“How lovely,” Cyrus said with only a dash of sarcasm.
“Don’t be so high and mighty with me, Lord Davidon,” Terian said, his face falling into shadow. “Now that you’ve awakened to what you’ve been missing all these years, I sense a craven desperation in you. Give you a few more days of staring at the dark elf girl and soon enough you’ll be thinking that a brothel would seem a sweet release.”
“I certainly hope not,” Cyrus said. “I don’t care what you do, Terian, but I’m not you. I don’t begrudge you your entertainments, but don’t fall into the trap of thinking that I’ll make the same decisions you do simply because I’m feeling unsatisfied.”
“You’ll see, soon enough,” Terian said with a small smile, a bitter one. “You could ignore it before, when you channeled everything into battle and into your idiotic feelings for Vara. Now that that’s all done, the Baroness opened your eyes. Sure, she stabbed you good, in the heart, but now you’re awake. You know people will betray you, that women will betray you, but you know what you want from them-at least part of it. She did you a favor, helping you get out of your chains and reminding you that you have a … pulse,” he said with a salacious grin. “Give you a month more of suffering in silence, bedding in common areas and you’ll either go crawling off into the woods to take hold of your own release or you’ll get smart and realize that the coin of the realm will buy you the same relief, and it’ll be that much better for being real.”
“I doubt there’s much ‘real’ about what you do in a whorehouse,” Cyrus said. “Other than feel really, truly cheated afterward.”
“Ah, there’s that sanctimoniousness again,” Terian said. “You think you’re better than me, I know, but you’re not, and the sooner you realize it the better off you’ll be. I’ve never had a whore betray me nor lie to me in a way that could hurt my feelings, bruise my ego, or stab me in the heart. I’ve never had a harlot turn down my coin nor send me running dejected to fight another man’s war in another man’s land, and I’ve certainly not had it happen twice in a row. If you lie down with dogs, you get fleas.” His smile disappeared, replaced by a thin look of malice coupled with warning. “And when you lie down with a woman and give her your heart, you get swallowed up, lost. You’ve seen it, you’ve felt it, you’ve lived it-what? Three times now? — yet still you ignore the lessons of your own experience. That makes you more a fool than any fool I’ve met, motley or otherwise.”
“Such a friend you are to me, Terian,” Cyrus said, “and so wise is your counsel. I won’t deny that after my time with the Baroness, I am … awakened … to possibilities again, as you put it. But I’m a man, not a beast, and my wounds are my own concern, as is satisfying my cravings, whatever they might be. I’d rather have some feeling to go along with that satisfaction, as a man, so I don’t simply rut in the dark with a stranger, like a beast.”
“Push comes to shove,” Terian said, “when you’re cold and alone after this long ride and the warmth of a friendly bed beckons to you, you’ll go to it, unquestioning, stranger or not, gold exchanging hands or not. I know you, even more so now, and I know what you’ll do.”
“You don’t know me, Terian,” Cyrus said as he settled back onto his bedroll. “You may think you do, but you don’t-not a thing about me, really. And I’m beginning to wonder if you ever did.”
Chapter 31
The ride got harder as the mountains rose before them. They cut across winding trails, over rough ground, and their pace slowed. Cyrus was thankful for Windrider’s sure footing, especially after one of his own warriors went plummeting over an embankment by accident two days from Scylax. With the aid of the druid spell Falcon’s Essence, the body was retrieved and revived, but extra care was taken from then on. The fall drew the scorn of the experienced Syloreans, until a small rockslide sent two of their own to death, and Briyce Unger admitted, while Cyrus and he retrieved the bodies, that many a visitor to their city fell victim to the mountain roads.
“It’s a good defense,” Unger said. “Scylax has never been laid siege to, not in the six thousand years it’s stood.” He and Cyrus each carried a body over their shoulders, walking on air back up a steep embankment to where their party waited above. “But it’s rubbish for travel. My father’s grandfather had walked this path a thousand times but died to a rockslide on a summer day without even seeing it coming. Got him and his whole hunting party in a good slide, carried his corpse halfway down a mountain. They found the horses sticking out by their feet.”
“Not a good death,” Cyrus said, letting the curious sensation of his feet on solid ground carry him up, even though he knew his feet were neither on something solid, nor strictly speaking, were they on the ground at all.
“Not for a warrior like him,” Unger agreed. “A death in battle, that’s the way we go in Syloreas. An axe to the face, a chop to the neck, a greatsword through the belly, a dagger to the throat, all fine ways to go. A landslide? In your bed with a cough?” The big man spit, as they began to crest the edge of the road. “I’d sooner die of my heart collapsing in my old age, a woman rocking atop me.” The King seemed to consider that one for a long moment. “Actually, that one doesn’t sound too bad.”
They both laughed, and Cyrus gently put down the body on the ground before Curatio. The expedition was spread out along the road, a few of the Syloreans already working to push the fallen rocks from the slide over the edge of the mountain. Cyrus watched them roll, one by one, stirring a few more and then looked up. Snow capped peaks were above him some great distance, too far for him to fairly judge. The white was striking against the blue skies, almost looking like clouds that crowned the mountain, merging with the sky where the two kissed.
Cyrus caught sight of Aisling leaning against one of the rocks, giving it a hearty shove. He could see the sinews of her arm muscles straining, displayed by her sleeveless shirt, to push as a few of the Sylorean warriors stood back and watched, seemingly in awe of the blue-skinned girl who was less than half their mass and at least two feet shorter than they rolling a boulder by herself, albeit somewhat slowly. He watched her boots dig into the path as she put her bare shoulder to the rock and pushed. He saw her pants tighten as she bent to give it all her strength and he felt the heat within him and turned away as she launched it over the edge to a muted cheer of those observing. He turned away not quite in time, though, as she looked over, flushed with the triumph of her efforts, her skin a darker hue, and caught him looking for just a beat before he managed to turn away. Her look only changed a little, cooling slightly when she locked eyes with him, as though she knew the very thoughts within him and wished she didn’t.
He felt the scarlet of embarrassment on his face and grabbed his helm off Windrider, snugging it onto his head, letting the metal hide part of his cheeks as they blushed. The road was cleared moments later, and after the two dead were raised, he climbed back into the saddle, trying to focus his thoughts on the ride, on the road, on the perils of mountain travel.
After an hour of reflecting on the way the dark elven woman looked when exerting herself, moaning as she pushed the rock over the edge, he had to concede that somewhere, deep inside, Terian may have had something of a point. It was as though the Baroness had introduced a poison into his system. Fever and delirium were following it, a heat under his skin that Cyrus could scarcely control as it overran his thoughts and drove them from Vara to Cattrine to the nearest woman at hand. Aisling is pleasant enough to the eyes. And fit, gods know. Dexterous, agile, and amusing in her way … He shook his head again, rattling it inside his helm. And has lusted after you for nearly two years, only to turn cold in the last months. You could have had her freely any time, yet you have desire for her now, when she is the only woman of interest in view, and after being spurned and betrayed by two other women. This is petty lust, the basest of emotions, and unworthy of her, as a true and skilled guildmate who has saved your life more than once.