Chapter 51
Strange, how quickly realisation set in.
The pale door shone at him, and Richard tried to evade the thought, tried to stay ignorant.
After all, what did it matter in the end?
His parents were laughing at the ball, Dain and Selwyn were likely dancing, his siblings were safe and happy, and there was a beautiful man in front of him, spilling out his heart.
Why doubt any of it?
But the oddities of the day, all the little errors, rankled at him, shredded his nerves, and a bitter taste refused to leave his tongue.
A wonderful world did not mean it was the right one.
Kaelen’s brow furrowed on seeing Richard’s tear. His thumb came up to brush it off.
“My prince. Have I—did I—was there something I said—”
“No.” Richard caught Kaelen’s wrist before the hand could withdraw and pressed it harder against his cheek. “No, Kaelen. Quite the opposite.” He closed his eyes. “But it is time. I must go.”
He knew it. As much as it pained him, the door had been appearing before him for a reason. It called to him in a way that made his shoulders feel heavy, made the circlet upon his brow crushingly tight. The call was neither friendly nor pleasant, and yet, he knew he had to answer.
Kaelen blinked. “Go where?” He cursed on noticing the pale glow. “What is that?” Swiftly, he moved to shield Richard, a hand over his sword hilt. “Why does it shine so?”
“It is a door, I believe.” Richard strode past him towards the corner. “I do not know where to, but I think I must walk through it.”
“No.” Kaelen grabbed the back of his doublet. “No, that is no door I have ever seen in this castle. That is—that is some manner of magic. We must fetch Dianara. You cannot—we must—” He hauled Richard to him by the waist. “Will you look at me?”
Richard did, and the sight of his knight so distressed, chest heaving and eyes wide, made the lump in his throat swell all the more. “Kaelen. My life…has never been this simple.”
“What do you—”
“My father has been entirely himself today. And yet, not once has he breathed a word to me about marriage. He has not implied, however gently or carelessly, that I am unnatural for having taken no lover. He has not introduced me to the other lords and ladies, not winked at me and urged me to take my pick. And my mother—” Richard’s voice trembled.
“My mother, this evening, came to my chamber, and she was so happy. So happy, Kaelen, that her eyes filled with tears when I told her of my—my resolve. And in what world have I ever made her so happy?”
Richard crooked a smile. “When I think of my parents—truly think of them—it is with the certainty that I have wounded and disappointed them for much of my adult life. So how is today possible? How is this day possible, in which my father has forgotten my faults, and my mother has revelled at the sight of me?”
“But—”
“My siblings are so happy, in love, young, free, so uncomplicated—” Richard grimaced. “When have they ever been without complications? When have I ever been able to look at them without worries nagging at my mind?”
The confusion in Kaelen’s face only grew.
“And then there is you.” Richard cupped Kaelen’s face with both hands, the knight’s stubble catching against his palms. “How can one like you be given to me? How can such a thing be true of any world I am allowed to live in?”
“Because it is the truth!” Kaelen squeezed Richard’s hands. “You are everything, my prince—”
“Think of the inconsistencies, Kaelen,” Richard said quickly. “When did you take a squire? When was the formal request made? When did it cross my desk? When did the ceremony take place? Who stood as witness? In what month of what year?”
Kaelen frowned, eyes flicking to the side, seeming to sift through his memories.
“I—well, surely I—she has been with me for—” He shook his head, looking startled. “I cannot quite—”
“And Penelope,” Richard said. “There is something about her father that makes my insides burn. Something about Marius. Something I knew, Kaelen, that I have now forgotten. This dream will not let me reach for it. The dream is keeping it from me.”
“Dream?” The hurt was clear in Kaelen’s words. “You think this is just a dream?”
“Yes.” Richard lowered his arms and nodded at the mirror. “That doorway has appeared three times today. They are the seams of this place. They are showing me where the cloth has been cut.”
Kaelen gawked at him.
“This is a dream,” Richard repeated. “I do not know whose, or what makes it, or how I have come to be inside it. But I must return to my world. I must, Kaelen, for there are people who need me there, and I feel the weight of them on the other side of that portal.”
The mirror’s currents brightened a pure white.
“No.” Kaelen’s arm clamped tighter around Richard’s waist, dragging him close, chest to chest. “No. I do not feel myself to be unreal. I’ve just told you of my heart.
It is the truest matter I have ever laid down before another living soul.
Do not walk through that mirror as though I am a thing to be left behind in a closet. ”
Richard’s eyes burned. How he longed to stay, and yet—
“I must,” Richard whispered. “And I think you would not hold me in your heart were I the sort of man who could remain.”
Kaelen’s face crumpled. He looked on the verge of crying, but his jaw clenched, and he nodded to himself. “Very well. Then I shall come with you.”
“Kaelen.” Richard hesitated. “If this is a dream, you—the you who stands here—may not survive the crossing. The mirror may strip you from me at the threshold.”
Kaelen’s head drooped to nuzzle his forehead against Richard’s shoulder. “It matters not. For I do not know how to live in a world without you in it.”
Richard stood for a moment with Kaelen’s arms around him, and wondered how he could bear to part.
But past this doorway, the real Kaelen awaited him. Perhaps the real Kaelen would brush aside his feelings, shrink at the thought of committing to a man who cannot sate his desires.
But the real Kaelen was his Kaelen.
Richard would not leave him.
“Come then.” He stepped back to clasp Kaelen’s hand and pull him towards the mirror. As they neared, the mirror’s frame dissolved, and the light turned blinding. “Whatever I am about to wake to, I should like you to know that this moment shall be the loveliest of my life, dream or no.”
Kaelen chuckled and dabbed at his eyes. “Mine too, my prince.”
And they walked into the white.