But Aster’s posture relaxed a tiny bit, his hands unclenching. And that light in his eyes… “I wouldn’t give you much of a challenge,” he said, but the wistful desire in his voice couldn’t have been clearer. God. He did want to. Had he always? A horrible thought struck him: Corin truly hadn’t noticed Aster paying him any particular attention before all of this, but what if that was simply his own oversight?
Aster gazed up at him hopefully, giving him no choice at all.
“We could both use the practice, even if it’s not an even match,” Corin said as tactfully as he could. “But not with that sword you brought. We’ll use foils. I have a set.”
“Oh,” Aster said, blushing a little, looking down shyly with his lashes fanned out on his pink cheeks, and Corin didn’t at all want to kiss them and see if they felt as warm as they looked, damn it to hell. “All right. Should I—I’ll go sweep the last of the snow out of the courtyard, shall I? And see to Etallon while I’m out there.”
He rose and bustled past, leaving Corin spinning about and watching him go with his mouth hanging open.
After a moment, Aster had tugged the door open and stepped outside, taking the extraordinary view of his ass in tight trousers with him. Corin shook his head, turned, and went to fetch his foils.
To the uneducated eye, the chest in the anteroom between the hall and the stairs looked like nothing more than a dusty old piece of junk. And in fact, unless Corin himself drew attention to it by interacting with it, no one else would notice it at all—it’d fade away into the wall behind it. Costly and expertly applied blood magic keyed the chest to Corin alone. He’d have preferred to have a permanent place for his hoard. Any dragon would. But a soldier’s life, particularly given his semi-estrangement from his family, hadn’t allowed for it. The chest had been the best solution he could come up with.
It’d certainly come in handy when he’d had to—not flee, more of a strategic withdrawal, damn it—leave the capital in a hurry. He’d simply strapped another trunk full of his clothes and necessities on top, snatched it up in his claws, and gone up above the clouds where no human could follow him.
He opened it with a touch of his hand on the spelled lock, accustomed by now to the slight prick of the tiny blade that snicked out to drink a drop of his blood. The lid rose smoothly and silently; he’d paid the witch extra for that.
The inside of the chest, for which he’d paid the witch an absolutely excessive amount, offered far more space than the outside would suggest. Specially designed racks held all of his swords and armor, and a little crank at the corner would move them around, allowing him to reach the ones that were currently down below in an expanded pocket of reality. He kept Giant Dick at the top, of course, within easy reach. He took a moment to stroke a finger along its gleaming blade.
Damn Edwin for calling it that, anyway, but as soon as he had, all their fellows had burst into drunken laughter and repeated it, banging their tankards on the table to drown out his protests.
It’d stuck, of course. When anyone else asked, he simply said it didn’t have a name. Fuck, he missed Edwin. He missed his life.
The foils were down near the bottom. He turned the crank and brought them up, checking them one at a time. They were, like everything else, in perfect condition. Both the (yet more expensive) preservation spells on the chest and Corin’s own obsessive care saw to that.
He was halfway to the back door with them before it struck him: he’d never, ever, let any other person touch any part of his hoard. No one used his swords but him. They werehis. He’d sooner ignore his spouse fucking someone else—presuming he ever managed to marry someone who hadn’t already fucked someone else regardless—than allow another man to hold and touch his weapons, much less fight with them.
And yet the possessive unwillingness simply didn’t come.
Odd, but…all right. There weren’t any rules saying he couldn’t loosen up a bit for once, were there? Maybe Aster simply didn’t feel like a threat.
Aster looked up from his work as Corin appeared in the doorway, smiling as he swept a pile of churned-up slush off to the edge of the courtyard. The pale high-altitude sun washed him out a bit, leaving him ethereally blond with a pinkish halo, his eyes gleaming like pieces of the rich blue above him.
“Of course you really do have foils,” Aster said as Corin stood there staring at him dumbly. “If anyone would bring extra swords to a place like this instead of extra blankets, or a supply of coffee, it’s you. I’m surprised you’re letting me use one, though. Are you sure you hadn’t rather I sparred with my own? It’s not like I’d be capable of hurting you with it, or anything,” he added, his smile turning wry.
Anything Corin might have said in reply lodged in his throat. Of course he never let anyone else wield Giant Dick, but then again, no one else would’ve been able to in the first place, so they wouldn’t bother to ask. When he trained at the palace he used the practice swords in the armory just like everyone else. The issue of sharing had never come up. And Aster—somehow Aster knew how he felt about it anyway.
“Foils are better,” Corin managed at last. “And I’m sure you won’t hurt me, because you have more skill than to simply flail away willy-nilly, don’t you? You’re not trying to injure me in a practice bout.”
That won him a wide grin and a sparkle in those eyes that nearly had him on his knees then and there. “I won’t hurt you because there’s no way I can get so much as a touch, and we both know it. But I’ll accept your explanation.”
Aster leaned the broom up against the shed; he’d opened the door a bit, and Etallon stuck his head out and eyed them, flicking his ear and munching a wisp of hay. Far above them, a hawk cried shrilly. Otherwise the mountain rested in perfect peace.
Corin handed over one of the foils and took up a fencing stance.
A moment later Aster did the same, and then paused, looking down at Corin’s feet. “Don’t you want boots? The stone’s freezing still.”
Annoyance welled up, the same kind he’d used to feel when he’d been training a squire who’d be getting himself bloody killed if he tried to take on a real fight. Aster had to learn to keep his eyes on his opponent.
And so he lunged, lightning fast, and flicked the hem of Aster’s shirt with the blunted tip of his sword. Blunted or not, the edge caught and tore. Aster cried out and jumped back, raising his gaze and his own sword respectably fast but not fast enough.
Corin had already fallen back into a relaxed guard by the time Aster had reacted. He responded to Aster’s wounded look with an unrepentant grin. Fuck, but he’d missed this, and that morning’s two-minute duel had only whetted his appetite. Three seconds in, and his blood already sang with the joy of armed combat, no matter how uneven and unprofessional it might be. Far from making him uncomfortable, the rough, frigid stone under his bare feet felt like a conduit straight down to the center of the earth, with every stratum of rock between here and there only adding to his solidity and strength. At moments like this he could well believe that his kind sprang from the roots of mountains, formed from unyielding granite and magma and magic.
And the sword—the sword flowed from his arm, its natural extension, not a clumsy object to be maneuvered.
“Come on, then,” Corin said, sidestepping a little, circling, feeling out Aster’s stance. It’d been a long time since they’d been in a training yard together, but he seemed to remember Aster favored his left, overcompensating for his natural righthandedness. “Show me what you can do.”
Aster fell back, his footing tentative. “We hadn’t started yet, had we?”
