“Oh, I’d get you well again. Just because I can’t be sweet about it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t.” He’d have no idea what to do, but that was only because he’d never nursed anyone to health before. Tiiran dropped his shoulders. “Though no one would ever ask me to, and,” he exhaled heavily, “I couldn’t blame them. That’s why I don’t belong in a pub or anyplace like that.” He didn’t even really belong in the library. If they’d had sterner Master Keepers or someone to run this place properly, Tiiran would have been thrown out by now for his vulgar mouth.
Lanth had indulged him, more than one Master Keeper had said, spoiling the stray that had followed her home.
He found Orin’s gaze steady on him while he waited for Tiiran to control himself. He was the only person to seem to think Tiiran could and yet not mind when he snarled.
“It’s because it’s not actually your temper, my fire-heart, though I call it that to pull your hair,”Orin had said once, leaving Tiiran to stare up at him in startled wonder.
Fire-heart. Orin had not said that again, but the nickname was far more bothersome to Tiiran’s good sense thankitten, something so illogical, Tiiran didn’t even bother to examine it. He just kept the word to himself and thought it, sometimes, with his head on his pillow and his eyes closed.
He suspected it wasn’t the nickname itself that disturbed his reason, but the word that had come before it. No one claimed Tiiran. Not even Lanth had gone that far.
“I suppose you go to pubs and taverns all the time,” Tiiran ventured. He took a piece of orange to try to seem composed.
“Part of the job of an outguard is to frequent businesses and see people,” Orin answered. “To feel how a town or village is doing by how its people act and spend their free time or coin—if they’ve any.” A worrisome comment. Tiiran frowned at him in question and Orin nodded once in reply, then smiled faintly when Tiiran—in control, but angry—muttered, “Fucking beat-of-fours can’t even take care of their people.”
“Some can’t,” Orin agreed. “And you—byyouI mean the Outguard and the rulers we are supposed to report to—can’t trust what nobles or merchants tell you. You have to see for yourself. So Idovisit public houses, and inns, and taverns, yes. I also do it because I enjoy the occasional evening with nothing to do but share a drink or conversation, or listen to a talented musician. That, I think you would like as well, if you let yourself.”
“You must have seen some things.” Tiiran avoided the subject for now, subtly, he thought. But Orin leaned back in his chair and sighed, so he must have disagreed. Tiiran didn’t let him get a comment in. “You’ve been an outguard half your life. I bet you’ve seen all there is to see.”
“I can’t tell if you’re envious or mad at me about it,” Orin remarked. Then, softer, “You can stop trying to be delicate about the oranges now. I’d rather you fed than you try to be neat and polite.”
Tiiran had a slice of orange in his hand before he thought about it, then paused to frown at himself, then ate it anyway because he was hungry and not because he knew it would please Orin. But it did please Orin. Orin didn’t need to do or say anything to show it; Tiiran could have curled up and slept in his approval. “I like your stories of your travels,” he insisted between putting slices in his mouth. “They’re very different from what most nobles write down.”
“Nobles are more concerned with their individual family histories,” Orin agreed. “Our stories, we commoners that is,” he shared a small grin with Tiiran, “tend to be in songs, not books, although some poems exist too, and some famous events happen to have been recorded by someone without four beats to their name. You should look those up. I believe there was an account of one of the first queens that even mentions the time before her reign and the founding of the Great Library.” Tiiran stopped eating. Orin glanced to the plate and only continued when Tiiran reached for his next slice. “As I recall, the poem was a little too concerned with the work of the scribes for me to believe a noble wrote it.Especiallyin the time of the Earls. That was also the story of the founding of the Outguard… and I can see you trying to determine what in the name of the fae I’m talking about. Don’t you know the story of how the library came to be?”
Tiiran swallowed a bite of orange so fast it hurt. It didn’t stop him from snapping. “Sorry I was too busy scrubbing kitchen walls as a child to learn a bunch of ancient history.” Or to learn to read and write, or do math, or anything else many more fortunate children learned to do.
Orin lifted his hands in a gesture of innocence. “Mercy, kitten. You know I don’t judge you for that, and I’m sorry anyone here ever said an unkind word about it. They should have been proud of you for learning as fast as you did.” He paused, his voice hardening for one small moment. “Youdoknow that? That they should have been proud of you?”
Tiiran lowered his head, his body half turned away from Orin and oranges and books while they were all too much. He rubbed the back of his neck and then his aching skull where his hair was beginning to pull at the pin, and finally huffed when Orin said, “Kitten?” so tentatively that it made his heart beat faster.
“You can’t just….” But Orin could, and Tiiran even liked it, though he didn’t fully believe it. “Silver-tongue, putting the bards to shame.”
Orin sounded relieved, as if even a weak snarl made him happy. “The fae certainly gifted you with teeth for biting.”
“Fuck the fae.” Tiiran didn’t bother to try to hold it back. Orin twitched at the words but didn’t remark on them. He was used to Tiiran’s attitude about the fae and too focused on stripping Tiiran down to nothing but skin and bones to waste time chiding him for the remark.
“You give so much to this place,” Orin continued. “For her, maybe. And for you. You can complain all you like, and worry that they don’t respect you, but you love the library. I would even say it loves you back. How could it not?” Tiiran pulled in a breath. Orin surely noticed, although he didn’t remark on that either. “But you’re exhausted and tense, and the palace is—never mind that now. You’re too busy to even eat. To rest? To have fun? Too much more of this and I’ll do something about it, Tiiran, and unlike so many others, I am not afraid of your claws.”
“Hmph.” Tiiran would share his thoughts onthatwhen he could control the shivers down his back. Teasing words, he told himself firmly. Orin was worried and that was what he did instead of barking and snapping like Tiiran did. “You’re busier than usual too. Back and forth from wherever to the capital again and again. You’re here sometimes once a fortnight now instead of once a month.”
“Tired of my company?” Orin wondered.
Tiiran had turned sharply to face him before he could form more of a denial than strongly shaking his head. Orin’s obvious pleasure was scorching.
“You have only to say so.” He could speak so mildly while Tiiran struggled to breathe because he must not know what he was doing to Tiiran. A mercy, but Tiiran wasn’t going to thank anyone for it.
“I’m not.” Tiiran shook his head again and ignored the frog in his throat. “I wouldn’t.”
Orin continued to press. “But I’m here too much?”
“No!” Tiiran cringed at his volume and forced himself to act like the person Orin thought he was. “It’s not that it’s… changes.” He waved around them with both hands, then frowned. “Things are strange lately. It’s… it makes me feel….” He tapped his chest as if that would show Orin the tangle behind his ribs.
“Ah.” Orin’s worried, warm expression didn’t change. “Anxious?” he guessed. Tiiran nodded in gratitude. “We all are, these days. Don’t be ashamed of that, or be afraid to talk about it—at least, with those you trust. If that’s me, I’m honored. Tiiran,” he stopped, thick brows drawn together to frown over Tiiran’s head before he refocused on him. “Does no one in the library discuss what happened here?” His tone implied he was choosing his words with care. He frowned again when Tiiran’s breath caught. “Ifanyonehad been through what you and the others have been through, they’d be anxious. Even with a stable ruler, you’d be entitled to some anxiety. Is it the new assistants? They weren’t here so they don’t understand?”
Tiiran shut his eyes, already shaking his head to dispel the memory of palace guards storming in, the shouting, their hands on Lanth’s bent body as they’d led her out, Po and Amie holding Tiiran back with Po’s hand clamped over his mouth, Mattin by himself, shaking.
“Just… Just be careful, Orin.” It escaped him in a whisper. “Please.”
