by R. Cooper
The realization made him pause for a moment before turning to his guards. “I remembered my cloak without you this time,” he observed, teeth chattering.
Then he stopped.
His guards were not there. There was little light, but enough to show their absence. No one behind him. No one at the library doors. But in the snow, nearly covered by the fall of snowflakes, were splatters and pools of gleaming black. A sight Mattin had not seen in years, and never in snow, but which he still recognized with a sickening turn of his stomach.
He took a single step as he felt movement at his back. Something pushed him forward, then caught, tugging him backward.
He cried out as he tore at the closure of his cloak until it was open, and swung his arms wildly, pushing off the cloak and twisting away, scattering clasps and sending hair pins flying.
He fled into the snow, into a palace where few of the fires seemed to be lit and no one had answered his cries. He ran to one of the gardens and hid until noise in the distance, the noise of fighting, spurred him to run again.
In the relative safety and darkness of the library’s cellars, Mattin didn’t hear anything else for a long time. He kept his hand over his mouth to muffle his breathing, and waited around one of the corners, peering out toward the door.
When he had crept back to the library, distant clashes and shouts ringing in his ears, he had thought any Keepers left in the library overnight would be down here already. But he was alone. He hoped the other Keepers and all the assistants were back in their rooms with the doors barred or blocked. He hoped Arden and Mil were well.
The hour had been late. They might have been in bed, asleep. They might not have had any warning.
Mattin’s breath caught noisily in his throat and he pressed his hand harder to his mouth and breathed shallowly through his nose.
After a while, his legs weakened and he sat with his arms around his knees, out of sight of the cellar door, and shuddered whenever a noise would echo down to him. Shouts. Faint and loud and faint again. If there was fighting, the thick stone kept him from hearing the sounds of screams or crushed bone.
It had only been a handful of years. Not long enough for wounds to heal, or even for memories to fade. There would be stains in the stone from the blood. That much, Mattin knew, as well as the costs to clean or replace all of them. He had filed that information himself the last time.
He shivered without end. The cellar was cold. He had no cloak. He had no gloves, either; he could not remember where they were. He must have forgotten those at his desk.
He could not tell the hour and or see more than shadows. The cellar door closed tight, and only a small fraction of light would shine through in the morning, and that only whatever sunshine passed through the library’s high windows. Tomorrow, it would likely snow again. Mil would wonder about Mattin’s cloak. Arden would insist Mattin at least drink some hot tea.
Or they were dead, dying, and Mattin could not move from his hiding place.
He had thought to protect them with paper. With songs.
The first sob had him scurrying back, farther from the door, until he realized the sound had come from him. He could not clench his jaw because his teeth were chattering. His arms shook too, and his legs, and his hands, pressed frantically over his mouth.
His guards were dead. They must be. Maybe all of them were.
He couldn’t move.
Outside, they were still shouting
Mattin could not have slept, but his thoughts must have drifted. He didn’t hear anything leading to the scrape of the cellar door opening, and tensed as the door was thrown wide. An influx of orange light made him wince, but it was the sound of footsteps on the stone staircase, too many to be from one person, that froze him to the spot.
“Do not leap ahead! What did I tell you?” someone bellowed, furious and frightened.
A moment later, there came an answer not far from Mattin, in no less of a bellow, “I’m fine, my love!”
“Fine,” Mil spat. “Like I’ve nothing to fear this night.”
Mattin dared to peer around the corner, only to flinch back from the torchlight.
“The fae have blessed us again.” Arden’s beautiful voice was strange to hear in a secret cellar. Stranger to hear it so shaken. Mattin shifted to rise and found he could not; his legs were numb. The warm glow grew closer, two guards with torches following their king as he turned the corner to kneel in front of Mattin. Mattin closed his eyes to it. “He’s here!” Arden announced to sudden silence far above them. “Are you well?” he asked, quieter, to Mattin alone.
Mattin nodded, although he did not feel well. He tried to wet his cracked lips before slowly reopening his eyes. He was not being fanciful. Arden was indeed in front of him, alive. “I do not think I can stand yet,” Mattin told him, embarrassed over this, then embarrassed that such a thing would bother him. “You’re alive.” He was foolish, a fool. “Mil?”
“Mil lives. Please don’t worry, dear heart.” Arden curved his hand to Mattin’s cheek, then muttered something far less complimentary about the fae than Mattin ever would have before leaning down to wrap his arms around Mattin’s body. “Hold still.” He breathed it into Mattin’s hair, and Mattin curled toward his warmth without thought as he was lifted from the ground. “He’s well, but cold,” Arden called out, carrying Mattin up the stairs into the library before putting him gently back down onto his feet.
Arden did not let go, but he did relax his hold enough for another set of arms to close around Mattin and pull him against an armored chest. It was uncomfortable, possibly, but Mattin did not notice. Mil’s furs tickled his cheek. Mil stroked a hand over the back of Mattin’s neck, then swore. “He’s like ice.”
Mattin knew he ought to speak, or protest. They were not alone. Guards and likely assistants or other Keepers shifted around them. The windows were still dark, so the sun had not yet risen or they were in a terrible storm. Mil pulled one of Mattin’s hands up and held it to his mouth. His breath burned a little, as if Mattin was colder than he realized, but Mattin only shuddered and buried his face deeper into Mil’s furs.
Someone took his other hand in both of theirs. From the heat, it must have been Arden.
Mattin hissed and raised his head at last. Five or six palace guards were gathered around them, holding torches or weapons at the ready. Two frightened assistants still bundled in their nightclothes managed to smile at him, so he nodded in return before looking up at Mil.
Mil had a dark splash across his cheek and on the fur of his cloak.
“Is that blood?”
Mil scoffed, his lips brushing Mattin’s knuckles. “You’re not to fret, Sass. Not yet.”
“I’ll fret when I please.” Getting the words out hurt. Mattin swallowed dryly. “Is it?”
“Er.” Mil glanced to his husband before looking back at Mattin. “Not mine? If that helps you.”
Air rushed from Mattin’s lungs. His heart began to pound. He dropped his head back to Mil’s cloak. “Is Arden bleeding?”
“No,” Arden said and then released Mattin’s hand. A moment later, someone settled a weight over his shoulders, a cloak or blanket. Mattin should object, but he couldn’t seem to move. Arden was quiet. “We thought…. We found this and we thought…. But you’re all right.”
“What happened?” Mattin didn’t want to think about that. Or any of it. But he needed to know.
“It’s not exactly over,” Mil began, stopping when Mattin flinched, then carrying on cautiously. “The short version is, someone got tired of trying to get into a fight and decided to start it himself. Well, actually, I suspect he thought to instigate conflict by ki—with you, Sass, but you got away. And since he had already committed himself with that act, he had no other choice but to keep going. Are you hurt? You’d tell us?”
Having no idea about anything, much less his own state, Mattin shook his head.
“We’re hunting down the rest of those who were with him now,” Arden informed him
, steel, cold and sharp. He resumed warming Mattin’s hand.
“Oh.” Mattin suspected he was not thinking this news through, but he nodded before lifting his head once more. “My guards?”
He did not care for the pause before Mil answered.
“They might be all right. Don’t worry about that now. We can’t stay here.”
“Are you sure you’re both well?” Mattin demanded suspiciously as he was turned around and then walked through the library with Mil’s arm at his back. “Are you sure?” Although he could not have stopped to insist on a single thing. He was only on his feet because Mil was supporting him.
Arden rested a hand on his head, sliding it down to Mattin’s cheek before stepping away. “We’re sure.”
Guards moved to walk in front of them. More than five or six, once they left the library.
“Close your eyes for a moment, Sass,” Mil directed.
Mattin closed them. He had no desire to see the blood in the snow again. “Provoke a fight with me?” he asked. “Oh. By killing me.”
The sensation began to return to his legs, sudden and stabbing. He fell harder against Mil.
Arden’s roar shook through the corridor and into the yards and gardens beyond. It might have carried through the entire palace. It might have been meant to.
“Where is Gen’s company of guards? The gate is shut and it will not be opened until The Tyrabalith is found! I will personally rouse every beat-of-four who is pretending to sleep through this from their beds, and I will make them watch as guards tear through their quarters! Until he is found, there will be no rest!”
Mil answered only Mattin, pausing once the words were said to give orders to the many people that seemed to be with them now. “Aye. By killing you.” He hesitated at the foot of some stairs, and then bent to lift Mattin into his arms. “No apologies,” he said gruffly, as though Mattin would have demanded them.
They walked for long enough that Mil was likely tired, and Mattin’s legs no longer pained him as much, and then Arden was giving more commands, in a much different tone than before.
“Bring us some tea. Please,” Arden asked someone, the please perfunctory and distracted.
Mattin tore his gaze away from Mil’s red-brown beard to note they were passing the king’s desk, and then Arden and Mil’s makeshift dining room. He pushed on Mil’s chest and Mil grunted, but within a few moments, Mattin was being set on his feet. Which mostly involved him slithering down Mil’s body, then wobbling, but he did manage to stay upright and even keep his cloak from falling off his shoulders.
He straightened as much as he could to consider Mil and Arden, who both stilled. The guards seemed to have melted from the room.
“You found me.” Mattin did not quite feel himself. Anything might come out of his mouth and most of it would likely not make sense.
Arden swept a look over him and seemed pleased to see him standing. “You mentioned where you hid the last time.”
“Cowered,” Mattin corrected, voice cracking. “On the floor.”
“Were safe.” Mil nearly barked it, then took a breath. “Which is how we want you. We’re just grateful—you don’t know how grateful—that you got away.” He scowled as he pulled one of Mattin’s abandoned clasps from the lining of his cloak, where he must have clipped it. He held it out, but when Mattin didn’t take it, Mil set it down on a nearby table.
Mattin crossed his arms and tried to ignore how fuzzy the world seemed, how warm the room was. “He tried to kill me.” Saying it did not sharpen his senses. Perhaps that would come later. “Why? Stop sharing looks!” he demanded a heartbeat later when Arden and Mil glanced at each other. Mattin nearly stamped his foot, and might have, if it wouldn’t have sent him toppling.
“You need to rest—real rest, Sass.” Mil, of course it was Mil, tried to reason with him. “Stay here. Clean up. Have some tea. Sleep and get properly warmed up again. We’ll return soon enough, and—”
“You’re leaving?” Mattin’s cry created a rustle in the distance, as if he’d disturbed the waiting guards. “But it’s dangerous!”
Arden came forward to take Mattin’s hands. Mattin stared down at the sight, then back up at Arden’s grave face. “No one is safer than we are now,” Arden promised him, “except for Jola, her children, and you. As long as you stay here. Please, Mattin, for us.”
That voice was Mattin’s undoing. It always was. It had been from the first moment.
Mattin looked back and forth between the two of them. “Please be safe.” It was all he could think to say.
“They’re on the run and desperate, but we outnumber them.” Mil possibly meant this to be comforting. Or maybe he just wanted to be honest. Mattin narrowed his eyes. Mil gave him a gentle smile. “Don’t worry now. Just rest.”
Mattin firmed his lips. He was supposed to be a Master Keeper, a descendant of the original Earls. Not a child. He said nothing as Arden slowly pulled away from him and his hands fell back to his sides, but when Mil went to push aside the curtains and leave the room, Mattin twitched forward to reach for them. “I couldn’t bear it,” he blurted, panicked and shaking. “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you.”
It froze them both in place. Mil slowly tilted his head to the side in question. “You’re sorry?”
Arden swept forward to stand in front of Mattin’s once more, then put his hand against Mattin’s cheek to gently tip Mattin’s face up. Arden’s eyes were deep and dark and terrible.
Mattin let his fall closed.
“I love you,” he admitted in a shamed whisper.
No sound came from either of them for several fluttering, panicked beats of Mattin’s heart in his ears. Then Arden sighed.
“You are confusing, dear heart.” It might have been fond. It might have ached. “Stay here. We will return for you.”
Mattin opened his eyes wide as Arden moved out of reach, and clutched at the ends of his cloak when Arden gave him a blinding smile before disappearing through the curtains. Arden shouted as he walked away, demanding to know what had been done and where was the tea.
Mattin turned to Mil, then stumbled forward to grab him tight. “Do not die,” he ordered, muffled by fur and leather.
Mil’s hands settled over Mattin’s waist, then fell away. “It’s not what a hero would do. At least, not yet.”
He was honest when Mattin least wanted honesty. “Mil,” he snapped.
“Oh.” There was a wealth of feeling in how Mil said it. “You love me too, then?”
“I’m sorry,” Mattin murmured even as he nodded.
“What a strange, perfect thing you are,” Mil remarked, in much the same tone that Arden had used. Then his hand was under Mattin’s chin, urging Mattin’s head up for a short, soft kiss at his lips, and then another at his cheek.
While Mattin blinked at him, Mil lightly and gently steered him backwards onto a comfortably giving cushion. Mil was gone within moments of that.
Mattin realized sometime later that he had not been seated on a cushion at all. He was on a bed.
Their bed.
In the stillness of the king’s empty bedroom, Mattin couldn’t hear much of anything. The guards that had been positioned in one of the other rooms might cough, or offer a comment to one of the others, but outside the walls of the royal residence, the palace was quiet.
Mattin eventually went to a window to crack a shutter to peer out, startled to see looming, ferociously black clouds and only the faintest hints of dawn, or pre-dawn, light. He jumped when a tray of tea was brought in, then he and the guard who had brought it took turns apologizing to each other. The tray had food on it as well, fruit with some pastries still warm from the ovens. The kitchen staff had been roused and felt secure enough to go about their duties. Mattin did not feeling much ease despite the knowledge.
He drank some tea and paced the room, not noticing a single detail. He stopped to study the room for a while after that, belatedly realizing that the fire in the fire
place was growing low because it must have been the one Arden and Mil had started before they’d gone to bed, all those hours ago. The bedroom itself was warm despite that, the walls covered in tapestries as suited the winter weather. Unlike in Mattin’s room, everything was in its place. Wherever Arden and Mil stored their clothing, it was not in their bedroom.
Mattin skirted around the so very large bed, to find another doorway behind a tapestry. That was where he discovered Arden and Mil’s clothing, as well as more weaponry and armor, all of it next to a jewelry chest built to hold several of the crowns past rulers had chosen. Arden had never had a crown of his own made. Mattin made a note to ask about it, as if this were just any other day and in the morning, he would have answers for Arden’s questions about governing. Then he noticed his hands were shaking.
He left that room and went into another, a private toilet, and then another, constructed to hold a heated bathing tub and a shallow sink with a connection for water for both. He did not bathe, but he washed dirt from the cellars from his hands and face, and tried to wipe it from his clothing before giving up.
He ate after that, knowing they would ask when they returned, if they returned. He left the fruit untouched and tore apart one pastry to eat a bite at a time before having some cold tea and sitting on the edge of the bed once again. The bed had a few blankets and a fur tossed over the top, but Mattin could not imagine Arden growing cold enough to need them.
Beyond that, Mattin didn’t look at the bed while he considered what might be happening in the rest of the palace. If the kitchens were running as usual, then surely it was not as horrible as it might have been. The guard who came to take his tray—and cluck over the uneaten food, making Mattin sniff in vague annoyance; he was anxious, not sick—did not seem overly concerned. Not that Mattin understood the guards and their ways.
He wrung his hands and pulled at his braid and listened but heard nothing.
The room was well-insulated. The safest place for him, they had claimed, except for Jola’s quarters. And yet they had not brought him there.
