The Peaceweaver

The Wedding Night

Reiv holds his breath, and the fine fabric falls away, baring his chest to the air. His skin seems too soft and pale and unblemished beside Colbrun, who bears countless marks of battle and strength. Reiv bows his head. “This is why I am here,” he says.

Colbrun hums, leaning forward, breath feathering over the curve of Reiv’s neck. “To pleasure me at your leisure in our bed?” His lips brush warm under Reiv’s jaw. “Then I suppose my purpose towards you is the same, hm?”

Reiv’s eyes widen. “My lord –”

“Yes?” Colbrun cups the slight swell of his chest in one hand, kneading gently.

“This is not how one sires heirs,” Reiv manages weakly, letting his head fall against Colbrun’s shoulder and hiding in the curtain of black silk hair when his husband applies both hands to the task, the sharp cold claws of his right hand teasing at Reiv’s senses.

“Heirs can wait,” Colbrun growls, and very near rips the last of Reiv’s garments away. “There is no need to rush.”

Reiv wants to scream. There is every need to rush, as they both well know. The Hendhar will demand an heir and when Reiv fails to provide one there will be consequences which he has not yet devised a solution for, but — oh, Reiv cannot think when Colbrun is easing him down onto the bed, holding Reiv effortlessly in his arms, kissing the hollow of his throat, his collarbones, his chest, his stomach, his hips — Reiv surges to sit up, gawking at his husband’s head between his legs.

Ah, well. He will take what he can, even if it is empty carnal pleasure, and at that moment he is willing to pretend they are not who they are. It is not bad, for Reiv’s first time. He had thought it would hurt more.  

When it is over Colbrun’s clawed hand strokes slowly up his back. “I apologize,” he murmurs, words tickling the shell of Reiv’s ear. “I know less of your people and their customs than I would like, but I do know that while the Hendhar call you my wife, that may not be what you wish me to call you.”

Reiv’s scowl deepens; he does not lift his head. If only the damn thane would shut his mouth.

“Reiv?” Colbrun’s hand reaches the nape of his neck and fingers curl into ruined braids.

“You are my husband and the Thane of Garris,” Reiv says, tone clipped. “Call me as you wish.”

“I wish to call you as you would wish me to,” Colbrun says firmly, and Reiv does lift his head, then. If the thane wishes to play at civility mere minutes after displaying the true extent of his carnality, then Reiv will have to indulge him.

“It isn’t a dirty word,” Reiv mutters. “Wife.” He looks away. “Why should it be any less a title than ‘husband?’”

“It shouldn’t be,” Colbrun agrees quietly, stroking his hair. But it is, at least to the Hendhar, he doesn’t say.

“I’m not a woman,” Reiv says.

Colbrun makes a quiet sound. “I know.” He raises an eyebrow. “I only lie with men, after all.”

Reiv blinks, all at once wide awake. “Oh.” Colbrun chuckles, and rolls Reiv down onto the furs beside them, separating their joining in the process. Reiv hisses, and Colbrun kisses him in contrition, pressing his palm gently between Reiv’s thighs where seed drips out in thin rivulets. Reiv lets him; the touch is somehow comforting; it’s lazy, purposeless.

“What do your people call you?” Colbrun asks, not a single note of mockery in his voice. He’s just asking, genuinely seeking an answer. Reiv relaxes as much as he is able, given the circumstances.

“They call me Reiv, son of Enda,” he says. “They call me the peace-weaver.”

“Simple enough,” Colbrun says, and pushes Reiv’s hair out of his face. “Shall I call you husband, then? Would that be alright?”

Reiv’s heart thuds hard against his ribcage. “But others will not –”

“Others do not matter, husband,” Colbrun says, gaze dangerous, and in that moment Reiv can picture him leading the charge across a blood-soaked battlefield in perfect, awful clarity.

Reiv swallows, and nods. “You may call me both,” he says when he regains his voice, “for the other Hendhar will call me your wife anyway, and it will be less painful if you call me as such around them.”

“And why is that?”

“I don’t think you’d say it like an insult,” Reiv whispers, and sits up, moving away from him. He stares at the rug on the floor and curls his toes into the soft gray wool. The worst part is that he believes his words to be the truth--already the thane had proven more...amenable to Reiv’s distinctions than Reiv had ever hoped. He had been so prepared to be called ‘woman’ and ‘wife’ and ‘mother.’ The Hendharn did not see gender for what it was, after all. All Perdithians knew this. 

It would be so much easier to fuel hatred for the man if he fell into the same category. 

“Never,” Colbrun says, and lays his hand over Reiv’s arm. “Come back to bed. You must be tired.”

Reiv shakes him off and stands. “Where is the washroom?”

Colbrun begins to sit up. “Just to the left of the antechamber – I can call the servants to draw up a bath –”

“No,” Reiv says. “That won’t be necessary, thank you.” He retrieves his wedding cloak from the floor and wraps it around himself for some semblance of decency. When he glances over his shoulder, Colbrun has not moved an inch, though his head is tilted and his brow furrowed. “I won’t be long,” Reiv says, and leaves the bedroom on unsteady legs.

He’s already sore from the day’s ride to Colbrun’s keep, but the full extent of his exertion does not hit him until he closes the door to the washroom behind himself and nearly collapses against the washbasin, thighs trembling from the effort of keeping himself upright.

After a moment of internal battle with himself, Reiv admits defeat and slumps down onto the floor gingerly. With some trepidation, Reiv twists to look between his legs, where a dull but bone-deep ache spreads and throbs in time with his heartbeat. He holds his breath and feels at his aching hole, but when he lifts his fingers to the candlelight, he’s surprised to find no red nor pink among the silver-white.

Reiv frowns. His mother had warned him to expect blood. He does not know how he feels, exactly, about Colbrun not fulfilling this warning despite being more than capable of doing so.

He settles on relief, then forgets about relief entirely as he staggers to his feet and slides two fingers inside himself with a full-body wince, gathering as much of the remaining seed as he can, and letting it drip into the empty washbasin. He knows he needs only a few drops, but he won’t risk this failing. First time’s a charm.

He reaches then for a splinter protruding from the oaken beams of the dark walls, and pricks his thumb with it, letting the single scarlet drop fall into the basin, also. He swears the candles flare, just for a moment. Reiv closes his eyes, centering himself and the pound of his heart, rabbit-quick, and whispers the words he memorized mere hours after receiving the title of peace-weaver a month ago. He must not forget them, cannot, for he will not find them in any Hendharn text; they would have been burned long ago. Even among the Perdith, they are hidden carefully.

Children, after all, are things one prays for, not away.

But Reiv is not praying. In the wash basin, the mixed fluids darken into a brightening red, brighter and brighter until it looks more like the thane’s ruby than blood. Reiv repeats the words a little louder, as loud as he dares, and places both hands over his flat belly, squeezing his eyes shut. His palms warm, and against his skin glow with a faint brilliance like moonlight, before the ruby puddle in the washbasin bursts into violent violet flame, and snuffs out in an instant, destroying the evidence.

All the candles in the washroom snuff out with it, plunging Reiv into darkness.

He stands at the washbasin alone, and presses a weary hand to his face, wondering if he should feel remorse. But again, he feels only relief. He thinks it worked, though only time will tell.

Reiv sways on his feet and reaches for the door before he loses the ability to walk altogether. By the time he makes it back to the bedroom, he’s limping, and of course Colbrun notices. Much to Reiv’s chagrin, the thane rises and hurries to him when he takes a moment to brace himself on the doorframe. Reiv glares at his feet. “I am perfectly capable of walking on my own –”

Colbrun scoops him up as if he is no more than a particularly pouty paperweight. “Of course, my husband,” Colbrun says, lips quirked. “But I want to hold you in my arms, if you would deign to allow me the honor.”

Reiv curls up as best as he’s able. “There is no honor in this,” he says under his breath.

Colbrun crosses the room in three strides and lays him down on the bed – the soiled furs have been replaced, Reiv notices vaguely. The new ones are softer, and gray-white. Wolf, perhaps?

Colbrun blows out the candles and lies down beside him, covering them both with the soft blankets. Reiv wonders how many died for the gold to build this bed, this keep, this man.

“There is great honor in this,” Colbrun whispers, his face both too close and too far away in the darkness. “Peace-weaver is hardly a title without weight, and neither is wife, especially wife of a thane of the Hendhar.”

“I am not Hendhar,” Reiv whispers. “I will never be Hendhar.” He figures if his husband is to slit his throat for disloyalty, it might as well be tonight.

But Colbrun only lifts his hand to cup Reiv’s face. “Then I will have to honor you here as best I can all by myself,” he whispers back.

Reiv rolls over, away from the faint and earnest gleam of gray eyes. “Goodnight, husband,” he says to the far wall.

The bed dips as Colbrun moves away, allowing Reiv a measured space between them, at least for now. “Goodnight, Reiv,” Colbrun says.