If I Have Freedom in My Love -- First Half

[dardrea]

This is Part III of In the Bleak Mid-winter, my Van lives!, Stefen isn't taken to Haven but ends up a literal bought-and-sold slave of Leareth, and meets Van when he heads north to avenge Savil...fic. Part II is Angels We Have Heard, in which Van, recovering from the end of In the Bleak Mid-Winter in Haven, feels through the lifebond that Stefen is contemplating doing Something Bad to himself and heads to the city where he's living to stop him and try to make him feel better. 

In this installment, If I Have Freedom in My Love, a few more months have passed and Stefen is feeling at loose ends, not sure what to do about the lifebond or with himself now that he's free from Leareth/Master Dark, so he follows Van to Haven to ask basically both of those things. Van has had waaay too much time to think, and accordingly, says about the worst things possible. This starts dark, really dark, with one of Stefen's nightmares. The rest is not as dark, I promise? Although Stef is running around, trying to find someone to sleep with, basically to try to distract himself from his attempt to get off dreamerie. 

So...trigger warnings for everything? Stefen is a child sex abuse survivor and drug addict trying to get clean and deal with his memories and figure out what feels like a very hopeless future. This installment is told entirely from Stefen's POV, no back and forth like I did in the first two parts, this needed to be too focused on Stef for that. My actual intent with this installment was to end with Stefen having an idea of how he wants to go forward. 

Chapter 1

Stefen was cold…

‘Course you are, you git, where’re your clothes?

Didn’t matter. His arms wrapped around himself, on his knees, he was at his master’s feet, where he liked to be best in all the world.

—no—not… that wasn’t true.

When a hand reached out and fisted in his hair, gods, it was good, when it twisted until his scalp burned and his eyes teared, and jerked his head back, offering his throat like a sacrifice…

—just fucking slice it open then, you godsdamned fucker, and stop playing—

“My Stef.” It wasn’t his master’s voice.

His eyes shot open in horror—the Herald? What?

He laughed at Stefen’s shock, an unkind sound for such a “great man.” What did he want? He hadn’t fucked him when he’d had the chance—

And he laughed again, using his grip to pull Stefen to his feet, neck and back straining to keep up with the tearing at his scalp. “Are you saying I don’t still have the chance? I think you’re wrong.” He lightly tapped his index finger to Stefen’s lips, and trailed it down the center of his bared neck to his sternum.

—I don’t owe you shit. Not if I say I don’t—

The Herald caught him by the throat and kissed him, hard, taking, and it was like every time before, every time Dark—no, the Herald—no, Dark had—

He whimpered. The memories were a sour, burning gall. The Herald wasn’t supposed to be like this. The Herald was a hero. He was a saint. So fucking moral a little shite like Stefen didn’t have a chance.

He had to respond, he had to pour himself out, helplessly, a thousand times over until there was nothing left of him and he was empty, soulless as one of Dark’s toys. The voice in his head said so, the part of him the Herald owned now, more even than Dark had owned him before.

He wept, and he couldn’t breathe with the tears, the damned sniveling, but he went soft in the Herald’s arms. Maybe if he didn’t fight it, maybe if he tried to be nice, the Herald would be nice too? Or at least gentler? Maybe he wouldn’t hurt him so bad this time? His stomach heaved.

The Herald pulled his mouth from Stefen’s and set his teeth on his neck instead, giving him a single, sharp bite that he felt like he’d grabbed his privates and squeezed, drawing that same, shameful response. “Oh, sweet Stef, I’m going to be very nice to you…” he promised. His voice bleeding into Dark’s. Bleeding into Renden’s. Tan’s. Into the voices of two disgusting old men, trundling north in an enclosed cart with a terrified child.

Stop whining and be nice, boy. Because we have something very nice for you.

Fuck that, no! Not this time.

All he could manage was a whispered, childish, “Please,” and he truthfully couldn’t even say what he was pleading for, since it had never worked before anyway.

But in response the Herald caught his face and forced him to meet his eyes, silver, sharp and cold. How could Stefen have ever thought eyes that snowy-pale could look warm? He smiled, but it was Dark’s smile, so familiar, so full of terrible promises. Stefen shuddered, knowing how helpless he was. The Herald was in his head. The Herald had him.

“We have you,” the Herald corrected with that gentleness that never meant what it promised.

“Oh, Stef, my Stef. Did you really think I wouldn’t come back from anything, even death, to remind you where you belong?”

He wanted to scream but his whole body had gone stiff; the words, that voice, was the caress of ice down his spine, the press of a blade down the length of his bare back. If it didn’t lay him open this time, it would the next time, or the time after that. He couldn’t breathe, the hands claiming his hips from behind while the Herald held his face and smiled that smile, seemed to steal even that much of his will from him.

It’s a dream! Dark didn’t survive, the Herald isn’t like this, it’s a dream!

He felt the press of his master’s body at his back, so familiar, so possessive. The Herald in front of him, keeping him sandwiched between them, with warmth, with the promise of so much pleasure—and far too much pain—between their bodies.

No. It’s not real! Stop this, you idiot.

But he felt himself give in to it. The Herald claimed his mouth in another brutal kiss and Master Dark took the Herald’s place at Stefen’s neck and nuzzled and sucked and bit and neither would give him even enough space to freely draw in a breath.

The fuck are you doing? Do you want this? Are you that pathetic that this is what you need?

Both of them, his masters, wrapped their arms around him, holding him captive. Caged, in his head and outside it.

No! He didn’t want this, not any of it!

“But Stef!” Master Dark murmured, brushing hair away from his ear. “Damen’s been waiting for you to join us.”

The revulsion of that—Damen, back in Master Dark’s clutches when at the very least his death should have freed him from that awful possibility—was too overwhelming, too staggering to let what he’d known was a nightmare to continue.

~~~

He gasped; his lungs burning. Maybe he really had been holding his breath.

And no wonder he was cold, he’d kicked his blanket off and lay on his cot in just his smallclothes, because he’d washed the rest of his things and had stupidly thought he’d be okay letting them dry out while he was under a blanket.

Rather than reach for it he rolled from the cot into a crouch on the ground beside it and pressed his head to his knees while he fought to steady himself. His hands shook, he could feel the tremors through his whole body, and he knew the blanket wouldn’t have been enough now. The cold was inside him. He wasn’t sure it wouldn’t always be.

He raked his hands through his hair, wincing at the pull and then trying to disentangle himself in a near-panic. Some things didn’t really get easier, even for familiarity.

Mother Caenis had gently suggested he’d have an easier time reclaiming his senses from the dreamerie if he took himself out of the shack where his mother figure had killed herself with the same poison. As if the joke wasn’t on her for that; he hadn’t ever thought of Berte as his ‘mother.’

He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, trying to banish images that weren’t there, and they didn’t have anything to do with Berte.

For that, and other reasons, he’d thought the priestess’ efforts with him were naïve at best, but since she’d offered a room in the temple as substitute, and for no coin and only a light bit of work around the place when he wasn’t singing, he’d taken her up. He’d needed something to busy himself anyway, gods knew he hadn’t had a new song in him since he’d made this stupid, self-righteous resolution to lay off the dreamerie.

He groaned and gathered the blanket up off the floor and tossed it at the far wall, but it unfolded in the air and didn’t even make it that small distance—and his room here was half the size the shack was.

He could feel too well how many hours there were between him and dawn.

His clothes were still damp, but he dragged them back on anyway, what’d it matter? If he didn’t start moving he might never and he wasn’t ready for that, most days. There was always work to be done around the temple, floors to sweep, holy relics to dust, oil lamps to refill, hells, those stupid candles to dip, though he hadn’t been much good at that and he doubted Mother Caenis would trust him at it again even if he’d had a mind to argue it with her. And he did not.

He slipped out of his room and despite his certainty that the cold of the early hours couldn’t be colder than the chill touch of his nightmares, he shivered in his wet clothes. Chores, something to busy his hands and distract his mind. He was going to fall over flat of exhaustion one day soon, but what was he supposed to do?

He still had a stash and he knew where to get more. There were nightmares on dreamerie sure, but not half as many as now he was trying to wean off it. At least then he’d be able to sleep. Oblivion was better than hell, wasn’t it?

He fought down an urge to let the door slam—again—knowing he’d wake the sisters just down the hall. More than sympathy for their rest, he’d rather avoid the pitying looks later. They’d come anyway, but at least if they couldn’t know when he’d given up on his sleep maybe they wouldn’t look as sad when they didn’t think he could see.

~~~

He sang for a while, bloody songs, battle hymns, songs of spurned loves and vengeful lovers. He was careful to keep anything extra out of it, but music was its own magic and screw it all anyway, if he felt like singing about worlds burning down and blades wet with blood, he was fucking allowed.

He quit before he was ready, but he could feel the tensions rising with his own and he didn’t particularly want to start a riot. Though if all the gutless guttersnipes like him finally stood up for themselves and started tearing the high houses down—the Heralds would have to come in to settle things, wouldn’t they? Wouldn’t that be a fine sight, watching him squash the all the poor buggers like he’d squashed Rendan’s men. Probably a lot of them deserved it just as a much. A service all around.

He sighed in annoyance with himself but put his lady back in her case with a tender hand he couldn’t have kept with anyone or anything else as the crowd and all their energy dispersed around him.

He shouldered the case and counted out his haul. No dreamerie was an easier resolution to keep in the middle of the day, surrounded by noise and people and his music at his back and still in his ears. He was done being an owned man.

Didn’t mean he couldn’t have a drink or two though, and he sure wasn’t ready to head back to the temple and face Mother Caenis and her sisters.

~~~

He wasn’t in the mood for ‘nice’ of any sort, so he kept to his side of the river—though he was living on the other side now he was holing up in a monk’s cell of all great, mad ironies. But he wasn’t a fool, he knew where his kind belonged and maybe he’d could clear his head if he spent some time remembering that.

There was a tavern, seediest in town, propped up between two of the big houses. It didn’t even have a name; some locals called it The Between, but no one thought that was its proper name, which was fine, since it wasn’t a proper place. You could buy dreamerie there, though he wouldn’t, and just about anything else, but he intended to stay clear of all but the most plebeian drinks the barkeep poured out from behind his station.

He was an old man, skeletally thin, with sharp eyes and a mouthful of big, yellow, wolfish teeth. Every other morning, and always on Sundays, he’d pay his respects at the temple, but no one ever saw him outside his bar other than that, for anything, and no one knew quite what his business at the temple was, but no one Stefen had ever heard whispering about it actually bought it had anything to do with piety.

It was dark and close and dirty, too many tables and chairs in such a small place and the ground vibrated with the music bleeding over from the belowstairs taprooms on either side of it. People didn’t come here for music and other than those competing rhythms he could feel through his feet, there was only the drone of drinking and quiet conversation.

He nodded at the old man as he took a stool at the bar, careful how he set his arms on the sticky wood. If you didn’t ask for anything special, and quick about it, it was beer you got and that was fine. Couldn’t say much for the taste of it but it was better than his alternatives.

“H’aint seen you in a while.”

Stefen looked up in surprise. Keep—not his name, but Stefen didn’t know what it was, and like the name of his bar, it was good enough for most—Keep didn’t talk much. But for all his surprising overture, he’d already wandered away to the other end of the bar, wiping out mugs and stacking them.

Someone bumped his other side and he’d have turned on them with his knife out but—

“Oop! Sorry, mate. Lemme buy you a drink to make up?”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. He rolled his eyes. Maybe someone’d stuck a sign to his back or something. He turned, and found a young, leering stranger, a noble, slumming and thinking he’d dressed to disguise his wealth, but Stefen could smell the money on him.

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell the bastard off, but… he wasn’t half-bad looking for an uppity, inbred toff. The gold in his hair as bright as the gold that was no doubt in his purse, and his eyes a pleasant enough green. He was a bit thick, a bit soft, but not unhandsome for it, and he had a nice face, even if his eyes were greedy.

Stefen was being damned good. He was keeping off the stuff, even though he was sure now that the effort was going to kill him. He deserved to have something to get him through the night, if it couldn’t be a good, restful sleep.

He tried to drum his fingers on the bar but it was too tacky and muffled the rhythm he’d been going for, but he smiled at the stupid toff anyway. “Nah,” he said, holding the smile and waiting until the other man’s eager grin fell. “But I’ll let you buy us a room.”

 

Chapter 2

He let his new friend pick the place, his ego soothed by the wondering looks he kept sneaking at him. In spite of his money he clearly hadn’t expected Stefen to take him up on his clumsy pass and it was almost, what, cute? –how flustered and eager he was once Stefen had gone along.

He had to have at least a handful of years on Stefen but he sure as fuck didn’t act like it. Honestly though, that was fine too. Appreciative was good—better than he’d had in a long time—and boyish fumbling sounded more his speed at the moment than a confidence that would only remind him of—

He wasn’t letting himself think about them.

Moments after disappearing to arrange the room and leading him up to it, his new friend was closing the door behind them. He started to say something but Stefen grabbed him by the back of the neck and kissed him.

Young m’lord went stiff as a virgin for an instant, and Stefen wondered if it was his first time kissing another man. He knew that on the other side of the river they had more time for worrying about what others got up to in their bedchambers, but to his relief it seemed only to have been nervousness. After a moment the young noble wrapped his arms around him and pulled him close, leaning into the kiss.

 Not bad. He’d had better but he’d had worse. He should feel guilty, he was definitely about to spoil the young man for anyone who came after him. He smiled as he kissed him, and ran his hand up to tangle in the gold-colored hair, guiding him away from the door, closer to the bed.

—where his master was already waiting, sprawled out and grinning—

He tore his lips away from the confused youth and turned on the bed, breathing fast, panicked, hardly conscious of how he’d angled his body back behind the other man, instinctively trying to hide himself.

Fuck.

Nicer than he needed to be, the noble let him hide, even putting himself a little more where Stefen had unthinkingly shoved him, between himself and the bed, his head twisting, his eyes wide and darting around the empty, mostly darkened room. “What is it?” he whispered.

Stefen stifled a groan and pressed back into his new friend’s chest, briefly hiding his head while he composed himself.

He was smiling when he looked up, and the noble swallowed heavily, giving a little jerk down where it mattered as confusion faded from his eyes. Stefen lightly stroked his jaw, back in control. He shook his head, but the noble’s gaze was glued to his mouth. He pouted a little, for effect, enjoying the helpless way the other man pressed against him. “Nothing. Sorry—nothing important. Just remembering something. But you! You’re much more interesting—what’s your name?”

M’lord hesitated too long. “Landebert,” he finally managed, obviously lying.

Fine with Stefen. Real names were messy and he wasn’t looking for anything real tonight. Just a distraction from the nightmares. He touched the pad of his thumb to Landebert’s lower lip. “I’m—”

“I know who you are,” the noble interrupted breathlessly. Eagerly. “You’re that minstrel. St—”

Stefen slid his palm over the noble’s mouth, put out. So much for a passing fancy. This wasn’t chance, he’d been hunted, and he knew his face hardened as he realized it.

‘Landebert’ shrank a little, realizing he’d overstepped but not grasping how.

He swallowed again, nervously, catching Stefen’s hand and turning the press of fingertips against his lips into a kiss, managing a certain courtliness in it that was impressive. Not likely a virgin, no.

For a moment Stefen waffled. Godsdammit, he needed something. He’d rather have had someone who didn’t know him; no names, no truth between them but what their bodies did together in a dark room in one of the big houses, strangers passing in shadows, nothing more but—fuck him, beggars took what they got when it was offered, he knew that well enough.

He took his hand away and replaced it with his mouth, and he was rougher this time, letting M’lord I-know-your-name-but-you-don’t-know-mine taste his displeasure. He teased, where before he’d given. Maybe he would and maybe he wouldn’t. Convince me, he said without words.

And with an eagerness that did convince him, at least to give him another try, Landebert did his reasonable best to do just that. His kisses were pleas, the touch of his trembling hands on Stefen’s shoulders were an offering of earnest desire. He didn’t grab at him, didn’t assume anything, despite how he’d come on in the tavern, and Stefen started to relax. To let himself be won.

The noble’s lips moved to his neck, tentative, soft, as he held him, close and tighter. “You’re beautiful!” the man whispered in hushed awe. “Gods, you’re amazing!”

Stefen accepted his lies with a sigh and arched his neck to offer more of it for that despairing worship. He wasn’t like Warin, a captain in his master’s guard and Stefen’s sometimes-lover. Warin had been much cleverer than this, and much less desperate, but he wasn’t—he wasn’t bad either.

His eyelids fluttered, the veil of his lashes further darkening the room. He didn’t need dreamerie tonight; he felt a flashing sense of triumph.

Through his lashes, by the door, he could see the Herald standing with that woebegone expression. The weight of the world on his shoulders and that inexpressible sadness in his eyes. The disappointment.

“What?” he muttered, jerking free from the other man’s arms, staring wide-eyed at the door, and then again around the empty room. No Herald. No master. Of course not. He didn’t even feel anything from that place in his head where the Herald lived now.

Still, his heart pounded and his struggle to catch his breath had nothing to do with Landebert.

Who had finally had enough.

“Are you on something?” he muttered, frustrated, stumbling back in surprise when Stefen turned on him in a fury.

How dared he? “And what if I am? Hey? What business is it of yours? You my mam, to get on me about anything?”

“No! I—I’m sorry!”

He shoved him, and spineless noble that he was, the man let him, falling back a step, which only pissed him off more. Instinct screamed at Stefen to go for the kill, when the enemy fell back you fucking cut them down, no mercy, or the man you’d spared today would have a dagger in your back tomorrow.

And the pretty boy noble could make trouble for Stefen that he wouldn’t have an easy way out of.

He glared, a moment too long, and the other man flinched and shrank away another step.

Pathetic. He couldn’t stay, he had to get out. His hand was on the door pull when the noble found his tongue.

“That’s it? You’re just leaving?”

“Looks like, don’t it?” The door was open, the empty hall before him.

“Was this all just a scam, between you and the…the proprietor to trick me out of the cost of the room?”

Stefen froze. Bad enough to be compared to a whore, when they hadn’t even met up in one of the big houses and it was Landebert who’d come looking for him. Bad enough to be accused of putting one on when he was the one who’d chosen the place. The final straw wasn’t the faint whine, or the hint of sneering, it was the hushed, breathless excitement.

Whether they fucked or whether Stefen robbed him, it was a bit of fun and a story to tell to his pretty-boy friends on the other side of the river.

His vision closed in, red-tinged, as he reached for his money pouch and started tearing at the strings. He clawed through it, not looking, or even trying to feel, really, just scraping up what he could in curled fingers to fling at the floor at Landebert’s feet. Some coins fell and some rolled off, a little metallic ringing that put him in mind of chains. On the second thought he tossed the whole purse at him—he kept another, of course, hidden—not caring where it landed.

“There. That makes you the whore, and a sorry one,” he said. “There’s a story for your friends.”

“But—”

That was more than enough for Stefen’s peace of mind. There was a buzzing in his ears and he was good at ignoring what he didn’t want to hear, it was a necessary skill for a street performer, so while he didn’t relax at all until he was back outside, open sky above, dirt under his boots, he couldn’t have said how long or how loud that lying, noble bastard might have called after him.

He inhaled deeply, the unpleasant, smoky air south of the river. It was cool, a gentle touch on skin that burned from the closeness of the big house, and the heat of the crowd, and his humiliation. He knew a place, quiet this time of night.

Up next to one of the walls, in a shadow where the moonlight never reached and smoke from nearby chimneys blocked the stars. The woman who lived in the house closest was deaf, and it was beside a grate in the wall that blocked much of the solid waste the river carried, putting up a foul smell that kept most people away. Not enough action for the street toughs, and too dark and cold and evil smelling for honest men.

Stefen pulled out his gittern and tuned it and started playing.

Away, he knew he’d overreacted. Landebert had been using him, but Stefen had planned to do the same, so what of it? It was galling that the noble had known who he was, it was an advantage he wouldn’t have given if he’d been in a position be more choosy, but why should he care so much about that? In songs sometimes names were things of power, but Stefen’s name was just a word and he had plenty of those.

He hissed, frustrated with himself. He still had his last stash of dreamerie. He could put an end to this foggy-headedness, these nightmares, sleeping and waking, anytime he wanted to. No one would know and what matter if they did? Mother Caenis and her sisters didn’t own him either, it was none of their damned business.

He struck an off-note in his distraction and it only made him angrier, a slowly spinning ball in the center of his chest, knocking his innards about in agitation.

Stefen would know, was the thing. He didn’t care about the nuns, not even about the kids, he’d know he was owned again. Still. Dreamerie had been one of Dark’s leashes on him and he knew himself to be owned as long as he was beholden to the shit just to get through a day. Even dead, Dark could still call him to heel as long as the dreamerie did.

And the Herald. This was his fault too. His fingers picked up their pace, flying over the strings with a fury.

Damned Herald, watching him from the door—even if he hadn’t been. Being a window for his master to peer back into his life, even though the man was dead. He didn’t have the right, either. He didn’t have the right to own him, from miles away, from a life away. From a palace, while Stefen languished in a slum. Street trash he may be, but that didn’t give the Herald the right to own him.

He glared out over his little corner of the wold, silvered in moonlight, wrapped in velvet darkness. All cats are black in the dark, he’d heard said.

But Stefen knew the difference. Even the darkness could only hide so much. There was the reeking stink of the river to tell him this wasn’t a palace, however much the darkness hid of the filth, the ruin, and the despair.

At some point his song had gentled. Less fury, more of a plaintive call.

If he couldn’t find peace—well, he shouldn’t be the only one.

 

Chapter 3

Stefen wasn’t impressed with Haven and he was almost sure it was more than just his dark mood.

It wasn’t so different from his own city, was the problem: the high houses, the merchant quarter, the slums. It was all so familiar. It was done on a grander scale, sure, and crawled with Heralds and fancy, blue-dressed guards, but there wasn’t much more to it than that from what he could tell.

The first Herald he’d seen had thrown him, stopped him cold, heart pounding, until he’d got ahold of himself and got it clear in his eyes and his head that she wasn’t him. And that improbably white horse wasn’t the one he’d been looking for without knowing he was looking for her. Or without admitting it, anyway.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen other Heralds, there’d been plenty at the border, come for their hero, but he wasn’t used to seeing them on the same streets he was walking, that was strange, and every time, every damned time—

Didn’t do much to improve his mood.

The music came close to making up for it, though, since as well as guards and Heralds and all the usual city crowds, Haven, unlike Tides, was also crawling with musicians. Rust-colored youths, scarlet-clad adults, and their music wasn’t like anything he’d heard, except for the Herald and himself.

To know that there were so many gathered here because there was a fucking school that turned them out—it made him sick with a bitter longing that was worse than his confused feelings for the Herald, because there was no confusion in this desire.

In another life he’d have gone to that school, he’d have belonged in that school, surrounded by that music, hearing it, living in it. And Stefen, who never bemoaned what wasn’t and couldn’t be, felt such a sense of unfairness.

Nothing in his life had ever been fair, he’d never have expected it, but this, dammit, this wasn’t fair!

He had his gittern, of course, he didn’t ever not have it, but fortunately he’d earned a bit before he’d left for Haven, because he doubted he could have drawn in a copper penny with so many gifted musicians around him offering their songs for free. Not just musicians, bards is what they were. He’d heard the word before but he’d never understood it, what it really meant, what it encompassed.

He’d come looking for the Herald, following a nebulous plan for some sort of confrontation, but the music had snared and distracted him.

He wandered in a daze, feeling drugged, but it was the music that was doing it to him. Haven was a city, just another stinking pit packed with too many bodies, but the music, the bards—

It didn’t take him long to figure out where they hung out most often, and the young ones in their rust-colored school clothes were the easiest to track. Carefree, wild, with the joyous nose for trouble he associated with young nobles, but he could tell they weren’t that, or at least many of them weren’t. They were loud and foolish, given to bursting into song unbidden, to competing with each other over playing. That easy comradery hurt him almost as much as the music that surrounded and followed them. They were all together in it, they shared it. He’d never had anything like that. He’d never dreamed it was possible.

 Aside from playing with the Herald, and he wasn’t naïve, that had been a type of courting, in its twisty way, and what these lucky little shites shared was something else altogether.

It was his sixth night in Haven, his third in a particular tavern where one group he’d taken to shadowing was out again. He fancied that chubby, brown-haired girl’s songs. She had a sweet voice and a gentle air, for all her quick smiles and clever, darting eyes. He just wished she’d spend less time ogling the other brunette in her group and more time singing.

“Thinking of showing up at the collegium? Seeing if they’ll take you on?”

Stefen turned on the man who’d spoken, annoyed he hadn’t caught his approach. He took him in with a glance. Trouble, he thought, though the man didn’t particularly look it. He’d learned to trust his instincts, especially when his other senses didn’t agree with them. A man who could look that…bland, ageless, colorless, harmless despite his tall, heavy build, utterly unremarkable, but move quiet enough to come up on Stefen unawares, with him so twitchy—

Aye, trouble.

He shrugged.

The man smiled, kindly, and Stefen shifted a little away from him, even while he joined him at his table. Another attempt at picking him up? He knew he had a pretty enough face, he’d skated on his own looks often enough, why not? He didn’t think that was likely the other man’s scam though, even if it might be what had caught his attention.

The man sighed as he sat, like it was good to rest, and he looked at the group of young bard trainees Stefen had been listening to, but carefully not staring at. Stefen fought the sudden need to put him off before they noticed—and noticed Stefen sitting there, again.

Gods, he hadn’t felt so shy since he’d been a child in his first blush with Dark—

He stiffened and he felt his chin go up, even without him meaning it. He glared at the stranger. “Wasn’t looking for a friend,” he said, plain. Sure not one like you.

“Weren’t you?” the other man asked, and his gaze shifted knowingly back towards the trainees who’d finally started singing again.

A guard. Or a guardian at least, he was suddenly sure of it. He’d been too obvious in shadowing the bards for this past near-week, addlepated with the music, he’d been caught at it and someone had come—or been sent—to check that his interest was on the level.

Well fuck.

“Just passing through,” he said, grabbing his gittern and getting to his feet. This whole thing, coming to Haven in the first place, had been a stupid idea.

“Look like you’ve come a ways, carrying that, and you aren’t even going to make your plea at the collegium door? Not many of the young ones who get this far are so shy.” There was nothing accusatory in his tone. Just the slim, cold needle of condescension.

And Stefen knew, he knew it for a trick. If he hadn’t been so heartsore with longing, so twisted up with dreamerie nightmares, so messed up inside and not even sure what was him anymore and what was Dark and what was dreamerie and what was the damned Herald—

But he was, and if there was anything he did know inside his head and heart, that was his and his only, it was the music. Glaring, he set his case on the table, carelessly nudging aside the half-full cup he’d been nursing for nearly two hours.

He could have pulled her out, but he wasn’t putting that much time into this madness. Behind him the bard trainees were still singing, a chorus about a lover’s trial to prove her worth to a stupid, roving man who’d left her to make his fortune.

Staring straight into the stranger’s eyes he joined them—irritation and yes, jealousy and longing, giving force to his voice.

It wasn’t strange, he’d heard it happen dozens of times since he’d come, since he’d started looking for the places where the bards could be found, how they’d sing together like exotic birds, wandering from place to place, randomly joining in new songs, new song-games, flitting from one to another like it was nothing, connected, as he was not.

But for a moment—they sang, and he sang with them, harmony and melody and bliss. The stranger’s eyes widened in surprise and the warm bloom of triumph unfurled in Stefen’s chest. He might not have a place with them, but his song was true too. The bard trainees trailed off, but he kept going because he could. How could he leave? But since he did I’ll have no other. If he be dead I’ll mourn until I die—if he be faithless, still I’ll wait.

Even after the man who tormented her with word of her lover’s death was revealed as her love himself, testing her, the lines repeated: if he be dead, if he be faithless—

I’ll mourn. I’ll die. I’ll wait.

The last note hung, quivering with grief, betrayal, and resolution, fading only slowly in the silence that had fallen on the tavern.

He’d finished it alone. He was used to that.

He shouldered his gittern and made a dash for the exit. It took the stranger too long to catch up. Haven was too much like Tides; Stefen knew how to hide. By the time the stranger reached the door Stefen was gone.

Alone was safer. Away from even the lowest places where the most adventurous of the bards would go, in the dark, foul-smelling streets and alleys, ramshackle taverns, and strangely quiet public houses, this was Stefen’s place; the desperate, dangerous, and guarded, these were Stefen’s people.

He bypassed the main room of the public house where he was staying and headed up to his private room by way of a rickety wooden stair that creaked ominously even under his unimpressive weight. He was paying extra to keep the tiny attic room to himself but he wouldn’t have it to pay in another few days. Shouldn’t need it. What he should do was head back to Tides.

He threw himself at the bed, ignoring the cloud of dust that rose, or trying to, until it made him sneeze. That hadn’t been at all what he’d wanted. But really, what had he expected? That when he finally got up the spine to join in a song he’d be welcomed? Like in an old story about one long lost, at last returned to their own? A prince or a waterbird, he was neither.

He knew exactly where he was, and it was exactly where he belonged—except in another version of it, a bit south and a bit smaller and a lot quieter.

He rolled over, cradling his gittern case in his arms like a lover, and pressed his forehead to it. He should leave now. No more pretenses, no more clinging to vague, vain hopes. No more dreaming about things that were out of his reach.

He shouldn’t have laid down. He’d gotten so used to being exhausted he hadn’t realized how close he was to passing out again.

~~~

Dark was there, of course he was, and Rendan and Tan, the two old men who’d brought him south, dozens of them, there were dozens, all the people in his life who’d taken from him what he hadn’t offered.

Rendan’s men and Dark’s. A fucking party, and they all had Stefen in common. And playing for them, in the back, that troupe of bard trainees from the tavern, laughing and singing, together, paying no mind to the crowd of fiends making merry to their damned songs.

There was a burning in the center of his chest, a dark fire churning, consuming him from within. It would swallow him whole, complete, if he couldn’t find a vent for it. But somehow he knew, somehow… he stretched his hand out, palm raised, feeling that hungry flame course along his arm, from his chest to his palm, and kindle visibly there, curling like a small, ravenous beast, begging to be loosed. He’d seen the Herald do this in Rendan’s hold. He knew what to do.

With a scream, the roar of the fire that was consuming him, he pitched that tongue of flame at the celebrants and watched it explode in smoke and light. He heard the screaming and exulted. He threw another, and another. He could hardly see through the smoke but he could still hear their terror, their anguish, and it only fed the fire that burned in him.

Yes. And yes. And yes!

Shapes were silhouetted in the smoke and flame, not just men, but women. The bards? The chubby dark-haired girl and her dark-haired friend? More than that, more women than that, and smaller shapes too…children?

Wait—

Dogs, or something like them, but elongate and wrong even in silhouette, and prowling through the chaos, not trapped by it. Hate given form and flesh and loosed on the world. Hunting.

No.

A white shape, larger, graceful, the most beautiful and wonderful creature he’d ever seen—the Herald’s Companion, not her…

No!

Someone grabbed him by the wrist, the one that was still extended in denial, pulling him away so he didn’t have to see what those dog-things did to her.

The Herald, as he’d first seen him, in ragged whites, snow dusted, looking weary and worn, tired, near defeated, but with a core of strength that in the end even Dark hadn’t been able to break.

“Please,” he begged, his voice cracking. Fix this. Stop this. Make it better. I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t understand what I was doing.

Vanyel shook his head, a look of profound sadness in his eyes. A look of betrayal. “You’re not who I thought you were. How could I forgive this? How could anyone?”

“Please?” he could only whisper again, smoke stinging his eyes and making his vision muddy, blurring with his tears.

But Van dropped his wrist like it was something too fouled to hold, and walked into the churning chaos, the red-tinged smoke—and screamed. Lightning illuminated the smoke, lighting the carnage, bodies, so many bodies reduced to bloody ruin, to scorch marks and bloodstains.

What had he done? This wasn’t what he’d meant, not like this.

“Vanyel!” he screamed, rushing forward. If he couldn’t save him he’d die with him. If Van had to die to undo the mess Stefen’d made at least he wouldn’t let him die alone. But when he ran forward he came against an invisible barrier that kept him from taking his part in this play he’d written. He beat his fists against air turned solid and screamed until he was hoarse. Out of his reach, the dogs-that-weren’t circled Vanyel, closing in, eyes glowing sulfurous yellow even through the haze.

“Van! No! Van—please!” But if he even heard him, he couldn’t tell. The dogs—the damned dogs, with mouths like snakes and fangs like daggers—

~~~

The waking world was quiet as a tomb, even with screams and agonized cries echoing in his head. His eyes stung with tears, he could taste the smoke, but it was dark in the small room, so he knew it was still early.

Fucking dreamerie. He slammed his arm out against the bed and coughed in the resurgent cloud of dust, but flavored by his dream, it tasted like ash. He’d kick that shit for good, didn’t matter how many nightmares it tossed at him. Fuck if he’d give in. He wouldn’t, not matter what. He swiped at his eyes with the back of his wrist and rolled up to sit on the edge of the bed, one hand on his gittern case. 

He wouldn’t look up yet. He wouldn’t look around for the yellow eyes he could feel watching him. Wyrsa. Dark had kept a pack and they’d always scared him shitless but this was the first time he’d dreamed of them. They did make very good nightmare beasts.

He shuddered. Yellow eyes and blood. He could see it so vividly. He could smell it; the bright metallic sting of blood, and the musty, reptile stench of those abominations.

He stood up and walked to the small, uncovered window that looked out over the street. A boy was sitting out on a rusted barrel, idly tossing something Stefen couldn’t see between his hands.

He raked a hand through his hair and checked his purse, tallying, before he walked down to meet the kid and see if he was still willing to get a message to the palace.

~~~

His hollow belly drove him to looking for somewhere he could fill it. He’d’ve been fine with drinking his dinner but it wouldn’t help with the nightmares. Playing did, a little, but he didn’t dare do that away from his room now, or risk that stranger catching him again. Something told him the man wouldn’t think he was done with him.

It hadn’t taken him long to recognize that in that, if in that only, the slums here were different than the ones he was used to: there were guards here, and Heralds, out of their pretty blue and white, trying to pass for street trash like him. Stefen could smell them the way he could smell the nobles when they were slumming it, though he didn’t need to ask one to know they were here for a different reason. Spies, likely, ears to the ground. It was clever. They were clever. He was even willing to concede there were probably a few he’d passed and hadn’t sniffed out.

Made him think of Herald Vanyel and his rough disguise when he’d come visiting in Tides. Valdir, he’d called himself. Stefen hadn’t thought much then about what it meant, but the disguise had fit.

Anyway, he ducked into a particularly grim drinking parlor where he hadn’t caught wind of anyone who seemed they might be more than they looked, and grabbed a cheap meal of old pottage, big portions, if there wasn’t much otherwise to recommend it, but it would do him.

The largest table in the corner was host to a rowdy bunch, throwing dice in a game Stefen recognized from the bandit holds. If he closed his eyes it was almost like he was back there. His eyes burned with the effort of keeping them open.

He’d forced himself to stay, to not wolf even his second bowl of pottage, but his shoulders dropped a little as soon as he was out and it was suddenly easier to breathe.


Chapter 4

He’d picked out a comfortable corner, a shadowed recess between buildings. It wasn’t deep enough to be an alley, a dead end rather; not a good place to get caught but good enough to make sure no one could get at his back while he waited. A nice enough spot he was ready to face competition for it at some point, even. He knew that as valuable as a good street corner was to a street performer a good shadowy corner could be to a street tough.

 Maybe someone would have come along and booted him out eventually, or maybe it was slim pickings this part of town—likely, really—but he wasn’t waiting too long before his quarry came scurrying along the street, ragged boots, threadbare cloak, that stupid hat.

The closer he came the tighter Stefen’s chest got. The message the boy’d carried had said to meet outside the building where Stefen was rooming but he hadn’t liked the lay of the land there, once he’d looked closer, and he’d figured it would easy enough to waylay him. Seeing how he’d come, he only found himself regretting this whole Haven trip even more.

This was the only version of the Herald that Stefen could have. The only person he could be where their lives touched—the broken minstrel, down on his luck, not even as good off as Stefen was, and so fucking downtrodden it made him mad and made his mouth work against the remembered taste of ash and bloody smoke.

It would have been enough if it was all there was: Stefen and Valdir could have been something, the two of them huddled together against an indifferent world. How it could have worked, he wasn’t sure, but he was certain there could have been a life where—

Didn’t matter. Valdir wasn’t real and Herald Vanyel couldn’t ever be real to him.

He held his tongue and slipped further into the darkness behind him, leaning against one of the walls, pressing into the chill of the stone to calm his racing heart and cool his skin. He’d been stupid to come. What had he thought he’d find?

A fuck, in the shadows, so he couldn’t see Dark’s face over him with a saint’s eyes staring out from it? He’d have been better off to keep trying closer to home, he’d’ve managed it eventually. One fuck-up with a noble hadn’t been worth traveling all the way to this place.

He stiffened, palming one of his blades when he realized he wasn’t alone.

He’d chosen the dead end, thinking it would protect his back, but that only worked as long as he kept his attention on the entrance. Idiot.

But somehow he wasn’t surprised when the other man cleared his throat and it was Vanyel-Valdir.

He wished it had been a guard or a cut-purse, he’d’ve had an easier time dealing with either.

“Are you all right?”

No. A bitter, grating laugh caught in his throat.

“Well enough,” he said, knowing it wasn’t even a good lie. His voice betrayed him, surely, but it hadn’t been believable anyway.

The Herald took a step towards him.

He stiffened. Don’t touch me. Don’t you dare touch me, he thought, but couldn’t find the voice to say it.

Maybe he was eavesdropping, or maybe he just wasn’t a complete twat, but the Herald stopped, still well out of arm’s reach, and Stefen’s breath steadied a bit.

He shut his eyes and sighed.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. Hating the word even as he said it, and not sure himself all that he meant it to encompass. He was definitely sorry at least for summoning the Herald out here and then acting like such a fool.

“Are you…sick?” Even cautiously probing, there was music in that dark, velvet voice. Sweeter than that in the young bards-to-be. Sweeter than in his dreams of him.

He sighed again. “M’fine. Fucking fantastic—I’m kicking the dreamerie. Near a month off it, fancy that? It fights back. Makes me stupid sometimes. Weak.” He hated that word even more. He hated the taste of it, and he wasn’t sure why he’d said any of that, anyway. What, did he expect, a clap on the back? Fuck, the saintly Herald, M’lord High and Mighty, he just might try it. Better he didn’t—Stefen’d cut his hand off at the wrist. He was letting himself get wound up again. Relax, you fucker.

The Herald didn’t say anything, or move any closer. Maybe he didn’t believe him.

“Do you want to go somewhere? To talk?”

Stefen smirked. Had to toss that in, right? Mighta sounded like he was trying to pick up a street rat, otherwise. He shrugged, not knowing if the Herald could see it in the darkness. “I got a room. Paying extra for privacy.”

A long, heavy hesitation. Was he really going to say ‘no?’ Somehow that hadn’t occurred to him. He’d imagined he might ignore his message, but never that he’d back off if they met up. Something in him twisted up tight and he was glad of the darkness, because his eyes burned like he was still trying to keep from blinking.

A thousand years passed. If his throat hadn’t been closed tight he’d have tried to back-pedal. They could go to the dive where’d he gotten the pottage that was churning through his guts now. They could find a tavern on the better side of town. Hells, they could find a local temple of whoever he wanted and sit in the back pews. What would never have occurred to him was—

“Would you like to see where I stay?”

It took him a moment to make sense of the words, over the rejections ringing loud in his head, and even then he didn’t think he’d understood them. Where he stayed? Didn’t he live at the palace? Didn’t he live with all the pious, fancy Heralds behind the big walls at the center of the city? He didn’t mean for Stefen to go with him there, did he? Not Stefen, not knowing what he was.

“I guess,” he managed, his voice strangled, young. He cleared his throat. Where I stay, not where I live, he’d said. Maybe not his place at the palace, then. Maybe he had rooms out in the city somewhere. Maybe Valdir had a place here, more suiting his—and Stefen’s—station.

He was glad of the darkness over him, but he wished he could see the Herald’s face.

“I, uh—I have a small collection of musical instruments. Unusual ones I’ve come across in my travels. You might enjoy looking them over.”

Any other man, Stefen would have known that for a come-on. With the Herald…gods, he probably did just mean he had a couple of old lutes on a shelf in a corner. He tried to laugh at himself but it came out sounding like a wheeze.

“Lead on, then,” he finally managed, waving his arm, fairly sure that much movement would be visible. “I’m always up for music.” It was perhaps the most honest thing he’d ever said and it still made him wince, thinking of earlier that evening, when the young bards’ guardian had cornered him.

He kept a light foot and wary eye out, not eager to run into that one again, with the Herald or alone.

~~~

Since he’d thought of it he’d steeled himself for a little hidey-hole, comfortable, his sort of place. It probably wouldn’t be far from where Stefen himself was rooming, in a neighborhood where men like Valdir and him could pass without comment.

Instead they cut a winding route through winding streets, moving ever closer to the heart of the city, the inner walls, and the palace itself. Still he denied it, looking for the turn off he was sure had to be just ahead.

Through the noble district he clung a little closer. He could come up with something if he needed to, but he’d hope Valdir already had an excuse for a pair no better than them to be skulking through those streets at night. And ideally another for walking right up to a guard post in the very inner wall. He had to be mad. Or turning Stefen in.

But even not trusting his guide, Stefen followed, stupidly, hopelessly.

The gates in the wall were closed for the night, a big iron grate lowered a bit further along. It didn’t look like there was any other way through, and apparently the Herald meant for them to go through.

Valdir-Vanyel was clearly known. As soon as he presented himself they were let inside, no one even questioned them, they were just waved on through a strategically defensible room and hallway and into another room of heavily armed guards. Again, at seeing Vanyel, no questions were asked, not even for Stefen’s sake, though he kept his head up and his hands loose and visible anyway.

He didn’t breathe until they were out on the other side, when he had to stop for a moment, light-headed.

Van stopped for him and he could feel his curious gaze. Stefen could tell it was on the tip of his tongue to ask something stupid.

He shook himself, a tiny gesture that tossed his hair, and pasted on a grin. They were inside the inner walls. They were at the palace. He’d once promised himself he wouldn’t follow another pretty face—and the same damned face, at that—into another situation like this. Wasn’t he just begging for trouble.

“Sorry, smell of the guards always puts me off,” he joked, badly. They’d first met at a guard post, and it hadn’t gone well there, either.

Van watched him a moment longer, waiting for something, but then he smiled slightly, an expression that didn’t reach his eyes, shiny though they were in the torchlight, and gestured again for him to follow.

Valdemar’s palace was a compound, not a single structure, which Stefen had known, but he still hadn’t been prepared for how sprawling it was, how practically built, so different from Dark’s ornate, fairy story castle. Some of the buildings wouldn’t even be part of the palace at all, they were part of the school, the collegiums, where trainees for the Heralds, bards, and guard corps took classes with young nobles and courtiers.

In one of the buildings, one of the doors they were passing would be the one the young bards’ guardian had taunted him about. The door where hopefuls could present themselves to try to get into the bardic collegium, if that hadn’t all been talk and that was really how it worked. He wanted to ask—just for curiosity, he knew he was too old and too rough to get even a listen, but he was afraid the Herald would take it the wrong way and think he was angling.

He held his tongue and in a moment they were in front of a fairly modest door, by Stefen’s jaded standards, having spent so much time suffocated in Dark’s pomp and pretense. It was in a wing set aside for the Heralds, maybe, not part of what looked like it would have been the palace proper. There was something decidedly spare and martial to the set up of this building and the long row of doors they’d passed before finding this one, off a bit and tucked around a zigzagging corner and a long colonnade. It was private, at least.

The Herald opened the door and Stefen held his breath again, not knowing what to expect and not sure how he felt on finding nothing more than a well lived-in, if simple suite.

Stefen’s first set of rooms in Dark’s castle had been far grander, but had never come close to feeling as comfortable. He stepped inside, a little stiff-legged, not entirely over the feeling that he was walking into something he shouldn’t.

The room was dark but there were windows, glass covered windows, with the curtains open to the moon and starlight, if not their chill. A bed, an armoire, a chest. On the far side of the room a desk, a chair, a fireplace—a pair of shelves on the wall, as he’d imagined, laden with instruments. More than just old lutes though, he could tell by the variety of shapes, even in the relative dark.

He turned and watched the Herald close the door behind them, taking too long at it, hardly making a sound. He was much quicker lighting a pair of lamps, keeping close to the wall as he moved around his own room, keeping distance between himself and where Stefen stood, in the middle. He was making such an effort at not looking at him, Stefen fancied he could feel it more than he might have felt his gaze, if he’d just glance up a bit. It would have been in character for poor Valdir but Stefen knew they’d left him at the other side of the inner wall so this was…cute, he decided. He made the Herald nervous?

“Ah…welcome,” Van finally said, and Stefen felt his lips twitch.

“Nice,” he said. “Not what I’d’ve expected of a noble’s son, though.” Or of Valdemar’s greatest Herald-hero and last Herald-Mage. He didn’t mention the rest, Van was uncomfortable enough.

Vanyel chuckled and ran a hand through his hair. “It’s more than enough for my needs. And my father’s only a minor noble.

If he liked, but Stefen would lay odds he could have claimed a better room than this if he’d had a mind, even if he wasn’t all that he’d become. Something of an ascetic, Vanyel. That or he just didn’t have the time and energy to invest in where he was staying. That was how he’d put it after all, where I stay.

Stefen wondered what he did consider home, then. His family keep? A barracks on the Karsite border? Or the back of that pretty white horse that was tied to his head more than Stefen was.

Van cleared his throat and Stefen realized he’d been staring, like he could figure out what made the other man tick if he just watched him long enough.

“My collection! Here—”

Such a hearty tone, so relieved at having remembered his original gambit, that Stefen grinned away his own embarrassment, losing it in his amusement over Vanyel’s. He lost more than his sense of embarrassment when he trailed after him and got a better look at the treasure trove the Herald had so casually displayed in his humble little room.

It was mostly all familiar, strings and some woodwinds, a few small drums, though some of the instruments were less common and there were a few things he’d never seen or heard tell of before. Different materials in some cases, different numbers of strings or holes, bigger, smaller, or oddly shaped. A lute strung with incredibly fine metal wires caught his attention for a moment, grabbing him by the ear with the clarity of its sound. There was a bone flute he recognized from the caribou herders beyond the ice wall mountains, and a small hide drum, and he could only imagine that many of the odder things came from places as far flung.

Somehow, he ended up cross-legged on the floor in a circle of precious instruments, the Herald showing them off one at a time as he pulled them from the shelf, as if he was a merchant and Stefen a discerning patron.

Enraptured at every demonstration, heart-singing at the surprise and admiration evident at each instrument he could take up, showing off his own skill even with things he’d never held before.

It scared him, to feel so much, so quick, and with a man so far above him, but the music wouldn’t let him pull away.

Only when every instrument was down, laid out carefully across plush but aged carpet and flagstone, did Vanyel sit as well, as though it was nothing to him to be on the floor of his own room. Their play continued: friendly laughter over missed, off notes on the stranger instruments, shy, rapt smiles at the victory of clever tunes and trilling scales. Harmonies, with things that had never been made for it.

It was everything Stefen’d ached for, watching the gleeful troupes of bardic trainees singing their ways through the city. Comradery, understanding, like when he’d tricked him into playing at The Dawn’s Eyes, except this was just for the two of them.

—until the knock at the door.

Stefen glanced at the time candle. They’d been in the Herald’s room for a bit over two hours, which made it something like one in the morning. Too late for normal visitors. Were they making too much noise?

The Herald shot him a look, the laughter fleeing his expression, something like fear replacing it, and Stefen’s chin went up. It wasn’t fear of ambush or attack—not unreasonable concerns in the middle of night for any point in his life—it was fear of being caught at such an hour with a common street tough in his room.

The Herald tried to smile, but it was more of a grimace, a reflexive tug at the corners of his mouth, and he abandoned it with a shrug, leaving Stefen sitting where he was while he went to cautiously open the door.

He tried to keep it mostly closed, seeming to know who was on the other side before he’d opened it, keeping his guest from Stefen’s view and Stefen from theirs. After only the briefest exchange, the door pushed open and the Herald ‘allowed’ it, staggering back to admit a handsome young man who strode into the room as if he had often done so before. 

Continued in the Second Half