Born of fire. Infused with fire. The fire of the god of fuck blazed constantly in the pale, almost colorless grey eyes of the metal worker. Fire, it seemed, scorched right down to the very soul of Vedric of Thentis, whose enigmatic origins were far more snowy and breathtakingly exalted than the swamp lands of Ar where he'd resided nineteen of the twenty long years of his contracted companionship to Neva.

Even longer, however, were the hundred and thirty years prior to that fateful joining, stalling in his father's wish to see its fruition until the old man's dying breath forced a chain of events that could never be reversed. And the third and favored son of Athos ultimately abandoned his Home Stone.

Ar was a swollen city, impregnated with vast hordes of people, and more slaves per capita than he'd ever seen in his life. The pace of the city at night rivaled that of the day, and it was not at all difficult to become swallowed up into Ar's life-sucking pulse, where every conceivable vice might be catered to. Right down to assassination for hire.

It was there, after sixteen years of profit off the sweat of his back fell to other greedy hands and he was left to eke out a living on the faster side of the city, the metal worker acquired a slave. Actually, she was the second slave he'd ever outright owned in his entire life. And he loved her. She was an ignoble thing, though somewhat arrogant, born to a freed love-slave and a physician father whom she had absolutely no respect for, whatsoever. Arian-born, she came from a self-centered and spoiled world where love meant nothing. Much like the city herself. But the metal worker loved her. And his empty life apart from his Home Stone, once again had a bit of purpose.