In Allegiance

Kate Islay

In Allegiance © 2016 by Kate Islay

Cover design by Laura Shapiro

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author, except where permitted by law or for the use of brief quotations in a review.

Printed in the United States of America

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Back Cover

Touren

Chapter One

“I’ve a gift for you,” Arturus said, his voice raised above the din in the hall. “For a brilliant victory. I’ve left it for you in your quarters.”

Mathias raised his cup with the king’s. Plates of food circled the hall, served by a conquered household, but Mathias was more interested in a bath than food, then a few days’ worth of sleep. Like the rest of the men, he still had the mud of the field on him.

Song broke out from the men, diverting Arturus’s attention: a drinking song Mathias had never heard. It must be the current favorite in Cortesa.

“The camp’s secure, Commander.” Mathias turned as his aide found an empty spot on the bench. “We’ll be returning home soon.”

Not soon enough for me. “How long before we can ride out?”

Tauro leaned forward to be heard above the singing. “A day or two, once we provision the men. Will the king leave a garrison here?”

“Enough to keep this prince in line.”

“You expect he’ll cause trouble, then.” At the far end of the table sat the castle’s former master, a prince’s circlet still gracing his grey head. Allard’s skin was stretched thin over the bones of his face. His eyes met Mathias’s. The back of Mathias’s neck pricked before Allard looked away.

“I think he knows where his best interests lie.”

Mathias had been privy to the conditions of Allard’s surrender, though his mind had been on his men, not the self-styled Prince of Salenne. There’d been a camp to oversee, injured to check in on. Pyres for the dead to light. But he’d heard enough to know that Arturus wouldn’t need to leave a large garrison: he’d taken other measures to ensure his new vassal’s cooperation.

“Am I quartered in the castle?”

“Yes, Commander. I can take you there now if you’ve had enough of the feast.”

Arturus wouldn’t miss him; he was too caught up in his latest victory. Mathias made his excuses to the men around him, who laughed and called him an old man—which he supposed he was, compared to many of them—then followed Tauro through the great doors and down a winding layout that would have baffled him if the previous two castles hadn’t been exactly like it. He was used to the spaces of the south, which were designed around ease and aesthetics and the circulation of air in the summer months, not these northern fortresses.

Even with three castles now subject to the Cortesian empire, the people north of the Vaen remained a mystery. The king’s army had never ventured this far afield before. Before this campaign, Mathias would have said that Cortesa had already surpassed the extent of its reach. An empire, Mathias. More than my father ever dreamed.

Arturus had his empire. They didn’t need the north.

Tauro hesitated at the top of a narrow stair. Two guards in Cortesian livery flanked the door. “The king has, er….”

“I know,” Mathias said, recalling Arturus’s words at the feast. “What is it?”

“Rather ask who, my lord.” Tauro opened the door.

The rooms were spacious. Lightly furnished, with tapestries on the wall to hold in the heat from the fireplace. To the right, an archway led to another room, framing the shadow of a window and corner of a bed.

A man knelt by the fireplace, his shoulders slanted at an awkward angle.

Mathias turned to Tauro. “Check back in on the camp. Make sure the men have enjoyed at least some of the feasting.”

“Of course, sir.”

By the line of his shoulders, the man was bound. He looked up when Mathias entered the room. Blue eyes, Mathias saw, when he crouched in front of him, framed by a northerner’s pale skin and a mass of reddish brown hair matted with sweat and dried blood. Young, perhaps not yet twenty. Handsome, even with his eyes full of hate and well-formed mouth thinned by pain and anger.

Arturus’s gifts had never been simple.

“Are you injured?” The prisoner tried to pull back when Mathias put his hands on his shoulder and ribs; Mathias tightened his grip until he stilled. “What’s your name?” he asked, though he had a good idea. The insignia on his overtunic marked him as a member of the house of Allard. He had the same slight arch to his nose as his father. “If I untie you, will you behave?”

Voice hoarse from the battlefield, his northern accent thickening the words, the prisoner said, “If you untie me, I’m honor bound to kill you.”

Mathias outweighed him by two stone or more. With the guards outside the door, he had to know any attempt of his would be pointless.

“Honor won’t help your situation.” The gaze didn’t waver. Mathias sighed and shifted up, turning to the guards. “Are there any servants left? I need bathwater brought up.”

“Aye, sir. I’ll track some down.”

He felt the prisoner’s eyes on him as he went through the archway to the bedroom. Tauro had left clean clothing on top of the bed. Mathias had already shed his armor at the camp, but it was good to be free of the rest of it, the cloth and leather stiff with mud and sweat and blood.

A pair of servants arrived with the tub. Mathias leaned in the archway and watched as the near one hesitated, her eyes widening.

“Your Highness?”

“It’s all right, Mara. Are you hurt?”

“No, Your Highness. Your father—”

Mathias stepped forward. “Leave it in front of the fire.”

Mara fumbled her end. “Yes, my lord,” she said, eyes averted as she lowered her end of the tub. Neither servant looked at the prince again as they filled the tub with water heated at the fire.

So his guess had been correct. Reve of the house Allard, the second of Allard’s three sons. Reve had been named in the conditions of Allard’s surrender, though not for this. Mathias wondered how much the Prince of Salenne had known of Arturus’s designs when he’d stared at Mathias so intently at the feast.

Mathias caught a flush from the corner of his eye when he returned to the fireplace. Perhaps northerners had a taboo against nudity. He sank into the tub, wincing at the burn of water on abused skin and muscles, waiting out the discomfort until it became bliss.

His gaze drifted to Reve. Bound or not, desperate men did stupid things, but Reve remained still, his gaze fixed away. Firelight flickered over his features, turning him briefly into a prince of tales, forlorn and tragic. Mathias dunked his head under the water to clear it.

By the time Mathias stepped from the tub, Reve’s eyes reflected more envy than anger. Battle grime sat heavily, as Mathias well knew, not to mention the pain of bound arms on exhausted muscles.

“There may be facts of which you are unaware.” Mathias dressed slowly, picking out his words.  Reve’s eyes followed him as he hooked the back of a chair and dragged it to sit in front of him. “First, your father is alive. He is now vassal to my king, who took the victory in today’s battle.”

By the look of him, Reve had been there himself to witness the battle’s outcome. “Your older brother died honorably on the field. It was from chance rather than intent, but all the same your father has a new heir—your younger brother, Leal, who will be fostered with the king back in the capital.”

Confusion. Uncertainty flickered briefly into fear. With good reason, though Reve had yet to know the extent of it. “As payment for lives lost on the battlefield, your own life is forfeit.”

It was a harsh sentence, though not unexpected from Arturus. His king took the path of the iron grip. Break the hold of the current generation, and the next would follow. Mathias didn’t disagree with it in theory.

Reve sat up, pain clearly forgotten for the moment. “Lives lost on the side of our attackers? We did nothing but defend our home, and your king claims further payment? What justice is that?”

“Your life secures the end of bloodshed and the continuance of your family line, albeit at a lesser station. Would you deny your father and brother that?”

Reve set his lips and didn’t reply.

“The fact remains that your life belongs to the king, to do with as he wills. He could execute you in the castle yard tomorrow and be within his rights. But it appears he’s given it to me.”

Reve frowned. “What use could you have for me?”

“I could think of several,” Mathias said, not bothering to hide his meaning. It took a moment, but the implication sank in. By the shock on Reve’s face, he hadn’t considered that possibility.

Arturus likely did think him a gift. The king knew Mathias’s tastes, though they didn’t usually run to princes or prisoners. A slave, however, Mathias would be expected and encouraged to bed—it was taking a free man as partner and equal that Cortesa found such a transgression. “Do you know who I am?”

“You’re the commander of the Cortesian army.” Reve’s voice changed. “I saw you before the battle, at the top of the hill with your king. You were like the god of death. You must think very little of life and death to mete it out so dispassionately.”

Was that how he was seen? He did what his king commanded, what he’d trained for, and what he was good at. “I would argue with that observation, but yes, I command the army. This is the last of our campaigns for the summer, so you’ll return with me to my estate, not the battlefield. It’s not such a terrible life.”

“Life as another man’s property.”

“But it would still be life, with the sword as your alternative.” Mathias eyed the awkward pull of Reve’s shoulders. “Those ropes will soon start to inflict permanent damage. I need your word that you won’t do anything rash if I have the guards out there untie you.”

“Why do you think I’ll give it?”

It was the bluster of one who knew he’d already lost. “I would rather not have the guards knock you out, or forcibly dunk you into that tub. Your word merely guarantees leniency in your treatment.” Mathias stood. “Have you any other clothing in the castle?”

After a pause, Reve said, “In the chest in the bedroom.”

Mathias hadn’t realized that these were his rooms. His king had a dark sense of humor. “Pick out what you will.” He called for the guards, then turned to Reve. “Well?”

Reve’s lips tightened. “You have my word.”

To the guards, Mathias said, “Untie him, then let him bathe. Have food brought up for him.”

One of the guards cut through the rope at Reve’s wrists. Reve winced visibly and bit his lip, likely to keep from crying out as he rolled his shoulders forward. The one at his ankles would be less debilitating, though it would still take him a few moments to stand.

“I’m going to camp to check on the men.”

Reve’s eyes followed him out of the room. Mathias shook them off as he made his way to the gates from memory, the sounds from the feast carrying even outside the castle.

He didn’t need a slave, and he certainly didn’t need a prince. If his king wanted to reward him for his service, all he had to do was let him return home.

****

The tension at the back of Reve’s neck eased once the door closed behind the commander. He hadn’t realized how knotted it had been since the man first appeared.

“You’ll do,” the guard said, rubbing his ankles impersonally as if Reve was a fellow soldier. In appearance, they weren’t so different from the men of Salenne. From the rumors that had traveled north, Reve had half-expected men like the old gods, but it was only their numbers that had been giant. “If you’re going to bathe, get in.”

His desire to be clean outweighing a preference for privacy, he put up with their eyes on him as he stripped off the blood-encrusted livery of his house and sank into the bath. Steam from the water clouded the air. The battlefield stretched out in front of him: his father’s laughably small force defending the castle while the Cortesian army spread for what seemed like miles.

They’d thought the Cortesian king content to stay south of the Vaen. His father and Ansel had argued about it, once news of the army’s crossing had reached them. Ansel had wanted to join with Ardeche to meet them, but his father had refused. It will be a dark day before I abandon my people to aid another’s, even against a common foe.

The dark days are here, father. You’re too blind to see it.

Reve was used to them clashing—too much alike, his mother used to say, before he’d understood what she meant—but this had been a tense, clawing thing between them.

Now Ansel was dead. And the king would use Leal to guarantee Reve’s good behavior and that of his father’s. Leal was eight. He wouldn’t understand.

He scrubbed soap through his hair and dunked his head until dried blood loosened and washed away. He wished he had a knife to use as razor, but none had been provided. Perhaps stubble will fend off the southerner for a while. He’d seen the way the man had looked at him. What kind of life would that be, subject to some other man’s desire?

His face burned with more than just the steam. “I’m finished,” he said to the guards. One of them handed him a cloth to dry himself with when he stepped out of the tub. The larger one stepped forward to cut him off as Reve started for the bedroom.

“My clothes are in the chest.” The guard looked at his fellow, who shrugged.

“I’ll find him some.” When the guard returned he had the loose-fitting pants Reve slept in and a linen undershirt. No shoes. He pulled the shirt over his head and stepped into the pants.

Mara had returned to empty the bath while Reve dressed. The guards were standing watch at the door. If Reve kept his voice down, he could keep from alerting them for a short while.

Mara froze when Reve crouched next to her. “Is everyone in the castle all right?”

“We’re well enough, Your Highness,” she said in a low voice. “Ingund is dead. They killed him when he refused to let them through the gate.”

Ingund had been Salenne’s gatekeeper since before Reve was born. “Have you seen my father and Leal?”

“Your brother’s room is guarded, but he hasn’t been mistreated. They’ve let only a few of us in. Your father’s been to see him.”

Reve wondered how his father had explained to a child that he’d be leaving to live with a stranger, the man who’d invaded his home. “How many of the king’s men are here?”

Mara’s voice lowered further. “Only a few are quartered in the castle, but the Cortesians are everywhere. They guard the village gate and are stopping everyone going in and out. They say some of our men are hiding out in the hills. The king’s men have questioned the villagers, but no one will give them up.”

So some of his father’s men had survived. They’d stay in hiding until the king’s army had gone, and even if Reve could get to them, he couldn’t count on there being enough to retake the castle. He’d heard there were hidden passages built into Ardeche, but that castle had passed hands so often that the old residents had needed them to escape from the new. Salenne had never required them. There was no way to get to the hills without going through the king’s army camped outside the gates.

The possibility of resistance was looking increasingly bleak.

“I’ll tell your father I saw you.”

“Tell him....” Reve’s throat closed over. “Tell him I’ll do my best to see our house restored.”

Mara’s smile was gentle. “Of course.” Her eyes went to the door; one of the guards had returned inside. He seemed unconcerned to find them talking. Mara retrieved the bucket and touched Reve’s arm as she passed. “You were always the good son.”

The good son. He’d been a peacemaker, he supposed, between his father and Ansel, doing his part to rein in Ansel’s more reckless impulses, ready to support his brother once he was Prince of Salenne.

But to be good meant to accept the terms of his father’s agreement, and everything that entailed.

“The commander said for you to eat.” The guard’s words cut through his thoughts. Mara had left a plate of sliced meat on the table. From the king’s victory feast, no doubt; he’d heard the sounds coming from the great hall. His father’s food and his father’s hall.

He choked down pride and sat at the table, pulling the plate toward him because he knew he should eat, not because he had any appetite.

He finished half before he couldn’t swallow any more. “You’re welcome to the rest,” he said, sliding the plate to the other end of the table.

The guard eyed him curiously, then shrugged. “I don’t mind.” He pulled up a chair. “Since you’ve caused us to miss the feast and all.” He said it without animosity, spearing the meat with a dirk from his belt.

Reve got a knowing look when he eyed the knife, but he wasn’t going to try anything. He could surprise the guard for long enough to get hold of the dirk, but the victory would be short-lived—he assumed the second guard was just outside the door. He couldn’t take on both. If he chose death, he didn’t want it to be at their hands.

And it would still leave Leal in the grip of the king, to bear the consequences of Reve’s actions. He didn’t think the Cortesians would harm a child, not even the child of an enemy, but the threat of it was enough, and the king knew it.

“Do you know the commander well?”

“Lord Mathias?” The guard shrugged. “No one does, except maybe the king. He lives south of Cortesa. Touren, they call it. Breeds horses when we’re not on campaign. It’s mostly farmland down that way.”

Reve tried to reconcile the man he’d seen on his horse on top of the hill with the image of a farmer.

“I’m sure you’ll find him a fair enough master.”

The word burned in his ears. Master. He’d heard the southerners kept slaves. Too lazy or feeble to do their own work, though Mathias hadn’t looked to be either. Taller and heavier than Reve, and perhaps ten or fifteen years older. In the light of the fire, his black curling hair had been free of grey, his body hard and fit.

Reve pushed the image away. The guard seemed amiable enough now and willing to talk, but Reve had lost his taste for it.

The food and heat of the fire were lulling. He’d barely slept in the three days since they’d had word of the fall of Ardeche and Tille. He shifted in the chair, trying to find a tolerable angle. Firelight danced behind his eyelids like the sun on raised swords and shields.

A shadow passed over him. The whisper of cloth brushed his cheek. He startled badly, clawing up from sleep, his arm raised in defense.

It was caught in an unforgiving grip. Reve’s heart drummed in his chest. His wrist ached. The commander’s other hand was on his shoulder, holding him back against the chair. “Be still. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Reve forced himself to stop struggling. It was more difficult than he expected. Something about the man put him on edge. Off-balance, as if he couldn’t predict his own response.

“Go sleep in the bed. You’ll only give yourself more aches if you stay in this chair.”

“I will not—” Reve stopped and bit his lip.

“I won’t touch you, if that’s what you fear.” Releasing Reve’s wrist, the commander straightened and moved to the fire, crouching in front of it to stir it back to life.

It flickered over his face as he deliberately propped the poker he’d just used back against the fireplace. Heavy enough to use as a weapon; a blow from it could kill a man.

Reading his thoughts, Mathias said, “If I sleep out here, do I have to worry about being bludgeoned to death in my sleep?”

It would be satisfying, but it wouldn’t change anything. Mathias might be his current keeper, but Reve knew who was responsible for his situation: the King of Cortesa. If he lost sight of that, then the king’s goal of destroying his house would have already succeeded.

“I gave you my word.”

Mathias looked skeptical, but he said, “Then take the bed and get what sleep you can.”

Reve’s limbs had locked up from the awkward position of the chair. He forced his legs to carry him to the bedroom, ignoring his muscles’ protest at the abuse he’d already subjected them to.

He wasn’t followed.

Chapter Two

“The supplies are secured. There’s not enough meat, but we should find game off the road.”

“Tell the scouts to be on the lookout when we ride out.” They’d left Allard enough to see Salenne through the fall and winter, but they’d had to replenish their own stores, too. Efficient as it was, the army didn’t run on air.

Mathias dismissed the quartermaster and checked in with the officers. The camp was preparing to march, the ground littered with rolled tents and the men’s packs.

It was a familiar sight. Outside of Touren, this was home. Twenty years since he’d gotten into it with another recruit who’d recognized his name, and ended up spending his first night as a king’s soldier in the brig. The old commander himself had let him out the next day. There are enough loose tongues in Cortesa that you’ll spend your lifetime fighting them, if you choose to be a hothead about it.

“Mathias.”

The call came from the infirmary tent. “Leone,” Mathias said, approaching. Next to Leone was a harassed-looking physician’s aide with his hands full of bandages, who took the opportunity to duck back into the tent. “Do you have men inside?”

The lines around Leone’s mouth weren’t much deeper than when he’d been Mathias’s cavalry officer, though his hair had a good deal more grey. “Argel took a sword cut to the thigh, but he’ll live. He seems pleased to have the scar; he says his bedmates find them inspiring.”

“I looked for you at the feast.”

“There’s only so much self-congratulatory feasting I can take. It’s not as if the northerners put up a challenge.”

“They would have done better to accept what Cortesa offered.”

“Oh, I know they’re primitive,” Leone said, waving his hand at the castle behind them, crude and foreign in its high walls and towers, built to withstand both the elements and encroaching enemies in a land where neighbors fought one another as a matter of course. “But none of us would have bowed our heads readily.”

“We’ve already been civilized.”

Leone grinned at Mathias’s dry tone. “Some of us, perhaps. Will you be heading back to Cortesa?”

“No, Touren.” To the south, weeks away, the mares would be heavy with the year’s foaling. The grapes from the vineyard in the south pasture, too sloped for the horses, would soon be ready for harvesting. Arturus laughed at the wine they produced, but Mathias was fascinated by the different strains and planting of it. “You should come stay for the winter. Your Iseppa would like it.”

“A week there, and Iseppa and I would grow fat on grass and wine and laziness. She’s a city horse, like me.”

The physician’s aide reemerged from the tent. “You can see them now.” He beckoned to Leone.

“I’ll leave you to your men,” Mathias said. Leone nodded a distracted farewell and ducked after the aide.

Mathias wanted to be out of Salenne by morning. They’d have a two week march before the army disbanded, the bulk returning to Cortesa. While not on campaign, the army was a loose collection of staffed garrisons scattered around the provinces, ready to call on when the city required it. Cortesa had the largest share; it was big enough to hold them.

He found Arturus at the camp’s perimeter, speaking to Parma, Mathias’s second in command.

“Sire.”

Arturus turned. “Mathias,” he said, his eyes bright with victory still. Mathias often felt blinded by it, caught up in Arturus’s single-mindedness, his king’s surety of purpose. At times he thought it a siren’s call, but it was one so far he’d been unable to resist.

Parma threw Mathias an unreadable look and bowed stiffly. “By your leave, Sire.”

Arturus waved his dismissal. Mathias watched the rigid lines of Parma’s back until he disappeared into the camp. Parma was young, ambitious, and owed his post to his father’s political position rather than any quality for command he possessed. But he was a competent officer, and Mathias had never seen much harm in him. “What brings you out so early, Sire?”

“The beauty of the day,” Arturus said, without irony. The soft light of morning made him look even younger than his thirty years, as if blessed by immortality as well. “How do you find my gift?”

“Appealing.” Mathias took a moment to choose his words. “A generous gift, Sire. You honor me.”

“Do I? His father was quick enough to pay the price, once I assured him of his other son’s inheritance. Perhaps he was just relieved to have so many sons to spare. But I thought it a pity to kill him.”

Recalling those eyes on him at the feast, Mathias thought it had not been so easy a choice. “A pity indeed. I thought to take him with me when I return to Touren.”

“Will you be heading there so soon? I’d hoped to entice you to stay at the capital awhile.”

“I am at your leisure, my lord, and go where you will.”

Arturus laughed. “You sound obedient, Mathias, but I hear your reproach. Very well, go home to your backwater. Have you managed any decent wine yet?”

“We’ll see in the next year. I’ve an expert for it now.”

Arturus clasped his shoulder. “I’ll be the first to taste it, then.” He hesitated. “Still, don’t settle in too quickly. I may have need of you in Cortesa. The Council’s been harping again.”

Mathias had managed to avoid the capital for the last four years. He didn’t relish a return. “What is their complaint?”

“What politicians always complain of. Money, taxes. Not enough power. I may need you to reassure them. Besides, I think Sena would like to see you.”

Mathias doubted that. He and Arturus’s queen hadn’t parted on good terms, the last time he’d seen her. She had too much of her father in her. With the old commander, Mathias had found that stubbornness reassuring—Guarin had always held true to what he thought was right. Sena had her own views.

“I don’t know what assurance the council will take from me.”

“Sometimes I think you don’t realize the influence you have. You might have holed up in that farm of yours, but as far as the capital is concerned, you’re their darling commander.”

“One who is fast approaching the time for younger blood to step in.”

Arturus grinned. “So says the man not even forty. We need to find you a wife to keep you young, or else drive you from that home you cling to so stubbornly. Perhaps your new slave will do the trick. Don’t think that I’ll let you go so easily. Who else would I trust with my army? It’s a brother’s duty, and you’re near enough to one.”

“Trust can be gained by others, Sire. Another will have to take up the charge eventually.”

“Then we’ll leave it for an eventual time,” Arturus said, his eyes showing that he’d already dismissed it from mind. “Until then, I rely on you to keep me steady. We can’t let the council take over all of the empire, as much as they’d like to.”

“You overstate my influence, Sire, but you know I’ll give what help I can.”

Arturus smiled. “I know.” He turned as an officer approached with a report for him. Mathias bowed and took his leave.

Although he thought the king’s faith in him misplaced when it came to Cortesa and its politics, he was still touched by it. It was true they’d been like brothers. He remembered long nights spent over a map, tracing a line outward from Cortesa and its surrounding provinces. Cortesa has no equal. Would you deny its light to those who live in darkness?

The empire had brought peace to many, that was true. Time would tell what it would bring to the north.

It was midday before he returned to his rooms in the castle. Reve stopped mid-chew when Mathias entered. Last night he’d been asleep when Mathias had gone in to retrieve some of the cushions and extra bedding from the bedroom, sprawled sideways on the bed with his mouth still tight and downturned in sleep. Perennially disapproving, or just in lingering pain.

Mathias called the guard over. “Any trouble?”

“No, Commander.”

“Take the door, then.”

Reve eyed him warily when Mathias sat across from him. Mathias plucked a roll from a plate piled with cheese and bread, spearing a piece of cheese with his dirk.

“I had thought—” Reve stopped, as if willing himself to civility. “My lord, I have a request.”

“Go on.”

“I hoped for a few minutes with my father and brother.”

Mathias picked up a discarded cloth to clean his knife. “By the king’s law, your life belongs to me. In Cortesa, that makes you a slave. Not a prince of Salenne, nor your father’s son.”

It was cruel, but it would be no less cruel once they reached Touren and his new life was made clear. Better to make the point now.

Reve flushed. “You can’t take away who I am.”

“That remains to be seen.” Mathias had seen plenty of men broken by their circumstances. “Your brother’s not a prisoner, if that’s what you fear. The king will foster him back at the capital as if he were his own. He’ll be introduced to politics and culture beyond anything he can learn here.”

“And the next generation of Allards will see your king as benevolent overlord and longtime friend, forgetting that we have not always been vassals.”

As a strategy, it would save the north decades of bloodshed. Not that Reve was likely to see it that way.

“If you don’t want your line to end with your father, then that’s a truth you must accept. When your brother comes of age, he’ll return to rule Salenne.”

“As a Cortesian.”

“As a liegeman, loyal to his king.” Mathias considered him. “I don’t expect you to like the arrangement, but I do expect you to abide by it. You can ride south as a prisoner, though I would prefer to avoid the inconvenience. And you, I imagine, the discomfort. Or you can accept your father’s agreement, swear to me that you won’t try to escape or harm your brother, and I’ll forego the chains.”

Reve looked bewildered. “Harm my brother?”

“Leal is the king’s insurance that your father won’t rebel again. Some would seek to take away that leverage.”

It wasn’t unheard of, and Mathias had known plenty of siblings who would just as soon eliminate the competition. But judging by Reve’s appalled expression, he’d never considered it.

“Regardless, the opportunity to see Leal again rests entirely with you.”

Reve’s gaze met his evenly. “Behave, you mean, and that will be my reward.”

“Something to that effect.”

“What does that mean, to behave?”

It was clear what was on Reve’s mind. He was Mathias’s type, certainly—pretty without being soft, his body lean and lightly muscled, his hair thick and curling now that it was clean, falling nearly to his shoulders.

A life exacted as penalty for resistance: mercy and cruelty in one blow. Though it was a decree born more from Arturus’s certainty that he held the north than any sense of mercy. In truth, Arturus played a dangerous game, letting Reve live.

“You’ll have other duties in lieu of the usual ones for a personal slave, but I expect you to perform them without argument.” Arturus wouldn’t like it. By his expression, Reve knew that as well as Mathias. “Unless, of course, you prefer to serve in the more usual capacity?”

Reve’s cheeks flushed. “That’s what your king is hoping for, isn’t it? To humiliate my family even more?”

It was certainly Arturus’s intent. But Mathias wasn’t going to force a man just to suit Arturus’s political objectives. “Give me your obedience and cooperation, and we’ll discuss ways to make your situation more tolerable.” He waited, watching Reve’s struggle in the shifting expressions of his face.

“Very well,” Reve said finally. “I swear it.” Mathias raised an eyebrow until he added, “I swear I won’t try to escape. Or harm my brother.”

Mathias stood. “Then pack lightly. We ride out tomorrow.”

****

The door closed behind the commander. The guards took up their posts by the door.

Give me your obedience and cooperation. It would have been easier, in a way, to choose chains. Reve would be bound by them regardless, no matter if they were metal cuffs or the threat against his home and Leal. Better to keep them on the outside, so he wouldn’t forget they were there.

But it would have meant giving up any chance to see Leal. To see for himself that his brother was all right.

He spent a restless night before one of the guards shook him awake at dawn. The leather jerkin handed to him was one of Ansel’s. Reve’s hand froze on the collar, but he put it on.

The camp was in a state of dismantlement. He recognized the commander’s grey gelding when the guard led him to a pair of horses tethered apart from the others. So he’d escaped the battle unscathed. He was a dark dappled grey, big boned but with a patrician’s head and delicate ears that turned inquisitively on Reve as they approached. Next to him stood a bay, smaller but as well put together. Reve was grateful to be afforded the dignity. He’d expected to walk or be guarded in a litter, or thrown over the back of the commander’s horse.

“Have you worked with horses?”

Reve stepped back when Mathias approached, followed by a younger man who looked familiar. Both horses greeted Mathias with huffs and raised lips, which he pulled with obvious affection before rubbing under the grey’s noseband.

“The young ones, yes. We keep most of the bloodstock north of here. They’re good horses.”

“I know. I’ve seen some of them.” Reve bit off a retort, wondering how many of his father’s horses would be going south with them. “I do some breeding of my own, back in Touren.”

Reve remained silent. He might be willing to give Mathias his obedience and cooperation for now, but that didn’t make the commander an ally.

“This is Tauro. You’ll answer to him on the march. If you have any questions about what’s expected of you, ask him. Since you’ve said you’re good with horses, it will be your task to care for these two, as well as anything else he assigns you.” To Tauro, Mathias said, “Let me know if he gives you any trouble.” He disappeared back into the camp.

Tauro eyed Reve curiously. He was only a few years older than Reve, with brown curly hair and the olive skin of a Cortesian. His livery was the same as the other soldiers, though the design on the shoulder of his tunic seemed to indicate some rank Reve didn’t know. “I saw you when I readied the commander’s rooms at the castle.”

That was why he looked familiar. So much of what had happened after his father’s defeat, when he’d been trussed up and taken into the castle like an animal, had been a blur.

“We don’t usually bring slaves on campaign. I recommend you don’t stray far.”

“I’m not a—” Reve bit his lip. That was precisely what he was, as the commander had made clear. “Why would it matter?”

“Don’t you have slaves in the north?”

“No,” Reve said, the word clipped.

Tauro shrugged. “Most of the men know better than to touch another man’s property, but some would risk it. It’s been a long campaign.”

So Mathias had never had to resort to chains to ensure Reve’s obedience. He could rely on the Cortesians to make them for him.

A horn sounded. Tauro straightened. “Mount up. We’ll be leaving soon.”

Even in these circumstances, Reve had to admire the army’s discipline. He’d ridden with his father’s men to root out raiders from the hills, and to Ardeche to dispute land claims, but he’d seen nothing like the chain of command on display here, the way each man had his place and role in the column.

“We don’t have any other northerners in the army,” Tauro said, riding next to Reve. “I suppose there’ll be more of you now that you’re part of the empire.”

Reve forced himself not to react to Tauro’s matter-of-fact statement. If he had any hope of navigating this road, he needed Tauro to be, if not on his side, then at least not hostile to him.

“How far is it to Cortesa?”

“A fortnight. But we’ll turn off before we reach the capital. The commander’s lands are southwest, in Touren.”

So the guard had said. “Are you part of his household?”

“I’m the commander’s aide, but I report to the fort. It’s half a day’s ride further south. The commander will have little use for us until next year’s campaign, so I’ll winter there. My wife lives in Caieta, with her family.”

“She doesn’t live with you?” Reve asked, curious despite himself. In the north, wives followed their husbands and vice versa, whoever had the higher rank. Though it wasn’t unheard of to live with one’s family while married, it was rare—it was expected that a separate household would already have been established.

“In a few years I’ll qualify for larger housing at the fort, but she’s happy enough at home, and her parents can support her; why wouldn’t she live there?”

Reve didn’t have an answer for him. Once they passed Ardeche, they’d be further south than he’d ever been. He knew little of customs south of the Vaen.

He looked for Leal, but the column stretched out beyond what he could see. Leal was likely ahead in the king’s party, but Reve wouldn’t know for sure until they halted and he could find out for himself.

There were still a few hours left of daylight when the column trickled to a halt. Ditches lined the perimeter of the camp; the large tents he’d seen from his room in the castle were already up at the center of the site. He’d thought the camp at Salenne had been made deliberately more permanent, but it seemed the army went through this every night.

He and Tauro rubbed down the horses, finding Mathias’s grey already at the picket line. Following Tauro to the center of the camp, he saw that most of the infantry had arrived and were setting up their own tents in ordered rows from the central ones. The commander’s tent had been unrolled on an area of flat ground. It was short work putting up the tent with the two of them; Reve thought Tauro seemed glad for the help.

Lashing the final rope in place, Reve looked up. Tauro was deep in discussion with an older soldier about the placement of one of the units in the column. Their backs were to him. He wouldn’t have a better opportunity to check the security of the camp, get a feel for the layout. Find out where Leal was being held.

He half-expected to be called back, but if Tauro saw him slip away, his voice was drowned out by the buzz of noise from the camp. He got a few startled looks, though he thought it was more his lack of livery than northern coloring. Tauro was right about the absence of servants or slaves in the army. Most of the work seemed to be done by the younger soldiers or aides.

Through the rows of tents, he spotted the perimeter. They’d planted the ditches with spikes. Sentry guards manned them every hundred feet.

So the camp was as adept at keeping men in as well as out. He’d known that escape was unlikely, but he hadn’t expected the option to be taken so thoroughly away.

Returning to the camp’s center, he cut to an open path between the tents. At the end of it was a small clearing, with a larger tent surrounded by men in dark red cloaks. The king’s tent, by the size of it. Leal must be held somewhere nearby.

“Auxilium.”

He’d attracted the attention of one of the red-cloaked guards. The man advanced, his sword half out of his scabbard.

Instinctively Reve stepped back, and met the unyielding plane of an armored chest. A hand closed around the back of his neck. An all-too-familiar voice said above him, “He’s with me.”

The guard’s hand didn’t leave his sword, though his expression relaxed a fraction. “A spoil of war, eh, Commander?” His eyes made Reve’s skin crawl. “Still, he shouldn’t be in this section of camp.”

An edge to his voice, Mathias said, “Stand down, guardsman.”

There was a short, strange tension before the guard released his sword back into its scabbard. “As you say, my lord. Just keep him on a tighter leash.”

Mathias’s hand tightened on Reve’s neck as he pulled him around, steering him away from the guard.

Reve’s skin burned under Mathias’s grip. His shoulders knotted in the effort to keep himself from pulling away. When they reached Mathias’s tent, Mathias lifted the flap and pushed him inside. “Exploring the camp?”

“No one said I couldn’t.”

Impatience rolled from Mathias and filled the tent, standing the hair on the back of Reve’s neck on end. Mathias’s hair was still wet with sweat from the march; he looked tired and short-tempered from his exchange with the guard.

“Then let me be more precise. If you’re not with Tauro, you’ll be in this tent. If I catch you out again, you’ll spend the next two weeks chained to your horse. I guarantee you won’t find it pleasant.” He moved to the tent flap, clearly not expecting a response.

Despite himself, Reve asked, “What’s an auxilium?”

Mathias’s hand stilled on the flap. “A local. One who knows the lay of the land and can advise the king’s army.”

A traitor, then. Reve wondered if it was better to be a traitor or a slave.

Mathias must have seen something in his expression. His voice softened a hair. “You won’t find any sympathy in camp. Even less from the king’s guard. My protection only extends so far.”

“I never asked for it.”

Mathias’s eyebrow raised. “Would you rather I give you to the men? They’d enjoy a northern novelty.” His gaze traced a line down Reve’s body, as contemptuous and knowing as the guard, sending a shiver down Reve’s back.

Reve knew Mathias had meant it as a warning, but for a brief moment Mathias’s gaze turned appreciative. His eyes darkened; the corner of his mouth quirked. Reve managed to find his voice through the thud of his pulse; he’d never had such raw regard directed at him before. “You wouldn’t do that.”

“No.” Mathias’s eyes returned to Reve’s. “But if you don’t want to test my patience further, you’ll hold to your promise to behave.”

He turned and ducked back under the flap.

Reve’s hands had clenched into fists. He released them with an effort. He didn’t know what it was about Mathias that inspired such a strong reaction in him.

Tauro returned to the tent a short while later, his expression closed. He placed a bowl of stew on the small folding table and barely looked at Reve before leaving. Reve regretted the loss of a potential ally.

The few things he’d brought with him from home were in a leather pack next to the bedding. Clothing, mostly; he’d left all his personal possessions behind, save for a book his mother used to read to him as a child. He took it out now, running his hand over the worn and cracked cover. This morning he’d been in his room in the castle. Three days ago he’d been a prince, his brother still alive, and his father sitting on the seat of Salenne.

He fell asleep with his hand curled around the book.

The sound of the tent flap opening and closing woke him. The candle guttering on the table threw shadows across the walls of the tent. When Reve turned his head, Mathias was undressing in the faint light.

“Go back to sleep,” Mathias said, not looking his way.

Reve turned back to the tent wall. His heart was pounding. Just a reaction to being woken. He listened to the sounds of cloth against skin, then the tent was cloaked in darkness as Mathias blew the candle out.

****

They passed Ardeche on the third day. A single rider could cover the distance in one, if he didn’t mind foundering his horse, but the army had the pace of a newly woken bear.

Reve looked up at the fortress as they passed. Ardeche guarded the main pass into the north and was built as such. It was a castle made for siege, but the lord of Ardeche, knowing the king could outwait him, had met him on the field instead. Ardeche had been decimated, its fighting men wiped out, its lord dead on the battlefield.

No doubt the south held greater wonders, but it was the largest castle in the north. Now it was just another sign of the king’s conquest.

Reve welcomed the tedium of the march, the hours spent caring for the horses and the tent. The camp was guarded too tightly for him to escape; he wouldn’t attempt it anyway as long as the king held Leal. If there was a way out, he couldn’t see it.

He rarely saw Mathias. He was up before Reve in the morning and returned to the tent when Reve had already fallen asleep. If he hadn’t seen the indentation on Mathias’s bedroll when he and Tauro packed it, he would think the man never slept.

A week into the march, Mathias found him at the picket line where Reve was rubbing down the horses. “Come with me.”

After a startled moment, Reve followed him.

Torch smoke filled the air as they left the picket line. They passed rows of tents until they reached the cluster of red-cloaked guards. They eyed Reve but said nothing as Mathias continued past the large tent that Reve had assumed was the king’s and halted in front of a smaller one.

“I think you’ll find less comfort in it than you hope, but perhaps it will help clarify some things for you.” Mathias motioned to the guard to open the tent flap.

Mathias’s words fled from Reve’s head when he saw his brother kneeling on the rug of the tent, playing with a set of carved soldiers Ansel had given him last solstice.

Leal looked up, his eyes widening. “Reve!”

Reve knelt and took him in his arms. It felt like years, not days since he’d seen him—he could still see Leal at the gate watching them ride out to battle, his white scared face at being left behind.

He held Leal out at arm’s length to look him over. “Are you all right?”

Like Ansel, Leal took after their mother in looks, with his dark hair and pale blue eyes like ice over the lake in winter. Those eyes met his uncertainly. “The king says we’re going to Cortesa—are you going there, too? You didn’t come to see me at the castle.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” Reve’s grip tightened on Leal’s arms; he forced himself to loosen it. He didn’t want to frighten Leal any more than he already was. “The king comes here?”

Tentatively, as if anticipating Reve’s disapproval, Leal said, “I know what father and Ansel said about him, but I think he’s kind.”

The King of Cortesa would have little to gain by terrorizing his new vassal, but the idea of him being kind to the son of the man he’d defeated and humiliated was too much to believe. “What has he told you?”

“Just that I’m going to live with him for a while. He said....” Another furtive look. “He said I’ll be Prince of Salenne someday. That I’ll need to live apart from you and father for a while. Father said so, too.”

Reve had never thought of Salenne as his; it had always been meant for Ansel. But it still felt strange to have his rightful claim taken away. “Father swore an oath. It’s our duty to uphold it.”

Leal’s voice was small. “Is Ansel really dead?”

“Yes.” Reve’s throat tightened on the word.

“Will you visit me in Cortesa?”

The commander’s hand came down heavily on Reve’s shoulder. “It’s time.”

“We’ll see each other again soon,” Reve promised, knowing it was unlikely—he’d been given his reward for good behavior, and he doubted it would be granted again. But the ease in Leal’s eyes was enough to forgive the lie.

Outside the tent, the camp was a blur of torchlight and black night. Mathias was a silent presence beside him.

Anger and grief twisting the words, until he thought he couldn’t get them out, Reve said, “What right does your king have to do this?”

“He has a victor’s right.” Mathias’s expression was hidden in the shadows thrown by the torches. Reve couldn’t read anything in his voice.

Perhaps it will help clarify some things for you. Mathias had been right. He hadn’t accomplished anything. It had just been another reminder of how tight the king’s grip was. How little chance there was to slip through it.

Reve would put his support behind his brother gladly if it would ensure one of them would sit on his father’s seat one day. Perhaps his father had known that when he’d agreed to the king’s terms. The good son.

It was small comfort, knowing what lay ahead.

Chapter Three

Mathias’s heart loosened when they left the king and bulk of his army, turning south and west toward home. The twenty-odd soldiers accompanying them would spend the night at Touren then head further south to the fort.

It was late in the third day before they reached Touren. Silvino came out of the house to meet them. “The banquet hall has been prepared for the men, my lord.”

Mathias’s eyes went to Reve, standing uncertainly as his horse was led away by one of the stable boys. He looked lost and out of his element as he took in the hills and fields so familiar to Mathias.

Silvino followed his gaze. “A northerner, my lord?”

“A prisoner,” Mathias said, then amended: “A slave.”

“I’ll have a pallet prepared for him in your rooms.” Silvino gestured to one of the house servants.

It was a natural assumption; Silvino knew his tastes. “No, have him taken to the stables.” He’d take Reve to Gezane later. Let the stable master introduce him to the yearlings, invest Reve in work that was familiar. Give him a stake in the workings of Touren, and perhaps in time he’d accept his life here.

Silvino recovered quickly. “Of course, my lord. Will you want to dine with the men?”

Mathias wanted his first hours in Touren to be his own. “No, but make sure they’re fed and comfortable, then meet me in my study.”

His eyes rested on familiar walls and archways on his way through the villa, the soft colors of the courtyard. The faint scent of horses from the stables and fields drifted in. Already he could feel the weight of the last few months of a grueling campaign lifting.

Silvino found him in the study looking through the estate’s accounts. “I hope everything is in order, my lord.”

Mathias closed the ledger. “Of course it is.” Silvino knew Touren and the running of it far better than he did. He gestured to the chair next to the writing desk. “Tell me what’s happened since I left on campaign.”

He’d missed a lot, Mathias mused, as he sat back in his chair, listening to Silvino’s account. Two more foals born, one to the grey mare who’d had a difficult pregnancy, and apparently an even more difficult birth. But the foal had made it and had just been turned out with her mother. Mathias would get the details later from Gezane. They’d lose a quarter of the olive harvest this year to a blight discovered on some of the trees, which was more concerning, considering all of the outlying areas that relied on Touren’s olive production. Otherwise, the estate’s affairs had proceeded much as expected. Mathias was struck both by how much happened in the time he was away, and how little, ultimately, changed.

“You’ve kept everything well in hand, as always.”

“Thank you, my lord.” Silvino inclined his head. He added hesitantly, “If you’d like to bathe before retiring, I took the liberty of assigning an attendant to the bathhouse.”

Despite his fatigue, Mathias was interested. It had been a long trip, much of it spent in close proximity to an appealing former northern prince. He was already regretting his self-imposed restraint.

“Thank you, Silvino.”

He’d shed his armor and boots upon arriving, so he bypassed his rooms and went straight to the bathhouse, stripping off the remaining layers of sweat-stained travel leathers in the atrium.

Stepping into the pool, he saw Silvino’s attendant come forward. He was lovely. Dark hair rested loose around his neck. A slave, by the mark on his wrist. Touren didn’t mark their slaves, but many of the outlying regions did. Mathias didn’t remember him from before he’d left on campaign; he must be a recent acquisition.

The slave approached with a cloth in his hand. “My lord, if you wish?”

His voice was low and musical. Trained, then. By the faded look of the mark, he’d been a slave since he was young.

Mathias nodded, then let his head fall back as the slave dipped the cloth in the water and ran it down the side of Mathias’s neck. Moonlight from the windows cut high on the wall reflected off the tile. The patterned brilliance dwarfed the candles that lit the bath.

“What’s your name?”

“Adan, my lord.” Adan traced the line of Mathias’s collarbone next, washing away the travel grime that tended to lodge there above the neckline of his armor. The movement was practiced and efficient, with a hint of seduction. Well trained.

“Have you been here long?”

“I came from Scala last month, my lord.” The cloth was at Mathias’s chest now, water running in soft lines from the cloth. Mathias’s nipples peaked at the touch of the cloth; he gave a huff of pleased laughter when Adan followed the cloth with the pads of his fingers.

Mathias caught the boy’s wrist, ran his thumb against the mark on the inside of it. It was a tattoo of an eagle: the symbol of Scala. The lines were faded and smudged.

“How long were you in Scala?”

“I was born there.” Adan shivered at the slow rub of Mathias’s thumb on his wrist, his eyes deep pools reflecting the candlelight—he was aroused, not afraid.

The boy stood, tugging his wrist from Mathias’s grip, then pulled his shift over his head in one smooth movement and let the linen fall to the tiled floor behind him.

“Where did Silvino find you,” Mathias murmured. Adan smiled, recognizing the compliment.

“He hoped you’d find me satisfactory.” He knelt next to Mathias, drew the cloth over the tight skin of Mathias’s stomach, then lower. With his other hand he caught Mathias’s wrist and kissed the tips of his fingers.

For a moment, Mathias wondered what it would be like to be with a man without a slave mark between them. To come together with someone who chose him freely. He’d had plenty of slaves warm his bed, but no one Cortesa would recognize as an equal.

“My lord,” Adan murmured. Then there was only the harsh sound of their breathing, Adan’s whispered words spoken in the dialect of the southern villages.

It was good to be home.

****

The loft above the stables was home to half a dozen stable boys, who laughed at Reve’s accent and called him pallido for his pale skin. They pestered him with questions about the army as Reve helped them with the morning feed—if he’d seen any battles, killed many men. Reve kept his answers short and vague. They didn’t seem to mind. He was like them, but had ridden in the army as a man. Already they were in awe of him.

He followed their lead, feeding the horses both stabled and in the pasture, following a turnout schedule they must have memorized since Reve never saw anything written down. Mucking out stalls, scrubbing down the walkways, and for a few lucky ones a chance to longe or ride a horse under the scrutiny of the stable master, Gezane.

He was checking the small brown mare’s foreleg for heat—he didn’t know their names yet—when he looked up to find Mathias leaning over the stall door, watching him.

Perhaps it was the lack of armor, or his worn, nondescript linen shirt, but Mathias hardly resembled the man Reve had shared a tent with on the march. Some of the restless tension Reve had sensed in him seemed to be sated.

“Is she lame?”

“Not yet, but she’s sore. I’d leave her in for a few days, then send for a farrier if she’s still off.” The hoof had looked healthy enough, but there could be something Reve couldn’t see.

“I’ll make sure it’s done. Have you seen Gezane yet?”

Reve had, but only from across a paddock. A small man, at least fifty, but with hair still black and tightly curled around his head. The boys scrambled for his attention at the same time they joked about him behind his back.

“I’ll take you to him,” Mathias said, at Reve’s head shake.

Reve followed Mathias to a small house near the upper pasture. Touren was sprawling and indefensible in a way that made the back of Reve’s neck prick; he wasn’t used to the lack of walls and surrounding forest.

Gezane was on the back porch, the remains of a midday meal and several pages of loose parchment covered in cramped black ink spread out on a table in front of him. “Move out of the light, Navar.”

Mathias moved obediently, pulling up a stool. “I’ve brought you an assistant.”

Gezane eyed Reve. “Yes, I’ve seen him with the other boys, cleaning out horse dung. What makes you think he can be any help to me?”

Reve fingered the edge of one of the pieces of parchment. “Are these bloodlines?”

Gezane glared and moved the parchment out of reach. “Can he read, or is he guessing?”

“The former, I assume.” Reve felt Mathias’s eyes on him, but he didn’t confirm either way. The northern and southern scripts had some minor differences, but he could guess enough to fill in what was unfamiliar. “Try him out with the yearlings. See how he does.”

“And if he ruins them with clumsy treatment?”

“Then the penalty will be on my head. But I suspect you’ll find he has more talents than you think.” Mathias stood, his boots creaking. “I’ll leave you two to become acquainted.”

Gezane looked Reve over once Mathias had gone.

“You’re a pretty one.” It came out nothing like a compliment. “I’m not surprised you’ve turned his head.”

Reve set his jaw and said nothing.

“Ah, silence. At least you won’t plague me with useless chatter. Come on, then.”

Gezane led the way to an upper pasture. Five yearlings were grazing: a chestnut, three bays, and a mottled roan that would come out grey in a few years. They’d been handled well, curious about him but not skittish when Reve held his hand out for them to sniff.

Gezane handed him the lead and a longe line hanging from the fence. Reve chose one of the bays first. He took her down to a flattened patch of worn ground. She liked to pull on the line, more to test its boundaries than any desire to get away, but it was clear she’d been treated well in her young life. The rest were as well behaved, except for the chestnut, who gave him a little trouble.

“Don’t worry about him,” Gezane said. His expression had turned thoughtful. “He’s got a stubborn streak, but he’ll come around. His mother was the same.”

The yearlings hadn’t been worked hard enough to sweat, but Reve rubbed them down anyway, knowing that the more handling they had, the better.

Gezane took the lead and longe line from him silently when Reve was done, leading the way down to the house. “You can sleep here,” he said, hauling out a straw pallet and dragging it through a doorway in the main room—a summer kitchen once, Reve guessed, by the look of the massive fireplace. The doorway led to a narrow back porch, lined by a low stone wall and open archways that let in the breeze. “At least a northerner won’t be so thin-blooded to come in at the first sign of winter, but there’s room at the hearth if you can’t take the cold.”

It was more private than the stable loft, anyway. “What do you breed for?” At home, the yearlings would be hunters, with their wide chests and long legs.

“The army. Those five will be cavalry horses, though I might keep back the grey for breeding. Some of them go to the races.”

“At the capital?”

Gezane spit to the side. “I’d not race my horses there. Isola holds races in the summer. Some of ours have run.”

“Where is Isola?” Reve stumbled over the name.

“Inland,” Gezane said. “Near the mountains.”

That night Reve stared through the open archways of the back porch at the tangled shadows of the olive grove, wondering if Leal was in Cortesa now. What the city looked like to his brother, who had never been anywhere but Salenne.

Reve could have stolen a horse days ago, with all the freedom he’d been given, but it wasn’t chains that kept him here. Not while the king still held Leal.

He took refuge in the routine, spending his days with the yearlings or helping in the stables. The yearlings were easy to work with, though the chestnut still gave him some trouble. Sometimes he saw Mathias watching him from the edge of the pasture, but he was always gone by the time Reve finished.

“The last day of harvest,” one of the stable boys said, when Reve asked about the increased buzz in the kitchens. “We light bonfires in the lower pasture.”

Touren wasn’t an agricultural estate, aside from the vineyard and olive grove, but it seemed to be some kind of local festival. With a shock, Reve counted back. Almost three weeks on the march, another three weeks here. It had been the end of summer when he’d left Salenne.

That night the horses were fed early, and even Gezane let off his work with the two- and three-year-olds. Reve had only idly noted how many people worked the estate, but there seemed to be several times that many around the bonfires. Perhaps the rest were from the village. Nearby were smaller cookfires with a couple of pheasants and a pig turned by two of the women from the kitchen who paused to chat with those who passed, their bright dresses protected by aprons.

Someone passed him a mug of wine when he joined the stable lot spread out on clean horse blankets near one of the fire. He took a cautious sip; he hadn’t had wine since he’d left home. It was sweeter than what he was used to, with a headier aftertaste.

Food made its way in rounds and he tried all of it. Bread that had been baked that morning, a wing from one of the pheasants. There’d never been a lack of food at Touren, but it was an odd feeling to be so weighted down with food and drink. He leaned back on the horse blanket, cushioned his head on crossed arms and stared at the sparks from the bonfires.

“Will you dance?” The hem of a skirt brushed his arm. One of the girls from the kitchen. Julina, Reve thought her name was. She had brown eyes like a deer and black hair usually worn knotted at the nape of her neck, but now was tied back loosely with a ribbon, strands curling around her face.

Reve took her hand and clumsily scrambled up. Male and female relations in Salenne were considerably more chaperoned, at least in Reve’s limited experience—he would have soon been expected to take an interest in the daughters of his father’s liegemen. But Julina didn’t seem to think her question anything out of the ordinary.

He eyed the dancers, not familiar with their movements. “I don’t know the steps.”

Julina laughed. “I’ll show you,” she said, and pulled him out to the others.

It wasn’t a difficult dance. Reve watched her feet, followed along awkwardly at first, but there were only three steps repeated with minor variations, so he soon had the basic rhythm of it. Julina was an enthusiastic dancer, and her energy was catching. Reve thought he saw Gezane on the other side of the circle with one of the cooks, but then it was a blur of hands and feet, another girl taking the place of Julina for a round, until he begged off from it entirely to catch his breath.

He found a quiet spot out of the light of the fires. The air was cool on his skin. Some had paired off or gone to bed. He was surprised to recognize the steward sharing a pheasant wing with the woman who ran the kitchen.

A few feet beyond him, leaning back on a blanket, was Mathias.

He wore a blue embroidered shirt and dark pants in a soft material. It suited him better than his armor. He looked rested, at peace in a way that belied the violence Reve had seen on the battlefield, and later had sensed coiled inside him, sated but still awake. Now it was either purged or sleeping.

Later, after the dancing had ended and most had retired for the night, he found himself sharing a jug of wine with Gezane.

“How long have you known the—Lord Mathias?”

Gezane grunted. “Since before he was a wide-eyed boy in the king’s army. The old king, not this hot-blooded one. I was his man-at-arms.”

“So all this.” Reve waved his hand at the estate.

“All of it came later. He owes more than you know to that king of his.”

After seeing him in battle, Reve thought that Mathias had paid for it in full.

It wasn’t any of his concern. He was here because of the king of Cortesa’s sick humor and because his father had dared to defy him. He finished off the wine in his mug, the light of the bonfires turned ethereal.

The air tasted like winter.

Chapter Four

“We’ll have eight more ready to send to the fort,” Gezane said, accepting the mug Mathias held out to him. Firelight carved out the lines of his face, adding years to his age. Not that Mathias could ever conceive of him as old; Gezane was constant and eternal. “Early spring at the latest. I’ll speak with the captain.”

Mathias nodded, taking a long sip of wine. He’d closed the shutters of the study and built the fire up higher, but still there was a chill in the room. He’d woken that morning to frost. Silvino had nearly finished preparations for the estate’s solstice feast.

“Have we received payment for the last lot?”

“Nothing more than promises. War’s a costly business, as our king is finding out.”

“Send the new ones as planned.” The estate could bear the expense. If Touren hadn’t received anything by summer, he’d approach the chancellor, but until then, Mathias owed Arturus for more than a few horses. “How are the yearlings?”

“A good crop this year,” Gezane said. He glanced at Mathias sidelong. “That boy of yours does well enough with them. Not so hard-headed as some I’ve taught.”

“I don’t remember being so terrible.” Mathias shifted on the chair, drawing closer to the fire. “Has he spoken of his life before?” He’d been to the yearling pasture a few times to watch Reve work with them. He had a patience that surprised Mathias in one so young.

“Some. Not much. We speak mostly of the horses.”

“He was a…prince, from the Allard lands. Salenne. The third castle we took on that campaign.”

“And now he is not.”

“Arturus was within his rights. He could have had him killed.”

“The king plays a game of his own.”

Mathias had thought much the same, back in Salenne. He raised his mug to his lips. “He’s not a pawn,” he said, tasting the lie as well as wine on his lips. In different hands, Reve would absolutely be a pawn. Is that Arturus’s test for me? “He’s a slave. With his own reasons for behaving, so give him as long a leash as you deem fit, but don’t forget what he is.”

Gezane shrugged. “Men are many things, Navar.”

Sparks flared as a log shifted in the fireplace. Mathias finished the wine in his mug. “You’ll be at the solstice feast?”

“The magistrate will be there,” Gezane said, accepting the change of subject. “And he’s an idiot. All he knows is to spend money on the highest priced horse available, never mind that he’s being cheated.”

“Yes, but it will be our horses he’s viewing.”

Gezane remained unmoved. Mathias found himself suffering through the evening of visiting dignitaries in the banqueting hall alone, knowing the rest of the household was at their own, more enjoyable celebration in the kitchens.

With a promise to show the magistrate the horses in the morning—Mathias was certainly not above taking the man’s money—he escaped the hall for a breath of air. The room had been stifling. Cool air from the courtyard washed over him, moonlight showing off the central fountain and winter foliage.

A figure stood in front of the fountain. Reve.

Mathias leaned against a pillar and watched him. He’d fulfilled his obligation to the king. He should have forgotten about Reve entirely once he’d sent him to the stables. He was long past the age to be held captive by a pretty face.

Still, there was something. Reve was learning the motions of his situation well enough, but he had yet to yield to any of it. If he’d been one of Mathias’s soldiers he’d have either been promoted or thrown out. Mathias didn’t know yet which way he would break.

“Do you like it?” Mathias stepped forward and gestured to the fountain. Reve startled at his approach, but recovered quickly.

“We don’t have anything like it at home.”

The fountain wasn’t large. The tile that lined it was old, the colors and design no longer fashionable. But it was one of the things that had drawn Mathias to the house. The statue at the center was of a drinking horse, moonlight reflecting off white marble.

“Our artists don’t have the time for such things now.” Mathias’s tongue felt wine-loosened, easy in the cool night. “They’re too busy designing war machines.” He placed a hand on the fountain’s rim. “This was made a hundred years ago. You can see the craftsmanship.” He gestured to the stone. “Most of those quarries are dry now from building at the capital.”

“My brother and I once rode to a ruin north of my father’s castle, filled with statues made by the ancients. Nothing like this—most of them were unrecognizable, but some had the form of the old gods, twisted and shaped like nothing I’ve seen. The villagers said the ruin was haunted, but Ansel wanted to see.”

For Reve it was practically a speech. “Was it?”

Reve shrugged. “Ansel’s curiosity was sated when no ghosts appeared.”

“And yours?”

“I thought we had disturbed it enough.”

A strange response. Mathias studied him, but Reve’s expression was hooded, either remembering or trying to forget.

“You can come here if you want—in daylight, I mean. The fountain’s beautiful in full sunlight.”

Reve raised an eyebrow. “Do you grant all your slaves such favor?”

Matching his dry tone, Mathias said, “Not usually those who have not shown me favor.”

He must be more wine-drunk than he thought. He heard Reve’s sharp indrawn breath. Then he was reaching out to cup the side of Reve’s face, fingers tangling in his hair. Reve was like the statue, frozen under Mathias’s hand. He moved his thumb to brush Reve’s lips.

For a brief moment, Reve’s lips parted. It was a shock, that fleeting acquiescence, and it wasn’t the wine buzzing in Mathias’s head that made him imagine Reve’s hesitation. The air was thick with it.

Then Reve shifted away. “The steward sent me to get more wine.”

“They can do without for now. Or Silvino will send someone else to fetch it.”

Reve was silent, his expression closed, whatever he might have felt hidden behind it.

Mathias turned back to the fountain. Wine and the moment hummed in his veins. “Go, then, if you’re so eager to leave. But tell me first: what drew you to the courtyard?”

Reve hesitated, then said, “I wanted to see the fountain.”

“To admire it?”

“It reminded me of Ansel.” Reve’s voice was suddenly disquieted. “I saw him. It was a dream, but it felt real. We were on the field. He was alive, but I was—” He shook his head as if to clear the vision.

He’d been troubled by it. Mathias had the sudden urge to shield Reve from whatever it was he’d seen. “Go, then.” Reve hesitated a moment more before disappearing back into the shadows of the house.

Mathias stayed in the courtyard after Reve had left, until the cold air had cleared his head of wine.

He met Silvino on his way back to the feast. “It’s my fault the wine was delayed.”

Silvino shook his head. “A message arrived for you, my lord.” He handed Mathias a rolled missive. “From the capital.”

“The king?” Mathias said, though it could be from no other. Any military matters would be routed through the fort.

“The messenger said he would await your reply.”

Mathias took it to his study, unrolling it to read by the lighted candles on his desk. He tried to read the meaning behind Arturus’s words, determine if his request had more to do with boredom than politics. The capital was a nest of vipers, the council a battle for power and access that had little to do with ruling, and not all of its members approved of Cortesa’s wars.

He penned his own note at the bottom, signed and sealed it, then found the messenger in the room next to the kitchens, eating at the long table. He’d had a long ride this solstice night.

“Take this to the king in the morning,” Mathias said, handing him the sealed missive. “And tell him I’ll be there within a fortnight.”

****

“The master is looking for you,” one of the house servants said, his nose wrinkling at the smell of horse that permeated the stable, Reve, and now his clothes.

“Now?” Reve released the gelding’s foreleg where he’d been picking the hoof clean. His chest thumped loudly at the message. It wasn’t like Mathias to request his presence at any time of day.

“Of course now,” the servant said irritably.

Reve washed his hands in the trough outside the stable, then ducked his head in the water to clear it. Drying his face and hands on his shirt, he followed the servant through the winding corridors of the villa to a plain wooden door. Reve braced himself a moment more before knocking.

“Enter.”

Mathias looked up when the door opened. He sat behind a table with quill pen and parchment. Their eyes met. Reve’s face heated. He could still feel the imprint of Mathias’s hand on his face, the tug of fingers in his hair. Mathias’s thumb pressed against his lips. It was enough to know that he was up against the forces of Cortesa; he didn’t need his own body betraying him as well.

Mathias put the pen aside and sat back. “I’m riding to the capital within the week.”

Reve’s pulse leaped. Leal. “My lord, I—”

Mathias raised a hand. “If it were my will, I would leave you here. But the king commands your presence as well.”

“Is Leal all right?”

“As far as I’m aware.” Mathias’s voice held a note of warning. “You will accompany me, but I cannot say if you will see your brother.” He rose from his chair and came around the table to lean against its edge. “That is not the problem.”

Reve waited. If there was even a chance to see Leal, even just to confirm that he was all right, any other complications Mathias could think of were trivial.

“As you’ve gathered, I am rather—loose with my household. Not all men are soldiers. Most require a different touch to thrive. But Cortesa is not Touren. The expectations of the capital are considerably more exacting.”

Reve’s lip curled. “Expectations for its slaves, you mean.”

“Yes,” Mathias said evenly.

So Mathias wanted him to play the obedient slave. Kneel at his feet, act the role of the bed slave the king had intended him to be. “Fine. I’ll behave however you want, submit to whatever you would have of me, kiss the king’s feet if you’d let me see Leal.”

Mathias’s smile was wry. “Is that how a slave responds? It’s not for you to make demands or negotiate deals.”

Reve bit back his immediate reply. “Then what would you have me do?”

Mathias rose from his perch and went to the door. “Adan.” A moment later a dark-haired boy in a simple linen tunic entered and knelt in the middle of the room, sitting back on his heels with his head bowed.

Reve took in the slave’s still form, his utter submission, and something clawed at his throat like fear.

“I would not take a half-broken horse to the sales. The capital lives by its traditions, and can be unforgiving to those who break them. There’s only so much I can shield you from.”

For my own good, Reve thought bitterly. But for the chance to see Leal again—

“I’ll do whatever you wish of me,” he said, not looking at the kneeling slave.

Mathias’s gaze was skeptical. “I’ll leave you to it, then.” At a gesture, Adan rose smoothly and retreated.

When Reve didn’t immediately follow, Mathias raised an eyebrow at him—a challenge. Mathias didn’t think he could do it.

Reve turned and followed the slave out.

“I’ve never trained another slave,” Adan said, when Reve caught up with him. They passed the courtyard, then down another corridor. Adan moved quickly for one so small. Reve had to stretch his legs to keep up.

“What does this training entail?”

Adan halted and looked Reve over. His dark hair framed a delicate yet masculine face. At first Reve had thought he was younger than Reve, but now he was less sure. “You’re old to begin training. Have you been a slave long?”

“Not long,” Reve said, after a pause.

Adan’s nose wrinkled. “Bath first.”

“I’d just been with the horses,” Reve said, in his defense. Adan shrugged as if that only proved his point.

The villa’s bathhouse was small compared to the common one, but more intricately decorated. Sunlight from the high windows patterned the water. Adan pulled his tunic over his head with an enviable lack of self-consciousness. He was an efficient manager as well, herding Reve into the bath as if Reve’s movements were of his own volition and not Adan’s doing. He worked soap into Reve’s hair, dunking his head to rinse it, then tugged Reve to the edge of the bath and began to trim his hair.

The heat of the bath was surprisingly lulling. Reve felt himself relax despite himself. Adan seemed to have that effect. “How long have you been a slave?”

“I’ve always been a slave. My mother was one, in Scala. My father was a cavaliere. He owned us for a while, then I left to be trained and he sold my mother to a merchant. She’s good with figures.”

Reve tried to imagine being born to that life. “Do you ever see her?”

“Not since I came here. But the master said I could visit her if I wanted. He’s kind.”

Easy for Mathias to be kind; he wasn’t the one enslaved.

“What was your own training like?” They had no one like Adan in Salenne. The closest he knew of were bondsmen, but they were bought and sold for labor, not sex, and could buy their way free after a set number of years.

“Dressing and undressing a master, the proper way to serve a meal, caring for a master’s personal belongings. How to please a man in bed.” At Reve’s silence, Adan asked, “How is it in the north? Between two men, I mean.”

Reve had known of a few such pairings. One couple had lived in the village, one of the men a blacksmith, which had forestalled any harassment they might have gotten. Another pair had been hunters living on the outskirts of Salenne, nearly to the hills. “It’s not common, but if the parties are discreet, then it’s usually accepted. Is that how it is in Cortesa, too?”

“Oh, it’s fine for slaves, and for a master to use his slave as such, but free men and women are expected to wed and bear children.” Adan tugged at Reve’s shoulder, scrutinizing his handiwork when Reve turned. “Better.”

Reve put a hand to his head. The wet strands now reached the middle of his neck. Self-consciously, he said, “What now?”

Adan handed him a tunic like his own. The cloth was lighter than what Reve was used to, more finely woven. He pulled it over his head. The texture of it felt strange against his scrubbed skin after the rougher clothes of the stable.

Adan led him to a plain room with a bed and wool rug, its lone window facing the olive grove. The sun slanted in cheerfully.

“What is this place?”

“This is where he comes to see me.”

“Oh.” Of course Mathias would take him to bed. Adan was beautiful.

Reve went to the window and rested his hand on the sill. He could see the edge of the olive grove, smell the cypress trees that lined the path to the stable, but it was overlaid with the memory of pressure on his lips, that brief taste of Mathias’s skin.

“Have you never pleasured someone in bed?”

There’d been that winter with Colan, the two of them barely older than boys, meeting furtively in the empty west tower; he remembered long afternoons with Colan’s hands and mouth on him, his own desperate response. Then, when he was sixteen, Ansel had taken him to the village tavern, both of them plain-clothed and ending up with one of the tavern women for a different kind of fumbling in the dark. Few of the servant women, or men, would have said no to him if he had approached them, but it wasn’t the expected behavior of a prince. He’d left that notoriety to Ansel.

“I won’t be sharing his bed.” Although in truth he didn’t know what Mathias expected of him. Or how far he would take this pretense.

Adan raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment. “In Cortesa you’ll learn not to look a free man in the eye. And how to kneel out of the way when you’re not needed. I’ll teach you how to properly. And how to care for the master as well.” His eyes slanted with a hint of humor. “Even if you won’t share his bed.”

Working with the horses, it had been easy to forget he was a slave. It was work he was used to. Honorable. But this…the image of Adan kneeling with his neck bowed, deliberately making himself vulnerable, made his stomach twist.

It was pride, maybe. He was the son of a prince. Aside from his father, he’d never had to kneel to anyone before.

“I don’t understand how you can—” He stopped. Adan didn’t deserve his derision.

“You think it makes you less.”

“It feels dishonorable. It takes away what little power I have.”

Adan shrugged. “Power isn’t always about force. There’s honor in serving. I like knowing that I can affect someone else. That I have a place in their thoughts.”

“You don’t need to submit to them for that.”

“No, but I like that, too.” Adan smiled. “Not everyone does. But submission isn’t always what’s desired. Have you truly never served?”

Reve had never served in that capacity, no. But he’d been told since he was born that he was a servant to his father’s lands, subject to its needs and bound to it by birth. He supposed it wasn’t so different.

“Perhaps someday you’ll find someone you want to serve.”

Reve agreed, but not in the way Adan meant. If there was a cause to serve, it would be Leal. And everything else…well. Reve had been willing to die for his home, his kin. If it meant he would be forced to play a part, even this part, then so be it.

Cortesa

Chapter Five

Men from the fort met them a few hours past dawn. Mathias had requisitioned ten, not that he anticipated trouble on the road, but it was enough to form an honor guard without advertising their presence.

“His wife is due to give birth,” one of the soldiers said when Mathias asked about Tauro’s absence. “But any of us can serve as your aide, if you wish, Commander.”

Mathias glanced at Reve, standing silently next to his horse. Reve had always been quiet, but now he was practically demure. Mathias wondered if it would be enough.

“That won’t be necessary.”

They set out, the ground hard but not frozen. Winter travel wasn’t ideal, but the weather had warmed since the solstice and the sun was out. They reached the garrison at Anza in late afternoon. Reve disappeared with one of the garrison’s men to assist in readying quarters while Mathias joined the other men in the hall for food and wine and the ranking officer’s speculative talk on next summer’s campaign.

It was late by the time he made his way to the quarters of the unlucky officer who’d been dislodged to make room for him. He’d been moderate with the wine, though the food and day’s ride buzzed under his skin.

Reve knelt by the fireplace, dozing. He’d removed his outer layer of clothes and boots, dressed only in his undershirt and breeches. Mathias closed the door behind him.

Reve’s eyes opened.

“My lord.” He stood quickly and approached, hands raised to the clasp of Mathias’s cloak. “If you will.”

Bemused, Mathias let him remove his cloak and hang it on a hook near the door. Reve knelt at his feet. “Your boots,” he said, when Mathias didn’t immediately respond. Mathias lifted his foot and balanced himself with a hand on Reve’s head. Reve stiffened but made no comment, pulling Mathias’s boots off efficiently and placing them against the wall.

“I can handle the rest,” Mathias said, suppressing a smile. “Have you eaten?”

“No, my lord.”

“Go down to the kitchens. They’ll put some aside for you.”

Reve dipped his head—not quite a bow, but deferent enough—and left the room.

Mathias peeled off his remaining clothes and folded them over the back of a chair. The room was small but pleasant, the bed wide enough for two, though Mathias noticed Reve’s cloak laid out by the fire as if to mark the spot.

Mathias stretched out on the bed, feeling the ache of muscles unused to a day’s ride. He’d grown soft these past months in Touren.

A sharp knock pulled him to his feet, some inner alarm telling him that it was more than just Reve returning. He threw on his breeches and opened the door.

“I’m sorry, my lord.” The soldier on the other side looked as if he wished himself anywhere else. Behind him, Reve stood silently, facing away. “Your slave, he....”

Frowning, Mathias took hold of Reve’s chin and turned it toward him. The side of Reve’s face was red and beginning to swell. Blood welled from a cut near his eye. A fight, then. Not surprising when he thought about it, though his grip tightened unexpectedly at seeing the results on Reve’s face.

“I see.” He released Reve’s chin. “Your assessment?”

“The slave attacked one of the men,” the soldier said reluctantly. “Though he was provoked.”

“Regardless, it will be dealt with. Is the man seeking reparations?”

“He has not indicated as such, though—well, he’s with the physician. Not seriously hurt, or so the physician says, but he’ll not wake again until morning.”

“Then we’ll settle it tomorrow.”

Mathias opened the door wider with a glance at Reve, who slid past him into the room without expression. The soldier looked relieved—a slave was a slave, and had no rights, but he was the commander’s slave, and some men took offense at anyone other than themselves touching their property.

Mathias closed the door and turned. Reve stood silently in the center of the room.

“A little late for that,” Mathias said mildly. Reve’s jaw tightened. Mathias retrieved a cloth from the wash basin and dipped it in water. He took a moment to school his response. He’d told Reve the truth when he said the capital lived by its traditions, and that included subservience and discipline from its slaves. Lenience now would do Reve no favors.

Reve didn’t flinch when Mathias applied the cloth to his eye and wiped away blood none too gently. “I thought you would last longer than a day. Is it truly so difficult?”

“Have you ever been a slave?”

“No. And you’d be struck in Cortesa for speaking to a free man that way.” Reve tensed, though he clearly wasn’t afraid of getting hit if he was willing to take on a soldier in the king’s army. “What provoked you? Did you take a drunken proposition for a threat?”

“No,” Reve said, to Mathias’s surprise. He’d assumed it was the only thing likely to set Reve off. “He wanted me to eat on the floor like a dog.”

“Many slaves at the capital do.”

Reve was silent a moment, absorbing that. “What will you do?”

“If you were one of my soldiers, I’d set the both of you to cool your heels on the night watch or privy duty. But you’re not a soldier. It would be an insult to the men to treat you as such.”

“And if a slave in your household hit a free man?”

“He would be whipped. Ten lashes for a minor offence, more if the injured party demanded it. You’ll find out tomorrow how many it will be.”

“Very well,” Reve said, again to Mathias’s surprise. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry I hit him. I know your…tolerance has limits.”

Mathias shook his head. “It’s not my tolerance at question. I assumed you had better control.”

Reve did pale at that, then flushed hotly. “Perhaps you people treat your slaves like dogs, but I’m still a man.”

Mathias did strike him for that. Reve’s head snapped back from the force of it. In the silence that followed, Reve’s breath came fast and labored but he stayed still, fists clenched at his sides.

“I did warn you. You’d receive worse in the capital. I thought Adan had taught you some manners.”

This time Reve wisely held his tongue.

“Get some sleep.” Mathias handed the damp cloth to Reve. “I don’t expect to have to speak of this again.”

“No, my lord.”

Mathias returned to the bed. Reve stretched out in front of the dwindling fire, cloth pressed to his eye, staring up at the ceiling. If he sensed Mathias’s eyes on him, he didn’t turn.

“First time in a fight?”

Reve’s voice came slowly across the distance between them. “No.”

“You seem to have acquitted yourself well.”

“He was…surprised. He wasn’t expecting me to fight back.”

“No, I suppose not.” Mathias stared up at the dim ceiling. “In some parts of the empire they would take a slave’s hand for that.”

“That’s barbaric,” Reve said flatly.

“Perhaps. Though the world isn’t much kinder to free men.” Curious, he asked, “What would be the punishment in Salenne?”

“If someone was prone to fighting, he’d be ostracized from the village for a time—locked out of the gate and forced to fend for himself.”

“Some would find that a greater cruelty.”

“It’s for the protection of the village as much as punishment.”

“I imagine that wouldn’t apply to the son of a prince?”

“No.” Reve made a sound like a sigh. “Just a lecture about appearances and duty.” He fell silent, the faint crack of the fire the only sound in the room.

The next morning the injured soldier looked as if he’d regretted ever speaking to the commander’s slave, or waking up at all.

“I leave it to your lord’s judgment,” he said. Bad enough he’d been bested by a slave and northerner, but for the rest of the garrison to know was humiliating.

“Fifteen lashes, then,” Mathias said.

A post familiar to all soldiers stood in one corner of the training ground. Few of the men here had escaped it for some offense or another. Even Mathias had been flogged once for fighting. Honor had demanded both the fight and the acceptance of punishment for it. He understood Reve’s actions more than Reve knew.

The disciplinary officer offered him the whip, but Mathias shook his head. A soldier removed Reve’s shirt, tied him to the post. Another gave him something to bite down on. Reve accepted it without question. Only a few others lingered, enough for word to spread that the commander had treated the matter fairly, even to punish his personal slave.

Reve flinched at the first lash. Mathias could see the mark even from this distance. The officer had struck surely, impersonally. Four more followed, then the officer paused to let Reve catch his breath.

He hadn’t cried out, though Mathias could read the tension in his back. The five stripes stood out sharply against his skin. Even in the cool air, sweat lay on him like a blanket. Five more, and Reve did make a sound at the last two—a muffled reaction that seemed torn unwillingly from him. His knees buckled but he pulled himself up, and the officer rewarded him with a quick delivery of the final lashes.

Then Reve was untied, though he stood still a moment at the post.

Mathias nodded to the disciplinary officer, who recoiled his whip and left the training ground, taking with him the rest of the spectators.

“Reve,” Mathias said. He approached from the side, within Reve’s line of vision. Men sometimes had strange reactions to being flogged. Up close it was as if someone had stretched the skin over the bones of Reve’s face; he looked drawn, tired, but there was still that unyielding set to his lips, accepting for now but not giving in.

“We’ll leave in an hour. Will you be able to ride?”

“Yes, my lord.” Reve’s voice was rough. He cleared his throat. “I’ll ready the horses.”

“See a physician first. He’ll give you something for your back.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Mathias made sure he was on his way. He knew the physician, and Reve would have no trouble with him. Besides, he’d seen the expressions on the men’s faces who’d stayed to watch. Respect for how the northerner had taken the punishment; surprise that a slave could stand so much without begging.

Reve was with the others when Mathias made his way to the stables an hour later. He moved stiffly, and the heavy winter cloak must have been like fire on his back, but he was able to mount. Whether he could make the rest of the ride to the capital remained to be seen, but Mathias didn’t doubt he’d keep his complaints silent.

“Laid him out flat,” he heard one of the soldiers remark to another. “Donato’s a prick, but he’s no green fighter.”

Mathias glanced over at Reve. He was clearly in pain, but he rode with his back straight and hands light on the reins.

They stopped that night a few hours from the capital, at the country estate of one of the king’s councilors, a man Mathias had known since he was a child. Luca was at his house in the city, but his steward extended the lord’s hospitality and arranged for the men to be barracked in the hall and Mathias in a guest room.

“Have you a physician?” Mathias asked. Reve had faded toward the end, bracing himself on the pommel to stay upright. He stood next to his horse with his hand on the saddle as if it was the only thing keeping him on his feet.

“No, but there’s a healer in the village,” the steward said. “I’ll send for her.”

“Thank you.” Mathias gave his horse to one of the stable boys. Reve startled when Mathias grasped him lightly by the elbow to steady him, but he allowed the touch as Mathias guided him after the servant leading them to the guest quarters.

Mathias steered him to the bed, pausing at the edge to remove Reve’s cloak, then stepped back to let Reve deal with the shirt. Reve’s hands shook on the cloth. He turned white when it pulled against the wounds. Mathias brushed his hands away, cutting down the front of it with his knife to slide it back over his shoulders, freeing it from where it had stuck to his skin.

“Lie down,” he said, when the shirt was off and some color had returned to Reve’s face. Reve seemed about to argue, but then he laid down on his stomach on the bed, his arms at his sides.

The lash had broken skin in only a few places, but the rest of the marks were raised and swollen. Not the worst beating Mathias had ever seen, but the officer hadn’t taken anything off his strokes, either.

“The steward sent for a healer.”

“I don’t need a healer.”

“No,” Mathias agreed. “But you’ll be glad enough for whatever she gives you.”

Reve made a sound that might have been agreement or denial.

The healer concurred with Mathias’s assessment when she arrived a short time later. “Little more than scratches,” she said. Reve snorted. But she soaked some dried herbs in wine for a sleeping draught and made him drink it down before cleaning the weals with water steeped in more herbs. By the time she left, Reve’s breathing had evened out into sleep.

Mathias pulled a chair over to the bed. The herbs had soothed the angry red marks to a healthier pink. Reve’s back would heal with only a few faint scars, if any, to show for it.

Mathias brushed the hair from Reve’s face, tucked it behind one ear. Even in sleep he was tense. Mathias wondered what it would take to ease him, if Reve could ever find it in his current situation—and if he did, would Mathias count it a victory? One didn’t break good soldiers.

Reve made a sound, moved his head restlessly. If he’d been a horse Mathias would have gentled him. Instead he blew out the candles and stretched out on the bed next to him, and waited for sleep to take him.

****

It was midmorning the next day before they reached the city gates. Mathias had no love for Cortesa, but he was impressed anew by the sheer mass and blinding white of the wall, the broad paved avenue leading to the palace as wide as thirty men. Next to him Reve had a strange expression on his face—awe and a hint of fear, perhaps. Mathias understood how he must feel, faced with the knowledge that any city had such power.

They passed the houses of the rich and well-placed, most in the same white marble of the wall. The road curved, so it wasn’t until they were nearly on it that the palace came into view. It dwarfed everything around it—the pillars of the council chamber to the left, the old palace to the right, neglected and crumbling. Wide steps led to the residence, built by the old king over half his lifetime and admired by the people, largely suffering the indifference of his son.

Arturus himself came down the steps to meet them. Mathias dismounted and knelt on the flagstones beside his horse. To his relief, Reve did the same. The men followed hastily. Mathias felt the hand of the king rest briefly on the top of his head in greeting, then grip his arm to raise him, embracing him when Mathias stood.

“Mathias,” he said warmly. Cortesa made Arturus crazy, Mathias knew. He was a conqueror, not a statesman. He treated his councilors like gnats to be swatted at and ignored, and they chafed under his unpredictability. “I knew I’d get you here eventually.”

“I follow your will, Sire.”

Arturus smiled. “Walk with me.”

Mathias glanced back at the men, but a palace slave had already taken Reve in hand and the others were headed to the city garrison. He followed the king across the square to the council chamber. The king’s guard took up position at the door. At this time of day it was deserted. Sessions convened in the morning and evening, or when the king chose to call them.

“They’re like vultures,” Arturus said, as they crossed into the cool interior dominated by a massive central table. The floor held a mosaic inlay almost two centuries old. Busts of statesmen lined the walls. Arturus sprawled in a random councilor’s chair, his charm tinted by petulance. “No true men exist among them—they talk of finances, funds. They know nothing of empire.”

Mathias rested a hand on the back of another chair and considered the king. He was a soldier, not a politician. “What would you have me do, Sire?”

“You’re the commander of my army. Tell them that the men stand with us.” His expression soured. “They fear an uprising, as if any of them had the courage to stand against me.”

Mathias hadn’t realized the situation was so dire. “Have they reason for such fears?”

“Slaves twitter less. They worry at the slightest possibility and nag it to death. Who can say what lies behind it?”

For all his words of dismissal, Mathias saw that Arturus was feeling some pressure. The old king had been a diplomat, able to wield influence in the council chamber as well as the battlefield. Arturus preferred a blunter approach. Mathias’s predecessor, Guarin, had thought Arturus reckless, but Mathias had always thought it was more the chafing of a son under his father’s legacy.

Arturus stood and gripped Mathias’s shoulder. “Speak with them; they’ll listen.” An odd uncertainty came over him. “You are with me, are you not?”

“Always, Sire.”

Arturus’s smile was blinding. “Then I’ll speak with you again.”

Mathias stayed in the council chamber after the king left. He had never envied those who ran this city and its empire, never desired that kind of power. Never wanted the burden.

He didn’t return to the palace but instead headed into the city. Instinct filled in the gaps in his memory until he came upon a house he’d last been to years ago. The slave who answered the door left Mathias in the entrance hall while he fetched his master. There was a new fresco on the wall, a scene of hills and vineyards that reminded Mathias of Touren.

Footsteps approached. “Luca,” Mathias said, turning.

“Mathias.” The councilor embraced him. “I hope my staff served you well last night.”

“I’m grateful for your hospitality. I hadn’t thought to come here again.”

“I didn’t expect to see you in Cortesa again in my lifetime,” Luca said frankly. “You’ve been to see the king?”

“How true are his fears?”

“He will be our undoing, Mathias. He’ll drain this city dry and fight over its dust. I don’t know what we can do to stop him. He heeds nothing from the council.”

Mathias couldn’t help but think that the complaint was an expected one from one who sat on that council. “Has it really come to that?”

“Cortesa can’t continue to support the cost of Arturus’s wars.”

Arturus’s wars, not Cortesa’s. Mathias hadn’t realized they’d grown so unpopular. “What of the army?”

Luca led him down an atrium branching from the entrance hall and filled with winter foliage. “Most of the men are still waiting for their pay from last summer. The garrisons are beginning to feel the strain. In the north it’s worse—deserters, small rebellions from the populace. It will be spring before anything more organized rears its head, but I doubt we could meet it even then.”

“If that’s true, Arturus can’t be blind to it. Who commands the city garrison now?”

“Lord Parma’s son, Nicolo.” At Mathias’s expression, Luca said, “I see you know him.”

“He was my second on the last campaign. A political appointment.” He’d known Parma was ambitious, but he hadn’t expected him to make his move so soon.

“He’s been deep in the king’s confidence lately. He tells Arturus what he wishes to hear, but even he can’t hide all of the reports. Arturus simply chooses to disbelieve that the situation has grown desperate.”

Mathias doubted it was that simple, but it seemed Arturus and his council were at an impasse. No wonder Arturus had sought his aid, if even Luca had given up on the king.

“Come again tomorrow. A few others from the council will be here. If anyone can talk reason to the king, it’s you.”

Mathias doubted that his influence extended that far with either the council or the king, but he agreed to meet with Luca and his fellow councilors.

The sun was low in the sky when he walked back to the palace. A servant led him to a suite of rooms Mathias recognized from his last stay in the city. A fire burned in the hearth. Covered dishes of food took up one side of the table. Checking the bedroom, he saw that it was empty, except for a wide bed and a pallet set aside in an alcove with Reve’s riding clothes folded on top, his boots to the side.

He found Reve on the terrace. He was dressed in the clothing of a palace slave—a fitted shirt and pants in undyed linen, the shirt cut in a low vee in the front with embroidered edges. He wore it well, though Mathias thought the rougher clothes of Touren suited him better.

Reve didn’t turn his gaze from the city when Mathias joined him. Buildings and streets stretched farther than he could see. The setting sun reflected pink off the white marble, casting the rest of it in a soft light that faded as they watched.

“I’ve never seen such a thing.” Reve’s hand was white where it gripped the stone edge of the balustrade too tightly.

Mathias watched Reve take in the city as if trying to adjust to its sheer incomprehensible mass. Up close Cortesa was a chaotic sea, but from this vantage point its beauty was almost painful.

He nodded in the direction of the rooms. “I see you have things sorted.”

A hint of a smile. Mathias had feared resentment, after Anza. “A servant showed me to the kitchens. Though I can’t say that I’ll be able to find my way back there.”

Mathias found that he was holding his breath, waiting for...something. This unsettled feeling in his gut to pass. He wondered if Reve truly had it in him to play this role. If he knew just how precarious his position was.

He moved from the railing, deliberately breaking the spell.

“Come and eat.”

Chapter Six

Reve found his way back to the kitchens after all. It was early enough that the corridors and stairs were empty, but he stayed to the side and kept his head down until frescoed walls gave way to rough stone and low ceilings, and it all started to look familiar.

He followed the smell of baking through a low archway. There couldn’t have been more than ten in the room, women and a few younger boys, but they filled it with movement and the low hum of chatter, the room hot enough from the ovens to bead sweat on his skin.

A woman kneading dough looked up. Reve thought she was the same one who had given him the platter yesterday. Flour dusted her greying hair and smudged the side of her cheek.

“Lord Mathias,” she said, slotting him into place. “Pera,” she called, and a younger woman, almost a girl, halted in her path from table to oven. Strands of hair stuck to her forehead. “Set up a plate for the boy.”

Pera ignored Reve when he approached, busy putting together meat and dried fruit on a copper plate, adding a few hard rolls from the basket at the end of the table. “Do you need your own breakfast before you take it up?” she asked, finally looking up.

Reve glanced at the plate. Plenty for two, and he hadn’t considered that Mathias was under no obligation to share. “No,” he said, hoping he judged the situation correctly.

“Lucky you, then,” Pera said, without rancor. She eyed Reve again, catching on his face. “Wait here.”

She disappeared while Reve waited. The kitchen was surprisingly comfortable. By the casual weave of conversation, its occupants were well familiar with one another, but it felt friendly rather than excluding.

Pera returned after a moment, unstoppering a short, wide-mouthed bottle. She dipped her fingers in and retrieved a wedge of thick cream that she dabbed over the cut made by the garrison soldier.

Reve flinched. It was cold. Pera made an impatient sound. “Stay still.” She dipped her fingers in again, and this time applied the cream to his other cheek to the bruise Mathias had left.

Once it warmed to his skin, Reve noticed a slight numbing. Pera handed Reve the bottle. “You’re too pretty to have such marks,” she said, with a glint in her eye.

Reve’s face heated as he took the bottle from her. “Thank you,” he said, and Pera raised an eyebrow.

“Pretty manners, too.” She found a cover for the plate. “You’d better hurry, then, if your master’s always so harsh with you.”

It felt dishonest to let her think so, though Reve didn’t know why he felt the need to defend Mathias. “These aren’t from him,” he said, though the bruise certainly was. No one had ever struck him before, not like that. He balanced the bottle she’d given him between the plate’s edge and his thumb. “Thank you,” he said again.

Mathias was kneeling at the hearth coaxing a small fire from the kindling when Reve returned. Reve had forgotten to light it before he left, but Mathias didn’t seem annoyed. When he joined Reve at the table, Mathias looked over the platter of food, took what he wanted, and pushed the plate over to Reve.

Glad that he hadn’t misjudged him, Reve sat down and took one of the rolls. He wished he could predict the man in other ways. Would he argue Reve’s case, convince the king to let him see Leal?

Halfway through the meal they were interrupted by guards in familiar wine-red livery. Mathias stood and threw Reve a quick warning glance. Reve fought the urge to rebel as he slid from his chair to kneel beside it.

“Mathias.” Arturus strode into the room, marking his presence everywhere. Reve’s hatred for him surged. It was thick, cloying, and clouded his head.

“Sire,” he heard Mathias say.

“I wanted to be sure you had everything you needed.” Even to Reve’s ears it sounded false. He felt the king’s eyes on him and kept his gaze on the floor. His back ached with tension. “I see you use a firm hand with your slave.” Arturus didn’t sound displeased. He approached until the tips of his boots broke into Reve’s line of vision.

“How do you find him, Mathias? Does my gift have value?”

“He does well enough, Sire, for one unused to the life.”

“I wonder, though. I think some men are born to be servile, and welcome the opportunity to embrace their true nature. As it seems to be with this one.”

If Reve had a knife he could kill him before the king even realized he’d moved. The desire was so strong it drowned out everything else. He felt the weight of Mathias’s hand on his head, holding him still.

“I think men’s natures are not so simple.”

“Perhaps you’re right. His brother is bright enough. He’ll make a fine vassal. You should see him at his studies—his tutors say he’ll be a strategist. Perhaps I’ll adopt him as my own, since I have no trueborn sons.”

“You will not,” Reve hissed, but before the last word was out Mathias had forced his head down with a grip in his hair, stretching the weals on his back painfully.

“I apologize, Sire. As you see, he requires some discipline.”

“Yes,” Arturus said with satisfaction. No doubt it had been his aim. “Yet his impetuousness comes from love for his kin. That cannot be all bad.” His boots rang out as he closed the last few feet, and Mathias’s hold on Reve’s hair loosened.

Then Reve felt the sole of the king’s boot on the back of his neck, bearing down until cold marble pressed against his cheek and throat. Reve struggled not to fight against it, struggled to breathe against the firm pressure on his windpipe. Arturus could crush Reve’s neck without a thought.

“What would you do to see your brother?”

Reve swallowed with difficulty. He refused to feel shame. He thought of Adan. Perhaps you’ll find someone you want to serve. He could do this for Leal, would do worse. “Anything.”

“Truly? I have no taste for boys, or else I might test you on it. Though I’ve no doubt your lord has that well covered.” Arturus released him. “Enjoy your pet, Mathias. He has a more servile nature than you think. I’m reluctant to expose Leal to it, though they are kin. But perhaps it will do the lad some good.”

The boots retreated, leaving a different tension in their wake.

Reve shifted slowly back to his knees. “My lord.”

“Be silent,” Mathias said, in a tone Reve had never heard from him before. He looked up, but Mathias’s gaze was focused inward. Abruptly he turned and went out to the terrace.

Reve stayed where he was. He’d gotten what he wanted, but he didn’t yet know the price.

His knees ached from kneeling on the hard floor by the time Mathias returned. Silently, Mathias hooked one of the chairs and placed it before him. Reve was reminded of their first conversation, back in his father’s castle. No doubt this one would be just as unpleasant.

“Have you so little love for your life?” Mathias’s tone was even, but a muscle at the corner of his jaw twitched. His eyes were lit with something like fury.

“I wonder, my lord, that you seem to value it so highly.”

Mathias was silent a moment. The anger in his eyes eased marginally. “Do you know how I first met him?”

Cautious at the shift of tone, Reve said, “No, my lord.”

“I was a captain in the army, and its best swordsman. He was a boy, not yet sixteen, allowed by his father at last to ride with the army when we rode north. The empire was not so large then. He saw us sparring and challenged me. I laughed, not knowing who he was—none of us had ever seen him—but agreed.

“I was the better fighter, but he still defeated me. Not from cleverness, though he has a share of that. There is something in him that will not lose. I would not bet against him in any situation. If you take him on, know that you cannot win.”

“I’m a slave,” Reve said, forcing out the word. “How could I challenge him?”

“Don’t take me for a fool,” Mathias said sharply. “He will control your house. You can only accept it.”

No. Mathias was not blind, then, though his ability to read him grated. “And if I don’t?”

“Then he will slit your throat and be done with it. Or have me do it.”

“Would you?”

He heard Mathias draw breath, felt the heat of his eyes. “Do you seek to play this game as well?”

Reve’s heart beat loudly in his chest. Mathias’s gaze burned.

Then Mathias’s mouth was on his. Reve’s lips filled with the taste of him. It was like being in battle, the same thrill of fear and exhilaration. Reve’s scalp ached with the pressure of Mathias’s hand tangled in his hair; his lips ached from the fierce intensity of the kiss.

There was nothing gentle about it. It was bruising, punishing, and Reve’s lips burned when Mathias finally released him.

Mathias stood. His eyes were dark, his features twisted. “I’ll arrange for you to see your brother. I won’t return until late.”

****

It was afternoon before a servant came to fetch him.

Reve followed him down endless wide corridors painted with scenes of Cortesian life, to a high-ceilinged room filled with books. Two pairs of eyes looked up from a table.

“Reve!” Leal bolted from his chair. Reve caught him in his arms and hugged him fiercely, then knelt in front of Leal to look him over. The black wool of his coat was a fine, soft weave; the brooch at his throat was gold. He looked like a young prince of Cortesa.

“I have my own horse,” Leal said, words tripping over themselves. “The king bought her for me at the sales last month. I’ll show you, she’s in the stables.”

“Perhaps later, my lord,” the man who’d been sitting with Leal broke in. Reve glanced up at him. He was older than Mathias, older than Gezane, even, his hair streaked with grey. Like Reve, he was dressed in the garb of a palace slave. He had the coloring of a Cortesian but Reve couldn’t place his accent.

“Erakos, this is my brother. Erakos is my tutor.” Leal frowned at Reve, noting his slave tunic and clearly puzzled by it.

Reve returned his gaze to Leal. “Is there somewhere we can talk?”

“Erakos won’t mind,” Leal said. He added hopefully, “We were finished, right?”

Erakos gave him a stern look. “Not nearly. But it can keep a while.” He retreated tactfully to a shelf of books. Leal drew Reve to the other side of the room to a window seat overlooking an inner garden. It was deserted, the trees and bushes bare in winter.

“Have you come to serve the king?” Leal asked, still staring in confusion at Reve’s tunic.

Reve hesitated. “I serve the Cortesian commander. Do you remember him?”

“Yes.” Leal’s eyes were troubled as he scanned Reve’s face. Reve had forgotten the marks there. “Is he—kind?”

It wasn’t the word Reve would have chosen. Mathias had been fair, within the bounds of the king’s profoundly unfair dictates, but Reve wouldn’t call him kind.

But he wasn’t there to talk about Mathias, not when his lips still burned with that kiss. If this was a game, it was one Reve felt ill-equipped to play. “What has the king told you of Salenne?”

“Just that I’ll return one day.” Leal sounded as if he didn’t quite believe it. Or perhaps his memories of home were already fading. Reve tried not to feel bitter about that. “And that he’ll teach me the proper way to rule. I wanted to see father again, but the king says that I won’t.”

“I’m sure he wants to see you as well. Perhaps you can convince the king to let you return now instead of later.”

“I asked him, but he said I shouldn’t speak of it again.”

Reve looked away before Leal could see the expression on his face. He wondered if Leal knew of Arturus’s plans for him. If Arturus truly thought to make him his heir.

Ansel was dead because of the king; Reve couldn’t let him take Leal as well. “You should rule Salenne in your own right. Like father.”

“I miss father. And Ansel.”

“I miss them, too,” Reve said, keeping his voice steady with difficulty.

“I told the king I wanted to see you. He said you were far away, but now you’re here. You’ll stay a while, right? I don’t want you to go.”

“I won’t go,” Reve said, drawing Leal closer on the window seat. “Here, tell me about your horse.”

****

The moon was high when Mathias left Luca’s, turning down the offer of a bed in favor of clearing his head of wine and food on the walk back to the palace.

Speaking with the other councilors hadn’t eased any of his concerns. In their view, the people were restless and disgruntled with the new taxes Arturus had levied to pay for the empire’s wars, and Arturus would heed none of their warnings. The council had little real power other than to advise.

“Every principality and province that joins the empire increases Cortesa’s revenue,” he’d pointed out to Luca.

“And the costs of war offset it. If he goes on as he has, Arturus will bankrupt the city.”

It seemed impossible, but Luca believed it. In his early years in Cortesa, Mathias had seen both kinds of politicians: those who genuinely sought good for the people, and those who saw only the opportunity for gain. He’d always considered Luca the former.

“Perhaps there are other options.” One of the council members drew him apart from the others. Beltram, Mathias remembered, a lord whose lands were in the eastern provinces. Arturus had mentioned him before with little warmth.

“Such as?”

Beltram shrugged. “The king has no sons. Not even with his slaves, though he tells the council differently. The queen, however, seems healthy enough. Let her take the throne, with a consort of our choosing. The people would accept her, for her father if nothing else.”

“And the king?”

Beltram seemed oblivious to the chill in Mathias’s voice. “Kings have often met with unfortunate accidents.”

“We are not there yet, Beltram,” Luca interrupted, with a warning look.

“It’s treason to speak this way,” Mathias said, when Beltram had moved off.

“Yes,” Luca said frankly. “You see the straits we’re in. If you cannot make Arturus see reason, then Beltram and his allies on the council will take their own action.”

“What would you have me tell him? If you’re right, then the city and empire are doomed no matter what we do.”

“Dissolve the army. Recall the outposted troops. We cannot pay them even now.”

“Then the empire falls.”

“Yes. But better to control the fall than to let it overrun us.”

Walking back to the palace, Mathias wondered if it was truly so dire. Cortesa seemed as prosperous as ever. But the mood of a city could be a dangerous thing, and unpredictable. If the people rebelled, then the only hope for order was the army. If the army rebelled....

Mathias shelved the thought. For the moment it was speculation. He would speak to Arturus, get his side of it.

His rooms were lit by moonlight, the fire burned down to embers. In front of the fireplace he saw the outline of Reve in one of the chairs, an open book face down on his stomach. His legs were sprawled in front of him, his head tucked into the curve of the chair.

Mathias lit a taper from the embers and placed it on the mantle. Curious, he took the book, careful not to wake him. It was written in a northern script, illegible to him.

“A collection of folk tales.” Reve’s voice was rough from sleep. “My mother used to read them to me before she died.”

Mathias returned the book to him. “How did she die?”

“A winter’s cough. It took many in Salenne that year.”

Mathias was used to Reve’s defenses, his layers of rebuff and hostility, and wondered at this uncharacteristic openness. Perhaps it was just from being startled from sleep.

“How is your back?”

“It’s fine.”

“Let me see it.”

Reve’s eyes met his. Abruptly he stood, drew his shirt over his head in a smooth movement, turned and offered his back to him.

The marks stood out in the candlelight. Mathias touched one with his fingertip. He heard Reve’s indrawn breath, felt the trembling of skin. Reve stood still under his hand.

“You took it well. The men were impressed.”

He expected one of Reve’s retorts. Instead, Reve said, “And you?”

Mathias smiled, though he knew Reve couldn’t see it. “I was also impressed.” He traced a line down the side of the mark and heard Reve’s sudden catch of breath. “How was your visit with your brother?”

“Dressing a boy in finery and giving him a horse doesn’t make him any less a prisoner.”

“And dressing a man as a slave?”

Reve stiffened, his outline like a statue.

Slowly, the words coming with difficulty, Mathias said, “I know that, from your perspective, what Arturus did to you and your family was monstrous. I don’t expect you to understand or agree with his reasons. But you’re not a child, to expect the world to go as you would like it.”

“Is it a child’s wish to expect justice?”

“You’ll find that justice is relative to those who wield it.” Mathias reached for the taper on the mantle. “It’s late. You should go to bed.”

Reve turned. “Is that what you want?”

“You know what I want.” Mathias resisted the urge to brush Reve’s hair back from his face; it was always falling forward. “That’s never been at question. But my protection doesn’t come with a price.”

“That isn’t what this is.” Reve sounded unsure.

“Then what?” Mathias said, but he couldn’t help it; he brought Reve’s mouth to his, cupping the back of his head to keep him there. He’d wanted to kiss him since that first night in Salenne, facing a battered and defiant prisoner. But he could taste Reve’s doubt, his hesitation, even as Reve’s lips parted under his, inexperienced and a little fumbling.

He would never know if Reve was responding out of necessity, out of some ill-conceived ploy to keep his brother safe, or from a more genuine desire.

He broke the kiss with an effort. Reve’s lips gleamed in the light of the taper, his gaze locked away from him.

Mathias let his hand fall. “Go to bed,” he said again, taking the taper with him into the bedroom.

Chapter Seven

For a moment Reve thought he was in Salenne, in that stolen time before a servant came to wake him, or Ansel barged in to take him on the hunt. He half expected it, senses straining after familiar sights and sounds, the feel of his own bedding under his hand.

Instead he was met by the softer cloth of the south. Light shone through windows the wrong shape. The painted wall above the door depicted a scene that had never taken place at home. Even the colors and pattern of the rug next to his pallet came from unfamiliar dyes.

He didn’t think he’d had it in him anymore to feel this longing for home. He thought he’d squirreled it away. Pressure built in his chest as if something, somewhere, was about to break, then Mathias stepped into the room, his hair damp from the bath.

He hadn’t bothered to dress. He had a scar on his thigh, another high on his shoulder in the arc of a sword. His black hair curled wetly. His form was that of a swordsman, well balanced and graceful.

Reve had been around such men all his life. Never letting himself look too long; not even letting himself wonder.

“There’s water left,” Mathias said.

Reve rose from his pallet and headed to the bath.

When he finished, clothed again in his slave’s shirt and pants, Mathias was at the table in the main room with a plate of bread and dried fruit he must have sent a servant to fetch.

“I’m going down to the yard,” Mathias said, when Reve sat at the table across from him. “I have little enough opportunity in Touren.”

Reve assumed he meant to train. He broke off a piece of the bread and ate it with a dried fig.

“I can arrange for you to see your brother again.” Reve’s eyes snapped to his; he’d hoped but didn’t dare expect it. “But not today. Perhaps you want to join me.”

“In the yard?” Reve asked, surprised.

“I thought you might welcome the opportunity to swing a sword at someone.”

Mathias had said it casually, but Reve heard the undercurrent in his words. Arturus had left Reve alive and a slave for his own sick pleasure, but soon he would tire of the play and eliminate any remaining threats to his hold on the north. Reve refrained from saying that if the king wanted him dead, he wouldn’t challenge him on the practice yard.

“You’d give me a sword.”

“Only if you know how to use it.”

****

Reve didn’t, as it turned out. At least not in the way the southerners understood it.

Mathias found him an infantry soldier’s tunic and breeches of rough black wool, and sent him off with the armsmaster for a blunt practice sword. When Reve returned, Mathias was already sparring with one of the men. Reve watched a moment. Swordplay at home rarely exhibited such grace. Or violence.

“There are few who can beat him,” the armsmaster said. “You should have seen him ten years ago.”

If age had slowed Mathias’s step, then experience made up for it. Reve watched him for a while, until the armsmaster gestured him to another practice ring.

The man found little to praise about Reve. Reve was hardly untrained—they’d had an armsmaster themselves, and he’d learned from him since he was a child. Apparently all the wrong things. Reve took the criticism stoically. The styles were different enough that he saw the benefits of learning the southern way.

Engrossed in the instruction, it was a moment before he realized Mathias had left off his own practice and was watching them. Thrown off a beat, he felt the whack of the flat of the armsmaster’s blade on his ribs. Mathias exchanged a word with his sparring partner then came forward, taking the practice sword from the armsmaster and looking Reve over critically.

He engaged and Reve parried, his arm stunned by the force behind the blow though he managed not to give any ground. A few more exchanges then Mathias stepped back, handed off the sword and adjusted Reve’s grip, shifting the pommel closer to his body.

The touch was impersonal, that of a trainer to a pupil, but Reve felt it as if it was a brand. He thought Mathias’s hand lingered on Reve’s wrist, his thumb brushing bare skin in a light, mocking caress, before he stepped back to reengage.

It had been deliberate, Reve was sure of it, by the amused look Mathias sent his way.

A move from Mathias caught him off balance, and he pulled his guard up quickly. The new position was awkward, though he could see the defensive advantages. Mathias tested his position with a series of attacks, seemed pleased when it held, then Reve saw his pleasure turn into surprise when Reve countered with a cut Ansel had shown him once.

Mathias deflected it, but for a brief moment his face was lit by a genuine smile.

Then the smile faded. “Enough,” he said. Reve lowered his sword. He was breathing hard but not excessively, and wondered at the halt. Mathias gripped his shoulder and turned him, and Reve became aware of the fire that was his back. Some of the cuts had reopened and stuck to the wool.

The armsmaster chuckled from the sidelines. “Intense lad, isn’t he? You’re a lucky one,” he said to Reve. “Not many have the chance to go up against the commander.”

Reve realized that the armsmaster didn’t know who he was. A northerner, certainly, but there was nothing to mark him as a slave.

That changed in the next moment. “Go back to my quarters,” Mathias said. “I’ll join you shortly.”

The armsmaster’s expression morphed into something more knowing. Reve handed him the practice sword without a word, turned and left the yard.

Nothing between them had ever been equal, not even this. Reve knew Mathias had been holding back, that he far outclassed him. Playing with him, more likely.

He was still trying to work the wool from his back when Mathias returned to the rooms. He shrugged Mathias’s hand from his shoulder when he would have helped.

The next moment Mathias had him by the back of the neck, fingers catching in his hair painfully.

“Be still,” Mathias said curtly. Pain drowned out even Reve’s anger as his shirt was pulled from his back. Mathias released him as he drew the shirt over his head and tossed it on a chair.

“I thought you’d be more careful,” Mathias said, looking over the damage.

“It’s my back, isn’t it? I can be as careless with it as I choose.”

“You know better than that.”

Reve set his jaw. “Then why let me believe otherwise, even for a moment?”

He felt Mathias go still. Reve thought he would speak, but instead he filled a bowl with water from the pitcher and wet a cloth. Reve flinched at the press of it, but Mathias’s hands were experienced if not gentle.

“I cannot free you. Even if I wanted to, it’s the only thing keeping you alive.”

Mathias’s words echoed in his head. Even if I wanted to. His hands continued their work on Reve’s back as Reve gritted his teeth at the necessity.

Mathias finished and rinsed out the cloth. “Is it so difficult?”

Yes, Reve wanted to say. Mathias approached, close enough that Reve could feel the heat of him through Mathias’s sweat-soaked training shirt. For a brief, dizzying moment he wondered what Mathias would do if he turned his head. If Mathias’s lips would be there to meet him.

“I’m dining with the king tonight.”

The world returned to its usual alignment. Reve couldn’t help a sound of contempt.

“Reve.” Mathias’s tone was mild, but Reve heard the warning underneath. It was just as well to remember where Mathias’s true loyalties lay.

“Will Leal be there?”

“I expect so.”

“Am I required to go?” As much as he wanted to see Leal, Reve didn’t think he could bear it if his brother saw him serving Mathias his food or kneeling behind his chair, or whatever other torture the king could think up.

“No,” Mathias said, his eyes shadowed as if following Reve’s train of thought. “Not tonight. But don’t expect him to make it easy for you. I will shield you as much as I can, but my influence has limits. I said that you cannot win against him. But be sure you know how to play the game.”

****

Mathias wished he knew how to take his own advice.

He’d hoped to speak privately with Arturus, but Nicolo Parma kept the king occupied throughout dinner when he wasn’t throwing Mathias thinly veiled covetous looks. He was likely already imagining himself the next commander of Cortesa’s army.

Parma could keep his ambition; Mathias had no use for it. If Arturus wished to replace him, Mathias was only too happy to return to Touren.

Still, it would be galling to pass his position to someone like Parma. He might have served competently as Mathias’s second in command, but he still owed his rank to a well-placed noble family and an ability to tell others what they wished to hear, no matter if it was the truth. Parma might have a talent for politics, but that wouldn’t earn him the loyalty of the men. Mathias was surprised Arturus had fallen so easily for his charms.

Arturus leaned forward. “So, Mathias, what do you think of my plan to use the north as a base to find passage through the northern mountains? Who knows what lies beyond them.”

“I wasn’t aware that was your plan.”

“You would if you spent more time in Cortesa.”

Arturus’s voice had an edge to it. Mathias wondered how much wine he’d had, though drink had never been one of Arturus’s vices.

“How certain are you of your hold in the north?”

“Certain enough. Cortesa will subdue whatever spirit they have left.”

Mathias’s eyes went to Leal, sitting silently next to Arturus’s queen. The boy hadn’t reacted to Arturus’s words, but eight was old enough to understand their meaning.

“Enough, my lord,” Sena said quietly. “Erakos, take Leal back to his room.”

An older slave in the garb of a tutor, who had been standing unobtrusively against the wall of the dining room, stepped forward at Arturus’s nod of permission. Leal slid his chair back and left with him quietly.

“If you’ll excuse me as well, my lords, I find I need some air.”

Arturus’s eyes darkened as Sena rose and left for the open terrace. But in the next moment he called for more wine, engaging Parma in some inconsequentiality related to the vintage.

Mathias took the opportunity to follow the queen out onto the terrace, hoping the cool air would chase away the wine and food and politics.

Sena turned her head at his approach. She’d barely acknowledged him throughout dinner, aside from the expected courtesies. “So my husband has lured you in after all.” She rested a hand on the balustrade, the silk of her sleeve catching on the rough stone. “Or did you follow the strings back to his hand?”

She’d pulled a fur around her neck against the cold. Her black hair lay starkly against it. She looked more like her father than ever. Mathias still remembered Sena as a child, too tall and forthright to be considered beautiful, though she was striking enough now. If her father had treated Mathias like a son, then Sena had been the annoying younger sister, resisting any restriction put upon her. Mathias had barely realized she’d grown up until she’d turned Arturus’s head one day.

He’d still been surprised when their marriage had been announced. Guarin had enough noble blood to make the match respectable, and he was popular with the people; Beltram was right that much of that popularity had transferred to Sena. But she’d never shown Arturus much beyond contempt in their early interactions. Perhaps it had masked some deeper draw.

“Last time we spoke, my lady, you were angry I was leaving Cortesa. Now you’re upset that I’ve returned?”

Sena smiled, more careful now than she’d been as a child. She’d learned the ways of Arturus’s court. “I was angry because you were abandoning your responsibilities to play farmer. Your return now means little. But tell me, what do you think of Arturus’s new interest?”

“Leal? Or Lord Parma’s son?”

She laughed, the sound cutting the night air like flint. “Leal.”

“He seems a good enough lad.”

“Cortesa would never follow a foreign king.”

Mathias tended to agree. He didn’t know what to make of Arturus’s proposal; he’d assumed the king had said it only to provoke Reve, but now he wondered if Arturus had been sincere. “Does the king actually plan to make him his successor?”

“My husband has always been prone to passing fancies. He’ll tire of him soon enough.”

She looked doubtful, however, perhaps with cause. Despite Arturus’s careless words at dinner, Mathias had sensed genuine affection between him and the boy. If Arturus was resolved on this course then little would dissuade him. It would certainly be a stinging rebuke of the queen’s ability to produce a heir, but Mathias didn’t think that was the reason for her unease.

“What does the council say?”

“I forget how long you’ve been away. Arturus would never consult with them on such a matter. And if he did, none among them would oppose him publicly, but there are any number of ways to remove the threat of an unwanted—and uncontrollable—heir.”

“And would you go along with it?” Mathias remembered Beltram’s words.

“Do you imagine that I have any power to stay their hand?”

“I think you are still your father’s daughter.”

Sena stiffened. Mathias caught a glimpse of the girl he’d once known. “You think you knew my father so well?”

“Yes.” He turned back to the balustrade, though it was too dark to see the city. “Perhaps better than you, if you doubt that he was loyal to the empire above all else.”

“But that’s the question, isn’t it? Loyalty to the empire. Several different meanings and possibilities.” Sena’s eyes searched his. “I can’t believe you care so much for it. It must be difficult from that horse farm of yours.”

“You think if I’d stayed we would be in different circumstances.”

“Perhaps not. But you are one of the few he still listens to.” She moved away from the balustrade. “You’re right about Lord Parma’s son. He’s quite a favorite these days.”

****

It was late, the outer rooms of the barracks nearly deserted by the time Mathias took his leave from the king, but Mathias knew where Leone would be and headed to the stables.

He found him in one of the tack rooms cleaning a breastplate. “You know there are others to do such work,” Mathias said, pulling up a stool.

“Yes, and they’ll skimp the cleaning of it until poor Iseppa has her neck rubbed raw, and where will that leave me? She’s an unforgiving horse.”

“I would ask if you’re treating her properly, but it seems she has you well trained.”

Leone huffed an agreement. “What brings you out so late? Not looking for another sparring session? I’d have thought you’d be tucked in with that boy of yours.”

An appealing thought; if only that were so. “I’ve a favor to ask of you,” Mathias said, clearing his throat. “Two favors. First, what news do you hear from the north? I know Parma controls the official reports, but some news must find its way out if the council knows about it.”

Leone shrugged. “Some minor resistance. More organized than brigands, but nothing the garrisons couldn’t handle if all else were well. But most of the soldiers I know haven’t been paid in half a year. If I were on the border, with few supplies and a hostile populace, I’d think hard about slipping away to find a nice northern woman to settle down with. Or even chance returning home as a deserter.”

“Is that what’s happening?”

“More often than the outpost commanders are letting on, and we hear complaint enough from them.”

“What could stem it, do you think?”

“Money,” Leone said frankly. “Which the king has none of. He’s so far in debt the nobles might as well own the city, if they could ever stop squabbling long enough to take it. At least he’s spread his debt out.”

Everything Luca had said, but Mathias believed it more coming from someone not a politician. “Nothing can happen before spring, at least,” Mathias said, more to himself than Leone. “If you hear more, will you bring it to me?”

“Of course, but why not get the official reports from Parma?”

Mathias had already considered that. He could pull rank and have them routed to him instead, but his authority within the city had always been ambiguous. He commanded the army in battle, but he’d never involved himself with the operations of individual garrisons, and once made the move would be difficult to pull back from.

“I already know the lies he’s feeding Arturus. If he knew my interest, it would only give him a reason to change tactics.”

Leone grinned. “I think you credit him with too much sense. So what’s the second favor?”

“I need a watch put on one of the councilors. Men you trust. I would use my own but they don’t know the city.”

“Which councilor?”

“Lord Beltram. I want to know who he’s talking to.”

“He’s a councilor,” Leone said, with distaste. “All they do is talk.”

“Yes, but unchecked he may act against the king.”

Leone was silent a moment. “Very well, I have men in mind. But Mathias, are you still so loyal to him?”

Mathias wondered if everyone in Cortesa had forgotten that Arturus was still their king. “You know the answer. I swore an oath, as you did.”

“It’s not an oath if the other side doesn’t uphold their end of it. I wish I understood the hold he has on you.”

“I will not ask you to. I think I’m the only one who sees him as he is.”

Leone shook his head. “You see what he could have been.”

Mathias brought himself back into check. Leone had touched a nerve he didn’t know was there. He asked evenly, “Do you still have loyalty to me, or is that in question as well?”

“You know I do,” Leone said quietly. He hung the breastplate back on its hook. “I’ll bring you what news comes in.”

Chapter Eight

“Isn’t she beautiful?” Leal rested his arms on the top of the stall door with his chin on his hands, the rich wool of his cloak pulled up around his neck and hair.

Reve had to agree. The horse was small but well proportioned, with strong legs and a wide chest that pointed to stamina. She blew out against the side of Leal’s face, pulling an easy laugh from him, the sound echoing down the stable aisle.

“Have you taken her out?” Reve couldn’t tell yet how much freedom Leal had of the palace and its grounds. The two guards who had followed them to the stables seemed to be more for Leal’s protection than jailors, though the looks they gave Reve were quite a bit less indulgent.

“Just around the yard.” Leal turned his head to Reve, eyes lighting. “If you went with me, I could take her out of the city. We could have a proper camp somewhere.”

“It’s too cold yet,” Reve said, though he’d like nothing less than to take Leal as far beyond the city as they could go. Even in winter they could get a fair distance before the king sent someone to hunt them down.

But that wasn’t what Leal had meant. Leal had already adapted to his new surroundings. For a moment, Reve entertained the possibility that this was where Leal was supposed to be, that inheriting an empire was hardly a terrible fate. Perhaps pride was making him selfish.

Experience said that it could never be that simple.

One of the guards approached. “We should return to the palace, my lord. Let the slave go back to his duties.”

Leal’s eyes flicked to Reve, uncertain, skirting the mention of Reve’s status with a child’s willful incomprehension. “Do you have to go?”

“Just for now,” Reve said, because he didn’t want a scene with the guards, and he was likely to get one if he pushed the issue.

Leal gave the horse a final pat. He looked like he wanted to hug Reve, but something in Reve’s face or the attitude of the guards prevented him. Reve smiled to take away the sting. “We’ll see each other tomorrow,” he said, making it a promise, holding Leal’s eyes until he smiled back.

Crossing the stable yard, his mind was on that image and not what was around him when a hand fell heavily on his shoulder. Without thinking, he whirled and knocked it away, knowing as he did so that it was stupid, that instinct had won out over what small sense of self-preservation he had left.

So he expected the backhanded blow. It wasn’t hard enough to send him to his knees, but the grip on his wrist was. It twisted until he bit his lip from the pain and went down, hating every inch but he’d been careless enough already and the yard was full of men.

“Do you dare?” an enraged voice said above him.

“Parma, leave off.” Reve glanced up. The approaching man looked familiar. “You know whose boy that is.”

“This is none of your concern, Leone.” Parma’s grip didn’t loosen. “And I know who he belongs to. Even more reason to wonder what he’s doing here.”

Leone shrugged. “You could ask him. But he’d just tell you he’s running an errand for his master, which I’m guessing is to find me.”

Reve sensed Parma’s disbelief. He fixed his gaze at a point across the yard, neither confirming nor contradicting, until Parma released his wrist with a parting, vicious squeeze. “Then tell Mathias he should think twice before letting a half-broken slave off the leash. And that if he raises a hand to me again I’ll break it for real.”

He left the threat behind him, shouldering past onlookers too slow to step out of his way.

Reve waited until Parma was gone before getting to his feet. “Thank you,” he said neutrally, pushing down pride and anger at his own carelessness, and a more irrational annoyance that he’d had to be saved from it. He recognized the man now as the one Mathias had sparred with in the yard. He was tall and lean, with greying hair and an easy expression.

“You like to live dangerously,” Leone said, eyeing him. “I’d say the two of you are well matched.”

Reve didn’t know if he meant Parma or Mathias. “I should go, my lord.” The spectators had moved on, but he could still feel their eyes on him, souring the last bit of pleasure from his visit with Leal.

“Before you do, you can save me from being a liar. Tell your master I’ll be at the Via Arcis tonight. He knows the place. Get your wrist looked after, too.”

“It’s fine,” Reve said automatically, and Leone shook his head.

“Parma’s a donkey’s ass, but in the future….”

Reve looked away. “I know,” he said tightly. It was almost worse, acknowledging it to someone so obviously well meaning.

“Just keep your wits about you. And make sure your lord does the same.”

Reve wasn’t sure why Leone thought he could control any of Mathias’s actions, but he nodded before escaping the rest of the man’s good intentions.

Mathias’s rooms were so quiet that at first Reve thought they were empty. Then he saw Mathias at the desk by the window reading a length of parchment unrolled in front of him.

Reve slipped into the bedroom. A glance in the small bronze mirror didn’t reveal any obvious marks, but it was hard to tell for sure. Not that he could avoid Mathias forever. He gathered his and Mathias’s riding boots, remembering that he’d meant to clean them, and took them back to the main room where the light was better.

The fire was low, but the room was warm enough. He unwrapped a bit of soap he’d taken from the stables a few days ago and let it soften in a bowl of water.

“Your friend—Leone—said that he’d be at the Via Arcis tonight.” Reve stumbled over the name but it sounded close enough. “I think he meant for you to join him.”

Mathias looked up with a frown. “You saw Leone?”

“Just in passing. At the stables, after I’d been with Leal.”

“Ah. Well. Thank you for the message.” Reve felt Mathias’s gaze on his face where Parma had struck him, felt his own betraying flush at the scrutiny. “Tell me, did you get in fights this often in Salenne?”

“No,” Reve said, refusing to meet Mathias’s eyes. He dipped a cloth in the soapy water, rubbed it into the heel of one of Mathias’s boots and ignored the twinge of his wrist.

For a moment he thought Mathias would pursue it. Then he heard a sigh and the crackle of parchment, and the room was silent again.

Reve focused on his work, enjoying the monotonous ease of it, the respite it gave him from everything else: his worry for Leal and the ache in his wrist, the weight of Mathias’s attention, now diverted.

He finished Mathias’s boots, placed them next to the hearth and started on his own.

“Gezane says the yearlings are doing well.” Reve glanced over at him. Mathias had rolled the parchment and put it aside.

Reve was startled to realize he missed them. Even the chestnut. Touren felt like an age ago, though it had been less than ten days since they’d left it. It was hard to reconcile that world with this one.

He found himself watching Mathias, leaning back in the chair, his face relaxed into stillness as if his thoughts had gone there as well.

“Why did you join the army, if you’d rather be breeding horses?”

Reve hadn’t meant to ask it aloud. Something in Mathias’s expression, a surprising hint of loss, had pulled it from him. Mathias’s eyes snapped to his, wary as if being caught out in something private. But after a moment he spoke.

“I joined when I was sixteen.” He paused, as if tracking back. “My father was a minor nobleman. His lands were a few days’ ride south of here. He had an eye for horses and an even greater skill for accumulating debt, and when he died the land and title were sold to pay it.” His smile was wry. “Along with my options.”

Reve ran the damp cloth over the boot in front of him. Aside from what Gezane had told him, he realized he knew very little about Mathias. He’d never thought to ask.

“Navar. Gezane called you that once.”

Mathias paused before answering. “The title of my father’s holding. In Cortesa it’s a family name, passed down through generations to me. I have no right to it anymore; someone else owns the land now. But Gezane knew me before then.”

So Mathias knew what it was like to be stripped of everything, even his name. He owes more than you know to that king of his, Gezane had said, and Reve was beginning to see just how much.

The silence stretched so long that he was surprised when Mathias spoke again. “I stayed in the army because I had a particular talent for it, and because I caught the old commander’s eye. He took me on, straightened me out as much as he could, and when the time came the king named me his successor.”

“Couldn’t you have refused?”

“I had no desire to, not then.”

“Too busy building an empire.”

“Yes. Arturus’s vision was...compelling.”

Reve bit back his response. He hadn’t brought the subject up to provoke either of them. He’d been curious, that was all, and now he knew. He finished cleaning the boots, wrung out the cloth and draped it on the mantle to dry. The light had angled low while he worked.

He stretched, enjoying the simple pleasure of stretching muscles stiffened from sitting so long. Most of the work he did in the palace was menial, requiring little thought, but he found surprising satisfaction in doing it well, in these small accomplishments.

He was aware of Mathias’s attention, thickening the space between them. Only a few steps’ distance, easily crossed. In a different life he might have taken them, picked up the parchment to read Gezane’s words in the full light of Mathias’s regard, leaned into the touch following up on the promise of that gaze.

“I’ll go down for the evening meal,” Reve said, breaking the spell.

“I’ll send a servant.”

“No.” Reve held his eyes.

A pause, then Mathias nodded. “Very well.”

For once the kitchen wasn’t at its usual level of bustle. It was early yet. Pera saw him and waved him over to a stool across from her at one of the long wooden tables.

“You’ll have to wait for the first batch to finish baking,” she said, folding and kneading a slab of dough with quick, practiced strokes.

Reve sat down to wait. “Can I help with something?”

She gave him a bemused look. “Not one for idleness, are you? Here, then.” She grinned and pushed the dough across the floured surface to him. “You can give me a few minutes’ rest.”

Reve had never kneaded dough before. He stood and mimicked her movements as well as he could, a little surprised at how much arm strength it took. Pera found another stool and propped her elbows on the table, chin resting on folded hands as she watched him.

“Not so hard,” she instructed.

Despite the twinge of his wrist, it was relaxing, like cleaning the boots. His mind wandered back to Mathias, trying to picture him young and without prospects, with nothing but ambition. But if it had only been about ambition, he would have been living out a pampered life in Cortesa, not Touren. He wondered what had changed, or if Mathias had always been caught between the two.

A sound broke his thoughts: Pera taking out a sheet of rolls from the ovens in the back, setting them on the table to cool before disappearing again. He hadn’t noticed she’d left the table. She came back with a platter of cold meat, adding a few of the rolls. “Come earlier next time and I’ll show you how to mix it.”

To his surprise, Reve found himself returning her grin. “I will,” he said.

****

Leone was at the table closest to the fire, across the room from a group of soldiers sitting near the wine cask. The Via Arcis no longer housed Cortesa’s citadel, but the city soldiers still haunted its inns out of loyalty or habit several generations removed.

“You remembered the place,” Leone said, nudging the other chair out with a squeak against bare floors.

Mathias took it. “You’ve been coming to the same tavern since you were my commanding officer.”

Unruffled, Leone said, “Predictability is good soldiery.”

“It also makes for an easy knife in the back, if the assassin knows where to find you.”

“Which is why I don’t make enemies. You could learn a thing or two. The trouble with you, Mathias, is that you’ve been away so long that no one has any idea what you’ll do.” He gestured for more wine, and the innkeeper brought a mug for Mathias and a filled flask for the table. Leone poured. Mathias hazarded a sip. “What did you do to tip Parma over?”

The wine was as foul as he remembered. “Other than holding the position he wants?”

“Other than that, yes. He had a run in with your boy today. It seemed more personal.”

“With Reve?”

Leone must have seen something in his face. He raised a hand as if to keep the peace. “Parma was within his rights. Granted, he exercised them with more enthusiasm than necessary.”

Mathias didn’t care what rights Parma thought he had. His hand had tightened on the mug. It took a conscious effort to loosen it. Mathias had known what the capital was like, but that didn’t make Parma any less unfortunate when Mathias saw him again.

“I’ll deal with it.” He pushed his anger aside, chanced the wine again. “Have you any more news?”

A raid on the garrison at Ardeche for supplies, which would indicate outlaws if there weren’t easier targets than an empire-manned stronghold for food. Lord Beltram, on the other hand, had been the model of a loyal councilor. Leone promised to have the men he’d put on him brief Mathias in person, but from his own assessment there was nothing to cause alarm.

“Has he met with the queen?” Mathias asked.

“The queen?” Leone looked puzzled. “What has she to do with anything?”

“Perhaps nothing,” Mathias said, wondering at his own suspicions. The Sena he’d known had always been ambitious, but he couldn’t imagine her condoning Arturus’s death, much less participating in it. Yet if she thought it was the only way to stabilize the empire....

“Why are you in Cortesa?”

Mathias looked up, surprised, but Leone had asked the question seriously. “I’ve told you that.”

“No. This, what you’re doing now, is exactly what you left to avoid. You found ways to keep Arturus from ordering you here outright before.”

“This is no different. When this business is done I’ll be on my way back to Touren.”

Leone shook his head. “You’re a fool if you think that. He has you here; what makes you think he’ll let you slip away again?”

“He will. He has. He knows my mind on this.”

The thought remained that Arturus could change the terms of their unspoken agreement at any time, however much Mathias trusted him not to.

“Enough.” Another time. For now he drained the rest of his mug dry, trying not to taste it. “I suppose I can’t talk you into going somewhere with drinkable wine?”

Leone grinned, accepting the peace offering. “It gets better the closer you get to the bottom. You just haven’t had enough yet.”

Mathias slid his empty mug across the table for Leone to fill.

****

Riding back to the palace, Mathias marveled at how well the old king had understood the city. The palace was his singular achievement, and as far as the people were concerned, it belonged to them. Cortesa might be proud of its empire, but life started and ended with the city. Anything beyond it was an abstraction. The old king had known to keep his symbols close to home.

He left his horse with a half-asleep stable boy. Quantity had improved the wine, or else drowned his taste buds, but his mind was still clear if underwritten by a strange unease.

It was too quiet. Perhaps that was it. The palace was sleeping, only the door guards and their torchlit outlines awake.

When he reached the corridor outside his rooms, a shadow peeled from the wall and came into the light of a torch on the opposite wall. His cloak was the color of wine.

“My lord Mathias.” He spoke politely but without any particular deference, and his eyes when Mathias met them were cool.

“Guardsman,” Mathias said, his unease crystallizing. “You’re out late.”

“If you’ll come with me, my lord.”

Mathias’s hand itched to draw his sword. “Now? Surely it can wait until morning.”

“I’m afraid not, my lord,” the king’s guard said, and Mathias heard the scrape of boots on stone at the other end of the darkened corridor. Several by the sound of it.

“I’d ask to speak to the king first. If this was done on his orders.”

“Of course, my lord.” The guard had already moved in to take him in hand. “It’s the king who wants to see you.”

Chapter Nine

Arturus was by the window, looking out. He was dressed as if for bed, in a long robe the same red as the guards’ livery but in a richer material, piped in gold. It made him look older. A stranger. Candlelight blurred his features, reflecting off the glass, but the image was too distant and distorted for Mathias to read.

Mathias was reminded of the first time he’d seen Arturus after the old king died. Arturus had been nineteen. Mathias had been assigned to a garrison in the east, and it was a month before he’d earned enough leave to return to Cortesa. By that time, Arturus had already been crowned.

“I’ve had enough of men kneeling to me,” Arturus had said, pulling Mathias up from where he’d gone to his knees. “What I need now is a friend.”

Mathias had been that; he’d always been that to Arturus, his friendship given freely and without reserve. Now, years later, Mathias went to a knee once again.

“Sire.” Obeying an unspoken signal, the guards withdrew.

Arturus didn’t turn. “Mathias. You were out late.”

“It’s late for you as well, Sire,” Mathias said, trying to assess the king’s mood, gauge the situation.

Arturus shifted from the window and leaned back against the sill. The illusion of age lifted; he looked briefly vulnerable in the candlelight. “From what the council says, I should be sleepless every night in anticipation of the city’s doom. What do you think? You’ve been thick with them lately.”

“As you requested, Sire,” Mathias reminded him.

Arturus cocked his head. “To speak to them. Not to listen.”

Mathias was acutely aware that he was still kneeling, his knee a focused ache despite the cushioning of the rug. “Have you considered that they speak the truth? I’ve seen the reports. The empire is unsustainable.”

“By their reckoning, perhaps. Not by mine.”

“Or the one who counsels you?”

Arturus smiled. It did nothing to alleviate the room’s tension. “Professional jealousy, Mathias? I would not have thought it of you.”

The ache in his knee traveled up his leg and spine and frayed his temper. “You asked for my help, and I rode from Touren to give it. I have no reason to lie to you. Nothing to gain.” It was the truth, and Arturus knew it, but whether he would acknowledge it was a different matter.

For a moment he saw Arturus hesitate, then Arturus dismissed it with a wave of his hand. “I didn’t call you here to discuss Nicolo Parma. I’m aware of his shortcomings. Loyalty isn’t one of them.” He left the window and crossed to the chair in front of the fire, sinking into it. “Do you remember the campaign we took Osero?”

Mathias remembered Osero. It had been Arturus’s first campaign. Ten years ago it had marked the western edge of the empire. Ultimately successful, but they’d lost too many men.

“You wanted to retreat after the first wave. You were about to call the order and I kept you from it. You were furious. You were my commander, and I was overriding your command.”

The field had been treacherous, drenched in five days of rain. An hour in and it was impossible to tell friend from enemy; they were all equally mud-soaked. But the enemy knew the terrain. It had been a blunder even to engage.

“But you trusted me and stayed the order. And we persevered.”

Mathias heard the unspoken question. He had trusted him. With his life. Because he’d known—he’d always known—that he was bound to Arturus by too many threads of friendship and loyalty and debt. Mathias would have given his allegiance even if Arturus hadn’t been his king, would have knelt in the dirt and offered back his sword the day Arturus knocked it from his hand, just from that brief taste of what Arturus offered. Belief. Purpose. Trust in something outside himself.

“I will not relinquish what is mine.”

Mathias searched Arturus’s face. The empire? Himself? “Then look at options. Scale back the empire strategically. Work with the council instead of against them.”

Arturus shook his head. “You sound invested, Mathias. But you’re not, are you? You’ll bury your head back in the sand as soon as I let you go.”

He has you here; what makes you think he’ll let you slip away again? Mathias’s heart ached, thinking of Touren. “If you do this, Sire, then I will do it with you.”

“Would you?” Arturus seemed to be asking it of himself. His eyes searched Mathias’s. “Then ride north. Hold our position until the spring. Recall some of the troops if you must, but preserve the empire above all else.”

Mathias’s heart sank. If he rode north it could be years before he went home again. But if he refused, what then? A king’s patience had limits, and Arturus’s mind was already set. Perhaps Sena was right, and Mathias could have avoided all of this if he’d stayed. Perhaps then he wouldn’t be plagued by so many doubts now.

“The slave, however, stays here.”

Mathias froze, choosing his words carefully. “Reve would be safer with me.”

Arturus raised an eyebrow. “Safe from whom? I won’t risk the son of a northern prince returning to incite his people to further rebellion. He’ll be safe enough at the palace.”

And at Arturus’s mercy, to serve whatever new political objective Arturus might conceive. “Let me house him at Luca’s, then.”

Arturus’s eyes narrowed; he didn’t like to be disputed. But to Mathias’s relief, he didn’t pursue it. He rose, grasped Mathias’s arms, and pulled him up. “I trust you to do this as I trust no other.”

“As always, Sire, I follow your will.”

Mathias allowed himself to feel regret, not long enough to linger.

****

Something woke him. Not the sun—it was only a few hours past midnight, the room barely lit by the moon. From his pallet Reve saw that Mathias’s bed was untouched and empty. He’d never returned from his meeting with Leone. Reve had waited up for a while before falling into an uneasy sleep.

He pulled on his shift and pants and went out into the common room. Mathias was standing by the unlit fireplace as if seeking an answer to some unspoken question in its depths.

He didn’t turn as Reve approached. “If you’re here to offer yourself again, know that I’m not likely to refuse you this time.”

Reve paused at the unfamiliar note in Mathias’s voice. A shiver ran down his back. Regaining his voice, he said, “Are you all right?”

If Mathias was surprised by the question, he didn’t show it. “I’m riding north as soon as preparations can be made.”

Salenne. He could see it so clearly, could almost smell the breeze stealing through the stable yard after a particularly hot day. “Why?”

But he knew why, even before Mathias’s eyes told him. “I can’t take you with me.”

He knew that too; not that he could leave Leal. “Afraid I’ll run away?”

“The order comes from the king. But Arturus isn’t wrong. It’s more likely that you’d be killed or abducted, to be used in a foolish move against your father.”

The irritating thing was that he was probably right. “Is the empire so worth saving?”

“Can you tell me truthfully that Salenne hasn’t been involved in its own squabbles with its neighbors, that the region you call home hasn’t been rife with petty warfare the last hundred years?”

“And the king would free us from it.”

“He could bring peace, yes. I may despise Cortesa but it’s a model of prosperity. The empire is overstretched, but the idea behind it is still sound. Would you deny your people its benefits?”

“I think the king is a conqueror, not a peacemaker. And that I would want my people to find their own way to peace.”

To his surprise, Mathias said, “Perhaps you’re right.” A shadow passed over his face. Reve had the urge to reach across the space between them to soothe and comfort, to ease that expression from him.

Mathias’s eyes darkened in warning when Reve stepped forward. “I’ll take it as such if you stay here. An offer, that is.”

“I’m not afraid.”

“No.” Mathias’s voice shifted, became almost admiring. “You aren’t, are you. You’ve taken everything. More than most men could.” There was a subtle shift in Mathias’s appraisal of him, as if seeing Reve from a new light. As if they stood on more equal ground.

Reve returned Mathias’s gaze, seeing Mathias as if he had been one of his father’s men—someone Reve might have stolen looks at, his eyes lingering too long; someone who might have inspired the same heady mix of fear and excitement in him. If he’d dared, if he’d been bold enough, he might have found a mutual interest. But he’d never allowed himself that much.

Mathias’s eyes were heavy on him. “What will you think in the morning, looking back?”

In the morning Mathias would be gone. Reve might never see him again. The good son, Mara had called him, and perhaps it was a failure on his part, but he was tired of bearing the weight of his father’s oath, allowing nothing for himself.

“That I make my own choices.”

Mathias blew out a breath. He closed the distance between them, cupping Reve’s jaw roughly before his mouth descended.

Reve wasn’t sure whether to expect the harshness of their first kiss or the bittersweetness of their second. It was somewhere in between. Mathias’s mouth was hard and warm on his, coaxing rather than demanding. Desire uncurled in his stomach, spreading to his toes and making every part of him come alive.

Mathias’s hands moved on him, sliding up the side of Reve’s ribs under his shift, pulling the cloth over his head and leaving a path of fire in their wake. Reve had stood like this countless times under Mathias’s eyes and hands, resenting the familiarity; even more, his own response to it. Now, when he ached to be touched, Mathias only lightly traced the curve of Reve’s neck, ghosting over the hard peaks of his nipples. The air was cool, raising goosebumps on Reve’s skin, but every inch of him felt overheated.

Need caught in his throat, roughening his voice. “I want to see you.”

Mathias’s eyes darkened. He unlaced the top of his shirt and discarded it with the same swift efficiency as he had Reve’s shift.

Reve allowed himself to look. He’d seen Mathias before: his hard soldier’s body, tempered by experience and age. He’d seen the soldier and the horse farmer, and the odd disjunction between the two.

He didn’t know which Mathias was now. If this was someone entirely new.

“Have you done this before?”

It came to Reve that they were, in fact, going to do this. His skin tightened in a mix of nerves and anticipation. Of the two of them, Mathias held all the experience. “Not…in the way that you mean.”

“In what way?”

It was hard to dig up memories of Colan. It felt like more than one lifetime ago. “I was fourteen. He was a year older. His father was a friend of my father’s. He came to stay at the castle one winter.”

“Go on.”

“We...used to meet in one of the towers. It was just a game.” Reve stopped. He hadn’t thought it was a game. Ansel had caught them at it once, but he’d just been amused. Later he’d taken Reve aside and explained that it was just something boys did, that he’d grow out of it. Reve had learned to temper his reactions after that, careful not to reveal too much. Not to mistake a mutual need for release for anything more.

“Let me show you.”

There was a gentleness in Mathias’s voice that Reve hadn’t expected. It caught him off guard, tilted the foundation under him; the ground felt unsteady as Mathias drew him forward, into the bedroom and the shadow of the bed.

Nerves hummed under his skin. “What should I….” But Mathias was kissing him again, distracting Reve from his inexperience, maneuvering them both onto the bed’s height. His hands moved on the cord of Reve’s pants, releasing it and tugging them down over his hips.

Mathias sat back on his heels and gazed down at him.

Reve looked self-consciously back. He felt bare and exposed like this. He didn’t know how to proceed, only that he needed contact. Needed Mathias’s skin against his, needed to feel warmth uncurl in him again at the taste of Mathias’s lips.

Mathias reached for something beside the bed. Reve took the opportunity to touch him, hesitantly at first; his fingers finding the scar on Mathias’s shoulder, the skin puckered yet smooth. Mathias’s chest was lightly dusted with dark hair, his nipples small and brown. The skin of his stomach was soft over hard muscle.

Mathias caught Reve’s hand in its explorations, turning the wrist over to expose the shadow of the bruise Parma had left. His expression hardened.

“It’s nothing. An altercation in the yard.”

“I know.” Mathias’s voice was tight. “Leone told me.” He rubbed lightly at the bruise as if he could erase it, as if he saw something else in the discolored skin.

Reve gently tugged his wrist free. “I was careless, that’s all.” He didn’t want to think about Parma. “Should I…?”

“No, stay there.” Mathias placed a vial on the bed next to them.

Mathias shifted on the bed, his hands curved around Reve’s hips, and a moment later Reve felt the warm wet heat of Mathias’s mouth on his cock, shocking the breath out of him.

Reve’s hands clenched in the bedding. Colan had never done this to him. Mathias’s mouth pulled at the center of him and stripped everything else away. His hand went to Mathias’s hair, thick and curling where it was growing out from its soldier’s cut. It slid under his fingers, a soft contrast to the heat and unbearable suction.

He made a sound when Mathias’s mouth left him, but then it was replaced by the cool slick slide of Mathias’s hand.

He sank back onto the bed, overwhelmed with the sensation of it: the oil quickly heating on his skin, the rough calluses of Mathias’s sword hand finding every sensitive spot on his cock. It spread outward, building on some deep ache inside him, threatening to crash over him. He pushed into Mathias’s hand, helpless to stop his hips from seeking contact.

Mathias’s hand moved lower, pushed Reve’s knee up to reach the core of him, pressing against the tight muscle. Reve tensed at the intrusion. Mathias’s other hand quieted him with light touches on his ribs and stomach, distracting him from the slow burn and pressure of Mathias’s fingers sinking into him.

“Relax.” Mathias’s voice gave him something to latch on to as his fingers worked in and out of him. It was an odd sensation, not quite pain, the pressure making him vulnerable to every movement. The sudden burst of pleasure when Mathias reached a spot inside him was unexpected and dizzying. He made a sound unlike anything he’d heard before from his own throat.

It was muffled a moment later by Mathias’s warm mouth on his. “Let me in,” Mathias murmured against his lips, and Reve realized his fingers had been replaced by something else, the pressure increasing as Mathias’s cock began to breach him.

He’d imagined this, helpless not to; he knew how a man took another. He remembered that hot dark night with the tavern woman, how different it had been. It will make you a man, Ansel had said, but he hadn’t felt any different after. Just further removed from what he wanted.

It wasn’t this, the too-intimate press of Mathias inside him, carving out what Reve had buried and exposing all of its rawness. He was aware that he was coming, felt the hot splash on his chest and stomach and Mathias’s hand guiding him through each burst of pleasure. Distantly, he could feel Mathias’s cock moving in him, deeper, filling him, then the warmth and thrust of Mathias taking his own release.

Slowly he came back to himself. Mathias’s lips found his again. Just a light touch, barely moving in the lassitude that followed. For a moment Reve let himself forget everything else, his world narrowing to the soft skin of Mathias’s lips on his, the brief suspension of time where it was all that mattered.

****

Mathias was a shadow next to him when Reve woke again at dawn. The dark smudges under his eyes had lightened. The furrow between his brows was less pronounced. Reve reached out, traced the faint line as if he could erase the lingering worry from it.

Mathias caught his hand and folded it in his, rubbing the base of Reve’s palm lightly with his thumb.

Reality crept in slowly, growing with the sun; the night was already fading into the background. A memory Reve could hold on to, one bright thing out of everything else.

Giving voice to what was on his mind, he said, “Do you think the king is serious about making Leal his successor?”

Mathias took a moment to answer. The movement of his thumb stilled. “I think that the king means it sincerely.”

“But?”

“But whether it will come to pass, I cannot say. There are more forces at work than just Arturus.”

No more than what he had expected, but it didn’t ease his worry for Leal. “So what happens to me?”

“Luca is taking you in. And I’ll ask Leone to keep an eye on you.”

Reve snorted at the assumption that he was a child or a pet. “I see you’ve sorted it all out.”

“Reve,” Mathias said, and Reve tensed, anger intruding on the relative peace they’d found. He hated this feeling of helplessness. Everything since he’d been trussed up like a trophy of war had been one long reminder of his foolishness in thinking he could best the king.

Mathias’s hand was warm around his, steadying rather than restraining. “I will protect you, and Leal, as much as I can. It may not be enough. It may not even be what you want. But I will exercise everything in my power to see you both through this alive.”

Protection was for family and kin, and Mathias was neither. He was a southerner, Reve’s captor, the man who led the army of his enemy. Reve ought to despise him, not believe in him.

And despite Mathias’s words, they were on different paths now. Reve didn’t know when, or if, they would reconverge.

“What will you do when you get there? What do you think you’ll find?” The possibility of unrest in the north was both exciting and alarming. In spite of the danger to Leal, the thought that his homeland might be fighting back kindled the first spark of hope he’d had. Perhaps we’re not so easily conquered.

Mathias was quiet a long while. “I’ll know soon enough.”

Ardeche

Chapter Ten

It was snowing when they reached the battlements, an icy stinging snow that made the stone footing of the wall treacherous. Mathias pulled his cloak around his neck and thought about Touren, warm and sleepy in its mild winter. Even Cortesa would be better than this, though perhaps the politicians would be made more tolerable if they all had to endure a few northern winters.

“The tower overlooks the pass.” Zeccosi, the garrison commander, gestured to a round dark form on the northern wall. His commentary on Ardeche’s defenses had so far been short, gruff, and to the point, which mirrored Mathias’s impression of the man himself. An old scar ran from the corner of his eye to the line of his jaw, like an artist’s parting gesture that contrarily softened rather than sharpened his features. His dark eyes were grim. Mathias remembered the man vaguely from the last campaign.

They’d reached the end of the wall. Ardeche was positioned strategically, guarding the only safe passage through to the forested hills, which thus far had made it sweet pickings for the rebels holed up in them. The castle wasn’t designed to defend from the north.

“Can you hold it with the men you have?”

Zeccosi swept his sharp eyes over the lay of the castle, blurry and gloom-covered in the stinging snow, the high curtain wall and gatehouse and looming keep all solidly built to withstand a siege or encroaching army. Defeated by the empire in the end, though this was a different type of foe.

“There are hundreds in the hills. Perhaps a thousand or more. Ardeche can hold them off, but they’ll take Tille or Salenne first.”

Mathias hadn’t realized the extent of it. “Who leads them?”

Instead of answering, Zeccosi led him off the wall and back down the narrow stair. The sudden lack of wind and snow was a momentary cheer, until cold water started to drip down the back of his neck. Zeccosi’s aide was at the bottom, waiting. Zeccosi turned to Mathias.

“You’ll want to dine with Lord Faro, I expect.”

Lord Faro was the obsequious man who had met him at the gatehouse, the governor Arturus had appointed for the castle out of some political favor for a nobleman’s son. At least Mathias hoped it had been Arturus’s motivation, and not a belief that the man deserved the post on his own merits. It was clear the man believed Mathias was there solely to evaluate his performance, and after suffering several minutes of nervous excuses, none of which Mathias had any interest in, Mathias had asked to speak with the garrison commander instead.

“I’m sure that he’ll expect it, but if you have room at your table, I’d be better pleased to join you and your men.”

Zeccosi acknowledged the courtesy of the words with a snort and gruff nod. But his eyes relented a little. Clearly he hadn’t known what to expect from Mathias, either.

Mathias stopped at the rooms assigned him in the keep to shed his wet cloak and gloves, then followed Zeccosi’s aide back to the garrison in the bailey, following a tunneled route to avoid the elements. The meal was already in progress, men glancing up at him curiously from wooden benches, their meal consisting of a stew cooking at the hearth and hard loaves of bread. Any source of warmth was welcome, and Mathias accepted a bowl gratefully from the stew’s keeper, a boy who looked at him wide-eyed and spilled a little broth when Mathias thanked him.

Zeccosi was at the end of the table, a spot left for Mathias on the bench to his right. The men ate silently, grimly. Mathias wondered at first if it was Zeccosi’s stoic influence, but it was more than that. It seemed to affect even the men Mathias had brought with him from Cortesa. There was a sense of defeat in the room, shoulders slumped and wary, the look of men waiting for the final blow to fall.

It was a far more dangerous vulnerability than any crack he could find in Ardeche’s walls.

When the meal was done, Zeccosi pushed his chair back, and with a glance at Mathias told his aide to bring wine to his room. Mathias stood and followed him down the corridor and up a short stair to the commander’s quarters.

There were two rooms, the outer room holding a table and wooden chairs around it in front of a fireplace. Zeccosi poked at the fire and built it up until the room was warm and the aide had brought the wine and two mugs, leaving them on the table.

The wine tasted unfamiliar, but good. “The previous lord of Ardeche had an extensive cellar,” Zeccosi said, with the first hint of approval of his surroundings that Mathias had heard so far. The wine was lighter and drier than the southern vintages Mathias knew, and he took a moment to taste it.

When the silence had reached a lull, Zeccosi said, “We fought together at Pereta.” With a finger he traced the upper length of his scar. “Before this.”

Mathias studied him, thinking back and trying to place him. Pereta had been almost eighteen years ago. Mathias had been barely twenty, under the old commander’s watchful eye, with Leone his commanding officer and two dozen men as close to him as brothers. Zeccosi hadn’t been among them, but Mathias remembered him from another unit, younger but still grizzled, his black eyes a little less grim.

“I remember,” Mathias said, tipping his mug to his lips. Pereta had been his first real battle. Mathias recalled the sickening thrill of it, the satisfaction of knowing he’d done well and the way he’d been sick after.

You must think very little of life and death to mete it out so dispassionately. Reve’s words at their first meeting. There was a difference between dispassion and acceptance. Any sane soldier knew that.

“How is morale?” Mathias asked, keeping any inflection from his voice.

Zeccosi’s eyes sharpened, but he shrugged. “You saw for yourself. The raids are too easy; the rebels have inside help. The castle folk are still demoralized from the death of most of their men, but if they revolt as well we have no hope of holding them.” He hesitated, then added with a note of disgust, “The servants talk of ghosts and the dead rising up again, and our men believe it. They think the northerners are witches. They buy warding hexes from the old women in the kitchens. We’d do well to leave this country to its rotted darkness.”

Bad and worse. Mathias felt the cold of Zeccosi’s words like a physical thing, creeping through the stone walls of this silent fortress.

It was small comfort, but Mathias said, “A caravan with relief supplies is on its way. Along with some of the men’s back pay.” Not all of it, or even half, but it had taken nearly a knife to the chancellor’s throat to get that much. Mathias had managed it only after reminding the man that the last thing the city needed, broke or not, was a large number of disgruntled men trained to devastate and destroy marching on the city.

“I hope it’s well guarded,” Zeccosi said, still glum.

They drank a few moments in silence. Part of Mathias wondered if they should give up the whole region as lost. Withdraw from Tille and Salenne, transition out of Ardeche with a few men left as consuls, if the northerners didn’t kill them on the spot. Try a different tack to bring them into the empire. Perhaps the land was meant for a later generation to tame.

The soldier in him was more stubborn. Abandoning the north now felt like the coward’s way. The empire had torn through the region and killed half its men, and to give that up now would feel like it had been for nothing, that the blood on the field had come to little more than a temporary redrawing of the lines on a map.

“Outside, on the battlements. I asked you who the leader was of the outlaws in the hills. If there is one.”

Zeccosi took his time swallowing his wine before answering. “The folk of the castle talk, but they know as little as we. I sent scouts into the hills to find out what we could.”

“Have they relayed anything of significance?”

“Not so far. The rebels are holed up deep, and they know these hills. But if their numbers are as large as I think, they won’t be able to hide the signs forever. And they’re too organized to be leaderless.”

Zeccosi, then, was expecting an attack. Perhaps they’d be better off pulling men from the other garrisons to Ardeche; it was the more defensible position.

There were still too many unknown variables, too much information yet to be learned. He needed to go to Tille, see for himself how easily it could be taken.

And Salenne. He’d skirted the thought. If he went to Salenne he would have to speak with Reve’s father, and whatever comfort he could give by reassuring the man of his sons’ wellbeing would be overshadowed by the role Mathias played in their situation.

Zeccosi offered him more wine, but Mathias declined. If he was letting his thoughts turn this maudlin, he’d already had too much.

He rose to take his leave. “I’ll speak with you again in the morning. I’ll need to ride to Salenne and Tille soon.” Salenne first, he told himself, unwilling now to back out. “I’ll bring my own men with me, but if you have one or two to spare who are familiar with the area, I would welcome them.”

“You’ll have them, Commander. This is not a land I’d let anyone travel unguided.”

Zeccosi sent his aide to lead Mathias back to his rooms, assistance Mathias was grateful for as they navigated Ardeche’s winding passages. He thought the fates were testing him when he opened the door to a young man crouched in front of the fire with red-brown hair and pale northern skin, banking it swiftly and expertly.

His first rush of pleasure died when he realized it wasn’t Reve, of course it wasn’t Reve, and the hope that it could be was born of too much wine. He made a sound in the doorway and the boy stood and turned quickly, looking from this distance so little like the one Mathias wanted to see that he wondered how he’d been fooled.

“I brought you food, my lord,” the boy said, and Mathias saw a covered dish on the table. He’d already eaten his fill with the men, so he simply nodded acknowledgment and stepped aside to allow the boy to leave.

The boy hesitated, his eyes flicking back and forth between Mathias and some unidentified point on the wall, his demeanor one of youth and nerves. Slow with wine, it took Mathias a moment. When he did realize, he closed the door softly behind him.

“Who sent you?” Mathias tried to make the question light and nonthreatening.

The boy wet his lips. “Lord—Lord Faro, sir,” he said, voice shaking a little.

“I see.” The boy was sent to spy on him, then, to gain whatever snippets of information he could and report them back to Faro. Mathias didn’t think he could convey how little he cared about Lord Faro’s accomplishments or failings, only the extent to which he would step aside if any real trouble reared its head. “Tell your lord that I appreciate the meal, and that if I have time I’ll speak with him in the morning.” He knew he’d have no peace if he didn’t throw Faro at least something to chew on.

The boy stood stubbornly still. “Are you sure there’s nothing more I can do for you, my lord?”

It took Mathias another moment. The boy looked both hopeful and terrified, and if Mathias hadn’t thought Faro was a slimy toad before, this would have sealed it.

“No, but thank you,” he said, as gently as he could, but instead of relief, he saw a face that was, if possible, more terrified. Mathias followed that line of thought. “If you go back to Lord Faro now, unsuccessful in your task, what will happen?”

The boy bit his lip.

Mathias sighed. “Very well.” He went to the bed and pulled off half of the bedding, though the room was cold enough that he thought he would miss some of those furs. He handed them over. “You can sleep the night at the hearth if you wish, if it will help ease things with your master.”

The boy stared at him a moment more. Then he began to lay the furs out in front of the fire, his hands shaking a little, as if he thought it might be a trick, that Mathias would try to take him after all. Mathias gestured to the covered plate on the table. “You’re welcome to that, if you haven’t eaten.”

With that he sat on the edge of the bed to try to wrangle his feet out of his boots.

To his surprise, the boy left the food and came over to him. “Let me help you, my lord.” He seemed to say it out of a genuine desire to help and not some misplaced attempt at seduction.

Mathias thanked him for the service before removing the rest of his outer clothes and slipping under the furs on the bed. The room was silent except for the quiet sounds of the boy eating whatever had been on the plate.

He thought he should be exhausted, but something kept him up. He stared at the plastered ceiling. The fire gave off the smallest of light. The boy had finished his meal and returned to his makeshift bed on the hearth.

“What’s your name?” Mathias asked, wondering if the boy would fear he’d changed his mind, but the answer he got back was easy enough.

“Garin, my lord.”

“Have you always lived here?”

A longer pause. “My father was killed in the battle. My mother is a maid here. Lord Faro took her in.”

There was too much behind his words that Mathias didn’t want to think on tonight. The castle must be full of fatherless children. And no doubt Lord Faro had had his pick of maids to add to his household.

He let the silence grow between them until he could hear the boy’s steady breathing and knew he was asleep.

His thoughts drifted inevitably to Reve. He’s under my care. My responsibility, he’d told Luca, when he’d gone to ask for his help. It was true, but it was only a partial answer. All Mathias knew was that something deeply and vitally necessary would be gone if he lost him.

You can’t hide him forever. Someone will know him for what he is, either here or in the north, and will use him against both his brother and the king. Alive, he destabilizes the empire.

I won’t consign him to death over what might happen.

Even if it means sacrificing everything else?

Mathias moved restlessly under the furs, until with a sigh he rose from the bed and pulled on the boots the boy had so painstakingly removed for him, threw on his cloak and headed out of the keep into the night.

It had stopped snowing, at least. The guards on the wall gave him startled looks, jolted momentarily from their own endured misery, but let him pass without challenge. He walked along the wall, looking out through the crenellations. It was dark everywhere except the gatehouse torches, which flared up bravely in the cold and damp.

He wondered how much of Zeccosi’s dislike of the region came from an inherent suspicion most southerners had of everything north of the Vaen. Despite the snow and general gloom, and the hostile eyes of the castle’s inhabitants, Mathias found himself curious about the land. It was so different from his own. Perhaps it was just from picturing Reve here, wondering what his life had been like. Hunting with his brothers in familiar forests, training his father’s horses.

Mathias felt a stab of what he could only call jealousy, thinking about a life that he’d had no part of. It was an unpleasant sensation. A feeling that the bottom had dropped out somewhere, that he no longer had the foothold he’d once held onto so persistently.

No matter. He was here and Reve was there, and neither one of them might see their next summer alive and whole. It could be a moot point altogether. And even if by some fate they survived this, given the choice, Reve would likely prefer to have nothing to do with him. His chest tight with an unwanted emotion, Mathias knew that the time that he could withhold that choice was growing to a close, whatever the outcome here.

****

The steward eyed Reve’s work-roughened hands with something like horror. “You were at the palace?”

Luca’s house had neither Touren’s sprawl nor the palace’s grandeur, but the grounds were kept meticulously and the high walls of the house peered down at Reve, as unimpressed as the steward.

“I can help in the stables.”

The steward looked pained. “We don’t keep horses here.” He looked Reve over, noting with a baffled shake of his head the palace shift he still wore. Reve wondered if Luca had told him anything about Reve, and how much Luca knew himself. “Have you ever served at table?”

Reve assumed that carrying a tray of food from the kitchens wasn’t what he meant. “No.”

A pause, and then as if he couldn’t quite fathom it, the steward said, “You were a personal slave?”

The steward clearly found Reve unequal to the title. At Reve’s affirmative, the steward sighed, as if there was no accounting for taste. “I’ll put you in the kitchen.”

The old woman who ran it had him carry water in from the well, back and forth to the giant tub, then gestured to a block of soap and a mountain of dishes piled up from the midday meal. Arms deep in soapy water, Reve wondered if he would spend the entirety of Mathias’s absence washing dishes, and if on Mathias’s return he could dunk the man’s head in with them.

Halfway through the mounds of plates, he was joined by another slave who nudged him amicably to the side to make more room at the tub and began washing the stack closest to him.

“So you’re the palace slave,” he said, with a sidelong look at Reve.

It was hard to judge his tone. Reve had no wish to make enemies here. “Yes.”

After a moment of waiting for Reve to elaborate, the slave said, “A quiet one, are you?”

That had been said with a good deal less friendliness. Reve resigned himself and said, “Yes, I was at the palace, but only for a few weeks.”

“Chele,” the slave said, nodding to himself. “What was it like?”

Chele couldn’t hide his interest, or the note of eagerness in his voice. Reve wondered if he’d ever gone beyond the walls of Luca’s courtyard. “Everything echoes. The walls are covered in frescoes. It’s beautiful, like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

Chele was silent a moment. “Did you see any of the king’s slaves?”

Reve hadn’t, unless he counted Erakos, and he thought that wasn’t what Chele meant. “No, they were all locked away.”

Another sidelong glance. “Did your master tire of you?”

“Perhaps I tired of him.”

Chele let out a huff of laughter that had the old woman glaring their way. “Fickle, aren’t they? I was a pleasure slave once, until I got too old.”

Chele looked barely older than Reve. “Did you like it?”

Chele gave him a strange look, then shrugged. “Better than washing dishes.”

He was silent after that, and Reve found his thoughts wandering. He wondered how long it would take for Mathias to ride north with the winter’s snow still thick on the ground. If Mathias would go to Salenne. If the land was still bare and ravaged from the battle, the blood washed away.

He spent the next few days learning the routines of the household, washing mountains of dishes, and answering the questions about the palace from the other slaves. He felt rough next to them. Most of them had grown up in the house or at Luca’s estate outside the city, and were well versed in the world of slavery, something Reve was beginning to realize was entirely different from the world of their masters.

“Reve.”

Startled, Reve looked over to find the steward addressing him from the doorway of the kitchen.

“The master asked for your attendance tonight.” The steward didn’t hide his low opinion of the master’s judgment. “He’s having a small gathering.”

Reve’s throat tightened. “Why?”

The steward frowned his disapproval. “That’s not for you to ask or know. Chele, take him to the bathhouse and make him more presentable than…” he waved his hand helplessly, “that.”

Chele grinned when the steward left. “Come with me.”

Reve would have preferred even Adan’s manhandling to Chele’s obvious glee when he herded Reve to the slaves’ bathhouse. It was utilitarian, nothing like the one at Touren, but the water was hot and it was one of the few places the slaves could relax in. “There must be a mistake.”

“Why?” Chele scrubbed Reve’s nails with a brush as stiff as the one they used to clean the floors. “The master must have bought you for a reason.”

Reve couldn’t explain without giving the ruse away. Or at least he’d thought it was a ruse. His stomach churned. Whatever agreement Mathias had made, by Cortesian law Reve was a slave. Luca could do whatever he wanted with him.

Numb, he let Chele have his way—which seemed to include half a stick of kohl around his eyes and hot iron curls in his hair. When Chele finally announced his satisfaction and prodded Reve to look in the brass mirror at the edge of the bathhouse, Reve had to admit that he looked nothing like himself. Thankfully. If he was going to be paraded about this way he’d rather not recognize himself.

Still, he had to admit he was a little…intrigued by what Chele had crafted. He wasn’t beautiful like Adan, but he made a respectable pleasure slave.

The steward seemed to agree, by the shock on his face when he fetched him at the bathhouse. “I suppose you were at the palace after all. Here, put this on.” He handed Reve a blue embroidered tunic that barely reached the middle of his thighs. “Hurry up.”

On the way the steward relayed a flurry of instructions that boiled down to: stay quiet, stay out of the way, and do whatever a free man said.

It was the last one that knotted Reve’s stomach. Trying to remember Adan’s lessons, he entered the drawing room quietly and knelt on a pillow by the fireplace. The room was filled with incense and the smell of burning wood from the fireplace, and well-dressed people who ignored him. He wasn’t expected to serve, thankfully.

After a few minutes, he let himself relax and take in the room. It was a small gathering, as the steward had said, about fifteen men and women of varying ages. They formed clusters around the room, standing or sitting on pillowed benches. He had the sense that they knew each other well by the ease of their conversation.

“He’s a lovely one, Luca.”

Startled, Reve raised his eyes to an older woman next to his host. He’d seen Luca only briefly when Mathias first brought him to the house. Luca was small, a little plump, with short grey hair and a measured gaze. His dark eyes, when they met Reve’s, revealed nothing. Belatedly, Reve lowered his. The woman laughed. “Sweet boy.”

“His master’s away, so I’m afraid he’s only here for show.” Some of the tension in Reve’s shoulders unknotted. “But I agree, he’s striking.”

“A northerner, isn’t he?” She raised Reve’s chin with an elegant but firm finger. “Lovely eyes. They’ll be all the rage soon, I imagine.”

Reve fought to keep his expression impassive, though he thought some his reaction must have shown by the quirk of Luca’s mouth. To his relief, Luca drew the woman away and the gathering continued without him once more.

He was beginning to wonder why he was there when Luca called him over and gestured to another pillow next to a chaise. “Give us something lovelier to look at than our own tired faces,” he said, his dark eyes still inscrutable. Reve lowered himself as gracefully as his stiff legs allowed. The group had dwindled to just three men and the woman who’d been with Luca earlier. She barely spared Reve a glance now, intent on their conversation.

Reve realized they were talking about the north. “The king will have to respond if the raids continue,” the woman was saying. “It’s early for a campaign, but he can still gather enough of the army to march north.”

“Better the army there than here,” another said.

“Or pull out of the north entirely.”

“The king will never do it. He’s too in love with conquering.”

“Then the city will have to give him no choice.”

Luca, Reve realized, was listening rather than participating in the conversation. He looked troubled. There was more speculation from the group, but it sounded to Reve as if they were testing each other more than anything else. Seeing where each one stood.

The conversation moved on to other topics. Reve’s attention drifted. It had been a long day, and his back ached from hours of washing dishes and kneeling in this perfumed room. He blinked. He’d been dozing. The room was dark, lit only by a few candles and the dwindling fire, and empty.

Or not quite empty. Luca sat on the chaise, studying him.

“I see why Mathias is so fond of you.”

Reve’s face heated. He shifted on the pillow, stretching legs that had been still for too long. “Was this all for my benefit?”

“In part. I was curious how you would react to news of your homeland. But mostly it was because I don’t like harboring unknown variables in my home, and you, despite what Mathias thinks, are an unknown variable in a situation that has too many as it is.”

Curious, Reve asked, “What is it that you think I can do?”

“Nothing, on your own. I think you would make quite an attractive prospect for someone else. You’re still the eldest heir to Salenne.”

“How could I be, as a slave?”

Luca waved his hand. “A legality, and one easily overturned. Or made null—I assume your own people don’t recognize the laws of Cortesa, so I doubt it would matter to them if they decided to rebel.”

Only if they had rejected his father’s oath to the king; otherwise, they were just as bound by it. But if what Reve had heard tonight was true, and the north was on the cusp of revolt, then perhaps there was a possibility…. “It doesn’t matter. My brother’s still a hostage.”

“A less easily resolved dilemma. I doubt the king will be willing to give him up.”

It was at the crux of everything, impeding any action he might take. “Why bring me here if you don’t trust me?”

“Because ignorance is a greater danger than whatever schemes the council may dream up. And perhaps I wanted to see why Mathias is so intent on protecting you. His sense of responsibility will follow him to the grave, or more likely drive him to it.”

Reve wondered if that was all it was—an obligation on Mathias’s part. The thought was surprisingly unpleasant.

But despite Luca’s reserve, what he’d heard tonight fanned that spark of hope he’d felt at the first news of northern unrest. Even if he couldn’t free Leal, even if he died here, at least his people were rebelling against the Cortesian king. If it couldn’t be Reve, then someone else would rise up to lead them.

And Mathias would be caught in the middle, but Reve had always known where Mathias’s loyalties lay. Mathias’s heart belonged to the king. That wouldn’t change, no matter what Mathias found in the north.

Chapter Eleven

The gates of Salenne opened at their approach, a party of riders emerging like a dark smudge on the horizon. Mathias signaled a halt as the small band closed the gap, his hand on his sword hilt until the front rider broke from the rest and cantered up to them.

“My lord Commander.” Young for a captain, but Mathias remembered him from the campaign. Capable enough and eager, though the captain’s horse shifted uneasily beneath him, picking up on his nervousness. Mathias wondered if everyone in the region thought he was here to mete out the king’s judgment for events they couldn’t control.

“Be at ease, Captain.” He nudged his horse forward to draw him away from the others. The men from the castle and Ardeche fell in behind them. “I didn’t expect a personal welcome. Certainly not one of such numbers. Have you had trouble from raiders?”

“No, my lord. Though....” Mathias waited for him to continue. “We’ve lost a lot of men. Not ours,” he clarified, at Mathias’s sharp look. “The people of Salenne. Disappearing from the castle and grounds, until we imposed a curfew and doubled the guard. But the nearby villages...I’ve sent parties out, and they say that whole villages lie deserted, stripped clean of goods and livestock.”

Mathias mulled this over. “You think they’ve gone to the hills to join the rebels.”

“It’s what I would do.” The captain flushed, realizing what he’d said. “I mean, yes, Commander.”

“When did the last party go out?” They were almost upon the castle. It looked as if it was ready for a siege, the usual makeshift buildings gone from outside the walls and the gates guarded tightly. Soldiers manned the upper battlements.

“Not for several weeks.”

“You think the rebels are so organized they could take out a party of the king’s men?”

“Yes,” the captain said bluntly. “We know of the raids at Ardeche. Tille has seen them, too. If reports of their numbers are true....”

He didn’t finish, but Mathias knew what the reports said. Strange, then, that they hadn’t attacked Salenne. In a way, it was the weakest of the three. Ardeche was the strategic prize and manned as such, and though Tille was smaller, its defenses were bolstered by the hills and gullies surrounding it. Mathias would have bet on Salenne as the easiest target.

“Is the lord cooperating?”

“Allard?” the captain sounded surprised. “Yes, though I suspect he knows more than he reveals.”

Mathias had no doubt of that. “I would speak with him as well.”

He saw the captain wince. “I’ll do what I can, Commander, but he isn’t well. He spends much of his time in his apartments, attended by his physician. But I’ll speak to the physician.”

Mathias wondered if Allard was truly ill or just taking himself out of the empire’s eye. If he did have a connection to the force gathering in the hills, then his oath to the king and threat to his sons were reasons enough to conceal it.

For now, though, he had a situation to assess. A hundred men made up the garrison at Salenne. Less than Ardeche, but with the castle’s defenses and the leverage of Allard’s sons ensuring Allard’s cooperation, the king had deemed it enough at the time. Now Mathias wondered again if he should withdraw the men from Salenne and Tille to Ardeche. If the rebels hoped to make a stand against the empire, they needed Ardeche to control the pass.

They’d reached the gates, and the guards let them in—they were on edge, eyes drifting to the outline of the hills as if expecting an attack at any time. Mathias wondered if morale was as low as what he’d seen in Zeccosi’s men.

“If the rebels were to attack Salenne, how long could your men hold them?”

The captain took his time in answering. “They’re good men.”

Mathias couldn’t fault his loyalty to them. “I know they are,” he said, waiting.

“A day,” the captain said finally. “Perhaps two. They’re spooked, my lord, and the winter has been long. It wouldn’t take much to break them.”

****

Morale might be low, but the men were physically in good shape, properly provisioned, and had a discipline that spoke well of the captain’s abilities. Still, Mathias couldn’t help but see that their expressions reflected the oppressiveness of the castle, its silent halls and even quieter inhabitants, the air of waiting over everything. Salenne had been a thriving principality before the campaign, but now the signs of neglect were everywhere, in the empty corridors and diminished stores, the scarcity of its people.

The captain passed on his request to Allard’s physician. Mathias assumed the man would be slow to respond, torn between loyalty to his lord and the presumed anger of the empire’s agent, so he was surprised when an answer came back almost immediately: Allard would receive him in the formal hall. Either he wasn’t as ill as he’d been pretending, or he was making the point that he was still prince of this castle, even if a vassal to Mathias’s king.

Entering the dusty hall, Mathias saw immediately that it was the latter. Allard’s skin was ashen, as if he’d been washed of all color. He was almost two stone lighter than when Mathias had last seen him. Mathias wondered what it cost him to sit with his back so straight under the weight of his robes and heavy rings on his fingers, the thin circlet of gold almost falling off his brow.

“My lord Allard.” Mathias bowed. Even from this distance, he saw how the lines of his face cut deeply. But the stubborn set to Allard’s mouth was familiar, as was the sharp appraisal in his eyes. Mathias had seen that expression on Reve’s face often enough. Allard’s health might be failing, but he clearly still had his pride.

His physician stood to the side, looking both worried and exasperated. Clearly Allard had gone against his advice in agreeing to this meeting.

“Commander.” Allard’s voice was thin but still carried. “How is my youngest son?”

Surprised by the lack of the usual formalities, Mathias took a moment to answer. “He is well, my lord. The king fosters him at court and treats him as his own. Reports are that he’s keen in his studies.”

Allard’s eyes narrowed. “What is your expectation of how soon he will return home?”

He spoke from fear, Mathias realized. Allard saw his death approach. He didn’t want to leave his lands without their lord, nor die with the knowledge that his son was still in the hands of another.

Mathias wished he could allay his fear, but he wouldn’t lie to him. “I think it will be many years before Leal returns.”

Allard’s gaze didn’t waver, but Mathias saw the creep of exhaustion in his eyes, the slight slump of his shoulders. The physician went to him, undaunted by the fierce look Allard gave him.

“My lord, he should retire,” the physician said, glancing back at Mathias.

Mathias saw it for himself. Allard had used up all his strength just to receive him in the hall. “I would speak with him again.”

“Later,” the physician said sharply, then added with more deference, “Please, my lord. He’s not well.”

Mathias had no wish to push the man, though his time here was limited—there was still Tille to assess and the ever-present question of the men in the hills, and Allard’s sure knowledge of them. But he nodded and took his leave. He could give Allard a few days to recover his strength.

A message from the physician came the next night, however, as Mathias was leaving the guard hall after dining with the men. Following the messenger to Allard’s apartments, he found the physician waiting for him in the outer chamber. “He insists on speaking with you.” His expression revealed what he thought of that idea. “But you can’t have much time with him.”

“How much longer does he have?”

The physician looked unwilling to place a measure on his ability to keep Allard alive. “It could be months yet. Or days, if his strength is already depleted. His body will continue to support him if the will is there, but I doubt he’ll live out the spring.”

If the physician was right, Mathias would have to arrange for a proxy lord until Leal was old enough to rule. He would write Arturus before the king sent another like Lord Faro—the region was too far gone to survive more neglect. If by chance they survived any of this, he wanted Leal to find the same home he’d left.

“I’ll be as easy as I can,” Mathias said, knowing that he might have to push Allard more than the physician might like if he hoped to learn anything, but he could see no other way around it.

“That will have to do.” The physician led him to an inner chamber, leaving Mathias alone in the light from the fire burning in the hearth.

The room was warm and stifling. At first he didn’t notice Allard. Wrapped up in furs in the chair by the hearth, he seemed to take up little space. Mathias took a stool at the other side of the hearth. Allard had aged years since that night of Arturus’s victory feast.

“You were here last summer.” The thin sound of his voice in the silence was startling.

Mathias knew Allard remembered him clearly, but he let the man proceed at his own pace. “Yes, my lord.”

“The servants spoke of you. They said—my son.” Allard seemed unable to continue.

As gently as he could, Mathias said, “Reve is still alive. And well, so far as it is in my power. He’s in the household of a friend for now.”

Allard was quiet a while. “You cannot understand that choice.” The emptiness in his voice was chilling even in the oppressive heat of the room. Mathias could imagine how Arturus had posed the choice to him—which of his remaining sons would live to inherit after him, and which would die in payment for resistance.

“I’m not a father, but I think it’s one no one should have to make.”

Allard’s gaze was fixed on the fire. Mathias wondered if finding out Reve was still alive was a mixed blessing. Allard’s pride ran deep. He saw the question in his eyes, his dread in anticipation of the answer. “What is my son to you?”

Mathias’s chest tightened unexpectedly. Allard’s question touched something he’d rather leave buried deep. He knew what the man asked, but his answers were too numerous and jumbled to untangle. He couldn’t separate Reve from what had happened here—from the cruelty of his king, which still had the power to fill him with regret; his own role in allowing it. Everything he knew of Reve was shaped by the moment Arturus had posed that choice. He wondered how it would have been to encounter him in other circumstances. If he would have felt the same pull of Reve’s strength of will, the love he had for his brother.

“If it is in my power, I will protect him.” It didn’t answer Allard’s question, but Allard nodded, as if Mathias’s response didn’t surprise him.

“Then I think your king has forced a choice on you as well.”

Mathias wouldn’t let it come to that. He could not. If he could navigate this northern threat, bring stability back to the empire, then Arturus could still become the king Mathias had always seen in him. He could serve his king and protect Reve; the two were not mutually exclusive.

“You made an oath as well. Would you endanger your sons’ lives by breaking it?”

“I have not forsworn my oath.” Mathias couldn’t read anything behind his words; Allard had spoken them calmly, evenly.

“Not directly, perhaps. But you’re still accountable for the actions of your people. The king will interpret it as such. It’s in both our interests to see this resistance brought to heel, if you would see your sons alive.”

A long silence met his words. Mathias saw a few cracks in Allard’s façade, worn down by grief and pride and resignation.

“By your own admission, you are not a father,” Allard said finally. “But I assume you know what it is to put others’ lives before your own, to lay aside your own desires for the good of the people you serve. My sons know this. They would not sacrifice Salenne to keep their own skins whole.”

Mathias felt the weight of his gaze as Allard continued, “I have given no aid to anyone acting against the Cortesian king, but I will not help you strike against them. Tell your king that, and let him do as he will.”

Mathias knew the discussion was closed; Allard would speak of it no more. “I’ll tell him,” he said, the only promise he could make.

Allard’s intractability was disappointing, but Mathias couldn’t help but respect his position. They were a mad, proud bunch. But Mathias couldn’t condemn Allard’s allegiances.

Still, Mathias’s job had just been made all the harder. He took his leave, nodding to the physician as he left the outer chamber. He would ride to Tille in the morning, dig out what he could, then hope Zeccosi’s scouts had returned with something, anything that could give them some foothold on what was brewing in the hills. Or else all of his promises would come to nothing.

Chapter Twelve

“There’s someone at the gate for you.”

Reve looked up. One of the older slaves who worked the grounds, frowning at the impropriety of anyone calling on a slave. Reve set aside the dish he’d been washing and dried his hands, reluctantly discarding the idea that it could be Leal; the king would never let him venture so far into the city.

At the gate the guards were chatting amiably with a soldier in city livery. Mathias’s friend, the one he’d run into in the yard. Leone flashed him an easy grin and handed him a folded sheet of parchment.

The parchment was fine enough that it could only have come from the palace. Reve closed his fingers over it, his throat thick.

“I’ll be back tomorrow if you want to pen a reply.”

“Thank you,” Reve managed.

He had a few minutes before anyone would come looking for him. The dormitory was empty this time of day. He unfolded the letter on his bed. Leal’s writing was neater than the sprawl he’d had in Salenne, but he wrote in a strange mix of northern and southern scripts, and Reve stumbled over some of the words, trying to decipher them. Leal wrote about his studies and his horse and the new litter of puppies born to one of the hunting dogs.

When he finished, Reve read the letter again. Then he refolded it and tucked it between the pages of his mother’s book.

Leone was waiting for him at the gate the next day. “I want to see him,” Reve said.

“I’m sure you do,” Leone said, eyebrow raised. “But it’s not you I’ll have to answer to.”

Reve forced his hands to unclench, his breathing to slow. He knew his anger was irrational, and that it would get him nowhere with Leone. “There’s no need to coddle me because of him,” he said, trying to keep his voice even.

“I think you underestimate your master’s temper.”

“He would let me take my own risks.” It wasn’t precisely true, but at least Mathias had given him the freedom to learn his own lessons.

“I forgot you were as stubborn.” Leone was silent a moment, considering, and Reve saw the moment he relented. “If you’re so determined to risk your neck, I’ll see what I can do.”

It was several days before he returned. Reve spent the time in the kitchen or helping in the winter garden, the wait beginning to wear on him before he was finally summoned to the gate again.

“The king is out of the city until tomorrow and taken his pet soldier with him.” Leone’s lip curled. “Word is he’s made Parma commander of his personal guard.”

Reve wasn’t interested in the king or his pets. He just wanted to see Leal again and leave this stifling house for a few hours. Leone spoke quietly a moment to the guards, a few coins exchanged hands, then he gestured for Reve to follow him out of the gate. “That’ll buy us time, but you may have some hard words from Luca’s steward waiting for you when you return.”

“I don’t care,” Reve said. He didn’t. He had no idea what punishment the steward meted out for disobedient slaves, but it couldn’t be worse than the tedium he’d borne so far.

Leone took him through a Cortesa Reve hadn’t seen before, down narrow alleys and rough stone streets thick with the smells of rotting food and urine and too many bodies packed into small spaces. They approached the palace from behind, near the barracks and stables, then Leone stopped at a low door at the base of a small round tower.

“Wait here.” Leone disappeared inside. Several minutes passed. When Leone returned, he gestured for Reve to follow.

Reve followed him up the narrow stone steps. At the top stood another door, and Leone waved him through first. There was a servants’ corridor on the other side, the stone walls rough and unfinished. The man waiting just beyond the door turned at Reve’s appearance.

Leal’s tutor, Erakos. Erakos looked past him to Leone, then back to Reve. “You can’t stay long. The queen will expect him at dinner, and he’ll need to dress for it.”

“Just point this one in the direction of the stables when he’s done,” Leone said, nodding to Reve before closing the tower door behind him.

Silent, Erakos led him to a connecting door to the palace proper, then to the schoolroom where Reve had met Leal the first time. Reve quickened his steps the last few feet to the doorway, then paused a moment before he saw Leal in one of the window seats, poring over a scroll.

Leal looked up. “You’re here!” Letting the scroll slide to the ground, he jumped up. “Erakos said I could write you. Did you get my letter?”

“I did.” Reve gave him a quick hug. “I haven’t gone very far, just across the city.”

“So you’ll be able to visit me again?”

Reve hesitated. He doubted he could convince Leone to bring him here a second time, even if Erakos agreed. “I’ll try, but it may be a while.”

Leal seemed satisfied with that, at least for the moment. He told Reve again about the puppies, and Reve let the words roll over him, not paying attention to their meaning, caring only that he was here and that his brother was well and alive and happy.

“Do you remember when we went ice skating on the lake?”

Reve brought his attention back. “How do you remember that? It was years ago.”

“They don’t have anywhere like that here. I asked Erakos, but he says the winters aren’t cold enough.”

Leal had a brooding expression on his face. Reve knew he was aware of more than he let on. How much more difficult must it be for him to walk the line between the affection of the king and the memory of his family? Children understood dangers that adults tended to forget.

Reve took his hand and laced their fingers together. “I remember you were afraid to skate on your own without Ansel or me holding on to you.”

“I was not,” Leal said, affronted, but he didn’t pull his hand away.

Reve grinned. “You were. Ansel finally had to trick you and tell you he had hold of your cloak. You skated halfway around the lake before you realized.”

A reluctant smile appeared. “You told father I’d skated all the way around.”

“That’s what a brother’s for, to boast of his brother’s deeds.”

Leal gripped Reve’s hand tightly. “I wish—”

“Your Majesty.” Across the room, Erakos fell heavily from his chair to his knees. All color had drained from his face. A dark-haired woman had entered: tall, striking, with the presence of one used to command.

“Have you seen Leal? The tailor’s here, and he’s due for a fitting.”

“I’m sorry, Your Majesty,” Erakos choked out. “I didn’t realize.”

But the queen had already spied them by the window. Leal stood at her approach; he seemed nervous but not afraid. Reve was rooted to his seat.

“Why is a slave here?”

“He’s not.” Reve saw with alarm that Leal’s expression had gone closed and stubborn. “He’s not a slave, he’s my brother.”

Reve’s heart turned over. The queen’s eyes had widened at Leal’s words. “Indeed.” Whatever her initial reaction, she schooled it quickly. “Leal, perhaps you’ll allow me some time to greet him. Erakos, the tailor is waiting outside Leal’s chambers if you’ll take Leal to meet him there.”

Leal’s brief rebellion forgotten, he bit his lip and sought Reve’s eyes out in apology. Reve finally forced his legs to move and stood, touching Leal’s arm in reassurance. “It’s fine,” he said, with a confidence he didn’t feel. “Go with Erakos.”

Erakos took him from the room, and Reve was alone with the queen.

To his surprise, she didn’t sit but went to stand by the window, looking out. Silent so long that Reve wondered if she would speak at all, she finally said, “What is Mathias up to?”

Everyone in this city seemed to be conspiring against one other. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Dryly, she said, “I know some of what happens in my husband’s kingdom. Mathias rode north weeks ago. He must have left you here for some purpose. Or was that my husband’s idea?”

“Leal is here.”

“So he is. Such devotion to a brother.” Her gaze was on the view outside the window.

“I’m not the one holding him captive.”

“He’s a royal hostage, not a captive. Besides, Arturus treats him as a son. Would you rather have him be the son of a king or a deposed northern prince?”

“I would rather have him be home with his family.”

“But not yourself? You could be a powerful threat in our current circumstance. Or an asset.”

“Not while the king holds Leal.”

“Your brother may be traveling north himself soon,” the queen said, to Reve’s shock. “I doubt even Mathias will be able to quell the rebellion. When the breaking point happens, the king will gather what army he can to meet it, and Leal is still his leverage against the north. I only seek to balance that leverage.”

“And what would you gain in return?”

To his surprise, she said, “Mathias’s loyalty.”

Reve took a moment to answer. “That isn’t mine to give.”

“No? I suspect you have more sway over him than you think.” Sena moved from the window. “My father knew what he was. Arturus. I suppose I did, too, though I didn’t want to see it. Much like Mathias, though I think my failure was more complete. Tell Mathias that, when you see him again.”

Then she was gone.

Reve stayed a moment more. He should leave; he had no idea if the queen would sound the alarm, send soldiers after him, though she hadn't seemed to consider him much of a threat. He would have liked to have seen Leal again before he left, but he didn't know the way to his chambers and he'd pushed his luck enough this day. So he returned to the tower door, feeling his way down the steps in the dark.

Leone was waiting for him at the stables. He looked worried, which made Reve think he'd been gone longer than he thought. “Is your brother well, then?”

“For now.” Reve didn’t know what to make of his conversation with the queen and her half-formed offer; only that if she was right, and the king took Leal north, he would need to find a way there, too.

Leone led him down the winding city streets, walking quickly as the sky faded into dusk. “You may get more than harsh words from Luca’s steward,” he warned, and indeed, when they arrived at Luca’s and the guards let him in, Reve saw the angry stride of the steward approaching.

“You’d better go.”

Leone hesitated. “I’ll talk to Luca for you.”

The steward would make Reve’s life a misery if Leone did that. “It’s fine. It’s better if you go.”

Leone hesitated another moment. “Be careful,” he said, raising his hand in farewell before disappearing back down the street.

“Bring him here,” the steward snapped to the guard, who shrugged and marched Reve forward. “If I had not been ordered otherwise by our master, I’d have you whipped.” Reve sent a silent thanks Luca’s way. “As it is, you’ll be confined to the dormitory until I decide otherwise. It’s not nearly the punishment you deserve. Slaves in Master Luca’s household don’t leave the compound without permission.”

Reve allowed the guard to escort him back to the dormitory. The rest of the slaves were already at their evening meal, the steward told him with satisfaction, a privilege he had forfeited with his disobedience.

Reve preferred the quiet of the empty dormitory anyway. He hadn’t a chance to think through all the implications of that conversation with the queen in their rush to return. If the king were gone…if she ruled instead…. Perhaps then he would think more seriously about her offer. But the king was very much alive. And he still had Leal.

The other slaves returned for a brief rest before their evening duties. Chele slipped Reve a roll of bread with some meat wrapped inside. “I’ve never seen Tomas so angry,” he said, his eyes dancing. “It’s been very entertaining. You should try to escape more often.”

Reve didn’t bother to correct him. Tomas would keep a tighter watch on him now. If events fell out the way the queen predicted, and the king took Leal north, Reve might soon have to find another way out.

****

Mathias didn’t learn anything more at Tille, other than the men there were just as fearful of attack. There had been sightings of the rebels, some raids on the stores in outlying buildings until everything was brought safely within Tille’s walls, but no knowledge of their leader aside from rumors. The dead walk, the people of Tille whispered, unsettling the men, until Mathias thought the slightest signs of movement in the hills might set them off. Mathias put no stock in superstition, but the words stayed with him.

He rode back to Ardeche, tired and dispirited. He almost expected the rebels to attack them on the road, so rooted were the men’s fears. He might have welcomed it if it could bring him a step closer to finding the key to this resistance. But they reached Ardeche without incident a few hours past nightfall. Mathias let the stable hand take his horse without argument, his mind already on his bed.

One of Zeccosi’s men intercepted him before he could get there. “Commander, a messenger arrived two days ago from Salenne. Commander Zeccosi asked to speak with you as soon as you arrived.”

Allard was dead. Mathias knew it even before Zeccosi handed Mathias the message from Salenne’s captain, the words on it succinct and carefully penned, but beneath them Mathias read the captain’s urgency. Salenne was too unstable to survive long without governance. The captain could keep order for now, but the castle needed a lord.

“I’ll ride there in the morning.” Mathias scoured his memory for anyone who might suffice until he could write Arturus to send someone. If he had to, he would fill the job himself, though it would stretch their resources to a breaking point.

“You can’t, not anymore,” Zeccosi said grimly. “My scouts returned an hour ago, right before you arrived. Salenne is already taken.”

Mathias didn’t have to ask by who. His hand tightened on the captain’s message. If the rebels held the castle, then the captain and most of his men were likely dead.

If they were, it was due to his own carelessness, his gamble that Allard would hold out until spring. “Send word to Tille. Tell them to bring the garrison to Ardeche.” If Salenne was already taken, they might as well concede Tille; the real prize was Ardeche.

Zeccosi nodded, calling in one of the men to relay the order. Mathias took the opportunity to sit, wishing the fire weren’t quite so warm and lulling; he had no time for sleep now. “Are your scouts still here?”

“Yes. You should speak to them.”

Something in Zeccosi’s expression alerted him. Mathias felt a chill run down his neck. “What is it?”

Zeccosi refused to tell him, simply sending out another messenger to retrieve the scouts. Then he poured wine, which Mathias accepted gratefully, and offered food, which Mathias refused at first then thought better of. He didn’t know when he would have the opportunity to eat again.

The scouts arrived, looking even worse than Mathias felt. They’d probably been pulled straight from their beds. Mathias pushed over the jug of wine and food to them, which they took with appreciative nods of thanks.

“Tell me what you saw.”

What they’d seen had been impressive. They relayed the size of the resistance—over a thousand all told, though only a few hundred were warriors. They were mounted, however, and the horses were good quality. Allard, Mathias thought, sure that the man had turned a blind eye to any pilfering of his stock.

“Did you see who leads them?”

The two scouts glanced at one another. One was younger, his dark hair worn longer than usual for an empire soldier, but scouts tended to have their own customs for such things. The older one was more traditional, his face lined and grim.

“We were able to pick out the leader, but we couldn’t identify him,” the older one said.

The eyes of the younger one flashed. “I can identify him,” he said, as if it was a familiar argument. “I was here last summer. I fought at Salenne. I know who he is.”

“What you know is a phantom. You’re as mad as the northerners if you think he’s still alive. I was there too. I saw him fall. We all did.”

It was an impossible thought. “Who?” Mathias said, his eyes holding the younger scout’s until the man swallowed and turned away.

“Allard,” he whispered. “The eldest son.”

The words cleared Mathias’s head like a slap. “Ansel,” he said, half speaking aloud, half question. The scout nodded.

“It’s impossible,” Zeccosi said, but Mathias could see the uncertainty in him. “The dead cannot rise.”

The dead walk. Mathias threw his memory back to the battlefield, to the moment Ansel fell. He had seen it. Arturus himself had confirmed his death. Allard had not disputed it.

“No, they cannot.” Mathias caught the scout’s eye again. “You’re sure of what you saw?”

The man nodded, clearly nervous, but Mathias saw his conviction. “It was him.”

The people of Salenne had had many dead to care for in the battle’s aftermath, but the lack of their heir’s body would have raised too many flags to go unnoticed. Unless Allard had known and helped squirrel Ansel away, going through the motions to throw suspicion off? Yet Arturus was not so gullible as to accept Ansel’s death without seeing the body with his own eyes, and he knew Ansel’s face well enough not to be fooled by an imposter.

There was another answer, though Mathias was reluctant to consider it. But he knew Arturus. A missing heir, the seeds of hope planted in a newly conquered people—it would have marred Arturus’s victory. It was entirely too romantic to escape the imagination of the people. It would give them something to fight for. Strategically, Mathias couldn’t fault Arturus for keeping it quiet, though the first thing they should have done was send parties into the hills to root Ansel out, or pressure Allard to give up whoever was harboring him.

Or perhaps Arturus had convinced himself that Ansel was dead, purely because he wished it.

“None of this goes past this room.” Mathias was sure of Zeccosi’s discretion, but he held the two scouts’ eyes until they nodded and murmured assent. Then he dismissed them back to their beds, waiting until they’d gone before turning to Zeccosi. “One of my men can ride to Cortesa. Can you spare an escort? If I were Ansel, I’d have men watching the road south.”

“Of course. Will you tell the king, then?”

“This is more than peasants revolting. Arturus must know of it.”

“True.” Zeccosi looked oddly reluctant. “You know he won’t concede the region.”

Surprised, Mathias reassessed the man. He’d pegged Zeccosi as an empire soldier to the bone. “Do you think that he should?” he asked, curious. He had his own thoughts on that score—the idea of holding the north was becoming more and more untenable. The cost of facing down Ansel’s men, even with the rest of the Cortesian army at their back, would be high. Mathias didn’t think the price worth paying, but he wouldn’t have expected Zeccosi to agree.

“I think we’d do well to leave the north to rot. It will suck the empire dry.”

The idea was more tempting now than before. If Ansel was alive and could hold the region, perhaps he could bring a measure of stability to it.

But Arturus would never agree. If Mathias retreated now with the men he had, Arturus would push forward regardless. Without Ardeche as leverage, the result was likely to be a bloodbath on both sides. If he could get word to Ansel, speak with him...well, he imagined they would be hearing from him soon enough. Ansel would expect the king to bring the army north. He had to take Ardeche before they arrived.

Which meant that Mathias would have to hold it, if he had any chance of reaching an accord with Ansel or convincing Arturus to accept a peaceful settlement.

“We can’t. Not now. It could be a month or more before the army arrives. Until then, we hold the castle.”

Zeccosi nodded, resigned. “Then we’d best start preparing for a siege.”

Chapter Thirteen

Councilors lingered in the chamber, brokering deals and making alliances in the shadows of the official session. It was nothing more than the usual, what Luca had seen and participated in for over twenty years, but lately their intrigues made him feel old. He wondered if it was time to withdraw from this role, retire to his estate outside the city. It was a different world now from when he served the old king. The council belonged to men like Beltram, who shored up his support even now.

As if aware of his attention, Beltram broke from his band of followers, crossing the long shadows cast by the afternoon sun that striped the room. “Luca,” he said, pleasantly enough. “Rumor has it that the king rides in three days.”

“For where?” Luca said, surprised. It was still winter; surely not even Arturus could find somewhere to campaign.

“Then you’ve not heard. Salenne has been taken. The northern prince is dead.”

Luca’s skin pricked, as if a shade from the next world had passed over it. He wondered how Mathias fared. The empire would do well to sever the north like an infected limb. If there was someone strong enough to hold Salenne, then let him have it. But no doubt Arturus rode with an army at his back. If there was any hope for peace, Mathias would need to convince the king of it.

And if Allard was dead there was a vacuum in the north, with men all too eager to fill it. The region needed years to resettle, not months.

“The time seems ripe, don’t you think?”

It had always been Beltram’s goal. “Mathias still controls the army, no matter who they follow for now. He would never hand it over to one he believed responsible for the king’s death.”

“Mathias would rather play farmer than concern himself with politics.”

“I think you underestimate his loyalty,” Luca said, but Beltram wasn’t listening.

“This isn’t about Mathias. It’s about us, Luca. Here.” He waved a hand to encompass the chamber. “It’s not that the king no longer listens. It’s that the council no longer matters. Under Arturus, we’ve become irrelevant. Is that how you would see Cortesa ruled?”

“And you would bring us influence again?”

“The queen could, if she had the chance. Think of it, Luca, what we could do.”

Luca had thought of it. He’d devoted his life to the council, had followed his father into it. But Beltram was hardly a disinterested observer. “With no benefit to you?”

Beltram shrugged. “We must all seize our opportunities. How else can we become a power in our own right?”

His words echoed on Luca’s walk home. They were a troubling and compelling distraction from the other consequences of Allard’s death. Luca knew what he harbored in his walls. If Allard’s youngest son was the king’s leverage against Salenne, his brother was the unknown, an unwitting player in this game no matter what status Arturus had given him.

“My lord, there’s a message for you,” Tomas said, greeting him at the door.

Half expecting it, Luca read Mathias’s words through. Then he rolled the parchment tightly and slipped it into a fold in his robes.

“Bring the new slave to my study,” he said to Tomas. “And a guard.” Tomas blinked at the request, but returned to the study with Reve and the guard, who took up a post inside the door when Tomas closed it behind him.

Reve stood in the middle of the room, taking in his surroundings with a wariness that said he at least had his wits about him. A picture came to Luca’s mind: a young Mathias waiting quietly in Luca’s hall for his father’s business to be done, the look of a boy fighting against perpetual disappointment. No doubt that same expression would be on his face now, but Luca couldn’t afford to let sentimentality rule him.

“Your father is dead.” Reve paled at the words but made no other response. “You have my sympathies.” The boy didn’t look as if he wanted any of Luca’s sympathy, though Luca had meant it sincerely. He knew what it was like to lose a father.

He also knew how to look beyond the moment to the larger picture. “Until we know how this will impact the empire, you will reside here in the main house.”

“And is he for my protection?” Reve asked, nodding in the direction of the guard.

“Yes,” Luca said, matching Reve’s tone. It wasn’t a complete lie. The guard might be more for Reve’s containment than protection, but Luca had no desire to see him dead. Not until he knew what effects his death might have. To the guard, he said, “See Tomas. He’ll have a room made up for him. He’s not a prisoner,” he said, to preserve the fiction they were maintaining for now, “but he’s your charge to protect.”

“Yes, my lord,” the guard said, his expression showing that he understood exactly what his orders were.

Luca sank into one of the chairs once they were gone. He took a sheet of parchment from the desk and began to pen his own note. Mathias’s message weighed heavily, but it was Mathias who had placed this burden on him.

When he was finished, he called for Tomas, handing him the sealed note.

“Have a messenger take this to the queen.”

****

The guard left him in the room and locked the door behind him.

It was small, with a bed and a window, and a low bench on the other side of the window.  Reve went to the window, but the room was high enough to preclude escape, at least that way.

Your father is dead.

It seemed impossible. Part of him refused to believe it. His father had been a constant in his world for nineteen years, and Reve had never questioned him, not even when he’d sacrificed Reve to save Leal.

But he couldn’t help think about everything that opened up with his death. There was the queen’s offer to help him regain Salenne, though she’d been careful to avoid stating it outright. Not that he had any influence over Mathias—she had to know how blindly loyal he was to the king.

But if the queen was right and the king would soon march north, taking Leal with him, then Reve had to make sure he could get himself north, too. Which meant freeing himself from Luca’s household, despite the dangers.

He needed to get a message to Leone.

Reve’s luck surpassed his expectations when Chele showed up with Reve’s food. The guard, seeing only another slave, let him in without question.

Chele’s eyes were wide as he sat on the bed next to Reve. “What did you do? Is the master punishing you for something?”

“I need to talk to one of the soldiers in the city. The guards will know who I mean.”

Chele raised an eyebrow. “The one who smuggled you out the other day? Tomas is still seething.”

“Can you ask the guard to get a message to him at the garrison?”

Chele stared back at him, wide-eyed. “Why would the guard listen to me?”

Reve had nothing of value for Chele to offer. Even if he did, who knew if the guard would actually send the message? A slave had no power to compel him, bribe or not.

“Would you be able to get to the garrison yourself?” It was too much to ask, but Reve couldn’t see any other choice.

Chele chewed his lip. “Tomas usually sends two of us to the market in the afternoon. I can try to slip away then. But the garrison guards won’t listen to a slave, either.”

“Tell them Luca sent you. The soldier’s name is Leone.”

“For a secret lover, you could do better than a soldier.”

“He’s not—” Reve shook his head. It would take too long to explain. “Just let him know that I’m here. I don’t even know if he can do anything, but he’s the only one I know in the city. Please, Chele.”

Reve thought Chele was probably right. The guards would be suspicious of a message from a city councilor to a soldier, and most likely would turn Chele away without relaying anything.

But there was nothing else he could do. He thanked Chele again before he left. The guard locked the door behind him.

It was a long day, waiting. Prepared for disappointment, Reve’s mind whirled through the possibilities if Chele failed. He could try to escape himself, or appeal again to Luca. He hadn’t seemed unsympathetic to Reve’s situation. And Mathias had trusted him enough to leave Reve here.

It was after nightfall before Chele returned, carrying a platter with Reve’s dinner.

“It’s done,” he whispered, eyes dancing.

Reve hoped it would be enough.

****

Luca remembered Sena as a young girl, skinny and wide-eyed in the city, her father the newly made commander of the old king’s army. A popular decision for a popular man. Sena had some of that shine to her, though it was more muted. He could still picture her trailing after her father, then later, after Mathias. He’d often wondered about that. Mathias’s leanings had never been for women, but he thought Sena would have preferred him to Arturus, though Arturus had made her a queen.

Now she stood in Beltram’s dining hall, pushing back the hood of her cloak as Luca entered.

“Your Majesty,” Luca said, bowing. He hadn’t been surprised to receive Beltram’s invitation in response to his message to the queen. Beltram had hardly been subtle in his support for her.

“Luca. We last saw each other at the solstice feast, if I remember right.”

Luca conspired against both his king and his friend, but civility ran deep. “Yes, my lady. We had a bet that the lord of Padevo would succumb to wine before the entertainment began. You won, if I recall.”

“I’ve endured many feasts with the lord of Padevo. The servants have had to carry him from all of them. It was an unfair wager.”

“As you say, my lady,” Luca said, as Beltram entered the room.

“Your Majesty.” Beltram sent a brief but satisfied nod of acknowledgment Luca’s way. “Word has come from the palace that the king will take the army north with him.”

“Yes, I know, Lord Beltram. Arturus does share some of his plans with me.”

Beltram hid his flush behind an inclined head. “Of course, Your Majesty. But we should act now.”

Perhaps it was time. Perhaps there was no other way. They could stop Arturus from bleeding Cortesa dry and taking the last of the empire with it. Despite his hopes, Luca didn’t think Mathias could stop either the north from collapsing or Arturus from following it to destruction.

Before either of them could reply, a servant entered the room, eyes searching out his master’s. With a frown of irritation, Beltram excused himself.

To Luca’s surprise, Sena moved them out of earshot under the guise of admiring the painted fresco on the other side of the dining hall. It was a rural scene, in demand these days in Cortesa: domesticated images of nature admired from the comfort of city walls. Luca had a similar one at home. He recognized the artist, one of the city’s current raves.

“Are you so sure of this path, my lady?” he said, before Sena could speak. “Beltram cares for nothing but the power of the council and himself. He supports you—”

“He supports me because he sees me as more tractable than my husband. I know, Luca. And he’s right, to a degree. If things go as we hope than I’ll have no choice but to rely on the council. But when you have so few allies, you learn not to question the ones you have.”

“But my lady, the king….” Luca couldn’t put into words how much it disturbed him that she plotted the death of her husband, even as he understood the reasoning behind it.

“Monstrous, aren’t I? I know how damned I am.” She moved away from the fresco, her eyes turned inward. “But tell me, Luca, how is your young charge?”

Luca stared at her. His note to her had been only a request to meet, and never mentioned Reve directly. “My lady?”

“He came to the palace to see his brother. It was easy enough to have him followed.”

Luca turned back to the painting. In the far corner the artist had depicted Cortesa in blinding white, separated from the rest of the scene yet looming over it. “You would use him.”

“If you had the son of a dead northern prince, whose people had just revolted against the empire, what would you do with him? The king will take his brother north.”

“The king is taking Leal with him?” He was surprised Arturus would risk it.

“Allard broke his oath. I know my husband. It doesn’t matter that Allard is dead. He allowed his people to break it, and any agreements made with him are now void in Arturus’s eyes.”

Appalled, Luca said, “He would execute a child?”

“Arturus would never sacrifice his power, no matter how much he cares for the boy.” She turned, her face a little more lined. “But his affection for him isn’t feigned. I think he would do it only if he thought he had no other choice.”

“What would you do with Reve, then?”

“We need Mathias’s loyalty, if Beltram’s plan works. I have my own spies in the palace. I think Mathias’s affection isn’t feigned, either.”

Luca suspected she was right, but whether or not it was enough to overcome Mathias’s loyalty to the king—and his vengeance if the king fell by someone’s hand—he didn’t know.

“Mathias could be willing to throw the army’s support behind you without going to such lengths. Kings have been deposed peacefully before.”

“We’ve already come too far, Luca.” She considered him. “What would Mathias have you do with the brother?”

Reluctantly, Luca said, “He wants me to send him north with the army.”

“Then speak with him. Arturus destroyed his family. He can’t have any love for him. I’ve already told him I’ll support his claim once I’ve gained the throne.”

“Salenne’s already been taken. There’s no empty throne for you to sit him on.”

Sena dismissed his concern with a gesture. “The north might follow a strong leader for now, but they won’t deny their rightful heir.”

****

When he was restless, Luca gardened. There was something satisfying about digging his hands in the earth, filling some primitive need that was acceptable enough for a councilor to indulge in. His mother had been a gardener, and he had fond memories of helping her.

Now the ground was hard from winter, and everything would be either dead or sleeping. So he contented himself with tending to a few potted plants in the atrium, though he had slaves to do such work. He waved them away when they tried to help.

He knew Mathias wouldn’t forgive him if he kept the boy here, despite the king’s orders. As much as Luca wanted to see the empire retreat from the north, Reve was still a foreign threat. Every fiber of his loyalty to Cortesa flinched from the thought of helping him regain his father’s throne.

He was still pruning when Tomas interrupted with a harried expression. “My lord, forgive me, but there’s a captain at the door. He insists on speaking with you. We tried to turn him away but he refuses to leave. Shall I call the city guard?”

“No.” Luca straightened regretfully, dead leaves already forgotten in his hand. “I’ll see him in the receiving hall.” He knew exactly who the captain was. It complicated matters, but ignoring him would only worsen them.

Leone was waiting for him on one of the benches in the hall. “My lord,” he said, rising.

“Captain,” Luca said coolly. “What brings you here?”

Leone cocked his head at the pretense. “My lord, I think you know.”

“Ah yes, the boy everyone seems so eager to save. What business do you have with him?”

“I doubt Mathias would approve of you keeping him prisoner here.”

“Mathias is the one who placed him in my charge,” Luca said pointedly. “Besides, he’s a northerner and a slave. The king himself has commanded that he remain in Cortesa. Why would I help him return home to act against the empire?”

Leone cocked his head. “‘Act against the empire,’” he repeated. “Yet I heard a strange report this morning, about you and Lord Beltram and the queen.”

Did he think it a threat? “These aren’t fireside games or hypothetical strategies, Captain.”

“I expect a councilor to scheme, but not one who’s earned Mathias’s trust.” Leone bowed, short and perfunctory. “The army rides out tomorrow. I’ll be back for him tonight.”

Luca watched him leave. Such insolence was galling. As was being lectured to by a soldier.

Restless for more than just earth on his hands, he called for Tomas. “I’m going out into the city.”

Alarmed, Tomas insisted he take a guard. Luca relented, knowing it was prudent, though he’d had the urge to go out as he used to as a child, slipping from the house to run down the city streets to the council chamber, imagining his father inside, until his father’s old steward caught up with him to take him home.

But when he left, shadowed by a guard, he took the route toward the market. He wanted to feel the city’s current at its heart, remind himself of what he worked for. Decide if it was worth it.

Already he could see and hear the army readying to march, in the clang of gathered weapons from nearby garrisons, whole blocks filled with men on their way outside the city.

At the same time he could feel the city’s disgruntlement. It pulsed through the stone streets and in the expressions of the crowd gathered to watch the preparations. They knew who footed the army’s bill. They might love the idea of empire, but it was an intangible thing, unlike their hard-earned coin. Luca didn’t know if reason could hold them back. The king and council had shown little enough interest in it.

Uneasy, he headed back to the house, and found himself outside the room where Tomas had put the slave. “Let me speak with him,” he said to the guard.

The guard gave them the privacy of the room. It was one of the smaller guest rooms on the interior of the house. Reve was sitting on the bed, several candles blazing on the table next to it. He rose at Luca’s entrance.

He looked as if he expected Luca to announce his immediate execution. Luca could have reassured him that there were far more people who wanted him alive than dead, but pawns rarely had long lives. He would be better off a slave. At least then his status would be clear. Sena might hand him Salenne if she could, but it was a dangerous thing to be indebted to a queen.

Luca gestured for him to resume his seat, and took the bench by the window. “You’ve certainly inspired some fierce loyalties. I’m trying to keep Cortesa from ruin, and instead I hear nothing but concern for someone who is, by the laws of the empire, a slave. You cannot be that skilled in bed.”

Reve flushed but met his eyes steadily. “By your own admission, a legality.”

“True. And there are more powers in Cortesa than the king. The queen would put you on your rightful throne, if the fates allowed. You would be a puppet, but you’re a slave now. I assume she laid out her terms to you at the palace.”

“She thinks I can convince Mathias to support her.”

“And do you think so?”

Luca was curious. Perhaps some men fell in love with their slaves but Mathias had been raised by the same conventions he had. Whatever he might feel for the boy, it was for a slave, not a prince. And a slave holding greater sway over a free man than one’s king and friend? Luca had a hard time believing it.

“I don’t know,” Reve admitted. “But I won’t be anyone’s pawn.”

Luca was reminded of Mathias at that age—like Reve, he’d had to carve his own path, form his own alliances. Easy to place one’s trust in men who would only use him, but Mathias had been both cautious and fortunate in his patrons. Luca had always counted himself as one. Had he become blind, as Leone had accused?

When this business was done, he’d spend the rest of the winter and spring at his estate outside the city. Cultivate the empty plot he’d left fallow for lack of time. He was getting too old for politics.

“I’ll send word to your captain, before he brings his unit to attack my house. You’d better gather up what things you have. I’ll inform the guard.”

He left, feeling tired and vaguely foolish. He’d done his part. He’d seen Cortesa grow outside its walls, expand far beyond what he could have imagined. The empire had been so full of possibilities.

****

“Welcome to the king’s army,” Leone said, handing him a bundle of black cloth with the mark of a cavalry soldier sewn onto the breast.

Reve wondered what was worse, to wear the clothing of a slave or the uniform of the enemy, but he took it from him.

“Thank you,” he said, for more than the uniform. Leone waved the thanks away.

“I don’t know if Luca told you, but your countrymen retook Salenne. We received word this morning.”

Satisfaction swept through him, swift and blazing. Perhaps they’d been beaten once by the king, but they hadn’t been defeated. Still, as much as it warmed him, his people’s defiance made Leal’s life, and his, even more precarious. “What will the king do?”

“What Arturus always does. The trick is whether your master can talk him out of it.” Leone eyed Reve. “I’m curious as to what you’ll do. You’ve got a claim on Salenne yourself.”

So everyone was reminding him. It was tempting to think that he could find a way to join the northern forces, but unless he was able to somehow get Leal away from the king, he knew he couldn’t act. “I don’t have the means to take it.”

“Maybe not, but will you be able to stand by if the king acts against your homeland?”

Reve didn’t have an answer for him. “Do you think he can avert another war?” he asked abruptly.

“Mathias? I think he has an irrational loyalty to the king, but I trust him to act honorably.”

Acting honorably could mean many things. He’d believed Mathias when he said he would do what he could to protect them, but it had been a reckless promise. Mathias couldn’t control every circumstance.

He’s a Cortesian. It made no sense to feel this sense of anticipation, this inexplicable warmth in his gut at the thought of seeing him again. More than ever they were on opposite sides of the battlefield. No matter what power the queen and Luca thought Reve had over him, Mathias would make his own choices, and Reve would have to make his.

Chapter Fourteen

Zeccosi found him on the northern wall, watching the skyline. “The last of the men from Tille are here, my lord.”

Mathias had seen them ride in, outlined against the hills. When Ansel’s army arrived, it would camp at the foot of them. His eyes strained against the dying light, looking for signs of their passage, but not even Zeccosi’s scouts had been able to bring them news.

“Are all the stores accounted for?”

“With rationing, we’ll have enough to hold out a month.” Zeccosi added grimly, “Or longer.”

Mathias pulled his attention from the hills. “What is it?”

“Ardeche’s folk are more scarce every day. The men can’t guard every route out of the castle. Even if we knew all of them.”

A regrettable, if expected, development. “Fewer mouths to feed,” Mathias pointed out.

“But heading straight for the enemy.”

They were the enemy. Mathias didn’t need to remind Zeccosi of that, however much they’d grown used to the castle’s inhabitants. “Then we plan for Ansel knowing everything about the castle that they do, which we would plan for in any case. If they can get out, others can get in. Tell your men to look harder. But let any go who wish to leave.”

Letting them go was hardly a gift. Ansel’s provisions would be as strained as theirs, even with Salenne at his back. Out of the protection of either Ardeche or the approaching army, the hills in winter were a brutal alternative.

But the biggest threat to any siege was sabotage from within. The fewer northerners remaining in Ardeche, the better their chances for preventing it.

Zeccosi knew it, too, though his face barely registered a change of expression. “Do you think he’ll come?”

“I think he has no other choice. Salenne isn’t enough to hold off Cortesa’s army.”

Zeccosi grunted either agreement or skepticism.

Mathias didn’t doubt that Ansel would show. His thoughts were on Arturus. He needed the army, but once here he had to convince the king there was a peaceful alternative, and that had never been an easy task. Perhaps Arturus would be willing to make Ansel Leal’s regent, or accept his fealty in lieu of it. Or accept that the north would never bow to a southern king and make a treaty to benefit them both.

Until then, it hinged on Ansel’s willingness to stand down. It had been a while since he’d had to plan around an unpredictable opponent.

The sound of approaching footsteps belonged to Zeccosi’s aide. “Commander, forgive me, but Lord Faro is asking for you again.”

Mathias suppressed a grimace. True to his first assessment of the man, at the first hint of danger Faro had been ready to flee Ardeche with his retinue and return to the capital. Mathias would like nothing better than to let him go. But he wasn’t willing to take the chance with someone as ripe for ransom as a southern noble. Or risk the danger to him if Ansel was feeling bloodthirsty instead.

“I’ll speak to him,” he said, not relishing it.

Pulling his cloak closer around his shoulders against the wind, he left the wall. The courtyard was a sea of activity. Securing provisions, shoring up the weaknesses in Ardeche’s defenses. Zeccosi had them well trained and ready.

At the keep, he moved aside on the stairs for a group of soldiers with their arms full of foodstuffs and a crate of wine, followed by shouting. He found Lord Faro at the top of the stairs arguing with one of Zeccosi’s men, his thin face red with rage.

“I’ll have you flogged for this.” The focus of Faro’s anger, one of Zeccosi’s sergeants, had a pained expression that turned to relief when he saw Mathias. Faro barely took a breath before transferring his wrath. “This is an outrage, Commander. If you will not let me leave, then at least protect my personal effects from thieves.”

Mathias said calmly, “They’ve been instructed to confiscate all provisions in the castle. I know you wouldn’t want to deprive the rest of the castle should a shortage occur.”

“Convenient for you, isn’t it?” Faro spit out. Mathias couldn’t see how, but Faro hadn’t shown a proclivity for logic. “The king will hear of this.”

No doubt, but until then he had little patience for Faro’s grievances. “Sergeant,” Mathias said to the soldier, still standing to the side, “escort Lord Faro back to his quarters. Ensure he has no more need to venture out of them.”

If possible, Faro turned even redder. “I know who you are, Commander. You’re nothing. Your family name is a disgrace. You can’t hide behind the king forever.”

The sergeant ushered him none too gently away. Mathias made his way back to the bottom of the keep, conscripting two soldiers to assist in ensuring the man stayed put.

He’d heard worse, and from better men than Faro, though not in a long while. He rarely let such words bother him. But he made a note to post a regular guard on Faro.

His rooms were dark and cold these days, the fire unlit. The few belongings Garin had kept by the hearth were gone. He’d left the bedding Mathias had given him, and though it was irrational, considering he might soon face him across a field, Mathias hoped he’d made it to Ansel’s army alive.

For a brief moment he allowed himself to think of Touren, the horses grazing over the fields. Even more briefly, he thought of Reve, hopefully even now riding north with the army.

Your king has forced a choice on you as well. Mathias had discounted Allard’s words at the time, but here they seemed to carry new weight. If Arturus refused to listen to reason...he didn’t want to think of it. But he remembered Arturus’s face that night in his chamber, the look of a man betrayed.

He pushed the image away.

****

They approached under the eyes of the watch, quietly and without notice.

Mathias studied them from the wall. A light snow fell, blurring their numbers, but he didn’t think it was Ansel’s full force. Two or three hundred, perhaps. Enough to lay a siege, but not too much to stretch their resources. Reinforcements could be hiding in the hills and they’d never know of it, but Mathias guessed Ansel had left the rest of his people in Salenne.

As he watched, a rider broke off from the horizon, his blood bay and blue livery stark against the snow. The white parley flag was almost obscured by it. “Ready a horse,” Mathias said to Zeccosi’s aide, then turned to Zeccosi. “I’ll take one of your captains, and an escort. Five men, I think.”

Zeccosi nodded, relaying the order. The aide dispatched.

“I don’t trust him,” Zeccosi said, his expression dark. Most likely his own suspicious nature and distrust of all northerners, but Mathias felt a chill that had nothing to do with the snow.

The horse and men were waiting for him when he came down from the wall. Ansel’s rider had halted a hundred feet or so from the gate, well within the range of the archers who lined it. Mathias didn’t need to look up as they rode through to see that their arrows were notched and ready.

The rider’s horse pawed at the snow as they approached. The rider himself looked young, barely past adolescence.

“My prince will hear your surrender, if you would parley.” The boy’s voice carried across the few lengths that separated them. To his credit it wavered only a little, though the tightness of his face belied the arrogance of the words.

“Would he,” Mathias said. His horse shifted restlessly under him. The snow had stopped, but the sky was still grey with it. “I have no intention of surrendering the castle. If your prince wishes to negotiate his retreat, I’ll meet with him. An equal number of men. No more.”

The boy eyed the men who’d ridden out with him. “That is acceptable.”

He wheeled his horse with surprising skill, not looking back to see if they followed. Mathias urged his horse forward, letting it pick through the dusting of snow on the narrow field as it blew out nervously, sweat breaking out on its neck.

As they rode to the opposing army, a group mirroring their own disengaged and came toward them. The parley rider halted at the midway point between, out of range of archers from both sides. Mathias checked his horse a few yards away. Zeccosi’s captain rode up next to him, the five men flanking behind. Harness jingled in the cold air.

At this distance he could make out little of the front rider. His seat on the dappled grey spoke to both ability and a certain stiffness. Ansel’s putative death had left him with a few scars.

Then they came into closer view, and Mathias had his first clear look at Allard’s eldest son.

With his darker hair, he resembled Leal more than Reve, though all three had the same strong features. Mathias would have known him for Allard’s son by the stubborn set of his jaw. From what little he knew of his reputation, he’d been a mercurial young man still settling into his responsibilities. He saw none of that in the man who halted a horse’s length from him. Ansel had the seriousness and confidence of one grown used to command. A man come into his own.

“So you’re the Cortesian commander.” Ansel had Reve’s voice. Mathias started a little at it.

“And you’re the pretender to your brother’s throne,” he returned.

Ansel’s mouth tightened. His horse shook its head in protest at the pressure on the reins. “Your king has no authority to decide the succession of Salenne.”

“By your father’s agreement, he does. Or would you dishonor your father’s name by breaking his oath?”

“An oath made under duress. And not by me. If your king would enforce it, then let him come.”

As stubborn as the rest of his family.

Mathias urged his horse closer, ignoring the man behind Ansel who’d reached for his sword. He leaned in. “He rides here as we speak, Ansel,” he said, trying for reason. “Would you take a chance with your brother’s life?”

Ansel’s eyes, paler than Reve’s, lost none of their coldness. “My brother—brothers—know their duty,” he said, echoing his father.

“And could you stand by for the king’s justice?” Mathias didn’t think Arturus would harm Leal, whatever Ansel’s actions, but he wasn’t likely to let rebellion go unanswered. “The king’s army will be here in days.” A fortnight was more likely, and even that was pushing luck. “Show the king your willingness to negotiate, and perhaps we can broker a peace.”

“Your king would never negotiate a peace,” Ansel replied without hesitation. “It’s not in his nature.” His smile was full of the brashness of youth. “And I think I can take Ardeche before he arrives.”

Boldness wasn’t a bad trait for a young man, even more for one who would hold the north, but Mathias needed Ansel’s cooperation, not his strength. Eyeing the grizzled man who sat his horse next to Ansel, he said, “Ask your general there how easy it is to lay siege in winter. Or do you recruit only children?”

Ansel flushed, the barb hitting home. But he bit back the words he clearly longed to speak. “If you think they are still children, you know less of war than I thought.”

He was right. Particularly if they’d been living off the hills all winter. And perhaps enough of Allard’s men had survived to fill out his son’s ranks with experience. Ansel’s confidence was not unfounded; with time, any castle could be taken. He was gambling that he had enough.

Unwilling to give up, though he feared Ansel’s mind was set, Mathias lowered his voice. “I am not impartial to your brothers’ fates. Give me the opportunity to convince the king. I would see this result in peace on both sides.”

Ansel looked at him coolly. “Yes, I know of your partiality.” For a moment they held each other’s gaze. Ansel’s was hardened and unforgiving.

“Your king has transgressed beyond the hope for peace,” Ansel said, with a note of finality.

It was foolish pride. “At least consider—”

“No.” Ansel backed his horse to rejoin his men, his eyes still fixed on Mathias’s. “You have until tonight to surrender the castle. I await your word.”

He turned his horse, his men following.

****

The attack that night was a small one. Crude ladders, some hooks and rope. Exploratory, testing their defenses. The men posted on the walls turned it back easily, and it wasn’t until the next day that two of Zeccosi’s men reported that the stores had been raided, enough to make a dent.

“Double the guard,” Mathias said grimly. “And find where they got in.” All of Ardeche’s secrets worked against them. He reminded himself again that he defended a castle of the enemy.

“We can’t guard every inch,” Zeccosi said. “The men are searching blind.”

“Then find a few northerners willing to give up what they know,” Mathias said shortly, though they both knew the futility of that.

He took to watching the army from the wall. Ansel had no siege engines, no advantages from a surface view of things, but knowledge was worth more than machinery. Mathias knew they could still wait Ansel out until Arturus and the army arrived, despite the diminished stores, but the men were restless, rumors of Ansel’s supposed rise from the dead infiltrating their ranks and enhancing an already widespread superstition. Tension stretched over the castle like a bow ready to spring.

“The men need more to do,” Zeccosi said, pouring wine as they retired to his office after a carefully apportioned meal.

Mathias accepted the wine. They were rationing it now. “If we clear the courtyard, they can hold practice bouts.” It would lessen the number of men on shift, but keep them sharper. And Zeccosi was right, they’d built up too much unleashed aggression.

Zeccosi nodded his agreement. “We should send scouts south to look for signs of the king’s army.”

The snow would have slowed them. For a bleak moment, Mathias contemplated the possibility that the messenger hadn’t made it to Cortesa after all. There’d been no return word, though whatever men Ansel had watching the southern road could easily have waylaid an advance scout.

“Agreed.” At least it would give them something else to wait on.

He finished the wine and went to his rooms to catch a few hours of sleep, and woke to the smell of smoke and the muffled sounds of shouting.

Pulling on clothes and boots, he stopped a soldier running down the corridor. “The west tower, my lord,” the man said, his eyes wide. Mathias let him go and made his way to the courtyard where the west tower blazed through thick smoke and darker night. Men had already formed a line to the well.

He commandeered a group to clear the area of anything flammable. The best they could do was contain it. He found one of the captains and left him to organize the men.

The flames and smoke had turned everything a rich, eerie amber. Uneasy, he raked his eyes along the wall, but the archers were in position, no movement there to concern him. Aside from the blaze and shouted commands from the men, the night was preternaturally quiet.

Faintly, he heard the familiar sound of steel on steel.

It cut through the smoke and the diversion made by the tower’s blaze, growing steadily louder. Men scrambled to reform. “Don’t let them reach the gate,” he called out to anyone close enough to hear, as a wave of men in Ansel’s livery burst out from the direction of the kitchens.

They’d prepared for such a possibility, but the men were spooked by the flames and the suddenness of the attack. Archers squinted down at the gloom, arrows notched but aimed uncertainly. They risked hitting their own men. With a curse, Mathias turned to face the onslaught, calling out orders to those nearest to them, creating a small but hopefully effectual wall.

Fighting at night was a test of hours spent in the practice yard, schooling muscles to react without thought, to compensate for eyes that couldn’t see in the gloom and ears overwhelmed with the clamor of a full-out skirmish. They managed to halt the wave’s momentum, even to push it back, then the wind shifted and the fire blazed almost on top of them, smoke following their retreat until the men were choking on it.

Mathias ducked under a stone archway, starting when one of Zeccosi’s officers appeared in the gloom. “It’s clear, Commander. They got in through the kitchens, but they won’t be using the same route to get out.”

It was the first good news of the night. “Well done,” Mathias said, then gave in to a fit of coughing. When he could breathe again, he said, “Hold off their retreat here.”

The courtyard was still full of Ansel’s men. The west tower was lost to the blaze, buckets of water abandoned. The fighting near the gate was a blur of motion and shadows, fire playing off helmets and armor and tricking the eye.

Ansel’s men had almost reached the gate. No doubt their comrades waited in the shadows of it. Zeccosi’s men kept them from it for now, but their lines looked fragile, ready to fail. Mathias joined the men attacking from behind. With a sinking feeling, he realized he couldn’t get additional men to the line that held the gate in time, that they couldn’t keep the gate from opening.

Yet the gate was still closed. The men still held it. In a final surge, Mathias saw them push back with a methodical efficiency that had driven more than one enemy to despair. Finally, the king’s soldiers were fighting with the discipline that had won them an empire.

Ansel’s men knew it. They fought on regardless, even knowing it was a lost cause. Through the gloom, Mathias saw the one who led them finally go still, his eyes full of resignation and defeat as he saw their retreat blocked off behind them, before he called out to his fellows and threw down his sword.

It was done.

Mathias surveyed the courtyard. Bodies and ash littered it. His hand tightened on the hilt of his sword, and he had to force himself to sheath it, anger darkening his vision even more than the smoke that still filled the air.

The aftermath was more subdued than usual, adrenaline draining from the men as they secured the survivors. Mathias oversaw the distasteful task of dragging bodies to the center of the courtyard. Most of them were Ansel’s, but there were plenty of his own men as well. A waste of life on both sides.

The sky was lightening by the time Zeccosi came limping up to him. He’d been at the gate, leading the defense.

“Lord Faro is gone.”

Mathias stared at him, his mind slow to pick up on the words. “Dead?”

“Not unless Ansel’s already slit his neck. He slipped the guards in the fighting. One of the servants says he saw him outside the wall, heading Ansel’s way.”

Mathias barked out a laugh, devoid of humor. “Is the man daft?”

“He is if he thinks he’ll get any help from that quarter.”

Mathias swore. Ansel now had his own high ranking prisoner. Any advantage they’d gained in the night’s work was annulled by one idiot noble. “If Ansel doesn’t kill him, I will.”

“You can always tell the king he died in battle.”

It was tempting. What was the man thinking? That Ansel would take gold over honor and let him go freely south? “We’ll know his fate soon enough. I’ll see to questioning the prisoners. Look out for another parley flag.” No doubt Ansel would have more to discuss this time.

One of the physicians accosted him on his way, and Mathias realized the source of the throbbing in his shoulder. He waved the man off, the cut too shallow to bother him with.

He found the prisoners in the garrison jail. A handful of boys and old men. Not yet past fighting age but close enough.

For a moment, Mathias thought anger would get the best of him. They had no business in such an attack. They’d had to know the chance of reaching the gates was slim, the risk of death high. If Ansel had been one of his he’d have given him the lash for sending such men into battle.

He recognized one of them, the one who’d ordered the surrender. He had the bearing of a warrior though his hair and beard were shot with grey.

Mathias gestured him forward, out of hearing of the others.

“Tell me how you got in,” he said, though they’d already found and secured the entrance in the kitchens.

The prisoner pressed his lips together, then released them in a silent cry of pain when one of the guards grabbed his shirt through the bars and pulled him roughly against them. Mathias waved him off, and the guard reluctantly released him.

“I’ll ask you again,” Mathias said, but the prisoner interrupted.

“None of us will tell you anything, southerner.” One eye on the guard, he added, “You may as well kill us now if you think we’ll betray the prince.”

For once Mathias would like to have a reasoned discussion free of pride and bluster. “I have no intention of killing any of you. If your prince would only believe that, we could have avoided this in the first place.”

“He has reason enough to doubt.”

Mathias blew out a breath. Eyes picking over the prisoners, he found what looked to be the youngest. He couldn’t have been fourteen. He was about to tell the guard he would question him first when Zeccosi entered the room, catching his attention.

“The prince’s messenger is outside the gate.”

“Let him wait,” Mathias said. He was brooding, not an act he indulged in often. But his shoulder hurt, his throat was burned almost raw, and his courtyard stank of needlessly shed blood.

Zeccosi gazed back impassively.

Mathias grimaced. He dearly would have liked to have kept Ansel waiting. “Very well. Let’s see what he has to say.”

****

This time it was the two of them apart from the others, though still in range of their respective parties.

“An exchange of prisoners,” Ansel said, his mouth tight and eyes shadowed. He was taking the failure of the assault and loss of his men hard.

Mathias took a moment to study him. His anger had dissipated on the ride out and disappeared entirely in the face of Ansel’s desperation. It had been a long time, if ever, since he’d known the kind of need that had prompted Ansel’s attack. And it had nearly succeeded.

“You may reclaim your dead, but the prisoners will stay in Ardeche.”

Ansel looked disbelieving. “I’ve just told you I have your southern lord. He tried to bribe me for passage back to your accursed city. Are all your nobles cowards and traitors?”

“What makes you think I want such a man back?”

Ansel stared at him. Then he glanced away, his mouth set in bitter lines. “Because I believed you had some honor.”

“I believe you do as well.” Ansel’s eyes snapped back to his. “I trust that you will treat Lord Faro honorably, and you must trust that I will do the same with your men. But I cannot release them.”

Ansel was silent. Their breath came out in puffs of moisture, the air holding the promise of snow. His gaze drifted past Mathias, to the castle that sat silently behind him. After a long while, he said, sounding oddly young, “I saw my father before he died. He said he spoke to you. That you had—news of my brothers.”

Not the conversation Mathias had expected. “I told him I would protect them, to the best of my ability.”

“Why would you?” Ansel said with genuine puzzlement. “They’re no kin to you. If you faced them in battle, you’d kill them as surely as you would any other northerner.”

“There are other ties than kin.” Mathias was hardly willing to articulate it to himself, much less Ansel. And it had nothing to do with the task at hand. “I cannot help them if you refuse to give me the chance. Return with your men to Salenne. Treat with the king there. Trust me to do all I can to ensure a peace.”

For a moment he thought Ansel might agree. He saw his doubt, his unwillingness to sacrifice more of his men’s lives.

“No.”

Mathias began to speak, but Ansel stopped him. “On the battle that day. You were there. I lay on the field with my blood spilling out, knowing that I was dying. Have you ever been that close to death?” Mathias said nothing, but Ansel didn’t seem to expect a response. “One of my father’s men, that general you mocked before, pulled me to safety. He hid me in his family’s home, nursed me back to health. Not because of who I was but because he hoped I could be the one to free them.”

“There are other ways to do that than bloodshed.”

Ansel shook his head. “I think there is no other way in the eyes of your king. I will not harm your southern lord, and I will trust you to do the same with my men. But I must have Ardeche.”

The answer he had expected, though Mathias wished it had been different. “So be it.”

****

They let in men with wagons to take away Ansel’s dead. That night, a pyre burned at the foot of the hills, echoing the one outside the wall.

“He’ll play a waiting game now,” Zeccosi said, as they watched the flames.

As well he should. In addition to leaving them a burnt-out shell of a tower, Ansel’s men had destroyed half their remaining stores. They had a week, perhaps two if they rationed tightly.

There’d been no word from the scouts in the south. The men, rather than take heart from their victory, were silent and jumpy, fights breaking out with alarming regularity. Not even a night of double rations of wine was enough to take off their edge.

Mathias used to think it was what made him a good soldier, the ability to wait, to be patient in the face of mounting tension and to know when to act. Usually when the opposition couldn’t stand it any longer. It felt strange to be on this side of things.

“We’ll be just as dead if we cede the castle,” Zeccosi said.

Mathias doubted Ansel would have them killed, but it wasn’t a temptation he cared to offer him. They could take the men and retreat, wait for Arturus further south. But not while there was still hope to hold the castle.

The next attack came at dawn.

They brought a battering ram this time. Shielded from the archers, they managed to splinter the gate while a small party circled to the lightly guarded southern wall. More irritations than threats, but Mathias found himself on his heels once again, fighting a more determined enemy. They’d almost broken through the gate before being forced to retreat, and as Mathias surveyed the damage, he saw with a chill how close they’d come.

This time, when the message came initiating another parley, they met with full contingents of men at their backs.

“I’ll give you another chance to surrender,” Ansel said, his former coolness back in his voice.

Grim, Mathias considered it. The men were close to breaking. There’d been no word from the south. Repairs to the gate would still leave it at half strength. If Ansel conducted a full-out assault, he doubted he could hold them off more than an hour.

As if sensing him wavering, Ansel said, “I would rather not destroy the castle I hope to keep. I can treat with your king just as well from Ardeche. You asked me to trust you. Show me that you can do the same.”

Not for the first time, Mathias regretted that they faced each other from opposing sides. He thought Ansel could be a true leader for his people. Perhaps the best hope they had. The best hope for Cortesa as well, if they would extricate themselves from this hole they’d dug. All he had to do was take that step. Surrender the castle and hope that Arturus would understand the reasoning behind it.

He couldn’t do it.

“I cannot give you Ardeche,” he said, knowing that he sealed their fates.

Once back inside the gates, he gave orders to double the archers on the walls. They’d attack soon, possibly within the hour if Ansel would press his advantage. He looked for Zeccosi, finally spotting him on the northern wall, and made his way up to meet him.

Zeccosi’s eyes were fixed on the northern army.

Mathias followed his gaze. As he expected, the camp was full of activity, tents pulled up and horses saddled, tiny dots of movement in the distance. It looked as if Ansel would throw everything at them, regardless of the loss of life.

“Ready the men,” he said, already turning to relay the order. But Zeccosi shook his head.

“No. Look.”

Puzzled, Mathias returned his gaze to the hills. He couldn’t see the source of Zeccosi’s attention, though oddly, the size of the force seemed smaller now. Men were riding out, but in the wrong direction. As they watched, more and more of Ansel’s army disappeared behind the hills. Back to Salenne.

“He’s retreating,” he said, not understanding it.

“My lord.” Both of them turned. One of the soldiers pointed silently south. Over the walls of Ardeche, Mathias saw a faint dot of black against the snow, growing larger until it became the heads and shoulders of men, marching over the long plain to the castle.

“He knew they were almost here,” Zeccosi said.

Ansel had made his bluff and Mathias had called it, not even knowing that he did.

As he watched the king’s army approach, he wished it felt more like a victory.

Salenne

Chapter Fifteen

They met the gathered forces of the outlying garrisons a few days outside of Cortesa. Combined, the army sprawled the width of the plain. Reve had faced the empire’s forces at Salenne, but amassed here they seemed insurmountable.

He saw Leal riding at Arturus’s side as the king’s party passed the ranks. He was dressed in the king’s livery, his expression too solemn for one so young. On his other side was a man that had Reve tightening his hands on the reins. Parma.

“You’d best stay clear of that one.” One of Leone’s men, bringing his horse up next to him.

Reve didn’t need the warning. He had no desire to cross that particular path. But Parma riding so easily next to Leal was like seeing a blade at his brother’s throat without the means to deflect it.

“So what’s a northerner doing with us?”

“The same as you,” Reve said shortly. He was surprised it had taken someone—he’d heard one of the other men call him Argel—this long to ask.

When nothing more was forthcoming, Argel laughed and reached over to clap Reve on the shoulder, nearly unseating him. “Keep your secrets, lad. No doubt you’re some informant for the king, eh?”

He was remarkably accepting of someone he must consider a traitor.

“Are you from Ardeche?”

“No, further north.” They were several days from crossing the Vaen, which he knew for most Cortesians signaled the exit from civilization. “Salenne,” he said, some need to voice it pulling the name from him.

“We were on campaign there last summer. Were you there?”

“Yes,” Reve said, after a long pause.

Argel nodded, as if they were two soldiers discussing their trade. “Bad enough in summer, but the ground’ll be a bitch in snow. How do you last up there all winter?” He laughed. “Bet you find all kinds of ways to keep warm.”

They used to gather in the great hall when it snowed, building up the fire until it was almost too hot. He and Ansel would play dice in the corner with the younger guards, mostly losing, while his father shared a bottle of wine with the stablemaster and talked horses.

“Yes,” Reve said, and Argel grinned. Reve let him think what he would.

“We’ll soon be at Ardeche,” another man said, riding up next to them. “You can warm yourself then.”

Argel laughed. Reve listened with half an ear to their speculation about the lonely women who must be waiting for them at the castle, his thoughts moving inevitably to Mathias and whatever welcome might be awaiting him.

The next morning he woke to a light dusting of snow and the camp stirring beyond the usual morning activity. A crowd had gathered at the front. Curious, he followed the men up the short rise east of camp to get a better look. One of the men moved aside to let him see.

A man’s head had been speared and set into the ground, deformed and bloated in death. “Word is that it was an assassin come to kill the king,” the man next to him said. He spoke with the fascination that seemed to have gripped all of them.

Another spit to the side. “And that oaf Parma getting credit for stopping it, I heard. I would’ve thought he’d run the other way.”

As they watched, one of the circling vultures grew bold, diving down to perch on top of it. Claws dug into flesh, followed by the rapid tearing of its beak.

Reve couldn’t take his eyes from the sight. It was a spectacle meant to inspire dread, but instead it held a compelling power. A failed attempt this time, but if the assassin had gotten close enough that Parma had to stop him, then the plan had nearly succeeded.

The king, it seemed, was not invulnerable.

****

When Reve had last been to Ardeche, he’d been with his father to discuss a strip of disputed land that lay on their border, that had traded hands so often that no one knew the rightful claim. Mathias hadn’t been wrong to say that Salenne had had its share of petty squabbles. But his father had known what to say, what to insist on and what to concede, to maintain the greater peace.

As they rode up to it in the pale light of afternoon, Reve couldn’t tell at first what looked off about it, then he saw that one of the towers had collapsed in on itself.

“Siege,” Argel said. “She’s been through a few battles, that one. You see the gate?”

Reve looked where he was pointing, but couldn’t see anything odd about it.

“It’s cracked,” Argel said patiently. “Much longer and she’d have been taken.”

So the northern army had nearly won Ardeche as well.

They set up camp at the foot of the castle, the king’s party and most of the officers already inside. Leone found him at nightfall, after the last of their tents had been set up. “Come up to the castle with me,” he said, more a question than a command.

“So your task to deliver me here is done.”

Leone cocked his head. “Is that what you think? If you were one of mine, I’d keep you on. You’d do well in the army.” He grinned at Reve’s expression, then sobered. “You’re likely better off there than here, but if you want to stay I’ll smooth it over with him.”

“Why?” Reve asked, genuinely curious.

“Because I’ve known Mathias for nearly as long as you’ve been alive, and he doesn’t always know what’s best.”

Reve didn’t feel any more qualified to determine that. But he could keep a closer eye on Leal from the keep. “It’s fine.”

In truth, though, he wanted to see Mathias again.

The garrison hall was in the bailey, and was crowded with men. Reve drew a few curious glances, then someone thrust a mug of wine into his hand, and he saw that it was a kind of victory feast.

Leone disappeared, returning a few minutes later. “Mathias is with the king, but the commander here seems to think he’ll be back.”

Reve nodded and took a sip of the wine. It was watered down and sour, but he needed its bolstering effects.

Despite the press of too many bodies, the spirits of the men were high. He caught snatches of conversation—a recounting of the siege, a few remarks about the northern army that had him straining his ears for details: their numbers, their strength of horses and arms, then the whisper of his brother’s name, Ansel, the last part of it too far away to hear.

Frowning, Reve moved closer to the speakers. They’d turned to welcome another to their group. He was about to inch closer when he felt a hand on his arm, not restraining but with a pressure he couldn’t ignore.

“Reve.”

Reve knew who it was by the sound of his voice, but it was still a small shock seeing him there.

Fatigue had etched deep lines on his face. He was otherwise the same. Their eyes met and Mathias’s darkened, lodging something tight in Reve’s throat. His heart pounded.

Mathias’s hand fell from Reve’s arm. “We need to talk.”

It was like a splash of cold water. Reve took a moment to adjust, his heart and breath slowing.

“Not here.”

Reve felt Mathias’s hand on the small of his back, guiding him through the crowd to the far door. They emerged into the shadows of the courtyard.

The night sky was brilliantly clear. Reve pulled his cloak in closer around his neck. Mathias’s hand moved from his back, and he had only a brief moment to miss its warmth before it cupped his face, and Mathias’s mouth was on his.

Surprise froze him for a heartbeat. In the next he pulled Mathias closer with a hand on the back of Mathias’s neck. Mathias’s mouth was warm against his. The sourness of the wine disappeared, chased away by the taste of him.

After a long moment, Reve drew back. His lips felt swollen and raw. “Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?”

Mathias swore lightly under his breath. “Reve,” he said, something in his voice giving Reve pause. “Ansel is the one leading the northern army.”

Ansel. Reve had heard it on the soldiers’ lips. “No,” he said, cold reaching into his heart. He couldn’t take it if it wasn’t true. “Ansel’s dead. You said he’d been killed in the battle.”

He hadn’t meant it as an accusation, but he saw Mathias wince. “I believed it. We all did. But it’s true. I’ve seen him. Spoken with him. It’s him.”

Reve took a ragged breath.

He was aware of Mathias leading him from the courtyard into the relative warmth of the keep, then to a dark and unlit room. Mathias pushed him gently toward the chair by the fireplace, and knelt to light it.

“You said you spoke to him.” The words sounded strange. His throat was raw and tight. “Then he’s the one who laid the siege.”

Mathias ran a hand through his hair. Exhaustion shadowed his eyes. “If the army hadn’t come when it did, it would have succeeded.”

Reve tasted the bitter irony of that. “Then he refused to wait for the king?”

“He doesn’t believe the king capable of peace.”

Reve didn’t either, certainly not one that meant relinquishing the north. “Do you?”

Mathias smiled without humor. “Right now he’s not in a particularly open frame of mind, but he’s not unreasonable.”

Reve wondered if Mathias believed that any more than he did.

If Ansel was alive, then Salenne had its prince. No wonder Arturus was furious. Reve realized that he didn’t know what Ansel would do—would he sacrifice Leal? Give in to the king’s demands? He couldn’t picture Ansel acting in his father’s place.

“I saw your father, too, before he died. His thoughts were of you. Of both of you.”

A knot formed at the base of his throat. His hand ached from clenching the arm of the chair.

He didn’t know what he would do if Mathias spoke words of comfort or sympathy, however well meaning. But Mathias was absorbed in the fire, light playing over his profile. He looked drawn. Tired. The corner of his mouth was pulled down and lost in shadow.

Reve found himself wishing for the easy mood of the courtyard. The simple pleasure of seeing him again.

Mathias said, still staring at the fire, “I need to sleep a few hours. Will you stay?”

Whatever lay between them, Reve didn’t want to leave. “I’ll stay.”

He watched the fire burn down to embers while Mathias slept on the bed behind him. He thought his choices had been made. Protect Leal as much as possible, try to salvage what he could from the lot they’d been given. Despite the queen’s offer, he hadn’t truly let himself think about returning home. Reclaiming that life. It would have been a fool’s dream.

Now it felt tantalizingly close. Reve knew with a good horse he could make it to Salenne before the Cortesians even realized he was gone. With a younger, less experienced rider, the odds were longer. And first he had to find a way to get Leal, make his way past the army’s lines, get his hands on a couple of horses....

It wasn’t impossible.

His eyes drifted to the bed. He wished he trusted Mathias enough to ask for his help, but Mathias would always be the king’s man first.

He stood, stripped off his shirt and breeches, and climbed into the bed. There was room enough, and it was warmer than the floor.

The bed shifted just as he closed his eyes. When he opened them, Mathias had rolled onto his side to face him.

Slowly, as if afraid to startle him, Mathias reached out to trace the side of his face. Reve’s breath caught. For a moment they looked at one another. Reve didn’t know how to read what he saw there; he didn’t know what Mathias read in him.

He didn’t try to reconcile it. The skin under his hand was warm from the furs. He followed the angles and curves of Mathias’s shoulder and chest, remembering their shape.

Mathias’s hand left his face to close over his, resting in the middle of his chest. Reve used it to tug him closer until their mouths met, more gently than that courtyard kiss.

It was sweet and undemanding, and Reve wanted more. He freed his hand from Mathias’s and closed it around his length. Mathias’s cock was hot and hard and jumped a little at his touch. Mathias made a sound under his lips.

A beat later, Reve found himself on his back, looking up at Mathias kneeling over him.

“Can I,” Mathias said, his eyes dark in the dim light, taking up all of his face.

Reve nodded.

Mathias left the bed. He returned with a bottle of oil, and knelt between Reve’s legs, seeking out Reve’s eyes, asking again.

Reve brought his leg up in response, feeling the stretch of muscles used to the shape of a saddle. He winced at the press of Mathias’s finger.

Then he felt Mathias’s hand on his cock, and let out a strained breath.

Mathias’s fingers pushed in and out of his body while his hand worked him. His touch was experienced and sure. Reve found himself hanging onto that surety like a compass as his climax began to build. Another slide and burn of Mathias’s fingers and release hit with a suddenness that was more like a shock, pulling a cry from him.

Mathias’s hands soothed away the aftershocks of reaction until Reve was relaxed, his mind and body open, then he felt Mathias push in slowly.

It was different this way. Past his initial need, Reve found himself focused on the feel of Mathias stretching his body wide. Their eyes locked. Mathias’s flickered with every movement, emotions passing through them that he didn’t try to hide, and Reve found himself unable to look away.

Mathias came silently, his arms tightening around Reve.

A long time later, Mathias pulled the wrecked furs back over them both. Reve’s last thought before sleep took him was that he’d recognized the look on Mathias’s face, knew what it was, before it slipped and faded away.

****

Mathias didn’t know how long he’d slept, only that the bed was warm and Reve was still asleep, his breathing slow and deep. Mathias had slung his arm over him as if to keep him there.

The small window high up on the wall cast a pale light into the room. He knew he should rise, that there was work to attend to, but he felt rooted to this bed. A fleeting transitory peace.

Last night he’d given Arturus his report, standing in front of him like a recalcitrant child while Parma looked on smugly from his position behind the king.

“I hear you lost one of my nobles,” Arturus had said when Mathias finished.

“Lord Faro chose that path himself.”

“Still, I expect the commander of my army to keep one hapless lord from straying.” Before Mathias could speak, Arturus waved the unvoiced protest away. “We’ll secure his release when this whelp of a northerner is brought to heel, and if not, I’m sure his family will accept some other compensation.”

Mathias had seen Arturus in this mood before. Most times he could be reasoned with once it had burned off, but this sat on him like a dark thing with claws, digging in deep. He chose his words carefully.

“Ansel has the loyalty and desperation of his people. He won’t submit easily. Would you sacrifice your own men in the attempt? Let him hold the north, as regent or vassal. Cortesa would support a truce.”

“Cortesa is my city,” Arturus said, an edge to his voice. “It will support whatever I decide.” He stood, gesturing to one of the servants to uncover the meal brought up for him. “Ready my army, Mathias. We ride to Salenne in two days.”

Mathias knew when he’d been dismissed.

He pushed back the furs, careful not to wake Reve. The garrison was nearly empty. It was still early. Breakfast was scarce, though Mathias found some dried meat, bread that wasn’t too stale, and a wedge of cheese. At least the army’s stores had relieved some of the rationing.

Reve was still sleeping when he returned to the room. Mathias set the platter down on the table, then went to sit on the edge of the bed. He put his hand on Reve’s shoulder. His skin was warm under his hand. The furs had slipped down to Reve’s waist.

Mathias knew he was awake by the way Reve tensed under his touch. To his surprise, Reve relaxed almost immediately, turning his head to look up at him.

“You should have woken me earlier,” he said, taking in Mathias’s fully clothed form, his expression open and eyes easy. Mathias’s heart ached at the sight. But he knew Reve was still too fresh from sleep, his mind not yet caught up.

When it did, the small smile faded. His eyes grew shadowed. He didn’t pull away, but Mathias dropped his hand and rose from the bed. “There’s food here.”

He heard Reve rise and dress behind him before joining him at the table.

“The army’s riding to Salenne tomorrow,” Mathias said, after they’d eaten a few minutes in silence.

Reve took that in. Slowly, he asked, “Do you truly think the king is willing to negotiate?”

“If he is, I’ll do what I can to see you released back home.”

Reve went still. He didn’t meet Mathias’s eyes. “Why?”

Mathias took a piece of bread from the platter, slowly crumbling it under his hand. “Are you so blind to this?”

The shadows around Reve’s eyes deepened. He didn’t look repulsed or horrified, which was something, at least, but as if there was nothing he could say in return. Mathias wasn’t sure what was worse. But it was what he’d expected.

“No,” Reve said. He said, almost gently, “The king would never agree to it. And he won’t give up Leal.”

Likely not. Mathias replaced the mangled piece of bread on the plate and stood. “I have orders to relay. It would be best if you stayed out of sight. The king doesn’t know you’re here.”

“Mathias,” Reve said, and Mathias stilled, one hand on the cloak hanging from the door. He didn’t think he’d ever heard Reve speak his name before. It sounded strange on his lips, as if there was something else behind the word.

He waited for Reve to continue, but after a moment, Reve just nodded.

Mathias found Leone speaking with two other cavalry officers, his cloak pulled in tightly against the morning cold. He broke off and approached when he saw Mathias.

“Up so early?” Leone said, raising an eyebrow. “I’d have thought you’d have better things to do.”

Ignoring the innuendo, Mathias said, “Anything to report?”

Leone shrugged. “Other than an assassination attempt on the king?”

“Lord Beltram,” Mathias said, shock pulling the name from him. That explained much of Arturus’s anger last night. He would have taken it as a personal affront. He must be seeing enemies everywhere now.

“If so, then he may have done it with the queen’s knowledge. My men saw Sena meeting with him shortly after your message arrived.” Leone hesitated. “And your councilor.”

Luca. Mathias had thought better of him. But Luca would do what he thought best for Cortesa above all. He’d known that, but he hadn’t worked through all the possibilities. He hadn’t truly believed Sena would turn against the king. Another thought struck him. “Did he give you any trouble with Reve?”

“He’s a politician. No doubt Sena wants to use your northern boy in whatever plans she has for the empire. But in the end, he let him go without a fight.”

That was something, at least. “Thank you for that.”

“I’ll call in the favor soon enough,” Leone said with a grin. “Besides, your boy has the makings of a good Cortesian cavalry officer. You should train him up.”

Mathias couldn’t see Reve agreeing to that in his lifetime.

They walked the length of the camp, through the subdued activity and impatience of an army in waiting. As familiar to Mathias as his own blood. Strange to feel so removed from it now. Even when he’d questioned Arturus’s decisions in the field, he’d never doubted the purpose that the empire served.

All his certainties now felt like so much dust.

Leone leaned against an outcropping of rock, flush against Ardeche’s walls. His usual expression had gone somber. “Be careful, Mathias. Do you think he’ll show the northerners mercy? That he has any in him to give? He’s a man backed into a corner. There’s no predicting what he’ll do.”

“He still has reason,” Mathias said, hanging on to the hope of it. “And he’s still the king.”

“For now.”

Chapter Sixteen

The lushness of last summer’s campaign was gone. The trees were bare in winter and the sky a pale blue. Mathias had ridden this road before, and with this army. The two images overlapped in his mind in a moment of dissonance. The army churned melting snow to mud.

Reve rode beside him silently. Mathias wondered how it felt for him to return home this way, his future still uncertain: like seeing everything he wanted lying just beyond his reach. Mathias was fast becoming familiar with the feeling.

They camped within sight of Salenne, where the road widened enough to accommodate the tents. Reve took the horses to the picket line. Mathias checked in with the captains, then found himself outside the king’s tent.

Foolish, perhaps, to approach Arturus again. But even when their judgments clashed, Arturus had always been able to articulate his arguments through Mathias’s veil of caution, to convince him of the rightness of it. Mathias could only hope that Arturus would give him the same chance.

He waited while one of the red-cloaked guards ducked inside the tent to request admittance from the king. When he reappeared, he held open the tent flap for Mathias to enter.

Arturus was on a folding stool with a wine goblet in his hand. Next to him was a table stacked with maps and a small pile of sealed scrolls. He gestured to one of the other stools, directing a servant standing quietly to the side to pour a mug of wine for him.

“No doubt you’re here to lecture me again on the benefits of peace.”

Mathias took a sip of the offered wine. “You know them well enough yourself, Sire. You don’t need me to lecture you.”

Arturus smiled. It made him look younger than he was, and Mathias flashed to the fifteen-year-old he’d been, chafing under his father’s rule: the brilliance and charisma that had drawn them all to him. “Humor me nonetheless. Remind me again why I should treat with this upstart.”

“We have Ardeche. You foster the child who could one day hold Salenne. Not all empires are won in a matter of days.”

“Wise words, Mathias, if a bit tame for the man who commands my army.”

“A soldier knows to pick his battles. And how to win the greater war.”

Arturus raised the wine goblet to his lips. Candlelight reflected off the gold finish. In one moment he was the man Mathias knew, as close as a brother; in the next defined by a distance Mathias couldn’t bridge.

To his surprise, Arturus said, “You assume that Ansel will accept a peace.”

Only a sliver of hope, but Mathias held onto it. “Offer him a regency for Leal. Return both brothers as a gesture of good will, then recall Leal to the capital when the council meets this summer. When he’s old enough to rule Salenne, you’ll have his loyalty. And if instead you choose to make him your heir, you can instate Ansel as your vassal in the north.”

“Very tidy, Mathias,” Arturus said, but his tone was thoughtful. “And you think the northerner will bend his knee willingly?”

Mathias thought back to his impressions of Ansel. Arrogant and brash, perhaps, but he wasn’t a fool. His men were outnumbered. He might exact a high price for surrender, but without Ardeche, Ansel had to know he would be defeated in the end.

“I think he’s intelligent enough to know it’s his only real choice.”

Arturus’s finger stretched down the base of the goblet, tapping against it absently. “And you would send your boy home as well? He was a gift, Mathias. The favor of a king.”

Mathias steeled himself. “You gave his life to me, to do with as I willed. This is what I would see done with it.”

He could read nothing in Arturus’s expression. Perhaps, like Mathias, he no longer knew what ground they stood on.

“I know the slave is here, Mathias; I’m not blind. Did you defy me in the hope that I would send him home?” Arturus gestured him silent when Mathias would have spoken. “We’ll see what the Allard boy has to say first.”

Mathias half rose, thinking the discussion over, but Arturus instead called for the servant to refill his mug. He sat back in the stool, trying to work out the king’s mood.

“Did you know they tried to have me killed? Your precious council, that is.”

Arturus had said it casually, but Mathias saw his anger in the lines around his eyes, the whiteness of his hand on the goblet.

“I heard of the attempt.” Mathias measured his words, twisting the wine mug between his hands. “Do you know for sure who instigated it?”

“Don’t be naive. They’re greedy for whatever power they can get. Like dogs shut out in the cold, scratching down the door. My father warned me of them.”

Mathias had always thought the old king had had an amicable relationship with his council. He wondered if Arturus suspected Sena’s involvement as well.

“When this business is done, I’ll dissolve the council. It’s a weak man who needs the counsel of others.”

“You can’t suspect them all of treason,” Mathias said, but he knew Arturus wasn’t listening; his mind was made up.

“Would my father have treated with this northern prince?” Arturus asked abruptly.

The old king had concerned himself more with shoring up the support of the lands directly around Cortesa, calling in old allegiances from the provinces and ensuring their loyalty. “Your father’s vision never extended this far.”

Mathias wasn’t sure he meant it as a criticism, but Arturus smiled faintly. “No. He never could see the possibilities. But you did, Mathias. We both saw it clearly. Yet now you fight me at every turn.” His eyes sought his out. “Is it age that’s made you so cautious? I know you would rather settle into your farmer’s life, but you left our work half done. And of all the men who serve me....” Arturus hesitated, eyes slipping away. “You were one of the few I trusted.”

Mathias heard the past tense. His hand tightened on the mug. His voice was like sand in his throat. “I still serve you, Sire.” The words dropped into the silence of the tent.

Arturus put his goblet aside. Mathias stood, taking it as a sign to withdraw. “We’ll meet with the northerner tomorrow, Mathias. Be sure my army is ready.”

****

It was dusk when he left the king. The camp was thick with the smell of cook fires and food.

“My lord.” Mathias turned to the speaker: one of Leone’s men. “The northerner who rode with us, he’s—” Mathias’s eyes followed where he was pointing, toward the area of woods where they’d set up a crude pen for the prisoners from Ansel’s raid on Ardeche. Arturus had insisted on bringing them. No doubt he planned to trade them for Lord Faro.

Mathias was halfway there when he saw Reve in front of the pen on his knees, head held back from Parma’s grip in his hair and a knife to his throat.

Mathias had a hold of Parma’s wrist before Parma could raise his eyes in alarm, twisting it until the knife dropped to the ground. He tightened his grip when Parma didn’t release his hold on Reve’s hair quickly enough.

Once he did, Mathias released him. Parma yanked his wrist away and backed up until he hit the barrier. He looked back at Mathias with unveiled hatred.

“It’s treason to attack the king’s guard. I could have you in irons for that.” Parma’s face twisted into a sneer. “Or do you still think the king will protect you?”

Mathias didn’t think, just drew his sword and brought the tip to Parma’s throat, trapping him against the pen. Shock and fear battled in Parma’s eyes as they flicked to the sword. Sweat trickled a line down his temple.

From the corner of his eye, Mathias saw two of the guards standing uneasily to the side. Mathias commanded the army, but Parma wore the livery of the king.

“Your whore was trying to conspire with the prisoners,” Parma said, each word a poisoned dart. “Did you know what you keep in your bed? If he were mine I’d teach him the proper way for a slave to behave, since it’s clear you don’t know how to handle him.”

“If you touch him again, the king will have to clap me in irons himself, because you won’t survive my response.”

If sheer hatred could kill a man, Mathias was sure he’d have been struck down on the spot. But then Parma slowly, deliberately, straightened. He moved from the sword at his throat. Mathias lowered it when it was clear Parma wasn’t angling for an attack, though he wished he would, just for the excuse to take him down. But the guards had their hands on the pommels of their swords, ready to intervene if necessary.

“He’ll be as good as dead anyway before this campaign is through,” Parma said, with a parting glare. “Enjoy him while you can.”

Mathias let him go. He could go straight to the king; Mathias didn’t care. Sheathing his sword, he pulled Reve roughly to his feet by his upper arm, feeling Reve tense under his hand and start to pull away before submitting to the hold. To the guards, Mathias said, “Make sure the prisoners are secured. No one else approaches them.”

He herded Reve back in the direction of his tent.

“Do you know them?” Mathias said, once they were inside. Reve rubbed his arm where Mathias’s fingers had been. “The prisoners,” he prompted impatiently.

“Yes.” At least he wasn’t bothering to lie. “The man who led the raid, he was one of my father’s men.”

Mathias nodded. Of course Reve had gone to see the prisoners. He wasn’t sure why he was surprised, or what drove his anger now. Only that it was like a pulsing spike beneath his skin, hammering at his temples. “And was what he had to say worth your life?”

“Mathias,” Reve said, and again Mathias felt his chest tighten at hearing Reve speak his name. He made a warding gesture as if to silence him, but Reve went on relentlessly. “You know I have to go. Once I find a way to take Leal, it’s the only option left.”

Letting Reve go was one thing. Leal would be a betrayal on a level Mathias couldn’t let himself imagine. “The king will meet with Ansel tomorrow. Wait until then.” He had to hope that Arturus had listened to him. “If there’s truly no other option after that—” He broke off, unable to complete the thought.

Reve’s eyes were wide and dark in the dim light. “Why are you so loyal to him?”

There were a thousand answers to that: that loyalty so easily withdrawn was never real in the first place; that he owed his king his fealty, as he had the old king, as did all of Cortesa; that everything Mathias had came from Arturus: his command, Touren, redemption for his family name. But all he could think of was Arturus at fifteen, challenging an older, more skilled opponent and winning, and what he’d felt in that moment, after the initial shock of defeat: that the boy who’d knocked the sword from his hand was someone worth following.

“Wait until the parley.” He heard the note of pleading in his voice beneath the raw and ragged surface of it. “Please.”

Something passed over Reve’s face. “You could simply tie me up or place me under guard,” he said slowly. “There’s no need to ask.”

“I am asking.”

“And if the king refuses to treat? Do I have your word that you’ll do nothing to stop me from trying to take Leal and leave?”

Words stuck in his throat. Mathias had never thought to speak them in betrayal of his king; never imagined himself an oathbreaker. He thought of the man he’d just left. You were the only one I trusted.

“You have my word.”

****

They met Ansel’s party at the edge of the field outside Salenne.

It was still gutted from last summer’s battle. Furrows of mud had frozen into deformed shapes; blackened trees lined the circumference. Mathias remembered rows of bodies as they’d been in the aftermath, the upturned red of the earth. He hoped it wasn’t a premonitory vision.

Ansel faced them with the same cool composure Mathias had met outside of Ardeche, though his gloved hands were tight on the reins. His horse stamped nervously. His general rode with him. Mathias recognized the other men as well. In the distance was the line of Ansel’s army, backed up against Salenne. Not even a thousand, to three thousand of the Cortesian army.

Next to him, Parma’s red cloak of the king’s guard was like blood against the remaining snow. Three of Mathias’s captains rode with them, half a length behind. In front was Arturus, his head bare under the pale northern sky.

“You trespass on these lands, King of Cortesa.” Ansel’s clear voice, so like Reve’s, rang out into the space between the parties.

Arturus responded with all the arrogance Mathias had ever known in him. “Bold words from someone with so small a force. Your father made an oath. By the presence of your army here, you’ve already broken it.”

“An oath that should never have been offered. And one I never gave.”

Such bluster could go on indefinitely, but they were also following an age-old script. The impasse reached, Ansel’s general inched his horse forward.

“My prince would hear your purpose here, southerner.”

“My purpose?” Arturus’s laugh fell flat in the still air. “My purpose is to reclaim my lands and see your surrender, princeling.”

Now was the time for Arturus to raise the possibility of alternate terms. He held the power here; they both knew it. Conditions could ensure the avoidance of bloodshed. Mathias saw Ansel and the rest of his party waiting for Arturus to speak them. He held his breath, waiting, too.

Arturus was silent. One of the horses stamped the ground.

A cold weight settled in Mathias’s stomach. From the corner of his eye, he saw Parma’s smirk in the foolish, avaricious set of his face. Ansel’s face shifted and hardened. Whatever faint hope had been in Mathias died.

“I will not surrender Salenne,” Ansel said.

“Then hear this.” Arturus spoke with certainty. Mathias realized that this had always been his intent; he’d never planned to offer Ansel terms. “For every day you withhold your surrender, I will execute a prisoner. I think there are near a dozen of them; that should give you enough time to think through the consequences of rebelling against your king.”

Ansel had gone white. His general put his hand on his sword, his face suffused with rage. But Arturus hadn’t finished.

“And if by then you haven’t surrendered, Leal will join their fate. That is the agreement your father made.”

Mathias’s eyes went to him, disbelieving. His lips parted. Ansel’s voice cut in before he found out if he would have spoken or not.

“Only a monster would kill a child.”

“Then you had best ensure it doesn’t come to that.”

Ansel’s general spoke. “You consign your own lord to death with this action.”

“Lord Faro chose that path himself,” Arturus said, in eerie echo of Mathias’s words. “I’ll await your word. The first execution will take place at dusk.” He reined his horse around.

Mathias barely registered that the rest of the king’s party had turned to follow him. His eyes were on Ansel. The pale eyes, filled with shock and disbelief, flicked briefly to Mathias’s, narrowing in confusion that Mathias was still there. Then they shuttered as his own party turned to ride back to their line.

Mathias turned his horse to catch up with the king.

“Sire.” Arturus turned his head at his tone and reined his horse in. “You cannot be serious.”

“How dare you—” Parma began, but Arturus silenced him with a gesture.

“Do you have some disagreement to raise?”

Mathias stared at him. “You cannot mean to kill Leal.”

Arturus made an impatient movement. His horse shifted uneasily under him. “You knew the terms of the agreement, just as Allard did. I am not the one who broke them. Look to that usurper if you want someone to blame for these events.”

“Sire—”

“No, Mathias.” Arturus’s voice had gone strangely calm. Mathias realized that they were arguing in front of Parma, in front of the captains, who looked on, wide-eyed. “I’d heard the air up here had softened you. Have you let that northern boy get to you? If I’d known my gift would turn out to be so troublesome, I would have cut him down on the battlefield.”

The weight in Mathias’s stomach turned sickeningly.

“For your sake, Mathias, I’ve spared him his own turn on the sword. Be grateful for that.”

Arturus heeled his horse forward.

Chapter Seventeen

The king’s words followed Mathias back to camp.

He’d known Arturus was ruthless. It was what made him a conqueror, one who dared to execute his vision of empire with certainty. At some point it had burned out everything else, and Mathias hadn’t seen.

He dismounted and handed his horse off to a waiting aide. “Commander.” Mathias turned to find one of the captains who’d accompanied them on the parley. “I....” The captain seemed at a loss for words. “Do you believe the king will do as he says?”

Mathias hadn’t considered the men’s reactions to Arturus’s threat. They were good soldiers, loyal to the empire, and Arturus was their king. But all men had their breaking point. Even the most hardened of them would balk at murdering a child.

“I think the king expects Salenne to surrender.” Ansel was backed up against a wall. My brothers know their duty, Ansel had claimed at Ardeche, but it was one thing to say it and another to watch the consequences play out before his eyes.

Mathias didn’t expect Ansel to surrender. Which left attack, as soon as his forces were ready.

From the edge of camp, he could see the curve of a tower, the smudge of Salenne’s army at the base of it. He didn’t think they could prepare before dusk. If Mathias had read Ansel and his general right, they would spend hours working out how to avoid sacrificing the first prisoner but come to the inevitable conclusion of its necessity. They would attack at dawn, hoping to catch the empire’s men off guard, in light poor enough to give them the advantage of familiarity with the terrain.

Or at night, like the attack on Ardeche. Enough men to harry and nag the Cortesian camp in the hopes of turning the aggressor home. Not that Arturus would be turned away; he had to know they would attack. Perhaps he counted on it. Either he trusted Mathias enough to prepare the camp, or he wanted to turn the men even more against the northerners.

But Mathias had known since Arturus had spoken his demand what his only option could be. He had until dusk. “Gather the captains. I’ll speak with them within the hour.”

“Of course, my lord.” The captain bowed.

Mathias went in search of Leone.

****

He found him with Reve, coming down from the low rise at the edge of camp.

By their faces he could see that they’d watched the parley and had discerned enough to know its failure. Holding off Leone’s questions, he gestured them back to his tent and unrolled a map of the area onto the folding table near the entrance. “How many men guard Leal?”

Leone’s eyes widened. Mathias heard a sound from Reve. “Two outside his tent,” Leone said. “And one inside.”

Three guards. And two guarding the prisoners from the attack on Ardeche. The three with Leal would be part of the king’s guard, but the ones guarding the prisoners were soldiers from the army.

“Arturus demanded Ansel’s unconditional surrender. I need your help, but I will not command it of you.”

“You know you have it,” Leone said. “You should already have counted on it.”

“I’d hoped, but I’m glad to hear it from you.” Mathias pointed to a location outside the boundaries of camp, deeper into the woods but still accessible to the castle. “Bring the prisoners here—tell the guards watching them that you’re relocating them on my orders. Cover your tracks as best you can.” His eyes went to Reve. “Will you go with him? We need their cooperation.”

He could see the beginnings of an argument—Reve would of course want to help him free Leal. But it would be hard enough for Mathias to bluff his way through. Impossible to do it with Reve, with tensions running as high as they were in camp.

Reve must have come to the same conclusion. His face shifted to resignation. “Yes.”

“Mathias, you know the men are loyal to you.”

Mathias’s hand tightened on the map. “I’m already committing the acts of a traitor. Would you have me betray him completely?”

“And what do you think he’ll do to you after this?”

“I can’t allow Arturus to go through with what he’s planned, but it’s still treason to oppose him. I’ll accept the consequences.”

Leone shook his head, exasperated. Mathias didn’t know how to convey to him that the men might balk at their king’s orders, but they were still Cortesians and Arturus was their king, and not even this yawning emptiness inside him would change that truth.

“I’ll bring Leal to your position.” Mathias traced a line from the spot to the castle. He said, not looking at Reve, “Can you lead them to your brother’s lines?”

“Yes,” Reve said, after a pause. “What will the king do to you?”

“It’s none of your concern.”

“It is my concern.”

Mathias braced himself against the table. “Then I release you from it.”

He saw Leone look between them. “I’ll meet you by the prisoners.” The tent flap fell silently back into place behind him.

Reve was quiet a moment. “Come with us.”

Reve wasn’t so naive to think that Ansel would let the commander of the Cortesian army through his gates. “Our fates are on different paths. That’s not where mine leads.”

“So you’d choose death instead?” Reve sounded angry.

“Not willingly, no.”

Though he wouldn’t turn it away, if that was where this road led him. He thought of Touren, but couldn’t hold onto the picture. He’d begun every campaign driven by the hope that he would return there at the end, but it was hard to see any hope now.

“Mathias—”

Mathias shook his head, his thin control already breaking. He didn’t think he could bear to hear what Reve would say to him, to have that final door close between them.

“You have to go.”

Reve’s eyes were dark. “I know.”

“Tell Leone to give me time to speak to the captains first. I won’t tell them what we’ve planned, but I need to gauge where they sit with this.”

Reve started to speak, but Mathias cut him off. This was difficult enough as it was; much longer and he wouldn’t be able to survive it. “I’ll meet you with Leal a few hours past midday. After that, I’ll hold off the king’s guard as long as I can, but you must get them to Salenne quickly.”

“I will.”

Silence fell between them. You were right, he almost said, but the words stuck in his throat. Voicing them would make them real, and he wasn’t ready yet for that particular truth.

“I know you thought he would listen,” Reve said, as if he’d heard them anyway.

“It no longer matters.” He gave himself a moment before continuing. “I’ll bring Leal to you safely. And when you reach Ansel…ask him to trust me.”

“Be careful.”

Mathias shook his head, his throat too tight to speak. He watched Reve turn and leave the tent.

Then he went to meet with the captains.

****

Leone didn’t say anything as Reve followed him to the prisoners’ pen.

Reve had always known there would be a cost to leaving, but he never expected it to be this, or for it to feel this high.

“Stay here,” Leone said, when they neared the pen. “I’ll talk to the guards.”

Reve nodded. The last time he’d attempted this, he hadn’t gotten very far before Parma had chanced upon him. The prisoner Reve had recognized as one of his father’s men was watching him. Reve caught his eye and moved closer. He could hear snatches of Leone talking the guards through their understandable reluctance, distracting their attention as Reve crouched down.

“I remember you,” he said, pitching his voice low. “You used to command the castle guard when I was small. You caught Ansel and me planting a mouse in Lord Mondt’s chamber once.”

The man eyed him warily. Reve might be his prince, but he wore the uniform of the enemy. “Durant, Your Highness. You remember right. The lord deserved it, if I recall, though likely you and your brother also deserved the punishment I saved you from.”

That was no doubt true, though as usual it had been Ansel talking him into it and Reve allowing himself to be coerced. “I had thought you and your wife had retired to the village.”

“I still fought in the battle last summer. When we heard your brother was alive, we left to join him. As did most of the others.” A grimace passed over his face. “Your father was already broken.”

Reve tried to imagine his father as less than the source of strength and pride he’d always known. Perhaps it was better that he’d never seen Salenne in the aftermath. But it had been his right to be there, and the king of Cortesa had cheated him of it.

Reve nodded toward Leone. “He’s here to help us.”

Durant’s face hardened. “He’s a Cortesian. They can’t be trusted.”

Not too long ago, Reve would have agreed. But he trusted Mathias. Perhaps it was foolish, knowing the hold the king still had on him, but he trusted Mathias to do what was right. And he trusted Leone, in so far as Leone was loyal to Mathias.

“Do you trust me?”

Durant’s hesitation was clear. It was a glimpse of what Reve had to look forward to if they made it back to Ansel’s lines. His brother’s people had to know what he’d been in Cortesa. They would see him as compromised. Untrustworthy. Arturus might have made him what he was, but Reve had made the choice to lie in the bed of the enemy.

“You’re the brother of my prince,” Durant said slowly. “And we’re hardly in a position to turn away help if it’s offered.”

A lukewarm show of support, but Reve would take what he could get. He glanced up to see Leone gesturing to him, so he rose from his crouch and went over to him. Behind Leone, the guards’ eyes on him were suspicious. They were the same men who had witnessed his run-in with Parma.

“The commander wants the prisoners moved deeper into camp,” Leone said to him, for the guards’ benefit. “Chain their hobbles together so we can take them out.”

Reve knew Leone intended to give him another opportunity to convey their intent to the prisoners, but he didn’t dare with the guards watching. The faces of his brother’s men were hostile when he entered the pen and knelt to attach the lead chain to the ones between their ankles. It helped maintain the illusion, at least, but Reve’s face still burned.

When he reached Durant, the man’s face softened. “We’ll follow you, Your Highness,” he murmured, as Reve knelt beside him.

Reve’s fingers fumbled on the chain. He squeezed Durant’s calf briefly in acknowledgment, then straightened and met Leone’s eyes.

Once they led the men from here, they set the events of this plan in motion. There could be no return from it.

He wondered how Mathias fared.

****

Mathias left his meeting with the captains and headed for the center of camp.

From the surrounding forest, he could hear the steady thump of axes of men cutting down trees to build a scaffolding for the executions. Arturus must have given the order. Mathias knew they would mount it in full view of Ansel’s army—it was more about show than anything else. War saw the sacrifice of men as a matter of course, but to watch each individual death, knowing that you held the power to save them—that was warfare under different rules. Arturus was counting on it to break Ansel.

The number of red cloaks grew thicker the further into camp he went. It was like walking into enemy territory. They were the sons of nobles Arturus owed money to, or who otherwise owed their rank to the king, led by a man who’d already proven himself a sycophant. Mathias wouldn’t look to the king’s guard for support.

Leal’s tent was far enough from the king’s to be out of sight and earshot, though it was still deep within the camp.

“I’m here to speak with him,” Mathias said to the two guards outside the tent.

They gazed back impassively. “Your pardon, my lord,” the one said, barely respectful, “but we haven’t been told to allow visitors.”

“Then check your orders with the king,” Mathias said impatiently. “Do you think I would be here if not by his command?”

The two looked at one another, shifting uneasily. Another king would have alerted the guards to such an attempt, but Mathias was counting on Arturus’s inability to imagine his betrayal. It would take a strong man to disturb the king to verify his orders.

And Mathias was the commander of the army, after all, and still the king’s closest confidant as far as the guards knew.

“Very well, my lord,” the one on the right finally said, and stepped back.

Mathias raised the flap and ducked under it, taking a moment to adjust to the dimmer light.

The tent was large and comfortably furnished, with rugs piled on the ground. “Your Highness,” he said to Leal, ignoring the guard who had risen with his hand on his sword hilt. In front of Leal was a board with carved pieces set up on it. They’d been playing a game of strategy.

Leal stared back at him, wide-eyed.

Mathias crouched down next to the board. After a moment, the guard released his hilt, but didn’t sit down again. Mathias tracked his movements from the corner of his eye, his attention still ostensibly on the board.

“Did your brothers show you how to play?”

“No,” Leal said, losing some of his shyness. “We don’t have this game in Salenne. Neri showed me.”

By the guard’s blush, Mathias assumed he was Neri. “It was just to pass the time, my lord,” Neri said, as if he’d done something wrong.

Mathias gave him a fuller look. Neri was young, hardly more than a boy himself. Perhaps Arturus had thought him a better companion to Leal than one of the older guards. Strange to think of Arturus’s concern for Leal, having witnessed his threat against him, but as monstrous as Arturus’s proclamation was, Mathias knew he still cared for the boy.

“I’m sure his highness appreciated it.” Mathias stood. He was within arm’s length of Neri, who was no longer on guard. “I’m here to take you to your brother.”

“To Reve?” Leal said, straightening in excitement, just as Neri said uncertainly, “My lord?”

Before Neri could voice the alarm, Mathias had his arm locked around his throat and a hand over his mouth. Neri struggled but Mathias pressed against his windpipe ruthlessly until his struggles began to weaken.

“Don’t hurt him!”

Startled, Mathias glanced at Leal, then to the front of the tent. These tents were made to muffle sound, and there were enough carpets on the floor to dull it further, but soon the guards outside would become suspicious.

Neri wasn’t unconscious yet. “I’m not hurting him,” Mathias said, not quite truthfully, but it was better than slitting the man’s throat. “You want to see your brother, don’t you?”

Leal’s fear and uncertainty showed on his face. Neri’s knees buckled. Mathias eased his grip on his throat and lowered him to the ground.

A familiar voice sounded outside the tent, speaking with the guards. Parma.

Mathias swore and released Neri, who had enough consciousness left to roll to his hands and knees. He heaved in a breath and coughed. Mathias’s eyes went to the back of the tent. He’d planned to take Leal out that way once he’d dealt with Neri, but he’d also counted on the guards outside not catching on for a few precious minutes. Enough time to clear the area. Once in the main camp he trusted his men to have his back, even against the king’s guard.

His voice harsh with urgency, he said to Neri, “Do you care for him?” Neri was rubbing at his throat. He must still be too dazed to call the alarm.

Neri’s eyes went to Leal. It was clear he did, but Mathias didn’t know how far that affection went. “The king will kill him if he remains here. Do you understand?”

By his expression, Neri knew the king’s intent, or at least suspected. He looked sick with indecision. His eyes on Leal were pleading.

Mathias pulled him roughly to his feet. He needed time, but he couldn’t count on Neri holding up Parma and the guards long enough to give it to him. Parma would simply cut him down.

“Take him out the back. Get to the perimeter of the camp and head northeast, into the woods. When you reach the streambed, follow it north. Leal’s brother will be there, and one of my captains.”

Neri stared back at him. Parma could enter the tent at any time. Mathias wanted to shake Neri from his indecision, force him to carry out the order, but he could only hope that his instinct hadn’t been misplaced.

Neri freed himself from Mathias’s grip and backed away. Mathias’s heart sank. He should have cut the man’s throat.

“Come on,” Neri said, taking Leal’s hand. He cut the seam of the tent with his knife and helped Leal duck through, swiftly following him.

The relief Mathias felt almost brought him to his knees.

“Mathias.”

Mathias turned. Parma stood there, his eyes taking in the room. Surprise shifted to comprehension when he noted Leal’s absence. Instead of anger Mathias saw an almost feverish satisfaction when they rested on Mathias again.

“I told him you would betray him. He would hear none of it. I’ll enjoy bringing him your head.”

Mathias drew his sword.

****

A woodpecker was tapping on its tree, the sound carrying through the winter forest.

Reve shifted uneasily on his perch on a fallen trunk and pulled his cloak in closer. He could hear the occasional low mutter among his brother’s men nearby. Their shackles were gone, buried under snow outside of camp. Reve had at least earned their trust with that.

Leone leaned against a tree a few feet away. Reve could read the tension in him as he glanced up at the sky through the trees. It was too overcast to gauge the sun, but Reve knew it was well past midday.

“You can’t wait any longer. Not if you want to make it back to Salenne before the king’s men stumble upon our trail.”

The truth of it didn’t make it any easier to hear. “Not without Leal.”

“Then send them on their way first,” Leone said, nodding at the former prisoners. “Do they know the woods?”

Any man of Salenne would know these woods. Reve himself had hunted in them often enough. He nodded, a little chagrined that he hadn’t thought of it first.

He stood and went to Durant, pulling him a little away from the other men. “Take them back to Ansel. Leal and I will catch up to you.”

Durant’s eyes narrowed. “If we leave you here, your brother will have our heads.”

“I won’t have you retaken, not after all of this. We’ll be right on your heels.”

“And if the Cortesians find you before then?”

Reve didn’t have the heart to tell him that unarmed, Durant and his men wouldn’t be much help against the king’s men, if they did come. “It will be easier to elude them with two. Leal and I can lose them in the woods.”

Reve could see Durant struggling between loyalty and pragmatism. Finally, he nodded, going back to relay the plan to the men. Reve felt their eyes touch him briefly before they faded into the woods with barely a crack of fallen branches and creak of snow, until only Durant was left.

“I’m staying,” he said, his tone allowing no argument.

Reve nodded, accepting it.

Too restless and cold to sit, he was pacing in the snow when he heard the crack and shuffle of approaching footsteps, not particularly stealthily. He ducked behind a tree. Leone and Durant echoed him. It was an agonizingly long wait before he saw movement to match the sounds.

A red cloak flashed through the trees like blood against the snow. His heart went to his throat.

Then he saw the dark brown head of Leal almost engulfed in it. From the tree next to him, Leone slipped his sword from its sheath, waving Reve back. Reve saw the guard now, walking next to Leal. There was no sign of Mathias.

His heart was beating so loudly he thought surely the guard must hear it. He scanned the trees behind them, searching for any sign that there were more of them, or that they’d been followed. There was nothing.

Leone caught his eye, shaking his head subtly, but every inch of Reve wanted to go to Leal. They were so close. They could disappear into these woods and find themselves back in Salenne in a matter of hours.

Leone left the cover of his tree and strode into view with his sword in hand. “Where’s Mathias?” he said, his voice loud in the relative silence.

The guard with Leal startled at the sound of it, half-drawing his own sword while trying to push Leal behind him. That was enough for Reve. “Leal,” he called.

Leal saw him. “Reve!” He tore himself from the guard’s grip and nearly tripped over the too-long red cloak. Reve met him halfway. Then his arms were full of him, the warmth of his small body like a shock after the cold.

When he finally looked up, Leone had his sword at the guard’s throat. “No, don’t hurt him,” Leal said suddenly, loosening his stranglehold on Reve. “He helped me.”

“Where is Mathias?” Leone said again, glancing at Leal but not budging his sword from the guard’s throat. Reve saw Durant from the corner of his eye, standing back warily but on guard, ready to step in to help when needed.

“I don’t know, my lord,” the man gasped, his eyes on Leone’s blade. “He said to take the prince and go. The commander of the guard was outside the tent.”

“Parma,” Leone said, and Reve’s blood turned cold.

He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, frozen, until he felt Leone’s hard grip on his arm. “Take him and go,” Leone said, shaking him slightly. He’d sheathed his sword.

“Durant can take him,” he heard himself say. The thought made him sick, but leaving was just as unimaginable.

“No.” Leone was as harsh as Reve had ever heard him. “Would you have it be in vain? He did this for you. He wouldn’t thank you for dying for him.”

“I can’t just—”

“Go,” Leone said, and shoved him back. Reve staggered before he caught his balance. His hands clenched into fists. He saw the same anguish in Leone’s eyes that he knew must be in his. But Leone was unyielding. “Go,” he said again, less harshly. “I’ll do what I can for him.”

Leal held out the red cloak to the guard, who looked confused to have it presented back to him. “Keep it,” he said finally, his eyes darting nervously between them. “You’ll need it more than I.”

Reve took Leal’s hand. His own fingers were cold, despite Leal’s warmth. His eyes sought out Leone’s. “Don’t let Mathias die for him.”

“I won’t,” Leone said, though Reve wasn’t sure Leone believed it. “Farewell, prince of Salenne.”

He turned and left the clearing, gesturing for the guard to follow him.

“Your Highness,” Durant said quietly.

Leal’s grip on his hand was enough to crush the bones. Reve would have welcomed it to drown this pain in his chest.

“Let’s go home.”

Chapter Eighteen

Mathias woke to muted voices and the smell of blood.

His blood, he realized, staring at the ragged tear in his breeches. The edges were dark red. The skin beneath it was black and crusted. His thigh throbbed sluggishly.

With an effort he forced unconsciousness back.

When his vision cleared, he saw that his hands were bound in front of him. Around him were the walls of Arturus’s tent. He was lying on his side at an awkward angle, his hipbone digging into the piled rugs between it and the hard ground.

The voices came into focus again. Arturus. The other was Parma.

He moved his head, wincing at the new flood of pain. From this angle he could see Arturus at the table, a map and wine goblet in front of him. Parma stood at attention behind him. His impatience showed clearly.

“Your Majesty, the men are ready to march.”

Arturus didn’t turn his attention from the map. “They’ll march when I give the order. Don’t overstep your place, Nicolo.”

Parma’s flush was discernible even from across the room. “Apologies, my king.”

Arturus sat back. Candlelight threw shadows over his face. Odd how someone could look so much the same yet be a stranger. “Has the search party returned?”

Parma looked discomfited. “Yes, Sire. They were unable to find either the prisoners or the northern prince.”

Mathias closed his eyes. If the prisoners and Leal had made it through, then surely Reve was with them.

Arturus was silent a moment. “I see. Though I still fail to understand how one man could circumvent my guard with such ease.”

“The traitor had help, Sire.” Mathias, his eyes still closed, felt their gazes on him with a prickling on the back of his neck. “We’re unable to find the captain, Leone. Or Leal’s guard. I have men searching the camp.”

“The same men who allowed a boy to slip away without so much as a hand to stop him. But no matter. Our guest is awake.”

The pretense gone, Mathias opened his eyes.

“Sit up, Mathias. You look like a dead man lying there.”

Mathias hoped Arturus wasn’t foreshadowing his fate. The fact that Arturus had left his wound untreated didn’t bode well. He tried not to put pressure on his thigh as he struggled to sit. Despite his efforts it began to bleed again lethargically.

Arturus refilled his goblet from the flask on the table. “I hear you fought quite admirably in defense of the northerners. The commander of my guard needed the help of two men to bring you down.”

Parma’s eyes narrowed. The flush had come back.

“I admit I was surprised by Nicolo’s tale. It seemed impossible that you, my staunchest defender, my oldest friend—a man I raised out of nothing—could act against me.”

Mathias wondered if Arturus could truly be so surprised; surely he didn’t think he would go along with the execution of a child? But no doubt Arturus never planned for it to go that far. He would find it unimaginable that Ansel would not do exactly as he wanted.

There was no sense in answering; Arturus wasn’t looking for a response.

“It raises the question of what to do with you now.”

“The traitor should die, Sire,” Parma said, with such loathing that Mathias wondered if he’d done something personally to wrong the man other than holding a position he coveted.

Annoyance crossed Arturus’s face. It was an expression Mathias had known to step carefully around. He wondered if Parma had learned as much.

From habit he scanned the tent, noting the absence of guards and the location of the entrance. Not that he could get far trussed up like this. There would be plenty of guards outside.

“He’s served me and my family honorably until now,” Arturus said, playing the advocate.

He stood suddenly, rocking the table back on its unsteady foundation; the goblet of wine toppled, spilling its contents in a slow stream over the map. Arturus paid it no notice. Mathias saw Parma eye it uneasily, caught in indecision: unsure whether to save the map and rug from further ruin, or adopt Arturus’s disinterest in them. A sycophant’s dilemma.

Then Mathias’s attention was taken up entirely by Arturus crouching next to him.

He was close enough that Mathias could see the dark stubble of his face, smell the acrid scent of his sweat. “At one time you could defeat any man in my army.” He offered a boyish grin. “Well, I beat you. But I still wonder how you let a man like Nicolo take you down.”

There had been three of them, not just Parma, and Mathias still could have taken them if he’d been just a bit quicker evading that sword cut. Still, he wondered what Arturus expected him to say: that something had held him back? That he’d allowed himself to be taken out of lingering loyalty? Mathias had fought for the sole purpose of buying Neri time to get Leal out of camp. Parma hadn’t even sent men after them, so focused he’d been on his prize.

“Sire, you do neither of us a service with this.”

Arturus’s grin faded. “What would you have me do?”

In his chambers in Cortesa, what felt like years ago, he’d asked for Mathias’s trust. At what point had it been lost? After Luca’s words had burrowed and taken root? Or before then, on that last campaign?

“I would have you take the army and march back to Cortesa. Leave the north to Ansel.”

It was a mistake mentioning Ansel’s name. Arturus’s face twisted. “The whelp who thinks he can take what’s mine. He should have died on the field.”

“Yet you let him live.” It was something Mathias had been curious about.

Arturus shrugged. “I suspected, but had no proof. The body they produced looked genuine enough. And at the time, it was more important that the northerners believe him dead. But no matter. It simply delayed the inevitable.” He searched Mathias’s face. “Come now, do you truly believe him anything other than a barbarian? That the northerners have anything with which to recommend them?”

At one time, Arturus’s vision had meant something to him. The idea that men could come out of their hidebound ways and learn new ones. That knowledge shared and spread was more powerful than knowledge hidden away. It had felt like an honorable goal.

Perhaps Arturus had once believed as Mathias had; he didn’t know. But this was about power and Arturus’s singleminded need for it.

“I think it’s for them to find their own way.”

But Arturus wasn’t listening. He studied Mathias as one would an irritating puzzle. “I have a problem, Mathias. I have three thousand men camped only miles from Salenne, and I cannot budge them without you. Oh, I have the loyalty of a few captains—did you think them all your followers? But I still need you to lead them.”

Before Mathias could speak, from the corner of the tent came a strangled, broken cry. Parma. “No, Sire.” His eyes, locked on the king, were full of disbelief. “You cannot mean to let him live. To give him back his command. You said—” Another strangled sound.

Mathias had no doubt what Arturus had promised him. If he had it in him, he’d feel sorry for the man.

“Nicolo,” Arturus said, a warning.

Parma seemed oblivious to it. “He deserves to die for what he’s done. He betrayed you. Can’t you see that? He should never have risen to such a position at all.”

It should be mine. Arturus heard the unspoken words, too. “You’re a fool if you think the men out there would follow you.”

The dismay on Parma’s face only made the scene more grotesque. Mathias had no love for him, but there was little satisfaction in watching a man being broken. Parma opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again.

“Come, Nicolo,” Arturus said, conciliatory now. “We’ll speak of it later. The command will still be yours; I’ve promised you that, haven’t I? But for this we need Mathias, until the men learn to trust your orders.”

“No.”

Parma took a step forward, his eyes, feverishly bright, on Mathias. The air in the tent was thick with tension. From the corner of his eye Mathias saw Arturus’s expression turn from surprise to something Mathias didn’t recognize: regret, maybe, layered with something harder.

Parma came forward. Arturus moved, graceful, almost as if to shield him. Mathias had no idea of Parma’s intent, only that at the final stride he stopped, the surprise on his face morbidly comical.

Then he crumpled, something dark and glinting lodged at his throat.

As the seconds slowed, Mathias found himself looking at the knife Sena had given to Arturus as a marriage gift. He remembered when it had been presented at the ceremony. The onyx handle, jutting from Parma’s throat, studded with a few sapphires diverting the flow of Parma’s blood.

Parma tried to speak but nothing came out. Blood welled, frothing, at his throat. His eyes flicked to Arturus. The confusion in them began to fade.

“He didn’t have a weapon,” Mathias said, his voice sounding rough to his ears.

“He would have tried to kill you.”

Despite everything, despite this, Arturus had moved instinctively to shield him. Mathias found himself unable to speak, to put voice to everything irreconcilable between them.

“It doesn’t matter.” Arturus slowly regained himself. “It would have ended this way eventually.”

He didn’t touch the knife at Parma’s throat. Parma’s eyes, lifeless now, were still open. Mathias leaned forward to close them as gently as he could with his bound hands.

“Let me give the order to return to Cortesa. You have people there who need a king.”

For a moment he thought Arturus would finally listen. He looked uncertain, as if still struggling to comprehend Parma’s death. His eyes met Mathias’s.

“My orders still stand.”

“Then I cannot follow them.”

Arturus laughed roughly. “You’re my prisoner, Mathias. I could raze Touren to the ground if you refuse to obey. Kill every one of those horses you love so passionately.”

“You are not that man.”

“Then don’t put me in this position. If you refuse to give the order, I’ll hold your men equally to blame for your lack of obedience. I have a scaffold now, with no prisoners to take their place.”

“The men would rebel if you did such a thing.”

“Perhaps.” Arturus was moving onto more familiar ground, Mathias saw with regret, that flash of uncertainty now buried. “But they would still be dead, and you responsible for it.”

If Leone were still alive...Mathias would wager that he was still in camp, protected by his men. He’d be working on the captains, too, shoring up their support. There was still a chance to turn this back to their advantage. If Mathias could manage to stay alive long enough to speak to him.

“Give the order to march. I want to be at Salenne before dawn.” Arturus seemed to have shaken any lingering effects of Parma’s death.

Taking his silence for acquiescence, Arturus went to the tent opening to speak to the guards. A few minutes later, Mathias watched as they dragged Parma’s body from the tent. The knife had disappeared from his throat.

“Commander.”

Mathias looked up from the pool of blood on the carpet. The speaker was one of the red-cloaked guards. He didn’t recognize him, but that wasn’t unusual; the king’s guard weren’t career soldiers.

“I’m here to take you to the physician.”

Mathias wasn’t sure how much weight he could put on his leg. To his surprise, the guard cut the rope at his wrists, then helped him up with a shoulder under his arm, supporting part of his weight.

He tested his leg with a step forward. It would hold, but not for long without treatment.

The guards shielded him from view as they made their way to the physician’s tent. Mathias spent far more energy than he would have liked on the short walk there, even with the guard’s support.

The physician was skillful, which Mathias appreciated, and also quick in cleaning and binding the wound. The guard who’d helped him stayed close by. Not unexpected, since he must consider him a risk, but when the physician stepped out of the tent to retrieve more bandages, he said in a low voice, “They say Neri is a traitor.”

Mathias hid his surprise. He was considering his words when the guard spoke again. “He’s my kin. Please—can you tell me what became of him?”

“I don’t know.” Mathias wished he could offer greater assurance. He could only hope that Neri was with Leone, hiding among the men. “But he isn’t a traitor.” Not technically true, but principle demanded a higher allegiance than a man’s oath.

The guard was silent. Mathias wished he had a clearer view of his face. He didn’t want to break this tentative rapprochement by turning to face him.

“If I could get a message out, I could find out what happened to him.”

Mathias wondered if he’d pushed him too far. Then: “I could relay a message.”

Mathias breathed out silently. He could play out this farce, tell the captains one thing while his eyes said something else. If Leone knew his mind was unchanged, that Mathias still planned to hold the army back, he would ensure that second message got through.

For a moment he saw Parma’s lifeless face. He’d been surprised until the end.

Mathias closed his mind to it. “Then this is what I need you to say.”

****

It was dusk before they reached Salenne.

Reve knew these woods, but not in winter. Snow had covered familiar landmarks, and the starkness of the trees made them seem foreign and unfamiliar. Leal clung to Durant’s back with his face buried in the crease of his neck. They’d taken turns carrying him the last hour.

“Hold,” Reve heard from the shadows in front of them.

Durant pushed forward. “Stand down, man. I have the prince’s brothers here.”

Reve saw the sentry now, outlined against the trees with his sword in hand. Another appeared with a torch. Reve blinked in the sudden light.

“Search them for weapons,” the first sentry said, taking the torch but not sheathing his sword.

Leal had slid from Durant’s back. Reve found his hand and squeezed it. He caught Durant’s outraged expression and shook his head before he could speak. He knew what the sentry saw: a soldier in Cortesian uniform and a boy in the red cloak of the king. He didn’t blame him for his suspicion.

“Did the others make it?” Reve asked him, letting himself be searched without argument.

The sentry’s expression didn’t thaw. “That’s not for me to say.” He turned to the other one, once he’d finished searching them. “Tell the general and prince they’re here.”

Faces looked up from campfires as they followed the sentry into camp, a few shifting to startled recognition. A man emerged from one of the tents.

Leal’s hand pulled from his. “Ansel!”

Ansel’s hair was cut short. The wince of pain as he knelt to catch Leal in a hug was new. His tunic bore the crest of the Prince of Salenne.

Their eyes met briefly over Leal’s head. Reve stood numbly as Ansel rose and approached, and then Ansel’s arms closed around him.

“The men you rescued returned hours ago,” Ansel said, his words muffled against Reve’s hair. “They couldn’t tell me what had happened. If you would make it back alive, and with Leal. They couldn’t tell me anything.”

Reve couldn’t speak past the constriction of his throat.

Ansel turned to Leal. “Go inside,” he said, his tone softening the words. “I want to talk with Reve a while.”

Leal looked about to argue, but Reve knew he was exhausted from the march. “Go on. You need to sleep. We’ll be here in the morning.”

With a glance back at them, Leal took the hand one of the guards held out and followed him into the tent.

“Here,” Ansel said, inclining his head toward another tent.

Reve followed him. Ducking inside, he heard the strike of a flint. Light flared. He could see Ansel’s exhaustion clearly as the candles guttered to life. Pain, too, as Ansel bent to place the candles on the long wooden table.

“It’s healed,” Ansel said, catching Reve’s gaze. “The Cortesians didn’t quite manage to gut me.”

He said the last bit without inflection, but Reve heard a darker layer underneath.

“How did you survive it?”

“Vriere pulled me from the field and kept me hidden in the village. I don’t remember much of it.”

Reve remembered Vriere: his father’s general when he and Ansel were boys. He’d been old even then. “You’ve done well.”

A wry smile crossed Ansel’s face. “Have I? The Cortesian army is on our doorstep once again, and I don’t have the men to defeat it. If you hadn’t escaped with the prisoners and Leal....”

Reve waited, but Ansel didn’t continue. “Would you have surrendered?”

Ansel picked up one of the round stones used to hold down maps, passing it restlessly between his hands before returning it to the table. “We had men ready to attack to king’s camp when the prisoners appeared. Thank you for that.”

“I had help.”

A shadow passed over Ansel’s eyes. “I spoke to your commander, you know. Outside Ardeche.”

Reve tensed. “He isn’t my commander.”

Before Ansel could reply, a voice called out low and insistently from outside the tent, “Your Highness.”

Ansel crossed to the tent flap. Reve took the moment to recompose himself. The raised flap revealed Vriere, as grey and grizzled as Reve remembered.

“We should gather the council,” Vriere said, after an inscrutable glance at Reve. “The Cortesian king won’t delay his response for long.”

“Bring them here.” Vriere nodded and withdrew.

Reve felt Ansel’s eyes on him. He realized his own exhaustion was catching up with him. Adrenaline had carried him this far; now the loss of it left him hollowed out. “I rode with the army north. You’ll need whatever tactical advantages you can get.”

“I would have asked you to stay regardless.” Ansel hesitated, then his hand fell heavily to Reve’s shoulder. “I’m glad you’re with me.”

“Always,” Reve said.

****

Ansel’s war council consisted of Vriere, two vassal lords barely older than Reve, and Durant.

Vriere unrolled a map on the table, using the rock Ansel had handled earlier. “The Cortesian king has taken a blow, but it will only spur him to action,” he said bluntly. “He won’t chance a night attack, not on unfamiliar territory, but I think we can expect him here at dawn.”

Ansel studied the map as if it held all the secrets to improbable success. “Can we hold him?”

“Not in a full-out assault. But if we can redirect him here,” Vriere pointed on the map to a place just south of the castle, below a rise that would give their men the high ground, “we can hold them for a few hours. It would give us enough time to clear the castle.”

Ansel’s eyes left the map. “Retreat.”

“If we can get them to Tille with enough men, they could hold it. Not even the king would be fool enough to lay siege to Tille in winter.”

Reve realized what they were talking about. The slow sacrifice of men so the people of Salenne could live free a few months longer. And then what? Once spring broke, the king would take Tille as well.

Ask him to trust me. Mathias could be dead for all he knew. His chest tightened at the thought. He found himself saying, “Not all the Cortesians want war.”

He had the uncomfortable sensation of all eyes on him: Vriere’s openly skeptical; Ansel’s with a wariness that hurt. He pushed on. “The commander of the Cortesian army is trying to stop it. He has the loyalty of the army.”

“He was with the king at the parley and did nothing to stop him then,” Vriere said.

“How do you think I managed to escape with Leal and the prisoners?” His eyes sought out Durant’s. “You were there. You know I had help.”

Durant said cautiously, “I believe you when you say the Cortesian commander aided us. But Your Highness, you can’t believe that he would go against his liege. This is the man who led the army against us not even six months ago.”

“This isn’t six months ago.” Even as he spoke the words, Reve wondered how much had changed. Even now, after everything, he couldn’t say if Mathias would turn against the king.

If he was even alive.

“Your Highness, you’re letting personal feelings interfere with your judgment.”

Reve felt his face heat in the silence that followed Vriere’s words.

“My brother’s loyalty is not in question.” Ansel’s voice cut through the tent.

“Of course not, Your Highness. But even if it’s true, we can’t take the chance that one man can stop the Cortesian king.”

“Agreed,” Ansel said quietly.

Reve’s eyes shot to him, but Ansel was looking down at the map. “We’ll begin evacuating the castle within the hour. We’ll know in the morning what the king of Cortesa will do.”

The discussion continued after that, but Reve heard only snatches of it. Vriere sent the two vassal lords and Durant with orders for the men. Ansel was still fixed on the map, tracking both the path of the evacuees and Arturus’s possible troop movements. Reve took the opportunity to slip out of the tent.

The smell of cooking filled the air. It had been hours since he’d eaten, not since before the parley, but the thought of food turned his stomach. He walked a little away from the lights and smells of camp, closer to the clear night sky. Winter stars clustered brightly above. He could see the faint outline of Salenne’s walls.

Just that morning he’d been in the Cortesian camp. Woken in Mathias’s tent. They hadn’t done anything but sleep, not after that conversation the night before. But he was awake before Mathias and had spent a few moments studying him. Black hair beginning to grey at the temples. His face, usually so hard, softened in sleep. Watching him had pulled a new and unfamiliar emotion from him, but he didn’t know how to untangle all the threads that bound them together, to know which one was the truth.

“Reve.” Ansel had come up next to him. “I’m sorry for that.”

Reve shook his head. “You were right.”

From the castle he heard the creak of wagons and muffled shouting: the unhappy responses of people uprooted once again.

“He seemed an honorable man. But I can’t take the chance.”

“He is,” Reve said. “And I know.” His eyes flicked to Ansel’s. “You’re different.”

Ansel laughed low. “I could say the same of you.” He moved a little further into the shadows, turning to lean against a stone wall that had once held an outpost tower. It was still blackened from last summer. He looked for a moment very like their father. “When I heard what had happened, that the king had taken you and Leal—”

He stopped. The unspoken words sat uneasily between them. Reve wondered how it had been for Ansel hiding up in the hills, biding his time, not knowing if his brothers were alive or dead.

When Ansel spoke again, the words fell slowly. “It was the hope that you and Leal still lived that kept father alive. He couldn’t allow himself to believe differently. But someone had to break the hold of the king. I couldn’t do that without....” He looked away.

“You had to think of us as already dead. You did what father couldn’t.”

“But I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Wondering what you were going through. And now you’re here and you seem—I don’t know.”

Reve waited for Ansel to continue, but Ansel seemed to have run out of words. Reve wondered what it was he saw. How much he’d changed these last few months. Just a sprinkling of time, but they had affected him so completely. “You can ask.”

“Can I?” There was a strange note in Ansel’s voice. “Because I’ve always known you had...certain leanings. Some men do. But this...this I can’t understand.”

The camp was pulling up quickly and quietly around them; the men would get little sleep tonight.

“It doesn’t matter,” Reve said finally. He shook off the pang in his chest at the words. “It’s in the past.”

“But you think he can stop this. Turn the King of Cortesa back home.”

“I think he’ll do whatever is in his power to prevent this battle.”

Ansel turned to look at Salenne. His profile was outlined in shadows. “We’ll find out soon enough.”

Chapter Nineteen

Mathias spoke to the captains, holding their eyes as if he could convey his true intent. “We’ll ride for the castle at dawn. Tell the men to get what sleep they can, but be prepared to break camp an hour before first light.”

The men murmured their acquiescence, their eyes on the king’s guards as they left to relay the orders.

Blood was beginning to seep through the bandage on his thigh by the time the guards escorted him back to his tent. Left to its relative privacy, two of the guards remaining outside, he took one of the camp chairs and propped his leg on a stool.

The next he knew, someone was shaking him awake. “Mathias.” Leone’s voice said, insistent.

It was harder than it should have been to dig his way out from sleep. Blood loss and exhaustion must be taking their toll. He forced his eyes open and shifted on the chair, grimacing when it pulled at his wound. “The king said you’d gotten through. With Reve and the prisoners.”

Leone was a shadowy outline next to his chair. “They were on their way back to Salenne, the last I saw them, along with Leal.” He looked Mathias over critically. “I heard Parma took you down.”

“There were three of them,” Mathias returned, but at the mention of Parma, he remembered how he’d looked with Arturus’s knife in his throat, still disbelieving. “And Parma’s dead.”

“I heard. Rumor is the king killed him himself. Parma wasn’t a favorite, but no one likes to see another man cut down capriciously. It may give us some leverage with the guards.”

“What about the officers?”

“A few are loyal to Arturus, but the rest will follow your lead.”

Mathias only hoped he wouldn’t fail them. “If they can disarm the guards, I can handle Arturus. But they took my sword. If you can’t get it back, try to get me another one.”

“Mathias.” Leone’s gaze was heavy on him. “You know you can’t let him live.”

Mathias closed his eyes. His thigh was throbbing under the bandage. “I’ll do what’s necessary.” At Leone’s silence, he said more firmly, “I will. I promise you. But first, we need to take out the guards. Can we do it now, before the march?”

Leone shook his head. “Better to wait to see if we can convert more of them.”

“How long?”

“They’re starting to break camp now. It took a while for your message to get to me, and for me to get here unseen. But it will make for good cover to see who else might be with us. I don’t think we can put anything in place until we get to Salenne.”

That was cutting it close if they were going to avert this battle. “Get word to me if you can.”

Leone nodded. “Watch yourself. And good luck.” He slipped out the back of the tent.

Mathias heard the sounds of the camp breaking, the muffled shouts and grumblings of men on too little sleep woken in the dark on a northern winter morning.

“Commander.” One of the guards stuck his head inside the flap. “It’s time to march.”

****

“Your Highness,” Durant said, when Reve emerged from Ansel’s tent at dawn. The sounds of the castle evacuating were still in the background. “The prince is at the sentry tower, if you’re looking for him.”

Reve had left Leal still asleep, nearly hidden beneath the furs. “Are there any wagons or horses left?”

“The prince has given the order for Leal to go out with the last of them. I’ll make sure of it myself.”

“Thank you.” There was no guarantee that Leal would be any safer at Tille, but if Salenne was taken, Reve didn’t doubt the king would put them all to the sword.

He set off across the snow. It would make for a messy, treacherous surface if it came to that.

The guards at the tower let him through without challenge. The top of the tower had crumbled decades ago, but there was still height enough to see from the broken wall.

Ansel was standing there with Vriere, their gazes fixed across the field. The Cortesian army had taken up position at the edge of it. “How long?” Ansel asked.

“Within the hour, my prince.” Vriere gave Reve a neutral nod as he approached.

Ansel clasped Reve’s shoulder in greeting. “We should position the men. Has the castle been cleared?”

“They were still evacuating when I left,” Reve said, before Vriere could reply.

“Then we’ll need to hold them off long enough to finish.” Ansel wasn’t saying anything they hadn’t already decided last night, but perhaps he thought repeating it would soften its enormity.

“I’ll give the order to arm, Your Highness,” Vriere said, bowing his head before taking his leave.

Reve looked out over the army. “You could call another parley.”

Ansel came to stand next to him. “You saw how the last one went. What good would it do? The king of Cortesa can’t be reasoned with.”

“No. But Mathias—”

“Reve.” In profile, Reve saw the strain on his brother’s face. By the time he’d given into sleep the night before, Ansel had still been with his war council. His bedding had looked untouched when Reve woke. He wondered if he’d had any rest at all.

“There are other options than throwing our lives away.”

“It would hardly be in vain. Or have you spent so much time with the Cortesians that you’re no longer a man of Salenne?”

Cold air burned Reve’s throat. The snow blurred under his gaze. “No.”

Ansel’s hand went to his arm, squeezing once in apology. “We should return. There are preparations of our own to make.”

He moved from the wall. After a moment, Reve followed.

They were greeted by the sounds of men arming and horses huffing on their lines and stamping in the cold. Boys and old men: the remnants of his father’s army. Ansel led the way to the armorer’s tent, murmurs of Your Highness following in his wake.

Ansel took the mail shirt the armorer handed to him and held it out to Reve.

It was what Reve had worn that day in battle. The broken chains had been fixed, the metal cleaned of blood. Reve took it from him. The armorer produced a shield as well, emblazoned with the arms of the house of Allard.

Ansel stepped back as an attendant urged his arms up to accommodate his own armor. “I had them look for it last night.”

Reve touched the edge of the shield. He’d thought it lost out on the battlefield that day. One of the attendants removed the cloak he’d thrown over the clothes he’d found in the tent, likely brought down by a servant the night before. Reve stood still under their ministrations, feeling the familiar weight and chill of the mail through his linen undershirt, followed by an overtunic embroidered with the insignia of the second son. A mark as familiar to him as the one Ansel wore.

The attendants done, Ansel stepped back. Reve caught a betraying flash of nerves on his face.

“Will you ride with me?”

It was a formal phrase, recalling an earlier age in Salenne’s history. His father had often asked it of his men before riding out. It was his father’s promise to protect and lead them, and theirs to support him.

“I will,” Reve said.

****

“The men are in position.”

One of the captains had ridden up, let through by the circle of red cloaks. Mathias pulled his gaze from the snow in front of Salenne.

“Tell them to hold.”

The captain hesitated, eyes flicking to the guards. “They’ve been evacuating the castle. Two of our scouts returned.”

They must be headed for Tille. Ansel was being cautious, then, though if he thought Arturus would take Salenne, he couldn’t have much hope that they’d hold Tille for long.

“Let them pass. They have nothing to do with this.”

The captain nodded and reined his horse around. Mathias wondered how long he could keep that bit of news from Arturus.

He wished Leone were here. Or Zeccosi. He could have used the garrison commander’s commentary on the unlikeliness of this plan’s success. Though Zeccosi would have gone along with it anyway, then afterward given Mathias a few choice words about the foolishness of commanders.

But Zeccosi was back at Ardeche. And Leone was somewhere in the lines behind him. If Leone and the men were going to act, the time was now. It should have happened on the march, before they ever approached Salenne.

In the meantime, he’d arranged the men aggressively enough to appease Arturus, but there were vulnerabilities, too, if the northerners looked closely enough. Ansel’s general, at least, should have the experience to see them. He only hoped that instead of attacking, Ansel would see his intent.

He needed Ansel’s men to hold.

The red cloaks parted, the men murmured Your Majesty, and Arturus rode up next to him.

“Mathias.”

Arturus’s armor was bright against the snow. He’d never been one to stand back from a battle like most kings, Mathias gave him that. Countless times they’d sat their horses side by side, surveying a soon-to-be battlefield. The familiarity tugged at him even now. Perhaps Arturus was right, and it was Mathias who’d changed. But he couldn’t find it in himself to regret it.

“We have them outnumbered, Sire. It should be the work of a few hours.”

He saw Arturus subtly relax. Arturus couldn’t have been so sure of Mathias as he’d seemed; not even he was that arrogant.

“Then give the order, Commander,” Arturus said.

****

“It doesn’t make any sense.”

Ansel frowned as Vriere completed his summation. Reve looked out over the field. The Cortesian army was spread across the width of it, its left flank disappearing behind the rise that Vriere had already filled with men.

“Sense or not, Your Highness, they’re vulnerable at the flank. And stretched just enough that we can hammer our way through and divide their forces. It could give us a crucial advantage.”

“Yes, but why?” Ansel’s eyes flicked to Reve’s. “We’ve gone up against your commander before. He isn’t one to give away any advantage.”

Which meant that Mathias could be dead. Reve looked out over the opposing army as if he could discern its secrets. It could be the work of Parma, or some other inept commander. But irrational as it was, he was sure he’d know if Mathias was dead.

“Our options are limited, Highness,” Vriere said. “We can’t pass up any opportunity, not if we’re to hold them off.”

“What would you advise?”

“We should attack.”

If they attacked the Cortesians would destroy them. Reve didn’t care what advantages Vriere saw. They’d learned that lesson last summer.

“No.”

Ansel and Vriere’s attention shifted to him. Reve pressed on. “It’s a message. He would never make his own men so vulnerable unless he was trying to tell us something.”

Vriere made a sound of derision. “Why go to such lengths? If the Cortesians have changed their minds, they would call a parley.”

“Perhaps he can’t.” His eyes sought Ansel’s. “If we attack, then what? We might disrupt their lines for a time, but we still don’t have the men. It would take longer, perhaps, but they’d still defeat us in the end.”

“That extra time might be what we need to clear Salenne,” Vriere argued.

Ansel was silent. “What message do you think he’s sending?” he said finally.

“That he doesn’t plan to attack us.”

Vriere made another sound. Ansel said, “How can you be so sure?”

“Give him a chance.” Reve was shocked by the note of pleading in his voice. Since when had he become Mathias’s defender? But if he was right, then there was still a chance to save Salenne.

“I’m sorry.”

Reve let out his breath.

Ansel turned to Vriere. “How long before the men can be ready?”

“They’re ready now, Highness,” Vriere said. “They await your orders.”

Reve felt Ansel’s eyes on him, though his words were for Vriere. “Lead the attack to draw their flank in. I’ll use the rest of the men to drive a wedge between it and the rest of the Cortesians.”

Vriere nodded. “It will be done, my prince.”

“Reve,” Ansel said, when Vriere had left. “If there was any other way—”

“I know,” Reve said, turning away. “We should mount up.”

****

Then give the order, Commander.

Silence followed the king’s words. Arturus made an impatient sound. “Mathias.”

They’d run out of time. Alone, he couldn’t take down the king’s guard.

At Mathias’s silence, Arturus’s impatience shifted to comprehension. “I see. Then I’ll give the order myself.” He turned to one of the guards. “Keep him here. You two, with me. I’ll lead the charge if I have to. Tell the captains all orders go through me.”

“Sire.” The man bowed in the saddle and moved his horse to the side to let the king pass.

Mathias knew Arturus wouldn’t be satisfied simply to defeat the northerners, not this time. He would obliterate them. Serve up a lesson for anyone else who thought to oppose him.

He wished desperately for a sword.

A muffled shout, the startled squeal of a horse, and his horse kicked out in alarm as the wall of red cloaks swelled with black. Metal gleamed at the guards’ throats.

“Throw your swords down,” a voice called out.

Chaos followed. His horse stumbled and almost went down as another slammed into it. He took the blow on his bandaged thigh. When his vision cleared from the agony of it, he instinctively looked for the king. All he could see was a sea of red and black. Half the guards had complied without protest, their weapons littering the ground, but the other half was fighting back.

“Mathias.” His horse’s head jerked to the side as Leone grabbed the reins and forced them from the center of fighting.

“You took your time about it,” Mathias said. Another wave of dizziness took him. He pushed it ruthlessly down.

“I think I did rather well, considering. Though the timing could have been better, I’ll grant you that. But I managed to get you this.”

He held out Mathias’s sword. Mathias’s hand closed around the familiar weight of it. Some of the tension in him eased. Nothing was as dire with a sword in his hand.

“Commander.” It came from one of the soldiers on the front line, his eyes fixed across the field. “Commander, the northerners—”

“Look to the king,” one of the captains called.

Mathias turned. Arturus’s golden helm was disappearing into the ranks.

He’d already started after him when Leone said, “Mathias, they’ve attacked the flank.”

It took a moment for the words to register. His eyes followed Leone’s. The northern banners were up. He could hear the faint clash of steel to their left.

If they’d seen the cracks in the Cortesian line, then they knew they could cut off the flank. Destroy it. Men that Mathias had made vulnerable.

He’d badly miscalculated Ansel’s patience.

“Prepare for an assault.” If they pulled back, they’d run up against the tree line. Ansel’s men had the advantage in the woods. He turned to the nearest captain. “Take two units to bolster up the flank. They’ll try to divide us, so we need those men in place.” The captain murmured assent, and was about to rein his horse around when Mathias said, “Do your best to contain them. Hold them off until I can call a cease to the fighting. Disarm and disable, but try not to kill. Pass the order on to your men.”

Surprise flashed over the captain’s face, but he nodded. “Yes, Commander.” Shouts carried down the length of the line as the captains called out orders.

“Go after the king.” Leone’s voice was urgent. “You can’t let him live, not after this.”

“Arturus won’t matter if we can’t end this battle.”

“And ending this battle won’t matter if Arturus still lives. If Ansel’s in that band of men, then so is Reve. I’ll get to him, see if together we can get his brother to call his men off.”

Mathias’s hand tightened on the reins. He hadn’t let himself think about Reve. But Leone was right. Arturus’s only hope to regain the army was to ensure the Cortesians won the day. “If Ansel won’t relent....”

“He will. Get to the king.” Leone turned his horse, calling out to his men.

Mathias reined around and rode toward the back line where he’d last seen Arturus’s helm. Behind him he heard the first clash of impact as the northerners were on them.

Chapter Twenty

It was like and unlike Reve’s last battle.

The smell of blood was the same. The sickening crunch of steel on armor and bone. The screams of horses and men. He was glad for the protective Cortesian helms that hid the faces of men he’d ridden north with. He’d never killed a man he’d shared a meal with around a fire.

Ansel fought next to him, the lingering effects of his wound clear in the way he sat his horse and awkward swing of his sword, but he still took down a foot soldier with a few deft strokes. Then Reve had to pay attention to his own flank as his horse shifted and kicked out.

He found he was scouring the lines for signs of Mathias—though what good would it do now? Perhaps better not to know his fate. But if he could find Mathias, confirm his suspicions....

Or find him still in the thrall of the king, carrying out Arturus’s orders.

A movement near Ansel caught his eye, but it was one of Vriere’s men, pushing his way through. Reve urged his horse closer to them.

“Your Highness, the Cortesians are pulling back.” The man said it triumphantly, but if the Cortesian flank was pulling back to the middle, then they’d failed to take Vriere’s bait.

By Ansel’s expression, he was thinking much the same. Seeing it, the man shook his head. “I don’t mean that they’re returning to the main force, Your Highness. They’re at the tree line, running scared. The general awaits your orders on whether we should push them back into the trees.”

It would be the advantageous thing to do. Reve wondered at Ansel’s hesitation; he’d made his own views clear. “How many casualties?”

“Fewer than expected, Your Highness.”

Ansel was silent a moment. “What is he playing at?”

He’d said it to Reve. Surprised, Reve said, “You know my thoughts. The Cortesians have the men to wipe us out easily. That they haven’t yet means they have another plan in mind.”

“Or another game,” Ansel said bitterly.

Seeing an opening, Reve said urgently, “Let me seek him out. You don’t need me here. If we can put a stop to this, then we have to try, don’t we? I don’t think this is what Mathias wants.”

“And you’re an expert on the Cortesian commander.”

“I know him well enough to know this isn’t his intent.”

Ansel looked out over the red-tinged snow and mud. They were holding their own so far, but he had to know it was only a matter of time before the southern army engulfed them.

“I think you’re wrong. I think he’d just as soon see us all dead.” His eyes held Reve’s a moment before he looked away. “Take five of the men. Is that enough?”

“Yes,” Reve said, relief making him lightheaded.

To the messenger, Ansel said, “Tell the general to keep the flank from rejoining the main army, but not to press them further back. If they’re content to wait, then we’ll draw it out as long as we can to ensure the people of Salenne get clear.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Good luck,” Ansel said to Reve. He turned his horse back to the front line.

Reve put his heels to his horse, calling over five of the men. “I need a path there.” With his sword he pointed just left of Ansel’s wedge. He’d gleaned enough of the army’s tactics on the march north to know where Mathias would be positioned.

They pushed forward into the fray.

****

Arturus had disappeared into the ranks.

Mathias found the captain who’d accompanied them on the parley holding the back line. “Have you seen the king?”

“Not since the northerners attacked, Commander. I saw him riding for the flank.”

Mathias surveyed the field. They were fighting a battle on two sides. If Arturus had gone to the flank, he meant to lure the northerners in, rejoin the center at the same time. Ansel’s forces would be split, the tables turned.

A gamble, but Arturus had never shied away from risk.

“Hold the line,” he said needlessly to the captain, and headed for the woods.

It was the more treacherous route, but free of men and fighting. He let his horse pick his way, chafing at the delay, but the snow-covered footing was too chancy to risk speed. The forest was eerily silent; the trees muffled the sounds of fighting. The crack of his horse’s steps on covered brush and fallen branches echoed through the trees.

He saw the movement of men as the forest thinned out: the flank, inching back to the main force under the guise of giving ground. Arturus was at the center of them, his helm reflecting back the sun.

Mathias pushed his way through to the nearest captain’s uniform. “Take command of the men. Don’t retreat any further, no matter what orders you’ve been given.”

“My lord, the king....” The captain’s eyes went nervously to Arturus

“Am I your commander? Then do as I say. Arturus doesn’t lead here. If you want to return home at the end of this, let me handle the king.”

“Yes, Commander,” the captain said quickly. He rode forward, calling out orders.

Mathias made his way to the golden helm shining over the rest. The men fell back to let him through, their faces uncertain, even fearful at whatever expression was on his face.

Arturus turned as he drew abreast. “Mathias.”

Mathias’s sword came down.

It met Arturus’s shield, brought up a split-second in time. Arturus’s horse buckled, compensated, and side-stepped away.

Arturus drew his sword. “Get back,” he said to the men, who hovered nervously. Mathias didn’t know whose side they’d come in aid of, if they did interfere.

He needed to pull Arturus away. Draw him from the crowd. “You’ve beaten me before, as you’re fond of reminding me. Do you fear to try again?”

Arturus smiled. Mathias was familiar with that look: alert, hungry, and overwhelmingly sure of himself. He backed his horse a few steps, holding Arturus’s eyes. They were nearly at the tree line.

Arturus urged his own horse forward.

The first exchange of blows carried them into the trees. Fighting on horseback in the woods presented its own disadvantages, but he was counting on experience winning through. Arturus was younger and stronger, but Mathias had learned a few tricks since they’d last crossed swords.

“Was this your plan all along? Were you the council’s backup if their assassination attempt failed?”

Mathias twisted in the saddle, warding off Arturus’s attempt to unseat him. On the ground, with his leg, he’d be dead within minutes. “You know it wasn’t. You left me no other choice.”

“You’re no more righteous than I am, Mathias.” Arturus glanced a blow off Mathias’s shoulder guard that shook him to the bone. His horse sidled away, but for a moment Mathias’s shield arm went numb.

The longer they went, the greater Arturus’s advantage. They were deep within the trees now, drifting dangerously close to the northern line. The men were too busy fighting to pay them any further attention. He couldn’t look for aid from them.

He pressed forward. A few swift strokes, pulling Arturus’s guard away—there, an opening that was his for just a brief second, if he could push forward to strike the blow—

His horse slipped, stumbled in the footing, and in the cease of time that followed Mathias felt himself falling.

The pain in his thigh at impact was so great he thought he would black out. Instead, he found himself scrambling up and back, finding the trunk of a nearby tree to support him as his vision cleared.

He still had his sword, at least. His shield was on the ground halfway to where Arturus was slowly dismounting. His horse stood a few feet away, favoring its left foreleg.

“You’ve left me no choice as well, Mathias.”

Mathias raised his sword to meet the king’s.

****

Reve heard his name called over the clash of swords.

He stood up in the stirrups, searching for its source. Everything was a sea of steel and horses and black uniforms. They hadn’t made it far into the enemy lines, and already he’d lost one of his men.

A horseman drifted too close, and one of his men engaged to clear him from their path. The horseman reined back and removed his helm, revealing grey-streaked hair and a familiar lined face.

“Leone.”

Surrounding Leone were men Reve had ridden with in the army. Enough to take them out easily, but instead they formed a protective half-sphere, sheltering them from the fighting. He thought he caught a glimpse of Argel.

“You have to fall back,” Leone shouted above the fray. “We can’t retreat, not without running up against the woods.”

Reve bit back a surge of hope. “Mathias?”

“He’s trying to stop this, but he can’t ask the men to go to their deaths. Can you convince your brother to call off his attack?”

Then Mathias was alive. Reve felt something in his chest loosen and give way. “I’ve tried. He doesn’t believe the king wants a truce.”

“The king doesn’t command the army. Bring me to Ansel. Take us prisoner if that will convince him.”

Reve looked back at his brother’s force. Ansel’s banner was farther away than he liked, but they could still get to it in time. It would be a last ditch effort to convince him, but they had to try.

“Bring three of your men. Consider yourself under my protection.”

Leone held out his sword, hilt first. “In good faith.”

Reve took it. “Is Mathias with the army?”

Leone hesitated a moment before saying, “He’s gone after the king.”

Reve felt his blood chill. He had no doubt Arturus would kill Mathias if given the chance, but were the positions reversed, he didn’t know if Mathias could deliver that final blow.

The fighting was thick around Ansel. His men had formed a guard, protecting him as much as they could, but Reve saw the pain that creased his brother’s face and the way he favored his side. Swords went up at the sight of Leone and his men in their ranks, but Ansel called them off when he saw Reve.

His eyes were hard when Leone finished his plea. “One Cortesian can’t speak for an army.”

“He speaks for the commander of it,” Reve argued. “If you have any faith left in me, trust in me now: Mathias will keep his word. Isn’t the chance to save Salenne worth taking?”

Ansel had to know their cause was doomed. Whatever ground they’d gained could be taken back in a heartbeat. Already the field was littered with dead men and horses; there would only be more if they stayed this course.

Ansel said slowly, “If we fall back, the Cortesians will honor a mutual withdrawal?”

“I swear to it, Your Highness,” Leone said.

Ansel looked out over the field. Reve wondered if their father had felt the same burden, knowing that his choices might doom his people and cause even more bloodshed.

Abruptly, Ansel called one of the messengers over. “Ride to General Vriere. Tell him to pull his men back to the crest.” He turned to Reve. “Go with the messenger. Vriere needs to know this comes from me.”

“The Cortesians will honor a retreat, Your Highness,” Leone said.

“I hope so. Or else your army will kill us all.” Ansel put his heels to his horse, calling out the command.

****

Mathias’s arm was numb from the force of blows. He swung from muscle memory, years of drills and practice compensating for Arturus’s greater speed. His leg was useless, and he was trapped in a defensive position; all he could do was hold this ground.

It took a moment to register that Arturus had disengaged and stepped back. Arturus was breathing hard, sweat dampening the hair showing under his helm.

“It’s not too late, Mathias. We’ve been through too much for it to end this way.”

He flashed back to what Luca had said to him before Mathias had ridden north: You're the only one I know who could right the king's path. Perhaps his star can still shine as bright as we once hoped.

Mathias had never thought of Arturus as a remote star to follow; he'd been the entire sun.

“Then be a king to your people. Your father believed in you. I always thought you would be the greater king. Fulfill his legacy in Cortesa.”

Arturus’s eyes hardened. “Your own father was a gambler and a drunk. What would you know about fulfilling a father’s legacy?”

Mathias’s leg had recovered from the impact of falling. He’d had a chance to regain his breath, test out his leg on this terrain. The snow was deep in places, hiding a multitude of tree roots and rocks. Where the snow thinned the ground was icier. Either way it was to both their advantage to stick to the ground already churned by their boots.

They’d already gone too far. Whatever hope for reconciliation was past. Heart aching, he blocked the pain in his leg and pushed forward into an attack.

Arturus parried it.

Past the first onslaught of blows, they tested each other’s defenses. Arturus was weak protecting his off side, and he’d thrown away his shield. Mathias focused on exploiting the weakness, pulling out his guard. When Arturus fought he was prone to recklessness.

Shifting back late after a counter, Arturus left his side exposed: an open invitation to strike.

Mathias took it, and felt his leg give way. Arturus twisted. Mathias’s sword met cloth and armor instead of flesh. Arturus locked their hilts and ripped Mathias’s sword from his hand.

Mathias watched it hit the snow several feet away.

Cold steel at his neck forced him to his knees. It was instinct, not self-preservation; he knew he was already dead.

Mathias waited for the blow.

****

Reve was almost to the flank when he saw the flash of a dark grey horse in the trees. A dozen riderless horses waited patiently in the field, but this one he recognized.

He pulled up. The messenger, seeing him halt, reined around. “Ride on to the general. I’ll circle back and rejoin you.” Looking over his shoulder, he saw Ansel’s men falling back to the crest of land in front of the castle. So far, the Cortesians weren’t following. Vriere would see it for himself.

The messenger said, wide-eyed, “Your Highness—”

But Reve had already turned his horse to the woods.

The grey raised his head when Reve’s horse crashed through the underbrush and snow. Next to him was a blood bay, its saddle and breastplate traced with gold.

Reve didn’t stop to think. He spurred his horse forward, following the faint sound of steel that echoed through the trees, until the clash of swords sharpened and grew louder. A flash of bright cloth, a golden helm through the trees, until they opened up onto a small clearing.

Mathias knelt on the ground at the edge of it, Arturus’s sword at his throat.

The sight froze him for a breathless heartbeat, then his horse was lunging forward. They turned at the sound of hoofbeats. Arturus raised his sword in time to meet his downward stroke, the impact jarring Reve to the bone.

Arturus’s next stroke took Reve’s horse in the breast.

Reve rolled with the dying horse, flinging himself clear at the last second. He landed awkwardly, his shoulder taking the brunt of the fall. For a second he couldn’t breathe. Then his lungs caught up and he scrambled to his feet, retrieving his fallen sword in time to ward off Arturus’s blow.

He had a brief moment to be glad that he’d learned the southern style of fighting—at least he knew its strengths and weaknesses. He even pushed Arturus back, countering with a move he’d tried with Mathias once, and saw the same look of surprise on the king’s face.

Then his guard was knocked away with a force that left Reve’s hands nerveless. Pain exploded in his shoulder. He felt the cold agony of steel sinking past armor into flesh.

His legs buckled. The second pain was even worse when the king pulled his sword from his shoulder.

Cold seeped in from the snow. It numbed his legs and stole his breath. Looking up, he saw the king poised to take the strike. A strange expression was on his face. “The slave.”

Then the king’s face went blank as he crumpled to the snow.

Hands pressed against his shoulder, hard enough to make him gasp. “Hold on.” Mathias’s voice, next to him. Behind him Arturus was half-buried in the snow, Mathias’s sword in the back of his neck.

“Reve,” Mathias said, his voice sharp.

Blood drenched the front of his tunic; he couldn’t feel his arm. “I’m here.” It took an effort to speak.

Mathias’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. He took Reve’s hand and held it against his shoulder, pressing his own hand down hard over it. “Hold this tightly, before you lose any more blood.” But he didn’t take his hand away. “I told you once before not to take him on.”

“He would have killed you.”

“Better me than you.”

Reve’s protest died on his lips. It seemed too difficult to speak.

Faintly, as if from a distance, he saw the clearing fill with men. The colors of Salenne: his brother’s men.

Hands pulled Mathias back. The pressure on his shoulder was abruptly gone. An arm went around Mathias’s neck when he began to struggle.

“No,” Reve said, but his voice was swallowed up by the snow.

The clearing went dark.

Chapter Twenty-One

Someone stirred next to him. Reve recognized her as one of the village healers. She rose, looming into his vision, and pushed him gently back on the bed. Reve realized he’d been trying to rise.

“Not yet,” she said.

Reve started to argue, but his eyes were already closing.

When he woke again, the sun was closer to the horizon. As a boy, confined to bed because of illness or misbehavior, he’d watched the same progress of the sun by the shadows and light it cast from the window, the way it changed the shapes of the room.

Ansel was standing by the window, looking out. He turned when Reve shifted on the bed. “Don’t get up.”

“I’m fine,” Reve said automatically, though he felt anything but. His shoulder was heavily bandaged. Everything was blurred around the edges. It took him frighteningly long to sit upright, and even then, he only gained a few inches.

“Stop moving around. Sword wounds don’t heal in days.”

Memory came flooding back. “Mathias.”

Ansel’s expression was hooded. “He’s fine. The Cortesians are leaving tomorrow to go back to their city.”

Then Mathias had kept his word. Reve should feel relief, but all he felt was a strange deflation and a lingering light-headedness.

Ansel came over to sit on the edge of the bed, moving stiffly but otherwise unmarked. He said abruptly, “They want to make me king.”

It took a moment for that to sink in. “Of Salenne?”

“And Tille and Ardeche. Ardeche’s lord was killed last summer, and there’s no one left close enough in blood to claim it.”

The north had never had a king. They were a loose band of principalities and isolated castles, at war with one another for centuries. “The lord of Tille would give it up?”

“It was his suggestion.” Ansel ran a hand through his hair distractedly. “It’s a fool’s notion. No one’s ever united the north.”

“You could. You have.”

Ansel’s eyes met his. “But can I hold it?”

“I think it’s in you to try.”

Ansel said slowly, “I never expected father to die, not truly. It seemed he would always be here. Oh, I knew it would happen someday, but it never felt real.” He shook his head. “I used to think you would make a better Prince of Salenne than I.”

“I couldn’t have led the men the way you did.”

“You stopped a war and saved Salenne. That’s no small feat.”

“It wasn’t me who did it.”

Silence. “Is he so important to you?”

“He saved my life.” And now Mathias would go back to Touren. Find the peace he craved in his horses and home-grown wine. Reve wasn’t sure what else he’d expected.

He’d never felt this tired before. His eyelids were already beginning to fall. Seeing it, Ansel rose from the bed. “I’ll let you sleep.” He hesitated. “There are other matters we should speak of.”

Reve nodded.

When Ansel left, though, he couldn’t sleep. The sun had nearly passed the windowsill. Reve watched it until the sky grew dark.

****

They’d put him in a room with a view of the village nestled in behind the castle.

At first, the guards had refused to give him news of Reve. In the aftermath of his reaction to that, Ansel came to see him. Mathias had expected hostility, not Ansel’s courtesy and frankness when he relayed that Reve was still in and out of sleep.

Then Ansel said, “I received word from your captain that your men are ready to march.”

Mathias knew that the Cortesians were still camped outside Salenne, but he’d given them surprisingly little thought. He said, needing to set what he felt in words, “And if I didn’t leave with them?”

If Ansel was surprised, he hid it well. “You’re not a prisoner here. Nor will I force you to leave.” He paused. “He spoke on your behalf. Reve. My brother doesn’t give his affection lightly.”

Mathias’s hand tightened on his good thigh. “Are you concerned for my intentions?”

Ansel looked amused. “Reve’s a grown man. He can make his own decisions. But give him time to work things out.”

Then they talked of other things. Mathias wasn’t surprised by Ansel’s offer, when he made it, but he felt incapable of deciding anything at the moment.

When Ansel left, he looked out over the village from the window seat. There’d been times in Touren when he’d felt this sense of freedom, forgetting for a while that Arturus could call him at any moment. He often wondered, if his father hadn’t died in debt—if Mathias had never become a soldier—if he would have missed the thrill of battle. It was more than just the gratification of doing something well; it satisfied something deep in him. But he thought that part of him might sleep a long while, after this.

He heard a murmured exchange at the door, the sound of boots on the stone floor, then Leone walked into the room.

Mathias was pleased that his thigh took his weight when he stood to return Leone’s embrace. Ansel had sent in a healer to rebandage it. It itched maddeningly, but had begun to heal.

“Ansel didn’t say you were here.” He resumed his seat, shifting to ease the pressure on his leg.

Leone leaned against the curve of stone that framed the window. “We’re breaking camp tomorrow. I sent word of it, and received an interesting response back from Ansel.”

Mathias had known that this conversation would be the most difficult. “I’m not going back.”

“So he said. Ansel knows he still has an army of Cortesians on his doorstep if he should refuse to give up its commander.”

“Better if they thought I died in battle. You know what I’ve done.”

Leone made a sound of exasperation. “You killed a man who would have led his empire and people to ruin. He would have wiped out a generation of northerners, simply because it was in his power. Don’t mourn over Arturus. Besides, word is that he was killed in the battle. None of us will gainsay it.”

“It doesn’t matter. I would still know.” He wished he had the words to explain, but it was only half the reason. The other half still lay recovering from a sword wound to the shoulder that Mathias was in large part responsible for. Mathias had no regret over killing Arturus to save Reve.

“I can’t say that I understand, but I know when your mind is made up.” Leone shook his head. “You’re condemning me to two weeks escorting Lord Faro back to Cortesa, you know. Ansel released him yesterday. I think he was well pleased to be rid of him.”

Mathias had forgotten Ardeche’s obsequious governor. “I’m sure he’ll regale his fellow nobles with tales of his experience.”

“No doubt.” Leone looked him over, uncharacteristically serious. “What will you do here? I’d heard that Reve was still abed. Will he want you here once he wakes?”

“I don’t know,” Mathias said honestly. Reve would be well within his rights to turn him out. “Ansel asked if I would consider a post of military advisor.”

Leone’s eyebrows shot up. “For Salenne? Would you act against your own homeland?”

“With a good advisor, there’d be no need to act.” In truth, though, Mathias didn’t know what he would decide. He’d spent what felt like a lifetime at war. But Leone was right. What else would he do here?

“I think Ansel’s made out rather well in this deal.” To Mathias’s relief, Leone sounded neither accusatory nor likely to dig in his heels. “So we’ll return home without king or commander. Sena will have a time with the council.”

“She’ll bring them in line. Even better, listen to the ones worth listening to.” Mathias felt a momentary pang, thinking about the girl Sena had been when she and Arturus and Mathias had been young; the likelihood that he’d never see her again. She’d suspect whatever tale Leone brought her was a lie, but Mathias had done half her work for her. She wouldn’t begrudge him that.

“Then this is goodbye.” Leone waved Mathias back when he would have risen. “No, don’t get up. I’d prefer to think this is just a brief separation before we meet again. Perhaps I’ll visit.”

“You hate the north.”

“I’d like it better if it had civilized weather, true. But summer will be here soon enough.”

When Leone had gone, Mathias turned back to the view of the village. There were more people and horses in the streets, more chimneys trailing smoke above the houses. The people of Salenne, beginning to return.

****

Two days later, Reve came to see him.

His shoulder was bandaged and his arm was held fast by a sling. His face was drawn. He looked like a man who’d spent the last week in bed, recovering from three inches of steel embedded in his shoulder.

Mathias stood, wanting to go to him, but he had no rights here.

Reve took one end of the window seat, shifting to lean his good shoulder against the glass. “Ansel said you were staying.”

Mathias sat at the other end. He couldn’t read the emotion behind Reve’s words. Was Reve glad? Angry?

“How is your shoulder?”

Reve grimaced. “I can hardly tell, with all the bandages.”

“It will take time, but there are exercises you can do to stretch the tissue, to regain your former movement.”

Reve nodded. Mathias heard his words trail into silence. The space between them felt new and raw. Fragile, as if any wayward step could disrupt it.

“When you saw me fighting with the king…you had to know you could be killed.”

“I was little enough help. It was you who had to save me.”

“But you still tried. Why?”

“I could ask you the same.”

“You know why.”

“Yes,” Reve said quietly. “I’m sorry. I know you loved him. But I couldn’t let him kill you.”

Mathias let out a breath. A small admission, but one he could hold on to.

Reve shifted on the seat. “Ansel’s leaving for Ardeche. They want to make him king.”

“Ansel said.” It made sense, though the north had never had a king. Ardeche was well suited to be the seat of one. Cortesa might have retreated for now, but apparently Ansel wasn’t counting on that holding forever. But he’d have the years he needed to bolster up his kingdom.

“Leal and I are staying here, in Salenne. Ansel said....” Reve fingered the edge of the pillow cushioning the window seat. “He said he asked you to stay on as an advisor.”

“Yes,” Mathias said, watching Reve’s face carefully.

Reve raised his eyes to meet his. “Will you do it?”

Faced with the question, Mathias turned it over once more. It was a generous offer, and well suited to his skills. And Ansel could use his experience, his knowledge of the south, if he were going to build a more permanent détente.

“I think I’ve had enough of politics and war.”

Reve’s face eased, as if a weight had been lifted. It surprised Mathias a little, that Reve might have that concern for him. It gave him cause for hope.

“I told you once that we keep our breeding stock near Salenne. There’s a farm north of here. We could use someone to build it up again, with all the horses we’ve lost.”

An offer infinitely more appealing. He’d like to experiment with crossing the southern and northern breeds. His mind was already moving forward, making plans for the bloodlines.

But there was still something he had to know. “Will you visit me there?”

Reve considered him. “Yes. If you want me there.”

He held out his hand, palm up. Mathias placed his own hand over it.

It was promise enough for now.

Epilogue

“The bay mare had a filly,” Mathias said, ducking into the room Simoen used as an office. The farm’s overseer, past sixty if Mathias was any judge, had sought out his bed in the small hours before the mare had finished birthing. Mathias had stayed awake for it because the first birth in a new home had felt auspicious.

“I saw.” Mathias was getting used to Simoen’s diffidence. Mathias was still a southerner and a Cortesian, and the north’s wounds ran deep. “She’ll be a big one, like her mother.”

After seeing the foal’s long legs and height once she’d staggered to her feet, Mathias didn’t disagree. He was still learning the northern breeds. They were bigger than what he was familiar with, bred from the shaggy giants who lived wild in the northern mountains. More refined now after generations of careful breeding, bred for hunting and battle, but the farm still had its throwbacks.

Simoen had already recorded the birth in the great ledger. The office was full of them, stacked on shelves against the walls: the work of generations.

Their conversation moved to the cleanup of the northern pasture—the ground was thawed enough to turn out the older horses from their winter stalls—when Mathias heard the clatter of hooves on the flagstones outside.

From the open doors of the stable, shielding his eyes from the afternoon sun that slanted in, he saw the flash of a bright blue cloak of a rider dismounting, the horse obscuring Mathias’s view. Then the rider moved to the horse’s head, and Mathias saw that it was Reve.

Reve saw him at the same time. The corners of his mouth lifted when Mathias came out to greet him, limping only a little. It was still strange to see him in a prince’s garb—the blue cloak slung over rust-red velvet and silk, plain enough to travel in, but the quality of the cloth proclaimed who he was even more than the insignia above his breast.

“I was hoping you would come.” Mathias took Reve’s horse by the bridle to give his hands something to do; he felt artless and tongue-tied, faced with what he’d been anticipating most.

“I would have come earlier.” Whatever else Reve might have said was forestalled by a too-attentive stable boy, taking the reins Reve handed him and leading the horse into the stables. Bereft of the horse’s bulk between them, they stood awkwardly a moment. Mathias drank him in. Reve’s hair was longer, brushing his collar. He stood a little stiffly, his shoulder clearly still bothering him, but that was to be expected. But the manner in which he carried himself, the way he met Mathias’s eyes carefully but steadily: he was learning to be a prince again.

“Your Highness,” Simoen said; Mathias hadn’t seen the man approach. By the warmth of Reve’s returned greeting they knew one another well. “You’ll want to rest and eat. I’ll tell the house to prepare some food.”

Mathias was ostensibly the head of the house now, the title granted to him by Ansel, but he was still too new here, too much a stranger for the manor’s inhabitants to have accepted him yet.

Reve looked around them when Simoen had left. “Ansel and Leal and I used to stay here in the summer. It was cooler here than Salenne, and Simoen always let us try out his best new horses first.”

“What happened to the previous lord?” Mathias hadn’t thought to ask his escort here, and he hadn’t wanted to broach the subject with Simoen—most likely the lord had died fighting Cortesians.

“There’s never been one. Not for generations, anyway. It’s a long story that boils down to a blood feud that had my great-great-grandfather claiming the land for himself. So it’s always been held directly by the prince.”

No wonder the inhabitants and Simoen didn’t know what to do with him. Mathias wondered how Reve had talked Ansel into giving it to Mathias; though it was Reve who was now Prince of Salenne. He could give the land to anyone he chose.

And since he’d given it to him, Mathias should remember that he was host here. “Come up to the house.”

The manor was on the hill above the stables, a long stone building with an approximation of a tower at the center of it. Protected by the steep pass below, it had no need for further fortifications.

Simoen had already told the kitchen of Reve’s arrival. They found food and wine and a lit fire waiting for them when Mathias brought Reve to the room he used as a study.

“How is your shoulder?” He’d noticed Reve wincing when he removed his cloak.

“Healing.” Reve put his hand to the spot where Arturus’s sword had pierced him, rubbing in what seemed to be an unconscious gesture.

“May I…?” Mathias held his hands up, and after a moment’s pause, Reve nodded.

Mathias slipped his hand between velvet and silk and felt the rough edges of scar tissue. He held Reve’s shoulder with his other hand, moving it slowly, stretching the muscles until Reve winced. “Can you use your arm?”

“Well enough to ride, but I can’t hold a shield. Not yet,” Reve amended, and Mathias smiled at the determined set of his voice.

“You might have some loss of feeling, but you should be able to get most of your former strength back.” He released Reve’s shoulder, already missing the warmth of Reve’s skin beneath the silk.

They retreated into formalities, Mathias offering Reve the refreshments of the house, pouring wine for them both. Reve took his wine over to the fire, barely touching it.

“They’re crowning Ansel this summer. I think they would have liked to have done it sooner, but Ansel keeps finding excuses to stall.” Reve smiled. “They’re pressuring him to marry, too.”

Mathias said carefully, “I imagine they’re doing the same to you.”

Reve placed his wine goblet on the mantle. “Not openly yet, but no doubt they will soon.”

Mathias came to stand next to him by the fire. “A prince should have an heir.”

Reve gazed at him quizzically. “Leal is my heir. It’s custom, of course, but I’ve already told Ansel that I would be making it official.”

“Don’t you want a family?” Mathias wasn’t sure why he was pushing now, of all times—he knew less about where they stood now than when they’d parted in Salenne.

Reve looked confused. Carefully, studying Mathias’s face, he said, “Are you trying to talk me into getting married?”

“No,” Mathias said, frustrated at the turn of conversation. He’d already prepared himself for the possibility, but that didn’t mean he was ready to face it. “But you deserve that, and your people will expect it.”

“I don’t know what I deserve or what the people expect, but I’m not getting married. I thought you, out of everyone….” Reve cocked his head uncertainly. “Do you want me to get married?”

In answer, Mathias closed the distance that separated them, lowered his head to capture Reve’s lips in a too-brief kiss that still managed to make the blood sing in his veins and the healed wound on his thigh throb. Among other things.

“No,” he said firmly.

“All right.” Reve sounded a little breathless. “Now that we’ve settled that.”

Mathias reluctantly released him. It wasn’t the time or the place. And there was something to be said for anticipation.

They drifted to the platter of food by the window, conversation moving to Ansel’s first forays into kingship, the uneasy truce he’d made with Sena.

“She offered formal terms, but since the rest of the north doesn’t recognize Cortesa’s claim, Ansel can’t do anything without legitimizing it. So he invited her to the coronation.”

That was startling. “Did she accept?”

“No word yet; do you think that she will?”

Mathias thought about it. The council would urge her not to, since acknowledging Ansel as king would make it difficult to expand north if she had a mind to do it. But considering how much they’d opposed Arturus’s expansions, perhaps they were just as happy to make a formal treaty. “Probably. She’s as stubborn as Arturus in her way, but cautious enough that she’ll pursue whatever path leads to peace. For now.”

Reve said slowly, “I think Ansel would like you to be there.”

Mathias wasn’t sure he could face Sena after what he’d done, even knowing that she’d tried to have Arturus killed first. But he was aware that Ansel could have easily refused to let him stay. He owed him for more than a manor house. “If she accepts, then I’ll consider it.”

He asked about Leal, then, and Reve’s face lightened. He’d been worried, Mathias knew, about the lingering effects of everything that had happened to him. “He’s with Ansel now, at Ardeche. Ansel seems to think he’s starting to forget.”

Conversation flowed easily between them—surprisingly so, considering that in many ways they were brand new people to one another. But Reve was interested in his ideas for introducing some southern stock to the farm, and he was able to tell Mathias more about Simoen and the others who lived here. It might be a long while before Mathias gained their trust, but he could at least make every effort to shorten that time.

When they’d exhausted conversation, when the food had been eaten and the wine had been drunk, Mathias stood, held out his hand, and in unspoken agreement led the way to his bedroom.

His first thought as he stripped the layers of velvet and silk from Reve, and Reve did the same to him, was that they had far too many scars between them. His hands traced the thick and twisted tissue that made up Reve’s shoulder. The cut on his thigh was nothing in comparison, though it was long and ugly enough.

“You could have been killed,” he murmured, while his lips followed the path of his fingers.

Reve tugged him forward, toward the bed, and Mathias let his body and lips speak for him. There was plenty he could have said, and much he wished to hear in return. But they had time for that. He took his time relearning Reve’s body, welcoming Reve’s explorations of him—it felt both familiar and new, unfettered by everything they’d been before: two free men enjoying one another, working their way toward something.

Afterward he drifted in and out of sleep, still recovering from his late night before. He woke to find Reve gazing down at him, his blue eyes nearly black in the dim light.

“I always thought you were two men. One, the king’s fierce commander. The other…this. Who you were in Touren.”

Slowly, Mathias said, “And is that enough for you?”

Reve rested his chin on his hand. “I think you’ll always be both. I’m not complaining. Or are you trying to say you’re afraid you’ll bore me?” His eyes gleamed, and Mathias realized his too-serious northern prince was actually teasing him. So he proceeded to show Reve how not boring he could be—because he wasn’t that old, not yet.

When he woke again it was morning. Reve, with the enviable energy of youth, was already up and dressed. “I thought we could ride out for a few days. The country around here is beautiful, and it’s nearly spring; we won’t freeze.”

So said the northerner. Mathias would pack a few extra furs. “I’ll tell Simoen.”

“There’s so much I want you to see.”

Mathias pulled him down for a kiss; if he had his choice they’d never leave the bedroom. But Reve’s excitement was catching, and he had a whole new land to explore. “Then show me.”

~ End ~

Acknowledgements

I had a fabulous support team and group of beta readers who helped make In Allegiance possible. To my beta readers: Thea, Hal, Laura, LaT, and Lady Om—thank you for your insightful comments and unwavering support. I love you, ladies, and couldn’t have done it without you. And thanks to all my Livejournal readers and commenters who made posting the story as I went such a soul-boosting experience.

About the Author

Kate Islay has a long-time passion for m/m romance from her early days in fandom reading and writing fanfiction. She currently works as a freelance writer in Baltimore.

You can visit her at www.kateislay.com.