“Well, I almost got married off to a blooded boy with the personality of a hairbrush, and who would’ve put babies in me that could’ve been taken away and fattened up before they were fed to the See, so…” Kajja feigned deep thought unconvincingly. “I’d say I know plenty.”
“What happened?” Hendrik asked. She had left all that out of her story, last night, and in his relief to see her (and probably also to get Dagan into bed, if he was being honest), he’d forgotten to ask. “To the marriage?”
“No one knew where you were. Everything froze, they said just until we were sure which elite corps you were in. But he couldn’t marry a girl from Mid-District if she didn’t have a fancy guard for a brother, could he?” Kajja smiled though. “So, thanks. Because fuck that.”
Hen raised his carafe of water to drink to that.
“You were engaged?” Innan asked.
Kajja nodded. “It was terrifying. It’s scary enough even if you know the man, I think. A cage within a cage, really.”
“Is it hard to talk about?” Innan asked.
Kajja shook her head. “Oh no, nothing is, really. Just glad I escaped, is all.”
Innan leaned their delicate chin on one hand and their elbow on the table. “We don’t have formal marriage, in the Heart Wood, but people can pledge to each other, if they want to become a family.”
“Really? So how do you keep track of who’s who? And who their parents are?”
“It’s simple, really…”
Hendrik tuned them out and buried his face in Dagan’s hair again. “I’m sorry. If I was…a lot, earlier today.”
“Me too.” Dagan squeezed his leg again and turned his face to kiss him quickly.
“What did you do?”
He laughed. “I suggested you’d have to chase me down and fight me.”
“Oh.” Hendrik laughed, too, but then went serious again. “I don’t want you to go there, Dagan.”
“Shh, don’t fuss over it now. Why don’t we get you to bed?”
“You’re beautiful,” Hendrik said with yet another, deeper sigh.
Innan and Kajja looked up from whatever their intense conversation was to wave goodnight. Dagan steered Hendrik out of the hall and back into the wooden cottage at the edge of the market.
*
The sunlight somehow hurt through Hendrik’s eyelids. It shouldn’t be possible, it couldn’t, and yet the filtered orangey glow was like an iron spike through his eye. “Fuck me,” he mumbled, throwing an arm over his eyes.
“Like a pale flower unfurling its petals to catch the morning sun,” Dagan sing-songed from beside him.
“Ugh.” Hen took a deep breath to try and still the thudding in his skull. “Did I get into a fight?”
“Only with yourself, sweetheart. Rather, with a cask of elderberry wine.”
“I hate wine.”
Dagan chuckled and curled into his side, resting his head against Hen’s shoulder. Hen wrapped his free arm around him, keeping the other over his eyes.
The day before slowly unwound in his memory, foggy but intact. “How bad was I?”
“You were very charming. Apart from telling us we’re all going to die.”
“Ugh. I’m sorry.”
Dagan drew lazy circles against Hen’s belly with his fingertips. “There’s truth in wine.”
“What?”
“It’s an old saying. People speak more truth when they’re in their cups,” Dagan mused. “It’s not always accurate, but I think it was last night.”
Hendrik, who still absolutely thought that they were all going to die if they had anything to do with the Council’s half-baked plans to infiltrate and eventually free the Stone City, didn’t respond for a moment. Then, finally, he said, “I’m sorry, really. I don’t usually do that.”
“It’s a good stress-reliever, now and then. I can’t wait to do it with you, next time.” Dagan continued his little drawings, moving downward to toy with Hendrik’s happy trail.
Hen’s cock gave a little jump. It was hard when he woke, to one degree or another, and today was no exception. “Next year maybe.” Hendrik uncovered his eyes and squinted them open. “It really must’ve been a whole cask.”
“Not quite but near enough.” Dagan kissed his neck, hand sliding just a little lower. “Do you know what’s good for a headache, darling?”
“An orgasm?” he asked hopefully.
“You read my mind. Just lie back and let me do all the work. You’ll feel better in no time.”
*
Thankfully, the hangover cleared out completely after lunch, at which Hen ate like a starving man. They’d missed the morning’s reading session; Dagan had claimed that he also had a headache, when in fact he’d been sucking dick and fetching mint tea and generally being far kinder than Hendrik deserved after making such an idiot of himself.
