Loved Him to Death: Haru of Sachoné House will be up on Freya's Bower sometime this month, depending on proofreaders. I've settled on the following blurb:
Haru , merchant prince of Sachoné House, sails into the port of Verdant on a day when Ardu magic normally rejects outsiders of the faith. Despite that he is an infidel, Haru is chosen to be the next Oradhé, the holy man who must act as a dragon god’s conscience. To Haru’s dismay, the price exacted for this duty will be his eyes burned from his sockets.
Haru’s struggle to retain his sight becomes a profound battle to preserve his spirit, for he must resist not only Verdant tradition, but the questionable advances of Intana, the dragon god. All the while, the shark deity of Haru’s people lurks in the water and observes. Vaal of the Depths has plans for Verdant, for Intana, and for Haru as well.
And here is an excerpt (warning: adult/mm content):
Intana re-entered my cabin and stood at the foot of the bed without speaking. I looked toward him. He carried the seal one-handed, dangling at his side. Water dripped from his limbs. Silvery blood coated his chest, trickling from a curved mark beneath the collarbones.
I wondered how his life fluid tasted. Had it been Intana’s blood in my mouth last night? I didn’t think so. This morning, my lower lip had been sore. I had no doubt caught it against one of his sharper teeth.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Vaal spat the seal back out at me. Don’t laugh.”
“I’m not laughing. Are you badly hurt?”
“What do you care?”
“Enough to wish to ease your pain. Are you badly hurt?”
“No. He only knocked the breath from me.” Intana shoved the seal into a crevice between my desk and wardrobe. A too-heavy clunk warned of possible damage to the flooring, but I heeded only the shape of his flank, the way the grey cloths draped his buttocks and shaft. Wetness made the fabric cling to him.
“Why did Vaal send you, of all men?” he demanded, turning toward me, and damn, but I could have worshipped him on my knees, all because of damp, grey silk. “There are plenty of mortals that could have loved me, and more easily.”
“Why didn’t you ask Vaal this?”
“Because he chased me back onto this ship.”
“Are you sure He didn’t merely want to kiss you?”
“Not when his kiss would have swallowed me whole. I cannot defeat him in this meagre shape.”
“Defeat Him? Is it necessary to defeat Him to be His lover?”
“Don’t purposely misunderstand everything I say.”
I walked to the fallen chair and righted it. “Sit.”
“Why?”
“Just sit. I will see to your injury.”
He sat, and I fetched a cloth and came forward to swipe the moisture and blood from his chest. Some of the cuts were deep, but they became less deep as I watched.
“You heal quickly.”
“It helps that you care enough for me to do so.”
I frowned, my motions halting. “Is this how it works? Mortals must care, and thus you are strong?” He didn’t respond. I dared a quick glance at his face, caught a disconcerted expression. “You didn’t mean to say it,” I concluded. “I won’t tell your secret.”
“You could use it to hurt all of us. Even your Vaal.”
“And before that, how many of my people would have to die before our lack of caring weakened Him?”
“A great many,” Intana admitted.
“I don’t care to let more of my people die needlessly.” I dabbed some more blood from his skin, set the cloth aside. I stood, frozen, facing my desk. Thoughts grew in my mind, sprouted and formed seeds of new thoughts, and the vines that grew had thorns. “Who set Celestial Dome in the harbour, Intana?”
“My father. Why?”
“For what purpose did he set it there?”
“He called it the second egg from which I must hatch. Come back here to me.”
I felt his hand on my left wrist. He tugged me down onto his lap. My lips first, my cheek and neck he kissed, then the nipple almost trapped within Little Brother’s circle. Back up to my lips he came and took them another time. My eyes remained open, but I did not let them focus.
“Why won’t you love me easily, Haru of the Brellin?” he murmured against me.
I didn’t answer. His hand had set upon my shaft and taken the breath from me. My eyelids drifted half shut.
“I felt you walking to the dome before you set your foot upon the cerulean path,” he whispered beneath my ear, kneading my shaft through silk while I draped his lap and could only listen and feel. “You walk with power, Haru, but your tread isn’t heavy. It’s barely noticeable, so light, yet potent enough to make me shiver with each step you take. I think I only noticed you because you were to be my Oradhé. If not for that, I wouldn’t have known you’d come into harbour.”
A sharp tug on the attachment of my trousers loosened them.
“I felt my father’s guardians try to repel you. You were a strange force rippling upon their perception, a blur, a gentle cloud, too vague for me to spy through their marble eyes. And then, when you drew closer, you slipped from their view somehow.
“Someone was with you, someone that called you Choné. His voice echoed all the way through the tunnels to me, but no one else heard.”
“Impossible,” I murmured.
“It happened,” he insisted. “I heard him name you, but it wasn’t your name. Your name is the one a dream boy speaks when your lips travel down his belly to his groin.”
“There are no sounds in that dream.”
“I hear them. I hear them all. The noises you make. The noises he makes. The birds that called in the air overhead, the surf on the sand, the movement of your bodies on the bed of fronds.”
His fingers closed around my bare shaft. My hips moved without volition. His touch tingled, almost sharp the sensation, hurtful, angry, but I wanted it, wanted so badly I moaned and turned my face in toward his shoulder.
My lips opened. My tongue peeked through to taste flesh luminous even in shadows. His hand squeezed a little harder, and I stiffened, jerking away before I had kissed his skin. A small noise escaped from my throat again. Lips brushed mine, but retreated before I could capture them properly.
And then words came to crush the passion from my body.
“In your dream, there is a shark in the water, grinding his teeth.”
I gasped. My eyes flew open, fixed full on him. “You lie!”
“I don’t. There’s a shark in the water now, grinding his teeth again. What are you to Vaal, Haru? How did you bring him into this harbour, past my father’s warding magic and without me noticing?”
I struggled off his lap, landed on his feet and rolled off. “What am I to Vaal?” I repeated, up on my knees, my left hand yanking to rights my trousers. “What are you to Vaal? Have you never thought to wonder that Little Brother lies in wait beneath Celestial Dome or its path?”
He frowned at me. “What does it matter that insignificant harbour sharks ply for a meal there?”
“Insignificant?” I couldn’t believe he was so dense. “Vaal’s favoured minions watch you for generations of Oradhé, and you never think to question why?”
“You tell me why,” he retorted. “You with Vaal’s body on your heart!”
“Little Brother’s!”
“Vaal’s!” He shot to a stand, hauled me up and shook me. “Vaal’s mark! Vaal brought you here, made the winds and the waves move to speed you to Verdant at the right time, a man that cannot love me without reservation. His body almost seals your heart! He sent me a man with his soul in a cage!”
“And you accepted me despite it! Has your father’s power over you waned so much?”
His expression lost the edge of accusation and became long with dismay, and though I looked full at him, I was too preoccupied to see the true Intana. Thoughts, seeds, more thoughts. They developed into a bramble patch that climbed to a peak.
A figure shadowed the open door of my cabin, and the brambles withered back. But I had already seen over the edge. My hands felt the cuts of the climb.
Vaal. What have You done?
“Lord?”
“What is it?” I looked at my first mate.
“Uncle is in the harbour, Lord, and the people of Verdant stand on the docks, shouting toward us.”
“What do they shout?”
“I think for you to make Silver Hair chase Uncle from the harbour.”
I laughed, then stopped. With a smile freezing into a grim line, I stalked from the cabin, even yet holding my trousers in position, and went to the rail of the ship. This time, when I looked upon “Uncle”, I did not flinch away. |
