Page 16 of The Scent of the Ideal

He must intend to get some practice in, perhaps with a dummy, although Rafi didn’t see why that would be urgent. It wasn’t as if Viau had raced from the palace to the academy and then sought peace through exhaustion in the Arms Room.

Training like that was something Rafi often did when he thought of home, or his family, or whatever his future might be. Viau might do it too. Anyone might. Perhaps even in the palace there were annoyances and wounding words to make someone like Viau long to stab something with a practice sword.

Instructor Guen’s voice carried through the space. “Viau? Back already? I thought you were at the palace for another week at least!”

Viau straightened with a fixed, pleasant smile and scanned the room until he found Instructor Guen. “My cousin still has not decided on his summer plans, and there was little for me to do there, in any case, so I returned early.”

It took Rafi several moments to remember that the di Chartre were kin to the di Ruzé, and that Viau was cousin to the king. A distant cousin, but nonetheless one who had known him since childhood.

“Summer is when the nobles all visit each other,” Laure remarked behind him to Katoh or possibly someone else. Maybe a younger student who didn’t yet know that.

“I don’t suppose anyone here would be willing to fence with me?” Viau called out, slow and easy with the offer, as if he didn’t know it would send a ripple through the students. Rafi watched excitement light up dozens of faces and opened his mouth to say—what, exactly, he didn’t know. But a bunch of first-and-second years were no match for Viau. A final-year would likely still be nothing to Viau’s experience. Viau was a smiling beast to make such an offer. Polite or no, he knew his skill and he could guess theirs.

Of course, the others would be happy to fall under his sword. They’d be happy being near him. That was the sort of worship Viau must be used to.

Rafi felt the words in his throat become a growl. Then Laure—it had to be Laure—put a hand in the middle of Rafi’s back and shoved him forward, and as Rafi stumbled away from the small group, Viau’s gaze settled on him as surely as his aer once had.

Rafi was not in or even near aedis, but his insides quivered and his aer churned and rose as if ready to spill over.

“Rafi,” Viau greeted him, lights in his eyes. A tiny shock went through Rafi at hearing his name and knowing how it had last been said. He tensed and then tried not to appear tense with seemingly half of the academy watching them. Viau gave no sign that he noticed the attention, but he didn’t speak again until Rafi was in front of him, and he lowered his voice to do it. The lights left his eyes, or so Rafi imagined with his thoughts lingering over his time in Viau’s bed. “Are you well?”

Mannerly, as Laure had said.

Rafi nodded with too much energy, his face increasingly warm.

“I wasn’t sure, since I didn’t see you,” Viau continued, polite, and yet Rafi found it difficult to look him in the eye with those words between them.

“Were you worried?” The question slipped out before Rafi could stop it, so he sucked in a breath and tried again. “I’m well. I’m very well.” He went to sleep at night trying not to remember sliding his hands over soiled linen sheets, seeking something to hold to as he’d been plundered or panting into a pillow with Viau’s tongue inside him. He growled now when he hadn’t before, and imagined things he shouldn’t. “You did—” his rising voice as he came, the cries for more. He shouldn’t think of it, “—very well. Thank you. I… didn’t want to inconvenience you more than I already had.”

He didn’t know what to make of Viau’s expression. While at court, Viau had learned to conceal his thoughts as well as his aer. Rafi ought to do the same, or at least try.

Viau didn’t respond to the inadequate compliment or acknowledge Rafi’s explanation for his sneaky exit. He looked around the room and then back at Rafi. “Were you interested in sparring with me?”

“I’ll lose.” Rafi knew his friends would be unhappy with that, so he added, “I suspect everyone here would. But I expect to lose, so I don’t mind as much, as long as I learn something from it.”

Something flickered across Viau’s face but was also smoothed away. “That is not the impression of your skills that I got from your instructors.”

Rafi absently brushed his hair from his face, with Viau tracking the motion. “They spoke about me? Oh,” Rafi realized almost in the same instant, “you asked. That was reasonable of you. You didn’t know me.”

“I still don’t,” Viau pointed out, but with the faintest quirk at the corner of his mouth.

Rafi had deliberately not spent a lot of time wondering what Briene had said about him when he’d contacted Viau. Now he wondered what Briene and the other instructors had said after that, once Viau had stepped into the Arms Room and laid eyes on Rafi for the first time, after Rafi had lost control.

“I’m nearing my final year here,” Rafi informed him calmly, despite his racing thoughts. “I’m twenty. There isn’t much else to know.”

“Twenty?” Viau echoed, probably thinking that was on the late side for a nex’s first aedis. His frown was as elegant as the rest of him, though it didn’t last long. “You forgot to mention your loyal friends.”

Rafi glanced over his shoulder to find his friends only to notice the many others also observing him. He quickly turned back. “I’d introduce you, but you already met, unless I remember things wrong.”

“In a sense, I suppose we did.” Viau’s mouth quirked again. Rafi wasn’t trying to be amusing, but evidently was. “You have no protective kit on. What were you planning on doing with your friends today?”

“They were going to wrestle together,” Rafi admitted. “I mostly work with dummies.”

Viau didn’t lose the curl at the corner of his lips. “No one on your level available to play?”

Rafi opened, then shut, his mouth. “I hit hard.” He swallowed. “Even in practice.”

“Yes.” It was almost a satisfied hum. “That’s what I was told. You fight with everything you have.” His expression brightened when Rafi startled and shook his head. “Do you think you can hold back today? I am not in the mood to slow myself with padding, although I will use a practice sword. I don’t mind bruising.”