Page 48 of The Lost Art of Revealing Hidden Truths (The Lost Arts #3)

Perian stiffened slightly, but said, “His energy was so wrong that I couldn’t help but notice it. I wasn’t consuming it. It, uh, was one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever felt. I don’t know that that’s a good example.”

“But it seems like walls don’t get in the way. What if you were next to the wall, and the people were on the other side of it.”

As close as possible while keeping people separate from Perian. He couldn’t be surprised, he supposed, that Cormal was suggesting it. He’d actually be more comfortable if he could see people, to make sure that he wasn’t taking more than he should, but he understood the caution.

Cormal wasn’t ever going to believe that Perian meant him no harm, and it wasn’t a bad idea, really.

Perian had been able to passively feed off of people in close proximity for months.

(Years. His father had taken him to the house of pleasure, so it had to have been for years .) He could surely keep doing that.

“I think that would work.” Perian cleared his throat. “If we try it, I can tell you if it’s not working. And look, I know you want me in the dungeon, but I don’t think people are going to be comfortable here.”

Cormal’s face twisted, but he didn’t argue that fact. Instead, he said, “I can’t imagine that anyone would want to—”

“It’s for the royal family!” the Queen pronounced.

Perian tried not to stare at her with horror, because surely, they wouldn’t order anyone to do this. Perian would refuse, that wasn’t—

“I’ll take care of it,” Brannal said.

They all stared at him, and his cheeks reddened.

“I’ll talk to people,” he amended, and Perian’s heart plunged in his chest because of course, of course , that’s what he’d meant. Perian swallowed the lump in his throat.

“I won’t do it if anyone’s unwilling. I can’t.”

Brannal gave a sharp, stilted nod. “Understood.”

“But why—” Renny started .

Perian squeezed her hand, a little too hard, and she subsided, looking at him unhappily, but then she must have seen how close he was to tears, and she hugged him instead. He sniffed, squinched his eyes closed, and tried to force the tears back.

It was fine. He’d thought he was going to die in that fire, and instead, he got this chance to help Renny and Kee. He couldn’t ever regret that, not even when it was shredding his heart. That wasn’t their fault.

“I’m staying with you,” Cormal said. “I’ll be watching you every minute.”

Perian didn’t even bother to tell him how absolutely creepy that was. He knew Cormal meant it.

Brannal started, “I think—”

“Excellent,” the Queen said firmly. “It is essential that no one be in any danger.”

Except Perian. It was all a risk to Perian, and no one cared. Well, Kee and Renny probably cared, but there was a risk to them, too.

“I’d like to supervise,” the doctor said calmly.

Normally, Perian would say that the absolute last thing that awkward room needed was more people in it, but he was pretty sure that putting Perian and Cormal alone in a room together while Perian was feeding off people having sex was a terrible idea.

“You don’t need—” Cormal started.

“This is an untried effort, and a doctor should be present,” she said sternly.

They all looked to the Queen.

“I believe it would be prudent to have you on hand,” she pronounced after a moment.

Perian was glad, even if he knew this wasn’t being permitted for him. He’d want the doctor close by if something happened to any of the people that Perian was… feeding from.

Nothing had ever gone wrong before, as far as he knew, but he hadn’t known he was doing it. Had it all been luck? Or was this something that he really could do instinctively, and it wouldn’t matter that he now knew about it and was way more nervous than he’d been before?

Everything was different now.

“Cormal will retrieve you when it is time,” the Queen decreed. “Larenia, it is time to leave. Now.”

Renny gave Perian another hug, but she finally allowed Cormal to open the door so that she could step out of the prison that Perian was trapped in.

And then he was alone again, staring down at the blankets he was wrapped in and wondering how this had become his life.

Well, it had always been his life, apparently, but he hadn’t known it.

He’d thought it would be a little more difficult for Brannal to just…

stop everything with Perian, but maybe that was just him being silly.

He seemed to have known what Perian was, but maybe he hadn’t really thought about it.

Maybe he hadn’t been one hundred percent certain.

Only now everyone knew, now Perian had killed someone, and that appeared to be too much for Summus to handle.

How did it look, if Summus of the Mage Warriors had a carnalion for a lover?

Perian huffed to himself. It was like the plot of a bad novel, really. He could only imagine how other people were going to react. The position meant so much to Brannal, and of course he wanted to preserve it. Perian had just… hoped.

He managed, finally, to doze, though it was fitful and frequently interrupted. But he wasn’t used to sleeping on a pallet on the ground, and it was drafty in the dungeon, although the blankets helped. He was pretty sure these were not the standard blankets you got when you were in the dungeon.

But the blankets didn’t make up for the absence of people , and Perian buried his face in his pillow and cried the tears that he hadn’t allowed himself to cry before.

Because Brannal wouldn’t look at him, and Molun and Arvus must be so upset with him, and Cormal looked at him like he really did want to plunge his sword into his heart, and Perian…

he still felt like Perian, it was just that his life had been utterly turned upside down.

He was a carnalion . He was going to try to suck in a whole bunch of desire from he didn’t know who Brannal could possibly convince to do this, and then he was going to try to bring Kee back from he didn’t even know what state.

It was probably a terrible idea, except… there didn’t seem to be anything else he could do. His execution had been stayed, but he didn’t know for how long.

He supposed he could have tried to bargain or something, but that just felt dirty. He was helping Kee and Renny because he cared about them.

Was everyone wrong about carnalions? Were they all like Perian, misunderstood and struck down without question? Was Perian different for some reason? Was it because he’d been raised by his father instead of his, uh, carnalion parents?

Fire and water, his father wasn’t even his father, was he?

That struck a blow that Perian felt pang through his heart.

But he couldn’t be, could he, if Perian was a carnalion?

Unless… could he have been one, too? But even as Perian had the thought, he was rejecting it.

It felt like instinct, possibly those instincts Perian hadn’t known existed before.

His father had been a handsome enough man, but he hadn’t had the attractive allure that they were taught that carnalions always had. That Perian had.

No, everything in him told him that the man who’d raised him hadn’t been a carnalion, and that meant he wasn’t Perian’s father at all.

How had he wound up with Perian? Based on the house of pleasure that he’d brought Perian to, the secluded estate that he’d set up, Perian was sure he’d known. But how? Why?

It was something Perian could never ask, because he was all alone in the world.

It had been so nice to have friends, to have a place that he felt like he belonged, even if he hadn’t figured out exactly what he was going to do.

Was that why he’d felt so awkward, because his body thought there was something he should be doing, but he hadn’t known how to do it?

Had it been right there on the edge of his understanding all this time, and he’d just been too stupid to see it?

Eyes closed to block out the dungeon, unable to sleep because he might be exhausted but his life was a shambles, Perian couldn’t help but conclude that obviously, he was an idiot.

The more of his life that he reviewed, the more obvious it became that something was entirely wrong.

How had he not asked more questions before the truth had slapped him across the face?

Almost literally.

The more he thought about it, the more clues there were, things that hadn’t entirely made sense that he hadn’t thought about before, because it was simply his life, and he hadn’t known any different.

How much he loved sex, and how it had felt when people got off around him.

How his father had brought him to a safe place where he could have as much sex as he wanted.

How his father had talked to him about demons and told him that carnalions were misunderstood.

How Brannal had reacted to him, how he’d worked to keep Perian fed .

He wasn’t sure which was worse: the idea that he really had seduced the other man against his will in some way and now it was wearing off, or the idea that he’d been aware of what Perian was and had been taking pains during their entire relationship to ensure Perian didn’t get out of control and hurt someone.

You wouldn’t want a starving carnalion in the castle, would you? But if you made sure that it had regular sex, even when you were gone, that there was someone that it could go to… well, that had to reduce the chances of anything going wrong, didn’t it?

Perian cried until he had no tears left to shed, until his face felt tight and puffy, no doubt not helped by the various blows it had received in the last few days.

He finally cried himself out, and he remembered to drink some water. He even managed to choke down a little bit of the bread and now cold soup that had been left for him at some point. He assumed that normal food was still necessary.

It was kind of unappetizing, but the doctor had said it was important to give his body what he needed to heal. Now, he was trying to heal someone else, so it was doubly important.

He managed to sleep a little, drifting off to frightening dreams of grasping fingers and flickering flames.

He jolted awake, shivering.

He hadn’t suffered a nightmare since the death of his father, but he supposed it really shouldn’t come as a surprise. This had been a spectacularly awful few days.

He wasn’t sure how long he’d been sitting there when Cormal brought him breakfast. From the look on his face, it was definitely not his idea, but perhaps he’d been instructed by the doctor to make sure that Perian had optimal health for this attempt.

Perian didn’t move when Cormal shoved the tray through the slot at the base of the bars. The man warned him not to, of course, like he still thought that if he wasn’t threatening, Perian might attack him. Perian didn’t have the energy to argue with the man.

Thankfully, after he delivered the food, he retreated. Perian retrieved his meal, mindful of the fact that he’d said he was going to do everything he could for Renny and Kee. He managed to choke down a little more of it.

If he concentrated on Renny and Kee, he just might be able to get through this. Because it felt like every memory he had of the castle was going to break under the onslaught of the truth about what he was.

Renny appeared to be the only person who just didn’t care. (And maybe the doctor, but he didn’t know her as well.) Was it because Renny was a child and he couldn’t harm her? Was the doctor really as calm as she appeared, or did she just take her duty seriously ?

It seemed that she might have suspected for a while, so she’d had more time to think about it and accept it, maybe.

(Brannal had apparently known, and he’d seemed to be accepting given their interactions up to Perian’s kidnapping.

But maybe that had only been when no one else knew.

Perian didn’t know what to think. It was quite clear that he was facing Summus right now, and he wanted the chance to talk to Brannal .)

The doctor returned and treated him again, getting another tonic into him, smearing more salve, and applying more bandages. She admonished him to eat.

“I’m trying,” he told her quietly.

“It will be all right,” she told him, her hand resting in his hair for a moment, more like a friendly touch than a doctor’s impersonal ministrations.

Perian could feel tears prickling again. He didn’t believe her. But he appreciated her lie.

“Of course it will,” he agreed.

She was a better liar than he was.

And then it was just waiting, dozing, trying not to cry, tossing and turning, still trying not to cry, and definitely trying not to think about all the ways that he was an idiot, all the clues that had been there that he hadn’t seen, all the times he could have hurt people and he hadn’t even realized.

But he never had… not until he’d been trying to hurt someone, because they’d been trying to hurt him first.

He wasn’t trying to hurt anyone now, not even when they annoyed him so much he wanted to punch them in the face.

“Don’t try anything.”

Another meal. Perian tried not to roll his eyes. “What is it, exactly, that you imagine I would try?”

It had been a long day. He’d spoken to no one but the doctor. No one else had come to see him.

He told himself he wasn’t surprised.

(He was a bit surprised about Renny, actually, and then realized that she was no doubt under close watch thanks to her mother. The last thing the Queen would want would be for Renny to be close to Perian when she didn’t have to be. Everyone else… well, they’d made their feelings pretty clear.)

“I know you want to escape,” Cormal snapped.

“Does anyone actually want to be in prison?” Perian asked.

Cormal waved this aside. “You can’t fool me.”

“I’m not trying to fool you. I never have.”

He scoffed, green eyes flashing.

Perian huffed. “You know what? Believe whatever you want. But it really wasn’t an act in the hallway. I had no idea what I was before you told me.”

Cormal stared at him, looking this weird mixture of arrested and doubtful.

“You… had no idea what you were,” he repeated.

“None. So… congratulations. You managed to utterly destroy my entire life. I’m sure you’re proud.”

Cormal looked… really genuinely almost confused for a moment, and then he scoffed. “Nice try.”

Then Perian was left alone again, for a long, cold wait.

And when that wait ended, Perian was going to have to try to absorb the desire and sexual satisfaction of people he might not know—or those he did—in the most embarrassing way possible.

Then try to fix Kee when they still didn’t really know what was wrong.

And then, after that, his use was going to come to an end. He was pretty sure he knew what happened at that point.

He hadn’t thought to measure his life in such short, sharp intervals. But then, he could have died that first night Brannal had found and rescued him. Maybe this was all just borrowed time, and he had to count it as a bonus.

Maybe he’d never quite fit in because he wasn’t supposed to.