And So It Begins

by R. G. Green

  Kherin may have thought little of the shame he had brought to Tristan, but returning it once the prince was bound and helpless at his feet was going to be exquisite… more pleasurable than even the darkest desires that had claimed him when he still filled the prince’s bed.

  “THE stories of what happened at the river will likely grow by the time the suns rise tomorrow, as will the story of your part in it, given their propensity for exaggeration.”

  Kherin snorted softly, but he couldn’t argue with the trader’s words. “They’ll probably say I encouraged the northerners to gather or answered their threats in kind,” he muttered as Derek urged him in the direction of the healer’s quarters. “And we don’t even know if it was threats he was giving.”

  “Likely they weren’t, since there was little chance you would hear or understand them,” Derek answered quietly. “But whatever it was he said, there is no question the words were aimed at you, and that is what the Defenders you will serve with will have noticed. If your presence had been a cause for concern for them before, it will most likely be even more so now.”

  Kherin scowled as he eyed the passing taverns and inns. “There’s nothing I’m going to be able to do about that. It’s not going to be a lie when I tell them I have no idea what that chanting was about.”

  “Perhaps not,” Derek murmured as they turned off the main street, “but it might be better to let them bring up the subject, rather than volunteer your own views on it, and answer briefly when you need to say something. The less you give them to fuel their curiosity or suspicion—”

  “The quicker any rumors will die out.”

  Derek’s quiet chuckle brought a small smile to Kherin’s face. “Very good, my prince. There may be hope of teaching you the workings of the world yet.”

  Kherin snorted again, though the sound was softer and more amused this time. “If I can learn the workings inside the castle in Delfore, the rest of the world should be easy.”

  They had reached the steps to the hospice, and though Derek walked with Kherin to the solid door of the quarters, he didn’t reach to open it. Kherin recognized the regret that softened the trader’s smile as Derek took a breath to speak, but he gave a slight shake of his head and spoke first.

  “You need to return to the camp to see what is happening, now that we and the northerners have gone,” he said, speaking the words Derek would undoubtedly have said and drawing a smile from Derek in turn. “I know. You still have your work to do, and you already wasted a day playing nursemaid to me in the inn.”

  Derek’s smile turned to one of gratitude as he brushed the hair over Kherin’s ear. “Ah, my prince, today was not a waste, but yes, I do need to go. I will come back later, if the hour is not too late, but I won’t wake you if things take too long.” His hand slipped to Kherin’s chin with his last words, and he gripped the prince lightly as he leaned forward enough to place a gentle kiss on his forehead. “I will see you tomorrow, if not sooner.”

  Kherin nodded as Derek paused long enough to touch the prince’s cheek, and then he let out his breath as the trader turned to make his way back down the steps to the market square. He didn’t reach for the door until Derek had vanished down the street.

  The questions he had wanted to ask would have to wait. His main task now was to get to his brother and to his own bed so he could rest. He would be a Defender in truth by midday tomorrow.

  The smell of incense was the first thing Kherin was aware of as he stepped into the hall of the hospice, but the tingling of his nerves froze his steps as the outer door fell closed behind him. Voices could be heard behind the closed door of his brother’s room, more than one and none of them Adrien’s. His first step toward the door was taken without conscious effort, though the ones that followed grew longer and faster until his hand touched the knob. The smell of blood and incense was strong even before Kherin shoved the door open.

  Willum whirled, startled by the sound of Kherin’s abrupt entrance, while the Defenders hovering over his brother’s bed had begun reaching for their swords before recognition took hold. The healer was on his knees, his hands red where they had touched Adrien’s torn and bleeding skin, and the towels and linens crumpled near his feet were stained and smeared with blood. The rasp of Adrien’s breathing was the only sound that came from the sickbed by the window, while the heaving of his chest was the only movement to be seen.

  Kherin took it in piece by piece as the horrible truth was presented in terrifying detail. The wariness that filled the healer’s tired face, the resolute Defenders waiting for a signal to react to, the sound of his brother’s breathing, the smell of herbs… the blood. It was the aftermath Kherin had seen too many times, and his breathing soon grew as loud as his brother’s as the first of the Defenders began a slow movement from his place by the bed.

  The blood… the cut. That damned cut on his brother’s shoulder that refused to heal and soaked the bed with each seizure that occurred. The cut that had been caused when the blade of a northern weapon touched his brother’s skin. The cut that either caused the seizures or bled with them—that had been the beginning of this—

  “My lord?” One Defender stepped nearer while the second waited with the healer in pitched silence.

  Kherin clenched his jaw as the fury he felt at the northerners was fueled by the helplessness of watching his brother struggle with the remnants of the seizure, and his vision was blurred as the stinging of his eyes turned the blood-soaked linens and clothes into watery smears of red. He had to find a way to stop this. He couldn’t watch these seizures steal his brother’s life little by little.

  “My lord,” the Defender said again, and then he whirled as the tensing of Kherin’s body was followed by the sounds of frantic movement from the healer and the second Defender in the room. Adrien stiffened and seized under the brutal hold the others placed on him, though his struggles were growing stronger as the grip of another seizure tightened. Kherin’s first step into the room was followed by the shattered scream that burst from Adrien.

  The sound was echoed by Kherin as the hands of the Defender caught him.

  Chapter 9

  “THAT’S not likely to happen,” Derek mused quietly. “Even if you were to capture a northerner, there’s no one in Gravlorn who can speak to him.”

  “So we need someone who can,” Kherin said, not wanting to give up the thought. His steps were measured as he paced the expanse of the room, likely annoying any who occupied the room below. He knew finding someone to translate would be another problem in itself, but that could be dealt with once they had the northerner at hand. Derek said nothing as his steps continued to echo in the attic room.

  For the third time that day, Derek had been summoned back to the hospice to calm the youngest prince, but that hadn’t been possible as the blood and sweat was cleaned yet again. It had taken Derek forcing the prince from the sickroom to bring him out of it this time, and long moments of holding the prince in his arms as the sounds from the healer and the shadows from the candles swept around him to convince Kherin to leave the hospice and the horrific scene he had found there. The attic room of the Harper’s Den had been as far as Derek had taken him, and a pitcher of the inn’s stoutest ale had been purchased instead of food before Derek led Kherin up the stairs.

  Exhaustion and illness were also absent for this visit, and Kherin stalked the room instead of collapsing wearily on the bed. And Derek let him. The trader leaned calmly against the stout wooden wall near the single low window, his head only a hand’s breadth below the seam where the wall met the slanted ceiling. He merely watched as the prince turned at the far end of the room and started back.

  “Why would this northerner translate for us, even if we were to find him?” Derek pressed at last as Kherin neared.

  Kherin scowled. It was the one thing he didn’t have an answer to. Exactly why would a northerner translate for them? The northerner wouldn’t, plain and simple.

  “We’re not likely to force him to,” h
e admitted reluctantly. “And even if they did, we couldn’t believe what they said. They would lie, and we wouldn’t know the difference.”

  Derek nodded as Kherin paced closer.

  “That’s assuming we could even capture him alive,” the prince went on, his scowl deepening. “Or capture him at all, which we won’t do if we have to rely on Gresham and his Defenders.”

  Derek laughed softly. “Don’t be too hard on them, my prince. You are among their ranks, after all.”

  “We would be better off being ourselves and pretending we have turned,” Kherin went on disgustedly, ignoring the trader’s words, “if we can even figure out how to contact them and make them believe us.” He huffed out a breath as he tried to force his thoughts into a decisive course of action, stopping without seeming to realize it and staring distantly at a spot on the floor as various scenarios played out in his mind. Silence stretched across the room until the trader stepped away from the wall, breaking his thoughts and bringing Kherin back to the present.

  “We can work on the fine points of what to do later,” Derek told him in a sudden shift of conversation. “Adrien is being cared for, and your duty will begin tomorrow, and limited or not, you need to rest to regain your strength.”

  Kherin groaned as he turned away, drawing a chuckle from the trader.

  “You did this to yourself, my prince,” Derek reminded him, teasing mildly. “You wanted to fulfill the duties of a Defender, and now you are. It’s too late to complain.”

  “I’m not complaining, just wishing I would have kept my mouth shut,” Kherin muttered. Duty as a Defender should have been the most important reason for him being here, but that had changed drastically the moment he had set foot inside the hospice. Still, it was a responsibility he had asked for in Delfore. He let out a breath. At least his patrol would be in daylight for the most part.

  Derek stepped up to him with amusement still playing in his features, but his humor dimmed as he raised his hands to the prince’s shoulders, then moved to lace his fingers behind Kherin’s neck. His eyes had grown serious when Kherin found them.

  “We will find the answer to Adrien’s illness, my prince, whether it be through the northerners or the actions of our healer, but until we do—” He paused as he studied the prince’s eyes. “—be careful, Kherin. It’s easier to stir a hornet’s nest than crush one. Adrien is not the only one in danger, particularly given the position the northerners placed you in tonight, and you risk angering more than northern tribesmen if you don’t move carefully inside the camp. It’s too easy to misinterpret your words or actions when most of those you serve with are strangers.”

  “You’ve already told me that,” Kherin snapped irritably, jerking back but not breaking the trader’s hold. “But I’m more worried about my brother than any opinions they come up with about me. Unless we can find out what’s happening, we’re not going to be able to stop what they did….” He broke off suddenly, meeting the trader’s eyes but unable to hold them for more than a moment. He turned away with a small sound of frustration, and then took a deep breath to regain a measure of calmness. He spoke with quiet frankness when he looked back. “Capturing a northerner may not be the answer, but, Derek, I don’t know what else to do. Whatever the northerners did to Adrien, it’s going to kill him if we can’t stop it. It already is.” He paused for a breath, raising one hand to tug absently on the trader’s shirt in an unconscious plea for understanding. “I can’t just stand by and watch this happen.”

  Derek caught his eyes, aware the prince was grasping at straws, and he answered Kherin’s plea with a gentle touch to Kherin’s cheek. “I know, my prince.”

  Then he pulled Kherin close and held him steady, and Kherin gave into it willingly as he searched for any other option to bring Adrien out of danger, something that held more promise than finding a northerner willing to help them. He just couldn’t see one, not with what little they knew.

  But Derek’s embrace was enough for the moment, and little by little, Kherin began to relax, calming himself as he breathed against the trader’s neck. He was thankful—and deeply relieved—that Derek had stayed in Gravlorn instead of continuing on to Dennor, and that he had stayed close when the nightmare of his brother’s illness had unfolded. The solidness of Derek’s presence grounded him in a way little else could. The strength of his arms was both encouraging and comforting, and made him feel safer than even the walls of his father’s castle.

  He drew in the lingering odors of the hospice and the residual smells of winter, and just for a moment and with no conscious effort, he let his fears of the northerners and the seizures slip away, and instead focused on the hand that stroked soothingly down his back and the brush of hair against his fingers as he found the ends of the tail bound loosely in its leather thong.

  Inevitably, unbidden, the memories of the way-stop returned. The warmth of the trader’s body reminded him how it had felt that night during the storm… Derek’s weight pressing into him, the heat of his skin as he moved, Kherin’s surrender to the hunger in Derek’s touch and the powerful rock of his hips. Kherin’s lust was nothing new, and his actions could easily be blamed on his sickness, but Derek had responded with a ravenous touch that had nothing to do with illness and fever. Kherin hadn’t stopped hoping he remembered that night clearly, hadn’t stopped wanting what he felt to be real.

  He loosened his arms and pulled back, studying the trader’s face, although they remained close. He hadn’t asked then, or any time since, because he wasn’t sure he would get the answer he wanted, but suddenly it was the answer itself that he wanted.

  “What are you thinking, my prince?” Derek asked him quietly, curiosity in his eyes, a hint of amusement in his voice, idly trailing his fingers along the prince’s neck, brushing the ends of the dark chestnut locks.

  Kherin swallowed, deciding on the words he would use, though in the end he chose to use the simplest. “I was thinking about the way-stop.”

  Curiosity flashed to surprise in the trader’s eyes before they darkened to a wariness that Kherin had hoped he wouldn’t see. The comfortable peace of being with Derek vanished in the instant it had taken for Kherin to see it, and with a barely perceptible sigh, he broke away from the trader, stepping back to put space between them. He spoke before the trader had a chance to reply.

  “I was wondering if I remembered that night correctly,” he said calmly, trying to sound matter-of-fact. He turned to the chair he had tossed his cloak over, reaching to retrieve it as his words continued. “I know it wasn’t expected, and it would be easy to blame it on the fever, or the storm, or a hundred other things. But I’m not going to do that.”

  “Kherin,” Derek began, stepping toward him.

  Kherin whirled to face him, freezing the trader where he stood. “Do you regret it?”

  Derek stilled at the sharpness in his voice, looking at Kherin fully as the question settled between them. The prince stood waiting, the cloak in his arms forgotten, the glittering hazel eyes calm and steady.

  Derek breathed deeply. “Kherin, what happened in the way-stop was something that shouldn’t have happened at all,” he began slowly. “You were ill, the storm was disconcerting, and maybe just being in the way-stop itself contributed to the lack of judgment—”

  “Do you regret it?”

  Derek stilled again, but he didn’t break the prince’s gaze. “Even so, no, I don’t regret it.”

  Kherin hadn’t moved, had shown no reaction at all as the trader all but repeated his own words, had braced himself for the truth he didn’t want to hear… until he heard the words that he did. His heart skipped at the sound of them, then began to pound in his chest with the realization of what they meant…and relief began slowly unfurling inside him and spreading to become something almost tangible.

  He had loved Derek since he was a child, had lusted after him as an adult, had fantasized about him for years, and knowing at last…. He allowed himself a small smile and opened his mouth to speak, but s
topped when Derek spoke first.

  “But it was a mistake, Kherin. It should never have happened.”

  Kherin froze, ice snapping the heat of relief as the words he had only begun to believe he wouldn’t hear echoed unmistakably around him. Derek watched him carefully, and Kherin felt the ice vanish in the flash of anger that suddenly shot through him.

  “Why?”

  “You know the answer to that,” Derek told him grimly. “You are a prince of the kingdom, second in line to the throne. Your blood is royal, Kherin. You can’t take that lightly.”

  “It was a mistake because I’m a prince and you’re not?” Kherin’s eyes flashed with a challenge to deny it.

  Derek’s answer was razor sharp. “It has nothing to do with the difference in our status, my prince. It has to do with your status.”

  Kherin drew his breath to argue, but Derek cut him off, stopping his words with a single step toward him.

  “Your father is king—”

  “What does my father have to with this?” Kherin shot back, stiffening to his full height.

  Derek stopped but didn’t back down. “Everything, Kherin,” he said evenly. “Your father is king, and his word is law. And regardless of what you think of him, you cannot counter him or his actions. And I won’t risk his favor if it means—”

  “You mean you won’t risk losing your profitable business of spying for him.” Kherin snorted in disgust as disbelief dissolved into sudden, bitter clarity. “Staying in his good graces keeps your access to the castle open. I get it. I should have known.” He threw his cloak over his shoulders as he turned his back to the trader. He was spun again as Derek grasped his arm.

  “Kherin! Listen to me.” Derek’s face was hard, but he remained calm under the prince’s cold stare. The regret in his eyes said as clearly as words that he didn’t want the argument that was brewing.