Kieran turned slowly to look at him, unwilling to understand. He saw that there was a streak of fresh blood on Ash's sleeve. So he'd got his deer after all. "What do you mean, it's me?"

"Look at it." Ash pointed at the statue's face. "Right down to the expression. I know it doesn't make sense, but that's you. I half expect the thing to open its mouth and say, You done staring yet?"

Kieran smiled a little at Ash's imitation of his voice, but an uncomfortable sense of recognition was stealing over him. "Maybe it's an ancestor of mine. That would be ironic, huh? If this -- king, or whatever -- was my gazillion-times-great grandfather."

"Ironic? It would be spooky. It is spooky. Look, he's even got your hands, I think he's even as tall as you are. And I think... move the candle a little." Ash nudged his hand, and as the light moved, a reflection started up eerily in the statue's eyes. They weren't painted, as Kieran had assumed. They were inlaid. And they were not black, but dark green.

"Well. That's... that's pretty fucking odd. Because, I mean, obviously it's not me, so I guess..."

"It's a portrait. Look at the details. Look at -- oh, there's a difference. His nose is a little crooked."

"It is?" Kieran ducked to get a better look, head-on, face-to-face with the statue.

When he found himself at the same level, head tilted at the same angle, he had the sudden impression he was looking in a mirror. And his reflection was laughing at him. He straightened suddenly and turned his back on it.

"That is creepy as fuck," he said quietly.

As he walked away, he could feel it staring at his back. He didn't realize he'd tensed up his injured shoulder until he was back in the big room and was surprised at a sudden lessening of the ache.

He went all the way outside, down the steps to the grass. He didn't feel quite clear of it until he was standing in the sunshine, listening to the buzzing of flies over the carcass of the deer that Ash had shot. The sun was over the mountains. The air was hot and still. The wound that had nearly killed him was healing practically overnight, Ash was turning out to be a damn good hunter, there had been that thing about being outside himself and the crushing sense of history he'd seen there, and now he'd found an unbelievable fortune in ancient gold, with which he could do nothing on account of being a fugitive, and a statue that looked way too much like him. Minus scars, plus a crooked nose. He was tired.

Ash came silently down behind him and put a hand on the small of his back. "You can blow out your candle now, if you want."

"Oh." With a startled laugh, Kieran pinched the wick. "What happened to the horse? I don't see it."

"She wandered off as soon as I unsaddled her. She's out there somewhere."

"Won't be hard to find, I guess."

"What do you suppose this place is? How come the people who put all that gold in there never came back for it? And why's it never been looted?"

"How should I know?"

Ash shrugged. "I'm just making noise, I guess. It's funny -- we've found this humongous pile of treasure, and we can't touch it."

"Yeah. We try to sell it, we'd get caught."

"Sell it? I was thinking about studying it. There's almost no Iavaian temple art left in the world, and here we've found all the lost altar furniture or something. How could you think about selling it?"

"How could I not? That stuff was made of solid gold!"

"But it's your --"

"Heritage. Huh." Kieran spat into the reflecting pool. "Lemme tell you something about heritage."

Ash took the candle and matches from him and set them on the bottom step. "Tell me while I butcher this deer. You can stop me if I'm about to do a bad job, because I've seen it done but I never did it myself."

"You're pretty good at killing 'em, for someone who's never done it before."

"I've hunted before, but it was a bit too civilized. My aunt and I always hired a couple of guys to come with us and do the icky stuff. I didn't even have to carry the raw meat. I watched them, though." He'd apparently watched closely enough, because he started with the right sort of cut. Although he worked so slowly and meticulously that he seemed to be dissecting the thing for science, rather than butchering it for food.

Kieran sat down on the lower step to watch. It was a relief to be off his feet. He had no stamina. Still, he thought he was doing pretty well, for someone who'd been dead the previous morning. He held his right arm across his lap, to rest the shoulder. "What do you know about the war?" he said.

"Guess I don't have to ask which war you mean. Well, I know the official version, which goes something like: after about three hundred years of missionary work, Dalanists had gained a small number of converts in Iavaian territory. The rest of the people continued to worship devils and live sinfully. Then came the Nine Days' War, in which tribal leaders tried to abolish Dalanism. The Iavaian Dalanists, fearing for their lives, petitioned the Commonwealth for assistance. Commonwealth troops occupied and annexed the territory and imposed law and order, to the great benefit of the inhabitants, who are lazy benighted savages and should be grateful. Oh, I forgot to throw in the phrase 'minimal bloodshed' -- the histories always have to put that in somewhere. And then I know a bit of the unofficial version, which is that the reason the death tolls are so low is that the Commonwealth only counted armed enemies killed in organized conflict. Guerilla fighters are counted as bandits. Noncombatants aren't counted at all, even though -- I gather -- they died in droves."

"Ever talk with somebody who was there?"

"No. Never really got a chance to talk with any Iavaians but you, and I studiously avoided soldiers and Watchmen back home." He lifted his wrist as if to wipe his brow, but stopped, wrinkling his nose at the sheen of jelly-like deer blood that clung to it. He stripped off his shirt and tossed it in the reflecting pool, where it immediately became the center of a comet-shaped red cloud.

Kieran watched the thread of blood being swept down the stream, until Ash bent to his task again. Then he watched the working of bone and muscle under freckled skin. Remembered how Ash had splayed a hand across his back, a moment ago, how good it had been to feel that. The illusion of fragility was fading, the more he watched Ash's body. Abruptly he was glad he was wearing a makeshift kilt, instead of his tight leather pants.

"Well." Kieran cleared his throat, trying to get back on topic. "What they call the Nine Days War, that was actually about three years long. Only, it was the Dalanists who started it. Bands of 'em were knocking down temples and stealing stuff from them. These weren't really religious people, see, they were mercenaries. Mostly poppy farmers who got put out of work when the Tiwa'hanaka outlawed opium growing. Which they did because the Commonwealth made them do it."

"Yeah, with trade sanctions and stuff, I read about that. The Tiwawhatsit, that's the tribal ruling body, right?"

"The Five Tribes' Brotherhood, yeah. So these farmers were wrecking temples and holy sites, and any kind of religious or historical thing they could find. Which the Commonwealth was paying them to do. They found a lot more of 'em than the Eskaran army would've found, too, because they grew up being shown those places and told to be reverent. Also they were assassinating priests and holy people. Now, before the Annexation, most Iavaians with a Talent didn't do anything with it, but the ones who did were mostly priests. What I hear is that the Eskarans were offering a bounty for heads with shaved scalps. Because priests shaved their heads, male and female both. Five ya for a woman and eight for a man."

"Which is?"

"I dunno how much a ya was worth. I've seen the coins, people collect them and melt them down for the silver. I'd guess about half a throne."

"Okay. Go on. Presumably people got fed up with this."

"Right. And there were little skirmishes, and attempts to arrest the temple-burners, and so forth. But the way things were set up, each of the five tribes had its own army, and those were raised by levy from each clan, so they weren't real organized. And a couple tribes that didn't have a member on council, like the Riaha, the High Pass tribe, were represented at the clan level, but they resented that, so their troop levies weren't real cooperative."

"I'm impressed. You know a lot about this."

"It only happened thirty years ago. The Eskarans couldn't kill everybody who remembered. And arresting them for talking about it only works if they talk in public. Anyway, as soon as the Tiwa'hanaka started making some progress against the temple-burners, in jumps the Eskarne Theocratic Commonwealth, claiming its converts are being persecuted. On that basis they rounded up and imprisoned whole villages, and when they ran out of room in their prison camps, they just started killing everyone they found who wasn't for sure on their side. But like you said, they didn't count those, because they were noncombatants. By the time the Tiwa'hanaka got it through their thick heads that they couldn't make the invasion stop by lodging diplomatic protests, the Eskarans were dug in. And then the different tribes had different ideas about how to fight, and they argued, and some of 'em went off half-cocked, and some of 'em sat around blabbing until it was too late.

"When they finally did get right down to fighting, the ones who took any serious casualties fled or surrendered. The only ones who ran a decent war were the Tama, and even then, most of them bugged out when the going got too tough. I want to be proud of my clan, because they stuck it out to the end, but all they managed to do was get a whole generation wiped out. Men and women were both fighting by then, so only kids and old folks were left. My mom was raised by her grandma. She told me she'd had two brothers and a sister, but they died of cholera when they were moved into the cities."

"That's... that's really sad, Kieran. It's horrible."

"Sad? It's stupid! My point is that they brought it on themselves! It was their own fucking fault! What were they thinking? There wasn't even a real border between them and the Commonwealth, just a river partway, and an imaginary line. The biggest military power in the world, which a hundred years ago took a big bite out of Paiwaar and then spent their time taking Yelorre and losing it and retaking it -- my point is, it should have been obvious there was a wolf at the door. A goddamn rabid wolf, camped out on their doorstep. But did they have a coherent political body that could make fast decisions if it had to? No. Did they have any solid diplomatic ties to anyone who could maybe step in on their side if it was needed? No! They pissed off Prandhar arguing over some dumb chunk of land nobody wanted anyway. And did they have a competent military force? No, they had a bunch of village bullies who'd been sent to drill because they were raising hell at home. Untrained, illiterate, narcissistic fuckwits who had more loyalty to their second cousins than to the People as a whole. What I'm saying is, we asked for it."

"You would have done it differently, I take it."

"Hell yeah."

"What's this? Do we eat this?"

"That's the liver. We eat that. We fry it with that eggplant you're so keen on, as soon as you're done there."

Ash gave a half-happy groan. "Never thought I could be so hungry while up to the elbows in lukewarm slithery guts."

"Welcome to the country life."

"Anyway. You were saying?"

"I was done."

"I don't get what brought that on, though. Just felt like ranting about history?"

"Oh. Well, I figure the reason all that treasure is holed up in here, is because it was hidden from the temple-burners. And I guess it makes me kinda mad that someone had the presence of mind, and the manpower, to move things like that big heavy statue here to this place nobody knew about, and then keep anyone from knowing about it all this time, but they couldn't get their shit together enough to fight a war. What the hell good does all that gold do anyone? They should've sold it to buy rifles. If they had a hiding place this good, they should've used it as a guerilla base. Staged raids from here."

Ash was picking up speed, slicing off meal-sized strips and laying them out on the grass. Blood was running off his elbows, spattering his pants. The soles of his feet were black with dirt. He looked savage, primitive; his cultured voice was an amusing contrast. "Isn't this place kind of far away from things? I mean, to be any use as a staging area."

"Actually, it's only about fifteen miles to the road, that way. South," he added, as he realized Ash hadn't seen him pointing. "From there, only a couple days' ride to Canyon, and you can do it faster if you're on foot. If I'm not carrying much more than a canteen, a rifle, and a sack of lunch, I can do forty miles in a day, easy. That is, if I'm in top shape. I probably couldn't make it across the valley, right now."

"You'll get your strength back."

"Plus there's a built-in escape route. The way's a bit twisty, but if you go all the way downstream -- you remember that dry riverbed? You must've followed it, to get here. Well, you follow that down about fifty more miles, and it runs into the Burn."

Now Ash craned around to look at him, frowning. There was a smudge of blood on one lens of his glasses, where he'd shoved them up his nose with the back of his hand. "Why would you want to do that?"

"Gotta swear you to secrecy." Kieran grinned to show it was a joke, but Ash took him seriously.

"Cross my heart."

"Little known fact, you can spend hours -- maybe days -- in the edge of the Burn and not get hurt. And the power, even on the fringe, will backlash down your trail and blur it out, so nobody can trace you by magic. The rumor is that the more Tama blood you've got in you, the less the Burn hurts you."

"Hence its name?"

"Yep."

"Do you think anyone's ever been to the middle of it?"

"Huh. No way. Thing's thirty-six miles across, and what I heard is that the fringe part ends about two miles in. After that -- bloosh."

"Bloosh?"

"Your nose bleeds, your ears bleed, and then you have about five minutes to get out before your brain turns to jelly and you die."

"Oh. Well, I should probably avoid the place, since I'm pretty sure I have no Tama blood in me whatsoever. Although I seem to have a great quantity of deer blood on me, so if you'll excuse me, I'm going to wash off."

"We should decide where the garbage goes."

"You decide."

"I guess just pitch it in those weeds over there. We really should bury it, but --"

"No shovel." Wrinkling his nose, Ash hoisted the bundle of hide, hooves, and guts, and hauled it into the thicket Kieran had indicated, about a hundred yards away. It still might attract coyotes and wildcats, not to mention flies, but at least the smell wouldn't reach them. Probably.

As Kieran levered himself off the step, he found he was formulating an excuse to join Ash in bathing. Several casual things to say about it ran through his mind. But none of them came out of his mouth. He watched Ash walk away, and stayed where he was. He told himself it was because he was still weak and sore from his injury, however fast it was healing.

So he decided to see what he could do about food. He'd just remembered that their only pan was currently full of beans.

The best way to deal with dried beans was to soak them for an hour, then boil them to mush, then fry the mush. But it was also possible to soak them overnight, then cook them lightly; he'd never liked them that way, but it crossed his mind to tie them up in a square of bandage gauze and hang them in the stream. Then they'd be ready tomorrow. That done, he set to slicing up the deer's liver. He'd never bothered slicing one before, just roasted it whole, so he made a literal hash of it. Oh well, it was meat. Fortunately Ash returned, in wet pants, with an armload of wood, before Kieran could get too far into the eggplant.

"You plan to eat the stem?"

"Oh. Huh. I suck at this. You do it."

"Okay, you make the fire."

"My arm's tired."

"You can do it one-handed, right? Where's your sling? Put your sling back on."

"Cluck, cluck."

"I am not being a hen, you're being a -- the kind of person who makes everything worse by trying to be tough, I'm sure there's a word for it."

Kieran washed his hands, re-slung his arm, and built the fire. Then he leaned his back against the nearest pillar and dozed off in the afternoon sun.

The next thing he knew Ash was prodding him awake, looking concerned and a bit shaken.

"What's wrong?" Kieran glanced around, half expecting to see a rank of Watchmen charging across the valley.

"Time to eat."

"That's why you look like you found a bone in your applesauce?"

"Uh. No. You were talking in your sleep."

Not sure whether to be embarrassed or amused, Kieran took the bowl of food he was offered and busied himself with eating for a little while. After the first bite, it was no longer a pose. He was pretty sure he couldn't have made fried liver and some boring vegetable taste so good. He wolfed down half of it before he was willing to stop long enough to talk. "What was I saying?"

"I don't know, it was Iavaian. The thing that spooked me is you weren't mumbling, like people usually do when they talk in their sleep. You sounded like you were lecturing."

"Weird."

"This whole place is weird."

"Yeah, but..." A sudden spike of worry hit him, as he realized Ash might want to leave. And where could they go? And what if Ash associated him with the weirdness, wanted to ditch him, he'd been a huge burden lately --

Before he could say anything, Ash reached out to rest a hand briefly on his knee. "It's all right. It's a friendly weirdness, I think. Look at how fast you're healing. It likes you."

I'm going to have to say something soon, or do something. To make sure he knows how much I want him to stay with me. But can I make that kind of -- it's a demand, really, can I demand that of him? No, I can't ask, because if staying made him unhappy, and my asking made him do it anyway --

"Kai, it's all right," Ash insisted. Responding to the feeling, not knowing its source. Kieran resolved to set it aside for now, think it over when Ash was asleep or something.

After they'd finished with the liver and eggplant, Ash juggled the two halves of the squash out of the hot embers. He'd sprinkled sugar on them, but they were still not very good. Kind of dry and stringy.

"You really need butter to do this right," Ash explained. "I thought of using a bit of deer fat, but decided against it."

"Gah. Good call."

"Maybe we'll find a bee tree, get some honey, that would've worked."

"Well, I'm eating mine anyway. I'll have yours if you don't want it. Pass it over." He polished off both portions, right down to the charred skin. Finally, his belly felt full for the first time in -- he couldn't remember how long. "Now this," he said, "is life."

"Don't get too comfy. You've still got some stitches in you."

Kieran moved away from the pillar and took off his sling so Ash could get at his back. Probing at the scar with his fingers to find out how many stitches were left, he found that it didn't hurt unless he really dug in. "This is bizarre. It hurts a lot less now than it did -- what, four hours ago?"

"Not even that. I think it was a bit after noon when I started pulling the stitches, and the sun's still at half-mast. Yeah, something around here is definitely healing you. Oh. Bad thing." He tugged at a stitch with his fingers. "You've totally healed up around the thread."

"Just go ahead and haul it out."

"If you say so." Ash's breath washed across his shoulder, and then he felt a slight scrape of teeth, and a sharp needling sensation. This was repeated three times in the same spot before it was followed by a tug, and Ash switched to fingers to pull the loosened thread the rest of the way out.

"That didn't hurt much."

"It didn't bleed much, either. Just little dots. When I did it before, it ripped the scar some. Ready for the next one?"

"Quit asking me. Just do 'em all."

Now that he was full of good food and feeling nearly healthy, he found he was far more bothered by the feeling of Ash's mouth on him than he'd been before. Definitely getting better. Well enough to --? He was abruptly unsure how Ash would respond if he turned around and kissed him. They were comfortable together, true, glad together, good friends, there was trust. But for all he knew, Ash had been feeling filthy and regretful about that night -- might not be remembering it as lovemaking, but as a seduction. They hadn't discussed it. Even if he still wants me, he'd probably rather not do anything right now. He's had to deal with spit and blood and pus and vomit. And I'm not real clean just presently.

I'm making excuses. I'm scared. This is idiotic. I know he cares for me, loves me -- I know that, right?

The other day, when I said I loved him, he didn't say it back.

Ash paused in the middle of working on a particularly tricky thread. "Are you all right? Is something bothering you?"

"Just because you're an empath doesn't mean you get to eavesdrop while I'm thinking."

"Oh. Hell. I was, wasn't I? I'm really sorry."

Kieran sighed, wishing he'd phrased that better. "Just get it done, will you?"

That was the last thread on his back. Then Ash came around to work on the front, and that was even more disturbing. Kieran couldn't stop imagining warm breath and grazing teeth moving upwards from there, in along his collarbone, up his throat. His hands made fists to keep from reaching out, and he wondered why he was stopping himself.

Seven stitches later, Ash picked the final scabbed thread out of his teeth and held it up, and Kieran breathed a sigh of relief that it was over. Relief and regret.

"What a day," Ash said. "I saw a hill of gold, got a history lesson, squidged around in guts, and ate scab."

Uncomfortable as he was, Kieran couldn't help grinning. "That was fun, what do you wanna do now?"

"You should bathe." A hesitation, Ash's smile faltering as he realized he was being rude. "I don't mean you smell, it's just, when you've been ill --"

"No, I do smell, I can smell me."

"And if you wait any longer, you'll have wet hair when night comes."

"Yeah."

"Sorry, I'm usually more tactful than that. Don't be mad."

"Don't be such a drama hog. Of course I'm not mad." Feigning exasperation, Kieran got up and lurched off toward the pond. When he reached it and looked back, he couldn't see Ash in the entrance of the temple. Ash was making no effort to watch. He really wasn't interested.

Well, naturally. Like you're such a prize, Trevarde. Why would anyone want to look at your skinny yellow ass?

Dropping his blanket-kilt, carefully setting his compass on top of it, he waded in. The water was warmer than he'd expected. Just cool enough to offset the hot sun. His legs looked sickly-pale under the surface. Weeds and mud squished between his toes, making him wonder how he'd get out without ending up with mud shoes.

He was tempted to swim out to the middle, but wasn't sure he had the strength to get back again if he did. Instead, he skirted the edges, beginning to enjoy the water despite his self-pity. About halfway around, he found a place where the mud gave way to sand. This shallow beach, he discovered, ran twenty feet out, then suddenly dropped off. He didn't test the drop-off; he was sure weeds would wrap his ankles and drown him. It was sickening to be so weak.

Sitting crosslegged on the sand, so that the water was chest-high, he pulled the string off his braid. A bunch of hairs came with it. Strands kept coming out as he unraveled the braid, wrapping around his fingers, so he imagined that when he got it completely undone the whole thing would fall off, leaving him bald. Of course, that didn't happen. He ducked his head a few times, working his fingers in, and each time had to pick loose hair off his hands.

"Hey."

Ash's voice startled him. He twisted around, shoving his wet hair back. The redhead was standing on the edge of the grass where it met the sand, rifle slung over his shoulder, offering a lump of soap. When he saw he had Kieran's attention, he tossed it underhand.

Kieran caught the soap neatly. "Going hunting again? We've got enough to last us a week."

"Nah, I thought I'd kind of stand watch."

"Oh."

"There might be, you know, various toothy critters. Not that you couldn't take 'em, normally, but --"

"Yeah, okay."

Ash sat down with the rifle across his knees, and made a show of gazing off into the distance.

Funny that I didn't sense him coming closer. I'm not wearing that compass charm he made, true, but didn't I used to have a better sense of where he is? I guess we don't have that connection anymore. No, what am I thinking, it's because I'm in water. Why am I hunting reasons to be unhappy? What am I trying to push away?

Turning his back on Ash, more to hide his expression than from modesty, he went to work with the soap. His skin was two shades lighter when he was done scrubbing it. When he washed his hair, the lather turned gray, and grit got caught under his fingernails.

He lay back to rinse off. Watched his hair swirl above him, deep black clouds streaked with milky soap-water. Then he did the whole thing again. As he did, he was aware that he was stalling. Because now would be a very good time to open the subject -- all those difficult subjects -- what sort of relationship they had, whether to stand by confessions made in strange circumstances. Once it was given a label, it could no longer be changed or denied. And if it turned out to be a bad idea, things could get so much worse...

Leaving things unspoken wasn't really an option anymore, though. It was all too obvious. He just knew he was going to botch everything, but if he acted like it didn't matter, that would be a kind of botch as well. It shouldn't have been so confusing. He couldn't figure out why the thought of being the one to reach out seemed so sick. Why he felt he ought to convince Ash that he was -- what, unworthy? Dangerous? Wasn't that a kind of arrogance?

So he wasted time, trying to think of what he wanted to say, finding all his words scrambled and useless.

Eventually he started to get chilled. He tossed the soap up on the bank. Ash set the rifle aside and offered the spare blanket, the one he'd washed earlier. Kieran wrapped the blanket around his waist and wrung out his hair. When he looked up again, Ash had a comb.

"Thanks." Kieran reached for it, but Ash didn't hand it to him.

"I'll do it for you."

"Oh. Okay." For the zillionth time that day, he sat with his back turned and let Ash mess with him.

It was a beautiful day. They were free. He was miraculously healed, when by rights he should have been dead. It was stupid to brood. So how come he had to drag out memories of almosts and false starts and mull over them like some crippled soldier wearing out his old battles?

If I try to explain, I might drive a wedge between us. I don't really have to say anything now, do I? Maybe it can wait. Maybe it's an insult to him to assume he doesn't understand. Maybe I don't want him to understand.

The comb paused. "Kieran, what on earth is the matter?"

"Eavesdropping again?"

Combing resumed, but stopped again after only a few seconds. "But you seem so unhappy. Can't I help?"

"You are helping."

"Then why does it seem like it's me you're unhappy with?"

Kieran studied his oversized, knobby hands where they rested on his oversized, knobby knees. He hated the whole clumsy overgrown body he was stuck in. As he tried to find a way to answer that wouldn't make his decision for him, his stomach began to roil as if it were full of rattlesnakes. His voice came out whispery: "You're not the problem."

"Then what is?" After a moment, Ash's hands touched his sides. Sun-hot arms slid around his waist; a faintly stubbled cheek rested against the sensitive new scar. Lightly, painlessly. Helpless to refuse, Kieran leaned back into the embrace.

And there goes the option of leaving the subject alone. Oh shit, I'm going to blurt and babble, aren't I? Kieran's head started to hurt, right in the middle of his forehead. "It's hard to explain." His own voice sounded strange to him. "I guess I'm just -- I'm confused. That's all."

"Tell me. I'll help you figure it out."

"It's not -- can I use your own words on you? Is that fair?"

"Go ahead. I won't be angry."

"Then... I need to know how you feel about me." He winced, when he heard himself say that. I sound pathetic.

Slowly, Ash let go. He moved to where he could see Kieran's face. "You don't know?" He sounded incredulous. "I love you. I thought you knew. I guess I've been a coward. I should have shown it more. I love you."

The words were like physical blows, with the weight of quiet intensity Ash put into them. Kieran felt his expression go strange as he met Ash's eyes, was caught by blinding blue. His headache spread all across his forehead, his whole head felt too tight. "Say it again."

Ash's smile was lopsided. "I'm stupidly, helplessly, crazy in love with you. I'd do anything for you. I want to belong to you, like a name, I want to be a thing people have to know to know you. I don't understand why that's hurting you."

"I don't... I don't know either." To his shock and dismay, his voice broke.

"Kieran?"

"I'm not -- shit, I'm sorry --" He put his hand wonderingly to his face, disbelieving, as a hot spill of wetness streaked down the side of his nose. Next, to make matters worse, came a hiccuping sound that he realized was a sob.

"Please tell me what's wrong. I didn't mean to hurt you."

Kieran could only shake his head. He clamped his hand over his mouth to contain the mounting pressure of this feeling, these noises, but they wouldn't stop. He couldn't see. He couldn't think. He wasn't ready. Showing teeth, clenched in a futile attempt to silence himself, he reached blindly and blundered into Ash's arm, wrapped his fingers around it. Reached out with his heart's hand, not to do harm but simply to make contact. Show me. Show me you know what kind of poisonous animal I am, before you say those things.

Through that touch a flood of feeling poured. So good it was agonizing. How could anyone stand it? How could Ash ever feel something that pure for someone so wrecked?

"Say it again!" Kieran ordered, hating the way his voice wobbled and fractured.

"I love you, I want to make you happy, I'll do anything."

"Why, Ash? Why -- why me? Of all the people in the world -- you couldn't have found someone worse, don't you know what I am?"

Ash's voice was low and sweet, trying to calm him. "Yes, I know what you are."

"And what I've done. All the things I've done."

"I see why you did those things. Maybe you had alternatives, maybe in hindsight you can think of what they were, but at the time -- do you need me to forgive you? Would that help?"

"There are things no one can forgive me for."

"Stop. I don't blame you. I don't have the right to judge you, but I'm the only one who really knows you, and I say you're not a bad person. Sometimes you're a very good person; the rest of the time you're just trying to stay alive. But you're not bad. That's the truth." When that only made Kieran cry harder, he grabbed Kieran's chin and made him look. His eyes were pale and bright as sunlight on water. "You deserve to be loved. I'm going to keep saying so until you believe me. I think you're wonderful. You're strong and smart and funny and brave, and so gorgeous it breaks my heart to look at you. There's no one else in the world remotely like you. Do you know why it drove me out of my mind when I thought you were dead? Not just because I missed you, not just because I wanted you to be alive, but because something totally unique had been destroyed. As if the tallest mountain in the world just one day fell down, or the deepest lake just dried up. I cried because I missed you, but I lost it because the world missed you. Missed out on you. That's how important you are."

"I can't believe that." It was easier to talk now, though the tears were still running.

"You don't have to. I'll believe it for you."

"And when you change your mind --"

"I won't."

"You should! I can't be trusted, I don't know why you keep trusting me, it's going to get you killed, what if I get you killed?"

"What if it's worth it?"

Kieran jammed his eyes shut, hiding from the clarity of Ash's stare. He drew a shuddering breath. It was a while before he could speak, and even then he couldn't answer what Ash had said. "This is so embarrassing. After all the times I called you a crybaby." He dragged his wrist across his eyes, examined the wet streak on his skin so he wouldn't have to look up. "I've been such a rotten person. Don't tell me I haven't -- I was a contract killer, for fuck's sake, I murdered people I didn't even hate! I want to atone for it. Don't just forgive me outright, Ashes, let me earn free of it."

"That's fair."

"I'm afraid to touch you. I'm afraid I'll spoil you. You're so pure, and I'm such a fucking cesspit."

"No."

"I'll dirty the one clean thing I ever knew."

With a sad smile, Ash took up his hand and kissed the knuckles. "If that's the case, well, the truth is it goes the other way. The closer you get to me, the cleaner you become. Look back on the time we've known each other. Look at the changes."

Gathering his thoughts, looking honestly at memory, was harder than it had ever been. But he forced himself to see clearly, and it was true. His cynicism had been eroding ever since he'd first seen a gawky nameless white boy staring at him on the train. It had become impossible to lie to himself, shout himself down. "I'm too raw now," he said. "I used to say you care about things too much. I'm starting to do that too."

"It gets easier."

"I've never said anything nice to you, have I?"

Some of the sad went out of Ash's smile. "A few things. One thing especially comes to mind, though you might not remember saying it."

"I remember. I meant it."

"You could say it again, now, if you want."

It stopped in his throat, then came out in a rush. "I love you."

He was astonished by the feeling that ran into him from Ash's hands; he had no point of reference for anything so high and bright. Such joy. It was true, it was all true, somehow it made Ash perfectly happy to hear those words, despite their flawed source. Suddenly he was no longer helpless or confused.

Saying it the next time was easier. "I love you, Ash. I love the way you do things, how you learn so fast, your hands are so fast and clever, it makes me happy to look in my pack just because it's so like you to line everything up neat like that." This could be addictive, how easily he was making Ash flush with pleasure just by talking. "I should have said all this a long time ago. I like your curiosity, the way you listen and ask questions, I like how you see the world, without judging people, I don't understand how you do it but I really admire it. I could go on all day. The way you talk. The way you laugh. I love the way you try to do right without thinking whether it'll hurt. I love the way you curl your hands up by your mouth when you sleep, and the way you scratch your nose when you're thinking -- everything you do leaves trails in my brain, it stays."

Ash was studying his hands, ears scarlet. "You can go on like that as long as you want. Um. Particularly you could tell me -- oh, now I'm going to sound vulgar -- do you remember saying, when you got well, you were going to. Um."

"Fuck your brains out?" Kieran laughed, feeling light and dizzy.

"Well, yeah." Ash glanced up, then ducked his head again. "I know I'm sort of funny-looking, and you deserve to be with someone as gorgeous as you are, but if you do still... want me..."

"You're not funny-looking. You're like gold and ivory, your eyes are diamonds, you're a treasure to me." Kieran took a deep breath, watching Ash's face in profile, waiting until Ash finally straightened to look at him. He bent to place a deliberate single kiss on Ash's lips; when he pulled back, Ash leaned after him just a little, wanting more, and only then was Kieran certain.

With shaking hands, he took Ash's glasses and set them aside, just for the relief of looking away for a moment. The touch of Ash's hand pushing back his damp hair was as strong as burning, but good, far too good.

"Kai," Ash whispered; the shape of his lips moving around the name was unbearable. Kieran barely began the motion to embrace him, and Ash was suddenly all over him, kissing him ravenously. Sun-warmed skin, legs tangling; they couldn't get close enough, sitting up; Ash bore him down and pressed along the length of him, biting his lips, and it didn't hurt, it was perfect, it was the first unshadowed beginning he'd ever tasted.

For aeons they clung together, locked in an alchemy of breath and spit and wondering, gradually realizing that they had lost the barrier between themselves, were mingling now in mind and heart, could no longer be certain which of them originated which sensation. Even groans and sighs could be told apart only by timbre. The blurring of identity abated a little when Ash broke the kiss in order to follow the line of Kieran's jaw to his ear, but every touch was still amplified. With hands and lips they began to explore each other. While he tasted freckled shoulders and narrow wrists, Kieran was aware that Ash had been wanting just as strongly to taste scars and tattoos.

He rolled Ash under him and slid his hand down. "Can I --?"

"Oh please yes --"

Neither of them could stand waiting, but he drew it out anyway, taking his time with the buttons, dragging his palms down Ash's thighs to strip him, savoring. "There are freckles on your knees." Kieran returned to Ash's throat and kissed his way down. He went as slowly as he could, not wanting to rush this, but Ash's hands knotted in his hair, desperately impatient. He surrendered, opened his throat and gulped Ash down, a skill he'd learned in his sordid former life finally put to a good use; he knew now exactly how good it felt, as he caught an echo through the empath's skin, following Ash's broken whimpers with muffled sounds of his own. When Ash arched convulsively and let out a moan two octaves lower than his speaking voice, Kieran nearly went off as well.

For a time, Ash lay stunned, round-eyed. His mouth worked several times before he was able to speak. "Kai. You. Oh."

"Yes." Words were silly things now. They had a much better way to communicate. As soon as Ash got his breath back, he was caught in the echo of Kieran's need, hungry to reply in kind. Curious, awkward, his unsure touch lethally sweet. His eagerness seemed so young; there was something kittenish in the way he wouldn't let Kieran do anything but lie there while he methodically worked out what ought to be kissed, bitten, licked -- and what tickled. But then he was done with exploring and invited Kieran to fulfill his promise, and once Kieran was inside him wiry muscle jumped into sharp relief, his eyes burned, his intensity was almost frightening. Flying, falling, Kieran had a moment of terror that he would somehow break Ash if he let himself go, that he might release all his magic along with his tensioned desire and kill them both, but it was too late to make decisions. The sight of their fingers knotted together, brown against white, was the last straw. He called out Ash's name and lost his own. Heard himself sobbing incoherent endearments in two languages, was rolled under the storm of Ash's reaction, surrendered to the empath's twining of their emotions into a loop that fed on itself until they were both blind and blazing. For a timeless time, the universe consisted entirely of one two-stranded knot of ecstasy.

Returning from that place was like regaining consciousness after being knocked cold. They lay breathlessly twined together for a time, tasting their own flavor in each other's mouths, running hands aimlessly along sated skin, mirroring the awe in each other's eyes.

"Are we..." Kieran found speaking hard for a different reason now. A fierce proprietary joy was welling up, filling him so full there was hardly room for speech anymore. "Is there a word for what we are? What that was? Or should I just say -- edeime kii, my lover?"

"Yes. Say it a lot," Ash replied with a dreamy smile. "Say 'mine.' Get all jealous and possessive, and growl at anyone who comes near me. It gives me such a kick when you do that."

A laugh bubbled up in him, coming out strange and jerky. "I've been doing that all along, haven't I?" He pushed his fingers through Ash's hair, viscerally pleased at the way the curls sprang back. Picked a fragment of grass off Ash's neck.

"I wish we could stay like this forever. Right here, in the sun, by the water."

"Why can't we?"

"We'll have to come up with more supplies somehow. And we can't be sure we've lost the Watch. Even if this place masks us, there hasn't been any rain. Our trail hasn't washed out."

"Huh." It was hard to think about anything at all, but that was a valid point. Kieran took his time brushing away grass and leaves that had stuck to Ash's skin, letting the idea roll around in his head. His mind felt clean and empty. There was plenty of room to think. "Well," he said slowly, "I wonder if maybe we can do something about that."

"What do you mean?"

"Just a sec." He got up long enough to spread out the blanket he'd been using for a kilt, and they both lay down on it. Now Ash got into the game of picking off bits of vegetation, so they let themselves be distracted by it, laughing -- giggling. Kieran was fairly sure he'd never giggled before in his life. And now he was like a kid, just playing.

Eventually, when they could no longer find any more twigs in each other's hair, Ash reminded him. "What did you mean, we can do something about it?"

"When I saw that storm, the one that broke us out of prison, I kind of got the feeling that I'd called it. It was there already, but I told it where to go. We're past the season for heavy rain, but maybe I could find something, steer it over."

"That would be really interesting, if you could."

"Yeah. For one thing, it would make me a bit of a stormcaller, as well as a jinx. Which means two Talents."

"But you said 'we' -- what can I do?"

Kieran wasn't sure how to answer. He was distracted by the faint line of tiny, gilded hairs that ran up to Ash's navel. All the gold hidden in the temple was spare change compared to this. "You shine," he murmured, raising his eyes to the copper-speckled alabaster of Ash's face. "I saw you shining like this once in a dream. Have you noticed you're not sunburned anymore?"

"No, I --" Ash blinked and caught his breath as Kieran touched his lips, no longer chapped and cracked as they'd been yesterday.

"There's a lot more power here than I thought. It's healed you too, you just didn't notice because you weren't too beat up. Did you get the feeling there's more of it between us? I mean, do you feel stronger than before? Magically. Because I do."

"Absolutely. I don't have to strain to sense you -- in fact, I have to make an effort to keep from smudging our minds together."

"So I think we can maybe do more than we could alone. Maybe if you sort of ride with me, I could make it rain."

"How do I --"

"How do you think?" He pulled Ash close again.

Without the force of pent-up desire behind it, the mingling of their minds was not so sudden this time, and he could watch it happening. They both watched it, experiencing each other's wonder; sometimes as an echo, sometimes in tandem; the border was in constant motion.

It was a bit of a shock to recognize, suddenly, the same kind of pattern he'd witnessed during the minute or two he'd been dead. The same branching whorls, sigils more idea than picture, the map of a life. He saw, in a rush that made him gasp, how Ash's empathy worked. The edges of his pattern were open and hungry, fashioned to grasp and explore whatever idea-shapes came near them. Now Kieran's symbol-body was doing the same thing; they were like thousands of clasped hands.

Once, he thought he glimpsed the tight coil of strange matter he'd seen in Ash before, but left it for later exploration. Right now the task was to reach outward. A slight shift of focus, and he saw that everything else had a pattern too, the whole world was full of pattern. The lines of earth were slow and fat, plants and insects a thick mat of repeating forms, water a dense mass of designs so tiny and so interlocked that nothing could penetrate it. Even the blanket had its form. The wire frames of Ash's spectacles smeared the pattern of the grass a little where metal touched leaf. Exploring this new level of sight could make up the work of a lifetime. Kieran thought he might have gotten lost in it and never come back to himself, if Ash hadn't been, at the same time, reminding him of his skin.

Air was a pattern as well. Hot and cold, wet and dry, its movements were more beautiful than anything solid, such a shame that people couldn't see it -- but Ash could see it, and so the beauty was shared, and didn't have to hurt. Higher, wider, the small shapes made up large ones, which made up even larger ones, until he could see the greatest air-shapes of all.

"What?" Ash pulled away to look at him, and he realized he'd cried out.

"I just --" It was hard to focus on something so small as explaining. "I just understood why there's a desert here."

"Show me."

"No... you have to anchor me, pull me back if I... there's no limit to how much power I could use. I could use myself up."

"I've got you."

Trusting Ash to catch him if he spent too much, he plunged back into the sky. West, toward the sun. He meant to pass the mountains, but something on the ground called to him. A massive dome of roiling energy, a three-dimensional whirlpool of intricate symmetrical pattern. The Burn, he realized. It was the Burn.

It looked, somehow, tasty.

No. Don't touch it. The thought didn't come in words, but Ash's caution reached him, and he left the Burn alone, though it felt like seeing money in the street and just stepping over it. Turned his mind from it and reached out for the wet warmth beyond the mountains' teeth. It was raining over there, on the far slopes. Why couldn't the clouds get over the mountains, stream between them and form on the other side? Maybe... ah, there, a cold river of air out of the northwest, coming down the coast, wringing out all the moisture. He sent a warning to Ash that he was about to begin, then wrapped himself around the cold wind and wrenched --

Suddenly he was trapped in his body, sweat-drenched and shivering, mind numb, exhausted.

"Just breathe," Ash told him. From the places where their skin touched, warmth and life were pouring in. "I think I pulled you back before you could do anything."

"Dunno." He blinked a few times, flexed his hands. Strength was returning. Within a few seconds he felt almost normal, but that was a far cry from the towering dominion he'd had a minute ago.

"It's enough for one day, anyhow. We don't know what we're doing. We need to play with it a while, get the hang of it. Otherwise we could get hurt."

"Tomorrow, then."

"Okay." Ash gave him a brilliant smile. "Everything started over today. Did you notice that? Every day of my life before this one looks stale and dusty."

Kieran nodded. Ash was right. He felt reborn, remade. "And you know... that thing with the air, with seeing all the twisty shapes, the magic -- it's not half as interesting as you are. If I had to pick between magic and you, magic could go to hell."

"Stay with me always?"

"You couldn't get rid of me." He grinned. "It'll take years just to get used to making love to you. You have no idea how good it can be."

"You mean it gets better?"

Rather than answer, Kieran decided to demonstrate.