Page 74 of The Sun King's Noon

“Well,” he said. “Yes, my king. It is a matter of training the eye, you see. Most would have missed the cave altogether, for the ivy was thick over the entrance, but I’ve always had a knack—an instinct, truly—for spotting suitable shelter. Sir Joffrey used to drag me into the woods and set me exercises when I was a boy. ‘Find me a place for twenty men to sleep’, he’d say, and if I failed, he’d string me upside down from a tree.”

“Not many could endure such discipline,” Richard said gravely.

Kaelen preened. “I tell no lie, my king, when I say there was no squire of the Seven Realms who had to endure more. Anyother boy or girl would have fled from the terrors the brute—sorry—the terrors Sir Joffrey inflicted. Did you know when I was twelve, I accidentally slashed off his beard?” He grimaced. “T’was only an accident, mind, but I’d never seen him so furious. Threatened to shave my head, he did, and chased me through the whole castle until I hid in the cellars for a week.”

“A terrible display,” Richard tutted.

“Precisely!” Kaelen faltered, catching himself. “I—I only mean, I was taught a valuable lesson.”

“Yes.”

“Right. Yes.”

Richard beamed down at his hands still cradled in Kaelen’s. The nearest lantern flame spluttered.

It was a foolish question, and he ought not to ask it. And yet?—

“You must be missing Ravi.”

Kaelen’s brows rose. “Ravi?”

“The two of you have grown close. I saw—that is, Lord Gregory spoke of—of the farewell in the courtyard.” He hesitated. “A kiss, Lord Gregory said. It is clear you saw each other fondly. I am sorry that you had to part so soon.”

A voice at the back of his mind snorted its disbelief. Richard ignored it.

“Ravi is a good friend,” Kaelen said. “I hope to see him again.”

“Is he…Is he not your lover?”

Kaelen barked a laugh. “Lover? Of course not. I’d only known him a few days. Besides which, Ravi is not looking for lovers. He enjoys kissing, enjoys theatricality and spectacle. He flirts the way some people hunt—for the pleasure of the chase, and none of the keeping. In truth, he is absent from—” Kaelen stopped himself. “I mean, that is Ravi’s to tell, and not mine. But you may trust there is nothing of that sort between us.”

Richard bit the inside of his cheek, but his tongue wagged anyway. “You were seen leaving his chambers at dawn.”

Kaelen mulled over the statement, rubbing gently into the meat of Richard’s thumbs.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “I had tried to…enjoy his company for a night. I’d had much on my mind, and he offered a keen distraction. It…It had felt nice to be wanted.”

“I—I see.” Richard swallowed, batting down the ugly curl of possessiveness in his gut. “And I was wrong—before—to have—to have been ill-tempered about it. I know you have bedded others, and it was never my place to—to cast judgement upon it. You are entitled to whatever relations you should like to experience.”

“I know.” Kaelen hummed. “But that night, when I tried with him, and we entangled, I—I could not proceed. We spent the rest of the night talking, just exchanging stories.”

Richard’s eyes widened.

“These past months, it has come to me that—that certain things have changed,” Kaelen murmured, staring at Richard’s hands. “Within me and also, in…the people around me in some way. I find I cannot any longer take my pleasure in that form of casual company, however willing or kind. It does not fit the shape of me now.” He stroked his thumb across a scar on Richard’s wrist. “I do not know how else to say it.”

The cave seemed to narrow, and the lantern-light illuminated all manner of small things in Kaelen’s face Richard had not properly noticed before. A scar slashed across the end of his left eyebrow. A single freckle, high on his right cheekbone. The long dark sweep of his lashes.

Relief crashed through Richard, like the unwinding of some great knot he had not known he’d been carrying. Soon after came the sting of guilt.

He had wanted Kaelen to find someone, had he not? He had prayed to Emberlain to bring Kaelen a lover. He had been clear in his rejection of Kaelen’s confession. For Kaelen had pined after him for all these years, wasting away his youth and perhaps also his chances to find one to love him as he deserved. That could never be Richard, not when he was absent from human desire. He was not built to love.

Yet here Richard sat with his hands in another man’s, terribly pleased his knight remained unclaimed.

What a crooked, selfish thing his heart had become.

“We ought to sleep,” Richard said quietly.

“Yes, my king.” Kaelen released him and reclined against the wall. “I shall take the first watch.”