Epilogue
When Jakob woke again, his eyes red and puffy from crying himself back to sleep, it was in the gray dawn light that filtered through the cottage windows.
Something glinted where it had fallen between the mattress and the edge of the bedframe — an envelope, and pinned to it in gleaming blue and gold cloisonné, littered with small diamonds — Hal's Order of the Seraphim.
His fingers trembled as he unpinned the order, and slipped the envelope open.
Inside was a letter, not addressed to him, but to Baron Carl Emil Gustav Mannerheim, the Field Marshal of the Army of Finland.
The handwriting was unmistakably Hal's – elegant, controlled, with the slight rightward slant that appeared when he wrote something of great importance. The letter began:
My Dear Baron Mannerheim,
I hope that this letter finds you well. I realize that this is a strange time and a strange way to begin a correspondence.
We haven't spoken since I was a child and you regaled me with stories of your visits to Aden and Calcutta over the breakfast table when you visited our family at Drottningholm.
I also realize that despite your Swedish upbringing, you consider yourself to be a Finnish citizen and no longer a subject of my family or my future crown.
Jakob took a shaky breath. Hal had addressed Mannerheim not as Crown Prince to General, but as one man to another – as a personal friend requesting a personal favor.
I find myself in the position now where I must, nonetheless, ask a favor of you.
I understand that you are the Supreme Commander of all troops in Finland and are currently preparing to fight against the Red Army.
There is a young man who is close to me — who is, I believe, precious to me in a way similar to how you yourself were once precious to my cousin Nicholas when he wore the Imperial Crown.
The letter trembled in Jakob's hands. His heart stopped, then restarted with a painful thud.
Everyone knew of Mannerheim's unwavering loyalty to Nicholas II – how even now, fighting against the very country his Tsar once ruled, he kept the Emperor's portrait in his office.
"He was always my Emperor," the old general was rumored to say when questioned.
A devotion which transcended politics, transcended nations – the kind that bound one man to another through something deeper than mere duty.
And now Hal had invoked that same devotion – but with an unmistakable intimation that his feelings for Jakob went beyond even that legendary loyalty.
And Hal had committed it to paper. For him.
This young man is joining the army — your army — to fight against the Russians.
His name is Jakob Eliasberg, and he comes bearing my royal order.
I ask you to do everything in your power to protect him.
Use his skills to win this war; a war which I believe must be fought and won to protect all of us.
But please return him to me whole in body and in soul.
I do not believe that I can carry the weight of the crown without him.
Yours,
Harald Edvard, Kronprins av Sverige.
Jakob read the letter three times, his vision blurring with each pass. Hal hadn't just asked for protection – he'd revealed himself to Mannerheim, gambling everything on the old general's discretion and sympathy.
And beside it, the Order of the Seraphim – Sweden's highest honor, given only to royalty and heads of state. The diamonds caught the morning light, almost mocking in their brilliance.
"You fool," Jakob whispered, though there was no heat in it — only a devastating tenderness. "You beautiful, reckless fool."
Last night hadn't just been lovemaking. It hadn't even been just the ancient oath of fealty they'd sworn.
With these tokens – the ring, the Order, the letter – Hal acknowledged Jakob as something for which there was no name in their world – something that went back to the beginning of time, whether that be Sweden's eddas or Jonathan and David.
The weight of it settled on Jakob's shoulders alongside the weight of the war waiting for him. He had to survive now. Had to return. Not just for himself, but for the prince who had risked so much to bind them together and to protect him – the prince who could not carry the crown without him.
He folded the letter carefully and pinned the Order to the inside of his jacket where it would rest against his heart. As he held the two in his hand, the royal crest sat above the crude training ring – a metaphor for their impossible union.
He'd have to remove both before he reached Finland, but for now... for now he let himself feel their weight, let himself pretend for just a moment more that he'd be able to keep any of the promises he made in the dark.
But the dawn was breaking, cold and grey, and there was a war waiting. Time to leave his marriage bed for a soldier's cot, to trade his lover's tender touches for the bite of steel and gunpowder.
Hal and Jakob’s story will be continued in “The Winter War”, available in April of 2026.