Ellen Datlow - Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers

She looked at me for a moment, then she took in a breath and blew it out again with the noise that children make when they pretend to be the wind. Her breath smelled like salt and oranges. The door shut between us.

“What happened?” Saree growled when I found him.

“The prince asked me to escort her back to her rooms,” I said evenly.

“Where did you find her? Her servants have been looking for her for hours.”

“In the hallway near the armory.” It was the farthest place from the cellars that I could think of.

“Oh, really?” he rumbled. “She just happened to appear in the armory hallway soaking wet and there you were?”

“Yessir,” I answered. “Honestly, sir, I didn’t even know who she was until we met you. I just didn’t think that she should be—I mean—”

He relaxed. “I know what you mean, no need to say any more. But we’d like to know where she disappears to.” I stayed quiet, and he lost interest in me. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?” he said, and I saluted and got out of his sight as quickly as I could. My head was too stuffed full of tangled thoughts to make any sense of anything, and I didn’t want to deal with Ro and Lucky and Brax until I felt clear. I took myself off into Lemon City for a long walk and did, in the end, get my wish: I got lost.

It was late when I came back to our rooms. The quad was there, and so was Andavista. They all wore the most peculiar expressions: Lucky was trying to send me seventeen different messages with eyes and body language, but all I got was the general impression that a lot had been going on while I’d been away. Then I looked beyond her, and saw the carrybags we’d brought with us all the way from the crossroads, packed now and waiting to be closed up.

“No, you idiot,” Brax said. “Your things are in there too, we’re being transferred. Don’t look at me like that, everyone knows what you’re thinking, we can always tell.”

“Ummm,” I said helplessly, and Ro grinned. Andavista stood up from where he’d been sitting, in our only chair. “Very touching. Sort it out later. You, I’ve just about run out of patience waiting for you but I’ve got direct orders to fetch you all personally and I suppose I can be thankful you didn’t decide to stay out all night. Particularly since this lot wouldn’t say where you could be found.” He squinted at me. “Well, at least you’re not stupid enough to turn up drunk. Now, all of you, get your things and follow me.”

He stomped out of the room and we scrambled to shoulder our gear and follow him. I shooed Lucky out of the way and picked up our biggest pack. “Get away from that, you can’t carry it with your leg.” She grimaced impatiently. “What’s going on?” I whispered.

“You tell me,” she whispered back. “All we got is some wild story at dinner about you and the prince, and then Andavista saying he’s giving us a new home and everyone who’s not on watch finding an excuse to wander by our rooms and goggle at us.”

“Shut up and move,” Andavista snarled without turning, so we did, Ro and I carrying everything between us while Brax braced Lucky with her good arm. Of course I knew where we must be going, but I could scarcely credit it: I’d only been nice, and certainly more free in my manner man what was due to her. But I was right: We went through the by-now-familiar wooden doors and into a room just beyond, where sleepy-eyed servants were busily beating the dust out of a rug and several coverlets, with a new fire in the hearth and a pitcher of mulled wine on a mostly-clean table. And my overshirt, carefully folded on the mantel.

Andavista said, “You’ve been assigned as the prince’s personal guard. You’re with her wherever she goes, all of you, which means more time on duty than before. She breakfasts at midmorning, you two—” looking at me and Ro—“report to her then. If she forgets to let you out for meals, let me know. I expect a full report every day from one of you, personally to either me or Saree, no exceptions. You’ll go back to teaching when you’re all off the sick list, at least until you’ve got others good enough to take over. Where you find the time is your problem. And don’t get above yourselves, I’ll be watching. And don’t let so much as a mouse near her,” he added, in a different tone. Then he glared around the room and left. The servants scuttled out behind him.

My three pounced on me with questions before the door was closed. “Wait, wait,” I said, trying to gather my wits while Ro poured us a cup of wine. I told them about meeting the prince between hot swallows, curiously content even though we all knew why I’d been downcellar in the first place, the unfinished business between us.

“Unbelievable,” Lucky said. “How do you do it, Mars?”

Brax said, “I wouldn’t go planting any gardens here, Luck. She’s thrown out more guards than we have ancestors. She could change her mind anytime.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “She’s never taken a personal guard before that I know of, just the shift watches outside the door. Can you imagine some of our mates in the barracks standing outside the conservatory doors while she… She’d have been a laughingstock years ago.”

“So why now?” Ro said.

“I understand her.” They looked at me. “Maybe I’m mad too, I don’t know, but seeing her dance—you know what I think? I think she wants someone to share with. I told her she was beautiful, and she was. Maybe no one else ever has. But whatever you think of her, you mustn’t—you mustn’t hurt her.”

“Oh, Mars,” Lucky said sadly. “Of course we won’t.”

“I know, I’m sorry. It’s just—”

“We know what it is,” Ro said. “And we decided we didn’t want to talk about it until you and Lucky and Brax are better. And that’s the end of it,” he said as I opened my mouth to speak. “Now, who gets the bed nearest the fire?”

We and the prince began getting used to each other. She spent a lot of time watching us; it was a bit unnerving at first. She tested us in little ways. She led us on some incredible expeditions into the belly of the palace. She seemed more and more trusting of us; but she did not dance. She seemed to be waiting for something.

And so was I. Every extra arc of motion that returned to Brax’s arm was one step closer to all my worst fears. By unspoken agreement, we did not practice, and the others stopped making love in front of me. There was a particular kind of tension between us that I could not define, but that made me miserable when I let myself think about what it all might mean, and what I had to lose. I wondered if the prince felt it and thought it was directed at her: It made me try even harder to be easy and gentle with her, who’d had so much less than I.

Ro and I came back to our rooms one night to find Lucky and Brax already toasting each other with a mug of beer from a barrel swiped on our last trip to the cellars. “Back on duty tomorrow,” Lucky grinned around a mouthful of foam. “Hoo hoo!” She poured, and we all drank. I felt numb.

“Oh, sweet Mars,” Ro said, “don’t look like that. Don’t you know we see right through you?” Then he took my cup away and opened his arms and folded me into himself, and Lucky and Brax were behind me, gathering me in, stripping off my clothes and theirs. “I don’t know if I can—” I began to say, and Brax murmured, “Shut up, Mars.” Then Ro shifted his weight and sent me backwards into Brax’s waiting arms, and she pinned me down for a lightning second while she brushed her breast against my mouth, and then rolled us so that I was on top and Ro’s arms came around me in a lock, and I hesitated and he whispered Go on and I turned the way we’d taught ourselves and felt his thigh slide across my back and heard his breath hitch, and mine hitched too. And then it was Lucky with her leg across mine, strength to strength, my heart beating faster and faster, everything a blue-heat fire from my groin to the tips of my fingers. They traded me back and forth like that for some endless time, and each moment that they controlled me they would take some pleasure for themselves, a tongue in my mouth or a wristlock that placed my hand on some part of them that would make them moan; and I moaned too, and then answered their technique with one of my own and changed the dance. Then Brax reached for Ro, and Lucky and I continued while beyond us they brought each other to shouts; and then Lucky was gone to Brax and it was Ro with me, whispering Best me if you can, and then Brax with her strong arms; until finally the world stopped shuddering and we lay in a heap together in front of the fire. And later some of us cried, and were comforted.