Page 67 of Knight of Staria


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“We do?” someone said outside, and there was a muffled sound, like someone had placed a hand over another person’s mouth. Laurent sighed.

Eli let the others tell most of the story. Rey made it sound more noble than it was, leaving out all the bits about beingmuddy or hungry or terrified for their lives. Sabre spoke softly, his gaze hovering over Eli’s shoulder.

“I couldn’t stop thinking,” Sabre said, as Laurent raked his fingers through his hair, “that I never had the chance to say goodbye before.”

“We didn’t really get the chance to say hello,” Eli said, and when Sabre finally looked at him, he saw some of the pain that must have been in his eyes when Eli lay in his and Rey’s arms, his spirit drifting in that field between life and death. “But we can start over if you want. I’d like to. You’re the kind of brother I would want to have, if I could choose one.”

“So are you,” Sabre said, and Eli’s breath hitched as he was thrown back into the painful, aching loneliness of his childhood, forever trailing after Sabre and Adrien. All he’d wanted was for someone to want him—to want him as Eli. Now he had Rey squeezing his hand like he couldn’t trust himself to let go, and Sabre saying the words Eli had always yearned to hear. “You’re not hard to love, Eli.”

Eli lowered his face into his shaking hands, and felt Rey wrap an arm around his shoulder. He was so far from what he’d been after his father died, but part of him would always be left there, grasping for any sign of affection.

Rey slipped his arm free as another hand touched Eli’s shoulder, and Eli looked up into Sabre’s worried, wide eyes. Sabre pulled Eli off his chair and into an embrace, and even though Eli stumbled a little and ended up on the floor in Sabre’s arms, it didn’t matter. That small, aching part of him needed it, and he held Sabre tight, head buried in Sabre’s shoulder.

“Hello, Eli,” Sabre whispered, and Eli smiled weakly.

“Hey, Sabre.”

“Never pick a fight with a wolf-man again,” Sabre said, and Eli laughed.

“I can’t make any promises.”

“I can,” Rey said, and Eli twisted round to find Rey raising his hand like a student trying to get their tutor’s attention. “No more wolf-men, ever.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Sabre said, and reached around Eli to shake Rey’s hand.

“Thank the gods,” Laurent whispered.

Laurent insisted on them all having baths and a change of clothes, but before Eli could slip into the enormous bathroom, Laurent pulled him aside and stood there for a few seconds, staring down at Eli with a curious look in his eyes.

“You can always stay if you’d like,” he said, and Eli frowned slightly. “Here, with us. Sabre certainly wouldn’t object, and we have a spare room we can clear out for you and your fellow.”

Eli sighed. “Sabre offered that. I think we need our own space, and I’d like to travel with Rey for a while. It would be nice to see Staria without the curse.”

“But there’s a place here if you need it,” Laurent said.

Eli tilted his head, looking Laurent up and down. “You really are suited for Sabre,” he said. “Everyone used to say you had a heart made of silver coins, but you’re actually rather soft, aren’t you?”

“Don’t spread it around.” Laurent said. “I apologize for the misunderstanding before.”

“I know why you did it.” Eli held out a hand. “Thank you, though—for taking care of him.”

Laurent took Eli’s hand and squeezed it once before letting go. He turned away, his expensive robe swishing over the rug as he walked, and Eli smiled to himself as he entered the bathroom.

Rey was already in the bath when Eli entered. The air smelled sweet with the soap Rey was scrubbing into his hair, and when Eli stepped into the sunken bath to join him, Rey practically straddled him.

“You know,” he said, settling Eli on an underwater bench on the side of the bath, “we can just stay here forever.”

“You can’t,” Eli said. He let the heat of the bath sink into his tense muscles as Rey lathered the soap. “And I can’t either. We’re better off in the country, and you know it.”

“But we’ll be back,” Rey said. “For holidays, and baths. Do you know how rare a bath like this is? They don’t make them like this anywhere else, Eli.”

Eli didn’t want to say that they absolutely did—his old private bath in the de Valois home was almost as large—so he just shrugged. “Of course. You didn’t spend centuries dragging Staria’s laundry through the mud not to reap the benefits now and then.”

“You’re damn right,” Rey said, and kissed Eli. “Now, let me untangle your hair before we have to shave it off.”

“Areyou sure you have enough sweaters?” Sabre asked a few days later, as he fussed with the buttons on Eli’s new jacket in front of the House of Onyx. The sun was setting over Duciel, casting the streets in a warm reddish glow. “It’s getting colder, you know.”

“I have more than enough,” Eli said. He glanced at Unicorn’s saddlebags, which were already bulging. The cart had been stolen by the time Laurent sent someone to look for it, but Rey had said stealing—acquiring—a new one wouldn’t be too difficult. That hadn’t stopped Sabre from weighing them down with enough warm clothes to outlast a winter in Lukos, though.