Episode 144: Regenting Regently (Acheron)

Ach swallowed back all the petrifaction that wanted to consume him, and focused on the lie that he was capable of walking around the festival like a normal guy and not a vast pit of anxiety.

Yeah. He did the job festival for Spence, he could do this for Talise. It was good practice for teaching, anyway.

Talise had sent him a dragon message that there was an emergency in a village, and left. She’d left him here, alone, to represent their family. He could do this.

He sat down at the mosaic table and tried to look approachable. He promised himself, no matter what, that he wasn’t going to offer his chair to anyone. Not even the feeblest oldest most pregnant and exhausted person he encountered.

At least he had something to do with his hands here, unlike at the job festival where he’d just cowered under Lyra’s tirade.

He liked doing art. He loved taking nothing, and turning it into something. He loved that it made him feel closer to Spence, even when they were apart. Today he made a blue dolphin with two baby dolphins, one each for Orris and Olida, or maybe Cady and Hugh because they were more recent, or maybe for Ella and Jax because Spence was hurting about them.

Whoever Spence needed them to represent, they were there.

It was kind of fun, making the mosaic. It reminded Ach of art class in elementary school – relaxing, gave him time to think.

It was also chaotic. People made a mess at the table and they weren’t re-sorting the colors, so when Ach was done laying the stones in his own mosaic he tidied up the table and re-sorted the colors. Then he wiped the table down.

There. It looked much better now.

Someone touched him.

He started to flinch away, but the person caught him in a second, more firm grip. Ach knew that grip. He turned, to see Spence there. Ach just knew he was a hero coming to help him survive this.

“Hey, Regent,” Spence flirted.

Regent. That made it almost sound like what he was doing mattered.

“Hi,” Ach said, because people from the table had turned to watch them.

“I heard you needed a knight,” Spence explained, as he slid his hand down to Ach’s waist and angled his body to reveal Emma, standing behind him. “But all I could find was this little monster.”

Ach laughed.

Emma…he loved Emma. The child of his two favorite people, so much like Talise at that age. Right now she leapt toward Ach, and the freshly-sorted mosaic stones, with an exuberance Ach envied. “Hi! I’m here to assistend things.”

Ach knelt down and hugged her, and then stood up into Spence’s waiting arms and hugged him too, longer.

There were people watching, but he kissed Spence anyway because Spence was home. “It’s not speeches or anything,” he promised. “It’s mostly, I think, just going around hoping nothing breaks.”

“And showing up at the events,” Emma insisted. She grabbed Spence’s hand, the one that hadn’t been on Ach’s waist, and thrust a piece of paper towards him. It was the schedule of events for today, Kevish. “This,” she stated, “are the things you have to be at and probably smile. Just pretend that Sergeant Worthy fell into a hole.”

Ach smiled. Sergeant Worthy was from a series of books out of Alder, with a very goofy police officer who tried to help his town but always ended up getting rescued by all the kids in town.

“I have a few hours, if you need a consort,” Spence offered. He interlocked his finger’s with Ach’s, more of a promise than any words. “This will be easy.”

“Am I done?” Emma asked Spence.

Spence turned his hazel eyes toward Ach. “Need anything else?”

Nope, everything he needed was right here.

“You have to help smile and stuff, right?” he reminded Emma. And then he felt bad, because he’d hated feeling like he had to put on a show of happiness and comfort when he was a kid at these things.

At least Emma seemed to like it, just like Talise.

She even managed to complain, just like Talise: A heavy sigh, a theatrical groan of, “Man!” She grinned up at them a second later. “‘Kay. Smile and stuff.”

“I know,” Ach said. “You can pick a victim to do this with you if you want.” He shared a grin with Spence. “I did.”

“Hmm,” she mused, eyes scanning the crowd. She settled on a table on the far side of the garden. “Orris is sitting! He needs a job!” She ran off towards poor Orris, who looked just about exactly how Ach felt, except that Ach had Spence now and Orris was still alone.

He looked at Spence, teasy. “I don’t think you’re consort because regents can’t ascend, so you’re just regent.”

Really, he wasn’t even that, because they weren’t married, but essentially he was.

“That makes some kind of sense,” Spence said, in a way that implied it didn’t at all. “How was your morning going?”

Slow, much easier than this.

“Okay,” he said. “Yours?” He picked up his mosaic upside down and hoped Spence wouldn’t notice, even though he knew he would because he noticed everything. What he really hoped was that Spence wouldn’t ask. “I can’t believe she’s making me do this,” he complained for distraction. “Why can’t I fix the village?”

It was whiny, and he knew Niels and Talise were better equipped to do that too, which was why he was so glad Talise was born first, but it was honest. What he really should have said was, “What horrible prankster god made me a prince?”

“Good,” Spence said. “Nothing has come up yet.” His voice got softer, more direct and focused on Ach. “And because she is anxious about the stuff coming up.”

Oh. Yeah. The stuff, where she was supposed to die.

“Don’t worry,” Spence assured him. “We’re doing everything. I’m guarding you.” He bumped their hips together, reassuring and full of the contact that said it would be okay.

Except it wouldn’t. Ach had trained to protect Talise and now she was going to be attacked. It was his fault. He just kept letting her more and more down as time went on.

“Yeah,” Ach said, about Spence guarding him, “and how would you feel if I died? But they’re just going to let it happen.”

He was relieved that the people at the table had gone back to their work because this wasn’t a conversation that should be overheard. At all. Ach sucked at regenting.

Spence looked out into the crowd and then down at his and Ach’s hands where they were entangled.

“I’ll be here when you get back,” he said.

Ach’s chest constricted. “What do you mean, when?”

Where did Spence think he was going?

Spence leaned in close, almost like a kiss, their lips angled just away from each other but their cheeks touching. “The attack coming up, you’re not perma-dead; you have a mission. I promise I will be yours when you come home.”

What?

What?

“They’re attacking girls,” he argued. “Who said what, when?”

“And Dacey’s dad,” Spence pointed out with a little shake of his head. “And Spaden, and me. Konrad has luck now and he’s been using it.” He squeezed Ach’s hand. “You’re going to go to death realm and you have to hang out for a bit. You’re coming home with your dad dad.”

“When?” Ach asked, because he had no emotions. They’d all gone down some little sucky hole in his soul, and he was left feeling paper-thin and empty.

“A few days.” Spence started rubbing his back and Ach started panicking. What if Spence rubbed his back too hard and all the paper-thinness of him just crumpled under Spence’s fingers and Ach…

He wasn’t paper thin. He was solid, a person.

Spence said he was going to be attacked too, but he didn’t say he’d be in Death Realm with Ach, which meant Spence either wasn’t going to die or was coming back in a few days.

“It’s okay,” Spence assured him in that soothing tone he’d learned from his dad. “I just wanted you to be prepared.”

Yeah. Prepared. Hey, Ach, you’re dying this week. But it’s okay, I love you.

But Spence did love him.

Spence was trying to give him a purpose. A mission, some kind of thing to focus on.

He had days before he’d be separated from Spence for who knew how long.

Days.

“Well I’m not staying here,” he told Spence. “This is dumb.” Let someone who wasn’t about to die waste their time on the festival. He wanted Spence, and their kids, and cozy and family and home.

And a little bit, he wanted his mom.

He felt the echo of imagery that meant Spence had sent out a dragon message, asking Konrad to have Nim and Soren take over at the festival.

He felt bad, because they were tired.

But he was going to die.

His skin sparked. He needed to get out of here before anyone noticed him.

“What do you want to do?” Spence asked him.

“Why didn’t anyone tell me?” He realized his voice was getting too loud, so he said more calmly, “Everybody told everyone else.”

Everyone had made a huge deal about what Talise was going to go through, and she wasn’t even staying dead.

That was a horrible envious thought. He didn’t want her to go through that, he just didn’t want himself to go through it either.

“Yours is more of a probability,” Spence explained. “Konrad thinks it’s high. I don’t think anyone else with luck magic has considered it.”

“Are you okay?” He meant to ask, was Spence going to die too, but it came out sounding more like he was worried about Spence here, now. He realized he didn’t know which one he meant.

“I’m okay,” Spence answered the second one. “I’m worried, but about you. I’m here.” He squeezed Ach’s hand again. “Want to go see a new library? Or mess with one of those fortune tellers in Babylon?”

“Fortune tellers?” he asked. That would be kind of fun. Dying, not dying…they would be confused, for sure, if they had any real skill. Babylon hated magic.

That would be fun, but it felt like a waste of an afternoon. “When is days?” he asked.

“Any day now,” Spence said. What that really meant was any time now. Minute, hour, second…the attack could just happen.

“I’m definitely coming back?” he asked, to be clear.

“Konrad said he believes so.”

Well wasn’t that nice for Konrad. It wasn’t his life, his separation, his loss.

Ach didn’t want to die, temporary or not. He was only eighteen.

“I don’t want to,” he told Spence, and he realized he was crying.

Spence pulled him into the tightest hug in history and held him close. “Okay,” he said, matter of fact. “Then you won’t.” He pulled away from Ach, and Ach realized they were in the wood-paneled space that was Zero’s office at his house in Sylem.

“But,” Spence said, his eyes scanning the room for something, searching, “you have to be me.”

“What?”

“We’ll trade bodies,” Spence offered. “You pretend to be me, I’ll pretend to be you. I’ll die and come back. You’ll be here.”

“No!”

The only thing worse than Ach dying was Spence dying. No, that wasn’t true. Talise, or one of their kids, would be worse too. It was why Ach had agreed to be a secret guard for Talise, the hidden guard no one knew was there to protect them all.

“Ach,” Spence said, like it was simple. “The attack is happening, Konrad can’t figure out how to stop it. But one of us has to be dead for a bit. I don’t mind. At all. I can protect you this way.”

Ach clenched his teeth together. Why was this their only option?

No, he’d find something better, even if it consumed all his time researching in the library. And if he couldn’t find anything, he’d face this, he wouldn’t hide from it and make it Spence’s problem to deal with.

“Well I’m not letting you,” he informed Spence flatly, in what he hoped was a tone of voice even Spence wouldn’t argue with. “I can protect you too, you know. You have kids and a job here, and I have a family history of being dead.”

It sounded a lot braver than it felt. Funny, even.

Spence didn’t laugh, but he did tease, “Are you sure? You want to be the one to go on the trip?”

No. But if it came to him or Spence it wasn’t even a question.

He bit back his tears.

“Was it bad?” he asked.

“The dying part sucked for me,” Spence said, “But being dead isn’t that bad.”

Spence had died being crushed under a few dozen giant stones, with an ax in his chest.

Ach looked down at his shirt. He liked his healthy, ax-less chest. Dying would be awful.

“Will you be okay?” he whispered, his fingers on Spence’s jawline, memorizing with touch all the details his eyes knew so well.

“I will be,” Spence promised, determined. “And I will wait. No moving on. You don’t have to worry about that, about me. I’ll watch the kids, even Gunnar.”

Hemi.

Acheron pushed thoughts of Hemi out of his mind. His mom had insisted on being the one to adopt Gunnar, because of Ach’s age at the time he’d found the little boy. Gancanagh were cursed to live on their island, usually, but once in a while one of them managed to have a kid. If they had a son, the curse was guaranteed to pass down.

If they had a son, their own people killed the father and banished the boy to the Gancanagh island.

Gunnar had been a toddler when Ach met him. Banished not just to the gancanagh island, but to the poorest part of it. Ach had rescued him, after they’d connected in an unexpected way, but he was pretty sure his mom at the time thought he just wanted a kid because Talise was pregnant.

So she took Gunnar and adopted him and kept him in daycare and busy and away from Ach.

Ach still saw him, still tried to do fun things with him, because he knew his mom didn’t really have a bond to Gunnar the way he did, and if she was going to make time for one of her kids it wasn’t going to be the same as the time Ach would make for Gunnar.

Dying…Gunnar needed Ach.

This sucked.

He focused on the Spence part for now. The waiting-for part, because Spence shouldn’t wait forever. Ach coming back wasn’t guaranteed.

“There should be a deadline,” he insisted.

“Fifty years,” Spence decided.

Way too long. His mom had gotten over his dad in less than a week.

“Five,” he countered, challenged.

They locked eyes, both resolute, but Ach held his ground. He knew Spence needed someone to help him with how lost he could get in his own thoughts. How good he was at hiding from his own feelings. That was Ach’s job, and if Ach was gone Spence would need someone. Way sooner than five years.

“Five,” Spence conceded, finally. “You won’t even be gone five months.”

“Good,” Ach said, in a high tone. Teasy, trying to be more fun. “Then there’s nothing to worry about.”

“Nothing,” Spence agreed. “I’ll protect you, and our family, however I can.”

Ach closed his mouth against all the, then why are you running for governor when you love security questions. It had to be Spence’s decision.

“Me too,” he promised instead.

Spence offered his hand again, for transport. “Fortune tellers? Or an idea I had?”

The way he said idea like it didn’t matter…

It so did.

“Idea,” Ach answered, eager to hear what was on Spence’s mind.

Spence hesitated and surveyed Ach’s face with his eyes. “What if we could hear each other’s thoughts?”

Pixies. Pixies could do that, and their marriages bound two pixies completely, way more than a Dragon marriage.

“Would that work after?” Ach thought, knowing it was probably just wishful thinking. To be connected after death, would be to never be apart. “Or just until?”

Spence deflated a little. “Probably just until.”

It was still better than nothing. When Spence died years ago, he’d died alone. Everyone died alone. What if Ach didn’t have to?

“Can we?” he asked.

Spence smiled and pulled Ach toward him with an unusual gentleness.

Their lips met, with a promise of yes.

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