Page 54 of The Moon Blessed King
‘Oh. I love you.’
Elician smiles. His eyes crinkle at the corners and he leans in, slowly and steadily. Cat meets him halfway. They kiss, and it is warm and awkward and broken as they hug each other and press their lips to each other’s cheeks and necks and hair, laughing, joyous and fond. Elician pulls Cat ever closer, cradling him in his lap, holding him like he never wants to let him go.
It feels perfect.
It feels like peace itself has been condensed to a single sensation. As if all the world has turned blurry and unnecessary and all that matters is Elician, here, beside him. Elician, who kisses him again and again and swears, ‘Yes,yes, I love you too.’ He uses the Soleben word,vak. He uses the Lunae word,meai. He repeats it in both languages again and again, ensuring that this time there is no confusion or misunderstanding. ‘I don’t want to be alone. Never again. I don’t wantyouto be alone. I will be here, with you, no matter what.’
Cat curls with his head against Elician’s chest, with Elician’s arms around him, his lips pressed to his brow. He clings to Elician’s clothes and imagines a world where there is no war or conflict, nobody left to save, where he could stay in the warm embrace of his husband and know there is nothing more pressing he needs to do, nowhere else he needs to be.
Depression and despair have clung to Elician since the momenthe walked from Alelune all those months ago. It clings to his skin even tighter now that they have returned. Even in this tender moment of bliss, Elician whispers, ‘I’m going to disappoint you one day,’ with all the gravitas of a penitent seeking absolution from their crimes, a confession laid bare on the edge of tears, on the shores of tender sorrow.
‘So will I,’ Cat tells him. ‘I love you anyway.’
Their nascent fire is dying without more fuel, without their attention and support. Orange light flickers across Elician’s cherished face. He blinks back tears as he kisses Cat again. ‘We’re going to be okay,’ Cat swears. He believes it. He must. One day, neither of them will be king of either country. One day, there will be no obligations. And all they need to do to get there is to survive.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Cat
Cat wakes to the sound of wood shifting on the fire. His eyes open slowly, first catching sight of the flames, then drifting idly to what lies beyond. In the dark gloom of the shadows, a large pale shape floats just above the ground. Cat’s eyes struggle to focus. The shape is round, white, streaked with dark grey or black. It has eyes. A face. Furry and lethal and—
That’s a nightcat, Cat thinks, gasping and jerking just a little as the realization takes hold.
He does not make it far. The sharp sting of something else entirely presses against his throat. A sword. Someone has found them. The blade rests against his skin, promising reprisal should he move any further. He blinks through the flames, but the nightcat is gone and all he has been left with is an assailant in the woods.
Elician is still asleep, limbs loose around Cat’s body and slipping from him every time Cat subtly shifts or moves. His head is turned to the side, his too-short curls tangling messily against the earth. They are still growing in, not nearly long enough to cover his face.He’ll be recognized, Cat knows. Elician is clearly not Alelunen, and trying to lie about it would earn neither of them any favours at all.
‘Sit up,’ the assailant commands, quiet enough not to disturbElician, though the blade shifts just enough to incentivize Cat into action. ‘Slowly.’
He sits up. The blade follows him. It does not cut him, but it stays there, waiting for the opportunity. Elician’s cloak falls from Cat’s shoulders. He breathes in deeply. Cat waits for a command.
He hears nothing as the man steps into focus between Cat and the fire, turning his blade so its point aims at the centre of Cat’s throat. ‘Tell me, Your Grace, what is the ruling couple of Soleb doing so far into Alelune without escort or invitation?’
There had been little hope in hiding that Elician was Soleben, but to know how quickly they were identified is somewhat of an embarrassment. Cat imagines Lio will be furious when he hears of it.
‘We don’t need an escort,’ Cat says quietly. ‘We cannot be harmed.’
‘That sounds very much like hubris, Your Grace.’ The stranger’s voice is light, slightly higher in pitch than either Cat’s or Elician’s, and utterly without malice. Unlike Nured, who would have gloated at the capture, there is almost an air of exasperation lurking in this man’s tone.I know this voice, Cat thinks.I know this uniform.‘Though truly, only someone with incredible hubris would light a fire in the Grünewald…That smoke can be seen forleagues. Anyone could have found you.’
The man wears brown leather boots and thick trousers. A leather cuirass covers his chest, and long sleeves reach down to his wrists and are tucked into brown gloves. At his shoulders a deep blue cloak is pinned into place. The hood is up, and a dark cloth obscures the bottom half of his face, but that is pointless. Cat knows who this is.
‘And yet you came alone,’ Cat says. ‘So, are you not equally overconfident?’ No other human soul registers on the edge of his consciousness – at least, not anyone close enough to offer support. Scouts may have tracked their position…but only this man has approached. (There is also, much to his great disappointment, nosense of any other large living creature in the vicinity. His nightcat, it seems, had not been there at all.)
‘Are you so certain?’ the man asks, very slowly lowering his sword.
‘Yes.’ Then, with growing confidence, murmurs, ‘I wrote you a letter.’
‘I received your letter,’ Captain Partho says, returning his sword to the scabbard at his side. He turns, then, to inspect their fire. The flames have died quite a bit in the night, but a small one still burns over the largest branch Elician found. It stays upright amongst a strong bed of coals, and Partho warms his hands over it, rubbing them twice to encourage the blood to flow faster through his body. ‘I’m surprised you recognized me. It has been a very long time since we last met, Stello.’
‘I’ve been thinking of you,’ Cat replies quietly. It is, perhaps, not the most elegant admission, but he continues as best he can. ‘I have been thinking of the past.’
His father had smiled in the moments before Cat killed him. He had leaned into Cat’s touch, wilfully embracing him even though he must have known what would happen. His weight forced Cat to the ground when he had not been prepared for it. But someone pulled former Prince Consort Marias’s body off Cat in the end. If Cat thinks hard enough, he can almost see Partho’s face in that memory. And as Partho pulls back his hood, revealing his dark curly hair and his delicately curved jaw and bow-shaped lips, that memory only grows stronger.
It expands, cloudy images he has never quite been able to discern gaining vibrancy. Blank-faced forms lurking in the corners of the few memories he can adequately summon gain sharpened clarity. He had known this man, known him well. ‘You taught me how to use my sword.’
‘Is that what you remember?’ Partho asks. He does not sound bothered by the information. Fond, perhaps. Wistful. ‘You were a fine student.’
‘You were a fine teacher.’ It earns him a smile, painfully familiar. ‘I don’t remember much more.’
