Majesty Henry XII, King of Demeine. “You deserted your orders.”
“My apologies. Two of mine were injured in the fight, and I didn’t think you would require my assistance given your returned prowess.” Laurence bowed, graceful as ever, and smiled at his uncle. “Congratulations on your victory, Your Majesty.”
Returned? I glanced up, but Laurence’s eyes were focused on His Majesty’s feet. Henry XII, King of Demeine, had been a great noonday artist in his youth, his battle arts renowned, but he had worn out his body past repair during the war with Vertgana twenty years ago. So how had he channeled all that power today without his body collapsing? There had been no hacks with him.
“Come here, boy.” His Majesty Henry XII opened his arms and let Laurence embrace him. He did not hug him back. Laurence hugged him quickly and stepped back. Next to each other, with Laurence not bowed, he towered over Henry’s wiry frame, and Henry reached up to touch Laurence’s cheek. “You’ve got so much of your father in you.”
They were so different that I had forgotten Laurence was His Majesty’s nephew.
“Thank you,” said Laurence, but he stiffened and slouched so they were the same height. “How did you find this morning?”
“Refreshing.” Henry gestured for Laurence to leave and started walking away. “I expected more of them, but they put up an enjoyable fight.”
At that, Laurence did look at me.
Trust me, he had said.
But what had he done?
* * *
I stayed in the infirmary that night. One of Allard’s hacks, Louis, tended to my injured hand and throat. He was nice, clever, and if Rainier had lived, he might have been like Louis someday. It made the ache in my chest hurt all the more.
But the worst was when Madeline arrived. She wailed, the pitch of it digging into my soul and burrowing into my bones, and a shuddering, aching wrongness filled the air. I could hear her all the way across camp. I heard her sobs in my sleep, long after she had stopped. His death would hurt so many people.
It should have been me.
Laurence made me take a day off, forcing me to stay in my tent and sleep. He got in trouble for not healing Waleran during the fight, and even Sébastien had scowled at that. Madeline could not be moved from Rainier’s corpse, and it hurt worse that she was not the only one grieving. A dozen had died. Sébastien brought her food. I brought her nothing.
I had let Rainier die. What could I possibly offer?
* * *
I didn’t sleep. The nobles of camp took on a haughty, anxious air, as if impalpable armor had been slipped over their shoulders in the night. I wandered about when others fled to the safety of dreams and listened to what the chevaliers talked about—the attack that had left Rainier dead was the start of a real war with Kalthorne. It was as if the last days had been nothing more than rehearsal for a play, and the rest of the army was being transported here. Laurence had no siblings or children, and if he died, his title would revert to His Majesty’s family once his mother passed. His Majesty seemed to have no problem having him on the front line, though.
Charles, too, had no siblings, and his parents had somehow already written him. Sébastien was the youngest of three.
“I’m the spare,” he said, sneering, as he watched Charles fold up his letter. “They’re much more worried about my older brother, the chevalier.”
He said it the way most people said no, thank you, and I had never related to him more.
We were gathered in Laurence’s small tent awaiting our briefing now that the war had changed. I stood alone where Rainier and I might have leaned against each other for support once upon a time. Charles, the only one of us who had been working for a full day nonstop after one of his soldiers collapsed a lung, was in the only chair. His red hair was stuck to his face in serpentine strands. Half of it covered his eyes.
“My parents and I will be very sad if you die,” Charles said, hair fluttering with each word. “Laurence certainly will be as well.”
I clasped my hands together to keep from pushing his hair back. Usually, he kept it in a knot while working.
“If it helps, Sébastien,” I said, and it was the first time I had called him by his name and not his title, “if