Enchantment
-o-
Walon stood beside her, his hand hard around hers, the armored pieces of his gauntlet cutting into her soft skin. She watched him press his lips into a hard line in her peripheral vision.
Her child lay under this hill, but not his.
Still, he'd played with the boy, fashioned a replica of his baskad for him to learn swordplay with. Promised him a helm of his own with tech and armaments beyond his imagination. He's sworn to her that Mando'ad didn't differentiate between another man's seed and their own but she'd misbelieved him. Especially as his seed was borne in her as punishment. He planted their children out of obligation, to serve his sentence.
She believed him now, though, as he grieved.
He'd brought Yadon a gift of carven images. Things from his world that he'd told the child about. Things their older children didn't believe in until he'd brought a child's book from his side of the mist.
She wondered whose hands had wrought them. If he'd made them himself, although—judging by the craftsmanship of the swords he made their sons—for him to have created them his skill would have had to improve exponentially in the last few years.
"I didn't know," he gulped. "You'd think your heart would break, no matter where you were, at the death of a child."
She simply petted his arm. He was clad in the iron of his world and it burned her fingers to touch him. She would suffer through it, though, to feel this connection to him.
Vau let himself drop to his knees. Traced over the marker that someone had placed.
It wasn't an Elfhame thing to do, marking a grave. The elder race found their own ways of commemorating a passing. His son, although not his child, had been laid to ground and the ground had sweetened for it. Delicate while blooms so tiny he could pile thousands in the palm of his hand covered Yadon's mound. A mound far too substantial for so small a body.
"I loved you," he whispered as his fingers caressed the words.
Precious child
Beloved brother
Beloved son
Too soon
A particularly fine sentiment. It cut him to the bone.
Closed his throat and made a pain in his head that seemed likely to cost him his sanity.
He'd not been here to save his child.
No one could have saved him, she'd told him. And she was a very good mother. Her body might have been held hostage to the task of bearing them, but she adored them and they were exceptional in their intelligence and goodness both. They couldn't lie, his children, which was going to suck when it came time to bring them into his fold. So when she told him that they'd done everything possible, when she assured him that every healer had been consulted. That they'd been allowed to take him to healers on the other side as well, in case his ailment was human of nature, he believed her.
He'd been unattainable. His contract to the project on Kamino had kept him from holding her as Yadon had sickened. Because the vow he'd made his Mand'Alor superseded the enchantment placed upon him, he'd been unable to comfort his beloved son. To hold him, to carry his body to be interred here.
"I loved you," he told the babe beneath that hill. He'd been just a tiny thing when he'd left. A man from this world had held Asara beneath him, planted him in her, just a year before Walon had been obliged by his sentence to return to her bed.
Five, he'd been demanded. Five children. To replace the ones he'd killed on his mission to assassinate their father. Asara's father had cost him this pain, seeking his service when she'd been captured.
Her punishment for denying the king access to this body—to taking poisoned berries in order to keep him from conceiving on her—was to bear those five children under pain of torture.
The elder race, it seemed, wasn't as prolific as humanity. The loss of five sons was a harsh one when it might be hundreds of years or more between the births of them. And yet Asara and he were proving to be extraordinarily fertile. She was but half-elven, though. Stronger stuff than the blood of her father's race flowed in her veins. It showed in the way she'd fought him. If you'd asked him two and a half decades ago he'd have denied that he had it in him to conceive a child through rape. The compunction to bed her hit him every five years. He would be so compelled by that curse until those five quarter-bloods were produced and pledged to the service of the king.
His Donovan, their firstborn, had taught him what it was to love, from the moment he'd known the child existed. When the curve of him had marred Asara's slenderness Vau found himself unable to keep his hands off of her, fondling the child through her heavily draped gowns. He'd been drawn back through the veil, time and again, as she thickened and then the boy was his to hold and sing to and rock. A secret treasure, more precious than even his own blood.
The madness to have her had struck, after years of appearing at her side only in the most perfunctory ways, and their daughter was born. Ceryc Cabur he named her. Pointed Protector. She'd been born with a perfectly formed set of neat, even teeth. The pointed teeth of a predator. Her ears were as pointed as her mother's. Her hair and eyes his, like her brother.
His seed was strong.
He'd been just as doting a father to the girl-child as Don. Every mission that took him away saw him return with bounty to spoil them in turn. And, when his beautiful girl was two, his return shook him to the core.
Asara was heavy with child. Another man's child, although she'd been given to him.
He'd flown into a rage, demanding audience with the king. It had been denied.
"Were you harmed?" he demanded, catching her up by her arms and shaking her. "Were you forced or did you want this? Answer me?"
"I am almost afraid to," she'd whispered up into his maddened eyes.
He'd seethed. Demanded a name. Demanded honor in her sake.
"You are not some carafel for him to pass amongst his court—to use as a knife to twist in my back," he'd sworn. "Tell me how to protect you. How to keep him from having you used as sport at my expense."
She'd stared up at him, aghast.
"I… I…I…" Asara shook her head. "I couldn't even begin to conceive a way to thwart him.
He'd lain his lips on her brow with a terrible scowl in place. "I'll come up with something. I'll think of some way to keep him from using you."
His solution was for her to marry him. It was the only bond he could think to lay over her. He'd been challenged in the king's courtyards as he trained with Don. The boy looked more like him every day. Gorgeous with it, though, in a way he wasn't. His mother would have exalted in a grandson that so combined their pale darkness with Asara's grace and charm.
He'd stayed with her.
He hunted with the court. Mird nested and anticipated the new arrival and it was impossible not to bring the squalling child she'd produced to his heart. Mando'ad recognized children conceived during their absences as their own, he'd told her. Named him Thomas Vau. Called him Vorpan.
Green-baby.
His youngest son had the greenest, most jewel-like eyes he'd ever seen and soft, chestnut hair like his mother's. He smelled of her, too, something Vau hadn't realized until the babe was washed clean and he'd stolen him to cuddle himself.
Asara had watched, confounded, as the man condemned to be her tormentor patted and cooed just as he had when his own had issued forth. No finer sons, he proclaimed at court, his daughter held high on his shoulders, her fat fingers tugging at his hair as he bragged and drained tankard after tankard of ale that was pressed on him. He knew better than to drink anything offered without first salting it. Had long ago learned the easiest way was to simply cut a break in his cheek before a feast or meal and worry at it enough for the salt in his blood to release him from any fey madness it invoked.
"Sons, then," one of the court challenged him. "And daughters are worthless?"
He'd brought Cinyc Cabur down into his arms. Kissed her into silly giggles.
"Gar taldin ni jaonyc; gar sa buir, ori'wadaas'la. Ke barjurir gar'ade, jagyc'ade kot'la a dalyc'ade kotla'shya," was the reply he made.
"And will you be translating that for us?"
"Nobody cares who your father was, only the father you'll be. If you raise your sons strong and proud, you may be prouder yet to raise a strong daughter."
"I will never understand humanity. Do you not fight for the favor of whatever king buys your allegiance with coin to ensure safe passage of his crown from one head to that of his firstborn?"
"I do. Mando are different than the aruettise. Trust my truth when I assure you our ways are every bit as confusing to the rest of the galaxy as they are to you."
He nuzzled the chubby belly of his toddler, making her giggle.
"Ha' jai' eeg' sh," she murmured up at him.
Asara had noted that the child addressed him in the hard H and K, the spitting chuh and shh sounds of his language. With all others their daughter spoke the gliding elven tongue.
"That's right," he assured her, rewarding his babbling offspring with a serious nod in agreement.
"And you brag on a child you had nothing to do with creating."
"I hate the way my children are sired. And I feel nothing but gratitude for their very existence."
His presence in the hall was more than celebratory. He called for another round—on him—for new babes and healthy mums. Watched the man in the corner as he seethed.
When Sair's nurse came seeking for her he followed the man.
Those hands would never sully his wife again.
He was brought bodily in front of the king the next day, his family roughly dragged with him.
"What explanation do you give for this?"
"The sin in killing your sons was mine," Vau swore. "Not Asara's, whose only crime is bearing a fair enough face to entice the Gentry. I will kill every hand that sullies my wife in the time it takes us to forfeit your penance."
"And if I kill you now, if I end your line, as you've ended mine?"
"Can you?" he asked, his head tilted. "Can you kill me and her? Free us from this sham of a life where our children are the only joy to be had and no satisfaction is to be found in our bed? Or does your doom of making me return to this madness year after year keep you from doing so?"
"These children are already born," the king swore. "Their number has been counted and there is no protection over them. I could take them like that."
The snap of his fingers rang through the court.
Even his sworn guards shifted. None stepped forward to volunteer their swords.
"I would die beside my father," Donovan swore. He stood taller, held between two guards.
Vau started to order his silence and felt a hand at the back of his head before a knee drove into his face, a boot in his gut when he was dropped.
His son continued to pronounce his allegiance. "I would die if my blood sanctified the revenge you plan on them. If it made him hate you enough to kill you in the end."
They knew them, these soldiers. Knew the way Vau fought, the things he taught his son in the yards. Knew the wrongness in condemning a mortal to rape the woman you'd sought to rape yourself in order to beget heirs on her when your elvish wives failed you.
"You only exist to please me," the monarch declared. "Do not test the limits of my patience. When you are fifteen you'll swear fealty and take your place in my armies."
"I am old enough now to know where my fidelity lies."
"And?"
"Donovan…" Vau hissed from where he'd been hauled up. "You will bow to your king. Bow, son."
"Bow, son," the regent mocked. "Bow."
Vau dropped himself to one knee. Tilted his head forward.
Donovan, bristling with that particular anger that only a young child can hold, moved to do the same, cutting hateful, resentful eyes at his father.
They were ushered to the chamber where they lived out their lives. Vau was brought to them long hours later.
"What have you done?" Asara cried, falling to her knees beside him.
"I made my threat known."
"What threat was that?"
"You are mine and no other's. Unless you choose. Your choice, cyar'ika."
His palm left a bloody trail on her cheek before he passed out.
The next child she bore was the king's. A revenge negotiated while Vau recovered. She bargained her body and her bloodline for his safety. For the things she needed to heal him. He was well and truly mended when the king called in his debt. He wanted to be certain Vau understood the cost of crossing him. And the king claimed the rights of fatherhood, naming their son Yadon. Yadon Vau, Walon accepted, claiming the child when they were at court. A gorgeous babe. One who preferred his mother's husband to the cold, grasping hands of the regent who insisted he be placed upon his knee.
Not a strong one, though, it turned out.
His birth was followed in quick succession by that of Vance. Not the name he'd chosen, but what Asara's tongue could make of his choice. He'd been so ridiculously pleased to prove his own prowess that he let it go, made the compromise. The child was hers, every tasty-looking morsel of him, only favoring him in that inky dark hair and lips that turned up on one side in false-amusement when he was irritated. He'd been conceived when Vau had come in, slightly drunk, to find both Thomas and Yadon at Asara's breasts. The lust had come heavy on him. Heavy enough that he was ashamed of himself afterward. Asara's soft complaints of 'oh, we shouldn't… not yet… it's too soon…' had fallen on deaf ears. The youngster had been born into his own hands nine months later, tears and laughter at the lad's hale voice.
"I claim him for the Marev!" Vau laughed. "A set of lungs like that is destined to call men to order! Perfect for the parade ground, little sergeant!"
And now he stood, his beautiful lad with tears falling silently instead of the infant's announcement of misery that a loving hand or mother's milk might offer. His grief had no volume, no outlet but these tears...
"Father!"
Vau turned, rising, when he heard Don. He caught his laughing child to his chest, hugging him hard in a loud crash of steel plates and silver armor.
His children didn't suffer when they felt his beskar-iron.
"Let me see you," Vau cried. He caught the young face so full of happiness at his return. Petted the dark hair. It curled somewhat, which none of the human heritage in him could boast. That pale face, regally hooked nose, and glittering gold in his eyes were his. No doubt. This unfailing optimism? That he couldn't place. It was Donovan and Donovan alone. "I've missed you!"
"I missed you! Next time I'll go with you. I've earned my own colors."
Vau's lips trembled again. "I see that. I'm so proud of you." He slung his arms around the man who could have been him three decades earlier. "Don't rush your glory. It hurts when you get to this side of it."
"Did you suffer, having to resist the call to return?"
"I don't think I did. No more than I suffered from getting ten years older on an island of insanity in the middle of a cold sea where it never stops raining."
"I wasn't sure if the enchantment was broken, the way things are now…" he gestured to the grave beyond.
Vau sucked in a deep breath and looked over at Asara. "I don't know."
"I don't think so," she warned. "We spoke of this," she told Donovan. "The king's curse was a demand of five children."
"You gave him five."
"I didn't, though," Vau admitted, looking into her eyes. "And I missed my Rayshe'a rendezvous. I may suffer for it when we get to the court."
"We didn't expect you," Donovan told him, his eyes shining. The prettiest child they'd ever made, for damned sure. It was a wonder he'd avoided any scars, the way he threw himself into any mock battle. And now he'd earned his colors on a true battlefield.
Of course, the sword he carried was his father's. It was hard to beat good old Mandalorian ore. And the iron was doubly-damaging for the fairy folk he battled.
His eldest son had a target on his back.
His youngest would mark himself as well.
"My father will kill your father," he hissed at the child with whom he scrabbled in the dirt. "You'll bow to me, not me to you!"
He found himself jerked up. Brought to the throne room and held physically in the pose of supplication while his parents were located and brought forward as well.
"You've filled your child's head with lies and now you will stand there while he is made to learn his place," the king proclaimed.
"We know our place, liege," Vau swore. Broke free. "I will bow to you. Let me take his place!"
He instantly threw himself down, completely prone, on the hard stones.
All he could hear was Vance's trembling cries. He wondered what his child had already suffered. Knew the children of the gentry to be cruel and teasing. Knew his son wanted playmates outside his own brotherhood.
"You do not even know his punishment."
"It does not matter," Vau said. "Mete it out to me in his place. Set him free of the crime and punish me for him."
"You would me to spare him for you, stand in his place? Or… kneel there?"
"I will kneel to you," Vau's promise came quick. "I will bear the consequence of his crime."
"Were he any more than a child I would have had him run through and his body given to the toads to tongue."
"If it keeps my children safe my life is forfeit, but I want the guarantee of their safety."
"All those who serve me are safe here."
"Then kill me in his place and let my blood stain the ground as a sign of this promise at my death. It will be the wax that seals the covenant, a promise that all of my line know their loyalty to King and creed."
The regent nodded. "Find me Donovan Vau. We'll see if his allegiance is as strong as his father swears it is."
Vau cringed. He recognized his folly. Donovan would be made to behead him or gut him or whatever end the king had in mind.
Vance laid where he was, his brow forced to the ground by a harsh hand at the back of his head. His sobs grew wilder and wilder.
"I beg you not to make my child kneel in my blood," Vau demanded.
"No. You will shield him with your own body, I think," he was told.
"Of course."
What terror would that be. He prayed that Donovan's arm swung true, if he was to hold Vance in front of him while Don beheaded him. Jesu. What madness a cruel regent could wreak.
"I love you," he whispered when his son was brought forth and he was ordered to kneel.
"Father? V-Vance?"
"You have been appraised of the situation?" his general asked.
Donovan nodded. When the crown prince appeared with the king he hit his knee and tugged his forelock.
"I beg your indulgence, Liege," he said, speaking as Vau had taught him. "My younger brother is intemperate. All sons brag their father's prowess with blade and bow. I was no different and yet I serve you faithfully."
"You do and I am gratified that you continue to do so. You will prove it now, administering the sentence. You will assist your father in removing the plates that protect him from our weapons." It was less a courtesy as necessity. His own guards would be burned by the iron armor. Donovan's hands shook as he moved to assist Vau, who rose to strip.
"That's fine," the king called when he was down to his kute pants and boots. He addressed Donovan. "You show prowess with a number of weapons not typically utilized here. The bolts and darts and things?"
"Yes, Liege," he admitted, horror-stricken.
"And you can kill a man with such things?"
"The right darts and bolts, yes."
"What of the whip your father twisted for you? Could you strike down a foe with such a thing?"
Donovan swallowed audibly. "It would take many, many lashes to do such a thing. I use it more to render their weapons useless—as a tool, so to speak, either to stay their arms or bind their legs or even wrest sword or axe from their grip."
"But you are good with it, you are accurate?"
Vau nodded without thinking. Donovan's voice was full of dread as he answered.
"Yes, Liege."
"It is a stupid tool for meting out punishment. Let me show you what we use when we administer a lash."
Donovan was familiar with the strip of leather produced. He hadn't felt it, but he'd seen them utilized on the training grounds often enough.
The king's wrist flicked and the younger man's cheek opened wide at the crack of it against his skin. He restrained himself from reaching up in shock, although his mother's cry of dismay rang out. That he kept his feet was more to the shock of it than any fortitude. It was simply over—and, in truth, wielded with such skill—before he could react.
"Your brother's sentence was one lash for each year he'd been sucking in the protected air of my court. Your father offered to take it for him."
Ten lashes. Doable. So doable.
"You will kneel throughout the entirety of the sentence, if you wish it to take the place of your child's. Do you understand me? Fall and he will feel the sting of his own stupidity."
"Yes, Liege," Vau got out. Ten lashes. His father would have scoffed at such a punishment. He could do that with no hesitation.
"Should you pull your swing you will also feel it, young Donovan," the man said. He articulated each syllable of Don's foreign name overly-carefully. "Do you understand?"
Don met Vau's eyes. Both men nodded.
Vau swallowed hard. Shifted slightly, spreading his knees a bit wider and pulling Van snug against his chest when the lad was ordered to kneel before him, his ankles crossed so that the youth's legs were protected.
He heard Don sling the unfamiliar flog once, twice, then once more. Willed the youth just to get it over and done. Willed him to keep his mouth shut, his emotion hidden.
They could speak of it later.
He couldn't help the slight grunt under his breath when the first crack of it landed between his shoulder blades. It had been years since he'd allowed himself to be beaten. There was an irony in your son taking your father's place. He hardened his reaction to the next blows. Counted them as Van trembled and moaned in his throat. Willed him to silence.
Asara sobbed when the fifth fell. At the last of them Donovan moved to step away.
Vau rested his lips on Van's crown. "Hush now. It's over. Be brave and quiet."
Sair was standing so straight and tall. Tears fell silently.
They mocked her, his beautiful quarter-elven girl. That she should look so fey and yet be as powerless as a mortal. He hated this place and rued the day he'd accepted Asara's father's pleas to muster an army and steal her back.
"Why did you stop?" the regent asked, cocking his head in faux-confusion.
Donovan nearly stumbled. Bent one knee and bowed his head.
"My Liege, ten lashes… I administered ten lashes. Opened his skin with each one… they were not pulled, not weak… I thought that was the sentence," he stammered.
"One lash for each year?" the king asked.
Donovan nodded. Risked a glance up. "My brother is not eleven yet, Sire."
"And yet your father is a man of many winters, is he not?"
Vau suddenly understood. The blood drained from his face. "Oh gods."
Donovan swallowed so hard he could hear him and Vance couldn't hold back the sob. Vau held him tighter. "Be still. Be still for me and silent."
Don cocked his head at the king. Shook it to the side. "Please…"
"You refuse?"
"He does not refuse," Vau spoke for him. "He simply needed a moment to gather himself. He misunderstood. Donovan!"
His son picked the flog back up. Screwed up his face.
"Count. Aloud. All of you."
"Eleven," he heard his children whimper. Heard his wife cry and his son snarl as the whip bit.
"ONE," the regent corrected. "If you give him any quarter, if you grant him a respite we start over."
To his credit, his son didn't pause long enough for their sovereign to demand that it counted as hesitation. The crack of it hitting his father's already welted flesh tore at his heart.
Vau was strong, and he was tall, but he was built wiry. There wasn't a great deal of bulk to him. The musculature of his shoulders didn't have the breadth some men in the court had… those with boggan blood and trolls, mountain hybrids and those with less royal blood. There was simply a surfeit of area available to hit with those arrow-precise blows. Which meant the belt crisscrossed and opened flesh far sooner than they might have on someone else. When Donovan's search for skin to mark in order to avoid whipping him into ground meat found his flank Vau couldn't contain the short groan. He was already grinding his teeth, his jaw locked and his eyes defocused but pointing in the direction of the watching king. He took seven more before his legs started trembling. He'd braced himself so hard, his muscles tensed and locked, and now they twitched at each bitter sting. When Don slapped it higher, attempting to find a spot his father could withstand more easily, it caught at his shoulder and opened up a cut across the front of his clavicle, barely missing Van. Surely the child had felt the sting of the air next to his head, his beautiful curling hair.
Vance was crying, silently, Vau prayed. He couldn't hear anything over the ringing in his ears. He could feel the tears from his son's face dripping onto their hands. He couldn't hear the count. Didn't know how many he needed to endure in order to save his child this same injury.
The thought occurred to him that the anniversary of the curse came due soon.
It nearly made him snort in derision. Yeah. There'd be no child from his loins in the next days. He wondered what that meant. What suffering it would lead to. The original week it had taken to conceive Donovan had meant constant fear and pressure. And overwhelming lust.
With his teeth still clamped tight, his lips parted but barely moving, he hissed at his youngest child.
"You hold your head high, no matter where you go. And, if I die, you tell your mother I loved her."
He felt the tiny, tremulous nod against his chest as the whip tore another strip of flesh from his back. His pants were soaked heavy in the back from the blood, dragging down the waistband and exposing more uncut flesh to Donovan's cunning skill with every drop.
At first he didn't realize when they ended, so cold and destroyed his back felt.
He blinked when Donovan appeared in his vision, Vance struggling to get free.
"I can't move," he admitted in a voice that he didn't think sounded like his. Had he taken a blow to the head or to the neck? Was it his throat or his ears that made him sound so.
"I've got you, father," Don promised. He put his shoulder carefully under Vau's and started to haul him up, a nod at his sister on the other side.
Vau couldn't help the short sound of dismay that came to his lips as they stretched the skin differently, widening his stance so they could drag him back to their chambers.
"I don't think I'm going to feel like raping you tonight," he told the woman who gently laid herself upon the bed to share his pillow.
"I don't think it would quite be rape," she told him. Palmed his cheek and cupped it before shifting closer and lifting her lips to his.
Damned if his dick didn't think that was interesting, though.
He was on his side, propped at an angle and slightly belly-down with a pillow. The only place he could get comfortable was with his arms crossed over his chest or belly, even sitting or standing.
Apparently he'd lost a good bit of blood and had spiked a fever. He had no memory of the last few days.
"How are the children?"
"Terrified."
"You're leaving here with me this time," he swore. "As soon as I can lift my arm."
"Talk to Donovan. He wants to know if he should have done something differently."
"He didn't have a choice. We'd all be dead, maybe, or worse. I can't deal with losing another one."
She tucked in the sides of her lips.
"Show me your teeth."
She obliged.
Hers were near-human. The top incisors… human. Molars just like a human. Those beautiful pointed cuspids, though, and the row of tiny-dagger like teeth along the bottom jaw? So inhuman.
"If I die, you take them to Mandalore. You'll be able to program my ship. It's in the fen and cloaked, but Sair can find it. She's good at it."
"You're getting well and you're flying your own ship out of here."
"With you," he amended. She didn't make the promise. "I won't leave my child in this corrupted court to be hassled by fair-folk and gentry. I shouldn't have before. I won't this time. Even if it's your body I step over to protect them."
"You'd kill me next? Choose them over me?"
"If you insisted on getting in my way or called down guards to stop me? Yes."
"Which ones?"
"Any of them. I don't think any of the guards are going to suddenly-"
"Which children?"
"Any of them," he told her.
"You and Donovan are closest, but he's his position here."
"He's a man. I'll talk to him. Make sure he understands what leaving with me would mean this time."
"Sair would leave with you in an instant."
He nodded. "The little boys, too. It won't be hard to get them to agree and they'll be cooperative."
"I can't go, Walon. I can't leave Thomas here by-"
"I could give a fek that he's fair-blooded. He'll get on the ship with the rest of us! If the kriffing jedi can make a place in the real world my son will and you will, too! What is wrong with you!? This isn't even your court! Not your king!"
She swallowed. Just pressed her lips to his. "We'd be leaving Yadon's grave."
He couldn't help her there. It was true. They'd forfeit access to the memorial the ground had made over their little lad. He licked his lips and thought.
"Gather some of the flowers for me?" he asked her.
"We already are. It's working, or else there's no way you'd be in healed this much, you wouldn't already be in this good of shape."
He started to snort. "This is not good shape. It turns out there's a core of weakness in me after all. My father was right."
"I don't know what your father told you, but no mere mortal could have survived what you did and protected his son at the same time, kept his stance so that he never wavered. No fey that I know, either."
"Your fey are soft."
He lifted his hand to hers. Mouthed her knuckle.
"Tender."
She smiled at him. "Certainly the tale of the king's deathbed speeding healing is true."
"I don't understand."
"The cloths we're using to soothe the skin are steeped in Yadon's blooms. It was Caryc who suggested it when the ones from the Tombs did not seem to lessen your suffering."
"They're medicinal?"
"Only in that they come from a mound of importance."
Walon's brow creased. "I barely knew him. I don't know what his favorite color was or if he'd have liked the gargon and-"
She covered his lips with her fingertips. "He came from beyond to heal you when we prayed over you in despair. His grave-blooms honored that connection. He would have loved you."
"I loved him. Even when I didn't realize he was gone. I looked at the lads I trained and wondered if he'd have been taller, smarter, faster. He was such a beauty of a babe. Ready to smile at me before he could even lift his head."
"He did. He loved you best, I think. It gave me a great deal of peace to think that your comfort came from him. That his dying had a purpose if it saved you."
"I'd trade places with him. Well. Not like this…"
That made her laugh wetly. "I know what you meant. But, in truth, escaping here would never be a possibility if he were with us. We'd never be allowed to leave with him."
A light went out in Walon's eyes. He wondered if having a middle brother who was the king's would have saved his younger boy from the taunts and teasing and tests the so-called fair-folk issued his mortal progeny. Their magic was weak in some instances. Asara's blood was too diluted to ensure them a proper place here.
That night when she slipped into the bed beside him he reached for her.
"Asara," he murmured. Stroked over her arm.
She'd warmed to him. Not to the extent that she thought he should swing a leg over in his current state.
"I'd suggest you could be on top, but I'd probably cry," Walon chuckled against her neck. "But look, you fit right next to me, just where I like you."
She felt him shove the pillow away, slide closer to her. Felt the heat of him where he pressed himself against her.
"Walon Vau! You were on death's bed two days ago."
"I'm not now. Be alive with me. Make a life with me."
He was mad for her, not going to take no for an answer. She tilted her head back, let herself respond to his teasing and coaxing. Laughed out loud at some of his antics and silliness.
When his hand slipped between them to play at her button while he slid into her he groaned.
When they still hadn't conceived two months later and the plan to leave seemed to have slipped his mind she despaired.
She sobbed when he covered her. Laced her hands carefully in his hair. She'd had to learn to curb her desire to reach for him after she'd accidentally clawed him or tugged at him too hard, ripping open the healing flesh or sending him slithering away from her hissing in pain. She knew better now, although he was nearly back in shape.
She'd thought he'd consigned himself to die for them.
Now she turned her face from him and cried against the pillow when he growled his frustration, trying to find the right timing to bring her to climax before he drove them both up to achieve his culmination.
"It's my fault," she whimpered. "It's this… this is why we can't have a baby."
"We're good at this part, Asara," he gasped at her. "And we have a whole houseful to prove it."
"This isn't the curse, though," she told him. The curse made him seemingly insatiable to sink his seed in her. It was one of the ways they knew they'd succeeded, the way he relaxed afterward.
They'd been dancing to this tune a long time.
"It's supposed to be rape, though," she told him, clamping down in an effort to deny herself the pleasure he sought for her. "That's the parameter, the way the challenge was laid before us. If you denied him, since you robbed him, five… conceived through-"
"Oh, fek," he gasped. "You don't think Vance is going to satisfy the task, either, then?"
She shook her head. "Not unless you count the fact that I told you we shouldn't be sleeping together yet. I don't know. It wasn't time, it wasn't the five years'-space."
He looked down at her. "Rape, by definition, means non-consensual?"
She nodded.
"So deny me. Tell me to stop. Shove me away from you. Kick. Scream if you want to."
Her eyes danced merrily. "That won't work. I'm sure fate knows the difference."
"Gentle folk circumvent the meat of a meaning with a sheer play on words all the time. Deny me, Asara. Tell me to leave you, to leave off, that you don't want me."
"I can't do that."
He made a face a her. "I can make you," he decided.
He arched up. Stripped a pillow of its case and bundled her wrists in it.
That made her laugh. "What are you doing?"
"I'm taking away your choice," he said. "Lack of consent is the same as denial. Open your mouth."
He'd reached for the wine skein. Dribbled some into her mouth.
"Where I'm from, a woman's consent cannot be legally obtained if she's addled by drink or spice or drug or any other means of persuasion. It's manipulation. An unfair advantage. So it doesn't count as consent, even if she strips naked and tries to dance on your dick."
"You come from the most bizarre of places."
He agreed. Not that she had room to talk.
His body coiled and the whole of the bed jolted when he slammed into her again.
"Oh!"
He nodded. Fucked her harder. When she would scream he covered her whole mouth and nose with his hand.
"Do you want it like this?" he asked her harshly. "With me banging you so hard the next room will hear us and you under me just for my pleasure in spilling my seed in you? Do you like being held down? Forced?"
Her eyes went wide, a frown on her brow as she shook her head. She tried to get him off, but his grip was too strong. Surprise turned into fear. Irritation to real concern.
He kept up the brutal pace, driving into her harder and faster. His gasped questions had an air of madness, of meanness. Tears leaked out and she saw spots in front of her eyes before he suddenly released her, keening out his culmination.
When his body stopped shaking he couldn't release her. He just held her trembling body and whispered how much he loved her, how sorry he was.
"Did it work?" he begged.
She tried to clear her mind, her chest still aching and a dizzy sensation clouding her mind.
"I can't… I… I don't know."
She turned her face into his neck and wept.
It worked. He felt totally different the next day, eager to reach for her just for the pleasure it gave them instead of the frenzied need. Her sight cleared and she confirmed it.
"Arpat," he called the non-existent bump every time he was close enough to her to press his palm to her womb.
"You're sick. Only in Elfhame is that going to be a name that doesn't get the kid beat up."
"This one won't have any memories of this place. Clean break."
Her worried eyes turned on him. "That's not true, Walon," she told him. "We might still need to make two children to satisfy the pronouncement."
"Or he could be the last of them. He might not even be necessary to end the enchantment."
"Walon."
"We'll deal with it, Asara. Hell. In ten more years I might be dead or completely infirm. I'm not a young man."
"You'll be sixty?"
"I will. I can't imagine doing this at sixty. Arpat won't get the same father that Donovan did."
"What are you going to call the child if it's a girl?"
"Ar-pat," he insisted. "It might be nice to have another little girl, don't you think?"
She threw up her hands. Went to see to some things.
They were discreetly readying to make an escape.
Four and a half years later he approached Mij Gilamar and Kal Skirata.
"I need to tell you something and you need to trust me when I tell you that I can't tell you all of it."
That was something none of them ever expected.
"We'll keep your secrets," Kal insisted. He and Vau had come a long way.
"I have people to protect. Not clones. My people."
"All right, then. We'll gather them-"
Vau growled when Kal reached for him. "Will you shut up? Just listen. I have to be careful how I word it if I want to get it out."
"Okay…" Mij agreed.
"I have them hidden, but they're not safe. The next week or months or so might make them safer. Or it might make them worse off. I won't bring that down on you. But I need help. I'm going to go through… something… and I need you to lock me up. Lock me down. No matter what I say. There's only one person I can trust for you to give the code."
"Yeah. You're gonna have to give up more than that."
"I'm going to try to physically break an enchantment."
"You got yourself tangled up with a witch?"
"No."
"Some jedi curse?"
"No."
"Spill it, Vau."
"Part of it. It's impossible for me to speak of there here. I am physically unable to give you the details. But, if it works—well, one way or another it'll be over."
"Where do you want me to chain you?" Mij asked.
"My bed chamber here would suit just fine and be more comfortable for the guest you're going to get afterward. And… you might need to drug me."
Kal slapped his forehead. Mij laughed.
"I'm not into kinky stuff, Walon."
The somber man lifted both his middle fingers.
"One last thing. The… younger ones. They're important to me. If they come with her, don't let them follow if we… go somewhere. Tell them I'll get her right out, to trust me."
"You are freaking me out."
"Might work, might not."
A month later he was writhing in absolute agony, bound by each hand to opposite posts of the headboard and his long legs stretched diagonally and caught around the ankles at one of the footboard's slats.
"Can you give him just a little more sedative?" Asara begged, swabbing at his face.
Mij Gilamar shuddered when Vau's teeth started chattering.
"I'd be afraid to. He's already had too much. And his heartrate is going increasingly erratic."
"This isn't working. I don't know why he thought this would work. How long is he supposed to carry on like this?"
"Can you tell us anything?" he asked.
She shook her head. "I am bound, Mortal," she told him evenly.
They watched her reach for the man they'd had no idea was harboring a fugitive wife and a whole herd of part-human-hybrid kids. You thought you knew someone…
"Is he possessed?"
She rolled her eyes. "He is not."
"See if Jusik can force shock him?" Kal asked Mij.
The physician nodded. "Yeah. That's the only thing that we haven't tried."
When Vau woke up the lust crawled through him so hard it was like a living thing under his skin. He could scent Asara. Groaned and turned his head toward her.
"Asara. This isn't working. I'm begging you. I need you."
She nodded. "Tell me what you want me to do. Do you want me to unlatch you?"
He craned toward her when her hand roved over his naked chest. "Not yet. Kiss me. Kiss me like I wanted you to the first time I saw you."
She leaned over him, settled her lips against his. Opened them when he parted them desperately.
He arched against her. "Please. Join with me, As'ika. I need you. Let me show you. Let me prove it."
"You said…"
"Just… just for a moment. Just to take some of the pressure off," he begged.
She nodded. Moved to straddle him, her fingers working his belt. He groaned at the flutter-feeling along his belly as she shifted them, freed him. Quickly she lifted herself, slid her underthings to the side.
Her pretty summer dress was like torture over his skin as he waited for that contact from her. Moaned through it when she sheathed him. Resisted the temptation to let her fuck him to that completion his body strove for. Instead he tried to reach for her.
"Loose my hand. Just one hand," he begged. "Just let me… it will be better… I want to…"
She was breathing hard when she leaned forward, kissed him before reaching for the cuff. She hadn't been quite ready when she'd settled on him and was eager to make it more like lovemaking, more enjoyable. He knew exactly what made her sing, what made her shout.
The cry she let out was more dismay than satisfaction when he lurched forward and hit the code on the ankle restraints before reaching for the other. He jerked at her, trapping her under him, before she could object. Then he stretched out and got rid of the other repulsorcuff that kept him restrained.
"Here goes nothing," he told her, pulling the sweat-soaked blanket around them and sinking into her again.
"What the hell? I thought you wanted to be chained so you couldn't-"
He wagged his brows up and down at her and dangled the protective charm she'd fashioned him in front of her face.
"Are you mad? We can be summonsed!"
"Let's find out," he told her. Jerked it over his head and tossed it, fastening his mouth to hers.
They were summonsed. Asara howled with rage and betrayal. Walon's head jerked back and he let out the silent howl of culmination that nearly broke his spine.
Sank against her even as a smattering of applause broke out.
They'd landed in front of the dais, but the good king wasn't attending his own court's frivolities.
Small mercies.
Walon caught her in another kiss, which she escaped. "Don't eat or drink anything," he told her, shifting to right himself.
She gaped at him. "I hate you."
"Yeah. I think that part worked. Let's ransom our babies and get out of here."
He abandoned Skirata's bedding and jerked her to her feet. A fey tried to grab at her and she bared her teeth at them.
"Yeah, I think you're out from under his sway."
"Walon. Will we have to turn our children over to him?"
"Absolutely not. That wasn't his pronouncement. Five children, a new one every five years, from the torment of my body since you denied his."
"But-"
"Kamino doesn't count because I'd already sworn a vow to Jango Fett."
He halted in front of the door that looked like it had been carven from a tangle of roots. The large eyes always creeped him out.
"Must I wait the Lord's command to take my leave?" he challenged.
She cut her eyes to the side.
"Have you his property?"
"I do not. I take only what I came with, only what is mine."
"Humans can lie. Fey cannot."
He thrust Asara in front of him. Felt naked: no shirt, no shoes, no armor, no weapons.
"We came as we are, have nothing in our pockets, and are free of him," Asara declared.
She turned, beamed at Walon.
"We're free of him!"
"The little ones, too," he prompted.
She turned. Straightened her face. "My children are under the protection of their mortal father, and he forbids them enter this realm. Forbids any from this realm to summons them or do them harm."
"It is his right to make those demands on those of his household, but he has no power over them if they come of their own volition," the door said thoughtfully. "Are they respectful children?"
"Very," asserted Vau. "And happy where they are. The king demanded their creation and birth and we have complied with him in this regard. Now we take them to a land long-parched of magicks and the elder race where they will swear allegiance in the way of my people. His demand was that they serve their liege-lord. Their fealty is to be given my Mand'Alor and his Adenn, their blood strengthening the Marev of my land, although I will extract vows from them that they are not to seek the ruination of those who tormented their mother."
Asara glanced at him, then the door. "The Gentry have no claim on my children. They are free from the yoke of their father's punishment." Her voice held her doubts, but hope sparkled in the words that she could not have spoken had they not been truthful.
"I see not why the Gentry would even want your children. The fair-blood runs so thin in you that I barely heeded your call to speak, mix-mortal. You should be safe enough."
"Thank you," Vau gushed. He gestured Asara out.
Ran for his life, her hand tight in his.
"We're having a baby," he beamed at her as they took seats in his ship.
She looked over at him. "You could have told me your plan."
"Would you have agreed?"
"What do you think."
Her biting tone was his answer. No, he hadn't thought she'd be keen on him throwing her down in the middle of a feast. And, honestly, if he hadn't been so amped up for it, he doubted it was something he'd had been able to force her to do under other circumstances.
"Let's go."
Kal looked up when they came tromping hand-in-hand down the staircase to the karyai.
He was dealing pajaak to the boys of his clan. The baby was in a birikad across his chest.
"Where the fek… how did you…"
"Let me tell you about this job I took twenty-five years ago," Vau laughed. He was pleased to find his tongue well and truly loosed.
"I'm the child of depravity and debauchery," Donovan bragged. He leaned over to shove at his father's shoulder. "How'd you piss Mom off?"
"Raped her in front of the whole entire court at a feast."
Asara turned and stalked down the hall.
"Did it work?"
"It did."
"I want to name this one," Don demanded.
"Name your own babies. Where's your sister?"
"She went for a walk with one of the knights here…"
Vau's eyes narrowed. "You let her go off with one of them? Who!?"
"Who do you think she's not going to be able to take down?" her brother demanded.
"Jaing," Skirata told Vau. "He's been tripping over himself to get her to notice him since they got here."
"She can't walk out with him," Vau declared.
"Why?"
"Because. She's…"
They waited. Looked at him.
"He's…"
Just those faces. Waiting. Staring.
"Well, she's just a babe."
"Twenty years old. Just no time at all in the world," Donovan joked.
"I hate you."
"I know it. We hate you, too," his son declared. "Why don't you go get dressed and calm Mom down and I'll make you some tea."
"I'm neither old nor infirm. I do not need tea."
"You look kind of pale," Vance told him.
"I-" He glared at the younger boy. Pale didn't even get a foot in the door when it came to his sons' complexions. "I am not the pale one."
"Look a little sickly still."
Thomas nodded at Don. Vau leaned closer to hiss in his eldest's ear.
"I wasn't sick. I was rocking a massive case of horn-dogging and needed to get your mom worked up a little, play on her sympathies a little."
"Massive schemer. She'd going to eat you for breakfast."
Vau narrowed his eyes. Decided he probably should go check on her sooner rather than later. And get cleaned up. He smelled like a week's worth of sweaty sheets.
"Been nice knowing you, Pops," the pup chirped at him as he slid out of his chair.
Skirata chuckled. It was disconcerting, the similarities between the younger man and his father. Peas in a pod. Then the kid was friendly, outgoing, full of charm and quick to smile, quicker to laugh.
"I'm quarter-elven," Vance told Skirata again. He'd been told he could call him Kal or even Ba'buir. Had politely declined until his mother and father weighed in on it. Names were weapons.
"Not me," Thomas announced. "I'm a lot more than that. Probably. I'm not sure, really…"
"You'd be quarter-elven, too, if your brother is," Mij told them.
They were all shaking their heads. "Nope. He's not talyc vod. My mother was raped by someone else and my father wanted both of us anyway, so he named me after him and then killed the one who the king sent to hurt her."
Skirata's respect for Walon shot up.
"I'm just my daddy's," Arpat said in his soft voice, tugging on Kal's sleeve to get his attention. "My mommy said so. I am one-hundred percent Walon Vau."
He didn't doubt it. The child looked out at the world in Walon's face made miniature, with the exception of the palest green eyes he'd ever seen. They were almost clear and cold as glass. He seemed to observe before speaking and had a cutting way of getting right to the part of a matter that bothered a soul.
"Don't hypnotize me, kid," he warned.
"He won't," Kad assured him from the seat beside Arpat. "He's our vode, too. They belong here now."
"Maybe," Kal warned.
Arpat stuck out that little dimpled butt-chin of Walon's. Just arched a brow and declined to comment.
Kid was going to get taken down a notch or two someday, Kal was sure of it. Just like the one down the table who smirked and elbowed his brother when Thomas had to draw instead of play.
"Now, now. Let's keep it friendly."
Yeah. No doubt these were Walon's kids.
Walon Vau had kids.
Kids who adored him and thought he was the coolest thing to ever strap on armor.
They'd told him about duels, dragons, and a host of adventures Kal had no idea Vau had ever been party to.
"Now we know where he keeps slipping off to, eh, Buir?" Ordo had asked when he and Besany came through the first night they were here.
"They're beautiful," Besany had cooed, running a hand over Arpat's head.
"I'm a deadly assassin, ma'am. Just like my daddy."
"I see. Your daddy is a good one," she admitted.
Thomas had beamed at her. "Did he capture you and bargain you for treasure?"
"He did not," Ordo had objected. "I'm the one who dragged her here. After I shot her. With a blaster."
That had sent the young boys into shouts and howls of delight.
They'd gotten up when Ordo offered to show them what a crack shot he was. Staged an arena and contests. Declared prizes and curses and offered riddles until Donovan and Sair tracked them down and expressed horror.
"No riddles," Don declared. "You two know better," he chided Thomas and Vance.
"We apologize, mortals," Vance told them contritely. He snapped his fingers.
Don shook his head. "Don't do that. They think it really means something."
"Da said we're safe here, though, and can be anything we want to. I'm be Fey-er."
"You don't get to pick."
"Watch this," Arpat told him. Slapped at Kad. "Do it."
Kad had grinned, lifted dust with his hands, and made a wave with it.
Made it wiggle and dance. Circled it overhead and around their feet, between their feet.
Arpat just jutted out that little chin. "This is my friend and we're a team now."
"Whatever," Donovan declared. He wanted to keep an eye on that little bugger for sure. "Don't pretend to hex people. It's creepy."
"Rude," Sair corrected.
"Just… don't do it," their oldest sibling sighed.
Ordo appreciated the way they submitted to his insistence. They were cute kids.
Weird as fuck to see Walon Vau's features stamped on that many young faces. But they were charming and excited about everything the frontier had to offer. Weird, too, to meet a young man from an entirely different kind of culture who had also been trained to outwit and outlast and out-murder from the day of his birth, but under completely different circumstances.