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Kaladin sat on the edge of the bed as he laced his boots. He winced when he shifted his weight, as the mattress squeaked under his buttocks. Storming bouncy lighteyes' beds and whatever they stuffed in them to make them so plush.
"I don't understand," said a soft, feminine voice. Syl appeared in a mote of blue light on Kaladin's shoulder; he only saw the glow from the corner of his eye. "I thought this made you happy. Why go?"
Kaladin set his jaw. "I thought I told you not to watch," he mumbled. "It's creepy."
He finished the second boot, securing it with a double knot, then stood slowly so not to make more noise.
"I didn't! I swear on my honor," said Syl. She paused for a chuckle that never came from Kaladin. "Sometimes I… It's nice to see you sleep peacefully. I check in. After all the gross human oozing is out of the way."
Face buried between Shallan's legs, working her to climax with his tongue. Adolin's fingers through his hair. Shallan's thighs squeezed the sides of Kaladin's head like a vice while she whimpered. He was lost in her. Her taste, the way her body responded to his. He was caught in the storm of this woman, and he welcomed the rain.
Kaladin hated how he blushed when Syl stirred up the memory. He began picking through the discarded clothes on the floor, looking for his shirt and coat. It was hard to tell his from Adolin's in the dark. They had both been wearing blue. "I'll sleep when I'm back in my room."
"Alone?"
"I sleep alone almost every storming night. It's fine." Frustration building, he raised his voice as he spoke, then bit his tongue.
He looked towards the two figures sleeping in the bed. Adolin and Shallan, tangled in a mess of limbs and blankets.
He needed to get out of here before he—or Syl—woke one of them.
Adolin snored, and Kaladin smiled softly at that. Hard task, waking that one. Then Kaladin caught himself and forced back a frown—he couldn't make this harder for himself. This was why he needed to get away, so he could steel himself away from their presence. Work up the spine to end things.
"But you don't sleep well," said Syl. "Not when you're alone. You can't hide that from me, Kal."
"I need you," Shallan pleaded. She caressed Kaladin's cheek with her safehand. He kissed the tips of her fingers as they drew close to his lips. "Need you inside me."
He obliged her with two fingers, which slid in with ease. She was so wet. Her walls still twitching from her last orgasm. He crooked them at the angle he knew she loved and pumped into her. Shallan practically screamed.
"I'll manage." Kaladin had a bed to himself in his private quarters. That was a luxury he didn't take for granted, anymore.
Syl flitted from her perch on his shoulder and circled above the sleeping Adolin and Shallan, bathing them in cool blue. "Look! There's room for you can wiggle up between them still. The sheets look sooo soft. If I could feel frivolous things like fabric and feathers, I would be swimming in here."
Kaladin didn't know if she was only visible to him right now, or if the light coming from her form risked waking the other two.
"Syl!"
Then came Adolin again, pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses to Kaladin's back. Kaladin turned his head to him, and Adolin licked at the traces of Shallan left around Kaladin's mouth. Kaladin was a messy eater, and these two loved him for it. Then Adolin reached for Kaladin's chest and tweaked at both nipples. "Come on baby, give her more." A hand traveled down to grasp Kaladin's erect cock. "Something bigger."
Kaladin let out a moan. These two would be the end of him.
Kaladin had been too loud scolding Syl this time. Shallan shot up in bed, back snapped straight. Her eyes betrayed fear, and she looked wildly back and forth until she saw and recognized Kaladin.
"Oh," she said. "I remember you wearing less clothes than that."
"Want to watch you fuck my wife, want to watch you come in my wife." Adolin rutted against Kaladin's ass, his own cock hard and weeping precome. "Please baby. I want to taste you when I eat her out next."
Shallan let out a low groan at the implication that Adolin planned to keep going after Kaladin finished with her.
And then, through the haze of lust came a moment of clarity. "I can't," Kaladin said. No matter what they called this relationship between them, Shallan was Adolin's wife. Kaladin didn't even know what precautions the two were taking, if any.
"Of course you can." Shallan spread her legs wider for him, showing off her arousal while her cheeks blushed red. "This is all for you."
Adolin lined up Kaladin's cock for him, bringing the weeping tip against her folds. With his free hand, Adolin massaged at the back of Kaladin's neck, coaxing him to blissful relaxation.
Shallan and Adolin made Kaladin weak, because he let the urge to press his concern melt away under Adolin's touch. At the sight of Shallan before him, begging to take him in.
"Go back to sleep," said Kaladin, quietly.
Shallan gave him a forced half-smile. "Did you know that Wit once told me a story about a princess who had to hurry home before the night turned, for otherwise the her lightwoven gown would run out of stormlight, and she'd appear before everyone back in rags?"
"No? Why would I know that?"
"Are you our princess, running home before the illusion fades and you're no longer the dashingly handsome man I see before me?" Shallan swept the empty space beside her, parting the blankets to beckon Kaladin back in. "I think not. You're no Lightweaver, Kal."
Kaladin felt a tightness in his chest. "I'm not. I belong to the skies." He took a step back towards the window. It would be a shorter flight back to his own room than walk.
But Shallan just grinned full. She began to climb out the bed, revealing her nakedness as she crawled out the blanket. "I could use some fresh air."
Kaladin sank into her. Storms, it had been so long since he felt a woman like this. Adolin gripped his ass, urging him deeper.
"Just like that," Adolin murmured. "You're always so tense—you need to unwind."
"Oh honey," Shallan started, voice raspy from her cries. "Don't you know what happens to members in—ah!—tension when they finally let go?"
Both Kaladin and Adolin let out a "What?", which made Shallan chuckle.
She hooked her legs so her heels were pressed to the small of Kaladin's back. "They snap."
Kaladin glanced away from Shallan, feeling like a prude at the sight of her. He couldn't look at her breasts, despite having one of them in his mouth just hours ago. He wished he'd woken Adolin instead. Adolin would've just rolled back to sleep. "I'm not bringing you out flying with no clothes on."
Shallan stood. "I'll put on a shift." Then she added before Kaladin could retort, "And a glove."
"I'm not coming back, Shallan."
She looked down, just noticing his boots were on. Laces tied. "You aren't…" She frowned.
Kaladin's hips snapped forward. Shallan tightened and pulsed around him, moaning incoherently. Kaladin had lost count of how many times she'd climaxed this night; he and Adolin could get competitive about that, to her delight.
He was getting close.
Adolin was holding him from behind. He murmured encouragement in Kaladin's ear and rubbed his shoulders like he was coaching Kaladin to enter a duel.
Kaladin was at the tip of the chasm edge, ready to plunge towards his pleasure, and then—
Clarity returned. He needed to pull out.
But he was sandwiched between the two; guided by the momentum of Adolin humping behind him, Kaladin came, spilling into Shallan. Elbows shaking where he'd braced his hands at the sides of her head. The feeling was weak, overwhelmed by his racing pulse as he realized he was too late, and his veins went to ice.
"It's not very honorable to finish in a woman and then steal away into the night," said Shallan. She swayed back and forth on her feet.
Kaladin's throat grew thick. It was too soon for this. "That was a mistake. And it's not going to happen again, ever."
She came closer, putting a hand on his arm. "Nonsense. I'm asking you not to go. That's the opposite of come!" She smiled, "I'm also asking you to take off your boots again."
Kaladin pulled away. "I mean it, Shallan."
Kaladin rolled over onto his back.
Adolin surged forward, filling the void left by Kaladin with his mouth. Shallan laughed and asked him to kiss her when she was done, so she could have a taste too. She reached to touch Kaladin's shoulder with her safehand when she said that.
With each moment, Kaladin felt an invisible stone being placed on his chest. One by one, stacked to crush the air out of him.
He just came unprotected in a lighteyed woman. One who was married to a prince. Kaladin was a storming surgeon's son; he knew better—he'd been taught better—than to take that kind of risk. It only took one night and a stroke of bad luck to conceive bastard, even with precautions.
He imagined paying for that misstep with his head, forgetting that his radiance would make the noose around his neck moot.
Their arguing woke Adolin, who sat up sleepily. He rubbed a hand over his face and propped himself on his elbows. "Neither of you are glowing, so I'm assuming no one's dying."
"Kal isn't staying the night," said Shallan. Or was that Veil bleeding through? Her tone was harder, almost an accusation. Her face and hair should've changed, but maybe Shallan's alters didn't like appearing nude.
"Why not? Do we need to get another blanket?"
Kaladin cleared his throat. "We can't do this anymore."
After she'd had enough, Shallan announced that she needed to pee and waddled off to the bathroom. Kaladin still lay on his back, mapping out the veins of stone webbed into the ceiling's strata. Whenever he curled up here with Shallan, she'd point out the different shapes of spren that could be traced from the patterns; Kaladin never saw them on his own.
Adolin snuggled up to Kaladin, putting his head on the other's chest. "That's all you."
"What?"
"Shallan hardly being able to walk," said Adolin with a smirk. He twirled a strand of Kaladin's hair, and it sent a pleasant shiver through Kaladin's scalp. "You're so good to her."
Adolin stroked near Kaladin's temple and pecked his cheek. "Don't let us forget to spoil you, too."
Strange thing to say considering what they let Kaladin do tonight. "Mm."
"I mean it. You need to relax more. Leave all that weight on your shoulders at the door. When you're in our bed, none of that exists, got it?"
Adolin started, "Kal, if you're having one of those nights—"
"Don't," said Kaladin. "This isn't because there's something wrong with me."
Shallan frowned, "He didn't say that."
Kaladin didn't like that this was two against one. Syl had gone quiet—this was beyond her—but Kaladin could at least feel her presence through their bond. It was a faint, warm comfort.
So he continued, "What happened was reckless. If we can't act in a way that doesn't risk our necks then we shouldn't act on our… impulses at all."
A beam of moonlight from the window cut a chasm between the three of them. Twisting crosses of anxietyspren circled Adolin and Shallan. Adolin took a breath and said, "Right, we hadn't talked about you and Shallan. So let's talk about it now. We don't have to throw this away over just one night."
Kaladin scoffed, "Just one night. You're so used to your actions not having consequences, that you'd forgotten that they storming existed."
"And what of it?" Shallan snapped. "Adolin and I have not broken the marital oaths that we made to each other—we didn't promise to possess each other. Under the eyes of the Almighty, we are not adulterers. What's left of the Vorin church cannot harm us." She looked down, clutching her hair and twisting at it. "This is not a good time for children—we could've thought more of that—but I wouldn't be ashamed to bear yours."
Adolin took her hand and nodded in agreement, jaw set resolute. He met Kaladin's eyes like he was challenging him to respond.
It hurt for Kaladin to say, "You really think it would be that easy?"
He wished it could be. He wished that the loss of his burden was more than just a mirage, this lightweaving of Shallan and Adolin's design.
"The world is changing, because of us," Shallan offered.
"Kal, do you really not trust me as much as I trust you?" said Adolin weakly.
Kaladin wanted to say that, if only it were up to Adolin and Shallan, and them alone. He remembered his demand for a boon from the King; Kaladin had already stretched the good will of lighteyes' and watched it snap before his eyes. He couldn't afford to return to the dark place where that had led him, where the pain of betrayal had him nearly break his oaths. His men couldn't afford for Kaladin to be brought so low again. Roshar couldn't.
Kaladin shook his head and walked backwards.
He stepped off the window ledge into the cold night air. He took a small respite in the feeling of weightlessness in his heart before he lashed himself up and flew away.