Chapter Nine #3
Cormal looked around at their beautiful surroundings. “I was jealous when the others got to come out here without me. Everything ate at me.”
It wasn’t that long ago, really. But everything had changed, and it had changed so drastically that it felt completely normal—in a surreal sort of way—to finally be able to talk about it. He’d just needed someone to give him that proverbial kick in the ass.
“Hey, I hitched a ride with someone who couldn’t even see me because I didn’t want to be left behind,” the Prince pointed out. “You definitely don’t have anything to be embarrassed about.”
Cormal had so many things to be embarrassed about that it threatened to be entirely debilitating—but he was pretty sure that was what happened when you came close to destroying your entire life. It made a huge mess and threatened your relationships with everyone around you.
Shocking.
“Well, I’m glad you brought me,” Cormal assured him.
“I’m glad you questioned and you listened and you made me look at the world again.
I really want to try to fix this. And maybe I’ll lose my temper again and blow something up tomorrow when no one else is as generous as you, but…
just this moment, it means so much to me. Thank you, Your Highness.”
The Prince made a face. “Kee, please.”
Cormal looked at him askance.
“Kinan?” the Prince tried, a coaxing expression on his face. “Can I please not be a prince for a minute with you?”
And Cormal couldn’t ignore that appeal. “Kinan,” he allowed.
Even as part of him—the part that sounded like his father?—rebelled at being so informal, there was part of him that was doing an internal dance. Not that the Prince—Kinan—had told him to call him by his first name, but that he’d maybe… made a friend?
It felt like a long time since he’d done that, especially since he’d severed so many of his past relationships and then been angry when they were gone.
Kinan beamed at him, looking truly delighted, and Cormal beamed back.
“I know it’s not always going to be this easy, but it means so much that you believed in me.”
Kinan’s smile softened. “Being able to talk to people again, I’m not solely an observer anymore.
I’m actually involved, and that makes everything so much more complicated.
Before, it felt like I could see the solutions and know the best choices.
And nothing I did really mattered. I couldn’t make a mistake, not really.
Now that I’m living it again, everything is possible, and it suddenly makes sense again why we don’t always get things right, why we say things in the heat of the moment, why we make mistakes.
” He swallowed, and his eyes looked wet.
“And I’ll take every minute of it, every painful second of getting things wrong, even of saying hurtful things, though I try not to do that, because the alternative is worse.
It does hurt, even when nothing can touch you. ”
Yes. Exactly that. And because Kinan had just confessed such a thing, Cormal made himself say it out loud.
“I think I was trying to create the armor that you wore against your will. I didn’t realize all the harm it could do. I thought it would keep me safer.”
Kinan nodded. “It’s awful.”
Cormal couldn’t help but laugh. “Yes, it really is. Thank you for not letting me lock myself away.”
Kinan smiled at him again. “Of course.”
There was no “of course” about it. Cormal didn’t think there was anyone else who would have tried, not after what Cormal had done.
But maybe all he’d needed was that one person, the right person. His life already felt changed, even if he couldn’t go back to the castle and fix everything.
“You’ve given me hope,” Cormal whispered, voice a little rough.
A look of understanding crossed Kinan’s face, and he nodded.
“That’s what Perian gave me. Gave Renny.
It meant so much to us, even before he managed this.
” He gestured at his body, visible for Cormal right now.
“It was a hard burden to bear, and he made it lighter just by caring, before we even knew that he could do anything else.”
And Cormal nodded, because he’d seen it happening, and maybe he’d been a bit jealous.
“It’s a terrible and stupid way to think about it,” Cormal confessed impulsively, “but it was hard to witness that, him making all these positive changes when the rest of us had been trying and failing for years. I mean, of course I want you to have hope!” he stuttered out, suddenly realizing how that sounded.
But Kinan was shaking his head, looking amused. “No, I know what you mean. It’s like that moment of realizing that all this time, I’d been hurting Renny.”
Perian had exposed that, and Kinan had chosen not to blame him for it. He’d been grateful that Perian had proposed a solution instead of resentful.
“You’re a very good person,” Cormal told him.
Kinan smiled faintly, though there was still a trace of a shadow in him. “I’m trying.”
“You’re succeeding,” Cormal assured him.
The smile grew a little more genuine. “Thank you.”
“I swear I will do everything in my power to fix this for you,” Cormal told him earnestly.
“We’re still working on it, we’ve still got books to read, we’re not going to give up.
But even if—even if we can’t fix it, I’m so glad you’re here.
And it would be my privilege to one day serve you as one of your Mage Warriors. ”
The Prince looked down, and then tears spilled onto his cheeks.
“Oh, I—” Cormal started, horrified.
But then Kinan looked up again, and he was smiling with the tears, a strangely bashful expression on his face that Cormal had never seen before.
“Thank you. That’s a really nice thing to say.” He sniffed. “Surprising, coming from you.”
Cormal squawked a protest, Kinan managed a laugh, and then it was all right, they were all right, and Cormal felt lighter than he had in months—possibly in years.
He blew out a breath. “I guess we have to go back, don’t we?”
“I’m afraid so,” Kinan said. “If nothing else, Renny would stage a revolt.”
Cormal laughed. “Well, there is that. All right, let’s go.”
Because if Cormal didn’t get up right now, didn’t start heading back to the castle now, he was very much afraid that he was going to say something stupid, like propose that they get on Fireball and just… ride in the other direction.
And he’d been running from his problems for long enough, hadn’t he?
“Thank you for this,” Cormal repeated, as he retrieved Fireball and mounted, and a moment later, Kinan was behind him.
Cormal was going to spend the entire trip wishing that he could feel Kinan’s arms wrapped around his waist. And equally long reminding himself why it was a good thing that he couldn’t.
“You’re very welcome,” Kinan said. “Thank you. For listening to me.”
Cormal nodded, and then he turned Fireball around and pointed him in the direction of the castle.
This had been a painful, messy conversation, and he had the feeling that the worst was still to come.