‘You should take the bed—’
‘Don’t.’ Meilyr’s hands firmed on his arm and chest. ‘Please, it was not that. There is simply a lot in my head.’
It must truly have been a great deal, for him to admit it. Osian could sympathise. He slumped to the cushions, taking another drink of the bittersweet concoction. ‘I am sorry you have not slept.’
‘Says the man who was just poisoned. I will manage.’
Osian should let it be, but there was a new tension in Meilyr, something edged with long-wrung-out concern and fretting. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.
Meilyr went for his usual dismissal, but paused and changed his mind. ‘My Prince, do you have any idea who might have poisoned you?’
‘You do not believe a vengeful spirit tampered with my goblet?’
‘I believe if this was spirits or sorcery, you would be dead.’
A needless bur of guilt caught in Meilyr’s brow. Osian wanted to pluck it away and smooth the surface left behind with his thumb. ‘As do I,’ was all he said.
Meilyr hesitated, still holding back.
Osian made not so much a leap as a measured step. ‘Wystan cornered you earlier. I should have asked about it sooner.’
‘He… wanted to talk.’
‘May I ask after the subject matter?’ He could not keep the steel from his voice.
Meilyr hedged, that pause when he feared he would step over a line that did not exist.
Osian spoke it into being. ‘You are concerned he is the one who had me poisoned. It is a possibility I am very aware of.’
Shock slipped into concern. ‘Forgive me, I did not wish…’
‘To speak ill of a prince of Khaim, my brother. There is nothing to forgive. It is likely we are not alone in coming to such conclusions, and please know there is never anything you can say that will be… improper.’ His throat almost failed him at the last, but the drink was truly helping.
‘At my door,’ Meilyr said, ‘he told me…’
Fear. Hesitance. Osian wanted to reach for him so sharply he had to clench his fists.
The words spilled as though from a wound. ‘He knows about Celyn. He knows what happened when you came across us in the street, and said I should remember he could ruin all of us if he wanted. I should have told you at once, but—’ His eyes welled. ‘I am so sorry, Majes—’
His anguish froze as Osian cupped his cheek, his autumn-forest eyes widening. His skin was slightly cool, hair soft where the tips of Osian’s fingers brushed it. Everything in Osian wanted to lean in and kiss him, swallow whole the agony that brimmed beneath his skin, until it could never reach him again.
Instead, Osian remembered himself sharply, and withdrew his hand.
Meilyr caught his wrist.
Another impossibility gathered in his expression, bared in his gaze and his parted lips. Neither of them dared to breathe.
Meilyr let go. ‘I am sorry.’
‘No, I should not have…’ It was Osian’s mistake; he had to push on. ‘Please, do not harbour any guilt over what happened with Wystan. He placed you in an intolerable position and manipulated you into silence. The only question is why, if he was about to make a move through which your conversation would only condemn him.’
‘Unless he meant for fear to hold my tongue,’ Meilyr said. ‘Unless he means for me to direct the blame away from him, using Celyn as leverage.’
‘I will not let that happen. With whatever strength I possess, I will not allow him to harm your brother.’
Meilyr wrung his hands. ‘Thank you.’
‘I do not wish for you to be afraid,’ Osian confessed. As though he alone had the power to prevent that.