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“Because of annulment,” Evemer said, bleak, “versus divorce.”
Kadou hated this so much. Why hadn’t he thought of a better plan?
Annulment could be done quietly by a single temple dedicate. A discreet one, for preference.
Divorce, particularly from a prince of the royal family, was a much, much,muchmore complicated affair. And public. So very, extremely public: not one discreet dedicate, but a small army of them, and phalanxes of clerks, and—well, everyone. Everyone in the whole kingdom, and potentially farther. It could even affect places far beyond their borders, kingdoms that might have been making diplomatic advances toward them with the hopes of bargaining to buy that selfsame prince for one of their crown heirs, or to marry off one of their lesser scions and send them away to Arast. They would be more cautious of bargaining with them if they thought the serenity of the ruling family had been marred.
That’s what Kadou very nearly would have thrown into the sea for the sake of another dozen kisses, for the sake of unwinding Evemer’s sash, undoing his buttons, letting his clothes fall open to Kadou’s touch, for the sake of laying his palms against Evemer’s bare skin and unwinding the rest of him too.
But no matter the oaths he’d made upstairs when he was nothing and no one but himself, hewasn’tjust himself.
The thought tore at him as it had never torn at him before in his life—it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that he should be denied every opportunity for individual decision. It wasn’t fair that he could never, even once, consider only his own wants in matters like these. It wasn’t fair that the demands of his country should again outweigh his longing for one thing that was, even temporarily,his. The thing he wanted so badly he could barely keep his knees from giving out under him.
Even so, he wavered. He hesitated.
But it wasn’t just his own life he was weighing on the scales of the country’s demands—it was Evemer’s too. A quiet and discreet annulment would preserve his career. A public and complicated divorce, even completely amiable, would destroy it. Kadou could weather that storm—whether or not his reputation was dented, he was still a prince—but Evemer would be left with nothing. His career demanded a certain sterling image. A prince’s castoff (and thatishow he would be seen) would not have a place with the kahyalar. There would be no opportunity for advancement, no promotion to government office. No more educational stipend to make something else of himself, if government service did not suit—and Kadou doubted whether Evemer would allow him to simply pay for such things out of his own purse in recompense. He would be worse off than even Tadek had been as an armsman.
“We have to be able to undo it,” Kadou whispered.
“Yes,” Evemer said. “The kingdom. Your reputation.”
“Fuck my reputation. The kingdom, yes. But yourcareer.”
“Oh,” said Evemer, like he hadn’t even thought of that. “I suppose.”
“Your whole life. I can’t save your life and then destroy it myself. And—and if we were divorced, if it was public—”
“And itwouldbe public,” Evemer said, resigned.
“They’d expect me to get rid of you.” He heard Evemer suck in a breath. “If I publicly cast you aside, everyone will expect me to have nothing to do with you afterward. They’ll send you away from me, or make me send you away, and I—I don’t want to.” He hated how petulant he sounded. “I can’t do that. I can’t abandon you.”
“You could. You could turn me away.”
Kadou swallowed hard. “I want to keep you,” he whispered, but damn, that was a little too close to a shipload of things he wasn’t ready to admit even to himself, let alone aloud. But there were layers of oaths he’d made to Evemer, and some more known and quantifiable than others: “I’m your lord, and I owe you a place in my home and at my hearth. I want you there. I don’t want you to leave. How would I manage without you?”
“I would stay at your side as long as you’d have me, my lord.” He stood up straight again, turning to lean his back against the wall next to Kadou. Their hands found each other in the dark and gripped tight, and the two of them, without speaking, slid down the wall to sit on the hard stone floor. Kadou allowed himself one single moment of weakness and huddled close against Evemer’s side, telling himself it was just because of the cold of the room and because Evemer was so warm. “My lord, would you . . .”
“Would I what?” Kadou asked after a moment when Evemer didn’t finish.
“Your grandmother, the dowager-sultan, her kahyalar . . . Would it be like that?”
Kadou’s grandmother had three kahyalar whom she considered favorites. The oldest of them, Zarghuna, had been at her side for more than fifty years. Grandfather had appointed Zarghuna to her personally on the day Grandmother had arrived in the capital to be married to him. These days, Zarghuna was much too old and frail for most of the duties of a kahya, but she had been an immovable fixture at Grandmother’s shoulder for as long as Kadou could remember—she was practically a great-aunt to him. There was no one in whom the dowager-sultan confided more.
“You wouldn’t need to stay my kahya. You could take promotions.” That would be all right—Evemer would still be near, even if he wasn’t right at Kadou’s fingertips. “But if you wanted to stay,” Kadou said softly, “then you could.”
“If it might be like that, I should tell you something.” Evemer’s thumb ran softly over his knuckles. “I don’t expect that I’m going to stop wanting you.”
Kadou’s breath caught, his hand gripped Evemer’s tighter. “Oh.”
“That’s all. I just wanted you to know.”
Kadou couldn’t speak for a moment. “Perhaps—perhaps if we get out of this alive, and—and after we get the annulment . . . If that’s still true, you could tell me so again.”
“When I’m merely your kahya again, and not Damat Evemer Hoskadem Mahisti-es Bey Effendi?” There was a strange note of bitterness in Evemer’s voice. “Will you let me close to you then? Or will you decide that I’m too vulnerable to your power and that you can’t risk hurting me?”
“I might try that, yes,” Kadou whispered. “At least at first. Just remind me that I promised to listen to you, and . . . maybe give me a little time to adjust. Let me stew over it for a month or so and I’ll lose my conviction.” Like the moons, really, turning their faces away from the sun but always, always turning back.
Evemer’s thumb rubbed over his knuckles again. “You may take all the time you want. I’ll wait. You can take years if you need to. I’ll still wait.”
