Page 31

“What?” She turned to look back at the other farmhands working the fields. “And you’re…”

“Trying to stop the wedding,” Charon said, “if I can get to Duciel in time.”

The farmer gazed up at him, holding the cup tight in both hands. “If you go to Riversedge, my cousin Lou has the fastest mail cart in Staria. I bet he can get you halfway to Duciel faster than buying another horse. Just tell him Quinn sent you.”

“Thank you,” Charon said. Quinn shrugged and looked down, a blush rising on her cheeks.

“Well,” she said, “it’s the least I can do. I hope you get there, sir.”

“So do I,” Charon said, and urged the horse toward the sloping valleys beyond.

Two days before the wedding, the king invited Yves to tea.

“I’m glad you could come on such short notice,” he said.

King Adrien wasn’t as magnificent in person as his portraits and mosaics made him out to be.

Yves had seen him plenty of times in passing—it was simply a consequence of knowing Sabre, who’d been practically a brother to Adrien for most of their lives—but he hadn’t really had a proper conversation with the man.

Up close, he was just another submissive, except he had the power to destroy half of Staria with one wrong decree.

Yves didn’t think he would have the stomach for that kind of responsibility, personally.

Adrien had to be more ambitious than a courtesan to actually want that life.

“If I passed this up, I think half the Pleasure District would kill me,” Yves said. He tried not to pick at the pastry on his plate and looked down at the teacup on the tray beside him. “Is that from Katoikos?”

“What? Oh, the teacup? No.” Adrien lifted his and examined it, trying to find the pattern stamped on the inside.

“It’s from Arktos. They keep bees in the south, and a diplomatic envoy sent this set with a cart of honey.

It’s a rare delicacy there, I believe. I remember Charon—you know Charon. He worked with you, didn’t he?”

Yves’ stomach lurched. “Y-yes, he did.”

“I spoke with him about it once,” Adrien said. He set down the teacup. “He seemed rather fond of honey himself. Do you know if he was truly an Arkoudai?”

“Was?” Yves cleared his throat and took a hurried sip of his tea.

“Sabre said something odd when he left for crown business earlier,” Adrien said. “Something about you both leaving the House of Onyx at the same time. That’s a spot of bad luck for old Laurent, isn’t it?” His eyes twinkled with good-natured humor, but Yves couldn’t even muster a smile.

“Yes,” he said, into the rim of his cup. “Bad luck indeed.”

“Good for you, though,” Adrien said, looking into his teacup. He hummed softly to himself in the uncomfortable silence. “You’re the hero of the hour, it seems, and you’ve found quite a match for yourself. You must truly love this man to leave Duciel at the height of your popularity.”

“Oh,” Yves said, softly. “Oh, yes.”

“To your good fortune, then,” Adrien said, and toasted Yves with a warm smile. Yves nervously toasted back, but when he brought the cup to his lips, he didn’t have the heart to drink.

A mail cart wasn’t the most comfortable place to sleep, but Charon had managed in worse conditions.

He remembered the night he’d slept in a loose pit in the clay close to the mountains, trying to avoid Arkoudai patrols.

Lying in a shaking cart surrounded by bags of letters and parcels was hardly a struggle by comparison.

Charon let the jostling of the cart lull him into a pleasant haze as the Starian landscape trundled by.

As Nikos, he had been running away from what he’d been in Arktos.

Now, Charon felt as though he were running toward himself.

He couldn’t be with Yves without shining a light on the places he preferred to keep hidden.

He explored them now, trying to recall the lessons with Haris, the dead in their uniform pits, and the way his body had rebelled before his mind knew that something was wrong.

He took out the coins he still kept in his pocket and ran his fingers over them.

Would the god of the dead let him cross the river after what he’d done?

The Arkoudai said that Death was impartial, that a ruthless despot would cross in his boat as easily as a healer.

Perhaps something in the river washed souls clean.

Perhaps Death simply didn’t care. Perhaps, as some radical thinkers among the Arkoudai said, he loved humanity anyway.

Charon didn’t think he could be so impartial.

He hadn’t been impartial toward Marteau.

Still, that was to be expected. People weren’t gods.

Charon had no responsibility to carry the world safely on his shoulders.

He did what he could, where he could. And the darkness, the emptiness, the cold part of himself that had emerged as he gouged Marteau’s eyes from their sockets? Where did that fit?

Charon had thought that he needed to be a better man than the one who’d crouched over Lord Marteau that night, but perhaps he didn’t. He was just a man who could choose to be kind, who could falter, who loved a man who had embraced him even when he could not fully embrace himself.

Charon lay in the shaky cart as it turned toward Duciel, and dreamt of Yves in an empty ballroom, his movements graceful and sure, arms out to welcome him into the dance.

The day before the wedding, Yves peered out the window to find Duciel obscured by rain.

The wedding garlands that the crown had paid for drooped on lampposts and fences. Spectators in Duciel for the wedding ducked into cafes and crowded the public eating houses, and rivers of rainwater wound down the streets to the bottom of the hill.

Raul approached the window and bent to squint at the rain.

“That’s not ominous, I hope,” he said, and flashed Yves a small smile.

“I bet it’ll clear up by tomorrow,” Yves said. He gave Raul the bright smile he reserved for his clients, and Raul blushed. “You’ll see.”

Charon gave his fourth horse away to a young, red-headed man leaning against a cart selling discounted love potions.

Charon could barely see the man’s face in the pouring rain as he handed the horse over, but another horse stood in the safety of a tree, and a fox slept in a pile of blankets in the cart.

The man offered Charon a handful of coins for his trouble, but he shook his head.

“I need to get to Duciel,” he shouted over the roar of the rain. “It’s too dangerous to ride. You’ll take care of the horse?”

“We could always use another,” the man shouted back. “What are you doing in Duciel?”

Charon looked up at the advertisement painted on the cart, which he could just make out. Love potions, it read. True love guaranteed in three days or less.

“Let’s say I won’t need one of those,” Charon said.

The man laughed. “Good.”

Charon took a few steps into the rain before looking down at his clothes.

He’d been going without much rest for days, and he could feel the dirt of the road clinging to his skin.

The rain could only do so much, and he didn’t have time for a bath at an inn.

He wasn’t sure Yves would look kindly on anyone appearing from behind a thick layer of grime to confess their ardent affection.

He looked back at the man leaning against the cart, and raised his voice over the rain.

“You don’t happen to have a bar of soap, do you?”

The morning of the wedding dawned through thick storm clouds, revealing a washed-out city full of drowned flowers and listless banners.

Raul huddled close to Yves under their umbrella as they walked from the carriage to the palace, and Yves looked up as a peal of thunder rolled over the city.

The wedding wouldn’t take place until nearly sunset, but the storm wasn’t likely to settle down by then, and guests were already taking refuge in the main hall.

“The dance troupe King Adrien hired should be here by noon,” the steward said, as servants took Yves’ sodden coat. “There will be a private performance, then the ceremony before sunset, and the cake should arrive any moment.”

Rain drummed on the windows as Yves was led through the palace halls.

He dimly heard Raul speak, but he kept thinking of the sound of the rain on the roof of the House of Onyx.

It always sounded so comforting, muffling all sound as Charon stoked the fire and Yves dug through the tin of cookies.

The rain at the palace sounded wrong, too distant, as though Yves were drifting away from his body.

“Yves?”

Raul was standing in front of him, a hand outstretched, not quite touching Yves’ arm. His mouth was pressed tight in concern, and Yves felt a wave of guilt roll through him as he realized they were already at the doors to their private dressing rooms.

“Are you all right?” Raul asked.

“Yes,” Yves said. “Yes, it’s just the rain. I want this,” he added, more for himself than anything. “You’re a good person, Raul. Anyone would be lucky to have you.”

“That’s nice of you to say,” Raul said. Was there a hesitation in his voice, or had Yves only imagined it? “I’ll let you dress.”

Yves opened the door to his dressing room. His suit was hanging up on the far door—complete with a sheer robe to dramatically toss when he made his entrance at the ceremony, and golden boots that would have made Yves the envy of the Pleasure District.

He should have felt something. He should have been anxious or elated. He would have even settled for melancholy, but all Yves felt when he saw the suit was the same distant, faraway nothingness he felt when he listened to the rain.

Charon was only a few miles from Duciel when his legs gave out.

He’d been running for hours. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten or slept. He’d drunk handfuls of rain as he ran through the muddy street heading for Duciel, but now he could only lean against a road marker and try to will his legs to stop shaking.