Page 14

Chapter Fourteen

brIAR

T he next time I opened my eyes, I lay on my side, my face inches from Sylvie’s on the pillow.

Tanyl slept on her other side with his groin against her backside and one arm wrapped around her waist. He held her against him, his face younger in sleep, all the sharp edges he displayed to the world softened by unconsciousness.

They were beautiful together, with moonlight gilding their skin and kissing the pointed tips of their ears. They looked like they belonged together, and they did—the king and queen of Spring.

Rolling with a soldier’s stealth, I slipped from the bed. Moonlight streamed through the chamber’s windows and puddled on the thick carpets. I didn’t need a clock to know the time. After a lifetime at the Citadel, the Hours were etched into my bones. It was roughly ten minutes to Perun, the most important prayer of the day—and the one most people found any excuse to skip. No one wanted to drag themselves from bed at three in the morning.

But that meant the castle was likely to be quiet, with servants abed and fires banked. I found my clothes draped over a chair near the hearth, and I dressed quickly, leaving the shirt open. I wouldn’t need it for long anyway.

With a final glance at the bed, I left the chamber with my boots pinched between my fingers. A guard slumped in a chair outside Tanyl’s apartments, and I ducked into the shadows as I waited for him to rouse. When he released a quiet snore, I moved past him on soundless feet and went to my chamber.

The room seemed cold and foreign after only a day away. Already, Tanyl’s space was more inviting. More like home. And that couldn’t stand.

Stripping as quickly as I’d dressed, I tossed my clothes on the bed and dug the reedwhip from my pack. Kneeling in a shaft of moonlight before the empty hearth, I bowed my head.

Perun protect me. I was unworthy to say it. What right did I have to protection?

I tightened my grip on the whip’s handle. “Perun forgive me.” Closing my eyes, I swung the whip from my hip to the opposite shoulder. The reeds bit into my back, and I grunted as fire licked from my shoulder blade to the base of my spine.

The fire was cleansing, even though I’d never be clean. I swung again, and I counted the lashes as I fell into a rhythm, the snap of reeds against my skin interspersed with my whispered supplication.

“Perun forgive me.”

Six more lashes. Seven. Ten. Fifteen. I passed twenty and then twenty-five, each sting marking a year since I’d knelt before the godswell in the Citadel and said my final vows to become a priest. The reeds whistled through the air. Hot moisture trickled down my back. Sweat beaded my forehead, and my ragged breaths joined the smack of the reeds kissing my skin.

I’d breathed harder when I thrust inside Sylvie.

The fire spread, my back aflame from my nape to the tops of my buttocks. “Perun forgive me,” I grunted, but some transgressions were too grave to forgive.

And yet you got on a horse and rode all the way to my kingdom.

“Forgive me,” I gasped, biting back a cry. The floorboards dug into my knees. Blood slicked my heels, and they slipped against my buttocks as I swung the whip again. And again.

I swung again?—

A hand caught my wrist, halting the motion with a sudden, savage grip. The whip lashed flesh—but not mine. Tanyl loomed above me, breath hissing through his teeth as the reeds struck his hip and shoulder.

He shook off the pain quickly, but he tightened his grip on my wrist as he held my arm aloft, his face a mask of outrage. With a low growl, he yanked the whip from my hand and flung it away.

“Back to your old habits, I see.” He crouched beside me wearing nothing but a pair of loose trousers, his golden hair streaming over one bare shoulder. His knee brushed mine, and the scent of grass and rain washed over me. He smelled like magic. Like Spring. I started to turn back to the hearth, but he caught my chin and forced my gaze to his.

“Have you lost your fucking mind?” he demanded. He leaned slightly and surveyed my back, his eyes the color of the night sky through the windows. His mouth was a grim slash as he flicked his hard stare back to mine. “This is barbaric, Briar.”

I pulled my face from his grip, and I dropped my gaze to a spot on the floor. “I broke my vows.”

Tanyl gave a bitter laugh. “And this is what your Perun demands? That you flay yourself open for the crime of pleasure? For fucking?”

I flinched. “Don’t be crude.”

“How many times were you going to hurt yourself? What’s the toll for doing something just about everyone with a pulse is driven to do?”

“That’s between me and Perun.”

“Ah, yes. Perun.” He was quiet for a moment. “A god who asks you to mutilate yourself isn’t a god worthy of worship.”

I jerked my head up, and Tanyl was waiting for me. He grabbed my jaw again, disgust mixing with the anger in his eyes.

“I’ll be right back. Don’t fucking move, or I’ll throw you in the dungeon.” He stood and marched toward the door. Halfway there, he stopped and swung back to me. “And if I return and find you whipping yourself, I’ll fling you off one of the towers.” His hair streamed behind him as he stalked from the chamber.

In the silence that followed, I stared sightlessly at the hearth. Then I looked down at my hands in my lap. My back itched, the skin starting to knit together.

The last—and only—time Tanyl had caught me with the reedwhip, he’d snapped it over his knee. Then he’d crooked a finger at me.

You want to be punished? Come here.

Soft footsteps drew my gaze to the door. A second later, Tanyl entered with a cloth-wrapped bundle under his arm. He wore boots, and he’d donned a jacket but left the fastenings undone. I looked away from his bare chest gleaming through the parted fabric.

“Get up,” he ordered.

I stood, wariness drifting through me as he dumped the bundle on the bed and began untying it.

Goosebumps rose on my skin, the chamber’s cool air reminding me of my nudity. “I don’t?—”

“Shut up and get over here.” He pointed imperiously to the bed, his expression daring me to challenge him. “On your stomach.” When I hesitated, he stepped toward me, and he lowered his voice to a silky menace. “Come here, Sir Briar, or I’ll call guards to hold you down.”

He would do it. And everyone in Storm’s Hollow would know about it by the time the sun came up.

Clenching my jaw, I went to the bed. When I stretched on my stomach, my feet dangling over the edge of the mattress, Tanyl grunted.

“Don’t move.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” I bit out.

He snorted, but he said nothing else as he went to the washstand. Water splashed, and then he returned and settled the washbasin next to my shoulder. A second later, he draped a cool cloth across my shoulder blades.

Pain flared. I gritted my teeth and buried my face in the bedding as he dragged the cloth downward.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I need to clean this before I treat it.”

“S’fine,” I muttered, breathing in the faint scent of lemon that clung to the sheets. After a moment, the pain became more tolerable. Or maybe I just grew used to it as Tanyl varied between dabbing at my back and wringing out the cloth. His strokes were gentle but thorough, and he made a disapproving sound every time he replaced the cloth.

“This is idiocy,” he said, working at a welt near my hip. His tone grew quieter, his words clipped and controlled. “I should let you bleed. Let you suffer like you obviously wish to.”

“Why don’t you?” I said, my eyelids heavy and my voice muffled against the bedding.

He paused, and I couldn’t see him but I sensed his stare on my nape. I didn’t need to turn my head to picture him golden and arrogant above me, his jacket open and his beauty touched by the moon.

Silence stretched, and the weight left my lids as I held my breath, waiting for his answer.

His touch came first, his fingers suddenly cool and slick as he smeared something down my shoulder. A potent mix of mint and a richer scent I recognized as swiftroot teased my nose. The latter was good for stopping bleeding.

“You’re not the only one who’s suffered for your vows,” he said finally, trailing the salve down the reedwhip’s path. “I’ve suffered for them, too.”

Cool relief spread over my back, numbness following in its wake. But I barely registered the absence of pain. My heart sped up as I dared to turn my head enough to meet his eyes. “What do you mean?”

He gave me a hard look. “Your I’m just a big, dumb warrior act wears thin, Father.”

Anger sparked, but I was suddenly too exhausted to fight with him. Turning my face into the bedding, I let a sigh ease from my lungs—and I tried to ignore how good his fingers felt working the salve into my back. A light slap on my ass jolted me awake.

“Put this on and come with me.” A shirt landed on the bed. When I pushed onto my forearm and looked over my shoulder, Tanyl stood next to the bed wiping his hands on a towel.

“Come where?” I asked.

“I have something to show you.”

* * *

Twenty minutes later, I followed Tanyl down a set of twisting, narrow steps. A hollow rushing sound like distant wind teased my ears. Moisture slicked the walls and the stone beneath my feet. A rope bolted to the wall served as a crude railing. My shoulders scraped either side of the stairwell. Torches lit the way, the flames licking water from the stone.

“Nearly there,” Tanyl said without turning. He navigating the steps with an elf’s balance and fleetness of foot.

I grunted, my gaze on my feet, which felt overly large and clumsy. My healing back twinged, but the salve was doing its job. The fiery pain had faded to a tolerable ache. My body would heal the rest in a day or two. But the offense to the gods was an open wound. No amount of salve would erase it.

The rushing sound drifted up the steps, the noise lifting the hair on my nape. A second later, the stairs ended, and Tanyl led me into an underground chamber with ancient-looking stone ceilings that arched just a few inches above our heads. But the floor—and what lay beyond it—froze me in place.

The floor wasn’t a floor at all. Rather, it was a river. And not just any river. The Perun flowed through the chamber, its broad surface still and quiet. In the chamber, its banks weren’t grass but stone platforms, and its mouth was cut off by an enormous metal barrier with a hinge down the center. The rushing sound was louder now but still muted as the Perun obviously thundered against the other side of the barrier.

“This is the River Gate,” Tanyl said, pointing. “Tracks in the ceiling allow the gears to operate.” He gestured to the water. “A second set lie under the surface. The gate is infused with Spring’s magic, and it weighs more than a castle wall. But it’s balanced so well that it only takes two men to open and close it. We seal off the Perun to stop the Scarrok from entering the castle.”

I stared at the gate, which appeared to ripple as the water’s reflection splashed onto it. “I had no idea this existed.”

“It didn’t,” he said bluntly, drawing my attention to him. “I commissioned it the year after my father died.” A hint of pride entered his tone as he ran his gaze over the gate. “Everyone said it couldn’t be done. It took the better part of a decade, but we finished it.” He looked at me. “And now the Spring Court enjoys a measure of safety. We can’t stop all the Scarrok, but we can stem the tide. They’ll never overrun Storm’s Hollow.”

A scraping sound at my back made me whip around. Two knights with swords drawn emerged from a passageway I hadn’t noticed before. They stopped abruptly, their gazes flicking between me and Tanyl.

“Your Grace,” the taller one said. “Forgive the intrusion. We heard a noise, and thought…” He sheathed his sword, then nudged his companion. The other man quickly put his sword away, and both knights offered hasty bows.

“It’s all right,” Tanyl said. “Return to your posts. All is well here.”

The knights shifted their gazes between us again, then bowed and left. My heart pumped faster, and heat scalded my cheeks. The knights didn’t know about Saltvale. No one knew. Tanyl and I had sworn. We’d been careful.

Sylvie knows , a little voice whispered in my mind. And Tanyl and I hadn’t been careful on the riverbank. We hadn’t been careful in his bedchamber.

“Whatever you’re thinking,” he said now, “stop it.”

Swallowing, I met his eyes. He’d narrowed them, the blue the same shade as the river at his back. His hair was tucked behind his ears, the golden waves hidden by his broad shoulders. In Saltvale, he’d tied it back with a strip of leather ripped from his loincloth. He’d used other strips to tie my wrists and ankles.

I looked down, memories and hunger stirring. “We can’t do this again,” I told the stone at my feet.

His laugh was short and bitter-sounding. “Is that what you told yourself on the ride from Mistport?” He stepped close, and I sucked in a breath as he ran a palm up my chest to my throat. Lifting my eyes, I waited for him to squeeze. But he didn’t. He just looked at me, and his tone was cold as he spoke inches from my lips.

“The River Gate is a miracle of engineering, not of Perun or any other god. It took science and dozens of minds working together to build it. Perun didn’t protect us, Briar. We did.”

My pulse pounded under his fingers. His scent flooded my senses. “The gods gave you intelligence.”

His expression hardened, his beauty like glass. Like the sharp edge of a sword. “I’d much rather they focus their efforts on eradicating the Scarrok.”

“If you prayed?—”

“I have prayed,” he snarled. “As a boy, I left my bed and sneaked to the temple at night. I prayed for my mother to be alive, and I prayed for my father to stop drinking wine long enough to notice me.”

My breath caught, and an ache for the child he’d been formed in the center of my chest.

Tanyl’s lips curved in a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Your precious Peron answered that prayer, at least. My father possessed enough self-awareness to know he was a failure of a king. So he flung me to the priests so I could fight the monsters while he drank and fucked.” Tanyl’s smile deepened, and he looked at my mouth. “He probably didn’t expect me to fuck the priests.”

Ignoring his bait, I drew an even breath. “Is that why you never touch wine?”

Something flashed across his face, a vulnerability quickly masked by a cool smile. He dropped his hand, and he turned and moved a few paces away, taking all the warmth in the chamber with him.

“My father died the year before I wed Sylvie,” he said.

I nodded. “We said prayers for him in Mistport.”

Tanyl grimaced. “What you probably don’t know is that he got drunk and wandered the riverbank at night. We believe he slipped and struck his head, although some of the healers speculated he choked on his own vomit. Either way, the Scarrok found his body before we did. Fortunately, we prevented him from rising.”

My stomach churned, bile burning my throat. “I’m sorry, Tanyl.”

“Don’t be. His passing was long overdue.” Tanyl looked at the water, his gaze distant. “I was thirty years old. An infant among my people. No one wanted me on the throne, but they didn’t have a choice. The Council pressured me to marry to strengthen my position. They chose my bride, the daughter of the wealthiest, most powerful lord in Spring.”

“Mairwen Vildea,” I murmured. The dramatic tale of Tanyl’s runaway bride had buzzed in every corner of Vetra.

He gave a grim nod. “I was furious and humiliated when Mairwen fled with her lover the morning of our wedding. But her betrayal led me to Sylvie. I went straight from the altar to a ship, and I sailed from Storm’s Hollow in my wedding clothes. If I couldn’t have one Vildea bride, I’d have another. Three days later, I reached the Isle of the Gods and ordered the sestras to bring me Mairwen’s sister. The Perun was swift on the final leg of the journey. If I’d reached the island even one day later, Sylvie would have already taken her final vows. I’m a fortunate man.” He looked at me, and the intensity in his eyes almost made me take a step back.

But I held my ground, my heart knocking against my ribs like a trapped animal.

“I have been fortunate,” he said softly, “to find two great loves in my life.”

My heart stuttered. I stood frozen. Helpless and aching. Why did Tanyl always, always leave me aching?

He seemed to sense it, and he approached me slowly, as if he worried I’d startle and flee like prey stalked by a more powerful animal. And I was startled, but I was too frozen to flee. Because he’d said loves , and that couldn’t be right.

It couldn’t. He’d meant something else. He’d misspoken, and now he would?—

“I love you,” he said, taking my face in his hands. “I love you, and it hurts. It hurts less when you’re here. When I’m touching you. It hurts more when you pretend you don’t already know I love you. For a while, I convinced myself you didn’t know. It was easy to believe that when you were gone. But now…” His voice trailed off, and he shook his head, his gaze on my mouth. When he spoke again, his voice was strained, and his eyes were even more intense as he met my stare. “You came back to me, Briar. You shouldn’t have done that. Because now I don’t think I can let you go.”

His words pressed into me, an anchor pulling me under. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. My heart pounded against my ribs so hard I felt each beat in my fingertips.

“You can’t mean that,” I whispered, but even as I said it, I knew he did. The truth of it was in his eyes, in the slight tremor of his hands as they cradled my face.

“I’ve never meant anything more.” He stroked my cheekbone with his thumb, setting little fires under my skin. “Tell me you don’t feel the same.”

I should have denied it. Should have pushed his hands away and walked back up those narrow steps, back to the surface where I could breathe properly. Back to my duties, my oaths. Instead, I closed my eyes.

“You’re married.”

Another stroke of his thumb. “And you lust after my wife. In case you didn’t notice, she wholeheartedly reciprocates.”

I opened my eyes, the ache threatening to choke me. “Tanyl…”

“I love you,” he said. “It’s fucking inconvenient, but there it is.”

Drowning. I was drowning, and I didn’t want to be saved. But in a last gasp of self-preservation, I reached for my final defense. “I’m a priest, Tanyl. I serve?—”

The world spun, and my words ended in a grunt as my back hit stone. He’d slammed me against a wall, and now he leaned into me, his long hair catching in my stubble as he spoke in my ear.

“You serve the gods. I know.” His teeth grazed my ear. “But they’re not here right now, are they? It’s just you and me, Briar. Just like it was in Saltvale, when they abandoned us to the sun and wind. When I had you under me, you didn’t cry out for your god. Just me.”

His body pressed against mine, solid and unyielding, his heat seeping through my clothes. He braced one hand on the wall next to my head. He settled the other on my hip. His heart hammered against my chest, matching the frantic rhythm of my own. The rushing of the Perun seemed to fade, replaced by the sound of our breathing.

“You invite ruin,” I whispered, but my hands betrayed me, sliding up his arms to grip his shoulders.

Tanyl pressed his hips into mine, and I groaned as our erections met. “Then you’ll have to pray for me, Father, because I certainly won’t.”

My breath shuddered out, and my body hummed, every nerve attuned to him. To his heartbeat and his magic licking over my skin and his cock lodged against mine. To the silk of his hair and the dark irreverence he wielded like a weapon. He wielded more of it, turning his face more fully into my neck

“Tell me, priest, when you say your prayers, does my taste linger on your tongue?” His lips brushed the shell of my ear. “Your worshipped me first, Briar. Don’t think the gods have forgotten.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. I opened them when he pulled back, our gazes colliding. The blood rushing in my ears drowned the noise of the Perun smashing against the River Gate.

Tanyl rocked his hips, grinding his cock mercilessly into mine. “I asked you a question,” he said, the silky words among his favorites. “Answer me.”

“Yes,” I rasped, and speaking the truth was like ripping out my soul by the root and handing it to him. I half expected blood to gush from my mouth as I said the rest. “I taste you when I pray.”

His pupils dilated, savage triumph flashing in the midnight depths. He pressed harder, pinning me against the wall with his body.

“And what do the gods say about that?”

The answer burned in my throat. “They say nothing.” I swallowed, the confession like acid on my tongue. “They’re silent.”

“Then maybe they approve.”

“Or maybe they’re waiting to strike us both down,” I said, but my dick swelled, and lust obliterated any resistance I might have mustered.

“Let them try,” he whispered, and then his mouth was on mine.