Page 55 of The Scent of the Ideal

“As though that can’t still sting. But that isn’t my meaning.” Daloit half turned to observe as his class gathered in a corner. “I’ve watched you two, and for all that you seem wild—and your form does slip in those moments, Rafeli. Correct that—you two move as if you have sparred together for years. Almost as if you know each other’s thoughts.”

About to insist that that was Viau’s doing with how he watched the aer of others, Rafi remembered that Viau didn’t publicly share that he did that, and so he closed his mouth and nodded. “I will correct my form.”

He would. No matter how Viau prodded him or dared him, Rafi should strive to keep his form correct so at least he wouldn’t injure himself that way.

Daloit nodded back at him and then at Katoh before spinning on his heels to stalk toward his class. He moved more like a cat than Rafi did.

“Viau watches the aer,” Rafi said to Katoh, slow to take his eyes off Daloit. “That’s how he knows what people are going to do in a fight. He’s as a strong as a mage.”

“Then how do you surprise him?”

Rafi froze, then slowly turned to Katoh in amazement. “I do surprise him.” And not only when sparring. Yet Viau’s aer had felt like the least surprising thing in the world when pressed to his and curled around him.

Katoh gave him an insultingly incredulous look, but then glanced over his shoulder and straightened up without commenting. Instructor Guen was the reason.

“You are not final-years yet,” Guen warned them, passing by. “Attend to your tasks or go stand with the third-years.”

He and Katoh both nodded, and then Katoh took charge by clearing her throat and calling for their students to gather. She called them victims, but with a softer smile than the younger ones might have expected. Misleading, for she could be vicious.

Which she demonstrated quickly. She’d seen Rafi and Viau spar enough to imitate their wildness, although she was holding back. Rafi didn’t bother if the students were properly kitted out in pads and leather.

He surprised Viau. Viau believed Rafi could be the best. Daloit and Guen thought highly of him, as did his friends. They considered Rafi to be powerful and perhaps odd, but they respected him. Standing over a winded second-year with a wooden strike-staff in his hands, Rafi felt so for the first time.

He’d been given a position like this because he was good at it, nearly as good as an instructor. Perhaps that was why Daloit joked with him now, and not because Rafi was Viau’s….

Lover did not seem the correct word. Sweetheart made him want to shiver.

He was Viau’s. But he’d known that before wine had made him declare it to an overly confident noble. It still was not enough.

They had shared aer, pulling and pushing back and forth in the dark in Viau’s bed as they had exchanged kisses and touches. Sweethearts who couldn’t sense aer might do the same thing, and so maybe Rafi was imagining the act was greater than it was. Such profound intimacy was probably commonplace for lovers. He hadn’t known it before; that was why it felt wondrous to him.

They hadn’t really been showered in blossom petals, had they? Viau hadn’t said.

“Rafi?” Katoh prompted him. Rafi twitched, then leaned down to help the student to their feet.

“Sorry,” Rafi said to everyone, blinking as he tried to return to the moment. “I’m tired so I’m not paying attention as I should be.”

“That’s Rafi when he’s distracted,” Viau spoke clearly, all fond amusement. “Imagine him the rest of the time, little ones.”

Viau was on the edge of the area where Daloit was occupied with his students, and might have been standing there for some time. He was dressed more formally than Rafi would expect for the Arms Room, but he must not have come there to work. He probably had gone into the capital, his business urgent and certainly more important than lingering in bed to tell Rafi that he meant it and he wished Rafi would keep him.

Viau was a third child, loved but not needed. He’d molded himself into the ideal so no one would turn him away. He’d been scared that Rafi wouldn’t like him anymore if Rafi saw even a hint of his real need, and so disappointed that first time he’d asked Rafi to spar and Rafi hadn’t dared to be honest with him. He’d wanted that. Viau reached for things, even if most probably didn’t notice. Except for Bellai.

Viau had reached for Rafi. For whatever Rafi would give him. But he’d known Rafi didn’t understand the gestures. Then he accused Rafi of being soft and needing extra care?

Rafi reached out without intention or thought but didn’t stop himself when he realized what he was doing.

“Little ones?” he demanded, pretending others weren’t listening so he could speak. Viau’s aer was locked away, a space as thin as window glass keeping it from Rafi’s touch.

“Not little,” Viau allowed, with no sign on his face that he’d felt Rafi’s vines unfurling. “As you are both not little and the only little one.”

Katoh snickered.

Rafi was not in the mood to be teased, or mollified, or whatever Viau thought he was doing.

Being the Viau, that’s what Viau was doing. Being the Viau and not the miné desperate to be inside Rafi in every way he could. Charming, and careful, and denying Rafi as if… as if their aer were not the same.

Rafi drew in a deep breath and released it. He dropped the strike-stick to the straw. Slowly, he unbuckled one of the leather braces from his forearm, then removed the other. He handed each to one of the waiting second-years, having no desire to get into trouble for being careless with the equipment.