If I Have Freedom in My Love -- Second Half

[dardrea]

I maybe could have explained on the last one that I'm posting this in two halves because it's 8 chapters and 8 posts seemed excessive, while a single 20k+ post seemed really long for all one go? Because that's why First Half/Last Half. So yeah, the First Half is here, In the Bleak Mid-winter, which is the mother fic in this series is here, Angels We Have Heard, the second fic in the series is here.

Stefen wasn't rescued from the streets, instead Berte sold him north, where he eventually ended up with Leareth and he and Van meet when Van's going north to avenge Savil. They both survive but they're both rather messed up by what they've been through, especially Stefen, so they part ways. In Angels, they meet up again because Van feels through their lifebond that Stefen is (more than) contemplating suicide. In the first half of Freedom, Stefen is trying to get off dreamerie and figure out what to do with his life and he decided to go see Van to see if he can help him figure it out. In this, the second half, they're going to talk and it will be bad. Enjoy! >;) 

Trigger warnings for Stefen's nightmares of slavery and sexual abuse and the drug abuse he's actively working to overcome. 

Chapter 5

He looked to be about Stefen’s age, a little younger perhaps, but that could have been the comfortable life he’d clearly lived that made him seem so. Blond, his hair grown out and pulled back in a careless tail, square-faced, light-eyed, broad shoulders but a trim frame. Stefen might have been eying him himself in different circumstances.

“You are awake!” His voice was low, more than pleasant. Another damned bard, but a full one for his youth, dressed in scarlet, not in rust. “Gods.” He rolled his shoulders, letting a large travel pack slide down and then swinging it free and tossing it at the Herald’s bed. “I just got back. I’m dead tired, but wound up like you would not believe—or maybe you would. You used to talk about the feeling, glad to be back but itching to be back out. I know it’s different but—ah, the things I’ve seen. The ideas! This was so much better than—”

He’d finally caught sight of Stefen, sitting on the floor in the corner, surrounded by instruments, and he went absolutely still, mouth falling open—and finally quiet—in his surprise. After a moment he managed a blink and his gaze flicked to the Herald and back to Stefen.

Perhaps Stefen had misjudged the Herald. Perhaps he collected handsome young musicians the way Dark had collected his mindless human dolls. Perhaps that was why the guards had hardly spared him a glance once they’d seen who he was with.

Confusingly, the blond suddenly grinned, an expression that bordered on the manic. He practically vibrated with what Stefen would have called glee, if he hadn’t found that so unlikely. “You’re Stefen, aren’t you?”

The Herald had told his lover about him? What was this?

The blond quickly crossed the room to him, ignoring, or oblivious to, his discomfort.

“Checking out the collection? Uncle Van hardly lets anyone touch them, you know. I’ve lost friendships because word got out that he was hoarding some of the most beautiful and unusual instruments in Haven and I had to tell my friends that I couldn’t possibly get them in to look them over—”

“And how did word ‘get out,’ you scapegrace?” Vanyel muttered. Not quite defeated, he had perked up in his annoyance.

“You’re Medren,” Stefen said, understanding. They didn’t look a thing like each other. He’d never have taken them for related.

For some reason the bard looked unaccountably pleased. “I am. And you’re the one who wrote that song.”

“Medren—”

Stefen winced. Van could have left for all the attention his nephew was paying him now.

“You are, aren’t you?”

“I’ve written a song or two—”

“Hah. No surprise there, that obviously wasn’t an amateur’s first go.” He didn’t seem to need confirmation past that. He’d sunk into a cross-legged position, radiating that energy Stefen didn’t understand from just across a small wall of precious instruments. Idly he grabbed a little silver flute and blew a swift, cheerful tune as bright and sweet as morning birdsong.

Stefen shot a pleading look at Vanyel, utterly lost.

Van caught the look but it only made him smile in defeat and shake his head. “What if I told you now wasn’t a good time?” he asked, but his tone made the words themselves moot and Stefen suspected he wasn’t unhappy for the interruption.

Medren stopped playing and shot his uncle an arch grin. “I’d say you shouldn’t have let me in, then.”

“I didn’t let you in.”

“Say!” Medren said, turning back to Stefen. “Do you know this one?” He started playing again, a simple enough tune. It was a trick question; Stefen knew no less than four songs set to that melody and at least three of them were common enough that the young bard would certainly know them too.

He recognized the game from the taverns of Haven. The challenge was for the singer to pick out which of the songs the first musician had in mind, just from whichever little flourishes they were granted. It could go from there, seamlessly melding the different songs if it could be done, thematically, rhythmically, with extra prestige if the singer could slip back and forth between their selections more than once and have a song that, at least in the moment, seemed to make sense.

Stefen stole another glance at Vanyel, who was sitting down where he’d been before his nephew had come in. There was more distance between the two of them than between Stefen and Medren, but Van’s expression was only amused, giving nothing else away.

His nephew didn’t seem mean-spirited, even to Stefen’s suspicious eye. Vanyel was, if anything, even more relaxed for having him here.

And Stefen… well, Stefen had his pride.

He was almost sure he knew Medren’s song. The bard made no visible reaction when Stefen started singing, continuing to play until he reached the end of the song and Stefen finished a poignant but pastiche verse about an empty cradle in the stars and a dog that wouldn’t bark and horse that wouldn’t run and the picked-clean bones of a red-finned fish.

Medren laughed when he stopped playing but his eyes were lit with admiration and it lent sincerity to Stefen’s answering grin. “Nice!” he said. “I’d never heard the bits about the bird-man.”

Stefen shrugged, pleased again. “I heard it up north. Though it wasn’t local. Don’t know where it actually comes from.”

“Karse,” Vanyel said. “The translation of a folk song they used to sing in the Morningray Mountains. You’d hear it echoing through the little valleys, the shepherds singing it while they gathered their sheep. I’ve never heard the translation. Refugees would have brought it north, I’d guess.”

Stefen’s heart sank. Van wouldn’t have good memories of Karse, there were dozens of songs and stories about him fighting there, and Stefen cursed himself for stumbling into that. But the Herald’s expression, though far away, was peaceful enough, pensive rather than haunted or angry.

He took a shallow, relieved breath.

“Your turn!” he announced, a wide, impish smile pasted to his face, performing already before he’d picked up one of the odder instruments, the short, silver-strung lute. He’d felt a certain rapport when he and Van had been playing around before his nephew had joined them and he thought he had her figured out.

He could have started easy, for himself and for Medren, but gods knew, Stefen wasn’t an easy sort.

It was a tune not traditionally played on strings, and all three of the accompanying songs he knew were from beyond the northern border, two of them from beyond the mountains entirely, though the one he had in mind was the one he’d heard more than once right at Valdemar’s edge, in holdings and even at that guard post.

Only a little to his surprise, Medren picked it up right away and started singing the words, cliché enough, about a pair of lovers and a forbidden, star-crossed love.

Van took the next song, and it continued from there.

Medren was…fun. Easy and bright and chatty. Flirty, in an amusing, casual way. Never too serious, in part because he wasn’t shy that he thought there was something going on between Stefen and his uncle—and didn’t seem at all bothered by it, despite Stefen’s low station?—but also probably because if he turned out to have any physical interest in men, Stefen would eat his lute. Still, he wasn’t bothered by teasing at it.

He was good company, better than his taciturn uncle, who watched him as the candlemarks waned, with eyes that said too much and revealed too little.

So Stefen felt guilty, absently judging the talent of this unlikely new…what? Friend? He’d see if it lasted through the dark hours and into another day—but as the night wore on, he couldn’t help judging himself to be the better musician, like he knew he was better than the Herald, however little that was worth considering all the Herald’s other gifts, and better than any of the bards and bard trainees he’d heard out in the city.

It wasn’t just vanity, maybe. He could hear where the music faltered, where notes could have gone better. He could feel where the power that undercut it all should have gone and didn’t, always.

While Van and Medren took their turns, as one game became another, and when the hushed, base, envious thoughts intruded, he could comfort himself a little that he was more than holding his own and it was proof he didn’t need their precious school.

But while the tutors Dark had found to nurture and hone his skills in the north had been trained, talented musicians, they’d had no hint of the spark Stefen recognized in almost all of the bards, including himself, including the Herald. He couldn’t help wondering what it would have been like to learn from teachers who had that, who could have helped him learn how to mold it, instead of having to figure it out on his own. What tricks had he never learned? What secrets did he still not know? There was a question to torment him.

At no point would Medren leave him long to stew in his own head though. His music was, if not perfect, damned, delightfully insistent.

Van got out a pair of wine flasks from the trunk, Medren made much of him ‘dipping into his stash,’ and the three of them passed the bottles between them, drinking like friends. He tried to pretend he didn’t notice the little tingle he felt, pressing his mouth to the lip of the bottle where he knew Van’s mouth had just been. He tried to pretend there wasn’t a part of him that fancied he could taste him. It was only that he was so close and real. Between the dreamerie and the nightmares he’d half convinced himself he couldn’t be.

Anyway, it was near dawn by then, they were all half asleep and bound to be prey to strange imaginings, couldn’t fault a man for that.

In fact, it was increasingly hard for Stefen to stay awake. If he hadn’t been so tired he wouldn’t have sung the song for Van again, at Medren’s urging. Flattery had always been his downfall, even when he knew it was false, and Medren was a master, with an insider’s perspective on how best to stroke another performer’s ego.

So he sang that one, and another he’d written but not played much yet, since he’d gone on his ill-thought-out crusade to cut dreamerie—and Dark—from his life. The last wasn’t even about Vanyel but Medren said he wanted to hear it anyway.

To thank him, Medren sang him one of his own, and he didn’t mean to, but without an instrument in his own hands Stefen nodded off halfway through.

He woke to Medren’s voice.

“—guess he doesn’t have to say what he thought of that. I know it needs polishing but I hadn’t thought it was that bad.”

He struggled to straighten from his slouch against the wall, already shaking his head. “No—it wasn’t—” Drunk with weariness, his tongue was slow and his words slurred. At least the bard had sounded amused rather than genuinely insulted.

“Hush,” Van said, warmth and affection like undercurrents of melody backing his words. “You have no one to blame but you, inviting yourself in when it was so late and staying so long.”

“You wound me, Uncle!” He didn’t sound wounded.

Stefen wrapped his arms around himself, chilled by his own isolation. Or just because he was so tired. “Sorry,” he muttered, near shivering with how much he meant it.

“Ah, don’t worry,” Medren said, misunderstanding. “Uncle Van is right—this time. It was a pleasure to meet you and I look forward to next time, but I shouldn’t have stayed so late. We will do this again though.”

It wasn’t a request, and Stefen wanted desperately for that to be true. He hadn’t even missed the dreamerie. He hadn’t worried at all about what he was supposed to do next, a slave without a master, not even the drug to command his days.

“Yes,” was all he managed. Cheerfully oblivious, Medren only laughed as he stood and in a moment he was gone entirely, Vanyel and Stefen alone in the room.

He must have dozed off again.

“To bed with you,” The Herald was saying softly, crouching in front of him, the instruments all put away somehow.

Stefen sighed. “Too tired,” he mumbled. He’d slept on plenty of floors, at least this one was relatively warm.

A huff of laughter. “All the more reason. Come on.”

Stefen blinked at him. Vanyel had extended his hand. He was barefoot, his shirt undone half down his chest, his sleeves rolled up. He looked ready for bed and if Stefen hadn’t been so tired—

He took a breath and took his hand, sleepiness receding even more when the Herald smiled at him.

Like when Dark had smiled at him—he shoved the thought away, bracing himself against the wall to help the Herald get him to his feet.

He wasn’t steady; when he tried to take a step he tripped over himself and would have landed on his face if the Herald hadn’t caught him. He could have blamed it on the wine but he’d hardly had any. How much sleep had he actually managed over the last week though? Over the last month? Not nearly enough, and didn’t he know it.

It could be worth missing more. The Herald was solid, in spite of his slim frame, and although he wasn’t any taller he had no trouble taking Stefen’s weight, not even budging when he fell into him. He wasn’t guant like he’d been. Stefen knew he still looked like shite himself, but the Herald had made a nice recovery.

The linen of his shirt was soft, warm from his skin. When Stefen let himself rest against him his scent surrounded him, heady, woody, comforting. He burrowed his forehead into the hollow of the Herald’s neck, letting the world fall away.

He didn’t remember walking across the room but they must have, because the flash of fear as the Herald nudged him away was instantly eased when he realized the bed was right behind him. Yes.

He let his legs give out and landed on his arse with a little bounce. The blanket had already been pulled back. The sheet was cool. He trailed his hand down the Herald’s chest, watching his face for a reaction. Was that good? Was that how he liked to be touched? He didn’t seem—

“Shhh,” the Herald whispered, catching his hands, holding them between them. He had Dark’s face. Dark had had his. Stefen should be afraid, but on his best day Dark had never looked at him like this. “Go ahead.”

 The Herald pressed his hands and Stefen understood he meant him to lie back. With a sigh he shut his eyes and obeyed, pulling his legs up onto the bed, careful to keep his feet off the sheets, down where they hadn’t been pulled over the blanket.

He opened his eyes again, blearily—gods, the pillows were soft, the sheets were soft, and it all smelled of soap and sun and him—to watch the Herald carefully pull Stefen’s boots off. “Wha—?” he started, trying half-heartedly to lever himself back up.

The Herald shot him an amused look and gave a tug on the boot he was still wearing, just that small pull enough to keep Stefen off balance and on his back. “Relax—” he said, and finished pulling that boot off too.

Stefen let him, managing to keep his eyes open to watch the Herald set it by the other boot on the floor, next to his own. Something in his stomach fluttered, which was stupid. It wasn’t like they hadn’t fucked before, a world away, with death hanging over them. He swallowed and closed his eyes again at the memory. That place—everything that touched that place, that was touched by Dark’s shadow, was tainted—

Then a blanket was pulled up and over him and the Herald tucked him in, alone, in his own bed.

He blinked and frowned at him in confusion, his limbs too heavy to fight free of the loose blankets, but the Herald’s rueful smile was unwavering.

“Go to sleep,” he said.

He wanted to argue, but gods, he was so tired—

~~~

Chapter 6

Stefen would never know where Van had slept that night; he was gone when he woke up. The day was well on, he hadn’t needed to check the window to know it, but he did anyway. He felt better than he had in a long time, and his fingers drummed absently at the coverlet as he pondered that.

Van had to have mucked about in his head at least a little. He’d slept so long, uninterrupted, and he had the vague impression of nightmares that had never quite manifested, little shadows kept at bay by something.

It was such a balm to his psyche to have made it through a few hours of genuine sleep though, and he was practical enough to choose not to dwell.

Instead he tossed the blanket back and sat up, out of bed, looking around the empty room. His boots were still on the floor at the foot of the bed, next to the Vanyel’s. But he supposed those were really Valdir’s boots anyway. He ran his hand down his face and scratched at his jaw. Another thing not to dwell on, not with hunger gnawing at his backbone.

The Herald had thought of that. There was a covered platter on the chest that he quickly discovered to be a plate of sliced fruit and two sausage rolls and he wolfed it all and wished there was more. A flask of mead had been left beside it at least, to wash it down, and he drank it dry while he wandered around, considering the room in the light of day.

There wasn’t much that was personal left out to mark it as anyone in particular’s, aside from the instrument shelves, and it still didn’t seem fitting for a man of Herald Vanyel’s position to live so simply, however comfortable and cozy it might also have been.

He finished the mead and set the flask beside the empty platter and sat down on the bed again to pull his boots back on.

Panicking when the door rattled, even when he saw it was only Van his heart didn’t quite settle. He couldn’t shake the feeling he was in trouble. He’d done something bad, he always did.

“You’re awake.”

He forced a smile. “Yeah. Thanks.”

Van closed the door behind him, hesitating, staring. “I see you found the food.” He waved vaguely.

Stefen nodded. “Aye, and thanks again.”

“You don’t have to…”

“Thank you?” he finished for him, when Van didn’t.

That finally won a small smile in return.

He was always a handsome man, but when he smiled—well. If Stefen was the sort it would have made him weak at the knees. Anyway, he was still sitting down.

He exhaled sharply, reminding himself to breath. “Didn’t mean to kick you out of your bed,” he said. The opposite had been his intention, in fact. They were supposed to have ended up there together.

Van shrugged, clearly ill at ease. “Medren’s already asked after you. Couldn’t even wait a day to hunt me down for pointed questions. He likes you.”

He’d have loved to know what some of those questions had been, and more, what the answers were, but he wasn’t fool enough to imagine Van would share either.

“Thought he was your lover, when he first walked in,” he confessed, shaking his head at himself to remember it.

“What?”

Van’s squawk only turned his reflection into a snicker. “Well he did shove in like he owned the place, and you weren’t exactly shoving him back out.”

“That doesn’t mean I—”

There was something off in his tone. Stefen cocked his head to stare at him. Definitely something there. He knew to chase after vulnerability when he stumbled on it, even if he hadn’t been looking, but he didn’t understand this one. His eyes narrowed.

“Should I still be worried? When your real guy comes in am I gonna have a fight on my hands?”

“No. There isn’t a ‘real’ anyone who would have that right.”

“Aaah, I get ya.” He yawned and stretched as if this was all casual talk, but he was mulling it over, picking at it. “Fancy free. A string of hearts from here to Karse, but none that can call you ‘his,’ yeah? That’s the way to do it.”

“Not quite.” Amusement then, and it colored his voice so prettily Stefen could have let himself be distracted if he was as easily distracted as he played. It was on the tip of his tongue to poke him about keeping faith with a kid decades dead, but he already knew it wasn’t that, either.

He turned on him, all his good mood at having finally caught a few hours of true rest gone sour. “It’s not my fault.”

The Herald blinked, surprised. “No—of course not.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not.”

“You’re not sleeping with anyone because of this thing between us.”

Van pulled a face, finding the balls to look annoyed. “I’m not sleeping with anyone because I don’t want to. There’s more to my life.”

A casual blow; there wasn’t more to Stefen’s, it was why he’d come and they both knew it. “And if you did?”

He crossed his arms, silver eyes gone cool as an unsheathed blade. “What do you want me to say?”

Stefen leaned forward, glaring. “This isn’t my fault.”

“It isn’t.”

“I don’t love you. That’s what this shite is supposed to mean, isn’t it? This lifebond tripe? True love forever like you and your first, back in the day? That’s not this. I don’t love you.”

The Herald looked more taken aback than hurt and that was strangely worse. “You don’t have to love me,” he said gently. “I don’t expect it.”

Fuck his gentleness. His condescension. “What do you expect, then? What do you think this is?” He didn’t mean the thread of pleading that had slipped into his words. He didn’t give a fuck what the Herald wanted. It was only that he had magic, so he should understand this stupid magic thing, and that he’d been through it before—

The Herald raked his hand through his hair and sighed. He glanced at Stefen, then away, then crossed the room to sit beside him on the bed.

In spite of himself Stefen leaned closer, waiting to hear what he’d say, waiting for something in his life to start making sense.

“A lifebond…it’s like the bond between a Herald and Companion.”

Stefen’s lips twisted. That didn’t help at all.

“And we say—the Heralds—we say that people are Chosen who are needed. Gifts appear as they’re needed. In times of war we get Firestarters, Fetchers, Mages, combative Gifts. In times of peace, Empaths, Mind Speakers, diplomats, spies, and peacekeepers—”

Stefen could tell he’d been going over this idea, rehearsing these exact words, if only in his head. It wasn’t a good performance and he wasn’t interested.

“So, we’re a lifebond because Valdemar needed it? To save your kingdom you needed to be able to steal my song and maybe my life, so… the gods put this thing in my head that says I have to belong to you?”

He didn’t need the bond to know how uncomfortable the Herald was. “You don’t belong to me.”

Fucking right!

“Nothing personal, yeah? Just the right sort of Gift at the right place and time—boom, kingdom saved, good job, now fuck off?”

The Herald flinched. But he didn’t fucking argue.

Stefen shot to his feet and grabbed his gittern case from the corner behind the door, fumbling at it first, but he got it. It wasn’t a candle in the daylight to anything on the Herald’s shelves but it was his.

He could take a hint. It wasn’t even that the Herald didn’t think he was good enough for him, he didn’t even think of him in terms that even involved—

He was just a tool, was he? A gods-given one—hah!—but not even really rightfully a person.

Fucking hells, the Herald really wasn’t any better than Dark.

He was still behind him, on the bed, and Stefen had his hand on the door—

“I didn’t mean that—Please, Stefen, I’m grateful!” the Herald’s voice was so low, so sincere. Dark couldn’t have matched him for fucking, pious sincerity. “You have no idea how much. If there’s anything I can do…”

To repay him. To fucking pay him. Maybe he had just enough brain to catch on to how much he’d gone awry with his attempts to be comforting—I don’t own you had been a good start, thank the gods you made a half-decent weapon against my enemy had been a godsawful end—but he had enough wit or mercy in him to finally shut his bastard mouth while Stefen left.

~~~

He had long ago learned that you could get by being in places you shouldn’t just by keeping your head up and walking with purpose, and that got him off the palace grounds, through the now open gates, easier out than in anyway, and back to the city.

It was easy to walk with ‘purpose’ when fury made the ground seem to fly away under each angry stride. He felt like he could have walked back to Tides in a day.

What he wasn’t good at, in this frame of mind, was watching his surroundings. Haven was safe, wasn’t it? The kingdom’s capital, swarming with Heralds and guards.

Nowhere was safe. He knew that. He knew better, but that arsehole, hypocrite Herald—

Stefen was caught by the neck, choked breathless, spun in a dizzying whirl, and slammed against the stone façade of some shop.

Parts of town you shouldn’t ever let your guard down, he knew that; he was a son of the damned streets, for however long he’d been away. Someone who knew where they were or had a few locals deep enough in their pocket could get away with damned near anything and no one would say one word about what happened to him. Not if he was filleted on the cobbles, long as they were quick enough or kept him quiet enough that the guards didn’t come by until it was done.

A knife pressed up under his jaw, icy cold along his throat, but point up, and his ears rang with the pop of his skin puncturing at its tip, followed instantly by the warm bead of his welling blood against it.

“Don’t fight,” the man grunted into his ear, pressing Stefen back into the stone behind him, pinning him, so he could fumble a sack over his head before Stefen’d even got his breath back.

The knife left his throat so the bag could be pulled down, but he was shoved around and his hands were caught and bound behind him, good, secure knots he wouldn’t easily squirm free from, and the knife jabbed dangerously at his back.

He already knew it was sharp, it wouldn’t take that much effort to drive it up into him and he didn’t think it was by accident that it was angled to go for his heart. His captor grabbed a fistful of bag and hair, making his eyes tear in his dark, musty prison, jerking his head to one side so he could speak more directly into his ear, though even then his voice was muffled.

“I’m serious. Don’t struggle. Don’t try to call for help. You’ll be dead before anyone gets close to enough to touch me.”

Not doubting it, he didn’t try to respond. After a moment the body pinning his to the wall eased away and his captor grabbed his arm, curling the one that held the knife around his back to keep its point—and his—pertinent while he pulled him along the street.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. This wasn’t thievery. Even the most brutal cutthroat would have just stuck him or knocked his head and left him to bleed out.

One of Dark’s old enemies, free to act now that the sorcerer was dead? One of the Herald’s, who’d seen him running away from his room? Neither was likely, though the latter was slightly more probable considering where he was. But still, why?

He stumbled, but the large man walking him kept him going. Off balance with his arms twisted up behind him and his spine arching in instinctive resistance to the knife in his back. He knew they couldn’t be far from wherever he was being taken, his captor couldn’t have bought that many people, so they’d cut through to somewhere more private or head inside quickly. No time to try anything, even if he was dumb enough to doubt the threat of that blade.

Sure enough he was out of the sunshine and walking somewhere considerably cooler in a only a few paces, ducked down an alley or side street—

Side street, by the length of it. He tried to keep his breathing shallow, quiet and steady in the enveloping sack, and count their paces to keep some sense of where he was being taken, in case there was any chance of it being useful information later.

They turned and went a bit longer, a narrow way, still stone-paved, but with small scattered obstacles like litter and trash. Drainage, he was betting, for storm water, since it didn’t smell bad enough to be a main drainage ditch for sewage.

He was already panting just to breathe past the pain where he’d been grabbed by the throat, and the strain of catching any air at all through the rough-woven hood. Embarrassing, muffled sounds escaped every time he stumbled, or his captor jerked too hard on his arm, or their pace dug the knife blade a little deeper against him.

May as well use what he had.

But he’d hardly managed the first humming note before the other man slammed a fist against the back of his head and let him fall forward for a moment, only catching him at the last by one of his wrists, turning his attempted song into a cry as his full weight fell on the unnatural twist of his shoulders and his knees hit the ground.

“Told you not to try anything,” his captor growled, keeping his arms at that painful angle for a moment longer. Stef curled forward as soon as he was allowed to, his stomach heaving as he tried to process the pain. Only slightly more carefully grabbed by his upper arm and jerked back to his feet, his captor pressed the knife back in its place and gave him a little shake. “Don’t do that again. Not a sound until I ask for it.”

No fool, he bit his lip until he tasted blood, keeping even the whimpers and grunts from escaping, as much so he wouldn’t be tempted as to appease his captor.

Another turn, but this time they were entering a building, through a door so narrow he felt his captor twist sideways to slide through. The door shut behind them, a clicking of locks, and the knife was finally pulled away, allowing him to breathe, leaving him to shudder with it.

For a moment he wobbled, blinded, deafened, hurting, unsupported. He’d always been that, though, hadn’t he? He swallowed and forced his shoulders straight, forced his aching, quivering knees to lock. He’d long known he would die on his knees someday, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t stand as long as he could.

“C’mon,” his captor grunted, and Stefen wrote off the note of regret he thought he heard in it as a trick of his panic and the bag covering his head. When the man grabbed his shoulder and pushed he started walking, even less sure of his footing, but striding forward as if he was fearless.

He stopped when the man squeezed, and continued more carefully when the man grumbled, “Stairs.”

They were steep, but his captor was patient enough now that they were off the street, letting him take his time to carefully feel for each step. It seemed to take an eternity and it was a relief he couldn’t have described to finally reach the bottom. Steering him by that hand on his shoulder, his captor led him to a chair and carefully lowered him into it, arranging his arms over and around the high back—which hurt for a moment but eased when he was sitting and allowed to rest his arms again. He felt another rope and a tugging on his bonds, recognizing he was being tied to the chair.

Subtly he shifted on it, trying to feel for how easy it would be to move—it wouldn’t be, it was solid and heavy and might well weigh as much as he did.

It was cold. His ears rang with expectant silence. He felt the hood bunching up atop his head an instant before it was pulled off.

~~~

Chapter 7

He recognized the man who’d taken him as the one he’d met in the tavern that night he’d joined in the bard-song, and that wasn’t entirely surprising; he’d known the man was dangerous and the impression Stefen had gotten of his captor’s size and strength certainly fit his bulk.

The fact that he had at least one partner, who’d been watching all Stefen’s awkward toe-groping down the stairs and waiting for him to be seated and de-hooded wasn’t particularly surprising either. He didn’t know what was going on but there was clearly more to the little bards’ guardian than a general concern for local schoolkids.

The woman who sat in the chair across from his—not tied to it—had a friendly look to her. A common, simple, everyday sort of woman. Brown hair going gray, mild gray eyes, a bit chubby around the middle.

Dark had trained him not to trust friendly, if everything else in this situation hadn’t been enough to warn him off.

“Welcome,” the woman said. “We’ve been looking for you.”

“Coulda sent a note around.”

She smiled as if it had been a better joke than it was. Stefen’s fingers worried his bonds, absently plucking out a tune the heavy ropes would never play.

“It looked like you had left—then you show up on the palace grounds, slipping through the gate like you’d had business there. What were you doing in the palace?”

Trying to fuck and being rejected by the biggest hero in your kingdom?

Mad bravado aside, since for all he knew this was because of Vanyel, he wasn’t inclined to try to use him as an alibi. He shrugged.

The bruiser from the tavern touched his shoulder again, cupping it, but gently, like he had for the last walk through the building and down the stairs. He leaned down, breathed in Stefen’s ear—

There was a push. He’d never felt such a push, except maybe from Dark, and even then, that had been more of a pull, a small, but clear distinction. He would have done it, he would have said anything they wanted…if he’d had any idea at all what the words actually meant. He recognized the language of Karse from a handful of songs he knew, but he didn’t speak it.

And it lasted, it lingered, that need, that drive, that desperation to obey, even after the words were spoken and spent and gone.

He shook his head. What the fuck was that? What the fuck? He recognized the Gift, but this was a new, alien face on his oldest, only friend.

He felt the man and woman watching him while he struggled for composure, shaking, breathless.

Before he could steady himself the man—bard, gods, what sort of bard could do this?—leaned down and pushed again, this time in Rethwellani. Hardornan then. Another language, another. Stefen knew none of them and each one left an unfulfilled yearning that only grew as the bard lost patience and sped up, slipping from language to dialect to language like Stefen might have slipped between songs, and he couldn’t be fooled, every one was a performance, every spoken syllable was backed by the pulsing heart of music.

The woman watched him, chin up, staring down her nose, eyes narrowed. He could have hated her, them, but the music, the push—what the fuck was this?

Finally, street cant—thick, like highborns couldn’t even recognize as their mother tongue.

“My name is Stefen and I don’t work for anyone!”

Everything went silent except for him, breath rasping loud as if he’d run three miles and climbed a tree to shout it at them.

The bard straightened and let go of his shoulder. The woman frowned, obviously not happy with his answer.

“Stefen from where?” she asked.

“Tides.”

“And before that?”

“Before that, nowhere. Who knows? It’s where I was raised. If I lived anywhere before there, your guess is as good as mine.”

“Who trained you? If you’re from Tides, why didn’t you train at the collegium?” the bard demanded.

“Wasn’t invited,” he sneered, before he could stop himself.

Not bothering to acknowledge that, the bard walked over and took the seat next to the woman. He pointed at him, sternly. “Don’t try anything. I’m still more than close enough to stop you.”

He exhaled heavily, still shaken. “Don’t know what you expect. I can’t do anything like that,” he muttered, trying to hide his envy. Could all the bards out of Valdemar’s collegium do that? Those kids wandering the streets? Medren?

The bard didn’t smile but a corner of his lips twitched like he might’ve wanted to.

Instead he crossed his arms and stretched out his legs and only with the two side-by-side for comparison did Stefen realize how slight the woman was, hardly more than the size of a child, next to the brutish bard.

She smiled, reasonable and friendly, though Stefen thought it was a little late to stick to that line. “Perhaps we should start again, Stefen. My name is Berner; this is Osaba. We’re just trying to make sure you aren’t here to cause trouble in our capitol. If you answer our questions honestly we’ll get this all quickly squared away and you can be off. No need for fuss. We’re all friends here.”

“Then why am I still tied to a chair?”

Berner nodded. “Good point. Osaba?”

He stiffened when the bard stood and approached him again but the man just bent down behind him and loosed his bonds, not touching him anywhere else.

Stefen sighed with relief, immediately rolling his shoulders forward, braced for the pain as circulation picked up in his arms. His sigh turned into a hiss through gritted teeth, but it wasn’t too bad. Dark had played rougher than that, and for longer. Osaba returned to his chair and Stefen flexed his fingers and stretched his arms, eying them both.

~~~

The interrogation went on for a few candlemarks, and maybe Berner had been telling the truth and it could have gone faster and been done if Stefen hadn’t been so tightlipped, but he never had been a man for the easy way, and certainly not for someone else’s ease.

He’d been visiting in the palace, it was why he’d come to Haven, he told them. Wasn’t none of their damned business who, or why he’d taken so long to make that last leg, he wasn’t a fucking spy.

Though it had been a bit of relief to finally catch on that’s what they’d been thinking. Of all stupid, maggot-brained ideas.

He told them his training had been arranged by his patron in the north. When they pressed him for why he hadn’t ended up in the capitol anyway he eventually admitted his Master would never have let him go and he hadn’t had the freedom to take off because he’d been sold to him. He left out Rendan and his men, they hadn’t mattered.

He fancied the tone of the questions changed a little. If these were the sort he was starting to believe they were they’d carry a bit of guilt for that, a boy being sold into a situation that wouldn’t free him even to chase a talent like they kept dancing around him having. Under their noses, he was pretty sure. Herald or guard, Berner was one or the other; he was stupid for not having smelled it sooner. Nevermind that Tides wasn’t Haven, some folk had a need to take on responsibility for the world.

And what had happened to his Master? How had he been freed to go visiting at the capitol now?

“I killed him,” he said, hard-eyed, not caring what they thought.

He had; though he hadn’t said it aloud before. But if the Herald thought he was a weapon, didn’t he deserve to own it, too? He didn’t ask for anything for his part in it, except being able to say he’d done it: Dark was dead because of him.

He leaned back a little in his chair.

“And then?”

He shrugged, tired. “Went back to Tides. Where else was I gonna go?”

“So after murdering your ‘Master,’ you spent the last several months in Tides until you decided to visit your…ah, friend, who works in the palace?” There was no judgment in Berner’s tone, as if her choice of words wasn’t telling enough.

“That’s the shape of it, yeah.”

“And if we send word to Tides, we’ll find people who will corroborate your story?”

Stefen nodded. Damn though, if they were going to hold on to him until that, it could be days before they were done with him. He wouldn’t name anyone but if they asked around there were enough people who’d vouch for him. Mother Caenis, if no one else. Brusi probably. And hells, any bed they dug up for him probably wouldn’t be the worst place he’d slept, either. What was a few days to him?

“And where could we send word to verify your stay in the ‘north?’”

He flinched. The woman was a fucking bulldog, for all her pretense of sympathy.

Osaba’s eyes suddenly widened and he straightened in his seat. It was subtle, but Stefen had been watching them as close as they’d been watching him. The bard’s sudden animation made him nervous. Beren had caught it too, and she stopped pressing.

“You’re the bard they found with Herald Vanyel,” he said, soft.

Stefen shifted, trying not to visibly react. Put that way it sounded like something dirty. ‘Found with him’ like they’d been spotted rutting in public, or on the sly, when one was married. Some would always put it that way when it was two of the same, though. It didn’t fit the situation, that was the reason he fumbled his mask.

Beren’s face changed, truly, and for the first time Stefen saw a glimpse of the real woman, but he knew it was at the cost of his own thin disguise. “At Crookback Pass?” She glanced at Osaba, but Osaba was still staring Stefen down.

“Aren’t you? They said you were red-haired. A Valdemar lad from down south.”

He didn’t answer. He couldn’t.

Osaba leaned forward, eyes suddenly gentling. “You wrote that song too, the one that’s going around? It’s damned good.”

He huffed and gave up, looking away, knowing the avoidance was answer enough, if they believed it. That damned song.

The bard stood and nodded at Berner. “We need to talk.”

Berner, unlike Stefen, already had her face back in order, but she followed the tall bard anyway. Stefen stayed where he was. He heard them—mostly Osaba—tromping up the stairs and he heard the door at the top landing open and close.

He exhaled and wiped at his face. Fucking god-cursed, he was. Bad enough when they’d thought he was a spy, but now? He wouldn’t ever have mentioned Dark, not ever, but they knew. How much they actually knew, and how much they just thought, didn’t really matter. Stefen’s song had gone before the story mostly, but word had spread of the truth of it, even to the gutters of Tides.

Herald Vanyel, living legend, standing alone against a dark mage from the north and his army of men and fel-beasts. But the stories, like the song, didn’t make mention of Stefen.

If they’d heard of him, they hadn’t heard it from him, so who’d carried the tale? Not the Herald, not Van, who was more tight lipped even than Stefen was. If it had come from the other Heralds, and the guard, and the army that had gathered at the border, mostly too late, then what had they been told?

He hadn’t won any favor at the border before he’d run off.

They didn’t talk long, Osaba was back soon, his steps slower down the stairs but just as heavy. Stefen watched warily as the larger man grabbed his chair pulled it closer before he sat down.

“This isn’t a trick, is it? We’ll find out.”

Stefen snorted. Why, of all lives, would he pretend to this one? Why would anyone pretend to this one?

“It was Herald Vanyel you were visiting in the palace.”

He rolled his eyes. An easy guess but they couldn’t make him say it. Unless Osaba commanded him again, like he had before, running through all those languages, trying to force him to acknowledge his real one, to admit ‘who he worked for.’

He looked back at the bard again.

The man shook his head, perplexed. “Why were you following the kids all those nights?”

Kids? His age or a few years younger. “I liked listening to the music. I’d never heard anything like it before. All of them together, the way they play…the games…” He trailed off, startled by his own honesty. Osaba should understand, or maybe he couldn’t. He’d’ve been surrounded by it his whole life, like those kids, like Medren, hells, like the Herald. This was their world.

Osaba sighed and slouched, resting his hands over his stomach, suddenly looking tired. “I took you for a hopeful,” he said. “I only kept watching out because you never made any tries to talk to anyone, or to get to the collegium.”

“For that I get nabbed?” he complained.

Osaba sighed again. “You were too good to be a hopeful, I knew it as soon as I heard you. What was I supposed to think? You showing up with that much power, that much skill, and polished and not local? Lurking around Haven like a sullen little shadow, but moving through it like you knew the city?”

Stefen glared at him. He could have repeated himself but he knew he didn’t need to.

Osaba made a face and crossed his arms, muscles bulging. “Fine. Yeah, for that you get nabbed. What do you want, an apology? I’d do it all over in the same circumstance; you’re suspicious as fuck.”

Stefen snorted again and crossed his own arms, noticing too late that he’d mirrored the man across from him and too proud then to make a point of undoing it. “I just sing is all,” he said. “Play a little. Hells, did you look at my gittern?” he gestured to where the case had been laid on the floor by Beren’s chair. It was a relief that it was probably still whole and still with him but it wouldn’t have been a loss to the world if Osaba had let it smash on the street. “What sort of threat do you gits think I would be?”

The man’s eyes widened again and he sat back in his chair. “Are you serious? As little as I heard of your voice, I know—”

“What?” Stefen asked, when he didn’t continue.

He stared at him until Stefen shifted uncomfortably.

“I can’t do what you did before. Sure, I can shove emotions around a little, make someone sleepy, make ‘m less, but… that’s not like what you did.”

“Isn’t it?”

He shrank a little.

“Your master didn’t have you train with anyone gifted, did he?”

At that his chin went up, and his walls with it. “So?”

“So—”

The door at the top of the stairs opened and Stefen shut his eyes, freezing, knowing without looking exactly who had just entered.

“Stefen?”

Vanyel.

~~~

Chapter 8

“Herald Vanyel!” Osaba shot to his feet. He didn’t have to say anything else, the awe was plain in his voice.

Stefen fought back a groan. Beren had actually done it. She’d been so set on checking Stefen’s story—or theirs, really; Stefen himself hadn’t verbally admitted anything—that she’d sent word to Herald-hero Vanyel Ashkevron.

Like their recent parting hadn’t been humiliating enough.

He wouldn’t look.

Van took the stairs two at a time and when he strode into view, cloak swirling dramatically behind him, Stefen had to give him credit for knowing how to make an entrance.

His expression was grave, tight-lipped, a furrow between his brows. When he realized Stefen was watching him his face flashed guilt for a fraction of an instant, but then then his gaze slid from Stefen to Osaba and back, hardening.

“Are you well?” There was a cool edge of menace in his voice that Stefen found interesting, but he really wasn’t any more keen on sharing now than he’d been before. Less, if anything.

He held his arms wide, putting himself on display. “’Course!” He didn’t try to sound remotely sincere. There was nothing he wanted to say, but much that he might’ve, if Osaba hadn’t been there. So, thank the gods for Osaba.

—who didn’t know Van, or he wouldn’t be quite so starry eyed, but Beren had to be connected to him somehow or she’d never have dared to directly contact the great Herald Vanyel. And she had to have contacted him fairly directly or he couldn’t be here already, pulled from some deadly important business to the kingdom, Stefen had no doubt.

He figured he should try to look grateful, but he wasn’t, and fuck that anyway.

This thing made sense actually, him being here, so quick and ready and accessible on Beren’s word. He didn’t dress up like Valdir for fun. Stefen wasn’t sure a man like him would do anything for fun. Clean his modest little room or hand-wash his pretty whites, maybe. 

—collect the most beautiful musical instruments—

“I’m sorry. We had to be sure…” Osaba near stuttered, falling silent instantly at Van’s upraised hand. It was a very different power from what Dark had wielded but it got him much the same results.

“Go. Please.”

Osaba nodded once, more of a small bow, and then was gone back up the stairs.

It was quiet again when the door closed behind him. Stefen still didn’t know what the Herald expected from him. Damned if he’d ask again.

“I’m sorry.”

“Aren’t you always?” he said, without heat, but the Herald flinched anyway.

“I didn’t mean to make you feel like you’re not…”

“Not what?” Would he say it? Any of the words that belonged at the end of that sentence? Special. Important. Mine, even. Not that he wanted to be his. He didn’t want to be anybody’s anymore.

“I’m glad you’re getting off dreamerie,” Van said instead.

Stefen had forgotten he’d even told him that. “It’s not for you.”

“I know…”

I’m doing it in spite of you. In spite of your face in my nightmares. He suddenly shivered and rubbed at his arms. This whole, stupid fiasco was no more than he deserved for having chased the Herald to Haven in the first place. Had he thought he’d find answers here? He should’ve known better by now; he didn’t believe in answers, not for most folk, only the loudest or prettiest lies. He didn’t need the Herald for that, he could damned well make up his own.

“I don’t expect you to be faithful,” he suddenly said, and it took Stefen a moment to even understand what he meant.

He felt his heart pitch and then his blood start to steam when he got it. He really meant to continue the conversation? “Yeah? Generous of you.” He spoke through gritted teeth.

He had the eyes of a man who knew he should stop talking and couldn’t. Like Osaba had hit him up on his way out and commanded him to make as big an arse of himself as possible.

“I just thought you should know. You don’t have to—you aren’t obligated to… You don’t owe me that. Or anything.”

“You don’t say?” He stood.

The Herald fell back a step but the fucker wouldn’t stop talking. “I mean, just because I am—doesn’t mean you can’t—”

An unbearable bastard. A pitiful, unbearable bastard. “—can’t fuck my way from one end of the kingdom to the other? And keep going if I feel like? Oh, I know I can. There’s plenty wouldn’t turn down what you have.”

“I’m not—”

“Shut up!” He finally broke. “Don’t matter to me what you do or how you justify it, yeah? None of my business, so thanks and no thanks for your opinion. And that goes both ways. I’m sorry I stuck my nose into yours coming here, I won’t do that again.”

“Stefen…”

It was a bitter thing, his name on the Herald’s lips. Such a sweet music in it, such a bitter emptiness it left in him.

He shook his head and pointed his thumb over his shoulder. “I’m going to grab my gittern and head out—as long as your friends upstairs will let me?”

Van nodded, mute.

“Good.” Gods so much more to say, a waterfall of words in his head.

None of them, he would give him none of them. The Herald wasn’t worth another one.

~~~

He didn’t look at Beren or Osaba, who’d fallen silent when he’d come through the door and didn’t try to stop him from leaving, or even speak to him again.

He couldn’t shake the watched, hunted feeling though, even when he’d made it back to a real street. He’d felt it before they’d grabbed him and it wasn’t likely to lessen now. Better to leave Haven and be grateful he had the freedom.

Another difference between the Herald and Dark: as far as the Herald was concerned Stefen’d served his purpose and he didn’t care what he got up to anymore, aside from his guilt.

Had Stefen asked for that?

He shook his head at the stupidity, grabbing at the strap of his gittern case so he could pick up his pace without it bouncing off. He wouldn’t spend another night in Haven but he had to hit it if he was going to reach somewhere else to stay before nightfall.

~~~

His ire carried him a day and a half, long enough to get him back to Tides, to the temple, to Mother Caenis and the little ones.

It couldn’t keep him going through them not needing him anymore, but they didn’t.

Mother Caenis had them now. Rumor had spread to all corners of the food to be had at the temples for a bit of sitting through lessons, a bit of chores. Easy work for the pay of a full belly when there weren’t many places young ones their size could get the same, including in their homes, those that had them.

He felt a shirker going back to his monk’s cell as if they still needed him, though the priestess and her sisters welcomed him; the mother with open relief he’d come back at all. They treated him like one of the little ones—not so different from how the Herald did.

So he hid at The Dawn’s Eyes every day—aside from his chores, he could at least give them that, simple as they were—which thrilled Brusi the tavernkeeper to no end, and must not have sat wrong with his partner Arnie in the kitchen, since the food they turned out for him was never less than top notch, even for two solid weeks of his sorry self haunting them.

There was never anything better than an appreciative audience, and no question the audiences of the Dawn’s Eyes could afford to show their appreciation better than the ones out on the street corners, but there was more to life than pennies in a jar and every performance had to end eventually.

Exactly what more he was supposed to find though, that’s what he was having trouble pinning down.

No Dark to serve. No Herald to serve. He found himself craving the dreamerie again just for boredom’s sake, though he wasn’t fool enough to give in on that case either, now that the need had dulled enough to let him sleep at least a few hours a night. And he wasn’t honestly sure that the nightmares he still had were from the dreamerie at all. He’d started on it to forget, hadn’t he? Though through the years it seemed that might have been the only memory he’d managed to shake, that the nightmares were older than the addiction.

He was done with it, damned if he wasn’t.

But what was he supposed to replace it with?

~~~

Of a night he’d often wander over to The Between, since The Dawn’s Eyes kept respectable hours while The Between could hardly be mentioned in the same breath as respectable anything. Sour beer and a few other bodies in the room, The Between could give him that much and when that was all he needed, it was good enough.

Nightmares that weren’t from kicking dreamerie were still nightmares and he still didn’t like sitting alone with them.

There were only a few times he’d had to turn away because he’d caught whiff of something he wasn’t willing to cow down to again. It did make him cautious about entering, making it worth always pausing a few breaths in the door to check the clarity of the air.

Good for him, that night, because he recognized the man at the far end of the small room before he stumbled unthinkingly into him. Leaned forward over the bar itself, good luck to him peeling free, sticky as it always was; he had his head low, talking earnestly with an equally earnest Keep, and didn’t Stefen feel like a fool, shaken to his boots as he quietly slipped back out again, hoping neither had noticed him.

Stupid, unlikely, but so much of life was, wasn’t it? You just didn’t question what had always been, or the people who’d always been there, even before he’d gone north. He’d thought Haven was so different for the Heralds and guardsmen in the slums, swanning about like their disguises were even good, so self-righteous that he was on to them, it never had occurred to him to look for their like closer to home.

Fucking Keep.

A guard, or with them, he’d have to be. If there was one of those big white horses hiding about, he’d have been outed ages before. Stefen could understand it so clearly now, suddenly seeing him as a man who could be more than he’d ‘always’ been. And his odd mornings at the temple…was someone there a part of it? Mother Caenis?

She was too new; if she was in, she’d replaced someone else. Or maybe it was just a place to meet up. Or maybe he just went to pray, like people joked. If he was a guard maybe he did have a conscience he wanted to clear from time to time.

“Oi!”

And fucking Osaba.

Stefen sped up at the soft shout from behind him. Probably little hope he’d just leave be, it looked concerningly like he’d come from Haven to talk to him.

“Oi! Wait!” the fact that he was so carefully modulating his volume was concerning too. Not afraid of getting Stefen’s attention, but not necessarily looking to get anyone else’s. At least he didn’t put any of that push into it.

He could have kept going, but he swallowed and paused. Osaba’d only keep chasing him, he’d thought that about him before and forgotten it, to his detriment.

If you can’t run you square up to fight, sometimes just showing you were willing was enough. He turned on his heel and waited.

Osaba wore a friendly enough expression, not like when he’d taken him, or when they’d been interrogating him. “Stefen. Good to see you looking well.” He slowed to a stop as he neared him.

Stefen crossed his arms. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Where’s your friend?” And who sent you? Her or Vanyel?

Osaba shrugged, eyes flicking around them. It wasn’t really dark on this side of town, even this time of night: the lights from the big houses illuminated the streets around them, but he didn’t seem to find that comforting. “Homebody. She don’t leave her neck, much.”

He slipped sometimes, sounding like he was more Stefen’s ilk than Van or Beren’s.

“And you? What has you on my step, hey? Haven’t seen you here before.”

He shrugged again, staring at him suddenly like there was something he wanted to say. “I’ve been here before, plenty. You weren’t around then, I think.”

Ah. He wondered if that was true. And if it was, if he would have figured it out, and pinned Keep too, if he’d been left to finish his growing here.

“There was something I wanted to talk about before. Didn’t get the chance.” He pointed his thumb. “Wanna go back and sit? Wet yer whistle. Chat it up?”

He wasn’t here for Vanyel. Not that that would have made a difference, Stefen was glad to be done with that fucked-up tangle of power and piety. “No.”

“Ah—please?”

It was so unexpected, in tone as much as anything else, it startled a laugh from him, and had him shaking his head at himself to see Osaba’s sly, answering grin and know he’d won that one.

Damn. He’d have to listen, he already knew the man wouldn’t stop hounding him, he just wasn’t the sort. Didn’t mean Stefen’d come easy though—or cheap.

Osaba cocked his head at Stefen’s sudden, thin smile.

“I’ll talk. Or listen, if that’s your game. Neutral ground, though. Get us a room.” He nodded his chin at the nearest window and Osaba’s eyes widened a little as he understood.

A million expressions crossed his face, writ in the dirty orange glow of the big house lights. Stefen waited.

Osaba nodded.

~~~

They went in together, not to the same one he’d visited with that noble nearly a month before, and this time he stayed close. He didn’t touch him, but he was always near enough he could have, leaving no doubt they were together as Osaba paid out for a few hours in an upstairs room.

He’d have some explaining to do for his local persona and depending on who he rubbed shoulders with he might have some trouble in a few quarters. Which he was clearly accepting, and it left Stefen wondering if he should feel flattered that Osaba thought talking to him was worth it.

Untroubled by the ghosts that had haunted him last time he’d stepped into one of those rooms, Stefen strutted across the floor and threw himself down on the bed, stretching out with his gittern case at his side and his arms folded under the pillow. He was comfortable in his small victory, not even bothered when Osaba looked at him and smiled, shaking his head.

A small victory was better than none at all.

“So?” he asked, ready to listen, or at least to let him start his pitch.

“So…” Osaba drawled, dragging the one, heavy chair in the room nearer to the bed so he could sit down and be closer for their talk. “—did you know I’m not a bard?”

Despite himself, Stefen eyed him with genuine curiosity.

“Right?” Osaba said. “But I can’t hold a note, I’m shite with any instrument I’ve ever touched, and I can’t compose music or lyrics worth a damn; have to have two of the three to really qualify, definitely to get the crown’s sponsorship to the collegium and there was no chance of me paying my own way at your age.” He waited, but when Stefen didn’t say anything he continued. “But I’ve got the Gift, right? You heard it?”

Felt it. Could almost feel it still.

“Yeah, but see, bards aren’t just people who talk, bards are about music, and that’s not me. That’s not anything I can do, even if I have the Gift. To be honest, it’s not even something I’m over-interested in. Tin ear, you see?”

Every word only made it worse. Stefen felt vaguely sick and had gone from propping up his head behind the pillow to cradling his stomach.

Osaba laughed. “Yeah, I get that look a lot around your sort. No harm. Only more proof I’m not one of you. I ended up where I belong.”

“Which is…?”

Osaba leaned back in his chair. “Which is in a position to help you out. Outsider-insider perspective. It’s not a bad place to be.”

“How?”

Because that he understood. Outsider-Insider, that had always been him.

“I can teach you.”

Plain, bold words, and Stefen understood he didn’t just mean the Gift, though thinking back, he’d alluded to that before. How, for all Dark’s tutors, he’d kept him away from anyone who might have taught him more about his actual Gift.

“What’s your price?”

Coy, Osaba shrugged again. “It’s in the Circle’s best interests. The Bardic Circle, I mean. You’re too strong to not know what you have, and how to control it. To not even understand how dangerous it is.”

He snorted, but that sort of made sense. Osaba would report on him to his masters at the capitol, fair enough.

“Why not admit me to the collegium, then?”

“Would you come?”

—gods, no!—

Osaba nodded. “You’re older than most of them there. And wilder than the older ones, if you don’t mind me saying. Talking about bards, that’s saying a lot, by the way. And why should you? You don’t need classmates, you just need a teacher. And you don’t need to learn how to play or compose or sing, you know all that, you only need someone who can fill you in on your Gift. I can do that much, and the Circle gave me permission. Charged me, really. But consider this your gilded invitation if you’d rather go that way.”

He shook his head.

Still, it could have been nice…but Osaba was right. He wouldn’t have had the patience to sit through someone telling him how to sing his songs, he’d trained hard already under a much crueler master, and done his time in far more dangerous testing grounds. And he still wasn’t fool enough to think that Osaba was only offering to teach him about the Bardic Gift.

“And when I’m trained?” he persisted.

For a long moment Osaba just looked at him, and there was something sad in it. “They only ask for loyalty,” he said, and Stefen knew he was lying. “They just want to know where all true sons of Valdemar stand.” That last part was closer to the truth.

His gaze drifted to the rough wooden beams above him while he considered what was being offered and what wasn’t. There were heavy hooks inset in several places along the old, stained wood of the ceiling.

Nothing was free. Valdemar would want to be paid for any favor it offered him.

He looked back to Osaba, big, raw-boned, graceless. What he did with his voice though, it was something Stefen could feel, just out of his reach but so close he could almost brush against it. He’d figure it out on his own, he didn’t doubt it, now that he knew it was possible, but he would always wonder how much he still didn’t know. Osaba could tell him. He could feel how much the man wanted to.  

He’d just have to make sure Valdemar gave him enough to justify the price they’d ask.

Comments

[thene]

0_____0

I LOVE HOW GLORIOUSLY DUMB EVERYONE IS HERE, IT'S VERY REALISTIC though I don't know why Medren hangs out with all these losers (on that note: canonically Medren is brown-haired like Meke, and has hazel eyes. So for half a moment I thought this was Treven walking in there, which could have been another kind of headfuck entirely). But it was so good seeing Medren glom on to Stef like that & actually get Stef to relax and have fun. Stef's vanity coming out here was fascinating...again with being an outsider insider; he is BLEEDING INSECURITY about his lack of status as a bard (and any kind of status, because all his life that lack of status has been like a target on his back) so his VANITY surfacing there was beautiful.

Osaba noticing him makes so much sense though? Not to put too fine a point on it, given how Stef met Van in this AU, I think it's a bit rich of him to complain abt being accused of spying. So I really love how, in this tight POV, shit like that makes his hypocrisy and pride shine through.

And Van. Oh lord, I love the tight Stef POV but I am so intrigued about what Van is thinking and where he is. Like he's obviously being unusually patient but also an IDIOT, and for all his thinking and preparing what to say he hadn't even figured Stef would ask if he had a boyfriend? And then get so chewed up about the topic that almost the first thing out of his mouth after FINDING STEF BEING INTERROGATED IN A DARK CELLAR is about faithfulness, i just, Van... I don't know if he even knows what he wants? And Stef sure as hell doesn't know what he wants so it's all painful.

So I thought at first that what Osaba was doing was second-stage Truth Spell though by the end it seemed not? Also, I know you are gonna go through this and edit all the little things but I figure I should mention Berner/Beren's name shifting around. but HMMM, interesting that Leareth deliberately kept Stef from learning too much about his Gift. I love the idea of someone who has the Gift but isn't actually musical, that's so great, and him hooking Stef into all his sneaky shit makes sense, but I really hope it doesn't remind Stef too much of the role he played for Leareth :(

what gets me is how CLOSE they are to figuring this out :( Stef has no idea how to treat someone who genuinely wants the best for him and Van is being every kind of idiot although really, if he DID fiddle with Stef's nightmares at all and he saw how his dream!self was treating Stef I am not sure I blame him for fucking up so hard. (I wondered if that was also how he found out Stef had quit using dreamerie). god I love how Angels and then this fic inched them closer to getting this right but it is still so hard, so conflicted. I hurt badly from Stef telling Van he doesn't love him, oh baby.

ALSO I love how smartly this whole 8-chapter update is constructed - it's great how the scene with Keep and Landebert at the start swings right around and returns in the form of this final scene with Osaba. Just lovely onion layers of world detail and characterisation.

[dardrea]

I love you, I really do! xD In my head Medren and Meke were both blonds...like Withen...good lord, did I make that up too? Maybe at some point I just decided every man in Van's life except himself and Stef were blond...oops. (And I went blue-eyed because I remembered something about him having Melena's eyes and I forgot that I had meant to to look that up--I was sure about the blond, I forgot to check the eyes, and I was wrong on both counts!) I will fix that... *hug* I will fix the Beren/Berner thing too, I probably would have caught that, I hope ;) but I did extensive changes in that part just before I posted (she used to be a guy for one thing, but it was bugging me that I didn’t have a single “onscreen” woman in this whole thing... >.>) thank you for mentioning!

I love the Medren/Stefen brotp, that’s going to be canon in anything I’d do, I think, especially here, where I sort of buffed up Medren’s happy-go-lucky-ness with some of what Stefen hasn’t been able to exhibit.

HAH! And thank you! I aim for dumb, lol...like in-character and not 'stupid' but imperfect and a _decided_ source of at least some of their own problems. Because what's the fun, otherwise? >:)

And I'm glad you liked Osaba and thought the way they connected made sense because he's seriously the point of this one, connecting Stefen with a teacher for his Gift and more importantly, a mentor for the shadier arts he's already a natural with. A purpose, outside of Dark, outside of Van, outside of dreamerie, and even outside of singing for singing's sake. I did worry Osaba's Gift would come off too much like a truth spell since it did essentially do the same thing, but...I wasn't sure how else to express the Gift without any sort of connection to musicality, and it fit with his intelligence gathering? I have not read most of the recent books and being spectacularly unmusical myself I tended to not pay too much attention to the bardic stuff, so I don't know if it's ever been brought up, the potential for what would be called the bardic gift with no actual link to music, but I liked the idea of it? More the prose/orator/con-man even sort of bard, where he doesn't play instruments, doesn't sing, doesn't even write poetry, but he's still got a little something extra. He couldn't really do the collegium because everything there is so centered around music but they'd keep an eye on him and make sure he got as much training as they could offer...like Stefen, already trained, already knowing the technical and with his own fully developed sense of artistry, but with an imperfect understanding of what makes him more than a minstrel. He's very interested in the training, but he's not going to become a spy for Valdemar any time soon, and Osaba wouldn't let anyone force him, especially as long as he's willing to at least be an occasional asset sort of deal. This is (finally!) a good thing for Stef. A step forward, not just survival.

Van though...Oh, Van. -_- He's in full denial/martyr mode, he really is. He has honestly talked himself into thinking that the lifebond between him and Stef is like a platonic, Herald/Companion bond, just like he said. In a large part because of his discomfort with Stef's age, but also because it does feel different from what he had with Lendel and they really didn't get a chance to 'fall in love.' (And I seriously LOATHE fated romances, so there's no short cut to that for me, they don't really know each other, they're attracted, connected, but Stef was being honest, they're not 'in love' yet, either of them.) What he *wants* to do is set Stef up in a nice little place in Haven where he knows he'll be safe, arrange a stipend from the Crown or something (that of course he'd totally cover) as thanks for his service in taking down Leareth, and just...let him live his life, be with who wants, do what he wants, just...safely. He is at least smart enough to know saying THAT would have been a spectacularly bad idea as Stef would lose his shit at the very suggestion. But--he might have gotten a little hopeful that if Stef made friends with Medren, maybe he'd consider sticking around...because he's dumb. And then he has to keep bringing up that he doesn't expect anything (even though he's totally planning on being celibate himself because he can't 'cheat' on a lifebond, even if it is a purely utilitarian, 'platonic' one) in the weakest ass attempt to be comforting EVER. Also he's still in mourning for everyone he's lost, feeling lost still himself as the titular Last Herald-Mage, and generally pretty messed up still in his own head and of course he never talks about those things, just broods, endlessly...on how he's too old and damaged to ever be good for for a bright, beautiful young bard with an amazing talent and his whole life ahead of him...*headdesk*

He did mess with the nightmares, btw, but he didn't "look" at them, he just sensed they were going on and gave them a tiny nudge so they didn't get to fully be. It was only those, unfortunately, and no protection against further nightmares, though that's probably okay because Stefen wouldn't have liked him doing anything 'permanent' and only shrugged this off because he was getting so exhausted he was literally nearing the point where he'd just start passing out.

[thene]

Withen is described as dark-haired and bearded, yeah. ROFL I actually had the same problem with no onscreen women in the first draft of Scav - Roal was originally a guy. However, ch 5 originally included a dispute between her and Van that I wound up bumping partly because the chemistry of it felt bad after I changed her gender - that scene might roll into ch 6 or I might just nix it. FWIW Beren is the name of a male Silmarillion character which, thematically appropriate (there are a few Elvish loanwords lurking in canon, notably 'pelagir', and [circling around to your later point] I like to make a big deal of how Vanyel's name straight-up means 'lost star' in Quenya).

I've probably said this before: I've always wanted to have an AU in which Stef is a con-man but I am nowhere near smart enough to write that. I love thinking of him branching out of music specifically (yeah I'm not musical either) - all the things you mentioned, and theatre, diplomacy, peacemaking, all kinds of stuff. And I latch on hard to that one aside about Bards of legend who can control people with their Gift... I feel like it's worth veering outside of canon for this because canon DOESN'T MAKE SENSE esp from Stef's tenuous, outsider position. (I've read few of the recent books either :/ )

Oh my god, when Van started with the Herald/Companion thing I did NOT realise he was that deep in denial. that's kinda impressive even for him esp given that they already had sex and he really, really liked it. And now he wants to set Stef up as his kept man, but platonically? OKAY well I'm glad he was too bright to spell that out. Did he put Osaba up to offering Stef training btw? Because yes, telling Stef he has no expectations when what Stef desperately needs a purpose and on some level needs to be needed is so incandescently dumb that I was hoping he'd figure out how to make up for it.

re Van, celibacy, I have to wonder if he is maybe not dealing with how he was raped at Leareth's castle - but yeah wow, he is putting everything here into pretending to be the put-together, endlessly patient, stable one who can dispense The Comfort and I WONDER WHY THIS IS NOT WORKING.

Obv I am a huge sap over this ship but I adore their potential to problematise the Fated Romance. I love how Stef says being lifebonded isn't being in love and the whole sense that they had to struggle to build a meaningful relationship outside of that - I can fall straight into that gap between them, that thing that should really not work but does. And if it's hard enough in canon, it's so much harder here where they have even less common basis...but i want to see them fall in love god damn it ;____;

[dardrea]

Lol, re: Stef as a con-man, exactly! I already feel like he's so much cleverer and more people-wise than me. Like, dude, I'm sorry, you deserve a MUCH better writer but as this particular thing is my story, I'm what you're stuck with...sincerest apologies. Going Postal and Making Money are among my favorite Terry Pratchett books, lol. Stef's nothing like Moist, but... you know. I still totally see him just being able to sell the most unlikely story/idea to anyone, even without his gift, just because he knows how to talk and how to read people. *I'm* just not smart enough to write that convincingly.

But yeah, I'm definitely going with the Bardic Gift being something that can control people to some degree and they've just kind of underplayed that potential because it's super rare and scary (and yet so very useful). And of course it has to have its drawbacks, like only working as long as the bard is making sounds or something along those lines, otherwise it's just regular "mind magic" and truth spells and the like. That was how I was justifying Osaba's pseudo truth spell to myself, that because it's the bardic gift, not Heraldic-type mind magic, an enemy spy might not have any shields or protections or ways to counter something that doesn't exist "any more" ...pretending that's an option, anyway, since I think the truth spell was considered pretty fool-proof? But still, if it's a known tool and one that's been around a while, *someone* has to have figured out a way to get around it! And I imagine Stefen reacted SO strongly because he recognized the Gift and was already feeling so off-kilter about the mystery around bards and the collegium that it was one more thing hitting him upside the head with...wait...they can do *this* too????? WTF????

"putting everything here into pretending to be the put-together, endlessly patient, stable one who can dispense The Comfort" is Van in a nutshell. :/ Pretending to be okay is almost literally his only survival tactic, poor baby. And even Yfandes isn't doing very well right now so she's not the emotional support, pestering him with all her love and caring like she normally would. I haven't honestly decided how much I want to delve into her trauma too, but Van wasn't the only one who was willing and *expecting* to die against Leareth, she gave everything she had to getting him there and then getting back to warn the other Heralds about the army and then getting back to him again so she could give him what he needed to down Leareth, 100% knowing, (maybe even more than he did, in that weird Companion way) that they were going to die together doing it. I really think all three of them are on equally shaky ground still about how to move forward from what none of them expected to live through. ...But I wanted to make this one about Stef, because he didn't have anything to fall back on at all, and at least Van and Yfandes have jobs and responsibilities and friends and a support network, even if they don't know how to make use of those things right now.

I do still consider this a romance, btw, Van's the one who thinks they could be platonic forever, not me! ;) Love will happen. ...uh...as long as I keep writing this, that's the plan, anyway? Van is aware of Osaba being sent out, but he didn't do it. He'd rather keep Stef (safe) away from even the suggestion of the sort of life Osaba leads, but the Bardic Circle wouldn't let the magnitude of power Stefen has go untrained and unwatched inside Valdemar, and Van definitely looked into Osaba and decided he might not be a bad guardian for a while. He's really infantilizing Stef, much as he did in the main part when he kept deliberately thinking of him as a 'boy'...until they had sex. Again, partly to keep from letting himself feel that attraction, and in part because he feels so horrendously guilty. Stefen really doesn't care that Van almost killed him, draining from him even before he was fully conscious to consent in order to kill Leareth--a whole other kettle of fish, that--but Van is absolutely SUNK in guilt about it.

Stefen is finally on a good path though! ...I just need to shove Van and Yfandes along after him...

[thene]

I REALLY loved your scene with Stef pretending he had total physical control over Van & Fandes in order to get away from the bandits - that is some brilliant Stef-selling-stories work and was TOTALLY convincing to read. So I think you could do this. XD One of my Stef headcanons is that he habitually tells a lot of little lies & tall tales to people, but he's never done so to Van and esp at first he doesn't even get why he doesn't lie to Van.

fuck i can no longer remember if it being impossible to defend against Truth Spell is in canon or if it's something I made up. Either way, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ i am down with your justification here. And Stef's shock totally makes sense, not least given how little he UNDERSTANDS his own gift.

On that note - I forgot to mention, but I was interested that Stef had realised independently that his connection with Van was a lifebond.

I was wondering how Yfandes was tbh - there's no reason Stef would be thinking about her but, err, I'd love to know her take on this 'platonically lifebonded' idea, and at what volume that take was delivered. Van being guilty for doing the thing that would let them all survive...well tbh survivor's guilt is his main deal, so I guess that's not too surprising :( In this case I guess the guilt about how he had sex with Stef is balled up with it as well, fun fun fun

also I love that Van wants it to be totally platonic and Stef wants it to be no-strings-attached sex, yes, clearly this is going to work out, well done both for getting on the same page there. I LOVE THAT THIS IS SOMEHOW STILL A SLOW-BURN FIC EVEN THOUGH THEY HAD SEX FORTY THOUSAND WORDS AGO. WHAT THE HELL YOU IDIOTS. i am just going to sit here whimpering until they fall in love i guess

[dardrea]

Heh, yeah, I mean, where they were, they couldn’t jump straight into a (healthy) relationship, they were just way too fucked up. Slow burn it is! >:) (I’m a terrible hypocrite though, I hate slow-burn, lol. The only way I can do it is to skip telling about all the boring apart time, even though it’s fairly substantial) At least Stef’s been working on himself the last two stories, Van’s still a mess, alas.

And I figured Stef’s a bard in all but official status, he’s well-versed in the lore of the land, it wouldn’t have taken him that long to connect the dots and realize they were a lifebond even if he was really confused (and mistrustful!) of it. Part of him would be sure he was wrong and it was really just a weird mage thing, some little unspoken part would be hopeful/longing/thrilled because he wants SO MUCH to have a place he belongs and a person and people to belong with (never to), so Van brushing it off as “well yeah, a lifebond but not a *real* lifebond” was...gutting. ;-; Because Van is cruelest when he’s trying hardest to be kind, the dope.

You have way too much faith in me, but I appreciate it more than you can know xD

So...is there a way to private message here? I’d love to know any other corrections you noticed, canon/lore or otherwise, if there were other things that came easily to mind? I wanted to edit this for AO3, I meant to edit for AO3, but I started writing the next part instead. Oops?

[gildaurel]

I LOVE, LOVE this fic. Thank you for cynical Stefen and oblivious Vanyel; that is absolutely the best combination ever. I love how they're both attracted despite themselves and your subtle way of showing this (Stefen's remarks about Vanyel's smell, etc.). I also adore how they already had mind-blowing sex thousands of words ago, yet somehow, they are really struggling to actually have it again (oh, Van).

Please, please keep going!