Page 102 of The Sun King's Noon

“For anyordinaryperson,” Kaelen shot back, his chin jutting up. “Clearly, those with great magic manage to stir you yet.”

For a heartbeat, Richard could not hear anything but a high-pitched ringing in his ears. Whatever expression had taken hold of his face was enough to soften Kaelen’s eyes.

“Wait.” Kaelen tugged at his hair agitatedly. “That—that came out poorly—I did not mean?—”

“Did you not?”

“No, I did not.” Kaelen’s cheeks coloured. “I only meant—well, Orric was hardly plain. A druid who could walk between forms as easily as a man changes his coat. And now Flint, who pulls forty feet of iron through a card. And the soldiers talk sometimes about how it is a different fancy altogether to lie with a magical sort, and I could not help but wonder if?—”

“If I had lied to you about not lusting for men or women?” Richard was surprised that his voice came out so level when every inch of him quivered. “If I therefore harbour some appetite for people who are more magic than people?”

“No!” Kaelen blanched. “You are putting words in my mouth.”

“Then speak plainly.”

“I—” Kaelen pressed the heel of his hand against his eye. “You flirted with Druid Orric. You took dinners with him, stood too closely, allowed him to place a flower in your ear, fussed over your appearance, and you stared at him with such affection that my mind wandered and wondered as to perhaps it is not that you feel no desire, but that the rest of us are simply too small for you to notice. That there was perhaps a shape to your wanting, and what stirs you is power, the uncommon and the marvellous. And it dawned upon me that I am none?—”

“I was not flirting,” Richard said stiffly. His chest felt tight, and bizarrely, his throat too. “I was speaking with a man who appeared to have walked out of my storybooks. I was asking him questions because he had answers I yearned for. I was attempting—” He paused and waited for his throat to relax before continuing. “I was attempting to make a friend, I suppose. I do not have many, you see. I have Princess Seola, and the list rather ends there, and I had thought perhaps Orric and Flint might be added to it.” A smile crooked his lips. “I am sorry my behaviour struck you as so suspicious that you felt the need to discern my true appetite, hidden even from myself. I mustlook foolish from where you stand. How little you must think of me.”

“Richard.” Kaelen’s face crumpled. “My king. By the gods, I think the world of you. You are everything?—”

But Richard had had enough. Enough of the conversation, of the churning of his stomach, and enough of this foolish, brash knight who welled within him such startling and tiring feelings. Richard turned on his heel, stalked across the wagon and ducked out of the flap. He drew in a slow breath as the night’s chill greeted him. Around him, the camp was settling to sleep.

Passing the lyre player who was singing a doleful tune, Richard sat by the campfire and tugged on the grass, waiting for his hands to stop trembling.

CHAPTER 37

Richard woke at dawn to the dying embers of the campfire, a thick blanket draped over him. Who’d put it there was obvious, and it only flared his irritation. The thunder in his face must have been all too clear, for the troupe gave him a wide berth as the procession started its journey. Thankfully, with Master Clemens bellowing that they’d better reach Vexmara before dusk, the pace was brisk, and the performers were too busy hitching wagons and clearing tents to start up a conversation.

The triplets paid no heed to Richard’s storm. Two held his hands, while the other ambled cheerfully beside. Daisy was with her parents—still shaken from yesterday’s events. And Jeya trailed alongside the bear-keeper, swinging her sword endlessly, mimicking grand declarations of ‘You will die by my hand, witch.’ Richard let her be, though a part of him wished she’d come closer, if only to distract him from the man constantly in the periphery of his vision.

At the head of the procession, on the roof of the second wagon, Kaelen was bare-chested, tunic slung around his neck, and was hammering timber into place. The way the morning light caught him through the trees was—Richard noted with a frown—terribly unfair. The sweat on his shoulders gleamed. Thelong sweep of his back tapered to the narrow line of his waist, and each swing of the hammer highlighted the muscles of his arm and sides.

And most of the troupe would not stop staring.

“He could fix my roof any day,” Wren whispered to Tilda, merely an arm’s breadth away.

Tilda fanned herself. “Well, I have no roof and yet I should very much like him to fix it.”

They dissolved into giggles, which quickly stopped when they caught sight of Richard’s glower.

The hammer’s rhythm paused, and Kaelen’s head tilted, his gaze travelling past the line of wagons.

Richard stared down at his boots and did not lift his eyes until he heard the hammering resume.

“Clearly, those with great magic manage to stir you yet.”

How could Kaelen have said so? Kaelen, of all people. The man he’d bared his nature to in that underground spring. The man who’d responded with such gentle firmness, who’d said Richard was not broken, that the gods had crafted him special.

And now the same man uttered the same words as his father once did, ruminating that a special group of people was what attracted him so, that Richard did not himself understand his true appetite.

And then?—

“You flirted with Druid Orric.”

Richard frowned at the road, tuning out Penn’s chatter about the pretty butterflies fluttering around. Had he? He recalled the dinners, the conversations in the northern garden, the flower Orric had tucked behind his ear. He recalled asking questions and leaning close to catch every word. He recalled standing perhaps nearer than was needed, and feeling such awe and fluster for this new creature.

Was that flirting?