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I eyed him with amusement.Mi gato montéslived in permanent denial, and no matter how many exquisite noises and pleas I pulled from his lips while in the moment, he disavowed each one when he sobered up.
“I meant the thing where you’re occasionally right,” I told him, and waved a gloved hand at the city around us. Grey stone buildings cast long shadows at our feet, each one dauntingly imposing in both size and grandeur, with tall peaks and spires straining at the sky. Icicles glittered from windowsills, parapets, the edges of roofs; equal parts stunning and dangerous. “Stavroyarsk is beautiful.”
Mat looked surprised. “I didn’t think it would be to your tastes.”
I hummed as he drew his horse to a halt and I followed suit. “To live? No. But it is indeed a thing of wonder to visit…or to flee to in a desperate attempt to save one’s own country.”
My boots hit cobblestones and salt as I dismounted, perhaps the first Aratorre in nearly a century to set foot on the streets of Mazekhstam’s capital. Mat muttered something in his native language to a boy in furs who was crouched nearby, tossing him a silver piece from the money we’d stolen from the Grachyovs along with the horses – courtesy of a stablehand enjoying a liquid lunch and an impressive distraction on my part that had proven largely unnecessary – and the child eagerly leapt to his feet to take the reins from our hands.
I turned my face away as I passed over my horse, but he didn’t even bother to peer up into the shadows of my hood, clearly too excited at what the money might bring him to be curious about its payers.
It was certainly a lot easier to hide me in the north than it had been Mathias in the south: up here, everyone wore thick furs that covered every inch of their skin, including hoods pulled low and scarves wrapped over the bottom half of their faces to keep out the biting chill. It was difficult to determine even a person’s gender or size when everyone was bulked up with several layers, and no one had gotten close enough to recognise my southern complexion beneath it all.
I’d also noticed that many of the travellers we had encountered on the road these last three days wore the uniquely Mazekhstani ushankas, eared fluffy hats which had me snickering at how absurd they looked until Mathias had donned one himself. And then the only descriptor my head was capable of supplying wasfucking hot.
Yet my newly conceived fantasy of having him ride me while wearing it had to be frustratingly put on hold, as the walls of the inns we stayed at were as thin as they were on the rest of the continent and my lover was far too loud – althoughthatgave me an idea for later – for such activity to have gone unnoticed. A charge of sodomy bore a sentence of a brutal flogging that usually resulted in death, and would have compromised our plans somewhat.
Because despite our pledge not to go near anymore inns, we’d no longer had a choice: the weather was just too cold this far north to sleep out under the stars without the benefit of a shitload of equipment we didn’t have. As Mathias rationalised, if we were recognised we were more likely to be dragged before the Mazekhstani regent than single-handedly hauled back to Máros, considering the embattled border and the south’s hatred of northerners. We preferred to present before Panarina of our own accord and not shackled like a pair of criminals, but with the eventual destination the same, the risks of travelling on main roads were lower than they had been to date.
It had brought a great sense of relief to have drawn so close to Stavroyarsk that the road signs to the capital had started to appear, the mile indicators steadily ticking down. Weathering the cold and the antsy temperament of my horse had been enough of a distraction to keep my mind from dwelling on the impossible task that lay ahead, although I’d been busy formulating plans for how we could try to convince the regent to help us.
“That’s the Panarins’ castle,” Mat said now, nudging my shoulder with his own as we moved into a cross street as if he was worried I wouldn’t notice the towering structure blocking out the sky ahead of us. As with the rest of the buildings lining the main streets of the city, the architecture of the castleglowered, looming and bristling, and the glimmering ice along its edges lent it the impression of further sharpness. Maybe beautiful was the wrong word after all – and in that case, I should really take back what I’d said about the brat being right – because there was a threatening menace around it all that infected its beauty and instead made it...hauntingly impressive. Majestic, yet ominous. Grand, but also forbidding.
“You grew up inthere?” I said, blowing out a breath that fogged the air before my face. “No wonder you were so sullen and boring when I met you.”
He shot me an adoring look. “And the impact onyoufrom living among all the sex statues which adornla Cortinais too obvious to point out.”
I laughed. “Blame not the statues but a vivacious young courtier who ruined my innocence in a single whirlwind night,” I said, remembering little more than bright green eyes, a laughing mouth, and an introduction to sexual pleasure that had left me ravenous for more.
“I don’t think I’ve ever asked you about your first,” Mathias mused, leading me through a maze of streets and alleyways. Northerners bustled past us, arms ladened with furs and sacks and crates. “How old were you?”
Then he paused, pulling a face. “Do I want to know?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Do you?”
“No,” he decided after a moment. “But was there ever anyone more…permanent? Like me?”
“There’s no one like you,mi amor,” I said, leaning in to kiss him and then remembering the danger just in time. I pretended to be craning my neck to admire the castle above us instead.
Mat shot me a sympathetic smile, but it was strained.
I lowered my voice. We were speaking Mazekhstani so as to not draw attention, and while I didn’t think anyone was close enough to overhear us, the streets were busy and anyone could be watching without our noticing. “You’re the only one who has ever been about more than the physical, Mathias.”
“What about Jiron?”
I shrugged off the pang that the name invoked in me, using the memory of his disappearance to fuel my determination in seeing this shit with Panarina through. “We’re friends. He works for me. Occasionally we slept together. Each thing did not affect the others.”
“But he was assigned to you when you were five,” Mat said, and I was impressed – and perhaps a little touched – that he’d remembered such a detail. “He practically raised you. Didn’t that make it weird when you…” He trailed off awkwardly, clearly embarrassed and rolling his hands as if expecting them to finish his words for him.
“Fucked him?” I asked, amused. “Not really. I was of age when we began, and it’s not like we’re related.”
“But he was still a father figure for you,” Mathias pointed out, clearly determined to torture either himself or me by reminding me of all I’d lost.
I met his eyes, feeling a chill run through me that had nothing to do with the Blessed weather. “I already had a father, Mat. And I knew from early on that if that was what a father did, I didn’t want another.”
He swallowed, looking at his boots.
“Why are we talking about my past partners?” I asked, worry starting to gnaw at me. “Do you think there’s been anyone since you?”
