Chapter Six
P erian made his way back inside, and he went to deliver the basket back to the kitchen and to thank the staff for the delicious food. It was early afternoon now, and after thinking about it for a few minutes, Perian decided to head to the Mage Warrior section after all. Even if he ran into Brannal now, it would be clear he hadn’t followed him. Around this time yesterday, the Mage Warriors had been active in their practice. Perian had no idea if their daily schedule was the same, but this was the easiest way to find out.
It turned out they were practicing in the same large room Brannal had shown him the day before. There was a handful of novices and three instructors. Molun was there and made introductions. Tinnadal was one of the instructors Brannal had mentioned yesterday. The beads in her strawberry blond hair said that she identified as female today, but with two of them indicating female and one non-binary, Perian suspected she was gender-fluid. (That was what it had meant for one of the staff who cleaned for him and his father, anyway.)
There was also Delana. She was a couple inches shorter than Perian but also looked like she could easily take him in a fight. She had a long, straight nose, a pointed chin, and chestnut brown hair that was pulled back in a no-nonsense braid, her square beads small and discreet, almost blending in with her hair. Her eyes were piercing, a mix of blue and green.
“Are we a tourist attraction now?” she inquired.
It wasn’t asked with the withering scorn Cormal would have used, but it didn’t exactly seem welcoming.
Molun practically skipped over and looped his arm through Perian’s, tugging him over.
“Perian is going to help us out, isn’t he?”
Perian was not at all sure this was the best idea, but it was probably better than being a tourist or being kicked out, right?
He eyed Molun. “You are aware I am neither a Mage nor a Warrior, right?”
Molun grinned a grin that Perian absolutely did not trust.
“You don’t need to be either!”
And it turned out he truly didn’t need to be either when he was target practice for a bunch of novices to lob water, earth, and air at.
It was a little bit humiliating but actually kind of fun to run around the room and use every tool he came across to try to dodge the elements that he couldn’t always see coming. Sometimes, they dropped out of the air above him as though the sky had just opened up and decided it was time to rain dirt—but he was fine if he was holding a chair over his head as a shield.
Sometimes, the elements came swirling at him from across the room, more like Brannal had done yesterday when he’d pulled the earth to him and then returned it. In that case, he could try to run around it.
Sometimes, balls of earth, water, or air were conjured in the person’s hands and then lobbed across the room. Perian had the best chance of actually dodging those, or batting them away with anything that came to hand, but that wasn’t to say he had a great chance.
He was dirty, soaked, and rather ruffled when he lurched to a sudden stop as he was encased by something that was neither fire, water, earth, nor air. It shimmered, and a glance up showed him it had covered him in an entire dome of… protection? Because a howling wind whipped around the rest of the room, making everyone suddenly stop and try to protect themselves.
“ What is going on here?”
Perian had never heard Brannal take that tone of voice before, and belatedly, it occurred to him that it probably looked like he had been under attack.
Like actual attack.
“Perian is a guest ,” Brannal gritted out. “How dare you—!”
Molun tried to explain, “We were just—”
The wind whipped louder.
“Um, excuse me.” But there was no way anyone could hear that over the whistling wind. So Perian yelled at the top of his lungs instead: “Hey!”
The wind cut off abruptly.
“You’re messing with the scoring,” Perian told him.
Brannal blinked, and Perian felt like he could actually see the man’s thoughts be diverted.
“The scoring,” he repeated blankly.
Perian gestured at the board on the wall, where Molun, Delana, and Tinnadal had been marking hits and blocks.
“The scoring,” Perian confirmed. “No one was planning on you storming in here and blocking everything, and I really wasn’t planning on being trapped in whatever this is, so could you please take it down and stop overreacting.”
Molun wheezed something that was trying not to be a laugh.
Brannal continued to stare at Perian for another moment, and then with a wave of his hand, whatever it was Perian had been encased in dissolved from the top down until it disappeared as though it had never been.
Perian crossed the room.
“So, that was different. Do you always use it to interrupt training?”
Brannal’s eyes fluttered shut and then opened again, and some of the tension drained out of his shoulders.
“Not every day, no.”
Perian grinned at him. “I guess that makes me special. We should probably go talk about that. Bye, everyone. Thanks for the entertaining afternoon.”
There was a chorus of goodbyes, though most people still looked kind of shocked. Perian slipped an arm through Brannal’s and towed him in the direction of the door until they were both moving willingly.
“Thank you for defending me,” Perian said once they were out in the corridor, the door to the room closed behind them. “I wasn’t actually in any danger.”
Brannal blew out a breath. “It looked like you were being attacked.”
“I can see that now. We were playing.”
Finally laughing, Brannal conceded, “I can see that now.”
Perian squeezed his arm. “Truly, thank you. But for once, I didn’t need rescuing.”
“You were standing there letting them throw things at you?”
Perian made a scoffing noise. “Did you even look at the scoreboard? I was running around frantically blocking with every object—and the occasional person—that I could come across.”
Brannal still looked doubtful, but Perian thought he’d done pretty well. It meant a lot to him that Brannal’s first reaction had been to protect Perian and to stop the others with non-fatal means.
“That was a shield?” Perian asked.
He had heard about them, but he’d never seen one, and he hadn’t imagined it would look so different from the elements.
Brannal hummed an agreement. “It’s one of the most complex aspects of elemental magic. We summon proximate elements most easily. Conjuring them takes more effort. Both require study and exertion to make them act as desired. A shield is still more difficult. It is made from the elements, and yet it is not simply an element, or not in any natural state.”
“What do you mean?” Perian asked.
“The elements themselves can always be countered. If you had a wall of fire, what would combat it?”
Perian’s lip twitched as he remembered yesterday morning. “A nice deluge of water?”
“If a nice deluge of water is called for,” Brannal agreed with a small smile. “But that’s for physical fire. Shields are no longer simply their element, or perhaps they are super compressed, we are unsure. At any rate, they are much stronger. Water could potentially work its way through a fire shield eventually, but it would take far more water and more effort than to douse a regular wall of fire.”
Perian considered this. “And would air make it stronger?”
“Actual fire, yes. With the shield, no. A strong enough wind might eventually be able to destroy it, in fact, depending on who tired first.”
“So, shields take a lot of energy?”
Brannal nodded. “Energy and concentration, yes. But they are also very effective at keeping everything out.”
“I noticed,” Perian said dryly.
Even sound had been a bit muted, though not completely cut off.
Brannal looked a bit sheepish but not entirely apologetic, and he shifted the conversation a little. “The more elements you combine in the shield, the stronger it is.”
“I assume that means you make the strongest shields?”
He nodded, but it seemed to be a simple fact more than a point of pride. “Yes.”
“So… if you left me in there, I’d starve to death?” Perian questioned.
Brannal laughed. “That’s where your mind went?”
“Well, you just told me it was really strong. If the other elements can’t get through it, I’m assuming I’d have no chance.”
“You got through rather effectively,” Brannal pointed out.
“What, by telling you to stop overreacting?”
Brannal shrugged, and Perian could only laugh, because he supposed it had worked.
“Can anyone else here make the full shield?” he wanted to know.
Brannal shook his head. “No, no one else has the mastery of all the elements. Molun can make one of water and air. We’re currently the only two who control more than one element.”
Perian nodded.
“And just to be clear,” Brannal went on, “I would not, in fact, be able to maintain a shield until you starved to death. It would take too long.”
It was only as they arrived at the kitchen that Perian realized that was where Brannal had led him. He raised an eyebrow.
“If your stomach was the first thing you thought about in that shield, you clearly need nourishment,” Brannal told him.
Perian laughed and didn’t object, although his stomach wasn’t the first thing he’d thought about. Accordingly, once the food was ordered and they’d made it back to Brannal’s rooms, Perian threw himself at Brannal, pleased to be caught instinctively. Perian twined arms and legs around him and kissed him hard. Brannal leaned into the kiss and returned it full measure.
“Thank you for protecting me,” Perian murmured. “That was actually my first thought, followed by, ‘wow, he’s overreacting.’”
Brannal snorted out a laugh and glanced down at his clothing. “And was this payback?”
Perian had actually forgotten the mud that he’d now smeared all over Brannal. But he was not one to miss an obvious opportunity.
“Oh, look,” he said in the most badly-innocent voice he could manage. “We both need to get cleaned up. In the interest of efficiency, I think we should do it together.”
Brannal rolled his eyes, but there was definitely a smile lurking at the corner of his mouth. He set Perian down, but only so he could divest Perian of his clothes with an excellent attention to detail. When he went to start on his own clothes, Perian covered his hand.
“Allow me,” he offered, grinning. “We should see if I remember where all of the weaponry is, shouldn’t we?”
Brannal looked a little bemused, but he made no objection. Perian started with unbuckling the sword belt and carefully setting it aside. The first dagger was attached to the sword belt, so that was out of the way. Arm bracers and pauldrons were next, and Perian had to fiddle with the buckles and ties, but he finally got them—and another dagger—off. Brannal’s breathing had deepened, his eyes going a near-black that told Perian he was enjoying this.
Next were the laces of the thick leather vest, which might not have required brushing against Brannal’s sides quite as much as Perian did. Once that was finally off—along with two daggers—then it was the padded tunic. Perian dragged his fingers over Brannal’s shirt-covered chest shamelessly. He bit back a smile as he watched that broad chest rise and fall faster.
There was a final dagger beneath the tunic. Perian made a very thorough inspection all round the man, running his fingers along his still-clothed body as though he needed to feel out the daggers rather than see them.
“We’d better get those boots off,” Perian murmured.
Brannal sat down in the nearest chair—one of the ones near the fire—and Perian knelt between Brannal’s legs so he could unlace and tug off the boots, taking the last dagger—he was pretty sure it was the last one—with the boots as he went. He pulled off the socks next, fingers running over the warm skin as he did so. Brannal shivered.
Perian sat up on his knees between the other man’s legs and listened to Brannal’s unsteady breath as he reached for the other man’s belt, ignoring the rather rigid protuberance below it because it was much more fun to tease. He unbuckled the belt and pulled it away with a hiss of leather.
He rose to his feet, still crowded close to the other man, and held out his hand. “Up.”
Brannal stood. They were standing practically nose to nose, and Perian reached for the hem of his shirt.
“Let’s get this off,” he instructed.
Brannal helpfully twisted a bit to the side and leaned down a little as he raised his arms so Perian could pull the shirt off.
Perian spent a moment just staring in admiration. Brannal was now clad just in his trousers, with only the small earth talisman bag against his magnificent bare chest. Perian hadn’t been entirely certain muscles could actually grow like this apart from in people’s imaginations.
Brannal was a sight to behold.
“You’re so very handsome,” Perian told him.
“So are you,” he said as he reached for Perian.
He clucked his tongue. “Ah, ah, ah. You’re still wearing clothing.”
He stepped into Brannal’s space once more and reached for his trousers, popping the buttons and then ever-so-slowly pulling them down over his hips, dragging his underclothes down as well, skimming them over the thick muscles of his thighs, moving down with them until they were bunched at his feet, and Perian was kneeling there. Brannal’s breaths had grown a little unsteadier. Perian looked up through his lashes.
“Step.”
For a moment, it seemed like Brannal couldn’t comprehend the word, and then he obediently raised his feet one at a time so Perian could pull the cloth away. Now Brannal and Perian were both completely naked and very obviously aroused.
Brannal tugged Perian up and leaned in for a kiss, but Perian pulled away.
“I recall someone complaining about dirt,” he said. “We’d better get clean.”
“I don’t—”
Perian laughed all the way to the water closet, and a grumbling Brannal followed him. Perian got the bath running, grateful for the castle’s plumbing and boiler. His father had ensured they had every luxury at their home, but he knew many locations, even if they had running water, did not have heated water, certainly not in every bedroom.
They climbed into the bath together, hissing at the heat, needing to rearrange themselves to Perian’s specifications, which caused more splashing and spilled water than he’d anticipated. Only then with a wave of his hand, Brannal gathered the spilled water up and dropped it right back in the bath with them.
“Show off,” Perian told him, but he was entirely impressed.
Perian was at the end of the bath with Brannal leaning with his back against Perian’s chest, nestled between Perian’s legs. The blissfully hot water lapped at their skin. They had several cloths, and Perian used one to rub carefully over every bit of Brannal’s exposed skin that he could reach, soaping across that firm chest and each lovely arm, along his thighs and then admonishing him to clean between his toes. Brannal laughed but obediently raised one leg at a time and scrubbed over his calves and shins and feet.
The soap permeated the air with a fresh scent, something that made Perian think of the outdoors, though he couldn’t identify a particular plant. It was a little bit floral and a little bit woodsy. It wasn’t overpowering, just clean and pleasant.
Then Brannal murmured, “Your turn,” and fished Perian’s legs out of the water one at a time for similar treatment, running the soapy cloth over his skin with just the right amount of pressure to make him shiver and mumble with pleasure.
And of course, once Perian was confident they were both clean, then there was the real reason to be positioned like this, namely that it put Perian in exactly the right position to reach around the other man’s waist and wrap his fist around Brannal’s cock.
Brannal made a lovely sound, trying to thrust into Perian’s fist, and Perian ground his cock against his lover’s ass as he started to pump in a slow, steady pace that was not at all guaranteed to give a quick resolution.
Groaning again, Brannal leaned back completely, letting his body go limp against Perian’s, his head tilted a little so it was resting against Perian’s shoulder. Perian kept up his slow and steady movements, pumping carefully up and down the silky shaft.
“You’re killing me,” Brannal murmured.
“I’m taking care of you,” Perian corrected.
As much as Brannal groaned and admonished him to hurry up, Perian couldn’t help but note that he never tried to take himself in hand. It was both maddeningly sensual and languidly perfect, Perian’s cock trapped between them, Brannal’s cock being pleasured by the warm water and Perian’s slow-moving hand until finally, with a beautiful, drawn-out groan, Brannal was stiffening and coming, his seed spurting into the water. Brannal’s release triggered Perian’s own, his cock surging between them, pleasure coursing through him.
They continued to lie there for a long moment, and then Perian said, “I suppose we shouldn’t marinate in our own release.”
He was reluctant to move, though.
Brannal asked, “Do you want to see a trick?”
“Of course,” Perian said promptly.
This did not, at all, prepare him for all of the water in the tub to be suddenly out of the tub. In fact, it was now hovering above them, bathtub-shaped, free-floating water.
“Uh,” Perian said dumbly.
“Grab a cloth, would you?”
Perian did as instructed—and that was when he realized that when Brannal had removed the water, he’d left their come and the dirt they’d cleaned off behind. Perian’s jaw dropped, and even as he watched, the now-dry dirt flew out of the bath on its own. Perian’s skin was just starting to prickle with cold, so he made quick work of leaning around Brannal to swipe up the mess that remained, getting him to move a little so he could clean the release from between them.
He tossed the cloth to the side, and Brannal allowed the water to trickle back into the tub until they were immersed once more.
“You are amazing,” Perian told him, pressing a kiss to the side of his head. “Was that as hard as it looked?”
Brannal huffed a sound of amusement. “I would certainly not suggest a novice attempt it.”
There were clearly all sorts of advantages to spending time with a Mage Warrior.
They lay there so long, languid and spent, that the water was in danger of growing cold, and they were in danger of falling asleep. Perian roused enough to prod Brannal out of the water. Brannal looked perfectly sated, leaning slightly on the edge of the bathtub. Perian took an extra moment to tug out the tie in his hair and quickly dunk his head and scrub it clean—mud had gotten everywhere. Then he climbed out of the tub, retrieved a towel, and carefully rubbed Brannal dry, then himself.
Perian wasn’t even hungry anymore, to be honest, but Brannal’s stomach rumbled, which made Perian laugh. This had hardly been the most active sex, but Perian had drawn it out, and they’d been hungry before this started. He found sleep trousers and loose shirts for them and then tugged an unresisting Brannal out to the table, where food had once again been delivered while they were otherwise occupied.
They sat down and removed the trays covering their food, revealing a delicious-smelling and beautiful-looking meal. Brannal perked up as they ate, and Perian couldn’t help but feel a sense of accomplishment that he had relaxed the other man so much. There was certainly no resemblance now to the upset man from earlier.
Mission accomplished.
Dessert was eaten altogether more prosaically than yesterday, but Perian still enjoyed the cozy atmosphere. When they had poured their tea and moved to the more comfortable chairs by the fire, Brannal asked, “Apart from inciting a free-for-all with my novices and Mage Warriors, what did you do with your day?”
Perian stuck his tongue out, because that was clearly the way to show Brannal he was mature and would never start a pitched battle for no good reason, and Brannal rolled his eyes.
“I was very well-behaved, actually,” Perian assured him. “I spent the morning in the library. I can’t believe the size of the collection. Oh, that reminds me, am I able to take books with me, or are they meant to stay there?”
He jumped into an explanation of the handful of books he had shortlisted out of the many, many, many volumes he wanted to read, which made Brannal laugh and reassure him.
“I should have shown you the lending catalog yesterday. Since there are so many volumes, we do ask that people sign them out so we can keep track and follow up if a book is desired by someone else. You needn’t stay there, though there is certainly the space for it.”
“But not as many opportunities for cuddling,” Perian pointed out.
Now Brannal just looked confused. “Are you planning to cuddle the books?”
Perian shrugged, suddenly realizing he had got a little ahead of himself.
“I just thought it might be nice for us both to be reading in, uh, proximity to one another. At some point. It’s not something we have to do, obviously.”
Given the presence of books in Brannal’s rooms and his position, surely he did some reading, but Perian hadn’t actually seen him do it, and it wasn’t as though they had actually defined what the two of them were doing with one another.
Cuddling was a far cry from having lots of sex, wasn’t it? Maybe that wasn’t at all what—
Perian’s little negative spiral was abruptly cut off by Brannal’s quiet words.
“That sounds very pleasant.”
A glance at the man showed he looked genuine, but Perian felt a little foolish and uncertain. He wasn’t even sure why he’d suggested it. He had never read with previous lovers. He had read with his father, of course, but they’d never cuddled .
Brannal blew out a breath. “No one’s ever offered to cuddle with me before.”
He sounded a little… wistful.
In that case, they had to do it.
Perian sprang up and gestured at one of the bookcases.
“Can we read some of these?”
“What, right now?”
“Why not?” Perian asked.
Brannal blinked at him, but then his expression softened, and he rose to his feet. They spent several minutes making their choices and then had to figure out how to actually read together since neither chair comfortably sat both of them when they were both trying to read at the same time.
“I could just climb on top of you,” Perian suggested.
“I somehow doubt we’d get any reading done,” Brannal said dryly.
“That’s all right,” Perian said, perfectly willing to shift focus.
But Brannal was insistent, and they eventually wound up on the rug in front of the fire, leaning back against one of the armchairs, tucked up against one another. The lamp on the side table was turned up to full brightness.
And then they read.
Perian took a couple slow, deep breaths, not sure why this was affecting him so much. Brannal seemed quite content to page through his big old book on Fire Magic. Perian had wound up with a book on watch stations because he hadn’t wanted to waste a lot of time going through Brannal’s entire collection while the man was standing there waiting for the cuddles Perian had inadvertently demanded.
The book wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t the most riveting material, and Perian blamed that for the fact that eventually, he wound up leaning his head against Brannal’s shoulder and nodding off.
He roused at a nudge from Brannal. Neither of them appeared to be holding books anymore, and looking through bleary eyes, Perian was pretty sure he’d drooled. Because that was attractive.
“Come on,” Brannal said gently.
Still half asleep, Perian let Brannal tug him upright and tow him to the bedroom, where he promptly crawled into the nice comfortable bed. As soon as Brannal climbed in the other side, Perian homed in on the body heat and curled up next to him. Brannal wrapped an arm around him, and Perian luxuriated in the feeling of being held close.