He slipped it on again.
I untied my cloak and spread it on the ground. “We can share this. At least the wet won’t seep through.”
He sat down, then lay down, on one side of the fabric.
“What are you doing?”
“The stars are easier to see when you don’t have to crane your neck.” He linked his hands behind his head and his boots at the ankles, and cast his gaze on the sky.
I didn’t think there was much risk in joining him. Or maybe there was just enough.
I lay down as elegantly as I could, his being a prince, and mirrored his position. Then I looked up at a sky I’d seen a thousand times before. Sometimes from the roof of our building, sometimes the pangan tree, sometimes the grass in front of the Aetheric shrine on nights when Wren and I couldn’t stay in the manor any longer.
The sky was sprinkled with light, including the white smudge of the River of Souls the Enshrined Monk had mentioned.
“Do you know about the River of Souls?” I asked.
“I do.”
“There were lights in the Aetheric. When the Aetheric practitioner let it in, I mean. It looked a lot like this.”
“I bet that was beautiful.”
“It was. Painful, but beautiful.”
We lay on the cloak in the darkness, arms now at our sides. I could feel the warmth of him nearby. Our bodies didn’t touch, but our fingers were a breath apart. I wondered what it might be like to bridge that crevasse, to slip my hand into his. We’d done it before—when we’d been attacked, while we were dancing. But this wasn’t a battle, and we weren’t in Vhrania. We didn’t have those excuses here.
The breeze picked up, throwing white blossoms from a nearby catalaya tree; they fell around us like snowflakes, soft and fragrant.
The prince picked one up and ran his thumb across it. “There was a tree like this near my window in the City of Flowers. In the far palace,” he added, “when I still lived with my mother. She liked to make flower crowns with the blossoms.”
“We played at being royals,” I said. “But the crowns always fell apart.”
“Crowns have a tendency to do that.” There was darkness in his voice now. Darkness and sadness and grief.
“Was it hard to be the son of the Emperor Eternal?”
It took him a moment to answer. “My father sees the world in the way he was trained—the way all emperors are trained. Everyone is a potential enemy to the throne. Even allies might become threats.”
“Even his sons?”
“Even,” he said. “Maybe especially, because they have the strongest claim to the thing he won’t give up—power. To stand as Emperor Eternal, a man must believe everyone is his enemy.”
“And villains always believe they’re the heroes.”
“Always.”
“Did you have a happy childhood, at least?”
“Only because I was too young to be a contender. To be a threat. I lived with my mother in her palace. There were gardens and a lake and places to walk and pretend. It was a beautiful kingdom for the two of us.”
“Brothers or sisters?”
“No. But I had friends—the children of other royals or servants who lived in the palace. My mother was loving and kind. She tried to prepare me. I see that now, but as a child it was just playing.
“And then I hit thirteen. The friends faded away, because it was better not to be close to anyone. They took time away from training, and the training was brutal.”
“Because you were intended for the army.”
