"Better not to risk it if they're that dangerous," Sasha replied. Stepping up to the edge of the endless field of poisonous roses, he held his hands out over them, and said,
"All poisons fail in the face of purity. Unicorn, grant me the grace of your cleansing touch."
A fresh, clean scent suddenly filled the air and a fine white mist poured from Sasha's hands and began to cover the field. Sasha stepped back, and they watched in silence as the mist spread, rising until it looked as though the clouds had come down to shroud Sonnenstrahl. With a shimmer of rainbow light, the mist vanished, and David stared in wonder at a field of lush green grass sprinkled with pale gold wildflowers.
"I think now we are safe to press on," Sasha said, and he led the way through the gates, down the road toward Sonnenstrahl.
The world beyond the Great Wall sent chills down Sasha's spine. "It looks like no time has passed at all," he said. "Like it's frozen."
"It is," Fritz said after a moment, his eyes getting that faintly distant look they always did when he spoke to Drache. Part of Sasha was curious as to what it was like living with Drache, but mostly he was relieved he had no idea. His own thoughts were more than enough to deal with; he did not need another voice added to the fray. "Drache says that Teufel has let nothing touch Sonnenstrahl since he first sealed it off. He wiped it clean and froze it in time."
Sasha shook his head. "That seems depressing to me. Life is meant to move on, no matter how hard that can sometimes be." Images of Zarya rose to mind, but Sasha pushed them away again. Zarya was dead, and he had moved on, though he had not wanted to. He glanced at David, who offered him a smile as he always did. Even Sonya had never smiled at him so often, but then, neither of them had never had much reason to smile.
David, however, never needed a reason. It was just one more reason Sasha did not want ever to live without him.
"So what will happen to it, do you think, if we succeed? Will time catch up to it and turn Sonnenstrahl to dust?"
Fritz frowned as he listened to Drache, then said, "He said it should not be anything so drastic. It should just wake up as if from a long nap. If we do succeed, I wonder how long it will take before people will be willing to live in Sonnenstrahl again. Such a beautiful place was never meant to be so desolate. I've seen it in dreams, when I visit Drache, but always from high above in the tower of the Citadel. I look forward to seeing it properly."
"The Citadel?" Sasha asked.
"Mm," Fritz said. "The very heart of Sonnenstrahl. Drache says it is on a par with the Cathedral of Ashes, the Sanctuary, and so forth."
Sasha nodded. "I do not suppose Drache can offer advice on how to kill Teufel?"
"I'm afraid not; I tried asking already. He says even if he could, he just doesn't know. Teufel rarely visits him, and he does not know where Teufel goes when he is not in Sonnenstrahl. The Shadow of Licht is only that—a shadow. He was created by Licht, given power by Licht, and Drache says that only Licht would be able to destroy his own shadow. If there is another way, he never knew it."
"Shadows without light are only darkness," David said, and Sasha and Fritz both turned to look at him. Shying away from the sudden focus of attention, David said, "That's what you said when you told me my fate: the difference between shadows and darkness is light. So, if Licht is gone, Teufel is only darkness. Would that make him weaker or stronger than what he was before?"
Sasha smiled at him. "Clever, sweet. Very clever. I would hazard stronger in some ways, weaker in others. How does he sustain himself if he is bound to Licht as you imply?" he asked, turning back to Fritz.
"I don't know," Fritz said. "He must feed off something else, but again, Drache cannot say. Wherever, however, he is bound, he is … well, kept in the dark." He made a face at his own words.
Mouth twisting in wry amusement, Sasha looked up the road, half-expecting to see Sonnenstrahl rising up from the earth, but they were still a good distance away and nothing but more road and field lay before them. At least they were not still trudging through snow. Only minutes into the journey they had stripped off their winter gear and stowed it. The brisk spring-like air reminded him of Pozhar and made him briefly homesick. But then he glanced at David and remembered what it really felt like to be home.
They lapsed into silence, the smooth road making it easy to keep up a steady pace. High above the sun shone—the first time he had seen the sun in months, and Sasha ached for a chance to be able to savor it, to lie out on warm sand or stone and simply bask. He had not done such a thing since he was about David's age. That last summer had been one of the few times Zarya had not made everything between them so scorching difficult. It had been the second time Sasha had allowed himself to believe that maybe they'd be together after all. Unfortunately, it was far from the last time he had deluded himself.
After that summer, he had largely avoided being outside, and then had gotten too busy with his new courtly duties anyway. He had rapidly become known for being pale and still and cold.
Sasha was pulled from his thoughts by fingers curling around his upper arm and looked down to see David smiling at him. "You look sad," David said.
"Idle thoughts stirred bad memories," Sasha said. "Nothing of importance. I was thinking the sun is nice and that it has been a long time since I went sun bathing. I was about your age when last I did it and doesn't that make me feel like an old, lecherous bastard." He sighed, suddenly feeling very old; if he dared to think about how much older he was than David he would be forced to do something drastic.
"You're not old."
"Nearly fifty," Sasha replied, hating himself for bringing it up, but unable to ignore the matter once it had come to the surface. "You should—"
David huffed, fingers tightening on his arm. Sasha only vaguely noticed that they had halted—and that Fritz kept going. "You're not old. I have no interest in anyone my own age. They're too much like Killian, or too much like me. I don't want someone like that. I want you."
There were a hundred questions and challenges Sasha wanted to pose, such as the very real and likely possibility that as he grew older David would change his mind. But suddenly he did not want to know. He was nearly fifty. Just once in his life he wanted to enjoy a lover who wanted him—and wanted him openly. A lover who did not constantly fight and deny that want just because it did not fit with how he had envisioned his life.
Life was too short.
"Sasha …"
"No, you're right," Sasha said, reaching up to trace David's bottom lip with his thumb. "Forgive an old man his paranoia. I worry for the day you finally gain enough sense to seek out someone younger and prettier and smarter."
David laughed. "I don't think anyone could be prettier than you, Sasha." He reached up and sank his hands into Sasha's hair. "You're not old. Stop saying it."
"You didn't mention smarter," Sasha said with a soft chuckle of his own before he drew David into a kiss. David's kisses had always been sweet, but every one grew more certain, more forceful, and he thought it would not be long at all before all the wicked promise David showed came to fruition and Sasha found all his lessons used well and thoroughly against him.
If there was a better fate to be had, Sasha did not want it.
"I'm not calling you smart until you stop fretting about your age," David said. "I may not know much, but I always knew I wanted someone older—steadier." He leaned up and kissed Sasha again, brief but with decided force behind it. Drawing back, he asked softly, "Tell me what makes you look so sad?"
Sasha stared at him, then looked down the road where Fritz had paused. "Is now really the time? I think we have delayed enough, and we've still a ways to go."
"You're right," David said. "There are more important things to do right now, I'm … being young, I guess." He started to withdraw, but he was not quite expert enough to hide his hurt.
Grabbing hold of him and hauling him back, Sasha said, "That is true, but … it is also true that we may never get a chance to talk and certainly you deserve to know more about me."
David shrugged. "I don't need to know, really. I just … hate to see you look so sad. I know Sasha, I think, but not … Nikolai, I suppose."
"Sasha is the better person to know, I think," Sasha said softly. "I look sad because I wasted my life on something—someone—that I should have let go. They say love overcomes everything, but the sad truth is that it doesn't. Sometimes love just isn't enough. I was in love with someone from the time I was young—probably about Killian's age, in fact, which is why I try to be sympathetic to his plight. I was him once, lovesick and possessive and jealous."
He leaned into David briefly and closed his eyes, soothed and strengthened by his presence. Letting David go, he stepped back slightly and continued, looking out over the field and up at the sky. "His name was Zarya, and he was my cousin and, at first, my best friend. Our fathers never got along, mostly because Zarya's father would never forgive mine for being less than perfect, for being of mixed blood and having an affair with a woman also of mixed blood. I look like a firechild, but I have the blood of four nations in me, and my uncle never really forgave me or my father that. Unfortunately, his poisonous mindset infected my cousin. He loved me, but he could not overcome his father's expectations, his father's demands, his own beliefs of what he felt his fate
should
be. All his life, Zarya tried to do what he thought he should, tried to live a life dictated to him. Every now and then, he would start to break free and come to me—but always he ran away again.
"I never forgave him for being a coward and he never forgave me for refusing to understand. We loved each other, but we were bad for each other. Only on his death bed did we reconcile, and days later he was dead. Two lives wasted that did not need to be. That is why I still sometimes look sad."
"I'm sorry," David said. "I wish it had worked better for you."
Sasha shrugged. "We make our choices and we live with them. Zarya wasted his life and he's dead now. I wasted mine, but have somehow been given a second chance. Sadly, it probably took losing my memory for a time to take that chance. My highly flawed common sense might have prevailed if not for that curse."
"Then I'm not very sorry you were cursed," David said with a faint smile.
"I'm not sorry at all," Sasha replied softly and drew him close again, holding him tightly as he took one kiss after another, losing himself to the smell and taste and warmth of his lover. Eventually, he managed to draw back and say, "I suppose we really must be carrying on with the quest. But after all of this, I am finding another bed and not letting you out of it for a very long time."
David shivered in his arms, violet eyes turning dark with need. "A bed would be nice," he agreed.
Sasha laughed. "I hope I can do better than nice when we get there. Come on, let's get this over with so we can get to that bed all the sooner." He held out his hand and David took it, twining their fingers together as they joined Fritz. "My apologies."
Gesturing dismissively, Fritz said, "No need. If there are things to be said, they should be said now before the chance to say them is lost. Drache and I have plenty to say to each other. You just do not hear it because he exists only in my head." He sighed. "Honestly, the complications of age and experience sound so delightfully
simple
from my perspective. Try loving someone who is only in your head and is, in fact, the other half of you. I cannot tell if I am mad, egotistical, or a little of both."
"I admit you do put things in perspective," Sasha said with a faint smile.
Fritz smiled back. "Shall we proceed?"
"We shall," Sasha replied.
They continued on in silence, each lost to his own thoughts with Fritz's occasional mutter the only noise to break it. When the sun was high overhead, they stopped to eat and rest. Determined to reach Sonnenstrahl before dark, however, they did not linger long.
When they got their first glimpse of the city, they drew to a halt almost as one. All Sasha could see was the tower. He had always thought the Cathedral spires reached impressive heights, but they paled alongside the tower before him. What did the world look like from so great a view? It shone a brilliant white in the fading sunlight, save where parts of it seemed darker—like windows, perhaps, though in some place it seemed as if entire sections of wall had been removed.
"The Citadel Tower," Fritz said. "Much of it is open to the sky with only magic to hold back inclement weather. In my dreams we're always in a room close to the top, looking down on the city far below. I never thought I would someday be able to look up at the tower."
"It's beautiful," David said. "So different from Unheilvol."
"I don't imagine there is anything quite like Unheilvol. I wonder what will become of my poor temple when this is over," Fritz said with a sigh. "But one problem at a time, I suppose." They resumed walking as the sunlight continued to fade.
It was the barest threads of moonlight that greeted them as they reached the edge of the city. Once more, Sasha could do nothing but stand and stare. Sonnenstrahl looked as though someone had captured thousands of stars and used them as stones to build a city. He'd never seen anything like the white stones of Sonnenstrahl. They shimmered faintly with a thousand colors, like some sort of pearlescent coating had been laid over marble. Here and there, the walls were covered with vibrant climbing roses in an array of colors.
It was a city of stories, a city from a dream—except for the emptiness, the way every sound they made seemed to echo to every desolate corner. If it was a city of stories and dreams, then those stories had been forgotten and the dreams lost. Sasha ached for it, remembering the same lonely feeling from the Cathedral of Ashes and the Cathedral of Sacred Fire. Such places were meant for people, meant to be a home, a place of solace.