And they were meant to share a bedroom through the long, cold winter.
All because Theos couldn’t keep his mouth shut and had gone diving into something that should never have been his business.
“Don’t look down!” he ordered, and his voice broke Finnvid’s concentration. The boy slipped, spun, and fell into the water with a splash and a curse. “And don’t get distracted,” he added when the boy’s head surfaced.
Good advice for himself as well, of course. He sighed, trying not to notice the way Finnvid’s wet trousers clung to his legs as he sloshed out of the pond. It was going to be a long winter.
Chapter Ten
They fell into a pattern after that. Long days of training, baths before dinner, and then drinking and gaming in the common room. Theos tried to treat Finnvid like a raw recruit, but he found himself struggling with that attitude.
Parts of his reluctance were quite practical: Finnvid didn’t sleep with the recruits because he was supposed to be Theos’s bedwarmer. So Finnvid was spared the loud, crude, rough dormitory life. Finnvid bathed more often than the recruits because Theos didn’t want a smelly creature sleeping on his floor. And recruits weren’t allowed in the Sacrati hall, but Theos wanted to be there, and he needed to keep an eye on Finnvid, so Finnvid came along.
Giving him ale, and letting him learn the dice games? Well, that was harder to justify. But Theos was tired of being angry, tired of being a guard when he just wanted to be a soldier. So he let go of a little tension.
And so, it seemed, did Finnvid. He stopped flinching and walking around with his eyes on his feet in the baths, and he started relaxing into the heat and steam. He even spent some time talking to Nero, the young Sacrati who’d beaten him in the common room, and while Theos didn’t hear the words, he was pretty sure Finnvid apologized for starting the fight. A few Sacrati approached Finnvid with medical issues, and Finnvid seemed pleased to offer suggestions. And when they went back to Theos’s room at night, Finnvid began telling his stories before they fell asleep, tales of the heroes and gods in the stars.
Despite all this, Theos was fucking his way through half the soldiers in the barracks. He was trying, unsuccessfully, to find someone who’d make him forget his fascination with Finnvid’s smooth skin and lean body. When Finnvid was breathless after their morning run, Theos wanted to think about the boy’s lack of fitness, not about other ways Theos could make him gasp. When Finnvid grunted in exertion during calisthenics, Theos didn’t want to get hard, didn’t want to imagine himself driving the breath out of the boy’s body with long, deep thrusts . . .
“You’re acting like a randy recruit,” Andros said one morning while they were taking a break from sparring. “Do you actually have a plan, or are you just operating on instinct?”
“A plan? Not a plan, exactly, but, aye, I have some idea of what’s going to happen.”
Andros raised an eyebrow.
“I’m going to keep going like this until one night I roll over and catch a glimpse of a bit of his skin slipped out from under his blanket, and then my dick will explode and I’ll bleed to death and this whole stupid thing will finally be done with.”
Andros nodded slowly. “Messy, but you’re right. At least it’ll be an end.”
“This is all your fault. You’re Sacrati, by the sword! You should know enough to watch where you walk. If you hadn’t stepped on that snake—”
“I wonder whatwouldhave happened,” Andros said thoughtfully, “if we’d brought him in with the others, stuffed him in the pen, and forgotten about him. You’d have chosen a different prisoner as your prize, taken the money, and everything would have gone on as normal. But for Finnvid?”
“He’d have been able to do his spying and lying and sneaking around with less of an audience.”
“Or he would have been shipped out to freeze to death in the mountains.”
“Sounds perfect,” Theos said, but they both knew he didn’t mean it. As annoying as the Elkati sometimes was, Theos didn’t want him dead. Not really.
The days passed. By the time of the midwinter soldiers’ council, it had all become . . . not quite routine, just familiar. Theos had forgotten what it felt like to sleep alone in his room, without a crabby virgin on the floor beside his bed. But he didn’t miss his solitude.
He sat near the front of the room for the council, as an iyatis should, yet didn’t pay much attention to the proceedings. The warlord and Sacrati captain both served five-year terms, with their start dates staggered to ensure continuity of leadership, but neither post was up for a vote that year. So this council was mostly dealing with bureaucratic nonsense, and Theos wished he was sitting at the back with Andros and Finnvid. Still, he kept his posture straight and tried to look interested.
He’d almost dozed off by the time the warlord stood and announced that there would be a new iyatis for the coming season. So it took him longer than it should have to absorb the next words. He heard the warlord say that Ekakios would take Theos’s place as iyatis and just sat still for a moment, wondering what had gone wrong with this poor Theos’s leadership. Then the message sank in.
Theos jerked his gaze toward the Sacrati captain. Tamon was looking straight back at Theos, his expression intense, and Theos knew he was supposed to stay quiet and pretend none of it mattered. So he did, not because of the captain’s unspoken order but because he was too shocked by the demotion to know how to respond.
He’d never been particularly ambitious and hadn’t campaigned to become iyatis like some Sacrati did, but he’d been proud to be selected. Now? He took deep breaths, forced his face to stay calm, and tried to ignore the sick churning in his gut. He’d been demoted. No warning, no explanation. Just humiliation.
The warlord was watching him, greedy for a reaction, and Theos made himself remain impassive. This was his punishment for interfering with Finnvid? That was fine. It didn’t bother him.
When the meeting broke up, he stayed in the room for the chitchat that always followed these events. He saw Tamon coming and was conscious of every muscle his face used to create the illusion of a smile.
“I’m sorry, Theos,” the captain said. “There was . . . It’s a delicate time. I’m trying to keep the peace. You’re young. You’ll have other chances.”
Theos couldn’t listen to this. He’d been publicly embarrassed because the warlord carried a grudge, and because the man who should have spoken up for him hadn’t bothered to do so. And now he was supposed to listen to excuses. “Of course,” he said, and he didn’t worry too much about making his smile seem genuine anymore. He just nodded briskly, said, “Excuse me,” and headed for the exit.
He was almost there, almost free, when he saw Finnvid working through the crowd toward him. It would be easier to dodge the Elkati and lick his wounds in private. Easier, but maybe not better, so he slowed and let Finnvid catch up. Theos glanced over at the warlord, and saw him watching again.
