Daire sat at a small desk, near a canvas of the sept that seemed to have been done in... gold. Pure gold. The steaming liquid he poured from the kettle into his mug smelled delightful.
“Sesto!” Daire cried in surprise. His chair shoved back when he shot up. “What are you doing here?” “Will you... Would you like to join me?”
“I’d never think of declining,” Sesto said with a warm smile, sick at the thought that it was probably the only one he’d seen since they’d last been together. Elloven had been kindhearted toward Daire as well, and though he was still getting to know her, he adored her for it.
Jesstin might be too stubborn to admit it, but he adored her too. With time, he might even love her.
The steaming drink tasted of cider and pine—of home. The teeming conifers that cast soft shadows over the hamlet of Riverchapel... late nights in the Reliquary, tending the fire in Rhiain’s room while she slept fitfully, her dreams piecing together memories unavailable to her while awake.
“Ancora—that is, my mother...” Daire frowned. “She would make this for my brothers, and sometimes one would sneak a mug to me when she was doing the washing. Then she found out and blistered their asses with reeds from the riverbank.”
Oh, how it burned Sesto to hear such recognizable cruelty detailed. His own family had, at one time, been loving, but those years belonged to the wind and sky. He’d thought himself over it all until he’d met Daire, who was still deep in the thick of his abuse, too deep to understand scraps of kindness were not love. The apartment was not to set him apart as a favorite but to keep him from realizing life didn’t have to be this way.
Ryquin had chosen Sesto to accompany Daire because he thought the men were the same.
“It’s lovely, and I’m sure you’ve improved on it, with your skill,” Sesto said amiably. “Daire, I haven’t asked you, and I feel I should... In my mind, I’ve been thinking of you as a man, but I’d like to know if that is how you see yourself, and if it is that by which you prefer to be seen or... as a woman? Or something else?”
Daire set his mug down, pensive. “No one has ever asked me before.”
Sesto wasn’t surprised. “It’s also all right if you prefer not to answer.”
“No, no...” Daire cast a thoughtful gaze past Sesto. “I’ve sometimes thought about it. My mother had no name for what I was, no name I’d want anyway. Ryquin says I don’t need a word for it. My brothers were kind, though, and thought of me as one of them, and I suppose, well, that this is how I see myself. As a man, like they are.” He nodded to himself, a small smile appearing. “Yes, that is how I think of myself—or would like to.”
It was striking how deep Sesto’s affinity had grown toward a man he’d barely met. But the hours had been long, and Sesto was used to passing his time in his own head. Daire was too. “Then that is who you are, Daire, and I’ll not forget it.”
Daire flushed, smiling down at his mug. “Thank you.”
“The most basic element of decency requires no gratitude.”
Daire looked up. “You didn’t just come for a visit.”
Hesitantly, Sesto nodded. “I do enjoy your acquaintance...”
“And I, yours.”
It was Sesto’s turn to smile. He felt it travel to his heart.
“I sense your worry for your master.”
“Jesstin?” Sesto stopped short of laughing. “He’s my friend, Daire, not my master.”
“Oh?” Daire considered that. “His necromancy has strengthened since coming here.”
Sesto waited to see where Daire would lead. He sensed he could trust his new friend, but Ryquin’s influence couldn’t be discounted. “He has not been himself. Nor Lady Elloven, for that matter.”
Daire’s eyes shifted downward. “His magic is not like mine or the others’.”
“So you’ve said.”
“He’s suffering because... Well, I believe he is suffering because our magic is designed for the world we belong to. Jesstin can speak to all the dead, at his will, because the dead are less accessible in your world.”
Sesto had stopped counting the number of times that the people of Rivenholde referred to it as a separate world.
“The windows between the Infinitum and most worlds are shuttered. In Rivenholde, the dead have dominion. It was not always so, until they were trapped. All this energy creates a thinness between upper and nether. Before the great betrayal, truly powerful necromancers were a rarity, but this thinness has allowed more of our magic to surface. Still, we can only speak to them with great effort, and never for long. You might imagine how it feels not to have the ability to shut off the voices.”
“I can’t imagine, but I take your point.”
“If I were Ryquin, I would say... Well, I think I would say... I know I would say, he must endure it because it’s who he is and he must learn...”
