He frowned, and reached up to rub his forehead between his eyebrows. "Staven was the only one who could get near me - who was willing to stay near me, in or out of a fit. They said I'd been taken by a demon. They said that because of what Staven and I had tried to share, I had been possessed. When I - started to show signs of being shay'a'chern, they said I was cursed, too."
"That's - that's stupid!" Vanyel cried indignantly.
"They still said it; if they'd dared, they'd have outcaste me. But they didn't; Staven swore if they did he'd go with me, and he was the heir, the only possible heir with me acting the way I was. Mother wasn't capable of having any more children, Father wouldn't remarry, and he'd been completely faithful to her, so there weren't any bastards around. They didn't have a choice. They had to allow me to stay, but they didn't have to make it comfortable for me."
Vanyel thought with wonder that Tylendel's situation was actually worse than his own.
"They kept me pretty well isolated; even when I was fine they avoided me. But when everyone else abandoned me in one of my fits, he stayed, he took care of me, absolute and unshakable in the belief that I would never hurt him. Positive that, despite what was whispered, what had happened was not that I'd been possessed, but was something that would somehow be worked out."
Tylendel shuddered again, his eyes haunted, and plainly seeing another time and place. Vanyel, feeling his pain, put both his hands on his shoulders, trying to just be a comforting presence without disturbing him; Tylendel looked up at him, patted his hand, and half-smiled.
"You see? I think maybe that's why we understand each other. Well, finally Gaia came - gods. I cannot ever tell you what it was like, looking into her eyes for the first time. It was - like souls touching. And the relief-knowing that I wasn't mad, that I wasn't demon-possessed - I went from hell to the Havens in the space of a heartbeat.''
He sighed and seemed to sink into his own thoughts for a long while.
"What did she do?" Vanyel asked.
"For one thing, she put me under her shielding; got me controlled until we arrived here and Savil took me under her wing. That's more than enough reason to love her, even without the bond to her. She's my very best friend and the sister of my soul."
He reached up, and touched Vanyel's cheek. His hand was cool; almost cold.
"But she'll never be what you are. Can you understand what I'm saying, love? I owe her my sanity, but in a lot of ways she's more than I am; I love her the way I love Savil or my mother - inferior to superior. Not brother to sister, or lover to lover; not ever as equals."
Vanyel put his own hand over the one touching his cheek, and held it, warming it in his own. "What am I, then?"
"You're my partner, my equal, my friend - and my love. Vanyel, I didn't say this in so many words last night - but I do love you."
Those words were not expected; certainly the implied level of commitment was not what Vanyel had expected. "But - " he stuttered, not sure whether what he was feeling was joy or fear.
"Van, I know we haven't known each other long, but I do love you," Tylendel said, ignoring the 'but,' holding Vanyel's gaze with his own. "And I love you because I love you; not because I owe you anything, or because some god somewhere decided I was going to be a Herald, or because you're a beloved teacher. I love you because you're Vanyel, and we belong together, and together we can stand back-to-back against anything."
Much to his confusion, Vanyel felt his eyes start burning. "I don't know - really know what to say," he replied awkwardly, blinking hard. "Except - 'Lendel, I think after last night - I can't ever remember being this happy. I've never loved anyone, I don't know what it's like, but if - " he tried to say what he felt. " - if wanting to die for you is love - "
His eyes burned; he rubbed at them with his free hand, and tried to put his feelings into coherent words. He groped after his thoughts, totally awkward and altogether out of his depth, but he needed to articulate his bewildering emotions. He'd never felt so vulnerable and exposed in his life. "I'd do anything for you; I'd take the sneers, the pointed fingers - I wouldn't care, so long as they didn't take me away from you. If I could, I'd give you anything. I'd do anything I could to make you happy. And - I'll .gladly share you with Gala."
"Havens, don't say that," Tylendel chuckled, though his voice sounded suspiciously thick and his eyes glistened in the shadows. "She wanted to 'eavesdrop,' you know. She'd take you up on that, the randy little bitch."
Vanyel’s face flamed hotly, and he laughed, using his own embarrassment to get past that moment of complete vulnerability. "I knew she was saying something that would make me blush, I just knew it!"
"Well, she is not going to have her prurience satisfied, I promise you," Tylendel said firmly. "I am not going to share you, and that's that."
Vanyel entered their room through the garden door, blinking until his eyes adjusted to the semidarkness after the noontide sunlight of the gardens. He was carrying his lute by the neck in his right hand, and holding his left, wrapped in a handkerchief, curled against his chest.
Ye gods, I should have known better, he thought ruefully, as his left hand throbbed. I am such a damned fool.
" 'Lendel?" he called into the outer room, racking the lute with care, still using only his right hand. "Are you out there?"
"Of course I am." Tylendel strolled in, a half-eaten slice of bread and cheese in one hand. "It's lunchtime, you know I'm always here when the food is!"
Vanyel began unwrapping his hand - slowly -
Tylendel stopped chewing, then tossed his lunch, forgotten, onto the table.
"Gods, Van - what did you do to yourself? Sit!"
The ends of Vanyel's fingers were blistered, and the blisters had broken and were bleeding. The muscles of the hand were cramped so hard he couldn't have gotten his fingers uncurled to save his soul. He looked at the wreckage he'd made of his hand with a kind of pained disbelief.
Tylendel pushed him down onto the bed, and took the injured hand in both his own.
"I made a fool of myself, is what I did," Vanyel told him, regretfully. "I told the girls yesterday that if they'd leave me alone I'd play for them this morning. I forgot how long it's been since I played - and, well, I'll tell you the truth, I forgot I lost some feeling in those fingers when the arm got broken. I didn't even realize what I'd done to my finger-ends until after the muscles in my hand started to cramp."
"Stay right there." Tylendel went to the little chest at the foot of the bed that he'd moved into Vanyel's room with the rest of his things, bent over it for a moment, and came back with bandages and a little pot of salve. "I'm no Healer," he said, sitting down and taking Vanyel's hand back into his, "but I've banged myself up a time or two, and this is good stuff."