Zelli made a face but nodded. “I think they see much farther ahead than we do, or something like that. It’s why their answers to wishes seem to make no sense or be torturous at the time. Then, later, you realize… I was there, in that place, with that person, and it wasn’t terrible. It was wonderful, in fact.” He smiled for a moment. “In so many other ways, with so many other people, it could have been disastrous. Before they showed me to Kear as a nightmare, they showed me to you and you loved me. Maybe things are awkward to us because the fae don’t quite understand our ways or care to learn them, or they think awkwardness is part of it. But they made sure I got to be happy with you first.”
Zelli kissed Tahlen’s reddened knuckles. “I think it’s like your family story, only sometimes the fae are more subtle. They take little interest in human affairs and politics, but they like humans. Certain ones especially. Like you. You were alone and lost, and you wished something out loud or in your heart, and they led you to one of their favorite places. You wanted a home. They led you here.”
“To you?” Tahlen regarded Zelli with interest, seemingly unconcerned with the pinpricks left behind by Zelli’s teeth.
“To me?” Zelli nearly dropped Tahlen’s hand in his astonishment. “Oh. Do you think so? My colors stay now, for you. Just you. But I’m not that favored.”
“Aren’t you?” Tahlen wasn’t really asking.
Zelli turned to hide his face. “Later,” he whispered around a surge of love left him tingling and warm, “I must tell you about meeting them, my family. They’re not like humans. I’m not fully human, either. Tahlen,” Zelli took a deep breath, “I could probably give you a Vallithi, if you like. At some point. I think that’s also why I am how I am. Possibly.”
The jolt that went through Tahlen made Zelli tense.
Tahlen pulled his hand free of Zelli’s desperate grip and used it to urge Zelli’s head up. He studied Zelli, not blank but still not easy to read.
“The children of such unions take the name of the more powerful and ancient line. That’s tradition.”
Zelli scoffed with a lightness he didn’t feel. “I will do what I please, Tahlen Vallithi. Are you going to tell me no?”
Tahlen raised both eyebrows. “Have I ever?”
He had, in fact, though not often. But Zelli didn’t want to want think on those few times. He tugged Tahlen’s hand up so he could nibble Tahlen’s fingertips. He thought, idly, in the midst of his many other thoughts, that if he could learn to bite Tahlen so as to only draw blood or leave marks when he wanted to, then he could certainly learn enough control to be allowed to have Tahlen’s cock all the way in his mouth. But that would have to wait, like many things.
“A child would be far in the future and it’s a possibility only.” Zelli was distantly terrified, but if his parent could do it, so could he. “It’s a shame we can’t combine our family names like nobles did in the days of the first Earls to get the beat-of-four names.” The practice had been forbidden centuries ago. “A Vallithi-Tialttyrin,” he mused, “would please the fae greatly. I think that wish would be granted, and woe to anyone who tried to prevent it.”
Tahlen shut his eyes and took several moments to force his breathing to even out. His arms tightened around Zelli, but not enough to hurt or to even be uncomfortable. “I don’t know how I ever thought I wouldn’t love you.” He opened his eyes at the sound Zelli made. “Are you all right? Is something wrong?”
“Only a few nights ago, you said that very same thing as I came in here.” Zelli blinked. Had it only been a few nights? It was no wonder Tahlen was exhausted. He peered at Tahlen, missing the shining fall of his hair but loving the gleaming pleasure in Tahlen’s eyes. “’Are you all right?’ you said. I thought you’d be annoyed with me, but you weren’t. You stood up and you seemed… excited, in your careful way. Why did you think I’d come? Oh,” Zelli realized the answer almost in the same moment. “You hoped I’d changed my mind and I had come to say yes. That seems obvious now. I was in my nightclothes and was in your bedroom late at night.” He silently chided himself for his foolishness but didn’t want to waste time on it with Tahlen regarding him steadily, his pleasure falling away. “IfI had said no, I would have changed my mind at seeing you like that. I forgot everything I came in here to say, and you made it very difficult not to touch you.” Zelli sighed, not unhappily. “If you had touched me, I probably would have fallen into your arms then and there, and embarrassed myself thoroughly.”
“What would have been embarrassing about that?” Tahlen pulled on the end of one of Zelli’s braids. “You don’t know how you looked at me.”
Zelli peeked up at him. “Did you know my feelings then as well?” Everyone had, but Zelli hadn’t considered that this would have meant Tahlen too. “Your sister said I cared for you, but what did you think?”
Tahlen glanced away, to Tippit, to the bed. “I thought so too. Until, you—until you refused me. Then, this journey through the valley….” He looked back at Zelli. “You fussed over me, and you were jealous of Kat, and you told me you thought I disliked you. You kept looking at me in that way you do, as if you want to eat me but also put flowers in my hair.” Zelli twitched but Tahlen didn’t seem to notice. “I didn’t understand until you fed me berries and told me that the idea of losing me was so painful to you that you couldn’t bear it. You didn’t even know what you were telling me. But if you say you can’t bear it, I know it’s too much for anyone. Your family ignoring you, countless humiliations, being sent away to a stranger, those you could live through. But not me leaving you.”
“Tahlen.” Zelli’s voice cracked.
“As I told you then, I won’t. Not over a distance and not while next to you. I will not leave you.” Tahlen put his hand to Zelli’s chest, pushing gently but deliberately against the scar, or maybe making sure he could feel Zelli’s heart beating. “I told you that, and I vowed to myself to make sure you knew you weren’t alone and to wait until you understood. I just wasn’t expecting… what you said, tried to say, as you were dying.”
“With my body, beautiful Tahlen,” Zelli murmured, throat tightening on the rest.
“I will not leave you, my Mizel,” Tahlen said back just as softly, and kissed him.
Epilogue
Zelli raised his head at the sound of the door opening without actually taking his eyes from the planting reports in front of him. He was surprised by the ambitious plans from Cousin Adifer, but Adifer wasn’t the only one to consider taking more chances after several years of a consistent peace, and the valley could use some change that wasn’t any worse than perhaps a new grape variety no one wanted.
The peace might be shattered at any moment, but it had held for five years now, barring one incident at the capital that had been quickly and efficiently squelched. Zelli was not privy to the details outside of letters from his family members around the palace, but the ruler had been surprisingly—yet wisely—merciful, despite the direct threat to his life. The perpetrators had been punished, certainly, but the entire Tyrabalith family had not. Zelli hoped that meant The Tyrabalith—ThenewTyrabalith, since the last one was now deceased—would see reason and settle down.
Their current ruler had kept the crown for five years and would keep it for years more if everyone else was as tired of the fighting as Zelli suspected they were. The king was ruthless enough, and canny enough, to survive, but also sensible enough to think before he acted. That might be all it took to maintain this peace.
That, and the correct bloodline and name to please the older families.
“A messenger arrived with this for The Tialttyrin,” Tahlen announced, somewhere else in the room.
Zelli hummed and forced his eyes up from the reports. He saw no sign of Tahlen. “Grandmother will want to see it,” he said anyway.
Grandmother was resting, which she needed to do more and more, but she would be interested, and Zelli would like to know her opinion on whatever information the message conveyed.
