“How do you make those decisions, Commander?” Dorian asked him.
“Call me Naddi, Prince,” Nadir said as he shifted in his seat. “Commander is only on the field or in the bedroom.”
Dorian stared at him, unsure of if he was supposed to take that as a joke or not.
Nadir scoffed in response and sat forward, elbows resting on his knees. “Right,” he huffed, smirking. ”Probably not as funny considering—“ He cleared his throat “—Anyway, ah… I deal with those decisions by knowing I wouldn’t want anyone else to have to make them,” he said, eyes lifting to Dorian’s.
“Being a King… you always put your people first. Or at least, you’re supposed to. It’s why so many of our past kings have lived lives of loneliness. Never married or attached to another,” Draven added.
“And what about after?” Dorian asked, nervous that he was about to ask something that perhaps neither of the two in the room had ever answered before. “When you lay down at night. How do you keep it from keeping you awake or haunting your dreams?”
“A good fuck usually corpses the mind for a couple of hours,” Nadir grunted, heel beginning to tap on the ground.
Draven shot him a raised brow stare, and Nadir huffed, smiling slightly.
“Right. Seriousness,” Nadir muttered. “Ah… It’s not something that comes easily. I sometimes push myself to exhaustion on those bad days so that by the time it is night, my body doesn’t give my mind the choice to stay awake. Sometimes, even that isn’t enough.”
And when Dorian and Nadir turned to Draven, he raised his cup of whiskey as though it was an answer.
“Fuck off, mate,” Nadir grunted. “Answer.”
But Draven ran a hand through his hair. “I know that I will always be the villain,” he said in a rough voice. “And I sleep having accepted that.”
The door creaked open then, golden firelight shedding on ginger curly hair.
“Oh, this looks dangerous,” Aydra said as she moved across the room, inhaling the herb smell. She was wearing a black lace and tulle robe that was hardly more than sheer, and as she leaned against Draven’s chair, he reached for her hand.
Dorian caught Draven’s gaze. “And by loving her,” he added, pressing his lips to her hand.
A warm smile met Draven from Aydra, her chest rising in a jagged manner, and she squeezed his hand back. But she didn’t ask what his comment was referring to, and Dorian knew it was because Aydra didn’t care.
She was the answer to Draven’s darkest days, and Dorian found himself envious of that kind of love.
“What kind of trouble are you conning my younger into, Storn?” she asked as she looked at Nadir. “Shouldn’t you be taking care of my sister right now?”
Nadir scoffed, smiling at the ground, but he didn’t answer. Aydra settled on the arm of Draven’s chair, her hand curling behind his neck. Aydra’s eyes glowed down at Draven as he squeezed her knee. And something about that moment made Dorian’s heart ache.
“I thought you were waiting for me,” Draven said to her in a soft voice.
“Do you have time for a walk?” she suggested instead.
“Always,” Draven replied.
“I’ll be getting back,” Nadir said as he stood. “Princess was going to show me—“ he paused in his speech, apparently remembering Aydra was in the same room, and he stilled as he met her raised brow stare.
“I mean… I was just going to my room,” Nadir finished, clearing his throat.
Aydra chuckled softly as Draven stood. “Going to your room…” She shook her head and reached beneath her robe, took out her knife, and sheared a piece of tulle from the bottom layer. “Take this with you. If you’re going to ignore my warning anyway, you may as well have a little more fun doing it.”
Nadir tugged the tulle between his hands as though testing its strength when he caught it. “Is this your approval?”
Aydra laughed openly. “Architects, no,” she told him. “I fully plan on kicking your ass at a later date because I know this is going to end horribly.”
“Why do you think that?”
Aydra sighed. “Because my sister is a hopeless romantic. You’re a week’s journey away, Nadir. There’s a war on our horizon. Tell me when the next time is that you’ll see her? Will you start traveling here on your trading routes?”
Nadir’s hands wrapped tightly around the tulle. “It’s just a couple of nights,” he said solemnly.
