Chapter 54
Richard leaned over the ship’s railings, watching the sky soften into pink and orange as dawn broke. Gulls circled the mast, causing a ruckus, and the sails above snapped in the wind.
It’d been a relief to find the rowing boat and ship untouched yesterday, and more of a relief when the merfolk did not disturb them as they sailed out—though Richard took the precaution of tying Kaelen and Flint’s ankles to the mast. He untied them once they were in open water, and the night had been spent sleeping in the captain’s cabin, his bones thanking the softness of a comfortable bed.
Richard sipped from the tin cup of tea. Flint had brewed it for them all over the galley’s stove. The taste made Richard’s tongue prickle, but it warmed him from the throat downward. Somewhere behind him came Flint’s yells, once again demanding Kaelen leave him the hell alone.
Richard chuckled. Kaelen had stuck to Flint’s side since discovering the man had saved his life.
What Flint found initially amusing—especially when he ordered Kaelen about—soon turned vexing as Kaelen lavished the full force of his earnestness—making an oath of brotherhood, attempting to cook Flint a meal, and then promising his future child in return for Flint’s sacrifice.
“You shall have my firstborn, Master Flint. Though I must warn you, it shall be a dog, for I’ve no plans for children. Once I have trained the hound to be the ultimate weapon, I shall surrender them to you, Master Flint. I shall visit often, of course—”
“Get him,” Flint had snarled, yanking on Richard’s collar, “the fuck away from me before I call upon the Devil to turn him into dust.”
Richard had only laughed.
Now, Kaelen was entreating Flint to kill a spider for him, the encounter with the siren having instilled a fear of all eight-legged creatures, and Flint was bellowing at Kaelen to do it himself.
It was, Richard mused, taking another sip of tea, a beautiful morn. He breathed in the salty air and sighed.
Set them down, he’d told Kaelen in the Vexmaran inn just a few nights ago. Lay it on the shelf and take it down only when it is useful.
The advice he had been so generous with when the burden was not his.
For now, the prophecies clanged in his head like High Ardenia’s warning bells.
Briony alone in a foreign land. Their youngest, who could not even wield a sword. Why would Richard ever send her away?
And Corwin, who braided mischief into all he did. Whose chaos made all in the castle smile. Even Aralynn, when she lived, could be coaxed out of her gloom by his antics.
In what terrible world would Corwin stop laughing?
And Elara. The first babe who’d been placed in Richard’s arms. Who had held screaming matches with Father, having inherited his quick temper. Elara, who dedicated so much of herself to teaching young mages, whose smirk made the most arrogant dukes pale. His fiery sister.
A cell with no windows. Her hair hacked short. Her shackles rusted.
Richard let his head hang over the railings. What could he do? His mother’s prophecies had a tendency to come true—perhaps not always in the shape one expected, but in some manner, always, eventually.
Exceptions had existed, but they’d been rare. A one-in-a-thousand event.
There was also the fact that his mother, his poor mother, had carried these prophecies.
Richard’s heart wrenched. No wonder she always seemed near tears on looking at him.
And Kaelen, too. No doubt Aralynn had instructed Kaelen to be silent, but regardless, Kaelen had given Richard peace. The knight had permitted Richard years of not knowing, had taken the prophecy onto his own back. There was a kindness in that.
Richard drained the tea, the dregs bitter on his tongue. Ignorance truly was bliss. Would that he could have remained ignorant longer.
“Good morn.”
Richard glanced over his shoulder. Kaelen beamed at him, scrubbed clean of blood and dressed in a woolly tunic. With a roll of his eyes, Richard returned to the sea.
Kaelen inched to his side. “Are you angry with me?”
“Yes.”
“May I ask what for?”
Richard scowled at the horizon. Kaelen knew exactly what for. “No.”
Kaelen snorted and hastily covered it with a cough as Richard shifted his glower onto him.
“I am not amused,” Richard said coldly.
Kaelen scrubbed a hand through his hair, causing his fringe to fall into his eyes. It only heightened Richard’s annoyance, for his fingers now itched to drag the fringe back up.
“I am sorry.” Kaelen shuffled closer. “I shall try not to scare you like that again.”
Richard sniffed. He could still remember the blood jetting from Kaelen’s abdomen, the way Kaelen’s eyes had gone distant. The terror had haunted his dreams. “See that you do not do it again.”
The ensuing pause stretched so long that Richard found himself discomfited. Odd. Kaelen usually filled silences.
Subtly, Richard peeked sideways. His brows shot up.
Kaelen was staring, with the unblinking concentration of a hound that had scented a hare, at Richard’s chest.
It took Richard a heartbeat to recall what he was wearing.
Flint’s shirt—a tight, coarse thing he’d been forced into while his own tunic dried—that plunged in a deep ‘V’ down his sternum.
The neckline had slipped further during his lean over the railing, exposing the line of his chest and—he realised wryly—the dusky edges of his nipples.
Kaelen’s jaw had slackened, colour rising high on his cheeks, climbing to the tips of his ears, and his throat worked in a slow swallow.
Richard scoffed. How extraordinary. A grown man, a knight of the realm, who had bested a giant spider the day before, now reduced to gawping at the sliver of pectorals.
Was this what attraction meant? This licking of the lips, this mesmerisation, this inability to maintain conversation because of a less modest shirt.
It seemed exhausting. Distracting. Inconvenient, even. A wonder anyone in the world managed to keep their books balanced or their fields planted.
“My eyes, Kaelen, are up here.”
Kaelen’s head snapped up, his blush deepening.
“I—I beg your pardon—I did not—” Kaelen winced and rubbed his nape. “Forgive me—I—the wind—your shirt was—it had—I was not—”
“I do not mind,” Richard said. Strange, but he truly did not. He’d rather Kaelen gawk at his body than at Ravi’s.
Kaelen lowered his voice. “I had been meaning to ask you…I overheard yesterday…the siren telling you of the prophecies—”
“I do not wish to speak of it,” Richard said quickly.
And there was one prophecy he more than anything never wanted mentioned again. One prophecy that curdled a deep horror each time his thoughts trailed close.
“I see him collared. A prisoner in his own castle. I see him pinned to my own wedding bed—”
Richard’s stomach lurched, and he set the cup on the prow’s rail. Do not think of it. Do not—
“That’s all right,” Kaelen said softly. “We need not speak of it today.”
The knot in Richard’s chest loosened.
“May I ask you instead…The dream.” Hope resounded in Kaelen’s words. “You truly—we truly—it was the same one? You were there?”
“It was me.” Richard gave him a small smile. “I know that it was you, too. Only you would bare your heart in a broom cupboard with brandy on your breath.”
Kaelen huffed a sheepish laugh and slowly slid his hand across the railing to climb over Richard’s.
Richard stared first at the hand, then at Kaelen, whose face had gone solemn.
“I want you to know,” Kaelen said, “that I seek no answer. What I said in that cupboard, I said because it has been mine to harbour, and the dream gave me leave to lay it down.”
“Oh. Well.” Richard dithered, his mind seemingly made of two wrestling halves. “That—that is kind of you to say.”
—tell him. Tell him now—
—wait until we are at the castle—
—this is the perfect moment—
—next spring. Next spring would be better—
Richard bit his lip. No. He was no coward.
I cannot run from this forever.
“There was once a boy prince,” he began, trying not to cringe, “who…who was, in truth, a poor sort of company. When this prince grew into a youth, he found that his peers had begun to speak of things he had no understanding of, and when the seasons turned, and he turned with them, the call of desire did not appear.” Richard hesitated.
By the gods, he sounded ridiculous—too fast, too factual.
Nothing like Kaelen’s tender, heartfelt words.
“The prince turned twenty-one, and his father urged him to find a lover and his mother bade him to open his heart, and the prince learned that to open one’s heart generally meant to open one’s legs or arms, to embrace a man or woman in a manner the prince had no interest in performing.
Every relationship his elders pressed upon him looped, sooner or later, to the bedchamber, and the prince shrank from it all for it repulsed him so. ”
Kaelen had begun to knead the back of Richard’s hand. It helped Richard continue despite his parched mouth.
“The prince turned twenty-five, then thirty, and by then, his parents were weeping, arguing in their chamber, believing they had failed him. The prince heard their frustration and despair, and the guilt of it sat like a noose around his neck...Often, he wondered why he was born so peculiar. He tried a few times to coax himself into bedding another, but each attempt ended in a disaster that had to be stifled.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Richard saw Kaelen stiffen.
“The prince did notice, once, an eighteen-year-old squire.” Richard chuckled.
“A boy ready to face execution for the sake of his prince’s honour.
A foolish, brave boy, and the prince felt the beginnings of a distant fondness.
And when the boy returned from his adventuring as a knight of twenty-two, tall as a doorway and strong, the prince felt pride. That was where it should have ended.”