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16

LYR

L yr walks to the guest quarters of Sanglora with a tray of fruit and ale and bread and meat. Delivering breakfast to people in the manor isn’t his usual duty. Generally, he is not permitted to go above stairs. But with Kres gone everything seems slightly chaotic, no one is doing their usual duties. The kitchen is being overseen by Cook and the rest of the house’s business is being managed by a man called Tavi, who until yesterday, oversaw the grounds and gardens and seems slightly shocked to be acting as seneschal.

Lyr knocks on a door in the north wing of the manor. When he is bid to come inside, he finds Atticul in bed with Opeth and three other women, who he thinks are from the dance troupe.

“To break your fast, Sire,” Lyr says, placing the tray down on a table beside the window.

Atticul sits up, stretching. He looks at Lyr who is standing patiently beside the table waiting for his dismissal.

“Oh, it’s you.”

Lyr nods. “Yes, Sire. ”

“Wait, don’t leave.” He claps his hands, then shakes the shoulder of one of the sleeping women. “All of you whores get out.”

Opeth sits up. “My prince?”

“And you, my sweet, wait outside. I will speak with the slave alone.”

The women stumble up out of the bed, pulling on shifts and vanishing, as Lyr stands waiting. Opeth gives Lyr a concerned look but does as Atticul commands. When the room is clear, Atticul pulls a red silk robe over his naked body and comes over to the table. He sits down. Lyr pours him a cup of ale. Atticul regards Lyr coolly while he takes a drink. He makes Lyr wait as he produces his glass pipe from somewhere and lights it, taking a long puff and exhaling pale green smoke. “Are you here to tell me you have changed your mind about betraying your Master, the bastard?”

Lyr shrugs sweetly. Atticul is so artless. Lyr cannot resist playing a game with him. “I lay with Master Damon. Last night in the grove. After he had been with Inez. He is surely sly. He put his tongue in my asshole.”

Atticul seems delighted to hear this. “Really? His degeneracy has no end.”

“But that means nothing without witnesses. I am a Juran slave. What good is my word against The One Man Army?”

Atticul narrows his eyes and puffs on his pipe again. “Were there no nobles who saw you in the grove?”

“No. We were well hidden.”

Atticul’s jaw goes tight. Lyr can see Atticul’s left hand is closed into a fist. He is frustrated. He really thought his plan would work. “You think you can come here and boast of your sins because I will not be able to prove what you say is true? I know what my bastard brother is. I saw him with that wretch of a stablehand. You think you can wriggle out of this just like he did then. I know what sort of men you both are. You should be ashamed. You are a fool to ally yourself with him over me.”

“I do not think so, Sire,” says Lyr.

“You will be sorry for this, slave. You will wish you had proven yourself faithful to me when you had the chance.”

Lyr shakes his head. “Your Grace, I cannot fathom why you hate him so much. He is a good man.”

“He is no such thing. He is a degenerate.”

Lyr puts his head on one side. “He is no threat to you, you know. Not really,”

Atticul looks at Lyr angrily. “Get out,” he snaps. “Get out and send my concubine back in.”

Lyr bows his head. “As you wish, Sire.”

As Lyr leaves the room and walks back down to the kitchen, he thinks about Atticul. Atticul, Lyr thinks, really is rather foolish.

Which makes some of what he learned last night seem very strange indeed.

When Lyr returns to the kitchens, Tavi is there. As soon as Lyr walks in, he says, “Here he is, Sire.”

And Lyr looks past him and sees Damon. He’s wearing formal clothing. The golden pauldrons over his black leather jerkin glint in the sunshine. He smiles at Lyr.

“I will take him now,” Damon says to Tavi. “I wish to speak to him in my chambers.”

“Very well, Sire,” says Tavi. “I will instruct the rest of the staff to clean the manor and then we can discuss the other matters you mentioned.”

“Yes,” Damon nods. “I will return and speak to you later about the plans for the move to Felgrace.” He looks at Lyr. “Slave, come with me.”

“Yes, Sire.”

Lyr leaves the room after Damon, with everyone watching them both.

Damon leads Lyr out of the kitchens and up the stairs to the main part of the manor, through a wide hallway with a flagstoned floor and up more stairs. Damon says nothing until they arrive in a parlour with a terrace. Lyr can see an archway that leads to a bedchamber beyond.

Lyr’s heart is beating hard. He turns to Damon. “These are your private chambers?”

“Yes.”

“I cannot be in here alone with you, surely?”

“It does not matter now. I need to speak with you. It will not be for long. And things are changing.” Damon is smiling. He steps closer. He takes Lyr’s hand. “First, my sweet slave, I must apologise to you for last night, that was reckless and it will not happen again in Sanglora. I will treasure it forever. But it was foolish.”

All Lyr truly hears is Damon telling him last night cannot happen again. Could Mina be right after all, about noblemen lying with slaves and servants and then tossing them aside? Has he really got Damon so wrong? “Damon?” Lyr’s throat prickles. How can Damon be happy about this? “I can’t,” he says, a desperate whisper. “Damon, please, I can’t go back to how we were after what we shared last night. I cannot live in this house not touching you. Not now I have experienced it.”

Damon shakes his head, still smiling. “Shush, no. I simply mean we must be patient, but it will not be for long, Lyr. Do not fear. I feel the same. I cannot go back to how we were either. It is clear to me now I cannot resist you my whole life. But I will not need to. I have been to the Rose Palace. I got what I wanted. I will be made Warden of Vashti in less than forty days at my Gala. And when we are in Vashti, I have permission to keep you as my favoured.”

Lyr shakes his head. He knows the word Damon has just said in Artemian, but it makes no sense. “Damon, please. I don’t know what that means. What is favoured ?”

“Favoured? A favoured is a personal servant. Inez has a favoured amongst her handmaidens, many men have a favoured manservant, some have a page as their favoured. It means that you will attend me in my private chambers, deal with personal matters, speak for me if I am indisposed, travel with me, stand behind my chair at feasts and refill my cup. A favoured used to be a concubine. Now that is rarely the case, but for us, that is what you will be.”

“And you have got permission from Selim for your favoured to be me? A male pleasure slave from Jur-Mattan.”

“It was part of my bargain for the information you gave me about Jareleezi. When I am Warden of Vashti, you will be my favoured. I will keep you in my chambers. I will have you serve me in my bed. I can do this when we are far away in Vashti.”

Lyr shakes his head. “I will never understand Azuria,” Lyr says, remembering Opeth and her talk of the complex web of laws that govern the empire and how, if the Rose Court wants it, anything can be permitted, by twisting those laws the way they want them. “It was not safe for you to lie with me on the Azuria Ascendant where the laws of Zai do not apply, but it will be safe in Vashti where they do?”

“The Azuria Ascendant was Atticul’s ship. It was safer than Attar, but not safe enough. In Vashti, it will all be different. We will be far from Attar, far from the Rose Court, far from the gaze of anyone who will want to shame me.”

“You will be able to have me sleep in your bedchamber?”

“Yes. We have the permission of the Rose Court.”

Lyr shivers at the thought. To share a bed with Damon. To feel his arms around him through the night. “But until then, we must go back to me being a scullion and you being the master of this house?”

Damon nods. “For this short time. A single moon’s turn.”

Lyr steps forward, closing the distance between their bodies so they are pressed chest to chest. This is a dangerous move, something Lyr is sure Damon would never have permitted if they hadn’t made love the night before. In a low, soft voice, Lyr says, “When we are in Vashti, living in the palace of Felgrace will I still be your slave?”

“My slave?” Damon shakes his head, “In what way?”

“I am talking of how we will be together. Will I still be a slave and you be Master? My Master, who orders me to serve him in his bed?” His voice is breathy. “It gives me pleasure to call you Master. To be your slave.”

Damon bites his lip, clearly just as aroused. “If that is what you wish, then yes, you will be my slave and I will be your Master.”

“It’s what I wish,” Lyr says. He can feel his cock growing hard at the thought. He angles his body so it presses into Damon's thigh. “See?”

Damon barely suppresses a gasp of pure desire. “Lyr. Please, do not tempt me so.”

“I can’t help it. Master, please.” Lyr tilts his face up, offers it to Damon. Damon’s eyes flicker towards the doorway and then back down, back to Lyr’s face, before he bends and touches his lips to Lyr’s.

The kiss is chaste, but the promise in it lights Lyr’s soul.

Damon pulls back quickly, colour in his cheeks.

Lyr puts a hand on Damon’s face, stroking there.

Damon covers Lyr’s hand with his own. His hand is big, Lyr can’t help thinking of Damon’s fingers inside him, stretching him. He wants Damon to put his entire fist into him and break him to pieces. “I had to wait half a moon for you before and it nearly drove me mad,” Lyr says. “How will I ever wait an entire turn of the moon for you to make love to me?”

“You will. You will because this time you will know that at the end of the wait, is all the pleasure we desire. Everything in the world. In Felgrace, the great palace of Vashti, I will commit every sin of the body with you, slave,” he whispers. “Every crime against Zai the priests have ever dreamt of and more. I will make you spend with my tongue in your hole. I will command you as your Master. I will feed you foribunda and hear you beg for me inside you.” He sounds so aroused at the thought of being free to commit such sin.

“Yes, Master,” Lyr breathes. “You can do anything you want, command me and I will obey.”

“Sins of the body are the basest sins, like the sins of animals.” Damon’s voice cracks with arousal over the word ‘animals’.

“Yes, Master. Make an animal of me. Corrupt me with your sin,” Lyr says, as with his other hand, Lyr touches Damon’s chest, enjoying the feel of it. Last night, in the moonlight, Lyr had seen Damon naked. Damon’s body is so beautiful. His muscles and power make Lyr weak. His cock is big and Lyr cannot chase the memory of it inside him from his mind. He is drunk on Damon Darekul .

Damon carefully takes Lyr’s wrist and moves his hands away. He steps back, “But now,” he says, “you must leave me. You must wait. That is my command now, as your Master. I will not bring you to this room again. You will return to the kitchens. You will resume your duties under Tavi. We will be as we were, however, we will both know, our future is assured.”

Lyr does as he is bid. He is a kitchen slave, a scullion, just as he was before. Once again his days are long and full of hard work. But his heart is light. He thinks often about what Opeth told him about fate, about Jareleezi’s Gods and how, right or wrong, he should just enjoy the time he has.

Vashti is far from Ismagaar. Perhaps the visions they sent Jareleezi truly were wrong. If he is meant to be the thing that leads Damon to Ismagaar, he doesn’t see how that can happen when all he is doing is taking him further away.

The days pass and Damon keeps his word to stay away. Lyr rarely sees him and when he does, it’s a glimpse of him as he talks with Tavi, or takes a horse from the stables.

The entire staff is alive with the news of the Hero’s Gala, that their Master will receive the Order of Azuria and be made Warden of Vashti. Most of the household will be moving to Felgrace, some will stay behind to run Sanglora.

Mina is thrilled to find out that both she and Lyr will be taken to Felgrace. “I have heard it is the most beautiful palace in the empire,” she says one evening as they lie on the grass, drinking bitter argent. Mina does not procure any pearl tonic now Kres is gone and she is not able to take advantage of his generosity. “It overlooks Miracle Lake. They say the waters are magical. Two hundred years ago, King Damon had it built to be his summer residence, but he spent all his time there in the end. Some say he became addicted to the powers of the lake water, but he was not strong enough to hold its magic. And it drove him mad.”

Lyr shivers. A king with Damon’s name, Damon’s ancestor, going mad in Felgrace. Surely that is an ill omen.

Lyr has not forgotten his suspicions about Atticul. As the days pass he worries that Damon’s plan will not go as smoothly as he wishes.

Damon has an enemy in the Rose Court, Lyr is sure of it. And this enemy is not Atticul, this enemy is someone far cleverer.

Someone Damon does not suspect.

The night before Damon’s Gala at the Rose Palace, Lyr decides to do something dangerous and bold. When his duties are done for the day, he leaves the servants' hall and takes the stairs up to the manor, an action he is forbidden from doing without permission.

He makes his way to Damon’s bedchamber and knocks on the door.

Damon’s deep voice bids him enter. He steps inside, heart beating hard with a mixture of fear and lust.

Damon is sitting on a wooden chair beside his terrace. When he sees Lyr he sets down his book and stands up, stepping away from the chair where he might be visible from the grounds.

“ Lyr! ” he says, his voice shocked.

Lyr closes the door behind him .

“Lyr,” Damon says more sternly. “You must not be here.”

“I am sorry, Master.” Lyr's breath is catching. He is sure Damon is about to command him from the room. But he has to stay. “I need to ask you something. I swear to you that it is important.”

“Lyr, what is important is that you trust me. Tomorrow I leave for the Rose Palace. When I return in three days, preparations will begin in earnest for the move to Vashti. You have waited so long, Lyr, and I am sorry, but if you can just wait a few more days we will have everything we could wish for.”

“Damon, I want that, you know I do. But I have concerns about your trip to the Rose Palace. Please, may I speak with you?”

Damon’s eyes flick to the closed door at Lyr’s back. But he gestures to the entrance to the inner chamber. Damon’s bedchamber. “Very well, but you cannot stay long.”

Lyr walks into Damon’s bedchamber. The small space is almost filled by the large bed covered by the same wolfskin cover Damon had in his tent in Jur-Mattan. That night in the tent, even then, Lyr had ached for Damon to touch him and Damon had not. It seems like so long ago. But so familiar. That seems to be his life again now, aching for Damon to touch him and Damon not touching him. But far worse now he knows how that touch feels.

He sits down on the bed. Damon follows. He sits in the room’s single wooden chair, facing Lyr.

“I am not certain you will be made Warden of Vashti as you expect,” Lyr says.

Damon shakes his head. “Lyr, you are wrong. I have assurances from Selim and Vindar.”

“And you trust them? ”

“Of course I trust them. Selim is my uncle and Vindar is married to my sister. They are my family.”

“Atticul is your family.”

Damon shakes his head. He is smiling. “And Atticul is toothless now. His only way to attack me, my only weakness, is out of his grasp. He cannot take me down just as he could not take the Amber Blade from me.”

Lyr nods. He says, “This is hard to explain. Please, I need you to tell me about the stablehand.”

Damon frowns. “What stablehand?”

“The one Atticul caught you with. Atticul told me about it when he spoke to me in his carriage.”

Damon quirks a half-smile. “You are jealous? Lyr, it was a long time ago.”

“I’m not jealous. Damon, please, just tell me what happened?”

Damon shrugs. “I will tell you, as you wish, but then you will leave.”

Lyr nods. He knows Damon doesn’t need to do this. He could have called his guards the moment Lyr stepped through the door. He could have had Lyr punished severely for even coming above stairs into the manor house.

Damon says, “It happened long ago. I came home. After I led the mission to retake Pluma-Ferris. I was nineteen. I’d been made a Commander and Selim had given me Sanvicta. Plumillar was the stablehand taking care of my horse, Greywise. One night I went to check on her after supper at my father’s table. We got to talking and I lay with him. He was quite overwhelmed by it. I was a great hero, even then. And he was just a stablehand. I went back the next night and the next. I never thought about what could happen.”

“What happened?” Lyr whispers .

“I was at the Rose Palace for a moon. On my last night, I went to the stables. We made love again, but it was bittersweet. I was to return to the battlefronts in east Azuria the next day. We had developed feelings, I suppose. Or I thought we had. But as we lay together Atticul appeared along with two of his bodymen. He must have spied on me. Perhaps the night before, perhaps another. Because he had found out what I had done. He had Plumillar’s full written confession. Everything we did together. Every detail. Plumillar had told them everything, even though he knew what it could mean for both of us. Plumillar knew they were coming that night to catch us together, the two bodymen to serve as witnesses, although I hadn’t noticed anything amiss when I took him. I don’t know what Atticul offered him to betray me.”

“Perhaps he did to him what he did to me. Threatened someone he cared about.”

Damon’s tone is sharp. “Indeed, Atticul has not had a new idea in two decades. But Plumillar should have come to me, like you did, and told me the truth.”

“There was a written confession? What happened to it?”

“If Atticul had taken that confession to our father with him and his bodymen as witnesses, it would have ruined me. And not only me. I’d have likely been expelled from the army and exiled. Our father’s crimes would have had to be paid for another way. It could have ruined him too, but Atticul would never have seen it like that. He was blind to everything except destroying me. So I had no choice. I fought.”

“You fought them? You were unarmed.” Lyr imagines it. Damon, naked, caught making love to a stablehand by Atticul and two bodymen, forced to fight for his life.

Damon nods. “There were only two.” He looks a little smug. “And you are only unarmed until you kill your first armed man. I killed both of Atticul’s bodymen and put one of their daggers to Atticul’s throat. He had Plumillar’s confession with him, of course he did. I took it and I burned it.”

“What happened to Plumillar?”

“He ran during the fight,” Damon says bluntly. “I never saw him again.”

“You didn’t try to find him? After he’d betrayed you?”

“No,” says Damon. His face is expressionless. It’s dark in the room, the shutters are closed. The only light comes from the parlour beyond. “I’m glad he got away. After what he’d confessed. I assume Atticul promised him he’d protect him, but he was older than me and a stablehand and I am the favoured royal bastard of Prince Rafus of Azuria. He would not have had a pleasant death. He got away and I am glad of it.”

Lyr nods. “I am glad too,” he says.

“And there you have the story. Atticul caught me with Plumillar. He had a confession and he had witnesses in himself and his men. I destroyed the confession and killed the men. Atticul’s word alone without the confession would not have been enough. His jealousy of me was already known. I was The One Man Army and I did what I had to do. You know the story and now you must leave. Please, Lyr, we are so close to safety.”

Lyr looks into Damon’s dark eyes. “I will, I swear, but I just need a little more. Please let me stay longer. It is important.”

Lyr knows Damon does not want to do this. He is so close to getting everything he wants. If he were discovered now with Lyr in his bedchamber, it could all fall apart. But he also knows Damon trusts him. He watches Damon nod. “Very well, but it cannot be for long. ”

“Have you ever heard of the Ullinor question?”

Damon looks bemused. Lyr is sure this means he has no idea about the theory that Opeth explained to him. Atticul’s apparent fear. “Ullinor my father’s wife?”

“Yes, there is a theory, Opeth told me about it. This theory states that if your father had permission to take a second wife, then when he got your mother pregnant, he should have married her.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Damon scoffs. “My mother was a whore. My father was the son of Emperor Erond. He would never have been bound to take her to wife.”

“Perhaps. But it's a clever theory. Someone with a head for politics worked that out.”

“I suppose.”

“So,” says Lyr, “Don’t you think it's strange that Opeth told me this is what Atticul fears?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I don’t think Atticul is your enemy.”

“Oh, be certain, Atticul is my enemy.”

“Your real enemy would never be so obvious as Atticul. Atticul is a fool. He’s always been a fool. His attacks on you always fail because he is arrogant and stupid. He had the confession on his person when he came to confront you. He attacks you in stupid, spiteful ways, using the only weakness you truly have. But the things he thinks about you, the way you threaten him, he didn’t come up with those by himself. I think there’s someone else using Atticul. Someone who can’t be seen to attack you the way he can. Perhaps someone clever enough to play a subtle game in case they fail and have to be your ally. Because this person, this person who is out to destroy you is very clever. And Atticul is just one of their tools.” Lyr presses his lips together briefly, then says, “When you were sent into the army at fourteen it wasn’t your father’s idea to use the law of stead, was it? He’d never have come up with that. He jumped at the chance of sending you away because he had no other choice that wouldn’t destroy him. But it wasn’t his idea to do it.”

Damon narrows his eyes. “He told me the idea had been put to him as a way of preventing the need for him to be indentured himself.”

“So who came up with it? Who put it to him? Who wanted you sent to war?”

“The Rose Court I suppose,” Damon sounds irritated with these questions. “Lyr, this is enough. Please, you must leave.”

Lyr ignores this. “But who is the Rose Court? Or who would have been then?”

“Selim, my father, Doroth Zain, Vindar, Gelen the Green, Pershel the Moon Truth, Whoever was General Paramount twenty-two years ago. There are twelve, so five more. I forget.”

“Damon, I think you’re in danger. Real danger. I think someone, and someone important, wants you dead. Has been trying for years.”

Damon sighs. “Is that it?”

“It? Damon, you aren’t concerned?”

“Lyr, you are worried people are plotting against me. But my whole life this has been the case. I am not the fool you think I am. I was sent to war for twenty years. Do you not think I have considered that there are people who wanted me to die in battle? I am a bastard and the son of the Crown Prince. I am an inconvenience to many people. You think someone is whispering in Atticul’s ear, fuelling his jealousy in the hope it ends in my death or exile? You think I do not know the danger I am in? You think I am not cautious. I am trying to be cautious now. Which is why I need you to leave. ”

“I think it would be safer if we ran,” Lyr says. “If we left Azuria. If you forgot this plan to become Warden of Vashti. It’s too dangerous. We should leave tonight. Do not go to the Rose Palace.”

Damon shakes his head. “I have survived this long, slave.”

“You would order me to drop this? As your slave?”

Damon shakes his head. “No. Of course I would not. You have concerns for me as I do for you. I understand. When we are this close to freedom it can feel more dangerous than ever. But I will go to the Rose Palace. I have been there many times.”

“Then let me come with you.”

Damon stands up. He moves close to Lyr and takes his hand. “This will make you happy?”

Lyr nods. “Please. You are taking servants with you.”

“I am not taking kitchen slaves.”

“Take me.”

“You think I cannot keep myself safe?”

“Please.”

Damon takes one of Lyr’s hands. “If this is what you need, very well, I will take you as my cupbearer.”

Lyr nods. “Thank you,” he says.

Damon shakes his head. “I think your fears are overstated. But I understand Azuria is a confusing place for strangers. And you did not ask to be brought into my world. I will do what it takes to keep you safe and make you feel that I am safe.”

Lyr nods. “And you will be wary. Please, promise me.”