Obligation of Kings

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/48900862.

Rating: Mature
Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Category: M/M
Fandom: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Relationship: Damen/Laurent (Captive Prince)
Characters: Damen (Captive Prince), Laurent (Captive Prince), Auguste (Captive
Prince), Aimeric, Erasmus
Additional Tags: Arranged Marriage, Auguste Lives (Captive Prince), Auguste is far from
perfect actually, Manipulation, Misunderstandings, Tension between
brothers, Slow Burn, Uncle is still trash, attempted on-screen csa in
chapter 7, implied off-screen csa, Kastor is a manchild, everyone is going
to piss you off honestly, rift between brothers, political manipulation,
Minor Character Death, Constant Miscommunication, lots of gaslighting,
the slow burn is glacial
Language: English
Series: Part 1 of Obligation, Duty, Honor
Stats: Published: 2023-07-27 Completed: 2024-03-18 Words: 202,449
Chapters: 48/48
 Obligation of Kings
by KaerWrites

Summary

"You sold me to Akielos."

The battle of Marlas comes to an end fizzling on uncertain terms when the victory Auguste
earned fails to prove as decisive as he'd first thought. With his father dead and the crown
unexpectedly placed upon his brow, sacrifices must be made for the greater good. Auguste
cannot establish his rule and continue this pointless war at the same time - not without a high
price in bodies and time and gold. Peace must be established, quickly, and it has to be the
kind that lasts. Laurent will understand. Sometimes, duty and honor must take precedence
over personal preference.

Notes

Hi everyone! I am so excited to finally get to share this project with you. I have been having
a lot of fun writing it. For anyone who doesn't know me, I'm Kaer. I will try to be as
consistent as I can with updates (once or twice a week was what I managed with my last
project, but sometimes when work is busy it can be a longer wait.) I also try to answer every
comment. It means a lot when someone takes the time to leave one, and I want you to know
how appreciated it is, even if thank you is all I can think of to say. More, it's a lot of fun to
talk about the story and the characters and explain what was going on behind the scenes
sometimes. So please don't be shy or feel weird if you get an answer!

This is a work in progress, so I do not know yet how everything will end. I will add tags as
needed. Please let me know if there is anything specific I need to tag for - but please do it
politely. I am an adult, and this is a fic for an adult book series, so I hope that anyone reading
is also an adult and will behave like one. The Captive Prince books canonically deal with
some very heavy topics, and those naturally will echo in fanfiction about it. I will do my best
to give warning and I try to be as sensitive as I can, but I do miss things sometimes. I want
everyone to be safe and take care of yourselves. Remember, you can always close the tab if
the fic turns out not to be your cup of tea.

I have around 12 chapters of this already written, so I'm a little bit ahead. I will say that I am
one of those weird people who insists she has no control over the characters she is writing;
they make all of their decisions on their own and I'm just along for the ride. So keep that in
mind when I say that some of them have been surprising me already, and I'm not sure how
the interpretation of various characters and situations will be received, but we are going to go
for it. I've been looking forward to this.
Edited to fix a few minor typos and restructure a few sentences.
 Chapter 1

The world was loud.

The field had been loud. Crashing steel and thundering hoofbeats, screams of dying men, war
chants of barbarian invaders.

The negotiations had been loud. Men fighting to soothe bruised egos always were. Raised
voices, fists pounded on tables, too many voices warring to be heard at once. No one had
walked away happy – but at least they all had the privilege of walking away.

It had been loud as Auguste returned – making his way back from neutral ground, riding
slowly through the Veretian camp, where soldiers shouted questions and blacksmiths’
hammers rose and fell and rose again over dented armor; where men at their campfires
argued over dice, and servants squabbled to secure the best provisions for their masters, and
Camp Followers who deemed themselves Pets flirted boldly with anyone with a pulse – the
Crowned Prince of Vere, included – their bawdy suggestions shouted over the press of bodies
around the medical tents, injured and dying men begging for relief.

Even Auguste himself was loud. His breathing came too heavily in his ears, and his armor
clanged against itself with every move he made. His thoughts were the loudest; a steady
stream of them chased each other ‘round and ‘round his mind, knocking about the insides of
his skull until he was ready to scream, desperate to beg for peace of his own, and then –

Auguste dismounted, and he ducked into his tent, and he found himself confronted with a
silence as still and as cold as the grave.

Auguste had not been aware of anything but noise, until he came up against that silent wall.
Only as the quiet filled his ears and left them ringing did he become aware of other things –
of the exhaustion in his body, and the dull roar of the headache building behind his eyes. A
blow from a combatant’s sword had knocked something askew, and his armor had rubbed a
blister on his shoulder, where it found skin instead of padding.

This was not the silence Auguste had been yearning for. This silence brought no peace. This
silence only came with the betrayal shining in a pair of blue eyes, and a chill more bitter than
the most persistent northern wind.

Auguste sighed, and he reached up to unhook his helmet, and he tossed it to the side.

“I suppose I might have guessed that you would be here waiting for me,” Auguste said.

“Should I have been elsewhere?” came the riposte, cold and clipped. “The Pet tents, perhaps?
Or have we established the designation of slave pens so quickly? You have been busy.”

Auguste couldn’t contain his sigh. He decided to ignore the questions; he knew that Laurent
had not asked them expecting an answer. Auguste felt obscene, standing there in the cool
quiet of his clean, richly decorated tent in armor that was streaked with the gore of men far
braver than he. A waste. It had all been a waste. They should have just given the land to the
damned barbarians to begin with, and saved themselves the inconvenience of war. Auguste
began trying to work the clasps on his gauntlets – a task that normally required the assistance
of his sweet little page.

Unfortunately, said sweet little page was not in the mood to accommodate his big brother’s
wistful wishes. Auguste did not try asking. His fingers felt thick and clumsy.

“You didn’t answer my summons,” Auguste said, and Laurent only stared at him, and now it
was the younger of them who did not answer.

Silence returned with a vengeance.

Auguste knew that it was his imagination that the temperature within the tent was
significantly lower than that outside. Mother had been like that – though her temper was rare,
it was vicious. One could always feel her displeasure from miles away. Fiddling with his
gauntlets gave Auguste an excellent excuse to avoid looking at his brother. He was there,
anyway, in the corner of Auguste’s eye – straight-backed, chin sharp, lips thin with the hard
suppression of bubbling rage. The fire in his brother’s blue eyes did nothing to relieve the
chill that seemed to fill up the space.

At thirteen, Laurent was already well on his way to developing a courtier’s skill and a
courtier’s bearing. Father considered it wasteful to spend too much time teaching a second
son the mechanics of Kingship, and so instead of learning to rule, Laurent learned the Art of
Conversation. He learned how to dress, how to walk, how to charm, how to lie. Unlike
Auguste, he always remembered which fork to use first at dinner. He did not have to wait
until someone else started eating so he could copy them.

Thirteen, and Laurent could already wrap a room around his little finger with alarming ease.
Thirteen, and so quick and so clever that Auguste was convinced he didn’t need Father’s
endless lectures on the innerworkings of Kingship. Given the need, Auguste was confident
that Laurent would have been able to figure it all out on his own, and probably do it better.
Laurent had already read half the books in the royal library, Auguste was sure, whereas
Auguste hadn’t cracked open a book in at least ten years. Laurent could have been dangerous,
if he had wanted to be. He could have been a terror.

Three things saved them all from chaos and ruin. The first was that Laurent was sweet – too
kind and too considerate and too generous to ever dream of setting himself up as a rival to
their father’s throne. The second was that he was shy – Laurent’s charm was accidental, his
wit understated. Since he wasn’t bold with strangers, he was easy to overlook. It was easy to
dismiss him to the place of a simple, spoiled little brother, only concerned with matters of
fashion and entertainment, incapable of understanding the things that were important. Even
Father, Auguste often suspected, was subject to overlooking Laurent’s natural talent and
potential.

The third thing was that gods-damned temper.

Laurent could ravage a room when that temper flared up. He could utterly decimate a man
using three words or less. Auguste had once witnessed a guardsman brought to tears because
Laurent witnessed him attempting to kick a cat. Laurent couldn’t think when his temper had
control over him. He couldn’t be reasoned with. The only way to withstand the storm of his
anger was to bunker down and start planning out how you would attempt to help him repair
the damage later. That temper was his greatest weakness, an opening even Auguste could
spot.

Father said –

Auguste cut the thought short. The wave of grief that struck him came upon him suddenly
and without warning. With everything else going on, he had not had the time to think about
Father yet. He did not have the time to think about him now. Feeling a little shaken, Auguste
firmly set his grief once more to the side. The final clasp on his first gauntlet came free, and
Auguste dropped the thing on his camp desk with an audible thud. Then he began the task of
working on the other.

“Things are… going to be different, now,” Auguste said. “We knew that the war could
change things.”

No answer.

Auguste was not like his brother. He wasn’t clever or well-read. He wasn’t good with words.
Auguste was a man of action. His job wasn’t to think the hard thoughts, it was to put the right
men into the right positions so they could do the thinking for him.

This conversation, however, was not the kind of thing one could delegate.

Laurent’s icy silence seemed to spread and to swell. It stretched itself out, filling up the space
between them, invading every nook and cranny, every tiny space left between decorative
whirls on the furniture or gold stitching on pillows. There was not a breath of space it did not
take up. The longer it lingered, the more unbearable it became.

Auguste knew his brother’s tense, rigid posture. He knew the hurt, the betrayal, the silent
accusation in his eyes. What Auguste wasn’t used to was being the one to blame for it.
Laurent sat as rigidly as he ever had when called to Father’s study for another dressing down
and a precise, detailed accounting of his every fault and failing. That invisible barrier that had
forever prevented Laurent and Father from understanding one another had never once come
up between Laurent and Auguste – not until this very moment.

Is this what it means to be King?

Father was not there for Auguste to ask.

Auguste finally got his gauntlet free. It joined its partner atop the desk with an accompanying
crash that seemed too loud for this space.

Turning to face his brother required thrice the courage that riding out into the field of battle
had. Auguste drew a breath.

“Laurent,” Auguste began.

Blue eyes stopped him like a wall of ice.

“ ‘A royal’s life is, therefore, forfeit to the greater obligation of his duty and his unrelenting
loyalty for which his crown forever stands,’ “ Laurent quoted. His tone was precise and
clipped. “ ‘His passions, his desires, and the whole of his comforts are, thus, all by necessity
only secondary to the inexorable and ever-present pull of this duty, which must, by all reason,
ever be held to a regard more sacred than even his much-beloved life.’ An Exploration and
Examination of the Affliction of the Royal Crown. Farrier. Volume Seven. Page two-
hundred-seventy-five.” Laurent held his blue page’s tabard in a ball in his lap. His hands
were white. He continued to stare at Auguste. “You sold me to Akielos.”

Auguste’s breath went out of him, hard.

“Don’t say it like – “

“Like it was transactional?”

Auguste floundered, helpless, unable to think of an answer. He never stood a chance when it
came to matching wits with his little brother. He preferred a physical brawl to a verbal one
every time. Laurent waited, brows lifted, expectant. Still nothing. All of Auguste’s reasons,
his justifications, his arguments – they had all flown out of his head entirely. They were
cowards, Auguste’s thoughts – they had chosen to flee rather than face his brother’s wrath.

Auguste took too long to answer. An eon passed. Finally, Laurent rose. He thrust his tabard
hard at Auguste’s chest as he passed on his way out of the tent.

Earlier

Marlas was an old fort. When it had been built, it was considered the pinnacle of engineering
genius for its time – an impenetrable masterpiece.

In many ways, it was still a very good fort. It still provided an advantage to the Veretian
defense. Many of its buildings had fallen into a dangerous state of disrepair over the years,
but the outer walls remained strong and secure, and an army sheltered within could expect to
fare far better than an army trapped without.

That was what had made Uncle Richard’s plan so surprising.

“We hold the advantage,” Auguste had said, almost amused, he was so dumbfounded by the
suggestion.

“The barbarians have rejected all attempts to negotiate. Our emissary barely escaped with his
life. How many times do peace talks need to fail before you realize that the beasts will be
satisfied with nothing short of slaughter? I am only suggesting we indulge them.”

“We gain nothing in taking the field right now,” Auguste argued. “Our walls will hold – and
we can resupply far more easily than they can. Perhaps they will grow more amenable to
peace after a few days of hunger clear their heads.”
Uncle Richard laughed. “Aleron, my brother, do you hear this? Your son is a remarkable boy
– truly, he is so very impressive, in so very many ways – but it is clear that he is no
strategist.” He leaned forward in his chair, and patted Auguste’s shoulder in a firm,
reconciliatory manner. “You don’t know Akielos, boy. I do. So does your father.”

Father did not take the invitation to agree with him. His eyes were dark as he considered each
of the opposing positions. To Auguste, the weight of leading his kingdom through an
unwanted and unwarranted war had begun to take its toll on his father’s features. There was
grey in his beard where there had been none when they started this journey. His shirts were
getting noticeably loose, the laces bunching oddly as the servants tied them tighter than they
were meant to go. Auguste saw his father as steadfast, wise, and ever-aware of the burdens of
the duty placed upon him. He had seen him war with decisions that he knew turned his
stomach. He had seen him give orders he hated because he knew that the alternative would
not serve Vere as well. He had seen him take on the mantle of strength to hide his mourning
from his people when his wife’s long illness at last wasted her away to nothing. He had seen
him turn his back on his youngest son’s heartfelt attempts to please him, because he would
not waste his country’s time or resources on a boy he already knew he would never be proud
of.

Whether his choices were right or wrong, they were done with decisive, firm authority, and
then he stood by them.

Auguste had never seen his doubt himself before.

“Why waste time and lives hiding like cowards in our crumbling fortress?” Uncle Richard
pressed. “The Akielons expect us to stay here. They are counting on it – do you think their
own strategists have failed to account for it? But they come anyway. Will you sit here
watching while wave after wave of reinforcements arrive to bolster them? We have the
numbers now.”

Father nodded, slowly. The gesture seemed as if it was being pulled from him against his
will.

“What do you propose?” Father asked. He sounded weary. And old.

Uncle Richard, young and sleek and lively in contrast, did not hesitate. “Take the barbarians
by surprise,” he said. “Ride out before dawn. Attack while the beasts yet slumber, snug in
their bedrolls. A quick and decisive victory won’t only save Veretian lives – it will also send
an unmistakable message. Vere is not a nation of soft, pampered cowards. We do not take
invasion passively. We do not need to borrow the support of other nations; we stand on our
own merit and we destroy those who throw themselves against us. Our sovereignty is not a
prize of war.”

Auguste watched his father hesitate. He watched him nod. When Father turned his eyes to
Auguste, they were still filled with doubt.

He should have spoken up.

“Gather your generals,” Father ordered, and Auguste only obeyed.

The sun had just begun to peek over the horizon, the weak light filtering down through a thin
layer of morning fog, when Auguste led the Veretian army to leave the protection of their fort
and attack the Akielon camp. He made Laurent promise not to venture forth from the walls of
the fort – promise to stay where he would be safe.

“I’m going to end this,” Auguste promised him, and he tried not to feel his father’s doubt.
The plan had been chosen, and whether he agreed with it or not, it was Auguste’s job to make
it work.

As Uncle Richard had predicted, the attack caught the Akielons by surprise – though not as
much as they had hoped. Theomedes and his sons kept a disciplined army, and the men they
had on watch had them roused and rallied before Auguste could lead his men into the camp
itself. The armies clashed within eyesight of Akielon bedrolls.

The battle was intensely heated. The Akielons were furious. They swarmed from their camp
like ants from a disturbed nest. The sun rose and began its path across the sky, ignorant of the
turmoil below.

Auguste fought. He wasn’t good with words. He struggled at his studies. He lacked the knack
for lying that politicking seemed to require. But fighting – fighting, he understood. Auguste
fought, and the sun moved across the sky, and man after man fell before his blade. He fought
on.

“Don’t you feel bad?” he remembered Laurent asking him, once, after Auguste returned from
a campaign at the border.

“Feel bad?”

“Killing men in battle. Taking a life is a terrible burden.”

Laurent had still been so very young, then. He was still so young now. There was still so
much sweetness and innocence left in him; he hadn’t been presented to Court yet. He hadn’t
been asked to put all those books he was always reading to use. He hadn’t been plunged into
the games of intrigue and romance and scandal that awaited a Prince in Arles. All of that
would come when he turned fifteen – though Auguste had begun to petition Father to push it
back father than that. Eighteen, maybe. Or thirty. Thirty would be good.

Laurent was still sweet. Laurent was still tender-hearted. Laurent still took water in his wine,
and nursed birds with broken wings he found in the palace gardens. He still spoke to his
horses as if he truly believed they had souls and were capable of understanding him. He had
finally grown out of crying when forced to go on a hunt – but that did not mean that he had
ever learned to love the brutal sport.

“What brought this question on?” Auguste had asked in return. The embarrassed way that his
little brother cut his eyes away had confirmed for Auguste what he had already suspected –
the flash of blonde he had seen earlier when passing Father’s study had not been his
imagination. “You…little spy!” Auguste had feigned shock and outrage. “I knew it! You’ve
been reading Father’s letters again!”
“Are we going to war with Akielos, or not?”

“My adorable little spy! What will I ever do with you?”

Auguste wasn’t good with words. He didn’t have his little brother’s fascinatingly complex
mind. He didn’t know how to explain to him that yes, killing was terrible – but that, in the
end, the cost was worth it – forever worth it – a hundred times worth it. Auguste would kill a
thousand men if it meant keeping Laurent safe. He would burn all of Akielos to the ground if
it meant keeping Laurent innocent for one more day. Auguste fought for Vere, yes. He fought
for the kingdom he would one day rule.

But more than anything, he fought for Laurent.

Auguste wasn’t good with words, and so he hadn’t tried to explain himself. He didn’t try to
justify it, or allow himself to struggle, pointlessly, attempting to describe what it had felt like,
the first time he killed a man, on his very first time on patrol. He didn’t reveal to his little
brother that he was quite good at killing, actually – that it was easy. He didn’t share that,
much like the hunt, there was some satisfaction to be found in the skillful application of
abilities he had dedicated so much of his life to learning.

There would be more than enough time for Laurent to learn all of that on his own.

Instead, Auguste had grabbed his brother, and he had tackled him to the ground. He had dug
his fingers, hard, into Laurent’s ribs, until the boy was too busy squirming and struggling and
threatening him to grow up too quickly.

At Marlas, Auguste fought, and he killed every many who came against him, and he did not
feel the ache in his arms or the exhaustion in his limbs or the stinging sweat that dripped into
his eyes.

And then a horn sounded, and a flag waved. The sea of bodies before him began to part.

Auguste found himself facing off against one of the Akielon princes.

The pause in the fight was enough for Auguste to realize for the first time that he was out of
breath. The Akielon Prince was not out of breath. The Akielon Prince had no blood on the
little scraps of armor he wore. The Akielon Prince, along with his brother, had both stayed
back to protect their father from further Veretian trickery, the battle occurring too close to
camp, the danger to the royal line too near.

Cowardly, Auguste thought with disgust. Invading their neighbors’ lands, raiding their
borders, but leaving the work to their soldiers. The Veretians could be proud to say that their
Prince fought for them, himself.

“Did your slaves run out of grapes to peel for you, then?” Auguste demanded, taking the
opportunity of the pause to remove his helmet and wipe his brow. The air felt good. “If it’s a
challenge you want, I will be pleased to show you your folly.”
The Akielon Prince was a short man, broad, and powerfully muscled. His face was stony and
unfriendly. He turned his head to listen as a soldier who accompanied him translated
Auguste’s words – and then he laughed, and he answered, making a rude gesture before he
drew his sword.

“Prince Kastor says he will have his physician craft your intestines into a new set of
prophylactics,” the soldier translated. “And he will use your skull to drink his wine.”

“I am so pleased the Bastard of Akielos has time for arts and crafts,” Auguste answered. “Are
we fighting, or not?”

He waited while the soldier translated. He took the opportunity to drink deeply from his
water skein. Prince Kastor laughed. He pointed his sword Auguste’s way.

“Yes!” Kastor shouted. “Challenge!”

Two relatively simple words, but he struggled with them. His Veretian was not strong.
Auguste nodded. He poured the rest of his water out, over his head, and shook himself like a
dog before he put his helmet back on.

“Come on, then,” Auguste said, and he tossed his water skein away. He lifted his sword, and
gave a duelists’ salute. Prince Kastor’s lips curled. “I will be honored to introduce you to
your gods,” Auguste said.

The soldier began to translate. Prince Kastor cut him off with a sharp, impatient gesture.

“I fuck your pig farm!” Kastor shouted back, which was probably not what he thought he was
saying, interesting sentiment though it was. Auguste thought he caught the gist of his
intention, anyway.

The first exchange of blows was quick – a testing of the waters. Prince Kastor was good. He
had real skill.

Auguste was better.

--

Auguste enjoyed fighting because he was good at it – because he didn’t have to think too
much while he did it. Fighting was something instinctual and inborn. The ability to predict
how an opponent would move, his body reacting immediately to some sign he wasn’t
consciously aware of noticing, simply because it was well trained and responsive and knew
what to do, was something that Auguste found immensely pleasing. Auguste had worked
hard to make sure his body knew what to do, and he took pride in its abilities. Move,
countermove, strike, retreat. Auguste enjoyed the burn of tired muscles. He enjoyed being
wet with sweat. A part of him even wished they could war more often; a part of him envied
the simpler times when civilization had yet to form and no one had bothered to think up the
waste and frivolity of courtly intrigue and witty banter.
Auguste disarmed Prince Kastor within the first few exchanges, in a blow that sent the
smaller man sprawling backwards into the dirt.

“Unfortunate footing,” Auguste explained. Behind him, some of his men were laughing.
They found it insulting that the Bastard of Akielos would dare to challenge their Prince.
Auguste was enjoying the fight. He wasn’t ready to stop yet. “Let’s try again, shall we? I will
teach you proper legwork, free of charge.”

Auguste began to stride forward when Kastor did not rise. He extended his hand toward him,
intending to help him to his feet.

Kastor scrambled back in the mud, an arm flying up to cover his head. He shouted something
in Akielon.

The Akielon soldiers around them had gone silent and grim when their Bastard Prince fell. A
ripple went through them at his words, and expressions darkened. There were a few
displeased murmurs.

Auguste began to take another step towards him, and the bastard made the desperate plea
once more. Auguste stopped. He looked at the unhappy Akielons. To his surprise, some of
them had thrown their weapons down. A few had turned to walk away.

The soldier who had initially played at translator hesitated for a moment before he put
himself forward.

“Prince Kastor… offers his surrender,” the soldier said. The words twisted his mouth as if he
found their taste sour. “He… asks mercy of the prince of Vere.”

Auguste blinked.

“An odd request for a man who planned to use my innards as prophylactics,” he said. The
soldier lifted his shoulders in a shrug, his face burning with shame.

Before more could be said, horns blared from across the field – on both sides. Hoofbeats
came thundering through the mud. Auguste knew that he knew the Veretian call, but his mind
struggled to place it.

First to arrive was the other Akielon Prince – the legitimate one, only a boy, really, aged
eighteen or nineteen, though it was said he had already been commanding his father’s troops
as early as sixteen. Taller and even more muscular than his bastard brother, he didn’t look
like a boy. His horse had barely stopped before he was swinging himself from its back, his
eyes sweeping over the sight before him. He moved immediately to his brother and, grasping
his forearm, he pulled the other man to his feet. He asked a question, and Prince Kastor
answered, spitting Auguste’s way as he did. Damianos of Akielos fixed his eyes on Auguste,
his gaze dark and displeased – though the expression transformed itself into one of shock and
displeasure when the soldier-translator spoke up. Prince Kastor whirled on the man to argue,
but the soldier argued boldly back.

Prince Damianos looked at Auguste once more, still frowning, thoughtful now.
Auguste lifted his chin.

“I accept the surrender of Akielos,” Auguste said, clearly and loudly, and he watched the face
of Prince Damianos as it grew darker. He said something, and the solider-translator turned to
Auguste.

He said, “King Aleron of Vere is dead.”

 Chapter 2
Chapter Notes

You guys have truly blown me away with your response to the first chapter. What an
amazing fandom. I appreciate you all so much more than I can ever express. I am so
excited to share this project with you, and I hope you continue to enjoy it. <3

My kitten helped me type this chapter. Multiple times. I will try to catch all of his
contributions before posting.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

The tent was set up hastily, and hung with flags of neutrality. The agreement to convene after
a small break was mutual – it gave time to splash one’s face with water. To sit. To take a
moment to breathe. It gave Auguste of Vere time to view his father’s body. It gave the
Akielons time to talk.

Father was furious. He took a statement from Nikandros first, listening with an expression of
stone to the accounting of how Kastor had overheard Damen’s request to challenge Auguste
of Vere and how he had chosen, in response, to take steps to ensure he got to the Veretian
Prince first. Nikandros had followed, he said, because he knew Kastor did not like to sully
himself with the Veretian tongue, and he thought it might be useful to have a translator
present for the confrontation. He did not say it was because he mistrusted the word of his
Prince. He did not say it was because he feared Kastor might lie, whatever the outcome of the
fight. He didn’t need to.

Kastor challenged the crown Prince of Vere in a disrespectful manner, and then, when he was
disarmed, he cowered and pled for his life like a dog.

“Lies!” Kastor snarled.

“Why would I lie?” Nikandros asked. There were few men who could meet Kastor’s temper
so unflinchingly, but he was one of them.

“You lie because you are my brother’s creature!” Kastor accused. “You lie because you live
to see me humiliated. You lie because it is your natural tongue!”

“Kastor,” Damen frowned.

Kastor ignored him. On his knees, he grasped the long chiton that hung to their father’s
ankles, and he kissed the hem. “Father,” Kastor said, “The Veretians are snakes who cannot
be trusted, even in honorable combat between men. I had the upper hand, when one of Prince
Auguste’s men shifted his shield so that it reflected the sun, and I was blinded. The viper
must have had it planned from the start – that is the moment Auguste of Vere disarmed me,
and tripped me like a thug in the street. I fought fairly. I did not dishonor you!”

Father was silent for a long time. He always put his thoughts fully into the task before him,
giving each angle the fair consideration he believed it deserved. When he spoke at last, his
words were slow and measured.

“Did you beg for your life?” he asked. It was the most important question.

“I – asked for my life,” Kastor said. “Only so that no Prince of snakes should have the honor
of taking it. I admit I fell to trickery – but I was not defeated!”

Father’s stern gaze moved from his oldest son to rest upon Nikandros once more. “Did you
recognize this trickery?” he asked. “Or is Auguste of Vere a swordsman who outclasses my
son?”

Nikandros bowed his head. It was a difficult question to answer. Damen spoke up.

“Father,” he said, “That question is an unfair burden to place on any man. Are you asking
Nikandros to judge a Prince’s skill? If he did not see the trickery, does that then require him
to call my brother a liar?”

“I can speak, Damianos,” Nikandros said.

“Then, speak,” Father ordered.

Nikandros drew a breath. He chose his words with care. “Exalted,” he said, “The two princes
appeared to be well matched in skill and experience. The Prince of Vere had the advantage of
better footing. There were many Veretian soldiers around, and some of them did carry
shields. I cannot say if one blinded Prince Kastor, or if it did happen, that it was done with
purpose. If it happened. I did not see it.”

Father, again, was silent as he considered. His eyes moved back to Kastor’s bowed head.

“Exalted,” Nikandros said, “I believe if you ask others, they will tell you the same.”

Father nodded, slowly. He had already planned as much.

“You acted rashly,” he told Kastor. “You rushed into combat only for the purpose of slighting
your brother – with only the intention of stealing from him the victory you knew he would
have claimed – and because you were in a hurry for undeserved honors, you chose your
ground unwisely and handed your victory to the enemy.”

“Father, I – “

“Tell me that I am wrong!” Father thundered, rage at last breaking through his calm.

Kastor tucked his chin against his chest. He pressed his forehead to the floor.

When he failed to answer, Father rose. He stormed from the tent, leaving Kastor prostrate.
--

Auguste felt a little stunned when he agreed to call his men in from the field. He would be
meeting again with the Akielon Princes and their father in two hours’ time to see what could
be made with talks of peace.

The physicians already had Father’s body laid out in the medical tent, stripped of his armor
and ready for washing, when Auguste returned to the fortress. Auguste could not stop himself
– he peeled back the wrapping from Father’s neck to view the ugliness of the wound that had
killed him.

“It was a stray arrow,” Uncle Richard explained sadly. Auguste could hardly hear him over
the sound of the blood rushing through his own ears. He had ordered that no one enter the
medical tent while he was viewing his father. He wanted to be alone.

Auguste was not certain if Uncle Richard had ignored the order, or if no one had made the
attempt to stop him entering in the first place. He reminded himself that Uncle Richard, too,
would be facing this overwhelming grief. The loss of a brother… Auguste could not bear to
imagine it. Auguste had loved his father. Their relationship had always been a close one, full
of trust and respect and understanding. But Auguste would survive the loss of his father.
Hadn’t he spent his life preparing for the day the man was gone? Losing Laurent? That would
have been a loss that Auguste could never see himself recovering from. He could not begin to
fathom the well of grief he was certain his uncle was feeling, and he was not willing to try to.
He could, however show grace.

“Word came that a Prince had fallen in the field,” Uncle told him. “Aleron was so overcome
with grief that he removed his helm without thought.”

“It wasn’t me,” Auguste said, unnecessarily. He felt disconnected from his body. The world
had stopped being real the moment Damianos of Akielos had told him of his father’s death.
“It was Prince Kastor.”

“One less bastard in the world,” Uncle Richard said, dismissively. He clasped Auguste on the
shoulder. Auguste shook his head.

“I did not kill him,” he said.

“A shame.” Uncle Richard dropped his hand. Auguste was aware of his failure. He was
aware of his uncle’s attention, his careful scrutiny. “Have you considered the fact that you are
now King?”

“Please,” Auguste said. “Let’s talk about this later.”

There was a long pause before Uncle Richard bowed his head and took a step away.

“I will inform Laurent,” Uncle Richard offered.

“No, I – I should be the one. I should tell him.”

“Can you gather yourself, and tell Laurent that the two of you are now orphans, and be ready
to negotiate with the Akielons?” Uncle gave a disapproving tsk. “An effective King accepts
help when it is offered. Your shoulders cannot bear it all. And Laurent’s companionship will
bring me some comfort. You must consider these things. You no longer possess the margin
for foolishness or selfishness that you did yesterday.”

After a moment, Auguste managed to nod. The gesture felt unnatural, as if he were a puppet
some outside force was prompting to movement. It unsettled him, agreeing. Auguste pushed
the feeling down, into the swamp of emotion making slurry out of his stomach. He was King.
He was King, because Father had allowed grief to overwhelm him. Had he felt some relief,
letting emotion overtake him, in the breaths before the arrow found its mark? Father had been
King for twenty years. Auguste had been King for twenty minutes. He pushed all feeling
down.

Uncle left him alone with his dead father.

--

The Akielons had set up a tent for negotiations, and they had hung an obscene number of
flags of neutrality around it as if to remind the Veretians that violence during the talks would
be strongly frowned upon. At the time, it had seemed a kindness – preparing for the talks so
that Auguste could see to his father. Now it seemed as if Auguste had allowed them an edge
of control. He was already making mistakes.

Concern about violence would have been an ironic statement from the barbarians who had
invaded their lands unprovoked, if Auguste had not had three different individuals come to
him within the last half hour with the suggestion they spring a surprise attack on their enemy
during the talks. It was the kind of plan Father would have approved of. Auguste, feeling an
exhaustion of a sort he had never before known, refused.

“I expect this sort of nonsense from my uncle – but from my own guard? I’m disappointed in
you, Albur.”

“The Akielons are barely men – why should we treat with them as such?”

“The next person to suggest treachery to me will find himself turned out.”

That put an end to the debate. Auguste tried to foster the kind of relationships with his people
that left them feeling safe and comfortable coming to him with their suggestions and
concerns – even with their disagreements, so long as they brought their arguments to him in
private and with appropriate deference for his station. At the end of the day, Auguste was still
a Prince of Vere. He would listen to other perspectives, but his decision, once made, was
final.

Auguste had not used the opportunity of a break to clean up or rest or even grab something to
eat. He had spent it at his father’s side, silent, waiting, thinking. In tales, there were holy men
who walked the land, and for the right price they could always entreat the dead to speak one
last time. Auguste had always hated those stories once Laurent, at five, pointed out the
selfishness inherent in choosing to disturb the peace of the dead merely for the comfort of the
living.

If given the opportunity, Auguste realized now that he would have gladly chosen selfishness.
He wanted his father’s guidance. He wanted to hear his voice. Father hardly looked peaceful,
anyway. Surely Father would have forgiven him.

“It was friendly fire,” reported Alois, who was, unofficially, Auguste’s personal spymaster.
Officially, the unassuming young man was merely a low-ranking member of the Prince’s
guard with no particular distinctions. “The arrow was Veretian, standard issue. No one has
come forward to confess. I am compiling a list of deserters, but it will be some time before it
is finalized.”

“Father wasn’t near the fighting,” Auguste said, feeling dizzy and untethered. “Combat
paused while I fought the Bastard of Akielos. Why was an arrow being fired in the first
place?”

Alois’s expression said, blatantly, you know better than this. Mildly, he answered, “An
unfortunate and sad mistake.”

He was right, of course. Walking through the grounds of the fort, through the long, neat rows
of tents that filled the crumbling courtyard, they had no way to know how many ears were
listening, let alone who those ears would be reporting to later. Auguste was helpless when it
came to intrigue, but he wasn’t some innocent on his first foray to court.

“Whoever was responsible must be feeling terrible guilt and fear,” Auguste said. “No doubt
he fled out of fear of retribution. I would very much like to set his mind at ease, after
collecting his true accounting of the event.”

“Of course,” Alois agreed.

“Were there many men present when my father fell?” Auguste asked.

Alois said, “He was surrounded by many soldiers. He did not die alone.”

Auguste didn’t stop to speak with Laurent before he went to treat with the Akielons. He
should have, but he found himself too cowardly for it. There was no other excuse. Auguste
was equally as afraid that he would find his brother in tears as he was that he wouldn’t.
Father and Laurent had never understood each other the way Auguste and Father had.
Laurent had frequently taken Father’s expectations, his standards, his demands, and his
moods as unfairness or unkindness or hate, but Auguste knew that Father had loved Laurent.
He had to have. It was impossible for anyone not to. He had wanted more from him, and had
not recognized where he was ignoring the places Laurent truly shined. Laurent was a
different sort of Prince, and Father had failed to see or appreciate the advantages of that. But
surely that had not meant he’d hated him.

Auguste told himself that he had to face Laurent after he dealt with Akielos. He pretended to
himself that he was worried about going to their enemies upset – that he wanted to be calm,
with a clear mind. So he stayed in the medical tent, avoiding his brother and staring at his
father’s corpse, wishing for wisdom, until Alois came to fetch him for his meeting.

This was to be the first time that peace between their kingdoms would be discussed in person
via a meeting of the countries’ rulers. All prior attempts at mediation had come through
messengers, through letters. Neither kingdom had accepted official ambassadors from the
other in generations. Peace had always been uneasy between them, dating from the split that
had destroyed Artes and deepening with each war that followed. The land had changed hands
dozens of times. The border had never known peace. Once Theomedes began to make
outright overtures of aggression, it quickly became too dangerous to send men into Akielos.
Uncle Richard had tried for years to engineer an invitation to meet from the Akielon king or
either of his sons, to no avail.

The Akielon tent, arranged for their talks, was unadorned and simple in the way that
Akielons preferred. A table sat ready with instruments for writing, low chairs set around it.
An incense burner waited to be lit in offering to the Akielon gods. Slaves with bowed heads
held bowls of fruit and bread and casks of wine, ready for the resolution of the talks. If things
went well, they would share in food and wine after signing the treaty, signifying a new era of
brotherhood. Another slave played music, softly, on a lyre.

The Akielons had set the rules for the talks, since they played host to them. All parties were
to come without weapons, and could bring no more than two men each with them. Two
guards for Auguste, two for Uncle Richard. The Akielons had been the aggressors in the war,
and Auguste had secured Vere’s victory; there were more than a few grumbles over the fact
he had allowed them any power over the talks at all.

“They surrendered,” Auguste pointed out at last, exasperated, when he saw Albur and Alois
exchange looks and knew they were about to begin to argue with him again. “I want them to
feel safe. I want them to trust that we will honor whatever agreement we come to. I’m tired. I
want peace.”

Father was dead. Auguste was King. His guards didn’t like his decision, but today they were
his guards, not his friends. They weren’t happy, but they had passed their window of
opportunity for argument.

The Akielons had not brought any guards, themselves. They did not appear to come armed.
With the presence of the slaves, the Veretians were outnumbered, so the Akielon royals
bringing their own guards would have been unfair. That had been Auguste’s insistence – they
could have their slaves or their soldiers. They chose their slaves – perhaps in attempt to keep
the tension in the tent from rising. Or else the slaves were all assassins. All the lack of
bodyguards really did was imply that King Theomedes felt confident of his abilities, and
those of his sons, and didn’t feel the need for them. In addition, each side was also allowed a
scribe.

“Exalted King Theomedes and his sons, Damianos and Kastor of Akielos, are pleased to meet
Prince Auguste of Vere and his uncle, Prince Richard. This unworthy slave is called Calliope,
and she will serve as translator, if it so pleases the Princes.” The speaker was not the only
female slave present, but she was the only one who was wearing a modest peplos rather than
the thinner, briefer garments that adorned the other slaves. She spoke with her eyes lowered,
and her shoulders bent slightly forward, as if she had been caught mid-bow. Her coloring
suggested that she came from the area around the border – perhaps one of her parents had
even been Veretian.

Auguste could tell immediately that Uncle Richard really didn’t like it. He spoke up before
something rash could be said.

“That is agreeable, Calliope, thank you. Please tell your masters that we are grateful for their
thoughtfulness.”

“I speak Akielon,” Uncle Richard said. “Attempt anything underhanded, and I will know it.”

She bowed, ever so slightly. As she translated, Auguste frowned at his uncle.

“They are being gracious,” he said.

“No, they are insulting us already.”

“Akielos is a kingdom built upon the backs of slaves. You knew they would bring some.”

“It’s not the slaves I find objectionable. Bringing women in to serve us is indecent. Your
reputation – “

“I think we have more than enough witnesses to my chastity.” Auguste might have found his
uncle’s prudish concerns amusing, except it had been a long day, and his father was dead, and
he could feel the weight of all of Vere pressing upon his shoulders.

“They should not have brought the bastard here, either,” Uncle Richard had more complaints.
“That insults us, too. You are King now, Auguste. You cannot ignore slights such as these. If
you do not insist on being shown proper respect from those you have defeated, how can you
expect to receive it from any other country?”

Damianos, the trueborn Prince of Akielos, was watching them. When Auguste caught his
eye, Damianos acknowledged him with a nod. The gesture felt like an overture of respect.
Auguste returned the silent greeting.

“We cannot leap to the most uncharitable of conclusions if we intend to form a lasting
peace,” Auguste told him. “Leave it.”

Uncle Richard huffed, loudly.

“You are naïve,” he said. “You will lose your crown before you have even had chance to wear
it.”

Calliope said, “Exalted King Theomedes extends his condolences for the loss of your father,
Prince Auguste, and you your brother, Prince Richard.”

“I am certain he does,” Uncle Richard answered, coolly.

“If it pleases the Princes, this lowly slave will light the incense now. This offering to the gods
will, one hopes, entreat their blessings on the proceedings.”

“Akielon gods,” Uncle scoffed, under his breath. "What use are they?"

--

If Damen hadn’t known better, he might have thought that Prince Richard of Vere was
deliberately trying to sabotage their negotiations. The man was said to be a competent and
shrewd politician; he had always stood at the right hand of his brother, the late King Aleron,
serving as trusted confidant, advisor, and friend. It was assumed he would serve in much the
same capacity for King Auguste.

It seemed to Damen that it served the Veretians best to push for peace right now. Prince
Richard’s petulant, difficult attitude, therefore, came as a surprise. Damen had studied his
enemy just as he had studied their language, and even their culture, to some extent. He had
thought he understood what sorts of men he was entering into negotiations with. Aleron had
been a firm and practical King. His Kingdom did not have the glory of generations gone by,
but it was steady and self-sustaining, weakened only by the loss of their alliance with Kempt
after the Queen’s untimely passing. Prince Auguste, it was said, showed promise as a ruler.
He was popular with the people and effective at the border; part of Father’s motivation for
moving on Delpha now was the assumption that it would be easier to take while Aleron still
held the throne, before Auguste had time to marry and secure a new alliance. Prince Richard
was reported to be a brilliant strategist. He had served his brother as ambassador to their
neighboring countries, making connections in Vask and attempting to mend ties with Kempt
– even attempting to negotiate peace with Akielos before it came to war.

Damen had expected an impressive man, calm and put-together, politically intimidating,
clever. While it was true that he was unaware that Damianos and his father could understand
what he said, it was unexpected and baffling to find that he seemed in favor of continuing the
war. His barbs were not aimed at insulting Akielos, but at undermining Prince Auguste’s
confidence.

Damen reminded himself that Veretians were snakes. They lied as easily as they drew breath,
after all – there was little point in dedicating too much time attempting to ascertain their
motives. Father had asked him not to reveal that their translator was unneeded, and so he
could not challenge Prince Richard’s statements. Nor could he appear to take offense. The
man did not give away his attitude through his tone or his expression. Damen would have
been oblivious to it if he did not speak his language.

Auguste of Vere, to his credit, did not appear to take notice of his uncle’s enduring spite.

As the incense was lit, Damen took a moment to breathe, to settle the rise of his temper and
allow the gods their time. He hoped they accepted the offering. War had excited him, at first.
He did not enjoy killing, but he did enjoy fighting. He had been eager to prove himself, to see
his father’s pride at his military prowess, his strength in battle. He had not thought of the men
dying in the field. When he had seen Kastor lying prone, the foreign Prince above him,
Damen had realized that he was ready for peace. He had remembered that there were things
besides his own life he could lose.
The stronger the smoke from the incense, the more the gods’ approval. If the stream was
weak, or if it failed to light at all, they would need to cancel their talks for a more auspicious
time. Damen would not have been surprised if the gods rejected their offering. However
Kastor protested, his surrender to the Veretian Prince looked like cowardice, a trait the gods
despised. Damen was confused. He was glad his brother was alive. He was glad that Prince
Auguste, stunned by the news of his own father’s death, had not thought to have his conquest
taken prisoner, held hostage to ensure the best terms. They were not here to negotiate for
Kastor’s life. But Damen could not understand why Kastor, so bold and so strong and so
proud, would have surrendered instead of fighting to the death. Neither could he understand
why his brother had rushed out into the field to challenge Prince Auguste before him.

Damen wanted peace, but he was displeased by defeat. He was thankful for his brother’s life,
but embarrassed by the manner it had been spared.

Across the table, Prince Auguste of Vere abruptly sneezed.

“My apologies,” he said, and Calliope, needlessly, translated. “Storax, is it?” he sneezed
again.

It was such a small and human thing, sneezing because of the flower the incense had been
made from. Human, and simple, and it made the afternoon feel all the more strange. Prince
Auguste was still streaked with blood and gore from the battle, hours old now. His armor was
overdecorated and complex, a metal suit that kept much of his body protected. His cloak was
lavish, impractical. He was handsome in an ordinary sort of way – attractive more for his
confident, assured bearing than for the shape of his eyes or the silly mustache under his
slightly-too-large nose. His looks were pleasing in the relatable sort of way that drew men in
rather than in the way of untouchable perfection that left one set apart. He was a Prince, and a
skilled one, but beneath it all, he was ordinary. Despite the flourishes of his armor, Damen
could not see the signs of Veretian sloth and excess he had expected from a Prince of Vere.
He was not a snake wrapped in the skin of a man – he was just a man. A man who had been
fighting all morning, down in the mud and the blood and the shit alongside his men. A man
who had just lost his father. A man who had chosen to spare Damen’s brother. Damen did not
hold the stains on his armor against him.

Damen had been excited for war, and Delpha belonged to Akielos, and Father was doing
great things, reclaiming stolen land, uniting the Kingdom, leading his nation into a new age
of glory. But Damen could not help but look at the man across from him and think that he
seemed reasonable. That peace, perhaps, was not unobtainable.

“We will begin,” Father said, in Akielon, judging the thin but steady line of smoke from the
incense to be enough. Calliope dutifully translated, though with slightly less abrupt phrasing.
Father nodded to Linus, his personal scribe, who opened his book of records and dipped his
pen into his inkwell, prepared to record the proceedings. The Veretian scribe followed suit.

Father sat back, and he crossed his arms. He looked noble and proud, a great warrior the
histories would sing about for ages to come – a King ballads would forever proclaim the
greatness of. He did not bear the look of a man who was preparing to put an end to his
military campaign – a man whose dreams of a restored Akielos had so recently been quashed
by his eldest son’s choices.
Damen felt a trickle of misgiving.

Father said, “I am ready to accept the formal surrender of Vere.”

Damen’s heart sank at his father’s words – spoken proudly, haughtily. He heard them
repeated in Veretian in Calliope’s pleasant tones. Their meaning did not change. He saw the
words as they impacted Prince Auguste. He saw him react to them. When Damen looked to
Kastor, sure his brother would share his confusion, he found his gaze averted.

“Akielos,” Prince Auguste said, slowly, after a long pause where it seemed he was waiting
for a correction to be made without prompting. “You mean that you are prepared to offer the
surrender of Akielos.”

Calliope dutifully translated. Kastor was the only one who needed it. Even the other slaves
chosen for this were all fluent. Father wanted to be able to question multiple perspectives,
later, should the need arise. Father liked the idea that their enemies did not know their words
could be understood. He hoped that the perceived language barrier might cause them to speak
freely and unintentionally allow something to slip. Damen did not like it. It rang too close to
deception for his tastes. He did not fight his father’s wishes, however. The Veretians, after all,
were capable of lying with the ease of breathing. This lie of omission was the best chance of
hearing truth from them.

“Akielos will never surrender to Vere,” Father scoffed. “Why have you asked for this
meeting, then, if you did not come to surrender?”

It was difficult for Damen to read the Veretians. They were too controlled with their
responses; they were skilled at lying even with their faces. Prince Richard was particularly
blank, his eyes full of silent calculation. The tips of Prince Auguste’s ears had gone red.

“Why would Vere surrender?” he asked, in a very careful tone. “We hold the better ground.
We have the advantage of numbers. We have our fort. And we won the day.”

“Akielos has killed your King,” Father said. He said it with a shrug, as if it did not matter.
Damen stared hard at Kastor, but his brother would not look at him. Kastor had stayed behind
with Father after Damen and Nikandros had left. Damen had assumed that Kastor wanted to
beg Father’s forgiveness. It had not occurred to him to be concerned about what he might say
without himself or Nik there to help correct his fluid view of the truth. Father was an
intelligent man, but he was stubborn, too. It was easy for him to make the choice he liked
best, rather than the one that served the greatest purpose – and he had a weakness when it
came to his first child. He often allowed himself to fall for things when Kastor said them that
no other man would be able to get away with.

“My father,” Prince Auguste stated, slowly, “Was killed by a Veretian arrow. It was friendly
fire. A mistake on the Veretian side, not a victory of the Akielons.”

Father’s reaction was one of clear surprise; he had not known. Kastor had told him it was one
of their arrows. Perhaps he even claimed to have ordered it himself – that he had rushed
ahead to challenge Prince Auguste so that they could take both King and heir out of the
equation at once. Even if Father’s messengers had told him otherwise, after, he would not
have believed them over Kastor’s own words.

Damen felt ill.

“I have come to formally accept Akielon surrender,” Prince Auguste said. “As it was
promised to me on the field of battle, in return for the life of Prince Kastor of Akielos.”

“No one surrendered to you on the field,” Father said. “No one made any promises.”

Calliope’s head seemed to bow further with each word she was forced to relay, as if she was
slowly folding in on herself. She took pride in her usefulness and her skills, and the lies she
repeated filled her with shame. The slave with the lyre had stopped playing, but still her voice
had gone so quiet that, had Damen truly needed a translator, he would have had difficulty
understanding Prince Auguste’s next words.

“Prince Kastor surrendered Akielos on the field.”

The answering silence was a dangerous thing. Damen’s hands had formed fists on his lap. He
would not, he knew, be able to sit silently if his father insisted on the lie. Kastor may have
misled him about the nature of King Aleron’s death, but he knew that what Auguste was
saying was true. Surely he would not sink to such levels of dishonor merely to continue his
campaign into Delpha. Surely –

“I did not! I did not surrender Akielos!” Kastor had half-risen from his chair, as if he would
throw himself at the foreign Prince. His face was twisted with ugly fury and embarrassment.
Damen watched the shift in the Veretian guards as they prepared to defend their future King.
They were, Damen was certain, men who were well-skilled at fighting. The best in Vere, no
doubt, for them to serve the Prince. They were not men who would go down easily, whether
they were armed or not. If it came to violence, Damen would be forced to choose between
sullying his honor in defense of his brother’s lies, or betraying his brother on behalf of the
truth. Neither choice was one he wished to live with.

“Kastor, sit down.” Damen had pushed himself to his feet, crowding his brother bodily back
into his chair. He had never given his brother an order before. He had never used that tone on
him, either. Surprise was enough to halt Kastor’s tantrum. He didn’t resist as Damen fisted a
hand in his chiton and shoved him back into his low chair. “You surrendered,” Damen said.
“You were on your back in the dirt, and you were pleading for your life. I have more than two
dozen men who can attest to it.”

“I never said Akielos!” Kastor insisted. Damen did not recognize the look in his brother’s
eyes as he glared up at him. “I surrendered, not Akielos. I would never surrender Akielos!”

Calliope, lips trembling, was still translating. Damen looked at Father, and found that
Kastor’s words had not surprised him. Slowly, he sat back in his chair.

“Kastor does not have the authority to surrender Akielos,” Father said, steadily. “And even if
he did – the status of his birth would nullify the agreement. Bastards are not considered
citizens in your country. They can sign no contracts. They can own no land. Why would a
Prince of Vere, therefore, accept a bastard’s surrender of an entire country?”

Prince Auguste stared at them. He was already a pale man, but what color he had had fled his
face. Prince Richard, beside him, was still inscrutable.

“Where does that put us, then?” Prince Auguste demanded at last, with an expression of utter
disgust. “We go back to our camps – go back to killing one another in the morning? No. No. I
won’t have it. I can’t. How many lives need to be lost to satisfy your pride and your greed?”

“Delpha belongs to Akielos. You want greed? Blame your ancestors, who stole it to begin
with.”

“That was generations ago!” Auguste protested. He slammed his fist on the table, and the
incense burner shook dangerously. “These lands are Veretian. These people are Veretian! You
invaded my homeland unprovoked and I still saw it in my heart to spare your bastard! Now
my father is dead and you want to rescind the promise that was made to me?”

“I promise you, child, you will lose more than your father and your land if you keep on.”

Silence answered Calliope when she relayed Father’s threat.

Damen had only rarely seen his father look furious. Auguste of Vere was furious, as well. His
pale face now bore bright spots of color, his pale neck splotched with red. His eyes were like
chips of glass. Calliope was trembling, terrified that she would catch the blame for passing
along such heated words. She flinched visibly when Damen placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Withdraw your people,” Father advised. “You are nothing but a puppy; retreat with your tail
between your legs. If you want peace, leave Delpha to Akielos, and retreat. Or return to your
fort and pick up your sword.”

“And then what?” Prince Auguste demanded. He made a gesture, rejecting his uncle as the
man leaned over to advise him. “What is to stop you when you decide you want to reclaim
Arran? Or Alier? What comes when Vask puts its sights on Lys? Or Patras on Acquitart?” His
voice was steady and calm, cold, despite his anger. “Give you Delfeur? I am a new King. I
have not finished mourning my mother, and now I must put my father in the ground beside
her. Give you Delfeur? I did not lose this war!”

“Weaken your country by continuing to fight, or weaken it by giving up. It does not matter to
me how you choose to destroy yourself. I will have Delpha – and Vere will be overrun by
your enemies before your grandchildren have said their first words.”

It was grotesque. Damen felt filthy. His father was right – the death of King Aleron would
throw Vere into chaos. Auguste could no longer afford an extended campaign. He could not
afford heavy losses. He was a new King. He needed to establish his rule; he could not leave
Arles empty for the scavengers to pick over while he fought at the border. His father’s death
had changed the entire world.
 Damen had no love for Vere. Delpha belonged to Akielos. This campaign was his father’s
life’s dream. Uniting the tribes of Akielos and reclaiming the lands of their former empire
had been his obsession for longer than Damen had been alive. Damen would gladly have
fought a hundred wars to help his father achieve his goals.

But Akielos had lost. Kastor had surrendered – no, Kastor had begged for his life. Prince
Auguste of Vere could have easily killed Kastor there in the field, but he had chosen mercy
instead. He had acted with integrity and honor, and stayed his hand in the name of peace. He
had met with his enemy in good faith. He had given up his weapons. He had limited his
guards.

“This is not honorable,” Damen said, low and solemn. He spoke to his father and his brother,
but he did not care when Calliope shared his words. “This is not how we do things.”

“We’re doing nothing but meeting the Veretians in a manner they understand,” Father said.

Damen hung his head for a moment. The shame he felt was a weight he could not endure.

“Calliope,” Damen said, “Relay this to the Prince of Vere: he is a new King, and war is
expensive. He cannot afford to return to his people with news of defeat. Neither can he afford
to suffer heavy losses and an extended campaign.”

“You think I am unaware – ?” Auguste of Vere begun, heated. Damen did not wait for
Calliope to translate. He raised his voice, speaking over him.

“What you need instead,” Damen said, “Is to form an alliance powerful enough to protect
your interests.”

He waited as Calliope translated. He could feel his heart pounding in his ears. He could feel
the weight of the idea like a mountain falling on his head. Father had leaned forward,
attention on him, but he did not stop what was happening. Damen would not have listened if
he had tried; only the attention of Auguste of Vere mattered.

“Kastor does not have the authority to surrender,” Damen agreed, “But I am my father’s heir.
Form an alliance with me. My father must honor it.” Unless Father chose to disown him
instead. Was Delpha more important to him than his only legitimate heir? Damen had never
defied him before. He had always felt secure in his father’s love, but blatantly acting against
him threw everything into the realm of the unknown. The smoke in the incense burner
remained thin and steady. Ash fell onto the plate. Damen said, “Make me an offer of peace.
Name your terms. If they are reasonable, I will accept them. My father will not negotiate with
you. I will.”

Chapter End Notes

Gods I hope the thought process for this makes sense and is follow-able. Thank you
again for reading!
 Chapter 3
Chapter Notes

If you are reading this message this chapter has not been edited yet. I will come back
and check it over in a bit.

Auguste had never been skilled at politics. He had no ability for reading a man. He had no
eye for the machinations of liars. He should have realized sooner that the talks would go to
shit. Kastor had been humiliated by his loss in the field, and Auguste was still reeling with
grief, and Theomedes was full of rage misdirected from his son to his enemy. They should
have waited. He should have taken the time to consult and strategize beforehand. He should
have insisted that a handful of hours were not enough, instead of being grateful for them.

Auguste should have killed Kastor – or challenged Damianos when he arrived. At the very
least, he should have never quit the field until he had the Akielons’ word about where it was
things stood.

“I can’t give you Delfeur,” Auguste said, and Damianos nodded, and it didn’t occur to
Auguste to realize that he did it before the slave translated for him.

Auguste could not allow Vere to walk away from this conflict weakened. He could not begin
his rule taking a defeat when he knew he had won. He drew a slow and steadying breath. His
hands felt sweaty.

“But,” he continued reluctantly, “There is something far more precious I can offer.”

This was not a peace treaty. They were not exchanging terms of surrender. There was nothing
weak in an alliance. An alliance, in fact, would put Vere in better standing than they had been
in before the war. Akielos was their closest neighbor, and an impressive military power. The
drain of consistent conflict on the border was a concern every year. An alliance with Akielos
would even be more beneficial than the old alliance with Kempt had been. Vere would gain
the most powerful connection they could possibly have, while simultaneously ridding
themselves of the longstanding enmity with their neighbors.

“You and Kastor?” Damianos asked through Calliope, considering it already.

Auguste shook his head, even as outrage flashed across Kastor’s face.

“The Veretian King wedded to a bastard? The kingdom would revolt.” Uncle chuckled at the
idea. If anything, Kastor looked even more outraged.

But Theomedes now wore the same thoughtful, considering look as his legitimate son.
Auguste could see him weighing it – the benefit of opened trade routes with Vere and
generous rates far outweighed a scrap of land that had not belonged to his people in centuries.

“I suppose you’ve some infant cousin three times removed who you plan to offer instead?”
Kastor scoffed. “Has the hunchback grown in yet, or does the lazy eye draw attention away
from that?”

“I’m offering my brother,” Auguste said. Uncle recoiled beside him. Auguste felt ill.

He had always known a day would come when he would find himself in the position of
needing to negotiate a match for Laurent. He would do the same for himself, one day – had
been putting off the decision for years, cowardly and overfond of his freedom. The war
would have never even occurred has he settled for a Patran princess or a Vaskian warmaid.
Now he had no other choice but to offer up his sweet, innocent Laurent as a sacrifice to these
violent savages. He knew he would never forgive himself.

It was not about Delfeur. Auguste would never make the trade if it had been. No strip of
farmland was worth his brother.

But, until Auguste was crowned, Vere was kingless. Auguste needed the war to end, quickly.
He needed to return to Arles in strength. It wasn’t Delfeur he was selling Laurent for – it was
his entire Kingdom.

The strength of the offer impressed the barbarians. Auguste could see it as Calliope
translated. Auguste was not going to insult them by trying to shove some half-forgotten
relative at them, no. A royal match, and one so close to the Veretian throne – that was a
serious offer. It was the kind of offer that would end Theomedes’s campaign for Veretian
lands for good – and it would strengthen both countries. With the signing of a document, they
could go from enemies to family. The world itself would change under a united Akielos and
Vere.

“I am to be accepting,” Kastor said, immediately, in a painful attempt at Veretian. The very

idea had his small, dark eyes gleaming with greed.

Auguste didn’t have time to feel insulted at the thought that the Akielons might meet his
earth-shattering offer by continuing to put the bastard forward. Theomedes, immediately,
said, “No.”

The Akielon King met Auguste with an appraising gaze.

He said, “Damianos.”

Kastor began to protest. Theomedes needed only to hold up his hand to silence him. His
decision was, partially, a challenge to Damianos for speaking up just when it seemed he had
the Veretians trapped. It was also a test to see if Auguste would now retract the offer.
Wedding Laurent to Damianos, Prince to Prince, would make the alliance even stronger, but
it also came with more risk. Laurent was currently Auguste’s heir. If Auguste were to die
without first producing offspring, it would give all of Vere to Akielos through Laurent –
whereas the deaths of Damianos and Theomedes would not give Akielos to Vere, but to
Kastor.
Auguste expected Damianos to hesitate. At the very least, he anticipated that he would
require time to think about the decision. He was not like Kastor – eager to jump on a
lucrative deal for his own gain without first considering the consequences. Damianos was
young and he was powerful, in the prime of his life. Yes, as was the lot of all royal children,
he would have no doubt grown up with the expectation of a political marriage in the back of
his mind – but it would still be a difficult decision to agree to. Akielos was accepting of
bastards, so he could have any number of heirs he wanted, with any number of mistresses he
pleased. If he was shrewd, he could make further lucrative connections doing so. But Laurent
was only a boy, and a stranger, and his enemy, and it would be years before the marriage
could be consummated, if Damianos was even the sort of man who ever sported with other
men. The choice was a good one for his country, but there was very little that he, personally,
would gain from it.

When he finally spoke, it was slowly, thoughtfully. It was clear that he was choosing each
word with care. Calliope waited for him to finish before she began to translate.

“I believe you acted with honor on the field,” Damianos said. “I believe you chose to spare
my brother’s life because of that honor. I believe you accepted surrender in good faith. I hope
these things are indicative of the kind of man you are, and the kind of King you will become.
You have not been received with honor, but you have acted with it, anyway.” He paused,
considering, wrestling with any number of thoughts. Auguste could not begin to guess what
must have been running through his mind at the moment. Then he turned, and he gestured to
one of the slaves holding refreshments, and waved them forward. “Let us break bread,”
Damianos said, “We will share salt and honey and fruit. Arguing logistics always goes better
with wine.”

--

“You sold me to Akielos.”

Laurent’s words haunted Auguste. They dogged his every move. They would appear at night
in his dreams for the rest of his life, he was sure.

Should I instead have let the war continue?

Should I have thrown more lives at the barbarians, hoping they would honor the next defeat?

Should I have created a weakened Vere and left you vulnerable to future invasions?

Perhaps Auguste would have asked those questions of brother, but he couldn’t get Laurent to
come near him. He’d never had him so furious with him before. Laurent would not share his
tent anymore – he had had the servants pack his things, and he had taken up residence in one
of the crumbling towers, near where the Prince’s Guard slept.

“Your uncle has tried to talk to him,” Albur reported, “But he refuses to speak to anyone. He
says that he no longer has any family. He says that he is naught but a slave sold at auction.

Auguste had hoped that if he could not get through to Laurent, Uncle Richard would manage
it. He couldn’t help but to flinch at the news.
“Keep working on him,” August said. “It will kill me if we part this way.”

The agreement was that, in three days’ time, both armies would part ways – and Laurent
would go with the Akielons, a ward of the royal throne.

It was a terrifying prospect. Ward and hostage seemed like words that could be so easy to
confuse. When Auguste signed the preliminary treaty, he thought he was doing the best that
he could for his people. Now, he feared that all he had done was hand his enemy a weapon to
use against him. Ironically, Laurent was the one who could have talked him through it all,
who could have pointed out any mistakes or weak points in the agreement and suggested
ways around them. But Laurent was a child, and so Auguste had left him out of the talks for
fear of insulting the Akielons. He had made decisions about Laurent’s future without
consulting with Laurent, and now Laurent would not see him.

The armies would part in three days, and Akielos would take Laurent away from him.
Auguste would leave a third of his army in Delfeur to begin the recovery process. Theomedes
would withdraw his men, but leave a third of his army in the province of Sicyon to serve as
insurance of his own. And they would take Laurent away, and Auguste would let them.
Auguste would return to Arles without his brother. Auguste would return to Arles, and he
would set his mind to other things: to burying his father. To establishing his rule. To healing
his country.

Laurent would miss Father’s funeral. Auguste hadn’t been able to see a way around it. For the
alliance to have any sort of chance of succeeding, trust needed to be established quickly
between their countries (without too much time wasted in laughter about the idea of trust
between their countries). Better to send Laurent with the Akielons now than to take him back
to Arles and leave Theomedes months to question whether or not their agreement would be
honored.

At least Laurent would not be going alone. He was not a prisoner, after all, but a guest – and
a guest was permitted the expectation of a retinue. Uncle Richard would be coming along
with him to serve as chaperone, ambassador, and interpreter. Additionally, both Laurent and
Uncle Richard would be allowed their own small guard of ten each. Auguste had already
begun to hand-select the men he would send with Laurent – a combination of his own
personal guard and a few select men from the regular army who he believed had
distinguished themselves during their service.

“I don’t care,” was Laurent’s response – a terse, single line jotted on the back of the letter
Auguste had resorted to writing in attempt to explain himself when Laurent refused to speak
to him.

Auguste would see his brother again. In a matter of months, Auguste would make the first
diplomatic visit of a King of Vere to the King of Akielos in history, as far as he could
remember – just in time for Laurent’s fourteenth birthday. They would sign a more
formalized alliance during this visit – one that included Laurent’s signature this time.

The situation was delicate, and they needed to leave themselves space for either party to be
able to propose alterations or amendments to their agreement if such became necessary.
There had never been peace between their countries, not since the fall of Artes. It was
difficult, if not impossible, to predict what cultural issues might arise. Therefore, the final
implementation of the alliance was to be staggered. First, the treaty at Marlas, then the first
of two planned marriage ceremonies: one for Akielos, and one for Vere. The Akielon
ceremony would occur during this visit. Akielon traditions, Akielon vows. The second would
occur in Vere, when Laurent turned twenty-one and became an adult under Veretian law.
Veretian traditions, Veretian vows. This second ceremony would be followed by the signing
of the final treaty. Surely, by then, they would know what was needed. Surely, by then, they
would have grown fond of peace. The alliance would be finalized with the consummation of
the union.

There was time for Laurent and Damianos to get to know one another before their fates were
truly sealed. There was time for Laurent to learn how to exist in Akielos before it became his
home. If Damianos was cruel, if Laurent was mistreated, if Auguste had missed something
important – if, if, if – there was time for Auguste to find a way to fix it.

Auguste thought he had everything worked out. He was even fairly certain he had done the
right thing. Auguste would give anything to protect his brother – and that included this. One
way or another, Laurent would have found himself locked into a political marriage one day.
This one happened to end a war and strengthen Vere. This one saw him led to a man who
would one day be King. There wasn’t a better match Auguste could have found for him.

- so long as Prince Damianos of Akielos was as kind and as honorable as he seemed.

- so long as the Akielons kept their word.

“You should take a strap to him,” Uncle Richard suggested, sweeping into Auguste’s tent.
There was no need to explain who he meant by him. Nor was there need to inform Auguste of
any sort of context. Uncle Richard had clearly gone to see Laurent, and clearly he had been
rejected once again. “The petulance was charming at first, but outright defiance is not to be
tolerated.”

“What are you proposing?” Auguste asked. “Shall I bend him over my knee and spank him
while the men watch? He isn’t a child – he’s a Prince of Vere.” Despite everything, it was
amusing. Auguste appreciated the moment of levity. Laurent’s wrath were any man to attempt
such a thing would be world-shaking.

“All the more reason to do it!” Uncle Richard said. It was rare to see him in such a state of
fury. Laurent had gotten to him, clearly. Laurent was good at that. “If you lack the courage,
allow me to do it instead. I find humiliation is often the medicine a boy who refuses
obedience most sorely needs.”

He almost sounded serious – as if he truly did expect Auguste to arrange it. As if he was
unaware of how ridiculous the idea sounded. Auguste sat back at his desk, and watched his
uncle pace. He was aware that his uncle was the kind of man who could not bear for his
authority to be questioned. He required absolute and abject submission from anyone he
deemed to be lesser. Auguste supposed that Laurent’s age did place him in that category.

“He can sulk as long as he likes, so far as I’m concerned,” Auguste said. It wasn’t true, but it
didn’t feel right to admit that his feelings had been hurt by Laurent’s rejection of all attempts
to explain himself. He was the one who had done this, after all. “If he was going to defy me,
he would have made at least one escape attempt by now. He knows this alliance is important,
however much he dislikes his part in it. Uncle, please, try not to worry so much.”

Uncle Richard had stopped pacing. It took another moment before he was able to gather
himself.

“Dear boy – you deserve my most sincere apologies,” Uncle Richard said at last. “The strain
you are no doubt feeling is no doubt insurmountable, and I have done nothing to help relieve
your burden.”

“Knowing that you will be at my brother’s side is more than enough,” Auguste promised.
Helplessly, he gave a small laugh. “I want to put all my troubles off on you, but I know that
will not actually help me. I am King. I cannot be whining to my uncle because I’m afraid my
brother might not forgive me.”

“Auguste, my boy, I assure you – you can always whine to Dear Uncle.”

The reassurance did help, a little. But Auguste knew he would not have the same support
once he returned to Arles. His father was dead, and he was losing both Laurent and Uncle,
too. Father had always told him that the role of King was a lonesome one, and now Auguste
was soon to understand it for himself.

“This would have happened, anyway,” Auguste said. “Father was going to start searching for
a match for him as soon as the war was ended. Vere is too vulnerable to stand without a
powerful ally.”

“I’m aware. But the boy is young, yet. He wasn’t expecting it.”

“I think he thought it would not happen at all,” Auguste admitted. He could recall too clearly
an old conversation they’d shared – You have children. I’ll have books. “I think he truly feels
that I have betrayed him.”

“Petulance,” Uncle said. “A child’s tantrum.”

“If I cannot resolve this before he departs - !”

“Rest, Auguste. The boy will come to his senses, one way or another. If you cannot talk to
him now, you will have another chance when you come for his birthday. He will probably not
even remember that he was angry by then.”

Auguste managed to make a sound that was almost a laugh.

“You’re right,” he said. “He will be brown from the sun and half-savage by the time I see him
again.” The thought was reassuring. Laurent was resilient, and he was far stronger than
Auguste had ever been. He would enjoy the opportunity to learn and experience so many new
things. It would become an adventure, like exploring abandoned ruins and racing his horse. “I
imagine he will have learned the language and charmed the Court and be wrestling naked and
swimming in the sea and have read every book in the country by the time we reunite.”
“Every book in the country? I wouldn’t be too impressed if he did. It’s Akielos. There can’t
be more than five or six.”

--

Laurent had three days of freedom left to him, and he spent them hiding in a tower in Marlas.
His imprisonment was self-inflicted. He could not shame his brother by running away, but he
could not bear the idea of facing him, either.

Laurent was thirteen, but he knew how politics worked. Before the war, Auguste had been
trading letters with foreign princesses, shopping for a suitable bride. He had failed to secure a
connection before Akielos attacked, but he would have been willing to do it, timing willing.
For Vere. For peace. He was not asking anything of Laurent that he would not do, himself.

Laurent knew that there was nothing to be upset over. Laurent knew he was in the wrong.

Laurent knew that his father was dead – and while that meant remarkably little to him, it
would have been devastating to Auguste, and Laurent was only making his brother’s life
more difficult by choosing to be angry at him. Auguste needed him, and he was too busy
sulking to offer him the comfort he should have.

Laurent knew all of that. It didn’t change how he felt, but he knew it. Anger was only a small
part of it. Laurent was hurt. He couldn’t help but feel betrayed. He had told Auguste that he
never wanted to marry, and Auguste had made the deal anyway. Auguste hadn’t even asked
him. Laurent hadn’t been old enough to sit in on the peace talks, but he was old enough to
sell to Akielos? He was old enough for his brother to allow them to carry him away, slung
unceremoniously over the back of some brute’s horse like a spoil of war? It was humiliating.

Most damning of all, Auguste had not even bothered trying to talk to him about it! He sent
his guards to try to beseech him into quiet cooperation. He sent Uncle, more than once. The
closest Laurent came to speaking to Auguste himself was a fucking letter.

Laurent’s ears burned at the language, but he didn’t take the thought back. He didn’t try to
alter it. You sent a fucking letter! He imagined saying it out loud to Auguste. He whispered it
under his breath, just to try it out. He found that he liked the precise, sharp consonants of the
word.

Fuck.

Fuck-ing.

You couldn’t fucking come see me yourself?

It wasn’t as if Laurent had made any fucking secret of where it was he was hiding. The tower
was just outside the remains of the room where the fucking Prince’s Guard slept! It was
fucking dusty and stuffy and freezing cold at night (though Laurent would be damned before
he admitted how fucking uncomfortable the decision had proven.) The door wasn’t even
fucking locked!
“Your brother is King now,” Uncle had said, the last time he came attempting to broker
peace. “He doesn’t have time for your childish antics.”

Uncle always lost his patience before he left. He always started out charming and cajoling,
sympathetic, loving. Laurent would always have him in a fury before the end.

“Is that what he said?” Laurent had countered. “That he doesn’t have time for me?”

“If he wanted to be here, child, don’t you think he would be?”

Laurent hadn’t wanted to answer that. He had stared at the little tray of treats his uncle had
brought him, and he had tried very hard to think of any other reason his brother might have
stayed away.

“You have been behaving like a spoiled brat,” Uncle had told him. “Why would he want to
see you, when he has so much else to attend to now?”

Laurent had known he was right.

A Prince of Vere made sacrifices in the name of duty. A Prince of Vere lived only for his
Kingdom, his people. Laurent knew that Father had even planned offering him to Theomedes
for one of his sons back when he had first started making threats against Vere – he had put
Uncle on a ship with the offer in hand – but they had never managed to secure a meeting. It
was an honor for a member of the royal bloodline to be sent as an ambassador, but they
hadn’t cared. Uncle had been turned away every time. At least twice that Laurent was sure of
his uncle had been sent to them, ship heavy and sitting low in the water, filled with expensive
gifts of friendship, and the Akielons had not even allowed him to step foot on their docks.
They had kept the gifts as payment for his life, and sent him back to Vere unheard. Laurent
had read the reports himself. He heard it from Uncle’s own lips, his ear pressed to the door of
Father’s study.

“Well, Aleron, I’m afraid there’s nothing more to it. It’s going to be war.”

Akielos was a land of savage barbarism. The Akielon Princes spent their days raping their
slaves and getting drunk on sweet wine, fighting each other at the slightest provocation. The
Akielons were a violent, brutish people, with no knowledge or art or poetry or song. They
lived only for violence and carnal pleasures. What was more, keeping their fellow man as
chattel was only a fraction of their many evils. There were some writings that spoke of even
darker things: of temple prostitutes and ritualistic cannibalism – of young boys castrated to
keep them soft and pretty - of human sacrifice to their vile gods - of bestiality, and women
made to birth deformed, monstrous creatures that were half man, half beast as a result.

Auguste was mourning their father. Auguste was faced with stepping into the role of kingship
in the middle of a war. Auguste had to put aside his own feelings, his own preferences, his
own needs. The weight on his shoulders had been placed there suddenly, and it had to be
heavier than anything Laurent could ever have imagined. Laurent knew that. Laurent
understood that. Laurent even felt sympathy for that.

But Laurent was scared. Wasn’t he allowed to be scared?

“Your highness – are you sure you will not come out and join us?”

The query came from Albur, one of Auguste’s favorites. The man was Auguste’s age, third
son to a duke, or something. It was fortunate for him that his position in the Prince’s guard
required him to dress so often in uniform, for he had no talent for fashion on his own. That
protection, combined with Auguste’s enthusiastic affection, meant he did far better at Court
than he should have. Every other season, it seemed he was involved in some minor scandal
where he was caught fucking someone else’s pet. (Laurent was beginning to enjoy the word
fuck. He was going to try saying it out loud soon.) Albut had paid a fortune in court fees. He
had fought at least three duals over a Pet’s breach of contract. There were rumors that he
liked women, too. Laurent had heard he had even fathered bastards.

Really, Auguste should have turned him off – but Auguste’s friendship was easy to earn and
difficult to lose. He always helped to settle matters just as they were getting really interesting
if it was his friends who were in trouble. It was fortunate that he was immune to his friends’
poor influence.

Albur was kind enough to Laurent, anyway. He didn’t treat him like a child like Alois did, at
least. And he didn’t ignore him like most of the rest of the guard did, either.

Albur stood in the doorway to Laurent’s tower. Beyond him, Laurent could see the wide
room that the Prince’s guard had claimed as their own, their bedrolls and tents dotting what
remained of the interior. The roof had fallen in long ago, but the men had cleared out most of
the debris, and they had hung up canvases to protect their equipment from the elements. A
large central fire sat in the center of what had once been the floor but was now mostly dirt. It
spit fitful smoke into the star-studded sky above, and the men were gathered around it with
their dinners and their wine. One man, Mylon, had even taken out his lute.

Laurent hadn’t realized night had fallen.

“Who is with my brother tonight?” Laurent asked, looking past Albur to scan the familiar
faces, trying to figure out who was missing. He didn’t have his brother’s talent for people, but
the men of his brother’s guard had been in his life for as long as he could remember. They
were not Laurent’s friends – most he barely knew at all – but they were familiar to him all the
same, steadfast and trustworthy. More importantly, they were Auguste’s friends. “Raphael?
And…?”

“Eliott,” Albur supplied. “I have your dinner here,” he said, and gestured with the plate in his
hand. “And his highness could certainly pretend to take it in here, as he has the last two
nights, hiding his vegetables away in the rubble – don’t deny it, your highness; I think I will
come back next year to discover tender asparagus shoots among the rocks.”

Laurent closed his mouth, flushing. Albur nodded.

“As I was saying,” he continued, “His highness is, of course, welcome to take his meal in his
tower like usual. Or, for a change, I thought he might like to come and dine with the men?”

Albur extended his arm, holding the plate out toward the campfire. Mylon was plucking the
first few chords of Oh, King!, a ballad about a prudent King’s failed attempts at finding true
love. However, as a spattering of men began to pick up singing, it wasn’t the familiarly
plodding, overly sentimental lyrics Laurent was familiar with that they sang. King Stefan he
called for his whores and his sluts. King Stefan demanded: who will swallow my nuts?

Laurent’s ears began to burn.

“That,” he said, “Is not the way that song is meant to be sung.”

Albur looked delighted. “Come eat with us,” he said, “And I’ll teach you every word.”

King Stefan, it’s said, liked a comely young lass – but his cock was too swollen to fit in her
ass!

“My brother would not like that,” Laurent said, to which Albur grinned.

He answered, “I know.”
 Chapter 4
Chapter Notes

Thank you all so much again for the support. I didn't anticipate how much fun it would
be to post something where we all didn't have a roadmap of what was going to happen.
I'm really enjoying your guesses and observations and questions. I appreciate you all so
much!

See the end of the chapter for more notes

“This isn’t wine!” Laurent protested, coughing and sputtering, as he thrust the skein back at
Albur. His throat burned as if he had swallowed fire. That fire, in turn, was filling his chest.

Albur laughed. He patted and rubbed at Laurent’s back. “You’re just not used to drinking
anything that isn’t three quarters water,” he assured him, pressing the skein into Laurent’s
hands once more. “Have another,” he advised. “The taste grows on you after you’ve killed off
all your tastebuds.”

“What a resounding recommendation that is,” Laurent said. This time, he sniffed at it. There
was no trace of the overripe fruit smell he associated with wine. The contents of the bag
smelled more of cedar and vanilla and wheat; it was almost bready.

“Albur,” across the fire, Alois was frowning at them. “You wouldn’t be trying to get your
thirteen-year-old Prince drunk, would you?”

“Come off it, Alois, you old nag. The boy has spent the last three days mourning his freedom.
If anyone deserves to get drunk, it’s him. Anyway, it’s piss poor blackberry from Varenne. It
wouldn’t get a baby drunk.”

Laurent was certain that there was not a trace of blackberry in the wineskin. He opened his
mouth to say so, but then Albur glanced at him and shared a conspiratorial wink, and Laurent
decided to keep the revelation to himself. He looked directly at Alois as he lifted it and took
the largest swallow he could bear.

It burned all the way down.

“No one about to go off and marry an Akielon should be treated like a boy,” Albur said to
Laurent. Alois was disapproving, but he was low ranking within Auguste’s guard, and too
conscious of his place to dare to try scolding Laurent himself. When Laurent, defiant, braved
a third sip. Alois said something to a companion, rose, and walked away.

“I suppose,” Laurent said, peering into the skein, “I should learn to drink anyway, if I am to
survive among the swine.” Some of the men were still singing about the exploits of the
fabulously horny King Stefan, but Laurent found that his interest in the naughty song had
waned. Mention of his betrothal had also killed what little appetite he might otherwise have
been able to summon. “You’ve fought on the border with my brother since his first
campaign,” Laurent said. “What are the Akielons really like? Give me a fair assessment.”

“Hasn’t Auguste told you anything about what you should expect?”

Laurent shook his head. He liked that Albur hadn’t used his brother’s title. He liked feeling as
if they could set aside the mantle of royalty, even if only for a few hours, and just be normal
men. He knew it was like that for Auguste with many of his guards – that they didn’t serve
him with such pride and such loyalty merely because he had been born a Prince, but because
they knew and liked and respected him as a man. Laurent had never had that – not with
anyone besides Auguste, anyway, and now that was over. Auguste had made his decision as
King – not as brother, and not as friend.

“Let’s see,” Albur mused, as Laurent drank again. He liked the spreading warmth within his
chest. The taste was growing on him. “You know they breed like rabbits,” he said. “No care
for how many bastards they spawn. They put a spear in their boys’ hands just as soon as
they’re off their mothers’ tits and send them out to learn the art of killing before the age of
five.”

“But you have bastards, too,” Laurent pointed out. It was a rude thing to say, and it stopped
Albur before he could go on. Laurent took another drink of what was definitely not wine,
feeling bold and adult and even a little important. “You like to fuck women,” he said. “You
have two bastard children.”

After a moment, Albur’s surprise smoothed out. He chuckled and shook his head.

“Three,” he corrected. “And your brother makes me send ten percent of my wages to each
child.”

“That’s half your wages!” Laurent exclaimed. There was something wrong with the math, but
figuring out what it was felt too difficult, and Albur didn’t correct him. Laurent realized he
was a little lightheaded. “But – at least you’re nobility,” Laurent reasoned after a moment.
“Your pay is just a formality, really.”

“It would be,” Albur agreed, “Except my father disowned me when I refused to marry the
first hag to squeeze out a slimy spawn.”

Laurent was not used to anyone speaking to him so frankly, especially not any of Auguste’s
friends. It made him feel included and adult and far more respected than any of the usual
coddling Your Highnesses ever had. He took another drink, and he decided to return that
frankness.

“I’m surprised you weren’t turned off.”

“I would have been,” Albur said. “Your brother spoke for me.”

“He does that,” Laurent told him solemnly. “He stands up for people.”
“Except for you, eh?” the thoughtful expression on Albur’s face cleared as he reached out
and knocked his fist against Laurent’s shoulder. “This time, anyway. He jumped on the
alliance so fast it was like he was looking for a way to get rid of you.”

--

Auguste couldn’t sleep. Tomorrow, he would put Laurent on a horse and send him off into
lands that had been enemy territory for generations.

The treaty was detailed and expansive. Auguste felt certain that Damianos would stand by his
word – and if there was something Auguste decided he didn’t like, they could make
alterations in a few short months when they underwent the first of the two planned marriage
ceremonies.

If something went wrong – if the Akielons hurt Laurent – if they betrayed their word – then
the treaty they had signed would help to bring Patras and Vask down upon their heads.
Neither country had agreed to help Vere when Akielos began their hostilities, but no one
wanted an oathbreaker for a neighbor. Akielos would burn if they betrayed their agreement.

Akielos would keep their oath. Akeilos had to keep their oath.

Auguste could still find no peace with it – and he knew that he would not find it. Not without
talking to Laurent – not without explaining himself – not without making the attempt to earn
forgiveness or, at the very least, understanding.

Auguste knew it was late when he slipped from his tent. He knew that Laurent would be
asleep. However unhappy Laurent was with him, being woken up would only magnify it. He
went anyway.

Auguste could not convince himself to turn aside.

It was hot near the border, but the nights were cold. Men slept curled soundly in their
bedrolls, around the dim orange coals of dying fires. Some of the men had tents, but most did
not, and Auguste had to step carefully around dark lumps of snoring mass in the shadows of
the crumbling fort. He clenched a blanket tightly around his shoulders. In his hurry, he had
forgotten to put boots on. Some King he was turning out to be.

The sky above was dark, almost moonless, but stars were scattered across the expanse.
Auguste was aware of the jingle of harness, the sounds of sentries walking outside the walls.
He tried to decide what he was going to say.

When Auguste turned the corner that would take him into the Keep’s courtyard, he nearly
stumbled into a couple walking – a soldier, he thought, and his much shorter lover, all bound
up in each other, swaying. The heavy smell of alcohol followed them, and Auguste began to
pass, blanket around him, anonymous in the deep shadows of night.

Then, something made him look back. As the pair passed beneath the flickering illumination
of a torch, Auguste caught the gleam of firelight against a flaxen head.
“Laurent!”

Auguste did not hesitate, nor question his immediate knee-jerk response. For a moment, it
seemed the pair would continue on walking, but Auguste was already moving, jogging the
few steps it took to catch up with them. The smaller of the pair had stopped and was trying to
hang back. For just a moment, it was almost like the larger figure was trying to pull him
along.

“Stop!” Auguste ordered. “Laurent?”

Auguste reached them. He caught hold of the smaller figure’s arm and pulled. The larger
resisted for a token moment before releasing him.

Laurent spilled, bonelessly, into Auguste’s arms, as if his limbs were incapable of holding
him up without assistance.

“Who is – Albur?”

The guardsman was uncomfortable. He had begun to turn away, but he stopped now, stiffly,
caught.

“Majesty,” he said. The smell of alcohol on him was strong, but not as strong as it was on
Laurent. “We – we were out for air.”

Laurent tried to lift his head. It seemed to be too heavy for him.

“Out for air,” Laurent repeated, muffled against Auguste’s shirt, and he giggled. He swayed,
his legs threatening to buckle, and Auguste readjusted his hold to keep him from falling. He
understood now why it had been easy to mistake the two for lovers; Laurent really could not
stand on his own.

Auguste wasn’t consciously aware of whatever expression it was he wore on his face, but
when he looked at Albur, his guard and longtime friend gave a grimace.

“Come off it, Auggie; he was worried about tomorrow, and I wanted to help him relax. Don’t
pretend we weren’t sneaking wine and getting drunk when we were his age. Hells – we
weren’t much older when you decided it was time to visit our first brothel.”

“Don’t Auggie me; I am your King. Don’t - !”

“You always pull the royalty card when you know you’re in the wrong. He’s old enough to
sell to Akielos, but not to have a few drinks with a friend?”

Albur always got argumentative when he drank, but Auguste didn’t have an answer that he
was comfortable with. He had traded away the most precious thing in the world to him in the
name of peace and stability for his people. Tomorrow, he would lose Laurent. He couldn’t
protect him.

“We were going to see Uncle,” Laurent said, the words bleary, slightly slurred, though he
made an obvious effort to speak normally. Albur’s expression in the shadows was difficult to
read.

“Yes,” Albur said, and his voice was strange, though it picked up strength when he continued.
“It isn’t as if I was going to leave him in this state. Who knows what trouble he might get up
to? There is a reason you’re sending me with him tomorrow, after all. I let him have too
much; I wasn’t going to bother you with it. I knew Prince Richard would take care of him.”

Auguste had to adjust his hold on Laurent again. The boy was like an eel in his arms.

“Well, I’m bothered by it now,” Auguste said. “No need to disturb Uncle’s rest. Return to the
men. You’ve a long ride in the morning, too. I’ll see to my brother.”

“Auguste – Your Majesty – “

“I’m not happy with you, Albur. I won’t lie about that. But I do understand what it is you
were trying to do here. You had kind intentions. My brother will need that in the years to
come.”

“I – yes.”

Auguste hoisted his brother up into his arms. As he turned away, he missed the expression
that crossed his guardsman’s face.

--

A foolish part of Auguste had managed to convince himself that things would improve once
he had Laurent to himself. There was a part of him that imagined, the stand-off now broken
between them, that he and his brother would spend their last morning together sharing a
sentimental, sunlit breakfast, memories of their father, and perhaps even a few tears.
Somehow, Auguste would find the words to clear the air between them, and when they parted
ways, he would make his return to Arles harboring a little more peace about his decision.

All of those hopeful expectations shattered when Laurent threw a boot at his head.

“Coffee,” the boy demanded. His first night of drink had left his voice a croak, and there
were bags under his eyes deep enough to sink a ship in.

Auguste said, “I’ve already ordered it. It’s on the way.”

With a noise of no discernable meaning, Laurent threw himself back into the pillows once
more.

The tender moment of air-clearing that Auguste had imagined was going fucking splendidly.

Last night, Auguste had succeeded in coaxing Laurent back to his tent without needing to
recruit the assistance of any of the servants or guards. Laurent, it turned out, was a pliant and
affectionate drunk – something new for Auguste to worry about, though hopefully not until
he was a little older. Auguste had bathed his brother’s face and neck with cool water, and he
had helped him out of his lacings while Laurent, giggling and pleasant, tried to teach him a
filthy and anatomically implausible version of the song Oh, King!
“King Stefan something something nuts… why would he put his cock in her ass?”

“Albur is so fortunate that he is leaving the country,” Auguste told him.

“Wouldn’t that hurt?” Laurent asked. He then began to laugh. His eyes lit up, bleary but
bright with hilarity and mischief. “What – what about – “ he could barely speak around his
laughter. “Auggie…Auggie… shit comes from there! Shit!”

“Yes, I am aware.”

When Laurent had fled to his dilapidated tower, he’d had the servants move his belongings.
Auguste dressed him in one of his own nightshirts and managed to coax him into bed, where
Laurent curled himself bodily around a pillow. Still giggling over the idea of anyone wanting
to put anything in another person’s asshole, it didn’t take him long to drift off to sleep.

“Do you think the Akielons would consider it appropriately entertaining if I had Albur
whipped before we part ways?” Auguste had asked Alois, some hours later, when his
spymaster slipped into his tent. Auguste had sent a servant to place the signal that he had
need of him as soon as he’d gotten Laurent settled, but Alois was a cautious man. He never
came until he was certain he wouldn’t rouse suspicions. All of Auguste’s men knew their
Prince’s tastes too well to merely assume he was having an affair with a low-ranking
guardsman if they noticed his late-hour visits. The fact Alois was considered unimportant
made it so much easier for him to speak freely in his presence.

“I think the Akielons see enough flogging disciplining their slaves; they would find the
exhibition routine.” Alois’s answer was mild. “They would wonder why you held up
departure for a simple household matter, and you would compromise the ability of one of the
mere ten men who will be protecting his Highness.”

“All right, it would be pointless and foolish,” Auguste agreed. “But, it would make me happy.
Surely there is some value in that.”

“Surely,” Alois agreed. He took a seat without needing to be invited to do so. Being the
Crown Prince’s spymaster summoned to his tent in the wee hours before dawn the day he was
to depart on a long journey did allow him to take some small liberties.

Alois reported on the incident with Albur, and Auguste was relieved to hear how closely his
rendition collaborated with what Albur himself had told him. Auguste was close to the men
in his guard, and he considered most of them to be friends – but when it came to Laurent, all
bets were off. There was no friendship he would ever choose over his brother.

Albur had coaxed Laurent from the tower to drink and dine with the men. They had all kept
an eye on him as they tried to take his mind from his situation. Everyone in Auguste’s guard
was noble born. They all understood the demands of duty. Many of the men had already
found themselves in situations like Laurent – wed off to a stranger for political reasons. They
all wanted to give their young Prince some comfort.

“Albur let him drink too much,” Alois said. “We thought he was like you – that he would
simply fall asleep after a cup or two. When he didn’t, Albur decided he would take him to
Prince Richard so he would stop flirting with everyone.”

“My brother does not flirt.”

“No,” Albur agreed mildly. “Not without a significant amount of whisky in his belly,
anyway.”

“Whis – I am going to kill Albur, after all. What do you think hurts the most?”

“I do not imagine that there is a single man in your service who would have taken the
Prince’s clumsy flattery seriously, but Albur thought it best to deposit the boy with family,
anyway, for his own sake. He knew you would be furious if you found out, so he chose your
uncle instead.” Alois spread his hands. “That is all there is to report – except for the fact that
Louis and Baptiste are fucking again.”

Auguste grimaced. “Make sure Sebastian knows not to schedule them for the same shift. The
staff never did get the stains out of that tapestry.”

“You were worried about the tapestry? I cannot look at a blacksmith’s anvil without suffering
vivid flashbacks.”

“No; truthfully, it was the soup ladle for me.”

“I… I forgot about the soup ladle.”

Both men ruminated for a reluctant moment. It was almost in unison that they shuddered.

“I’ll make sure Sebastian is warned,” Alois promised, finally. “In the meantime, with
permission, I would like to try to get a little more sleep under my belt.”

“Yes, of course,” Auguste agreed. “Thank you for coming. Thank you for setting my mind at
ease.”

Alois rose from his chair, but he hesitated to leave.

“Your Majesty, are you certain about sending me to Akielos?” he asked. “I understand the
necessity of keeping an eye on the Prince, but you will be without him or Prince Richard in
Arles. You may find you have great need of me at your side.”

Auguste grimaced. “It’s impolite to bring attention to your King’s political ineptitude, Alois.”

“I only worry…”

“It will be fine,” Auguste promised.

It would be fine. It had to be, because Auguste had yet to spend a single moment thinking
about Arles or what might await him there. His every concern was dedicated wholly to
Laurent. Auguste had made this decision. He had placed Laurent in this situation. He would
give him every advantage he could, and if he put himself short later, he would deal with it
then.
After Alois left, Auguste had crawled up into the bed with his brother and curled himself
around him like he had when they were children – like by doing so, he could protect his
brother from nightmares. Auguste could not bear the thought that he would lose his brother
come morning. He couldn’t bear the fact that it was his own damned fault he would do so.

Auguste’s mind worked relentlessly throughout the night, and it would not give him peace. It
would not give him sleep. It would not even allow him the luxury of thinking through
anything useful – the only thing it served to do was steal his rest. Auguste listened to his
brother’s soft breathing. He stroked back his flaxen hair, watched the tremble of golden
lashes against smooth marble cheek, and he worried, and he mourned, and when the sun
began to light the horizon, he forced himself to rise, and he called for his household staff. He
ordered his brother's coffee.

Time kept moving. Time did not honor Auguste’s wishes for it to slow.

“Coffee,” Laurent demanded, throwing his boot, and Auguste could only ache with how
much he cherished him. There was something so charmingly fragile about the sight of him
there, sitting up in Auguste’s bed with his hair a riot and Auguste’s oversized shirt hanging
from his thin shoulders. Even in the foulest of moods – even bleary and hungover and sulking
and vicious – Laurent was the most important thing in the world to him.

“Someone is bringing your clothes, too,” Auguste told him, desperate to hear his voice,
desperate to hold onto these last moments with him. “Do you think you can stomach a little
breakfast?”

Laurent groaned into the pillows.

Laurent said, “Fuck you.”

Auguste blinked. “That’s new.” Laurent was shy, and he was far too erudite for cursing. “Did
you pick that up from Albur, too?”

“I rather like it,” Laurent answered. “It sums up my feelings quite succinctly. Fuck. You.”

“They are very poetic parting words,” Auguste mused. He rose from his desk and went to his
trunk, as Laurent barked a humorless laugh and rolled over, pressing the meat of his palms
into his eyes.

“Do you think you deserve poetry?” Laurent croaked. “Do you imagine that you are sending
me off to matrimonial bliss?”

“No,” Auguste said truthfully. “I’m sending you off to fulfill a duty – an unfortunate one, at
that. I’m sending you to serve the needs of your people. I know it won’t be pleasant. I know it
will be lonesome. I can hope with all my strength that the beasts will treat you with honor
and kindness – but I cannot satisfy myself with a belief that it will be as I hope. Duty is a
difficult burden.” From his trunk, Auguste retrieved a little box. He went to join his brother
on the bed. “Should I call for willowbark?”
“Willowbark makes me queasy. Do you want me to vomit on my fiancée? On second thought
– yes. Call for loads of it.”

Auguste tsked softly. When he reached to brush back his brother’s hair, Laurent jerked away
from him. Hid glare could have melted steel. Auguste let his hand drop. He passed Laurent
the little box, and Laurent took it, not opening it, fiddling with it between his hands as his
eyes dropped. The two were silent for a time.

Now that Auguste had Laurent with him, all of his arguments and justifications had flown
from his head. He couldn’t bear the thought that they were soon to part. It seemed so useless,
so senseless, that he should choose such a path for them. Laurent was too bright, too good,
too wonderful to be wasted on the barbarians like this.

Auguste was surprised when it was Laurent who broke the silence first.

“You should have asked me,” Laurent said. His voice was small and hurt. Answering him
was difficult.

“I didn’t go in planning this,” Auguste admitted. “I thought we had won. I thought the war
was over.”

“You should have had me in there.”

“Yes,” Auguste agreed. At the time, he had been concerned about how it would look to bring
a boy who had barely reached his teenaged years in for talks on ending a war. Laurent would
never be King, and so he was often left out of such things. It had not occurred to Auguste
until it was too late that Father had been bringing Auguste into such meetings from an even
younger age – that Laurent’s role, like Auguste’s, had changed, and at the very least allowing
him the exposure and the experience would have been beneficial to him. “You would have
run the entire thing.”

Laurent took a deep, shuddering breath. Bracing himself, he asked, “Is it the bastard?”

“No! No. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

Laurent turned the box over and over in his hands. “An heir to a throne is a better match than
some princess who is forty-second in line,” he allowed.

“Hey, I liked Princess Berthanna. She was… sweet.”

Laurent took another deep breath. This one was a little steadier.

“I don’t want to marry,” he said. “You know I don't want to marry."

"Yes. I know."

"I want to stay with you. I want to be your advisor, and cultivate the library, and irritate your
children.”

“I would have liked that, too.”

 “I bet this Akielon doesn’t even know how to read.”

It took effort to answer. “You can teach him. It will be adorable. Maybe you will even fall in
love listening to him stumble over the alphabet.”

“I would have just as much luck teaching my horse to read,” Laurent grumbled. “She
contains more brains than any Akielon.”

“Try to be nice for at least a week,” Auguste advised. “Make it inconvenient for them to send
you back.”

Laurent snorted. His thumbs caught the latch on the little box, and he slid it open.

The contraption inside had been a gift from an eccentric Kemptian aunt, back when that side
of the family still spoke to them. She had told Auguste that she’d invented them – tinted glass
on wire frames, to be worn on the face, over the eyes. As boys, Auguste and Laurent had
found hilarity in the gift – in how it looked upon the face, and how it turned the wearer’s
world to shades of blue. Auguste had found their usefulness by accident, after a few too many
late nights out with his men.

“They’ll block the sun,” Auguste explained. He pretended not to notice that his brother’s eyes
were wet.

Chapter End Notes

1. It was a rye whisky.

2. The earliest known sunglasses date back to the 12th century. I wanted sulky Laurent
to have some.
 Chapter 5
Chapter Notes

Mild warning for this chapter: Uncle is gross.

Kastor was convinced that the Veretians were plotting something. Their camp was too quiet,
he claimed. They were preparing for another surprise attack. They wanted to poison the water
supply. They were summoning Kemptian witches to curse them all. They were sending
assassins to put spiders in their bedrolls while they slept. Akielos needed to act, now, for if
they waited for the day of departure, they would be waiting too late.

Initially, Father allowed his opinions to be heard, but as the days wore on and the warnings
grew more wild, his patience grew thin. It didn’t take long for him to tire of his eldest son’s
dire predictions.

“Damianos,” Father said, “What are your thoughts on the matter?”

Damen should have known to choose his words with care. Kastor’s pride was in a delicate
place due to his embarrassing defeat. His surrender had bruised his standing in Father’s eyes,
and his desperation to restart the war was not helping him. Father had yet to indicate whether
or not he believed the story that Kastor’s downfall had been due to Veretian trickery, and
Kastor hated to be doubted. Damen should have taken all of that into consideration.

Damen should have remembered his brother’s easy jealousy, and the offense he had taken at
being passed over so quickly as the option for matching with the younger Veretian Prince. He
should have noticed the dark way his brother’s eyes followed him whenever they crossed
paths. He should have noticed how negatively he reacted when Father interrupted his
warnings to ask Damen’s opinion. He should have supported his brother while he was weak
and needed it most.

He didn’t.

“I think it’s ridiculous,” Damen answered, without grace.

“A strong opinion,” Father said. He approved on standing firm in one’s convictions. “Have
you come to trust the Veretians, then?”

“No,” Damen said firmly. He had to laugh at the suggestion. Veretians were snakes, with no
concept of honor or loyalty.

Though the Akielons were meant to be preparing for their journey back to Ios, much of the
past few days had been spent celebrating – celebrating Damen, specifically. Damen had
ended the war, and while they had not managed to claim Delpha, the acquisition of a Veretian
Prince was widely regarded as a greater prize. This new alliance meant newly-opened trade
routes, which meant wealth. It meant an end to Veretian aggression at the border. The alliance
meant Akielos stood stronger than it ever had, a giant among its neighbors, and Prince
Damianos was the cause of that strength.

Damen was a young man, virile and enthusiastic for life. Three days of men celebrating him
had his ego soaring to unheard of proportions. He didn’t have the patience to coddle Kastor’s
feelings when he felt like a demigod from a ballad, wrestling victory from impossible odds.
He had ended the war that they had lost, and he had done it with terms that made them
stronger, without compromising his values with trickery and deceit.

Damen had always admired his brother, but it was hard to look up to him at that moment.

“The Veretians knew that they would be crushed if we were to return to fighting,” Damen
said. It was a fact, not a boast. The loss of a King was a terrible hit to morale for any army.
“And this alliance benefits Vere nearly as much as it does us. They’re liars, but they aren’t
fools. They won’t betray an agreement they’ve already signed. They have too much to gain
by honoring their word, and too much to lose by breaking it.”

Father nodded, approving his answer. He looked to Kastor once again.

“You see?” Father asked. “This is how a King thinks. There is no need to search under every
stone for threats that are not there. When a man is strong, he knows that he is safe from
challenge.”

Kastor bowed his head, but it was clear that he was displeased. He waited until Father left
them to look over the troops before he spoke again.

“You’re very cheerful, aren’t you, Damianos?” he asked. “You’ve donned your dress armor
like a peacock, and you’ve smiled at every man you pass. You walk as if you think you are
King already.”

“Why shouldn’t I be cheerful?” Damen asked. The amount of judgement in his brother’s
assessment surprised him. The war was won. Soon, they would cross the border again, and
find themselves sleeping in Akielon halls once more. Their bannermen would feast them, and
they would have proper baths for the first time in weeks, with soothing massages for war-
tired muscles, and their pick of the sweetest, most beautiful, most well-trained slaves. They
would be celebrating this victory for weeks to come.

“I suppose it would be pleasing to have the world toast you as a hero, and cheer for you every
time you so much as took a shit,” Kastor said. “But I am surprised – I had no idea your tastes
had begun to run to little boys.”

It was Damen’s turn to scowl. The accusation felt like a slap. “I don’t. You know I don’t.”

“No? Why else would you be so eager to wed this child?”

Damen felt his mouth open, and no sound came out. Kastor’s gaze was hot and hateful, as if
Damen was some despicable thing. He did not know this brother, who looked at him as if he
wanted nothing more than to plunge his knife deeply into his chest.

Finally, Damen found his voice again. “Kastor,” he said, “If I am excited, it is because of
what this union will mean for Akielos. It isn’t as if I plan to ever touch the boy. He is
Veretian.”

Something in his words must have struck true. Kastor looked away, staring at the maps of
their father’s campaign still laid out upon a camp table. The slaves had not yet cleared they
away, and they were still dotted with the little figures and markers that represented the two
armies and the Akielon march across Delpha. At first, they had been three armies – Kastor
had brought his men in at the south, and Damen in the north. Father’s forced had cut up the
middle. The three of them had laid a trail of blood and fire throughout the province, until at
last they had come to convene here outside Marlas. Carved wooden towers painted black as
char marked each Veretian village they had taken.

They would have to give them all back, now that there was to be peace.

“I know it’s difficult,” Damen said. “Giving up on what we worked so hard for – but this is
better. You have to see how this is better. You must see it; you volunteered to wed him first,
and you have no more taste for underripe fruit than I do.”

Slowly, Kastor reached out. With one finger, he began to topple the towers, one by one,
tipping each in turn onto its side.

“You always know the correct path, don’t you, Damianos?” he asked. “Father has such high
standards, but you always manage to meet them. Everyone is always pleased with you. Is it
difficult, being perfect?”

“We do what we have to do, Kastor.” His brother’s praise was both welcome and surprising.
A tightness in Damen’s shoulders began to ease. He was relieved they had made peace.

--

For the last time, the armies of Vere and Akielos gathered and stood across from one another
on the fields of Marlas. A sense of unreality struck Damen, sinking deeply into his chest, at
the sight of the flutter of blue banners interspersed with black for the fallen King. No
Veretian was flying King’s purple today. The relief of the alliance, the joy of finding a way to
peace, had been all that Damen had felt for the past three days. It wasn’t until he urged his
horse forward to meet the Veretians in the middle that he felt the heavy pressing of fate upon
his shoulders, bringing with it the knowledge of how his life was surely about to irrevocably
change. Damen was walking into a future he had never once envisioned for himself.

It would be years until they were truly married – the Akielon wedding ceremony, to be held
in a few months’ time, was a mere formality meant to secure the alliance until the younger
prince was of an appropriate age. But formality or no, a vow was a vow.

The Veretians wore somber expressions as they met their new allies in the middle of the field.
Damen had not had the opportunity to see the younger Prince before, but it was obvious
which one he was by the bowed flaxen head, much lighter than his brother’s. The Akielons
had donned dress armor out of respect for the occasion, but the Veretian princes were both
wearing simple riding leathers. Laurent of Vere wore some strange device on his face – a wire
frame that held blue glass lenses before his eyes. He appeared pale and sullen and unpleasant,
a spoiled child who sat upon his horse in clear and silent protest of his fate.

Auguste extended his hand as he approached, and he and Damen clasped forearms firmly.

“I’m afraid I didn’t plan a speech,” Auguste said with dry humor, and his uncle, unaware it
was unnecessary, translated from the Veretian.

“King Auguste says that he expected a speech.”

Damen prized honesty. Deception made his skin crawl. But, at that moment, he decided that
Father was right to choose not to illuminate the men before them on the fact they knew their
language.

“My brother is more precious to me than the whole of my Kingdom,” Auguste said. “I think
he will delight you with his wit and his charm and his endless capacity for kindness. I think it
will take no time at all for him to fill a place in your heart. Please, if you can, learn to love
him. At the very least, please be his friend.”

“King Auguste says that his brother is willful and troublesome,” Prince Richard ‘translated’.
“He has the mind of fox searching always for wickedness, and he requires a firm handling at
all times. The faster you break him to your will, the happier your marriage will be.”

Damen gave the elder Prince a long, appraising look. He was frowning. Prince Richard said –

“I am afraid that I agree with my nephew’s assessment.”

“Do you? Please, tell him that I honor the gift he is giving me, and I hope to enjoy a lifetime
of friendship with him, as between our people.”

This, Prince Richard repeated faithfully, surprisingly enough. Damen tried to clear his frown
when he looked at Auguste again, but the King of Vere had turned his attention to his brother.

He spoke to him, low. Damen didn’t quite catch what was said, and out of respect, he didn’t
try to. King Auguste’s affection for his little brother was clear and genuine, and would have
been, even had he not spoken of him in such openly loving terms. His brother’s response,
however, remained tepid and sullen. Damen couldn’t help but to wonder if Auguste was
simply too biased toward the boy to be aware of his flaws. It was not clear whether Prince
Richard’s inaccurate translation was meant as sabotage or warning.

Prince Laurent brushed away his brother’s hand when it reached for him. He said something,
softly, that sounded like, “Don’t.”

--

Laurent had studied the maps. He knew that the province of Delfeur was wide, but not
terribly long, and that by setting out just after sunrise, even an army could make their way
from Marlas to the Akielon port of Syros in a matter of days, provided that they kept a
consistent pace, did not encounter trouble with the wagons, and limited the number of rests
they took. Delfeur was relatively flat land, good for farming and raising animals – which was
probably more of the reason Theomedes had coveted it than some ridiculous aspiration to
reclaim territory the ancients had held.

Laurent knew, too, of the devastation the Akielons had brought along their way. He had been
with Auguste at various battles throughout the campaign – some they had won, and others
lost. He had been present when they had been forced to retreat, a burning village at their
backs, their people lost to the barbarians’ mercy. Too many villages had no more defense than
farmers armed with pitchforks or their grandfathers’ rusted swords. Too many were not
prepared.

The army of Kastor the Bastard had been the most brutal as it cut through the southern lands
of Delfeur, blocking them off from the sea. Laurent had read reports of senseless looting, of
fields and storehouses filled with food left ransacked and burned, of brutal gang rapes, and
children shackled and sent back to Akielos to train as slaves. Auguste had tried to keep it
from him, but Auguste could not be everywhere at all times. Since Father ignored him, it was
easy for Laurent to linger, listening to the scouts when they reported the devastation brought
by the invaders. It was easy, too, to slip into his father’s tent to read letters and reports from
desperate border lords.

Laurent had thought that he understood what it was they were fighting. He had not been
prepared to see it for himself.

Their journey took them past fields stripped bare or burnt to the ground, through entire
villages left in ashes, reeking with the scent of burn and decay.

“This is what your dear brother has sold you to,” Uncle said, the first night, as Laurent
sobbed into his pillow over the memory of a stretch of road lined with slaughtered cattle, and
a tree hung heavily with bodies. They had stopped there, at that terrible stretch of land, and it
seemed the Akielon royal brothers had argued for some time. They stayed there for hours
surrounded by the stench of rot and the buzzing of flies, the horror of it inescapable as the
Akielons burned the cattle and cut the bodies from the trees, as they dug graves. Uncle did
not allow the Veretians to help.

“They don’t want His Majesty’s patrols to see their sin,” Uncle explained. “Leave it to them
to hide their shame.”

It was important to remember: Akielons took what they wanted, and destroyed what they did
not.

Courtly etiquette required perfect control over one’s emotions at all times, but that night
Laurent did not have it within him to control anything. He sobbed, unable to help himself,
unable to separate the horror of the road and the anguish of waste from the hopelessness of
his situation, his selfishness, his missing his brother and his life, even though they had not yet
crossed the border out of Vere. Uncle’s hand moved soothingly along his back as he
attempted to comfort him.
The Veretians had not been allowed to bring their own household staff with them. Uncle and
Laurent had only their men, a paltry sum of twenty guards against an army. It had been a
warm day, hot to those like Laurent, accustomed to the milder north, and so it was determined
that putting up tents would be too much needless effort. It was a sticky, humid sort of heat,
miserable, and when the sun began to fall it failed to bring with it the usual relief of cooling.
The men had prepared to make a fire, but they didn’t light it, their bedrolls gathered around a
useless pile of sticks as they sat in their sweat and picked at their dinner. Laurent would have
dreaded venturing into Akielos for the heat alone, had he had the emotional room for it.

Uncle’s voice changed as he turned from Laurent to address one of the guards.

“Perhaps we should erect my tent after all,” he suggested. “Prince Laurent should have
privacy for his grief.”

“No!” Laurent said, lifting his head. He could not stand the thought of being inside a tent –
enclosed inside the stifling thick heat, unable to see the Akielon camp and assure himself that
they were not about to be attacked.

“Darling boy, I could comfort you so much more thoroughly if we were alone. These
emotions are not acceptable for you to display before your men.”

“The heat,” Laurent said, unable to stomach admitting his fear that the Akielons could come
slaughter them in their sleep. Their new allies slept in a separate camp, and though the
distance between them was not great, their meaning was clear. The King and his sons had not
even invited Laurent and his uncle to share in their supper. Their insistence on ignoring their
Prince’s new fiancé and his people, on not even treating them as guests, could not possibly
bode well. “I can’t bear the thought of the heat,” Laurent said. “Please, Uncle – I’ve been
sweating all day. At least out here I might catch a breeze.” At least out here he could run if he
heard horses.

He sounded pathetic, all stopped up from crying. He knew his eyes were swollen; he knew
his cheeks were red.

Uncle smiled with warm affection as he cupped his cheek in his hand and brushed away his
tears with his thumb.

“Beautiful boy,” he said. “How could I deny you a thing? Lay down then, here, with me, and
sleep. I promise, I will not leave your side. Here – let me help you from your jacket.”

--

At first light, Damen walked over to the Veretian camp. His father’s invitation last night,
suggesting that they dine together and join their camps into one, had gone ignored. Damen
wanted to know why.

“I hope Prince Laurent slept well,” Damen said, and when the boy looked up at the sound of
his name, Damen smiled at him and said, “Good morning.”
“Your barbarian fiancé thinks you failed to get enough rest,” Prince Richard translated. “He
says you look tired.”

“Of course I look tired,” the boy grumbled. “Some weird stick was digging up against my hip
all night. I’m surprised you didn’t feel it – it was between us when you accidentally rolled on
top of me.”

“Was it? I am such a heavy sleeper, I never noticed.”

The Prince Laurent’s eyes flickered briefly up to Damen, and then he turned away. Damen
had come upon them when the young Prince was wearing a soft white shirt tucked into fine
riding trousers. Now he began the process of locking himself into a jacket that would no
doubt grow unbearable quickly if they had a repeat of yesterday’s fine warm weather.

“He said that he dreamed of his wedding night,” Prince Richard said in Akielon, turning back
to Damen at last. Damen did not understand his continued failure to provide accurate
translation. Nothing that he had said came close to anything that could be misunderstood in
such a way if his skill with the language was lacking. It had to be deliberate, but why? He
could not imagine what he might have thought had he been caught in a situation where he
was forced to rely on the man’s words. He would certainly not have a favorable opinion of
his future spouse.

“I wanted to check on how he was feeling,” Damen said. “My father never received an
answer to his dinner invitation.”

“Ah,” Prince Richard said, and glanced at his nephew again. He reached out, sliding a finger
between the boy’s collar and the nape of his neck to soothe out some wrinkle. When he
continued, it was with lowered voice, as if sharing sensitive information – though,
presumedly, he was the only Veretian present who understood Akielon. He said, “You must
understand – it will take some time before he is able to stomach the thought of eating among
your kind.”

“My…kind.”

“My nephew is very sensitive, and his tastes are quite refined. Barbaric table manners would
surely make him wretch. That could be devastating, given the delicacies of our current
situation.”

Damen was just beginning to frown when Prince Richard continued.

“He’s been terribly sheltered,” he said. “His dear departed father saw him as a prize, and
treated him as the finest of jewels should be. Other than visits to his mother’s country when
he was very young, he has never even stepped foot outside of Vere. I doubt, given his age,
that the child even remembers those visits. He has no interest in any world outside his own
narrow perspective, I’m afraid.”

“You served as diplomatic envoy to Kempt during his mother’s lifetime, didn’t you?” Damen
remembered.
Prince Richard nodded, looking strained. “They’re a terribly superstitious people,” he said.
“To the point of being unreasonable. They believed poor Hennike’s failing health to be a sign
of the gods’ disfavor, or a witch’s curse upon the family. When she died, they cut off all
contact. There was nothing I could do – pressing them may have started a war, and we
already had your father breathing down our necks.”

“You were the contact for Akielos as well. I seem to recall that you were meant to come on a
diplomatic visit, but you never showed up.”

“You can see how my attention was somewhat divided,” he said. And then, switching to
Veretian, “There, Laurent, you are presentable at last.” He smoothed his hands over the boy’s
back and across his shoulders, and turned him around, brushing dust from his chest and
pushing his fingers through his hair until it laid in a way opposite to how the boy had had it.
“Your charming fiancé was telling me how upsetting he would find it to have a slovenly
spouse. You must take care to ensure your appearance pleases him.”

“Slovenly?” the boy repeated, and his eyes flickered over to Damen. They were blue, Damen
saw for the first time, clear as the sky above. He had the coltish, awkward look of a boy just
on the cusp of adolescence – his hands and feet seemed disproportionate to his thin child’s
body, and his voice had not yet broken. His face was still rounded and babyish, but bore the
hallmarks of potential beauty – a fine nose, high cheekbones, a pink, sweetly-shaped mouth
any woman might envy. He was just as likely to outgrow those features as mature into them,
however. Damen had seen it before – had heard the slave masters lament when some
promised beauty failed to grow into their potential and had to be downgraded from the lists of
bedslaves to mere household attendants.

It didn’t matter one way or the other to Damen if the boy grew up to be beautiful or not. The
match was political, and he would get his heirs from a noble born mistress of his choosing.
Damen preferred women, and when he wanted a man, he wanted a man. He knew he would
never have any interest in bedding his little Veretian husband, no matter how pretty his
coloring. They would copulate once, and once only – to consummate the marriage and seal
forever the treaty between their countries, rendering it permanent and unable to be altered
further. It would not happen for many years – not until Laurent was a legal adult in his
country, and they had had time to find the best ways to navigate peace between their peoples.
After that, they would go about their lives coexisting peacefully – as friends, Damen hoped,
if possible.

Laurent said, “He is wearing a skirt and it is so short I can almost see his cock.”

Prince Richard’s laughter covered Damen’s own involuntary sound of amusement.

The uncle put his arm around the boy and squeezed him in a side-hug, holding him there,
close.

“Your brother would have a fit if he knew I let you speak like a low-level pet,” Prince
Richard scolded, though there was approval in his tone. “Don’t say cock.”

“Shall I use some ridiculous euphemism instead? What a precious thought. No, I don’t have
time for that.” Stiff at his uncle’s side, Prince Laurent was still staring at Damen with wary
curiosity. “What does he want? He keeps smiling at me.”

“He’s come to inspect his prize, of course,” Prince Richard answered, rubbing his arm and
squeezing him closer. “These barbarians will fuck anything, you know. Children, sheep, a
particularly interesting hole in a tree. Don’t worry, though. I have explained to the creature
that it is not feasible for him to have you at this moment.”

Prince Laurent had gone white. “At this moment?”

“Well, we have days of riding left before us, and you’ve never bent over for a man. Ah –
don’t worry. I will explain the process to you later.”

“No. No, thank you.” Prince Laurent threw off his uncle’s arm. “I don’t have time for that,
either.”

He gave Damen a wide berth as he made his escape.

Damen had lost his amusement.

“You were warned that he was willful,” Prince Richard sighed, switching back to Akielon,
and it was amazing, really, how the lies and the deception fell so easily from him. He seemed
so friendly, as if he had not stood there telling his nephew that Damen was some monster
come expecting to rape him before they set out for the day. “I do adore the child, but he
proves himself a challenge from time to time. What do your people do to discipline unruly
boys? I’ve always preferred a thorough spanking, myself, but I’m willing to hear alternative
suggestions.”

“I’m afraid I need to get back to my father,” Damen said. “He wants to leave within the hour.
Will your people be ready?”

Prince Richard smiled. He said, “I will pass along your message.”

 Chapter 6
Chapter Notes

Welp.

So, something happens in the next couple chapters that is very difficult. (Spoiler:
Laurent is ok.) Because of that I have rewritten them several times. Because of THAT I
have just realized that I needed to re-number my existing chapters because this one
ended up being the size of two and though I'm sure longer is always appreciated the
length I try to stick to is the one that works best for me stamina/attention-span-wise and
if I double-stuffed the chapter it would feel like a slough to type out and I would be even
less likely to look it over for typos after than I usually am and also it might take longer
to get out. So, anyway. The difficult things don't happen in this chapter, even though
originally they did; they have been pushed back to the next one. Again, spoilers, Laurent
is ok and I am still trying to figure out how I will do the warnings without freaking you
out. Smiley-face? Heart emoji? Okay, I will stop rambling.

My kitten is being a dick while I try to edit so please bear that in mind.

The warm welcome Meniados had waiting for them at the Port of Syros went a long way
toward soothing some of the stress, frustration, and tension that days of travel alongside his
new Veretian allies had brought to Damen.

It was night when they arrived, the gates of the ancient port city flung wide in welcome. The
sea stretched, calm and dark and inviting, beyond the port. In the courtyard of the small
seaside palace, lovely slaves stood with refreshments handy, or instruments to play so that
their steps were followed with song. Two long lines of Meiados’s best waited demurely on
their knees, ready to be chosen to warm their visitors’ beds and serve in their baths and attend
their every need over the course of their visit.

The Kyros of Sicyon had ridden out personally from his home in Karthas to meet them, and
he had planned his staff with his usual eye for elegant provincial hospitality. There were
plenty of options in the lineup, varied and exciting, to meet a variety of tastes. With pleasure,
Damen even spotted a few lighter heads along the line, and he itched with anticipation to
examine them. This, he thought, was exactly what he had been needing.

Meniados greeted Father with a warm embrace – and then he extended that warmth to Damen
who, it was clear, had managed to rise substantially in the bannerman’s eyes with his victory.
The spoils he had brought to his father’s house were unprecedented. Earning the respect of
his father’s grizzled warlord Kyroi had always been an uphill battle. So many of them were
quick to dismiss a younger man on principle alone, and these had all known him since
infancy. It was difficult for them to see their Prince as a man and not a child, but if Meniados
could shift his view, so too, then, could the others.

Damen told himself to enjoy it.

There was a part of him that had begun to regret speaking up during the peace talks. For all
that Akielos would be gaining from their alliance with Vere, there were times when he
couldn’t help but wonder if it would have been better to simply conquer them, after all.
Prince Richard lied as easily as he drew breath – there was never even the slightest change in
expression or mannerism to give him away as he moved fluidly between languages, telling
the Akielons one thing and the Veretians another. Had Damianos not understood his
language, this experiment of peace might have already begun to fail. He had that poor boy,
Laurent, absolutely terrified of Damen – of all of Akielos – and if Damen had been in a
position where he had been reliant on the man’s interpretive skills, he was sure he would
already have begun to despise the unfortunate lad, himself, while in truth young Laurent had
not yet done anything wrong that Damen could see. The approval of a man like Meniados
helped Damen to shift his perspective back where it should be.

“We can’t trust the Veretians,” Damen had said, on their second night, sitting at his father’s
side with Kastor and Nikandros and a few select others. Several of the men chuckled at his
obvious statement.

Kastor gave a derisive snort, and he spoke in tones that made it clear how idiotic he found
Damen’s concerns. “Is this news? Your intel is hardly groundbreaking, Damianos. They are
Veretian. Deception is the only thing they know.”

“And so deception is what they will receive,” Father said. He had been displeased and
disturbed by Damen’s report, Damen could tell. “Continue as you have been. Do not reveal
yourself. This advantage will serve us. It is no less than they deserve.”

“This advantage makes my head hurt,” Damen had grumbled. “Why is the uncle so intent on
sabotaging our peace? Does he wish to return to war? The boy flees if he sees me coming.”

“Remember, the contract can still be renegotiated numerous times until the boy is twenty-
one. The snake is unaware that every time he opens his mouth, he gives you more fuel for
better terms.”

“Don’t look at his actions,” Nikandros advised. “Look at what he is actually saying to you.
He wishes for you and the boy to dislike one another. He wishes to ensure that his nephew is
isolated and dependent only on him.”

“But, why?” Damen wondered. He really was getting a headache.

No one had an answer for him.

That conversation was on Damen’s mind as he stood in the courtyard in Syros, waiting as the
slave Calliope kindly and patiently explained to the Veretian royalty that they were being
honored with the opportunity to be served by Meniados’s personal slaves, rather than the
standard household staff kept at the little seaside palace. They planned to stay a few days here
before setting sail for Ios, and it would be more comfortable for them to have dedicated staff
during their visit. She assured them that they were all well trained and had not seen much
use, so they were sure to be pleasing. Meniados wanted to offer his guests an enjoyable and
relaxing stay.

Damen had been calling on Calliope more and more to play as translator when he had to deal
with the Veretians, merely for the purpose of protecting himself from the lies he knew the
uncle would spew if left to “translate” alone with no accountability. Father didn’t like it; he
wanted to catch Prince Richard in more deplorable behavior, but Damen couldn’t stomach it.
If Father had Calliope busy, he made Nikandros come with him instead. Sometimes, he
brought both, just so that Nikandros could lend his perspective afterward.

“A body slave has spent their life training to meet any and all needs of service,” Calliope
explained. “The most intimate requests are those that bring the greatest honor and worth to
the lowly slave, so the Princes of Vere would be most kind if they did not hesitate to ask for
whatever it is they require. A slave is both pleased and eager to serve.”

“How utterly charming,” said Prince Richard, who seemed quite taken with the idea.

Laurent, as usual, appeared sullen and unhappy. It would have been surprising if he had been
able to feel anything else, between the circumstances and the lies.

Sweetly, with seemingly the most innocent curiosity, he asked, “How often were they beaten
or starved before their minds fractured enough for them to believe that?”

Calliope paled. She looked quickly to Damen, and then away, her shoulders rolling inwards
apologetically as she deeply bowed her head, unable to answer. Unthinkingly, Damen opened
his mouth, but it was Nikandros who spoke first.

“We don’t beat our slaves,” he said. He had studied Veretian at Damen’s side until he had left
to serve at the Kingsmeet. His accent was strong, and occasionally he had to stop and search
for the words he needed, but he had an excellent grasp on the language, even if he hated
speaking it. “Serving is a great honor. In return for sweet devotion and complete obedience,
our slaves are treated tenderly, with affection, gratitude, and respect.”

“Yes, I see. Naturally, when I see chains, I always immediately think of terms such as
affection, gratitude, and respect,” Laurent said. “This part must surely come after they have
been broken and made to forget that they are human.” Laurent gestured to Calliope, who had
gone bright red. She sank, with graceful fluidity, to her knees. Laurent asked, “Calliope, do
you feel treasured and honored?”

“This slave is always pleased to serve,” she said, her voice small.

“She is embarrassed by the poor manners displayed by the Prince of Vere, that is all,”
Nikandros said.

“Quite rightly,” Prince Richard spoke up. “Laurent, you are a guest – “
“Am I?” the boy spat. “Is that what we have chosen to call it?” His blue eyes were bright and
dangerous.

“ – and as a guest,” his uncle continued, “You will accept what you are given with gratitude.
Please – when you convey this conversation to your Prince, pass along my most sincere
apologies. The boy is having one of his moments.”

Nikandros blinked. He glanced at Damen. “…right,” he agreed, and then, awkwardly, he

repeated the entire exchange to Damen in Akielon, as Damen nodded and tried to look
thoughtful and convey the idea that he was hearing this nonsense for the first time.

“I am so very embarrassed,” Prince Richard said, himself, in Akielon, once Damen was
“caught up” on matters. “I did warn you that the boy was willful, but it is difficult to express
just what he is like in a way that can be easily understood. No doubt there is much he could
learn from your charming property. A pity a Prince cannot spend a few days in a collar
learning manners, yes? Does the master of this place, by chance, have any younger men on
offer? Someone closer to my nephew’s own age? I fear he would be most uncomfortable
being serviced by anyone older than…” he considered, eyeing his nephew. “Fourteen. Yes, I
am afraid we could not go any higher than fourteen; fifteen would be disgusting. Fifteen is
practically a man.”

“Bed slaves do not begin their training until the goddess of pleasure visits their sleep for the
first time, and after that it is three years of strict training before they are permitted to be
touched,” Calliope supplied the information humbly, without rising from where she knelt.
“On average, the earliest a bed slave is ready for service is sixteen. This one could make
inquiries if the Prince of Vere wishes…?”

“Please,” Prince Richard said, “Though I assure you, an untrained boy will be fine – perhaps
even more suitable. Preferable, even. I am quite certain your…goddess… has notvisited him
yet; he likely does not know what to do with a bed slave. He hasn’t even hired his first pet!”
he laughed, as if this were some shortcoming of the boy's, and only continued once it became
clear that no one else joined in his amusement. He said, “An innocent would be most
appropriate.”

Calliope hesitated, waiting to see if any further instructions were to come. Damen did not like
agreeing with Richard, but it was right that Laurent should have a companion closer to his
own age. Of course, he would be perfectly safe with an older man, but he might not feel it
was so, and if he and the other boy did decide to get up to some youthful rowdiness, well, it
was no more than what Damen himself had been doing at his age. Damen was certain that
Meniados would not risk a prospect of any real talent or promise on a Veretian Prince, treaty
or no treaty. Damen nodded his approval for the proposal and Calliope rose, hesitant but, as
always, obedient.

“I will make inquiries for…the Prince Laurent,” she said.

Damen was glad of it – glad that, for once, the slippery, deceitful uncle had his nephew’s best
interests in mind. Maybe that had been the answer all along. Maybe, in truth, Prince Richard
was trying to spoil the treaty or, at minimum, make Laurent and Damen despise one another
simply because he was so very worried about his young nephew’s future happiness and
safety, unwillingly wed to his enemy. Richard did not know Damen – he didn’t know his
preferences or proclivities. Perhaps he hoped that by spoiling Damen’s opinion of the boy, he
would spare the child his husband’s unwanted attentions in the future. There were men,
Damen knew, who were sick and perverse enough to enjoy forcing themselves upon others,
even purposefully harming them. Prince Richard knew Damen only as an enemy. He thought
him a barbarian. No doubt he was indeed concerned about what his nephew would be asked
to endure for the sake of peace.

The realization made Damen feel a little better. It eased something in him to have a tentative
idea of an explanation. More, he was grateful that his young fiancé had so many people so
concerned for his best interests that they would risk international incident to shield him from
harm. It was good that he would have a companion his own age for his first nights in Akielos.

--

Later, they brought in a boy named Larius – a doe-eyed child of eleven dressed in training
silks. He was dark of eye and hair, but pale and slight, and his lips were naturally very red.
The nose was a bit large. Damen guessed that he had been placed among the potentials in the
hopes that he might grow into something interesting, but that he was not a deep investment
on Meniados’s part. He looked startled over his sudden and unexpected promotion, and he
kept touching the golden ribbon tied ‘round his neck in place of the collar he might someday
bear, as if still surprised over its presence. He would have had lessons in basic service and
etiquette – the kind any household slave would need to master – but seemed to have forgotten
them for the moment, simply blinking as he was presented to young Laurent during dinner.

“He is to serve you during your time here,” his uncle explained. “To help with your dressing
and your bath and keep you company if you find your bed too chilly. That sort of thing. It’s
an honor. Be grateful.”

Meniados was looking to profit off this exchange. He had chosen one of the lowest value
boys from his stables so that he did not risk harm to someone with more potential, but when
he suggested that they could offer him to the Veretians on a more permanent basis if the
young Prince liked him, he had named a premium price. Damen told him he would wait on
an answer until they were readying to depart. Damen did like the idea of giving Laurent an
Akielon companion of his own age who he could grow with, but he couldn’t agree too easily
and make Meniados think he hadn’t noticed his ploy. Anyway, he wanted to make sure
Laurent even liked the boy, first.

“I’ve no use for slaves,” Laurent answered, which, really, did not surprise him. The boy’s
voice was tight. It dripped with disdain in the way that only a teenaged boys can. Even if
Damen had not understood his language, he would have known the boy was displeased with
the offer.

“Laurent,” Prince Richard scolded. “You are being incredibly rude.”

“Rude is far less offensive to me than the keeping of slaves.” He put down his napkin, rose,
and left. Just like that. His meal was barely started, and he was walking away without a word
of parting. Damen could not keep from frowning.
It was abundantly clear that the uncle was angered and embarrassed by the young Prince’s
behavior – and the slave Larius was mortified by the rejection.

The treaty between Vere and Akielos was a delicate bit of politics. It had saved lives and
halted Father’s invasion into Vere. Damen would have thought the Veretians would have
done a better job setting an expectation for how their youngest Prince was to behave, given
his essential part in it. Damen wondered if the boy had any instruction in politics or
diplomacy at all, given his continued defiance and clear unhappiness. He was still young, yes,
and clearly immature, but it was fortunate that Father had had very limited contact with him
so far. He could have at least feigned polite gratitude and declined the offer with grace.

Prince Richard had proven himself a liar time and time again, but, despite himself, Damen
was beginning to wonder if his assessment of the boy wasn’t one thing that was true: Laurent
did indeed seem to be spoiled, willful, difficult, and ungrateful.

--

According to the slave Calliope, Meniados had been quite loquacious in his enthusiasm for
the honor of hosting his King, his Princes, and his victorious army. Nevertheless, it was clear
that he was relieved when Theomedes had indicated that they would not be staying for more
than three days. The Akielon army had been on campaign for months, and the war had been
building for years. There was no doubt that, while it was a pleasure to rest, everyone was
ready to get home. Armies were expensive to feed and a drain on the lands around them.
Laurent did not want to calculate the cost of the feast that had greeted them that evening – a
feast that had seemed unending, a parade of fine foods and performing slaves and sweaty,
half-naked men slapping one another on the back and speaking to one another in excited,
congratulatory tones.

Laurent wished that he could like Syros.

There was certainly a great deal of beauty to be found in Akielon architecture. Laurent liked
the clean, graceful lines of it, and the attention to detail and thoughtfulness that had gone into
the placement of each brick. He liked the way it accentuated the natural beauty of their
surroundings, rather than fighting to hide it and cover it up with gilding. He liked that there
was nothing distracting from the grandeur of the sea, as if the architect had not needed to
compete with it, and Veretian architects felt the need to.

When threats of war had first begun coming in, Laurent had stripped the library of every
book about their enemies that he could find. He told himself it was his way of contributing –
he had even summoned his courage to ask his father directly to find more. There had been
some small, silly fantasy in Laurent’s head that, if he was diligent enough in his research, a
day would come when he would be able to supply something to his father that no one else
knew. That when he spoke up, everyone would have to listen to him, and his father would
realize, finally, that Laurent did have skills of worth.

It was just a silly little daydream. Laurent wasn’t even allowed in the war meetings. But he
kept reading, anyway. He found it interesting, even if he knew that, realistically, he would
never get to use the knowledge. When Laurent was interested in something, it was impossible
to stop himself from voraciously devouring every scrap of information on it that he could
find. He had enjoyed himself – and Auguste had humored him, had even shared some of his
insights with his own men. Laurent had felt important. The only real frustrating thing about
Laurent’s research endeavors was the fact that every book he found on Akielos had been
written by a Veretian – so, not only did they tend to lack anything like cultural nuance, but
they also commonly held the usual bias. Laurent had known that, and he had tried to stay
aware of it, but some of it had managed to seep into his brain, anyway.

Laurent had expected that he would hate everything about Akielos.

Laurent knew that he had barely dipped a toe into the country so far. The landscape yet bore
little difference on this side of the border than it did on the other. He hated the heat, and he
knew it would only get worse as they moved southwards. The slavery culture was already
heavily prevalent, and it was nauseating.

But Laurent did like the architecture. He did like the food. He had even found that he enjoyed
the music, what little he’d heard so far. If he had come here voluntarily to play diplomat for
his brother, Laurent knew he would have already been enjoying himself immensely, despite
the country’s obvious flaws.

But Laurent was not here voluntarily.

Laurent had been looking forward to the opportunity to bathe for days. Learning that Uncle
sided with the barbarians – that everyone around him expected him to allow a fucking slave
to serve him, simply because that was the way it was done here, put an end to any
anticipation Laurent had felt. Instead of taking a long, luxurious soak, washing away the last
few weeks of war and allowing himself a quiet moment gather himself and reevaluate his
plan, Laurent found himself rushing through the process of washing, then fleeing to the
rooms he had been given the moment he was done. He did not want anyone to come along
and try to help him. He did not want anyone to join him. He wanted to be done long before
the dinner he had fled was over.

He knew that Ios would be full of slaves. He knew that he had to get himself together – hold
his tongue – be a good boy. He couldn’t. Not tonight.

Eliott and Albur were the guards on Laurent’s door when he arrived. Seeing their trusted,
familiar faces gave him some little bit of relief. He knew that Auguste had taken quite a lot of
care when choosing the guards who would accompany him. It had been generous of him that
five of his allotted ten were Auguste’s own men. The rest were soldiers who had
distinguished themselves on the field – commoners, yes, but good men, to Auguste’s
judgement. Laurent had not had it in him to visit with the new men yet – he had yet to even
learn their names. It relieved him to find familiar faces waiting for him tonight.

“I don’t feel well, so I left dinner early,” Laurent told them, aware of how he looked –
standing dripping in a robe in the hallway, his clothes and boots under one arm. He lifted his
chin, daring the men to mention it. Neither took him up on the offer. “If anyone comes asking
for me, turn them away. Tell them I am ill.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” was the bemused agreement. Laurent tried not to look like he was
hurrying when he entered his rooms.
--

Albur had been friends with Auguste for as long as Laurent as known him. Because of that,
he often forgot his place and crossed boundaries that Laurent thought a guardsman should not
cross; he seemed to see Laurent as his own younger brother, rather than his Prince. Laurent
was not sure how much time had passed before the man came into his rooms, casually,
without invitation or apology for the interruption to his evening.

Laurent had been at the window, listening to the roar of the sea stretching black and endless
somewhere out there in the darkness. He had been alone long enough that he had calmed a
little, and was beginning to regret not finishing his dinner before making his exit. He
assumed the feast was still going on, and had started to wonder how conspicuous it would be
if he sent someone to fetch him a plate. Uncle would probably tell him he deserved to go to
bed hungry, after such a display.

“I’ve been sent to fetch you,” Albur said, eventually – a delayed greeting.

“I’ve retired for the evening,” Laurent said. He saw, quickly, that Albur’s interruption was not
because the older man had thought to bring him food. He was the nosy sort, not the
thoughtful kind. “Tell my uncle I have absolutely no intention of crawling back to my
captors, no matter how he tries to shame me.”

“Shame you?” Albur had stopped at the desk, and idly picked up the journal Laurent had left
laying open there. He flipped through it as he spoke. “Your uncle understands what a difficult
position you’ve been placed in, I’m sure. He could not endure the company of the savages
any longer, either. He’s gone to the baths.”

Akielons, like Veretians, practiced communal bathing. The Akielons, being barbaric, allowed
both genders to use the same baths. Laurent was certain that there were a limited number of
people who could potentially be using the facilities allotted for visiting royalty or nobility in
the palace in Syros tonight, but the point was: they weren’t private. Uncle, he was sure, had
wanted to use them while everyone else was occupied with dinner, just as Laurent had, so
that he would not have to endure washing in the company of their hosts. Part of why Laurent
had been in such a rush had been just that fear. He still was not sure which would have been
more uncomfortable – bathing in the company of Damianos, or looking up to find one of
Meniados’s daughters joining him in the baths.

“I am not joining my uncle in the baths,” Laurent stated. “I have already bathed. And,
anyway, I’ve no interest in enduring the daily accounting of my many failures. Tell him he
can give me a double dose tomorrow. Or serve me my due at breakfast. I will help him start:
Laurent, you have been behaving like a spoilt, ungrateful bitch. See? My impression is quite
good. Tell him I’m unwell.”

“Unwell how?” Albur looked up from the journal finally, amused.

“Shitting, everywhere. Uncontrollably. All over the walls. This Akielon food. I can’t move.
Woe is me.”

“All right, let’s play this out,” Albur said. “I pass along your message. Then what happens?”
“Uncle respects my wishes and I am left to enjoy my night in peace. I read one of the books I
smuggled in my saddlebags until I’m too tired to see the words on the page, and then I lie in
bed and pretend I will be able to sleep.”

“Good try.”

“Good try?”

“You know what will happen as well as I do,” Albur said, closing the journal and putting it
down. He leaned his backside up against the desk and crossed his arms. “I pass along your
message. Your uncle finishes his bath. Then he comes here, and I have to let him in, because I
need my job and can’t afford to be turned off. He finds the walls are not, in fact, covered in
shit, and you have to listen to his lecture anyway, except now it takes three times as long
because not only have you been a spoilt, ungrateful bitch, you have also been willful and
you’ve been caught in a lie.”

“He can’t prove I don’t feel well,” Laurent said. “Tell my uncle I will vomit on him.”

“You haven’t eaten enough to vomit and we both know it.” Albur picked up the journal again.
Laurent didn’t care; it was his decoy journal, and as of late it contained nothing more spicy
than his analysis of Agafya’s Histories as translated by Emilien duBain.

“I can summon the capacity for a number of means of unpleasantness, I promise you,”
Laurent said.

“Oh, I believe you,” Albur assured him. “Only, consider this: Auguste asked your uncle to
come along so that you would have someone to guide and protect you. His Highness Prince
Richard has been serving Vere in a diplomatic capacity for longer than you’ve been alive.
Auguste could have used his help, himself, right now, but he chose to sacrifice the advantage
his uncle’s wisdom would have given him so that you did not have to face this challenge
alone.”

“And your point is…?”

“You are angry with your brother, but you know how difficult this has been for him. You
know that he did what he had to; he made the decision that would be best for Vere, though it
broke his heart to do it. You know he has done what is best for you, though it weakened his
interests to do that. Auguste is going to have the weight of an entire country on his shoulders,
and this alliance was the first important decision of his reign – yet, from the outside, it seems
as if his beloved little brother has done nothing but try to sabotage it.”

“Your weapon of choice,” Laurent said, “Is to imply that I might jeopardize the success of my
brother’s rule if I fail to be a good boy and listen to Uncle?”

“No,” Albur said, “Of course not. My weapon of choice is to tell you that your brother will
be really disappointed in you if you fuck up this alliance. Telling you to listen to your uncle is
merely a suggestion.”

“A suggestion.”
“From a friend.”

“We are not friends.”

Albur laughed. “Fine,” he said. “But do this for me anyway. Go to your uncle. Let His
Highness advise you. Listen to his guidance. It’s what he’s here for, after all.”
 Chapter 7
Chapter Notes

I have added two tags to the overall tags for this fic.

This chapter contains attempted on-screen CSA. I have re-written this scene so many
times and I wouldn't have it here if I didn't feel like it was important, but please be
cautious and take care of yourselves, and thank you to the commenter for the suggestion
of tags. This is always a tricky thing; I don't want to write anything that seems
exploitive, but I also feel like brushing aside or writing out this character/situation is not
fair to real life survivors. I don't know that I can even explain my thought process in a
way that makes sense, since it is such a difficult subject, so I am not going to try. It is
here. I tried. Things will be ok. Skip this chapter if you need to, or maybe start
skimming when Laurent mentions jousting.

I don't have time to edit right now and I have not answered all the comments for the last
chapter yet but I will asap!

The steam in the baths was thicker than it had been when Laurent had left them.

In Arles, the palace had been built atop a natural hot springs – but the Akielons had managed
to manufacture complex systems of aqueducts and piping that stretched across their country,
providing running hot and cold water to many important buildings. Laurent had read several
books on it, but still he only partially grasped the mechanics of it. What he did know was
that, in addition to slaves pouring fragrant water over heated stones – a service Laurent had
declined for his own bath – the temperature of the water itself had since been adjusted.

Uncle had already been washed, it seemed. He lay reclined in the soaked tub, his head titled
back against a folded towel. He had the boy, Larius, kneeling behind him, diligently
attempting to massage his shoulders. He might even have had some rudimentary training in
the act, though it was unclear how his child’s strength could possibly satisfy an adult male.
Larius and Uncle were the only two currently present in the baths. No other slaves stood
ready, waiting to assist, and no other bathers had come to soak. Larius was nude, but for the
golden ribbon around his neck. It had darkened from sweat, and he looked uncomfortable. He
hadn’t yet mastered the serene nothingness of the other slaves Laurent had encountered,
making it all the more clear just how much of their humanity was stripped away during the
process of their training.

“You wanted to see me?” Laurent asked, and Uncle opened his eyes, and frowned when he
saw him.
“You’re fully clothed,” Uncle observed. “Surely you understand where it is you are
standing.”

“I’ve already bathed.”

“Yes, well, let us hope the Akielons don’t take offense to the fact you have chosen to wear
boots in their bathing pool.”

“The Akielons take offense to everything,” Laurent said. “If I tried to make a list, there would
be no room left in the library for anything interesting.”

“…indeed,” Uncle agreed. It wasn’t clear from his tone whether he was amused or annoyed
with Laurent. He said, “I will admit that I was under the impression that you had embarked
on a quest to discover every last thing that would offend our hosts. You certainly haven’t
been shy about speaking your mind, nor creating messes for me to clean up. Come out of
your shell a bit, have you?”

Laurent didn’t have an answer for that that, though he could feel his cheeks burning. Albur
had said that he would disappoint Auguste if he fucked up. Uncle’s expression told him he
believed he already had.

Laurent tried to push the thought away. Uncle could be like this sometimes, he knew. Loving
and supportive one moment, cutting and cruel the next. He had told Laurent once that he had
to be firm with him, or else he would grow up thinking his pretty looks made him free from
consequence. Too many people, Uncle said, would be willing to give Laurent the world just
because he batted his eyes at them. Laurent had not experienced that yet – he hadn’t even
understood it at the time, and still wasn’t sure he did. He had been younger, then, but too old
for how he had been behaving that night. Eight? Nine? He had tried to sneak an extra dessert,
and Uncle had slapped him for it. But when Laurent had begun to bawl like an infant in
response, Uncle had taken him into his lap to comfort him, stroking his hair and wiping away
his tears as he told him how Princes must be brave. How the world was full of monsters, and
he must always accept chastisement when it came from love.

Father had not noticed the slap. Nor had he noticed the weeks of nightmares that followed.
Mother had already been sick at that time.

Finally, Uncle sighed, relenting, and Laurent felt something within him loosen in relief.

“I will order the slave to pour you a drink, and we will discuss matters as men,” Uncle said.
He gestured to a nearby bench, where a bottle rested atop a tray. The tray held one cup, but
Uncle already had his own beverage waiting nearby.

The steamy bathchambers were already beginning to make Laurent feel uncomfortable –
flushed, even a little lightheaded. A drink was a tempting idea, except that Laurent had only
recently recovered from his last run-in with unwatered wine – or whatever it had been that
Albur had shared with him that last night in Marlas – and the memory was too fresh for him
to be keen on repeating it. However refreshing the beading of condensation on the bottle
made its contents appear, Laurent knew that it was only an illusion. Only headaches, nausea,
and humiliation waited inside.
“I am not thirsty, thank you,” Laurent said. He hoped that Auguste had not told Uncle about
his misadventure. He braced himself for questions, for challenge. Laurent had been begging
for at least a year now to be considered adult enough for unwatered wine, and now he was
turning it down.

He was grateful when his uncle merely shrugged and let the matter pass.

“But you look so wretchedly uncomfortable,” Uncle said. “Undress and join me soaking in
the tub. You will feel so much better. These barbarians are vulgar and backwards to be
certain, but there is some fun to be had in their ways. Here, I will order the boy to assist you.”
He began to give the order, but Laurent quickly spoke up.

“No,” Laurent said, and then, belatedly, “Thank you. I’m – I’m too tired. I don’t want another
bath.”

“Poor boy,” Uncle mused, watching him through half-lidded eyes. He reminded Laurent of a
drawing he had seen once of a crocodile resting on a bank. Laurent was still having trouble
deciphering his mood, but everything he had offered had been thoughtful and kind. “Yes,”
Uncle said, “You’ve had quite a time of it, haven’t you? I imagine you must be very
frightened. The further we get from your brother, the worse your fear must grow. Your
increasing rudeness gives you away. You’re usually such a charming boy.”

“Have I been rude? I don’t care. Slavery is evil.”

“You should care.”

It sounded ominous, like there was some unspoken threat that lurked behind his words. Like
he had really said, You should care, or else.

“I don’t want to be served by slaves. There is no further matter to it.”

“You’re marrying into a slave culture. You will have to get used to it. Did you think you
would change a practice that has been intertwined with a culture for hundreds of years? Tell
me you were not so arrogant. Please.”

“It’s too hot in here. May I go? You can lecture me later, somewhere cooler.”

“And what are my chances of catching your cooperation again? And privacy? Everyone is
busy with the banquet. We won’t be disturbed.”

“I’ll be good, I promise. I will listen. I just don’t want to talk here. I feel dizzy.”

“Sit down, then,” Uncle advised. He nodded to the bench again. “And pour yourself a drink. I
promise you, it will help immensely.”

Despite himself, Laurent glanced back at the bench. He hadn’t been lying – the steam really
was making him lightheaded. He took a towel from the pile and he laid it across it before
sitting, sure even as he did so that it was unlikely he would escape without big wet marks on
his pants. Hopefully this ended before the banquet did; he would hate to run into anyone in
the hallway after.
“All right, Uncle,” Laurent sighed. “Tell me, then, of my great failings today.”

Instead of launching into one of his lectures, however, Uncle merely took a moment to
observe him.

It was, Laurent thought, exceedingly unfair to be forced to receive a dressing down from
someone who had never been in his position. Uncle was still young and virile. He was fit,
fashionable, politically savvy – yet he had never been required to “perform the royal duty”
and take a spouse. He could have secured an alliance to protect Vere just as easily as Auguste
or Laurent could have. Yet, Laurent was certain that his name had never once been put forth
as a candidate.

Uncle gave an order in Akielon, and the slave boy rose. Head lowered, he took Uncle’s glass,
and he moved to refill it. He used a different bottle – one closer to them than the one on the
bench beside Laurent. Uncle continued to watch him through those half-lidded eyes.

“Laurent,” he said at last, “Have I ever in your life given you cause to believe I had anything
but your best interests at heart?” He continued before Laurent had the chance to answer. “You
are my favorite. You know that, don’t you? Everyone has always been mad for your brother,
but you, beautiful boy – you are the true gem in your father’s crown. You cut your teeth on
my heart. You’ve always had me twisted ‘round your little finger. You know that your father
never saw your true worth, but that dear old Uncle, he would do anything for you. You do
know that?”

“Uncle, I really – “

“You feel safe with me, don’t you? You trust me – you trust my counsel. You know that I
would never do anything to harm you or lead you astray. You know that I am the only soul
alive who truly has your interests at heart, and no other.”

“Uncle, I don’t – “

“Answer me.”

“Yes,” Laurent said, “Of course I trust you. But why - ?”

“There is a conversation we are going to have,” Uncle said, “And I am afraid you are not
going to enjoy it. In fact, I am more than certain that you will find it most uncomfortable. I
had hoped that, by having it here, it would be easier for you to relax – but, as usual, you must
insist on making things more difficult than they need to be.”

“I’m sorry,” Laurent said, automatically, not sure, exactly, what it was he was apologizing for.
His uncle’s raw honesty left him feeling a little off balance. Worse, a sense of guilt was
creeping up his spine – enough so that when Larius came and poured him a cup, he accepted
it, and thoughtlessly drank a sip. It was odd, and very different from the alcohol that Albur
had given him that last night in Marlas. The taste was unpleasant – tongue-curdling
sweetness, currants, and licorice. He didn’t take a second sip, and set the cup aside as Uncle
called the boy back to his side.
“You are a good boy, Laurent,” Uncle said, and set his cup to the side. He appeared to be
gathering his thoughts, steeling himself for something. Finally, he said, “Laurent, have you
begun to cum in your sleep?”

“W – what?”

“Do you touch yourself?” Uncle asked. “Has that little cock of yours started stirring yet, or
are you still too young?”

“You were right,” Laurent said. “I don’t like this conversation.” He began to rise, his face
flushed hot with humiliation, his heart beating painfully in his ears.

“Sit down!”

The sudden anger in Uncle’s voice was surprising – enough so that Laurent did, involuntarily,
immediately sit. He felt shaken and embarrassed, uneasy, as he watched Uncle close his eyes
and take a moment, gathering himself.

More calmly, Uncle said, “Laurent, I am being as patient with you as I can be, but that
patience is not infinite. While you have been biting and hissing at everyone unfortunate
enough to cross your path, I have been the one who has had to go behind you mending
fences. It is exhausting. I just lost my brother. Are you too selfish to consider that it is a
difficult time for us both?”

“I – I’m sorry, Uncle. I’m not trying to be difficult. I only – “

“You’re only selfish. It’s in your nature. It always has been your nature. Charming as you are,
you cannot help it. But you must do better, Laurent. You must be better. We are in enemy
hands now, and I am all you have. You must trust me without question. You must give me
your whole heart.”

“I – I’m sorry, Uncle,” Laurent said, again.

“Do you think these questions do not disgust me, as well? Do you think I would not ask them
if it was not important to?”

“No,” Laurent answered, though it was difficult to. The answer felt wrong. His face felt too
warm. Forcing himself, he said, “I’ll be good. I – I’ll listen.”

“Are you capable of cumming yet, or aren’t you?”

“No,” Laurent said, squirming a little, despite his promise. “I don’t think I – no. Not yet.”

Uncle nodded. “Good,” he said. “Now. Sex. Do you know how sex works? Specifically, sex
between two men?”

“What do you mean?”

“Haven’t you ever watched pets perform?”

“Of course I have.”

“No, no – not those silly little dances and cheap circus tricks your father allows them. The
private performances. There’s no way to put this delicately: have you ever watched men
fuck?”

“How disgusting,” Laurent said, before he could stop himself. He had seen horses go at it, of
course. Dogs, a few times. Neither on purpose. He’d felt rather bad for the animals. The
equipment was a little different, too. When pets performed, there was a lot of writhing and
moaning and undignified drooling around fingers in mouths. He had always kind of assumed
that was all there was to it, when it was two men – until the song of King Stefan and the
hilarious and perverse idea of a man attempting to penetrate someone’s backside. That had to
be part of the joke of the song, though. Anyway, pet performances were kind of boring, and
seemed very unrelated to what animals did when making babies. He was still working out the
specifics in his head – but, frankly, the topic didn’t really interest him.

“That was the answer I was afraid of. This would be far easier if you had.”

“I don’t understand how anyone enjoys watching any of that,” Laurent said. He’d only heard
rumors of private performances. He assumed the only difference with those was that the pets
were naked while they writhed around and sucked on fingers and moaned dramatically. It was
gross. But then, unbidden, Laurent’s mind flashed on the funny way it felt when he watched
his brother’s men practice. For a time, before the war, they had made a great joke out of
stripping to their underthings and throwing one another to the ground to “wrestle like the
Akielon beasts” and that…that had been interesting. It had been very interesting. And
uncomfortable. And confusing.

His face was already painfully hot. Then Uncle spoke again.

“You must have realized by now that the Akielon expects to fuck you.”

“That’s – that’s years away.” Laurent had time to think his way out of it, yet.

Uncle cursed. “I should have known your brother would be too cowardly to tell you this
himself,” he said. “No, Laurent. He expects to fuck you now. Or, at your birthday, I mean.
Once the first contract is signed, he will require you to service him.”

“I’m not – that’s perverse!”

“Think, Laurent. What does that beast gain from this peace, aside from the opportunity to get
a Prince of Vere on his cock?” Uncle watched him as he struggled. Gently, Uncle asked
again, “Do you know how it is, with two men? Do you know where he’s going to put it? Do
you know how much it’s going to hurt?”

Laurent couldn’t answer. He didn’t want to answer. Sometimes, a book would make a
mention of sex. Confusing, pointless passages would be filled with flowery exposition and
anatomically improbable limb placement. But Laurent had yet to encounter any quivering
pucker, nor a pink, curved calyx. He struggled to make sense of the throbbing meatsticks and
gushing waterfalls of love juice. He usually gave up and skipped those parts.
Even the pets’ performances made little sense. Auguste had been furious that Laurent had
been allowed to see the one with the finger-sucking, but he had just been bored and grossed
out. There was lots of rolling around and rubbing up against each other. That was it.

“It’s…” Laurent swallowed. He forced the words out. “Like a sword fight, isn’t it? Or…
jousting?” If Damianos of Akielos tried to lay on top of him, he would probably be crushed
to death. Or smother. He didn’t want to imagine him trying to rub on him. The steam from the
baths was still making him too hot; he was still dizzy, and he was even starting to feel sick.
He tried to remember what the books said. There had been that weird part about a fluttering
hole - ?

“Jousting,” Uncle scoffed. Laurent tried to remember the specific passage. Dripping rods of
iron trust against one another with the forward determination of a jouster’s aim. It sounded
unpleasant, and, yes, painful. Laurent didn’t like sports, and he didn’t like the idea of feeling
the incessant red hot iron of love jab against his hip. Damianos of Akielos was probably so
heavy.

Uncle sighed, and he drew himself up out of the water, and he sat at the edge of the pool. As
he said something in Akielon to the slave boy, Larius, Laurent’t foggy thoughts made the
vague registration that his uncle’s “rod” did, indeed, seem made of iron. It jutted forward like
a long, skinny flagpole from the messy dark hair between his legs.

Whatever he said to the boy made him pale. For a moment, the slave’s eyes lifted and found
Laurent’s, confused and horrified, and Laurent didn’t understand. Uncle took the boy’s arm
and was pulling him toward him. He resisted, began to say something, but when Uncle said
something sharply to him, all traces of fight went out of him. He obediently laid himself out
across Uncle’s naked lap.

Uncle braced an arm across Larius’s back, as if he expected a slave with no will of his own to
summon further will to struggle, and he placed his other hand atop the boy’s backside.

“Your brother may be comfortable abandoning you to the fate he has set for you, but I am
not,” Uncle said. “I will not leave it for you to discover this the hard way. There is a box there
next to you. Do you see it? Bring it here.”

Laurent did see the box. He realized he recognized it; Father kept one just like it at his
bedside. So did Auguste.

“Wh – why?” Laurent asked. The box was heavy when he picked it up. Uncle watched him
open it. Inside, it was filled with vials of oil, and strange phallic objects of wood or bone, and
other items Laurent could not begin to guess the use for.

“I’m going to teach you what to expect,” Uncle said. “I will show you what to do for you
Akielon husband. If you can please him, perhaps we can keep the peace between our
countries. Lives depend on your obedience, Laurent. Do you understand that?”

“Surely he wouldn’t dare - !”

“Come here, Laurent. We will start with the slave, and then it will be your turn. It’s what you
were both meant for, after all.”

The boy made a noise. When Laurent looked up, he found that Uncle was holding the boy so
that he was exposing places that were not meant to be seen.

“I’ll start by showing you how to open your hole,” Uncle said. “Come now. Bring me the
box. Be a good boy.”

--

Uncle’s shouts followed him as Laurent burst through the arched doorway to the bathing
chambers like a drowning man breaking the surface of the water.

The halls were empty, not even a guard in sight; everyone was still at the feast. It was
remarkable how little time had passed – how cool and clear the air was without the
oppressive, curling steam.

“Laurent!”

Parts of his mind were scattered in different directions, calculating different things. How long
it could take a man to throw on a towel or a pair of pants. How far it was from the bathing
chambers to the rooms he had been given. How unfamiliar the corridors had all become. No –
no, his rooms would be the first place they looked for him. Where, then? The cool, clear air
burned his lungs. His boots were wet and slid on the marble floors. The clean elegant
simplicity of the Akielon architecture was offensive to Laurent’s eyes, incongruous with the
heavy steam and the horror on the slave boy’s face. Fortunately, Laurent was having trouble
seeing past his tears.

“Laurent!”

Laurent ran. He didn’t know where. He didn’t care where. He tried to wipe his eyes, but the
tears refilled just as quickly as he wiped them away.

Cowardly, running. Would Uncle follow, or would his attention return to Larius? Laurent
should have done something other than run. He should have stopped him, not used a helpless
slave to slow his uncle down, help himself get away.

The tears burned his eyes. Maybe something leftover from the steam. Laurent couldn’t see.
He ran. Instead of the hall, he saw Larius’s eyes. He heard, again, the sound he had made.

The box had shattered when Laurent dropped it. Splintered wood and cracking glass. The
boy’s eyes had been filled with horror.

Laurent ran, but his legs didn’t want to cooperate. It was like a nightmare, where one found
oneself unexpectedly trapped in jelly. He stumbled. He hit a wall. He couldn’t see through his
tears – there was only the slave boy’s eyes.

“Bring me the box,” Uncle had said, holding the boy exposed, and Laurent hadn’t known
what was meant to happen, only that Larius had looked at him, and he had dropped the box
and run.

He’d run. Coward. He didn’t try to stop whatever it was that was about to happen. He just
ran. He dropped the box. The box shattered. Laurent ran, and Uncle shouted after him.
Laurent couldn’t see through his tears. Blurred shapes up ahead, and legs that didn’t want to
cooperate, lungs that burned with fresh air. He stumbled. He threw himself forward. He hit a
wall.

He hit a wall, and the wall caught him. Strong hands gripped his forearms.

His name in his ears – “Laurent?”

Not Uncle.

Laurent didn’t register the face of his huge, terrifying beast of a fiancée through the burn of
his tears. He didn’t think about the language barrier, the fact that no one here spoke Veretian
– no one he wanted to speak to, anyway. It came out – babbling, incoherent,
incomprehensible. Laurent didn’t really even know what it was he said. He was unaware of
hos terrified he looked, with tears streaming wet down his face.

The words came tumbling out of him in a great, terrible flood, and when he ran out of words,
Damianos of Akielos set him, gently, aside, into the arms of the man beside him, his friend
Nikandros. Laurent’s legs had given out, and Nikandros had to hold him to keep him from
falling. Laurent didn’t see the hard, stone-like expression on the Akielon Prince’s face as he
walked away, following the path Laurent had come from.
 Chapter 8
Chapter Notes

As this chapter is the aftermath of the last, please continue to use caution.

Father was relaxed on a lounging couch on a balcony that faced the dark, endless expanse of
the sea, and Meniados, the Kyros of Sicyon, reclined on a couch of his own. A table sat
between them, holding a bottle of good griva, and two empty cups, and a board for playing
Ur, the game pieces half-spread across it, the play well in progress. Father was winning;
Meniados had no mind for strategy.

Damen’s arrival didn’t surprise them at first, even when Damen gave a soldiers’ salute and
bowed, formally, a Prince reporting dutifully to his King.

“Have the slaves bring in another chair,” Father said, casual and relaxed. “We can open
another bottle. Why are – “

Damen didn’t follow his father’s gaze at it moved past him. Instead, he watched the relaxed
warmth brought out by drink as it faded away – watched as his father’s face sobered and
transformed from that of his beloved father to that of the King of Akielos.

“This is an outrage! This is reprehensible! I have never been so insulted in my life! I demand
that you release me!”

Damen waited, straight-backed and stern-faced, as the sounds of chains and of soldiers
struggling with an uncooperative prisoner broke the peace of his Father’s evening, the
serenity of crashing waves and the comforting murmur of conversation between old friends
brought to an abrupt and unwelcome end. Damen flexed his hand, and he felt the sting of
lacerated knuckles. His rage had not yet been soothed.

There was no pride or dignity in the state the eldest Prince of Vere was in as Damen’s men
forced him to his knees before the Akielon King. Prince Richard wore only a loose
undershirt, hastily thrown on when Nikandros pointed out the wisdom in perhaps avoiding
having a foreign prince dragged through the halls naked. His hair was still wet from his
unexpectedly aborted bath. His lip was split from Damen’s fist. The bruises wouldn’t begin to
show until later, but his left eye was already beginning to swell shut.

Damen knew that his father trusted his judgement. He knew that his father would not
question his actions, once he heard what had occurred. He had taught his sons to stand firm in
their convictions, to act with authority and with strength. Damen was still riding the edges of
his rage, but he knew that he was right.
His father’s expression told him that he had better be.

“I expect that there is an explanation for this,” Father said, his hand drifting from the bottle as
he slowly sat up.

“Yes,” Damen began, but Prince Richard interrupted him.

“Your Majesty, Theomedes, this is an outrage!”

“You’ve mentioned that,” Father agreed in Veretian.

Prince Richard looked momentarily startled. For a moment he gaped, fishlike, and then he
shook himself, and continued, as if it were no great thing, the sudden revelation that his
enemy spoke his language.

“We have a terrible misunderstanding on our hands,” he said.

“Do we, indeed?”

Damen began to turn to look at Richard, but as he did, his eyes were caught by the sight of a
pale, slight figure slipping silently into the room. Nikandros followed, directing the boy
where he should stand with a silent gesture as he closed the door behind them. He met
Damen’s questioning look and shook his head; they would talk later.

Damen turned his attention back to the elder Prince, and he answered his father’s question in
Veretian, himself. He said, “Indeed. I believe we have many.”

He was rewarded by Richard’s jerk of surprise, an almost cringing flinch. Father’s gaze on
him was frowning and speculative. He didn’t leave it for his father to wonder longer what this
circus was for.

He said, “I caught the Prince of Vere attempting to rape the slave boy Larius in the baths.
Prince Richard had previously been informed that the boy had not yet undergone training for
that sort of companionship, and the slave was clearly unwilling. More importantly, Larius is
only a child.”

“I was doing no such thing! This is slander!”

Technically speaking, Damen had not caught him in the actual act yet. Prince Richard had not
managed to actually mount yet – but he hadn’t been far from it. The evidence alone would
have been more than enough: Laurent’s word; the box, contents scattered on the floor – oils
and sexual instruments; the crying, begging boy; the fully erect Veretian Prince trying to turn
him onto his belly on the tiles. He had struck the child at least once. Larius had struggled,
which was unusual for a slave. Even moreso when the air was so heavy with the scent of
chalis. They had also found wine spiked with a drug known for getting men’s blood up when
enough of it was consumed. It was easy to notice because of its strong licorice taste. There
was no question at all what it was Damen had come upon.

Father’s gaze fixed, steadily, on the foreign Prince. Veretians were incredibly skilled at
concealing all emotion from their expressions – it was known that the snakes only showed
what they wanted to be seen – but Prince Richard was a man well-accustomed to
unquestioned authority who had found himself interrupted pre-fuck, beaten, and dragged
through the halls half-dressed. It was reasonable to assume that the contempt and dislike on
his face when he looked at Damen were genuine emotions. It took obvious effort for him to
clear himself of the expression.

“The child was freely offered up for my nephew’s use, was he not?” Prince Richard asked at
last, his tone carefully bland. “My nephew stubbornly refused to accept the generous gift, and
so I took it upon myself to do to. I didn’t want to be rude. Others, it seems, are not so
concerned with maintaining our careful diplomatic balance.”

“Child is the operative word here,” Damen said. “Child. You called him that yourself.”

“I was told he is eleven,” Prince Richard said. “That is old enough in Vere. Is it not the same
in Akielos? I was not aware. Shall I be held accountable for some silly cultural difference I
was told of?”

“I heard him tell you no,” Damen said. “I heard him ask you to stop!”

“I apologize – in Akielos, the slave gives the master orders, then?”

“You were told that he was not trained in the bedroom arts!”

Prince Richard looked absolutely bewildered. “Was I to take that to mean he was not to be
touched? He pleased me; I was willing to overlook his lack of skill. Some would even say I
would be doing you a a service, as his education had been so sorely neglected.”

“You were offered other slaves!”

“I wanted this one.”

Damen’s fury was a drum beating in his ears. The last half hour was a series of images
burned into his head – young Laurent, hair damp from the steam of the baths, face terrified
and wet with tears. The screams and pleads of Larius as Damen pushed his way into the
baths. Prince Richard, kneeling at the side of the tub, shoving the boy’s face against the tile as
he –

Prince Richard said, “I believe my nephew, King Auguste, told your father of my personal
preferences before we parted ways. If you take issues with providing for the needs of a guest,
you should have made it clear sooner.”

His words were like a bucket of ice over the head. Father had not interrupted their back and
forth over this time, listening intently to both sides. Damen looked to him, expecting outrage,
expecting denial, expecting disgust. He received none of it.

“If a Prince of Akielos came to Vere and was found fucking a woman, he would not be beaten
and dragged around the halls in chains,” Prince Richard said. “Yet that would be truly
disgusting to me.”
Father made a gesture and the men stepped forward to strike the chains from Richard’s wrists
and bring him to his feet.

“Father!” Damen protested.

“On this, he is not incorrect,” Father said. “However we dislike it – this is an unfortunate
misunderstanding, but a misunderstanding nonetheless. It is not beyond reason that a Prince
of Vere would expect to see his tastes accommodated, and We were made aware of them. We
believed he would abstain while away from home. This was Our error in assumption; We
failed to ensure he understood he understood how acting on his tastes would be received.”

“Father!”

Prince Richard rubbed at his wrists. Smug victory gleamed in his eyes as he looked at
Damen.

“Your boy has a long way to go before he is ready for Kingship, Exalted,” he told Father.
“Fortunately, I am a forgiving man.”

“You speak out of turn,” Father warned him.

“Father, he stole that boy’s First Night from him!”

“It’s just a slave,” Father said. He looked at Damen as if Damen was the one in the wrong.
“You were the one who wanted this peace with Vere, Damianos.”

Damen cast about the room, disbelieving, disgusted. Meniados, who did not speak Veretian,
had returned his attention to the Ur board. Even if he could understand, he might not even
have been concerned with the assault on his property. Damen’s guards couldn’t understand
the conversation, either. Only Nikandros could share in Damen’s horror.

Nikandros – and Laurent, who stood pressed to the wall on the far side of the room, eyes
wide, skin pale. He had trusted Laurent with his horror, had trusted him to put a stop to it, to
protect him.

“Is incest also considered acceptable in that cesspit you call Vere?” Damen demanded.

“What?” Richard’s outrage had returned. Damen turned back to his father.

“He called for Laurent to be brought to him in the baths. He wanted him to undress. He
wanted him to assist with the assault on the boy Larius.”

“My nephew is an innocent,” Richard said. “I called for him so that I could instruct him in
the ways of men – so that he could please you, and would not be so frightened when you
instructed him to bend over in Ios.” Richard’s voice rose in outrage. “Are you accusing me of
wanting to rape my own nephew?”

Father held up a hand. Frowning, he waited for silence to fill the room. Damen’s entire body
hummed with fury. He remembered the feeling of his knuckles cracking into Prince Richard’s
jaw, and he longed to feel it again. He watched his father consider the matter.
“Do you believe that Laurent felt unsafe with his uncle?” Father asked Damen.

“Laurent believed he was unsafe,” Damen said. “That is enough for me.”

Father’s eyes moved past him. He had not previously acknowledged that he had noticed
Laurent entering the room, but he looked at him now, and after a moment, he motioned him
forward. Damen almost protested. Damen had wanted to avoid Laurent having to speak. He
expected the boy to disobey, but without visual hesitance, he came forward.

Father addressed him directly.

“Did your uncle ask that you undress in the baths?” Father asked.

“Father, you should question him in private,” Damen began. His father held up a hand. Eyes
never leaving Laurent, he repeated the question.

“Did your uncle ask that you undress in the baths?”

“Yes,” Laurent said.

“This is ridiculous.”

Father ignored Prince Richard as he had ignored Laurent. “What else?” Father asked.

“He wanted me to drink,” Laurent said. “Wine, I think.” His voice was quiet, but he was
matter of fact. He stood with straight shoulders and upturned chin. He did not look at his
uncle.

“Did he touch you?” Father asked, next.

Laurent shook his head. “Uncle told me that Damianos planned to fuck me. Once the contract
was signed.” He didn’t hesitate over the vulgarity. He didn’t look at Damen, either. “He
wanted to know if I understood how it worked with two men.”

“Have I said any differently?” Richard demanded, exasperated. “I wasn’t going to rape my
nephew!”

“Did you feel unsafe?” Father continued his questioning, even as Laurent’s cheeks reddened.
It was taking more and more for the boy to maintain the effort he was putting forward to meet
the scrutiny. “Do you think that your uncle had ill intentions toward you?”

“I don’t – I don’t know. I was scared.”

“Laurent!”

He flinched, and his act of bravery broke as he ducked his head in shame. “I – maybe I was
confused,” Laurent said. He hesitated, fighting with himself. “I was embarrassed. I didn’t
want to see whatever it was he was going to do.”

“You were embarrassed that you didn’t want to see what he was going to do?”
“No,” Finally, he lifted his head. “I was embarrassed by what he was trying to do. I was
embarrassed because I was too afraid to try to stop him. I knew Larius couldn’t, but I ran
away, anyway.”

Father didn’t say anything right away. That was his way – to listen to all sides, to consider
things deeply. His eyes were thoughtful where they rested on the young Prince.

When Laurent had come forward, it had placed him standing next to Damen. He jumped
when Damen placed a hand on his shoulder.

Damen pretended not to notice. He told him, “You did stop him. You went for help.”

“Did I?” Laurent asked. “Are you help? Larius would not have been in that position if your
family did not insist on clinging to your antiquated slave economy. You’re no less guilty than
my uncle. Are we done here?” The last was for Father, the young Prince turning on him, his
blue eyes like bared steel, Damen left reeling.

“Not quite,” Father answered.

Laurent’s spine had gone rigid again. His thin shoulders were straight. He stood in utter
defiance of the tears yet staining his face. He said, “You’ve clearly no intention of holding
my uncle accountable for his reprehensible actions. As far as I can see, continuing this
discussion only wastes everyone else’s time. I should have remembered how cheap life is in
Akielos, and left my concerns to myself. Next, you will have me apologizing to my uncle for
his ruined orgasm. I won’t, by the way.”

“Life isn’t cheap,” Damen said. To his father, he added, “And we don’t rape slaves. Such a
thing is not to be stood for.”

He would have said more, but Father held up his hand once more, putting his words to a halt.
The room was silent, every man within it waiting on the King’s next word. Father put every
testimony to serious consideration before he next spoke.

“The rape of a slave would indeed be considered a serious matter were it not for the delicate
politics at play at the moment,” Father said. “Additionally, We must consider the possibility
that the offer of the boy’s services could easily have been misunderstood. Many things, We
think, may have been willfully misunderstood. We must put a stop to such tonight.” Prince
Richard began to speak, but Father’s expression stopped him. “Yes, We were made aware of
your particular tastes, but We were also told you would be discreet and provide for your own
needs. Your preferences may be acceptable in Vere, but they are criminal in Akielos. We will
give our ruling, and We will make it plain so there are no further unfortunate
misunderstandings in the future.”

Father paused. His gaze moved across the three who stood before him – Richard, pathetic and
bruised, half dressed in his undershirt, with his split lip. Laurent, holding himself together
with incredible dignity and pride. And Damen.

“First,” Father said, “On the matter of the slave: you will pay Meniados his cost, as your
actions may have ruined him for the work for which he was intended. Second, if you wish to
indulge in bedsports with partners younger than what is permitted by Akielon law, they must
not be Akielon. Send to your Viper’s nest back home for your victims. If your King is content
to allow your perversion, then he can be responsible for supplying it.”

“Exalted…” Prince Richard stumbled over the word.

Father looked at Laurent, and when he spoke to him, it was as a man, and not a King. “You
look at me as if we all disgust you,” he said, and held up his hand again when Laurent opened
his mouth to answer. “Yet, your brother is the man who chose to send you into the lands of
your enemies under the guardianship of a man he knew to prefer the companionship of young
boys. That I find disgusting. Do you have no answer for that?”

Father waited, and Laurent remained silent. The boy looked as if he had been struck.

“Very well,” Father said at last. “Given the circumstances, then, Our third ruling is thus: We
must protect Our interests, and as Our future son, those interests include you. We find that We
do not feel comfortable with the idea of leaving Our son in the hands of a man who prefers to
fuck children – regardless of whether you or your damned brother feel comfortable with the
arrangement. Do you understand me so far.”

“Your Veretian is impeccable,” Laurent answered, tightly.

Father nodded. He continued. “In Ios,” he said, “We will find suitable companionship for
you, and tutors to instruct you in Our language and Our ways. That has been the plan all
along. An Akielon guard will be added to your Veretian rotation. You will not be permitted to
be alone in your uncle’s presence again. If your brother disapproves of this arrangement, We
must assume he does not care for your safety. Nevertheless, he is free to attempt to
renegotiate when he comes to visit. Damianos, you will select the guards and facilitate the
arrangement of the schedule. Work with the boy’s guards and make certain they understand
the gravity of the situation. Sneaking the Prince of Vere into his Uncle’s presence without a
guard will be seen to an act akin to deliberately putting one of my sons into harm’s way – and
will be punished accordingly.”

Damen said, “Yes, Father.”

--

Damen put Nikandros in charge of gathering the men, and set it to himself to see young
Laurent back to his rooms personally. He would not put it past Prince Richard to attempt to
catch the boy alone now, while he was still conflicted and perhaps feeling guilty and did not
yet have an official Akielon guard set to him. There would not be a better time to attempt to
influence the boy’s perception of what he had experienced – or even take some kind of
revenge.

Damen expected silence from the child. The had not sought each other out over the course of
their journey together. Neither had made any overture in attempt to learn anything about the
other. Damen expected the boy to be frightened of him, particularly as their path began to
take them down halls that were less populated, corridors that echoed only with two pairs of
footsteps and the crashing of the waves of the sea. Damen expected the boy’s footsteps to
quicken. He even expected that he might run. He anticipated a real chance that the child
might get himself lost in the unfamiliar palace.

He was surprised, then, when the boy came to an abrupt stop, instead. Damen shifted back a
step to give him room. The expression on the child’s face as he turned back to face him was
both troubled and thoughtful.

“What will happen to Larius?” Laurent asked.

The question surprised Damen as much as his lack of fear did.

“The slave boy?”

“If my uncle is to pay for him, does that make him my uncle’s property? If he has, as your
father says, been ruined for the service which was meant for him, does that mean that my
uncle will have him?”

“A slave who has been sexually traumatized won’t be suitable for work as a companion,”
Damen said. “Your uncle is paying for the loss incurred by a spoiled investment.”

“Spoiled investment,” Laurent repeated, flatly.

He stared at Damen with a kind of intensity and intelligence that did not belong in his
youthful face. He was going to be fierce, Damen realized. Formidable. Not sweet, as Auguste
claimed. Not difficult, as his uncle said. He was something more, something neither of them
had seen yet.

“They will find a place for him,” Damen assured him, unsure of what the concern was. “He
might find a place in the laundry, or the kitchens.”

“But my uncle is paying for him.”

“That isn’t – “

“I want him,” Laurent interrupted. “If Uncle is paying for him, he is the property of Vere. He
can serve me; then I can be sure he is safe. That gives you another pair of Akielon eyes on
your war prize, doesn’t it? And I can protect him, as I should have done before. Arrange it
with your father. Charge my uncle extra, if you like. I don’t care, just see it done.”

Damen let out a breath. He felt as if he had just been trampled by a herd of horses.

“All right,” Damen heard himself say, a little helplessly.

Laurent lifted his chin. His blue eyes gleamed; victory clearly thrilled him.

“You lied to me,” Laurent said. “You concealed your knowledge of my language. You and
your father, both.”

“We never said we didn’t speak Veretian.”

“A lie of implication. You speak my language nearly as well as I do.”

Damen pursed his lips. “I’m not going to stand here and argue semantics with a child. We
didn’t lie. Your uncle was wildly mistranslating our every interaction; Father wanted to hold
the advantage for a little longer, to see what kind of man he really was.”

“My uncle loves me,” Laurent said. “He would never hurt me.”

“Then he will appreciate all that my father is willing to do to ensure your continued safety.”

Laurent continued to stare at him, the thoughts working quickly behind those remarkably
intelligent eyes. A breeze from the sea stirred his fair hair.

“Do you intend to fuck me?” Laurent asked, abruptly.

All of the air went out of Damen, as if he had been kicked in the chest by a mule.

“What?”

“My apologies; I thought it was a simple question. I don’t think I can think of smaller words
to use. Do you intend to fuck me, or was that a mistranslation on my uncle’s part? Are you
going to demand the performance of spousal duties now, or were you intending to wait for
my voice to break?”

“I’m not going to fuck you!” Damen’s protest came out strangled. Laurent narrowed his eyes.

“Swear it to me.”

“This is a political marriage,” Damen said. “We can’t even produce offspring. As far as I’m
concerned, there are no spousal duties.”

“Then swear it. It should be simple enough. Swear to me that you will never fuck me.
Akielons keep their oaths, don’t they? Swear it.”

Damen shook his head. “We have to consummate the union when you turn twenty-one.”

The boy smiled, and it was all teeth. He was terrifying at thirteen; Damen didn’t want to
contemplate what that mind would be like when he became an adult.

“Then swear it until I’m twenty-one,” he said. “I’ll have my brother put it in my contract.
Swear that you will not fuck me until I am twenty-one.”

“I swear it,” Damen said, bewildered and a little dizzy. “You have my word.” Easy enough to
do. A man would be mad to take his dick out around this vicious, unpredictable little monster.

Laurent was pleased enough with his answer, anyway. Pleased with his victory, pleased with
his little coup. He lifted his chin.

“Good,” he said. “Then see me to my rooms. I have no idea where we are.”

 Chapter 9
Chapter Notes

I am so sorry for the long delay. I deleted the big sappy paragraph I had because it was
too personal. I lost a pet on August 30. I'd had him almost 20 years. I'm not doing well,
even though I knew it was coming. Please don't mention it - I only do because I think
you deserve to know why there was such a long wait.

These coming chapters - there are a lot of misunderstandings and I think Auguste is
going to come out the worst sometimes. As I've said in some comments, there are some
things to keep in mind here.
1. Auguste hasn't read the Capri series, so he doesn't know his uncle sucks. So when
Uncle does something shady and the rest of us start screaming, his first inclination isn't
to jump to the worst possible conclusion. Why would he right now?
2. Sometimes when people grow up in an environment where something terrible is
completely normal and accepted by everyone around them, it doesn't even occur to them
to question it on their own for a while. It takes Damen time to question slavery in canon,
for example. Those of us who grew up in certain very strict very religious backgrounds
might have our own examples of things we grew up with that we never questioned until
we began to experience more of the world. So, just throwing that out there now as food
for thought.

Auguste spent the first months after Marlas caught up in so many demands and obligations
that day seemed to bleed into day with little to mark the difference between beginning and
end. A great grey fog had come to cover Auguste’s mind, rolling out over the landscape of
his thoughts, protecting him from the things that would have otherwise distracted him from
the fulfillment of his duties. Grief for his father. Worry for his brother. Insecurities over his
preparedness or worthiness or ability to rule his country. All of it became buried under the
deep, endless fog.

Auguste woke in the morning. He took his breakfast. He received his reports. Sometimes
there were letters – from lords making their excuses for missing his coronation, from the
fathers of the handful of well-bred ladies he was halfheartedly considering for marriage, from
various Kings and Princes sending their condolences for the loss of his father and their
congratulations for the alliance with Akielos and the end of the war.

Rarely, they were from Laurent.

Send books, he would write. I’m bored. There was very little else to them than that. Auguste
didn’t expect for there to be. Even the correspondence from his men and from Uncle was
brief; until they had an established communication delivery route between Ios and Arles, they
could not trust to put too much to writing. That was another matter Auguste needed to see to
by Laurent’s birthday. This was the most dangerous time of the alliance, these first few
fragile months of exploratory trust.

So Auguste took sports with his men. He sat in chamber with his Council. He attended the
latest operas and he made appearances at all of the appropriate parties. He made a show of
pretending to shop for a pet, while meanwhile his men sneaked female whores into the palace
for their King’s enjoyment.

At night, Auguste would have a drink, and then he would have another, and sometimes
another after that – however many it took until his mind grew pleasant and fuzzy enough for
him to sleep.

And he counted the days to Laurent’s birthday.

You should cancel this marriage, Uncle wrote, almost daily. War eternal is preferable to
peace with these barbarian savages. They are a backwards people, and I dare not write it all
here. I have not been permitted to speak in private with your brother in weeks. Our every
move is watched. I dare not say more.

I’m bored, Laurent wrote. I taught my slave how to curse, and now he’s better at it than I am.
It’s the only Veretian he knows. I do not know even that much in Akielon. As you can imagine,
our potential for conversation is somewhat limited. Send books.

Auguste was a failure as a King. His Council reminded him of it daily. He simply didn’t have
the mind for it. He wasn’t good at speeches or maths. He was hopeless when it came to
telling when someone was lying.

Councilman Guion suggested he raise taxes on farmlands to help pay for recovery on
Delfeur. So the farmers raised their prices on grain and milk, and now the laborers were
rioting, saying they could not afford to feed their families, and they were too hungry to work.
So Auguste cancelled the taxes, but the farmers kept their prices where they had set them –
taking in new levels of income while Delfeur continued to lay in ruin and everyone,
everywhere, went hungry.

There was a woman in Marches who claimed her son was his bastard. She was threatening to
come forward and reveal his shame to the whole nation unless he brought her little Nicaise to
Arles. It would be unreasonable to expect you to claim him, she wrote – or, rather, the priest
she had paid to write for her had written – But the son of a King deserves to be raised like a
King. Surely the young King can afford to take on a ward, and not leave his own son to sleep
in the streets! Auguste’s Council wanted to send assassins to silence the woman. Only half of
them, so far, but Auguste was afraid the rest of the vote would turn soon, unless he acted on
his own and brought the child here without waiting for them to make up their minds. Doing
such a thing, though, would almost be like an outright declaration of war against them,
though.

And – on the matter of war, Patras was stirring. Auguste’s alliance with Akielos had them
nervous. They claimed that they had offered their aid against Akielos in return for Laurent’s
hand and their offer had been ignored. They wanted to know why, and Auguste had no
answers. He knew of no such offer.
You chose to debase your brother with your enemy, their Prince wrote hotly, When you could
have secured the same in the arms of a friend. If you truly find the hand of a Patran Princess
such a poor prospect compared to your ancestral foe, then Patras will henceforth withdraw
all other standing offers, as well.

Auguste wrote back honestly. Too honestly, probably. He wrote, I have no idea what you are
talking about.

My hosts are planning some sort of sports day for my birthday, Laurent wrote. It took some
work, but I got it out of the King after I bested him at a game of Ur. I had been making the
mistake of allowing him to win, prior. Anyway, I know it will be dreadful and boring and hot.
Bring books when you come. Better ones than what you’ve sent. Do you know any naughty
songs I can teach my slave? I only know the one.

--

“You’re libel to return to find that the Council has stolen your throne,” Sebastian warned,
pacing Auguste’s rooms as Auguste directed the packing of his belongings.

“The light stockings,” Auguste instructed. “Have you ever once been south of Varenne?
Good gods, man, I would roast in the wool.”

“Auguste,” Sebastian frowned.

“I’m not ignoring you,” Auguste said, “But what do you want me to say? I’m not going to
leave Laurent alone in foreign territory for his birthday. The boy already thinks he’s been
abandoned.”

Sebastian was Captain of the Prince’s – now the King’s Guard. He was also one of Auguste’s
dearest friends. It had been with Sebastian that Auguste had learned, humiliatingly, that he
had absolutely no taste for men at all. Somehow, Sebastian had stayed friends with him
anyway, despite the mutual trauma of The Event. Sebastian had been the face that Auguste
looked for first at his father’s funeral, when he not only began to truly feel the magnitude of
his loss, but also the ache of his brother’s absence. Sebastian had been the closest thing to
family that Auguste had at his side on the grey, rainy day of his coronation.

“Even if it wasn’t his birthday,” Auguste said, pointing to the jacket he wanted when Marcel,
his manservant, offered him a selection to choose from, “I want to see my brother. I’m tired
of being on my own.”

“Yes, I can’t imagine how you endure such isolation,” Sebastian said dryly. Delicately, with
thumb and forefinger, he reached out and plucked a lace garter from where it had been
haphazardly flung over the shade of an oil lamp all morning. It was pointed, the way he did
not look over his shoulder toward the bedchamber, where a tangle of limbs amid the
bedsheets spoke to the quality of sleep his King was getting these days.

“You know what I mean,” Auguste huffed.

Sebastian extended the hand that held the garter, and pushed it against Marcel’s chest as he
passed.

“His Majesty will want this packed among his unmentionables,” Sebastian said.

“You are so funny,” Auguste told him.

Marcel took the garment slowly, carefully, pinching it between two fingers as if being forced
to handle something foul. “Angelique again this week, I see,” he said, disapprovingly.

“I told you she was becoming a favorite. You owe me two sol.”

Marcel sniffed, and glanced toward the bedchamber. “And the other two…visitors?”

“Enough,” Auguste said, “Or I’ll leave you both behind.”

“That’s a play to sneak more whores on his ship,” Marcel murmured. “Strap their tits in our
armor and claim they’re our replacements and everyone will be too embarrassed to say
anything to his face.”

“I can hear you, you know.”

“Yes, Your Majesty, I was not whispering. Would your Majesty prefer I pack the blue braies,
or the grey?”

“Oh, Marcel,” Sebastian said, “You know his ladies prefer him in the blue.”

--

It would take unanimous agreement of the Council to unseat a reigning King. Auguste’s
solution to his dilemma was to bring part of the Council along with him to Akielos – to act as
witnesses to the signing of the peace agreement, of course, not because several of his
guardsmen were worries about what a group of ambitious and arrogant old men might get
themselves up to while their King was away. There were several members of Court who were
coming along as well, naturally, either out of curiosity or ambition. Few Veretians had
ventured into Akielos in centuries, and there were opportunities there, for the clever.

Passage was uncomfortable. The Ellosean Sea was known for its turbulent storms,
particularly in the late spring, when passing through areas where cool air met warm. They
could have made the passage over land, but that would have left them open to a different sort
of mischief – one dreamed up by men, rather than by nature. Anyway, the size of their party
would have looked like an invading army – and Auguste was eager to see his brother.

“You’re worried he’s still angry at you, after all these months,” Sebastian guessed, when he
caught Auguste watching for the famed white cliffs of Ios. “Your brother is stubborn. You’re
probably right to worry.”

Auguste smiled a little, despite himself. “I’ve sent him the better half of the royal library,” he
said. “He must have forgiven me by now.”
The waves slapped against the sides of their ship. A swell lifted, then dropped them, and
Auguste’s stomach was left behind somewhere. Sharp sea wind stung at his eyes and made
his lips taste of salt. Auguste could have gone inside – it would be hours yet before they
made dock, and another storm was threatening. He stayed where he was.

--

Auguste of Vere had been raised to rule. He didn’t have his brother’s gift for eloquence, and
he wasn’t a clever politician, but he had a nice smile and he was good with a sword, and men
were loyal to him, once he managed to gain their trust – an endeavor he was more than
willing to put the requisite effort into performing. Auguste could do his sums and he could
read and write. He knew the law; he could listen to two parties each plead their side in a
matter and he could use his reason to come to a fair and just judgement. He took care to
surround himself with advisors and experts with a variety of different opinions, so that he
would never have an unfairly weighted mindset. Father had not tried to keep him from any of
it – from earliest memory he had had Auguste there with him at his side, watching the good
and the ugly and the boring and the bloody. He had wanted his heir to have a clear and
unflinching understanding of what Kingship meant.

So, Auguste had been raised with the pomp and pageantry. He was allowed to witness the
burden and isolation. He saw his father toasted and celebrated and courted by the ambitious,
and he saw him cursed and spat at and reviled by the guilty. He saw him betrayed by dearest
friend and protected by staunchest rival. He watched him stand for hours arguing the
mechanics of prison reformation and workhouse regulation, knowing his Queen was
meanwhile undergoing yet another painful and bloody miscarriage, another year of her life
draining away with that of another unborn son.

Auguste believed in honor, and he strived to live his life in such a manner that, at the end, he
would have nothing to be ashamed of. Women were his one vice – a perversion he could not
overcome. He thought, unnatural fetish aside, that he could be considered a good man. He
hoped history would consider him a good King.

He understood that ruling would come with the requirement of difficult decisions. His
alliance with Akielos had been the first, yet he could not imagine a more difficult decision
than the sacrifice of his own precious brother. His first test as King, and he knew he had done
what was needed.

Even still, it hurt Auguste’s feelings when he stepped out onto the docks of Ios and realized
that Laurent was not waiting there to greet him.

Actually, even if Laurent had been present, the size of the party awaiting the arrival of the
King of Vere was petty, far insufficient for a visiting ruler, let alone a mere ambassador. Not
only was King Theomedes himself absent, but he had failed to send either of his sons in his
stead – not even the bastard.

Only Uncle Richard awaited Auguste’s arrival. Uncle Richard, with two of his personal
guard, and a measly four token Akielon honor guards. One sad starburst banner hung, limp,
from a pole one of his guards seemed to have forgotten he was carrying, the blue faded from
the Akielon sun. There was not even that much of a sign of the sigil of Vere’s King – a full
sun on rich purple background – only the sad reminder of his former title, Laurent’s current
place, an insignia that Uncle Richard should not even have been riding under without him.
There were no slaves or servants with them, no one waiting with refreshments or to help
ready the horses or unload the luggage. Seven men. Seven men were had that Theomedes of
Akielos had sent to welcome the King of Vere on his historical first visit to his country.

“Auguste!” Uncle Richard greeted him warmly enough, his arms thrown wide and his smile
open. The docks smelled of rotting fish. Auguste had expected to find his uncle tanned and
chiton-clad, but he looked little different than he had when they had parted ways at Marlas.
He didn’t quite embrace Auguste, but he did thump both shoulders vigorously. “How well
you look! It always astounds me how you’ve managed to bypass the family predisposition
toward seasickness. Welcome to Akielos! How was your journey?”

“Where’s Laurent?” Auguste asked, instead.

Uncle Richard’s face immediately fell. “Laurent,” he said. “I am afraid your brother’s
whereabouts is information I am not privy to at the moment.”

“…what does that mean?”

Uncle Richard opened his mouth, then hesitated. He glanced back toward the Akielon guards,
then lowered his voice. “A discussion for more civilized company, I think,” he said. “Ah! Is
that Guion’s youngest son I see? Lovely child; I was so hoping he would agree to send you!
Laurent will be so pleased to have proper companionship at last!”

“Surely Laurent has a bevy of young admirers trailing him by now,” Auguste said, bemused.
Laurent was a shy boy, but it was impossible not to love him. Auguste knew his brother had
been in a difficult mood when they had parted ways – and Laurent rarely remembered to pull
his punches, once their mother’s temper managed to flare up in him – but there was nothing
he could ever say or do that would ever weigh more than his bright charm, his gentle heart, or
his troublesome humor. In Arles, the other boys were always trying to catch his attention,
nobility and commoner alike. Everyone who knew him adored him.

“I am afraid I would not know,” Uncle Richard answered, and there was something that
Auguste didn’t recognize in his voice. When Auguste looked at him, Uncle Richard pulled
himself from whatever thought it was that had disturbed him, and offered him a broad, wide
smile. He thumped his shoulders again. “Come, then.” He said. “Climb up in the carriage,
and on the ride to the palace you can tell me everything I have missed while I’ve been away
from civilized society. Allow me to live vicariously through your youthful exploits.”

“Exploits?” Auguste repeated, following his uncle. “I’m still in mourning for my father. I’m
afraid I don’t know what sort of exploits you could be referring to.”

Uncle Richard was a brave and resilient man. He did not flinch at the mention of his deceased
sibling.

“Lie to me, then,” Uncle Richard said cheerily, as a slave boy wearing little more than a sheer
sort of loincloth opened the carriage door for them. “The gods know how this cursed heat
dries up a man’s excitement for life along with every bead of moisture in the body. How
desiccated I’ve become out here! I fear a strong wind may turn these old bones to sand.” His
eye fell on Guion’s boy, Aimeric, once more, and he waved him over. “Come and join us,
child. You can tell all your friends one day of how you rode into Ios with the King of Vere
and his mummified husk of an uncle.”

--

The beauty of Ios nearly took Auguste’s mind off the fact that the King of Akielos had
chosen to snub him and that Laurent, evidently, was still holding a grudge. Houses and shops
had been built right up to the rocky shoreline – and while most were painted white, and
gleamed like shells in the sun, some were blue, or pink, or even orange, bright and
unexpected bursts of color trapped somewhere between the sea and the sky like fractions of
captured sunset. Akielon women walked the marketplace with baskets tucked to shapely hips,
the climbing straps of their sandals decorating the lovely curves of their ankles and calves.
Children darted through the streets, ducking between carts and mules, chasing each other
with wooden swords, their play not so very different from what Auguste himself had enjoyed
as a child, when he managed to escape the hours of endless study and droning lecture.

There was music in the streets, and the smells of roasting meat and baking bread. Every path
to the palace led uphill – a terrible climb no matter which way one went, a simple and yet
effective first defense against invaders.

“Do you suppose that explains why Akielons all possess such lovely legs?” Auguste
wondered out loud. Uncle Richard ignored his nonsense train of thought. He was talking to
Aimeric, who he had encouraged to sit close to him so that he could share the carriage
window with the boy. He took care to point out to the lad all of the most important sights they
were passing, an arm snug around the child’s waist to help him keep his balance as they made
their way steadily upwards.

“That temple is dedicated to the Akielon love goddess,” Uncle Richard would say, as he let
Aimeric lean over his lap to get a better look out the window at the details of the carved
friezes. “That is the Great Library of Ios – I hadn’t a clue the creatures were literate, did
you?”

“I will be shocked if the next words out of your mouth are not to inform me that Laurent has
run from the palace to take up residence there,” Auguste said, a little wistfully, regretting that
Laurent had not been at the docks to greet him.

His joke was met by a strange stretch of silence. After a moment, Uncle Richard gave
Aimeric’s waist a pat, and continued on as if Auguste had not spoken.

“You see there? That street is where all the best slave houses are. Shall I take you to see
them? That building, there, at the end? Do you see it? They train the royal family’s personal
slaves there. They call it the Royal Stable. A palace-trained pleasure slave is worth nearly
five times the contract your father paid for his pets. All of them, combined.” This last was
said to Auguste, Uncle Richard lifting his head to look at him for the first time during the
ride. “Can you imagine the lucrative business Vere could do, were we to open our borders to
the trade?”
Auguste shifted. “Frankly, the idea makes me uncomfortable.”

“It won’t, once you see how well the system works. Even Laurent has purchased a boy, you
know. Shy lad, nearly useless. Still doesn’t speak a word of Veretian, and barely leaves
Laurent’s rooms at all. I can’t imagine what purpose he uses him for, can you?”

“Do they sell the slaves there?” young Aimeric asked, before Auguste could answer.

Uncle Richard shook his head. “Those all go to private buyers if the King or his sons don’t
choose them for themselves. I’ve been to a few of the auctions – not to purchase, of course;
that would be unlawful. Just to observe. They can be quite lawful. I will take you to the next
one, mn? We passed the market the commoners use down near the docks. Filthy and stinking
and crowded – but I hear that a good eye can still find treasure in the filth from time to time.
We can visit there, too, if you are good for me.”

“I would like that,” Aimeric said, his cheeks going red. Uncle Richard chuckled, and he
patted his hip again, then lifted his eyes once more to Auguste.

“Auguste, my boy, what about you? You’ve always had an eye for adventure. Would you like
to attend a few auctions with us?”

“No,” Auguste answered, flatly.

Uncle Richard laughed. He leaned in closer to Aimeric, and he spoke as if sharing a secret
with the lad. “Our shining star has gone dull, it seems,” he said, and the boy laughed as the
eldest Prince of Vere pretended to pout.

“Slavery is an abomination,” Auguste snapped.

“Now you sound like your brother,” Uncle Richard sounded bored, disappointed, even.

“I should be proud to,” Auguste said. “He is growing into a fine young man. I am certain I
will not find that much changed.”

Uncle Richard was silent for a moment, thoughtful and watchful. Finally, he said, “I will
leave that for you to decide on your own. Only, I caution you: do not let childish fancy blind
you. Don’t be deceived by the story you tell yourself out of loyalty or love. And don’t let
cowardice steal lucrative opportunities from your fingers. A King who will not bend his neck
to explore every option is not a King who has his people’s needs at heart. Your father would
tell you the same; you know it. Ah! Aimeric, do you see that? It is called an elephant. It
comes from Patras…”
 Chapter 10
Chapter Notes

TW for this chapter - really shitty attempts to justify why Veretian consent laws are ok
and Uncle Richard would NEVER hurt you, Laurent.

Obviously, these arguments do not in any way reflect the beliefs of the author.

Also, this is not a great chapter for Auguste, I am sorry.

Damen was giving his report in his father’s study when word came of the arrival of the King
of Vere. Damen and Kastor and Father only had to look at one another to know that they were
all thinking the same thing.

"Father," Kastor began.

"See to it," Father told Damen. "I will join presently."

“King Auguste!” Damen was the first to reach the receiving room. The Veretian King’s
guards stood outside, but within, he was alone, back to the door as he surveyed the sea
through the wide arching windows, salty breeze stirring cloak and hair. Damen had been
grateful that his father had sent him alone; he had wanted the chance to set the right tone by
himself. Kastor still held a grudge over his fight at Marlas, and Father’s estimation over the
new King had fallen significantly after the revelation of Prince Richard’s known-and-readily-
accommodated-for tastes. It was better for everyone if Damen took charge of diplomatic
relations with their new allies. Still, Damen found friendliness took effort to maintain as the
fair-headed King turned slowly his way. “How well you look!” Damen said anyway. He
greeted him with arms extended, as if they were old friends - or brothers, as they would soon
be. King Auguste's pale eyes flicked over him, coolly dismissive, and he stopped his
approach short of arm's reach. “You’re so early; we weren’t expecting you for another week.”

“Why would I take another week?” King Auguste asked. For all that he was known as the
bright sun shining over Vere, there was an edge of frost to his voice. He said, “Laurent’s
birthday is this week.”

If it surprised him to hear Damen speak his language, he gave no indication of it. Perhaps his
brother had already told him – or perhaps he was simply too annoyed to make conversation.
He stood stiffly, shorter than Damen, but tall for a Veretian, and drawn in straight, rigid lines.
There was nothing to indicate he had been at sea; no water or salt stains on the crushed velvet
monstrosity of the puffed-sleeved jacket he was laced into, Veretian royal purple cut through
with slashes of lavender, boots with toes that stretched too long, unnecessary cloak swaying
and snapping around his ankles in the salty breeze. The silly hat he wore was made to flop,
artfully, over one eye, and the feather it boasted bore no signs of travel, bouncing when he
turned his head to run a cool gaze once more over the room’s interior. He still had that
mustache.

“We must have received inaccurate information,” Damen said. He let his attempt to fake
enthusiasm fall a little.

“You didn’t think it was odd?” King Auguste asked, a little sharply. He wasn’t even looking
at Damen. He was supposed to be a charming and affable fellow, but Damen had only
encountered an arrogant boor.

Damen forced a smile through gritted teeth. “Of course. We did. We’ll certainly be glad to
have been mistaken. Since you are here, you won’t miss the Games we have planned.”

“Games,” King Auguste repeated, in an odd sort of voice.

Damen couldn’t read him, and the cool reception confused him. He was sure he knew who
was to blame about the miscommunication about arrival dates – but he had already very
clearly explained that they hadn’t been expecting Auguste yet. If Akielos had meant to insult
Vere, it would have been much more obvious than something petty like an abbreviated
welcome.

“Games are the traditional way important events are celebrated here,” Damen explained.
“That includes a royal birthday. Father wants to be sure that Laurent receives the same
treatment either of his other sons wpuld. You and your men are free to join in, if you liked.
Tell me, what do you know of our Okton?”

--

Gradually, little by little, Damen thought that he was beginning to thaw King Auguste. Father
and Kastor arrived, and all of the appropriate formal greetings were made, and then they went
out to the courtyard as the rest of the Veretian guests began to come in from the docks -
horses and carts and carriages, more packages and trunks than the small visiting party could
ever use in the time of their stay, a frivolous number of servants. There was the whole song
and dance of more greetings - Veretian nobility, a few members of their Council. Slaves were
called to show the guests to their appropriate rooms and to collect the endless streams of
luggage. Prince Richard, who had been absent during Damen's private meeting with King
Auguste, made a reappearance during this, though there was no sign of young Laurent though
any of it.

“I will be happy to help acquaint you with the palace grounds myself,” Damen offered, after.
He had accompanied King Auguste to the rooms he was given - the best guest quarters in the
palace, usually reserved for the royal family's own family, not visiting rulers. (But I suppose I
am family now, aren't I? King Auguste had asked, humorlessly, when the Chamberlain had
told him so.) “Consider it as my personal apology for the misunderstanding. If you want to
rest first, you can have a slave sent to fetch me when you’re ready.”

“Now is fine,” Auguste said. He had taken a brief walk around the rooms he had been given,
pausing to take in the view through the windows, familiarizing himself with the layout of the
place – sitting room and bedchamber, small private closet for the privy – he even peeked into
the curtained alcove where one’s personal bedslave would sleep. Now he turned back to
Damen. “Where is my brother?”

“I’ve been told he takes his rides at this hour,” Damen answered. “He likes to go before it
gets too hot. I'm sure he would have been here, if he'd known to expect you.” More evidence,
surely, that there had been a mistake - that he had not been deliberately snubbed.

King Auguste ignored it. “You’ve been told," he repeated, not sharply, though his displeasure
was still clear. "You don’t know for yourself?”

Damen tried not to frown at him. “Unfortunately, no," he said. "I have had limited time to
spend with your brother so far. I was asked to leave for Vask almost as soon as we returned
from Marlas.” Sharing a boarder with two countries who shared notoriously unfriendly
relations put Vask in a delicate sort of position. Officially, Vask had no political ties, no
sympathies or allegiances with either nation. Unofficially, the tribes of Vask were happy to
lend a hand to whichever country gave them the biggest bribe – and the conflict had been
going on for so long that these bribes had become a significant and reliable pillar of their
economy. Father had wanted to be the first to reach out to the Empress and inform her of the
happy news of the new alliance, and his decision to celebrate in the form of yearly tribute –
before the tribes got antsy and decided to make up for their lack of income in other ways.

Really, Father had wanted Kastor to be the one to go – and he had wanted Kastor to offer
himself permanently to any daughter of the Empress who would have him, to give Vask fair
opportunity for a similar alliance on similar terms to what Vere had received, but Kastor had
refused. In Vask, a husband – even the husband of an Empress or the daughter of an Empress
– was little more than property. Kastor had seen it as insult that Father had even suggested it,
and he had railed at Father for days until Father gave up and, weary of arguing, asked Damen
to go instead. Obviously, being spoken for, Damen had far less to offer in terms of soothing
Vask’s ruffled feathers – but he had managed to persuade the empress and her daughters that
the new treaty would not cause her people hardship, and he’d had had a good time doing it,
too, even if Father had insisted on him using a goat’s bladder prophylactic while he was
there. Bestowing Vask with an army of mini-Damens was more honor than Father intended to
give the Empress without very careful negotiation first – a detail Damen would not have
thought of on his own. (When he admitted as much, freely and with a laugh, Father just
looked tired. Laurent, in the room at the time, had been endlessly fascinated by the entire
exchange. What did they get out of it if you couldn't impregnate them? he'd asked. Why
bother with the sex at all, then? Thankfully, someone changed the subject before Damen
thought of an answer.)

“I had half expected to hear how you had already fallen madly in love with him,” the Veretian
King muttered in a wry sort of voice, passing by as Damen held the door open for him to exit
out of the rooms. Damen couldn’t tell what he meant by that, but it rankled him, and he found
himself closing the door to Auguste’s guest quarters a little more firmly behind them than he
needed to.

“He’s thirteen,” Damen reminded him, firmly, flatly. “I recognize that things are different in
Vere, but we don’t look at children that way in Akielos.”
They were out in the corridor again, and King Auguste, continuing his rudeness, had begun to
walk without waiting for Damen, despite not knowing his way around. At Damen’s words, he
stopped, shoulders stiff, back to him. He did not answer right away.

When he did turn back, his gaze flicked over Damen as if noting some change in the Akielon
Prince’s posture or demeanor. Whatever thawing might have begun, it was halted now as he
drew himself up, lifting his chin in a way quite similar to his younger brother.

“I take it you have something to say?”

“As a matter of fact I do. Tell me – is it true? The age of consent in your country is ten?”

King Auguste was silent for a moment, thoughtful. “What an interesting bit of trivia. When
did that come up?”

“Answer the fucking question.”

Auguste blinked, slowly. The language had thrown him, and his Veretian haughtiness needed
a moment to process it. When he did answer, he was calm.

“I was unaware that I had made such a long journey simply to have my country’s morality
judged by a slaver.”

“Well. We generally wait for our slaves’ voices to break before we fuck them.”

“I am afraid I don’t understand the point of this conversation, or the reason you’ve brought it
up. I inquire about my brother, and you admit you've neglected him, then proceed to begin an
argument. I seem to have missed something here. If you - ”

“Auguste!”

The interruption broke through the tension between them just as Damen, blood moving from
a simmer to a boil, had begun to take a step toward the King of Vere. He took a step away,
instead, just narrowly avoiding collision with the owner of a flaxen head as Laurent, now
current Crown Prince of Vere, threw himself bodily into his brother’s arms.

“You’re early!” the boy exclaimed, as Auguste rocked back on his heels from the force of the
embrace. The boy's booted heels briefly left the ground as his brother lifted him bodily.
Everything about the King was transformed in an instant, from his posture to his expression,
as he swung the boy once, like a child, before setting him down again. “I wasn’t expecting
you until next week!”

“But your birthday is this week,” Auguste answered. His voice was a little strange. “Step
back – let me look at you. You’ve grown taller!”

“Don’t be cruel; we both know I have not.”

“Your voice has broken…”

Laurent’s face was flushed red as he pushed himself away. He only noticed Damen as an
afterthought.

“You’re here early, too.”

“I wanted the chance to observe my opposition for the Games,” Damen told him. It took
effort to make his voice easy, to keep his tone friendly. As he had predicted, Laurent had been
out riding. There was hay caught up in his bright hair. Laurent was dressed for riding, in the
Veretian attire that was so unsuited to an Akielon spring, where rain was frequent, and
temperatures varied with wild unpredictability between cool and warm. He was, indeed, a
little damp – raindrops caught on his lashes and the ends of his hair – and the laces at his
collar were loose, so Damen supposed he had gotten warm. He would have been more
comfortable dressed like the other boys, but as far as Damen was aware there had not yet
been any integration with the other youth of the palace. Even Larius, the little slave who
Laurent had rescued, did not spend much time with him. Since Laurent could not speak his
language, there was little point in expecting him to wait around for orders he couldn’t
understand – and the Veretian adults terrified him. Father had suggested having him sent to
be trained as a regular household attendant, which Laurent originally balked at, until Father
managed to make him see how uneasy and unhappy the boy was with nothing to do.

They sent Larius to the House where all of the royal staff trained, and Father said that
Laurent visited him twice a week, with Calliope in tow as translator. She reported that he
spent every visit trying to undo the boy’s training – reminding him that he wasn’t actually a
slave anymore, so he shouldn’t let them destroy his will; that he was putting his wages aside
for him, and they were his whenever he wanted them if he decided he wanted to do
something else or leave and return to his family; teaching him bad words in Veretian. Larius,
the report said, never took him up on these insane offers, but he had begun to smile when
they came to fetch him for his visits. His treatment wasn’t disruptive to the other slaves, but it
was distracting. There was concern. Father wanted Damen to address it with Laurent, despite
the fact that they did not know each other, and Laurent had no reason to take his
council. You're to be his husband. He is your problem to deal with.

“I think you have gotten a little taller,” Damen agreed, rather than bring any of that up now.
The coltish awkwardness that had begun when he’d last seen Laurent several months ago was
out in full force now, his proportions out of alignment in the battle between boyhood and
man. Before the boy could protest that Damen was cruel, too, he asked, “Will you compete in
the Games?”

He received a scowl in place of an insult.

“I detest sports.”

Damen didn’t try to hide his surprise. “Not all sports, surely?”

“A pity that you didn’t try to use the opportunity presented by the last several months to get
to know your intended,” King Auguste stated, dryly. “Perhaps then you would not have
planned such an inappropriate birthday celebration.”

Damen had no answer to that, but it hardly mattered.

“Have you been to the stables yet?” Laurent asked his brother. “Never mind; I’m sure that
even if you have, you didn’t pay the right attention. Come with me – there is a foal I must
have your opinion on.” Laurent began to pull the King of Vere away. Damen was surprised
when the boy stopped and turned back toward him – but, of course, it wasn’t an invitation
that followed. “Do you mind if I steal him?” he asked instead.

Even still, the question was almost as surprising as the absent invitation would have been.
Politeness was not an expectation Damen held regarding the child fiancée he barely knew.

“I think it would be best if you did,” Auguste said, leaning down toward the boy and
speaking as if imparting a secret. Damen’s smile felt like a grimace.

He said, “Enjoy your time with your brother.”

--

“Have they been kind to you?” Auguste asked.

Laurent had always been a quiet and self-contained child, content with his own company,
always somewhere unobtrusive to the side, unbegrudging of the long reach of his elder
brother’s shadow – but he had been talking non-stop since the moment they left the Prince of
Akielos behind, and Auguste could not help but think that that indicated something was
wrong.

“They’ve mostly just ignored me,” Laurent said. “It feels like home in that way.”

“You aren’t ignored at home,” Auguste frowned.

Laurent shrugged and he didn’t reply. He’d dragged Auguste through every inch of the
Akielon royal stables – not only to look at where his own beloved horse, Madeleine, was
kept, or to see the promised foal, who he wanted to purchase, but to meet every steed the
Akielon royals kept, from parade horses and racing stock to working horses and even the
royal’s own personal equines. Laurent knew every beast by name. Scooping a raggedy black
barn cat up into his arms as they walked, he insisted on introducing Auguste to every last
creature that drew breath upon the property.

“You’ve been lonesome,” Auguste guessed, a little guiltily. It irritated him that Damianos had
spent the last several months away, instead of trying to bond with his sweet Laurent. It
irritated him that the Akielon Prince could, apparently, speak impeccable Veretian, and had
not bothered to reveal it at Marlas, and had flittered off to Vask and left Laurent bereft of the
one person in the entire country who should be trying hardest to help him feel safe and
welcome and happy and who also just so happened to speak his language perfectly. It
irritated him that everyone seemed to think that he had been planning to come a week late to
his only brother’s birthday after being separated for months. It irritated him that he had been
snubbed at the docks. And it irritated him that Damianos had had the nerve to bring up
Veretian consent laws – as if he knew anything at all about what he was talking about, much
less had the right to question a King about it!

“I’ve had plenty of company,” Laurent told him.

“Human company?” Auguste pressed.

Laurent flushed. He buried his face in the barn cat’s fur, scratching absently at the scruff of its
chest until it began to purr and, stirring, turned to lick his hair in an act of sudden reciprocity.

“They’ve been very kind,” Laurent said, unaware of the resulting mess being made of his
bangs. “I promise.”

“By that you mean that they have largely left you alone and unsupervised, so that you are free
to read and play with animals to your heart’s content.” Auguste tried to take the cat. Laurent
turned so he could not. Auguste sighed. It was little wonder that Laurent had been so bored
here. “What about your sword practice, then?” he pressed. “Have you been keeping up with
that, at least? Is there a master here for you to work with?”

“I have no need to practice the sword. The war is over. All hail our celebrated peace. I hate it,
anyway.”

“You need to practice the sword.”

Silence. Laurent rubbed his cheek against the bony old cat, and he refused to acknowledge
that he had spoken. Auguste sighed.

“Where is the practice yard?” he asked. He reached up and began the process of untying the
laces of his jacket. “Come on; I will need to test you to see how far behind you have fallen.
Master d'Eon will charge an exorbitant amount for me to send him all the way to Akielos, but
he will expect me to give adequate warning what to expect from you.”

“You know I haven’t done it. You can guess.”

Auguste sighed again. “What about your other studies? How much Akielon have you
learned?”

“…it’s harder than you think.”

“That means you have yet to even begin.”

"King Theomedes promised to give me a tutor."

"And has he?"

"Not yet."

Auguste was getting a headache, and his foul mood was only worsening. He waited, giving
Laurent the chance to offer him something, anything, but Laurent didn’t elaborate further.

Outside, the sun was moving higher in the sky, and the day was becoming hotter. Akielon
architecture was open and breezy, meant to maximize airflow throughout their buildings and
bring relief on even the hottest of days, but they were in a stable, and even a palace stable
was full of manure, and that manure was growing hotter and more pungent by the moment.
“Come on,” Auguste said at last. “Let’s go inside.”

“I wanted to show you the gardens next.”

“I’m too hot and too annoyed to care about gardens right now. I’ve seen flowers before, I
assure you.”

Reluctantly, Laurent bent to allow the cat to slip from his arms, rather than just tossing it
down as most men would. He began to follow Auguste, but he stopped when Auguste
stopped. Auguste turned back to him.

“Are you going to ask me about Father’s funeral?” Auguste asked.

“I wasn’t intending to,” Laurent said, and Auguste told himself his mood was making him
imagine the petulance in his tone. Laurent lifted his chin a little - as sure a warning sign as
any, though Auguste didn't take it. “Frankly, it did not occur to me that I should.”

Even though he could see him beginning to dig in his heels, there was no malice in his words,
not really. Laurent was simply being honest. There was no excuse for how infuriating
Auguste found his response, or why Auguste decided to ask now, here, in this way. He was
tired and he was hot and he was annoyed. His nose was full of the smell of horse shit.

“He was your father,” Auguste said, like a man who wanted to pick a fight.

“It wasn’t my decision for me to miss services,” Laurent pointed out. His eyes were wide,
bewildered by Auguste’s tone – a tone Auguste rarely used at all, much less on him.

Auguste couldn’t stop himself. “Do you miss him at all?” he asked. “Have you mourned for
him for even a moment?” It was involuntary. He knew he was pushing, and he couldn’t stop
himself. He saw it when Laurent’s eyes lost their doe-ish look, when his jaw hardened, and
his skinny shoulders squared. There was a moment - a brief, flickering chance, where
Auguste could have apologized. Where he could have taken his words back, or at least
rephrased them more gracefully. He failed to.

“Why would I miss him?” Laurent demanded. “It feels like he’s right here.”

"Don't you dare," Auguste began, but -

Laurent had turned, and Laurent was walking away from him.

“Laurent – Laurent, stop!” Alarm – that was what Auguste had felt, sudden and strangling, as
he watched that change come over his brother. He had seen Father do this to him many times
over the years - cause him to close up, close off, shut down. Laurent would never have
walked away from Father, but Auguste knew this response and he knew he was to blame. He
and Laurent had fought many times over the years, true – they were brothers, after all – but
he had never done this before. This was so deeply jarring, so wrong.

Auguste moved forward, and he managed to catch his brother’s arm, and though Laurent
jerked it violently out of his grip, he did stop, rounding back on him. They stared at each
other, an arm’s length away, and Auguste could see that it lay there still between them,
unresolved – Laurent’s resentment over the alliance, and Auguste guilt and doubt over his
decision, pride and fear working together to make him want to push it all through, push it all
past. This was not a splinter, causing a little hurt. This was a spike, impaling them, driving
them apart.

Auguste forced himself to take a deep breath. He made a conscious effort to set his irritation
to the side, and to see his brother standing before him – his young, sweet, scared, lonesome
brother.

“I don’t – I don’t know what came over me. I'm sorry. I don't seem to know how to talk to
you right now,” Auguste confessed. “Please. Let’s begin again.”

“I was excited to see you,” Laurent said. “You could be excited to see me, too. You could
listen to me. You could ask me about anything in the world that isn’t him, or something I fail
at, or any of my flaws. You could try that.” His little chest rose and fell heavily with
restrained emotion. He was struggling with his own control. His eyes were wet.

“You’re right,” Auguste allowed, generously, gently. He watched him, cautious of his temper.
He reminded himself of his duty as elder brother – not so very different from his duty as
King, just in smaller scale. He was still annoyed, but he could not think only of himself. His
life was not his own. He took another slow, deep breath. “Laurent,” he began.

“Did Uncle ask you to bring a young boy to Akielos with you?” Laurent asked, interrupting.

The question, and the abrupt shift, surprised him. Auguste could think of no reason for it.

“He asked Councilor Guion to send his son, yes. You’ve met Aimeric before, haven’t you?”

“Aimeric.”

“Uncle Richard was concerned about the fact you were out here without a companion your
own age.”

“And so you brought one.”

“I thought it was kind of him to suggest it.”

Laurent stared at him. His expression had gone blank. He had drawn from him even further.
Whatever it was he was thinking, he was still having difficulty with the problem, and finding
trouble working his way through it. Auguste waited. He reminded himself that he was
grateful that his brother hadn’t fled. That he was grateful that he was trying to talk it through
with him, even if he did not yet understand the direction he had chosen to take.

In another moment, Laurent found whatever it was he had wanted to say. He licked his lips,
as if giving his words a taste before speaking them.

“Were you aware,” he asked, slowly, “That our uncle prefers the company of young children?
Sexually, I mean.”

“Boys,” Auguste corrected. “Yes, of course. What of it?”

“What of it?”

It was the wrong response. Auguste knew immediately it must have been, though Laurent’s
expression didn’t change. Auguste could feel a shift in the air between them, and he knew,
somehow, that the change wasn’t for the better.

“Boys,” Laurent said. “Boys younger than me. Boys as young as ten.”

“Probably younger,” Auguste acknowledged, “But ten was as young as Father was willing to
give him when he changed the law.”

“Father changed the law.” Laurent was staring at him. “What was it before?”

“Sixteen, I think.” Auguste remembered it, a little. He had been about ten, himself. He had
been in Father's study as they argued about it, and found the idea that his father thought a boy
his age incapable of reading and understanding and signing a document insufferably
infuriating. Most peasants can't read at all - why not limit their ability to make decisions as
well? he had demanded. Uncle Richard had given him the argument, the day before, after the
last fight he and Father had had about the new bill. Auguste had felt very important and smart
repeating it.

“Sixteen.” Laurent was staring at him. “And Father made it ten. For Uncle. For Uncle’s
convenience. For his…pleasure.”

“Laurent, what are you getting at?" Auguste's head was pounding. "What else was Father to
do – jail his own brother for having unusual tastes in bedmates? If you were King, would you
jail me because I prefer women?” At least my perversion is for the lawful gender, Uncle
Richard had said, and Auguste had felt his face burn as he looked his way, wondering if he
knew about the secret thoughts he had when he passed the female Pets in the halls. Auguste
had only been ten, and he had already suspected he was wrong and deviant and dirty.

“If you were not King, you would be jailed for preferring women."

Auguste grimaced. “Do you think Uncle is the only one at Court with such unusual tastes?"
he asked, instead of questioning how he should vilify the man when he himself was so
perverse. It is a matter or preferring lamb to mutton, Uncle Richard had explained to him,
once. Could you truly fault a man for such? It doesn't harm anyone. It isn't as if you run the
risk of bastards with it. "There are Lords and Counts and Barons all over Vere who spent
years petitioning not just Father but Grandfather as well to take their preferences into
account. At least two men on Council have contracts with boys in addition to their usual
Pets.”

“Unusual tastes.”

“Will you stop that? Don’t look at me that way – no, I’ve never engaged in it myself and yes,
I too find it distasteful – " It isn't as if you run the risk of bastards with it. "But the law in
question only protects gentlemen working with a Pet under a certified contract. Everything is
done through legal channels, the boys are compensated generously, and they are free to break
the contract at any time – same as any other Pet. They participate willingly. They agree to the
terms. They have a choice.”

“They have a choice.” Laurent’s expression had not changed, and neither had his voice. Still,
he was growing colder and more distant by the moment.

Auguste threw up his hands. “Do you not see that I have other priorities right now, Laurent?
Do you know how many enemies I would make if I took apart consent laws at the moment?
My rule isn’t steady yet. You have no idea how unstable things are at home.”

“You’re the King. Say it is wrong and it is so.”

It isn't as if you run the risk of bastards with it.

“You’re smart enough to know it isn’t that simple.”

“For this it is. For this it should be.”

Auguste shook his head. “This shouldn’t even be on your mind right now. What brought this
on? You’ve seen Uncle Richard with his pets before. You used to beg to be allowed to play
with them all the time. You know how well he treats them. He adores and dotes on them; I
don’t know how they ever find a contract able to afford them after, he spoils them so.”

“Pets,” Laurent repeated. He was silent for a moment, confused, before clarity struck him
with a terrible revelation. “I thought they were his wards. I thought he took them in from
orphanages and dockhouses. I thought he was helping them.”

“He is helping them,” Auguste insisted. It isn't as if you run the risk of bastards with it. “He’s
helping them support themselves and their families. Do you have any idea what a Pet contract
can bring in? I’m not excusing it, Laurent, but the nobility are not the only ones who would
fight me if I tried to abolish it. There is nothing I can do right now.”

Laurent closed his eyes and pressed the meat of his palms against them. When Auguste
reached for him, he shook him off. He took a moment to breathe, slowly, before he spoke
again, lifting his head.

“You knew about this, and you sent Uncle here with me. You knew about it, and you brought
Aimeric along anyway.”

The accusation stunned him, and hurt him, as well. “Laurent, are you listening to yourself?
Neither of you are Pets. Uncle Richard would never lay a finger on you – or on Councilman
Guion’s son!” Unbidden, the memory of Uncle Richard in the carriage rose up - the way he
had drawn young Aimeric close to himself so that he could look out the window. Auguste
shook his head to dismiss the thought. “Uncle Richard prefers his Pets young, yes – but
they’re Pets. They sign contracts. They come to him willingly, they do their job, and when
their contract ends, they go and find new employment. What you’re alluding to is – it's
monstrous. He isn’t a rapist, Laurent.”
Laurent had dropped his hands, and half turned away. He didn’t answer. It felt as if a wall had
come up between them, and Auguste wasn’t sure how to break through it to reach him.

“You can’t tell me you feel unsafe with him now,” Auguste pressed. “Just because you’ve
learned this about him? Laurent, he’s always adored you. He must be heartbroken.”

“His preferences have raised concerns with King Theomedes and with Damianos.”

The fight that damned Damianos had tried to pick with him. It made more sense now.
Auguste sighed, and rubbed his hands across his face, and he reminded himself that Laurent,
for all his intellect and maturity, was still but a child, himself. He wasn't capable of
understanding - and he loved Auguste too much to realize that the real deviant was standing
in front of him. It isn't as if you run the risk of bastards with it.

Laurent, I have a bastard.

“Laurent, what do you think it serves the Akielons for you to fear and distrust Uncle
Richard?” Auguste asked. “What do you think it is they gain if you isolate yourself from your
people?”

Laurent made a strange little sound, like a laugh. “You think they are manipulating me?”

Doubt. A crack in the wall. Laurent was still in there, and Auguste could still reach him.
When Auguste touched his shoulder, he didn’t lose a hand.

“I would not have sent Uncle Richard with you if I had cause for a moment to fear that you
would be unsafe with him,” he promised, squeezing his brother’s shoulder. “Hey – hey look
at me. Akielos is our enemy. It has been for a very long time. It’s going to take more than a
treaty for that to change.”

“I suppose…” Laurent’s brows knit.

“This isn’t easy,” Auguste said. “It hasn’t been easy, and it won’t be easy. I know that it’s a
terrible burden that I’ve placed on you, but you must know that I never would have asked any
of this of you if I thought you incapable of handling it. Please – don’t let them steal your trust
in me.”

Laurent pulled away from him, but he did so gently, thoughtfully.

Auguste let him go.

 Chapter 11
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

“Why does an Akielon guard follow him everywhere?” Auguste grouched. He had returned
to his quarters to rest and change clothes, but he had not been able to sleep, much less stand
still long enough for Marcel to help him with his laces. By the time Uncle Richard came
calling, Auguste was unrested, in his shirtsleeves, and he’d worked his irritation up into a
full-blown sulk.

Auguste did not possess the dreaded temper that Laurent and their mother were so renown
for. Auguste’s anger was like Father’s had been – slow-building and patient, a small stone
that, once it began tumble down a gradual slope, began to pick up speed and debris and grow
larger and more unstoppable by the minute. Auguste was aware of it, as he was aware that he
was now actively looking for things to be angry about.

“Laurent has his own guards, and he hardly needs more than one on hand at a time while in
the palace,” Auguste griped. “Is it a message, then? Are the Akielons insulted that I felt the
need to send my brother with guards at all? Are they trying to imply to me that he is not safe?
Or that they expect him to run? Are they treating him like a prisoner?”

“I told you, the barbarians are determined to fracture us. Now you see it for yourself.” Uncle
Richard sighed heavily and shook his head. “I have not had a moment alone with him since
we arrived in Ios. That is not by accident. King Theomedes has outright declared that I am
not permitted to spend time with my own nephew.”

Auguste had been pacing, restless. He found himself coming to a hard stop, a sickening
feeling in his belly as he remembered his conversation with his brother. He pretended to look
out the window as he struggled against the urge to turn and face his uncle, to turn his
questions to outright confrontation, simply because he was itching for a fight.

“It’s more objectionable than I have words to express – turning a child against his own
family,” Uncle Richard said.

“Yes,” Auguste agreed. His mind was full of the way that Laurent had looked at him – as if,
because Auguste was aware of their uncle’s proclivities, he was somehow party to them. Like
he was responsible for negotiating the terms of their contracts, not the parents who sold them
– like he was the one who explained the necessities to them, who secured the children’s
agreement, their signature or mark – like he was personally holding the boys down, himself,
when it came time for the contracts to be fulfilled.

“I am afraid, Auguste,” Uncle Richard said. “Because of them, it seems as if the boy has
come to fear me. To believe I would hurt him.” Auguste could hear the heartbreak in his
uncle’s voice, how it tore at him, the idea that dear Laurent might cringe from his company.
Laurent had always been a particular favorite of their uncle’s, the bond of two second sons
hard to ignore.
Uncle Richard had always gone out of his way to step in for Laurent in all the various places
Father was forced to leave empty. He had always taken pains to ensure, like Auguste did, that
Laurent had someone he could go to, someone he could trust – that Laurent wasn’t wholly
alone. He had always doted on him. He knew, like Auguste did, that Laurent was one of those
individuals in life who simply needed more love than average.

“Has he…said anything to you?” Uncle Richard asked.

Auguste forced his hands to ease against the windowsill. He had no skill for lying,
particularly to family, so he didn’t try to. The blue-green seascape stretched out below him,
but he couldn’t see its beauty.

“He had some questions,” Auguste admitted, forcing himself to turn back to him. “I talked to
him. I did my best to reassure him of what he already knew – that he was safe with you. That
he had no reason to fear you.”

“I haven’t done anything illegal,” Uncle Richard said, a little quickly. It would strike
Auguste, later, as a strange argument to make.

“I think we would both do well to remember the situation Laurent is in,” Auguste said, with a
little sigh. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, where a headache had formed and was now
stubbornly refusing to recede. “He is so intelligent that it’s hard to remember he’s still only a
boy. The burden we’ve asked of him with this alliance would be difficult for anyone to
shoulder.”

“You haven’t signed the contract yet,” Uncle Richard pointed out.

“You think I should back out? Volunteer to return our people to that stupid war?”

For a moment, Uncle Richard looked as if that was exactly the suggestion he wanted to make.
Auguste waited. It never came.

“Laurent needs our love and attention more than ever right now,” Auguste said at last.
“Unfortunately, my position has made it nearly impossible for me to provide that.” Like
Father.

“Difficult to be a brother and a King at the same time, isn’t it?” Uncle Richard asked,
compassion in his eyes. He had watched his own sibling struggle with the same, except he
was stronger than Laurent. He had never needed Aleron the way that Laurent needed
Auguste. It didn’t usually feel like such a burden.

“It will help, having a friend his own age. I’m glad you thought to ask for Aimeric.” Auguste
turned back to the window. He had received an invitation from Damianos to go sea bathing
tomorrow morning. The athletes competing in the Games wanted to start their day with a
bracing swim while it was still cool outside. Auguste had intended to decline, but now he
began to consider changing his mind. “Overcoming generations of hostility is no small task. I
don’t blame the Akielons for what it is they’re trying to do, but I will protect my brother from
it. I will protect him from everything.”
“That brings me to my reason for coming to see you,” Uncle Richard said. “Your draft of the
contract – do you have it ready? I wanted to look it over before I bring it to your Council for
final approval. I would do the same for your father, you know. Sometimes a second pair of
eyes can find something overlooked.”

“On the desk,” Auguste said with a wave of his hand, his back to his uncle, his eyes on the
sea.

--

The Akielons may have been surprised by the Veretians’ unexpected “early” arrival, but they
managed to rally by evening, and had a welcoming feast ready to greet them properly with.
The Akielon great hall was lively with lamplight, open to the sea breeze and the chill of the
night, with small personal braziers near each cluster of tables for warmth. The stars high
above dotted the horizon with pinpricks of pale light. Thin curtains hung open between
columns, ready to be drawn closed in the event of rain or to block the wind if the night grew
too cold.

The tables were low in the Akielon style, and instead of chairs the guests reclined on
couches. Slaves stood ready with platters of food and pitchers of wine and instruments ready
for playing. Some sat at their masters' feet, gazing up at them with simple, doe-eyed
admiration. Auguste almost didn't notice them, they were so discreet and graceful, so quiet
and unobtrusive, like a natural part of the background. Anyway, other things caught his
attention right away. Auguste had thought that he had prepared himself for the shock of
encountering women in the brief form of Akielon dress, but he had been very wrong.

He tried not to stare.

“Did you go out into the sun?” Laurent asked, when Auguste joined him at his table. “Your
face is red.”

“It’s nothing,” Auguste told him, too quickly.

Laurent blinked, slowly, at him. A smile toyed at his lips. “Are you drunk, then?”

He knew what he was doing. “Don’t.” Auguste warned.

Laurent had perfected an expression on incredible innocence over the years. Auguste could
still see his amusement. “I could call for a healer,” Laurent suggested, so very sweetly. “You
may have a fever.”

“King Auguste is unwell?”

Laurent made a noise, and quickly had to duck his head to hide his hilarity under Auguste’s
glare as Damianos dropped without invitation or hesitation into one of the couches nearby.

“No,” Auguste said. Keeping his voice pleasant was a challenge. Laurent’s shoulders were
shaking with silent amusement. Damianos leaned forward to take an olive from a shell-
carved bowl, and paused as he caught sight of Auguste’s crimson face.
“The sun can be unkind to fair skin; you shouldn’t overdo it,” he said. “If you plan to spend
an extended amount of time outdoors, I suggest you take measures to protect yourself.”

“Thank you,” Auguste said, hating him, a little. Damianos flashed him a grin as he popped
the olive into his mouth, a dimple in his cheek prominent as he settled back against the couch
to chew, and Auguste wondered if he was in on it – if somehow he had Laurent had planned
this together. The Prince of Akielos allowed his eyes to follow a quartet of scantily clad
dancing girls as they passed to take their places for a performance, but just as Auguste was
gearing up to judge him for such blatant appreciation, he made the mistake of looking at
them, too, and then his gaze was doing the same.

“Uncle!” Laurent greeted suddenly, and with bright cheer. Auguste jumped, guilty, and
wondered how long he had been staring at soft hips and sun-bronzed thighs. He ignored the
knowing look from the Prince of Akielos, as if they were somehow the same. Uncle Richard
came to join them, taking the couch across from Laurent.

Laurent’s enthusiastic greeting had surprised him. Uncle Richard paused in the act of sitting,
his eyes lifting to Laurent. There was an unfamiliar new caution to the way he regarded his
youngest nephew.

“Aimeric isn’t with you?” Laurent asked.

“Aimeric?” Uncle Richard repeated it as if he had never heard the name before.

“Auguste said that you were the one who recommended he come here – so that I would have
a friend my own age. It was so very thoughtful of you. I have only ever met him in passing,
but I have been so very excited for the opportunity to make his acquaintance again. I’ve kept
my schedule free all day, but he never came to call on me. I was hoping to introduce him to
Larius.”

Uncle, slowly, settled into his seat.

“He hasn’t presented himself to you at all?” Auguste asked, frowning.

“He was not feeling well, last I spoke to him,” Uncle Richard explained, frowning at Laurent.
“In fact, he asked me to convey his apologies for him. Between the boat and the heat – well,
I’m sure you can understand why a boy his age might need to rest for a day. The better to
serve his Prince tomorrow, yes?”

“So, you’ve been to see him, then?” Laurent pressed. “Does your thoughtfulness ever end?”

“Guion and I are old friends. It’s only natural I would step in to see his son and inquire about
his father’s health. I was terribly distraught to find him feeling so unwell.”

“You are so very kind, Uncle. Thank you.”

“Of course.”

“I hope he will be well enough to join us in the morning. Oh – Damianos, is that all right?
May I extend the invitation to go sea bathing to my newest and dearest friend, Aimeric?”
The question both surprised and pleased Prince Damianos, who was not used to being
addressed by Laurent, much less with the blinding light of his childish innocence shining
through his guileless smile. “Yes, of course,” Damianos told him. “This is for you, too. You
can invite anyone you want.”

“Even Larius?” Laurent asked.

“Even Larius.”

“Laurent, that seems most improper,” Uncle Richard began. Laurent blinked up at him, brows
knit in confusion.

“But Damianos just said it was acceptable.”

“Prince Damianos doesn’t want to cause a scene by upsetting his very spoiled, very forward
guest.”

“But I’m not a guest, Uncle, I’m his fiancé. And he said I can invite anyone.”

“Who is Larius?” Auguste interjected.

“Larius is Laurent’s slave,” Damianos answered, amused by the whole exchange, “And yes, it
really would be perfectly acceptable for you to bring him to serve you during the outing. He
should have made enough progress by now to properly attend you; his manners likely just
need polish.” To Auguste he explained, “He was originally intended for another sort of work,
but since Laurent acquired him, he has been training in one of the royal houses where the
palace staff learn their work. For someone like him, it would be very specialized training – he
would be learning how to dress a Veretian, how Prince Laurent prefers his coffee, how he
wants his bath prepared, his bed turned down, his slippers warmed - even a little bit of the
language, if he’s clever.”

“I hope he is having more luck with Veretian than I am with Akielon. Your father owes me a
tutor.”

“He wants to make sure he finds the right one.”

“He means one that won’t be put off by your lack of manners, I think,” Auguste said.
Damianos glanced at him, eyes laughing, but Laurent had lost his own amusement.

“You’ve been away," he said to Damianos, almost accusing. "How do you know all of that –
about Larius and everything?”

The question surprised him. “I asked Father to keep me updated on how you were settling in
here. Larius belongs to you, so that was part of it.”

“He’s been reporting on me?”

“Enough,” Auguste said. “Laurent, stop being rude. You mentioned a slave in your letters,
but I didn’t think you were serious.” There was little Auguste would have said was more
unlikely than his staunchly anti-slavery brother taking possession of a slave. He expected the
topic to embarrass him, but at the question, Laurent’s smile returned – ten times brighter than
it had been before.

“Oh yes,” Laurent said. “Uncle bought him for me. Uncle – shall you tell the story, or shall
I?”

--

The musicians struck up their music, and the dancing girls began their dance, and Uncle was
spared the necessity of finding a way to answer.

Laurent felt sick to his stomach.

Laurent had not, as his brother assumed, spent the last several months in total isolation. If he
had been alone more often than Auguste would have liked, well, Laurent enjoyed a certain
degree of solitude. The absence of his fiance did not mean that he was ignored by his captors
– King Theomedes met with him at least once a week without fail, and often more than that.
He even let him sit in with him in meetings, sometimes, though Laurent couldn’t understand
most of what was being said. He had yet to produce the promised tutors, but Laurent was
picking up on the Akielon, little by little, simply by exposure.

Laurent was seeing to his own education, for the most part. Auguste never failed to send him
books alongside his letters – and if ever a tome came into Ios written in Veretian, King
Theomedes made certain Laurent got it after the scribes were finished copying it for the
library. Laurent had never asked for help, but someone must have made him aware of
Laurent’s frequent packages from his brother, and so the King had, it seemed, decided to
make his own contribution.

At face, Theomedes seemed a gruff and stoic man, without humor. When he let Laurent tag
along after him while he worked, he ignored him completely. And though they frequently
played a round of Ur during their official meetings, there was no comfortable or casual air
between them. Theomedes was always to the point: what have you been doing to improve
yourself? How have you been keeping occupied? Has your uncle attempted to separate you
from your guard? What are you reading this week? Is there anything you need?

Laurent was frustrated that the Akielon language wasn’t coming to him more quickly despite
his immersion in it, though he supposed he was partially to blame for that, for keeping to
himself except for his visits with Theomedes or Larius. His Akielon guards were there to
guard Laurent, not to make friends or play tutor; they didn’t speak to him. Laurent was a
child and a foreigner and a Prince – no one spoke to him, really. Even his Veretian guards
rarely broke rank – those who had served Auguste were loyal to Auguste, and those who had
been taken from the regular line of soldiers were too afraid of losing their new positions to
risk unprofessional behavior in front of their young Prince. There had been no more nights of
wine and commraorie and dirty songs. Laurent was not one of them.

Laurent did spend a few days trying to learn Akielon from Uncle, but the process was too
uncomfortable. He couldn’t forget the altercation in the baths, and it made his skin crawl
every time his uncle so much as brushed a hand against his shoulder. Unable to dismiss the
concerns of Damianos and Theomedes, Laurent found himself questioning every glance,
every touch, every word. Laurent began to feel dirty every time his uncle’s gaze lingered too
long. Theomedes quizzed him about every second of these meetings afterwards, and he was
not satisfied with Laurent's answers until he was sure Laurent had faithfully repeated every
detail back to him, holding nothing back. When Uncle began to try to press Laurent to get the
guards who followed him to wait outside while they studied, he stopped the lessons all
together.

It was for the best, anyway. Every time he saw his uncle, Laurent felt less guilty for
distrusting him. He didn’t know a lot about sex or adult desires yet, but he knew it was wrong
for someone like his uncle to look at someone Laurent’s age and want…things. He didn’t like
that Uncle had sent for Aimeric without telling him. He didn’t like that Aimeric was absent
from dinner.

He was almost used to it now – distrusting his uncle. What really alarmed him was that he
found himself… he found that he wasn’t entirely sure he trusted Auguste anymore, either.

The fact that Auguste had known about - !

The fact that Auguste would stand there, and look him in the eye, and make excuses for - !

Anger was Laurent’s first, immediate, and most natural response. Laurent knew he had a
temper. But anger at Auguste was rare, uncomfortable, unfamiliar.

Fear followed anger. Laurent was having trouble recognizing the world he was living in.
Uncle a possible threat and Auguste excusing the abuse of children – Auguste’s constant,
rock-steady, unshakable sense of honor incomprehensibly absent when it came to this
egregious sin of their uncle’s – a stain marring his perfection that he seemed completely
unaware of. Uncle a monster and Auguste permissive of it and the Akielons – the Akielons,
their enemies – working for Laurent’s best interests, working to keep Laurent safe, trying to
make Laurent happy, while his own family seemed not to care at all - when his own family
wouldn't listen - ?

Laurent had prodded at Uncle because he had wanted to be proven wrong. The Akielons had
told Uncle that if he wanted a boy to fuck, he would need to send to Vere for one – and now a
Veretian boy had arrived, right on schedule. It didn’t matter to Laurent that Aimeric was a
Councilman’s son – not when not a single one of Uncle’s so-called “wards” had arrived with
him. What did blood or position matter, when Uncle might have planned to hurt his own
nephew, that night in the baths? Why would Aimeric’s parentage protect him when Laurent’s
might not have?

Laurent had wanted the boy pointed out to him. He had wanted to be made to look foolish for
falling for blunt, clumsy Akielon lies. Except – they weren’t lies. Uncle admitted to his tastes.
Auguste was aware of them. Auguste had been aware of them for so long that they seemed
completely normal to him. Auguste was aware of them, and had brought Aimeric - not for
Laurent, but for Uncle, and Uncle had already hurt him, and so he wasn't at dinner.

Now, across the table from him, Uncle’s eyes were not on the exotic performance of the
Akielon dancers, but on Laurent. His gaze was cold and it was calculating and it was
unfamiliar, like there was a stranger sitting there wearing his uncle’s skin. Laurent did not
recognize the man who had doted on him when he felt ignored, flattered him when his father
had only criticism, comforted him when he cried.

“You don’t enjoy the dancers?”

Laurent jumped, and without meaning to, broke his gaze from his uncle. He had not noticed
Damianos leaning across the couches to speak to him. The music was so loud that he had to
speak nearly directly into Laurent’s ear for him to hear him.

Laurent briefly flickered his gaze from his fiancé to the dancers. When he chanced a glance at
his uncle, his attention was on the performance as if their strange staring contest had never
occurred. Heart hammering, he looked to Damianos once again.

“Aren’t they slaves?” he asked. He had to lean closer, to shout, it felt like, into the other
Prince’s ear, as Damianos turned his head to hear him. He expected the question to bring
annoyance. Annoyance was usually the response he received from adults when he had
inconvenient questions.

Instead, when Damianos drew back, he wore an amused expression. He leaned in once more.
“Talent ceases to exist in captivity?” he asked.

“No,” Laurent said, flushing a little, as the music ended and his word, now too loud, drew
several looks of amusement from the nearby tables. He lowered his voice back to a
conversational level as the dancers retreated from the performance area. The musicians were
still playing, but more quietly now. Still Laurent shifted toward the end of his couch, putting
him closer to his intended. “I can see that they are very skilled,” he said. “I do not doubt that
they were made to work very hard to learn such an intricate routine. I only question whether
it should still be considered talent if one is beaten for failure? Do they dance because it is
their passion, or because some master liked the grace of their movements when they were
children, and decided to have them trained?”

Damianos laughed. “Skills like theirs are feasted and celebrated,” he said. “They’re given
incredible honor for their abilities.”

“Are they? Or is it their masters who receive the honor?”

Damianos frowned at him. Laurent expected that to be the end of the conversation, but
Damianos had moved toward the end of his couch as well. It had been surprising enough that
the man had wanted to speak to him at all; they were strangers, and Laurent was significantly
younger, and their engagement was clearly political. There was no fondness between them,
no friendship or cause for kindness. They had exchanged a mere handful of words before
Damianos had left for Vask, and a few boring, polite letters while he had been gone. It
surprised him when, as the music picked up again for the next group of dancers, the Akielon
Prince leaned toward him once again.

“What about their beauty?” he asked, gesturing. The first group had been all women. This
second group was all men. Damianos’s admiration for them had not changed. “The artistry
and grace of their frames – the litheness of their limbs – the curves of their bodies - ?”
Laurent glanced at the dancers. The women had come back out to join the men, and now both
groups danced together. When he looked at Damianos again, the man wore a stupid grin.
Laurent arched a brow. “The curves of their bodies?” he repeated, flatly. Damianos looked at
him, and he laughed at whatever it was he saw in his expression.

“Are you still too young to appreciate a woman’s body? You aren’t in Vere; you’re allowed to
look.”

Laurent wasn’t sure if he was being made fun of or not. “Are you encouraging your fiancé to
look at others?”

“Why not? I’m looking.”

Laurent didn’t glance at the dancers again. “Objectively, they are all very beautiful,” he
allowed.

“But not to your tastes?” Damianos pressed, grinning, definitely making fun of him.

“No.”

Damianos found this funnier yet. “Do you have tastes yet?”

Laurent’s face felt like it was on fire. “Don’t make sport with me,” he said. “I am not a
child.”

“As you say, Your Highness,” Damianos agreed, drawing back as the music began to grow
quiet again. He was definitely making fun of him. Laurent decided that he hated him
immensely, but before he could summon something to say that would put him properly in his
place, the damned man’s attention was diverted. The dancers were spreading out among the
tables and one of the females was passing near – all soft curved hips and gently bouncing
breasts. She was fair, with hair just a brush too light to be considered brunette – a shade of
dark honey that Damianos immediately reached out to touch as soon as she drew near.
Laurent didn’t see a signal or hear an order, but with silent, fluid grace, she folded herself to
her knees beside his couch, and pressed her forehead to the floor.

--

Theomedes was late to dinner. When he arrived, the entire hall went prostrate for him, save
for those at the royal table. His bastard, Kastor, was with him, looking red-faced and
annoyed. Laurent had begun to suspect that that was the only expression the Bastard of
Akielos knew how to make.

They’d had little treats to nibble while they waited, but with the King’s arrival, the real feast
was allowed to begin. Theomedes had his own table, and those who sat with him only came
up by invitation. Laurent had attended a few formal dinners since his arrival, sitting in as his
son, since Damianos had been away, as important bannermen and Kyroi from across the
Kingdom came to do business with their King. Laurent had never been sure whether he felt
honored or like he was being put on display like a war prize. He knew he was often
discussed, but he didn’t have enough of the language to know more than that. It was rare for
Theomedes to bother translating anything for him.

This feast was a much larger affair than those, but recognizably similar. Usually the visiting
guest would approach the King’s table to pay respect, but because he was a King himself,
Auguste was not expected to. In a way, though this dinner was larger and more expensive
than the others Laurent had seen, that lack made it feel more informal. Perhaps Theomedes
wanted it to feel relaxed. A family dinner, with three hundred of their closest leeches.

Kastor began to follow his father to the royal table, but at the last moment, the King turned.
The look he gave his son sent the bastard Prince into retreat – not to the table where
Damianos and Laurent and Laurent’s family sat, but to his own personal table, where his
people waited. He had his own estates outside the palace, and his own household to dine with
– slaves and mistresses and a whole slew of bastards of his own. He did not stop to greet his
brother or any of the Veretian royals when he passed – though, technically, he should have.
He was a Prince of Akielos, but his bastard lineage meant that every man at their table held a
higher status than him. Even a nod of acknowledgement would have been more acceptable
than his outright refusal to see them.

If Damianos noticed, he didn’t respond to it. Laurent was glad. He did not want Kastor to join
them.

Laurent knew that Kastor had not gone with his brother to Vask, but he had been unable to
learn what it was he had been doing, instead. It seemed he was always in and out of the
palace, his comings and goings wholly unpredictable even to those who did speak the
language. He ignored Laurent, as most of his countrymen did. There was no cause for
Laurent to personally dislike him – but Laurent did. He felt his skin crawl whenever the
bastard was nearby, and he didn’t think it was because of his lineage. There was something
about the dark, hungry way the Prince watched the world he inhabited that set Laurent on
edge. He was like a starving dog left out on a chain.

As soon as Theomedes was seated, slaves began to bring out the meal. Akielons didn’t deal
in courses like Veretians did – dainty little mosels handed out hour after hour, often each
themed specifically to accompany a wine or a cheese or a specific performance. If one came
to a Veretian feast hungry, it was said, one would die of starvation before the meal was
halfway through. Some more extravagant meals lasted days. For Akielon feasts, everything
was brought out at once, every table laden down with an overgenerous array of great, heavy
platters of food that the guests were then expected to share among themselves, serving
themselves what they wanted or having their slaves do it for them.

Laurent hadn’t thought to warn Auguste. He hoped he hadn’t spent the last few hours eating
in preparation for the evening.

Damianos had taken a liking to the dancing girl with the jiggly breasts and the honey-colored
hair. She knelt at his feet, still, and when the food arrived, she rose up on her knees and took
his plate in hand, selecting out the most choice bits she could reach, and then hand-feeding
them to the smiling Akielon Prince, who was so wholly besotted with her that the rest of
them might as well have ceased to exist.
Pathetic.

Laurent had selected one of the commoners pulled from the regular army to serve as his
Veretian guard for the night, because he had been afraid that if he brought one of his brother’s
friends he would be forced to spend the evening listening to them laugh and catch up and
debate with one another while he sat there ignored and resentful. Auguste was on friendly
terms with all of the men who served in the Prince’s – now the King’s – guard, but the five he
had loaned out to Laurent were particular favorites of his, and Laurent felt that he deserved to
have his brother’s undivided attention for one night, at the very least.

He had failed to consider that his overly-friendly brother would, of course, decide that his
time was better spent getting to know the guard Laurent had chosen.

“Daud, wasn’t it?”

“Jord, Your Majesty.”

“I recall your swordwork on the field. You must indulge me tomorrow in a sparring session.
All of my men know too many of my tricks by now; I never win anymore.”

“A fresh victim, is it?” Laurent had thought that Damianos was too caught up in his dancing
girl to be aware of anything else around him, but the talk of swords had drawn his attention
and proven more interesting to him than even the mystifying allure of bouncy breasts. “How
do I get an invitation?”

Laurent was unfamiliar with the cool way his brother looked at Damianos. Both men seemed
so irresistible to everyone around them, so unthinkingly likable, that Laurent had expected
them to spark an immediate and lifelong friendship.

“Don’t you think that’s a dangerous idea?” Auguste asked after a longer pause than was
polite. “We were only recently at war, after all.”

“But we are brothers now,” Damianos argued. “The war is over. You got the better of Kastor;
I would love to see how I measure up.”

“All right,” Auguste agreed, slowly, coldly. “I can keep it friendly if you can.”

“Why not use dulled blades?” Laurent suggested flatly. “Then you can beat the shit out of
each other to your hearts’ content.”

Laurent was so used to being ignored that it surprised him when he found both men’s
attention suddenly turned his way. Worse, they had both begun to smile.

“Didn’t I tell you my brother was brilliant?” Auguste asked, and it seemed as if he was
warming up at last. Laurent was certain he was being made fun of again, because Damianos
took the stupid question seriously.

“If you had not, I would have noticed very quickly on my own,” Damianos told him. He
sounded…enthusiastic. “We can do it before our swim. We will work up a good sweat to start
the day. The men will appreciate the entertainment, too.”
“I like it,” Auguste said. “I need my brother’s husband to be fully aware of how thoroughly I
can trounce him, and how little I will hesitate to do so.”

Damianos laughed. The warmth of it made Laurent uncomfortable.

He was surprised when the man looked at him, all warm chocolate eyes and boyishly smiling
mouth and dark, soft-looking curls tousled around his face. “You should get a round in, too,”
he suggested, as Laurent swallowed, hard. “I’m sure you think that you can trounce me, too.”

“My apologies, Damianos, my brother prefers to fight with his words, not his blade.”

“I don’t enjoy swords,” Laurent said. His cold tone was at odds with the warmth flushing his
face under the bright intensity of the attention of the Prince of Akielos. Perhaps the slaves
had failed to put enough water in his wine. He felt a little dizzy.

“Maybe you just haven’t found an opponent who inspires you yet,” Damianos suggested.

“I doubt that,” Laurent told him, lifting his chin. “I’ve fought my brother, and he’s the
greatest swordsman in the world.”

“Oh? Is that so?”

Damianos was making fun of him. That was the theme, it seemed, tonight. Laurent hated
him. His heart was pounding. Then, Auguste decided to make it worse.

“That may be so,” Auguste said, “But my brother is the best horseman in the world!
Damianos, have you raced him, yet?”

“As a matter of fact, I have not.”

“Not only is he the greatest horseman, he is the cutest, the sweetest, the – “

Laurent groaned, and he hid his face in his hands.

Salvation, when it came, arrived from an unlikely source.

Theomedes often worked through meals, setup at his table with stacks of paperwork close at
hand and Kyroi or advisors or petitioners darting up and away like feeding hummingbirds all
throughout his meal. Laurent had only witnessed him setting his work aside twice – and
formally welcoming the King of Vere to his country was, evidently, not a good enough
reason. Laurent hadn’t really been surprised to find him working – what did surprise him was
when King Theomedes looked up from the document he was examining to call Auguste to
his table, interrupting him mid-adjective.

Auguste was not a man who was accustomed to being called to heel like a dog. Laurent saw
the pause it gave him, the moment he took, his devlish joy at Laurent’s humiliation fading
away as he considered the merits of taking offense.

In the end, he chose practicality over pride. Auguste chose not to take offense – though
Laurent was sure it took every scrap of control he possessed. He rose and went to the King’s
table. Laurent pushed up from his couch and hurried to follow, uninvited.

“Is this your proposed draft of the treaty?” Theomedes asked as Auguste drew near. His voice
was gruff, and he was frowning. He didn’t acknowledge Laurent – nor Damianos, who had
turned to observe the altercation without rising, himself.

“Did it come in an envelope with my seal?” Auguste asked. “Then it’s mine.”

Theomedes did not like his answer. He threw the paper down on the table before him, and
jabbed it hard with his finger. “These are your demands?” he demanded, thunderous.

Auguste stood stiffly, anger stirring slowly behind his eyes at the treatment.

“I do not believe I have asked for anything unreasonable,” he said.

Theomedes stared at him, hard, and the tension began to rose between the two men, until
even other tables began to take notice, and conversation around the hall began to falter and
die off. Theomedes glanced, briefly, at Laurent, and then behind him, where Damianos was
slowly rising from his couch.

“You insist on these terms?” Theomedes asked.

Auguste, as King, did not have the same endless measure of patience that Auguste-the-Prince
had possessed. “Sign it or reject it,” he said. “I grow weary of your barbaric games. Shall we
return to war over such a small matter?”

“A small matter,” Theomedes repeated. Holding eye contact with Auguste, he put his stamp
on the terms, and handed them, crumpled, to a waiting slave. “I will have Akielos’s answer
ready for signing by the end of the Games,” he said. His lip curled in disgust – an expression
Laurent had never before seen anyone direct toward his dear brother. He supposed he should
not have been too surprised; he hardly recognized Auguste, himself, these days. “My answer
is no. No, I will not return to war over what you term to be a small matter.” Laurent realized
he was not using the royal we the King spoke with when dealing with formal matters pf the
crown, but speaking for himself.

“Vere is so very thankful for your gracious consideration,” Auguste answered. “It is so kind
of you to agree not to return to the war you started.”

Laurent realized he was moving forward – without really meaning to. Damianos was, as well.
However Laurent felt about being sold off in marriage to a brute with a love of dancing girls
and more muscles than brains, he was not willing to bear the embarrassment of enduring a
shouting match between two Kings.

Evidently, Damianos was of the same mind. Without discussing it, they moved to intervene.

Auguste jerked and nearly pulled away when Laurent took hold of his arm and began tugging
him without a word back toward the table. He resisted, but only for a moment.

“Every turn,” he hissed at Laurent, pointing back toward the other King. “Every chance he
gets, he insults us!”
“King Theomedes has been very kind,” Laurent said. In many ways, it was true. “And this is
hardly the correct venue for negotiations.”

He glanced over his shoulder at the King. Damianos was sitting on his father’s couch, and
whatever he was saying, he kept it low and quiet. Theomedes was staring at Auguste as if he
had never hated anyone more.

“Come and sit,” Laurent ordered, low. “We are meant to be celebrating the alliance – and
celebrating my birthday. Is war the gift you’ve chosen to give me? Sit down.”

Auguste did, but he wasn’t happy about it. He met King Theomedes glare-for-glare, like two
over-aggressive young chevaliers meeting on the practice field.

“Mother was always onto him about his table manners,” Damianos said when he returned to
them, not long after. “So I have been told, anyway. Please, accept my apologies. I am afraid
you are not likely to receive any from him.”

“So you’ve been told?” Laurent repeated, because Auguste and Theomedes were still huffing
and staring death at one another, and it seemed like no one else in the entire hall was
speaking in anything louder than a scandalized whisper, and he hoped conversation might
bring his brother back to him. The only other option was speaking to Uncle, and Laurent did
not have the nerve for that. Damianos was trying to make a joke, but Laurent grabbed onto
the topic and held on for dear life. “You don’t know for yourself?”

“She died in childbirth,” Damen told him. Perhaps he understood what it was Laurent was
trying to do; he could have stopped there, but after a moment where his eyes took in the tense
state of the hall, he looked back at Laurent, and he continued. “Kastor speaks of her often
enough – and fondly, too. His own mother died when he was still quite young – took fever, I
think, during a difficult summer. Mother sort of adopted him after that. Father could not bear
to look at him while he was grieving, so he sent him away to her palace. I think that the way
she cared for Kastor was what made Father finally fall in love with her.”

“But your parents were married for years before Kastor was born.” Laurent was certain he
remembered reading that.

“A political alliance – like ours,” Damianos’s smile was without humor, but it also lacked
bitterness. He knocked his knuckles against Laurent’s shoulder as if they were soldiers in the
field. “Father wanted to unite the tribes of Akielos, and Mother was descended from the old
Kings. Her family was the only one with a claim as strong as his. But Hypermenestra was
always the love of his life, and for a long time it seemed like Mother would be barren.” He
told it in a careless way, like reciting a history lesson. It had all happened before he was born,
to people he had never known, save his father. Around them, the hall was stirring a little,
conversation beginning to pick up again. Damianos continued talking to him anyway. “After
a while, they stopped trying for a legitimate heir and they lived most of the year apart, in
separate palaces. But after Father came out of his grief for Hypermenestra and saw how
Mother loved Kastor, he began to love her, too.”

“And then you were born.”

 “And then I was born.”

“That’s a very shitty fairy tale.”

It surprised a laugh out of him. Damianos lifted his cup, and he clinked it against Laurent’s.
“Kastor told it to me when I was four. Imagine how I felt.” He laughed again at the
expression on Laurent’s face. The noise level in the hall had almost returned to normal. At
some point, Theomedes had broken off the staring contest, and was now in deep conversation
with a page. Auguste was mashing his food into paste. Damianos held all of Laurent’s
attention. “He told me once that he thought he would never forgive me for causing the death
of his second mother.”

“Are you sure he has?”

The question slipped out faster than Laurent’s better judgement could work. It startled
Damianos – and it startled Auguste, too, who lifted his head like a man coming out of a deep
sleep, and frowned at him across the table.

“Laurent, that’s rude.”

Laurent blinked at him, his face beginning to warm as he heard Damianos give a breathless
sort of laugh. Slowly, Laurent turned his attention from his brother to his fiancé. He smiled,
sweetly.

“My apologies. Tell me, Prince Damianos – is it common for hypocrisy to be served as a side
to lamb in Akielos?”

“I think traditionally it’s served with fish,” Damianos answered, with mock solemnity.
Despite it all, Laurent found himself fighting a smile.

Auguste didn’t try to defend himself – and he didn’t try to continue the argument. His eyes
had returned to the King’s table.

But Theomedes had left.

Chapter End Notes

I know Erasmus’s short story implies Kastor’s mom is still alive but if that’s the case it
bothers the shit out of me that we never see or hear from her while her son is murdering
his family and staging a coup sooo I’m going to pretend that is a canon inconsistency
and for me she is no longer with us. Thank you for understanding.
 Chapter 12
Chapter Notes

One more for the road.

This one is kind of short because I mess up with some chapter numbering- but in the
long run it helps me because now I have time to post again before my trip!

Laurent found himself thinking about his conversation with Damianos long after dinner had
ended. It did not fail to occur to him that elements of his story would be similar to that of the
unfortunate Queen Egeria. Married for political reasons, married for peace. Damianos would
have mistresses aplenty to give him heirs. Perhaps he, too, would find a favorite. Perhaps he
would love one of them.

None of that bothered Laurent. He had no feelings for the muscle-bound barbarian his fate
was now ties to. He was young, but he was not stupid; he didn’t harbor some romantic
fantasy or expectation that they would come to care for one another, let alone that his
husband might be faithful. It was a practical concern, if nothing else.

What did concern Laurent was the idea of the isolation Egeria must have felt, living in a
separate palace while her husband had his life and family in Ios. Laurent wondered if that
isolation had been what brought her to take care of her husband’s bastard after
Hypermenestra’s death. Even believing she could not bear children of her own, it could not
have been an easy decision for her, could it? Laurent did not think he would be capable of
doing the same – not merely because he himself had never wanted nor expected to have
children, but because a bastard with the features of one’s husband and his mistress would
surely be a reminder of all that had been sacrificed in the name of politics and peace.

Damianos was awake and taking breakfast in his sitting room when his slaves allowed
Laurent into his quarters.

“I started before I received your request to join me,” Damianos said, as Laurent’s eyes swept
the table of half-eaten food. “I wasn’t expecting company.”

“Is it much of an imposition?”

“No, no – I just feel rude for having started without you.”

“I was rude for having invited myself to breakfast. Thank you for accommodating me.”

They fell silent, each regarding the other as slaves brought Laurent’s coffee and breakfast to
join Damen’s at the table. As Damianos had said, he had not been expecting company. His
dark curls were a riot of bedhead, and his chiton – donned quickly in respect for Laurent’s
Veretian sensibilities – was pinned in a haphazard, lopsided way.

Laurent had made the decision not to fully dress before this impromptu meeting. He’d laced
himself into a pair of comfortable trousers and a loose shirt, but he’d only thrown a dressing
gown over top it all, rather than the rest of the proper Veretian corsetry and jacketing. Even
his boots had been left behind in favor of soft bedslippers. He had thought it would be better
not to come laced up and formal. He had hoped it would set Damianos at ease were he to
come like this; he’d known the encounter would be awkward, and he’d wanted to make it less
so.

He did feel a bit naked.

“You must wake early,” Laurent said.

“You too.”

“I’m going to sit.”

“Yes, of course.”

Silence again. Slaves moved around them in a graceful kind of dance, setting out a plate and
silverware for him, preparing his coffee the way they had come to learn he preferred.
Through the hazy gauze of curtains that covered the arched doorway to the bedchamber,
Laurent could just make out the dancer with the dark honey hair, tangled up in the other
Prince’s bedsheets.

“I am unsure of the etiquette,” Laurent said. “Do we invite her to join us?”

Damianos followed his gaze, and then he jumped, as if he had forgotten she was there.

“I’m sorry,” he began.

Laurent looked at him steadily. “For what?”

After a moment, it seemed he understood. The tension in his broad shoulders softened,
somewhat.

“Do we invite her?” Laurent asked, again.

“No. No, we don’t need to do that.”

“I don’t mind.”

“It’s not – it’s not her place. It would make her uncomfortable.”

Laurent shrugged, and he reached for his coffee. In Vere, Pets often shared meals with their
masters. He wasn’t certain whether or not a regular servant would have been invited, but it
seemed that if one was worthy of sharing someone’s bed, then they should be equally worthy
of sharing their breakfast table. He didn’t press the issue.
“Aren’t you young for that?” Damianos asked, watching Laurent take the first sip of his
coffee.

“My brother thinks so, too.”

“Your brother…” Damianos lacked the skill to hide a grimace at the mention of Auguste.
“Will he be joining us, too?”

“No,” Laurent said. He took another sip. It was perfect. “I wanted you to myself.”

“Oh. Good.” Damianos looked a little confused and miserable.

Laurent didn’t care. He took his time gathering his thoughts, trying to put them into an order
that would be both clear and concise. He reached for some of the bread on the table, and took
his time preparing it with butter and honey. Damianos grew steadily more uncomfortable
across from him.

“I’ve been thinking about your mother,” Laurent began finally.

Damen answered, “That is absolutely the strangest thing I think you could have said.”

“Don’t be amusing. I am here to have a serious conversation with you.”

Damen’s eyes gleamed in a way that made Laurent utterly convinced he was being laughed at
– but the man began to eat again, and motioned for Laurent to go on.

“You’ve been thinking about my mother,” he prompted, sounding amused.

Laurent drew a breath. “I want you to teach me Akielon.”

“Once again, I am not following your thought process.”

“Your father promised me a tutor, which he has thus far failed to provide.”

“He wants to make the correct choice.”

“You’re my fiancé. You’re the correct choice.”

Damianos regarded him seriously. “Laurent,” he began.

“I don’t want to live in separate palaces. I don’t want to be strangers with my own spouse.
And I don’t want a tutor whose motivations and political affiliations I must always question.
Therefore, it clearly must be you. At least, assuming our interests align in at least some
aspects.”

“And you got this by thinking about my mother.”

“Regardless of how I reached my conclusion – I’m here to befriend you.”

“You…” Damianos rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“If you teach me,” Laurent said, “Then it stands to reason you will be more likely to grow to
become fond of me. If you feel fondness toward me, then you will me less likely to require I
spend my future in isolation in this country. So, you are going to teach me your language, and
we are going to be friends. I am firmly decided on the matter.”

“You can’t just will a friendship into existence.”

“Yes I can.”

Damianos laughed, helplessly. He looked a bit as if he’d been hit by a carriage.

Laurent said, “Shall we start with breakfast terminology? What do you call coffee?”

--

Mornings in Ios were beautiful – waking to the sound of the ocean and the fresh sea air, the
pinks and oranges of dawn cresting the horizon. The simple, thoughtful architecture
somehow contributed to the natural beauty, with no added frills to distract the eye.

The food was good, too.

These were the points that Auguste was prepared to make to Laurent, the next time he saw
his brother. Landscape and food were pathetic reasons to comply with a forced marriage to a
stranger, but he had to start somewhere, before Laurent’s mouth got them into trouble.

Last night, Auguste had been the one who had wanted to pull out of their agreement, bundle
Laurent up, and hurry home on his fastest ship. It was unusual for him to be so quick to
anger, so eager to take offense. He had no excuse for his behavior, save that being a King was
stressful, and the journey to Akielos had been long and unforgiving, and he felt a distance
growing between himself and his little brother where none had ever existed before – and that,
truly, broke his heart.

Auguste owed apologies all around – to Laurent, to Damianos, to Theomedes. When he had
calmed down, he remembered the blood-soaked battlefields. He remembered the destruction
wrought across Delfeur. He remembered the suffering of his people, for no other cause than
one man’s selfish quest to reclaim ancient glory. He remembered the burden of trying to rule
without his father’s steady guidance, and what it would mean to back out of a peace he had
already promised his people.

Auguste had already sacrificed Laurent for Vere. Surely he could sacrifice some of his pride,
too.

Auguste joined the group of warriors preparing to leave for the morning’s festivities at the
sea, and he was one of the last to arrive. For the most part, the gathering consisted of Akielon
athletes and slaves with downturned eyes. Laurent, with his slender build and his prideful
bearing and his golden hair easily stood out among them, despite being the smallest man
present.
Observing those gathered, a part of Auguste began looking for an excuse as to why Laurent
should stay behind. His brother hated sports, and would have no interest in the promised
duels, nor in the swimming. More importantly, it was a large group, full of loud, rowdy
young men, and Laurent was shy. Yes, all of his guards were participating, and Auguste was
looking forward to catching up with them – but Laurent’s nature and his preferences were the
main reasons Auguste began to think he should stay behind. It would be a miserable day for
Laurent – even before he took into account the sun or the heat of the sand.

Auguste found his brother standing with Damianos, a very serious, very concentrated look
upon his face. He pointed at something, and Damianos responded. Auguste was too far away
to heave what was said, but the Akielon prince laughed at whatever it was Laurent replied
with.

As he came closer, Auguste did not fail to catch the thin edge of annoyance in his brother’s
voice.

“ – did say it like that.”

“You didn’t,” Damianos insisted, good naturedly. “It’s all right. Many people find accents
charming.”

“I don’t care about charming. What about that? What is your word for wine barrel?”

Damianos said something in Akielon. He laughed helplessly when Laurent stumbled,

repeating it. Laurent scowled at him.

“Why is every word in your language so ugly?”

“It’s not – you’re just not used to moving your mouth that way.”

Laurent repeated the word again. It sounded fine to Auguste, but Damianos’s grin remained
amused. He corrected something. Laurent, face going red, repeated it again.

“Better!” Damianos said. “Not as cute, but better!”

“A language lesson?” Auguste hazarded as he joined them.

“So he says. He hasn’t taken a single note yet. We’ll see what he remembers tomorrow.”

“I’ll remember,” Laurent said.

“He’ll remember,” Auguste agreed.

The Akielon Prince lifted his brows. Laurent, in response, looked both pleased and smug.
Auguste couldn’t help but to ache, a little, because it seemed suddenly as if it had been eons
since he had last seen his brother wear that particular expression.

“Quiz me tomorrow,” Laurent challenged. “I will bet you a sol I remember every word.”
“That’s a good way to bankrupt your country,” Auguste warned. “Be careful. If he offers to
lend it back to you, the interest rate will be astronomical.”

“Not if I keep adding to the vocabulary,” Damianos said. And in rapid fire he began to point
at random items around them in the courtyard, saying their Akielon names one after another,
too quickly for Laurent to have time to repeat after him.

“You’re cheating!” Laurent accused. “Akielons are supposed to frown upon foul play.”

“It isn’t foul play if you’ve failed to establish the rules. But, if you want to give up…”

Laurent frowned at him. Then, with a look of determination, be pointed to the first of the
items Damianos had named, and he began to repeat the Akielon words one by one, stubborn
and determined and concentrated. There were at least a dozen.

“Quit while you’re ahead,” Laurent advised when he was done. “You will not like what
happens if you continue to test me.”

Damianos looked startled for a moment. Then he grinned, and began the task of correcting
Laurent’s pronunciation.

--

“I was hoping Kastor would join us today,” Damen said, throwing himself down next to
Laurent. Slaves had set out several shaded pavilions along the shore to provide a comfortable
place to retreat whenever they needed a break from the sea or their games. They were all
equipped with food and drink and couches to recline upon, though Laurent had opted for
stretching himself out on a blanket over the sand with a book. Because the pavilions had been
erected the night before, the ground shaded beneath them was still cool, untouched by the
sun. It felt good.

“I didn’t see much of your brother while you were away,” Laurent answered. He didn’t look
up from his book as he spoke.

Damen had had an enjoyable morning – much more enjoyable than he would have dared
hope for when he and his father began planning their sea-bathing venture for the men. While
it was still cool outside, he and the other men had practiced sparring with dulled swords. All
five of Laurent’s Veretian guards were present, and Damen and Auguste had traded off
fighting each of them to warm up, before finally facing off against each other. Auguste was
the slightly better swordsman – something Damen had expected, since he had bested Kastor
at Marlas. Auguste was a gracious winner, though, and a fun opponent, easily the best of the
men gathered today. Damen had expected the fair-skinned Veretians to retreat en-masse to the
pavilions the moment the day began to warm, but so far only Laurent had done so. Auguste
was still out on the sand, asking the guard, Jord, to once again explain a particular maneuver
he had found interesting.

“Kastor has his own estate, just outside Ios,” Damen explained. “He usually only stays there
when he’s quarreling with Father, but…”
“I imagine my presence is a continuous reminder of his loss in the field,” Laurent mused. “It
makes sense that he would avoid interacting with me.”

Damen grimaced. He had not witnessed much of the altercation with Auguste at Marlas, but
Nikandros had described it to him in detail. The loss had been humiliating, particularly when
paired with the persistent rumors that Kastor had begged for his life. Even still, there had
been a greater humiliation than that.

“Kastor is my father’s eldest child,” Damen reminded him. “He feels that he was slighted
when he was passed over for the alliance. Being born a bastard is no fault of his, but now it
has cost him both a throne and an advantageous match.”

“There is nothing to gain from marrying me,” Laurent said with a snort. “Once my brother
begins producing offspring, I will cease to be the heir to Vere’s throne.”

“It… was not the first time. Kastor has been rejected for matches because of his birth before.
There was a Patran lady, a few daughters of former Akielon chieftains father wanted to
pacify, a Kyroi I believe he was actually fond of…” Damen glanced, guiltily, at Laurent.
“This information is not well known. I would appreciate it if you didn’t share it.”

“Who would I tell?” the boy asked, a little flatly. “I suppose, lacking legitimacy himself,
Kastor would find some appeal in being able to borrow it from someone else.”

He couldn’t have sounded less interested in the conversation. His eyes were on King
Auguste, who had begun to spar once more, now against two of the Veretian guards. Damen
itched to throw himself back into the fray, but –

Laurent hated sports, and, as Auguste had pointed out, his entire birthday celebrations had
been built around them. Even his gifts – Damen knew the palace had arranged for an entire
soldier’s kit to be made for him, with Veretian colors and insignia, but Akielon style. It was
the kind of gift Damen would have been mad for when he turned fourteen, but Laurent –

Laurent was stuck sweating outside, watching his brother spar and roughhouse in the sand, an
afterthought forgotten by everyone until Damen had come to join him.

You’re desperately unhappy, aren’t you? Damen wanted to ask.

“Do you know how to swim?” Damen asked, instead, and Laurent didn’t move, even to flick
his gaze Damen’s way.

“Of course I do,” the boy answered.

“Do you like to swim?” Damen pressed.

“Why?”

That wasn’t the most promising answer. “Unless you would rather grab a sword. I do suspect
you’re secretly a highly skilled master able and willing to put us all in our place.”
Laurent snorted, softly. Damen rose, and Laurent blinked at him as he extended both hands
down to him.

“It will help cool you down,” Damen promised. Laurent’s cheeks were, indeed, flushed from
the heat.

The boy jerked his chin toward the shore, where several of the soldiers had chucked off their
chitons and were now occupied with something that, admittedly, looked like a mass
drowning.

“I’m not doing that,” Laurent said.

“You can just swim,” Damen promised. “I won’t let anyone bother you.”

Laurent looked up at him, his blue eyes rivaling the sea.

“I’m not – fun,” he said, after a moment’s hesitation.

Damen didn’t have an answer to that. It was a statement, not a question, and he didn’t know
Laurent well enough to say if it was an accurate self-assessment or not. He did seem to hate a
number of Damen’s favorite things.

Before Damen could fumble his way to an answer, Laurent took his hands, and he pulled,
helping himself to his feet.
 Chapter 13
Chapter Notes

My trip was great. I spent a night in the hotel that inspired The Shining. Sad to report no
spooky happenings.

This chapter starts cute, then goes downhill.

Warnings for more Auguste stupidity, and Uncle Richard being gross.

Exercise and sweat – those had always been the ingredients for Auguste’s tried and true cure-
all. There was very little that Auguste enjoyed more than to feel the ache of tired muscles, to
know he had pushed himself and to know, whatever his well-trained body’s highest potential
for skill or strength, he had yet to reach it. There was always something new for him to aspire
to.

Auguste sparred with his men, and he sparred with Laurent’s men, and he sparred with the
Akielon soldiers and their Prince, and when he could find no more opponents to test himself
against, he stripped himself down to nothing and he joined them in the sea, letting himself be
invigorated and cleansed by the crash of salt waves.

Many of the men were splashing and roughhousing, even wrestling in the surf. Even with the
language barrier, it didn’t take Auguste long to organize a series of impromptu races. Even
Laurent participated in those – and he made a very good showing, especially considering his
age. His slender young body did not possess the power or the strength of the warriors
surrounding him, but he was well-suited to swimming, and did not lose. He took his rank in
the lower middle with good grace.

Only hunger drove the men from the sea. They had been going since just after dawn – and
slaves were replacing the snacks they had had all morning with hot, fresh dishes of fish and
lemon and herbs, of rice and bread, fruit and honey, a sauce made of cucumbers, a paste of
nuts and garlic, and many, many casks of wine.

They had been nude while swimming. In Akielos, as in Vere, there was nothing scandalous or
embarrassing about nudity, as long as it was presented in the correct context. Akielons even
performed some sports in the nude. For swimming and swim bathing, there felt like there was
some intersection of their cultures. None of the men rising from the waters to take their
midday meal felt any sort of hurry to cover themselves in this particular context. Anyone who
did choose to cover himself did it in a halfhearted manner – a shirt thrown on, or a chiton
haphazardly pinned.
“You’ve burned,” Albur said, coming up behind Auguste and laying a slap against his back as
if to ensure that the Veretian King did not waste time trying to figure out where said burn
was. Auguste had been unaware of it until his friend did that. After, the sting was impossible
to ignore.

“You didn’t,” Auguste observed, jealously.

“Your brother’s had us all out everyday, trying to get used to the sun,” Albur said. “But when
he realized how few of us were browning, he asked Theomedes. The King told him to try
olive oil.” Albur nodded toward the Prince. Laurent was one of the ones who had chosen to
throw a shirt on upon exiting the water, though he hadn’t laced it up. The wide, open neck
revealed that he was pink along the shoulders, but not red. The hem of the shirt fell to mid-
thigh, giving him even more of a childish appearance in comparison with all of the bulk and
muscle of the other men around him.

“He should have put some on his face,” Auguste said, noting how red it was.

Albur laughed. “That isn’t from the sun,” he said. Auguste’s bewilderment surprised him.
“You haven’t noticed? Your brother is growing up, Auguste. He always gets red-faced and
tongue-tied around men of a certain build.”

“Of a what?” Auguste looked around. There was not a man present who looked like a pet.

“You only like women; you can’t expect to understand it. But the fact remains – your little
brother likes beef.”

“Beef?”

“And you have surrounded him with Akielon giants and more dicks than you could choke a
donkey with.”

Auguste made a sound that, ironically enough, did greatly resemble the kind of noise a
choking donkey might make. Whatever the expression that passed across his face, his friend
laughed, and he slapped Auguste’s burned back again.

“Sebastian!” Albur called, waving over Auguste’s Captain. “Sebastian, please, before our
King finds a way to talk himself into believing I’m mistaken – Prince Laurent. What would
you say of our young Prince’s developing proclivities?”

“Mn?” Sebastian looked between Albur and Auguste. “Why are we having this
conversation?”

“Humor me.”

“He likes large men,” Sebastian said.

“Oh, come – you two planned this, didn’t you?”

“This is the first we’ve had the opportunity to speak.” Sebastian frowned at Auguste. “What’s
the matter? You knew that, surely. The boy is always coming out to watch the men practice.
You know he hates sports. Did you think he was coming out to watch you?”

Albur made a motion, as if to say you see?

Auguste looked back toward the pavilions, where slaves were serving food and pouring wine
amid a sea of muscular naked men. For a minute, he felt something like alarm – and then
someone moved, and he finally found his brother, curled up on one of the lounging couches,
still blushing, but with a thoughtful, serious expression on his face as he spoke to Damianos
who, it now occurred to Auguste, had been particularly attentive toward Laurent today.

What else occurred to Auguste was how young his brother was compared to all the other
men. Achingly young, so easy to overlook in light of his quick intelligence. To Auguste, it
had been years since Laurent had been a child. He was a mind, more than he was anything
else – more than he was an age or a gender or a body. Laurent was young and he was slight,
delicate as a pet. He possessed their mother’s beauty – or, he would, in a few years. He would
have the sort of beauty men would obsess over, and Auguste hadn’t seen it.

You have children – I’ll have books. Laurent was reaching the season where childhood would
leave him forever, and still it had never occurred to Auguste that his brother might be
beginning to develop preferences or lusts. It had not entered his mind that soon other men
might begin to notice his brother – might begin to see not a child with a precocious and
ravenous intellect, but a potential conquest. Even when Auguste had been negotiating the
alliance with Akielos, knowing full well that a marriage would have to one day require
consummation, he had not once thought of the matter in terms of sex. If he considered it at
all, it had been as a one-time duty, passionless and unfortunate as a physician’s exam.

The boy is always coming out to watch the men practice.

“He looks ill,” Sebastian said of Auguste. Damianos had turned to take a plate from a slave,
and while he was turned away Auguste saw his little brother’s eyes dart, quickly, to the
barbarian’s massive cock. Laurent’s attention was back on Damen’s face when the man
turned back to him. Laurent motioned, inviting Damianos to join him on his couch.

“Auguste, you were his age, weren’t you, when you lost your virginity?” Albur asked.

“Younger,” Sebastian corrected. He rolled his eyes. “You were…twelve? Gods, that was
terrible.”

“That’s right! You’re the reason he prefers women! How does it feel, knowing your failed
lovemaking is what turned your King into a pervert?”

“Auguste,” Sebastian was laughing. “Do you remember how high you jumped when I started
to put it in?”

Auguste wasn’t listening.

Auguste was, in fact, moving.

The reclining couch had not been built for more than two people. It was a tight squeeze when
Auguste sat himself unceremoniously between his brother and the Akielon prince. Damianos,
after a moment of confused silence, stood back up.

Laurent looked at Auguste and he said something incomprehensible in Akielon. He said it

carefully and coolly, with a completely straight face.

“Excuse me?” Auguste asked.

“Exactly,” Laurent answered. “I very kindly asked you if you were aware that there are plenty
of other places to sit.”

“You asked him for directions to the buttered toast,” Damianos corrected.

“He would never of known that if you didn’t tell him,” Laurent said with a glare. Damianos
looked delighted, which Auguste absolutely hated.

“Was I interrupting?” Auguste asked. “I’m sorry; I wasn’t aware.”

“We were continuing our language lesson,” Laurent said.

“Your brother refuses to acknowledge that the more words he ‘learns’ today, the worse he
will fail tomorrow when I test him.”

“Have you noticed that Aimeric never arrived?”

Laurent’s question was an abrupt change of topic. Auguste couldn’t help but to glance at the
path that had taken them down to the seaside that morning.

“Not much of a companion, is he?” Laurent continued. “I have yet to lay eyes on him even
once.”

“He seems to be like you. This isn’t the kind of activity he would enjoy. Or perhaps he’s still
ill from the journey.”

“But I invited him.”

Auguste sighed. “Say what you have to say, Laurent.”

“I only wondered if Dear Uncle has seen him.”

“Laurent…”

Auguste himself heard the dismissive disapproval in his voice, a distant but unmistakable
echo of the tone their father had so often taken with his youngest. It surprised him, hearing
that tone issue from his own lips. He was very familiar with Laurent’s response – the way his
bright eyes shuttered, the immediate and intensely private way he retreated.

Nevertheless, Auguste pressed forward.

“I find your recent attitude toward our uncle intensely disturbing, even disgusting,” Auguste
said. “I’m concerned, Laurent. It’s bad enough you’ve convinced yourself that you aren’t safe
with him, but to imply he would abuse the son of a Councilman… Are you intent on twisting
every kindness he has ever shown you?”

“You find my concern more disturbing than the fact our uncle likes to fuck children?”

Auguste fought a cold flush. He knew his brother’s tone. He did not remember many
occasions where he’d had cause to argue with his brother, but he had witnessed many
altercations between Laurent and Father over the years. He knew the icy pitch of Laurent’s
voice. He knew the mocking smile that played at his lips. He knew how vicious and how
cutting his brother could be in his wrath.

“You twist my words,” Auguste began.

Experience told him what was coming. He knew Laurent would dig in his heels and lash out
like a cornered animal. He tried to brace himself.

He wasn’t prepared for it when Laurent abruptly pushed to his feet and walked away.

“I’m tired of the sun,” Laurent told the slave boy he had brought down to the shore with him.
“Fetch the horses.” He repeated the order in halting Akielon when the boy failed to
understand what he was saying.

Auguste could feel the Prince of Akielos watching him.

“For the sake of the peace between our countries,” Auguste said, “I will strongly suggest that
you think matters over very carefully before choosing to insert yourself into this
conversation.”

Damianos had never struck Auguste as a man in possession of any unusual abundance of
wisdom, but he stayed silent, frowning. Auguste was grateful, in any case.

It had only been a few months, and yet Laurent seemed unrecognizable to him. The physical
changes of a boy at the beginning of his journey to manhood, the crack in his voice, the way
his eyes followed the naked Akielons, the presence of a personal slave –

- And now this.

--

“He has never been argumentative with me before,” Auguste said. It was the next day, an the
Games were soon to begin, and Auguste could think of nothing but the stranger now lurking
in his brother’s skin.

Yesterday, Auguste had left the seaside early, but he had been unable to locate his brother.
Even come dinnertime, he had been told that Laurent had chosen to take his meal alone and
refused to see visitors.
Auguste had had all night to torment himself. His men knew his moods, and they kept their
distance. Uncle, like Laurent, had taken his dinner privately – and Auguste could not look at
an Akielon face without feeling rising fury. He had spent the night alone with his thoughts
turning ‘round and ‘round in his head, and a sunburn blistering his back, while his men
played cards in the next room.

By the time Uncle Richard came to his rooms in the morning to announce his intention of
intruding on Auguste’s breakfast, Auguste had himself half convinced that he was on the
verge of madness.

“My dear nephew, you look frightful,” Uncle Richard had said. “It’s as if you haven’t slept at
all.”

And Auguste, breaking, had told him everything he’d missed the day before, and more
besides.

He found himself confessing his dissatisfaction with the alliance: “I defeated Kastor, and he
surrendered. I spared his life, only for Akielos to change the terms for peace. How is it that I
have been twisted to sacrifice, when I was the victor? Akielon honor is worth less than shit.
At least manure helps crops to crow.”

Auguste spoke of his insufficiency as King. He spoke of his difficulties with the Council.
They had always been easy for him to sway when his father had been alive, but they now
second guessed his every decision, as if they suddenly considered him an incompetent fool.

He spoke of his frustrations negotiating a marriage contract. Of the bastard he may have
fathered, and the mother trying to blackmail him. Of the pressure, growing by the moment,
for him to wed and produce a legitimate heir, lest he pass suddenly and leave his people in
the hands of his brother – and said brother’s new Akielon guardians.

“I’ve fucked it all over,” Auguste said. “I look like a fool and a coward, and I cannot
persuade a single soul otherwise. As if choosing to remain at war was the correct decision!”

“You can take consolation in the face you have ensured no one will try to assassinate you,”
Uncle Richard suggested, in an odd, dry tone. When Auguste looked at him, he clarified, “It
isn’t worth the risk of Akielos gaining control of Vere through Laurent. Your Council is
correct – you simply must name a new heir, immediately.”

“The bastard child? His mother is a laundress. I could never marry that, even if I did believe
her claims that he was mine.”

“No,” Uncle Richard agreed with a grimace. “Wedding some common slut would hardly gain
you favor. You must manage another alliance. In the meantime, you can name me as your
heir. No one would find anything inappropriate about that.”

Auguste waved away the suggestion. “Thank you, but I’m afraid that would break Laurent’s
heart. Were I to replace him with anything other than my own child, he would truly believe
he had been abandoned to the barbarians.”
“You will compromise the security of your succession merely to avoid…hurting feelings?”

“Laurent doesn’t lack in willpower. The gods know he has more than enough intelligence. He
will never allow himself to become a puppet. I have no fear of his ability to care for Vere,
should the throne ever pass to him, regardless of whatever influence the Akielons might have
over him.”

“But that is the Laurent of several months past you are thinking of,” Uncle Richard reminded
him. “I have tried to warn you: these Akielons are devious. They have already succeeded in
turning young Laurent against me, and now they seek to drive a wedge between the two of
you, as well. I weep every night for your dear brother’s tarnished innocence. He was such a
sweet child, before this mess began.”

The guilt throbbed in Auguste’s chest. “This is my fault,” he said.

“Yes,” Uncle Richard agreed without hesitation, unintentionally driving the knife in deeper.
He didn’t retract the word, even when Auguste looked up, stricken. “Would you rather I
coddle you?” Uncle Richard asked. “Shall I say something pretty but dishonest instead? I
shudder at the thought of that darling boy crushed beneath that giant animal one day,
drenched in the stench of Akielon sweat, split in two by that enormous – “

“Uncle, please.”

“You must face what it is you have created. Damianos will ruin him, and you are the only one
to blame. You took the word of a bastard, Auguste. You allowed a bastard the honor of a
Prince’s duel, and you treated with him as if treating with a man, and now you cry foul,
surprised that the gods have chosen to punish you.”

“If there was a way to fix it,” Auguste began.

A knock at the door interrupted him. Expecting the arrival of slaves come to clear away their
breakfast and refresh their coffee, Auguste rose to answer it. Instead of slaves, he found
Aimeric, Councilman Guion’s youngest son.

Auguste had tried to be welcoming to the boy on the ship, and he had done his best to express
his gratitude for the boy’s sacrifice – leaving his home and his family and everything else that
he knew, just so that Laurent could have a companion who understood him in this foreign
land that would become his home. Auguste was not wise and cunning like his brother. He
was not quick with clever turns of phrase or tricky games. But he was, generally, good with
people. He might not have had all of the palace wrapped around his little finger, as Laurent
did, but generally speaking Auguste believed he was well-liked.

He had never managed to get so much as a smile out of young Aimeric, though, and
eventually the boy had locked himself in his cabin, terribly ill with seasickness.

They had all assumed it was seasickness, in any case. Now, Auguste suspected that it might
have been a true illness, after all. Not only had Aimeric been missing since their arrival in
Ios, but Auguste could see for himself the detrimental effects the boy’s illness had had on
him. He stood in the arched doorway, pale and trembling, unsteady on his feet. The sickly
pallor of his skin made the redness of his cheeks and lips all the more apparent – as red as if
they had been stained by the application of paints.

It did not help Auguste’s mood that his first thought was not concern for the boy, as it should
have been, but relief that he could tell Laurent that he had seen him and had indeed been able
to confirm immediately that he was, indeed, unwell.

Even Uncle Richard noticed it. Fury filled his face, flashing past his usual control. “What are
you doing here?” he demanded. It was clear that the boy should be in bed. Auguste did not
object to his tone, nor the fact that he had spoken first, when it was the King’s place to greet
visitors.

Poor Aimeric’s embarrassed flush made the red in his cheeks even brighter. He shifted for a
moment, and with clear effort he lifted his head. His fingers rubbed nervously at a small
envelope he carried. Auguste had not noticed it before, but the movement drew his attention.
He recognized the exquisite calligraphy immediately.

“Laurent,” Auguste said.

“I received a summons from the Prince,” Aimeric said, addressing Uncle Richard as if his
King were not also present. “He says that he expects me at his birthday celebrations. He said
that if I find myself too ill to attend, he will send a physician to examine me.”

The idea seemed to further enrage Uncle Richard.

“It’s no trouble,” Auguste assured them both. “As poorly as you have been feeling, you really
should have been seen by one already. I’m sure Laurent is so excited to have a companion
that he is impatient for you to be well.”

“It’s outdoors,” Aimeric said. “Seated.”

“If the thought of being examined by an Akielon physician worries you, you can borrow
mine,” Auguste offered generously. “Paschal served both my mother and my father. I assure
you, he is quite good. Whatever malady afflicts you, I’m certain he will find it.”

“You don’t look well,” Uncle Richard agreed, rage giving way to sympathy as Aimeric
bowed his head and began, softly, to cry. Gentle now, Uncle Richard rose and he took hold of
the boy’s shoulders, directing him to sit down on one of the hard, straight-backed dining
chairs that Auguste had had brought from Vere. There was a moment of hesitation or
resistance – perhaps the boy was afraid or nervous about sitting at his King’s breakfast table.
Auguste knew that Guion could be quite strict on matters of etiquette. Uncle Richard
practically had to push Aimeric down into the chair, and when he finally sat, hard, he uttered
a sob, and hid his head in his hands. He shuddered violently, wrenching away when Auguste
placed a consoling hand upon his shoulder.

“The boy is overwhelmed and homesick,” Uncle Richard said, after a moment. “I think he is
intimidated by the kindness offered by his King. And Prince Laurent, too, no doubt.”

“The thought did occur to me.”

“Nephew – would you forgive me if I asked you to step out of your own rooms? Perhaps a
private word might calm the boy down. Then we can investigate whatever it is that has him
so hopelessly worked up.”

“I should pay a visit to Laurent, anyway,” Auguste agreed. “He always expects to receive his
presents directly after breakfast.”

“Send him my fondest wishes,” Uncle Richard said, closing a hand over the sobbing
Aimeric’s shoulder. “And please – reassure him that, despite my heartbreak over the rift that
has grown between us, I will be thinking of him.”
 Chapter 14

When Auguste had turned sixteen, Father had sent invitations for all of the finest Pet Houses
to send their most precious exquisites to the palace for the Crown Prince’s perusal. It was like
a fairy tale, except instead of a bride, his father was hoping he would meet a whore. And
instead of a ball, it was a parade of balls. And cocks and asses, too. Being, in truth, more than
repulsed by the idea either of fucking or being fucked by another man, Auguste had done his
best to find a way out of the dreaded appointment. Father, thinking his favorite son to be
merely shy and never suspecting the shining star of Vere to be the harborer of shameful and
deviant perversions toward women, promised that he would keep the event quiet, discreet.

To be fair, Father did keep that promise. Only Father and Uncle Richard were present as, for
three dreadful hours, Auguste was forced to endure the flirtations of the finest pets in Vere.
They marched all sorts of men before him: young men as young as the children Uncle
Richard preferred, and old men with grey in their hair. Thin men, fat men, muscular men.
Short men and tall men. Hairy men. Men who shaved like a foreigner. Men with large cocks
and small cocks and monstrous cocks and curved cocks and pierced cocks. Cocks in cages. A
Patran eunuch with ball-less cock. Auguste grew so tired of the sight of cock by the time it
was over that he couldn’t eat sausage for a year.

Only after hours – after Auguste had been forced to view every stretched pink anus and
weigh every ballsack, after he had been obligated to endure two painfully prolonged
performances and declined – at least a dozen times – to take someone aside for a more private
examination, Father, disappointed, allowed the event to end.

“I’m sorry, Father,” Auguste had said, unused to being the one to displease the man. “I’m
afraid none of them appeal to me.”

“We will schedule another group,” Father decided.

To Auguste’s eternal gratitude, that day never came.

“Tell me,” Uncle Richard pressed him, later, when Father wasn’t around. “Tell me what it is,
and I will see what I can do. Allow me to help.”

Uncle Richard was accustomed to the role of secret keeper; he had filled that need ever since
Auguste’s childhood. Auguste was so afraid of having to force himself to endure another
awkward day of interviews – or, alternatively, of having to force himself to choose a pet and
endure his services often enough to avoid suspicion – that he had allowed the truth to come
spilling from his mouth.

“I’m deviant,” Auguste confessed. “I’m perverse.”

Uncle Richard, he could tell, was pleased that Auguste was confiding in him. “Who isn’t?”
came the delighted reply.

“I like women,” Auguste confessed, flush with shame.

Uncle Richard, for some reason, seemed to deflate. “Oh, is that all? What of it? Many men
do. Your own father – “

“No,” Auguste said. “I only like women.”

“Oh,” Uncle Richard said, for the second time, and then nothing else. The moment became
awkward.

Auguste still remembered the shame that had burned through him. He knew that his desires
were animalistic, uncivilized. Worse, by that time he had already begun to carelessly sow his
seed; he’d done it at least a dozen times. He was meant to be King one day, but a King who
fathered bastards put the entire country at risk. Men were for fucking. Women were for
families.

“Perhaps a man who lacks a dick,” Uncle Richard began, finally.

“No,” Auguste said. “No men. At all.”

Auguste was disgusting. His needs were unnatural. More damning than that, they were
selfish. Auguste expected Uncle Richard to tell him the same. He expected to be given an
ultimatum: find a way to fuck men, or abdicate your claim to the throne of Vere.

Instead, quite serious, Uncle Richard promised, “I’ll take care of it.”

Auguste never did learn what was said or done. He only knew that, though nothing seemed to
change between himself and his father, that second dreadful appointment never made it onto
the calendar.

Laurent was turning fourteen, but Auguste found himself thinking of that miserable
experience anyway. He had always assumed that, while Father might not go to the same
levels of extravagance for Laurent, there would be some similarly terrible encounter they
would have to endure in the future for him. He had assumed that his role would be similar to
that Uncle Richard had played for him – that when it became apparent that Laurent’s interests
failed to stir at the buffet of lovely flesh offered to him, Auguste would find a way to step in
and protect his brother from the need to make uncomfortable revelations. Auguste had taken
for granted the idea that his sweet, bookish brother would never have the desire for fleshy
copulation whatsoever – either with men or women. It was less shameful than Auguste’s own
deviance, but Father wouldn’t like it. Laurent would need him.

The rapt attention with which Auguste’s precious fourteen-year-old baby brother watched the
well-oiled Akielon wrestlers roll around atop one another during his birthday Games,
however, was a wholly unwelcome revelation for Auguste to be forced to witness – just as
watching Laurent watch the men on the beach had been.

“Damianos has them outclassed, doesn’t he?” Laurent asked, his attention fixed on the ring.
He had never cared for a single moment about sport. Even when it was Auguste competing,
Laurent always cheered between passages of his current favorite book. He didn’t sit at the
edge of his chair, his eyes bright, his attention rapt on the combatants before him.
“In the wrestling right, perhaps. I suppose I can give you that,” Auguste allowed reluctantly.
He couldn’t help but think that the two oiled men rolling around with one another looked
more like an illicit pet match – the kind some of his men liked to attend. Auguste kept
waiting for the man who proved himself stronger to begin to penetrate the weaker. At least
then the so-called sport would make sense. Why be nude? Why all the oil but no fucking?
“However, when they do decide to crawl out of the dirt to compete like real men, it is Vere
who will shine.”

Laurent glanced at him. It felt like the first time his brother had looked at him all morning;
his gaze had taken to following Damianos. “King Theomedes refers to wrestling as a High
Art,” he said. “I take it you disagree?”

“It’s nearly pornographic,” Auguste scoffed. “I suppose it’s fine for uncivilized barbarians,
but the real challenge of the day will come when it is time for swords. Any animal can
wrestle – only a man can forge and wield a blade. Vere will have the advantage when the
competitions involve civilized combat.”

Laurent hummed thoughtfully. “We might win swords,” he agreed, “But only if you
compete.”

Auguste didn’t try to hide his pleasure. “Oh? You want me to compete? Will you cheer for
me then? I thought the unmatched splendor of an oiled Damianos had stolen your heart
already.”

Laurent flushed at his teasing. “Don’t be ridiculous; I’m not a child,” he snapped. “This is a
political alliance, not a storybook romance. Do you think I cannot tell the difference?”

“All grown up, isn’t he?” Uncle Richard asked. Laurent only glanced at him briefly before he
threw himself back in his chair, arms crossed and eyes fixed once more on the competition.

“Not too grown up, please; my heart can’t take it.” Auguste reached out to ruffle his little
brother’s hair, but Laurent batted his hand away without looking at him.

“Grown up enough,” Laurent said. Then, perking abruptly, he sat up and looked over to his
other side. “Aimeric, you have brothers, do you not? Are they half as insufferable as mine?”

The boy, Aimeric, claimed to have rallied – insisted on it, actually, though to Auguste he
continued to appear unwell and uncomfortable. He was seated beside Laurent, and his bright,
feverish gaze held no more interest for the games taking place on the field before him than
Laurent’s usually would have.

Aimeric said, “Your Highness puts me in a position where agreement implies my King is
insufferable.”

“And so? He is insufferable. Auguste, I want an answer directly. Will you be competing in
swords, or no?”

“I want an answer of my own. Will you cheer for me if I do?”

The question embarrassed him. Auguste was glad it did. He much preferred that the bright
spots of color painting his brother’s cheeks came from some wholesome sibling on sibling
torture, rather than the overabundance of bouncing Akielon cock on display. He waited for an
answer while his darling Laurent glared daggers at him. Finally, Laurent huffed, and once
again sat back hard in his chair.

“Yes,” Laurent said, “But only because I know you would be the best man on the field. Only a
fool would cheer for an inferior combatant.”

“I would be what? The best man on the field, you say? I beg you, sweet Prince, say it again. I
fear I must have misheard such high praise.”

“I hate you so much.”

Auguste beamed. There was no point in hiding how much it pleased him to hear it. It felt like
a victory – no, it was a victory. Laurent felt like his brother again, and not the moody,
suspicious stranger he had been for most of Auguste’s visit. His birthday gifts had been a
good start to pulling him back to the boy Auguste knew. Auguste had bought Laurent a set of
his favorite books of poetry, bound in leather and gold leaf, with fore-edged paintings that
depicted a series of meticulously-detailed garden scenes. Just to make it all the sweeter,
Auguste had also had a new tack set commissioned for Laurent’s favorite horse – blue leather
inlaid with the starburst insignia of Vere’s Crown Prince.

What he had known would be Laurent’s favorite gift, however, had been the box of delicate
pastries from Vere, carefully packed and stored to prevent them meeting a sad end over the
course of his journey. Auguste had actually received a hug for that one.

Damianos, predictably, swept the wrestling matches. When the time came for prizes to be
awarded, he deferred to the runner-up with a good-natured grin. It seemed he had simply
enjoyed the opportunity to compete, and didn’t care about the rest. His manner was easy and
relaxed. He chatted and joked with the other men as slaves scraped the oil from the
competitors’ muscled bodies – a process Laurent seemed far too interested in for comfort.
Auguste leaned toward him again.

“I heard that they sell it. The oil.”

Laurent jumped guiltily at the sound of his voice, as if he had been caught doing something
wrong.

“Wh-what?”

“What do you think they do with it? Why save the used oil scraped from the bodies of their
warriors?”

“The chefs use it,” Uncle Richard said, dryly, just as Auguste reached for one of the many
offerings of snacks laid out nearby. Auguste knew he had to be teasing, but he didn’t crack a
smile. As Auguste sat back and popped an olive, marinated in oil, into his mouth, he couldn’t
help to think about the fact Uncle Richard had served as ambassador to Akielos for so long;
there was no one who understood the barbaric country more than him.
He chewed slowly. He imagined the olive tasted like sweat.

He was no longer hungry.

The Veretians had their own space today. In Ios, there was an official arena dedicated to
nothing more than the displays of the sports the Akielons were so enamored of. It was a
fascinating work of engineering that featured tiers of seating capable of fitting hundreds of
spectators. For royalty and nobility, there were private pavilions erected in the places with the
best view. These were shaded, with comfortable seating and attentive slaves ready to wave a
fan or serve up a beverage. Uncle Richard currently had one massaging his feet. Laurent had
declined service from any of them. He’d brought his boy, Larius, but had not asked anything
of him, serving himself what little he had taken to eat or drink instead.

Laurent had always been independent – he had always preferred to do for himself, rather than
ask something of a servant. Auguste knew that the barbaric practice of slavery turned his
brother’s stomach – which is what made it so surprising that he had chosen to take a slave of
his own. Auguste wondered if his brother’s refusal to be served by the boy stemmed from
some fear of allowing Auguste to see how he had begun to acclimate to the savage culture of
his new home.

The private pavilions allowed Auguste the opportunity to have his brother to himself again
for a bit, and he hoped to use the opportunity to reconnect with him. They had gone together
to greet Theomedes and Damianos before the Games began, but they had not interacted since.
Aside from the slaves, the pavilion was decidedly Veretian in makeup. Auguste preferred it
that way. He preferred having Laurent at his side, surrounded by their people. He wanted to
pretend that was all there was to this – that they were visiting Akielos, together, and that
when he returned to Vere his brother would be with him. It was a comforting fantasy, even if
he could not allow himself the relief of believing it.

The archery competition followed the wrestling. With the Akielons clothed and Damianos
once more seating back with his father, Laurent’s response to sporting events reverted to the
usual boredom. Auguste was not the least surprised when Laurent pulled out a book and
bowed his head over it. Two of Laurent’s guards – Eliott and Alois – were competing, but
Laurent barely glanced up, even when they took their turns.

After the prizes were awarded, Damianos – still clothed, thank all the gods above and below
– came to the Veretian pavilion to present Laurent with his birthday gift. Auguste knew the
moment he saw it that the Akielon Prince would not succeed in catching the boy’s attention;
while Laurent was reading, the entire world ceased to exist. Particularly for a gift he would
find boring. Auguste could have helped – should have, in fact, if only for diplomacy’s sake.
But Auguste was feeling petty and protective, and he didn’t want to.

It would serve them all best if Laurent and Damianos were to become friends. Of course
Auguste wanted his beloved little brother to have a happy marriage if at all possible. Auguste
had put Laurent into this situation, had stuck him out here with the barbarians and their slaves
and their wrestling. If Laurent could forge connections here, it would make his life more
bearable.
But things still did not feel the way they should between Auguste and Laurent, and that made
it harder to remember all of the reasons he wanted the arrangement to work. He did not like
the fact that his shy, bookish brother looked at fully grown, naked men with the open interest
of an innocent, his cheeks flushed and his legs crossed. He did not like that the kind, sweet
boy owned a slave. He did not like that the entire world seemed to have changed over the
course of months, and now he was losing his darling baby brother, and another man was
gaining his admiration.

Auguste didn’t help Damianos, or warn him of the futility of his mission. He enjoyed it when
Damianos had to try, three times, to catch Laurent’s attention, and all three times failed.
Finally, Damianos reached for Laurent as if to shake him by the shoulder.

Laurent caught the offending hand without looking up.

“Wait,” he said.

Looking surprised, the Akielon Prince did.

Laurent finished the passage he was reading, and then took his time marking his page. When
he finally looked up, his expression was flat with annoyance and strained patience.

“What is it?” Laurent asked.

Most men would have taken offence at his tone alone, let alone the expression on his face,
but Damianos only grinned.

“I’ve come to quiz you on your vocabulary,” Damianos said. “I’ll give you your present if
you get enough words correct.”

Laurent quirked a brow at him, then looked past him to observe the object the slave following
his fiancé carried. “You’re holding my gift hostage?” he asked. “Am I understanding the
terms correctly?”

The gift was a bow of exquisite craftsmanship – Akielon in design, of course, but beautifully
made nonetheless. The carved wood gleamed in the slave’s hands, and Auguste itched to take
it, to try it out. Laurent would absolutely hate it. There was a petty part of Auguste that was
pleased his brother’s intended had so poorly chosen his gift.

“I don’t like to hunt,” Laurent stated bluntly.

“You don’t have to use it for hunting,” Damianos countered. “Use it for target practice.”

“To what purpose? We do not kill one another anymore.”

“To enjoy watching your skill grow.”

Laurent considered it, which was polite of him. He closed his book, and rose, and extended
an expectant hand. The slave, head bowed, did not seem aware of the gesture until Damianos
made a gesture of permission for her to hand it over, and then her response was immediate.
Damianos was still grinning – still, somehow, enjoying the interaction.
Laurent did not snatch the bow from the slave’s hands, as a spoiled, impatient princeling
might be expected to. He tucked his book under his arm and, using both hands, lifted the bow
from hers gently, uttering one Akielon word as he did so.

“That’s one point,” Damianos said, with the attitude of a man who thought he was winning
some game. “But next time, don’t thank your slave. It makes them uncomfortable.”

“How unfortunate. As it turns out, their plight makes me uncomfortable. I will withhold your
thanks, instead.”

Damianos laughed. He watched as Laurent began his examination of the bow, meticulous in
his observation, from the decorative inlay to the gleaming bone belly.

“It’s smaller than a Veretian bow,” Laurent said at last. “That surprises me.”

“You use longbows. Great for distance, but not as useful against a moving target. If your
people had stayed in your fort, you could have let your archers pick us off one by one at your
leisure.”

Laurent turned the bow over in his hand. There was nothing he could have been looking at
that would have meant anything to him. He didn’t acknowledge mention of the war.

“I have an aunt in Kempt who… makes things,” Laurent said at last. “Last I heard from her,
she was working on a bow with a mechanism that allowed it to fire itself. That would have
been useful.”

Damianos said, “The next round of competition, the archers will be on horseback. It’s much
more difficult than regular target practice.” That did catch Laurent’s attention. Damianos
seemed pleased, fighting to temper his grin as he continued. “This is the kind of bow they
use. It isn’t something I specialize in, but if you wanted to learn…”

“This is a trap,” Laurent said. “You mean to use it to lure me into enjoying sports.”

“Something like that.”

“But only if I first satisfy your quiz in order to earn the bow in the first place.”

“That’s right.”

Laurent considered it. Auguste realized that his brother liked the challenge. He knew he
would agree a moment before Laurent spoke.

“All right,” Laurent said. Obligingly, he handed the bow to Auguste, whose desperation to
get his hands on the weapon was taxing his every scrap of decorum. Laurent was aware of the
fact that if he waited much longer, Auguste would have made a very unseemly grab for it.

Auguste only listened with half attention as Laurent answered the Akielon Prince’s test.
Damianos would say a word in Veretian, and Laurent would repeat it in careful Akielon. He
even seemed capable of reciting a few simple phrases when prompted to do so. Having no ear
for language and no talent for studies himself, Auguste would never have known whether
Laurent was doing well or not – save for the fact that he knew his brother. He knew how
brilliant the boy was, and how stubborn, how determined. He knew, too, how starved for
praise and approval their father had kept him. Laurent didn’t care about the bow, but he did
care about proving himself.

Laurent wanted to impress Damianos – not because of whatever childish crush might have
stirred itself within him, nor because he cared about the health and endurance of their
alliance, but simply because he associated outside approval with worth.

Damianos confirmed it later: Laurent didn’t miss a single word.

--

Auguste decided last minute that he would compete in swords. He had hoped that Damianos
would be competing, too. Their brief match on the beach had only whet his appetite, and after
spending the morning watching his little brother ogle the other Prince’s nude body, it would
have felt good to beat him again. The Akielon Prince took his challenge with a good-natured
laugh – but declined Auguste’s generous offer to trounce him again.

“I’m saving myself for the Okton,” he said, lifting his hands in mock surrender. “I believe my
brother intends to compete, though. I look forward to seeing if you can put him in the dirt
twice.”

Kastor had worn a sour expression from the moment Auguste entered the pavilion for
competitors. The Bastard of Akielos had arrived late to the games and had yet to participate
in any of the events. Over the course of Auguste’s visit, Kastor had yet to acknowledge him
whatsoever, but for the consistently dark, spiteful stare so often levelled at him. Laurent had
told him they rarely crossed paths.

Now, Auguste watched the bastard’s unpleasant expression further blacken as Damianos
helpfully translated their conversation for him.

Auguste considered himself to be a confident man. He was aware of his weaknesses and his
faults and how far it was he fell from the man he wished he could be; he was also aware of
his many talents and strengths. Auguste was not accustomed to walking into a space and
feeling himself out of place and unwelcome, but it was hard not to around the unfriendly
Akielons. Only Damianos had made an effort to be friendly and welcoming to him. Everyone
else looked at him as if he were a creature caught in the grotesque act of growing a second
head.

“No,” Kastor said in Veretian, before Damianos finished speaking. “No to the competing. Not
honor Vere with contest.” He spat in Auguste’s direction. Because Veretian was such a
struggle for him, he switched back to his own language as he and his brother began to argue.
The discussion ended with a few sharp words from their father, who no one had noticed
approach.

Damianos did not like it, whatever it was that was said. He appeared uncomfortable when he
turned back to Auguste.
“I think Kastor has decided to save himself for the Okton, too,” he said. “I’m sorry, I must
have misunderstood his intentions.”

“Right,” Auguste said. “If it’s inappropriate for me to compete…”

“No! Not at all,” Damianos answered quickly. “Father and I are both so pleased with your
country’s participation. I look forward to another chance to observe your swordwork.”

Auguste hated him. He had been on the fence earlier, but he decided that his mind was made
up. There was something untrustworthy about a man so openly friendly. His boyish, dimpled
smile was annoying. And he needed a haircut.

“Let’s have another match before uour visit ends,” Damianos suggested.

Auguste smiled. He said, “Yes. Yes, I would like that.”

 Chapter 15
Chapter Notes

Edit to clarify a particular scene my comments were kind enough to alert me to

lmaoooooo.

Auguste took the sword competition out of principle alone. His victory was unpopular with
the Akielons – but Laurent cheered for him, and that was all that mattered. He accepted the
prize of a laurel crown, and when he returned to the pavilion, he placed it playfully upon
Laurent’s golden head. Laurent beamed at him, and did not remove it, and, briefly, the world
felt fixed back in its proper place.

Before the Okton began, King Theomedes called them to his pavilion to present Laurent with
his gift. Laurent accepted the armor with grace, even as Auguste braced himself for some
caustic comment. He should not have worried; Laurent was a natural politician, and did
nothing to betray how much such a gift disinterested him. Theomedes invited Laurent and
Auguste to remain with him to watch the Okton, since both of his own sons would be
participating in the competition. He did not extend the invitation to Uncle Richard, nor to the
rest of the Veretian party.

The Akielon pavilion was now more welcoming now than it had felt on Auguste’s previous
visit, and he had to work not to cringe when Laurent accepted the invitation as if pleased to
receive it. Each of the Akielon Princes had a reclining couch to the left and to the right of
their father, with chairs for their chosen companions and the members of their household who
followed them. There was also an area set aside for their slaves to kneel while they waited for
an opportunity to serve.

“We’re to the right,” Laurent informed Auguste quietly when Auguste didn’t immediately
move. “Kastor’s place is to his father’s left. Technically, I’m part of Damianos’s household.”

“Yes – I know,” Auguste said, disliking it. Even if he hadn’t, he could have guessed. Kastor
had more attendants on his side of the room. The area was, in fact, crowded with them. Both
female and male slaves, most wearing very little, waited with things like bowls of fruit,
baskets of wine, and fans made of woven grass. “Who are the children?”

“The bastard’s bastards,” Laurent answered, voice carefully neutral. “Their mothers are all
slaves, so he doesn’t have to acknowledge them. He does like to march them out on display,
though. I think he believes it makes him look virile, particularly since his brother doesn’t
seem to have any of his own.”

“Correct on both counts…” came the unamused answer. “Damianos has yet to produce
offspring; Kastor cannot seem to stop. It does please him, I think, to know he’s outpacing his
brother.”

Auguste had not realized that King Theomedes was listening to them. He was sure he jumped
– sure his embarrassed flush was obvious – but as he opened his mouth to offer some form of
apology, Laurent was already speaking again.

“I’ve counted at least twelve since my arrival,” he said neutrally.

“Yes, that’s right. I expect the number to rise to at least fifteen by winter. Does it surprise you
to learn that I am a grandfather?”

“Is there a reason I have yet to see any of my beloved fiancé’s own spawn running about?”

“Damianos is more careful than his brother is.” Theomedes glanced to the left, then extended
a hand. A girl of about four with bouncy brown curls came immediately to his side. “This is
Cassia,” he said. “She is my favorite.”

Cassia looked at them shyly, but did not speak. Neither did she make any move or gesture
toward them. She and the other children did not wear slave collars, so far as Auguste could
see, but Auguste felt ill, anyway.

“In Akielos, bloodline means a great deal,” Laurent said, as if sensing his brother’s
discomfort. “In fact, bloodline is everything. Damianos will be King one day, not merely
because he was born on the correct side of the marriage bed, but also because his mother’s
bloodline provides him with a stronger claim to the throne than Kastor’s. Do I have the
correct understanding, Exalted?”

For a brief, dizzying moment, Auguste thought that the King of Akielos looked cautious.

“You have the right of it,” Theomedes said. Cautiously.

Laurent threw himself down upon Damianos’s reclining couch as if he owned it, and he
beamed brightly at Auguste as he gestured for him to join him. “Set your mind at ease. The
King of Akielos does not hold his own grandchildren in slavery after all. Only their mothers.
Since they share the blood of a Prince, they get to be free.”

“Whatever point you’re aiming for, I advise you to get to it,” Theomedes said.

“My brother is only half as clever as he thinks he is,” Auguste said quickly. The way Laurent
was smiling was dangerous; he was gathering for a strike. “Please accept my apologies.”

“I’m only researching cultural differences,” Laurent said, as if he were innocence incarnate.
“I only said anything because I assumed my brother would find the matter as interesting as I
do.”

“And?” Theomedes prompted.

“I trust that the grandchildren of the great King of Akielos will be well provided for, given
ample opportunities, and permitted to live very happy lives. I do wonder about the half-slave
grandchildren of a dock worker or a field laborer, though. I imagine being tainted by slave’s
blood might impact one’s opportunities.”

“A Prince of Vere also possesses distinct advantages the child of a field laborer or dock
worker would not.”

Laurent shrugged, as if none of what they were discussing mattered to him. He turned his
eyes to the field. “Come and sit, Auguste,” he called. “It looks like they have nearly finished
setting things up. I read a book about the Okton once,” this, to Theomedes, with no obvious
awareness of the possibility he may have created tension. “I am so interested to see it
firsthand.”

--

The first of the riders had barely completed their first circuit, and Laurent had left his couch
to stand at the edge of the pavilion to get a better view. It surprised Auguste – his first
assumption was to think that Laurentwas more upset about his previous conversation with the
King than he had previously thought, and that he wanted to give himself more space – give
himself some small measure of distance from Akielon voices and Akielon smells. Laurent did
not enjoy sports. Laurent had been attentive to the wrestling matches because he was a
fourteen-year-old boy who enjoyed the sight of naked men drenched in oil and rolling around
atop one another. As upsetting as the thought was, it wasn’t abnormal. Laurent had cheered
for Auguste during the swords competition, but Laurent always cheered for Auguste, no
matter what he was doing. Yes, the blind worship in his eyes had begun to fade, but Auguste
knew his brother would always love and admire and respect him. Otherwise, if it was a
sporting event, Laurent didn’t care. Nothing to do with sports had ever caught his interest –
he even claimed that he found jousting competitions to be “dull, repetitive, and overly
dangerous for the horses.”

Hooves churned up great clods of dirt. There was a definitive sound each time a spear was
released, singing through the air before thudding into its target. Three riders on the circuit
now – then four, as the bastard Kastor joined the ring on a fiery-eyed roan. Thud as Kastor’s
first spear hit the mark, trembling there, black-tipped, in the target’s center. Thud – thud –
thud as three other riders’ spears found their targets. The crowd’s cheering grew markedly
louder when Damianos joined the fray, making the riders’ number five. Laurent rocked
forward slightly on his toes. Singing release as his spear cut through the air – thud – the
Prince’s red-tipped spear found its quivering mark beside that of his bastard brother. It wasn’t
only the crowd that had grown more excited – there were cheers within the royal pavilion,
too. There had been cheers for Kastor, already, but this time when voices lifted in excitement,
Auguste heard Laurent’s voice join them – shyly, a little self-consciously. The boy bounced
on his toes as Damianos hit his second mark and simultaneously avoided an errant spear one
of the other riders had let loose.

When Theomedes joined Laurent at the front of the pavilion, Laurent seemed both
unsurprised and unaware of the earlier tension that had been there between them. His eyes
were bright with excitement. He pointed out to the field – Auguste couldn’t hear his question,
but he could see that it was asked with an open and honest expression, making Laurent look
so achingly young and innocent and trusting, so enthusiastic for life. Theomedes had bowed
his head toward him to listen, and he was nodding as he gave his answer.

The image struck Auguste oddly, and brought up a pang of longing within him for their own
father – who certainly wouldn’t have given whatever question Laurent asked such careful
consideration, let alone give him an in-depth or thoughtful answer. The King of Akielos was
a selfish, heartless war-monger, violent and prideful, and Laurent had very recently been rude
to him.

Auguste missed his father. He missed his guidance and his patience – but in that moment,
what Auguste missed most was something that had never existed. Watching the King of
Akielos discuss and explain the Okton to Laurent with no trace of dismissiveness, no obvious
insult, no obvious insult, no lingering disappointment, Auguste ached for all of the
opportunities his father had missed. For his failure to appreciate and love Laurent for who
Laurent was, rather than holding on to who he would never be.

He's been so brave, Auguste thought, and you never would have seen it.

Auguste rose and he went to join them, absently placing a hand on Laurent’s shoulder so that
his brother would know he was there. While Laurent didn’t turn his eyes from the field to
acknowledge him, Theomedes did. He looked Auguste over with a grim and mystifying sense
of disapproval.

The Akielon King didn’t like him, Auguste realized. He didn’t like him, and it wasn’t a mere
matter of principle. It felt personal, and Auguste could not fathom why.

“It’s a dangerous game,” Theomedes said, turning his eyes back to the field. “Only those with
skill should attempt participation.”

Laurent said a phrase in Akielon, and then repeated it in Veretion. “The Sport of Kings. Is that
correct? I saw it in a book once.”

Theomedes corrected his pronunciation without the teasing amusement Damianos always
did. “That reminds me,” he said. “I have not yet found a tutor I trust for you.”

“I found my own,” Laurent said. Then, “Auguste, do you remember that book?”

The memory was embarrassing. “No,” Auguste lied. “No, I don’t believe I – “

“Auguste and his men went absolutely mad for it,” Laurent told Theomedes, as Auguste tried
not to visibly cringe. “They all tied bedsheets around themselves like chiton, and rode out on
their horses to attempt to recreate it. It wasn’t like this, though – and Baptiste nearly lost an
eye…”

“Laurent, that’s enough,” Auguste said. “His Hi – Exalted doesn’t want to hear about that.”

“Had we known the King of Vere already had experience with our sport, we should have
invited him to participate.” Theomedes sounded neither sincere nor amused.
Another cheer went up, rescuing Auguste from having to come up with an appropriate
answer.

All of the competitors were on the field now, and every moment it seemed a spear was in
play, flying through the air as the associated rider made a turn. Horseflesh gleamed with
sweat from exertion – nostrils flaring, hooves churning up dirt. Spears thudded into targets –
or flew past them – and meant bent low in their saddles to pick up more. Auguste couldn’t
remember how many circuits there were supposed to be, but he could guess at what had
caught Laurent’s attention so thoroughly. The game required a great deal of skill on
horseback and an immense amount of trust between horse and rider. It was less about skill at
throwing a spear than it was about being aware of one’s surroundings. The pacing was fast
and chaotic; the contestants had no room to slow or stop, only to continue, to make the quick
decisions of when to throw, when to dodge, keeping track of the other riders and their spears
all along. They could not spend time trying to keep themselves safe; they just had to keep
charging forward. Auguste knew that would have appealed to Laurent, too. His brother was
shy and quiet and bookish, yes, but there was a reckless streak to him sometimes. He –

“Kastor is going too fast,” Laurent said. “He’s bypassed two of the riders who came before
him. There isn’t a prize for finishing first, is there?”

“No,” Theomedes agreed. “But he is impatient. He always has been.”

“He’ll injure his horse.”

The speed and the number of riders and the flying spears – it made a poor combination.
Kastor was fast coming up behind his brother; on the next turn his horse slammed, hard, into
Damianos’s.

They could not hear the crack of broken bone from up in the pavilion, but Laurent shuddered
hard, anyway, as if he could feel it. Damianos’s horse had been caught in an odd position
when the impact happened. It stumbled two steps with a broken ankle, then fell, spilling itself
and its rider into the path of the oncoming charge of horses.

Kastor, as if unaware of what he had done, continued to ride. He threw his next spear.

--

Riding Okton required continuous, passive awareness of the entirety of the field. Riders
needed to learn to track one another’s positions and the arcs of their throws even while they
maintained their own momentum and aimed their own throws.

Damianos had ridden the Okton with his brother many times, and he had watched Kastor ride
it many times more. He knew his brother – knew how he rode too fast and too close to his
competitors, cutting his fellow riders off, relying on them to compromise their own runs in
order to protect them all from his recklessness.

Kastor cut too close on the bend. Damen tried to anticipate it – he tried to adjust in time – but
it wasn’t enough, and the two of them could not occupy the same space at the same time.
Kastor’s horse rammed into Damen’s just as he was trying to jerk her hard away. The impact
sent them to the side. She stepped wrong, and Damen tried to adjust for the fall.

He didn’t remember impact – just the sight of hooves pounding dirt, charging his way. He felt
the vibration of their approach against the ground. His horse was flailing, legs kicking; she
almost got him in the head. One of the approaching riders tried to jerk his horse sideways,
and that put him in the path of a flying spear, and his horse tangled with his neighbor’s, and
they fell, entangling with a third rider on the way.

Then he lost some time. Next thing Damen was aware of, someone was helping him sit up.

“Slowly,” came the caution. The word sounded odd for a moment, then he realized it was in
Veretian. The man kneeling with him was one of Prince Laurent’s guardsmen.

“Dord?”

“Jord, Your Highness. Can you feel your legs?”

“How many legs do you want me to feel?”

“Only your own, thank you.”

“Oh, then two.”

Damen’s head hurt. Sitting up did not help that. But he could wiggle his fingers and his toes,
which felt like an accomplishment, all things considered.

“I don’t think anything’s broken,” Damen said with relief.

“Perhaps your skull,” the guard suggested. He offered Damen a frilled, insubstantial-looking
handkerchief, and indicated a place on his forehead.

That was, evidently, the extent of Jord’s abilities as interim physician. Once Damen had the
handkerchief pressed to the appropriate place, Jord nodded approval and rose.

Damen realized there was a fair bit of chaos occurring around him. The palace physicians had
not yet arrived – they were still making their way from the palace stands. Nikandros was
directing guards to keep anyone but the physicians from approaching. A good number of
those guards, Damen realized, were Veretian. Father and King Auguste were personally
leading the work of freeing one rider who had been trapped under his horse. Men were
checking on the wounded. Someone had taken on the task of calming the horses and getting
them out of the way. It took a moment for him to realize that the sharp string of orders he
heard were in Veretian, interspersed occasionally with limited Akielon: Laurent, then, though
Damen was having trouble locating the boy.

Damen wondered when Kastor had found the time to receive his reward for his victory.
Perhaps he had simply taken it upon himself to don the laurel crown while everyone else was
occupied with the accident. When his brother spotted him sitting up, Kastor frowned at him.
It felt like a long moment before he approached.
Kastor extended a hand down to Damen, and Damen grasped it, using his brother’s help to
pull himself to his feet.

“Such dramatics, Damianos. Did you enjoy your nap?”

“Were your eyes closed when you took that turn?”

Kastor made a scoffing noise. “You act as if it’s the first time you’ve fallen off your horse. If
Okton is too rough for you, perhaps you should find a gentler sport. Ask your new friends;
I’m certain these Veretians have suggestions aplenty.”

“Come off it,” Damen began.

Kastor reached out and lifted the handkerchief to get a look at Damen’s forehead.

“I don’t see any brain,” Kastor said. “You will probably live.”

“You’re so helpful. Thank you.”

“Basket weaving, perhaps. I hear basket weaving is nominally safe.”

Damen laughed, despite himself. Then his legs tried to give out. His brother hooked an arm
around him to help him keep his feet.

“On second thought, I’m afraid you might find basket weaving to be too strenuous. What is
that game old men like to play? Ur. You could take up Ur. Only observationally, mind you;
playing is certainly too dangerous, given your weakness.”

“You are always so cheerful when you beat me.”

“Don’t complain, Damianos. It warms my heart when you’ve been put in your place. How
can you seek to deny me that?” Kastor lifted his voice. “Where are those damned physicians?
The last to arrive will be whipped!”
 Chapter 16
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

“I commend you for the attempt, but if throwing oneself off a horse held any chance
whatsoever of getting one out of an unwanted marriage, I would have made the attempt
before leaving Vere.”

The day had been planned out in careful detail. After the Games, several hours had been
reserved for rest before the evening’s activities – for bathing, for sleeping, for fucking, if one
felt the need after such an exciting morning, as many young warriors often did, when their
blood got up. Once Father was suitably satisfied that Damen had miraculously avoided being
trampled to death or breaking any bones, he had declared that the day would go on as
planned. Accidents during Okton were, after all, an expected risk.

Damen’s wounds were minimal. Scrapes and scratches, some bruising. The gash in his head
had been neatly sewn up, after the physician agreed that, indeed, there were no brains spilling
out.

“Now, can you confirm that there were any in there to begin with?” Kastor had thought, with
that expression he got when he thought he was being hilarious.

Damen had had the assistance of three very pretty new bath attendants to help him wash and
to dress, and after a round of sweet, luxurious fucking, he’d taken himself off to rest until
evening. The pain in his head had become dull and bearable, and his body had been warm
and suitably sore from exertion, more than from injury.

“I’ve come to collect you for the blessed ceremony,” Laurent explained.

“I gathered that,” Damen said. “I just wasn’t expecting you to come personally.”

“I agree; it would have been more exciting for them to have to drag me, kicking and
screaming, down to the temple. Alas, we have already had enough dramatics for the day.
Thank you for upstaging my performance.”

The young Prince was standing in the arched doorway to Damen’s rooms, and Damen wasn’t
sure if he was waiting to be invited to enter, or if he was simply afraid of Damen. They had
spent some time together this week, yes, but rarely alone. Damen’s slaves were only just in
the next room, but Laurent might not know that. Nor would he know whether or not they
would intercede on his behalf, should a situation occur. Either he had managed to slip his
ever-present guards, or he had left them waiting in the corridor outside.

“My apologies; I’m sure yours would have been much more impressive,” Damen said. The
boy flushed, but lifted his chin.
The boy had been dressed in a long chiton that reached all the way to his thin ankles, and
over it was fastened a richly decorated chlamys of deep red, with threads of orange and gold
woven throughout. Diamonds were scattered through the gold of his hair, twinkling whenever
he turned his head. A golden laurel crown sat upon his brow.

The wedding attire had all been tailored specifically for him, yet compared to the usual
restrictive Veretian attire Damen was used to seeing him in, it almost seemed oversized. All
Damen could see was the painful youth of a child’s face, and the awkwardness of his still-
growing limbs beneath the cloth. He was, Damen reminded himself, so young and so
vulnerable and so frightened, however clever and brave he made himself out to be.

Damen’s feelings for Vere had not warmed over the past several months. Vere was a nation
that found it acceptable for middle-aged men to fuck prepubescent boys, so long as some
farce of a contract was signed first. Vere was bloated with waste and wanton luxury, cruel
pleasures, endless lies. If King Auguste and Prince Richard were examples of the sort of men
their countrymen should aspire to be, the entire place should be burnt to the ground, the earth
salted after.

But Laurent was not Vere. Laurent was a child, vulnerable and frightened and so very
innocent, doomed to be sacrificed on the altar of peace.

“It really will be all right, Laurent,” Damen found himself assuring the boy as he rose. “This
is only half-married, right? The difficult one is years away yet. We have plenty of time to
prepare.”

“Half-married is still a commitment,” Laurent said. “We will still be stuck with one another.”

“Is that how you see it? Stuck with?” Damen couldn’t keep the amusement from his voice,
and Laurent flushed further. It might have been charming to see on a man, but at fourteen, it
only made him look all the younger. He was a child, and Damen couldn’t see him as anything
else. It was bizarre and wrong to think of him as his fiancé, let alone his spouse.

“How should I see it?” Laurent asked. “I don’t know your ways. I don’t know your –
expectations.”

“We will learn each other’s ways,” Damen assured him. “And as for expectations – you
wanted to be friends, didn’t you? I expect to be friends. Brothers, even if that is acceptable to
you.” Damen had approached him, but he stopped just outside of reach. Whether it was the
fact he hadn’t gotten too close, or merely his words alone, Laurent seemed to relax a little.
The wariness in his eyes didn’t gleam quite so brightly. His gaze flickered over Damen’s
attire, so Damen spread his arms and turned for him, a full circle, so he could take in his
wedding clothes.

“We match,” Laurent said at last, softly.

“Did you think you would be trussed up like a bride, just because you’re younger? Your
brother and I have been very careful to ensure this remains an alliance between equals.”

“I don’t like the diamonds,” Laurent said. “In Vere, jewelry is for pets.”
“You will never be a pet.”

Laurent took a breath. He nodded. “They pierced my ears for this,” he said, like an
accusation.

“I see that. Mine have been pierced for ages.”

“Well. I don’t want to pierce anything else.”

“All right.”

“Stop laughing at me.”

Damen tried, very hard, to obey. Laurent’s gaze flickered over him again.

“How is your head?” Laurent asked.

“No brains,” Damen assured him.

“Yes, but how is your injury?”

Damen had never expected to have such trouble fighting a smile on his wedding day. “That
reminds me; I’ve yet to address the fact that my beloved fiancé decided to check on the
horses before he so much as glanced my way.”

“The horses didn’t agree to be there. They had to put two down.”

“I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“It happens. Hunting. Jousting. Men choose cruelty wherever they can get away with it, and
don’t care about those without a voice. I’ve seen it before – I don’t care.”

He did care. Damen could see how much it bothered him. He was a gentle and sensitive soul,
born to a realm of vipers.

“You really will be nice to me?” Laurent asked. “This isn’t a trick because my brother is
here? Damianos?”

“My friends call me Damen.”

“Damen.”

“I’ll make my own vow right now, if you will make one too,” Damen offered. “I’ll vow to be
your friend and your brother. To protect you. To treat you kindly. Will you promise me the
same?”

Laurent nodded. “I promise,” he said.

“Good, then,” Damen said. “Will you be nice to me?”

Laurent hesitated. He said, “Probably not.”

Damen laughed. He held out a hand. “All right, fair enough. Let’s go get half-married.”

--

Laurent wasn’t sure that he was capable of describing the way he had thought he would feel
approaching the first half of his wedding to the Akielon Prince Damianos. For a long time, he
had worked very hard at not thinking about it at all. He had spent much of his time in Akielos
hiding in his rooms reading book after book, afraid of his thoughts, afraid of his feelings,
afraid of his own uncle – and now he was fourteen, and he officially only had seven years
left, though the life he had known had really ended at Marlas.

Seven years of this strange in-between. Laurent couldn’t be Veretian anymore, surely, not
once he was partially married to an Akielon. A partial marriage didn’t make him Akielon,
either, though. Seven years a game piece. Seven years a spoil of war.

Seven years wherein the treaty between two ancient enemies could still be altered or twisted
or severed.

Laurent wasn’t sure even now what it was he had expected to feel in this moment, or if he
had even worked himself up to having expectations at all. Surely those feelings couldn’t have
been good ones.

But Laurent, today fourteen, had decided that he was in love with Damianos of Akielos.

Yes – it was a shocking predicament, and a wholly unanticipated turn of events, but it was the
only logical conclusion Laurent could draw in regards to his feelings. His heartbeat sped up
every time the man looked at him. His palms got sweaty. It was just like in the books.

If Laurent had allowed himself the freedom to consider such a possibility before now, he
would have seen how much sense it made, and then it wouldn’t have come as such a surprise.
He should have thought to consider it sooner, so that he would have more time to adjust.
Damianos was, first of all, the singularly most handsome man Laurent had ever laid eyes on.
Second of all, he was kind – nearly as kind as Auguste. Third –

Well, Laurent knew very little else about him, but handsome and kind were two very good
places to start. Often, the protagonists of romances and ballads often started out with far less.

So, Laurent was in love.

It wasn’t that bad, really. They were stuck with one another regardless, so it would probably
be better all-around for them to have fond regards for one another. It could have been worse:
Auguste could have been forcing him to wed someone cruel, or ugly, or a woman.

Ever since the incident with Uncle in the baths, the concept of sexual intercourse twisted
Auguste’s belly – and not in a good way. If he were wedding a woman, he would be expected
to do – that. To her. Right away. And often. Over and over and over, until a slew of children
bound their countries together too tightly for any insult to sever. It will hurt, Uncle had told
him. Larius was younger than him, but Larius’s eyes had said he already knew it would hurt.
Larius had been horrified by what had been about to happen.
With a man, Laurent was only going to have to do it once. And not for seven more years. And
he had decided that he was in love with Damianos, so he wasn’t going to spend any more
time worrying about it, even if the man did possess the largest cock he had ever seen in his
life. (Laurent had caught himself staring several times while they had been swimming, afraid,
at first, that it had been stung by some insect whose venom had caused it to swell. When
Damianos had disrobed later at the Games, it had still looked… like that. ) That was a
problem for twenty-one-year-old Laurent to worry about. Perhaps twenty-one-year-old
Laurent would have found a way to write consummation out of the contract by then.

In any case, Laurent did not have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the palace
courtyard. Nor did he have to be tied to the palanquin that would carry him and Damianos
through the city to the temple district. He could tell that both of those facts surprised and
relieved his brother, who stood ready, waiting to help him up into his cushioned seat.

“No slaves?” Laurent asked, arching a brow. He had insisted, on hearing how Akielon
marriages went, that he would not be carried on the backs of slaves, but he had not been sure
his wishes would be honored.

“Not one,” Auguste promised, and he gestured. “Volunteers only.”

They would be carried by members of their guard, Laurent saw. Well, members of his guard,
mostly, and of those, most were the ones who had been taken from the regular soldiers, not
from Auguste’s. Actually, all five of the common-born men had volunteered: Jord, Orlant,
Andre, Yves, and Quennel. More difficult to persuade a noble-born to voluntarily take on a
task normally reserved for a slave, one supposed – though Albur had also volunteered, along
with Louis and Baptiste, who had come to Akielos with Auguste, and would have to be kept
separate lest they get so distracted flirting that they drop the palanquin. (Baptiste didn’t look
like the kind of man who would be discovered with the wide end of a soup ladle stuffed up
his rectum while he was dressed in the livery of the palace kitchen staff, but Albur insisted it
had happened at least thrice. Once is experiment. Twice is test. Three times makes a fetish.)

Laurent hadn’t felt overly emotional approaching this moment. Why should he? What was
the point? For one, he’d had months to resign himself to this reality. For another, attempting
escape meant risking thousands of lives. Anyway, Damianos was handsome and Damianos
was kind and Laurent was in love with him.

Laurent did feel emotional, however, when he saw the guards waiting for him. Not because of
something stupid like the reality of the end of his childhood suddenly hitting him square in
the chest. No – he hadn’t even particularly enjoyed his childhood.

But the guards were all dressed in the blue of the Prince’s guard, with the starburst bright
upon their chests. This particular shade and symbol were reserved for the Crown Prince of
Vere, the heir to the throne. Albur, Baptiste, and Louis had already possessed the appropriate
attire, but the others had not – it had to have been made for them in the most recent months.

It had to have been made, because Auguste no longer wore the blue. Auguste was no longer
the Crown Prince of Vere. Laurent was. Auguste was King.
The sudden and unexpected surge of feeling was a thick, warm ball in the back of Laurent’s
throat. He didn’t dare try to speak. He couldn’t look at his brother as Auguste handed him up
into the palanquin.

He couldn’t explain himself to Damianos, either. He couldn’t return the man’s encouraging
smile. He really was so kind and so handsome. That didn’t help the deep, unexplainable
feeling that Laurent was losing something that would never return.

Horns blared. Slaves began to play on instruments – a loud, energetic song filled with drums
and bells and horns and strings and other things Laurent didn’t have a name for. Slave
children a few years older than Laurent – lovely creatures from the pleasure slave barns
dressed in gauzy training silks with gold ribbons tied ‘round their necks – danced ahead
strewing their path with flower petals and throwing coins out to the onlookers. They would
be closely guarded, and so no one would be allowed to touch them, Damianos – Damen – had
explained. Their purpose was to display the King’s wealth and virility (and to bless the
marriage, sexually, Laurent guessed, though this was not said.)

The palanquin jostled and shifted as the eight Veretian men picked it up. Damianos reached
toward him, cautiously, and when Laurent didn’t jerk away from him, he brushed the tear
from his cheek.

“I know it’s hard to believe,” Damianos said, handsome and kind, “But it really will be all
right.”

Laurent couldn’t possibly explain himself, so he only nodded.

Damianos offered, “Do you want to hold my hand?”

Laurent nodded again.

--

It was a blur for Damen, the procession up and down the streets of Ios, the blare of music
ahead and behind, the cheering of his people all around. It took nearly an hour; Father’s
people had spent months seeding goodwill so that the alliance would be a popular decision.
They had planned the procession’s path to wind through nearly every district of the city.
Damen was popular with his people, anyway; they were always excited to see him. He leaned
out the windows to smile and to wave, thriving in their attention, happy they didn’t appear to
notice how still and silent and somber Laurent sat beside him.

At least the boy’s brief crying spell had ended. He gripped Damen’s hand tightly throughout
the journey.

He was such a strange, quiet child. Damen had seem glimpses of both versions of him that
had once been described to him – King Auguste’s gentle, charming dear of a brother; Prince
Richard’s difficult, stubborn tyrant of a nephew. Neither version quite fit Damen’s limited
experience of him – quiet, yet daring, brilliant and emotional, honest to a shocking degree.
“There’s still time for this to be salvaged,” Damen had said, the last time he met with his
father and his brother to discuss the current state of the alliance. Kastor had laughed at him.

“You will give Vere their peace with nothing in return simply to spare some boy a fate he is
bound to meet someday anyway?” he’d scoffed. “Imagine the expense that could have been
spared had they thought to throw the brat at you sooner!”

“You haven’t looked at the changes to the treaty that Vere has proposed,” Father had
cautioned.

“I don’t need to. I’ve been resigned to the likelihood of a political marriage since I was seven.
Unless the King has managed to sneak in some unfavorable tariffs - ?”

“No,” Father was frowning. “All of this terms are fair. They’re even more generous than
originally agreed.”

“Then I see no reason to back out now.”

Damen still didn’t see a reason, even as they ascended the temple steps side by side. They
each made a sacrifice by placing an important childhood memento upon the gods’ brazier.
For Damen, it was a blanket his mother had woven during pregnancy – tattered from long
use. Damen held it tightly for a moment, thankful she had left him a way to feel her love
despite never having the opportunity to meet her. He was at peace with the decision when he
consigned the item to the flames.

Laurent followed with his own item: a little wooden horse, carved from a single piece of
warm brown wood. Damen hoped that whoever had explained the ritual to him had properly
explained the importance of the meaning behind the item. They were giving up their
childhoods as they stepped into their marriage; if the item was not appropriately significant,
their union would be cursed.

Laurent watched the little horse for a moment as it went up in flames. His face was
impossible to read as he turned away. Damen wanted to catch his eye – to offer him a smile
or other sign of encouragement. But he wasn’t that to the boy; he wasn’t a friend or a brother
or a mentor to be looked to for strength and reassurance. Laurent’s contemplative gaze passed
by him without even seeing him.

Outside, the priests had already begun the sacrifices and the reading of the haruspices.
Dozens of sheep, cows, rams, and bulls, along with doves and ducks, hawks and crows, were
being slaughtered. The meat would be roasted, and after the gods had their share of it, it
would be made available to any of the citizens who wanted to participate in the celebration.
An equal measure was also to be sent to Vere as a gift.

Damen had noticed that Laurent was soft-hearted when it came to animals, but when they
came outside the temple, he knelt quietly at Damen’s side while the rituals were seen to. The
heavy smell of the temple fires clung to their clothes and their hair. Laurent gave no reaction
when he was asked to lift his head to be anointed by a mixture of oil and blood.
At last the priests declared the signs to be favorable for the marriage. Damen had seen the
ledgers; Father had paid the temples enough that he wouldn’t have been surprised if they had
received a favorable reading even if they had opened up the animals and found their innards
filled with frogs. In any case, it was enough. The music started up again. Damen and Laurent
plated the first serving of seared meat and poured the first glasses of wine, and they passed
them to their “guests” personally, signaling the ceremony was complete and the celebrations
could begin. There would be drinking and dancing and feasting outside the temple throughout
the night – a better sign, Damen thought, than any shiny goat entrails. The people were nearly
always amenable to free food and wine and a day off work, but an alliance with Vere very
well could have been one of the few reasons they chose to turn such bounty down. There was
no trace of the sullen hostility Damen had feared; the people didn’t take their gifts and vanish
back into their homes. It was enough to give Damen hope for lasting peace – enough to make
him believe, almost, that the readings of the entrails were genuine and their union would
indeed have the favor of the gods.

The royal household would not be celebrating here with the people. Back at the palace, a
banquet and entertainments were planned, and Father and King Auguste would sign the
current version of the peace agreement. This one was more difficult to alter than the last.
Amendments could still be made, yearly, but otherwise it was set in stone until its final
incarnation when Laurent turned twenty-one. Those amendments would require hefty
penalties on the side of the country making the request if they came before the year was over.

Damen had not seen it since the Veretians made their suggested edits. He knew Father wasn’t
entirely pleased with it, but little more than that. They would not be here celebrating the
wedding if there was anything too egregious within it.

In any case, Damen was pleased enough with the way the day had gone. But for the signing
of the contract, the treaty was secured. Laurent had performed well, and he was safe from his
uncle as an added bonus. The entrails had all been shiny.

--

“I’ve been thinking,” Laurent said, as they were carried back to the palace. Their route was
shorter now, with the sun low on the horizon and the people of the city just starting their
celebrations.

Damen smiled, pleased to hear his voice – pleased that he was not so upset by their marriage
that he couldn’t speak. The eyes that regarded him from the other side of the palanquin were
a clear and steady blue. The tears from earlier were long gone.

“Thinking about what?” Damen asked.

“I want you to give me a wedding gift.”

“Oh?”

“It will be fair. I’ll give you one at the Veretian ceremony.”
Damen tried not to laugh at the direct child’s logic, so concerned with fairness. It didn’t fit his
Veretian tongue.

“I take it you have something in mind already?”

“Yes,” Laurent said. “Slaves. Specifically, I want bedroom slaves. My age, or younger. As
many as you deem appropriate, but don’t you dare be stingy with me.”

“Laurent, I – “

“I want you to raid the barns of all the boys training for use by you or your brother or your
father, and I want you to give the best ones to me, and then I’m going to free them and train
them to be my household staff. My allowance does allow for household staff. They’re
Akielon, so I’m sure you can get them to spy on me. You can’t object to that.”

Damen thought he had some understanding of what a fish must feel like when it was
unexpectedly pulled from the water.

“What?” Laurent snapped when he took too long to answer. “I would ask for the girls, too,
but it wouldn’t be appropriate. I’ve done the numbers. There is no reason to deny me the
support of a staff.”

“We’re half-married,” Damen reminded him. “Akielos will pay half your allowance from
now on.”

Laurent merely looked at him, as if daring him to say he was not going to allow it.

“Household slaves would be easier,” Damen began.

“I don’t want easy and I don’t want household slaves.”

“And what will I tell my father and Kastor in a few years when they find the stables cannot
provide them fresh faces? You don’t think anyone will notice how pretty my husband’s staff
is?”

“Tell them I deserve it,” Laurent said, deadpan. Then, “It’s my wedding. And my birthday.”

“You’ve already received your birthday gifts. And it’s my wedding, too.”

Still, Damen found himself considering it. A wedding gift would be appropriate, and he liked
the thought of giving Laurent more boys his own age to be around. Perhaps, he reasoned, he
would settle in better, be less solemn and solitary, if he had a project like this. Damen’s duties
took him away often, and he didn’t know yet if he would be able to invite Laurent to tag
along with him. Father and Kastor would not be pleased to lose promising young slaves, but
they probably wouldn’t notice until the boys were older, and by then it would be done, their
places filled with others.

“A position as a bedmate in the royal household is the highest honor a slave can reach,”
Damen said. “If I let you do this, you’ll he stealing that from them.”
 “Oh nooo. However will I live with myself?”

Damen could not stop a smile. It was too much – the soft, flat tone of voice, the droll roll of
blue eyes, the bored and aristocratic manner with which the boy seemed to turn his attention
out the window – all broken the moment he glanced back to make sure Damen was still
paying attention.

“You’ll do it?” Laurent pressed as Damen, helpless, began to laugh. “When? How many can I
have? Can I go and choose them myself? I want to see what it looks like, the places you keep
your human chattel. Stop laughing at me, damn it! I demand that you take me seriously!”

Damen held up a finger. “We’ll go over your finances tonight and decide what size staff you
can afford to maintain,” he said, once he had regained control. “Remember, now that you’re
married, your guards’ salary will also come out of your income.”

“I told you, I already looked at – “

Damen held up a second finger. “If we’re doing this, this is my rule. You only speak Akielon
in your household unless I say otherwise. That includes your Veretian guards; if they want to
be able to understand the orders you give them without a translator tagging along, then they
best start learning as well. It’s the best way for you to learn. These are my only two
conditions. I get to double check your numbers, and you learn my language. I’ll even allow
you to continue to use Veretian until your brother leaves. Are we agreed?”

“I wasn’t aware you could count.”

“Are we agreed?” Damen was laughing again.

“Yes,” Laurent said, flushing, looking pleased. “We’re agreed.”

Damen was still smiling. He felt good.

Chapter End Notes

Everything is fine and happy and great and there is nothing to worry about.
 Chapter 17
Chapter Notes

Warnings for this chapter: Auguste is dumb and Uncle is gross. There is some discussion
of the possibility of martial rape, but it is not a thing that is happening here. Also,
Laurent is the smartest person in the room and Damen is smart enough to know to
follow his lead.

Let's talk about that pesky contract, yeah?

Edited for a few typos and a little rewording.

While they had all been away at the temple, the slaves at the palace had been hard at work
preparing the grand hall for the wedding banquet. Their path from the courtyard was strewn
with flowers; bright blooms lined the walkways and twined around columns. They hung
along walls and rafters; they swayed in the windows and perfumed the air with the scent of
almond blossom and hyacinth.

Damen and Father and Kastor had spent hours discussing how best to handle the Akielon
portion of the wedding proceedings. Kastor and several of the bannermen shared the view
that since it was only “half” a marriage, and the contract was not to be considered closed for
several years yet, there was little need to honor it with the same extravagance a “real”
wedding would warrant.

“They’re Veretian,” Kastor had said. “They won’t know the difference. And if they did, they
would hardly appreciate – or deserve it – anyway.”

Damen disagreed. “For the treaty to have lasting results, we must continue to act in good
faith. If we treat our allies with honor and respect and they fail to do the same for us, it will
be clear to our neighbors who should be held accountable if the peace fails. We should treat
the Veretians as if they have been our friends for millennia. We should treat this union as if
we had been anticipating it since infancy.”

Damen had already been confident that he had made the right call – but that confidence was
reinforced while he was walking down the flower-strewn corridors with his funny little fianc-
no, Laurent was his spouse, now, at least in Akielos. Damen felt warmth for the bright,
surprising boy, which was not something he had ever anticipated when he had agreed to this.
He was glad that he had insisted on doing things the right way – not to honor Vere, not for
political advantage, but because Laurent was a delightful child who deserved to be treated
well, and Damen would have been ashamed to bring him back to the palace to lackluster
preparations.
“I like the sea,” Laurent confided as they walked. “I will enjoy living with it so close.”

The path they took to the banquet was a private one. Their guests would be going another
way. Aside from their guards and a handful of slaves, they were alone, the fragrant breeze
and the sound of the waves their only real companions. The romance was lost on them, of
course – Laurent felt like a little brother to Damen, and Damen doubted the boy was even old
enough to be capable of conceptualizing such thoughts – but it was nice, anyway, to have a
little longer alone, to have a little more of a barrier between the overwhelm of public duty
and whatever private adjustments one needed to make to fulfill it.

“We’ll find more things for you to enjoy,” Damen promised him.

“And when we go to Vere, I’ll help you, too. It will be fair.”

It wasn’t the same. They wouldn’t be living in Vere. Even extended visits would have to be
rare, because Damen would be a King, and Laurent was the price of peace between their
countries. Damen didn’t point that out. Laurent’s offer was a sweet one, and it deserved to be
appreciated.

“You’re a kind boy,” Damen told him.

“Are you surprised that Veretians are capable of kindness?”

“Did I sound surprised? I’m sorry. We don’t really know enough about each other’s people
for any generalizations to be fair, I guess. I did expect to be hated on principle.”

“I can be unhappy about the situation we’re in while still understanding that none of the
individuals involved are solely to blame. We are performing a duty for our people. For
peace.”

Laurent easily could have argued that Damen’s father was to blame. Perhaps choosing a path
of polite understanding was his own form of a wedding gift.

“I can be magnanimous,” Laurent said. “I can allow you the grace to earn my hatred.”

“Thank you. That’s very generous.”

“You’re welcome,” Laurent said, glancing at him from the corner of his eye. “Trust me,” he
said, “My restraint is quite impressive. Your gratitude is well-placed.”

“I’ll remember that,” Damen promised. “But wait – you were angry with your brother.”

“I was angry that he made this decision without consulting me. That doesn’t mean I fail to
understand the decision, or why it was necessary.”

“And now? Are you still angry?”

“I don’t know,” the boy admitted, softly. “I have so many things to be angry about.”
They had reached the hall. Their brief interlude of privacy and quiet had found its conclusion.
Laurent stopped, hesitant to enter, reluctant to face the heavy press of duty that waited for his
young, slender shoulders, the hungry eyes that would soon watch his every move.

Speaking to him, it was easy to forget that he was not older. Laurent seemed more a mind
than a body; it was impossible when speaking to him to think that he was younger than
seventeen, sixteen at the least, but when Damen looked at him, fourteen seemed too old for
him. He was a child, frightened and small and vulnerable. Nine. Ten. Eleven seemed like it
would be a stretch. Damen opened the door.

The hall was filled with wedding guests already. Bannermen and Kyoi, visiting nobility from
Vere. The tables would already be heavy with food for the banquet. The best cuts from the
sacrifices had been burned for the gods, and a portion had gone to the people of Ios, but the
rest had been brought here and prepared, lavishly dressed in spices and sauces, accompanied
by wines and by cheeses, by nuts and mushrooms and roasted vegetables and grilled fish, by
honeyed desserts and sugared fruits and dozens and dozens of tiny, perfect cakes. The low
tables where the guests were sat were fragrant with more displays of flowers. Slaves would
be preparing for the first of the night’s performances.

A breeze stirred Laurent’s fair hair. He closed his eyes, the gold of his lashes brushing the
pale marble of his cheek. The breath he took trembled.

“Do you want to hold my hand again?” Damen offered.

Laurent’s snort was derisive. He said, “No.”

Laurent looked at the door again, and he lifted his chin. He walked in alone. Damen
followed.

They didn’t get far.

Just a few steps into the hall, Laurent came to a hard, sudden stop. Moments before he had
been something near at-ease – not smiling, no, and certainly not happy, not by far, but as
comfortable as he possibly could have been with his lot – now his pale skin had gone ashen,
his posture rigid. When Damen came to stand beside him, he jerked violently away, rounding
on Damen with an expression of hurt and betrayal.

He said, “You promised.”

Damen didn’t need to ask or wonder what he meant. There in the center of the hall, in the
place where the slaves should have been preparing for the night’s various performances,
instead waited an overly-frilled monstrosity of a four-poster Veretian platform bed.

Damen had no idea where it could have come from unless the Veretians had carried it south
with them on their ship. It was hideous. The columns of the bedposts were carved with fat
cherubs with obscenely-large cocks caught mid-fuck in a variety of positions. A plush velvet
comforter of blue velvet, lace interlay, and abundant ruffles was pulled back to reveal pale
blue silk sheets. All of the materials and colors would be easily stained, easily ruined, like the
hope of an innocent boy who let himself believe his life would be bearable.
Damen’s rage came on, fast and sudden. The moment fractured itself into a series of
impressions – naked betrayal, hurt, and terror on Laurent’s face slowly closing him off
behind a sheet of ice. The Veretian wedding guests, waiting, eager and anticipatory – the
Akielon guests merely confused, or perhaps concerned, those who were catching on. Kastor
at his household’s table, laughing, tilting his cup Damen’s way in a kind of salute. King
Auguste, standing before Father with the contract in hand, red-faced, furious and bewildered.
Father at the King’s table, waiting, unreadable, leaving it to his foes to expose their game
themselves.

- And that perverted rat, Prince Richard, standing to the side as if uninvolved. As if surprised
and concerned. Because he was looking for it, Damen caught the gleam of anticipatory
satisfaction in his eyes.

Damen turned to the nearest soldier, and he ordered the room cleared.

Akielon or Veretian, it was an undeniable breach in etiquette to clear the hall of wedding
guests, but Damen knew it was easier than trying to relocate the parties involved without
hours of argument first. Easier than allowing the explosion that was about to occur to happen
in front of so many witnesses.

The Akielon guests weren’t pleased, but they went, once Father nodded his agreement to the
order. The Veretian guests offered more resistance. The presence of the bed – the threat of
sealing their contract with the public martial rape of their underage Prince – wasn’t merely
standard practice for them. It was entertainment. They didn’t want to miss it. The boy’s age,
Damen realized, made the affair all the more exciting for them. The energy of expectation
had been high since they had entered the hall and seen the bed waiting there like the
headsman’s axe, sharpened and primed to fall. It wasn’t merely the titillation of watching a
deflowering that had them so eager – it was the twisted spectacle of watching a “barbarian”
of Damen’s size and strength get a leg over on their frail, bookish Prince, young and small as
he was. They had expected this. They had come to Akielos for this.

Damen felt ill.

There was a moment where it seemed there would be actual physical resistance from the
Veretian guests. Damen was furious enough and disgusted enough to want it. He had it on the
tip of his tongue, the order authorizing his soldiers to violence, but then some of Laurent’s
guards joined the efforts to clear the room without prompting. The commoner Jord led the
effort, alongside Andre and Orlant. Having their own people on the side of those trying to
steal their entertainment from them made the Veretian guests take the soldiers more seriously.
There were still protests, but they began to allow themselves to be moved, and no one
reached for weapons. With shuffling and stomping, the room, slowly, was cleared.

When silence finally came to the great hall, it rang too loudly in Damen’s ears. The presence
of that great monstrosity of a bed seemed to throb like a wound.

Kastor had been one of the first to leave the temple – one of the first to arrive at the palace.
He was already several cups into his wine. He was the first to break the silence – with a
laugh. The smile that spread across his face was cruel, as if he enjoyed the position Damen
had been placed in.
“Well, brother?” he asked. “It isn’t like you to be so shy. Shall we call to the pleasure stables
for something to get your blood going? There’s no shame in it; sometimes some men need a
little help rising to the occasion.”

“Stop that,” Damen told him. To Father and King Auguste, he demanded, “What is the
meaning of this? This is not what we agreed upon.”

Father said, “That question is better suited to the King of Vere. He put it in the contract.”

“No,” King Auguste said. “No, I didn’t. I swear – Laurent - !”

It was unexpected when Laurent moved. He did it silently, extending his hand for the contract
his brother held, and the King didn’t resist his taking it.

“Laurent,” he said again, “I swear to you, I didn’t…!” He couldn’t bring himself to say it.

Laurent ignored him, his bright, intelligent eyes scanning the contents of the contract for
himself. After a moment, he began to read out lout.

“On hand and knee the younger Prince shall kneel, and in act of public consummation as
required by ancient writ of Vere, he shall seal the treaty by accepting into himself the seed of
the older – “

“On signing of the second contract, the first day of the twenty-first year of the younger
Prince’s birth,” Damen finished for him, interrupting. He had read the contract himself before
his father submitted their draft to Vere. He was not entirely sure who he was trying to
threaten as he took a foreboding step forward – only that he did, indeed, want to threaten
someone. He had placed himself in between Laurent and the other men, and that was entirely
on purpose. “He’s only a boy!” Damen spat. “We agreed - !”

“It says upon signing of the first contract,” Laurent corrected. His voice was soft and flat,
emotionless. It stopped Damen mid-sentence. Laurent was staring at the Veretian King.

“Auguste,” he said, “This is in our section of the amendments. Did you - ?”

“No!” the young King was desperate, but not entirely convincing. “Laurent, I would never -
!”

“It’s in your handwriting,” Laurent stated. “Or else it is a very good forgery.”

“It’s a forgery! Laurent, I didn’t add that!”

“King Theomedes asked you if you wished to review the treaty once more and you declined.
I remember.”

“I didn’t add it, Laurent.”

“Are you suggesting it was our hosts, then, who altered the contract?” Laurent asked. “Did
they also happen to have a marriage bed lying in storage, adorned with a Prince’s colors? Or
if I make inquiries, will I find it on your shipping manifest?”
“Laurent - !”

“Whatever the explanation, what is clear is that some terrible and unfortunate
misunderstanding has occurred,” Prince Richard interjected.

“Misunderstanding?” Damen repeated, and he could hear the danger in his voice. At his table,
Kastor roared with laughter as Calliope, once more unfortunate enough to be left the task of
translation, quietly repeated the conversation to him.

“Honorable Damianos! Pride of our father’s loin! All hail Prince Boy-Fucker!” Kastor
mocked. He gestured with his drink at the bed. “Get to it, then. This wedding is getting
boring!”

“I will do no such thing!”

“You are half married and half Veretian. You should at least prove yourself half-man and give
the boy half a fuck.” Kastor looked at Laurent, and in his broken Veretian, he said, “Him
fucks half the ass. Lick one balls.” Outmanned by his own hilarity, Kastor dissolved into
giggles, slapping his palm against his table as if unable to contain his mirth. Calliope, head
bowed, did not translate the parts he had said in Akielon – though Laurent, rigid and pale,
seemed to catch enough of the joke.

“Laurent, please, look at me,” King Auguste took his brother by his shoudlers, but Laurent’s
gaze slid past him. “I didn’t add this!” he promised. “I would not ask this of you.”

“But you did ask it of me,” Laurent said. “Today or in seven years, you asked it. Or did you
manage to delude yourself that my public humiliation would not be a part of this?”

Auguste released him as if burned.

When Damen extended his hand for the contract, Laurent handed it to him, silently, unable to
look at Damen, either. Kastor had begun to make distressed sex sounds, mimicking the
sounds of a boy being hurt. He had picked up a dinner roll and, with three fingers, begun to
bore an obscene hole into it. He brayed with laughter when he was done, and held it up on
display as if it were an accomplishment.

“Get him out of here,” Damen ordered.

Kastor resisted as two guards began trying to haul him to his feet. “I won’t go; I have every
right to be here.”

“You’re too drunk for politics, and you’re embarrassing me. Get out.”

“I want to know how the little Veretian piggie will squeal when you poke him.”

“NOW,” Damen ordered.

Kastor continued to struggle, and grabbed for a knife as he was hauled up from his couch. He
managed to cut one of the guards, but they wrestled him from the room with little further
incident.
Damen still held the contract, though it was now crumpled in his fist. Kastor’s behavior had
distracted him from reading it, but it didn’t matter. He trusted what Laurent had said. Striding
forward, he slammed it down onto his father’s table.

“Fix this.”

“You’ve already completed your marriage ceremony.”

“We haven’t signed. Until we sign, the contract can still be altered. I won’t cooperate with
this. Fix. It.”

Father’s way was to wait and to watch and to listen. His way was to let the bannermen argue,
so that when their blood was up he would know what they were truly made of. His way was
to allow his sons to make their own judgements, and leave them to experience the fallout. His
commands only came once he was certain he had adequately weighed and gathered all intel
he needed on the situation. It was far from uncommon for him to allow a general or a Prince
to give an order he planned to later overrule. He wanted to understand how the men around
him thought, and he could not do that if he was always the first to act.

Usually, Damen admired his father’s wisdom and restraint. Today, however – this moment –
he found it infuriating. He didn’t see wisdom and restraint – he saw inaction. Father had
promised back in Sycon that he would care for and protect Laurent as if Laurent were one of
his own sons, and yet he had not given him any of the promised companions or tutors he had
offered, and not he was not lifting a finger to resolve this conflict, let alone shield his pride.
Father had seen the contract and he had questioned it – he had given King Auguste the
opportunity to review it again – but he hadn’t done anything further to prevent this
happening. Damen was as disgusted with him as he was with the rest of them, particularly
when his father at last spoke.

As if it did not matter to him one way or another whether or not a child was publicly raped in
his hall, he said, “The addition is in the Veretian section. It is up to Vere to alter it.”

“If someone has forged His Majesty’s hand, then it is clear there is some force here which
cannot be trusted,” Prince Richard said. “Auguste, are you certain this alliance is worth
maintaining?”

“Are you advocating a return to war?” King Auguste asked him, looking lost.

“We do not know which of their men altered our contract,” Prince Richard said, “But let us
look at the things we do know: King Theomedes and his impolite sons willingly
misrepresented their knowledge of our language. They concocted a lie meant to separate me
from my own nephew, and manipulated him into believing it. Now they forge your hand to
sew further conflict between us with this disgusting addition to the contract. Your Majesty –
nephew - Auguste – if you insist on moving forward with this insane alliance, then why risk
allowing this contract to remain in its current, flexible state for seven more years? What
further trickery are we to expect from these beasts in the meantime? They are already trying
to tear our family apart – what will be left of our bonds by the time your darling brother
reaches his majority?”
Damen took a step toward him, but Father lifted a hand, stopping him. Father’s eyes were
narrowed. He allowed Prince Richard to continue without interruption.

“If you insist on continuing down this path, then have the marriage consummated now,
tonight, and be done with this. Complete the contract as it stands, before they cause you more
harm. The boy is fourteen now; he is more than old enough. It won’t kill him. Auguste – all
you are asking for is a few moments of discomfort in return for generations of peace between
two peoples. It’s hardly a difficult – “

“No,” Damen said, firmly. His tone did not leave room for argument. Damen was not his
father – he could not sit and listen to filth, waiting to see what kind of consideration King
Auguste gave to the advice his odious uncle offered. If the idea of allowing his brother to be
fucked tonight was something Auguste would entertain for even a moment, Damen didn’t
want to know. No – Damen didn’t want Laurent to know. “No,” Damen said again. “We
aren’t doing that. I’m not doing that. Consider the option off the table.”

“Are you refusing to do your duty by my nephew?” Prince Richard demanded.

“I will be happy to do my duty,” Damen said. “In seven years. As we agreed.” Damen picked
up the contract, and he stalked back to Auguste, shoving it into the King’s chest. “I’m not
signing this filth. Fix it.”

“Auguste, take a moment to think,” Prince Richard implored, as the King’s hands lifted,
slowly, to take hold of the contract again. “Some Akielon agent changed the treaty by forging
your hand, simply to further drive the wedge between our sweet Laurent and his family. Now
this brute is trying to intimidate you into unnecessary changes.”

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Damen began, but Richard raised his voice and continued as
if he hadn’t spoken.

“He must have some plan, some reason he is so desperate to keep the contract open and
malleable,” Richard said. “Look at him! What man like him declines a warm hole to fuck
unless he has an ulterior motive?”

“My ulterior motive is that, unlike you, I have no desire to force myself onto a child!” Damen
snarled. He had moved toward him without realizing he was doing so. Half blind with rage,
he was unaware that he held Prince Richard’s overdecorated jacket balled into his fists, that
he had used it to pull him upwards to eye-level, leaving the man’s toes scrabbling for
purchase against the ground.

“I think,” Richard said, “You should kindly release me, Prince Damianos.”

“I will be happy to, Prince Richard.” Over the ledge of a very high balcony. “Just as soon as
you kindly explain what you find so fucking hard to understand about – “

“Damianos - !” King Auguste was pulling, unsuccessfully, on his arm.

“Damianos!” it was only his father’s voice, sharp, that cut through Damen’s rage. The silence
that followed was ringing.
Quietly, Laurent said, “I forgot.”

His unexpected interjection surprised more than just Damen. Every eye was drawn to him.
Reluctantly, Damen released Prince Richard without shoving him into the pointy end of a
spear – though he could not resist the urge to give him a bit of a push away from himself as
Laurent approached Father’s table.

“Damianos and I have an agreement of our own to add to the contract,” Laurent said. “It isn’t
complete as it stands, anyway.”

“Laurent,” Auguste began, as his brother, after receiving Father’s nod to continue, returned to
him. He sounded pained, still stuck on the need to repair his brother’s opinion of him, or
reassure himself that the boy believed him.

Prince Richard was staring murder at Damen. It was fine – Damen was staring murder right
back. Richard had half-unsheathed the knife at his waist, and Damen hadn’t even noticed it
until now, when the man slid it back into his coat.

Laurent did nothing to acknowledge either brother or uncle. He took hold of the contract and
he tugged, gently, and Auguste let him take it. His eyes followed as Laurent returned to
Father’s table.

“I apologize; I forgot to propose my own changes to my brother, and so they did not get
added before tonight. Am I allowed to make the alterations myself, or does it have to be a
King who does it? Am I permitted to act on behalf as Vere? I am serving as an emissary of it,
it a way.”

“You’re fourteen,” Father said.

“Evidently, that’s ‘more than old enough to fuck.’ It should therefore be reasoned that it is
also old enough to alter an official state contract, I think. Or, at the very least, be allowed to
present my suggestions for review before it is signed. This is a fucking mess, and no one has
asked my opinion about any of it even once. No, no – I have several changes, actually, what
is this? Hand me the pen.”

Father regarded him seriously. Laurent extended his hand, expectant. After a moment, Father
obliged him. He slid the inkwell closer.

“What do you suppose comes of this fucking mess if you make your changes and your brother
protests them?”

“He won’t,” Laurent said, already writing. “I’m better at this than him. Really, you’re in
trouble now – some of these terms are absolutely ridiculous. We will need more paper.”
Laurent gave the offhand order with barely a pause, pen scratching against paper as he
marked through an entire paragraph. “I would say you should have let me look at this from
the start, but, really, Auguste has yet to say one word in my defense, so perhaps it doesn’t
matter what I propose. Perhaps I have miscalculated his estimation of me and he will reject it
all on principle, or some other such nonsense. Damianos, come here and help me – what does
the Akielon part say? This is humiliating; two countries threatening war over a matter of
when cocks go in asses. We have guests.”

Damen moved woodenly to join him, wary of putting his back to Prince Richard. Laurent, he
realized, was right. In all of the planning and the preparations and the negotiations, no one
had thought to pull him into matters once. He was only thirteen – fourteen, now – and this
involved him every bit as much as it did any of the rest of them. More, in fact, than most of
them. Peace between their countries – successful peace – peace that lasted for generations to
come – mattered to Laurent. It mattered to him more than it mattered to many of the men
who had actually worked on the treaty, never once really expecting it to work out. Because of
his age and his innocence, none of them had ever for a moment considered including him.
Were their roles reversed, Damen knew his father would have had him there for every
meeting.

“Laurent, stop this immediately,” Prince Richard scolded. “You are embarrassing yourself
and your King.”

“Am I?” Laurent asked, pausing for only a moment, head tilted as he considered the changes
he had already made. He glanced back over his shoulder at his uncle and his brother, taking
them both in with a cold frown. “There is a bed in the banquet hall,” he said. “Somebody –
probably someone I know – intended for the night’s festivities to begin with my rape as the
opening act. I assure you, Uncle, I am already embarrassed. Damianos?”

“Yes,” Damen said. “I’m here.”

Laurent pointed to the paragraph of Akielon notes. He said, “Read.”

 Chapter 18
Chapter Notes

Laurent is overpowered, and I am not sorry.

The treaty between Akielos and Vere consisted of two parts – Vere’s offer, written in
Veretian, and Akielos’s offer, in Akielon. Each part had a corresponding translation for
readers of the other – though it was not until Prince Damianos began to read the Akielon out
loud, offering on-the-fly translation for Laurent’s curious ears and patiently answering the
boy’s numerous and often multi-part questions that it began to become clear what a rough
state their treaty had actually been presented in.

Laurent had been right: he was better at this than Auguste.

That was hardly a revelation. Auguste had known from the beginning that he had sent his two
strongest strategists away from himself. Laurent was young, but he devoured information; he
thought of things Auguste simply wasn’t capable of.

It wasn’t that either side had been careless in their work, but aside from that meeting at
Marlas, they had never actually sat down together to discuss their agreement – it had all been
done through letters and other intermediaries. The translators had done their jobs, but they
had not paused to consider and discuss the various cultural nuances Laurent kept interrupting
Damianos to ask clarification on. There was an entire segment of the treaty where the bath
was off because each country had a different understanding for what actually constituted a
“bushel.” Vere defined the unit of measurement as holding 36.37 liters of liquid. Akielos only
required 35.24.

It was the maths error that finally brought King Theomedes into the discussion. Auguste
could not fathom why a man who would invade his neighbors unprompted in the hopes of
reclaiming lands lost by ancestors no one living remembered would spend so much time
merely observing as a child reworked a treaty meant to set the terms of peace between
nations, but Auguste had thought he would intervene long before then. He wasn’t like
Auguste, frozen by his own ineptitude, terrified to make a decision and have it prove a bad
one.

This particular error had been in the Akielon section. Theomedes himself had failed to spot it,
however many times he had poured over the contract, but Laurent, fourteen and brilliant,
head full of niche facts from too much reading, had caught it simply by stopping Damianos
mid-translation to ask for the definition of bushel.

“You’re keeping your guests waiting over this nonsense,” Uncle Richard scolded.
“We lack appropriate understanding of one another to risk continued assumptions,” Laurent
answered. He was right. This was proof enough – this tiny difference in numbers. Neither
side had set out intending to cheat the other, but it would have looked that way, eventually,
when a few months of uneven trading began to snowball.

His brow knitting in thought, King Theomedes took up another copy of the contract and
called for more paper and ink. Laurent, waving his hand but not glancing away from his copy,
was brazen enough to order a pot of coffee added to the request.

Auguste felt useless, unnecessary. Laurent had helped himself to a seat at the King’s table,
and Prince Damianos had joined them, and to Auguste it looked like three Kings holding a
discussion. His brother was only a boy – but he was an impressive boy. Auguste knew he was
an impressive boy, and he knew it had been Father’s mistake to underestimate and undervalue
him. What Auguste hadn’t known was that he would find himself struggling when it came to
be time to face how far his brother outshone him. He had not known that he had it in himself
to feel – what he was feeling. Inadequacy. Resentment. Bitterness. Auguste should have been
taking pride in the way his brother’s star was finally lighting up the world around him, but for
a moment he felt nothing but the ugly reality any older brother felt when he found himself
being outperformed by a younger sibling.

When he caught on to his trail of thoughts at last, Auguste gave himself a hard shake. He
went to Nikandros, who was a friend of Prince Damianos and who spoke Veretian very well,
because it would have been inappropriate for him to either interrupt the others or attempt to
speak to the translator Calliope without a chaperone.

“Can you help me instruct the slaves?” Auguste asked him. “I think this will take hours. We
should have the feast moved outside for the guests and invite them to take their celebrations
in the courtyard, under the stars.”

“See it done,” King Theomedes, overhearing him, agreed without looking up from his work.
The soft murmur of voices around the table continued as if there had never been a break in it
at all, and Auguste struggled with the feeling of having been dismissed, as if he was a
common soldier who had been given orders – or, worse, a servant. Or a slave. It took more
than he wanted to admit for him to rally himself, to foster a smile, and to lead the campaign
to relocate the party to the courtyard. He was a King, dismissed from negotiations, relegated
to the role of event coordinator – or perhaps, if he was feeling generous with himself and
allowed himself to consider the combined social landscapes of both Vere and Akielos as a
kind of battleground in its own right, a general.

Auguste personally helped grip the end of a banquet table to help haul it to the courtyard. It
was inappropriate, but it was the closest he could get to something he was good at: physical
activity. Auguste wasn’t suited for politics, and he couldn’t bring himself to simply stand
around directing slaves. No one currently bent over the treaties looked up as the King of Vere
joined the soldiers and slaves in actual manual labor. Auguste picked a slave at random, and
with Calliope’s help, instructed him to prepare plates of food for those at the table, as well as
make sure they continued to have ample paper and ink. With everyone occupied, it was easy
for the useless King of Vere to become just another body at work.
“Help me translate,” Auguste instructed Calliope, who hurried to step in when Nikandros
began working on another table, where he would be of more use than if he’d simply stood
around repeating Auguste’s orders. Auguste tried not to blush, addressing her. As they
prepared to open the doors, Auguste made sure that he wore his easiest, friendliest smile.
Through Calliope, he made sure the men understood his instructions: don’t let anyone past
them into the hall. Get the doors closed quickly behind the last table. Don’t act as if anything
is wrong.

They got the doors open. Outside, the press of wedding guests ran the gamut from curious to
annoyed. As Auguste had suggested, some of the soldiers he’d instructed to leave the tables
be had to step in to hold the guests back – to keep them from crowding back inside or putting
themselves in a position to block their way. Auguste made sure the table he was helping carry
led the way. Between the size of the tables and the generous allotment of food, each table
took a minimum of six men to lift – three on each side. Eight would have been even better,
but he needed the crowd management. This was the kind of math Auguste thought of.

“Ladies and gentlemen, esteemed guests, we are relocating the party to the courtyard, in order
to better enjoy this beautiful evening. Marques! Look behind you, man – have you seen an
Akielon sunset before? Follow us, everyone, this way – yes, I am afraid this table is
frightfully heavy; pass the word along, please; make sure our way is clear up ahead. Oh, hello
Count Compte – how is your lovely son? Yes, we are relocating to the courtyard. No, no, I
am afraid that was an error in translation – the marriage will certainly not be consummated
tonight; you aren’t missing a thing. We will see to it later, in Vere. What’s that Duchess? Yes,
I know my dear brother is already fourteen, but the Prince of Aielos, like many men, prefer
fruit that is a little more ripened. Yes – hello – we are relocating to the courtyard, my
apologies for the misunderstanding!”

--

Laurent made it simple.

He created a list of the terms each side was offering, and then he defined, clarified, and
defined again what each of those terms actually entailed and what that meant to either side.
Leaving even the smallest margin for interpretive error was just asking for the treaty to fail.

“If I’m taking the step of marrying an Akielon, I want to ensure that step is going to serve its
intended purpose,” Laurent stated. Then, to Damen, “No offense.”

Damianos appeared more amused than offended when he answered, “Of course.”

Laurent ignored his amusement; he was too busy untangling the ridiculous mess that had
been made of the treaty simply because his brother and Theomedes had been unwilling to sit
down in the same room together and talk. Yes, their time had been limited when they had last
spoken in Marlas, but they had had months to get over themselves and figure this out. It was
the Council’s job to advise Auguste, to shore up his weaker sides. He was a new King, and
had always had Father to fall back on. Had they tried to help him at all? Had any of them
even bothered to give the treaty a look? Surely his brother had not been left to muddle
through his first months of Kingship alone!
Too much had been left too vague – that was the biggest problem. The Akielon culture was
too forthright to realize what a mistake it would be to leave his countrymen so much wiggle
room. They had fucking sent word ahead before launching their attack on Marlas – it would
not occur to them how nebulous boundaries could be twisted and manipulated and taken
advantage of. Many Veretians would think it a game to find loopholes to exploit. They all
would have been at each other’s throats again inside a year.

And Auguste – when the Akielons proposed fair but vague terms, Auguste had been too
honorable and too polite to ask that they define them more rigidly.

Laurent marked through entire sections of the contract. He didn’t care if he was perceived as
rude, and he didn’t care how long it took him to get to the terms they could all live with. No
one needed to be happy with him, so long as what he did was right. Laurent listed out all the
terms of the current agreement in exact, specific measurements, from precise taxing rates on
imported items to exhaustive accountings of how and why and when those rates might differ,
alphabetical and separated according to category. A pair of identical maps was brought in
and, painstakingly, marked with their agreed-upon trade routes, neutral zones, mail routes,
cattle paths, and shipping harbors. He listed our holy days for each country, along with which
required feasting or fast. Laurent recorded the rules for how slaves were to be treated when
accompanying their masters on visits to Vere, and how runaways were to be handled – though
it turned his stomach to include it. He included how Akielon men who preferred the company
of women should be treated in Vere – where it was appropriate for them to show off their
lovers, and where it was not.

When the topic of pets came up, Laurent could feel something within him waver. His
handwriting, elegant and refined, even at fourteen, began to look a little shaken.

“The laws of Akielos are clear, and will not be altered,” Damianos said. When Laurent
chanced a glance up, he found his new husband’s jaw set as firmly as if it had been chiseled
out of stone. “Sexual activity involving partners with more than three years difference
between them is illegal until the younger party reaches the age of sixteen in Akielos.”

“Remind me, Prince Damianos,” Uncle said, “What is the difference in years between
yourself and your pretty new spouse?”

“I will remind you,” Damianos ground out, “We have already made the addition to the
contract: I will not lay a hand on Laurent until he has reached the Veretian majority of
twenty-one.”

“Oh, but he’ll be ancient by then.”

“By your standards, I’m sure.”

“Why stop there?” Auguste had asked – one of his few contributions to the re-opened
discussions before he had left to do whatever it was he had left for. “I propose no one lay a
hand on Laurent of Vere until he turns twenty-one.”

“No.” Laurent’s answer was immediate. He didn’t even bother writing the proposition down.
“That only invites every man who stands in opposition to the alliance to seek to invalidate it
with my defilement.”

“And yet we have agreed to allow your perversions into our streets!” Uncle said.

Reluctantly, King Theomedes said, “It is true that Vere has…generously…agreed to abide by
our cultural norms. My initial ruling should continue here: if a visiting denizen of Vere
wishes to force himself on some unfortunate child, it must be a Veretian child. Imports only,
or else the act is illegal.”

“No.” Again, Laurent’s answer was immediate, coming just as Uncle was beginning to smile.
He didn’t give it as an opinion, but a decision. It turned all attention his way. Already writing
again, Laurent ignored it. “The King of Akielos is thoughtful, but I think that, while in
Akielos, Akielon law should prevail. Veretian law concerning the copulation of men with
women is social taboo – the fucking of children on Akielon soil is an outright crime. The two
are not comparable. It is a pity for my uncle and men like him, but they shall learn to survive
or else they shall endeavor to deprive Vere of their presence. I am certain we will all have a
cry about it later. Let us move on – I would like to take some time to discuss procedures for
dealing with your so-called Free Tribes when they raid Veretian lands.”

“Laurent - !”

Laurent dipped his pen into the inkwell and ignored the humiliating flush he could feel
spreading warmth across his cheeks. Whatever his estrangement from his uncle, there was a
part of him still uncomfortable with displeasing him – a part that still wondered, in weaker
moments, whether he had misunderstood that terrible ordeal in the baths. He was working
very hard to rid himself of those doubts.

“If you cannot pass a visit without companionship, uncle, then perhaps you simply should not
visit,” Laurent said. He forced himself to remember the steam of the baths, the rise of
dizzying panic. He still didn’t understand what it was his uncle had been trying to do that day.
He didn’t want to understand. He didn’t want to forgive him, and he wasn’t willing to look
too closely about it. He didn’t want to think too deeply about the reality of what it was his
uncle might have done to him that day. His mind fought the very notion of conceptualizing
that thought.

Uncle Richard had always been Laurent’s ally, his champion, his support. Uncle had been
there to dote on him and comfort him when his own father was distant and cruel and cold.
Laurent could not reconcile that uncle with the man in the baths. Whether or not Uncle would
have done anything to him, Laurent, he had certainly done something to Larius – and he
would have done more, if Damianos hadn’t stopped him. Like an avalanche gathering
momentum as it sped down a mountain, once Laurent’s doubt in his uncle began, it was
impossible to stop.

Anyway –

Anyway, Laurent was beginning to get his footing here. He didn’t need his uncle anymore.
Laurent had his guards and he had Larius and Theomedes had been kind and Damianos was –
Damianos was proving himself to be – Damianos, he was –
Damianos would be acceptable enough, as a husband. Laurent would be fine. He didn’t need
his uncle. Auguste was the one who was hopeless at politics. Uncle should have stayed with
Auguste – he had been absolutely useless to Laurent. Regardless of whether or not Laurent
had actually ever been in any danger with him, the resource of his uncle’s wisdom and
guidance would have been better spent in Vere. Laurent hadn’t been sure at first – Laurent
had been so scared – but now Laurent was confident that he would be able to handle the
Akielons. He had their measure and he was beginning to understand their ways. He was
going to be all right.

He might – Laurent did not dare allow himself to steal a glance at Damianos as he thought it,
but – he might even manage to be happy here. Some day. After a fashion.

“Exalted,” Laurent continued as if his uncle had never spoken, “As I understand it, there are
currently six Akielon tribes that remain independent from your rule. Is that correct?”

--

It was late by the time it was done.

No – it was early. Very early. Auguste didn’t remember much of it – just the sight of the royal
party emerging into the courtyard sometime near sunrise, tired but sober and straight-backed.
The new treaty they produced was three times as long as the old one. Auguste tried squinting
at it, at first, but the handwriting was dark and cramped and he was very drunk. Laurent
showed him where to sign, and he signed. Simple as that. He couldn’t really remember what
all the fuss had been about in the first place.

“You aren’t going to read it first?” someone asked him. Probably Damianos. Or Laurent. Or
one of the horses.

“I can’t read a word. Laur’nt. When’d your handwriting get so bad?”

“That’s the Akielon side of the contract, brother.”

Auguste wasn’t sure what was in that griva stuff, only that he liked it, once he’d had enough
to kill off most of his taste buds.

King Theomedes spoke. Auguste had a hazy impression that Laurent might have, too. The
boy was a serious but proud sight in those Akielon wedding robes, with diamonds in his ears.
Fourteen and mature and brave, but still the cutest fucking thing, addressing the courtyard
full of inebriated wedding guests who were now, thankfully, far too drunk to openly lament
the fact they had been robbed of the opportunity to watch him spread.

(Auguste was drunk enough to allow himself to acknowledge this. In fact, it was the reason
he had first picked up a cup in the first place. Auguste was a happy drunk; he always had
been. And tonight – tonight he’d needed to be happy. He’d needed to be happy, and
charming, and celebrating. He’d needed to pretend that he was glad for this gods-cursed
fucking union – that he hadn’t once thought of grabbing the dinnerware off the table and
plunging a spoon into the eye socket of Damianos of fucking Akielos, of sawing off his
ridiculous cock with a cheese grater. He had needed to have some way of distracting himself
from thoughts of that bed, waiting like a gaping maw, a monster ready to consume his
precious innocence. It didn’t matter that they had succeeded in putting it off for now – the
day would still come, wouldn’t it? The day would come, and that filthy beast would plow his
massive horse cock into Auguste’s sweet, frail little brother while the whole Court of Vere
watched on, eager and entertained, thriving on his every pained cry, and it would all be
Auguste’s fault, and he couldn’t face that, either. He couldn’t face the fact that he had
volunteered his brother for this fate. That he had seen that bed and froze, unable to say a
word. That his first thought had not been for protecting Laurent, but for keeping the fucking
peace.)

Hazily, Auguste was aware of being helped to his feet. He wasn’t sure how he got onto the
floor. It seemed a long way down, once he was standing.

“He’s too heavy for me.”

“I’ve got him.”

Auguste was lifted to his feet. He had little to say in the matter. He could not recall which of
his guards had such broad shoulders – or who had his ears pierced, or wore diamonds, like a
pet.

“It seems as if you are taking a son of Vere to bed, after all.”

“I feel very sure I would be in quite a lot of trouble, were I to make the same joke.”

“Take him to my rooms, please? I do not intend to allow him the luxury of drowning in his
own vomit before he and I have had a very long conversation.”

Auguste was jostled, hoisted up again against that broad shoulder as the guard got a better
grip. He realized they were moving down the corridor, and that they were inside, and that
vomiting did, indeed, sound good.

--

“Somehow, I feel the urge to ask that you take pity on him,” Damianos said, as they neared
their destination.

Laurent scowled. “And, so? How soft you are, Damianos! I am not sure how to feel about it.”

“You think I’m soft?” Amused, he was glancing Laurent’s way with that half-grin Laurent
liked – the one that displayed the dimple in his cheek. Laurent’s heart decided to beat a little
faster. His face felt warm.

“If you aren’t soft, then it means he’s charmed you already, which is worse,” Laurent said,
pulling his eyes away. “For one, you aren’t his type, and I will be forced to feel sorry for you
– which is something I do not wish to do. For another, everyone always prefers him. I’m not
jealous, mind you – I’m only stating a fact. For a third…”

“For a third?” Damianos prompted, amused, when Laurent paused.

Laurent’s face continued to burn. He lifted his chin. “For a third, you are married to me now.
Mostly. Here – I’ll get the door.”

Laurent was caught between wanting to get as far away from Damianos as possible, and
wanting to extend this chance to have him all to himself. The doors to his rooms were
unpleasantly heavy, but he managed to get them open without any of the guards coming to
help. The words had spilled out of him without permission, and now that they were gone,
Laurent could not call them back. He was married – partially – and it was his wedding night
– morning – and his groom was standing in his rooms – with Laurent’s drunk, snoring brother
propped against his shoulder.

“Do you want him on the bed?” Damianos asked, already walking that way, and Laurent
realized that he would most certainly die if the man went anywhere near his bed.

“Throw him on the ground,” Laurent answered. “I deserve the bed, not him.”

“Let’s compromise,” Damianos suggested, and he put Auguste on the couch, instead.
“There,” he said, when it was done. “We’re already off on the right foot, he and I.”

Damianos was kind.

Damianos was so kind, and he was so handsome, and Laurent was going to die if he had to
continue to talk to him for one minute more. They were married. Laurent was sure he had
made a laughingstock of himself, interjecting himself into the adult affairs of treaty making,
demanding to be read to like a child, over and over again, as he demanded answers to the
most miniscule of details, derailing the entire night. It was Laurent’s fault their guests had
been forced to celebrate outside, away from them. Laurent had ruined everything with his
interference. If his father was still alive, the man would have found Laurent’s actions
infuriating – humiliating.

“Am I meant to move into your rooms, now that we are wed, or does that wait until the
second ceremony?” Laurent asked, because he couldn’t bring himself to apologize, but the
silence was unbearable.

It was the wrong thing to ask, of course. Damianos looked instantly uncomfortable.

“My room is just there,” Damianos said, motioning. “There’s actually an adjoining door –
look, it’s hidden. I’ll show you. It’s stayed locked all this time. I haven’t asked for the keys –
but I can get them, if you’d like them. If it would make you – what?”

“Nothing,” Laurent said. It felt foolish to admit that it hadn’t occurred to him how common it
was for royal couples to keep separate sleeping arrangements. Damianos had said that his
parents hadn’t even lived in the same palace most of the time. Laurent knew his own parents
had kept separate bedchambers – but if mother had ever used hers outside of as a recovery
room when a pregnancy went wrong, or a sickroom when an illness took hold of her, Laurent
wasn’t aware of it.

Laurent’s parents had not loved one another. That thought was lunacy. Despite Father’s
desperation for more sons than his perfect hair and his defective spare, the shared bed had not
been a matter of sexual convenience, either. Father had not been a pervert, so far as Laurent
knew. He vastly would have preferred to spend his time fucking one of his numerous pets.
But marriage was a contract. Laurent’s parents had been allies, partners, companions. Mother
had seen to the running of the staff, the affairs of the palace household, the budget the
domestics ran it all on.

(Was that to be Laurent’s position when Damianos was King? Laurent could not decide if he
found the idea insulting or not, but the part of his mind distracted by the question was
somewhat insulted that no one had yet bothered to expressly state it, one way or another. It
hadn’t been in the contract, of that he was sure. If he was to be expected to be a fucking wife,
someone needed to say so to his face.)

There were conversations that had needed to pass between his parents, alone, in the quiet of
the night where no other ears could listen. Conversations about their boys, about their people,
about their home. How had Theomedes and Egeria functioned without their marriage
working as a partnership?

Well. Laurent already knew that answer: they hadn’t.

“Show me the door?” Laurent asked, approaching, and Damianos did – the disguised bit of
paneling, the lock hidden behind a tapestry. It was surprisingly secretive for Akielon tastes,
but then, they liked things subtle. No need for the King to make his intentions to copulate
known to the entire palace. Laurent asked, “Can they be locked or unlocked from either
side?”

“Yes, but the keys are different. There are actually two doors, and a short little passage
between them.” Damianos jostled the door, so Laurent could see how sturdy it was. He
probably could have broken it down, had he really wanted to, but not without alerting
Laurent to his intentions. “You’re safe,” Damianos said with a smile, as if he thought that was
at all a concern of Laurent’s.

Laurent said, “Call for the keys, please.”

That smile slipped, a little. It wasn’t clear if he was disappointed or insulted – but he did as
Laurent had asked. As they waited, Auguste snored. Loudly. They didn’t speak. Laurent’s
ears were beginning to get sore from his new piercing, but he had been instructed not to
remove the diamonds. Damianos looked uncomfortable.

Eventually, a slave arrived with the keys. Damen took both sets to Laurent.

Laurent took his time testing them out – first on his door, then on Damen’s. He tested them
from both sides. When he was satisfied, he handed the set of keys to Damen’s door back to
him.

The older Prince looked startled.

“You should feel safe, too, shouldn’t you?” Laurent asked.

For a moment, he was sure the man would laugh at him. Wisdom prevailed at the last
moment, and Damianos managed to choke back most of his amusement, and fix on his face a
more serious expression.

“You aren’t – ah…”

“I’m not going to charge in and force myself upon you, no,” Laurent assured him. “But what
if the Veretian snake wanted to slide a knife across his Akielon husband’s throat in the middle
of the night?”

Damianos took the keys, slowly, a little more serious.

“I don’t believe you would do that,” he said.

“I wouldn’t,” Laurent agreed. “But you don’t know me yet.”

“I want to.”

“We will be friends. Like you promised? We will be brothers.”

“Yes. I’d like that, too.”

Laurent nodded. “Good night then,” he said. “Damianos.”

“I told you – my friends call me Damen.”

 Chapter 19
Chapter Notes

I do not have time to look over this; I need to be heading out the door. Sorry it's a bit
late!

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Auguste woke to a blistering headache, the midday Akielon sun splashing mercilessly across
the backs of his eyelids when someone threw the curtains back. He wasn’t in the rooms he
had been assigned, and he wasn’t in a bed, and his mouth tasted like something crawled into
it and died. The one small mercy his mind could dredge up was that it seemed he was not
waking to find himself next to some foreign woman. Another scandal was the last thing he
needed.

“You can put the coffee there – no, don’t bother being quiet; he’s slept long enough and I
don’t want you to have to endure being here any longer than strictly necessary.”

Laurent’s voice: that was a worse fate than waking up next to a stranger. A worse punishment
than the headache. Auguste tried to cover his face with a pillow. It was heartlessly snatched
away.

“Now, now,” Laurent cooed with false sweetness. “You can’t go back to sleep, dear brother.
I’ve been waiting for you to wake for ages.”

“I would never dream of it,” Auguste told him. “I was trying to smother myself.”

“I like that idea, but I’m afraid it won’t do, either. We are going to talk.”

Slowly, painfully, like facing a monster in a nightmare, Auguste squinted one eye open. The
eye resisted. The eye put up a mighty battle. It was heavy, and it was glued shut with vile
crust, and when it was open, it throbbed so powerfully in his skull that he half-entertained the
idea of scooping it out. Auguste’s brother stood over him in trousers and shirtsleeves, laces
trailing, diamonds still in his ears. He had made sure to pick a spot where he would not be
blocking any light. He had a powerful scowl, yet the loose shirt and untied laces seemed to
emphasize his boyishness. Even still, he seemed far more a man than Auguste at that
moment. The sun made him shine, radiant and gold.

“Fuck,” Auguste groaned; it was not typically the kind of language he used with his baby
brother, but the headache had gained sentience and taken control of his mouth. “I don’t
deserve that, do I?”

“Yes,” Laurent said. “You do.”

Auguste groaned again.

There was no way for him to know if the slave boy setting out their breakfasts had been
capable of understanding their conversation, let alone any of his brother’s orders – given, as
they were, in haughty Veretian – but there was little question about what he could understand,
no matter the language barrier: the Veretian King, ill and hungover, had spent the night on a
couch in the Prince’s suite, and now was being mercilessly bullied by his mean younger
sibling, the future Prince-Consort of Akielos. Auguste lifted his head and tried, ineffectively,
to glare the boy into leaving. He was certain his bowed head and lowered eyes must have
hidden a smirk – certain he would go scampering off to wherever slaves went when people
were done with them, eager to spread the tale.

Laurent had ice in his veins; he did not care if his slave spread tales. It was a small mercy
when he moved away from Auguste, sparing him his glare. He prepared his own coffee while
the slave boy watched, attentive. Laurent’s taste for the vile brew, much like his temper, was
another thing he had inherited from their mother. He drank his first cup, watchful as the slave
boy prepared a second, and when he nodded his approval, the boy took it as some sort of
dismissal, and left.

Auguste had managed to get his other eye open during this time. He had even managed to –
well, sit up would be too strong a phrase, but with some help of some pillows, he was no
longer strictly horizontal. He felt quite accomplished. Laurent gave no acknowledgement of
his impressive feat of heroism, silent, his eyes on the sea as he finished his first cup.

By the time he reached for the second cup, Auguste could bear the silence no longer.

“I didn’t change the contract,” he said. It was a good place to start.

Laurent had a hip leaned against the table, and he had not so much as looked at any of the
breakfast laid out. The cup hesitated on its way to his lips, then continued its path. The sun in
his hair, his gaze far away, for a moment Laurent resembled neither boy nor man, but one of
the mythical fey creatures out of the tales Mother used to tell them.

But he told Auguste, “I know,” and Auguste felt like he could breathe again.

“You do,” Auguste said.

“It was the only addition I was unaware of beforehand, and we wouldn’t have gained
anything from it. Anyway, I know your hand. It was a good forgery, but a forgery nonetheless
– done by someone who has had years to practice and knows you well enough to mimic your
turn of phrase. I think.”

“You don’t think it was the Akielons?” Auguste had not even considered that it might not
have been.

“I think it is very unlikely that their spies would have had opportunity to acquire a large
enough sampling of your writing to develop such a fine facsimile of your hand, let alone have
the knowledge and foresight to have a marriage bed imported, complete with the correct
linens and fastenings suitable for my station, yes.” Laurent sipped his coffee, thinking, again.
Auguste was not so sure about the first part – he had fought on the border for years, and then
there had been the war. It would not have been difficult to intercept some of his letters in that
time. The second part, though – Laurent might have a point there. “Anyway,” Laurent
continued at last, color rising in his cheeks. “The Akielons are…honorable.”

“Akielon honor is flexible. It means only what they want it to mean.”

Laurent looked at him finally. There was still winter in his eyes. “Why agree to a truce at
Marlas and end their campaign so close to achieving their goal only to sabotage the peace
now, after months? All of their soldiers have been recalled from Vere. Most have gone home
to their families. The expense alone of re-starting a war… no. It was someone on our side.
Someone who wants to keep the peace between our countries unstable, who wants our trust in
our allies to form cracks before a healthy foundation is built. Someone who does not want
your rule to be strong and healthy and secure.”

“Is that all? Maybe they just wanted to watch a mouthy Prince get fucked.” Auguste pushed
up off the couch. The words were mumbled, meant as a joke – and not necessarily one he
meant for his brother to hear – but it was crude and thoughtless. It was the hangover talking,
the headache pounding behind his eyes as if it was trying to chisel them out from his skull.
Auguste did not even realize what it was he had said until he reached the table and glanced at
his brother and found him pale and frozen, staring at him with large eyes. Auguste cursed.
“Laurent, I didn’t…”

“No.” Laurent moved away as Auguste reached for him. His hands shook a little as he
refilled his cup. “Never mind that; it isn’t important. The consummation is part of the deal,
isn’t it? Eventually. It doesn’t matter. You brought some of the Council with you, didn’t you?
When did they look over the contract?”

“Before I signed off on our copy of the draft.”

“And you did read it before you signed it?”

“Laurent,” Auguste’s voice was sharper than he meant for it to be, but he didn’t try to
apologize again. Laurent only looked at him, expression cold. Waiting. Auguste threw up his
hands. “Of course I read it!” Auguste said. “I read it, I gave it to the Council for approval,
they read it, and then I read it again. I even gave it to Uncle Richard for him to look over one
last time after I signed it. I know the kingdom has decided that I am incompetent without
Father around to check up behind me, but for gods’ sakes - !” Dishes rattled as Auguste
turned and began to angrily prepare himself a plate of food. It was midday, but it was all
breakfast foods on offer – Akielon shit like eggs uselessly loaded down with crumbling
cheese, spinach, artichokes, tomatoes, and herbs. Flat little cakes with nuts and honey. Slices
of bread slathered in some green paste with olives and tomatoes and herbs and cheese.
Everything was like that, each dish more offensive to Auguste’s headache than the last as he
piled his plate high. “Have the barbarians never heard of a pastry?” he demanded. “What
does a man have to do for a quiche?”

Laurent ignored his outburst.

“I know King Theomedes checked his portion of the contract daily for signs of meddling,”
Laurent said.

Auguste slammed his plate back down on the table so hard that it cracked. It startled both of
them. Auguste found himself staring at a fried egg that had broken open and was now leaking
yolk onto its neighbors, like a soldier slowly bleeding out. Laurent sipped at his coffee.

“I checked the contract, damn it,” Auguste said, when he was sure he could speak without
yelling.

“Fine,” Laurent answered, brisk, as if it didn’t matter. He handed Auguste a new plate. “And
last night? While you stood frozen in shock – while you stood doing nothing? You would
have intervened eventually, wouldn’t you?”

Auguste looked up slowly.

“I was waiting for your outrage,” Laurent said, quietly. “I was waiting for your protection.
Imagine my surprise when it came, not from my brother, but from Damianos himself.”

Auguste drew a slow breath. His temper was like his father’s, slow-building, but powerful
once stirred. He had to force himself to think – to push through the headache and the
defensive, unreasonable anger.

“Laurent,” he said, slowly, “You don’t understand.”

“You’re right,” Laurent agreed. “I don’t. I don’t understand how the brother I know would
sell me to our enemy without involving me in the decision.”

“Laurent – “

“I don’t understand how you can be so cavalier over Uncle’s preference for prepubescent
boys - ”

“Laurent, he is your uncle – “

Laurent’s voice rose over Auguste’s attempt to protest. “ – or how, being aware of those
tastes, you would choose to send him here with me – “

“Laurent, he would never – it would break his heart to hear you – “

Laurent’s voice rose further. “And I don’t understand,” he said, speaking over Auguste, “Why
yours was not the first voice lifted in anger at the suggestion of my public ravishment.”

It stopped Auguste’s protests, his defense of poor Uncle Richard, who had never been
anything but kind to Laurent, and who had helped Auguste intercede with Father for him
more times than Laurent would ever know. Uncle Richard often lamented that they had
spoiled Laurent, and Auguste had always laughed, unable to see it. Right now, he almost
could.
“I would have protected you,” Auguste said, offended that it would even be in doubt. “Are
you truly asking this? Of course I would have protected you!” Now he was yelling, too. “Stop
being such a child. We are in a delicate political situation – how can you not see that? Every
move we make, every word we say must be examined from every angle first! Father isn’t
here to clean up behind me if I make a mistake. I hadn’t protested because I hadn’t yet
decided how to!”

“And when would you have decided?” Laurent demanded. “When he had his cock out? When
he had me spread open on that fucking bed?”

“Laurent!”

“Indecision is still a decision, brother.”

The ice in the boy’s voice was like crashing into a glacial wall. Laurent looked away from
him, his eyes sweeping the table. They gleamed, wet, but they were as cold as frosted glass.
He refilled his cup for a fourth time, and then he walked away without taking a plate.
Auguste knew he could never eat when he was upset. His retreat to the sitting area was not so
much a retreat as a way to close himself further from Auguste, to put more space between
them. The silence that had fallen between them swelled like a blister.

Auguste felt sick. He had witnessed these sorts of fights between Laurent and Father so many
times, but he’d only rarely been involved in one, himself. His place was as his brother’s
protector – his champion. Not his adversary.

Auguste put the second plate down. Empty-handed, he went to join his brother.

Laurent had taken an arm chair that put his back to the window, and curled his legs up with
him in the seat. The sea behind him reflected the sun too brightly. Auguste pulled the curtains
closed before he retook his place on the couch. They watched each other in silence for a
while.

“I’m a terrible King,” Auguste admitted at last.

“That’s because you’re afraid of making decisions,” Laurent answered.

“Well – look at where the last one has gotten me.”

“Peace with an enemy nation we have warred with for centuries. A strong ally who will
discourage further trouble from other nations. An end to a war that devastated an entire
county.”

“All at the cost of my brother.”

Laurent lifted a shoulder. “Father would say you negotiated quite successfully. I’m worth far
less than all of that.”

“Laurent…”
He sighed. “You haven’t lost me,” he said. “I hate you a little right now, but I will get over it.
Probably. We are not going to fall apart so easily as this. This is the aim whoever altered the
contract wanted. This, here.”

Auguste drew a deep breath. Laurent was right, of course. He could see things so much more
easily than Auguste could. Someone wanted the alliance on shaky grounds – and they wanted
him and his brother at each other’s throats. They wanted them weak, and so they were
attacking them at their strongest pillars.

“Wait,” Auguste said, after a while of silence. “What do you mean you hate me right now?”

Laurent glanced at him. “I said only a little,” he answered, grouchily. “It’s not like it’s the
first time.”

“What! I’ve been the perfect brother to you!”

“Have you forgotten the time you kept hiding dirty chamber pots under my bed? Father
thought the smell was coming from me.”

It surprised a laugh out of him. “Well,” Auguste said slowly. “Technically, once the stench
permeated your mattress, you were sort of marinating in it.”

“He had Paschal examining me three times a day!”

“Oh, right.” Auguste could not stop another chuckle. Laurent was not laughing, but his lip
did quirk a little, grudgingly. Auguste watched him drink his coffee, the hands wrapped
around the mug so small and so young.

“When the Council disagrees with you, they aren’t trying to insult you. They aren’t calling
you incompetent. They’re doing their job,” Laurent said. “You don’t want advisors who
simply agree to every word you say and happily kneel to lick the royal asshole.”

“Language!”

Laurent ignored him. “The Council is meant to make you think things thoroughly through.
They may cause you to change your course on something, or you may decide to go against
their wishes and continue on as you like – but either way, you are acting with the peace of
mind that you were thorough when considering your options.”

Auguste felt the fondness in his smile. His head was still pounding, but his chest was
swelling with pride.

“You should have been on my Council,” he said, sincerely. Laurent glanced at him.

“Yes, well, you fucked that up, didn’t you?”

“Laurent!” Auguste was laughing now, somehow, impossibly. A spring thaw had come to
Laurent’s eyes. Auguste got up and returned to the table. He needed food to settle his
stomach.
His back was to his brother with Laurent said, “I think you should take Uncle back with you.
I know it displeases you; I know you don’t understand. But I – I cannot put myself at ease
with him.” When Auguste turned back to him, Laurent was not looking at him, but at the
coffee cup in his hands. He said, “I do not know for certain whether or not he would hurt me,
but – “

“He wouldn’t,” Auguste was quick to assure him.

Laurent continued anyway. “ – but I know that he did hurt a slave boy – and I do believe he
has hurt Aimeric, too.” He looked up, finally. “I don’t want him here, Auguste. I don’t want
to see him. I don’t want to talk to him. I think – I think I’m afraid of him, and I feel guilty
that I’m afraid, but the doubt won’t leave my head.”

“If Uncle Richard returns to Vere with me, then you really will be all alone.”

Laurent shook his head. “I’ll have my guards. And Aimeric, if he will stay.”

“It’s not the same. You won’t have family.”

“Do I need family to chaperone me at this point? Damianos won’t touch me; it’s in the
contract. And – I think he is going to be my friend.”

Auguste let a heavy breath out, heart breaking a little at his brother’s naiveté. Laurent was
still so young, so unprepared for the ugly things that lurked out in the world beyond Arles.
“You’re optimistic and too trusting,” he said. “Damianos is a grown man. He doesn’t want to
be friends with you. And I told you – Akielon honor is flexible. They make their own rules
for where that honor extends.”

“You cannot put me in this position and continue to think of me as a child,” Laurent
countered. “Either I am a toddler to be coddled and sheltered, or I am a man who has been
entrusted with overseeing an important political alliance. Choose one or the other, Auguste,
for it cannot be both.”

“I just want you safe,” Auguste began.

“I am safe. As safe as any Prince can ever be. You – you’re the one who should be taking
care. You’re King now, and I’m your only heir. I could try to assassinate you, you know. If I
can seduce Damianos, I would rule two kingdoms through him.”

“First of all, you’re fourteen, so settle down. Do you even know where the cock goes when
it’s two men?”

“I thought I would start by attempting to stick it up his ass, and see if that merited correction.
What?”

Auguste had made the mistake of taking a large bite of runny eggs on toast. Now he was
choking on it.

“You think he would protest?” Laurent asked. “How high do you think he would jump if I put
it up there?” He was all innocence, his eyes sparkling with a torturer’s glee as he watched
Auguste cough and glare. He blinked, making his eyes wider. “Or if my guess incorrect?
Should I attempt to penetrate him elsewhere? His navel, perhaps? Surely it’s not his ear!”

“How did you get like this?” Auguste lamented, too loudly. He filled a glass from a waiting
pitcher of water, his face burning more painfully than after a day in the sun. As Laurent’s
gleeful malice seared him, Auguste drank deeply. He prayed he would drown.

--

It was only two weeks that the King of Vere and his entourage were to stay in Akielos – a
short visit, given the length of time it took to make the journey, but between the unsteady
political climate in Vere and the tepid relations with their new Akielon allies, two weeks was
all that either side was really comfortable with.

One day, Akielon pleasure barges too them out to sea, where strong-backed slaves hauled
exotic beasts up from the deep waters, carved them up, and grilled them fresh right on the
deck as a performer recited the epic of Orfus and his long journey to retrieve his bride from
the Master of the Seas. After the meal, they watched sharks gather, silvery and quick, to fight
over the waste that got thrown overboard.

Even though being at sea made Laurent a little green, Laurent stayed on deck the whole time,
dutifully repeating the vocabulary words Damianos piled onto him: karkharias, cetacea,
balaena, occasus. He sat, straight-backed, on a bench, and he refused to be taken below
despite his obvious discomfort. His eyes fixed themselves stubbornly on Damianos, who
stood before him against the railing, his broad shoulders blocking his view of the sea.
Lenunculus. Columbarius. Hippokampos. Syreni.

Auguste left them to it after wasting nearly an hour trying to convince his stubborn sibling to
either eat or go below decks and lay down. Having given up on forcing Laurent to see reason,
Auguste made his rounds among the guests on the boat, trading pleasantries with the Veretian
nobility who had chosen to join them on this excursion, ignored by most of the Akielons who
had done the same. Auguste was aware of a small group of adventurous youths within his
party who were intent on using the opportunity of this adventure to bed as many barbarians as
possible, and so he passed many attempts at flirtation as he walked. He did not think any of
the youths had yet succeeded in their contest: evidently the pleasure slaves that had been
made available for the visitors did not “count” for their numbers in this sport. Whether it was
the language barrier or the war, the factions were not mixing – despite some rather
enthusiastic tries.

Auguste passed Alois, and felt a note slipped between the laces of his sleeve. Later, he would
discover a cypher confirming three secured routes for his spy networks to use to get messages
to and from Vere.

Around the other side of the ship, Auguste found Uncle Richard with Guion’s son, Aimeric.

The boy had recovered from his bout of illness, but he was still pale and sullen of expression.
Uncle Richard had his arms around him, and was holding him up against the railing like a
much younger child who needed help seeing over the railing. They seemed to be watching for
the silvery flash where sharks still swam. It was probably completely innocent, but Laurent’s
concerns had Auguste feeling too aware of his uncle’s tight hold ‘round the boy, and how far
over the edge he was being helped to lean, and how closely Uncle Richard was pressed to his
back – bent near him so that he could speak into his ear. The expression on young Aimeric’s
face was dour and closed. It did not match the excitement a boy watching sharks should wear.

Auguste began walking more quickly, wondering how likely it would be for Aimeric to fall
overboard if Uncle Richard was startled into releasing him – wondering if it was really
necessary for his uncle to be pressed so close or if he was getting some perverse pleasure out
of the proximity of their bodies – wondering –

Uncle Richard turned at the sound of his approach, and his smile was warm and welcoming,
pleased to see him – his expression completely unlike any man caught threatening or
molesting a Councilman’s son would be wearing. He was completely at ease with the
position he and Aimeric were in – and it must have been some trick of the light, or the sea
breeze blowing the boy’s hair into his face, because Aimeric did not look sullen at all; he
even gave Auguste a shy smile.

“Auguste, have you come to join us?” Uncle Richard asked, pleased.

--

At the end of the first week, the wedding party travelled out to Kastor’s personal estates and
spent three days there as the bastard’s guests – an invitation which surprised Auguste, but had
Damianos laughing.

“Kastor loves any excuse to host,” he explained, gesturing to the expansive vineyards they
were riding past. Most of the guests were having a private tasting of Kastor’s personal
reserves, but due to Laurent’s age, Damianos had suggested they trade the activity for a
private tour of the grounds.

“I’m not a child,” Laurent had said. He was forced to protest on principle, but, of course, a
ride was far preferable to listening to Prince Kastor go on and on about his estate’s wine
production while forced to sip some watered down version of the stuff.

“To tell you the truth, Kastor has not quite…found the right people to appropriately master
the art of creating a timeless vintage,” Damen had confessed. “Your age is just the excuse I’m
using to get out of having to drink the foul stuff again. Believe me, a tour of the grounds is a
much better use of your time than spoiling a palate you haven’t had chance to develop yet.
Please – as a favor to me.”

Now, as they rode, Damianos explained to them, fondly, how much pride his brother took in
his private estates, where he spent much of the year. Because he would not be King, their
father was generous with his income, and Kastor had spent a fortune having the already-fine
estate renovated using only the finest materials – the purest marble, the finest art, the most
detailed statuary. Kastor wanted his estates to rival the glory of any of the Akielon palaces,
and they did, and so it pleased him to open his doors to his father’s guests – even if they were
Veretian.
 “He’ll warm up to the alliance,” Damianos promised. “I was already sure of it – but this is the
proof.”

--

The morning that the Veretian delegation left dawned with a grey, misting rain – but despite
the weather, the showing to see Auguste off was much more impressive than that which had
greeted his arrival.

Auguste had not warmed up to his new brother-in-law whatsoever, but he had done his best to
hide it over the remainder of his time with him. He mustered as much warmth as he could as
he grasped the man’s forearm and said pleasant things to him about peace and family and
hope.

Uncle Richard had already boarded the ship, with only the briefest, barest of embraces from
Laurent, who had been reluctant to allow himself to be touched at all. The continued rift
between uncle and nephew felt like a failure – a wound his beloved brother did not see fit to
bandage. Aimeric stood with Laurent on the Akielon side of the divide, silent and surely, with
his face hidden in the deep hood of an oiled cloak. Uncle Richard, who was deeply hurt that
he was being sent back to Vere, said that young Aimeric was in equal measure heartbroken to
learn he was being abandoned to the savages.

“Oh, well,” Laurent had answered, “Tell him I order him to stay.”

“Wasn’t that the plan all along?” Auguste asked. “Aimeric came here to be a companion for
Laurent.”

“He and his father did not account for how deeply he would hate it here,” Uncle Richard
answered. “Why – of course the boy hates it. It is only natural, after all; he spent nearly every
moment here ill. He just wants to go home.”

“He’s staying,” Laurent stated, soundly heartless.

Despite the uneasily unfamiliar tension that yet lingered between them, when Auguste
approached to say his farewells, Laurent threw himself into his arms, and clung to him like he
was a child again. Auguste could feel him shaking. It was the first and only indication
Auguste had seen that his brother’s bravery might not be as steady as it seemed.

“Please,” Laurent said, into his shirt. “Please – promise me you will be careful.”

Auguste almost laughed. He was the one going home. Laurent was the one being left behind
in the hands of their enemies, married to a barbarian stranger.

Even still, when Auguste drew away, there was too much fear in his brother’s eyes for him to
do anything but promise.

Chapter End Notes

So clearly this is a very slow burn. I am trying to decide if I want to break things down
into a series of fics with their own story arcs as Laurent grows and the situations at hand
develop, or if I want to just have it be one extremely long fic. (I mean, I haven't quite
started writing chapter 30, and Laurent is only just turning 15. So if this is any indication
of the pace I'm going to go...)

I do want to reassure you again that Damen is not going to be developing any
inappropriate feelings while Laurent is so young. Laurent can have his little crush
though cause it makes me happy.
 Chapter 20
Chapter Notes

Warnings for this chapter: nothing too graphic, but there are allusions to what Aimeric
went through and some talk about how the wedding debacle could have gone.

Damianos gave him two full days before he came calling.

“Where have you been?” Laurent demanded, in place of a proper greeting. “Are you taking
me into the city?” Damen had been so kind and so attentive during Auguste’s visit that
Laurent had allowed himself to expect the same sort of treatment from him forever. After all,
the man had promised him friendship. He had promised him brotherhood.

He had not promised him two days of unexplained solitude.

Understandably, it taxed Laurent’s patience when his new husband, in response, feigned a
look of confusion and answered him in Akielon. Laurent understood just enough to get the
gist.

“You’ve ignored me for two days, but this part of our negotiation you’re going to be a stickler
on?” Laurent demanded. Damianos made that terrible fake confused face again – it wasn’t for
a moment believable; he seemed to be a remarkably talentless actor. When he dropped the
look to flash a cheeky grin, Laurent wanted to hit him.

Laurent glared at him, but when that failed to work, he began to wrack his brain. His memory
seemed slow to respond, tainted by the rosiness of a crush that his current annoyance now
saw in a far less favorable light. It seemed Damianos had spent far more time on vocabulary
words than teaching Laurent any other parts of speech, but after a moment Laurent called to
mind an adverb, then a handful of pronouns. A few conjunctions. They weren’t helpful for
what he wanted to say, but they were a start. Slowly, painfully, he cobbled together a
sentence.

“Prince go two day. Laurent angry.”

Damen’s smile made his heart flutter in his chest when teasing turned to instant approval and
delight. He forgave him immediately. Laurent listened carefully as, very slowly, his husband
– apologized. Damianos had spent the last two days at his brother’s estates, at Kastor’s
invitation. Kastor had wanted to celebrate, just the two of them.

“It to be…” Laurent didn’t know the Akielon word for appropriate. He searched for
something close. “Tasty – “

“Tasty?” Damianos repeated, cheekiness returning.

Laurent threw up his hands. In Veretian, he explained what it is he wanted to say, as well as
the fact he didn’t know enough to have a fucking conversation yet. Damen frowned but,
obligingly, he told Laurent how to say the sentence he had been aiming for. Laurent repeated
it twice, carefully. Only when he received a nod of approval did he lift his chin and return to
the conversation.

“It would have been appropriate for you to inform me of your plans,” Laurent said. The new
words felt like a little prize. The insight into the mechanics of Akielon sentence structure was
something he would hoard close to him for days. The final remains of his annoyance gave up
their fight for resurrection, and in their place rose blatant delight as another puzzle piece
clicked into place.

Damen, however, wasn’t delighted.

“I’m sorry,” Damen said, in Veretian. “Truly, I didn’t mean to offend. It didn’t occur to me
that it was the kind of thing that would matter to you – but now I see why it would.”

“In Akielon,” Laurent insisted.

Damen repeated himself – twice – as Laurent listened, very carefully. After, he had a few
questions about the way the sentence was formed – asked in Veretian. When Damen
answered his questions, his apology was graciously accepted in Akielon.

“That’s the formal way to say it. Since we’re friends, you can use the casual form.” Damen
explained the words, then the difference in suffixes usually present in each form. “There is
also low form,” Damen said. “That’s when – “

“It’s the way the slaves speak,” Laurent said, cutting him off. “I’ve noticed it.”

“Yes,” Damen said. Then, “I’ll take you next week to pick out your present. Until I say
otherwise, this is the absolute last day I will accept hearing any Veretian from you. If you
can’t find a way to say it in Akielon, you will have to find someone else to ask – out of my
hearing – or else forfeit your gifts.”

“But I can continue to ask questions now?” Laurent asked. Then, in Akielon, he did his best
to repeat the question.

Damen looked both indulgent and amused. “Yes,” he answered.

“Wait,” Laurent told him, and he scrambled up from his chair to fetch a notebook and a fresh
cup of coffee. When he heard Damen laugh, he felt his cheeks begin to burn. He was going to
learn the language, damn it, and he was going to do it so swiftly that the damned man would
choke on his laughter. And if Damen was proud of him, after, that wouldn’t matter at all. That
was just an added perk. Laurent didn’t care.

--

Aimeric wasn’t expecting it when they summoned him to the Prince’s rooms. He had been
invited to call on the other boy plenty of times – he could not complain that Prince Laurent
hadn’t made the overture of welcoming him to this nightmare – but an invitation could be
declined. A summons could not.

The Veretian party had left nearly a week ago. Aimeric had been abandoned in this stinking,
barbaric place. He hadn’t expected it to feel like abandonment. Before, he hadn’t been able to
wait for them to leave. Before, the presence of his countrymen in Ios had been cloying,
unendurable. From the very first – when the dead King’s brother called him to his rooms and
explained to him how he expected things to be. When he began to hurt him. When he began
to make him – to make him do things – and when Aimeric hadn’t known how to stop it –
Aimeric had been terrified of running into the other Veretians. Some of the Council had been
there, and many of Father’s other friends, and Aimeric hadn’t wanted to see them or be seen
by them. He was afraid they would know, the moment they looked at him.

And maybe they did know already. That would almost be worse. Father had told him what
would be expected, but Aimeric hadn’t understood. Father had told him to be obedient, but
sometimes it was so hard to. Father had acted as if it was nothing, and Aimeric had believed
him, until it was happening, and Aimeric still couldn’t decide if his father had been tricked,
or if he had known all along what would happen to him, here in this hot, hateful place. What
if he’d known? What if everyone knew? When he walked down the hall – when he entered a
room – when he sat down to dinner – did everyone know what he was? What he’d been made
to do?

That stupid, bumbling King had brought him. He had talked about Aimeric coming here to be
a friend to his little brother as if he had no idea what it was Aimeric had been instructed to do
– but he had still handed him over to that pig Prince Richard before Aimeric had even had
time to remember how to walk on land. Father’s friends on the Council and the courtiers who
had come to fuck and to wheedle and to find a way to profit from this fool alliance – had they
known? Aimeric had no one he could trust. He was too low in the line of his father’s sons to
matter, and as far as he could tell, everyone knew it. Everyone could tell what he was now.

No one cared.

Aimeric had never cared for pretty Prince Laurent. They had met before, in passing – they
were of an age and social standing that it would have been perfectly acceptable for them to
have been friends, but evidently the Prince had never found him interesting enough. He was
too stuck up and spoiled for Aimeric and his southern clothes (two years out of style at
Court). Out of everyone, Aimeric was most sure the Prince knew what was happening to him.
He tried too hard to bring attention to it, to embarrass him. No doubt he was bored, and the
thought of Aimeric’s continued humiliation pleased him.

And now their people were gone – even that disgusting Prince Richard was gone – and
Aimeric was being summoned to the Prince’s rooms.

He’d heard the slaves say that Prince Damianos had been spending quite a bit of time in
Laurent’s rooms ever since their people had left. Aimeric hoped he had. Damianos of Akielos
was a big brute, everywhere in proportion, and Aimeric liked the idea that he was hurting that
snotty little Prince. He liked the thought of him using him the same way Aimeric had been
used. If he was, it would just be what he deserved. They would be on the same level, then –
whored out to the enemy for someone else’s benefit, banished to these barbaric lands and
their rough, uncultured ways.

Aimeric couldn’t imagine what the Prince could possibly want from him. Someone to
commiserate with? Someone to take his pain out on? Someone to ask for advice? Aimeric
had not really been sent here to serve Prince Laurent; he had been sent for the Prince’s uncle.
But now the uncle was gone and Aimeric was stranded and he didn’t know what was
expected of him with his purpose now absent. There hadn’t been time for him to receive
further instruction from his father yet, and Prince Richard hadn’t known he was being sent
away until the morning of their departure, so he hadn’t told Aimeric what he was to do,
either.

Aimeric didn’t know what other choice he had but to obey the summons. Until he heard
otherwise, he supposed he was to fulfill the role everyone pretended he was here for.

The said Prince Laurent had been given the Queen’s suites. His rooms and Prince Damianos’s
combined took up nearly an entire wing of the palace. He was protected by a pair of guards
on the door – one Veretian, one Akielon. It wasn’t really clear if they were there to prevent
people coming in, or to keep the Prince from coming out. The Akielon guard tried to check
Aimeric over for weapons, but the Veretian one stopped him and let Aimeric pass without
trouble.

One entire wall of the Prince’s sitting room was open; arched doors hung with gauzy curtains
lead to a balcony that jut out over the crashing sea. Aimeric would have placed money on the
odds the bedchamber was the same, with an even more fantastic view. Heavier curtains could
be hung in the cooler months, and even lashed down in the event of a storm.

The Prince had been here long enough to have made his mark upon his rooms. One wall was
lined with bookshelves so full of books that the Prince had begun stacking them up on the
floor. The chair with the best lighting was also the most comfortable, with a pillow and
blanket left on it, as if it was often occupied cozily for an evening read. The presence of a
Veretian-style desk was jarring beside the low Akielon couch and other furniture, all with
simple, flowing design at complete odds with the large, heavily carved mahogany desk. The
Prince was missing the usual gaggle of half-dressed slaves Aimeric was now used to seeing
everywhere – but their absence and the desk were the only things to indicate that the Prince
hadn’t gone completely native.

A table near the balcony held fruit and cheese, wine, water, and coffee service – the usual
light snack for Akielons calling on one another. The Prince was waiting for him, looking very
seriously, one hip leaned against that monstrosity of a desk.

“You to have the speech of the Akielon,” the Prince said, in stilted Akielon. He didn’t offer
any sort of greeting.

Aimeric answered in Veretian. “Fortaine is often called upon to assist in Delfeur’s defense.”
He just narrowly managed to avoid rolling his eyes. “Of course I speak Akielon. Some.
Father insisted our tutors include the vile tongue in our studies. It would be foolish not to
have it, were the barbarians to take one of us hostage.”
Prince Laurent stared at him for a long time. His expression was strange. Annoyed and a little
embarrassed.

“In Akielon,” he said, in Akielon. “To repeat. Please.”

Aimeric stared back. He felt incredibly put out and tired. His body was finally starting to feel
normal again – not normal, not like it was his, not anymore, but he had stopped hurting,
finally – but he was just so tired. He hated royalty, and he hated the stupid games they played
with other people’s lives when they couldn’t even say no, and he particularly hated Laurent,
with his fancy sitting room and his spectacular view, the morning sun bright in his shiny
golden hair, with his silk dressing gown and his big blue eyes. He hated that they were
trapped here, together, a pair of boys asked to shoulder the burden created by the mistakes of
men. He wanted his mother.

“I detest speaking that vile tongue,” Aimeric said. “And I have no interest in being your
friend.” It felt good to be petty. It felt luxurious. Aimeric didn’t care if he got punished for it.

Mouthing off was bold. Or stupid, as Father would have said. If Prince Richard of Vere could
have him trussed up like a pet and left hogtied and hurt and humiliated for hours without
anyone batting an eye, Prince Laurent could most certainly have him thoroughly beaten for
the sin of expressing a little petulance. It didn’t matter who Aimeric’s father was – not here.
Aimeric was nothing. Not to people like these.

He called me your name while he was hurting me.

“I don’t need you to be my friend,” Prince Laurent said, softly, after a significant pause. At
least he was speaking Veretian now. Aimeric resented the way the sun in his hair made him
look so perfect. He resented the fact the silk dressing gown perfectly matched those big blue
eyes. He resented the unspoken things he heard in his voice – and the way those eyes looked
at him – and he resented the unexplainable relief that flooded him at his words. Aimeric’s
vision began to blur. His throat grew tight.

Without mentioning it, Prince Laurent pushed away from the desk. He offered Aimeric a
handkerchief, and Aimeric spitefully snatched it away from him.

“I need someone to practice having conversations with,” Prince Laurent said, his face turned
away, as if he was capable of being considerate enough to give Aimeric some sense of
privacy while he tried to pull himself back together. “You don’t need to be my friend. You
don’t need to do anything for me. I just need someone who isn’t Akielon to practice with. I
want Damianos to be surprised with how quickly I have learned his tongue. I want it to look
easy.”

“You want to use me,” Aimeric said, his voice thick.

“Only for this,” the Prince said. “I get a present once my husband decides I’m fluent enough.
We were going to go this week, but now he’s threatening to push the appointment back
because I called him some names in Veretian. You see? I’m being entirely selfish. I don’t
need a friend.”
Out of spite, Aimeric noisily blew his nose into the handkerchief. Prince Laurent declined
taking it back.

Aimeric was still struggling when, without touching him, Laurent returned to the desk, pulled
out the chair, and sat, folding his hands atop it.

Looking at Aimeric very seriously, Prince Laurent said, in Akielon, “Do you drunk of the
coffees?”

--

Auguste’s voyage back to Vere had been miserable.

It wasn’t the weather; though the Eloosean Sea was known for its turbulent storms,
particularly in the Spring, they ran into an unusual streak of luck and had fair sailing all the
way home.

But the trip was miserable, anyway.

Uncle contributed, in part, to said misery. Auguste had made the decision not to tell him of
his decision to bring him back to Vere until the very last possible moment. Suffice it to say
the man had been furious.

“It was cowardly of me,” Auguste admitted to Sebastian, later, after his friend finally gave up
on subtlety and snapped at him that all of his moping was giving him a headache. “I was
afraid he would change my mind if I gave him enough time – and then I would have Laurent
to answer to.”

“Given the choice between the two, I would have decided the same,” Sebastian reassured
him. He had gotten on the wrong side of Laurent’s wrath only once. Auguste didn’t
remember most of the details – only that Sebastian’s eyebrows had seemed to take eons to
grow back – and whatever it was that Laurent had used to dye what little hair he had left on
Sebastian’s head had left mauve stains on everything his friend touched for well over a week.
Laurent had been four at the time. Now that he was capable of giving a man a proper dressing
down, his tongue was far more fearsome than his idea of punishment.

“To be fair,” Auguste admitted, trying not to smile at the memory, “I do think Mother helped
him with that one.”

“I still don’t understand where he got all those goats,” Sebastian said, following Auguste’s
train of thought. For a moment, he looked absolutely haunted.

Before leaving Akielos, Auguste had made sure to get an accounting from each of Laurent’s
guards regarding his brother’s fallout with Uncle Richard. Then he had spoken to both
Laurent and their uncle separately regarding the matter. He had hoped to eventually get them
in a room together to facilitate peace, but Laurent dug his heels in at the mere hint of such a
thing, and Auguste was forced to let the matter go. He would not risk parting with Laurent on
bad terms again.
As far as he could gather, the inciting incident involving the slave boy and the baths had been
a misunderstanding spurred by the overreaction of the Akielon King and Prince Damianos.
Now, too much time had passed and the incident had grown so large in Laurent’s mind as to
actually make Laurent feel unsafe with their uncle. It was almost as if he had come to believe
that Uncle Richard had actually touched him, himself, and not merely fondled a slave a bit.

It was best that uncle and nephew spend some time apart. By his next birthday, Auguste was
sure Laurent would have forgotten all about the incident.

Uncle Richard was still displeased with Auguste when they arrived back in Vere, but he was
a gracious and forgiving man. He agreed to block off time in his schedule to go through the
mess Auguste was making of their country and help him untangle it – without involving the
rest of the Council.

“Your first step will be to remove Moreau and Michel from the Council, naturally,” Uncle
Richard said when he sat down at Auguste’s desk, before he had even opened his ledger.

The advise was perplexing. Moreau and Michel were the two Councilmen who had come
with Auguste to Akielos. Auguste had chosen them specifically for the task. Both men were
more reasonable than Guion – who bore an unbudging hatred for their new allies – and more
reliable than Herode – whose mind could be changed by the tiniest perceived shift of popular
opinion. More, politically speaking, Michel and Moreau were at opposite ends of the
spectrum, with Michel leaning more toward order and tradition, and Moreau possessing
strong sympathies toward the lower class and slow, controlled change. Auguste enjoyed how
the two, often at odds, were also the first to work together toward finding a solution to a
problem, rather than bully their way though it like Guion, or hesitate and twist and agonize
over it like Herode.

“Why would I do that?” Auguste asked. Even to his own ears, he sounded a little stunned.

Uncle Richard seemed surprised that he would even ask.

“After they witnessed your terrible showing in Akielos?” he asked. “How will you ever be
respected as a King with half your Council aware of the way you cringed and scraped before
the King of Akielos?”

“I did not - !”

“Auguste, my boy, you threw every advantage we had away. You simply lack the experience
to see your blunder for what it was. And then, to leave the contract open when you had the
chance to cut your losses while they were still manageable - !”

Auguste groped behind him for his chair, and sat down, slowly, heavily.

“You’re the one who changed the contract,” he realized.

Uncle Richard didn’t flinch. Nor did he attempt to deny it. He watched Auguste, relaxed, his
eyes half-lidded and almost lazy.
“He’s thirteen,” Auguste said, and Uncle Richard lifted a brow, and Auguste heard the
absurdity ringing in his ears. “Fourteen,” he corrected. In his mind, Laurent was forever far
younger. Three, maybe. Or five. It was hard to believe even now how quickly he was
approaching manhood. “How could you do that to him?”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic, Auguste. Would it have killed him?”

“He’s fourteen,” Auguste repeated, uselessly. He remembered the look in Laurent’s eyes – the
fear and the betrayal.

“He would have been fine,” Uncle Richard said, dismissive. He reached forward and flipped
open the ledger. “And in the meantime, you would have recured the alliance permanently –
before those barbarians had the chance to further twist the terms in their favor. Or do you
think your position with them is likely to improve? Do you think that, in seven years’ time,
you will have anything left to leverage against Akielos? Laurent will be their creature by
then.”

“He’s fourteen.”

“And destined to be no beauty, believe me. I have an eye for it; I can tell. The older her gets,
the more apparent it will become. By the time he is twenty-one you will have to beg the
Akielon Prince to consummate the marriage. You will be lucky if you don’t end up giving up
Delfeur, after all, simply to close the contract.”

“He’s fourteen.”

“Stop that,” Uncle Richard’s voice was harsh. Auguste had risen, but Uncle Richard was
unimpressed. “What does that even mean? Had he been born poor and not a Prince, he would
be a professional by now. Probably a pet, while he’s still pretty – with four years’ experience,
no less! Do you think your father changed the law for my sake? No. Aleron knew what you
have yet to learn: Kingship is dirty. Ruling requires putting aside petty ideals and choosing
the thing that brings the most benefit to the most people.”

“Get out,” Auguste said, rage rising steadily in his voice. “Get out of my office. Get out of
my country! He’s fourteen!”

“Sound advice,” Uncle Richard said, sarcastic, as he flipped though the ledger. “I would be
wise to establish myself elsewhere before you inevitably burn this country to the ground. If I
was a selfish man, I would. Unfortunately for you, one of us is aware of his duty.” The ledger
his the desk, open. Auguste could see the long lines of numbers that tracked Vere’s swift
economic plummet since the war. If they had a hard winter, Vere’s downfall would be
irreversible. It was already Spring. Something had to change, and quickly. People would
starve. People would die.

People would riot.

And Auguste didn’t know where to begin.

“Kingship is dirty,” Uncle Richard said, relaxed, reclining back in his chair and folding his
hands over his stomach. “Your hands would be cleaner mucking out latrines, metaphorically
speaking. Yes – I would have let that barbarian fuck your brother. In fact, I would have
enjoyed it. I would have enjoyed every moment, because I was aware that every thrust, every
squeal, every scream meant my people would prosper!”

Auguste found himself staring at the ledger, his blood pounding in his ears.

“I would have allowed it,” Uncle Richard said, “And it would have been the easiest decision
of my reign.”

“You would have made a monstrous King, then.”

“A monster with a thriving Kingdom is better than a good man struggling to keep the dogs
off a pile of corpses.”

Auguste shook his head. His uncle’s eyes never left his face.

“What will it be?” Uncle Richard asked. “Shall we speak like men, or not? Do you think your
father was never faced with a decision that turned his stomach? He did what was necessary,
and you must learn to do the same. Remain soft if you like, my boy, but I guarantee you that
if you do, you will come to regret that you didn’t simply choose abdication now.”
 Chapter 21
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Laurent looked at him suspiciously when, at the end of the week, Damen knocked on the
door between their rooms.

“What could you possibly want?” the little Prince demanded. Despite the early signs of
puberty – the awkward stretch of limbs, the tell-tale crack in his voice – he looked younger
than his unimpressive fourteen years, fragile and unearthly in an oversized bedshirt and silk
dressing gown, his skinny feet flexing, bare, against the marble floor.

“Would you be more comfortable if I went to the other door instead?” Damen offered.
Laurent had only opened the one on his side a crack. He peered through it at Damen, curious
and wary.

“And have the entire household gossiping about the fact you are visiting at this hour? No.”

They were both cheating; they were speaking Veretian. Damen had started it with his
question, and Laurent had briefly looked so grateful that Damen had decided to allow it to
continue. The boy had been working so hard, after all. Even Father had commented on the
surprising amount of progress he had managed to make in a single week.

“It’s time to look at your books,” Damen said.

He didn’t need to explain himself further. Expression clearing, Laurent stepped back from the
door, and left it open in implied invitation as he walked away. He didn’t need reminding of
what it was Damen was referring to – nor did he need reassurance about Damen’s intentions.
He didn’t even demand to know what had taken him so long to make this particular visit;
Damen had promised him on their wedding night that they would do this, after all. The only
thing he had been waiting on was for Laurent to have enough of the language to be able to
communicate with the boys he took.

“On the desk,” Laurent instructed. He didn’t even come to oversee what Damen was going to
do, instead tucking himself up back where he had been previously – as if the matter did not
concern him at all. There was a pillow and a blanket on the couch that had become his
favorite, and before Damen’s arrival, Laurent had clearly been curled up there quite
comfortably with a book that seemed almost half his size.

Without prompting, Damen told him, “I spoke with Father and Kastor – about your gift?”

“When I considered it more, I thought you may choose to.”

Damen glanced down at the books that covered the monstrosity of a desk, shifting them to
look at the titles, noting which ones had pages marked where Laurent had clearly been
reading. Laurent’s ledgers had been left open, his neat little lines of numbers placed in
military-straight rows. He leaned a hip against the desk and picked it up.

Laurent watched him. “I imagine your father and your brother had objections to my request,
then?”

Damen waved the question away. “Kastor doesn’t think about the future, so it hasn’t occurred
to him he will have less to choose from in half a dozen years. And they both prefer women
over men, anyway. Neither one of them ever keeps more than a handful of males on their
bedroom staff.” They all had that in common. Anyway, at the age Laurent had requested,
none of the boys would have been specifically earmarked for any one of them. There might
be one or two the masters had an eye on, supposing he might grow into looks that would fit a
specific Prince’s preferences, of grow into the specific kind of beauty the King enjoyed when
he took a man, but none of the plans would have been made official yet. And more boys
could always be found to replace the ones Laurent took, anyway. Kastor and Father would
have had more objections had Damen been asking to let his little husband poach from the
boys who had already been sent to the palace to finish out their training. The slaves in the
stables might as well have been on the moon, for all that any of them ever thought of them.
Damen had never once considered where they even came from, before now, and had had to
make inquiries as to where the stables were even located. So few of the boys the stables took
in ever grew into the kind of grace and beauty required to serve the royal family in their
bedsport that they only ever encountered a tiny fraction of what was taken in. Laurent could
choose to take a hundred boys and it was unlikely to inconvenience Fater or Kastor in the
least.

“They think your insistence on making servants our of bedslaves is laughable,” Damen told
him honestly. “I still think it’s bordering on cruel. I want you to understand what you’re
doing, taking this opportunity from them.”

“I understand exactly what I’m doing,” Laurent stated.

Damen had half expected him to argue, to defend his position. Laurent’s expression said that
he was prepared to; arguing was not out of question. Damen reminded himself that the boy
was young and that he did not understand the world yet. It would only be a handful of boys,
anyway.

--

Negotiating with Laurent took longer than Damen had expected. Damen had never thought a
pampered Prince of Vere, with all of his people’s overstuffed indulgences and overdecorated
excesses, would need constant reminding of the fact his household budget was also meant to
account for things like clothing and jewelry and not merely for paying his staff or feeding his
horses.

“Do you want to run around the palace in a sackcloth chiton?” Damen asked, then knew,
immediately, the question had been a mistake. “I can not allow you to run around the palace
in a sackcloth chiton.”

Laurent continued to look mulish, anyway.

Laurent’s household expenses, aside from staff, wardrobe, and horses, also went to paying for
his guards and supplying spending money for whatever miscellaneous needs or desires might
arise. The boy was insistent that he would not struggle to squeeze his personal costs tight as a
tourniquet in favor for caring for his men and his horses. Damen found himself wavering
between admiration and exasperation.

They agreed, eventually, on a staff of five – Larius, plus the four boys Laurent intended to
“rescue” from the slave stables. Laurent was disappointed; he had wanted more. Damen, on
the other hand, had been hoping to talk him down to less. Since neither of them was really
happy, they both agreed that the deal was probably fair.

“I’ll talk to the chamberlain about their accommodations,” Damen said, because that had
been a part of the contention, too. He had assumed that Laurent would be sending the boys to
train with the rest of the household, as he had Larius, up until recently. Laurent looked at him
as if he was an idiot.

“They’re my staff. How can they serve me if they’re off training in another barn? No. I want
them here. Larius, too. They can train on the job. I have enough of the language to help them,
now. I want them here, where I can be certain their education meets my standards. I have
already caught Larius with several habits I will have to retrain.”

“Will the Prince of Vere hold class every morning, teaching his boy how to pour his coffee
and tie his laces?”

“If I must. Larius can assist me; he will be ahead of the rest, anyway.”

Damen shook his head. He knew his amusement annoyed his little husband, but he couldn’t
stop himself.

“They won’t have any of the proper forms,” he began.

“They won’t be slaves. They don’t need the forms.”

“And when one missteps and embarrasses you? It wouldn’t be fair to turn him out. You
would have ruined him.”

“Their bowing and scraping embarrasses me. Their this one’s and their stillness, like they’re
objects simply waiting for use. Like they’re furniture. I won’t turn them out – not unless they
do something unforgivable, or choose to leave employment. I am not ruining them.”

The free staff of the palace would never respect a gaggle of slave boys on eccentric foreign
Prince took from the stables to place among them – particularly if they did not receive the
appropriate training – but Laurent refused to see how serving as a bedslave to a King could
be more highly regarded than being relegated to the position of a free man tasked with
washing a Prince’s smallclothes and scrubbing his chamber pot. The wages they earned
would never compare to the honor and celebration, the feasting and silks and jewels a
perfectly-trained slave could earn.
They would never be able to live in the barracks with the other servants, and they wouldn’t
belong in the slave quarters, either. Father had agreed to have a room that was usually
reserved for low-ranking guests converted for Laurent’s use, strung up with the bell system
and furnished with more appropriate trappings. Someone would take care of it tomorrow
while they were out. They would be closer and more convenient for Laurent there, anyway.
Damen had done all he could; if he could not dissuade Laurent from this madness, he might
as well do what he could to help make it work.

“What is that look for?” Laurent asked, frowning at him, and Damen knew that he would take
it wrong if he were to tell him how funny he found him – a child Prince as haughty and
stubborn and determined as any King Damen had ever encountered, all disproportionate
limbs and wary blue eyes, with a sharp mind and sharper tongue, stuck on the most insane,
pointless plan Damen had ever heard in his life.

“I’m just wondering what it is I’ve gotten myself into, that’s all,” Damen told him. He had
never been an older brother before, only the younger, but he liked the amused, indulgent
fondness he was beginning to feel with the child was around. He laughed when Laurent gave
a rude snort and made a show of rolling his eyes in response.

“Your opportunity to run passed a week ago,” he said.

“When I was your age, I was visiting bedslaves for entirely different reasons,” Damen told
him. “I cannot understand how you’ve come to this mad plot.” Laurent was caught on the
edge of manhood, but he wasn’t there, yet. Clearly he had not begun to feel the stirrings of
interest in others. “The only thing that filled my mind back then was finding a warm, willing
body to rut against.”

“I’ve heard it said that’s all that fills your mind now,” Laurent stated, after only the briefest
moment of confusion. His voice was so dry that Damen could not stop himself from
laughing.

“On the contrary – that’s only three-quarters of my mind,” Damen informed him. Laurent
snorted again, but he was watching him, thoughtful. For a moment, it seemed he had decided
to hold himself back – but then he spoke again, abruptly, as if the words escaped him of their
own accord.

“Were they willing?” he asked.

“What?”

“The slaves you were rutting against. Did any of them say no? Have they, ever”

“Of course not,” Damen began to laugh at the very idea, but Laurent spoke again.

“What if they wanted to say no?”

Damen sputtered, surprised. Laurent wasn’t teasing him; his gaze was utterly serious, even as
he watched Damen struggle and grasp for words.
“They wouldn’t have wanted to say no.”

“Because they naturally enjoyed being pawed at and mounted by their inexperienced and
thoughtlessly horny young Prince?”

“Dear gods, you’re merciless, aren’t you?”

Laurent’s expression was expectant, waiting for an answer. Damen was dizzy for a moment,
unable to reconcile the youthful, cherubic innocent on the couch with the question of whether
or not –

“You’re implying that I forced them?”

“I’m inquiring as to how or why you are so certain that they would not have liked to say no.
If you truly believe that, at my age, presumedly knowing nothing whatsoever about the act of
fornication, dealing with the emergence of new hairs and new smells and new urges, you
were still somehow so irresistible that you slaves could not help but to enthusiastically
welcome your inexperienced fumbling, then by all means, say so.” Laurent blinked at him, so
deceptively innocent and sweet. “I will accept your answer,” he added, as if to be reassuring.

“They were performing their duty.”

“So, they were incapable of saying no. Whether they wanted you or not, they did not have a
choice. They had a duty. That is your answer?”

“You live to start a fight, don’t you?”

“Do I? I thought I was making conversation.”

Damen didn’t like how defensive he felt. If Laurent had given him even the barest hint of fire
in return, this could easily have become an impassioned screaming match – but Lauret was
calm, almost lazy – making conversation, as he said.

“It wasn’t like that,” Damen told him, finally.

“Then tell me how it was.”

“I’m not describing to a child the way it was when I lost my virginity.”

“You were my age. You said so yourself.”

It was different. Damen had already been a soldier by then. Damen had never been as much
of a child as Laurent was. Not with eyes like those.

“She was happy to be there. It was an honor for her.” There was no way he was going to
make him understand. She had been seventeen – sweet and blushing and eager and wet. “I
was her first, too.”

“And you don’t think appearing happy and willing was part of her aforementioned duty? You
don’t think she was taught to believe it was an honor, regardless of how she felt?”
“Stop,” Damen said. He understood why Veretians were considered snakes; Laurent was
twisting every word he said. “Just – stop.”

For some reason, Laurent did.

“This is – another cultural misunderstanding,” Damen said. “You haven’t been here long
enough to understand the nuances of it.”

“Is that so?” Laurent asked. He shrugged. “We will have to be content in our disagreement,
then. You may continue to think it is cruel and unfair for me to take these boys out of
training, and I will continue to think it is not. I will continue to question the willingness of the
slaves you take to bed, and you can continue to fuck indiscriminately, convinced of your
godlike prowess. Let’s compare notes in five years. I want to go to sleep.”

Damen was still reeling as the little Veretian Prince walked him to the door between their
rooms. Damen couldn’t clear the frown from his face, the way it drew down his brows and
the corners of his mouth so powerfully. Try as he might, he couldn’t remember the face, let
alone the name, of the first girl he had lain with. He couldn’t remember her voice or her
touch. He remembered tightness and heat, and he remembered wild, explosive pleasure. He
remembered a lot of confusion, a little embarrassment, and a great deal of rolling around.

He couldn’t remember if she had liked it. He couldn’t remember even an attempt at
pretending to.

He found himself hesitating at the door.

“I’m not a – “ Damen couldn’t even bring himself to say the word. He tried again. “I’ve
never forced anyone. I would never force someone.”

Laurent looked startled for a moment, then his expression smoothed to something bland and
neutral.

“You don’t believe me,” Damen said.

“When your armies marched through Delfeur, you left three paths of destruction in your
wake,” Laurent said. “Your father’s men, your brother’s men, and yours. Your men were the
least destructive – but harm was still done, however kind or merciful you told yourself your
orders were. I do not believe you have ever intentionally forced anyone, Damianos. I do
believe you are kind. I only question how it is possible for anyone to be willing, when their
will has been purposefully taken away. How can someone consent when they have no choice
to begin with?”

Damen felt his frown deepening.

Laurent opened the door. “I’m grateful for my wedding gift,” he said. “As I am grateful for
the friendship you’ve shown me. It wasn’t my intention to – make accusations. I only had
questions.”

“Questions,” Damen repeated.

 “Goodnight, Damianos,” Laurent said.

Chapter End Notes

This is kind of a challenging chapter for Damen. It's going to take more than a
conversation for him to change a lifetime's way of thinking, but I wanted to plant a few
questions, anyway.
 Chapter 22
Chapter Notes

So sorry for the lack of updates last week. I HAD to read Dark Heir. I had no choice.

But it was slow reading because I was scared. And also, Pacat's writing inspires me so
much every couple chapters I would have to stop and write another chapter for THIS
because I was just so giddy over their sentence structure or something.

My kitten kept stepping on the keyboard while I was answering comments, and I lost
one of them. I do not know if he deleted it or if he sent an unfinished reply out there into
the ether. If you received nonsense (different than my normal nonsense) or a notice that
your comment was deleted (do they send notices for that?) know that you were blessed
by Oliver, the former-feral 8-month-old orange whirlwind of chaos. (I call him Ollie-no-
Ballie now that he has been neutered.)

See the end of the chapter for more notes

The bells were still ringing.

The runner hadn’t even left for the palace yet. The halls that morning were full of excitement
and activity and rumor before the news even reached them. When it did, it was like nothing
any of them ever would have anticipated: electric and exciting and unreal.

The runner hadn’t been sent to the palace yet, and yet the palace had come to them.

Things had already been in a frenzy, as they always were on days like this. Two boys had
woken to soiled sheets, their bodies signaling that they were, at long last, ready to begin
training in the palace. They had been blessed, as they all would be, in time, by the goddess of
lust. Erasmus had been sharing breakfast with the other boys, throbbingly aware of just who
the two missing from their number were, when this new wave of activity began, like a
beehive that had been kicked. The palace had come to them. No one was really sure what,
exactly, that meant, and no one would tell them. There was not time. Erasmus and the other
boys were shuffled to the baths without finishing their meals. Kallias and Niko were still
there, being tended to, the ritual of their final morning in the Gardens unfairly interrupted
when they were forced up from the massage tables and ushered back into the baths with the
others. Once they were all sufficiently scrubbed and sweet-smelling, they were dressed.

During their time in the Gardens, the boys always wore simple linen chiton and leather
collars. Training silks and golden ribbons were reserved for those on their way to the palace.
Out of the dozens upon dozens of boys who went through the Gardens, few were deemed
beautiful enough to be sent on to the palace, and of those, fewer still chosen to serve in the
beds of the King or either of his two sons. In the Gardens, the prettiest boys received the
nicest things – but there was never a true guarantee they would grow into their promised
looks. If a boy’s features began to roughen too much, if he began to grow plain, if some
misfortune befell him, he would swiftly find himself pulled from the Gardens and sent to the
mysterious abyss of elsewhere to be trained for some other duty – a bath or wardrobe
attendant, if he was lucky, or, if he was not, the kitchens or the laundry, where his hair would
stink and his hands would grow rough. Rarely, a boy was turned off completely – resold to
the highest bidder at the common markets.

Their simple chiton and leather collars were reminders, daily, of how precious and precarious
their positions in the Garden were. They could not allow themselves to forget how close they
stood to a life of nothingness, the line between glory and humiliation stretched thin. Every
boy longed for the day the ribbon was finally tied ‘round his neck, a symbol of the fine collar
he might one day wear, if he worked hard and was obedient. Erasmus had often sat before the
mirrors, tilting his head this way and that, trying to imagine the way his ribbon would look.

A ripple of shock went through the gathered boys when a trunk was brought in, and opened,
and instead of their usual chiton, the staff of the Gardens began to lay out beautiful training
silks in a rainbow of colors. Erasmus was certain that he had never seen anything so fine. He
trembled as they were instructed to stand, nude and statue-still, in a line so that Pylaeus could
look them over. He instructed the assignment of each silk with a careful eye as to which
garment would most flatter which boy: blue for Kallias, burnt orange for Aden, blush pink
for Iphegin, grey for Ason, and so on. Erasmus was given silks of spring green, soft and
slippery in his hands. His trembling grew worse as he was dressed, and Pylaeus had to scold
him.

The staff of the Gardens moved with swift and practiced professionalism down the line of
boys – fixing hair, applying paints. They offered no explanation for their actions; no word
was spoken that was not a whisper. The staff, Erasmus realized, was also nervous, and that
made the boys nervous, too. Kallias tried to catch his eye, but Erasmus found he could not
bear it. Any moment now, he was sure he would break apart.

Once they were deemed ready, they were taken into the House.

There were great men who made the breeding and acquisition and cultivation of slaves an art
form. Entire temples were devoted to this; Erasmus had been born in one. Erasmus knew that
the great slave Houses were often referred to as Barns or Stables by the Masters, as if their
inhabitants were prized thoroughbreds, bred and pampered and trained for the pleasure and
the glory of their future masters. Nereus, however, insisted that he did not operate a Stable,
but a Garden. He did not specialize in horses, but in flowers. Nereus and his family had been
the primary supplier of bedslaves for the royal palace for five generations now, as the boys
were often told. Erasmus liked the thought of living in a garden – and, indeed, a garden it was
– cool and green and quiet in the midst of the busy city that surrounded them. An open
courtyard separated the slaves’ baths and dormitories from the main building – the House –
which they were never permitted to enter.

Until today.

They were hurried through the halls with little time to take in the glory around them until,
upon reaching one large room, they were lined up as they had been in the baths. They knew
what to do next. With practiced grace like flowing water, they went to their knees, and
pressed their foreheads to the floor. Erasmus, too afraid to dare trying to lift his eyes, had
seen nothing of the room they had ended in, save for the fine marble floors beneath his bare
feet. He had seen even less of whatever occupants the rooms held – not even so much as the
edge of a sandal.

“There are so many of them,” a voice said. Young and male, he sounded concerned. He had a
strong accent – unfamiliar, but not unpleasant.

Nereus himself answered with glowing pride. He said, “I am hoping to have thirty more by
the summer.”

“Thirty,” the first repeated, soft and flat.

“You must understand; these things are difficult to predict. Boys roughen with age, most of
the time. There are measures to take that will prevent that, but the King has no taste for
castrati. It is unfortunate; it means an even smaller fraction of my flowers live up to their
promised beauty. But no man is half as skilled as I at finding the most glorious buds.”

“In the future,” the first said, “Refrain from telling me what I must do.”

The voice was displeased. Erasmus’s trembling had grown even worse; he was sure they
would all see it. He felt like glass that had been blown too thin, ready to shatter at a touch. He
was sure he nearly did shatter when, unexpectedly, a third voice spoke.

“The Prince of Vere is my husband. You will remember that, and you will address him with
the respect he is due.”

“Yes, Exalted. Of course, Exalted. Forgive me, exal – “

“Stand up. Lift your chins.” The order came from the first voice, interrupting Nereus’s
apology as if he hadn’t even been paying attention to it. “You. Slaves. I’m speaking to you.
How am I supposed to look at you like this? Stand up and look at me. You’re men, not
worms.”

The idea was terrible. Erasmus did not believe he could ever have the strength for such an
undertaking, but neither was he strong enough to disobey an order. When the others rose,
Erasmus did, too. Lifting his head was the hardest part. So many details confronted him at
once that it made him dizzy: they stood in a well-appointed sitting room full of art and
statuary, plush couches, and more books than he had ever dreamed to see in his life. Nereus
stood nearby, plump and sweating and nervous. There were men – so many men – terrifying
men – men such as Erasmus had not seen since he was a child. Large, muscular men with
hard, terrifying faces. Over broad chests, they wore chest pieces of burnished leather
imprinted with the face of a lion, and they carried swords. Their sandal laces curled, sinuous,
over powerful calves. Each man had thighs like tree trunks, and biceps made of granite. Only
Nereus did not match these large, terrifying men. Nereus, and –

For an absurd moment, Erasmus thought the boy who stood, frowning, before them was a
new slave, come to join their training. He was dressed strangely, all tied up in blue garments
that covered him completely from neck to toe, the complicated mechanics of which Erasmus
could not begin to comprehend. The strangeness of his costume, however, did not detract
from the fact that he was the most beautiful boy Erasmus had ever seen.

Every day, the staff washed Erasmus’s hair with special soaps, and rinsed it carefully with
chamomile water to preserve its prized color – his best feature. Nevertheless, the fair strands
that he so prided himself on were naught but mud when compared to the gold that crowned
this boy’s head. Kallias, the true beauty of their lot, was often praised for the striking clarity
of his bright blue eyes – but this boy’s eyes so outshone his that it was as if a jeweler had
placed pure sapphire beneath his brow.

Even frowning, he was beautiful. Erasmus could feel the stirring jealousy of his peers. Had
he been a slave come to join them, there were boys here who would have done their best to
destroy him.

But he looked each of them directly in the eye, as no slave would ever dare. The only reason
Erasmus was able to bear such strange behavior when it came to be his turn, was that the boy
fascinated him so, and he did not know who he was. Even then, drawn involuntarily in by the
boy’s remarkable looks, Erasmus felt his knees grow weak when that bright, incomparable
stare fixed on him.

“I can only have four of you, because my husband is unreasonable,” the boy said, and
Erasmus tried not to sag in relief as he moved back down the line. At his words, one of the
frightening men accompanying the boy looked as if he might laugh. He was the largest of
them, but his smile brought out a boyishness to his face and a dimple in his cheek that made
him a little less intimidating. His dark, tousled curls further softened him. “I’m sorry,” the
boy told them, and he sounded sincere. He followed the apology by saying, “I wish I could
do more.”

I can only have four of you. Were they being sold? Erasmus knew it happened, sometimes,
even though it wasn’t supposed to unless a boy was being turned off. Sometimes, when
enough money was involved, some of the boys would be called to line up like this, and
someone important-looking would choose one, and they would never see him again. But it
never happened in the House, and never involved the entirety of Nereus’s stock. Erasmus
swayed a little, and only kept from fainting because Kallias dared break rank to catch his
arm. The movement drew the boy’s attention, though when he spoke again, it was to Nereus.

“Show me your most promising,” he ordered. “The ones who will be the most desired. I also
want to see the ones closest to being sent for training. The rest can go. I don’t want to look at
them anymore.”

Nereus looked them over, and then began to name them out. First Kallias and Niko, each just
this morning ready to be sent to the palace. Then Hector, Iphegin, Konston, Charis, Ermis.
After a moment’s consideration and something like a warning look, he called Aden forward
as well.

The selection was shocking. These boys should not have even been shown to these strangers,
let alone put forward for selling. Erasmus’s head was spinning, and he felt sick. Of course, it
was only natural for the strange boy’s attention to fall immediately on Kallias. Erasmus knew
immediately that he would take him, and he wanted to weep. It wasn’t fair. Kallias had
received the blessing of the goddess. Kallias was to go to the palace and finish his training.
Why should he be punished by being sold off, when he should have been serving the King
himself?

Erasmus did not know where the sudden, stupid courage came from, but without thought he
found himself throwing himself forward, prostrate at the boy’s feet, catching hold of his slim,
booted ankle before he could walk back down the line again. Erasmus had never been so bold
or so desperate as when he kissed the shined silver toe of the boy’s boot, and pressed his
forehead to the cool metal, clinging to him tightly with both hands.

“Exalted,” Nereus said, “My apologies! We – “

“Lift that riding crop again and I will have it shoved through your rectum,” the boy said, his
accent sharp. A moment later, his voice grew soft again. “What’s this?” he asked Erasmus.

“Please – please – Exalted!” with all the strangeness of the day, Erasmus had yet to piece
together why the boy should be called that, but he used the title anyway. “Please; it isn’t fair!
I beg you, please, take your eye from Kallias. He received his blessing this morning, and he
will be going to train in the palace. He does not deserve to be sold on a day where he should
be celebrated!”

“You’re wrong,” the boy said, almost gently. “This is exactly the day I should take him.”
Erasmus didn’t dare lift his head, but even if he had, the tears streaming from his eyes would
have prevented him from seeing the strange boy’s expression. The boy asked, “He is your
friend?”

Erasmus tried to lie. He shook his head, even as Kallias answered, “Yes, Exalted.”

The boy said, “Then I shall take you both.”

--

It was awful. More than just one boy cried. There were clinging hugs and flowing tears and
one of the boys Laurent chose, Aden, outright refused to be bought. Damen had never seen
such behavior from slaves before.

“They don’t understand,” Laurent told him. “But, they will. One day.” He wasn’t bothered by
the fact his actions were causing such upset. In fact, throughout all of the dramatics, his
excitement had not wavered for a moment. Damen could see how he fought to control
himself, but a smile – broad and proud – kept breaking out onto his face.

Nereus had tried to trick him – the boys he had called forward were only his oldest, not his
best – but Laurent, it turned out, had a good eye for this. He had purposefully chosen the four
that Damen himself would have said were the most likely to grow into prized beauties – the
blue-eyed Kallias, the fair-headed Erasmus, the graceful Iphegin, and, after Aden’s refusal,
the delicate Ermis.
“If nothing else, you will be sure to have the most distracting household staff,” Damen
mused. It started as a joke, but after a moment, he added, in Veretian so the boys would not
understand, “Do you have a plan for how you will keep them from being interfered with?”

“Are you implying that the Akielon palace is not a safe place for beautiful boys?”

No, that’s your lot you’re thinking of. Damen caught himself in time to keep from saying it.

“When your entire staff is made of beauties, it’s going to draw attention,” Damen said,
instead. “Sometimes, even a servant has as little power to refuse. Will you assign your guards
to trail your servants the way they trail you? You’ll need to hire more. This is getting
expensive. As bedslaves, they would have been protected. Servants have to go more places,
be around more people. In a way, they’re even more vulnerable.”

He thought he was making a fair point, but Laurent only glanced at him, coolly, without
pausing to consider his advice. Instead, he said, “You won’t put me off this.”

--

Back at the palace, Laurent had the leather collars struck from the slaves’ necks.

“I’m setting you free,” Laurent informed them, his excitement returning. Fourteen was old
enough to have begun to develop a sense of empathy, but he gave no indication that the way
the four boys clung to one another in terror was at all something he should concern himself
with. “You can leave, or you can stay. It’s your choice now. But I hope you stay – at least
until you become adults. I would like to employee you. Stay until you are adults, and you can
save your wages, your food and shelter provided by the palace. You can take your time
deciding what it is you really want to do with your lives - and when you are ready, you will
have the means to do it.”

Laurent made the entire speech in Akielon, without any mistakes. He had been practicing the
words he planned to say to them. Damen didn’t know who had helped him put them together.

“They don’t understand,” Damen reminded him, when the boys failed to react to his words.
Most slaves in Akielos had it in their blood – generations of servitude stretching back
centuries. It was rare for a free man to choose to sell himself, or for a prisoner to be pressed
into slavery. Sometimes, slaves were taken from raids on Veretian towns – Damen knew
Kastor had taken many during the war, though most should by now have been returned – but
serving was meant to be an honor, not a punishment, and those who were not born into it
often had trouble acclimating to the life.

“I know,” Laurent answered him, and at this he did finally look compassionate. To the boys,
he gestured to the new arrival, just now entering the room. He said, “This is my man, Larius.
He is still learning, too, but he is a little farther ahead of you. I think he is much more
comfortable in my service now than he was at first. He’s going to help you. You’re going to
help each other.”

Damen barely recognized Larius. He knew Laurent had pulled him from his training with the
palace slaves the day they went sea bathing, and he knew that Laurent had not sent him back,
 after, but truth be told, Damen hadn’t otherwise paid him mind. He had already developed the
prized skill of fading into the background, the way a household slave was meant to do. Staff
were not supposed to draw attention to themselves. He had been indistinguishable from any
other slave on the sand, the day they went to the sea – silent, head down, unobtrusive as he
awaited his master’s orders.

It was hard to pinpoint exactly what it was that was different about him now. Damen had half
expected Laurent to have him stuffed into the impractical livery the rest of the servants from
Vere were forced to wear, but perhaps Laurent had taken into account the heat that would
come with summer. Larius still wore a chiton, the only decoration a flat, blue circle of metal,
etched with the gold starburst of the crown Prince of Vere. It was pinned at his right shoulder.
Larius also wore sandals; slaves were not allowed shoes.

He had no collar, and he approached the other boys without first throwing himself at anyone’s
feet.

The one last difference was that he smiled.

--

The handwriting was crisp, and it was sharp. The parchment was expensive. The perfume
rising from the paper when the envelope was opened was a too-familiar scent – rich and
polished and dark.

Do you think often of our time together? the letter began. I think of it, and I long for the day
when our time may be extended. I spend long hours in meditation on the charms of your
body. No wine is sweeter than the taste of your salt upon my lips. Your tight heat haunts my
every waking hour. Do you remember the dear details of our intimacy?

Your father sends his regards.

The letter had been waiting for him when he returned to his room. The seal had been
unbroken; it hadn’t come through official palace channels, where all correspondence from
Vere was first read before being passed on to the proper recipient. This letter had been
delivered by other means. Someone had come into his room while he had been away.

His hands shook as he folded the letter back up. It slid easily back into the envelope. He
traced his thumb over the wax seal, red as blood, the sensual curls of the letter R at the center
standing out against the smoothness of the wax.

A whiff of that perfume again. He froze, entire body locking up, tight.

Slowly, he put down the letter. Slowly, he lifted his hands. He was covered in the scent. He
pushed his chair back.

Aimeric barely made it to the privy before he began to throw up.

Chapter End Notes

Erasmus: spends the entire chapter shaking like a stressed out chihuahua.
 Chapter 23
Chapter Notes

This chapter took me ages to type up and I don't know why. I will try to come back and
check it for mistakes later, but I can't make promises that it will happen.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Uncle Richard arched a sardonic brow when his entrance to the King’s study precisely
coincided with the moment Auguste of Vere rose and, in a fit of temper, swept the contents of
his desk onto the floor. Glass shattered. The inkwell spilled. Auguste didn’t care.

“Did that help?” Uncle Richard asked, amused.

The King of Vere could not bring himself to answer. He felt like a caged bear as he began to
pace, back and forth, behind his desk. His uncle, making it no secret that he was laughing at
him, went to the sidebar and began to help himself to the liquor there, pouring out two
glasses. Auguste didn’t pay attention to what. He took the one that was offered to him, and
knocked it back, careless of whether it was a thirty-year bourbon or a glass of paint thinner.
When Uncle Richard lifted his own glass to his lips, Auguste took it from him, amber liquid
splashing across his hand as he drank it, too.

“I’ll just pour another, shall I?” Uncle Richard said, taking both glasses when Auguste thrust
them at him and continued his pacing.

“That was Solveig of Skarva,” Auguste said, gesturing vaguely at the mess he had made of
his desk. “She’s rethinking her offer. She claims that I have insulted her and her daughter.
Insulted! You read the response I sent to Ingrid’s portrait! We both agreed that I was making a
fair proposal.”

“Fair indeed,” Uncle Richard agreed, pouring. “I told you, my boy – women are silly
creatures. They have no logic to them. If Ingrid Solveigsdottir takes insult at your praise for
her beauty, then she is not the wife for you, after all.”

Ingrid was no beauty. She should have been charmed by Auguste’s compliments; he doubt
she heard their like often. She had teeth like a horse and a nose like a mushroom, and if the
artist who had taken her portrait had been that honest concerning her likeness, then he had no
doubt the reality was at least ten times worse.

But Auguste was willing to endure an ugly bride. Auguste was desperate. Solveig of Skarva
was the great aunt of the Empress of Vask, and she was the last offer Auguste had on the
table from anyone worth paying attention to. All of the other women of worth he had been
courting had had their offers retracted by fathers or brothers or aunts. The aunts had been the
worst.
Auguste didn’t understand it. Before the war with Akielos, he had been drowning in marriage
offers from the finest bloodlines on the continent. He’s had his pick of beauties, of strong
alliances with powerful families – princesses and duchesses, young dowagers with vast
fortunes, a Tsarina from the far north, three Khatun from the east, a powerful female shaman
from his mother’s homeland of Kempt, along with a handful of his own cousins – family he
had not heard from since Mother’s long illness claimed her at last, and who had kept their
letters brief and to the point – a marquise, a countess, a whole gaggle of impressive ladies of
varying impressive accomplishments – and Auguste, like a fool, had failed to choose a single
one of them, because there were so many, and they were all so beautiful and so charming, and
he enjoyed the attention, and Father and Uncle both had thought the offers would only
improve once Auguste had a number of impressive military victories under his belt.

Now the seemingly endless river of offers had all but dried up. Auguste was the one left
looking desperate – lowering himself, crawling for the likes of Solveig of Skarva and her
horse-toothed daughter. Now – when his people were reeling from a difficult winter with the
better part of the lands that served as Vere’s breadbasket razed and still struggling to recover;
when Auguste’s triumphant victory over Akielos looked more like a surrender and his grasp
of his father’s throne a tenuous and overwhelming struggle; when Auguste looked like a fool
and a failure of a monarch and needed, desperately needed, more than anything needed for
just one thing to turn around – now the offers were gone, and his letters returned unopened.

Uncle Richard put a refreshed glass upon his desk, this one more generously filled than the
last. Sipping his own, he bent to pick up a handful of the papers that Auguste had knocked
from his desk, scanning them as he drank, casual and relaxed, as if taking in some pamphlet
handed out at a brothel. Something he saw amused him. He tossed the papers onto the desk,
and they slid Auguste’s way.

“That one looks promising,” Uncle Richard said. “A pig farmer in Toutaine is offering a very
generous dowry in return for His Majesty making his daughter into a Queen.” He laughed, as
if it was the grandest joke he had ever heard, and helped himself to Auguste’s desk chair,
bending to gather more of the discarded papers. “Oh, a fisherman who lives off the coast of
Ladehors – can’t offer much of a dowry, this one, but he swears his daughter is one-sixteenth
mermaid. Ah, but she is forty-seven. Difficult getting milk from a cow whose teats have dried
up. What else? A Patran circus performer! How charming!”

“Uncle, please,” Auguste said, and the pain in his voice had Uncle Richard falling silent,
though the man still chuckled as he fished through the letters. Auguste took up his new glass,
and he drank, gulping down his best bourbon as if it were water, heedless of the burn, not
even really tasting it. He wanted to be drunk. He wanted to go to sleep and wake up to a
different world.

The pig farmer was the next best offer he had; all of his hopes had been pinned on Solveig of
Skarva and her horse-toothed Ingrid. The pig farmer was of common blood – as common as
it got, generation after generation raised on mud and brown bread and barley. But he was also
the wealthiest man in three provinces. He had tried, a dozen or so years ago, to purchase a
title for himself. Auguste remembered it – remembered the name – remembered how insulted
Father had been by the request. Nobility is not something to be bought and sold! Father had
fumed, throwing the letter into the fire. We are born to our places by the will of the gods – to
try to rise above what is sewn into the blood is to spit on divinity itself! Father never would
have even opened the letter in the first place.

You caused this, Auguste thought, watching his uncle recline back in his chair and put his
boots on his desk, crossed at the ankle, comfortable, as if he was the King and Auguste some
petitioner. He watched him fish his reading spectacles from his pocket, and straighten the
letters with a snap, and sip at Auguste’s good bourbon that he had helped himself to without
asking. Somehow, this is your fault.

The thought was a ridiculous one, but Auguste couldn’t shake it – nor could he ignore the
sudden surge of anger looking at his uncle gave him. Auguste knew it was his own bad
temper. He hadn’t been sleeping well, or eating well, either, really. And he’d been drinking,
well, perhaps a bit too often, and he was still resentful of his uncle’s meddling in affairs with
Akielos, so he was, perhaps, looking for things to blame his uncle for. If Auguste could not
secure for himself a respectable bride, it was Auguste’s own fault. Auguste had been the one
doodling knights in his schoolbooks instead of listening to his tutor drone on about the art of
conversation. Auguste had been the one to turn down invitations to visit potential matches in
favor of another hunt. Auguste had been the one so worried about making sure he chose the
best bride – the prettiest, the most accomplished, the richest, the sweetest – that he had agreed
with Uncle Richard suggested to Father that they put off a decision until after the war.

Uncle Richard chuckled again, at some other offer, and shuffled the letter to the back. Rolling
his eyes upward, he caught Auguste watching him, and lowered his glasses down over the
bridge of his nose to observe him right back.

“What an insolent look on your face,” Uncle Richard said. “I take it you’re ready to put this
foolishness aside, then? Very well. Let us talk of more important things than the type of sow
you’re going to end up obligating to fuck.” He motioned Auguste to one of the chairs before
the desk. Auguste didn’t move.

“This is my study,” Auguste said.

“It’s your father’s study,” Uncle corrected, drinking. “And as far as I’m concerned, you have
a long way to go before you are worthy of claiming anything that belonged to Aleron. Now!”
He removed his spectacles, and tossed them, along with the letters, onto the desk. “Vere is on
the verge of bankruptcy,” he said. “There’s no way to avoid it, and I won’t pretty it up: you
fumbled the situation with the taxes, and you fumbled it badly. You failed to lead Delfeur into
recovery before winter, and now you may miss spring planting. My reports say that this past
winter was difficult, but not a disaster – but that Vere will not take a repeat of it well. Without
a significant investment in Delfeur’s recovery, people will begin to starve by mid-fall. It’s
clear you are incapable of making the kind of alliance that will change any of this – not right
now, anyway. You don’t look good, and you have a long way to walk before you can prove
yourself a competent King. No one trusts you enough to tie their name to yours right now.”

“I still have time,” Auguste ground out. It was late Spring, but there was time to turn around
the planting season – particularly if the summer started as mild as it usually did. “With our
Alliance with Akielos, we can get in some crop seed that handles a hotter planting time. He
can hire workmen from the border and the mountains – Patras, too – anywhere that will send
them to help the farmers prepare Delfeur’s fields. We can offer incentives for farmers to
move south. We can – “

“So many plans! And how will you fund them?”

“I…” Auguste hadn’t gotten that far yet. He forced himself not to look at the letters on his
desk.

“You’re right that you have time,” Uncle Richard said, “But, to make any use of it at all, you
need to pull your head from your ass so that you can hear me. Look at me, boy, look me in
the eye – are you listening? Good. Drop this marriage nonsense. It isn’t getting you
anywhere.”

“I need an heir,” Auguste began.

“Of course you need an heir! But the pitter-patter of little feet is not your focus right now.
Revisit it later; when your rule is better established and your country recovered, this dried up
old well will flow again, a guarantee it. In the meantime, if you are truly so concerned with
protecting the legitimacy of your throne, make me your heir. If you did that, at the very least
your people would not have to worry themselves with the fear of coming under Akielon rule.
Think of the goodwill you will generate!”

Auguste almost laughed at that.

“Goodwill,” he repeated. “And what happens to that goodwill when I follow the next step of
your brilliant plan, Uncle?” They had discussed this before. Auguste didn’t like it any more
now than he had the first time he’d heard it.

“It won’t be popular, I know,” Uncle Richard agreed. “Not initially. You may have some
protests, a riot or too, particularly near the Universities. Easy enough to quell – and once the
population sees how it benefits them, they will lose their silly prejudice against it. They will
adjust.”

“People will adjust. That’s the plan? Uncle – you want me to open Vere to the slave trade!”

“Yes,” Uncle Richard said, unflinching. “I want you give your people the influx of money
and laborers they need to get back on their feet. Laborers, might I remind you, who never
need to be paid after the initial investment. Akielos will charge an exorbanent amount for
them to begin with, I’ve no doubt, but what lord doesn’t have a tenant or two who can’t pay
their taxes? It’s a self-renewing resource, Auguste, and once Vere begins to produce its own
stock - ! Try to imagine how your country will thrive. The year isn’t lost, Auguste. Your
worth as a King is not yet completely in the chamber pot. You can still save your rule. You
can still save Vere.”

“Get out,” Auguste told him, because there was nothing else he could say. He saw the rage
flash through Uncle Richard’s eyes, and he didn’t care. He wanted another drink. Kingship is
dirty, Uncle Richard had said. Ruling requires putting aside pretty ideals and choosing the
thing that brings the most benefit. Auguste understood the lesson. It didn’t mean he intended
to implement it in the same way his uncle envisioned.
“You will regret it,” Uncle Richard said, “If you fail to heed my advice.”

“Get out,” Auguste told him again.

Uncle Richard slammed his fist down on the desk, but he rose – one swift, furious motion –
and he swept from the room.

--

Auguste sat at his desk for a long time, once he was alone. His glass was empty. So was
Uncle Richard’s. So was the bottle.

It took him a moment to remember he would need to open a fresh inkwell to pen his
correspondence. He fumbled at the desk drawers as he retrieved what he wanted. He tested
himself on the back of one of the letters; his vision was blurry, but his handwriting was neat.
Well. It was passable.

With a fresh piece of parchment and a determined, if slightly foggy mindset, Auguste began
to pen his correspondence.

--

“Do you know what it is your little husband has been up to?”

It was early-summer, and Damen had just returned from a trip up the northern coast into
Aegina, where there were stirrings of rumors of strange activity from several of the Free
Tribes – Akielon holdouts who lived independent of his father’s rule. He had been away
nearly two months – long enough that he actually found himself noticing the heat of a
southern summer, soaking into him deliciously in welcome as he rode into the courtyard, the
sea breeze cooling the sweat on his skin.

It was an odd way for his brother to greet him. Damen reigned in, gaze sweeping the
courtyard in search of the boy, though he saw no sign of him. He frowned.

“I’m a few days earlier than anticipated,” Damen said. “Whatever he’s done this time, if you
sent a letter, I never got it.”

Kastor’s sense of humor was unpredictable, but Damen’s answer seemed to amuse him.
Damen had been inundated with correspondence over his travels – from Laurent, still intent,
it seemed, in his mission to make Damen fond of him, though his letters were all pretty words
and little substance; the boy guarded his secrets, even down to the minutia of his day. Damen
had heard from Father, too, his letters all business: instructions for his dealings with the
tribes, limits on the allowances he was allowed to make for them, updates on matters of the
city. Nothing personal, and very little at all about his Veretian boy or whatever antics he had
been up to, save brief notes to indicate that he was progressing well and keeping active. It
was Nikandros who Damen depended on to keep him abreast of anything that mattered;
though Nikandros had been away from Ios even longer than Damen had, dealing with his
father’s failing health in southern Mellos, he had made a few visits during Damen’s absence,
standing in for his father when the King had need of his Kyroi.
“He thinks he’s training for Okton,” Kastor informed him smugly. It was clear that he found
the idea laughable, and expected that Damen would, as well. Damen wondered as he swung
down from his horse if his brother had had his slaves watching for his return so that he could
tell him himself. He wondered how disappointed he would be to learn that Damen already
knew about it.

“Right now?” Damen asked. “Let’s go see.”

--

As far as Damen could tell, Nikandros had been the first one to really take note of the boy’s
eccentric new activity. Under guise of his daily ride, it seemed that Laurent and his gaggle of
slave boys had been slipping away to practice riding a makeshift Okton course Laurent must
have cobbled together from memory. They had been using a field outside the palace that was
meant to be used as grazing land should the city ever come under siege. Sometimes, the army
would run drills there, making new recruits set and strike camp over and over again until
exhaustion had them all limping back to the barracks like noodles, but for the most part, it
was a quiet and relatively private area not far from Laurent’s usual riding path.

It seems to be the challenge of it that interests him, Nikandros had written. The boy is a
remarkable horseman.

Damen had written back, Then, make sure they let him ride.

He knew that Nikandros had confronted Laurent during his play one day. He knew he had
taken him to meet some of the other young warriors in the palace, that he had encouraged
him to join them in their practice runs – on a proper course, with the proper equipment, and
with others around so that, should injury occur, help could be found quickly. Damen didn’t
know how that exchange had gone, only that the letter detailing that particular encounter had
come three weeks ago, at most. Damen was excited by the prospect of seeing it for himself –
of seeing how the boy’s Veretian horsemanship would translate itself into the Sport of Kings.
Part of Damen’s early return in fact, had been motivated by his curiosity.

I’m not fun, Laurent had told him, that day on the shore. To Damen, discovering something
that interested the boy felt a bit like discovering treasure buried in the sand – unexpected and
thrilling. Kastor must have thought that the discovery of his little husband’s new hobby
would displease or embarrass Damen. Perhaps his brother had wanted to give him the chance
to stop it, himself, before it went too far. Perhaps the thought of the little foreign Prince
attempting to ride in a sport that even seasoned warriors feared was simply so ridiculous to
Kastor that he had thought he was letting Damen in on a joke. Common prejudice held that
Veretians were lazy and soft and foppish, too concerned with their comforts and their petty
entertainments to ever put in the kind of sweat and blood and work an Akielon could.
Perhaps, for some of them, there was even truth to the stereotype – but if it had held for all
Veretians, then the war would have gone much differently. Akielons had not simply run over
their neighbor with little real resistance; Vere had its warriors, too. Men of skill and
dedication and practice.

And they had at least one – not quite a man yet – of principle and honor.
As promised, they found Laurent in the training rings outside the grounds where the soldiers
ran their regular drills. The palace in Ios had the finest gymnasium in Akielos – possibly the
whole world – with all the equipment and experts needed to take any determined young man
and make him into an elite athlete. Striving for the pinnacle of what one’s body was capable
of was pleasing to the gods, after all. Akielon warriors were not warriors from love of killing,
but from their passion for their art – the craft of honing a thing of flesh and fear and weakness
into something more. On the grounds outside the gymnasium, there were tracks for running,
for vaulting, for horseback riding, for chariot racing. There were target stations and combat
dummies and weighted bags. Inside there was a pool, and slaves with expertise in massage.
There were cold baths and hot, sweat rooms filled with steam, racks upon racks of
equipment. Anything a man could need was provided for, if physical improvement was the
aim. The gods were pleased by the quest for perfection, and its pursuit was a lifelong act of
dedication – whether a man’s preference was for fighting or running, swimming or wrestling,
or, yes, even Okton.

Damen had no preset expectations of what he would see when he stopped by the gate to
watch his little husband ride. Nikandros had called him a remarkable horseman, and
Nikandros did not give empty praise – nor did he try to keep Damen’s favor by pouring
honey into his ears. Damen did not believe Laurent’s youth or his heritage would make him
weak or clumsy or without potential. He wanted to approach his pursuits with an open mind,
and allow them both to enjoy watching him discover what he could do.

Even still, it startled him to see how he rode.

Laurent used his knees to guide his horse, his hands left free for his spears. His blue eyes
were bright and blazing fires, filled with excitement and determination. His little body moved
with his horse, as if they were one creature, sharing heartbeats, sharing minds, sharing souls.
Laurent was not the only young man rounding the practice track; many soldiers near his age
were running the same game. They didn’t all have spears – at this stage of practice, only two
at a time would actually be throwing, and the weapons in their hands would all have dulled
tips. It was still dangerous, but not as likely to kill someone if they judged poorly. Learning
awareness of how to maneuver through the field was the most important thing to learn first.
Accurately hitting the target was a goal for much later.

The targets, in fact, were not even in place yet. Dull-tipped spears littered the ground of the
training ring. Week by week, the boys would be expected to add one more set of spears into
the game, easing the riders and their horses into the experience of a full run.

Laurent’s little companion, Aimeric, was also riding. His horsemanship was average, and he
didn’t hold any spears. Both boys seemed to have been struggling with the limitations of their
Veretian clothing; they had both thrown their jackets aside. Aimeric wore his undershirt only,
but Laurent was still dressed in the restrictive corsetry normally worn over it, the brilliant
swirls of blue and gold embroidery exposed, where usually most of it was covered.

When Laurent and the other boy who carried spears ran out, it was the signal for the next two
in whatever order they had agreed upon to take up theirs. Aimeric swept down to retrieve one
of the weapons bags this time. His aim was better than Laurent’s; Damen remembered that
Laurent did not enjoy hunting. He would have less practice throwing spears than a
nobleman’s son more used to the sport, though he guided his horse through the track’s tight
turns with far more grace than any of the other riders managed.

Kastor had a stream of critiques already ready – not only for the two Veretian boys, but for
the other young warriors practicing with them. Damen only listened with half an ear; Kastor
was very difficult to please, and always found fault when watching someone else ride Okton.
He had a critical eye and unrelenting standards. More, he lacked imagination. Kastor always
looked for fault, never potential. Perhaps he did it on purpose; Damen knew he was not the
only young man to have pushed himself harder than he might have otherwise, simply out of
determination to prove the Prince wrong.

A third set of boys was taking their turn with the spears before Damen noticed the presence
of Laurent’s slaves. Laurent had brought all five of them out with him – excessive, even for a
Veretian – and they all stood under the pavilion where supplies were kept. They were not
setting out the young Prince’s lunch, however, or even simply waiting, convenient and
forgotten, the space already long-prepared for their master’s return.

Instead, they were holding wooden practice swords, and one of Laurent’s Veretian guards was
instructing them on how to use them.

“You’re back.”

The sound of Laurent’s voice drew Damen back from his inquisitive thoughts. He turned his
head to find that the boys were still practicing their run; Laurent alone had broken away to
approach the gate. He was frowning.

“You should have sent word you were back,” Laurent scolded, as he slid down from his
horse. Damen realized, with a little bit of horror, that he hadn’t even been using a saddle. “I
would have come to meet you.”

Damen could see how sweat dampened Laurent’s shirt around the corseting and under his
arms, how it stuck his hair to his forehead and caused it to curl at the nape of his thin neck.

“You’re practicing Okton,” Damen answered. He could hear in his own voice how much the
discovery pleased him.

Laurent’s cheeks were already pink from the heat and from exertion, but at Damen’s pointless
observation, they grew pinker still.

“It was supposed to be a secret,” he said.

“Don’t be upset – you’re a remarkable horseman. I wish you had said something before I left;
I would have helped you get started.”

Laurent’s face was bordering on crimson. He looked away, as if observing his companions
who still rode. He tugged nervously on his riding gloves. “I wasn’t sure it would be
appropriate,” he said after a moment. “It’s your sacred sport, after all. I would understand if it
was insulting for me to try. I’m only…”
“You’re only what? A future Akielon King?” Damen suggested.

Laurent gave his gloves another fierce tug, then pulled them off. He didn’t look at Damen.
His face was practically glowing.

“I wasn’t certain about that, either,” he said tartly.

What else would it be? Damen just barely stopped himself from asking. Laurent was a Prince.
As far as Damen was concerned, he deserved to share in the title of King one day – if things
were to be as Laurent said he wanted, and the two of them could rule together as friends, as
brothers.

“I’ll have it added to the contract the next time someone calls for a revision,” Damen offered.

“I need some water,” Laurent answered. Kastor had made a noise of disbelief and annoyance
at the suggestion that Laurent should be considered a King one day. Laurent hadn’t looked at
him, either. Nor had they greeted each other.

“I’ll come with you,” Damen said. “Kastor, do you - ?”

“No,” Kastor said, and moved closer to the Okton ring, holding up his hands for the riders to
stop.

Laurent kept his gaze straight ahead as he made his way to the pavilion. He didn’t
acknowledge that Damen was following him.

Laurent’s slaves stopped their practice as he and Damen reached the pavilion, but the boy
didn’t acknowledge them, either. He poured his own glass of water from the steadily
sweating pitcher on the snack table, and gave himself a moment, pressing the glass to his
forehead.

“Why is your country so damned hot?”

“You’re running Okton drills in Akielos in the summer while wearing…” Damen gestured.
“That.”

Laurent blinked at him. “Yes,” he said slowly, then, “Well, I’ve yet to see anyone practice
naked. Outside the wrestling ring, I mean.”

“You should wear chiton. At least while practicing Okton.”

“I couldn’t possibly.”

“You could. You’re Akielon now.”

“I’m as Akielon as you are Veretian,” Laurent scoffed. He eyed him as he drank his water.
When he was satisfied, he said, “Actually, the idea of stuffing all of that into civilized attire
amuses me. We should try it.”

“All of what?” Damen couldn’t help grinning, amused.

Drinking again, Laurent gestured, vaguely.

“Your slaves are learning swords,” Damen said.

The boy frowned at him. “They aren’t slaves. They’re servants.”

“If you are really so worried about learning what is and is not appropriate, I can tell you
now…”

“They’re servants,” Laurent repeated. “And they wanted to be able to defend themselves. I
wanted them to be able to defend themselves. They’re learning to ride, too. As well as to tend
my wardrobe, fix my coffee, draw my bath, clean my room. They’re having to learn
everything, all at once, because you Akielons have taught them nothing with all their training
except how to look pretty and act pliant.”

“We can hire trained servants. You chose – “

“I want them to learn to defend themselves,” Laurent repeated.

Damen didn’t like it, but he didn’t know how to explain himself. Laurent had purchased the
slaves. Laurent had removed their collars. Laurent was in his rights to free them if he wanted
to, and there was nothing wrong with a servant learning to fight to defend himself and his
master. As they had been, the slaves were vulnerable. Learning how to fight would help that.

“It’s a criminal offense for a slave to hold a sword outside of an arena,” Damen said. Even
then, it was usually only gladiators who had earned enough to free themselves who were
permitted one. The very idea of slaves with swords was deeply discomforting.

Laurent looked at him with clear blue eyes.

“They aren’t slaves,” Laurent said.

Damen sighed, and he looked at the boys once more. They had hesitated, as if they wanted to
prostrate themselves at his arrival, but the guard training them had snapped at them, and
instead they continued their work. It was one of the common soldiers who had been
employed to help protect the Prince – a man named Orlant.

“Where is your Akielon guard?” Damen asked.

“My uncle has gone back to Vere,” Laurent said. He was pouring himself another glass of
water. “I don’t need that many guards anymore, do I?”

Damen didn’t like it, and he was sure it showed on his face. Laurent was a foreign Prince,
and the current heir to the Veretian throne. Two treaties had thus far been signed between
their countries, but the agreement as a whole would be considered open until the second
marriage ceremony. Because they were married, Laurent’s heir was Damen. If Laurent died, it
would make things very, very complicated. The peace, and any right Damen had as his
spouse’s heir, would be very difficult to enforce with an angry Veretian King on their back.

“It was your brother’s idea,” Laurent said. “And the guards wanted free of their duty to me.”
Laurent gave away nothing to indicate whatever opinion he himself had on the matter. Damen
couldn’t imagine wanting to be followed around by two sets of guards at fourteen – but he
also couldn’t imagine ever feeling safe in Laurent’s position.

Damen blinked as Laurent handed him the refilled water glass, surprised by the courtesy. He
tried to find a better way to say what was on his mind. “This is the first I’ve heard of any of
this,” Damen began. Laurent only shrugged, his eyes on his slaves. Suddenly, their practice
with swords made sense to him. It wouldn’t be in the boys’ sweet natures for them to fear
assault or question their safety – they never would have dreamed ask permission to do
something so outlandish as even touch a practice blade – but if Laurent’s gaggle of beautiful
boys learned how to fight, Laurent would be that much safer, wherever he went. A guard was
easy to spot – but a pretty servant? If Laurent ever had enemies, they would not expect that.

“All right,” Damen decided, putting the glass down. “I’ll allow it.”

Laurent looked at him. “You’ll allow it,” he repeated.

“The Okton practice. The sword drills for your slaves. All of it.”

“How generous. I was doing it anyway, if you hadn’t noticed.”

“I have one condition.”

“This is not a negotiation.”

Damen continued anyway. “You need to be able to defend yourself just as much as they do.
More, even. I know for a fact that you have not touched a sword in all of your time here. If
you want your slaves to learn sword work, then you have to do it, too.”

Laurent frowned at him, but Damen watched him considering his words, anyway. He hated
sword work. He resented being made to bargain for what he was already determined to do.
And he, surely, had already had some stuffy Veretian tutor to teach him all through his
boyhood. He just hadn’t kept up his practice.

“Consider how pleased your brother will be,” Damen cajoled. Laurent’s expression didn’t
change; there was nothing to indicate whether or not that was the right tactic to try.

“It’s…embarrassing,” Laurent said at last. His voice dropped, as if he was imparting a secret.
“I’m not…made for that. I will never be a warrior. I will never…” he made a gesture, once
again, that seemed to take in all of Damen.

“So?” Damen asked.

“I know – I’m going to be built like a pet, not a man.”

“Who said that to you?”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s true.”

Damen jerked his chin toward the slaves. “I doubt any of your boys will be any different,” he
said. “That doesn’t mean they can’t still develop their skill. You all can make up physical
strength in other ways. Skill, speed – gods know you’ll already have any man you face
outmatched when it comes to cleverness.”

Laurent flushed, but he looked as if he was considering it.

“I look foolish holding a sword,” he said. That sounded like something someone else had told
him, too.

“You don’t.”

“You haven’t seen me.”

“You don’t.”

“And – I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“Then don’t hurt anyone. I’m not saying you have to go to war – but, if someone attacks you,
I would rather you hurt them than the other way around, wouldn’t you? We are friends, after
all – it would grieve me for you to be hurt.”

“You mean it would inconvenience you.”

“I mean it would grieve me.”

Laurent was still thinking about it, his brows drawn down, making a little v between his eyes
as he worried his bottom lip. He was not easily so easy to read, which meant that this was
something he struggled with more than average – as if Damen had nudged at an injury that
still hadn’t healed.

“What if I help teach you?” Damen offered. “We can work together to find ways to
compensate for when you have a larger opponent.”

Laurent appeared at first not to have heard him. Then, after a moment, he said, “Can we keep
it private? I wouldn’t – I don’t want anyone to see. I don’t want anyone laughing.”

“I don’t know you to be self-conscious. Where is this coming from?”

“I told you – I look foolish with a sword. I tried to learn. I wanted to please my father. I tried
– I tried very hard. It didn’t take.”

“Is he the one who said you would look like a pet?”

Laurent didn’t answer. He continued to watch his slaves, the silence stretching out between
them. Damen let it. He knew the question had been too personal. Laurent was only a boy,
however his intellect made it easy to forget and treat him as if he were older. He was still
growing, still figuring out who it was he was going to be. He was so sweet, so bright and
innocent – but there was hurt there, too. Someone had made him feel as if he wasn’t fun, as if
it was foolish for him to try things that didn’t come naturally to him, as if he was somehow
 less than his peers. Someone, in this vulnerable time of his life, had made him think that his
interests and passions had to be kept secret, that it was embarrassing to be seen to care.
Swordsmanship was just a part of it, just a layer on the onion, and Damen hadn’t earned the
trust yet to be allowed to peel back the rest.

Laurent looked at him, and he lifted his chin.

“You won’t laugh at me.” Laurent said it like a statement – like an order – but because he was
paying attention to it, Damen heard it as a question. He heard the vulnerability that lurked
behind it.

Damen motioned him closer, leaning down toward him. Laurent, warily, obliged.

“Do you realize that we’ve had this entire conversation in Akielon?” Damen asked, as if it
was a secret. “Trust me, Laurent – there is nothing about you that warrants laugher.”

Chapter End Notes

The chapter following this one is going to be a bit of a rough one, kids.
 Chapter 24
Chapter Notes

Once again, I don't have time to edit and I can't promise I will get time later. I wanted to
work on this last night and the family had other plans and now I am on the way to work.

Warnings for this chapter: This is an Auguste chapter. And, I don't know how to phrase
this so, SPOILER, there is a very uncomfortable sex scene in this chapter. Neither of the
people want it or enjoy it but they both agreed to be there and consented to it. There's
also a lot of world building exposition stuff; I'm sorry if it gets boring.

Also, please give me your opinions: do you enjoy knowing ahead of time when the next
chapter has something difficult, so you can speculate and worry and whatnot, or would
you prefer I stop telling you the chapter before?

I still have a few comments left to answer but I am out of time. I will answer you as
soon as I can! Know that I love you!

The pig farmer in Toutaine was named Varden, and he insisted that he be granted the title of
Earl in return for his daughter’s hand and her generous dowry – a sum that would very tidily
cover the cost of bringing in laborers to turn around planting season in time to spare Vere
another difficult winter, so long as Auguste didn’t dally too long and signed the preliminary
contract before summer. Varden’s daughter was named Roslin, and she was just barely
seventeen when Auguste married her in the fall.

Auguste and Roslin only met each other two weeks before the wedding, when Auguste and
the newly titled Earl Varden of Toutaine met to sign the final draft of the marriage contract.
Roslin was pink-cheeked and lovely, plump, brunette, and soft spoken. Those were the only
things Auguste knew about her – except that she had the unenviable fate of being used as the
game piece responsible for keeping Uncle Richard from seizing control of the board.

Auguste had had to work in secret. Too many of his matches had been withdrawn under
mysterious circumstances, and he was unwilling to take even the slightest chance that the
same could happen again. Auguste didn’t send runners, but instead had Sebastian carry the
correspondence back and forth between Arles and Varden’s little village in Toutaine
personally, under the guise of visiting an ailing aunt. When the fall drew near, Sebastian was
the one who delivered the Earl and his daughter to Auguste. They signed the final draft of the
contract without either Uncle Richard or the Council having heard a word about the
upcoming nuptials of the King.

It left the palace in chaos, learning of the King’s impending marriage with no warning, and
only two weeks to plan. Invitations were rushed out with the promise of generous reward in
return for swift delivery. Auguste had taken the risk and written to Akielos four weeks before,
hoping that it should leave time – if only just – for Laurent to receive the news and make the
journey to stand at his side.

I know this is impossibly short notice. I know my plan was underhanded and undignified. I
didn’t feel I had a choice. Please, come immediately, Auguste wrote. Laurent, I need my
brother.

Auguste knew that letter, at least, could not have been interfered with, because he was there
when Uncle Richard learned the news, and witnessed his fury firsthand.

The two weeks from official announcement to wedding past too quickly in a flurry of activity
and panicked servants. By the end of the first week, guests had already begun to arrive, and
not all of the rooms had been prepared yet. More than one maid was found hyperventilating
in a corner over inappropriately matched towel sets and last season’s curtains. Laurent hadn’t
written him back. No one in Akielos had.

Despite springing the surprise of a sudden wedding on his country, Auguste was insistent that
everything be done properly, with all expected traditions adhered to. He was unwilling to risk
cutting any corners that might call the legitimacy of his marriage into question due to
oversight or rush. Auguste refused to be in a room with Roslin without at least four other
people present to stand as chaperone, lest anyone try to claim impropriety. He did not touch
her except for when he took her hand, briefly, upon their meeting. He was so afraid of
something going wrong last minute that he was almost reluctant even to look at her.

From the moment the marriage was announced, two versions of the same story had begun to
circle the Court – and, likewise, all of Arles. They would both be all over Vere before winter.
In one version of the story, Auguste was said to have met the demure Roslin by chance in his
travels, and he had fallen madly in love with her despite her common blood. In the other
version, it was lust – animalistic and unthinking – that led to the union. Here, there was
further variation. To some who preferred this tale, Roslin was the wily seductress – or
perhaps even an evil enchantress – who had trapped the young King with the song of her
powerful and irresistible cunt. Others preferred to think that it was Auguste, wild with
perverse want for her, who had stolen her from her father’s house and made impassioned love
to her over the pig fence, and that when Earl Varden learned of his daughter’s defilement, he
had insisted that the King make reparations for her tarnished honor in the form of matrimony.
Sometimes this version had an unborn bastard baby growing in Roslin’s belly, to add further
spice to the tale and better explain the necessity of a swift union. Whatever story one
preferred, the result was the same: the King was a deviant and a pervert.

I tell myself that it is all a small price to pay for the good of our country, Auguste wrote, in
yet another letter to his brother that was fated to go unanswered. I tell myself that I have
earned no less than this after the unbearable burden I tasked to you. I can only hope it brings
some small comfort your way to know your brother now shares your experience, to some
small extent. I hope it soothes you to know we share such similar fates, as we were always
meant to. If your misery is only half of mine, I will still bear this guilt to my grave.

Despite the silence from Akielos, Auguste began to look anxiously for the arrival of his
brother. He set extra men on the city gates, so someone could be spared to run ahead and
inform him with Laurent arrived, and sent someone down every hour just to double check
that the news hadn’t somehow been missed. Auguste ordered every dockmaster along the
Veretian coast to daily send their ship manifestos to Arles by carrier pigeon, and then spent
hours pouring over them, looking for sign of his brother, as his harried tailor fitted his
wedding suites, and Marcel pulled his hair out over the staff’s ability to acquire a sufficient
amount of fresh flowers in time.

Auguste hounded Alois’s contact for any word of movement from Akielos, so much so that
the man warned him he was in danger of breaking his cover if he didn’t stop. He haunted
Laurent’s old rooms – unchanged from when last his brother had left them – simply on the off
chance that Laurent might have arrived and Auguste simply somehow failed to notice.

“He’ll come,” Auguste said with confidence he didn’t feel, as Marcel carefully shaved his
face – all but his mustache, of course – the morning of the civil ceremony.

A Veretian royal wedding was a week-long celebration. In Arles, laborers would have been
let off work. Bread and cheese and wine was delivered to every doorstep. Flowers were hung
from every window. The festivities were seemingly endless – a ball every evening, a feast
that lasted the entire week, portrait artists and musicians available wherever one went. There
would be a jousting tourney, and a series of popular plays and operas would be performed.
There would even be titillating Pet shows on offer.

And then, there were the two ceremonies. The first was the civil ceremony, conducted in the
throne room at the beginning of the week. The “ceremonial” aspects were minimal. The
Council would witness Auguste and Roslin sign their marriage contract under the places
Auguste and Earl Varden had signed previously, and then each would have a family member
acknowledge the signing with their own signatures. Auguste had hoped that Laurent would
arrive in time to do the honors for him; if he didn’t, then Uncle Richard would have to sign
instead. Then, the Council. Last, any additional witnesses – anyone, from the wedding guests
to members of the city populace, rich or poor – could line up and add their names as
additional witnesses.

This was the only chance many commoners would have to see their new Queen Consort.
After marriage, most Veretian Queens traditionally preferred to stick themselves to the
women’s bower, venturing outside as infrequently as possible – or, preferably, not at all – so
that the parentage of their offspring could never be called into question. One of the many
scandals that had followed Mother had been her refusal to adhere to the practice. She would
even ride her horse brazenly through a public street if she felt like it, instead of demurely
riding in a covered carriage, where heavy screens could protect her modesty. In this way,
Auguste supposed, it was good that he had failed to secure a foreign bride, for many had a
difficult time adjusting to the expectations placed her. Sitting quietly while the common folk
of Arles lined up to sign their names and give brief well wishes was the closest to politics a
Queen should ever get.

After the line tapered off, the Council would examine the contract one final time, and then it
would be sealed. The contract and all of its various drafts, including the original agreement
between Auguste and Earl Varden, would be added to the royal livret de famille – a set of
books chronicling the King’s heritage and history. An entire wing of the Royal library was
dedicated to the histories of its rulers – tome upon tome dedicated to recording every
marriage, every birth, and every death. Once the contract was taken away for recording, the
royal couple and the Council and a few select additional witnesses would retire to a separate
room, where the marriage would be consummated.

The civil ceremony made the marriage legal in the eyes of man. The symbolic ceremony,
which took place at the end of the week, was what finalized the marriage in the eyes of the
gods.

“It takes time to pass messages that far, and the sea can be fickle,” Auguste said, mostly to
himself, trying to believe it helped to keep saying it. “He’ll be here. By the end of the week,
at least – no later than that. Probably earlier. He’ll come. He just wants to make me sweat
That’s like him.”

“You should have postponed the wedding further,” Marcel said. “He doesn’t have time to
come.”

“He’ll be here,” Auguste insisted.

--

When Auguste first met Roslin, she had been dressed in a manner suiting a wealthy girl from
a small provincial village. Her father was, without a doubt, one of the richest men in Vere –
but it didn’t change the fact that they were commoners. While the fabric was fine and well-
cut, her manner of dress had been overly simple and over a decade out of fashion. Laurent
would have known better how to explain what, exactly, was wrong with it – Auguste didn’t
have that sort of eye. He knew that she would look out of place among the other Ladies, but
that was it. He didn’t think more of it until she arrived to the civil ceremony dressed as if she
was attending a country fete, her hair left loose and crowned with fresh flowers, her gown
patterned with rustic flowers and laced with pink ribbons.

It was natural that all heads would turn when the Queen Consort entered the room – but the
silence that followed her arrival was not the silence of reverence and awe. Roslin started out
smiling – pink-cheeked and pretty, a simple girl pleased to find herself living out the fantasy
of wedding a handsome King. Then the whispering started.

The whispers followed her every step as she crossed the throne room. Someone laughed –
quickly muffled – and Auguste realized that it was one of the new Council members, Herode,
his head bent toward his fellow newcomer, Jeurre. Roslin clung tightly to her father’s arm as
they crossed the room, her smile dimming with each step.

At the front of the room, they were met by Uncle Richard, who took Roslin from her father
and escorted her to Auguste’s side.

His head bent toward her, Uncle Richard kept his voice low, but Auguste could hear what it
was he said to her.

“Your Majesty looks absolutely stunning,” Uncle Richard assured her kindly, with no hint of
the fury with which he had received the news of the union. “Pink is such a hopeful color for a
wedding; perhaps you will start a trend. I must have you speak to my dresser; he will be so
interested in such a unique perspective.”

Uncle Richard’s kindness was a good sign – and a relief after weeks of tension. Auguste gave
his uncle a grateful smile when he deposited his bride at Auguste’s side, and Uncle Richard
smiled back, graciously inclining his head.

“We meet again,” Auguste greeted Roslin, trying his best to be charming. He hardly felt that
he had the energy for it, but the effort had to be made. A wife wasn’t like a whore; any
intimacy they shared would be for the purpose of producing offspring, not pleasure. She was
common, but she was Veretian – she would have had to be a perverse deviant like him for her
to have any interest in the opposite gender. For married Veretians, copulation was an act of
duty to be performed in service to the next generation. It was something to be endured, less
pleasurable than a morning shit. There was little point in trying to seduce his bride – Auguste
would have had just as much luck trying to seduce a wall – but he felt sorry for her, and so he
wanted to be kind. As kind as he could afford to be. Kingship is dirty.

A successful marriage was a partnership of friendship and trust. Whatever love formed
between a pair, it wasn’t supposed to be romantic. That was something Mother, with her
strange foreign ways and backward foreign thoughts, had never been able to understand.

Roslin was common, but her father had always wanted to buy himself a title. Because of his
aspirations, she had grown up with the proper tutors; she knew how a Lady was meant to
behave. She kept her head lowered, and she didn’t acknowledge Auguste’s greeting.

Uncle Richard was the highest ranking man on the Council, so it was he who came forward
to read out the marriage contract. In a common union, it was generally a standard form that
was used. Most commoners wouldn’t have been able to read what it was they were agreeing
to, so the contracts were kept basic and easy to memorize in case a village didn’t have anyone
literate available. For nobility – and especially for royalty – the forms were much more
complex. There was a duty to transparency so that the witnesses present could know of what
lands and monies and titles had changed hands during negotiations for a match.

Uncle Richard read out the terms while Earl Varden preened. When it was set before them,
Auguste signed, then Roslin. Earl Varden signed to acknowledge his daughter’s agreement.
They passed the paper back to Uncle Richard, who smiled.

“Forgive me, nephew,” Uncle Richard said. “I feel, as a member of your Council, that it
would be a conflict of interest for me to be the one to give you away as well.” He paused for
just long enough for people to begin to stir, for Auguste to feel alarmed. Then he continued.
“Before you despair,” he said, raising his voice over the storm of whispers that had begun, “I
have to confess to a bit of trickery on my part. I have a surprise for you – perhaps he will sign
in my place?”

Auguste’s heart leapt. He sat forward in his chair, immediately looking for the golden flash of
Laurent’s hair. He could not understand it when, instead of his brother, Uncle Richard’s men
led a child through the parting crowd.
He was small – six, maybe seven – and dressed in a shade of blue that verged perilously close
to the range reserved for use by Vere’s crown prince. His hair was a rich chestnut, thick and
curly, cherubic ringlets curving around a face that looked so much like Laurent’s had at that
age that Auguste gave a start and rose from his chair, forgetting to breathe. The boy had
remarkable eyes – curious and intelligent and blue. Laurent’s blue. Mother’s blue.

“You recall dear little Nicaise?” Uncle Richard asked.

The name wouldn’t have meant anything on its own. The name, combined with that face,
with those eyes – Auguste remembered reading that name, printed in a letter by a temple
squire’s neat hand as directed by an illegitimate child’s illiterate mother. Uncle Richard had
promised, upon their return to Vere, that he would handle the situation, and Auguste had put
it out of his mind ever since. He had assumed his uncle had had the mother paid off, the child
provided for in return for a binding promise never to contact the King again. He had not
thought into it further, once the letters stopped. There had been too many other things that
needed his attention – things more important than a common-bred bastard he had no intention
of ever meeting.

And now Nicaise stood before him.

“I have adopted this child as my son and heir,” Uncle Richard announced, to Auguste and the
Council and the entire gathering of Court and commoners. The response was more than mere
whispers. Unwed relatives would so frequently adopt a family bastard that it speculation
would have been inevitable in any case, but with Nicaise’s face – his eyes – there was no
shadow of a doubt as to whose child stood before them.

Uncle Richard placed a hand on the boy’s slim shoulder, and firmly pressed him forward.

“Say hello to His Majesty, Nicaise,” Uncle Richard said, kneeling to the boy’s level.
“Perhaps, if you are very good, he will let you call him Cousin.”

“Hello,” the boy said. He didn’t bow. He looked directly at Auguste, curious and intelligent,
looking so much like Laurent that it ached. Uncle Richard nudged him farther forward and,
with a sudden, sour expression, the boy added, “Your Majesty.”

“Hello,” Auguste told his son.

“Will you allow the boy to sign in my stead?” Uncle Richard asked.

Auguste felt faint. He faltered for only a moment before he gestured, hand slightly shaking.
“Of course,” he said. His voice came out odd, hoarse. Uncle Richard rose and shuffled young
Nicaise closer, handing him the pen. He had to lift him into his arms for him to see over the
table.

“Make your mark, just like I showed you,” Uncle Richard instructed, his cheek brushing
those tousled curls. Nicaise didn’t know his letters. The fact filled Auguste’s chest like a
lungful of water. He watched the boy’s brows draw down in concentration, his little pink
tongue darting out between his lips as he slowly, carefully, drew on the page – a lopsided,
circular thing, with a little squiggle at the end. It was the kind of mark any child would make,
pretending he can write.

--

Only about a hundred commoners chose to sign the King’s marriage contract for recording in
the royal livret de famille. It was a remarkably poor showing. Auguste’s parents’ contract had
held over a thousand signatures, and their match had not been a popular one. Auguste’s
grandfather, who was remembered most for his cruelty and his madness, had had at least five
hundred on his.

It didn’t matter that little Nicaise truly was Auguste’s bastard; Auguste’s rule was unpopular
enough that the rumor of a bastard alone would have struck the same blow, would have led to
the same stream of commoners – and even nobles – leaving the throne room before it was
time for them to sign. (Gods, Auguste had convinced himself that woman had been lying. He
had been certain it wouldn’t prove true, couldn’t prove true!)

“This is how you punish me?” Auguste demanded, later. “This is how you make me pay for
acting against your advise?”

“Such accusations!” Uncle Richard exclaimed, looking startled and hurt. “Auguste, my boy,
it’s as if you are actively seeking to wound me.”

“What do you call it, then?”

“You asked me to take care of the matter, and so I did. Once I saw for certain that he was
yours, I could hardly ship him off to some obscure little corner of the Kingdom to be
forgotten, could I? Your child is safe and clean and he shall want for nothing – all without the
need for you to acknowledge him. It solves my need for an heir and your need to secure your
delicate secret. Oh…” he stopped, looking suddenly concerned. “Unless… did you give me
that order expecting I would have the boy killed?”

“No! Of course I would never - !”

“Auguste,” Uncle Richard interrupted, “I worry deeply about this turn you have taken.”

“I didn’t - !”

“Go,” Uncle Richard said. “The Council is waiting for you to consummate this mad marriage
to your sow. You may not trust my guidance these days, but that does not mean I shall stop
giving it. I hope to turn you from this path of destruction you are wreaking – but if I cannot, I
will know, at least, that I have your son. Perhaps, by the time your next child is born, you will
finally understand me for the man that I am.”

--

It was the same bed that had been waiting for Laurent in Akielos. Auguste was sure of it.

The feasts and entertainments were beginning elsewhere within the palace and the city, but
the King could not join in the festivities until he had performed his duty and consummated
his marriage. The first week of the union was said to be the luckiest time for conception, each
joining of the new couple an act of sacrifice, duty, and devotion to the gods whose blessing
they would ask for at week’s end. Auguste would be expected to mount at least once, daily,
so that when they entered the temple for the final symbolic ceremony the gods would be
pleased.

Only the consummation itself required witnesses, fortunately, but if Auguste failed to
perform throughout the rest of the week and then his bride had trouble conceiving later,
Auguste would be the one to blame for bringing the wrath of the gods down upon them.

It was only a bed, Auguste told himself. He had no room to protest that it was that bed.
Demanding another would appear petulant. Perhaps it would even give the impression that he
was trying to get out of performing his duty. Besides, the Council had already taken their
seats. There were only a handful of additional witnesses in attendance.

In common unions – and, indeed, a few joining of lesser nobility Auguste had seen, the
couple would simply fuck as any couple normally did. However, as always, the standards
were higher for the royal family. Consummation was not fucking. Consummation was a
sacred duty. It would be considered gauche and inappropriate, disgusting, even, for a royal
consummation to remotely resemble anything like fucking, let alone lovemaking. A King
didn’t rut like a dog in heat. He was not a common Pet putting on a show for the masses.

The bride and groom took to separate rooms to prepare for the consummation. While in the
privacy of those rooms, it was perfectly acceptable to utilize a pet or a friend or even a
favored servant to help get their bodies ready for the task – for there would be no foreplay
once it began. Auguste, of course, didn’t have a pet, and the thought of being touched by any
man, even Sebastian or Marcel, disgusted him. His guards could not sneak women in to help
harden their King’s resolve, either. Not for this; there were too many eyes in the palace.
Sebastian, instead, had his pet acquire for him a particular drug that would help encourage his
body’s cooperation. He said it was often used in places like Akielos and Patras to help
bedslaves ensure they were capable of performing.

Auguste was given only the smallest of doses, but it was enough to overcome his reluctance.
He was feeling the effects by the time he entered the Consummation chamber, and he saw his
Council take notice of it. They were approving, even amused, by his apparent eagerness to
see to his task. He saw their knowing smiles, the way their heads bent toward one another,
hands lifting to cover mouths as they whispered among themselves about the tent in the
King’s nightshirt. It was a strange, difficult line to toe – every man needed heirs, and to
acquire heirs, one needed a woman. But the desire for a woman was perverse, to enjoy the act
of laying with one deviant.

Auguste had just settled on the edge of the mattress when Roslin emerged from the room in
which she had been preparing, flushed and only a little disheveled. She still wore the crown
of flowers, though she had been stripped down to her chemise and a dressing gown. Her pale
little hands shook as she reached the bed and untied the sash to let the dressing gown fall
open. They shook more as she removed the garment and carefully laid it across the foot of the
bed.
Her movements were still and uncomfortable. She kept her head lowered as she climbed up
into the enter of the mattress and, after a moment, positioned herself on her hands and knees.
Trying to preserve as much dignity as she could, she faced the witnesses, so that they would
not see her exposed. Auguste touched her back, gently, and he felt her stifle the urge to flinch
away. She made a small noise when she felt the mattress shift, Auguste climbing up to settle
behind her. She jerked like a skittish mule when he lifted her chemise and folded it over her
backside.

Auguste wished he could make love to her. He wished he was free to kiss and to caress, the
way a commoner couple would, until she was relaxed and eager and wanting. He wished he
could soothe her fears with patience and gentleness – or even, simply, speak to her, reassure
her, comfort her.

But it wasn’t done. This was duty, not desire.

All he could do was lay a hand softly against her back, and ease her with small, soothing
circles of his thumb. He pulled the hem of his own nightshirt so that it tented over her,
shielding more of her from view as he lined himself up.

Her servants had done a poor job preparing her; he had to stop and call for oil because she
wasn’t wet enough. He tried not to see the way her face burned with shame while they
waited.

Auguste was as careful as he could be. When she cried, she did it quietly.

After, the royal physician came to examine her and confirm that it was done, and only then
was she allowed to tug the chemise back down and cover herself. They took the soiled sheet
out from under her and had her lay on her back with her feet pressed up against the
headboard, and then they covered her with warm, clean blankets and gave her comfortable
pillows to rest with.

The Council had begun clearing out the moment Paschal announced the task had been
completed. Auguste could not stay, could not comfort his new bride, even now; he had to
wipe himself off and put his clothes back on, and then he had to head to the great hall for the
first night of feasting, where the blanket would be put on prominent display for all the guests
to observe the evidence of consummation, of blood and of seed, the silk forever stained.
Auguste’s virility would be toasted, and so would his wife’s womb. Auguste would be
expected to eat and to drink and to celebrate, while his new wife lay alone in the bed where
she had been deflowered, resting.

In time, Auguste knew that servants would come to comfort her, to help her clean up. If she’d
had a mother or sisters, they would have been there, too. For the sake of her modesty, she
wasn’t expected to appear in public again tomorrow, where she would emerge as Queen
Consort for the first time, and then she, like Auguste, would have to smile and eat and drink,
to accept well-wishes, to dance, to attend the various amusements around the city.

Auguste couldn’t stay to soothe her tears.

He couldn’t even apologize.

 Chapter 25
Chapter Notes

More ugliness in this chapter, but some not-ugliness, too?

This has taken me all morning to type out. I'm slow, but also the kitten wants to help me.
Anyway, as usual, I am posting it without editing it. Please excuse any typos; I want to
do something else for a bit.

Lykaios was the newest member of Damen’s household. He had learned months ago that a
new slave was nearing the end of her training, and he had been looking forward to giving her
her First Night for quite some time. A First Night was a joy and an honor, and, truth be told,
it always came with a significant ego boost, a high that could carry for days, depending on
how well it went. But then he had been called away to another meeting with the Free Tribes,
and by the time he returned, he had all but forgotten about her.

At home, there had been other things to occupy his mind than the pleasant distraction of a
freshly-trained bedslave awaiting deflowering. Usually, gifting a slave her First Night would
have been the perfect way to unwind after a stressful diplomatic campaign. Adrastus knew
what he liked; Lykaios was generously curved, and pale, and her hair was almost blonde.

Caught up in the unexpected delight of finding his funny little husband practicing Okton,
Damen hadn’t thought of her at all. It was thoroughly, exhilaratingly exciting, meeting
Laurent in the practice yard with wooden blades, testing his forms in the bright warm
sunlight until they were both sweating and out of breath, then sitting with him in the shade,
cool drinks in hand, listening to the pride and unabashed enthusiasm with which the boy
spoke of the progress his little troupe of slave boys had been making. His Akielon had come
along very well; Damen hoped he never lost the adorable little accent.

After, Damen had to meet with his father and his brother – which he was late to, surprisingly
reluctant to end his time with Laurent. Then he had to meet with his father’s generals and
what Kyroi were currently in attendance in Ios to repeat again of the things he had
experienced during his latest foray into a camp of the Free Tribes. These assemblies were a
serious matter; Father’s spies had been reporting unusual activity among the Tribes who had
refused to submit to the King’s rule, gathering of resources and of numbers, gatherings that
occurred out of season – and now, one tribe in particular breaking the silence, reaching out to
invite visitation from the rulers of Akielos, an unprecedented thing, though they had yet to
explain their purpose. It would take more meetings yet before they did. There hadn’t been
violence, not yet, but the behavior was strange and difficult to explain. It needed close
monitoring.
Once his reports were made, however, it wasn’t the puzzle of the Tribes’ activity that kept
Damen’s mind buzzing. It was his funny little husband, and the funny little friendship they
were forming.

Kastor was Damen’s only sibling; there were no other bastards, no army of slave-siblings
waiting in the wings. Conflict between the King’s offspring was what had broken the unity of
Akielos before, and Father was not willing to take the risk with thoughtless procreation. He
kept bedslaves – of course he did, he was a healthy, virile man – but he had loved his mistress
Hypermenestra, and had taken no other while she lived. He had been loyal to Damen’s
mother, too, once he came to love her.

Damen did not know, even now, if his father took his bedslaves to bed. He knew it would
raise questions if he did not keep any. He knew they served him in the baths. They danced for
him, and sang, and gave him massages. But whether or not any slept with him was a mystery.
Father’s harem could very well be ornamental – an impressive box filled with priceless
jewels that were never used. If he did fuck them, he was as careful with taking contraceptive
measures as Damen was, using prophylactics made of lamb intestine, and ensuring the slaves
always took the tea that prevented pregnancy after a night of dalliance. There were no other
siblings, and Damen had begun to doubt there ever would be.

Damen found he was enjoying it – playing the role of elder brother, for once. It was thrilling
to share in the joy of another’s accomplishments, to offer guidance and support, to feel as if
he was a positive influence in another’s life. He hoped that, years from now, Laurent would
look back and see that Damen had impacted his life, just as Kastor had impacted Damen’s. H

Since arriving home, Damen hadn’t spared a single moment to think of new bedslaves – he
hadn’t had the time – until Adrastus sent a polite note to inquire whether Prince Damianos
was still interested in gifting the girl her First Night, or if he should assign her elsewhere.

Damen felt strange, taking his seat in the viewing room. Perhaps he was tired; the usual
excited anticipation was not quite there. The last three years of a bedslave’s training took
place within the royal palace, but as Damen waited for the girl to be brought out, he found
himself thinking back on the visit he had taken with Laurent to the Stables. Laurent had
elected to forego a full tour of the grounds, but Damen had returned later, by himself, curious
to learn more. He’d seen locks on the outside of the doors to the rooms the boys were first put
into before they were honored with the trust necessary to be moved to the dormitories with
their brothers. He’d seen shackles on the beds and in the showers. He’d seen the stores of
chalis and other drugs meant to calm the boys and keep them in a relaxed, compliant state.

“Sometimes, a boy will arrive without the proper appreciation for the honor which he has
been chosen to receive,” Nereus had told him, dismissing Damen’s concerns with a wave of
his hand. “These precautions are only used in extreme cases, and only for the boy’s own
safety. It would be a terrible thing, were one to attempt running away, or decide to harm or
kill himself. It is a matter of joy and immense pride, to be able to bring one of these difficult
cases around. Your husband, he purchased Kallias? He was one of those cases. Look at him
now – beautiful boy. He would have pleased you or your father or your brother greatly. A
shame the Prince has chosen to ruin him after such devotion was put into bringing him to
heel. The man I bought him from was on the verge of having him hobbled! Can you imagine?
Here, this way, Your Highness, this room is where we test the boys’ aptitude for dance…”

Damen had accepted the explanation at the time, with little thought for question. It had made
sense to him; sometimes an animal, too, could hurt itself, unaware that its masters were
acting for its own good.

Today, he realized there were shackles in the palace viewing room, too.

During his visit, Nereus had also shown Damen an array of various training tools: phallic
objects of varying sizes, quite a few different plugs and beads, bits and harnesses, massage
oils, blindfolds, benches to improve the comfort of various positions, paddles. “Naturally,
these are not used on the boys while they are here – nor for their first year of training within
the palace,” Nereus had assured him. “These are for display only. For educational purposes.
We make sure the boys are familiar with them and their intended uses long before they move
on to the more hands-on parts of their training. We find it lessens the distress that can arise
when a boy does not know what to expect. That is why my House is the finest in Akielos!”

Nereus had been pleased for the opportunity to show his craft to his Prince. It was rare for
anyone to take an interest in it. Nereus specialized in boy, and about ninety percent of the
male bedslaves in the palace had come from his Stables. He would have been more than
happy to have that ninety turn to one hundred.

Damen hadn’t been able to help but notice that some of the objects on display had been as
thick as Damen’s wrist.

In the palace, they didn’t need to use the shackles in the viewing room for Lykaios, who came
forward willingly, and sweetly stripped herself for inspection. She had blushed so prettily,
pink spreading across pale skin, the way that Damen liked, as she watched him shyly through
her lashes.

Damen didn’t think about the fact he had to have a drink before he touched her. He had to
have two before he took her to bed.

A First Night meant the world to a slave. It was an important occasion for them, and Father
had always insisted that Damen treat it as the honor it was meant to be. He had not allowed
Damen to take a slave for her First Night until he was certain he could control his teenaged
enthusiasm for long enough to ensure the slave had a pleasant experience. However heady
and exciting Damen had always found it, he had always made sure he approached the task
with care and reverence. He had always been gentle and patient, eager to show his partner
pleasure, even the ones who became nervous when they saw him bare. It was part of the
sacred pact between master and slave – perfect treatment in return for perfect service. This
was the greatest honor a slave could receive, and Damen would not let himself forget that
fact.

Lykaios was not one of those who grew hesitant as the night progressed. She was sweet and
attentive, eager to learn. She fell asleep with a smile on her face. It took Damen longer to
drift off, himself.
He dreamed of Laurent.

Laurent, dressed in a slave’s gauzy silks – Laurent, with a golden ribbon tied ‘round his neck.
Laurent, standing placid and sweet in a line of other boys, gaze slightly dulled with chalis.
Laurent, with a chain thicker than Damen’s thigh connecting a shackle encircling his thin
ankle to a ring bolted into the floor.

“What if they wanted to say no?” Laurent asked him, looking at him with those dulled eyes,
that placid, vacant smile. Horrified, Damen took a step back, drawing the attention of the
other boys. They were Laurent, he realized. They were all Laurent. “Were they willing?”
Laurent asked.

Damen came awake with a jolt.

Someone was knocking on his door. The sound did not wake Lykaios, still in bed beside him,
smiling in her sleep, still sweetly nude, innocently trusting.

“He sent me to get you,” the boy, Aimeric, said when Damen opened the door and found him
on the other side. His expression was sour – either because it was always sour, or because
Damen was naked, or because he simply resented being sent on an errand like a servant.
Whatever the case, there was no need to take guesses at who he meant by he. “There’s a
problem.”

“I’ll get dressed,” Damen said. The boy’s eyes had shifted past him toward the bed. The
disgust on his face was blatant. He didn’t speak to Damen again, instead merely stepping
away, back into the hall, as if he couldn’t wait to escape. When Damen caught his arm, the
look the boy gave him was pure poison.

“Don’t touch me,” the boy said.

“Where is he?” Damen asked. Aimeric had tried to jerk his arm away, but couldn’t. Damen
waited for him to realize it before he dropped it voluntarily.

“He’s with his horses,” the boy answered. “Where else would he be?”

“Am I misunderstanding something? Do you and I have a problem?”

Aimeric laughed. He said, “Be sure to wash up before you inflict your presence on him.”

--

I dream nightly of the magical hours you spent at my side. We understand one another, you
and I. I had the pleasure of peering deep into your soul, and within its silken depths, I saw my
own. You feel the same, do you not? I am haunted by the sweet ribbon of your skin. I think
constantly of the heat and tightness of your sheath. Do you remember how sweet you
sounded, once you had learned how to beg? What a clever, eager student you were. Shall I
tell your father?

Aimeric had scrubbed his hands raw. He still smelled of the perfume that had assaulted him,
the moment the letter was opened. He had thrown up his breakfast, and when he tried to settle
his stomach with tea, he had thrown that up, too.

My love, Prince Richard had written, tell me how my nephew fares. Every word, every action.
I hunger and thirst for your words. He has grown so cold toward his loving uncle; I would be
forever grateful, were you to warm him up.

“What is the meaning of this?” Aimeric had demanded when the guard, Albur, gave him the
letter. Albur was Prince Richard’s creature. He had prevented Aimeric from burning the letter
unopened. He had refused to leave until he saw it was read.

“He expects an answer,” Aimeric told him.

“I’ll give you my answer. Prince Richard can go fuck himself.”

“Speaking of fucking,” Albur told him, “I have been instructed to ensure you do not forget
the education you were given regarding your manners. I have been told that, should you need
reminding, I am more than welcome to take action.”

Aimeric took a step back. “If you touch me,” he said, “I’ll tell Prince Laurent. I’ll tell him
everything.”

Albur only laughed.

He gave Aimeric until the end of the week to pen his reply.

Aimeric had thrown up his breakfast, and he’d thrown up his tea. Aimeric had heaved until
his throat was burning and his ribs were aching. His head was still throbbing. He had forced
himself to dress; Prince Laurent asked too many questions when he pretended to be sick.

They all disgusted him. Aimeric wanted his mother. Aimeric wanted to go home.

He resented Prince Laurent and how happy he seemed here. He resented every smile, every
laugh. He resented the way he lit up whenever that disgusting brute, Damianos, entered a
room. He resented the way he seemed to trust him, how eager he was to please him. Laurent
would sit at the royal table with the King like he thought he had something worthwhile to
contribute, playing nice with the very men who had invaded their country without cause,
speaking their ugly language, eating their oily food.

“Uncle will not touch you again,” Prince Laurent had told him, the first time they were alone.
His blue gaze had been steady, unrelenting, inescapable. It had felt like a blow – the
inarguable proof that he knew what it was his uncle had done. Aimeric felt filthy, inside and
out. He knew Prince Laurent could not have stopped it – but he hated him for it, all the same.
He hadn’t stopped it, and he couldn’t stop it, and he had the gall to say “I’ll protect you,”
anyway, like his words had any meaning – like Aimeric was supposed to believe him. He said
it like he was wholly unaware that members of his own guard were on his vile pig of an
uncle’s payroll. He said it like he didn’t know Prince Richard had put him on his knees for
Albur before returning to Vere, and now the man always looked at him like he knew he
would do it again – like he couldn’t wait.
“He’s coming,” Aimeric told Prince Laurent, where he waited outside the stables. “He spent
the night fucking some woman. These Akielons rut like dogs in heat.”

“Do you suppose I should be jealous?” Prince Laurent asked. “Or do you intend that I be
offended on my husband’s behalf? He fucks women. I don’t care. Heirs must come from
somewhere, and I happen to lack the appropriate equipment.”

Prince Laurent was difficult to read. That was the way they were sometimes – the pricks who
spent too much time at Court in Arles. They kept everything close, private, every smile or
blink of the eye calculated. Aimeric’s brothers got that way, too – all haughty and up their
own asses. They always got better after a few days at home, but not Prince Laurent. Prince
Laurent was always insufferable. Born and raised, self-important ass. Laurent and Aimeric
had been supposed to go for a ride that morning – they went for a ride every morning, while it
was still cool, working out their horses before their Okton runs and their swords training and
their midmorning swims in the sea. The young Akielon soldiers were rowdy and they were
rough and they had the audacity to treat the Prince like he was just another conscript – a titled
young recruit they could tease and torment like anyone else.

“They don’t respect you,” Aimeric had tried to warn him, once. Prince Laurent was too
arrogant to listen, of course. Their morning rides were the only time Aimeric had him to
himself; the only time things were quiet; the only time he didn’t completely hate him.

There was to be no ride this morning. Prince Laurent met him outside the stables and
returned Aimeric’s “good morning” with a curt order to fetch Damianos immediately.

“I don’t want him with us,” Aimeric complained, when he returned from his errand.

“He won’t be,” Prince Laurent returned. He sounded distracted. He turned his attention to the
guard on duty this morning. “Jord, will you take Aimeric down to the training fields? You can
get some forms in early while you wait.”

Jord was one of the guards Aimeric didn’t mind practicing swords with. He never found
excuses to touch Aimeric or the other boys like some of the others did. He never pressed too
close or made impertinent suggestions. When Prince Laurent practiced with them, he didn’t
ignore the rest of them in the Prince’s favor, but instead treated them all the same.

“Damianos will be here shortly,” Prince Laurent told him. “I don’t require a guard at this
moment.”

“What about our ride,” Aimeric asked.

“I don’t feel like going today,” Laurent said. He was spoiled and he was insufferable and
Aimeric hadn’t wanted to go with him, anyway.

“Come on,” Jord encouraged with a smile. “I’ll show you a trick that I’ve been saving. I want
you to try it next time you spar with Ermis.”

“Ermis only beats me because he cheats.”

“Being a head taller than you isn’t cheating,” Jord chuckled, as Aimeric, feeling bitter, let
him lead him away. Prince Laurent watched them go, an unreadable expression on his face.

--

“I want to reopen negotiations,” Laurent said by way of greeting.

Damen’s head still felt thick and heavy with sleep, but he couldn’t quite stop himself from
grinning.

“Have you ever thought about trying, ‘Good morning, Damen. How did you sleep? Might I
bother you for another favor? I know you have done so much for me already. I would hate to
be a bother’?”

Laurent looked at him flatly. He said, “No.” Then he turned and walked into the stables.

Damen followed him willingly, glad for the distraction, the chance to chase away the dreams
lingering in his mind, glad for the fact that his funny little husband seemed comfortable here
– glad for the fact he had called for him, whatever this was.

It was remarkable, really, how fast Damen’s good humor fled when Laurent opened a stall
door and stood aside for Damen to look within.

“How many horses do I need to sell?” Laurent asked, serious and solemn.

It wasn’t a horse Damen found inside the stall. It was a boy. Or – it had been a boy,
somewhere, beneath the bruises and the ill-fitting rags, the filthy skin stretched, starvation-
tight, over bones.

“His name is Aden,” Laurent said. “I know I can’t afford him. But if you will buy some of
my horses, I will have enough for a few months, and by then I can think of something else.”

“Aden,” Damen repeated, staring at the pathetic, shivering mess. “Why does that - ?”

“He wouldn’t let me buy him,” Laurent said, “When we got the others? He wouldn’t let me
buy him, and because he was willful, Nereus sold him to a brothel instead. When he was
willful there, too, they sold him to a worse one.” Laurent’s voice was quiet and cold, careless,
almost bored. He had strapped down his every emotion tightly. “That was months ago, if you
will remember. He’s been branded twice for running away. He ran again, and he came here to
me. He came here to beg me to take him, because I tried before and he refused – because if
he is caught for a third time, they will kill him. Damianos…”

With a jolt, Damen tore his eyes from the shivering slave. Laurent was staring at him – aloof,
yet intense. Damen almost missed the quick, nervous dart of his tongue across his lips, the
very slight tremble in his hand when he reached up to brush hair from his eyes. Laurent was
nervous, making this request.

Slowly, Laurent said, “My favorite – Madeleine? – she is worth three times any horse in this
stable. I broke her myself – Auguste and I. I trained her. She will be the best horse you’ve
ever ridden, I swear. If you will just – “
“No,” Damen said.

Laurent’s eyes closed, briefly. He took a deep breath. “Damianos,” he began again.

“I don’t want your horses. You can’t sell them.”

“Damianos, please!”

“You have no need to sell them; I will cover the cost for him, myself.”

Clearly, it was not something Laurent had expected him to say. Damen watched the effort it
took the boy to conceal his reaction. Under any other circumstance, Damen might have
enjoyed it.

“As an employee?” Laurent asked him, carefully. “Not as a slave?”

“He came seeking employment in the household of the Prince of Vere,” Damen said. “I will
cover the cost.” Damen barely remembered the boy, despite the fit he had given at the
prospect of being sold and missing out on the glory he felt he was owed. Everything Damen
had ever known told him that Laurent was at fault for what had happened to him, for trying to
deprive Aden of the opportunity any slave would envy, prompting Aden’s master to sell him
when he protested. But Damen could not look at Aden and believe that.

Aden was only a boy, maybe a year older than Laurent. All Damen could see were his bruises
and his sunken cheeks, his trembling and his filthy rags. Someone had cut off the tip of the
pinky finger on his left hand – a punishment, either for theft or for excessive punishment. The
bottoms of each of his bare, filthy feet bore the brands of a runaway. Damen had heard of
these punishments, but he had never seen them meted out; never seen a slave who had
actually earned them. A part of him had thought such things were fabrication, or a relic of the
past. Perfect service for perfect treatment. Who would allow a slave to be so unhappy as to
earn such punishment?

Damen told himself that, at his age, Aden would not have been put to servicing clients in the
brothel. They would have had him cleaning rooms or washing floors. Perhaps they had
started his training – more quickly and less gently than the palace would have.

He was willful, some part of Damen’s mind protested, trying to justify his punishments. But
Laurent would have been willful, too, put in his position. Slave or Prince – Damen’s mind
was struggling to remember the distinction between them. A brand would burn Laurent’s skin
just as easily as it had Aden’s. His blood would run the same shade of red.

Damen was startled out of his thoughts when a body crashed into his side. Laurent’s hug was
brief, but it was fierce, and it was over before Damen really understood it had happened.
Laurent released him, and entered the stall with Aden. Damen, his part of the ordeal over for
now, seemed to have been dismissed.

In a moment, Damen would go in with him. In a moment, Damen would lend a hand. He
wasn’t sure what had him standing there, frozen, instead of acting. He watched Laurent put
the slave – the former slave’s – arm around his shoulders and help him to his feet.
 Chapter 26

Kallias knew something was going on, but Erasmus didn’t see it at first – or maybe he
purposefully didn’t see it because he didn’t want to see it – or maybe he thought it would be
disrespectful to see it. Of them all, Kallias had been having the most difficult time adjusting
to their new life, settling into their new routines, accepting what had become their new
reality.

“A Prince says you are free so that he can feel better about his pointless, spoiled life,” Kallias
had told him, one of their first nights in the palace, when Erasmus, daringly, slipped from his
bed and into his friend’s, frightened of being alone in this new place. Kallias had looked
surprised in the shadows, but he hadn't told him no. He had opened the blankets and put an
arm around him, the bed too small, really, to hold them both without their lying close. The
room they had all been given was not so very different from their dormitories at the Gardens,
except it was larger, and the windows looked out to the sea, and it was inside a palace.
Erasmus had never heard his friend speak about any of their masters in such a direct,
disrespectful way before, and even though he had waited for all of the others to be asleep
before he’d moved, he’d been terrified someone would overhear him.

Erasmus had been frequently terrified, those first few days in the palace. The Prince behaved
in such strange ways, and he wanted such strange things from them. He would get annoyed
with them when they used the proper forms, and he insisted that they look him in the eye
when speaking to him. He made a schedule for them, and he talked to them about pay – about
how they would only receive part of it right now, unless they had a need for more, and he
would put the rest away for their futures. He said it was so that when they decided what they
wanted to do with their lives, it would be ready for them - but that if they had questions or
concerns, they could talk to him. He told them they could each choose one day a week to
have free, but he didn’t want more than two to take the same day at once. He promised he
would have a guard come protect them, should they want to go into the city. He asked them
questions about themselves, and their lives, and the things that they liked, watching them
curiously, so bright and inquisitive and foreign.

“It won’t last,” Kallias had declared, that first night.

The boy Larius was in charge of them, sort of, even though he was younger and not as pretty,
and he had started his training in some provincial backwater. He didn’t speak much or often,
and he set himself apart from the rest of them, even if his less impressive background
wouldn’t have done it for him. He would fly into a rage the moment he heard anyone speak a
word against the Prince – he even slapped Kallias, once – but he hadn’t lied to any of them or
done anything to try to sabotage them, even though they all had more promising looks and
prettier manners. Larius had had several months already to learn about who the Prince was
and what the Prince wanted, and he didn’t hesitate to share that knowledge, didn’t demand
favors in return for his help when he stepped in to help Ermis get the trick of complicated
Veretian lacings, or when he voluntarily showed Iphegin how to brush out a velvet jacket. He
taught Erasmus how to draw the Prince’s bath, and how to both prepare and serve the perfect
cup of coffee (never tea.) He advised him to always make sure the Prince’s cup was full, and
to keep fresh supplies on hand at all hours.

They had had some light household training at the Gardens – one never knew, after all, when
a Master would require his bedslave to linger, and it was both convenient and charming
should the boy be competent at serving other needs than merely providing an outlet for
release – but everything the Prince of Vere asked of them seemed to be so very backwards
and strange. Sometimes it felt as if they were living in a dream, where all the rules they had
come to know had suddenly gone awry.

Gone were the massages and the oils and the instruction on instruments of pleasure. They
were never required to sit for hours in the proper bow, never asked to memorize and recite a
new poem, never required to learn a new instrument or dance. The Prince of Vere didn’t seem
to care whether or not they were soft and pretty. He didn’t compliment the silence and grace
with which they moved. He never asked to be entertained. He gave no indication of interest
in using their bodies, although all of their instruction had told them that was their most
important use. The Prince of Vere wanted them to learn how to speak his language,
particularly the curse words. He wanted them to know how to read and to write. He wanted
them to be comfortable and proficient riding a horse and caring for the beast once the ride
was over. He wanted them to know how to hold and use a sword, in case they ever had need
of defending themselves. He gave them all knives, and suggested places to secret them away.
He told them that in his country, everyone kept a weapon hidden somewhere. "It's because
Veretians are snakes," Kallias told him, later. "They can never trust another."

The boys had been in the palace for a while – several months, at least – when Aden was
brought in. Aden had refused to be bought with the rest of them. Erasmus remembered
Kallias saying at the time how stupid his defiance had been – he’d scolded Erasmus for his
own outburst, and the risk it had put him at, being so willful. He threatened to put Erasmus
over his knee to help him learn the lesson, though the Prince never did punish Erasmus for
his desperate plea that day, nor even brought it up. Evidently Nereus had not been so kind to
poor Aden.

Aden refused to talk to them about what had happened to him after the Prince had taken them
away. He came to them covered in ugly bruises and sores, with scars on his back and two
runaway brands on his feet, and he was so skinny that Erasmus could count his ribs when he
helped him with his first bath in the palace. His spine stood out along his back like a ridge of
pearls trapped just under the skin. By the end of the first week, Aden had become as
protective of the Prince as Larius was, ready to fly into a rage the moment a word was spoken
against their new master. He was weak and far behind the rest of them in their studies, but he
applied himself with an almost feverish passion, and often pushed too hard when they
practiced at swords. He had that in common with Larius, too.

“Father is going to have Damianos locked up in his study for hours,” Prince Kastor said, the
first time he came to attend one of their practice sessions outside the royal gymnasium. Royal
types, Erasmus had found, had a habit of announcing themselves informally; evidently, hello
was too common.
Erasmus thought Prince Laurent might have been disappointed that Prince Damianos would
not be joining them, though his master did nothing to show it if he was. Prince Kastor was
not like Prince Damianos. He was not warm and friendly; he did not grin at Prince Laurent
like a young boy filled with mischief and enthusiasm, ready to engage in some secret plot.
Erasmus had never seen Prince Kastor voluntarily come around or even speak to Prince
Laurent before that moment.

At first, it seemed as if Prince Laurent intended to ignore his brother-in-law’s arrival. He

pulled a wooden practice blade from the stand and examined it, silent, fingering a chip where
someone had struck something a little too hard. Prince Kastor’s expression slowly began to
darken as he was ignored.

“Surely you haven’t been demoted to messenger,” Prince Laurent said at last. He lifted his
eyes to Kastor, and Erasmus saw that they were bright and calculating, the way they had been
that day in the Gardens – the way they always got, when he was thinking hard about
something. “Has my husband sent you to take his place in today’s lesson?”

“He didn’t send me,” Prince Kastor answered. “I’ve come of my own volition.”

“How kind.”

“How charitable,” Prince Kastor corrected, spitting out the word. Erasmus was relieved
when Prince Laurent only laughed in response, though Prince Kastor’s expression grew
darker still. “I’m a better swordsman than my brother,” Kastor said, speaking over the
younger’s laughter. “If you are half as smart as my father thinks you are, you will be grateful
I have decided to honor you with my attention.”

Prince Kastor did not possess the patience or love for teaching that Prince Damianos did. He
certainly didn't possess the humor. When Prince Kastor put Prince Laurent in the dirt the first
time, he did not stop to explain what had been done wrong or how to avoid such a mistake in
the future. He didn’t offer a hand to help the younger Prince to his feet. His behavior was the
same the second time, and the third. In fact, he grew mocking, moreso with each crash of
their swords, and began to gloat about his superior prowess.

“If your brother’s men had not cheated for him,” he said, once, “I would have cut him down
like a dog on the field. Veretians are weak. Inferior. You should learn your place now, while
you are still young. It is good you cannot give Damianos children; I would be ashamed to see
such taint on our bloodline.” He laughed at the expression on Laurent’s face, tossing his
practice sword from hand to hand. He reminded Erasmus of a rooster, strutting about the
yard, as he paced back and forth before the younger Prince. “Disagree?" he asked. "Then get
on your fucking feet.”

“Erasmus,” the Veretian guard who was training them that day called, “Pay attention to your
own lesson.”

After that day, whenever Prince Damianos was unavailable for training, Prince Kastor came
to take his place. Smug and superior, he would swagger around the practice ring as if nothing
gave him more pleasure than the opportunity to bully his student. It began to happen more
and more often that Damianos was called away just as the time for their lessons drew near.
It wasn’t Erasmus’s place to pay attention to politics, but Kallias told him that Prince Kastor
was not skilled enough to engineer this situation. He said that the Free Tribes were causing
trouble in the north, and that was why the King had such increasing need for his son. Kallias
did not explain where or how he had come by this information. He predicted that it was only
a matter of time before Damianos was sent away on another diplomatic mission. Though he
didn’t say it directly, Erasmus knew that his friend was worried about what would happen
when their master’s husband was away. He knew, too, that Kallias wasn’t the only one
concerned.

“He doesn’t come to the training yard to teach you,” the young lord Aimeric complained, one
afternoon in the baths, watching from his place in the heated pool as Erasmus carefully
tended Prince Laurent’s numerous bruises and welts. The Prince lay on his belly on a towel
stretched out beside the pool's edge, his head pillowed on his arms. Aimeric said, “He comes
to see what pretty new colors he can paint that fragile skin of yours. He comes because it
makes his dick swell to put the Prince of Vere in his place. I heard that when he finishes with
you, the first thing is does is go terrorize his harem.”

“Do I seem as if I’ve been put in my place?” Prince Laurent countered. He sounded sleepy,
relaxed, almost amused. He never flinched from it when he saw that it was Prince Kastor
waiting for him in the ring - in fact, his expression would always turn to one of
determination. He never called out the bastard prince’s lack of instruction or unfair
advantage, though Laurent did nothing to attempt to tame his own vicious mouth, however
often it only made things worse. The only time he managed to land a hit on Prince Kastor
was when he had managed to taunt the bastard into a rage.

Prince Laurent was brave, but a secret, rebellious part of Erasmus thought he might also be a
little foolish. Clearly Prince Kastor wanted him to beg for mercy, or at least be shown a
modicum of respect. It seemed to Erasmus that things would go much easier for his master
were Prince Laurent to exhibit just a little bit of humility with his brother-in-law.

“Damen says his brother was the same when he was training him,” Prince Laurent said. "He
says I just need to push through it, and one day I will prove myself. He said it's the only way
his brother will respect me." The young lord Aimeric scowled.

“Damianos has not seen you fifteen shades of purple and limping like you just got fucked by
a mule,” he countered. Prince Laurent, being a strange and unpredictable boy, laughed as if
he found this horrific imagery funny.

“I don’t want to fall behind just because Damen is busy.”

“ ‘Fall behind?’ Is that what you think would happen if you lowered yourself to studying
under your guards like the rest of us?”

Us. Erasmus felt his face warm at the word, even though he knew the young lord Aimeric
had not intended to lump himself in with their Prince’s gaggle of slaves as if they were
companions or equals.

“You aren’t too good for their skills! You would learn much more joining us than you would
letting a Bastard toss you around in the dirt,” Aimeric huffed. “Elliot used to fight in the
streets before he was a soldier. He’s his father’s fifth son; he did all sorts of stupid things,
looking for attention. He knows tricks for how to get out of it when you’re cornered. And
Jord is full of ideas about how to use your size more effectively. There is a trick Qunicy
showed us, the last time he – would you stop smiling at me like that; I hate it. What?”

“Nothing,” Laurent said. “I think it’s cute.”

Aimeric’s face grew darker. “What?”

“You’re making friends with my guards. I’m proud of you, really.” Erasmus thought the
Prince’s observation was true, though the murderous look on the young lord Aimeric’s face
took on a decidedly crimson hue. “I couldn’t be happier; it pleases me so much to see you
marginally less miserable. You’re so much less annoying when you’re happy.”

Prince Laurent was teasing the young lord Aimeric, which made Erasmus even happier than
the thought that Aimeric might have begun to think of himself as one of them. It was foolish
of him, but Erasmus could not keep from smiling. His thoughts were so presumptuous that
they seemed almost sinful; Erasmus was scandalized at himself. He couldn’t stop smiling,
though.

Aimeric splashed a large wave of water their way, drenching both Laurent and Erasmus,
before he scrambled out of the bath.

“You’re insufferable and I hate you,” the young lord Aimeric sniffed, slinging a towel around
himself as Prince Laurent laughed and laughed, absolutely delighted. “I hope you remember
that I tried to warn you when you provoke that bastard to the point that he beats you to
death.”

“I’ll have it etched above my grave,” Laurent promised through tears of mirth. “Here lies
Laurent, Prince of Vere. Aimeric warned him.”

Erasmus struggled to contain it, but as the young lord Aimeric stormed from the bathing
chamber, he was laughing alongside his Prince.

--

They put it off for as long as they could, but in midwinter, Prince Damianos was indeed sent
off on another trip north. When, two days after his departure, Prince Laurent spent the day in
a foul mood, most of his boys privately agreed that it was his husband’s departure that was to
blame. Their Prince’s burgeoning feelings for his spouse was a bit of a joke among them,
although Erasmus didn’t see the humor in it. Everyone knew how the affections of Prince
Damianos waxed and waned. Damianos was kind and he was charismatic, but he was
notorious for falling into passionate love with someone over the course of a day, then losing
interest just as soon as he had gotten them under him in bed. It was rare for his affection to
outlive the week.

If it was a slave he had been enamored by, he would take them into his household, where they
would be well-treated, but ignored. Everyone knew competition died quickly in the Prince’s
harem; there was simply nothing to compete over. The Prince’s affection was a candle with a
short wick, the flame burning hot and bright, then dying quickly. Erasmus felt sorry for his
dear master.

Prince Laurent was still in his sour mood the third day after his husband’s departure, when
the guardsman, Albur, arrived at breakfast with a letter for him.

“Trying to curry favor?” Prince Laurent asked, dryly.

“I saw the messenger come, and I was already on my way to relieve Quincy,” the guardsman
shrugged. He waved the fine envelope as if using it to fan himself, and as he did it flashed the
imprint on the wax seal holding it closed. Erasmus didn’t need to see the sun sigil of the
Veretian King; the wax was unmistakably purple. There was only one person in the world it
could have been from. Albur made sure the Prince noticed it before he made as if to tuck it
into a pocket of his jacket. “Ah, but I can see you are otherwise occupied,” he said. “If you
would rather not be disturbed, I’m sure it can wait…”

Prince Laurent made a show of rolling his eyes. He tried not to look too eager as he said,
“Bring it here.”

“Afraid I can’t, Highness,” Albur said, refusing to budge from the doorway. “I’m not to leave
my post, you see.” He did indeed stand with one foot in the Prince’s rooms, the other in the
hall. Prince Laurent stared at him steadily, yet the guardsman’s smile only grew larger the
deeper the Prince’s frustration grew.

“Are you serious?” Laurent demanded at last. Albur merely shrugged and continued to smile.
Laurent had not received a single letter from his brother since the beginning of the summer,
though he wrote to him almost daily.

Despite whatever eagerness or excitement he must have felt, Prince Laurent took his time
about it. He marked the page in the book he had been reading, carefully laying a silk ribbon
across the page and smoothing it out before he closed the tome and then arranged it on the
table next to his yet-untouched breakfast, making sure it sat just so. When he at last rose from
his seat and approached the guardsman, he did it unhurriedly, as if taking a stroll through the
gardens. Albur offered the letter with a little flourish of a bow and a knowing grin. Laurent
snatched it from his hand as if afraid he planned to yank it back.

“I should have you whipped,” Prince Laurent said. The guardsman only laughed. Everyone in
the room knew that the Prince was too gentle and compassionate to ever order such a thing to
be done to a man. Even the crop he carried when riding his horse was merely decorative; it
had never once been used. “Back to your post, then, since you take your duties so seriously,”
Laurent ordered. “Endeavor to make yourself more useful than annoying. Please. I know it
will stretch your abilities, but one needs to be challenged from time to time.” Laurent made a
point of returning to his chair without opening his letter. Albur continued to linger at the door.

“It’s been ages since we’ve heard from Auggie,” Albur said. “You won’t let me stay and hear
what’s in the letter?”

“Why should I allow that? No. If my brother wished to write to you, he would. Go away.”
Prince Laurent wafted his hand in a shooing gesture. He waited for the guardsman to leave
before he opened his letter, sliding a thumbnail under the seal to break it. Erasmus had done
his best to make careful examination of his new master in order to learn his preferences and
his ways as quickly as possible. He thought the Prince was pleased, even excited, that his
long-silent brother had finally written to him. He could almost feel it vibrating off his skin.

Those signs excitement and happiness vanished quickly once his Prince began to read.

Erasmus kept his head bowed, and he only dared watch him through the screen of his lashes.
Once the Prince was satisfied with his morning coffee, he had permitted Erasmus to sit by the
window and play the kithara for him. Erasmus had a gentle touch with the instrument, and the
tune he played was not complicated. He had continued to play, quietly, throughout the entire
exchange with the guardsman, his presence nonobtrusive. It startled him when Laurent said,
abruptly, “Stop.”

Forgetting himself, Erasmus looked up – but his Prince did not notice the note he had
mangled, nor the fact he had dared to stare so directly at him. Instead, he simply continued to
sit there in his chair, straight-backed, his hands curled into fists atop his thighs, the letter
laying with his book on the table. The Prince’s gaze had fixed on the view of the sea outside
the boundaries of his balcony.

He had not ordered Erasmus to leave, and so Erasmus was afraid to move. He wondered if he
should prepare the desk so that the Prince could begin to pen his response. He had nearly
gathered the courage to ask when, abruptly, Prince Laurent stood. Without a word to
Erasmus, he left.

If Erasmus had paused to give his next actions thought, he never would have found the
strength to dare take them. Perhaps he knew it – perhaps he was aware of the fact he needed
to move before he had time to think about what it was he was doing.

Prince Laurent and the young lord Aimeric were trying to teach Erasmus and the other boys
Veretian, as well as how to read in both languages. The lessons had started with what
Erasmus had later learned were naughty words, but they had eventually started to make more
useful progress. Erasmus’s hands shook as he picked up the letter. Most of it was
incomprehensible to him, but he did pick up enough words to set his heart pounding in alarm.

Clutching the letter to his chest, Erasmus fled the room.

There were no guards in the corridor outside; guardsman Albur had followed the Prince
wherever it was he had gone. Erasmus looked up and down the empty hall, heart racing, too
aware that he still held his master’s letter, an item which he had no right to touch. He had to
count to three – twice – before he could convince his legs to move – and when he finally did,
he first set out in the wrong direction. Nervous sweat was pooling in the small of his back. He
turned – and ran directly into another body.

“Where are you going? I was on my way to relieve you. What are you - ?”

Erasmus had somehow managed to keep his feet – Kallias’s hand on his elbow helped – but
he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t faint at any moment. He didn’t allow himself to think, instead
thrusting the letter at his friend’s chest. It was crumpled now; Erasmus had been holding it
too tightly. There would be no hiding it had been interfered with.

Kallias glanced at it, and then his eyes shot to Erasmus’s face. “You took this from the
Prince? What are you thinking?”

“Can you read it?” Erasmus demanded, his words coming out all in a rush.

Kallias stared at him a moment longer, then he lifted the letter.

The frown that bloomed on his face as he read told Erasmus everything he needed to know.
 Chapter 27
Chapter Notes

Warnings for this chapter: We're starting with Aimeric, so there will be some thoughts
about the abuse Albur has been putting him through. It isn't graphic but it is pretty clear
what's gone on. Later, after a pov shift, there will be some shittiness from Kastor.
Violence, threats of assault, arrogance.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

“It’s a forgery,” the Prince said, pacing. He chewed a thumbnail in a show of nerves that
Aimeric did not know him to normally show. Laurent might not have received the same
lessons in Kingship his brother had, but he had still been raised to survive the subtleties and
intrigue of the Veretian court; he knew how to hold his emotions in check. His control wasn’t
yet perfect, but it was already better than Aimeric’s – better than most adults, too. A
significant part of Aimeric enjoyed the fact that Laurent was betraying himself now.

Another part of Aimeric was simply confused. He and the Prince of Vere were not friends. He
had done nothing to encourage the spoiled blond to consider them as such. Aimeric knew that
he had been sent to Vere to be Prince Richard’s toy. He knew his father had made that cursed
deal with the brother of the former King. His father had told him as much.

“You are the least of my sons,” his father had told him, before putting him on that ship.
“There is nothing you can contribute to the world. If you want any kind of future at all, you
will do as you are told. Keep Prince Richard happy. Deny him nothing.”

But Prince Richard had returned to Vere, and he had left Aimeric behind, and Aimeric didn’t
know what he was supposed to do, except continue to fill the role they were all pretending he
had been sent for. Amid the overblown affection and flowery praise Prince Richard sent him,
the sick reminiscence and graphic reminders of what he had endured under the man, there
were some instructions. He was to befriend Laurent, note his every movement, his thoughts,
his vulnerabilities – and he was to continue his education under Albur’s tutelage, so that he
would not be out of practice when next he and Prince Richard were reunited.

Aimeric’s father was disappointed in him for being left behind. When Aimeric wrote to him
to complain and to beg something be done, his father wrote him back with words of scorn
and insult and threat. His Father’s letters were always full of such things, these days. If he
didn’t earn back Prince Richard’s favor, he would be cut off, disinherited, thrown out on his
ass. He would ruin their entire family if he failed in this venture. He had been entrusted with
something more important than he realized; was he too stupid to open his legs and shut his
mouth? Whore yourself to the crown or whore yourself on the street, his father had written. I
have hardly asked you to do anything difficult.
Despite orders to report back on Laurent’s doings, Aimeric had not yet been able to bring
himself to reply to Prince Richard’s letters. It had occurred to him that Richard was not the
only Prince he could please. Perhaps, with Laurent’s favor, all had not yet been lost. It was
playing both angles, really, he told himself. He wasn’t following orders; he was protecting
himself. He would have knowledge of Laurent if he needed it, but he would, perhaps, also
have Laurent’s willingness intercede on his behalf. Once it became clear which side was the
better to support, Aimeric would already be set up in the best position possible.

Aimeric and Laurent were not friends. Aimeric still hated and resented the insufferable blond
– even if sometimes he had to remind himself to hate and resent him. But hatred and
resentment aside, Aimeric was trying to protect his family and improve his position. In a way,
his father’s advice for dealing with Prince Richard applied just as much to Laurent: Keep the
Prince happy. Deny him nothing.

Laurent was too besotted with his oaf of a husband; he hadn’t shown even a flicker of interest
in fucking Aimeric. Aimeric was disinclined to make the suggestion himself, however pretty
the Prince was. He had had enough of that, thank you. He couldn’t imagine having to endure
Albur and Laurent in that capacity. The mysteries of sex solved for him, Aimeric had no
interest in it. No – pleasing Prince Laurent meant staying up late reading the kinds of books
the other boy liked, so that he could provide Laurent with interesting conversation over
breakfast. Pleasing Prince Laurent meant pretending to like horses, even though they made
him stink and they terrified him; it meant talking sweet to them and bringing them treats,
enduring the disgusting slime of spit and snot they left on his hand. It meant brushing them
down after rides and handling the tack himself, even though there were perfectly capable
slaves nearby just waiting to help.

It meant tolerating it when the palace dogs jumped up on him and put muddy pawprints on
his nice clothes. It meant that when Prince Laurent adopted one of the barn cat’s kittens,
Aimeric adopted the other two – and pretended not to mind it when the black and white twins
(Menace and Pest, both male) scratched up his hands and arms and tried to climb his pants
leg and left little dead things on his pillows.

Pleasing Prince Laurent meant spending hours on the track practicing Okton runs with
sweaty Akielon boys. It meant lowering himself to accept sword training from Laurent’s
common-born guards, alongside Laurent’s ridiculous gaggle of pretty slaves.

Pleasing Prince Laurent meant that, when Prince Laurent arrived at Aimeric’s door in clear
distress, Aimeric put aside his breakfast, pulled his dressing gown closed a little more tightly,
and made himself listen attentively as Laurent described the upsetting letter he had received.

Aimeric didn’t share the fact that he already knew what the letter contained.

Neither did he share that the Prince was right; the letter was fake.

There had been real letters, though the Prince would never see them. Aimeric had yet to
discover how Aimeric was managing to intercept the correspondence from Vere – he only
knew that nothing arrived from home without first going through Albur’s filthy hands.
Aimeric did know that a great deal of correspondence had been arriving recently. He knew
that the vast majority of those letters had gone up in flames in Albur’s fireplace.
Aimeric knew that there had been a genuine letter from King Auguste to Prince Laurent.
Albur had kept pieces of it in his version in order to preserve authenticity. He’d read both
versions to Aimeric days ago in Aimeric’s rooms, after penning his version at Aimeric’s desk,
Aimeric stuck on the floor underneath it between his knees, listening to the scratch of the pen
as he fantasized about being brave enough to bite down.

Albur had had years to practice Auguste’s handwriting; he hadn’t gotten the hang of
Laurent’s yet. Instead of forging the young Prince’s answers, he would remove a page or
pages from Laurent’s letters to his brother – or even cut the parchment to remove a paragraph
he did not want included. He only let about a third of Laurent’s letters go to Vere, and those
tended to read very short, selfish, and abrupt. He allowed even less of Auguste’s letters to
come to Laurent.

Aimeric knew that Albur received instruction from Prince Richard; he wasn’t creative
enough to meddle on his own. His long friendship with the King didn’t just give him an
advantage at forging his hand – it let him capture his voice, as well. He even had a stolen
copy of the King’s seal locked up somewhere in his rooms, though Aimeric had yet to
discover where.

Aimeric was still under the desk, legs going numb from kneeling, mouth full, chin wet with
saliva, when Albur sat back and pushed a hand into his hair, sounding so very pleased with
himself as he read out both letters for comparison. He wasn’t asking for Aimeric’s opinion on
them; Aimeric wasn’t in a position where he would have been able to answer if he was.

In the original letter, the King expressed his heartbreak over his brother’s failure to attend his
wedding. He had written: at the very least, I had hoped to hear from you. A note. A card.
Laurent, where are you? If I have done something to injure you, then I pray you but tell me
what to do. I will do all in my power to begin the process of making amends. If your situation
in Akielos has become unbearable, then say so. I will find a way to break the treaty. I will
move heaven and earth to have your friendship again; I ache to think I may have lost it.

Prince Laurent and the royal family of Akielos had never received the numerous
announcements and invitations that had arrived from Vere. Albur had worked hard to ensure
that every rumor of the wedding of the King of Vere was silenced before it reached the ears
of anyone important. That task had been amusingly stressful for him, until he had decided to
take that stress out on Aimeric. The point was, from King Auguste’s point of view, he had
written to tell his brother of his wedding, written again to invite him, again to ask why he had
missed the festivities and to ask if he was ill – and in return, he had received nothing but a
scrap of paper containing a few full, tepid sentences, none of which addressed the missing
nuptials.

Has this ordeal really proven enough to come between us? Auguste had written, early winter,
when Vere would have been dark and bleak and cold. The letter Albur had allowed to be sent
in return had contained a description of Laurent’s favorite breakfast, a story of assisting the
slaves while one of Damianos’s favorite hunting dogs gave birth, and a list of instructions for
things Auguste could give him for his birthday in the Spring.

Albur had thought himself hilarious.

His voice had held the same amusement when he’d read out the altered letter the young
Prince was now fretting over.

The original letter:

I look forward to seeing you face-to-face in the Spring. I must believe we will resolve all
things at that time. I pray whatever misunderstanding has occurred, you will allow me the
chance to correct it. Roslin wants to come with me when I visit – I hope you will not mind. I
think you might like her. She says she is looking forward to meeting you, and she hopes you
will tell her all of the worst things you know about me. Please do not indulge her.

Became –

I married in the Fall. You will need to accommodate for the addition of my bride when we
arrive in the Spring. We are all eager to see you replaced with a more appropriate heir.

“Auguste would never speak to me in such a cold and abrupt way,” Laurent said. “Auguste
would never marry without telling me! This is wrong.”

“Sometimes time apart changes people,” Aimeric said, working to keep his voice
disinterested, hoping his expression was bland. He had to work to remind himself that he was
working both sides; that he had to listen to Laurent as a friend might, but he could not allow
himself to be too compassionate or understanding. He couldn’t let himself feel guilty for his
failure to reassure him, however much he might want to in that moment. They were not
friends.

“Theomedes would have told me had he received notice or invitation,” Laurent said.

“Maybe they didn’t send one,” Aimeric suggested. “Maybe the woman didn’t want you there.
You know how they can be, women. Jealous and unreasonable. Maybe she thought having
the King’s brother present would mean enduring a rival for the King’s affection. Maybe she
wants to be sure there is nothing to interfere with the position her future children will hold.”

Laurent stopped pacing, and Aimeric worked very hard not to tense, not to apologize, not to
take his words back.

“Did your father mention any wedding in his letters?” Laurent asked, rounding on him.

It was hard to lie to him when his pretty blue eyes were so stricken and full of hurt. Aimeric
made himself scowl, and pretended to examine his nails.

“You know my family doesn’t write to me,” Aimeric said. Albur let him read correspondence
from his father when he felt it was pertinent, but he made him watch as he burned his
mother’s letters unopened. If any of his brothers ever reached out, Aimeric never heard of it.

Laurent turned away to begin pacing again, but he stopped after only a few steps.

“I can’t think,” he declared. “Let’s go for a ride.”

Aimeric didn’t want to go for a damned ride. Aimeric wanted to shout that he hated horses.
He was nearly certain that his horse, Merde, hated him right back. The big stupid beast
terrified him. Worse, today Albur was Laurent’s guard, and if they went outside he would be
there, not simply standing outside a closed door like he would be if they stayed inside. It
made Aimeric’s skin crawl, the way the cursed man acted to kind and outgoing to the
Prince’s face. He acted like he thought himself a surrogate brother in Auguste’s absence, the
longtime family friend stepping in while the two were separated. He never gave any
indication of the cruel beast that lurked inside.

Aimeric was slow to rise and reluctant to follow when Laurent headed for the door.

Outside in the courtyard, they passed Prince Kastor, who was returning from some kind of
business or another, a pleased swagger to his walk, a smug expression on his face. He had
already passed them by when Laurent stopped abruptly and turned back, calling to him.

“Kastor!”

The Bastard turned back, his expression not losing its arrogance. “Do you think I have time
for you right now, little boy?”

“A word.”

“Only one? Make it quick.” He waited, arms crossed. It did not appear to affect Laurent. He
retraced his steps to approach the eldest Akielon Prince. Despite Kastor’s clear intentions of
being unhelpful, he could not resist the urge to antagonize. “I am not my brother; the fact I
have chosen to take pity on you from time to time does not place me at your beck and call.”

“Were you aware that my brother has married?”

“What? When?”

“Was your father aware?” Laurent demanded. “Was Damen?”

Humiliatingly, Laurent’s voice chose that moment to crack. Aimeric hated him – they weren’t
and would never be friends – but he burned with embarrassment for him anyway. He knew
that Laurent was upset, but he had incorrectly estimated the extent, if his control was worn so
thin. Seeing the Prince so close to the edge of breaking lacked the satisfaction Aimeric might
have expected.

For a moment, the bastard looked confused, almost lost. The smug expression had actually
left his face.

“I didn’t know,” Kastor told him.

“And?”

“If Father received word, he probably would have shared it with you – and Damen definitely
would have.”
Without having an excuse to be angry at his hosts, Laurent almost seemed to deflate. It was
his turn to look lost, his gaze moving over the courtyard as if he had no memory of what had
brought him there.

“Where were you going?” Kastor asked.

“Riding,” Aimeric supplied, when Laurent only blinked, slowly, and didn’t answer.

Kastor didn’t bother looking at him, but he told Laurent, “Not anymore.” To Aimeric he
added, “You’re dismissed.”

--

Kastor put Laurent in the dirt three times before what was left of Laurent’s control finally
broke.

Fourteen, bruised, betrayed, and more alone than he had ever been, Laurent beat his fist on
the ground and let the dust soak up his tears.

The humiliation of it all burned, but once the tears had started, Laurent found himself
incapable of stopping them. He could feel Kastor’s eyes on the back of his head. Kastor’s
sandaled feet paced around him, slowly.

The letter was a forgery. Laurent knew it was a forgery. It wasn’t just his emotions talking. It
wasn’t wishful thinking. Whoever had done it had improved since the mangling of the treaty
on Laurent’s last birthday, but the signs were still there. Even if they weren’t, this was not
Auguste. Logic alone told him it was a forgery.

But the marriage of the King of Vere was a large, public event – something very easily
proven or disproven. Why would the forger risk discovery by promoting such a blatant lie?
To what end? Which meant the letter was forged, but its contents were true. Auguste had
married without telling him. Without inviting him. Once again, he had made an important
decision, acting without thought for Laurent’s opinion or feelings on the matter.

“The Prince of Vere cries because his feelings have been hurt,” Kastor said softly, from
somewhere above him. He continued to circle Laurent, slowly. His smug superiority could be
felt like the burn of a fire one was standing too near. “Your kind are so fucking soft. We
should have pressed you at Marlas. We should have taken you all for our slaves. To think my
father has adopted a son who will cry over feelings!”

“I’m not - !”

Laurent began pushing up, lifting his head, but Kastor squatted before him, and pressed him
back down with a hand firm on the back of his skull, until Laurent’s forehead and nose were
pressed into the dirt. Laurent wasn’t strong enough to push up anyway, and without
permission a new flood of tears overwhelmed him, pain sharp in his chest, throat burning. It
felt as if everything he had repressed throughout the year was finally hitting him now, all at
once, the last of what little control he had been clinging to shattered by this final indignity.
“No, don’t bother getting up. You should kneel as the slave you were meant to be. You are
not a man. You will never be a man. A Prince of Akielos only fights men.” Despite his
hateful words, his tone was soft. He pressed Laurent harder into the dirt for a moment, before
relaxing the pressure. “You would be happier in a more suiting place,” Kastor said, and he
began to pet Laurent’s hair, as Laurent shuddered and gasped and spat dust out of his mouth.
“Keep crying, then. I am only hard on you because you and I are so alike. It disgusts me to
say so; I would never kneel like a bitch with my face in the dirt. But you let them do this to
you. Family never recognizes the greatness that has been born into its ranks. Unfortunately
for you, you are weak – where I am strong. You let them take your greatness from you. I
never will.”

“He would have told me,” Laurent said, hurting for the first time in a year – hurting as if the
pain of it was new – as if he were once more standing there in his brother’s tent, learning that
his beloved brother had decided to sell him to their enemy without so much as a warning.

“I am not convinced you are a lost cause yet,” Kastor said. “Even with this hideous display. I
think you can still be forged into something worthwhile, given the proper place. But you’re in
no state for swords today. Shall we play a game instead? Children like games, don’t they?”

Laurent couldn’t stand it anymore. Without Kastor pushing him down, he forced himself to
sit up, and slapped the bastard’s hand away from his hair. “Fight me or go away,” he said. “I
have no interest in your philosophizing.”

Kastor smiled. He reached out, and when Laurent wrenched away, he grabbed him by the
hair, holding him in place as he wiped a tear with his thumb, and brought it to his mouth,
tasting it. “I’m going to tell you how it is for you,” Kastor said, his sword-callused fingers
gripping sweaty golden strands tightly as he rose, hauling Laurent to his feet. “You can try to
tell me if you think I’m wrong. Easy rules, don’t you think?”

Laurent only glared at him. With his hold on his hair, Kastor forced him to nod, nodding
along himself.

Kastor’s eyes danced with amusement as he continued his taunting. “What’s first? Ah – I
know! Your father never saw you, did he? Not for who you really are. Not for what you could
really be. Am I right so far? I know I am. You were not a son to him. You were a nuisance, in
inconvenience. No matter what you did or how you contributed, it was never enough for your
father – and why should a King hide his disappointment? You don’t miss him. You’re glad
he’s dead.”

“Stop,” Laurent ordered.

“You think your mother loved you,” Kastor continued, tugging Laurent’s hair until he was
standing on his toes. “Then again, if she loved you, she never would have left you, would
she? She was strong. It was only an illness. People get sick all the time. If she had loved you,
she would have fought harder to stay with you.”

“Let me go,” Laurent warned. His tears were gone, pain replaced by anger. He reached up,
trying to pry Kastor’s hand from his hair.
“Then there’s the other one. Your so-called brother. The only one who ever really mattered –
to anyone. The son they really wanted.”

Laurent tried prying his fingers free. He tried using his nails. “I said stop!”

“You love him,” Kastor continued on as if Laurent had never spoken. “You can’t help but
love him. No one can. That’s the trouble. Everyone is always so filled up with love for him,
there’s none left for you. It’s hard, isn’t it? It’s so hard. You know you’re ten times what he is,
twenty times whatever he could be, but everyone is too blinded by his brilliance. You’re the
only one who sees it. You’re the only one who – “

Unable to loosen Kastor’s grip, Laurent kicked him, hard, in the balls.

Strangely enough, that worked.

“You’re wrong!” Laurent spat, wiping his tears with his forearm as Kastor bent double in
pain. “You’re wrong, and I’m finished with you.”

“Spoiled – bitch!”

Laurent made it three steps, but couldn’t help but turn around again. “You’re wrong about
everything! You and I? We are nothing alike. Your brother is better than you. The rat who
feeds from your chamber pot is better than you.”

“ – not – done with you…”

“I would rather die than have something in common with some stupid bastard.”

“Would you?” Kastor’s voice was still tight with pain, but he had lifted his head. “That can
be arranged.”

He was fast – faster than Laurent had imagined he could be. One moment he was across the
room, bent double over his bruised ego, and the next he was on Laurent.

The way that Kastor punched him left Laurent’s ears ringing.

Laurent had been thrown around the ring during sword practice. He had fallen off his ponies
while riding. His father had slapped him before. Uncle had taken a paddle to him half a dozen
times. He had never felt a blow like that before. Laurent lost time for a moment, only half
aware of the bastard’s hands on him, his heels scrabbling in the dirt as Kastor hauled him
towards one of the tables where the slaves had laid out training equipment. Then Kastor’s
hands were around his neck.

Laurent’s hips hit the table painfully, and Kastor bent him backwards over it, his face so close
that his hot, moist breath filled Laurent’s senses.

“Once, Akielos was a country of men,” Kastor seethed, his thumbs pressing in until Laurent
could hardly breathe, until his vision was dotted with black spots. “Rule was determined by
who was the strongest – by who was capable of taking the things he wanted!” A harder press,
and then some relief as the grip slackened, one hand releasing him. “It should be that way
 still. You should have been mine. We never should have gifted your pathetic country the
honor of an alliance; in the old days, we would have taken the lot of you for slaves!” Kastor’s
free hand stroked his hair, then fisted in it once again when Laurent bucked and struggled,
trying to find an angle to kick. The hand around his neck squeezed, even as Laurent’s fingers
struggled and clawed at him. He flung his other arm out against the table, searching for
something – anything – to make up for the position he was in.

“If you were a man, I would have taken you already,” Kastor said, giving his head a hard
jerk. “My brother is too soft and too weak to do it – but I am not. You could fight. I would
enjoy it. You would be better off a slave to me than a husband to him. At the very least, you
would finally learn your place. Your kind is so perverse; you would no doubt enjoy it! You’d
beg for it, once you knew the relief it was to surrender to a higher power.”

Kastor released his hair with a jerk. His other hand returned to Laurent’s neck. The terrible
pressure tightened again as Laurent thrashed and struggled.

Kastor’s eyes were bright now. “Call me master,” he instructed. “Be a good little slave for
me. I gave you the opportunity to learn the ways of a man, but you wouldn’t listen. Do you
think you have the right to reject me?”

The fingers of Laurent’s outflung hand closed around something, but his grip was weakening.
He could only draw breath in short, wheezing gasps. It wasn’t enough. His vision was
growing dark, his struggles weakening, limbs beginning to grow limp.

“Call me Master,” Kastor insisted. His voice sounded far away. “Acknowledge this bastard’s
superiority to you and your kind. Say it.”

Laurent’s lips moved. No sound could come forth. He was losing awareness under the press
of Kastor’s body against him, the too-close stench of his sweat and his breath coming through
with what precious little air made it to Laurent. Dimly, he was aware that he had begun to
smile.

“What was that?” Kastor asked. He leaned down toward him. “Say it again, slave.”

Grip tight around the hilt of the knife his hand had found, Laurent used the last of his strength
and his awareness. Summoning everything he had, he plunged it hard toward Kastor.

Chapter End Notes

And you thought the cliffhanger was bad last time...

 Chapter 28
Chapter Notes

This chapter took me forrrreeevvver.

The more complicated things become, the more I have to go back and rewrite. Then
rewrite again. Then rewrite again.

Everything is fine.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Laurent was alone when he came to in the gymnasium where he and Kastor had fought.
There were no soldiers or athletes at practice, no sign of Albur, who was meant to be
guarding him today and should have been waiting outside. He should have been able to hear
them; he should have come running the moment Kastor raised his voice. Kastor himself was
gone.

Laurent was on the ground.

He felt blurry. His head was pounding. He ached in the way he always did after facing off
against his brother-in-law, except for the added pain in his head and face. His throat was raw.

Laurent was careful sitting up. He moved slowly, but the room spun around him anyway. For
a moment, Laurent thought he was surely about to be sick, and with all his strength he fought
it, imagining the burn of acid against his throat.

The knife was on the ground nearby. Without thinking about it, desperate for a distraction
from the nausea, Laurent picked it up.

Kastor’s blood left a trail in the dust that led all the way to the door. It did not appear to have
been a heavy flow, but it was significant enough to be noticeable.

When he had gathered enough courage, Laurent stood up. His legs were unsteady beneath
him; he had to grasp the edge of the table to keep from falling. From his new vantage, he
could see the signs of their fight – the equipment all in disarray, the dirt floor disturbed. The
blood.

Moving slowly, Laurent began to make his way to the door.

--

Crossing the palace grounds was a hazy blur. Laurent’s mind felt fuzzy and disoriented, and
the bright glare of the sun made what had already been a powerful headache turn sharp and
cruel.

Laurent found himself standing in front of the door to Damen’s rooms without fully recalling
how he got there. He wanted to knock, but it seemed like a lot of effort – and he knew Damen
wasn’t there. Damen was gone. He stared at the door, wanting Damen not to be gone,
wanting to go in, and find Damen there.

Maybe everyone was gone. Laurent was pretty sure he had not encountered a single soul
while he made his way from the gymnasium to the palace proper. A part of his mind, stirring
sluggishly, wondered what kind of panic it must have caused when Kastor returned bloody.
He must have returned. Everyone must have been distracted with him. Laurent would have
noticed a body. Probably. Laurent didn’t know where he had stabbed him – just that he had
stabbed him, and it hadn’t been fatal. Yet. Was someone coming to arrest him, then? That
would be funny. Damen wasn’t here. Damen would have listened.

Laurent lost awareness again, and found himself with his forehead pressed to Damen’s door,
some stretch of time later. He pushed himself away. It was only a few steps to his own
quarters. He made it.

Laurent’s rooms were quiet and clean. The curtains had been pulled closed across the
entrance to the western balcony, keeping the late afternoon sun out, making the space nice
and shadowed. Laurent made his way to one of the couches, not thinking of the fact it was so
unusual for Erasmus and Kallias to be present at this hour when he wasn’t there – let alone
for the pair of them to be at his desk. He didn’t notice his brother’s letter spread out between
them. His servants sprang to attention as he passed, and when he collapsed to the couch they
came quickly to his side. For once, there was no sign of their usual passive subservience.
That, Laurent did notice. He had been working so hard to talk them out of that nonsense and
into some kind of personality. He could have laughed, but his throat hurt too much. He let his
head fall back against the couch. He closed his eyes.

“Exalted? Exalted!”

Laurent felt too foggy to answer. He didn’t want to try speaking. He was having a hard time
keeping his eyes open, but during one of the brief spans where he managed it, he was the
worried look his servants exchanged.

“What happened?” Erasmus asked.

“Not what – who,” Kallias answered. He always did seem to be the brighter of the two.
Erasmus had taken to his training with wholehearted enthusiasm, but Kallias had never
managed to forget the fact he had a mind of his own – even if he was too smart to admit it. It
was what Laurent liked about him.

Erasmus stared at his friend for a moment, before his eyes widened and he made a sound of
shock. “You don’t mean - ? Prince Kastor? Surely he wouldn’t - !”

“Go draw a bath for the Prince of Vere,” Kallias instructed. Erasmus had been so primed to
follow orders that he immediately rose and went, no hesitations, no questions asked. “That
will keep him busy for a while,” Kallias said. To Laurent. He was speaking to Laurent. He
almost never did that. “I know a recipe for an ointment that should help with the bruising. We
can attempt covering the worst of it with paints if you – if the Exalted Prince desires.” Too
late, Kallias remembered to lower his eyes.

Laurent made the mistake of trying to laugh. “Don’t,” Laurent said. It was the most he could
manage.

Kallias had already slipped up by using the informal I instead of the formal this slave. He
knew Laurent’s meaning without Laurent needing to find a way to explain I don’t have the
patience for that shit right now. After a moment to gather himself, Kallias took a breath and
he lifted his head, meeting Laurent’s eyes.

“It’s good you can talk,” Kallias said, dropping the rest of the formal language. “I am
guessing you don’t want a physician.”

Smiling hurt. So did shaking his head. The pain was annoying. Laurent made himself say,
“You seem to be familiar with this…affliction.”

Kallias dropped his eyes again, but it was to see what he was doing as he began the task of
unlacing Laurent’s jacket, not out of any meekness or subservience. “Not from Nereus’s
Garden,” he said, as if it should be reassuring to hear. “My mother works in a brothel by the
docks. Worked. I don’t know if she still lives. She sold me to Nereus when I was eight and
the pimps started to take notice of me. She said if I was going to be fucked, it might as well
be by a King – not trash washed up on the docks. I was old to enter training, and almost too
willful to be worth it, but Nereus liked my face.”

“I’m – sorry,” Laurent rasped.

“I’m not,” Kallias answered, pulling Laurent up so he could pull the jacket down over his
shoulders. “Let’s start with a bath, and see what we’re dealing with later.”

--

After considering it, Laurent refused the application of paints.

Feeling more sure of his footing, he decided he would go down when it was time for dinner.
No one had come to his rooms to arrest him yet, so it was time to make an appearance. His
usual Veretian attire would have covered too much of his already-vibrant bruising, so, for the
first time, Laurent decided to don one of the chiton he had been gifted by his hosts.

His back straight and his chin lifted, Laurent walked into the dining hall, using everything
within him to walk slowly and smoothly. Without invitation, he helped himself to Damen’s
seat at the King’s right, which he was sometimes allowed to sit in when his husband was
away – but never without invitation.

Every eye was on Laurent before he had made it halfway across the room. By the time he sat,
complete silence had fallen. He sat straight, looking forward, out over the dining hall and
those assembled therein. He could feel King Theomedes’s gaze, the intensity of his attention
as he took in the bruises, already growing dark against Laurent’s fair skin. Laurent knew
some of the ones on his neck were distinctly fingerprint-shaped. From the corner of his eye,
he watched how the King stiffened, how his mouth turned down into a frown.

Laurent didn’t care if his father-in-law rejected his presence. He didn’t care if he was
banished back to his table, or kicked from the dinner service entirely. This little stunt had
been meant to draw attention, and it had succeeded. Laurent had wanted every eye in the hall
on him, and that was what he got.

There were whispers down below – whispers that grew louder with each moment that passed
without a reaction from the King, as more people began to get over Laurent’s audacity and to
notice the state he was in. The hall began to grow restless. A nearby slave, who had been on
his way to pour the King’s wine but froze when he noticed Laurent, now hesitantly moved
closer only to stop again, unsure as to whether he should serve Laurent or ignore him,
horrified by the marks on the young Prince’s skin.

Kastor was not at his father’s table, but at his own household’s. Laurent could feel his stare,
too, and worked to ignore the way he felt his pulse picking up at the man’s attention. Slowly,
deliberately, and only once he was sure he could manage it, Laurent turned his head his
brother-in-law’s way, and he lofted one haughty brow, expectant. Deliberately, he let his eyes
rake the Bastard Prince, taking in the fact that he was wearing a chlamys, despite the warmth
of the room, the cloth wrapped in an unfashionable manner that just happened to hide one
shoulder in particular. Deliberately, Laurent quirked one corner of his mouth and tilted his
head in the bastard’s direction. The whispers and murmurs in the hall grew louder.
Theomedes turned his head his son’s way.

Kastor pushed up from his couch, the movement sudden and violent. He hit something along
the way, sending plates and cups crashing to the ground. There was not an eye in the room
that was not on him as he stormed from the hall. It seemed from the way that he held himself
that the arm hidden below the chlamys might have been bound, somehow, against his body,
as if to keep it from too much movement. His household hesitated in his absence, unsure if
they were expected to follow.

The whispering and murmuring grew louder, once the bastard had left the room. Laurent
turned his attention to the slave waiting with the wine decanter.

“Only half a glass,” he instructed, pushing forward one of the glasses that had already been
set out for dinner. “I take my wine cut with water.” By now, the Akielon staff knew their
foreign Prince’s preferences. The order wasn’t really for the slave; it was to move things
along.

Theomedes settled back, slowly against his couch. He was still frowning, but he gave a
negligent wave of his hand, giving the slave permission to serve. He watched Laurent for a
moment, and he motioned for one of his guards to approach, and spoke to the man in a low
voice. When he was done, the man chose three other soldiers, and they left the room.
Theomedes looked to Laurent once more.

“Trouble in the training room, son-in-law?” The King asked. Akielons were not good at
concealing their thoughts. Laurent could see the concern in him, the questions, the anger. His
eyes moved over his face. He wondered what, if anything, Kastor had told him prior to
Laurent’s arrival.

Laurent gave his father-in-law his most innocent look, though it hurt to do so. He knew the
bruises spoiled the usual effect. “Why would you say that, Father?” he asked. His voice was
still harsh.

Theomedes huffed – the sound was too displeased to be a laugh. The darkness did not leave
his eyes.

Laurent lifted his glass, and pretended not to see it.

--

The next morning, Laurent learned over breakfast with the King that Prince Kastor had had
an emergency in the middle of the night that called him unexpectantly back to his estates. He
would be staying, Laurent learned, for an indeterminant amount of time – and several of the
King’s own guard would be staying with him.

--

The Free Tribes of Akielos lived in open opposition to a King whose rule they had never
accepted.

After Artes fell, the land that became Akielos was ruled for centuries by Kings and Queens –
by Damen’s ancestors. The fracturing of this kingdom into a feudal state of loosely- aligned
lands rules by Kyroi had begun happening after Delpha was lost to invading Vere. The Kyroi
had seen this loss as a failure of the monarchy itself. Year after year, they had leeched more
power from their rulers until, by the end, each Kyros was nearly a king in his own right, he
held such authority over his lands and the people who lived within them. By Damen’s
grandfather’s time, the King of Akielos had been little more than a figurehead for over a
century, the graves of the Old Kings looted and desecrated, their monuments – many of them
– torn down, their names struck from the histories.

Father, as a very young man, had managed to unite several tribes under his rule through his
prowess in battle, alone. Damen had always loved the tale – it was the kind of story that he
was sure would become legend someday. The Great Theomedes, conqueror of the rebellious
Kyroi, uniter of Akielos, restorer of his people’s glory. He had only been sixteen when he
began his campaign.

Sixteen and full of fire, Father had not even had to conquer all of Akielos. Many came to
willingly bow and pledge, because of his charisma, his strength, his wisdom. Many came
because of his bloodline – many more after his marriage to Damen’s mother further
strengthened his claim to the glory of the ancient Kings.

Father had won allies with every victory; often, even the tribes he defeated would come to
pledge their loyalty to him without further conflict. He reclaimed ancient artifacts taken as
trophies in the past. He sent scribes and scholars to recover every document, every carving,
every statue and vase they could find. There had been battles – outright wars – when some of
the larger territories attempted to band together. Ultimately, Father was too skilled in battle,
and his claim was too strong, and the people loved him too much. By the time Kastor was
born, Theomedes had been King in truth for nearly five years, crowned at the Kingsmeet as
no King had been permitted to be in over a century.

Still, there had been about a half-dozen tribes who never formally swore loyalty. These tribes
declared allegiance, instead, to each other. Rather than making war with Father, they pooled
their resources into a sizable tribute, left it in their stead on the field of battle where they had
agreed to meet, and then fled northward into the foothills near Vask, where hunting them
down would be an inconvenient and costly venture.

The first few years were tense, but the tributes continued coming, and the uneasy peace was,
for the most part, maintained. The foothills were good enough for raising sheep, so long as
one moved often, but they were finnicky when it came to farming, and there was very little
hunting land. The Free Tribes could not remain in one place. Slowly at first, and then, as the
fragile peace held, more boldly, they began to move, relocating themselves by season or
whim all along the northern borders. They built no cities, erected no temples – if they had,
perhaps they would not have survived. They lived a mysterious, nomadic existence, avoiding
contact with the rest of Akielos.

How the Free Tribes were able to keep their people fed, Damen could only guess. A popular
rumor involved the men of the tribes trading sexual services to Vaskian raiders in return for
food and other supplies, while their women learned to raid farmsteads on the border. This
was partially true, and surely there were other arrangements with their other neighbors, with
Vere and with Patras, that allowed for their passage and survival.

Many of the Kyroi that had tried to fight Father’s rule had found themselves utterly crushed.
The Free Tribes only avoided the same fate by paying that large tribute – repeated every three
years – and by making themselves inconvenient to hunt down – and by not causing too much
trouble with their neighbors, by not raiding too many farmsteads or traveling caravans too
often on either side of the borders. There had never been an official treaty, but peace had,
mostly, held, and decades later, the tribes had neither died off nor fallen apart. They
continued roaming, lords-turned-nomad, all along the northern borders, from Sicyon, through
Dice and all the way to the coast of Aegina, rarely found or encountered by outsiders unless
they themselves chose it.

Damen had always imagined that the Free Tribes lived a pathetic existence of cold,
starvation, and humiliation. The people of the Free Tribes had always been described to him
as dirty and uneducated, freezing in the mountains to the west in squalid makeshift hovels of
sticks and dirt and poorly-cured animal hide; scrambling for the hard-shelled things that
washed up on the coast to the east; whoring and raiding wherever they wandered. Father’s
rule was firm but fair; the leaders of the Free Tribes were hurting their own people for the
sake of pride and bullheaded stubbornness. They had given up the lands they once ruled, their
comfortable homes and profitable farms traded for the restless life of deperation. Damen had
always been told that they would eventually surrender or die out on their own; they clearly
lacked the sense required for long-term survival.
It had been nearly five years since the Free Tribes had presented their last tribute. The first
year they were late, Father had first been busy trying to conquer Vere, then negotiating the
uneasy balance of peace. In his distraction, Father had granted them an extension, having
hardly noticed the missing tribute in the first place.

He wasn’t distracted anymore.

Damen had been meeting with representatives from the Free Tribes off and on since the war
of Vere ended. He could not claim that these meetings were going well. Every time, the tribes
made an excuse, promised the tribute was coming, and then failed to deliver. At first, they
arrived at the agreed upon meeting place ready to toast and feast Damen, to show him
hospitality while they begged his father’s patience. Then that began to taper off. The last time
Damen had ridden out to meet them, the representatives failed to arrive at the meeting place
at all. Damen had been left waiting for days before finally returning home. He had been
nearly halfway there when word arrived that he should come back. He declined. All the
while, Father’s spies were reporting unusual movement within the tribes, tell-tale signs they
were gearing up for – something.

Then Damen received an invitation to visit one tribe in specific. Instead of a prearranged
neutral meeting place where delegates from all six tribes would gather, he was invited into an
actual camp.

They took precautions. Damen brought double the soldiers he thought he would need. Tribe
Timaeus took precautions of their own – they met Damen miles from their usual lands, and
only a portion of their people were present in the camp – but it was an authentic camp, right
there in an open field, not hidden in foothills or forest. Damen had been surprised by how
normal the camp looked, how Akielon, not so very different from the camps he and his
soldiers made when on a march. Their banners were different, and there was a decidedly
Vaskian influence to their way of life – but they were still recognizably Akielon. They were
still his people, whether they wanted to see it or not. Damen realized how much his
expectations had been tainted by prejudice and stereotype until he stepped into their camp
and found himself blindsided by surprise.

The wariness on both sides was understandable. This sort of diplomatic invitation was
unprecedented. Father’s guess was that it must have finally started to occur to Camp
Timaeus, if to none of the others, that they had put themselves in a dangerous position. The
King of Akielos was no longer distracted by attempts to conquer Vere, and now had a
powerful and wealthy ally at his back, and the Free Tribes were two years overdue on their
tribute and fucking around with his son when they should have been groveling for
forgiveness.

The sentry that greeted Damen and his party was a man young enough that he’d yet to grow a
single hair on his chin, and pretty enough to be a girl. His thin hand never strayed far from
his belt, though a condition of the meeting had been that no tribesman wore arms. He did not
know the manners with which one should address a Prince of Akielos; his eyes boldly met
Damen’s from under the partial shadow of his helm.

“Camp Timaeus will honor the agreed-upon rules of conduct only so long as the so-called
Prince of Akielos does the same,” the boy said, in a high, unbroken voice. “The Prince’s
people may place their tents outside of our camp, at least twenty but no more than fifty feet
away. They will find we have placed posts tied with orange cloth to indicate the boundary of
our camp. Does the so-called Prince agree to hold to the agreement?”

“The Prince does,” Damen answered, somewhat amused.

The boy nodded, and he hesitated a moment before he spat on the dirt between them. It was a
sad showing, and it left a little dribble on his chin. He flushed, reaching up too quickly to
wipe it away. Damen spat, too, and with his sandaled foot, he mingled their saliva together in
the dust. The agreement was sealed. The boy relaxed visibly once it was done.

“I will take you to Timaeus,” he said.

--

In the time since Father’s campaign of unification, three of the former Kyroi who had
originally led tribes had died. Two had been old, and it was not unexpected. One had simply
been unlucky and fallen from his horse. The other three Kyroi were original to their places of
leadership, men descended from those who had stolen power from Damen’s ancestors, who
had met with the rest twice a year in Ios to discuss laws and tariffs and trade and pretend the
king had any say. Timaeus had actually been a friend of father’s, and his abandonment to the
Free Tribes had often made him a central villain in the stories Damen heard in his youth.

He didn’t look like much anymore. According to Father, he hadn’t been much back then,
either.

He was close to Father’s age, both men having passed the impressive milestone of sixty some
years past. While Father was still well-built and powerful, Timaeus was small and hard, like
sinew dried to old bone. He had the fair hair that was a telltale sign of some mixing with their
Veretian neighbors somewhere down the line; what was left of it was bleached nearly white
from the sun – not from age. Some old injury left him with a pronounced limp, as if one hip
had been forced, permanently, out of alignment.

His tent was easy to pick out – three times the size of everyone else’s, though it was not
extravagant. The Free Tribes had managed to survive this long without relenting and
becoming a part of greater Akielos – but they did not possess enough of anything for
extravagance.

He and Damen were to meet alone, Damen’s men waiting outside. Damen was allowed to
bring his sword, and assured that Timaeus would be unarmed. Damen’s men entered the tent
to inspect it, making sure there were no hidden soldiers or weapons, and when they were
satisfied, they emerged, and Damen ducked through the entrance.

He understood quickly why his men’s search had gone as quickly as it did; the tent was very
sparsely furnished. Timaeus was standing at a table, leaning over a map to mark something,
carefully, with a brush, when the boy led Damen into his tent. Damen realized that Timaeus
was actually painting the map, adding detail personally, working as if he had not noticed the
intrusion of several soldiers only moments ago, nor the arrival of a Prince of the nation he
stood in defiance of. As bold as the boy had been with Damen outside, he was the opposite
upon entering the tent with Damen. He had escorted Damen and his men through the camp as
if he himself was Prince of Akielos, and Damen merely an attendant, but now he walked with
his head lowered, and shuffled back toward the tent flap once Damen was presented, eager to
be dismissed.

“It pains my father to know any of his subjects live outside of his protection,” Damen said,
after several moments of being ignored. If the man had no intention to greet him properly, he
would begin things himself. “But his patience is not infinite. You won’t like the consequences
that come if you continue to play these games.”

“My people are not the ones playing games, Prince Damianos. Those are my fellow Kyroi.
And I agree. We will not like the consequences we earn.” Timaeus made a final mark on the
map, and finally looked up. His eyes took Damen in for a moment, then slid past him to the
guard, perhaps in response to some movement Damen didn’t see. Timaeus frowned. “No; you
had your chance to leave and you wasted it. Don’t move. Did you think I was unaware of
what you were about?”

“I had to see him for myself,” the boy answered gruffly, oddly defensive. Damen glanced
back to see the boy lifting his head, his shoulders squaring. His high young voice grew
defiant. “You need me for this – even if you don’t want to admit it.”

“If this is another meeting with no purpose,” Damen began.

“I have a purpose, Prince of Akielos,” Timaeus interrupted. “I apologize for the treatment my
fellow Kyroi have offered you. You have every reason to be impatient with us. I apologize
that I was unable to address you alone during your prior dealings with the Free Tribes; it
certainly would have made matters simpler had the opportunity presented itself. The fact you
and your father have been patient this long tells me that you favor peace over retribution.
Your father wants a strong, united country. I respect that.”

Kyroi were never fully committed to the proper levels of respect due a Prince, or even a King
– even those who did not live in rebellion. That was how Father wanted things – how Damen
wanted them, too, when his time as King arrived. He wanted men who would question him,
men who were not afraid to argue. The fact a man had been deemed worthy of the position of
Kyroi meant that man was also worthy of speaking his mind to his ruler, whether it was
something the King wanted to hear or not. Damen had allowed a little of it in his previous
dealings with the Free Tribes; he wanted the men leading the camps to know that if they
united with Akielos, they would not be sentencing themselves to spending what remained of
their years groveling on their knees. He had only thrown his weight around in the face of the
most egregious of disrespect, and in return, despite the lack of progress in their meetings, he
had often been treated as a royal visiting another sovereignty aught to be. When the Tribes
had shown up for their meetings, they had feasted him and held primitive versions of Games,
and they had offered him use of their prettiest slaves.

“Father agreed to leave the Free Tribes be in return for tribute paid once every three years. He
found no cause to consider retribution. Until recently, that is. We are still willing to court
peace if the Tribes will stop this nonsense. I have no intention of breaking a peace older than
I am.”
“Then I trust you will accept the message I have for you without retaliation,” Timaeus said.
He looked down at his map again, surveying his handiwork. “I come to the Prince of Akielos
as a friend. I hope, one day, to come to him as an ally.”

“My father has told me exactly what it was to have your friendship, before it was lost,”
Damen said. “Say what you have to say.”

Timaeus nodded, still half-distracted by his map. Then he set his brush aside, wiped his hands
on the edge of his own chiton, and came around the table. Slowly, the action causing him
obvious pain, he got to his knees. Like a slave, he bent forward, and he pressed his forehead
to the floor.

“I surrender myself and my camp to the Prince of Akielos,” he said.

“You what?” Damen was too stunned to form a more sensible response.

“I will accept whatever judgement King Theomedes chooses to incur upon me for my
actions, those many years ago,” Timaeus said, “On the single condition that neither my
people nor my family are held accountable.”

“You betrayed my father,” Damen said. A lot could be done with a treaty, but surrender
acknowledged guilt and wrongdoing, and there was only one punishment for that.

“The other Tribes are banning together as they have not since the war.” It was the guard who
spoke, his voice high and clear. He came around from the entryway to stand beside the
kneeling Kyoi, his eyes on Damen bright and intelligent and challenging. “They are pooling
numbers and resources. They are crafting weapons. The tribute was not given, because it
went toward these efforts, instead. The Tribes are tired of hiding in foothills and stalking the
borders like common bandits. Too many young men have taken over their fathers’ positions
and hunger for more glorious legacies. They seek to carve their own land out of Akielos like
a knife carves out flesh.”

“They think they can move against my father?” Damen couldn’t stop an incredulous laugh.
“They don’t have the numbers, let alone the skill.”

“They have more resources than the Prince of Akielos may assume,” the guard said. “Don’t
underestimate our sister Tribes. There is a generation of young men with Akielon fathers and
Vaskian mothers, raised on resentment and rebellion. The women of that same generation are
as familiar with a spear as a sewing needle, and more fearless than their brothers. Their
fathers defied a King; they are eager to prove they can do the same.”

“Prince Damianos,” Timaeus did not lift his head, though he gestured toward the guard. “This
is my daughter. Jokaste.”

As Timaeus spoke, the boy reached up to remove his helm. Eyes on Damen, he – she – pulled
a long pin from her hair, freeing thick waves of golden blonde to come tumbling down
around her face, cascading down to the small of her back.
“The Tribes are planning to move before the next tribute is due,” Jokaste said. “The exact
time and target my father has not yet been able to ascertain. He would willingly gift it to you,
were he able. Rather than allow his people to participate in this folly, my father has chosen to
surrender himself – and them - to King Theomedes.”

“The Tribes will manage to claim some Akielon land,” Timaeus said. “I have no doubt about
that. They may even be so bold as to declare themselves an independent country. They
believe that the people of Akielos, crushed beneath the rule of a tyrant King, will be more
willing to join them than fight against them.”

“My father’s forces will roll over them so quickly their farce of a war will hardly be a
footnote for historians,” Damen scoffed. “Bringing even a quarter of the army to meet them
will be wasteful.”

“That is the very arrogance they are counting on,” Jokaste said. Akielon women did not
generally involve themselves in politics or military movements, though there had been
Queens in the ancient past. It was surprising to hear her so boldly interject her opinion. “The
Tribes know you and your father will never take them seriously. They plan to use that.”

Damen frowned at her. She met his eyes with bold intelligence.

“We have thrived in the years since your father’s bloody rampage through the land,” Jokaste
said. “You have seen the vibrancy of our camp. You see the numbers we have brought here to
meet you. What you have yet to realize is that this is only a fraction of Camp Timaeus – and
we are the smallest of the Free Tribes.”

“Your people chose to wander as bandits rather than live under my father’s rule. Why would
they want to form a country now? Isn’t unification the same goal my father had?”

“We live as ghosts caught between Akielos and Vask, or Akielos and Vere, or Akielos and
Patras. We have no rights, no citizenship, no justice, wherever we roam. They fear capture
and enslavement by Patras, assault from Vask. Now that Akielos beds down with Vere, we
fear to approach that border at all – and as I said, my generation hungers for glory and battle.
Our lot rankles like the ever-present burn of a rash.” Jokaste spoke as if it was she, and not
her father, who let Camp Timaeus, and Damen couldn’t help but suspect it was true; that as
her father grew older and frailer, Jokaste had begun to take more power. “Even still, that may
not have been enough to cause action,” she said, “But a warlord has come forward, powerful
and persuasive, and his talk of unification has set blood aflame. He has filled my people’s
heads with thoughts of glory and dreams of reclaiming Akielos inch by bloody inch, rescuing
it from the tyrant’s rule and bringing it back to what it once was.”

“My father isn’t a tyrant,” Damen said. “My father united Akielos. You want glory? My
father restored it. He gave Akielos back its heritage and brought our ancestors’ bones back to
their proper place of rest. The great Kings of legend sleep in peace because of my father’s
campaign.”

“Keep practicing your pretty speech-making,” she said. “You will need it when you lose
Dice.”
“Jokaste,” Timaeus said, the word a warning, and bright spots of color bloomed on her
cheeks as her father called her to heel like a dog. She had moved forward as she spoke, and
was now toe-to-toe with Damen, as if she intended to challenge him as a man might. Timaeus
had sat back on his heels, his hands on his thighs. He stared at his daughter until, with clear
reluctance, she backed off. Only then did he look at Damen again. “Forgive my daughter’s
impertinence,” he said. “You hand a woman a weapon, and she forgets her place. She is
convinced of the Tribes’ success. She was not alive for the war, and does not know how your
father fights, like a demon. She did not see him defeat six men at once, unaided, on the fields
of Sicyon. She knows that your father gave up Delpha in trade for alliance with Vere, and so
she sees weakness where there is none. She cannot be convinced of how thoroughly crushed
our people will be under your father’s heel, should this warlord succeed in igniting a war.”

“You prefer to fight for this warlord, then?” Damen asked her.

“I would rather my people remain free,” she answered, her chin lifted, jutting forward in
stubborn defiance.

“I don’t think either path leads to that,” Damen said. He could not help but notice that she
was very pretty. It was an inappropriate time for such thoughts, but he could not stop the
observation. She had the kind of exotic coloring that always caught Damen’s attention – all
blue eyes and pale skin and soft blonde curls. Damen had said it as gently as he could, but as
he spoke, Jokaste drew back, violently, as if he had struck her.

Timaeus bowed low, and once more pressed his forehead to the ground.

“Exalted,” he said, “Please take the night to consider my offer. Take a few days, if you wish.
Think carefully on the things I have told you here today. If you choose to accept my
surrender, I will take you to collect the rest of my camp, and then gladly follow you to Ios in
chains. I will welcome a traitor’s execution with a glad heart, knowing my people will live. If
you turn us away, we will be crushed beneath your father’s armies with the rest… or we will
choose to fight them on our own, and be crushed just the same.”

“There is another option,” Jokaste said, speaking up once more.

“Jokaste…” Timaeus warned. This time she did not heed him.

“My father does not like it. He willfully chooses not to see it. But it is there, plain as the
travel stains on your chiton.” She smirked as Damen, involuntarily, glanced down to check
himself. “A third option, and one does not require that my father die simply for doing what
he felt was right.”

“Jokaste!” Timaeus reached for his daughter’s arm, but she moved out of his reach, putting
her closer to Damen. There was something dangerous about her. She wore her armor with
familiarity; the sword at her side did not hang awkwardly. Her discarded helmet she held
propped against her hip as if by habit.

Damen did not back away. “And?” he challenged, wanting to hear what she would say.
Jokaste tilted her head, examining his face as if trying to decode a puzzle. Behind her,
Timaeus was slowly, painfully getting himself to his feet.

Damen tried very hard not to allow himself to be distracted by the soft pink color of her
mouth.

“I won’t pretend it isn’t a difficult path,” Jokaste said. “To choose this plan would require a
great deal of trust, on both sides – on our part, and yours. Are you capable of entertaining
such a thing, Exalted Prince? Can the great Damianos trust an enemy?”

“Are you my enemy, Jokaste?”

She smiled.

“My father’s plan is self-martyring and short-sighted,” she said, rather than answer. “The
Warlord’s fire burns bright in the hearts of our youth, even within my own camp. He has
filled their heads with thoughts of reclaimed birthrights, of taking back their country, of
marching into the ancestral homes none of them ever laid eyes on. Everyone who hears him
lusts after the idea of pulling your father from his throne, just as a dog lusts after a bitch.”

“Are you trying to make me feel safe, spending the night among your people?” Damen didn’t
mean to flirt, but it came out, anyway. He had looked at her lips just in time to be rewarded
by her smile.

“If my foolish father surrenders himself and leads our people to Ios to pledge to the so-called
King of Akielos, most of our youth will desert on the long march south. Not only will they
receive warm welcome in the arms of more likeminded camps, but they will carry with them
tales of my father’s treachery, and lose whatever advantage you gained here today. Moreover,
once we do join with you, we lose all insight into the other camps’ movements and
intentions. Reject my father’s plan, Prince Damianos. Reject it and go home and begin to
prepare your armies – and in return, we will report it to you every time one of your foes so
much as scratches his balls. That should easily earn my father a pardon once this is all over,
shouldn’t it?”

“Forgive her,” Timaeus said. “My daughter has been raised too much like a man, and so she
cannot help but think like one. She is brash and she overestimates her own capacity for
cleverness.”

“But she is very clever,” Damen said with a grin. Then, more serious, he said, “There is little
honor in this option. I don’t like such underhanded tactics.”

Jokaste’s gaze remained direct. “I am not concerned with how the Prince of Akielos perceives
my honor,” she said. “Survival is the only thing that matters. Survival, and freedom. Perhaps
the Prince of Akielos would better understand, had it been his rotten family forced to scrape
out a living as prey for all. Perhaps if the Prince of Akielos had watched his brother be
carried away to service the women of Vask – perhaps if he had suffered a winter in caves
filled with smoke, because Patran slavecatchers were camped out nearby, and a fire outdoors
could not be risked. Perhaps if the Prince of Akielos - !”
“Jokaste!” Timaeus interrupted, outraged. Damen held out a hand, forestalling him.

“I’m not so easily offended,” Damen promised. “But I do have to be clear; this isn’t the sort
of thing I have the ability to decide on without my father’s input.” Damen could guess
already what his father would say, but even with all the authority and trust he had been given,
this was too important a matter for him to be willing to act on without at least informing his
father first. “If you were expecting this visit to end on any sort of productive terms…”

“Far be it from me to demand quick answers from a man I turned my back on a lifetime ago,”
Timaeus said. “We do not possess an endless allotment of time, but there is some.”

“We cannot fight the other tribes,” Jokaste said. “If they come to collect us, we will be forced
to take part in their folly. Why waste the opportunity I have proposed?”

“Enough, Jokaste,” this time, Timaeus only sounded weary. He leaned against his desk,
waving a hand. “Consider yourself dismissed. Prince Damianos, will you honor our camp and
partake in our hospitality?”

The first time Damen had ventured forth to meet with emissaries of the Free Tribes,
Nikandros had been full of warnings. There were too many opportunities, he thought, for a
Prince to meet an untimely end. Harming a guest would invite the wrath of every god there
ever was or ever would be – but the Free Tribes were hardly men, already operating outside
the rules of honor and conduct. There was little chance they cared for the gods anymore.

“They could poison your food; make sure you allow a slave to taste of it first,” Nikandros had
cautioned. “They could drown you in the baths; don’t let one of them attend you. Have your
bedslave brought to you nude, and do not let her spend the night; she could slit your throat
while you sleep.”

Damen had laughed off his friends concerns and, whatever his frustrations with his prior
dealings with the tribes, he had come to no harm. There was, therefore, no accounting for the
uneasy feeling that began to settle in his gut as he followed Timaeus through the camp to the
slave tents.

“How do the tribes attain their slaves?” Damen asked, trying to distract himself from the
feeling. It was not a question that had occurred to him before; the Free Tribes were Akielon,
or they had been, once. It was only natural that the camps had slaves. He had even lain with
one, after his first meeting – a quiet and passive girl who turned her head to the tent wall and
barely made a sound. Damen had enjoyed the clear surprise it gave her, the first time he
brought her to pleasure, and the way, by the third time, he’d managed to break her of her
silence. It had pleased him, too, how she had clung to him the next morning when they came
to take her away.

It made sense that the Free Tribes would have lost some expertise that went into the training
of slaves, once they broke apart from Akielos – but it had not occurred to him to wonder
before where their slaves came from.

“Most are from raids,” Timaeus answered. “Veretian villages, Patran. Some of the other
tribes will attack an Akielon village occasionally, if the circumstances are favorable.
 Sometimes a Vaskian tribe will offer a good deal on one, or sell off their criminals. We don’t
have many who are born to it, unfortunately. Life isn’t easy here, and we have to prioritize
free people over slaves. It’s a pity; you can tell that by the quality of service they provide
when they don’t come to it naturally.”

“You don’t purchase them from slave houses?”

“Too risky to venture into a city large enough to have any,” Timaeus said, as if it should have
been obvious. “Sometimes we will deal with a caravan as it crosses a border, but they often
overcharge, and their wares usually need as much breaking as any of ours do, so there’s
rarely any point to it.”

When they reached the tent, Timaeus held aside the entryway for Damen to go in first.

In the dim interior of the slave tent, Damen found himself aware of things he had never
noticed before; the chains secured to heavy weights on the ground, run through collars that
had thick, heavy locks. The stench of fear. The quick exchange of fearful glances. The hands
that shook, that struggled not to cover up nudity as they dutifully rose to their feet. The
brands on a few feet. The lashes on a few backs.

Timaeus had the females form a line first for Damen’s assessment. One was limping, the
brand on her foot fresh and, from the smell, already infected. She had the pale skin of a
Veretian, and a copper tint to her hair. The others were Akielon. The males, lined up next,
their origins harder to place. Seven females in all, four males, including one boy, no older
than Laurent. When he joined the lineup, Damen looked to Timaeus in question.

“He’s in training,” was the answer. “For now, he changes their bedlinens and helps with their
baths and the laundry – but he is very pretty, and I would not want the Prince of Akielos to
feel slighted. I have heard tale you speak Veretian? Amelie here has yet to have had her First
Night, and has not yet come to understand her place. The Prince may find some small
amusement in the honor of participating in her education.”

The Veretian girl clearly did not know a word of Akielon – but she did understand her name.
She quailed, her trembling growing violent, and another of the women had to catch her as her
bad leg nearly gave out beneath her. She twisted, hiding her face against the neck of the one
who had caught her, and Damen saw the welts on her back. She did not manage to stifle a
sudden sob. Something in Damen wondered, suddenly, if prior to his marriage he would have
noticed her pain, her fear – or if he would have focused only on her exotic coloring and pretty
curves. The question in his mind seemed to speak with Laurent’s voice.

Suddenly, it was all too much.

Damen said, “I need some air.”

Chapter End Notes

This does come up later, but for those impatient, in case it wasn't clear enough - Theo
had Kastor taken to his (Kastor's) estates where he has been placed under house arrest.

What probably won't come up later, because of the two people involved, neither is a
POV - after dinner, Theo went to Kastor's rooms to ask about what happened, as he had
no idea of anything being amiss prior to Laurent's arrival. Kastor tried to put him off
saying they just got a little heated during a training session, and then Theo, in a move
reminiscent of his youngest son, grabbed Kastor's shoulder and squeezed it exactly
where he had been stabbed. He pushed his thumb into the wound until Kastor told
enough truth to satisfy, then he had a physician re-stitch him, the slaves pack his things,
and the guards escort him on his way.
 Chapter 29
Chapter Notes

If you guys could only see my notebooks. For the next ten chapters (maybe more) we
have reached a point where I keep having to go back and rewrite scenes multiple times
to get things just right, because everything is getting so damn complicated. It's exciting
but man is it the Most. I have to hop back and forth between notebooks trying to
decipher my notes to myself about what to keep and what to lose and pray it all comes
together cohesively at the end.

This kitten is bound and determined to "help." One day there will be just a string of
nonsense from little toe beans marching across the keyboard. Maybe I should just give
him some space to type.

One week ago, King Auguste of Vere had foolishly let himself believe that his life was
nearing perfection. Could he be blamed for letting himself think his world was finally setting
itself to rights? The months following his wedding had been happier than he had ever had
reason to expect.

The change seemed to happen overnight. Prior to his rushed marriage to Roslin, Auguste’s
subjects and his Council had seen him as a failure of a King. After – well, Councilman
Herode had called him the most promising monarch Vere had seen in centuries. That had to
mean something good.

With the money from Roslin’s dowry, Auguste was able to speed Delfeur’s recovery from the
savagery the Akielons had wreaked upon it - to make a sizeable impact, just in time for the
winter months. Auguste had been able to shore up the country's depleted grainhouses by
buying excess from their neighbors. He’d managed to replace a large number of stolen or
killed livestock the same way. He had even succeeded in having a large number of farmsteads
rebuilt. Because of his marriage to Roslin, Auguste could pay laborers and field hands to go
to Delfeur in droves, and by deepest winter it was clear that Vere would survive. Vere would
recover.

Almost more important than any of that was the official announcement that came from the
palace just a few months after matrimony: the Queen Consort was pregnant. An heir would
arrive by early summer.

Suddenly, when King Auguste rode down the streets of Arles, he was met by cheers, not
riots. Suddenly, when he sat with his Council, they listened to his words instead of speaking
over him as if he were a child. Suddenly, Auguste’s quick and unexpected wedding to a
commoner was no longer a scandal or a folly or a thoughtless act by a foolish boy – suddenly,
it was bold and brilliant political maneuvering that displayed Auguste’s love for and
commitment to his people. Auguste was a King for the Common Man.

Vere was fed through the winter. The farmlands of Delfeur would be ready for planting come
spring. The people were happy. They were hopeful. They had a King who had a heart for
them – a King who understood them. A King who had wed one of them.

Even before the announcement of the coming of the future heir, things had been improving.
Auguste’s impending fatherhood only changed the world for the better. It lifted one of the
heaviest weights that rested on Auguste’s shoulders. When he had heard the news, Auguste
had been ecstatic. A recovering country, an heir on the way, and a healthy wife to bear him.
Roslin had conceived so quickly and so easily that Auguste was certain this child was only
the first in what was sure to be a large and boisterous brood. Commoners bred so quickly,
after all; for the first time since Auguste’s grandfather’s generation, the palace in Arles would
soon be full of children’s laughter. Perhaps the injection of common blood into the dynasty
was just what had been needed to revitalize the waning royal line, beset for years by madness
and perversion.

The first thing Auguste had done on learning the news had been to write to his brother.

He had been so caught up in his happiness, in the excitement of the celebrations, of the
speeches and parades, of the sacrifices to the winter gods, that he almost hadn’t even noticed
when Laurent, as usual, failed to respond.

Pregnancy seemed to bloom something in Roslin. She smiled more. She hummed at her
sewing. Auguste made sure her bower had fresh flowers every morning. They walked
together every evening. Roslin was not at all like Auguste’s mother had been – brilliant and
quick-witted and fierce and temperamental. Nor did she possess the saucy confidence of the
women Auguste usually dallied with. Roslin was soft and quiet, a sweet, tender-hearted,
hopeful girl. Roslin told him about her favorite trees on her father’s farm. She sang pretty
country songs over him while he fell asleep. She told him that, at first, the other Ladies at
court had been cold to her, but that now that they knew she carried the next heir, they had
become much more friendly, and she was looking forward to making friends with all of them.
(Hearing this, Auguste asked the Lady Vannes to keep an eye on her, and he doubled her
guard. It had not occurred to him, before, just how ill-suited to courtly intrigue his bride
really was. If the other women were becoming friendly, they could only have some plot
afoot.)

Auguste had been looking forward to bringing Roslin to Akielos to meet his brother. Auguste
expected Laurent would find her dull, but he wanted the mother of his children to meet the
boy who, for so long, had been the most important person in Auguste’s life. Whatever it was
that had come between them, Auguste was certain that they could repair it during this next
visit. Roslin, and the life growing within her, was proof that they could make things good
again. Despite mother’s death. Despite father’s death. Despite Laurent’s marriage to that
filthy Akielon. Life went on, and they could be happy. They would be happy. This was proof
- and he had years yet to save his brother from the alliance. He could find a way. This told
him he could find a way. They would be brothers again. Laurent could have his books and his
solitude and his peace. Auguste could find a way.
Auguste knew that he would never be able to love dear Roslin, but he was grateful for her. He
felt warmth for her. He enjoyed her sweet, simple company. He did want to be kind to her. He
did want her to be happy. Perhaps, one day, they would even be friends. For the first time
since his father's death, Auguste felt like himself again.

Then Roslin had her accident, and Auguste’s fragile peace of mind shattered.

--

The morning it happened, Auguste had been at his desk.

His correspondence from Akielos that morning contained nothing important or unexpected.
Alois had had nothing to report, save that Laurent was healthy and well-treated, and that he
seemed to be happy. Alois said that Laurent seemed fond of that disgusting oaf Damianos,
and he even seemed to be forming some sort of friendship with the bastard, Kastor.

Albur had sent filthy sketches of slave girls in various inventive and intriguing positions.
Eliott and Quincy had written him contradicting accounts of a sparring match they both
claimed to have won. Claude’s long, rambling letter had been in rhyming verse, and Auguste
gave up on getting anything of worth out of it on page four.

Auguste had just reached Laurent’s letter – a short, tepid note requesting Auguste increase his
monthly allowance so that he could purchase more slaves – when Marcel came rushing into
his rooms.

Auguste had already been rising – he could tell right away by the pallor on the man’s face
that something was wrong.

“The Queen Consort,” Marcel began, out of breath.

Auguste was already heading for the door.

Sebastian was with her, trying to stop the bleeding from a wound in her head. He said he had
been passing by when Roslin took a tumble down the stairs. There had been no trace of her
guards nearby, nor anyone else. Sebastian had already sent for the palace physicians; they
were on their way.

That had been nearly a month ago. It was hard to keep track of the endless days that passed
since the accident; Auguste wasn’t exactly sure of the timeline. Roslin hadn’t lost the baby,
but her recovery – her recovery wasn’t going well.

The official word from the palace was that, while the Queen Consort had indeed had a little
incident and scare, everything was fine. Mama was healthy and so was the little Prince
growing in her belly.

Unofficially, something was wrong. The physicians still claimed that the pregnancy remained
viable, but Roslin seemed to have been weakened, somehow, by her accident. At first, she
had been able to speak, weakly. She’d been working on sitting up without getting faint. At
first, she had been her usual sweet self. At first, she had been getting stronger every day.
Then, something changed. Her mind became muddled, confused. She started to speak less
and less. Then she began to spend days just lying motionless in bed with her eyes open,
breathing but utterly unresponsive.

“It’s a complication of the headwound,” most of the physicians agreed. They claimed that the
wound had thrown her humors out of alignment and the elements in her body were now
flowing in the wrong directions. They recommended bleeding and a tincture of lemon balm
and sage. Auguste had had at least a dozen come in to examine her when her progress
stopped. The only one whose opinion differed was a man named Paschal – a foreigner who
had served both of Auguste’s parents during their lives.

“There is a poison they make in Patras,” Paschal told him. “It causes symptoms like this.
They call it the Living Death; it traps a person within their body. I have the recipe for the
antidote. With Your Majesty’s permission, I will send to a friend in Patras for the
ingredients.”

“Will it realign her humors?” Uncle Richard asked. “Auguste, if she revives, but her humors
are still out of sorts…”

“I do not believe in humors,” Paschal answered, matter-of-fact. “Her head wounds were
minor and would not have caused this. There is nothing that would have caused her to
improve and then decline in this manner. She has been poisoned.” He paused in the act of
packing up his supplies, then looked up, meeting Auguste’s eyes. “Your Highness, I will be
honest with you. There is the potential of harm to the Queen if I administer the antidote and
my diagnosis is wrong; however, even if I am correct, the ingredients are highly caustic. The
Queen is still strong. If she truly has been poisoned, she will survive the cure - but antidote
will kill the unborn child within her, regardless.”

“You should have that man turned off,” Uncle Richard said, after Auguste thanked and
dismissed the physician. “To think he would even suggest a medicine that would kill your
child! And what does he mean he ‘doesn’t believe in humors’?”

“He is from Kempt; he came south with Mother.”

“Ah, that explains it.”

Auguste felt vague and unreal and helpless as he sat down on the edge of Roslin’s bed and
took her hand in his. It was pale and cold. Her eyes shifted to look at him, but otherwise she
remained completely motionless. “Mother always said her people had the most advanced
medical knowledge in the world.”

“Witchcraft and black magic, dear boy,” Uncle Richard said. “Wicked, dangerous stuff. You
should not allow yourself to entertain his madness for a moment. Give up false hope. There is
nothing to be done but resign yourself to the fact this may be permanent.”

It was ridiculous, how much Auguste had wanted Laurent to be there with him in that
moment. Laurent was only a child, but Auguste felt certain that the boy would have read
something in some book, obtained some obscure piece of knowledge, somehow know what
the right course was to take, whether to give Roslin the antidote or focus on her humors or try
something else.

“It isn’t as great a loss as it could have been,” Uncle Richard said, trying to console him. “We
can still get food down her. She can still carry the child to term. Once it’s delivered, you will
have your heir. If she survives it, you could even impregnate her again if you wanted to. She
can continue to be productive as long as her body hold up, despite her condition.” He
squeezed Auguste’s shoulder, as if he thought his words comforting.

“Sebastian,” Auguste said.

His friend and captain was, of course, at hand, even though it wasn’t currently his shift.
“Your Majesty?” he asked immediately.

“Your pet is from Patras, isn’t he? Amir? Wasn’t his mother a physician or something?”

“An apothecary.”

“Fetch him. Please.” Auguste wanted to see if Amir knew anything about this poison; if he
had ever heard of it – if its administration was as dangerous as Paschal said. He didn’t need to
explain that to his friend, though; Sebastian left without further question or argument.

The room was still and silent after he left. Earl Varden was sitting near the window, staring
out as if in deep thought. Uncle Richard had moved to stand at the end of the bed, his face
deeply concerned.

It felt odd and too personal, the three of them in his wife’s bedchamber. Auguste had never
visited her here before her accident – he always had her brought to him when it was time for
them to see to their duties. Auguste had not been in this room at all since it had belonged to
his mother. He could not help but to think of her now, stretched on this very bed. Mother had
never been this still or this silent. Mother had tried so hard to hide her illness from her sons.
Auguste had never believed it was serious – not until she asked him to take Laurent away
before her death.

Roslin’s eyes were still on him. A tear slid, slowly, down her cheek. Auguste wanted to
apologize to her, but he didn’t know what he would be apologizing for.

“We’ll retire to the sitting room,” Auguste decided, rising. He couldn’t bear to be in here with
her anymore. He couldn't bear the thought that she could hear every word they said, hear
them discussing her and her potential to be productive while trapped in her own body. “The
Queen Consort needs her rest. I’m sure she does not welcome the presence of so many men
in her personal chambers.”

Leaving her felt like an act of cowardice, but the other men followed him out without
comment. Uncle Richard closed the door, softly, behind them.

--

“You can throw that in a fire,” Laurent said. “I don’t fucking want it.”
Erasmus felt trapped as a field mouse finding itself under the eye of a circling hawk, his hand
still extended to accept the note the guardsman Alois carried. He froze with his fingertips just
barely brushing the letter, caught with the feeling of having touched something foul. The
Prince had not looked away from his target, nor so much as glanced at the approaching
guardsman, but Erasmus still wondered if Laurent would prefer he wash his hands before
attending to any more of his duties.

Alois, smoothly and without sharing any of the fears or concerns Erasmus felt, disappeared
the note back into the pocket it had come from.

“I did warn guardsman Albur that you would not accept his apology, no matter how pretty his
calligraphy,” he said.

“A Prince does not accept apologies from swine, written or otherwise – and a guard who
leaves is post is swine.” Laurent pulled a fresh arrow from the quiver waiting at his hip, still
without looking at Alois. “I don’t care how badly he needed to take a piss. He left me.”

“You were with your brother-in-law,” Alois began, but stopped when the prince’s poisonous
gaze fixed on him. He nodded. “It’s no excuse,” he amended.

“No,” Laurent said. “It isn’t.”

Alois nodded. He glanced around the practice yard as if for help, and finding none, he sighed.
“I will pass along your response, then,” he said.

“As well pass along that he should begin to look for alternative employment,” Laurent said.
As Albur was one of the guards who had served King Auguste, Laurent could not officially
dismiss him, himself. He was, however, confident that his brother would support his request,
should he ask to turn the man off. He had told Kallias that he only had to tell Auguste about
what had happened with Kastor and he would have his way. Whatever had come between the
two of them, he was sure it would be fixed, once they met face to face again. Erasmus found
that he simultaneously envied and took pride in his Prince’s implacable assurance. Laurent
said, “I already have his replacement in mind.”

Alois frowned, but he did not argue. Erasmus kept his head down, and he busied himself with
freshening his Prince’s coffee at the little outdoor refreshment table he and Iphegin had
prepared.

Laurent wanted to make Larius and Aden into official Prince’s Guards. They all knew it.
Ermis had been the one serving when the Prince had called the two into his quarters
alongside a few of his current guard to discuss his plan – and though it went against
everything they had ever been taught to share a word about their master’s private business,
Ermis lived on gossip, and had not been able to stop himself from telling the rest of the boys
– though surely Laurent would have let them all know himself, in time.

Anyway, Aden and Larius held themselves differently, since then. They still faithfully
attended their duties when it was their turn, but now they also spent more time on the practice
field, and they worked even harder on the lessons their Prince assigned them – reading and
writing, maps, Veretian language. They had begun to speak up more freely, too, which had
shocked Erasmus like a blow the first time he heard it, but seemed to utterly delight the
Prince.

“It’s smart,” Kallias had said, as they lay together in the darkness of the room they all shared
– a palace suite converted into servant dormitories for Laurent’s boys. It had been a cold
night, and the two future guardsmen were still out somewhere running drills, or studying in
the palace library. Iphegin had been on duty, and so was sleeping in the little cubby in the
Prince’s rooms where he would be easily available if needed during the night – so that had
just left the two of them and Ermis, who slept like the dead. Erasmus had tried not to be too
shocked, though his face felt set on fire, when, as soon as he was certain Ermis was out,
Kallias had come and climbed into bed with him, putting cold feet against his legs and
insincerely promising to go back to his own place once he was warm.

“Smart?” Erasms had repeated, secretly pleased by the added warmth beside him, the thrill he
felt whenever beautiful Kallias had his attention only on him, the fact he was the only one
Kallias talked like this to, giving his opinions like Erasmus was smart enough to understand
them, like he was worthy of listening. His judgement on this surprised him; sure, their Prince
was brilliant, as well as gentle and kind and beautiful, but – “Being a guard isn’t their place.”

“If the Prince says it’s their place, it is,” Kallias said. “What else should their place be? None
of us are slaves anymore, and they want it. He said they could do what they wanted. He said
he’s going to let them apply in the summer – officially.”

The fact they weren’t slaves anymore was still difficult to remember – harder to believe.
Whenever Erasmus thought about it too much, it made him feel strange – untethered, kind of
queasy. If he thought too much about what he wanted… well, he tried not to think about it.

“They’ll start thinking too much of themselves,” Erasmus said.

Kallias hummed thoughtfully, and Erasmus felt it against the back of his neck. It gave him
shivers that he kind of secretly liked. Kallias had put his arms around him so that they could
both fit on the narrow little bed, and Erasmus liked that, too.

“They have the most anger,” Kallias said at last. “And anger needs a direction. If the Prince
failed to give them one, they would have found one on their own. This is better.”

Erasmus had shifted, rolling over and propping himself up on an elbow so he could look
down at his friend, even though that meant he couldn’t feel the tickle of his breath against his
skin anymore.

“What do you mean?” Erasmus had asked. Neither boy had ever seemed particularly angry to
him – only quiet. Distant. It was disappointing to know that the Prince of Vere had ruined
their chances of serving as bedslaves to the royal household, but Prince Laurent had been
well-meaning. It wasn’t fair to be mad at him over it. Erasmus had thought everyone was just
as proud to serve him as he was.

Kallias never did answer him.

“Albur’s note isn’t the only correspondence you’ve received today,” Alois said, bringing
Erasmus back to the present. The guardsman reached out without permission, correcting the
Prince’s elbow as he drew fletching to his cheek. “If I might be so bold as to ask – “

Thwack.

Laurent released the arrow and it struck an outer ring of his target with frightening force, the
shaft vibrating with restrained violence as it impaled itself.

“So,” Laurent said, into the answering silence. “You have also been reading my mail.”

Alois drew back. When the Prince turned fully toward him, levelling his hard blue stare on
him, the guardsman licked his lips. Erasmus thought that the small, involuntary gesture did
not betray nerves so much as guilt.

“Your Highness,” Alois began.

“I am aware that my father-in-law has my correspondence read – or else sees to the matter
himself. I would do the same. I am an enemy prisoner, once you strip all the pretty marriage
talk from it. Just another prize of war. He would be a fool not to watch every missive that
comes in or out of his palace where I am concerned, and Theomedes is not a fool.”

“Your Highness – “

“I am also aware, you should know, that you are my brother’s spy. I’ve known it for ages, and
I’ve tested it dozens of times; I will be furious if you insult my intelligence by trying to deny
it now. You are my brother’s spy, and he sent you with me so that you could report back to
him every time I so much as break wind.”

“Prince Laurent – “

“I understand all of that,” Laurent said, rounding on him. “What I do not understand if how
or why reading the personal correspondence between my brother and me is in any way a part
of your duties. Dis my brother hire you for the purpose of spying on himself?”

“I’m – not his spy,” Alois said. “I notice things, and I report them. That is all.”

“Do you want to play this game out with me, Alois? You will not like it.”

The guardsman bowed his head. He said, “No, Your Highness.”

Prince Laurent turned back to his target, frowning, his blue-eyed glare fixed on the haphazard
smattering of arrows stuck into the painted rings and around the ground before it. Erasmus
kept his head bowed, and he pretended he wasn’t watching. Guilt made his belly hurt;
Laurent had only received the letter this morning, but Erasmus had read it, too. Or, he had
tried to. He was doing his best to learn Veretian for his Prince, and Laurent wanted him to be
able to read in both languages. It wasn’t that he had made it a habit to read his Prince’s mail
after the last time, but he had taken to trying to practice anywhere he could – picking up any
note or book he came across and glancing at it in between his other duties. He hadn’t known
it was another letter from King Auguste until he had already struggled through most of it.
Before he’d realized what it was, Erasmus had even been planning to ask if he could keep it
to practice with, since it was more challenging than much of the other Veretian writing he had
come across. The Prince no longer heard from his brother often enough for Erasmus to
recognize it, and Laurent often let him borrow little notes and lists he wrote out for himself,
once he was done with them. Erasmus had put it down immediately once he realized what it
was.

He was ashamed for his actions – for getting so comfortable that he would just help himself
to things on the Prince’s desk without asking. He had been planning to confess – truly, he had
– but knowing that he hadn’t been the first to invade the Prince’s privacy now made him
afraid to.

“What is happening with my brother, Alois?” Laurent asked, softly, his eyes on the target.

“Your Highness?” the guardsman asked.

“His letters don’t sound like him,” Laurent said. He pulled a new arrow, but he was slow
fitting it into place. “His actions don’t sound like him, either.”

Erasmus knew that King Theomedes had recently had the palace busy preparing for the
Prince’s upcoming birthday and the subsequent visit from the King of Vere. Prince
Damianos, who was still away on some business in the north that Erasmus didn’t understand,
was even supposed to be coming back for it – a rumor that thrilled the Prince more than talk
of any celebrations or games.

Now – if Erasmus understood what he had read – now the King of Vere had announced that
he was no longer coming to Akielos. Now – and, surely, Erasmus had misunderstood
something somewhere – now, King Auguste was demanding that Laurent come to Vere for
his birthday, instead.

“Nothing is happening to your brother, Your Highness,” Alois assured him. “Nothing, save
that he is a King now, and the pressures on a King are different than the pressures on a
Prince.”

Laurent drew the arrow, and released it. When it landed dead center – his first to do so – he
didn’t smile.

“His letters sound like Father,” he said. “What do I do if he…?” Laurent didn’t continue the
thought, whatever it was. Alois remained silent, his eyes on the Prince. Erasmus worried for a
moment that one of them would finish the question. What do I do if he’s stopped loving me?
It was too personal, too private. Erasmus couldn’t bear to hear it. He didn’t know how anyone
could fail to love his Prince, but he had seen the letters that Laurent wrote to his brother and
decided not to send because there was too much in them. He had practiced his writing on the
back of one that pled, heartbreakingly, to know what he had done wrong, what he had done to
make his brother so angry at him, so cold.

Elsewhere, somewhere across the field, a palace slave began to chime the bell that indicated
the change of the hour. Laurent shook himself as if coming out of a deep slumber, and he
pulled his eyes, at last, from his target.
“Come,” he said to Erasmus, with a flicker of a smile. “Jord will be waiting to thrash us at
swords.”
 Chapter 30

Auguste felt strained and exhausted and the day had hardly even begun. Never in his life had
smiling and making conversation seemed so taxing.

The party at Chastillon was larger than Auguste had wanted it to be. Somehow, it seemed that
every time he turned his back, ten more guests had made their way onto the invite list. Now
the number of attendees was absolutely vulgar, the walls of the keep bulging with courtiers
and Pets, soldiers and servants. Laurent had never been half so popular before the novelty of
a foreign marriage had been stuck to him.

Everyone had arrived a day early to get settled in. Auguste had wanted the time to make sure
every last preparation was seen to. His dream of a private, intimate meeting here in Chastillon
before taking his brother on to be greeted officially in Arles had vanished like a puff of
smoke, overtaken by obligation.

It was early afternoon when the runners came with word of the approach of the Prince and his
party. Now Chastillon’s courtyard was filled with people drinking wine and nibbling little
treats like they were attendees at some highly anticipated outdoor fete. There were even
musicians playing background music.

It was all wrong, but Auguste hadn’t been able to stop it. Laurent had just spent nearly a
week at sea, followed by four days riding over land. He was a shy and bookish boy – Auguste
knew that a large gathering would be the last thing he would want to find himself confronted
with. Auguste had tried to suggest to the runner that he should go back and make sure
Laurent had proper warning of what it was that awaited him, but Auguste was no good at
subtle double-speak and wasn’t convinced that the man had understood him.

“No, no, you’re concern is deeply appreciated, but I assure you – the Queen Consort has only
taken to her bed as a precaution. It is the most precious of cargoes she carries, after all,”
Auguste could hear Earl Varden’s nasally, pompous voice all the way across the courtyard,
even with the musicians and the din of the gathering. The man spoke as if he wanted to be
sure that everyone heard him. He looked all puffed up, too – swollen with his own self-
importance. Auguste didn’t care that his assessment was uncharitable; it was true. The man
was dressed from head to toe in green velvet slashed through with mustard yellow – both
colors so saturated that Auguste had warned the staff to watch for any stains he might leave
on the furniture. He wore at least a dozen heavy necklaces, and he had rings on every finger.
There were three very large exotic ostrich feathers in his hat, each one dyed a different shade
of pink. It would have been a controversial outfit on its own, even if the rest of the court
hadn’t still been wearing their dark winter tones. Some of the Court seemed to find his daring
to be exotic and exciting – but the more fashion-conscious knew it for the level of ridiculous
it really was. Ostentatious displays of wealth were meant for decorating one’s Pets, not
oneself. When Laurent arrived, Auguste was sure he would give the man a thorough
schooling if given the chance. Auguste was prepared to enjoy every scathing moment.
It wasn’t even as if Earl Varden lacked pets to dress up – just that he kept them nearly naked.
Earl Varden had taken on a pair of twins after obtaining his title. The two were svelte and
vicious, always twining around his legs like a pair of cats, their every move somehow
suggesting the viewer had caught them mid-coitus. They glittered in the heaps of jewelry the
Earl dressed them in. (It was all glass. Before her illness, Roslin had confessed it to Auguste
with a conspiratorial giggle during some state party, pulling him back into an alcove to point
it out.) The sum that the man spent on jewelry and clothing was truly insulting when there
were so many citizens still in need of assistance after the war – but the idea that he would
keep the real valuables to himself and ply his Pets with fakes was even more unseemly.

The Pets couldn’t have been aware of it yet, or they surely would have broken their contract
by now. They followed the Earl absolutely everywhere, which was the current fashion with
Pets. The presence of Pets at Court was hardly a new phenomenon – a noble with a clever
and loyal pet could do quite well for himself in the usual games of intrigue, after all – but
never before had the chief purpose of Pets been so blatant. It was almost like it had become
some kind of competition to see whose pet could wear the least without being truly nude –
whose had on the most jewelry – whose came the closest to an actual public sex act.

Auguste found the whole trend tacky and embarrassing, but when two of the Councilmen
started showing up to meetings touting dueling flirty young men on leashes, Uncle Richard
had laughed off his disdain.

“The usual Court games were getting dull,” Uncle Richard told him. He had started to bring
his own Pet along, too, though the fourteen-year-old he currently held on contract was,
thankfully, always fully dressed, his jewels kept to the minimum of one or two exorbitantly
expensive pieces. Uncle Richard did not allow him to flirt or even sit on his lap or at his feet.
He always had a proper chair, near Uncle Richard’s ward Nicaise, who often sat in for the
sake of his own education, his tutor nearby to make sure he stayed on task and didn’t
interrupt. Were it now for the glitter of rubies in Uncle’s Pet’s ears, one could almost dismiss
his presence as that of a companion to a royal ward – an older boy helping to mind a younger.
“The Court needs something to brighten it up after all these years of war.”

When Auguste had married Roslin, he’d thought he was learning to embrace the cool and
emotionless practicality his uncle advised, even if it took a different form than that which
Richard had advised. Auguste had, after all, resigned himself to an unpleasant decision that
benefitted the most people. He had succeeded in hardening his heart and ignoring his own
desires for the good of his people, performing his duty with his commoner bride night after
night after night, until he had succeeded in getting her with child. What was one girl’s
unhappiness in exchange for his people’s ability to eat? And Roslin, before her accident,
hadn’t seemed that unhappy. Auguste had found himself even growing content with her.

Even with that level of success, however, Auguste could not completely turn his mind toward
his uncle’s manner of thinking. Allowing the Pets to debauch his Court was a political move.
There was a purpose to it. Auguste was sure there was a point. He just hadn’t yet figured out
what that point was.

Auguste was hardly in his uncle’s confidences, anyway. Uncle Richard claimed that all was
forgiven between them. His little bite of revenge by revealing Nicaise at the wedding had
satisfied him, he said. (Nicaise, Auguste had found, was a very polite, very shy boy, much
like Laurent. Uncle Richard always kept him busy with his tutors and his lectures, always
close enough on hand to keep the Court reminded of who he was and who his father was
likely to be. Auguste had had little chance to interact with him one on one, though.) Contrary
to Uncle Richard’s words, things between them remained tepid – but they were not at war
with one another. Uncle Richard still made himself available to Auguste, still freely offered
up his wisdom.

“You are my beloved nephew,” Uncle Richard had told him, when Auguste steeled himself
for the difficult conversation he knew that they needed to have. He had put his hand on
Auguste’s shoulder and given it a squeeze, just like when Auguste had been a boy. “There is
nothing that will compromise the depth of love I have for you and your brother. You know,
your father and I didn’t always see eye to eye, either. You aren’t going to lose me simply
because you are proving to be usually disobedient.”

He had succeeded in putting Auguste’s mind at ease – somewhat – but it did nothing to
change the fact that Auguste was wary of whatever else his uncle had plotting. The man had,
after all, freely admitted that he had no hesitation toward getting his hands dirty when he felt
the situation warranted it.

Uncle Richard seemed to have befriended Earl Varden since Roslin’s illness, and Auguste
could not bring himself to believe the connection was genuine. Aside from a fondness of his
own for wearing too much jewelry, Auguste could not see what Uncle Richard could have in
common with the man.

Earl Varden sipped at his wine with overly-affected delicacy. When he smiled at the Courtier
who had inquired about his daughter’s concerning health, it showed off the unnaturally white
gleam of his teeth. That was a new trend, too – Courtiers had begun to bleach their teeth
using a mouth wash made of goats’ milk and stale urine. Earl Varden was a stickler for the
practice, taking the concoction religiously after every meal and even between courses at
dinner, and the odor of it always hung around him ominously, no matter how much perfume
he doused himself with later.

“The Queen Consort is strong and young and healthy,” Earl Varden boasted, as Auguste drew
near. “Look at how quickly and how easily she managed to conceive! An unfortunate fall will
not slow her down. She comes from high quality breeding stock.” He thumped himself
soundly on the chest for emphasis. “A sturdy Veretian farmgirl will always outproduce some
frail foreign waif, mark my words. That was the problem, you know. Before.”

“By ‘before,’” Auguste interjected, “You wouldn’t happen to be referring to my mother,

would you? She was, after all, a frail, foreign waif, wasn’t she? Is that the comparison you
are making here?”

Earl Varden had not noticed Auguste’s approach. Perhaps if he had, he might have taken the
time to rethink his strategy for this conversation. Auguste waited as the man gaped at him,
fishlike. He felt utterly content to let the awkwardness of the matter grow for as long as it
pleased.
“Auguste!” Uncle Richard laughed, rescuing the Earl far too soon for Auguste’s tastes. He
scolded him as if his King was still a boy. “What an uncharitable assumption for you to
make.”

“Don’t scold me, Uncle. I am not a child. Everyone knows Mother was sickly. Everyone
knows how she struggled to birth Laurent and myself. I want to know what his point it.”

“I’m certain your father-in-law was only referring to the multitude of other options you were
forced to fend off when you chose our sweet Queen. He was shining a light on Your
Majesty’s wisdom – not offering insult to your dearly departed mother, gods grant her peace.”

“Yes!” the Earl agreed, too readily. “Yes. Ahem. Indeed. I was actually just about to suggest
we toast to His Majesty’s great wisdom and foresight, in fact!” He turned, quickly, back
toward his audience, only to find that most of them had found somewhere else to be.

“Your daughter is not a brood mare,” Auguste began, before either his uncle or his father-in-
law could begin to scold him again. He was interrupted by the blare of horns.

The sentries had spotted Laurent’s party.

--

Laurent rode in at the head of the party, riding his beloved horse Madeleine, all decked out in
a Prince’s riding tack. Auguste had purchased that horse for him. He had helped him train her
with his own two hands. He had even purchased that tack. Even still, he had trouble
recognizing his brother.

Laurent had grown, for one. He was still small, but closer to a man’s average height than he
had been. He had not tanned, but there was a glow to him, and his hair – grown out all the
way to his shoulders and left loose the way the barbarians wore it, held back by nothing more
than a golden laurel crown – had bleached itself out to an even paler shade of blond, nearly
white, like it had been when he was a child. He wore a heavy Akielon cloak of wool, a
himation, against the spring chill, but the thing was open at the side, and beneath it Auguste
could see that he wore a chiton, and his calves were laced into sandals. When he dismounted,
he paused to give one of the boys following him instructions about his horse/ The words were
in Akielon, but Auguste recognized enough to surmise their purpose. Only that last bit was
enough to convince him it was his brother he was seeing.

“Being half-married doesn’t mean you must also be half-Akielon, brother,” Auguste said by
way of greeting, moving to meet him rather than forcing Laurent to approach him like some
sort of foreign supplicant. Laurent was not carrying himself like a shy child hoping against all
hope to escape notice, not the way he used to. His laugh, Auguste was pleased to notice, his
laugh sounded the same.

Despite his gaping absence from Auguste’s wedding – despite his frustrating lack of
communication – Auguste didn’t hesitate to embrace him the moment he was close enough to
fold him into his arms. Laurent hugged back, tightly.

--
Auguste smelled like home, and Laurent found himself struggling against the unexpected
urge to cry from the moment his brother’s arms closed around him. The homesickness that
Laurent had stubbornly fought against for well over a year crashed into him now with all the
force of those waves that day he and Damianos had gone down to the shore shortly before a
storm rolled in. If Auguste hadn’t been holding him, Laurent felt sure it would have swept his
feet right out from under him.

--

Laurent had been determined that he would not go to Arles.

Up until the very last day when plans could reasonably be made, he had been sure he would
die before allowing himself to be dragged to Vere for this birthday. He had sworn to himself
that he would not allow his brother to get away with the way he had been treating him –
ignoring him for months at a time, failing to tell him about, much less invite him to, his
damned wedding. Now he thought he could order Laurent to his side like a dog coming to
heel?

Plans have changed, Auguste had written. I will not be coming to Akielos. Come to Vere by
the week of your birthday. I will meet you in Chastillon.

Not even a full letter. Four sentences. Four sentences. That was the extent of his brother’s
regard for him.

Anger had been easier to deal with than admitting that he was hurt would have been. Laurent
had sworn to himself that he wouldn’t go even if Auguste begged him. He wasn’t sure
himself what had changed his mind, except that Damianos had written that he feared he may
be unable to make it back to Ios before Laurent’s birthday, and Laurent had been looking
forward to his return so much he couldn’t stand the thought of being there on that day without
him.

“It is, of course, your decision,” Theomedes had said, when Laurent told him that he had
changed his mind, and Laurent couldn’t think of a way to make himself explain that if he
stayed in Ios he was afraid he would spend the day contemplating all the worst things his
future could hold in store for him – unwanted by his brother, forgotten by his spouse… or
maybe it would be the other way around. It stung, feeling like he was being ordered to come
home, but at least Auguste had thought of him, he supposed.

Kastor had been at the King’s side when Laurent came to tell him of his decision. Laurent
had, in fact, interrupted some tense discussion between them. It was the first time he and his
brother-in-law had faced each other since that day when – since – since that day.

He should not have been surprised when the bastard sought him out later. That was the run
his luck seemed to be taking these days, after all.

At least the bastard chose to do it in a room full of other people. At least he hadn’t tried to
corner Laurent somewhere private. Maybe he knew Laurent had started keeping a knife
hidden on himself. He invited Laurent to his table that night at dinner.
“You can’t honestly think I’m that stupid, can you?” Laurent asked, leaning back on his
couch and working very hard to appear at-ease as he glared up at the man standing before his
own table.

“You are refusing my invitation?” Kastor asked. He frowned like he was incapable of
grasping the thoughts. Like prior to this moment he and Laurent had been the best of friends,
and he simply could not imagine why he was now being received so coldly.

“Of fucking course I am refusing your fucking invitation,” Laurent bit out, softly. Beside
him, Aimeric made a sound like a laugh, though he kept his head down and his gaze averted.

Kastor considered it, then nodded, some decision made. “Very well,” he said, and then,
switching to Veretian, “Kastor to be joining you, then.”

They were delicate things, the calculations Laurent had to make, trying to decide whether or
not he had the standing to refuse him. The spouse of a Prince did not outrank the brother of
one, not without being a King, himself – but in Akielos and Vere, both, a bastard had less
standing than a legitimate son. Kastor had more rights in Akielos than he would have in Vere,
but he still had a weaker bloodline than Laurent did. On the other hand, despite Laurent’s
long heritage of unbroken royal blood, he was foreign, and Kastor was not. Worse than
foreign – Laurent was Veretian. The question became who was more tainted – Kastor by his
bastardry, or Laurent by his foreignness.

If Laurent instructed his guards to remove the bastard from his table, they would obey. He
was certain of that. What he wasn’t certain about was whether or not Kastor’s guards would
in turn interfere with the removal. Was trying worth the effort and the fuss?

In the end, none of it mattered. As Kastor began helping himself to a couch, Theomedes
called him to his table. They spoke, and Kastor took his place at his father’s left, though he
appeared agitated to be asked to do so.

Then Theomedes called for Laurent.

Laurent considered himself neither particularly bold, nor possessing an abundance of

cowardice – but he did not want to go. Laurent had been shy as a child; after all, whenever he
spoke up or took action of his own without permission, it did tend to lend toward punishment
and disdain, even humiliation. But he would not say that he had ever been scared of a man
before.

It occurred to him, when he received the King’s gesture, that there were now two men in the
world who frightened him: Uncle, and Kastor. Laurent didn’t like the feeling.

He pushed himself up from his table, and approached the King of Akielos like a prisoner on
his way to the gallows. He kept his chin lifted. He kept his eyes looking ahead. He could feel
Kastor’s gaze on him, and he knew that if he faced it, he could find himself back in the
gymnasium again, pressed once more against the table, the bastard’s breath in his face.

If you were a man, I would have taken you already.

Call me Master.

Say it.

“Exalted,” Laurent had greeted, and his voice came out cold but calm.

Theomedes nodded for him to take Damen’s place to his right.

--

Laurent picked at his dinner.

Conversations at the royal table were minimal. Theomedes sat like a wall between Kastor and
Laurent.

At Laurent’s table, Aimeric now sat alone, his gaze intent on Laurent – as if he could be of
any help now. Laurent’s boys, too, at their own table, lower and slightly behind his – they
were staring, too, their attention only breaking from him when they felt the need to talk,
softly, amongst themselves. Aden seemed to have the most to say.

When the meal was over, Theomedes instructed both Laurent and Kastor to follow him to his
study.

“There is a conversation to be had,” he said, once the doors were closed, leaving the three of
them alone. “It should have happened sooner, but one party made matters more difficult than
necessary.”

Kastor shifted, a little, like a child being scolded.

Laurent said, “I assumed the bruises did enough speaking for me.” He had made it a point not
to run squealing to the King about their incident. He had thought everything handled. He had
been wearing chiton ever since that day, so that the King and everyone else in the Court
would have to watch his bruises heal. He wanted it to be clear that anyone who hurt him
would not be able to hide it. He had wanted everyone to infer, because of Kastor’s prolonged
absence, who the guilty party was. It didn’t hurt that the chiton made his athletic training
more comfortable, and he gave that excuse, the few times he was questioned. But he thought
everything handled.

Call me Mater.

Say it.

Theomedes looked, expectantly, to his son. Kastor, in turn, looked uncomfortable.

“I owe my brother the Prince of Vere an apology,” Kastor said at last. He said it glumly.
Laurent let his brows lift.

“Do you?” he asked. “Oh. I don’t care.”

Kastor looked to his father. Theomedes merely gestured for him to continue.
“I would have preferred to have done this alone,” Kastor said.

“Adorable,” Laurent answered.

“If you’re going to be difficult - !”

“I assure you; I have every intention of being difficult.”

Fury flashed across the bastard’s face, but he clenched his hands into tight fists, and he forced
himself to draw a deep breath. He said, “I lost my head that day, and I failed to treat my
brother the Prince of Vere with kindness, or with honor.” Laurent snorted, and his eyes grew
hot, but he continued anyway. “I am a Prince of Akielos, but that day I failed to conduct
myself as one.”

Do you ever? Laurent wanted to ask, but this time Kastor knew better than to pause for long
enough for him to form a response.

“I was – angry – that day,” Kastor said. “I should have been better, but I allowed my blood to
get up as we sparred. I allowed myself to lose control. You know very well the history
between our people. I have been killing your kind since I was your age. Adjusting to this
peace has not been easy for me.”

“Oh? Your brother seems to find it very easy.”

His expression further darkened. Like most Akielons, he had remarkably little skill when it
came to attempting to conceal the feelings that crossed his face.

“You hate me,” Laurent said. “It is hardly a revelation. The feeling is mutual. Are we
finished?”

“I hate Vere. It has nothing to do with you.”

Laurent didn’t believe that, but he didn’t feel the need to say so. His memory was very clear
when it came to the look that had been in Kastor’s eyes when he had had his hands around
Laurent’s neck. He had outright said that he would have raped Laurent, if Laurent were not so
young.

“You may not be aware of it,” Kastor continued after a moment, “But there are sometimes…
difficulties… between my brother and myself.”

“Damianos loves you.”

“And I him. But you have problems with your own brother, I know. It is why we were
sparring that day, is it not? You understand, surely, how these things may arise.”

Laurent didn’t dignify any of that bullshit with a response, but after a moment, Kastor
nodded, and continued on as if he had.

“I will freely admit – I was jealous, yes. I thought I should have been at least considered for
such an advantageous match. You are not so desirable on your own, but the rewards for
enduring a marriage to you are… well, and anyway, I am the oldest son. It should have been
me. I will leave it at that.” Kastor looked at his father. “It should have been me,” he repeated.

Theomedes didn’t answer. His expression remained unchanged.

“I took my frustrations out on you that day,” Kastor continued. “I was cruel, and I was
unnecessarily violent, and for that you have my most sincere apologies. I know I was in the
wrong. I hurt you and threatened horrible things. I allowed my temper to rule me, and that is
not the man I wish to be.”

“You are aware, I hope, that it is not the kind of man your brother is?”

Something ticked in Kastor’s face before he thought to bow his head. “Again,” he said
tightly, “I offer you my apologies.”

The audacity was baffling.

“I don’t accept,” Laurent said.

Kastor’s head jerked up, absolutely stunned. He looked as if it had never once occurred to
him that that might be Laurent’s answer. He looked at his father like a child demanding a
playmate be forced to share. Theomedes only nodded.

“It is in his rights not to accept, Kastor. You know this.”

“…nevertheless,” Kastor said, his calm wearing thin. “We are all aware my apologies were
offered.”

“As we are all aware of exactly how much your apology means, I’m sure,” Laurent said.

Kastor didn’t understand the barb.

“My father has asked that I come with you,” Kastor said. “To Vere.”

“You are absolutely not coming with me.”

“My brother is unavailable, and my father is as well. We are all unwilling to allow you to
make the journey alone without chaperone – and someone of my father’s bloodline needs to
be able to sign this year’s treaty.”

“A chaperone.”

“Your people have already proven themselves to be both untrustworthy and careless with
your safety. We can only trust you in Akielon hands. You are,” Kastor smiled, his jaw tight,
“So very precious to us. Afterall.”

“So precious that Akielon hands were only so very recently around my fucking neck.”

“Akielon guardsmen will also be making the journey,” Theomedes said, speaking up at last.
He gave Kastor a significant look, warning him, and only when his son turned away did he
continue, speaking mostly to Laurent. “I have sent for Nikandros, and he has agreed to see to
your protection. He is a trusted bannerman, and a dear friend of your husband’s. He will lead
the forces I send with you. You will not see harm.”

“You’re sending a chaperone for my chaperone,” Laurent scoffed.

Theomedes said, “My son owes you atonement, Prince of Vere. This journey is how he
begins.”
 Chapter 31
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

At the time, the name Nikandros hadn’t meant much to Laurent. It had been a surprise and a
relief when, as they were readying the ship to leave port, the man came to introduce himself
and Laurent learned that he did, indeed, recognize him.

He was a young man of an age with Damianos. Handsome, but not quite as handsome, in
Laurent’s opinion. He was athletic, well-fit, though not as tall or broad as Laurent’s husband.
Shorter than Damen – taller than Kastor. His complexion was much darker than either of the
brothers, his hair long in the Akielon style, full of tight natural curls.

“You were at Marlas,” Laurent remembered, and his near-constant presence at Damen’s side.
“You helped translate some.” Or pretended to, anyway, as Damianos had been perfectly
capable of understanding Veretian all along.

“Because your uncle couldn’t be trusted to,” Nikandros agreed.

Laurent nodded. The thought of encountering his uncle again turned his stomach just as much
as the looming prospect of a long journey with Kastor has his companion.

He asked, “Are you Damen’s friend?”

“We were boys together. I’ve promised him I will keep you safe.”

“And the boys I’ve brought with me?” Laurent had tried to leave them behind, nervous of
arriving in Vere trailed by an entourage of beautiful young boys sure to catch his uncle’s eye.
They had all refused – even Aimeric, though he had looked terrified and slightly sickened
when he did so.

“They will be safe,” Nikandros promised. He was bringing thirty men with him, and a boy
named Pallas, who seemed to serve the purpose of something like a squire, like Laurent had
been for Auguste during the war – carrying and tending equipment, assisting during training
exercises. Laurent’s Veretian guards didn’t like that the Akielons kept giving Laurent their
own men, as if the Veretian guards were incapable or incompetent when it came to keeping
their Prince safe. Albur had seemed particularly offended by the development, which Laurent
had found truly funny. Albur was still trying to make his way back into Laurent’s good
graces, and seemed to see the Akielons as some sort of threat or competition.

For Laurent’s part, he liked the additional numbers. He wanted as many men as possible to
stand between him and his uncle or Kastor.

“It’s an insult,” Albur had said, when he found out. “The King isn’t sending them to guard
you; he’s sending them to make sure you can’t run away. The Akielons are coming so that
they can drag you back to Akielos when it’s over.”
They wouldn’t need to drag him. Laurent liked Akielos. He liked the delicious warm weather
and waking to the sound of the sea outside his window. He liked the wide arching doorways
leading out to his balcony, and the way they allowed the breeze to move through his rooms.
He liked splashing in the surf and racing through almond groves with Damianos.

He liked Damianos.

“If my husband likes you, then you are most likely trustworthy,” Laurent decided. The
statement caused an odd expression to cross the man’s face.

“I am not sure I would use Damen’s judgement as the metric by which you decide whether or
not to trust a man,” Nikandros advised. It was the closest Laurent had ever heard anyone
come to criticizing Damen.

Laurent decided that he liked Nikandros.

“When I had Akielon guards before, they insisted on setting their own schedules and rotation,
and made certain someone was always on hand, regardless of whether or not one of my own
guards was present.”

“It will be the same,” Nikandros said. “It isn’t that we doubt your men in their capacity to
protect you, but if something were to happen to you, I would be the one forced to answer to
Damen. He’s very protective of you.”

Laurent felt his face warm, pleased. “That’s reasonable,” he allowed. “Do any of your men
speak Veretian? I have been trying to encourage my men to pick up Akielon, but most of
them are being stubborn.”

Nikandros looked amused. “Some do,” he said.

“We should make an effort to coordinate our rotations, then,” Laurent said. “When possible, I
would like at least one guard who has both languages to be on duty at all times. That way
they can communicate with one another in case of an emergency. It is utterly stupid to have
two sets of guards utterly incapable of working together.”

“That is a very valid point.”

“I cannot tell if you are amused or surprised. I am very smart; do not dismiss me. Jord?”

The guardsman looked surprised to be called forward, but came anyway, a little unsure, his
eyes darting to Nikandros, then the floor, unwilling, quite, to look at Laurent himself.

Jord was one of Laurent’s common guards. Auguste had selected him from the general army
because of the way he had distinguished himself during the war, and in the year since that
time, Laurent had come to appreciate the choice, whatever his other doubts about his
brother’s decisions. Laurent had not allowed himself to spend too much time examining it,
but he found he was developing a preference for the men who had been pulled from the army
over those who had served his brother. His brother’s borrowed guards struggled to see
Laurent as a Prince. He was, at best, a nuisance of a little brother who they had been pulled
from their homes and families to play minder to. Even the best of them had it there in the
backs of their gazes, the look of a man who remembered you before you were toilet trained.

“Jord is the Captain of my guard,” Laurent announced on impulse. He ignored Jord’s startled
jerk at his words, fixing his gaze on him sternly. “Jord, this venture is not to be like the last,”
he instructed. “The Akielons are not only our allies. I have married Damianos; the Akielons
are my people now. We will work cooperatively together, do you understand? I want you and
Nikandros working together to coordinate the efforts of my men.”

Neither one of them protested Laurent’s use of my. Jord’s head ducked further.

“I – Yes. Yes, Your Highness.”

“At the end of each shift, I want your men to tell you something they have learned about their
new partner. Not something easily observable – something real. You will compile these
findings into a report, and at the end of the fortnight, you will hand it to me. If you cannot
write, find one of the men to do it for you.”

Nikandros was fighting a smile. Jord stared at Laurent’s sandaled feet as if absolutely
dumbfounded by them.

“Yes, Your Highness,” Jord agreed. Laurent nodded firmly, feeling accomplished.

Later, less than an hour after their ship had set sail, Albur came to confront Laurent about his
spur-of-the-moment decision.

“Since when does your guard have a Captain?” he demanded, barging into Laurent’s cabin
without permission.

Laurent, already struggling with the first waves of seasickness, had been sitting with a still
very uncomfortable-looking Jord, distracting himself from the roil of his belly by discussing
his expectations for the man in his new role while Jord sat stiffly in a chair opposite, afraid to
relax, hesitant even to ask questions. Aside from the times when Jord handled their swords
training, Laurent had had very little interaction with him before, and never one-on-one with
no one else around. The man was very aware of his place, his common blood, his lack of the
sponsorship and letters of recommendation it usually required to gain a position in the
Prince’s guard at all – much less a Captaincy. Later, his humility might come to prove
annoying, but for the moment it had pleased Laurent to be treated like a Prince and not
merely Auguste’s Younger Brother.

At Albur’s intrusion, Jord sprang quickly – guiltily – to his feet. Laurent, in contrast, made it
a point to further relax back in his chair. He tried very hard to look at-ease, rather than
nauseous. He looked past Albur to the still-open cabin door, noting the men who stood guard.
They would need to be disciplined for letting him in like this.

“My guard has a Captain,” Laurent said, “Ever since I decided that it would be useful for it to
have one. You know Jord, I assume?” He knew there was a hard dividing line between the
men he was borrowing from his brother and the commoners pulled from the army. The
interaction between the two halves of his guard was firmly defined and, he thought, partially
to blame for things like the incident with Kastor.

“Sebastian is the Captain of the Prince’s Guard!”

“Sebastian is the Captain of the King’s Guard,” Laurent corrected, calmly. “What’s more,
Sebastian is not here. What use to me is an absent Captain? No. Jord is the Captain of the
Prince’s Guard. You had best congratulate him, lest he think you’re jealous.”

Albur didn’t so much as glance at the other man. “You can’t make this kind of decision
without consulting your brother.”

“Can’t I? The Prince chooses the members of his guard, and that includes deciding who gets
the captaincy. Do you think my father was pleased with Auguste gave the position to his best
friend? No. It showed favoritism, and what’s more, there were better choices. Eliott is the
cleverest. Raphael comes from the best family. Louis is the richest. But Auguste wanted
Sebastian, and Father accepted his choice, because the decision was his to make.”

“Then you should have chosen - !” Albur stopped, catching himself, and a moment passed
where he was frozen, searching desperately for words to replace what he had originally
intended to say. “Your Highness,” he said at last, “Dismiss Jord so that we can continue this
discussion privately.”

“Hmm. No. I don’t want to.”

“Your Highness…”

“Don’t use my title only to turn about and proceed to treat me like a child. I don’t answer to
you; I don’t take your orders. You have worn my patience thin; say what you were going to
say, then get out.”

Albur was angry and he was annoyed and he was making no effort to conceal either emotion.
That, Laurent realized, was where his personal preference for the common soldiers over his
brother’s men had really begun to take root. His brother’s men were usually better at
following the usual mores. They used Laurent’s title, they pretended at the appropriate
deference, they had the sort of background and social standing to occasionally make useful
observations.

But at the end of the day, they were his brother’s men, and his brother was not merely their
King, but their friend. Most of them had known Laurent for the majority of his life – and
since Auguste so easily blurred the line meant to separate royalty from everyone else, that
line became blurred for his friends when they looked at Laurent, too.

Laurent was no Prince to his brother’s men. Not really. Laurent was the child – the perpetual
baby brother. As Auguste struggled to see the approach of manhood on Laurent, so, too, did
his men. Laurent did not have the sort of authority he should have with them. He was nothing
but a child play-acting and emulating his brother. His orders were followed only as an
indulgence – Auguste was the only one they truly answered to.
“Jord is a fine man, Your Highness. He is a good soldier.” Albur spoke carefully,
uncomfortable speaking while Jord was right there. “You’re a good soldier,” he reiterated to
Jord, who looked positively trapped. “But he is just a soldier,” Albur said, attention turning
back to Laurent. “He’s common. He and the others were chosen due to it being an emergency
situation. When we return to Arles, His Majesty will most likely replace them with more
appropriate choices. If Auguste wasn’t currently more concerned with more important
matters, he probably would have already done it.”

“I have no desire to replace them.”

“Yes, but – Your Highness, positions in the Prince’s Guard are a privilege and there is a
reason they have historically been reserved for men of noble birth. The assignment is not
meant for commoners and mongrels. You can’t expect to find any worthy man willing to
follow the orders of someone like – my apologies, Jord; you know I like you – someone like
Jord.”

Laurent watched him for a moment, purposefully silent. There was no deference in Albur’s
posture. There was no respect. Jord looked as if he desperately longed to flee.

“Do all the men share your sentiment, Albur?” Laurent asked.

The guardsman looked relieved. He failed to notice the danger lurking in Laurent’s soft tone.

“All the ones who matter, Your Highness, yes. I believe so.”

“I see.” Laurent turned his eyes to Jord. “Jord, I am so very sorry,” he said. “When we return
to Arles, your time visiting your family may be briefer than we anticipated. You may find
yourself occupied interviewing replacements for the men who wish to leave service.”

Albur looked shocked. “Your Highness!”

Laurent ignored him, and his outraged protest. “I know it will be so very inconvenient,
finding yourself stuck searching for replacements during such a brief visit,” he said. “You
must pardon the short notice and endeavor to make the wisest decisions. I will compensate
you as well as I can.”

“Your Highness, that’s not what I - !”

“Do not allow it to cause undo duress. If we find we are unable to fill the roles, I am certain
my dear husband will provide sufficient suitable Akielon men to take on the responsibility.”

“This is not what I meant. You have to - !”

“If anyone makes trouble in the interim, you have leave to take disciplinary measures, of
course.”

“Your Highness! If you will just - !”

“Please help Albur to find his way out. I would like to finish our discussion before vomiting.
Fucking sea.”
Jord looked far less uncomfortable when he rose to escort Albur from the cabin.

Laurent felt a little better, too.

--

Akielos and Vere had been enemies for longer than living memory. For centuries, the two
countries had been in conflict, making war on one another for any slight real or imagined,
unable to forgive the now-forgotten rift that had come between them in the first place.
Atrocities without number had been committed on both sides. Children took in prejudice
alongside their mothers’ milk, so that by the time adulthood arrived, their opinions on their
neighbors were as thoughtless as the act of breathing.

Akielons were violent and brutish and savage. They clung to their backwards, barbaric
beliefs. Little better than animals, they were dirty and oily, they practiced human sacrifice,
they ate babies, and they were so overrun with bastards that inbreeding was rampant; no one
ever knew who anyone else’s father was.

Veretians were overstuffed and overindulgent, bloated and pale as a corpse left in water.
Weak and cowardly, their greed and their excess knew no bounds. They lied with every word
they spoke, and they would happily betray absolutely anyone if it meant the acquisition of
more pleasure and comfort. They held nothing sacred. They loved nothing and no one and
they had no loyalty, even to their own children. Rotten as overripe fruit, they had no concept
of hard work or sacrifice or duty. Instead of bathing, they soaked themselves in perfume to
conceal their stench. If a Veretian’s house caught fire, he would leave his family to burn
while he made certain his coffers of jewels got out safe.

Even on a ship as large as the one they were travelling on, conflict between two such factions
was expected, inevitable. There wasn’t space to retreat from centuries of mindless hate. The
peace had now held between them for over two years and every man on the ship had found
himself with opportunity before now to challenge and overcome his previously-held beliefs,
but that did not change the fact that hatred was easier than understanding.

Laurent’s instructions to his men had been firm. He knew that many of them did not take his
authority seriously, and he knew that that would only get worse when they were reunited with
Auguste, but he had already steeled himself, determined to follow through with his threats if
anyone made it necessary. Any Veretian caught causing trouble would be flogged; he didn’t
care about the reason. If an Akielon initiated conflict, the Veretian was to disengage and
report it immediately to Laurent. As far as Laurent was aware, though there had been no
mingling whatsoever between his guards and the Akielons over the past two years, there had
been little to no conflict between them, either – but a ship was close quarters, and if the
weather was uncooperative it could take more than a week for them to reach the northernmost
Veretian port, and even after they made land, there would be the long march to Arles, which
would take a minimum of four days. They were going to have to put up with one another for
a very long time.

All of this was on Laurent’s mind from the moment he decided he would follow his brother’s
grating order to make the journey home.
Laurent was not enough of a fool to trust that Kastor would lift a finger to keep the peace.
That left Laurent as the highest authority on the ship – a position he had not found himself in
at any prior time. Laurent could not afford to be seasick. Laurent could not take the risk of
spending his time in isolation, locked up in his cabin, ill. Laurent wanted to believe that he
could trust Nikandros, at the very least, to keep the men reminded of their purpose, but trust
was not enough. Laurent needed to see to matters, himself.

So on the second day, armed with a pot of very strong, very disgusting ginger tea in place of
his usual coffee, Laurent met with Nikandros and Jord to discuss how best to pair off the men
and schedule their rotation.

It took the better course of the morning. Jord was hesitant to speak at first, too aware of his
natural place and the huge leap it was for him to take charge of the Prince’s Guard – but once
the discussion started rolling, he forgot all about that. He offered his contributions in a
thoughtful and measured way, displaying the very traits that had first impressed Laurent.

“There is enough room on the deck for a few men to spar or wrestle,” Jord said. “The nearest
we ever come to peaceful mingling is when Sports have been involved in our interactions. If
His Highness would be willing to name some sort of prize, we could make a contest of it,
spaced out over the course of the journey – keep the men distracted trying to impress you.”

“If we can keep the men distracted by competition so that they are enjoying themselves too
much to go looking for trouble, it could help, yes,” Nikandros agreed.

“I’ve noticed some of the men eyeing my boys as if they were still slaves,” Laurent said,
later. “I am still trying to break them of years of mindless obedience; I don’t want anyone but
me to give them orders, and I certainly don’t want a soldier getting restless and deciding its
time to get a leg over one of them.”

“I will remind the men that the boys have been freed and are not to be pressed upon without
enthusiastic consent.”

Later still, “I think you should pair your page up with Aimeric. His father is a Kyros, isn’t
he? They will make an appropriate partnership, I think. Aimeric has done fairly well with the
other boys – maybe if the men see the young ones forming friendships, they will keep their
minds more open.”

Laurent didn’t miss the amused look that Jord and Nikandros passed between them when
Laurent referred to his peers as the young ones. Laurent intended to respond by lofting upon
them a cool, arched look, but he made the mistake of forgetting that his vile tea was not, in
fact, his usual coffee, and taking a sip without first bracing himself. He was too busy
coughing and grimacing, instead.

--

It was a dark night. Stars dotted the inkstain of the sky – high and cold and impassive,
offering little light whatsoever. The moon was nothing but the thinnest razor edge of silver.
There was nothing whatsoever offering itself to help distinguish the demarcation between sea
and sky.
So far, miraculously, the weather had held. For this, Laurent was exceedingly grateful. Now
that he had temporarily finished wanting to retch every time the ship hit a dip or swell, the
mode of travel was becoming more bearable. Tonight, the only sounds he could hear were the
splashing of the waves against the side of the ship – a noise he could not decide on whether
or not he liked. His head was pounding, and he felt like he stood floating in the middle of a
great void nothing – like there was nothing and no one left in the world, and he was just a
consciousness, alone. Only the hard feeling of the ship’s railing beneath his hands proved that
the ship was still there.

Laurent was not sure how late the hour might have grown. He had woken up hot and stifled
in his cabin, and he hadn’t been able to bear the thought of vomiting in the bucket in his room
and then spending the remainder of the night bathing in that smell. He didn’t remember his
desperate flight up to the deck in the darkness – only that he had just barely made it topside,
flinging himself hard against the side of the boat just as his control broke and he lost all
contents of his stomach over the side of the ship.

Trembly and weak, Laurent bent double, pressing his sweaty brow to the ship’s wooden
railing. The cool of the wind through his sweat-soaked hair was the closest thing to comfort
he could find.

With his head down, he didn’t see the approaching light until it was too close for him to
escape.

Laurent righted himself too quickly, and Kastor lifted both of his hands as if in surrender.
Laurent could not be sure whether or not had had imagined the idea that the bastard had been
reaching out to him before he’d been caught. Kastor held a lantern.

“I heard you rush down the hall,” Kastor said. “I wanted to check on you. I know you’ve
been ill.”

“You nearly sound sincere,” Laurent said. There were not as many sailors on duty at this time
of night, and Laurent hadn’t stopped to wake any of his servants or guards, and the one on
duty at his door had been absent when he fled his cabin. (Albur? Again? He would have to
check with Jord to be sure.) Even still, someone would come running if he shouted, he was
sure.

“You don’t believe me,” Kastor said, as if that surprised him. “You don’t believe me, and you
didn’t accept my apology.”

“Your powers of observation are truly incredible.”

A pause. Laurent couldn’t see much of Kastor’s expression in the flicker shadows of
lamplight, but he could guess well enough what it would have looked like. Sullen resentment
was hardly a rare sentiment from the bastard.

Somehow, when Kastor answered, he managed to sound patient.

“We are brothers,” the bastard said. “Do you truly think I would hurt you?”
“…did you really just ask me that?”

Silence again for a moment. This time when Kastor answered, his voice had grown darker.

“I could have kept going,” he said. “When I realized what I was doing, I stopped myself. I
chose to stop myself.”

“And here I thought you stopped because I stabbed you. Are you attempting to imply that I
should be grateful you didn’t hurt me worse, then?”

“Yes.”

Laurent, for once, was speechless. The bastard hadn’t even hesitated.

“You don’t believe in my remorse,” Kastor said, “But I will show you. I am determined. I
will prove it to you. You will trust me.”

“Look at that; it seems I could not be less interested if I tried.” It was incredible, how
different two brothers could be. If Damianos had been the one to intercept him out here,
Laurent would have been looking for any excuse to linger, rather than fighting the urge to
peel his own skin off or throw himself overboard – anything to relieve himself of the gross
feeling it gave him to find himself alone with the bastard of Akielos once again. “I’m going
back to bed, and I will interpret any attempt to follow me as a threat,” Laurent said. “Good
night.”

As Laurent turned to leave, Kastor lunged forward. He caught his wrist, using his larger body
to hedge Laurent in, crowding him against the railing.

A flash of silver, and Kastor released him, retreating almost as quickly as he had been on
him. Laurent’s breath was stolen as he found himself pushed hard against the railing, another
body shoving itself between him and his brother-in-law. Kastor’s hand was bleeding.

“You dare to draw royal blood, bitch?”

Larius was pale and breathing heavily, but his eyes were large and excited, and a smile
twisted his mouth. He was holding a small knife, its position defensive, the way that they had
been taught. His hand was shaking a little.

“You forfeit your life with your actions,” Kastor snarled. “I will teach you respect before I
feed you to my dogs.”

“Is that the same respect that had you laying hands on a foreign Prince?” Laurent demanded,
his voice returning to him at the threat to his boy. When he reached to take the knife from
Larius, the former slave hesitated for a moment before relinquishing it, before letting Laurent
move so that he was beside him, no longer sheltered by his body. “My servant has done his
duty. As Prince of Vere and husband to the future King of Akielos, I hereby pardon him for
his offense.”

Kastor’s beady eyes shifted from Larius to Laurent. He spoke with his teeth clenched.
 “This was a private conversation.”

“A conversation which has reached its conclusion.”

“It isn’t the bitch’s place - !”

“The bitch is in training to become one of my guards. I say his initiative is commendable.”
Laurent moved, and now he was the one putting himself bodily between Kastor and someone
else. “And if you disagree,” he said, “Then I remind you that I have just pardoned him. Am I
mistaken, or had you just finished saying that you would prove your remorse for your
actions? It seems to me you are determined to show yourself a liar.”

“I wasn’t going to hurt you.”

“Then leave the matter be.”

Kastor didn’t like it, and he didn’t have the skills to hide it. Laurent lifted his chin,
challenging him to act further, to throw his tantrum, to show his rage, to try to force the
matter. Even in the darkness, Laurent could see it – how badly the bastard wanted to make
things go his way. How unfathomable and enraging it was for him to be thwarted.

“I don’t know what your aim was here,” Laurent admitted, “But I guarantee you that you will
not achieve it this way. We are brothers? Isn’t that what you said. Prove it, then. Prove your
remorse – prove your brotherhood – and let the matter rest.”

“But I am not finished with our conversation!”

“Pity. Because I am.”

Kastor still did not move. He was struggling, clearly, with the processing of his predicament.
Whatever sense he possessed was clearly fighting a losing battle against his natural
entitlement.

“I am a good man,” Kastor said. “I have been kind to you. I have helped you. You are
punishing me for one mistake.”

Laurent didn’t answer. He continued to hold onto the night. His hand was steady.

Eventually, Kastor walked away.

Chapter End Notes

Enjoy the chapter's contribution from my kitten, Howl:

```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww` 188888
 Chapter 32

After the incident, Larius spent the night in Laurent’s cabin, and every night thereafter, too.
When they made landfall nearly a week later, Laurent gave all of his boys strict instructions
to stay close, and warned his guards that he would not be forgiving of any lax behavior or
disappearances. When he told Nikandros about his interactions with his brother-in-law,
Nikandros seemed concerned, but not surprised.

“Damianos will not believe it,” Nikandros warned him. They had stepped away from where
the men were making camp, though Laurent’s guards hovered near. Albur, in particular,
seemed afraid to so much as allow Laurent to see him blink, for fear it would seem he was
failing again. Despite the fact that they were as alone as they were likely to get, Nikandros
paused a moment to look around as if checking for listeners. “Your husband has a blind spot
when it comes to Kastor,” Nikandros said finally. “So does the King.”

“Why would I lie about something like this? They should believe me.”

“It isn’t that they will think you’re lying – but they will find some way to explain your
experience away. A misunderstanding. An accident. Perhaps you somehow provoked it.
Perhaps he really did lose his temper, but he couldn’t possibly have meant true harm. I have
heard and seen it all.” At whatever expression Laurent must have worn on his face,
Nikandros smiled softly in understanding. He nodded. “It’s a frustrating but inescapable
reality I have been forced to accept. Once Damianos comes to love someone, he will see no
fault in them. His father is the same.”

“That’s a stupid trait to have.”

“I’m aware.”

Laurent considered it for a moment. “Is Kastor dangerous?” he asked at last.

Nikandros’s smile faded. “I can’t prove it.”

“I didn’t ask for proof. I asked if he is dangerous.”

“Yes,” Nikandros told him, this time without hesitation. “Yes, I believe he is incredibly
dangerous. To you, and to Damen.”

Laurent nodded. In a way, it was almost a relief to hear it. It was a relief to know that he was
not the only one who saw something dark lurking in the bastard’s resentful, covetous stare.

“I will reinforce the order for my men to take caution,” Laurent decided.

--

Now, Laurent was in Chastillon.

Now, Laurent was once more within the warm, comforting circle of his beloved brother’s
arms.

For a moment, all was forgotten. All was forgiven. Auguste held him rightly, and Laurent
clung to him in return, and he could not bring himself to think, let alone care about, whether
or not he was too old for such behavior – whether or not others were watching. Laurent was
home, he had made it, and nothing else existed or mattered. All of the frustrations and the
missing letters and the questions and the misunderstandings – all of the hurt feelings – it was
all so far away it might as well have stopped existing. Laurent was in his brother’s arms, and
he was a child again, not a married man in living in a foreign country. He was a child, and his
big brother could fix anything.

Laurent wanted to tell him about every moment he had missed since they had last parted
ways. He had written it all in his letters, and Auguste had never acknowledged any of it, but
he would now. It would be different now. He would tell Auguste all about buying and freeing
his boys, and about training for the Okton. He would tell him that he was practicing sword
again, and he would watch Auguste laugh as he put on an exaggerated pout before admitting
that Damen had helped find ways to make it less a chore. He would tell him all about
practicing with his little bow – about how he was finally getting good enough that there was
talk of letting him begin the process of learning how to shoot from horseback. He wanted to
tell him about how proud and pleased Damianos was the first time they’d had a full
conversation in Akielon – how handsome his husband had been that day, with his curls all
tousled and his dimple flashing.

He wanted to ask why Auguste hadn’t cared about any of it when he had written to him. He
wanted to ask why he’d stopped writing him back. Why he hadn’t told him about his
marriage. He wanted –

It felt childish. It felt like hunting for approval. It felt like desperation. Like begging for his
brother’s validation. And Laurent wanted to do it.

“You’ve freckled,” Auguste frowned, catching Laurent’s face in his hands when Laurent
began to draw away. His thumbs brushed the smattering of spots that marred what had once
been the unblemished marble of Laurent’s cheeks. There were freckles on Laurent’s
shoulders now, too. Laurent hadn’t really thought about them; he hadn’t thought they were all
that noticeable. He began to grin at his brother, but Auguste continued to frown. “You should
cover up if you’re going to be out in the sun,” Auguste said, and it sounded like – no. He was.
He was scolding him. Laurent jerked away.

In his flash of temper, Laurent missed the hurt that momentarily crossed his brother’s face.
When he looked at Auguste again, the King of Vere’s expression had closed off. When
Auguste smiled, it lacked the warmth and enthusiasm and joy he had greeted Laurent with in
the first place. He let his hands drop.

“Well,” Auguste said. “Welcome home, anyway.”

“Home?” Laurent repeated. It had felt that way, at first. Now he found himself wondering if
Auguste was intentionally trying to be cruel.
Auguste’s smile, insincere as it was, slipped. Fighting a frown, Auguste stepped back.

“You’ll want to make the rounds,” he said, “Greet everyone else. We’ve arranged a little
welcoming party for you. As you can see.”

“Yes. I see.” Laurent was tired, and he was travel-stained, and he wasn’t a particularly social
person even under the best of circumstances. Spending hours making nice with scheming
courtiers instead of taking a long bath and a longer nap was not Laurent’s idea of a warm
welcome.

“Don’t you think I should greet the Queen Consort first?” Laurent asked, his tone cooling. He
glanced around the courtyard. “Where is she? I’m afraid you will have to point my new sister
out to me, as I never received so much as a charcoal sketch of her. Haven’t you sat for
portraits yet?”

Auguste had stiffened. “I don’t appreciate the joke, Laurent.”

“Joke?”

“Roslin is not here.” Auguste was looking at him with an expression Laurent didn’t know. He
sounded furious, insulted. Laurent felt himself growing cooler in response.

“Couldn’t be bothered?” he asked, before he could stop himself. His brother’s face flushed
red with anger. Sighing, Laurent turned away from him, and turned toward his boys instead.
In Akielon, he instructed them to see to his things and to make sure Madeleine was properly
cared for. They bowed and left without hesitation. Auguste watched them go with a look of
disgust.

“I can’t believe you’ve brought their kind into Vere,” Auguste said. Laurent went cold.

“Their kind.”

“Slaves.”

Laurent had written novels worth of letters to his brother about his boys. About how proud of
them he was, and how well they were healing, recovering from their training, finding their
own wants and their own wills. He’d written of his optimism that this was merely the first
step, and this success would lead to more, if only Auguste would raise Laurent’s income so
that he could afford to take more on. Laurent had done something he didn’t normally do, and
indulged in allowing himself to imagine a path where he was able to buy up and free every
slave child in Ios, and enact some kind of…something, where they weren’t replaced. He
fantasized about sending these children out to schools or apprenticeships or whatever other
kind of training they wanted, whatever they chose. He had shared all of that with Auguste.

I could even send some to Vere, Laurent had written. We could open school specifically for
former slaves. The crown could fund it to begin, and match donations later. What if it became
fashionable to support? We could make it fashionable, couldn’t we? Auguste, can you
imagine how many we could help?
Another letter which his brother had ignored.

Laurent knew that his brother, for all of his noble ideas, followed the same line of thinking
that many of their class did – the idea that a man’s life was ordained by the gods. The station
to which you were born was the station to which you belonged, and if you tried to change it,
you might as well spit in the gods’ faces. Those born to common blood were less than those
of noble birth. Slaves were lower still.

Auguste had been born the heir to the Veretian throne. He had been deemed perfect from the
moment the physicians drew him from their mother’s body. He was intelligent and healthy
and handsome and well-spoken. He was kind. He wanted the best for his people – but he did
expect them to remain mindful of their place. To men like Auguste, commoners were like
children – simple, foolish children, lovable but lacking in wisdom, always in need of
guidance from their betters. It was the duty of nobility to care for them lest they harm
themselves, to not take advantage of their natural weaknesses. Auguste had never once had
reason to imagine what it was like to live in another’s shoes, because he had never once
questioned his gods’ ordained place in life. Auguste had never spent an afternoon in the
palace kitchens talking to the cooks and listening to them speak on their lives. He had never
shadowed a stablehand, asking endless questions about his work and his experience. He’d
never sat quietly listening to the maids gossip while they changed the bedsheets.

Auguste didn’t even read that much.

Even the soldiers – Auguste prided himself on his relationship with his men. He knew the
name of every man who served beneath him. He knew their families’ names. He knew details
about their lives, their hometowns, their children. But his guards were all noble born, without
exception. As for the common soldiers who he led into battle, learning about their families
was no different than learning the pedigrees of one’s hunting dogs.

Laurent hadn’t seen it before. He couldn’t unsee it now.

Auguste hadn’t replied to Laurent’s letters about his boys for the same reason he now
watched them walk away with barely-concealed disgust. They weren’t boys to him. They had
been born slaves, and slaves were all that they would ever be. It didn’t matter that Laurent
had freed them, that he paid them, that he was working toward helping them discover who
and what they wanted to become so that he could help them get there. The gods had ordained
that they be born slaves, and so slaves they remained. To Auguste, Laurent had brought
slaves into Vere to serve him in place of proper servants.

“Well,” Laurent said, the word clipped, cold. “You certainly cannot expect someone as
important as I am to be tasked with wiping my own ass, can you? Pardon me, brother. You
were right; I should be mingling with my guests.”

Auguste stared at him, mouth opening and closing uselessly like a fish. Laurent brushed past
him, hard. He was determined not to cry, but that didn’t stop the pain it caused, having the
world feel so right one moment, and so wrong the next.

The crush of his brother’s arms had felt like home, but stalking through the courtyard full of
strangers come to greet him, Laurent knew he couldn’t be farther from it.
“Aimeric,” he snapped, finding his friend, and when the other boy turned toward him, he
swallowed, throat burning, and tried to moderate his tone. “Do you recognize anyone?”
Catching Aimeric’s arm, Laurent drew him to the side. Not being a servant, Aimeric hadn’t
left when the others were dismissed. Neither had Larius, who though not officially a guard
yet, was more and more thinking of himself as one – and Erasmus, who was more and more
stepping into the role of Laurent’s personal valet. Even Laurent’s actual guards had scattered
– the Veretian ones, anyway – either to settle in and rest up in the barracks, or to see what
they could find in the kitchens. When Laurent had walked away from his brother, Nikandros
had stepped in to greet Auguste, tidily preventing the King of Vere from following his little
brother as Laurent sought to lose himself among the courtiers.

“There’s Councilman Jeurre, following the servant with the wine,” Aimeric answered dryly.
“I wonder if His Majesty remembered to order a cutoff time for his drinking?”

“Probably not,” Laurent said. He stood up on tiptoe, trying without success to get a better
look at the gathering. As usual for these kinds of things, most of those present were blessedly
uninterest in Laurent. Though this so-called celebration was being held in Laurent’s honor,
the fact remained that he was a child without any real power. There were more important
people present to be socialized with, and even if that were not so, the novelty of the horde of
Akielons Laurent had arrived with was far more interesting than attempting to force
conversation with the young, unsociable Prince of Vere. “If we leave too soon, the rumors
will run wild. Where is your father? Do you see him?”

Aimeric scowled. “I don’t want to talk to him.”

Laurent didn’t particularly want to, either, but Guion was unpopular enough with his peers
that if Laurent allowed him to dominate his time, he would have a proper excuse as to why he
hadn’t done a better job socializing. Having Aimeric at his side even gave him cause to
approach. Still scanning the crowd, Laurent linked arms with Aimeric to keep him from
escaping.

“Help me find him,” he ordered. “We have to be seen talking to someone.”

“You can talk to me.”

Beside him, Aimeric went rigid and pale. Laurent was sure he did, too. Bile rose in Laurent’s
mouth. He saw their expressions mirrored in Larius. Reluctantly, he turned around.

“Hello, Uncle,” Laurent said.

“Oh, there are refreshments. I’ll be right back.” Just like that, Aimeric slipped his arm from
Laurent’s and escaped. Larius moved immediately to fill in the hole at his side, his chest out,
chin jutted forward in challenge.

Uncle ignored Larius. The expression he wore as he looked over Laurent was as warm and as
fond as it had ever been. He opened his arms as if expecting an embrace, and when Laurent
failed to come forward, he tilted his head, giving a playful pout.
“Come now; there is no need to be so formal,” Uncle said. “We are family, are we not? Come
and hug your doting uncle. He has missed you so.”

Laurent didn’t have a choice and they both knew it. Though he desperately wanted to, he had
no acceptable cause to publicly shun his uncle. Auguste would never accept it. There were
too many people here, too many eyes watching. Uncle, he knew, would find some way to
twist Laurent’s rejection, to turn Laurent’s snub so that Laurent was the one who suffered for
it. As far as the Veretian court knew, they were still on friendly terms. Laurent was still the
disappointing second child, desperate for attention.

Though everything within him screamed against it, Laurent stepped forward.

The hug was one unequally given. Laurent kept his arms loose, and he tried to make it as
brief as he could. Uncle, however, pulled him just as close as Auguste had, and he squeezed
him just as tightly. Laurent thought he felt him nosing his hair – thought he caught him
inhaling, deeply, as if sampling the bouquet of a fine wine. Without warning, Laurent was
back in the baths again, overheated and overwhelmed with perfumed steam, his heart
pounding, rabbit-fast, in his throat.

Then it was over. Uncle kissed his temple, and then stepped back, holding Laurent by the
shoulders.

“Let me look at you, then,” Uncle said warmly, rubbing Laurent’s arms, then lifting his hands
to cup his face. “My how you’ve grown. Oh, I am so very, very sorry.”

“You’re sorry?”

Uncle pushed Laurent’s hair back, observing the effect with a frown. His other hand dropped
to catch the back of Laurent’s neck.

“You must endeavor to be brave. No doubt you and your Akielon beast are both terribly
disappointed, but you must remember that looks are not everything. You still have that
special mind of yours, don’t you? Perhaps you can keep your barbarian amused enough that
you will be able hold his attention until you reach your majority.”

Laurent jerked away. “What are you on about?”

“Why – how ugly you’re turning out, of course. You know it will only get worse, the older
you get. Such a pity.” Uncle gave it a moment, and then an expression of surprise crossed his
face. “Oh. Oh, dear boy! Don’t tell me you hadn’t realized…”

“Excuse me, Uncle.” Laurent’s head was spinning as he turned away. Before he could get
very far, a servant walked out of the Keep to stand at the top of the stairs and invite the guests
inside. Dinner was ready.

--

It was early yet for a meal, but someone had taken the Prince’s long journey into account and
planned that the guest of honor and his army of barbarians might arrive hungry.
Veretian fests generally took several hours to get through, anyway. Sometimes, they were so
long that there were even planned breaks placed between courses. There were only to be
fifteen this time, the servant announcing the menu explained, which meant two breaks and an
end that wouldn’t fall until midnight, even given their early start.

The tables in the great hall of Chastillion looked too tall and too decorated to Laurent. Each
was covered in a white table cloth and a centerpiece creation – sculptural cakes for some
tables, fantasy animals created by sewing together the carcasses of several beasts for the
others. Each table, too, had large salt cellars placed upon them, as well as displays of exotic
fruits and flowers so over-the-top there was hardly room for the place settings.

A meal was being offered in much smaller scale for the guards and soldiers and even the
servants who had come to Vere with Laurent. There was a room adjoining the hall where they
were to gather to dine on much simpler fare. Nikandros had only been able to protest so
much; their party was tired from the long journey, and the men wanted to be fed now – not
hours later once everything was over and the food was cold. And anyway, what sort of danger
could Laurent possibly be in, seated right beside his brother? Long after everyone else had
disappeared into the other room, Larius stayed in the doorway – technically in the appropriate
place, but refusing to sit or eat or do anything, really, but stared fixedly Laurent’s way.

Overall, the entire experience had a surreal, unnatural feeling to it. The fantasy animals that
adorned some of the tables were several days dead, and the flowers did not quite cover up the
sweet stench of rot. Glass beads had been put in place of their eyes, shiny and ever-staring.
The cakes, not meant to be eaten, were long-stale, useless, looming confections created with
more flour and sugar than most citizens of Vere would ever see in a lifetime. They
represented replicas of the Veretian and Akielon palaces, of ships locked in battle, of dragons
and roosters and peacocks and quail, of knights on a charge.

It was strange to see Auguste seated in the place of the King. Strange to sit beside him in the
place meant for the heir.

The seat to Auguste’s left had been left empty, reserved for his still-missing wife.
Presumedly, the man in the chair next to that was Auguste’s new father-in-law.

Uncle was seated to Laurent’s other side. Beside Uncle was Kastor, who seemed overly
pleased to be at the main table from the beginning, rather than having to be waited to be
invited. He was unaware that it was a slight that he had been placed below, rather than above
or even equal to, Uncle in ranking. As a visiting Prince, he should have been on Auguste’s
other side.

Auguste sat stiffly in his chair, and Laurent couldn’t decide if he was still angry or merely
uncomfortable. Perhaps he was afraid that Laurent would embarrass him by eating with his
hands the way the barbarians did. Given that he had given Laurent no time to rest or wash up
– let alone change clothes – before foisting a party and dinner on him, Laurent was halfway
considering giving it a try.

“Have someone check to make certain no wild animals have gotten in,” Uncle was instructing
a passing servant. “Don’t you smell it? Wet dog – or horse, maybe. I’m concerned it will put
our guests off their…oh.”
Laurent pretended his uncle wasn’t looking at him. He washed his hands in the little bowl of
perfumed water he was brought, and carefully folded his napkin on his lap. He probably did
stink. He couldn’t do anything about that.

“Auguste,” Uncle leaned past him to address the King. “Do you realize your brother has
allowed himself to freckle?”

Auguste glanced at Uncle, then at Laurent, then returned his eyes to Uncle. His shoulders
loosened a little. His grin was almost relieved – the grin of an older brother seeing an
opportunity to torment the younger.

“I did notice,” Auguste said. He leaned forward to address Uncle past Laurent. “We’ve
discussed it, in fact. If he does not take care, he will grow as rough and leathered as a
farmhand.”

“I suppose it’s better to freckle like a farmhand than to brown like an Akielon,” Uncle
sniffed. “But his lovely skin is absolutely ruined, either way.”

Auguste reached out to ruffle Laurent’s hair. Laurent jerked almost violently away, and his
brother faltered, just a little.

“Not absolutely,” Auguste said, as if to reassure him. “A few baths in milk and – “

Laurent tried to ignore him.

Had this been the intimate welcome Laurent had expected, they would have been seated
together at the kind of long table that had been put up for their guests, with chairs situated
along both sides. Instead, the table where they sat was at the head of the room, with chairs
only along one side, so that they all faced the guests – as if they were on display.

“I don’t care,” Laurent bit out at last. Even as a hurt expression crossed Auguste’s face, Uncle
laughed. While Laurent’s attention was on his brother, Uncle’s hand came up to cup the back
of his neck and give it a squeeze.

“Don’t pay him too much mind, Auguste – you were moody at this age too, I remember.”
Uncle’s grip was just a tad too tight, too familiar. Laurent tried to shrug him off without
success. “We will make sure you return to Akielos with plenty of facial creams and bath
mixes,” Uncle said, as if to reassure Laurent. Then he leaned in close to Laurent’s ear and
said, in a conspiratorial whisper, “After all, you will need any small advantage we can find if
we’re to make up for the misfortune of your features, mn?” Uncle gave the back of Laurent’s
neck one final squeeze, and leaned in again to address Auguste. “I’ll send for my barber as
soon as we get back to Arles. At least something can be done about this hair right away!”

The return of the serving staff with the first course ended the dissection on the ruination of
Laurent’s beauty. The servant pouring the wine only filled Laurent’s by half, and then topped
the rest with water. While Auguste was occupied with a conversation with someone to his
left, Uncle reached over, and switched his own glass with Laurent’s.
“Our little secret,” Uncle said, with a wink. In the past, he had done things like that –
sneaking Laurent sweets and treats and various other little presents while his father’s back
was turned. Laurent had adored him, back then. Before the baths. Before Laurent knew about
his fetish. How strange it was; once, Laurent had been sure that Auguste and Uncle were his
only allies in the world – the only people in his life who cared for him.

Laurent’s mood was foul and growing worse. After a moment of hesitation, he grabbed the
glass of wine, and he drank. It was drier than he liked, and it had a strange, unpleasant
undercurrent of licorice.
 Chapter 33
Chapter Notes

Major trigger warnings for this chapter.

A character is drugged. There is an attempted sexual assault. There is violence.

Minor edit for Larius’s age and bday cause I was about to contradict myself.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

The first course consisted of a small plate of leeks heavily marinated with a sauce of butter
and mustard and clove. The second was a trio of palm-sized anchovies in a vinegar broth
with ginger and saffron.

By the third course (strips of alternating pork and veal arranged in little fleurettes then
drizzled with beef fat, nutmeg, and cinnamon), Laurent knew that he would never be able to
make it through all fifteen courses. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

It wasn’t the food. Or, it wasn’t only the food – though it was too heavy and too complex,
sure to sit like stones in the belly later. It wasn’t the discomfort of being around so many
near-strangers when he was tired and filthy and wanted nothing more than to be left alone. It
wasn’t even the continued tension with Auguste, or Uncle’s harsh criticism, often
accompanied by a fond touch of the arm or shoulder or back – once a normal and
unremarkable gesture of affection from a beloved relative, now a thing that made Laurent’s
skin crawl.

Laurent, just, didn’t feel right. He didn’t feel well.

As the servants came to clear their plates, Laurent felt his uncle’s fingers skim through his
hair, and the touch made him simultaneously shiver as if ice had been poured down his spine,
and flush, suddenly, with a rush of unexpected heat.

“You’re barely eating,” Uncle observed, scolding him in a low tone, lips too-near his ear.
“Are you not concerned that you will displease your dear brother? Don’t you have any
respect for the time and expense that has gone into the planning of this exquisite meal for
you?”

Laurent reached for his drink, hoping it would excuse his failure to answer. The taste of
licorice was stronger in this pour. It seemed to coat his tongue in a thick, unpleasant way. The
wine was over-sweet, as well, the entire effect cloying. Laurent couldn’t understand why
everyone else was drinking it with such pleasure.
Musicians had been playing softly throughout the first three courses. As the fourth was
brought out (almond-crusted quail in a sauce of sugar and white wine, accompanied by thinly
sliced melon dusted with pepper and ginger), a trio of dancers pranced into the middle of the
room.

They were meant to be dryads, or something similar from Akielon myth, in honor of their
guests. Undoubtably, they were the pets of some ladder-climbing sycophant who wanted to
show off his possessions; they made a match set, one blond, one brunette, the third
redheaded, but their faces all striking and similar. Their owner favored a bold nose. They
were all male, short and slender, spritely in build. Delicate pets had been en vogue for at least
a decade. Laurent found it boring and a little uncomfortable. He would be fifteen in a matter
of days, and his body had yet to show any indication it intended to grow outside of those
dainty parameters. Did Damen, he often wondered, like men who looked like fae little boys?
Given the generous supply of beef always around him, Laurent couldn’t imagine why he
would. Did he like men at all? Laurent was only aware of females being taken to his bed, his
preferences running toward generous curves – soft stomachs and pendulous breasts, round
asses, wide thighs.

Laurent shut down that line of thinking, and he forced himself to watch the dancers. He tried
to breathe slowly. If he concentrated, he thought, he could mostly keep the room from
spinning. The room smelled like food, like too many spices, like a mismatch of perfume and
body odor. And horse. Laurent, himself, smelled strongly of horse. He forcibly swallowed a
wave of nausea, and chased it with another gulp of wine.

Auguste was now fully-engrossed in his conversation with a Councilman. It seemed his
father-in-law had grossly invited himself into the discussion. None of the men appeared
interested in the dancers, even as the music picked up tempo, as the dancers spin away from
each other in nauseating spirals and then came back together again, throwing themselves into
simulated frenzy. Hands touched bodies. Hips moved against hips. The blond was pushed to
his knees, and the brunette pretended to grind against his face as the redhead sank down
behind him and moved, sinuous, against his back. They rose again, and when they spun, the
room spun with them. The tempo of the song seemed to be trying to match the tempo of
Laurent’s heart beating in his ears.

“Water?” he rasped, when someone came to refill their cups, but the servant was already
walking away, moving on to the next task. The music was too loud, too fast, too much.
Everyone’s attention was on the dancers now – the way that they bent and twisted around
each other, slinking to the floor once more to climb and writhe in simulated fuck. Uncle’s
hand stretched out along the back of Laurent’s chair, his hand over the rim of his cup as he
traded out their drinks once more.

“You should let yourself enjoy yourself more,” he advised. The music had grown even more
wild; he had to lean in close and speak in Laurent’s eat to be heard. His hand seemed to burn
where it found Laurent’s shoulder to pull him closer. “Don’t you want,” he asked, “To enjoy
yourself?”

The dancers seemed to be enjoying themselves. Their clothes remained in place – silk sliding
against taut skin – but their bodies’ reactions were genuine. There was little dancing left to
the way they slithered and humped and ground against each other – in the parting of wet lips,
a head pulled back by a fist in the hair. The brunette was kissing the redhead as he pushed his
groin into the blond’s face.

Laurent’s heart was pounding. He felt like he couldn’t breathe. He was burning up; the cloth
of his chiton was itchy and unbearable where it touched his skin, as if he could feel every
thread. The brunette was thrusting against the blonde’s face. The blond was mouthing him
through the silks stretched tight over his now-weeping erection. The redhead had taken the
blonde’s pale slender hand, and was pushing himself against it, grip tight. Faster. Violent,
almost, the blond trapped between them, unable to pull away as they thrust themselves
against him, faster – frenzied – Laurent couldn’t breathe - !

Uncle slid a hand over his knee.

The music ended abruptly just as Laurent pushed his chair back and leapt to unsteady feet. As
the room broke into cheers and applause for the flushed and sweaty, unsatisfied dancers,
Laurent found himself too aware of the buzzing in his head, the violent pounding of his
heartbeat in his ears. The room dipped and swayed around him.

The dancers pulled away from one another, the fronts of their costumes tented and wet.
Laurent caught himself heavily against the table, the room tilting around him like the
swaying of a boat. The taste of licorice was heavy on his tongue.

He jumped as Auguste touched his arm.

“Laurent - ?” Laurent couldn’t hear him over the pounding of his blood in his ears; he only
saw his mouth forming his name.

“I need air,” Laurent said, and he fled.

--

“These Veretian pigs,” Aden spat. “They disgust me.” They performance had ceased being a
dance several minutes ago, but the courtiers in the main dining room were cheering for them
as if they had accomplished something more impressive than squirming and writhing and
rutting against each other like dogs in heat.

The performance had been confusing and unsettling and Erasmus suspected, uncomfortably,
that it was not the sort of the thing their masters back in the Garden would have approved of
their watching. His face still felt warm with embarrassment. Aden huffed, the first of the
crowd that had gathered in the doorway to turn away and return to his meal.

The soldiers and Laurent’s servants had been directed to an antechamber off the dining hall,
where unadorned tables waited to serve them a simple dinner. Many of the others had already
finished and left. Nikandros and some of his men were seated at the table furthest from the
dining room, gathered close as they discussed Chastillion’s floorplan and their strategy in low
voices. Few of them had been distracted by the scandalous performance.
Erasmus and Aden had not been the only ones crowded into the doorway to watch. They
hadn’t even been the first. Now Erasmus was embarrassed to have done so. What they had
just watched was shameful – a mimicry of something private, a twisting of an honored task
into something ugly and selfish and uncomfortable. The few minutes at the beginning, when
the dance had still been a dance, had not been worth all that happened there at the end.

Erasmus saw it when Prince Laurent pushed back his chair and leapt to his feet. He saw the
King of Vere catch the Prince, and the Prince pull away from him and flee, unsteady as he
walked out of the hall. He stumbled on his way out, hitting his shoulder on a doorframe.

Erasmus was the only one still standing in the doorway, still watching the main dining room,
when the Prince’s uncle said something to the King, then rose from his place to follow the
Prince.

--

Erasmus knew he needed to hurry, but hurry wasn’t an easy feat for someone in his position.
Every instinct was screaming against him. He was too aware of what he was – too aware that
to many eyes a slave slinking about could only be on the search for mischief. A slave slinking
and hurrying would need to be stopped. Questioned.

There was a door off the antechamber where Erasmus had dined, but he didn’t know his way
around the Keep. He needed to follow his Prince, and he wasn’t even sure of his ability to do
that, just that he had to try. He didn’t have time to alert the soldiers and he didn’t even have
cause to think he should; he just wanted to stay close in case he was needed. That meant
crossing the main dining hall, keeping his eyes down and making himself as unobtrusive as
possible, the way he had been taught back in the Gardens. A slave should be as easy to
overlook as a piece of furniture – even a pretty one. A chair was not a distraction. A table did
not pull attention. They were merely present, ready and willing to be used.

Halfway across the room, a pitcher of water was thrust into his hand. Someone had sidled up
close next to him.

“Pretend you have legitimate business,” Larius advised, his voice pitched low. He himself
was holding an empty serving tray, and his expression bore the cold, stony look he got
whenever he thought someone’s eyes had lingered too long and too speculatively on their
prince. He was the youngest of them – only twelve this past summer – but at times, he
seemed like the oldest. Erasmus knew that he, too, had been in training once as a bedslave,
before Prince Laurent had bought him. He knew, too, that unlike Erasmus, Larius no longer
thought of himself as a slave. “Don’t give me those milksop eyes,” Larius said. “Keep up, or
I’ll leave you behind. We can’t leave him alone with that swine.”

Larius was brave and he was clever. He was more than Erasmus would ever be. Kallias
would have been a better choice for this, but Erasmus had moved without catching Kallias’s
attention, and now it was too late. They moved together across the room. Larius never
stopped, but he swept dirty dishes off a table, looking so busy that no one questioned why an
Akielon boy was serving in a Veretian hall. He gave no opening for anyone to stop him for
questioning or to give him orders. Erasmus followed him helplessly, the pitcher held in both
hands like an afterthought.
They were almost out when someone caught Erasmus by the wrist. Expecting him not to have
the language, the man pointed obnoxiously at his glass. “Water. Wa-TUR!” he said, loud and
slow. Erasmus looked desperately to the door – Larius was handing off his tray to someone
else, and he was leaving without a glance back.

Another tug at his arm. “WA-T-UR. Can you believe these stupid barbarians. Water. I want
water.”

The man’s raised voice was frightening. The chance of losing Larius was, too. Trying to
hurry, his hands shaking, Erasmus tried to fill the glass the man had indicated.

The man shouted and leapt to his feet when the water spilled – but he let Erasmus go.
Forgetting all pretext Erasmus broke away and he ran for the doors, ducking through the half-
dozen new dancers who had just arrived and who, inadvertently, served to cover his exit.

Out in the corridor, the now-empty pitcher clutched hard to his chest, Erasmus looked up and
down the hall and caught just the barest glimpse of Larius turning a corner at the far right.
Breaking into a run, Erasmus followed.

--

Laurent stumbled through the halls and they dipped and swayed around him, no-longer-
familiar walls of the keep that he and Auguste had spent so much time chasing each other
through as children stretching out around him on and on and on. Laurent had to keep a hand
on the wall, afraid that if he released it he would lose it. The feel of the stone against his palm
burned his skin. Fire. He was on fire. He was burning to a crisp. He was going to die.

His hand hit the nothing of an open doorway, and he stumbled through it and fell, and the
floor was so blessedly cold against his overheated skin that, for a moment, he just lay there
and enjoyed it. Panting, he clawed at the cloak he wore over his chiton until he had it off, and
his arms and legs were mostly bare, and it was a relief, for a moment. Laurent clung to the
floor, holding on as the room spun around him. His body tensed and throbbed, painful,
oversensitive, the sensation uncomfortable and unfamiliar and alarming and –

“There you are,” said a voice, and Laurent knew that he should know it, but he could hardly
breathe, let alone think. He couldn’t – he couldn’t –

His protest emerged as a whine as he was lifted, The twisting and spinning of the world
around him grew worse – violently worse – blackness edging his vision, threatening and
terrible. He tried to speak.

“H – hel – “

“Oh, darling boy, that is exactly what I intend to do.”

Laurent lost time for a moment. He roused slightly as he was set upon a – something soft – a
couch? And then there were cold hands touching him, on his face, smoothing back his hair.
He turned toward that soothing comfort, and was hushed as he whined again.
“The dinner will occupy everyone for hours, yet,” that voice said, hushed, pleased.
Something about it tugged at Laurent’s memory. “You have to let me take care of you, yes?
Be a good boy for dear Uncle.”

The alarm he felt was muted. Laurent tried to open his eyes, but it made him too dizzy. Hands
were pulling up his chiton – he felt air against suddenly-care thighs. Something brushed
against him, between his legs, and he made a sound of complaint, his Akielon smallclothes
too scratchy and rough against his oversensitive skin as a hand palmed him, pressed hard
against his privates.

“Shhh, shhh, darling boy; it’s going to feel so good.”

Whining again, Laurent tried to push away the hand rubbing him. When he opened his eyes
again, the blackness rushed in like ocean waves in a storm, and took him away, and for a little
while he was gone, unaware of anything, and when he came back, there were fingers at his
mouth, pressing into his mouth – pressing against his tongue until he choked.

“Good,” he heard. “Just as I imagined. We’ll put that mouth to proper use, won’t we?”

Something was tugging at his smallclothes. He tried to shake his head, to squirm away, to
push away that hand. A hard slap left his ears ringing.

When Laurent was rolled over onto his belly, the darkness closed in and claimed him once
more, clawing him down into its deep, quiet depths. The last thing he was aware of was the
sound of laces sliding through their eyelets, and a hand burning against his skin, and a voice,
whispering one final, worshipful word.

“Finally.”

--

Erasmus had been raised to be ornamental and passive and pretty. His worth was in his
obedience, and the beauty it was hoped that he would one day possess. The Masters who had
trained him in the Gardens had always taken great care with his looks – monitoring his meals
to keep him slim and fragile, washing his hair with special tinctures to help keep the coloring
light, massaging his skin with oils and lotions so that it stayed soft and pale and dewy.

The weapons training Prince Laurent insisted they all endure had made his hands rough and
cracked. He had split ends, now, and broken nails, and, horrifyingly, his shoulders had gotten
broader from the development of lean muscle.

Erasmus did not have the strength or stamina or skill of one who had been born to a soldier’s
life, and he doubted that he ever would. He had fallen far behind Larius in their dash through
the halls, and he was out of breath from running, but he knew that if his eccentric new
master’s insistence on training had given him anything, it was the fact he was able to follow
at all. He was certain his legs would have given out at least three times by now, and if not his
legs, his courage.
Near the front of the keep, he saw Larius open a door and duck into another passage, and he
cursed softly, daringly, under his breath. He tried to run a little faster, his lungs burning –

And then he stopped short.

It wasn’t another passage Larius had ducked down, but an informal drawing room, and the
details of the tableau Erasus found himself facing were confusing and abhorrent and difficult
to absorb.

His Prince was unconscious, laid out on his belly on a couch, and his chiton was half-
unwound and pushed up to mid-back, his smallclothes shoved down his marble-white thighs.
A man was kneeling over him, the laces of his Veretian pants undone, his cock jutting free –
jutting aggressively forward, swollen and purple. Larius was approaching him from behind,
brandishing a kitchen knife he must have stolen from one of the dining room tables. The man
was just beginning to turn when, with a yell, Larius threw himself onto his back.

Larius was small – as boys meant for pleasure often were. When the man – no, it was
important to be specific – when Prince Richard of Vere, brother to the late King Aleron, uncle
to the honored Prince Laurent – when Prince Richard of Vere reared back with a roar, Larius
held on, locking an arm around his throat and legs around his chest, holding tight as his other
arm lifted and fell, lifted and fell – as he stabbed the eldest Prince of Vere again and again
and again.

It was only a dinner knife, Erasmus realized. One of the duller ones – one meant for bread. It
was only really sharp at the tip, and it was fairly short. Larius was determined, and trying
desperately to kill him with it, but he was not having the level of success he wanted. Larius’s
knife rose and fell and rose and fell and rose again, Prince Richard’s dark cloak blooming
with rosettes of blood as he stumbled to his feet, turning uselessly in circles as he tried to get
hold of his attacker. Larius kept stabbing.

Erasmus was useless. He hadn’t thought to find a knife or some other weapon – in fact, he
was still carrying that stupid water pitcher. Instead, he rushed to the couch, his first priority,
foolishly, to pull the Prince’s smallclothes back into place, to tug his chiton back down to
cover him. He didn’t even think to check to see if he was breathing until after; the Prince’s
dignity was his first priority.

“He’s alive!” Erasmus said, relieved.

“Good. This one will not be for long.” Larius pulled back Prince Richard’s head by grasping
his haid, and then he tried, with his dull blade, to slit his throat, sawing, determined, as the
man clawed at him.

It was taking too long. The new position gave Prince Richard something, finally, to grasp
onto. Grabbing Larius by the arm, he threw him over his shoulder.

Larius crashed into the wall beside the couch, hitting his head, stunning him.

“You filthy, rutting little whore,” Prince Richard snarled, panting. One of his arms was
hanging funny, but he didn’t seem aware of it, bending over Larius to grasp him by the hair
and knock his head into the wall again. He grabbed the knife, wrenching it from the boy’s
hand. “You are going to pay for- “

Erasmus didn’t know what came over him. He didn’t know what he was thinking. He wasn’t
thinking; that was the problem. He had thrown the pitcher to the side when he knelt to check
his Prince, and it lay there beside him still on the couch.

When Prince Richard grabbed Larius, Erasmus grabbed the pitcher. Closing his eyes, he
slammed it, with all his might, against the back of Prince Richard’s head. The glass shattered.

--

“Get him off me,” Larius groaned.

“I – is he dead?” Erasmus asked, hands shaking. Prince Richard of Vere had taken on the
qualities of a monster to him, over the last several seconds. He was afraid to touch him –
afraid that he would come to and rise, furious, immortal, invulnerable, ready to punish them.

“Not yet,” Larius said, in a way that suggested he considered the status to be temporary. He
pushed at the unconscious man on top of him. “C’mon,” he said, “He’s heavy.”

Erasmus tried, but Erasmus was only a boy of fourteen, himself, and a slight one, at that. He
put his quaking hands on the elder Prince’s shoulders and he pulled as Larius pushed, and
Erasmus felt his foot slip in blood, and the man didn’t budge.

“I – I can’t - !” Erasmus panted.

“Keep trying!” Larius insisted.

Erasmus grunted with exertion. Prince Richard’s shoulder lifted, just an inch, and Erasmus’s
hand slipped, and Prince Richard fell back onto Larius once more. Larius cursed, using some
of those awful words that their Prince liked to teach them.

“We need to get help,” Erasmus said, falling back, exhausted.

“We just killed a Veretian Prince – we can’t get help.”

Erasmus was horrified. “You said he was alive!”

“For now. I can’t reach a good enough piece of glass.”

Erasmus looked at the remains of the water pitcher, then back at Larius. “You can’t really
mean to - ?”

“Of fucking course I- “

“What is going on here?”

The question, like the discussion it interrupted, was in Akielon.

 The cold flush of terror that ran through Erasmus somehow had less to do with being caught
with blood on his hands in a room with two unconscious notdeadpleasenotdead Veretian
Princes than it did the sound of the voice.

Prince Kastor was standing in the doorway, a frown on his face, his brows drawn down like
dark clouds threatening the horizon.

Prince Kastor was handsome, as his father and brother were handsome, though he was the
shortest of the three, and his dark, wavy hair was beginning to thin at the temples. He was
well-built and strong, an accomplished commander, a skilled warrior. Even still – Erasmus
did not like him. Whenever Erasmus looked at him, he sent up a tiny prayer of gratitude that
his Prince had bought him and Kallias. Though his masters had been diligent about keeping
the blond in Erasmus’s hair, none of them had been marked for use by a particular royal yet.
Erasmus had once thought he didn’t care – but now, having met Prince Kastor, and having
seen the bruises he had left on dear Prince Laurent, and having heard the way he spoke to
others, the fact that there had once been a one-in-three chance he might have to serve in the
man’s bed terrified him.

Erasmus scrambled immediately to take on the kind of posture that most suited a slave
greeting a Prince – facing him, on his knees, his forehead pressed to the ground. Erasmus
knew that, pinned under Prince Richard’s weight, Larius could not do the same – but he also
knew that his friend was difficult and willful; that because dear Prince Laurent spoiled them
so, he had begun to think himself as a free man, a soldier, and he resented the fact that he had
ever been a slave. Erasmus prayed that Larius would at least lower his bright, defiant gaze.
He feared wholeheartedly that he would not.

“I attempted to kill a Prince of Vere,” Larius said, his voice a challenge, daring Prince Kastor
to tell him that he was wrong. “I found him attempting to force himself upon my master, as
once he attempted to force himself on me, and so I tried to kill him. Erasmus tried to stop me.
I would not let him.”

Prince Kastor looked at Erasmus. Striding into the room, he stretched out a foot, and using
the toe of his sandal he lifted Erasmus’s chin.

“Go,” he ordered. There was an odd, pleased expression twitching the corners of his mouth.
“Go fetch the guardsmen. Go fetch the King.”

Chapter End Notes

There are lots of important arteries that Larius could have hit. Unfortunately, he did not.
Stabbing someone with what is essentially a butter knife with a slightly sharp tip is a lot
of work. From my true crime pods, I gather even with a good knife it can be a little
harder than you think it will, depending on where you're doing it.
He DOES manage to do some good damage cause of all those nice nerves. I did lots of
sketchy research; hello fbi, sorry about those google searches. . I just wanted to explain
why uncle isn’t dead when Larius was so close to his neck.
 Chapter 34
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Damen parted from Camp Timaeus with carts loaded down with tribute the tribe could not
afford, a few new slaves they really couldn’t afford to sell, and a pseudo-hostage he found he
could still not get the measure of.

Damen had accepted the invitation to meet with Timaeus with a mixture of anticipation and
excitement. In addition to the late tribute, there had been rumors of raids occurring far outside
the usual paths the tribes too. On his way to the meeting, Damen had, indeed, seen signs that
Palladius and Rastus had passed near, and he had even killed a son of Zeuxis in a village he
happened to be passing through during one such raid. Camp Timaeus had been the only tribe
to reach out to him individually, the only one to meet him, alone, under a banner of peace.

All of the politicking made Damen’s head spin. He didn’t like it. He thought of what a relief
it would be to finally return home and present his father with his tribute and his “hostage”
and his findings. Being able to bring his father news of the warlord felt like more of an
accomplishment than he had managed in quite a while, a balm to the frustration of prior
encounters with the tribes.

On the other hand, Damen could not shake the suspicion that he was not handing his father a
map to new victory, but simply a ball of threads, impossibly tangled, certain to waste his
time. A part of him felt sure that nothing would come of this – the warlord would never make
himself big enough to warrant father’s attention. The Free Tribes would collapse any day.
The fact that Damen was entertaining it at all had to be the fault of his Veretian allies and
their twisty, snake-like ways. Laurent, he thought fondly, would tear him a new asshole if he
learned he had dismissed a potential threat without further investigation.

Laurent would have been all over this plot. His favorite books were all filled with dizzyingly
complex political intrigue and puzzles that made Damen slightly lightheaded. Whenever
Damen made him angry, he would always smile, so sweetly, and recommend a new one to
him.

“I’m not trying to punish you!” Damen could still see the perfect act of confused innocence
his funny little husband had put on the last time Damen, frustrated with an unexpected plot
twist, had accused him of such. “I told you; Aimeric and I argue too much when we discuss
Leroux. I need a third opinion in the room to keep us balanced.”

“No – you want me there so you can team up and laugh at me.”

“If we’re laughing at you,” Laurent had said, primly, “That means we aren’t murdering each
other. Anyway, we thought you were kidding when you said you were rooting for Mondego…”

Aimeric had laughed at that, briefly, the smile overcoming his usual pinched and surely
expression. Upon realizing what it was he had done, the boy had been quick to hide himself
behind his book, and Laurent had given Damen a grin of sheer, absolute triumph.

“What could the Prince of Akielos be thinking of that brings such softness to his face?” his
‘hostage’ asked, bringing Damen back to the present.

“My little brother,” Damen told jokaste, honestly. He didn’t miss the flicker of displeasure
that crossed her face, quick as the passing of a ghost.

“Your little catamite, you mean.”

“I mean my little brother.” Damen made the correction firmly. “He’s fifteen soon. I think we
might even arrive back in Ios in time for the celebrations. He’s planning to run the Okton this
year; I’m going to run it with him.”

“Typical,” Jokaste said. “You ride at the head of a troupe of powerful soldiers, a beautiful
woman your willing prisoner at your side, and your head is full of Okton and pretty young
boys.”

“Are you suggesting that my head should be filled with you instead?”

Damen had offered to share his tent with her, more than once, but Jokaste had refused him.
She had, at the time, seemed offended that he would even think to ask. It was confusing to
Damen that she would seem to imply jealousy now.

Jokaste, he reminded himself, had her own plans, her own motivations – as did her father,
Timaeus. Furthermore, it was unlikely that those motivations even attempted to align. Hadn’t
she herself proposed a cause of action separate from what her father had?

Ostensibly, Jokaste’s presence as Damen’s hostage was to serve the dual purpose of hiding
her father’s collusion with Damen from the other tribes while simultaneously providing an
excuse for more regular correspondence between her camp and the Akielon capitol. Timaeus
now even had “cause” to refuse to participate in any of the warlord’s plots. No man would
question him for wanting to keep his daughter safe.

Damen could see, though, in a way that he might not have been able to previously, that there
was more to all of this than the obvious. His skills at discernment hit a wall there – he didn’t
have a damned clue what more there may be going on – but he was aware of it, at least.

Thinking about it too much made his head hurt.

“I can’t help but wonder if your tastes are really so very different than I had previously
heard,” Jokaste mused airily. Damen could not help but to laugh.

“What do you know of my tastes?”

“The voracious appetite of the Prince of Akielos is legendary, even among my people!” she
said, after a pause, and a part of Damen wondered, surprised, if she had somehow revealed
more than she had intended to there. He couldn’t begin to fathom what that more could be,
but her answer rang of excuse. “Voracious, but not very expansive. When my father decided
to approach you, I warned him that he would need to purchase at least a dozen pretty blonde
pleasure slaves for your amusement, lest you see us as poor hosts. He only bought the one,
alas, and you didn’t even enjoy her.”

“I bought her, didn’t I?”

“And yet where is she? Not only have you failed to call her to your tent, she seems to have
vanished entirely from camp. Along with three of your men.”

“Are you prying into my affairs?”

“You also bought a young boy,” Jokaste said, her eyes measuring him. “Who you do keep in
your tent.”

“I’m not fucking the boy; I just don’t want any of the men to touch him.”

“And now I find you mooning over your young Veretian Prince. I am simply asking the
obvious: has your preference turned away from the ripe, fully-formed fruit of a woman’s
luscious curves? Does the Prince of Akielos now find his nethers swelling to thoughts of the
gangly limbs and breaking voices of skinny pubescent boys?”

“No,” Damen told her, firmly. He was no longer enjoying the conversation. “And I find it
offensive you would even suggest it. He is a child.”

“But you did wed him.”

“To secure peace with Vere. Yes.”

“And you are very fond of him.”

“Of course I am. There is no way I couldn’t be – Laurent is a boy who it is impossible not to
be fond of. You will see when you meet him. But he is a brother to me, and I to him. I’m
thankful for the bond we’ve formed, but that is all it is.”

Jokaste made a sound as if she even now still doubted him – but she let the matter drop, and
when Damen rode ahead, she did not follow.

Damen didn’t care what Jokaste thought of him – what angered him was the idea that anyone
might look at Laurent and think such things. Catamite. Laurent was bright and brilliant,
stubborn, full of mischief. Laurent didn’t deserve to be reduced to anything less than what he
was: wonderful.

--

“What is this?” Damen asked that night, as Jokaste left her campfire to come to his, offering
him a palm-sized object wrapped in a linen napkin.

“A peace offering,” she said. “Will you invite me to join you?”

“Peace?” Damen repeated. “Were we at war?”

“I assumed we were. You have been making terrible faces at me all evening, and you’ve
hardly spoken two words to me all afternoon.” Jokaste neglected to wait for the suggested
invitation, smoothing her skirts down over her backside as she took a seat next to Damen.
The sculpted brow she arched at him dared him to take issue with her inviting herself over, or
to argue with her, either one.

“Technically speaking, you are supposed to be my hostage,” Damen said. Gingerly, he

unwrapped the object she had given him. It was sticky; a thin, flat cake covered in honey and
chopped walnuts. The honey began to run the moment the napkin was pulled away. Damen
caught what he could of it, sticking his fingers in his mouth.

“Technically speaking,” Jokaste said, “That could have been poisoned.”

Damen paused only briefly before he rolled his eyes to meet hers and then, holding her gaze,
deliberately licked honey that had drizzled its way down his hand to his thumb. Even in the
firelight, he could see the pretty way her cheeks grew warm.

“You’re a terrible host,” she told him. “That is my point.”

“I was unaware that keeping my hostage entertained was a part of the deal. You’re only a few
days’ ride away from your father, if you would like to turn back.”

Now the color in her cheeks was no longer due to embarrassment, but annoyance.

“Despite the fact that I’ve been raised in tents like some vagabond, I will remind you that I
am a lady, Exalted. And my father has seen to it that I was educated as such.”

“You would have been a Lady,” Damen corrected. “Your father stole that from you when he
betrayed my father. When he lost all your lands for you.”

Her eyes widened, slightly, and then narrowed. Outrage was a pretty expression on her – but
it seemed most expressions were pretty on her. Damen took a bite of his little treat, enjoying
himself.

“Do you dislike me?” she asked, leaning forward, her arms clasping ‘round her bent knees.
The posture, incidentally, pressed her more than generous breasts together, drawing the eye of
any sane man. “I was hoping that we would discover a way to get along better than this.”

She was very pretty, there in the firelight, the stars above them bright and numerous. She had
the coloring he liked – all soft marble skin and big blue eyes and a crown of hair like spun
gold. Her curves had been distracting men all day. She seemed to glow, there in the firelight’s
warm flickering, her lips so red and plump, mischief and outrage dancing in her eyes. The
way that her dress was pinned left one milky shoulder bare. A lock of hair had escaped its
styling to brush, enticingly, against her smooth skin.

“You concealed your identity from me and then accused me of having a perversion toward
young boys,” Damen pointed out “If you’re hoping to endear yourself to me, I have to inform
you that this isn’t quite how it’s done.”
“No?”

“You have a unique way of showing your intentions.”

“I wager I can show you many things, Prince Damianos.”

“My tent is right there,” Damen said, jerking his chin toward it. “What is the wager?”

She glanced at the tent, and he watched her think about it. It didn’t take more than a moment,
her calculations quick and private. Then she laughed.

“I am afraid you’ve misunderstood my intentions,” Jokaste said. “I’m here to help my people.
To protect our freedom. I’ve no interest in testing out the accuracy of the tales of the sexual
prowess of the mighty Damianos of Akielos.”

“Your loss,” Damen said with a shrug, and he settled back again, relaxed and confident. He
had finished off the little cake, and he let her see how his eyes took in the sight of her there in
the firelight as he took his time, slowly licking the remaining honey from his fingertips.

Her lips parted briefly, then she tossed her head and she smiled.

“Men like you always overestimate the size and endurance of your… legends.”

“Have a lot of experience with men like me, do you?”

He was rewarded by the opportunity to watch the lovely way she flushed once again.

“Perhaps there are not many men like you,” she allowed.

“I promise you – there aren’t.”

Jokaste tossed her head again and she rose, bending over him to take the used napkin from
his hand. His eyes were drawn, by instinct, to the swell of her breasts. She waited for him to
focus his attention on her face before she answered.

“And I promise you,” Jokaste said, “You are not as interesting as you think you are.”

Damen laughed, helplessly, as she walked away.

--

At first, Aimeric didn’t understand what was going on. No one did – but Aimeric in particular
really didn’t, because Aimeric had been doing his best to not know what was going on. No
one really knew what was happening, anyway, but Aimeric, in particular, didn’t because
Aimeric didn’t want to know.

Father was sitting up at the royal table with the King and the Princes and the rest of the
Council, but that didn’t mean that Aimeric was free. Two of his brothers were in attendance,
along with the shrill peacocks they called wives, and they were the brothers he happened to
like least. As much as Aimeric had dreaded having to face his father – as much as he loathed
the concept of eating a meal under the same roof as that vile toad Prince Richard, his one
consolation for it all had been the thought that, by coming with Prince Laurent to Vere, he
would at least get to see his mother.

The joke was on Aimeric. Wasn’t it always? Mother hadn’t come. Aimeric had no friendly
faces waiting to welcome him home, no one who cared for him. He had only the father who
had sold him and the two brothers he liked the least and their stupid, selfish wives.

Aimeric had thought it would help to choose a seat at dinner that would place his back to the
royal table. He had even made it a point to walk in before his siblings to stake his claim. But
then Prince Ratface – pardon, Prince Richard – had walked in, and he caught Aimeric’s eye,
and his expression held knowledge of every inch of Aimeric’s skin, and every disgusting,
depraved thing he had demanded that Aimeric allow him to do to him or required Aimeric
himself to do. It was a face that said I know what you look like, sobbing on my cock. A subtle
curl to his lip. A certain light in his eye. It left Aimeric feeling dirty, vulnerable, exposed.
He’d spent the rest of the meal on edge, sure that that horrid expression was boring into the
back of his neck. That the Prince was relieving all the times he had made Aimeric beg, made
him choose between humiliation or pain.

No one cared to notice that Aimeric was taking unwatered wine. Nor did it seem to matter
that he was drinking more than he was eating. His brothers’ wives were catching each other
up on court gossip. Teodore and Constance lived close enough to Arles that they were able to
make frequent forays to the palace, but the others did not, and would not be allowed to forget
it.

“That hemline!” Constance tutted at Lyam’s wife, Babette, indicating a woman two tables
over. “No one in Arles has worn a hemline like that in at least three years. It’s so provincial.
Isn’t she ashamed?” It was a very similar dress to what Babette wore.

Aimeric drank, and he might have noticed, absently, when Prince Laurent rushed by,
abandoning the meal – but he was so concerned with the phantom feel of eyes boring into the
back of his skull that he didn’t realize it when Prince Richard got up and followed. He didn’t
realize he was gone at all.

Not until the soldiers came.

At first, Aimeric didn’t understand what was going on. Soldiers flooded the hall, and
everyone was being ordered to go to their rooms, meals unfinished. Aimeric rose with his
brothers and their wives, and it all came together as he glanced back at the royal table and he
realized – Laurent had not returned, and Ratface was missing, too.

Aimeric had to cross his arms, shoving his hands into his armpits, in order to hide how
violently he was suddenly shaking. Aimeric hadn’t eaten much, but it felt as if a heavy stone
filled his belly. He remembered Prince Richard calling him by his own nephew’s name as he
hurt him. Hold yourself open, Laurent; you’re going to take it all this time. He remembered
the agony of it, the first time. He remembered how the more he cried, the more Ratface did to
make him cry. He remembered blood.
Dizzy, nauseated, Aimeric somehow managed to slip through the crowd without even
noticing it when his brothers tried to catch him and pull him back. He ducked through the
ring of guards around the King, unaware of the grasping hands that tried to stop him.

“Is Laurent all right?” Aimeric asked, urgently, unaware that he was interrupting a
conversation between the King and Councilor Audin. He didn’t see the furious glare his
father fixed on him. The guards grabbing hold of his arms surprised him. All he could see
was how pale King Auguste looked – how worried. “Did something happen to Laurent?”
Aimeric demanded.

He saw the effort it took for King Auguste to gather himself. He saw him gesture for the
guards to release Aimeric, though at the time Aimeric was completely unaware of how close
he had come to being chained up in irons.

He would remember, later, that the King tried to be gentle when he answered him. That the
King, stupidly, was himself unaware of what was going on.

“Laurent is safe,” King Auguste promised. And then, with a waver, “It is my uncle who has
been attacked.”

--

Father managed to get Aimeric out of the hall before Aimeric started laughing.

Aimeric’s brothers and their wives had been assigned to their own individual rooms, but
Aimeric hadn’t been deemed important enough to take up that much space on his own. He
had been relegated to sharing with his father, instead. Though the suites the Council used
when visiting Chastillion were large and well-appointed, that still meant Aimeric would be
sleeping on a servant’s pallet set up in the sitting room. It was the sight of it, already set up
near the fire, piled high with ruffled pillows and embroidered quilts like it had been prepared
for some six-year-old Princess, that broke through the shock that masqueraded as control, and
set Aimeric to laughter.

Father had barely gotten the door closed behind the guards who had escorted them. Aimeric
couldn’t control it – couldn’t stop himself. Even as his father rounded on him, fierce-eyed
and furious, Aimeric couldn’t stop. Aimeric laughed and he laughed, and his father crossed
the room, and he slapped him so hard across the face that the only reason Aimeric managed
to keep his feet was the bruising grip his father had taken of his arm.

“Stop that,” his father said, shaking him so hard that his teeth rattled. “Have some respect. If
that strains your limited intellect too much, then at the very least, endeavor to keep your
mouth shut. Your future King was attacked tonight.”

“Laurent is never going to be King of anything,” Aimeric argued, sullen, his voice thick. He
wanted to be sullen. He wanted to mouth off. He wanted to be a shit and make himself
someone else’s problem. He wanted to laugh forever. He had caught more details on the way
to the room, because his father was a Councilman, and soldiers kept stopping them to give
him updates. The thought of fierce little Larius hurling himself at Prince Ratface with a butter
knife made him feel simultaneously mad with giddiness and bitter with jealousy. They would
 punish Larius, of that he had no doubt. His friend would die for the attack. But what a worthy
cause!

Aimeric wished he himself could be half as brave.

It took him a moment to notice the way his father was looking at him, his expression filled
with contempt, and with a feeling like being trapped under the thunderous roar of an
oncoming avalanche, Aimeric found himself going cold.

His father had not been talking about Laurent.

His father watched him realize it. Expression closing off, he tightened his hold on Aimeric
and threw him, hard, into a nearby chair.

“Just stay out of the way and keep your fool mouth closed,” his father ordered. He was afraid,
Aimeric realized. He watched his father turn back to the door – watched him crack it open
and peer out into the hall. Assured, Aimeric assumed, that his way was clear, his father
slipped back out into the hall.

He locked the door behind him.

Chapter End Notes

Right, so, after all that last chapter, the most important thing you were worried about
was whether or not Jokaste and Damen were flirting, right?

That's why this chapter is early.

 Chapter 35
Chapter Notes

I have not had the chance to answer last chapter's comments yet, but I promise I will!

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Auguste felt as if he was being pulled in thirteen different directions all at once, and he
wasn’t sure, really, how he was still holding himself in one piece. He’d felt like he was
standing outside of his own body when he gave the first, easiest orders: restrain the slaves,
call the physician for Uncle Richard. Bring Laurent to the King’s rooms.

After that, matters became much more complex. Laurent’s Veretian guards had been given a
table at the back of the main hall with the rest of Auguste’s men, but Auguste couldn’t
understand or account for why his Akielon guards had been placed in an entire different
room, and the man in charge of them, Nikandros, was expecting him to. Auguste hadn’t given
the order for that to happen, he hadn’t noticed it happening (okay, maybe he had, but it had
been nice not to have the distraction of a table full of brutes during his dinner), and he didn’t
know where the decision had come from. Prince Kastor himself hadn’t noticed or cared that
his people had been shuffled to the side room. If anyone was to take it as insult or raise
concerns, surely it would have been him?

None of that was good enough for the Akielon Captain. Nikandros was a personal friend of
Prince Damianos, if Auguste was remembering correctly, and he was furious. He wanted to
know how it was that no one had been watching Laurent. He wanted to know how Auguste
could be so careless with his welfare, when Laurent had been sitting right beside him, and
Auguste didn’t have an answer. Not yet.

“Laurent is unharmed,” Auguste assured him. He felt like he had said it a dozen times
already. He wasn’t sure if he was reassuring Nikandros or himself. “My uncle was the target
of the attack.”

The Akielon’s gaze was dark with contempt. He said something harsh in his tongue, and
several of his men went for the stairs. Auguste went to intercept them, but Nikandros stepped
in his way, putting himself in Auguste’s space threateningly, nearly chest-to-chest.

“I am assuming guardianship of Laurent for the duration of this visit,” Nikandros said. “The
Prince will not be left unguarded again.”

“It was your people who attacked my uncle, not mine!” Auguste pointed out, refusing to step
back. Nikandos’s eyes flared with fury, but he didn’t move, either. The only thing to finally
break the staring contest between them was the sound of running feet. Auguste took a step
back when Nikandros looked away. The Akielon looked at the out-of-breath servant as if
expecting that he, and not Auguste, should be the recipient of the man’s report. In that
moment, he bore such a commanding presence, that the servant seemed momentarily to
believe it, too. He stumbled over his words, gaping at him.

“Out with it, man,” Auguste snapped at last, annoyed, and the servant fixed his attention on
him guiltily. His bow was belated.

“Your Majesty,” the servant said, “The physicians have sent me to inform you that Prince
Richard is awake.”

“Then we will interview him,” Nikandros decided with a firm nod. He began to move for the
stairs. This time he was the one who found himself unexpectedly stopped.

Pointedly, Auguste looked past the Akielon’s outraged glare, to his own Captain. “Sebastian,
I want every Akielon in Chastillon save Prince Kastor put under house arrest until the
investigation is complete.”

“You what?” Nikandros demanded.

“It’s no different than how any other guest is being handled,” Auguste said. “Whatever the
plot here, I cannot risk unknown actors having free rein of the grounds. And given the
circumstances, I especially cannot afford the risk of Akielon interference.” Prince Kastor, as
far as Auguste was concerned, was the only Akielon who could be trusted right now. He had
been the one to rescue Uncle Richard, the one to report the incident. “You would order the
same in my position, were my people to have attacked your family.”

Politically, it was a disaster. The Akielon soldiers reached for their weapons as the Veretians
drew close, though they held off actually drawing, waiting for an order from Nikandros –
who stood tall and proud and furious. Aguste did not have merely his guards here in
Chastillion, but many soldiers as well. The Akielons had brought impressive numbers, but
they were, still, in the minority here, should things come to conflict. This night could very
easily end in slaughter. For a moment, Auguste imagined it: killing the Akielons, then
leveraging Kastor’s life to free Laurent from that accursed treaty. A part of him didn’t even
care if it restarted the war; it was there, just out of reach – the vision of a life returned to
normal, of getting his brother back.

But Nikandros backed down.

“This is not over,” he told Auguste, as he allowed himself and his men to be arrested.

That, at least, Auguste agreed with.

--

Auguste was relieved to find Councilor Guion in his uncle’s rooms when he arrived.

“Are the rest of the Council on their way?” Auguste asked. “I was afraid my men might have
caught them up in the curfew.” Having his Council placed under arrest alongside the rest of
his guests would have made an already bad political situation into a nightmare. That, surely,
explained the surprise that briefly flickered across Guion’s face.

“I – I will go and see what’s keeping them, Your Majesty,” Guion said, after a glance back at
Uncle Richard. “You should have a moment alone with your uncle, in any case.”

Auguste clasped him by the shoulder as he made to pass.

“You’re a good man, Guion,” he said. “Thank you.”

It was hard to face Uncle Richard alone after Guion left. Hard to see someone Auguste had so
long loved and respected brought so low and so weak. Mother had been ill, not injured – and
Father had already been long dead by the time Auguste laid eyes on him. This was, somehow,
different.

Things had often been uncomfortable and tense between them over the course of the last year.
There was still a part of Auguste that was still angry about the near-consummation at
Laurent’s fourteenth birthday. More often than not, Auguste and Uncle Richard were at odds;
Auguste couldn’t help bucking against advice that, more often than not, he found utterly
loathsome and repellent. But despite his poor attitude and his ill grace, his uncle continued to
try to help him, to guide him into being a better King. Despite Auguste’s failings, his uncle
still loved him – and Auguste still loved his uncle, too. Every harsh word that had ever
passed between them now replayed itself in Auguste’s mind, an endless, guilty loop.

He approached the bed slowly.

Uncle Richard was shirtless, prone, just slightly propped up by the pillows. He was terribly,
terribly pale. There seemed to be bandages everywhere – across his uncle’s torso and
shoulder and arm, around his head, around his neck. Auguste had seen him immediately after
the attack, but there had been too much blood, and he had been too concerned with Laurent at
the time – he hadn’t been able to take a full accounting of the damage the feral little slave boy
had wrought.

Uncle Richard reached for him, weakly, and Auguste hurried the rest of the way to his side.
He took his hand just as the physician came back in, trailed by servants carrying fresh towels
and a pitcher of water. Auguste tried to listen to the prognosis of his uncle’s injuries and the
anticipated aftereffects. A part of him was lost, seeing such a great man brought so low. He
remembered how his uncle used to invite him to his rooms for breakfast when he was a child,
and how they would sit together in his big bed watching the sun come up while Uncle
Richard gave him spicy licorice tea and let him have his fill of flaky pastries. Uncle Richard
would tease him about his studies and tell him amusing stories about the adventures he and
Father went on as boys, and eventually, the hour too early for Auguste, Auguste would fall
asleep amid the big fluffy pillows of his bed, curled up against his uncle, safe and warm and
happy. They were some of his favorite memories.

Auguste did his best to control his emotions, but as the physician left again, he drew a breath,
and it trembled violently.

“Oh, Uncle,” Auguste said.

Richard winced. “Quiet, my boy… draw… curtains. My head…” His voice was odd. The
physicians had warned Auguste that it might be. The injury to his head was the most
worrying one. It had caused partial paralysis to his face, and they were not sure whether or
not it would be permanent. One corner of his mouth did not move with the rest of his lip. The
physicians were hopeful that it would pass once his humors realigned the channels of
melancholy and phlegm, but they could make no promises. They would take measurements
of the stars tonight to determine whether leeches or cupping would be a more effective
treatment, but in the meantime they had taken a urine sample, which they would dilute with
goats’ milk and bitter dandelion and feed to Uncle, then watch for signs of infection.

Uncle Richard’s wounds had been cleaned with alcohol and vinegar, and then packed with
salt and myrrh to protect them. The physicians had smoked the room thoroughly with a heavy
incense of dogwood and dried cow dung to chase malignant spirits from the patient. If his
condition didn’t improve in a few days, they said they would begin to administer a hemlock
syrup. If he was not improved in a week, they would perform a surgery to relieve the pressure
of his misaligned humors on his skull. For now, they were giving him a tonic of opium and
mercury for the pain.

“That man is…insane,” Uncle Richard said, his words slightly slurred. A little saliva
collected at the slack corner of his mouth, which he seemed unaware of. “Where – Paschal?”

“Paschal is with Laurent,” Auguste said. “I assure you, Uncle – Barnabe is himself a highly
skilled physician. And he isn’t foreign.”

Uncle Richard’s hand spasmed, tightening in Auguste’s. “L-Laurent. Awake?”

“No, not yet,” Auguste said. It pained him that he wasn’t at his brother’s side, but Laurent
would never know his absence while he was yet unconscious. It was Uncle Richard who
needed him right now. “What happened?” Auguste asked. “Can you remember?”

“Wait,” Uncle Richard said, “For Council.”

--

Uncle Richard’s story came slowly, the words themselves exhausting him. There were long
pauses as he struggled to think of the correct word, or paused to wipe dribble from his chin.
Auguste had summoned Marcel to act as secretary, dutifully copying down every detail.

Uncle Ruchard began by confessing to Auguste and the three men present for the Council
that he had spent the night trading out his drink with Laurent’s.

“Boy is – fifteen – soon. Grown so… hateful. Towards me. Want to be close – again.
Wanted… special. Wanted to treat him.” Uncle Richard’s eyes were full of emotion, wet with
regret and pain. Auguste himself had been sneaking unwatered wine since he had been
thirteen – as the men present all knew, as they had been involved in deciding his punishment
every time he’d been caught. “Didn’t realize,” Uncle Richard continued, “Wine would –
affect – so fast.”
When Laurent had so abruptly left the dinner, Uncle Richard had worried that he would find
his way into trouble – and that whatever mischief occurred would be his fault, since he had
given the boy wine. Haltingly, Richard described how he had followed his nephew from a
distance, wanting nothing more than to make sure he didn’t go wondering about outside or
decide to hurl himself down a flight of stairs. When Laurent stumbled and collapsed in the
hall, Uncle Richard had been forced to intervene. He described gathering the boy up in his
arms and helping him to a couch in the nearest sitting room.

“Then, from – nowhere – slave attacked me. Ambushed. Gone mad. Couldn’t – couldn’t get
off…me.”

“You’re saying the slave was lying in wait for you?” Auguste asked, confused. “How could
he have known that you would be there?”

“No,” Uncle Richard said, and paused to wipe his mouth. “Sorry – hurts. Boy – came in.
Behind. Must have… followed. From. Hall.”

“Could the young Prince have been the beast’s true target?” Guion asked. The question
caused the other men to stir, murmuring in concern. “What cause would a child slave from
Akielos have to target our dear Dickie?”

Uncle Richard stared, hard, at Guion. Slowly, almost spitefully, he lifted his hand to wipe his
mouth once more.

“A rabid dog will always turn on its master,” Jeurre said importantly.

“Only – so worried. Dear, sweet Laurent.” Uncle Richard sighed and he closed his eyes.
“Imagine,” he said. “How frightened he – must – be. Harboring…violent beast… like that.
Has he – asked – about me? Must be. Sick. Worry. Tell Laurent – dear Uncle – is fine.”

“Laurent hasn’t woken yet, Uncle,” Auguste reminded him. Uncle Richard nodded, looking
relieved.

“Poor…boy,” he said. “I – question why. He…even allowed…keep those slaves. Filled heads
with – freedom. Built them up. Turned – turned them from…gods-given purpose. No
wonder… all gone mad.”

Auguste grimaced. He couldn’t help but agree with his uncle. It was foolish to allow Laurent
to spend so much time with slaves. He didn’t have any friends of his own, and he had never
been good at keeping inferiors in their place. He would never see the warning signs of
instability.

“That is certainly something that bears exploration,” Auguste said, “But for now, we must
focus on the more pressing matters at hand.”

--

Auguste had been with the soldiers when they rushed the sitting room and discovered the
chaos within. His initial interview of the two slave boys had been put off until he saw his
brother and uncle safely tucked away in their rooms under guard and with the attention of
physicians. Then he returned for the boys. They had been in the sitting room still, under
heavy guard, the scene virtually untouched save for the absence of Laurent and Uncle
Richard. The boys had both been bound in iron.

At the time, Auguste had been too out of his mind with worry to think much about the minute
details. One boy, called Erasmus, had acted in accordance with everything Auguste had come
to expect when dealing with an Akielon slave. Meek and passive, he had immediately folded
himself to his knees and pressed his forehead to the floor, arms outstretched above him with
his palms facing upwards. He had not resisted arrest, nor even lifted his eyes from the floor,
and when Auguste returned he found him there, still, on his knees with his forehead on the
ground, though now his arms were bound behind him. As far as Auguste was aware, he had
never made a peep of sound the entire time.

The other boy was… different. Defiant and mad, he had not resisted arrest, but he had
laughed and laughed and laughed, so much that it was distracting, and Auguste had been
forced to order him gagged. He, too, was now on his knees, though he was sitting back, chin
lifted high and proud, not bowed in supplication. The eyes that met Auguste’s when he
entered the room burned with some combination of defiance and triumph and even outright
hate.

All of Auguste’s guards had leapt to his service – even those who he had sent to follow
Laurent after the war – so only those pulled from the common soldiers were now guarding
his brother, the rest having returned to the fold. Auguste had Alois leading some combination
of guardsmen and soldiers room-to-room, interviewing guests on their perspectives
concerning the night’s events. Auguste had left those he trusted the most – Sebastian, Albur,
Eliott, and Baptiste – to guard the two slaves, Sebastian only briefly leaving to oversee the
enforcement of Auguste’s orders for curfew and house arrest. Aside from the two salves,
Prince Kastor was the only Akielon in the room. Prince Kastor wasn’t under house arrest –
Auguste couldn’t let his low-boiling rage toward all of Akielos push him quite that far – but
he was a crucial witness. Auguste had asked his men to discourage him from leaving the
room, and he was pleased to see that they had not been forced to enforce his request.
Everything would go better if they could all pretend the foreign Prince was only a witness,
and not also under suspicion.

It was a surprise to find how much the slaves’ stories contradicted Uncle Richard’s version of
events. In some parts, they even contradicted each other – Erasmus softly insisting upon his
own guilt in the matter of the attack, while Larius, defiant, had sworn that the other boy had
not been involved at all.

Prince Kastor’s grasp of veretian had improved a little since the war, though he still couldn’t
speak it well. He seemed to follow the questioning just fine, anyway. When Auguste looked
to him to confirm what the boys were saying, he only shrugged.

“No way to be knowing,” he said. “Kastor to come in at the ending.”

“What about the other part?” Auguste asked. It was hard to force himself to say it. “Do you
believe that my uncle was attempting to… to force himself upon my brother?”
 Again, a shrug, as if the attempted rape of a fourteen-year-old baby Prince was nothing to be
overly concerned with. Kastor almost looked smug. Auguste hated him, and all Akielons. It
almost seemed as if he was enjoying having information that Auguste needed.

“Prince already dead when I be coming to inside room,” he said.

“My uncle is not dead.”

“Pity,” Larius spat. Without having to be asked, Albur cuffed him across the back of his head.

“Was there any evidence?” Auguste pressed. “Did you see anything to suggest an attempted
assault? Was my brother undressed when you arrived? Did he appear…compromised?”

“Him not undress,” Kastor frowned. “Prince Dick on top of mouthy slave. Little brother
sleeping on couch. Peaceful.”

“Liar!” Larius snarled suddenly, half surging to his feet. “He had his fucking dick out! Tell
him! Tell him about his disgusting little worm flapping about!” Albur pushed him, hard, back
to his heels, and he shoved the gag, removed for questioning, back into his mouth.

Kastor looked, slowly, back at Auguste. His smile was pleased.

“I see no dick,” he said, and shrugged once more.

“Your Majesty!” as Larius, grunting around the gag, once more attempted to surge to his feet
and Erasmus for the first time throughout the entire interview lifted his head, his mouth
opening as if he intended to speak, one of Laurent’s commoner guards burst into the room.
“Your Majesty!” Jord exclaimed again. “Prince Laurent is awake!”

Chapter End Notes

Notes from cats:

Howl says: 00000000000000000

Oliver says: */
Do I feel like Oliver was attempting to make a picture of his butthole? Yes. He's very
proud of it.
 Chapter 36
Chapter Notes

You know what they say.

It's always darkest before it goes completely black.

The sun was just beginning to break the horizon, and most of Chastillon had yet to get a wink
of sleep. A grand hunt had originally been planned to take place today, but, of course, it had
since been called off. Everything Auguste had had planned for his brother’s visit would have
to be cancelled in the wake of the night’s terrible events. Once Auguste was certain that there
were no other crucial witnesses to be detained, he would be sending the guests all home, and
bundling Laurent up safe and sound in Arles where he could keep an eye on him for as long
as he could before he had to send him back to the barbarians.

Auguste did not feel the exhaustion that the rising sun told him he should now be
overwhelmed by. He didn’t actually feel anything at all, beyond the low thrum of dread and
fury that had been coursing through his blood ever since he learned of the attack.

Auguste had ordered Laurent taken to his own rooms – to the King’s rooms – upon his
discovery. He was awake now, sitting up in the large bed that he and Auguste had so often
shared when they came out here without their father.

While Auguste had been running around the Keep in search of answers, someone had
changed Laurent’s clothes, taking him out of the barbaric tablecloth he’d arrived in and
replacing it with one of Auguste’s own nightshirts. It was too large for Laurent; the collar had
slipped off one skinny shoulder, and he kept having to push the billowy sleeves up his thin
forearms to keep them from covering his hands. In the weak morning light, laying there
surrounded by pillows, swimming in that oversized nightshirt in the middle of the oversized
bed, he didn’t look like a boy who was days away from turning fifteen. He looked like a child
– frail, and younger, even, than he had been when Auguste had been forced to give him away.

“I don’t – remember much,” Laurent said.

Auguste had known that Laurent’s commoner guards had been left to watch over him, but he
had been displeased when he’d reached the rooms and discovered the rest of Laurent’s slaves
there with him, rather than confined somewhere separate. Dangerous, said the rage and the
fear pumping through Auguste’s veins. They were all a threat, as far as he was concerned. He
couldn’t bear to look at them.

“Kallias went and spoke to Erasmus,” Laurent said, sending farther sparks of fury down
Auguste’s spine. He had ordered the halls secured, but apparently Laurent’s slave boys had
been free to spend the night traipsing about as they pleased, anyway. Someone, he saw, had
even fetched a coffee set from the kitchens and set it to brewing the moment his brother
opened his eyes – as if Laurent needed coffee at a time like this! Laurent’s brows knit. “As I
understand it,” he said, “When my men arrived, they found that I was unconscious and
partially unclothed, and that Uncle was crouched above me, cock in hand. Was that what they
reported to you?”

He made the statement so easily, his voice quiet and cold and unhesitating as it described a
horror too terrible to be imagined, and Auguste felt completely alienated, estranged from this
version of his brother who could make such monstrous allegations against their own uncle
without so much as a quivering lip.

“It is,” Auguste said.

Laurent nodded as if satisfied. He turned to accept a cup of coffee from one of his slaves, and
he took a moment to drink from it, closing his eyes briefly, either savoring the taste or
gathering his thoughts.

“Where are you going to have Uncle held? I think we should hold the trial in Arles, and we
should not delay our return more than we must. Chastillon doesn’t have cells, after all. It is
not very secure, and Uncle has many allies.”

All of the breath left Auguste at once.

When he had first burst into the room, he had been so overjoyed to find his beloved brother
awake and sitting up that he had wanted nothing more than to throw himself into the bed
beside him, to gather him up into his arms and hold him close like he would have done when
he was a child. Now, Auguste felt as if he was speaking to a stranger.

“Just like that?” Auguste asked.

“Do you have a single acceptable reason to put it off?”

“No, I mean – you believe your slaves? Just like that?”

Laurent frowned at him. “Of course I do,” he said. His eyes were clear and blue and guileless,
as if he wasn’t accusing their own uncle of intended incest and rape. “They’re mine. And
kindly refrain from referring to them as slaves; they’re free men, every one.”

Auguste watched his brother take another sip of his coffee, as calmly as if they were sharing
a leisurely breakfast. His correction on how to refer to the slaves was the only hint of emotion
he had shown so far. His hand didn’t even tremble as he set the fine china cup down on its
dainty little saucer.

“Prince Kastor says that Uncle Richard was fully clothed,” Auguste told him, bluntly,
unaccountably annoyed. “He says that you were clothed, too. My men all agree – when they
arrived, they found the same. There was absolutely no evidence of anything untowed
occurring, aside from the attach itself. Are you truly going to accept the testimony of two
slave boys over that of soldiers you have known since you were still shitting your nappies?
Over your brother-in-law? Your own uncle?” He sounded disgusted. He didn’t try to hide it.

Laurent looked at him and said, “No.” He said, “I’m going to wonder who was so helpful as
to put everyone’s clothes back in order before the soldiers arrived.”

Auguste sat down, hard, at the end of the bed. “Laurent,” he said, “Ever since you learned of
Uncle Richard’s predilections, you have been jumping at shadows, certain every time a tree
branch scrapes a window it’s out uncle, trying to fuck you.”

“That’s because our uncle is trying to fuck me.”

Auguste forced himself to take a deep breath, taken aback by the foulness issuing from this
creature’s mouth. He forced himself to take another one. It took effort to find his brother
there, inside this stranger – to see Laurent within the boy before him, however far from him
he felt.

“All right,” Auguste said, slowly, “Can you explain to me why you so readily believe that?”

Laurent lifted his coffee again, but this time he stopped before drinking it, staring at it. This
time his hand did shake, a little, as he lowered it again, then handed it over to the waiting
slave. Auguste waited, watching his brother gather his thoughts, watching him take his own
careful breaths.

“Do you recall – years ago, in Sycon, as I made my way to Ios for the first time… there was
an incident in the baths? I wrote to you about it. Damen did, too. I think even Theomedes
sent you notice.”

Auguste had received no such correspondence – or, if he did, it had been nothing that drew
alarm, in any case. He didn’t say so though, merely watching Laurent, waiting for him to
continue.

“Uncle called me to the baths while everyone was busy with dinner. He wanted me to
undress. He wanted me to drink with him. He said he was going to teach me,” he paused,
swallowing. It almost seemed as if it took effort, meeting Auguste’s eyes. “He was going to
teach me how it was between two men.”

“Yes, Uncle Richard told me he wanted to make sure you understood what to expect. He and
I both understand how his intentions could have been misconstrued, given the location. He
thought the baths would be a more relaxing place for such an uncomfortable conversation.”

“No,” Laurent said. “He didn’t want to have a conversation. He wanted to rape Larius. I do
not know if he wanted me to do the same or if I was there as a second course, but I do know
that I was not safe with him there, that night, and I have not been safe with him since. I do
know that it was not some misunderstood attempt at a biology lesson. I do know - !”

“Wait,” Laurent’s voice was rising with heat. Auguste had to speak up to interrupt him. “The
boy that night was Larius?” Auguste had not even considered that there might be a
connection there. One slave looked just the same as any other, and he had almost forgotten
what little he had heard of that night all together.

Laurent’s face hardened. “It isn’t motive,” he said.

“Laurent – “

“Larius attacked Uncle out of fear for my safety. He didn’t seek him out looking for revenge;
he was protecting his master!” Seeing that Auguste remained unconvinced, Laurent made a
strangled sound and threw himself back against his pillows, his calm finally cracking. “What
is Uncle’s excuse, then? How does Uncle endeavor to explain away his actions this time?
Getting me drunk, tucking me away somewhere secluded, taking his dick out?”

Auguste reached out for him, pushing Laurent’s hair back, away from his face, and tucking it
behind his ears. He searched, desperately, for any scrap he could find of his sweet, precious
sibling within this unreasonable, angry teenager. Laurent’s hair was dirty, slightly greasy.
Auguste remembered for the first time that his brother had yet to have the opportunity even to
bathe away a week’s worth of travel.

“This hair of yours,” Auguste said. “You look like a maiden. We must call for a barber before
you step foot in Arles. It is ridiculous, how long you’ve let it get.”

Laurent jerked violently away. “Auguste.”

Auguste reluctantly dropped his hand.

“Uncle Richard freely admits to have traded out his cup for yours,” Auguste said with a sigh.
“It was your welcome dinner and nearly your birthday and he wanted you to enjoy your
evening. Didn’t you notice him changing out your cups?”

Laurent ground his teeth. “Yes,” he admitted.

It felt like some sort of progress, however unsatisfying it was. Auguste pressed a little more.
“Uncle Richard said you didn’t finish any of the cups, and I know the servants were diligent
about bringing out new glasses after each course. Uncle Richard said, in all, he doubts that
you had more than a glass and a half of wine.”

Laurent’s frown deepened. This time, he only nodded.

Encouraged, Auguste continued. “Uncle Richard was adamant that he didn’t think he had
given you enough to result in true drunkenness. He said that he was surprised when you stood
up and you were so unsteady on your feet, when you left your party so abruptly.” Auguste
paused. Laurent’s eyes had drifted down to his hands. “Laurent,” he pressed, gently, and
waited for his brother to meet his gaze before he continued. He wanted Laurent to understand
how serious he was. “Uncle Richard told me that he was leaving to check up on you. Do you
really think that if he was planning to… to force himself on you, that he would make certain
that I knew he was with you?”

Laurent closed his eyes. He let his head fall back against the cushions.
“Keep going,” Laurent ordered after a moment, his voice faint.

“Our uncle followed you for quite some time. He knows that you’re still wary of him, and so
he was reluctant to reveal his presence to you and risk causing upset while you were in such a
state. He was afraid that if he did not follow you, you would get hurt. When you stumbled
and fell, he picked you up and carried you to the nearest sitting room.”

“And then?”

“And then your slaves attacked him, unprovoked.”

Laurent didn’t open his eyes, but he did shake his head. “I remember someone pulling my
clothes off,” he said. “I remember someone’s fingers i-in my mouth.”

As gently as he could, Auguste said, “Are you sure it isn’t Paschal’s examination you’re
remembering?”

“Uncle had drugged the wine that night in the baths. Has the dinner been cleaned up yet?
Have you asked anyone to look at the wine glasses?”

“Not yet,” Auguste allowed. “Laurent, you do understand, don’t you? Something is going to
have to be done about your slaves.”

Laurent didn’t move, but Auguste could feel the shift in him, the way he stiffened, his
stillness no longer natural. Without opening his eyes – without speaking a word – Laurent
could still manage to make the temperature drop ten degrees with his displeasure.

“Laurent,” Auguste said. His brother refused to acknowledge him. “Laurent, you know the
law,” he said. “It is treason to attack a member of the royal family. I cannot let it pass.”

“So they should have stood by and quietly waited for our uncle to finish sticking his cock up
my ass?”

The vulgarity stole his breath. “Uncle didn’t - !”

“Auguste.”

“It’s treason,” Auguste said again, after a pause and another deep breath. Laurent’s eyes had
opened, piercing Auguste in a way that truly felt physical. “It’s treason, even in defense of his
master.”

“Even in defense of your brother?”

Laurent’s voice was too soft. Auguste struggled, fighting to harden himself against the ache
of duty.

“Is it true that your slave has also once attacked Prince Kastor?” Auguste asked. The Akielon
bastard had mentioned it during his own interview.

For a moment, he didn’t think Laurent would answer him.

“He isn’t a slave,” Laurent said at last. “None of them are slaves.”

“Laurent.”

“Yes. Larius attacked Kastor. Larius was defending me.”

“Will you tell me that Kastor, too, was trying to rape you?” At the question, Laurent only
stared at him, as if in disbelief. Auguste kept pushing. “Are you truly that arrogant,” he
asked, “That you believe so many grown men – grown men with power and authority –
grown men with all the options in the world open to them – simply cannot control themselves
around you?” Auguste knew his questions were cruel. He knew he was going too far. He kept
pushing. “The slave has a history of attacking his betters. He has established a pattern. Who
will he decide you need protecting from next?”

“Whoever it is who attempts to harm me, I would assume.”

“And how am I to know that he is not just using your defense as an excuse to indulge in
violent tendencies? How am I to know that he won’t decide he’s tired of protecting you and
decide it’s time to turn his bloodlust on you, instead?”

Laurent was silent, staring at him for long enough that Auguste found he had to fight against
the urge to back down. Long enough that staring back was making him sweat. It seemed
unreal to him that it was his sweet, darling Laurent who was looking at him with such
coldness, his lip lifted in a silent snarl. He was growing up. A fine facial structure was
emerging from childish roundness. His shoulders were thin, but growing broader. His legs
were getting longer. Auguste had known that his brother was going to change – but he had
never thought that Akielos would shape him into an entirely different person. A person he
didn’t recognize. A person he wasn’t sure he could even like.

When Laurent finally looked away, it was a little easier for Auguste to breathe.

“You know I have a duty to Vere,” Auguste said. “And, believe it or not, I have a duty to you,
too. To protect you from rabid animals like that slave.”

“And what about Erasmus?” Laurent asked, after a pause. His voice had gone completely flat,
as had his eyes. They were fixed, at the moment, on one of his slave boys – a tall, dark haired
youth with remarkable beauty, who seemed to have frozen at his question.

“All accounts absolve him of any actual participation in the attack,” Auguste said, “But he
did fail to stop the other boy, or even attempt to find help. Inaction is still a choice.”

“So you intend to punish him, as well as Larius.”

“His won’t be as severe. It won’t be a death sentence.” Auguste was trying to offer some
consolation, and didn’t know why he bothered to make the effort. Laurent was still staring at
the dark-haired slave, not listening to him at all. “It won’t be more than twenty lashes, I’m
sure,” Auguste said. “I will need to confer with the Council to decide.”
Laurent moved, suddenly – not to get up, but instead bending double over himself in the bed,
pressing his hands to his face and his face to the sheets, making a strange, strangled sound.

“Why can’t you just believe me?” Laurent asked. “Why can’t you ever just believe me?”

Auguste reached for him, and cupped the back of his brother’s golden head with his palm.
Laurent’s shoulders were shaking; he was afraid he was crying. Laurent may have been
almost fifteen, but in his heart, he was still a boy, too sensitive to the way of the world.
Auguste should have known he didn’t have the maturity for this kind of conversation.

“Laurent,” he began, gently.

Laurent sat up with sudden violence, his eyes bright with furious fire as he knocked
Auguste’s hand away.

“Get out,” Laurent said.

“Laurent,” Auguste sighed, beginning again. “A King has a duty – “

“Fuck your duty!” Laurent shouted. The fire in his eyes was shiny and wet, like steel melting
slowly under a blacksmith’s flame. “Fuck your duty, and fuck you, too. You’re supposed to be
my brother!”

“Laurent - !”

“I don’t want to look at you anymore! Get out! Get out!”

--

The tears came, once the door closed behind his brother, and he could not stop them
anymore. Laurent barely felt the vice-like headache around his skull, the vicious twisting in
his belly, the throbbing in his ears. The tears came, and Laurent started shaking, and once it
was started, it couldn’t be stopped.

He had to make it stop. He didn’t have time to be sick. He didn’t have time to cry. He had to
think. He had to act. He had to keep Kallias from doing something stupid. He had to check
on Aimeric. He had to protect Larius and Erasmus. He had to find out the extent of Uncle’s
injuries. He had to –

Fingers pressed between his lips, thrust deep into his mouth until he choked on them.
Something was tugging at his smallclothes; he felt them sliding down his hips. He shook his
head, and tried to push the assaulting hands away. A slap left his ears ringing. He was being
shoved over onto his belly.

“Finally,” Uncle said. Blackness rolled over him, along with the knowledge that he was
helpless.

Laurent’s breath was coming in thick, choking gasps. He couldn’t stop them, couldn’t breathe
normally. He couldn’t make the tears stop coming. His boys were here, what was left of
them. They were watching him. He had to get himself under control. He had to fix this. He
had to – he had to –

The memory started to replay itself in his head. He could still feel –

He could still taste –

He knew it wasn’t a physician’s exam he was remembering.

Laurent rolled onto his side, and he clutched a pillow to his chest, clinging to it like it was a
person, like he would find strength, rather than softness. He couldn’t catch his breath. He
couldn’t stop crying.
 Chapter 37
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

In the hall, Auguste stopped. As if his feet had been stuck in glue, he suddenly felt as if he
could not take a single step more. If he moved, he thought, he would collapse. His knees
wouldn’t just buckle beneath him, they would crumble, they would dissolve, like sugar in
water.

Why can’t you just believe me?

Why can’t you ever just believe me?

“ – Majesty? Your Majesty? Auguste!”

Auguste jerked at the touch of a hand on his arm. When he drew a breath, it shuddered. He
felt like a drowning man breaching the water’s surface. His lungs were even burning, his
entire chest. The reprieve from his thoughts was sweet and painful. It took a moment for his
eyes to refocus – a moment for the face before him to resolve itself into the familiar planes of
his dearest friend.

Sebastian was frowning, his brow knit in concern. He held Auguste’s face in both of his
hands, his scrutiny intense and uncomfortable. “Albur,” he said, “I think that you and
Raphael should escort His Majesty to a quiet place where he can lay down and be
undisturbed for a time. Since the King’s rooms are occupied, I suggest using the Queen’s.
They should still be empty.”

“No,” Auguste said. His voice was a rasp. He pulled away from his friend and cleared his
throat, trying again. “No. I- I’m fine.”

“Auguste,”

More firmly, “I’m fine.” Auguste wished he didn’t sound as if it was himself he was trying to
convince. He couldn’t muster a smile, no matter how hard he tried. Every time he pushed
what he was feeling down, it started bubbling back up again. “Have the servants cleared the
dining room yet?”

“I’ve only just released them,” Sebastian said. “They’ve probably started, but they won’t
have gotten far.”

“Good. I want every cup Laurent drank from tonight. I want every plate he touched, every
piece of silverware. I want every bottle he was served from.”

Sebastian nodded. He made a gesture, ordering three of the men to go, but he didn’t move
away from Auguste.
“If you will not lay down, then at least sit,” Sebastian said. It was almost an order. “You’ve
been going all night. I don’t need to deal with a King whose cracked his head going down the
stairs on top of everything else.”

“I can’t leave Laurent,” Auguste said.

“Auguste – he doesn’t want you.” Sebastian said the words gently, but Auguste couldn’t hide
the anguish his words caused. He didn’t have the skill. Sebastian’s eyes were full of pity as he
shook his head. “Give him time,” he began.

“Sebastian, I don’t know what’s wrong with him.”

Sebastian’s frown deepened. He didn’t move, but it felt as if he drew back. There was
something in his eyes – the edge of a thought that he did not dare give voice to. Auguste
didn’t feel strong enough to give him the chance. He shook himself, and with all his strength
he squared his shoulders turned away. He began to walk. His men fell in line behind him.
Sebastian was the slowest to move.

“Alois?”

“The men are still conducting interviews with the guests and the staff. They are also doing a
search of the grounds. I expect it will be midday at earliest before they are finished.”

“And the slaves?” Chastillon didn’t have cells; it hadn’t really functioned as a military
outpost in centuries. What may have once been used to house prisoners had long ago been
converted into cellars.

“Larius has been secured in the stables, the other in the grain shed. Neither has offered any
resistance.”

Auguste nodded. “See to it that Laurent is not left alone with the others,” he ordered, and
Sebastian glanced back, and gave a nod, and one of the men immediately pulled away to
return to the room where Laurent was sequestered. The slaves’ actions tonight had him wary
of the whole lot of them.

“I’ve given the task of managing the common guards to Jord,” Sebastian told him. “Are you
all right with them continuing their service to your brother?” Given the attack, Auguste knew,
Sebastian begrudged any of Auguste’s real guards being pulled away to watch his brother.

“As long as one of mine is there, too. I don’t know who is influencing him.”

“I’ll speak to Jord about the schedules.”

--

The wine had, indeed, been drugged.

Auguste felt sick. His mind reeled. A thousand pound stone had dropped into his belly as he
stared at the line of cups Laurent had drunk from, each one hosting a line of tell-tale pink
dredges around the rim and floating in what remained of the drink, having now had time to
settle. There was something horrific to the discovery, something that his mind instantly shut
itself away from, a door slammed shut and locked tightly, unable to be opened.

As Uncle Richard had said, Laurent had not had much to drink from any single cup. Less,
even, than predicted – no more than a few mouthfuls from each. In the light of day, the
residue from the drugs was impossible to miss, the fine crystal glasses stained with it, the
wine that remained grown thick and filmy and ominous, like swamp sludge, over the hours
the glasses had sat undisturbed.

“Have the kitchen staff arrested again,” Sebastian instructed, as Auguste stood, staring at
them, unable to approach the locked door in his mind. His voice sounded like it was very far
away, and Auguste was barely aware of it, his mind skittering from a possibility that, if true,
would make too many other things true, too. Something tugged at him, nagging, something
painful and half-remembered, something he could not bear to look at. Sebastian was saying,
“Separate out anyone who touched anything Prince Laurent or Prince Richard ate or drink,
and anyone who handled their plates or cups or silverware. If one of them dropped a napkin, I
want the servant who picked it up. Do you understand?”

“Send for your pet,” Auguste said, his voice rough. He felt distant, disconnected. A half-
remembered nightmare. A terrible taste in his mouth. He shut himself off from it, hard.

Sebastian’s pet, Amir, had some knowledge of poisons and potions and tinctures. Absent a
true apothecary on hand, he was the best immediate choice to look at the residue on the cups.
No – even then, the palace apothecaries had all failed to name a single drug that could have
been to blame for Roslin’s illness, so perhaps Amir was better. He would have Paschal look,
too, once Auguste was sure he could be spared from Laurent’s bedside. Because the possible
antidote to Roslin’s condition was so very toxic, they had yet to try it as a solution yet – but if
Laurent, too, had been drugged, then perhaps it was a distinct possibility that there was
indeed a poisoner in the palace.

Empty, afraid of his own mind. Auguste let his eyes scan the hall. Most of the tables were
still set for the feast. The staff had only just been released to begin the monumental task of
cleaning up when Auguste’s men had stopped them, and now they were being arrested again.
Already there were flies buzzing around plates of congealing sauces and half-finished food.
Everything had been left just as it was in the moments before the chaos of having a storm of
soldiers march in, shuffling staff and guests alike off to their rooms without explanation.
Half-chewed food still sat on forks. Chairs were still pushed back away from their places.
Auguste sank down into one, slowly, and found himself staring at a dinner napkin, the fine
fabric smeared with some Pet’s garish paint.

Auguste turned his back on the unopened door in his mind, and made himself forget it was
there. Instead, he tried to remember the moments leading up to his brother’s abrupt exit from
the party. He had to admit, with a deep sense of guilt, that he hadn’t been paying Laurent very
much attention at the time. Laurent had been behaving like a spoilt little shit from the
moment he’d arrived and Auguste, intent on making sure his ungrateful little sibling didn’t
further ruin the lovely evening he’d planned for him, had been making it a point to ignore
him. He had been filled to the brim with resentment, bitter over the fact that the reunion he’d
been looking forward to as a reprieve from his worries had gone so wrong so fast. Instead of
finding himself reassured, bolstered by his little brother’s unfailing love and blind hero
worship, he’d spent the evening miserable, pretending to listen to Earl Varden’s diatribe
about best practice when the sows went into heat. Privately, he’d been wondering how drunk
he could get before Sebastian noticed and told the servants to stop serving him.

Auguste had barely even noticed it when his brother had gotten up. When Laurent had said,
“I need air,” Auguste had let him go without second thought, without even caring that the
boy’s guards were sequestered away in another room where the guests wouldn’t be forced to
mingle with them. He had been confident of his safety, here in Chastillon, where they had so
often played as boys. He had been certain that Laurent was merely being spoiled and
unsociable and going off to hide himself away somewhere where he could read without being
caught, like he used to do as a child. He wasn’t in Akielos anymore; he shouldn’t have
needed constant watching.

Auguste hadn’t seen him swerving, unsteady on his feet, rushing to exit the hall – though that
was what many reported having witnessed.

“I know that look,” Albur said, frowning at him. “Surely you can’t have already found a way
to blame yourself for this! Give it a few more hours, at least!”

Auguste was not amused. “Someone drugged my brother while he was sitting right next to
me, and I didn’t even notice.”

“May have drugged,” Auguste corrected. “And, if so, it must surely have been your uncle
who was the intended target, don’t you think? The responsible party surely could not have
known Prince Richard would be giving his drinks away.”

Auguste didn’t want to admit that the idea that Laurent might not have been the correct
victim of the drug did soothe him a little. There was a door in Auguste’s mind that Auguste
could not look at. If someone was plotting against Uncle Richard, that would introduce an
entirely new set of problems to the playing board – but it would also mean that Auguste
could forget that door existed. Uncle Richard knew how to handle himself. Laurent was only
a boy.

“While we’re still conducting interviews,” Eliott said, a little while later when, unable to
stand it any longer, Auguste demanded an update, “But so far all of the staff are saying the
same – Prince Richard was served from the same set of bottles the rest of the table was
served from. There was never a bottle missing or secreted away. There was never instruction
to give him anything any different than anyone else. His cups were clean when they were
brought out, and there were no instructions to see him receive any one specific glass over
another. In fact, most of the cups were not even brought out by the same servant. The only
cup that was, indeed, different at all was the one intended for Laurent, because it had watered
wine – and he never drank from it. Auguste… Your Majesty… do you think…?”

“If you have a theory, say it. Now is not the time to test my patience.”

Eliott squared his shoulders. “It seems to me that Prince Richard is the most likely culprit
after all. None of the staff would have had opportunity to do this.”
“The staff had nothing but time to drug the wine; someone is obviously lying.” Albur rolled
his eyes. “Why would Prince Richard drug his own wine?”

Auguste and his men had often spent time in inns and taverns, gathered around their cups
debating philosophy and ethics and chivalry. At times, that easy companionship led some of
the younger men, like Eliott, to feel that they could speak up and speak freely whenever they
pleased, regardless of whether or not it was appropriate. Eliott had only been a page when the
rest of them had been drawing their first blood on the border, and had not had as much
experience as the rest of them. He was usually quiet, relegating himself to the sidelines, in
awe of the men he served with. Even now, a whole year past his majority, he was not quite a
comfortable fit with the other men.

Even still, he met Albur’s clear, dismissive amusement with a steady gaze.

“Prince Richard never intended to drink from his own cup,” he said. “He has freely admitted
that he switched drinks with his nephew; it would have been an easy thing for him to drop
something into the wine as he passed it over. Easier by far than coordinating something
among multiple staff and ensuring no one talk or vary their story. If he had wanted to drug the
Prince, what better opportunity would he have had?”

Albur’s laugh was loud and rude, a donkey braying. “What a simple plan! You’ve been in
Akielos too long, I think. You’ve forgotten that your head is for more than decorating the spot
between your shoulders. What could Prince Richard possibly gain by drugging his own
nephew?”

“Laurent believes his uncle wishes to fuck him,” Eliott made the statement bluntly, with no
emotion, still standing in challenge to Albur. “I see no reason to dismiss his concerns without
investigation.”

Albur laughed at him again. “Prince Richard wants to fuck him? His own nephew?”

“Why not?”

“You’re disgusting. That’s sick.”

“Prince Richard is a sick man, possessed by sick desires. If no one else will say it, then I will.
He counts on his status and the upstanding morals of everyone else to keep himself free from
suspicion.”

“Auguste, I think you should have Eliott turned off. I question whether it is appropriate to
allow a man capable of dreaming up such disturbing fantasies to continue to be trusted with
your brother’s safety.”

“Meanwhile, I question whether it is appropriate for a man who so easily dismisses the
concerns of his Prince to be trusted with it!” Eliott shot back. His back straight, his shoulders
rigid, he turned back to Auguste. “Your Majesty, Prince Laurent has shown wisdom and
intelligence beyond his years from the moment he was born. He is hardly a child anymore –
he is nearly fifteen years old!”
“How dare you speak to your King like this!”

Eliott ignored Albur, his attention not wavering from Auguste. “Your Majesty, Laurent is not
given to irresponsible conjecture, let alone outright lies! He is, in fact, the truest soul I know.
He once worshipped your uncle – now he fears and avoids him. Why, if not for the fact he
has been made to feel unsafe?”

“The slaves drugged the wine,” Albur said. “That is the end of it.”

That did get Eliott’s attention. He swung back toward the older guard. “When were the slaves
anywhere near the wine?” he demanded. He was shouting now, utterly unaware of how pale
his King had grown, of the stares of the other men.

Albur remained calm. “The slaves drugged the wine, intending that they should catch Prince
Richard alone and unwary so that they could attack His Highness’s person. They followed
His Highness from the feast with this very goal in mind. Should I remind you again of what
happened between Prince Richard and the slave boy Larius?”

“What happened? Oh? You mean the night Prince Richard drugged his nephew’s wine? The
night he tried to enlist Prince Laurent’s assistance in raping a ten-year-old boy? The night
King Theomedes decided Prince Richard could no longer be left alone with his own nephew
and an Akielon guard needed to follow Laurent’s Veretian ones because we could not be
trusted to enforce his decision? The night Prince Damianos had to be stopped from beating
Prince Richard to death with his own hands because of what he found him doing to Larius?
Is that the night to which you are referring?”

“How you twist things! The slave Larius is a pleasure slave. He was offered as a gift of
hospitality, and because he balked at performing the service the gods created him to serve,
Prince Richard has been demonized and treated like a criminal ever since.”

“If you believe that for one moment - !”

“Enough!” Auguste’s head was spinning. He was going to be sick. He felt like a great chasm
had opened up beneath his feet, and at the bottom that door opened, waiting to swallow him.
Both positions turned his stomach – the idea that he was wrong, that Laurent truly might have
been in danger from their uncle crashed up against the thought that his uncle had spent a year
under false accusations simply because his unusual sexual preferences made him an easy
target. He could see it happening too easily to him: King Auguste prefers women, therefore he
cannot be trusted around them. But Laurent – Laurent truly seemed to think –

Why don’t you ever believe me?”

The arrival of Sebastian’s pet, Amir, provided a welcome distraction. In his mind, Auguste
took a step bac from the brink. He turned his back on the unopened door. He wrapped himself
in ice, and he shoved his feelings to the side.

While Auguste and his men had spent what remained of the night and, now, the early
morning running around Chastillon conducting interviews and making certain the guests all
remained confined to their bedchambers, Amir had clearly been sleeping.
Sebastian’s pet had come from Patras originally, though his family had brought him to Vere
when he was very young. Auguste knew that Amir’s mother had practiced some form of folk
medicine, but little else. He had never bothered to get to know him, despite the fact his
dearest friend had held his contract since they were all sixteen years old.

Amir was tall and thin and dark. He wasn’t quite “willowy” the way it was in fashion for pets
to be if they were tall. There was something awkward about him that it was difficult to
describe. He kept his curly black hair cut short, so that there was nothing to distract from the
fact his face was just a little on the plainer side for a Pet. His nose was a little too long, his
smile was a little too open. Sebastian adored him to the point of idolatry.

He'd arrived wearing a silk dressing gown hastily tied over the kind of plain flannel nightshirt
a commoner might wear. The slippers he had hastily thrown on were clearly Sebastian’s –
they were too big. He hadn’t washed his face before retiring for the night, and his paints were
smudged and smeared and faded. He wore large pearls in his ears and a smaller one in the
side of his nose.

His smile was bright and broad when he saw Sebastian – as it always was. Greeting his King
came as a distant kind of afterthought.

“His Majesty wishes to call on your knowledge again,” Sebastian told him, holding out his
hand to draw his Pet to his side. Amir had not only confirmed what Paschal had said about
the poison known as the Living Death, which was suspected to be the cause of Roslin’s
current condition, but he had also been the one to caution Auguste about using the antidote.
When instructions arrived for it from Paschal’s friend in Patras, they had confirmed what
Amir had said: the antidote was extremely toxic and should not be administered unless one
was sure the victim had had the poison it was meant to counteract. In addition, regardless of
whether or not Roslin had actually been poisoned, its use would surely result in death or
deformity for her unborn child.

“I am flattered, Your Highness, truly, but I am far from an expert in such matters,” Amir
cautioned him, just as he had the last time he had been called upon. “My mother wanted me
to take up her art, but I was a very stupid student. That is why my father sold me out on
contract – I was always mixing up numbers and mislabeling Mother’s herbs.”

“I don’t need a recounting of your sad personal history; I need you to tell me whether or not
you recognize the substance in these glasses.”

Auguste’s confusion and fear and irritation caused him to speak with undue harshness. He
knew it, but he did not take it back. Amir’s shy, over-eager smile vanished immediately.
Auguste couldn’t bring himself to care, even when Sebastian frowned at him.

Amir bowed his head, only just then realizing that he had been looking the King of Vere in
the eye directly. His bow was clumsy and rushed. He turned to the table, and Auguste
watched him react to the substance in the glasses.

“Well?” he snapped, when the Pet took too long to speak.

“It’s an Akielon drug,” Amir said. He had turned again to face him, though now he seemed to
be speaking to Auguste’s belt.

“Aha!” Albur crowed to Eliott. “You see? Akielon!”

Auguste ignored Albur and motioned for Amir to continue. Annoyingly, the Pet looked
briefly to Sebastian and waited for his frowning Master to nod agreement before he
continued.

“The drug is also used in Patras,” Amir informed Auguste’s belt buckle, “However, I believe
it originated in Akielos. I can’t remember what it is called, I’m sorry.”

“Is it harmful?”

He shook his head. “It’s often given to bedslaves before their training,” he said. Heat filled
his face. “It causes relaxation, weakness of the limbs, and…potent sexual arousal. Though,
when combined with alcohol the last effect is often dampened. In large doses, it also causes
dizziness, fatigue…even loss of consciousness.” Amir glanced at the glasses again, then
motioned to them halfheartedly. “There is a great deal of it here,” he said, voice growing
fainter.

“But it won’t harm the one who drank it – even with alcohol? Even with a high dose?”
Auguste pressed.

“I imagine the unfortunate soul who was made to consume this will feel very ill today. Weak,
a terrible headache, perhaps. But I do not think it will cause any lasting damage, no. I’ve
never heard of it killing anyone, for instance.”

“Would a slave have access to such a drug?” Albur asked. Amir looked up, and blinked at
him.

“Yes,” he answered, as if surprised that he even needed to ask. “Of course.”

--

“Is the old pig dead yet?”

Larius was being kept in the stables, in one of the horse stalls. He wore heavy shackles that
looked almost comically large against his thin ankles and wrists. There was a heavy metal
collar around his neck. All of it had been connected by a thick chain to a loop in the floor
which Auguste had ordered installed. Three men were guarding his stall, allowing no one in
or out, until Auguste.

Auguste had been angry when he gave the orders concerning how to handle the slave. He was
still angry now. Any chance that he might rethink his excessive caution vanished the moment
he entered the stall and found himself confronted by the boy’s defiant stare. Unlike Amir,
Larius made it a point to look Auguste directly in the eye.

Larius had been with Laurent for longer than any of the other boys. His Veretian was much
better than the others. He hadn’t cried as they snapped a collar once more ‘round his neck.
The boy Erasmus had, but Larius had only stared that defiant stare, chin lifted, thin shoulders
squared in challenge. He’d stopped bowing, too, once Auguste decided that he should be
officially arrested. He looked at Auguste as if he thought the two of them equals.

Auguste stopped just inside the stall. The boy’s question surprised him, as did his blatant
display of disrespect.

“You seem to have damaged quite a few nerves,” Auguste informed him. His voice sounded
strange in his own ears. He felt very far away from himself, still. “He may lose the use of his
left arm, and his neck will most certainly scar. But, no. My Uncle is not dead, and nor is he
dying. Not from this. Not from you.”

Larius bared his teeth. He said, “Pity.”

He was so very young, so very small. He was the same age that Laurent had been when this
all started, Auguste thought – or close enough to that age, anyway. Too close to matter.
Auguste had been wavering on his opinion on the situation, and when he was wavering, it
was hard not to think about Laurent – so small and so young, thrown over the back of a horse
and packed off to a foreign country where Auguste could not reach him. Auguste wished
desperately that he could go back, that he could keep himself from making the terrible
decision that had led him to this moment, where he was faced with another impossible
choice. Both paths open to him were unbearable: ordering the death of a child or allowing
himself to believe that Laurent had been in danger from their own uncle.

Why don’t you believe me?

Auguste had been wavering. Sick with it, he had been forcing himself to approach that door
in his mind, that possibility that, maybe, Laurent really had been in danger. Maybe the slaves
really had been defending him. Maybe they were the heroes of this piece, not the villains.

Why don’t you ever believe me?

Larius’s defiant smile was why.

Auguste was no longer wavering.

“You were hoping he would die,” he said, and it wasn’t a question. There was madness in the
boy’s eyes. His smile grew. He laughed, as if he found it funny.

“Given that I was trying to kill him?” Larius asked. “Yes. I was hoping he would die.”

Auguste took a deep breath, and then he took another. The boy was a child. The boy was a
slave. A sex slave, at that. And with that answer, he had just forfeited his life. Auguste told
himself that allowing himself to lose his temper on such a low creature would serve no
purpose but to bring himself shame.

“You must have had help,” Auguste said. It almost sounded conversational. He wished he
could remember the trick, for the next time someone annoyed him in Court. “Was it only
 Erasmus? It couldn’t have been; who else was involved? How did you get the drugs into my
uncle’s wine without effecting anyone else?”

“What drugs?”

Auguste had brought one of the glasses with him. He held it aloft so that the light shone
through the fine contours of etched crystal, shining pink.

“I assume you and your compatriots thought it would make him easier to kill if he was
drugged. Perhaps you were planning all along to accuse him of attacking you, to claim you
acted in your own defense, or that of some fellow conspirator, and my brother merely got in
the way. Were you unaware of the penalty for treason in Vere? It is not a pretty death.”

Larius was staring at the glass in Auguste’s hand with an expression of blatant horror. Then,
abruptly, he began to laugh.

Auguste frowned at him. “Because of your age,” he said, “I am willing to grant some little
leeway. A traitor’s execution is prolonged, painful. I can give you a quick death, instead, but
you must cooperate with me. Tell me who helped you. Tell me where you got the drug. Tell
me how you got it into only Uncle’s glass.”

“I was defending my master,” Larius said. The chains shifted and clinked as he lifted his
bound wrists and wiped tears of mirth from his eyes. “I was protecting your brother. But
never mind. I don’t need that as an excuse to hide behind.” He was still smiling, still defiant.
His eyes remained fixed on Auguste. “I will tell you the truth, Your Majesty. I enjoyed
attacking your uncle. I’m glad I hurt him. If I’m sorry for anything, it’s for failing to grab a
bigger knife. I wish I’d have killed him. He’s a man that needs killing. I hope he thinks of me
for the rest of his life, and I hope it’s a fucking short one. You want my cooperation? Here it
is: the sooner someone kills that pig, the better.”

“Larius,” Auguste began.

“I don’t care what you do to me. I’ll dance on my way to the executioner. I’ve never been
happier than I felt the moment I made that fucker bleed.”

Chapter End Notes

Howl: 1GGGGG 31GGGGG 3

 Chapter 38

Slavery was illegal in Vere, but a slave brought in by a visitor did not suddenly become free,
nor earn the rights of a free man. Larius, technically speaking, did not have the right even to a
trial. Between his low birth and the severity of his actions, Auguste really had not even
needed to perform an investigation. He could have had the boy killed the moment he was
found with royal blood on his hands. It was in Auguste’s rights. The fact that Auguste had
made any attempt at all at finding answers was because of how much Auguste loved his
brother. He was furious and frightened, and that moment where he had walked into the room
and seen the blood and his only two remaining family members both unconscious was one
that would haunt his sleep for years to come – but he did not want Laurent to ever be able to
say that Auguste had allowed his temper to cloud his judgement.

It was the next day before all od the interviews were completed, all evidence gathered. Uncle
Richard was still terribly weak, suffering terrible pain, so Auguste called for the rest of the
Council to meet in his uncle’s bedchamber, rather than ask Uncle to be moved.

He was surprised when he arrived and found Laurent waiting for him.

“You know you cannot come in,” Auguste warned him. “This is a matter for the Council. You
have no place here.”

“Are you truly giving Uncle a say in this?” Laurent demanded. “Don’t you think it’s a
conflict of interest?”

Auguste rubbed his forehead, pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. A
headache was forming. “Laurent, technically I don’t need the Council’s input at all,” he said,
as patiently as he could. “Would you rather I sentence him now, based solely on my own
conclusions? You won’t like it.”

“You would punish my servant for rescuing me?” Laurent sounded shocked, then hurt, then
furious. “You would sentence a child to his death without trial?”

“He doesn’t merit – “

“Fine, then. I will make him a Duke. Or an Earl. We do that now, don’t we? Give away titles
to suit our convenience? Earl Larius. I will give him some land in Marches.”

Herode had arrived, Guion not more than a few seconds behind him. Auguste nodded for
them to go on into Uncle Richard’s rooms. Laurent never took his eyes off Auguste.

“You don’t have the authority to do that, Laurent.”

“Mellos, then. I will give him some land in Mellos. I bet you Damen will let me. I bet you
three gold crowns. Let me write to him and we will see.”
“I will leave the door cracked for you, if you want. You can listen to the discussion if you
promise to behave. Once you hear all the evidence…” Auguste trailed off, realizing his
brother was unmoved by his generosity. He returned the boy’s scowl with one of his own.
“Laurent, I am being as fair as I possibly can!”

“You’ve already made up your mind,” Laurent said. “You’re only hiding behind the Council
because you thought you could blame them, instead. This is nothing but a farce.”

“I’m being as fair as I can,” Auguste insisted again. He was being as patient as possible, too.
Ungrateful, Laurent didn’t answer him. His eyes burned into the back of his head as Auguste
retreated into their uncle’s bedroom.

--

Guilt was the unanimous agreement. Punishment was what required a deeper discussion. At
first, some of the Council were all for forcing Erasmus to share in Larius’s fate, as he was
clearly a part of the conspiracy. It was actually Uncle Richard who argued for the boy’s life,
reminding them that he only remembered Larius taking action, and that all accounts agreed
Erasmus had had no part in the attack.

No one was willing to back down from sentencing Larius to a traitor’s death. His age meant
nothing to the men of the Council – some of whom wanted to see him boiled alive, the way
Auguste’s grandfather had dealt with traitors. The punishment, they argued, needed to be
horrific enough to deter others from attempting the same.

Ten lashes for Erasmus, they eventually agreed. A very light sentence to counterbalance the
fate suffered by his co-conspirator. Perhaps it would help deter future such partnerships. Each
member of the kitchen staff would themselves be receiving five lashes, since none of them
had come forward to admit their participation in the plot.

Five lashes was also a light punishment. Auguste would have been in his rights to put them
all to the question, and he had elected not to. He was being as merciful as he could. Five
lashes for the staff, ten for Erasmus – and Larius would be drawn and quartered.

By meeting’s end, they all felt good about their decision. An attack on the royal household
deserved a swift, brutal retaliation. The mercy they were showing the staff would highlight
the fact that the King could be kind, as well as fair.

Yet when Auguste stepped back out into the sitting room, he could see on his brother’s face
that Laurent did not at all feel the same.

“Laurent,” he began.

“You have no right to execute my man.”

“The Council has agreed – “

“The Council supports a significant conflict of interest.”

Auguste didn’t have an answer for that. Laurent had to know how unreasonable he was being.
Uncle Richard had barely even spoken throughout the meeting, and when he did, it was only
to call for more leniency.

Auguste and Laurent stared at one another.

“If you do this,” Laurent said at last, “You will lose me.”

“I won’t lose you,” Auguste said with a sigh, utterly sure of it.

Laurent’s eyes were like chips of ice. He blinked at Auguste, slowly, his head tilting in
inquiry.

“Are you willing to test that theory, then? I said you will lose me.”

“Laurent, enough. You know I have no choice.”

“No choice.” Laurent’s expression blanked almost violently.

“If the Council had recommended some other course of action, I would have taken it. Trust
me, this was the most mercy they would agree to.”

“Uncle and a Council filled with his creatures.”

“Laurent!”

The boy didn’t flinch. He didn’t look away. Laurent had their mother’s temper; Auguste had
seen him face off against their father any time the man pushed his sweetness into something
hard – but he had never seen him quite like this.

“I have a responsibility to the Crown,” Auguste stated firmly, after a deep breath. “An attack
against a member of our family cannot go unpunished, and that is the end of it. Whether you
acknowledge it or not, you would do the same were you in my position.”

The ice in his brother’s eyes was razor sharp. “Would I?” Laurent asked, so softly. “I would
call you a liar when you said you had been assaulted? I would punish your friend for
protecting you? I would allow the man who tried to rape you to help decide on your friends’
punishment?”

“You’re twisting things, Laurent. You always do this. You can’t possibly - !”

“I will say it one more time, so we can both be certain there is no misunderstanding here,”
Laurent said, slowly, carefully, coldly. “If you do this, you will lose me.”

“Laurent, I don’t have a choice!”

Laurent stared at him – pale, straight-backed, and cold. Auguste had never shouted at him
before. They stared at each other, hints of Mother’s great beauty peeking through the last
dredges of Laurent’s rapidly-dwindling childhood. Auguste ached with the feeling of the
chasm that had opened up between them.
“I have your answer, then?” Laurent asked, finally.

Auguste threw up his hands. “YES!” he said. “Yes, you have my answers. I have already
given the order.”

Laurent stared at him for another long moment, then he turned sharply on his heel, and he
left.

--

“No,” Erasmus said, and he tried not to flinch at the shock on the faces around him. To be
fair, Erasmus could probably count on one hand the number of times in his life he had said
that word. He swallowed. Kallias, in particular, was hard to look at. “I apologize, Exal – Your
Highness – but I must stay here.”

Laurent had gathered his boys together in the room where Erasmus was being held. Now that
the boy had been deemed a mere accessory, not an outright accomplice, his security had been
lessened and he had been allowed a slightly larger space to wait out his fate. There was still a
guard on the door, but he was no longer in chains, and visitors were permitted.

Laurent, for an unguarded moment, looked surprised – relieved – guilty.

The sentences were to be carried out in the evening. While everyone in Chastillon was
occupied watching the kitchen staff receive their lashes, Laurent would be taking Larius and
riding hard for Acquitart. The independent governance was his, he had explained, an
inheritance from some third or fourth cousin with no other family, who had wanted the Spare
to the throne to have a little something that was just his. Any of their allies would be forced
to extradite Larius back to Vere if caught, but Acquitart was too small and insignificant for
Vere to have ever bothered drawing up formal papers of alliance. In Acquitart, Auguste could
not legally have Larius captured or killed. Not without starting a war with the little state,
making himself look like a bully and potentially angering Akielos, since Acquitart belonged
to Laurent and Laurent belonged to the Akielons.

Prince Laurent would not ask Erasmus to stay and endure his unjust punishment. Prince
Laurent had, in fact, included Erasmus in his plan.

But, if Erasmus fled, then their flight would be discovered that much more quickly, their
absence noted sooner. It would be better for Erasmus to stay behind, to help be part of the
distraction. Erasmus took a breath that trembled. He managed a smile.

“Two will move more quickly than three,” Erasmus said. “And Larius lied for me. I did
participate in attacking your uncle. I can bear ten lashes if it will help save his life. I will be
happy to.”

Laurent was leaving them all behind. His servants, his guards – even Aimeric, who he had
not been able to get to at all, ever since Councilor Guion had locked him up in their rooms. “I
do not plan on failing,” Laurent had told them. “But, if I do fail – if we are caught – anyone
with me would take an unfair share of the blame. My brother does not listen to me, and so it’s
safest for you to stay behind. I will have you sent to me when I return to Ios.”
“Won’t your brother hold us accountable for letting you go?” Kallias asked. His eyes wore
that sharp look they did when he was chewing on a problem. “If we are to be punished
whatever the outcome, then let us come with you.” He didn’t like the idea of standing by
while Erasmus received ten lashes – particularly when the path to avoiding them was so clear.
Erasmus had to push down his feelings of guilt.

“No,” Erasmus insisted again. The word was coming easier now. “It – I can handle it. It’s
only ten. I’ll be fine.”

“No you won’t,” Aden said, darkly.

“I cannot promise you won’t be questioned,” Laurent said. “Yesterday, I would have told you
that my brother would never follow through with this. I would have told you that he would
believe me. Evidently, I no longer know him. I no longer have a brother. Therefore, I will not
be sharing further details with you. Don’t let yourselves come to harm. Answer whatever
questions you’re asked – be polite and sweet and accommodating. You know how. Larius and
I will cover far more ground than a unit of soldiers. We will make it there – you can’t hurt us
by protecting yourselves. I won’t ask you to try.”

Laurent looked at each of them in turn as he spoke. Their party felt strange without Larius
there with them. It felt strange without Aimeric, too. They had both been with him longer
than the rest of them. They had both helped them all grow accustomed to their unusual new
master. Erasmus knew that, among his many other current concerns, Laurent was afraid that
Guion taking possession of Aimeric boded ill for them; he was afraid that Aimeric might not
be permitted to return to Ios with them when all this was over. Unfortunately, there was
nothing to be done for him right now. Getting Larius out of Chastillon had to be the Prince’s
only priority.

“Auguste will be furious,” Laurent told them. “First and foremost, you must protect
yourselves. You are free men. I will not see your futures wasted because of my brother’s
stupidity and blindness. Promise me you will take care of the lives I have returned to you.
Promise you will not do anything foolish while I am away from you.”

The Prince looked each of them in the eye until he had extracted their promises. It was a
strange thing – the feeling that a person such as he could care for them, not as property or
employees, but as companions. As family. Perhaps even, though Erasmus quailed at the
thought, as friends.

Whatever resentment might have stirred over the future the Prince of Vere had denied them
when he’d made their purchase, Erasmus did not believe a single one of them held onto it
still. For Erasmus, the feeling had come to him one day while watching his Prince practice an
Okton run and realized that he saw not a superior, godly being, as he had been taught – but a
boy having fun, the sun in his hair and a smile on his face. The realization had hit Erasmus,
blossoming like some rare flower: the Prince was only a boy, and thanks to him, Erasmus
could be one, too. The truth had flooded him, slow and sweet and warm: there was not really
so much that separated them besides the circumstances of their births. Erasmus, too, was
nothing more than a boy with the sun in his hair and a smile on his face.
When Laurent looked at Erasmus, he clasped him hard by the forearm, the way that soldiers
did. His gaze was solemn and grateful. He neither apologized to Erasmus for the pain that
awaited him, nor thanked him for his sacrifice. He didn’t have to; Erasmus saw it all on his
own.

“I will send for you,” Laurent promised them. “As soon as I am able, I will bring you all
home.”

--

Auguste had two of his men guarding the horse stall where Larius was being kept. Laurent
had guessed that such was likely, but he had hoped that they would be regular soldiers, not
his brother’s personal men. Laurent had known most of them for as long as his memory
stretched.

Laurent fingered the sword resting at his hip, and he tried to make himself breathe the way
Damen had taught him to settle his nerves. He tried to bring his mind to that place of quiet
stillness his husband so often spoke to him of, where the constant chatter of thought and
planning could fade away to nothing but action and instinct.

Laurent had thought that he’d resigned himself to killing a man tonight – or, at least,
incapacitating him well enough that his flight would go unnoticed for a while longer. He had
felt confident in the way his skills with a sword had grown over the last year under Damen’s
tutelage, and the arrogance of his youth had been enough to make him certain that he, not-
quite fifteen, unbloodied, would be more than capable of neatly dispatching whatever
unlucky man happened to be on guard that night.

Laurent still thought that he could do it, probably – even though now it was two guards, and
they were without a doubt more experienced and better trained than the average soldier. He
was still utterly certain of his new abilities, of the skills his husband had taught him.

But Laurent knew these men. He had known them for his entire life. As reluctant as he had
already been to killing a man, killing two men, men he knew was almost impossible to
contemplate.

Laurent’s mind quickly shuffled through – then rejected – at least a dozen alternative plans.
There was no distraction he could cause that wouldn’t simply bring more men running, or
lead to his actions being discovered more quickly. He didn’t have time to find a sleeping
draught, much less convince them to drink it. If he tried to lure them away under some
pretext, surely one would insist on staying behind.

Laurent was going to have to fight them. Potentially, he was going to have to kill them.

His hand shook as he wrapped his fingers around the hilt of his sword. His palms were
sweating. Taking one last, deep breath, Laurent bared two inches of steel.

Then a hand dropped down, heavily, onto his shoulder.

For a moment, Laurent’s heart stopped. There were three guards. Not two.
Baptiste didn’t say anything. His expression, usually lively, was firmly closed, and for once
in his life, words failed Laurent.

Hand firm on Laurent’s shoulder, Baptiste led him around the corner to the other two guards.

Albur was, of course, one of the men who had been serving Laurent in Akielos, but Baptiste
and Sebastian had both stayed on with Auguste (and Albur’s allegiance had hardly changed,
anyway. Laurent held no illusions that any of his brother’s men had come to see themselves
as his, instead, however long they had been away. Only the common-born soldiers were
really Laurent’s – hence why none of them had been asked to guard his boys.) Sebastian was
not only the captain of Auguste’s guard, he was Auguste’s best friend.

“Look what I’ve found skulking about,” Baptiste said. His tone was very serious.

“Bedroll? Sword? Pack of supplies?” Albur looked and sounded amused. “Just where is it
you think you’re going, little Laurie? This doesn’t look like a casual ride through the
countryside.”

“You’re supposed to be in the courtyard with your brother,” Sebastian said.

Laurent ignored him. To Albur he said, “Don’t call me that; I am a Prince of Vere.” He could
not keep the tension from his voice.

“Not for much longer,” Albur said. “Not if you’re doing what I think you’re doing. Your
brother will disown you so fast…not that he needs you anymore, anyway, with that brat on
the way.”

Sebastian and Baptiste exchanged looks. Laurent caught it out of the corner of his eye when
Baptiste gave a small, subtle little nod.

Albur leaned forward as if addressing a small child, pointing past Laurent toward the stable
doors. “Turn around and march yourself back to the Keep,” he instructed. “You tell your
brother what you tried to do, or I’ll bend you over my knee right here and now. That’s what
he’s always needed,” he told the others, straightening. “A good, red botto-“ Albur never
finished his sentence, crumpling suddenly when Sebastian struck him across the back of the
head.

For a moment, the stable was completely silent but for the snort of a horse, the stamp of a
foot. For the first time, Laurent found himself aware of the mingled smells of hay and
manure, and the chill of the spring evening.

“Imagine my shock,” Baptiste said, finally, as Sebastian moved to enter one of the nearest
stalls, “When I came back from taking a piss to find both Albur and my Captain
incapacitated!”

Sebastian emerged, holding a good bit of rope. He handed it off to Baptiste, then squatted
down to arrange Albur until they were both sitting, propped back to back. Baptiste tossed
Laurent one end of the rope, and nodded for him to begin on Albur’s side.
“It couldn’t be the young Prince, surely,” Baptiste continued. “And all of his men are
accounted for in the courtyard! Alas! I should never have underestimated the boy. We all
know how clever and how tricky he is.”

“You’ll have to make it tighter than that,” Sebastian corrected quietly, as Laurent, bewildered,
helped to tie him to Albur.

“The Prince caught me by surprise, I am shamed to admit. When I came to, I saw him and the
slave riding together out of the west gate. The west gate.”

Laurent nodded. His hands were shaking.

“Those burlap sacks,” Sebastian said. “Empty them of feed and use them to cover our heads.”

Laurent hurried to get them.

“You have to make it real,” Sebastian told Baptiste.

“Yeah, yeah,” Baptiste said. He was busy tearing his tunic into strips. When it was done, he
used those strips to gag both of his fellow guards. Before they put the bags over their heads,
Baptiste raised a gauntleted fist and struck Sebastian, hard. Sebastian slumped.

“Why?” Laurent finally asked. His voice cracked. He couldn’t get more words out than that.
Moments ago, he had been trying to steel himself to the task of killing them. Instead, they
were helping him.

Baptiste drew the knife from his belt, and handed it to Laurent.

“Look at me – low, to the side, not too deep.” His eyes were serious. He briefly bent to take
the keys from Sebastian, and pressed them into Laurent’s hand. “I swore my life in service to
the crown, but I would still prefer it if you didn’t actually kill me.”

“You want me to - ?” Laurent’s eyes felt too wide. He couldn’t quite catch his breath.

“Come on – they’ll be coming for him soon. You don’t have time to hesitate. Low, to the
side, not too deep. They’ll find me before I bleed out. Probably. Deep breath.” He
demonstrated, nodding as Laurent stared at him. “Great. Perfect. Ready?”

“I’m scared,” Laurent confessed.

“You’re scared?” Baptiste laughed. He reached out and squeezed Laurent’s shoulder, bracing
himself. “Come on, then. Count of three. And, Your Highness? Good luck.”

--

Auguste was relieved when Laurent failed to come out to watch the application of justice. His
brother was bold, audacious. Auguste had half-feared that he would arrive in some disruptive,
eye-catching way just to punish Auguste for insisting on compliance with the law.
Auguste was gled he didn’t come out, but he was also surprised. He didn’t want Laurent
watching this. Laurent was not even fifteen for a few more days, and despite his stint as
Auguste’s page during the war, he had never served military duty. He had never watched a
soldier disciplined or an enemy combatant put to question. He didn’t attend public executions
like Auguste and his friends had done at his age. He didn’t even enjoy hunting. Auguste had
always found his brother’s sensitivity and squeamishness to be a cute and amusing, if
sometimes annoying, quirk. He didn’t want to be the one responsible for destroying that rare
piece of innocence.

Even still, it was out of character for him to abandon his men to their fate. In a way, it was
even disappointing. Laurent had argued so passionately for his slaves, but he was too
cowardly to stand and watch their punishment, despite his insistence they had acted on his
behalf.

Perhaps he had at last decided to see reason. The slave Larius had not been protecting him.
Larius was nothing but a wild dog, and he needed to be put down.

The courtiers who had come out to celebrate the Prince’s birthday did not share Laurent’s
childish aversion to the sight of blood. A public flogging followed by a traitor’s execution
was great entertainment to them, in fact. Some even considered the amusement a fair trade
for the hunt that had had to be cancelled. As far as Auguste could tell, there was no one
except his brother who really thought there was any merit to the slaves’ version of things.
The only people missing from the courtyard were Uncle Richard, who was still recovering,
the three guards Auguste had placed in charge of Larius, and Laurent himself.

As the sun began to sink low on the horizon, Auguste rose, and he gave the signal for things
to begin.
 Chapter 39
Chapter Notes

Please skip the first scene if you do not want to read about the kitchen staff and
Erasmus.

Chastillon’s courtyard blazed with firelight, lanterns and torches lit generously, lest anyone
feel that their view of the entertainment had been unfairly compromised.

The kitchen staff was brought out first, old and young, male and female. Anyone who had
touched a plate or seasoned a dish or tread upon a single grain of rice that night had been
gathered up by the King’s soldiers.

First, the servants were publicly stripped, so that fibers from their clothing would not get
trapped in their wounds and encourage infection. Then, three at a time, they were brought
forward, bound to the stakes the soldiers had earlier installed, and administered the five
lashes that had been deemed their penance.

Auguste had given the order, and so Auguste made himself watch. He knew that some of
them were innocent. He knew that, maybe, most of them were innocent. He didn’t care.
Someone knew something. Larius could not have acted without help. Auguste would have
been angry enough had the plan gone more like it was meant to, and only Uncle Richard had
been hurt. But their plan had impacted Laurent. Laurent had been the one who was drugged –
and now, because of the poison the Akielons had been dripping into his ear since the end of
the war, the boy was now more convinced than ever that their uncle meant him harm.

Auguste’s family was in tatters. His sweet, beloved Laurent was becoming a hostile stranger.

Auguste watched the punishment, and he hardened his heart against the servants’ screams.
They would all be turned out, after this. They would not receive references. Auguste didn’t
let himself care. He stared, hard, eyes burning as they tracked every lash. When it grew
difficult, he imagined the whip falling instead on a broad Akielon back.

When the last of the kitchen staff had been cut down, the soldiers removed two of the stakes,
leaving only the center. Then, Akusute had a real Akielon back to flay, not just an imaginary
one.

He knew before it began that it wouldn’t satisfy.

The slave Erasmus looked even smaller and frailer than Auguste remembered, the two guards
leading him out enormous in comparison. Erasmus was pale for an Akielon – likely a parent
or a grandparent had been Veretian, probably some poor farmgirl raped in a field by a passing
barbarian. The soldiers stripped him as they had the others. He was thin, willowy, a boy on
the cusp of manhood, limbs not quite in proportion. He was trembling, violently. Some of the
guests were laughing. They had enjoyed the kitchen staff’s punishment, but they, like
Auguste, had been anticipating the satisfaction of watching Akielon blood flow – and the
wine had been flowing all evening. Someone gave a whistle. The boy’s back was smooth and
unblemished.

He was younger than Laurent, Auguste thought. His build was similar. Light from the torches
bounced off blonde hair. Auguste clenched his jaw so hard that it ached.

Erasmus did not have to be forced to the post, the way some of the earlier prisoners had. He
stepped into place and lifted his arms with quiet obedience. One of the soldiers pinched his
rear, and the guests laughed when he jumped.

The soldier must have considered himself to be some kind of comedian, having received that
reaction. He took a hold of the handle of his whip and mimed obscenely with it while the
boy’s hands were tied, and then he took his time stretching, preparing for beginning the work
of punishment.

With the prior group, each set of three had had companions there beside them, sharing in their
pain, their yelps and screams and pleading layering into each other until it was impossible to
say which came from whom. The slave Erasmus stood alone – alone with his pain, alone with
his nudity – alone with the laughter and the jeers of the so-called nobility, the bloodthirsty
fiends who had gathered so readily for the day’s entertainment.

Alone with the whistle of the whip as it cut through the air. Alone with the terrible moment of
anticipation.

The whip struck Erasmus with a thunderous crack.

The boy’s entire body shook. He screamed, whether it shamed him to or not. He had no
choice in the matter.

Auguste had ordered twice as many lashes for soldiers who broke orders. He had cut men
down in battle, and he had stepped over them in their death throes. At his father’s side,
learning the awful ways of Kingship, he had passed judgement on criminals for more difficult
to endure than the mere ten stripes he had ordered for the slave. This was part of leadership.
This was duty. Ruling was supposed to be hard.

Auguste found he was gripping the arms of his chair. He couldn’t stop the thought; Erasmus
looked like Laurent.

Beside him, Prince Kastor was laughing. A particularly strangled sound from the slave
seemed to bring on for him the peak of hilarity.

“Is good,” Kastor said, looking at him, his eyes bright with enjoyment. “Would do same in
Akielos.” A servant offered them a tray of sweets. The Akielon bastard helped himself to
several.
Auguste’s jaw ached.

The boy passed out after the fourth lash. The soldier didn’t notice until after the fifth. He
paused, wiping his brow with his forearm despite the chill in the air, grinning as several of
the courtiers laughed. He stood back, whip dripping blood, waiting as a servant hurried
forward with smelling salts to attempt to revive the boy.

“Cut him down,” Auguste heard himself say. He knew it was a mistake. He knew he was
being too soft. Staring at the slender body, bleeding and vulnerable, he could not stop seeing
his brother. He told himself that he could afford a little mercy; what was coming next was
going to be worse. At least Larius wasn’t blond.

The slave Erasmus hung, limp, from the post. Only the ropes around his wrists were keeping
him on his feet. The crowd was displeased with Auguste’s decision. Another one of Laurent’s
slaves was running forward, breaking from the spectators to catch Erasmus in his arms as he
was cut free, knees almost buckling as he caught his full weight. His hands slipped against
bloody skin. He was crying. A nearby lord was making a joke about premature ends to
pleasurable entertainments.

While Erasmus was being carried from the courtyard, heavy chains were being carried in.
Four strong horses were being led from where they had been waiting. Auguste tried to
convince himself he was impassive, watching the chains be fitted into the harnesses. He tried
to coat his emotions in ice, the way his father had taught him. Kingship is dirty. On that, his
father and his uncle both agreed. Auguste felt sick at the thought of watching a child be torn
limb from limb, but that was the punishment for treason. Auguste could not give the order
and then neglect to stay to see it carried out.

If you do this, you’ll lose me, Laurent had said. Determined, Auguste locked that thought out.
Laurent didn’t mean it. Laurent was a child; he would get over it. He would realize,
eventually, the position he had put Auguste into.

“You are doing the right thing,” Guion assured him, as if reading his mind. With Uncle
Richard and Laurent both, understandably, absent, only the Council was present to help
Auguste through this. Guion leaned across Uncle’s empty seat to grasp Auguste’s forearm.
“Allow me to speak to your in your late father’s stead,” he said. “You have chosen exactly as
Aleron would have advised. An attack like this cannot go unanswered.”

“Laurent – “

“ – is a child,” Guion finished for him. “And a child does not understand the complexities set
upon a man’s shoulders, much less a King’s. Undoubtably, the slave had help – with your
strong response, you have told whatever allies yet lurk in the shadows exactly what they face
should they act against the crown again.”

“I know it’s difficult, being at odds with your brother,” Herode agreed, “You must remember
– you are the adult. You are not acting out of an emotional appeal for vengeance, but a
strategic play to protect those you love.”
“It’s admirable,” Guion said. “I have never felt more certain of the success of your reign than
I do tonight.”

Auguste wished he could find their words as reassuring as they were meant to be. He told
himself that if he had to sacrifice his brother’s affection in trade for his safety, it was well
worth it. It was a trade he would make a thousand times. He told himself that Laurent would
forgive him some day, once he had matured. Auguste was in no rush to crush his brother’s
childish ideals, however they now stood as a barrier between them.

The soldiers were taking longer than expected to fetch Larius. Auguste might have felt
concern, but a quick glance around the courtyard reassured him that Laurent’s other slaves
were all in attendance, as well as his common soldiers and the entire Akielon retinue.
Auguste motioned for the servants to pass around the refreshments again – a risky move,
considering what they would all soon be made to witness, but his guests were growing
restless. Auguste’s own stomach rebelled at the thought of eating, but he forced himself to
take a goblet of wine. It tasted like blood.

The moments moved by at a crawl. It wasn’t Auguste’s worry or his guilty conscience.
Something was wrong.

Even if Larius struggled, it should not take this long for his men to drag him from his
makeshift prison.

By the time the soldiers ran back into the courtyard, Auguste was already on his feet.

--

Riding at night was dangerous both for rider and for horse, but that was a risk that had to be
taken, and Laurent was confident of his knowledge of the terrain. Two riders could go further,
faster, than whatever party Auguste decided to put together to send after them, and Laurent
was determined not to waste a bit of the remaining daylight, much less the head start he had
gotten.

Madeleine was a horse built for endurance, easily the finest thing in the stables. Auguste’s
favorite, Champion, was a close second. Laurent had had them both saddled and waiting
before his encounter with his brother’s guards.

Larius didn’t look surprised to see him. He didn’t make some foolish protest regarding
Laurent’s actions, or waste time on stupid questions. He waited patiently for Laurent to
unlock his chains, then he caught and donned the sword belt Laurent tossed his way. He
pulled himself up onto Champion’s back without ever saying a word.

As the sun drew low on the horizon and the first of the kitchen staff began to endure their
undeserved punishment, Laurent and Larius were bursting through Chastillon’s east gate,
riding hard for the province of Toutaine.

--
Laurent hated to hunt, but he had been required to spend many hours doing so in the lands
that surrounded Chastillon. More than that, there had also been hours upon hours of play –
looking for ruins with Auguste, or searching for truffles with Mother. The land was heavily
wooded but relatively flat, and crisscrossed with various gaming trails. Madeleine and
Champion, too, knew the terrain well – Champion in particular.

Laurent and Larius didn’t speak. They rode through the night, pushing the horses as hard as
they dared, the cold air around them numbing noses and fingers. Occasionally, their way was
lit by the peek of moonlight through the trees.

Acquitart. It was the only thought on Laurent’s mind, the only thought he could allow himself
to have. They would cut southward through Belloy into Toutaine, then on to Lys. If they
found pursuers on their trail by then, they could easily cut eastward again to lose them in the
mountains, or continue southeast through Alier. Aquitart had never been annexed into Vere.
Generation after generation, it clung to independence, ruled by some spare or cousin to the
crown. Its population was tiny, its yields barely enough to support Laurent’s household if
they hadn’t been supplemented by his holdings in Varenne and Marches where, in addition to
taxes and revenue from the farmlands he rented out, Laurent’s estates also included several
fisheries along the coast and a robust horse-breeding program in the north that he had
purchased as a tenth birthday present to himself.

Laurent would not, technically speaking, rule Acquitart in truth until he was sixteen - but it
was his. The governance was held for him in trust by a committee of people who actually
dwelled upon and worked the land – not his brother, not his uncle, not anyone on the Council.
Laurent chanted it like a mantra in his head as they rode through the night. Acquitart is mine.
Auguste could not take Larius from Acquitart. They only needed to get there.

--

The sun was beginning to rise before Laurent relented and called for a stop. He would have
preferred to continue, to ride indefinitely until exhaustion gave him no other choice – but he
couldn’t do that to the horses.

Eventually, they passed from game trail to road, and then Laurent had really pushed them.
The times he let them walk or stop for a drink had been breathless and brief. Laurent had run
the risk of maiming them last night – he knew he had to let them rest.

“They may have held off pursuit until morning,” Larius said. They were the first words either
of them had spoken. Larius had not asked a single question throughout all of the night. “They
will cover more ground traversing the roads in daylight than we ever could have navigating
the forest at night.”

“We make no progress at all if we kill a horse.”

“We lose all advantage if we waste daylight. Are you certain your brother won’t guess where
you’ve run?”

Laurent frowned at him, kowing he was right. He had spent much of the day yesterday laying
a trail to the north of Chastillon, and his brother’s guards had promised to say they’d gone
west. Nevertheless, how long would it really take for Auguste’s hunting dogs to pick up on
the real trail? Once Auguste had Laurent’s direction, it would be a simple matter to guess his
destination.

“There is a village about three miles away,” Laurent said. “We will trade the horses out
there.” The idea of giving up Madeleine for some half-broken-down farm mule wrenched
something deep in Laurent’s gut. He ignored it. “We can keep going for the rest of the day if
we do that – if you’re sure you can keep your seat.”

“I can keep it,” Larius promised.

--

The best the village had to offer in exchange was a pair of stocky plough horses. The farmer
who made the deal knew who Laurent was- or he suspected, at the very least. He did not
question how two young boys came by the fine animals they were leaving behind.

“He will tell my brother about us,” Laurent said. He stood with his forehead pressed to
Madeleine’s flank, one hand cupping her cheek. Exhaustion pulled at him for the first time
since they had set out. He ignored that, too.

“Your Highness?”

Laurent wasn’t sure if he was speaking to himself or to Larius, or even to Madeleine. He

forced himself to pull away from her. Auguste was a skilled tracker, and almost as good a
rider as Laurent. He didn’t need witnesses to find Laurent. Laurent wasn’t trying to hide,
anyway – he was only trying to get Larius to safety before they were caught. After that…

After that didn’t matter. Laurent would deal with it when it came. He had warned his brother.
Auguste hadn’t listened. Auguste could cancel the rest of Laurent’s visit and send him home
early; it didn’t matter. Auguste didn’t care about him anymore. This was only the last bit of
proof Laurent needed.

Laurent had been lying to himself for too long. Now the facts had been laid bare before him,
and there was no looking away from them, however difficult it was for him to reconcile the
brother he had worshipped with the stranger who had replaced him the moment their father
died. Laurent would be a fool to continue to turn a blind eye to it.

Auguste sold him to Akielos without discussing it with him, let alone involving him in the
decision. Auguste dismissed Laurent’s fears about what had happened with Uncle on the way
to Ios. Dismissed them, and justified – no, defended – Uncle’s disgusting tastes. Auguste may
not have been involved with adding Laurent’s deflowering to the contract signing, but he sure
as hell hadn’t said a word to protect him, had he? Auguste had turned a blind eye to the clear
signs that Uncle had hurt Aimeric, too.

Auguste stopped writing to him. Auguste stopped answering Laurent’s letters.

Auguste got married without telling him, then he refused to let Laurent meet his bride.
Auguste made him come back to Arles for his birthday, then planned a welcome celebration
he knew that Laurent would hate, because he was so bad at politics he couldn’t pass up a
chance to kiss the Court’s asses.

Auguste refused to believe him when he’d said their uncle had tried to attack him – when his
servants’ stories and all of the evidence did nothing but support him. Auguste decided to
sentence a child to be drawn and quartered, just for being Laurent’s friend. Just for protecting
him.

Auguste hadn’t cared when Laurent had told him he would lose him.

It was all so clear: Auguste didn’t love him anymore.

Whatever failing there had been in Laurent that had kept his father from caring for him,
clearly Auguste had discovered it, too. It had started the moment he took the crown.

Madeleine whinnied – concerned, distressed – as Laurent turned from her and mounted his
new horse. The new beast was almost uncomfortably broad, with dusty, unremarkable
features. It had to be at least sixteen years old. Laurent had no interest in it. He refused to
look back at Madeleine as he and Larius rode away.
 Chapter 40

I can’t promise you won’t be questioned.

Don’t let yourselves come to harm.

Answer whatever questions you’re asked.

Erasmus swam in and out of consciousness. Time was a difficult thing to keep track of. His
mind drifted between past and present. He was in the Gardens, practicing his forms, praised
for his grace and beauty. He was laying on his belly on a bed, and someone had lit a fire on
his back, and no matter how he cried or pled, no one would put it out. He was a child, and a
Master was pulling him from his mother’s arms. She was handing him over, however he
clung to her. You can see – his hair will be fair.

Erasmus dreamed, too. Erasmus dreamed impossible things. He dreamed of Kallias pressing
his lips to his mouth – a confusing, but pleasant experience. In the dream, Kallias pushed
something into his mouth – warm, liquid, with a taste like willowbark, and once it was
transferred, he massaged Erasmus’s throat until he swallowed. After that dream, his sleep
grew heavier, dragging him deeply down into nothingness, and he didn’t dream again for a
long while.

“Wake him up!” he heard, sometime, during the endless floating nothing that had replaced
the world. Some part of Erasmus, somewhere, one of the many fractions of him that floated,
faceless and formless, in the all-consuming dark, thought that he should know the voice.
Another part of him thought that voice sounded angry. A third tried to tug the first two back
into the inky forever darkness.

“He will not be woken,” a voice answered. Kallias. He knew that one. Kallias, with his
willowbark kiss.

“My instructions were clear - !”

“No one gave him medicine, Exalted,” Kallias sounded too bold. He spoke like a man who
would look a King in the eye. He sounded angry, himself. “Who would dare defy your
orders?” He was so bold. Erasmus wanted to smile, but he had forgotten how to move. Their
Prince would be so happy to hear Kallias talk like that. Their Prince would have the biggest
smile. “He is unconscious from the pain,” Kallias insisted. “One of the two of us is certainly
responsible for the fact he cannot answer you – but that person is not me.”

The darkness was reaching for Erasmus, wrapping heavy tendrils around him once more,
dragging him back into its sweet depths. Ad Erasmus began to sink once more, he thought he
heard the sound of flesh striking flesh.

--
Erasmus awoke to agony. To fire. To the feeling of hot coals on his back, and wet tears on his
face.

“ – too soon,” a voice said. Wrapped up in pain, Erasmus could hardly understand the
concept of pain, much less spoken language. Identifying the speaker was impossible. He
wanted to scream. He tried to scream. He produced nothing more than a whimper. Fire! He
was on fire! He was going to burn up!

Hands were on his face.

“Erasmus! – mus! Stop – ain still. Paschal – bandages - !”

Erasmus tried to scream once more. It came out as a moan. His body was jostled. He wanted
to scream. He wanted to be sick.

Something thick and wet laid across his back. It was cool at first, and then the fire grew
hotter. Erasmus, finally, screamed.

The darkness claimed him once more.

--

After that, details were difficult to grasp. Erasmus was not sure when darkness and dreams
began to bleed back into the merciless river of reality. When he first awoke – when awake
started to happen more frequently than asleep – he couldn’t say. He wasn’t sure when it was
that he realized he was being jostled and jarred – when the noises he heard resolved
themselves into the sounds of horses and harnesses, of soldiers.

He lay on his stomach. He was in a cart.

There was something tight wrapped around his torso. The upper half of his body was laying
in Kallias’s lap. His friend’s fingers were slowly stroking through his hair.

It hurt, to pick himself up. Twisting – trying to see his friend’s face – was torture. He did it
anyway.

“Stay still,” Kallias ordered. He sounded exhausted. Erasmus wanted to do as he was told. He
defied the order anyway.

Kallias looked rough. There was blood staining his clothing, streaking his arms. There were
deep shadows under his eyes – and a bruise, dark and terrible, against his cheek. It was
purple, like the color of the Veretian King’s clothing. There was a small cut on his
cheekbone. When Kallias bowed his head over Erasmus, his long, unbound hair fell, lank and
dull, like a dusty curtain closing them off from the world.

“You must sleep as much as you can,” Kallias told him softly. “The King is angry. He has
ordered that you are to be given nothing for the pain, and I cannot be caught disobeying.”

“Kallias…” his name was a groan. The fact that his throat hurt seemed petty beside the agony
that was his back. Erasmus was not capable of understanding the level of pain he felt.
“We’re on our way to Arles,” Kallias whispered to him. His fingers continued to pull through
Erasmus’s hair. Erasmus was vaguely aware of Aden, nearby, staring at them, as Kallias
eased him back down. “Laurent made it out. He has Larius. That’s all I know. The King has
taken his men and gone after him.”

“Hurts,” Erasmus rasped.

“I know,” Kallias said. Somehow, it was reassuring. His friend’s eyes were wet.

Erasmus realized, as he drifted back to darkness, that he had never before seen Kallias cry.

--

Laurent’s boys had willfully disobeyed their Prince’s orders: they had deliberately lied to
their King. Instead of cooperating – instead of protecting themselves – they had done their
best to confuse things. They had tried, actively, to sabotage and stall the search for their
Prince for as long as they could. Not a single one of them said a single thing that was useful
or true.

King Auguste flew into a rage when he discovered that his brother had fled with Larius.
Laurent’s boys were not put to the question – but only because Nikandros stepped in before it
could happen, claiming them as property of Akielos. Auguste could not prove they had done
anything wrong, and so he could not touch them, save for some minor bruising caused by the
harsh handling the soldiers gave them. Nikandros had not been able to protect Larius or spare
Erasmus his punishment – Prince Richard had, after all, been attacked and seriously wounded
and neither boy had claimed complete innocence in their part in it – but if King Auguste had
no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of any of the other slaves, then he had no right to
touch them. (Kastor, it should be noted, had not interjected either in support nor denial of this
decision.)

The King might have turned his eye next on the common soldiers who made up the Prince’s
Guard, except by that time it had been two hours’ time since the Prince’s absence was
noticed, and a huntsman had just returned with news that the dogs had finally picked up his
scent.

“Acquitart,” the King was heard to say, the moment he heard the direction his brother was
headed.

That was the end of what anyone could tell Erasmus as he lay recovering in a bed in Arles,
begging for word of his Prince. The King had ordered Laurent’s “slaves” shipped to the
capital, turned the common guards off, and taken his own men in hand to follow his brother.
Prince Kastor and Nikandros and the rest of the Akielons went with him, or behind him – it
wasn’t clear. Kallias did not think the King welcomed their presence, but they had been
ordered freed when he had come to the conclusion of Larius’s guilt, and there was no graceful
way of stopping them, short of arresting them a second time. Lord Aimeric had been left with
his father and Prince Richard in Chastillon, and the rest of the guests had been dispersed, the
celebrations long-since ruined.
“We won’t see Larius again,” Kallias told him. With no Prince to attend to, he had no duties
save for sitting beside Erasmus, tending his wounds and answering his questions as best as he
was able. He had not left Erasmus even once – he even insisted on helping him when he
needed the privy. The other boys visited daily, but only Kallias refused to be moved from his
side. Resigned, the physician had given up arguing with him, and instead began teaching him
how to best assist him.

“At least then you can be of use,” the man had grouched.

Erasmus didn’t question Kallias’s prediction. Larius had already been sentenced to death –
now Arles was abuzz with the rumor that a slave had kidnapped the Prince of Vere. King
Auguste, by all adults, had been furious. There would be no mercy for him if he were caught
– and even if, somehow, he managed to escape, he would never be allowed to leave hiding.
He couldn’t go home; the treaty between Vere and Akielos would force Exalted Theomedes
to give him back. Whether he lived or he died, none of them would ever see him again.

It felt strange, the first time they all gathered together at Erasmus’s bedside. Absent Prince
Laurent, Lord Aimeric, and Larius, all three, they felt small and vulnerable in a way they
never had before. Larius was the youngest of them, but he had been with Laurent the longest.
He was, in a way, the de-facto leader of the former slave boys, setting the tone for them all
with his fierce devotion to their Prince. He was the one who taught them their place, who
kept them from falling to jealousy or sabotage, for warring the way they might have in a
harem, who showed them what it meant to be brave. The room was empty and cold without
him.

“I would do it,” Aden announced, breaking the silence. “I would do everything – exactly the
same as Larius did. Die for the chance to make Prince Richard bleed? I would give every last
sol of my pay for it.”

“Did he really have his dick out?” Ermis asked.

Erasmus, by then, was strong enough to nod. “It was small and thick, like an apothecary’s
bottle. It was erect. He had the Prince exposed. Prince Kastor put it away before anyone
arrived, I think. When I came back with the guards, he was dressed. I tried to tell the King,
but…”

“If I had to see his little worm, I would slice it off,” Iphegin said.

The rest of them agreed. It almost felt like a pact.

--

“Do you really think you will marry him?” Jokaste asked.

The question startled him. Damen said, “What?”

“The Prince of Vere,” she clarified, amusement curling her plush pink lips. “Or do you have
multiple underaged young men on the line for your pleasure? How many engagements could
you possibly have tangled yourself up in?”
“Only the one,” Damen said, frowning at her. “And the question is pointless. We’re already
married.”

“Right,” Jokaste said. “But not really.”

Winters in Akielos consisted of rains that seemed like they would never end. The early spring
boasted similar weather. This spring, in particular, had been especially cold and wet so far.
Damen had agreed to letting himself be talked into taking a seaside walk with his beautiful
Free Tribe hostage during a rare break in the gloom. The sun felt good on his skin, even if the
air was still chillier than he liked. He and Jokaste walked barefoot together, close enough to
the shore that when the waves crashed, they were sprayed by a fine, salty mist.

Damen had arrived in Ios in time for Laurent’s birthday. He had pushed their party, eager to
surprise him, excited to witness the shock he knew would fill the spectators’ faces when they
realized the Veretian boy was going to ride Okton, entertained by the idea of pitting him
against the lovely Jokaste in some fevered debate.

Much to his disappointment, he had found Laurent gone. His father said he was celebrating
his birthday in Vere.

“You felt differently on our journey, if I recall,” Damen said. “First he’s my catamite, now
I’m stringing him along? Laurent and I are married.”

“Perhaps, but only within the bounds of Akielos.”

Damen motioned, broadly, to the landscape that surrounded them. “Funny. I just happen to be
in Akielos.” It was absurd, Damen thought, how often Jokaste went out of her way to bring
up a boy she had never met. Damen could not understand the purpose behind it. Just last
night, warm with wine and entranced by the curling of her golden hair against a shoulder left
bare by the drape of her gown, Damen had made the mistake of once more inviting Jokaste to
share his bed. It was the fifth time she had turned him down. Damen had never been rejected
so many times in his life.

Jokaste had every right to reject him. The thought that someone might agree to a tumble with
him merely because they were afraid of saying no was the most horrific concept ever brought
to Damen’s attention. Damen still had not been able to bring himself to touch a slave. He
didn’t want Jokaste to sleep with him out of some sense of obligation, as if the service was
required due to his station.

But, if Jokaste had no desire to share his bed, then the lingering sense of – of competition, or
jealousy – that Damen felt from her whenever either of them mentioned Laurent made no
sense. It needed to stop. Even if Jokaste had desired to share his bed – if this back and forth,
this maddening game, was meant to keep Damen off balance and make him want her more –
then it still needed to stop. Damen had bound himself to Laurent in marriage. He had made a
vow before his gods – he had made a vow to Laurent himself. He had promised to be
Laurent’s friend and his brother, to protect and defend him, to care for him just as he cared
for himself. He would not tolerate anyone – not even a potential lover – who tried to sabotage
or harm him. He was not a rival.
They had stopped walking. Jokaste turned to look up at him, the rising sun at her back,
lighting her in pink and gold, giving her the illusion that she was wearing a crown. One hand
had lifted to hold back her golden curls, tumbling enticingly from the pins she had bound it
back with, lifted gently by the morning breeze. Her other hand held her dainty sandals. The
salty spray of the sea caused the material of her skirt to cling, nearly transparent, to her
shapely legs.

His body felt pulled to her on an instinctual level – drawn to the softness of her curves and
the crystalline sparkle of her eyes – to her pale, smooth skin and the perfume of her hair. He
knew that if he kissed her, her lips would taste of salt.

“Why have you brought up my husband?” Damen asked. He realized that he could see the
swell of her nipples where her dress stretched across her generous chest.

The question seemed to startle her. “I thought I was making conversation,” she said. “I want
to know you. I want to understand you. He is a part of your life; I wanted to know what the
situation was between the two of you before I met him.”

“Yet you weave insult into every question,” Damen said. “You dig at either me or him.
Why?”

“I,” she really was startled now, caught, as if it had not occurred to her that he might catch on
to this part of her strategy – as if he hadn’t spent the last two years befriending a Veretian.
The genuine expression on her face was far different from the fabricated ones she usually
wore. “I wanted to know if you loved him,” she said, and that, too, felt like the truth.

“Of course not,” Damen told her, giving honesty for honesty. “He is a child, and I feel sorry
for him. I had a choice in our situation – his choice was made for him.”

“Yet you were so disappointed when we arrived in Ios and you found him gone.”

Damen nodded. “I do like him. I enjoy his company, yes. His wit, his mind – he is beyond
compare. I have never met anyone who impresses me more. I told you,” he said, “He is as a
little brother to me.”

Something cautious in Jokaste unlocked, then. Something relaxed. She began to shift toward
him, her body softening.

Damen said, “You, on the other hand, are nothing.”

The smile that had been blossoming on Jokaste’s face abruptly stripped itself away.

“You are not my lover,” Damen said. “You are not my friend. I am not even sure whether or
not you are my ally.”

“Of course,” she began. Damen continued anyway.

“If you wish for any of those things to change,” Damen said, “Then understand this right
now: Laurent of Vere is off limits.”
She flushed darkly, her expression more blatant than any he had seen from her before. It
wasn’t embarrassment that stained her cheeks – it was anger. Damen realized with a shock
that stung like a blow that she had been trying to manipulate him! He couldn’t begin to guess
at what her aim might be – he only knew that there was some sort of aim, and she had been
trying to talk him around to something. I want to know you, she had said. The deception made
his head spin.

“You – you flatter yourself,” she laughed. The sound was breathless and furious. She turned
away from him sharply. Her dress was cut low in the back, revealing the long line of her
spine, the gentle curve of her shoulder blades. The sea spray had left the expensive cloth
damp, clinging to her, emphasizing the swell of her peach-shaped ass. The fabric was not
sheer, but it was close. It hinted, tantalizing with the promise of what remained unseen.
Blonde tendrils, loosened from her hair pains, teased at the back of her long neck.

Two years ago, Damen imagined that he would have been utterly helpless on finding himself
faced with such beauty. Even now, he could not help but imagine what it would be like to
bend his head to taste the salt of the sea on the tender pale skin of her neck. He could see it
clearly – how the round swell of her ass would fit in his palms – how she would arch when he
trailed his tongue along the small of her back to tease it, oh, so lightly, there at the shadow
that just barely hinted at the cleft of her backside.

If Damen had not spend the last two years dealing with Veretians, he would have been putty
in the hands of a master sculptor.

Jokaste said, “The very nerve of you disgusts me. I have no interest in turning you off from
your silly little catamite. I would sooner die than have a beast like you touch me! Your father
is a warmonger who tore apart this country for his own selfish gains, and you aren’t even
smart or ambitious enough to match him! You’re nothing but a brute. A boy-fucking brute. A
–“

Damen turned her back toward himself, his hands firm on her shoulders. Her words cut off
abruptly when he covered her mouth with his own.

Damen had not intended to kiss her – but when he had turned her around, he had seen the
spark in her eyes, and the inviting softness of her lips, and it had happened. Without thought,
it had happened. She tasted of salt from the sea, and honey from her breakfast.

The jerked away, and she slapped him, hard. Damen’s cheek was still stinging when,
breathless, she fisted her hands in his chiton, and jerked him back to her.

Mouth fell against mouth once again. Damen’s hand was buried deep in her golden hair,
destroying what was left of her once-careful chignon. Jokaste’s body was melting against
him, warm and so very soft. Damen was achingly aware of how long it had been since he had
last had a woman – not since Lykaios’s First Night. Laurent’s questions about his slaves had
haunted him, had killed off any desire he might have before it could even start.

Jokaste pushed him, and he stumbled when he stepped back, falling into the sand. He reached
for her as she followed, her eyes the bright, intently-focused gaze of a hunting cat as she
hiked up her skirts to straddle him. Her gaze trapped him, pinned him in place. It was a
simple thing, then – the shifting aside of garments, the hurried positioning. Jokaste did it all
herself, sinking down, her eyes on fire where they met his, and then he was in, hot and tight
and slick. Jokaste didn’t pause to give herself time to adjust to him. She had never once
hesitated at his size.

Damen barely had the ability to form thought, to feel a moment of gratified relief for the fact
that, at least this time, he would not be able to question whether she had really wanted it, or
simply been forced to acquiesce because he was the Prince. This time – this time, he was
sure, there would be no need for him to struggle against questions, against guilt.

Abdominal muscles bunching, Damen sat up, gathering her in his arms, taking hold of her ass
in generous handfuls.

Jokaste squealed, laughing, kicking her heels, as she found herself pushed to her back in the
sand, Damen barely breaking the rhythm of his thrusts to do it.

--

Father was waiting for them in the courtyard when they returned to the palace.

Damen knew there was no questioning or hiding what had happened on the beach. Father
knew his predilections, and they were both disheveled, damp, and covered in sand. It was an
easy assumption to make. Jokaste had done what she could to rectify the disaster he had
made of her hair, but it was not enough. They were both walking a little stiffly – sore, and far
too aware of all of the places sand could find itself. Damen had lost the pin that had been
holding his chiton closed, and so he was having to hold it bunched in place manually. The
transgressive scandal of fucking outside had Damen struggling to keep the grin from his face,
even under his father’s scrutiny.

Then Father held up his hand, and Damen found that grin falling from his face, his expression
growing serious as he hurried to meet his father.

His father held a letter in his hand. On it, the gold etching of a sunburst seal caught the early
morning light.
 Chapter 41
Chapter Notes

An extra chapter, but you aren't going to thank me for it.

This one is really hard.

PLEASE do not read this chapter if you are having a bad day. Please stop and close out
the second you need to. Please take care of yourself before anything else.

The morning of Laurent’s fifteenth birthday dawned cold and grey.

Larius was already up, doing what he could to get breakfast cooked before the rain started.
Judging by the sky, the little fire they had dared to light would be the last bit of warmth they
felt for a while. Even with their oiled traveling cloaks, it was going to be a wet and miserable
day.

Wet, and miserable – and triumphant. Today they would cross the boundary that separated the
Veretian province of Alier from the lands belonging to the small independent governance of
Acquitart.

“I don’t wany any breakfast,” Laurent said, eager to be off.

Larius answered, “If I gave you your way every time you said you did not want to eat, you
would have starved to death three times by now.”

It was a long sentence for him; Larius never had been particularly chatty. At first, Laurent
had assumed the other boy’s quiet to be a result of fear or trained subservience – or maybe
even shyness. Over his time in Laurent’s service, however, it began to become clear that
Larius simply liked silence. He was content with the quiet. Given how difficult it was for any
of Laurent’s boys to recognize – let alone acknowledge – when they had a preference toward
anything at all, Laurent was happy to let silence lay between them as much as Larius wanted.

“I’m tired of hard cheese and old bread and coffee reheated in a pan,” Laurent told him,
tossing his head. “When we reach my lands, we will have pastries and cappuccinos and bacon
thicker than your arm.”

“Bacon thicker than my arm is a porkchop,” Larius told him, bemused.

“Fine, then. We will have porkchops. And oats, with thick cream and fresh fruit. And toast
with yellow butter – and we will dip it in the runny part of our eggs!”

“Yes; you sound like a man who is not hungry.” Larius’s tone was dry.
Laurent told him, “We will have hot baths.”

Larius looked up, at last, and he smiled. Well, he gave what passed for a smile, for him,
anyway: amusement in his eyes, one corner of his mouth pulled upwards.

“Come and eat, Your Highness,” he said.

Laurent made a show about it, but he did.

He liked the feeling of triumph that thrummed in his veins. He liked the sense of
accomplishment. Their journey had been a long one, and it had been difficult, too. They’d
had to trade out their horses two more times, and though Laurent had some small experience
with extended travel over horseback, Larius really did not. Until now, the journey from Vere’s
royal sea port to Chastillon had been the longest ride the other boy had ever been asked to
endure – and he had still been sore and exhausted from that when they had set off on their
escape. Larius had never uttered a single word of complaint, thought.

“Here,” Laurent said, fishing a little paper-wrapped bundle from his pack. He unwrapped it,
and with pride and adventure he said, “I stole this in the last time. So we would have
something to celebrate with. Don’t look at me like that; I’ll pay them back eventually.”

It was a chocolate croissant, a little flattened and stale from two days’ travel in Laurent’s
pack. Laurent saw Larius’s eyes light up as he watched him carefully tear it in two.

“Isn’t it bad luck to celebrate before we’ve reached the end?” Larius asked.

Laurent shrugged. “I don’t believe in luck,” he said, “Anyway, I think we are close enough.
And if we are not, we will call it my birthday cake, instead. We are celebrating me, not you.
There can’t be any bad luck in that, can there? Here, hold it near the fire, like this. It will
soften it up, make it taste fresh.”

Larius huffed out a soft laugh. Silence fell again between them as they ate. The sweetness of
the chocolate helped with the bitterness of the last of their coffee, which by now consisted of
little more than dregs and pure evil, anyway, after a week’s worth of travel. They soaked their
bread in it so that they didn’t break their teeth.

“I think,” Larius said, quietly, after a long span of silence, “This is the best end I could have
gotten.”

His looks were coming in plain. If Larius had still been a slave, he would have been pulled
out of his training for bedservice by now and set to some other task. His long, skinny fingers
plucked at his half of the croissant. “I’m happy with it,” he said. “I’m really, very happy.
Thank you for everything you’ve done.”

“This isn’t an end,” Laurent corrected him. “It’s a beginning.”

He couldn’t read the other boy’s smile. Larius lifted his croissant, and they knocked their
treats together, as if making a toast.

--
The river that marked the boundary between Acquitart and Alier was thick from southern
spring rains and melting snow. Crossing was offered by a covered wooden bridge that the
people of Acquitart often hung with decorations during times of celebration. There were still
a few leftover from the annual spring festivities – twigs bent and bound together to make the
shapes of butterflies, bundles of now slightly-wilted flowers: marigold and sweet pea and
pansy, ribbons in a rainbow of colors, slightly weathered now from exposure. It looked like a
welcome, anyway – a celebratory greeting, just waiting for them, acknowledging what it was
they had accomplished.

After the treeline stopped, a long stretch of open field led to the bridge. Armies had met here,
in years past, when Acquitart had defended its independence from the rapidly encroaching
Vere. A war between brothers had happened here, the older ruling Vere, the younger,
Acquitart.

Laurent shivered as the first fat, cold drops of rain began to fall.

“Come on,” Laurent told Larius. “You’re almost home.”

--

Two boys on horseback stepped into the clearing.

The soldier on watch brought his horn to his lips.

--

It happened suddenly.

A nightmare. A dam breaking. Soldiers were flooding into the clearing from where they had
been hidden along the treeline. Thirteen men, to be precise, though in that first terrible, heart-
stopping moment, it felt like hundreds. Twelve soldiers.

One King.

“Go!” Laurent shouted. They rode hard for the bridge, pushing the old broken-down farm
nags they rode – beasts that had never been meant for a hard run – beasts that were already
exhausted. Their horses strained, and the hooves of trained, well-conditioned warhorses
thundered after them.

--

It had been a very near thing. They almost hadn’t made it in time. Chance – luck – Auguste
ordered his men to spread out along the treeline. They were barely in place before the boys’
approach was spotted.

Auguste utilized every advantage he had with a kind of cold, biting ruthlessness. He had
known where his brother was going, and so there had been no need to follow tracking dogs
through woodland and along gaming trails. He took the roads the entire way.
Auguste and his men were better supplied. Their horses and their men were all better-
conditioned to riding a long campaign – particularly once Laurent and his boy started having
to trade out their horses for fresh ones at farmsteads and villages they passed through. The
moment Auguste had seen Madeleine in that first town, Auguste had known that he would
find his brother.

The rage that simmered in Auguste was unlike anything he had ever known. It was a low, hot
boil, single-minded and determined. It was the oil one readied to pour over the walls upon an
attacking enemy. His brother’s defiance – his open rebellion – was something Auguste had
never dreamed he would have to fear from him. The hurt Auguste felt – the betrayal – you’ll
lose me, Laurent had said, and Auguste had refused to believe it. He had not been willing to
entertain the idea that his sweet, brilliant, beautiful brother would ever be capable of
choosing a slave and the delusions he had been fed over his own family.

“Keep going!” Laurent yelled.

Larius had hit the bridge, his horse’s hooves loud against the aged wooden boards, and then
he was across. Two soldiers, passing Laurent, followed.

“Keep going!” Laurent yelled again. “Don’t stop until you reach the Keep!”

Laurent reached the bridge, and his horse reared back suddenly as he reigned her sharply
around. His eyes found Auguste, glittering, bright with defiance.

Auguste signaled for the rest of his men to stop.

He dismounted. Alone and on foot, so filled with rage he could barely see straight, it still
filled him with relief to see his brother safe and unharmed. Auguste began to approach his
brother.

“Call your men back!” Laurent yelled at him. His horse danced under him, terrified,
untrained for such things as being chased across fields by soldiers. Even Laurent, with all of
his instinct and talent, struggled to keep her calm. “He’s already entered my lands! He’s safe!
Call them back!” Laurent’s triumph burned in his face like the blaze of the sun.

“I can’t let him go, Laurent,” Auguste said, and he saw something terrible flash in his little
brother’s eyes. He pushed his every feeling aside. “Come down,” Auguste ordered. “This has
gone too far.”

“You’re right,” Laurent agreed. He practically threw himself from the back of his horse; she
fled the moment she was free. The ring of steel filled the clearing as Laurent drew his sword.
He pointed it, unwavering, at Auguste. “This has gone too far.”

Auguste had never known his brother to even carry a sword. Laurent had always hated
lessons in swordwork; Father had had to force him to take them. Laurent would often even
hide or try to find some excuse to get out of attending. Auguste drew his own sword, slowly –
not out of some expectation of having to fight his little brother, but because of the
reassurance of it, the subtle boost of authority he felt it gave him to speak with a sword in
hand.
Auguste did not know the boy who approached him, armed, his long hair reaching nearly to
his shoulders, ridiculous tablecloth of an Akielon cloak wrapped and pinned around his body
to provide warmth. His Laurent always took care to dress himself to the pinnacle of courtly
fashion. His Laurent kept his hair neatly trimmed and his nails meticulously manicured. His
Laurent avoided handling weapons at any cost.

His Laurent would never trade his exquisite and beloved Madeleine for a broken-down
plough horse.

“Laurent,” Auguste began, and that was when his brother attacked him.

Auguste expected it to be short and humiliating. He was not in the mood to humor his
brother; he had no patience for taking measures to spare his pride. When he met his blade, he
planned to disarm him quickly.

He knew the shock showed plainly on his face when Laurent parried his first blow.

“Stop this,” Auguste warned, as sword rang against sword. He had to think, to pay attention,
more than he had expected to. Laurent had improved, and that made the confrontation,
suddenly, dangerous. It would be too easy to react with instinct and muscle memory and end
up skewering his little brother. “Your tantrum has gone on long enough!”

“Look at that: I’ve attacked a member of the Veretian royal family,” Laurent spat. Auguste
knocked his sword to the side, but Laurent was there again, anyway, forcing him back.
Someone had shown him how to utilize his size and speed. There was something familiar
about his form that Auguste could not quite place. “Will you have me executed, too, brother?
Will you also deny me a trial?” Laurent’s swing was just a little too wide. Auguste had to
give ground again, just to avoid slicing him in half. He realized, too late, that it was a feint.
Laurent’s sword nicked Auguste’s bicep. Laurent leapt back before Auguste could respond.

He wasn’t even breathing heavily.

“I’ve drawn royal blood,” Laurent said. “If one of your men steps in to defend you now – if
he hurts me in the process – will you have him flogged for it? Will you sentence him to
death?”

Auguste could see the men who had crossed the bridge returning.

“I’ve humored you long enough,” Auguste said. “I can see now what Father was always
talking about.”

It hurt. Despite it all, it hurt – the expression that crossed his brother’s face. It hurt him, too,
to disarm Laurent – to put him in the dirt with ruthless, humiliating efficiency. He knew his
words had gone too far. He didn’t take them back.

“Yield,” Auguste ordered, and his brother’s gaze glittered up at him, defiant. Auguste stepped
on his arm when Laurent began to reach for a knife. Auguste put some weight on it. He
pressed down, hard. “Yield,” he said again. “I will break it if you force me to, Laurent; I said
yield.”
His men were crossing the bridge. Nolen, one of Auguste’s newer men, had the slave boy
Larius thrown over his horse. His hands had been bound behind his back.

“No!” Laurent said. His arm jerked under Auguste’s boot as he tried to sit up. “No! Let him
go!”

“I wish you didn’t have to learn this lesson, Laurent,” Auguste said. Laurent had gone white,
his eyes darting between Auguste and the slave.

“Auguste! Auguste, don’t!” Laurent was pulling on his arm now, trying to free himself.
“Yield! I yield!”

Auguste stepped off his arm. Laurent rolled to his feet and tried to dart to his man, who Albur
was now hauling off Nolen’s horse, but Auguste caught him, and he dragged him to his
waiting men. Sebastian was the one who caught him when he threw him their way, and
Auguste couldn’t read his friend’s expression, but, loyally, Sebastian held tight, even as
Laurent struggled. He bowed his head and spoke to Laurent, voice low, trying to calm him,
but whatever he said, his words were lost to Laurent’s cries of, “Auguste, don’t! I yield! I said
I yield! Auguste, stop! Auguste! Don’t!”

Auguste turned away, unable to look at him. Albur and Nolen were forcing Larius to his
knees. There was blood on the boy’s face.

“You can’t!” Laurent’s voice cracked. He was in Acquitart! We made it! Auguste, you can’t!”

“Don’t look, Your Highness,” Auguste heard behind him. Eliott had stepped up to join
Sebastian, trying to contain the desperately struggling young Prince.

“Auguste, he was safe! Auguste, you can’t! Please, Auguste - ! Please! I yield!”

“You’ve been charged with the attempted murder of Prince Richard of Vere, my own uncle,”
Auguste told Larius.

“Auguste, don’t! Auguste, stop!”

The only sounds in the clearing seemed to be the brothers – Laurent, screaming his voice raw,
kicking and thrashing, clawing at the now-three men who were struggling to hold him.
Auguste, fighting to harden his heart, wanting desperately to relent. Knowing he couldn’t.

“Your guilt has been determined by agreement of the Veretian Council,” he said.

“Auguste, I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I yield!”

“Do you understand the charge against you?” Auguste asked the slave.

Larius’s eye was beginning to swell. His slow-spreading smile further cracked lips split by a
blow from a soldier’s gauntlet. He spat a large, slimy globule, and it landed on Auguste’s
shoe.

“ – Auguste - !”
Auguste nodded to his soldiers. They stepped away.

“ – Auguste, no - !”

It was over in one swift swing.

The clearing grew silent on Laurent’s answering howl.

Auguste didn’t look to see the head roll. He handed his sword off to his page for cleaning.
When he steeled himself to turn back toward Laurent, he found his brother slumped,
collapsed to his knees, his face white, his eyes on the slave.

A thundering of hooves announced the arrival of Prince Kastor and Nikandros and the rest of
the Akielons, who Auguste had only just barely managed to outdistance.

Auguste let his eyes be drawn to them. He let himself take the excuse they gave him to look
away from his brother. Nikandros looked shocked and dismayed, before his face took on a
hard, stony expression as he reigned in, taking in the scene. Prince Kastor looked
disappointed, and maybe a little bored.

Auguste looked to his men without letting his eyes rest on his brother again.

“Pack up,” he ordered, his voice grim. “We still have daylight left. Best not to waste it.”
 Chapter 42

If you do this, Laurent had warned him, you will lose me.

I won’t, Auguste had answered.

Auguste had been sure.

The Akielons descended on them, there in the clearing outside of Acquitart – there where
Auguste stood, dripping sword in hand, a too-young body at his feet, his brother on his knees,
empty, face blanched white as snow, eyes as blank as those of the dead. Some of Auguste’s
men had been holding him while it happened – keeping him back, keeping him safe. They
had tried to keep him from watching. Now they simply stood around him, useless, as the
Akielons invaded this space, this moment, where they did not belong.

Auguste’s sword continued to drip. Laurent continued to stare. The terrible moment seemed
frozen, eternal, and it took a great deal of effort to pull his eyes from his brother, to
acknowledge the Akielons’ arrival.

“It’s done,” Auguste said, as Nikandros dismounted. “This was a matter of judgement. Of
Veretian law.” He sounded defensive. He was out of breath, as if the child had put up a fight.
Now that it was done, his rage was slowly draining from him, a fire sputtering out. For the
first time, he felt the sting from where Laurent had cut him.

Nikandros ignored him. Stone-faced, he pushed through Auguste’s men toward Laurent –
they stepped aside to let him pass. Many of them, Auguste realized, wouldn’t look at him.
Their eyes flinched from Larius, too. Only the Akielons would really look Auguste’s way –
large brutes, hardened soldiers. They didn’t like what they saw. Mounted, they looked so
huge, surrounding Auguste and his men. Auguste realized for the first time how badly things
could turn, how desperately outnumbered he and his men now were. Laurent was still
Auguste’s heir, and the Akielons owned him. Out here, outnumbered, with no witnesses –

“You gave your blessing for Vere to see to his punishment,” Auguste told Kastor, who was
looking over the tableau with interest. He squared his shoulders, trying to make himself taller,
and subtly shifted his hold on his blade. “I have seen to it.”

Prince Kastor looked at him, and he smiled.

Nikandros didn’t try to touch Laurent, but he knelt near him. He glanced up, once, at
Auguste, before he turned his full attention to the young Prince. He spoke to him in Akielon,
his voice low and gentle. When he received no response, he switched to Veretian.

“I have failed you,” Auguste heard him say. “I will not give you excuses. I will not ask for
forgiveness. I will not insult you with either. Laurent, I am so, so sorry.”

“Get me away from here,” Laurent told him. His voice was a rasp. He didn’t take his eyes
away from Larius. He rose on his own, without assistance. He took his time to retrieve his
sword before looking for his horse.

--

Laurent rode with the Akielons. When they made camp for the night, he took up residence in
a tent on the Akielon side, and he did not emerge until morning. Auguste didn’t hear it, if he
cried. He didn’t see it, if he ate. Laurent’s eyes were dull and lifeless. He didn’t look at
Auguste, but through him.

“We will head west, to Marlas,” Auguste ordered in the morning, though more than half his
men would not meet his eye, and the Akielons outnumbered him significantly enough to be
dangerous, if they wanted to be, and his brother would not respond to the sound of his voice.
“I’ve arranged for the Akielon King to meet us there.” His words received little response.
Even when Auguste had Madeleine brought forward for Laurent, when he revealed that he
had repurchased her (at three times her worth), he got nothing in response.

The second night, Sebastian pulled him to the side.

“When we return to Arles,” Sebastian said, “Some of the men intend to tender their
resignation.”

“Who?” Auguste asked.

“I thought you should have time to prepare,” Sebastian told him, avoiding the question. “You
have time to think about which families you may wish to pull replacements from. There are
always second sons eager to prove their worth in the King’s Guard.”

“Sebastian,” Auguste said, “Who?”

His friend gently pulled his arm from his grip.

“We should try to be prepared before we return to Arles,” he advised.

“You don’t plan to resign, do you?” Auguste pressed, and saw him flinch. “Sebastian, you’re
my Captain. You’re my closest friend. You can’t be considering - ?”

“I’ve considered,” Sebastian said. “I’m still considering.”

“Sebastian…”

“I will help you make a list,” Sebastian said. “Begin thinking about it tonight. We will
compare notes tomorrow.”

--

Nothing changed in the time it took them to reach Marlas. Each day, each mile away from
Acquitart and the rage that had driven him there, the harder it was for Auguste to remember
all of the reasons the slave had needed to be executed, all of the reasons he could not allow
his brother to act out in such blatant defiance and disrespect.
In Marlas, in the courtyard, Laurent dropped Madeleine’s reins and simply walked away from
her, just like all of the spoiled noble boys he used to complain about, expecting that some
servant would come to take care of her, utterly unconcerned with the quality of her care.

The Keep had been mostly uninhabitable during the war, but some of the recovery efforts had
included its restoration, thanks to Earl Varden and his deep pockets. The work was far
enough along now that their party could sleep within its walls. Auguste found Laurent, later,
in one of the guest suites, simply sitting, no lamps lit, allowing the shadows of evening to
slowly overtake the room.

Laurent sat silently as the barber Auguste summoned cut his hair. He showed no reaction –
not even the mildest of interest or curiosity concerning what was currently considered
fashionable among young courtiers. He stood quietly as a living, breathing doll, utterly
unresponsive, as servants took his measurements so that they could alter some proper
Veretian clothing to fit him, until something suitable could be made.

Yet even after all of that – even with his hair properly cut and his clothes properly covering
him – even when he once more looked, physically, like Prince Laurent of Vere, and not some
Akielon war prize, Auguste could no longer find his brother within the flat, empty depths of
his brother’s blue eyes.

--

Laurent, Auguste discovered, did what he was told.

He did only what he was told. He did not do a fraction more. He would eat, but only when
Auguste told him to. With no interest or enthusiasm, his blank eyes cast downwards, he
would dutifully consume each meal placed before him.

If he spoke, it was in single syllables. If he slept, it was only in the smallest snatches.

So, Auguste was both pleased and surprised the day his brother finally came to him with a
question.

“Why did you send for King Theomedes?”

They had been in Marlas for several days. Auguste had told Laurent to come for a ride with
him, and so Laurent had done so, two Akielon soldiers closely trailing his every move – as if
they did not believe him safe when he was alone with his own brother. Auguste had been
trying to ignore it, trying not to take it as a slight.

Marlas had been operating on a skeleton crew, and despite the word Auguste had sent ahead,
they had not been prepared to host the arrival of the Veretian King and his brother and several
dozen soldiers, with more guests to be arriving any day. Auguste had the impression that they
had been lucky to have even bedlinens, that first night. For now, there was very little to do in
Marlas, and very little staff to assist in the doing, and Laurent had always loved riding, and
Auguste had thought – well, he had hoped –
Auguste had hoped the ride would help end the silence between them – yet the sound of his
brother’s voice had him feeling more wary than relieved.

“Prince Kastor has been granted the authority to oversee this year’s treaty,” Laurent stated,
flat and to the point. “What purpose does it serve to ask my father-in-law to meet us here?”

“Given everything that’s happened, I thought it best we meet face to face before another year
passes.”

Laurent looked at him for the first time in days. He didn’t say it, but Auguste could see it in
his eyes. The knowing wasn’t even accusatory: Auguste had written to Theomedes before he
even reached Acquitart. Auguste had known he would catch Laurent and Larius. He had
known –

“If you think about it, it’s pretty ironic, isn’t it?” Auguste found himself blurting. He tried to
sound normal. He forced himself to laugh. “Theomedes rejected Kastor’s surrender while we
were at war – but now that we’re at peace, he suddenly has the authority to represent his
father in negotiations.”

“He was the only one available,” Laurent stated flatly. “Since you gave such short notice
when you demanded we come to you.”

“I did tell you, didn’t I? How the Akielons twist to redefine their rules of honor to suit?”
Auguste tried, desperately, to sound normal. There was nothing in the world he wanted half
so much than for things to be normal again. To have his brother smiling and hanging on his
every word again. To have life be simple again. To have an end to these filthy Akielons and
their so-called honor and the way they had taken Laurent from him. “As far as I know,
Theomedes might just as well decide to nullify any agreement Kastor and I came to if it
failed to please him.”

Laurent was still looking at him. They had stopped their horses, and Auguste couldn’t read
his expression, but Laurent was looking at him, and that had to be something. Laurent had
asked him a question.

Relieved by the progress, Auguste began, cautiously, to smile.

Laurent said, “Unless you intend to submit yourself to the King of Akielos for judgement
concerning the murder of a free Akielon citizen, then I really don’t care whether Theomedes
honors your agreement or not.” There was poison lurking in that flat, passionless voice. “It
seems to me, the only things you have managed to accomplish here are inconveniencing my
father-in-law and gifting me a shorter trip home.”

Auguste’s smile – fragile and pathetic as it was, abruptly fell away.

“Laurent,” Auguste began, “Akielos isn’t your h-“

Ignoring him once more, Laurent pushed Madeleine forward into a sudden run, leaving
Auguste there, motionless, staring after him as his two Akielon shadows followed.
--

None of the emotions Auguste found himself struggling with were anything like guilt or
regret. Killing a man was never pleasant or easy, but sometimes it had to be done. Larius’s
punishment had been a matter of the law. Anyone who made an attempt on a royal’s life had
to die, there was no wiggle room. Escaping custody with the Crown Prince hadn’t helped his
case. Auguste did not want to see his brother suffer, but for gods’ sake, the boy was mourning
a slave. A slave who had already proven himself dangerous and unstable. Auguste was his
brother and Laurent was willing to destroy their entire relationship over a criminal receiving
his lawful punishment. Did he think Auguste’s patience for him would last forever? Did he
think his forgiveness was limitless?

Days passed in Marlas, and Laurent’s behavior neither improved nor changed. He locked
himself up in the rooms he had chosen for himself, and he did not emerge except when he
was ordered to do so – Auguste had tested it once, forbidding the staff from entering his
rooms, and he was half convinced Laurent would have stayed there until he died if Auguste
hadn’t finally relented. Laurent didn’t speak to or look at Auguste again during that time. The
most Auguste heard of his voice was the time he entered his rooms to find him speaking to
Nikandros – and that had all been in Akielon.

Despite the language barrier, Auguste knew simply from the way Nikandros had been
looking at him what it was the two of them had been talking about.

“I expect more from you than this, Laurent – you are behaving like a child!” Auguste
exploded at him. “You know the law. You know that actions have consequences!”

“That’s enough,” Nikandros told him.

Auguste ignored the Akielon Captain. “Half the court was there that night. Was I supposed to
try to cover up what your man did? Was I supposed to allow an attack on our family – on
your family – go unanswered?”

“That’s enough,” Nikandros said again.

“And then – the stunt you pulled!” Auguste continued. “Do you know how lucky you are that
I can’t bear the thought of punishing you as well? I’d be within my rights to have you
whipped for that, Laurent. I could have you locked away in a tower for the rest of your life.
Instead, I’ve allowed the Council to think that boy abducted you. You helped a violent
prisoner escape and you attacked your King! Do you think I’ve stayed my hand because I’m
worried about what Akielos might think?”

“I said that’s enough!” Nikandros was suddenly up, snarling in Auguste’s face. Both of his
hands were clutched, white-knuckled, in Auguste’s jacket.

“Stop,” Laurent ordered, his voice that terrible, flat, empty cadence. “Nikandros. Stop. You
heard how eager my brother is to enact the force of the law to administer punishment. If you
strike him, he’s likely to have you whipped, next.”

“How many lashes?” Nikandros asked. “I strongly suspect it might be worth it.”
“Stop,” Laurent said again, and with clear reluctance, Nikandros shoved Auguste away from
himself.

“You’re lucky one of us knows the meaning of that word,” Nikandros snarled to Auguste, and
then he left.

“I love you,” Auguste said, once they were alone. “That is all I was going to say. I am not
going to punish you, because I love you. I have chosen to interpret our confrontation as a
duel, because I love you..”

Laurent had slumped backwards in his chair, his face turned away, his long arms wrapped
‘round his slender body.

“Laurent,” Auguste began, when the minutes ticked by, and he did not respond.

For the second time since Acquitart, Laurent spoke to him without Auguste having to first
order it.

He said, “Get the fuck out of my room.”

--

“Is this what Father went through?” Auguste demanded, later, pacing in his sitting room
while Sebastian watched, his list of noble families with sons appropriate for guard duty
spread out on the coffee table before them, forgotten. Auguste felt as if he was at the end of
his rope. He felt as if he was losing his mind. “He has never been this deliberately difficult
before!”

“He feels responsible for that boy,” Sebastian told him. “They were friends.”

“A Prince, friends with a slave.”

Sebastian didn’t answer him at first. He frowned, leaning forward to rearrange the papers,
picking up his writing quill to strike through a name. “Am I here right now in the capacity of
your guard or your friend?” he asked, finally.

“Can’t it be both?” Auguste asked, and when Sebastian only looked at him, he waved his
hand. “My friend. Or course. Always, my friend.”

Despite his answer, Sebastian was still very careful when he spoke.

“You did act…very quickly,” he said.

“I should react slowly when someone attempts to murder my uncle?”

Something in Auguste’s tone had Sebastian’s face blanking. “What I mean,” he said, slowly,
“Is that Laurent may feel that the matter was not investigated as thoroughly as he might have
wished.”

“I investigated. You were there.”

“I was there,” Sebastian agreed. “I wasn’t as quickly convinced of the version of events you
chose to believe.”

“You didn’t say anything!”

Sebastian merely blinked, slowly, at him. He didn’t say it, but Auguste heard his answer
anyway: it hadn’t been his place. He was not a slave. He was not common born. But, nobility
or not, it was not the role of a guardsman to question a King. Not without first receiving
invitation.

“I think the Prince may feel as if his perspective was too readily dismissed,” Sebastian said.

Why don’t you ever believe me?

“His perspective was ridiculous. Uncle Richard would never lay a finger on him. “

“Or you are being a coward, and cannot bring yourself to consider the thought he might. You
cannot let yourself look at what it means if he would. If he has.”

Auguste felt his mind skitter away from the idea. “The only evidence was the word of two
slaves, both of whom had every reason to lie, and Laurent, who doesn’t remember anything,
who was already primed to be convinced that that he wasn’t safe around our uncle, and who
wanted his friends to be innocent. They stabbed Baptiste, Sebastian – have you forgotten
that? You almost lost a friend, too.” Baptiste had nearly bled out before they found him. They
had left him behind in Chastillon, where reports said he was recovering well. By sheer force
of luck, the slave Larius had managed to avoid anything critical when stabbing him.

“Well,” Sebastian said, after a moment, “It sounds as if you have everything worked out
according to your satisfaction, then.”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Auguste asked. “Laurent has been poisoned against me. He has been
poisoned against Uncle Richard. The Akielons want to tear what’s left of our family apart.”

“You don’t think, instead of allowing yourself to feel threatened, you should be pleased
Laurent has adjusted so well to his new home?”

“Akielos is not and will never be his home,” Auguste said. “They are turning him into
someone I don’t know – someone I don’t even like. They’ve planted this idea in his head that
his own family is not to be trusted. They’ve made him believe our uncle is a dangerous,
power-hungry pervert lusting for his own nephew – who is to say what they’ve said about
me? Sometimes,” he confessed, “Sometimes I even find myself wondering whether they’ve
been tampering with our correspondence.”

“If someone is attempting to drive a wedge between the two of you,” Sebastian said, “Then
they certainly seem to be succeeding.”

--

The day the horns sounded to signal the approach of the Akielons, Auguste gave the order for
the gates to be raised with a feeling of grim determination. He stood in the courtyard, he and
his men to one side, Nikandros and his soldiers to the other, and he waited for his allies to
arrive with all of the anticipation of a man awaiting a funeral. He couldn’t help but to think
about his father – and the fact the man had died to keep Akielos from entering the very halls
Auguste was now waiting to welcome them into.

In a way, Theomedes was succeeding at last in his invasion. Akielos already outnumbered
Vere in Marlas, and now they were willingly adding more. If the treaty didn’t hold – if the
talks went poorly – if Theomedes rejected what Auguste planned to offer –

Auguste had to force himself to breathe. He had to remind himself that he was King. As
much as he wanted to tear up that damned treaty and declare Vere the enemy of Akielos once
more, he knew that it was not yet a position he could afford to take. His rule was still
unstable, and his army was far away.

He had to breathe. He had to think. He had to bear this terrible obligation, all on his own.

His smile was tight as he made the appropriate greetings, working diligently to hide how
much he despised his guests. He made himself thank them for undergoing the journey on
such short notice. He endured the experience of grasping forearms with Damianos – endured
the brute’s bright and seemingly genuine smile – and when Damianos thumped him
companionably on the back, he even succeed in preventing himself from punching the
barbarian in the face.

“Where is Laurent?” Damianos asked, immediately, once the greetings were over, and
Auguste hated him so much it burned.

“Laurent won’t be – “ Auguste began, but then he was interrupted by the sound of running
feet. His men parted, pushed to the side.

Then Laurent threw himself, bodily, into the arms of Damianos of Akielos.
 Chapter 43

Laurent’s body crashed into him so hard that the force of it had Damen rocking back on his
heels to keep from being tackled to the ground. Damen’s arms came up automatically to wrap
around his little brother and he laughed.

I’m glad to see you, too!” he said, before he realized how tightly the boy clung to him.
Laurent was trembling. Damen’s amusement faded slowly to concern. When he looked up, he
found King Auguste watching them with a dark expression on his face unlike anything
Damen had ever before seen from the man. He found his arms tightening, reflexively, around
Laurent.

“I didn’t know you were coming,” Laurent whispered, but Damen thought Auguste might
have heard him, anyway. The Veretian King cleared his throat loudly.

“Laurent,” his tone was scolding, full of disapproval. “Our guests will want to rest and wash
up after their journey.”

Laurent’s arms tightened again. Another moment passed before, reluctantly, he pulled away.
Damen’s hand chased him, affectionately cupping the back of his golden head, but Laurent
turned away without looking at any of them.

Damen had to remind himself that Laurent was fifteen now. Though the Veretians had likely
had a surprise when they’d seen how much he had grown and changed since the last time in
their country, Laurent had yet to hit another growth spurt in the time since Damen had last
seen him. In fact, he looked little different than he had all those months ago, save that he was
once more dressed in Veretian clothing and he had cut his hair to meet their standards. It was
like that with some boys, Damen knew – manhood coming on in slow fits and spurts until
one day, seemingly overnight, he would show up tall and broad and hairy and stinky. The
thought had been amusing to Damen, once, but right now Laurent looked too young and too
sad and too vulnerable for any thoughts of awkward or embarrassing changes to be cute or
funny. He was so pale, Damen realized. Pale and thin. His eyes were read and heavily
shadowed.

It took a moment, but Damen saw it – like putting on a suit of armor, Laurent squared his
shoulders and lifted his chin. When he turned back to them, he appeared cool and controlled
and proud, even haughty – but his eyes were dead. He stared past King Auguste as if he did
not see him.

Damen was certain that his father noticed all of this just as he did. When he glanced,
questioningly, at Nikandros, he found his friend’s expression dark. Father returned Laurent’s
greeting with a solemn nod and clasped forearms with him as he might a man, though he held
on just a little too long, the gaze on his son-in-law thoughtful, before he turned to greet
Kastor.

By then, Damen had made his way to Nikandros. They clasped forearms, and then they
embraced. “Later,” Nikandros said in his ear before Damen could ask him what was going
on, and then he gave his shoulder a solid thump as they parted.

“I’m afraid our staff at the keep is rather limited at the moment,” King Auguste was telling
Father, “But they have been instructed to prioritize your needs, and those of your party. I
have men ready to show you to your rooms and help you get situated. We can meet again this
afternoon. After you’re rested, I will be happy to personally give you a tour of the grounds.”

“I suppose the staff was not expecting to host such a large party on such short notice,” Father
said, as if musing it over. “I am curious about what could have precipitated this sudden
change of plan.” Coolly polite, Father looked King Auguste in the eye directly. “First I am
informed that you will not step foot outside of Arles, and that my son-in-law simply must be
made to come to you there – then I rather unceremoniously find myself summoned here, with
very little notice, as if I do not have a kingdom of my own to run.”

King Auguste flushed red, though it did not appear to be from embarrassment.

“What one won’t do for family,” Father said. His hand fell, protectively, on Laurent’s
shoulder. King Auguste gave an insincere laugh.

“I suppose I must imagine it did seem rather strange,” he acknowledged. “My wife is ill, and
I was reluctant to leave her side – but when I found myself unexpectedly coming south, I
thought it a good opportunity for us to meet after all. I am sorry for whatever inconvenience
the contradictory requests might have caused you. I cannot begin to guess what you might
have thought when you received my letter.”

“Well,” Damen said, “It is so rare to hear from you.”

Father gave him a Look, and he left it there.

--

Damen had no interest in washing up or resting, and even less in taking any sort of tour of the
grounds with father and King Auguste. He paid careful attention to the various corridors and
passages of Marlas as he was taken to his assigned rooms, and as soon as he was sure he was
alone, he left again.

It might have been prudent to seek out Nikandros first so that he could hear his report of his
time away, but Nikandros would report to Father first, and Damen didn’t have the patience.
Something had happened – something was deeply, terribly wrong – and Damen was less
concerned with hearing answers than he was with checking on Laurent, privately, where he
could be sure of hearing an honest answer. It wasn’t only the hug – too long, too tight, too our
of character for his funny little husband, who was, indeed, very sweet, but only rarely openly
affectionate.

Damen must have wandered half the Keep before he was finally directed to Laurent’s rooms
– back where he had started, right next to his own. Damen did knock – but then he let himself
in without waiting for an answer.

He stopped, just inside.

The rooms were only guest rooms of the keep, just as his were. They were only recently
renovated into something livable. Of course there was nothing personal there to say that the
rooms belonged to Laurent, and perhaps there had not been time for the sort of
overdecorating that Veretians were so very fond of, but even still, the rooms felt empty and
lifeless. There were no rugs for the floor. Nothing hung from the walls. The sitting room held
a table and two chairs and nothing more. There were not even curtains on the windows.

“I threw a tantrum,” Laurent informed him quietly by way of greeting. “When we first got
here. I – broke things. My brother must not know, or I’d have heard about it.” He was sitting
in one of the two chairs, and his eyes were on Damen. His gaze was so strange – blank and
guarded, wary. Damen crossed the room slowly to join him. Laurent watched him sink slowly
into the other chair. His nose twitched, then wrinkled. “You stink,” he said.

“I know,” Damen said, and “I’m sorry.”

Laurent lifted his shoulder in a strangely listless shrug. “I would send you to wash, but it took
you long enough to get here in the first place. Did you get lost? We share a door, you know.
It’s just there.” He nodded somewhere over Damen’s shoulder, and Damen turned to look.
After a moment, he spotted the tell-tale paneling now, disguised by a rather ugly mural
depicting a scene of battle. Laurent said, “I haven’t locked it.”

“Thank you for your trust.”

“No one knows where the keys are, anyway.”

It felt wrong to want to laugh. There was nothing in Laurent’s flat gaze or rough voice to
indicate humor. Laurent’s posture and his gaze, the weight he had lost, the tell-tale signs of
both a shortage of sleep and an abundance of tears – there was nothing humorous or cute to
him at the moment, however glad Damen was to see him – however the sight of him filled
him with unexpected affection.

“He got word to Ios quickly enough,” Laurent spat, softly, his gaze drifting away as he
changed the subject. “It appears he does know how to write, after all.”

“Who – your brother?”

“I assumed he took the risk of a carrier pigeon. Foolish. Anyone or anything could intercept a
tiny bird.”

“Laurent,” what’s wrong was on the tip of his tongue. What has happened?

Laurent rose, abruptly, before he could ask.

“Come,” Laurent ordered. “I want to go riding.”

The sound of disbelief that Damen made was not laughter.

“Have you already forgotten that I just spent days in the saddle?” Damen asked him.
Laurent’s gaze flicked over him, taking him in from head to toe. Dismissively, he said,
“You’ll live,” and he strode for the door, taking it for granted that Damen would follow.

Damen did.

--

Damen had known Laurent for long enough now to know better than to press him too much
or too quickly. Laurent wasn’t volunteering anything, and he remained locked down no
matter what Damen did. What few questions Damen did cautiously venture were met with
long stares and tepid answers.

“You’ve cut your hair.”

“No.”

“No? It seems like it was longer before.”

“No, I’m not the one who cut it.”

“It looks nice.”

Silence.

Later, “Where’s Aimeric this afternoon?”

“With his father.”

“I’m not used to getting you all to myself like this. None of your boys wanted to come on the
ride?”

Stare.

“You don’t want to talk to me?” Damen guessed. Laurent’s gaze shifted, abruptly, away.
After a long moment, he shook his head. Damen ventured another question. “Do you want
me to leave you alone?”

Hesitation, then another shake of his head. Damen took a long, slow breath. His concern was
growing, but that wasn’t going to help right now. Finally, he offered, “Do you want me to talk
to you?”

Finally, Laurent nodded. His hands were white knuckled on his reins.

Damen considered it for a moment, then he began to tell him of his own misadventures while
they had been apart – of his visit to the Free Tribes, of meeting Timaeus, the revelation of
Jokaste in a guard’s armor, the threat of the so-called warlord, and the tentative plan that had
been proposed.

“You’ve fucked her,” Laurent guessed when he was done, watching him, emotionless, as he
spoke. “Have you decided on the mother of our children already? An unpredictable rebel who
dresses as a man?”

Damen flushed, unexpectedly. It felt strange to talk to Laurent about something to private –
but the boy was fifteen now – and his husband – and if Damen expected Laurent to ever open
up to him, he certainly couldn’t insult his intelligence by lying or evading the question. That
wasn’t the kind of relationship they had agreed on sharing.

“It isn’t serious,” Damen said, and he tried not to sound defensive.

“Have you fucked her more than once? If you’ve fucked her more than once, it’s serious.”

“We – you don’t – stop saying fuck.”

“Is there a word I should use instead? How many times have you mounted your crossdressing
wildwoman? Did you ejaculate inside, or did it occur to you to pull out?”

“I am uncomfortable with this conversation.”

Laurent looked at him, and for the first time since their reunion, those blue eyes were clear. In
that moment, Damen knew he would do or say anything Laurent wanted, so long as it meant
he was Laurent again, and not the dull ghost of him that Damen had been greeted with. There
was even a small trace of humor lurking in his gaze when he asked, with faux innocence,
“Why?”

Damen sighed.

“I will admit that she is very beautiful – and intelligent, too,” Damen told him. “I hadn’t been
considering her for the position, but I don’t know that she would be a terrible one. We will
have to see if you approve of her.”

Laurent cocked his head to the side, watching him. They rode in silence for a moment, horses
at a slow walk. Finally, when Damen didn’t go on, Laurent prompted, “And?”

“And, I don’t know,” Damen admitted. “It doesn’t sit right.” Damen was not blind to the fact
that he possessed certain tastes and tendencies. He should have found Jokaste utterly
fascinating. He should currently be single-mindedly engrossed in the task of winning her
over, of making her love him. The sex had been enjoyable. Jokaste was challenging and
exciting and unpredictable. “I don’t think I know her well enough to think about any long-
term concerns yet.”

It felt like a strange thing to say. The words didn’t feel like his own. Wasn’t Nikandros
always on him for falling in love with beautiful strangers? But Damen wasn’t in love with
Jokaste. He wasn’t even infatuated. He had wanted her, and now he had had her.

“It was only once,” he said, and he grimaced. “I don’t recommend making love on a bead.
I’m still finding sand in places I would rather not find it. Don’t laugh at me!”

Laurent wasn’t laughing, but there was a hint of a smile tugging at his lips. It was a pale
imitation of the usual brilliance Damen knew, but it was something.
“Well,” Laurent said, “Perhaps you will be lucky and make a pearl.”

“You are not funny.”

“In any case, I suggest you take care. Make sure you are at peace with the decision before
impregnating anyone. And I…” Laurent frowned, but the expression was only thoughtful,
nothing more. “I would request that you allow me to meet the mother of our children before
your seed takes root.”

“Laurent, I would not make that kind of decision without you.”

That, clearly, surprised him. “Oh?” he asked.

“Barring an accident,” Damen allowed. “We agreed on the kind of marriage we want. That
decision will be one we make together.”

“Why?”

The startled confusion didn’t seem to be put on, so Damen answered him honestly.

“Because I respect you.”

He couldn’t have explained, as Laurent quickly snapped his gaze away, why he was so sure
he had seen his eyes fill with tears.

“Laurent?”

“Do – do you mean that?”

“Of course I mean it.”

“You promise?”

“Of course I promise.”

Laurent nodded once, tightly. His gaze still averted, he said, “Fine. I want to race. Are you
ready? Let’s go.”

He had spurred his horse to motion before Damen’s mind could catch up to the challenge.

--

They chased each other through fields their people had once killed each other upon, hooves
churning up the very dirt that had once drank so deeply from the blood of brave heroes.

Laurent rode as if he was running from something. Utterly serious, bent low in the saddle, he
beat Damen in every arbitrary race he set, over fields and fencing, through ancient ruins and
tall grasses, until his horse’s flanks were wet with sweat. It was unexpected when he stopped
her, and flung himself from her back with a cry, kicking a rotting tree stump, picking up rocks
to throw back towards the keep, bending double as he screamed.
He was crying. When Damen caught up and dismounted to join him, Laurent let himself be
hugged for only a moment before he pushed him away with a terrible sound.

“Laurent…”

“Go back,” Laurent instructed.

“I’m not going to leave you out here alone. Not like this.”

“I’m never alone,” Laurent said with a thick, bitter laugh. Indeed, they had been followed by
a pair of guards in King Auguste’s colors, though the men had stayed far enough back to give
the two of them an illusion of privacy.

“Laurent,” Damen said, again, “Please talk to me.”

The boy had turned away from him as if that would hide what Damen had already seen. His
arms were wrapped tightly around himself. He didn’t look like a young man of fifteen. He
looked younger – broken and frail – and it hit Damen in his chest, how wrong it was.

He expected to be hit with a wall of silence. Instead, after only a few moments, Laurent
spoke again, his voice thick. “I don’t – I don’t deserve your – kindness. I don’t deserve your
comfort.”

“Of course you do.”

Damen hadn’t thought before answering. Laurent rocked as if he had been struck. His hands
came up to cover his face. His entire body was shaking.

“Laurent,” Damen began again. He reached for him again, and Laurent rounded on him,
knocking his hand away.

“Don’t you listen?” he demanded. “I said go back!”

Seeing something amiss between them, the guards were beginning to approach.

“What’s happened?” Damen asked. “Laurent – trust me. Let me help.”

“You can’t.”

“You don’t know that. Tell me. Let me try.” The guards were drawing closer. They couldn’t
really do anything, but they could ruin the sense of privacy. They could make themselves
annoying. “Laurent, please let me help.”

“You can’t,” Laurent told him, looking at him finally. “You can’t help. He’s dead.”

“Who? Who’s dead?”

“Larius,” Laurent said. “I killed him.”

 Chapter 44
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Laurent was silent after that, silent as they returned to the Keep, and he managed to slip away
while Damen was distracted with seeing to the horses – a task the boy was usually meticulous
about supervising.

Damen went looking for Nikandros.

It was past time he receive his friend’s report, and Damen knew that it would be dangerous
for him to put himself near anyone else right now; he was too dumbfounded. No, he was too
angry. Damen was angry, and he had no current target for that anger yet, and there were very
few people he could tryst not to get themselves hurt if they encountered him while in this
mood. He wanted to hurt someone.

Damen had seen Laurent upset before. He had seen him heartbroken, seen him terrified, seen
him overcome with despair. He would gladly take any of it over this terrible, empty nothing
he saw in Laurent now.

The Keep was laid out in such a way that only an overly-complicated Veretian mind would be
able to comprehend. Centuries of additions and alterations followed by more centuries of
neglect and disuse and now the ongoing chaos of construction and repairs meant that the
layout was both labyrinthine and irritating. Damen would be willing to swear that there were
corridors he had been taken down while being shown his rooms that now inexplicably ended
in impassible obstructions.

The Akielons had been given space at the eastern side of the Keep (“Where the sun hits our
eyes first thing in the morning,” Kastor had warned him. “I hope you didn’t plan on sleeping
while you were here.”) but Damen’s rooms were on the outskirts of their wing, right up
against where the Veretians had taken up residence.

Damen was not surprised to find Nikandros waiting for him when he finally managed to
locate his rooms; he should have started there in the first place, instead of getting turned
around looking for him. What did surprise him was discovering that Father and Kastor were
both with him.

Damen’s sitting room boasted walls covered in hideous grey and gold brocade that, if one
stared at it for long enough, had patterns that would begin to arrange themselves in such ways
as to begin to resemble particular anatomical bits and pieces. One section of paneling, meant
to disguise the door that connected his rooms with Laurent’s, bore a hideous mural depicting
the mythology of the founding of Vere. The effect of it all together was unpleasant, but
nothing more than what was expected. The chairs all resembled powder-blue mushrooms.
Horrific carvings of cherub heads adorned the ceiling trim at every corner of the room.

Kastor groaned when Damen walked in.

“Don’t tell me – now you will expect me to repeat myself again!” he complained. He was
sprawled in one of the chairs, a leg thrown over one of the arms, his sandaled foot propped
against a heavily carved end table. He had found some blown-glass bauble and was
distractedly throwing it up into the air and catching it again, his expression sullen and bored.
Nikandros stood at one of the room’s small windows, and though he pretended to be looking
outside, Damen could see by the way he held his body that he was quietly furious, himself.

Father had taken a seat at a desk so overcrowded with scrollwork and embellishments that if
it weren’t for the books and inkwells sat atop it, Damen might have mistaken it for a piece of
useless statuary. Father had two documents set before him: Nikandros’s official report, and
Kastor’s. He, too, was frowning.

“Your account and that of Nikandros continue to differ,” Father told Kastor. “Until those
accounts begin to agree – or until I decide on which I believe to be the truth – you will both
repeat them as many times as I require, without complaint. In any case,” Father’s gaze moved
to Damen. “Your brother no doubt holds special interest in your tale.”

“Special interest,” Damen repeated. He had paused just inside the door when he saw that it
wasn’t only Nikandros waiting for him. He glanced, briefly, at the secret door he shared with
Laurent, wondering if he was inside his room, wondering if he should be brought in.
Ultimately, he decided to wait. Damen kicked his door closed behind himself, and continued
the rest of the way in. “That’s an understatement,” he said.

“I had an interesting talk with the King of Vere,” Father said. “He has learned at least a small
measure of prudence, it seems, misplaced as is may be. He informed me quite plainly of the
recent execution of an Akielon slave – the property of your dear husband – for the attempted
assassination of a member of his family.”

Damen came to a hard stop, his blood running cold. Once again, he saw Laurent in his mind,
bleak and empty, and the image was so clear he almost expected to turn and find him
standing there beside him.

“Larius tried to attack Laurent?” Damen’s voice came out calm, despite the dread that had
immediately lodged itself in his chest.

Nikandros was the one who answered. “Not Laurent. The uncle. Larius caught him attacking
your husband and he responded as one would expect such a thing should be responded to.”

“So he claimed,” Kastor scoffed.

“Larius was executed… for protecting Laurent?” Damen asked, slowly. The phantom image
of Laurent that he held in his mind’s eye – Laurent, blank and disconnected – said again, I
killed him.

“No,” Kastor said, just as Nikandros answered, “Yes.”

Damen found himself sitting, slowly sinking down onto one of those ridiculous chairs.
“Sad as the matter is, the question of the slave’s guilt or innocence is no longer a concern,”
Father said. “The execution has already been carried out and cannot be taken back. King
Auguste should have waited and allowed for Akielon representation in the decision, but – “

“I’m the Akielon representation!” Kastor interjected.

Father only glanced at him, brief and disapproving, and when Kastor fell silent, Father
continued as if he had never spoken in the first place. “King Auguste should have waited,”
Father repeated, “But the matter is done with now, and he made no attempt to hide it from
me. Whether or not justice was served, nothing can be done for it. What I am interested in is
the truth.”

I killed him, Laurent had said.

“The truth,” Damen repeated.

“Kastor’s report,” Father said, tapping one of the statements laid before him, “Closely
matches the King of Vere’s own accounting. Nikandros, however has a different tale.”

“Why do you keep questioning me, your own son, when the King of Vere himself agrees with
what I witnessed?” Kastor demanded. “Why does any of this matter? You yourself said it is
done!”

“Nikandros has never given cause for me to doubt his reporting.”

“And I have?”

Father merely stared at him. With a sudden burst of movement, Kastor pushed up from his
seat and stalked to the side table where some servant had laid out snacks and pitchers of
water and wine for the evening. There was a crash as he knocked something over when he
reached for a cup. For the first time, Damen realized that there were no slaves present in the
room. The thought seemed to come to him from very far away; he hadn’t been utilizing them
as often recently, and so their lack had been unremarkable until he was faced with the
strangeness of watching his brother serve himself.

I killed him, Laurent had said. Damen’s heart ached for his sweet little brother – for Laurent’s
sorrow, for his loss, for his undeserved guilt.

“I am your son,” Kastor snarled as he poured. “Examine your words. My statement should be
all that you need!”

“Well, perhaps it would be,” Nikandros said, “Had you been conducting yourself with more
honor lately.”

“Nikandros,” Father’s voice cut in, sharp, before Kastor could respond. Nikandros
immediately backed down, bowing his head. Silence passed for a long moment, as Nikandros
stood repentant and Kastor drank greedily from his wine. “Kastor,” Father said at last, “Tell
your version of events once more, for your brother.”

“It’s all in my report. He can read it himself.”

“Kastor.”

Kastor scowled into his cup.

“The little slut drank too much, the night we arrived in Chastillon,” he said at last. His eyes
rolled up, slowly, gauging Damen’s response to his insult against Laurent. Whatever he saw,
his scowl turned to a pleased expression – malicious, even. Damen realized the expression
was a familiar one, and it struck him somewhere in the chest, the fact he had never seen it
that way before now. “Granted,” Kastor said, “He didn’t mean to. His uncle thought a boy of
nearly fifteen should be allowed to drink uncut wine, and he switched their cups. Laurent was
aware the cups were switched, but I don’t think he intended to become drunk. Neither he nor
his uncle realized the wine was drugged.”

“Drugged,” Damen repeated. Kastor lifted his glass as if toasting him.

“Drugged,” he agreed. “Your boy left the feast when he began to feel unwell, and his uncle
followed to check on him.”

“You mean he followed to take advantage of him.”

“Nikandros!” Father’s tone was warning.

Nikandros fell silent once more, now having been twice admonished by his King. Kastor
waited to be sure he was done. His lips curled, satisfied, and he drank again before he
continued.

“The slaves were supposed to be dining elsewhere. I’m sure you can understand, dear
brother, how my suspicions were therefore raised when I noticed two of them sneaking
around the dining hall. When they left, I followed. I stayed far back so that they wouldn’t
notice me, but they were farther ahead than I realized.” Kastor shook his head, and lifted his
cup again, taking the time to drink again before continuing. “The cowards saw that Prince
Richard was distracted, busy checking on your drunken spouse, and they took their chance
despite the fact they had drugged the wrong person. When I walked in, they were in the midst
of carrying out their attack on Prince Richard.”

Kastor paused, then with a sudden grin, he looked up at Damen once more.

“I assume the slaves drugged the wine to weaken him, obviously,” he said. “It served its
purpose anyway, in a way. Laurent’s involvement was clearly both unintentional and
incidental. They attacked, and they did nearly succeed in killing Prince Richard of Vere.”

I killed him.

“If you ask me, both slaves should have been executed,” Kastor went on. “But King Auguste
is weak, and his heart is soft. He decided the pretty one was only an accomplice – for his
sake, I hope he got his dick sucked in exchange for the decision, or else he is even more
incompetent than he seems. In any case, while his partner was flogged, the little one escaped
– kidnapping your little wife along the way.”
“Kidnapped?” Damen repeated.

“Nikandros,” Father said. This time, he was giving him permission to speak.

Nikandros didn’t hesitate. “We are all aware that Prince Richard of Vere harbors a perverse
and unnatural lust for young boys. We were all present that night in Sicyon when he attacked
the boy, Larius.”

“The only relevance to that incident is that it provided the child’s motive for wishing him
harm,” Kastor interrupted.

“Larius was not Prince Richard’s only victim that night,” Nikandros said. “Prince Laurent
believes his uncle intended to assault him, as well. I believe him. I know that Damianos does,
too.”

“I saw what Richard was trying to do to that boy,” Damen agreed. His voice sounded rough.
“I beat him bloody for the offense. Why shouldn’t the boy wish to do the same?”

“Chalis was in the wine, that night in Sicyon,” Nikandros said, “As it was again this night in
Chastillon. There was no trace of it in any bottle nor any other cup, and different servants
served Prince Richard throughout the night. It seems to me that it would be an easy thing for
Richard of Vere to conceal the drug within his palm and drop it into the drink before passing
it on to Laurent.”

“It seems to me is no evidence,” Kastor scoffed.

Nikandros ignored him. “No one would question it for Prince Laurent to accidentally drink
too much; his uncle did not hide that he was giving the boy his wine, and it is well known
that Laurent is not used to it. When Laurent stumbled from the table, Richard had the cover
he needed to play the part of concerned uncle and follow him – to get Laurent alone and into
a compromised position.”

Kastor didn’t exactly interrupt again, but he made his disdain for Nik’s version of things plain
in the way he rolled his eyes and drank his wine, refilling the cup with exaggerated
movements, as if to emphasize how badly he needed more. Damen hardly noticed the show
he put on; he couldn’t tear his eyes from his best friend. He didn’t want to hear another word,
but if he turned coward now, he would never be able to look Laurent in the eye again. He
knew – somehow, he knew that this was the correct version of the story. He knew that his
brother was lying, and as difficult as that thought was to grasp, it was secondary to the
memory of Laurent’s dull, sad eyes this afternoon – or that night in Sicyon, years ago, when
they had yet been strangers, yet he had run into Damen’s arms in tears. Only now, when
Damen thought of that poor boy in the baths, it was Laurent he saw stretched across Prince
Richard’s lap, Laurent’s face pressed hard to the tiles.

“I only have the slaves’ testimonies,” Nikandros was saying, as Damen’s heartbeat roared in
his ears. “What little Laurent is able to remember aligns with their words. Richard of Vere
had already been caught drugging and assaulting a boy once, and he openly keeps young Pets
as his companions. I have no cause to believe this was not the case here.”
“Did – did he - ?” It took Damen several tries to speak, and even when he did manage it, he
couldn’t get the words out. If Richard of Vere had been present with them at Marlas, Damen
was sure he would be leaving the room this very minute to find him, to rip him apart with his
bare hands.

Nikandros shook his head. “The slaves found Laurent unconscious. They said he was
partially undressed, and Richard knelt above him. Both boys said – “ for the first time
Nikandros faltered. Damen saw the effort it took him to maintain his professionalism, to
speak without emotion. “Both boys said that Richard of Vere had his cock out, and his hands
on the young Prince. He… Damen…”

“No. Keep going. I need to hear all of it.”

“They said Richard of Vere had his cock out, and his hands on the young Prince, and that he
was fully erect.” Nikandros didn’t flinch again, even though surely he could see the rage that
had begun to boil Damen’s blood. “The boy Larius had a knife, which he had grabbed on his
way through the dining hall. It was not the sort of knife someone who had premeditated an
attack would choose. He threw himself at Richard’s back. He attacked in a frenzy, in order to
protect his master. He tried his best to kill him. He was sorry that he failed.”

“Good.”

“The other boy, Erasmus, admits that he was the one to cover Laurent’s nudity. He was
thinking of his Prince’s dignity, and not of the need to prove his story. Your brother arrived
after the attack was already finished, and Richard of Vere lay unconscious and bleeding.”

Damen’s voice was hard and rough. “What does Laurent remember?”

Nikandros was Damen’s best friend. He had been Damen’s best friend since before Damen
had been old enough to hold his first practice sword. And he was a good friend. He was a
good man. He was an even better soldier. He answered unflinchingly, without trying to
sweeten his words to protect Damen from their effect.

Flatly, leaning only on the facts as he knew them, Nikandros said, “He remembers hands.
Tugging at his clothes. Fingers in his mouth. He told me that his brother believes he is
remembering only the physician’s examination that followed. His brother believes no real
assault, attempted or otherwise, took place. But King Auguste refuses to hear a word against
his uncle. He is not capable of looking at the matter objectively.”

Damen stared at him. He had leaned forward in his chair, his forearms resting on his thighs,
his hands grasped between his knees to keep them from shaking. In his memory of Prince
Richard and the young Larius in Sicyon, the images were still continuing to blur. His mind
continued to try to replace Larius with Laurent. He could not shake off the look that had been
in his little husband’s eyes – not that day, when they were still strangers, when he had been
blind with tears and only desperate for help, desperate for someone to believe him. Not today,
when they were so empty.

“Laurent thinks it’s his fault,” Damen said.

“There’s more,” Nikandros told him. “Larius didn’t escape. He didn’t kidnap the Prince of
Vere.”

“No,” Damen agreed. He could see it. He could feel the truth of it. “Laurent would never
stand idle while his man was unjustly executed. He broke the boy free. Because Larius was
his. Because Laurent promised him freedom and a future and by protecting him, he was
losing both.”

“The story is exciting enough, but there is no proof of it,” Kastor said. Nikandros continued
speaking anyway.

“They attacked and bound three of the King’s guard, then they fled south and east. There is
land there your husband holds – a place called Acquitart that is not of Vere.” Damen had seen
it listed in their marriage contract as an asset that Laurent held. A funny thought, under other
circumstances, that it was now partially his, as well. As Damen had agreed to share Akielos,
Laurent had agreed to share his little holding. When Damen nodded, Nikandros continued.
“The Prince knew your treaty would force Akielos to extradite Larius if he tried to bring him
home, but he must have believed his own lands would be able to provide sufficient sanctuary.
He must have believed his sovereignty would hold, once he reached his independent lands.”

“And they never got there?”

“No,” Nikandros said. “They got there. King Auguste had his soldiers drag Larius back onto
Veretian lands, and then he carried out the execution, himself. I was unable to get there in
time to stop it. If your husband must blame someone in addition to his brother, it should be
me.”

Damen ignored that. “He did it in front of Laurent,” he realized.

Nikandros answered, “Yes.”

Damen sat back, hard, in his seat.

He found himself staring at his father, and then at his brother, and last at his friend. All he
could see was Laurent, wherever he looked. Laurent, who had come to him at thirteen, so
angry and so shy and so scared, and yet who had proven himself to be so bright and so kind
and so willing to care – about everything, about everyone. Laurent, who was brash enough to
demand Damen’s friendship – who insisted on buying up the prettiest slaves he could find
and then freeing them, just for the sake of freeing them, and going on from there to save their
wages for them, to have them taught how to ride and to read and to fight, to find the voices
they had been robbed of.

Laurent, whose bright, open, beautiful heart beat, day and night, in abject worship of his
older brother Auguste, no matter how many letters went unanswered, how many little
disappointments piled up.

I killed him, Laurent had said.

“I grow bored of this,” Kastor complained to Father. “You have my report, filled only with
fact, as verified by the Veretian King and Council. You also have this second, lesser report,
from an underling, filled only with fancy and with fabrication. You have the word of slaves
against the word of a Prince. Nikandros means well, but he has been taken in by the lies of
vermin desperate to conceal their own misdeeds.”

“I want to hear your brother’s response to both tales,” Father answered, calm in a way that
Damen could not be calm. Kastor swung back to look at Damen, and he scowled at whatever
it was he saw on Damen’s face.

“You can’t be putting serious consideration into this fiction?” Kastor scoffed. “If Nikandros
blows air into your asshole and tells you it’s a typhoon, will you believe that, too? The slaves
have every reason to lie, and that child you have married has every reason to want their
falsehoods taken for truth. They drugged Prince Richard’s wine, they tried to kill him as
revenge for Sicyon, and your boy was merely caught in the middle of it all, too suggestable
and weak of will to realize the harm he was contributing to.”

“Was his dick out?” Damen asked.

“W – what?”

“When you arrived,” Damen said, “When you came into the room and found my husband
unconscious and his uncle bleeding nearby, did you notice whether or not Richard of Vere
had his erect penis on display outside the confines of his laces?”

A pause. Kastor turned, and he began to refill his drink. Now, his hand shook. Kastor said,
“No!” and Damen knew, once again, that his brother was lying. Something ached within him
at the realization, but he chose to put it away. He turned to their father.

“I am going to kill him,” he informed him, and miraculously, he sounded every bit as calm as
his father had. He felt like he was standing on the outside of his own body. “Prince Richard
of Vere. His life is forfeit. Next time I have the misfortune of his presence, I am going to rip
him apart with my bare hands. I think you should be aware of this. I am going to kill him, I
am going to enjoy it, and damn the consequences.”

“You can’t damn the consequences,” Kastor grumbled, petulant, into his drink.

“He laid hands on that boy!” Somehow, Damen was on his feet. Somehow, too, the chair he
had previously been sitting in was broken, as if someone had picked it up and smashed it
back down, with all their strength, into the ground.

Silence followed his outburst. His blood was ringing in his ears. Damen was only vaguely
aware of it when the door opened and the guard stationed outside poked his head in to check
on them. He only barely noticed it when his father shook his head to dismiss the man,
without once taking his gaze from his youngest son. He was hardly aware, even of Kastor,
thoroughly unimpressed with Damen’s tantrum, rolling his eyes and taking a drink.

After the door closed once more, Father spoke, quietly. “Whichever case is the truth, this
specific matter is, sadly, settled for now. Vere has the answers Vere believes, and the slave is
dead. What we take from this, specifically, is the knowledge that we must take yet more
caution when dealing with these allies of ours, particularly Prince Richard.”

“There’s no need for caution,” Damen said. “I told you; I’m going to kill him. I’m going to
tear his spine out through his throat and then I will make him fuck himself with it.”

Father smiled, ever so slightly, and inclined his head. “For now, the man remains in
Chastillon, recovering from his injuries, and Akielos will prepare herself for the day this
treaty fails. We will not allow our allies to catch us in complacency. We have time, I think, in
any case. Vere will tear themselves apart from the inside, while Laurent remains safe in our
hands.” His eyes told Damen that he approved of his anger, even as he added, “Please do
abstain from creating a new political disaster for the time being.”

“This is ridiculous!” Kastor complained. “All that this tells us is that this boy will continue to
be more trouble than he is worth. Why bother with him at all, if you expect the alliance to
fail? Are you afraid of the judgement of our neighbors should we war with Vere again? They
didn’t bother to help them the first time, and they won’t do it the next. Fight with them or
don’t – in this case, at least, Prince Richard is innocent, either way.”

“Innocent?” Father repeated.

“As innocent as any snake can be,” Kastor grumbled, lifting his cup once more. “Anyway, all
I mean is, the slaves had far more cause to lie than he did.”

“Strange that you say that,” Nikandros said. “Or, at least, ironic.”

“I see no irony.”

“No? You are the one with cause to wish to discredit your brother’s husband. I find it ironic
that you keep bringing up the boy’s motive when you have your own.”

Nikandros feigned a look of surprise when Kastor made a move toward him, as if he intended
to attack him. The motion was abruptly aborted when Father rose.

“Don’t tell me that you’ve neglected to inform Damianos about the incident that occurred
between yourself and the young Prince?” Nikandros said.

“What incident?” Damen asked, as he watched his brother’s pallor grow pale and his father’s
expression harden. Kastor’s eyes darted between Father and Nikandros, calculating.

“You overstep,” Kastor began.

Nik’s pretend surprise grew, but his eyes gleamed with satisfaction as he turned them on
Father. “Do I overstep, Exalted? My sincerest apologies. I must have misunderstood.
Somehow, I was under the impression that, prior to this excursion into Vere, Prince Kastor
had been confined to his estates on house arrest due to his own assault against young
Laurent.”

“He what?” Damen looked to Kastor. “You what?”

Kastor stood frozen for a moment before drawing himself up to his full height. “He
exaggerates,” he spat.

“Do I?” Nikandros asked. “Another misunderstanding, is it?”

“Kastor!” Damen snapped.

Kastor slung his cup at the wall, and it shattered on impact, spraying wine and broken glass.
“I was doing the brat a favor!” he snarled, rounding on Damen. “How was I to know your
little piggy wouldn’t go squealing because he couldn’t handle a man’s training? Confined to
my estates? I removed myself voluntarily to protect myself from further attack upon my
character!”

“Voluntarily?” Nikandros laughed. “Is that why, when Exalted found himself with no other
option than to send you to Vere with his little son-in-law, he saw fit to pull me from the side
of my own dying father to ensure the young Prince remained safe?”

Kastor’s laughter was loud and abrasive. “If your version of the night in Chastillon is true,
then clearly you have failed the task which your King has set you.”

“I was to protect him from you.”

“Kastor,” Damen’s voice was low and dangerous. He could hear his blood rushing in his ears,
his heartbeat hammering violently. He spoke slowly. “Did you assault Laurent?”

“No.”

“He beat him bloody!” Nikandros spat.

“I was training him!”

“The men say your handprints were around his neck!”

“Enough.”

A single word from Father cut through the room like the baring of steel. Damen realized that
he was halfway across the room to his brother, his hands in tight fists, even as Nikandros and
Kastor faced each other as if ready to come to blows.

Nikandor spoke only from second-hand knowledge, and Kastor would always twist matters
to best suit his own aims. Of them, Father was the only one with full understanding of the
fact – and yet he had not offered correction or clarification for the matter. Damen usually
admired his father for his restraint and his patience, his ability to bide his time and wait while
men exposed themselves for who they truly were. Right now, though, he hated it. Right now,
he only wanted answers. Father wanted Damen to draw his own conclusions, to decide for
himself whether he trusted his brother or his friend more.

Once Damen offered a man his trust, it was not an easy thing for him to decide to retract it –
but Nikandros and Kastor could not both be telling the truth. Damen resented them for it. In
that moment, Damen resented them all.
 “What I’m hearing,” Damen said finally, slowly, “Is that, in my absence, my husband has
been beaten, drugged, and forced to watch as a friend of his is executed by a man he loved
more than life itself. What I’m hearing is, while I have been away, not a single one of you has
managed to do a single thing to keep a fourteen-year-old boy safe. Is that what I am
hearing?”

Father had been the only one whose attention was on Damen before he spoke, but now he had
the others’ attention, too. All three of them were staring at him.

Damen was aware of the blinding heat of his building rage. He was aware, as well, of how
quickly the fury of four warriors in a single room could quickly take spark, turning the space
into an inferno.

“Damen,” Kastor began. “Brother. You cannot really believe – “

“Damen,” Nikandros began.

“Am I hearing you correctly?” Damen’s voice had been rising with every word. The last was
a roar. Silence answered him. Damen wanted to hit someone, and in that moment, he did not
care who. He wanted to hit, and hit, and his. His fists trembled with the wanting of it.

And Father still did not speak.

Damen forced himself to breathe, though it came out rough and jagged.

He said, “I want you all out.”

Chapter End Notes

A lot of repeating everything here, but it was necessary for you to know what Damen
knows.

Also ending another scene on "get outta my room!"

 Chapter 45
Chapter Notes

This chapter is going to be frustrating, but the next one is one I've been looking forward
to sharing.

There was a tension around Marlas that seemed like a living, breathing thing that had taken
up residence within the old fort. A dragon, blowing heat and smoke, polluting the very air.
Anyone with half a mind toward self-preservation should have been able to pick up on just
how fragile matters concerning the much-lauded alliance had become – how wrong things
were with Prince Laurent – how tense and how angry and how suspicious everyone else had
become. Having the story, it all made a new kind of sense, why King Auguste might have
chosen to give himself the appearance of vulnerability by insisting that they meet while he
was so greatly outnumbered – why the small staff manning Marlas seemed to jump at
shadows, half-convinced that bloodshed awaited them around every corner – why Laurent
and Auguste could not be in the same room, when previously the bond between them had
seemed so incredibly strong.

With no easy path toward slacking his fury, Damen took his sword, and he spent the
afternoon in the practice yard. Even when his muscles screamed in protest, however – even
when sweat soaked him from head to toe and his limbs felt watery and weak with every step
– Damen found no relief for the powerful roar of his rage. The only thing keeping him from
riding for Chastillon the moment he’d left his rooms had been the fact that if his father had
wanted to restart the war with Vere, he would have already done so.

Damen wanted to burn the entire filthy nation to the ground and salt the earth behind himself,
but he would not do it without his father.

“I hope the sparse accommodations are not too much of an inconvenience,” Auguste said,
later that evening, as they all sat together, each man nursing his own version of the simmering
tension and hatred that had them all strung tighter than even they had been during talks after
the war. The King of Vere had invited them all to share a casual family dinner, and it was all
Damen could do to keep himself from starting off the night with bloodshed. The King of Vere
sounded insincere. When the man laughed, as if suddenly remembering a joke, Damen found
his hand going white-knuckled around his fork, his mind busy picturing putting his fist
through the blonde’s insufferable face. “Then again,” King Auguste said lightly, “I suppose
you lot are accustomed to sparse accommodations. At least, in comparison to what we in
Vere consider necessary. Marlas is finally habitable again, but she remains sadly ill-suited for
entertaining outside of war time.”

Father grunted something. It could have been agreement.

“Staff is rude,” Kastor should, reaching to refill his own glass, as if to show how poorly
served they were. “Should beat more. Will help.”

“We do not beat our servants in Vere,” King Auguste informed him. “We like to behave in a
more civilized manner when dealing with our inferiors.”

“Except for the kitchen staff at Chastillon,” Laurent reminded him, too brightly, too
cheerfully. At his brother’s look of incredulity, he raised his water glass as if preparing to
raise a toast. “You were not worried about civility when you ordered every man, woman, and
child of them to be put to the post, is all I mean.” His brilliant smile was uncomfortably
incongruous with his flat, dead eyes. As Kastor began to laugh, King Auguste shifted,
uncomfortably, in his chair.

“Yes, well, the rules of conduct are understandably a bit different when violence has been
done against a member of my family. Laurent, this really is not an appropriate conversation
for the dinner table.”

“This why slaves is better,” Kastor advised. “Not needing justification before beating. Not
needing much beating in first place. Know how behaving.”

“If the staff fails to meet your exacting standards, you should remind yourself of the
unreasonable burden you have put on them with our arrival here,” Laurent snapped, speaking
over Kastor as if he did not exist.

“Laurent,” King Auguste warned.

“The staff lacks even half the numbers they require for a party of this size. They lack the
appropriate supplies; they lack the appropriate facilities; many of them lack the appropriate
training! And now that my dear brother has seen fit to place himself in a vulnerable position,
outnumbered by the very people who so recently invaded these lands, they are terrified, as
well. It is hardly a difficult position to grasp.”

“Don’t insult our allies,” Auguste began.

“I’m not insulting them; I’m insulting you. You do not have the numbers to defend yourself
here. If I was your enemy, I would find it sorely tempting to press my advantage and liberate
Vere from its ineffectual King right now.”

“Fortunately, you are not my enemy,” King Auguste said, “And our allies possess more honor
than it seems you might be inclined toward.”

“I know exactly what you think of their honor, brother.”

“Eat your dinner.”

Laurent flushed. Damen tried to catch his eye, but he had bowed his head, and did not see it.
Damen watched him as he moved his food around on his plate with his fork, not eating.

Two of Auguste’s guards had had to drag him from his rooms and force him into his chair at
the table while Damen and Father and Kastor all watched, the meal having been postponed
nearly an hour while King Auguste insisted they wait on the missing Prince. This altercation
was the first he had spoken all evening. They were on the third course, and Damen was
certain that the boy had yet to take a single bite of his food. He wondered how long this had
been going on – how long it had been since his little husband had actually eaten a full meal.

Perhaps something similar occurred to King Auguste a few moments later, when he finally
noticed what his brother was doing.

“Since we are so woefully understaffed here, I plan to have the kitchen closed up
immediately following our meal,” the Veretian King said, almost conversationally. “I would
hate to put undue strain on our people, after all. I am afraid this does mean that anyone who
fails to enjoy their fill now will find himself forced to endure the night hungry.”

Laurent gave no response – as if he did not hear, or perhaps assumed his brother was
speaking to someone else. Damen waited, watching him, and Auguste’s attention finally
moved elsewhere. ( “Please, accept my apologies for him. I hope he has been behaving
himself better for you.”) As soon as he could, Damen found himself leaning over, speaking
low near Laurent’s ear.

“Please eat something,” he asked.

“No. I don’t think I will. Thank you.”

Laurent did not take Damen’s lead. He did not bother to lower his voice when he answered.
His hard, glittering gaze now lay fixed upon his brother, even as Auguste looked at him –
even as Damen laid a hand upon his arm.

“As a favor to me?” Damen tried. “I’ve come a long way, but I know I will not be able to rest
tonight if I worry you have gone to bed hungry.”

Laurent blinked, as if something in Damen’s words had surprised him. Slowly, he lifted his
head to look at him, and Damen had a moment of hope that he might be getting somewhere
when he saw the hesitation in Laurent’s bright gaze.

The problem was, Damen was not the only one taking notice. King Auguste had moved on to
a conversation with Father and Kastor concerning the success of the newest trade routes they
had opened between their countries, but his gaze kept darting back to Laurent, and when he
saw that first crucial crack in the boy’s resolve, he failed to prevent himself from smiling.

Of course Laurent noticed.

“I am so sorry, husband,” Laurent said. “I have no desire to cause you hardship when you
have yet to recover from your long journey, but I am afraid I have no appetite whatsoever.
My tastes are too discerning; I simply cannot bring myself to eat while I am in the presence
of disgusting things.”

Damen understood his sentiment. His earlier exercise had failed to take the edge off his own
rage, and he had only been dealing with it for a matter of hours. Laurent had – longer. There
was a part of Damen who was of the mind to bring it all forward now – to cease with these
unendurable games of pretend politeness. The absurdity of discussing trade routes while
Laurent was punished and humiliated for speaking honesty was galling. The only thing
staying Damen’s hand was his father’s presence – his respect for the man, his acquiescence to
his authority, his trust that he would set things right, in his own time. Father liked to give a
man the requisite rope to hang himself. He was doing that, now, with Auguste.

And Father had yet to speak up.

Auguste said, “Laurent, if you are feeling ill, then perhaps you should remove yourself to
your rooms for the night.”

In response, Laurent smiled. He planted both of his hands on the table as he pushed back his
chair, rising.

“That’s where I wanted to be in the first place,” he pointed out, sweetly. Damen looked at his
father, expectant, but King Theomedes was merely watching the altercation, thoughtful.

“If you go to your rooms, you are to stay there,” King Auguste said, reddening with anger.

“He isn’t a misbehaving child!” Damen snapped.

“On the contrary, that’s exactly what he is – and in my country, he follows my rules. Laurent,
I mean it. You are not to leave your room until I send my men to fetch you in the morning.”

Laurent had blanched, listening to his brother while half-turned away from him, his lowered
eyes blinking, losing that precious spark once more. He nodded, seemingly in understanding
or agreement. Then he turned back to the table, grabbed his cup, and threw its contents in his
brother’s face.

Several things happened, then. King Auguste pushed back his chair, cursing, and the
momentum sent it falling over as he stood. Kastor began laughing. One of the King’s guards
came forward to grasp Laurent’s arm. The man tried to speak to him, head bent low to keep
his words private. Laurent shrugged him off.

“It’s fine, Sebastian; I’ll show myself out,” Laurent said. The guard took a step away. Slowly
and deliberately, Laurent took his time straightening his jacket and smoothing his hair,
ignoring his increasingly red-faced brother.

Damen had risen at some point in all of the drama. Laurent took his hand and bowed politely
over it, then performed a second, perfect bow for Father. Kastor, he ignored completely, just
as he did Auguste. Damen found himself remembering how angry and bitter Nikandros had
sounded when he had told him about the altercation between Laurent and Kastor. He beat him
bloody.

The heels of Laurent’s perfectly shined Veretian boots clicked with purpose against the floor
as he left, the rest of them sitting in silence. He walked with his shoulders back and his chin
lifted, as if he did not find it humiliating to be exiled to his quarters like a child. He didn’t
slow or waver as he neared the doors, expecting them to open for him for him – and they did,
guardsmen stepping forward to open them for him, then following him out, and –
Damen remembered the way that King Auguste had spoken of Laurent when they had first
signed their treaty. I can’t give you Delfeur, but there is something far more precious I can
offer.

My brother is far more precious of me than the whole of my kingdom.

Damen looked at the King of Vere now – red-faced and scowling darkly at the door as he
attempted to dry himself with a napkin.

Don’t you still feel that way about him? Damen wanted to ask. Instead, he said, “Why
wouldn’t you believe him?”

King Auguste stiffened, and his red face blanched white. He stood frozen for a moment
before he turned his eyes on Damen.

“My brother has been feeding you stories, I see.”

“Not at all. Laurent has not yet said a word about what’s happened.” Deliberately, Damen
took his seat again. “My man Nikandros believes him, but you do not. Why?”

“If you’re worried your husband’s virtue has been compromised, a physician can – “

“It’s not his virtue I’m worried about.”

A pause again. King Auguste was working the laces of his jacket in order to remove the wet
garment.

“Laurent’s perspective has been skewed by parties acting without his best interests in mind,”
Auguste said at last. “My uncle has unorthodox tastes. By the standards of my culture, the
same can be said for you. That doesn’t mean either of you would ever dream of laying a hand
on a member of your own family.” He stripped off his jacket with hard, jerking movements,
handing it off to the servant who had finally come forward to pick up his chair for him. “You
have nieces, don’t you? Are they in danger from you, simply because you enjoy the company
of women?”

“It didn’t happen, because you cannot imagine it happened. That is what you are saying?”

“It didn’t happen, because there is no evidence that it happened,” Auguste said. He took his
seat once more. “All evidence supports the narrative that my uncle gave. All of it. Laurent is
struggling to accept the fact he has been misled, and he enjoys the attention his outbursts get
him. He has always been this way; he hates to be wrong.” The Veretian King seemed weary
now, defeated. “Shall we continue our meal, then, or do you have more notes for me
concerning my failures as a brother?”

“I,” Damen began, but Auguste interrupted him.

“May I point out that by believing my brother, you are disbelieving yours?” he snapped. He
reached for his wine, and was irritated to find the glass empty. Damen looked to his father
and brother. Kastor understood Veretian better than he spoke it, but it was clear he had grown
bored of the topic. Father was listening and observing, as he often did, though it was not clear
whether it was Damen’s measurements he was taking, or Auguste’s.

The servants had left to get the next course. Irritated, Auguste rose and stalked to the side
table where open bottles of wine waited. He brought three back with him.

“You’re calling me a hypocrite?” Damen asked at last, the question slow and measured.

Auguste refilled his wine as he answered. “We spent hours conducting interviews,” he said.
“My decision wasn’t arbitrary. I didn’t enjoy having to make it. I don’t enjoy the way he
looks at me, now that I have. Gods – the slave was only a child! But he was proud of what he
had done, and he would have been happy to do it again. He was dangerous. Will you tell me
that, during the war, you checked every man you killed to make certain his balls had dropped
before you ended his life? I did what was required.”

“Enough of this,” Father said as Auguste drank. “We have more important matters to discuss,
if the two of you are insistent on doing business at the table. The treaty.”

“Later,” King Auguste dismissed, waving his hand. He began refilling his cup again.
 Chapter 46
Chapter Notes

I am running late, of course. I do not have time to answer last chapter's comments before
posting, but I will as soon as I can, I promise! Each and every one means so much to
me!

Yes, this arc ends at chapter 48. There will be a part 2: Duty of Princes, which will
follow along the regular(ish) updating schedule you are used to. I just thought it would
be a good place to break it up, since this is already so long.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Veretian meals, Damen had learned, were drawn out, ridiculous affairs – even King
Auguste’s “casual family dinner.” Even informal, intimate meals, understaffed and poorly
planned for as this one was, were meant to be an entire, unbearable ordeal.

A frown and a small shake of his father’s head had Damen stuck to his seat, silently
forbidden from following after his little husband. The fact he spent the rest of the meal silent
and glaring, fork gripped so tightly in his fist he bent two before the servants stopped
replacing them, bothered no one.

Ten courses after Laurent had been escorted out, Damen was not only still angry – he was
still hungry, too. Each course had been tinier and more ridiculous than the last, tongue-
curlingly rich, unpleasant on their own and worse when accompanied by Auguste’s stilted
conversation and Kastor’s braying laughter, Father’s silence, and the empty chair where
Laurent had been.

Damen was tired.

He was tired physically. He was tired mentally.

He was tired of stiff, uncomfortable Veretian chairs and fussy Veretian table settings. He was
tired of making his mouth fit around fussy Veretian words. He was tired of struggling to fill
his belly on fussy Veretian foods. He was tired of King Auguste and his fussy Veretian face,
his stupid too-thin mustache and his strained and increasingly-wine-addled attempts at
pretending to be charming and friendly and polite, even while his eyes gleamed with dislike
and his disdain darkened his every word.

He was tired of the things they weren’t speaking of. The reason they had been called to
Marlas. The fact that King Auguste had rudely insisted that Laurent come to him in Arles,
only to turn around and fuck up his little brother’s enforced visit so immensely that now
every inch of Laurent’s tight, tense little body screamed with his heartfelt desperation to be
anywhere else, so long as it was far away from the man he had once so adored. They didn’t
speak of the way Laurent’s bright and brilliant eyes had dulled with betrayal and horror and
mourning because the little slave boy he had freed and befriended and put so much of himself
and his hopes and his plans into had been murdered, uselessly, by Laurent’s own hero, simply
for trying to protect him.

“My failings as a host abound,” King Auguste said at the meal’s end. “I can only offer a ten-
year bourbon, and I am afraid I have no pets to offer at all. We usually do better at
entertainment, my people. The next time you visit, I will make it up to you, I assure you.”

“The King of Vere has seen his plans take many unexpected turns recently,” Father said. He
somehow managed to convey the feeling that he was the host, and King Auguste the guest, in
the way he inclined his head, and gestured toward the doors as he rose. “We have brought a
fine selection of slaves with us,” he said. “Let us extend our invitation instead. The King of
Vere may have first choice, if he chooses to partake. Come – we will look at them together.”

Damen dabbed at his mouth with a napkin to hide the way his lip curled. He stalled, putting
off rising to follow, even as the two Kings left the room, as if moving the over-sweet dredges
of his dessert around his plate had somehow caught his entire attention.

Kastor hadn’t yet risen, either. Damen could feel his gaze from across the table.

“Aren’t you afraid they will claim all the best cunt for themselves?” his brother asked at last.

When Damen looked up, he found that Kastor was sitting relaxed in his chair, leaned back,
his hands folded over his belly. His smile was one of a slowly-spreading amusement. He
reached for the last bottle of wine.

“It is not like you to fail to jump to the front of the line the moment the conversation moves
to pleasure,” Kastor teased.

“It seems I’m not feeling like me at the moment,” Damen told him. He couldn’t stop himself
from frowning. He found himself staring at his brother as if expecting something to be
different about him.

Damen had always admired Kastor. He had spent so long working so hard just to earn his
attention, his approval, his praise. He’d wanted to emulate him in every way as a child – from
the chiton he chose to the way he had the slaves style his hair. He had always taken for
granted that the strong bond between them would never be shaken – that no one knew either
of them the way that they knew each other. They were to raise their sons together. To ride
Okton side-by-side as feeble old men.

Surely, if Kastor had deliberately hurt Laurent, he would look different somehow now.
Tainted by some hint of darkness, of rot. How could he sit there, the man Damen had always
known, and be the same man who had lied to their father’s face?

“Shall we take bets?” Kastor asked. “On whether King Auguste decides to take a slave, I
mean. Do you think he will have the testes to bed a female? You know he prefers them.”
“He won’t,” Damen declared, tossing his fork down onto his plate, forcing himself to lean
back in his chair. He crossed his arms. “To either question. They both go against his culture.
He would never consider either.”

“He did in Ios.”

“We are not in Ios.”

“Does it matter? He is under a lot of stress. He didn’t bring his bride to Chastillon with him,
and that husband of yours has caused him no end of trouble. I will bet you that he welcomes
the chance to take out his frustration on some cow-eyed little slut. Come now – I will wager
my newest boy. He has an ass like a peach; you will enjoy that. Young boys are to your tastes
now, aren’t they? And if I win, you can give me…”

“What did you really do to Laurent?” Damen interrupted.

The laughing amusement on his brother’s face blanked abruptly.

“What kind of question is that?”

“One I want an answer to,” Damen said. “An honest one. I’m giving you a chance to tell me
the truth, before I hear it from him.”

“I can’t believe - ! I was taking care of him for you! I took time from my day to help him
with his training – I let Father send me to this godsforsaken country to play minder – that you
would – that you even ask!”

“Kastor.”

His brother’s face was red with fury. Kastor pushed up, hard, from his chair.

“How dare you question me?” he demanded. “I am your brother.”

“And he is my husband.”

Kastor snorted. “I see where your loyalties lie, then. A pretty blond slut over your own flesh
and blood, every time.”

“Answer my question, Kastor.”

“No,” Kastor sneered. “We have nothing more to say to one another tonight.”

Damen came around the table quickly as Kastor headed for the door. He caught his arm
before he could leave.

“Did you put your hands on him?” he demanded.

Kastor’s face was utterly closed to him, his lip lifted in a snarl as he jerked his arm away.
“And if he tells you I did?” he demanded. “You will take the word of your Veretian whore
over that of your own brother – you have already told me as much. I was training him. That is
the whole of it.”

Damen – didn’t believe him. He still didn’t believe him.

The shock of it stunned him, and he didn’t know how to hide it. It left him there, standing and
staring, motionless, as his brother swept from the room.

--

Lacking anything else to do or anywhere else to go, Damen retreated to his rooms. He went
to bed alone.

Even if he had been willing to subject himself to another minute in King Auguste’s company,
or another moment next to Kastor, uncomfortably questioning everything he knew, he had no
interest in engaging in the leisurely perusal of his father’s pleasure slaves. For some reason,
the idea still turned his stomach – and the stupid Veretian food he had been made to consume
wasn’t sitting right with him to begin with.

Anyway, Damen was in no mood for pleasure tonight. The anger that had filled him earlier
hadn’t left him yet. It had no outlet from which to leave him, and he did not like the thought
of subjecting some meek, doe-eyed slave to it. He was angry and he was disgusted and he
was confused. Kastor’s training methods were harsh. Damen knew they were harsh; his
brother had once run him through! But Kastor had lied, anyway. Kastor had lied to his face.

And if Kastor would lie about laying hands on Laurent, didn’t it also stand to reason he
would lie about other things? About what he had seen with Prince Richard?

Why would he lie about Prince Richard?

The stupid Veretian bed in Damen’s rooms sat too high off the ground. The mattress was too
hard, overstuffed to the point where it lost all give, lumpy and unfamiliar. The pillows were
too soft, and there were too many of them, and they were all covered in ruffles or lace or
heavy brocade. Damen tossed from one side to the other, onto his back, onto his belly.
Whenever he closed his eyes, he saw Laurent – his bright, surprising, delightful little
husband, bruised black and blue, all humor and spark stripped from his eyes, with Kastor’s
fingerprints around his neck.

Damen sat up. He punched a pillow. He punched it again. He punched it again. Feathers went
flying in a sudden poof. He sat up, and threw the pillow across the room. He raked his hands
through his hair. He couldn’t stop thinking.

What would it be like to be fifteen and watch as someone you cared for was punished for
protecting you? What did it feel like to find yourself prey around your own family?

Laurent was only a year younger than Damen had been when he had been given his first
command. At fifteen, Damen had already been respected as a man by those around him.
Damen had already known that when he opened his mouth to speak, he was right to expect he
would be heard.
At fifteen, Damen had never been traded to his enemy like a sacrificial game piece. He had
never woken up with missing memories and had to wonder what sort of assault he might have
endured. He had never felt unsafe in his own home.

Damen was on the verge of getting up, of storming back to Father and Kastor and King
Auguste and demanding that something be done. He had his blankets tossed aside and his
legs slung over the side of the bed.

And that was when he heard it –

The soft turn of a lock. The quiet slide of a secret door.

The scuff of slippered feet against cold stone floors.

The flickering glow of the light from a single candle preceded the uninvited intrusion of a
visitor to his bedroom.

“Couldn’t sleep either?” Damen asked.

His voice was hushed, but in the darkness and the stillness, it sounded too loud.

Laurent stood ghostlike in the doorway, pale and vulnerable, too young and too alone, all
skinny knees and bony ankles, shiny silk dressing gown over billowy white sleep shirt. The
hand that cupped his candle was trembling. His big blue eyes looked like bruises in a face
still softened by the last vestiges of childhood.

Caught, he didn’t answer. He hadn’t expected Damen to be awake – or maybe he hadn’t

expected him to be here at all. Damen forced himself to smile.

“Me either,” Damen told him. He held out a hand to him.

“I’m sorry,” Laurent said. “I didn’t mean to…”

“You didn’t wake me.”

“I shouldn’t be here.”

“It’s ok that you are.”

His eyes closed, briefly. He took a slow breath before he opened them again.

“I didn’t want to be alone anymore,” he said. “I don’t want to be alone. Can I stay?”

“Come on,” Damen said, motioning with his extended hand.

When Damen was young, there had been a time when he would try to come and sneak into
Kastor’s bed any time he had a bad dream. He was thinking of that time, as Laurent crossed
the room – as his white, trembling hand set the candle on the nightstand, as he laid his
dressing gown across a chair and kicked off his slippers. Laurent had his head bowed as he
came to sit beside Damen.
“Gods, you’re freezing,” Damen said, putting an arm around him, rubbing Laurent’s arm
vigorously. That dressing gown had been fucking useless. Laurent was trembling. The
candlelight flickered against the side of his face, shifting shadows further obscuring his
expression. Laurent didn’t say anything, instead just curling himself toward Damen. Damen
squeezed him, then reached for the blankets, wrapping them around him. “We’ll get you
warmed up,” he promised.

“I’m sorry,” Laurent told him. The cold control from earlier was gone. He sounded like he
was going to cry. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I was just – I was alone, and I – I didn’t want to
be – “

“You aren’t alone, sweetheart,” Damen promised, squeezing him again. Laurent was still
shaking. He nodded, his head tucked under Damen’s chin. Damen knew he wasn’t really
convinced. “Here,” Damen said. “Let’s lay down, yeah? I bet your feet are ice. Let’s get
under the covers.”

Silent, Laurent pulled away, waiting while Damen fixed the tangle he had made of the sheets,
then crawling up into the bed. He let Damen tuck him in, and curled immediately into his
arms as soon as Damen lay beside him.

His feet were indeed ice. Damen rubbed his arm and he brushed his lips across his hair. He
pulled away for just a moment to blow out the candle, bathing the room in darkness.

“I’m sorry I missed your birthday,” Damen told him, and Laurent laughed, a short, mirthless
sound. Damen hugged him just a little more tightly.

They let silence fall. Slowly, Laurent’s trembling stopped. Slowly, his icy feet began to warm.
Lulled by the soft sounds of his breathing, Damen’s body and his mind began trying to still.

He was drifting, nearly asleep, when he heard the heartbreak in Laurent’s whispered
confession.

“My brother doesn’t love me anymore.”

--

Auguste could not stop the frown from pulling at his mouth.

In Delfeur, the lingering chill of spring passed more quickly than it did to the north in Arles,
and the weather this morning had dawned especially fine. After breakfast, many of the young
men had taken to the fields where, only a few years ago, they would have tried so hard to kill
one another – their attention today turned instead to play.

Someone had set out markers, designating a course. While some men were yet working,
struggling to drag targets out across the field, others were mounted, already racing along the
designated path. Among them one bright blond head stood out.

Laurent had stripped himself of his jacket and corsetry. He had loosened the laces of his
undershirt. Half-dressed, he spurred his horse along with the others – Auguste’s shy, bookish
brother riding, reckless and bareback and barely dressed, out in the bright spring sun with the
barbarians. Laurent, who hated sports, leading the charge – one of the first to swoop down,
daringly, to grab up a bundle of spears after a slave deposited a bundle of them near the
beginning of the track. He was stretched out, nearly parallel to the ground, for one breathless
moment before righting himself with his prize, never once slowing. He pointed one of the
blue-tipped spears at Damianos of Akielos, and he shouted something in the barbarian’s
language, and when Damianos shouted something back at him, Laurent – laughed.

Auguste could hardly remember the last time he had seen his brother smile, and Damianos
had just made him laugh. It was brief, and seemed to take the boy by surprise, but it was a
laugh, genuinely, with no trace of bitterness or mockery in evidence.

“King of Vere – him frown so big,” the Bastard Prince of Akielos said in his broken Veretian,
coming to stand beside Auguste at his place under the shady pavilion that had been erected
not far from where the young soldiers now played.

Everything was wrong.

Auguste had taken pains to avoid the necessity of socialization with the bastard this entire
time. He had been forced to endure the insult that the very man whose surrender during the
war had been deemed insufficient for Veretian victory was now the man Theomedes sent to
negotiate and approve any changes for the year’s treaty. He’d had to swallow the burden of
feigning politeness, of playing host to the very creature who should have borne the blame for
Laurent’s situation – the one man responsible for the growing distance between Laurent and
Auguste. He’d had to endure the indignity when a subhuman bastard turned out to be one of
the few men supporting the lawful, justified sentence he had given the dangerous slave who
had attacked Uncle, his own guards – his friends – frowning at his back and threatening to
leave service. Auguste had not wanted to subject himself to enduring more time with Kastor
than strictly necessary – part of insisting that Theomedes come to him in Marlas had been
motivated by the desire to avoid undergoing the long trek back to Arles in the bastard’s
company –

And now – now – Kastor was the only one who seemed to see what had become so painfully
apparent to Auguste.

He was losing his brother.

If you do this, you will lose me.

Auguste shook his head, as if in so doing he could also shake off the memory of Laurent’s
warning. It had nothing to do with the death of the slave; Auguste had been losing him long
before Larius had attacked Uncle Richard. Auguste could see it now, the slow insidious
campaign of Prince Damianos to take his brother from him, turn him against him.

“I don’t know him anymore,” Auguste said, unable to stop the confession from slipping
through his lips. Even now, he could see it as if Laurent was shouting, hands cupped around
his mouth: I am a stranger!
It was there in Laurent’s laughter and the sweetness of the smile he directed toward
Damianos. It was there in the light that had been absent from his eyes before their reunion. It
was in the way his posture on a horse had shifted from that of a proud son of Vere to
something just slightly Akielon in style – as had his swordwork – he had drawn a sword on
Auguste.

He had drawn a sword, and he had fought, and he hadn’t been out of practice the way that
Auguste had expected, and the familiar styles of their master tutors in Arles were now tainted
with an unfamiliar Akielon flavor, there in his grip, in his footwork, just as the way his
horsemanship was.

He spoke their damned language fluently.

He had rushed to hug that beast of a husband.

He had arrived in Chastillon wearing a chiton, his hair long, his skin freckled.

“This is not my brother,” Auguste said.

“Kastor had thoughts,” Kastor answered, watching him, and Auguste had to resist the urge to
ask if such an unusual task had hurt. “Negotiations not having success King of Vere is
expecting, yes?” Things had been growing heated. That’s why they were taking a break.
That’s how he’d come to find Laurent out here in the first place.

“I’m offering your father exactly what he wants. He’s being unreasonable.”

“Not exactly what wants. But Kastor had thoughts. Maybe Kastor helps?”

“Kastor has done enough, thank you.”

The bastard, not the least bit put off by his tone. “Invite Kastor into room. The King of Vere
will be speaking to I and Father together. Kastor on King of Vere’s side.” Neither he nor
Damianos had been in on the disaster of negotiations Auguste had spent the morning on with
King Theomedes. Auguste could not imagine either of their presences could do anything but
make things worse, and it showed in his face. Kastor laughed. “King of Vere will be liking
the plan of me. Promise. King of Vere get what he wants.”

--

Laurent had been gone before Damen woke – slipped back through the secret door that joined
their rooms with presumedly plenty of time to give the appearance that he had never left.
When King Auguste’s guardsmen arrived to fetch Laurent for breakfast, there must have been
nothing to arouse suspicion, for he was escorted into the small informal dining room that had
hosted their disastrous dinner not long after Damen himself arrived – properly dressed in
those stiff Veretian fashions, shorn hair styled as much as it could be, boots shined, cool smile
in place.

The meal had even gone, mostly, without incident, save for the very beginning. Ignoring his
own brother’s greeting, Laurent had walked up to Damen and, with a haughty arrogance that
gave away nothing of the fact he had spent the night sobbing in Damen’s arms, he demanded
help setting up an Okton track.

“Unless you eat, you are going to spend the day in your rooms,” King Auguste had warned –
though Laurent had made his demand in Akielon, and it was doubtful that the King of Vere,
who had still not bothered to pick up more than a handful of words of it, would have
understood.

Laurent could have dug in his heels, then – likely would have, except Damen interjected, also
in Akielon, “Please, just do as he asks right now. I desperately want to see how you’ve
improved.” Somehow, that had worked, though not without earning a suspicious frown from
King Auguste when Laurent obeyed.

A meal, time with his horse, and exercise. The three in combination proved to work wonders
for Laurent – as did the fact he had cried himself to sleep last night after days of holding his
emotions in. His eyes were still haunted with shadows, but Damen managed to coax a smile
out of him – even a laugh! – as they practiced. At least for a little while, he was distracted,
free.

“I suppose it’s time to give you your birthday present,” Damen mused, playfully, later in the
stables. Laurent always saw to his own horses personally, and Damen had found himself
picking up the habit. He admired the care his little brother took for animals, the
uncomplicated and heartfelt bond he could form with them. This was the first time Damen
had seen Laurent give Madeleine a moment of affection since their reunion.

Laurent was clearly surprised by his words, though he looked more curious than outright
wary as he glanced up, curry brush in hand. He still looked pale and drawn, Damen realized.
Some shadows were harder than others for the sun to reach. Laurent’s hair was dark with
sweat; so was his billowy white undershirt. For now, that was the best Damen could do for
him.

“You got me a gift?” he asked, curious more than actually interested in receiving something.

“Of course I did,” Damen said. “But if you aren’t in the mood for it, it can wait. It’s up to
you. I’ve been looking forward to introducing you.” The last was said carefully. Damen
busied himself with putting things away as Laurent frowned at him.

After a moment, the boy lifted his head and took careful examination of their surroundings.

“It isn’t a horse,” Laurent stated. “I know everyone here.”

The everyone made Damen smile. “It isn’t a horse,” he agreed. He was careful. He kept his
attention elsewhere, and let Laurent draw the conclusion for himself.

“A slave,” Laurent said at last.

Damen couldn’t read his voice. The timing couldn’t have been worse, after Larius. The last
thing he wanted to do was hurt Laurent with this.
“Two,” Damen corrected. “But they aren’t slaves anymore. One wanted to go home. She was
from a village on the border. When I freed them, she said she wanted to leave. I had my men
escort her there when we were close.”

“You freed two slaves for me.”

“I purchased them from the Free Tribe I was visiting. They wouldn’t let me have more; I’m
sorry. The other one is here, though, if you want to meet him. If it – wouldn’t be too – “

Laurent slammed into his body from the side, hard enough to steal his breath, sending him
into the side of a nearby stall and almost to the filthy ground. Laurent was squeezing him so
hard that it was actually difficult to get turned around so that he could get his arms around
him in turn.

“I think you could kill a man with one of these hugs,” Damen wheezed, feeling relieved and
breathless and impossibly fond, and Laurent only squeezed more tightly.

“I want to hear everything,” Laurent declared, pulling back, his face bright with
embarrassment. His eyes were wet.

Damen pretended not to see it. He pretended that it was a casual matter, routine, and that it
didn’t mean the world to him that he might have succeeded in doing something that would
bring Laurent such joy.

“The girl is named Elyna, and her village is Massilia. My men told me she had family there.
They said that they came running to greet her before they had even reached the square. I
thought we might visit on the way home, if you – “

“Yes,” Laurent interrupted, and Damen let out a breath, pleased and amused. “And the other
one?” Laurent demanded.

“I think you cracked one of my ribs…”

“Damen.”

“Isander,” Damen said. “His name is Isander. He’s Akielon, very sweet-tempered, very eager
to take service with the Prince of Vere. I think he will get along with the others, if you
think… I know this is a difficult time. I – “

“I want to meet him.”

Damen let out a breath. “I hoped you would.”

“Now? Can we go now?”

Damen felt lighter. He laughed again.

“Now,” he agreed.
 He had never seen Laurent in more of a hurry before, rushing through his final self-imposed
tasks with his horse, almost childlike in his excitement. Damen helped him where he could,
his chest warm and tight and relieved and fond, half convinced, already, that he had wed a
boy who was going to change the entire world – who had already changed his world. Laurent
was an inevitable force, an absolute powerhouse of determination and strength and willful
kindness. It made Damen ache a little with pride, knowing that he might have helped, a little,
to return that spark to the boy’s eyes.

Without hesitation, Laurent grabbed Damen’s hand when they were done, hauling him
outside the stables as if he could not bear to wait another moment.

“Is he in the servants’ quarters? This way?”

Damen had been so worried that his gift would only deepen the wound left by the loss of
Larius. He had been afraid that Laurent had given up on his madness – that he would look up
and find all hope gone from Laurent’s eyes, his experiment with the freed slaves ended so
sadly and so abruptly. Damen felt considerably lighter as he let himself be dragged along,
caught up in the tidal wave of Laurent’s unstoppable will, and he couldn’t help but laugh as
he followed.

Three of Auguste’s men were waiting for them outside the Keep’s entrance. King Auguste
was with them.

The change in Laurent was immediate. He slowed, then came to a stop before his brother, his
last few steps dragging. The hand in Damen’s tightened, then dropped away, almost too
forcefully – as if he had been caught doing something he shouldn’t. He moved, placing
himself bodily between Damen and Auguste.

“What?” he asked, flatly, hotility clear in his tone.

“King Theomedes and I have completed our negotiations for the year,” Auguste said. “We
will be vacating Marlas tomorrow morning.

Laurent looked surprised and alarmed for only a moment, before he hid his thoughts behind
an expression of cool indifference.

“And what?” Laurent asked. “You’re feeling weepy? Spare me. I’ll be relieved to be going
home.”

“So will I,” King Auguste said. “You will be coming back to Arles with me.”

Chapter End Notes

Message from Howl: .23.

I hope Laurent coming to Damen's bed read as innocently as intended. He would often
sleep in Auguste's bed when he was lonesome or upset, and I imagine Veretian culture as
being very physically affectionate, pre-Regency. Right now, there was nothing sexual or
romantic about it for either of them.
 Chapter 47
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Damen had to read over the contract three times before it began to sink in, and even then, it
didn’t seem real.

Laurent had gone white at his brother’s announcement, and before he had rallied himself to
respond, King Auguste had made the suggestion that he spend the afternoon resting in his
rooms and one of the guards had stepped forward to escort him away and Laurent, all life
gone out from him, had hung his head and went without resisting.

It had left Damen there with Auguste, and the two remaining guards, the King of Vere
looking smug and victorious, Damen reeling, feeling helpless as a slave in chains, horrified
and stunned.

“You will not take my brother from me,” Auguste told him. “I will not let him forget who he
is.”

He had turned and left before Damen could think of a response, before shock and outrage
could resolve themselves into anything more than that feeling that comes when an opponent
has swept one’s legs out from under him, landing him breathless and disadvantaged on his
back.

When Damen finally did move, it had been to find his father.

Kastor had just been leaving their father’s suite, and he had looked every bit as pleased and
as smug as the King of Vere had. When he saw Damen, he paused, looking him slowly up
and down as if to take his measure, his lips slowly curling upwards.

“What have you done?” Damen demanded.

“Found a solution,” Kastor answered.

The contract for the year had still been lying on the desk when Damen pushed past into his
father’s rooms. The ink from the signing had still been shiny and wet. King Auguste would
have his own copy, somewhere, written out in curling Veretian script, a match to the blockier
Akielon version here.

Father was at the sidebar pouring himself a tall drink as Damen stalked his way to the desk.
Damen was aware of his father’s attention watching him as he lifted the contract roughly in
both hands, eyes moving over it quickly, then again a second time, Damen sinking slowly
into a nearby chair as he read. Father sipped at his drink, and he waited.

“You can’t do this to him,” Damen told him at last.

Father’s drink was amber in color – a Kemptian bourbon, though there was no bottle to give
it away, only a decanter of etched crystal. He stared at Damen for a long moment before
pouring a second glass, bringing it to Damen before he answered.

“Nothing is being done to him,” Father said at last, setting Damen’s drink beside him, firmly,
a silent order to consume it, when Damen did not take it from him on his own. His father
took the chair opposite, and Damen could see that he was troubled, even as he spoke. “It is a
reasonable request. We have had the child for well over a year. Now his brother wishes to
have a year for himself. He is still a boy, after all.”

“It’s not a reasonable request! Laurent is not safe with his brother! Look at what has
happened in just this brief amount of time!”

“I’ve taken precautions.”

Damen’s hands curled, wrinkling the document. “So I’ve seen,” he snarled, giving it a shake
as if it was a throat he could throttle. “He had guards with him in Chastillon, too. He had
Nikandros with him.”

“We didn’t know what to expect then, We do now. There are snakes in the grass. We know
this.”

Additional precautions had been worked into the contract. Father had been very specific
concerning the rules about how many Akielon guards were to stay with Laurent, versus how
many Veretian. He had included a strong stipulation concerning every Akielon in the party –
any man accused of any wrongdoing was to be sent back to Akielos for Akielon judgement;
no Veretian was to lay a hand on him. There was an entire clause that dictated in no uncertain
terms that not only was it forbidden for Laurent to be separated from his Akielon guard for
any reason, but that he was not to be placed within five feet of his uncle, period, and was
never to be left alone in the man’s presence.

“The Veretian King has agreed to my every demand. He just wants some time with his
brother.”

“I thought you cared for the boy,” Damen said. “I thought you had begun to see him as
another son.”

“You know that I do.”

“But you couldn’t resist the deal Kastor drew up.” Damen was disgusted with his father. He
had never thought to feel such a way in his life, but he was.

Father drank, drinking half the glass in one go, then firmly placing it on the desk. He leveled
his gaze on Damen. He said, honestly, “No.”

In exchange for a year with Laurent, Auguste had agreed to every precaution, every
stipulation Father had made – and he’d offered up a portion of Delpha to Akielos.
It would have been as if Vere had lost the war after all – an indisputable sign of weakness and
defeat that Auguste either did not see or did not care to. He could have avoided this marriage
business all together if he had just been willing to bargain with bits of his country in the first
place, but there was no sign that he saw the irony. True, had Akielos ended the war with
possession of all or part of Delpha, their countries would have still been enemies, both
lacking the ties that now bound them – but they hardly felt like allies now, not with the
growing levels of distrust and resentment between them.

“It’s only a year,” Father said, pushing the second glass Damen’s way, as if it was a perfectly
reasonable conclusion to have come from. If Auguste had offered them Delpha in the first
place, then Laurent would have never come with them. He would have spent his years in
Vere, surrounded by snakes, vulnerable and unaware of his vulnerabilities. How long until
that vipers’ nest would have filled him with poison? How long until his uncle would have
gotten his hands on him? How long before his sweetness and his brilliance would have all
bled away? He would have been destroyed, and Damen would have never known him.
Damen would have never known of the delight he had missed.

“Delpha is not worth Laurent,” Damen spat, and Father agreed with a slow nod.

“No,” Father said.

Father had refused Delpha – Auguste’s first offer – even when Auguste increased the size of
the land he was willing to give. Father knew as well as Damen did how harmful that deal
would have been, how useless. Laurent was a far bigger prize, more important than either
side had known when first making their deal.

Then Kastor had entered the negotiations.

Kastor’s suggestion had won father over.

Damen had to read it a fourth time just to wrap his mind around it, and even then he did not
believe it.

In exchange for a single year with his brother, King Auguste of Vere had agreed to legalize
slavery in his kingdom.

Damen felt sick.

He understood – on some level, Damen understood. Akielos did great business with Patras;
slaves were one of his country’s most lucrative exports. Having a second neighbor whose
borders were open to the trade would bring on a huge economic boon, recouping the final
expenses from the war. If the Veretians, like many Patrans, took to sending their slaves to
Akielos for training, that would be even more money, more wealth in the hands of his people.

It was a good move for Vere, too. Even with terms bent significantly in Akielos’s favor, Vere
would benefit financially from the trade. Those impacted by the war who could still not
sustain themselves, could sell themselves into service. Wealthy farmers would have reliable,
inexpensive labor. And Damen was not the only Akielon with tastes running toward the
Veretians’ exotic coloring. There would be demand for Veretian slaves, significant demand,
in both Akielos and Patras. Akielos would assist their ally in implementing the proper
infrastructure – it would take more than this single year for it to really take off, much less
catch on and thrive, but in the long run, not only would both countries benefit, they would
have successfully bound themselves together even more tightly. Vere would have the peace of
mind of knowing their alliance would live on even should something happen to Laurent,
unlike the ties they had once held with Kempt, frayed so easily and so quickly after the
Queen’s passing.

“You know how Laurent feels about slavery,” was all Damen could think of to say. The
betrayal of it cut bone-deep. He could feel it for him, feel the pain of it, as if his heart was
Laurent’s heart. “He trusts you, and you’re selling him off for something he hates. You’re
making him go back, despite everything he has just been through. He will never forgive you
for this.”

“You’re being dramatic,” Father said, picking up his drink again. Damen’s stomach churned.

It was the best choice for Akielos. Father had turned down a piece of Delpha for Laurent, but
this offer was too sweet to decline. The deal was a huge boon for Kastor, too, having been the
one to arrange it. The alliance had been brittle, weakening under the strain of their
differences, and Kastor had just secured it for long past any of their lifetimes. It was a victory
he had sorely needed, a victory he would be proud of.

“I hate this,” Damen said, and was surprised to realize it was not only for Laurent’s sake.
Opening Vere to the slave trade meant there would be a larger need for slaves. It meant more
illicit raids on innocent villages. It meant more families separated, more young women forced
into breeding houses, more young boys like Larius, so full of pain and hate and hopelessness
that they were happy to die, because friends like Laurent were few and far in between, and
could not stop the fury of a King. “I hate this so much.”

Two years ago, Damen knew that he would not have cared about any of those things. Two
years ago, it would not have occurred to him to care. Now he found his mind flinching away
in horror.

“Laurent will be safe,” Father promised, misunderstanding. He watched Damen for a

moment, observationally, before he said, “You’re protective of him.”

“Yes.” Damen didn’t hesitate. “Yes, of course I am!”

“That’s good,” Father said, and finished his drink. Damen’s still sat between them,
untouched. “You will have a strong partnership one day, once he is grown.”

“Not if we destroy him now!” Damen scowled, thinking of those blank, lifeless eyes, of the
emptiness in him when he told Damen I killed him. Auguste had traded Laurent to Akielos
for the good of his country, and now Father was trading him back for the same. “When does
he get to be a boy?” Damen demanded. A boy and not a game piece, traded back and forth as
best suited the convenience of older men.

“It’s done,” Father told him, firmly. “Take your disgust and put it away. It has no use to you
right now. See what kind of choices you make, when the burden of kingship falls on your
shoulders.”

--

Laurent missed dinner for the second night in a row, and when no one arrived to drag him to
the table, he found himself bitterly expectant of having to endure some future altercation
wherein his brother demanded gratitude in response to the fact he hadn’t once again put them
both through the now-familiar farce. Laurent could not have eaten even if he’d wanted to.
The concept of an appetite was becoming a distant memory. The thought of being forced to
smell food while seated at a table across from his brother made his eyes sting and his
stomach clench with nausea.

The dinner hour came and went and no one tried to fetch him and Laurent was neither
insulted nor relieved to have been forgotten, his tantrum unremarked as if he was nothing. He
was nothing. He felt nothing.

He had been crying all day. Nothing was a sweet reprieve.

Laurent was not a crier. He had been doing it so much lately, but it was not natural to him. He
worked hard not to cry. He had been easily given to tears, once, but he had taught himself not
to be. He had learned the hard way that there was no faster way to earn his father’s disgust
than to cry. Crying was humiliating; it was disgusting; it was weak. It was also a surefire way
to discredit his side in an argument. Crying was a boon to an enemy, filling his opponent’s
quiver with fresh ammunition and painting a target on all of Laurent’s most vulnerable
places.

Laurent had been crying all day.

Humiliatingly, it had stared during the screaming match with Auguste that had happened
when his brother had followed him to his rooms. Laurent had burst into tears mid-word, and
his brother, like their father before him, had simply turned and walked away, his face twisted
with ill-concealed disgust.

Only when he was gone had Laurent realized he was alone, red-faced and blotchy, snotty and
blubbering, ugly and disgusting and – Damen didn’t come, disappointed in him, probably,
and though the guards outside had surely heard him, they didn’t even crack the door to check
on him, and all of his friends were well beyond his reach.

When he was done sobbing like a squalling infant, he had dropped into a seat by the window,
empty, his forehead against the glass as he watched the tightly-stretched staff of Marlas in the
courtyard, preparing for a morning departure.

It wasn’t merely about the fact he couldn’t return home to Akielos for another year. Or – it
wasn’t only that. It was that, and it was everything else. This entire experience had been a
nightmare that Laurent did not want to prolong by another hour, let alone an entire year. He
couldn’t close his eyes without seeing Auguste cutting Larius down. When he saw his
brother’s guards, he could only think of how they had dragged his friend away from where he
was safe. He could only remember the bruising grip he’d been held in as they held him back
from interceding for his friend. He could not bathe or dress himself without the taste of
licorice flooding his senses, without choking on the memory of invasive fingers in his mouth.
He could not open his mouth to speak without the sharp awareness that he had no power to
ensure he was heard.

Laurent was only newly aware that he had always been voiceless. He had known his
perspective would never matter to his father, no matter how hard he studied, how much he
read – but he had failed to see how his brother’s doting indulgence had only been hiding
more of the same. Auguste saw him as a child. Auguste wanted him to remain a child.
Auguste might have humored him, once upon a time when he could afford to – but he had
never respected him. Laurent was no different to his brother than a favored dog – something
to be petted and cuddled and praised when he behaved, and punished when he did not.
Something whose will was a problem and whose opinions did not matter.

Was that what this was? Auguste wasn’t done rubbing Laurent’s nose in the mess he had
created. Because Laurent had not left his boys to the roles the Fates had decreed for them –
because Laurent had fallen in love with Akielos instead of spending his days pining for Vere
– because Laurent could not simply shut up and make himself forget his uncle’s perversions.
What did Auguste expect him to do, in the coming year, if Uncle got him alone again?
Laurent had managed to escape him twice; he was sure he would not be so lucky a third time.
Was he supposed to be quiet and obediently spread? Let Uncle satisfy himself getting a leg
over, then pretend it never happened? Tell his friends and his guards that they were not
allowed to act in his defense? Make sure he wasn’t an inconvenience or more of an
embarrassment? Was that what he was supposed to do?

Laurent cried for himself, and he cried for his fear. He cried for Larius, and for frustration,
and for helplessness. He cried for the boy he had been, who had loved his brother so
completely, but never really understood who he was. He cried for the horrors he had seen two
years ago, trailing his new family through post-war Delfeur. He cried for the betrayal of being
sold for a second time, now by his father-in-law, and he cried for the people who were going
to suffer because of him, because his brother had made that trade.

He cried in a way he had never cried before, not even last night, an intruder in Damen’s bed,
curled tight against the warm solidity of his strength as Damen combed gentle fingers
through his hair and said comforting things to him, his voice low and soothing as he lied,
promising Laurent everything would be all right.

He cried because he was not sure whether the one man left who he trusted knew that he had
been lying to Laurent last night. Because he could not help but wonder what Damen had
known of the coming deal. Surely he had known this would happen, right? How long had
Theomedes and Auguste been negotiating such a horrific deal?

He cried because his brother was expanding slavery, and he had wanted nothing more than to
see its end.

He cried because he missed his mother.

He cried because his father had never loved him.

 He cried because he had stabbed Baptiste. Because he’d had to leave Aimeric behind,
knowing Aimeric’s father would give him to Uncle again, even though Aimeric still hadn’t
admitted to him what he knew his uncle had done. He cried because he had given up
Madeleine, and the sacrifice hadn’t mattered, and now that he had her back he didn’t even
want her, even though he knew it wasn’t her fault.

He cried over everything.

He cried over nothing.

Now he sat empty, the shadows gathering around him in the room. He was nothing but a husk
containing a barely-flickering shadow of consciousness as he watched the men prepare for
their departure. Everything had hit him all at once, crushing and unbearable, and now he was
empty, scraped clean, raw. Exhausted.

He was aware from a distance that his throat remained hot and tight. His nose was stopped
up. His eyes were burning. He was aware as if he was watching himself from somewhere
outside his body, detached from himself, finally calm.

That was how Damen found him, eventually, after dinner.

Chapter End Notes

Today's cat-message comes from Oliver: ‘

??????????????????????????=

+63
 Chapter 48
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Laurent had told him that the door was not locked. He had told him that someone had lost the
keys.

Even still, Damen knocked, and knocked again, and only when a third attempt yielded no
answer from Laurent did he let himself in through the secret passage between their rooms.

“Laurent?” Damen called – not too loudly. Perhaps he was afraid Laurent was not alone. It
would be counterintuitive for him to fear waking Laurent up, after going to all the trouble of
breaking in. A curse filled the darkness when he banged into some overturned piece of
furniture. He fumbled for a moment, then the lamp he must have brought with him flared to
light.

Damianos of Akielos had been commanding armies since he was sixteen. He bore the easy
confidence of a man who knew his place in the world, who was respected by every man who
knew him. Even still, he nearly jumped out of his skin when he found Laurent only a few feet
away, watching him.

“What are you doing here?” Damen was not the sort of person who shrieked, but the fact he
had been startled was more than evident.

Laurent answered, voice dry and dull, “These were my rooms, last I checked.” Though he
would hardly put it past Auguste to take that away from him, too, were the thought to occur
to him. Laurent would be so much easier to watch if he was relegated to sleeping on a cot in
the corner of his brother’s quarters, the way he had during the war.

“You’re sitting in the dark,” Damen said, helpfully. Truly a beacon of wisdom. Laurent
shrugged. Even that seemed to take up too much energy.

The ache Laurent felt only seemed to increase, now that his solitude had been intruded upon.
The sight of Damen made his eyes burn anew. It hurt, how much he wanted the man to come
over and hug him. How much he wanted to be petted and soothed.

Did you turn against me, too?

The question was in his mouth. Damen spoke before he could ask it.

“I’m sorry to come this way. Your brother has guards on your doors.”

“Of fucking course he fucking does.”

Damen didn’t address his language. In the flickering shadows, his face looked concerned.
“When you didn’t answer, I was worried. Is this – all right? My being here, I mean. I can
leave. Do you want me to leave?”
No.

“That depends on what it is you’re here for.” Laurent’s voice was dark, bitter with suspicion.

“Wil you come with me?” Damen asked, and when Laurent only stared at him, he said, “I
won’t be upset if you don’t want to. I’m sure it will only be more trouble for you if you’re
caught sneaking out through my bedroom. Ah – there’s a window. We can climb through and
drop to the kitchen garden, then it won’t look like we were up to anything.”

Laurent loved him.

He had already decided a year ago that he loved him – but this was different. Laurent realized
that he didn’t need to ask – he knew – he believed – that Damen had not had a hand in any of
this. He believed in Damen. He believed the trust he put in him was not misplaced. He
believed –

Laurent swallowed. The feeling surging up within him had nothing to do with how big
Damen’s muscles were, or how pretty Laurent found those warm, earnest brown eyes. It
didn’t have to do with the fact he had a dimple when he smiled, or the way his curls fell
against his forehead when his hair was tousled, or the fact you could bounce a sol off his
backside. The thing that Laurent felt for him was bigger than any of that. It was the biggest
thing that Laurent had ever felt, almost, except for the grief that pressed in all around him. It
didn’t replace the grief – but it was there, beside it. Laurent loved him. Irrationally, it struck
him as strange that Damen couldn’t feel it rolling off him like the heat from a fire. Strange
that such a big, overwhelming emotion lacked physical presence, that it didn’t fill up the
room with them, alter the air pressure.

Laurent hadn’t answered him. Damen crossed the room to him, and knelt before him where
he sat at the window. He didn’t ask for permission to touch him, but he did, anyway, cupping
Laurent’s face in both hands, and wiping the tears from Laurent’s cheeks with his thumbs. He
was so gentle that it hurt. Laurent ached anew with how good it felt to be touched, to receive
even that small measure of care and comfort. Tears sprang to his eyes anew.

“Laurent,” Damen pressed, gently. “Please answer me. Do you want to come with me?”

“I want to go,” Laurent told him. “I want to go anywhere you are.”

--

It was really more than a “we can climb through and drop to the kitchen garden” situation.
Damen may have oversimplified things, not quite thinking his plan all the way through when
he came up with the idea to liberate his little husband from under King Auguste’s watchful
eyes. Laurent, as far as Damen was aware, wasn’t officially confined to his rooms – but there
was no doubt in either of their minds that the moment he tried to leave them, Auguste’s men
would surely follow wherever he went. Damen had officially had his fill of Veretians of the
non-Laurent variety. So they couldn’t leave through Laurent’s rooms, and being seen leaving
through Damen’s would instigate a whole new slew of trouble, so the window, Damen had
reasoned.
The drop was farther than he had thought it would be.

Laurent stood frowning at the window. He didn’t point out the problem with Damen’s idea.

“We can use my bedsheets as a rope,” Damen began.

Laurent told him, “Don’t be absurd.”

Then his little husband stepped forward and opened the window.

“Your shoulders will never fit,” he declared. “They’re the size of an ox flank.”

“Hey now…”

“Fortunately, no one is watching you.” Laurent put a leg over the sill, then looked at Damen
expectantly. “Go on. I will meet you out there.”

--

When Laurent pointed out his path, later, Damen was glad he hadn’t had to watch it.

“Across the drainage pipe until it broke. I caught hold of that lattice when I jumped.”

“You mean fell?” Damen countered, watching Laurent’s pale finger trace the route.

“I mean jumped,” Laurent insisted. “Fell. You are ridiculous tonight. If I had waited to fall, I
would have fucked up the timing. Pay attention. After that, I grabbed that window shutter and
swung myself to the other side, there – “

“Laurent!”

“Then it was a simple matter to reach the kitchen roof and drop from there to those wine
barrels.”

Laurent still spoke with the rough rasp of someone who had spent the day in tears. His eyes
were still red, and ringed by deep shadows. Nevertheless, whatever expression it was he saw
on Damen’s face made his lips twitch as if fighting a smile.

Damen wanted to give him everything in the world.

He offered him a bacon sandwich from the kitchens.

“I told them I was still hungry,” Damen explained. “They heard you on the roof, by the way.
Terrified themselves imagining the size of the rat making such noise.”

Laurent accepted his gift, slowly. “I’m not hungry,” he said, but after a moment, he
obediently took a bite. Then he took another. It was remarkable, how quickly the boy made
the sandwich vanish. “Where are you taking me?” he asked. “Are we eloping?”

“Let’s keep that option in the back pocket,” Damen suggested. “I don’t think now is the time
to provoke your brother that way.”
Laurent’s derisive snort said more than words.

Damen said, “This way.”

Marlas had been built for function, not pleasure. There were no meandering walks, like there
might have been in a palace. The kitchen garden was simply that – a small patch of land
growing a meager offering of herbs and some vegetables. To the right, the practice yards
were lit by the glow of the moon. Damen led them left, toward the stables and servants’
quarters.

He didn’t try to pacify Laurent with empty promises about how he expected the coming year
to be, telling him everything would be fine, or that time would pass quickly. He didn’t hound
him with questions to make him recount the mess that had occurred at Chastillon, or explain
the details of his so-called training with Kastor. Damen’s questions unsettled him, but they
walked in silence, their way lit only by the stars above, and the occasional flicker of a torch.
Laurent’s little adventure across the kitchen roof had not been enough to bring him back to
himself, but here, alone, sheltered by the darkness, he could be honest about his pain. He
could be vulnerable.

Like a child, Laurent slipped his hand into Damen’s as they walked, and Damen didn’t let
himself react with surprise or concern. He only squeezed it, and tried to offer the comfort and
reassurance he wished he could promise out loud. He even lifted it, once, and brushed a kiss
to the back of his knuckles. The darkness gave Laurent the freedom to accept his comfort.

--

“This is Isander,” Damen told him, outside the servants’ quarters, when the boy he had asked
for came out to them. He was no longer wearing a collar, but he still walked like a slave, his
shoulders rounded forward, his head tilted downwards. He trembled as he stood before them,
as if desperate with the need to throw himself to his knees, the way he had been trained.
“He’s been very brave,” Damen told him. “His first year’s wages are my gift to you.”

“The first - ?” Laurent looked at him, and Damen smiled.

“Did you think I bought him and freed him for you? No. He wants to stay in service, and so I
hired him for you. That’s your gift. Wages, not – not him.” Damen said it as if the idea itself
was absurd. It was, now. Buying a person. Gifting someone to someone else. How had it
seemed so normal once? Isander wasn’t a hunting dog or a new pony. He was a person.

“This one,” Isander began, then he stopped. He licked his lips nervously, and almost looked
to Damen, as if for reassurance. “I,” he amended, eyes fixed on their feet. “I am honored to
serve His Highness, Prince Laurent of Akielos.”

--

At dawn, they gathered outside the gates of Marlas to say their goodbyes. Auguste was full of
false charm and strained cheer, eager to put his back to his barbarian allies for another year –
eager to get his brother back to Arles, maybe, too. His lips thinned when he saw the small
Akielon boy at Laurent’s side, but he didn’t say anything, even though it was clear that
Isander was there to serve, not guard.

Laurent didn’t know if his brother had any intention of interfering with his boys once he had
Laurent securely under his thumb again, but Damen promised him that King Theomedes had
taken measures on their behalf in the treaty. Auguste could not separate them; the boys were
Laurent’s personal staff, and they were none of Auguste’s fucking business.

“You promise me?” Laurent asked again, quietly, and in Akielon, so that his brother could not
hear him. He clung tightly to his husband’s arms as Damen bent to embrace him.

“I promise,” Damen told him. “He cannot take them from you.”

“And you,” Laurent pressed, holding his gaze as Damen drew away. “You promise that you’ll
come get me, as soon as the year is over?”

“I promise,” Damen said again, and though he had spent the morning stern-faced and grim, a
muscle in his jaw jumping each time he forced himself to hold his tongue, he looked at
Laurent with fondness.

Laurent couldn’t bring himself to release him. Letting go would feel like throwing himself
over the edge of a mountain – like at this very moment he dangled, nothing beneath his feet
but air, Damen the only thing keeping him in place.

“I will write every week,” Laurent told him. “If my letters stop coming – if they cease to
sound like me – “

“Then I will come for you sooner,” Damen promised.

“Laurent, come away,” Auguste ordered. “It’s time for us to leave.”

Laurent clung even more tightly. “It’s only one year?” he pressed, fighting the sting in his
eyes. Something shifted in Damen’s face, growing softer.

“One year, and then I will come bring you home.”

Laurent’s heart was hammering, pounding rabbit-quick in his chest. He knew his brother was
frowning. He could feel Auguste’s displeasure.

“Laurent,” Auguste called again, and this time there was an edge of something sharp in his
tone.

“I want one more gift!” Laurent protested, too loudly, as Damen began to draw away. He
struggled, fighting for dignity, aware of the attention his outburst had gathered – of heads
turning and gazes intruding on the last moments he would have with Damen for an entire
year. “I demand another gift!” Laurent told him, a little wildly, and Damen laughed.

“Name it,” Damen told him – easily, affectionately, with no trace of hesitation. Laurent
answered him in Veretian.
“Kiss me goodbye.”

--

“Laurent!” Auguste warned him again, his willingness to indulge his troublesome brother
growing thin. Until this last, he hadn’t been able to understand the words the two spoke to
one another, the ugly language grating on his ears like sand – but he could see how fondly
that damned Akielon looked at his brother, and he could see how his entire face lit up when
he laughed, and he could hate him. He could hate him as much as he wanted, even before he
heard his brother’s outlandish demand. Auguste almost reached for his sword.

There was an infuriating tenderness to the way Damianos of Akielos cupped Laurent’s face in
his big, brutal hands. When he leaned down to brush his lips against Laurent’s forehead,
Auguste wanted to have him flayed.

“A kiss goodbye,” Damianos said, softly, in Veretian, and Laurent frowned.

“That isn’t what I…”

“You will keep your promise, too, yes?” the Prince of Akielos asked him. “I will send a man
to collect your letters every month. Keep up with your Okton practice for me. I will be very
upset with you if I come for you in a year and find my little husband has forgotten how to
ride.”

Laurent said something in response in Akielon that was definitely an insult, and Damianos
laughed, releasing him.

The warmth in his eyes fled quickly when he shifted his gaze from Laurent to Auguste.

“Keep him safe,” the Prince of Akielos ordered. It was nearly as infuriating as watching him
put his hands on Laurent had been. “He is very precious to me. I would hate to go to war
again, but if he comes to harm under your watch one more time, I just may have to see it as a
breach of our peace.”

“Your sense of humor eludes me,” Auguste said. “What an inappropriate joke.”

Damianos turned away without answering. Laurent watched him go rejoin his father and his
brother on the stairs. He refused Auguste’s attempts to move him until Damianos had turned
to catch his eye one last time.

When Auguste placed a hand on his shoulder, Laurent knocked it away.

Chapter End Notes

Once again, let me remind you that this is the end of THIS arc, but the next will be
starting soon. Please be on the lookout for Duty of Princes.

I hope to have the first chapter out later this week, but I have been very busy, so I won't
make promises. I will have it to you as soon as I can, though!

My most sincere thanks to everyone who has stuck around through the glacial slow burn
and frustrating character dynamics. I hope you will continue to follow the series!

Oliver says: 0.698254786

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