Page 27

CYRUS

Cyrus dips into the stream to wash the seed from his chest and ready himself for his scent blocker again, while Mezor watches.

“The bond is stronger.” Cyrus pulls himself onto the shore and wipes the wet hair off his face, licking a rivulet of water from his lip. Now that Mezor is calmer, the storm of his frustration coalesces into phantom thoughts and feelings.

“It’s settling.” Mezor hums.

“I wasn’t pining or anything,” he blurts, suddenly, intensely embarrassed about his earlier words. “Before this, I mean.”

Mezor seems to see straight through his clumsy defense. “You were curious. It’s natural—you haven’t been around many primus.”

“I didn’t try to bond with you on purpose.” It feels important that he knows.

“I know.”

“But I don’t hate it.” He chews his lip, searching Mezor’s eyes for understanding.

“I know that, too.” Amusement darts across that deep gaze.

“Was it okay? What I said?”

Finally a smirk breaks over Mezor’s face. “Yes, darling. I enjoyed hearing that you’ve always thought about touching my body.”

Cyrus’s face heats. He drags his shirt over his head quickly. “Good!” he yelps.

“In here, where it’s safe, we play. You are my obedient vergis. I give you whatever you need. But the Court demands you walk a fine line. You didn’t ask for this to turn complicated,” Mezor says gently, turning Cyrus’s jumbled-up thoughts into orderly words.

Cyrus bursts free of his shirt collar. The way Mezor says obedient vergis rouses a powerful urge to get to his knees. But that’s precisely the problem.

“I have to be careful and focused. If I’m caught…” He shivers. “But even so, I don’t—this isn’t?—”

He fumbles for the right words that won’t expose him. I want this, I need this, I crave this. He can’t need something that won’t last.

He yelps as a big hand sweeps him in, tucking him under Mezor’s arm. Mezor draws his head down.

“Hush. It’s alright.”

“I don’t want to make your time harder, either,” he mumbles into the broad chest.

A conspicuous silence fills the air as Mezor’s hand squeezes him. A tremulous emotion rings through the bond. Something about it feels important, but it slips through his fingers before he can name it.

“You couldn’t,” Mezor says.

The words seem to fill his chest, pushing out the oxygen to make room for themselves. He shuts his eyes as his heart pounds.

Cyrus takes one of Mezor’s shirts and hides it away in his nest. When he can’t go down to the grotto, he curls into his crack in the wall and sleeps with his face buried in Mezor’s scent.

Surely it doesn’t hurt anything. I only want to settle the bond faster.

Like Mezor said, it’s normal that he craves this closeness—it’s not his desire. It’s his vergis. When the bond is stable, they’ll break it.

Why does the thought have to be so painful, though?

Back in the Court, he runs himself ragged trying not to think about it. Between sleepless nights at the grotto, watching the tunnels, and helping the Grey Company ferret supplies out of the storerooms, he’s mercifully occupied. It makes up for the dwindling of his normal duties as the storerooms shrink.

The supplies that once sustained an army are decimated now, and not just because demons like Sabinus and Claudius are draining them. Endless deployments ate away at them for years. Without Mezor to deliver fresh meat to the feast table, General Leuther must use up what’s left to keep the Court from erupting into full mutiny.

The Court stirs restlessly any time a company returns with full nets, which isn’t often. Sabinus sneers over each pitiful kill when he comes down to the storeroom.

“They expect us to be grateful. This land is poison, and Leuther is a fool. No matter. We’ll get out of here soon enough.”

Cyrus stays mute—from experience, Sabinus is only talking to hear himself talk.

He doesn’t dwell on the currents of the Court any more than necessary. His prospects leave him exhausted. Gruel and lack of sleep don’t help. Then there are the dreams.

Nebulous and threatening, they loom like thunderclouds over his conscious mind. He doesn’t remember them—only the flavour, a feeling he’s stepped wrong and is about to tumble into a hole.

“Vergis have the power of premonition,” Mezor tells him when Cyrus lets it slip one night. He frowns. “Try to remember.”

Remembering is the last thing Cyrus wants. He doesn’t need more to worry about.

But one night, after Mezor returns from a long trip, Cyrus falls asleep in the grotto by accident. Warm and sated, the bond singing sweetly in his head, he closes his eyes just for a moment and luxuriates in the feeling of safety.

In his dream, he’s in the feast room.

The moon is full, leaving streaks of milky light across the floor. Bones lie scattered everywhere—remnants of every past feast. The feast table itself is empty.

“Come closer.”

The King beckons from the head of the table. Cyrus takes a step, but his feet are heavy as stone and he stumbles.

“Your Majesty.” He kneels in place, hoping to disguise his weakness.

“Closer,” the King orders.

Cyrus cringes. “I cannot.”

“Bring him to me,” the King snarls.

Hands lift him into the air. Instead of bringing him to the dais, the demons slam him onto the feast table. Black ropes rise from the table and coil around his arms and legs. Cyrus struggles weakly.

“Let me go!” he cries. “I’ve done everything you asked.”

“I know. You thought you were clever.” The King’s laugh rings across the hall. “But you’re a little double crosser, aren’t you? You thought you were weaving a tapestry, but it’s a mess of thread. I can’t have you tying up all my plans, Cyrianus…it’s time to cut you loose.”

A shadow looms above him. In its hand is a butchering knife. Mezor’s face resolves in the moonlight, his eyes placid as he raises the knife. Where his gaze was once warm, now there’s only emptiness. Cyrus writhes in fear, his breath coming short and fast.

“No! No!”

Mezor strikes.

The knife slices nothing. The air between them ripples. Cyrus’s gut clenches like he’s been stabbed, and a yawning void opens deep in his soul where the bond used to be. Mezor discards the knife and grasps something floating in front of him—a thin, golden thread emerging from his chest. He yanks it free.

The King roars in satisfaction, and the feast hall shudders around them, cracking, and pieces of the dream spinning as Cyrus bursts into waking with a gasp.

Arms tighten around him. Cyrus struggles away in a panic and falls off the bed in his haste to escape. The stone floor makes a rough acquaintance with his shoulder, jarring him into the waking world.

“Oh,” he groans, climbing to his feet.

“Cyrus.” Mezor’s disembodied voice is real. Solid. Cyrus fumbles for the bed and crawls back across the furs. “What was your dream?”

He shakes his head stubbornly even though Mezor can’t see him. “Nothing.”

Instead of answering, he pulls Mezor’s arms around him again.

A warning. A warning about something he cannot change.