Perhaps the markings had been done to him during as a part of the training he’d spoken of. Sitting through stinging pain seemed like it must teachsomethingabout control, in the same way that guards got hit during sparring but it allegedly taught them to spar better. To Tiiran, it seemed more like an exercise in flushing darker and eyes going bright with tears. Even the strong, experienced guards would whimper or moan when hit hard enough. Not that Tiiran watched them spar often, only a few times in his younger days. Fial and the other assistants had taken him with them. Palace youths of all kinds found the sight pleasing. Or maybe the view had been more about the guards often being without their shirts than their moans and reddened skin.
Perhaps it had been about both, for some.
Tiiran flicked a glance up to Nikoly’s face, wondering if Nikoly had bitten his lip and cried prettily while being marked or if he had held in his cries by whimpering into the back of his hand.
“Oh,” Tiiran murmured helplessly, drawing Nikoly’s gaze to him before he could reach into his robe to covertly adjust himself.
“Now,” said a new voice. One of the broader outguards of the three who had just walked in strode up to the desk, winking at the assistants at the tables as he passed them, “which one of you darlings is Tiiran?”
Tiiran felt his eyebrows slowly draw together but raised his head.
He was not expecting the outguard to flail back a step. “Oh, shit. That is… sorry.” The man straightened quickly and glanced toward the copying tables, as if hoping the assistants hadn’t seen that, or that his sparkling gaze and muscular arms would make up for his moment of panic. “Of course, it’d be the one with the eyes that go black,” he went on jovially—to Nikoly, not Tiiran, then flailed back again although Tiiran doubted Nikoly had done anything to warrant such a reaction.
The sparkling-eyed, cowardly outguard seemed transfixed by Nikoly for another moment, with the other two behind him equally entranced. “Whoa,” the guard said finally, before turning to Tiiran again. “Do you put your scariest assistants at the desk?”
Tiiran looked him in the eye and snapped his teeth.
The fae were alleged to have sharp teeth. Tiiran did not, at least, not any sharper than anyone else’s. The first outguard still watched him with wide eyes while the other two continued to stare. “Whoa,” the outguard said again.
“Thisdarling is Tiiran.” Nikoly practically purred it. Even distracted, a shiver went down Tiiran’s spine.
“Did I yell at you once for fucking against a shelf of books so hard that you knocked the books over?” Tiiran vaguely remembered the moment. Years ago, but he’d apparently made an impression. He was pretty sure he’d made the guard’s cock go soft. “How can I help you today?” His tone was almost polite. Nikoly should be pleased.
“Fuck, Orin is an odd duck,” the outguard muttered, then made a pained face and shook his head as if denying his own words. He raised a hand before he added, “A stubborn, strong, loyal duck, who is not afraid of anything, it seems. Our dear friend Orin. Any of us would die for him, little fae—uh, Tiiran. There’s no need to glare at me like that.”
“Nikoly.” Tiiran only said the one word, but Nikoly was suddenly taller and louder at the center of the desk.
“Are you all here to drop off reports?” he asked, nothing but pleasant. He didn’t say, “your reports,” perhaps having learned that though outguards were supposed to only turn in their own reports, they often handed over the reports of their friends as well. Tiiran didn’t know if it was an Outguard rule or merely a strong suggestion, but it wasn’t the job of the librarians to enforce it. And he imagined it was easier for many of the outguards assigned to a great distance from the capital to not have to return so often.
Then again, if Orin was correct and nobles did sometimes want to interfere with the information in reports, then someone should be ensuring the outguard who wrote it down was the one who turned it in. But a sheltered librarian against an outguard was no sort of contest under normal circumstances. They weren’t all as easily cowed as this one. It was enough that the librarians recordedwhoturned in the reports, regardless of the name on them.
“Oh yes,” the first outguard answered belatedly after the other two had, reaching into their packs for the reports in question. “But also, we met Orin on the road on our way here and he tasked me with delivering something for him.”
“Tasked?” Tiiran asked without thinking. “Orin has a habit of telling others what to do as well?”
The outguard who had been the first to enter the library hooted. The one in front of Tiiran seemed to get a bit more sparkle in his eyes, although he lost it when Tiiran scowled.
“Perhaps this will ease your frown, tiny one.” He glanced warily at Tiiran a few times before pulling his pack to his side and looking down to search within its pockets.
“Orin’s well?”
The question seemed to calm the outguard somewhat; he even flashed Tiiran a smile. “He’s harder to kill than an eastern boar, don’t worry about him.”
“Did he finish one of his books already?” That was the only thing Tiiran could imagine Orin wanting to be rid of so soon after his visit: a book finished early or a book so dull he had no desire to even carry it around.
One of the two other outguards was surprised into laughter, nudging the friend next to him. “I knew he read that fast. He likes to say he just reads them because he gets bored out there, but nobody isthatbored.”
“It’s better that he not be bored,” the first outguard broke in absently, still searching through his pack. “Orin bored is Orin investigating things he shouldn’t. And if there’s no plump-assed, dewy-eyed, plush-mouthed pretties around for him to make into his ducklings, then a book will do. Ah, you’re scowling again, tiny—uh—Tiiran.”
Tiiran was aware of the heat and probably color spreading over his cheeks and down his neck. He ignored it. “You think he’s foolish for reading.”
The outguard paused to look up. “I think people can do whatever they like with their time,” he said gently. “But if Orin had been born a noble, he’d be one of the ones camped out in here writing tomes no one but others like them would read.”
One of the others disagreed. “No, Orin likes todothings. He might come in here more, but he’d need to act as well, in some way.”
Something clenched in Tiiran’s chest. Orin could have tried for a job in the library when he’d been younger, and either hadn’t known how or had thought the outguard would serve him better. Maybe he had taught himself from the books over time, almost as Tiiran had, but hadn’t had a Lanth to offer extra tutoring to help him, so the Outguard had been the only choice besides stay with his family in a place where he did not fit. But it seemed even the Outguard did not quite suit Orin Vahti, odd duck.
Tiiran rubbed his chest to soothe the pull near his heart. “I thought you were his friends.”
