Chapter 18 #2
Vandor slid them closer. “I do. Now then, does Daven also have coffee?”
The Academy spread wide beneath the late morning sun, glass towers catching the light as students crossed the marble paths in steady streams.
Helion really was beautiful.
When Lysa and Karo told him the buildings were made of glass, he had assumed it was a fairytale. It wasn’t.
“So the rumor was right. It’s all glass?” he asked Vandor.
Vandor shook his head, not keeping his eyes off the road. “Glass is for prestige. You’ll only find it in the city center. Ask Daven; he’s obsessed with them.”
“Do you also have suburbs? Poverty?”
Vandor’s lips twitched. “And cemeteries. And creepy hospitals.”
“Do you have a Ward?” The question slipped out before Ryneth could swallow the words.
Vandor just shook his head.
“Are you from Helion?”
Vandor tipped his chin toward the curb. “They’re here for you.”
“Yes. Sure.” Ryneth swallowed, his mouth going dry as the car rolled forward. Something tightened in his ribs. Without Daven beside him, without that loud presence and heat filling the space, the world felt larger. It felt louder.
The vehicle slowed at the drop lane.
What was that meeting with the Imperial about?
He hadn’t asked.
He hadn’t dared.
But he told himself Daven would be back soon.
The car door opened. Vandor stepped out first.
Cyprian was already waiting near the curb, hands loosely in his pockets. He inclined his head toward Vandor in greeting. “Morning.”
“Cyprian.”
Mirel stood beside him, pale hair catching the light. When Vandor’s eyes found him, something shifted just slightly. Not enough for anyone else to notice.
“You good?” Vandor asked, pulling him briefly into a one-armed hug.
“Y-yeah.”
Several students slowed as they passed. Conversations dipped.
Ryneth felt exposed. Too exposed. Static sat behind his fingers, itching to come out and shock everyone away.
And without Daven next to him, the air pressed differently against his shoulders.
“Ryneth, meet Archer,” Cyprian said. “Archer, this is Ryneth. Daven’s—” He let out an uncomfortable chuckle and gestured beside him, where a ginger-haired man with freckles stood. “I told you about him.”
“So you’re the guy who makes the best tiganos on Helion?”
Archer pushed his fingers through his hair and offered a small, almost apologetic smile. “Apparently that’s my defining trait now.”
Cyprian snorted softly. “You do. They’re the best.”
“Tell that to Aviel. He’d probably eat me alive.”
“You have Helianth to protect you.”
Archer laughed awkwardly, color rising in his cheeks. “Fuck off.”
“Come on, you know it’s true.”
“Anyway.” Archer turned back to Ryneth, still smiling. “You should try it yourself. Come for breakfast this weekend?”
Ryneth hesitated, unsure what to say. “That sounds great. Thank you.”
“Right. That’s settled. Want to grab a drink before the statement?”
“Before the statement?” Ryneth echoed. His stomach tightened as he replayed last night’s conversation. Whatever Daven had meant, everyone else seemed to understand it better than he did.
He stopped at Tavi.
Tavi was okay. Tavi’s healthcare was upgraded.
That was enough.
But even as he told himself that, his skin gave a low thrum. The static under it smoothed and stirred like it was listening for someone who wasn’t there.
Still, he managed a smile. “Sure.”
They moved together across the courtyard. All around them, students slowed or glanced their way.
“This is n-normal,” Mirel said, lingering to catch up. A Luminary guard followed a few steps behind him.
“People watching, or guards following us?”
Mirel blushed. “P-people. The guard—he’s just here for m-me. K-Kylix wants me safe.”
Cyprian turned over his shoulder and smiled at his brother. Then his gaze shifted to Ryneth. “Ignore the others. Don’t let it get to you.”
“They get bored fast,” Archer added.
Grass edged the stone walkways, where clusters of students were already gathering near the suspended holo-screen that hung above the commons.
Ryneth wasn’t sure that was true.
Energy buzzed beneath the surface.
“It’s starting soon,” someone nearby whispered.
They stopped at a small kiosk near the edge of the courtyard. Archer ordered without asking and handed Ryneth a cup.
“Let’s sit over there.” Cyprian gestured toward a tree where a group of students were already gathered.
Ryneth recognized the blond hair of Helianth, who waved as soon as he saw them.
“There he is. The lucky man,” Helianth said as they joined him, Yure, and a handful of students wearing the same Luminary brooch as Vandor.
Helianth nudged him in the side. “How did he ask for it?”
Ryneth’s hand trembled around the cup at the memory of last night. Heat rushed into his face. Of Daven on his knees. Of his weeping cock in that filthy, hot mouth as he’d looked up at him. Of Daven’s cock inside his ass. He hadn’t even fucked him; he’d just kept it there, because he could.
Then Mara’s chip flashed through his mind. The carved words. The jolt it had sent through him.
“He didn’t really ask,” he admitted. “He decided. For us.”
Whatever Helions called it, Daven had never made it sound like a choice.
Helianth blinked. “What? And you just let him?”
Heat climbed into Ryneth’s face. He looked down at his cup. “It wasn’t exactly something I could stop.”
Helianth rolled his eyes. “Light. What an asshole.”
The words should have settled it, but they didn’t. Ryneth’s skin still thrummed when he thought about him. Daven’s bed had started to feel too warm to leave, and his absence had started to feel wrong. That scared Ryneth more than anything.
“My fellow Helions.” Imperial Milanov’s voice rolled across the courtyard from the suspended holo-screen.
Ryneth jerked and looked up. He had been so caught up in his own thoughts that he hadn’t even noticed the screen activate.
“We have come here together today with great news.”
A hush spread through the gathered students. Helianth stilled beside him, and Mirel shifted a little closer on his other side, his shoulder brushing Ryneth’s arm. Archer muttered something under his breath from just behind them, but Ryneth barely caught it.
Moargan stood beside Milanov in a white cape with the hood trimmed in pale fur. Both men’s blond hair had been styled for the broadcast, their expressions composed in that polished way Ryneth had already learned to distrust.
“My nephew, Daven Caelith, has found his match. Today, in front of you, he will make his public claim.”
Daven stepped into view.
His hair was immaculate, his jaw set, that familiar smirk already in place. The one Ryneth had come to hate. The one his body still answered to in ways that made no sense.
His breath caught.
“My dear Helions,” Daven began. “I thank you for your attention—”
Imperial Milanov stepped forward again before he could continue.
“Everyone remain calm. Justice will be delivered for those taken from us. We will not allow criminal organizations to spread terror in our world. Our hospitals are already feeling the consequences of Attica’s poison.
This will be addressed. The Imperial family stands united. Helion remains protected.”
He paused, letting the silence hold.
“As tradition demands, an Aureate will follow. A national celebration of the union. The date will be announced. The public claim is made today. Their bonding will take place tonight. In private.”
Around them, the courtyard broke into cheers.
Ryneth stopped breathing.
He had known. Or at least feared. Public meant public.
He had understood that much the moment Daven said it last night, and even this morning the words had sat in his chest like a stone.
But some part of him, some stubborn, frightened part that still thought like a boy from the Ward, had kept insisting Daven would never truly do it.
A prince might want to fuck him. A prince might drag him into bed and talk about possession like it was a game.
But claiming him in front of the whole planet was something else.
And Daven had done it anyway.
Heat rushed into his face so fast it made his eyes sting. Goosebumps swept over his skin. His stomach dropped hard enough to hurt, and under all of it, beneath the fear and the humiliation and the rising pressure in his chest, the thrum in his blood answered all the same, warm and traitorous.
Daven lifted his gaze toward the camera with slow, deliberate ease.
“And to the one who thinks he can hide in a crowd,” he said, his smile sharpening as the words landed, “I’ll finish what I started tonight.”
A wave of gasps rolled through the courtyard.
Somewhere to his left, Helianth swore under his breath.
Mirel made a small sound that might have been surprise, and Archer shifted behind them, suddenly too close, too present, while the students around them began looking from the screen to the crowd as if the whole courtyard had turned into a hunt.
Ryneth barely heard any of it.
His thoughts crashed over one another too fast to follow. If he kept his head down, if he stood still enough, if he stopped breathing, maybe he could disappear into the bodies around him. Maybe he could vanish before anyone traced the shape of Daven’s words back to him.
The thrum under his skin only grew stronger.
Goosebumps rose along the back of his neck as the weight of a hundred glances seemed to settle over him all at once. He could feel them. Light, he could fucking feel them.
He shifted, trying to stand, but a firm hand closed around his arm before he got far.
Vandor.
The Luminary guard’s grip locked around his sleeve, steady and unyielding, and when Ryneth looked up, the man’s face gave away nothing.
“You’re okay,” Vandor said, low enough that only he could hear.
Ryneth’s skin felt slick with sweat. His chest rose and fell too fast, his pulse kicking hard against his throat while the holo-screen washed the courtyard in pale light.
All he could do was stare upward and hear Daven’s promise ringing through his skull.
Tonight.