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The room felt cold, Damen shivered. He looked up. The post dug into the flesh of his arms where he was strapped down, something hard dug into the space where windpipe met chin.
‘Damianos,’ a high, cold voice wrapped its hands around his throat.
‘Laurent,’ Damen gasped. When he looked up, Laurent stood there, his Laurent, who was not his yet, glaring. His hair was shorter, his face icy.
‘Flay the Prince Killer,’ Laurent said, pale blue eyes boring through him, like he saw nothing of the man he loved there.
*
Damen woke in a jolt. He blinked, and his eyes blurred. He rubbed his eyes with one hand and made a choked, wet noise.
A small snuffle came from the man pressed against his chest. Laurent’s hair spilt out over his shoulders, blanched silver in the moonlight. His hair smelt of lavender, and Damen let the scent soothe him now.
‘’S wrong,’ Laurent whispered. Slow fingers sloped across Damen’s chest. A kiss pressed below his clavicle.
‘Nothing,’ Damen said, he sounded so certain he thought he would make it true. ‘Go back to sleep.’
‘You sleep,’ Laurent murmured, and sighed. His breathing slowed, as gentle as the breeze from the ocean. Damen brought his arms up about Laurent and held him, felt the familiar body against his own. It was always so strange to dream of Laurent, as Damen had first known him, and then awake to his lover.
Damen closed his eyes, and then sighed again, blinking them open in frustration. He carefully manoeuvred his way out from under Laurent, watched him curl up into the warm spot he had left behind like a cat in the sun, and then stepped out through the billowing curtains onto the balcony. He leant forward, forearms on stone, and breathed in deeply, letting the fresh, clean air freeze in his lungs.
He wished it smelt like salt, the way the air did from Ios, but Damen did not easily recall the last time he had been back in his childhood home and had never been adept at games of pretend. He looked down out onto the lands of Delpha – the fields and trees that seemed to go on forever – lit by the pale half-light of the stars.
The palace of Marlas was massive – it had to be to hold the courts of both Akielos and Vere – and the royal chambers were based particularly high up. This was a concession towards Veretian architecture, and Damen did not especially like feeling so dizzy when looking down on his new home.
The palace was built of marble, and gilded, with large painted ceilings, garish chandeliers, portraits and landscapes and tapestries disguising walls. In their chambers, Laurent had insisted on carpets that spanned from wall to wall, and while Damen did not entirely despise the gold and blue design that spanned across most of their rooms, he missed cool stone beneath his bare feet.
There had been carpets in Arles.
Not in the baths, not in his cell, but they had been there, itching around in his memory.
Damen sighed, and looked up. The moon was the same here as it was in Ios, the same in Arles, and he stared up at the wafer-thin slice of it now and prayed, as he had not in years.
The sun still had not begun to rise when Damen opened his eyes.
‘Damen?’ Laurent’s voice sounded from behind him, not quite alarmed, but not calm either.
‘I am here,’ Damen said.
Laurent appeared at the archway.
He brought the sheet with him, and it dripped from over his shoulders, dragging behind him, in a lazy shift of white, like he was wearing a bulky chiton, or, and Damen laughed to himself, pregnant. Laurent would not find that thought amusing, so Damen did not share the joke.
Laurent yawned, let one arched foot step in front of the other until he was standing beside him, ‘Why are you not in bed?’
‘I could not sleep,’ Damen said, truthfully.
Laurent blinked, stifled another yawn, and Damen smiled down at him. ‘Did you have to bring our bed with you?’
‘I am not like you Akielons,’ Laurent said, huffily. ‘I do not walk around outdoors naked, and my blood is not as hot.’
‘You don’t, do you?’ Damen teased, and Laurent rolled his eyes, grinning.
‘Well,’ he placed a hand on Damen’s arm, ‘Not without proper motivation, I’m afraid, lover.’
He lifted his head, and Damen kissed him. He was rewarded when Laurent dropped the sheet, and again when Laurent allowed Damen to back him up against the balcony and kneel between his ivory legs.
Damen looked up at him, at Laurent’s smiling eyes, at the rosy hint of flush across his cheeks, at the rush of wind in his hair. He looked ever so warm, pink in the night.
‘Again,’ the ice-cold voice said, watery over whatever Laurent’s real words had been. Damen shivered. The skin of his back itched with phantom pain.
He opened his mouth.
*
They had been married for almost three years the first time Laurent brought it up again. Damen had entered their chambers to a display of candles that near put their great hall to shame. There were vases of flowers across the mantle, and a platter of fruits beside the bed.
‘Do you recall,’ Laurent began, holding a tight grape to his lips, ‘what we spoke of in Mellos the first time we were there?’
Damen did not think he would ever forget Mellos, ‘I do.’
‘You remember,’ Laurent said, he bit down on the grape, ‘what you said of First Nights?’
Damen had kissed him then, and Laurent had smiled against his lips. It had been Laurent’s choice whether they would proceed past the realm of the imagination, once whispered between them when their relationship had been vulnerable and new, not because Damen was against it, but because as with any aspect of their sexual relationship, Laurent was a slow-moving creature.
It had been a long time since Damen had last thought of what his own First Night might bring.
‘On your front,’ Laurent said, biting Damen’s lip. ‘It will feel better that way.’
It was a bitter truth, one that would force Laurent to look upon Damen’s scarred back, and Damen did not relish that, nor his own inability to watch Laurent’s face. But Damen trusted Laurent, like he trusted no other man. He allowed Laurent to place him, allowed Laurent the control he needed to feel comfortable, and trusted that Laurent’s intimate knowledge of receiving would not have him lead Damen astray.
Damen felt Laurent’s hand spreading him, parted his legs wider at the push, and then closed his eyes and breathed out slowly as Laurent rubbed an oiled finger over his hole. Laurent stroked leisurely, a trace around Damen’s most intimate area, as though he was hypnotised by the very sight. The feeling was odd, and Damen shivered, not knowing whether it was from chill, or pleasure, or anticipation.
It built, until Laurent finally let a finger slip inside, a slow press that went deep, deeper than made any sense, and Damen clenched up with a gasp.
Oiled fingers forced inside him, his head and nostrils heavy with the scent of challis, as he was prepared with unfeeling hands for the ring.
‘Stop!' he wheezed, his lungs strangely empty, trying to pull free and giving a humiliating yelp of pain as he did so.
‘Damen,’ Laurent’s voice pitched, in a way that if Damen were thinking clearly would have him at once reaching out to comfort. Even the sound of Laurent’s panic seemed to make Damen’s chest ache less. ‘Damen, calm down, you’ll hurt yourself.’
Damen jerked forwards again, wincing as Laurent’s finger was dislodged - it felt like it ripped part of him as it retreated - and then panting on his front. His legs trembled, and his arse pulsed with a heartbeat, hot from pain. He let himself take several beats before attempting to move.
He rolled over, carefully, and checked himself for bleeding. Not that he could see.
Laurent sat on the very edge of the bed, one hand over his eyes, like he could not bear to look upon him. Damen sat up awkwardly, hissing through his teeth, and placed a hand over Laurent’s oiled one, where it was still pressed to the sheets.
He felt Laurent tense at the touch.
‘I am sorry,’ Damen said, when he felt like he could speak again. ‘Laurent, please, can you look at me?’
Laurent did not lift his head nor remove his arm.
It took much cajoling for Damen to make Laurent relinquish his spot of shame, and accept a spot beneath Damen’s arm, and only when Damen began to kiss across Laurent’s cheek did he finally look at Damen with horror.
‘I hurt you,’ he said, as though he had never hurt Damen before, as though it should be impossible. ‘I hurt you.’
‘It was not bad,’ Damen promised. He did not think he sounded as shaky as he felt. ‘And I told you, I have never, before.’
‘You did not like it,’ Laurent mumbled. He drew up his knees, sulkily.
‘I am not used to pain,’ Damen admitted. Twenty lashes, thirty. ‘Does it hurt when I—’
‘No,’ Laurent shook his head, adamant. ‘Never with your fingers. Sometimes… sometimes with your cock. When you pushed your hand inside me, too.'
Damen frowned, ‘I wish you would have told me.’
Laurent looked up at him, ‘I like it.’ He cupped Damen’s cheek with his clean hand. ‘Besides, I never knew sex without pain before you.’
‘That was not sex,’ Damen said. Laurent rolled his eyes and said nothing.
He wondered how Laurent could enjoy pain as Damen made love to him. Did he like to forget that it was Damen, his lover, in bed with him? Was it part of his childhood teaching to accept pain or else be punished for crying out that had been forced too deep? Or was it another part of his insistence that he did not require preparation or oil beforehand? Every way, Damen did not like it.
‘You did not like it,’ Laurent said, eventually, again.
Damen thought his response through. ‘I barely tried it,’ he said, truthfully.
‘Lover,’ Laurent half smiled, affection sweeping across his features, ‘If I cannot fit a full finger inside you, I certainly doubt that you will be able to actually try it.’
‘How do you do it?’ Damen asked. After all, if either one of them should by rights be unable to shake off the past, it was Laurent. Laurent, who had suffered longer and greater than Damen, who had had worse than a couple of oiled fingers shoved inside him by some stranger once, who had a reason to distrust intimacy, even with him.
Laurent frowned, like Damen were being obtuse, ‘I want you inside me. I want you to fuck me.’
‘But how?’ Damen asked. ‘You rubbed me, I was almost hard, and then it just…’ It had been strange, and the feeling had brought with it a rush of memories Damen had pushed aside years ago, and then it had been painful. ‘Hurt.’
Laurent opened his mouth, then stopped. ‘It doesn’t matter, we will not do this again.’
Damen blinked, bewildered, ‘No?’
‘No,’ Laurent said. ‘I like when you fuck me, I don’t… I shouldn’t have suggested we try.’
‘We both agreed to try,’ Damen said, stubbornly.
‘I don’t want to try again,’ Laurent said, meeting Damen’s eye. He had folded his arms.
Damen had vowed to never push Laurent. Their boundaries were his to set, and for that Laurent granted Damen the sole access to his private thoughts and self.
He kissed him, on the corner of his mouth, ‘As you wish.’
*
Berenger’s arrival at Marlas had Laurent smiling, which was enough to make Damen glad for his company, though the man himself seemed rather bland.
He was an adept rider, as befit a man who dealt in horseflesh. He rode a chestnut mare with a white star on her face, and often would take rides with Laurent in the early morning on occasions when Damen would listen to the court of common pleas and decide upon the actions that would be taken. Occasionally, that meant he would be deciding on behalf of a Veretian, but for the most part, Akielons remained the people who preferred this form of justice, and so Laurent was a rare presence. Not by choice, but because Damen could not both curb his lover’s tendency for the eccentric and think of solutions at once. It usually fell to Nikandros or Makedon to distract Laurent from attending when they visited, but Berenger made a welcome change for the former and a distinct object of competition for the latter.
Damen already understood that Berenger had been one of Laurent’s staunchest supporters in Arles, and was unsurprised that Laurent would reach out to the man to be a part of his council in Marlas. Vannes had taken a spot several years before, and Loyse and Guion’s eldest son had done the same. In some way, Damen had thought it more surprising that Laurent had waited that long to oust Jeurre from his post.
It was during this time, that Laurent confessed to Damen, with some excitement, that Lord Berenger of Varenne had been a close personal friend of Auguste’s and things had begun to slot into place.
And so, Damen would not ruin Laurent’s happiness, even if Berenger brought with him a certain red-haired pet.
*
‘My Lord,’ the voice came, hushed.
Damen stopped in his tracks, something cold prickling up his spine. He did not have to look to know who was just around the corner. Though he had not known he could pick the voice apart from any of the other insipid Veretian courtiers, but he could.
He stayed locked in place, unable to take a step forward into confrontation, or backwards into escape, listening.
‘Ancel,’ Berenger sighed. ‘I do not know, yet.’
‘Why?’ the pet demanded. ‘What is there to consider?’
‘My own mind,’ Berenger said, solemnly. ‘And my conscience.’
They turned the corner, arms linked, and Damen suddenly felt the weight of their gazes resting heavily against him. He swallowed, searched in the recesses of his mind for something, anything, to say.
‘Exalted,’ Berenger said, bowing. Ancel murmured something incomprehensibly and turned his face away.
‘Good afternoon,’ Damen managed. ‘Will the two of you be attending our meal with us this evening?’
Berenger’s eyebrows raised, ‘If you wish, Exalted, we should be honoured.’
When Damen reached the nearest balcony he inhaled in ragged succession, and once again, mourned the sea breeze of Ios. He missed it. He missed Nikandros. He missed his brother. He missed his father. He felt rain hit his arm and lifted his face, hoping the water would carry the salt from the sea, but there was nothing. He brought a hand up to his face, and his fingers came away damp.
That evening, Laurent sat at Damen’s right hand, and Berenger beside him. It blessedly meant Damen would have to lean comically far to catch more than a glimpse of Ancel, but Damen could still hear him, could hear his master say his name – ‘Ancel’, but soft, more like Ansal – and it made his skin feel sweaty.
‘Damen,’ Laurent lifted his mouth to his ear, ‘Are you feeling well?’
‘I am,’ Damen said.
‘You are not eating,’ Laurent said, with the air of someone who had not needed Damen to console him for years when he began to gain weight borne from good meals and contentment. Damen had barely noticed the change beyond where his hands did not overlap around Laurent’s middle anymore, but Laurent seemed to find himself hideous for a time, always picking himself apart for flaws only he could find. Damen wondered if Laurent even saw himself in the mirror, or if he only saw the creature he had been made to think he was.
Damen forced a few mouthfuls anyway. Everything tasted under-seasoned, yet overpowering, a strange stringy vegetable caught between his teeth.
He smiled, and Laurent squinted at him, as though he might see upon Damen’s face how little he cared for the dishes, but returned to his own meal and conversation.
‘I heard there is an initiative to build a monument,’ Vannes said to Damen’s other side.
She was not his typical preferred conversation partner, but for once Damen had no wish to be choosy.
‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘Where the battle was, so homage might be paid more easily, in remembrance of those who died there.’
Vannes chewed, fed Talik, and then said, ‘I see why the two of you like it, but it seems an unnecessary expense.’
They argued in that fairly good-natured way that meant Damen was unsure whether Vannes liked him or despised him and was merely good at concealing it. Either way, Damen was happy enough to talk with her and drink, for Laurent would not tolerate his countrymen poking fun at him.
He felt light in the head when he and Laurent did eventually leave the hall.
He saw Ancel looking at him then, his face adorned with paint, and his ears and wrists dripping with emeralds. He stared at Damen for, what felt like, several hours, before Laurent pulled him through the door.
‘You are breathing heavily,’ Laurent said, as they walked together.
‘Uh,’ Damen said, thickly.
‘Damen?’ Laurent turned to look at him and stopped. ‘Are you… crying?’
‘No,’ Damen said, he felt something dreadful rising in his chest. ‘I don’t—’
Laurent glanced around them, and then dragged Damen after him through the closest door, which turned out to be some kind of storage cupboard for the various tablecloths that were used in the hall.
‘What is wrong?’ Laurent pressed a hand to Damen’s cheek. He wiped at the skin methodically and then waited. ‘Damen?’
‘I don’t know,’ Damen said, hoarsely. He rubbed at his own eyes furiously.
‘What were you thinking about?’ Laurent did not drop the conversation. He instead pulled Damen’s face down to his neck and began to rub soothing circles into his back. That felt good. Then he said, ‘This is unlike you.’
His words made something strange twist inside of Damen. He squeezed his eyes tight. He was sure he had cried far more than Laurent through the duration of their relationship – he had cried over his father, and his brother, both, from injury and emotion, and Laurent had never spoken in such a way. Laurent might be of a more stoic breed, but Damen had not felt that Laurent judged him for weeping before.
His tears were salty on his tongue, that familiar taste.
‘Is it…’ Laurent seemed unwilling to offer it up. ‘You invited them to our table.’
Damen breathed carefully. ‘You waited to invite them to Marlas.’
‘I did,’ Laurent said. ‘I waited five years, lover.’
Five years. Surely it should not bring him to his knees after all that time. Time spent making new memories, laughing, and building a life with a Laurent who did not have him whipped or raped.
Anymore.
He had not even loved Jokaste for that long.
‘I know,’ Damen said, eventually.
*
When Damen woke with a start, sheets soaked, he was not surprised that the red-haired pet had skulked his way into his dreams. He had behaved like Laurent, had spoken with his voice, and had sucked Damen’s cock with all Laurent’s typical mannerisms while Damen had fought his invisible chains.
He lay awake until Laurent’s eyes blinked open with the dawn, and then he moved determinedly to lay between Laurent’s legs.
He sucked his way across Laurent’s chest, licking against his nipples, as Laurent arched into him, mumbling some soft encouragement that only his most relaxed state could bring about. He kissed his way down, burying his nose in the trail of hair that lead from Laurent’s navel to his cock. He kissed it, mouthed at it until it grew hard, and then let it slide down his throat.
Once Laurent had come, he blinked down at Damen, ‘Hello, lover.’
His smile was soft, and he glowed in the sunlight, and Damen drank him down a second time that morning.
‘Good morning,’ Damen said, resting his head on the meat of Laurent’s thigh. ‘Have I mentioned recently how glad I am that we agreed sleeping nude would be the norm in our shared kingdom?’
‘Not for a while,’ Laurent said, ruffling his fingers through Damen’s curls. ‘But I shall consider myself reminded.’
Damen lay there, satisfied, while Laurent tried to tame his hair. He kissed the spot beside Laurent’s groin.
‘I would like,’ Damen said. ‘To try and swap around again.’
Laurent’s smile froze, ‘Damen—’
‘I would,’ Damen said. ‘If you do not, then that is fine, we don’t have to, but—’
‘Damen,’ Laurent covered his mouth with his hand, ‘Do not ask this of me.’
‘I am not asking,’ Damen said, softly. He never would.
*
Another night he spent whipped, another where strange fingers shoved him open, another where Ancel sucked him. Jokaste’s voice, ’In another life’ as she fucked his brother and sold him as a slave and stole his nephew from him. Laurent’s ice-blue irises filling his vision as he spat poison.
Another day waking to Laurent’s bright eyes, and easy grins, and whispered jests.
It was like he lived two lives: torn apart between a past that cut him open and a present that could not heal it.
Damen wondered when it would stop.
*
‘Exalted,’ Paschal said, when Damen called upon him. ‘May I be of service?’
‘I had some questions,’ Damen said, slowly. ‘About… some. I have been having trouble sleeping’
He felt ridiculous. Like a child, running to his brother’s rooms, because he had dreamt again of being ripped apart like in one of the histories, or of getting lost like he had one day at the beach. Kastor would usually have a slave in his bed, occasionally he would take a lover – Damen remembered Tonios rather fondly – but when his brother came knocking, he would have them leave. He would take Damen by the hand, and lead him over to his bed, and let Damen talk, and then he would tuck Damen in beside him.
Was that not love? The question kept him up.
If it had been, how had it changed until Kastor would kill the boy he had once cared for? Was there something in loving Damen that held something intrinsically violent at its core? – perhaps he had been born that way; perhaps the people who loved him, hurt him, because he gave them no other choice.
‘I can give you a draught for sleep,’ Paschal said. ‘Or... is there something causing it?’
Damen sat, ‘Paschal… I dream of things long since passed, and when I wake, I feel… flayed.’
‘I see,’ Paschal said. ‘What sort of dreams?’
‘Of Arles,’ Damen whispered. ‘The first time.’
‘Oh,’ Paschal looked surprised, and then irritatingly sympathetic. ‘Do you feel stressed, Exalted?’
‘Stressed?’ Damen repeated. He remembered the flash of fear as Laurent pushed inside him, he remembered Ancel. ‘Sometimes.’
‘It could be that,’ Paschal said. ‘I’m afraid I deal very little with the realm of nightmares, Exalted. Try taking baths, having massages, even exercising might help - anything to clear your mind and relax you. Perhaps talking of your dreams in the daytime too.’
‘Perhaps,’ Damen said. He could not tell Laurent, despite what Paschal seemed to be hinting.
How could he? How could he accuse Laurent, from whom he had stripped away a brother and shield, of hurting him? How could he tell Laurent that beneath the years of companionship and love, that Damen harboured a resentment for things left unburied?
Laurent was the one who had lost his brother to Damen’s sword. Laurent was the one who had been molested. Laurent was the one who deserved comfort and protection and the choice of what they did in bed.
Damen smelt Ancel’s jasmine scent in the hall and shivered.
*
That night, Damen dreamed of pale sand and waves.
He raced across the beaches with Nikandros and Kastor and Lydos, he jumped from the white cliffs, and sat on his father’s lap, sipping the wine from his cup when he looked away.
When he turned and saw Laurent at his side, leaning out over the marble balcony, laurels pressed to his hair, he smiled. His back was free of mutilation, he could stretch freely, and he could feel Laurent’s fingers move without catching on rough tissue.
The sea, the sun, the wild years of his youth at the tips of his fingers, unmarred by slavery and stabbings and scars.
His father kissed his cheeks, and then Laurent’s in turn – a strange distortion where a woman had stood before. Kastor slapped his shoulder, wrapped an arm around him and whispered long-forgotten brotherly things against his ear. Hypermenestra placed more laurels against his hair. 'Exalted,' she said.
When he woke, he was weeping, the wine turned to salt water on his tongue.
Laurent slept on.