Chapter Fourteen
Pel
Pel had known in theory that he was spending a lot of time with Torex. Between visits, riding, training, dinner, and the after-dinner drinking and chatting that his father kept insisting upon, a large part of the day was taken up. Logically, that made sense.
It wasn’t until he found that he didn’t want to spend so much time with the man, however, that he realized just how entwined their lives had become. It was really quite irritating to find that everything Pel did made him think of Prince Torex.
The kitchen staff were delighted that he always lit the crystals for them and gave them steady, bright light to work under.
Lashuna appeared visibly happier since Torex had intervened in her love life.
Melody always nickered a greeting to Pel, and of course he had to give him treats.
Just because he was upset with Torex didn’t mean he was going to take it out on the man’s horse.
Bavil and Larexa always talked to and about Torex, too.
And when Pel didn’t take Torex with him when he went out on his inspections? Everyone wanted to know where the High Prince was and if everything was all right. Had he left without saying goodbye? Was he ill? Was he not interested in speaking to them anymore?
Pel might be hurt and angry, but he couldn’t truthfully say any of those things. And it sounded immensely childish to instead confess that no doubt the High Prince would have come if only Pel hadn’t left early so that he couldn’t join.
So his attempt to get a little bit of space from the man was singularly ineffective.
Pel somehow hadn’t realized how his routine had been completely taken over, and all he could think of now was that it would be like this every day when Torex went back to Alossa. It should have meant a return to normalcy… but Pel’s heart sank instead, a weird hollow pang thrumming through him.
Pel swallowed and explained for the second day in a row that the High Prince was busy but he would no doubt be visiting again soon. Pel couldn’t be responsible for removing the chance for his people to talk to Torex. And as upset as he was… Pel had to acknowledge that the man had apologized.
He’d seemed genuinely distressed, and if it hadn’t been so emotionally eviscerating, then Pel might have been able to laugh it off.
Terila had dismissed him simply because he was Unremarkable.
He could acknowledge her beauty even if he was uninterested in it, and she’d been who his father wanted him to court.
But he hadn’t known her. The immediate and very public dismissal had been incredibly humiliating, but that was all.
To have Torex reject him after getting to know Pel?
Having him confirm that even after all the time they’d spent together, he still didn’t want Pel?
It turned out that was so much worse. Pel had let him into almost every aspect of his life without realizing that he was doing it, and now he felt like he was floundering.
Torex thought they could just flip back to the relationship they’d had before.
And maybe that was the problem. Why couldn’t they?
Pel had known—should have known, he corrected himself viciously—that the man wasn’t attracted to him.
No one was attracted to him. He was the most ordinary of ordinary.
They’d become friends, so there should be no reason why they couldn’t stay friends now that Torex had apologized for his drunken lapse of judgment.
The problem was that Pel had done an immensely foolish thing. He’d been attracted to this “friend” for quite a long time—longer than he’d considered him a friend, in fact. And he somehow hadn’t noticed the danger of being attracted to someone he actually liked until this disastrous moment.
Pel had maybe been wondering for quite a while what it would be like to kiss Torex… and Torex had kissed him only when he was too drunk to be discerning.
It might even have been bearable if Pel had realized from the start.
But he hadn’t immediately processed those fatal words, and so there’d been those first stunning, delightful moments where Pel was being kissed for the first time, and he’d thought it was because both of them desperately wanted that.
It was a foolish lapse in judgment—on both their parts, if in very different ways. And Torex had been so earnestly apologetic, like it hadn’t occurred to him that Pel could misunderstand or object, but as soon as he realized, he wanted to fix their friendship…
If Pel had had an ounce of self-control, he would have laughed the whole thing off.
Instead, he’d been rude and yelled at the man.
He drew in a deep breath and blew it out through his nose.
Because yelling at someone that everything was fine was definitely the best way to convince them of that fact.
Pel couldn’t leave it like this. He was absolutely not prepared to explain to Torex why he was so upset, so he had two choices.
Either he got over himself, or they ended their friendship.
Given the way Pel’s stomach lurched unpleasantly at just the idea of the latter option, he had to figure out how to smooth things over, how to be all right with how things were between them.
The truth of the matter was that nothing had changed. Pel had imagined some truly ludicrous things, and Torex had confirmed that they had no basis in reality.
Torex wasn’t attracted to him—but wasn’t it still significant that he seemed so distressed about what had happened? Pel had never heard him apologize like that, and it seemed a far cry from the arrogant man Pel had first met.
It wasn’t the romance that Pel shouldn’t have imagined in the first place, but he valued the friendship, and he didn’t want to give it up.
Yes, Torex was going to go back to Alossa, whether or not he got tangled in the bonding he was trying to avoid.
But that didn’t mean the friendship had to end.
Maybe it would. Maybe Torex would get back to his real life and would put everything in Tond behind him.
But maybe they could exchange letters occasionally.
Maybe there could be a visit every once in a while.
Pel knew it was foolish to pin his hopes on someone else again, but… those unreasonably blue eyes had been so earnest. When Pel had been obstructive and rude and not accepted anything that Torex was saying, he’d asked how he could fix it.
No one had ever done that before. And that made Pel want to take the risk. A strange feeling of resolution filled him. He didn’t want safety here. He wanted Torex, as long as he could have him, in whatever way Torex was willing to permit.
Pel cut his visits to the farms short so that he didn’t have to assure anyone else about Torex’s wellness. He hoped that he could convince Torex to rejoin him, but maybe the man was sick of Pel and his moods, and he’d decide to go on his own or spend all his time with Pel’s siblings instead.
He headed back to the stables, groomed Extraordinary, and then, since he was in plenty of time, he cleaned himself up and headed to train with the guards. Torex was there, and he offered an uncharacteristically uncertain smile at Pel but didn’t make a move towards him.
Pel sucked in a breath, swallowed his hurt feelings, and headed over, trying not to hunch his shoulders. He could do this. He would do this.
“Hey,” Pel said when he was a couple feet away.
Because he was so, so smooth.
“Hey, yourself,” Torex said, looking visibly relieved.
He was smiling properly now, not as big a grin as normal, but a genuine smile, and Pel felt something that had been tightly clenched inside of him relax a little.
Pel made himself continue. “Sorry I missed you this morning.” He cleared his throat. “I was still in a bit of a snit and left really early so that you couldn’t come with me.”
And to his immense relief, Torex laughed, his eyes bright with merriment. “Oh, is that what happened? The stable hands spent a lot of time looking in many other directions before it became obvious that Extraordinary wasn’t there, and you left without me. Again.”
Pel raised an eyebrow and brazened it out. “We’re all allowed to have snits, aren’t we?”
“Of course we are,” Torex answered easily, like Pel wasn’t blowing hotter and colder than a fire in a snowstorm. “Life is really boring if we don’t add some excitement now and again. Does the fact that we’re talking mean that we’re on for tomorrow?”
Pel nodded, and the man flashed him another knee-melting grin. Pel smiled helplessly back and reflected that this was going to hurt, but it was going to be worth it.
They separated for most of the training, working with different groups of people. Pel almost always worked with those who were Unremarkable. He left the Illustrious to Bavil, usually, and now Torex.
Torex was the best possible trainer for them because he was far less likely to be injured if something went awry. Pel hadn’t realized how quickly a shield could be erected—it had been a long time since he’d seen his father use one.
With Torex, the handful of Illustrious guards could use the full force of their magic against him, attacking him with their Mantled swords, knives, and shields in a way they could never do with an Unremarkable guard during practice.
Even with other Illustrious, if their strengths weren’t well balanced or someone misjudged a hit…
No, it was much safer with Torex, who was clearly so much stronger than all of them.
There hadn’t been an Extraordinary in Tond’s army since before the war.
King Forex was always bitter about that, despite the fact that the United Realms should all be working together anyway.
Some of Tond’s Illustrious decided to try their luck in Alossa instead of staying in Tond, and Pel’s father resented that, too.
Pel thought it said a lot about how King Forex treated people, but that was obviously not a welcome observation.