Page 90 of The Broken Dawn

"Before I leave." Jakob's voice was steady, but Hal could see the pain flickering in his blue eyes.

"I know you have to go." Hal's hands fisted in Jakob's shirt. "I know it's right, I know it's what you need, what we have to do. But I don't know if I'm strong enough to actually let you walk away from me."

Jakob's thumb traced along Hal's cheekbone. "My prince," he whispered, Hal's title an endearment in his softly accented voice. "You're stronger than you know."

"What if I'm not?" The words cracked as they left Hal's throat. "What if when the moment comes, I can't do it? What if I beg you to stay, or try to use my position to keep you here? What if I'm not the man you think I am?"

"Hal—"

"I made promises," Hal continued desperately. "While I was standing vigil for my brother I made promises to myself, to his memory. That even if I had to send you away, it would only be until I became strong enough to protect you. That I would build something for us and for Sweden that can't be torn down. But what if I send you away and something happens to you? You're going to war, Jakob. Things happen in wars: bombs, guns, bullets." Bleeding, he thinks desperately. Dying. Alone in the cold and the snow.

"Stop it." Jakob's hands framed his face, forcing Hal to meet his gaze. "You came back for me. You left everything— your duties, your mother's scheming, the country that needs you — just to be here with me. You think that's weakness?"

"It feels like it," Hal whispered. "It feels like I should be stronger than this."

Jakob was quiet for a long moment, studying Hal's face in the dim light. When he spoke, his voice was soft but certain. "In all those stories you love—the knights, the oaths of fealty—they swore those oaths because it was necessary. Because honor demanded it and they needed something sacred to bind them to one another and carry them through the impossible."

Hal's breath caught. "Jakob..."

"Let me give you that," Jakob said, his hands sliding down to take Hal's. "Something that will make you strong enough to let me go. Something that will bind me to you no matter how much time or distance separates us."

Jakob's eyes swept across the armory table, past the neatly arranged cleaning supplies and practice equipment, until they found what he was looking for; Two brass circlets, worn smooth and golden by countless hands. They were the ring pulls from the pins of grenades from the great war, their edges softened by two decades of nervous fingers. He picked them up, the metal warm against his palm, and pressed one into Hal's hand. The brass shone dully in the weak light.

"These come from weapons of war," Jakob said, his voice low and reverent. "They're made to protected lives, kept men safe when everything around them was falling apart." He turned the brass ring over in his fingers, feeling the smooth metal. "Hundreds of cadets have held these, polished them, trusted them. All of them know what it means to serve something greater than yourself."

Hal's fingers closed around the warm brass, understanding flooding through him even as his throat tightened. The weight of it was nothing—a few grams of metal—but the meaning behind Jakob's gesture pressed against his chest with the weight of a mountain. Around them, the armory held its breath, dusty in the slanted light, rifles standing at attention in their racks.

Without breaking eye contact, Jakob sank to his knees on the rough wooden floor. The sight sent a jolt through Hal's chest—not of desire, though that was there too, but of something deeper. Something that made his breath catch and his heart pound against his ribs. Jakob's blue eyes never wavered from his face, steady and certain despite the tremor in his hands.

"I can't give you a fancy golden ring or a wedding in a cathedral with all of Europe watching," Jakob continued, his voice steady despite the magnitude of what he was offering. "But I can give you this—my word, my heart, my absolute loyalty. And I can ask you to do the same." His hands were steady now, no longer shaking. "Will you accept my vow, Hal? Will you let me bind myself to you, here in this place where we first learned how to stand together?"

Hal nodded, blinking back the tears that suddenly flooded his eyes. Jakob's gaze never left his as he reached forward and took Hal's left hand in his own, the skin on his palm rough and warm against Hal's own. His heart thundered in his chest. The armory around them faded until there was only Jakob kneeling before him, holding these bits of weapons as if they were priceless treasures.

"I swear to you my fealty and I give to you my loyalty. I promise you, Crown Prince Harald Edvard, that am yours. I will find you wherever you go. I will return to you however far I must travel."

Hal felt tears burning behind his eyes. The weight of the past days—Freddie's death, his father's illness, his mother's machinations, the crushing responsibility of the crown— in this moment, none of that mattered nearly as much as this man, on his knees before him, swearing his life and his heart not to the crown or the state, but to Hal in all his imperfect glory.

"Jakob" Hal whispered, reaching down to take both his hands, pulling him to his feet and into his arms. "You don't kneel to me," He said roughly. "Not now and not ever."

"Hal." Jakob said, and there was a hint of humor in his eyes.

Hal smiled. "I accept your oath," he said "and offer one of my own. I honor your oath of fealty and of loyalty. I swear that I will be true and faithful to you…" forsaking all others, Hal thought, and although he did not say it he meant it with all his heart. "I give you my promise to protect you and yours, and my love, my heart and my honor from today until the day we are parted by death."

Jakob looked at him, gob-smacked, as Hal slid the brass ring over his knuckle and on to his finger and sealed their oath with a desperate kiss.

They stood there in the fading light, still pressed together. Hal's hands trembled as they slid from Jakob's shoulders to his neck, thumbs brushing over his pulse with reverence. Jakob's eyes fluttered closed at the touch, then opened again, dark and overwhelmed.

Jakob's fingers found the brass ring on Hal's hand, turning it slowly, as if he couldn't quite believe it was real. The touch made Hal's breath catch, and he leaned into Jakob again, their foreheads touching, breathing each other's air.

"Jakob," Hal whispered, but the word dissolved as Jakob's hand came up to trace the line of his jaw, fingertips ghosting over his skin like he was memorizing every detail.

Hal tried to take a step back, some distant part of his mind thinking he should say something practical, but his body wouldn't obey. Instead, his hands slid down to Jakob's neck, to his shoulders, needing the contact like he needed air. "I've only got tonight…" he whispered into the warmth of Jakob's shoulder, the damp fabric of his uniform jacket. "…to say my goodbyes."

Jakob's thumb finds the pulse point at Hal's wrist, pressing gently, and they both shiver at the intimacy of it. The weight of what they'd just done - the vows, the rings, the binding of their souls - has left them both raw and reeling, unable to exist separately.

"Then let me take you home," Jakob said suddenly, the words tumbling out without thought or plan. "I don't care about anything else."

"Your mother⁠—"