Free The Sacred Band: Book Three of the Acacia Trilogy by David Anthony Durham Page B

dreaded that Sabeer would expect him to perform in intimate ways. Dreaded it, and yet it was not only his stomach that tingled with anticipation.

    A nother drummer played in Sabeer’s chamber. Still other servants hovered near, but Rialus forgot about them as Sabeer lay down with him. She pressed her strong body against his frail one. She spooned around him, breasts pressing against his back, her long legs entwined with his spindly ones.
    So positioned, she stroked her finger up and down his arm. “Do you understand what the two lovers did wrong in Howlk’s song? They were old. You know yourself that none of us Auldek are old in body. We all took our first soul at an age of vanity. You understand? If we were to be immortal, we wanted to be forever strong, young, good for fighting and lovemaking, no sign either of our beginnings or of our ends. That’s why there are none of us in child bodies, no immortal children. That would be very disturbing, I think. That’s why I chose to look forever as I do now. I made a good choice, yes?”
    Rialus blushed. “You are … very well formed.”
    “Such a silver tongue you have.” Sabeer chuckled, and then grew serious. “What those two lovers did wrong was that they disdained immortality. They gave up on it and died back into their true souls. And then those true souls let their bodies age. That itself made them … I don’t know what to call them. Outcasts. Not exactly. A holy couple. Perhaps they would have been. But then, nearing death, they asked for life again. They wanted souls from the soul catcher then. You understand that they could not have this. Can you imagine? Them old forever? In love and old forever. No, we could not allow that. I do wish I remembered them, though. Truly remembered them.”
    “Do you not?”
    Sabeer slid her leg over Rialus. Her skin was soft and hot, and he was glad he faced away from her, curved around the arousal in his groin.
    “No, I haven’t for many years. None of us do. I’m making a confession to you, Rialus. We know what’s written. We know things because we keep the knowledge alive. In records. In songs. We can only hold the memories of eighty years or so. The length of a long normal life. As we grew past that age our childhoods disappeared, and then our youth, and even the day we ate our first soul and gained lasting life. Rialus, I once lived in the interior, in a palace in the Westlands. I loved a man name Merwyn. We lived seventy-five years together but could have no children. The sadness of this became too much for him and he let free his lives and died a final death. At least, that’s what the written histories say of him. Myself, I remember none of it. We claim we abandoned the cities because of ancient wars and slaughter. Perhaps that’s true, but that’s not why we fear to return to them. I think what scares us is not remembering, not knowing our own lives, being strangers to ourselves.”
    “I—I understand,” Rialus said. “That must be like—like when the old in my land lose their minds and memories. Not just like it, of course, because they forget yesterday and remember fifty years ago, but the same sort of thing. Sabeer, you are like us. Your immortality hasn’t made you different at all. You’re just like—”
    “Don’t be silly,” she said. She propped herself up on her elbow and pressed her finger to his lips to silence him. “Rialus Silver Tongue. That’s what we should call you. Always trying to save your people.” She smiled and leaned close enough to kiss him. “I like you, Rialus Silver Tongue, but when we reach your lands, I’ll take to the field of battle with my kinsmen just as we’ve planned. You can’t change that.”
    She pulled her finger away, but Rialus felt it still, as if it had left a brand on his lips, an old, bitter wound already scarred over. What was he doing in bed with this creature? Listening to her. Talking to her. Aroused by her and, for a moment, understanding