Vaike turns toward him on the bench, the movement deliberate, his big body angling to face Evran fully, and he reaches out and cups Evran's cheek in one broad hand. The calloused palm is warm against his skin, the thumb resting just beneath his eye, and the gesture is so gentle and so public that Evran's heart clenches.
"You are the farthest thing from a liability," Vaike says, and his voice is low and rough and meant only for Evran. "What I worry about is what I would do if I lost you."
The words sink into Evran past the surface and the current and the noise, settling at the very bottom of him, in the place where the things that matter most are kept.
He thinks about what Vaike would do. He has seen it, the cold fury, the lethal stillness, the violence that lives beneath the composure of loving completely and protecting absolutely. If something happened to Evran, if Torsten succeeded in using him as a weapon against Vaike, the response would be total, devastating, ending a man and a summit and an alliance and a peace all at once.
That is what Torsten is counting on. That is the lever he is trying to pull.
And that is why Evran cannot let him.
He leans in and kisses Vaike, sweetly, quickly, a brief press of lips that is soft enough to be tender and quick enough to be appropriate, because they are in public and the delegations are watching and a Warlord's husband cannot make a spectacle on the tournament platform no matter how much he might want to climb into his husband's lap and stay there.
Vaike's hand lingers on his cheek for a moment, then drops. His expression is warm, but beneath it there is the shadow of worry, the anxiety of being strong enough to fight anything except the fear of losing the person he loves.
Evran turns back to the fights. Below them, Naela is being congratulated by a swarm of Rendari warriors who seem both impressed and slightly afraid of her, which is exactly the correct response. The crowd is cheering, the sun is warm on the platforms, and the banners shift in the valley breeze.
Evran watches the tournament and thinks about proof.
He thinks about Bran, and the plan they have been building, and the careful, dangerous steps that still need to be taken. He thinks about the ale room and the information he gathered and the excursion he needs to ensure Bran knows about if he has not already mentioned it. He thinks about Torsten's bedside drawer and what might be inside it and what it would mean if he could get his hands on it.
He thinks about what Vaike just said. What I worry about is what I would do if I lost you.
And he thinks:you will never have to find out, because I am going to end this before it gets that far.
He reaches over and takes Vaike's hand. Their fingers lace together on the bench between them, and Vaike squeezes once, firm and sure, and does not let go.
They watch the rest of the tournament together, hand in hand, while the sun tracks across the valley sky and the fighters clash below and the cheering of the crowd rises and falls.
Chapter 13
Bran finds him in the corridor outside the tournament grounds, where the crowd is dispersing in the late afternoon light and the noise of the day is settling into the quieter rhythms of evening.
A hand on his elbow, large, unmistakable, and Bran's voice close to his ear. "A word."
Evran glances back. Vaike is still on the platform, deep in conversation with Aldric about something related to the border negotiations from this morning's council, his back to them, Leona at his side, which means he is as safe as he is going to be. Evran catches Bran's eye and nods.
They move away from the crowd, down a side path that runs between the tournament grounds and the outer wall of the Keep. It is a service path, narrow, stone-paved, used by retainers moving between the grounds and the kitchens, and at this hour it is empty. The wall on one side blocks the noise of the dispersing spectators, and the wall on the other casts a long shadow that pools at their feet.
Bran stops when they are far enough from the main thoroughfare that his voice will not carry. He turns to face Evran, and his expression is the one Evran has come to recognize as serious Bran, the warmth still there beneath the surface but buried under something harder, something that belongs to the soldier he was before he was the jovial man Evran knows.
"Leona has made quick work of the assassin," Bran says without preamble.
Evran feels his pulse pick up. "What did she get?"
"Quite a bit. Harath allowed her access to the prisoner after his own guard took their testimony, and the man was more forthcoming with her than he was with them." He pauses, the pause weighted with the choice not to elaborate on what forthcoming under Leona's supervision means. "He claims to have been sent by someone within the Drakkari."
Evran frowns. "Within the Drakkari? That doesn't make any sense."
"Wait. Listen." Bran holds up a hand. "He claims the Drakkari connection, but he also describes the man who hired him." His eyes hold Evran's. "Short blond hair. Eastern accent. A man who told the assassin he was acting on behalf of the Drakkari clan's interest in succession."
The cold knot beneath Evran's ribs, the one that has been there since the night of the attack, the one that tightens every time he thinks about the purple-tinged blade, pulls taut.
"Sounds as though Torsten is already claiming to be Drakkari," Evran says.
"That's what Leona and I think as well." Bran's jaw is tight. "He's positioning himself. Framing the assassination as an internal Drakkari affair, a succession dispute from within, rather than an external attack. If it had succeeded, and if the story had held, it would have looked as though Vaike's own people turnedon him. Torsten steps in as the lost son, the blood heir, the man who can restore stability."
"Disgustingly tidy."
