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AURELIUS
Aurelius sat at the crest of the headland, separated from the still-raucous festival by a thirty-foot dive into azure. Curving all around the northern side of the bay were the rolling vineyards and little villas that eventually joined the city proper.
He’d discovered the location of Calix’s personal vineyard a few weeks back—though he hadn’t yet visited it. The prince had been shaken enough by his presence at public events. He couldn’t imagine that turning up at his private home, uninvited, would have played to his advantage.
Calix stopped when he reached the crest, gifted expansive views of the ocean beyond. He paused for a long while, just a few feet away, before eventually approaching.
Calix sat beside him on the soft grass. The muscles of his exposed thighs rippled with strength.
The silence persisted, with naught but the clicking of insects in the pleasant warmth.
“Can your cousin hold her liquor?” asked Calix, eventually.
“Tiggy? The only thing she can do with liquor is hold it. Drinking it would certainly be a mistake.”
“Then I fear my sister will make short work of her. Few can outdrink her when she is in her element.”
“I imagine there are few who could outdo her at anything when she is in her element,” said Aurelius with a bitter laugh.
“Yes,” said Calix, taking in his half-healed face, the bruises having begun to lighten. “She is a remarkable woman.”
“Remarkable and persistent. I had to learn about your little social group at the pub just to see you.”
“I am sure she is only trying to protect me,” he said.
His tone was neutral, and Aurelius couldn’t tell how much Calix knew of his battles with Zosime—or whether she was acting on his instructions.
Aurelius took a deep breath. He had waited for this moment for a month and a half. And now he had him. He knew his secret. Whether they fucked or not was irrelevant, though seeing him here, in the warm air, with this view, the thought was as tempting as ever.
But now he had something to trade: his silence in exchange for what he wanted—the military alliance that would get him the inheritance he so richly deserved.
And Calix knew that he knew. That was why he’d followed him up here.
But he won’t raise it himself, will he? For a secret like this, he wants to know for certain.
“Do the others at the Beautiful Bunch know that your true affliction is different from theirs?” said Aurelius. “That the reason you appear so stiff in public is that you are trying to suppress an entirely different curse from the divine?”
Calix didn’t flinch, but nor did he respond immediately. He just stared out at the white-tipped swell. “That song you whistled as you passed, it is the same one you sang at The Bunch?”
“‘The Satyr of the Seed’?” he said, putting a slight emphasis on the relevant word.
Calix’s face gave nothing away. “It is another of your Nenia songs, isn’t it?”
“Another?”
“You whistled a different one when you followed me into the bathhouse at Palaestra Xiphos.”
Aurelius thought back, the memory of a random song rather more faded than other events of that day. “So I did. ‘The Enchantment of the Eidolon.’”
“Yes,” said Calix. “A song about two young lovers, nearing their wedding day. If I recall, a jealous eidolon copies the man’s image and tries to seduce his betrothed. The young man sings the song to convince her that he is the one she fell in love with.”
“And what of it, Your Highness? You are rather avoiding my questi—”
“I would like you to sing it for me.”
Aurelius laughed. “Why?”
“Do I need a reason?”
