The Necromancer’s Light by Tavia Lark

❧

CHAPTER FIVE

Shae

Shae barely notices Arthur walking away. He’s too entranced by Duchess’s extremely soft nose, and the way she wiggles her lips under his hand. His heart feels warm in a way that has nothing to do with magic or human presence. He’s just…

Happy. Duchess is the first creature he’s met in ten years who hasn’t flinched at the sight of him. She doesn’t know he’s a necromancer, and she doesn’t care.

He tries out scratching her forehead, the way he saw Arthur doing it, and sure enough, she leans into the touch, big brown eyes blinking slowly. She really doesn’t care who or what he is—as long as he comes with treats, probably. Her coat is so soft, the most beautiful orange-red. Maybe learning to ride wouldn’t be so bad? He peers in the stall at the rest of her. No, she’s still gigantic. Petting is fine.

It’s a while before Arthur returns with a bucket of brushes. Shae isn’t sure what took him so long. Tack must be complicated.

“Do you want help?” Shae asks.

Arthur hands him a wide-toothed comb and opens the stall door. “You can brush her mane out. Don’t walk behind her.”

Shae follows him into the stall, flushing at the nearness of his aura, and glances at Duchess’s massive feet. He definitely wasn’t planning to walk behind her.

Brushing Duchess’s mane proves more difficult than it sounds; her hair is wiry and full of straw from rolling in the stall. Shae’s barely done by the time Arthur grooms the entire rest of her, from picking her hooves to brushing her tail to currying out her coat and saddling her up. He’s probably doing it wrong somehow, but Arthur doesn’t correct him, and for once, it’s hard to worry. It’s soothing, combing out Duchess’s mane while she pats him down for treats, totally uninterested in the silver on his fingers and ears.

And with Arthur so close, he’s almost warm. When he closes his eyes, his wrist still burns sweet from the grasp earlier this morning.

Don’t get too comfortable,he warns himself. Arthur’s horse might be the most miraculous creature Shae’s ever met, but he’s still not sure about Arthur himself. The man’s aura is so warm that Shae craves him with every fiber of his soul. He wants to curl up in his arms and press his forehead against his heartbeat and absorb every bit of light and heat from him.

But this morning, he woke up to the familiar cold spilling into his heart. He woke up alone.

I’ll take what I can get, but I can’t trust him.

***

As they leave town a few hours later, Shae’s shoulders lighten in relief. He needs human contact, but the fear and revulsion are a different kind of cold he can never quite shake. Better to be on the road, walking towards his goal, with just one person by his side. Even if that person’s being paid to be there.

Another month and this will be over. One way or another.

Most of the people he’s paid over the last few months have been quiet travelers. Except for Pavus, who would get drunk and talk to himself in Praian, a language Shae only recognizes the curses from. At first, Shae thinks Arthur will be the same way; they don’t talk for the first hour or so out of town.

Then Arthur calls for a rest beneath a huge, shady tree. “It’s hot out,” he says, letting Duchess munch on a stretch of grass. “You’re going to pass out if we push until noon.”

“Fine.” He doesn’t feel like explaining that he only knows it’s hot by the sweat beading on Arthur’s temple. The gleam against his tanned skin.

“What is it?” Arthur asks, and Shae realizes he’s been staring.

Fuck.He covers with the first question that pops into his head. “How long have you been a paladin?”

Which seems basic enough, but Arthur winces. “Seven years. I joined the order as soon as I could, when I turned eighteen.” He continues lightly, fiddling with Duchess’s mane. “But I’m technically out on penance, now.”

Shae stares again. He never expected to hear that tone of voice from Arthur. The tone he himself has used so often. Casual words covering up hurts he doesn’t want anyone else to see.

He forces himself to look away. He can’t force himself not to ask, “What does that mean?”

“It means I trusted the wrong man, and he brought harm to the order.” Arthur shakes his head and laughs bitterly. “Sorry, that’s so vague. He used me to get into the temple, and he stole a relic. He killed a priest while he was escaping. I was deemed involved but not responsible, so I was sentenced to a year of penance before my final trial.”

“Does penance mean you have to say yes when random necromancers want to hire you?”

“I can do almost anything besides set foot in a church,” he says, and there’s that barely-hidden hurt again. Arthur clearly isn’t as used to masking his feelings as Shae is.

Shae isn’t sure how to feel. Killed a priest? Penance? The words seem strange under the bright sunlight, coming from Arthur’s handsome face. Shae can’t fathom sharing his own hurts so openly. “You didn’t have to tell me that.”

Arthur shrugs. “Wouldn’t be much penance if I kept it a secret.” He cocks his head, some of the darkness fading from his eyes. “You don’t seem bothered by it, though.”

It’s Shae’s turn to shrug. “I guess I’ve seen worse.”

“I bet you have.” Arthur takes a swig from his water flask. “Fair’s fair. How long have you been a necromancer?”

Shae is distracted by the way Arthur’s head tips back, stretching out the line of his neck. The way a bead of sweat gleams down his throat. He’s so distracted that when he hears Arthur’s question, he answers truthfully.

“Ten years.”

When Arthur’s brow furrows, Shae realizes his mistake. The man isn’t stupid, and the math is easy. Sure enough, Arthur’s next question gets to the heart of the matter.

“Wait, how old are you?”

Images flash before Shae’s eyes. Dirt under his nails. Scattered bones. Blood seeping from the cracks of his skin to the cracks of the earth. His only connection to those he called. His breath frosts the air as the cold comes for him.

He shakes himself. The cold never leaves, but the day is bright and the road ahead is long. He tosses his apple core beneath the tree. “None of your business,” he snaps. “Let’s go.” He strides back to the road without waiting for Arthur and Duchess to get moving.

Arthur might be thrilled to share his own dark past, but Shae feels no obligation to return the favor. His penance still hurts plenty when he keeps it secret. He doesn’t need to tell the truth. He just needs to undo his mistake, and forget all of this ever happened.

***

They don’t talk much the rest of the day, which is fine by Shae. He can tell Arthur’s going a bit stir-crazy from the quiet, though, by the way his conversations with Duchess get more and more frequent as the day wears on.

They set up camp by a river, which Arthur tells Duchess is a small branch of the Rising Run. Shae recognizes the name from his map, and glances along the rippling current. The Rising Run begins in the Riseniasha Mountains and carries through the heart of Lyrisenia, then through Charain until it pours into the ocean. These very drops of water have passed through Izen’s domain. They’ve seen Shae’s destination.

“I’m going to bathe,” Arthur says after getting a fire started. “I’ll be right over there.”

Shae nods and sits down by the fire. The river’s easily visible from their campsite, only a few thin trees between him and the waterline, but he appreciates the heads-up, compared to the unexpected vanishing he woke up to this morning. He’s barely explained anything—he knows he’s being a tightlipped asshole about it—but Arthur’s still listening and adapting to what he says.

The paladin’s probably the nicest bodyguard Shae’s ever hired. The worst part is, that won’t matter. He’ll still leave in the end. Everyone does.

Enough moping.Shae scoots a little closer to the fire, until he’s nearly singeing his toes in a bid for warmth, and glances out towards the river.

He sees an expanse of gleaming golden skin, and hurriedly looks away.

Then looks again.

He’s only human, after all, and Arthur’s broad, bare back is glorious. Even from this distance, Shae’s entranced by the way the muscles move over his shoulders, the way his broad shoulders narrow to his waist. The slight difference in skin tone at the boundary between waist and—

Shae can’t remember the last time he saw another man’s bare ass, but he’s very sure he’s never seen one as fine as Arthur’s. His own body flushes with a heat that has nothing to do with the fire, and he turns his head sharply away before Arthur turns around and notices his inappropriate leering.

We’re both men, we’re traveling together, this is normal, right?

He sneaks one more glance just in time to see Arthur wading into the running water, and he leaps away from the fire to the opposite side of camp. Visions of wet, golden skin rush through his mind anyway. He rubs his gloved palms over his eyes, trying to chase them away. “No, no, no,” he hisses to himself. “Bad Shae.”

He can’t imagine a righteous Varan would react kindly to a necromancer leering at him like that. Working together is one thing. Shae’s inappropriate fantasies are quite another.

Not that he would know how to act on them, even if he wasn’t scared of chasing Arthur away. He’s had neither the will nor the opportunity to pursue any sort of friendship, much less a lover. The only people interested in him have been people like that Riverswords mercenary back in Andell. The type who’ll go for anyone, as long as they’re too weak and alone to fight back.

A low nickering cuts through his confused arousal. Shae turns to Duchess, tethered on the edge of camp. She’s completely untacked—the first thing Arthur had done when they stopped for the night—save her halter, and while she’s been spending the evening trimming the grass around her, now she stares at Shae with her ears pricked forward.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Shae says. “I have no idea what you want.”

“Cookies,” Arthur says from behind him. “She definitely wants cookies.”

Shae jumps and forcefully prevents himself from turning around. Arthur’s probably dressed again. Probably. Shae’s too afraid to find out. He stays very still as he hears Arthur rummaging through a bag. Duchess’s attention zeroes in on a point just over Shae’s shoulder at the sound. Then the familiar warmth of the paladin’s aura surrounds him, chasing the chill from his bones.

“Here,” Arthur says, right in his ear. A very bare, very damp arm emerges in his field of vision.

Shae takes the offered cookie from him and says, stiff in more ways than one, “Thanks.”

He feeds the cookie to Duchess, then concentrates very, very intently on stroking her nose, and not turning around until he hears Arthur putting on a shirt.