Page 139 of The Sun King's Noon

“My father has been entirely himself today. And yet, not once has he breathed a word to me about marriage. He has not implied, however gently or carelessly, that I am unnatural for having taken no lover. He has not introduced me to the other lords and ladies, not winked at me and urged me to take my pick. And my mother—” Richard’s voice trembled. “My mother, this evening, came to my chamber, and she was so happy. So happy, Kaelen, that her eyes filled with tears when I told her of my—my resolve. And in what world have I ever made her so happy?”

Richard crooked a smile. “When I think of my parents—trulythink of them—it is with the certainty that I have wounded and disappointed them for much of my adult life. So how is today possible? How isthisday possible, in which my father has forgotten my faults, and my mother has revelled at the sight of me?”

“But—”

“My siblings are so happy, in love, young, free, souncomplicated—” Richard grimaced. “When have they ever been without complications? When have I ever been able to look at them without worries nagging at my mind?”

The confusion in Kaelen’s face only grew.

“And then there is you.” Richard cupped Kaelen’s face with both hands, the knight’s stubble catching against his palms. “How can one like you be given to me? How can such a thing be true of any world I am allowed to live in?”

“Because it is the truth!” Kaelen squeezed Richard’s hands. “You areeverything, my prince?—”

“Think of the inconsistencies, Kaelen,” Richard said quickly. “When did you take a squire? When was the formal request made? When did it cross my desk? When did the ceremony take place? Who stood as witness? In what month of what year?”

Kaelen frowned, eyes flicking to the side, seeming to sift through his memories.

“I—well, surely I—she has been with me for—” He shook his head, looking startled. “I cannot quite?—”

“And Penelope,” Richard said. “There is something about her father that makes my insides burn. Something about Marius. Something I knew, Kaelen, that I have now forgotten. This dream will not let me reach for it. The dream is keeping it from me.”

“Dream?” The hurt was clear in Kaelen’s words. “You think this is just a dream?”

“Yes.” Richard lowered his arms and nodded at the mirror. “That doorway has appeared three times today. They are the seams of this place. They are showing me where the cloth has been cut.”

Kaelen gawked at him.

“This is a dream,” Richard repeated. “I do not know whose, or what makes it, or how I have come to be inside it. But I mustreturn to my world. I must, Kaelen, for there are people who need me there, and I feel the weight of them on the other side of that portal.”

The mirror’s currents brightened a pure white.

“No.” Kaelen’s arm clamped tighter around Richard’s waist, dragging him close, chest to chest. “No. I do not feel myself to be unreal. I’ve just told you of my heart. It is the truest matter I have ever laid down before another living soul. Do not walk through that mirror as though I am a thing to be left behind in a closet.”

Richard’s eyes burned. How he longed to stay, and yet?—

“I must,” Richard whispered. “And I think you would not hold me in your heart were I the sort of man who could remain.”

Kaelen’s face crumpled. He looked on the verge of crying, but his jaw clenched, and he nodded to himself. “Very well. Then I shall come with you.”

“Kaelen.” Richard hesitated. “If this is a dream, you—theyou who stands here—may not survive the crossing. The mirror may strip you from me at the threshold.”

Kaelen’s head drooped to nuzzle his forehead against Richard’s shoulder. “It matters not. For I do not know how to live in a world without you in it.”

Richard stood for a moment with Kaelen’s arms around him, and wondered how he could bear to part.

But past this doorway, the real Kaelen awaited him. Perhaps the real Kaelen would brush aside his feelings, shrink at the thought of committing to a man who cannot sate his desires.

But the real Kaelen washisKaelen.

Richard would not leave him.

“Come then.” He stepped back to clasp Kaelen’s hand and pull him towards the mirror. As they neared, the mirror’s frame dissolved, and the light turned blinding. “Whatever I am aboutto wake to, I should like you to know that this moment shall be the loveliest of my life, dream or no.”

Kaelen chuckled and dabbed at his eyes. “Mine too, my prince.”

And they walked into the white.

CHAPTER 52