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Tobi sits beside Harok. After Harok has made a short speech, about the glory of the Solwen and Urynwud, he lavishes all his attention on Tobi, setting him in his lap and feeding him small pieces of food and kissing him. He has eyes for no one else. He speaks to no one else.

When most of the food has been eaten and Tobi is soft on mead and Harok’s kisses, music starts with a sudden rush of sound. Tobi gasps. Has music ever sounded so good? The drummers, pipers and a dozen vocalists play the evocative, thrilling Ambolk tunes that Tobi has grown so fond of. Harok leads Tobi out to dance. They move together to the music, bodies pressed close as other Solwen rise and begin to move all around them. Tobi feels good, slightly dazed but full of a soft sweet sense of wellbeing. Baby comes winding her way over, rubbing against Tobi’s bare legs as he sways in Harok’s arms. He leans closer, breathes Harok. He smells delicious. He is with Harok. It’s the only place he wants to be. It has been a strange journey to get here. But he truly feels like he has all he needs. He lives, as he has always wished to, in luxury. The life of a prince. A prince of the Amber Forest.

In his heart, he knows, he has become Solwen. He can never be an Azurian again. He is one with the beasts and trees and earth. And he can see the magic of the forest all around him.

There is real magic in this forest. He did not believe it for so long. But he cannot deny it now. Some of the things he has been told in his life — Gods and demons, magic and fortune telling, the will of Zai — are certainly lies. Some are just clever words and trickery to gain coin or make men behave in certain ways. But other parts are real. Cel won his kitchen maid after the mariandcards foretold it. Was that true fortune telling or coincidence and persuasion? He thinks of Harok taking a wound to his shoulder that surely should have killed him. What mysterious power does Harok gain from that sigil carved on his breast?

Is there real power in the branches of Susal-ur-Bellan? From its fallen branches statues were carved that Tobi saw as a boy in Emperor Selim’s private shrine, like the forest was reaching out to him all those years ago. Like it knew he would end up here.

He was always meant to be here. He knows it for certain.

The forest brought him here.

Tobi moves closer to Harok, rolling his hips against the firm press of Harok’s body. He feels his cock rouse a little. Harok’s arms slide tighter around him, lifting him from the ground. Tobi feels like he is buzzing all over, ripe for pleasure, as Harok carries him off to bed.

“I have a surprise for you, Suskara,” Harok says as he tosses Tobi down on the bed covered with furs and silks and fine velvets, “I know you have been hoping for this.” He leans down, slides his hand up under the alit and touches the skin on Tobi’s thigh.

Tobi coos with pleasure.

Harok chuckles darkly. “My beautiful kushir.”

Harok crawls onto the bed, caging Tobi. He leans down and kisses Tobi’s neck. And Tobi makes another sound of pleasure. But he moans, “What is your plan for your kushir, Irgorye?”

But Harok only chuckles against Tobi’s skin as Tobi tips his head back. Offering his neck to Harok for more.

Harok licks over Tobi’s skin and, for several moments, Tobi’s world contains nothing but the sensation of pleasure. His cock is growing hard beneath the alit. Harok’s mouth, Harok’s hands on him are all he wants in the world. He could drown in this touch. Harok bites at Tobi’s neck, hard enough to leave a mark, and then kisses over his face. Finally, Harok’s lips meet Tobi’s and Harok slides his tongue into Tobi’s mouth, achingly slowly. Tobi moans with want, shaking in Harok’s arms.

Harok kisses Tobi deeply for what seems like a long time. A long time of Tobi feeling like Harok’s tongue is making love to his mouth. When the kiss breaks, Tobi whimpers, beyond words, and Harok moves his lips to his ear. “I love you, Suskara.”

For a moment, Tobi doesn’t hear it. Harok’s low growling tone is all that registers. But then he says, “Irgorye?”

Harok says it again, lips close to the corner of Tobi’s mouth. “I love you, Suskara. You are more than a kushir to me. You have my heart in yours.”

Tobi sighs. “I love you,” he says, more than echoing back the words. “I think I have loved you for a long time. No one has ever taken care of me before. No one has ever protected me. Before you I had to always take care of myself.”

“If I could,” Harok answers in a strange tone, “I would name you Kushel.” He sounds raw, almost sad.

Tobi sighs. He turns his head and blinks at Harok. “Can’t you do so? You are Irgo?”

Harok shakes his head. “I cannot.” But without giving any more of an answer he presses his lips back to Tobi’s. They kiss, kissing and kissing with Harok’s hands all over Tobi’s body, up and under the alit, stroking his belly and chest, pinching sharply at his nipples, until Tobi wonders if it is possible to spend from kissing alone.

But eventually, it seems Harok has had his fill of kissing. He sits back and looks at Tobi like a starving man looking at a plate of roasted meat.

Harok reaches for the neckline of Tobi’s alit. Tobi yelps out, "No,” as he realises what Harok is about to do. But too late. Harok tears the alit from Tobi’s body as he has done so often before.

If falls away in two pieces, leaving Tobi naked on the bed.

Tobi looks at Harok. He blinks. “I liked that one,” he says.

“You like an alit?” Harok says with a flash of one eyebrow.

“That one,” Tobi says, starting to pant with desire as he becomes aware of his naked body, laid out before Harok.

“I have something else for you to wear,” Harok says, reaching down beside the bed and straightening up holding something. He’s still straddling Tobi’s body and what he holds in his hand makes Tobi’s mouth dry.

“I have this, Suskara. You like?”

Harok is holding coils of rope.