‘You two are going to rot my teeth.’
They had run to the covered awnings of the upper terrace, where she and Demelza and a handful of nobles and courtiers had already taken shelter.
Meilyr and Osian dripped all over the stones. It was easy to let half-embarrassed laughter bubble up at the state of the prince, shockingly human with his hair plastered to his cheeks.
‘We were just saying how you have to have a proper wedding,’ Aldreda informed them. ‘You didn’t even invite Demelza, Osian? It won’t do. You’ll suffer as I did, and have a ridiculous ceremony in Khaim.’
Murmurs of agreement. Excitement.
Osian hesitated.
Meilyr covered: put his hand on the prince’s chest and leaned in against him. ‘I rather enjoyed our more intimate ceremony.’
His heart pounded at his own forwardness, at all the people watching.
Osian firmed his arm around him and laced their fingers. ‘You know I feel the same,’ he said, seemingly recovered.
Lunch was often taken in the solar, with Demelza and Faina always,Aldreda and Edeva usually, Wystan occasionally.
Osian came when he could, which was thankfully most of the time.
After the initial panic wore into regularity, it became… bearable. Sometimes, almost agreeable. Enough easy talk to be wrapped up in, Osian’s closeness on the divan and Demelza’s assuring smiles. Aldreda’s and Faina’s animated expostulations and allergy to silence. Edeva’s laughter and fondness for clinging to everyone, including Meilyr.
After lunch, Meilyr often returned to the gardens. Sometimes, he saw Haydn. A snatched conversation about the progress of a herb, with Pedr nearby. A question about a small issue in the leaves of a fruit tree, or a well-concealed tease about how dashing he and the prince looked together.
Other days, especially when it rained, afternoons were whiled away in the solar, reading or playing talon. Muddling through Aldreda’s extensive explanations of the complex board game, before Osian gently took over.
Dinner was almost always taken in the Great Hall: the part of the day most taxing for his nerves. Lord Gelens was always present, like a rash that refused to heal. Meilyr had no choice but to master how to smile and clap through entertainment. The court was fond of music and song, and the hall often broke into dance and raucous singing. As though one of their nobles had not been murdered by Cyngalegsorcery.
Well, if they wanted to pretend, that was certainly better than the alternative.
After dinner, Aldreda often corralled them back to the solar: drinks and talk and talon, Osian’s arm across the back of the divan behind him. At first, with pointed distance. Then, when Meilyr settled closer, gentle fingers in his hair, or tracing the embroidery at his shoulder.
Little intimacies to sell the lie.
Osian would excuse them eventually. They would descend the keep and ascend his tower, where a tension would fall from Meilyr’s bones as the door closed behind them.
‘I wonder, might I read more of that book tonight?’
‘Of course,’ the prince said.
It was soothing to feel its weight in his lap, the inked petals under his fingers. They sat in comfortable silence as Osian glanced through a history book. Occasionally his eyes rose, to Meilyr. To his mother’s cherished tome.
Meilyr felt strangely bold. ‘Some of these are truly fascinating.’
The prince focused on him immediately, alert and interested.
‘This one,’ Meilyr said, ‘only grows in the southernmost reaches of Raak.’
‘The blue one, with the veins?’
‘Yes.’
‘My mother…’ A catch. An emotion, glimpsed like a vast dark shape under water. ‘I often asked her to show it to me. I do not remember most of the names, but…’
The history book sat forgotten.
Meilyr followed the gentle pull of the tide: rose and approached the divan. ‘May I?’