Flames of Kor Tiras

The warm sand of the Warriors Circle slides between my toes as I adjust my stance. The copper taste of blood is in my mouth. My lip bleeds from where he slammed it against my teeth. I was an idiot, and Taeyon reminds me of that. I’m the fast one, but I cannot take his charges head on. A shaft of amber sunlight slides between the stone pillars around us, and the dust glitters in the air. Beyond this wall of golden motes, I see Taeyon. He faces me, crouched like the sure-footed felines that hunt along the cliffs. Beads of sweat stand out against the glow of his umber skin, and his muscled chest blooms and falls in a steady rhythm. He is less out of breath than I am, of course.

My eyes find his face, focusing, and his lips pull back in a grin that shows ivory teeth. A few of them in the top row are crooked. He refuses to get them fixed. Stubborn. Maybe if I knock them out it will force him to get them replaced. His eyes dance with a challenging glint as if daring me to try. They are warm and honey gold like Ridora’s evening suns. I swim for a moment in that warmth, losing myself, too long.

Taeyon is the most handsome boy I have ever known. He is more than handsome, there is no word I can find for what I see when I look at him. If I think about it long enough, I will find some metaphor, but not right now. There is no time for metaphors in the Warriors Circle.

He is not so much a boy now, neither of us are, but it is strange to think of him as a man. He is only a year older than me, and I, certainly, am still a boy. I have earned nothing, done nothing that would make me a man.

Maybe by that measure Taeyon has always been a man, but I choose to still call him a boy, not aloud, but within the confines of my own mind I can bring him down a notch so that he remains at least within reach of my grasping desires.

He stands a full head taller than me, and since we wear only short wrestling trunks in the ring, it is easy to see all of him. His skin is dark like the wet earth and his body is rounded with muscle in all the right places. His shoulders are broad and heavy, straighter than mine. He must easily be twice my weight, not that I weigh all that much. My body is lean and tight, but it is not full, not carved as Taeyon’s is carved, chiseled and polished. I measure the body of every boy I see against Taeyon’s, and they are always lacking.

My gaze flicks to the stubby, neat braid of black hair dangling above the leather band around his forehead. There is a flash of golden light as the threads woven into his braids catch the sunlight. He moves into the shaft of light between us, suddenly closing the distance across the sand.

I am not prepared.

We grapple, a brief struggle of muscle and grunting. I smell his sweat. His hot, wet skin slides against my own. His leg hooks around my ankle, and I’m falling backwards. His broad shoulders eclipse the light. I wait for the impact of the sand, time seems to freeze an instant, then I feel the coarse grains grinding into my bare shoulder blades. Taeyon has slipped his arm behind me, protecting my head and breaking the most painful part of my fall. For a stretching moment I am in the cradle of his strength, proven superior to mine, again. Then he lifts me to my feet. He grips the side of my neck, pushing my forehead against his as he grins.

“Got you again, Kadari. You’re supposed to watch your opponent’s eyes.”

“I was watching your eyes,” I grumble. I won’t say more.

Taeyon slaps my back, laughing, but only in a way that makes me laugh with him. Taeyon is never laughing at me, but he invites me to laugh with him at my own silliness.

Around us, some of the men clap in gentle congratulations of Taeyon’s unsurprising victory. He pays no mind to them as he hooks me around the neck with his arm and pulls me toward the stone trough of spring water. The elders’ praise seems to slough off him as easily as the bucket of cool water I pour over his head and shoulders. As the defeated one, I am obliged to wash him. I draw more water with the copper bucket and take one of the clean cloths folded on the nearby shelf carved out of the stone. Dipping it, I begin to wash down his back, his arms, his legs, all the way down to his ankles. He spreads his limbs for me. His body is covered only by the short, grey cloth of his wrestling trunks. Then I work my way around to his front, squeezing the cloth against his chest and abdomen, around his shoulders. His gaze follows me, smirking in victory, but there is a glint in his eyes, and I feel it has nothing to do with his victory. That glint makes me shiver as if he had just whispered the deepest of secrets into my ear.

Another would be humiliated, as is the intention of the bathing ritual. Yesterday, Taeyon beat Kynori in a similar fashion. The daggers of my jealousy could have slit open Kynori from nape to hips as I watched him perform this duty. His eyes told me he enjoyed none of it, and he barely did the job justice. I happen to know that Taeyon showered afterwards. He will not shower today. In a quiet corner of my mind, I wonder if there is some reason beyond cleanliness that prevents him from showering only after I am the one to wash him, if maybe there is some mark I have left on him that he does not wish to remove. Sometimes, I wish he fought only against me.

I finish with his chest, shoulders, and abs. I grab a new cloth because simply rinsing the first will not be good enough for the next step. I approach his face with it. He raises one thin eyebrow at me, and his smirk has become a lopsided grin. It is not required that I wash his face unless he asks me to do so, which he could ask to complete the intended humiliation, to force me to look in his face. He has never had to ask, and he closes his eyes as the cloth squeezes out across his brow and cheeks and neck. I even manage to work behind his ears, and I remove his headband so that no offending dirt will cling beneath it. To finish, I draw one last bucket of water and douse him with it.

Then I wait. I don’t know why I am always unsure at this moment, even though we have done this so many times, dozens, maybe a hundred. In accordance with the ritual, the loser must wash the victor, but the victor need not return the favor unless he chooses to. Taeyon has never turned away, even during the first bouts, when every young boy was keen to milk the victory ritual for every once of superiority they could extract. I remember the day. Every victor had left their opponent to sulk off to the showers. Then it was my turn. Of course, I lost to Taeyon that day, too. I expected to follow the others in their walk of shame, but Taeyon grabbed my wrist after I had finished with him. I don’t think I breathed when I saw him grab the bucket and cloth. I heard the murmuring of voices from the other boys and even a few of the elders, but they faded into the background the moment the cool water poured over me. The only other thing I remember from that day was Taeyon’s eyes looking at me when he cleaned my face, reminding me who we were to each other, that I had no business doubting him.

Yet, I always do, and I hate it.

I close my eyes as the water spills over my shoulders, washing away my festering doubt along with the sweat and sand. I shouldn’t smile. It is a stoic ritual, and I should be grateful for the victor’s humbleness, but I cannot help myself. The cloth glides across my skin, firm and confident. It tickles when it touches the sensitive spots near my hips and underarms. I swear it lingers there, working at nonexistent dirt, and I squirm, desperately holding back the laughter trying to break out of me. Taeyon cleanses me with unnecessary thoroughness. I feel the slight tug as he unbinds the leather holding my long braids, letting them loosen and part, then holding them aside so he can properly reach my upper back and neck. I am lost for a long while in the cooling moisture. When he reaches my face and finds me with his eyes, I am drowning in golden honey.

The final splash of water falls over me, and I know with some disappointment that the ritual is over. The unusual longevity of it no longer surprises the others. The elders and veteran warriors have long since departed the stone ring. I know that some of the boys still snicker but only when Taeyon cannot notice them. I will challenge all of them someday. I will teach them the cost of their derision. For now, they do not matter so much. Taeyon beats them all. He washes none of them after.

“Come on,” Taeyon tells me. We leave the Warriors’ Ring, following the narrow cut between the surrounding rocks that shelter the small arena. It is set deep in the mountainous cliffs of flat-topped ruddy stone that run like an enormous wall for five hundred kilometers to the west. Huddled along a small portion of these cliffs are the many carved structures of Kestarad, the largest city of our province, and the fifth largest on Ridora. Once, the rectangular towers of stone stood only along the cliff face, shaped from the rock itself. Most call this Old Kestarad. Over time, more and more structures expanded out from them, and from our vantage, a lumpy sea of squat stone buildings now spreads into the dusty plains below us. We can see far into the distant horizon where other lines of stone cliffs punctuate the flatlands, and a sluggish river snakes across the plains, giving life to the crop fields that feed our people.

I have lived in Kestarad all my nineteen years of life. I have never even been to another city on Ridora. Sometimes I dream of seeing the capital, Avasridon, but it is over ten thousand kilometers away. Overhead, a streak of light punctuates the hazy sky, and I know it is a ship, probably landing at one of the great spaceports. Kestarad has a spaceport, but not many ships land there. It is a traditional city, and the people here have little to do with those who come and go from other worlds. We are suspended in the net of the past. I’m still not sure how I feel about that. Sometimes conflicted, pulled between my heritage and the stories I hear of those who adventure to distant planets or live whole lives on massive mining ships, the planet grinders, which can gobble up entire asteroids and chunks of moon to feed our great industries. I know Ridorans have been a space-faring species for thousands of years, but in a place like Kestarad you can almost forget that fact. It is as if the universe beyond our lazy sky is something reserved for stories in the taverna, to be dreamt of but never seen.

I follow Taeyon silently down the steps toward Old Kestarad. There are hundreds and hundreds of steps, worn smooth from centuries and millions of passing feet. The stone is warm against my bare skin. I do not have to ask where Taeyon is going, we always go back to his home after sparring. His family lives in Old Kestarad, in one of the stone tower houses that have stood here for more than seven centuries. Soon we are standing at the base of it, its shadow overcasts the entire block, a colossus of reddish-tan stone. I crane my neck toward the top where Taeyon’s clan banners shift in the gentle breeze. Like most clan sigils, the symbolism is rough, a V-shaped slash with arcs fanning up from its bottom like the thin, sharp petals of a makori cactus flower, reminding me of prints our ancient ancestors might have smeared by hand on rocks or wooden shields.

Many things about Ridorans have changed over millennia, but the clans do not change. He is Vendari Clan, one of the most venerable. They are highly honored, especially among those who live in a place like Kestarad. My own parents were overcome with pride when they realized I was friends with a son of Vendari Clan. They are above my own clan in every way, greater prestige, greater honor, older, and highly respected in the Conclave. I am merely of Donosi Clan, and we are nothing special. We do not even send a representative to the Conclave, relying on those like the Vendari to speak for our welfare. All clans are invited to the Conclave, of course, but my grandfather, our clan leader, knows our voice will not truly be heard. It is better to whisper into the ears of the Vendari and hope their voice carries some small amount of our will. Our fortunes, our survival, depend on the Vendari’s grace.

But that is just politics. I do not worry about my clan’s fortunes. I know that I belong to Taeyon, and it does not matter what clan name he holds—although I’d never breathe a word of that aloud.

It feels as though I have always belonged to Taeyon, as if I belonged to him before we met, before the twin suns were born and Ridora cooled, before the First Ancestors began the clocks of time. In my dreams, we are a circle, a loop of gold and silver with no beginning and no end.

I cannot imagine an end.