Ceremony
SERVANTS SOON ARRIVED, and Sindar was liberated from his filthy riding clothes.
They thoroughly scrubbed away all the grime and washed his hair.
His skin crawled a bit as they dressed him in his brother’s clothes, and he studiously avoided looking in the mirror.
The embroidered silk robes felt weirdly cool against his skin, a far cry from the warm and slightly scratchy wool he normally bundled up in.
Once they were gone, sleep proved elusive. Sindar lay in bed, staring up at the gilded ceiling. Xandar was married to a Flower. Why hadn’t Patel warned him?
Arranged marriages to Flowers were political unions foremost, but how could any man be married to someone like that and keep it political?
Well. Xandar could. Xandar didn’t care about anyone, and no one knew that better than Sindar.
He’d been forced to watch the beheading of his dearest friends, and he’d never forget the cruel bite of steel against his own neck.
Xandar executed sixty people that day, and Patel was the only reason that number hadn’t been sixty-one.
Sixty. The number haunted him. Xandar was the eldest by sixty seconds. That fated minute determined who was heir and who was spare. When he was younger, Sindar would hold his breath and count those seconds, feeling the crush of the meager space between them.
Was Xandar really the oldest? They were physically indistinguishable as babies, and during the confusion of birth, who could say which came out first?
But his mother, Goddess rest her soul, was a Flower and the ultimate authority in such matters.
Xandar meant “first son” in her native Amarian.
Sindar meant “second son.” Regardless of who came out first, she’d made the choice.
Royal twins were unheard of, and for good reason.
Flowers were supposed to guarantee a smooth transfer of monarchical power, not complicate it.
There should have been five or six heirs to the Kysanian throne, modestly spaced apart like royal stepping stones in an unambiguous line of succession.
Instead, his mother had only borne two, and their closeness in age and likeness pitted them against each other as soon as they were out of childhood.
She died before Sindar was old enough to appreciate the gravity of what she’d done, let alone ask why.
In his childhood memories, his mother’s dark brown face was angelic, the cloud of tight curls about her head a halo.
She sang to him at night. She loved him.
Why had she doomed him to this fate? He turned those memories over, examining them from all angles as he searched for any insights.
As usual, he found none. Eminence Heavenly’s motivations would forever remain a mystery.
Finally dawn arrived, bringing a manservant with her. Sindar politely endured as he was dressed and bathed once more. A breakfast spread was set out, and shortly after Patel arrived with an old friend.
Lord Ambani was now Lady Ambani, and she was a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day.
As youths, they’d wrestled and studied and ridden, and Ambani was undaunted by Sindar’s increasingly dangerous acquaintance.
The young aristocrat’s support remained steadfast, even when it was perilous.
Even when Sindar was moody and irritable, hopelessly mired in his lot. Even when heads rolled.
Ambani could not say she was glad to see him, as that would imply she was glad Xandar was indisposed, which was a deadly charge. Instead, she said, “It’s about bloody time you got back here,” and Sindar was warmed head to toe. At least someone missed him.
But once the pleasantries were over, and they settled into the meat of running a kingdom, Sindar soon wished he was back at the horse stables, sunk in the mud. The minutiae of governance had always bored him. People interested him. Bureaucracy, not so much.
Ambani, knowing him well, finally cleared her throat and said, “Adviser Patel and I only require the king’s approval for a few items. You may simply show up and nod. We’ll take care of the rest as your proxies. No one will be the wiser.”
“Very well,” Sindar said, not fully convinced.
“There’s one more matter to discuss,” Patel said. “The breeding ceremony.”
Sindar’s fork clinked against his plate. “The what now?”
Ambani shot Patel a look and smoothly stepped in. “Your Highness, what do you know about Flowers?”
Sindar’s brain was still stuck on the word “breeding,” but he firmly wrenched his thoughts back into order. “I know the one next door is bloody gorgeous,” he said, not liking where this was going. “Thanks for warning me about him, by the way. I nearly had a heart attack when I saw him.”
Patel frowned. “You met Eminence Ardor?”
Of course, he would be called that. Flowers always had names from the divine tongue, things like Desire and Ambrosia, so why not?
Sindar found it amusing once, but now he understood.
Those names were no laughing matter. It was a dire warning to foolish royals who considered themselves above such things.
“Briefly,” Sindar said, trying to stay aloof, but he ached to wring the details out of them. How long had Ardor been here? What were his interests? Did he like clean-shaven princes?
“Your brother has been Eminence Ardor’s consort for six months. Normally, we would expect a Flower to become pregnant within the first month. There have been... complications.”
“Complications?” Sindar echoed.
Ambani cleared her throat delicately.
Sindar’s hackles rose. Xandar was well-known for his lack of compassion and empathy.
He was, to put it mildly, extremely fucking mean.
“What did he do to him?” he growled, with a possessiveness he had no right to carry.
When they didn’t answer quickly enough, he added, “Out with it. Tell me at once. What did he do?”
“His Majesty believed Eminence Ardor was... defective,” Ambani said, decidedly uncomfortable.
As well she should be! It was the height of slander. If that vision of loveliness was “defective,” Sindar was a monkey’s uncle. “What the hell does that mean? Defective how?”
“Impotent,” Ambani said.
An impotent Flower? Sindar was no expert on the subject, but he knew one thing: the Flowers were the only thing keeping the extinction of the ruling class at bay.
They were gifts from the Goddess, fertility personified.
To even suggest a Flower was impotent was slander, and to believe it was stupidity.
Xandar might as well claim the ocean wasn’t wet, or the sun wasn’t hot.
Sindar’s mind flitted through the possibilities and immediately seized on the most obvious.
“Xandar’s the one who’s impotent, and he’s too stupid to see it or too proud to admit it.” He laughed, humorless and harsh. “It turns out Xandar’s swimmers are as repellent as he is, and nobody had the guts to set him straight. Why am I not surprised?”
“Your Highness,” Ambani said, appalled.
“Sneer all you want,” Patel said, his tone severe. “What were we supposed to do? Tell him plainly and risk beheading? Have you forgotten what it’s like to live with a tyrant?”
Sindar’s superiority faded. They were right.
There was no easy way to navigate this. As he considered, rusty political gears and mechanisms cranking to life in his mind, he said, “You were going to send for me, anyway. That’s how you made the arrangements so quickly.
” A lump rose in his throat. “You don’t need me.
You needed my sperm. That’s all you’ve ever needed from me. ”
“Your Highness,” Ambani began, her voice quivering. “You have to understand…”
“Don’t start,” Sindar said sharply.
“Sin, please,” she insisted. “We didn’t know what else to do.”
“Is this why you saved me?” he asked Patel, his temper rising. “Did you see this coming? You saw everything else coming, didn’t you?”
“I saved you because I love you, you daft boy!” Patel snapped, slapping a hand onto the table.
“I had one card to play, one, and I played it for you! I’d do it again, even knowing what would follow!
But we are at a crisis point now, and this problem is far bigger than you or I.
The marriage was supposed to strengthen our position, and now it’s making things worse.
If word gets out that the King of Kysan cannot produce heirs, there will be a coup.
A real one this time, and all the work Lady Ambani and I have done to secure our safety will be our undoing. We will not make it out alive.”
“Xandar had a plan, I presume. One that didn’t involve me siring his children.”
Patel’s look grew slightly pained. “He never confided in me, but I can make an educated guess. If Eminence Ardor is at fault, Kysan may argue breach of contract. Your brother intended to prove his Eminence is incapable of fulfilling his contractual duties. How, I don’t know, but he demanded a public breeding ceremony, and it is scheduled for this morning. ”
“Well, cancel it,” Sindar said.
Now both his advisers looked pained. “We tried, Your Highness,” Ambani said. “Eminence Ardor invited Pavarian dignitaries to observe, and they have already arrived. Canceling now will raise too many questions, and we cannot afford additional scrutiny. We must go ahead as planned.”
They wanted him to bed the king’s Flower? They were out of their minds. “Nonsense, I’ll talk to him,” Sindar said. “He seems clever. He’ll understand.”
“Absolutely not,” Patel said. “That Pavarian is smart. As a whip, in fact, and he’s probably a spy. You should interact with him as little as possible.”
Sindar paused. “You’re not going to tell him about the switch?”
“Of course we’re not going to tell him! If he sends word to the Archon, we’re done for.”
“Your Highness,” Ambani said quickly, before Sindar could properly explode. “Please understand, this marriage is a political arrangement. We have promised his Eminence access to a royal consort so that he may have children. You are a royal. There is no breach of contract.”