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Having only just decided that he may as well act as he pleased, Sebastian nevertheless straightened slightly as the king’s personal guard moved around behind him. Of course Sir Lucan would be witness to such a humiliation. Why not. Why not have every bit of dignity and self-respect stripped away for his birthday?
Sebastian examined the knight out of the corner of his eye. He knew what the man looked like, of course. He had stared at him time and time again. That did not stop him from taking another careful inventory of the object of his fascination.
Lucan was tall and bold and brave and strong. All the things Sebastian was not. He had dark hair and big muscles, and he was deeply attractive in that casual, easy way that strong and capable men always are. He had short cropped hair, a broad set jaw, and perpetually narrowed eyes. He was stoic and spoke little. When he did speak, it was in a manner that implied he meant to be obeyed. He never spoke to Sebastian, but Sebastian had heard him speaking to the king’s guard from time to time, and in such a manner that Sebastian had spent hours fantasizing about what it might be like to be a guardsman under Lucan’s command. Oh how deeply and richly he yearned to disappoint Lucan. Even in his fantasies, he imagined Lucan would be displeased with him. Everybody else was.
While using his peripheral vision, Sebastian noticed that Lucan gave him the side-eye. He was perhaps the only person in the entire room paying any attention to Sebastian at all.
Sebastian suspected that Lucan did not like him. He assumed it based on the same reasons everybody else disliked him. Surely Lucan would find him weak, effeminate, and thoroughly pathetic. Sebastian figured he probably shouldn’t like Lucan either, really. Lucan was clearly becoming one of the favorites of Thadecus Force, because Lucan was everything a prince was supposed to be, brave, noble, adept in combat, a wonderful horseman, and an even better swordsman.
There had been a particularly vicious rumor for a time that said Thadecus and Melinda Force had considered the possibility of adopting another son, so that the Kingdom of Force might have a strong leader when Thadecus passed. The rumor had never been substantiated, but Sebastian always imagined that it would be someone like Lucan who would be chosen to replace him if such a thing were to come to pass.
He thought these miserable thoughts to himself while watching the entirety of the court, all of the partygoers, even the squires, be given a slice of his birthday cake, the great tower of confection dwindling piece by piece until nothing was left, not even the crumbs.
He continued to watch as the entirety of the court consumed the cake made in his honor and tried not to cry. Many eyes were surreptitiously upon him as he sipped his water and tried his best to pretend he did not mind. They would love that humiliation. If he were to shed even a single tear the royal court would tell that story for the rest of his life. So Sebastian remained stoic. He only had to tolerate this a little longer, and then he would be free to return to the privacy of his library and the sanctum his books provided. He could think his own thoughts. Dream his own dreams. He could be whatever he wished to be in the quiet and privacy of his mind.
Beside him, his mother coughed delicately and fell face-first into her cake. Everybody was far too polite to make any mention of the queen’s strange behavior. Several of the lower court in fact followed her lead, plunging their faces into their cake in turn.
Sebastian continued to keep his appearance of disinterest. A moment or two later, his father also coughed and similarly face-planted into his cake. It was probably some ritual they’d all decided on without telling him. That happened quite a lot. Sebastian had lost track of the number of dances and occasions he had been unable to participate in because he had not been instructed in the movements. All around him, the revelers ensconced their faces in cake one by one, until each and every person who had cake was face-down in icing.
It took Sebastian a frankly shameful length of time to realize something had gone wrong. He was under the illusion it was some sort of fast acting fad when the doors at the far end of the hall, the very same doors he had made his grand entrance through, were thrown open.
Armed men wearing black and red, rather than the purple and gold his father favored, came streaming into the hall. There were dozens upon dozens of them, faces twisted with laughing triumph. Sebastian had enough royal instinct and sense to know that they had to be enemies. They were lead by a predictably tall, broad man with a thick, shining black beard of the kind Sebastian would have given his left testicle to be able to grow.
