The farmer’s two youngest daughters greeted them at the croft’s gates, handing their horses to a stable boy and dimpling at Lute, who went red-cheeked at the attention. Bai made the tradition Tethiri greeting in return, noting with approval and some apprehension the stout stone wall around the property. It stood almost as tall as he was, stoutly-built and topped with vicious-looking flints shaved into spear-points. He did not need reminding that it had been built to keep out more than just wolves.

‘We have iron, lord,’ said the farmer, bent half-double in his subservience, though Bai caught the gleam of avarice in his eyes as Lute handed over five gold Moons. ‘Nails, and bridle-bits, if that will suffice? And plenty of food! Come in, my friends, and bathe, and then eat.’

Bai, washed and clean, was led inside to a warm room, built the length of the house with a fireplace at each end, and mere slits for windows, under low, overhanging eaves in the manner of the border folk. Houses like this were a reminder of less friendly times between Vartjastafel and Selahaleros; all thick-walled, low-roofed and looking very much like they’d been built into the earth itself. They were on two floors, the upper floor for the family, accessed by a narrow and steep stairway of stone on the outside.  The ground floor, dug three or four feet into the ground, was for the animals. Thick bricks of turf and peat shored up the outer walls and turned the house into a small fortress.

A very warm and cosy fortress, Bai mused, his head lolling sideways nearly onto Lute’s shoulder. Peat smoke mingled with the warm, earthy smell of the animals below, and with the haunches of salt pig hanging inside the chimney. A large bowl of dough sat gently rising in the hearth, lending a hint of yeast to the homely smells inside the close-walled house.

The crofter’s wife broke up what was left of that days’ loaf and dropped the pieces into large, rough bowls of yellow earthenware and topped them off with a thick pease-and-ham soup, liberally sprinkled with wild parsley and finely-shredded hard cheese. ‘Eat as much as you want,’ she smiled at her four guests, handing them each a bowl. ‘There’s plenty. We won’t go short, no matter how much you eat.’

Bai could have sworn, with easy fondness, that her smile for Lute was deeper, sweeter. Lute took it as his due, as he always did; revelling politely and tolerantly in the dotage of older women.

‘He’s a strapping young lad,’ she said, and slipped Lute an extra slice of the old loaf. ‘I’d give my eye teeth for a man like that to help on the croft! My lad’s only ten winters old. It’ll be some time before he has your brawn, my boy.’

Lute looked at Bai. ‘Can we spare a day…?’

‘What do you know of farm work?’

‘Enough for a day’s work, Bai penvarzhavoy.’

‘I’ll consider it,’ said Bai, and turned his attention to his bowl, feeling annoyed.

He ate far more than he wanted, and drank too much too. After several jars of strong and rich heather ale, all he wanted to do was put his head in Lute’s lap and sleep forever. Lute was so wonderfully warm, sitting close against him with his tanshán loose at his smooth throat, pale gold in the firelight, sheened a little with sweat, and oil from the baths they’d taken earlier, for the farmer was wealthy and boasted a small bathhouse in his steading. It was warm in the kitchen. Too warm. He felt too alive. Bai was very much aware of the feel of a firm thigh against his own, Lute’s scent wreathing around him, all bergamot soap and almond oil. Bai could have eaten him up and still wanted more.

Lute’s warmth seeped through his thin linen tanshán and into his blood, and made him wonder if he really needed to sleep just yet. He wasn’t tired. Lute’s proximity was seeing to that.

He got up. ‘We need to be on our way early tomorrow,’ he declared, ‘so I will go to bed. Lute, you too.’

No-one said a thing as Lute followed him obediently out of the room and down the narrow stairs, to the hay store where their sleeping quarters were.

Lute didn’t question it either. He didn’t question it, or raise any objections, or protest in the slightest, and he couldn’t have if he’d wanted to, because his lips were suddenly sealed shut with a kiss that melted every bone in his body and almost bore him onto the floor.

Bai walked him backwards into the room and kicked the door shut behind him.

In no time at all Lute found himself stripped to the waist and crushed against his war-leader’s body, another kiss burning its way through his veins. He still didn’t complain, so Bai ordered him to unknot his belt and get rid of his tanshán altogether, then he pulled Lute back into his arms, his fingers kneading taut buttocks, clawing up a strong, straight spine, and finally twisting cruelly into long tresses of thick black hair. Light flared from firm fingers, and sparks cracked at the ends of hair, as if they’d both stepped into a pool of lightning.

Bai gathered all of it into himself and then took his time over the next three kisses, stealing the very breath from Lute’s lungs.

When he was allowed to breathe again, Lute hammered his palm indignantly off Bai’s shoulder. ‘What does this mean?’

Damn. Damn and fuck. Why did he have to go and ask that? Wasn’t it obvious what it meant? ‘It means I…it means I want to take you to bed. Now.’

Lute eyed the beds. There were two but neither were big enough for two men at once, just primitive pallets barely off the floor. ‘I don’t know…’

Bai dropped his hands reluctantly from Lute’s hips, sensing hesitancy. Power fell away, pooling silver at their feet, and faded. Lute sagged a little, looking slightly grey and pinched.

Bai gripped Lute’s shoulder. ‘I won’t force you. You know that.’

The discarded tanshán was retrieved from the floor and shrugged over a tousled dark head, its owner refusing to look Bai in the eye. The belt was hung over the dividing wall between the hay store and the stalls. ‘I know.’

Bai raked shaky hands through his own hair. He was painfully aware he’d overstepped the mark but he could not work out how, since he was certain Lute had been firing signals like burning arrows at him all evening – and had been before that, too. Had he mistaken them? He must have. Lute wouldn’t be so…so damn reserved, otherwise.

Lute turned to face Bai. ‘I didn’t say I didn’t like your kisses. I wanted them.’

‘So why…?’

‘You…I feel….’ Lute sat heavily and put his head in his hands. ‘You took all of it.’

Bai’s brow got a deep groove in it as he tried to mull this over. It was no use. Too much beer meant he needed to be beaten over the head with it.

Luckily, he had Lute to do that.

‘My magic…you did know…?’ Lute looked up. ‘I…I feel tired…’

‘Sleep, then,’ Bai told him. He frowned. ‘But I took nothing from you. What do you mean by that?’

Lute let his head droop toward his knees and said nothing. Bai gathered up his shirt and tanshán, and pulled his tanshán on again. He wanted to thump something. He wanted to draw his sword and spatter the hills with blood. He was in no mood to sleep and neither was in any mood to go back upstairs and pretend he hadn’t just tried to bed his shield-bearer and been refused. He pulled his shoulders back until his spine cracked, then raked his fingers through his hair, wondering what to do.

Lute’s voice clanged into the cold quiet of the barn. ‘Someone has been using Blood Runes in Silverheim. Didn’t you say Ellazhán was going to Silverheim?’

Bai sank onto the bed Lute was sitting on, mulishly refusing to give up the possibility of sleeping with his arms around him all night, despite Lute’s obvious reluctance. He swept his palm over his forehead and sighed. ‘You think Sorrel is the one using forbidden magic.’

‘Is it possible?’

‘I have no idea what his abilities are,’ Bai admitted. He felt his irritation slipping away, and let it go with another sigh. He didn’t know his cousin well. They met once a year for a couple of weeks, and sometimes less, and though they wrote as frequently as they could, there were many things that would never get said in letters.

‘I heard it from the farmer’s daughter. She offered me all manner of information and favours, in exchange for my attentions for the night, so I do not know if what she says has any truth in it.’

‘How many foreign mages are there going to be in Silverheim using Blood Runes?’ Bai muttered, ignoring Lute’s implication that he could get whatever he wanted wherever he wanted it from. ‘Earl Cangarth wouldn’t tolerate it.’ He looked at Lute. ‘This girl you spoke to – she gave you no names at all?’

‘None at all,’ said Lute. ‘I grilled her for everything she knew and it wasn’t a lot, after all. I am pleased I didn’t pay her price!’

‘Don’t be so indiscreet,’ Bai chastised him. ‘We don’t know these people and we should have no intense interest in a crowfeather. And I don’t want you peppering the hills with brats every time I want to know something!’

‘Go yourself after information next time!’

Bai spread his hands in mute apology. ‘But why? What could he possibly want, that needs the Blood Runes to get it?’

He knew the answer as soon as the words were out.

Getting married. Can’t do this! Please help.

He put his head in his hands and groaned. ‘He needs his head smacked off the nearest fucking door, if he’s using dark magic to get out of marrying!’

‘Would you?’

‘Would I what?’ Bai’s temper began to fray again.

‘Use Blood Runes to avoid marrying.’ Lute spoke softly, and put his hand tentatively over Bai’s. ‘I would.’

‘Never use the Blood Runes!’ Bai bit down on the urge to thunder the words in Lute’s silly young face. ‘Never! Promise me!’

Lute baulked, and backed away. ‘I promise!’

‘Don’t let me down,’ Bai growled. He gripped Lute’s hand and pulled him close. ‘But because of that, I will never teach you! Fool, you know what evil the Blood Runes are!’

‘You learned. Who taught you magic?’

‘I…’ Bai stopped. Nobody had taught him magic. He knew what he knew from the Hanscánid, and from what Naza had been able to teach him, before he outgrew even her knowledge. A windrider knew enough to service most of the caravan’s needs. Bai wanted more. He was capable of more.

‘Naza taught me, as far as she could,’ he said. ‘She will not do the same for you. Lute, I don’t say this to hurt you, or hold you back, but to keep you safe.’

‘How could you possibly know if I will ever be safe, when I can’t use my own magic?’

‘I have spoken,’ said Bai, although his conviction was wavering. He only wanted to protect Lute from the dangers of the High Roads. He knew he was being unfair, refusing to teach Lute anything at all. Perhaps he should speak to Naza, and tell her that she could have a new student, if she kept him away from the High Roads.

‘I’ll think about it,’ he amended. ‘But not now. Not until we get back to the rhón.’

Lute went to the other bed and pulled the covers back, his spine stiff. He got in. ‘Nie ghó Au, henazhi Au.’

‘Rhiaízh n’Au!’ Bai regretted that as soon it was out of his mouth. But why did the lad have to be so formal? It was petty of him. Bai clenched his jaw, then made the formal reply, spiteful in return, wishing he could push both beds together and soak up Lute all night.

He didn’t, though. An idiot could have seen that Lute was wounded by something. If he didn’t say what, Bai wasn’t going to ask. He pulled his own covers back, mumbled a protective Ward over them both, and snuffed the lamp.