Page 5

S leep eluded me despite bone-deep exhaustion. The weight of tomorrow's preparations pressed against my chest, heavier than the ceremonial scepter of kingship itself. Beside me, Elindir's breathing had settled into the steady rhythm of deep sleep. I studied the ceiling of our chamber, tracing the ancient patterns carved into stone by craftsmen long dead, trying to quiet my mind.

Elindir shifted beside me, murmuring something indistinct before rolling onto his side, his back now facing me. The blanket slipped down with his movement, exposing the expanse of his bare back to the night air. Even in the dim light, I could see them—the silvery lines crisscrossing his skin like a terrible map. Scars from the flogging I had ordered, permanent reminders of my cruelty etched into his flesh.

I propped myself up on one elbow, eyes tracing each mark. Twenty lashes. I had insisted on delivering them myself. At the time, I thought it was essential that he hate me. I couldn’t risk the other slaves thinking I was showing him favoritism. I wanted him to hate me as much as they did, to mold him into the very thing I had become to my father.

But it was a delicate thing, wasn’t it? To make him hate me without breaking him. It broke my heart to do it, even then.

My fingers hovered above his skin, not quite touching what I had no right to touch.

The memory rose unbidden, flashes of that night months ago. The circle of slaves forced to watch. The leather whip in my hand. His body jerking with each impact. The silence was broken only by his ragged breathing. I had calculated every moment of his suffering, all to shape him into the leader I needed him to become.

In that moment, I'd believed my cruelty was necessary.

Was I wrong? How could I ever have justified hurting him?

Even now, with all that had changed between us, those scars remained. Silvery lines that would never fade, a permanent testament to what I had been. What I had done. He had forgiven me—or so he claimed—but how could anyone truly forgive such a thing? How could he look at me and not see the monster who had once owned him?

"I'm sorry," I whispered into the darkness, the words inadequate against the weight of the memory. "For the pain I caused you. For believing I had the right."

Elindir didn't stir. Perhaps it was easier this way, confessing to his sleeping back what I couldn't bring myself to speak aloud in daylight.

My hand moved to the scar beneath my ribs, the perfectly circular mark where Daraith's ritual knife had carved out my death price. One day each year spent in death's cold embrace, traded for Elindir's life. A bargain I would make again without hesitation. Yet even that sacrifice couldn't erase what came before. Couldn't undo the lash marks on his back.

"I'm afraid," I admitted, the confession tasting of weakness on my tongue. Kings weren't supposed to be afraid. Leaders couldn't afford such vulnerability. But here, in the darkness with only the moon as a witness, I could speak the fears that haunted me.

"I'm afraid Michail will recapture you. That this mission is a trap designed to bring you back under his control." My voice caught, the words sticking in my throat. "I'm afraid I'm sending you to your death because political necessity demands it."

Outside our window, the night wind picked up, howling through the ancient stone columns.

"I tell myself it's the right decision," I continued, my voice barely audible. "That thousands of lives might be saved if you can sow doubt among Michail's followers. But when I imagine you facing him again, standing before the brother who collared and sold you..." My fingers curled into a fist. "All I want is to lock the fortress gates and keep you safe within these walls."

Elindir shifted in his sleep, his breathing changing rhythm momentarily before settling back into the steady pattern of deep slumber. I watched the rise and fall of his shoulders, his face hidden from me. This mission weighed on him, too. I'd seen it in his eyes during the war council, heard it in his voice when he spoke of preventing genocide.

He carried the weight of kingship now, though he wore no crown. His decisions, like mine, meant life or death for others. There would be no easy choices in the days ahead for either of us.

"I watched the boys with you today," I whispered to his sleeping form. "The way Leif listens to your every word during training, how Torsten's eyes light up when you praise his progress. They trust you in a way they've never trusted me." I paused, the realization settling heavily. "They've already lost so much. The thought of losing you too... I'm not sure they would recover."

My throat tightened. Those boys had claimed a piece of my heart I hadn't known existed. Former slaves, like Elindir, bearing scars from lives spent in chains. Leif with his watchful eyes that missed nothing. Torsten with his boundless enthusiasm that somehow survived despite everything. In the days since they'd arrived at Calibarra, I'd watched from a distance as they formed a bond with Elindir, a connection I envied but understood. They saw in him what I now saw—strength forged in suffering, resilience that refused to break.

"They need you," I admitted. "Perhaps even more than I do. You understand their trauma in ways I never can."

The moon continued its arc across the night sky, casting new shadows across our chamber. How many nights had I lain awake like this, caught between duty and desire? Between the king I had to be and the elf I wished to be?

"I need you too," I said. The confession burned like fire in my chest, the kind of vulnerable truth I'd been taught to hide since childhood. Princes didn't need. Kings didn't want. Rulers served a greater purpose that transcended personal desire. "I need you more than I've ever needed anyone."

Unable to resist any longer, I lowered my fingers to his back, gently tracing one of the longest scars. The raised tissue felt smooth beneath my touch, a permanent testament to my former cruelty. I leaned down, pressing my lips to the scar in silent apology, in reverence, in sorrow too deep for words. I moved to the next scar, then the next, kissing each mark I had cut into his flesh.

"My greatest fear," I whispered against his skin, "is that you'll realize you deserve better than me. That while facing your brother, you'll remember everything I did to you and recognize you owe me nothing." The words felt like stones in my throat, heavy with truth I'd never spoken aloud. "That you'll choose not to return to the elf who manipulated you with pain and humiliation."

As my lips pressed against another scar, I felt him stir beneath my touch. His breathing changed, the rhythm of sleep giving way to wakefulness.

The reality of our beginning could never be erased, no matter how equal our partnership had become. I had owned him once. Had believed I had the right to manipulate him into becoming the leader I needed. That history stood between us like a wall neither of us could fully breach, though we'd found ways to build around it.

"I tell myself I've changed." My voice had dropped to barely a whisper now. "That I'm not the same elf who wielded that whip. That I've learned what true strength looks like through your example." I swallowed against the tightness in my throat. "But there are moments when I catch you looking at me, and I wonder what you see. If you're remembering that night. The collar. The calculated cruelty I inflicted to make you become what I needed you to be."

Elindir turned to face me, his eyes finding mine in the darkness. "Ruith?" His voice was rough with sleep, but fully aware. "What’s wrong?"

My fingers trembled as I traced the contours of his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart beneath my palm.

"Let me," I whispered, pressing my lips to his shoulder. "Let me worship you as I should have from the beginning."

He watched me with those amber eyes that saw too much, that had always seen through my pretenses. He nodded once, a silent permission that felt like absolution, though I knew I deserved none.

I turned him over slowly, reverently, using every skill I possessed to transform his scars from marks of pain to pathways of pleasure. My lips followed where my fingers had been, kissing each raised line, each reminder of what I'd done to him. His skin tasted of salt and pine, of night air and something uniquely him that I'd come to crave more than breath itself.

I brushed my fingers across the network of scars once more, then let my hands wander lower, over the curve of his spine, the dip at the small of his back, the firm muscle of his ass. Every inch of him deserved worship. Every part of him was sacred to me now.

"When did you become essential to me?" I wondered aloud. I urged him gently onto his back, needing to see his face, to watch his reactions as I paid homage to his body. "When did duty become desire become... this?"

I moved down his body with deliberate slowness, taking my time to explore every plane and hollow. His collarbones received gentle kisses, the hollow of his throat a lingering press of lips. I traced the contours of his chest with my tongue, savoring the salt of his skin, the slight hitch in his breathing when I found sensitive spots.

His nipples hardened under my attention, drawing tight when I circled them with my tongue, first one, then the other. The sound he made when I gently caught one between my teeth was half gasp, half moan, his back arching to press closer to my mouth.

Lower still, I traveled, following the trail of copper hair down his stomach, pausing to dip my tongue into his navel, to trace the sharp cut of his hip bones. His cock lay hard against his belly, flushed and leaking at the tip, but I bypassed it for now. This wasn't about reaching completion quickly. This was about worship, about showing with touch what words could never adequately express.

I kissed the inside of his thighs, relishing the way they trembled under my lips. The sensitive skin there made him gasp when I used my teeth, leaving marks of devotion that would fade by morning. His hands found my hair, fingers tangling in the strands but not directing, simply holding on as if to anchor himself against the sensations.

Finally, when he was writhing beneath me, breath coming in short pants, I took his cock in my mouth. The taste of him was intoxicating, salt and musk and something uniquely Elindir. I savored him like the rarest wine, using my tongue to trace the sensitive underside, to circle the crown, to dip into the slit at the top where pre-cum gathered.

His fingers tightened in my hair, his thighs tensing as I took him deeper. I hollowed my cheeks, creating the perfect suction as I worked him with my mouth, one hand cradling his balls, gently rolling them between my fingers. I released his balls and reached up to trace patterns across his chest, to brush against his nipples, to feel the racing of his heart beneath my palm.

"Ruith," he gasped, a warning and a plea that I ignored. I had no interest in stopping, in denying myself this act of devotion. I needed to feel him come apart, to know that I had brought him this pleasure after causing him so much pain.

His release took him suddenly, his body arching off the bed as he spilled himself down my throat with a strangled cry of my name. I swallowed every drop, continuing to work him gently through the aftershocks until he tugged me upward.

"Come here," he demanded, voice rough with spent passion. His hands pulled me up his body until we were face to face, his eyes finding mine in the dim light. He kissed me deeply, tasting himself on my tongue, his hands wandering down to find my own hardness. "Let me touch you," he murmured against my lips.

I caught his wrist, bringing his hand to my lips instead. "This was for you," I said softly. "Only you."

His eyebrows dropped into that pouty glare that I adored. “Then give me what I want.”

How could I not relent? I released his hand and let him touch me, though I didn’t deserve it. I let him kiss me, let him own me, body, soul, and heart, let him own my pleasure as he wished until I was coming and moaning his name. And after, I let him hold my face in his hands while we caught our breath, forehead against forehead, bodies still flushed and warm.

"How do I send you into danger, knowing I might lose you forever?" I whispered.

"I'll come back," he said simply, certainty in every word. "I promised."

"How can you be so sure?" The question escaped before I could stop it.

He pressed his lips softly against mine. "Because I have so much to come back for. Trust me, Ruith. As I trust you."

I nodded, and he seemed satisfied enough to let me lay beside him and hold him once more.

Within moments, he had fallen back to sleep, his body warm against mine. But his words remained, echoing in the silence.

Trust me, Ruith. As I trust you.

How had he come to trust me, after everything I'd done? How had the slave found it in his heart to love the master who had ordered him flogged, who had kept him in chains?

I tightened my arm around him, drawing him closer as if I could imprint the feel of him into my very bones. Four days until Captain Yisra's ship arrived. Four days to memorize every detail—the exact shade of his copper hair, the pattern of scars on his back, the way his face softened in sleep. Four days to prepare myself for the hollow ache his absence would leave.

"I do trust you," I whispered, the confession easier now that he slept once more. "I'm just not sure I trust myself to be worthy of your return."

The moon continued its silent journey across the night sky, indifferent to the fears of kings. Eventually, exhaustion claimed me, pulling me down into restless sleep where dreams of breaking bridges and distant fires awaited. But even there, Elindir's words followed me like a talisman against the darkness.

Trust me, Ruith. As I trust you.

I would try. For him. For us. For the future we fought to build together.