Lorlen stepped away silently from the small window and crouched behind the tall shrubs nearby. His heart was pounding uncontrollably, and his face warmed with embarrassment when he felt how tight his blue robes were at the groin. You knew this was a terrible idea, and you did it anyway! He scolded himself mentally.
He craned his neck from behind the shrub to peer back into the small window near the ground at the back of the High Lord's residence. Akkarin was alone in the underground room now, his back to him. He was resting his forehead on one hand, and leaning his weight against the table with the other.
Earlier that evening, on his way to visit Akkarin for a glass of wine after dinner, Lorlen's curiosity had gotten the better of him. What harm could there be in walking around the perimeter of the residence for a moment before knocking on the front door, he had thought. He was the Administrator; he could enjoy a night walk in any part of the grounds. The real reason, of course, was that he had hoped he would spot something, anything, that gave him a clue about why his friend was a black magician.
Lorlen shook his head at his own mistake and straightened slowly, silently creeping away from the residence towards the edge of the forest. The grounds were pitch dark. I'll take the long route back towards the Magician's Quarters so that it'll look like I am returning to my rooms after a solo walk through the grounds, he thought hopefully. He also needed to – Lorlen grimaced – walk off his body's response to what he had seen.
And what a scene it was, he thought. As Lorlen got well clear of the back of the residence, which now had a single light on in an upstairs room, he sped up his strides and gulped in deep breaths of the cold night air. Is it any surprise that Akkarin has more than one secret?
He had arrived at his hiding spot just in time to witness what had looked to him like Sonea and Akkarin having an argument. Akkarin had his back to the window, but Sonea's face had looked pleading and regretful. Lorlen hadn't heard a single word, and suspected the underground room was well fortified with an acoustic shield. Then the argument had taken an entirely unexpected direction, and Lorlen was embarrassed to admit to himself that he hadn't been able to pull himself away.
I stayed to try and understand if this was consensual, or if Akkarin was committing yet another crime, he told himself as he neared the edge of the dark, silent forest.
But who was he fooling? Lorlen scoffed out loud. A bird somewhere in the trees above him took flight in surprise. When he had seen them start kissing each other hungrily, desperately, as if this was nothing new to them, he should have discreetly slipped away. He would have plenty of time to think about the implications of this hidden relationship, and weigh what he should do next. Instead, he had watched, transfixed and aroused, as they coupled roughly.
In Kyralia, their age difference was common, and Sonea's twenty years would even be considered a woman late to marry if she were a daughter of the Houses. As there was no explicit Guild rule against novice-magician relationships – though the Higher Magicians frowned on such – Lorlen couldn't build a case on those grounds.
Sonea's downcast face and her guilty demeanour at the end had puzzled him, however. Despite being a bachelor, Lorlen knew enough of life to know some lovers enjoyed playing roles. Yet the scene did leave him with a kernel of doubt. Was this was entirely consensual? What if this was part of Akkarin's blackmail? Had he demanded Sonea's body in exchange for her family's, or Rothen's, safety?
If this was a case of the High Lord abusing his power for his own pleasure, it was his responsibility as Administrator to take disciplinary action. A scandal did not carry the fatal penalty that practicing black magic did. But he doubted Akkarin would quietly plead guilty and take a demotion.
Even while Lorlen's mind was occupied with calculating possibilities, he occasionally had to concentrate and pull himself back to his thoughts, as graphic images of the scene he had just witnessed kept flashing into his mind's eye. It's only a natural reaction, Lorlen tried to soothe his arousal. He did a few of the basic breathing exercises all novices were taught when they worked on their magical control. That helped push away the mental image of Sonea naked and bent over the table. But he still took an extra long route on his walk, going right up to the gates of the Guild then doubling back, just to be sure his thoughts were fully in control. Only then did he enter the Magician's Quarters and climb up the stairs to his rooms.
—-
The tentative knock at the door pulled Akkarin out of his thoughts. He was surprised to realise the sky outside his window had become a pink-purple so soon; he had been standing at the window of his residence's library longer that he had realised.
"Come in," he replied in a quiet, deep voice, without turning around. His crossed his arms and gazed in the direction of the University building. The way the setting sun made the old building look was quite magnificent.
He sensed someone enter whose power exceeded how Takan's felt, and knew it could only be Sonea. Akkarin's brows knotted together in a mixture of emotions: a lingering anger, guilt, and fondness. He continued to look out the window, keeping his back to her. I know we need to talk, and I have to face the task sooner or later, he thought.
It had been two days since that night in the underground room. Both yesterday and today, Akkarin had left his residence after Sonea's first class, and returned very late. He had payed his cousin in the Inner Circle an impromptu visit for dinner last night. The young man, his uncle's only son, had been groomed to be the heir to family Delvon's fortune ever since Akkarin's magical potential had been found, and his future had been claimed by the Guild.
Today, he had visited the Thief by the name of Ceryni, his associate in Imardin's underworld. The small, quick-witted young man, much like his namesake, had proven highly dependable. They had discussed the previous day's attack in the passages. Akkarin's heatstrikes had left burns that made the intruder difficult to identify, but Ceryni was beginning to make subtle enquiries to find out whose man it was. He and his bodyguard Gol had also disposed of the body quietly and efficiently, which helped Akkarin feel altogether more in control.
Feeling more relaxed, however, meant that he was now doing little else but thinking of whether he had damaged what was between him and Sonea irretrievably. Their lovemaking had always had a touch of power play about it, but that night in the underground room, Akkarin knew he had been especially cold and punitive. He had allowed the fear of losing her turn into rage directed at the very person herself.
By late afternoon, Akkarin knew he couldn't avoid his own home for much longer. That meant he could no longer avoid finding out Sonea's feelings about what had happened. Before he drew away from the window, he braced himself for her anger, or that stony formality she sometimes adopted to hide her hurt. Most of all, Akkarin braced himself for the self-hatred he was about to feel for being the cause.
He turned around in a soft swish of black robes to look at her. Sonea's hair was up in a knot and she had two books in her hands. She had clearly come straight from her final class of the evening. But it was her facial expression that surprised him. Neither reproachful, hurt nor angry, she looked at him directly with those dark, expressive eyes that always made Akkarin feel a surge of desire at the intelligence glittering in its depths.
"The copy of the book you requested from Lady Tya was ready. I brought it over to save you the trip," Sonea said, her tone warm. She held out one of the tomes in her arms, then raised both eyebrows as if to ask, may I?
For a moment, Akkarin remained frozen, unsure as to how to read the situation. Then he gestured in permission, towards the desk in the room, his eyes watching Sonea closely. She walked slowly past him and left the book on the desk, clutching the one still in her arms close to her chest. Her gaze lingered on the simple but elegant dark wood surface. Akkarin wondered if she was recalling the same memory he was: the first time they had made love, finally giving in to their forbidden desire, on that very same desk.
"How are you?" Akkarin asked when she turned around to face him, but it came out colder than he had intended. "Your wound," he clarified, softening his tone.
Sonea gave him a small smile that seemed to lift a weight off Akkarin's chest. "I've had worse – or rather, the same, without the benefits of magical healing. Accidentally got stabbed when I was thirteen." Akkarin's eyes narrowed in concern. "I was in the way at the wrong moment. A mugging," Sonea clarified quickly, grimacing.
"You seem to have a knack for being where you shouldn't," Akkarin said, crossing his arms. Sonea's eyes grew a little reproachful at the reference to the reason for their being here – the attack in the passages – but softened when she saw Akkarin's lips curl up into his familiar half-smile.
She returned his smile, then her face grew serious again. She put the other book in her arms down on the desk and took a tentative step closer.
"I've had time to think about it, and I'm genuinely sorry, A-Akkarin," she said his name hesitantly, and Akkarin recalled with a pang of guilt that he had berated her the other night for not using his title. "There really was no excuse for my lack of precaution: I should have been shielding. But…"
Sonea's expression grew determined as she continued. "I stand by my reasons for being in the passages. I want, need, to do more than just give you power. Whether the Ichani continue to send spies to murder people one by one, or whether they invade all of Imardin, it's my people who will be first to suffer. So far, the slums and Outer Circle have been paying the price of keeping the Guild's secret: that it's too weak without black magic. Let me stand by your side at the next confrontation."
Akkarin kept Sonea's gaze steadily. The part of him that had lost control upon seeing her attacked, that had experienced a shimmering haze of terror at the thought of losing her, protested immediately. That irrational part of him would, if it could, lock Sonea away from all the dangers of the outside world. Mine. She is mine, that part said fiercely.
But his heart and mind knew that the Sonea in front of him, the one whose courage and selflessness was evident time and time again, was the reason he had finally given in to the sweet folly of bedding his own novice. Every time she spoke like that, presenting him with strength and honesty where he expected fear, Akkarin remembered why that wildly inappropriate decision had somehow been wholeheartedly right.
Akkarin stepped up to Sonea in one swift movement, cupping her face in his hands and crushing his lips down onto hers. She let out a small sound of surprise in the back of her throat, then wound her arms around his neck, rising up on the balls of her feet. Passionate, tender and apologetic all in one, their long kiss felt like coming home after an unwanted separation.
Akkarin was first to pull away, but his hands stayed around her waist. Sonea smiled as she looked up at him, then brushed a strand of his long black hair behind his ear. "I think you may be right," Akkarin said, sighing. "The circumstances have changed. I don't like it, but I may have no choice. You and Takan are the only ones I can trust entirely. I'll bring you with me when the next spy is located."
"Thank you," Sonea whispered, her eyes warm and determined. Then her smile returned. "Are you free after dinner?"
Akkarin chuckled and pulled her close. "I'm always free where that's concerned," he replied silkily.
Sonea's smile widened and she disentangled herself from Akkarin's arms, moving towards the door of the library. "I meant a lesson, though."
"And what lesson would that be?"
"Lover's Death. I think it's about time I'm fully trained up, don't you? We need to be more than a match for the next Ichani spy," Sonea suggested. Though she was reaching for a carefully neutral tone, Akkarin understood immediately the significance of what she was saying, and his playful demeanour shifted to one of seriousness.
"Sonea, what you're asking… There is no going back from it. I had no choice but to learn black magic, and still I'd be shown no leniency if it were found out. To actively seek and learn it… you know what it means under Guild laws," Akkarin said quietly.
Sonea stepped back towards him and grasped both of his hands in her own, looking at him intently. "I know full well what I ask. I know it is the only way we'll have a chance at protecting all that we care about," she replied firmly.
"Very well," Akkarin said resignedly after a few seconds of silence. "Very well. I don't like it, but I will do it. But you must promise to do exactly as I say whenever we go into the city for a kill. If I ask you to run and leave me, you do so."
"You know I cannot promise that," Sonea whispered, her dark eyes locked into the depths of his own.
They looked at each other in silence. Akkarin knew something between them had irrevocably changed. Whatever they now were about to become, it was not only lovers.
"Come," he said, breaking the tension with a half-smile. "Let's eat. Looks like I've got the enviable task of instructing you in a skill that is almost entirely to my benefit."
Sonea's smiled, puzzled. "Doesn't the one who performs Lover's Death get to draw the other's power?"
Akkarin gestured for her to go up the stairs ahead of him, still wearing that seductive half-smile. "Oh, they do. But I always find giving more rewarding than taking."
