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He’d made a mistake. He’d made an awful mistake. Tadek clearly didn’t want to be here.
“How can I serve you?” Tadek asked, still in that low, uncharacteristic voice. No brightness in his voice, none of that sly, sidelong laughter that seemed to leave every word laden with two or three layers of meaning and scandal.
“I . . . I don’t actually need anything,” Kadou began. “I just . . .” Mistake. Mistake.
“If His Highness does not require you, you can come help me change the sheets on the bed,” Evemer said flatly.
ThenTadek met Kadou’s eyes. The life flashed back into them, a moment of anger and then hilarity, as if he were inviting Kadou to share in a joke—can you believe this?“Of course,” he said lightly, no hint of anything in his voice. “If you need an extra pair of hands, I’m happy to assist.”
Kadou put his head in his hands as the two of them went out of the room—they left the door open and he could hear the murmur of Tadek’s voice as they worked, but he was too drunk to make out any words. It didn’t sound like Tadek was going to try to murder—
Thatwasn’t a good joke. Even in the privacy of his own mind, that wasn’t a good joke at all.
He staggered to his feet and contemplated the wine for a moment before drifting toward his bedroom.
“Well, you’re so new,” Tadek was saying, very kind and warm, “so no wonder you’re still folding the corners like that. Scripture-perfect, aren’t they? There’s faster ways I can show you.” Kadou leaned on the doorjamb and watched Evemer’s shoulders go tense and his posture stiffen in that secretly offended way he had. “Speaking of that—listen, I had five years in the core-guard, so if you have any questions, just let me know, all right?”
“Yes, I expect after five years, you would know your way around bedsheets,” Evemer said tonelessly, and Kadou’s heart skipped a beat.
Gods. Of course he knew Kadou had been sleeping with Tadek. Everyone did, by this point, didn’t they? Kadou met Tadek’s eyes—he shrugged minutely, and Kadou mentally wrung his hands and shoved the thought aside.
Evemer smoothed the last wrinkles out of the sheets and stood at attention. “Your Highness, may I be excused for dinner?”
“Of course,” Kadou said, waving vaguely. “You can eat mine, if you want. I’m not going to.”
Evemer paused for half a heartbeat. “Highness,” he said, and walked out.
Kadou stood aside to let him pass, and shuffled into the room to sit on the edge of the bed, ruining all the work they’d done to smooth the sheets.
Tadek stood before him, hands empty at his sides.
“Can we talk sometime?” Tadek said. The door was still open. Neither of them moved to close it.
“What have we to talk about?” Kadou said. “Everything is terrible. My fault. I ruined it.”
“You saved my life,” Tadek said. “I want to talk about that, if you’ll allow me. I haven’t had a chance to say thank you.”
“It was nothing.”
“You asked Her Majesty to lay my life in your hands.”
Kadou flushed hot. “I couldn’t just leave you to it. You ought to be angry—it’s my fault that you—”
Tadek sank to his knees before him, took Kadou’s hands in his own, pressed the backs of them to his forehead. “Highness,” he said. The warmth and assurance of his manner finally broke on that word, like a cliff crumbling into the sea.
“Don’t. Don’t,” he said. Gods, he was tired. And drunk. Tadek’s forehead against his hand was very warm. “You serve me, I protect you. That’s the—the oath, isn’t it? I was only doing what I thought was my duty—I’m so sorry.”
Tadek lifted his head. “Oh, bullshit, Kadou—whatduty? You could have left me behind. You could have told Her Majesty anything you liked!”
“What happened,” Kadou said slowly, “was my fault. I gave you orders that led us to this. It was only right that I take responsibility. Don’t thank me for not being horrible. It’s myjobto look after you, and if I failed the first time by giving you bad orders, then I wasn’t going to fail the second time. And—and I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’ve ruined your career.” His voice cracked. “If I hadn’t interfered, you could have—you would have been court-martialed, but at least you could have defended yourself. You could have . . . done better than this, maybe, if you were lucky. But this was the deal she offered me, and I couldn’t leave it to chance, or to someone else’s decision. I had to make sure you were safe.”
Tadek flinched. “I won’t try to convince you I’m not upset about—about being cut off. But there is no possibility I would have been able to remain with the kahyalar corps. There is nothing I could have said.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t better. I really was afraid.”
Tadek pressed his lips to the back of Kadou’s hand, then turned it over and kissed his palm. “When you fell off Wing, you were lying so still I thought you were dead,” he whispered. “In all my life, I don’t think I’ve ever been truly afraid, not until that moment.” He looked up at Kadou. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. About what it was like to see you get up and then start shouting—I went straight to Usmim’s temple as soon as I was able and left bread and honey at his feet.” He laughed bitterly. “I hardly recognized myself—I don’t even believe in the gods, and there I was, groveling in gratitude to the Lord of Trials, just because I’d seen your face again after I’d thought you were dead.”
Kadou’s heart skipped another beat, this time rather more pleasantly. Tadek wasn’t at all angry with him, and after the day he’d had, that felt almost too good to be true. He really was terribly drunk. His eyes flicked from Tadek’s bright hazel eyes down to his mouth, lovely and clever and soft.
