railing of the third floor lookout balcony. Jumped around up there like a monkey while the others cheered. It was great fun, until a commander came by.”
A faint smile of amused awe tugged on Kalai’s lips. “So they kicked you out.”
“Sure did,” Tauran said. He stroked an absent hand along the egg, tapping a gentle rhythm. “Two days later, I’m drowning my self-pity in a nearby bar when Falka walks in. Says he’s impressed by what he saw and that, if I was willing to give obedience and discipline another serious go,” he winked, “there’d be a place for me in the Sky Guard.”
“A second chance,” Kalai said, his smile softening.
“Mhmm.” He owed Falka a lot. Despite how his time in the Sky Guard had ended, Falka had given four years of Tauran’s life purpose.
As the sun set, Tauran forced himself upright. His body felt loose and floppy from having spent so long in bed. He wanted to stay, but Falka still had guards stationed outside, and while Tauran had a perfectly good excuse to be here during the day, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to justify sleeping with Kalai in the only bed in the building. He was far too tall to fit on the little downstairs couch.
Kalai followed him down. Tauran sat on the steps while he tied his boots and Kalai wandered to the desk. He brought out the box of medicine Falka had given him, the little bottles rattling inside.
“Are they working?” Tauran asked, tying the second boot.
“I don’t know, it’s hard to tell.” Kalai flicked the lid open, uncorked a bottle, and shook a pill into his hand. “I haven’t fainted yet, so maybe they are. But I sometimes go weeks without an episode, so I guess I won’t know for sure for a while.”
“And you haven’t felt them doing anything bad to you?” Tauran gripped the handrail, leaned against it, and pulled to a stand.
“Not really.” Kalai went to him. He smiled up at him from the lower floor and tugged Tauran’s shirt straight with two fingers before ascending the steps. Tauran didn’t move back, so Kalai had to place his feet between his. Slowly, Kalai raised a hand to Tauran’s cheek, and then, wonderfully, pressed his lips against the other. It was the briefest of kisses, so chaste and sweet and so far from what Tauran was used to. And despite that, or maybe because of that, Tauran felt himself flush like an inexperienced youth.
Kalai undoubtedly noticed, because when he leaned back, he smiled like he was unusually pleased with himself.
Outside, the air was cool, the darkness seeming denser than usual, a stark contrast to the warm, soft glow of the archive. And by the time Tauran made it back to the apartment, the skies opened their floodgates.
CHAPTER 17
Tauran woke in a cold sweat to the rumbling roars of thunder. Outside, rain cascaded from the skies, the sound nearly enough to drown out the next rolling rumble from high above. He turned his head and looked in the direction of the window. He couldn’t see outside, just the faint outline of the window frame. It was still night.
A small, white form sat on the windowsill. When Tauran reached out, his fingers grazed paper. He lifted the small folded paper dragon off the sill and thumbed it.
As a child, his mother had told him about a Sharoani myth. The sound of thunder was a massive titan, flying so high above the clouds as to not be seen, roaring so loud that it could be heard for miles. The titan roared to scare the crops into growing faster. As an adult, Tauran knew that sudden plant growth after rainstorms had more to do with the downpours that usually followed, but as a child, he vividly remembered running outside on mornings following a storm to crouch by his mother’s herb garden, hoping to catch the frightened pea stalks mid-growth.
Three loud bangs interrupted Tauran’s thoughts and made him flinch. He sat up, hand grasping for a weapon before he remembered he no longer kept one by his bed. Someone knocked on the door once more and Tauran frowned, climbing out of bed a little stiffly to pull on a pair of pants. Who came knocking in the middle of the night? He rummaged through his still mostly unpacked travel bag and found his knife. Curling his fingers around the handle, he let the cool blade rest against the inside of his forearm, hidden from view as