Heirot

Tenara curled on her side, facing him. She shook her head, not really sure if she wanted to talk about it. Then again, if she couldn't talk about it with Havitharon, who could she talk to about it? He already knew her secret. She didn't have to worry about his sadness or wrath. "I dreamed about the ship," she said softly. "My father—the king one—is going to go look for Rami. When he finds him, he'll find a way to get every detail out of him. He'll find out the name of the ship. He'll find the ship. He'll find..." She burrowed her face into the pillows for a second. "I don't know their faces. It's all blurred. I don't even know if what I'm seeing is a memory or something my mind is making up to fill a gap. Part of me doesn't want him to find them, but the other part is afraid to go into town, to walk past them and not know. Afraid they're the guard at my door, or the merchant I buy from, or the next friend I make. If he doesn't find them, they'll be out there for years, bragging to the world about how they conquered the Hajaran Princess."

Havi turned onto his side and listened, his eyes quiet and focused on her. He could hardly even wrap his head around the idea of a female experiencing such a thing, but it took very little effort to relate to her experience. What could he say to such a thing? He reached between them and placed his hand in hers, a calm, solid touch. You are not alone.

Tenara curled her fingers in his, looking at his shadowed form lying next to her. Her bandaged hand gingerly came to rest over his, her fingers dancing across his skin. "The strange thing is, I'm not afraid of men or intimacy. I'm not afraid of you." She thought it had a lot to do with the fact she was mostly drugged into a barely-focused, barely awake state. It was all a dream. A half-formed dream, and if her father found them, it would become a reality. Would her thoughts change then?

Tenara slid a little closer to Havitharon, until their hands were pinched between them. "I'm sorry. There I go, sharing my weaknesses again." She smiled, eyes growing heavy. "You were wrong, you know? Being bound to you isn't unpleasant. If it weren't for the fact I'd literally die if someone took that sword, I wouldn't mind being bound to you forever."

That heart-clenching ache from before came over him again. What was she saying? She didn't want to be rid of him? After everything her parents had just said? The Tenara from his dream was still there in the back of his mind, watching guiltily as she gave him up.

But for a moment, he let himself imagine it. What would it be like to remain as her sword permanently? To belong to her, to not have to question her commands, to let her gentle hands and kind voice be his world. To simply stay at her side. As a ghost, sword, or man, they were all better lives than his fate on his own world. Sooner or later, he would lose one of those duels, and he would serve whatever Yurivis sent the challenger. Now that he'd met Tenara, would he be able to do it? He knew now, from the brief moments he'd fallen into others' possession, that he would sooner die than endure it if the sword ever changed hands.

He looked into her strange eyes, twinkling in the moonlight from the window behind him. How did he really see her? "Have I told you what a Yurivis actually is?" he asked.

Tenara nestled her cheek against the satin pillow, sighing. “I don’t know. I’ve gathered them to be pissy, super-powered women. What are they?”

He looked at the sheets beside their hands, unsure why he was doing this. "My world is extremely cold, and my people prize fire as a source of life. Men who are fertile are known as Ivis. It means "Blaze", and also "Treasure". Males possess powerful instincts to serve females. Without a female to control them, those instincts can quickly go wild and do damage. Yurivis literally means "Tamer of the Blaze". It's simply a female who has brought one or more Ivis under her control."

Tenara’s sleepy mind woke a little at that. A world so cold that men were wildfires and women were fire-tamers. “But you haven’t been tamed,” she said, hating the word. It was like describing him as a mountain lion that could be domesticated. “Have you never gone wild? Or did you learn to tame your instincts yourself?” She bit her lip a moment before asking, “What sort of damage does an untamed Ivis do?”

He shook his head, a subtle gesture against the pillow. He reached to his collar and stretched it downward to reveal a tattoo-like mark on his left pectoral, over his heart. The mark looked faded, like a stain that someone had tried to remove countless times. "I had a sorcerer place a binding. It prevents the... fire from coming." He almost used the word 'rut', but managed to catch himself. It would be too complicated to explain. "My sister killed him for it."

“So you’re safe from going wild or needing to be, eh, tamed?” She reached out and touched the mark hesitantly. “Looks a little worn. Is it fading?”

"It won't last forever," he acknowledged. He couldn't see it without a mirror, but he knew it was there. He was intimately familiar with the faint crumbling at the edges of the mark, and that it wasn't as dark as it once was. "It takes a lot of magic to restrain such things by force, so eventually, it will weaken and I will need to repeat the ritual. If I can find someone crazy enough to cast it." He knew the truth; his sister had removed every person with magical affinity from her court, and no one in their right mind would risk her anger. To get to another court, he would need to lose a challenge and accept a Yurivis, who would immediately have the spell undone. "It should be good for a few more years."

Tenara drew her hand away, resisting the urge to rest it there on his warm, strong chest. “If you don’t go back… if you can’t, if we are stuck as we are, and it fades, what happens? Will you be dangerous? Feral? Will you turn to literal flame?” Tenara could touch some fire. Her magic danced with it. Perhaps she could tame him, in some way. In a way that wasn’t controlling.

Tenara thought about her father’s warning. Arken brought him here for a reason. Maybe they had hoped to bring a fire to burn the world, but they’d brought something that wouldn’t burn for anyone.

He grimaced at the thought. "Feral is a good word for it, I suppose. But I would not be a danger to you, if... Well, I don't believe I would be capable of it. But if it ever comes down to that, and I'm past help, you should claim me as your Ivis." Alarm spread through him as the words fell out. "I'd sooner be claimed by you than harm you."

Tenara pursed her lips. It could be years away, but she felt like she needs to know. “And… if it came to that, how does one claim a Ivis?”

He looked up at the ceiling, avoiding her eyes. "Something....close to what you did when that bounty hunter was controlling me."

Tenara frowned, trying to remember, exactly, what she’d done other than open the earth and burn a bunch of people with hellfire.

“Do you want me to kill you?” Her heart hurt at the thought, but then she realized she was thinking about the wrong power. “Your horns…” She thought about the inn in Arken, and how he’d panicked, thinking Elias wanted to cut off her horns and breed her. Was that what happened on his world? Did females cut off male horns and force them to have sex? “I’ll keep you from hurting people. But I won’t… I won’t treat you as a Yurivis would.”

After a long silence Tenara said, “My grandmother and Aunt are powerful sorceresses… Maybe one of them could replicate the mark? Then you won’t have to worry about claimings.”