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Chapter 1
“There’s a haunting in the pass.” The thinner of the two well-dressed cloth merchants swung his ale for emphasis; liquid sloshed. The inn, large and crowded, provided a refuge against possible ghosts, here at the foot of the Dragon’s Spine peaks. Wind rattled the wooden shutters; the fire crackled in its hearth, an underscore.
The man, given a small audience of interested gazes, elaborated, “No one’s getting through. Not alive. Thomas Carter heard from a traveling bard that the entire De Varys trading caravan died for fright, without a mark on them—”
“And how,” Emrys the Shadow inquired, amused and low enough that only Aric could hear amid the inn’s bustle, “would the bard have known, if no one’s getting out alive…” and had a sip of spiced wine. His eyes were the grey of winter smoke, opals amid the firelit wood-carved noise; even in a beer-splashed crossroads inn, even with at least six weapons stored in various braces and boots, Em stood out. A gemstone, silver and onyx, short ruffled dark hair and delicate cheekbones; a home, the home Aric could reach out and touch, riding beside him. A hearth, a safe harbor.
Em would laugh at being called safe, of course. Aric ran a hand through his own hair—long, blond, a leather-wrapped braid or two, cheerfully playing into the large shaggy swordsman-for-hire reputation—and leaned back in his chair, balancing. He had good balance, even after most of a mug of strong ale, and anyway the wall was right there. “You don’t believe him?”
“I believe there’s probably something in the pass. Wyverns, bandits, an ice-worm, a mage with a very specific grudge against the De Varys family…”
“Is that likely?”
“I have no idea, having never met them.” Em poured more wine. His—and it was his, at the moment; he’d been clear about that—fingers were graceful, steady, competent; Aric thought of touches, caresses, those hands throwing daggers or weaving nets of enchanted grass or sliding along bared skin, leisurely and confident, coaxing well-practiced shattering pleasure out of his own body, in bed or under the stars or in one memorable case on a rooftop…
He’d been staring. Em’s eyebrows, dark demon-wings, lifted. “Really?”
“Love your hands. Love you.”
“Well, I love you, of course. I’ll fuck you later if you’d like.”
“Please. You don’t believe in ghosts?”
Em waved a hand: yes, no, maybe.
“Come on,” Aric said. “You don’t? I mean, you’re—who you are. Don’t tell me ghosts are impossible.”
Emrys made a face at the wine. Because Em in every form—more masculine, more feminine, at times in between; human and fairy and moving between that too—was adorable, the exasperation came out adorable as well. “I’m not a disembodied spirit. And my father’s very real, I promise you. No, I don’t know. I suppose ghosts are possible. I’ve just never seen one—a real one.”
“You’ve seen an unreal one? Impressive.”
Em sighed. Deeply.
“Aren’t there stories about hauntings around fairy-mounds?”
“Yes, but I suspect many of those are either made up—keeping humans away—or the result of an abducted human being returned to the world, decades later…” Em sighed again. Different, this time. “I don’t know enough about my family to know more.”
Aric tipped the chair forward, reached across the table, took his hand. Squeezed. Let go. The fire leapt, throwing sparks. Not fairy-magic; Emrys did not use power recklessly. Not when it’d been so painfully present, rejected, claimed, worked at.
“Thank you. I was thinking more about the nuns, at Saint Dolora’s…they used to tell us that ghosts were real. A punishment from the One-In-Three, being rejected from the eternal heaven, sent to walk the earth until they’d atoned for some sin. Of course even asking for a second slice of bread counted as a sin, mind you. All of us novices assumed we’d definitely suffer eternal torment. Inescapable.”
This time Aric nudged Em’s boot with his, under the table. Em’s shirt had long sleeves; travel-worn black hid the years-old scars he knew lay along that left arm. Em’s innate magic meant that most physical injuries simply slid away; the exceptions involved magic, pure iron, or self-inflicted pain.
But at the moment Em’s smile came wry and amused, looking back at the memory from the well-loved present. “I, of course, was more doomed than anyone. A witch-child. Elf-cursed. Utterly irredeemable. And look at me now, on the road with a mercenary, sleeping with the Storm-Wielder.”
Aric snorted. “That nickname’s your fault.”
“Guilty.” Em’s gaze lingered, slid along Aric’s arms, chest, open shirt. “Not apologizing for it. You’re better with a sword than I am…very heroic…all lit up and crackling with borrowed power, and the way your arms looked…”
Aric grinned, tossed back the rest of his ale, hopped to his feet, held out a hand. “Appreciate my power in bed?”
Em put his hand into Aric’s, formal and impish, getting up. “What was the ballad line? Shaking the world with thunder, was it?”
On cue, the storm boomed. Rain skittered like bones against thick glass windows. The inn’s door swung. They both turned; other people spun that way as well.
Drops whirled in, icy and wet. The gold of the firelight fought ink-black night and wind; one of the merchants swore aloud, got up, slammed the door shut.
Lythos the innkeeper arrived with more ale. Talk resumed, drifting up like scents of heated cider, meat pies, beef stew, candlewax.
