Page 79 of Guiding Reason

“But—”

“It needs to be wrapped. It isn’t ready yet. It must be worn and die in glory. Strip.” Kashana’s words were a command Taros had to follow, so he did.

“Kashana, would you like to…I was thinking, maybe I could stay a little while?” Taros had just put his pants back on. They felt insufficient.

Kashana looked at him. “Why would you stay? There is nothing more for you here.”

Hyran snorted. “Going by the state of his cock, he is hoping.”

“Ah, that. It’s not unusual, but it is not what we came here for.”

“But…”I came here to fuck! Not at first maybe, but I am so happy to fuck this man or let him fuck me.

Kashana shook his head. “No, Taros. Your burden is the dress now. Give it a good life.” He gestured at his designers. “You see him out. I need to give in to my inspiration.”

“Yes, Kashana,” they chorused.

Kashana himself vanished into the forest of dolls.

“We’re going to pack you up a few extra things. Kashana won’t mind,” one designer said.

“He forgets to suggest it. We always remember for him,” said the other.

“Oh. Okay.”

Taros was still dazed. He was missing the feeling of blue scales on his skin and would give anything for Kashana’s lips on him again.

27

HYRAN

“I cannot believe this evening ended with me carrying yet another neck robe in a box for you,” Hyran said as he and Taros got off the elevator in the Champions’ Tower.

Taros gazed at the larger pale blue box in his own arms with loving intensity. “I have to carry this. He gave me a dress. A dress just for me, and he wants me to wear it in battle sometime.”

Hyran rolled his eyes. “I think he doesn’t mean that literally.”

“How would you know what Kashana meant? It was just him and me and the dress. He kissed me. He kissed me, Hyran.”

Hyran looked up at the ceiling outside their suite as if reason was sticking to it. It wasn’t. Instead, next to him, Taros stupidly cooed at his box.

Inside the suite, the butler bot greeted them, but other than it, no one was in sight.

Hyran’s heart started racing. “Where is Col?”

“In his room,” the butler bot said.

Hyran relaxed.

“What, did you think he’d run off and leave the two of us behind?” Taros asked.

Hyran narrowed his eyes at the panoplian. “I was worried. He still needs medication and rest. And he is my Conduit. Which means, you take this”—he piled the boxes he’d been carrying for Taros into Taros’s arms. “I’ll be running.”

He moved, speed blurring everything, stopping only outside Col’s room to announce himself over the com. The door opened for him, and Col was right there, lying on that cozy corner bed in a pile of letters, some written on paper, even. There were cards in there as well as if Col had raided a calligrapher’s shop.

“What’s all this?” Hyran asked, approaching.

Col looked up from a letter in his hand. Hyran could tell precisely when he saw the cut left by the Beating, because the Conduit’s eyes widened in shock.