But perhaps... perhaps there was precedent. My ancestors' histories were full of rumors and whispered speculation, stories that made more sense now than they ever had before.
King Arrith, who had died by his own blade two centuries past, mere days after his sworn sword fell in battle - killed by their own soldiers in a case of mistaken identity. The chronicles claimed he'd grieved like a brother, but I had no brothers. I could not imagine brotherly love driving a man to such despair. A lover's grief, though... that I could understand all too well.
Then there was King Reus, who had taken a young scribe from a raided temple and kept him close for fifteen years. When the youth drowned in what was called an accident, Reus had built a temple and given the god the dead boy's face. The histories claimed he'd loved him like a son, but Reus had four actual sons - and rumor said he was so harsh with them they conspired to kill him before his fiftieth year.
That was how kings of the Three Isles died. Few found peace in their beds. Many perished abroad in wars of their own making. Others died at home, victims of brothers or sons or ambitious lords. I'dalways known this would be my fate; a painful death was the final inheritance bestowed upon princes at birth. I didn't fear it.
What terrified me was losing Rhazir before I had to die.
The thought of some lord's envy or righteousness taking him from me, the way accidents had claimed Arrith's and Reus's companions, sent ice through my veins despite the heated water. Those accidents were never truly accidents; everyone knew that, even if none dared speak it aloud.
I climbed from the tub with sudden urgency, toweling myself dry before donning a fresh seret of palest blue. Through the window, I spotted Rhazir in the garden below, his hair still damp from his own ablutions, moonlight painting silver highlights in the dark strands.
My heart filled with something warm and precious, pushing aside fears of distant futures I might never live to see. The present was what mattered - this moment, this feeling, this man who had given himself to me beneath olive trees heavy with fruit.
I stepped into the garden, my bare feet silent on sun-warmed stone. When I placed my hand on his shoulder, he turned with the fluid grace of a warrior always ready for action. But his eyes held no wariness now, only question and hope in equal measure.
"Kiss me again, Rhazir," I said, the words emerging soft as prayer.
Relief flooded his features so completely that my heart cracked with understanding. He'd been afraid I would regret what we'd shared, afraid the morning light would burn away the magic of our joining. The realization that he could doubt my desire for him, could fear my rejection, made me want to gather him close and never let him go.
Our lips met with desperate hunger, eight years of restraint finally given permission to burn freely. I tasted moonlight and possibility on his tongue, felt the careful walls he'd built around his heart crumble beneath the assault of genuine affection.
Without breaking the kiss, I took his hand and led him inside, closing the door firmly behind us. The separate chamber where he usually slept seemed suddenly too far away, too formal for what blazed between us now. Instead, I drew him toward my own bed, where silk sheets waited like an altar to newly discovered devotion.
"Stay with me tonight," I whispered against his lips, and felt him shudder with want that matched my own.
When he nodded, words apparently beyond him, I began unlacing his jerkin with trembling fingers, eager to worship him as thoroughly as he had worshipped me beneath the stars. The moonlight streaming through tall windows paintedeverything in silver and shadow, transforming my chamber into a sanctuary where prince and protector could become simply two young men drunk on discovery and desire.
Whatever tomorrow might bring - crowns or duty or the harsh realities waiting across dark waters - tonight was ours alone.
Chapter
Nine
RHAZIR
Iwoke to paradise, sunlight streaming through tall windows to paint everything in shades of gold and cream. Serin lay cradled in my arms like something precious beyond measure, his golden hair spread across my chest in silken waves, his breathing soft and even against my skin.
For the first time in my life, I understood what it meant to be truly fed. Not the mere satisfaction of hunger, but the deep contentment that comes from having tasted something essential, something that had been missing from my very bones. I had been starving my entire existence without knowing it, surviving on scraps when a feast had been waiting just beyond reach.
I knew with crushing certainty that this abundance was temporary. Whatever we had found in moonlit gardens and silk-draped beds could not last -not with crowns waiting across dark waters, not with duties that would tear us apart as surely as the tide separated sea from shore. But I had never dared hope for even this much, had never imagined I might hold him like this, skin to skin, heart to heart, with nothing between us but honesty and desire.
In sleep, Serin was even more beautiful than waking could capture. Every harsh line softened, every careful mask dissolved, leaving only the pure essence of who he truly was beneath the weight of royal expectation. He looked like sunlight made flesh, like some young god descended from celestial realms to grace the world with beauty too perfect for mortal eyes.
The Three Isles did not know how to cherish such radiance, how to nurture anything delicate or lovely. Beauty faded quickly in our harsh homeland, withered by salt winds and the constant threat of violence. Even I bore the marks of that brutal landscape, hands roughened by years of weapon practice, skin tanned and weathered by sun and sea, muscles corded with the lean strength of a warrior rather than the soft curves of a lover.
Only my size betrayed my youth. Where other sworn swords grew broad as barrels, built like siege engines of muscle and bone, I remained slight and quick, more blade than bludgeon. In the Three Isles, men my age often looked a decade older, aged by the constant strain of survival.
Unable to resist, I brushed a lock of golden hair from his brow, marveling at the silk-soft texture beneath my calloused fingers. How had something so perfect chosen to twine itself around my rough and weathered heart?
His eyes fluttered open at my touch, grey as morning mist and warm as summer rain. For a heartbeat we simply stared at each other, the air between us charged with memory and possibility. Then duty reasserted itself like cold armor sliding into place, and I began to pull away, to restore the proper distance between prince and protector.
Serin shattered that careful propriety with casual grace, pushing away the sheet that covered his nakedness to reveal the evidence of his desire, proud and unashamed in the morning light.
"Can I not tempt you to remain in the bed for a few minutes longer?" he asked, his voice husky with sleep and want.
Heat flooded through me at the sight of him displayed so brazenly, so beautifully, like some pagan offering to gods of pleasure and devotion. "There is little you could not tempt me into doing," I admitted, my own arousal stirring to painful life.
