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His nod of solemn gratitude was interrupted by the blonde man at his side who tugged impatiently on Jiron’s hand. “We’ve been searching the gardens, sire,” Wyatt reported, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Although we were unable to find any missing Quarehian kings.” He looked personally affronted by that fact, before his expression turned to delight. “But we did find some perfectly ripe snow peas that taste delicious!” He held out a handful of the green vegetables, still in their pods, and shook his fist expectantly.
Jiron fractionally raised one eyebrow, daring me to comment, but Wyatt was so cheered by his discovery that it was hard not to smile. If that much innocent enthusiasm was shown by Ren, it would have certainly led to a trap of some kind, but I’d learned enough about the gardener during his courtship of Jiron to know he held no such hidden guile.
“His Highness doesn’t want yourpeas,” Councillor Morales snapped.
Wyatt deflated. I bristled.
Jiron stepped forward, smooth and graceful, to tower threateningly over her as he folded his huge arms. He may have been nothing but deferential to me and Ren – and absolutelydotedon Wyatt – but for everyone else, his respect was hard-earned.
Morales cast her eyes hastily downwards. “Or perhaps he does, señor,” she muttered repentantly to the floor, and Wyatt instantly brightened. The man was incapable of being down for long.
“Thank you, Wyatt,” I said, accepting the snow peas and having no better place to put them, stuffed the pods into the pocket already bearing Ren’s Letter of Last Instruction. Parchment crackled.
“I also have the hourly report from the city and palace guard,” said Jiron, drawing his attention back to me. “And as I know you appreciate brevity, Mathias, it can be summarised to nothing helpful has yet been found.”
Swearing, I ran a hand down my face. “Nothing,” I repeated flatly. “Of course.”
“I swear to you,” Jiron growled. “The moment we know where our king is, I’ll be there. I willnotlet anyone hurt him.”
I gave him a tired but grateful smile. “I know.”
Then I led us all to the palace cells, admiring how Morales and Aitor’s steps didn’t falter even when they realised where we were heading. Perhaps they really had been sincere about accepting any punishment I deigned to give them.
“Comandante,” I acknowledged as we entered the antechamber through which all prisoners had to pass – in or out. It was a bare room with only a couple of rough-hewn benches and hooks on the walls for storing prisoners’ personal effects, and never failed to make me shiver, even when the air was warm like it was now. I’d spent far too much time inla Cortina’scells to want to hang around what was essentially a bigger and nastier version of them here in Máros.
Elías, with his shirtsleeves rolled up and his coat missing, folded himself smoothly into a bow. I rarely saw him without his jacket – despite no longer risking imprisonment or worse for living as a man, he was uncomfortable with his body’s differences and preferred to hide the way his breasts were bound beneath thethin shirt – and it lent a sinister air to a room that quite frankly, did not need any more grimness.
I swallowed, not commenting on his state of undress or the painfully obvious implication it held about what the man had been doing down in the cells. If I’d known at the time that the position of Comandante required getting one’s hands quite so dirty when it came to certain distasteful yet necessary matters – such as determining the motives of random citizens threatening to assassinate the king – perhaps I’d have been more reticent in recommending any of Ren’s guards for the role. Yet El, in his typical way of quietly getting on with things without fuss, had never complained about the darker elements of his job.
I launched into the explanation of why I’d sought him out.
“…the timing is too suspicious,” I finished. “The Quarehian king goes missing the day before the Lukian delegation are supposed to arrive to discuss their ridiculous complaints against him?” I scowled. “No. Lukia is up to something, as they always fucking are.” Glancing at Wyatt, who’d been born there before he emigrated to Quareh, I winced. “No offence.”
He just shrugged and grinned, not at all bothered, and resumed chewing on the end of his braided blonde hair. Jiron made a mild noise of disapproval, causing Wyatt to spit it back out with a sheepish look and a low murmur of what sounded suspiciously like‘sorry, daddy’.
“I felt the same as you, Mathias,” Elías agreed, shaking his sleeves free and pulling on his coat where it hung from one of the wall hooks. “And it turns out they are. Or rather…theywere.”
Morales made a questioning noise. Jiron’s hands curled into fists.
El pulled his long hair free of his collar and deftly did up the jacket’s ties. “Lukia was the one behind the incident in thethrone room this morning, Your Highness. The black powder, Xio…he was sent here to take out our king, or failing that, to cripple him by killingyou. It seems our mainland neighbour is not willing to rely solely on politics to bury you both, and would prefer to do it rather more literally.”
“Dios,” Councillor Morales muttered from behind me, conveying an extraordinary amount of fury and threat in that one word. I did not envy the reception the Lukian delegation would be receiving tomorrow, now that their assassination attempt had not only been thwarted, but traced back to them.
But it made no sense for Lukia to send an assassin after a king they’d already made disappear. That meant it was unlikely they were behind Ren’s abduction after all.
“So you got Xio to talk,” I said. I tried not to let my voice waver when I added, “which of course is excellent work, Comandante.”
El dipped his head in acknowledgement. I could see no trace of blood on his hands and was glad that he must have already washed it off, despite knowing how monstrous that made me.
“How…” I cleared my throat. “How hurt is he?”
Elías’ lips curled into a faint smile. “Would you like to see, Your Highness?”
“No,” I said instantly, horrified. But I had no right to shy away from the costs of our rule. “Yes. No.Fuck. Show me.”
He unlocked the door that led to the cells and led the way down into them: not a breach of decorum like Morales’ earlier conduct had been, but with the cautious care of a guard protecting his charge. Jiron kept a firm hand on his boy’s shoulder to stop Wyatt from following us. Yet when I peeked around El’s broad form, expecting to find a bloodied mess of a man on the floor of the nearest cell, Xio didn’t appear to have a scratch on him.
And he was smiling.
