“I’m glad that he came,” Cormal made himself say.
“What?” the Prince said, clearly startled by Cormal’s non sequitur.
“Perian. I’m glad that he came.”
The Prince looked surprised.
Cormal smiled at the man sitting next to him. “Because if he hadn’t, I wouldn’t be sitting here with you right now. You wouldn’t be able to tell me when I’m being stupid—or convince the Princess not to rappel down the side of the castle now that she’s feeling better.”
The Prince let out a bark of laughter, but there was a softness on his face that Cormal rarely saw.
“I might still have been caught up in the past,” Cormal continued. “And Brannal wouldn’t have found the love of his life. He deserves to be happy, and I’ll probably fail, but I’ll try to explain to him why I’m so sorry that I put that in jeopardy.”
The Prince was beaming at him, eyes shining. “I’m so proud of you.”
Cormal smiled back, staring into those warm silvery eyes. He was so grateful for the man in front of him.
“Thank you,” he told the Prince a third time, because there was so much to be grateful for. “Thank you for caring enough to drag me out here and kick some sense into me.”
The Prince’s face creased into a broad grin. “Idomiss being able to kick sense into people. I’ve only got words at my disposal now, and sometimes they aren’t enough.”
“You’re very good with them,” Cormal assured him. “Better than I deserve.”
The Prince smiled. “You brought me out here when I needed it as a child, and I’m very happy to return the favor.”
Cormal looked around at their beautiful surroundings. “Iwasjealous when the others got to come out here without me.Everythingate at me.”
It wasn’t that long ago, really. But everything had changed, and it had changed so drastically that it felt completely normal—in a surreal sort of way—to finally be able to talk about it. He’d just needed someone to give him that proverbial kick in the ass.
“Hey, I hitched a ride with someone who couldn’t even see me because I didn’t want to be left behind,” the Prince pointed out. “You definitely don’t have anything to be embarrassed about.”
Cormal had so many things to be embarrassed about that it threatened to be entirely debilitating—but he was pretty sure that was what happened when you came close to destroying your entire life. It made a huge mess and threatened your relationships with everyone around you.
Shocking.
“Well, I’m glad you brought me,” Cormal assured him. “I’m glad you questioned and you listened and you made me look at the world again. I really want to try to fix this. And maybe I’ll lose my temper again and blow something up tomorrow when no one else is as generous as you, but… just this moment, it means so much to me. Thank you, Your Highness.”
The Prince made a face. “Kee, please.”
Cormal looked at him askance.
“Kinan?” the Prince tried, a coaxing expression on his face. “Can I please not be a prince for a minute with you?”
And Cormal couldn’t ignore that appeal. “Kinan,” he allowed.
Even as part of him—the part that sounded like his father?—rebelled at being so informal, there was part of him that was doing an internal dance. Not that the Prince—Kinan—had told him to call him by his first name, but that he’d maybe… made a friend?
It felt like a long time since he’d done that, especially since he’d severed so many of his past relationships and then been angry when they were gone.
Kinan beamed at him, looking truly delighted, and Cormal beamed back.
“I know it’s not always going to be this easy, but it means so much that you believed in me.”
Kinan’s smile softened. “Being able to talk to people again, I’m not solely an observer anymore. I’m actually involved, and that makes everything so much more complicated. Before, it felt like I could see the solutions and know the best choices. And nothing I did really mattered. I couldn’t make a mistake, not really. Now that I’m living it again, everything is possible, and it suddenly makes sense again why we don’t always get things right, why we say things in the heat of the moment, why we make mistakes.” He swallowed, and his eyes looked wet. “And I’ll takeevery minute of it, every painful second of getting things wrong, even of saying hurtful things, though I try not to do that, because the alternative is worse. It does hurt, even when nothing can touch you.”
Yes. Exactly that. And because Kinan had just confessed such a thing, Cormal made himself say it out loud.
“I think I was trying to create the armor that you wore against your will. I didn’t realize all the harm it could do. I thought it would keep me safer.”
