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It has been eight days since the Bastion spy died. An unwise time, all considered, to be found spying himself; Calendau is well aware of what he’s risking, to be in his commander’s private study unattended at this hour of the night. He has an advantage, in that he is known and sort-of-trusted and also has a much greater understanding of the magical protections Eiquem uses than that unfortunate woman did—but that hardly makes this clever. It is, he knows, the act of a desperate man.
It has been eight days since the Bastion spy died. It has been three days since Calendau saw Casarie through the Split. He is a desperate man.
He has disarmed the alarm spells without any trouble: weeks ago he had stolen a key, lifting it silently from a superior’s personal effects in a theft that has now been blamed handily on the dead spy. The drawers and cupboards of the desk, too, he has unlocked—a simple pick—and hunted through for all the false backs and bottoms—activated by a touch of Eiquem’s personal magical signature, which Calendau can replicate not through innate ability but through long study and carefully secret rituals. He is rifling now not through the Harbingers’ plans, or their spies’ reports, or the coded letters on the movements of their fellows, but the closely guarded magical documents Eiquem keeps hidden behind a false drawer. Eiquem was one of the chief architects of the ritual that created the Split, which is why Calendau made the effort to be put under his command in the first place. These papers, in part, explain how he did it.
In the report Calendau stole from Alouarn, there had been an intriguing tidbit—barely mentioned, more a side note than anything else—about a theory some of the Bastions have on how they might not close the Split, but stabilize it. It was enough to set Calendau’s imagination on fire. If he can put together a better sense of how the Split was created, he might well be able to find a way to hold it steady by himself.
He’s not trying to read the documents—that would take far too long. Instead he is merely copying them, using a recording crystal much like the one he stole from Alouarn’s reports. Knowing that there is every chance he will be interrupted, he has started with the papers that seem the most important: the manuscript that looks to be the basis for the ritual, followed by several sheafs of Eiquem’s personal notes. Sure enough, he has just finished copying the first few pages of notes when there is the creak of a footstep in the hall outside the door.
Calendau is practiced in his illicit activities. Within seconds the papers are back where he found them, locked safely in their hidden compartment, and he is across the room and concealed within the alcove behind a tapestry. By the time the door swings open and those measured footsteps make their way into the room, everything is exactly as it was.
The door closes. The footsteps advance, slowly, to the centre of the floor. No lamps are lit; the room is dark, and utterly still. Calendau regulates his breathing, slowing it to silence.
“I know you’re here,” a voice says at last. It’s a deep voice, low and resonant, rich with command: it is Eiquem, just as Calendau suspected. “Come out and I may spare you. There are very few places to hide from me in my own study.”
Calendau does not come out. Few places to hide, indeed, but he has a charm that should conceal him, even from direct observation, as long as he stays hidden in the shadows.
Eiquem says nothing more for a long minute, and then says again, “You want to come out.” His voice has changed—gained a lilting quality, layered with magical harmonies. It’s a mesmer: a rare and difficult form of magecraft that can influence the actions of anyone who hears it. Calendau doesn’t move. He has a charm for that too, to mitigate the effects of any form of compulsion magic. It can’t block everything—requires, still, an active resistance—but it has always been enough to keep his mind his own before: even, on occasion, against Eiquem. He has no reason to worry.
He doesn’t understand, for a very long moment, why he has stepped out from behind the tapestry and stopped at the centre of the room, squarely in the middle of the spill of moonlight from the window.
Eiquem’s voice is cold, betraying neither surprise nor vindication. “Calendau,” he says. “I suppose I can’t say it’s a shock to find you here.”
“No,” Calendau agrees. His thoughts are so muddy. But Eiquem was always suspicious of the story he’d used to buy his way back into the Harbingers, for good reason: he does know that much.
Eiquem just gives him a flat look. “Who was it who suborned you?” he says. “Or have you been theirs from the beginning? Tell me who you’re working for.”
Calendau blinks once, syrupy and slow. “No one suborned me,” he says. “I’m not working for anyone.”
A crease of annoyance mars Eiquem’s brow, and his power slams down on Calendau. “Do you think you can fight me off? You’re not a mage. Tell me. Who are you spying for?”
“I’m not a spy,” Calendau says. He feels like he’s floating somewhere just above his body, but he’s certain of that. And he’s telling the truth, which is all Eiquem wants—Eiquem should be happy with him.
But Eiquem is decidedly not happy. “Stop resisting,” he snaps, and a fresh wave of power swamps Calendau entirely. There is a shattering sensation somewhere in the vicinity of his mesmer charm, and abruptly he finds himself adrift, pleasantly drunk on compulsion. “Who are you protecting?”
“I’m not—I’m not protecting anyone,” Calendau says. He’s so confused. “I’m not a spy. I wanted it for myself. I have to know, so I can—so I—” He trails off, unable to keep track of his thoughts. “I need the Split to be—I need it to work.”
Eiquem seems to relent at that, his expression fading from anger to a faintly annoyed curiosity—though it’s hard to tell, with how hazy Calendau’s head is. “What do you want, Calendau?” he says.
That, at least, is a question with an easy answer. “Whatever you want me to want,” Calendau says.
Eiquem laughs at that, quiet and low and not at all kind. “Oh, is that so,” he says, and points at the floor in front of him. “Come here, then.”
Calendau obeys, stopping directly in front of Eiquem. He’s close enough to feel his body heat, close enough to meet his eyes directly, close enough to count the white magic-marks that dust thickly across his cheeks. Eiquem has a scar in the corner of his mouth; it pulls his lips slightly off-centre, twists his words just enough to give his voice a distinctively flat affect. His cheekbones are so sharp they look like they could cut.
“No,” Eiquem says, soft and dangerous, and points to the floor again. “Kneel.”
Calendau goes to his knees with a hard thump.
Eiquem laughs again; now it sounds outright cruel. “The mesmer hits you hard, doesn’t it?” he says, winding his hand through Calendau’s hair. “Harder than it used to, as I recall. You were always so good at shrugging it off before.” He tugs at Calendau’s scalp, rubbing one snow-white, magic-marked lock between his fingers. “Something to do with this, perhaps.”
Calendau sways forward. Even in the dark, and in the darkness of Eiquem’s clothes, it’s obvious what he wants. His cock is a hard line of heat in Calendau’s face. He’s so clearly getting off on having Calendau under his control.
Calendau nearly whines. “Please,” he says. “Let me—”
“Yes, I know,” Eiquem says. “You want whatever I want you to want. Well, I want you to open that pretty mouth of yours and stick out your tongue like a good slut, so I can fuck your face.”
Calendau does whine then. He opens his mouth and sticks out his tongue, and waits for Eiquem to fuck him.
Eiquem’s cock, when he pulls it out of his trousers, is nothing special—maybe a bit bigger than Calendau would have expected, from how skinny he is, but still entirely average. It doesn’t feel average, though, when he lines it up with Calendau’s mouth and yanks him down onto it by the grip on his hair. It feels perfect.
Calendau has no idea how long he sits there, knees aching, hands clutching desperately at Eiquem’s thighs, gagging deliriously on his cock as he thrusts ruthlessly into his throat. He already felt like he was floating, and now he can barely remember to breathe unless he’s forced to; time, it turns out, is a shockingly malleable concept. All he knows is the dazed, overwhelming pleasure of being used in exactly the way Eiquem wants to use him. If Eiquem wants a good slut, that’s exactly what Calendau will be.
Eiquem gives him no warning before he comes, spilling down his throat and all across his tongue. Calendau nearly gags again, come leaking from the corners of his mouth, but then Eiquem says in a tone that brooks no argument, “Swallow,” and Calendau does. He licks his lips clean, wipes his face with the back of his hand and licks that clean too, and lifts his eyes to Eiquem as he takes in heaving breaths.
Whatever Eiquem sees in his face makes him groan with arousal. “Fuck,” he says breathlessly, and then brushes two fingers down his pelvis and along the length of his cock. His erection, which was starting to go soft, fills again immediately. “Get up,” he says, “and bend over the desk.”
Calendau scrambles to obey, his legs nearly giving out beneath him before he catches himself on the edge of the desk. He bends over it as instructed, his ass raised enticingly, and Eiquem wastes no time in yanking his trousers down. The cool air of the study throws into sharp relief just how wet he is: he can feel it prickling over the exposed opening of his cunt.
Eiquem drags his fingers through Calendau’s folds, pushing three of them inside him all at once. “You’re sopping,” he says. “You slut. Fuck, I’ve always wanted to do this, you’re too pretty for your own good. You want it so bad, don’t you?”
It has been so long since Calendau had anyone’s hand inside him but his own, and it’s nowhere near enough. He makes a strangled sound, clenching down around Eiquem’s fingers. “Yes,” he gasps. It’s what Eiquem wants, so he wants it too. “Fuck me, fuck me, please, I want it—”
Eiquem pulls his hand out and crams his cock inside him with no hesitation at all, and Calendau shouts.
He had forgotten how it felt. He had forgotten how good it was to have something inside him, stretching him out just barely on the edge of pain, pounding into him roughly and rubbing at his entrance with delicious, all-consuming friction. With another inarticulate noise, he tilts his hips up, meeting Eiquem’s thrusts with a desperate rocking of his own. Snarling, Eiquem clamps his hand down on the back of Calendau’s neck, shoving his face down into the desk. He speeds up. The wet slap of flesh on flesh fills the air of the study.
Calendau loses track of how many times he comes. At least three, he thinks fuzzily, but it all blurs together in an endless rush of sensation. He has no idea how many times Eiquem comes inside him, either: every time he does, he just repeats the rejuvenation spell and keeps right on fucking him. It could be an hour or more before he finally slows to a stop and allows Calendau to collapse to the floor, shivery with overstimulation and absolutely dripping come all down his legs.
“Fuck,” Eiquem says, one last time, with feeling, and staggers to a seat in the nearest chair.
Calendau doesn’t move, gradually catching his breath and regaining control of his body. His head is slowly clearing as well; to keep himself from panicking as he comes to realize what he just did, he catalogues his mental faculties as, one by one, they return to him.
Hm, he thinks, looking at the angle of the moonlight on the floor of the study. More than an hour, he’s fairly sure. Perhaps even more than two.
He doesn’t think about it.
Eventually he peels himself off the floor, fighting not to grimace at the sticky puddle of fluids leaking out of him or the fresh wash of wetness that spills down his thighs. Ignoring it, he pulls his trousers back up over his legs, getting carefully to his feet. Subtly he checks through his assorted talismans and tools; aside from the mesmer charm, which shattered under the weight of Eiquem’s power, they are all in place. He turns to look at Eiquem.
“So,” he says. “Now what?”
Eiquem is sprawled across an armchair, sated and smug. He hasn’t put his cock away; it’s carelessly exposed, soft and pretty and still glistening with wetness at the tip, and Calendau is sick with how much he wants to put it back in his mouth. Eiquem catches him looking, and gives him a cruelly knowing glance.
“Well, you’re not a spy,” he says.
“No,” Calendau agrees.
“You’re no ally to the Bastion?”
“Not that either.”
“You want my secrets for some unnamed agenda of your own, I suppose.”
“Yes.”
“Don’t think I won’t find out what it is,” Eiquem says. “You take the mesmer much better than you used to, pretty boy.”
Calendau swallows down a wave of nausea. He recalls the way Eiquem said I’ve always wanted to do this. “If you want a slut for your own personal use,” he says, “you don’t have to mesmerize me. I’ll do it in exchange for information.” He is astonished at how even his voice comes out.
“Tempting,” Eiquem says: soft, cold. “Or, perhaps you could consider instead: I’ll give you the information you want, but it’s up to me to decide if I mesmerize you or not.”
“Deal,” Calendau says immediately.
Again: he doesn’t think about it.
Eiquem laughs, meanly victorious. “Incredible. You really are desperate.” He sweeps his eyes lecherously over Calendau’s body; Calendau does not give him the satisfaction of recoiling. “Now leave. You can keep whatever it was that you stole. Consider yourself paid up for today.”
Not trusting himself to speak, Calendau stalks out of the room. Horror threatens to swamp him; he shoves it back down. He feels sick, and dirty, and—beneath it all, to his shame and dismay—still desperately aroused. He needs a bath; he can feel the filthy slide of come still dripping out of him. The worst part of everything that just happened is that some part of him, independent of his utilitarian goals, wants to do it again.
For Casarie, he reminds himself. If he can just get her back, this will all have been worth it.