Cormal
The last thing Cormal had expected, especially in the middle of everything else he’d been dealing with, was to suddenly discover that he had family he’d known nothing about. Nor had he been expecting one of those family members to manifest Fire and need him to help train her.
He’d been a novice Fire Mage at one time, obviously, and he’d watched Brannal train before he’d even manifested. But that wasn’t the same thingat allas being responsible for the well-being and training of an entire fourteen-year-old person. Cormal was bound and determined not to make the mistakes that his father had made.
Cormal had always felt the pressure to live up to Tramad, both when he was alive and once he’d died, but this revelation had finally come close to obliterating that shadow. Thirty years, the man had been Summus, and everyone had always believed in his legacy. Cormal had made sure to preserve it; it had felt like he had to.
Only now was he seeing how truly hollow that legacy was, how his father had put on a show, and Cormal had been fooled like everyone else. He’d protected his father once, but he wasn’t going to do it again. He had better priorities now.
He didn’t have quite as much time for reading now, since he was ensuring he trained Livala and spent time with her and her grandfather and Trill. It would be too easy to fall back on old habits, to use Kinan as an excuse, but he needed to be better than that. He also didn’t want to ignore Kinan or his plight. Kinan had had almost seven years of being ignored, even if they hadn’t realized it.
So when Cormal read the magic books in the evening before bed, he invited Kinan to do it with him. Kinan had accepted with alacrity, making Cormal worry that he hadn’t been taking Kinan’s feelings into account.
He tried to apologize again.
The Prince scoffed. “And, what, if you’d all figured it out sooner, everyone in the castle would have talked to Renny and then she would relay what I was saying? Do you think that would have worked?”
Carefully, Cormal asked, “Didn’t it work when she did it for Perian?”
Kinan’s eyes flickered shut for a moment and then open again. “It sort of did,” he confessed quietly. “But it was still really hard. Not like we could have this conversation, could we, with my sister here?”
“It would probably be more painful for me, certainly,” Cormal admitted.
Kinan huffed a breath, almost but not quite a laugh. “It’s still not much good, is it?”
“What do you mean?” Cormal asked. “I’m trying not to be insulted.”
The Prince looked confused for a moment, and then he looked surprised. “Not you! You’re great. Me! I can’t even touch you.”
Cormal was stunned at the idea that anyone thought he wasgreat, but more important was the uncertainty that Kinan seemed to be feeling abouthimself. Cormal didn’t like that at all.
“You don’t have to touch me physically, Kinan. Don’t you understand what a difference you’ve made? Who got me to the workroom when I was having a temper tantrum?” Cormal asked.
“Molun,” Kinan said, voice flat. “I couldn’t even touch you.”
“I would certainly hope not, given that I was covered in flames,” Cormal said wryly.
The look Kinan shot him wasn’t just unimpressed; Cormal could see something that he was afraid he needed to label asanguishin that gray gaze.
“Oh, Kinan,” he said, swallowing. “I’m sorry you can’t touch me. You don’t know how much I want to touch you.”
Their gazes caught and held, burning suddenly hot. Cormal let out a stuttering breath. He swallowed and made himself keep talking.
“But even when you can’t, you still mean so much to me. I don’t know where I’d be without you, but I know I wouldn’tbe here. I’m still all tangled up, and I might never be able to fix everything, but without you, I’m not sure I’d even be trying. You’re the only thing I could focus on when I was losing it. Molun might have doused the flame, butyouknew exactly what I needed when I couldn’t express it to anyone.Youwere responsible for getting me to where I couldn’t hurt anyone. Thank you.”
Kinan’s face was still awash in pain and sadness.
“Look,” Cormal said, thinking frantically. “We can get around everything, I’m sure of it. I mean, what can’t you do? Can’t sign or seal a proclamation? Someone else can do that.”
Kinan looked unimpressed. “What, an official signer?”
“Why not?” Cormal demanded. “Royalty often has staff to assist with a variety of tasks. No, it’s not something that your mother has assistance with, but that doesn’t mean you can’t. You won’t need to be guarded like she is. You’re different people with different needs. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“But it’s so many things! I can’t have dinner with a dignitary! I can’t go dancing!”
“You can still attend dinners even if you can’t eat. Or you can change the type of event that you have if it makes you uncomfortable. They could eat on their own and then you could get together afterwards. You could chat and look at art or listen to music. We could design a whole new dance that doesn’t involve touching.”
Kinan looked at him with a mixture of hope and despair.
