to himself with an intense expression. Kalai made a mental note to teach Tauran some Sharoani at their next stop, so he could at least learn how to buy lunch or rent a room without needing Kalai to handle all their interactions.
That night, they sat on the bed in the light of an oil lamp and practiced easy Sharoani greetings. Tauran was an enthusiastic, if somewhat linguistically challenged student. He butchered every syllable in ways Kalai had never even thought possible, but the hard set of Tauran’s jaw radiated serious determination, so Kalai applied all his patience and encouragement.
“Why do the Sharoani call it Kal Valreus, instead of just Valreus?” Tauran asked, pulling Kalai’s legs across his lap.
“Kal means fall. Same as Kel means rise,” Kalai explained. “Kel Visal means ‘the imperial rise.’”
Tauran frowned. “Fall Valreus?”
“Well, the fall of Valreus, to be exact. It’s implied.”
Tauran hummed. “The Sharoani know about the story of Valreus?”
Kalai smiled. “Of course. His lover was Sharoani. She named the city.”
Tauran looked surprised. “I never knew that.”
Kalai leaned back on his elbows. “They don’t teach you that in school?”
“I don’t know.” Tauran shrugged. “I never paid much attention in class.”
“Valreus led his people to safety in the place we know today as Kal Valreus,” Kalai said. “He built them a home, made first contact with Sharoani, and started the alliance between our countries. Fell in love with the Sharoani ambassador, Lihia Ro-Vishu. When Valreus died of sickness at the age of fifty-two, she petitioned to change the name of the city from New Hope to Kal Valreus. I guess your people changed it to simply Valreus over time because it’s quicker to pronounce.”
Tauran chuckled. “Being around you, I feel myself growing smarter every day.”
“Well, you’re a hardworking student,” Kalai said, stifling a laugh when Tauran tugged him down into the sheets.
“I’d really love it if you could repeat that statement to my old history teacher,” Tauran said, before fitting his lips over Kalai’s throat and robbing him of breath.
By the time the candles burned down, Tauran could recite several basic sentences at Kalai’s prompt with at least decent understandability. ‘Thank you for your time’ seemed to stick the best, and Tauran rattled it off continuously as they got ready for bed, until Kalai, at Tauran’s request, taught him how to say ‘you look gorgeous’, which, surprisingly, took Tauran no time to master, and quickly became his new favorite phrase.
As they settled into bed, Tauran’s bare chest against Kalai’s back and his strong arms around him, Tauran pressed a kiss below Kalai’s ear and whispered those words to him, and Kalai decided that teaching Tauran Sharoani had been the best idea he’d gotten in a while.
To Kalai’s delight, Tauran was as excited about the landscape as he was about their new language lessons. After the endless grassy hills of Kykaros, and the soggy flat swamps of the Terror Marshes, the variety of nature Sharoani had to offer was a treat, not just for them, but for the dragons, too.
The dusty golden dirt flats and sandstone cliffs soon became shrub land, which then became forest. Rivers ended in waterfalls atop jagged cliffs covered in mosses and surrounded by lush greenery, and they camped out for an entire day at the base of a fall to give the dragons a chance to play and bathe in the warm waters. Leyra was ecstatic faced with the chance to swim for the first time in her life, looking curiously to the sky when a pair of wild dragons roared in the distance. Kalai sat with Arrow in the shallows, enjoying the sun on his face filtering from the between the leaves, watching Tauran swim with Leyra. Tauran clung to her back, trying to teach her how to use her wings to move faster, but then she dove, giving Tauran a mouthful of lake water, instead.
It was like a dream. A sanctuary in the midst of all the bad that was happening. There was only one thing holding Kalai back from letting all his worries go.
Tauran wandered out of the water. Dressed in nothing but his underwear, he sank awkwardly to his good knee and held the empty shell of a large iridescent lake snail out towards Kalai like he was offering him his most valuable riches, all dimples and starry eyes. And when Kalai took it, he decided he would have to be honest. That his own pride was nowhere near as important as this beautiful man who would do anything