The water surged. She drew her dress upwards—or was it herself, for no tail hung below it—and brought his sisters close. The guards stopped swimming. Father, amongst them, bellowed for their release.
“Do you understand, Held?”
Homeless.
“Yes,” he whispered.
“They will try to save you.”
“Who?”
“Your sisters. They will try. But they cannot undo this work.”
The water felt frozen around him as Held breathed, “I don’t want them to.”
It was perfectly true.
She smiled.
“If you ask the water for help,” she whispered, “then I will hear you. Do you understand?”
No. How could—
“Ask the water for help, and I will hear you.”
“Yes,” Held breathed.
She smiled once more—and then pushed him away.
He hung in the water before her, an alien form clutching a bottle of pure magic to make it all right. Inside would be himself. His true form. Freedom.
“You fathered three daughters, my liege,” the Witch called, her laughing gaze never straying from Held, “but it will be for nothing. You took my husband, my future, from me. And so I will take your daughters, your future, from you. There will be no grandchildren. No royal line. Your kingdom will die with you, and you will be forgotten, as you wished the world to be.”
Her smile widened.
And finally, she looked down.
“You fathered three daughters. Now you have but two, and a skyman for a son.”
The pause was terrible.
And when Held glanced down—
Oh, what a mistake.
Father’s face was wreathed in anger. In shock. He looked quite stunned, as though delivered a great blow to the head—and quite revolted, as though told something foul and evil.
When their eyes locked, he shook his head.
“I have no son,” he said, clear as the air above the sky. “There are no skymen here.”
And Held’s heart broke.
He felt it, as surely as if Father had impaled him upon the sword, and Held’s fingers caught at the stopper. Wrenched it free. A coil of oil unfurled upwards—and Held sealed his mouth over the lip, and drank deeply.
And drank fire.
He heard the scream—and then his own. His fingers scrabbled uselessly over the bottle, and he barely forced the stopper back on the remaining liquid before his tail snapped clean in two, and the blur of blood obscured his vision. The water swirled around him as he thrashed—and he recalled this pain from the first time, recalled the scouring of salt as his scales floated free, remembered the terrible agony of his gills sealing.
And as they did, he took one great breath—and held it.
Sound bounced about him, as though unable to enter his ears. The Witch threw her arms wide and her head back, and laughed in a scream like an orca before she burst into a thousand black bubbles and vanished entirely. He kicked out—kicked, oh, how his legs felt familiar now—at the webbed hand that caught his fin and tore it clean away from his newborn skin. The seaweed about his chest fell loose; his chest burned, ached, screamed for air—air—air—
He opened his eyes and struck out.
Writhed. Flailed. The sky glimmered above, too far above, and could come no longer.
Skymen—
Oh.
Skymen could walk on water. But they could not swim.
He could not swim.
Terror seized him, and he writhed in the air. Father’s stare found his own. Meri’s terrified gaze at his side. Balta, mouth opened in childish horror.
Dark spots were dancing.
He was—
Drowning. As Father wanted him to do.
“Calla!”
He heard Father’s voice.
Heard him say, “That is not Calla.”
Heard, like an echo coming back from his very soul, “I have no son.”
Held blinked, and the world swam before his eyes.
And then—
Someone shouted. Father bellowed an order. And arms crashed about Held’s chest, and dragged him upwards into the light. Hair streamed past his face; a tail crashed at his legs with a furious energy.
Air.
Air!
He choked on it and gasped, raking it into burning lungs. The blood streamed from his skin, and he scrabbled blindly at the shoulder under his ribs, at the body holding him aloft in the frozen night.
At—
Balta.
She stared up at him through the water, those wide eyes terrified, yet her arms firm about his waist.
His sister.
Oh, his sister.
He sobbed, hands over his face, and felt the great pain of heartbreak grow worse when she only clutched him tighter and passed the forgotten bottle up through the roof of her world.
And the floor of his own.
Chapter Twenty-Six
A FIST POUNDED upon the door, and Janez sat back from his letters and groaned when the guard announced, “Captain Kühe, Your Highness!” in a pompous manner. Good Lord, what now? Doubtless Alarik had summoned him—well, hang Alarik. Janez wouldn’t go, damn it!
“Your Highness.” The salute was smart. The words were tart. “That—sailor is back.”
“What?”
“The—foreign one. From the ship.”
Janez blinked dumbly at him. A foreign sailor had returned from abroad? So what?
“From the harbourmaster’s cells, sir.”
Oh.
Janez surged to his feet. Held. Damn and blast it—why had the foolish man returned? Alarik would have him executed, the mood the damned king was in.
“Where?” he snapped, and Kühe jumped, flushing a deep red.
“He, ah. He’d been in some kind of fight, Your Highness—the night patrol found him on the beach not an hour ago. We, ah, we took him up to Doktor Hauser.”
Janez swept out of the study and made straight for the doctor’s chambers, without so much as dismissing the captain. If he wanted to stand awkwardly in the halls all night, let him. If Held had returned, then they must leave for the Winter Palace as soon as possible.
Hauser looked wholly unsurprised at Janez’s arrival. Held, however, jumped. He looked shell-shocked, much the appearance of a man after a sea battle, and Janez slowed his movements and lowered his voice as he asked after his well-being.
“Pub brawl, I suspect,” Hauser said, adding a final stitch to a long gash upon his arm. “He’s been fighting. No broken knuckles, but by chance rather than design, I suspect.”
“Held? You are well?”
The lamp-like pale eyes fixed on his face—and then the man came up off the bed entirely and flung his arms about Janez’s neck. Janez staggered a little under the sudden weight and gripped back instinctively. The hug was desperate, almost violent, and Janez floundered a little, out of depth and unsure of its cause.
“It’s all right,” he said, a little awkwardly, and glanced at Hauser, who only shrugged.
“I received one as well,” he said. “In front of my assistant, too. Bloody impertinence.” Despite the grumble, he looked rather pleased.
“I would have paid to see it,” Janez muttered and finally pried Held loose only by sitting down. His arm was hugged, and that fair head remained on his shoulder, but the desperate clutch eased, and Held permitted Doktor Hauser to finish treating the wounds passively enough.
“He cannot stay here,” Hauser said quietly.
“Alarik?”
“A disappearance like that—he will be convinced the man is a spy. You must leave. Both of you,” the doctor said and tightened the dressing over the wound. “The mountain air will be good for the pair of you. Call it doctor’s orders.”
THEY SET OFF at dawn.
Janez would have preferred to ride alone—he was hardly remarkable-looking, and his tenure as crown prince so short few outside the capital recognised him—but he thought better o
f it. After all, he’d require the finest clothes for this ball, his own servants who knew his habits, and even his sword. Sigurd was the old-fashioned sort. A man was no man at all if he didn’t carry a sword, and Janez rather suspected that, at some point, he’d be invited to a ‘friendly’ spar, designed to test his mettle as a gentleman.
Perhaps, he reflected glumly, he ought to take Hauser as well. Just in case.
They left as though it were quite normal, and not a rush. In a foul mood at needing to flee from his own home, Janez wanted to seek comfort in Held’s hands, lips, body. But he crushed the urge and instead sat in the chilly room, silent and sullen, as a dull-witted manservant dressed him. The only spark came from Held’s insistence on doing Janez’s hair—he slapped the manservant’s wrist, like scolding a child, for attempting to take the brush—and the soft rhythm of the strokes through his curls.
Janez closed his eyes and bitterly did not wish to go.
Held, too, appeared morose and quiet. Perhaps it was shock from the day before, or perhaps he’d caught on to Janez’s mood, but the bright eyes were dulled, and his movements restrained. He seemed…needy, and when Janez yielded to temptation and slid an arm about those thin shoulders to hug him, Held burrowed into his side and remained there for a long minute, clutching Janez’s waistcoat and clinging.
“It’s all right,” Janez said, a little pointlessly, and shook him loose. “Come. We’ll escape together, shall we?”
But when they descended from his rooms, a plain but large carriage awaited in the courtyard, a mere four guards—two ahead, two behind—to guard it. And the rush hadn’t been rushed enough.
“I felt low-key to be best, brother.”
Alarik was standing on the great stone steps, clad in his royal cloak, and Janez stared resolutely past him to the assembled entourage. Four guards, two footmen, two servants with the pony and trap, filled with luggage and supplies, and that damnable empty carriage.
It was petty of him. This was duty, not Alarik’s fault—yet that thunderous order echoed in Janez’s ears. It sounded so terribly like their father’s orders, all those years ago. The orders that had quashed the first love affair he’d ever had. The words that had removed his lover and unborn child from the city, perhaps even the kingdom. The command that had finally broken through his happy shell, reminding him he was a prince and figurehead first, and a man a long way second.
The orders that would be repeated, should Alarik’s suspicion grow even a fraction more.
Certainly would be repeated, if Alarik were to discover Janez’s desires.
So Janez’s shoulders tightened, his mouth turned down in a grim expression and no reply. Instead, he turned to Held, told him to come, and strode out for the carriage. He heard his brot—his king’s angry mutter over his shoulder but paid it no mind. He would be out of the king’s hair the moment the carriage passed through the gates. He would do his duty, be married by the spring, and a father by the following winter. He would secure this alliance.
But nobody, king or not, could order him to like it.
The moment Held joined him in the carriage, Janez swung the little door shut and locked it. It lurched forward, rattling over the cobbles and beyond the great gates. Janez resolutely did not look back.
He was started from his dark thoughts by the light touch of fingers against his as they lurched through the city, and jumped. The light leaking into the carriage was gloomy—there would be rain soon—yet Held’s eyes were plainly visible.
“I’m sorry,” Janez said, tugging a smile into place on his face. “I am simply…not looking forward to this. Come. Let’s have some light, shall we? And improve your language skills a little—perhaps you’re secretly a most foul and uncouth sort of person, and I can love you less for it.”
He sorely doubted it, but the hope was there, nonetheless.
The rain began as they left the city gates—a driving hammer upon the carriage, thunder growling overhead—and it was the first word Janez decided to teach. Counting came easy, despite the quite laughable pronunciation, and the difference between mine and your. Clothes came less so—again, largely pronunciation, especially about shoes and stockings—but Held seemed oddly fascinated by body parts and would stroke each one after Janez named it.
And he was tempted to name others, more, but—
He resisted said urges and looked away from the sight of Held stroking his own fingers as though just discovering he had them. Perhaps he ought to try sentences? Full conversation? Only there was no context—how could he get Held to understand sentences without the context? That was far harder. How on earth did infants learn to talk? Janez was reasonably sure Ekaterina didn’t sit with Ingrid for several hours a day reciting ‘I am well, how are you?’ until something inside Ingrid’s head turned it into meaning.
It was difficult, and extremely distracting (with their feet snugly crowded together between their seats on the carriage floor), but the stormy morning passed with simple little lessons, until Held could name a dozen things but not say anything about them.
When the rain eventually stopped, so did the carriage—to rest the poor horses, no doubt, and allow the footmen and guards to empty their water-laden boots—and Janez opted to stretch his legs. The deference beyond the door said it was a good idea: the footmen bowed a little too low, and the guards gave none of their usual bright greetings. The silence was uneasy.
“Forgive me, gentlemen,” Janez said loudly as he loped away from the moving prison cell, enjoying the chill of fresh air upon his face. “I am something of a bear so early in the morning. But the day brightens, and so do I. How many miles, Captain?”
The captain—a dark-skinned landsman with an easy countenance—replied that they had made quick progress and would reach their first inn in plenty of time, or press on to the second if the weather held off. Janez left the decision to him and watched Held explore the weeds at the side of the road, plucking a few gaudy red flowers off with careful hands. He returned to the carriage with them, and when the horses had been refreshed at the little stream and Janez had climbed back into his seat, he found Held carefully threading the flower-stems into the hinges of the door.
“Very decorative,” Janez said, “though the footmen won’t be pleased. They’re terribly fussy about that sort of thing.”
Held ignored him, and Janez tipped his head back with a smile. Closed his eyes. And dozed, in the gentle rock and sway of the carriage, the thick mud smoothing their passage.
He dreamed, both awake and asleep at once. He was aware of Held’s soft murmuring under his breath, caught snatches of a foreign song. But they turned into sirens singing from the rocks, like in the myths, and Janez alone on the Held—an abandoned ship with only a lost prince at the wheel, and him driving her to her death, to founder on the rocks while mermaids dragged him down to drown.
He woke with a start, when the water choked his nose and throat, only to blink at the swinging lantern and earn a startled look from Held. The real Held. Not some mermaid on a rock—not a maid at all. Honestly. The mind could do such strange things.
Janez dropped his head back to doze again, and this time, the soft song turned into music at a great ball, with a thousand twirling, swirling ballgowns, the skirts flying out in ballooning circles of colour. But all of the women were faceless, the space between their hair and their chins utterly blank. They spoke nothing to him as they danced with him in turn, and then one would not be removed. Her dress turned white. The ballroom was transformed into a cathedral, the stained-glass windows pouring red down upon the floor, like blood drowning their feet. It stained his boots and crept up her dress. It rose up the walls, ever higher, caressing his skin and sticking to his shirt, yet he could nothing but stand there, repeating marriage vows until he drowned.
The carriage lurched over a rock. Janez opened one eye, breathing wetly, and saw Held, still humming softly and weaving the battered flowers into a chain.
A chain. Oh, a chain.
The dream sw
ept over him again, but now it was no woman standing under a veil in the cathedral, but Held himself, naked as the day he was born but for a necklace of flowers hanging like a noose about his throat. He was quite beautiful, quite erect, and Janez’s throat dried at the sight of such uninhibited glory. And then Held spoke in that soft, sweet voice, but only a word: “Mine.” He repeated it, over and over, like a tiny wedding vow of his own. And Janez kissed him, alone in this church, kissed him fuller than he would any bride, kissed him until they could have absorbed one another and ceased to exist, kissed him as a long-lost lover, as one determined and destined to live and die by the choice he had made—and Held dissolved into sea foam in his very arms and washed away down the altar steps.
He jerked awake as his dream-self clutched at empty air, and so violently that Held dropped his flower-chain with a sound of surprise and stopped humming.
“I’m all right,” Janez murmured, but there was a fine sweat upon his forehead and he was breathing hard. Sirens on rocks, faceless brides, and Held dissolving away into nothingness. And the pain that had lanced through his chest at the last. Janez was no romantic prone to examining his dreams for meaning, but even he could see the message in them.
“You well?” Held asked, sliding across onto the seat next to Janez. He clutched at Janez’s fingers, hard and firm.
“I am well,” Janez said, both an answer and a correction, and the fingers caressed his own. “I was…dreaming. Just dreaming.”
Held’s hand dropped to his thigh and stroked it gently. And then that lithe body was leaned up against his side—Janez blinked back the imagination of his dream—and a head came to rest against his neck. A heavy warmth. An intimate comfort.
Janez swallowed and curled his fingers about the hand on his leg.
He had to pull away. He had to cease this. He was travelling to choose a bride; he could not…could not…
He closed his eyes and drifted down into that grand cathedral again. They were dancing at the altar, Held’s fine white hair spinning out around his face in a beautiful arc, and he looked so free, so perfect, so joyous…
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