“Yes.”
A realization struck Ethyr.“Is this… your home?”He looked around as though expecting a sudden bed and hearth to materialize, but there was nothing except dirt and roots and the heaps of sacrificed possessions.
“You could call it that.”
Ethyr looked curiously at him.Kiaro remained unguarded, vulnerable, staring at the painting like it was carving him open.He hadn’t expected the god of deception to have such a verdant base, or such a weakness for art.
Kiaro straightened, his expression returning to its usual solemnity, and he glanced back at the entrance.“You should return.Your absence has been noticed.”
Ethyr blinked at him, then the hovel opening, creeping up to it and peering out.It was still and silent in the forest.
He turned and startled when Kiaro’s body was abruptly beside him.He had to tilt his head back to see the god’s face.A corner of Kiaro’s mouth curled.He gazed down at Ethyr with a restrained amusement that gave the cold darkness of his eyes an uncharacteristic warmth.His eyes weren’t black like his hair, Ethyr realized, but dark gray like a shadow in moonlight.
He grew aware of how close they were standing at the same time Kiaro’s hand lifted and a finger brushed against the stone hanging from his ear.Ethyr's hand went to it reflexively and Kiaro pulled away, not fast enough to prevent their fingers grazing together.Kiaro clasped his behind his back.
“I-I lost it,” Ethyr hurried to explain, flustered and blushing and not sure why.“I found it at the temple but had nowhere else to keep it.It looks silly, I know.”
“No,” Kiaro said mildly.“It is charming on you.”His gaze drifted over Ethyr’s face as though searching for something.Kiaro didn’t have the soft, ethereal features of the other gods.The striking cut of his features weren’t sharp in a chiseled or angular way, but more like the sharpness of breathing cold winter air into your lungs.Bracing, refreshing, irresistible.
With just two handspans between them, the proximity had a weight that held Ethyr’s tongue and quickened his heart.Kiaro had seen him in all kinds of compromised positions, had elicited one just hours ago, but that moment, the space, the gaze between them then was more intimate and vulnerable than anything else that came before it.
Ethyr raised his chin, shifting subconsciously to the balls of his feet.For a moment—a brief, heart-stilling moment—Kiaro lowered his mouth.Cool breath caressed Ethyr’s lips.
Kiaro straightened and turned away.“Let us go back.”He ducked out into the sunlight.
Ethyr sighed, the soaring lift of his heart plummeting to his feet.Back.To the palace.To his opulent prison.The thought alone was suffocating.
“You need to be wary of Lyrian.”
He paused as he stepped out after Kiaro, blinking at him.“How do you know about that?”
Kiaro’s shaded expression gave no answer.
“Have you been watching me?”he asked, unease stirring in his chest and souring any lightness that might have remained.“Why?”No answer.“How long?”
Kiaro raised his hand and rested two fingertips to the middle of Ethyr’s forehead.
He opened his eyes to a stone ceiling high above him.For a moment he was confused.Then he jerked upright with a gasp, looking around the offering room.He was back at the temple, on the bench.Had any of that happened?Was it just a dream?Wandering a desolate gods’ realm with a Kiaro who was soft and smiling; it had the makings of a dream.
He reached up.He had his earring.
Ethyr dragged himself off the bench and started down the corridor.Near the front of the temple, there was an unusual commotion of noise and activity.He stepped out into the hall where a swarm of priests rushed to and from corridors, Klara in the middle of it all directing them or listening to reports.
She froze mid-word when she caught sight of Ethyr and barreled past the two priests next to her to grab hold of him.
“Where have you been?”She spoke only slightly above a normal volume, but the pitch of her voice betrayed her angry panic.
Ethyr couldn’t meet the ferocity in her eyes, looking away and raising his shoulders.“I… was… trying to find my earring,” he said as guiltlessly as he could.
“For six hours?!”
“Was it… six hours…?”He trailed off, unable to keep up the facade of innocuous surprise.
Klara gripped his wrist with an iron hold and pulled him through the suspended ruckus of the priests, who were all standing and watching now.Anger propelled her strides and he had to lope at an awkward half-run to keep up with her as she walked him out of the temple and all the way down the road to the palace.
Yorith’s study door was wide open, echoing his livid rant through the hall that was conspicuously avoided by servant and guard.
“—in my life!I’ve met toddlers with more maturity and sense!What more can I do?That selfish brat is going to be the death of the kingdom and I don’t have a—”
