40 - You Are No Coward

“Deovar. I can’t reveal myself. It’s for the same reason I can never go home. I would be hated, exposed.” The man’s blue eyes were sad, more ashamed than Ilax liked to see. He sat, his normally erect posture curled tight around the rising steam of his tea, his strong hands miserable on the cup.

The grotto was a nest of fabrics, a mixture of Lainz war commander’s tent set up inside the mountain, fighting the cold from the stone and a Milari hermit’s cave with the stove in the middle keeping the worst of the damp cold of a Milar spring firmly outside. The lamps hanging from the roof-ribs were beaten brass and the big bed was covered not only with sheepskins but snow bear and bluish Ice-wolf and Gray tiger.

“Inam, listen to yourself!” Ilax said, pacing, his energy too much to keep still. The rain-cloak he’d worn up the mountain, the outer layer soaked, dripped gently, outside, the sound of the drops pattering on the stone threshold. “You are still so ashamed. Is it because the General is still alive and has the old Queen Bee’s ear? Your victories count as nothing until that ugly old man ruined you? He would be no less exposed than you.”

“You’ve argued that before. I don’t know, by Light and Dark both, that it isn’t true… but I find I’m happier here, more free. I can be the crazy old man on the mountain, the one no one sees… the one who gives written answers to children’s questions left on your ancestor’s stones.”

“And you don’t want to be ashamed before Kyrus.” In the deep cavern, with the charcoal stove blazing, the spring storms outside might as well not be happening, the silence after Ilax’s words was deep. A clinker fell in the stove, loud.

“No. I don’t.” If anything, he curled tighter. “I never thought… I believed…” He didn’t finish his sentence, but stared down into his tea, poking at the circle of butter floating on top. Instead of speaking any further, he scooped out spoon of chutney, swallowed, chased it with the tea, set it down with a heavy click on the brass table at his elbow.

“And you’re willing to have him work his heart out for a lie?” Ilax almost snapped at him. “For a ghost? When it’s not necessary?” He wheeled and sat down cross-legged on the dark red carpet in front of the other man. “You could make things a great deal easier, inam. You aren’t one usually ruled by fear.”

If the silence had been deep before it was somehow more profound now as blue eyes rose to lock on Ilax’s grey ones. The Milar went on, “and if anyone on this planet can say that, I can, because I know you are no coward. Inam, the two of you are enough alike for me to have begun to love him. He calls me ‘Uncle Ilax’ now. He feels like family. Haraklaz likes him, she’s devilling him because, she tells me, she likes to make him blush darker. His friends at the school are good children, sensitive ones. He’s a good boy and he’s bleeding his spirit trying to be like the hero, his father.” The other man flinched and buried his head in his hands.

“Even training as a Milar… he’s facing the hardest thing now. He thinks if he learns ‘mandery then he cannot go home. Sounds like someone else I know.”

Ilax got up and threw another scoop of charcoal on the fire. 

“You trust me, being your deovar. Trust me on this my inam. Be honest with the boy.”

A hiss from the water cavern below as the water moved in the mountain, the pounding spring rains filling the deepest caverns with themselves and the last of the snowmelt. The huff of breath from the man sitting on the pile of bed skins staring at Ilax was barely louder. “All right, deovar, all right. Bring him up tomorrow. I’ll prepare myself.”

A fleeting grin from Ilax. “So you’ll have the whole rest of the night to worry about it and then all of tomorrow to transform yourself back into something like what you were years ago?”

A snort of laughter. “Exactly. This shaggy scruff in Milari hand-offs with sheep’s wool in his hair is hardly going to impress anyone.”

Ilax settled next to him on the bed, put up a gentle hand to brush back the long, thick black hair from his inam’s ear, smiling. “Oh, you’re not so bad.” Their fisted hands came up and touched, knuckle to knuckle. “Wing-brother.”

“Wing-brother. If you grab my ear in your teeth again you’re going to be wearing what’s left of this kettle of tea,” he said with a smile, turning to face Ilax. “You seem to like me, tidy, shaved Lainz or shaggy refugee and everything in between.”

“You might say that, inam. You know I haven’t been pushing for you to reveal yourself to the world for totally selfish reasons?”

“You’re afraid the Unity’ll cut your stipend for a war crime?”

“No, idiot. I’m afraid that Lainz will want you back and I’d lose you.” Ilax sighed as his lover turned and put both hands on his cheeks.

“It’s the biggest reason, for me, Ilax. I don’t ever want to leave you.” He leaned forward and kissed the Milar, pulled back, ran his tongue along Ilax’s lower lip, nibbling gently on it before pulling him into a very deep, very slow kiss once more. His voice, when he let Ilax pull back, panting, smiling, was ragged. “You’ve convinced me to reveal myself to Kyrus. For the rest… I’m staying here.”

“Inam.” Ilax’s answering grin matched the light in his eyes. “You so like to overwhelm me.” He pushed his lover over where he sat. “I am going to overwhelm you tonight so you cannot worry. And I’ll help you get tidied up tomorrow. I only have paperwork to do, so I’ll do it early and be able to give your shaggy head the proper feather-spitter braids. I’ll even donate some fresh feathers from Yochi.” He crossed his arms on the bigger man’s chest, looking down into his smiling face. “I’m sure you have your old veil carefully packed away if you like.”

“I won’t go that far, deovar. It’s with the armour and no—“he poked Ilax in the side where he lay on him. “—I’m not going to wear that either.”