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He did.
All he caught was a glimpse. Less than a heartbeat, less than a hundredth of a heartbeat: the most wretched expression he’d ever seen on Evemer, outright wretched, open and honest and unhidden, so that anyone looking at him would have been able to tell that someone had just torn his heart out of his chest.
Their eyes met and then it was gone—well, as gone as Evemer could make it. Gone to the casual observer, but Kadou—Kadou could always see him, couldn’t he? It was still there, that despair, that misery.
Kadou ducked his head again sharply and thought,Oh, he loves me.
Right on the heels of that, he thought,I promised twice over to protect him from all harm—as lord and as husband, Isworeit.
And then:What about duty? What about marrying this man Zeliha’s found, and enriching the kingdom and strengthening our alliances, and serving the purpose for which I was born?
And immediately following:To hell with that. To hell with duty, with fealty and responsibility. Irrelevant!To hell with all of them if they meant he had to let Evemer go.
He couldn’t do it after all.
He was going to refuse this marriage. Not even because he’d promised to keep Evemer from harm and this would surely, surely harm him, but because hewantedEvemer like he’d never wanted anyone or any thing for himself before. This, this washis. Who knew how long either of them had? They could have died a dozen times in the last few months. They could die any day here, from illness or misadventure.
What, then, was the point of hesitating as if they thought they had the luxury of time to fritter away on uncertainty? What was the point of doing anything but seizing hold of Evemer and loving him just as hard as he possibly could, with the knowledge that he was pouring all the love he had into every instant just in case there wasn’t another instant after it?
Except Evemer wasn’t his, not really—Evemer might have sworn his fealty, and he might have said the marriage oaths, yes, and he might have said that he wouldn’t stop wanting Kadou, but that didn’t mean that he was giving himself away. He hadn’t said that at all. Even if he was silently dying by the door, even if Kadouknewit, he’d have to wait to hear him say he wanted this. That was reciprocity—reaching out your hand in the dark, offering it, and hoping someone reached back.
Kadou hadn’t ever really offered, had he? Not properly, not so Evemer knew he meant it.
He had to make Evemer understand that before anything else could be said or done.
“I . . . I think I need to . . . do something,” he said, unsteady.
“Are you all right?” she asked as he scrambled to his feet. “Are you getting cold feet about the visit? No one’s going to make you marry him if you don’t like him, and I forbid you to take this offer just because you think I want it.”
“Understood, thank you, may I be excused?” he said, all in a rush.
“By all means.”
He sketched a very perfunctory bow and whirled around, out of the room without looking at the kahyalar.
Evemer, of course, followed. In the corner of his eye, Kadou could just see him moving stiffly, like a puppet or an automaton, as if he had to tell each of his limbs to move individually. Kadou strode down the hall, out the front door into the bright midday sun, and through the twists and turns of the Gold Court garden paths until he was in the very thick of them, as alone as it was possible to get outside of his own bedroom—just a handful of kahyalar he could see in the distance on the watch shift, and his own kahya at his back. His own . . . something, anyway.His. Evemer.
Kadou had been meaning to charge all the way back to the Cypress Cliff house before he said anything, but he was trembling too violently to go further, and the words in his throat were going to choke him. He stopped, breathing hard.
Evemer was perfectly silent.
From a nearby folly, an elegant little stone structure where Kadou haddefinitelyonce been a teenager up to no good, he heard a familiar loud laugh. He flung himself through the archway and around several twists and found Tadek in the center, still wearing his armsman greens and seated on the edge of a fountain with the heir of one of the provincial governors perched on his knee.
They both jumped, the heir pulling away and straightening çir clothes as çe stood to bow to Kadou.
“Highness! Fancy seeing you here,” Tadek said. “Have you met Aydin?”
“Yes, hello, wonderful to see you again, your outfit was lovely last night, so sorry to interrupt.Tadek, I need you.”
Tadek frowned. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
“Shall I go?” Aydin said, already edging around Kadou.
“Don’t go far!” Tadek said. “Give me a moment, my flower!” Çe had already slipped out, Evemer stepping aside to let çem pass. Tadek levered himself off the edge of the fountain. “Highness, what’s the matter? Are you having an attack?”
It must look like one, mustn’t it? His breath caught. What if he were wrong? What if he’d misread it? What if Evemer didn’t take his hand when he offered it?
Tadek came forward, laid his hand on Kadou’s arm. “Shit. It’s bad, isn’t it? What do you need?”
