Heirot

Sinead nodded sympathetically. "I know it is difficult. To be gifted with such power means the stakes of learning to wield it can be high. But perhaps there are benefits to having an otherworldly being freeloading off your power. You seem to connect with your power more naturally when it's channeled through the sword, so perhaps you can use that to your advantage.

"And as for you," she turned to Havitharon. You bear responsibility in this as well. If Tenara is to sustain you, you need to learn to open yourself to her. I'll admit you succeeded in helping her fight, but it was only possible because she had the stamina to endure your intrusion. Look how exhausted she is, and you look like you can barely stand."

The alien glared at her, but the sheen of sweat on his skin was proof his stunt had not been effortless.

"For that weapon to help either of you, you need to figure out how to achieve a mutual sharing of energy. It can't just be a battle of wills. This time your opponent was a friendly one, but this kind of power attracts attention, and you need to be ready for those who might come for it. If that sword falls to another, I guarantee your new master will not be like Tenara."

That flipped a switch in the man. "I have no master," he said in a dark, quiet voice that was somehow more menacing than if he'd shouted it.

"You do have one. And you need one to survive. Swords are loyal to their owners, and so will you be, whether you will it or not. Comply, and be used, or be abandoned and decay. You must acknowledge what you are."

The man turned his glare on Tenara, distrust pouring off of him.

Tenara shifted uncomfortably under his glare. She lifted her hands, a show of peace. "Not your master. Your friend. I'll never ask you to do something you don't want to do or use you against your will." She touched the sword. "I know that might sound hollow..." She needed to show him she wasn't like the women of his world. That their world was better.

"Grandmother," she said, turning to Sinead. "Can we remove the binds. Havitharon won't work with me if he doesn't trust me. I want to treat him as a guest, and not an enemy."

Sinead sighed. She snapped her fingers, and Havitharon's binds crumbled from his hands. He glanced at his freed arms, and then at them. "I'll be outside," was all he said, quietly and to Tenara, as he brushed past her on his way out the room. The door closed hard behind him.

She winced. "I don't think he likes women," she said. "He definitely doesn't trust them—us. The only experience he's had with our world so far is our misadventures in Arken. It was unpleasant, as you can imagine... I think, if you're alright with it, I'll take him into the city? Show him that existing in this world is not all running and fighting for survival. I promise... I promise, promise, promise I won't use blood magic. I promise I won't use any at all. I'll just go and show him the niceness of the world."

Sinead stroked her granddaughter's cheek. "Are you certain that is what you wish? With some time, I can prepare the right method to separate you from the sword entirely. We could contain him safely until then."

She shook her head. "That seems cruel. I don't... I don't want to be like the women who hurt him." She took her grandmother's hands in hers, kissed her knuckles. "I can't think of him as a thing. He's a person, and he's damaged. Let's treat him with mercy. We don't know why Arken summoned him, but if the safety of this world is the mastery of that sword, I think it is best to win him to our side rather than force him."

Sinead gazed at her for a long moment. "You are a strong and kind woman, Tenara," she finally said. "Take him wherever your please. He is your responsibility. If that responsibility ever becomes too much, the other option remains."

Tenara grinned, kissed Sinead's cheek, grabbed up the sword, and breezed out of the room. She found Havitharon in the hall, the Queen's Maiden's stood on the opposite side, watching him. The air of the space was thick and uncomfortable, so Tenara looped her arm in Havitharon's and gently guided him down the hall, away from the warrior women.

"Well, that's done for now," she said, her voice light. "We'll worry about that practice business later. I got permission to take you into the city. Perhaps we can get to know each other, and I can show you that Ighten is a much better place to visit than Arken, and that this world is safer than yours."

As she led him down the hall she paused at a maids rolling cart and scooped a folded sheet off one of the shelves. She wrapped and tied it around the sword, slinging the heavy thing over her shoulders again.

He glanced at the slender woman standing nearly two heads shorter than him, her arms looped in his. He wanted to hate it. He wanted to be angry with her, and throw her off. Instead, some instinct was screaming to be held and guided. He shivered, trying not to think about what the queen had just said. Were these the instincts of a sentient weapon for its master? Was he no longer himself? "I really am going mad," he chuckled wryly. "I'd normally want to kill anyone who claimed to master me. But you defended my freedom and rejected that role." He scoffed, raking a hand through his midnight hair. "Ha. Does that mean I'm willing to be a slave as long as my master refuses to command me? If it turns out to be that easy, a lot of Yurivis on my world would be bitter they didn't discover the trick to it first."

She frowned. "I don't want to master you," she said, glancing out one of the windows they passed. "You aren't a slave. You're just... in a strange predicament. We have to work together. Think of it as... a partnership. I give you existence, you tame my magic—which would normally be tearing everything apart."

She took her arm away from his as they passed the guards. They may have heard about Havitharon through the rumor mill but they didn't seem prepared to see him. Their eyes grew as wide as saucers as they approached, opening the doors for them to pass out into the midday light.

"We're helping each other," she said. "That's all."

Havitharon thought hard about her words, and the warm weight of her hands on his forearm. A partnership... how could he possibly trust such a thing, when the person in question had this much power over him?

The scariest part was, he believed her. Her words matched all of her actions. "Look, if we're really going to be partners..." he gave her a hard, serious look. "...You should really buy a scabbard for that thing."

Tenara glanced at the sword, and laughed. "I suppose you're right. A bedsheet is a terrible one. Let's find a shop while we're out. You can pick it out, since, I suppose, it is like a shirt for you. Or is it pants?"

Havitharon's expression tensed up, a hard, choking sound rattling through him. He fought it back, but the laughter tumbled out. It was a low, melodic sound, a little rough from disuse. "I suppose pants are the priority," he finally managed to answer her question. "Best not get anything too snug."

Tenara bit back the flirtatious remark that threatened to bubble out of her, thinking that he likely wouldn't appreciate it. She got the feeling he tolerated her, but didn't like her... She thought he might not like any woman, given what he'd been through at their hands on his world. "Well, we'll look around. See if we can find something you like."

Lowight was a bright city. It had its darker areas, all cities did, even her home in Hajara. But Tenara knew where not to go, and so she steered Havitharon through the upper side of town, towards the merchant districts. They walked the merchant districts, with Tenara showing him the different types of food and entertainment available. When they came to it, she dragged him into a blacksmith shop and found a black leather scabbard for the sword. She purchased a belt from a leather maker. All of it went on her parents accounts—her mother's account at the blacksmith shop and her father's account at the leather makers. The sword felt heavy on her hips, knocking against her leg in a rhythmic thump as she went.

It was nearing afternoon when they turned to head back to the palace.

"We had an... awkward conversation earlier," she said. "I... well, I was being rather candid about intimate connections and I think I generalized... What happened between the man in the bar, the one you stopped... That wasn't... That is to say, that would not have been pleasurable. I mean, I wasn't seeking..." Her cheeks burned, and she swept her gaze down the street, along the pretty row homes leading towards the palace, searching for the words to explain the many complex facets that was intimacy and consent and enjoyment.

Tenara froze at the sight of Rami standing out front of a posh-looking row home. The sun blazed down on his broad-shouldered form while he admired the front of the house and conversed with an Ighten man. She almost didn't believe her eyes, and the shock of seeing him in this place knotted up her nerves. He wore finer clothes than she had known him to wear a few months ago, with his long black hair drawn back and clasped with a gold ring. His hands were tucked into his pockets, and when he and the man came to an agreement, he drew out a hand, snapping in the direction of a young Hajaran boy standing near a wagon. The boy jumped up, climbed into the back of the wagon, reached into a trunk, and drew out a pouch heavy with coin. He leapt off the wagon and raced to Rami, placing the pouch in his open palm. Rami, in turn, delivered the pouch to the man, and shook his hand as the man placed a key in his palm. 

The man departed, leaving Rami and the boy alone. Rami's gaze wandered over the house, and then down the street, until they fell on her. He stiffened. At first, he looked at her with a frown, as if she were an unwelcome specter that had come to haunt him. But then he really seemed to see her, to understand she was there before him, and the coldest fear she'd ever seen rattled through him.

"Tenara?" Rami breathed.

"Rami," she said, taking an involuntary step forward and away from Havitharon.

He approached her, and she was half-blinded by the sun trying to look up to meet his eyes. He brushed the back of his fingers along her jaw, a gesture that would have made her wobbly in the knees two months ago. Instead, it only served to tighten the chokehold of anxiety around her throat. 

"I never thought I'd see you again," he said, his baritone voice a heavy whisper. His hand smoothed along the small of her back and he drew her against him, his chest melding along hers as the hand brushing her jaw curled around the back of her head. He kissed her, a wash of heat and desire... An open display of affection—too open considering their relationship had always been a secret. 

Tenara should have pushed him away. She should have slapped him or screamed at him, but for a moment she was dragged into hundreds of memories of their bodies tangled together over the five years she'd visited him. He was her first. Her only—if she ignored the others she didn't remember in the belly of a privateer's ship, and she did.

Tenara might have loved him. Maybe she had. She couldn't tell anymore. The fear and anxiety and anger were chains strangling her heart, but at that moment she remembered the taste of love on her tongue.

Havitharon stood back from the pair as they reunited. Public displays of affection were commonplace where he came from, but they were also nearly always a expression of dominance; of power. He watched their impassioned kiss with growing unease. He hadn't missed the look of shock and fear on the strange male's face when he'd recognized Tenara.

No. She'd said that wasn't how things were done here. There had to be some other explanation. He thought about what she'd said earlier, about sex being about pleasure and affection here. Why was he starting to feel more and more like he'd been lulled into believing a fairy tale?

Ask her. Don't jump to conclusions, he told himself. This person must be her lover. She never said she didn't have one. He stepped closer, enough to make his presence obvious. "Tenara. This is?"