No different, Sorin realized with a shock, than the way he'd exhausted himself fighting the demon lord.
In his chest, the Goddess' sudden excitement and joy was so hot it was nearly too painful. What was making her so happy? The realization that necromancers were a lot like him, like the priests?
The answering throb seemed to indicate that was, indeed, the reason.
Confused, exhausted, and not certain what he was supposed to say or do—and underneath everything, there was the grief over Alfrey, dead not even a day—he simply stood and continued to watch as Koray performed his necromancy. Several minutes later, the strange, shadowy figures faded away.
Sorin realized abruptly that he did not feel quite as … heavy as he had before, as he always felt after a battle. He still felt overheated, but not as burdened. Something in him eased, simple as that.
Before him, Koray seemed to droop. For a moment, it almost seemed as though he might topple right over. But even as Sorin reached out to catch him, Koray gathered himself, straightening his shoulders as glanced up.
"That was like nothing I've ever seen before," Sorin said.
Koray said nothing, only knelt and retrieved the incense dish and his staff.
"May I ask—why the incense?" Sorin asked, curiosity getting the better of him.
Koray eyed him suspiciously, but said, "It makes a good conduit between myself and the dead. The living are not typically meant to speak with the dead; we necromancers have the gift of that communication, but the incense makes it easier when we're able to get it." His mouth twitched, ever so briefly before all traces of unexpected humor were ruthlessly stamped out. "Much like having a sword to hand rather than being forced to fight bare-handed."
Sorin smiled. "They do make things a good sight easier." Clearly annoyed that he'd been caught in his flash of humor, Koray glared and said nothing further. Brief levity fading, Sorin wondered aloud, "Why is it we know nothing about necromancers?"
"Because—" Koray started to say, but was suddenly drowned out by a soldier.
"They're soul eaters," the soldier spat, shaking with anger, covered in blood and gore, a livid cut on one cheek. "They take in souls the same as demons—that's why no one wants the filthy bastards! They're no different than demons! I've seen them do it! Bugger off, you demon, no one wants you here!"
Sorin grabbed the man when he would have lunged and shoved him in the direction of some higher ranking paladins. "That is enough. I said that the necromancer Koray is my guest. He has met with and been approved by the high priest. His eyes are violet when he uses his powers, which means he is Goddess-blessed. No man with violet eyes is a demon, or close to a demon, and I bid you accept that or suffer my wrath. Do I make myself clear?"
A chorus of 'Yes, High Paladin' resounded, some more enthusiastic than others.
"Get back to the castle," Sorin ordered, motioning his officers to get to work, get the men home. He turned back to Koray. "I apologize."
Koray shrugged. "What do I care if he voices what everyone is invariably thinking? Anyway, only a few marks ago you would have taken his side."
"I do not take sides until I understand the situation," Sorin snapped.
"Ah, so running after strangers and nearly getting them killed in a forest in the dead of night—"
Sorin heaved an aggravated sigh, cutting him off, and said, "You were suspicious; I wanted to ascertain that you were no threat. Are you always so rude and inclined toward making wild assumptions?"
"Find yourself frequently reviled and beaten and practically starving to death, High Paladin, and you tell me how much patience you have with people," Koray hissed. "I have no love of knights who never bother to ask questions before they attack me. You were no different, for all you are Highest of all Paladins. Let us return that I might do my duty and be free of this place." Turning away, he strode off.
Leaving Sorin wanting to throttle him. Goddess in Heaven, what was next?
Exhaustion washed over Sorin then, and he recalled he'd already been hungry and tired before the sudden call to arms. He swayed on his feet as he walked to the horse Emel held for him and smiled weakly in thanks as Emel once again caught him. "You are determined to collapse in front of your men, my lord," Emel teased. "I promise it will not make them more obedient. Quite the opposite, I fear."
Sorin managed a laugh. "Help me up on my horse, miscreant. Koray, are you riding with me or would you like a horse of your own?"
Koray looked at him like he was an idiot. "I will walk. I want no part of those foul beasts."
"With me, then," Sorin said and snatched him close before Koray could move away, only laughing at Koray's futile efforts to break away. "Emel, help him up."
"Get away from me," Koray snarled. He cast one last, hateful look at Sorin, then seemed to decide it was easier to cooperate for the time being and mounted with a smooth ease that surprised Sorin. The way Koray acted about horses, he had assumed Koray had never learned to ride. "Are we going?"
Laughing again, Sorin mounted behind him, then paused a moment to make certain he would not fall off. Assured he would stay on the horse until he reached the castle, he spurred it into motion and followed the rest of the soldiers home again.
Dawn was breaking as they reached the castle, and Sorin was awake only in the sense that he was still moving under his own power. He garbled out an order for all soldiers who had ridden into battle to find their beds and for those who had remained at the castle to cover duties until those men woke—which had better not be later than midday.
Orders given, he left his officers to take care of the rest. He snagged Koray and dragged him off. "This way," Sorin said with a yawn, stopping briefly when everything went gray and fuzzy, slowly moving again when he thought all might stay as it should long enough for him to reach his room.
Forcing his mind to work, he tried to figure out where they could put Koray. Then he decided he was simply too bloody tired to figure it out. They could find a place for him in the morning. The afternoon. Whatever. "Come on," he said around another yawn, and tugged Koray with him up the stairs to his room. Inside, he locked the door and immediately began to strip, beckoning forward the young man who stood waiting to assist him. When he was free of his heavy armor and his weapons had been cleaned and put away, he dismissed the man and returned his attention to Koray. "Get in bed," he ordered, too tired to argue or deal with fussiness when he saw Koray still hovering, uncertain and hostile, by the door.
Koray scowled. "I can sleep in the stable—"
"Get in bed," Sorin snapped and did that very thing himself. "You can sleep in peace here, and we can find you suitable quarters in the mor—later on today. I swear to the Goddess, get in bed and sleep, or I will knock you unconscious."
Looking at him in annoyance, Koray moved further into the room and said, "I cannot see why you would want to sleep with one who deals in death."
"Right now, I'm so bloody tired that I would not care if I shared a bed with a corpse," Sorin said, eyes sliding shut simply because he was no longer able to keep them open. "Get in bed."
He listened to the sounds of Koray removing his own weapons and clothing and wondered idly if he would remove them all—and realized belatedly that perhaps he should not have removed all of his. But to hell with it, he did not care. He was not sleeping in filthy clothes, and he was not getting out of bed just to find clothes to preserve modesty he did not possess.
A brief chill struck his skin as the blankets were lifted, then he felt the weight of another in his bed—and jerked in surprise when cold skin briefly struck his leg. Sitting up, he looked at Koray through sleep-heavy eyes and asked, "Why are you so cold?"
Koray turned away from him. "The dead leech my warmth. It takes time to recover it. Thank you for the bed, High Paladin. Good night."
Bemused by the answer, startled by the display of manners, too tired to deal with any of it, Sorin settled back down and went to sleep.
Koray waited until Sorin was asleep before he slowly sat up. He pushed back the long, messy strands of his hair, wishing he hadn't lost the thong he used to tie it back.
It was too dark to see much of anything, but Koray scarcely needed light to see Sorin's face; it was a face engraved in his memory, from the very first time he had seen the handsome, noble, much adored young high paladin.
That moment had been roughly ten years ago, when Koray was … by his best guess seventeen, but he could be off a few years in either direction. Not very old, at any rate, and still training as a necromancer. Sorin could not have been much older, though he'd been old enough to be a full paladin. He'd not yet become High Paladin then, but Koray remembered overhearing whispers that he was marked for it.
Koray saw him a second time a few years after that, not long after Sorin had been declared High Paladin. Though he had been admonished by other necromancers that it was foolish to think anything would change, Koray had let his hopes rise anyway … and felt his heart break when Sorin paid no mind as his paladins brutally drove two necromancers out of town.
Thanks to those black-hearted paladins, Koray had been forced to go down to the battlefield and purify it alone. That battle had been even worse than the one just past. His powers had not been at full strength then, either. The battle had lasted two days and killed hundreds. Purifying that battlefield alone had put a strip of white in his hair far more vivid than the dark and light grays that threaded it.
He reached up to comb through his hair, feeling a pang at all the gray, that lurid band of white. His life of ghosts and going hungry and suffering beatings, of sleeping on the ground and scrounging for everything he owned, had left him with little in the way of vanities. But he had always been foolishly proud of his black hair and wore it long no matter it was a frivolous and difficult indulgence.
Shoving it back, Koray sighed and looked at Sorin again, remembering that second encounter, the way Sorin's men had driven out the other necromancers, the way Sorin had never paid it the slightest bit of attention. The inaction did not seem to fit with the man who had brought him to the royal castle, had ordered he be left to his work on the battlefield … and ordered Koray to share his bed and get some rest.
Koray's hand went reflexively to his shoulder, the worst of his demon-bestowed scars. He, like everyone else, had thought all the men and demons on the field were dead. As it was too dark to clear them when the battle finally ended, they'd been left for the morning. Koray had slipped onto the field in the dead of night to do his work … and found himself assaulted by a demon. The demon had been badly wounded, and that was likely the only reason Koray had survived.
The paladins, of course, had made camp well away from the battlefield and so no one had come to his rescue. Not that they would have anyway. It had been Koray's first encounter with a demon, but far from his last. He had scars all over his body—from demons, villagers, soldiers, and the elements themselves. There was good reason his only vanity was his hair. A blind man would find him repulsive, even if he wasn't a necromancer.
Shoving the old, bitter musings aside, Koray let his eyes linger on the shadowed face not even an arm's span away. So many time Koray would have given
anything
to have someone like Sorin at his side—someone who could fight, was meant to fight, who had no fear of battle.
Koray reached out and gently touched the tips of his fingers to Sorin's bare arm, sighing softly at the unbelievable
warmth
of the man. He seemed near to bursting with heat. Koray's fingers tingled as they absorbed Sorin's warmth, and he could have wept as it spread through his entire body, warming him in ways that no fire ever could. He was so tired of being cold all the time, tired of always being so drained, because he—and every necromancer—fought a battle they had never been meant to fight alone.
He withdrew reluctantly after a couple of minutes, unable to ignore feelings of guilt. Though it seemed Sorin had warmth to spare, it was not right simply to take it. But just the thought of asking churned his empty stomach. He could all too easily imagine how the High Paladin, or any paladin, would react if Koray asked them to share their heat.
Sorin shifted, snorted, and murmured something nonsensical in his sleep. Koray tensed, but after another few seconds of shifting restlessly, Sorin settled down again. Shaking his head, Koray slowly climbed out of bed, too unsettles to remain in it a moment longer.
He retrieved his discarded clothes and pulled them back, grimacing as he noticed new tears in the hose and the mud and grass stains left by his tumble down the hill. He had just managed to wash the thing, and there was no telling when next he would get the chance. His gaze went to the discarded clothes on the floor near the fireplace, and he tried to ignore the pangs of envy and longing. Fine linen and the best wool, left on the floor as though they were fit only for the rag pile.
It reminded him that autumn was turning rapidly to winter, and if he hoped to survive it he would have to make for his mountain cabin soon. Hopefully his time in the castle would be brief. He ignored the ache in his chest that had no business rising up at the thought of leaving. He had barely been in the castle and his welcome had hardly been warm. Why should he feel anything, except eager to leave again?
Shrugging into his robe, he wandered over to the sole window and pulled back the heavy tapestry covering it. He stared down into the inner ward, shuddering at what he saw. The entire castle was
crawling
with ghosts. How did the inhabitants live with such a weight upon the place. Didn't they feel it? Surely it had struck someone's notice that it was always chillier than it should be, that illness was unusually bad, and fights broke out with uncommon frequency. Nightmares, sadness, confusion … the presence of the life-leeching ghosts added a fog of misery to the castle.