by Kyra Gregory
“An excuse,” he agreed, quietly. “A reason for nerves other than—”
“Other than it being your first,” Thane murmured, looking away.
Riffin clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, a brief wave of relief washing over him, taking some of the sting out of the burning in his cheeks.
“You shouldn’t be worried,” Thane said, after the silence went on too long. “She’d probably feel the same. You’d have that in common.”
Riffin scoffed, cocking his head to one side, “Yes, I imagine a lot of good can become of two clueless, nervous, individuals,” he said, sarcastically.
There was another pause as the two sipped there drinks. “Don’t be clueless then,” Thane said.
Riffin’s brows knitted together as he snapped a look of confusion in his direction, “What are you talking about?” he asked.
Thane pulled back from the stone banister, looking him up and down, “Get changed,” he said. “Meet me in the square in five minutes.”
Quick as his thought, whatever that may have been, had popped into his mind, Thane had started making his way towards the door. “What are you talking about?” he asked, calling behind him.
Thane lifted his hand in a brief wave and then exited the room, leaving Riffin standing on the balcony. With a sigh, he finished the contents of his cup, then snatched Thane’s from the stone banister before doing the same with that. Whatever he had planned, Riffin knew that one cup of wine was not going to be enough.
Chapter 11
A SILENCE FELL OVER the family’s morning meal. When Riffin entered, Malia and her family weren’t there; it wasn’t unusual, they had chosen not to dine with them before. But the silence that fell over his family was unusual. Neyva was there and, yet, there were no updates on her lands, no questions from their father. Instead, the Queen overlooked some paperwork before handing it to her husband, and Neyva stayed out of it, eating quietly with a book beside her place.
As much as he may have been able to enjoy the silence on other occasions, with the wedding day looming just a day away, he was itching for the conversation to take his mind off of it. It was only half way through his meal when the doors to the dining hall opened and Ewin, standing tall, entered the room and approached the Queen’s side. It was a curious appearance; Ewin rarely discussed matters at the table, not unless it was something urgent, and that, coupled with his mother’s paperwork, had Riffin shifting in his seat.
“You called, your Majesty?” Ewin asked, bowing his head as he reached the head of the table.
Queen Sybelle hummed in agreement, dabbing at the corners of her lips, “I did,” she said.
Riffin’s refusal to think anything of the man’s presence proved to be an ignorant one. Suddenly, his mother’s gaze intensified. She didn’t look to Ewin, however; she looked at him. “It has come to my attention that my son was at a brothel last night,” she said.
Ewin’s mouth fell open. After a moment of silence, an angered sigh escaped his lips and his nostrils flared. “And I take it my son was with him,” he said, looking to Riffin for clarification. “No doubt the Prince acted upon his suggestion.”
Riffin said nothing, biting the inside of his cheek. There was no point in interrupting, telling them anything otherwise, even if it was a lie. It was the perk, and the curse, of being a Prince that was doted upon; he didn’t suffer consequences the way others did. No, they would not outright blame him for his hand in it. Instead, they would make a psychological whipping boy out of his best friend, put the blame on him and make him suffer.
Queen Sybelle licked her lips, “Have a word with your son,” she said, “and I will have a word with mine.”
Ewin bowed, “Yes, your Majesty,” he said.
As Ewin left and the doors closed behind him, Riffin sat up in his seat, “Do not blame him for this,” he said.
“I do not blame him,” his mother said, matter-of-factly. “I have no doubt it may’ve been his idea, regardless of his intentions, but it is the fact that you did not talk him out of it, that you did not talk yourself out of it, that upsets me.”
“Nothing happened,” Riffin said, unable to lift his gaze to her.
“Oh, didn’t you find somebody that pleased you?” his mother asked, cocking her head to one side. “Didn’t a single man or woman catch your eye in one of the most popular brothels in Lionessa?”
“I wasn’t interested,” Riffin said. He looked across the table to his father, hoping with a tremor in his chest that he would be the one to see his sincerity. “I hold no desire for anyone who isn’t to be my wife.”
His father leaned back in his seat, his head tilted back ever so slightly as he stared down his nose at him. With his hand above the table, the tips of his fingers caressing the cutlery, he kept silent, allowing for the conversation between mother and son, Queen and Prince, to continue.
“Why were you there?” she asked, taking a calmer stance once the initial anger wore off. It was of little comfort—his mother was unspeakably good at appearing unfazed, all the while plotting the downfall of whomever had earned her ire. “Why did he take you there?”
Neyva scoffed, a short giggle escaping her. “I reckon years of sniffing and tasting poisons has gotten to Thane’s head,” she remarked.
“How dare you?” Riffin bolted to his feet, jerking the table along with him, as a bolt of anger rushed through him. “Take that back,” he demanded. “Everything he does, he does for us!”
Deros shot a glare in Neyva’s direction, a scowl on his lips, “Shut your mouth,” he said.
“Sit down,” his mother said, turning to Riffin.
He dropped himself back into his seat, glaring at his sister across the table through a mist of anger. His skin was burning and his hands tingled from having slammed them on the table, a thing he would do again if his sister dared slight Thane’s sacrifices.
“Why did he take you there?” she repeated, moving on in her effort to defuse their quarrels.
Riffin sighed, grimacing at the awkwardness of the conversation, all the while wishing the anger away. “We had been talking—about love and women and the consummation. He wanted to go out and he thought that...that would be the place to go.” The disapproval was quick to his mother’s features and a scowl was growing on his father’s lips. He sighed again, “I know I should’ve stopped him! I should’ve been able to talk him out of it!”
“Why did you go?” his father asked. “If you had no interest, if you knew better, why did you go?”
The answer was simple enough, though it was weighted with the consequence of speaking more than he should.
Riffin knew better than to lie, to either of them. It wasn’t about the wrath of a Queen, or the wrath of a father and mother, it was respect towards the consideration they had always shown him. For every time that they had listened to him, for every time he may have rebelled, or acted against their desires... He owed them honesty. “He was leaving regardless—it was the only night he could get away. I needed to know he was safe,” he said. “I needed to know he was all right.”
When he looked up, neither of his parents seemed as though they would say anything in response. Their gazes dropped. His father visibly bit the inside of his cheek and his mother tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
After a moment of silence, she shifted her position in her seat, growing taller before she leaned forward to finish her breakfast. “Don’t let it happen again if you can help it,” she said.
A faint smile drew at Riffin’s lips, “He’s stubborn,” he said.
The Queen nodded, “But you will be King one day,” she said, “and your stubbornness should rival that of everybody else if what you’re doing is right.”
“I thought it was right,” Riffin started, a touch of a stammer in his voice. “Looking after a friend, I mean,” he added.
The Queen said nothing else, indulging herself in her meal in silence. She wasn’t going to admit it, certainly not openly, but she knew he was righ
t.
As they remained seated in the dining hall, Riffin overlooking his mother and father discuss matters pertaining to the far lengths of her kingdoms, there was a heavy knock on the door. Without a word, the doors opened and Ewin entered again, his son trailing behind him.
Riffin straightened in his seat, shifting his gaze from his best friend to his mother and father with a growing sense of panic. “Is something the matter?” the Queen asked, looking from Ewin to Thane.
Thane lowered himself to his knees in one swift movement, a grimace crossing his features, brief as it may have appeared. “I would like to apologise,” he said, his voice raw but strong, “for allowing your son to follow me into potential danger.”
The Queen pursed her lips together, her hands clasped against her dress. A quick look at Ewin, standing behind his son, at a distance, told her everything she needed to know. “Step outside,” she said.
As though her order was unclear, she looked from Ewin to Riffin, then to Neyva who was still sat at the table.
Riffin felt his knees shaking beneath him as he stood, struggling to interpret his parents’ intentions. His father was apathetic at best, with no discernible emotion on his face as he took a seat at the table. Whatever his mother had in mind, it was her own. Ewin was the first to leave, bowing his head respectfully and saying nothing at all. Riffin couldn’t bring himself to walk, stalling, looking to his mother as he unable to discern what was going through her mind as she commanded a private audience with Thane.
Like a shot, her gaze met his and then darted towards the door.
The look in his mother’s eyes caused him to recoil, blinking in confusion—it was as though he was begging him to trust her.
He put his head down, looking to his friend one last time, before making his way out of the room.
Not one to give up, flooded with the same sense of childishness that Thane always brought out of him, he glanced at the staircase just outside of the dining hall. It was just a single moment of thought before he moved into action, unable to give any thought to the consequences.
He paid a short glance around the corridor. All that stood outside the dining hall were the Queen’s guards. They were sworn to secrecy, even as far as the Prince, or, at least, that was how it’d always been. When it appeared as though they wouldn’t move from their posts, Riffin climbed the staircase as quietly as he could manage before opening the door at the top.
Crouching and leaning out onto the balcony, peeking through the balusters, he looked to his mother as she stood below, just as he had left her.
“I said you may stand,” her voice echoed.
Thane, reluctant as he might’ve been, lifted himself up.
The Queen extended her hand to his face, her fingers touching his jaw as she angled it so that she could better see the bruise that marred his skin in the light. “It would appear I failed to realise just how seriously your father would take this latest offence,” she said.
“It was deserved,” Thane said, coming to his father’s defence, albeit quietly.
“Should my father have hit me for every indiscretion I made in childhood, I doubt I would’ve survived infancy,” the Queen said. She snatched a cup from the table, drumming her sharp nails against the side before pouring out a cup of wine. “You must understand why I can no longer have you doing what you did last night,” she said.
Riffin swallowed thickly, leaning in. He watched as Thane nodded, slowly, as though doing so pained him.
“The time of rebellion must pass,” she said, handing him the drink.
Thane peered into his cup to avoid looking at her. She didn’t appear angry. Instead, her eyes were filled with warmth—a softness, a kindness, that she afforded very few the luxury of. Perhaps that hurt Thane the most; the knowledge that he angered the Queen, that he angered his family, that he put Riffin at risk and that, despite it all, he was faced with a compassion he didn’t want to afford himself.
The Queen pursed her lips together, clasping her hands, standing tall and poised. “I believe your father is being too hard on you,” she said. “I have remarked on this to him before, only not quite as strongly as I should have.”
“You needn’t—”
“I do,” she said. “Because I worry that if he doesn’t stop this, you will lead yourself down a path that my son will have no choice but to go down with you.” Her words were enough to silence him and Riffin was sure he saw him shiver at the sound of such conviction in her voice, shaken by her words. “You mean too much to this family for us to allow you to do this to yourself,” she said, her voice softer and lower this time.
“If my duties are taken away from me then I have no reason to be here,” Thane said, a touch of urgency in his tone.
“You may still have your duties,” she said, “and you’re still welcome to stay here, with or without your father, but you must take a break from it.”
Thane recoiled and Riffin was sure it was the first time he had seen genuine fear on the young man’s face.
“We will have the wedding celebrations tomorrow. I would like you to dine with us, the day after that, as Riffin’s dearest friend,” the Queen went on. “After that, as they go on their travels, you will join them. I expect the time away, while in good company, will do much to restore what has been done here.”
Riffin leaned in further, certain he caught sight of his friend’s shoulders shaking at her words. His hands seemed to clench into fists behind his back, his shoulders becoming more rigid. “I will do as you ask,” he said, speaking in a quivering voice that had chills running down Riffin’s spine.
The Queen nodded curtly, blinking what sympathy she felt for him from her eyes, “Good,” she finalised. “Get some rest,” she said, “in Riffin’s chambers, if need be—wherever affords you some peace,” she added quickly.
Thane nodded and bowed his head. The Queen waved her hand and, with one last lingering stare, a look of some kind of gratitude in his eyes, he walked away.
Riffin pulled back from where he had been peeking through the balcony.
“Never did I think Ewin would be capable of such a thing, even after everything he’s already done,” the Queen said as the doors were closed behind Thane. “It was a mistake to let him know what happened.”
“The man would do anything for the kingdoms,” Deros said, seating himself once more. “Beating his own son included.”
As quiet as he could manage, Riffin scrambled to his feet and made his way out the door. He hurried down the steps, glaring at the one guard who dared look at him, before walking fast-paced down the corridor. He could make out Thane’s back in the distance and caught up to him just in time for Ewin to make it around the corner.
“And where are you going?” Ewin asked.
Riffin cleared his throat, “He’s to help me,” he said. “There’s packing to be done for after the wedding ceremony.”
“You have servants for that, Your Royal Highness,” Ewin remarked.
Riffin forced a smile, feeble as it may have appeared, “None that I trust as much as him,” he replied. He gave Thane a light shove in the back, smiling wider in his direction, “Let’s go,” he said, doing his utmost to make it sound like an order.
Thane shared a short glance with his father, a look of submission to his duties, and then walked. As they got to Riffin’s chambers, he nudged him inside and locked the door behind himself. He swallowed the lump in his throat, trying to keep himself from staring at the red and purple mark that was clear on his friend’s jaw. “You heard the Queen,” he hissed softly, “go and get some rest.”
When Riffin waved his hand in the direction of the bedroom, Thane looked over his shoulder but stayed rooted where he stood, as though something had held him in his place.
Riffin huffed, “Go,” he repeated, more insistent this time.
“What about helping you pack?” Thane asked.
Riffin shook his head and rolled his eyes, “Like your father said, I have servants for that kind of thi
ng,” he murmured. As much as he wanted to strengthen his tone, order him to bed, his voice softened instead, realising that he may have had enough of orders for a while. “Go and get some rest.”
Thane turned away to walk into the bedroom, releasing something that was a cross between a sigh and a sob. He slipped out of his restrictive dark coat, dropping it over the back of a chair before laying himself on the bed.
Riffin bit the inside of his cheek, keeping himself from saying anything. Closing the door between the two rooms, he called the guards to send two servants in, watching as they packed trunks for his travels. He overlooked everything as they packed for him, making short conversation where he could, though unable to help the short glances he made over his shoulder. An hour passed, then a second, and there had yet to be a sound made on the other side of the doors. Once the servants had gone, with no sign of him waking, he approached. Making his way inside, Thane was still lying on his side, his arms crossed over his stomach, his fingers curling in the fabric of his shirt.
Riffin bit the inside of his cheek, grabbing the folded blanket at the foot of the bed and lifting it to drag it over him. It was only just as he was about to lay it over him that something caught his eye. A quick glance to Thane’s features ascertained that he wasn’t stirring. Just were his shirt had begun to ride up along his back, Riffin could make out a distinct red mark on his pale skin. Tucking his pinky finger beneath his shirt, keeping his touch light, he lifted the shirt just enough to see the mark, what seemed to be the tip of a boot, was larger than it first appeared.
The body on the bed shifted and Riffin dragged the blanket down, tucking it into Thane’s side.
“What time is it?” Thane asked, grimacing against some kind of discomfort.
“Not very late,” Riffin replied. “Get some more rest.”
Thane lifted himself on his side, biting back his discomfort, “Where are you going?” he asked.
Riffin sighed, “To tell Malia about last night,” he said.