by Aldrea Alien
Queen Fiona slowly rose from her seat. “How dare you speak to me in such a manner. You have nae idea—”
Darshan slammed his hands on the table. “I am nowhere near finished!” he snarled. The air around him crackled, the static charge lifting his hair. “There will be no trade agreement between our lands. I care not for what my father thinks on this matter, but you are an insult to your crown and your people. I refuse to deal with a ruler who would treat their own flesh and blood this way.”
The queen sneered. “Rich words coming from a man with slaves.”
The room grew hot, then icy. The stench of singed wood drifted in the air. Her son had tried to take his life and rather than focus on helping Hamish, she dared to throw a completely irrelevant fact in his face? His magic cried out to be used, to burn the source of his anger to cinders.
With a shudder that sapped his strength, he suppressed the urge.
“I do own slaves,” he replied, keeping his voice low in an effort to contain his anger. “As do a great many of the Udynean nobility.” It wasn’t something he was wholly proud of, but he had never once denied it. “They are also treated with more dignity and respect than you display to your own child.” He pushed off from the table, heading towards the door on unsteady legs. “I will depart these lands on the first ship headed for Minamist,” he shot over his shoulder.
“That willnae be for another fortnight,” Gordon said.
Darshan halted in the doorway. He knew that. The man had been there when Nora informed him. Did Gordon think Darshan had forgotten?
A fortnight. A lot could happen over such a time. Hamish could even make another attempt on his life. He would not allow that to happen, not in his presence. “Until then, I shall take my leave.”
~~~
Hamish stared at Darshan’s exiting back, then the door as the spellster left the room. How could he? Did the man even understand what he had done in blurting out the truth? All his freedom would be stripped from him. His mother would see he was accompanied within the castle as well as without.
He stood slowly, as if some part of his brain believed that would somehow keep people from noticing him. Maybe he could even reach his bed without anyone speaking. Maybe his mother would be lenient in light of the other clans milling around. Personal guards would look suspicious, especially to those who remembered the union contests thrown for his siblings.
“Where do you think you are going?” His mother’s question rang through the room like a funeral bell.
Hamish hunched his shoulders. “To bed?” he mumbled. He should never have come down here whilst she was still awake.
“A grand idea.” Gordon got to his feet before their mother could reply and gave his daughter a pat on the shoulder. “I’ll walk you there.” His brother glared at him, daring Hamish to argue the point.
Hamish merely waited for Gordon to catch up. No one else voiced their objection as they departed the dining hall. His brother was a better option than any choice his mother made; less restrictive on his part and more convenient for her to explain away. More of a brotherly discussion and less of an escort.
“Stupid, age-addled fool,” Gordon grumbled. Although his brother sauntered at his side, Gordon still led the way, meandering through the lesser-used corridors where idle ears wouldn’t be as much of a concern and their path was lit by the occasional lantern.
“You better nae be talking to me,” Hamish snapped back.
His brother shook his head. “You are a fool, but I should’ve seen this coming. I should’ve realised what you’d do the moment Nora told me about the contest. You goaded that bear.”
It wasn’t a question, but Hamish nodded anyway.
“Did you go out looking for it, too?” Gordon barely waited for Hamish’s answering nod before continuing. “How long has that idea been in your head?”
He shook his head. He couldn’t give a definitive answer there. Years, most like. It seemed as though it had always been a whisper lurking in the back of his thoughts. Turning his concerns to keeping their mother’s eye off his niece and nephews, off Ethan in particular, had stilled it for a time. He had a purpose there. But he had also thought him being corralled had been enough for her. Guess I was wrong. Terribly.
They climbed a spiralling flight of stairs with Hamish at the fore as the space forced them to travel single file. A few servants scuttled off into the dark as Hamish reached the final step. Had they been warned to leave them alone? Or had his mother sent them to spy? They’re nae very good at it.
Moonlight peeked in through the arrowslits adorning one wall, illuminating the way. If he peered out the holes, he’d be able to spy the courtyard and the main gate.
Falling back into step beside him, his brother gave a blustering sigh. “I thought you over doing this, that you’d worked your way through it. I thought you were happy.” Gordon’s lips pressed together. There was a certain look in his eyes. Not the shame of his mother, or the mournful distress that haunted Nora’s gaze, but one glance from his brother was enough to tighten Hamish’s throat and bring a wash of moisture to his eyes. “I see we all guessed wrong.”
“I was—am—happy with Dar.” For the first time in a good long while. Maybe in ever. “When I’m with him, it’s like a weight’s been lifted. I can be meself.” Darshan expected nothing from him beyond what Hamish had to offer and, not once, had he seemed disappointed in the result. “I cannae imagine living without that feeling anymore. It hurts to think it.” But that’s what he faced, a lifetime of being something other than himself. “I cannae go back to lying just to please her. I’m tired of it.” Listening to Darshan, hearing how it was in Udynea, just brought the feeling that much more to the forefront of his mind.
Gordon ran his hand across his mouth, huffing and mumbling into his palm. “You ken that you being with him was nae meant to be permanent. He’ll leave for his home and that would be the end of it.”
“Did you honestly expect me to just… let it go afterwards?”
His brother’s lips all but vanished beneath his moustache as he pressed them together. “If I’d had the slightest inkling that you’d come away from this broken, I would never have let him near you.” He peered at Hamish. “Why now? Isnae anything better than death? I ken you cannae run, but—”
Shaking his head, Hamish rolled his eyes. “You still dinnae get it. Nae even after all your help and attempts to understand over the years. The contest goes ahead, a winner is found and we marry. I’m then forced to live a lie.”
“For one night, maybe. I ken that’s nae ideal, but—”
“One night? One?” Again, Hamish shook his head. Maybe it had been that easy for his brother, but he knew more about that than he really wanted to. “Try every night until whichever woman wins me hand is pregnant. Every morning I wake up with her lying beside me. Every gesture, every single time I open me mouth. Every breath. On and on, year after year until—” Terror pounded through his chest. He was right back in the forest, the drooling maw of the bear above him, not wanting to die, but begging for death to take him all the same. “Until one of us is dead,” he managed.
What other way out did he have? What way wouldn’t ruin more lives?
“What would you have done if Muireall hadnae won the contest when it was your hand being offered?” Hamish asked. Although not yet Gordon’s wife, she’d been several months pregnant with their first daughter, Moire, at the time. Her family had howled about the indignity of making a couple compete for their right to be together, but they were a small clan wedged between two borders. Their cries had gone unheard.
“If she had lost?” Gordon shrugged, his interest seemingly drawn to the corridor’s bare walls. “Maybe then both Muireall and Moire would still be alive.” He rubbed at his nose, trying to hide a snuffling breath in the guise of a cough. “Why did you nae tell me the dark thoughts were plaguing you?”
“Because you would’ve stopped me.”
A rumbling, mirthless laugh stole his brother�
�s breath as they left the moonlit corridor for a narrower, dimly-lit passage. “You’re damn right I would have. If I had thought for one second that you—” He shook his head. “I thought you were happy.”
He had been until learning of the union contest. “Aye, the prospect of the man I love leaving far sooner than I want overjoys me.” Hamish idly batted at the tassel of a moth-eaten tapestry forlornly attempting to brighten the corridor. Dust drifted from the threads. “I should’ve taken your advice. I should’ve run a long time ago, should’ve stowed away on some ship.” The terror of being hunted down had kept him from trying. Surely no distance would keep his mother from him.
Then he’d be dragged back here and subjected to whatever punishment she ordered.
“The man you—?” Gordon slapped his forehead. “Goddess’ teats, that’s right. You said the same before we left for the cloister.” His brother flashed him a look of pity. “You cannae still be serious about that.”
“Why? Because he’s a man? You dinnae think two men can fall for each other like you and your wife?” He sneered. “Do you ken who you sound like? I thought the side you were on was mine, nae Mum’s.”
Gordon slammed into him, ramming him against the wall. “Dinnae lump me with her,” he growled. “You ken exactly what I mean. He’s heading back to Udynea in a fortnight, to his home on the other side of the continent, and you—”
“You dinnae think I’m nae aware of that?” He shoved Gordon’s shoulder, breaking his brother’s hold on his clothes. “That it couldnae possibly have occurred to me that he’ll nae want to stay in this hellhole a second longer than he needs to?” A fortnight. Hamish would be married before then, his mother would make sure of it. “That if I dinnae find a way out, I’ll nae get to choose what happens?” He swallowed hard, fighting to stave off the dreadful constricting of his throat. “I’ll be stuck. Alone. Just like you. Just like Nora.”
Gordon’s lips pressed together until they were no longer visible beneath the thick hair of his moustache. Anger lowered his brother’s brows. His brother’s eyes, dark in the dim light, bored balefully into him; a warning for him to silence himself.
“Except wait,” Hamish blurted, pressing the heel of his hand to his temple. “I willnae be alone, will I?” He pushed himself off the wall to pace a few steps down the corridor, keeping his back to his brother. “Nae if Mum gets her way. I’ll be trapped in a marriage I dinnae want, with a woman I could never love like she deserves. I ken it’s selfish to want love over duty.” He finally turned to face Gordon. “But am I nae allowed to be selfish over this?”
His brother stared at him in silence. Gone was the anger of smouldering coals brought to life. The pity that took its place was no less searing. “Are you sure it’s love you’re feeling, nae something else?”
“I think so.” He didn’t exactly have a reference, not beyond his siblings and their spouses. Even then, he had little idea as to what was mentioned behind closed doors. He knew what love was, of course. He loved his family—even his mother, for all her flaws—but this was different. Stronger. It touched something deep inside him that even his infatuation with the now long-dead stable master hadn’t ever reached. “How did you ken you were in love with Muireall?”
Gordon shook his head. “You cannae use me to gauge you and Darshan. That’s a path you’ve got to forge yourself.” He took a few strides towards Hamish. Slow and methodical, like a trainer approaching a spooked horse. “I get why you’re nae happy here. I really do. I think he does, too. And the fact he was willing to risk his life to—”
“I’m nae daft! I ken what he risked to save me.” Darshan could’ve died because of him. He probably would have succumbed to the strain on their way back to the castle if his brother hadn’t found them. He should’ve left me to die. None of this would matter, then.
The clans would’ve grumbled for a while, but ultimately understand there was no coming back from such an attack. They would’ve paid their respects and be on their way. “I just wasnae worth it,” he mumbled.
“I’m sure he would disagree.” His brother clasped his shoulder, squeezing tight. “We’ll find a way out of this. Just promise me you’ll nae do anything final.”
Hamish inclined his head. What other option did he have but to carry on?
Tendrils of fire poured from Darshan’s fingers. The heat crackled in the night air as the fireball seethed before him. The cool breeze caressed the flames, twirling those at the opposite side to Darshan into a column of smoke and diaphanous fire.
It wasn’t fair. Hamish’s mother knew and she still pushed for her son to marry, to lose himself in duty. She knew and didn’t care.
And there wasn’t a damn thing Darshan could do to stop it.
It wasn’t merely Queen Fiona he was furious with, but himself. Fool. He should’ve chosen his words more carefully. Why was it that even in trying to help Hamish, he wound up hurting the man? I should’ve kept my mouth shut. It hadn’t been his place to speak of it. Not like that. Now, everyone knew what Hamish had attempted. And Darshan…
Well, he had gone and undone the one thing he’d been sent here to do. Father’s going to kill me. Confine him to the palace’s inner chambers, at any rate.
With a flick of his wrist, he hurled the fireball across the archery range, mutely watching as it roared through the air.
The fireball smashed into the ground before one of the targets. Molten rock and singed grass flew up, igniting the coiled rope that made up the target.
Darshan stood at the edge of the range, watching the fire burn. In his head, the echoes of screams invaded his thoughts. The noises hadn’t stopped since he had brought Hamish back from the brink. Whispers. Impressions. Something not quite like a voice in the wind.
The target continued to blaze away. Just another example of damage he had inadvertently caused.
This whole disaster with Hamish was his fault, no matter what the man believed. If he had been more careful back home, had given some thought to the mess he might cause in sleeping with a betrothed man, then his father never would’ve sent him to Tirglas. If he hadn’t come here, hadn’t pursued Hamish, hadn’t made the idiotic decision to kiss the man in public…
“Pretty sure that’s nae what those targets were designed for.”
Darshan whirled at the voice, a shield already wrapping around himself.
Gordon leant on the low fence separating the archery range from the rest of the training ground. “Easy there, your highness. I’m nae here to harm you.”
“My apologies, for both the target and my behaviour in the hall.”
“It was some display, I’ll give you that.”
“It was a simple case of the mouth moving before the brain could catch up.” He shouldn’t have stormed out, shouldn’t have reacted in any fashion and certainly not have said the things he had. “I just—” His voice broke and he clapped a hand over his mouth. He could barely stand it, the thought of anyone being treated this way. Especially not someone he’d grown fond of.
“Judging by your outburst, things between you and me brother must be getting pretty serious.” There was a hint of a question to the words, a tentative pry that dared not dig too harsh or deep.
“There need not be anything between us for me to find your mother’s treatment of her son outrageous.” This was his father with his urging for Darshan to have a son all over again. Why was everyone always so damn interested in what the next generation did?
“Uh-huh.” Gordon nodded at the target still merrily burning away. “If we’re going to talk, do you think you could deal with that first?”
Darshan turned his attention back to the blaze. The flames cast strange shadows on the far wall, like dark figures dancing in mockery of his folly. With very little effort, he contained the bonfire in a shield. The fire dimmed without fresh air, slowly dying as smoke filled the space.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” By Gordon’s tone, he was more seeking for confirmation than querying Darshan. “About
me brother attempting to take his life. When you said earlier that there was something you wished to discuss with me involving ‘Mish...?”
“Yes, his attempt on his life was the topic.” Darshan sighed. “I had no idea he had tried before though.” Not until Nora had voiced it.
Gordon continued to eye the target remains, his eyes little more than faint gleams in the shadows. “It was also around the same time me mum tried to originally arrange the union contest for him, but I managed to intervene on both without her learning of it.” He sighed. “Or so I had thought. This bloody contest is why she let us leave. It allowed her to sweep all the barriers aside. But I’ve been thinking. The competitors couldnae have received the call and be here within the fortnight. Mum must’ve sent them before you even arrived.”
Hamish had said the same thing.
“She expected Countess Harini.” A reasonable thing to assume, considering the woman had meant to be the Udynean Ambassador before her tragic accident with an assassin.
“Aye. I can only assume me mum also expected the woman to accept an offer of marriage and be willing to compete.” He shook his head, perhaps seeing the same folly in such a plan as Darshan did. “I should’ve seen it coming. She’s been far too calm about all this.”
“Calm? That was calm?”
“Believe me, you’ve yet to see her riled.”
“She shows no concern for his wellbeing and I know, if he is forced to marry, he will try again.” And this time, Darshan wouldn’t be there to save him. “I cannot in good faith allow that to happen.”
The memory of that bear pinning Hamish to the ground, of his lover’s bloody body lying broken beneath the beast… It filled his mind to bursting.
Darshan shook his head, desperate to be free of the image. “I was almost too late to save him.” Hamish’s heart had stopped. It had been brief, but Darshan was sure of it. If he hadn’t torn the bear from Hamish’s neck when he had—
He didn’t want to think about what would’ve happened, but he knew. Just another claw, a deeper bite. It would’ve been over.