The Reconstruction of Kirill

The clash of blades rang out as sunlight streamed through the massive arched windows. Kirill stumbled back from a jab that almost perforated his gut, flicking his rapier down in a clumsy attempt to deflect the sword darting towards him. He succeeded but he was on the back foot, his muscles burning; one misstep, one false move, and—

The tip of the blade pressed against his chest, dangerously close to his heart. “I win.”

“That’s the third time now,” he murmured with a smile, batting the needle-sharp point away and ignoring the flare of pain in his wrist. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’ll ever be as good at it as you are.”

“If you’re going to finish that sentence by insisting I stop teaching you,” Niko said, sliding the rapier into its sheath and smoothing down his rumpled shirt, “then you already know what the answer is.”

Kirill stretched his arms above his head and arched his back, basking in the way the afternoon sun inscribed distorted, criss-crossed arcs over the polished wooden floor and heated it beneath his bare feet. What had once been Niko’s kitchen and a few makeshift storerooms had been transformed into a massive dining room, huge windows dominating the back wall and leading onto the patio. There was really only one thing missing. “When are you going to put tables and chairs in here?”

“Why would I do that?” Niko grinned. “Waste a perfectly good room like this on waiting for the few occasions a year I can bring myself to put up with company? I thought you knew me better than that.”

Kirill returned the grin, only to fumble his sword down as Niko’s weapon flashed out from the sheath again. “Wait, I’m not ready!”

“That’s the whole point of sparring,” the other man laughed, dancing back only to lunge forward again with the tip of his blade aimed at Kirill’s shoulder. “If I waited until you were ready, you’d never learn.”

Batting the blade aside long enough to lean in, Kirill felt his cheeks burn as he forced himself to murmur, “when it comes to you, aren’t I always ready in the end?”

To his amazement, Niko flushed. Honest-to-God turned bright red for one beautiful moment in the face of Kirill’s words. Niko said things like that with a straight face and revelled in Kirill’s embarrassment; it was giddily satisfying to turn the tables on him. Then it was gone and his rapier was flicked easily away, but the memory was as sweet as the moment.

Good thing too, as Niko’s sword ripped a hole in his shirt, just above his heart. “I win again.”

Kirill slid his finger into the slit, wide-eyed. The skin beneath was unmarred, but as gently as Niko had been treating him he’d forgotten just how sharp the blades were. “I’ll repair this later—”

“You’ll do no such thing.” Niko’s hand grazed Kirill’s cheek, making him start. “We’re wearing old shirts for a reason. I hope you’re not holding back because you’re afraid of damaging them.”

Kirill shook his head and wondered if Niko could feel how warm his cheeks became when he blushed. Probably not as his tinted scars were in the way, but how could he say how scared he was of hurting him, unlikely as it might be? Niko had studied fencing since he was a child. Kirill was just an upstart slave with a master who’d never quite grasped what he should and shouldn’t be teaching him. “No, not that. It’s just...”

Niko’s lips brushed against Kirill’s, and he thought his heart would stop. The summer sunshine had nothing on the heat spreading throughout his chest. “I almost lost you once. You know what the newspapers have been saying about this situation overseas, and if anything happens here I couldn’t bear for you to be hurt again.”