Chapter 27

 

 

The twin moons shone brightly, bathing the gardens in pale light.

“What did you want to talk about?” Seyn said, sitting down on the first unoccupied bench they’d come across, his gaze settling on the blue flowers opposite the bench.

Aware of the other guests that had suddenly decided to take a stroll through the gardens, Ksar took a seat next to Seyn, a palm’s length between them.

He stared at the flowers, too, as silence stretched.

A night bird sang a hauntingly beautiful song from one of the trees. Knowing the Regent of the Eleventh Grand Clan, the bird must have cost a small fortune.

Seyn chuckled. “Are we just going to sit here in silence?”

Ksar pursed his lips to stop himself from saying that he wouldn’t mind. 

Pathetic.

He looked down at his own hands. “Are you really choosing Denev?”

There was silence for a while.

At last, Seyn said, “Yes. He makes the most sense. My mothers approve. And he’s nice.”

Ksar’s lips twisted. No one would describe him as nice. 

“Is he?” he said flatly.

Beside him, Seyn bristled. “He is. He’s handsome, well mannered and—and lovely. He looks at me like I matter.”

Ksar laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

He looked at Seyn. “You think you didn’t matter to me?” His voice sounded hollow even to his own ears, all wrong.

Seyn’s lovely lips folded into a scowl.

Gritting his teeth, Ksar looked away.

“You had a funny way of showing it,” Seyn said, his tone hostile, even though there was something uncertain about the way he’d said that. “You’ve never given a damn about me.”

“Not giving a damn has never been an issue,” Ksar said with a humorless smile. The problem was the opposite.

“Don’t do this,” Seyn said tightly, resentment coloring his voice. “Don’t you dare do this!”

Ksar looked back at him. “Why?” he said. “If you’re so happy with your choice, it shouldn’t matter what I say. I shouldn’t matter.”

Seyn glared at him. “Shut up—go away! Leave me alone!”

Ksar looked from Seyn’s furious eyes to his trembling lips and back to his eyes. “Is that really what you want? I promise I’ll leave you alone and never speak to you again if you say it like you actually mean it.”

Seyn continued to glare at him.

He was so damn beautiful when he was angry.

Seyn opened his mouth and closed it. Some emotion appeared in his eyes before Seyn set his jaw and said firmly, “Leave me alone.”

Something in him gave a painful twinge, a heavy and unpleasant feeling settling low in his stomach. 

Ksar told himself that this was to be expected. It had been ridiculous even to entertain the idea that his…fixation on Seyn might not be completely one-sided. Why would it not be one-sided? He had treated Seyn abominably for years. 

This was for the best. He wasn’t any good at…emotions. He should stick to what he was good at: his duty to the Ministry, his duty to the throne, and his duty to his family. Emotions and wants were messy. He didn’t need them. It was good that Seyn was telling him to leave him alone—Ksar was honest enough with himself to admit that he wouldn’t have been able to do so otherwise. Seyn had always been his weakness—the feisty, spirited, argumentative boy that could get under his skin like no other, the only person capable of making him irrational, overly emotional, and reckless. This was for the best.

With a clipped nod, Ksar got to his feet, ignoring the hollow feeling in his chest. There was nothing hollow in his chest. He was perfectly healthy. Perfectly fine. It was all in his head. 

He was hardly heartbroken.

He was just…

Ksar clenched his jaw and looked down at Seyn for the last time, taking in his bowed silver head and long fingers gripping the edge of the bench. Although Seyn looked fine, he felt upset, exuding misery, desperation, and anger. 

Ksar’s hand twitched toward him and he curled it into a fist. No. Seyn had made his choice. He would respect that. It was a good thing that at least one of them was thinking rationally. 

Ksar turned away, but then paused. There was one more thing that needed to be said.

“For all it’s worth, I’m sorry,” he said. His voice sounded hoarse and unsteady—nothing like him. He didn’t think he’d ever apologized in his life, but it felt right to say those words now. 

They still felt inadequate.

Everything about this felt inadequate, because a part of him still insisted that the young man he was saying goodbye to was his and only his, forever. He wanted to snarl those words out, he wanted to grab Seyn and refuse to let go, he wanted to kiss him and mark him up, so everyone could see whom Seyn belonged to.

Ksar grimaced, utterly disgusted with himself. He had given his word that he would leave Seyn alone if Seyn told him so. He might not be a good man, and he might keep his word only when it suited him, but this time he would. He owed Seyn that much. He refused to be the possessive, controlling ex who couldn’t let go when his lover moved on. He would stop thinking of Seyn as his. He would stop looking for him at every social function—at least he would do his best. He had no right to him. This—whatever that hollow feeling in his chest was—it was of no consequence. One didn’t always get what one wanted; such was life. He wasn’t entitled to happiness. People like Harry fell in love and got to be happy. People like him did their duty. He would marry Leylen, he would tolerate her, and he would treat her with perfect politeness. What he wanted was irrelevant.

But no matter what he told himself, making himself leave was still the hardest thing Ksar had ever done. His feet felt heavy, his body reluctant to cooperate, as if it was bound to the young man he was leaving behind with tight, invisible ropes. Mine, his body insisted. Mine, the feeling in his chest said.

Ksar managed a few steps when a sound stopped him.

A laugh, harsh and a little hysterical.

Ksar turned, and stared.

Seyn was laughing, his hands covering his face as his shoulders shook with laughter. “Sorry? You know where you can shove your fucking apology?” He lifted his head, glaring at him. “You just have to ruin everything, don’t you? I don’t want to hear your apologies. I don’t want to listen to you saying that I mattered to you. I want to hate you, dammit. Let me have that at least!” He slumped forward, running a hand over his face. “I hate you,” he whispered, his voice wavering. “Don’t take that away from me.”

Ksar eyed him with furrowed brows. He took a step closer, and then another, and another, until he was looking down at Seyn’s bowed head.

“I…” he said, his hand twitching toward Seyn. He’d never felt so out of his depth. He wanted…he wanted Seyn to stop feeling upset. He wanted to fix it. But he didn’t know how. He knew what he wanted to do, but it was highly unlikely Seyn would even accept comfort from him.

Seyn heaved a sigh and stared at the blue flowers again. “Have you ever heard of Queen Esme of my clan?”

Ksar frowned, taken aback by the change of subject. “I don’t recall her.”

“You wouldn’t. It happened over five thousand years ago and she ruled for just two years.” Seyn touched one of the blue petals. “These are poisonous, you know. They can be used to create a lethal poison—poison that was very popular at the court back then. To protect her daughter from poisoning, Queen Esme’s mother fed her small doses of poison from very early childhood, to build up her immunity. But it worked a little too well. By the time Queen Esme ascended the throne, she was completely addicted to it. She was stabbed two years later while she was too high to even notice it.” 

Seyn lifted his eyes back to Ksar. “It’s a story told to all children of our House. The moral of the story is supposed to be that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but I used to think that my mother just made up that story to stop me from doing something reckless and dangerous.” Seyn gave a crooked smile. “I didn’t believe that you could actually grow to need something that hurt you. It seemed really messed up, you know?” He laughed, the sound sharp as broken glass. “It is messed up.”

Ksar stared at Seyn, his heart beating fast and hard.

“Queen Esme didn’t die from that poison,” he heard himself say.

“No, she didn’t,” Seyn agreed, his face raw with emotion that hurt to look at. “She died because she didn’t give a shit about anything but her poison. She died because she was too weak to resist it. Isn’t that essentially the same thing? She was an idiot. I’m an idiot, too, or I wouldn’t hate Ambassador Denev for not being the insufferably arrogant, infuriating, immoral asshole who hurt me all my life.” Seyn glared at Ksar, but there was something fragile about his expression, his eyes shining with unshed tears. “What have you done to me? I should hate you.”

Slowly, Ksar dropped to one knee, and then the other, until he was kneeling in front of Seyn, who was staring at him, wide-eyed.

Well aware that anyone spying on them could probably see him kneeling on the hard ground, Ksar took Seyn’s hand and brought their clasped hands to his right shoulder.

Seyn took in a sharp breath, clearly recognizing the gesture: it had once been used by clan lords to swear fealty to their king. It had gone out of use thousands of years ago; it was considered too demeaning by modern standards.

“I can’t promise you that I will never hurt you again,” Ksar said, looking Seyn in the eye. “You know me. I’m not—good at emotions. But I can promise you that I will try—as long as you’ll have me.” He was dismayed by how raw his voice sounded, how desperate he felt—and likely looked. Crown princes didn’t kneel. He didn’t kneel. But this was more important than his pride. Seyn was owed some groveling after years of rejection and rudeness; Ksar was well aware of that. He wasn’t blind to his own faults—he would always be “insufferably arrogant”—but that didn’t mean he couldn’t suppress his pride and arrogance when it mattered.

And this mattered. 

“Stop that, get up,” Seyn said tightly, looking away. “What are you even saying? It doesn’t matter anyway, does it? It’s too late. You are marrying her in four days! And I already said yes to Ambassador Denev.”

Ignoring the rush of ugly possessiveness, Ksar took Seyn’s chin in his other hand and made Seyn look at him. “Forget about them. If you say yes, I’ll handle it.”

Seyn let out a laugh, sounding a little hysterical. “Are you out of your mind? It would be political suicide for you! You’d lose all credibility if you suddenly say ‘Oops, I’ve changed my mind’ after the Council gave you the permission to break your bond to me, something that just isn’t done, amendment to the Bonding Law or not. They would crucify you.”

“I can handle it,” Ksar repeated tersely. “You don’t need excuses if you want to say no.”

Seyn chuckled, running a hand over his face. “I can’t just…” He looked at Ksar with something like frustration, vulnerability, and longing, all mixed in one. “What do you even feel for me? Lust doesn’t count.”

Ksar sneered a little. “Lust can be dealt with easily enough.”

Seyn just looked at him expectantly when that was all he said.

Sighing, Ksar rose to his feet and took the seat beside Seyn again. 

He stared at the poisonous flowers, fighting the instinctive urge to deny having any feelings whatsoever. 

“I’m not good at this,” he said, tugging at his cravat a little. 

“I know,” Seyn said, very dryly. 

Ksar shot him a sideways glare and found Seyn smiling. “I’m glad you find this amusing.”

“Sorry,” Seyn said, not sounding sorry at all. “Let’s hear your grand confession anyway.”

There was a faint look of skepticism on his face, as if he still didn’t believe Ksar was serious about wanting him. Such insecurity in someone so attractive made Ksar feel like a right bastard—that was entirely his doing, and no one else’s.

“I can’t do grand confessions,” Ksar said, letting his hand graze against Seyn’s knuckles. He heard Seyn’s breathing hitch and removed his hand before that could escalate. At this point Ksar was well aware that neither of them could think rationally if they got carried away, and it had been much too long since he’d last touched Seyn. They didn’t need distractions, not now.

“But I know what I want.” Ksar met Seyn’s gaze and held it. “I never really hated you, at least not like you hated me. Even when you irritated me, I wanted to have you. I don’t mean just lust. I liked the idea of you being mine—being at my side, in my bed, taking my name, and becoming my King-Consort at some point.”

A faint flush appeared on Seyn’s cheekbones. But the only thing he said was, “Continue.”

“But I knew I could never really have you, not with the way things were. A relationship can’t be built on lies and manipulations. So it was…frustrating. The situation made me angry and I took out that anger on you.” Ksar averted his eyes. “That’s not an excuse, I know. It’s the truth. All those offensive things I said, when I insulted your intelligence or your social conduct, it was…” Ksar grimaced. “Part of it was that I was trying to convince myself that you weren’t all that attractive.” He snorted. “Though I did like making you fume—you do have a singular talent for making me act like an ass.”

“Is that supposed to be your grand confession?” Seyn said, but Ksar could see his lips twitching.

Ksar met his smiling eyes and felt his heart thud almost painfully against his ribs. He did like making Seyn fume. But it seemed he liked making him smile even more.

“I can get back on my knees if it’s not grand enough for you,” he said dryly.

Seyn grinned, glancing around the garden. “I think once is sufficient or all these people hiding behind those bushes might actually have a heart attack.”

Ksar made a face. At least it was unlikely that they had been overheard. 

“So is that a yes?” he said.

Seyn licked his lips. “I’m…” He sighed, looking at Ksar with a pinched expression. “Fuck it, I guess I’m that crazy.”

Ksar’s felt his throat constrict. Until that moment, he hadn’t realized how much he wanted this—wanted Seyn to choose him, freely. 

Aloud, he said, “There’s nothing crazy about choosing the Crown Prince of the Second Grand Clan of Calluvia over an ambassador of some irrelevant planet.”

As expected, Seyn gave him an exasperated look. “It was probably too much to hope your humility would last.” But he sounded fond, and the smile on his lips told Ksar everything he needed.

“Let’s not pretend you don’t like it,” Ksar said, taking Seyn’s hand again and brushing his lips against his bare wrist. He could actually hear the scandalized gasps from the direction of the trees, but his eyes were only on Seyn’s. 

“Ksar,” Seyn murmured. His gaze was already slightly unfocused, the longing in them mirroring the one under Ksar’s skin. “People are watching us.”

“Let them,” Ksar said, kissing his wrist again. “They will find out soon enough.”

Seyn wet his lips, color high on his cheeks. “Come here, then,” he said, freeing his wrist and cupping Ksar’s jaw. It’s been too long, came a crystal clear thought Ksar fully agreed with. It definitely felt like it had been months since he last tasted Seyn’s lips and touched him intimately.

It was still a poor excuse for kissing him in such a public place, most likely in full view of several members of high society.

He did it, anyway. 

A small moan left Seyn’s mouth at the first contact of their lips. Ksar didn’t allow himself to deepen the kiss too much—they were in a public place—but it took all his willpower not to haul Seyn onto his lap like some uncivilized barbarian. And although he didn’t let himself delve into Seyn’s mind, either, he could still feel snatches of his thoughts. I missed this. I missed you. It’s so fucked up, but I feel whole only with you.

“Yes,” Ksar said roughly, breaking the kiss and pressing their foreheads together. He knew exactly what Seyn meant. “My sentiments precisely.”