Page 11 of Setting the Break

"I am willing to do whatever it takes," Garrik says.

Eskil nods. Bohdi can see the plan assembling behind his king's eyes. "We'll discuss the way forward. For now, you remain in the keep under supervision. Any further care you require will be under supervision."

Indrie has been standing quietly near the wall throughout, hands clasped in front of him. At that he presses his lips together, small and brief, a disagreement he chooses not to voice, and Bohdi begins calculating the fastest route out of the room.

Garrik inclines his head. "I understand. Thank you for hearing me out."

Eskil dismisses them. Bohdi takes Garrik by the arm, firm but not rough, and leads him down the hallway to the guest quarters in the east wing. It is not a long walk, but Garrik is flagging and Bohdi is practically carrying him by the halfway point.

The room he takes him to is small and clean and furnished, with a window too narrow to climb through and a door that will have a guard outside it within the hour. He deposits Garrik inside and watches him lower himself onto the edge of the bed, moving carefully, stitches barely holding.

Bohdi leans against the doorframe and crosses his arms and studies him.

"One thing," he says.

Garrik looks up.

"You propositioned the prince in the Wolfe stronghold. You asked him to your bed." Bohdi keeps his voice light, because he is not supposed to care. "Why didn't you push for the betrothal yourself? Chieftain dies, his ward steps up, takes the prince as a bride, secures the alliance. Cleaner than anything you've proposed today."

Garrik holds his gaze for a long moment, and there is something in his face that Bohdi does not like, not because it is hostile but because it is knowing. "Put your hackles down," Garrik says. "Morgan already told me he wasn't interested. I'm not going to go around him and ask his brother for his hand."

The use of Morgan's name rather than his title lands in the room with a weight it should not carry. Bohdi's jaw tightens.

"I don't have a dog in this fight," Bohdi says.

Garrik's mouth curves. "We both know that isn't true. But if you're expecting to have to fight to keep what's yours, you can put your teeth away. I'm not interested."

Bohdi does not look away. The relief in the words and the sting of them settle in his chest at the same time. He lets the silence stretch a beat longer than comfortable and says, "If I catch you alone with the crown prince again, teeth will be the least of your worries."

Garrik inclines his head. It is not submission and not challenge. He has received the message and understood its contents and does not intend to test them.

Bohdi holds his gaze a moment longer, then pushes off the doorframe. "There'll be a guard outside," he says. "Call if you need anything."

He pulls the door shut behind him and stands in the corridor alone.

Keep what's yours. As though it were an obvious thing. As though the fact that Bohdi is in love with the crown prince of Rengara were visible to anyone with eyes, including a man he has met a handful of times in a hostile stronghold who took one look at the pair of them and saw it. He saw it at the stronghold. He saw it again in the corridor ten minutes ago, when Bohdi's hand came off his shirt because Morgan told him to and for no other reason.

Harrak told the soldiers months ago that the healer was the king's. Is Bohdi the same kind of obvious? Has he been walking around broadcasting the fact that he would burn Valen to its foundations for a sharp-tongued blond prince he is not supposed to want?

He rubs a hand over his face and starts walking. The corridor is long and quiet and his footsteps echo against the stone, and he thinks about how many people have noticed what he assumed was invisible, and how many of those people have decided not to mention it, and how much longer that courtesy will hold.

5

ESKIL

The study empties and it is just the two of them, and Eskil has a speech ready.

He has had it ready since Bohdi brought them through the door, since the moment he looked at Garrik sitting in a chair in his study with his chest bandaged and understood that this wounded southern swordsman had spent some amount of time alone with Indrie. He has had men keeping an eye on that infuriating young man and his clinic for months. Apparently they let him walk a southern warrior past them and through his door, because they would rather face a king known for conquering countries than a healer who weighs less than a grain sack.

The speech is not moving and it is not well-reasoned. It is mostly going to be him trying not to raise his voice while he gets his point across, because there is how he addresses his council and there is how he addresses Indrie and the two could not be further apart. The practiced speeches that move people are Morgan's duty, and Eskil does not have the time or the patience to have his brother draft a response to his lover's lack of self-preservation. He has the here and now, before he loses his mind and locks Indrie in the Keep for the rest of his life.

He does not get the first word of it out.

Indrie turns from the wall where he has been standing throughout the meeting, quiet and contained and missing nothing, and he faces Eskil with his hands on his hips and his chin up and says, "I am not going to argue with you about the ethics of treating enemy combatants."

Eskil stares at him.

His mouth is open. He is aware that his mouth is open because he was in the process of deploying the first sentence of the speech and the sentence has died somewhere between his lungs and his teeth. He closes his mouth.