Page 59 of The Broken Dawn

Hal's stomach dropped. "What did he say?"

"That we needed to end this. Tonight. Or he'd tell your mother." Jakob stepped closer, his boots scraping against the floor. "He was very... descriptive about what he thought she might do to me. To my family."

"He threatened you too," Hal breathed, and something fierce and protective flared in his chest.

"Too?" Jakob's eyes sharpened. "He got to you as well?"

Harald couldn't look at Jakob Not yet. He moved to the window instead, where the familiar view of the frost-limned woods outside the school offered him no comfort. His fingers found the edge of his jacket, worrying at a loose thread.

"He's been spying on me. For my mother." The words felt like stones in his mouth. "She thinks I'm soft, too sensitive and bookish to do my duty. So he's been reporting back to her with everything I do here, who I see, what I say in class. Since the beginning of term."

"I suspected as much," Jakob said quietly. "The way he watches you. Watches us." He looked at Hal again, longer this time as if seeing to the heart of him. A pause, and then "You're afraid of what she'll do."

Harald turned, his eyes finally meeting Jakob's. "I am, but not to me. There are limits, since I'm in the Royal Family. But… to you." His hands trembled as he reached for Jakob, not quite touching him. "Christian said she's made people disappear before. A lady-in-waiting who caught my father's eye. He said she'd do the same to you, to your family."

Jakob's jaw tightened. "He told me the same story. But he was... more detailed about what he thought might happen to a Jewish family that had outlived its usefulness." His voice was carefully controlled, but Hal could see the fear beneath it. "He said the Queen has friends in Germany now. That accidents happen to people like us all the time, and no one bothers to investigate too closely."

Harald felt the blood drain from his face. "He said that?"

"Among other things." Jakob's hands clenched into fists. "He seemed to take particular pleasure in describing how easy it would be to make my mother and Rachel simply... vanish."

For a moment, they just looked at each other, the weight of Christian's threats settling between them like a physical presence. Harald could see his own fear reflected in Jakob's eyes, but also something else—a stubborn determination that matched his own.

Jakob was quiet for a moment, considering. "So what do we do now? He's made his threats. He expects you to end things between us."

"Is that what you want me to do?" Harald asked, finally meeting Jakob's eyes. "It would keep you safe." I'd do anything to keep you safe, he thought.

"No." The word was immediate, certain. "But I won't be the reason your family turns against you either."

Harald took a deep breath. "I've spent my whole life trying to be what my family needed me to be. The perfect prince. The dutiful son." His hand reached out, finding Jakob's. "And I've come closer in the last few months than I ever have. What they don't understand is that all the changes they've noticed, all the praise I've gotten from my father, from the professors... It's because I'm better with you. We're both better together. And I want to be brave enough to choose that."

Harald made a small, wounded sound, and he felt the warmth of Jakob's hands catching his own and stilling it where it was worrying at his uniform buttons.

He forced himself to look up and meet Jakob's gaze, though it felt like stepping off a cliff. "I keep thinking that I should be better than this. Stronger. I should be able to give up what I want for what is best for the crown, and the country. But every time I try to imagine telling you to walk away from me forever, I can't breathe."

The words hung between them, too honest, too raw. Harald's heart thundered in his chest as Jakob's fingers tightened on his.

Jakob made a sound like he'd been struck. His free hand came up to cup Harald's face, thumb brushing over the freckles that scattered across his cheekbone.

"Hal." The nickname was rough, almost prayer-like. He leaned in until their foreheads almost touched, his voice dropping to barely more than a whisper. "I watched my father lose everything in Saint Petersburg because he wouldn't bend to men like Christian. And I watched my aristocratic mother, who had never worked a day in her life scratch a life for us out of the soil here without complaint." His fingers trembled against Harald's skin. "I thought I understood what courage looked like then."

"Jakob—"

"But this?" Jakob's laugh was shaky. "Standing here, watching you fight against everything they've trained into you since birth, against your fear for me and mine?" He pulled back just enough to meet Harald's eyes. "That's the bravest thing I've ever seen."

The words hung between them, heavy with promise and warning both. Because they both knew what it meant—that sometimes the bravest choice wasn't fighting, but choosing to walk away to protect what mattered most.

Harald's breath hitched. He wanted to look away from the intensity in Jakob's eyes, but couldn't. His fingers clutched at Jakob's shirt, seeking anchor.

"And I know it's selfish," Harald pressed on, the words tumbling out now, unstoppable. "I know what this could cost. But when Christian threatened to tell Mother, all I could think was—" He drew a shaking breath. "All I could think was that I'd rather lose everything else than lose this. Lose you." The words hung between them, too honest, too raw. Harald's heart thundered in his chest as Jakob's fingers tightened on his.

"Does that make me a terrible prince?" he whispered.

Jakob was quiet for a moment, his thumb tracing the line of Harald's jaw. "Maybe," he admitted finally. "But it makes you a remarkable man."

Harald's laugh was soft, broken. "What good is that when Christian is already moving against us? When my mother could⁠—"

"I don't have an answer," Jakob interrupted gently. "I don't know how to fight a queen. But I do know that power is constantly shifting." His fingers tightened on Harald's. "We don't have to win forever tonight. We just have to survive long enough."