“Indeed,” said the king. He handed Eric a handkerchief, a square of cloth that was of no help whatsoever, but Eric took it and dabbed away a spot of tea anyway. “You should go home.”
There was nothing Eric wanted to do less, but he must have looked absolutely miserable for the king to be so direct with him. “Oh, no, Sire. I would rather – that is, I’ve been staying here recently. I mean, next door. The rooms next door.”
“I’m not throwing you out,” said King Ruben, with just enough amusement that Eric felt embarrassed. “You need to rest. And eat something. Ixthan is in good hands. There’s nothing more you can do.”
“Oh. Yes, Your Majesty,” said Eric, and staggered out. Hesitated, with the damp handkerchief still clenched in his hand. By the time he had finished dithering over whether to return a spoiled, soggy handkerchief, the king had turned back towards Ixthan again, consulting with the healers. Never mind.
When Eric lay down, stripped to his underwear because he couldn’t be bothered to find nightclothes, he stared blankly atthe ceiling until his vision swam. The memory of rolling Ix over and seeing him unresponsive, gray as a corpse, filled the back of his eyelids every time he closed his eyes.
Eric did not remember drifting off, but he woke up some time later in exactly the same position, stiff as a board, his head full of fog. He groaned, stretching out his ossified muscles. The days got dark early this close to midwinter, which meant that it could be any time at night, but at least it felt like he had slept properly. That had been rare for him these last months.
When Eric hunted around in the dark for a candle – Ix had never bothered to get enchanted magelights since he was always capable of lighting his own – he was startled to see it was the early hours of the morning. He must have slept through the entire evening and night and it was almost sunrise again, no wonder he felt rested.
By the single candle, Eric slithered into fresh clothing after a dubious sniff of his old shirt. A tray rested outside of his door on a small wooden cart, a covered plate of food and a decanter of whiskey. Oh hells, it must have been meant for his dinner, and was probably sent from the king. He didn’t feel worthy of such consideration.
His last meal had been long enough ago that Eric fell upon it ravenously, scarfing down the slices of cold meats whilst still standing over the tray. Someone must have heard him make a noise because a young woman poked her head out from Ixthan’s room. Eric froze. She saw him hunched over the food like a raccoon, slid her eyes out of contact, and pulled herself back into the room, pretending she hadn’t seen him at all. Eric couldn’t even bring himself to care.
It was miraculous how a stomach full of food could settle him like nothing else. Fed, watered and now back enough in his right mind to feel embarrassed at being caught by the servants,Eric carefully wiped his hands clean before heading down to Ix’s door.
He knocked. The same woman as from a moment ago answered the door and let him in with a straight face. “Lord Marrawshire.”
It took a heartbeat before Eric remembered that meant him. He was Earl of Marrawshire now. “How is he?”
“Prince Ixthan regained consciousness briefly, but he slept through the night. His temperature is normal too,” said the woman in a hushed tone. She was wearing a blue apron over her mage’s robes, making her an apprentice healer. “The healers are still trying to figure out what happened but this is a normal sleep now.”
Eric had seen Ix asleep before, had seen the way the sharpness of his smile softened when he relaxed into unconsciousness. This was not that. He seemed smaller, more fragile. His skin was pasty-gray, in a way that Eric had never seen on him before. In hindsight, he hadn’t known that the demonblood princes could get ill in the same way as humans. Ix had never caught so much as a cold or the sniffles in all the years he’d known him. It was a bit annoying, especially when Eric couldn’t even look at a tree without sneezing in the spring.
The room was mostly empty, with one servant stacking heated towels and bricks high on the bed to keep him heated before leaving as well. One healer remained, her hands outstretched but not touching Ix’s face in some sort of magical working.
“It might have been a demon,” said Eric quietly so as to not startle her, as he slid into a seat on Ix’s other side. “Ix was working on the mirror, the last I knew there was a, I don’t know, a magic reflection? Something in it moved and he said it was a demon. But he also said that it shouldn’t be able to cross over.”
The healer looked at him sharply. “What? And you didn’t mention this earlier?”
Eric blinked, taken aback, and she held her hands up quickly.
“Apologies, milord, I’ve been up all night but that’s no excuse. It’s just that this information is important. And we must act at once if there is a demon on the loose. Can you show me?”
“It’s in his study. He doesn’t usually – I mean, it doesn’t matter now,” said Eric with a grimace. It didn’t feel right for him to let someone into the study but Ixthan’s privacy had already been invaded when everyone had trampled through in that initial emergency. Surely helping the healer figure out what had happened was more important.
The mirror was still there, though where Eric had previously thought it had cracked turned out to be a crackled rime of frost instead, covering the entirety of the glass so no reflection could be seen now. He described what it had looked like previously in as much detail as he could remember, hoping that would help. The healer examined it closely with a frown, tracing over the black markings visible through the ice with her finger but not touching it. “I don’t recognize these, I will have to consult my more learned colleagues. But thank you for your assistance.”
Eric left her drawing a diagram of the mirror and went back to Ixthan. Even though the room was stiflingly hot, Ixthan was cool to the touch when Eric gingerly pressed the back of his hand to Ix’s forehead. He patted the beads of perspiration off with a towel, and settled back into his seat.
“What did you do, you boneheaded lunatic?” murmured Eric. This was his fault. He was usually the one who cut Ix off at the knees whenever he started to do something ridiculous. All their friends knew, they all joked about it. Eric was Ix’s real mother, Eric was Ix’s keeper, Eric was Ix’s matching angel to his demon. Eric was the only one Ix would listen to. Usually, he tookpride in that. If he hadn’t been distracted by his father, he might have said something earlier.
They’d been six when Eric’s father and King Ruben – still friends, then – had sat them down and charged Eric with a secret responsibility. They’d had encouraged them to spend their days together, to become fast friends. They came up with ways that Eric could signal to Ix, subtly, if he was going too far. In private, his father had told him about the king’s previous experience with Prince Ceronzar.
The other demon prince was barely a year older than Ixthan. Ceronzar was, though no one would admit it publicly, a failed experiment. Ceronzar never managed to integrate himself into human life, let alone court life. His behaviors were too shocking, his empathy too lacking, his strength too overwhelming. Even though his mother was the Demon Queen of Untempered Violences and Ix’s mother was the Demon Queen of Unyielding Hubris, the king could not risk that Ix would turn out the same way. And so, they’d made sure to take precautions as soon as Ixthan started exhibiting demonic traits.
Eric was Ix’s conscience. And yet, Eric had failed. He’d gotten distracted, had even told Ix not to tell him details about whatever magic working he was performing. If he’d performed his duty better – no, that wasn’t right either. If he’d been a better friend, he’d have known to pull Ix back.
He pressed his hand over Ix’s, and then frowned. That wasn’t the shape of Ix’s hand. Ix’s hands were larger than this, some effect of the demon blood giving him unnaturally long fingers. The voice in Eric’s head remarked on how it was odd for a man to know the shape of another man’s hand so immediately. Alone in his bed at night, Eric had imagined those fingers before, touching him, stroking him, taking them into his mouth.
And yet, now… Eric pulled Ix’s hand out from where it was tucked under the covers and stared at it. Ix’s fingers were usuallyblackened from the knuckle to the tip, as if permanently dipped them in soot, but that coloration was gone. Eric reached out and placed his hand on Ix’s, matching their palms up. They were almost the same size. Either Ix’s hand had shrunk or this wasn’t Ix.
“Why are you stroking my hand?” The voice, though hoarse,wasIx’s.
Eric snatched his hand away, rearing back so fast he nearly stumbled over the chair. He didn’t know how long he’d been staring down at Ix’s hand but Ixthan was awake, looking down the bed at him with squinted eyes. Still pale, still gaunt, but definitely awake.
