7. Damon

7

DAMON

D amon left Lyr sleeping and rode from Attar docks for Sanglora as soon as the Azuria Ascendant docked at first light.

He coaxes the anonymous brown horse he hired from the docks up through the narrow winding streets of the city. Past the temples and the markets.

He knows Attar well, but he does not feel like he has come home. Where is he truly at home except at war?

When Emperor Selim offered Damon his own manor, he did not expect it to be in Attar. He expected a place in Ceruleum or one of the further territories of the empire.

He would not have chosen to live here. Here, he is a stranger. A stranger to his manor house and most of his servants. A stranger to Attar.

He does not know Attar, but Attar knows him. He is very aware he has a reputation here and in the whole of Azuria. Prince Rafus's eldest bastard, The One Man Army, feted hero and rumoured sinner, but on an unmarked horse hired at the docks, with no entourage and a hooded cloak, he slips through the busy streets unnoticed .

He arrives at Sanglora, to shouts of recognition and a hasty assemblage of his servants. He sends Kres to take a cart to the docks and collect his spoils. He makes sure to tell him to find and fetch Lyr and set him to work in the kitchens.

He shouldn't have left Lyr, but he was sleeping sweetly and he couldn't bear the shame of escorting him into the manor himself with all the gossip that would have ignited. Easier to have him sent straight to the kitchens.

Perhaps if Damon tries he can forget Lyr is even there.

That would be the simplest thing to do, although not a simple thing to do at all.

He also has his wife to consider. He does not wish to shame her. Although sometimes it seems inevitable for a man with a weakness such as his. The thought of that, of his sin staining her, weighs heavy on his heart. He should never have taken a bride. He knows it. A man of honour would have refused.

He finds Inez in her solar, with her handmaidens. When she sees him she stands up, shocked and delighted, dropping her needlework onto the rug.

Inez is a fine wife. She is of high birth and very beautiful. Twenty-two summers with fair skin that shows the roses in her cheeks. Her hair is spun gold. This morning, she wears pale blue. A rich gown of silk with a golden halter around her neck and a golden chain at her waist. And before he crosses the threshold of the solar, she has run into his arms.

He feels filthy as he embraces her. Steeped in blood and death and sin. Too wretched to touch her. But she is embracing him as if he is as pure as she is.

She kisses his cheek, "Husband," and he allows it, but quickly pulls away .

"Fair wife. I am finally home," he says, stepping back enough to give her a slight bow.

"We heard that Pellex fell," she says, "You have completed your mission. Selim will delight in you, more now than ever before." She moves closer as if to kiss him on the mouth.

"Dear wife," Damon says, stopping her with a hand on her slender upper arm. "I am joyful to see you too. It has been a long time since our wedding night, waiting to return to your bed. But first I must bathe. I cannot let you touch me while I am so drenched in war."

Inez smiles and bows her head. "Of course, my love. The baths have been made ready for you."

Damon takes his leave. He makes his way down to the baths on the lower floors. This house is big. Too big in truth. He can scarcely remember the route from Inez's solar to the baths.

But he finds his way and the baths are indeed ready. The room is tiled in Azurian green and gold. The high windows let in morning sun that glitters on the surface of the water. Water that is heated and scented. He sheds his clothes. His battered leather jerkin with the torn patch on the breast, his leather breeches, his undershirt and boots, and sinks naked into the warm water.

Finally, he relaxes. This is his home, earned with his sweat and blood. This life he carved for himself from nothing. A dead whore's bastard son.

And here he is, in the rich tiled baths of his own manor, in hot scented water. With a full house of servants and a beautiful young wife who wants nothing more than to bed him and bear his sons.

It should be enough for any man, but all he can think of is Lyr. And most particularly Lyr's face as he begged to be allowed Damon's cock in his mouth, while he writhed, full of that bewitching pleasure drug.

The idea of foribunda had fascinated Damon when he first heard about it. Who had told him of its existence? He had only been a boy. Lukas, perhaps, or even his father. No, he thinks, tracing the surface of the rippling water with his fingers. It was Tobi. Tobi had always been cocksure and wise beyond his years. He'd told Damon and Lukas all sorts of things about the wild world he inhabited travelling with his mother and her troupe of performers. And he told them about foribunda. He'd seen it used, he said, by pillow workers who travelled with the troupe. He described its effects with laughing glee.

The idea of that drug had ignited something in Damon. He had never forgotten it.

When he'd grown into a man in the Azurian army he'd still thought about foribunda. When he'd lost his virginity to his General on the dirt floor of a tent in Fanost, he thought how sweet it would be to instead have another young soldier who had caught his eye kneeling before him, desperate and needy, begging for him as foribunda made him weak.

Plumillar had taken it once. Teasing Damon about his silly obsession with the drug. He'd thought nothing of taking a dose of it for Damon's pleasure, letting it wash through him until he was writhing for Damon's cock.

It had aroused Damon so much to take Plumillar in that state, he had thought himself on the edge of madness.

But how Plumillar had looked when he had taken the foribunda paled when he compared it to Lyr. Strange beautiful Lyr who looked unlike anyone Damon had ever seen. Who had carvings on his chest that seemed to glow with strange magic.

Lyr begging for him in breathy, sweet Magaar .

How Damon had resisted it he isn't sure.

He is still thinking of that and only that as he climbs from the water, pulls on a linen shift and finds his way to his private quarters. Large rooms at the back of the manor, with a stone terrace that looks out over the stable yard and gardens.

He thinks of Lyr as he lies down on his bed. He rubs the back of his hand over his hardening cock, his mind filling with the night before and all the things he didn't do. Lyr, writhing, begging to be fucked so desperately he lapsed into Magaar.

It's dangerous to keep him. He should send him away. Find him a place in the kitchens of some other great house. It would be a simple matter to do so. To hide him somewhere. Attar is a big city. There are people here from all over the world.

Lyr and his secrets would melt away.

He should rid himself of Lyr and all the temptation he represents.

He won't.

He won't send him away, he will simply resist him.

Damon's resolve holds as long as it takes for him to catch a glimpse of Lyr.

It happens two days later. Damon is walking through the yard at the back of the manor to inspect the stables. It's early morning, he hasn't even stopped to break his fast and he pauses in shock as he passes the pump behind the manor. The jolt of emotion he feels seems to knock the breath from his body.

Lyr is washing at the pump. He's wearing a pair of loose brown breeches and a short linen shift that covers up the marks on his chest and back. The swirls and dots that cover his arms and shoulders are clear in the sunshine.

He has his head under the pump, his long dark hair is slick and wet.

Damon cannot help himself, he leans against the stable wall to watch. His whole body seems to hum softly. Not with the usual savage lust he feels when he thinks of Lyr, but with something else. Something warm and pleasant.

The feeling takes him by surprise. He's never felt anything quite like it before and he isn't sure what to make of it.

After only a moment, he shakes himself. He was lost in a dream. Why is he standing here watching a slave wash himself? He has duties. Before Lyr sees him, he pushes off the wall and marches into the stables.

But when he's been shown the horses, two fine carriages and several carts by the head groom, he still can't shake Lyr from his mind. Kres, he knows, wants to speak with him. So he walks into the lower part of the manor.

Damon is fond of Kres. He is one of the servants he had chosen from his father's palace household. Rafus had been generous with Damon. When word had come from Selim that he would be gifting him a manor house in Attar for him and his new wife, and a generous annual income to run it, Rafus had written to Damon and offered him the choice of any of his personal servants as his own.

Kres had been one of Damon's first choices. His father's calm, efficient second Master at Arms as his seneschal. Kres had appeared to welcome the move and the chance to run his own household.

Kres takes Damon into the small room beside the kitchen where he keeps his records and sits down to discuss the items he brought back from Jur-Mattan as his share of the spoils. What is to be sold, what is to be kept .

In reality, Damon knows he will simply agree with whatever Kres suggests. Kres knows much better than he what they need, what can be made use of, and what cannot.

By the time the auditing of items is done, the sun is climbing high in the sky and Damon is hungry.

"And the slave?" Damon asks as casually as he can.

Kres seems unsurprised by the inquiry. They are discussing the spoils he brought home from Jur-Mattan. Lyr is one of them. He says, "I believe he is doing very well, Your Grace. He works hard and is personable."

"I'm glad."

"He is not what I would have expected from a pleasure slave," Kres says with a light curl of his lip. This does not surprise Damon. He has always understood Kres to be an extremely moral man.

"He understands instructions?"

"His Artemian is very good. You would not know he was a heathen. Not from his command of the language."

Damon walks back into the kitchen, still talking with Kres and there he is, there is Lyr, staring at him, face pale.

"Lyr," he says. He finds he is smiling.

"Master," Lyr replies with a nod of the head.

He is wearing the same breeches and has a loose shirt over the shift. Damon has never seen Lyr fully dressed before. Something about the roughspun shirt and loose breeches seems beguiling. The fact Damon knows what the body under those clothes looks like in precise detail enchants him somehow.

"Do you want anything from me, Master?" Lyr says in a soft, shaky voice. He is staring, staring back at Damon. His face has pinkened, his lips are slightly parted as if his breath has roughened. He looks so delightful Damon feels his throat prickle .

He cannot turn away. He will not.

Damon realises he has been standing in place, gazing at Lyr. He turns to Kres. "Excuse Lyr from his duties. I wish to discuss a private matter with him."

It's rash and foolish, he knows. But what harm could a walk in the gardens do?

But as he thinks this, Damon sees the cook raise her eyebrows at one of the scullions and he realises there is no chance that his walking into the gardens with Lyr will be seen as anything other than an illicit liaison between a sinful man and his lover.

It is well known that Lyr was a pleasure slave in Pellex. He knows rumours about how he chose Lyr for himself will already be here in Attar. Perhaps embroidered with some colourful details. Perhaps even the suggestion that he did fuck Lyr in the great hall of Blackstone Castle in front of a sea of baying men.

The old rumours, the ones Atticul started about him when he was nineteen, have never really died, even among his own loyal staff. Why should the new ones be any different?

"Lyr," says Kres behind him. "Take Master Damon and show him the herb garden. It is growing well, Sire. And Lyr can collect anything Nalla needs for tonight's menu."

"Yes, Master Kres," says Lyr. Was his voice always so sweet? "Cook, is there anything you need?"

The cook lists off sorrel and thyme and rosemary and Damon walks with Lyr out of the kitchen.

They cross the stable yard and go through the iron gate into the gardens. The sun is bright.

"Do you know the way to this herb garden you are to show me?" Damon says.

Lyr shakes his head .

"Then I will show you."

The herb garden is a small walled area to the south behind an ornately decorated patio with a vine-covered arbour and a low bench.

Neither of them speaks until they pass through the low brickwork archway into the herb garden with its raised beds and gravel paths.

Damon's throat feels thick as he says, "How have you been?"

"I am glad of my role in your household, Master."

Lyr calling him Master makes Damon's breath hitch. He thinks of Lyr calling him Akai. Begging in Magaar. "Would you rather speak in Magaar?" Damon says heavily.

Beg for me again in Magaar.

"No. I enjoy Artemian. And your Magaar is," Lyr smiles, "not as good as my Artemian."

"I can speak Juran," Damon says, in Juran.

"You can, it is better than your Magaar," Lyr says. His voice is playful. No one speaks to him the way Lyr does. "But my Artemian is better still."

"How did you learn Artemian so well? Did Jareleezi teach you?"

Lyr takes a breath. "Not teach me exactly. But she had many books in Artemian. Much of her study was of Artemia. I suppose I picked it up."

They walk a little further. At the end of the herb garden is another gate which opens into an orchard of apple, plum and cherry trees. All of them are heavy with fruit. Damon thinks he must ensure Kres sends some men out here soon to collect the harvest before Surrus Moon.

"Your house is very grand. You are a rich man," Lyr says .

"Did you not expect me to be rich? I am the son of the Crown Prince of Azuria."

"I know that. But you made pains to inform me that you were the bastard son, entitled to nothing of your father's wealth."

"Yes."

"You are the son of a prince and a whore. But here you are far more prince than whore."

Damon smiles. "You know, a scullion should not speak to me that way."

"I am not really a scullion."

"No. You are not." Damon pauses. "All this wealth is from Emperor Selim. He favours me because of all the people I have killed for the glory of Azuria."

"Perhaps you could kill enough people to become emperor yourself."

"I don't think that is how it works."

"Isn't it? I thought that was how most people become emperor."

"Indeed," Damon says with a small laugh. The way Lyr speaks to him is shocking. No one else would dare be so bold as to say to his face he should commit treason to become emperor. But he feels so light in his heart. Lighter than he has done in a long time. It's so easy to be with Lyr. He thinks of Inez's frown the first night he was home when he claimed himself too tired to lie with her, and her almost tears when he begged the same excuse on the second night.

This kind of pleasant easy conversation should be something he shares with his wife, not some male scullion that the whole household believes him to be, if not already fucking, then certainly eager to bed.

But no one else makes him feel like Lyr. So at ease. He feels young when he is with him. Like the youth that was stolen from him has been returned .

Damon finds himself saying, "I was given this house and an income to pay for it by Emperor Selim, for my part in taking Jur-Mattan. But years ago, when I took back Pluma-Ferris he gave me an island."

"An island. A whole land."

"It's not a large island. Not like Klish."

"Klish is many islands. Some are very small."

"My island is called Sanvicta. It's off the western coast of Vashti. All that is there is one small keep. But it is very beautiful. It's wild. And at nineteen, I was amazed to even have land at all. Sanvicta is mine for life and for all my sons. Sanglora I simply hold for the empire, Sanvicta is mine forever,"

"Sanvicta," Lyr says softly. It sounds beautiful in his mouth. "That means blood and victory. All Selim's gifts to you have blood in the name."

"For the blood I spilt for him."

"Or the blood you have in your veins," says Lyr. "I would like to see it. Sanvicta ."

Damon nods. He'd like that too. How would it be, going to Sanvicta with Lyr? Just the two of them. On that distant island. So far from Attar. They could be free. How sweet that would be. A foolish dream.

Damon points to the hilt of his sword in the belt at his waist. "The other reason Selim likes me so much is that I saved his life once. He allowed my father permission to gift me this sword for that."

"You told me you saved his life when the Mortingale Outlaws attacked the Rose Palace. How did it happen? How did you save his life?"

"You remember that Lukas's mother died and Lukas was raised with me and Atticul?"

"I remember," Lyr says. He says it as if he remembers everything Damon has said to him .

"Lukas joined the Mortingale Outlaws. They got into the Rose Palace because of him. The palace still has many of the old tunnels from the ancient temple structures running beneath it, some go right down through the cliffs to the caves on the banks of The Gleam, that is the river north of Attar, beyond the Rose Palace. As children, my brothers and I explored many of them. So Lukas knew a secret way in." They reach the end of the orchard where a wooden fence marks the boundary of Sanglora's gardens, Damon turns and leads Lyr south, walking alongside the fence as he continues, "He didn't expect me to be in the palace, but I was visiting for the celebrations for the birth of my sister's son. I joined the battle."

Lyr looks quite shocked. "Your brother meant to assassinate the Emperor? His own uncle?"

"I told you, he ran away and joined the Mortingale Outlaws. They are rebels against the empire. Luckily we caught and killed many of them that night."

"But Lukas got away?"

"Yes," Damon says carefully, holding the exact details close.

"So you saved Selim's life and he gave you that sword?"

"Yes." Damon did not truly save Selim's life. There had been many palace guards and enforcers fighting the outlaw incursion that night, but somehow the involvement of The One Man Army in that battle had twisted another story into one of his great glory. He draws his sword. The blade glitters in the sun. It has a faint colour to it. Not the usual silver of polished steel, but a glow of orange, yellow.

"For a weapon," Lyr says, "that is, indeed, very beautiful."

"It's called Amber, The Demon Blade . It's said to be the just blade of Zai himself. During the revolution, King Sarelik used it to drive the Hevelikar out of the Ivory Palace. He found it in the Amber Forest when Zai himself spoke to him. It has been passed down to each emperor. Sarelik's son, King Damon, wielded it, and it was wielded by my grandfather, Emperor Erond, and then by his son Markus, before he was sent into exile. Then it went to Selim, but Selim didn't want to keep it. He said he thought it cursed, so he gave it to my father. My father felt guilty about what he had done with me, so he asked Selim for permission to give it to me as reward for what I had done."

"What he had done to you? What had your father done to you?"

"Ah," Damon sighs. "That is a longer story."

"I would like to hear it. If you have nowhere you need to be." Lyr stops walking and leans back against the wooden fence.

"I can spare the time," Damon says. A lie. He has much to do, but he cannot bear the thought of ending this. He isn't touching Lyr – isn't even considering it – but this, just being with him, feels like it's replenishing a well deep inside him that he hadn't known had run dry. "How about you? Can you spare this time? Do you have duties in the kitchen?"

Lyr shrugs. "I am a slave and you are my Master. My duties are what you say they are."

Damon looks at him. There's no one around. He takes a breath and leans up against the fence next to Lyr. He says, "You know I was indentured into the army at fourteen? Ordered to serve the empire for twenty years?"

Lyr nods. He moves a little closer to Damon, so they are both leaning on the fence, close together, arms almost touching. Lyr's forearms are bare in rolled shirt sleeves. Damon is wearing his usual sleeveless jerkin in black leather. He has not left the army behind. He still dresses like a soldier. If Damon moved a fraction of an inch, they would touch. Bare skin on bare skin.

I am a slave and you are my Master.

Just the thought of it makes his breath quicken.

Lyr says, "What did you do?" Lyr pauses. "Oh."

It's obvious what Lyr assumes. Damon shakes his head. "Nothing like that. I committed no crime. There is a law in Azuria, the rule of stead. It means that if someone commits a crime a close member of their family can volunteer to take the punishment in their stead. My father committed a crime against Zai. He was sentenced to twenty years indenture. Selim agreed that I could serve the sentence in his stead."

"What did your father do?"

"I was never told… although I can guess. I told you that when Selim became Emperor he made Zai's laws the laws of Azuria. That meant that fathering bastards became a crime against Zai."

"But all his bastards were born before that change in the law."

"Yes."

"So you think your father did it again? That you have another brother."

"Or a sister, I suppose. Although I do not think my father would bother to acknowledge a female bastard. They are of little use to him. Female children are only useful to make marriage matches and secure the line and bastards cannot do that."

"But you think your father had a secret child? And you had to serve in the army for twenty years as his punishment?"

"Yes. Which is why, I think, my father felt so guilty that he asked Selim to allow him to give me the Demon Blade. "

Lyr stares at the sword in Damon's hand. "So you have the Emperor's blade?"

"I do. Atticul is unhappy about it. It is his by rights. Or ought to be his when he becomes Emperor. He has petitioned many times to have it returned to Selim so it can be passed correctly through the royal line, to our father and then to him. But Selim does not want it. He did agree to have it taken from me and given to Atticul, but that hasn't happened."

"You refused to return it?"

"I could not. I have no say in such matters. However," Damon pauses. "It is strange. When Atticul first got that decree from Selim I was away. At war. For most of my life, I have been away, at war. I was in Fanost. The party he sent to retrieve the sword from my possession were all lost in an attack by outlaws. He sent more men and they died in a rock fall in the Mortingale Ravine. A third party was shipwrecked. After that, he didn't send any more. When Atticul was my commander, after he joined the Imperial Army and was made General Paramount, he never asked me to hand my blade to him, although he could have. And of course, now I am here in Attar and so is the Demon Blade. He could come to my door and demand to take it. But I think he is afraid of what would happen if he did. I think he has decided the blade truly is cursed."

"Cursed for him, perhaps. But it has served you well. I think the blade wants to belong to you." Lyr moves a little closer. Close enough that now his arm touches Damon's.

The contact makes Damon's heart beat so hard that he wonders if Lyr can hear it. He says, "Perhaps Zai wishes it."

"Would Zai control a blade?"

"Zai controls all. "

"You bear the weapon of the Emperor of Azuria. Perhaps because you are the true Emperor."

"Perhaps because my father felt guilty he had taken twenty years of my life from me."

Damon turns his body towards Lyr. He does it carefully, keeping their arms touching. The sun is pleasantly warm. Mortingales and sparrows sing in the trees, but otherwise, it's so peaceful. There is no one around. There's no one else in the world.

He finds his gaze resting on Lyr's mouth.