden structure as if it isn’t inhabited by a male that strikes fear into the hearts of a vast population. Something is surely being forced here, a boundary brutalized, but Arsa is unafraid of this act’s consequences. He closes his eyes and takes the sort of deep, steadying breath that helps him calm down for sleep. Though it sounds like General Athem doesn’t miss a beat in the conversation, there is a stretch of quiet after he utters his last word.

Arsa releases his first deep breath and takes another deeper one. He sifts through the scents this time. He smells the medicinal poultices beneath his bandages. He smells liquor, smoky-sweet, with a low alcohol content. He smells the brazier’s smoke, it’s the slow-burning charcoal that Athem prefers. (Arsa prefers it, too.) He smells the faint fragrance of soap or aftershave from the Commander. Vendalot smells of it, too. And Arsa smells the strangely faint scent of General Athem. He doesn’t know enough about the surface to define the smell, but it reminds Arsa of the subterranean sea that once fed water into Ilchathm.

“I asked a question.” It’s the general and he’s using the deceptively indulgent voice that often precedes harsh penalties. “Shall I repeat it?”

The Commander is quick to reply. Anyone would. Arsa’s nostril twitches and upper lip lifts slightly. He wants to sink his teeth into the meat of the Commander’s face.

Deep breathing helps to calm, but the dull ache is monotonous and disruptive. Arsa forces a hard exhale through his nose in frustration and tips his head to the side. The side of his jaw bumps against Athem’s thigh. Instinct follows. Arsa’s lean deepens until he’s unequivocally resting the side of his face against General Athem’s thigh. He relaxes further.

A moment later, cool steel rests against Arsa’s cheek. At first he thinks it’s a knife, but the smell of liquor and the curve of the surface means it’s Athem’s cup. Arsa reaches for it, presses the cool metal against one closed eye. The welcome spread of chill is a balm better even than blood or violence. It’s such a relief that he doesn’t think anything of the new pressure, the weight of a palm coming to rest on his head.

Banishing as much thought as he can from his mind, Arsa gives himself over to sensation. The hand on his scalp feels like a weighted blanket. The cold against his temple numbs the headache. He’s somewhere dark and it smells good. A deep, contented sigh of relief heaves from Arsa’s lungs. It doesn’t matter how long it lasts, he’ll live in the moment.

The moment stretches so gradually that Arsa doesn’t notice the cup lose the battle to his body heat. He only notices after when the pleasant weight on his head lifts and the cup is plucked away. Arsa lifts his lip and huffs out annoyance.

But soon pressure returns in a precise stroke across Arsa’s head. “Are you unwell, Arsa’olakai?”

“Allergies,” Arsa mumbles, but he has no idea, really. Who cares? The headache has faded to the periphery of his senses.

“Allergies,” Athem says back.

It’s not a question but even if it was, Arsa wouldn’t reply. The headaches started around the time he came to the surface and all he has to compare is a single visit to the Jaisou greenhouses that coincided with itchy eyes and a similar headache.

With the same pressure as before, the general passes his hand over Arsa’s head. It feels good but not good enough to lift his head from the general’s thigh to chase it. The feeling is reminiscent of something. Like having his hair brushed but without the sense of intimacy.

Arsa takes a long drag through his nose to fill his lungs and re-establish the room’s scent. The faint soap smell of the Commander and Vice-Commander is gone. “Is it late?”

“It is.”

He should be thankful for the calm and quiet so rarely attained, but Arsa deflates when it appears to be over. He lifts his head, opens his eyes, and pulls away from Athem and his chair. “I’ll go warm your bed.”

“Will you?” Athem watches with his usual cool expression, but his body language is more relaxed than normal. His posture is stalagmite-perfect as ever, of course.

Surprised, Arsa pulls himself up with a laugh. “Yeah, unless you want me to warm your lap instead.”

The innuendo is habitual and after getting so close and familiar with the General, Arsa wants it to establish some sort of normalcy. Bring Athem back into his usual stiff control. But Athem raises his right hand, ungloved at that, and beckons Arsa back down.

For a moment Arsa is still, his smile forgotten on his face. His gaze flicks to the table: both gloves are set neatly on the wooden surface. The fancy bottle is stoppered and the three cups are nested within each other. General Athem hasn’t left his chair since Arsa dozed off and that was at least an hour ago. Why?

Headache mostly gone, Arsa drops to his knees before Athem. He lays his hands on the male’s thighs, gnaws his lower lip, and says, “You can be rough, but I drool a lot. It’d be better if you have a towel.”

The general breathes a brief snort and turns his beckoning hand to drop it once more onto Arsa’s head. He watches Arsa’s face as he slides his hand over Arsa’s head, down the back of his neck, and then grips the base of Arsa’s braid.

The desire to be disciplined and roughly used oscillates toward defiance until Athem speaks. “Is that what you want?”

Why is he asking? The question is upsetting. It’s reminiscent of Galokir. “Yeah. Hard and fast. Finish down my throat or all over my face, whatever works for you.”

The grip on Arsa’s hair pulls tight. Arsa closes his eyes. This is more like it.

“Not tonight,” Athem says and releases his grip. “Rebraid your hair, make sure you and your wounds are clean, and then you will warm my bed.”

Arsa sinks back onto his heels, nose wrinkled and lip lifted. Disappointment and defiance. “Sure, your generalship.”

Athem observes Arsa surge to his feet, but doesn’t react. In this Athem stands apart from everyone Arsa has ever belonged to. He hates it. Hates the general, the surface, Galokir, everything since the simple days of the fighting pits.

Arsa throws aside the partitions that separate the general’s sleeping arrangements from his meeting area. The low light of a stationary glow light illuminates the area and throws amber over Arsa as he strips his clothes off. He slings the garments to the floor in a haphazard heap.

In the warm glow, Arsa checks his bandages and the poultice over the wound he chewed. It started life weeks ago when a mace had narrowly missed impact with his right hand, but the spikes ripped through his gloves and flesh. There’s nothing weeping from the wound this time and the cuts to his forearm, thigh, and shoulder haven’t bled through.

He hasn’t had an opportunity to get dirty but the shoulder wound and its stitches are in terrible shape from the collisions on his way there. Arsa won’t mind if it soaks past the poultice and onto the bandage. Serve Athem right if it does.

His shoulder hurts pleasantly during the unbraiding and rebraiding process, but doesn’t bleed through. Shame, it was a complex braid, too.

Once his braid is tied, Arsa slips into General Athem’s bed. It’s a strange duty, warming a bed for someone, but he’s been doing it now for weeks. If he didn’t always end up falling asleep he’d hate doing it... It’s no fun being awake and alone anywhere, let alone a bed.

But sleep doesn’t come. Sleep doesn’t come so the thoughts do. Galokir, Kamiti, Alanam, other names and faces that go further back. Arsa lifts his head and bounces it back off the pallet. The headache would be better than this.

He doesn’t notice the taste of the poultice or feel much of anything when he chews through. Nor does he notice when he finally falls asleep, his goal realized in the mess of poultice, bloody bandages, and blood dirtying General Athem’s sheets.

Without another presence to distract him, Arsa’s dreams are turbulent and dark. He experiences sensation, scents, and movement but he never remembers what he sees, if he sees at all. Then he’s dreaming something that isn’t so bad, even if he still sees nothing.

Cold breeze from the underground sea? Touching. One hand? No, two. It’s already the best dream he’s had in months. He has no idea what’s happening but Arsa doesn’t care, either. His dream fades to black and nothingness.

It takes Arsa time to surface from sleep. Memory is a fraught thing, so he’s accustomed to waking up in unfamiliar settings. But this one isn’t unfamiliar: he smells the general, so strong in his nose that he can taste Athem’s iron presence on his tongue.

Arsa opens his eyes to the general’s living quarters as seen from the foot of the general’s bed. There’s no telling how long he’s been here, Arsa’s sense of time has always been rubbish but since leaving Ilchathm he has no understanding at all.

Has Athem come to bed and then left? That seems so utterly out of character that Arsa immediately discards the notion. More likely that he hasn’t been there at all. But then, how to explain finding himself on top of the bed clothes, at the foot of the bed, under a fur cover? How to explain the refreshed scent of General Athem on the comforter?

Arsa slips out from under the fur and off the bed. His clothes aren’t scattered in the haphazard piles of before. They’re folded. Actually folded and set on one of the room’s chests. Unlike every high-positioned clan leader Arsa has ever known, Athem does his own upkeep.

Arsa hits the cold ground, hands first, tucks into a roll and comes up standing by the trunk. He takes his shirt from the top of the stack. The folds drop from the fabric. He smells Athem.

[u4bik]

Skinny puppy ii

They get very little rest. The degrubbing medicine triggers round after round of increasingly vile diarrhea and Gaiol has no idea what brings on the vomiting. It lasts hours. Hours in which Gaiol focuses on keeping Sas hydrated and as comfortable as possible.

It’s hard to know what’s comfortable for Sas. His vocabulary for physical discomfort seems as absent as his words. The only request he makes is with wide open arms, even when he’s sitting on a chamber pot with vomit on his chin and sweat dusting over his nose and cheeks.

Hours later, Gaiol isn’t in the best condition for Sas’s adoption audience, but with a neighbour’s assistance, Sas is well-dressed in her son’s tiny leather shoes, a long glittery shift, and expensive Mi’iduor egg-skin leggings. Gaiol dresses in his best outfit, one his neighbours helped him put together, too. Funny how Ilchathmyr change their habits based on a clan name.

They are shown into the audience hall by a Seiyslos guard. Guards aren’t usually present or used as chaperones within Seiyslos. There was no guard when Gaiol made the appointment. Paranoia wriggles in his heart as surely as grubs had inside his son’s digestive track. The guard remains inside the audience hall by the entry.

The hall began life as a magma tube. It is open all the way up to the top of the Seiyslos stalactite outcropping and is so thin in places that the rock walls glow with the heat of the magma just outside. The hall is far far taller than it is wide and lit with the red glow from above.

Within the audience hall are two adoption arbiters. Both have braided their hair to escape buffeting from the hall’s natural breeze. Gaiol recognizes Leshekin, who helped officiate his adoption, but the male beside her is only vaguely familiar. Regardless, both must agree to the adoption.

“Gaiol Seiyslos,” Leshekin says in the neutral tone the position requires. “This is my younger brother, Naman Seiyslos. He will be an arbiter of Arsasra of no clan at all.”

Gaiol stands with his hands on Sas’s shoulders and bows. Holding the bow, he speaks with careful enunciation. “Thank you both for this grave opportunity. I present unto you Arsasra, the flesh of my flesh.”

The Seiyslos siblings nod and Gaiol stands straight and settles in for a lengthy negotiation. Why they do this whole thing with ceremonial speech is beyond him. It seems silly.

“Arsasra,” Naman says. “This name denotes special magical capacity, however, this face is divided by the mongrel mark.”

The opening is blunt, but Gaiol knew that would be the crux of the coming argument. He squeezes Sas’s shoulders. Sas reaches back with both hands and grips Gaiol’s knees.

“The mark outweighs possible benefit,” Naman continues. “Adoption denied.”

Gaiol stares. “Wait. What?” He turns to Leshekin in disbelief. “Doesn’t anyone get to speak on Sas’s behalf?”

Leshekin holds her hand up. Gaiol grinds his teeth at the reminder for good etiquette. “Arsasra of no clan at all is the flesh of Gaiol Seiyslos, but laws of heredity are not forward-leading. Arsasra of no clan at all has no claim to Seiyslos in any way.”

Gaiol’s lips part. The room feels incendiary. It’s like light from the rock tube above is consuming him.

“However.”

The mere word brings reality back into Gaiol’s veins.

“It is recognised by the mercy of Seiyslos that Gaiol Seiyslos has claim to Arsasra of no clan at all.”

Weight returns to Gaiol’s world. He breathes it in huge gulps until feeling returns all the way down to where Sas’s little hands clutch Gaiol’s knees.

Naman bows to his sister and turns to Gaiol. “Please remove the bandage from Arsasra of no clan at all.”

Gaiol looks down at Sas. He’d left it on thinking it couldn’t hurt to cover any bruising. “Let’s take the bandage off your head, Sas.”

He kneels down and turns Sas around. Sas has no clear expression on his face, but his eyes are alert. For the first time since Gaiol came for him, Sas focuses directly on Gaiol’s face.

A delighted grin stretches Gaiol’s lips. “Hey kiddo.”

Sas’s mouth closes and his lips compress awkwardly. Gaiol can hardly breathe for the joy of it: Sas is trying to mimic his father’s expression like he did as an infant. Fire and fury, Gaiol is elated at the progress but he wishes Sas had better timing.

Removing the plaster is difficult. Clearly the warden hadn’t wanted Sas to take it off, but with a little spit to soften the edges, Gaiol gets his nails underneath and peels the bandage back.

And frowns in confusion. Sas’s forehead is dark and blotchy with what appears to be bruising, but on close inspection Gaiol can see weird veins running through the reddish purple patch of skin. All the veins radiate from beneath the fully healed scar that runs through the centre of the reddish purple cloud and down Sas’s face.

Gaiol schools his expression to avoid scaring his boy and gently touches the scar where the eye had been growing. Sas’s skin feels normal, the previous dimple in the bone is gone, but Gaiol’s fingertip tingles softly. What’s happening?

“Fury.”

“Ba?”

Gaiol’s heart hurts. His head spins.

“Baba?”

Sas did nothing wrong. He never at any point did anything to deserve whatever this is. Gaiol looks up over Sas’s head. “Sas never asked to be born the way he was. He’s a good kid. When he was in my womb I had magic flowing in me you can’t even imagine. He could be like... like Avishiva Mi’iduor! Think of the possibilities.”

Leshekin is impassive. Naman shows tension around his eyes but keeps his expression stoic. “Gaiol Seiyslos, turn Arsasra of no clan at all around.”

Gaiol sucks in a deep breath that opens his chest and straightens his spine. He asks mercy of the volcano itself. Then he closes his eyes and turns Sas to face the adoption arbiters. His face falls to the warm cradle of Sas’s shoulder blades.

Somewhere on the other side of anguish, Gaiol feels Sas’s quick heartbeat and hears Leshekin and Naman speaking.

“Is that a mark? Can it come back?” Leshekin speaks quickly and without ceremony.

“I’m not trained to disperse a mark, but I know what they look like and that’s not it.”

“Fire and fury, Nam, who’s trained?”

“Elipile and Kithik. Are either of them on the estate?”

Leshekin raises her voice, “Kel, raise Elipile and Kithik immediately and alert Kamiti himself.”

Kamiti Seiyslos. Fire and fury, there are five people in Ilchathm feared above all others, and Kamiti is one of them. Gaiol pulls Sas down and sits back with his boy in his lap. Sas turns to face him, but Gaiol can’t bear to open his eyes and see what he’s done to his son, his one and only child.

“Baba,” Sas says, “baba?”

“I’m sorry Sas,” Gaiol whispers, “I’m so sorry. I worked so hard and it just isn’t enough. You never did anything wrong. You’re a good boy.”

Sas stops talking. He wraps his little arms around Gaiol’s neck and clings. All Gaiol can ask himself is when the nightmare will end. He sees no hope for his child. No future. Only death.

Perhaps, he thinks, it would be better if he took Sas and jumped from the Promenade bridge and into the magma below.

Soon, far too soon, Gaiol feels a quick cold presence enter the room. Everything is about to get worse. All of Ilchathm knows when Kamiti Seiyslos passes near. Like other nobles of the clans that live in the volcano’s heart, Kamiti Seiyslos is an evolved form of dark elf. The volcano touched and shaped Kamiti from the womb.

“Lesh, Nam,” his voice sends a shudder down Gaiol’s spine. “Have you finished arbitration?”

Gaiol holds Sas tighter. Sas trembles.

“No, Kamiti Seiyslos,” says Naman. “We—

Cold air passes over Gaiol. He hears the sound of flesh striking flesh. “Out of my sight.”

“Y-yes...!” Naman stumbles away.

“Lesh, we continue. Gaiol Seiyslos, I, Kamiti Seiyslos, replace Naman Seiyslos as arbiter for Arsasra of no clan at all. Stand up and present the flesh of your flesh. Immediately.”

Fear is a good motivator. Gaiol opens his eyes and stands up. Kamiti Seiyslos, his skin dark, his hair black and buoyant in the hall’s induction, his eyes red with a blue aura like flames hovering over embers, stands before him. Gaiol turns to the side and lifts Sas’s face to show the head of Seiyslos his son’s brow.

“Unusual, but not the business at hand.” Unlike most clan nobles, Kamiti is expressive. His head tilts in interest. “Mercy has been extended, Gaiol Seiyslos, because your family has need of your skills and experience traveling outside Ilchathm.”

Gaiol lowers his head again. Did Kamiti Seiyslos himself just approve Sas? He can’t take anymore emotional whiplash. “Please forgive my stupidity, Kamiti Seiyslos, is Arsasra to be adopted?”

“As soon as I verify the claim of parentage,” Kamiti replies, “he can be adopted.”

Parentage? Gaiol has never had an Ilchathmyr question his gender. It’s insulting but he’s too exhausted and terrified to deny Kamiti. He pulls Sas’s arms from his neck and sets the boy down. Stiff fingers reach for the ties on his pants.

Kamiti holds his hand up the same way Leshekin did. “Gaiol Seiyslos, I know very well you have a womb. I will have proof that Arsasra of no clan at all is the flesh of your flesh.”

Without explanation, because he is Kamiti Seiyslos, he reaches for Sas. Sas moves faster than the warning can get to Gaiol’s lips. Tiny sharp nails rake down Kamiti’s right forearm. Gaiol yanks Sas back by his borrowed shift. Leshekin covers her mouth in horror. And Kamiti, he pauses to look at the beads of blood welling up on the surface of his smoky skin.

Kamiti smiles.

“Children,” he says, as if the word explains everything, and grabs Sas by one dark shoulder, the shoulder not unlike the darkness of Tukla’s skin. Then he takes Gaiol by the wrist.

The glowing blue aura that floats over Kamiti’s eyes gutters and flashes.

Kamiti’s warm, dry fingers come off father and son. His expression is cold and feels dismissive. “Though I believe that you think this child is yours, he is not. He is the flesh and blood of a surface gnoll halfbreed. Any costs incurred due to his unusual magical malady will be covered by public auction, not Seiyslos coffers. There is no adoption of Arsasra of no clan at all.”

Gaiol gapes. “What the fiery fury do you think you’re saying? I carried this kid in my womb a year and took him from my body myself, all alone in the outer warrens! You think I sacrificed everything important to me for some random mongrel?!”

Kamiti snorts in dark amusement. “Poor boy. Something inside you must truly be broken if you need to believe this child is yours. What will you do? Place him back in Public Detention for another three years while you work for his release? Are you that selfish, Gaiol?”

Gaiol looks down at Sas. Sas’s nose is running and he’s breathing through his mouth. His eyes are big and glassy with tears. Those eyes are Gaiol’s eyes. The chin, nose, lips... all of them are ripples across Gaiol’s ancestry. But Kamiti has no reason to lie or deceive. Or does he hate mongrels that much? Does it matter?

“Do not forget,” Kamiti says quietly, “that you are Seiyslos, Gaiol. You swore loyalty to your family.”

Loyalty. Gaiol runs his hand over the soft stubble growing over Sas’s head. To leave Seiyslos now would be a death sentence. He can’t leave, Sas can’t stay. Gaiol can’t pay for any sort of magical cure for this new condition without putting Sas in detention. To put Sas out on the streets alone would not be more merciful.

Sas’s scalp is warm and soft velvet. “Is there a chance I can buy his contract after it’s sold at auction?”

It’s Gaiol’s voice but his body is speaking without him.

Sas never did anything wrong.

“It is possible,” Kamiti says, “but this is a sundry matter I know little about. Lesh will take the boy immediately from here for the estate’s safety, you may ask your questions to her. For your sake, Gaiol, I grant Leshekin Seiyslos authority to pressure for the child’s diagnosis and cure.”

Sas’s eyes are so big. Gaiol sees himself in their reflection.

Somewhere, far away, Gaiol hears himself say, “I knew I was fertile, I knew I would get a child from Tukla. I chose that. I did this, Sas. I did this to you.”

He crouches down to his stricken boy and runs his hands across the back of his head and down the velvet path of Tukla’s striped mane. “You never should have been born, Sas, but you were and it’s my fault. Everything you suffer is my fault. I love you and I was wrong.”

Leshekin takes Sas’s wrists from behind. Sas’s eyes release a steady stream of tears. He shrieks. “Baba! No!”

Gaiol’s legs collapse and drop him the short distance to the stone floor. He watches with something like despair as the little boy goes wild. He kicks backwards up Leshekin’s legs and torso like an acrobat.

Gaiol looks away. He drops his face into his hands.

It takes Leshekin and someone else, not Kamiti, to carry Sas out. He screams, he howls, for his baba. It sounds so terrible Gaiol imagines Sas is screaming his throat inside out.

“He is not the flesh of your womb,” Kamiti says from somewhere cold and distant. “There are those that can bewitch the mind. They are rare, but they exist.”

Gaiol’s head moves in a nod. He’s not sure why. Sas should never have been born and maybe Gaiol shouldn’t have, either.

[u4bik]

The Ex

Before he wakes, Jakadirek’s mind slips around the extremities of what he knows and feels. What he knows is jumbled and mixed, too many different colours in a vat to turn out a proper dye batch. Shysa is dead, Silt is dead, mother is dead, Vishiv is dead, Ilchathm is dead.

What he knows is useless, but what he feels is tangible. Cold. It’s cold. The plate is firm on his forehead, but much of his skin is bare. If Ilchathm were not dead, a lack of clothing would be no cause for alarm.

He should be alarmed but Jakadirek is drunk on something he can’t identify.

“I have some water for you, Ring-sib.”

Something terrible if he’s hallucinating Arsa’olakai instead of just picking up hauntings from Galokir’s mind.

Jakadirek opens his eyes to a confined area, dimly lit by sunlight through canvas. Arsa is no apparition. He’s as unmistakable as the scar that bisects his face from forehead to septum.

Arsa’s lips thin to accommodate a wide grin. “Yeah, I didn’t die. How’s Galokir?”

Arsa’olakai.

Jaka stares. How could this mongrel have survived? Seiyslos and Valthm were furthest from safety. Only four Ring members from Seiyslos and seven from Valthm made it out. Ashrei had the former executed for spite and Galokir weighed in on the latter and gutted them all, one by one.

For reasons Jaka still doesn’t understand, Galo has always hated the Valthm. He’d had to switch hands halfway through the executions because blood coated him to the wrist.

“Heh!” Arsa rocks back on his haunches as he is wont to do. He keeps his red eyes on Jaka while pouring the so-called water from a glass bottle into a steel cup. Watching one thing while doing another is one of Arsa’olakai’s peculiar traits. It distracts people from what his hands are doing. “Vendalot messed your head up, the water should help.”

Jakadirek splits his lips from their gummy seal. “We’re not Ring siblings. We’re not anything. Everyone is dead.”

“Whatever.” Arsa shrugs in a sloppy one-shoulder way that echoes Galokir. Or maybe Galokir echoes Arsa. He sets the bottle aside. “We’re alive. I’m alive and so are you and Kir. I’m here to talk about that, but me and you’re gonna keep that between us. This guy Vendalot can’t know.”

Jakadirek stares as Arsa holds up the metal cup. Arsa’olakai moves fluidly as ever: his long, attractive fingers swivel the cup left and right. Not even many Mi’iduor could claim manual dexterity like Galokir’s former partner. Arsa’s hand-massages were highly sought after in their Ring because he was the best at it. Better than Jaka. So many things Arsa’olakai is good at. All physical.

“You can have the water regardless if you talk or not, you know?” Arsa tilts his head and there’s a glint of something shiny and leather around his neck. It’s a wide leather collar like an animal might wear. Arsa’olakai is a servant here. Now that’s something Jakadirek is sure Arsa is terrible at. Does no-one ever learn?

Jaka says. “You first.”

Arsa scoffs happily. “That time I drugged you and was gonna fuck you? I drank the wine first, too, but okay.”

To prove his point, Arsa brings the cup to his mouth. To prove himself, Jakadirek throws every fibre of his being into an attempt to kick the cup. Any retaliation will be worth adding scars to Arsa’s face and knocking out his teeth. It feels good to be a body in motion, with power fueling his kick.

His ankle slaps hard and bare into Arsa’s free hand. It’s not going anywhere. Arsa has always been good at physical things.

Arsa’s grip is more tenacious a manacle than one of metal. Jaka can try to jerk his foot away, but he knows it will only drag him toward Arsa’s fully weaponised body.

Fortunately, the attack doesn’t seem to diminish Arsa’s good mood one bit. He smirks into Jakadirek’s eyes and takes a gulp of water, then another. And another. Rivulets of water escape the chapped corners of his mouth, flow down his chin, drips down his throat and under the pitted and scratched black band.

Arsa has chewed at the collar. He probably has yet to reach the hand that feeds him.

Arsa holds the cup out wide and yanks on Jakadirek’s ankle. Jaka skids across the floor on his ass and, as Arsa pulls his ankle up and high, he’s dragged straight into Arsa’s warm lap. It’s a self-fulfilled prophecy.

“Aw,” Arsa says with a chuckle, “I never thought you’d want to pick up where we left off that night, Jaka. I still owe you. You saved my life twice and I only saved yours once.”

Jaka closes his eyes and shakes his head. “I don’t want to have sex with you, Arsa’olakai.”

Soft, wet, pressure makes a mark against Jakadirek’s naked ankle. It feels like a kiss. It probably is.

“I know. I don’t really want to fuck you, either.” It must be true, because Arsa’s breath might be hot on Jakadirek’s foot but his penis is soft in his pants right against Jaka’s ass. “Though I guess it might give you a frame of reference for what Kir‘s used to. Do you do that kinky Mi’iduor stuff to him? The rope stuff?”

Is that what Kir—no, Galokir. Galo Galo Galokir.

“Your lips are moving, Jaka, but I can’t... oh.”

Jakadirek shuts his eyes tighter. “You’ve never had permission to shorten my name.”

“You’ve got feelings for him.” Hot breath bathes Jaka’s ankle in humidity. It feels disgusting. “A fucking Mi’iduor, noble by birth, has it bad for Kir. Fire and fury, Jaka, you’re slumming just like old man Vishiv!”

The words are horrible. Arsa’s breath is horrible on each name. How does this mongrel know so much? Jakadirek opens his eyes to look Arsa in his mongrel face. “What do you know about Vishiv?”

“Nahhh,” Arsa says with that strange breathy quality Jaka had associated with Arsa‘s lust. “I’m not here for that. It’s getting cold lately and I wanna know if Kir’s okay. Sometimes, when it’s cold and humid, he gets bitchy. I think it’s some old injury but he wouldn’t admit it. When he’d get that way I used stones from a fire to massage him. You can do that, too, yeah?”

Arsa’s words burn with unfamiliar anger in Jaka’s chest. “He’s fine. He doesn’t need you. He’s glad you’re gone.”

But then some of the muddle of his mind clears and Jaka stills, if not relaxes. “You want me to go back to him? You’ll release me?”

“Betrayal is what I do best,” Arsa says with another sloppy shrug. “If Kir comes for you, I’ll let you go. That’s why you gotta keep us talking a secret.”

It doesn’t make sense. Jakadirek studies Arsa’olakai’s face for clues. The corners of his mouth are chapped, his brow low, he doesn’t have any new scars, but the mongrel mark looks oddly irritated in the diffused light.

“You want to leave,” Jaka says. Looking at the black leather band, he feels even more irritated with the mongrel. “Galokir will never take you back.”

Arsa’s teeth make a familiar appearance; he gnaws his lower lip contemplatively. “Yeah, but I owe you. I’ve been keeping a secret for you and that’s worth one life, at least, but I owe you twice.”

Experimentally, Jaka tugs at his foot. Arsa releases him and Jaka lowers his foot to the center of Arsa’s broad chest. “Any secret you have about me is worthless without Ilchathm.”

“Ilchathm is wherever Ashrei and Kir take it, Jaka.” Contemplation lifts from Arsa’s face. “Kiss me and I’ll tell you the secret.”

Jaka stares yet again. What could Arsa’olakai possibly know? The trade isn’t sex and it’s a low price if Arsa makes a guarantee. “Give me your word. One kiss and you tell me the secret you have for me.”

He watches as Arsa’s smile returns bit by bit.

“I give my word that if you kiss me like Kir kisses you, I’ll tell you the secret I’ve held for you.”

It’s always in Arsa’s nature to push the limits of what’s acceptable. Still, it’s a small price to pay. “Agreed. I want the water now.”

Arsa’s answering grin is uncomfortably bright and eager. Jaka lowers his foot and Arsa refills the cup. He makes himself comfortable in Arsa’s lap and thinks about the way Galokir kisses him.

There are different kinds of kisses between them and Arsa didn’t say which kind. If he wanted, he could give Arsa a simple peck on the nose. But no, something deep within, something hard to understand, has an answer.

Jakadirek takes the metal cup from Arsa and drains half. The other half he keeps in reserve to take the taste of the mongrel’s mouth off Jaka’s tongue.

“He usually takes initiative,” Jaka murmurs and sets the cup of water away from the jumble of their legs. Arsa looks more attentive than Jaka has ever seen.

Jakadirek doesn’t wait. He reaches past Arsa’s head and grabs the base of the mongrel’s long braid. Arsa jerks back, but Jaka is focused on Galokir: the passion that he unleashes, the way he seizes Jaka and envelopes him in sensation and consumes him with fire.

Like Galokir, he doesn’t lose his grip. He pulls Arsa down and opens his mouth to take over Arsa’s scarred lips. Arsa’s lips are dry, his mouth wet, his teeth more jagged than normal, but most surprising is the way he gives way under Jakadirek’s aggression. Arsa lets it happen and, unbelievably, allows Jaka the lead.

Keeping true to Galokir’s behaviour comes second nature: Jaka presses the attack. Arsa takes the invasion of Jakadirek’s tongue, the hints of teeth, and Arsa makes a low soft sound in his throat. He wilts back and Jaka crawls over him to keep the mesh of their mouths, the strokes of tongue, continuous and fierce.

When Jaka finally pulls his mouth away, he is crouching over Arsa and his mouth is wet and tingling. Beneath him, Arsa’s eyes are nearly shut and his thick lashes obscure the red. His lips are no longer dry, they’re swollen and wet, a tiny trail of saliva drips from one chapped corner.

Jakadirek immediately wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and sits back on Arsa’s thighs. He twists to grab the water and drinks it down, then takes the bottle of water and drains the rest.

Arsa remains lying on the floor, oddly languid, unusually quiet.

Jaka feels some disappointment in Arsa’s behaviour but he’s not sure why. He shakes a few last drops of water from the bottle and smears them across his lips. “Tell me the secret.”

“Yeah,” Arsa replies from the ground. “I know where Vishiv got Jadavei.”

Jakadirek’s heart seizes.

“New secret,” Arsa continues, “you kissed me willingly and passionately, in a way I bet Kir hasn’t ever had you kiss him. But I owe you twice, not three times. Letting you go counts for one, keeping the secret about your father’s origins counts for two, but this kiss? You don’t want Kir to ever know about that.”

Jaka acts without thought, he breaks the bottle to get a sharp edge and lunges for Arsa. But Arsa excels at physical things and the attack ends as swiftly as it begins, with Jakadirek crushed underneath the big mongrel both wrists held in one hand over Jaka’s head.

“I won’t tell him,” Arsa whispers in Jaka’s ear. “I’m sure we can come to an agreement. Kir’s really sensitive to betrayal, you know? You wouldn’t want to let him down the way I did, would you?”