Blood & Shadows

Twenty-One

The night is bittersweet. After my bath, Vrythien wraps me in heavy linen, and takes me to the bed where we lay on the coverlet, legs entwined, foreheads together and our hands over our hearts. It's like the painting of elven lovers I found in the library only instead of a glade it's a room of shadows so thick it appears as there's only him and me and nothing else. The halo of us. That's what he called it when we were on the road.

Contrasted with the memories of Razeth like a fresh gaping wound on my mind I have a new appreciation for it. A new appreciation for Vrythien and the full truth of the feelings I have for him.

I love him. Orys's poem comes to mind and in guilt I rub my forehead against Vrythien's. I love the man who killed my first love. Nothing can be simple with us--outside of the halo of us. Outside of this embrace Vrythien is a slave to his master. Could I buy him? Would it really be so easy to secure his freedom? I already know the answer. No. Ezrath won't let him go.

"Does he know?" I ask and it's Vrythien's turn to rub his forehead to mine.

"I don't know," his voice is so very soft, scarcely a whisper. "But I'm to entertain you for the rest of your stay. He wants something. He only gives me to people he wants something from."

"Maybe I could get him to give you to me?"

He scoffs and breaks the contact of the embrace.

"Now why would he do that? I'm far too valuable, darling. It's why your dear father sold me to the brothel and not directly to Ezrath, why I was left to linger there long enough for my training to fully take hold. I'm too pretty and fuck too well. I'm going no where. The two months we spent together on the road are as close to freedom as I'm ever getting." He chuckles, "besides I don't even think I want to be free. What would I even do? I'm educated enough, the brothel saw to that. But I don't have a trade, or a skill. Beyond the tricks high elves learn as children I have no magic. But enough of me. This night should be about you." He lays on his back and I move with him placing my head on his chest. "I didn't even allow myself to imagine the possibility of holding you again, but on the road I did think about what I'd do when you got your memories back."

"And what's that?"

"Hold you until you stopped shaking, and promise... things it makes no sense to promise now." He lets out a long slow breath that deflates his chest and doesn't take a new one for quite some time. He only needs breath to speak, vampires don't need air. "For now, I'll be here through the worst of it, and if Razeth so much as looks at you I'll put a dagger in his back."

"I tried," I croak turning so I'm mostly laying over him. "But I missed and so I stabbed him again and again and it made no difference. All he did was give me my memories back and tell me to kneel... and I did." My voice breaks and the tears come again. "I don't know if I can go back out there."

Vrythien trails his fingers through my hair.

"They can't see it you know, everything you went through. My first night sent on the floor at Inara's Embrace I was timid and shy, and I felt like everyone who looked at me saw...everything." He sighs again and his finger continues to crook around one of my curls. "It didn't matter how timid I was, I still had to take some magister to bed and pretend like I enjoyed it. I did it of course, I'm very convincing, but I felt exposed and raw for the longest. It won't happen overnight, but you'll get through this, and no one knows. Everyone will look at you the same as they did when you walked through those doors because you are the same as you were when you came here. The only difference is all the empty spaces where memories should have been are now full. I'm certain you have positives to go with the worst of it. My advice isn't healthy, ignore it. Ignore it because it's over, and it won't happen again." He releases the curl and it springs back in place. "Ignore it because it's a pit that will swallow you whole if you fall into it."