The King's Whisper

by T. S. Cleveland

  Torsten was an excellent dancer, but Felix wasn’t surprised, considering he had been raised in the Royal Quarter. He was infinitely better at dancing than Felix, who was glad to be safely out of reach on his platform. No one ever asked the flautist to dance.

  When the first tune ended, Felix was met with a roar of shouts and applause, to which he bowed theatrically. Torsten managed to extricate himself from his dance partner, and after acquiring two mugs of ale from the tavern owner, made his way back to the stage. He placed one of the mugs by Felix’s feet and watched as he bent down to take a sip. Felix almost felt compelled to ask if he’d liked his playing, but decided he didn’t need to. He already knew.

  Felix resumed soon after, because the patrons were cheering for him. It was a bit of a shock when Torsten climbed up on the stage with him, but when all he did was sit at the edge and cradle his drink in his hands, Felix relaxed. He let himself fall into the flow of the music. He even sang, though his voice was raspy from their water adventure, and the performance was met with thunderous applause. He played “The Tavern Fight Song” and “The Assassin Princess”, and a score of other tunes the people shouted out. Never had he played for such a receptive audience. By the time the hour was so late it was early, with most guests having reluctantly headed home and the owner shooing off those that remained, he had no doubt he’d earned their lodging. She even laid a small bag of coins on the table with the two heaping bowls of savory stew she served.

  “You can earn the same five times over, if you’ll agree to play the week,” she offered expectantly. “There’ll be an even larger crowd once word gets out, and that includes your meals, of course, and a room.”

  Already digging hungrily into their food, Felix and Torsten exchanged glances. “Misfortune has already caused us too much delay,” Torsten said tersely, wiping his mouth.

  “Perhaps another time?” Felix offered, speaking over him. “Your kindness is appreciated, and your food delicious. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, and you’re welcome to play here any time, with or without shoes,” she said. “I do hope you’ll come back. It’s never been more cheerful here.”

  When they’d finished eating, they took the lantern from the table and climbed the stairs to their room at the far end of the hall. It was small and sparsely furnished, with only a bed and single chair, but it was clean, and the fireplace within had been lit, so it was cozy and deliciously warm. Felix was drawn to its warmth, as it made the memory of nearly freezing to death in the river feel long ago and far away. As did the memory of Torsten’s kiss before they were pushed from the plank. In fact, that particular memory felt so distant, Felix began to question once more whether it had actually happened.

  He turned to Torsten, trying to find the nerve to bring it up, but saw he was pacing anxiously. Perhaps it was not the best time to mention kisses, not when so many other matters demanded their attention, a few for which he was determined to find explanations.

  “Torsten?”

  At the sound of his name, Torsten stopped pacing. His face was golden when he turned his head, the light of the fire giving his eyes an ethereal glow. “Yes?”

  Felix sat the lantern on the empty mantle and pulled his bundle of still-damp socks from his satchel to dry before the fire. “Why would your father hire a man to kill you?” he asked, trying to sound nonchalant. It felt strange to be asking such a straightforward question, but they weren’t in the bandit camp anymore, and he was no longer Torsten’s captive. A free flautist could say whatever he wanted, couldn’t he? And ask whichever questions he wished.

  Torsten’s mouth drooped unhappily at the question, and the gleam in his eyes disappeared as he shook his head and resumed pacing. “No,” he answered gruffly. “We’re not going to talk about that.”

  Felix unwound his satchel from around his shoulders and placed it beside his socks, mustering his courage. He’d been through an exceptionally trying experience, and he wouldn’t let a sour bandit keep him from his answers. It was too late in the night to be afraid. “Captain Quinn said it had something do with the guildmaster, with keeping you from confronting him. What was he talking about?”

  Torsten’s pacing slowed to a halt. He ran his fingers through his hair, tugging at the ends hard enough to make Felix wince in sympathy. “You shouldn’t concern yourself, Flautist,” he said, plopping down on the bed and making the mattress shift beneath his weight.

  Felix left the fire’s warmth and moved to the bedside, tightening his fists and glaring down at Torsten. He didn’t care if his glare was unpracticed and unintimidating. He set his brows as low as his face allowed, his jaw twitching from the strain of his clenched teeth. “I shouldn’t concern myself?” he asked. “We almost died tonight. I’d say it’s my concern as much as yours.”

  Unsurprisingly, Torsten remained unmoved by Felix’s display of disgruntlement, shaking his head and rubbing his temples. “I don’t know for sure what Quinn was talking about, but if it involved the guild and Malcolm, I can take a guess.” He rested his elbows on his knees, and his shoulders heaved with the strength of his sigh. “I’m sorry you got caught up in all of this. It won’t happen again. Tomorrow we’ll catch a ride, and I’ll see you the rest of the way to your village.” His eyes narrowed at the floor. “Or to the guild,” he corrected. “Wherever you want to go.”

  Felix couldn’t escape the oddness of his former captor offering to escort him anywhere, nor could he ignore the idea coming together in his head. It wasn’t an idea he actively sought, but one that came unbidden. He sat down beside Torsten, almost close enough for their thighs to touch, but not quite. “Wherever I want to go?” he asked. “Do you mean that?”

  “Yes, I mean it.” Torsten’s voice was gravelly with frustration. “I told you, you’re not my prisoner anymore.”

  “Okay.” Felix took a deep breath. “Then I want to return with you to camp.”

  Torsten’s head shot up and he looked at Felix with wide eyes, his eyebrows comically high on his forehead. “What? No. I’m taking you back where you belong.”

  “But I’m not your prisoner anymore,” Felix reminded him, lifting his chin in defiance. “You said you’d take me where I want to go, and I want to go back to the bandit camp.” He tried not to shrink beneath Torsten’s withering glare, but it was difficult, especially at such close proximity.

  “Why would you want to do that? We’re on the verge of war with Gethrin, and there’s a price on my head that isn’t going away any time soon. It’s dangerous,” Torsten rattled, unable to keep the surprise from his tone or his face. He studied Felix with a tilt of his head and squint of his eyes, as if staring rudely enough, for long enough, might allow him to see sense in the flautist beside him. “I am taking you home.”

  “No,” Felix maintained, shifting on the bed until he was seated cross-legged, facing Torsten. “I don’t want to go back to the Guardians’ Guild with so many questions. Your father has a reason for trying to keep you from reaching the guildmaster, and it must be a considerable one, if he’s willing to hire pirates to kill you.” He refrained from mentioning the sick feeling growing in his gut at the thought of separating from Torsten, because he didn’t understand it, or know how to explain it, without sounding absolutely mad. “Could it have something to do with the information Gethrin offered to trade for?” he continued, his mind sifting through the strange developments of the past week. “What do you know? How is your father connected to the guild, and what does Gethrin have to do with any of it?”

  Instead of answering his questions, Torsten groaned and fell onto his back, covering his eyes with his forearm. In that moment, he hardly looked like a bandit or a bandit king, or intimidating in any way, really. Maybe it was because Felix was too used to him now to be intimidated anymore. Maybe it was because he’d seen him so vulnerable … and been kissed by him on the pirate ship.

  “I have friends in the guild, Torsten,” he tried, thinking of Merric and Scorch. “I want to help. I need to. I d
on’t want to just go where someone thinks I should be taken.” Torsten opened his mouth to protest, but Felix cut him off. “Don’t say you’re worried about me getting hurt, because I’m the one who pulled you out of the river and earned you a roof over your head tonight. I can take care of myself when I’m given the chance. And of you. I’m not completely useless.”

  Torsten lowered his arm and looked at him. “I don’t think you’re useless.”

  Felix leaned forward, resting his weight on his hands. “Then let me help. Tell me what connection your father has with the guild.” His words had force behind them, and he felt a flicker of confidence as he spoke them, a surety that he’d get what he wanted, that he had to. “Please?” he asked for good measure, letting his voice take on the innocent tone he’d used with the tavern owner, the one he’d used most of the time before falling in with bandits.

  Torsten lowered his forearm and crossed his hands over his chest, looking at Felix as he inhaled a shaky breath. “The others,” he began, “they told you I’m from the Quarter, right?” At Felix’s noncommittal shrug, he sighed. “Of course they did. They love to see me suffer.” With a grunt, he lifted himself to his elbows, resigning himself to the conversation. “My father—Malcolm Carwyn—is one of the queen’s councilmen. He’s well respected in the Royal Quarter, always has been. Even though he impregnated one of the palace servants and she bore a child out of wedlock.”

  Felix’s eyes grew round with interest. “Ah.”

  “Ah, indeed,” Torsten agreed. “He was a decent enough man, despite taking advantage of my mother, or, at least, I thought he was decent for a long time. He allowed me to be raised in the servant’s quarters with my mother. I always kept my distance from him, a respectful distance, but after my mother died, I grew more curious. I wanted to know more about him, and started watching him more carefully, and listening.” He paused, his eyebrows dipping into a V of disdain. “Eventually, I discovered the crooked deal he had with the guildmaster. Wagons and wagons of supplies and foodstuffs that should have been going to the impoverished folk in the surrounding villages were being carried off and sold, and those two were keeping the money for themselves. So I confronted him.”

  “I’m guessing he didn’t take it well,” Felix said.

  “No, he didn’t,” Torsten confirmed. “He went to Queen Bellamy, told her I’d been stealing from the palace, and had me turned out, banished from the Quarter. I tried to request an audience with the queen, but she wouldn’t see me. And why would she? She wouldn’t take a bastard’s word over her beloved councilman’s.” He was sitting up all the way now, his eyes alight with fresh outrage. “I was amazed by the deceit of it all, but thought at the very least the thievery would end, and it did for a time. But within the year, a year in which I made good friends and found like-minded people among the villagers who took me in, it began again. And I determined that if Malcolm was going to steal from the Quarter, I was going to steal from him and give back whatever I could, to the people who deserve it.”

  “So you only attack those connected to Malcolm’s criminal trade,” Felix said, feeling a pinch of annoyance. “I was most certainly not a part of that, by the way.”

  “I know,” Torsten admitted sheepishly. “Jossy shouldn’t have stopped your carriage.”

  “And Harold shouldn’t have shot my friend.”

  “No one should have shot your friend,” Torsten agreed tiredly, “who is more than your friend, I think.”

  Felix froze. He had no ready response, but Torsten wasn’t waiting for one.

  “I haven’t forgotten that I kissed you,” he said, and Felix nodded along dumbly. “We were about to die, and I had wondered, and I didn’t want to die without doing it.”

  “You had wondered what?” Felix heard himself ask.

  “What it would feel like to kiss you.”

  The room was suddenly quiet, far too quiet, and Felix swallowed loudly. Torsten could probably hear his heart fluttering erratically and the blood rushing manically through his veins. He could probably hear the stupid thoughts running circles through his brain. “How did it feel?” he finally asked, when he could stand it no longer.

  Torsten’s response was a smirk, nothing more.

  Felix’s face warmed without his permission, and he felt the strong need to explain his feelings for Merric, to explain how Merric had never made him feel tingly or nervous, and while he cared for him, he was not the one he wanted to be kissed by before falling to his doom from a pirate’s plank. “M-Merric and I,” he stammered, “are … we’re …”

  Torsten laughed softly, speaking before Felix could dredge up the rest of his ill-fated sentence. “Don’t worry, Flautist. I have no intention of taking you away from your guardian. I only brought it up because I want to apologize.”

  The sick sensation in Felix’s stomach returned, and he paled. “You want to apologize for kissing me?”

  Torsten nodded curtly. “It was inappropriate,” he said, not quite meeting Felix’s eyes. “I want you to know it won’t happen again.”

  “Oh. Okay. Fine, that’s fine,” Felix said, hopping up from the bed and turning away to hide the mortified expression on his face. Torsten regretted kissing him. He must have thought it was awful. Felix’s memory of it was fuzzy, but he’d been sure it wasn’t awful, at least not for him. Keeping his face turned so Torsten couldn’t see it, he rounded the bed and pulled the blankets back, wanting nothing more than to hide his face in a pillow. He briefly entertained the idea of removing his trousers before crawling into bed, but in the face of Torsten’s disinterest in ever kissing him again, he thought it best to remain fully clothed, unlike on the riverbank, when they’d pressed against one another naked. He cleared his throat and forced the memory from his head, then climbed onto the mattress and lifted the blankets over himself.

  Torsten, who’d extinguished the lantern and was now standing on the other side of the bed, paused in the midst of pulling back the blankets. “Is this alright?” he asked.

  The pillow couldn’t muffle the sound of Felix’s exasperated huff. “Is what alright?”

  “If I share the bed,” Torsten replied. “If you prefer it, I can sleep on the floor.”

  Felix rolled over so he could properly glare. He thought he might be getting better at it too, because Torsten actually looked a tad startled when he met Felix’s eyes in the firelight. “Torsten,” he sighed. “You have extra tents.”

  Torsten blinked at him in confusion. “Tents? What?”

  “You have extra tents in your camp, and, I assume, more bedding to go inside them for prisoners and guests. And yet, you had me sleeping with you every night, sharing blankets and pillows. I know you don’t have a problem sleeping with me, and honestly, I don’t have a problem sleeping with you. You don’t need to sleep on the floor.” As Torsten moved to get into bed, Felix grabbed his wrist. “Unless you still refuse to take me back to camp with you,” he said firmly. “If that’s the case, you should sleep on the floor.”

  Torsten paused, gently removed Felix’s hand from his wrist, and got into bed, turning away from him. He’d opted to keep his clothes on too, just as they’d always done, save for earlier that evening. It’s not like Felix had expected them to sleep in their smallclothes and cuddle or anything. Certainly not after a single regretted kiss.

  He turned away, moving as far to his side of the small bed as possible and remaining still. But he could feel Torsten shifting continually beside him, turning to one side, and then the other, and then back again. It was intolerable, Felix’s keen awareness of him, and he was sure he would never find the peace to sleep, when Torsten spoke.

  “I am sorry I kissed you,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “But I don’t regret it.”

  Felix couldn’t respond. He could hardly find breath, let alone the right words. So he just lay there, waiting for more, but it seemed Torsten had said all he wanted to say. Felix listened for his breathing to enter a sleeping tempo, but it didn’t happen, even
after both their bodies had grown still and quiet. The man beside him was just as wakeful as he was. So, gathering his courage, Felix moved close enough to feel Torsten’s heat. The bed was too small to remain far apart. That was his excuse. Or that he was accustomed to sleeping close together. Torsten must have been accustomed to it, too, because he moved closer as Felix did, pressing his chest against his back and laying his hand on Felix’s hip.

  Felix sighed at his touch, at the familiarity of it, and after the initial uptick in his heartbeat, he began to relax, finally at ease. It wasn’t long before Torsten fell asleep. He could feel his steady breaths on the back of his neck, making him warm all over, but shivery, too.

  He thought of Merric as he drifted into sleep, hoping he was all right. Thinking of him made Felix warm with affection, but it wasn’t an affection that made his heart race. That particular spark had faded, if it had ever truly been there in the first place.

  It was the bandit behind him who made his heart race, and to whom he would dedicate his final moments of consciousness. He tried to recall details of that moment on the plank, that moment that came close to being their last, when Torsten had leaned in with no warning and kissed him. It was irritating, really, that their one and only kiss was one he’d not been able to enjoy, to savor, to respond to, one he’d been unable to process before it was over. And now, Torsten had sworn never to do it again, and Felix had nodded along like an idiot and begun talking about Merric. But he didn’t truly want Merric, did he? And he never truly had. He wanted the bloody bandit king.

  He groaned at his idiocy and was rewarded with Torsten’s hand smoothing unconsciously over his stomach, pulling him closer, his nose in Felix’s hair. After several long minutes dedicated to the dizzying intricacies of courting a bandit, Felix closed his eyes and slept.