“You heard me,” he said, grinning at the gaping prince. Which Finn regretted, because smiling hurt.
Cedric’s shoulders stiffened as he tugged the clothing off the peg. He faced away from Finn as he dressed, as if he feared what he’d discover in Finn’s expression. “I don’t understand.” His voice was small, almost lost. “Not after what you said before.”
Said before? Finn cocked his head, brow creasing. A pang of confusion rippled through him. “What in Kavros’s name are you talking about?”
Cedric turned back to him, something painful in the way his fingers clutched at his half-buttoned shirt. “When...when you found out what I was.” His voice was almost inaudible. He stood there, hesitant and vulnerable.
Oh.
The shock, the fury, the betrayal he had felt in that moment—when he had thought Cedric was just another monster to slay. When he thought everything between them had been a lie.
Finn exhaled slowly. What I said then doesn’t matter, he wanted to say. But it did, and they both knew it. He had thrown those words like stones, and Cedric had felt every strike.
With a soft grunt, he rose and limped closer, buttoning the rest of Cedric’s shirt with clumsy fingers. “I didn’t know then what I know now.”
If Cedric had trusted him sooner, would things have been different? Finn didn’t know. He couldn’t know. He wanted to believe he would have handled it better. That he wouldn’t have drawn his sword, wouldn’t have recoiled. But what if he had?
Maybe Cedric had been right not to tell him. Maybe Finn had never given him a reason to.
“Finn?” Cedric’s voice was soft, hesitant, like a plea.
Finn stepped back, taking him in. Cedric looked hollowed-out, his exhaustion evident in the way his hands trembled. And yet, somehow, he was still infuriatingly, impossibly beautiful. It wasn’t fair. “Yes, Your Highness?” The title came out lighter than he meant—teasing, but weary, a half-hearted shield against everything that still ached.
The prince hesitated, as if thrown by Finn’s response. But Cedric’s shoulders relaxed, which Finn took as a victory. “I’m glad you’re here.”
Cedric’s soft words were so heartfelt that for a moment, Finn forgot his pain. “Me, too. Let’s go to the tower,” he suggested, forcing himself to focus, to push past the exhaustion that threatened to overwhelm him. “We can tend to our wounds and…and talk.”
Cedric nodded, and they made their way out of the stables. The climb to the tower was slow, every bruise and ache making itself known, but Finn welcomed the pain. It reminded him that he was alive. That they both were.
Inside the familiar confines of the tower, Finn let out a soft breath. Here, at least for the moment, they were safe. The knowledge didn’t halt the bone-deep ache in his body, but it settled something deeper.
They reached the small room where Finn had convalesced. It looked the same. But Finn wasn’t the same man who had rested here last.
He watched as Cedric went through a cabinet, pulling out supplies. Clean cloths for bandages, a basin for water, a jar of the healing salve from Finn’s Gwenna-related injury.
Cedric laid them out neatly, like he needed the structure to settle his mind. His hands rested atop the salve for a second longer than necessary, then he exhaled, rolling his shoulders as if shaking something off.
After a pause, he gestured to the cot. “Take off everything but your drawers and lie down.”
Finn smirked, seizing the opportunity. “I could take everything off, if you like.” He winked, letting the teasing settle between them, hoping it would keep Cedric from sinking too deep into his own head.
Cedric blinked. Stared. As if Finn had just suggested something as outrageous as declaring war in his underclothes. Then, slowly, his shoulders loosened again. “Perhaps another time, when we’re not half-dead.”
Finn chuckled, but immediately regretted it when pain shot through his ribs. He exhaled slowly and peeled away his shirt, wincing as sore muscles protested the stretch.
Cedric’s expression didn’t change. But Finn caught the way his gaze skimmed over his body, scanning every bruise, every scrape, every mark. Finn knew that look. It was becoming a frustratingly consistent part of the prince’s expressive repertoire.
Guilt.
As Cedric knelt beside him, fingers steady but tense, the silence stretched. The cool touch of the salve should have been a relief, but Cedric’s hesitation made it burn.
“I remember everything,” Cedric whispered as he worked. His voice was so quiet, so heavy, that Finn felt it more than heard it. “Every moment in the arena. I could see what was happening, but I couldn’t stop myself. It was like being trapped inside my own body, watching as I?—”
His voice broke. He swallowed hard, staring at his hands as if they were blood-covered talons. “As I tried to kill you.”
Finn gritted his teeth as Cedric’s fingers brushed over a particularly tender bruise, but he forced himself to meet his gaze. “But you did stop,” he reminded him, his voice gentle. “You broke through Darius’s spell. You saved both of us.”
Cedric shook his head. Not a defiant motion, but a slow, weary refusal. His eyes, burning with unspoken torment, locked onto Finn’s. “Only because of you.”
