Page 4

N ext door. A chamber in Pavilion Library, the very chamber I once used when I pretended to be Calix Solin myself.

I groan quietly, banging my head against the side of the mirror that memory-Quin is looking into as he magics on his Calix Solin mask.

Skriniaris Evander is bent over a table behind him, gushing over a small white cat in a basket. “Since your father won’t let you keep her, how about she stays here with me?”

Quin joins him at the table, cooing over the fluffy creature.

“What shall we call her?”

“Taffy,” Quin says quickly. Too quickly. Skriniaris Evander looks at him with a questioning brow.

Quin clears his throat, his jaw too stubbornly set. “Taffy is sweet. The cat is sweet.”

I sneak around his side and inspect his cheeks for the faintest hint of pink.

Perhaps he reimagined himself with this subtle flush to make his thoughts back then visible—clear to me.

I touch his arm as if he can feel me, and whisper as if he can hear me: “Did you choose Taffy because I said I love it?”

Skriniaris Evander hums. “You got this cat while you were with Caelus, didn’t you?”

Quin looks over sharply.

Evander murmurs, “Does he know who you are?”

“I don’t want him to feel obligated. Wouldn’t want him to feign his feelings.”

“You want to keep this secret until you’re sure he genuinely likes you.”

“Take good care of Taffy,” Quin says, rubbing the cat’s white head as she butts against him for more.

Evander smiles. “Of course, your highness.” He pauses. “Please be safe during the archery games.”

Quin laughs. “Every year, the same warning.”

“Your magic will be sealed for a full day! What if—”

“Only those who love me can see through my mask. I’m safe.”

Skriniaris Evander grimaces. “Just be careful.”

I follow Quin into the stables, where he mounts a lightly armoured horse. I squeeze in behind him and lean snug against his back, my head at his shoulder for the duration of the ride.

When we reach the base of the cliffs on the outskirts of the capital—with that treacherous path curving and winding up into ever-present clouds—Quin is ushered into the fenced-off area where the games will be held .

I’ve been surrounded by all this fencing and these colourful flags before. I snuck in to watch these games often in my youth. I’d snuck in to watch this game as well...

Quin tightens his vambraces and checks his bow and arrows, then steers his horse past the stands into the arena. A dozen mounted contestants are grouped at the other end, and upon spotting Calix Solin, two peel off towards him—one female, one male; both disguised.

“Son,” the woman says, and the memory of her disguise fades to reveal Casimiria’s real face.

Quin stops his horse. “Mother. Brother.”

Nicostratus’s mask dissolves around his smile. “Who’s this then?”

“Calix Solin, scholar from Hinsard.”

“Well, Calix. Let’s see how much you’ve improved.”

Quin boinks his brother over the head with the end of his bow, and Nicostratus tosses his head back with a laugh. He goads Quin into a race towards the other end of the arena but Casimiria beats the both of them and they bow graciously to her greatness.

She then proceeds to boink Quin on his head in return. “I taught you both the archer’s skill, and only one of you has beaten me.”

I can feel his laughter bubbling from him and into my chest. “Brother, do you hear that? My mother praises you.”

Casimiria grins at Nicostratus. “But you.” She hones her gaze on Quin. “Shoot ‘em straight.”

Quin exaggerates a sigh. “I might. If you ever play fair. ”

After each contestant has swallowed the spell to block their magic, the games begin.

It’s a feast for the eyes, now as much as it had been then.

The targets are moving, the archers mounted.

Each round gets progressively more challenging.

Quin smacks the bullseyes with mesmerising ease, and by the eighth round, the spectators are cheering frantically—only the three disguised royals are left fighting for the Golden Bow.

Nicostratus grins at Quin. “Want to bet you go out next?”

“I’m a smart man. So I’ll say no.”

Nicostratus laughs and, at the wave of a red flag, he’s off, shooting ever smaller targets with swift precision. Casimiria sidles her horse close to Quin’s, admiring the show. “I’ll get the Bow this time. Bet on me .”

“Honestly, Mother.”

She smirks and lifts her chin towards the stands. “Who’s the young man who hasn’t taken his eyes off you?”

Quin startles and searches the stands. My hands grow damp and I clutch at the folds of Quin’s cloak. I feel the precise moment he spots my younger self. His entire body tenses and stills, and I bury my face in his shoulder with a groan before bravely peeking over towards Chaos.

He’s dressed in his older brother’s wedding clothes, ‘borrowed’ so he can pass as linea and enter to watch the games.

They were deep violet, lined on the inside with bright floral silk, golds and reds and greens, and they’re billowing in the wind as he stands beside Akilah, hugging a fence post at the front of the stands.

It’s not the robe, though, that makes me bang my head against Quin’s shoulder in mortification.

It’s the gaping mouth and unabashed stare.

It’s the now-clear glimpse of vulnerability in a young man who’s on the brink of realising something.

Quin’s horse shifts under him, like it too feels how unsettling that stare is.

I recall this moment vividly—how surprised I’d been to see Calix Solin participating in the games; how impressive I’d found him, shooting those targets with barely a glance as he rode and jumped obstacles. I recall how wildly my stomach swooped; how impossible it was to let go of that post.

I also recall how itchy I’d felt, how restless; how frustrated I was with all of it. How suddenly annoyed I got...

Chaos scowls at Quin, lifts his chin, and looks pointedly towards Nicostratus finishing a perfect course. He cheers, loudly, for him.

When the flag waves for Quin to take his turn, his whole body is strung taut—I can feel it, the rapid pounding of his heart, the uneven bounce in his saddle. He glances towards Chaos, who is turned away from the pitch as if he doesn’t care at all.

I swallow and shake my head. “It wasn’t like that,” I murmur into a memory that can’t change. “He’s gripping that post hard. His heart is hammering. He’s aware of you.”

Quin hits the first targets, sheering through the middle of Nicostratus’s arrows. The crowd roars with excitement, but Chaos does not turn his head.

He nocks two more arrows and pulls the bowstring. Both smack neatly into the target. Bullseye. But still, Chaos doesn’t look.

Another arrow nocks, the bowstring pulled tight. But this one doesn’t fly towards the target. At the last second, with an audible grind of his teeth, Quin swings his bow and releases. The arrow arcs and thunks into Chaos’s post, pinning his sleeve to it.

At the shriek from Akilah and the crowd, Chaos whips his head around and meets Quin’s glare with one of his own.

Only when Quin turns his horse at the other end of the arena do their frustrated, hate-filled gazes break.

Quin doesn’t even bother finishing his round.

He rides off the pitch without a word to his mother or his brother, steers towards the winding path and climbs it halfway up the cliff.

When the first clouds shield him from view, he stops his horse and looks out over the rocky edge into the mist.

“What are you doing?” he mutters to himself. “He didn’t watch. So what?” He grips his reins until his knuckles are white. “You’re the crown prince! Act like it.”

A distant voice calls from below the clouds.

Quin shifts abruptly and watches as a violet-cloaked figure emerges through the cloud, on horseback.

I hold his trembling body tighter around the waist.

Chaos lifts his sleeve with the hole in it, then pulls the incriminating arrow from his boot. “Why?”

Quin strangles his reins but doesn’t speak.

“Because it doesn’t matter if you hit me, a par-linea ?”

“If I’d wanted to hit you, I would have. ”

“So you just wanted to ruin my sleeve?”

“You were unchivalrous.”

Chaos waves the arrow. “And what was this?”

“ That ,” Quin says, starting tightly but pausing to look away with a sigh, “was an overreaction.”

Chaos seems to freeze when he registers what Quin has admitted. He sinks the arrow back into his boot and dangles his ruined sleeve. “I’ll get in trouble for this.”

“I’ll replace it.”

“It’ll never be the one my brother got married in.”

I feel his shock. “Why did you wear that?”

“Getting into these games isn’t exactly easy. I don’t own any fancy clothes. I suppose I could get married, get a wedding robe of my own...”

“I’ll give you some of my clothes.”

“And boots. So I can run far away while you stand there barefoot.”

“Why would you run from me?”

Chaos and his horse shift and this time Chaos looks away, his cheeks flushed. He scowls towards the glistening mist. “You’re... unnerving.”

“Unnerving!”

“Exactly that!” Chaos retorts.

Growing tension coils in Quin’s muscles, but he clears his throat and speaks more softly. “Around me, I’d say, you’re rather shameless.”

Out comes the arrow again. Chaos steps his horse right beside Quin’s, until he has the sharp end pointed at Quin’s chest. “When have I ever done anything shameless? ”

Quin laughs—a repressed laugh that Chaos doesn’t hear or see, but I feel it, rumbling through him. And into Quin’s hair, I laugh too. I laugh so hard I have to use his braids to dab away my tears.

“No, you’re right,” he finally drawls, lightly plucking the arrow from Chaos. “Not shameless at all.”

Chaos stares at his hand where it’s still tingling from the arrow sliding over his palm, then he quickly grabs his reins and clears his throat as he turns his horse to face the same direction as Quin’s. He’s jumpy and restless, though not too visibly. I held it in better than I thought.

He flashes a sideways glance at Quin and points upwards. “First to the third sharp bend.”

“I play drakopagon. You have no chance—”

Quin stares after Chaos as he launches forward, and blows a laugh out skyward before spurring his horse into the chase.