One week later, King Mandan and Queen Lendra buried their eldest son, Prince Daggan, in the Mausoleum of Kings in the cemetery outside of Brystyn.
It was Brother Mathias who dutifully reminded the king that, technically speaking, the late Prince Tannen had won the Trial by Combat, for Prince Daggan had died three days after the combat due to the infection caused by the wound Tannen had delivered on the tourney field.
Reluctantly, King Mandan granted pardons for Prince Corin and Robin Rivers, and although the Brotherhood of the Lord of Life and Sisters of the Sacred Lady adamantly protested against the king’s justice, the pardons were made official.
It was Queen Lendra who hired Dax Storm and his Ravens to search far and wide for her son, who had mysteriously disappeared and had not been heard from since. The queen also involved the Outlaw King of the Banished Company, finding that as Rian’s father, he was more than willing to join in the search for both Rian and Prince Corin.
To begin the most difficult task of finding the two who did not want to be found due to the former charge against Corey, Dax and Talas sent their entire companies out in groups of two to search across the realm of Talasar. Some went to Rissen. Others traveled to Delvaria, Les Callas, Trenton, and the Fife.
Tristan and Silk ventured to the Kestrel Woods, thinking that Rian might have taken haven in his childhood home. There they met Rian’s mother, who suggested that the two travel to the borders of the Emerald Mist Forest and pass word among the Fairis Dayan that her son was missing and needed to be found.
Sparrow, in his own efforts to find his brother, employed the arts of sorcery by having Thane Red Branch consult with the Wizards of Vision deep in the Vale of Seven Rivers. There, in an ancient tower, Thane and his wizard associates peered for long, tireless hours into the hundreds of gazing balls situated on the Table of Orbs. In this way, they searched over a thousand locations where the counterpoints to each orb had been placed throughout the realm.
Princess Sharlyn sent out her own teams of search parties, checking among both the Royal Houses in the Five Kingdoms, as well as the underground network of the common folk in each of these cities.
Three weeks later, Prince Corin and Rian Blackthorn were still not found.
It was Chan Linn, with his network of Bird Folk, who finally came across a clue as to where his beloved master had gone. He heard it from an owl, who heard it from a hawk, who heard it from an eagle, who heard it from a wren. And so it came to pass, one month after Rian had flown away on the dragon Kaden, that Chan set off by himself, leaving Brystyn in the dark of night like the Shadow he had been named for.
*
Three hundred feet above the forest floor in the Vale, Rian made mad, passionate love to Corey with a fevered intensity. Of course, as usual, Corey had started the sex play between them on the soft feathered bed they shared in a wooden dome situated high in the branches of one of the giant silver birch trees of the Vale of Seven Rivers.
They had discovered the abandoned watch post of the Elves of the Vale three days after their flight away from Brystyn. Kaden had offered them a chamber of their own high in the mountains of the coast where he made his den, but Corey had cordially refused his offer of hospitality. Instead, he had asked the dragon to help them search the Vale for what was to become their new home together.
Rian, with his keen Elven vision, had spotted the skillfully crafted dome situated high in the branches of the enormous birch tree along the southern borders of the vast forest of the Fairis Dayan.
Kaden, at Corey’s insistence, had doubled back, hovered above the large, open-air porch of the structure built so long ago by the Elves of the Vale, and allowed the two to drop from their perch on his back onto the wide porch ten feet below them.
Rian and Corey both had offered the dragon their thanks, and Kaden had nodded at them and flown away to his distant den in the east.
In the comforts of their new-found home, Rian had made love to Corey each night for the past month.
This night, as the moon rose like a giant silver ball in the star-dotted eastern skies, Rian started their session by a simple back massage, placing Corey’s arms above his head and gently spreading his legs wide on the bed beneath them.
Fingertipping his way up from the mounds of his naked ass, Rian sent goose bumps all over Corey’s bare back. He spider-walked up to his left shoulder, then scurried his fingers over to his right. Still sticking to just featherlight grazes with the tips of all four fingers, Rian then worked his way back down over Corey’s twin mounds, slipping his index and middle fingers into the space between his asshole and his balls. Lingering there for long moments, he listened to Corey’s breathing as it turned from slight, whispered breaths into almost a full-blown gasps of pleasure.
Rian gently turned Corey over. He smiled when he saw his stiff. Lightly plying the long boner with just his index and middle finger and occasionally his thumb, Rian played with the hardened shaft for quite some time. Grazes, skimming, fingertip dancing, never using so much as a solid grip, Rian had Corey’s shaft rock hard and aching to be played with.
Corey writhed and squirmed due to Rian’s gentle ministrations, all his pleasured nerves firing off at once. He moaned as Rian centered on just his slick, shiny head, smearing pre-cum all over the hard knob’s sensitive tip. When he slid one finger down, flickering it over his pleasure spot, Corey groaned and grabbed handfuls of the sheets beneath him, raising his hips and his buttocks up off the bed.
A slow spider’s crawl down and over his balls had Corey blowing in and out and turning his head from side to side. When Rian slipped two fingers directly into his ass ring, Corey gave a soft whimper.
Sliding the fingers into him knuckle-deep, Rian looked to his face to read whether or not Corey was prepared for a full plunge inward. Sensing him gazing down at him, Corey opened his eyes and slowly nodded. He closed them once again as Rian performed slow, yet steady jabs up into his chute, tapping repeatedly at his prostate gland. Corey let out whimpers and tiny cries that spurred Rian on so that he increased his jabbing motions.
Three fingers slipped inside Corey, who turned on his side, raising one leg high in the air to give Rian more room to invade his ass.
Rian reached down to the metal vial of lotion and squirted the rose-scented gel all over Corey’s ass ring. With lotion-slicked fingers, he continued to finger fuck-him. He kept just his fingertips in each time, sliding them round and round, feeling the contours of Corey’s asshole from nearly every angle.
Flipping him over on his back, Rian tossed Corey’s hands above his head. With them, Corey reached above him, gripping the headboard. Rian spread his slowly rising legs and lined himself up for entry. Corey wiggled his butt on the silky fabric of the sheets, raised his legs higher, and most willingly loosened the muscles in his sphincter. Rian’s head slipped inside. Corey gasped. Rian did the same.
His dick was halfway in when Corey crossed his legs behind Rian’s neck, drawing him down for a wet, sloppy kiss. Rian shoved all eight inches deep inside Corey. Corey’s hum of pleasure caused both of their mouths to contract around each other even as their tongues performed a wild, serpentine crawl over and over.
Rian flipped Corey over onto his face.
Corey buried his face in the pillow, actually biting on it as Rian plunged inside him. Corey rose onto his hands and knees.
Rian froze as Corey took over, working Rian’s cock by humping back into his pelvic region. He gracefully moved his ass to the left, back to the right, and then drove back into Rian in quick little bucks.
Rian spun him around so that Corey came down seated on top of him.
Corey gasped and tossed his head back, reached around, and grabbed Rian’s wrists. Pinning his arms to the bed above his head and seated on top of him, Corey pumped his ass up and down in wild abandon, letting out a long, low whine on his downward plunges.
Sprawled beneath him, Rian allowed him to continue for long moments and then finally asserted control once more. He shifted Corey around and dragged him over to the edge of the bed.
“On your knees before me,” Rian commanded, and Corey wiggled his ass free of Rian’s cock to spin around. This time when Rian pushed in, he gripped Corey’s throat, raising his head slightly with each thrust. Then to Corey’s surprise, he snagged Corey’s golden hair. He ended his domination play by gently cupping Corey’s chin in his hand and fucked him.
Their love-making ended when Corey took control. He snaked his way out from under Rian and turned his body around to embrace him from beneath. Sucking furiously on each of this nipples, he worked Rian, building up for a final finish. Latching onto Rian’s long, raven hair, he forced him down on his back on the bed.
Taking hold of both sides of his face, Corey pressed his cock into his lips. They parted and Corey slid all the way inside his mouth. This time it was Rian’s eyes that flew wide open as his shaft shot down his throat in repeated jabs.
With one long, slow pull out of his mouth, Corey withdrew his cock. He then snuggled his ass down onto Rian’s meaty erection, burying it inside himself and crying out with delight as he did so.
In this way, he rode him to a wild orgasm, causing Rian to buck, writhe, squirm, and whimper as his sperm spurted out of his cock and into Corey’s ass chamber.
Staying impaled as he was, Corey frantically pumped his cock, spewing seed all the way up onto Rian’s face.
After cleaning his cum off his lover’s face, Corey snuggled up beside him, and soon they drifted off to sleep.