Reawakening (18 page)

When the first dancer staggered in exhaustion, a little girl in a white tunic ran out to catch her hand, easing her to the ground, where she knelt in a ring of scarlet cloth, her chest heaving as she gasped for breath.

One by one, they tired and were helped down, until only Esen was still spinning, her face lifted in ecstasy. She seemed oblivious to the world, turning and turning and turning as the pipes trilled and the sistrums shook and the trumpets piled note upon note. For the first time since they had found her in the temple in Istel, Tarn thought she looked free.

When at last she began to stumble, she didn’t stop, but forced herself round again and again, until the little acolyte had to tug on her hand to slow her. When she sank to her knees, she was trembling, but she held her head high, gazing at Gard as her eyes filled with tears.

The trumpets rang out a final salute as the pipes and sistrums went quiet. Then, into the silence, a voice spoke, clear and steady. Turning, Tarn saw that Aline was on her feet at the end of the high table.

“We give our thanks,” she said, “to Alagard. When our queen came into this newly made desert, broken and close to death, he gave her life and gave us shelter, concealing us out of time in the very heart of the desert. We thank you, Alagard.”

“Alagard,” every woman in the hall murmured.

Gard was on his feet, and his eyes were bright as he said suddenly, “I
remember
. The desert was full of mist and salt. Everything was dying, becoming fog and echoes. There were so many bones, the creatures of the sea drowning in the sand. Even their ghosts screamed at the touch of the sun, and there, to those cries, I was born.”

“Into a new world,” Myrtilis said, voice gentle. “One free of the Shadow. The stars were bright to welcome you.”

The bleakness dropped from Gard’s face, his mouth curving up, and he said softly, “And I laughed.”

Tarn smiled, affection curling warmly in his chest.

“And I chased those spirits back into the cold dark places where they belong, and I said to the creatures of the dry earth, ‘Come now, and live with me in the warmth of my heart.’”

“And we came,” Myrtilis said, her voice formal and grave.

“You taught me the ways and words of men,” Gard said, smiling at her.

“And you gave us in return healing and shelter out of time, here in the desert’s heart.” She rose to her feet and lifted her goblet. “And so we start our feast, as we always do, with gratitude.”

Tarn drank to her toast, and Gard grinned out at them all and drank too, his lips dark with the wine.

“And now,” Myrtilis continued, still on her feet. “All formalities done, let us feast.”

The food was good and plentiful. It wasn’t the sort of feast Tarn was used to—no boar or venison carried in with gilded tusks and horns. Instead, it was a succession of small delicacies: skewers of glazed meat, pastries filled with spiced lamb or spinach and goats’ cheese, stuffed grape leaves, patties of chickpeas or lentils flavored with spices, and mint-laced yogurts to cool the tongue.

It was a meal, Tarn thought, watching Gard enjoy it, that would suit lovers.

By then, they were on to desserts, little knots of pastry and nuts drenched in honey. Tarn sucked the sweetness off his fingers, meeting Gard’s eyes, and Gard stuttered partway through his story, his hands stilling midgesture.

“Stop taunting the boy,” Myrtilis muttered at Tarn.

“But it amuses me,” he protested mildly. The wine had left him warm and relaxed, and he wanted nothing more than to sit with friends and be easy.

“Aye, but there’s no need to spoil my appetite with your flirting. Take it somewhere private.”

“If I can convince him,” Tarn sighed.

“Can you still dance, old snake?”

“I’ve gone a long time since I tried.”

She laughed and rose, offering her hand. “I doubt that will stop you. Hoy, swordmaids all! Shall we clear the floor for dancing?”

Chapter 19: Dancing

B
EFORE
LONG
the tables were pushed back against the wall, and the drums were pounding out a less sacred rhythm. Myrtilis’s warriors tugged most of the caravan onto the floor, obviously eager for new company. Even Cayl was in the circle opposite Sethan, despite protesting that he would trip over his own feet mid-dance.

Tarn stood up with Myrtilis, which garnered him a few seething looks from some of the younger warriors. Amused, he made his opening bow deeper and more courtly than usual, and then caught her hand as the dance started, pulling her forward between the dancers as her laughter rang out, and everyone else followed them.

He knew less than half the dances, and relinquished Myrtilis into her girls’ eager arms when he began to fumble his steps. After retreating back to the high table, he drank deeply, letting the cool rush of the wine shimmer through him, and then turned to prowl along the back of the dais to where Gard still sat, watching the dancers as he cradled his drink, his shoulders loose and his smile fond.

“She dances well, your fosterling,” Tarn remarked, leaning lazily on the back of Gard’s seat.

Gard jumped, splashing dark wine onto his fingers, and then looked up with a scowl. “Do all dragons like to creep up on people, or are you just special?”

“I’m special,” Tarn affirmed, letting his eyes linger on those beads of wine until Gard sucked them off his knuckles with a glower. “For stalking our prey, we are all renowned.”

“If you’re trying to reassure me, don’t make it sound like you want to eat me.”

Tarn leaned in farther, letting the long twists of his hair fall to brush Gard’s cheek. Then he murmured, putting a little growl into it, “I do want to eat you. I like the way you taste.”

Gard groaned and leaned forward to bang his head on the table. “Oh, I dug myself into that one, didn’t I? What do you want, lizard?”

Tarn grinned at him, not even trying to hide his teeth as he would with a mortal lover, and Gard squinted up at him and then groaned again, slapping his hand over his eyes. Taking pity on him, Tarn asked, “Do you not dance?”

“Not with you.”

“A shame,” Tarn said. “We shall have to talk instead. Or go early to bed, if you so prefer.” He was feeling loose from the wine, and he eyed Gard thoughtfully, wondering how easy it would be to just slide around the side of the chair and curl himself onto Gard’s lap.

Some of his intention must have showed, for Gard hurriedly pulled his chair forward against the table, leaving Tarn no space to maneuver. He was forced to steal the chair next to Gard’s instead, pulling it closer just to watch Gard huff irritation. He had been a charming little dust devil, but indignation was prettier still on a human body.

“What do you want?” Gard demanded.

Tarn shrugged, sprawling back comfortably. “Your company.”

Gard narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth to retort. Then he paused, tilting his head with the same curiosity as the caracal whose form he had taken, and commented, “You’re different here.”

“Here,” Tarn tried to explain, “I am loved.”

“Oh, please,” Gard muttered, finishing his drink with a sigh.

“As are you,” Tarn said, smiling at him. “Through their dancing, your own show their love for you, and you—you shine with it. The rest are my hoard, still, and I am their keeper. So.”

“This would be easier if you were actually speaking another language,” Gard complained. “You never make sense to me.”

“No matter,” Tarn assured him. “I understand you.”

“I don’t want to understand you,” Gard snapped back, his shoulders going up.

Tarn shrugged, and turned in his chair just enough to slide his foot under the hem of Gard’s robe and rub his ankle against Gard’s. “Still, come kiss me and be friends.”

Gard whipped his ankles away, tucking them primly under his chair, and snapped, “I am not going to kiss you.”

“Be friends, then,” Tarn coaxed, trying to look harmless. It was not something he’d had much practice at.

Gard scowled at him. “I don’t understand what you want, Tarn. Why are you here?”

Tarn felt some of the good humor the wine had brought fade away. “My hoard are dead.”

“What does that mean?”

“I am alone,” Tarn said, frowning because he had just watched the dancers pour their love into Gard until the walls around his memory shattered. Gard should understand this, better than anyone else in the hall. Suddenly, as Gard frowned at him in incomprehension, Tarn missed his old hoard so fiercely that his throat closed and his eyes stung. Myrtilis and her girls were still here, but all the rest were gone: his brotherhood of dragons, Arden, Halsarr, and Sharnyn; his human hoard, Jillis, Gortan, and little bright-eyed Shana; Killan, who would have been so quietly entertained by this court their dear Myrti had stolen out of the heart of the desert.

Killan, whose eyes would have crinkled with amusement, who would have danced with him here under strange skies, respected Ia’s fierce nature and Cayl’s quiet strength, and joined in all the laughter of the guards and merchants, even when Tarn did not understand the jokes. Killan would not have regarded him with suspicious eyes when he came to flirt.

Killan had been dead more than a thousand years.

He wanted Gard, but he had taken enough hostility and suspicion for one night. Shoving to his feet, he bowed to Gard and pushed his way back into the dance, then moved across the floor to the beat of the drums. He let his hips sway and his shoulders roll as he moved, so it wouldn’t be obvious he was escaping, and he almost made it to the door before warm hands closed over his hips.

He tried to pull away, but the hands tightened with more than human strength, and he turned to face Gard with resignation.

At once, Gard crowded close, his hands spreading to Tarn’s back to pull him in. He didn’t know this dance, which seemed to have no pattern or shapes to follow. Instead, everyone had split into pairs, tangled around each other as they swirled across the floor to the beat of the drums.

Gard was moving to the beat, though, his whole body sliding to the music, as lithe and boneless as if he were still the wind curling merrily around desert rocks. He slid one hand up from Tarn’s hip to press against the back of his neck, but did not pull him closer.

Tarn leaned in to say. “I don’t know the steps. Let me go.”

Gard turned his head, cheek brushing against Tarn’s, and said in his ear, “I know what I’m doing. Follow me.”

He had never learned to follow, but he tried to let Gard steer him across the floor, watching the way his shoulders shifted for cues, even as Gard pressed on his hip to turn him. It was still a dance, the music flowing around him like wind or fire, and he began to catch the rhythm of it after a few turns. The drums were loud now, the music drowning out anything Gard could have said, and he felt a little of his sorrow lift as he focused on moving.

Gard was good at this, as any spirit venerated with dance ought to be, and he was warm and easy in Tarn’s arms. He kept watching Tarn, even as he moved them around the floor, his eyes thoughtful. And Tarn, who did not want to explain past lovers to him, because there were some subjects too precious to expose to that sharp-edged tongue, averted his eyes.

When he felt the bond between them shiver, it startled a shudder out of him, chills running up his spine. It felt so strange, and so good, to have Gard touch his mind, his thoughts like the rough brush of sandpaper against the flame that burned in Tarn’s heart.

“You are a creature of the mountains,”
Gard thought at him, brighter and clearer than the music that pounded around them.
“Why do you want my desert?”

“Because it is loved,”
Tarn replied, and he saw Gard’s eyes widen at the roar and rumble of his mind’s voice.
“Because you love it so much.”

Gard’s frown tightened again, and he thought, with the whine of the desert wind clear in his voice,
“I love it, so you want to take it away. That’s cruel, Tarn.”

Tarn blinked at him, aware they had pressed closer as their minds met, his hands steady on Gard’s back as they swayed together.
“I would never take your hoard from you, Alagard. Let me keep you both so you are safe to love what is yours.”

“My desert is not a hoard,”
Gard snapped.
“It’s not cold metals and ancient things. It is the wind and the sun and the people who follow the herds.”

“Yes,”
Tarn agreed impatiently, distracted by his body as Gard pressed closer to him, their mouths a breath apart and their hips locked together.
“Be the heart of my hoard.”

“You don’t own me, Tarn,”
Gard started, a rasp of irritation flashing through his mind. Then Tarn rolled his hips, hitching Gard forward to press against his thigh, satisfied to feel Gard’s cock warm and swollen against his leg. At that, Gard’s thoughts scattered into bright shards, and he startled back.

“Do you think of nothing else?” he snarled aloud, as the drummers lashed into their final roll.

“Accuse yourself,” Tarn replied, shaken out of the warm rhythms of the dance and Gard’s presence in his mind. “You are no maiden to be ravished.”

“I never asked you to seduce me!” Gard accused him.

Tarn crossed his arms, aware that the dancers around them were staring. He reminded himself that he was a hoard lord and kept his voice level. “You did not refuse my advances. You have no cause for complaint.”

Gard flung up his hands, fists clenching. “You are the most infuriating spirit ever to have existed!”

Tarn rather thought that applied more to Gard himself, but he shrugged one shoulder and simply said, “If you like. Will you dance again?”

“No!” Gard snapped and pushed away through the eagerly eavesdropping crowd. Tarn followed him, smiling slightly at those he knew, taking care to look as harmless as it was possible to do to people who knew his true nature.

Tarn caught up with Gard in the hallway outside the feasting hall. By night, torches lit the sea-smoothed stones of the hall, casting flickering light against the golden stone and the glittering lines of quartz that forked across it. Thick hangings had been rolled down over doorways to block the chill of the desert night. Where the sea had worn hollows out of the sides of the rock, forming natural alcoves, there were cushion-covered seats, just private enough for conversation or quiet kisses. As he hurried after Gard, Tarn caught sight of one of Ia’s archers curled around one of Gard’s temple dancers, their hands entangled and their heads bowed close.