A DRINK BEFORE BATTLE (MxM)

The following midday found Sevei with his little band of confidantes perusing the stalls along the street where Kyrzhan’s shop was located, killing a bit of time before their appointed meeting. As they strolled along, Sevei couldn’t help but steal repeated glances at Yeresym, his heart warring between disapproval and nostalgia. They had all come out in plain clothes to avoid attention, but Yeresym had taken it a step further – his hair had returned to that dull straw color it had been the night they had met, although now he’d partially covered it with a wide-brimmed hat that also shaded his eyes.

Sevei’s fingers were itching to reach out and touch that dreadful hair. Even now, he could clearly remember how it had felt - a bit stiff and dry, quite straw-like indeed. At the time he’d found it unfortunate. Now the sight of it brought an unrelenting flood of recollection, not only of that night, but of every intimate moment they’d shared since.

Yeresym glowered as he caught Sevei staring, yet again. His cheeks flushing red, Sevei quickly turned away and pretended to examine the wares on the nearest merchant cart.

His eyes were met with a colorful array of dangling charms and amulets, most taking the form of a cast bronze badge adorned with a short bit of embroidered ribbon, fringed with tiny copper beads on the end. Sevei recognized symbols for luck, wealth, fertility, anything folks might want a bit of help with in their daily lives. His face split into a delighted grin when he spotted one with it’s badge in the shape of a cat’s face, the mischievous eyes rendered in shiny green glass.

“What is this one for?” he asked the young girl behind the cart.

“Avoiding misfortune!” she answered cheerfully. “You know how cats can always slip out of a tight spot. Some say they can even cheat Death a few times.”

Sevei glanced over his shoulder to see the rest of his group hovering around a dried fruit stand across the street.

“I’ll have that one,” he told her, laying down the amount of coin written on its little tag.

As the girl put the money away, Sevei felt an approach at his back.

“I didn’t take you for superstitious,” Yeresym said behind him.

Sevei jumped, waving the girl’s hand down as she reached up for the charm. She gave him a secretive smile and nodded as he quickly turned around. As Yeresym began to examine the contents of the cart, Sevei put his hands behind his back and leaned towards him in exaggerated scrutiny.

“Do you do that with magic?” he asked. “Your hair?”

Yeresym straightened and looked away with affronted embarrassment. “Of course not! It’s... a paste of herbs. Meira does it.”

“It really doesn’t suit you at all,” Sevei complained with a critical shake of his head.

Yeresym shot him a scathing glare. “It doesn’t seem to deter you,” he grumbled.

Sevei sighed dramatically. “Well, you could shave your head and still have to step over the bodies swooning in your path.”

“Our Yeresym is likely to stand out in a crowd, isn’t he?” Meira said as she joined them, Thelan and Yanek following close behind her. Yeresym crankily pulled his hat down further around his eyes, but Sevei was certain he’d caught a slip of a smile before he turned his face away.

With everyone momentarily distracted, a small, fabric-wrapped bundle was pressed into Sevei’s hand behind his back.

“Well, it’s almost time,” Sevei announced, shooing everyone forward with a wave of his free hand. “Let’s head to the shop, shall we?”

Before following in their wake, he turned to give a wink to the merchant girl, slipping her an extra coin for her discretion.

The Golden Pearl had begun as a very small operation; Kyrzhan had called upon old family business connections to purchase fabrics from Caedra and Thalesia, then hired two very talented seamstresses to sew them into Northern fashions, with a few suggested improvements on the designs. Over a decade later, the business now occupied three floors of a sizable building in Tharlburg’s High Street market district.

Sevei and his companions wandered into a splendid display of luxury clothing as well as fabrics sold on the bolt, shoes, accessories, curtains, cushions, and other small furnishings from the Southern countries. There didn’t appear to be any other customers in the shop at the moment, and Yeresym and Thelan hung back near the door while the others approached a counter, where a very pretty young blonde woman rose to greet them.

“We have a meeting with the proprietor,” Sevei informed her.

“Ah, yes, you must be the General!” she said brightly. “Mmm... Generals?” her eyes scanning the group. She gave Yanek a shy smile before her gaze landed on Meira with a fond warmth. “And you’ll be the Sergeant? Mr. Damah should arrive shortly. I can show you upstairs if you’d like to wait...”

“No need, Gerna, I’m here.”

Sevei turned to see Kyrzhan entering through the open doorway, his appearance that of a proper city gentleman, but still quite the fashionable treat in a voluminous tunic of embroidered linen with long, draping sleeves, his hair primly arranged beneath a velvet cap, and his face bright and flawless even without a trace of cosmetics.

He was accompanied by a breathtakingly lovely young man of some apparent Southern heritage, with a head of rakish black curls, radiant brown skin, and deep blue eyes that sparkled with a hint of mischief. As Kyrzhan introduced him to everyone, his soft lips curled into a languorous smile.

“This is my associate, Anzen,” Kyrzhan said. “And this one here is Vei.”

“Kyri, you’re right, he is cute,” Anzen said playfully, extending a hand to Sevei.

“Kyri?” Sevei inquired. “Did you say that I’m cute?”

“I believe ‘ruggedly handsome’ were my exact words,” Kyrzhan answered with a wry glare at Anzen.

“Kyri, I’d like you to meet my Second,” Sevei quickly diverted.

“Yes! Yan isn’t it?” Kyrzhan said, his eyes lighting excitedly as he gave Yanek an overt lookover. “Oh, Vei, he is just as cute as you say!”

“What’s this, now?” Yanek laughed, suddenly finding his palm wrapped between both of Kyrzhan’s silky hands.

“Don’t flirt with him, Kyri,” Sevei chided, leaning in to whisper, “he’s strictly for the ladies.”

“Is that so?” Kyrzhan replied impishly, smiling at Yanek’s blushing face. “Come for a drink at my other establishment sometime, and let’s just be sure.”

Before either Sevei or Yanek could form a response to this, Anzen stepped in and slid a hand around Kyrzhan’s elbow, smoothly pulling him back. To Sevei’s surprise, Kyrzhan offered no resistance to this move, wrapping the younger man’s arm in his own and patting his hand fondly as he looked over the rest of the group.

“Lieutenant Thelan, it’s lovely to see you again, and you...” Kyrzhan’s hand shot out to whisk a lock of Yeresym’s hair between his fingers, startling the man into a frozen standstill. “Talk to Gerna before you leave. She can give you some much better temporary hair coloring than this.”

Leaving Yeresym at a loss for words, he finally turned to Meira.

“And you must be the Lady at the center of all this,” he said affectionately. “Don’t you worry about a thing. We’ve got you all sorted out. Why don’t we all go upstairs where we can sit comfortably and have some tea?”

As Kyrzhan and Anzen led the way to a stairwell at the back of the shop, Yeresym caught Yanek’s attention.

“Constable, may I ask that you stay here to keep an eye out?”

“Not a bad idea,” Sevei agreed. Despite the fact that they were nowhere near the brothel on this trip, Yeresym had clearly been nervous all day. They were on a covert mission to smuggle an enslaved woman to freedom, after all. It really wouldn’t do to get caught out.

“I suggest you go chat with Miss Gerna,” Meira said, Kyrzhan’s spirited mood seeming to have rubbed off on her.

“Just don’t flirt outrageously,” Sevei warned with a chuckle, but Meira leaned in conspiratorially.

“You can flirt a little,” she murmured lowly.

Yanek’s eyebrows shot up, his eyes darting to the shopkeeper, now ignoring them as she attended to her duties. “Did she...” Yanek mused, peering suspiciously at Meira. “You did your thing? What did she...?”

“Just talk nicely, and don’t scare her,” Meira counseled with a mysterious smile before turning to pull everyone else along to the stairwell. As she passed Kyrzhan, he linked arms with her as if they’d long been best friends.

“Oh, you are going to be quite fun, aren’t you?” he purred, his eyes gleaming with mirth as he led her up the stairs.