Nine
L ouise seemed not even to think it odd when Cin didn’t push to join the family for the ball.
He smiled and spouted something about responsibility and how parties were for children anyway, and his stepmother ate the idea right up.
She hugged him for it, brimming with an emotion that Cin wanted to believe was pride, if it hadn’t been for how readily she’d already lied to him about the previous week’s ball.
She climbed onto their carriage’s driver box without a second look back.
Cin called his birds around him the moment his family was out of sight. Wearing his new, sure boots he sped his magical steed off across the fields to reach the main road before the carriage could. It was as much extra time as he could give himself. It would have to do.
The journey through the city was just as beautiful and festive as the first night of the ball, the lights still dazzling, and food and drink overflowing, but Cin moved all the faster through the busy streets, offering his information to the castle guards without being asked, and hurried inside.
His heart pounded as he entered. His palms began to sweat. He felt absurd suddenly.
What was he even meant to do here, now? Eat the same food, admire the same decor, chat with people he would never see again, and all the while wait to be swept off his feet by the crowned—
But there he was. Prince Lorenz, strolling down the side of the dance floor, his hair lightly mussed beneath his circlet and drifting in a breeze that might have been coming off the dancers to his right, or through the open doors to the garden on his left, or from nowhere at all—just a part of the magic of his beauty.
The prince exchanged words with each guest who went out of their way to catch his attention, as charming and graceful as ever.
As he worked his way through the crowd, Cin thought of the rare times he'd seen Prince Lorenz's older brother, twice during a visit to his town and once in the city, so young then that he'd been hoisted on his birth-mother's shoulders to see.
"Look at the way our future king shines with goodness! There is a man so blessed!" she'd said to Cin then.
Cin's mother wasn't alone in the feeling. He'd been just as in awe of the young royal who'd strode through the crowd as had the rest of them, taken in by the easy way Prince Adalwin greeted his people, both humbly gracious and breathtakingly regal.
Here, now, with the elder prince lost, his younger brother had made a good play at wearing that mask.
He’d kept it so tight to his face that Cin would have sworn he was basking in his guests’ attention, had he not seen a far more reclusive side from the prince during their time on the balcony the previous week.
But somehow, the beautiful man enchanting the world before Cin was only half as interesting or desirable to him as that witty, thoughtful version he'd spent time alone with.
Cin was so eager to see that prince—more eager than he cared to admit.
As the prince's gaze slid his way though, Cin ducked instinctively to the side.
He didn't understand why he did it, he just did, slipping into the shadows and tucking half behind a pillar for good measure. It was ridiculous, and he knew it. But it felt wrong suddenly, to want this. To want him. To want anything that wasn’t for his family, for their future.
It was so unlike Cin.
Attending the ball had been one thing; of course he deserved a good meal and music and festivities as much as the rest of his family and town and kingdom.
But Prince Lorenz's attention? What right had he to desire that?
Especially when he was never going to be the one to wear the prince's ring, take his name, lead his kingdom.
Yet his body seemed not to recognize that fact, the tug in his gut demanding to look once more. To look, and yearn. Maybe he had no right to want this, but he did. Was it such a sin to give into himself, just this once? It would only go on for so long, after all…
When Cin glanced around the side of the pillar, though, the prince had vanished.
He took a step, then another, slowly meandering toward one of the dessert tables as no princes spontaneously appeared from within the crowd.
Trying not to feel as though this was God's punishment for his cowardice—or worse, his desire—he picked up a small pastry with an apple slice in the center just to give himself something to focus on.
The crisp folds crumbled in his distracted hold.
“Usually, we let our teeth do that work,” said a lofty voice from beside Cin. Lofty, but good-natured, and oh-so-beautifully smug.
Cin deposited the mutilated dessert onto his tongue, making a show of chewing as he turned to meet the prince’s gaze. He swallowed, then deliberately licked both fingers. “Please don’t tell me what to do with my mouth, Your Royal Highness.”
It had sounded less like a sex-thing in his head, but for the way it made Prince Lorenz laugh, the innuendo was worth it.
“You continue to mystify me, my dove,” he said, shaking his head.
Without warning, he pushed past Cin, and grabbed a different pastry off the table—no apple in the core of this one, but each lovely fold looked so delicate and purposeful. “Here...”
Prince Lorenz lifted the dessert up to Cin’s mouth, and Cin only realized how far his lips hung open as the prince slipped the pastry between them.
He held his breath at the light brush of Prince Lorenz’s retreating fingers and forced himself to chew after.
The crackling of the pastry and the burst of the sugar and butter made him want to moan.
“See, a more preferable experience all around,” Prince Lorenz said. “You lose the full intensity of the crispness otherwise.”
The surrounding guests were looking at them.
Not just looking, but in some cases glaring, even if they seemed to be doing their best to hide the emotion.
Someone tried to interrupt Prince Lorenz with a slight bow and a muttering of Your Royal Highness , but the prince acted as though he hadn’t noticed, taking Cin by the arm and leading him down the rows of desserts.
One of the ornamented watch members—a different individual from the previous week—followed slowly in their wake.
“So much sugar,” Cin muttered, shaking his head. He’d admired it the first time, but now that this was a second night, a second round of all the most delicious of foods, it was finally sinking in.
“Pardon?” the prince asked.
“Nothing.” Cin paused, blinked, and then said, “I was just thinking how lavish this all is, with still no signs the famine will end. I know the kingdom appreciates your family’s generosity but...”
“Why drain our stores now?” Prince Lorenz grimaced, but the next thing out of his mouth seemed to change topic. “Do you want to see the gardens? They’re not so full as they are in the spring, but it’s quiet and dark.”
Quiet. And dark.
Cin’s mind went immediately to the things he’d told Prince Lorenz he didn’t want to do last time they were in such a quiet, dark place, and nausea twisted in his stomach—not all bad, but not all good either.
But the prince had, so far, always backed off when Cin had asked.
At least, when he wasn’t chasing Cin out the front doors.
He wrapped his arm through Prince Lorenz’s, trying to ignore the flutter that simple, chaste motion birthed in his chest, and led the prince out of the ballroom.
The chill in the air felt nice after the warmth of the crowded indoors, and though a few guests poked their heads out, the prince’s watch-person positioned themself in the doorway, and no one seemed anxious enough yet to try to worm their way past. Cin let go of Prince Lorenz as they reached the railing that overlooked the gardens, the great pond at its center shimmering in the light that streamed from the ballroom windows.
“I didn’t ask for this,” Prince Lorenz said, and Cin had a flash of confusion before he continued, “To have our reserves wasted on such a frivolous party—one in my honor, nonetheless.”
“Says the man who wants shirtless statues of himself in every town square,” Cin teased.
But as the joke faded into the night, he tried to find the positives in this thing the prince seemed so bent against. “You must admit, these balls have lifted the spirits of the entire country. Perhaps it is frivolous. Certainly the reserves could be better distributed in a different manner. But this one is making your people happy. They feel connected to their royal family again for the first time in… years.”
Prince Lorenz’s brow furrowed—such an odd expression, half masked in the darkness as he stared out at the garden. “Do you really think so?”
“If the way the people in my town speak of it or the joy I see on my ride through the city is anything to go on, then yes.” Cin took a breath, then let it out. “I’m certain I could critique your parent’s leadership if forced—”
“No one would need force me,” the prince muttered.
Cin logged the thought away as he continued, “—but I can’t deny that this particular choice is making me happy.”
“You...” Prince Lorenz turned to him, looking thoughtful.
“You, who came here for this,”—he waved toward the ballroom—“and not for me?” There was a gleam deep in the darkness of his eyes that made Cin’s heart thud.
The prince lifted an eyebrow. “Or so you say, though I haven’t actually seen you dance yet. ”
“Dancing isn’t all there is to a party,” Cin objected. “There’s food, and music, and people, and lights.”
“People and lights can be found in most places. If you’re here for food and music, but not dancing or the wooing of the most eligible man in the kingdom, then you’re missing half the reason for the ball.”
Cin crossed his arms, looking up at the prince. “Does it count, when the most eligible man in the kingdom doesn’t want to be wooed?”