Archive of Our Own

Book One

#422

I could hear the coming of you in the wind.

My past made manifest.

I swear I knew before my uncle’s guards threw you onto the floor of the throne room at Arles that something like this would happen when my uncle made parley with that bastard Akielon son, Kastor.

I felt the frisson of change, and a danger in my heart for days before you arrived.

I did not know what it meant, my foreboding, until I saw you and my skin went cold.

I did not know my prize would actually be you.

Because of my uncle the Regent, Arles has become a palace of horrors.

I might as well join in.

#423

I cannot bring myself to call it “him”.

You. Slave. It. Any of those pronouns will do.

Most definitely never its name.

Not the short version and not the long will ever pass these lips.

I don’t care if it was once a prince. It is a prince no longer!

It speaks Veretian better than I speak Akielon. I want to crush its perfect words right back into its mouth and down its throat.

It won against Govart in the ring and tried to look good by refusing to bed Nicaise.

Just because your taste does not run to boys does not mean you aren’t a despicable barbarian.

You bested Govart.

You will never best me.

You. Prince-killer. My diary is stained with the darkest thoughts of you.

#424

I admit I provoked it.

I took it into the baths with me, waiting for it to make one wrong move. Beasts are so predictable! So base. Of course it laid hands on me.

I had the right to punish it as I saw fit!

I kept waiting for the nightmare to end.

When it broke, crying out, bloody body heaving, there was so much satisfaction in my heart.

It should have died. 100 lashes.

Where is the dawn like blood in the sky? Will this night ever end?

#425

My uncle has returned. Seen the slave’s wounds. I told him the punishment was warranted. But he dared to look at me as if I am the one who is corrupt!

I cannot bring myself to care about either one of them. The slave who looks at me as if I am the monster. The Regent who uses his shrewdness to paint me the spoiled fool.

Dear Diary,

When the assassins appear, and I know they will, I can only hope my death is a swift one.

I have read ten ancient books on the philosophical and physical strategies of war.

I understand what is happening.

The slave takes the full brunt of my anger. Because of A, it deserves it.

My uncle receives my full contempt.

In those raging moments, I cannot think. Afterward, the clarity of my mind is rain-washed, far-seeing. Plans seem to form themselves.

Both of you hold plans of your own in your calculating gazes. I can see them as well. Clear as winter light.

Strange though, that the slave does not seem to have a nature for duplicity. A weakness, for sure. That is why I can read its mind. And why it is not King of Akielos. And never will be.

#425

It did not like the pet’s blow job in the garden yesterday. My instructions made it like it better and hate me more. Good.

It kept saying, “Stop this. Stop.”

As if I ever would. I hate you.

After, I did not feel well and retired early. I dreamt of my uncle.

#430

The audacity of you. Making a deal for the Akielon slaves to go to Patras where they can live the lives they were trained for.

Barbarian!

The only reason I considered it is because I have no ill will toward innocent people. And because now Torveld will give me something in return. I consider it an investment against future betrayals. Your Akielon slaves should not suffer here in Vere because of your deplorable crimes. And I can make an ally of Patras.

I still feel unclean taking food from your fingers. But this is the role I play. For Torveld. For my uncle. For all the Veretian court. But mainly for my own survival. Only that. Never forget.

#431

My favorite horse died. Everyone thinks I killed her just to take down a boar. So be it.

This is the first attempt on my life. There will be more.

I do not want to write anymore tonight.

#432

The assassins came, dressed as Akielons.

You defended me. Why?

You could have let me die and still escape.

I saved you, brute. Animal. Barbarian.

You weren’t smart enough to get away clean. My uncle’s troops found you quite easily. So did mine.

I saved you from the Regent’s wrath. I owed you that much.

You, on that thin, gold chain you could break with a thought.

You who could escape again at a moment’s whim.

You might come in handy. Well, all those muscles, anyway.

The chalis must still be in me a little for me to even write of your strength. Or of asking any enemy who happens to have gentle eyes for help. Looks are deceiving. Everyone knows this.

I have strange thoughts I cannot even write here. The chalis.

You, who looks like a whore, why didn’t you let them kill me? I don’t want to feel this! I don’t want

you, slave-bitch, enemy, prince-killer.

#433

I must take a trip to the border.

I need extra men. Strong men. Otherwise, this will surely be a suicidal ride to Delfeur, straight into an ambush.

You said you want to come to Delfeur with me and my guard. Well, you can’t go riding naked.

I gave you Veretian clothes.

It is odd to see you covered for once. I wanted you to remain in transparent silks not because of their beauty against bare skin, but because I still want you humiliated, vulnerable, suffering. I do not want you to look like the prince you are. Can no one else see how you sit astride your mount, regal and tall, your bearing unselfconsciously royal? Can no one else see that you are so much more than a trained soldier? They are all idiots, unobservant, but still I fear my secret, and yours, will be revealed too soon. You wear the Veretian leathers as if they are a king’s garb.

This pact between us means nothing to me. But I can use you. And you can use me. I don’t care. But maybe there’s a small chance we both can live.

(later)

You may speak Veretian beautifully.

You may know battle strategy.

But then there is the stupid brute in you.

You think you are so clever.

That I don’t know your secret.

Book Two

#434

A million diamonds of snow.

The dropped glove of a warrior-slave.

Lips of pink flowers rising from the green ground-cover to drink the light.

The arch of an ancient fortress two-thirds crumbled to dust.

Stones with cerulean veins, sparkling.

Mid-afternoon, a window through tree branches framing the sun.

Dry bread without honey.

River-scent and bee-song.

Slow hoof-beats unmatched to my frantic heart.

The stars come late.

Once upon a time no fairytales existed.

And still they do not.

Not around this campfire. Not in Vere.

Your mouth before sleep wet with wine.

Your body as still and controlled as mine.

Your eyes that make promises you will not keep.

These thoughts.

These images littered my forsaken path today.

#435

Chastillon. The fort was an ominous shadow against the pink glow of the sky.

As we approached, sparrows drifted back and forth in the reddening air around the single, dark tower. I couldn’t help but think of Marlas.

My uncle’s forces did not show to greet us. As expected. They remained apart in the keep, ignoring us.

The keep is dank, the depths of it shadowed. I scribble this quickly by shattering candle-light in a foyer just outside the Regent’s chamber, with no sleep to be had, having worked all night to prepare for a two-week detour toward the foot of the Vaskian Mountains. I refuse to lie in the Regent’s bed here (for it is the same bed we used when I was here six years ago) for even one hour of sleep.

Too many memories of reclining there as a youth. His heat, his sly affections.

It’s all too much.

You enter these rooms, smelling of Paschal’s balm on your back. Cinnamon. At least someone is following my orders.

Do not for one moment think I care about your scars. I need you in top, fit shape for times to come. That is all.

I leave you to sleep for awhile on the slave pallet beside the bed. I don’t expect you to ever trust me, but you have been forthcoming. You shared knowledge of Akielon territory. Done everything you promised. I gave you a knife and pointed it at my heart. You refused to use it. But I know you want me dead.

Oh, I know that feeling well.

Some day, brute. Some day.

#437

You think I don’t hear what the men say behind my back? My uncle has chosen his bullies well. The sexual insults. Their desires to see me fucked, raped, driven down, down…

I prefer to give no argument to the idea that my veins are filled with ice. Let them think I am something other than human. It keeps the fear burning strong enough so that I can buy time before they finally turn on me.

I do not need you to defend me, slave.

But the fact that you are appalled is not something I will forget.

#439

Oh, dear Brute, the dust has long settled around Govart and you still show shock, awe, surprise that I fought him and won.

Make no mistake. Your turn will come.

The wind blows with the scent of blood. Where in the vastness of this territory are there any accolades to my strength? Nowhere. The Regent’s influence makes men blind. Even you, slave, prince-killer. Blind barbarian.

Did you think I’d been idle since the death of A? His ghost moves within me, gold to my quicksilver. I have been training to best YOU.

I trained every day for seven years. Hours in glittering dust learning form, balance, technique. Those teachers are now gone. My uncle saw to that.

I know Govart is nothing compared to you.

I know you are better than I am. It will not be in combat that I defeat you.

#441

Nesson. A respectable, if somewhat down-trodden, keep.

You say you will help whip the men into shape. You say it will be hard work. Two weeks here. Living, breathing, training. Hard work? I have never known otherwise. Watch me.

There are ashes in the wind of all the things I’ve lost.

I intend to win against my uncle.

#442

It frustrates me that I cannot put you to best use. All sentiment aside, you would have been the perfect Captain of the Guard. But the men would never take orders from an Akielon barbarian. And they think you bend me over in my tent.

#443

You have gotten quicker with the laces.

#444

The crown prince of Akielos has no head for deception and therefore cannot see it.

But that brute has a brain. I’ll admit it. Every day it sees more clearly what my uncle has taken, what he plans. No matter that it hates me; the brute knows what my uncle has done, and is doing, is against all laws.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend. The slave is nothing like my uncle. I hate my uncle more. The slave is useful to help me take my uncle down. Maybe we will both gain back the thrones that we have lost.

After everything, brute, you deserve a fair chance. Any lesser, ignoble man I would have flogged to death by now. You give me reason to see you live. For justice for both of us. And maybe because there is in you the tiniest shred of honor.

#445

Two weeks in a shared tent. I listen to your breathing every night. Even in gold collar and cuffs, you sleep easy.

I do not.

#446

Nesson-Eloy. A disguise using sapphires. A brute who rips grates from walls. A prince turned pet. A slave turned noble. Sounds like a torrid romance. The worst.

But it’s the game I like and I found out you do, too. Maybe in another reality we could have been friends.

I don’t know how to assess you anymore. I know you hate me.

I hate you. But…

You brought my dinner to the inn’s suite after my bath.

You played my game with me. You turned over a flower pot. I haven’t had so much fun in years.

Then you returned to the keep with valuable information, as if you were my spy. I did not have to tell you what to do when we separated in Nesson-Eloy. You knew to chase down those men, gain their secrets. I did not have to command you. You commanded yourself. And me. Without thinking.

You do not pry into my personal affairs. And yet you listen.

I am stronger with you than without you. I don’t want you to know that. But you already know. You give me quizzical looks. Rearranging your impressions, brute? Too late. You have already played my games. You’re good at them. When you are finally gone, who will be around to tear holes in walls when I need them?

I never laughed so hard, giant animal!

#447

Even after two days of no sleep, you lead me to my first victory against the Regent’s troops. It is due solely to you and the information you got from our escapade in Nesson-Eloy.

You saved the men from the rockslide. Best of all, you saved the wine. How they love you.

Because of you, my uncle is miscalculating. I am not used to this.

#448

I know enough Akielon to get by. The important words like: Fuck. Bitch. Cunt. Whore. Slave. Bastard. Prince-killer. And the more polite phrases: “How are you? Fine, thank you? Is this the way to the baths?” You teach me military words and maneuvers, smiling at my soft accent. What’s the word for ‘brute’, I ask. Though I already know it. Your jaw tightens, but you answer freely, softly. You do not look away from my gaze.

As you attended me before bed, your hands slipped against me under my shirt. I told you to step back. You stepped back. Fast. Brown eyes still and wide. You turned away first, candlelight curving gold at the edges of your hair.

From the shadows of my tent, I watched you swim in the cold cold stream. The water was darker than your skin which turned copper in the moonlight.

Control is everything, is it not? I’m in bed, this diary hidden under my chest, my back to the tent-flap, when you return.

#449

Acquitart. Small village. No troops to speak of. No income…or very little. This is the place I rule, the one my uncle let me keep. See, brute, how generous he was? Welcome to my ancestral home. Yes, now you see. Acquitart was worthless to him. He might as well have given me a bag of sand.

But they have prepared for us. Brought in supplies, stock. I rule here. Now. Their law does not require me to be twenty-one. This is my inheritance. All that is left.

I love riding at night. The night-blooming flowers are sweet. The ruined fortress outside of town is steeped in ghosts, in moonlight. Here, kingdoms are lost. Buried in time. The air crackles with ancient memory. A and I used to wander these broken-down stones, these arches, these graves.

You were surprised when the Vaskians came to meet us. You hated the blindfold. But you loved when Halvik’s girls exhausted you.

Can a person actually be fucked to death?

I felt safe making fun of your sexual prowess. Joking, “Take me to bed,” as sleep fiercely consumed you. How did this come to pass that I can joke with you? It’s like being drunk. When one is not in their right mind, one can more easily laugh with the enemy.

I scribble this quickly, by a single flame, deep in the furs of a Vaskian floor-bed, content with my deals, my promises, my accord with these people.

Uncle,

My fight is not over. You have underestimated us all. Most especially my slave, my barbarian, my brute who hates you now almost as much as I.

#450

A less than welcoming greeting at Ravenel. The people as stone-faced as the fort itself, as the dark crenellations.

How they hate you, slave. Daggers in their eyes when they look at you.

I can see the strategies in their faces even as our talks remain calm. My uncle’s hand and voice is everywhere. Twisting. Manipulating. Touars. Guion. My uncle’s men. My enemies.

Ironic that right now you are the only one I trust.

#451

Breteau is a slaughterhouse, destroyed by vengeful Akielon troops. Now my Akielon slave is hated even more.

You, brute, have sympathy in your eyes. An eye for an eye, you say, as if to defend your people for attacking these people of Vere. But you say it soft, without pride or affront. What kind of king are you? What kind of king would you be? Perhaps we’ll both find out one day.

First things first. I must take another ride away from the troops. Alone. In secret.

I’m bringing you, brute.

#452

You and I, alone on horseback, spying.

Leaf-strewn paths. The air a green sound. Hoofbeats. A large Akielon army just over the rise. They flew their proud red banners.

Brute, beast, barbarian. You could have, right then, taken me. Over the back of your horse and home with the prize of a lifetime. Your prisoner: the crown prince of Vere.

The ballads of your daring escape, your bravery, your heroism, would have lasted through millenniums.

Instead, you said, “Take cover.”

While I still have breath, I can admire the clear air. The fresh country. The cool shadows of a shallow cave where I hide because I have no disguise. I would be recognized immediately. I wait for you to track them. And write all this down as if I am on a pleasure trip with no concern but the sun pinking my cheeks.

#453

You said, “It is not naïve to trust your family.” Of course it is! Especially when you are a crown prince!

Tonight the firelight flickered over your features, softening hair, eyes, jaw, broad shoulders.

After my horse and I fell at the river’s edge, and the Akielon soldier raised his weapon to kill me, you threw a sword and saved my life today. I have never seen anything like it.

You saved my life.

You saved my life.

Dropped to your knees and put hands on me! Frantic. Checking for injury.

Later, after riding pillion on a horse—a most difficult feat especially in soaking wet leather—we fell by the fire you made, exhausted. The crackling branches burned crimson, copper, cobalt, drawing our tired eyes. Smoke-scent and the perfume of white-trampled flowers eddied the air.

You prevented my death. I asked what you wanted in return. I know you want to go home. I can’t give you that. Not yet.

“I want to stop a war,” you said.

It is in my power to give things. Or orders. Or benedictions. But this? Maybe. Maybe I can stop a war if I am very shrewd. You don’t know it, but it has been my intent from the very beginning.

You sleep. I sit awake, still damp from my fall in the river, and think of all this diary holds. These words, these pages feel like betrayal. Somehow.

You are, in many ways, like him.

Auguste, I think of you and I have no more tears.

#454

Yesterday morning, we woke to crossbows in our faces.

I think if I were to see you die now, after wanting it for so long, after dreaming of it countless times, I would feel a twinge of grief. Maybe a knot in my throat as well. And a pain in my heart forever that Auguste would never forgive me for.

No, that’s not right. Auguste would forgive. He always did.

Akielon brute.

You killed two Vaskian men. For daring to lay a hand on me. If those men were to rape me, it would have delayed our deaths until the cavalry arrived. I would have endured it. But you would not allow it. You interrupted my plans.

You always interrupt my plans!

When I realized you would die for your rage, my mind cleared. I told the clansman to hit you hard, make it hurt. Fast deaths don’t hurt. Your death needed to be slow. To buy us time. So I had to count on your strength to endure a beating. I am not sorry, even now.

Everything was about delays. About the men, like my uncle, miscalculating your strength. About you escaping in the dark which of course you did, killing four more men.

You were hurt but you fought hard beside me after Halvik came to fight with us. I lost count of the men we killed. I made sure to stay by your weaker side, where they had hit you so hard, just in case. I did not let a single sword thrust get by me.

The tents of the enemy burned orange to the ground. The tents of our friends took their place, flickering like gold domes in the night. Everything was fire and darkness. Fleeting pain. Fleeting laughter. And amid carnage and exhaustion, the strangely casual demand for your sexual favors by Halvik and her women.

You were hurt and so I demanded you for myself. You were hurt. That was the only reason for my words: “The slave sleeps in no one’s bed but mine.”

You do not know how smoothly I negotiated for ice, and how far the runner had to go up the mountainside to get it. Brute, understand, I leave no debt unpaid.

Still, it was difficult not to stare at you in that tiny tent all trussed up for my pleasure. Different from when I dressed you as a slave, a whore. All your muscles still bunched, mostly from pain, beneath smooth, brown skin. And through it all your unnerving casual indifference. Your amusement. Your protectiveness. How do you not hate me? But there, in your eyes, was something like admiration. Gratefulness. For the ice as your chest rose and fell. For my returning the favor: a life for a life. I cannot manage overhead sword throwing, but I can talk my way out of almost anything.

So. Are we even yet? You. Me. Prince. Brute.

I only know that the soft furs of the Vaskian bed engulfed me, and I slept feeling safer with you by my side than I have in years, even in my own chambers at Arles.

#455

It should have been you from the start. The one to lead my men. My army.

My captain. The only real man left to trust. The irony does not escape me. I keep thinking, though, Auguste would approve.

I know you don’t like deception, the way we took Ravenel, the pretense of friendship. You don’t fight in that manner.

And yet…

You are deep inside a game of pretense yourself, believing I do not know the true identity of you, the usurped crown prince of Akielos, its rightful king.

Deception.

Men live by its code.

You find it dishonorable.

An honorable man may sleep still and quiet, content in his conscience, but an honorable man can also be captured, chained, enslaved, disgraced, ensnared in a gold collar and cuffs by a brother he thought loved him. Honor does not save a man from the greed and ambition of others, from those who show only a pretense of loyalty.

Honorable men lose kingships every day. They lose their very lives.

And so do young princes who grow too old for their uncles to love them any longer. Young princes who once believed love meant you were both on the same side.

Young princes like you. Like me.

Damen, the men fell aside in obeisance where your rode. Even as I sat astride my horse by your side, and they came toward me crying, “Our prince, our prince,” the men called you as well. “Damen. Damen.”

Damen.

I write your name here this night, but still I cannot say your name aloud.

You and I are more alike than I could have ever imagined. You won me my battle at Hellay. You killed Touars. Now Ravenel is ours.

Ours.

Yes, sentiment on my part. To think of winning Vere for “us”.

When really it is mine. All mine. And you are leaving in the morning.

Vere will be a smaller place without you.

In the bath I write this. The slaves and servants constantly interrupt me. Water splashes on this page. The ink runs. My quill catches on the parchment. A night of revelry and celebration awaits.

I hear you in the next room, servants of your own waiting on you, bathing, getting ready. As my captain, you will be at my side. Still prince-killer, but no longer brute, slave. Not in my mind.

As the servants dress me, I hold this book aloft and continue to write. When they finish, I hear you still in the bath, so I will leave for dinner expecting you to follow as soon as you can.

I don’t know why my breath catches when I write that.

I must greet the merriment as the rightful king-to-be. The people expect nothing less. This is the longest day of my life. Battles. Deception. I cannot shake the feeling that we are like two boys who just took a toy fort. Is this real?

I have never actually beaten my uncle before.

The sun has barely set in a gold and red-toned sky and I want to make it last. The celebratory feast. The hours of drinking and song.

Still, the zenith of the night will come too soon.

Tomorrow you leave.

#456

He—not ‘it’, not ‘brute’, for there can be no mistake the slave has won his autonomy, both a political and personal freedom—possesses the skill, the ability, the nature to open, read, discard and banish all thoughts from my head.

How?

How quickly he left the celebratory dinner. I’ll admit I was enjoying tormenting him one last time, feeding him meat from my fingers. But I am not the one who requested that beautiful Akielon love song which Erasmus sang so well.

The heat that ignited between us: did he think I did not notice?

He got up so quickly. He did not look back to see my eyes were only for him as he quickly left the great hall.

It was easy enough to find him. He’d cleared one section of the battlement so he could be alone, cool off, catch his breath.

I need to write this to you, Damen, though you will never see it.

You are leaving tomorrow. And I will miss you. There. It is written. So therefore it is real. And what happened on the battlements is more honest than any act between us so far.

Ten thousand stars in the bright sky above the battlements. Tremulous glimmer in dark eyes. An echoing tremble in my chest.

And then your lips…

I have known for a long time. Your hatred of me. My depthless despising. But along came the gradual turning. First a pact. We would each get what we wanted. Needed. A political accord. Nothing more.

Once you roused for me in the royal baths at Arles. But you did not really want me. Of course I snared you. Cruelly. The scars on your back are proof, and one reason why you should never want my touch again.

But I have known for a long time. Your glances, your unchecked smiles. Laughter from our escapades. That joy of two boys out in the night running forever as if to never look back. We had agendas, but oh it was the game we liked.

When did it change? This need to have you beside me? This ache I cannot—dare not—name.

Why?

How?

On the battlements I could not think. I could not breathe. And now, my thoughts are broken bits. Senseless. It is impossible to focus, to concentrate after…

After…

…you…

put your hand to the back of my neck, the edge of your slave cuff brushing against my cheek…

and kissed me.

Glitter of stars. I did not know your lips could be soft as petals. A brush. You did not push me. I knew that you would not. I knew all along that you would never be the kind of person to take what isn’t yours. Not like your brother. Not like my uncle. I gave you a knife. You never raised it against me. I took you off your chain. You never raised your hand to harm me.

I watched you wade through blood.

But you did it to give me a kingdom.

I watched you kill so many men today.

But you are not rough.

For one so strong, so tall, your touch is gentle. And I know it is because you understand I am a person, not a prize.

Damen, did you know that on the battlements I could hear the thunder of your heart?

I write this quickly now, in the time I have alone, with you now as guard at my door. My anger for Aimeric and my hatred for my uncle consumed me, because I cannot think!

I verbally tore Aimeric apart.

I tore this room apart. I now sit and write to calm myself. But I don’t even know what fills these pages. My heart is stone suddenly melted. Reforming itself. It has a new shape. It contains only you. And I don’t care about Aimeric or Jord or anyone else. I don’t want to write about them any more.

The only honest thing that’s ever happened to me since the death of Auguste happened tonight on the battlements.

When I heard you replace the guard at the door, I set this diary down and went into the entryway. I told the man there to tell his men to find you and escort you to the king’s rooms. I gave the order quickly. I have made up mind. Even though…

This cannot happen between us.

This has already happened between us.

This longest day is not yet done.

#457

I have had no time for this diary until now. How could I? It is only hours, one too-short night, since I last wrote my thoughts. And in that time so much has happened. Great wonder. Great terror.

Now again I am alone in my rooms, more guards at the door. All ordered by Damen to leave me alone. He knows me too well. Better than anyone now. Control is important to me. And when I lose control I make mistakes. He knows I need time to calm. To reassess. To begin to think again.

This is the second time in two days he has understood I cannot be further disturbed. He does it to save me. To save all of us. From my mistakes.

I meant to write all (and only) about him in here today. Of our night together. Of all the things between us that should matter most.

But I cannot think. Not in this rage. This…grief. I don’t have proper words yet. I want to write of amazement, of the great beauty that is Damen. Because he is amazing. And beautiful. But all I can think is yet again I have hurt him. In anger. In outrage. Telling him of my uncle and Kastor’s unity. Of their double betrayal of the Akielon royal family, the regicide of Theomedes. And that all along I knew their plan. And was glad of it.

Right now I cannot write of Damen properly, the way he deserves. He is owed another day, a full page of this diary, of my attention. But I cannot give it now. Not after…

All I can think of is Nicaise. And Aimeric. Both dead now. And how the three of us are entwined. My uncle’s predilections warp and twist the minds of boys. I owe most of my innate cruelty to him. I broke Aimeric apart with words because through first-hand experience I knew how. Because I was angry at myself. And at my uncle. And I wanted Aimeric to hurt as well by seeing the truth. I honestly did not know he would take his own life.

But I could not show him sympathy that I do not have for myself. What stupid boys we all were! But we are victims, too. Aimeric was my uncle’s victim. I merely gave the blade already in his heart an extra push.

And now I have to live with that, and the death of Nicaise on my conscience, for the rest of my life.

And what of Jord? His grief for Aimeric whom he thought might love him? I don’t even know how to answer that yet.

I must fight my uncle at Charcy now and be done with it. Two boys dead. How many more? Will I be one of the count? Maybe I do not deserve to live.

Damen deserved to feel what he did last night after all my cruelty to him. But he deserves more. Better than me. Yet still in my heart I want him.

Damen has not figured it out yet. The true betrayal of my uncle began when I was but a child. He still does not see it.

I am a child no longer. I will break everything and anything in my path to see this finally end.

I stare out the balcony’s edge at the distant blue sky and think of the comfort of oblivion.

#458

Leaving for Fortaine. No time for private good byes. Or anything else.

#459

There has been no more time to write.

I am on my way to Fortaine. It is our first night’s stop before our surprise arrival.

Alone in front of the campfire now, most of the men gone off, I can think again. And remember.

I want to devote this hour before sleep to him. To Damen.

Dear Damen,

I left you to hold Ravenel. You still think I don’t know who you are. And I was going to tell you the morning after. After. You. And. I. After. The words never came, the dawn too green and swift and I did not want to waste those moments together. If I had said in bed, your arms around me, “I know who you are, Damianos,” everything would have shifted. Our ease together would have tensed. Maybe your guilt would have made you turn away. Or my distaste at admitting your name, saying it aloud for the first time in years, would have frozen me up. I have had too many years of feeling frozen. I refused to spoil the moment. Large parts of my mind cannot reconcile spreading for my brother’s killer. It is already so hard to thaw after years of living behind a mental barrier of ice.

I am the ice prince the men all thought I was. I admit it. But I am human, too. Damen, my slave, you woke the human.

\When did it happen? The day you came to Arles? The first time you saved my life? The second? The third? Was it Nesson-Eloy? Was it the night the Vaskians prepared you for me with only a loincloth to hide your wares? Was it when you touched the bruise at my jaw? When I fed you from my hands? When you kissed me on the battlements? I don’t know. I can’t think! I am going to simply say: all of the above.

The campfire singes the air. The way the air singed between us when we never wanted to let go of each other. Once. Twice. And again in the dark of morning. You made my head spin. And the things you said to me, your gentleness.

Oh, Auguste, why is he the one? When I was little, you used to make up jokes to make me smile. Is this your final joke? Are you smiling? Or are you appalled? The man who drove you through with his sword, drove me through, too.

Fucked me.

Made love to me.

Why has the world not ended?

I remember saying private things, stupid things, but they only made Damen love me harder. I remember whispering, “I didn’t think it could be like this.” Or maybe I made it into a question. “Is it always like this?” I don’t quite remember.

He said, “Like what?” Then he quickly said, “No. No, it’s—“ and did not finish his thought.

What I meant was, before, my only experience was when I was a boy, and it had always hurt. Always. Physically. But not with you. Never did you hurt me. It wasn’t just you being careful. But also that you were tender and sweet. Slow and affectionate until the passion rose between us and no thought of pain existed, or could exist. But I didn’t say all that because in truth I was hurt. In my heart. Because you were leaving and this was the only time I would ever have to feel this. With you.

(later)

I am forever interrupted. A prince’s fate. (How like a king already Damen was when Jord interrupted us on the battlements, brushing him aside, ordering him at once to leave us.)

Now I am back before the fire, in front of my tent, after seeing to a few minor problems with the camp’s watch, and I look at this journal and think: If anyone ever found this would I be destroyed? I was tempted for a moment to throw this entire book onto the fire. But then I remembered the rumors. The men all thought Damen was bending me over long before now. For weeks. Months. They thought it. And still they fought bravely by my side. Insane battles with an Akielon training them and, finally, an Akielon as their captain.

Besides, what is left of me to be destroyed? I would shout it without remorse. “Yes, the slave fucked me!” Why should anyone care what a slave and his master do? Yes, why indeed. Except for one thing: this diary gives away his secret identity.

A king does not bow before another king. It does not matter that the night was tender. Intensely private. Softly personal. It does not matter if we set that time apart as being a separate world, for we live in one world and we kings must not forget that.

But in this diary where I am not watched, studied, judged, I confess. I pushed my face into his neck. When I came. And silently wept.

Book Three

#460

Hidden in an inseam pocket of my bags, they did not find this book. I thought I had lost it forever when, on the way to Charcy, Guion and his troops intercepted us.

Many of my bravest men were slaughtered. Seeing all was lost, I quickly dispatched a herald to Charcy. Not a few moments later, I was captured. Govart took me away in chains.

But here it is, my book of thoughts, and all my words untouched. And Govart is dead by my hand. And I have escaped my uncle’s clutches yet again.

How good it felt, to finally kill that man. Man? No. Govart was a true brute. The second-most scourge of Vere. My uncle is the first.

Alone and without option, I made a deal with the vile Guion. I now have Fortaine and all that fort’s troops.

A nice story with a happy ending? Not for me.

I missed my rendezvous with a man I made a promise to.

Prince Damianos of Akielos is coming with his Akielon troops. I hear the hoof beats of his approach as I sit in my tent and write this.

I am unsure what to do.

Damen’s presence is so large his spirit precedes him. He will be in king’s garb now. Akielon garb.

The candles flicker even before the shouts of the men can be heard. Some of the voices communicate fear. It is, after all, an entire Akielan army passing through our camp’s entrance. But there are also Veretian troops, the ones who stayed behind when I left him to hold the fort.

Not one moment has passed since we parted at Ravenel that I have not thought of him. What must have gone through his mind when I did not show at Charcy? I long to ask him. But I cannot.

The men say he battered through my uncle’s troops like a mythical creature. Damen unleashed is a sight to behold. I know it was my assumed betrayal that unleashed it.

My mistake. My fault.

We had one night. Now everything has changed. Now we are changed. He is no longer a slave. He is king now. King of Akielos.

My shoulder aches where Govart stabbed me. My whole being aches.

He will want to see me, king to king now, and I don’t know if I can bear it.

#461

I do not know why our meeting went so badly. Yes, I do know why. Too much honesty. And not enough honesty.

You were a different man. The man, Damianos, King of Akielos, Exalted, came into my tent. Not the slave. Not the brute. Not the displaced prince who could not see deception because he was so naively blind, so—dare I say—innocent. Not the man who, laughing, ran with me across the rooftops of Nesson Eloy. Not the one who kissed me on the battlements.

You strode in, a mix of confusion and fury, bare-armed, bare-thighed, in Akielon-barbarian battle clothes, your breast-plate still in place, swiped cursorily with a cloth so that the bronze shine of the armor that matched your skin was still pink-tinged with Veretian blood. You strode in larger than life, a myth, a warrior king who had just taken Charcy.

I thought you would win. No, I knew it. Despite the odds against you. You are that man who does not lose. You bested Auguste. You bested everybody. More than 6000 Veretians died. Your army of 3000 was only whittled down to half. Only.

You made a promise. You kept it. I should have thanked you. But I did not say the words.

King of Akielos, I will not bow to you. Nor will you bow to me, Prince of Vere and Acquitart. Yet.

We are these newer, fresher beings now. Like images of what we once were. Drawn to scale, we are each a map of who we were meant to be. We each now seek our distant thrones that have been stolen from us by family we thought were loyal, trusted. We each have a larger fate, life and death agendas that must be met. What was between us—what is still between us?—should never have been allowed. Should never have happened.

But it has happened. Is happening still.

I am shaking. I cannot write neatly. But I do not care; who will ever read this?

I said your attentions in bed were “fumbling”. I lied.

Your eyes caught the flickers of candlelight when I said that, reflecting bronze. The muscles of your face hardened but the eyes stayed soft. Glimmering.

I wanted to step forward. I stepped back.

Did you really think I betrayed you, as the others thought it? You say no. But you are an idiot if the notion did not cross your mind.

I wanted to tell you how I almost died. But you had just come from a massacre of thousands. My triumph over Govart and Guion seemed piddling. You watched the blood seep at my shoulder. You never said a word. Never asked how I was hurt. Eyes glimmering.

I know what I want and I know what you want. Kingship. That is all, right?

In this area, the arena of politics, I exceed. Plans become very clear, even far-off possibilities for which I make endless contingencies and back up plans. I control this part of our accord. You knew it then. You know it now.

We can help each other. I have what you need to take your throne. You have things I want as well. We make an exchange.

Reluctant, but thoughtful. Hurt, but deeply determined. You gave me Delfeur.

This is coercion. This is also how we work. Together. To both get what is rightfully ours.

The rest? Maybe lust. Passion. Love? Unfortunate by-products of fate and proximity. They must be set aside.

You left. Angry as the first day we met.

#462

The gold cuff at my wrist bites into the skin. It reminds me of you. Every moment. Of  you.

Today, for the first time, we oversaw our troops, Akielon and Veretian. As equals we sat side by side on twin oak thrones. We looked out over our fort, our people, our army. Ours.

My fingers entwined with yours on the arm of the throne. Your skin was hot. My pulse rushed fast when you put the cuff on me. But it had already been racing as I saw you watch the lashing of ten men, whipped to the blood. Ten Veretian traitors. My gift to you—the golden whip, the ten men—bit harder than this cuff, your gift to me.

Both of us shamed. Both of us still proud. We sat and watched more men die.

You were motionless, collected. Yes, those hired killers deserved their fates. But, Damen, I swear I could hear your heart from where I sat, you who killed hundreds of Veretians only two days ago, I could hear your thoughts: No more bloodshed. No more!

But you endured it. Throat tight with it. My warrior king, my gentle brute, you and I both know exactly what you have to give up to gain a kingdom.

This is why kingships drive the best of us mad.

No one ever promised us, when we were but mere boys, that our lives would be easy.

I was steady when our hands touched. When our fingers wove together.

When you put the gold cuff on me, I was steady, too, despite my rushing pulse.

But these words are not neat upon this page tonight. My letters squiggle and shake. The ink blots. The quill breaks. A new quill takes its place.

A new king.

A new prince.

I do not know if any of them are better.

#463

We leave for Marlas tomorrow. Nikandros suggested it as a better, bigger place than Fortaine to re-group, officiate an Akielon tradition by way of “games” to celebrate victory and the return of Damianos from the grave.

I could not argue. I could not say, “That is a place of ghosts.” I could not say, “Damen and I will skirt the edges of that accursed land and meet you further down the road.” I could not say, “Fuck you all, including you, Prince-Killer, my brother died there.” MY BROTHER DIED THERE!

To Nikandros, who said, “We gather at Marlas,” I only replied, “Yes.”

(later, same night)

My courier brought me a late message. It said:

Five Akielon soldiers beat and raped a Veretian soldier. He did not fight back. The Akielons responsible have been executed by order of the Exalted King Damianos of Akielos. Your soldier has been returned to you alive. Akielos apologizes for this travesty and dishonor to Vere and to His Highness, Laurent, Prince of Vere and Acquitart, and awaits your word.

The message was not signed and was not in the king’s hand.

This is a result of my plan to end the scuffles between the troops. Earlier, I had announced, “Should any Veretian lay a hand on any Akielon, they will be summarily executed.” This put my men at great disadvantage, for they would not be able to even defend themselves without threat of death from their own prince. But it was the only way to gain Akielon trust.

To learn for myself, firsthand, what had happened, I walked through the warm summer air to the hospital tent. The stars seemed to have no right to shine so brightly along my passage.

Paschal looked up as I entered the pavilion. He had many patients leftover from Charcy, but was not alone. All of Fortaine’s physicians were now in my employ.

I asked to see his newest patient.

He looked no more than 18. His left jaw and eye were darkly bruised. He had a bandage on his shoulder. The rest of him was covered with a sheet. When he saw me, he tried to move to get up, to bow or kneel, and I waved him down. “Lie still,” I said. “Is there anything you need?”

“No,” the boy said, voice unsure. Blinking unsteadily.

“What is your name?” I asked.

“Dashiell, Your Highness.” His words trembled against his throat.

“Did you cross into the Akielon camp?” I didn’t want to ask it, or give any blame to him, but I had to know.

“No, Your Highness. I only meant to go a short way on our side of the lines. The night was so warm. I couldn’t sleep. I wanted to walk. They came through the wood, saw me and surrounded me. I…I…”

I reached out and placed my hand against his forehead. Gently. “Say no more.”

“But I must, Your Highness. After they beat me and…and…afterward, they strapped me to a board and threw spears at me for target practice. The one man said to make an outline of spears around my body but if anyone missed it would be of no matter. A dead Veretian is the best Veretian, he said. The King of Akielos appeared then, like a ghost, out of nowhere. He spoke roughly to the men in Akielon and I did not understand. I didn’t know at first if he was angry at me or them. But he came to me and then he spoke in perfect Veretian. He told me not to be afraid any longer, that I would be all right. That I would be safe and able to go home soon. He untied me and I could not stand so he lifted me to the ground. His hands were big but very tender. He did not hurt me. He said he would make sure these men paid for what they had done. He said I was brave and honorable and he would make sure my prince knew it. He apologized for any dishonor to me and to you, Your Highness. He stayed with me and held me until the men came to carry me to the medic tent. Paschal was already there, waiting.

“Your Highness, I had never seen the King of Akielos up close before. I’ve lived in Fortaine all my life. Yesterday was the first time I ever saw him, when you sat side by side on the twin oak thrones. He spoke Veretian so well! When the men arrived to take me, he lifted me to the pallet they carried as if I weighed nothing. He clasped my hand. He said, ‘As soon as we see to your wounds, back to your prince you’ll go. There is no better man to serve’.”

I turned away. “Thank you, Dashiell.” To Paschal I said, “Keep me updated on him.”

My breath had caught in my throat. I could not speak anymore. But as I headed for the tent entrance, the boy said, “Your Highness, I did not know how to feel about you and the King of Akielos being friends. But I am glad. He must be good. It all could have been hidden, kept secret. But he saved me.”

“Be well,” I said, not turning.

Back outside, the air hit my face like flame. Summer nights. They made men crazed. Restless. From my vantage I looked out over the fields as far as I could. The orange flames of the Akielon camps trembled upon the horizon. I felt Damen so close to me. Yet so far.

#464

We rode in silence, you and I, on the road to Marlas. We saw the banners of Vere flying as we passed through Delfeur.

We rode for hours. Through midsummer fields and bustling villages. I could not hear the horses’ hoof beats. I could not hear the snap of banners. I could not hear the jangle of armor, the murmurs of restless soldiers, the drones of the insects, the cries of the birds. All I could hear, loud and long, was the silence between you and me.

I held myself in check the whole way. I thought of the boy, Dashiell, left behind at Fortaine to recover. To hopefully put all of this behind him. I thought of Nicaise. Aimeric. You. All the hardships. The traumas. All of us. Auguste kept smiling his way into my thoughts. I pushed him away. Then I made myself think of nothing.

Marlas is not the Marlas I remembered from my boyhood. Ugly now, Akielon occupied, it is stripped of Veretian décor down to its dry, white bones. It is a wreck of a memory. A ruin of scraped plaster and scratched marble, the windows bare, the walls untapestried, barbarian naked, haunted.

I sit here now in the Queen’s rooms which are equal in luxury to the king’s, and right next door to you. Here there are some decorations at least. Silks and pillows, curtains, furniture of dark, thick wood. An ugly tapestry of palms and a simple beach. Isander, my beautiful new slave, is preparing my bath as I write.

I have noticed you take no slaves anymore. You utilize them not at all, not even for food, bathing, or your horse, not for polishing your shield, your armor, or your sword. And, rumors state, not even for your bed. You use squires instead for the menial chores. Your distaste for slavery is both personal and political, I know. But I still remember when you said at Ravenel, “I am your slave.”

Between us, I think it meant something else. But I am not sure what.

The ghost of Auguste hovers close to me. How long can I keep up this front?

I hate Marlas. You know this. But there is nothing to be done.

At the banquet this evening, which is sure to be festive and rich, I shall be nonchalant and polite. No one likes depressed, unhappy princes, now, do they?

#465

Last night, you followed me out of the banquet hall. I expected you would not stay put, but when you found out where I’d gone, I did not think you would follow one step further.

The slave, Isander, is exquisite. But if I hurt his feelings, I have no energy to care.

I had to leave him. Leave you. Leave the hall. Get some air. I had to take a horse, go into the fields to see, to kneel upon, and to breathe the air of the spot where he once stood. Where he and you once fought with flashing swords.

One more time I had to see where my beloved brother Auguste fell and took his final breath.

This is Marlas. I am writing from a fort of ghosts and shadows. For me, this is unbearable. And yet I must bear it. Princes and kings have fewer choices than people may think. Everything we do is watched, assessed, judged.

I admit, I like my reputation as the ice-prince. I like that people think it doesn’t affect me emotionally that I am tainted, cursed. Auguste’s death is an affront to all Veretians. My loyal subjects carry that offense for me. But forget about offense, affront, war, politics. To me my brother’s death was a personal death of my soul. But I could not allow that to show to anyone but my uncle. I was thirteen. I did not know he would use that weakness against me.

I found the mark, the grassy bower. I took my jacket off to feel the wind against me. I breathed deep the air of grief. Here in the grass I found the remnants of my lost kingdom.

I did not hear Damen come up on his horse. I didn’t hear him on foot until he was but six paces from me. He stood tall, regal, strong. But the look in his eyes was desperate. I made a cutting remark, then another.

He tried to talk to me about my brother. I didn’t want to talk. Not about that.

He is obsessed. I know it. He cannot stop thinking about our one night. I didn’t tell him I cannot stop thinking about it, either. So I caustically offered myself to him to see how he would react.

Damen always surprises me. Always turns the tables on me. Maybe it’s his outright honesty that surprises. I am not sure. He admitted he thinks about me all the time. But he came, he said, to see if I wanted to talk about Auguste. Just that. Nothing else.

I believed him. But I could not tell him that. There is this war inside me where Auguste is the hero and Damen is the enemy. And I keep seeing them face to face, the monster cutting Auguste to the ground, and I can’t reconcile the image. For Damen is not a real monster. He is just a man.

I can’t understand it. I don’t know why I love my brother’s killer. I am sure there is something terribly, terribly wrong with me.

This is why I push him away.

But before we could talk further, the night riders came.

There was no sleep to be had that night as we and our men followed them to a freshly burned out village at dawn. The massacre was sickening. The fact that my uncle burned the village with Akielon troops in Damianos’ name is unadulterated evil.

For the first time, I think Damen understands what it is like to personally go up against my uncle. What it is like to fight my uncle. The nasty turnings of the Regent’s mind are not simply Veretian. They are the turnings of a deranged genius.

I saved Makedon’s life today at the tip of Damen’s sword. Maybe I have made an ally of another enemy. I need the strength of the north to win this. Damen and I need Makedon. We shall see what happens.

After we buried the dead and returned to Marlas on no sleep, we slept all afternoon. You got up earlier than I. I know this because when I rose, I went to the casement of the queen’s chambers that looked out on the gardens and saw you hurrying along the path to the training arena. The sun was going down fast along the hills beyond the fort, making the sky red, the land lavender.

Isander brought my clothes and dressed me quickly.

He is not as good as you are with the laces.

At the arena I watched you practice your swordsmanship for some time before you noticed I was even there. You tore up the air.

I have seen anger like that before. In myself. Welcome to the nightmare that is of my uncle’s making.

It’s hard to look away from “Damianos” unleashed. Stripped to the waist. Muscles fluid under sun-browned skin. Corded arms. The indent of a hard, rippled stomach. Back taut, muscles lined and hard even under the countless soft gold lines of the scars I put there.

Damp, dark curls in your eyes.

This is grace. A dance. You moved balanced and assured, unwavering through your rage, sword whipping faster than the eye.

The dimming twilight caught and threw red reflections from your sword into my eyes. The oil lamps, lit for the evening, shot the edges of the ring with shadows.

All my life. I wanted to take you. In combat. One on one. By the sword. But I am not good enough to beat you. I know that. “No fight is fair,” I told you a short time ago. “Someone is always stronger.” But this soft evening, I was fast and full of fury, too. A part of me wanted you to see that, to feel it. Direct. One on one. My shoulder was bound. Not hurting at that moment. I thought if I fought you, made you sweat, work harder, bring all your faculties to bear, that it would be a sort of victory for me. To make you push yourself. To make you think.

You accepted my challenge.

But I was not much of a contest, though I gave it my all. You did everything but turn me upside-down from the ankles and shake the sawdust from my sleeves. Then you reminded me, through gritted teeth, that you could have done this to me at any time when you were kept as my slave.

I did not remind you that it was more than a thin gold chain that kept you captive in Arles. You had no throne. No name. No plan. The collar and the cuffs merely defined your losses. I wear the other cuff now.

We have both lost. But the game is not yet done, and it is the game I am most fond of.

You hated me that moment you left the practice arena. And yet, you still wanted me.

Damianos, you think I didn’t, but I felt it. The tremble on your skin and in your veins when you held me down in the dust all but finishing me off.

Yesterday, you said, “You fucked like a virgin. Half the time.” “The other half?” I asked. “Like I know what I am doing?” You never answered.

But I don’t know what I’m doing. Not with you. Everything else is planned, double-planned, triple-planned. But not you. You upset my plans. Every time. And every time you turn out to be right.

I had to get Paschal to wrap my shoulder again, and give me a draught for the pain. I shall return to bed and hopefully sleep the night through so I can be wide awake early tomorrow for the wondrous and barbaric and brutish Akielon games.

#466

I have the laurel to prove it.

I won the Okton. Technically, Damen and I tied.

Otherwise, the games were long and tedious. When Damen wrestled Pallas, oiled and naked—truly barbaric!—it was just a spectacle, a show-off drama. Tedious! Of course both men are young, fit and beautiful. But I barely glanced their way. Barely…

Tonight is the big, after-game celebration, which I will endure for the sake of the throne I intend to take back. It does not hurt to make friends of your enemies if they can help you get closer to your goal.

Also, I am hungry.

#467

Tomorrow we go to Karthas.

Last night I had far too much to drink. But what matters is that Makedon is my ally now. He thinks I am his new drinking buddy. And so I have the loyalty of the north.

Such was my plan all along.

I remember very little past the point where Makedon brought out the stronger stuff. I think he called it griva.

But I do remember Damen half-carrying me to my rooms. I don’t remember what I did or said. Loss of control is one of my biggest fears. Making a fool of myself is part of it. Showing weakness is part of it. There are those moments I feel I am not suited for the throne that was meant to be Auguste’s. It is his throne. Not my uncle’s. Not mine. I am, in my deepest fears, an interloper. Not who I think I am. Not who I say I am. My mask is carefully cultivated. As I grow older, those weak moments are fewer and far between. I know I am strong, fully capable of leading, even if others may not see it right away. But when all inhibitions are gone, the thirteen year old boy stands before you, revealed and vulnerable, shaking and naked. He has been badly hurt. He is very shy.

And this leads me to my worst fear about losing control. That I will say something about my uncle. What he was to me. What he did to me.

This is why I do not drink.

I fell into a stupor. I don’t remember being sick, but I was. Later, in the night, I dreamt of my uncle.

(later)

A moment the bottom fell out of my stomach. A moment I will never forget.

Makedon suggested I have my slave fetch me some iron tea, which he swore was the cure-all for hangovers. He seemed to overlook the fact that I have no slaves except Isander, who was not in attendance..

Absent-mindedly, I said to the air, “Fetch me some.”

The Exalted King Damianos of Akielos rose from the table. In a heartbeat of subtle confusion, it was over. I froze. I did not look at him.

Damen looked helplessly at Nikandros who dismissed all from the meeting.

We were left alone in the hall.

My tension about my drunken loss of control increased. I met Damen’s eyes which were guarded but soft.

Damen said nothing happened, as if he knew already what I was about to ask him. He said he put me to bed and that was that. He told me all I said was, “I miss you.”

Damen was offended when I pressed him with more questions. “Is that all that happened?

“Did you think I would take advantage of you in that state? Or ever?” he asked.

Of course not. It is not you I do not trust, Damianos. It is myself. And that I might inadvertently reveal what I do not want you to know. That I was once like one of my uncle’s pets. That I have his taint on my body like a scar only I can see!

But thank you, Damen, for seeing that no harm came to me last night. And for every other time you saved my life.

#468

Today we rode for Karthas. 10,000 men like a dark wave rolling over the roads and farms and summer fields.

I had all day yesterday to recover from my good friend Makedon’s unrelenting griva. And from my worry that I had revealed more than I wanted to about my past to Damen.

Today I rode easy in the saddle and did not tire.

Damen rarely shows signs of tiring. But I have seen him weary, sad, worried, enraged. I have seen him determined, empathic, aroused. And the one night in Ravenel we had. One night. He slept within my arms. His hair soft against my cheek.

We rode and I could not stop thinking about that.

When we arrived at Karthas, it was empty.

Except for one pivotal player on this board of human chess.

Jokaste.

When we found her in an inner antechamber, Damen would not even look at her. Nor would he speak to her.

As we did in Marlas, we took side by side suites in the fort, the ones designed for King and Queen.

Damen did not look at, or speak to me. He entered his rooms alone.

I am in my chambers now, with time to rest and write. It has been only a few hours and already, as I finish this page, I hear the warning bells and horns of the watch-towers.

I know who it is on approach. My uncle’s heralds have come. It is expected. His armies have retreated. Now the heralds come to pretend to negotiate.

They have no idea the might of what they face. None.

Still, I expect nothing but insults in their messages to us. Damen has only recently learned what it is to face my uncle’s full ability to dissect and manipulate. Damen excels at the battlefield. This is where I excel.

We must be strong. United when we meet them.

I hear the door to the king’s chambers open, the voice of the king.

I rise to meet him.

#469

Side by side we sat on twin thrones. I could feel the power of it. The two of us. Insolent and glittering, high up, higher than the rest, surrounded by tall, muscular troops of Akielon soldiers. I liked it.

I saw the Regent’s heralds approach, quivering.

Damen looked like some powerful barbarian warlord of mythic times, his thighs and arms bare, dressed in full chest armor to greet them. His muscles, taut under the firm skin of his legs and arms, tensed and rippled every time he shifted. My breath caught in my throat just to look at him.

I was more subtle. But only a bit.  Laced up tight in my favorite blue jacket. My high boots polished to a mirror. The soles of those boots hard enough to smash a man’s face.

We were both born to rule. Even I, second in line, was born to it. We draped ourselves naturally, regally, conceitedly upon our seats. We did not need to speak to each other about this part we played. With the poise of predators, we were in perfect tune. Perfect unison against the enemy.

I liked it. This heady feeling. Next to Damen, the power felt doubled. I loved it.

Despite the approaching atmosphere of my uncle’s men, the dark, acrid scent of it, the rancid air those heralds brought with them, I felt a tension in my abdomen turn toward unchecked pleasure.

I watched the heralds move toward us, not bowing, meeting our eyes as is against all custom.

The uninhibited defiance in them opened me up. It’s the challenge that can be fun. It almost made me giddy.

I watched the Akielon soldiers at fine attention, ready to move at any sign of danger to us.

I felt Damen settle his weight against the back of the throne, relaxed but prepared, one trim knee bent, the other leg stretched out, his dark leather sandals buckled high on his muscled calves.

And in that moment I found myself wanting him. I wanted this. Us. Together. It was in that moment I made up my mind, said goodbye to Auguste, and focused all my attention on our unity of strength.

It made me hard.

I forced myself into a frozen sculpture, unmoved.

The insults flew. Damen weathered them. I weathered them. Damen defended me. His words sent burning threads of pleasure through me. The negotiation was stupid and transparent. My uncle’s herald said I should go to Ios and stand trial. A mock trial for show. Then all would be returned to me, my lands, my inheritance, everything.

Damen saw it for the ruse it was and declined for me. I liked it when he spoke up for me. It didn’t upset me at all.

The herald hated it. Insulted him with references to dark gossip.

Then Damen made his first and last mistake. Asked, “What gossip?”

“You are a patricide. You killed your own father.”

I watched the muscle move at his throat. The Adam’s apple flex.

I knew that feeling well. My uncle’s precision, even through heraldic messages, at how to hurt swiftly and with utmost guile was his greatest talent. A skill he’d also passed on to me.

The herald’s words were the worst insult Damen could hear. That he had killed the father he had loved. And that Kastor, the true killer, might have the nerve to spread such a harsh and traitorous lie.

I knew what was happening inside him then. It had happened to me too many times to count. It would be a frozen moment of wicked pain mixed with disbelief, denial. Then temporary blindness as the warrior fought his own body’s natural response to an overflow of rage—and other emotions.

It was a tribute to Damen’s strength that he could even speak. “Get him out of my sight.”

Damen went to the casement and gazed out the thick windows. I dismissed everyone from the throne room, but knew he did not hear me do it, or even care what was going on behind him.

I, alone, stayed.

When he turned and saw me the look on his face told me he understood me deeper than he ever had. I wanted to nod. I wanted to say, “Now you know what I have lived with for seven long years.”

“I will make him pay,” he said, outlining a brief plan in a single sentence.

We talked briefly of the mock trial my uncle would set up. Of course a trial appealed on some level. A chance to clear my name? But there was not a chance. It was a trap.

There was something else my uncle wanted to trade. I felt it on the edges of my mind. The idea of it forming.

As if by fate, Pallas entered the chamber and said, “Jokaste wants to see you.” I knew it then. The price. The plan.

Damen, quick as he was in battle, was not so quick when it concerned his own family. He was slow to see, but he felt something. His intuition, and his rage, made him order me—not ask—to see to Jokaste for him.

It was, of course, my pleasure to take this task upon myself.

I knew of her. Her duplicities. Bedding both brothers. In on the arrangement to betray Damen with Kastor and my uncle. A traitorous prince-lover. It was going to be fun to take her on.

At first, it was.

How long had Damen been standing there as we discussed his bed play talent, his kind heart, his deep and innate ability to make others around him fall in love with him?

All these things I never admitted aloud to anyone before now. Only in my journals. But Damen was that man, the kind who inspired others to like him, love him, no matter the time of day or night, no matter the context, no matter the difference of politics. Damen was used to it until he was blind to it. This is why he could not see his brother was immune to his influence, his charm.

In his mind, everyone loved Damen. Who would want to hurt him?

And the way Jokaste spoke of how Damen made love, slow and with meaning, as if he meant it…

She knew he was too good, too sweet, too blind to see duplicity. Would he have even believed her if she’d spoken of Kastor’s plot?

Never. He would have been disgusted. Had her thrown out of the castle. Banished from Ios for such traitorous words.

So she sided with Kastor. It was her only play.

One small voice in my mind spoke. It said silently, if Damen had not been who he was, I would have never met him.

I was glad, honored, in awe. Who Damen was was a better person than any of the mix drawn together: Jokaste, Kastor, the Regent.

Who Damen is, now, is a better man than even I.

I parried her words with confidence. Until she told me of the child. Damen’s child.

And that was when I knew for sure what the price would be. The last thing my uncle would hold over us. Damen’s son. And heir.

My blood ran cold.

I heard a sound on the step.

Saw him through the door’s grate.

His face.

My heart locked up. Stopped beating.

It was as if her words had struck me in half, because they struck Damen. Hard and fast. With eloquence and speed, they carved away his own heart. I felt it tear. I felt it bleed.

The liquid heat in his eyes that did not form in the throne room now began to collect against the edges of his lashes as he swiftly turned. I heard his footsteps on the stone stairs, a rapid—but not soon enough—retreat.

Maybe Jokaste was lying. But if Damen had a son already on his way to the Regent…

I left Jokaste. Disgusted. And I followed. The king’s chamber door was shut by the time I got there. I made the order that all should stay away. No one was to bother the king until he came out.

A couple of hours passed.

The whole time, I stood in the hall. I was not going to leave him alone. Never ever again.

We were strongest together. United. I knew that now.

More time passed.

Still, Damen did not appear.

I opened the door and entered.

The shadows of the room dipped over him as if to curtain his presence. The room in twilight was darkening fast. No candles or oil lamps had been lit. He was easy to see, though, all in white. Elbows on his knees. Palms pressed against his eyes. He looked up and saw me. Opened his mouth. No words came. He looked startled, though, as if some matter had skipped his mind and he was needed. He moved to stand and I waved him back.

He looked up as I approached him. I never wanted to see that look on him again. And I knew then I would do anything, anything in my power to make sure my uncle never hurt him again. It had gone too far. I would not allow this.

I put my hands on the back of his neck and pulled him to me. “I’m just here,” I said.

He let me hold him like that for awhile, his body trembling. Breathing hitched.

When he calmed I felt the lightning between us quite suddenly. The ease between us. The rightness.

I sat close beside him on the bed. He wiped his shining face on the back of his hand and began to speak. Randomly. Of his father. Of my hatred for both Theomedes and him.

Of course I hated them. Him most of all. Prince-killer.

But then we met, slave to prince. And later we fought side by side. He was there for me every step of the way since. He saved my life. Again and again. I hated that he was not the monster I needed him to be.

I hated that I wanted him. All the time.

And I had again been wanting him all this long day. With every fiber of my being.

There are moments sometimes every day when things come together. Little successes. Big victories. Moments when you are at peace in your heart even through all the heartache. The sun sets every day. A new day always comes.

My victory with Damen was the biggest of my life. And it had nothing to do with politics, kingdoms, or war. I could never beat him at the tip of a sword. But in this way, the private way, I had won.

He asked why we could not rule together the provinces we had already taken. Move forward and not look back. Ignore the Regent. Dismiss Kastor from our thoughts.

After everything, how can he trust me? I asked.

And when he answered that, I couldn’t think. The words he used made love to my mind until it spun. All about me being the truest man he’d ever known. And if he gave me his heart, he knew I would treat it tenderly.

I can’t even remember the rest of what he said. My mind reeled.

The last of my walls crumbled.

I have no defenses left against Damen. None. He has crashed through all my fortresses, all my inner chamber walls. He has broken the ice encasing my heart and wiped the rain away.

Still the voices in my head cried out. They were softer now, but aggravated at the impossibility of it all. Loving the enemy. Spreading my legs for the Prince-killer.

I could not wait any longer. I asked him to kiss me.

This man killed my brother. This was the man I loved.

This could not happen.

This was happening.

Damen lifted my hand and kissed it, which was not what I meant when I asked for a kiss. But everything is about delays with him. Damen. He takes everything so slowly.

It drives me mad.

My tension must have communicated itself too easily to him.

I know he spoke to give me time to relax. And to get all the darker things left between us out and in the open.

“I killed your brother,” he said. “I hurt you.” “I am no longer a slave, I am a man.” “It’s me. Damen.”

This was our first time meeting together this way in total honesty. All secrets bared.

“Say my name,” he commanded.

I knew if I did not, we could not have this. And there would be no more chances. No more between us than kingdoms, politics and mad-capped regents. It had to be him, or nothing. Damianos would be my lover. Not the image of a slave, or the fantasy of a warrior brother. Damen would share my bed. If I declined, I would leave unsatisfied, alone, and never know his touch again.

But I wanted him. All of him. Damianos. Damen. Prince-killer. Son of Theomedes. Slave of my heart. I was never going to turn away from him again.

I said, “Damianos.”

When his lips met mine and I opened to his kiss, I knew in that moment I had exchanged a brother for a lover. It was like a knife and gentle healing all in one.

And then he pushed me down on the bed and I could not stop kissing him. My skin became very hot. My passion rose until I thought it might burn down the very walls of the king’s chamber.

Everything burned down in me: Auguste’s ghost, the memories of my uncle’s love, Damen as the Prince-Killer, and every betrayal and hurt I’d ever felt. All vanished.

Later, I think I almost choked him in my over-zealousness, winding my arms tightly about his neck as he took me.

I had wanted that power, that ecstasy, that uniqueness that was Damen all day long.

To feel him inside me breaching, stroking, soothing shattered my mind into a thousand pieces of light. He is big, but unbelievably gentle. I would never have thought I could take him, but we fit together in perfection. Oiled and gliding together, back and forth, as if made for each other. Even in my sexual awkwardness, our strange grace we have together overcomes all lack of confidence. His awkwardness is because he killed Auguste and does not ever want to hurt me again. Mine awkwardness is for the same reason, in addition to having experience only with sexual coercion, or watching erotic Veretian games, not real love. (Which is akin to having no experience at all.)

When we woke at dawn, I could not believe the world still stood. Nothing had been destroyed. And yet, everything was new. The coming day. The breath on my shoulder. The body in my arms.

I fucked like a virgin, Damen once said. More than half the time.

But he liked it.

I had never wanted anything more than I wanted this. Damen. Here in my arms.

I wanted it more, even, than I wanted my throne in Vere.

Even as he woke in my arms, new passion rising between us, already plans were forming in my mind. I would do anything it took, anything, to make sure he stayed safe. To guarantee that my uncle would never harm him again. Or Jokaste’s child, no matter the paternity.

This was what my life was about, now. This reality. The utmost power of him, the beauty of him, the honesty of him in my arms. Here he has given me his heart. And I cup it in my hands; treat it with the tender grace it deserves.

#470

My plan to take a small contingent of men into Akielos, disguised as cloth merchants, has been confirmed.

Damen said, and I’m not quoting him exactly, “It’s complete fucking lunacy. It will probably work.”

Jokaste will ride with us as a hostage to exchange for the child. Damen’s child. Kastor’s child. It matters not who is the father. We will get the boy back.

But I have another plan. Bigger. More guaranteed to work. Jokaste’s life is worthless, but Damen doesn’t know this.

I have something else to trade for the boy.

#471

When Damen first saw me naked—and I had him whipped—well, that is the same reaction I got the first time he ever saw me wearing a chiton. I was just glad no one else was around to see him drop that pitcher.

But at the same time, I wanted everyone to see. The King of Akielos is in love with me.

He couldn’t stop staring at my thighs.

The warm feeling in my stomach at his response threatened to rise.

Yes, Akielon chitons are far too short, but don’t blame me! I’m not the one who designed them.

Addendum: I will admit that chitons are much more comfortable in barbarian heat waves. I will wear a thin, short cloak for riding so at the very least my skin won’t blister and flake right off my bones.

This feels like the summer that will never end.

#472

The captain of the first blockade at the border called me “beautiful”. Well, in truth, I was impersonating Jokaste. And that blue silk dress I brought is quite stunning. It came in handy. Good thing I have a mind for duplicity and packed it. You never know, on any covert journey with me and Damen, when you might need a sapphire earring or two. A grungy hat. Or a blue silk dress.

I pack for all weather.

When I changed out of that dress, I left the chiton and put my Veretian clothes back on.

I found them more comfortable for riding.

#473

Slipping by Kastor’s men turned out to be an adventure. In one afternoon, I darted into Heston’s fields and let the horses of the guard loose. Followed by the little dogs. Then I darted round the vast grazing pastures and into the orchards where I found, much to my delight, ripe apricots just waiting to be picked. I filled my pockets.

I had memorized the maps, but was still afraid I might get turned around. But when I found the stream I knew where I was.

For the first time in a long time, I found myself alone and away from humans. I was in an alien wood where the water sparkled in glints of sunlight scattered through the leaves, and birds and insects churned the air.

Autumn was still far enough off that everything was luscious, green. I smelled wild pomegranate, and laurel. The forest was full of pine, olive, poplar, oak and chestnut trees. White orchids bloomed here and there at the bases of their trunks.

I stopped for a drink at the stream’s rippling water and the liquid was fresh, cool, sweet.

This country of my enemy is beautiful.

As I walked, I had the feeling I had gone back in time, one man foraging his way alone, a wanderer in a countryside that lent me only peace and inner stillness. All politics were left behind. All subterfuge. My uncle and his cronies seemed eons away.

It was a long walk. We had ridden ahead to Heston’s, and me alone, skirting the land to meet back up with the wagons, was a far hike.

I had too much time to think. About Damen. About my plan for the trade for the boy.

Damen would be hurt by my plan, but at least we had this time together. Riding through his country. The land where he should be King.

I marveled at all the life sounds around me. Butterflies flew up where I walked, creating shifting hazes of color on the air.

For long moments I wished I could meet up with Damen and then kidnap him again, only do it right this time. I’d secretly whisk him away back to these glades, this rich forest. It would seem to the men in the wagons, and Guion, Loyse and Jokaste, that we’d simply vanished without a trace. A mystery unsolved. No one would find us or ever know we were here and we could live out our days side by side, like myths, the trees our walls, the sky and stars our roof.

#474

Why is Damen so surprised whenever I unroll my bedroll beside his?

Ridiculous King of Akielos. Don’t you see it in my eyes? It is more than devotion, you giant exalted animal!

I want to spend what time I have left as close to you as possible.

#475

Two days have passed. The wagons make travel slow.

It’s hot.

I’ve taken to wearing the chiton again.

At the fireside tonight, I sat next to Damen close enough to touch. I rubbed my naked thigh against his, our skirts riding up. And watched how his lips tightened, his shoulders tensed.

I gently elbowed him, and when he turned to look at me, I gave him a wicked smile.

He puffed air out his nose, said softly, “Fiend.”

It’s good to know, as we watch Lazar stalk Pallas, that Damen’s as frustrated as I.

#476

More heat. The wagons trundled on at the speed of death.

We camped by a place where the stream widened to a still, sandy pool. Olive trees rustled overhead. As twilight turned the water silver, all of us swam and bathed. Even Jokaste and Loyse.

Damen stripped to the skin without a backward glance, and swam for a long while. I followed, keeping to the shade.

There is developing camaraderie among the soldiers. All twelve stripped in the near-dark. Lazar and Pallas stayed close to each other, ignoring everyone else.

Only Guion remained apart from the rest of us, dipping his feet in the water for mere moments before leaving to sit alone by the fire.

Damen’s silhouette in the dark was almost as impressive as it is in candlelight. There is a deep hunger in me that will not abate.

His eyes followed my own figure as I emerged, dripping, from the pool. He approached and I started to turn away, only to realize he was merely bringing me a clean chiton.

I donned it quickly, and we stood under the shadows of the trees, moonlight sweeping the ground in tiny, white-gold rivers, and talked. We fine-tuned our plan for the Kingsmeet. I did not reveal any hint of my true plan. My dishonesty was balanced by my knowing that after all of this, he would survive even if I did not. He would rule and be a just and fair king.

Later, we talked of the land, of the beauty of Akielos. Damen said he could not wait for me to see Ios, and he spoke again of the summer palace outside the capitol. He’d mentioned a few days ago that he’d wanted us to go there and spend a week alone together.

I could see in my mind the frothing fountains and riding trails he’d described, the lush gardens among Artesian ruins, the bougainvilleas, the fig trees, tulips, narcissus, and primroses. He knew all the flowers that bloomed there. It was as if, with his words, he was picking a bouquet for me. I loved the sound of his voice as he said their names. I longed for that reality that would never be. I fell asleep reciting the list, their names on my lips.

#477

Damen will not look at Jokaste, or acknowledge her existence except as a means to get the child back. If my eyes meet hers, she always looks away as if in disgust.

I think I might be coming to hate her almost as much as Damen does.

Pallas and Lazar have taken to sharing a single blanket.

Every night, my sleeping pallet is next to Damen’s.

This morning I woke on my side pressed up against him. He was still asleep, dark curls sweeping across his eyes, as I softly moved away.

#478

The axel on one of the wagons broke. In the heat, the soldiers cut down a young poplar to fashion a new one.

A dark cloud rose on the horizon. It was a squadron of Kastor’s men, fifty soldiers decked out in coppery armor, leather skirts, white chitons and red cloaks.

The air went still as we all froze, watching the squadron, like a storm, approach.

I had an idea but there was no time to explain it to the men. Instead of hiding, which would only make us seem guiltier, we needed to lure them in to our plight.

I took a yellow silk scarf and climbed atop a wagon, waving it, and yelling for help.

Nikandros looked ready to kill me until he caught on to my reasoning.

Damen provided our cover with a quick-witted admission that we were Charls the renowned Veretian cloth merchant and his assistant, Lamen. Nice touch. Damen had learned the art of the game quite well in Nesson Eloy. I could count on him completely, and as I write this, I wished again for a future together that will never be.

It turns out his intuition saved us. The real Charls was in fact staying at the very inn the squadron escorted us to after the wagon was fixed. Charls vouched for us in a brilliant move, saying I was his cousin of the same name.

Nikandros had a first-hand lesson in the art of disguise, and the art of silence when the merchants around him began to talk of high taxes in Delfeur—Delpha—Nik’s territory where he is the kyros who imposed said taxes.

Damen, their true king, was relegated to a low stool at the far end of the table.

The story will be hilarious re-told over a campfire some day.

Right now Damen is in the bath. I have had my bath after renting the inn’s best room. I have plans for Damen tonight. For five long days I have wanted him. We are so close to the Kingsmeet. A week away at most before we will arrive. This might be my last chance to give him everything I have ever wanted to offer a true lover…the king of my heart.

#479

We are journeying with Charls’ wagon-train now and it legitimizes us being here and is a great cover for travel.

My night with Damen at the inn was everything I wanted. And yet I was still so unsure. Damen is a generous lover, but I am unused to such intimacy, how he can make me care so much. It can overwhelm.

Our first time—when he took me in his mouth—I had never done that before with anyone. I have given blow jobs—young, stupid, naïve ones to please my uncle--but never received. It felt—good. I liked it so much that it surprised me, unsettled me and I couldn’t come.

I never enjoyed doing that act, but being on the receiving end was new. I kept thinking in Ravenel: Damen must hate this. I couldn’t understand that he loved doing it to me. That his lack of inhibitions had less to do with experience and more to do with his giving nature. I icily swore weeks ago that I would not reciprocate with him. But everything between us is so different than my expectations, and intensifying by the day. I want him all the time. And I want to do everything with him, but my time is limited. I’ve never felt that with anyone.

So I decided to reciprocate.

I know I surprised him when I took him in my mouth at the inn. I had thought that perhaps this act might cause me to lose my dignity. Or see him lose his. But he is the most dignified person, and this act between us never became less than dignified, but only more so, as he quivered under my absolute control, as pleasure encompassed us in a focused, serene way, my own arousal answering in rigid enthusiasm. The fact that I felt pleasure from doing this to him, for him, turned my reality upside-down. (With Damen, that keeps happening.)

This diary should not be tainted with my memories of the past, but I cannot help it. I cannot help that I remembered that afterward, my uncle would always command me: “Go clean up!” He would not touch me until I had. He never kissed me except on the forehead or cheek. I was too unclean in the mouth.

I should never have expected that reaction from Damen, but I did not know what to expect, so when he finished, I swallowed and turned away and quickly retreated to the window, still savoring his sweetness, my heart beating very fast.

When he came to me and kissed me, I was shocked. Why should I have been? I chastise myself again and again. Damen is nothing like my uncle!

But he kissed me. And kept kissing me, until I kissed back. And when we separated, his eyes warm and dark, he began to undress me. Slowly. His love-making is an art he has mastered. But it is more. He wants me. Simple. To the point. I am the object of his desire. His love.

It is difficult, still, for me to assimilate. I have done everything to make him hate me. And all he does in return is make me dizzy with his affections, his reverence, his respect. His touch is like a flame all over, made in the shape of my body, all just for me.

On another road in a different world we could have this and only this and been happy for all our lives.

I know I think too much. Damen tells me, “Don’t think.” He is right. But it is hard to unlearn a lifetime of behavior.

When he touches me, and I am caught up, that is when it releases. I don’t think. I just am myself, pure and whole. The universe is pleasure and that is all. Everything else is petty and small.

This is how Damen makes love.

I am lost. I am undeserving. This is why I have my plan. Because I will do anything to save him. Sacrifice it all.

#480

I am ghost-flesh in this Akielon heat.

Our second day riding with Charls, we stopped at an inn in the afternoon to get away from the heat. The men ordered ale and wine. I drank only water and almost fell asleep in my chair.

Damen put a steadying hand on my forearm. I looked up at him. He nodded his head toward the table’s end. Nik had his head down on folded arms and was snoring softly.

We both began to laugh.

#481

With Charls and the other merchants in the lead, our larger wagon train has no trouble passing by blockades and border crossings.

Charls is a loyal man and I told him Damianos will never forget that. He did not ask if I will forget. He merely accepted what I said with his own manner of dignity.

Our diet on this trip has been mostly fish and hard bread when we camp. But with Charls and his group, things have gotten better. The merchant route takes us past small villages and we stop at inns and farmhouses for many meals. We eat figs, fresh white cheese, honey and nuts, olives and oranges.

The heat takes away my appetite, though.

At one private farmhouse, when I sat unmoving, just staring at my meal, Damen leaned toward my ear and softly said, “I could feed you from my fingers if you’d prefer.”

“Animal,” I replied fondly.

#482

Damen and I have had no more chances to be alone together. I crave his touch.

#483

As we draw close to the sea, the air turns stickier, and is salty. White gulls replace the sparrows and ravens. Firs and cypress give way to feathery palm trees. Straight and tall, they seem to sweep the endless blue Akielon sky with their billowing fronds.

The ocean villages are simple, white structures with curving balconies and stairways. They perch on hillsides, their architecture clean, spare, cool. They are beautiful, set upon the rustic cliffs.

When I do finally see Ios for the first time, I will try to memorize every detail. If all goes according to my plan, I will be alone, a captive of my uncle, when I approach it. I will be close to my last days on this Earth.

#484

I lie awake beside Damen just before dawn. We are on our separate bedrolls. The stars are setting.

I have time to think of all we have had together.

We are all wanderers at the edge of a late shadow, trying to find our way home to our beds.

We had a brief kingdom of embraces.

We are lightning, he and I. And forever will be.

There is a warm stillness in the space beside us.

I leave that warmth and rise. It is still dark.

I am going to release Jokaste.

#485

Damen,

I made Jokaste write a note to you before I undid her chains.

Now I sit in her empty wagon and scribble this in my diary.

I wish I could see your grand palace with you at my side, amid all the grace and courtesy you project.

And I wanted so badly to go with you to the summer palace—but that can never be.

I am sorry to be leaving you so soon. If you ever find this book among my things, I want you to know these past weeks with you have been the best days of my young life. I want you to know that in this asylum of a world we were born into, you brought sanity and peace. Joy and affection. I learned to love again, to re-imagine the darkness and see beauty again, to rediscover in your presence the deepening long days of russet sunsets, and star and moon-lit nights by your side. I notice how the very air sings because we breathe it together. How I love the gestures of your eyes on mine.

This summer of my heart’s opening has been a wonder. We have moved beyond the distances between us. The world quickens. All dark hate fades with you. My dreams feel closer than ever to coming true.

The gold cuff on my wrist means we are united in life, in death, in all things between.

I love

with all my being

the man of the southern realm.

Beyond all reckoning, all time, all worlds, you are my kingdom without end.

In the deepest, darkest ravings of a mad universe, I met you and all the wrongs were slowly set right again, all the blackened lamps re-lit.

In your eyes, I’ve come back to life, the ice-prince unfrozen, the boy I once was, broken, unhealed, now whole again.

I thank you for standing by me even when I did not deserve you, my slave, my king, my…Damen.

#486

It has been two days since I have been able to write again. And in that time, worlds ended. And worlds began.

My death, for which I had scrupulously planned, was—as is obvious from this writing—thwarted.

I am writing from the king’s chambers at the white palace of Ios. Damen is within my sight. I will not leave his side. He is sleeping, recovering from a knife wound he received courtesy of Kastor.

Things have changed quickly. While my uncle’s guard and the Veretian Council have pledged their fealty to me now, I still do not know who truly can and cannot be trusted.

Kastor’s forces have acknowledged Damen as their rightful king, and imprisoned those who resist the change, and though the bells have chimed the passing of a false king and the rise of the legitimate heir, there is still unrest. I am sure there are factions who still mean to undermine this new regime. I will allow no one but Paschal to touch Damen, and Nikandros to guard him. Pallas and Lazar also stand watch in hall. Jord brings me updates.

I sit at a round table by the king’s bed, the wooden legs carved into a lion’s claws. The morning light streams in through the casements in rose and gold.

Just yesterday morning, at this hour, I was in chains and behind bars in Ios’ dungeon, awaiting a mock trial.

Now Damen’s chest rises and falls with quiet breathing. Dark, shining curls clasp his forehead. He looks younger than I’ve ever seen him. While the tumbled warrior sleeps, the youthful boy appears in his smooth face, relaxed, serene, surrounded by silken pillows. Damen in repose.

He is safe. I am safe. At last.

I don’t know where to begin to tell my story of the Kingsmeet, of my uncle, of the cloistered, white-clad knights of the guard. And of my imprisonment. My trial. And Damen’s unexpected appearance, bringing with it evidence to exonerate me and prove my uncle the true traitor to Vere.

The last two days have been torrid, to be sure. But it seems to have a happy ending.

For now.

But things happened so quickly. And I am still assimilating it all. It helps me to write it out.

The Kingsmeet meeting ended as I had planned, but not without some major life-and-death hitches.

But I should like to first describe the incredible edifice that is the Kingsmeet. It is a powerful place. Oldness resides there. And the spirits of many kings and queens from many lands.

From the plains it is a crown-shaped abode made of white marble. High, fifty-foot towers create a gateway complete with portcullis to protect the vast, sloping courtyard that leads to the great hall. Beyond that is an inner chamber that houses the Kingstone.

We announced ourselves as travelers at the gate. When we entered, a greeter gave us white sashes, heard our vows to not break the sacred peace, and took the tribute of gold we had brought. Within, the greatest fighters of Akielos, strictly chosen, served two-year terms of strict discipline. These white-cloaked warriors protected the sanctity of this old and revered place.

We ascended worn, marble steps. The walls were etched with beautiful carvings, figures from Akielos’ past. Damen’s ancestors. He named them all.

I was not the first Veretian prince to cross into this place. I knew what awaited us. And though I knew—or thought I knew—this journey would bring about my eventual death, I was honored. And in awe.

When we finally passed into the room of the Kingstone, there he was. My uncle perched on the throne as if it were his right. He was alone. The white-cloaked sentries that protected this place protected him as well. And us. He had no need for guards.

Damen had expected a wet nurse, a child, and perhaps a couple of Kastor’s soldiers.

But I had known all along it would be my uncle we would meet.

He did not have the child. It wasn’t Damen’s son anyway. Jokaste had written that in her note which Damen had not yet read. But I was willing to trade myself for it anyway in the hopes that it and Damen would stay safe. Alive. Unharmed. My uncle would stand down, give Akielos back to its rightful heir, and return to Vere to rule.

But Damen had seen none of that yet. He knew nothing.

And as usual, my uncle turned the tables on me again. He had never planned to give Damen anything. Except the truth of our past. Mine and my uncle’s. How did he know I hadn’t told? He knew me well. My secret was my vulnerability. I never told a soul. He knew the revelation of our relationship, where I played my uncle’s beautiful pet in return for the companionship of the only family I had left at age 13, dissembled me in front of others. As a prince my reputation could not condone it. As a boy, the pain of his duplicity, his false promises, his false love, burned me, shamed me, hurt me.

And so, with the well-aimed blade of his voice, my uncle provoked Damen all too easily, a manipulation tactic I had learned myself from this very man.

Direct and without conscience, my uncle’s words dishonored me in front of the man who loved me.

I watched how, in seconds, Damen’s self-control shattered into a million pieces. I watched him transform into the machine I’d seen in fights, in battle, in the arena at Marlas where he took me apart at the tip of his sword, and at the games where he was a powerhouse who could not be beat.

When Damen let loose, it was beautiful and terrible at the same time. He did not think. He simply acted. Moved. The great warrior who had defeated my uncle’s troops, which outnumbered his, at Charcy. The man who had bested Auguste. The lover who had won me over.

Now all his focus was on my uncle. For my honor, he would kill him. And then he would die, because the Kingsmeet was sacred, the pact of peace sacrosanct.

In the end, my uncle mastered Damen without ever having raised a finger. No muscles in his face moved as he and I watched Damen take down ten men. At the end, three were dead. And Damen knelt, back bent, hobbled in chains, once again thrown to the floor before me and my uncle.

We had come full circle from the throne room at Arles where he had become my uncle’s gift to me, where we first met.

And so my uncle won again. My life for Damen’s. Of course, I went willingly.

I barely remember the ride on horseback through the twilight and early evening, tied to my horse, my hands chained behind my back, a collar about my throat.

A guard of twelve escorted us. My uncle was silent the whole way.

I wondered many times that night if he still had any feeling left in him for me, or for anyone. I wondered if he ever had.

I still remembered good times, too. My brother and I would travel with my uncle to various forts and castles. We enjoyed our trips, the camping, the family, all of it. I was too young to know of my uncle’s predilections back then, but I had no need to worry. Auguste was always there. Auguste was my protector.

I know that now.

I remember also thinking of Damen a lot on that long ride to Ios, knowing he’d be hurt by my actions. That he’d grieve hard. But a strange joy upheld me to know that he would live. That alone gave me strength. I could take anything as long as I knew Damen would live.

He would be kept in lockdown at the Kingsmeet dungeon until morning but then he would be let go.

Both of us in chains again. What a pair we made.

By the time we approached the white palace, I barely felt the chains. It was late and very dark. I could see only flickering lanterns, and an outline of the palace, impressive against the limestone cliffs. I could hear the shush of the sea, smell the salt and the brine among the summer flowers of the courtyard.

I was taken straight to the dungeon, and barely saw the darkened halls. Rough hands pushed and shoved me, grumbled, yelled and insulted.

I ignored them all. It was as if all my life had been but a dream, and Damen the best part of it. And now the dream was about to end. I would wake in a new place. I knew not where. I didn’t care.

Chained to the walls with rough straw for a bed, I stared upward at the dark, hard ceiling and remembered Damen’s voice once again. “Don’t think.”

I smiled like a madman, there in the darkness.

I couldn’t wait for the day. I couldn’t wait for it all to be over.

#487

The diary entry above was all I had the energy to write this morning. There is more to tell, but Damen woke, restless and unsure, calling my name. Paschal brought medicine and changed his dressings.

The day is hot. I rubbed Damen down with cold-cloths for an hour. He finally became comfortable again and fell back to sleep.

I stayed with him another hour as he slept, unwilling to leave the bed.

I know he is in pain, but he would never complain.

Now I wonder as I return to my writings, as the afternoon arcs blue, if I will ever let him read this. I think perhaps never. Or maybe I will leave it on his pillow some day, when I am older and stronger, and he is a fixture upon my bed and in my heart, never to leave me, and our kingdoms are united in the grace of overwhelming peace. Maybe then, I will let him read this.

In the dungeons of Ios, I had strange moments of clarity. When one is resigned to their own death, the world suddenly becomes less real.

I was brought a midnight meal of hard bread and crusted cheese. I couldn’t even think about eating. The last meal I had was with Damen on the road to the Kingsmeet. We had some dried fish, and some fresh bread from a farmhouse. And one orange, which we split. After we finished eating under the shade of an olive tree, he leaned forward and gently kissed me, the juice of the orange still on his lips.

This is our last kiss , I thought, and turned away. I know he thought me cold, the frigid prince, the unsure virgin, but that was not it at all. It was the reality of my plan, and of my grief, which were too much for me to bear.

The dungeons of Ios are not particularly rancid. My bedding was clean. The walls were blissfully clear of vermin. And the cells were cool, away from the night’s summer heat. The only scents I remember: burning oils from the lanterns of the guards, the earthy musk of the straw, and the usual iron dampness of being in underground shadows.

My chains rattled every time I moved. I thought again of Damen, chained for long weeks at Arles. And my own past contempt.

I did not hear any sounds of others in neighboring cells. Perhaps I had been the only prisoner that night, or the others were in a separate block.

I remember thinking I should be bitter. Enraged. Or perhaps sobbing in utter defeat.

All I felt was a kind of strange calm. The knot in my stomach? That was all for Damen. But it eased every time I reminded myself he would be free. Alive. Unharmed.

I dozed and dreamed. Of red rooms I’d never seen before. Lacy curtains. Green seas.

All so strange. My last night on Earth and before even the trial, already I was vanishing into foreign realms. I did not dream of my uncle. I had cast him out of my mind for good. It would be all I could muster to stand before him tomorrow, hear his liar voice, see his false, sad face as he sentenced me to death. It’s funny. I once actually believed he had a soul.

Dawn came. There were no windows. The only way I knew was when I heard the changing of the guard. And when the slaves came to refill the oil lamps in the outer hall. Shadows moved over the hard floor, slithering over the walls.

I might’ve slept. I don’t know. Everything like a dream.

The rattling of my cage door startled me. Rough, strong hands closed over me, pulling me up, dragging me into the hall. I had no moment in which to speak. I had no words for them anyway. No questions. I knew all the answers now, and all that was to be.

My sandals slipped on the stone steps. One guard cursed and shoved me hard. I almost fell a second time, but the red-clad guard in front of me blocked my fall.

When I was brought into the great hall of the throne room it was so filled with light that at first it stung my eyes. I blinked and then I saw the crowds. Akielon and Veretian courtiers, Veretian soldiers, an Akielon honor guard surrounding Kastor, and the beside him, on a twin throne, my uncle and his council, once my council, sworn to protect my rightful inheritance, now my mortal enemies.

I was aware of the thin chiton I wore, torn a hands-breath up the side (when that had happened I could not recall) and laced sandals scuffed and soiled from the long journey to the Kingsmeet, and onward to Ios. All my life I was used to wearing tightly laced clothing, all the skin of my body covered leaving only my face bare. I used clothing like armor. I liked the feel of it, even in the heat, the security of tight fastenings, sturdy grommets, streamlined, everything in its perfect place. It suited me.

Now all that had been taken. All I had was my true self, the purest sense of what I always was, since birth. A boy. A human. And no matter the blood in my veins, royal and proud, still always mortal. I was a fleeting glimpse of life in the vastness of all time.

Dungeons make you realize things like this. Dungeons make you wavery.

And uncles like mine make you, after awhile, not care about anything. Even your own death.

I looked away from the boy sitting by the Regent near the throne, oblivious. He could not have been more than eleven.

My uncle wore red velvet and lots of jewelry. I looked away from him as well and my eyes sought Kastor.

Damen’s brother. Half-brother, actually. The bastard king. The one who had had the gall to make Damen a slave.

He sat in a rather relaxed posture, dark-haired and dark-eyed like Damen, but that was where all resemblance ended. They did not look alike at all. At nine years older than Damen, Kastor was in his prime, well-muscled and darkly bearded, but unremarkable in his presence. I’m biased, of course. Kastor, whom Damen had loved, would be unremarkable to me even if sitting in a golden throne on a golden cloud attended to by golden nymphs.

As my guards hobbled me, and roughly locked my arms behind my back, I could only stare at Kastor and think about my hands around his throat, pressing down hard. What bliss there could be in such a simple gesture.

Kastor did not meet my eyes, and this one thing told me all I needed to know about him. Like my uncle, he too was an empty coward fueled on jealousy, greed, hatred.

It could not come too soon, my departure from a world where these two ruled.

I should have felt tired after all that had happened. Instead, I felt clear-headed, strong. My shoulder gave me no pain. I stood awkwardly, yet apart from the proceedings. Unaffected.

Throw everything you have at me, I thought toward my uncle. I will still stand. And I will be remembered. Damen will remember me. And that memory will be true.

Words were thrown about the hall. “Traitor!” “Vile-scum!” “Prince-Killer’s whore.” And worse.

As I write this now, a small breath escapes my lungs. The cruelties and crudities of mobs will never change. It’s human nature. But how ugly it is. And to think I was once just like them. How angry I was. How very much I wanted others to suffer, most especially Damen. Ripped of dignity. Stolen from kingship. Made into the lowest, basest form of life, degraded, spoiled, wretched.

And yet, no matter what I did to him in Arles, the special light in his eyes never went out. He kept his soul. He didn’t even know how to give it away, to lose it.

The list of my crimes began, recited by the newest member of the Veretian council, Mathe, in a clear but emotionless voice.

I did not make myself listen. I stood tall, unhunched. I kept my head up. But I saw little. For I was no longer interested in this spectacle.

Many speeches were made of my disloyalty, my attempts to sabotage my own country, start wars, incite Akielons, make deals with Akielons, spy for Akielons. It went on and on. I denied all. For all the good it did. And well, to be honest, some of it was true. But only insofar as I needed to act to keep my kingdom, to protect Vere.

How long this would be allowed to continue, I did not know. My uncle’s punishments in the past always lasted until he grew weary of them. They were for his entertainment alone, nothing else. He gloried in seeing me tested to the limit, chained in iron, struggling to keep from fidgeting, my muscles longing to stretch free.

He would finish this when he was fully satisfied, and no sooner. He had always been the same, in daily life, in bed, only looking for his own pleasure. Selfish. Never easily satisfied. Always quick with the criticism and then a pretty gift. A more contemptuous man I have never known.

When I heard a ruckus outside the hall it was a shock when all attention was drawn from me. Was this another witness? I wondered. Or maybe the executioner? At last. At last.

But it was not an executioner who came through the wide, tall doors.

Though you stood in irons and an old cloak. you looked regal as ever. But my only thought: Now we are both dead.

Why did I ever think you would not come? But I had convinced myself, as always, that my way was the only way. That you would have no recourse but to leave, return to Karthas and your 10,000 man army.

Why did I ever think you would choose a kingdom over this?

I am an idiot. I know that now.

It is because of you, Damen, that I live.

Councilor Mathe called our union “depraved”. He couldn’t know.

If they were all so hungry to believe in depravity, then they could think it of me. I cared not. I cared only that Damen be saved, and I tried once again to convince them all of his innocence.

Damen would have none of it, of course. He could have easily renounced me, faced down Kastor, taken back his throne. Instead, he proceeded to defend me.

It was as if I had been in a fever of my own making for seven long years.

Witnesses were brought. There was a moment of further betrayal when Guion lied about my guilt. It was short-lived, but not before the black, square cloth came in the slaves hands, closer and closer. The symbol of my sentence to death.

Damen was struggling. I wanted to tell him there was no use. Though my muscles threatened to cramp from standing for hours under the proceedings, I stood tall, and still.

It was only in the last seconds, when my uncle chastised me, told me I should have known better than to bring Guion to testify (although I didn’t, Damen did) I had a final twist of thought. And realized, when I glanced out over the crowd and the little band of our camp that had traveled together for weeks, that maybe there was one more person who would speak. I gambled. “Guion is not who I brought,” I said.

My eyes went to Loyse. And to my amazement, she nodded in full rapport with me and stepped forward. “He brought me,” she said.

And what a gamble. This regal woman who had been perhaps too quiet in her love for her sons had known about the plot between Kastor and the Regent all along. The plot to kill Theomedes. The plot to enslave Damen and take Ios. The plot to keep me from my own throne.

Damen’s mind must have flashed over everything like lightning. I had once called him brute, even slow in my own mind. But he grasped the final truth before even I, calling Paschal, a man I had over-looked in all my uncle’s twisted dealings. That Paschal could know a truth never before suspected, surprised even me.

But Damen already had the equations in his mind. He knew it was something. He just didn’t know what.

In that single moment, the fate of my uncle turned. And we all learned the truth. It was the Regent’s archer who killed my father.

I lost my father and my brother on the same day. My uncle had my father killed. Damen killed my brother.

Those two men are the only lovers I’ve ever had.

What a story!

I think I should, right now, throw it directly into the flames, stop writing, stop thinking, just stop everything. But my pen keeps writing. My heart keeps beating. And I look around me and realize through all the horror, subterfuge and lies, I have won.

I have won.

I have been writing this for hours. Now I look over and see Damen sitting up in the bed, his white bandage stark against the deeper tones of his skin. “Laurent,” he says, voice sleep-muffled and soft, “Are you crying?”

#488

It’s been two days since my last entry. I have yet to read it over. Maybe I never will.

Damen is healing fast. This is good because there is so much left to be done. I can’t do it all alone, the union of kingdoms, of cultures, of us.

I had thought to write in here about my own killing of Damen’s brother. Kastor. I had thought to say, “A brother for a brother. Now we are even.”

But that is not true. I did not kill his brother to get even. Not for vengeance, anger or insult.

All I was doing was protecting Damen because I just can seem to stop.

He is everything to me.

Now that the family betrayals are behind us, we can move forward.

There are still some things unspoken between us, but that will work itself out.

We have yet to speak of what happened at the Kingsmeet when Damen learned of my true relationship with my uncle.

But I see myself now in his eyes. Vindication. Acceptance. Heart of my heart.

We are the tender lightning and haloed suns over the seas of Akielos. We are the silver hours and the white mists of Vere. We are together, and now time bows seamless before us, as it should be.

Soon, our kingdoms will be one.

(end)