Chapter 18

 

Twenty-one days later, Seyn received an official message from the Council, informing him that Ksar’s petition had been approved. The date for breaking the bond was in three days.

Seyn stared at the message for a few moments before carefully putting his multi-device back into his pocket.

Jamil stopped making funny faces at his daughter and looked up. “Bad news?”

“No,” Seyn said, putting on a smile and focusing his gaze on Tmynne. The four-month-old baby princess smiled back at him, her green eyes sparkling as she reached out to Seyn’s hair with a chubby hand.

“Good news, actually,” he said. There was no point in trying to hide the news from Jamil. As the Crown Prince, he sat on the Council himself. Every grand clan had two votes on the Council, one for the ruling monarch—or their consort in their absence—and one for the heir apparent. Unless Jamil had missed the latest session of the Council, he likely already knew the news. If Seyn tried to hide anything, he had no doubt it would only reaffirm his family’s opinion that there was something wrong with him.

There was nothing wrong with him.

He was fine. He was better than ever. Seyn was sick of his family treating him like a fucking ticking bomb. So he had broken a few priceless heirlooms; so what? It didn’t make him emotionally fragile or something.

It meant nothing.

He was fine.

“Ksar’s petition was approved,” he said and smiled wider. “I’ll be a free man in three days.”

He felt Jamil’s gaze on him, but he kept his eyes on Tmynne. She finally managed to grab a lock of his hair and made a triumphant noise.

Seyn chuckled. “Fine, but no hair pulling, all right?”

Tmynne pulled at his hair, hard.

Laughing, Seyn lifted her from her crib and hid his face in her sweet-smelling hair. He could feel that Jamil was still watching him.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Jamil said at last, sounding as uncomfortable as Seyn felt.

Seyn paused. He lifted his head and looked his brother in the eye. “About what?”

Jamil gave him an unimpressed look. “I’m your brother, kid. Don’t insult my intelligence by pretending it isn’t a big deal for you.”

“I don’t really have the bond anymore, remember?” Seyn said with a soft chuckle. “It will be just a formality.”

Jamil’s expression didn’t change. “Do you remember the Shadow War?”

Seyn’s brows furrowed in confusion. 

The Shadow War hadn’t been a real war. It referred to the twenty-year period in Calluvian history that had taken place nine thousand years ago. Back then, there hadn’t been twelve grand clans; there had been just two, but the relationship between them, especially between their queens, had been so bad it put real wars to shame. Queen Eguiless and Queen Xeryash’s mutual hatred and rivalry had been legendary; it still was.

But what did that have to do with anything?

Seyn shrugged, bewildered by the sudden change of subject. “What about it?”

Jamil looked at him hard. “The queens hated each other for so long that their sole purpose in life became destroying each other. They were obsessed with it. But then Queen Xeryash died from a heart attack, of all things. And do you remember what happened to Queen Eguiless?”

Seyn put the baby back in her crib, needing the excuse to look away from his brother’s eyes.

Yes, of course he knew what happened to Queen Eguiless. They said she became very strange after her archenemy’s sudden death. She acted withdrawn and listless half of the time, and fell into mindless rages the other half.

“Hate is a powerful feeling, too,” Jamil said. “It’s a passion, too, just on another end of the spectrum. Some say it’s stronger than love, and that if you suddenly lose someone you hated for years, it would leave as big a void as if you lost a loved one.”

Seyn chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. “What does that have to do with me?”

Jamil sighed. “All I’m saying is that it’s okay to feel strange about finally getting the freedom you’ve always wanted. You don’t have to pretend to be happy if you aren’t.”

“I’m not pretending,” Seyn said. “I’m happy. My life isn’t revolved around Ksar.” He hated how unconvincing and defensive his voice sounded.

Judging by the look Jamil shot him, he wasn’t convinced, either.

“It’ll get better,” Jamil said, his expression turning wistful as his gaze shifted to his daughter. “Give it time.”

Seyn looked at him curiously. Time had certainly seemed to help his brother. Jamil did look loads better. His green eyes were brighter, his complexion healthier. He’d gained the weight he’d lost after his bondmate’s death and now he was almost as built as Ksar. He looked startlingly handsome, younger, and at peace with himself. He no longer gave off grief and misery.

Seyn was unsure why he hadn’t noticed the changes in his brother before. Was he really as self-absorbed as Ksar said?

The thought made him frown. He’d accepted a long time ago that he had something of a tunnel vision where his relationship with Ksar was concerned, but it was no excuse for barely paying attention to his family.

“You look good,” Seyn said. “I’m happy for you.”

His shoulders tensing, Jamil shot him a startled look. “What? What are you talking about?”

Seyn’s eyebrows crawled up. Did his brother sound flustered? No, he must have imagined that. Jamil didn’t do flustered. “Fatherhood suits you. I’m glad Tmynne’s birth changed your life for the better.”

Jamil exhaled and his shoulders lost tension. “She did,” he said, shifting his gaze back to his daughter.

Seyn gave his brother a long look, wondering.

The door suddenly slid open and a man Seyn didn’t know walked into the room as if it were his own.

The man came to a halt upon seeing him, his casual attitude changing. He gave Seyn a stiff bow, with his hands clasped behind his back—the way only servants bowed to members of the royal family.

Seyn frowned. The man was obviously a servant, but he didn’t hold himself like a servant. There was nothing subservient or particularly respectful about his posture.

Seyn studied the man. He was tall, perhaps Jamil’s height or slightly shorter. He was broad-shouldered and well muscled but wiry, as if he was all raw muscle and virile power with no fat at all. His skin was unusually dark for their clan, his features sharp and strange. His dark hair was cut very close to his scalp. There was black paint peeking out of his sleeve—or perhaps it wasn’t paint at all. It resembled those permanent tattoos Seyn had seen on some planets. 

The overall impression the servant gave off was wild. He reminded Seyn of a bird of prey. A predator. What was a man like that doing as a palace servant? Actually, why had he entered the Crown Prince’s rooms without as much as a knock?

Seyn glanced at Jamil, expecting him to reprimand the servant—his brother wasn’t one to tolerate insolence—but Jamil just raised his eyebrows at the strange man. “Yes?”

Seyn stared at his brother incredulously.

“You’re late for your meeting with the King-Consort of the Twelfth Grand Clan,” the man said. He had a faint accent Seyn couldn’t quite place.

“Ah, yes,” Jamil said, tearing his eyes away from the other man’s and picking up his multi-device from his desk. “Let’s go, Seyn. I would like you to be there, too. You know the Twelfth Grand Clan’s colonies better than I do.”

Seyn followed him out of the room, glancing back at his niece uncertainly as the door slid shut. “Are you seriously going to leave Tmynne with that strange man?”

“She sees him more often than she sees you,” Jamil said, looking straight ahead.

Pushing aside the pang of guilt—he really should spend more time with his family instead of sulking because of Ksar—Seyn said, “Who is he?”

“My manservant.”

Seyn blinked. “He looks like a thug, not a manservant!” He came to an abrupt halt. “Wait, is he the servant you let—” He cut himself off when Jamil shot him a withering look that promised death if Seyn dared finish that sentence.

Seyn grinned, shaking his head. He’d never thought his prim, proper brother had it in him. “I can’t believe you! Where did you even find him? He looks dangerous!”

“You know,” Jamil said in a very mild voice, “someone who keeps falling on his enemy’s cock really has no room to talk.”

Seyn’s mouth fell open. Jamil never used such vulgar language. It seemed he had touched a nerve.

“I don’t!” Seyn said belatedly, his face warm. “It happened just a few times and is never going to happen again!”

Everything in Jamil’s expression screamed skepticism.

Seyn scowled. “Anyway, it’s none of your business. It’s completely irrelevant to the subject at hand.”

“It’s not irrelevant. Have you not noticed that Ksar is the gold standard against which you measure other men?”

Before Seyn could refute that utterly ridiculous claim, Jamil pinned him with a look. “You do. Don’t even try to deny it. You find nice, humble men boring. You naturally gravitate toward arrogant and haughty ones, the more confident the better. You judge me now because you can’t imagine being attracted to someone of a lower class—someone so unlike Ksar.” Jamil’s lips twisted. “Start judging me when you figure out how to stop gagging for Ksar’s cock.” 

His brother stalked away, but Seyn barely noticed it.

He stood frozen, a tight, sickening feeling settling low in his gut. 

Every doubt he’d been carefully suppressing since his little breakdown after the ball, surfaced again. Was he really as obsessed with Ksar as his brother had said? Did he subconsciously think that Ksar was perfect? 

Seyn scoffed at the mere thought. Of course he didn’t consider Ksar perfect. Ksar was an arrogant, infuriating, despicable, horrible person.

But he’s my horrible person. Mine.

Seyn closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. And then another.

It did nothing to quell the panic rising in his chest.