Envious Of Fire (Kissing With Teeth #2)

12. I Am a Game They Must Win.

—?—

Tristan moves quickly down a long stone corridor, one side opened with artificial sunlight and a view of the mountains, and his movement slows. This is the last place he spoke to Kyle before using his Lull on him and sending him back to his life.

He thinks of Kyle cuddling with Elias in a bed. Laughing at his jokes. Making each other breakfast. Stirring a spoon in a cup of tasteless coffee, playing the roles of two human lovers.

Why do these thoughts irritate Tristan so deeply?

“Oh, to find you here,” comes George’s lofty voice. Tristan looks up, not having been paying attention to who approaches from ahead. “I am quite busy,” he states in a pompous tone. “It so happens I am on a scavenger hunt of sorts. Oh, oh … but I am not allowed to say much else,” he then adds, lifting a finger, “except that it is for an important … and secretive … matter.”

Tristan wipes the sleepiness out of his eyes. What he wouldn’t give for a pillow right now. Ah, I so wish I could be special enough to know this most interesting and vital scavenger hunt you are on .

“Regrettably, I have already said too much.” George titters to himself, appearing delighted with Tristan’s curiosity. “I am almost done with my assignment. It is a tricky, dangerous assignment that I have been entrusted with. Ah, but again, I reveal too much. My apologies that you must be excluded from this. Really, it is for the best that you don’t know. Ah, but I think you’d wish you knew.”

Tristan plays his own role well, feigning disappointment. I do hope your mission is not too dangerous, my friend .

“We aren’t friends .” George frowns. “But you’ll wish we were. I tell my friends my secrets. I must complete my task soon, so I haven’t the time to waste with idle conversation. Off I go.” He saunters smugly down the corridor, stripes of shadow falling over him as he passes the columns eclipsing the artificial sunlight.

Tristan watches him for some time, amusement curling his lips, enjoying George’s manufactured sense of importance. To his back, Tristan says, I do hope you’re successful in your mission .

More than just George’s ego counts on it.

As Tristan continues the other way down the corridor, he lifts his wrist, bites off another bead, then suffers the bitter taste as he thinks of a face and of a name. Each time he eats one, he imagines it’s another healthy thing he fussed about as a child. This is for your own good , he tells himself, pretending to be his own father, eat your vegetables, little Tris, be a good boy . It never helps the taste.

But there are only a few left.

Before he realizes it, he stands in the featureless white foyer again. “Lord Markadian will see you now,” recites Miss May.

Tristan offers each a groggy smile. I am glad my addition of the two vases to this room have remained . It was far too bare in here, and these vases are now safe from Markadian’s acute throwing arm .

Miss May does not respond.

“I’m not in the mood,” states Markadian the second Tristan enters the office. “And where the fuck is George, exactly?”

Masturbating in the library to photographs of crown molding .

“I’m the one who gives him tasks. What the fuck task is he doing if not one I’ve assigned him? I swear, if he’s seeking out yet another goddamned hourglass …”

Your stress level, Markadian, it does concern me . Have you tried meditation? By meditation, I mean floating in a warm bathtub filled with hemp oil, circled by candles, a radio playing theta waves …

“Always jokes . I’m not in the mood for jokes . What are you? My court jester?” Despite the outburst, Markadian gently leans against his desk, brings fingers to the bridge of his nose, and begins massaging away a migraine as he takes a breath.

After a moment, Tristan comes up to the desk, hops onto it next to Markadian, and the two remain silent for a while, only the sound of their measured breaths filling the office.

Then Markadian drops his hands. “Cindy says hi.”

Tristan peers at him. Cindy?

“Director Cindy from the Dallasade domain, who else? She barely had time to talk, always busy with those nuisances in Texas she has to deal with every full moon.” He gives Tristan a withering look. “But maybe you already know of such matters, having lived there yourself for over two and a half decades.”

Tristan hears the accusation in his words. He suspects he’ll be hearing that accusation over and over for years. I know you may never forgive me for leaving …

“Who said anything about your leaving?” asks Markadian dryly. “I was talking about full moons in Texas.”

This place has changed so much in my absence , Tristan goes on. I loved working here, for you . I loved to be the person you counted on . I guess maybe I … just wanted a change for myself .

“You think I didn’t appreciate you enough? Is that why you went off to entertain a life with that Texan jock? To see if you could score better? How embarrassing. You had it best here. I saved you from hell, I protected you, I gave you everything.” Markadian delivers his words like an afterthought, little anger left in them. “I still wonder what you saw in him,” he goes on, softer. “Was it his blood? Nearly had a taste of it myself … if you hadn’t shown up to that trial like a hero to save his life.” He folds his arms, the starchy fabric of his dress shirt crinkling softly against his chest. “You wouldn’t do that for anyone else on this planet. Why him? Why … Kyle?”

After peering down at his dangling legs over the edge of the desk, Tristan closes his eyes, as if searching for the answer. Maybe it’s more than just appreciation, or blood, or change . I wanted to capture something I had lost . I spent many years blaming my parents — my real ones, not my creators — for not rescuing me . I know now that it would have been impossible, but when I was young, I was certain my father would find me . As each night passed, I had assumed he gave up, turned his attention onto my sisters . I wonder how long they lived, if their lives were happy … if they had children . Can you imagine that? What if I am an uncle, or a great uncle, to mortal offspring I have never even met? Uncle Tristan … A frown creases his face, his eyes still closed. Or maybe I have none, my sisters having never married, never birthing children … and I’m truly alone in the world … every last drop of my mortal blood, of my relatives, gone, in the ground, to dust …

“You’ve a way with words, Tristan, always luring me away from where I’m getting at. You never do what you’re told. You never obey even when you do. Maybe it’s why I fell for you.”

Tristan opens his eyes at the words.

He’s seated on the edge of a wall, impossibly tall, thousands of feet high, nothing but huge clouds and a distant city far below him. It’s in the middle of the day. Sun shining over him, blinding.

Tristan is in awe, all his sleepiness gone in an instant. Your talent never ceases to amaze me, Markadian, Lord of Vegasyn .

Markadian smiles. His eyes twinkle in a specifically handsome way when he lets himself smile so freely without the restraint of his position. It’s a smile Tristan misses.

Is he any different than the others? Despite thinking himself immune, is Tristan in truth just another person in a long line of desperate people craving Markadian’s attention and approval?

Tristan peels his eyes from the sight below and glances at Markadian, who sits atop this mountainous wall with him. His question comes out carefully: Do you … still love me?

Markadian’s smile slowly fades, but the twinkle remains in his eyes, hopeful, shimmering in the simulated sunshine. “Everyone in my life sees me as a game they must win … except you. You’ve been the only one I can trust. Even after you betray me, somehow, I find myself compelled to trust you even still. I wonder why.”

Tristan maintains eye contact with him, enjoying the familiar feeling of Markadian’s fond gaze. I am not driven by ambition .

“Then what drives you? We are all driven by something.”

Peering into his eyes, Tristan can’t help but remember all the days that went by where he walked about this place as light as air, proud of his duties, feeling special, important, purposeful and needed—just like George. Markadian radiates a commanding, all-encompassing strength right now that Tristan finds so admirable. No man in his life had shown him a form of strength without weaponry before—the strength of mere words and presence.

Markadian places a hand on Tristan’s thigh, gives it a soft rub, sliding like melting ice cream toward the inner side. With no hesitation, Tristan lets his legs part slightly, eyes still upon Markadian’s, an invitation. The soft hand slowly slides up at a glacial speed, until it reaches something that pleases them both. Tristan lets out a soft breath. Markadian’s eyes gleam.

Their faces draw close.

Markadian’s lips part. Lips Tristan knows well. A distinct shape, like a gummy heart squished by playful fingers, plump and perfect, tastier than any real candy, twice as enticing.

“I think I know what drives you,” mutters Markadian, “but I won’t dare say. I wonder if someday, your spell over me … will break. You will come to learn quickly that my love for you was, in fact, finite. My love may run out, and I will have no space in my heart to forgive you again.”

I will not deserve your forgiveness , agrees Tristan.

“Do you know how much it hurt me?” asks Markadian, as his face tightens, creasing with tension, and even that tension is somehow aesthetically flawless, exquisitely artful in its anguish, eyes like gems, round and beautiful and bottomless. “Could you even measure how much pain I felt, to find you had left … and then to discover what you left me for?”

Immeasurable , says Tristan, still drawing closer to his lips.

“I may never know what it was about that … unremarkable Kyle … that so inspired you to throw it all away.”

My Lord Markadian …

“He’s just a boy,” he hisses, “just a boy with a pretty face, just a mediocre boy …”

Mediocre boys with pretty faces are the only reason we still exist , Tristan returns, bringing a hand to the back of Markadian’s head pulling him close. Otherwise, we’d have met the sun decades ago …

“I think I miss you, Tristan.”

Not enough . Tristan goes in for a kiss.

But Markadian stops him with a hand to the chest.

The two become a statue on the world’s tallest wall, a work of ancient art, eyes upon eyes, lips hovering before lips, ripe with certain tension.

Tristan winces. Too soon …?

Markadian just stares back, the illusionary sunlight burning in his eyes. Then he looks away, a ghost of satisfaction in his eyes as he gazes into the horizon he created. Tristan, after a lingering look at Markadian, admiring his handsomeness and strength, soon does the same. There the night leaves them, two men who once sat atop the world together, staring into the beautiful unknown.