Page 12

Chapter Eleven

P erian stood there for a moment, feeling a bit as though he’d been blasted with one of those huge gusts of wind that Air Mages could summon, and he didn’t know which way was up and which way was down. Then he picked up the two blankets, shook them out, carefully folded them up, and did what Brannal had instructed.

He slipped back out of the bushes, distantly amused when he realized he could make it through with scarcely a rustle, but Brannal’s bigger build had meant more shoving and more noise. He returned to the path and then headed directly to Brannal’s rooms. As Perian passed people, he saw he was already getting some significant looks and double takes.

Great. He assumed that meant word of what he’d done had spread throughout the castle. Well, there was nothing to be done about it now.

Brannal’s rooms were very quiet. Perian sank into one of the chairs by the fire, pulled his knees up to his chin, and stared into the flames. He wondered if there was always a fire here because of Brannal’s affinity or if it was just the stone of the castle that held in the chill. Would there be a fire in the summer? Would Perian be here to see it?

He’d always known his stay here would be limited, but he hadn’t previously expected it was likely to be ended because of Cormal. Although, now he thought about it, that had probably been short-sighted. It had been clear from the moment they met that Cormal didn’t like him, and whether it was jealousy or something else, it didn’t really matter. Well, hopefully, Perian would be allowed to leave. He remembered Brannal telling him that the Warrior wing had actual dungeons, though hadn’t he also said they weren’t much used?

He imagined this was a lot like waiting for a prison sentence. Perian had no idea how long it would take, and he had no idea if anyone was defending him, apart from a twelve-year-old, and he could only imagine what Cormal was saying about what had happened. Truly, Perian didn’t think the basket of food could have done much more than startle him, but Perian would certainly be willing to take the blame if it meant Renny didn’t .

He sat up straight. He hadn’t thought of that. Was there a chance Renny was going to get in trouble for hurting Cormal? Perian would be willing to tell anyone who would listen that she had only been defending herself, and it had been Cormal who had started everything. Oh, should he tell someone that? But Brannal had told him to stay right here.

He was still stewing when there was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” he called gratefully.

Nisal popped their head in, and when they saw him, they entered. They were followed by Delana and Arvus, and the latter was carrying a tea tray.

“We thought we’d better see how you were doing,” Nisal said.

“And we thought you might be hungry,” Arvus added, setting the tray down on the table.

“Oh, I don’t think….” Perian began.

“When’s the last time you ate?” Arvus asked practically.

Perian had to really stop and think about it. “I ate lunch yesterday?”

Nisal’s eyes widened, and Arvus gave a nod. “That’s what I thought. Come and eat.”

Perian thought about protesting, but it seemed like more work to try to refuse all of them than to simply give in. He could choke down a bite or two, probably.

They all sat down with him, and after he’d selected a couple squares of sandwiches, he watched as Delana matter-of-factly put three more and a biscuit on his plate.

Yeah. What had he been thinking with this group of people?

Arvus poured the tea.

“Listen,” Perian told them earnestly. “Brannal asked me to come straight back here, so I did, but I want to make sure that if Cormal is complaining about, uh, anything, that it was all my fault. All right? Renny didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Agreed,” Delana said firmly, though there was a quirk to her lips that told him she was amused. “As it was relayed to me, she did everything quite right to get out of the grasp of a man who was holding her against her will.”

Nisal and Arvus snorted with laughter, and Perian groaned.

“I’m not disagreeing with you. I mean, Cormal was truly out of line, and I believe Renny did exactly the right thing. But I don’t want her to get in any trouble. I’m willing to take all the blame. I know Cormal has a temper, and he already doesn’t like me, so I’m just saying—”

Nisal laid their hand on his arm. “We understand what you’re saying, Perian. But you don’t need to take responsibility for any actions except your own.”

“I was the one who taught her—” Perian began.

“Yes!” Nisal exclaimed, and held out their other hand.

Delana let out a long-suffering sigh and pulled out a coin and gave it to Nisal.

“I knew it was you,” they crowed with triumph.

Perian eyed the two of them. “You were betting on this?”

Delana looked put out. “You’ve only been here for a few days, I didn’t think you’d’ve had time—”

Arvus gestured at the blankets in the corner of the room. “That’s what the blankets were for, I take it?”

Perian blinked at him. “The blankets were actually for the picnics. I showed her the defense on the grass, which wasn’t my best thought-out plan, actually. Ended up with grass stains and dirt everywhere.”

They all exchanged a look which Perian couldn’t quite interpret.

“Everything’s going to be all right,” Arvus told him gently. “Molun is with the others.”

Nisal smirked. “And he can always douse Cormal with water if he loses his temper.”

“Ah, was that Molun the other day?” Perian asked. “It occurred to me after watching your lessons that someone could probably simply have doused his hands.”

“ Could have,” Arvus agreed smoothly.

Perian couldn’t help but laugh, releasing a bit of the tension tightening his whole body. Clearly, word of what had happened between Cormal, Renny, and Perian had spread already, and as Nisal had said, Perian was only responsible for his own actions. If asked, he would confirm to anyone exactly what he had done. He couldn’t pretend that it had been he who had injured Cormal, but he would readily admit to having been the one to train Renny.

Arvus just kept pouring tea, and Delana kept putting sandwiches on his plate until Perian finally had to push the dish away. He didn’t feel full, exactly, but he felt like he’d had his limit of food. He was pretty sure at least half his stomach was taken up with a big ball of unease, so that was probably blocking some of the room for nourishment.

The door opened, and this time it was Brannal. He checked on the threshold, having apparently not expected so many people in the room. Perian sprang to his feet.

Anxiously, he asked, “Is Renny all right?”

Brannal’s expression softened, and he came all the way into the room and closed the door. “She’s fine.”

Perian blew out a relieved breath, some of his anxiety easing. “And is Cormal having me thrown in the dungeons or banished?”

Best to just ask and get the worst of it out of the way.

Brannal’s lips twisted. “He… might have suggested something along those lines, but the Princess threatened to drown him in the moat.”

“Ouch,” Nisal mumbled.

Right, because on top of threatening major bodily harm, it would be done with the opposing element to Cormal’s. Perian assumed that was a most insulting death.

“Um, I’m very grateful to the Princess,” Perian said. “But why was she defending me?”

Or maybe she just really didn’t like Cormal?

The expression on Brannal’s face was one that Perian couldn’t figure out. Affection and… sorrow?

Carefully, he said, “Because in Princess Larenia, you have made a friend for life.”

Perian just stared at him, not understanding the gravitas with which the words had been spoken. It didn’t answer his question at all. Why would Princess Larenia—

Larenia.

Surely not.

Perian gaped. “You’re not saying that Renny is actually—”

“Crown Princess Larenia of Plenarra. Yes.”

“Oh,” Perian said a bit blankly, because his entire world had shifted unexpectedly, and this had already been a really weird couple of days. He’d known that was the Princess’s name, if he’d thought about it, but it had never occurred to him that the girl he had befriended could be that person. “So, when she said she was going to go talk to her mother—?”

“Queen Talira,” Brannal confirmed.

Perian nodded, because that actually made a lot of sense, looking back.

“So, I guess we can’t have another picnic tomorrow?”

Brannal’s head tilted to one side. “Do you want to?”

“Of course I do!” Perian exclaimed. “I promised her I would. I’ve been enjoying those picnics. I thought she was too.”

“She’s been enjoying them very much,” Brannal confirmed. “But she was supposed to be resting in her rooms in the afternoon.”

Ah. And instead, she’d been sneaking away, and Perian had sort of been aiding and abetting her.

“Apart from one small defense lesson where I demonstrated falls and, uh, where to hit a man to make it hurt, we’ve actually been pretty restful. I mean, we mostly sit on the blanket.” He gestured at the blanket in question as though it could actually attest to what they’d been doing. “We talk. Eat lunch. That’s kind of it.”

“Luckily, the Queen has noticed that the Princess has been feeling better these last few days, so she’s not categorically opposed to the outings.”

Perian blew out a breath of relief.

“But the Princess running around alone is not ideal.”

Perian made a face. “I think Cormal was yelling that at one point.”

“He is concerned for her safety and well-being,” Brannal chided.

Perian glared at him. “Well, then, he shouldn’t have manhandled her and screamed at her that her brother was dead, now should he?”

There was a collective intake of breath, Brannal winced, and Perian remembered they had an audience.

“No, he shouldn’t have done that,” Brannal agreed mildly. “Don’t you all have somewhere else to be?”

And with that, everyone else was rising from the table, but Nisal gave him a quick hug, Arvus squeezed his arm, and Delana gave him a pat on the shoulder.

“You’re all right,” she told him.

“Thank you,” he said, a bit bemused and kind of touched.

Apparently, he’d passed some sort of test with Delana, and he had a sneaking suspicion it had more to do with teaching Renny how to knee someone in the groin than anything else.

Arvus squinted at Brannal, and on the way past him, he said, “He’d not eaten since yesterday at lunch. Get yourself figured out.”

They all filed out, and suddenly, Perian and Brannal were alone. For the first time since Brannal had fled after their disastrous encounter yesterday. With everything that had happened since, Perian had almost managed to forget about it.

“Would you like to sit down?” Brannal said, gesturing at the chairs by the fire.

There was more space between them than there would have been at the table, but the comfy chairs nevertheless seemed a little more intimate. He sat, and Brannal followed suit.

Carefully, Brannal said, “I mentioned that Cormal’s father was killed six years ago.”

“And you became Summus.”

Brannal nodded. “One of the assembly rooms was attacked by wraiths. A lot of wraiths. Mage Warriors, Warriors, Council members, and other members of staff were killed that day. As was the Prince. It was his sixteenth birthday celebration.”

“Renny said—”

“She was there,” Brannal admitted, face rigid and eyes haunted. “Prince Kinan dove between her and the wraiths. I’d gotten there mere moments before. It was chaos. I was trying to defend so many people, and then I heard Larenia yelling for her brother. Cormal, Molun, and I got shields up to protect people, and then Molun and I flooded the rest of the room with water to kill the wraiths, but it was too late. The Prince was dead, Summus and Secundus were dead, friends and colleagues were dead all around us. Fortunately, the Queen was with the King, who was too ill to leave his bed. He had been ailing for some time, and he died a few weeks later.”

“It sounds awful,” Perian breathed. “I’m so sorry you all went through that.”

The news of the deaths at the castle six years ago had spread throughout the country—throughout all of the Allied Domains—but it felt different when Perian actually knew the people, or at least knew those who had been deeply and personally affected by the loss.

“It was terrible,” Brannal agreed. “Everyone took the loss hard. It was a lot of deaths. Many of us threw ourselves into our work. We tightened all of our security measures, doubled patrols, reviewed procedures. And… when the six-year-old Princess acted like her brother was still there with her, talking to him, insisting that he was sitting beside her, it was decided that it allowed her to cope with what had happened, and we let her be.”

Ah.

“Only now she’s twelve, and some people seem to think it’s been going on long enough?”

It was hard not to sound censorious given that the man had yelled it in Renny’s face. Brannal blew out a breath.

“She’s the heir to the throne.”

“She’s a little girl,” Perian countered.

“She can’t just be a little girl when she’s the heir to an entire country,” Brannal said a bit sharply.

“Or maybe if she got the chance to be a little girl, she’d have the chance to grieve in peace and grow up to rule the country when she’s ready!” Perian snapped back. “She was sneaking away during nap time to sit alone in a garden . I think you all should be worried but not about what seems to be worrying you.”

Brannal blew out a breath and admitted quietly, “I don’t want anything to happen to her.”

Perian sighed. Here was a man who had been instrumental in driving off a wraith attack that had killed Renny’s brother and multiple people they both knew and cared for. They were still feeling the repercussions of that attack to this day. Even Cormal, though it pissed Perian off to have the thought, had lost someone important to him, and though he had expressed himself in the worst possible way, maybe Perian had the smallest smidgen of understanding about where he had been coming from.

More gently, he said, “I imagine that you’ve all been working ceaselessly to make sure that she’s physically safe, but I think the rest of her well-being may have been negatively impacted. She really seemed to enjoy those picnics. And didn’t you say her mother—the Queen, I mean—thought she seemed a bit better?”

He had been thinking about going and scolding Renny’s mother, hadn’t he? Ha. He could only imagine how well that would have gone.

Brannal nodded. “The Princess still tires easily, and she’s not terribly strong.”

“Tell that to Cormal’s balls.”

The words were out before Perian could censor them. There was a moment of dead silence, and then Brannal laughed, and Perian could have cried with relief, but instead he laughed too, probably a little more uproariously than was really warranted by his sassy comment. Not that Brannal laughing at something he said meant everything was fixed, but it definitely brought down the level of tension between them.

Still smiling but looking as though he was trying to get his amusement under control, Brannal said, “I heard about it from both parties. The Queen was not pleased Cormal upset the Princess to such a degree, though she did also scold Princess Larenia for sneaking away. Cormal wasn’t wrong that the Princess could have been in real trouble if she collapsed while she sneaked away. Especially in a hidden location.”

“How did you know where to find us?”

Brannal’s eyes clouded. “The Prince used to hide there. He showed it to me once. It was a long time ago.” He cleared his throat. “I tried a few more prosaic locations in the castle before I remembered that one, especially once Cormal made some rather vitriolic comments about a picnic basket and blankets.”

“I didn’t hit him with the blankets,” Perian offered immediately.

Brannal shot him a look.

“I scarcely remember throwing the basket. I was just so worried about Renny. I ran after her immediately.”

“The Princess was very clear that you found her and took care of her. And that she had not, in fact, been alone since you got to the castle but was under your supervision.”

Perian made a face, since he wouldn’t exactly have said that anything he did was so formal as supervising , especially since he hadn’t even known she was the Princess.

The expression on Brannal’s face said he knew exactly what Perian was thinking.

“Fortunately, the Queen was pleased Larenia hadn’t been alone, and Molun and I were both there to attest to your character.”

It went without saying that Cormal had not been complimentary.

Brannal continued, “The upshot is that as long as the Princess’s health does not deteriorate, the Queen will permit the excursions if Larenia is accompanied.”

Perian eyed Brannal suspiciously, because that didn’t sound anything like the excursions they’d had up until this point.

“You are still permitted to have picnics with her,” Brannal clarified, and Perian breathed a sigh of relief, until Brannal continued. “But she can’t come alone. She’ll need to have a Warrior or Mage Warrior with her.”

Perian huffed a breath. “You’re insisting she be guarded in the middle of the garden in the middle of the quadrangle in the middle of an entirely secure castle.”

“You were able to get her alone without any trouble at all,” Brannal snapped.

Hurt and anger swamped him, and Perian erupted out of his chair. “I’m not—”

Brannal rose hurriedly, hands outstretched. “That came out wrong! Perian, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

Perian glared mutinously.

Brannal explained, “I meant only that you are not a member of the royal household and you were able to spend time with her without anyone being the wiser. If someone with ill-intent had done the same, we might be having a very different discussion right now. I know you would never mean her any harm.”

“Not ever,” Perian said, wrapping his arms around himself.

He understood what Brannal was saying, truly he did, but he still couldn’t shake the feeling that he had been accused of doing something wrong when all he had ever tried to do was befriend a sad little girl and make her happier.

“Come here,” Brannal said gently.

Perian allowed himself to be tugged closer, and then he was enfolded in Brannal’s arms. Perian blew out an unsteady breath and tucked his head into the man’s shoulder, inhaling the soothing scent of leather. He was reminded suddenly of Renny doing this to him. It really did make you feel remarkably better when you were hugged by someone who was trying to support you.

Brannal pressed a kiss to the side of his head.

“I’m truly sorry,” he murmured. “You’ve been taking better care of her than all the rest of us, and you did it for no other reason than because you could.”

“She seemed sad,” Perian mumbled into the leather beneath his cheek.

“Thank you for caring,” Brannal said gently.

“It’s impossible not to.”

Only Perian wasn’t just talking about Renny.

“You look tired.”

“Didn’t sleep last night,” Perian admitted. “Was worried about you.”

Brannal tightened his grip. “I’m sorry I worried you, and I’m sorry I made a mess of everything yesterday.”

“You didn’t—”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Brannal pointed out acerbically. “Of course I did.”

Perian pulled back so he could face the other man, arguing staunchly, “If something triggered you, that’s not your fault.”

Brannal let out a sigh. “You’re too forgiving.”

“No such thing.”

Brannal was silent for a moment, and then he said, “Can we go to bed? Just to sleep.”

“Yes, please,” Perian agreed with alacrity.

He didn’t even know what time it was. He’d lost track of everything, especially with waiting for the proverbial ax to fall, but it certainly felt like it was time to sleep.

They took turns in the water closet and changed into sleep trousers. It wasn’t exactly business as usual, but neither was it the brittle tension of yesterday that had seemed like it was going to snap and destroy everything.

They crawled into bed, and Perian settled on his side and reminded himself he was exhausted, and this was much better than it had been, and he shouldn’t be wishing for—

Only then a hand was tugging on his arm, and with something that was definitely not a sob, Perian was once again tucked up against Brannal. He could breathe fully for the first time all day, tension beginning to seep out of his body. The steady thump of Brannal’s heart, audible where Perian’s head rested on Brannal’s chest, reassured him, and somehow made it seem like everything was going to be all right.