The first time Kurt woke up his hands burned and his throat ached with thirst and he floated in the dark on a rolling sea on the softest boat in the world. Disembodied voices drifted around him. They pitched high like anguished wailing then dropped deep as faraway thunder. Men's voices. Women's. He wanted to call out for help but pain blocked his throat. He reached out, trailed his fingers in cool water, but when he scooped up a drink to ease his thirst it burned his palms and tasted like bitter tears. He fell back on cushions soft as clouds and tossed his head restlessly as the rise and fall of the voices tugged him back into a deep, silent nothing.
The second time Kurt work up, light shone through his closed eyes, turning the insides of his eyelids orange. His mouth was still dry and his hands still hurt and it was entirely possible he was still dreaming because he rested as before on the softest of beds but it wasn't moving now, it had anchored on dry land presumably, and there were no voices tumbling incoherent acrobatics around his body. Still, experience had taught him caution. He kept his eyes firmly closed and reached out with his other senses.
His head didn't hurt, not like the first time he'd been drugged. His throat and his hands, they hurt, and when he stretched his toes downward his sore muscles eloquently cried out the abuse they'd suffered in his struggle for freedom, but nothing spun or tilted. No nausea threatened. There was no dank smell of mildewed straw or damp stone. He smelled something though. It was a warm and teasingly familiar scent but he couldn't place it without opening his eyes to look and he wasn't ready to look.
He was warm this time, covered by a soft and heavy blanket. He wanted to be comforted by that. As a child he'd always felt safest snuggled deep in his bed. But he'd learned that comforts came with strings attached. He wouldn't let himself be lulled.
If he strained his ears he could just make out the quiet crackle of a fire burning somewhere close by. And then in a sudden burst that was too loud because he was listening so intently, birdsong.
Cautiously, he cracked open one eye and, when no pain seared his head and nothing else catastrophic occurred, the other.
The sky was all wrong. It swirled above him in impossible shades of purple and red. He squinted, shook his head, rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands – avoiding his painful palms – until the colors resolved into a pattern he recognized. Paisley. Not the sky at all but a canopy of rich fabric and then he realized what he'd smelled. He was surrounded by fabric, heavy and brocaded, and when he let his eyes wander further the four carved posts rising around him pulled the picture together. He was in a bed, a huge bed soft as eiderdown, made up with luxurious sheets and blankets tucked tight around his body, and hung with draperies gathered and tied at each post.
He'd never seen such a bed before, outside of Gavin's chamber. On that terrifying thought Kurt cast his gaze wider and found that, though the room around him matched the opulence of the bed, it wasn't the duke's. It was a huge room, paneled in dark polished wood that gleamed in the morning sunlight. Long stretches of the walls were hung with tapestries where animals worked in thread of gold cavorted with impossibly beautiful nymphs and gently lecherous fauns. It was every bit as splendid as the Duke of Eastreach's personal bedroom. Who could possibly have installed him here?
Lady Montrose's face flashed before Kurt's eyes but he pushed it and the fear it produced away and forced himself to continue his survey. He should take the opportunity, while he was alone, to learn as much as he could about his situation. Fear led to mistakes. Knowledge was power.
Far across the room from the foot of the bed the fire he'd heard burned under a mantle carved with roses and delicate vines. The floor was carpeted as richly as the bed was hung; a bright sunbeam illuminated the paisley pattern. Kurt's eyes followed the sunbeam up to a huge window on the wall next to the bed. From his position he could see only sky, so he took the valiant step of levering himself up onto an elbow to look out.
The window faced east, like the one in his room, but its position was strange and off-center and so it took Kurt longer than it should have to realize that the towers he could see were as familiar as this grand room was strange. Whatever else had happened, he was still in Eastreach Castle.
He sat up further, thinking of taking a closer look, but movement made him aware of something constraining his legs and panic flashed through his body. He kicked out desperately – only to find he wasn't bound at all. His sore muscles protested but his legs moved freely. He shoved the blanket away and stared down at his body, dumbfounded.
He was wearing clothes. His chest was bare but his legs were covered in a pair of soft, loose sleeping trousers dyed a dark hunter green. He stared and tried to make what he saw and what he felt come together in his head but he couldn't. Legs, in pants, the most normal thing in the world but it wasn't right; it wasn't allowed and it felt wrong but the very wrongness of it squeezed his heart in a tightening fist and had him fighting back tears. He might have shoved the garment off right then and there but a new sound made him raise his eyes again and then trivial thoughts like forbidden clothing fled.
He wasn't alone.
Kurt retreated, kicking backwards against the feather mattress until his back slammed into the headboard, before he managed to understand that his observer was only a child. A tiny boy not more than five years old sat against the far wall next to an ornate door, in a chair much too large for his body. He was dressed all in black and his bare feet dangled inches above the floor. His hands gripped the seat of the chair as if he needed to hold on to keep himself still. If his saucer-wide eyes were anything to judge by, he was just as alarmed by Kurt as Kurt was by him. Still, threats came in many forms, Kurt had learned, and he wrapped his arms tight around his knees as they appraised each other.
The boy broke first. "You woke up," he squeaked.
Kurt nodded.
"I have to tell the master," the boy said, just a bit louder. He released his death grip on the chair, scooted to the floor and began to wrestle with the door that he seemed far too small to budge.
"Wait . . ." Kurt tried to stop him but his voice stuck in his parched throat with a barely-there croak.
The child ignored his attempt. He managed to twist the knob and pull the door open far enough to slip his little body through the crack.
He could make a run for it, Kurt thought wildly. He wasn't even naked. He could . . . but before he'd even finished the thought the door swung wider and someone else appeared in the opening, accompanied by a swish of heavy skirts. Kurt cringed back against the headboard again, away from the memory of Lady Montrose's ice-blue silk in knife-sharp pleats. He pulled a pillow against his naked chest like the world's prettiest but most inadequate shield.
"You are awake. Well that's a relief."
Kurt stared for a full twenty seconds – his heart pulsing in his ears kept time for him – before he realized that she wasn't Lady Montrose at all. No, this person couldn't have been more different.
She was older than the lady, and her raven hair was shot through with strands of white and pinned in coiled braids around the crown of her head. Her dress was dyed a pretty blue, but even in his current state of anxiety Kurt's expert eye could see that the fabric was simple, useful homespun, gently faded and covered by a sturdy white work apron. Her eyes were quite as blue and piercing as the lady's had been, but where those had glinted with dangerous desire, this woman's gaze was all compassion and kindness. She looked so genuinely concerned that Kurt almost – almost – relaxed his grip on his shielding pillow. But he reminded himself that he still didn't have the first idea what was going on and stayed as he was, as far from the woman as he could get while still on the bed.
She held a pewter flagon in her hands and Kurt stared at it as she came forward into the room.
"Of course that great idiot had no idea how much tincture he'd given you," she chattered on, coming closer. Kurt tried to push himself away as she advanced but the headboard hard behind him gave him nowhere to go. He was trapped. He could only watch helplessly as she perched on the end of the bed, still smiling like nothing at all could be wrong. "But you've barely slept longer than a normal night so I suppose he managed to stumble on the right thing. By pure dumb luck, I'm sure."
He realized with a jolt that she was talking about Sebastian. He opened his mouth, but before he could force any words out she held the mug out in the space between them. "I've brought you some water. I'm sure you're parched."
He was more than parched; he was dying of thirst but Kurt gripped the pillow tighter between himself and what she offered. The woman seemed to understand and the warmth in her eyes drifted toward sadness.
"Of course you've no cause to trust me. But I promise it's plain water. With just a bit of honey to soothe your throat. He told me how you were shouting. Go on and take it."
Kurt stared at the cup. He could just see the water glistening temptingly below the rim. His mouth longed for it but he didn't move to take it.
The woman sighed. "Come now. Do I look like a woman who'd participate in anything as nefarious as drugging a poor defenseless young man?"
She didn't, but that only made Kurt more wary.
"Sebastian should have known better," she went on. "If it helps, I've already given him a good piece of my mind about that. And everything else. But I fear it'll do no good. He's never quite mastered the art of thinking before he acts, that's for certain. Here . . ." She turned her head so Kurt could see clearly as she raised the goblet to her own lips and tilted it. The light from the window illuminated the water as it trickled into her mouth. She swallowed deliberately, then held out the cup again. "You see? Just water. I promise."
Kurt's brain tried to come up with reasons to resist but the temptation was too strong. He let go of the pillow and reached a tentative hand toward the cup. The woman started to hand it to him but then paused and caught his hand in her free one, turning it up to stare at his palm.
"What have you done here?" she asked.
He tried to jerk away from her but she seemed to have anticipated that and held him in a gentle but inescapable grip. And when he looked down at his hand he forgot to be afraid of her touch. No wonder he hurt. A harsh red welt burned across his skin, a ragged, angry gash. Kurt opened his other hand and found an identical mark. He closed his eyes as memory washed through him: clinging to the rope, Sebastian trying to pull him away, kicking, screaming, consumed by fear and anger . . .
He opened his eyes to escape the vision. The woman was watching him, her mouth a thin, tight line. "I'll find some salve for those," she said. "There must be an apothecary somewhere in this godsforsaken place. Here. You drink."
She pushed the goblet into his hands. It was heavy; he had to use both hands to take it from her and lift it to his mouth. It was water just as she'd promised, cool and fresh and barely sweet, and so soothing to his aching throat that he gulped at it greedily. But after just a few swallows, the woman put a hand on the base and tilted it back down. "Easy now. We don't want it all coming back up again, do we? Just let that settle a bit."
She took the mug and put it on the delicate table next to the bed. While Kurt was wincing at the prospect of water rings on the beautiful inlaid wood pattern, the woman stood up and fussed at the bedclothes, tucking them tight around him again. Kurt wanted to stop her – it was morning, he wasn't sick. He should get up and do . . . what? His lack of knowledge made him dizzy and he shut his eyes against it.
"I'm going to find you something to eat," the woman said as she tucked, "and I'd probably better chase down that nephew of mine. You gave the poor child quite a shock, you know."
At the mention of the child anxiety flooded back into Kurt's chest. He opened his eyes and caught the woman's wrist before she could turn away from the bed. "The boy?" he croaked. "He said . . . the master . . ."
Her eyes went wide. "Oh! No! Never fear." She patted at Kurt's hand on her arm before slipping out of his grip. "He didn't mean the duke. Goodness no! You won't be seeing him again, and thank the merciful Mother for that."
Kurt stared at her.
"The child's a bit overwhelmed, you understand. He's never been beyond the gates of Eastreach Village before. I wouldn't have brought him here but my sister was midwifing last night when Sebastian sent for me and I had no choice. Though I fear even if he wasn't so overwhelmed, the rules of noble address would be quite beyond him, poor thing. He's been calling everyone master, page or prince. Even you. And to be fair, 'His Royal Highness' is a lot of big words for such a tiny mouth, don't you think?"
Kurt's throat went dry and his brain fuzzed. "His Royal Highness?" A whisper was the most he could manage. "The crown prince?"
The woman's dark eyebrows drew together over her puzzled eyes. She opened her mouth but a tap on the door interrupted whatever she planned to say. "Come," she called out, without turning to see who exactly was coming.
Kurt turned. The quiet creak of the hinges pulled his attention to the door. Sebastian stood in the opening, and relief left Kurt breathless until he remembered why it shouldn't.
"Ned said Kurt was awake."
His voice was softer than Kurt was used to, and raspy around the edges, though not as hoarse as Kurt's, and the sound of it wrapping around his name made Kurt's belly flutter. He looked back at the woman, who still smiled at him with a look of fond exasperation. She rolled her eyes at Kurt, as if she expected him to understand why.
"That he is," she said lightly.
"We should probably talk," Sebastian said.
"Well that's the first sensible thing you've said in hours," the woman said, still not looking at Sebastian. "I rejoice to hear it." She reached out to fluff the pillows behind Kurt's back, giving him a wink as she did so, like they were both in on the same joke. Kurt wished that he knew what it was. When she finally turned away he pulled his discarded pillow shield into his lap and wrapped his arms around it tight.
The woman paused in the doorway and stared up at Sebastian. He towered over her, but she didn't seem daunted by that in the least. She lifted an eyebrow, and Sebastian answered her with a twist of his lips and a short nod. A silent conversation that, like everything else, Kurt didn't understand.
Apparently satisfied, she turned back to Kurt. "I won't be long," she said, as if that would reassure him. Then she gave Sebastian a little shove, pushing him farther into the room, and slipped out the door. The click of the latch echoed in the silence.
For the very first time, Kurt and Sebastian faced each other in the stark illumination of daylight.
Conflicting emotions filled Kurt's head and his heart and he suspected he couldn't have found his way through them if he'd had a map and compass. Sebastian looked . . . exhausted. And miserable. And as beautiful as ever, even without the flickering warmth of lamplight. He was almost otherworldly, standing in the path of the sunbeam that poured in through the huge window, surrounded by the whimsical woven scenes in the tapestries that hung around him. He wore the same simple white shirt and plain breeches he'd had on the night before but the shirt was untucked now, and rumpled, and there was a tear at one shoulder seam that Kurt didn't remember seeing before. Had he done that? Had he fought hard enough to rip Sebastian's clothes? He was sure he shouldn't enjoy the possibility, but he enjoyed it anyhow.
Above the shirt's collar the bruise Kurt had sucked into Sebastian's neck was fading but still visible. Kurt's eyes lingered on it until he managed to drag them upward.
In the bright light Sebastian's eyes were more gray than green and the skin around them was pinched and shadowed purple underneath. He stood stock-still under Kurt's gaze, as if he couldn't imagine what to say any more than Kurt could. They regarded each other with the expanse of the great room between them and Kurt wanted to run to him and soothe the hurt that had left him looking so wretched, and he wanted to pick up the pewter mug and fling it at Sebastian's head, and he wanted to burrow under the blankets and hide from whatever this new reality was going to be. He wished he'd been given a shirt to go with the sleeping trousers. He wished he was naked altogether. He felt too bare under Sebastian's gaze, but at the same time too covered. Nothing made sense. Images flashed behind his eyes in a crazy, out-of-sequence jumble. Sebastians, so many Sebastians, and he had no idea which one, if any of them, was real.
When he opened his mouth he had no idea what was going to come out. His first words turned out to be the same as his last ones the night before.
"You drugged me."
He hated how he sounded: scared, confused, despite the harsh rasp of his throat.
"I know," Sebastian replied with a duck of his head. His voice was as tired as his eyes. "I'm sorry. I didn't know what else to do. You were hysterical and you kept talking about going to the roof and . . ." His shoulders lifted in a tiny, tentative motion that might have been a shrug. "I guess I panicked. I'm sorry."
I'm so fucking sorry Kurt . . .
Kurt shook his head hard to silence the memory. "What's the game?" he asked, suddenly desperately tired of not knowing. "I can't figure it out. That woman, she said –"
"Game? No, Kurt, I told you last night . . ." Sebastian broke off and dismay clouded his handsome features. "Please tell me you remember. What I said last night?"
"You said . . ." Kurt tried to think. He'd been on the bed, holding the rope, Sebastian pulling him away, they shouted, they fell . . . he shook his head no.
Sebastian's eyes closed. "Fuck," he said, whisper soft.
"What am I supposed to remember," Kurt demanded, with so much more authority than he felt.
When Sebastian's eyes opened they were full of dismay and he held up his hands between them, open and placating as if he expected Kurt to fly at him in a rage yet again. "Okay," he said, "the first thing you need to know is that you're safe. You're free, Kurt. You're not a slave anymore. It's all over."
Kurt's mind went blank and he stared at Sebastian. It was literally the last thing he'd expected to hear. And most certainly the last thing he could afford to let himself believe. "What? No," he whispered. It was more of the game, he was sure, Sebastian still breaking him down.
"I swear it's true." Sebastian's eyes begged him to believe.
"I heard them!" Kurt insisted. "I'm a present for the crown prince and that woman, she said he was here!"
"No, that's what I –"
"She said it!" Kurt protested, and the fears of last night came rushing back to him undimmed. He couldn't believe; he wouldn't let himself. Hope was a brutal murderer and he closed his mind to it. "And Reginald said I was going to Concordia and that I was going to be –"
"It's me, Kurt!" Sebastian's shout echoed in the room, too loud, and drowned Kurt out. He took a step closer to the bed, pleading. "I told you last night. It's me. I'm the crown prince."
Kurt felt his face fall into stupefied shock. It was the only thing he felt. Everything from his chin down went numb as he stared at the haggard, barefoot boy in torn clothing who looked smaller and more frightened than anyone who'd just announced himself as royalty should.
"That's impossible," he whispered.
Unexpectedly, if anything could be expected in a situation like this, Sebastian laughed. It was a bitter, angry sound. "Impossible? You have no idea how many people I've tried to tell that the past two months. But I'm afraid it's all too true. I'm the crown prince of Concordia." He shrugged as he said it, lowering his eyes like a child confessing a sin, afraid that the punishment was going to be even worse than he'd imagined.
Kurt's brain groped blindly, trying to understand. "No." He closed his eyes and searched his memory. "I heard people talking. Different people, and not just when they knew I was listening. You've been here before. You . . . you told off that maid."
"Maid?"
"And Reginald said – you were worse every time. Every time. How can you say –?"
"I can explain all of that." Sebastian moved at last, pacing to the window to stare down into the courtyard. His body cast a long shadow across the foot of the bed. "Nobody here knows who I am. Except the duke and duchess."
"No," Kurt said again. It was preposterous and he wasn't going to be sucked in again; he refused. "That's insane. This is just another part of your plan, whatever it is."
Sebastian just stared out the window.
"You expect me to believe that everyone in this whole place thinks you're –"
"Sebastian Smythe. Under-steward of Greenway."
"An entire castle full of people? No. Someone would know."
Sebastian turned back to Kurt, but Kurt wished he hadn't. The smile on his face was thin and sharp in a way that made Kurt's guts twist. "Have you ever seen a picture of King Harold's second son? Well no one else has either. It's not like they ever put my face on things. Before. Actually, there is a portrait of me here, hanging in the gallery. But I was a year old when it was painted so I think I'm safe."
"I've never been in the gallery," Kurt heard himself say.
"Miranda Montrose gave me a scare, I will admit. I didn't expect her to be here. And then my aunt and cousin – it's funny when you think about it, how many people could have exposed me right when I wanted so much to stay hidden."
Kurt could have applied many adjectives to the situation, but funny wasn't one of them.
"I had to do some very creative lurking to avoid them. I can't imagine their reactions to seeing Prince Harold like this." He swept a hand to indicate his rough clothing, with a smile that didn't come anywhere near his eyes.
"Harold," Kurt murmured. Hearing it, he remembered so many people saying it. "So you're not Sebastian at all. I told you my name and you didn't even tell me yours?"
"No, no I am Sebastian."
"You're not making sense! What am I supposed to believe?"
Sebastian laughed again. Kurt wished he would stop. The sound was hard and unnerving and made it even more difficult to force his brain to function. "About a million years ago some soothsayer told one of my more gullible ancestors that our family would stay in power as long as Harold's ass sat on the throne. I'm sure she put it more witchy-poetically than that, but that's the gist. Everyone claims they don't believe it but no one wants to take any chances. So anyone within spitting distance of the succession gets named Harold. Even some of the girls." His eyes shifted to the window then back to Kurt. "None of us uses it, except officially. Imagine the chaos. I actually have four names. Harold Sebastian Alastair Maurice. My brother was Harold Daniel Alexander. My father –"
"This doesn't make any sense," Kurt protested. He had to make Sebastian stop talking. The sight of the boy he'd kissed and held and so many other things he didn't dare think about talking so casually about the royal family made him feel like his head was going to explode. It was too much to accept. "Why would you come here and pretend to be something you're not? Over and over again? What's the point?"
Sebastian shrugged and turned back to the window. "I suppose the point is that my uncle is an idiot."
Uncle? The bed tilted underneath Kurt. Gavin, the queen's brother, Sebastian's uncle, uncle of the crown prince, uncle of the future king of the realm and Kurt suddenly wished his brain would stop trying to understand because it was like looking over the edge of a cliff down into infinity.
When Kurt didn't speak Sebastian turned away from the window just long enough to look at him. Maybe he was worried Kurt had passed out from shock. Finding him still upright in the bed he turned quickly back, like he couldn't bear to look for more than a moment. He lifted his head, tossing his chin in the direction of the towers opposite their window. "This place may feel like a backwater void, but it's actually one of the most important duchies in the realms. Definitely the most important one in the east. Strategically, it's the key to keeping the eastern realm under control. It needs a duke who the old guard easterners trust, but one who's also tied to the interests of the throne. That's why my father married my mother. Nothing better than a family connection to buy loyalty. But when my grandfather died –"
"Your grandfather?" Kurt felt stupid for asking but his brain couldn't keep up.
Sebastian glanced back at him again. "The old duke. Gavin's father. And my mother's."
The old duke. The man who'd installed his sick valet in the room Kurt had slept in for the past six months. Sebastian's grandfather. The bed took another gentle spin underneath him.
Sebastian finally moved away from the window and began to pace, aimlessly, like he had no idea where to go but he couldn't bear to be still any longer. Kurt's watched him, but the sunlight from the window had been in his eyes too long and bright bursts of color danced between him and Sebastian, making him seem even more remote and impossible.
"It was pretty obvious Gavin couldn't manage a pig farm, let alone an important holding like this," Sebastian said as he moved. "So the council decided to send someone from the court a couple of times a year to keep an eye on things. Make sure the tenants were happy and the place was running well. That the new duke wasn't pocketing too much of the income. That he wasn't going to lose the place to someone stronger or smarter who might not give a fuck about being related to the king of the realms. And a couple of years ago my father decided it was a perfect job for his idle, boy-chasing extra heir. He thought I needed to learn a little diplomacy. At the time I had no idea what the fucking point was."
Kurt wanted him to stop talking. He needed it. Because the more Sebastian sounded like he was reciting the kind of civics lesson drilled into rich young men by their learned tutors, the harder it was to deny what Sebastian was trying to make him believe.
"My uncle may be an idiot," Sebastian went on, oblivious to Kurt's struggle, "but like most bullies he's really more of a baby than little Ned out there. He bitched so much the council agreed to let him act like he was the one doing the overseeing. Couldn't let it be known the Duke of Eastreach needed a babysitter to manage his estate. The council's emissary agreed to pose as the under-steward of Greenway. And when I took over, Sebastian Smythe was born. As it turned out, he was one of the best things that ever happened to me. I never knew anonymity could be so – powerful. I thought I'd hate it, with no one to wait on me or treat me like I was used to. But when I was here I was free in way I'd never experienced before. I could do pretty much anything and nobody would care. Who pays any attention to a lowly under-steward? I'd have come twice as often if I could have found an excuse to do it."
Kurt clutched the pillow to his chest. Sebastian stopped in the center of the room and faced Kurt like a convict waiting for a verdict. Silence reigned as they stared at each other. Kurt knew he should have questions, more questions, more doubts, but Sebastian's words, so many words, rang too true for him to deny them.
"You're the crown prince of Concordia?" His heart fluttered as he said it.
"In the flesh." Then Sebastian drew himself up tall and bowed, a deep and courtly obeisance that didn't at all match his torn clothes and bare feet. And as he rose Kurt could finally see it. The ease of his movement and his familiarity with the gesture was undeniable and as his long body straightened his eyes flashed and his chin lifted with a pride that felt perfectly genuine – the final pose in a ritual he'd performed since childhood. It was graceful and regal and left Kurt breathless, in spite of himself, with the sheer romance of it.
Then it all fell away and he was Sebastian again, contrite and unsure, lit by a sunbeam.
A hundred questions jostled for supremacy in Kurt's head. A hundred more than the untold number he'd had before. He shook his head and tried to focus on just one. "I don't . . . why did any of it happen then? You're the prince. You can do what you want. You could have rescued me. Why didn't you rescue me? You could have set me free."
Sebastian looked like he wanted to run away and hide. "It's worse than that. You've been free all along."
Kurt had to reach for the nearest bed post to hold himself upright, because his head was threatening to float away. "What?"
Sebastian tugged a hand through his hair, pulling it into unprincely disarray. "Slavery is illegal Kurt. In both realms. No matter what Gavin and the hardline easterners like him want to believe. He may have cowed everyone in this place into keeping quiet, but I'm a member of the royal family, representing the council. The minute I realized what was going on in that hall, you were free. Technically. I just didn't bother telling you that."
It was a confession, and Sebastian's expression was already begging for forgiveness, but the sunspots in Kurt's eyes made him seem far away and he couldn't breathe because the words had stolen all the breath from his body. He turned away and pulled himself into a ball around his shielding pillow. The trousers wrapped around his legs felt like bondage and the instinct to push them off and make himself properly naked was overwhelming. He buried his face in the soft fabric of the pillow and tried to breathe and to understand.
"Kurt, please, let me –"
"Why?" Kurt rasped. "Why –" He wanted to say more but there were so many whys in his head that he couldn't manage to single one of them out.
Sebastian sighed. "I've been trying to figure out how to explain this to you ever since I decided that I needed to explain it to you. And I still don't even know where to start."
"The beginning?" Kurt said, wondering what that could possibly be. He was further than ever from understanding how any of this could be happening to him.
The dark laugh filled the room again. Kurt lifted his head just far enough to see that Sebastian was at the window again, staring down. His palm pressed against the glass like a prisoner longing for escape. "The beginning?" He shrugged. "I suppose the beginning is – my brother died." His voice was cold and flat, devoid of emotion.
There was a long silence. Kurt waited as long as he could before he broke it. "The – first crown prince."
"Daniel," Sebastian said, and his shoulders twitched.
"I don't understand. What does he have to with any of this?"
Sebastian's fingers moved, tracing a random pattern across the glass. It must be cold outside, Kurt thought. He could see crescents of condensation in the space where they'd rested before.
"You have to understand what it's like to be a prince." Sebastian said at last.
Kurt's empty stomach twisted and he had to look away – he couldn't bear to watch Sebastian anymore. "Please tell me this isn't going to be a story about the burden of royalty, because I honestly don't think I can listen to that without throwing up."
"No!" Sebastian said. But then he laughed. "Well, actually, yes. But you asked me why. This is why."
Silence filled the room for long seconds before Kurt realized Sebastian was waiting for his permission to continue. "Go ahead," he said. He'd come too far not to hear it all.
Sebastian turned his back to the window, facing Kurt. It was easier to look at him now that the sun had moved along in the sky. It didn't hurt Kurt's eyes quite as much.
"By the time I was thirteen I knew I was . . ." Sebastian trailed off, frowning.
"Reversed?" Kurt suggested.
The frown deepened. "Gods, I hate that word."
"Why?"
"It means backward. It makes it sound like something's wrong with us, like we need to be fixed."
Even in Kurt's nerve-stretched state, the us and we struck him, and he felt an echo of the shock he'd experienced when he'd first heard kitchen-keeper Mary talking about Sebastian's nature. "There are worse words," he said.
"Which doesn't mean we should accept inadequate ones."
"I still don't know what this has to do with me," Kurt said, but it was a token protest. Maybe he was getting used to the strange turns Sebastian's story kept taking.
"I never even considered hiding it," Sebastian said. "After all, ever since I was born all everyone ever told me was how special and important I was. Nothing about me could possibly be wrong or bad. And I certainly wasn't about to pretend to be something I wasn't. Not me, Sebastian, Prince of Concordia. I told everyone. My brother, my parents, tutors. I never took a minute to consider whether it could affect my family's position – which it could have, no royal had ever . . . well, I was the perfect arrogant little shit. Pretty much dared them to try to tell me who I had to be." He smiled. It was faint, but genuine this time. "But they didn't. My parents accepted me, inconvenient sexual preferences and all. And once they did, well, everyone else had to, didn't they? Or at least pretend they did. I guess it helped that I wasn't the heir. It might have been different if it was Daniel."
"How terrible for you. I completely see why it sucks to be a prince," Kurt said. Nausea was rising as promised and he scooted to the edge of the bed and reached for the goblet of water to try to wash it down.
"That's not what I'm trying to say," Sebastian said. "People want to get close to a prince. A royal connection buys influence and favors. And what better way to connect than with sex? Once I was old enough – and honestly, even before I was old enough – you can't imagine how many men offered to . . . suck my dick, or even let me fuck them. Men who'd never touched a penis other than their own. Who'd never wanted to."
Kurt stared at him. He couldn't imagine it. It was hard enough for him to imagine a world where people simply acknowledged being reversed, let alone openly offered favors. The idea both frightened and fascinated him. His fingers held tight to the pewter mug; the cool metal soothed his palms. "So you couldn't tell who genuinely wanted you?" he asked.
"I could, eventually, obviously. You can't really make a cock react to something it doesn't want to react to."
Kurt wanted to laugh his own dark laugh at that. He'd spent six months learning how untrue that was.
"But I liked other things, too," Sebastian went on. He stood still against the window but his eyes danced away from Kurt, flitting around the room, landing on each bright tapestry in turn. "The things we –" He stopped himself and shook his head. "The things I did, to you. The dominance and the control. The pain. And that kind of thing is a lot harder to fake. It doesn't seem that way at first. Just a game, right? A little rope, some teasing, the occasional smack on the ass. Just moan a little, look excited. By the time he realizes he's in way over his head, you're naked in some compromising position and saying things that sound utterly ridiculous in the cold light of day." He swallowed; Kurt could see his throat bob. "That's not a thing you let happen more than once. Aside from the deep personal humiliation, there's always the fear that the wrong person might talk. It's one thing for everyone to know that the prince is reversed, but that he likes to torture men's balls until they beg for mercy? Even I could figure out that would not reflect well on us."
Kurt wanted to laugh at him again and mock his terrible royal life, but his head was too full of the image of himself begging for a mercy he didn't really want, with his balls in Sebastian's fist, sucking hard on the warm skin of Sebastian's neck. His eyes sought the fading bruise and lingered on it until he managed to force them away.
"But I had a plan," Sebastian said. "It was a good plan. All I had to do was wait," his hand made another restless trip through his hair, "until Daniel was married, managed to spawn a couple of kids. They already had the bride picked out. All I needed was patience. One royal wedding, two mini heirs between me and the throne, how long could it take? A few years? And then I was going to disappear." He breathed the last word, like a sigh of relief or a whisper of longing.
"I don't understand," Kurt said again. That seemed to be his theme today.
"Well, not really disappear. There are some conventions even I'm too well-trained to ignore completely. But I figured there had to be dozens of places I could go where nobody would have any idea who I was. Some little town somewhere, maybe in the south where it's warm all the time, someplace where I could live my life and do what I wanted without having to worry about people wanting things from me, or risk accidentally threatening the political future of my entire family. I was so, so close." He raised a hand and closed his fist tight, like he was snatching freedom out of the air. "It would have worked. I could have had a life."
"But?" Kurt prompted, because Sebastian seemed to expect it.
Sebastian huffed another of those bitter laughs. It set Kurt's teeth on edge. "But a pig squealed. And a horse that had carried my brother through a lifetime of crazy processions with cheering crowds and screaming babies and every fucking noise you can imagine, decided the squeal was a bolt-worthy danger. And instead of landing six inches ahead or behind, Daniel's head bulls-eyed a rock the size of my fist." He dropped his head back; Kurt heard it thump against the glass. "And I learned what a selfish asshole I really am."
He stared at Kurt with piercing, haunted eyes. The desire to comfort him renewed itself in Kurt with double force, but he held fast to his pillow and listened. "You called me a bastard last night. Well you were right. I am. I sat by my brother's bed and I held his hand and watched him take his last breaths and all I could think about was how incredibly fucked I was, for the rest of my life. My brother died, and all I could see was my own life getting sucked right down into the void with him. Daniel was meant to be king. He was born for it and he wanted it. I used to tease him, you know. I used to call him King Harold the Great. He hated that, but he would have been. He would have made a wonderful king. But he's gone. And I'm trapped."
Sebastian's pain was obvious and real and the emotions it inspired in Kurt's chest scared him. He tried to draw on his anger and remember the betrayal he'd felt last night. Because whatever the truth, Sebastian had most definitely betrayed him. "There are worse things than being king," he said, with the fervency of experience.
"Yes, well, like I said, selfish bastard. That girl who was supposed to marry my brother? They've already changed the names on the contracts. Nobody gives a shit which Prince Harold she gets. She was promised she'd be a queen and a queen she will be."
Surprise jolted Kurt out of his own feelings. "But you're –"
"Reversed, yes. Which doesn't change the fact that duties must be performed. Lines of succession must continue. Heirs of the body and all that. Nobody cares that I'll never love her or even want her. They only care that I fuck her once in a while. So that is what I will do. I'll sit on a throne I don't want and marry a woman I'll never desire. And yes, I can find other people, men, to be with but in the end . . ." he shrugged and pulled once again at the tufted peaks of his hair. "Fucking isn't everything. Even I know that. Someday I'm going to want . . . and where am I going to find someone willing to . . . when everything I do until the day I die will be a lie?"
He looked so genuinely miserable and Kurt's instinct for compassion was strengthened by his own lifelong certainty that he would never find love, a certainty that had fueled so many of the choices he'd made in that room with Sebastian. But he pushed instinct aside yet again. He couldn't afford to be soft now. He was the one who'd paid the price for Sebastian's despair.
"So you're destined for an emotionally unfulfilling life of luxury." It came out more bitter than Kurt had intended. He took another drink from the goblet – at least the water soothed one of his hurts – and set it back on the inlaid table. "How does that end in you doing what you did to me?"
"They didn't even want me to come this time. My father said I'm too valuable to risk now, going off alone, and my mother just didn't want to let her only remaining child out of her sight. But I insisted. Which is a nice way of saying I threw a fit and threatened to run away and abdicate to my idiot cousin if they didn't let me. I should have just stayed home. If I had –"
"If you had I'd still be a slave," Kurt said, because fair was fair.
"No Kurt. Don't you get it? If I had they would have sent some minister in my place who would have taken one look at you and sounded the alarm and saved you from Gavin's clutches and who would most definitely not have made you his personal sex slave."
Or who might have taken one look at him, gone stiff, and negotiated his own deal with Gavin, Kurt thought. Sebastian apparently had more faith in human nature than Kurt could afford.
"I just needed one last chance to be nobody before I gave it all up. I was angry and grieving my brother and I had no idea how I was going to face the rest of my life. It's not an excuse, but it is the reason. I wish I had a better one." Sebastian rubbed at his forehead, as if he could wipe away the memories inside. "When I saw you in the great hall, naked, in front of all those people . . . you were so beautiful. And I know how wrong that is but it's true. I could tell you hated it. Every cell in your body shouted that but there was this amazing dignity and grace, like even naked you were above them all. And gods help me but at that moment all I could see was everything I was giving up forever. I wanted you, like I have never wanted anything in my life."
And despite everything Kurt's brain was wrestling with, those words sent a shiver up his spine.
"And I didn't care that you hated it and I didn't care that any reasonable person would have run through that hall and thrown a cloak over you and ended it right there. I knew it was wrong, of course I did, but I told myself that I deserved it." Sebastian's voice was all sarcasm, mocking himself. "Of course I did. After all I'd been through. Never mind what you'd been through. Somehow I managed not to dwell on that point. I told myself you'd been a slave for months and I was going to set you free after all so what difference would one more week matter, in the end? And maybe a part of me wanted to hurt someone else as much as I was hurting. Or maybe I just wanted to prove how ridiculous it is that someone like me could ever be king of the realms. Self-sabotage is turning out to be my specialty. Whatever it was, I wanted you so I took you."
Kurt stared at him. Sebastian's eyes were dark and full of pain but they didn't falter under Kurt's scrutiny. He stood still as a statue and let Kurt take his measure.
Kurt's emotions tumbled and blew in fractured shards that he couldn't assemble into any kind of coherent reaction. He saw himself, kneeling on the dais in the great hall, trembling under Lady Montrose's manicured fingers. He heard Gavin's words in his ears, obey him as you would me. He tried to understand that the young man facing him down from across the room, the one who'd strode into his tiny bedroom radiating brash confidence, was actually the future king of Concordia, but all he could see was the naked boy he'd held in his arms. He knew he shouldn't, but he couldn't shove the image out of his mind. The intimacy they'd shared – or seemed to share – was like a buffer between Kurt and the enormity of what Sebastian was confessing.
He'd wondered himself – was it only yesterday? – whether Sebastian was something he'd made up in his mind and now he realized that was true. He'd seen so many Sebastians since that first day and he had no way of knowing which of them, if any, was the real person standing in front of him. So many things had been done and said and Kurt struggled to understand them but he was too tired, or too stunned, or maybe still feeling some effect from the drug Sebastian had given him.
"The things you did . . ." The things flashed behind Kurt's eyes, rapid fire. Two strangers facing each other in determined silence. The painful ecstasy of erupting in Sebastian's seductive mouth. Offering his name, the only gift he had to give. Words, so many words, whispered between them, between kisses and gods, the kisses and touches in the flickering light. . . "How could you?"
"I made up a lot of excuses in my head," Sebastian said. His voice was flat and far away, as if he'd used up all his energy on his explanation and now had none left to support him. "I told myself it was okay because I was going to make things better for you. And I came down on Gavin like the Render himself. I made him swear he wouldn't touch you or use you or . . . hurt you in any way."
"He didn't listen to you," Kurt said.
"I know."
It hung between them as they looked at each other. The bruise Gavin had left on Kurt's jaw. The come Sebastian had found smeared down his neck.
"But you didn't stop," Kurt said. The truth of it sat thick in his chest.
"I couldn't. I couldn't stop." Sebastian came as close to the bed as he had so far, right up to the footboard where he wrapped his fingers around the wood and leaned in. "Something was happening to me. Something I could hardly understand."
"To you?!"
"Yes! At first it was like I said. I just wanted to play. And control you – that way. But that first night you were so defiant, without saying a word and then I wanted to figure you out. I asked you questions and touched you and felt you respond. I got to hold your pleasure in my hands, mine, to give or take. Gods, you can't even imagine the way it felt to drop you over that edge the first time. And before I knew it, it wasn't a game anymore. It wasn't supposed to go so far. I wasn't supposed to feel . . ." He stopped himself and closed his eyes, shutting Kurt out.
"What?" Kurt practically begged Sebastian to go on. He'd already confessed to desire – was it love that Sebastian was so afraid to admit? It couldn't be. It was the height of absurdity to think that a royal prince could have fallen in love with someone like him. He couldn't imagine it and he didn't want it because the very thought only made Sebastian's betrayal feel more bitter. Yet it suddenly seemed crucial to Kurt to understand what Sebastian had experienced. His own feelings were an impossible labyrinth; maybe Sebastian's could be the key to finding his way through.
Sebastian scrubbed at his cheeks as if he was wiping tears but when he opened his eyes they were dry. "I don't even know how to explain it to you. It sounds so wrong. It was wrong, obviously, but something happened. Inside me."
"What?" Kurt asked again.
"You were nothing I'd expected you to be. The way you looked at me. How your voice sounded when you told me your name. I'll never forget that. You opened yourself to me and it felt like we were together and doing these amazing things with each other. I just kept telling myself to take the week. Just give us that time." He laughed, and Kurt's hands clenched the pillow against the sound. "That's actually how I said it to myself. Us. And I all but assaulted Gavin. He didn't touch you after that time, did he?"
The pain in Kurt's chest was becoming more acute. "No," he said, "he didn't touch me."
Sebastian, as always, heard the thing Kurt left unspoken. "What? What did he do?"
Kurt shrugged, like it didn't matter. Like he could ignore the pressure threatening to burst his chest. "He just . . . terrified me. He said he was going to punish me – worse than ever before. And I believed him. All the rules I broke with you . . ." his sore throat tightened and he had to swallow hard. "I thought he was going to kill me. Or break me. I kept waiting for that moment but then he didn't do anything. He left it hanging over my head and he would just stare at me like he was waiting for the exact right moment to rip me apart." The words came in gasps, as the tide of emotion finally breached Kurt's detachment.
Sebastian looked horrified. He reached a hand out toward Kurt – his fingers trembled – but snatched it back like the very air burned his skin. "Gods, Kurt, I –"
"You should have known! You knew him well enough – you should have known he would never stop trying to hurt me!"
"You're right! I should have. I did. I didn't want to see any of it because this thing was happening inside of me and I couldn't bear . . ." he broke off and turned toward the window again, hiding, denying.
"What?!" Kurt insisted. "What was happening?"
"Nothing. It doesn't matter."
Kurt surged up onto his knees on the bed, clutching the pillow to his bare chest. "Maybe it matters to me! Maybe I need to know to make some kind of sense out of all this."
"It wasn't real, Kurt. None of it was real." Sebastian's voice was bleak and empty as the Render's void.
"What was happening to you?" Kurt made it a command, and his voice pulled Sebastian back from the window. The sunlight behind him threw his face into shadow but Kurt could see the anguish in his eyes.
"The way you looked at me," Sebastian said again. "With so much trust. Not at first, but eventually. You looked at me like I made you feel safe. Like I was wonderful and perfect. Me. When I was in that room with you it was like everything else went away. I didn't think about losing my brother or how terrible my life was. All I cared about was you. Even during the day, when we weren't together, I could barely remember how lost I'd felt before. It just kept fading further and further away. It was like . . ."
"What?" Kurt said yet again, breathlessly.
"I think you were . . . healing me. I know that sounds crazy but you made me stop thinking about myself. I didn't have room inside me for anything but you."
The words left Kurt stunned and he almost, almost told Sebastian that he too had been healed by their time together, but he pressed his mouth into his pillow and kept still, because he couldn't untangle the ways Sebastian had healed him from the ways he'd broken him.
"But even that's a lie," Sebastian said, shaking his head, "because if I had been thinking about you I would have ended it. Gods, Kurt, it's such a fucking mess."
"Why didn't you just tell me the truth? Once you knew it was more than what you'd thought?"
"Because I knew if I told you the truth it would be over. Be honest, Kurt. What if I had told you? After that night that I hurt you or after I teased you and didn't let you come? What if I told you, oh, by the way, I'm really a prince who could have freed you at any time but I decided to use you instead, just like Gavin?"
"Not like Gavin, no." It was suddenly important to Kurt to make the distinction. Because he'd been changed too, in that room with Sebastian, in important ways that he wasn't going to deny. "At least you saw me as a person."
"That's what makes it worse!" Sebastian practically shouted, frustration singing from every line of his body. "You were never more than an object to him. But I saw you, and I valued you and I still did what I did. I still lied to you and took what I wanted from you. And if I had told you, you would have done exactly what you did last night. You would have hated me. It would have been over. And I couldn't stand that. I kept thinking, what if . . ." He broke off and pressed the heels of his hands hard against his eyes.
"Tell me," Kurt begged.
Sebastian took his hands away. His eyes were even redder now than they'd been before. "What if we were meant for each other?" he murmured. He looked ashamed to even speak it out loud. "What if the gods had planned for us to be together? What if you were the person I didn't even know I was looking for yet and I destroyed any chance we had because I couldn't see past my dick and my own self-pity? That's what kept me coming back when I knew I shouldn't. I kept thinking – this is the last chance I'll ever have to look at him. Touch him. See the desire in his eyes when I do." His eyes pleaded with Kurt. Light sparkled in them as if they were wet, but no tears fell. "But now I know what I didn't understand then. None of it was real."
It was the second time Sebastian had said that and it stuck in Kurt's belly like a lump of iron, heavy with meaning he couldn't make sense of. Reality was no longer a black and white concept for him. He'd been changed in that room too. He'd cast off Gavin's slut and rediscovered his true self. He'd lain with a man, touched his body, kissed his lips and whispered words of desire. He'd seen and felt Sebastian's need for him – him – and there was no way to deny how utterly that had transformed him. "Some of it was real," he said.
But Sebastian shook his head. "No. It wasn't. You just said it. Gavin terrorized you right up until the end. You thought you were a slave. You thought he held the power of life and death over you. How could anything that happened be real, Kurt? Everything you did was influenced by what you thought and what you were afraid of. I didn't even understand how much until last night. I didn't understand what I'd done to you until I saw how terrified you were, of me, of everything. You said I was fucking with your head and you were right. We both were, Gavin and me. You didn't have any idea what was real."
"Some of it was real to me," Kurt said, stubborn, because he'd been there and he'd wanted, he'd yearned and he'd chosen. He hadn't been a pawn in everyone else's hands. He'd done things he'd only ever dreamed of and they'd changed him fundamentally. Amidst all the lies and confusion and, yes, terror, there were moments that were real and he refused to let Sebastian deny them.
Sebastian was suddenly angry, and the eyes that had been all misery until now blazed with something new. "Don't you get it? I saw you on that dais, burning with humiliation, and I thought, I can make him want it. I can make him love it!" His voice, his words, were so ugly that Kurt flinched away from them behind his pillow shield. "I coerced you into trusting me and into breaking rules so fundamental that you thought Gavin would kill you for disobeying. You thought you could die for what we did. Because I let you think that! How could any of it have been motivated by anything but terror?"
It was suddenly all too much for Kurt. He wanted it to be over. He wanted Sebastian to leave. With the two of them there in the room he couldn't figure out where his emotions ended and Sebastian's began. It's such a fucking mess. The truest thing Sebastian had said so far.
"I don't want to talk about that anymore," Kurt said. He was too afraid that he'd let Sebastian's certitude erode his own. He was too tired to fight. And it didn't really matter anyhow. Kurt didn't need Sebastian's agreement to know what had happened to him. He tried to make himself believe that. "What did you think was going to happen?" he asked instead. "How was it all supposed to end?"
Sebastian took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "At first, I thought I'd just leave. Sebastian Smythe goes back to Greenway. And then Gavin would set you free with money and clothes and whatever you needed to get your life back again. I mean, I was going to stay and make sure he did it, but you would never know you'd been with anyone but Gavin's under-steward."
"At first? But that changed?"
"I knew I owed you more than that. After everything that happened – I couldn't have lived with myself if I didn't give you the chance to, I don't know, scream at me or tell me what an asshole I am. I swear by the Maker, Kurt, I was planning to tell you all of this last night. And then I was going to beg you to at least let me help you find a place, somewhere, so I could know you were alright. I'm still going to do that."
Kurt couldn't help it. He had to ask. "Did you think that we would –?"
"No!" Sebastian cut him off like he couldn't bear to let him say the words. "I know it can't . . . I mean, I won't say I didn't fantasize about it but I know you could never . . ."
Kurt didn't want to think about what Sebastian had fantasized. Because he wanted so much to think about it. "Weren't you afraid to tell me? The whole point was for no one to know. But I know. Aren't you worried that I'll expose you?"
Sebastian smiled sadly. "I guess the one good thing you can say about me is that I finally managed to stop thinking about myself. I will do whatever you need, Kurt," he said, with sincerity that even Kurt's cynicism couldn't doubt. "If you want me to, I will take you to Concordia and assemble the whole court and you can give them every horrible detail. It's no more than I deserve. Let the council find a way to clean up the mess. I just want to do whatever you'll let me do to help you."
He seemed to be waiting for a decision, but Kurt found he rather liked leaving Sebastian dangling in the wind of his possible retribution.
After a moment, Sebastian cleared his throat. "If you do decide to . . . there's one thing I have to ask you. I don't like to do it but I have to."
"A condition?" Kurt asked.
"No. A request. Not for me, more for the realm." Sebastian's teeth worried at his bottom lip, like he knew whatever he was going to say would upset Kurt. "If what Gavin did became public – well, my father would have no choice but to bring him up on charges. And between my testimony and yours, he'd be convicted. He'd be imprisoned, and we'd lose control of Eastreach and believe me when I say that could only end badly."
Everything in Kurt rebelled at the very idea. "So he walks away? He doesn't pay for what he did to me?"
"I hate the idea as much as you do."
"I seriously doubt that."
Kurt's words were emphatic enough that Sebastian's hands came up to shield himself again. "I know it's a lot to ask. But there are factions here always looking for a power void to exploit and . . . oh gods, I could explain it better if I'd paid more attention to my tutors. That's the first time I've ever wished I'd done that! Just believe me when I say that civil war isn't out of the realm of possibility."
"What if he does it again? What if he finds someone new to make his slut?"
Sebastian shook his head. "He won't. I'm going to tell my parents everything. I'm sure my father will add a few of our men to the guard here. We'll know if he tries anything like this again."
Kurt hugged his pillow and thought. Was that what he wanted? To tell the world what Sebastian had done to him, but let Gavin go free? "I don't know," he said. "I need time. There's too much I have to figure out."
"And I don't want to pressure you, I promise, but I have to leave. By tomorrow morning at the very latest. If I don't show up when they expect me my parents will send the cavalry after me and then everything's going to get so much more complicated."
"I really don't think that's possible."
"And I am not leaving you here, so one way or another, we have to go somewhere soon."
Kurt wanted to protest. It wasn't fair to ask him to make life decisions when he was still reeling from everything he'd learned. He'd just opened his mouth to tell Sebastian that when the door to the room swung wide and the woman with the braided hair sailed in, trailed by the tiny boy.
"Bess! What happened to knocking?" Sebastian said.
The woman – Bess – made a dismissive sound. She dropped the bundle she was carrying on the bed and smiled at Kurt, ignoring Sebastian completely. "I've found the clothes that valet procured for you. It's all here I think. Stockings, breeches, shirt. I've no idea what we'll do about shoes, but we'll figure that out later."
"Bess –" Sebastian tried again.
She turned on him. "I'm told the barber's the closest thing to an apothecary this place can provide. Go figure out where he's holed up and see if he has any salve for Kurt's hands."
Now that he knew who Sebastian was, the way she spoke to him left Kurt even more aghast.
"What's wrong with Kurt's hands?" Sebastian asked. He moved closer, heading around the bed in Kurt's direction and Kurt wasn't at all sure he wanted him to do that but Bess, ahead of them both, cut him off and planted herself in his path, fists on her hips.
"He's got burns. Like he was dragged away from a rope he was clinging to." Her tone left no doubt as to what she thought of that.
Sebastian flushed red. He stared over Bess's head at Kurt. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Go!" Bess pointed a stern finger at the door. "I'm sure some servant can tell you where to find the man. Kurt needs to get dressed and eat a decent meal. The gods know what they've been feeding him."
His name on her lips was unsettling. He'd spent too long making sure no one knew him to be comfortable with people speaking it so casually.
Sebastian gave Kurt an apologetic grimace and turned to the door. Kurt had wanted him to go before, to give him space to think, but now that Sebastian was actually leaving Kurt's heart sped up and he had to stifle the desire to call him back. When he disappeared through the doorway something icy flitted up Kurt's spine.
Bess smiled at him like nothing could be amiss. The little boy hung behind her, sucking his thumb. "We'll leave too. You get into those clothes and I'll keep an eye out for the girl bringing your breakfast. Everything will look better after a good meal, won't it?"
Kurt wasn't as reassured as she seemed to hope he would be, but he smiled back at her and it almost felt genuine.
"Let's go, Ned. There'll be bacon for you, you've been such a good boy." She shooed the child toward the door, tossing a wink back at Kurt before she closed it behind them both.
Kurt let the pillow in his arms fall away at last and stared helplessly at the dancing tapestry creatures that surrounded him. He was at a complete loss for what to do.
Get dressed, he supposed, although the very thought didn't seem to fit right in his head. He pushed back the covers and slung his legs over the side of the bed – the window side – then dropped to the floor. The sleeping trousers were too long for him; they pooled around his feet on the soft carpet and their weight tugged strangely at his hips. The sudden realization that they must be Sebastian's made him dizzy. Still, he shuffled forward so that he could look out onto a world that had changed in too many ways since the last time he'd seen it.
Eastreach Castle, the courtyard full of bustling soldiers and visitors and servants, same as every day. Except now, according to Sebastian, everything had changed. Now, according to Sebastian, crown prince of the realms, he was free. With all of Sebastian's explanations and impossible revelations, Kurt hadn't really processed the most important and fundamental change of all. He couldn't quite make sense of it and he couldn't quite breathe. He watched as a merchant with loaded cart made his way out through the main gate, free to leave, like Kurt was free, so Sebastian said. A white post stood out as the cart passed it by – the very post that Gavin had chained him to, naked in the snow, to service every willing member of the guard before he was allowed back into the warmth of the castle. For what offense? Suddenly he couldn't remember, although he stared at it for what felt like forever, searching his memory. But it was gone.
When understanding finally hit him, it was like the first brutal blow of a blacksmith's hammer on freshly forged steel.
Kurt's knees buckled and he dropped to the floor with a sob that convulsed his body. He shoved his fists against his mouth but a dam had broken and its thunderous flow wouldn't be stifled. He wrapped his arms around his knees and let it pour through him until he was sure the entire castle could hear him crying – crying for everything he'd never let himself before. He cried for his mother and his father and old Master Neric. He cried for his lost life and for his freedom regained. For Sebastian's betrayal and his soul-searing kisses. He wept fear and humiliation and relief and love. He mourned too many losses to count. All the appalling, terrifying things he'd been made to do and had done to him poured through his body with the rushing torrent. All the despair and false hope and the staggering, bottomless anger he'd crushed down inside for so long, it exploded along his limbs and squeezed his lungs until he was coughing his sobs into his arms. Somewhere, far inside, he wondered if he would ever stop crying and somewhere else he didn't want to because he was so afraid that it was all a dream. He was free. He was free. It was over and he was free.
"That's it, just let it out, let it go . . ."
Someone was holding him but he didn't have space in his head for surprise. He turned his face into warm fabric and cried the relief of being held and rocked and murmured over.
"Poor thing, it's all over, all over now . . ."
The acknowledgment brought fresh tears and Kurt's arms loosened, then wrapped around the soft body that supported him and he was a child again, crying bitter tears of loss in his father's arms, the last time he could remember letting anyone hold him as he wept.
"Shhhh. It's alright. You're safe. No one's going to hurt you again."
It wasn't his father, this was a woman and that more than anything helped to finally stem the tide of his emotions. His flood of tears subsided into sharp hiccupping breaths and he lifted his head at last to find himself wedged against the neck of the woman with the dark hair. Bess. The shoulder of her bodice was stained dark with his tears and who knew what other bodily fluids.
"Gods, I'm sorry!" He pulled away from her embrace and she let him go but watched him carefully, her eyes as full of compassion as her voice had been. "I made a mess . . ."
"What, this?" She smiled and shrugged. "That's nothing at all. My shoulders have absorbed plenty of boys' tears over the years, and young men's as well. As recently as last night, in fact." She tossed her head in the direction of the door, leaving no doubt as to whom she was referring.
"Sebastian?" Kurt asked. "Who are you?" He was suddenly filled with alarm. The way she told Sebastian what to do and he deferred to her – for a terrible moment he was certain that he'd been blubbering all over the queen of the realm herself, in disguise like her son.
"I'm Bess," she said unhelpfully. But then she took pity on him. "I'm his nanny, I suppose you could say. Or I was when he needed a nanny. Not that he seems to have outgrown that need."
"But you said the boy from the village was your nephew."
She looked at him closely then, like she was inspecting him for wounds. "I'll tell you what. You help me up from this floor and go get those clothes on and then we can talk while you eat your breakfast. Does that sound fair?"
Kurt had no idea what was fair anymore, but he had to admit that his stomach was rumbling. He stood up on shaky legs and offered her his hand.