Page 111 of The Sun King's Noon

The knight’s breath hitched, and his eyes fluttered shut.

“The only sane response is to set them down,” Richard said. “Whatever my mother told you, Kaelen. Whatever you have been carrying. Lay it on a shelf. Take it down only when it is useful. Otherwise, it will live your life for you, and you will look up one day and find you were never present in any of it.”

Kaelen smiled sadly. His hand rose to circle Richard’s wrist. “It is not so simple.”

“These things rarely are.” Richard licked his lips and pulled his hand away. “Not for those whom the gods have deemed strong enough to face such obstacles. It is, I have always thought, a peculiar form of compliment.”

Kaelen huffed. “You are full of wise sayings.”

Richard snorted. “My siblings would beg to disagree.”

He regretted his words immediately. He’d been trying to forget those three faces.

Kaelen peered at him. “You miss them.”

“I certainly do not,” Richard muttered. “They behaved abominably.”

“You could buy them something,” Kaelen said. “The markets near the city square open at dawn—Master Clemens has bade me gather circus equipment tomorrow morn. Perhaps you could go to the markets too and purchase a necklace for Elara, or some ring for Corwin?—”

“I shall buy nothing.” Richard sniffed and lifted his chin. “Indeed, I have quite decided never to speak to either of them again.”

Kaelen laughed, his head tipping back. “Come now. You are being petty.”

Richard scowled. Petty? Him? In what world?—

A brawl between two brothel visitors drew Kaelen’s attention, and Richard sidled closer.

“And you?” Richard asked, hoping to sound casual. “Do you intend to bring back a gift for anyone? For—for Ravi, for instance?”

Kaelen cocked a quizzical brow. “Why would I buy a gift for Ravi?”

“Well—” Richard pretended to study the brawl—one man was only in his undergarments. “I only thought—at the ball, that is, you—you looked at him as though he were the most beautiful creature. And I thought that perhaps—though you do not say—perhaps thoughts of him still linger.”

A flush rose up Kaelen’s neck, and he cleared his throat. “He was lovely. I shall not pretend otherwise.”

“Yes. Quite. As I observed.”

“But.” Kaelen chewed on his lower lip. “He was not the loveliest creature I saw that night. Not by a great distance.”

“No?”

“There was a man.” Kaelen swallowed hard. “I had thought I knew the whole shape of him, but then I—I saw him in a corset he had never worn before—maroon it was, with gold thread—and I…I forgot, for a moment, how to stand upright.”

Richard stopped breathing.

“I looked up, and there he was.” Kaelen’s eyes grew distant. “And I thought—I thought the gods must have started on him long before the morn he was born. I thought they must have closed their workshops and put aside the rivers and the mountains and the stars, and worked only upon him, upon the man he would become, for an entire age, with the very finest of their tools. And then, when they were done, they must have stood back, and looked at their hands, and known that nothing they ever shaped again would compare.”

Richard gaped. The street below had gone distant. The drunkard’s shanty was barely audible over the whoosh of his pulse in his ears.

“Oh,” he said faintly.

It was, he registered, an entirely inadequate response. But his throat had closed, and his tongue had become a useless thing, and his face blazed hot.

“Oh,” Richard tugged at the ties of his shirt. He looked at the floor, at Kaelen’s bare feet, and then quickly away. “I—well. That is. That is a great deal kinder than I had—I should be getting back. To—to Flint. He shall worry.” He took a step towards the door. “Goodnight, Kaelen.”

“Goodnight.” Kaelen’s face had gone red, and his voice an octave higher than usual. He coughed and corrected it. “Goodnight. Yes. Sleep well. Rest. That is—um—the thing to do. At night. The—the moon is out.”

“Quite.”