INDEX:
Link here to a general overview of the novel
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Year 2031
Chapter One
Sebastian
The bodies at the Stem and Thorn are like a swarm of eels, all writhing, sinuous movement with their electric current lying just underneath, ready to shock one another. Eager for it. They wait with their pain, their brokenness, to find some release as they rub up against each other. It’s gorgeous to my twisted mind. Love it. My head’s still half-floaty and my body heavy and sated, its ache a welcome friend. But even after being worked over with satisfying vigor, and with the after effects the closest I come to peace, I still see their pain. My gift, my curse.
But it isn’t a curse. Or maybe it is and I just accept it after so many years. A truth of the universe.
“You liked your birthday present?” Nuée asks, lounging with her drink on the cushions beside me in the cozy nook we’ve chosen after my session with Kilgar. We watch the action of the BDSM club like lazy voyeurs admiring the view. A shabby place, the Stem and Thorn, lights down low to cover the peeling paint, fraying curtains, worn spots on the furniture, the club is an aging institution of our decaying city. A respite for the kinky folk living their own disintegrating lives to pretend away their desperation in their free moments. But desperation is status quo for more than the people of the kink community.
“Sure did, sweetie.” I say. “Down to his brand new extra nasty metal tipped cat-o-nine.”
She shudders. “Blunt much?”
“How you convinced Kilgar to come out on week’s end as my birthday gift, I don’t know. Did you bribe him?” The Top only shows at the Stem and Thorn on pushdays. He’s told me as much ever since we’d hooked up for regular gigs starting two years ago. He says that the bottoms who showed during the push knew what they wanted, and weren’t just dabblers. Kilgar shares a similar mindset, so he finds the investment of time at the end of a pushday worth the long hours.
“No, Seb. You underestimate your own tempting self,” Nueé says, reaching over to pinch my cheek, the bitch. “Kilgar was more than happy to make the trip to play with you. Apparently, even the kink scene knows you rock.” Her nose wrinkles, the bright blue of her spiky hair looking darker in the dim lighting. “But I get why you avoid this place at high traffic hours.”
“Thanks, Nuée, for coming with me to celebrate. I know this isn’t your thing.” I rest my head on her shoulder and she tugs hard on a strand of my hair that’s fallen loose. “Don’t tease,” I say, but lift my head off her.
I appreciate Nuée. Deeply.
“I wouldn’t miss my bestie’s big twenty-five,” she says, and glances around. “The crowds here would freak out if they had a clue little ‘ole us sat among them. If they knew who you were besides a regular kinkster. I wonder what it was like before the Diminishment, when mages lived with constant fame in the limelight? Instead of what we do now, hiding.”
I shudder, roll my shoulders. “Royalty walking among the paupers, no fuck you very much. That’s not my preferred story, sweetie.”
Nuée chuckles. “So no climbing up on a table and announcing your secret identity? Would be liberating, letting others know the real deal.” But then she sighs, sounding tired, unusual for my intrepid friend.
My eyes stray over the Doms tugging their bound subbies leashed and clamped as they follow behind with lowered gazes. My dick twitches again, but settles. I salivate over their promised suffering, pleasing to my little masochistic, sexual submissive heart. The dark and I are good friends.
“Not gonna happen,” I answer. “Conclave's all about the hush-hush. Their twisted gymnastics with us to buy back magical strength are too extreme. Just imagine what they’d have to admit if they placed us in the public eye again.” And that’s the last thing I want anyway.
I’d like to see the Conclave try to justify tearing young kids away from their families to the public. Or the unspeakable training Mentors impose on those kids unchecked.
Who were they? My birth family? My mind’s spent years stuttering over that question, the longing and the vague memories of a little boy running free on a beach. The only proof I have of something before is the seashell necklace I was wearing when given over to the Conclave as a kid. It’s too important to wear and risk breaking, so I never take it out, keeping it tucked away at home with valuables.
That’s another life, long ago, like the plot of some alternative fiction. My gut clenches and knots until I’m left with burning pain thinking about our strange existence. I embrace it and let the molten discomfort wave over me. Masochist extraordinaire am I.
I chuckle at myself. I need to keep on laughing. Keep laughing because falling apart isn’t an option, never was.
I lean my head on Nueé’s shoulder again and sigh, eyes soaking in the room.
She strokes my hair, gentle this time. “Yeah,” Nueé says with a laugh. “ If only Conclave reps were here to join the party tonight, the beleaguered dictators of our lives, those little darlings. But you’ve slipped their net more consistently. I envy you.”
Strange she thinks so even though her Mentor’s given her more freedom than any of us.
But our birthdays seem to bring out the self-reflection in my best friend.
She shrugs her shoulders up to displace my head, then raises her drink. “To you, Seb, quarter century and still raising a fuck you finger at them. Or at least when it's safe and the Conclave's backs are turned.”
“Bitch,” I say with a fond smile back. But clink her glass with my own.
She blows me a kiss. “Of course, but you love me anyway. You have a talent for seeing everyone’s goodness, with the noticeable exception of the Conclave and a few others.”
Victor among them, she means. The exception is for those who hurt the people I love. Their goodness is for shit, a mythical beast.
But I love Nueé. She puts up with me. There’s quite a bit of baggage that comes with being the mage Sebastian Marrow. Probably due to my incredible lack of luck having landed in the hands of Victor as my Mentor and his twisted belief about the path of pain to grow magic. And as much as I love pain, I never counted his a blessing.
Nuée, a part of my Cohort, is a lucky one. Since her Mentor encourages a path of free spirited experience, that leaves her able to run around with abandon more times than not, living in the impulsive moment. Damn, but if I have to share my life with a companion as consolation to my broken heart, I’d choose Nuée. Not that I want sex with any woman, tits aren’t my thing, but Nuée is precious to me. We’d keep each other company if the Conclave allowed. She glows. Or maybe not if Ravel has anything to say about it if I’ve figured out the understory from what she’s shared about the two of them. Yeah, I see her pain underneath her skin as I do with everyone, but Nueé’s is a slight thing. She refuses to focus on it. She rides her joy, and it’s beautiful.
Her birthday had been two weeks ago, and mages gain more freedom after the birthday mage trials. My own premature independence was way outside of typical. But mages are forbidden from permanently coupling with one another so we won’t be moving in with one another. Yet the Conclave idiots think that pairing same gendered youth in the household of one Mentor to raise them avoids the problem. They need to get a clue.
Still, there’s never been mage kiddies born from getting it on with a fellow mage so there’s no benefit from the Conclave’s standpoint. Like combined mage genes cancel out all potential. And they consider the risk too high because of nasty history when mages’ Verse realities have touched. We tend to go boom when that happens. Believe me, I’m familiar with the concept, although sex isn’t really the risk the Conclave thinks it is. Enough of us have had it together, but you can’t escape their dark ages mentality.
And so my future looms in front of me, lonely as shit. Most days I almost convince myself I’ve succeeded at recreating a life worth living. At least I have the club. And sometimes Nueé.
“Was it intense with the Conclave at your trials?” she asks.
This afternoon the Conclave had witnessed my mage trials for my quarter century standing.
“Nah. They didn’t expect much. Never blinked when I delivered just the ordinary, no particular last minute burst of power. Mage messiah, I am not. Now I’ll happily settle down into the existence of a perpetually working mage twisting tangles in the Verse.”
“You, settling down? You never played nice with them.”
I place my hand on my chest and gasp, all dramatic pause. “You wound me. With all I do to keep our proud, struggling nation of Orreance from drowning?”
Nuée laughs again, twirls the swizzle stick of her drink and takes another sip, watching the characters move through the club with lots of skin, leather and leashes on display.
“It worries me that you don’t have backup during your regular visits here each week,” she says.
She’s back on that subject?
I sigh. “I’m fine. You know this. How many years have I been at it?”
She sighs back. “That’s nothing to celebrate. If you let the rest of the Cohort near you, you’d have more volunteers for backup.” She examines me with a less than flattering gaze. “And you’re looking worn out, Seb. Too thin. I worry.”
“I’m fine, and just because I don’t roll around eating bonbons in Conclave sponsored luxury like you, without the extra pounds that brings, doesn’t mean I’m worn out. Club life has nothing to do with it either. And I don’t need any backup or more of the crew gawking at my preferences. I’m a tough asshole.”
She rolls her eyes. We share that habit. The days of Conclave sponsored luxury for mages are long past, but she gets the message.
“They wouldn’t gawk. They love you. They miss you.” She rummages in the bag she brought for the evening and pulls out a package, its wrapping her sloppy signature. “Here, a birthday gift from them, with love from Ravel, Freddie and Bethany.”
“Not from Hanna?”
“She’s…prickly. But if she got over herself, I’m sure she’d have wanted to be part of it.”
“And nothing from the Mentor group? I’m wounded. They don’t miss me?”
She snorts. “Like you’d do anything but run away from their attention. Plus, you know, Victor….” She squirms a bit.
“Yeah, I’m more than familiar. That’s some family dysfunction they’ve cultivated. But, thanks, I’ll open it later,” I say and place the gift to the side.
She delivers another eye roll. “Typical. They won’t suddenly descend on you if you open it now. I’m the only one you don’t avoid like the plague when you slink in and out of Conclave headquarters. How you get away with that with the Conclave still baffles me.”
I miss our Cohort, too, but Nueé is the one compromise I allow myself.
I shrug instead, letting the ache slide off my shoulders like I practice daily. “I tell it like it is with them. Johan listens. He lets me set my terms. It wasn’t in their best interest to shackle me after Victor threw me out. They knew it, I just pointed out the facts.”
I’d been seventeen when Victor gave me the boot, me too old to be assigned to a new Mentor after him. And Victor too powerful for the Conclave to challenge his decision.
She shakes her head. “You could still show for our Cohort functions.”
No, I can’t. And she knows why.
I roll my shoulders to feel the sting along the skin of my back, shift on the cushions to reignite the burn of my asscheeks against the seat. Lovely. And better than paying attention to her oft repeated harangue.
“Enough, girl,” I tell her. “It’s my birthday, don’t bring me down. I’m here to celebrate.” I take another sip of my drink.
Nuée opens her mouth to speak, but is interrupted by the lean beanpole who is Osca, leaning over me with his hands on hips. He winks at me. “Seb, you darling ginger bastard. So sexy. Here on a week’s end? What’s come over you? And by the way, I got the piece you dropped by my place. It’s perfect. Thank you so much. I really need to pay you for it.”
“You really don’t. That you like it is payment enough.”
His smiling joy is payment enough. Osca’s lived through too much shit.
“How come you don’t have a gallery of your own?” Osca asks. “The number of sculptures you crank out, you could fill one in a blink. You are a major talent with a capital T.”
I shrug, appreciating Osca’s happy, bendy movement and the long fluid lines of his body as he lingers near our seats. They distract me from the bitter. From remembering him collapsed on the floor of his place after I’d forced my way in on the night his sister died. She was only fifteen, a bystander mowed down by the crossfire of a drive by. Orreance’s decline means our people suffer. No money, no jobs, more desperation eating through the hearts of our people. So more violence. Verse twist it, but the government can’t keep counting on the Conclave mages to save everyone. Too many will suffer for it.
I appreciate the beautiful twisted brokenness of my friend, but I like seeing him happy. An inspiration for my next piece? Best in clay, metal, wood? I flick finger against my thumb at my side to dismiss the musing. My desire for a gallery is on the short list of my buried dreams. Bringing myself to notice for my art isn’t something the Conclave wants. No one’s supposed to know who I am.
Magic wasted on artistic expression is forbidden. My skills are to be used for the benefit of our nation's economic solvency. For our survival, treading water until we find the prophesied mage who’ll wake magic the fuck up again from where it simmers half asleep. Fucking national obsession, which is why statues of Tristan Crane with that fucking prophecy of his litter the crumbling city blocks.
Osca looks over his shoulder to where a solid blonde woman in white latex waits, her eyebrow arching in his direction.
“My Lady calls, Seb. She only gave me a moment to thank you. If I’m lucky the extra minutes I stole will earn me one big ole spanking.”
I chuckle. Osca is a brat who angles for his punishment and laps up every moment of it. His energy is captivating, so I don’t blame his Lady’s indulgent patience. Or lack of patience.
He trots away only to be replaced by another tired looking woman stepping into his place. Jellisia.
“What’s wrong?” I ask. Her pupils look dilated. Shit. “The pain’s worse?”
Jellisia is another sub I run into on my regular nights. And while she indulges in limited play with her Dom, she suffers from Klaids disease, a chronic degenerative condition which was flaring way too often.
“Did you get your meds at the clinic this week?” I ask.
She grimaces. “Can’t afford this week, aiming for next.”
“Then I’ll be by tomorrow. Don’t stay out late tonight, promise me,” I say. Her struggle screams out at me, demanding my attention, like angry red strobes of light covering and devouring her body. I’ve held back her hair too many times as she’s vomited into the toilet.
I paste on a smile.
She looks almost guilty. “Seb, I really didn’t want to ask. Are you sure you can manage?”
“I’ll be by. It’s no trouble. I’m due for clinic rounds soon, so this will just get a jump start on warming up the tangles.” I shrug off her response. She doesn’t need to worry about me in addition, and I’m used to the work.
The Conclave requires each mage to do shifts within select industries every other push. Sometimes we hop around between types of assignments, and sometimes they fit us into one primary focus depending on talent and temperament. I work at the city’s med clinic exclusively, with a schedule of one day on, one day off on my assigned push stretch. It’s where Jellisia met me, although there I wear a literal mask to hide my mage secret identity.
But superhero I am not. There’s times I can’t resist pulling off the mask to help someone outside of Conclave rules like I do with Jellisia. A precious few know my secret and keep it well. Maybe I can slip in some extra hours at the off the books clinic on the south side after my next regular stretch.
Jellisia leans over, brushes too cold lips against my cheek. Her brown locks fall over her eyes, a curtain enclosing her tired face.”It is trouble, Seb. I know it. So does everyone you help, yet we keep asking. You should kick us to the curb.”
“What, and stop basking in the regard of my adoring fans? Never.” I wink at her which brings me a sad but genuine smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Afternoon?” she asks. “You deserve a long night at the club and to sleep in.”
“Be there around ten. No rest for the wicked.” I wink again.
She chuckles and wanders away toward the exit, done playing for the night. Dammit, I hate seeing her fall apart, like some wind up doll slowing down on the way to full stop, with her key lost and no hope of finding it. If only she qualified for more mage support at the clinic. My under the table efforts aren’t enough. They’re never enough. I’ll definitely add hours.
Nuée rests a hand on my thigh. “Seb, it’s not safe telling people who you are. Plus you collect a menagerie. You’re wearing yourself thin.”
“I’m doing what I want to do, sweetie. Let me be.”
“You can’t fix everyone’s pain.”
Since I sure as fuck can’t fix the one person’s I want to, I’d do my best for the rest.
“I know I can’t fix it all, but pain and I are friends, so I know how to listen when it visits.”
“Psha, boy. It doesn’t mean you have to drain yourself dry.”
“Victor always insisted that I wouldn’t grow the magic without constant practice. So, I practice.”
“You’re as grown as you’ll get, idiot. Today was your birthday, remember. And all of us are still prey to exhaustion, which means accidents. You, too.”
“Nuée, I…”
Before I can finish the sentence, a man catches my attention walking out from the corridor of the private play rooms. My answer dies in my throat. My heart beats a gigantic, excruciating thump. Static noise rushes through my head, my skin flushes hot, then cold.
Coal black hair, unshaven dark scruff, eyes the tossing colors of the sea. I know the lines of his body well, how he moves like a dance even in his worst moments.
Fuck! What is he doing here? His short wavy hair is damp with perspiration, his olive complexion unusually pale, and his typical rigid posture slumped. Even though I hate how wrecked he appears, I eat up the sight of him. Even wrecked, he’s beautiful, like some prince out of a fairy tale. For eight years I’ve woken up each morning both desperate to see him and desperate to avoid him. And I’m still pulled toward the light he keeps barred securely from everyone, like I’d been on the first day I saw him at Victor’s front door, hiding himself.
The other half of my heart.
Daav.