Page 57 of The Scent of the Ideal

“I will work hard to stay with you. To keep you.” Strange to say, but heavy in his belly like a full meal on a warm day. Satisfaction, or as close to satisfaction as he could get when he would always want more. “If I can be good enough.”

“Was I not just a coward?” Viau did cluck his tongue then, some of his usual mannerly ways returning to him, perhaps because Rafi’s aer would not be denied. Viau welcomed it and pushed back, enfolding Rafi in warmth. “You’re better than I am even if you don’t yet believe me.”

“We’re the same,” Rafi complained to Viau’s throat, not planning to move from his place there unless forced to. Only a fool would dare, or Katoh when she felt they’d made enough of a spectacle of themselves and ought to go someplace private. Rafi did not want to, both for the pleasure of being where he was and to avoid the whispers and probable giggles throughout the Arms Room. Viau’s scent was in his lungs, sun and safety, home, as Rafi had known it. His aer was the same as Rafi’s, with Rafi’s to answer it, however that felt to Viau.

Good, or so Rafi assumed, because given permission, Viau tried to burrow inside him and stay there. Rafi was a touch sorry for those weaker with aer or blind to it, who might feel this way but not know why. But then he imagined that wouldn’t matter if they knew the same contentment.

Want me, his aer asked, echoing what Viau’s had already pleaded for.

Shared spirit. Shared life. Home. Love.

“Yes,” Rafi said aloud, “I will.” Then he closed his eyes to breathe in deep.

Epilogue

Viau put a hand on the top of Rafi’s head the moment Rafi knelt between his thighs. He would have heard Rafi moving from the bed unless he’d been lost in his study of the buds that had appeared on his Lowland False-Fern, but even if he had been so intent on his work that he hadn’t heard a sound, Rafi never startled him, couldn’t, with Rafi’s aer calling to him.

Viau hummed and slid his fingers into Rafi’s hair while he moved his legs farther apart to accommodate him. He hummed the same way sometimes upon waking, after Rafi had snuck into his room in the palace to curl up next to him.

They could share a room. But Viau insisted that Rafi should have a space for himself, for some reason believing that every young person needed that, although Rafi suspected it was Viau’s way of sparing himself future pain if Rafi wanted to leave him.

Viau would probably disagree. He also forgot that Rafi had spent much of his childhood on his own. Space was not something Rafi had been lacking.

So he found his way to Viau’s room at the palace or the academy, or Viau found his way to his, scratching at the door in the manner of a kitten despite how people called Rafi a cat. The palace was vast and many of those who lived within its walls traveled on the king’s business, so though Rafi had found a placement there, he and Viau did not see each other every day. Which was why Rafi saw no point in pretending that he didn’t need their nights together.

Nonetheless, Viau would hum as he stirred to wakefulness and then greet Rafi with a rasp in his voice and arms already pulling him close.

A year apart is reasonable, he’d insist anyway come morning, as if Rafi didn’t know the warm pool of his aer by heart and couldn’t feel the small eddies of worry.

That was poetry but the kind Rafi understood.

He hummed back, rubbing his cheek on Viau’s knee before looking up.

They’d returned to the academy shortly before midnight and fallen asleep almost immediately. Naturally, Viau had run to his plants before bathing or shaving or even dressing. He paid one of the gardeners to care for them in his absence but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t want to check them himself and make notations.

He was somewhat anxious, the ideal, for all that he acted at ease in public. Rafi let him brush messy curls from his eyes with ridiculous levels of care. Well, for that, and because Rafi enjoyed the ridiculous levels of care. In the end, Rafi was not much different from any of the plants in the windowsills.

“I thought you’d sleep more, beautiful.” Viau smiled ruefully down at him, as if he was the one at fault when Rafi had interrupted his work to force him from the desk so he could kneel at his feet. “I was going to finish this and then wake you to get breakfast… or perhaps an early lunch if we were delayed.” He arched an eyebrow. Rafi gazed back with his cheek on Viau’s knee. He debated cooing but didn’t think it would be necessary to get what he wanted. “But I should have known,” Viau continued, cupping Rafi’s jaw with his other hand. “You aren’t nervous? This is excitement?”

Rafi fought the urge to frown.

“We got here late,” he explained himself while dancing his fingers up Viau’s bare thigh. Once again, Viau had rushed to his work wearing only the shirt he’d worn to bed. “And before then, when I snuck into your room, you weren’t there. For four days, Vi.”

He did coo. The more time he spent in the capital, the more he learned that there were people who mocked miná and nex for that. He had also learned that they would not do it if Rafi turned to them with his hand on his hilt.

“Menace,” Viau named him, shivering but letting Rafi put his fingers where he wanted them. “Killer. Ruthless beauty. It’s no wonder they fought over you.”

Rafi rather thought nobles had fought over his placement—if that was even true—because it was a coup to get Viau’s lover for one of their swersoldi. But he didn’t say so, using his aer to push the hem of Viau’s shirt up and out of his way.

“You don’t need to sneak in,” Viau continued, dragging his hand down the side of Rafi’s face and then offering fingers for Rafi to suck. “Which you know, clever beast. You say that to torment me. As if I don’t want you with me every night. As if I have not spent two ruts bruising you and don’t dream of the next.”

Rafi pulled his head back and swallowed the spit pooled beneath his tongue. “You could bruise me now.”

He had become quite skilled. If not the best, then close to it. He had discussed the matter with courtesans but mostly found practice to be the best instructor. He learned best through action.

Viau rubbed his thumb over Rafi’s wet lips, then sighed with pleasure or longing when Rafi sucked his fingers in again. “I wish for you to know all of palace life. To become a legend if you see fit, a legend separate from me.”

Impossible, even if Rafi wanted to leave him. If Rafi gained such status—as Bellai seemed determined to make happen, with his storytelling and love of drama—it would be because of Viau, always. Rafi didn’t mind. Viau’s Rafi was a nobler name than Tizzan would ever be for him.