High Dawn: Secrets of Sleipnir, #3

By Sax Brightwell

Fiyeli and Evret have travelled with Maunat and Bhimmi across the whole of Maunat's homeland, the Trer, rallying Trerenes to the cause of abolishing a nascent slaver movement on the Sea of Glass. And the Trerenes have answered that call, spreading Fiyeli's message until it beats the party to Maunat's home village of Ehlark, led by Maunat's eldest brother (and Fiyeli's ex) Chief Kilum Ingaji. With the help of Kilum and other leaders, a coalition forms with Bhimmi's people, the plains Nanshul.

 

Two cavalries will ride north across the Shul plain. Two nations strengthen their ties. But not everyone is in favour of these developments, and some will stop at nothing to keep the flow of salvaged Celestial technology unobserved and unimpeded. As their greed-fuelled enemies seek to sow hatred and division, lovers and friends must rely on their wits, their courage - and each other.

 

(Approximate length: 84,000 words)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sax Brightwell
• Release date: Jun 21, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224597840

Sax Brightwell

Sax Brightwell has been writing self-indulgent smut about men who are ride-or-die for each other since 2014. They were delighted when one reviewer described their brand as "absolutely filthy but also very sweet." They were as surprised as anyone in 2023 when an idea took the bit in its teeth and turned into the Secrets of Sleipnir series. Sax has a background in biology, and a foreground in healthcare. They agreed suspiciously quickly when their youngest child asked to start an aquarium.

Book preview

High Dawn

by Sax Brightwell

CONTENT WARNING

DEAR READER,

High Dawn includes: explicit male/male and male/female sex, depicted and referenced harm to animals, individual experiences of disability and nonbinary gender, references to rape, torture, genetic engineering, and slavery, a lack of due process, age differences, and a majority POC cast including villains and victims.

Take care,

-Sax Brightwell.

PROLOGUE: A BRIDGE FOR IDIOTS

FOUR YEARS EARLIER:

Jema smoothed out the folds in xir grandmother’s letter and read it again, as if doing so enough times would make it hurt less. Like trying to blunt a root-grater with my skin, xe thought sardonically, I’ll get there eventually!

She hadn’t minced her words, and Jema could hear her thin, wavering voice as xe read: ‘... Of course, you’ve done very well for yourself, dear. No one would dare say otherwise. The point is that it’s not quite right for an inbe to do for xirself at all, is it? You’re meant to be the bridge, Jema: between man and woman, between the human world and the spirits, a shaman loved and supported by all as the very centre of the community. Like the rhyme you sang on my knee as a child, remember? Set apart, yet the beating heart! How can you expect to fulfill that role with a chief for a husband, and that little Libar for a wife - and you must know those two will have you up to your eyeballs in babies before you can blink - and trying to work as an herbalist? It’s all so - worldly. I’m afraid I simply can’t approve, and so I won’t be accompanying your parents to the wedding.’

"Trying to work as an herbalist, my ass, xe muttered, blinking hard. Watch me working to come up with a tincture that can handle the headache you give me, you old bat."

Everything okay? said Kilum from the doorway.

Fine, Jema said, then immediately put the lie to that by tugging anxious fingers through xir hair - which xe’d already anxiously unbraided while reading. Xe shook a few long, black strands free and sighed. Not fine. You can come in, you don’t need to hover.

Kilum entered the workroom. His short bowlegs should have given him a waddling gait, but he somehow transformed it into an authoritative swagger. It was an impressive feat, and also a habit he couldn’t turn off (like his relentlessly straight, square-shouldered posture, and the proud upward tilt of his chin), not even when he was trying to be respectful of Jema’s space. Xe’d had to learn to pay less attention to his mannerisms and more to his actions - like how he’d waited and asked instead of barging in.

I hope you’re not sitting on the floor to write, he fretted. That’s murder on your back without a lap desk. Do you want a lap desk? I could–

No, Jema laughed. You know I use my worktable all the time, including to write. It’s the perfect height. Just like the matching stool he’d also gifted xem, and their three-person bed that was not only extra-wide but extra-long. They were the only furniture xe’d ever had that was perfectly-sized for xir huge frame, and doubly touching in Kilum’s house where the default was to have everything on the floor or otherwise within reach of someone who stood less than two-thirds an average body-length tall. Libar was less than a handspan taller, and fit perfectly like a little bird into a little nest, but Kilum had gone out of his way to make sure Jema fit too. In xir workroom there were even shelves mounted on the walls that neither of the other two could hope to reach without a stepladder.

(That’s actually perfect for when we have kids, Kilum had said, looking up at the new shelves with a satisfied air, for a while at least, even if they take after you. Jema had burst into tears, kissed him so hard they immediately put the bed to the test yet again, and then moved all xir most toxic ingredients up there. Xe would still need a lockbox eventually, though - kids were climbers.)

Which brought xem back to the topic at hand. I wasn’t writing, xe said, just reading.

Your grandmother’s letter again? Kilum’s round forehead and thick black eyebrows let him scowl magnificently when he wanted to, an especially forbidding look combined with the blocky cut of his tight-curling hair and beard.

It was fascinating, Jema thought - not for the first time - to be with someone who made nearly the exact opposite choices xe did in terms of presentation. Xe almost always made the soft choice, the feminine choice, trying to offset xir booming bass voice and being built like a brick shithouse. Trying to be recognized as in-between without always needing to say it. From the first, xe had seen in Kilum someone else who worked hard to be seen a certain way. A kindred spirit.

Right now, xir kindred spirit was cracking the knuckles of his stubby brown fingers - a tell he allowed himself, because it came off as unsettling rather than weak, so long as you didn’t look as far as the concern in his warm brown eyes. I still can’t believe she would say that, he muttered.

"I can, Jema sighed. She’s always had very firm notions of proper behaviour - for everyone, not just inben."

There’s firm, and then there’s tight-assed enough to turn a lump of coal into a diamond.

Jema dissolved into giggles. "Spirits, the mouth on you!"

He waggled his eyebrows, looking pleased with himself. You know it, babe, he purred, then added hopefully, or do you need a reminder?

Jema bit xir lip and told xir cock now was not the time. I promised Libar I’d meet her at the market and help her move a load out to the kiln.

Do you need a salamander? It was a minor victory that Libar and Jema had managed to talk Kilum out of acquiring a second salamander just for them; he’d been all set to expand Velgie’s little stable, when Kilum needed Velgie every time he stepped outside his house and they needed a pack animal less than once a week. The village salamanders were all they needed.

Nah. It’s just one box, I think; I’ll be fine.

He nodded. Alright. I should check up on supper, so I’ll catch you later.

Xe leaned in for a brief kiss. Throw something good in the pot for us, o bountiful provider.

He smiled, the shockingly sweet smile that was just for xem and Libar. I will.

Xir grandmother, Jema thought peaceably as xe headed for the market, was full of shit.

Jema! called Kilum’s kid sister Maunat, coming down another side trail mounted on Urara just in time to cross xir path. Good morning!

Good morning, prince, Jema said, which got xem a big smile, and then, just to see it get even wider, added, have you had good hunting this morning?

I have! She hefted a net bag, which thrashed and clacked angrily.

A canopy lobster! Very nice. It would not be very nice if it cut its way out of that bag, but Maunat knew her business well enough to bind its claws. Kilum was just looking into supper; I wager he’ll want to cook that tonight instead of saving it in a crate. What a treat!

Maunat’s grin was adorable. Jema wasn’t quite sure when xe’d gotten so old a grown woman of eighteen could seem like a raw-boned kid to xem, but there it was. She leaned in and confided, I also found more feathers! She showed Jema a fistful of gleaming red, blue, and yellow fluff.

For your princess’s betrothal cloak? She nodded, blushing. Jema was well aware of what an honour it was to be trusted with this. Not everyone was gentle with Maunat about her ambition to find, woo, and marry a ‘boy princess’ (Jema’s grandmother would have shat herself sideways). Kilum said she’d never wavered, but there were plenty of Ingajis who’d teased her enough to forfeit the right to any more updates straight from the source. I’m sure Alaife will be glad to add them. She uses up every feather you find right away.

It always gave Jema a boost to build Maunat up, like xe was reaching back in time and hugging xir own kid self in the midst of struggling with who xe felt expected to be and who xe actually was. This time, seeing Maunat’s eyes shine at the little reminders of her other supporters in the family, was no different. Xe decided to go for one more boost: How’s it going with that little northern penpal of yours? Do you think he could be the one? 

"He’s fifteen! But... later, maybe, she mused hopefully. We’ll see. For now, I really like writing to him. Do you know if Uncle Fiyeli is still in the village?"

The postman? Why wouldn’t he be? Didn’t he just get in last night? Jema knew full well that was when he’d arrived, because that was when they’d gotten the first responses to their wedding invitations. Mail-carriers always stayed at least two nights, unless villages were really close together or something unusual was going on.

Right, said Maunat, looking uncomfortable. It’s okay either way; he already has my response to the letter from before. Anyway, I should get this lobster over to the hall; see you at supper! She waved and steered Urara onto the path to the village hall.

Jema frowned. That was weird. Was it weird? For Maunat to not be sure if a postman she knew well enough to call uncle was staying a second night? The Ingaji family was so huge the kid’s bar for calling someone auntie or uncle was very, very low, but not entirely on the floor. And why wouldn’t he stay, unless something was going on - but if something was going on, Kilum would have said... Xe shook xir head and continued on xir way.

The market was winding down as it got closer to midday; not that the sun could really be called oppressive anywhere under the Trer’s canopy, but it still made the air warm and humid enough nobody wanted to trade or do much of anything except find a place for a siesta. Or - Jema smiled - if one were an obsessed potter, get one’s conveniently-muscular betrothed to haul pieces ready for firing while the light on the ground was at its best.

Libar was at her wheel when Jema entered her workshop. Oh! Is it that time already? Her foot never stopped on the pedal, her hands steady on the clay she was working even as droplets of muddy water splattered everywhere. They looked white as milk against her dark black skin - or like a spray of stars across the night sky, except instead of a domed vault of sky she was a harmonious series of cozy spheres: round pile of hair in a bright wrap, round face, round breasts in their supportive top ("they’re heavy!" she complained to anyone who pointed out the Trerene fashion was to go topless), soft round belly. She had to be the softest, sweetest, prettiest woman in the whole world.

"It is that time, yes," Jema said, when xe could do something other than gaze in admiration (and remind xir cock again that now was not the time). Inspiration strike?

Hmm, more working through a thought.

And that thought is... bowl? Jema was pretty sure it was a bowl. It was too wide to be a cup, too tall to be a plate, and too small to be a pot or pitcher.

Bowl, she said firmly. Can’t ever have too many bowls, for the village supper if nothing else. She spun the lump into a bowl that would, indeed, be of a size and shape to stack neatly with the rest of the mighty fleet that fed everyone in the village every night. Ehlark was about as big as a village could get and still follow the law of village supper without splitting into neighbourhoods like Gibarra City (at least, that’s how Jema had heard they handled it there), so bowl-attrition was high. Libar finished it off by using the back of one fingernail to add a swooping little spiral accent around the outside, a grace note that subtly transformed it from plain to art in seconds, because she was the most amazing artist Jema had ever met. Xe was going to marry her.

You’re amazing, Jema told her.

Thank you, love. She smiled, but it was a distracted sort of smile. Evidently ‘bowl’ had not completed her thought. It did, however, complete a bowl. She moved it carefully to a drying shelf and went to wash her hands. The box of pieces for firing is there, she said, tilting her head.

Oh, I see how it is, Jema joked, peering inside the box: pale, dull grey rather than fired white. Raw dried clay, then, rather than once-fired ‘biscuit’ with raw glaze on it that would need to be fired a second time. Very heavy and very fragile; no wonder Libar wanted Jema’s help specifically. I give out compliments and get pack-animal duty. Xe dropped into a squat, tested xir grip on the box twice, and stood up with it.

Not true, Libar said primly, patting Jema’s ass as xe rose. You also get ogled and sexually harassed.

Right when I can’t do anything about it, either, Jema grunted. Except watch as you lead the way, fuzzbird. Libar dimpled a less-distracted smile at xem for that and then did indeed lead the way.

Libar was like a fuzzbird, most of the time, flitting cheerfully from one item of interest to the next. She loved having her workshop right off the market, less for ease of trade (though that was nice) than to be able to step out and talk to people and look at their things whenever she wanted. Today, however, she took mercy on Jema’s spine and went straight for the fire grove, shooting just one searching glance around the market square first.

Looking for someone?

Yeah, that cute postman. Fiyeli? He was looking to trade for honey earlier, and I wanted to ask if Ennige found him. Her distracted, thoughtful look was back, and Jema suddenly wondered if xe had looked like that after talking to Maunat.

I have honey, if he needs some. Or just wants some. It was useful for certain medicines, to cover terrible flavours or to prevent spoiling, as well as healthful in its own right. Xe was quite proud of xir recipe for a syrup for sore throats.

Ennige has a whole fresh batch, though, and Fiyeli wanted an entire pot. Said he had some friends he wanted to gift it to. There was still a little frown between Libar’s eyebrows, more than could be explained by a possible missed trading connection. Jema’s sense that there was a problem got stronger.

Unfortunately, one thing that wasn’t getting stronger was xir arms, and the box of raw pottery was very heavy. Xe huffed and puffed and refused to stagger until they were all the way into the fire grove and xe could set the box down very gently next to the kiln. Then xe sat down and collapsed flat on their back in the sand.

Libar wrinkled her nose. Eugh, that’s going to get in your hair.

Jema twinkled up at her. You can brush it out for me later, as a thank-you. Xe loved it when she or Kilum brushed xir hair, which was too straight to benefit from the oil massages xe gave both of them. (They tried, once. It was gross.)

"As a favour to myself, more like, so we don’t get sand in the bed." Libar had to strain to get the heavy door of the kiln open, but she could do it. Jema (like all of Ehlark) knew better than to interfere with her placing the pieces on the firing shelves. Some pieces invariably didn’t make it anyway, but she kept her temper better when she’d been the only one to position them.

So there was nothing for Jema to do but sit and recover, looking around the fire grove: cleared of trees and all other vegetation, the ground covered in sand specially moved here for the purpose, and dotted with those buildings most likely to pose a threat of wildfire. Along with the ceramics kiln, there was a charcoal kiln, the fanciest meat-smoking shack Jema had ever seen, and a blacksmith’s forge. Kilum was also hoping to attract a glassworker someday. There were sluggish wisps of smoke coming from the charcoal kiln and the smokehouse, and metallic clanging coming from the forge; Odradan must be working on something.

Other than that, they were alone. Libar, Jema said quietly.

Hmm?

Did something happen earlier? Something - off?

Libar adjusted a cup on the firing shelf. Yes, actually. When I was talking to Fiyeli in the market earlier, I was flirting with him a little bit, right?

Like you do, Jema said fondly.

Right, like I do - nothing serious, just for fun. She fiddled with the tie of her hair wrap like she would have twirled the end of her hair if it were loose. "But my point is, I just flirted with him a little, and he got really uncomfortable?"

Jema frowned, increasingly confused and uneasy. "I love you, Libar, but with everyone but me and Kilum you flirt like a grandma. Not like my grandma; like someone else’s cute grandma. It is the least intimidating experience imaginable. No offence."

"None taken; I know it’s true. And that’s what made it weird, right? It was weird!"

"That is weird. Also, I don’t generally keep tabs on mail-carriers, but that Fiyeli’s been around a long time, and he gets around. He wouldn’t be made uncomfortable by a tiny bit of flirting."

"That’s what I thought! So I apologized, and tried to ask if something else was going on, and you know what he said? Libar turned around, looked around the grove, and lowered her voice. He said he doesn’t sleep with people in Ehlark anymore."

Jema sat up straight. "That’s not just weird. That’s actually bad." One thing xir grandmother was absolutely right about was the importance of ensuring travellers spoke well of one’s village, especially messengers. One experience of poor hospitality - or worse, outright mistreatment - was all it took to gain a bad reputation that could take years to repair. Mail slowed down, trade dried up, relationships with other villages soured - it was like a leak in a dam, one that needed to be patched lest the whole thing give way. And Kilum knew these things - as a chief, he knew them better than Jema! What was going on? Maunat wasn’t sure he would even stay a second night.

Libar’s eyes were wide. "I can’t believe Kilum doesn’t know, so why doesn’t he do something? Unless–" she gasped and covered her mouth.

What?

Jema, she said slowly, "what if Fiyeli is The Ex?"

Jema felt the lurch in xir stomach that often heralded an unwelcome truth. I– don’t like how much sense that makes.

Xe and Libar weren’t born in Ehlark. They came up from the south with other flood victims a year and a half ago, but when the waters receded they stayed behind - and moved in with Kilum shortly thereafter. Kilum had dealt with the disaster and the influx of refugees incredibly well, but eventually they’d figured out that he’d been distracting himself with the work, to ignore the pain of some kind of really bad breakup.

They’d tried asking about it outright, early on, and he hadn’t wanted to talk about it. They’d tried the time-honoured tradition of Slagging The Ex precisely once, and that had been the one time he’d gotten truly, volcanically angry with them, snarling, "Do not. The whole mess is my fault. Grant me the dignity of owning my fuckups," and then stomping off and riding Velgie somewhere for hours to cool off. Which had been the thing to finally make Jema sure xe loved him, actually: that even at maximum provocation he would keep xem and Libar safe, even from himself. But xe probably should have paid closer attention to that is, ‘the whole mess is my fault,’ not ‘was my fault,’ because clearly it still wasn’t over.

Xe wanted to wonder why they hadn’t noticed earlier that a particular mail-carrier didn’t linger in the village, and that his visits probably coincided with many of the dips in Kilum’s moods, but xe knew. A new home, a new love, a marriage on the horizon; they’d still been flooded, just with happiness, and were only now getting a firm enough foothold to notice these subtleties.

It makes sense, xe repeated miserably. "He comes through regularly, and has for a long time, because that’s what he does everywhere. He’s not even remotely related to Kilum, which in these parts is no small feat. And... not to be shallow, but with a face like that, that guy pulls."

He doesn’t, actually, said Kilum, scaring the life out of both of them. He sat there on Velgie, who was trained to step even more softly than the average salamander, having clearly come up the path to the fire grove to meet them. By the look on his face, he’d come up early enough to hear basically everything. "Fiyeli doesn’t pull at all; he gets pulled. And I made the mistake of thinking that meant he could be pushed."

Kilum, Libar said, I’m sorry, we shouldn’t have gossiped.

Kilum’s laugh had no humour in it. I hardly think it counts as gossip, when you’re just trying to piece together the follies of the very man you’re marrying.

Jema tugged at xir hair and reminded xirself again that Kilum was safe, and so it was safe to say, We just want to understand the situation.

Kilum nodded. That’s fair.

And... maybe it would help, to talk about it.

"That I doubt, but you deserve to know anyway." He made a buzzing noise at Velgie, who sank smoothly to her belly and seemed to melt there, breathing out until she was flatter than Jema would have believed a living salamander could get. Even Kilum could climb safely between the ground and her saddle like that. It was really no surprise that Maunat’s Urara was so exquisitely trained for hunting at such a young age: salamander training was just one more way the Ingajis were overachievers.

But why was Kilum dismounting here? We could talk about it at home, if you’d rather.

Kilum sighed. "There’s no need. You’re about the only people in the village who don’t know the broad strokes of what happened; I’m honestly surprised no one filled you in already."

Maybe they guessed that I would’ve torn them a new asshole if they tried, Libar said hotly.

Kilum’s smile at that was sad, but at least it was a smile, and he came over and sat with them, propping his back up against the pottery box like it was one of the backrests he kept in most rooms of the house. Or they thought I’d already had the guts to fill you in. He cracked his knuckles. "It’s not a pretty story, but it’s not a long one either:

We first met about six years ago now, started sleeping together a year or two after that, and gradually he stayed longer and longer - almost a week sometimes, by the time I fucked it all up, which was - was it? - yeah, it was about six months before the flood."

Jema hissed sympathetically. So recently! That definitely explained the funk Kilum had been in at the time.

So what happened? Libar asked.

Kilum shrugged. I asked him to stay permanently. Quit his self-appointed job as a postman and just live in Ehlark with me. Libar winced, and his mouth twitched ruefully. Oh, it gets worse.

Jema wondered how it could get worse. Fiyeli was one of the longest-serving, farthest-ranging messengers xe’d ever heard of - the only one who roamed around on the Sea of Glass like it was a meadow full of flowers. People said up north he practically brokered the Nanshul treaty by himself! Carrying mail was his calling. Asking him to give it up was like asking Jema to stop making medicine, or asking Libar to quit her pottery. Suddenly, the way Kilum bent over backwards to make room for their work resolved into a new and painful kind of sense.

Kilum didn’t let xem wonder for long, though: When he said no, I tried to manipulate him into changing his mind with a bluff: saying we couldn’t have sex anymore either, then. Jema couldn’t hold back a grimace at that. Kilum nodded sombrely at xem. "Yeah, you get it. When he took me at my word and just sadly agreed, I was too mortified to face him the next couple of times he came through. By the time I’d pulled myself together the damage was done: he thinks he’s unwelcome and barely stops here for a night at a time