Page 54 of Forge the Blade

Except that Rei was already at risk. He was right then probably curled up against a sometimes benevolent monster who loved him for his helplessness.

And yet he missed Rei’s voice. He needed to lie on his back and talk with his hands in the air, letting Rei piece together all the parts of the puzzle, organizing his mind and making the world of chaos take on coherent shape and form. He could do it for himself. His instincts were strong, but Rei always made the world clearer. Rei would be able to weave Alexi’s vague words around Lisa’s future and Raska’s offer into a landscape with a road and a view, instead of mere gut impulses. From his knees, Rei had learned to see more clearly than most. While Sevastyan controlled their environment, on alert for threats and keeping together his image, Rei inhabited a place of total trust, his mind working through inference and meanings, linking facts across time and space into an organized web he communicated back with clarity.

Clarity was what Sevastyan was missing now. When he had walked into the soirée he had felt nothing. And at the breakfast, his own sense of self had been at arm’s length, but now it was all present, too close, too loud, too unreal, as if his skin were going to melt away and show something different, something he hadn’t yet managed to imagine.

The door creaked. Ellisandre stepped inside, looking more fem than he had seen them in weeks. They were wrapped in the maroon coat, this time with a matching lip and soft smoky eyes. There were small diamond pendants in their ears. Their hat was large and made of suede, with an oversized bow. They took it off, leaving it against the wall, and unwrapped their coat. Their eyes met. Neither spoke.

Beneath the coat, Ellisandre wore an ankle length wool skirt, appropriate to the temperatures outside. It was a wrap around and fastened at the waist with a wide belt. Their sweater had a bulky, softly rolled neck.

They reached into the bag beside their purse, and set a box on the low table in front of the couch. Inside were two coffees and warm ham and cheese croissants.

The two of them sat in silence while they both ate and drank. Ellisandre sat near but not beside him, giving him space, filling up the room with their presence. And that, more than the food, more than the caffeine, more than showers and changing clothes, started to shake Raska’s grip on Sevastyan’s psyche.

He set down the coffee and slid off the couch to his knees, hands on his thighs. “You said once if I needed punishment, you would punish me, if I needed a prison, you would be my prison. I need something else.”

“Name it,” Ellisandre whispered.

“I need to be clean.”

Ellisandre said nothing for a long moment. They set down their coffee beside his. “Outwardly, you are clean. Name that which requires cleansing.”

Sevastyan bowed his head. Only halting words answered his need to explain. For all that he had done, the things through which he had put Rei, even Lisa, the acts he had witnessed, the lives he had taken, this was harder to say. The words left his tongue one at a time, without grace, with barely form or cohesion. The scent of his mother. The slide of her dress against his slacks, her fingers on his shirt.

Her demand.

It hung in the air above them, that final piece of the entire dripping, ugly morass.

“I will cleanse you,” Ellisandre said. “And I will go with you.”

Sevastyan raised his eyes. Ellisandre stared straight into him, their hands folded in front of them, their elbows on their knees leaning close. “I will cleanse you and I will go with you,” they repeated.

Ellisandre

Ellisandre drew their boy in. He needed to be close. Settling him between their feet was not enough but it was better. His hair drew them first. Long, straight, loose. It slid through their fingers, golden silk. How better to claim and clean him than to leave their art twisted into him? Their fingers moved through his lengths, parting and plaiting, weaving flat French braids against his scalp, smooth enough that he could lay his head down without discomfort. Ten braids in all, five starting at his face and moving back to the edge of his crown, then braided to the ends, and five more starting beneath the first five, braided down and plaited to the last length. As the braids took form, so did their thoughts, the riddle of their boy untangling and the vision of what road they needed to travel revealing itself.

His shoulders were rocks beneath their hands. They slid their palms over them, lifting his arms and moving their hands from his shoulder to his fingers, mapping him.

“You belong to me, Sevastyan Sollunae. When this is over, you will change your name. I do not care what name you use for business, but on paper, in all legal ways, you will belong to me.” They lowered his arm and stood, circling him, hand on his neck, maintaining contact.

“You kneel for no one besides me,” Ellisandre said. “You are mine. You lie still for no other to cut your flesh and leave their mark.” They stroked his face. “You are mine. Raska does not have my leave to taint you. She will die, choking on her own blood, before she sullies you. The list of those who have claim on you is short. Her name is not present.”

Ellisandre sat on the couch and took Sevastyan’s chin in the tips of their fingers, lifting his gaze. “Play her, Vast. Use her to destroy her and her ilk. You are the prince on this battlefield. You are born of yourself. The man you are today is not her creation. What she sees is the illusion you cast, with powers you have wrought of yourself. She sought to bring forth into the world a tool and a puppet. The gateway she cast gave birth to a spirit beyond her reckoning, a force of its own owning. You. A man she has never corrupted, a double agent who has played against an older, more powerful opponent from the moment he could speak.”

“I feel corrupted,” Sevastyan whispered.

They were too far away. Closeness was required. Now. They pushed the coffee table away and sank down to the floor, back to the couch for support. They drew Sevastyan with them, parting their legs to make space and bringing his back flush with their chest. His whole form was laid out for them like this, his ear near their mouth if they wished to speak.

Hand over his eyes, their arm cradled his head against their neck where he could hear their pulse. All that strength of him breathed and pulsed under their palm, all the height and power laid out against them. Their free hand ran over his chest, down his stomach, and up his thighs. His clothes were between them and his skin, still necessary, as if the cloth were holding their boy in this form and without their shielding he might fly apart into a hundred thousand atoms across the universe.

They stroked the places where she had laid hands on their boy. His naval, the first place they had been connected, his thighs where she had sat, his hand, wrist, and forearms, the inside of his arm where she’d leaned against him, his chest where her shoulder had touched. With each pass they imagined they were gathering up the dark miasma of her presence and sweeping it away, sending it into the nether where it could no longer touch the man in their arms.

The angle of the sun against the window changed as they sat there, their hand still moving, cleansing, claiming. Sevastyan’s muscles released, one by one, until he was a heavy weight against them, his eyes closed, no longer in need of a hand over his face.

“Let’s shower.” They urged Sevastyan up. They took his clothes piece by piece, still stroking his body, wiping away even more memory of her touch. He stood, eyes closed, swaying lightly, letting them move him as they would. It was the same under the water. His head came down and rested on their shoulder, arms hanging limp. Such a weight, a sweet, warm weight. Years and years apart and now he was here, slumped against them, needing and trusting. They washed his hair, his face, his neck, his limbs, between his legs. Their fingers dragged over his hole and all he did in response was to spread his stance. They ran their fingers back, sinking in, careful of the fact that all the lubricant they had was soap and water. He groaned against their neck.

Ellisandre pressed a kiss against his shoulder and finished cleaning him there and everywhere. They rinsed themselves briefly and wrapped towels around them both, leading him to the bed and laying him out on it. His eyes were closed still, but he was awake and aware. They didn’t hide their movements through the rooms, gathering what was needed. They’d never done something like this before. Their stomach tightened a fraction at the thought of what they were about to do, but it felt right. Right for the two of them, if not right for most.

Naked, Ellisandre straddled Sevastyan on the center of the bed. They held up an ornamental knife, better than the fruit knife they’d used before in the urgency of the moment. This one was something they had ordered years before from a craftsman they trusted. The handle was cast in the form of the goddess Ishtar, a feminine figure with wings of a bird and claws in the place of human feet. It had seemed fitting. She came from Mesopotamia, a goddess of both fertility and war, sexual love and disaster—an embodiment of both sides of a coin and thus complete.