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Evemer went to wake Tenzin. She was not pleased about it. “Leave me be,” she muttered. “I don’t work before the tenth hour of the morning.”
Kadou looked even more exhausted at this, and he wavered on his feet again.
“Highness,” Tadek said. “Go to bed.”
“I can’t.”
“You’re dead on your feet. Evemer would be too, if I hadn’t poured coffee into him. If she won’t work until morning, then there’s nothing else you can do tonight. Go to bed.”
“I want to gohome.”
“Tomorrow morning,” Tadek said firmly. “You’ll be fresh and rested, and you can sweep up to the Copper Gate in high style and present Tenzin to Her Majesty in front of everyone. There’snothing else to do tonight.”
Kadou’s face was setting in a stubborn expression that Evemer recognized from those early days when Kadou had led them through a tour of the capital’s seediest public houses. Evemer went to him, touched his sleeve. “My lord. Tadek is offering knowledge and counsel. Time to listen.”
“Gods-damned kahyalar,” Kadou muttered, but he headed toward the stairs. “Don’t remember signing up to be hounded by gods-damned kahyalar at every turn.” He stopped at the first step, looked down at it, and heaved a truly heartfelt sigh. “Stairs,” he mumbled. “Who thought those were a good idea? Probably another gods-damned kahya, that’s who.”
Evemer bit back a laugh, lit a candle from one of the lamps, and went to his lord. He nudged Kadou in the center of his back. “Go on.”
“Stairs,Evemer.”
“Go, or I’ll pick you up again and injure myself.”
Kadou sighed again and took the steps slowly, one by one, as if they were each Usmim’s most profound trial.
Upstairs, he toppled face-first into bed without bothering to loosen his clothes. Evemer wedged the candle in a holder and pulled off Kadou’s boots for him, and then his own, and switched out his bloodied kaftan for a clean underlayer.
“Sleeping here?” Kadou mumbled, his face half-buried in the blankets.
“Not sleeping. But here, yes.”
Kadou frowned and lifted his head. “Lie down. Go to sleep. If I have to, you have to. That’s anorder.”
A twisting curl of heat ran through his core. “Yes, my lord,” Evemer said.
“And—and don’t be all the way across the room. Be right here. Near me. Please.”
Evemer dragged the pallet of cushions and blankets right to the edge of the low bed, as near as he could be, and lay flat on his back.
“I’d . . . I’d invite you to share with me,” Kadou whispered. “But I worry that it would make you uncomfortable. More than sleeping on the floor would.” He peeped over the edge of the bed at Evemer, his eyes amazingly dark in the candlelight and his brow twisted with worry.
“You need your rest.” The veryideaof sleeping next to Kadou intentionally was wildly inappropriate and dangerous. And so, so tempting. What had happened to his discipline? It used to be trivially easy to deny himself desire—now it was all but impossible. “I couldn’t . . . impose.” He thought of Kadou’s hair spread out across the pillow like it had been in the heated pool at the bathhouse, thought of the mountain spirits that his mother had warned him would take his heart and replace it with a burning ember. His mouth was dry.
“It’s not an imposition,” Kadou said quietly. He was sounding more awake with every passing moment. Kadou’s hair was tumbling down his shoulders, and his eyes were sodarkin the candlelight, unearthly.
Just looking at him like this made Evemer ache all through his chest. It was as if he were being pulled forward by his soul, like a hungry man might be pulled forward by his stomach to a table laden with food.
“I’m trying to take care of you,” Kadou said—he must have seen or sensed Evemer wavering. “Like how my ancestors ate from wooden plates and gave their kahyalar ones of silver and gold.”
“If we share, it won’t count, will it?”
“Count?”
Evemer felt bare and raw and hot under Kadou’s eyes. He rasped, “Annulment versus divorce. No one would count that.”
“Oh. No, I don’t see how it could.”
Evemer held his eyes for another long moment and sat up slowly. Kadou’s face brightened with pleasure and he shifted over to make room—Evemer moved gingerly onto the edge of the bed.
