4. Spitfire: Rekindled | Chapter Two: The Name Day

Feon

As if she joined in our celebration, the next morning’s sunlight is a weak and weary thing. I wake to the touch of it on my eyelids, my head rested on Caed’s chest, my body curled around his. When I open my eyes, he is already looking at me.

“Finally awake?” he asks. He looks like shit. Still handsome, but in a beleaguered, wrung out sort of way.

Yes, I try to say, but all that comes out is a low crooning. Frowning, I sit up. The bed creaks loudly in protest as the mattress bows beneath my weight.

“You should get changed,” Caed says, and taps his knuckle against one of my fingers. No, not fingers. Talons.

With a sigh, I close my eyes and fold myself, over and over and over, until I’m small and soft and human again. The bed wheezes a dry puhh! sound as it returns to equilibrium. It’s been a years since I lost myself enough to drop my shift overnight and the shame of it sears me wide awake.

“What were you trying to say?” Caed asks, sitting up. He’s wearing a long, loose night shirt, the sort that bares a small measure of his chest. The skin there has gone bright pink. I poke it with a finger and he grimaces.

“Sorry, did I burn you?”

“It’s not too bad.”

I press the pad of my thumb to one of my canines until I taste blood. Then I offer it to Caed. His tongue is soft and warm, his eyes downcast. I give him no more than a drop, just enough for the mark of heat to ebb from his breast and to abate the worst of his hangover.

“I remembered what I wanted to say,” I murmur, withdrawing my already healed thumb. “Happy name day, Solir.” I lean forward and brush a kiss against his cheek. His beard hairs rasp against my lips.

Caed shoves my shoulder gently and turns his head, but I don’t miss the blotchy redness creeping down his neck. “Go put some clothes on.”

I laugh.

If only the rest of our day could be so sweet. We share a brief breakfast, after which Jasper and his paperwork return with a vengeance. He enters with a whole troupe of the king’s aides in his wake, each of them bearing an array of massive leather-wrapped books roughly the size of a man’s torso and nearly as thick. They hit the desk with a series of loud thunks that shake the floor and stir up a plume of thick dust. I sneeze three times and retreat to the back of the room.

Caed stares down at the tomes with an expression of pure dread. “What is all this?”

“Twenty-five years of the De Lisles’ ledgers,” Jasper says with a sniff. “Between the state of the town and the funds that were allocated for its reconstruction, something seems amiss.”

“There’s no way we can get through even half of that before we leave Cindwick tomorrow,” Caed breathes, horrified.

“Get through as much as you can,” Jasper says, with what I think is meant to be kindness in his tone. I glare at him and the staggering mess of work he’s brought in. “Whatever we don’t get through before we leave will be copied for us by the other aides.”

“Will they be staying here, then?”

Jasper hesitates. “Yes.”

Caed nods mutely and reaches for the first book.

“I fail to see how any of this is Caed’s responsibility,” I say, shooting a glare in Jasper’s direction.

The aide purses his lips. “I’m not in charge of delegating tasks, I am merely relaying His Majesty’s wishes. We’ll have more assistance when we return to the palace.”

I sigh and grumpily settle down in the lumpy settee. I only realize I’ve dozed off when, some nebulous time later, a hand shakes me by the shoulder and wakes me. Caed. His eyes are glazed and there’s a smear of ink mingling with the hairs of his well-manicured beard. I lick my thumb and swipe it over the spot, relishing the good-bad feeling of the short, coarse hair against the pad of my finger.

Caed startles. “What are you”—I pull back my hand, a dark smudge of ink now coloring my thumb—“oh. Thanks.”

“There’s still some left. You should get that.” I rise off the settee just enough to luxuriate in a truly satisfying, back-popping stretch.

Caed pulls out a handkerchief and rubs at the spot of ink until it’s gone. I give him a thumbs up and settle back into the pillows.

“Come on. We need to get ready for lunch,” Caed says.

Ah, lunch. It’s always like this: after the intense preparation and celebration for the anniversary, there’s always some sort of sad late luncheon to honor Caed’s name day. The courtiers dredge up whatever last scraps of enthusiasm they can summon from their spent souls and congratulate him in the most spectacularly lackluster way possible. As yet another haggard faced noble lays a gift on the table and sleepwalks their way through some well wishes, I scan the faces of our guests.

It’s a measly fair, the seats just over half full, the chatter too quiet and intermittent to fill the air with any real measure of mirth. Only Ilaria remains straight-backed and sober-eyed, no hint of post-revelry hangover in her posture or in the way she crisply presents Caed with his name day present: a shiny new quill heavy enough to be a paperweight.

“On behalf of the Valance family,” she says, unsmiling.

Caed nods. “Thank you, as ever, for your thoughtful gift.”

The girl beside Ilaria, that same girl with the big eyes and nice tits, stifles a yawn behind her hand, but when she catches me looking she smiles and rises, hastily abandoning her gloomy company.

“Greetings, Your Highness, and congratulations on your twenty-sixth name day,” she says, curtsying.

“Thank you.”

“I didn’t get the chance to introduce myself earlier. I am Renée of the De Lisle family. It is my greatest pleasure to host you at our estate.” With a sweet smile, she presents Caed with another gift—this one a golden lapel pin in the shape of the sun.

I don’t remember her from our initial reception, but there were so many people—Lady and Lord De Lisle and their siblings and the many, many children between them and Ilaria at the forefront sucking the very life out of the air like an oyster shot down the hatch.

“Your gracious hospitality is acknowledged and appreciated, as is the gift,” Caed replies.

Not long after, the king joins our meal and with him he brings enough retainers and other hangers on that the tables are filled at last. Still, it doesn’t do much for the mood. His gift is just as perfunctory as his greeting and without the queen’s presence to soften the delivery, it falls flat. Caed bares it with a forced smile and a deep yearning in his heart that echoes loudly through our Bond.

Even with the king’s arrival, the meal drags. There’s the usual amount of flattery and attempts to politic from the nobles, made all the more obvious by the dead air in the room. No one wants to risk offense by being the first to leave, but none of us are having a good time. I feel the last dregs of pleasure in Caed’s heart wilt as the king departs to attend to other business but I can’t help but feel quietly relieved. Though the anniversary always overshadows Caed’s name day, this year is by far the worst.

I think that being here, so close to where the king lost his Bonded, has done no favors for his years of compacted grief. I wonder what that must feel like: the loss of not just your closest companion, but of a soul twined with yours; to have your other half snuffed out, ripped from you too soon and too suddenly. Does your heart expand into the empty space your partner once filled, does your inner capacity shrink, or are you just left with a gaping, gnawing hole? I’ve never had the courage to ask.

Finally, lunch draws to a close and the room gradually empties. We return to our chambers to disrobe and decompress. The moment I help Caed shuck off his jacket—a tightly tailored garment made stiff and heavy by the seam-to-seam beadwork—he visibly relaxes.

Jasper has tidied up the desk in Caed’s absence but the ledgers look no less dense even post-organizing. I magnanimously keep myself from setting them aflame. I rope Mikul into a couple rounds of cards and nearly set his hair aflame after a series of insufferable losses, I snoop around the estate and talk with a few of the nobles hanging around, I talk with the guards, I even try to read one of the big old books they’ve got decorating the room’s shelves—only to find that the book isn’t even real, it’s just a fake one for display. With a grimace, I toss it to the floor, where it lands with an unsatisfying whap instead of a thud. Through all of this, Caed remains at the desk toiling away. I only get him to break away for a small dinner, after which he heads right back for the ledgers.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” I say, blocking him with my body as Caed makes for the room’s desk. His eyebrows shoot up towards his hairline.

“What are you—”

I take his shoulders, determined to give Caed at least one good thing on his name day, and steer him towards the door. “Come on, we’re getting out of here.”

“I have work to do…”

“Then do it later. Jasper’s already called it a night and he’s almost as much of a workaholic as you.”

“We have to leave in the morning.” Despite his protests, he puts up no physical resistance.

“Yes, and we’ll leave in the morning,” I reply. “And we’re also leaving now. Let’s go!”

Arm in arm, I ferry my prince out of the manor before his guilt catches up with him. As we leave the main building and approach the carriage house, bright-eyed Lonan—the youngest of Caed’s guards—falls in behind us. I think he must have been feeling nearly as cooped up as I have because when I proposed this outing to the captain earlier, he eagerly volunteered to accompany us.

The coachman hastily readies for our departure. It’s a short but bumpy ride into town and with the sun almost set, the wide fields and encroaching wilderness are cast into a velvety blackness that our coach’s dingy yellow drachenglas lights cannot penetrate. Despite this, Cindwick’s heart is alive and thriving. Near every building is lit up and there are multiple bonfires scattered throughout the streets. People talk and sing and laugh, their voices carried on a chill night breeze. We pull to a stop at a bustling public house, the largest and best lit of them all.

As we exit the coach, I pull my cloak’s hood over my head for the brief walk from the vehicle to the building.

“You knew this was here,” Caed observes. I push the pub door open and we’re greeted with a barrage of sounds and smells: the sour tang of long-spilled mead, the crescendo of a heated argument, the slow swell of satisfied laughter, the rabid ramblings of a wild-eyed old man. “Feon… did you do research?”

“Research!” I guffaw. As I step inside, stale peanut shells crunch satisfyingly beneath the heel of my boot, and I all but throw off my cloak. “Caed, I talked to people while you were busy drowning yourself in two-and-a-half decades of receipts. Research is for terrible bespectacled mouth breathers locked up in dingy old towers with nothing better to do.”

Caed seems about to say something, but stops short when he realizes that the patrons crowded around a nearby table have spotted us. It doesn’t take more than a cursory glance to guess at our identities. Prince Caederyn on his own is not immediately recognizable—after all, he isn’t the only tall, dark-haired, brooding sort with a clean tunic, particularly not with so many well-to-do folk flooding Cindwick for the anniversary.

Rather, it is me and my unusual coloring—hair too golden to be described as blonde and eyes to match—and his proximity to me that reveals his identity. The occupants of that first table turn to raise their mugs towards us, some more enthusiastically than others. The general hubbub quiets for a moment and then swells as the rest of the jam-packed pub catches on. Some folk steal furtive glances our way, some gawk openly, and others pretend to ignore us.

Caed stands frozen in the doorway until, exasperated, I pull him the rest of the way inside and let the door fall shut with a heavy thunk. It’s warm inside and without the chill night breeze it’s almost humid, the air made heavy by boozy breath and sweaty bodies. A fire crackles blithely in a hearth on the far wall.

“Were they… expecting us?” Caed asks at last.

“‘Dunno. Now get moving already.”

I usher him towards the bar, where I lay down a whole mess of coinage in front of the barkeep and order several rounds for the entire pub. The woman’s eyes go wide and greedy and she hastily begins barking out orders to her staff.

As the barkeep sends out her servers with trays weighed heavily with drink, I call out to the pub at large: “To Prince Caederyn Elio Sa’Nova, Heir to the Nadaran Throne, The Noble Sun, and my dearest friend. Tonight, his twenty-sixth name day, we drink to his health!” Someone whoops loudly and a few people laugh and join in. “Drinks on me tonight!” A raucous cheer fills the tavern and the barkeep slides us both mugs filled so near the brim that some drink sloshes over the top.

It’s not long before I spy a table that is of particular interest to me. I wave our guard off to go somewhere else and then, booze in hand, I pull Caed with me to join a group of loud humans around our age, one of whom I recognize. I smirk. During my earlier sojourn through the halls of the De Lisle manner, I happened to meet a certain someone who highly recommended this pub in particular.

“Lady De Lisle,” Caed says, looking surprised. “It-it’s lovely to see you again.”

“I’m honored you remember me,” the girl replies and does that thing with her eyelashes that girls often do when they look at Caed. “But please—call me Renée. Lady De Lisle sounds so very formal considering the setting.”

Before Caed can respond, a young man with a shock of bright red hair and a toothy grin pipes up. “Evening, Your Grace—err, Your Graces?” I wave him on, unbothered by his less-than-stellar comportment. He recovers and immediately swipes a couple chairs from a nearby table, wresting them from their current occupants with only moderate difficulty, as the rest of the table’s inhabitants shift to make room for us. The redhead sets the chairs down in place, shooting us another grin. As I take my seat beside him, his hand lingers on the back of my chair for a moment before he resumes his place in the seat to my right.

“Err, thank you,” Caed says in his charmingly wrong-footed way.

Several of our new companions eye him speculatively—and a couple throw glances my way as well. I’m used to it. I’m not sore on the eyes by any means, but, well, Caed is Caed. He’s got that particular kind of sad-but-in-a-hot-way look that is oh so compelling. Sometimes I curse the leggy bastard for his luck and how little he uses it, but at the end of the day my love for him runs deeper than any resentment ever could.

Renée leans towards Caed and rests a hand on his chair, just shy of his shoulder. “I know Cindwick must be terribly boring, Your Highness, but please don’t begrudge our provincial city”—I snort. As if Cindwick could be considered a city—“for its dearth of spectacle. What we lack in amenities, we more than make up for in hospitality.” Her voice is low and sweet and she has those big, dark doe eyes that could make a sucker out of anyone. She may have lucked into the one remaining seat next to our prince, but I doubt it. No one gets that close to Caed without a certain measure of cunning. At any rate, she is certainly dressed like someone who thoroughly intends to bed a prince. And with tits like those, maybe she can manage it. Beside me, Caed’s face has taken on a new warmth.

“That’s very, um, kind of you,” Caed replies. She is going to eat him alive.

Drinks are shared all around and Renée introduces the rest of the table. It’s cute, really, the way she holds court here—when she isn’t making eyes at Caed, of course. She might do well if she ever manages to escape this backwater town.

The red-haired boy is Aurik and he is Ogren born. I eye him. He catches me looking and goes red all the way to his hairline. I smirk. I’ve heard it said that if you stand in a room full of Ogrench folk, like as not more than half their number can’t claim to be wholly human.

The Ogrench are a disparate, scattered people that live and die by the whims of the fae that possess the land around them. They welcome the wild folk, the oddballs, the loners: those individuals formed just left of conventional acceptability. They have a reputation for eccentricity—and monster fucking. Lots of monster fucking. Unfortunately, Aurik isn’t sitting quite close enough for me to discern his scent from the general odor of human bodies and alcohol. Pity. I like a little spice in my trysts.

From the back of the tavern comes the plucking of a mandolin. We offer our applause as a gaggle of threadbare musicians starts up a boisterous tune. I don’t know if Renée planned this beforehand or if someone ran to rouse this troupe after our arrival. Regardless, we are all several cups in and with much laughter and joking, our group rises asynchronously from the table to claim the only standing space in the pub for our dancing. They do it differently in the country—for all that I’ve had my share of raucous good times in the city, there is a spirited gaiety to this crowd’s rustic jubilance.

The basics remain the same—a quick tempo, a rousing beat, and dancing that focuses on footwork and agility—but proper dancing allows for little to no physical contact between participants. That is very much not the case tonight. Though we happy revelers may have started in neat lines, before the second song ends, our formation has dissolved into a mess of giggles and shoddy footwork. Many of us list awkwardly to one side or the other, clinging to our comrades to remain upright. We are all of us young and alive, our faces flushed in equal measure from drink and exertion.

Aurik is giggling helplessly on the floor where he collapsed after I spun him perhaps a little too enthusiastically. Grinning widely, I pull him back to standing. He wobbles for a moment before stepping into my space and kissing me. His arms move to twine around my neck. He’s a good few inches taller than I am and he’s all loose-limbed and relaxed.

Hands on his hips, I guide him backwards until he’s steadied against the edge of a table. His lips are chapped and eager and his breath is terrible, but it’s by no means a bad kiss. And finally, I can discern his scent from that of the crowd. Aurik smells like sweat and apples and something else. It’s musky and bitter but not altogether unpleasant. I break away and drink him in: his parted, kiss-swollen lips, the way his fingers dig into my shoulders, the press of his erection against my hip.

I’m vaguely aware of someone wolf whistling in our direction. I turn to them and laugh as they heckle us. Aurik ducks his head forward, lips just shy of my neck, his humid breath gusting over my skin. We’re not the only ones who have decided to get a little handsy. It’s a bit of a spectacle, the way so many of us have broken off into couples to flirt and to kiss. It’s not something you’d ever see in the capital—not with people around, not in an open room like this, not without plausible deniability. It’s about as Nadaran as the fresh layer of red paint on the town’s dais.

I glance over to the bartender, a middle-aged woman with shrewd eyes. She seems in equal measure irritated and amused to have her bar overrun by amorous twenty-somethings, but there’s none of the appalled outrage I’d usually expect and she is not so nettled that she’ll turn down good coin. One of the patrons hunched over the bar watches us grumpily, his frown growing more pronounced with every second. Before I can get up and give him something to really frown about, he catches me looking, flinches and hastily turns away.

My gaze falls to Caed, who is surrounded by a gaggle of bright-eyed admirers. They’re still dancing, their movements enthusiastic and disorderly, made clumsy by laughter and drink. Caed even looks like he’s managing to have fun for once. There is a high flush in his cheeks and an utterly helpless smile upon his lips. He has no idea what his face does to people. It’s a horrible thing to see—horrible and deeply charming. Renée grabs his shoulder, ostensibly to steady herself, while coincidentally pressing her bosom into his arm. I’ve left my poor, dear, defenseless prince to the wolves.

I give Aurik a kiss on the cheek. He whines as I detach myself from him to join the crowd. Near half the bar is up now, dancing and laughing and touching, and those few remained sitting have huddled at the far end of the pub where all the tables have been pushed together to make room. There must be something in the water—or, I suppose, the mead. I hold my hand out towards Caed and I watch curiosity bloom on his face as he notices the gesture. Still, he takes my hand, and I pull him into a wild, jubilant dance that leaves us both red-faced and panting.

Caed’s admirers join us readily. There’s so many bodies pressed closely together now. Aurik presses into me from behind, his breath hot on the back of my neck, and I stumble forward into Caed, who staggers to catch me. For a moment, our lips brush and my prince looks surprised. He startles in place, a lone pillar of stillness in a sea of swaying bodies. I’m almost too drunk to feel anxious. Almost. I always want this—want him—in that awful, breathless way and I know he feels it too. It’s a fragile thing, an unspoken boundary where I wait and wait and wait.

And then he’s smiling at me and I can feel it—the gentle bow of his lips, the quiet elation echoing through our Bond. His mead sweetened breath touches my face. His gaze falls to my mouth. I place my hands on either side of his stupid, handsome face and pull him down into a proper kiss—one with feeling and, more importantly, tongue.

He may kiss another and I may do the same, but when it comes to his heart—when it matters—he is mine.

When we part, Caed is all aglow and laughing, laughing, laughing. The bar is a blur of lights around us. As Caed turns his head, Renée leans into him kisses him. Someone gives a loud whoop and as they break apart, Renée wears her triumph in the brilliance of her smile.

Aurik’s thumb finds the curve of my jaw and tips my chin up and back to meet his hungry, lingering lips.

❖   

I spend my first few moments after rousing feeling pleasantly warm. I luxuriate in a patch of sunlight and in the gentle give of a body beneath mine. My head feels warm and muddled and honey-filled. The sweetness of last night’s mead has turned sour in my mouth, deliciously foul in the way only a night of revelry and bad decisions can be. To my left, Aurik sleeps on his side, his mouth open and drooling, shirt laces undone, one hand resting covetously on my lower back. To my right, Renée is curled up against Caed, her breasts near spilling out of her sleep wrinkled dress, her dark hair a sprawling mess of tangles.

And Caed… Caed is beneath me.

My prince is splayed out on his back in the center of the room atop a heap of blankets. His head is tilted slightly to one side, his thin lips just parted as he snores gently. I rouse to find my face pressed into his neck, my forehead kissed by the rasp of his scruff, my nose filled with the spicy scent of his soap. I’m half atop him, my hand on his chest, one leg thrust between his.

It takes me a rather embarrassing amount of time to realize this. It’s his scent that does it: not just the spice of the soap, but the scent that is distinctly his, a heady fullness I can never quite put words to. It’s the smell of Caederyn, of home, a smell I could recognize amongst any number of humans. I curl into him, still not fully awake, and filled with a deep, pervasive contentment.

I feel, then, the pressure of him hard against my leg. It takes several long moments for my head to grasp this—like waiting for the last grain of sand to trickle down the hourglass. A ready flush heats my cheeks as a wanting rises in my heart. I raise myself slightly, just enough to catch a glimpse of his sweet, sleeping face. My crop of short curls falls forward over my brow and I think perhaps I am close enough to press a kiss to his lovely mouth—only, he is sleeping no longer. Caed smiles at me, soft and unguarded, all his usual tension and worry melted clean away. He is close enough that I can feel his breath, warm and sour, on my face.

Caed winces and looses a small groan. He raises a hand to cover his eyes. Though I don’t share his pain, it echoes sympathetically through our Bond, that distinct ringing of a truly magnificent hangover. I laugh, distracted, and raise a finger to my mouth yet again. I shift one of my canines to grow long and sharp and with it I prick my forefinger. Smiling, I press a dot of my blood to my prince’s mouth. His lips close around the pad of my finger, his tongue darting forward to catch my offering. A few moments later he exhales a sigh of relief and his hand lowers from his brow, his headache eased.

And then he’s there, just inches away, his dark eyes open and regarding me soberly with my finger pressed to his lips and I feel suddenly wrong-footed. I can hardly breathe. His lips part and I can see him thinking, noticing, feeling. His face colors and I think he must have finally felt the unconscious intent in my finger on his lips, the pressure of his cock against me—and, well, the answering heat of my body, as that tide of wanting has quickly grown to a tidal wave.

There is a moment when I remember the feeling of his lips last night, the taste of his laughter and the alcohol on his breath. We lay there, together, completely still and I realize we’re both thinking about that night, that kiss. It’s a terribly fragile moment, no more than a breath between the serenity of half-waking and the cold thrill as we grow suddenly, thoroughly conscious of one another. Caed looks away, his lips pursed tightly, and it’s gone. I immediately withdraw my hand as if slapped.

“We need to get up,” Caed rasps, his throat dry. “We likely should have left already. I don’t want to delay our departure.”

He leaves it unspoken that our lateness will irk his father. He doesn’t need to say it, I can read it in the tension in his mouth. Caed sits up and I slide back to sit in front of him, our legs still mingled, but everything else about us separated.

“It’s fine if we’re a little late,” I reassure him. I know the moment has left us despite the lingering softness within me.

“No,” he replies. “We’ll need to prepare for our next trip as soon as we reach home. There’s much that needs doing.”

“Our next trip?” I ask, surprised. I worry my lower lip, disconcerted that this is the first I’m hearing of this. “Where are we going?”

Caed is silent for a good few moments. I watch him curiously but he won’t meet my eyes, likely still embarrassed and overly conscious of my proximity.

Finally, he answers: “Voswain.”

I pull a face. “Oh, Solene’s tits, do we have to? I’d rather not freeze my bits off, thanks.”

I expect something: a small smile, a look of exasperation—anything to lessen this tension between us. I get nothing. Caed’s hands are fisted tightly, one resting on the floor, one over his lap. And still, he won’t quite meet my eyes.

“I’ve decided to accept Princess Allene’s proposal. We’ll depart soon for an engagement celebration and then she’ll return with us.”

His words hit me like a ton of shit-covered bricks. That fullness, that lightness, that happiness, which were so strong within me just minutes ago, go out in an instant—a brilliant flame snuffed by a sudden, violent downpour. He is mine. Mine to keep and to hold and to know. His future and mine are one and the same. No one knows more about Caed than I do. But I didn’t know this.

“Oh,” I say, all the weight of my soul held in that one syllable. I have no idea what sort of expression I am wearing. I can only watch as the force of my emotion reverberates through our Bond and reaches Caed. I know it hits him when I see him wince. “You never… You didn’t say anything.”

Caed shrugs uncomfortably and rises to his feet. “It… it was a decision I needed to make for myself.”

“Oh,” I say again.

I remember when he received the proposal months ago. He’d shown me her letter wordlessly and we’d both taken a few minutes to be baffled before (I had assumed) the topic was dropped and her proposition politely refused.

As royal children, Caed and Allene (and, by association, myself) have had irregular contact throughout the years, coming together whenever there was cause for intercontinental celebration. I know Caed and Allene exchange letters with some regularity as well. He used to read them to me, though they were so completely boring I might as well have not heard them at all, for all the information I retained. He eventually gave up on including me and kept them to himself, an act I found only mildly less annoying. I’m so fucking stupid.

It’s not until I look up and see him gazing down at me impatiently, his hand held out, that I realize I haven’t moved from the floor. I take his proffered hand, marveling at how skin which felt so warm last night now feels cold and clammy. As soon as I’m on my feet, I jerk my hand back from his and cross my arms over my chest, squaring my shoulders.

It’s not just Aurik and Renée that slept here last night. There’s a sizable group sprawled across the tavern’s largest room, most of them on the floor, though some managed to crowd together on the twin threadbare beds and the single pathetic armchair. We pick our way through the sea of snoring bodies, careful so as not to tread on any stray limbs. If any were woken by our passing, they do not make it known.

Lonan is waiting for us outside the room’s door.

“Did you sleep out here?” I ask him.

“Didn’t sleep,” he replies over an ill-disguised yawn. He has such a sweet face: soft and open and utterly guileless, his round jaw emphasized by his sweeping page cut. “At least, I don’t think I did…”

As we head down the hallway, Caed asks, “Why didn’t you rouse us earlier, Sir Lonan? We should have left—sun above, I don’t even know what time it is, but I know we’re late!”

Lonan rubs at the back of his neck with a hand. “It was your name day, Highness. I thought you could use a bit of a break.”

Caed huffs out a breath that says just about everything he feels about that. “Thank you, Sir Lonan, I appreciate your consideration. But please do not do so again.”

Caed and I depart from the inn with dead air between us, just us two and Lonan a few paces behind in the early morning light of an irritatingly beautiful day. We leave a room full of happy, slumbering young fools behind us. Though the events of this day have resounded loudly in my mind and heart, I realize that all together, it has been a quiet morning.

I can only hear his words booming in my brain: It was a decision I needed to make for myself. We are Bonded, he and I: always together, made whole by each other, separate only in death. Any choice made by one of us binds the other just as deeply. King Rynnwald lost his Yuen a quarter century past and grieves him still.

“I suppose congratulations are in order,” I say, not believing the words coming out of my own mouth. They feel wooden, flat and emotionless.

“Thanks,” Caed says, after a long silence. “I really appreciate your support.”

I almost feel like laughing.