first night, having dreamed he was choking on liquid silver.
And the next night. And the next. More silver, gushing forth from under the ground, flooding Somhairle’s bedchamber. The birds flapped their wings, but one by one, they drowned. Somhairle drenched in cold sweat, like he had during the fevers of his childhood.
Every night he was reminded, by the light of a single candle in his study, that there were invaders in his sacred court.
According to that candle, Lord Faolan never slept.
Usually, neither did Somhairle. But the study was intended to be where he spent his own sleepless nights.
Somhairle resented the change at first, then found himself unable to resist the pull and promise of company. Of conversation.
Whether Morien was awake on these long nights was a puzzle Somhairle didn’t risk solving.
Lord Faolan was different. Somhairle soon mustered the courage to join him.
Maps had piled up like dirty laundry in the study over the passing nights, gradually devouring a once neatly ordered desk. Tea stains everywhere. Faolan drank a dark, smoky brew that made Somhairle’s nose burn, though sometimes Somhairle poured a cup simply to have something warm to hold on to.
On top of the maps rested several open books—some from Somhairle’s collection of classical plays—though it was impossible to tell whether they were in the midst of being read or being employed as paperweights.
Morien never made any attempt to join them. Fortunately.
“I have to say, I admire your pluck,” Faolan confessed one night, legs flung over the arm of a cream-colored settee, long black hair unbound around his shoulders, resembling a fae prince of legend. “I’ve never seen anyone dare to sneeze in Morien’s direction, let alone scowl at him. Are you the formidable secret weapon of the Ever-Brights, kept safely hidden here until such a time as needed?”
Somhairle, who had a short lifetime of experience in keeping his expression blank, forced a rueful smile at the appropriate moment.
“You must offer my forgiveness to Morien for my poor manners. Having been away from court for so long, I must have forgotten myself. I am merely in awe of his magnificence.” He sipped his tea. Too strong and unrelentingly bitter. It wouldn’t help him sleep, but he hadn’t gathered the courage to face his dreams again. He let it warm his cheeks so he could blush sweetly. The innocent cripple: a useful archetype. “I would speak with him directly, but I’m afraid I have an aversion to sorcerers. You might have heard . . .”
“Rumors aren’t what interest me.” Faolan allowed a courteous moment of hesitation to pass, staring at the curved toes of his pointed slippers, before he continued. “One hears all sorts of things at court, regardless of whether or not one wishes to.”
A story. That was all Somhairle was to other people.
If he imagined himself onstage at the old Gilded Lily theater, an actor telling someone else’s tale, he could get through what came next without feeling like a specimen on display.
He began to explain his past experiences.
There had been Dyfed the Quick, who’d “painlessly”—his description—inserted a series of mirrorglass needles into Somhairle’s side. As Somhairle soon discovered, this procedure caused brief but blinding agony intended to reinvigorate his stunted growth.
After the fourteenth unsuccessful attempt, Dyfed had been removed from service.
Aibhilin the Asking had better luck in pretending she’d come to Somhairle seeking friendship before she lowered him into a mirror-bright pool in one of the palace bathrooms.
She’d held him under until he nearly drowned.
Saraid the Ready had produced a reflection of what Somhairle could have looked like whole to mock him from the safety of a looking glass. That Prince Somhairle had existed solely on the other side of the mirror, an image of himself that should have been, forever out of reach.
In the end, the Queen forbade anyone else from using any magic on any of her sons.
When Somhairle finished speaking, his cup was empty, though his throat was dry.
Faolan shivered theatrically, the way all good audiences should. One of his hands hung at his side, fingers twitching rhythmically as if to scratch a dog that wasn’t there. When he caught Somhairle noting the detail, he pretended he’d been playing an invisible instrument.
Somhairle waited. The purpose of oversharing personal, perhaps tragic details from his life—to him, they were merely what had happened; to others, they were tales of horror and fascination—was to prompt pity. If Faolan pitied him, he wouldn’t respect him. Wouldn’t consider him a threat.
Might let slip some useful information someday, with a tongue