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He accepted it all with an inclination of his head.

And then the circus began.

First Vesuvius was checked over, with excessive thoroughness in his opinion, by the doctor they had somehow located in the middle of all this weather and dragged to the house. When he was pronounced a little battered, but perfectly fine, he was encouraged to begin a series of calls to people back home.

Meaning he was informed that some people were his personal friends and family, and had been laboring under the impression that he was dead for some while and likely had some thoughts to share about his resurrection.

“And if it is not overstepping, sir,” said the head of his security team, who had come back in halfway through the medical exam, his eyes on the far wall, “our build is not too dissimilar. I mention this because it occurs to me to wonder if there might be those who will find your current state of dress an indication of a more…internal issue.”

Vesuvius took that in. “Marcus,” he said quietly, “are you suggesting that if I appear bare-chested on a video call, they will claim that I am mentally infirm?”

“I’m happy to lend you my clothes, sir,” Marcus replied blandly. “It seems far less of a sacrifice than laying my life down for you, as I vowed to do years ago, but I will do it all the same.”

“Thank you,” Vesuvius said, and he was aware of the sardonic inflection in his tone, but he also meant what he was saying. “I am appropriately ashamed.”

And that was how he managed to find himself dressed when one of his ministers produced a laptop, so that Vesuvius could contact the kingdom he’d left behind. He took it across the hall into the formal dining room that was done in lovely pale colors and featured a beautiful mahogany table. There was a stunning chandelier up above, and the walls were set with built-in shelves that held as many books as they did quietly lovely objets d’art.

It was another perfectly arranged room, and it only made him want to leave all of this old life nonsense behind. What he wanted to do was go upstairs and find out what sort of shape Aeryn was in at present.

Assess the damage, perhaps.

Because it was not lost on him that she had not come down to see who had come stamping into her house. Nor complained that the security team had wandered about at will. She probably knew some of them on sight, as she had spent more time with his security detail on some of her visits than with him.

But there were ministers here, and whether Aeryn knew who they were or not, she would know that they were men she hadn’t seen before. And he had trained her so well, hadn’t he? He had made it a certainty that she would always hide herself away. That she would dedicate herself to making sure no breath of scandal could attach to her, then make its way to him.

There was no end to the shame, he thought. No horizon, just an endless stretch into eternity.

But there was no fixing it just then. There were other things he needed to fix first.

“You’ve gone and done it, haven’t you? A death and resurrection might take the abdication out of the news cycle,” Saviero said when he answered, sounding something less than his usual calm, steady self. He’d taken the video call and Vesuvius could see him. He actually looked rattled.

Everything must have been going along famously, Vesuvius thought.

He didn’t need to make it worse by indicating he’d noticed. “I doubt that,” he said.

“Luckily, no one would believe that a king would fly into a snowstorm deliberately,” his friend pointed out, again with that rattled expression on his usually stoic, unreadable face. But Saviero let out a breath. Then he smiled. “Except me. But never fear. Everything is as we discussed.”

“That is why, my friend, you are far better suited to the role you will play than I ever could have been.” Vesuvius held Saviero’s gaze through the screen. “This I have never doubted.”

“What is fitting,” Saviero replied in the same tone, “is that I will be consort to the Queen. Because there is only one possible King of Liandero, and it is not me. It could never be me.”

They gazed at each other for a moment, a thousand things that they could not say while not entirely in private communicated in that look. An acknowledgment. An acceptance.

Then, “I think you need to speak to your sister,” Saviero said.

“I am certain that I do,” Vesuvius agreed.

And if he had a regret in all of this, it was that his choices meant he would not get to spend his waking days with his best friend any longer. It had been a gift. Now he would have to take comfort in the kind of relationship that their other best friend had with the two of them. Not distant in terms of the friendship, only in geography.

“Speaking of people that I should speak to,” Vesuvius said, and grimaced. “Who else heard that I was dead, however briefly?”

“Yes,” Saviero replied, sounding steady and calm again, “you should speak to Kyriakos. He has expressed concern, given the news cycle and the fact your mobile does not seem to have survived your precipitous landing. But I did not tell him about that crash or what we all feared had happened. Not to spare him, but because I could not believe it myself. It was my feeling that you could not possibly die in such a fashion. I cannot tell you how glad I am to have been right.” Saviero’s mouth crooked. “As usual.”

And then his friend was moving, walking from his official office in the palace, and Vesuvius could see glimpses of the grand halls around him—not that he needed to see the layout to know where his friend was going. Saviero walked up a flight of stairs, then another, and it was no surprise when the mobile screen was suddenly a dizzying sweep of high ceilings and gilt edges. There was the muttering of unhappy voices, the slam of a door, and then his younger sister Francesca, known to those close to her as Cesca, was scowling at him.

“What the fuck, Vesuvius?” she hissed at him.

“It is my great honor, Your Majesty, to offer you my undying fealty and congratulate you upon both your reign and your upcoming nuptials,” Vesuvius replied, smoothly, and had to admit that he found this part entertaining.