23. Damon
23
DAMON
D amon's recovery continues.
One morning, the wind is snapping cold around the keep, but Damon has been up and walking around inside for days. He has been to the cellar and inspected the supplies for himself.
He can climb the stairs to the bedchambers and he and Lyr have moved the linens back upstairs and now, every night they sleep together in a bed.
Damon wonders if Lyr really knows how cold it can get in this part of the world. The winter here will be like nothing he has known on Klish or in Jur-Mattan. They ought to start chopping down trees and collecting fuel. But Damon suspects they may not survive long into the winter.
There are still supplies, yes, but the supplies run low.
He wonders if his father will risk the wrath of the Rose Court and send them a ship of goods, or if he is too much a coward.
Damon decides to simply enjoy what he has.
On this morning despite the cold, Damon is desperate to leave the keep and see Sanvicta for himself .
Lyr fetches blankets from the unused bedchamber upstairs and they fashion cloaks from them before they set out.
Sanvicta is familiar. His memories prickle. The first time he'd been here at nineteen overwhelmed by this gift. His own island. Back then he was as amazed as Lyr had been when he had first told him about it. His own land. He couldn't believe he could ever deserve it.
He hadn't known then how high he'd climb, or how far he'd fall. Back here.
Because he has come to understand that he never deserved any of it. A sly worthless bastard, the son of a dead whore. He never should have had anything as fine as Sanglora, a wife like Inez, the Order of Azuria, Vashti and Felgrace.
He knows, in his heart, it should be no surprise it was all taken from him.
But the greatest treasure of all is still his.
Does he deserve Lyr? He cannot say.
Damon looks around the ruined garden. Lyr delightedly shows him that he thinks the olive tree has survived.
They walk up the hill on the western edge to the shepherd's hut and discover three animals have been left behind. Two sheep and a goat.
The sheep seem happy grazing. Both female so there will not be lambs. Damon pets them, delighted. When winter really bites them he will have to butcher these sheep, he thinks, but for now, he is contented by each sign of life on the island.
The goat is sickly. When they find it, it is lying beside the hut, bleating mournfully. They examine closer to find it has an injury on its side .
Damon doesn't know what caused it. Perhaps it fell. The goat is old and its milk is long dried up.
Lyr passes Damon a knife. The knife Lyr used to break out of a barrel moons ago. Damon butchers the goat, thanking it for its gift to them.
Back in the keep, Lyr makes a stew, the first meat they've eaten here.
Damon worries for the people they left behind. What happened to Trysta and Lyr's friends from the harem after they escaped the Pleasure Night? Did Trysta witness his whipping in the square?
He shudders to think it. And how will Trysta, a Plumian slave, fare without his protection? Will she still have a place in the Imperial Army? If they are really going to invade Ismagaar they will need every experienced soldier they can get. But he does not know if the Rose Court will have the wisdom to see that. Atticul is General Paramount, he will want rid of anyone he sees as loyal to Damon.
Trysta can take care of herself, he thinks. He hopes he is right.
He worries for Inez too. He prays she will be safe in her parents' manor in Swen. With the marriage dissolved her father will struggle to make a new match for her. He wishes he could get news of what is happening back home. What is happening to the people he cares about?
But, at least he has Lyr. Lyr, who saved him. Lyr, who loves him.
Every night he explores Lyr's body. Learns every inch of skin. Touches every mark. The swirls on his arms and shoulders. The thin lines on his thighs. Despite the traumatic horrors that put them there, Damon finds them beautiful .
He examines the tiny intricate runes that cover Lyr's back and the top of his ass. He runs his fingers over the four big symbols on Lyr's chest.
One night he asks, "These look like letters. I cannot read them. Is it Old Magaar?"
Lyr shakes his head. "I do not know."
Damon leans down and kisses each one. As he does so they start to glow. "Is it me that makes them glow or sex?"
"I think it's you," Lyr says quietly, leaning up to kiss Damon's mouth.
They kiss for a long time. Damon thinks he will never grow tired of it. He lets his hands stray where they want over Lyr's naked body. Some nights he feels like he'll die if he isn't touching Lyr's skin. He slides his oiled fingers into Lyr's hole and makes him gasp.
Damon works one finger in and out, drinking down each sound Lyr makes as he writhes. "Beautiful," Damon says, voice rough-edged.
Lyr looks up at him, pupils blown out black with lust. "Damon," he whimpers, "please."
He doesn't ask for anything specific, so Damon keeps working his finger in and out, experimenting lazily, faster and slower, sometimes going deeper, sometimes just teasing the rim of his hole. Lyr makes a long, low keening noise.
Damon slides his finger out and pushes Lyr flat on his back. Open and supine on the bed. He kisses his way down Lyr's chest, past the four glowing brands and onto his belly. His kisses harder on the soft flesh, nibbling and biting to make Lyr cry out. He tastes the thick liquid that drips from Lyr's cock and moves further down, positioning himself between Lyr's legs. He puts his hands on Lyr's thighs to force them wider, lifting one of them up onto his shoulder. And he licks Lyr's hole, taking it slow .
Lyr makes a sound. A chattering whimper, something beyond pleasure. Damon licks again. Lyr tastes like earth and musk. Lyr's hole is the centre of Damon's world. He pushes his tongue inside him. He fucks Lyr with his tongue, jabbing it in and out. Lyr squirms, pushing closer like he wants more. It feels like Lyr is a flower opening to the sun.
Damon twists his tongue, fucks, pulls out and licks. He slides his finger back into Lyr and licks around it. He adds a second finger, crooks inside, licks Lyr's hole as he works his fingers.
Lyr makes an extraordinary noise as he spends, jerking violently in Damon's arms as Damon licks and strokes him through every last wave of his pleasure.
Like so many other nights on Sanvicta, when they have exhausted themselves with each other's bodies, they lie together, soft in each other's arms, and they talk.
Sometimes it reminds Damon of their time on the Azuria Ascendant. Bright-eyed quick-witted Lyr asking Damon questions about his life, his history, his family.
"Tell me about King Damon," says Lyr. "The King you are named for."
"King Damon was the only son of King Sarelik," says Damon, pausing and remembering long days being educated at the Rose Palace. "The son of Sarelik and his Hevelikar wife. The one the Hare talked about. The ancestor that means I too have Hevelikar blood. Perpetu was twice a traitor. She married Sarelik but remained loyal to her Hevelikar family. She continued to worship the Twelve Sidu in secret. Perpetu was responsible for marrying Zai with its origins in Artemia. She is the reason we still celebrate the Twelve Feasts and count the Sidu as the prophets of Zai.
"But she took it too far and suspicions of her grew. Some people said she was trying to return Azuria to the faith of Artemia, that she held Artemian ceremonies and had a secret stock of books and Arcanum cards and other holy objects. She ended up fleeing Azuria with her son Damon, when he was a boy of ten, to escape what was being said about her being a traitor and a heretic. Damon and Perpetu were taken in by the people of Vashti. This was before Vashti was part of the empire and at the time there was still a Hevelikar branch family in control there. Damon and Perpetu stayed for five years. Sarelik was urged to marry again. He took to wife a noblewoman called Imma. She gave him a daughter, Princess Ferra.
"But even with Imma, Sarelik had no more sons. He adored Ferra. She was a young child when Azuria first conquered the western half of Pluma, and Sarelik renamed the island Pluma-Ferris."
"So before that, it was just Pluma?"
"That's right. Trysta would call herself Plumian. The Ferris is for Ferra. The Azurian part, the west, is Ferra, the east is Pluma. Princess Ferra grew up to become a devotee of Zai and the first Bride of Zai. She is called Blessed Ferra, the Zai Mother. There are statues of her everywhere. She established the Temple of the Immurite. My sister Ferra is named after her."
"Why have I never met your sister?" says Lyr. "I have met all the rest of your family."
Damon laughs. "Ferra was there at the feast before the Pleasure Night. But, truly, Lyr, you haven't met half of my family. Ferra lives in the Rose Palace, but she is weak." Damon pauses. "Vindar is lucky to have her. He is an old man and she is beautiful. The only Princess of the Darek line. I have been wondering if there is a reason my father gave her to him."
"What reason? "
"My father never told me the crime against Zai he was convicted of. But it seems likely he slept with another woman who wasn't his wife and fathered another bastard. Selim's Rose Court took a different view of that sin than the Courts of his brother Markus or his father Erond, but twenty years indenture is still a harsh sentence for such a crime. I suppose it could simply be that Selim's Court thought a man with four bastard sons ought to feel a heavier weight of justice. But if he was simply careless with some pillow worker or noblewoman, why has he never mentioned this child? I know about Lukas, Tobi and Kerik."
"What has that to do with Vindar?" says Lyr.
"Vindar, you know they call him the Thousand Eyes? He'd know. He'd know what my father did. And Vindar was promised Ferra not long after. Perhaps he knows the identity of this child and my father wants it kept secret."
Lyr rolls onto his back. Damon pulls himself up on one arm to look down at him. "Ferra and Vindar have a child, don't they?"
"One. Umbert. You've seen him. He is Selim's page."
"He is in the royal line?"
"I suppose. After Atticul and Endrew." Damon checks himself. "After Atticul."
"It just made me think of something your father said when you were taken from the scaffold. When he heard you would face justice for your confession of sins of the body. He said that Atticul and Vindar would have their way."
"Atticul wants me dead. And if not dead, with my reputation smeared enough that he can be sure I am no threat to him."
"I know, but what about Vindar? Would Vindar want that? "
"Vindar is an inscrutable man."
"But you think he used his knowledge of your father's crime against Zai to force your father to give him Ferra as bride. Being married to her means his son has Darek blood. Perhaps he means for his son to take the throne. If that happened he would rule as Regent."
"I suppose."
"I think Vindar has been trying to get you killed for years. I think Vindar was the one who had you sent away to war, perhaps he even made sure your father's sin was discovered to make that happen. I think that when you proved a great warrior, he started telling Atticul that you are a threat to his succession. Came up with the Ullinor question to scare him. I think he hoped that if he kept stoking that fire you would kill Atticul and he would be rid of both of you. It didn't work how he wanted, but that animosity got Endrew killed. Perhaps he also disposed of Kerik."
"Lyr," says Damon in a low tone, shaking his head, "Ah, perhaps this is true. Who can say? Perhaps every word is true. But what does it matter now? If Vindar was working to destroy me, then Vindar has won. If his next move is to find a way to be rid of Atticul, so be it. Let us leave Azuria to its blood and politics. I care not for any of it."
Damon leans down and kisses Lyr. When the kiss breaks, Lyr says, "You're right. But finish the story. Tell me what happened to King Damon."
"When Damon was fifteen his mother Perpetu died and he returned to Azuria. It was a great gala to celebrate the opening of the Rose Palace. He was reunited with his father. Some say he knelt and begged his father's forgiveness and said he didn't know his mother had betrayed him so. He was ordered to do penance in the newly-built Sarelik Temple, but when his father came to pray with him, Damon killed Sarelik in the name of his mother and declared himself King of Azuria, Fanost and Pluma-Ferris. For a few years Azuria returned to the worship of the Sidu, but one night Zai came to Damon in a terrible vision and said he would forgive him all his sins if he took the true path and re-dedicated Azuria to Zai.
"So Zai was almost gone?
"Almost, but Damon did as he was bid by Zai. He declared all worship of the Artemian Sidu as anything other than prophets, a crime that would be punished by burning alive. It is said that King Damon burned over a hundred heretics, often lighting the pyres himself. He established the office of the Zai Enforcers. It was a bloody time. He even killed his lover. A Vashtian maid called Iril. That's where the Darek curse comes from. It is said that Iril has cursed the line of King Damon for a thousand years. He married instead a woman called Jardine who was faithful to Zai."
"And you are descended from that line. King Damon and Queen Jardine?"
"Yes."
"So you are from King Damon's line and you are cursed."
"If the curse is real, I am indeed cursed."
"Did Damon have many children with Jardine?"
"Eight, I think. He was a great king. Virile and a warrior. He invaded and conquered Vashti and the Vashtian Islands. This is one of the Vashtian islands. Sanvicta. There are three others. This is the smallest."
"You know so much."
"I told you. I had a prince's education." Damon smiles and recites. "The Vashtian islands. Sanvicta and the Sterum Triad, Sterum Nor, Sterum Cel and Sterum Sud. "
Lyr leans up and kisses Damon's nose.
Damon laughs, "When King Damon grew older, he became unwell, some say mad, some say, of course, cursed. He became obsessed with the waters of the Gleam in Attar and then Miracle Lake in Vashti. He built the temple palace of Felgrace on the banks of Miracle and lived there most of the time. Bathing in the waters daily. Miracle Lake is brackish, salt. King Damon died in Felgrace after consuming nothing but lake water for 21 days. His eldest son became king…" Damon pauses. "I forget that name. My history tutor would rap my knuckles for that."
"Were his children cursed?"
"I don't think so. It is said they were all very beautiful. The Darek line often has silver in their hair or in their eyes. I have some, see."
Lyr leans forward and looks into Damon's eyes. "Yes. I have noticed them before. Your eyes have silver speckles in the green."
Damon nods. "And Jardine was meant to be the most beautiful woman in the world."
Lyr is gazing at Damon. "Is that why you are so beautiful?"
Damon laughs. "In your eyes."
"Not just mine, I am sure. Damon, I love you."
"I love you too."
"As a husband loves his wife?"
"Indeed."
Lyr cocks his head on one side. "When did you fall in love with me?"
"When?" Damon strokes his hands over Lyr's body again. He feels like he will never tire of touching him. "When you begged for me on the Azuria Ascendant."
"When I was drugged?"
"Yes. When Atticul gave you the foribunda. You were so beautiful like that. I will never know how I resisted." Damon's voice drops. He feels strange admitting his fascination with the effects of foribunda. "I've always liked that drug. I have a strange taste for it."
"What do you like about it?" Lyr says, sounding breathy.
"I like the desperation. I like the power of being able to control whether you get what you want or not."
"You'd like me like that?"
"Yes. I'd like you like that."
The following morning, the ship comes. The ship is flying the colours of Azuria. Green and gold. At first, Damon thinks it might be his father with supplies. They sit together and watch it until Damon realises what ship it is.
Before he can say anything, Lyr murmurs, "That's the Azuria Ascendant."
Damon nods. "Go inside. Hide anything that would be a sign that you are here and then hide yourself. Go to the hidden cellar and stay there." He can see Atticul standing on deck.
"I don't want to leave you with him," says Lyr. "You're still weaker than you were."
"I'm strong enough to handle Atticul," Damon says.
"Very well," Lyr says and presses a kiss to Damon's temple.
The ship weighs anchor and Damon watches as a small boat rows to shore, containing Atticul and four of his bodymen. Damon does not move. He sits where he is on the steps of the keep as the boat is pulled up on the shore.
Atticul walks across the beach and up the small grassy hill, followed by the four bodymen. He comes over to Damon and stands over him. He is dressed in his usual fine clothing. Black velvet embroidered with gold thread. Fine shoes. Damon's clothes are rags. He wears nothing on his feet and has a blanket around his shoulders. He looks like a beggar from the back streets of Attar.
Damon looks up. "What do you want?"
"Come to see if you were dead."
"You've seen it. You can go."
"Your whore vanished from the dungeons. Did you know?"
"How would I know?"
Atticul smiles oilily. "For the obvious reason that he might have come here. I am here to search the island for him."
"Go ahead and look," says Damon. The enforcers didn't find the hidden cellar. Damon can only hope Atticul's bodymen will overlook it too.
"You could not have survived here alone," Atticul says. "You were half dead when they took you off that scaffold. Your wounds were easily enough to kill you if you were left alone. Selim ordered your whore be kept in the dungeons, and rightly, someone should pay for Sweetpea's death."
"I agree," says Damon. "Someone should."
"We will find him."
"I told you. Go ahead and look."
The four bodymen start with the keep. When they are gone Atticul says, "There's something else. As you are alive I have something I need from you."
Damon takes a long breath. "What?"
"I am to marry. His Great and Holy Majesty Emperor Selim has pronounced your marriage to Inez invalid. As you were committing such great sins throughout it."
"I am aware."
"Lady Inez is free to marry. "
"Indeed," Damon says with a slow dread dawning on him.
"I am to take her as bride."
The dread becomes a lurch of queasiness. Inez. He swore he'd protect her. But he can't. He can't even protect himself. "And Inez wishes to marry you?"
"Of course, Bastard. She is delighted. We are in love."
"Is she in Attar?"
A small cloud of annoyance passes over Atticul's face. "What does it matter to you where she is?"
"Is she in Attar?" Damon says again.
"She is in Swen, with her family."
"Has her father agreed to this match?"
"You think her father would deny me? I am heir to the Great Empire."
"So you have not yet asked," Damon says wryly. "Interesting." And he holds tight in his heart the hope that Inez's father will respect her wishes and obstruct this match.
"I have proposed to Selim that he gift her Sanglora Manor. I am sure that will make her father see the benefit of keeping her close ties with the Darek line."
Damon's mind reels. He has abandoned her. Inez. He has been frolicking on Sanvicta with Lyr and left Inez to be used as a tool in another round of Rose Court scheming. But what can he do? What power does he have? Why is he even being told of this? "And what does this have to do with me? I am no longer her husband."
"Chancellor Vindar and the Rose Court have required that if you live you must give your agreement. I have a document for you to sign. It would be easier if I had found you dead. As you live, I will have to persuade you. Or change that."
Chancellor Vindar, Damon thinks. He remembers what Lyr had said the night before. Vindar wants him out of the way because he plots to put his son on the throne. He has sent Atticul here with this news. He is once again pitting him and Atticul against each other. Perhaps he hoped that if Damon lived he would refuse this and Atticul would kill him, or even that there would be a fight in which Damon killed Atticul.
Powerless as he is, Damon at least has the power to deny that.
He says, "Don't trouble your men. I'll sign it as you wish."
"Shall we go into your keep? Father asked me that, if I did find you alive, I let him know how you are living."
"Very well," Damon says, standing, taking care to hide the weakness in his shoulders. He leads Atticul into the bare single room of the keep's lower floors. The four bodymen are upstairs. Damon can hear them moving around. He hopes Lyr was thorough. That he had made the bed look like it was for one man and removed the oil bottle beside it.
Atticul looks into the pots on the stove.
"I thought the enforcers were instructed to dig up the gardens and salt the earth."
"They were. They did."
Atticul looks at the food on the table. The bowls of barley and jars of lentils. "Has someone sent you supplies?"
"There was some stock remaining in the cellar."
Atticul sniffs. Damon waits, wondering if he will insist on removing the food. It would be his right within the law. Damon should have nothing but the bread and water he was left with.
The bodymen come back down the stairs. "There's no one here," says the tallest of the four .
"There is a cellar. Did you check that?"
"Yes, Your Grace. We can scout the island."
"Go on. Three of you go. One of you, stay here."
Damon watches the three bodymen leave. Then he looks at the stout one who remains, standing behind Atticul. His brother, he thinks, still fears him.
Atticul produces a parchment and a piece of charcoal. Damon reads it over. It is simply a document asserting that he gives permission for Atticul to marry Inez as his own claim to her is nullified because he committed sins of the body during his marriage. He writes his name with the charcoal at the bottom. He hopes Inez never sees it.
"Thank you," Atticul says, taking the parchment and tucking it back inside his jacket. "Did your whore really not come here?"
"No. If he escaped the dungeons somehow he would have run. He would have saved himself. Got as far away from Azuria as he could."
"And after you gave your life and dignity to save him. I expect he has gone back to his old Mistress. He belonged to the Hevelikar bitch, not Ramel, did you know?"
"I knew," Damon says.
"He will be found, don't worry. He was a traitor, you know," Atticul says. "Pershel the Moon Truth examined the marks on his body. They were magical. She says he is marked as meant for you. Can you imagine that? Jareleezi sent a whore just to seduce you with her dark magic. No one knows why, so he must be found."
Damon frowns. "What do you mean? What did Jareleezi do?"
Atticul smiles. "It's written on his body. In runes across his chest. They're in Ur-Ambolk. You don't know what it says, do you? What was written on him? Pershel was very sure. "
"What does it say?"
Atticul's smile slides wider. "I can't believe you don't know."
Damon's voice drops threateningly low. "What does it say on his chest?"
"It says your name, Bastard. It says Damon Darekul."