A Strange and Stubborn Endurance (The Tithenai Chronicles #1)

by Foz Meadows

Caethari put a hand to my shoulder and gave a quick, supportive squeeze before letting go, falling a step behind me. Knowing he was there to watch my back was almost as good as having Markel with me—and moons, I’d have to tell Markel everything after this, I owed him that much—but when it came to my feeling safe, there was no higher compliment.

Without speaking, Caethari took the lead, fingers brushing my arm in passing.

Caethari, however, stayed standing behind me: a comforting, silent presence.

“Has he words at all, your husband, or does he just loom?” “He speaks when there’s someone worth speaking to,”

“I beg to differ,” Caethari said, coldly and in Ralian. He set a hand on my shoulder. “You will get nothing but what you deserve, Lord Killic vin Lato.”

“Please,” Killic panted, staring at me. “Please, Aaro, if you ever loved me—” “I did, is the thing,” I said, softly. “And you betrayed that love in every way that mattered.”

He was so distressed that he made a rare vocalisation, a rough, hurt noise as he grabbed my hands and squeezed them, offering comfort as I wept;

Markel pressed a kiss to my forehead and let me go, his expression one of fond exasperation.

And as your friend, I know that you have a terrible habit of pushing away the people closest to you whenever you feel you’re being a burden on them.”

“Telling me about Killic is not a burden. Your feelings are not a burden. You are not a burden, and whatever happens in the future, I am not about to rush off and leave you just because things here are complicated.” He snorted. “After all, when have our lives not been complicated one way or another?”

Sleep would perhaps have been sensible, but just at that moment I lacked the wit to go and rest, as three separate people had now suggested I do, half out of fear that being alone with my own thoughts would cause my pending bill of distress to come due, and half out of sheer contrariness.

“My thanks for the food,” I said, and hurried back outside before either her kindness or her approval could inspire yet another complex feeling I’d have to deal with.

I sat with that a moment, studying Caethari’s expression. He looked every bit as nervous as he had when he’d explained the kissing tradition, a light flush warming his cheeks and throat. Flushed was a distractingly good look on him, and so it took me longer than usual to recognise the source of his apprehension. “Oh!” I said. “You’re worried I might be jealous.”

“I can’t be jealous of Ru Liran. Even if you were still involved, you’ve made no promises to me that loving him would break.”

“I hate that you were forced to this,” Caethari said suddenly. I glanced at him, unsettled by the genuine distress in his tone. “I feel as if I’ve stolen you, like some ogre in a story.”

“Stolen me? As well to say a caged bird can be stolen by the sky.”

His leg brushed mine as our horses drew close, and then he leaned over and gripped my arm, squeezing hard enough that I met his gaze. “Stop belittling yourself,” Caethari said. His hand released me, but his eyes did not; they pierced me, sharp as obsidian and just as beautiful. “You are not inadequate.” “Please,” I said, and it came out shaky. The conversation had already brought me perilously close to the edge of everything I’d been blocking out of my mind all day; too much kindness and I’d be lost. “Please, not here. You can fight me about myself tomorrow all you wish, but please—not now.”

Caethari did a double take, then graced me with a broad, soft smile that crinkled the edges of his eyes. “Saints, you’re sharp,”

“Thinking never has been your strong suit,”

“That my interest in magic stems from my having originally been thought a girl,” said Liran bluntly. “I knew myself to be otherwise quite early on, and there’s nothing shameful about it here, but I understand that in Ralia, things are … different.”

“Stubborn,” Caethari murmured, with something suspiciously like fond exasperation.

“You’re a very surprising person, Velasin Aeduria. Has anyone told you that?”

My cheeks burned; Liran was the first person other than Caethari to name me Aeduria instead of vin Aaro, and it affected me in ways I hadn’t anticipated. “Mostly, I just get called stubborn,” I said. “I’ll take surprising as a compliment.”

Killic had taken enough from me. I refused to let him have this, too.

I lay as if stunned, staring up at the ceiling as if I’d never seen one before, and almost laughed from the sheer relief of knowing such pleasure was mine, still, to summon; that I’d not, as I’d half begun to fear, been cut off from it forever.

“Nothing,” he signed, eyes gleaming with mischief. “You’re just very sweet together, that’s all.”

“Velasin is exactly as sweet as he needs to be,” Caethari said lightly.

“Perhaps you’re a soothing influence on my family.” I burst out laughing at that. “I’ve been called a lot of different things, but a soothing influence isn’t one of them.” “Oh?” His smile turned cheeky. “And I suppose that means you aren’t sweet, either?” “Absolutely not,” I said, and walked faster to hide my sudden blush.

I didn’t want to believe that I was so starved for affection that even the simplest niceties could make me starry-eyed in such a short span of time, but Caethari was so much more than what I was used to—more open, considerate, playful; more present, simply by virtue of our relationship being public and legitimate here—that even the smallest gestures felt magnified.

Cae stopped pacing and looked at him, arrested by the brightness of his eyes.

All at once, Cae wanted to kiss him. He’d wanted to kiss him before now, multiple times, but in that moment, the strength of his longing all but knocked the breath from his lungs. It made him ache, to see the edges of Velasin’s grief and not be able to smooth them away. He wanted to lean in, cup his cheek and stroke a thumb across the bone; wanted to tuck a loop of that soft, dark hair behind his ear and kiss him, over and over, until those beautiful gold-grey eyes were hooded with laughter, not sadness.

His neck prickled as he went; it wasn’t that he distrusted either Velasin or Liran—or Markel, for that matter—but the prospect of his husband and his former lover conversing in his absence contained more possibilities than he was comfortable acknowledging.

“What? Not at all?” Liran exclaimed. “Cae, I’m scandalised—what have you been doing for this poor man?” Somewhat chagrined, Cae replied, “Trying to keep him alive, mostly.”

The thought made him furious and sad in equal measure, a tender ferocity coiling behind his breastbone as he breathed in the scent of Velasin’s hair.

“I keep forgetting it’s allowed,” he murmured, raw in a way that hurt Cae’s heart. “I’ve been so wretched since I got here, you have to hold my hand through every little thing, and yet it never occurs to me that you can, quite literally, hold my hand, or that I could hold yours.”

I suppose what I’m trying to say is, if I had to be in this sort of mess with someone, I’m glad it’s you.” “I’m glad it’s you, too,” said Cae.

It registered now, and Cae felt a dizzying rush of fondness that was laced with something suspiciously like hope.

“Travel high, saints mark your passage; we remaining set you free.” And the crowd sang back: “The earth is paid, the sky is waiting; pass softly through the great between.” Velasin’s hand closed gently around Cae’s wrist; he startled at the contact, and then realised that it was Velasin’s way of joining in, as neither he nor Markel knew the words. “Ayla made you, Zo watched you; now Ruya leads you into mystery.” “Go well, go well; saints mark your passage; you who were known, be known again.”

Caethari’s eyes were impossibly soft. “Of all the things you have to fear in Tithena, Velasin, being unwanted is not among them.”

I waited a moment, trying to master myself, but when I finally looked at Caethari, nothing could have prepared me for the expression he wore, an aching, tender hope that very nearly undid me.

I was unprepared for most things about Caethari, it seemed, and had been since the first minute I’d set foot in Qi-Katai.

“Bring on the kissing,” I muttered. Caethari made a choked noise.

“Saints,” Caethari muttered, casting a longing glance towards the wine. “This is exhausting. Why is this exhausting?” “Because people are exhausting,” I said, not without sympathy, and nudged him as yet more guests I didn’t know approached us.

“I would pity anyone who doesn’t see Velasin’s value. He is extraordinary.”

As though I were a compass needle and he my north, I never lost my awareness of where in the room Caethari was, but anticipation was evidently a spice we both desired, for neither of us sought the other out.

Then Caethari snugged an arm around my waist and led me out, and all other sensory input became abruptly secondary to the feel of him against me.

By tidal increments, push-pull-push, we crossed to the threshold of his bedroom; a room in which, only days ago, I’d lain in fear of a horror that had never come and never would, because all men were not Killic, and Caethari, my Cae, was certainly not all men.

My searching fingers found the vial, and as I resettled above him, I felt a power I’d seldom known in bed before: to be wanted in a way that held no fear, no shame, no caveats. I passed the vial into his hand and held his fingers around it, hypnotised by the plushness of his lips.

Cae basking in Velasin’s delight as though it were a second, private sun.

“I have lived a cramped life, it seems. So shy of having my greatest indiscretion discovered that I seldom dared indulge in simpler ones.” He lifted his head and looked at Cae, his gaze both soft and piercing. “You must be patient with me, dear Cae, as I learn to inhabit myself.” Mouth dry, he replied, “For you, anything.”