Chapter Five Cat #2
There’s no guarantee.’ Fen told Elician about the death of their elderly guide on the ride to Himmelsheim.
Elician’s reaction was muted, but sad nonetheless.
Cat heard him speaking Fransen’s name into remembrance that night, whispering it over the fire along with memories of visits to the House of the Unwanting and seeing Adalei when she was ill.
‘No,’ Elician says, firm and confident. ‘No, the gods didn’t make either one of us so we die with our work undone. You aren’t going to die anytime soon. And neither will I. We were made to end this war.’
‘You believe that, truly?’
‘I do. We’ll die after this war ends.’
‘Should I hope that is sooner rather than later?’ He means it as a joke, something light-hearted or funny. But he is quite bad at jokes, knowing the rhythm but not the delivery, and Elician is far too serious as he nods.
‘With any luck it will be within this lifetime.’
Cat lets his hand fall away, revealing his work.
Elician scoots closer, leaning in to see.
The design is smooth and clean. On one side, a great sun is cupped by a black moon.
Its bright rays are offset by dark rays, one swapping places with the other, on and on in a circle.
On the second, it is the moon that takes priority.
The rays stay the same, but it is an eclipse, swallowing the sun, with only a sliver remaining at the edges.
‘Inversion,’ Cat explains. ‘We are two nations, bound by…the smallest tether. We are not unifying the countries, just our houses. They are different, but they are the same. The same line for each. The same—’
‘It’s perfect,’ Elician whispers. ‘Gods, Cat – thank you, it’s perfect. We could use gold for the sun, yes? And for the moon – white gold?’
‘Yes, that works.’
‘I’ve been working on this for hours. Damn…could have saved so much time just asking you.’
‘I based it off your others. It was not my thought alone.’
‘Even so, thank you. Again.’
‘Of course,’ Cat says. ‘It’s the least I could do.’ He yawns into the crook of his elbow. It is late. Very late. Late enough that soon it will be morning. Another night spent hunched over documents planning for too many things at once.
‘You should get some sleep,’ Elician tells him. Then, as if the thought has never occurred to him before, he asks: ‘Where do you sleep?’
Cat lowers his arm, and he must be more tired than he thought because he says: ‘Here, most nights, with you,’ without truly considering what Elician is asking in the first place.
‘No, no, I mean – you have a room, don’t you?
’ He looks so genuinely lost by the potential that Cat doesn’t have a room that Cat’s heart aches.
With everything else happening in the palace, Cat wouldn’t be surprised if Elician did forget something important.
Elician might not have specifically arranged for Cat’s stay anywhere, but this was a matter easily resolved.
It hadn’t needed Elician’s input in the least.
‘I have a room,’ he replies. ‘Your father put me in a guest suite in the south wing when I first arrived—’
‘The one with pheasants on the walls?’ Elician’s confusion shifts abruptly to an anger that always seems so close to the surface these days.
Cat nods, not understanding, as Elician scowls and curses, fingers tightening around the drawing they’d just delighted over.
‘Your father stayed there. When he was a prisoner here.’
‘Oh.’ No one had said. He hadn’t even wondered. ‘It’s…it’s just a room.’
‘I’ll change it.’
‘I don’t care about the room. I don’t spend much time there as it is.’ Every night they have been here. Sometimes at their desks. Sometimes on the couch, shoulder to shoulder, books sprawled across their laps, weariness overcoming any sense of practicality.
‘He liked his little slights,’ Elician mutters. ‘I’m sure he thought it was terribly amusing.’
‘He liked exerting power,’ Cat says in turn.
In the letter Elician gave him, written by Aliamon before he died, Cat found no words of explanation or even appeals to moral judgement.
Merely a lecture on what it meant to rule.
A king must make difficult choices, the letter read.
If you intend to rule a country with your people’s trust, you must never show you are weak.
If you intend to rule a country that will manage peacetime with my son, then you cannot afford to have anyone know you as anything less than what you are: their ruler first and foremost.
‘Fuck his power.’ The drawing is thrown onto the desk.
Elician stands sharply; he goes to the window, leaning against the sill and breathing in the cool night air as if it is the only balm in the world capable of soothing the rage in his soul.
The windows are always open in this room.
Even when it is stiflingly hot outside, the windows stay open.
‘Why don’t you use your rooms?’ Cat asks. ‘Is it because they were his?’
‘No.’ There is no further explanation.
‘When we are married, will they be mine too?’
‘Yes. Don’t expect much. They’re in the worst part of the palace.’
‘They are quite out of the way.’
‘Yes,’ Elician murmurs. ‘Isolated from all the rest of the world.’ He leans forward, pressing his brow to the cool stone wall at the window. ‘You should get some sleep. It’s late.’
Cat slides his chair back into place behind his desk. He tidies mindlessly, little things here or there. Elician’s back grows more tense the longer he takes. Cat glances at the door. Closed when they’re both in here together but always left open whenever Elician is alone. ‘May I stay?’ Cat asks.
Elician’s eyes drift to the door and back. ‘Do whatever you like,’ he replies hoarsely.
‘I’d like to stay with you.’
‘Why? It isn’t comfortable.’
‘That’s all right. There are worse places to be.’
‘Yes. There are.’
Cat returns to the couch. He sits down and holds out his hand.
For several long moments, Elician does nothing but look at him.
Then, he crosses the room and tugs each of Cat’s fingers one by one from the glove until he can peel the whole garment free.
He does the same for Cat’s other hand. He kneels at Cat’s feet, undoing his boots and setting them off to the left.
He toes off his own too before slumping on the couch beside him.
Cat closes his eyes. He breathes deep. Elician sits far too rigid for far too long.
But before the birds begin to sing their morning song, before the sun indeed rises in the west, that tension fades.
Elician’s head slides towards Cat’s shoulder; his body turns, seeking something more, his arm curling around Cat’s waist.
As a child, Cat was tempted by the thought of sleeping in the arms of another. He spent years wishing he could be with Brielle in her cage, or with Cieli in hers. Wishing he could curl up against them and disappear within their bones, so pain could never find him.
Elician holds him tight. His heart beats in shocking tandem with Cat’s own, strong enough to be felt through the thin layers of their clothes.
It is both everything he dreamed of and not the same at all.
For while Elician clings to him, covers him, hides him from the world, Cat is all too aware of the fact that he is doing the same for Elician.
And neither can quite manage to smother the other entirely out of existence.
They can only lie in each other’s arms and brave another night at each other’s sides.
‘You’re not alone,’ Cat murmurs into Elician’s hair.
But Elician is finally asleep, and he doesn’t hear.