“With you? Da. Always.”
“Even with everything that's happening? Marcel. The attempts. All of it?”
“Especially with all of that.” His arms tightened. “Because it means you are alive. Means we have this. Means tomorrow comes.”
I closed my eyes. Let his heartbeat lull me toward sleep.
Outside, rain had started. The sound washed over the windows, turning the world soft and grey.
Inside, the fire burned down to embers, glowing obsidian-red in the darkness.
Everything felt peaceful. Safe. Normal.
But in the morning, I'd remember the way Élodie's fingers had moved across that tablet. The way she'd swiped away that notification. The way she'd looked at Viktor like she was filing away information for later.
In the morning, I'd remember.
But tonight, I just wanted to sleep.
22
FAULTLINE
SEBASTIAN
The palace felt like a held breath. Kitchens awake. Radios low in the guard rooms. Rain thinking about it and changing its mind.
I dressed without the staff. Dark suit. Open collar. No tie. No crown. I clipped a plain pin at my lapel because Élodie says it helps the cameras find my face and I am trying to help today. I left Apollo on his mat with a hand on his head and a quiet promise.
“Not this one,” I told him. “Too many feet. I will bring you back the smell of it.”
He sighed like an old man and pushed his nose into my palm anyway.
The corridor outside my rooms was already arranged around Viktor. Two Sentinels at the far end. One at the turn with a face I trusted to see angles. Viktor himself at my door. Tablet in hand. Comms tucked under his collar. Sleeves rolled an inch. The sling gone now, traded for a tight bandage and pain he hid almost well.
“Good morning,” he said.
“Is it,” I asked.
“It will be what we make it,” he said. “Breakfast with your father.Ten minutes. Then brief with Akintola’s liaison. Wheels up at eight thirty.”
“Do I get coffee first.”
“You get two,” he said. Then he looked at my mouth like he had almost said something else and remembered the walls. “Ready.”
“As I will ever be.”
We took the long route to the family dining room. Service corridor to the west stair. Across the quiet of a gallery where kings with medals tried to stare me down. No guards posted here, just oil and silence. Viktor’s hand hovered near my back, not touching, adjusting our pace by corners I could not see until they opened.
At the far window the light fell in a pale square on the marble. He stopped me there with a look, head tilted, listening for footsteps that did not come. Empty. Safe, insofar as anything was.
“Thirty seconds,” he said, almost a whisper.
“Twenty,” I said, because I wanted to see him smile.
It ghosted across his mouth. He stepped in, close enough that the clean spice of his aftershave cut through the varnish and dust. His fingers found my jaw, careful of the angle. I rose that last inch and kissed him. Soft. Not hunger, not heat. A good-morning pressed into the corner of his mouth, then into the center where he met me back, steady and brief, like a promise we were learning how to keep.
Apollo wasn’t here to chaperone. The portraits were. I laughed against him, quiet. He let his forehead touch mine for a count of three, then pulled away first, as he always does, because someone has to.
