Novels2Search

Chapter 24

It had started to rain properly since Mirk had been outside last, hard and ice cold. The younger men who'd gathered outside the front gate to serve as witnesses were all wrapped up tight in their coats and cloaks, their hats glistening in the dim light cast by the lanterns. The older mages, the guild masters and heads of families, were too respectable to put themselves forward as witnesses to a duel that neither they nor their kin were directly involved in. But that didn't mean that they wouldn't idle about in the front garden beyond the gate to see how everything played out. Mirk was acutely aware of all of them watching, though he was using a great deal of his potential to keep his mind shielded from whatever emotions might slip past their control.

Mirk had done his best. After conferring with Genesis, Mirk had gone to speak with Laurent in the front garden. But at the first sight of him, Laurent had stormed off once more without deigning to say a single word, not stopping until he was out in the middle of the street in front of Madame Beaumont's townhouse. There, Laurent had drawn his sword and settled in to wait, ignoring the rain seeping into his already drenched hunting outfit. The young mage was steaming from how his magic was heating his body in preparation for the duel. He’d been pacing about restlessly in anticipation of the designated hour ever since, flipping his arming sword in his hand. The weapon itself was less imposing than most of the others Mirk had ended up on the wrong side of, short and thin, its hilt bearing one large ruby set in the center of its pommel, but the wielder more than made up for what the blade lacked.

He had to look silly in comparison, Mirk thought, huddled deep in his cloak and shaking from a combination of nerves and chills. Mirk had been so desperate for warmth and a way to further hide himself from the gauntlet of eyes locked on him and Laurent that he'd gone so far as to ask Genesis if he could borrow his hat. The commander had handed it over — an ugly, flat-brimmed black thing that was intensely practical but not at all fashionable — without comment, flipping up the collar of his new overcoat to make up for its loss.

"I don't want to hurt him," Mirk said into the gloom, keeping his voice so low he could barely hear it in his own ears over the sound of the rain on the cobbled street. A small blessing. If he’d been met out in the street with the hiss drizzle on stone rather than the drumming patter of a downpour, Mirk didn’t think he would have been able to keep himself together.

Nevertheless, Genesis heard him and responded, his voice also low, his sibilant accent making it difficult to make out his words over the rain. "I believe it would be...inadvisable for a mage of your inclinations to deploy a terminal strategy, regardless of circumstance."

Mirk glanced over his shoulder. Though Genesis wasn't visible, tucked away in some forgotten corner or particularly deep patch of shadows along the street behind Mirk, he knew the commander had to be there. Close. It was the tickle at the edge of Mirk's senses that gave it away, the familiar staticky brush of Genesis's chaotic aura against his mental shields. Genesis’s magic was more restless than usual. Mirk didn't know whether it was because Genesis was concerned for him, or due to some other calculation that he wasn't clever enough to understand. Though they'd exchanged words about what the best course of action would be, Genesis hadn't offered to explain the finer details of the gruesome scene Laurent had recorded on his memorial stone. One problem at a time, Genesis had insisted. The Empire and the rest of the men on the steps were a less pressing concern.

Whether Laurent or any of the other assembled noblemen had noticed Genesis's continued presence was unclear to him. Perhaps his presence was assumed, to be expected. Mirk wasn't familiar with the finer points of dueling order — any time there'd been one at a ball or a party he'd attended, Mirk had stayed inside with the women — but he thought that a second was involved in it somewhere. Laurent was alone in the street across from him, however. Dueling etiquette was probably another thing it was better not to worry too much about.

Especially when there was the thought of Laurent turning his constantly fidgeting sword on him for Mirk to dwell on instead. Though Genesis was never one for small talk, Mirk found himself resorting to it in a feeble attempt to calm his nerves. "I suppose it might not matter, messsire. Methinks I might not be able to defend well enough to even try to attack."

Genesis made an odd clicking noise. His rough approximation of a laugh. "Are you...implying this man possesses...some skill greater than mine?"

"Pride never got anyone far in life, Genesis," Mirk replied, with a heavy sigh.

"It is not...pride. It is a matter of...demonstrable fact."

That was fair enough. Mirk couldn't think of anyone capable of challenging Genesis to a duel with any confidence, except perhaps K'aekniv. That still didn't mean it was considerate of Genesis to bring that point up, considering the situation. Laurent was hurting; there was no sense in twisting the knife. Mirk held on to the trickle of annoyance that passed through his mind over Genesis's usual lack of tact like he was clinging to the tail end of a kite caught in a gale.

Annoyance was fine. It was uncalled for, since Mirk knew full well that Genesis didn't mean anything by it, but he still let himself feel the emotion deeply. It was an acceptable impulse. Tolerable. Anything was better than the sick gladness lurking in the back of his mind that Mirk was trying desperately to ignore.

He was disturbed from his thoughts by the sound of Laurent's approach. The young mage’s fury radiated out ahead of him, pulsing in time with his stomping. And his eyes were glowing dark red with his barely contained magic. "That's the half hour. Draw your weapon, d'Avignon."

Mirk swallowed hard, trying in vain to clear his head by shaking it. The motion sent a cascade of icy water pouring off the brim of his borrowed hat and down the back of his neck. "I feel it's only right to parley with you first, monsieur. It...I don't want anyone else to get hurt. What is this going to solve? If you'd like something in compensation, anything at all—"

"I want nothing other than the satisfaction that's due to me," Laurent snapped. "Your chance at parley ended the moment you sent angels to my family's doorstep."

Mirk couldn't think of a response to this, any way to soothe Laurent's rage without drawing on his empathy. And even then, Mirk wasn't good at fighting against others' emotions and trying to shift them. He could only make suggestions; it was up to the other person to decide to follow them. Laurent was far past that point. Mirk doubted anything would deter Laurent other than someone coming out into the street and hauling the fire mage bodily away.

He looked to the side, to the crowd of men gathered before the gate and behind it, searching for help. None was forthcoming. Some rules were too important to bend. Dueling was one of them, despite all the missives the guilds and the Church handed down that expounded on the practice’s immorality. All of the men who'd gathered to watch had their own honor. And Mirk knew they would rather stand by and bear witness to an unjust match than open the door to some interloper stepping in during a future duel of their own. Mirk refocused on Laurent, unable to keep from wincing as he met his defiant glare. "What satisfaction do you require, monsieur?"

"No magic. No running. I won't have satisfaction until you can't stand. And then some," Laurent added in a mutter as he stalked away again, back past the line someone had marked in the middle of the street in front of Madame Beaumont's gate.

No magic meant that there were lower odds of Mirk getting burnt to cinders, at least. Taking a few deep breaths to steady himself first, Mirk nodded and drew his grandfather's staff from the inner pocket of his cloak, tapping it against his palm a few times until the magic in it responded to his calling and the staff grew from the length of a wand to a quarterstaff. Laurent scoffed at the sight of it, the fire in his eyes burning more brightly.

"Where's your sword, d'Avignon? I'm sure your beast of a father had to have given you one."

Again, Mirk cringed, though he willed himself not to take a step backwards. "I'm a healer, monsieur. We don't use blades except to heal."

Laurent scoffed. "Don't play innocent with me."

"This is the only weapon I have." Which wasn't entirely the truth, but Mirk couldn't have wielded the sword Aker had brought to him that night if he'd tried. For a second, Mirk wondered if his godfather had foreseen the duel, somehow, and he'd been meant to bring the traitor's sword to the ball to defend himself with, but Mirk quickly pushed the thought out of mind.

"If you're going to kill a man who can't fight, then you should be ready to kill one who is," Laurent sneered.

Behind him, he heard Genesis make his odd clicking noise again. Mirk couldn't see anything funny in the situation at all. "If you won't fight me like this, Monsieur Laurent, then we can still talk instead."

Mirk had been hoping the offer and his lack of a blade might put Laurent off the duel. Instead, it had the opposite effect. The fire mage stepped up to the line, lifting his sword to a ready position. "One of you call the count."

He should have kept his eyes locked on Laurent. Instead, Mirk looked to the assembled nobles once more, searching for someone willing to be reasonable about things. There was still no one, nothing but forcibly blank faces and half-shielded minds.

Save for one. That of Seigneur Feulaine, whose worry was plain to be seen on his face as he hovered behind Yvette in the open door to Madame Beaumont's townhouse. He was tense, ready to lunge in an instant for Yvette if her emotions got the better of her. Even from such a great distance, Mirk could tell that Yvette was on the brink of tears.

It was impossible for Mirk to tell which of the men in the crowd called the count. The words rang out in the empty street, echoing hollowly against the walls and the cobbles, to the counterpoint of the unceasing rain. As soon as it was over, Laurent sprang into action, leaping across the line between them that Mirk was unwilling to approach. Laurent circled him expertly, his footing sure despite the rain-slick cobbles, searching for his first opening.

Mirk remained still. From all the stories he'd heard the other young noblemen tell of Laurent's prowess, Mirk had imagined that he would have been beaten in an instant. Hadn't everyone always said, in quiet whispers full of awe, that Laurent was as quick as thought and as silent as death? That he swooped down on his opponent like a falcon, striking and then streaking away, only to dive again and again, relishing in humiliating the man who'd sparked his ire before dealing the final, devastating blow? Laurent was moving so slowly and loudly that Mirk could hear his boots squeaking against the cobbles with every step. He didn’t need to turn and watch the mage's progress with his eyes to tell exactly where he was. When Laurent finally did make his move, Mirk sidestepped it without raising his staff to counter.

Then Laurent was in front of him again, cursing. Feinting left, then dancing back right, Laurent swung his arming sword again. It all felt like a dream; Mirk thought his nerves had to have somehow brought on hallucinations. Laurent's swing was dead accurate. But it was so slow, so obvious that Mirk dodged again instead of raising his staff to protect himself.

That was enough to trigger the full extent of Laurent's barely contained rage. The fire mage quit testing Mirk, pursuing him instead with his full, unguarded strength and speed. Even Laurent’s finest moves were sluggish, like he was jabbing and slashing through water rather than air, every one of his motions exaggerated and labored. Mirk decided to start blocking the blows with his grandfather's staff rather than simply avoiding them all, making each of his blocks and locks more dramatic and sweeping than they needed to be, hoping that Laurent might be tricked into thinking that he was trying his hardest, that he was stunned by Laurent's prowess.

It didn’t make any sense. Mirk knew he was terrible. He'd always been useless at fighting, had been reminded of it at every turn by the caustic comments of his tutors and his father's sighs. How could he be besting a man with Laurent's reputation? Was Laurent toying with him, biding his time and hoping to catch him off-guard before truly setting in on him?

The answer came to Mirk through a strange sound from behind him, a low, inhuman hissing and rumbling that he hoped Laurent wouldn't be able to hear over the clack of wood on steel and the constant drumming of the rain. Genesis was laughing. Genuinely, rather than doing his best to mimic what a human sounded like.

He had been comparing two different things while still expecting them to be exactly the same.

The words of all the other young noble mages who were fond of swordplay made Laurent seem indomitable. And, surely he was: to the other nobles, who treated swordsmanship like a hobby rather than a basic necessity of their existence. And though they were all formidable mages, they were human to the very last. Mirk had never fought anyone who wasn't at least half non-human — his father's guard, his sister, Pavel, who wasn't quite human in a vague way that Mirk hadn't yet been able to put his finger on. And Genesis. Genesis whose whole life was fighting and magic, who trained ceaselessly with the other members of the Seventh. Because, to all of them, to the poor and forgotten men Mirk had come to see as his second family, one mistake with a sword or a spear or a fist could mean death rather than nothing but a black mark on their honor.

Mirk tried to focus back on the fight, watching Laurent's motions more closely. Laurent was good. Quick-witted, determined, with more stamina than most. But Laurent never had practiced with an inhuman force of nature as a sparring partner. It left Mirk with the uncomfortable realization that all his tiny improvements against Genesis had really been leaps and bounds that had placed him, unknowingly, at a level that could only be matched by someone who wasn't fully human.

He should have been relieved; his confidence should have surged. Instead, Mirk was crushed by a sudden wave of shame. It wasn't a fair fight. And Mirk couldn't bear the thought of adding insult to injury, to trouncing a man whose family had just been stolen from him just like his own had been, even if Serge had been one of the two beasts stalking his dreams for months. Frantically, Mirk tried to think up a way to end the fight without further injuring Laurent's pride.

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Could he take a blow to the side or the leg, somewhere painful but not fatal, and concede the fight? Mirk dismissed the idea almost as soon as he thought of it. Mirk had seen plenty of glancing blows fester and kill and, that aside, the rage boiling off Laurent was spiking higher and higher with each blow Mirk blocked or spun away from. If he ended up on the ground, Mirk knew Laurent would go in for the killing strike, the consequences be damned. Biting his lip, Mirk continued to ward off Laurent's strikes in a way that only made the young mage more frustrated as he struggled to find a solution.

It was only once Laurent's magic started to escape his control, flickering down the blade of his arming sword in showers of reddish black sparks, that Mirk forced himself to move. Laurent's rage was eroding his mastery, making his movements wider, sloppier. Mirk ducked under a reckless, fully-extended swing and aimed for Laurent's exposed left side.

Mirk didn't think he swung that hard. But the pain of his grandfather's staff connecting with Laurent's ribs was like being hit by a cannonball. They both staggered backwards. Mirk shook it off first; though he'd never struck someone before who didn't have the ability to temper or ignore their pain, the pain of one person, Mirk realized, could only spiral so high in comparison to the pain of a whole floor full of mangled and dying infantrymen crushing in on him all at once. Backing away further, Mirk waited for Laurent to trip, to falter. He didn't. Laurent reeled back toward Mirk instead, his magic flaring, wreathing him in flames. Mirk would have to hit him again.

Laurent's magic lashed out at Mirk as he plunged back into the thick of the fight. But they weren't nearly as fast as the shadows, not capable of being everywhere and nowhere all at once. Mirk avoided them neatly and swiped at Laurent's legs, hoping to only knock him off his feet and stun some sense into him. Instead, Mirk felt warmth flare under his hands as his grandfather's staff connected with Laurent's knee. There was a scream of fury and crack of bone as Laurent crumpled.

Mirk felt the blow mirrored in himself, just like he'd felt the strike to Laurent's side in his own ribs, though it felt cushioned somehow, distant. It hurt, but it was bearable. Mirk limped to Laurent's side. "Are you all right, Monsieur Laurent? Please, let me—"

Before Mirk could lay a hand on Laurent to evaluate his injuries, the fire mage shoved himself up onto his uninjured knee and took a final, desperate jab at him. Part of Mirk wanted to take it head on. But his muscles defeated his emotions, forcing Mirk to the side fast enough for Laurent's blade to do little more than put a slash through his new cloak and suit, only scratching Mirk’s side. Mirk couldn’t feel the pain of it over the agony haloing Laurent more brightly than his fire magic. Momentum threw Laurent onto his stomach. But Laurent was determined to fight to the end, forcing himself back up onto his knees for a second lunge.

All Mirk wanted was for it to stop. Laurent had drawn blood; he hadn't been utterly trounced. But it was clear enough to Mirk that the young mage wasn't going to stop until he was disarmed. Before Mirk could try to call to the metal of the blade and jerk it out of Laurent’s hand, he suddenly found himself inches away from being engulfed by a burst of blue flame so powerful it audibly crackled through the air.

"Laurent, stop! Please! Just stop!"

Yvette had escaped the restraining hands and magic of the other ladies and her father. She'd run to the open gate and pushed her way through the crowd of young noblemen, to the front of the crowd. Though Laurent's reddish black flames struggled against Yvette's blue, they had as much effect on it as a bucket of water on a raging wildfire. Laurent was trapped. Mirk both physically and mentally recoiled from Laurent's anguish. It was so intense that he could hear whispers of Laurent’s desperate thoughts: no, this can't be, no, bested by a healer and a woman, God no, this can't be it, Serge is dead and I'm as useless as he always said and, no, no, I can't stop, I won't stop, not until --

"Get away from me!" Laurent shrieked aloud as he continued to fight against Yvette's stronger magic. "Let me go, God damn—"

Laurent's words were choked off by a sudden sob. It made the sick feeling of mingled shame and horror and guilt rise up in Mirk, leaving him gagging and wavering on his feet.

"I won't let you kill yourself over your beastly uncle!" Yvette shouted back at Laurent, her flames growing thicker. They coiled around Laurent, pinning his hands behind his back and leaving him writhing on his stomach in the middle of the street. "I won't let him take you away too!"

Mirk and Yvette's eyes met, only for a moment. But it was long enough for Mirk to know what he had to do. He couldn't bear to simply turn and walk away, however. Instead, Mirk reached a trembling hand into the pocket of his cloak and drew out his purse, tossing the whole of it at Yvette's feet. She was too distressed to notice it.

"Please, make sure he's healed. The healers with the artificers are the best. And the dark mages have the best mind healers..." Mirk trailed off, staring down at Laurent flopping around in the puddles like a fish out of water. He couldn't bear to lift his head and witness the sobs he could hear Yvette choking back.

"Go to hell!" Laurent spat. "The both of you!"

Shuddering, Mirk slipped off into the night. He leaned hard on his staff, drawing himself up straight as he tried to walk away with the grace befitting a man of his station, a young warrior who was grimly satisfied with his handiwork instead of a lost healer flagging under the weight of the dark bile of his shame.

After everything that happened, the least he could do was try to give Laurent back the pride of having been brought down by an honorable man instead of a wincing coward.

- - -

Mirk had only limped along on his own for a few minutes, heading back toward the hidden east gate of the City of Glass through the silent streets full of upper-class townhouses, before Genesis chose to reappear. Mirk stumbled to a halt, breathing hard, and braced himself on his grandfather's staff as he looked up at the commander. It was hard to tell what Genesis was thinking. He had that forcibly blank look on his face again, the one that had become so common as of late. Mirk forced himself to smile to reassure Genesis that he was all right, struggling to switch his mind and mouth back to English.

"I suppose your lessons paid off, messire. Although methinks I was a bit silly about things at the end."

Genesis stared down at Mirk in silence for a time. Then his blank expression fell away to reveal the tiredness underneath.

Mirk heaved himself into a shrug. It was a bad idea; the motion made his aching head bob too much. Mirk winced, his smile faltering at the pain that stabbed back through his eyes, an ache that he hadn't felt in a long time, but that was still familiar enough. It wasn't as bad as it had been after his flight from the Lis de la Rivière, but Mirk still had enough sense left to recognize that he was caught in the same emotional whirlpool. His own shame and horror at having felt nothing but satisfaction at the news of Serge Montigny's death was feeding off all the rage and pain that had been radiating off of Laurent for the past hour, turning into a horrible vortex of negative emotions that continued to spiral deeper and wider in his chest instead of fading. It was called the kindling sickness, Mirk now knew. Once an empath had suffered it once, it was easy to get pulled back down into its black depths again and again, unless one prepared for painful situations in advance by taking adequate pain-blockers.

Finally, Genesis spoke. "You are...shaking."

Mirk tried to push his face back into a smile. It didn't work. "It's cold, messire."

His head ached too much for Mirk to be able to follow exactly what was happening. The kindling sickness made his mind terribly sensitive, so attuned to emotions both within and without that he could feel the everyday emotions of the people in the townhouses that lined the street as if he was touching them skin to skin. Fatigue. Flickers of amusement, too faint to take the edge off the pain stabbing the breath out of his lungs. Boredom. Annoyance. The next thing Mirk was aware of was Genesis draping his overcoat around his shoulders, wrapping him up in it like it was a blanket.

"Oh, no, Genesis, you don't have to...it's all right, really..."

Ignoring him, Genesis tugged at the coat until it was even and flat enough in the shoulders for his liking. Then, before Mirk could come up with another protest, Genesis picked him up. Once the dizziness that came with being moved had cleared, Mirk realized that, though Genesis had picked him up, he hadn't started walking again. The commander was staring down his long nose at Mirk, thinking.

"This is...similar to the Tours incident," Genesis said, slowly.

Though Mirk wanted to deny it, wanted to smile and wave the commander off, he didn't have the strength. All he could do was nod. It made his borrowed hat dribble water into his eyes. Genesis took it back from him, using a curl of shadow to lift it from his head and put it on his own rather than shifting Mirk in his arms.

"I have...developed a remedy for such a...situation. If you would look in the coat's front pocket, it will provide you with the necessary materials."

Mirk's fingers were so cold from the damp and chill that it took him a few tries to find the pocket and slip his hand inside. It felt like its contents met him halfway; a piece of paper was pressed into the palm of his hand before his fingers could find the bottom. Mirk pulled it out, examining it the best he could by the faint light cast by the magelights hung beside the gates of the townhouses. The piece of parchment was long and thin, covered with markings so tiny that Mirk doubted he could read them, even if his head hadn’t been pounding and the light wasn't so dim. "What is it?"

"A manner of...draining spell. It extracts any imbalance or foreign substance from whichever...relatively closed system it is placed on. I have not had the opportunity to test it properly for this specific purpose, as you are the only empath I am...familiar with, but I believe it will alleviate your…condition. If you wrap it around a limb, it should draw out excess emotion. It isn't a perfect solution. But it did remove a minor seasonal illness from K'aekniv."

Mirk laughed, weakly, struggling to wrap the slip of paper around his wrist, like a bracelet. "Was that what you really made it for? To keep Niv from sneezing on you?"

Grumbling, Genesis shifted Mirk's weight onto one arm, plucking the paper out of Mirk's grasp with his freed hand and neatly securing it around his wrist. "I see no reason not to use the same spell for two purposes if it is...effective in both cases." He settled Mirk back across both his arms, then set off down the street in the direction of the east gate, taking care not to jostle Mirk as he walked.

It was a subtle effect. But as Mirk lay with eyes closed, listening to the sudden silence in the street, one that was only disturbed by dripping water and the faint sound of laughter from a tavern somewhere far off ahead of them, he could feel the choking mixture of negative emotions that'd been whirling inside him begin to drain away. Once he felt well enough to open his eyes again, the first thing Mirk saw was snow spiraling down on him from the starless sky above. That explained the silence. Mirk didn't remember when exactly the rain had lightened and shifted to snow.

"Is it winter already?" Mirk mumbled to himself.

Genesis must have heard him. "No. It is...only just autumn."

"Mmph, you're right...everything's still too awake...too warm...not winter yet..."

Though the pain had faded, the sudden lack of emotions came with a certain vagueness, a feeling of distance that Mirk found disconcerting. He tried to focus in on his surroundings. While Mirk hadn't been watching, Genesis had called to his shadows, gathering them up around himself up to the level of his shoulders. It served as a kind of barrier: when Mirk tried to cast his mind outward, he was met with nothing but the comforting touch of Genesis's ever-shifting chaos. Mirk glanced up at the commander. Genesis looked down at the same instant; he must have felt Mirk shifting in his arms.

That time, it wasn't so hard for Mirk to find a smile for him. "Thank you for thinking of me, messire."

Genesis made a dismissive noise, looking away, returning to scanning the street ahead of them.

"You're always thinking of me..."

"I would rather suggest that I have a...practical preference for keeping you well."

Laughing, Mirk leaned his head against Genesis's chest and closed his eyes once more. That was the best declaration of friendship one could hope to get from Genesis. If the commander ever did set his heart on someone, Mirk suspected that Genesis would elect to convey his affections by presenting them with a meticulous list of the logical reasons he'd come up with to prefer them over others rather than professing his love on bended knee or with ardent kisses.

Mirk didn't know what caused it. Genesis's subtle compliment? The coldness Mirk could feel stealing over him, starting at his fingers and toes and moving in slow toward his heart, whisking away what little comfort he'd regained? The spell clearing his mind of the night's accumulated pain and worry, even easing away some of the shame? Perhaps the sudden void in Mirk's mind had given all the fragmented musings and observations he'd collected over the past months room to fit themselves into a picture he could finally understand. As autumn claimed him, the idea did as well, turning the last full breath he'd draw until his seasonal affliction passed into a hiccuping gasp.

The way that he'd found himself sneaking sideways glances at Genesis the whole night, not just to make sure the commander wasn't having troubles, but also to study his tall, slim frame, outlined so well by the silver trim of his new uniform. The unfamiliar, dizzying emotions that came with every small gesture of care and concern Genesis showed him. The warmth that came with them, blossoming in his chest before rising fast to his cheeks. The way his heart had sank when he'd woken up and found Genesis had left. The relief and satisfaction that'd welled up in him when Genesis had rested the cool, reassuring weight of his hand atop his head, telling Mirk without words that he wasn't upset with him. That he valued him, in his own, peculiar way.

Mirk needn't have ever concerned himself with the absurd possibility that Genesis, in an act contrary to his solitary nature, fancied him, as Yule so strangely put it.

He felt as if his mind had decided to rebel against him, sending him jumbled emotions and impulses that belonged to someone else, that he'd never felt rise up on their own inside of himself. It was a thing Mirk had only ever felt second-hand, that wanting. That feeling that could be a smoldering coal or a towering inferno, that could be as playful as a breeze or as brilliant and strong as diamond.

He'd only ever begun to understand its meaning once he'd returned from the abbey and had felt it radiating from the minds of the young noble mages he'd been torn away from by his dedication to the Church, then plunged back in among just as abruptly with the death of his uncle Marc, his namesake, the one who should have carried the staff now propped as an afterthought against his chest. Mirk had always thought himself incapable of it, had thought that some accidental combination of his magic and his lineage had made that all-too-human emotion pass him over. And the horror that had stalked him down the streets of Tours had only confirmed it to him, reminded him that there was just as much potential in it to hurt as there was to save.

He wasn't supposed to feel want like that. He couldn't be feeling it, not in that way, in a quivering in his stomach and a tingling up the length of his spine. It had to be some cold-induced hallucination, an illusion created by his desperate need to escape the other, worse feelings he'd been steeped in all night. He'd never felt that urgency in himself the same way the other young nobles had, a sudden tightness in his chest and an unmistakable churning in his stomach.

But Mirk felt it then all the same, the sudden and irrepressible urge to wrap his arms around Genesis and cling to him. The impulse to lose all of that evening’s painful uncertainty in the reassurance that came with the touch of the commander's cold, flawless skin against his own and the feel of his unwavering and inhumanly slow pulse under his fingertips. The irrepressible need to clear away all of his worries with the overwhelming rush of desire.

If he could have moved, Mirk would have slapped himself in the face. Or buried his face against Genesis's neck. Or both, one after the other.

Instead, all Mirk could do was stare up into the falling snow and stew in his own sudden, inexplicable madness.