Epilogue #3
Sun gave him a look. “You’re worried, so I am worried.
How did they even hear of you anyway? There are no songs about you leaving your noble family to join the Outguard.
” He grumbled that, as he had grumbled it since hearing the first song about young Arden.
Stolen valor, he called it, as though Arden had written the songs himself.
“Probably from someone else in the guard,” Westin guessed. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does. It puts you smack in the middle of all this.”
“Us,” Westin corrected him, smiling for no logical reason.
Sun huffed. “You means me. You’re mine. You know this, West.”
“I do.” Westin smiled a little wider, then pulled Sun’s hand to his mouth so that he could kiss the inside of his wrist and enjoy the warmed-violet scent that never really left Sun now. “No amount of pouting beat-of-fours could ever rival you and the trouble you stir up.”
“They’ll try,” Sun promised, veering close to a growl again. He lowered his voice and was frowning when he bent his head to speak. “If every single one of these noble families is to be appeased by being allowed to contribute to this shitshow, it will be chaos.”
Westin nodded. Sun’s opinions on such things were rarely wrong. Sun had been with him through each negotiation over the past decades, whether they were to protect the people on Corilyeth lands or to establish peace elsewhere, and he had always been good at determining what others wanted.
Sun lowered his voice even more. “If anyone is going to try again to take the throne, they will do it soon. Probably in the midst of all that chaos while the besotted king and his first consort are distracted.”
Westin nodded again, slower. “I suspect the king and his husband are aware of this. I’d be very surprised if they weren’t.”
“But the nobles want a showy end to the fighting, and a showy new beginning, and their chance to push themselves into favor, so a large, public wedding it must be.” Sun wrinkled his nose. “Our wedding was better.”
“I don’t think the people would like the idea of the king hand-fasting to an Arlylian in a curtained booth in Solace House.” Westin was surprised his tone stayed mild, but then, the warmed-violet scent of Sun was nearly guaranteed to soothe him. “Though Solace House would love the business.”
“You think you’re funny,” Sun complained. “Fuck you.”
He got another horrified yet admiring glance from the Balylithan.
“Brat,” Westin declared with fondness, perhaps drawing some eyes to him as well. But he kept his serious question for the two of them alone. “We can leave. I am not obligated to be here.”
“And not know what’s going on?” Sun was outraged. “Leaving it to these people to keep the peace?” His disdain was obvious. “They fuck it up and we’ve got another twenty years of struggling to look forward to.”
“Ah.” Westin kissed the inside of Sun’s wrist again. “So you don’t care about the particulars, only the results? I could send you out, give you some coin to go shopping so you won’t be bored by all this.”
“Fuck you,” Sun said again, and without any concern for dignity—his or Westin’s—squeezed around the table and plopped onto Westin’s lap.
There was a stir throughout the room; many nobles might fuck a sworn guard but few married them.
And the ones that did likely did not sit this way during important meetings.
Westin focused on pulling Sun against his chest to try to force an impudent wolfling to be still, and enjoyed the silky texture of Sun’s hair as he nuzzled it shamelessly.
Sun had two knives Westin could feel: one beneath his shirt and vest, another in a sleeve.
“Bored?” Sun challenged. “You think I’ll be bored? I won’t be able to take my eyes off you.” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “They’ll come for you too, you know, if they think it will help. They always do when you do this, and the stakes are higher now.”
So Sun was already prepared. There were probably more knives Westin hadn’t yet found.
Westin raised his head, unsurprised to find many staring at them, including the three by the window. The little Arlylian had bright, curious eyes.
“The two of us,” Westin whispered back, his gaze meeting the king’s again, “against everyone in this room but those three.” He hesitated before adding, “And those two.” He carefully lifted his fingers to gesture toward Jola of the Canamorra and Cael of the Rossick.
“And possibly that Master Keeper in the corner if librarians are as loyal to each other as outguards are.” Sun wriggled, perhaps objecting, perhaps just wanting to feel Westin’s cock twitch.
“That’s why he chose us, because we’re former outguards, or perhaps because of the reputation the Corilyeth have earned these twenty years.
Or perhaps because he knows he’s not the first beat-of-four to marry an outguard and he is counting on us for help. ”
Sun abruptly settled. “You think he knows that?”
Westin spoke against Sun’s ear and all the pretty cuffs Westin had personally put there that morning.
“I think he knows that.” The how didn’t matter, at least not for the moment, although Westin almost glanced back to Jola and Cael and their quiet, intimate conversation.
“I believe he wants peace, and he wants his Arlylian, but if it comes down to it… well. I understand what he might choose. His bear of a husband would choose the same. I’d count on that.
But he prefers the first option. That’s why I’m here.
Oh.” Westin considered that again. “That’s exactly why I’m here.
An outsider but a noble. An outguard in a pairing of love, with years of experience serving as judge to other beat-of-fours. ”
“He could have just said so,” Sun nearly moaned it, definitely wriggling to try to get Westin hard, grinding his hips in front of every important beat-of-four in the country. Though admittedly, only a few of them seemed scandalized.
“Would you have?” Westin asked the back of Sun’s head, nosing at the cuffed shell of one ear. “Would you even say such a thing to me now, wolfling?”
“The king is not a…” Sun stopped, thinking the idea through. “You think he’s like me.” His voice was impossible to read.
“If his life was even a fraction of what the songs about him say,” Westin admitted. “Then yes, he is like you.” Slow to trust and open to only a handful of people. “So what do you think? You were better at spotting what people want long before Hely improved your skills with lessons.”
“Hely,” Sun growled, but reflexively, because he knew it amused Westin and not for any other reason.
He took a deep breath. “The three at the window are far outnumbered by the potential threats in this room. Even the nobles inclined to peace or to like the king all have their own agenda. Even you have an agenda, though it’s only to protect what is yours.
And that means he can never really trust. Maybe he never trusted anyone until he met them.
His husbands.” Sun stopped for a moment, giving away more than he liked to, but only to Westin, who was allowed to know. “And he is our hope for peace.”
There was no denying that, unless one happened to be a foolishly ambitious noble.
“If he gets you killed, I’ll kill him myself,” Sun added, calm about it.
“If I can get through that hulking brute of a first husband. I might be older and slower now, but the big ones always have a weakness. West,” Sun stopped again, then continued on, lofty and light, “do you think they’re all imagining you fucking me like this? ”
Some of them undoubtedly were. Westin was too old and too trained by Sun to feel much embarrassment about it anymore.
“Yes.” He kissed Sun’s ear. At the window, the king smiled again. “So we’re agreed then?”
Sun squirmed, once again intentionally. Thankfully, it took a little more to get Westin hard these days, so when Sun stood up and took his place back at Westin’s shoulder, Westin wasn't too visibly aroused. The table was there to hide much in any case.
Sun scanned the room like the former outguard and survivor he was, then murmured, “Agreed. But you still owe me your mouth.”
Westin captured Sun’s hand again simply to hold it. He met the eyes of the king and slowly inclined his head. Arden’s dark eyes filled with fire, then he began gently leading his husbands toward the table and the rest of the nobles in the room began to follow suit.
“It’s a lovely day to begin such an endeavor,” Westin remarked, reassured to hear Sun’s scoff. Whatever Westin might have added, he forgot when a slight figure in a brightly embroidered robe dropped into the seat on his left and immediately leaned closer.
Mattin of the Arlylian, who almost definitely was not supposed to be so close to someone he didn’t know, judging from the alarm on the faces of both his hovering husbands, was no more than twenty-six, with warm brown eyes full of interest and arms full of the two books he seemed to have forgotten that he held.
“Westin of the Corilyeth?” He named Westin without any hesitation over the abandoned fifth beat. “I’m so glad you came. Your reputation precedes you, and I knew you’d be helpful.”
“Sass.” Mil Wulfa’s gruff, quiet objection was waved away.
Mattin finally put his books down, scooting them to one side as if he was aware that he was not in his proper seat and would have to move soon. Or be moved, likely. Mil Wulfa appeared more than capable of simply hefting him up and depositing him somewhere else.
“You invited me?” Westin couldn’t help a moment of confusion, particularly when the king stood pointedly at Mattin’s other shoulder like a worried mother hen.
“I’ve read so many reports of you.” As if sensing danger, Mattin lifted an arm to gesture behind him.
He clucked his tongue when the king captured his hand and did not return it.
“As well as the finished documents of agreements you helped get made. Well, copies of those. I’m a Master Keeper.
They go back to your time in the Outguard.
You witnessed quite a few judgments and we—the others at the library and I—have long suspected you had a hand in those too.
More than as a witness, I mean. So I wanted to thank you for coming.
Will you visit the library if you have time while you’re here, or perhaps when you return for the wedding?
Several of the Keepers would love to get your memories of those events in the records. ”
“Dear heart,” said the king, in a tone Westin didn’t think he wanted to read. Westin hadn’t been in the Great Library for over twenty years but he remembered what the assistants were like, although he doubted that was what the little Arlylian meant.
But Sun might have thought so. He slipped his hand free of Westin’s in order to press down hard and unyielding on his shoulder.
“Finally, some appreciation.” Sun was pleasant, almost charming, despite the fact that sworn guards generally didn’t speak up in such moments. He also knew what library assistants were like. “I’ve been telling him he’s special for nearly three decades now. But maybe he’ll believe it from you.”
Mattin got a worried look on his face but had no chance to ask any further questions. As predicted, he was picked up and set on his feet and then urged one chair down, where Mil Wulfa then stood at his elbow between him and the now-empty seat.
The seat the king sat in, putting Westin on his right.
“You trust me that much?” Westin heard himself asking, his surprise at being so honored undoubtedly obvious.
Arden of the Canamorra gave Westin a careful study.
“The guard who left and took the infamous wolfling with him? Even if Mil and I hadn’t known you for that, Mattin put together information on you for me to read.
” He lifted his chin to address Sun. “Does he always fret like this, Sunlark of South Burrow?”
Sun relaxed his grip, though only slightly. “Until he has resolved the problem, yes. Most people don’t notice.”
Westin got the feeling Arden noticed many things, and what he didn’t, Mil did. And what he didn’t, Mattin would discover in a dusty volume dragged from the depths of the Great Library.
An odd light filled Westin’s chest, and a faint, sweet scent drifted to him for a moment. Perhaps it was the white blossoms. Perhaps it was the fae blessing of hope.
“This is indeed a problem that needs resolving if we want this peace to last.” Arden was serious, nodding to someone sitting down at Westin’s right. To Cael of the Rossick, calm and unimpressed. Arden suddenly smiled, looking almost like a boy. “I couldn’t leave it all to Cael.”
Westin inhaled to steady himself.
“Then I am happy to help. Although all I really do is listen.” He ignored the noise of protest from Sun. “That’s all most people want, really. To be heard.”
Mattin had a pencil in his hand. Where he’d pulled it from, Westin didn’t know, but he appeared to be writing down Westin’s words.
“Excellent,” Mattin muttered as he scribbled, leaving Westin to be studied once again by two husbands and a Rossick. Studied by the entire room, perhaps, with everyone no doubt wondering why someone from an obscure and fallen family had this much attention.
The first day of negotiations had not even begun and Westin found himself longing for tea, or at least some sort of distraction.
Sun, fae-blessed brat that he was, spoke in a carrying voice.
“Keeper Arlylian, those are some beautiful clasps in your hair. I don’t suppose you know of a place in the capital that does work in gold? I’m looking for a particular piece.”
Westin tugged Sun’s wrist to his mouth. A king and two husbands and dozens of nobles were before him. Peace was before him, if he tried. He hoped the blossoms in view were there to tell him to try. To show him what was waiting for him if he succeeded.
Flowers that Sun liked, and a garden where he owed Sun the use of his mouth, and more lovely days like this one, even with the hint of a chill.
A sign, perhaps. Hope again.
Westin sighed and let go, turning his attention at last to the waiting nobles.
“Shall we begin?”
The End