Shadow of the Father (3 page)

“Why not?” Yilon pushed his bowl forward and licked his fingers before rubbing his muzzle fur clean with them. “All right, I’ll see you when I get back here this winter, then.”

Sinch smiled, but Yilon could tell it was forced. He pushed his bowl back as well, dropping the remainder of his bread into a napkin and folding it over.

Yilon emptied a silver coin into his paw. He turned it over, looking at it, and then left it on the table. “Ready to collect your winnings?”

“Sure, Sinch said again, with a little more enthusiasm. He waited until Yilon had stood to push back his own chair.

Divalia’s streets bustled with activity at dusk. Day workers hurried home while the few nocturnal made their way down to the river docks and the King’s Guard stations. Yilon slipped through the crowd with a fox’s grace, Sinch following with practiced hops and darts. Even as they dodged around people, they were able to keep up a conversation.

“Mother’s going to want to make you cakes,” Sinch called around a portly beaver. He’d recovered some of his energy upon leaving the Cup and Crown.

Yilon licked his lips, already feeling hungry again. “I wonder how long they’ll keep.” He ducked behind a wolf and slipped between a pair of stags. Hopping over a pile of refuse at the side of the street, he turned down a less heavily traveled alley. Sinch followed.

“You can get food along the way, can’t you?”

“Sure,” Yilon said. “There’s pubs and stuff. Maxon will know where to stop.”

Sinch sniffed. “He doesn’t look like he knows good food.”

“I’ll order him to find some.”

They emerged into another crowded street. Yilon weaved across it to another alley, where he scaled a decrepit gate and dropped to the ground in a filthy garden. Sinch landed beside him a moment later. They crossed together, cut through the corner of the next yard, and opened the gate onto a garden as neatly kept as the others were overgrown. Herbs grew in rows along the edges, tiered with the largest bushes at the top, the green broken up with splashes of purple and red flowers. In the corners nearest the house, two small fruit trees rose. The tree on the left bore only leaves, but the stains and pits below it gave off a thick, sweet fragrance that reminded Yilon of the evenings he’d spent a few months before with Sinch sitting below it, popping cherries into their muzzles and tossing them at each other.

The other tree sagged under the weight of bright green apples, not yet ripe. Yilon’s mouth watered at the memory of the sweet, crunchy fruit. He felt a wave of sadness that he would be missing the apple harvest this year. “Save me one, will you?” he said, pointing at the tree. “Sure.” Sinch walked in the back door ahead of Yilon, his tail dragging on the ground again.

Yilon followed him onto a small, neat kitchen. Racks of dried herbs and fruits hanging from the ceiling filled the space with a delicious medley of scent that he’d never smelled elsewhere, even in the palace kitchens. The room was warm, as it always was; Yilon had never seen the stove cold.

Chiona, Sinch’s mother, wasn’t bent over the stove as they walked in. She was talking to a young badger, about twelve from the look of him, who was just her height. “Here,” she was saying, “and tell your father he can make up the difference next week when he’s feeling better.”

She placed a cloth-wrapped package into the badger’s paws, topping it with a small cake. “Thank you, miss!” the badger said.

“Off with you, now.” She patted his shoulder as he left, then turned. “Good evening, boys. How was your day?”

“I won this time.” Sinch stepped forward for a hug, and then dropped the leftover bread into her paw. “We ate at the Cup and Crown.”

She lifted the bread to her nose, then took a nibble of it. “Good, reliable Jesse,” she said, setting it on the counter beside the stove. “Nothing new with him.” Yilon stepped forward, hugging the small mouse to his chest. She looked up at them as they drew apart. “But you, there’s something new with you.”

Yilon smiled down at her. “They’re sending me away, finally.”

She tilted her head, a small sparkle in her eyes behind her wire spectacles. “How nice of the old Lord to wait until you’d come of age. Consideration is not common among Lords.”

“Tell me about it.” He ducked his head, scratching behind one ear.

“Oh, you’ll be different.” She turned back to the stove, reaching into one of her cabinets. “You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t have any compassion.”

Yilon felt Sinch’s paw at the base of his tail. He wagged it slowly. “I’m leaving tomorrow.”

She pulled out two small sacks, smelling of flour and sugar. “I’ll make you some cakes to take with you. Never know what you’re going to find on the road. Let’s see, you like cinnamon, right? And I can spare a little bit of this…” Her paws lifted a small pouch delicately from the spice rack. Yilon leaned forward to sniff, but only caught a whiff of an exotic scent when she shooed him out. “Go on with you both. You’ll smell when they’re ready.”

Sinch grabbed his paw and pulled. “Thanks!” Yilon waved, trotting after his friend. They mounted the narrow wooden staircase, boards creaking under their hind paws. Yilon kept one finger on the wall, tracing the pitted holes in the wood. Halfway up the first flight, he paused next to a small portrait of the family, Sinch’s mother standing behind her three children.

His friend stopped patiently, tail flicking along the stair. Yilon smiled up. “Wonder if they’d let me make a copy to take to the court at Dewanne.”

“You could take that one,” Sinch said. “It is yours.”

“No, it’s yours. Maybe by the time I get back.” Yilon patted the Sinch’s rump, starting the mouse on his way back up.

They passed the room his sisters shared, but even Yilon’s ear caught no sound from inside. They were most likely still out at their jobs. Sinch’s room, at the very top of the narrow house, was the smallest, but it was his alone, and it was this as much as his mother’s affection and cooking that made Yilon’s tail wag whenever he visited. He had to share a room with Volyan, in the servant’s quarters of his father’s chambers, which was awkward whenever Volyan brought back one of his conquests for the night. It was one of those nights that had prompted him to visit Sinch, at the mouse’s urging.

The small room was almost as familiar to him as his own: the narrow bed of straw-stuffed cloth, the tiny table piled with tunics, the stool tucked neatly under it. With the door closed, there was barely room for the two of them to stand together on the floor. Which was okay, because they rarely stood together for longer than it took to rub the sides of their muzzles against each other.

Sinch sat down on the bed and leaned back against the wall as Yilon closed the door. His tail flicked along the cloth. “You know, since it’s your last night and all, if you don’t want to…”

Yilon slid the lock across the door frame. When he turned, he knelt immediately in front of the mouse, his muzzle again in a grin.

“Why would I not want to?”

“Oh, I was just saying.” Sinch closed his eyes as Yilon’s paws tugged at the laces of his pants, slipped them apart easily.

“I lost fair and square,” Yilon said. “So I go first.” His paws pulled gently on the waist of the trousers, sliding them down Sinch’s narrow, grey-furred thighs. He leaned forward, one paw holding the fringe of the mouse’s tunic up while the other slipped along the white space between those thighs to cup the soft white sac. Sinch was already pretty hard, pink shaft showing above his white sheath, so Yilon got right to it, brushing his tongue up the sheath and then up the warm skin above it to the top.

Sinch’s narrow frame shuddered. He reached around to hold Yilon’s arm, spreading his legs as much as the half-removed trousers would allow. Yilon closed his eyes, inhaling his friend’s light scent. He settled himself on the floor more comfortably, resting both elbows on the mouse’s thighs. With slow, even strokes, he licked up the warm hardness in front of him, brushing Sinch’s tight white stomach with his other paw as he did.

When he felt Sinch squeeze his arm, he slid his lips around the mouse’s erection taking the narrow shaft completely in, rubbing his tongue against it the way Sinch liked. Yilon enjoyed the rhythms of pleasing his friend, the breathing getting harsher, the feel of the skin sliding through his lips, even the curl of Sinch’s whiplike tail when it wound around his wrist, as it did now. He wasn’t as fond of the taste of the climax (compared to his own, at least), but it certainly wasn’t bad. Besides, the connection he felt would have been worth it even if it tasted like locusts.

This close to Sinch, he could really feel the mouse’s warmth through his short fur. Yilon’s thicker fur was cooler to the touch, but even at the skin, Sinch was always warm. On the nights when they’d begun sharing the small bed, Yilon usually ended up waking early from the heat. Now, sliding his muzzle up and down over an erection that felt as if it had been out in the sun for hours, Yilon tightened his paw and fancied he felt the shaft in his muzzle grow warmer still.

He slowed just a bit, just enough to prolong Sinch’s trembling and soft squeaks, but it was already too late for him to stop. The squeaks grew louder, interspersed with ragged inhalations, until the mouse’s hips bucked up against Yilon’s muzzle, warmth splashing onto his tongue in time with Sinch’s moans of pleasure.

Yilon held him, sucking gently as Sinch arched. He lowered his muzzle with his friend’s hips when it was over, washing with his tongue until Sinch squirmed and moaned. Yilon lifted his muzzle and smiled up. “Good?”

Sinch didn’t answer right away, panting. “Yes,” he said. “I’ll miss ya.”

The words drove home to Yilon that this might be the last time he knelt here, in this small room at the top of the house. He looked away from the mouse’s eyes and around to the warped wood walls, the neatly piled clothes, the window looking out onto the buildings across the buildings across the street. It reminded him of his own room, the one he’d moved into when he turned ten. That room had a view of the gardens, and the city of Vinton beyond.

“Your turn.” Sinch interrupted his reverie, sliding off the bed and patting the cloth. Yilon smiled and stood, gazing absently out the window at the street below before sitting down in the same position the mouse had just vacated. He didn’t look down as Sinch reached up to his waist, even when he felt the mouse’s nimble fingers at his pants laces.

Sinch’s paw closed around his sheath, squeezing the softness. “You okay?”

At that, Yilon did look down along his slender muzzle at Sinch’s anxious expression. “I’m fine,” he said. “Just thinking.”

“Don’t think so much.” Sinch smiled, trailing a finger up and down Yilon’s sheath.

The fox drove the nebulous thoughts out of his head and focused on the light brushing, the tickling sensation in his fur. His sheath tingled, getting harder. “There you are,” he said.

“Mmm. There
you
are.” The fingers on his sheath met more resistance in their squeezing. Yilon spread his legs and leaned back, letting Sinch caress him into full hardness. As soon as he felt the opening of his sheath spread and cool air on his tip, he felt the mouse’s fingers brushing his skin, and then it was much easier to relax and let himself feel the tingles building in his groin, the pressure in the swelling knot at the base of his shaft.

Sinch liked to use his paws first, before applying his tongue. He slid a paw up Yilon’s sheath, ruffling the fur and then smoothing it down again. When he reached the top, he brushed a furry finger up the protruding shaft, then teased with a claw on the way down. The sharp touch made the fox shiver every time he felt it, made the fur on his arms lift in arousal and his fingertips twitch. His tail thumped against the bed.

“I like when your tail wags,” Sinch said softly. He slid one paw under Yilon’s sac, rubbing lightly there. His other paw stroked smoothly up and down Yilon’s now-full erection, pausing to squeeze the tip between his fingers and thumb, then lowering to rest against the swollen knot. Yilon laid a hind paw against Sinch’s thigh, his toes curling at the mounting arousal. Any moment now, Sinch would ask if he were close. His whiskers twitched.
Not yet… not yet…

Warm breath on his sheath. He heard Sinch inhale as the mouse’s paw moved faster, building heat in his shaft, building pressure in his knot. Yilon’s hips trembled. “Are you close?” Sinch asked.

“Yes,” Yilon breathed. “Yes.”

“Mmm.” Warmth enveloped him. Sinch could never stop his front teeth from brushing skin, but Yilon liked that, and though he’d never said so, he suspected Sinch knew. He gasped at the press of the mouse’s tongue along his tip. Even though it sometimes took him a while to bring himself to climax, depending on his state of mind, he never lasted long once he was in Sinch’s muzzle. Tonight was no exception. With a panting moan, he arched his back away from the wall, his whole body tense in that moment before his passion crested. And then he sucked in his breath and moaned, convulsing and spurting out into the warm muzzle around him, over and over.

When he sagged back against the wall, Sinch lifted his head, rubbing a paw along his smile. “Nice,” he said. He brushed a finger along Yilon’s sheath. “You want a cloth?”

Yilon shook his head, still panting. “I’ll be okay. Thanks.”

His friend climbed up onto the bed and sat beside him, his pants at mid-thigh as well. He leaned against the fox and curled his thin tail over Yilon’s bushy one. “When you’re a Lord,” he said a moment later, “will you have to stay in the palace all the time?”

Yilon turned his muzzle slowly. “Probably,” he said. “But I’ll have my own chambers. If there are any.”

“There’s empty ones on the first floor, by the Weasel Stair.”

“I’d rather be on the third floor.” He looked the mouse in the eye. “Wait, was that where you were hiding that one time?”

Sinch smiled. “No. I found those when I was wandering one day.”

“I never noticed them.”

The mouse traced paths through the red fur on Yilon’s exposed thigh. “Going to stay here tonight?”

“Sure.” Yilon said it without pausing to think.

“Your father won’t be upset?”

Yilon shrugged. “You think your mother’s done with the cakes?”