Caste left Terra/Maul/nomad relations in the hands of Suvau, Giordi and a big barrel of ale. Drinking and grunting would be the best way to put some of their past behind them. It wasn’t a permanent solution, nor should it ever be left as it was, but Caste knew all grievances couldn’t be dealt with in one evening. However, for the time being, it seemed the Mauls had agreed not to retaliate against Chael and his men. This was helped by the fact that Chael felt the Arena, while good enough for training guards and visiting warriors, was not comparable to the danger of monster attacks in Fort Mavour’s territory. So there were no personal offenses or vows of vengeance to worry about.


    “Just the future of Terra/Maul/nomad relations…and how I doubt there’s enough ale in the world.” Caste muttered rubbing his eyes as he picked his way through the tents to where his own rested. He glared at the star perched on top, still sagging like it was too tired to stay upright. Despite endlessly nagging, it hadn’t been corrected and Caste reminded himself that it would be taken down in the morning and moved again. Fretting over it would only cause him to lose sleep.


    He pushed open the flap to his tent and closed it behind him, the thrum of activity dulling, words, belches and snoring hitting the outside of the tent so that only a hum permeated. Caste immediately shrugged out of his cappa clausa, more elaborate than his previous cloaks because of his sudden elevation to archdeacon. He hung it from a hook specifically supplied and installed to keep his cloak from becoming crumpled and felt his young shoulders sag. He wasn’t sure if it was tiredness or the weight of responsibility that was causing them to do so. He hadn’t even had the time to take stock of what his promotion to archdeacon truly meant.


    He looked down at the pendant around his neck, its weight heavy in more ways than one.


    He yawned and turned to his desk, putting his slate onto its surface. He would record the addition of the nomads, Mauls and shepherds to the Astaril military, making sure to cite that it was all in Judd LaMogre’s name. The lamp on the desk glowed dully and the room was cast in a soft, warm light.


    A cool breeze struck his back and he gasped and turned to see a hooded person enter his tent.


    “Knocking is considered polite.” He said sternly, more so because he was cold now rather than the rudeness of the entrance of the stranger.


    She pulled back her hood and shook her many braids free. “How does one knock on a tent?”


    Caste gaped. “Emeri?” She smiled and nodded. “What are you doing here?”


    She moved further into the tent, gesturing and explaining without meeting his eyes. “When father brought word of Garo Rylan’s despicable actions and if I think on that for too long I might start crying anew, the nomads decided to move their entire camp north to meet the southward bound offensive and naturally, all the Mauls, including myself and my mother, moved with them and I…”


    “No, no,” Caste waved his hands in front of her face and she stopped and looked at him, “why are you…here?” He pointed at her then at the ground.


    Emeri paused, biting her bottom lip. “I…wanted to thank you.” Caste raised an eyebrow. “The chest you gave me contains proof of Maul heritage and culture. It’s…priceless.”


    “You shouldn’t thank me for giving back what was always yours.” Caste argued, folding his arms as he turned away.


    “But you didn’t have to!” Emeri darted around him, not letting him get away. “You could have hidden it like those other clerics did or burn it like they were ordered to…but you didn’t. You saved it.”


    Caste’s eyes remained steadily downcast, fixated by his feet. “I mightn’t have destroyed it…but I didn’t stand up for it either.”


    Emeri went to put her hands on his folded arms but drew back, her fingers trembling. “I…it was wrong of me to hold you to account for the corruption of the past in the Order of the Grail. I should never have said you put ambition ahead of truth.”


    “But I did put ambition ahead of truth. I’m an archdeacon for the love of Terra, Maul and all the stars!”


    “They made you an archdeacon?” Emeri blinked. “Truly?”


    Caste faltered. “Well…only an archdeacon would be permitted to travel with Judd on this military offensive…”


    “So you were promoted again!” Emeri gasped. “Caste, that’s fantastic!”


    “Not really,” Caste argued, feeling worse and worse about the position the more Emeri tried to compliment him on it, “it certainly wasn’t based on merit. Judd didn’t want a strange officer of the Grail advising him so he put his foot down.”


    “He thinks so highly of you.”


    “He’s hardly in a position to dictate the Order of the Grail’s promotional structure. What does Judd know about what is required? I’m just a token archdeacon!”


    “I seriously doubt he would be able to force Bishop Peele to promote you against his will. You wouldn’t have been promoted if not for the Order’s faith in you to represent their wishes.”


    “You are very, very wrong.” Caste paced back and forth across the rug that he had to protect him from the untamed and wild ground that the Order deemed unfit for him to lie on as an archdeacon but that had been perfectly acceptable as a cleric. “You were the one who said an enlightened era occurs when those with power and in authority are transparent, laying bare their actions to the world so that corruption could not occur. Well, I think we both know that the Order is not such a place.”


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    “Just because it isn’t doesn’t mean it couldn’t be!” Emeri protested. “You were the youngest cleric to be made a deacon in the history of the Grail and now you are the youngest archdeacon! You are in a place to truly effect change!”


    “Or just defend my apathy in order to protect my position.” Caste pushed his hair back, releasing it so that it sprung up wildly. “And yet here I am in a place I don’t want to be alongside a man I never believed in, in the service of an order I trusted implicitly only to find that they have schemed and plotted and used their position to defend their way of thinking irrespective of the truth.” Emeri’s eyes were filled with sympathy which only made Caste angrier, that she hurt for him when she had been right all along. He didn’t deserve her kindness or compassion. “You were right about all of it, Emeri and now I’m questioning everything I was ever taught and everything I purported as being truth! It’s all wrong!” Caste stopped pacing, staring at a blank spot on the tent wall. “Maybe…maybe I’m the one who’s wrong…”


    “No, you’re not!” Emeri grasped his arms and propelled him backwards, pushing him down to sit on the plush linen and furs of the bed. “You’re in a great place, Caste! You’re not willing to take things at face value and turn a blind eye when the truth is an inconvenience!”


    Caste swallowed, all his insecurities nipping at his mind. “But I…feel so lost…”


    Emeri’s countenance creased in compassion. She sat down next to him on the bed, still wrapped in her cloak tied at the base of her throat, the dull muted blue of her gown showing as she fidgeted with the hem.


    “You don’t have to throw everything away but look at it with a fresh perspective, with an open mind and a heart that burns for truth,” she urged gently, “it was how you were when I first met you, before hypocrisy, corruption and fear started to crowd out the integrity you possessed, as if it was something to be ashamed of. It’s an admirable quality.”


    Caste huffed softly, remembering the cruel and painful barbs of Archdeacon Adamis and Bishop Peele. “Not pedantic or neurotic…or boring or maddening?” He asked defensively.


    “No!” Emeri cried softly. “Your devotion to truth is what I love most about you.”


    Caste smiled and nodded. “That’s very kind of you to…wait…did you say love?” He lifted his chin and turned to face her as Emeri leaned forward and pressed her full, warm lips against his. Caste blinked, the sensation overwhelming his mind so much so that his body was stunned beyond its ability to respond.


    And when his mind suddenly lurched back to life, it was in response to the pleasure he was feeling, guilt flooding his being.


    “Oh no,” he pulled back, shaking his head, “Oh no, no, no, no…”


    “Bad?” Emeri asked cautiously.


    “Bad? It’s terrible!” Caste exclaimed, trying to get as far away from what he was feeling as possible by standing up and turning on her as though lecturing a child. “You can’t just go around kissing people and telling them you love them…especially when they don’t love you!”


    Emeri’s brown gaze dropped and she looked down at her hands. “You don’t love me…”


    “Of course not!” Caste blurted, his words saying one thing, his heart, another. He held fast in a kind of strange panic that wouldn’t let him run but wouldn’t say anything else either. Emeri remained seated on the bed, her head lowered with her crown of plaits falling forward. She didn’t say anything and was as still as could be, a light quiver of her shoulders giving away her emotion and just how hard she was attempting to hide it.


    Caste’s heart ached at the sight, the feelings he had only acknowledged long enough to stuff into a box and lock it tight surging in strength. The box was bursting at the creases, seeping from the seams and soaking into his heart.


    He sat back on the bed, a revelation he never thought possible overwhelming every pore of his body.


    “But I think I might be wrong about that too…”


    Emeri’s hands remained in her lap, only inches from Caste’s in his. Neither of them dared look at each other.


    “Think?” Emeri asked softly before Caste touched her chin and lifted her face so that he could return the kiss she had given him. It was tentative and tender, Caste’s hand dropping down so that only their lips touched before he drew back.


    “No…I know.”


    Emeri’s dark brown eyes sparkled and her full lips pursed in delight before they both leaned in for another kiss and then another and another, the warmth between them building even though only their lips were connected. Caste’s face was quite flushed as he felt her withdraw slightly as her fingers tugged lightly on the ties of her cape at her throat. The weight of the hood drew the cape from her shoulders, her muted blue gown starting on the slope just before the apex of her shoulders.


    Caste licked his lips as she took his hands and lifted them to hover around her cheeks, tracing the line of her neck and shoulders without touching her.


    “It’s alright,” she said softly, “I won’t rub off on you.”


    Caste met her gaze. “You already have.” He whispered, his mouth drying out as his fingers rested on her bare shoulders, gently tracing the line across then up her neck, his hands cupping her face, leaning in for yet another kiss. He shivered as her hands slid up his chest, across the fabric of his tunic, the space between them diminishing with every second. Caste’s pale hands explored every curve and line of Emeri’s deep brown shoulders and neck. For a cleric like himself, they had been the only part of a woman’s body he’d been allowed to see and even then, he had never touched anyone like he was caressing Emeri.


    In between kisses, their breathing sharpening and becoming rapid, Emeri managed to ask,


    “Have you ever done this before?”


    “Never,” Caste replied without hesitation then closed his eyes, shivering as her lips pressed against his throat, his pulse beating faster than one of Giordi’s drinking songs, “I mean, I understand the theory behind it. It’s a relatively straightforward process. To be honest, I’ve never really understood the appeal…”


    He wondered if he had said something wrong as Emeri sat up, surprise on her face. “Truly?”


    Caste swallowed and shrugged half heartedly. “Well…perhaps the truth is I never imagined someone would find me appealing…”


    Now he was sure he’d said the wrong thing as Emeri stood up and walked away from him. Her fingers reached behind to pull at the laces of her gown, loosening her corset so that the sleeves, which were too narrow to slide off her shoulders, suddenly had the room to do so and her muted blue gown slid from her body, revealing a plain underdress whose well worn white cotton did not quite obscure Emeri’s richly hued curves.


    Caste gaped at her, Emeri standing before him, trembling, equal parts anticipation to nervousness. Abruptly he realised an equal expression of vulnerability was called for and stood up, yanking his tunic over his head. Unfortunately he didn’t undo the toggle at the back before doing so and try as he might, he couldn’t wrestle himself out of the blasted oversized shirt. He grunted and pulled, blindly trying to find the toggle, sure Emeri was fleeing the ridiculous scene or worse, trying not to laugh.


    He felt hands push him down and he plopped on the bed, Emeri undoing the toggle from behind and helping him pull his tunic off. Caste was red faced and this time it wasn’t arousal but embarrassment. He burned brightly and gestured helplessly to himself.


    “See…all red.” He said gruffly.


    Emeri kissed him. “I love your colour.” She whispered in his ear.


    “I love yours.” He breathed in return.


    Then there were no more words, no apologies or fumbled moments. And even if there were, they were the held secret in the sacred place of the bedchamber, treasured and loved.