Chapter Text
Seluvis sneered as he and Varré emerged from the basement. A pile of eviscerated animal corpses sat near the door to the Rise, and beside them Dolores stood at attention, her eyes still a glittering field of pale blue stars. Dark blood trailed out of the Rise and down the stone steps, more oozing over the tiled floor.
Seluvis’s eyes narrowed. “Is this what I asked for? To have you ruin my clean floor with animal filth?! Take this mess outside, you useless slag!”
Varré’s left hand was curled into Seluvis’s cloak, gripping it like a child would. He watched Dolores with intrigue as she moved to pull the limp and bloody animals out of the doorway, and Seluvis felt the hand unwind, slipping along the line of his body and plunging into a pocket instead. There was nothing to be found in there, but it felt intimate somehow, a whisper of what they’d only just abandoned in the basement. Seluvis cleared his throat.
“Looking for something, are you?”
Varré shook his head, though his hand spread out against Seluvis’s thigh through the fabric of his cloak, and he pulled their bodies closer together. “All this for me, hmm?” he asked, leaning in to nuzzle at Seluvis’s throat. “You’ll spoil me yet, lambkin.”
Seluvis grunted, though he gave a playful little nudge back into Varré. “Hmph. Rather difficult to spoil something already rotten, I think.”
He felt Varré smile just below his ear. “I know you said I’m not meant to contribute, but shall I help move things along? Impressive though this all is, this much game will take a long while to butcher properly. If you want us to have our little feast tonight, surely it would be worthwhile for me to pitch in.”
“Well…” Seluvis eyed the trail of blood each animal’s corpse was leaving behind as Dolores hauled them out, and he frowned. “I will have to clean up now, to get this stench out of the entryway. And then there’s the matter of all the cooking, besides…”
“Don’t push yourself to exhaustion for my sake, my darling. Bend too far backwards and your back is apt to break. It would be my pleasure to help you.” He kissed the corner of Seluvis’s jaw. “You deserve to be treated, too, after all.”
Something’s gotten into you, hasn’t it? Seluvis wanted to say, though he kept it locked behind a wry smile. How polarized Varré’s moods were today. Warm, then cold, and then fully molten. It was strange, but only a little more so than Varré typically was, he supposed. Besides, he’d been so kind already today, so thoughtful, so very attentive and full of praise for Seluvis. It tugged at the heartstrings. But I do deserve to be treated, don’t I?
“Fine, fine,” Seluvis agreed. “Have Dolores help you outside. But you’re to wash up and sit when you’ve finished, understand?”
“I’ll make no promises to laze about idly while you work your hands to the bone, my darling.”
“Funny. That seems like something you’d enjoy seeing.”
Varré snickered. He retrieved his mask from the nearby table and slipped it back into place over his bronze features. His eyes gleamed through the cutouts, blonde eyelashes fluttering like moths’ wings. Seluvis shook his head.
“Revolting. You make eyes at me as if we’re about to chase one another around the schoolyard.”
“And why not, Master Preceptor?” Varré laughed. “Come out and grip me by my uniform collar and teach me a thing or two, hmm?”
“As if you’d care to learn.”
Varré sighed contentedly. As he turned to leave, he ran one palm over the curve of his own ass, patting it playfully at Seluvis. “Still waiting for you to take me over your knee, my lamb.”
“I’ll take more than a switch to you if you don’t stop pestering me. Shoo.”
Varré slunk outside like a cat, following the trail of blood out into the grass. Seluvis shook his head, staring for a moment at the extent of the mess Dolores had made. Towels, he thought idly, muttering to himself. Perhaps a little water, and then…everything I’ll need for the food…
With the freedom now to organize himself, Seluvis set to work pulling things he hadn’t used in ages from the dusty back corners of his stores. He coughed as he uncovered things, casting debris into the air; eventually he shrugged and pulled one of the larger sheets fully from the crates it covered, being as careful as he could to not scatter the dust from it. Instead, he shook it into the blood on the floor, until it clumped and congealed against the tiles. Simpler to wipe away, he thought. He covered the mess with the sheet and turned back to the crates along the wall.
Cooking was not a skill Seluvis thought himself particularly adept in, but in his own humble opinion he knew more than enough to get by. It had been many, many years since he’d been obliged to cook for anyone other than himself, and the equipment he now pulled from the crates to arrange on the tabletop betrayed that fact. He had a small collection of outdated heating elements, cast iron pots long unseasoned, steel grates and griddles with rust caking them. Things scarcely useful in standard alchemy or potion-making, things Seluvis had only ever truly used to cook for company some small handful of times. They’d been put away long ago, when he’d no longer needed them.
After Rykard had left.
He frowned down at what he’d set on the table. A little elbow grease to rid the things of dust and rust alike, he thought, and soon he’d have a happy little setup arranged. Perhaps…well. The pig might have been a bit much. And the deer, for that matter. But he smirked at his own ambition, bright eyes darting again to the wall, along which…yes! There, behind one shelf, a wide slot in the wall was covered by a dark steel door. An oven! He’d nearly forgotten it. Held over from the days when the Rise hadn’t belonged to Seluvis, but to another loyal Carian Preceptor.
Miriam.
She was long gone now, like every other Carian. She’d locked herself away in the Study Hall well before the Shattering, and in the meantime she’d likely gone just as mad as the last of the Carian Knights. Seluvis couldn’t grieve her, though. Though she’d been unwavering in her service to Caria well before Rennala had become Queen, he’d never really known her. She’d never cared to know him . In fact, Seluvis recalled, as he scaled the ladder up to the Rise’s second floor, one of the few times she’d met him – just before Radahn’s birth – she’d called him a ‘pretentious little upstart’! As if he hadn’t proven himself loyal enough, though he’d been Rennala’s trusted right hand all through both Liurnian wars.
Seluvis snorted at the thought. Perhaps Miriam had always been mad. Or jealous of him, at the very least.
With a careful waving of his hand, he removed the seals he typically kept over the windows and upper balcony in order to give the impending smoke a fair path out of the rotunda. The oven, as he recalled, would release its own smoke through its chimney…though he would surely have to let the fire burn for a time to rid the flue of any creatures that might have made their homes within it in the years since it had last been used.
Seluvis felt truly excited again as his feet touched the floor of the main level. It had been such a silly little thought this morning – a moment’s vision of a quiet little clothed tea table set up out by the cliffs, a fine view of the twilit ocean, the moon radiant overhead…low candles set between Varré and himself. The scent of roses and mulled wine, rich pork and pulled venison, Seluvis reaching across the table to slide a warm, silver spoonful of crab’s eggs past Varré’s lips – and it was all coming together now, wasn’t it? He would prepare everything, have Dolores dress the table and serve them, bring them wine, and soon enough all his attention could instead be given to Varré, Varré, beautiful Varré, his Varré. To him and his laughter, his gaze, and his smile…to the way the starlight would dance in his eyes and shimmer in his hair.
Seluvis shivered.
He set about the task of moving the shelf away from the oven, committed now to perfection. And it was easier than he’d thought; the shelf moved without trouble, the door to the oven opened with happy ease, the maw itself surprisingly clear of vermin. Surely there was some wood left outside from Iji’s gathering the night before, which would do perfectly…and with the pig and deer butchered properly, they could easily be roasted within. Never a need to worry, Seluvis thought smugly, grinning to himself. Your lambkin is the smartest man in Liurnia, after all. He repeated this in his mind as he scoured the cookware, scraping rust and discoloration from each pot, testing the heating elements.
Smartest man in Liurnia.
You deserve recognition, my love.
The smartest man in Liurnia.
You deserve praise for your brilliant mind, and to be handsomely rewarded for your staggering achievements.
Seluvis scrubbed at cast iron until his numb fingers began to ache pleasantly. From outside he heard a light laugh, like the cheerful call of a bird. He turned to look as if drunk.
Through the archway of his Rise’s entry, Seluvis had a clear view of what was happening on his disheveled lawn. Dolores had dragged the game off to one side, thankfully out of the eyeline of Ranni’s Rise, and Varré appeared to have hauled one of the desks outside while Seluvis was daydreaming on the upper level of the Rise. Though unable to give her any verbal commands, Varré was able to manipulate Dolores into position to help him. She held one of the hares currently, one foot clenched tight in each fist, and Varré’s hands moved over the creature’s body with the swiftness of insects swarming to lay their eggs. He pulled the pelt from the flesh with no hesitation, dagger probing the tender fibers between skin and meat, peeling it easily away. Blood dripped thickly from long ears, and in what felt like mere seconds Varré cast the hare’s pelt down into the dirt, leaving its pink flesh naked and bloody in the sun.
Seluvis abandoned the pots and pans, moving closer to the door. He gripped the sheet he’d cast there earlier, dragging it mindlessly over the entryway tiles, doing a pitiful job of mopping up the blood there but not particularly concerned by it any longer. He stared with wide-eyed intent as Varré pulled the hare from Dolores’s grip and set it carefully on the table. Two others already sat there, clean and ready, though Seluvis slowly realized they were missing their–
A few swift slashes, and Varré cast the filthy limbs and skull aside. The hare’s head rolled through the grass like a ball over a croquet pitch.
Ah.
For Varré, it seemed this was easy, satisfying work. He turned back to Dolores cheerfully, next lifting the corpse of the young buck from the grass by its back legs. Seluvis froze. It was startling to see him lift what was surely a heavy animal with relative ease and confidence.
“Hold tight now, Dolly,” Varré said quietly, urging her arms up, “and lift it high, would you? Good, good. The straighter the better.”
His dagger flashed, bloody and bright in the light of afternoon. There was such lethality in every move he made, such precision and grace, like the steps of a dance. He hardly paused. He acted with swiftness and surety, unblinking even when blood misted over the pale features of his mask. There was deep beauty in it, Seluvis thought. Some thrilling eroticism, an artistic sort of danger. Varré looked so elegant, the way his blood-soaked fingers slid beneath tough skin, the way his arms tensed and pulled, his hips and back arching as he shifted his weight to work the pelt loose–
Seluvis exhaled hard through his nose, his skin prickling at his collar. A weary little smile quivered at the corners of his mouth. Varré was so incredibly handsome, wasn’t he? Handsome and so jarringly primal, flaying hide from muscle with the ease of a man shaving his own face. It was enchanting. It was frightening. It was sensual.
Seluvis twisted the fabric in his hand, and his fingers stung with sharp, sweet pain. He muttered to himself, something wordless, a feeling riding upon short, needful breaths. Varré stripped the pelt from the deer with both hands, the dagger still clenched tight in his fist, and the way it fell from the muscle so wet with blood, it looked as if he were pulling a soaked robe away to bare naked flesh. Seluvis watched it slide free. His hand clung tighter to the sheet. His fingers ached. Sparks fell from his lips, flame coiled in his stomach. He thought of those hands tearing his housecoat from his shoulders the night before, how desperate Varré had been to see him, to touch him, to taste him. And this morning…waking him to pull the sheets from his body, to raise his hips from the mattress, to tongue the filthy hole he’d fucked–
Seluvis tried to wet his lips, but his tongue had gone dry in his mouth. Varré dropped the deer’s pelt to the ground in a heap. He took the carcass by its legs and hauled it to the table, laying it out flat before severing its limbs. His gloves, his forearms, and the kaftan he’d borrowed were soaked through with animal blood, countless spots and stains nearly black against the periwinkle fabric.
Seluvis looked down at his hand, clenched tight in the dusty, bloody sheet. For a long moment, he didn’t move. Then, with another shiver, he gathered the mess into a ball and stood, throwing it out onto the steps of the Rise. From the table Varré turned to look at him, his bright amber eyes gleaming with a smile behind his bloodied mask.
“Only a bit longer, my love. Shall I portion the hog and the deer for us?”
“Oh, please, yes,” Seluvis called. His voice sounded so weak…! He cleared his throat. “And shout when you’ve finished with Dolores, I have another task for her yet.”
“Certainly, darling. I do appreciate you sharing her with me.”
Seluvis’s body ached. He forced himself inside.
Drink…another drink.
He hadn’t fully sweated off the ones he’d had earlier, he knew, but something… something would have to quell this little fire Varré had inadvertently set inside him. There could be no more delays, or surely they would never eat.
My darling. We take love wherever we happen to find it, don’t we?
Gods, to have Varré push him onto that table…to treat his body no better than any other piece of meat to be devoured…!
Seluvis poured himself a very generous glass of brandy. He pulled three swallows from it, paused, then took two more. He belched into his hand. He finished the glass. He poured himself another.
He sat, staring at the blood that still stained the floor. One hand firmly gripped his brandy. The other carefully followed the front of his trousers, tracing the half-hard shape beneath.
In half an hour, Seluvis was drunk.
Half an hour beyond that, through Dolores’s effort, the oven had been stocked with wood and was now blazing, its heat emanating out into the rise even as the smoke billowed from the chimney outside. Seluvis had commanded Dolores to assist Varré in returning the table full of butchered meat to the rotunda, and when they’d put it back in place, Varré paused, looking at Seluvis pointedly. He must have seen how drunk he was, but Seluvis didn’t much mind. In fact, he smirked at Varré, red-cheeked and jolly.
“Varré, Varré. My sweet little rosebud. As we’ve agreed…you’ll wash up, won’t you now? And then sit up here, if you would, please. Sit and talk with me for a while as I’m working. Won’t you keep me company?”
“Mmm?” Varré hummed, mischief in his eyes already. “Heavens, Seluvis. So shameless, asking me to distract you as you work. What has gotten into you…besides that bottle I brought you earlier?”
“Nothing new,” Seluvis murmured, grasping the fold of Varré’s borrowed kaftan and pulling him closer. “Nothing that ought to surprise you.”
“If you must have me in clean clothes, I’ll have to change into my own. But I must ask you to keep from setting yourself ablaze before I return!” Varré laughed. Seluvis nosed the skin of his throat, lips parting against a bruise he’d left there the night before. The blood of some animal was there now, Seluvis realized distantly, and in his brandy-rich mind he felt a smile twist his mouth, his tongue easing out to lick the tang of metal from Varré’s skin. It made Varré giggle. “Well! Getting excited about our little courtship ritual, hmm? Will you bathe me once more, like a beast this time?”
“After…perhaps after dinner,” Seluvis breathed, pressing his teeth to Varré’s neck, then closing his lips again to kiss that same skin. “If you insist on being so sloppy.”
“Would you prefer that we eat off of each other’s bodies?” Varré purred, slipping his mask off. He was grinning, face still flushed with satisfaction from the work he’d done skinning and butchering what Dolores had caught. Beautiful, Seluvis thought, and his breath felt heavy in his chest. Gods…how lucky am I to hold you…the most beautiful man I’ve ever known? “Would you lay your meal out to fill my scars, and create them anew with your teeth as you ate?” Varré beamed at him. “Oh, Seluvis, what fun. I do like that idea.”
Seluvis pulled their mouths together. “No,” he grunted. “No. We’ll eat as I imagined it, dressed and at table. But once we’ve finished…”
“I understand,” Varré whispered, smiling into Seluvis’s lips. “And how could I say no to you when you have so much in mind for us? You naughty thing. I saw you watching me earlier, too, in a trance just like little Dolly. Have I possessed you?”
“I’ve told you…I think of so little else but you anymore. Your touch, your kiss…your eyes, your hands. You haunt me.” Seluvis kissed him slowly, softly. “You fill me.”
“So greedy,” Varré breathed, “demanding all that from me. And needy for my attention like a desperate little pup! It’s no wonder you want to treat me to a meal. You must feel guilty.”
“I want you to enjoy it. I want you…to be pleased.”
“Hmm? Is that so?” Varré’s tongue traced the line of Seluvis’s top lip, and Seluvis shuddered. “Do you want me to tell you that you’ve pleased me, my lamb? Do you want to hear me proclaim my love for you?”
Seluvis nodded, his face dark with color. He cupped Varré’s face in one hand. “Yes…tell me,” he begged. “Tell me again and again that you love me. Whisper it to me now, and in sight of the sun, and beneath every star that’s ever lived. Breathe it into my blood and my bones. I don’t ever…want to forget it.”
“Oh, you sweet thing. What lovely music breaks free from you, when you’re lost in me like this.” Varré leaned forward and kissed Seluvis’s chin, eyelashes fluttering playfully. “My romantic little lambkin. A natural lover, just as I said, hmm?” He patted Seluvis’s chest, urging him to let go; when Seluvis obliged, Varré reached out gently to run his fingertips up Seluvis’s neck and along the underside of his jaw. “You are so precious. I do love you, my darling. I adore you.”
Varré’s fingers seemed to catch Seluvis’s breath in his throat. He opened his mouth to reply, but no sound left him. Varré pulled away, wandering toward the basement again.
“Be mindful to do as I said, sweet Seluvis. Don’t catch fire until I’ve come back.”
Finally, a sound emerged from Seluvis’s throat: a low grunt of laughter. Varré disappeared into the basement, chuckling to himself. Seluvis snorted, then stopped.
He froze. He turned.
Dolores sat beside the raw, butchered meat, no longer entranced, her eyes now simmering with clear hatred.
A slow moment passed. Seluvis snorted with laughter again.
“Jealous, are we?” he muttered with a sneer. “I hope you appreciate the irony, my dear.” Her eyes trembled in their sockets, watching as he dragged his feet over to his alcohol stores to find a new bottle of brandy.
By the time he had made himself a new drink, Seluvis had realized how hot it was in the Rise, with the oven blazing away. He stripped himself of his cloak, and for a moment he nearly cast it over Dolores’s head like a lampshade, but a moment’s recollection of the morning sent ice under his skin again, and he stopped himself. He lay it in her lap instead, pushing his sleeves up to his elbows and turning to the formidable pile of meat on the table.
It was more natural to slip back into things than he’d imagined it would be, and quickly he found himself with a satisfied little smirk on his face as he worked. Stuffing a wide pan with pork and venison cuts, tossing herbs and salt over the meat, tucking wild onions and herba leaf into every crevice he could, then carefully sliding it into the smoldering oven. He lit the tabletop flames until greased cast iron sizzled, and the rabbit and turtles’ necks hissed as he pressed them into the heat. Fragrant smoke quickly filled the room, drifting up and out the windows as he’d planned. He watched it idly, salting, stirring, drinking.
It was a bit like an alchemy all its own. Time, heat, and transformation. Reduction of mass and volume. He found a little delight in it as he realized that – and oh, the smell of it! Too long he’d been boiling potatoes and eating cured jerky to sustain himself. At least since he’d come back to Caria from the Roundtable, which felt like centuries ago. His mouth began to water in anticipation of what was to come.
“And wine,” he muttered, nodding. “Wine…!”
Something sweeter to braise, something richer for the table, he thought. Steam chased the smoke upward, pale wine thickening with savory fat and sweet onion, and his smile broadened as he darted to the oven, pouring the rest of the bottle into the pan within to keep the meat from burning and sticking. He latched the oven shut again, wiping sweat from his brow on the back of his arm as he set the empty wine bottle on the displaced shelf.
“Sure to impress,” he said to himself, giddy from brandy and the delicious smells now filling the Rise. “You’ve outdone yourself this time, you old dog. Still with that masterful touch!”
“Oh, certainly,” Varré said warmly, and Seluvis started, his eyes snapping back to his makeshift stovetop. Back in his own tunic and wrap, now – though gods, it was certainly brighter since Iji had washed it – Varré had apparently even taken the time to wipe the blood from his face and neck…and his hair. He’d combed his hair and neatly woven it into one smooth, long braid, Seluvis realized with a little flutter in his chest. And the sides…he’d draped it gently over his ears, so that anyone looking would never have known he’d had hair torn out on either side.
Seluvis flushed a hotter, deeper red.
“Sit, sit,” he urged, rushing to Varré’s side and gently ushering him away from the food. “Keep me company, yes, but don’t gawk. I’d like to impress you at least somewhat with the culmination of my work.”
Varré allowed himself to be led, sitting calmly beside Dolores and watching as Seluvis returned to his task. “I assure you, my love, I’ve been very little else but impressed with you for much of the last day. So much determination, so much love you’ve expressed for me. Eager to please…and I relish the sight of it. I did say you light up when given the means to achieve.”
“Hmph. Yes, well…you did.” Seluvis fussed with the rabbit shanks and turned the turtles’ necks over, worrying the wine as it reduced into sauce. “If you’d been in a better state last night, perhaps I could have impressed you sooner.”
“I’m not one of your Carian masters, lambkin. No need to please me through pure servitude.”
“I’ve told you. I want you to enjoy this. It’s something I’ve made…only for you.”
“You want to be praised, my dear, and I know that. But I’ll praise you and love you no matter what you offer me. You already deserve so much adoration.”
Seluvis took a large sip of his brandy. It was warm by now, having sat for so long near so many fires, but he hardly cared. He hesitated, then took a spoonful of the glaze of hare fat and wine, sliding it over his tongue. A smooth, aromatic delight…a fine balance of the meat’s salt and fat, and the bright acidity of the wine. His stomach growled in appreciation, and he cast an electrified look over his shoulder at Varré.
“Then tell me again…how I’m the smartest man in Liurnia,” he said, a wide grin splitting his face. Varré’s eyes crinkled in a matching smile, and though he’d only just sat, he rose from his chair and slunk slyly back up to Seluvis’s side.
“You are. A genius, an innovator, unmatched in your skills. My word, and a master of culinary arts as well, it would appear! Goodness, lambkin. Look at all this. You’ll make me blush, treating me to a feast like this.”
Seluvis straightened and puffed out his chest. His skin and clothes were damp with sweat and he was still very, very drunk, but gods… he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so proud. His ribcage felt full, his cheeks on the verge of cracking open with his smile. He didn’t shoo Varré away this time, instead letting him take a curious look. As he worked, a pair of careful hands crept over him from behind, finding soothing places to squeeze at the junctions of his neck and shoulders. Varré’s fingers dug into him through his clothes; still, the pressure was firm and focused enough that it made Seluvis groan softly, a pleasant chill trickling down his spine.
“Ah…thank you.”
“Tense, darling. So tense.” Varré leaned closer, his hands working, finding tender knots and massaging them loose. “You’re working so hard for me.”
Seluvis sucked his tongue, rolling his shoulders gratefully into Varré’s hands. “Is it odd to you? That I feel so compelled to do this?”
“Well, of course. Don’t you find it strange? You’ve worked in service to upper crust Astrologers for most of your life. Why waste your time on someone like me…a filthy servant of the Faith?”
“We look to the stars for our lives’ direction, yes, but Caria is far more forgiving of heretics than the Academy. I thought you knew that.”
Varré laughed softly. “I’ve heard such a thing claimed, yes, but that doesn’t necessarily make it true.” His thumb found a particularly tender spot in Seluvis’s shoulder. Seluvis groaned.
“Gods…there, there. What…are you saying, though? Caria has historically drafted all manner of riffraff into its ranks, lifting even the likes of trolls into stations of nobility and influence.” Varré’s thumb dug deeper, firmer, working a knot loose. “Mmh…not only Iji, whom you’ve met, but…if I recall correctly, there were several in service to Radahn, and some rumored to patrol the volcano. My dear Queen Rennala even knighted one herself, just before the second Liurnian war.”
“Ah, yes. Bols, wasn’t it? I recall such a fuss arising about him on the outskirts of the little Albinaurics’ village. They were terrified of him! And I can imagine why, subjugated so by the Carians as they have been. Watching that monstrous figure patrolling the Lakes in that massive knight’s helm your Queen had made for him must have been horrific. With men, at least, a slug may crawl under a tree’s roots to seek shelter. But how could anything hide from something of Bols’s size? He would simply lay his weight upon everything and crush it to dust.” Varré paused. He stroked Seluvis’s neck for a moment, thinking, then went back to working the muscle. “…And still, when the Academy seized power back from Caria, he was put straight into the Evergaol. Isn’t that right?”
Seluvis frowned. He moved the meat around in the pans again, then turned the heat down. “Yes. And there he remains. Most of the other Carian knights are dead or mad. He may be one of the luckier ones.”
“The point of it, my lamb, is that all things unconnected to power are heretical, regardless of who wields that power. The Academy and Caria both have their lists of what is right and what isn’t, and these lists align to a degree that can not surprise you, having been in service to both. Caria may be cleaved from the Academy, but I know Caria still looks down upon those who Incant. You consistently proclaim the magnanimous nature of your Queen, and yet every man knows Caria has subjugated the Albinaurics to a degree far greater than any of Marika’s trueborn children.”
Seluvis tensed. He turned away from the table, meeting Varré’s eyes. “Rennala is a saint.” His voice was slow, quiet, and firm. “Do not speak ill of her.”
“Then what of her children?” Varré asked. “Her sons, in particular…? During the Shattering, or even the months leading up to it…did you ever happen to visit Mount Gelmir, or were you ordered not to associate Caria any further than necessary with the blasphemy on display there? Praetor Rykard was infamous for his cruelty, my love. To men, of course, but there were rumors of far more sinister things–”
Seluvis twisted his hand into Varré’s tunic and yanked him closer. “I will tolerate so very, very much from you, my pet. But not this.” He clenched his teeth until his jaw throbbed. He hissed the words through his teeth. “You know nothing of Prince Rykard. Do you understand me? I don’t care what horrors you claim you’ve witnessed him committing. You know nothing of him, and you never will.”
Varré’s expression remained level, unbothered by Seluvis’s menace. He lifted his hands again, finding their place back against tight shoulders.
“I don’t mean to claim that any of them are evil. But whatever you think of them, and no matter your loyalty to your station…your masters are as prone to fear as any other creature, my darling. All glintstone sorcerers share fear of a God, or of some force beyond even that. I cannot say precisely what it is, but no sorcerer of the Academy or Caria places value in someone who invokes the power of any Church.” He began again to work the muscles of Seluvis’s neck, loosening his kaftan collar to press fingertips to damp skin. “Which is in part why you intrigue me so. You are entrenched in studies of the mind, so dedicated to furthering your intelligence. You call yourself Carian, even without native roots, and yet you immerse yourself in those things plainly called heresy, certain you’ll be forgiven, though time has proven you will not be. Did you feel called to the rites of the Nox by your Sellian blood? Doesn’t it make you prouder than anything else, what you’ve learned of the Nox and restored of their arts in this new age?”
Seluvis’s jaw softened. His grasp loosened in Varré’s clothes. “Of course it does. You know it does.”
“Indeed. You bear heresy as a cloak of honor. You are Carian, yet you are Sellian. You so tenderly treasure your blood and your deepest roots, even as you blossom in a new home and call yourself by a different name.” Varré stroked his neck, fingertips traveling up over his cheeks. “The heart’s inclinations run deep, my darling. They reach far into the past and well into the future. You know this to be Fate, don’t you?” He leaned close, pressing a single kiss to Seluvis’s chin. Seluvis lowered his hands, leaning back against the table. “I imagine you know your own Fate quite well…and yet you tremble in awe of my love, as if it’s taken you completely by surprise.”
In fact, Seluvis had not studied the chart of his own birth in decades. After so many years it had exhausted him to pry into his Fate for answers that did not seem to exist. He had puzzled and lamented so long over the meaning of things that felt trivial in the wake of events he’d been woefully unprepared for. Where on his chart had Rennala’s ceaseless agony fallen, or Rykard’s abruptly-broken contact? Where was Ranni’s hatred written, or Radahn’s betrayal of the family…?
He had never seen any of it. And each was a terrible, ragged wound, still bleeding and festering in his mind and soul.
Seluvis swallowed. He closed his eyes. He bowed his head until his forehead touched Varré’s. “It has. It has surprised me.”
“But is it a burden to embrace it, or a relief?” Varré asked. His body was warm, pressing closer, one thigh threading between Seluvis’s legs. “Does it comfort you to cast aside your fear of the unknown, and train yourself instead to adore it?”
“Varré…” Seluvis’s mouth tightened. “Am I a fool?”
“What sort of fool?”
He hesitated. Varré’s lips traced his. “Am I a fool, to…to care for a man who’s hurt me like you have? You’ve ruined the nails of my right hand…cut me deeply and viciously where it hurts most of all, and left me…with an even more terrible fear of loneliness. But I feel that I…I need you. I must have you, must pull you even closer. Am I stupid, then? Am I blind? Have I been drained of every ounce of logical thought…?”
Varré kissed his mouth. He took Seluvis’s face in his palms, waiting until Seluvis opened his eyes and their gazes met again. “Every man who falls in love is at least somewhat of a fool, isn’t he? I certainly am. Don’t you know that? I’ve let you do things to me…let you see me in ways no one else living ever has. And I think of you, as you think of me. When we’re apart, my idle mind finds you, your crystal-blue eyes, the timid flush of your skin. You frustrate me…of course, darling, as I frustrate you. But I am made a fool by my love for you, my lambkin. I presume you must be for me.”
Varré lowered his hands. He wrapped his arms around Seluvis’s torso, palms pressing into his shoulder blades.
“You do love me, after all,” Varré said softly, his mouth against Seluvis’s beard, every word a tender breath. “Don’t you?”
“I…o-of course I–”
“Then won’t you say it?” He pressed gentle, slow kisses up Seluvis’s jaw. “I haven’t heard you say it. Won’t you…even whisper it to me…?” He tilted his head. The warm shell of his ear touched Seluvis’s lips, as if pleading. His palms tensed, his fingertips firm, drawing lines in Seluvis’s back.
Seluvis shivered. Hot, hot, his body suddenly felt so hot, as if he’d poured what remained of his brandy glass directly into his brain. His throat was thick and swollen. His tongue scraped against his own teeth, his lips quivering as they parted against Varré’s ear. His chest throbbed and burned.
“Let me lead you…by example.” Varré kissed his temple. “Seluvis. My dearest, darling Seluvis. You know it already, don’t you? How I love you…?”
“I…”
Blood rushed through Seluvis in a wave. His hands trembled. His stomach coiled in excitement. His voice dropped to a low and private murmur, and even his mouth felt full of butterflies. “Varré, my sweeting,” he rasped. He could taste the sweetness of Varré’s skin against his lips. His tongue was on fire. “I…y-you’ve made me so…” He swallowed again, hard, forcing it down. Varré pressed even closer, tucking his face into Seluvis’s throat. His voice had become a prayer. “Oh…gods. Gods, I do…love you. I love you so…s-so terribly.”
What a relic that phrase was. When had he said it last, he wondered, breathless and blushing? Never quite like this, of course, but how long, then…how long since he’d said it aloud at all, in any way, to anyone…? Had it last been for Rennala? And how many years ago had that been? Had he clung to her cold hands on some Academy balcony in the shadow of an astrolabe, afraid even under her adoring gaze? Afraid of how vulnerable those words would leave him, even as they burned on his lips and his tongue, aching to be said?
“How sweet you are,” Varré whispered, pressing kisses to his throat, just over his fluttering pulse. “My tender little lamb.”
Seluvis let his hand slide up Varré’s back, embracing him for only a moment. It was a relief to say it, certainly, but still he felt an odd sort of disappointment settling down inside him. Wouldn’t it have been more fitting to have told Varré later, as they ate their dinner? To whisper it as he smiled and stroked Varré’s hand from across the table, like the oath it was meant to be?
Seluvis let Varré go. He turned back to the food he’d abandoned, flushing so hot he may as well have been one of the rabbit shanks or turtles’ necks still sizzling on cast iron. He reached for his brandy again, hand shaking, not caring that Varré saw him finish it in hardly two swallows. He set the glass down, perhaps a bit harder than was necessary.
Varré touched his shoulder. “Did you need–?”
“Another. Yes.”
Seluvis moved to the oven as Varré filled his glass. With the door open, the hearty smell of smoked pork and venison filled the Rise, and Seluvis peered inside, pursing his lips. He pulled the pan of meat from inside, handling it carefully and setting it on a towel so as not to scorch his desk. The oven fire would go out on its own if unattended, but he prodded the rabbit and turtle meat as well, muttering to himself as he covered each pan and reduced the heat even further to keep them warm.
Varré handed him his drink. He took it, sipped it, and set it on the table.
“Finished, are you?” Varré asked, curious.
Seluvis shook his head. “It’ll be some time, still. The pork needs to rest. But I’ll have Dolores prepare the table soon. Hand me that…there, that sack near the shelf.”
Varré obeyed, still watching Seluvis as he pushed everything to the side, leaving himself an empty space and a tray of longer, flatter steel. From the sack he pulled partially-sprouting potatoes, carrots, parsnips…an odd number of root vegetables, things he was much more used to eating alone. A small knife made quick work of the potatoes’ eyes and dirtier bits of skin, and he trimmed them lazily, letting them fall in thick pieces onto the tray. Varré watched him work, rapt with curiosity.
“Not only the meat, then?” he asked. Seluvis snorted.
“What do you eat? It’s no wonder you’re malnourished.” He gestured to Varré with a carrot. “Have you ever seen one of these before? Do you know what the color green is?”
“Is that one I ought to know?” Varré laughed, slipping in close again. Seluvis said nothing to dissuade him, letting those arms find homes around his body. “Perhaps that’s something you can teach me, preceptor.”
“First I’ll teach you what good food is.”
“Mmmh.”
Soon there was a pile of cut vegetables upon the tray. Seluvis spread them out, then carefully lifted the pan that the turtle necks sat in, draining some of the liquid out to coat what he’d cut. Varré watched as he tossed them in the fat, then salted them and sprinkled them with shredded herba and wild onion before tossing them again.
“Let me…set this in the oven. One moment.”
Varré let him go. Seluvis slid the vegetables in and shut the door, sighing in relief. He patted at his kaftan, quickly recalling his lack of pockets. The bell that bound Dolores was still in his cloak, which was draped across her lap.
But Varré caught Seluvis as he took a step toward her.
“Where are you going?” he purred, wrapping his arms around Seluvis again.
“Best to get the table prepared now.” Seluvis glanced outside. “The sun will set soon, and at dusk, it ought to be nice to sit for a while and…spend time together, outside.” He let himself take Varré’s face in his hands and kiss him, just once. Then he pulled away, but Varré caught him once more, snaking around him from behind.
“Wait, my lambkin,” Varré whispered. His hold was tighter this time, forbidding Seluvis from wriggling free. “I have to say…I hadn’t considered how much I’d enjoy seeing all of this.” He dragged the tip of his tongue up Seluvis’s neck.
“What?” Seluvis asked, shivering. “What do you mean? Seeing me cook for you? Is it really that thrilling…seeing your lambkin ensnared in common domesticity?”
Varré shook his head softly. “It’s not that, particularly. Rather, I meant the way your hands look as you work. You’re so artful. So confident.” Lips pressed to the base of his skull. Varré nosed through his hair, kissed behind his ear. Seluvis’s skin prickled and flushed. “It calls to mind other ways…that you might use those hands of yours, my lamb.”
Seluvis fought back a smirk. “Every thought you have is debaucherous, isn’t it?”
“How could they not be? The way you tease me.” Varré’s fingers crept over fabric, pulling Seluvis’s clothes out of place, moving his kaftan to slide over his ass. He kissed Seluvis’s throat, hands cupping him and squeezing. “The way you tempt me.”
“I’m doing nothing of the sort. Your brain is mired in filth. I told you… after dinner, I’ll–!”
“You haven’t even begun to imagine what I would do to you, darling,” Varré laughed softly, his fingers crawling like spiders over Seluvis’s body. In an instant, he’d pulled Seluvis’s trousers loose, slipping them carefully down over the curve of his ass, and Seluvis heard the soft sound of Varré’s gloves hitting the floor, one after the other, one arm always locked around his ribs. One bare, scarred palm fondled him, stroked him, lifted one buttock and spread it from the other. Seluvis grunted and squirmed.
“Varré! F-for Gods’ sake, have some decorum, I’m–!”
“Press on, lamb,” Varré murmured, raising his seeking hand to coat a finger in saliva. “Tell me about how your work demands your full attention. How you’ve had no time to make love, not even once before we met.” He put his palm back against Seluvis’s buttock, fingers slipping against his tailbone to probe that valley of flesh.
From mere paces away, Dolores watched them in her chair, her eyes full of dark fire. Seluvis met her gaze. Varré’s wet finger teased his asshole, gentle and careful only for a moment before he dug up and into flesh. It hurt. Seluvis squealed, and he tore his eyes away from Dolores, humiliated.
“Be more careful!” he hissed, beet-red as he tried to shrug Varré off. “Are you trying to hurt me?!”
“Ah, forgive me,” Varré murmured, drawing back just enough to grip Seluvis by the waist and push him into the shelf he’d filled with rose oil days before. He pinned Seluvis there with his body, locking his arm around him again and uncorking a bottle to slip his fingers into it. Varré’s lips parted beside Seluvis’s ear, his tongue slipping wet over his teeth. “Would this serve you better?” he asked, replacing his hand against Seluvis’s ass, his touch now wet and smooth with oil. Before Seluvis could respond, that finger had found him again, sliding with newfound ease into his body.
Immediately, a second finger pushed in to join it, and Seluvis gasped.
“You watched me skin and dress these animals…it made you yearn for my attention, didn't it?” Varré breathed, his teeth scraping against Seluvis’s shoulder. “You thought of me handling you like that…peeling every layer of you away and leaving you exposed, all for my pleasure.” His fingers curled against the walls of Seluvis’s body, stroking him where he ached. “Didn’t you?”
“Y-yes, I…” Seluvis’s hands found the shelves and clung to them for support. He bit his lip, his breaths hot in his nose like a beast’s. He could feel his cock straining in his pants, eager again after all of Varré’s earlier teasing. “Of course I did, you drive me so–!”
Varré slid his fingers in and out, fucking him slowly, making him groan with pleasure. “Oh, Seluvis. How long you’ve gone, wanting to be used…such a prim and proper thing, sweating underneath all those expensive clothes. Dreaming of a hard cock in your hands, in your mouth, spreading your beautiful ass apart–”
“V-Varré, please,” Seluvis gasped, shuddering in his firm grip, “please, don’t say such–!”
“There’s no shame in it, my love. It’s nothing but a pity, how you’ve gone to waste. I intend to delight in every morsel of you…and I know the thought of that pleases you. Look…look how eager you are, look how you take my fingers into you! Your body is so desperate to be touched and loved…!” His fingers teased against his prostate before sliding fully free, and Seluvis whimpered, clenching after them. Varré lazily nudged his own bulging crotch against one buttock, lifting his hand to his face. His lips curled as he pressed his wet fingers to them and breathed deeply. Slowly, he ran his tongue over each gnarled finger, then reached back down to grip Seluvis’s ass more firmly.
Not a moment later, his touch had frisked around to Seluvis’s front, tugging his trousers down to his thighs to happily grip his slick erection. “Shall I love you more, then, my darling? Right here, on the floor…shall I spread you open and fuck you with my tongue again?” His touch was methodical and as maddening as ever. He squeezed and stroked at just the right pace, fingers teasing and fluttering with perfect urgency. Seluvis moaned. “Doesn’t it drive you wild…the thought of being reduced to such a salacious little spectacle?”
That was what they were, wasn’t it? Dolores was still watching them. Sitting silent in her chair, blazing with hatred and disgust. Surely Varré could hear her…and perhaps he was even doing this to see what she would say. Hands shaking, Seluvis swallowed, bracing himself more firmly against the shelves. Varré’s lips teased the back of his neck, hand steadily massaging his throbbing cock. Seluvis sighed weakly, thighs trembling in gratitude with each stroke.
“Y-you…deviant,” he grunted, though his face burned bright red in what he realized was delight. “You brute. Couldn’t keep your hands to yourself through…through dinner, could you? O-oh…!”
“Why wait?” Varré whispered, and suddenly, he squeezed the head of Seluvis’s prick just a little too hard. Seluvis let out a sharp, startled cry. “When you’re so easily persuaded to give me what I want…?” His grip tightened even further.
“S-stop!” Seluvis exclaimed, reaching down to find Varré’s wrist, though that only prompted Varré’s hold to tighten further still. Seluvis shouted in pain. “Varré, please, p-please, stop!”
The grip loosened. Varré’s hand was tight and shaking, sliding over the sore and throbbing head of Seluvis’s prick. “Stop what?”
“Don’t…d-don’t handle me like that, it hurts, I–!”
“Then how should I handle you?” Varré asked, pressing his lips flush to Seluvis’s ear. “You want me to be gentle with you, is that it?” His touch further softened, slowing to a steady, careful rhythm against Seluvis’s skin – but still firm enough to excite. He played with the weeping head of his cock, fingertips drawing slow circles over slippery skin. Seluvis tried to swallow.
“Yes, y-yes, please.”
“Tell me, would you…?”
“Please…please be gentle with me, Varré.”
Varré’s lips pressed firmly to Seluvis’s neck, and he sucked Seluvis’s skin against his teeth for a moment before stopping. “And…why?” he breathed.
Seluvis clenched his teeth. “Is it so much…t-to ask for kindness?”
“Oh, darling. I am being so kind to you. Besides…don’t you want to be teased and pushed even further, my lamb? Didn’t you feel so good, surrendering every ounce of control to me?” He began stroking Seluvis again, softer, sweeter. Pleasure swam back through Seluvis’s veins, pulsing in his thighs and balls. He leaned his body back into Varré’s, and Varré nipped at his throat.
“What did you call my former lovers? Did you call them whores? Whores that I’d savagely dragged into the mud?” His voice was a smug, sultry growl, his touch now unrelenting, fingers focused upon their task. “What makes you any better than them, my lambkin? What sort of purity do you think you have? I met you only two weeks ago, and already you say you love me. You’ve given yourself to me with no hesitation. You’ve invited me into your own bed and offered yourself to me on your back, legs spread for me like any other filthy whore who’s taken my cock. Your first time, and you begged for me to fuck you, you cried my name and let me choke you, you came all over yourself like an animal—!”
Varré released his grip on Seluvis’s chest. He soaked his hand in oil, then reached down to slip his fingers back into Seluvis, using his free hand to stroke his dripping cock. Seluvis whined, calling out softly when Varré again nudged his fingers into the aching lump of his prostate. He pushed a little more firmly, sliding his oily touch over the gland like one of the sensitive knots he’d worked loose from Seluvis’s shoulders. Seluvis felt his balls tightening, felt his viscera clenching in pleasure. His asshole tightened around Varré’s fingers, and Varré pumped his cock in quicker, firmer strokes, urging Seluvis’s breath higher and higher in his chest.
“There we are…” Varré cooed, his voice molten against Seluvis’s neck. “So quick to spread your legs for me again. Panting and sweating and squealing desperately for me to make you come.” He dragged his lips up behind Seluvis’s ear. “…My little pig, aren’t you? Just a little bow-legged hog, desperate to be bred in the dirt.”
Seluvis’s breaths stopped in his throat. Dolores was still watching. She’d heard that. She saw what Varré was doing to his body, she’d heard him moaning and crying out in pleasure, saw every time Varré plunged his fingers into him–
“I’m…coming,” Seluvis gasped, delirious. Varré’s fingers were unforgivably deep inside him, massaging him in time with every urgent stroke of his cock. “F-fuck, I’m–!”
“Of course you are. You’re just like all the others, my sweet, disgusting little slut.”
“I’m c-coming, I’m coming, coming…!”
“Yes, darling, come…come for me,” Varré whispered, panting as he kept pace. “I know you can’t help it. It’s all that you want.”
“Varré,” Seluvis choked. “Ohh…Varré–!”
Seluvis’s body clenched tight against Varré’s fingers, and he came hard over the shelf, seed glazing bottles and dripping down wood. He gasped and groaned, hips bucking out every wave of his climax, and Varré laughed softly, pressing delighted kisses to Seluvis’s sweating neck.
“Good heavens…every orgasm you have turns you into something wild.” He gently pulled his fingers free, teasing Seluvis’s trembling asshole again as he did. “You’ve been denying yourself for so long…now it’s all so much, isn’t it?”
Varré wiped his oil-soaked hands against his white gown, unbothered. Seluvis leaned against the shelves, panting for breath, trying to control his quaking knees. Varré’s touch found his drooping trousers, pulling them back up over his hips to cover him. Again Varré pressed close, though in the back of his mind, Seluvis noticed he had lost his own half-formed erection. For a moment, he focused on trying to breathe, content to allow Varré to hold him.
“What a man you are,” Varré whispered, nuzzling into the back of his neck. Seluvis cleared his throat, finally forcing himself to stand up straight. He pushed himself back into his trousers, tightening his laces with fumbling fingers.
“And what a menace I adore,” Seluvis huffed, finally shaking himself free of Varré’s touch.
As he snatched his cloak from Dolores’s lap and rummaged through it to find the corded bell, he did all he could to keep his gaze from meeting hers.
Still, her eyes were daggers lodged in his bones.
Once Dolores was set off on her penultimate task for the evening, Seluvis left Varré to stew smugly in the rotunda as he retreated sheepishly to the basement. He fumbled to wash himself with a cold, wet towel, wiping away the oil Varré’s hands had left on his body and, for a moment, gingerly pressed the cool dampness to the sore head of his cock to soothe it. Varré had squeezed it so hard, Seluvis was convinced it must be bruising, but the towel was a relief. He sighed heavily, granting himself a precious few moments to relax before he turned to the task of re-dressing himself for dinner.
He would have much preferred to bathe again and shave his face to clean up the catastrophe his facial hair had become over the past several days, but Seluvis made do with what time he’d afforded himself to freshen up. The logical thing, he thought, was to find his most handsome clothes to change into. His finest Carian stole – the brightest royal blue, not one thread of golden embroidery out of place, no gemstones fraying from their weave – his cleanest trousers, his least favorite boots and gloves…though they certainly looked far less worse for wear than what he usually wore.
Time to stop letting yourself go, he chastised himself, turning at last to the table beside his bed. He’s hardly one to notice, but REALLY. You do still represent your Queen’s House, don’t you? No reason for you to look such a mess all the time.
From the single drawer of his nightstand, where he’d carefully placed it days before, Seluvis found the tiny brooch Varré had given him. He rolled it in his hand, letting the rubies and silver sparkle as they turned, and the bright little braid of roses looked even more beautiful than it had when Varré had first given it to him. Without any further thought, he pinned it to his cloak, straightening his seams over his breast to be sure Varré’s little favor would shine.
“Darling?” Varré called from upstairs, still sounding quite pleased with himself. “Are you well?”
“Yes, yes. I’ll be up in a moment.”
Seluvis considered his facial hair once more, then glanced at the mask of confidence. But that would ruin everything, wouldn’t it? No, no masks at the dinner table. He left it where it lay, taking only his wide hat before ascending the stairs again.
The light in the rotunda had grown dimmer, the sun well on its journey over the horizon. Varré still sat leisurely at the table beside the bouquet he’d brought; he idly stroked the head of each rose as if to comfort them. Curious though that made him, Seluvis instead turned to his liquor stores again, finding a second bottle of wine to set beside the first he’d already chosen for their meal.
Again, he found the generous glass of brandy Varré had poured for him. Again, he drank it quickly, exhaling roughly against the burn of it. He’d been drunk to some degree nearly all day, but what did it matter? He felt warm, and handsome, and proud of what he’d done. He was still flushed and a little giddy from sex, and he couldn’t find it within himself to care if he was drinking more than was polite. He turned to look at Varré, pleased to see how content he still seemed.
“Soon everything will be ready,” Seluvis said gently, offering a tender smile. “I do hope it pleases you.”
“I’m already pleased,” Varré replied, crossing one leg over the other, “and I imagine we’ll feast like kings.” His eyes glowed, his mouth grinning, sweet and inviting. “Might I…ask you something, though?”
“I doubt I could stop you,” Seluvis grunted, though there was levity in the words. “Go on, go on.”
“My love…would you do something for me? A favor?”
Seluvis paused, rotating the bottles of wine distractedly. Varré’s voice…what a tone he had suddenly taken on. How sweet he sounded. How coy. Seluvis nodded with enthusiasm. “Of course. Name it.”
Varré’s smile broadened, and though it clearly held some devious little secret, Seluvis couldn’t resist smiling wider back at him. Varré reached out to him, and Seluvis closed the gap between them, taking Varré’s hand in his own.
“I have something I’d like to add to our meal. Something….small, something that we might indulge in as an appetizer.”
“Oh?”
“Could you prepare it for us? It should only be but a minute more.”
Varré had something to contribute…! Unbidden, told not to worry, and still Varré had gone out of his way to offer something to share. How that stirred Seluvis’s blood! Enthusiasm for their meal, for Seluvis’s idea…Varré was going happily along with every little whim, just as eager as Seluvis himself for the evening to be perfect. He was just as giddy about it all as Seluvis was, wasn’t he?
Then he was pleased by everything Seluvis had done.
Seluvis’s eyes creased at the corners, his pale cheeks flushing deeper pink. He squeezed Varré’s hand.
“Did you pick something up on your way back from the Rose Church, my sweet pet?” he asked, reaching out with free fingers to tuck a loose strand of hair behind Varré’s ear. “Even though I told you not to worry yourself…well, truly, you shouldn’t have. You’ve already brought such a splendid bouquet for the table, and the fact that you’re indulging me at all…”
Varré patted the back of Seluvis’s hand. “Now, now. I thought it was quite necessary. It’s something I’ve wanted to share with you for some time, but…considering the milestones we have to celebrate tonight, well. I simply can’t think of a more appropriate moment.”
“And what are you keen to celebrate?” Seluvis asked, though he knew that particular devil in Varré’s eyes quite well by now.
Why…the breaking of your maidenhead, my darling.
Rather than offer a sly or crude answer, though, Varré simply continued to smile. “I’m certain more than a few examples come to mind. After all, haven’t you and I already been through so much together?” He grasped Seluvis’s fingers gently. “Now…will you please hand me my satchel, lambkin? I’ll show you what I’ve brought for us.”
Seluvis squeezed Varré’s hand once more in return before moving to obey, finding the pouch where Varré had cast it just beside the bouquet of bloodroses. Curious, he puzzled over what Varré might have tucked away in his bag. It fit inside without notice, meaning it must have been no larger than a prawn, or perhaps even an insect. But one single prawn made no sense. What significance did that hold? What, from their time spent together, would Varré treasure so deeply, and wait so patiently to share…?
He resisted the urge to look inside on his own, handing Varré the pouch by its belt. Varré took it, but kept one hand outstretched. “Might you also have a spare plate, or a tray? It may be useful for you.”
Seluvis paused. His eyebrows flattened, nostrils flaring, suddenly suspicious. “For me? And why?”
Varré had opened his satchel, free hand plunging inside. “Well. I must assume you won’t have much interest in touching it directly.”
Was that some sort of joke? It might have been. Seluvis wasn’t sure if he should laugh or not; though he again moved to give Varré what he’d asked for, his uncertainty split his face with a grimace as he handed Varré a small tin plate.
Seconds passed.
“Varré,” Seluvis said softly as the search through the satchel continued. “You…are being serious, aren’t you?”
Varré gripped the plate in his outstretched fingers, his arm still extended as he rummaged. “Of course, my love. I’ve been eager to share this with you for so, so long.”
Still unsure, Seluvis tried to find some sense in it. Varré’s outstretched hand, the size of his bag, his words…none of it made–
“Ah! Here it is. Gracious. I thought I’d lost it.”
Varré’s hand lifted from the bag.
A smell cut through the room, a glintblade slicing through air. Seluvis’s eyes bloomed with tears, and he stumbled backward, reaching up to wipe his eyes against the back of his glove. “Good…gods! ” he choked. “What–?!”
The leather pouch slid to the floor from Varré’s lap, its metal buckle heavy against the tiles. Its contents spilled out: canisters of powder, dry and twisted roots and herbs, the caps of mushrooms, other things nameless and unrecognizable.
Calmly and with purpose, Varré set the prize he’d sought in a long, slithering pile upon the plate.
It reeked of shit and rot and death so severely that Seluvis’s eyes clouded with tears again. As he blinked them free from his lashes he was certain now that Varré was in fact playing some horrendously foul joke on him. His lips tightened forbiddingly, the smell of the pile threatening to permanently coat his tongue and teeth. What is that, what IS that?! He coughed, he choked, bringing a hand to his mouth to cover it. Varré’s hand stayed still. The thing upon the plate gently rolled over itself like a snake uncoiling.
It was flesh, Seluvis realized, all at once.
Strips of flesh, or perhaps of a pelt. But nothing from today, nothing at all even like what he’d pulled from the animals that would make up their meal. What he held now was dark and oddly textured, and the blood upon it had turned to a black and sticky paste. Hair sprouted along one side of it, grey and patchy, little dying meadows cast out over rotting earth, interrupted by bone-white hills that were more like teeth, or coral.
Or horns.
Seluvis’s back hit the edge of the table, and all his utensils rattled atop it. His own breath was poison in his lungs, all the air in the Rise blighted by what sat on the plate.
Some rot…can only be excised through flaying.
Indeed, then, it was a pelt. It was the first pelt Seluvis had seen Varré strip from an animal, in fact.
“That…!” he croaked. “Is it… B-Blaidd’s…?!”
“Salt,” Varré said gently. “And a few minutes over the fire ought to be enough. I’d have it as it is, but…well. Your tastes are a bit more delicate than mine.”
Blaidd’s skin…his flayed skin…!
Seluvis’s face had gone ghastly pale. His blood was cold, so cold in his veins that it felt like shards of ice were tearing through his limbs. He trembled, unable to blink. Varré held the plate closer. Half-jellied rot and old flakes of pus were stuck in blood-damp clumps of fur. For how little flesh sat there, the smell of it continued to burst out of it like spores releasing from a Miranda flower, dense and blinding and horrifically foul. Seluvis retched violently, recoiling in disgust. He tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t leave his brain, let alone his tongue.
Varré gave the plate a little shake. “Come now. A bit of salt. The fire will take care of the hair. You’ll manage with the rest. Don’t be so dramatic.”
A weak, high groan bubbled out of Seluvis’s throat, and he gripped at his own clothes stupidly, desperate to hold onto something – anything – for comfort. He could feel the contents of his stomach tossing up against his ribs. The sound he made became a gasp as he swallowed painfully, struggling not to let anything up. Still, Varré stared at him, holding the plate of rotten flesh out as if it were some pleasant little confectionery.
“I thought you might see the romance in it…the two of us, sharing this piece of the night we met.”
Seluvis shook his head involuntarily, his body driven by the stench. His lips trembled over his teeth, and the root of his tongue stung with revulsion, a violent urge to vomit making the lining of his throat thicken with saliva. Tears sprung to his eyes again, but less from the smell and more from the panic that had crept so swiftly inside him.
“Varré,” he croaked, “Varré, y-you can’t–?!”
“Why? Why not? And why should this disgust you, Seluvis? You had every bit a part in it as I did.”
So then it was Blaidd’s flesh. Omen-cursed and rotting, dead skin still clinging to his fur, somehow tucked into Varré’s satchel and kept, kept for so long, weeks now–!
Never any good reason to snoop through someone else’s things, my lamb. You may find something you’ll wish you hadn’t.
“It’s what brought us together, isn’t it? What you walked across Liurnia for, to find me, to meet me, to give me your name and your hand and to invite me home with you.” Varré lowered the plate only slightly. There was no anger in him yet; only insistence. Fervor. “Would I have ever seen you otherwise? Do you believe we would have met any other way? You take no strolls along the lakeshore, you hardly trouble yourself even to leave this tower except for the sake of duty. For so long I’ve wandered Liurnia, and never once have our paths crossed until this. This is a part of us, then, my lambkin. This is our Fate. It is all that remains of the night we first laid eyes on one another. The night I first touched your hand, the night you first said my name.”
Seluvis was weeping. From the horrible stench, from terror, from the sweet edge of truth coating Varré’s voice. He was right, after all. Gods, he’s right…! What he’d done…he’d preserved – albeit poorly – the very thing that had led them to each other.
“I admit I was vulnerable when you met me,” Varré continued, low and intense. “Such a simple thing…all it took was one taste of your wit, and I was charmed. Enamored with you right from the start. Surely you know that. I didn’t try to hide it. But I did try so very, very hard to let you turn away. I asked if you were certain you could pay Mohg’s price. I asked…if you could think of another sacrifice to make, to cleanse yourself of debt.” Varré paused. He rose from where he sat. He looked down at the plate in thought. “…But you assured me you could, and that any price was worth your own life. Well…the opportunity has come and gone to offer my blood, and my life in place of yours. My return last night was an opportunity for you to spare yourself…I know you recognized it. Your fear told me as much, but…you couldn’t endure it, my love. The pain that choice threatened to leave behind…it only served to further break you, didn’t it? The mere thought of it was unbearable. To lose the one you love the most…you haven’t the strength to suffer through that feeling again.”
He looked up at Seluvis. “I know you understand me. I know you hear me now and you feel…exactly the same as I do. I must have you now, and always.”
Tears continued streaming down Seluvis’s face, cutting paths over skin already dewy with sweat. He choked and gasped for breath. His limbs felt out of his control, his fingers numb and shaking, his arms barely supporting his weight against the table as he leaned on it. “V-…Varré,” he whimpered, “you…you intend to…eat this?”
Blaidd’s foul, rotten, weeping flesh.
“As a symbol of our love,” Varré said, nodding. “Yes, my dear, sweet Seluvis. What could bond us further? What could hold more meaning than this? All we’ve done, and seen, and come to know of one another since that night…this night…” The plate trembled in his hand. “I’ve kissed you, touched every inch of your body, held you in my arms. You’ve told me things no one else has cared to hear, things you’ve longed to share, things that have hurt you so terribly, terribly deep inside. You’ve begged me to stay here beside you. We’ve shared a bed and made love to one another. Haven’t we? And all of that…we owe to this, here. This beautiful thing. It is our love.”
A pile of rotting, jellied flesh. Cursed, at that. If he weren’t crying, Seluvis might have laughed.
“I want it inside us. Both of us. We needn’t consume it all, if you struggle with it. But a bite, my love. One bite for each of us. Won’t you? Can’t you? For me, and for us?”
Varré’s eyes were wide and golden and wet. Tears of his own seemed to be threatening to spill, and the possibility of it felt sharp, swift, and invasive beneath Seluvis’s skin. Could he bear that burden, he wondered? Could he reject something that Varré felt so sincerely sure of, and bear the responsibility of hurting him…?
“Please. Please, my lamb.”
It would ruin…everything. Saying no to him. Rejecting this. What he was saying…it was real, wasn’t it? It was the truth. Seluvis knew it, even though it terrified him. His whole body shook, fear and revulsion so powerful it was nearly painful. He was sweating again. His hands let go of the table.
Varré’s mouth trembled. Tears crept from pale lashes, diamonds over rose gold skin.
In fact, Seluvis could not bear it. Not at all.
“Yes,” Seluvis breathed, his throat clenching tight. “Yes, Varré.”
He took the plate from Varré’s hand, and it felt as if he’d stepped out of his own body. He watched the glistening of rotten blood, watched a flame spring back to life beneath a cast iron pan he’d emptied of meat. His hands poured the bloody offering from the plate, spread it thin against the heat, his vision darkening at the intensity of the smell. He poured brandy over it, watched fire curl the hair down to blackened pores, felt Varré carefully approach him from behind.
He cast salt over it. He pulled it from the fire. He held the pan out to Varré, every inch of him shaking. Varré lifted a single piece of it from the pan, the heat of it seemingly of no concern. It dripped with brown blood. Some tendrils of burnt hair yet remained, the Omen buds of it still white as teeth under Varré’s fingers.
Varré brought it to his own mouth. His teeth cut the lower half of it free, his tongue pulled it into his mouth. Numb, Seluvis watched as he chewed and swallowed, their eyes locked on one another. Varré’s free hand coaxed him to set the pan down. He lifted what remained of Blaidd’s flesh to Seluvis’s lips.
“Here, now, my darling,” he whispered. Varré pushed his fingers into Seluvis’s mouth, sliding disintegrating meat and hard knobs of bone past his teeth. “Swallow.”
This isn’t real, Seluvis thought, his brain and bones on fire.
Seluvis was fully outside of himself. In the very back of his mind, he felt an indescribably horrific taste pool in his mouth, soaking into his tongue and the roots of his teeth. He felt hair against the back of his throat, felt his body heave.
This isn’t real.
His teeth ground jelly to liquid, his tongue pushed the buds of Omen horns to the back of his throat; they scraped down like stones. His jaw fell slack in disbelief, pink saliva dripping from his lips. He brought one hand to his throat, shivering uncontrollably.
This cannot be real.
Some nightmare, it was a nightmare! He’d drunk too much brandy and he’d passed out in his bed, he was asleep, he was dreaming of some horrific thing, of his mind being pulled out of his body–
Varré’s palms cupped his face. Warm lips kissed his hairline, and fresh, cold sweat sprung out beneath them. “Oh, my sweet Seluvis,” Varré cooed, plain as day. “Do you feel it now, too? Do you feel it burning inside you…?”
Blaidd’s flesh hit his stomach like a lead weight, and Seluvis lurched. He fell against Varré, looking up desperately, meeting ever-warm, familiar amber. Varré sealed their lips together, slow and sweet, and as he closed his eyes, Seluvis closed his, too.
No, his mind wept, sharp and clear as he crashed back into himself.
In fact, he was wide awake.