But one last question claws its way from Arthur’s throat. He hates to ask, but he’ll be thinking about it forever if he doesn’t. “Did it work?”
Shae doesn’t answer for a while. He doesn’t move at all, just slumps bonelessly against Arthur’s side. Eventually he says, his voice devoid of emotion, “It didn’t work. I couldn’t bring them back.”
Arthur just holds him a little tighter and stares into the fire.
?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Shae
All right, so that wasn’t the whole truth. He chickened out at the last minute.
But it’s more of the truth than Shae’s told anyone in ten years, and breaking open his secrets leaves him feeling raw, his heart sliced open in a way that’s difficult to bandage closed. He eats and helps clean up mechanically, quietly, and he’s grateful Arthur doesn’t ask anything else. As soon as he can, he goes to bed, closing his eyes to the smooth stone walls of the cave.
He drifts to sleep, exhausted from talking to Arthur and the nameless dead man, from spilling out his memories and magic and blood all day.
The cave closes around him, a tomb of shadows. He stands in the tomb, and dead vines grasp his ankles. Stone effigies pin back his arms. A bright white line fractures and withers into dust. He’s in the Lyralan cathedral, but he’s also in his family’s cottage. The shape moving towards him has horns and wings, but it’s also two people, and the hatred in their eyes burns just as fiercely. He doesn’t want to see them. He’d rather face the demon, he’s trapped by stone and death and—
Someone touches his shoulder.
Shae wakes with a pounding heart, each breath an ice-cold dagger in his lungs. He struggles, reaching for his knife or his rings or a handful of dirt. All he finds is warm skin under cotton, two hands gently but firmly catching his wrists.
“Hey, easy there.” Arthur’s voice is rough with sleep. Only the outline of him is visible in the faint starlight, but his aura’s as warm as a summer day. “It’s just me.”
Shae slumps back onto the cave’s dirt floor, eyes wide, still trembling. “Sorry,” he whispers. “I thought…” The dream’s already slipping from his mind. He can’t tell if another line of the array really broke, or if he just dreamed it.
“You sounded like you were having a nightmare,” Arthur says quietly. “I wasn’t sure if I should wake you up or not.”
Shae really doesn’t want to know what he sounded like, but the embarrassment is nothing beneath the warmth blooming in his chest. Maybe it’s just a job to Arthur, maybe it’s just a paladin thing, but right now, it doesn’t matter. Shae just likes the way Arthur acts like he cares about him.
“Thanks,” he says. “I’m fine now.”
Arthur lies back down next to him, and Shae misses his touch the moment his hands leave his wrists. But in the next breath, Arthur’s saying, “Come here, it’s cold tonight,” and pulling him in.
This time, there’s no mystery about their closeness. Arthur pulls, and Shae shamelessly follows, curling up against the larger man. He’s fully enclosed in the heat of Arthur’s arms, the steady thudding of his heartbeat, but there’s no sense of entrapment. This is comfort, not a cage.
He feels a warm, fleeting pressure on the top of his head, so quick he might have imagined it. If it wasn’t impossible, he would think it was a kiss. He’s too exhausted and comfortable to think much of it.
If he dreams again, he doesn’t remember by morning.
***
A few days later, Arthur helps him onto Duchess’s back like usual. They’ve fallen into a routine of casually chatting as they travel by day, and cuddling together at night. Arthur hasn’t mentioned the nightmares or Shae’s confession, which would be great except Shae has nothing to distract himself from the way Arthur’s hands linger on his thighs, the way he smiles up at Shae, as he positions him in the saddle.
“Remember, thumbs up,” Arthur says, and is physically readjusting Shae’s hands really necessary?
Maybe the problem isn’t the way Arthur keeps casually touching him. The problem is how much Shae likes it.
Shae squeezes his calves to make Duchess go forward, which has no effect. He kicks a little harder—he doesn’t want to hurt her, even though Arthur says he won’t—and she takes a single reluctant step forward, ears pinned back.
“Is she mad at me?”
“You’re pulling back on the reins,” Arthur says. “Relax.” The gentle pat to Shae’s knee is definitely not necessary. Heat flushes up Shae’s leg from the point of contact.
Shae takes a deep breath, forcing himself to relax with the same feat of concentration he needs to awaken a corpse. He moves his hands forward, back to the position Arthur originally showed him, and kicks again. This time, the chestnut mare moves into a walk immediately, as if the previous two attempts hadn’t even happened. Shae jerks in his seat with the first step, and barely stops himself from clamping his legs down to stay in place.
“Well done,” Arthur says, and Shae thinks he’s being sarcastic until he looks down and sees the way Arthur smiles up at him. The simple praise crawls into his hindbrain and takes root there, far sweeter than it should be.
