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It had seemed a fine, bold thing to him at the time to bind her sash around himself and wear it openly; it hadn’t occurred to him till he saw her with her company at her back, and her pale eyes fixed on him with an expression he could not read, that it would force him to face her with it and what it meant immediately, whenever he saw her again—if he saw her again. It would doubtless have been kinder or more courteous—and less dangerous—to choose his time and place; and not make such a public display of it. But then, without the sash around his waist and his people watching eagerly for the outcome, it was also extremely possible that his courage would have failed him again, for all his noble words about risk-taking.
Chapter 16, The Blue Sword
-
The camp was quiet and dark when Corlath sought her out again.
Between the shock of reconciliation, the healing of Mathin, and finding places for the new additions who had joined up with the Hill-King’s camp, Corlath had not had a chance to speak with Harimad-sol since his earlier forgiveness of her desertion and acceptance of her ragtag company of soldiers. His head ached mightily and his vision blurred, but he had missed her presence and her words, and must still return her sash to her, if she would accept it of him. And so he was glad to find her still awake when he sought out her small tent, erected hastily next to his own.
She was in the process of untangling her hair for sleep when he lifted the flap of her tent; she gestured to allow him entry, then continued with her work. He read the same great weariness in her features, as well as a tightness about her eyes that suggested a headache to match his own, as healing with kelar had cost both of them dearly in strength. She had already changed into the night robes of the Hill-folk; the loose fabric draped her figure as she sat cross-legged in front of the single lamp in the dim tent.
He reluctantly pulled forth the maroon sash he had kept concealed on his body, and ran his fingers for a final time over the fabric, as he had done often since that day when Harimad-sol had left for the open pass, leaving behind little but her prize from the laprun trials and a discontented King.
“My sash!” she said, and her fingers paused in their work. “I thought I had lost it. You have had it all this time?”
“I… kept it safe for you,” Corlath made himself say, and thought longingly of the legends of betrothed couples who might wear each other’s sashes as a mark of their devotion. His hands shook, though with fatigue or emotion, he could not say. “I hope you do not consider such an act—presumptuous.”
“Of course not,” she said, with no indication she understood the significance of what he apologized for, as she eagerly accepted the sash back from him. “Thank you.”
“I was glad to see you come back to us, damalur-sol.”
She smiled at him. “As I am glad to be back at the side of my King.”
It was an opportune moment, he thought dimly, behind the thunder in his ears, underneath the great roar of his headache. He could say something of how he felt about her; to give voice to the feelings coursing through his heart, his veins, his soul.
But he opened his mouth, and no words came out.
Harimad-sol had returned to braiding her hair in the way he had learned she wore for sleeping—a thick rope of hair, pulled back from her face for the night. Her hair had been done in the same style when he had stolen her away from that ridiculous Outlander outpost in her loose nightgown, and it had only been later that he understood it was a style she wore only for nighttime: a private way of wearing one’s hair, meant only for those close to see. Hillwomen also wore their hair knotted back at times, but they did so for reasons of practicality rather than modesty.
I will tell her what I feel, he thought, watching her braid her hair. I will court her, after we are both recovered. I will treat with her, and we will grow toward each other like the new green of spring, after the rains. I will speak low words of love to her, and she will hear the truth of it in the tones of my voice.
It was cowardice of a sort, to think such things in the privacy of his own mind rather than to speak such truths out loud, but his mind ached and swam, and his tongue was thick and slow.
Later. It is too much now, on top of everything.
And so, he said nothing, merely bowed deeply to Hari as he left, and she smiled wearily and kindly at him as she bade him goodnight.
The night passed, and both of them slept deeply, without dreams.
-
Harry woke late the next day, with Narknon already gone. It was midday, and the camp was full of a cacophonous life; an army does not travel quietly in the best of times, and a victorious one has even less reason for discretion or stealth. The camp would not break for several days' time, but it readied itself as best it might, caring for the wounded and judging what best to do with its new resources. Victory was on the tips of everybody’s tongues.
Harry stretched, re-pinned her hair, and visited Tsornin, who nudged the palm of her hand enthusiastically and regally deigned to allow himself to be fed by hand. Harry curried Sungold’s coat from nose to tail, although the stallion already glowed a clean, soft golden, and buffed her saddle to remove the dust of battle and travel. Innath sought her out during the midday meal, and spoke to her of Mathin, as well as how Colonel Dedham and the filanon and the rest of the company were fitting in, and afterwards Harry took a nap during the heat of the afternoon.
She felt, to her dismay, something of the same restlessness inside her as had been with her in the City after the laprun trials had finished; her great purpose, it seemed to her, had concluded, and neither her Gift nor Aerin gave any help or indication of what she was meant to do next. Her home was now in Damar—but what, she wondered, does a hero of destiny do once their destiny is discharged, and all accounts are square and final?
Such were her thoughts as she readied herself for dinner after waking from her nap, tucking her newly returned sash about her waist, and joined the other King’s Riders in Corlath’s tent at the familiar low table. Mathin’s spot was still empty, but there was a great joy in the general mood. Harry watched Corlath covertly as he spoke to the other Riders; there were deep shadows under his eyes, echoing the same exhaustion she herself felt, but he seemed otherwise buoyant of spirit. He caught him staring at her, and arched an eyebrow in her direction, something of a challenge in his expression, and Harry looked away first, feeling strangely flustered.
Corlath watched Hari out of the corner of his eye throughout the meal, and it seemed to him that his damalur-sol was quieter than normal. Corlath had spent much of the day with his Riders and the various chieftains who had accompanied him to Bledfi Gap, planning for what was to happen next—some would continue forward with him to the City, and others march for only a time with the main force before branching off to their own homes and villages. Litters would slow down their travel, but there was no longer any reason for speed, and he anticipated it would take several weeks to return to the City.
He had invited Kentarre to dine with the Riders that night, and she had accepted graciously, but she bade them goodnight before the passing of the Water of Sight, with a bemused expression that suggested she knew something of what was to come. The visions were a shift back to reassuring normalcy: minor skirmishes suggestive of the remnants of the Northern army breaking themselves apart at the Damarian border, mixed with the return of glimpses of the steady, expected moments of everyday life, which was a welcome balm to all.
Hari took a sip, and her eyes glowed briefly yellow, and then she smiled and said, “Sungold will one day have a son.”
The Water of Sight was passed around to him, and he took a sip, bracing himself for the expected onslaught, the familiar, elusive, maddening taste flooding his senses…
—A hard lurch sideways, and warm darkness surrounded him, and he was suddenly, frustratingly close to orgasm. Hari was above him: her unbound yellow hair a curtain around the two of them, her gasps edging into sobs as he worked himself within her, her eyes a rich, transcendent golden. He felt the power of their combined kelar swirling around the two of them, and he knew, dimly, that his eyes must be the same brilliant amber as her own, burning them up in a way no ordinary mortals would be able to stand.
She groaned his name, her accent twisting the familiar word in the way he found both enchanting and distinctly her own. He wrapped her long hair about his fist, and rolled her underneath him. She gasped; he pressed her legs apart; they both whimpered. Their kelar entwined, and hot white stars flared to life as Corlath rose and fell, unbidden, under—
…He shuddered, and was back at the familiar, low, shared table again. There was a measured, respectful silence around him, as his Riders waited for their King to speak, to share the gifts of his strong kelar with them.
His pulse was thudding and erratic. He was painfully aware of Hari sitting patiently at his left.
He felt sudden, flushed shame at the impropriety, at the nauseating shift back to reality where a moment before nothing but overwhelming, reciprocated lust had been. He had never been so pitifully glad that he learned to control the natural inclination to speak during kelar visions when he was young; that he had been taught to control his impulses and speak only afterward, measured and calm, as a king must.
He shifted a bit, attempting to better hide the intense reaction of his body to such a thing.
“There was… a fight,” he forced himself to say.
“A bad one?” Faran asked sharply.
“No. No, it was—” He shook his head. “I cannot say. It is of no matter, I think.” He passed the horn-shaped flask onward to his right, and resolutely ignored Hari’s even, curious gaze at his side.
He considered the vision that night with a frustrated obsession, and a lingering sense of shock, alone in his tent after the rest of the camp had fallen asleep. He had never had sex before without having to maintain a firm hold on his Gift, avoiding his lover’s eyes in the process. The intensity of combined, unrestrained kelar in the vision kept coming back to him, heating his neck and face. He was attracted to Hari, he knew this—he found her tall, lean body and her still, commanding features captivating—but had also often considered his feelings for her in a somewhat abstract way, his love for her a thing of bright, entangled spirits rather than of the mere flesh.
A knack for uncertain visions was not the easiest Gift to bear at the best of times; his kelar was a slippery thing, and as apt to show a possible future as a certain one. The uncertainty of it made him doubt himself all the more. Was what he had seen a true future, or a reflection of his own desires fed back to him, physical lust and unconsummated longing amplified by the peculiarities of his Gift?
There was a little shiver from his kelar as he considered the vision again, the reverations of it full of an ominous promise; and a flash of the same scene from earlier was presented to him again, wildly intense—Corlath gasped, and shuddered—and then, just as suddenly, it was snatched back from him; gone and empty.
He exhaled shakily, closed his eyes, and allowed himself to wrap a hand around his cock.
-
The next morning dawned with the promise of beauty, streaks of a tumultuous sunrise coloring the promise of the distant horizon, the blackness of night giving way to tinges of a clear blue overhead.
Hari was in an unaccountably good mood the next morning, for reasons that Corlath could not discern. He watched her darkly, with what he feared was too little discretion, too intensely and too long. His vision from the previous night seemed to him unreal and uncomfortably lurid in the light of a new day. He knew that there was an honorable path forward, to speak plainly to Harimad-sol of the future he hoped for the two of them, but he found himself uncertain of how to best make such an overture of courtship and intention in the first place.
He knew little of Outlander courtship practices, and his kelar was supremely unhelpful in the specific details of how one might approach an Outlander woman, beyond providing explicit and highly distracting promises of the result should he succeed. Corlath considered his options throughout the course of the morning before deciding to seek out Forlay after the midday meal.
He was discreet in his questions—Corlath had little intention of fueling talk of an attachment between himself and his damalur-sol before they might have a chance to come to their own, more private conclusions about such a thing—but Forlay was of little help and even less encouragement. Forlay had married a Darian woman who had never been fond of the Hills, and their relationship had fractured a part of Forlay’s soul that had never fully recovered. Corlath left Forlay to his own private misgivings, and, after further deliberation, sought out Colonel Dedham.
“Call me Jack,” the Outlander officer offered, in accented but clear Darian, and after a few careful questions was eager to speak of the young Homelander woman he so clearly admired and greatly respected.
“Richard’s all she has in the world, and while he’s a good man, I think Harry has always been something of a mystery to him, one that he’s never clearly understood what to do with. Even now, I think Dick’s still trying to figure out what he needs to do about the girl.” The Colonel pronounced Hari’s name as she herself did—Harry.
“He needs to do nothing for Harimad-sol that she does not want done for herself,” Corlath said stiffly. “She is a King’s Rider now.”
“I know that, but Richard’s still caught up in the image he has of her as a young girl in some ways, from back Home.”
“And what was Harimad-sol like, do you think?”
Dedham seemed to weigh his options for how to answer this question, and at last settled on—“Alone, I think. Self-contained. You should be kind to her, I think, for she has not always had great allies in her life,” he said, a bit cautiously, as though uncertain how to say such a thing to a King. Corlath still found himself frustrated by the well-meant advice. Had he not always tried to be so, even when his Gift forced him to act in a way contrary to such a feeling? But he knew the man meant well, and so swallowed his tongue and nodded instead.
It was Mathin, in the end, who offered the best advice in his usual calm, quiet way, as they rode together the next morning, after the small force had broken camp and started to move westward with a long, slow entourage of pack horses and litters trailing behind the outriders. Mathin’s horse Windrider matched Fireheart’s gait for a few minutes in the clear air of the morning, before Mathin cleared his throat and said, as though continuing a conversation they were already having: “Harimad-sol would, I think, appreciate the opportunity to further exercise her skills in battle, if you wish a training companion.”
“Would she?” Corlath mused, and watched Hari on Sungold at the front of the army, prancing in the desert sun.
He made the suggestion to Hari that night after the day’s travel, half-expecting her to decline, but to his surprise she agreed to the offer with an alacrity that made Corlath wonder if she was as eager for companionship, or at least exercise, as he himself was. And so they took to sparring together in the mornings before the camp broke down and began its journey for the day. They fought occasionally on horseback, Sungold and Fireheart bounding about each other gleefully, but in an attempt to spare the horses before the travel of the day they mostly ended up sparring on foot, circling each other warily, hands on the hilts of their swords.
Hari’s fighting style was an peculiar combination of natural physical ability, intense but brief wartime-schooling, and a terrifying sixth sense fueled by her Gift—moments of sheer, brutal skill that filtered like rays of broken-up sunshine through her technique, as though generations of great warriors past would occasionally show up to guide her sword. He found the unpredictability of such a sparring partner exhilarating. He might easily knock Hari to the ground one moment, and have his own feet swept out from underneath the next, the breath knocked out of his body as he stared up at an early morning sky, dazed and gasping.
She sometimes attempted to pin him after she had divested him of his weapon, a fact he found amusing at first, Harimad-sol scrambling after him like a young boy just learning to wrestle. But the first time she succeeded, her hands wrapped about his wrists and held tight against his chest by the weight of her body, her smiling, triumphant face above him, the moment reminded him so strongly of the vision he had had of her riding him, of the two of them lost in each other’s bodies, that he stared up at her, amusement abruptly gone.
She caught his change of mood; her smile faded into a questioning thoughtfulness as she studied him. She shifted on top of him, and Corlath caught his breath helplessly; a realization flitted across her face, a deep blush rose swiftly to her sunburned cheeks, and Corlath thought, ah, so she is aware of me after all. He felt a petty, gratifyingly personal triumph at this small revelation.
“Sorry,” Hari breathed, and scrambled up off his body.
Corlath circled his wrists thoughtfully as he came to standing again. Hari snatched the Blue Sword back up from the ground, coming to a ready stance. There was pink across her cheeks; she was breathing entirely too fast. She was not looking him in the eyes.
He had always known she was likely a virgin. He set no particular stock in the idea, but he knew that the Outlanders, with their straightlaced and depressing approach to morality, did place value in such a quality for their women. From certain of Hari’s reactions, he also considered it likely she had not had to contend with much romantic attention of any sort over the years; it was a situation he found frankly baffling, and made him think all the more poorly of any potential suitors Hari might have had amongst the ranks of the Outlander youth.
It would not do, he thought suddenly, to have this woman he hoped to take as his wife so self-conscious of her own body, and of their bodies together.
He set aside his sword, opened up his arms, and asked, “Shall we practice grappling this morning then, instead?”
“Grappling?” she asked, in the way she parroted back words of the Hill-tongue when she was not yet certain of their meaning.
“Wrestling,” Corlath clarified in her native language.
Hari tilted her head at him, and nodded.
He adapted the opening stance common to Hill wrestling, and taught it to Hari, who took to it as naturally as she did all else in this arena. She was skittish at first, and still more red in the cheeks than mere exercise would account for, but as he demonstrated the various throws and grapples for her she took to it with the grave concentration and uncanny skill she brought to all such lessons. She relaxed gradually as the lesson proceeded, and while he eventually managed to pin her a few times, trying to keep the interaction as brisk and business-like as he could, she learned with her usual preternatural quickness and soon managed to throw him as well, grinning quite broadly down at him, reveling in the success of her maneuver.
He was hard-pressed to conceal his reaction to her closeness, and to the feel of her slim, strong body pressed up against his own. What had originally seemed to him a master stroke of inspiration quickly shifted into a miasm of sexual frustration for which he had only himself to blame; it was ironic, he thought, how easily Harimad-sol continued to unmake him, with so little effort towards such an outcome on her own part.
But Hari only laughed, the sound free and happy, and offered him her hand to pull him up out of the dirt.
That evening they crossed one of the small creeks that ran down through the mountains, the ground rich and green with growing things in the thin strip of land to either side of the water, and the army made camp earlier than usual. Mathin sent Hari to pick some of the slender pale white stalks that grew in the marshy parts of the bank, which smelled faintly of onion and snapped brightly when broken off at the base. Mathin cooked the alliums down until they rendered themselves into a rich golden brown paste, and then simmered that together with Narknon’s catch of the evening, produced as indolently as a ruler granting a boon to her subjects, resulting in a deeply savory stew. Corlath ate his portion slowly, sitting next to Hari in front of Mathin’s cheerful little fire, and, staring into the flames and thinking of the woman at his side, felt real contentment for the first time in a long time.
-
They came into the foothills the next day, and camped in the shadow of the mountains. Harry felt comforted to be back within the borders of this adopted land that she loved, but also uneasily remembered the first night she had experienced the singing of ballads under the dark outline of the Hills, saddle-sore and newly abducted from her home, and struggling mightily to understand her place in a swiftly tilting world. Now she found that she looked forward to the great bonfire she knew would take place in the evening, and the stories that would be told around it.
She wondered, with a dim sense of tenuous hope, if she might perhaps even see Aerin in the firelight again.
Stars bloomed overhead; the moon hung fat and heavy on the horizon. The bonfire was built up tall, and it cast long shadows through the camp, and crackled loudly. Corlath had no need to whisper the translations of the tales being told into her ear anymore, but he kept close to her nonetheless as the night progressed. The singing started out solemn and deeply thankful, but grew raucous as a swift, wild mood swept the camp. The celebratory drinking flowed deep, and Hari found herself averting her eyes away from more than one silhouette of people wound frantically about each other, unaware of the world around them; her cheeks grew hot and her thoughts became flustered.
“My lady,” said Corlath, and touched her arm gently. “Perhaps we should embrace the wisest course of action in the face of a night such as this.”
“And what might that be?” she answered, a bit nervous. Corlath’s face, so well-known and dear to her now, seemed different when shadowed by the flickering darkness on a night like this—less like the man she knew, and more like that of any stranger, watching her with solemn, dark intention in the firelight. She had found herself more of late unable to stop looking at him: at the fine bones of his cheeks, the sharp intelligence of his gaze, the particular way he had of gesturing with his hands. She was increasingly entranced by the small details and workings of Corlath’s body, and was not yet sure what to do with her newly-formed fascination with the man.
But he smiled, and merely said, “A graceful retreat.”
Harry laughed, with a dizzy sense of relief, and he held out his hand to help pull her up to her feet.
She followed him to his tent, where Corlath moved about the zotar, lighting the lanterns himself with a small flame from the center-most fixture. He shook out the thin reed with which he had transferred the fire and set it back in its holder, where it smoked like incense, with a faint, dark spice to it, and the ember glowing a warm red.
Harry flopped back ungracefully on the cushions lining the floor of Corlath’s tent, and stared up at the woven ceiling.
“I had wondered if I might see Aerin again tonight,” she said, half to herself.
Corlath stretched out beside her, flexing his toes, and Harry eyed the high, elegant arch of his bare feet glumly. It was depressing to think that even a thing like the Hill-King’s feet seemed captivating to her at this point. For no apparent reason, she thought again of the Hillfolk coupling outside of their tent, of couples kissing in the darkness of the night, and was glad for the dimness which hid her sudden blush.
“You did not?” Corlath asked, and it took Harry a fumbling second to remember they had been discussing Aerin Dragon-Killer, and not the Hill-King’s elegant feet, nor anybody’s interest in tall, strange Outlander women who bore the King’s scar carved on their hand.
“No,” Harry said, and hurried onward to ask a question she had wondered about, to divert her own thoughts away from dangerous waters. “Do you know, are there still dragons in Damar?”
Corlath settled back comfortably, and Harry remembered his promise to tell her more of Aerin, after the war. “No. But Luthe might have a different answer than me; I do not know of all that slumbers in the depths of the mountains, or in the wilds of the North. Maur, whom Aerin fought, was the last of the great dragons, and since that time there have at least been no more like him.” He glanced over at her. “Were there not dragons once in your country?”
“There were giants at Home, I think, a long time ago, and hedge witches and such in the forests. And further back—my mother told me a story of a dragon once, and of the great King who slayed it and unified our country. But that was little more than a story, and not meant to be taken seriously by any but children.”
“You yourself have fought and defeated a demon king by pulling a mountain down on his head,” Corlath pointed out, reasonably. “Perhaps all stories of the sort sound similarly unachievable unless you live through them.”
“Perhaps,” Harry said. She ran a hand down the hilt of the Blue Sword, then frowned at it. “It is strange to think that Gonturan has slain a dragon.”
“Gonturan is a hero’s sword, and has done a hero’s work.”
Corlath watched as Hari examined her sword as though it were wholly new, and not her battle-worn and trusted companion.
“Do you think I’ll ever see Aerin again?” she asked. “Now that I have fulfilled my purpose for Damar—am I to be forgotten, when I am just myself again?”
“It depends, I suppose. Do you think Aerin is your friend, as well as your guide?”
“I hope she is something like a friend to me,” Hari said, slowly, and Corlath remembered the way that Aerin had smiled, crooked and kind, at Hari when the entire camp had seen her in the bonfire, the night before he had gifted her Tsornin and spoken to Mathin about beginning her training.
“Then I think you shall see her again,” he said, firmly. “And, if not, you could speak to Luthe about it. As for your other question about dragons…” Corlath dimmed the central lantern that hung high above them, bringing the normally colorful interior into a muted gray darkness. “Here. If you would let me, I will show you something.”
Corlath held out his hand; Hari hesitated before reaching out to place her hand on his own. Corlath flipped her palm up, cradling it, and concentrated his kelar.
He brought forth, with no little effort, a shared vision of the black dragon Maur, suspended in miniature above their hands. Hari made a soft noise of surprise, and leaned forward to examine the small figure with great interest, her moment of uncertainty forgotten.
“The Kings and Queens of Damar can never forget,” he said. “My father showed me this when I was young, and now I show it to you. This is one of the ways in which we remember.”
Corlath felt his grip on the vision begin to slip as the strain of holding such a thing overwhelmed him, but then Hari turned her hand over to grip his wrist, and he felt her Gift begin to shift, to flow into him. They had shared kelar once before, when Mathin had been healed and Hari had pulled upon Corlath’s power, only this time it was Corlath who was the wielder. It was intoxicating—Corlath heard himself gasp; Hari’s eyes blazed a bright, sudden yellow—and the dragon flared brightly back to brilliant life between them for one brief, sharp moment before Corlath crashed and lost his concentration completely, and the image flickered out into nothingness.
They both were breathing heavily. The darkness pressed even more insistently around them with the loss of the bright little image; Corlath was acutely aware of Hari’s hand on his own. He could feel her pulse, thudding erratically beneath his fingertips. Shouts and raised voices from the camp around them came through distantly, as the celebration around them continued unabated, unaware of the deep silence that had descended inside the king’s tent.
Corlath swallowed, and found his throat dry. “How is that done?” he asked, finally.
Harimad-sol did not pretend ignorance of what he was asking. “I do not know,” she said, slowly. “You have not done the same thing with your Riders, before—this sharing of power? This is not something you already know how to do?”
“No.”
“Well,” Harimad-sol said, and then stopped, only to repeat herself, sounding faintly bewildered. “Well.”
Corlath’s heart was pounding, and he could still feel Hari’s pulse against his fingertips, a thunderous echo of his own. He wished for a physical outlet for the adrenaline in his system; he remembered the vision from the Water of Sight, Hari’s naked skin pressed up close against his own, and felt the blood drumming in his veins. His head was swimming; his mind and body ached.
Hari’s eyes, when he looked into them again, were not golden but black now, her pupils large, almost drugged.
“We shall have to try that again, I think,” he said, slowly, “when we are both better prepared.”
Hari laughed, shakily. “Yes, I suppose we will.”
“I am glad you are able to—reach for such things, Harimad-sol. Without you, Mathin would not be with us now.”
“I am glad of it as well,” Hari whispered.
Corath’s dreams were strange that night: touched by kelar, but not solely of kelar, and intensely surreal; and when he woke up the next morning, he was still hard.
-
A windstorm, harsh and dry, came up out of the plains, whipping the sand and heavy grit about like bullets from the Outlander’s sidearms, and the army sheltered for the day, tightening down the ropes and stakes that held everything to the ground as they listened to the roar and bombast of sand pelting fabric. It was an early taste of the winter rains, in a way, which would keep them inside for much of the upcoming season, but without the life-giving properties which made the season as bearable as it ever could be.
Harry spent much of the morning sheltering from the windstorm with her brother Dickie, who was wildly fluctuating between regret and a nervous sort of anticipation, now that the moment of crisis had passed and he was left facing the rest of his life with the choices that had been made. He had made fast friends with Terim, for the two of them got along well, with Terim soothing some of Richard’s fears with his steady good nature, which appealed to Dickie’s innate Homelander sense of order and respectability. Narknon wound herself around Harry’s ankles as the windstorm battered the tent, and graciously allowed her back to be scratched by the others.
The evening turned clear and calm as the wind died down. Corlath sought her out as the Hillfolk emerged blinking from the shelter of their tents, and suggested they might spar, as they had missed their usual morning practice. It was a suggestion Harry agreed to enthusiastically, though she kept finding herself distracted as they fought—by glimpses of Corlath’s face, half-hidden by the hood wrapped about his head, and by the memory of sharing kelar with him, which had shaken her greatly. She had spent much of the night staring at the ceiling of her dark tent, wide-awake and remembering.
They cared for their swords when they were done sparring, oiling the metal in a companionable silence, neither sure how to break the quiet between them. Corlath found that his own gaze kept being drawn back to Hari’s fine features, and the slow work of her hands, tending to Gonturan.
“Are you—” he started, then, “Forgive me, sol, but I have a question I do not know how to ask.”
“Best just get it out and over with. That’s what my mother would always say.”
Corlath tapped his fingers against Katuchim’s hilt.
“I would seduce you,” he said plainly, for the first time, and Hari startled, then went very still. “I do not know the right way to say such a thing to you, perhaps—we of the Hills are often plainspoken about such things—but I wish to marry you, and have you be my Queen, and live together with you by my side.”
He risked a glance to Hari, who was staring at him.
“You wish to—to seduce me?” she said, faintly. “To marry me?”
“If it is the wish of your heart as well, then yes.”
“Truly?” she asked, sounding stunned.
“Yes. Truly, that is what I wish, and that is the question I would ask you.”
Harimad-sol laughed, a bit strangely; he could see a skittish nervousness in her now, an uncharacteristic uncertainty betrayed in her normally steady countenance.
“You are not asking me this because it is in some way expected of you? You do not feel that as a King you are obligated to ask your—” She faltered here for a moment. “—to ask Damar’s damalur-sol to be your Queen, as the people might expect?”
“No,” Corlath said, and set his sword aside, watching her carefully. “It is not that. I want you, for your own sake. Also,” he added honestly, a bit wry, “for my own sake. I am not an unselfish man.”
Hari did not respond that time, merely shook her head in a mute, stupefied refutal.
“Is it so hard for you to believe this of me?” he asked, quietly.
“No. Yes. I—” Hari laughed, in that strange way again, and shook her head. “I don’t know what to think.”
“You can think that it is true.” He paused. “Do you not feel the same for me? If you do not, then that is a different matter entirely.”
Harimad-sol hesitated, and Corlath felt a thread of fear at her weighted silence—perhaps he had indeed misjudged her feelings for him after all, or perhaps that vast stubbornness of spirit that was her great strength might be turned against him in this matter as well. But whatever the direction of Hari’s thoughts, they ended with her blushing a sudden pink, and Corlath felt a rush of relief—in this matter, at least.
“Why?” she asked then, and flushed even brighter under his gaze. “Why… me?”
“As I said. I am not an unselfish man.”
“So this is… selfishness?”
“Yes. Of a sort,” he said, and his eyes drifted up to her hair, bound tightly back for riding during the day.
“I find,” Hari said, slowly, “lately, that I am of an increasingly selfish nature as well.”
Corlath’s throat went dry, and his heart started to beat faster.
“Oh?”
“And it is you that I think of, first and last—for it is you, my King, that I dream of.”
“I dream of you as well,” Corlath said, and he drew a slow finger down the line of her jaw. And he leaned forward to kiss her, briefly and on the mouth, before he could think better of it.
Hari stilled at the touch of his lips, and then, wonderfully, wonderfully—she kissed him back.
-
Harry thought of little but Corlath that night. She lay awake and considered his words and his actions, and ran a finger along her lips. She thought of him as they rode the next day, until Richard asked what distracted her, then rolled his eyes and rode forward to talk to somebody else. Senay rode in silence with Harry instead after that, and her calm good humor thankfully required no words. Harry kept catching Corlath’s eye, and then one or both of them would turn away; neither of them noticed the other Riders eyeing them, or Jack’s sharp look between them.
Corlath was able to speak only briefly to her that night, but, to Harry’s surprise and delight, he kissed her, long and deep and then increasingly frantic, before retiring to sleep, and his fingers lingered at her collarbone and in the tendrils of her hair.
-
They camped next to a stream, and so water for a bath was provided, which Harry gratefully accepted. She bathed quickly, and washed her hair twice in short order, scratching happily at her scalp and rinsing out desert sand and dirt alike. She dressed in clean robes and braided her hair as though for sleep, but it was still early in the evening, and so she found herself pushing aside the door of Corlath’s tent, eager for conversation or perhaps, given their recent turn, more physical forms of affection.
She was not, however, ready for the sight of Corlath, still reclined in his own bath.
“Oh!” she said, and backed up blindly away from him. “I’m so sorry, I did not know you were occupied. I’ll just—”
“Stay,” he said quickly, and reached out a hand. “Please, you can stay, lady.”
She hesitated, radiating embarrassment and a vast uncertainty.
“How will I ever seduce you if you do not give me the opportunity?” he said, trying to tease a little, and was pleased when she smiled, although her gaze was pinned stalwartly upward, granting him privacy through sheer force of will.
“I would never wish to intrude on your peace and quiet.”
“I, on the other hand, quite wish that you would.”
It surprised a small laugh out of her.
“Who else will wash my back?” Corlath asked. “I have dismissed the men of my house already; you are the only one left to help a poor king such as myself.”
She snorted; he smiled slyly at her, and Harry thought that it was unfair how charming Corlath could be when he cared to try. He usually wielded his charisma with a seriousness befitting his station, shouldering the burdens of his people with a studious patience and something almost like resignation at times. His strength of character manifested as his ability to fill a room, to reduce those around him to the smallness of their humanity with his presence; it came forth in the way that he drew others around him into orbit, binding their loyalty to him and uniting those who chose to serve Damar. It was disconcerting to have that same greatness of personality bent towards the smaller, subtler practice of pleasing her, and of teasing her into a better mood.
She pulled up a low bolster next to the tub, and tried to figure out what to do with her hands.
“Is this what wives do in Damar?” she asked. “Wash their husband’s backs?” Harry tried to match Corlath’s teasing tone, but it was a serious question as well for her. Corlath had, after all, clearly stated his wish to marry her—to seduce her, he had more accurately said, and wasn’t that quite the word to have chosen—but Harry had little idea of what such a relationship truly meant to him. Perhaps wives were the same as at Home, where they functioned as little more than the ornamental treasures of great men, but Harry had the feeling that it was not so for a future Queen of Damar.
Corlath appeared to consider her question carefully. “Husbands and wives do many things together,” he said finally, and Harry blushed at the plainness of his tone. “I, for one, look forward to the day when I am the one to wash your back.”
Harry snuck a glance at him, and then another. He was leaning back against the edge of the tub, the water lapping about his abdomen. The water pooled darkly around his waist, obscuring what lay underneath it, but his knees poked up endearingly out of the water, as the travel bath was too small for him to sit fully relaxed. His face was flushed red with the moist heat, and his dark hair curled at the temples from the humidity.
He was watching her as she watched him, she eventually realized, his eyes dark. The moment stretched out, thick and anticipatory; Harry felt keenly on edge, her pulse pounding.
He shook his head then, as though to shake water out of his ears, and it broke some of the mood that had descended upon them. “Please,” he said, and leaned forward, baring the curve at the back of his neck and shoulders to her.
Harry picked up the wash rag, eyeing the work ahead of her. His back was lean and muscled, and scarred in a few places; his shoulders were broad and dark with the sun. She wrung the cloth out in the bath water, and began cautiously at his neck, at the line where his hair lay wet and curling like a young boy’s.
It reminded her, absurdly, of brushing Sungold’s coat as she worked; the same sensation of strong muscles, and contained power shifting underneath soft skin. Her knuckles brushed against his spine; he shivered, and his shoulders went taut and hard to the touch, and it only occurred to her then that perhaps he was not as easy with this closeness between them as he appeared.
Well, Harry thought, I know of at least one thing that wives do, and she touched Corlath’s tense jaw with her fingers, to turn his attention toward her, and leaned forward to kiss him, as he had kissed her the previous day.
He kissed her back, quickly and eagerly, as though he had been waiting for her to do so the entire time; his hand, when it came up to her cheek, was wet, dripping water. Harry twisted her fingers in the damp hair at the base of his neck and kissed him more firmly. Daringly, she opened her mouth to him as he had to her last night—he groaned, and she felt some of the restraint he’d so carefully cultivated slip.
Harry made a little noise in her throat, and he ran his other hand down her arm. Her robes, where he touched them, turned damp and clinging.
“Come here, love,” he murmured, and she felt the murmur of kelar in her mind as it translated the endearment love for her, the echoes of the word as it existed for Corlath—undercurrents of longing, inevitability, sexuality, possession—in ways that did not fully match her own usage, in her own language.
Harry’s head swam, and her knees began to feel distressingly weak; she suddenly had much more sympathy for the way the young men and women in love back Home had acted with each other, with an intensity that had seemed silly and laughingly small at the time to her. The sensation sweeping her body felt anything but small; it was massive, a tidal wave, an overwhelming blackness that made her breath short and her heart beat fast.
Corlath hooked his hand behind her neck and pulled her toward him; she went willingly, and bumped up against the hard edge of the tub. It seemed an easy thing to lift her bare feet up and sink into the bath on top of Corlath, the warm water soaking the white Darian robes she wore, making the thin fabric stick to her body.
Corlath’s hands went about her waist. Harry was taller than him like this; he had to tilt his head back to kiss her.
Harry’s knees were open to either side of Corlath’s lean waist, submerged in the water. She had never been nearly so close to a naked man before, nor had her legs open to straddle a man, clothed or otherwise. But, then again, it had been a year of firsts in an illuminating variety of ways, she thought, and trailed her fingertips up the taut, bare skin of Corlath’s abdomen.
He groaned, and his hips stuttered upward, and he surged upward to kiss her more intimately; Harry felt something hard and stiff underneath her, and she thought, oh, and then ceased to think of anything more at all except for the feel of Corlath, both of them moving together, water starting to slosh gently over the edge of the bath.
There was a noise from the door flap of the tent, and Harry looked up, dazed, at one of Corlath’s men frozen awkwardly, halfway in the entrance. He bowed quickly, apologetically. “Forgive me sola,” he said, and started to back up. “I will—”
“No, no, please, stay,” Harry said quickly, her head spinning and confused, and hoisted herself up out of the water. Corlath sank himself lower in the bath, not saying anything. “I was—it is I who will leave. One moment, please.”
“Yes, sol,” the man said, and finished backing himself out of the tent.
Harry dripped water on the carpets of Corlath’s tent, and felt the chill of the damp fabric plastered tight against her skin. She felt exposed to Corlath’s eye for the first time; she was not used to wearing anything in another’s presence but the heavily structured Homelander dresses which covered one from ankle to neck, or the loose robes of Damar, and the white fabric she now wore pressed so close to her body as to show her form clearly, her nipples hard and dark against the translucent cloth.
Harry laughed a little then, because she wasn’t sure what else to do. Corlath sank even deeper into the water, so that little more than his eyes were watching her over the edge of the tub.
“Goodnight,” she said, and wrapped a dry robe about her.
“Sleep well, my love,” he said, in a voice she had never heard from him before; and Harry felt her heart go faster again, and knew, despite his words, that she would not sleep well that night after all.
-
Corlath was distracted the entire next day, hardly able to think of little more than his bride-to-be as she rode Sungold, her seat confident, her legs strong. Her back was straight and upright, and her hands assured and calm, resting on her thighs. Tsornin strutted, flicking his ears back playfully at his rider; Corlath had never been so jealous of a horse in his life.
He felt raw, scraped-over with his feelings for her; his kelar kept distracting him at inopportune times, his nerves fraying with the constant sense of humming power, just out of his reach. He remembered the feel of Hari in his arms, when she had come to him willingly in the bath—her strong thighs wrapped about his waist, the almost-rhythm of their bodies they had just been starting to discover together when they had been interrupted. Frustration and longing flared in him, and he rode Fireheart awkwardly, with an erection, for much of the morning, which the bay stallion made clear was very much not appreciated.
He cornered her after the army stopped for the night, a day’s travel out from the City, just after her tent had been erected and his own was still in the process of being set up. She looked up at him, eyes wide with surprise, as he entered her tent; he kissed her swiftly and desperately, without greeting, toppling her back against the rugs and cushions scattered over the sands.
Hari kissed him back immediately, wildly, and Corlath was glad that at least he was not the only one of them so affected. He sank his weight atop her, and her fingers tangled in his hair. They kissed until Corlath was fairly crazed with it, and Hari was panting in his mouth.
They would be back in the City the next day, he thought, and the rest of their lives would start there.
Celebration swept the City upon their return. Harry had always thought the ancient place somewhat eerie and full of echoes, a massive stone edifice inhabited by a slowly dying people, and so it was a revelation to see the packed crowds who lined the streets cheering for the returning army, and the colorful fabrics that fluttered merrily from many of the walls and roofs, and the young children running, laughing, through the streets.
Harry saw a glimpse of swirling red hair in the crowd at one point, and gratefully touched the hilt of Gonturan at her side, and felt less alone.
Fireheart and Sungold danced next to each other, picking up their hooves delicately, touching noses and bowing their necks toward the other. Their manes flowed in the sunlight; their bright coats shone, chestnut and blood bay. Narknon stalked at her side, proud and indolent, and watched the crowds with a distant, benevolent sort of interest. Corlath’s crimson sash was lashed tight about his lean waist, and his hood was thrown back to show his face. Harry felt quite conspicuous riding at his right hand; they had told none yet of their engagement, so the crowd could not know they were touching their foreheads in salute of their future Queen, but there was something in how he stuck so close to her side that she feared showed clearly what was otherwise hidden.
Corlath must have sensed some of her nerves—he caught her eye and smiled, and it was sly and private and secretly ardent, as a lover might. And Harry remembered the weight of him on top of her, and the hard length of him underneath her in the water of the bath, and she blushed pink to the tips of her ears.
Corlath laughed, and cheers went up around them, and Harry looked about her and then back at the Hill-King, and at her future.