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“Can we talk about this later?” Fenrir didn’t sound mad, he sounded defeated, and that hurt more than the sudden clench in Orpheus’ throat.

“Fine.” He was trying—all hells, he really was.

They rode Nightmare in silence, Orpheus clinging to Fenrir’s waist and focusing on the daylight chasing the mist from the valleys instead of the stiffness in Fenrir’s shoulders. And he chose to ignore the wriggling pit inside him. The one that insisted something was wrong, because the only thing possibly awry with the approaching day was his souring mood.

This isn’t about you. It wasn’t. It was about everyone else on this once hells-forsaken Earth, and a world that didn’t stop spinning just because he saved it.

Miles passed, Nightmare carving a path through open fields before Fenrir turned them towards the main road. Wildflowers dusted Orpheus’ dark robes gold, pollen rising in glittering coifs to tickle his nose until his eyes began stinging. Or that was the excuse he gave when Nightmare crested a ridge and the fairgrounds exploded into disproportionate view.

People. Hundreds upon thousands of people teemed in the valley below. Like a colony of ants spilling from their cavernous home, they writhed amongst a rainbow of tents, converging at the base of a large, towering stage where emblems matching Fenrir’s cuirass painted the heralds flanking either side, framing the picture in disturbing proclamation.

Authority and power. Unity and peace. As divergent as they were in kinship, both too tediously fragile to promise anyone in good faith.

Orpheus swallowed and pressed his palms to Fenrir’s stomach, finally unable to hide how they shook.

Fenrir turned in his saddle to give him a closed-off look.

“Are you okay?”

Orpheus looked away and sniffed. “It’s this hells-damned pollen.”

Fenrir’s face softened. Whatever words he planned to say were traded in favor of something far kinder than Orpheus deserved. “Everything is going to be okay, you know that, right? All this? It’s just for today. Tomorrow we’ll head back to the Stacks and then you and Red can boss me around however you think best and we’ll do this together. Nothing is changing, Fifi. Not any more than it already has. Okay?”

No, it wasn’t okay. But it was far too late to turn back now.

“Promise me,” Orpheus hissed, fingers curling into claws to grasp at Fenrir’s waist. “Promise me you mean that.”

It shouldn’t have been possible for Fenrir to get his arm around Orpheus’ shoulders and drag him into his lap, but he did. Sun at their back, valley at their feet, Fenrir’s embrace was another kind of proclamation. To the Empire, Fenrir may be the hero from the storybooks who came to save them. But to Orpheus, he was more than that. And he had to believe, whatever came next, that what existed between them was strong enough to withstand the future Fenrir had set in motion when he’d plotted Lore’s downfall and then seen it through to its unlikely end.

“We’re finally together, Orpheus, you think I’d let anything pull us apart now?”

Orpheus turned his face into Fenrir’s neck, arms tight around his waist, air shallow in his chest. “If push comes to shove, will you have a choice?”

“Of course I will,” Fenrir said, pulling back to look at him. “And if I ever have to, my choice is you.” Hands cupped Orpheus’ face, Fenrir’s pale eyes translucent in the morning light, his voice a quiet scratch. “It will always be you, Orpheus. I promise.”

The hands on his face turned into hands in his hair and Fenrir’s lips caught his before Orpheus could so much as breathe. He didn’t fight the kiss. He surrendered to the heat and the softness and the warmth of Fenrir against him, but also the enormity of what Fenrir gambled: a world who now looked to him to secure their futures, all for a man who had nearly destroyed every last one of them.

Like a dozen battle drums beating, Orpheus’ heartbeat hammered deep inside his chest. He broke the kiss with a soft gasp, hand coming to clutch the collar of his robes as—

—No—that wasn’t his heartbeat. Those were hooves—

From the steep incline of the hill, a half-platoon of soldiers arrived to greet them, Red’s cropped red hair a bloodied spear tip at their head.

“It’s about hells-damned time you two showed up!” Red’s horse gave a snort when she drew up short before them, nostrils flared as if she’d ridden miles instead of across the fairgrounds. But it was the look she gave Fenrir that made Orpheus hunch into the saddle, the naked satisfaction that bloomed across her face sinking like a rock into his gut.

“Well, well, well, can’t say you don’t look the part of a reigning monarch.”

“Red, please don’t—”

“—What? Not getting cold feet now are you?” Red looked at Orpheus, mouth twisting into something less a smile and more a grimace. “Don’t tell me you rode all the way here like that.”

Orpheus ignored how his face flared hot and shoved at Fenrir until he had enough room to twist forward.

“Got a pasture cordoned off down at the edge of the lake. Plenty of shade and water. We’ll drop the horses there and then have some time to go over your speech, mostly so Fenrir here doesn’t flub his lines. Did you have a chance to finalize your title?”

“Uh…” at Orpheus’ back, Fenrir went stiff. “I was thinking Governor.”

Red snorted. “Don’t y’all think that’s a little provincial? What about Admiral?”