CHAPTER 21

The White Plains

The black-and-white marble was cold beneath his cheek when Eduoar woke on the floor of the portrait gallery. Sitting up, he prodded his head for bruises. “Ow,” he muttered, finding a lump above his ear. “Why didn’t anyone tell me dying hurt so much?”

In their gilded frames, the portraits of his Corabelli ancestors glared at him, unamused.

With a grimace, he hoisted himself onto the bench in the center of the room. Since his rather public collapse at Roco’s funeral in Edelise, his health had declined significantly. He was weaker. Fainting spells struck him with increasing frequency.

To everyone’s surprise except his, however, his mood had improved. He was no less sad, no less empty, but he felt lighter, as if he were a kite tethered by a single thread, and when it finally snapped, he would be whisked up into the thin blue air—weightless and free.

He wondered if death would be like that: a rushing away from the ground, leaving behind the castle courtyards, the terra-cotta rooftops, the undulating fields of poppies.

Just him and the endless blue sky.

It would be a relief. A release from the curse that had claimed everyone he had ever loved, and the sadness that came with it.

Turning the signet ring on his finger, he stared up at his own portrait.

The painting had been commissioned five years ago, when Eduoar had ascended to the throne. He’d been healthier than he was now, but he still seemed small in his embroidered robes, looking out of the frame with those sad dark eyes.

Every portrait in the room had those same eyes.

Though there’d been little doubt of his illness before, his collapse had confirmed to all the provincial nobility that his condition was worse than they’d suspected. The following morning, the newsmen were reporting it as “the fall of the Lonely King.” Appropriately foreboding, Eduoar thought.

In the days that followed, Arcadimon had presided over the selection of Shinjai’s next lord. He’d issued statements and pacified the concerned citizenry.

Eduoar had let him. After all, Arcadimon needed more practice than he did, if he was to rule when Eduoar was gone.

He could just imagine Arc decked out in the black suit and silver trim of the Delienean high court, with the ivory circlet of a regent in his brown curls and an easy smile dimpling his cheeks.

There was a small tug in Eduoar’s chest. Part of him wished he would see it.

But he shoved that part of him down again where it would never see the light of day.

His gaze slid to the portrait of his father, Leymor Corabelli, the Suicide King. He’d been painted at the window of the royal chambers, with the morning light limning his edges, as if he were already disappearing from the world.

Mother’s death was just an excuse to do it, Eduoar thought bitterly.

“You should never have married her,” he said to his father’s portrait.

Not all Corabellis had the melancholia. Before the fall that had taken his life, Eduoar’s great-grandfather, his namesake, had been robust and full of life, hunting, feasting, taking a myriad of lovers—servants and stableboys and ladies of the court.

All of them had died—childbirth, fever, housefire, and so on and so forth.

When his mother passed away, Eduoar had promised himself he’d never curse someone he cared for, not a boy he wished to spend his life with nor a child he made his heir. It didn’t matter whom he loved, but if he loved them, they’d surely die.

No, the Corabelli line would come to an end with him. And so would the curse.

Some days—he called them “dead days”—the sadness and loneliness would be unbearable. Eduoar would lie in bed for hours, eyes closed, willing himself to sleep again because he couldn’t face another day waiting for the inevitable.

Sometimes Arc would arrive and throw open the curtains and cajole him from under the covers with jokes and amusing anecdotes from his visits to the provinces.

The worst days were the ones when Arcadimon was away.

As if on cue, his friend entered dressed in his riding gear—boots and jacket and pants that showed off his well-proportioned form.

Eduoar’s hand went to his chest, feeling the familiar flutter of his heart beneath his fingertips. Did Arcadimon’s blue eyes brighten upon seeing him—or was that a trick of the light?

Ever since they’d returned from Shinjai, Arc had been different. More attentive. It was like he was absorbing every gesture, every inflection in Eduoar’s voice, committing each moment to memory as if he were chiseling it in stone.

Maybe because he knew it would happen soon.

“Glad that’s over with,” Arcadimon announced, dusting off his immaculately clean hands. “You’re lucky you’re so sick you don’t have to sit through court anymore.”

Ed allowed himself a smile. “Yeah. Lucky.”

As he’d grown weaker over the past three years, Eduoar had delegated more and more of his responsibilities to Arcadimon. At first, some members of the court had protested, but Arc had proven himself such an efficient leader that soon the court was operating more smoothly than it had since Eduoar’s grandmother had been queen.

“Want to go for a ride?”

“A ride?” Eduoar glanced at the glass ceiling, where the sky was gray as wet wool. “My physicians wouldn’t approve.”

“Your physicians are concerned with your body, not with your mood. Come on, it’ll be fun.” Arc grinned, as if he knew Ed would never say no to that smile of his.

Maybe it’s today, Eduoar thought. Maybe it’ll be a fall from my horse, like my great-grandfather.

He imagined the pain in his neck, the crack that would be the last sound he’d ever hear.

He would have preferred a less painful death. But at least he’d be with the person he trusted most. The only person he trusted to end his life.

Arcadimon didn’t think he suspected. But Eduoar had known within months that the “cure” for his illness was really the cause of it. And he’d been grateful. Because of the curse, he’d been wanting a way out of his life since he was a teenager, and Arc was giving it to him tied with a silver bow.

For a while Eduoar had been worried Arc was responsible for Roco’s death. The timing was too convenient. But Ed knew Arcadimon had loved Roco like a little brother, and at the funeral, his grief had been so raw. You couldn’t grieve like that for someone you’d just killed. It wasn’t possible. Not for Arc. Not for anyone.

Now Arcadimon would avoid the war of succession Eduoar had been dreading. He’d be elected regent of Deliene, gaining custody of the kingdom to which he’d devoted his entire political career.

He was good at it, and he enjoyed it—the council meetings, the trade agreements, the political maneuverings. If Ed could trust Arc to end his life, he could trust him with his people.

All he had to suffer through was a few fainting spells and a touch of fatigue. It wasn’t much worse than his melancholia, to be honest. But Arcadimon couldn’t be caught killing a king. He had to make Eduoar’s death look natural to avoid casting suspicion on himself.

So Ed took the poison whenever Arc offered. Sometimes he even requested the flask himself.

They charged from the city gates—Eduoar on his gray gelding and Arcadimon on his white mare—out onto the White Plains, where the fields of snowy flowers rippled away from them like water.

Frog, Ed’s favorite dog, went racing ahead of them, her quick lithe form practically flying over the earth, paws barely touching the ground before launching off again.

It felt like winter already—that wet chill in the air, that breeze like a knife. But Ed could hear Arc laughing as they crested each rise, and that was all he needed for warmth.

The minutes filled with the sounds of hooves and breath and wind.

Catching Eduoar staring, Arc winked and galloped ahead, daring him to catch up.

Ed laughed. His laughter startled even him, foreign as it was to his own ears, and he laughed again, surprised at the clear sound of it.

They didn’t stop until they were miles from Corabel—the city little more than a blemish on the horizon—when Eduoar’s fatigue finally got the best of him. He slowed his horse.

Arcadimon pulled up beside him. “It’s been a while since I’ve ridden so hard.”

Ed’s smile was a faded thing. “Your horse is doing all the work.”

“Tell that to my sore ass.” Dismounting, Arc grimaced. “Actually, don’t. My ass would prefer to be left in peace.”

Eduoar chuckled—a sorry rendition of his earlier laughter. He whistled for Frog, and she bolted back to them, leaving trampled poppies in her wake.

As he slid clumsily from his saddle, he half-expected Arcadimon to offer him the flask of poison.

But his friend only led the way through the flowers to a barren oak in the center of the field. Frog came loping back, tongue lolling from the side of her mouth.

Ed gave her head a rub—behind the ears, just as she liked. She licked his hand.

They tied their horses to one of the tree branches, and Eduoar sank shakily to the ground. Frog lay down beside him, panting.

Arcadimon stretched, showing off the broad expanse of his shoulders, but still didn’t offer Eduoar the flask.

“Hey, Arc?”

“Mmhmm?”

Eduoar licked his lips. “My tea?”

Arc patted his riding jacket a few times. “Sorry, I must have left it at the castle.”

“That’s not like you.”

“Maybe I’m changing.” Arcadimon paused. “Think you can make it until we get back?”

Ed lay back with a sigh. “I suppose I’ll have to.” In this position, he couldn’t see Arc anymore, but he could feel him near, could smell his familiar scent—like wind and snow.

“I could stay here forever,” Arcadimon said after a long moment. “Except for that whole eating-and-sleeping-andsurviving thing.”

Ed shrugged. “Survival is overrated.”

“Is it?” His friend sounded so sad. Eduoar craned his neck to look at him, but Arc was watching the curtains of rain out at sea.

“Living is messy,” Ed said, attempting to lighten the mood the way Arc usually did. “Lots of smells. And fluids.”

A shadow of a smile crossed Arc’s lips. “I guess I could do without the smelly fluids. But there are good fluids too. Like coffee.”

“Ha. Coffee. How could I forget.”

“Coconut water. Oxscinian spiced chocolate. Whiskey.”

“I don’t like whiskey.”

“No wonder you think survival is overrated. A life without whiskey is a sorry life indeed.”

Ed ran his hand along Frog’s back. “Sorrier some days than others,” he said quietly.

“Not today, though.” Arc leaned over to peer down at him.

Eduoar’s breath caught at the sight of Arcadimon’s face: bright eyes, dimples, stubble along the planes of his jaw.

A wind whipped off the sea, rushing over the poppy fields like a wave, the flower heads bending and tossing as the air barreled over them. Ed closed his eyes as the breeze blew his hair across his forehead.

“No,” he murmured. “Not today.”

At a touch on his temple, he looked up to find Arc fondling one of his curls. He moved as if to stop him, though all he did was hold Arcadimon’s fingers there, against his temple.

Arc’s face eclipsed the whole sky. Cocooned by the noise of the wind, the distant waves, and the soft nickering of the horses, it was like nothing else existed but the two of them.

No dead days.

No dead fathers.

No curse.

Just them.

Arc leaned in. Their lips met. Startled, Eduoar opened his eyes wide for a second, before he let his eyelids flutter closed again.

Arcadimon’s hands passed through Ed’s hair, down the sides of his face to his jaw.

Eduoar had shared kisses before. Arc had too. But he knew in his bones that nothing either of them had done had ever felt like this.

Like everything in the world could be found in the points of contact between them: all the ins and outs of the tides, the pulsations of stars in the sky, and the running of wolves across the cold north—all part of the same rhythm.

This one.

Theirs.

Eduoar wished for a second that this would go on forever, this connection of lips and tongues, of heartbeats and breath.

But it couldn’t.

He was cursed.

And he couldn’t let anyone, especially not Arc, die because of him.

Eduoar pulled away. “I’m sorry, I can’t—”

“I’m sorry,” Arcadimon said at the same time. He was blushing, smiling, giddy. “Was that—”

“I need my tea.” Eduoar stood, stumbling back to the gray gelding.

Arcadimon’s confusion showed in the way he mussed his curls. Green stained his elbows and the legs of his trousers. “Ed, wait,” he said, tripping over his own steps.

Frog hopped up, eager to run again, as Eduoar struggled into the saddle, his vision listing sideways. He was weaker than he’d thought.

Weaker in every way.

“I need my tea,” he repeated.

“Sure, we’ll get your tea, but slow down. You’re going to fall.” Concern wrinkled Arcadimon’s normally smooth features, and he laid his hand on Eduoar’s thigh.

The contact burned, sending surges of longing up his legs to his chest.

I won’t let you die. Eduoar jerked away and set off toward Corabel at a brisk trot. Eyes fixed on the city on the hill, he didn’t look back. He couldn’t look back, or he’d go racing toward Arcadimon like a bullet, taking them both to the ground for good.