And So It Begins (3 page)

The distraction was what was needed to break the mood, and Kherin was relieved when Derek let the talk go. Although the trader was more direct when pressuring Kherin, he was also more willing to let it go when Kherin’s stubbornness remained intact.

The tension around them vanished completely with the first sips of the smooth Llarien red, and when they spoke again, Derek expertly steered the conversation to subjects less touchy. The matters of the northerners, the army, and Kherin's father were replaced by elaborate stories of his travels, the tales often reducing the youngest prince to fits of laughter. Kherin still couldn’t help feeling a twinge of jealousy at the freedom the trader enjoyed, though he admitted it was a trade-off for the lack of a settled home. Derek had no family to speak of, and inns and hostels were where the trader lived, save for the nights he spent in the castle. But even those were few and far between, since the castle wasn’t always where Derek stayed in Delfore. But wherever he stayed, it was never for long. His business wouldn’t allow it.

Kherin was reminded of that fact hours later, long after the game had been forgotten and the wine and food that had followed had been consumed, when he heard the regret in Derek’s voice as he finally called the visit to an end. His need of an early departure meant he couldn’t spend the night drinking in the company of the prince, as much as both he and Kherin wished otherwise.

“So where are you off to now?” Kherin asked as the trader rose and stepped around the table to stop at his side.

“East,” Derek answered simply. He bent low to catch Kherin’s arm around his shoulders and slipped his arm behind the prince’s back. “To Dennor, actually, to see if the situation bears watching. Ready?”

Kherin took a deep breath and nodded, then grunted sharply as the trader lifted him to stand on his uninjured leg. A few moments of desperate hopping despite the trader’s help followed, with Kherin clutching both Derek and the table’s edge as he struggled to gain his balance. Then another precarious moment passed as he clumsily arranged the crutch to take his weight. He breathed a sigh of relief once he had steadied and gave a nod of thanks to the trader.

Derek’s wink and the gentle squeeze of his arm was his only acknowledgment of the gratitude, and it was with some effort they began to make their way through the library.

The journey to his quarters was silent, save for the scrape of the crutch on the polished floors, and painfully slow despite the trader’s aid. Kherin was deeply though silently grateful there were no stairs between the library and his rooms, and his relief was real when they finally staggered to a stop outside his chambers. He let out a pent-up breath as he leaned heavily against the doorframe, and Derek emitted a low chuckle as he reached around the prince to open the door.

“Ah, the security of the royal palace,” he murmured teasingly at finding the door unlocked, but Kherin only groaned as Derek eased him inside.

Stripping out of his clothes was another long and tedious process, though it was done without the blushing of self-consciousness even as his skin was slowly bared. Derek was far too familiar for Kherin to feel so much as a trace of modesty in his presence, even when he stood naked save for the splints bracing his leg. The fact that Derek hadn’t shown the slightest unease in either removing Kherin’s clothes or touching his bare skin was something Kherin would ponder later, when the painful stretching of his leg wouldn’t keep him from appreciating the unexpected intimacy.

Slipping Kherin into his nightclothes proved just as difficult, but when the hisses and grumbles finally ended, Kherin was resting comfortably with only the lamp at his bedside left to be extinguished. The regret was again in Derek’s eyes as he seated himself on the edge of the bed, and he offered a quiet smile as he patted Kherin’s uninjured knee.

“I’ll be back in a few months, in plenty of time to welcome Adrien home,” he assured the prince softly. “Until then….” He leaned forward to draw Kherin into a farewell hug, careful of the leg stretched out stiffly under the covers, but warm and full nonetheless. Kherin closed his eyes as he accepted and returned it, and let himself take in the trader’s feel and smell before Derek’s arms inevitably loosened. He smiled at the gentle kiss pressed to his forehead when the trader released him.

“Rest well, Kherin.”

“You too, Derek,” Kherin returned softly, hating this moment, as he did every time the trader left. “And be careful. The roads and cities aren’t always as safe as they should be.”

“Always, my prince.” The touch of Derek’s fingers to his cheek was soft and unexpected, though it lasted for only a moment before the trader stood. With one final smile and a last affectionate wink, the trader was gone.

Once the door had closed, Kherin sighed and leaned back into his pillows, reaching out as an afterthought to douse the lamp. Derek would most likely be long gone by the time he awoke the next morning, and he briefly entertained the thought of traveling with him when he left, though he quickly attributed that to the boredom he once again faced.

What he truly wished was that he had invited Tristan to his chambers this evening. After spending the evening with Derek, he felt a strange sense of abandonment with the sudden lack of company, and the dark-haired Tristan could alleviate that. A stable hand Kherin’s age, who had himself recently returned from the border, Tristan had shared Kherin’s bed enough recently to be considered his most favored lover, if only because he was Kherin’s most frequent. And though his father was naturally mortified, as he had been ever since Kherin’s preferences had been made known, Tristan had proved to be both willing and companionable. Though his injured leg made certain things more difficult, they were far from impossible. Tristan may lack the handsome features, confident hands, and firm, quiet strength of a certain trader occupying a room down the hall, but….

A slow breath slipped from his lungs.

But the fact of the matter was that Derek had never made a move to fill his bed, and had never, in all the time he had known him, gone beyond the sincere affection he offered so generously to hint at anything more in any of his interactions with the prince. And while a second son had no need of the strict behavioral protocol that was expected of the first, a willing partner was foremost when it came to who he invited into his bed. Tristan may be lacking in comparison, but he was at least in reach.

Still, as sleep pulled at the edges of consciousness, he accepted he would survive seeing to his own needs tonight. His well-known preferences might be scandalous, but they were not so forward as to demand company every night. His own hand and the lingering scent of leather and oil would do for now, and if his fantasies mingled with the
solid warmth he could still feel though Derek no longer held him, so be
it.

He would, however, remember to send an invitation tomorrow.

“D
ID
you hear?”

The shrill excitement in the girl’s voice snatched Kherin’s attention from the book in his lap, and he glanced up sharply in the direction of the sound. This area of his father’s gardens was secluded for the most part, with the surrounding hedges high enough to protect him from a casual glance despite being just outside the kitchen door. The door the servants used to empty mop buckets and dispose of trash.

“Another message arrived from the border! It’s Prince Adrien! He’s hurt!”

What?
The words startled Kherin from his relaxed pose, and the book he had been reading dropped to the ground as he bolted up from the bench. He ignored it as he rounded the hedge, grimacing at the irritating pull of muscle that still plagued his leg despite the mended bone. Two weeks had passed since his leg brace had been removed, though Kherin was reminded too often that sudden movements still made the muscles twist painfully, especially now that the air had grown cooler with the promise of an early winter. Two serving girls stood on the stone path outside the open kitchen entrance, one of them gripping the edge of a mop bucket, the ground around them wet with discarded water. Both of them let out audible gasps as Kherin strode into view, followed by hasty curtsies and stuttered addresses in deference to the prince. Kherin approached without acknowledging either, his attention fixed firmly on the younger of the two.

Her name was Clarice, and she was no more than twelve, with pale hair pulled tightly away from a round and freckled face. The daughter of a castle baker, Clarice had been put to work through her mother’s insistence and under her mother’s eye, but right now she clutched the empty mop bucket with fingers that had gone white. Under the prince’s gaze, she blanched pale enough to match them. Kherin didn’t normally condone terrorizing children, but with the words she had said….

“The message,” Kherin demanded, putting the full authority of his royal status in his voice as he towered over her. “What exactly did it say?”

Frightened eyes flitted to the second girl, Jira, darker and a few years older, and wise enough to step away from the anxious prince.

“The message, my lord…,” she stammered hesitantly, bringing her eyes back. “It wasn’t written. Defender Ren brought it from… from Gravlorn….”

Kherin took a slow breath. Messages had begun arriving shortly after Derek’s departure, from Gravlorn and other border cities, relating the sudden, intense fighting the likes of which hadn’t been seen in years. The northerners had begun crossing Trian’s Ford, Llarien’s bordering river, and in numbers high enough to warrant more attention than an occasional skirmish and covering the length of the border from east to west. News of the crossings had sharply echoed Derek’s warning to his father just over a month ago, and brought images to Kherin’s mind of the single northerner burned in Dennor, though it was a sight he hadn’t seen in person.

But none of the messages had been verbal.

Until now.

Written words rarely made it to the king’s hands without the bearers reading them first, and the servants reading them second. It was an unspoken but widely known fact, and one Kherin himself had exploited in the past. A
verbal
message was designed to keep its contents secret. How this servant—Clarice—had learned the words of a verbal message, Kherin had no idea. He did know it wouldn’t have come from Adrien. None of the messages had; they were sent by the Defender Leader of each camp. But each message from Gravlorn had assured them of the elder prince’s well being.

Until now.

Kherin took another breath and then spoke again, his voice low and steady. “What did the message from Gravlorn say, Clarice?”

“My lord,” the girl began again worriedly. “I—it said only that Prince Adrien was hurt, and the healer was caring for him.”

“Nothing more?” Kherin pressed, hearing the harshness and mildly regretting the way Clarice shrank away from him, but unrelenting nonetheless. “How he was hurt? How badly?”

“No, my lord. But it… Ren said others have died. Defenders, my lord.”

The blood drained from Kherin’s face, and his gut clenched at the words. The serving girl paled further, her fingers twisting on the edge of the mop bucket.

Kherin froze her with his stare. “When did it arrive?
When
?”

“Within the last hour, my lord.”

Kherin’s mind worked the timing. Gravlorn was four days’ ride at a Defender company pace, perhaps three for a lone messenger, less for a messenger bearing words of urgency. For Ren to have arrived at this hour, when it was nearing the evening bells, and bearing a message such as this, the ride from the border would have been harried. The message was likely no more than two days old at most.

He moved suddenly, brushing past the girls without another word. He ignored the looks of the other servants as he moved through the kitchen to the servants’ stair that led directly to his father’s offices on the second floor. With the arrival of the message so recently, Kherin had no doubt he would find his father still there.

He wasn’t disappointed. King Kellian Rhylle, Llarien’s most recent ruler in the bloodline of kings, was seated in a cloth-covered chair behind a desk cluttered with sheets of parchment, sharpened quills, and bottles of ink. Even dressed in his less formal robes, even with his raven hair hanging loose about his shoulders, Kellian still projected the very essence of royalty. His strong-featured visage was held in complete control as he scanned the slip of parchment he held in a steady grip, sitting so still even a mediocre painter would have had no trouble capturing the angles. It was only a moderate relief to find the king alone, with neither his aide nor the messenger present. Ren, or so Clarice had said. Kherin vowed he would find him later.

His father didn’t so much as glance up as Kherin stormed into the room, didn’t twitch so much as a muscle as his son came to an abrupt halt less than a foot from the desk. Kherin scowled. He was well used to this from his father, and he knew a single word from him now would be all it would take to delay his purpose in coming here in favor of another royal lecture about protocol, respect, and manners in general, a tirade his father no doubt hoped to deliver. Kherin was determined not to give him the satisfaction this time.