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Ren.
My left hand was gently lifted from my lap and something soft tucked beneath it. I hugged it to myself, sinking my face into what I recognised from the shape and smell as Ren’s pillow.
I smiled, because there were few people who knew what side of the bed the king slept on, and fewer still who would have thought to do such a thing.
“Thank you, Jiron,” I murmured.
Burying my face deeper into the pillow, I breathed in the unique scent of the man I loved, recalling his face and clinging to the image with every shred of my attention and desperation.
And then I Saw.
*
Chapter Eighteen
“-but that’s Yiorgos all over,” Valeri was saying with a hearty laugh from my left. I glanced down and saw our hands resting next to each other where we were leaning on a stone wall. His belonged to an older man, the skin starting to wrinkle and loosen around the bones, but when Val curled his fingers up into a fist and slammed it down on the wall as the punchline to whatever tale he’d been telling, I knew he was still as tough and strong as my brother had ever been.
I wanted to see more of him, but my future self didn’t look up at his face in whatever scene was playing out, so I couldn’t either.
“How are you doing?” I heard myself say, feeling the sting of the cold air in my throat. Snow fell lightly through the sky.
“You know,” Val said, and I felt him shrug beside me. “Losing mother wasn’t easy, but being a king and a father leaves little time for grief.”
My vision self glanced up, over the wall, and a spark of familiarity surged through me when I recognised the colourful, glittering city of Delzerce laid out before us. There was a market square below where we stood, the stalls vibrant and brimming with both wares and customers eager to buy them despite the weather, which was, regrettably, usual for this far north. Two young men openly kissed in the centre of the square without anyone paying them any mind: one with dark hair peeking out from underneath his fur hat, the other pale blonde.
The men drew apart and I blinked when I recognised the features of the dark-haired one as my nephew, although with more than a decade of extra life on him to when I’d seen him last month.
“Dafo Velichkov!” snarled Val with indignation at my side, loudly enough for the people in the square to hear. A few looked around at Dafo, but none of the Temarians seemed upset to find their prince – and apparently now heir – kissing another man. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Valeri-”
“No, Nat! That little shit promised he’d be home studying all day, and here he is, kissing Lord Whatever-His-Name-Is.Again!” My brother let out a growl and looked as though he was going to leap straight over the wall down onto the mosaiced stone below, before coming to his senses and taking the steps instead.
“Run, Dafo!” I yelled, cupping my gloves around my mouth to be heard. My nephew glanced up, winked at me, and then fled hand in hand with his not-so secret lover while I collapsed in laughter and Valeri howled out mock threats to his son from somewhere below.
-
The blazing Quarehian sun beat down on Zovisasha and Lilia, who were dabbing sweat from their brows. I couldn’t feel the heat, and that, along with the weird disembodied sensation that made my body feel floaty, made me realise that I was Seeing something that I wouldn’t experience in real life. I was a spectator, not a participant, to this particular vision.
My friends were standing about ten feet apart and swinging a long jumping rope between them. It thwacked against the dry soil on each rotation, hammering out a steady rhythm.
“Come on,” Lilia coaxed, waving her free hand at a Quarehian child standing nearby. “Jump in!”
The girl was maybe five or six years old. She had her hair in two messy plaits, bore an old scar across her left eyebrow, and was giving the two Mazekhstani women an exceptionally sceptical expression. The type of expression my vexing friends deserved, but the fact that someone so young had figured that out was impressive all on its own.
“You’re going to start moving it in opposite directions again,” she accused them, and by the time Lilia and Zovisasha had finished arguing about whether they were or were not going to do any such thing, they already had, and the rope twitched uselessly on the ground between them.
The child chased after a nearby frog instead, her shrieks of laughter filling the air.
-
Wyatt cradled Jiron’s head in his lap and stroked a slender hand over his cheek, moonlight casting long stripes of light and shadow across the pair. Bedsheets were mussed around their naked bodies, hiding just enough of their skin to make me mildly uncomfortable rather than horrified, and I averted my eyes to their faces instead.
“Shush,” Wyatt murmured to the other man. “You’re okay. I’m here.”
“You shouldn’t have to be,” said Jiron bitterly. “I haven’t…it’s been months since I’ve had an episode like that.”
The Lukian continued to soothe his lover with gentle movements and words, reminding me of all the times I’d woken from my own nightmares about shadowy figures in the snow that boreblazing blue eyes. Ren would stroke my hair just like that, murmuring comfort and holding me close.
