Thirteen #2
“Any front-runners, yet?” It was the same complaint Prince Lorenz brought up every night, and yet so far he hadn’t seemed willing to offer over any ideas as to who he might choose.
With the pot dwindling and Floy still in the running, Cin was more and more anxious to know his thoughts.
But he also didn’t think he could force them out of the prince.
Prince Lorenz gave a dramatic groan and buried his face back into Cin’s neck. “I’d rather be stabbed through the heart.”
“Just be sure to wait until I’m far gone, so I’m not implicated in it.
” Some masochistic part of Cin’s mind imagined for a terrible, fleeting moment what it would be like to press a set of feathers into Prince Lorenz’s bleeding heart, but the horror of it made him so nauseous that he blocked the vision out.
“God damn; I was hoping you would help,” the prince grumbled, a teasing edge to his voice.
“I could not bear the thought! I’ll defend myself against villains if need be, but while you’re clearly a scoundrel, I don’t think you have a malevolent bone in your body.
” As Cin said it, he realized just how very true it felt.
Even if he couldn’t see beneath the layers of darkness in the prince’s soul, he knew at the bottom was a good man.
A slightly arrogant, possibly lazy, definitely lustful man, but a kind one, nonetheless.
Prince Lorenz chuckled. “You think too highly of me. If I am not even a little bit malevolent, it is for lack of skill, not effort.”
Cin elbowed him in the ribs in response. Before he could recover, Cin turned their steed into the town square. “Welcome to Darmburg.”
They dismounted, and Cin escorted Prince Lorenz through a jovial tour of the dark, empty space, even less populated than on a normal night, with most of the townsfolk having gone into the city for the festivities.
Cin pointed out the shops he most often frequented and places where memorable town events had taken place, like the spontaneous and scandalous marriage of a local lady to her maidservant, or the time five men had failed to catch a pig for nearly three hours.
As he did, he ignored the direction of Dorthe’s home and the time four years before that he’d stalked a man through the square before sliding a blade into his back three streets down the following week, though they felt so much a part of him in that moment that he swore Prince Lorenz would see the truth of him even without the words.
“And this is where your statue should stand,” Cin concluded, dramatically motioning to the center of the square, where currently a simple flowerbed sat. “Then, my pigeons can gather upon it whenever I visit, and grace your bare chest with their droppings.”
As though to demonstrate, Lacey and Rags both swooped low, spinning around each other before shooting off into the night again.
Prince Lorenz nodded, holding his chin as though deep in thought. “I agree, that will greatly improve the scene.”
Cin shoved him in the shoulder. He shoved Cin back with a laugh.
His attention wandered, and he meandered away from Cin.
It took Cin a moment to realize where he was heading: the announcements board.
In the darkness, all but the largest words were too small to properly make out, but Cin’s gaze still caught on the flyer of the Plumed Menace.
Perhaps he should have felt uneasy standing beside the man whose very parents had put that price on Cin’s head, but between the prince’s utter lack of suspicion and the unfortunate fact that Cin would only be seeing him for a few more weeks, it seemed pointless to worry.
The prince didn’t even glance at the flyer, immediately singling out his own ball’s announcement.
Snorting, he tugged the paper down. “I think enough of Hallin knows I’m to be married, don’t you?”
“Perhaps your one true love will wander forth from the forest next week, read the announcement, and rush to the ball?”
“Love ?” the prince scoffed, so softly Cin might have heard him wrong.
He stared at the paper in his hands, stared as though seeing right through it.
“There’s only one love of my life who I’d like to wander in from the forest, and he’s the ass who left me in this predicament.
” With a bitter sniffle, he crumbled the paper, letting it fall from his fingers after. “But he is never coming back.”
Cin hesitated to respond, uncertain whether the banter and lust of their friendship allowed for this level of comfort. But he wanted to be that support for Prince Lorenz—even if it was only for the night. And that was enough.
He slipped his arm through the prince’s, embracing him gently. The prince leaned into the touch, breathing out a trembling sigh. Neither of them spoke, but it seemed slowly, cautiously better.
They kept wandering, arm in arm in the quiet of the night.
As they approached the highest point in the square, Cin slowed their pace.
He let his head fall against the prince’s shoulder and stared out toward the shining of the capital, where the castle’s towers were a clear glimmer against the stars.
“When she was alive, my birth mother used to boost me onto her shoulders and make me look for the castle towers.” He didn’t know he was going to say it until he did, but the words came so easy in the dark, with Prince Lorenz. Everything was easy like this. “She said it was lucky to see them.”
Cin could feel the prince’s lips in his hair, pressing little kisses to his head. “Well, now you’re here with me. Is that not luck?”
“Luck,” Cin whispered, “or magic,” knowing it was both. “When I was standing here earlier today, a woman from town asked me nearly to marry her.”
Prince Lorenz pulled away so suddenly that Cin stumbled, and the prince grabbed him by both shoulders, staring at him in confusion.
“You were proposed to? You have— Are you— But we—” He seemed to be trying desperately to put together a puzzle that was making less and less sense to him with each moment, and Cin stopped him before he could twist himself into knots in the confusion.
“I’m not engaged, and she hadn’t been dating me,” he clarified. “Her husband died recently. I believe the idea was more of a business arrangement, but with the potential to grow into more.”
“Oh,” Prince Lorenz responded, still looking confused. He nodded slowly, and pulled Cin closer once more. “All right then.”
Cin narrowed his eyes at the prince. “Why? Do you think no one could possibly be in love with me?” It seemed simultaneously like the truth of the world and also a thing that Prince Lorenz was unlikely to think of anyone.
The prince snorted, and the edge of his lips quirked.
“I think it would be impossible for anyone to know you and not love you, if they were presently capable of the feeling.” He said it in such a way that seemed to imply he wasn’t, but Cin didn’t have time to press him about that before he continued, “I merely suspect you are not one to be in a serious relationship while letting the prince of the realm finger you in a dovecote. By which I mean, you would be just as terrible at orgies as I am.”
Cin felt himself flush. “I do think I might be made for one person at a time… if any.” He looked back out toward the distant gleam of the castle lights.
“I understand why you don’t want to marry.
How can anyone decide to end one life and begin a new, a new person, a new future, when they can’t know what will come of it?
What they’ll lose in the process?” He did not add, “what will fall apart the moment they’re gone from that old existence?
” But he felt it, just as strongly as the moment Dorthe had asked for his hand.
Prince Lorenz said nothing. He looked out toward the castle, his face unreadable in the starlight. Soon, the prince would have to accept a vow of partnership with someone whether he wanted to or not. And Cin’s life would go back to what it had been.
The ache that left in his heart was too unbearable to sit with.
He wrapped his arm through Prince Lorenz and tugged gently. “Where should we go now?”
The tiny pull seemed to drag the prince out of his stupor, and his expression transformed from darkness to light, grin sharp and eyes sparkling. “Can I see your home?”
Panic shot through Cin, and then he realized, with a dry humor, what did it matter?
The state of their home wouldn’t change the prince’s desire to suck on Cin’s lower lip or get off on the feel of Cin’s swollen nether regions. He wasn’t going to marry Cin, no matter how much money the Reinholz family had, or had lost.
“Why not?” Cin laughed. “I’ve seen yours.”
“Not all of it.” The prince smirked, and swept back up onto Cin’s mount, this time planting himself in the saddle. He reached a hand out to help Cin up.
Cin crossed his arms. “Do you know where you’re going?”
The prince only grinned wider. “You’ll tell me if I’m offtrack.”
“Now that’s cruel.” Cin took his hand.
Prince Lorenz pulled him up. “Reasonable, I’d say.”
As Cin wrapped his arms around the prince’s waist, pressing his face to the places the prince had done with him, he could only smile and hold on while they raced out of town.
There was surely no way this could go wrong.