This chapter is meant to last a year and a half or so, and to omit all but the most important meetings. The other ones I didn't feel were eventful enough to include. I was anxious to get to the real character development in the last two chapters.
"Discuss the Act of Lords."
Ivan's face remains impassive, but internally he blanches. It seems his tutor has read his mind, though of course his history lessons would have to reach the Act eventually.
"The Act of Lords," he begins, "was decreed by King Aldus after his ascent to the throne nearly one hundred years ago. After the betrayal of his daughter to a commoner soulmate, he declared that all houses of lordship who lack heirs will lose their standing for the throne, should anything befall the king."
"Its purpose?" Ivan's tutor prompts.
"To deter noble children from joining and adding to the growing population of commoners. To ensure the survival of the noble families, and their continued service to the peasantry and tithings to the king. And, ultimately, to promote the prosperity of the kingdom."
"The main purpose, which the young master might have begun with," scolds his tutor, crossing his arms. "Was the Act successful by this purpose?"
Asked by anyone else, Ivan wouldn't know how to answer. Fortunately, he knows who pays his tutor. "Vastly so," he says. "Noble families began to bear more children, though not so many as to diminish their inheritances. Those children intermarried, strengthening the relationships of the noble class. The merchant class benefited from taking and selling records of noble handwriting, to promote matchmaking. And stagings usurped the role of commoner soulmates."
His tutor nods. "Well defended. That will be all."
Ivan nods in return and leaves as quickly as he can. He needs something to drink.
As he walks through the halls and towards the kitchens, his heart races. Every footstep feels as if his father's matches his, reminding him that the Braginski family is fourth in line for the throne, that Ivan is the only son, that he is counted on. That he is obligated.
In his childhood, his parents frowned at his blank arm. For a period, they inspected it every time he bid them goodnight. He learned to go to bed without announcement, and to cover the arm in question, and to imagine the wife his parents would inevitably choose for him.
Where his parents saw a blank arm as a mark of shame—as a sign that Ivan had no noble soulmate, no fates-distinguished tie to his true status—Ivan saw relief. He and Natalia, when they were younger and played together in the woods, compared their lack of words. Even at four years his junior, Natalia smiled at her blank arm.
"We have no soulmates, Brother," she would often say. "We can choose as we please, or not choose at all. I could choose you, and you me."
Ivan would smile back. No soulmate, no chance at disappointment. Better to imagine no soulmate at all, thought Ivan, than the wrong one. An illiterate soulmate could be nobody but a commoner, meant to ruin his birthright and doom his family.
Ivan reaches the kitchens too wrapped up in his thoughts to hear voices, until he swings open the door.
Sitting in his usual seat, a chair beside a small table with baking supplies, is the same smiling boy Ivan saw three weeks ago at his sister's wedding.
Ivan's heart clenches at the sight. The boy—Alfred. The boy with golden hair and eyes as blue as the sky and as bright as the sun that travels across it. The boy who, upon hearing Ivan's voice, smiled at him as if Ivan were an answer he'd been waiting for his entire life.
Alfred, the soulmate Ivan forbade himself.
Oblivious of Ivan's presence, Alfred is chattering to Toris.
"Mattie's learned she doesn't like to be touched often," he informs the kitchen servant cheerily, "which is fine by him because he always feels so awkward trying. But she's fantastic with Dad, sometimes even better than me or the servants. She'll read him things and feed him Braginski family soup—not that she makes it, of course, but she says she brought the recipe—and she brought it from you, right?"
"I only keep the cookbook, sir," says Toris, smiling momentarily at Alfred before he looks back to the dough he's kneading.
"Well, it's amazing all the same. I bet you could even use it to get your soulmate to notice you, huh?"
Toris stiffens. "I, ah—"
"I mean, girls love food! And she's probably no exception, from how often you say she's in here."
"She—she prefers sandwiches," says Toris, and when he turns to address Alfred more directly, he sees Ivan standing at the doorway and staring at Alfred. Toris freezes as if caught by a hunter, which makes Alfred turn in curiosity. He stands abruptly, knocking the back of his chair into the wall.
"Iv—uh. Hey." Alfred tries for a smile. "I was just looking for you."
Through layers upon layers of forgetting how to breathe, Ivan raises an eyebrow.
"Okay, so I got lost. But at least I didn't try the main entrance, right?"
Ivan has seen some of the merchants-a generally more expressive class than nobility—hit their foreheads with their hands. He never quite understood the purpose of causing oneself pain over another's stupidity, until now.
"Come," he says, and Alfred steps to him so suddenly that Ivan blanches. He turns to Toris, who looks very intent on winning a staring contest with his dough. "Toris. You have seen nothing."
"Not a thing, Master Braginski," says Toris, still not looking up.
Alfred likely expects that Ivan will lead him out the way Ivan came in, but Ivan can't have that. Instead, he steps to the back door and silently guides Alfred outdoors. His father's study overlooks the garden, but he and Natalia have long known which bushes obscure his view.
When they reach the outskirts of the garden, Ivan climbs and jumps over the slatted wooden fence bordering the woods. Alfred quickly follows him.
Ivan pins Alfred to the fence and presses his arm over Alfred's chest, holding him in place. "Why are you here?" he demands.
Alfred stares at Ivan more levelly than Ivan expects. "Katyusha wanted a letter delivered to her mother, and I volunteered."
Ivan pauses very briefly. Alfred has used Yekaterina's nickname; only Ivan and Natalia use it. "Were you seen?"
"Only by the butler. He took the letter, and I walked around the manor looking for the servants' entrance. Don't worry," he says with a lower, more disgusted voice. "I ducked under all the windows. Like you'd want."
For a moment, Ivan is relieved. Eduard, the butler, is intimidated by Ivan and likely will remain as quiet as Toris. As Ivan looks over Alfred, however, he realizes that even if Eduard and Toris are frightened by him, Alfred isn't. Or at least, he doesn't appear to be.
Ivan takes a step away from Alfred. Alfred straightens himself from the fence and crosses his arms.
"I am sorry to have frightened you," says Ivan.
"You didn't," says Alfred. He's not smiling, but his scowl is fading to be replaced with a more neutral expression.
"I pressed you against a fence," says Ivan. He's never done that to anyone, even the staff. Most of them cower at his gaze alone—whether because of his status or because of something else, he's not quite sure.
Alfred looks back at the fence and then back at Ivan. "Yup."
Ivan blinks. "And you are not frightened?"
"Ivan, as much as I hate how you basically abandoned me, I don't think you're going to hurt me." Alfred's crossed arms tighten. "Plus, I'd fight you back."
Ivan looks over Alfred's admittedly ropey arms, but ultimately snorts. "I am rather larger than you, da?" he says, slipping into a verbal tic he had as a child. He tries for bravado, but he's nervous, and the tic shows it. "You cannot fight me and win."
"Maybe," says Alfred, "but lemme tell you something—you're bigger than me, and"—his eyes linger on Ivan's arms—"maybe stronger too, but you probably do nothing but sit around all day. But me, I'm always moving. Helping in the stables, helping in the kitchens, wandering in the woods, meeting my friends in town, wherever I want to be."
"As a bastard son of a lord does?" Ivan asks. The minute he speaks, he fears he's hit a touchy subject. Alfred only shrugs.
"As an Alfred does," he says, and Ivan swears the sun's emergence from behind a cloud coincides with the small grin Alfred gives. "If I'm not allowed to be a commoner or a noble, why not be both? Or neither?" He looks over Ivan's regalia. It's less elaborate than at the wedding, but still finer than Alfred's riding britches and plain shirt. "I'm probably having more fun than you."
"…You are probably right."
Alfred blinks. Despite himself, Ivan's heart blinks back at the purity of Alfred's confused, somewhat surprised expression. He's unguarded. He has so little subtlety to his nature.
(Ivan's body warms as he remembers Alfred's hug.)
(Ivan can't allow that.)
"But I am not made for fun," says Ivan. "I am made for my family, and that is all."
"But—look, I don't even know what to address first!" says Alfred. His voice tilts up, and Ivan watches curiously. That only happens with Natalia, who most often follows outrage with violence. "First of all, you're a person, not a family. And—c'mon, who doesn't have fun?"
"There are things I enjoy," says Ivan. "I simply do not devote all my time to them."
"Maybe not all your time," says Alfred, "but—well, okay, give me one thing you do for fun."
Something uneasy sets in Ivan's gut. Alfred has stepped closer without his noticing. They're standing just beyond his family's gardens, talking. Their conversation is probably private, but Ivan is suddenly doused with the fear that, even if no one can overhear, he's still in trouble.
"No," he says.
"No like you won't tell me, or no like—?"
"'No' like I know what you are trying to do, and it will not work on me."
Alfred's arms uncross, and his brow furrows.
Ivan can't believe Alfred is playing dumb. "You are trying to talk to me," he says. "I brought you here to tell you to leave. I have failed so far. Please allow me to correct myself."
"What—no, no, hang on," says Alfred, and he stomps forward until he's almost on Ivan's toes and juts a finger up at his face. "You are not sending me away, and you're not leaving, either."
"I did before."
"You fucking broke my heart, is what you did," says Alfred. At this proximity, Ivan sees Alfred's eyes turn slightly glassy. "You—you think that just because you're a noble, you can walk away and reject me because I'm not good enough. But fuck, even if I'm half noble, so what if I wasn't? I'm your soulmate, and—and—"
Ivan is expecting something entitled. Something like "and you owe me" or "and you belong to me."
Instead Alfred says, "And I'm not giving you up without a fight."
Ivan stands still, astonished and confused and his eyes are so bright and—"Alfred. What are you going to fight?"
"The—I don't know. The system? The nobles? I just—" Alfred cuts himself off and takes a step backward, crossing his arms more in security than in defiance. "I just don't want to lose you so soon after I met you. And I don't—I mean, you'll like me too. Probably. I already know I like you, even if you don't want to let me."
Ivan looks at Alfred owlishly. "You—you cannot know anything about me."
"Sure I do." Alfred looks up at Ivan with a determined expression. "You're sweet. Your first words were an apology—"
"It is simply etiquette—"
"And I can't even remember the last time a noble has even noticed I'm there, let alone that they've spilled anything on me. And," says Alfred before Ivan can even think to interject, "you're awkward. Okay, fine, so am I, so we can be awkward together. And Katyusha keeps talking about her sweet baby brother, and how you bring her flowers on her birthday and—"
"It is not fair to use my sister," says Ivan, and he wishes he knew a way to stifle the blush on his cheeks.
"And it's not fair that you're not even curious about me," says Alfred, "when I know you like me. I think. I mean, you were scrambling for a napkin for a servant, what noble even does that? And sometimes you look at me like—that!"
Ivan blinks.
"Like I'm cute," he says. And, with this victory, he beams in the same manner he did when Ivan first apologized for spilling his drink. Ivan's heart inflates and threatens to stifle his lungs, for how he can no longer breathe quite as well. Alfred is golden and bright and like nothing Ivan has ever seen and—
Ivan realizes that he's not suppressing his feelings as well as he thinks he is.
"I—" Ivan's throat is dry. He tries again. "I believe that many of your ideas of me are at least exaggerated. But I confess, it was…pleasant to meet you."
"You love me," says Alfred, grinning. "I knew it."
"You know no such thing," says Ivan, "and even if it were so—which it is not, because I do not believe in love at first sight—I cannot simply…"
Alfred sighs. "The family title and all that."
"I intend to keep it."
To Ivan's surprise, Alfred nods. "Mattie did too. I kind of figured."
Ivan and Alfred stand there, examining one another. Ivan is unsure of what to say.
He decides to start with the truth. "I have forbidden myself from thinking of you. Even before we met."
"Were you scared?" asks Alfred.
"Perhaps. I told myself it was practical. If I did not have words, I could not have a soulmate. It seemed much better than the alternative. And, as I never encountered commoners beyond servants, how could I meet a commoner soulmate?"
"So, what? You wanted to stage?"
"Perhaps I did not want to, but I accepted it. You must understand, Alfred, that my parents were staged, and my grandparents before them. My situation is as it must be."
"'As it must be.'" Alfred looks like he wants desperately to fight these words, but nothing in his vocabulary will disparage them well enough. "Fine. In the long term, it's as it must be. What do you think about the short term?"
"I do not understand."
"Well, we're brothers-in-law now, and the same age on top of that. I don't think it's going to be a big surprise to anyone we know if you and I start spending time together."
"What?"
"It's not like you can avoid me," Alfred points out. "We're going to run into each other regardless. But—I don't know, don't you want to see what it's like? Having a soulmate?"
"…It surely cannot be healthy."
"Ivan." Alfred sighs. "Soulmates are the most natural thing I can think of. Or else why would this"—he unrolls his sleeve to reveal Ivan's handwriting—"show up on my arm?"
"Natural is not the same as healthy. I am due to stage. My parents will not accept you, and if I am attached to you—"
"Would you stop—c'mon, Ivan, think short-term. Just you and me, right now. As much as I hate to say it, maybe you won't actually like me. So then you can stage later when your parents find someone for you, and you'll know your wife was better for you than—I dunno, someone the fates assigned to you?" Alfred waves his arm, his expression firm and slightly exasperated.
Ivan examines Alfred's stance. Alfred probably isn't going to give up until he gets what he wants. Ivan fears, though, that Alfred will take a mile if given an inch.
If he didn't find Alfred's determination so invigorating, he would dislike it a lot more.
"We will set up conditions," says Ivan.
"What—really?" Alfred's eyes widen. "You're saying yes?"
"I am agreeing with conditions."
"Sure, lay 'em on me." Alfred's entire posture loses, and his smile grows.
"You will not inform my parents," says Ivan, the first thing to come to his mind.
"Yeah, I figured—"
"Or anyone," says Ivan. "Neither of my sisters, nor the servants, nor anyone to whom you may speak."
Alfred frowns. "Can I at least tell Mattie?"
Ivan pauses. "If you must," he says, "but please stress to him the secrecy of this arrangement. Which leads me to my condition that we meet alone."
"Also figured."
"And all decisions to be made in the future will be held in discussion between us."
"Do you really have to say that so formally?" asks Alfred. "You want to talk. Sure, I get it."
"I am glad," says Ivan, "as this is more for you than for me. As long as you maintain secrecy, there is probably little more about your life that I must know. But I…"
"Yeah." Alfred nods. His lips quirk into another smile. "But that's talk for the future." He holds out his arms. "Can I have another hug now?"
Ivan has lost count of the number of times Alfred has surprised him in this conversation. His mind has stopped working. Eventually he nods, and Alfred is squeezing him before he knows it.
Ivan has no idea what's possessing him. He's not an especially intuitive person. He strongly hopes that whatever his intuition has done is for the best.
"Why do you call yourself a hero?" asks Ivan. He and Alfred are sitting on a sturdy log fallen over a creek near the Williams manor. Ivan has changed into his plainest clothing, dark britches and a pale shirt and his scarf. Compared to Alfred's coarse-spun tunic, he still feels like he wore the wrong outfit for sitting on logs.
"Thinking about our words?" asks Alfred as he stares down to the rushing water.
"You must admit it is a strange thing to call oneself," says Ivan, looking in the same direction as Alfred. "Is it something that commoners say?"
"No—well, not most commoners, anyway. My mom said it to me."
"Ah. Any reason?"
"Well, apparently I saved her. She missed my dad a lot. They only got to see each other a few times before his family found out and made them separate, but nine months after that, she got me. She said she…" Alfred sighs. "Well, I didn't understand it until later, but she said she couldn't have 'gone on' without me."
"Ah." Ivan means to indicate that he's listening, but the sound comes out as more of a question.
"So, as I got older, I did what I could to make her smile. Sometimes she'd sing as she did the laundry, so I'd sing with her. When I saw we didn't have enough money for us both to eat, I'd go to the harbor and whittle down fish bones until they looked like pearls or little sculptures, and I'd sell them to girls. Elise's parents got so angry at me for that," said Alfred, laughing a little. "And whenever…well, I knew sometimes that my mother was crying when she thought I was asleep. So I'd get into her bed and pretend I had a nightmare. I think she knew I was faking it, though."
"She probably thought it was touching." If he were to be honest with himself, so did Ivan.
"She said as much. So that was me, her hero."
Ivan wants to ask if Alfred's father agreed. He doesn't. The only reason he's here today—their third meeting since their agreement, and the longest by far—is because he attended Lord Williams's funeral yesterday. When Ivan shook hands with Matthew at the end of the ceremony, he found a piece of parchment pressed between his fingers with a transcribed request from Alfred to come by.
Matthew is now Lord Williams, only six months after becoming a husband. Ivan is still an eligible bachelor at age eighteen, though he stalls discussing weddings as much as possible. And Alfred…
Alfred is grieving.
"I can see why she loved him," says Alfred. Ivan doesn't need to clarify whom. "He was really good to me, even if he couldn't give me more than spectacles and a room to myself. He gave me a brother and a home."
Alfred takes off his spectacles and makes to wipe them on his shirt. Ivan taps the back of his hand.
"Allow me," he says, gently plucking the spectacles from his hands. He rubs the lenses with the finer material of his own shirt and places them back in Alfred's hand. Alfred wraps his fingers around the wire. Ivan wraps his hand around Alfred's.
His heart beats in his throat. He knows Alfred likes hugs, but he isn't sure how to give them, let alone how to do so while sitting over a creek. Even this feels like a poor compromise. His hand is likely too sweaty and too dirty from climbing.
When Alfred's face falls against his shoulder, and when a part of Ivan's shirt begins to grow wet, Ivan decides he's at least working in the right direction.
When Ivan remains still, Alfred lifts up Ivan's hand and wraps the connected arm between them and around Alfred's waist. He presses himself against Ivan's shoulder and sniffs.
"I know," Alfred says, but his voice is broken. He waits a minute and tries again. "I know he meant the best for me. He just…he forgot her. And he didn't even seem sorry. He didn't even learn. His main priority was for me not to draw attention. So I couldn't—I couldn't give money to my mom's friends in town, and I couldn't be tutored with Mattie, and I couldn't learn to read because I couldn't mark a noble, and…did he think if he hid that he had a second son, he could forget he had a soulmate too?"
"He probably faced a lot of pressure to forget," says Ivan.
Alfred stills. He lifts his head from Ivan's shoulder and puts back on his glasses. He won't look back at Ivan. "Yeah. Probably."
Ivan senses he's done something wrong. The more he thinks about it, the more he recognizes it.
"But," he says, "you are right. Ignoring his history with your mother will not erase it. He should not be ashamed to have loved such a wonderful woman."
Alfred smiles with such rawness that he looks closer to tears. "Yeah, she was. And—and here's the thing I don't get. How was forbidding me from literacy going to change anything? I was going to meet you anyway. All he was doing was making sure that even if I could be connected to you by your handwriting, you couldn't be connected to me."
Ivan frowns. "My blank arm does not bother me."
"Really? If I were a noble, I probably would have gone crazy."
"I admit that there is some stress. Mostly from parents, expecting a noble's writing."
"But don't you want—I don't know, a reminder or something?"
"That I have a soulmate? At the time, I did not want it. And now I do not need it."
Alfred turns to look at Ivan. "Sometimes I think you're still in denial that I exist."
Ivan looks back at Alfred. "I…I am in denial. But not that you exist. Only that you are matched to me."
"What? Somebody had to be."
"It did not have to be a hero."
"Oh, c'mon, that was just a nickname—"
"Yet in many ways it is true, is it not? I have seen you care for your father, and your love for your brother is unmistakable," he says, thinking to the last time they were alone and Alfred told the story of Matthew and Lars. "You want to help, I know. And it is…interesting, to me."
"Interesting."
"I do not meet many other people so invested in others. Or in happiness, or love. If I need a reminder of you, I need only look at my sisters and remember my love for them. Or at the sky, for the sake of wonder. Or at sunflowers, for their cheer."
Ivan doesn't realize he's smiling until he sees Alfred staring at him with part amusement and part…something Ivan can't name.
"Sunflowers, huh?" says Alfred. "I'll remember that."
"Come, Master Braginski! Not even a small smile?"
"I am told it would not be becoming," says Ivan.
His painter, Feliciano Vargas, frowns. Feliciano is the grandson of an earl, but due to his passion for the arts, his grandfather allows him the pastime of taking portraits for local nobles. Lord Braginski, Ivan's father, has hired Feliciano to paint his son's portrait to send to nobles for consideration in matchmaking.
Ivan, at age eighteen, is due to be matched with a noble woman. He need not marry as young as either of his sisters (though the family married Yekaterina away at age twenty), but because his eldest sister's matchmaking process took so long, Lord Braginski sees fit to begin again as early as possible. He decides likewise for fourteen-year-old Natalia, who remains grudgingly silent at best and fails to cooperate at worst.
Alfred, too, is unhappy about the arrangement. He and Ivan have met only once since Lord Williams's funeral, just after Ivan turned eighteen and his father decided to find him a bride. The only way he assuaged Alfred's unhappiness was to insist to his father that the set-up—Ivan's portrait, the search for nobles looking to stage, the search of public records for Ivan's handwriting on another's arm—take at least a year.
Ivan has barely had a combined four days with Alfred despite nine months of knowing he exists. He spent nearly all of those nine months scouring his schedule for free days and all the while pretending his soulmate wasn't sitting in another manor and waiting for the smallest hint that Ivan hasn't forgotten him. Hints that Ivan must check five times before he sends. Hints that often fall through. Hints that sometimes he grows wary of sending, for fear that maybe the next time he sees Alfred is the day his loyalty to his family will collapse.
Ivan supposes that the portrait session will give him plenty of time to think.
"Just a small smile!" insists Feliciano as he adjusts the lighting. "Think of a pretty girl, or a place you enjoy!"
Against his will, sunflowers pop into Ivan's head.
"I cannot sustain it," says Ivan. "This may take weeks." Months, he hopes, though it's unrealistic.
"Even if I can see it at the beginning it will help me greatly," says Feliciano, and he offers a smile of his own. Wider and more frantic than Alfred's, Ivan can't help but note. "It's so difficult to draw a smile onto a face that's already drawn, but the ghost of a smile at the beginning can linger through the entire painting!"
Ivan is tired from listening to him already. "What makes you smile?" he asks.
"Ah, that's a lot of things!" says Feliciano. Ivan nearly breathes a sigh of relief when he sits down to his easel. "I love spaghetti and roses and sunrises and fine shoes, and my brother Lovino and my grandfather Romeo, and I also love history and geography and painting, of course, and also accounting—"
"Accounting?" asks Ivan. This seems like a mismatch to him.
"Your expression back to normal, please," says Feliciano. Ivan unfurrows his brow and waits for Feliciano to elaborate. He doesn't.
"Is your brother perhaps an accountant?" prompts Ivan.
"Hm? No, no, my brother—he cannot stand math. Even addition and subtraction he says give him a headache, which I think is a little silly, because he cannot use it very much. He spends his time napping and being courted by his fiancé, which to me sounds wonderful, even though I nap twice a day to begin with—"
"And your brother's fiancé is an accountant?" Ivan is still trying to find the connection.
"Antonio? No, he is an heir! You have met him, I believe—the son of Lord Carriedo?"
"I have not heard of any stagings in the Carriedo family."
"That," says Feliciano with the smallest smile Ivan has yet seen on him, "is because it is not a staging. They are soulmates."
Ivan blinks, which is fortunately allowed in his range of motion as he poses. Having dealt first with Yekaterina's staging and then with meeting Alfred, Ivan has all but forgotten that soulmates can be of the same status.
"It was very romantic, how they met," continues Feliciano. "Lovino and I were at a gala, and Lovino went to the garden because another noble, Count Adnan I believe, made him angry. He told me he heard the most beautiful music—well, he didn't say it in words so much as in his voice—and he followed it through the garden until he was surrounded by roses. And there was Antonio, playing on his lute! He had forgotten to practice that day and meant to return to the gala when he was finished, but he saw Lovino and said, 'Would you like a song?' To which Lovino said—well, it was a little cruder, but he guessed at the instrument's name and said that he didn't like mandolins. And it's so romantic since, because of his words, Antonio insisted on learning the lute as a child because he knew his soulmate didn't like mandolins…"
Ivan senses the digression and decides not to push further. He has plenty of time to wonder what Feliciano, talkative carefree painter Feliciano, means by smiling about accounting.
"This is maybe the best idea you've ever had."
Ivan is amused, but decides to take the compliment for what it is. He smiles slightly as he and Alfred venture further into the woods. He's exhausted—he's here because Lord Matthew Williams and Lady Yekaterina Williams have held an anniversary dinner for their two families, and Ivan has pleaded exhaustion to convince his father to let him stay overnight at the Williams manor. But it's Alfred's and Ivan's one-year anniversary of meeting, and Ivan is trying to make up for only meeting Alfred five times since his sister's wedding, and from the way Alfred happily leads the way even at this late hour, Ivan is willing to postpone sleep a while longer.
"So, are you going to tell me what's in the box or not?" asks Alfred as they reach the clearing Ivan requested him to find.
Ivan sets the thin box on the ground and kneels before it to open it. Before he can begin to explain what's inside, Alfred gasps and brings the lantern closer to examine it.
"A telescope?"
"That's right," says Ivan, and he blows out the lantern. He can assemble the telescope and its accompanying tripod in pure darkness, and they need the set-up time to adjust their eyes. He has a second stand-alone one in his chambers, a gift from his older sister many birthdays ago. This one, portable and meant for seafaring, he requested for his eighteenth. He means to introduce Alfred to the stars, something he figures a commoner has never seen. Now he's reconsidering what Alfred knows.
"How's its angular resolution?" asks Alfred. "I've been hearing rumors that Sirius is actually two stars instead of one, but my telescope's resolution only shows the one star."
"I have read similar things," says Ivan, and though Alfred can't see by the moonless night, Ivan's eyebrows shoot up. "However, this telescope lacks the aperture necessary for such a thing. Nor has my telescope at home confirmed it, but I would need a larger one."
"That's fair," says Alfred, though he looks put down. "I'm not sure there's a big enough telescope to see the difference, anyway. I just thought maybe if there was one, you'd have it."
"My father will not allow a larger telescope than the other one I have. He said this one would be the last I receive," says Ivan, clicking the last piece into place and wielding a telescope a foot long. He sets it on the spindly wooden legs of the tripod. "Besides, perhaps we will only ever know of the second star by the way Sirius moves. Not all can be observed."
"Not yet, anyway," says Alfred. "But why's your father so against telescopes? He should be happy you have a hobby."
"While he agrees that tracking the motions of the stars will teach me studiousness and care in cataloguing, he hopes that my focus will not remain away from home. Furthermore, I may only observe in the early evening, so as not to interfere with my studies the next day."
Alfred's tone turns coy. "And you haven't broken this rule, have you?"
"…Perhaps once or twice."
"Ivan!" says Alfred, and his faux-scandalized exclamation echoes around the treats. "Oh no! You've disobeyed your father!"
Ivan isn't quite so amused, and he falls silent. Alfred catches on after a moment. "Sorry," he says. "Didn't mean to pry." Ivan's assumes he's gesturing to the telescope. "Mind if I?"
Ivan hands it over, but instead of letting it go, he points the lens towards the celestial equator to the south. "You may search for Sirius, if you like."
Alfred balances the telescope, one hand near the eyepiece and one supporting the lens, with the grace of an experienced astronomer. After a moment, he curses. "My spectacles," he says. "They're pressing against the eyepiece."
"How is your vision without them?"
"Not good enough," says Alfred, and he chuckles. "Don't worry, I just—forgot."
"You have done this many times before, I take it."
"Not recently, but yeah. Mattie and I would come out here to stargaze, when we were kids. I told him I liked looking at the stars, and he told me I'd never get a better view than from out here."
Ivan looks at the sky, at the numerous stars visible and the faint galaxy spanning above them. "He was right."
Alfred takes the telescope away from his eye. "Took me ages to get my hands on a decent telescope, though. Mattie and I had to beg Dad for one. He had the same problems as your dad, but I was well-behaved for years because of it."
"Years?"
"Sure—it takes at least a year to notice the patterns in the stars, right?" Alfred sounds like he's smiling.
"So you followed the motions, then."
"Yeah. It was—really nice, you know?" Alfred begins shifting the telescope in his hands. "I could still use papers and pens for something, making maps of the sky. I couldn't label it or anything, but I could connect the constellations and keep track of them that way. Of course, Mattie would tell me in the morning that I was making up half the constellations I marked."
Despite himself, Ivan laughs.
"What? I'm serious!"
"I do not doubt it," says Ivan, still smiling. "I suppose I only wonder what constellations you saw."
"Like, uh…" Ivan scans the sky with Alfred, looking closer to the Milky Way which is growing clearer now that their eyes are adjusting after losing the lantern's light. "There!" Alfred points to a cluster of stars just east of it, a diamond with two stars trailing after it. "That's a mouse."
Ivan squints. "Beside Pegasus?"
"You mean the giant square? I call it the Prison."
"Ah. Does this mouse have a story?"
"Yeah, he just escaped prison, and he's about to cross the river."
"The Milky Way."
"Yup. He has to use those stepping stones, though," Alfred says, jutting his arm into the sky to point out various stars. "And once he gets to the other side he'll be with his soulmate." He circles his hand in a place somewhere more northern. Ivan can't see which stars he means.
"Is his soulmate another mouse?"
"Nope, his soulmate's a bear."
"A bear. Like the Big Dipper?"
"He wishes. His father is the Big Dipper, but the bear decided that he was just going to be a bear. Cygnus the swan"—Alfred points out an actual constellation spanning the band of the Milky Way—"told him his soulmate was looking for him, so the bear decided to leave the north where the other big constellations circled Polaris. It's so cool—he fought the turning of the sky, just to get to the Milky Way."
"…Alfred, do you see yourself as a bear?"
Alfred turns to face Ivan. "Huh? No, uh. I liked the mouse."
Ivan blinks. "Really?"
"I mean, mice aren't my favorite animals. I like eagles a lot more, but I just saw this little guy one night next to this huge constellation, and I was like, 'you get me, huh?'" Alfred turns back to examine the tiny constellation. "I first saw him around my birthday, because he's a summer constellation. And he looked so small, and I knew all these kings and queens and hunters and monsters were also in the sky, but there was just this tiny little mouse in the middle of it all."
"So…then, the bear?"
"Well, I knew I had a soulmate. I thought I'd give him one too."
"A bear, though."
"Yeah?" asks Alfred. "What's wrong with bears?"
"A bear does not seem a likely companion to a mouse," says Ivan quietly.
"He's a gentle bear. Plus, it can't be easy for him to be in the north with all the other big constellations. He probably wanted his soulmate too."
Ivan thinks pessimistically. He thinks of how the Little Dipper—which Alfred surely doesn't mean, but it's all Ivan can think of—is so far in the north that one of its stars is the North Star. He thinks of how Alfred's mouse and imaginary bear are separated by "the river", the Milky Way. He wonders why the mouse has been in prison, of all places, and whether either it or the bear can swim.
He's unwilling to break Alfred's fantasy, though.
"It is a lovely story," he says. "I also meant to show you another lovely thing."
"Huh?" Alfred realizes he's still holding a telescope. "Oh, yeah. Let's do it!"
Ivan directs Alfred to Jupiter. His telescope may not be able to separate twin stars, but it can detect distant moons easily enough. Luckily enough, three of the four largest Jovian moons are visible tonight.
Alfred makes a sharp squeak of surprise, and Ivan smiles and knows that he's found them.
"Who handles the books in your family?" It's the most subtle question Ivan can think of, and possibly the least subtle thing he could say.
Feliciano pauses between brushstrokes. "At the moment, nobody," he says. "We hire a man once a year."
"Is he a good accountant?" asks Ivan.
"Do you mean to ask for a recommendation?" asks Feliciano. "I can recommend the agency who sends him—they have very talented people, and discreet too."
"I do not, in fact," says Ivan. "I wish to hear more about him."
Feliciano sighs and sets his palette on the table beside him. As he cleans his brush, he looks Ivan in the eye. "Master Braginski, I misspoke on our first day. Accounting does not make me smile, although it is very respectable. I would be grateful for you to stop asking."
Aha, Ivan thinks. "Let us trade a secret for a secret, then."
"Secret?" Feliciano's voice tilts upwards. "Secret—there is no secret here! Only a slip of tongue, which I promise I do very often, so there is no need for you to assume any secrets—"
"I have met my soulmate," says Ivan.
Feliciano pauses. He looks at Ivan appraisingly, with the light of gossip in his eyes. "Oh?"
"His name is Alfred. He is…within the noble circle, although far enough outside it that I cannot make his existence known to my father."
"Hence your staging portrait?" asks Feliciano. "But—surely your father would insist I write your words on the back of this portrait, if you had them!"
"Yet I have no words," says Ivan. He's tempted to roll up his sleeve, but he fears straying from his position too much and ruining the pose Feliciano has perfected for him.
"Yet he is within the noble circle?" Feliciano's eyes grow wider as the mystery intrigues him further. "Please, elaborate!" He settles back to paint, smiling.
"Ah," says Ivan. "This is information I cannot give you."
"Oh, come, you've already shared this much, and I am very good at secret-keeping!"
"I will not share anything that you do not likewise share."
Feliciano pauses. "Ah." He stares at the portrait, and speaks to it as he addresses Ivan. "It is unsafe."
"As it is for me," says Ivan. "I have trusted you with the bare knowledge of my situation. I do not mean to be rude, but…"
He's curious. He's rudely curious, and he's also hoping to learn. He meets nobles of his age only at galas, where listening ears prohibit discussion of true soulmates. Ivan is grappling with the new double life he leads, and he suspects one of Feliciano. He wants to learn.
And, if he's being honest, he wants help. He wants advice. He wants to discuss the way Alfred's smile sets him at ease, and the way his illiteracy sets him on edge. He wants to talk about what other nobles have done, whether they've shunned their soulmates or hidden them or tried to incorporate them into new lives. And who better to know about any of it than Feliciano, the painter who drifts among everyone of their class and encounters nearly everyone with this situation?
"…This must remain between us," says Feliciano.
"There is no question of that."
"My soulmate is our family's accountant."
"Ah."
"Is it so obvious?" says Feliciano pleadingly.
"Not at first. But…among your many other interests, accounting does not seem to fit."
"I agreed at first," says Feliciano. "But I saw him in the corridor one day, when I was fifteen. Oh, he was—he was tall, and broad, and if I were born a sculptor I would have locked him in my chambers and set to work immediately to chisel marble in the exact shape of his face. But I caught only a glimpse of him, and I had to follow him halfway through the manor until we reached my grandfather's study. I lingered outside the hallway until he and my grandfather were finished discussing, and the minute he left, I…well, I think I startled him," Feliciano says with a giggle. Ivan notices that as he talks, his smile grows wider and his cheeks rosier.
"I asked him if he would return to my chambers with me, and he sputtered so badly that I am surprised that I have actual words on my arm." Feliciano waves his right arm above the easel as his left one paints. "He apologized and said he must really return to work, which—were my words! My grandfather knew they existed ever since they appeared, and he thought it was far too rude, but I couldn't bear to tell him…well, that they had been spoken. Instead I insisted the man take a cup of tea in the parlor, at least, so I could learn more about him."
"And he accepted?"
"Oh, no, I had to chase him down the hallway with a servant and a tray of tea. I sat outside his door and sipped tea until he opened the door and asked me to come into the study. I think he only wanted to avoid questions from the staff, or from my grandfather, because once I was seated he went straight to work again. But he was blushing, so that was a good sign." By this point, Feliciano is beaming. "I asked him his name and told him mine, and…we met!"
Ivan doesn't understand why Feliciano held this story with such secrecy. It frankly sounds like something Alfred would do. Like what Alfred did. "And since then, he has been your family accountant?"
"Yes. I see him every year."
"Only once a year?"
"For two weeks, yes, and for the past three years. And if I am to attend a ball or a gala, the time diminishes by the day." Feliciano's smile is fading. "I have no reason to see him on other occasions. He is of commoner birth—he cannot attend the same events as me. Nor has he a reason to attend to our books more frequently, because Grandfather takes care of cataloguing and only needs him to verify and organize."
"I am sorry to hear such a thing," says Ivan. He really is. He thinks back to the times he has seen Alfred, and realizes that every one of them is because his sister is married to Alfred's brother.
He feels a pang of guilt. His sister staged, gave up her own soulmate, and as a result Ivan found his own. It's unfair to the same sister who smiles and thanks every servant she sees, who carries out their family's expectations with poise, who visited Ivan's chambers when she lived at the Braginski manor and asked to see his observation sheets from the previous night. Who knitted him the scarf he wears on days he feels this world is too much for him.
"His name is Ludwig," says Feliciano, interrupting Ivan's thoughts. "You told me your soulmate's name, so I will tell you his."
"Thank you," says Ivan. "He must be a good man, for you to miss him as much as you do."
"He is," says Feliciano. "He lives with his grandfather too, and takes good care of him. While his older brother spent money trying to learn to read only to find his soulmate, he took his grandfather's spending money and took lessons on accounting. He reads and writes," Feliciano adds, "but only for the purpose of his job. I lend him a book every year for him to read, so he knows that reading can be for joy as well as duty."
"Do you…" Ivan starts, and then rephrases. "Would you ever consider marrying him?"
"Oh, no. I cannot."
"But your brother is marrying a noble, is he not? He can carry on the Vargas title."
"Lovino is marrying into the Carriedo family. And the only reason such a thing is permissible is because Antonio has a nephew, and because our family ranks well enough that Lovino is marrying within our class. That leaves only me to carry on the title. It is not so bad," Feliciano says quietly, dipping his brush into a new paint color. "I find both men and women to be very beautiful. And there is more than one kind of love."
"But only one soulmate."
"And he will still be my only soulmate if I have a wife, yes?" says Feliciano. "If I am lucky, I will be fond of her. It is not…she will not be Ludwig. But she will be enough, until I can hire Ludwig myself."
Ivan's heart pangs. He tries to imagine someone besides Alfred smiling at him. He appreciates any other smile in an aesthetic way, but only Alfred's smiles pierce through his skin. Though he's still not sure he believes in love at first sight, he must admit that knowing Alfred is his soulmate saves a few steps in the process of falling in love.
Trying to replicate that feeling with another person feels wrong. It takes more time to appreciate people who aren't Alfred. He may even fail to appreciate his staged spouse at all. And he feels exhausted as he thinks of trying to love someone he's been told to love.
"We are lucky to have soulmates," says Feliciano absently as he paints, "and luckier still if we can meet them. I think, though, that luck ends after a point."
"Wait, what was that name again?"
"Ludwig."
Alfred and Ivan, bundled in winter clothes, are sitting on the same fence where Ivan first took Alfred to ask why he'd invaded the Braginski manor. This is their seventh meeting, and they're halfway to nineteen years old, and they're running out of creative places to be alone.
Alfred's swinging leg stops as Ivan recounts Feliciano's story. "And he's an accountant," Alfred clarifies.
"Yes, from an agency in town."
"Huh. Then I think I know him!"
"Oh?"
"Yeah, he's teaching me accounting."
Ivan blanches. "What?"
"He's my accounting tutor. Mattie brings him over every week or so, and he needs the work during the summer, so he teaches me stuff so I can manage the Williams books."
"Stuff like…reading?"
Alfred looks away from Ivan's gaze. "Yeah, a little."
"Alfred, when were you going to tell me? I asked that we talk about this!"
"You said the rule was more for me than for you! Besides, I was…gonna tell you eventually."
"When, then—when words appeared on my arm?"
"So I wanted to surprise you!" Alfred steps down from the fence and turns to Ivan. "Look, it's not like it's some big surprise that I'm your soulmate. You'd just have—proof, is all."
"I have told you I do not need proof. And furthermore, I do not want it." Ivan stands upright. "Alfred, have you considered that I am in the middle of courtship? Feliciano is halfway done with my portrait, and once he makes copies and sends them out, I will begin staging. I would rather—I do not want someone to say your words. And what is more"—he makes to lift his left sleeve but oh, yes, he doesn't have the words written there—"what you first said was very distinctive."
"What? Weird, maybe, but not distinctive—"
"And the commoners you lived with in town will not know someone called a hero? Word travels faster than you think, especially once it reaches the nobility. You will be found and—"
"And what? Then what, Ivan?" Alfred folds his arms. "You'll have a wife soon. Everyone will know she's not your soulmate. Don't you think they'd already have guessed, from the way no one knows what Ivan Braginski's words are? Because you don't have them. At least this way you'll have some—and yeah, they're shitty words, and I'm sorry—but you'll just find a way to tie them to your wife, and everything will be okay."
"Everything will not be okay," says Ivan, and he folds his arms across his chest. "With a blank arm, I can simply marry. With words, I must stage. I do not want your words to disappear, Alfred—I—it distresses me to think that our connection could be stolen."
"And I don't want that either," says Alfred, "but…look, you want another reason?"
"I would appreciate one."
"I'm so fucking bored. You've got all this stuff to do, but I'm sitting in the Williams manor the same as I have since I was ten. Even since then I wanted to change things and help people, and you know what? Accounting is a way to do it. Mattie wants to set up charities with the family fortune, and he says I can be in charge of them, and I'm in. Because otherwise, what do I have? A soulmate I barely see? A brother I see even less? I see your sister more than either of you.
"And look, Ivan, I know"—Alfred's eyes start to turn glassy—"I know you're not sold on me. You're still…still talking about stagings, and I just—I thought you'd want to, I don't know. Run away. Or, or fight. I thought you'd fight with me, but instead we meet up and you smile at me and then you go back to your life and forget all about me."
"I…" Ivan stands still. He lifts his arms helplessly. "I do not forget you."
"Then why are you so upset about having a reminder of me? It's not like I'm going to crash one of your balls and pin myself to your side, but I just—I'm not allowed to draw attention to you, just like I couldn't draw attention to my father. I'm so sick of being this shame to everyone, and I just want to be your soulmate! And I want to be able to write, finally, so then even if I can't fix this useless system where we hide and lie about who we love, at least I can—I can save a kid from growing up to be me one day!"
"…Alfred. You should be proud to have someone grow up to be you."
"Not from the way I have to hide everything."
"You…" Ivan sighs. He envelopes Alfred in a hug, pressing his head to his chest. "You are a good person. You are kind, and thoughtful, and you make happy everyone who meets you. Yours is exactly the goodness I expect from one who was born of a soulmate pair."
"Exactly the—" Alfred mutters. "Huh?"
Ivan frowns. Surely Alfred knows. "The children of soulmates are better. Than the children of those who were matched."
"Better how?"
"More compassionate. More loving. Happier."
"Ivan, I…" Alfred pulls away. "You honestly think that?"
"It is common knowledge."
"To your class, maybe." Alfred exhales. "I thought it was only Mattie who thought that."
"But it is true all the same."
"Is this why you're having such a hard time being my soulmate?" asks Alfred, looking up into Ivan's eyes. "You think you don't…what, deserve me?"
"That is irrelevant."
"No, it fucking isn't. Ivan, was I doing something wrong?"
Ivan pauses. Looks down at their bodies pressed against each other. "I admit," he says, "that sometimes our physical contact is somewhat of a shock."
Alfred jumps away from Ivan like he's been electrocuted. "Dude, you—you gotta tell me these things. What else?"
"Nothing, I swear."
"No, there's gotta be more, there has to be something I can fix."
Ivan sighs. Runs a hand through his hair. "Alfred, there is very little you can do to fix the true problem."
"What's the true problem?" Alfred looks half afraid to hear the answer, and half already aware of what it is.
"I will not be giving up my family's title. No matter how much I love you, that cannot change."
"Well…what does that leave for me?" asks Alfred, squinting. "You don't want me to learn to write. You obviously can't marry me. Am I—am I just going to be waiting for you all the time?"
"I do not wish that for you, but—"
"But you're going to insist, aren't you." Alfred crosses his arms. "Because obviously our relationship is all about you."
"Alfred, you knew from the start that I was hesitant."
"But I thought maybe you'd change your mind!"
Ivan frowns. "That seems an unfair thing to expect."
"It's what happens in all the stories. Soulmates are supposed to put each other above everyone else."
"You and I have been hearing different stories."
"And I'm trying to tell you new ones. Ones where people aren't ashamed of the soulmates they have." Alfred looks ready to cry. Ivan now really does want to hug him, but the one time he's comfortable with one is the time that Alfred likely won't accept it.
"You know what? Fine," says Alfred. "Keep courting. Stage. Whatever, I don't care. But I'm done sitting around and waiting. I'm going to keep learning to read, and if you don't like your new words, you can cover them up for all I care."
"Alfred, please."
"Please what?"
Alfred's arms are crossed against his chest. His feet are pointed back the way they came, past the kitchen and to the stables where Alfred has hitched his horse. He's looking at Ivan with a challenge, one he knows Ivan won't win.
Ivan doesn't know what to say to keep Alfred here.
"You'd better have more to say the next time we see each other," says Alfred. He leaves Ivan standing with his back to the fence, staring out into the woods.
Sirius was established as a binary star in 1844 when a German scientist named Friedrich Bessel noticed changes in the motion of Sirius relative to other stars, indicating an invisible gravitational force nearby whose mass suggested it was another star. Sirius's twin, Sirius B, wasn't seen until 1862 by American astronomer Alvan Graham Clark. He used an 18.5-inch refracting (lens-based) telescope, which was considerably larger than Alfred's and Ivan's (www . timberwolfbay products / 19th-century-brass-telescope). Alfred would have seen something like this: www . skyandtelescope wp-content / uploads / Jupiter-Moons-ST-final . jpg. (And by the way, I totally saw the mouse constellation on an astronomy field trip.)
I've been very vague about where this universe takes place -I imagine it as in northern Europe -but at least there's a hint about the era.
(Can you tell I have a part-time job teaching astronomy?)
I'm not sure what my weekend looks like, but I hope to have the next chapter ready to post in a few days.