“You won’t,” Baz replied on a tortured sigh. “You’ll say your boots will ruin the silk.”

  “Only you would be put out about that,” Emile said, but he didn’t bother to hide the approval in his voice.

  “And only you would be glad of it,” Baz retorted, and if he nipped at Emile’s fingers as he took the next bit of fruit, Emile didn’t mind.

  The door opened, and Isiodore de Mortain strode into the breakfast room.

  Baz went still at Emile’s side, and a spray of begonias appeared on the gold-rimmed plate before him. Emile knew by now what they meant. Beware.

  And in this case, the warning was unnecessary. “Good morning, Isiodore,” Emile said to the man who was not Isiodore de Mortain. “Let me just ring for tea.” He rang a small gold bell, but it was not a signal for tea.

  “I don’t have time for tea,” the assassin said, in a fair approximation of Isiodore’s voice. It was chilly, clipped with vague disapproval, and but for Baz, Emile might have fallen for it if not for two simple reasons—

  First, he’d told Isiodore in no uncertain terms to keep Adrien safe in the country until this threat was neutralized. He knew that no matter how much it must be killing Izzy to idle away playing the pastoral gentleman with his genteel husband, early to bed and early to rise and listening to … crickets, or whatever one did as a country noble, Isiodore would not put Adrien in danger by returning, no matter how much he probably wanted to lecture Emile for foolishly drinking poison.

  The second was easier still. Isiodore never wore his hair down outside his bedchamber. He’d been that way since they were young. And he was clean-shaven, which he had not been at his wedding, because Adrien preferred him with a—neatly trimmed—beard. Isiodore was foolishly soft for Emile’s son and surely hadn’t shaved it. But even if he had, he would never in a million years present himself to Emile with his hair unbound.

  The assassin probably thought it lent an air of dashing, loyal desperation to the ruse, to show up like that. Foolish.

  Emile smiled. “Come, aren’t you going to congratulate me? You’re always saying I should collar a submissive, that it will help my mood.”

  The man who was not Isiodore narrowed his eyes at him and then glanced down at Baz. “You could do better, Your Majesty.”

  “So could you,” Emile said, leaning back in his seat as Ferrin and another guard, summoned by the bell, appeared in the doorway.

  The assassin threw something on the ground. It erupted into smoke, and Baz swore in his native Morrey as Emile’s mouth was assailed by the bright, sharp taste of peppermint.

  There was a scuffle, but when it was over, the assassin had vanished and Ferrin was spitting wet peppermint leaves into his palm while the other guard made soft, choking sounds. His face was red, and his throat appeared to be swelling alarmingly.

  “I’m … allergic,” he managed, and Emile sighed and let Baz off his leash so that he could hurry over and give the man something to counteract the mint. “Sorry, Your Majesty,” the guard said, when he was able to speak again. He looked embarrassed. And familiar, though Emile wasn’t sure why—he’d not seen him with Ferrin on day guard, before.

  “Luca, drink your water,” Ferrin said, and sighed. He nodded at Baz, who looked like some strange foreign sprite, robed in blue silk with his black hair and his all-black eyes, flowers spilling from his braid and the cuffs on his wrists, dotting the leash. “I’ll see if I can find him. Luca.”

  “I’m fine,” said Luca, adjusting his hat. It was a size or so too big for him.

  “Once this business is resolved, take that one to the tailor and get him a properly fitted uniform,” Emile said. “Have him go see Silver if for some reason his head is too small for our standard gear.”

  “It definitely isn’t,” Ferrin muttered. He gave Emile a look. “Was there any danger?”

  “He’s an assassin, so, yes,” Emile said, discreetly removing the soggy mint from his mouth and wrapping it up in a napkin. “But no, I knew he wasn’t Izzy. The Duke de Mortain would never show up for tea with his hair unbound.”

  “That’s how you knew?” Baz whirled on him.

  “That, and de Mortain would hang before he brought my son back here while there’s an assassin who can switch faces on the loose.”

  Ferrin and Luca left to try to find the assassin, or visit the royal tailor, and Baz returned to kneel by him. “Was that your grinning corpse smoke, then?” Emile asked.

  “No. It’s the pod of a flower that grows on the side of mountains in the summer. When the goats trample them, they … smoke, like that. It makes the goats drowsy.”

  Emile snorted. Something about that struck him as very funny. “Goat-toppler flowers, eh? And Mislians have to climb up the cliffs to harvest them? Not a very convenient choice of poison, is it?”

  “No,” Baz said, but he smiled a bit. “The goats kick up the thing that makes other flowers … into the air. So they drift on the wind, or get caught in the fur of the goats, and that carries the … flower-makers … down the mountain.”

  “Pollen, you mean,” Emile said. “And the mint?”

  “It is how the goats keep from falling off the mountain,” Baz said.

  “Remarkable they know to bring some with them as they climb.”

  Baz stared at him. “Emile. The mint grows on the side of the mountain, too.”

  “Mislia doesn’t make anything easy for anyone, does it? Goat-stomped flowers making smoke, the mountains making mint to keep the goats stomping. It would seem the flowers don’t know which they want. Drugged goats or rampaging ones.”

  “Nature fights itself, Emile. That is true for every creature, flower or goat or man.” Baz sat back on his heels. “Next time, tell me that you know there is an impostor.”

  “Did I worry you, my hawk?” Emile dragged him close with the leash, then leaned in and kissed him. Baz’s mouth tasted like mint. “I assure you, I know Isiodore almost as well as I know myself. Proper grooming is imperative for any noble who wants to take tea with the king. Or interrupt him in the middle of it, in Isiodore’s case.”

  “You take tea with your hair a mess,” Baz said breathlessly.

  “So do you,” Emile said, and he set out to mess up Baz’s hair, leaving flowers scattered all over the table, Baz’s gasps and moans as loud as the morning birdsong as Emile took his mouth, the leash wrapped around his wrist, making it slow and cruel until tears spilled down Baz’s face and his cock rose between his legs, pushing out from the fall of silk that made up his robe.

  Emile didn’t allow him to come, which Baz liked almost as much as when he did, and Baz was gasping and red-faced as Emile pressed Baz’s face to his thigh and forced him, in a way, to finish his breakfast.

  Am I allowed now, do you think?

  He thought of that moment, Baz’s sleep-soft voice in the dark, asking him for permission to fall in love. Emile was not the sort of man who engendered tender feelings in others. Even Lianne, who’d eventually loved him, had thrown a drink in his face at the ball where they’d met.

  “You don’t look like the king, you look like the help,” were the first words she’d ever spoken to him.

  “You’re not the help, you’re much too rude,” he’d responded, and laughed when she’d shoved him—as if that were something you could do to the king. The laugh was what earned him the drink in the face. Lianne had refused to apologize.

  But Emile had held her when she wept after the loss of their first child, and the second, and the one she’d quickened with after Adrien. After that, Emile put a stop to it and insisted she take the herbs that would keep her from conceiving.

  “I will not lose you because you think I need an heir and a spare. Children are not litters, and you are not a cat,” he’d told her, when she raged and fought him even though he knew she wanted to be done with it, the pain and the despair of waking up with blood between her legs, stained sheets, the whispers of her ladies-in-waiting. The gossip that he would put her aside when Adrien presented as a submissive.

  “What am I, then,” she’d asked dully, her red hair lifeless, face too pale, after the last one. “Why can every bitch in Duciel whelp but me?”

  “I don’t know, darling. You’re bitchier than all of them, that’s for sure.”

  That had gotten a laugh out of her, at least.

  He wondered what she would say about Baz. About how he was starting to think that perhaps his heart didn’t go to the grave with her after all, merely … slumbered, for a while. Like one of Baz’s flowers, the ones he’d told Emile about in the bath a few nights ago, that grew and grew but flowered only under the perfect conditions, once a century, before closing up again to wait once more.

  There was a cough at the door, and Emile glanced up to find Sabre standing there, watching them. The sun had moved so the light coming in was softer, and the resemblance between Arthur and Sabre was pronounced. But so was Sabre’s resemblance to both Adrien and Emile himself.

  “I heard he tried again,” Sabre said, striding in. “Who was it this time?”

  “Isiodore.”

  Sabre squinted. He’d come into his own, this last year, rising to take his place in much the same way as Adrien had. “The only way he’d be here would be if Adrien snuck out and came back to make sure you were all right.”

  A chill went down Emile’s spine, some of his relaxed mood dissipating at the thought. “He wouldn’t dare. I’m fine.”

  Baz, still under, gave a soft sound at the unchecked dominance in his voice.

  “Adrien worries about you,” Sabre said. “Why do you think he went to Mislia in the first place?”

  “Because he hopped on a magic boat that took him there?”

  Sabre moved to stand before Emile, chin tilted up, looking very little like the boy who’d asked the hangman if he could hold his sister’s hand. “He would have died to learn how to keep you safe, Your Majesty. So would Isiodore. You must know that. They’ve never been anything but loyal, and the threat of an assassin isn’t enough to change that. I would ask that you remember that. People die when you forget.”

  “Spare me the lecture, Sabre.” Emile stood up and fixed Sabre with the full force of his dominance and his stare, the effect of which he knew very well. “And for the record, Duke de Valois, I have never forgotten who was loyal to me and who was not.”

  Sabre couldn’t meet his gaze for long, but he didn’t back away and he didn’t go to his knees. “If the assassin tried as Isiodore, he’ll most likely try as Adrien. He doesn’t seem to know when to stop.”

  “You are his left hand, Sabre. If you need to take your lord husband with you and join my son in the country, then do so. If you think Adrien is going to try to return to Duciel in the middle of the night, I expect you to be on your way there before the sun moves to another window, do you understand?”

  Sabre bowed. “If I thought that, I’d be there already. If you see him here, Your Majesty, it is not Adrien. I would confidently say you could order your guard to seize the crown prince immediately, if anyone spotted him here.”

  “Let’s not do that. Some loose-lipped noble will think I want him dead.” Emile waved a hand. “Ferrin attempted to locate the assassin. Go see whether he had any luck. And give my regards to your husband’s sister. Tell her that I shall bring Baz to their play, so I expect her to reserve a box for me—and it had best be far away from my mother’s, or Lady Rose will attend tea with her and her submissive and it will end with Rose hating the very thought of poetry.”

  Sabre’s smile brightened, though Emile knew it wasn’t for him. “Yes, Your Majesty. Hektor is well, Bazyli,” he said, his voice turning friendlier at the end.

  A few months ago, Emile would have remarked on it. Said something like, You have a warmer tone for a Mislian than for your king? Instead, he drew his fingers through Baz’s dark hair, released from the braid he’d worn to breakfast, the soft strands and the flowers’ smooth petals relaxing him.

  “He fears you,” Baz said, after Sabre left. The morning sun had given way to afternoon clouds, shadows crawling across floors that were no longer so bright. “He and his husband both.”

  “Do they?” Emile had to address the council soon. He did not think he would allow Baz to change his clothing beforehand. But after, perhaps Baz could come. Yes. Perhaps. “I did not hold my throne by being gentle, my hawk.”

  “No. You wouldn’t have.” Baz went back on his heels. For all that his tea service was laughable, his posture, when he wasn’t sulking or playing at it, was perfect. “But it could not be only that. Or you would have more people trying to kill you.”

  Emile laughed. “I’m not sure I could handle any more.”

  “You’ll have to, probably. Power is a beacon. A flame. Things in the dark cannot help moving toward it.”

  “I don’t know if that was a compliment or a warning,” Emile said softly, as those same red flowers bloomed in Baz’s hair and behind Emile’s own ear. Emile set his own flowers aside. They looked better on Baz, regardless. The begonia, the flower that meant beware, had faded on his plate.

  “Perhaps it is both,” Baz replied. “Can you trust them? Sabre. Laurent. They fear you, and that can be … reason, sometimes, to hate.”

  “Oh, Sabre has reason to hate me, I would say. And Laurent … I took him to bed, once. Did you know that?”

  Baz stared up at him. “No. Why? He is a dominant.”

  “He was a whore. A courtesan. I was making a point to my nobles, I suppose. They kept pressing me to hire a courtesan—they wanted me to get a dominant heir, but I suppose they were wary of my marrying again—so I picked one with whom that would be impossible.” Emile tipped Baz’s face up to his. “I didn’t fuck him. In case you were wondering. In point of fact, I didn’t even touch him.”

  “I— Why not?” Baz huffed. “He was not to your liking?”

  “Perhaps I prefer brunets to blonds.”

  Baz didn’t look very impressed with the flippant answer. “I think you like trouble. People who aren’t easy.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that.” Emile took Baz’s chin in his fingers, smiled down into those dark eyes, as deep and fathomless as the sea. “You took my cock easily enough, last night. This morning, here, in your pretty silk and messy hair.”

  “Yes,” Baz agreed. “But only because you made me.” His eyes flashed as Emile slid two fingers into his mouth, beginning to fuck in and out of it, slow and purposeful.

  Emile pressed them deeper, over Baz’s tongue, then drew them out and dragged them, wet, across Baz’s cheek. “Let’s see how hard you’ll make it for me, then.”

  “You’ll be late. Ah, Emile.” Baz shivered, tipped his head back, and showed his throat. There was a mark there, a bite mark, high above his black leather collar. “Your council. They—”

  “Can wait,” Emile said, and dragged Baz up into his lap by his hair.

  If it were up to Baz, he and Emile wouldn’t leave Emile’s chambers at all until Sabre de Rue—or Valois, or whatever his name was at any given time—caught the assassin for them. But Emile was king, and being king meant not hiding away from people who wanted to kill him, so Baz couldn’t do more than glower darkly as they set off on a jaunt into the city.

  “You do not have to walk,” Baz said, eyeing the guards who were blending in with the steady stream of people passing through the Ring of Stars. “You have options that would expose you to far less risk.”

  “Yes, I imagine that would make me quite relatable to the common man,” Emile said. “Being carried about on a palanquin. I’ll have to frame the seditious cartoons they make of me in the morning.”

  “I meant on horseback,” Baz said. He moved closer, even though Emile had him on a lead for the sake of appearances, and eyed the people passing by them on the street. One or two stumbled out of the way, and a third hesitated, rocking back on their heel. “They’re staring.”

  “You’re a striking figure,” Emile said, and jerked the leash. “Don’t tell me you are averse to being shown off.”

  Baz’s cheeks colored, and Emile cast him a knowing look before turning toward the district where the artisans and performers were. Baz relaxed a little. He delivered flowers to some of the shops there, and some mornings he would make the journey just to run his fingers over the door of the music shop on the corner, not quite daring to go in. The door was open now, and Baz slowed for a moment to examine an instrument he didn’t know, like a small, misshapen guitar, before tripping forward again when the leash began to pull tight.

  “We have places like this in Mislia,” Baz said as they passed a boutique with a wild display of glittering dresses. “We have visitors, the Kallistoi, who come and study us. Our artists and singers. They don’t sell their work to us, but they would work on their paintings on the street, or dance, and our spell-singers would make illusions.”

  It was like a festival. Baz had always liked those days, even when the odd artist would come by the brothels and ask to paint one of the pleasure slaves.

  “One of them painted me,” Baz said, and Emile raised a brow. “She was nice. I was … twenty, I think. Young.”

  “You’re not so old now,” Emile said. “Who was this artist? Perhaps I can have the painting recovered.”

  Baz snorted. “You wouldn’t recognize me.”

  “She was that bad?”

  “No, she made me laugh. I looked happy. People who looked at that painting would think I was content in the brothel.”

  He’d hated it, at first, knowing that somewhere there was a painting of him with a tattoo on his chest and a grin on his face, gripping the top of a wall with both hands. It felt wrong, like subtle unease in a dream, different eyes looking back in a mirror.

  “I would like another one, I think,” he said abruptly. “A different one.”

  “Are you, Bazyli, asking for something?” Emile looked more bemused than he had a right to be. Baz scowled.

  “No. I’m not. It was a wish thing. Something that isn’t, but— I don’t know the word for it.”

 

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