Page 128 of The Concubine King
They may love, but they hate us,Kyarin says.
They are only scared, Vaire returns.And why wouldn’t they be?Nuada swallows them whole.Ailel batters their shelters with howling screams and tears them down.Sulan burns them and their crops.
That is our nature,Sulan replies.
And that is what she tells Cadoc when he approaches to arbitrate.When light had visited earth, he had split open, and covered what did not crumble into his abyss with smoke and ash and raining fire.The humans were already suffering, struggling to grow food beneath Sulan’s intensity and Kyarin’s harsh cold.Now they are terrified and anguished and want answers.They do not like that answer.
The human gods come again, not only Cadoc but all of them.
‘Please,’ they say.‘Our humans just want to live.’
‘So do we,’ says Sulan.
Vaire knows the human gods will get nowhere with the others.Light is persistent and pervasive.Earth is stubborn and steadfast.Sea is turbulent and consuming.
‘We must compromise,’ Vaire tells the lot of them.They might listen to him, at least.‘We can temper ourselves.We can live in harmony with every creature, it is our duty.’And so, they compromise.
Kyarin’s weight presses Vaire’s back against rough bark, the slight pressure of his head rests under his chin, slow breath whispers ice across his neck.Vaire likes when Kyarin is against him like this, laying in a comfortable slouch between his legs.He swirls pitch-black hair around two fingers, watches the strands coil and release like winter’s grip.Another dry leaf spirals to the ground from the branches overhead.
‘I’ll be asleep soon,’ Vaire says.
Kyarin tilts his head up to look at him.‘You could venture south,’ he reminds him.It is where darkness promised not to go, so the humans can grow their food without frost killing it off.
Vaire shakes his head.‘Then I’ll be away from you.’
Kyarin’s moonshadow eyes blink.He lifts Vaire’s hand from around his waist and smooths it flat with his thumbs, brings it to his lips and molds a kiss to each pad of his fingertips.‘Then stay.’He turns the hand around and lays kisses on his knuckles.‘My shelter.’
Vaire folds his fingers over Kyarin’s and holds them to his heart.
Ice envelops him to sleep.Its melting wakes him.A presence compels him upright and he looks at Kyarin standing in the sparse shade of the tree across from him, shoulder resting on the trunk.
‘Waking me already?’Vaire asks with a smile, sinking back down into the moss.‘Then you missed me so desperately?’
Kyarin drops to his hands and knees over him, his own smile curving up the sides of his mouth.‘Desperately,’ he reiterates, landing a breathless kiss to Vaire’s lips.His long black hair drapes a curtain around their faces.
Vaire hooks a heel against Kyarin’s back, loops his arms around his shoulders, but does not yet pull him close.Kyarin lowers himself close anyway, nestling his nose against Vaire’s neck, into the hair curling there.Vaire breathes him in too, the crisp scent of snow still lingering in the shift of his strands.Soon it will be the soft chill of summer shade.
‘What have you been doing without me?’
‘Waiting,’ Kyarin exhales.
‘And?’
‘Wanting.’
Vaire laughs, the sound like early spring, sweet and new and tender.Kyarin swallows some of it.
‘Did you not visit the others?’
‘The humans do not like when I do.’
‘They will miss you.’Vaire can feel the tug in his own soul, the stretching.It never reached a breaking point, they never let it.It was too painful.
‘“Miss” is too human a word,’ Kyarin says.‘It is not quite that.’
‘I suppose not.’
‘But this is.’Kyarin’s thumb grazes across his cheek, their noses so close that even in the dark curtain of hair, Vaire can see the dim color of his eyes.Then Kyarin pushes himself up to cast his gaze down at the flowers that have sprouted up around Vaire, framing him in soft petals of white and yellow and blue.
