Brayan weaved an expert path through the crowded hall with Dara following close behind him. He stopped the first servant he came across and murmured instructions to him while Dara hugged himself and stared at the ground. Once that was taken care of, Brayan led the way out of the hall and back towards the stairs.

Brayan shot Dara another look. He was still hugging himself. “Do you always look so scared when you’re away from Maric, or is that something special just for me?”

Dara’s arms shifted, but when they settled again they were still wrapped around his chest. “Am I in trouble, sir?”

“No, you’re being fed.”

“Fed…?”

“Maric forgot to feed you for two days. You probably could have held in there for another couple of hours and saved us all this fuss, but I think he panicked a little when he realised.”

Dara frowned. His arms were still around himself, but they had loosened. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t realise he would care. I probably should have said something.”

“True.” Brayan unlocked the door to Maric’s room and waved Dara inside. “Not worth worrying about now, though.”

Dara walked into the room and then just stood there in the middle of it for a few long moments before finally turning to face Brayan. “Do you think he really cares, though? I mean, about me?”

“Certainly seems that way, doesn’t it?”

Dara shook his head. “I just don’t see how he could. I’m useless, sir.”

“Caring about people doesn’t have a whole lot to do with how useful they are. If it did, babies would be in trouble.”

“At least babies become useful, sir.”

“And what, you plan to be useless for life?”

“I—” Dara opened and shut his mouth. “No, of course not, sir. I’m doing my best, I just—”

“Relax. It doesn’t matter and I don’t really care.” Brayan heard footsteps behind him and turned to see the servant he’d spoken to approaching from the other end of the hallway, carrying a tray of food. “Ah, good. Here’s that food for you now.”

Brayan let the servant deliver the food, made sure Dara had everything he needed, and then left, locking the door behind himself. Hopefully that was the last conversation he would ever have to have with Dara. He was going to find the slave somewhere he could be happy and cared for and then they would be done with him forever.

#

The entire event had been a miserable experience, but at the end of it Brayan had come to Maric and reported that he had found a place for Dara. There had been a part of Maric that had been bracing to find fault with whatever Brayan presented to him, but in the end he really couldn’t. It was as perfect as he could ever have hoped for. If he wouldn’t accept this, he would have to admit to both himself and everyone else that he’d never had any intention of parting with Dara.

But no, he had to. They couldn’t keep going like this.

Maric’s resolve was tested again when he returned to his room to find Dara stripped down to his underclothes and laying amongst the cushions on the bed. This wasn’t fair.

Maric sat down on the edge of the bed, out of arm’s reach of Dara so that he wouldn’t be tempted. “Did you get something to eat?”

“Yes, your highness. Thank you. I haven’t eaten that well in many years.”

Maric nodded. “Good. I’m sorry I neglected you like that. It wasn’t my intention.”

Dara’s eyes fell to the tassels on one of the cushions as he played with them and then leapt back up to Maric’s collarbone when he remembered himself. “I know. I was trying not to be a bother by not complaining, but I suppose that only ended up causing more problems. I’m sorry, your highness. I am trying.”

“I know you are, Dara, but we both know this isn’t who you are.”

Dara’s eyes leapt up to meet Maric’s, wide, and then darted away again. “What do you mean?”

Maric took a slow breath in and let it out again. Dara looked so vulnerable. “I mean that you’re obviously not enjoying the role I’ve put you in.”

Dara looked like he might cry. “No, I—no. I’m trying, I just—”

“It’s okay. Calm down. I’m not cross with you. I’ve found somewhere else for you to stay.”

Wet eyes met Maric’s. “Is this because of what happened at dinner? I know I shouldn’t have looked at him like that. I just reacted, and—”

Maric squeezed his hands into fists to resist the urge to move towards Dara. If he started touching him now, he wasn’t sure he could hold onto his resolve. “No. Dara, no. You’re not in any trouble. Listen, this place I’ve found for you is at a horse ranch owned by Raedon and Mathers’ aunt. You’re not being punished. This is a gift. You’ll be safe there and hopefully even finally find some happiness.”

“A horse ranch?” Dara asked. His voice sounded strangled.

“Yes. She breeds and trains champion horses, but her husband and older sons have all joined the military and she could use an extra pair of hands. I spoke to her myself and I believe she will treat you well.”

Dara drew his knees up to his chest and just breathed for a few seconds. “I like horses.”

“I know.”

Dara looked up to meet his eyes. “I wouldn’t ever see you again, would I?”

“I don’t know, Dara,” Maric admitted. “I could visit whenever I’m in Broven, but that’s so rare that it wouldn’t be much different from never.”

“Mm,” was all Dara said to that.

Maric lay down on his side and reached a hand out towards him. “Would you really miss me?”

Dara crawled towards him and lay down as well. He took hold of Maric’s hand and squeezed it. “Of course.”

“Don’t ‘of course’ me, Dara,” Maric said, but there was no anger in his voice. “You hide your feelings from me. I don’t blame you for that. It’s your job. But I have no idea how you really feel.”

“Ah.” Dara was quiet for a long moment. “Oh. I haven’t been addressing you properly this whole time, your highness.”

Maric groaned. “No. Please don’t. Brayan taught you that nonsense for public perception, not for this. Not for us.”

“Okay.”

Maric swallowed. His thumb brushed over Dara’s knuckles. “Dara. Can I ask one thing from you, for our last night together?”

“I, well—of course you can.”

“I want you. The real you, whatever that is. Even if you think I wouldn’t like it. I promise I won’t get angry.”

“Oh,” Dara was silent for a long moment, staring down at their linked hands. “The truth is, I’m not sure I even know who I am anymore. I used to, or I used to think I did, but… I don’t know.”

“I think you’re a fighter.”

Dara let out a breath of laughter. “Did you know that I can feel people’s injuries, their pain, as if it were my own? I’m not a fighter. I try to be and I only end up hurting myself.”

“Ah. That does explain your reaction to the whipping. I’m sorry about that.”

“It’s okay. You didn’t know.”

“It turns out there are many things you end up not knowing when you never bother to ask.” Maric squeezed Dara’s hand. “But that isn’t what I meant, anyway. I don’t think you’re physically aggressive, but I get the feeling you’re not nearly as passive as you’ve been pretending to be, either.”

“I’m not pretending. I’m… doing a job, or trying to. I’m not very good at it.”

“You’re fine, Dara.”

“If you think so, that’s all that matters.”

“You know, I’m not sure I really know who I am, either.”

The tiniest smile curved Dara’s lips. “Well, I can’t help you there. I thought I was starting to understand who you were, but… I’m not sure anymore.”

“Maybe the mistake we make is in thinking of who we are as something static. Really, it’s in constant flux. It changes with every decision we make.”

“Then who do you want to be?”

Maric let go of Dara’s hand and groaned as he rolled onto his back, pillowing his head on his hands. “That’s the question, isn’t it? All I know is that I don’t want to be anything like my father, but it feels like the whole world is pushing me in that direction. I have to figure out how to be what he is without being who he is.”

“You don’t think he’s a good leader?”

“I don’t think he’s a good person. Maybe sometimes being a terrible person makes you a better leader. I don’t know. All I know is that I never want to hate myself as much as I hate him.”

Dara shuffled closer, but he didn’t try to touch Maric. “Why do you hate him so much?”

“Have you ever met my father?”

“Yes. Only once, though.”

“How old were you?”

“Ah… ten? No, maybe eleven at that point.”

Maric stared up at the ceiling. “Well then I’ll just say that you should be very glad you don’t know why I hate him so much.”

“Oh,” Dara said after a long stretch of silence had passed between them. “I thought that was just a rumour.”

“If it’s about my father, and it’s bad, it’s probably true.”

“Did he hurt you?”

Maric swallowed and shook his head. “No. Never me. He’s vile, but he’s not stupid. He wouldn’t harm his only heir.”

“It sounds like he did, though.”

“I suppose that’s the thing about completely lacking empathy. It makes it hard to avoid hurting people even on the rare occasions when you do actually want to.”

“What about your mother?”

“What about her? She returned to Ticia when I was three.” Maric stretched his arms out above his head, and when he brought them back down he settled one hand on the back of Dara’s head. “I don’t blame her, of course. I wouldn’t want to be married to my father, and if she had taken me with her it could have led to an all out war.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t an easy decision for her.”

Maric scratched the top of Dara’s hair. “You know, when something upset me when I was little and I felt all alone, I used to tell myself that she would care. If she knew about whatever terrible injustice my eight year old self was facing, she would be on my side even when nobody else was. It was silly, of course. I didn’t know the woman.”

Dara pushed his head back against Maric’s fingers and let out a contented sigh. “Even princes feel like nobody cares about them?”

Maric massaged his fingers into Dara’s scalp. “That’s the thing about being somebody important. Nobody really cares about you. They care about your title and how well you live up to it. I’m not about to lay here and complain about how terrible it is to be a prince to a slave, but it’s all I get to be and it’s not always easy to be as grateful as I should be.”

“No, that makes sense. I was treated a lot better before Davidston, but I’m not sure I was happy. I felt like if I ever failed the people around me, none of them would care about me anymore. And as it turned out, I was completely right, of course.”

“If I had known, I would have…” Maric fell silent for a long moment and then slowly shook his head back and forth against the bed. “I want to tell you that I would have protected you and cared about you and made everything okay, but we both know that’s not true because I haven’t been able to do that now. At sixteen… I don’t know. I was so insecure at that age. I would have tried to be a hero but then become frustrated when that didn’t fix everything. Which is perhaps not that much different from what I have been doing, if I’m honest.”

Dara reached out and twisted his fingers in the hem of Maric’s shirt. “Do you really feel badly about it?”

“Of course. I’m not saying I’ve figured it all out now, but Dara, you didn’t tell me when I forgot about feeding you. I don’t know specifically what I ought to have done differently, but the fact that you ended up feeling like I didn’t give a single damn about you is something I take as a mark of failure.”

Dara yawned and stretched out. “It’s only been two days. Do you really think I could trust anyone that quickly?”

“I don’t know, honestly. You’re an enigma.” Maric started gently combing Dara’s hair back into place with his fingers. “You’re such a shy and nervous thing at times, but there seems to be some part of you that naturally falls back into something very different if given the opportunity. Like you are now. I’d chalked it up to poor training, but I don’t know. It doesn’t feel like you’re doing something wrong. It feels like you’re doing something different and you’re doing it quite well.”

Dara was silent, and when Maric turned his head to look at him he realised he had gone still, his eyes fixed on his hand where it gripped the hem of Maric’s shirt.

“I’m not going to be cross or correct you. You’re leaving tomorrow. It doesn’t matter. At this point, I’d just like to understand.”

Dara took a deep breath in and slowly let it out. “I’ve been talking to you like we’re equals. That’s all.”

For a long moment, Maric watched him. He was still unmoving, bracing for Maric’s response. “You were trained to, weren’t you? This isn’t you forgetting your training. It’s you remembering it.”

Dara tugged down on the bottom of Maric’s shirt. “Can we stop? I just—I don’t want to dig into this now. I want to leave what I was or what I was meant to be in the past, where it belongs.”

Maric considered pushing. This whole thing, this whole conversation, had been a game they’d agreed to play. A game where they each set aside their roles and just talked. If Maric wanted, he could end the game and order Dara to tell him whatever he wanted to know.

But he didn’t want to. He had liked the game, and ending it like that would sour the whole thing.

“Yes, okay,” Maric said eventually. “It’s late, anyway. We should get some sleep.”

“Thank you, your highness,” Dara said, drawing the game to a close.

As Maric prepared for bed and lay down to sleep, though, he couldn’t stop puzzling the situation over in his mind. Had his father realised how lonely Maric was and had a slave trained as a balm for that? That seemed unlikely. That would have nurtured the very things his father saw as his weakest traits.

Perhaps Dara had been designed as a test, then, or even a spy for his father. That would make more sense, and it would explain why Dara had been so reluctant to talk about it. Admitting to such a thing, especially after Maric had made his feelings about his father known, wouldn’t have been a pleasant prospect.

And if it were true… well, knowing that was why he had been taught to be so companionable in the first place would ruin the nice conversation they’d just had a little. Not that he would blame Dara for any of it. He doubted his father still had any hold on him, and he was still a slave. Just a pawn.

Maybe his father had even intended to threaten to harm Dara as a way to control Maric. Why else would he invest in a slave who was, as Dara had put it, phenomenally hard to kill? Or perhaps Dara had been a gift, and his father simply hadn’t had any better use for a slave who was hard to kill but who had no potential as a fighter.

Maric let out a long sigh, pulled Dara in closer against his bare chest, and let it go. It no longer mattered. Tomorrow, he would put all of this behind him.