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“Irgo Vahul was a traitor,” Harok says. It takes Tobi a moment to understand that last word. Traitor.

Tobi takes a breath. He remembers the words he got Mereli to teach him and he says them, like lines he has carefully learnt for a show, “Irgorye, I am sorry I ran. I will not run again. But you will never punish me like that in front of the Solwen. You will not use me to show the Solwen you are strong. If I do things you do not like we will speak of them in this chamber. I am not your possession. I am your kushir. I have done all I can to please you. You will agree to this or I will run away. You know I will find a way if you treat me like that again.”

Harok stares at Tobi. He doesn’t say much for a while, so long that Tobi wonders if what Mereli taught him even made sense. But eventually, Harok nods and says, “Yes Suskara. Suskara is man, not possession.” And then he takes a breath and swallows. He looks into Tobi’s eyes and says, “Oliki, Suskara.”

23

TOBI

When Harok’s wound is entirely covered in the green paste, Tobi binds it with linens and gets up onto the bed beside him. He climbs over to Harok’s left side so Harok can pull him near with his good arm.

Harok kisses Tobi’s hair and says, “I not lose Suskara.”

“No,” Tobi says. “No.” Then he grins up at Harok. “Irgorye oliki?”

“Suskara,” Harok growls. “I save you from the Exceli. So you know I am sorry. My shoulder tells you I am sorry.”

And Tobi thinks that is the best he is going to get for now. Still, Harok said sorry and he is going to be happy with that. And perhaps, happier with a few other things too. “I show you book,” Tobi says.

Harok frowns. “Book? What book?”

Tobi knows he must be looking very pleased with himself as he says, “When you gone, I sad. I miss you. I find book. I want show you book.” He climbs from the bed and crosses to the door that leads to his own chamber. He fetches the book which sits on the table beside his bed and brings it back to Harok.

He sits down beside him.

“Book, Suskara?” Harok says, in his clumsy Artemian,

“Book,” Tobi says back in Ambolk, presenting it. Harok seems surprised Tobi is presenting him with a book. Tobi wonders if he has the words to explain its significance. He says, “In Azuria. No book this thing.”

Harok takes it, frowning like he doesn’t understand. He turns it over in his hands and smiles to himself, switching back to Ambolk to say, “You like this book, Suskara? You read it?” It is clear he knows what the book is about.

Tobi shakes his head. “Ei,” following up with his own words in Ambolk. “I no like to read. I look.” Tobi might still struggle with his Ambolk words but he speaks Harok’s language far better than Harok does his. Although it is almost touching when Harok tries to use Artemian words.

Harok opens the book at a vivid illustration of a large man covering a smaller one. The bed in the picture looks a lot like the one they both lie upon. “You like book, Suskara?” Harok says in Artemian, pointing at the picture with a blunt finger.

“I like it, Irgorye,” Tobi says in Ambolk. His voice sounds breathy. Before Harok had burnt his clothes he had been excited to show Harok this book, dreaming of what it would be like to lie in bed together and look through the pages, but the reality of looking at these lewd pictures with Harok beside him is so much more arousing than he could ever have imagined. It takes his breath. He can barely speak. Ambolk words seem to fly from his head. But he so desperately wants to tell Harok more. That in Azuria there could never be a book like this. That what he has with Harok would never be permitted. But he can’t find words for that. So he simply says, “I like Irgorye bed. Thing in book. Irgorye and kushir. I want all life. In Azuria bad.”

“You like this? Show me the ones you like,” Harok says. His voice sounds equally heavy with arousal. But he still doesn’t really understand the significance of this book to a sly man who grew up in Azuria.

Tobi takes the book and flicks back through the pages to the illustration of the two men kissing. “This,” he says, in Artemian, pointing, then using Ambolk words he learned on his first night in Harok’s bed. “Priss. Alla-priss. With men. Two men. I no see this before. In picture.”

Harok nods. “You like this,” he echoes, before leaning over with a soft grunt of pain, placing his left hand on Tobi’s cheek and kissing him deeply, recreating the scene in the way Tobi hoped he would, despite his injury. Tobi presses close to Harok’s body, feeling the familiar warmth, breathing Harok’s dark, heady scent. And maybe making Harok understand doesn’t matter so much as enjoying the freedom he has now. Something he never knew possible.

Tobi pulls back breathless from the kiss and lifts the book, scrabbling to find another favourite page. The Ereyek and kushir on the throne together with the Ereyek’s hand wrapped around the kushir’s cock. “This,” Tobi says. His voice cracks a little to say it, desire blooming.

“Solwen watching. Suskara,” Harok says in Ambolk, sounding amused. “Beast Tamer. Solwen no watch Irgo punish kushir. Solwen watch—” Harok finishes with a word that Tobi thinks must be the word for pleasuring with the hand. “Velinan.”

“Mmm, yes, velinan.” Tobi says softly, snuggling close to Harok’s body. Then, “Please,” his voice cracking over the word. ‘Please’, the Artemian word that Tobi uses so much in Harok’s bed it seems like all it means to him now is ‘please fuck me’.

Harok chuckles to himself. He reaches over and turns the pages. He stops at a picture of the kushir curled between the Ereyek’s legs as the Ereyek lies sprawled on the bed. He points to it. “I like this, Suskara. Suskara’s clever mouth.”

“Oh, dekuna,” says Tobi, looking too. “You like that, beast. Dekuna Irgorye. Sho.”

“Sho. Ga gari garasiana.”

“Yes, my beast,” Tobi says in Artemian.

“Beast. Karran. Daedon.”