Page 6 of A Heaven to Reach For (Infinite Grace #1)

“I am very tired,” Maschi agreed, each of his steps heavy and careless.

He was quiet for some time, turning his head once in a while as if to follow the noises coming from certain darkened places, but accepted Owin gently steering him forward every so often without a complaint.

“I took you from someone,” he said again, after long enough that Owin had nearly forgotten the first time.

“I don’t want to—no, that’s a lie. I shouldn’t lie. Lying serves no purpose.”

Owin glanced down to view the familiar frown in profile.

“I hear it’s a sin,” he pointed out playfully. “But it does serve a purpose on occasion. It can keep smart little postulates out of trouble.”

“I’m not… not a….” Maschi reached out to take Owin’s arm in an iron grip but plodded onward toward the road.

Owin was not strong enough to carry him far, much less the whole way, but he considered it more with each heavy yet determined step.

“I’m not ,” Maschi finished at last, firmly, and nodded.

“I took you from someone. It is Ara . You wore blue . You want .”

“It wasn’t a problem.” Owin did not lie.

He regarded the few flowers he could see from this side for long enough that Maschi’s steps began to slow.

Owin reminded himself to take smaller strides to let Maschi keep pace with him.

“You are also wearing blue,” he said at last, barely shoving down the question that followed the statement.

He swallowed, but the question rephrased itself to slip past his defenses.

“How many kisses did you collect today?”

The light of the rising moon showed they were alone on the start of the country lane. There was no one else to hear or notice the roughness in Owin’s voice.

“Not enough,” Maschi announced darkly, then dropped his head. “Dahl kissed me twice.”

“I know.” There was that roughness again.

“Do you?” Maschi turned, but couldn’t peer at Owin and walk at the same time, and after some internal debate, seemed to choose walking. “Owin?” Owin’s name still emerged from Maschi with disbelief, though slightly breathlessly now. “I am not sure I care for kissing. Or… not all kisses.”

Owin took a deep, deep breath, then released it. It was what he had expected, with what he knew of other priests, and yet he was surprised. “Were those your first kisses, Maschi?”

Gentle though he was, he should not have asked. Maschi yanked his hand away. “You’re going to tease me.”

“No.” Owin shook his head to emphasize this. “No, I wasn’t.”

“You should.” Maschi crossed his arms. “I’m worth mockery. Everyone thinks so.”

Owin stopped him with one soft touch to his shoulder. “No, they don’t.”

Maschi angled his head up to give Owin a look that likely would have been devastating if the moon had been high enough for Owin to fully see it. “Yes, you do.”

“How can you think that?” Owin demanded, but the far-off clatter of a horse and cart, and a whistle from the driver as she saw them, made them both turn.

The driver turned out to be Marsilia, also in service of the Duke, who offered them a ride in the back of the cart, which Owin could not refuse when Maschi could barely stand upright.

But Owin thought of it once he had accepted for them.

It was a long walk they had taken together, and most of it in peace.

Likely the effect of the wine more than the moonlight or Owin’s company.

Owin told himself that as he put his hands to Maschi’s waist to lift him into the cart and discovered that Maschi’s body was buried within the depths of the tunic.

Maschi should have more fat to keep winter shivers and illness away, and a good, solid plumpness for someone, someday, to hold onto.

Owin would bring Maschi more food himself, if their friendship remained in the morning.

Maschi allowed that touch like all the others he had permitted from Owin today, and stared at Owin as Owin climbed in next to him. Up close and finally still, Maschi’s eyes were wide and somehow bright. But when Owin met his stare, he jumped then looked away.

The cart began to move. After a while, Maschi slid onto his back to glare upward at the sky, his feet sticking out past the edge of the cart.

So much for the words they had exchanged. Maschi would undoubtedly be embarrassed in the morning and never speak to Owin again about anything but their duties.

But Maschi surprised him with a sigh. “The celestial bodies turn as they revolve around us. They might gaze down on places here where the skies are still light, where it is still Ara. There might still be a chance. Heaven is infinite. Grace must be as well, then, but I’ve never considered… Is it yet Ara, Owin? Please say yes.”

Bemused but wishing he had an answer, Owin leaned back too, knees bent to let his legs hang over the side.

The blue sky of Ara was dark purple now, rich with stars.

He released a breath at the loveliness of it, not something he often contemplated, and wondered how it was that a hardened guard with much experience should be so aware of how close his hand was to the hand of the man next to him.

“Is Heaven up there beyond the stars, then?” he asked quietly, while Marsilia whistled and whispered to her horses.

He thought Maschi might try to tell him once more than he was not a priest. But Maschi turned his head to look at him and murmured. “They say so. It’s very far away. Too far.”

“Are you worried about your place there?” Owin turned his head for the question, then stopped to listen to his own breath and to catch the twinkling at the corner of his eye. He recognized the tiny spark a moment too late to turn to see its color.

“No.” Maschi sighed the word but did not add any others.

Strange that he had not turned away. Stranger that Owin could also not speak above a whisper. “I’ve never understood a longing for something far away and unknown, when there is much in this world to not only be longed for, but reached for.”

“Like who you were with. The man I took you from?” Maschi turned his head to the sky once again before sitting up. “Lying down makes me dizzy.”

Owin put a hand on his back to steady him before sitting up with him. “Some things are easier to reach for than others, especially for someone like me. What I would have done with him… it would have just been something fun and then over. You don’t need to feel guilty.”

“It is not guilt.” Maschi bit off each word, then rocked to the side and groaned when the cart hit a bump. “The wine wears off. I am beginning to feel how miserable I will be.”

Owin smiled despite everything. “There are solutions to that, if you come down to the guards’ common area tomorrow.”

Maschi took a long time to answer. His voice was soft. “No. No, I don’t think so.”

“We would not laugh at you, Maschi. Not meanly. We have all been in your place. Some will likely be worse off, as they drank all day.”

Maschi shuddered delicately beneath Owin’s hand. “Always, you are gentle.”

Owin’s chest was tight. “Then come to the common area tomorrow. Trust me and join us.”

“Tomorrow it won’t be Ara anymore,” Maschi answered, then hid his face in his hands.

He said nothing else, and when they finally reached their destination, he stumbled off the cart before it had even fully stopped in the stable yard.

If he had not stumbled, Owin might have left it there. The walking would have sobered Maschi up a bit, but Maschi was not used to drinking, and whatever it was in the day that made Maschi speak softly also made the ache in Owin’s chest deeper.

“Maschi,” he warned before trailing after him once again. Maschi turned to consider him, then nodded before continuing on his way with Owin behind him.

The rooms for the guards were near the stables and up a staircase. Some of the priests lived within the Duke’s house itself. Maschi, it seemed, had a room in the Duke’s home, not far from the stables, but down a set of stairs. Owin took his arm for those. Maschi let him.

Maschi’s room was surprisingly big, but dark, with a few windows at ground level.

The shutters had been left open to allow light in but that also meant fresh, chilly air.

A lamp suspended from the ceiling by a chain flared to life, with a shower of red sparks after it, and leftover pieces of charred wood in the fireplace began to smoke a moment later, before catching into flame.

The hair on the back of Owin’s neck stood up, as it nearly always did when Maschi or one of the other mages lit a fire seemingly from nowhere. But the room needed the heat, so he said nothing.

A desk was full of scrolls and some large, probably heavy books.

Pieces of chalk as well as drawings decorated the floor.

Owin saw no plates of food or chests for clothing.

In front of the fireplace was perhaps the smallest cot Owin had ever seen.

It was just high enough to be more than a pallet and to keep all but the most determined rats and pests away.

Maschi pulled away from Owin to go to the desk, so Owin carried on to the bed, and the fire, and the place where there should have been a pile of logs and were instead only two. He added those to the fire then turned to study the figure drunkenly trying to straighten his desk.

“Do you have water?” Owin asked, but noticed the pitcher sitting on the room’s only chair before he received an answer. “Drink some before you go to bed, little mage.”

“What for?” Maschi wondered curiously, but dropped onto the edge of his cot to deal with his shoes. It took him a few tries to manage the lacing.

“You will want it. Trust me on this at least.” Owin handed Maschi the cup once Maschi was done, and watched Maschi frown, and study first him, then the water, before taking the cup to drain it. When he was finished, Owin plucked the cup from him and set it down on the nearest surface.

Maschi stared at him, backlit by the fire, some normal color returning to his face at last.