Free Playing With Fire by Sean Michael Page A

borrowed cloak. Zujan was almost blue he was so white, and when Wintras sat, taking Zujan into his arms, Zujan was the coldest thing he’d ever held.
    It wasn’t natural, and it couldn’t be good.
    He wrapped himself around Zujan and the blankets around both of them. “I don’t understand how anyone could be so cold and not dead.”
    “The magics. It’s the… Oh. Sweet Velus in the Heavens. You’re warm.”
    “That’s not hard, seeing how cold you are.” He pulled Zujan closer, hands stroking over the freezing skin. He thought maybe Zujan was a little less cold now, though that might have just been the room getting warmer as the fire began to blaze.
    Zujan chuckled, head lolling. “Wait until the bar’cha start gathering in the hall. They can’t come here. No one can, without my permission.”
    He shivered. He’d just walked right in. He wasn’t even sure if Zujan had been conscious at the time. “Why do you let them do this to you?” Zujan was this powerful, terrifying mage who ruled by terror and fire. It was hard to reconcile that image with the slight, freezing, vulnerable man in his arms.
    “There are prices to pay for all things, Wintras. The more wonderful the gift, the more horrible the cost. Surely you know this.”
    He shrugged, Zujan’s words making him feel young and inexperienced. “I know you have to work hard to get stuff done.”
    “Yes. I was born with this gift, born with a host of bar’cha hungering for someone’s body to…” Zujan shivered, pressed closer. “They require sustenance, life force. They are the curse that comes with the gift.”
    “Wow.” He didn’t know what else to say, so he just kept sliding his hands over Zujan’s skin. The man was definitely beginning to warm up.
    A soft moan sounded, Zujan’s eyes closing. Wintras bit back his words of concern, confused by his conflicted feelings. Pale and fine and delicate—how could this man be the same one who ruled with a fist of iron?
    He closed his eyes and tried not to think about it, just held and rubbed and shared his heat with Zujan. He could go back to being defiant and angry when Zujan was throwing his weight around again. Until then, they would rest.
    * * * *
    Warm. Quiet. Easy. Home. Oh, he must be home.
    His mother had built this place for him, imbuing it with the last of her spirit, his father’s magics gone mad, the skin falling from her bones, offering him sanctuary. He had stayed in the room for years—Cook leaving food in a box that he pulled to him on the rope, Father watching and raging, screaming threats. He had learned so much, read so much, learned control and distance. Learned that the world was vicious and waiting to destroy him.
    His father was the first person who fell to his flames; the army come to destroy his home the next to feel their heat.
    Zujan stretched, memories irritating him, waking him. Warm hands, warmer than any he could ever remember, slid along his arm, patting him.
    Oh. Oh, sweet Velus. “So warm.” He couldn’t remember not being cold.
    “Yeah, I think you’re finally feeling normal. I didn’t think your skin was ever going to warm.”
    He frowned, eyes blinking open to focus on his little prince. Odd. He didn’t remember inviting him in. “I don’t blame you. I didn’t either.”
    “Are you all right now? Hungry? I can go get food from the kitchen.” Wintras shifted.
    Zujan nodded, forcing himself to sit up, pull away from the warmth, draw the veil of calm around him. There was something about this boy that ate away at his control. “You may go, Wintras.”
    Wintras got up out of the chair like it was on fire, face turning into the familiar mask of…disdain? Dislike? “I’ll ask Cook to send someone with food.”
    “Don’t bother. No one can come here.” He wrapped himself in a cloak, stomach aching.
    “You know you just have to ask, and I’ll bring it back myself.”
    Zujan nodded, moving over to the books against the wall, fingers trailing along