As opposed to how shyly Setka began their sojourn in Hehet, here Setka runs off immediately. “That smells good!” she cries, slithering down into the lake water with hardly a splash. Reeds shift around her, showing her path underwater, and mud churns near the shore. Lyric is quite cold and can only imagine how freezing the water must be. Across the lake he sees several deerlike creatures with their forelegs too long, giving them a strange slope to their spines, and antlers that spiral and curl off their skulls instead of branching like trees. They lift their heads from drinking, and two canter toward the distant tree line.
“Was this place already a sanctuary for them when you arrived?” he asks.
Maimeri nods, untying the cords holding ahz tunic together at the shoulder. Az unwraps it, and Lyric startles as he realizes Maimeri is stripping down to nothing, dropping ahz clothes in a pile.
Az walks completely naked to the water until ahz toes sink into mud. Az stretches ahz arms out, rolls ahz neck, and Lyric can’t look away from the lines of ahz lean body. Maimeri is just as raw and sharp as ahz face and hands, shoulder blades jutting out, the knobby ends of ahz collarbone against hard-looking shoulders, the curve of ahz spine perfectly smooth, and there are dimples above ahz ass cheeks. Az has no scars anywhere.
Maimeri glances back at Lyric and then follows Setka into the lake.
Lyric scoffs in renewed shock—he’s freezing in the air; he can’t imagine getting in that water. So he shakes his head and returns inside to explore the kitchen. There isn’t much he can do about meals, but he knows some basics.
While he putters, cataloging stores and dry goods, one of the griffons struts in. He bows to her and starts speaking aloud as he goes as he would to a human. He learned from Garnet that the griffons can sense respect.
The griffon is not the red queen from the rooftop, but one of the slighter griffons, a young male with deep golden coloring and mottled black and brown splotches. His wings are tipped in a shade almost like mirané brown. Before Lyric can decide if the lake water is potable or if there is a well somewhere, the low kitchen window opens from the outside, and Lyric is face-to-face with a very large goat-pony creature with eyes pure white and four horns up its long nasal bone: The one nearest the soft-looking nose is short and curved like a hook, and the horns progressively lengthen and twist until theone between its white-pearl eyes, which must be two paces long, with tiny spikes spiraling up the gleaming opalescent horn.
This has to be the unicorn. Its head and neck are stuck through the window while the rest of its white body stands in the meadow outside.
Lyric has fortunately grown used to shock after several quads in the past, and manages to only stare for a moment before he covers his eyes respectfully and says, “Turo, this guest is Lyric.”
“Lyric, hmm, Lyric,” the unicorn says—actually says. “Did Lyric bring treats up the mountain?”
Lyric can’t help himself—he laughs. “What is a treat to a unicorn?” he asks, feeling the philosophical weight of the mundane question.
The unicorn huffs, shaking his head. His mane seems made of stringy clouds, the thin kind that pull taut over the dawn sky and change colors from vivid blue to creamy orange and electric pink. “Sugar,” the unicorn answers simply. It’s just as weighty, Lyric supposes, a plain answer to a plain question.
He digs into the storeroom, unearthing a wax-sealed jar marked with the Sarian sigil for candy. It’s syrupy fruit chunks of some kind. They smell spicy-sweet, and Lyric fishes one out with a hooked finger. It’s very spicy—gingerroot, he thinks. He’s rarely had it, and wonders how a jar of candied ginger ended up here. But some mysteries are worth eating, he thinks joyfully to himself, and then that the sentiment would be something Singix—the real Singix—would have appreciated. But that makes him remember his mother, who killed the real Singix, and she herself is dead by Iriset’s hand. The ginger is too bitter for him now.
Lyric offers a shallow bowl of candied ginger to Turo the unicorn, trying to let his sorrow and anger settle without ruining the day. And hoping Maimeri had nothing special planned for the jar he just opened.
When Maimeri finds him, Lyric is licking syrup from his fingers, perched in the window while Turo prances in circles in thesunset-gilded yard, showing off the rainbow coloring of his mane and tail. Turo had told Lyric he has siblings dotted throughout the land, but none as handsome as himself. Lyric asked how old Turo is, and the unicorn said older than everything else in the valley except the mountains and trees and the wise catfish in the lake.
Turo presses his silky nose into Lyric’s hand, nostrils flaring, and Lyric understands why so many people long for unicorns. He understands why someone would break the laws of the universe to design a creature like this, though he can’t quite believe this unicorn wasn’t made by Aharté. Lyric scratches Turo’s whiskers, and the unicorn lifts his chin for better access, and that’s when Maimeri says, “I’m jealous.”
Lyric startles and laughs. The laughter comes so easily, rising ecstatic bubbles popping over his tongue. When has he ever laughed so much as the past few days?
The realization hurts.
It’s a stab in his heart, his ribs turning to stone. The laughter falls away, but he continues looking at Maimeri, who holds out a hand.
They eat simple food, preserved cheese and pickled vegetables and the loaf of bread from their packs. Setka is exhausted from swimming—but oh does she tell Lyric about the catfish in the lake. They’re massive and twisty as snakes, not fish, with bulbous eyes and actual teeth, did Lyric know fish could haveteeth? She gets into a wrestling match with the young male griffon, and since she’s covered in thick scales she manages much better than Lyric thought possible. The griffon invites her to the aviary to sleep, and Setka goes, since it won’t snow tonight. She’s very impervious to temperature, though Lyric notes he’ll need to source some ointment for her drier patches.
Maimeri offers Lyric another little cigarette, but Lyric shakes hishead. “Everything feels clarified here. The balance of the valley is amazing.”
“Not even for fun?” Maimeri says.
“Maybe another night.” Lyric looks out the window, huddling under the blanket he found once they finished eating. The sky is vividly black and sparkling with pinprick stars. The gibbous moon seems crystal clear, different on the mountain than in the vast open bowl of the desert. Lyric wonders if it’s the cold or the height or just the perfect balance.
Maimeri wraps ahz arms around Lyric from behind, nuzzling his short, soft hair. It tickles, and Lyric tilts his head aside. Maimeri presses lips to Lyric’s skull just behind his ear, hot breath slicking down Lyric’s neck, and Lyric pushes away from the window. He goes through the open door into Maimeri’s bedroom and stands next to the gently swinging bed.
When Maimeri follows, Lyric cups ahz face and kisses ahz, and Maimeri responds instantly by wrapping ahz whole arms around Lyric’s head. Lyric opens his mouth, inviting Maimeri in, and Maimeri takes a moment, kissing with only lips. Az sucks gently on Lyric’s bottom lip, crushing them together until suddenly their teeth touch. Lyric smiles, licking at Maimeri’s front teeth—and thinking of Iriset, who taught him how to kiss in a hundred ways with lips that weren’t her own. Lyric presses in, really tasting Maimeri. He winds his fingers into Maimeri’s soft hair, pulling them fully against each other, chest to chest, hips to hips. He’s getting hard, and the blanket shucks down his body to the floor.
“Have you?” Lyric whispers, head back as Maimeri gnaws under his jawbone.
Maimeri shakes ahz head, never lifting ahz mouth from Lyric’s skin.
Petting ahz pretty long hair, Lyric pulls Maimeri onto the bed. “What do you want?” he asks, only vaguely knowing himself. Maimeri shakes ahz head again, biting a little at Lyric’s throat. Ahz teethare sharp, nicking the skin in delicious tiny stings. Lyric lays himself out against the bed, loosening the ties of his robe to open himself up for Maimeri, content to let Maimeri do whatever az wants. Maimeri watches him, red eyes scouring Lyric, ahz lips parted and damp, and as az stares, ahz breath quickens. Just from looking. Lyric’s arousal tightens all his skin, and warmth flushes his chest.
Maimeri leans over him and kisses him, touching only with ahz mouth. The texture of Maimeri’s lips softens against Lyric’s jaw, heating up as Maimeri kisses down to the hollow of his throat, sucking lightly at Lyric’s collarbone as Lyric sighs at the pleasure of it.
