Once when Lucanis was probably sixteen or seventeen, it had been a miserably sweltering summer in Treviso. The canals had been low that year too, which meant any cool air off the water was minimal at best. Lucanis had been watching some of the others training. Viago was practicing with a rapier. He'd taken his shirt off for it. He was hardly the only one, but as he worked up and down the marked line, focused on the movement of his blade, Lucanis couldn't look away from a bead of sweat that was working itself down his chest and Lucanis felt hot all over in a way that had nothing to do with the summer.

He tried to not think about it, but that memory returned to him sometimes, vividly clear in some ways and faded in others. Usually when he slept, so another bonus to simply not sleeping anymore.

There was little similar between Viago and Davrin, yet the memory came back then as he looked the other man up and down to check for injuries. The hot air, the smell of too many bodies in too small a space, the bead of sweat trailing down sun-kissed skin–

Davrin ducked under the water and Lucanis forced himself to look away, forced the memory back into the dark corners of his mind where it belonged. An unnecessary thing. He busied himself with combing fingers through his own hair to make sure nothing was caught in it.