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Kadou moved more slowly now. His face, when Evemer caught a glimpse of it, was wide-eyed and expressionless. He stumbled once, catching himself before Evemer could catch him, and sat down heavily on the first bench he came across. His hands clutched the edge of it, white-knuckled.
Evemer said nothing. He stood at parade rest nearby, angling himself to face the way they’d come, just in case Siranos decided to follow them.
“I’m sorry,” His Highness said. “I’m sorry he spoke to you like that.”
“His opinion is beneath me,” Evemer said.As it should be beneath you,he added in the safety of his own thoughts.
“He shouldn’t have threatened to have you whipped. He shouldn’t have called you aguard.” Life and fire came into Kadou’s voice.
“That was hardly the most upsetting thing he said, Highness,” Evemer allowed himself to say.
“He can attackmeall he likes. He doesn’t get to turn on my kahya.”
It was justwords. What did words matter? Evemer lifted his chin. “Highness.”
“Oh, for the gods’ sake—would you speak? Don’t justHighnessme.”
“As you wish, Your Highness.” And then, for reasons he couldn’t have quite identified, he said, “I would have killed him if he talked about my mother like that.”
His Highness laughed hollowly. “You got assigned to me because Her Majesty thought there was a chance I might have him killed, Evemer.”
Evemer barely suppressed a flinch. “Apologies, Highness.”
“Shall we go tell her that I’ve already beguiled you into my faction?” He laughed again, now wild and nervous, almost manic. “You can tell her how I convinced you to hate Siranos, just like I convinced the others.”
Grain of salt,his mother’s voice whispered in his head again. “Did you convince them? Or did they witness something like this?”
“He laid hands on me, the night of Eyne’s birth. Bruised my arm, threatened me. Melek saw it. Çe can tell you everything, if you won’t believe me.”
“Highness,” Evemer said, because that was all that could be said.
Kadou dragged himself to his feet—he was wavering like he was tipsy, like he’d forgotten which way was up. Evemer did not offer his arm, and Kadou didn’t ask for it, just wove his way down the gravel path. “Do you—” he began, and then stopped.
“Highness?”
“Do you have any questions? About . . . anything he said back there?”
About his mother, he meant. Evemer should say that everyone knew those rumors were nonsense, that His Highness should put it out of his mind. He wouldn’t, of course. He didn’t owe Kadou comfort or care beyond what was professionally demanded. “No, Highness.”
“Nothing? Nothing at all?”
Why was he pushing? Did hewantEvemer to demand answers of him? Evemer carefully kept all emotion from his face and stared steadily down the path, but the ill-mannered, undisciplined parts of himself bared their teeth with annoyance. Those parts had several impertinent questions and wouldn’t have minded making demands at all.
He must have taken too long tamping down his irritation, because His Highness said dully, “If you don’t ask, I’m going to feel like I’m waiting for a sword to fall on my neck the rest of the day.”
There was a moment, just one, where Evemer could nearly feel the mass of the questions on his tongue, filling his mouth. “I have nothing to ask, Highness.”
Kadou could be as upset as he pleased; Evemer wouldn’t budge for him.
Kadou’s heart was racing, and had been since he had first laid eyes on Siranos—since before that, too, but that moment was when he had started tofeelit against the back of his ribs. He had to stop and rest twice more on the walk back to his chambers—he longed to run for them, but he was barely able to stay upright.
It was nothing, he kept telling himself. It was nothing. It wasnothing. Perhaps if he said it enough times, it would become true.
He felt Evemer’s presence at his back like a looming dread, and several times he thought of whirling to face him, shouting at him, striking him, begging him—whatever it took to get him to just say something.Please,Kadou would cry.Please, just look me in the eye and tell me you hate me, because it can’t be as bad out in the open air as it is inside my head, and it’s eating me alive. Please.
But because Evemer hated him, because Evemer knew that Kadou would suffer more this way, he would hold his tongue. He wouldn’t say a word besides “Highness,” even if Kadou dropped to his knees in the dust and cried.
Kadou’s mind whirled from Evemer to Siranos to Zeliha, round and round: Here is how you’ve failed, and also here, andhere,andhereandhereandhereandhereandhere—
