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Tadek shrugged. “I didn’t keep track. Three years ago, I was appointed to his core-guard for five months, and I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary—he was just shy and quiet, and he worried over little things sometimes, and always went out of his way to be polite and careful of all his kahyalar. And then last year, I was appointed to him again for eight months. Still normal, the first two, and then Her Majesty announced her pregnancy. About a week after that, I found him like he was just now. Shaking, scared out of his wits, saying he couldn’t breathe and so on, even though I could see and hear him breathing.”
“Fuck,” Melek whispered.
“If it happens again, come get me,” Tadek said firmly. “No matter what I’m doing, no matter what you’re doing. If he goes down like that again, you drop everything and youcome get me.”
“Is it likely to happen again tonight?”
“Is he asleep, or did you leave him alone to wring his hands and work himself back into a state?”
“He’s asleep,” Evemer said tonelessly.
“Then that’s probably it for the night. It takes a lot out of him. He’ll be useless tomorrow, so everyone just . . .” Tadek opened his hands and made a calming gesture. “Be gentle.Especiallyyou, Evemer, you make him nervous. And I know I’m just an armsman now and I don’t have any right to be ordering you two around—”
“I don’t think either of us cares about that right now, Tadek,” Melek said.
Tadek blinked, a little taken aback, and glanced between çem and Evemer.
Evemer shrugged. “We all serve him the same.”
“That’s the last thing I thought I’d hear fromyou,” Tadek said frankly. “I thought you’d be the one to pull rank.”
“We all serve him the same,” Evemer said again. He felt a little twinge—he probablywouldhave pulled rank if given the chance. A personal weakness. Now that he had identified it, he would not give in to it, no matter how he was provoked.
Melek pushed çemself up onto one elbow. “Did you think we’d be awful about it?”
“It seemed like a reasonable assumption,” Tadek said crisply. “Iwould have been awful about it.”
“We’re not witty like you, though,” said Melek. “You’re clever.”
Tadek sighed. “Melek, you wouldn’t be a kahya if you werestupid.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” çe agreed. “But I have to try hard. Evemer too. You, though, everything comes naturally to you. And you notice things that other people don’t.”
Tadek looked perplexed, which Evemer could honestly relate to. “Well, darling, by the sounds of it, you’ve been noticing more things than I have.”
Melek cuddled back into the pillows and blankets and gave him a winning smile. “Only because I’ve been trying hard.”
“I have another question,” Evemer said.
“Another one? Goodness. Shall we make a game of it? Drag the pillows and blankets onto the floor and build a fort and tell each other all our secrets?” Tadek said dryly, leaning back on his hands.
“What happened on the hunt?”
The amused look melted off Tadek’s face until he looked hollow, but to his credit he held Evemer’s gaze. He opened his mouth, but it took a long time for him to answer: “I fucked up.”
“What happened?”
Melek sat up again, as intent as Evemer was. Tadek’s posture didn’t change. He didn’t even twitch or clench his hands. He was entirely still, and Evemer couldn’t help but begrudgingly approve. Tadek asked, his voice low, “Did His Highness say it was his fault? Did someone else blame him?”
“Yes,” Evemer said.
“It’s my fault. I did it. I fucked up. Not him.”
Evemer only waited, looking steadily at him.
“Siranos threatened him,” Melek said quietly. “I was with him when it happened. The night the princess was born, Siranos came up and grabbed him, said all sorts of wild things.”
“He had an episode that night, after you left, Melek,” Tadek said. “I came to his room to congratulate him on his niece, and he was already in the middle of it. He told me everything, and . . . I fucked up. Every other time he’d had an attack, it was always just flinching at shadows. And every other time, I calmed him down and showed him evidence that he was wrong—like you do with a spooked horse, you soothe them and you let them look at the thing that’s terrifying until they see that it’s not dangerous. He’s always worried about taking up too much space, or stepping on people’s toes, and every other time I just showed him people who loved him.”
