Fire-Kissed Ch. 01

Akash picked his way through the crowd, snagging a pair of simple brown homespun wool leggings from the back of a cart and pausing behind a pair of old donkeys to pull them on. They were tight and itchy on his thighs as he walked through the huddles of families, but nothing compared to the burning tingle of the Drakon's Milk beneath his skin.

"Stop." One of the guards jabbed the butt of his spear into Akash's sternum. "Oi, Danak, this lad isn't just a farmer."

Akash covered his grey right eye with his spear haft and held his breath. They cannot possibly recognise me as the bastard boy the king threw to the Drakon Cult.

"He ain't Yuezi," the other guard said. "No scars. Short hair. No marks. Tell him if he can use them arms he oughta join up, Kadam."

Kadam laughed. "You hear that, lad. Danak reckons you ought to join us. You got a trade? Coin? If not, try your luck. We ain't bronze-shields, but if you look good in armour, they might give you one of those soft spots in the Palace Guard."

The palace?

Akash's interest spiked. "How do you join? I've nothing but what you see."

"Not even a fucking shirt?" Kadam snickered. "Follow the main street from here to the palace gates, on your right there's a big old stone building with a stone eagle over the door. Go in there and tell them you're signing on. Make sure they give you the three silver pieces for signing, don't take any nonsense about loans for armour or whatnot, that's just a con they like to try on new lads joining."

"Thanks." Akash stepped around the butt of the spear and strode through the gate.

The white-washed doors of the inns and shops of the Gate Quarter shone in the sun as he passed them by, and but in the gutters beneath their swinging signs huddled rag-clad families beneath shelters of broken crates and old barrels. Following the main street, weaving in and out of the crowds about the entrances to the bars and brothels of the backstreets, to the old part of Aktia where the road passed into the shade of the aqueduct he'd once climbed along as a boy then broadened and spilt out into a thronging open market full of the scent of spices, roasted meat, strong wines and herb-infused liquors.

Akash stifled a gag at the whiff of alcohol, the Drakon's Milk bubbling in his gut, and skirted the right hand edge, past the neat, painted facades of the citizens' houses toward where the thick, imperious gates sat upon the sharp ramp up to the palace.

Ilethi. He could see her, somewhere behind those stone walls, a blurred figure of fragmented noble dresses and the little golden-haired sister who'd held his hand and babbled happily in his ear for hours. I'll see you soon.

Beneath a stone arch topped with a perched eagle, a barred bronze gate stood ajar behind a single linen-cuirassed guard.

"Gods' fortune," Akash said to the gate guard, leaning the spear blade across his face to hide his grey eye. "I was told to join up here."

The guard motioned inside with his head. "Across the yard at the store's window, speak to Panud. Big tubby bald man with a strip of cloth over one eye."

"Thanks."

Akash glanced over his shoulder down the street beside the palace wall. The first few of the grander houses of the nobles stood against the tall wall, and the rest sprawled amidst the fountains and trees around the main aqueduct's arches. Where the aqueduct tributary ran over them, his old home sat, the old, mortared up dove-cote sticking from the roof like a the stump of a tree at the top of a hill.

Before the king gave it to that noble boy's family as blood price for his death.

He stepped through the gate, snagging a rag from the forge hut's anvil as he passed it and tying it over his eye.

"Oi!" A broad man with a pot-belly waved a meaty hand at him from the other side of a barred window. "New lad!"

Akash made for him.

"Signing on?" He licked the tip of a wooden stylus. "Bit pretty to be a guard, ain't you?"

"Am I?" Akash asked.

The man's sole brown eye blinked. "No, I was being funny-like, lad." He etched something into the wax tablet on the bench before him. "Name?"

"A...dath," Akash said.

"Had to think about that a bit much, didn't you?" The man snorted. "Whatever, breaks no bread for me. I'm Panud. Quartermaster of the city guard. You need something, you speak to me." He slapped three silver pieces down on the sill between the bars. "You can lodge here, most lads do cos it's cheaper than the city. Get yourself some proper armour and some weapons that aren't made of wood or bone or whatever the fuck that is out of the armoury. Food here is free so long as you only eat your share, but drink is on you. You want to drink loads, you fuck off down to the bottom of the hill and have fun there, but you better be sober on duty or so help the Gods I'll beat the drink out of you myself."

Akash nodded and swept the three silver coins off the sill.

"Right." Panud eyed him up and down. "Actually, you any good with those?"

"I can fight," Akash said.

"Killed a man?"

"Killed one. Beaten plenty where I lived before."

"How'd you kill the one?"

"Stabbed him in the eye."

"Bit nasty," Panud said. "Guess dead is dead though." He chewed at the inside of his jaw. "Right. You don't seem too stupid, so you can help me out. I had three men sign up, take the silver, and then fuck off and abandon in the city last two days. Yuezi raiding down the valleys has people all skittish-like, so the captain's got more men out on the streets in case things get ugly. Them three left me short so I got lads at the palace on double duty. You look like you'll pass muster in armour, so once you're sorted, I'll trade you in so one of them can get shuteye. Deal?"

"Deal," Akash said. "Gate guard said the palace was a soft option."

"Danak? Or Kadam?" Panud shook his head. "Pair of idiots. It's warmer, there are fewer drunk cunts unless there's a feast, but you have to know your manners and look decent in armour or the captain will come down on us both like a tonne of horseshit."

"Anyone there I should know about?" Akash probed.

Panud squinted at him through the bars. "Yeah, the fucking king, don't piss him off if you like your head or your tongue attached. Don't get friendly with the courtesans, either; they might look good and get all flirty, but they're a bunch of vipers in silk and copper, and if anyone thinks you've touched one, the king'll have your cock lopped off with a rusty cleaver."

He hasn't changed, then. If he learns who I am, he'll do worse than castrate me.

"I'll stay quiet," he said.

"Good move, Adath." Panud pointed the wooden stylus at Akash's rag-covered eye. "That gotta stay on?"

Akash stiffened. "Yes."

"We better sort something proper out then," Panud said. "Captain'll put my balls in the forge if I let you go to the palace with some manky rag about your head." He tossed the stylus down. "Stick about there for a moment, I gotta take a piss and then I'll be right out to find you a decent set of armour and all that."

***

One agate-green and one charcoal grey eye stared back from the smooth surface of the aqueduct tributary as he re-tied the folded strip of dark green cloth over his grey eye and the fading yellow bruises mottling his right cheek.

Akash peered over the edge down into the secluded patch of lavender and orange trees growing against the inside of the palace wall.

All quiet.

He tossed his drakonbone weapons down into the long grass beneath the aqueduct's arch and clambered down, clinging to the edges of the thin red bricks and dropping into the grass with a low thud. Once, twelve years back, he'd climbed down to meet Konamos and little Ilethi for the first time, playing with them for hours until he'd been discovered by a guard and dragged before the king for associating with those above his station. And the king had taken one look at Akash's face, and told the guard to let him go and play with his half-siblings.

Better here where we can keep an eye on this wild offshoot of the royal line than out in the city, that's what the king said.

Akash ran his fingers across the aqueduct's arch. One. Two. Three. Four. He shoved at the brick, grunting as the small door grated open. The old escape passage still works at least.

Snatching his drakonbone weapons from the long grass, he stowed them inside, leaning them against the thick bronze bars of the gate within, and dragged the door back by the brick edges, tugging until it closed and scuffing the dust out of the grass into the wind.

Nobody is going to recognise the weapons of Marak's Sacred Band in there.

Akash straightened the thick white linen cuirass and swiped a strand of cobweb off the golden eagle on his chest.

The garden door rattled.

He leapt back from the aqueduct and pretended to be squinting up at where it went over the wall of the queen's garden and dipped down toward the servant's halls under the east wing of the palace.

"You're not meant to be in here." Her voice was the same, but sharp, sharp and cold, like someone had taken sweet little Ilethi and frozen her in the ice of Marak's Peak.

Akash turned around, tucking his hands behind back and keeping his eyes on the ground as he bowed. "Apologies, your highness, I thought I saw something on the aqueduct."

Ilethi's charcoal grey eyes were keen as flint as they cut into him from beneath a cascade of golden hair. "Anyone stupid enough to climb on that is long gone or dead." She snapped her fingers and pointed one light-green-silk-covered arm at the door. "Get out."

"Yes, your highness." Akash gave her a wide berth and slipped out around the back of the Queen's Wing, his heart sinking.

She's forgotten me. Or hates me. He drifted back through the neat rows of trimmed cypress trees and intricate gardens of flowers, ponds and small lawns to his post in the corridor of the West-Wing. So be it. I still swore.

He straightened himself up and stared into the fresco of mountains between the hanging bronze braziers opposite him on the palace wall.

I need to buy some gloves. Akash dug his nails into the scar along his left palm. If someone sees the scar, they might realise and tell the king. Then I'm fucked.

Soft steps padded along the corridor.

Akash studied the golden eagles soaring amongst the clouds in the fresco and tucked his hand down by his side.

"Oh—" the steps paused just to Akash's right and a soft high voice reached his ears "—now who are you?"

Akash turned his head to see past the green cloth on his right eye. A slight girl in translucent silks adorned with twisting red fruit vines smiled at him from beside the bronze brazier; bright copper teardrops hung from her ears beneath lustrous dark curls and thin copper bracelets jingled on her wrists and on the ankles of her bare feet. Dark kohl lined her eyes and thickened her lashes, and her lips were glossed red as wine.

"I know all the people of the palace," she murmured, studying him with pale blue eyes. "I've been here for years now. But you I don't have a name for."

Akash clawed through his memory, but no memory of this courtesan came to him.

She glanced up and down the corridor and slid a step closer. Two little rings stood out upon her nipples where the translucent silk of her dress clung to her breasts. "I am Mazia. What's your name, guard?"

"Adath," Akash lied. "I'm new. Only joined a few days ago."

"Oh I know you must be new." Mazia hummed. "But something in your face is strangely familiar, let me see you properly." She reached out, fast as a viper, pushing the strip of dark green cloth up, and gasped. "It's you!"

Akash tugged it back down to cover his grey eye with a little tremor of fear. "I'm afraid I don't understand, my lady."

"My lady." Mazia's smile broadened. "I think I like it; you should call me that." She leant a little closer, the silk of her dress tickling his shoulder. "You're a pretty boy; you always were, just like your mother, Jilua, was supposed to be."

Akash stiffened.

Mazia laughed. "I was just a little girl when you were causing trouble in these halls, a courtesan-in-waiting, and all us young courtesans liked the look of you. How many quiet bitter words there were among us knowing that the king we would entertain was the old man or the son that took after him and not the handsome man you were going to be." She let out a wistful little sigh. "And now the king has grown too old to spend any time with us, even—" she flashed Akash a small grin "—his trusted favourites, so we grow bored and our eyes wander..."

An ominous sense of foreboding fell over him. "I think you've mistaken me for someone else, my lady."

"You mustn't lie to me, Akash," she whispered. "It will make me cross. And we're cousins, you know. My mother was your mother's half-sister."

Akash measured the gleam in her pale blue eyes. "I didn't know. My mother died when I was young and nobody ever told me much about her or anything else."

"Why did you come back? Are you intending to continue this charade of being a guard for some nefarious purpose?" Mazia covered her smile with her hand, the copper rings on her fingers flashing in the light. "Maybe the king was right, and you did want to take the throne from your half-sister. Or maybe—" the fingers of her other hand trailed down his left arm and slipped into his hand "—maybe this is why. Oh, there is a scar, so it's true. I only heard rumours after you disappeared."

Akash glanced away.

"Oh, don't be embarrassed. A girl likes a man who's loyal." She licked her lips. "I won't tell a soul, I swear on all the Gods, but only if you give me what I want. If you don't..."

"What do you want? I don't have much silver or anything like that."

Mazia shot a furtive glance back along the corridor and past him into the garden. "I want you." An excited little flush rose on her cheeks. "When I dance for that old man in a crown, I'm going to do it knowing I can have his bastard son whenever I want. When he leers at me thinking I'm all his, I'll know so very much better..."

"I can't—"

She pressed a finger to his lips. "Think very hard before you say anything, Akash. Give the wrong answer and a trusted courtesan might whisper something to someone and then you could be dead or banished by the end of the day. How will you keep the oath you swore to poor little Prince Konamos then?"

Akash clenched his fist, digging his nails into the scar upon his palm. "Fine."

"Good boy," Mazai cooed. "Now let's not wait around for someone to come and see us, they'll cut your cock off if they think you've touched me."

She took his hand and led him through the corridors of the West Winf, pushing him into a small room with three reclining seats piled high with cushions and sweeping the door shut.

"Wedge your sword through the bar," Mazia said. "Hurry hurry, you can't be disappearing from your post for very long now, can you?"

Akash growled under his breath and pulled the short straight bronze blade from his hip, stabbing it along the line of the bar.

"Now nobody can get in to disturb us." She crooked her finger at him. "What to do with you first?"

Akash clenched his jaw.

"Don't look so sour, Akash." Mazia giggled. "But I shouldn't call you that, should I? I might give away our little secret, mightn't I, cousin?"

He swallowed a lick of anger. "Just tell me what you want and get it over with."

"It's okay, cousin, I'm very very good at this. If I want you to, you'll enjoy it, I promise." She cocked her head, her pale blue eyes running over him. "Did the king send you off to a temple when you were a boy? Am I going to be the first girl to have you?"

"Yes," Akash said. "So I don't know anything about this and it won't be much fun for you."

"Oh no." Mazia flashed him a small grin, her pale blue eyes full of mirth. "I think I like it more, actually, you're all mine this way." She plucked a cushion off the nearest seat and tossed it onto the stone floor. "You'll need that for your knees, cousin."

Her fingers crept up to the neck of the dress. "Go on. Kneel down there for me. I'm going to show you something the king doesn't want anyone else but him to see. And then... you're going to get to touch it, too."

Akash knelt on the cushion, staring down into its blue wool threads.

"No. Look at me. I want to see your pretty face, cousin." Mazia's slim foot nudged his groin and Akash's head snapped up. "That's better." She flicked the small copper pin at her throat open and the translucent silk with its red fruit vines fell away.

Two slim copper rings hung from her small dark pink nipples, gleaming upon the swell of her full pale breasts, and a chain of four more dangled from her belly button, tipped with a bright red gemstone pendant that brushed the smooth shaven skin between her thighs as it swayed a little with each breath she took.

A little heat coursed through Akash's veins at the sight of her, bright as the drakonfire but softer than its scouring flame, a hungry whisper rather than a roaring inferno.

Mazia's smile broadened and the flush on her cheeks darkened. "They'd cut your cock off for seeing this if they knew you had." She stepped forward out of the puddle of silk, staring down at him past the shining copper rings at her nipples and belly and ran her fingers through his hair. "But I don't want that to happen, there's things I want you to do to me with that cock. For now... Give me your hand."

Akash sighed and held it out.

"Good boy," Mazia cooed, taking his middle finger in hers and pressing a soft kiss to it. "I'm going to teach you everything you need to know to make me very happy and not wanting anything bad to happen to you—" she shifted, parting her thighs and sliding the tip of Akash's finger through the warm, silken wetness between them with a soft sigh "—nice and light, like that." Mazia lifted his finger to his lips, her nipples stiffened and pebbled beneath the copper rings as her breathing grew heavier. "Go on, taste me."

Akash let her slip his finger into his mouth, the faint tang of her on it.

"You're going to taste that a lot, cousin." Mazia ruffled his hair and drew his finger back between her legs, sliding it into the tight heat inside her with a gentle gasp. "Now show me how quick you learn."

He pulled his finger back, gliding it through her wet silken het as she curled her fingers in his hair.

"Back inside," Mazia murmured. "Use your thumb on me and your finger in me."

Akash obeyed, easing his middle finger deep into her and drawing circles over her with his thumb; a little spark of pride igniting at her quiet hum of pleasure.

"Just keep doing that—" her breath hitched and a little shiver rippled through her legs "—maybe one more finger in me."

Akash slipped his forefinger into her.

"A tiny bit faster."

He sped up, a little heat rising to his cheeks at the quiet wet sounds his hand made between her legs.

Mazia laughed, her fist clenching in his hair and her legs trembling and shaking. "Oh here I go—" her breath hitched "—don't stop."

Akash kept circling his thumb, curling his fingers inside her. She grabbed his head, pressing his face into her soft, smooth stomach as she shook and gasped. The red gemstone dug into his cheek as her whole body trembled and she crushed his head into her with a long moan.

"Keep on going," Mazia murmured, cupping his cheek. "But nice and slow now. Just your thumb on me."

He drew his fingers back.

"No," she snapped. "Keep them in me, just move your thumb."

Akash brushed the edge of his thumb back and forth across her as Mazia wrapped her arms around his head and bent to press a soft kiss into his hair, pressing his face into her stomach.