Chapter 26: The Bond — The Key of Oslov

Volume 10: The Trip to Harbour

Chapter 26 The Bond

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

“I’m not staying here!” Peony protested once she’d given Gersha a fierce, rib-cracking hug. “The lady wants me to.” She indicated Celinda, who hovered just within earshot, picking herbs in the refuge’s garden. “I told her I’m just here to make sure you’re not dead. And to give you this.”She handed Gersha a familiar metal sliver. His heart thudded at the sight of his handheld—screen cracked, battery dead, circuits probably fried by dew and rain, but still his.“Thank you,” he said, and sat down in the tall grass because standing suddenly seemed too hard. He’d experienced too much in the past ten-day, and so much of it made no sense, and no one understood, not even Tilrey, who hadn’t been through these jarring transitions.He wasn’t used to towering over Peony; she seemed so small now, despite her attempts at bravado. He wasn’t used to having the power. And he couldn’t stop looking at her fresh black eye and the lurid bruise on her cheek.“You didn’t need to return it,” he said, trying not to let his voice shake. “I was hoping you’d come here, but not for me. For you.”“Me?” Peony must have seen where he was looking; she touched the bruises as if just remembering them. “My dad was pissed at me when he found out your demon box was gone, but I’ve had worse. I’m fine.”She grinned jauntily, and the spinning in Gersha’s head intensified. Tilrey had said practically the same thing about his bruises when they first met. For years Gersha had tried to protect Tilrey, to make sure he never got hurt again, and now Tilrey refused to be protected. Tilrey was making deals without him.He reminded himself Tilrey wasn’t a child. Peony was. “Have you met the other girls here yet?”“Yeah.” She sat down cross-legged beside Gersha and rattled off names too fast for him to catch. “And there’s Yarrow—she’s from my clan. We tracked her a ways through the woods when she disappeared, but we thought a bear must’ve got her.”“They seem to like it here, don’t they?” He tried to find an angle on the refuge that wouldn’t sound preachy or condescending. “They weave for a living, and they always have warm beds and enough to eat. They tried to teach me to knit,” he added, seeing her skeptical look.Peony burst out laughing. “I bet that was a sight.”“It was!” Gersha laughed, too, but not for long. How did you sell the Southern Hearth to someone who was used to living a wild existence, perilous but free? Or free in some ways and unfree in others that he couldn’t imagine? Was freedom always relative? “You know,” he said, pulling up blades of grass, “I really did believe they’d hurt or kill me here. But it turns out they’re . . . friends.”Peony tilted her head, playing with a braid. “The way they dress here is stupid. They all look the same, just like their houses and their machines.”Gersha smiled conspiratorially. “I don’t like that, either.”“You looked better with your old clothes.”“But ‘the lady’’s nice, isn’t she? And what I told you about Oslov is true here, too.” He raised his voice to draw Celinda into the conversation. “Women here don’t have to marry anyone they don’t want to, isn’t that right?”Celinda gave him one of her best eye-rolls and said in Harbourer, “Marriage and me don’t mix.” In Oslov, she added, “You’re not going to convince her to give up her entire culture in a single conversation, Gersha. If she’s happy here, she’ll stay. If not, not. In my experience with these girls, it’s fifty-fifty.”Peony had a mischievous, slightly embarrassed look. “The lady scolded you,” she whispered to Gersha. “I could tell. Is she more important than you are?”“Apparently so.” Gersha winked at Celinda over Peony’s head, then lowered his own voice. “I’ll tell you a secret—I’m leaving tomorrow. I’m going home to Oslov.”Peony nodded, but he could tell Oslov was just an abstraction for her. “Will you say goodbye to me?”“Of course. But that’s not the actual secret part.”She nodded again, eagerly. “I always keep secrets.”Gersha leaned closer. “I don’t want to leave. I’m happier here than I’ve been for a long time.”“Really?” Peony grimaced, clearly disappointed with his confession. “I’m not sure I like the houses here. It’s like being in a cave.”She must be referring to the trapped air, the climate control—the very things that Gersha had sorely missed when he first left Oslov buildings behind. “The lady says you can stay here, too, as long as you want, and leave when you want,” he said. “Maybe give it a try for a few days?”Peony was distracted by a butterfly flitting through the grass. “I guess. There’s this girl named Keziah; she’s getting married in a few weeks, and the girls are making her a shawl. They asked me to help.”Married. Gersha remembered the council’s debate over Keziah’s planned marriage to an Oslov. And suddenly there it was, right in front of him. The one thing he wanted (needed). The one thing that could make leaving tomorrow bearable.“I wish her joy,” he said. “It must mean so much to be united to the one you love.”“I just don’t understand you,” Tilrey said.They were in the outdoor courtyard of the dining hall, where Tilrey had been supervising preparations for their departure. A messenger had been sent to alert the Duke, which involved transmitting code by flashing a strong light across the lake. With Krisha’s assistance, an ATV driver had been briefed on the route they’d take to rejoin the Duke’s guardsmen in Keene.Now Krisha was back with Gavril; both of them were out of the detention block, thank everything green. One last, unpleasant task awaited: Tilrey would have to get his boot cast replaced with something more primitive and not so obviously of Oslov make.Then he’d be ready to crash for the night, with or without his dinner. His head still ached from his long session with Egil (he still wasn’t sure what to call it—debate? negotiation? war?). His ankle throbbed as if in anticipation of being disturbed again. And Gersha, otherwise beautiful Gersha, was being annoying.“We could do it so quickly,” Gersha was saying, lacing his fingers with Tilrey’s. “Right now, after dinner. I asked, and apparently any citizen of the settlement can officiate. It wouldn’t take five minutes.”“And it wouldn’t mean anything.” Tilrey spoke as gently as he could. “Back home, it won’t be legal. We couldn’t even talk about it.”“But we would know.” Gersha pressed their clasped hands to his heart. His dark-lashed eyes were fixed on Tilrey’s—no longer dull with exhaustion, as they’d been earlier today, but glowing. A flush touched his pale cheeks, and an excited smile played at the corners of his mouth as if they were two boys plotting mischief. “It would matter to us.”He was beautiful with those well-bred nostrils flaring, his whole body practically vibrating with anticipation. Tilrey pulled him close and kissed him—first lightly, then deeply, one hand buried in his hair. “You’re absolutely ridiculous,” he said as they came apart. “I can’t believe a bureaucratic ceremony means so much to you. This isn’t just a way of keeping me out of other people’s beds, is it?”Gersha flinched a little, then shook his head. “I know I’ve been jealous sometimes, but I understand that we’re . . . different that way. You like to have variety. I only want you.”“And sometimes Besha,” Tilrey pointed out.“But I only want him if you’re there, too. With you, everything’s good.” Gersha raised his eyes like a child asking a favor. “I’m not trying to change you, Rishka. Anyway, when has marriage ever made someone faithful?”Indeed. When Tilrey thought about marriage, he thought of Vera Linnett coming to his bed to avoid the husband she could barely tolerate. He thought of Albertine Linnett and her husband treating each other with strained civility. He thought of Malsha, who refused even to speak of his wife except to say, “We had little in common.” The happiest example of a married couple he’d seen with his own eyes was Besha and Davita, and they lived apart and were constantly bickering. Why would anyone enter into that bond except to produce legitimate offspring?But here was Gersha, with his flush deepening and his lips red from the kiss, saying, “I need this, Rishka. If we have to go home and be like we were before, I need something to remind me we were here together. That we were—are—equal.”Did he know how irresistible that shy gaze from under his eyelashes was? Tilrey rubbed his cheek against Gersha’s curls, then rested his chin on his head, savoring every sensitive, difficult, frustrating, delicious inch of him. “Is that really what you believe?”Gersha pressed tight against him. “I know it’s not that simple. We’re a work-in-progress. And you can say no—of course you can say no. But this means something to me, Rishka. That’s all I can say.”I love you too fucking much. Tilrey kissed Gersha’s temple. “I actually can’t seem to say no to you, but for the record, I can’t take this entirely seriously, either. I hope you’re okay with that.”Drawing back a little, he ran his hand through Gersha’s hair, then down his neck—ignoring Gersha’s soft gasp—until he grasped the chain that hung there. “You’re still wearing my talisman.”Gersha looked contrite as Tilrey tugged the pendant up and over his head and hung it around his own neck. “Why did you leave it on my pillow?”“Because I was an idiot. I wanted your attention, wanted you to stop treating me like a criminal.” He ran his knuckles softly down Gersha’s cheek.Gersha’s eyes filled. “I did do that, didn’t I? I’m so sorry, Rishka. I was so afraid. If I could undo all of it—”“But you can’t.” He kept his tone mild. “And marrying me and calling me your husband isn’t going to change what happened at home. It’s not going to change Oslov or how people see us. You know that.”“I guess we’ll deal with that when the time comes. But when you say you can’t take this seriously, which part do you mean?”Gersha sounded so worried, so plaintive, that Tilrey had to kiss him again—grinning this time, even as he felt tears prick his own eyes. Moving his mouth to Gersha’s ear, he said, “I mean the formalities. The words, the gestures. Those things just embarrass me.”He didn’t want to remind Gersha that the ceremonial bonds he’d accepted in the past hadn’t been his choice. The tea ceremony and the licking of sap from men’s hands were gestures of submission. Marriage was a bond between equals, though, and did he even know how to do that?Maybe Malsha was right about this one thing. The power had seesawed back and forth between him and Gersha, but until now, Tilrey hadn’t been able to imagine they could be at the same level. The prospect daunted him a little. Would it mean total honesty? Was he capable of that after so many years of telling half-truths—not just to Gersha, but to virtually everyone in his life?All he could do was give it a try.“So who’s going to perform this ceremony?” he asked.The ceremony took less than five minutes—which was good, because they had to stand up for it.Ulka, who had officiated at several marriages and knew the formulas by heart, did the honors in the conference room over dessert. The Southern Hearth’s whole council was present, because Gersha had insisted on as many witnesses as possible. He knew many of his fellow Councillors would have roared with laughter at the very notion of this ceremony—doubly illegal and, to them, absurd—but he wasn’t ashamed.Ulka, he could tell, understood. She recited the words in a resonant voice, without hesitation:“Ernst Gerhard Gádden, do you affirm your bond of lifelong partnership with this man, Tilhard Edvard Bronn? Do you give him your hand in love and fellowship and vow to support your joint endeavors until your last moment?”As she spoke, she wound a ribbon around their clasped hands, tying them fast. Celinda had provided the binding material, crafted from colorful fabric scraps by the girls at the refuge. She was watching from the council table, her face glowing—for once, without a trace of mockery.Gersha tightened his grip and looked straight into Tilrey’s eyes. “Till my last moment and even beyond, I am yours.”He half expected Tilrey to glance away, embarrassed by the words “and even beyond,” which he’d improvised. The ceremony was loosely based on Whyberg’s marriage script, and Whyberg didn’t believe in an afterlife—or, for that matter, in love beyond the bonds of family. The word ináthera—love as passion, their love—didn’t appear in his text.Gersha didn’t care. Despite what Tilrey had said about not taking the formalities seriously, he was looking straight back at Gersha with his beautiful eyes wide and liquid. Ulka’s voice became a drone that Gersha barely heard. There was only Tilrey, opening his mouth and saying in a surprisingly ringing voice, “Till my last moment and even beyond, whether there’s anything beyond or not, I am yours.”“Let the bond be witnessed.” Ulka unwound the ribbon from their hands and let it slip to the floor.It unfurled gracefully, briefly seeming to float in midair, and in that instant Gersha swore his own private vow: My loyalty is to him now.Tilrey’s hand tugged itself free. At first, Gersha thought he was simply eager to be done, but then he understood. Still using his other arm to support himself on the crutch, Tilrey lifted the pendant over his head and took a limping step toward Gersha.So that’s why he’d wanted it back. Gersha closed the distance and bent his head.Tilrey’s arm rose, and then the pendant swayed around Gersha’s neck again, right above his heart. With a quick stroke of Gersha’s cheek, Tilrey withdrew. “From now on, wear this as our token.”Gersha expected Ulka to object that they kept modifying the ceremony—which would have been unheard of at home—but when he glanced at her, she was crying. So he leaned toward Tilrey, awkwardly because of the crutch caught between them, and gave himself up to a long, passionate kiss that was definitely not in the script.After that, he expected the attendees to disperse quickly, abashed by all the breaches of protocol. Nothing of the kind happened.Chairs were pulled out for the two of them, and some surprisingly good stewed fruit was served. Strangers came up to congratulate them. Sved Balint, the Laborer who’d eyed Gersha with suspicion on his first night in the Hearth, cracked open a bottle. “My homemade elderberry cordial,” he said, pouring two glasses.He slid the first one to Tilrey. “Ranek tells me you’re from ’Skein Sector Six.”Tilrey nodded. “Born and raised, anyway.”Balint passed the second glass to Gersha, who took a swallow; the cordial was dry and very strong. Managing not to choke, he added, “His mother’s the Supervisor now.”“Lisha Lindtmerán is your mother? I’m from Four, but I’ve had dealings with her.” Balint clapped Tilrey heartily on the back. “Fine woman! She’d be proud if she could see this. Her kid with a Councillor!”“I’m not a Councillor here,” Gersha pointed out. But Balint was already busy filling the rest of the glasses and guffawing at a loud conversation in the corner.Tilrey sipped the cordial, which made his eyes even brighter, and patted Gersha’s hand. “Old habits are hard to break. Are you going to be a stickler for the rules of Dissidence just like you were a stickler for Whybergism?”Gersha clasped the hand back. “Probably.”They were nearly done with their glasses when Celinda came to collect their empty bowls. She asked Gersha, “You’ll come say goodbye to Peony tonight? I think she wants to give you something.”Were they really leaving first thing tomorrow? The thought still gave Gersha a distinct pang, though not going where Tilrey went wasn’t even a possibility. He said, “Wouldn’t miss it.”“Don’t let her delay your wedding night for too long, though.” Celinda’s eyes had the wicked glint they’d been missing during the ceremony. “It may not be anyone’s first time”—she gave Tilrey a playful nudge—“but you still want to make it special.”Gersha’s cheeks burned, but Tilrey was grinning. “Oh, we’ll make it special, all right.”“You’ve done okay for yourself, lad. For the longest time, I didn’t think there could be anything real between you.” She shifted her gaze to Gersha. “But now I actually know you, Fir Councillor, I see you’re a sweet, romantic fool.”“That’s really not fair—”Celinda silenced Tilrey’s defense by raising her glass. “And you’re just as silly and romantic, which makes it a perfect match.” She downed the cordial in a single gulp. “To fools!”“To fools!” echoed the tipsy council members with gales of laughter.After a second glass, they managed to make their escape from the conference room, but only after they’d accepted a fresh bottle of cordial from Sved Balint—“to enjoy when you’re alone in your room”—and weathered a chorus of good-natured ribald commentary.Ranek held the door for Tilrey and accompanied them into the hall. He’d been quiet throughout the festivities, despite raising his glass with the others.“Best go to the infirmary first,” he said as the door closed behind them, silencing the clamor within. “I’ve made sure Medic Arnstedt will be waiting for you, but she doesn’t want to wait all evening.”“Thanks.” Tilrey’s face was rosy from the cordial and the exertion of keeping his balance, but the moment his eyes met Ranek’s, they went cold sober. “I do appreciate all your cooperation.”Ranek had already turned away from him. “Gersha,” he said abruptly, “I don’t want us to part on bad terms.”Gersha didn’t want to have this conversation, not now—but when else? “Of course,” he mumbled.“I know we’ve argued, but I’m going to miss you more than you can know. I’m not good at, well, this kind of thing, but it meant a great deal to see you again.”Gersha felt the tension melt from him. Whatever their differences, this was still his friend. “It meant a great deal to me, too. I thought you were dead, Ranek. But I wish . . . well, I wish.”He wished too many things: that he could stay here with Tilrey forever. That the two of them could sit on the council and push through a resolution to dismantle the detention area and turn dissent into anything but a crime.Ranek’s dark eyes shone—were those actual tears? “I just wanted you to know,” he said in a clipped, stilted way, “I’ve taken your feedback under advisement. There may be habits we’ve fallen into here that are . . . not productive. In the meantime, I’ve released the girl, the vandal you were concerned about, with a warning.”Something clenched in Gersha’s chest. “And her friends?”“They remain unidentified. For now.” Ranek sighed, clearly not without misgivings. “Kids have to make mistakes, I suppose.”“I don’t think you’ll regret it, Ranek.” Gersha stepped across the space between them to pull his friend into an embrace. “I’ll miss you, too.”The doctor wasn’t happy about having to undo her own work and redo it with primitive, Harbourer-style splinting materials. But she was patient with Tilrey—and with Gersha, who once again insisted on holding his hand the entire time. When Tilrey’s face went taut with pain, Gersha rubbed his back and whispered in his ear, “We can have the second bottle when we’re back in the room.”“It’s mending well so far,” the doctor said as Gersha fetched Tilrey’s crutches again. “Just mind you keep him from putting his full weight on it—he seems like the type who’d try.”Tilrey’s protests and Gersha’s assurances carried them back outside. The sun had set, but the lamps along the path weren’t on yet. The air was still warm, with scents of evergreens and decaying leaves wafting from the wooded patches. Children’s laughter sounded from the underbrush as they played a running-and-hiding game.A powerful certainty gripped Gersha: They were going home, and home was not his apartment in Oslov anymore. It was the bare little dorm room where, for the first time, they would embrace as spouses.“Husband,” he whispered, helping Tilrey up the exterior stairs of the building. Tilrey bent to nip his earlobe and whispered it back.Upstairs, Tilrey propped his crutches against the wall and collapsed on the edge of the bed. “Verdant hells, I’m wiped out. You must be even worse.”Gersha had been feeling the effects of his sleepless night until the elderberry cordial gave him a rush of energy. “I’ve got one last goodbye. But you just went through something stressful, and you mustn’t let me keep you up,” he added, trying to sound sincere.Tilrey laughed. He had a particular smile that was both playful and predatory, showing too many white teeth—a darker cousin of the radiant grin he used to win people over. He used that smile now, and then he patted his knee.Already hard, Gersha came over and settled himself gingerly in Tilrey’s lap, keeping his weight on Tilrey’s good side. “Are you sure? I’m not hurting you?”Tilrey slid strong arms around Gersha and began unfastening his coverall, shifting so Gersha rested directly on the answering hardness between his legs. “You. Are. Not. Hurting. Me,” he hissed in Gersha’s ear—then caught his earlobe and nipped harder than before. “We need to consummate this marriage, don’t we?”Gersha was helplessly hard now, his whole body tense with need even as he molded himself to the larger form. It felt so good to be enclosed, protected. “Husband,” he said.“Is that going to be our whole coital conversation? Passing that word back and forth?” Without waiting for an answer, Tilrey flipped Gersha over on his back, stretched him out, and finished peeling the coverall from him, followed by his briefs. “Mmm. I think it’s my turn to have you.”Gersha answered without words, arching his back to press his pulsing, needy body tightly against his husband’s. He closed his eyes and shivered with pleasure as Tilrey’s mouth opened against his bare throat, sending prickles of sensation all the way to his toes.Tilrey’s first slick finger inside him felt enormous, pleasure edging toward pain. Gersha thrust his hips up to take more of it. “Don’t make me wait too long,” he said, the words coming on a gasp.“So you’re bossing me around now? Husband?” Tilrey angled the finger knowingly.Gersha saw starbursts, his shoulders ramming the mattress as his spine twisted with the force of his arousal. “Oh, please,” he breathed.Tilrey kept the preliminaries short, just long enough to get Gersha comfortable, stroking his cock after each new perfect, agonizing probe of his fingers. Then he bent Gersha double, knees in the air. “You’re a little tight, love. I’ll try not to hurt you.”Gersha felt something burst from his throat that might have been a sob. “I want all of you. It’s been too long. So long.”All of Tilrey was a lot, but Gersha was ready. He waited while the initial shock of penetration settled into a delicious almost-too-fullness. Tilrey waited, too, going absolutely still on top of him. “Look at me, love,” he said, and Gersha’s eyes opened before his mind could process the command.Tilrey started slow, eyes locked on Gersha’s, each thrust of his powerful hips fluid and continuous with the next. He’d stripped off his own coverall, and Gersha could see his shoulders straining with each stroke, his bulging pectorals gleaming in the last light. He smelled their mingled sweat, heard Tilrey’s rough, quiet gasps.When Tilrey plunged home for the first time, Gersha moaned and reared up off the bed. For a moment, he couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything but hold him. Then he pulled Tilrey down for a wild kiss. “Harder,” he said. “Faster.”Instead of obeying, Tilrey stilled his hips again, still buried deep inside Gersha, and reached between them to give his attention to Gersha’s desperately straining cock. “When you fucked me this morning,” he said hoarsely, “I didn’t even need the signal. Did you notice?”“I thought so—green hells!” The words became a helpless bray as Tilrey’s hand moved faster, impossibly tight. “Not yet,” Gersha managed when he could speak again. “Want to come with you.”The next few minutes were a blur of friction and sliding and fullness and pounding in his temples and the world compressing itself to the single point that was his cock in Tilrey’s hand and Tilrey’s cock pistoning inside him. Impossible to say where one of them ended and the other began. Tilrey was slamming into him now, their bodies colliding with bruising force on each deep stroke.When Gersha couldn’t hold back anymore, he let the hot, pulsing current carry him away. He was dimly aware of Tilrey crying out as the force of his own climax bent him backward, his teeth bared in an animal grimace. Warmth flooded Gersha, and he closed his eyes at last, his whole body spasming with the force of release.It took a while to untangle their bodies and slide apart. Tilrey had turned to dead weight, his cock slowly softening, so Gersha waited till he could no longer ignore the urgent messages of discomfort from his thighs and hips.Then he stretched out with Tilrey still on top of him, his bulk both reassuring and crushing against Gersha’s ribs. The deep rasps of his breathing told Gersha he was asleep.Gersha would have liked to join him, to cradle him through the night, but there was still Peony to see. Soon. He eased the weight of his husband very gently off him, whispered, “Get some rest, love,” and limped up off the bed to make himself presentable again.When Gersha made his way back from saying goodbye to Peony, night was falling. It had been a long evening, and now only the west was still pale with the fading flame of a glorious sunset.He took the long way, strolling the grassy path along the wall, wanting to return to Tilrey yet wanting to experience the sights and sounds of the Southern Hearth a little longer.On his left hand he wore a sort of knitted gauntlet, a present from Peony, who said she’d stitched her clan colors into it and it would be “good in the cold.” He resolved to bring it back with him to Oslov, carefully hidden. Maybe, with the Duke’s permission, he could also bring The Marriage of Oslov & Harbour.Marriage. Hah. At first glance, the book’s title had seemed a sterile allegorical conceit, worthy of a high-named Upstart. Now Gersha wondered, though: Had Edvard Linnett experienced anything like the awakening he’d experienced here? Had he loved someone in Harbour?Sex was good in the cold, or coming in from the cold. It was heat, it was life and survival. But here, with the air already mellow with ripe vegetation and tepid as a bath, it was . . . different. More urgent, as if the whole world were telling them to get on with it before the harvest ended and the frosts came. He would always remember how it felt here.Coming around a curve, Gersha found a dark figure standing on tiptoe beside the wall. Was she reaching up to grab something? No, no, she had a spray can, only this time she was using her other hand to scrub the concrete with some sort of brush.“It’s you,” he said. “I thought Ranek let you go with a warning.”The graffiti artist paused briefly to acknowledge him, then returned to effacing her own words. “He did, and then he said I’d made a mess and needed to clean it up. Aren’t you going back to Oslov tomorrow, Councillor?”So she knew who he was, like everybody else. “I still don’t know your name,” Gersha said, trying to sound humble. “Could I give you a hand? You must want to get home.”“No, actually, I like the dark.” But she handed him her wire brush. “My name’s Gregoria. You have to scrub really fucking hard, and even then, it leaves a mark. I didn’t think Upstarts did this kind of work.”“I never did before.” Gersha sprayed nasty-smelling cleanser from the can, then attacked the wall with the brush. “I’m sorry,” he said after a minute or so of hard labor. “About Ranek hauling you in that way.”In the dark, he couldn’t see Gregoria’s expression, but her posture telegraphed aggressive disinterest. “That didn’t have anything to do with you.”“I know. But it shouldn’t be happening.” Gersha tried to translate his anger into cleaning power, but the paint was stubborn. He was fairly sure daylight would reveal glaring brush-strokes in the concrete. “This place shouldn’t be like Oslov. There’s a role for lawful dissent—that’s the whole point. And I can understand why you feel trapped here, but it won’t always be this way.”Gregoria laughed and said in a sing-song voice, as if reciting a lesson, “One day we’ll return to Oslov, and it will be all ours, a land of beautiful equality.”“I don’t see what’s funny about that. It could happen.”He’d stopped scrubbing, and she took the brush from him. “Sure, it could, Fir. But what if I don’t want to go back and freeze my ass off at the North Pole when I could live here instead and walk barefoot in the grass?”Glancing down, Gersha saw her feet actually were bare, pale against the near-blackness of the grassy path. “We’re Oslovs,” he said. “Harbour is a wonderful place, but it’s not, it’s not—”“Not our home?” She grinned—a flash of teeth in the dusk—and started working again, the wire-on-concrete friction sending shivers down Gersha’s spine. “Maybe not your home, Fir. But it sure feels like mine.”

She handed Gersha a familiar metal sliver. His heart thudded at the sight of his handheld—screen cracked, battery dead, circuits probably fried by dew and rain, but still his.

“Thank you,” he said, and sat down in the tall grass because standing suddenly seemed too hard. He’d experienced too much in the past ten-day, and so much of it made no sense, and no one understood, not even Tilrey, who hadn’t been through these jarring transitions.

He wasn’t used to towering over Peony; she seemed so small now, despite her attempts at bravado. He wasn’t used to having the power. And he couldn’t stop looking at her fresh black eye and the lurid bruise on her cheek.

“You didn’t need to return it,” he said, trying not to let his voice shake. “I was hoping you’d come here, but not for me. For you.”

“Me?” Peony must have seen where he was looking; she touched the bruises as if just remembering them. “My dad was pissed at me when he found out your demon box was gone, but I’ve had worse. I’m fine.”

She grinned jauntily, and the spinning in Gersha’s head intensified. Tilrey had said practically the same thing about his bruises when they first met. For years Gersha had tried to protect Tilrey, to make sure he never got hurt again, and now Tilrey refused to be protected. Tilrey was making deals without him.

He reminded himself Tilrey wasn’t a child. Peony was. “Have you met the other girls here yet?”

“Yeah.” She sat down cross-legged beside Gersha and rattled off names too fast for him to catch. “And there’s Yarrow—she’s from my clan. We tracked her a ways through the woods when she disappeared, but we thought a bear must’ve got her.”

“They seem to like it here, don’t they?” He tried to find an angle on the refuge that wouldn’t sound preachy or condescending. “They weave for a living, and they always have warm beds and enough to eat. They tried to teach me to knit,” he added, seeing her skeptical look.

Peony burst out laughing. “I bet that was a sight.”

“It was!” Gersha laughed, too, but not for long. How did you sell the Southern Hearth to someone who was used to living a wild existence, perilous but free? Or free in some ways and unfree in others that he couldn’t imagine? Was freedom always relative? “You know,” he said, pulling up blades of grass, “I really did believe they’d hurt or kill me here. But it turns out they’re . . . friends.”

Peony tilted her head, playing with a braid. “The way they dress here is stupid. They all look the same, just like their houses and their machines.”

Gersha smiled conspiratorially. “I don’t like that, either.”

“You looked better with your old clothes.”

“But ‘the lady’’s nice, isn’t she? And what I told you about Oslov is true here, too.” He raised his voice to draw Celinda into the conversation. “Women here don’t have to marry anyone they don’t want to, isn’t that right?”

Celinda gave him one of her best eye-rolls and said in Harbourer, “Marriage and me don’t mix.” In Oslov, she added, “You’re not going to convince her to give up her entire culture in a single conversation, Gersha. If she’s happy here, she’ll stay. If not, not. In my experience with these girls, it’s fifty-fifty.”

Peony had a mischievous, slightly embarrassed look. “The lady scolded you,” she whispered to Gersha. “I could tell. Is she more important than you are?”

“Apparently so.” Gersha winked at Celinda over Peony’s head, then lowered his own voice. “I’ll tell you a secret—I’m leaving tomorrow. I’m going home to Oslov.”

Peony nodded, but he could tell Oslov was just an abstraction for her. “Will you say goodbye to me?”

“Of course. But that’s not the actual secret part.”

She nodded again, eagerly. “I always keep secrets.”

Gersha leaned closer. “I don’t want to leave. I’m happier here than I’ve been for a long time.”

“Really?” Peony grimaced, clearly disappointed with his confession. “I’m not sure I like the houses here. It’s like being in a cave.”

She must be referring to the trapped air, the climate control—the very things that Gersha had sorely missed when he first left Oslov buildings behind. “The lady says you can stay here, too, as long as you want, and leave when you want,” he said. “Maybe give it a try for a few days?”

Peony was distracted by a butterfly flitting through the grass. “I guess. There’s this girl named Keziah; she’s getting married in a few weeks, and the girls are making her a shawl. They asked me to help.”

Married. Gersha remembered the council’s debate over Keziah’s planned marriage to an Oslov. And suddenly there it was, right in front of him. The one thing he wanted (needed). The one thing that could make leaving tomorrow bearable.

“I wish her joy,” he said. “It must mean so much to be united to the one you love.”

“I just don’t understand you,” Tilrey said.

They were in the outdoor courtyard of the dining hall, where Tilrey had been supervising preparations for their departure. A messenger had been sent to alert the Duke, which involved transmitting code by flashing a strong light across the lake. With Krisha’s assistance, an ATV driver had been briefed on the route they’d take to rejoin the Duke’s guardsmen in Keene.

Now Krisha was back with Gavril; both of them were out of the detention block, thank everything green. One last, unpleasant task awaited: Tilrey would have to get his boot cast replaced with something more primitive and not so obviously of Oslov make.

Then he’d be ready to crash for the night, with or without his dinner. His head still ached from his long session with Egil (he still wasn’t sure what to call it—debate? negotiation? war?). His ankle throbbed as if in anticipation of being disturbed again. And Gersha, otherwise beautiful Gersha, was being annoying.

“We could do it so quickly,” Gersha was saying, lacing his fingers with Tilrey’s. “Right now, after dinner. I asked, and apparently any citizen of the settlement can officiate. It wouldn’t take five minutes.”

“And it wouldn’t mean anything.” Tilrey spoke as gently as he could. “Back home, it won’t be legal. We couldn’t even talk about it.”

“But we would know.” Gersha pressed their clasped hands to his heart. His dark-lashed eyes were fixed on Tilrey’s—no longer dull with exhaustion, as they’d been earlier today, but glowing. A flush touched his pale cheeks, and an excited smile played at the corners of his mouth as if they were two boys plotting mischief. “It would matter to us.”

He was beautiful with those well-bred nostrils flaring, his whole body practically vibrating with anticipation. Tilrey pulled him close and kissed him—first lightly, then deeply, one hand buried in his hair. “You’re absolutely ridiculous,” he said as they came apart. “I can’t believe a bureaucratic ceremony means so much to you. This isn’t just a way of keeping me out of other people’s beds, is it?”

Gersha flinched a little, then shook his head. “I know I’ve been jealous sometimes, but I understand that we’re . . . different that way. You like to have variety. I only want you.”

“And sometimes Besha,” Tilrey pointed out.

“But I only want him if you’re there, too. With you, everything’s good.” Gersha raised his eyes like a child asking a favor. “I’m not trying to change you, Rishka. Anyway, when has marriage ever made someone faithful?”

Indeed. When Tilrey thought about marriage, he thought of Vera Linnett coming to his bed to avoid the husband she could barely tolerate. He thought of Albertine Linnett and her husband treating each other with strained civility. He thought of Malsha, who refused even to speak of his wife except to say, “We had little in common.” The happiest example of a married couple he’d seen with his own eyes was Besha and Davita, and they lived apart and were constantly bickering. Why would anyone enter into that bond except to produce legitimate offspring?

But here was Gersha, with his flush deepening and his lips red from the kiss, saying, “I need this, Rishka. If we have to go home and be like we were before, I need something to remind me we were here together. That we were—are—equal.”

Did he know how irresistible that shy gaze from under his eyelashes was? Tilrey rubbed his cheek against Gersha’s curls, then rested his chin on his head, savoring every sensitive, difficult, frustrating, delicious inch of him. “Is that really what you believe?”

Gersha pressed tight against him. “I know it’s not that simple. We’re a work-in-progress. And you can say no—of course you can say no. But this means something to me, Rishka. That’s all I can say.”

I love you too fucking much. Tilrey kissed Gersha’s temple. “I actually can’t seem to say no to you, but for the record, I can’t take this entirely seriously, either. I hope you’re okay with that.”

Drawing back a little, he ran his hand through Gersha’s hair, then down his neck—ignoring Gersha’s soft gasp—until he grasped the chain that hung there. “You’re still wearing my talisman.”

Gersha looked contrite as Tilrey tugged the pendant up and over his head and hung it around his own neck. “Why did you leave it on my pillow?”

“Because I was an idiot. I wanted your attention, wanted you to stop treating me like a criminal.” He ran his knuckles softly down Gersha’s cheek.

Gersha’s eyes filled. “I did do that, didn’t I? I’m so sorry, Rishka. I was so afraid. If I could undo all of it—”

“But you can’t.” He kept his tone mild. “And marrying me and calling me your husband isn’t going to change what happened at home. It’s not going to change Oslov or how people see us. You know that.”

“I guess we’ll deal with that when the time comes. But when you say you can’t take this seriously, which part do you mean?”

Gersha sounded so worried, so plaintive, that Tilrey had to kiss him again—grinning this time, even as he felt tears prick his own eyes. Moving his mouth to Gersha’s ear, he said, “I mean the formalities. The words, the gestures. Those things just embarrass me.”

He didn’t want to remind Gersha that the ceremonial bonds he’d accepted in the past hadn’t been his choice. The tea ceremony and the licking of sap from men’s hands were gestures of submission. Marriage was a bond between equals, though, and did he even know how to do that?

Maybe Malsha was right about this one thing. The power had seesawed back and forth between him and Gersha, but until now, Tilrey hadn’t been able to imagine they could be at the same level. The prospect daunted him a little. Would it mean total honesty? Was he capable of that after so many years of telling half-truths—not just to Gersha, but to virtually everyone in his life?

All he could do was give it a try.

“So who’s going to perform this ceremony?” he asked.

The ceremony took less than five minutes—which was good, because they had to stand up for it.

Ulka, who had officiated at several marriages and knew the formulas by heart, did the honors in the conference room over dessert. The Southern Hearth’s whole council was present, because Gersha had insisted on as many witnesses as possible. He knew many of his fellow Councillors would have roared with laughter at the very notion of this ceremony—doubly illegal and, to them, absurd—but he wasn’t ashamed.

Ulka, he could tell, understood. She recited the words in a resonant voice, without hesitation:

“Ernst Gerhard Gádden, do you affirm your bond of lifelong partnership with this man, Tilhard Edvard Bronn? Do you give him your hand in love and fellowship and vow to support your joint endeavors until your last moment?”

As she spoke, she wound a ribbon around their clasped hands, tying them fast. Celinda had provided the binding material, crafted from colorful fabric scraps by the girls at the refuge. She was watching from the council table, her face glowing—for once, without a trace of mockery.

Gersha tightened his grip and looked straight into Tilrey’s eyes. “Till my last moment and even beyond, I am yours.”

He half expected Tilrey to glance away, embarrassed by the words “and even beyond,” which he’d improvised. The ceremony was loosely based on Whyberg’s marriage script, and Whyberg didn’t believe in an afterlife—or, for that matter, in love beyond the bonds of family. The word ináthera—love as passion, their love—didn’t appear in his text.

Gersha didn’t care. Despite what Tilrey had said about not taking the formalities seriously, he was looking straight back at Gersha with his beautiful eyes wide and liquid. Ulka’s voice became a drone that Gersha barely heard. There was only Tilrey, opening his mouth and saying in a surprisingly ringing voice, “Till my last moment and even beyond, whether there’s anything beyond or not, I am yours.”

“Let the bond be witnessed.” Ulka unwound the ribbon from their hands and let it slip to the floor.

It unfurled gracefully, briefly seeming to float in midair, and in that instant Gersha swore his own private vow: My loyalty is to him now.

Tilrey’s hand tugged itself free. At first, Gersha thought he was simply eager to be done, but then he understood. Still using his other arm to support himself on the crutch, Tilrey lifted the pendant over his head and took a limping step toward Gersha.

So that’s why he’d wanted it back. Gersha closed the distance and bent his head.

Tilrey’s arm rose, and then the pendant swayed around Gersha’s neck again, right above his heart. With a quick stroke of Gersha’s cheek, Tilrey withdrew. “From now on, wear this as our token.”

Gersha expected Ulka to object that they kept modifying the ceremony—which would have been unheard of at home—but when he glanced at her, she was crying. So he leaned toward Tilrey, awkwardly because of the crutch caught between them, and gave himself up to a long, passionate kiss that was definitely not in the script.

After that, he expected the attendees to disperse quickly, abashed by all the breaches of protocol. Nothing of the kind happened.

Chairs were pulled out for the two of them, and some surprisingly good stewed fruit was served. Strangers came up to congratulate them. Sved Balint, the Laborer who’d eyed Gersha with suspicion on his first night in the Hearth, cracked open a bottle. “My homemade elderberry cordial,” he said, pouring two glasses.

He slid the first one to Tilrey. “Ranek tells me you’re from ’Skein Sector Six.”

Tilrey nodded. “Born and raised, anyway.”

Balint passed the second glass to Gersha, who took a swallow; the cordial was dry and very strong. Managing not to choke, he added, “His mother’s the Supervisor now.”

“Lisha Lindtmerán is your mother? I’m from Four, but I’ve had dealings with her.” Balint clapped Tilrey heartily on the back. “Fine woman! She’d be proud if she could see this. Her kid with a Councillor!”

“I’m not a Councillor here,” Gersha pointed out. But Balint was already busy filling the rest of the glasses and guffawing at a loud conversation in the corner.

Tilrey sipped the cordial, which made his eyes even brighter, and patted Gersha’s hand. “Old habits are hard to break. Are you going to be a stickler for the rules of Dissidence just like you were a stickler for Whybergism?”

Gersha clasped the hand back. “Probably.”

They were nearly done with their glasses when Celinda came to collect their empty bowls. She asked Gersha, “You’ll come say goodbye to Peony tonight? I think she wants to give you something.”

Were they really leaving first thing tomorrow? The thought still gave Gersha a distinct pang, though not going where Tilrey went wasn’t even a possibility. He said, “Wouldn’t miss it.”

“Don’t let her delay your wedding night for too long, though.” Celinda’s eyes had the wicked glint they’d been missing during the ceremony. “It may not be anyone’s first time”—she gave Tilrey a playful nudge—“but you still want to make it special.”

Gersha’s cheeks burned, but Tilrey was grinning. “Oh, we’ll make it special, all right.”

“You’ve done okay for yourself, lad. For the longest time, I didn’t think there could be anything real between you.” She shifted her gaze to Gersha. “But now I actually know you, Fir Councillor, I see you’re a sweet, romantic fool.”

“That’s really not fair—”

Celinda silenced Tilrey’s defense by raising her glass. “And you’re just as silly and romantic, which makes it a perfect match.” She downed the cordial in a single gulp. “To fools!”

“To fools!” echoed the tipsy council members with gales of laughter.

After a second glass, they managed to make their escape from the conference room, but only after they’d accepted a fresh bottle of cordial from Sved Balint—“to enjoy when you’re alone in your room”—and weathered a chorus of good-natured ribald commentary.

Ranek held the door for Tilrey and accompanied them into the hall. He’d been quiet throughout the festivities, despite raising his glass with the others.

“Best go to the infirmary first,” he said as the door closed behind them, silencing the clamor within. “I’ve made sure Medic Arnstedt will be waiting for you, but she doesn’t want to wait all evening.”

“Thanks.” Tilrey’s face was rosy from the cordial and the exertion of keeping his balance, but the moment his eyes met Ranek’s, they went cold sober. “I do appreciate all your cooperation.”

Ranek had already turned away from him. “Gersha,” he said abruptly, “I don’t want us to part on bad terms.”

Gersha didn’t want to have this conversation, not now—but when else? “Of course,” he mumbled.

“I know we’ve argued, but I’m going to miss you more than you can know. I’m not good at, well, this kind of thing, but it meant a great deal to see you again.”

Gersha felt the tension melt from him. Whatever their differences, this was still his friend. “It meant a great deal to me, too. I thought you were dead, Ranek. But I wish . . . well, I wish.”

He wished too many things: that he could stay here with Tilrey forever. That the two of them could sit on the council and push through a resolution to dismantle the detention area and turn dissent into anything but a crime.

Ranek’s dark eyes shone—were those actual tears? “I just wanted you to know,” he said in a clipped, stilted way, “I’ve taken your feedback under advisement. There may be habits we’ve fallen into here that are . . . not productive. In the meantime, I’ve released the girl, the vandal you were concerned about, with a warning.”

Something clenched in Gersha’s chest. “And her friends?”

“They remain unidentified. For now.” Ranek sighed, clearly not without misgivings. “Kids have to make mistakes, I suppose.”

“I don’t think you’ll regret it, Ranek.” Gersha stepped across the space between them to pull his friend into an embrace. “I’ll miss you, too.”

The doctor wasn’t happy about having to undo her own work and redo it with primitive, Harbourer-style splinting materials. But she was patient with Tilrey—and with Gersha, who once again insisted on holding his hand the entire time. When Tilrey’s face went taut with pain, Gersha rubbed his back and whispered in his ear, “We can have the second bottle when we’re back in the room.”

“It’s mending well so far,” the doctor said as Gersha fetched Tilrey’s crutches again. “Just mind you keep him from putting his full weight on it—he seems like the type who’d try.”

Tilrey’s protests and Gersha’s assurances carried them back outside. The sun had set, but the lamps along the path weren’t on yet. The air was still warm, with scents of evergreens and decaying leaves wafting from the wooded patches. Children’s laughter sounded from the underbrush as they played a running-and-hiding game.

A powerful certainty gripped Gersha: They were going home, and home was not his apartment in Oslov anymore. It was the bare little dorm room where, for the first time, they would embrace as spouses.

“Husband,” he whispered, helping Tilrey up the exterior stairs of the building. Tilrey bent to nip his earlobe and whispered it back.

Upstairs, Tilrey propped his crutches against the wall and collapsed on the edge of the bed. “Verdant hells, I’m wiped out. You must be even worse.”

Gersha had been feeling the effects of his sleepless night until the elderberry cordial gave him a rush of energy. “I’ve got one last goodbye. But you just went through something stressful, and you mustn’t let me keep you up,” he added, trying to sound sincere.

Tilrey laughed. He had a particular smile that was both playful and predatory, showing too many white teeth—a darker cousin of the radiant grin he used to win people over. He used that smile now, and then he patted his knee.

Already hard, Gersha came over and settled himself gingerly in Tilrey’s lap, keeping his weight on Tilrey’s good side. “Are you sure? I’m not hurting you?”

Tilrey slid strong arms around Gersha and began unfastening his coverall, shifting so Gersha rested directly on the answering hardness between his legs. “You. Are. Not. Hurting. Me,” he hissed in Gersha’s ear—then caught his earlobe and nipped harder than before. “We need to consummate this marriage, don’t we?”

Gersha was helplessly hard now, his whole body tense with need even as he molded himself to the larger form. It felt so good to be enclosed, protected. “Husband,” he said.

“Is that going to be our whole coital conversation? Passing that word back and forth?” Without waiting for an answer, Tilrey flipped Gersha over on his back, stretched him out, and finished peeling the coverall from him, followed by his briefs. “Mmm. I think it’s my turn to have you.”

Gersha answered without words, arching his back to press his pulsing, needy body tightly against his husband’s. He closed his eyes and shivered with pleasure as Tilrey’s mouth opened against his bare throat, sending prickles of sensation all the way to his toes.

Tilrey’s first slick finger inside him felt enormous, pleasure edging toward pain. Gersha thrust his hips up to take more of it. “Don’t make me wait too long,” he said, the words coming on a gasp.

“So you’re bossing me around now? Husband?” Tilrey angled the finger knowingly.

Gersha saw starbursts, his shoulders ramming the mattress as his spine twisted with the force of his arousal. “Oh, please,” he breathed.

Tilrey kept the preliminaries short, just long enough to get Gersha comfortable, stroking his cock after each new perfect, agonizing probe of his fingers. Then he bent Gersha double, knees in the air. “You’re a little tight, love. I’ll try not to hurt you.”

Gersha felt something burst from his throat that might have been a sob. “I want all of you. It’s been too long. So long.”

All of Tilrey was a lot, but Gersha was ready. He waited while the initial shock of penetration settled into a delicious almost-too-fullness. Tilrey waited, too, going absolutely still on top of him. “Look at me, love,” he said, and Gersha’s eyes opened before his mind could process the command.

Tilrey started slow, eyes locked on Gersha’s, each thrust of his powerful hips fluid and continuous with the next. He’d stripped off his own coverall, and Gersha could see his shoulders straining with each stroke, his bulging pectorals gleaming in the last light. He smelled their mingled sweat, heard Tilrey’s rough, quiet gasps.

When Tilrey plunged home for the first time, Gersha moaned and reared up off the bed. For a moment, he couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything but hold him. Then he pulled Tilrey down for a wild kiss. “Harder,” he said. “Faster.”

Instead of obeying, Tilrey stilled his hips again, still buried deep inside Gersha, and reached between them to give his attention to Gersha’s desperately straining cock. “When you fucked me this morning,” he said hoarsely, “I didn’t even need the signal. Did you notice?”

“I thought so—green hells!” The words became a helpless bray as Tilrey’s hand moved faster, impossibly tight. “Not yet,” Gersha managed when he could speak again. “Want to come with you.”

The next few minutes were a blur of friction and sliding and fullness and pounding in his temples and the world compressing itself to the single point that was his cock in Tilrey’s hand and Tilrey’s cock pistoning inside him. Impossible to say where one of them ended and the other began. Tilrey was slamming into him now, their bodies colliding with bruising force on each deep stroke.

When Gersha couldn’t hold back anymore, he let the hot, pulsing current carry him away. He was dimly aware of Tilrey crying out as the force of his own climax bent him backward, his teeth bared in an animal grimace. Warmth flooded Gersha, and he closed his eyes at last, his whole body spasming with the force of release.

It took a while to untangle their bodies and slide apart. Tilrey had turned to dead weight, his cock slowly softening, so Gersha waited till he could no longer ignore the urgent messages of discomfort from his thighs and hips.

Then he stretched out with Tilrey still on top of him, his bulk both reassuring and crushing against Gersha’s ribs. The deep rasps of his breathing told Gersha he was asleep.

Gersha would have liked to join him, to cradle him through the night, but there was still Peony to see. Soon. He eased the weight of his husband very gently off him, whispered, “Get some rest, love,” and limped up off the bed to make himself presentable again.

When Gersha made his way back from saying goodbye to Peony, night was falling. It had been a long evening, and now only the west was still pale with the fading flame of a glorious sunset.

He took the long way, strolling the grassy path along the wall, wanting to return to Tilrey yet wanting to experience the sights and sounds of the Southern Hearth a little longer.

On his left hand he wore a sort of knitted gauntlet, a present from Peony, who said she’d stitched her clan colors into it and it would be “good in the cold.” He resolved to bring it back with him to Oslov, carefully hidden. Maybe, with the Duke’s permission, he could also bring The Marriage of Oslov & Harbour.

Marriage. Hah. At first glance, the book’s title had seemed a sterile allegorical conceit, worthy of a high-named Upstart. Now Gersha wondered, though: Had Edvard Linnett experienced anything like the awakening he’d experienced here? Had he loved someone in Harbour?

Sex was good in the cold, or coming in from the cold. It was heat, it was life and survival. But here, with the air already mellow with ripe vegetation and tepid as a bath, it was . . . different. More urgent, as if the whole world were telling them to get on with it before the harvest ended and the frosts came. He would always remember how it felt here.

Coming around a curve, Gersha found a dark figure standing on tiptoe beside the wall. Was she reaching up to grab something? No, no, she had a spray can, only this time she was using her other hand to scrub the concrete with some sort of brush.

“It’s you,” he said. “I thought Ranek let you go with a warning.”

The graffiti artist paused briefly to acknowledge him, then returned to effacing her own words. “He did, and then he said I’d made a mess and needed to clean it up. Aren’t you going back to Oslov tomorrow, Councillor?”

So she knew who he was, like everybody else. “I still don’t know your name,” Gersha said, trying to sound humble. “Could I give you a hand? You must want to get home.”

“No, actually, I like the dark.” But she handed him her wire brush. “My name’s Gregoria. You have to scrub really fucking hard, and even then, it leaves a mark. I didn’t think Upstarts did this kind of work.”

“I never did before.” Gersha sprayed nasty-smelling cleanser from the can, then attacked the wall with the brush. “I’m sorry,” he said after a minute or so of hard labor. “About Ranek hauling you in that way.”

In the dark, he couldn’t see Gregoria’s expression, but her posture telegraphed aggressive disinterest. “That didn’t have anything to do with you.”

“I know. But it shouldn’t be happening.” Gersha tried to translate his anger into cleaning power, but the paint was stubborn. He was fairly sure daylight would reveal glaring brush-strokes in the concrete. “This place shouldn’t be like Oslov. There’s a role for lawful dissent—that’s the whole point. And I can understand why you feel trapped here, but it won’t always be this way.”

Gregoria laughed and said in a sing-song voice, as if reciting a lesson, “One day we’ll return to Oslov, and it will be all ours, a land of beautiful equality.”

“I don’t see what’s funny about that. It could happen.”

He’d stopped scrubbing, and she took the brush from him. “Sure, it could, Fir. But what if I don’t want to go back and freeze my ass off at the North Pole when I could live here instead and walk barefoot in the grass?”

Glancing down, Gersha saw her feet actually were bare, pale against the near-blackness of the grassy path. “We’re Oslovs,” he said. “Harbour is a wonderful place, but it’s not, it’s not—”

“Not our home?” She grinned—a flash of teeth in the dusk—and started working again, the wire-on-concrete friction sending shivers down Gersha’s spine. “Maybe not your home, Fir. But it sure feels like mine.”

Chapter End Notes

I tend to fall on Tilrey’s side of the question when it comes to marriage and weddings—not really into the whole thing—but with these two? What can I say, I just want them to be happy. :) Also, this could be an anchor for Gersha as he returns to Oslov and the pull of his old habits.Thank you, sharp-eyed Fair_Feather_Friend, for catching the fact that Tilrey can’t return with his fancy cast. I’d completely forgotten!

Chapter End Notes

Thank you, sharp-eyed Fair_Feather_Friend, for catching the fact that Tilrey can’t return with his fancy cast. I’d completely forgotten!