Chapter Eight Elician
CHAPTER EIGHT
Elician
Great tits don’t care what time it is; they, like all the other members of the tit family, only care about singing the songs of their people when their little hearts tell them it is the best moment to do so.
Usually just before dawn. They open their beaks and screech shrilling sirens of devotion to anything and anyone who can listen, and Elician might appreciate them better if there wasn’t a garden right outside his windows offering every tit with a desire for procreation the perfect opportunity to shriek.
It isn’t the shrieking that wakes him, though, it’s the sudden departure of his husband from the tangle of blankets and pillows in the mess of a nest beside the bed they don’t sleep in.
A steady stream of uncharacteristic curses leaves Cat’s mouth as he gets to his feet and marches towards the nearest window.
Elician leaves them open before they go to sleep each night, desperate for the fresh air and the sounds of the outside world.
It is not usually a problem. Except for now, in the very early mornings, when the tits are equally desperate for a chance to make their presence known.
Cat reaches out as if to slam the window shut, but he stops short at the very last second. Then, with one final hissing exhalation of pure disdain, he turns instead to get dressed.
Off goes his nightshirt, revealing smooth white skin and the broad expanse of his back.
On goes the outfit he usually wears only when he’s going to be spending hours in the training yard, lightweight and breathable.
A secret passageway tucked in the far back corner of the King’s suite leads down the two flights of stairs to the King’s private garden.
Only a few house members have the key to it and there is no entry without the King’s permission.
Cat takes his sword and makes no such attempt at asking for permission.
‘Are you going to stab them?’ Elician croaks, rubbing at his eyes as he makes a vague effort to sit up.
‘I might,’ Cat replies. ‘Go back to sleep.’ Elician should apologize – it’s his fault Cat isn’t getting any sleep of his own – but the words never make it past his lips.
Cat is gone too soon. He toys with Cat’s suggestion, though.
He closes his eyes and curls against the pillow they stole from the bed the night before.
The tits shriek and holler at each other some more, too shrill to be ignored.
They flutter their wings in annoyance when Cat gets out to the garden proper, but it only sends them higher up in their trees and not actually away.
Giving up on the attempt, Elician rises.
He perches himself at the window and peers down below.
Contrary to his earlier suggestion, Cat isn’t trying to climb trees and massacre birds.
But he is getting his frustration out with a series of quick spins and jabs and familiar step patterns that Elician has known since childhood.
Cat’s face is set with concentration, his body well toned and prepared.
In the two weeks since the coronation and their wedding, this is a sight that Elician has quietly grown to enjoy.
Cat takes his training seriously. Far more so than Fenlia, that is for certain.
Even as meetings about grain distribution, trading partners, military readiness and civilian conflicts have been filling up their daily schedules, Cat makes the time to be able to do this routine.
Whether it’s first thing in the morning or last thing at night, Cat always runs through his steps.
Elician joins him on occasion. Especially in the evening when his head is too full of thoughts that the idea of mindless physicality supersedes all else.
He has forced himself to stop sleeping in his office for decency alone, but closing himself inside their dark, isolated bedroom is sometimes too much for him to bear.
And while Elician has never considered there to be any joy in the act of swordplay, he is proficient in it.
After years of warfare, he would have had to become so, but he has never truly enjoyed it.
Cat, though…Cat seems to like it as an art more than a means to kill something.
Perhaps it’s only because he has never needed to kill someone with his sword.
Elician hopes he never gets the chance. Then it can be a sport, a plaything.
A leisure activity rather than a desperate need for defence.
He hopes more than that, Cat never has a need to kill anyone in any capacity ever again.
That they can spar one another, trading glancing blows and meaningless strikes that heal when no one is watching, leading to laughter and a soothing excess of energy that helps guide Elician to a sweet and dreamless sleep.
The chances for that hope are slim. Yet still, he hopes.
Dawn casts shades of pink and gold over Cat’s pale cheeks.
He pulls his long hair out of his face, exposing the curve of his jaw, the span of his neck.
Words bubble in Elician’s mind, lines of lyrical nonsense and description.
He hasn’t written a single line of poetry in ages, but his fingers twitch for a quill as his mouth tests the shape of a phrase: Pale morning light and sweet song of life, my moon comes back to me.
He has a desire, sudden and without sense, to lean his hand down like some damsel in a fable.
Take my hand, here and now, and let me pull you home. The stairs are just to the left.
Cat swirls his sword above his head, picking up its momentum for one fierce slice through the air. Flawless execution.
Fen knocks on his door. His schedule has arrived.
He hesitates before calling her in, shifting his position somewhat as he becomes uncomfortably aware of just how interested his body seems to have become at the sight of his husband terrorizing birds at the first light of dawn.
‘Yes,’ he calls out, legs suitably adjusted, clothes in decent order.
She walks in, stack of papers in her arms. ‘Are those for me?’
‘Not all of it. I’m trying to keep track of too much and I didn’t want to forget anything and—’
‘That’s smart,’ he soothes before she can work herself into a frenzy.
She’s been distant for weeks now. Since their first meeting with parliament.
Every time he’s thought to speak with her, something else has intervened.
They see each other every day, but she has become much like the wallpaper of his office.
A thing he is aware of but to which he never pays much mind.
‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘We received notice late last night: Ambassador Laure has requested an audience. She’s received word from Alerae about your appeal to Gillage.’
Elician leans out of the window. ‘Cat!’ His husband’s head swivels towards him.
Sea-green eyes so bright and clear in the early-morning light.
Dawn is a good time of day for his husband.
If only time would stay still and generously bestow her gifts upon him for all to see.
But…no. Perhaps not. Perhaps this is a gift just for him and him alone.
Knowing that by the time they emerge from this room and greet the rest of the palace, only Elician will have seen the subtle beauty of a man he married for so much more.
‘Laure’s given a response!’ Elician calls down. Duty first. Duty always first.
‘I’ll be right there,’ Cat replies, wiping his sleeve over his brow.
Elician slips from the window. He asks Fen, ‘Did she give any inclination of what that response might be?’
‘No, but she wants a public audience.’
It will be bad then. Bad enough that she’d prefer the potential security of her station and the ability to flee while witnesses would shame Elician from responding in haste.
Not that he would dare. His father shamed their country enough in that regard.
Laure will always be safe in his city. Or at least, she need not fear physical pain or death.
Cat climbs the stairs to their room with little delay. He receives their update and sets his sword aside. He asks, ‘Have you received anything from Captain Partho?’
‘No, sorry.’ She hugs her paperwork to her chest. ‘What happens if Gillage refuses your request for the challenge? Or if the captain says no too?’
‘It might just be exactly what our father wanted, then,’ Elician replies.
‘If we need to convince the whole of the people that Alest is their heir…it could lead to chaos.’ It would take a very long time.
They’d need to sow the seeds of doubt. Gillage could manage that just fine on his own – Elician knows the boy is too reckless to not make a fatal error sooner or later.
But they would need to capitalize on it.
Remind the people of Alest. Suggest him as an alternative.
Give them a new leader to support. But all of that…
is a road to civil war. His father’s designs will have come to pass, and Alest’s path to the throne will be drowned in blood he doesn’t want spilled.
‘Perhaps it will not be so bad,’ Cat suggests. But Elician can tell full well that he doesn’t believe that in the least.
‘I’ll wait outside,’ Fen says. She leaves and they dress.
Cat washes briskly with the water from a fresh bowl set out in their lavatory, and Elician does his best not to ogle.
Especially not when Cat emerges, without his shirt, his trousers half undone, mindless of the fact that the lines of his hips are visible.
They are a distracting feature, hidden swiftly by a turn of the back and an exchange of loose trousers for something more polished and neat.
Elician fetches his gloves for him. He holds them out and helps Cat slide his hands inside, hiding that lovely skin with thick layers of fabric.