“Embarrassed?” Lan echoed in disbelief. “Desires are not embarrassing. Only acting a fool over them.”
“I’m sorry,” Fen said immediately, curling his shoulders inward. “I’ve never had them before and they’re confusing. Sometimes it’s enough to have made you happy,” he admitted after biting his bottom lip again. “Other times, I think of you and I—” He shook his head then scrambled to his feet. “I’m sorry. I’ll go.”
“Stay.” Lan didn’t raise his voice, nonetheless, Fen stayed. He slowly sat back down under Lan’s stern attention. “One moment, you’re telling me to give myself a crown like the fae in ancient days. The next, you’re…” Lan stopped there but his gaze said the rest. Fen shivered and Lan spared him by glancing away. “You keep trusting me with all of that. And I keep telling you I’m just a man. A man exactly like all others, as base and greedy and selfish, with the coldness and cruelty to plan to fight and then do it. And you kneel before me, flower, and give me this power over all the lands and peoples to every sea coast?”
“I can’t give you that,” Fen disagreed. “You would have to take that power to have it… but Ihavealready given you that power over me. That’s true.”
Lan made a guttural sound in his throat. “I thought you didn’t know how to do any of this.”
Fen raised his head in surprise. “I don’t know how I can influence you and I have no idea how to seduce you. Although, if you wanted to, you could use me as The Geon would have.”
“I am not The Geon.” Lan’s voice rose to the top of the tent and must have been heard at some of the campfires, because all conversation abruptly quieted. “You don’t knowthatyet, but trust me to ask anything of you?”
“But you haven’t asked anything of me,” Fen reminded him. “Not really, except to have me stitch up a torn shirt. You’ve given me freedom from The Acana, and protection from bears and wolves, and food and half of your blanket. You gave me warmth and furs from your bed, and you sought my opinion—which no one has ever done. But you’ve not demanded anything of me except what is asked of anyone here, which is to behave, and cooperate, and to try to contribute.”
“Andthatis how I have made you mine and will get others to follow me?” Lan snarled breathlessly, then shut his mouth. He breathed hard and looked at Fen with a strange light behind the darkness in his eyes.
“Are you angry?” Fen asked, honey despite his trembling, his head up when he should lower it.
Lan didn’t seem angry, and he didn’t snap for Fen to leave, or cuff him, or regard him as a disgrace. He said, “Stay here, flower, I need to think,” and made for the door.
“A shirt,” Fen reminded him in a whisper, stopping Lan short. But Lan slipped his undershirt on, then his boots, though he did not lace them tightly. He looked back to Fen before reaching for his cloak too. Then he was gone.
In the black of night, with the camp’s fires long since grown low, Fen woke to a hand at his cheek and another at his shoulder. He had propped himself up against the edge of the bed to wait for Lan and must have fallen asleep. He barely had time to stir before he was gently moved back down to his pile of furs.
He blinked muzzily up at the outline of Lan above him and wished Lan found him as beautiful as he found Lan and would push him to the furs to teach him what he didn’t know. Fortunately, Fen was too tired to open his mouth to voice the wish.
Lan whispered, “I didn’t mean for you to stay awake and wait for me. Sleep now, flower.”
“Cub.” Fen unstuck his tongue enough to make the correction.
He was studied in the darkness.
“Sleep, cub,” Lan ordered gently at last. “That, I will ask of you now.”
Fen turned onto his side and put his cheek to the fur before closing his eyes again.
The “Good cub,” whispered warm against his ear carried him through the next morning, his feet scarcely on the ground.
Thirteen
One of the scout’s dogs made it into the camp before the scout did, a square of red cloth hanging from its collar. People followed the exhausted dog’s path to Tellan, shouting in alarmed tones that made Fen put Lan’s armor pieces aside and rise to his feet. The cloth, or the bright color of it, must have been a signal. But no one ran to kit themselves in what armor they had or reached for any weapons.
Tellan yelled for more wood for the fires as well as water, so Fen darted over to help the cooks move around large pots of porridge and stew to make way for that. Then he went into the woods to help the others quickly gather firewood, although in the larger camp, that sent him farther out. Scouts who usually stayed hidden in the trees called to him and the others, asking what was going on, and those with Fen shouted back, which at least granted Fen the answer that there were people coming and they were wounded.
Fen hadn’t heard of any battles, and Lan certainly hadn’t been involved in any in this remote place. But he gathered fallen branches until his arms were full and then hurried all the way back to the camp.
The initial scout had reached the camp while Fen had been gone, and was breathing heavily with his hands on his knees while Tellan fired questions at him. He must have been one of the scouts not very far out if he had run the whole way, which meant he’d carried the message from someone else.
The trouble could have been days away, but it must be near now for Tellan to request boiled water.
A shout went up and then another scout entered the clearing, supporting someone half-bent over, her arm around their waist. The weaker person had to be injured, and possibly gravely; brown and red stains soaked through their shirt.
Ati rushed by Fen to meet the bleeding arrival. But he had not reached them yet when other people stumbled into the clearing, several limping or looking exhausted, one covered in more of the brown and red of old and new blood. One of the newcomers appeared to be with child.
Not warriors. Or, not warriors who should have been fighting. Not even The Acana ordered visibly pregnant guards to risk themselves.
Fen jumped at Lan’s sudden appearance at the treeline, a body much larger than Fen’s slung over one of his shoulders, blood trickling down to stain his shirt too. Lan had not been involved in whatever had occurred. That was not his blood. Fen told himself that but stared until he shook himself and turned to answer the sound of his name.
