2. Orgiastic Den of Hedonism

Rahn strode into the Fanghelm library just past noontide two days after the Dyvareh. Jasika and Anton were already seated at the round table near the row of windows, sipping tea in silence. He didn't see Imryll, which was unexpected, as she was usually the first to arrive to a council session.

They'd begun their tradition of weekly meetings at Imryll's Book of All Things Society in the village, but over the intervening months, student attendance at Book had increased enough that the council had had to repurpose their assembly room into another research laboratory. Moving their sessions to the Wynter keep, Fanghelm, had been posed as a temporary measure, but Imryll had also been under the weather as of late, and though she'd made no announcement, he suspected she was again with child.

"Stewardess. Dobryzen," Anton said, and he and Jasika both shifted to their feet in deference. Rahn turned to see Imryll enter, fluster dotting her cheeks and an empty child sling dangling off one shoulder.

"Dobryzen." Jasika echoed his greeting.

"Forgive my tardiness, friends," she declared in a rush, storming across the stone floor with a strained smile. "Aleksy is still recovering from a brief illness, and he'll only calm for me or his father."

"We can meet another time, Imryll," Anton said as he settled back into his seat.

"If we delayed a meeting anytime one of our children was ill, we'd never meet, would we?" she said pleasantly, peeling the sling away and setting it on a bench. Her eyes fluttered fleetingly closed, then opened as she inhaled a slow breath.

Rahn escorted her to the table, reading the sidelong look she gave him. It was more than exhaustion. She'd come with something to say, something that couldn't wait.

"Are you all right?" he asked, loud enough only for the two of them. He'd known Imryll her whole life. He'd been her teacher on Duncarrow, the royal isle. The only teacher on Duncarrow. The late King Carrow hadn't cared a whit if the children learned anything; he'd actually preferred they knew as little as possible.

"You and I should speak after," she muttered from the corner of her mouth. "Before Drazhan calls you in."

"Calls me in?"

"About Aes. And the Dyvareh." Imryll's smile broadened as they approached the table. She took her usual place, and Rahn, still pondering her words, took his. "Let's do a full report and then I have another matter to discuss. Anton? Would you like to start?"

Anton cleared his throat and sifted through a stack of documents. "My cohort has completed their final notes on balms and will have the full package for submission within the week. We've also begun the pre-work for the arduous task of classifying the beasts of the Northerlands. It's a fairly comprehensive list, bigger than we originally anticipated when we sent our time estimate, so I predict this will take us the next three seasons to complete, not two, especially since many are hibernators. Unless we expand the cohort again, of course. Depending on how thorough we want to go with the notes, we may even want to transition this one to an ongoing topic rather than a closed-ended one."

Imryll nodded. Her gaze was fixed on the wall of windows and the snowy valley beyond. "We knew this would be a sizable area of focus, but this is important work. Take the time you need. We'll either add a fourth cohort to stay ahead of schedule, or we'll adjust our expectations on the timeline. I'd like us to get started before we propose making it an ongoing subject, so we have figures to support the request."

Anton nodded in gratitude. "I was hoping you'd say as much."

"Good work on balms, Anton. I'm excited to see what you do with beasts." Imryll turned to Jasika. "Jas?"

Jasika tapped her fingers along the edge of the table. "We still only have the three of us, Imryll, so we're working as fast as we can to wrap up coastal patterns."

"How much longer?"

"Two, three weeks?"

Imryll nodded. "That'll be fine."

Jasika sighed through her teeth. "But... After that, we're approaching a sensitive topic that I'm uncertain how to... how to complete without corrupting our researchers."

Rahn quirked a brow.

"I'd like your guidance on how to proceed."

Imryll lifted a hand. "Remind me."

"Coitus."

Anton snickered into his fingers.

"Coitus. Right." Imryll nodded in thought, her eyes turned to the side. "We knew we'd have to sort this one eventually. How long is the curricula again?"

"Extensively long." Jasika's round cheeks darkened in a flush.

Anton did nothing to hide his growing amusement, releasing a side-of-mouth snicker that drew a scowl from her.

"I don't suppose you've reviewed it?"

"I haven't had the opportunity with everything going on down at Book these days," Imryll said. "Whatever the prospectus, we'll make it work. The Reliquary may not want to play nice with us, but our agreement to follow their lead was nonnegotiable if we want their support."

"But it's not a reasonable prospectus, Imryll. By any standard."

"Forgive me, you'll have to speak plainly, since I haven't read through the notes yet. What's the concern?"

Anton raised a finger. "I have no concerns tackling coitus."

Jasika glared at him.

"Don't you remember when my cohort had anatomy?" Rahn asked.

She said nothing.

"The Reliquary made us go through all those preposterous exercises about using our own bodies for diagram purposes, which we did, grudgingly, amid no shortage of anxious giggles, and after all the awkwardness of that, they had the audacity to accuse us of falsifying the diagrams and sent us an ‘official' warning. They're having a go at us again. That's all." Rahn almost laughed, but the sick expression on Jasika's face stayed him.

"Rahn, respectfully, their warning almost got us kicked out of our own program. We cannot afford another one, and you know it. And you have not seen this curricula. It's not just a bunch of silly diagrams. It is almost entirely..." Jasika wedged her tongue between her teeth and groaned. "Participatory in nature."

"Participatory, you mean..." Imryll shifted in her seat. One hand gripped the seat of her chair so hard, it was bone white.

"It means in order for any report we submit to meet the burdened requirement of official research, there must be actual experiments run. Do you... Must I say it?"

Imryll's relieved laugh cut through the room. "Jasika, gods, it doesn't mean you have to perform the experiments. There are dozens of households in the Cross. Select a few randomly, give them predefined questions to answer, interview them a few times..."

"Well, I thought so as well, but when I wrote for clarification?—"

"Agh, we never write for clarification!" Anton interjected, shaking his head.

Eyes narrowed, Jasika finished. "When I wrote for clarification, they stated that while we are expected to collect practical observations from citizens as well, and that the Reliquary has in fact sent this curricula to others in the realm for a variety of responses, the cohort itself must be part of the experiments in order to validate any claim made regarding the body's physical and emotional response to the various stimuli they've outlined. Without the official cohort's validation of these actions and reactions, the Reliquary won't accept our research as complete. We cannot get around this rule by increasing our cohort artificially for this topic. They have the names of all our researchers. I have the letter, Imryll. I don't think this is a question of misinterpretation on my part. Aside from the obvious concerns here, my cohort is all young women."

"Sexy," Anton muttered.

Jasika flung a hand toward him in the air. "Muala," she hissed, which Rahn took to be the word for mule in Vjestikaan.

"I used to think the Reliquary sent us the topics they had no desire to explore themselves, but if so, this was definitely an oversight." Anton chuckled, tracing a hand down his thick beard. "You can't convince me that cabal of repressed scholars wouldn't jump at this one if they could."

"This is a test," Rahn said slowly, sighing. The Reliquary was intentionally making it hard, trying to push them until they surrendered and abandoned their own idea, their own work. The Reliquary had strong-armed its way into the project and taken it over, relegating Witchwood Cross to an annoyance to be dealt with. "They think they've backed us into a corner with this one. We just need to be creative enough to find a way out of it."

Imryll's face pulled into a frown. She glanced at Rahn. He'd been the first to offer aid and embrace her vision, and their dynamic was more like a partnership. Jasika Voronov had come next, and not long after, Anton Petrovash. Their addition had meant more resources, more legitimacy, but neither was as feverish about the success of their endeavor as Rahn and Imryll were.

"Rahn, where are you with your cohort?" Imryll asked.

"We're only partway through astronomy," he said. "The observatory is expected to be ready in springtide and then we'll need another season or two to complete the remaining prospectus. But as we're held up until we can do more intensive study, we planned to take a detour into our next subject: atheism."

"Well, you won't find many atheists in Witchwood Cross," Imryll said wryly. "You said we just need to be creative, right? Perhaps your cohort can handle coitus until the observatory is built?"

Rahn's words caught in his throat. A deep heat seized him from head to toe as all three watched him in anticipation of his response.

"It's clearly a test, as you said. They're having one on with us," Anton said, still laughing.

Imryll shook her head at the table. "We all know what happens if we tell them we cannot handle one of their assignments. They never took us seriously to begin with, and they're looking for a reason to discredit our work and become the sole claimants. Work we started."

Rahn spun sideways to face her as the blood rushed away from his face, plummeting toward the floor. He'd backed himself into his own corner. "Imryll, I agree with what you're saying?—"

"You're a clever man, who will find another way that doesn't break the Reliquary's very clear guidelines on research but also does not put any of our young academics in vulnerable and compromising positions." She exhaled a long breath. "I trust you to figure it out."

Rahn said no more. Imryll rarely ruled with authority, but when she did, her decision was not to be mistaken for an invitation to debate.

"Jas, your cohort will continue their study of coastal patterns for now and then move on to your next one, whatever came after coitus. Conifers, was it? Anton, keep all your focus on the classification efforts for beasts, and when you have time, draft a proposal for shifting the topic to continuous research, and I'll run it by the Reliquary. Rahn, you'll put a pause on astronomy until the observatory is ready for use and focus on solving this coitus dilemma until that time. Everyone in agreement?"

Anton snickered as he nodded. Jasika sighed, muttering her gratitude.

Rahn smiled tightly and prepared for the meeting's end, but Imryll breathed deep, readying to say something else.

"It pains me to bring this up, but I feel we must approach the upcoming Vuk od Varem with hope but pragmatism." She pulled both hands onto the table, folding them. "Valerian Barynov is one of our academics. There is a very real possibility he will enter the forest a week from now and never return to us."

"Imryll, we don't talk like that about our sons when they are chosen," Jasika said in a low, cautious rush. She and her wife, Brita, had adopted only daughters for a reason. "We know what the odds are, but we don't surrender our hope before we have reason to."

"Keep your hope, if it brings you comfort," Imryll said. "But we are women and men of science and learning. Val will have to defeat a wulf with nothing but his wits and a measly dagger."

"Your own husband won the Vuk od Varem when it was his turn," Anton replied.

"And his experience was not typical, was it?" Imryll's mouth twitched. "Drazhan may be more beast than man."

"Won't argue that," Jasika said. "But we need this springtide. The imports on meat are prohibitive for most of the villagers. The forests south of us have been sparse of game ever since the disease spread through the elk-kind population there. And after last year's crop rot, illness is on the rise."

"A matter for my husband and his counselors," Imryll replied curtly. "As for us, we are realists. If Val does not return, we need to consider who might replace him." She tapped the table and stood. "We don't have to know the answer today. You may think my broaching this, in the manner I chose, is heartless, but if it were up to me, we'd never lose another son to this tradition. Keeping our funding and interest from the Reliquary is my concern. So have a think on it, and when the Season of the Wulf is behind us, we'll know our direction, one way or another."

Rahn still didn't understand the traditions of the Vjestik. The Vuk od Varem was an agreement Drazhan's ancestor had made with the king of the Icebolt wulves many years ago, when the nomadic Vjestik had fled to the far north for a new settlement. The wulves were not keen to give up their safe roam of the forest so that men could hunt, but to avoid a war, they came to a compromise. Once a year, a son of man and a son of wulf would have a week in the forest to decide who the land belonged to for the hunting season. It was simple: whoever lived, won, but to win, the other must die. The wulves rarely lost, and even when the men prevailed, they could never hunt enough to make up for the dry years ahead. As a result, most families spent their gold on the heavily taxed imported meats from Wulfsgate and farther south, and they had little left for anything else. Many Vjestik were tired of losing their beloved sons and believed it was time to challenge the wulves once and for all. Others feared such an act would spell the end of their people.

Rahn waited for Jasika and Anton to leave before retaking his seat. "Has something happened?"

Imryll sighed and squished her face in mild exasperation. "Rahn, my husband is a stubborn, stubborn man. He asked me to thank you for what you did for Aesylt, and to make clear the debt he owes you for keeping her safe until help arrived. If you had not... We don't even want to consider what might have happened. Because of you and the vedhmas, she will be perfectly fine. And as you and I know, if he were fully aware of how she ended up in that tree, Aesylt would never see her friend again, so we'll protect the small white lie, for her sake." She sighed, her mouth quirked into a sardonic grin. "Now, after lavishing you with praise, I'm to remind you his sister is unmarried and far too young for you."

Rahn exhaled a stilted laugh. "Of course he said that."

"I don't need to tell you how ridiculous he is about her. He said even Val, her oldest friend, wouldn't climb the tree to save her, so you must have strong loyalty to Aesylt to put your own life in danger," Imryll said. "But... Aes thinks the world of you. You know that?"

He lowered his head, his thoughts reluctantly returning to the hour or so Aesylt had spent sleeping in his lap as he'd held her to protect her warmth. "I did only what either of you would have done for her. For anyone."

"Of course." Imryll nodded. "Of course, but just... Be cautious, is all I wanted to say. I don't know where the man got it into his head that you've become sweet on her, or how he turned your bravery into something else. I'm not surprised she looks up to you. I always have." She smiled and reached a hand toward him. He took it, and they both squeezed before letting go. "But if you sense there's more than admiration at play, do yourself and her a great favor and quash it."

"You needn't worry." Dread crept across his bones. Nothing she'd said should have been alarming, but he felt very much alarmed. He hadn't even been to see Aesylt since the vedhmas had tended her wounds, but he should have. He wanted to, and maybe that was the problem. "If anything, Imryll, I've been harder on her than the others."

Imryll cocked her head, watching him. "Why?"

"She reminds me a little of you." He chuckled to himself before growing serious. "She has so much potential, and people don't reach their potential if they're not challenged. I, myself, am still chasing mine."

Imryll traced her finger along the table. "I could see her being another you in a few years." She offered him a sleepy smile. "Do you suppose you'll take a bride someday?"

Rahn whistled. It wasn't that he hadn't thought of it. He and Teleria had even thrown around the advantage of a union between them. But it would be a matter of practicality, nothing more. He'd not been in love, and he wouldn't know it beyond words on a page. "Marriage is the last distraction on my mind at present."

"Hmm." Imryll pushed back, and he did the same. "Go see Aesylt. She's asked about you. Oh, and... about the research. You know I made that decision because I trust you'll find a way to work with and around the Reliquary's intemperate guidelines?"

"I know why you did it," he said as he followed her to the door. "And it's going to keep me up a fair number of nights trying to figure out a way around it without disqualifying us from inclusion."

Imryll reached for the door but hesitated before opening it. "Do you remember telling me I was too clever for my own good?"

Laughing, Rahn shook his head at the floor. "I don't recall saying it, but it's true."

She gave him a quick, tight smile. "I didn't inherit that from my selfish parents. I learned it from the man who was like an older brother to me. The man who showed me the path to curiosity. Rahn, what we're doing here... It matters."

"I know." He nodded solemnly. "I believe in it just as much."

"There exists no true compendium of knowledge in this kingdom. Not one. Scattered scrolls and documents, patchy histories. That's all. That is all the people of this realm have to guide their learning. The Reliquary wants to steal our idea for The Book of All Things and claim it as their own. They have more money and resources than we ever will here in the Cross. The crown is funneling gold their way, fast enough to feel suspicious. None of that I have any control over, so I try not to let it wound me too deep. But I will be damned if I let them ice us out altogether." She clamped a hand atop his shoulder. "Find a way."

Rahn felt the same about their ambitious endeavor, which half of the village thought was a silly waste of time and the other was curious but cautious toward. The Vjestik had their own history keepers, the kyschun, who, using the magic of the Ancestors, stored their people's histories in their minds to preserve across the generations. Each society had their own way of holding onto the past, he supposed, but nearly all of it was limited to selected words passed down lines. Crafting a true compendium classifying every beast, plant, phenomena, disease, geography, peoples, and everything else that made up their thriving world had been his passion since he was a boy, and that Imryll had run with it, inviting him in, was a dream come to life. Sharing the passion with other eager researchers was leaving his heart full and happy.

He would find a way because he refused to give up. "I will."

Aesylt was itchingto get out of bed. She felt fine. There was only a dull ache where her ankle had been broken, almost no evidence of the dozens of scratches she'd earned, and the matter of her frostnip was becoming harder to imagine with each passing hour.

Drazhan refused to hear any of it. He'd stationed sentries in the hall to keep her from—what? She couldn't guess. Did he expect her to fling herself back into the tree for another round?

She'd protested enough about it that he'd broken one of his own rules and allowed both Niklaus and Valerian to keep her company in her apartments while she had pretended she still needed to convalesce. My guards will hear if anything untoward happens inside.

The eyeroll she'd made as he'd left hurt more than the phantom pain in her ankle.

She was old enough to decide who was and wasn't allowed in her bedchamber, but as long as she stayed at Fanghelm, she was subject to his rules.

Val, lying next to her on the bed, turned toward her with a pensive, faraway look. Niklaus practiced his sword work, sans sword, by jabbing wildly toward the wall.

"You didn't do it on purpose," Aesylt whispered, studying the minute tics appearing across Valerian's face. She whispered because sometimes Nik wasn't the best person to pour her heart out to. "Val?"

"Doesn't make it better," he said, digging his face against a pillow. Still, he wouldn't look at her. "I couldn't even climb a fucking tree to save you."

Aesylt sighed and reluctantly turned toward Nik. "You still haven't said how the Dyvareh went for you."

"He caught Emira, but she screamed her head off before he could even come near her. Drew all sorts of exciting attention," Val said, perking back up. "Impressively subtle, Nik."

"Emira," Aesylt said, whistling. "I thought she liked you, Nik?"

Nik took a break from his shadow stabs to shrug and sigh. "Emira is..."

"Aye, well he has a cock between his legs, doesn't he? Wrong part for her." Val cupped himself over the covers. A near smile tickled his mouth. "All he did was say, ‘gotcha,' and she shrieked like a banshee until she had the attention of the entire forest. Even if he had been turned on..." He made a slicing gesture.

"She really wanted that feast," Aesylt said, laughing.

Nik groaned. "And what do you know about it, other than twisting what I told you? I never would have touched her. She knows it."

"One word from Emira, and Draz would have freed you of your balls," Aesylt agreed, thinking of Val's comment about his parts.

Nik shrugged and struck his invisible opponent. "I only went because my uncle made me."

Val slithered under the blanket. His long, dark hair pooled around his face. He caught her staring and grinned.

"You never told me how you knew it was me," she said.

Val's eyes darkened. He dragged his teeth across the center of his lower lip. "I always know when it's you, Aessy."

"Get a hold of yourself," Nik muttered.

"Nik's right," Aesylt said. "I don't believe you."

With a laugh, Val inched away. "I paid one of the vedhmas to tell me your color."

Aesylt was shocked. "Nien, you did not. Or, I should say, they did not. They cannot be bought."

"Not with gold." He winked.

"Disgusting."

"What I want to know is what really happened in that tree with the duke?" Val's focus on her was total.

Nik used his sleeve to wipe his sweat and turned their way. "Yeah... Anything you're not telling us about your adventure in the forest?"

Aesylt nestled back on the pillow, staring at the candelabra hanging above the end of her bed. There was the accidental face-roll into his groin, which was still horribly mortifying. The familial, brotherly hug after they were rescued... the way he'd held her close yet with distance, worried for her but also for the message he might send.

It was a mess, all of it. And he hadn't come to see her at all, which only confirmed he was drowning in the same discomfort.

"You mean other than Val sending me hurtling into a tree?" She shook her head. "Ra—the duke clambered up like a squirrel and waited with me for help to arrive. Humiliating and painful. The end."

Val leaned in close, his eyes narrowing. "You almost called him by his given name, didn't you?"

Aesylt groaned. "I'm exhausted."

"That's not what you told your frata," Nik said from across the room.

"Because Draz is insufferable."

Val craned forward and kissed her cheek. "Your mysterious scholar won't stand a chance as long as I'm here."

Something foreign and strange stirred between her legs. Their long-standing friendship had come with few boundaries. She'd seen both Val and Nik without their clothing and had swum with them in the ahen vodah—the warm springs—in the nude, enough that it was nothing special. Other than the relatively innocent barn kiss with Val, after a bit too much mulled wine, she'd never felt more than familial love for either of them.

But the idea of Val and Rahn facing off for her was unexpectedly arousing.

And wrong.

Very wrong.

"Course, he may get his chance when I don't come home."

"V." The air left Aesylt's lungs. "Don't say that. You are coming home." She reached for his hands under the covers and gripped them in hers. "You are coming home."

Val snorted, his eyes fluttering dramatically. "Be realistic. No one comes home. Your brother has more wulf than man in him, and no one has come home since his victory. Not once."

Nik watched them both with a dark look. He turned back toward the wall but didn't resume his phantom swordplay.

"Don't tell me what to say, or to think, you rapscallion," Aesylt spat. "If I say you're coming back, Valerian Barynov, then you are."

"Only if you'll marry me when I do." His grin didn't quite reach his amber eyes.

"That is far from up to me." Aesylt snapped a finger at Nik. "And I can see you glowering in the window's reflection, like you have any deep thoughts about marriage. You're going to join the kyschun under the mountain and forget all about us common village folks."

"Not by choice," Nik muttered. "I should just do what Onkel Anton did and refuse. Everything turned out fine for him."

Val snorted. "I'd come back just to see that. Niklaus Petrovash, growing a pair? Wonder of wonders."

"You want to see this pair, Val? Feel them in your mouth?"

"Foul creatures, the both of you," Aesylt protested.

"And you love it," Val teased.

Aesylt smiled. It did little to soften the crippling ache in her heart that had started the day Val's name had been read in the village. The chosen son could refuse, of course, just as Nik could refuse his destiny as a history keeper. But no son ever turned their back on the Vuk od Varem. No son could muster the damning courage to commit the village to another hard year without hunting, despite knowing their odds of victory were slimmer than a thread.

"I love you both," she said softly. A rare wave of nostalgia passed over her. The Nok Mora, the massacre of their village and families by a vengeful, tyrant crown, was a decade past, but the wounds still ran deep. Her armor rarely cracked, but the past days had been unusually taxing. "You're like fratas to me. I should remind you more."

Val's brows shot upward. "Brothers? Really?"

Nik smirked. "We love you too. But I very much dislike my actual sister."

Aesylt laughed. "Neriah's only ten."

A knock drew their attention. Maia, Aesylt's personal vedhma, opened the door and peered in. "Scholar Tindahl would like an audience with you, but only if you're well enough."

Val threw a shoulder into Aesylt with a teasing scoff. "Your hero has arrived, princess. Shall we leave you two alone?"

Nik crossed his arms and fluttered his eyes.

Aesylt's breath caught, her focus divided between Maia and her friends. She knew why he'd stayed away, but it didn't explain his change of heart. "He's here now?"

Maia nodded. "Just there in the hall." She thumbed behind her.

"Come on." Val groaned as he peeled away from the bed. He smacked Nik in the arm when he didn't move. "Come on." Over his shoulder he said, "Don't fuck him, Aessy, or I'll feel slighted."

"Ancestors keep us," Aesylt hissed. The moment they were both gone, she squirmed out of bed and hastily shrugged a robe over her sleeping gown. Her arm caught in the dense fabric, bending unnaturally, and she practically screamed her frustration.

"Everything well?" Maia asked from the door.

"Tak." All she had time for was a quick mirror glance, but what she saw was an exhausted woman staring back at her. Nothing would fix her except rest. She had no reason to be so fussed about her appearance around the scholar anyway. He was her mentor. More than likely, he was there out of a sense of duty. "All right, Maia. Send him in."

Maia stepped aside and Rahn swept in. He wore the same dark-green dressing cape he'd been wearing when she'd met him a year ago, and the effect it had on his matching eyes was no less startling. His dark hair was combed, as always, but there was a harried look to the style, as though he'd done it in the dark.

His cheeks flexed, dimpling. "Aesylt. How are you?"

"Perfectly fine," she said, with a shrug so ungraceful, she couldn't even discern how it had happened. "Drazhan is overreacting, but the Howling Sea remains blue and choppy, so what else can we expect?"

His mouth hitched at the corner. "He's very protective."

"Is that what you'd call it?" Aesylt's nostrils flared with her sharp inhale. "Thank you for checking on me, just the same. It wasn't necessary."

Rahn glanced briefly at the ground. He took a step into the room and turned back, as though readying to close the door, but stopped. "It is necessary. I should have come yesterday. I could..." His mouth twisted. He looked not quite at her but past her. "I could ply you with the falsehood I was irrecoverably detained by work, but the very honest truth is..." One of his hands twitched at his side. "I feel a sense of shame for my part in what happened to you."

Aesylt withheld her frown. He was acting peculiar, and she was no longer so sure it was awkwardness from her mortifying transgression in the tree. "You weren't the one who made up some ridiculous story about a wulf."

"Yes, but I was your wulf."

Something in the way he said it—I was your wulf—had her mouth watering. "You didn't know that until you found me stuck up a tree."

"No." He nodded. "But I intended to ensure my damsel, whoever she was, would enjoy a night without miscreance from some oversexed young man. I offered too much distance, and the result was..." He gestured around.

Both of Aesylt's brows lifted at the word oversexed, but it was no difficult task to recover herself when she remembered the first thing he'd said. Whoever she was. She was interchangeable, apparently. "Consider your conscience suitably cleared." She dusted her hands with a tight smile. "I sincerely appreciate what you did. I'll not forget it. Nor... Nor will I hesitate to return the favor, should the opportunity arise."

His smile was a warm current, melting the ice keeping her heart safe. "You were my first researcher, Aesylt. The first of our cohort to truly embrace our vision of an educated realm. There's nothing I could do for you that would ever be monumental enough to require anything further."

"Ah." She crossed her arms tighter, pinning the openings of her robe so far to the sides, she was nearly swaddled. "I should be able to return on the morrow."

Rahn shook his head with a light frown. "We'll resume after the season. You have enough to occupy you, and I'd never take Valerian away from his family in these final days before he leaves for the forest." He scratched the back of his neck with an odd look. "Besides, I need a few days to compose my thoughts on our next subject."

"We still have months left on astronomy."

"We've been asked to pause until the observatory is ready. There's... another subject requiring our attention in the interim. It's nothing." He cleared his throat and half turned. "Will I see you at supper?"

"What? What other subject?" He was keeping something from her. Have I ever lied to you?

No, he hadn't. It was time to put his claim to the test.

"I should let you rest?—"

"I told you, I'm fine." She released her robe with a groan, shrugging it down off her shoulders. "This thing is as hot as the fires of the demon realm. What subject, Scholar?"

His hands opened at his sides. With a drawn sigh, he said, "Coitus."

Aesylt choked on her spit, bowing forward. "What did you say?"

Rahn wore a stern, flustered look. "I believe you heard me just fine."

She had no doubt whatsoever that her cheeks were big red apples. "I'd like you to repeat it, to be sure."

His mouth drew in, then his eyes closed and he said, "It's a participatory experiment, requiring the researchers to actively contribute to the studies, which of course is ludicrous, but Imryll has tasked me with finding a way to meet the requirement without compromising our cohort."

Aesylt was dumbfounded. Participatory. There was only one conclusion shecould draw from that. "We're certain those are the parameters?"

Rahn's exhale was abrupt and breathy. "I've read them myself. Five times." Before she could rebut, he shook his head. "This is why I was hesitant to tell you. You'll worry needlessly before I've found an alternative that meets their requirements. And I will find a way. As... enticing though it may sound to some, I'm not keen to turn our cohort into an orgiastic den of hedonism."

Aesylt could think of nothing more intriguing than an orgiastic den of hedonism, but it would surely only add to her visible mortification. "No, that would be un... uh, unproductive."

Rahn cocked his head, watching her. Then he laughed. "I rather think the problem is that it would be too productive." He grinned and turned again. "Don't waste another thought on it. I'll have a new curricula for us when we resume."

Oh, she'd waste a thought. Maybe a hundred thoughts. The words oversexed and orgiastic den of hedonism, said in Rahn's stoic delivery, would live gleefully unfettered in her mind for all of time. "No. Of course not."

"Until then." Rahn bowed, nodded with a quick lock of eyes, and left.

When he was gone, Aesylt plopped onto the bed, her thoughts buzzing. "Coitus, eh?"

No matter what Rahn Tindahl had said, she'd never met a problem she wasn't aching to solve.