Page 43 of The Concubine King
“Only for the pleasure.”Ainder lifted a bundle of grapes and lowered it decadently to his mouth to bite one off the bunch.“We don’t have to.”
“Is there anything you have to do?”
“Answer prayers,” Gnaeus said.
Ethyr knew that couldn’t be true.“If someone prays to you, you have to give them what they want?”
Gnaeus smiled, leaning an elbow on the table and tilting her head.“I didn’t say that, did I?We have no obligation to give anyone anything.But we try to help you silly lot where we can.”
“What if you didn’t?”Ethyr asked curiously.“Why bother with mortals at all?”
“We wouldn’t be here without them,” Gallus said absently, twirling a flower stalk between his fingers, but Langath’s cleared throat made him straighten and look oddly guilty.
“It is our duty to protect and care for mortals,” Gnaeus continued, a different tone to her voice, almost hurried.“That is our purpose, and it is what we love doing, so we do it.”
Ethyr hadn’t gotten the information he wanted, but he felt like he’d gotten information they didn’t want him to have.He didn’t know what to do with it.
“It is your duty because of the king, right?”They all looked at him and his shoulders raised.He tried not to look too flustered.“If humans didn’t give you a king, you wouldn’t have to do anything.”
“It would be breaking a millennia-long treaty,” Catocus huffed, as though the very thought was offensive.
“Why did you agree to the treaty in the first place?”Ethyr asked quietly, trying to draw the conversation back to a helpful thread, but he was losing his resolve.Their troubled glances to each other didn’t help.
Gallus broke the tension, sliding his arms around Ethyr’s shoulders.“Because we get you, of course!”he answered, planting a hard kiss on his lips.
“But why do you want me?”It wasn’t exactly the question Ethyr needed answered, but it was the one that had been on his mind since the beginning.
Gallus frowned at him, and his heart fluttered, wondering if he’d offended them.The others still looked uncomfortable.
“Because there’s no one else like you,” Varuut said ardently.“Why wouldn’t we want you?”Ethyr highly doubted there wasn’t a single other pretty face in the kingdom, but he wasn’t about to contradict a god.
“I’ve always wanted to meet you,” Gallus said earnestly, taking his face in his hands and squishing his cheeks.“How could anyone resist such perfection?”
“I don’t know,” Ethyr said, distorted through his squeezed mouth.Gallus let him go and kissed him again.Ethyr accepted the kiss, and Gallus’s head on his shoulder.He had to choose his next words carefully.If he was smart, he would stop talking all together, but he knew he wouldn’t have the courage to speak up on his next visit.And there was no telling whether they’d incite him to speak again another time.
He tempered the blow by taking Gallus’s hand.The god reciprocated eagerly, linking their fingers together and resting them on Ethyr’s knee.
“What would you do if you were denied me?”he asked.It sounded stranger out loud than in his head and he cringed internally, but the gods didn’t seem to care.Gallus even laughed.
“We’d take you,” he answered, casually, like it was the most obvious and innocent answer in the world.But the light-heartedness of the words didn’t soften the strike of alarm through Ethyr’s chest.That’s what Yorith had said, the day he had ripped Ethyr from his village.They will take what they want if it is not given to them.
No, he reminded himself, he didn’t know them.They were laid-back and jovial, but that’s because they had what they wanted.He’d just seen firsthand what little concept they had of a mortal life; he could not trust them to act with human logic and sensibility.
The dread of that realization was a cold contrast to the gentle warmth of Gallus’s head and hand against his.Ethyr did not ask any more questions.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Ethyr played the game the following weeks.He let Gionan wash and dress him whatever way the man wanted without a breath of protest, and the few times Ethyr left his room, he said nothing about the two guards who followed.He studied dutifully, and when Yorith tested him on everything he’d learned he thought he did quite well, though the priest’s consistent dour expression gave no indication one way or another.
His written hand had become natural and pleasing, though it was nowhere close to the beautiful, elegant script of the priests.He had refined his voice and could sing from music sheets with only an occasional falter.He had memorized a dozen long poems, could hold a flawless conversation in which nothing of real importance was said, and could play some simple melodies on the harp and lute.
Yorith’s only comment on any of it was, “Adequate.”This did not appear to please Dessin, standing anxiously in the corner through every test.When Yorith was finished, he took the teacher into the hall and Ethyr couldn’t comprehend any of the mumbled conversation.When Dessin returned, he only smiled at Ethyr and told him he was dismissed for the day.He left the temple with Yorith and sat meekly in the carriage with him.
“Sir,” he broke the silence.It took him a few seconds to pick up the courage, but the ride to the palace was quite short so he knew he couldn’t wait.Yorith turned a bland expression to him.Ethyr swallowed.“I was wondering… could Poyut show me around the city?”
“Why?”he asked brusquely.
“I’ve seen every inch of the palace now…” Ethyr watched his face carefully for any change in expression.There was none.“It would be nice to see what the city is like…”
