Nuray pointed him towards Cemil’s room. Then she stood back, letting him know he’d have to make the journey alone.

“He won’t accept your medicine,” she told him. Then, “He won’t want you in there. You shouldn’t go.”   

She was concerned for him, Osmund thought…though he didn’t want to believe the reason why. Nuray clearly deeply cared for Şehzade Cemil and the pain he was in. She also was quite clearly afraid of him.

So was Nienos, the orc soldier. So was Emre, the illusionist. He’d been able to read it plain as day off the both of them.

Osmund may have been putting on some muscle from hard work and good meals, but he knew he was no match for a soldier or a mage, and therefore (it went well without saying) he stood no chance against Cemil himself if the man decided he wanted to get out his enchanted sword and poke him full of holes. Osmund swallowed, hard. Then he pressed forward.

The door to the Meskato prince’s bedroom was plain wood, same as the others in the mansion, but it had an attractive knocker made of bronze in the shape of a mystical creature’s head. Osmund clapped the metal ring against the door, tentatively at first, then more urgently when no one answered. He couldn’t chicken out now. Not when Cemil actually needed him.

With the medicine he’d concocted tucked carefully into one arm, he turned the handle and stepped inside.

The air was smothering. That was the first thing that begged notice. The room was dark but for a double-wicked oil lamp and an incense burner set carefully in a corner. Somehow it wasn’t the incense that made everything feel so…choked.

A person-sized shape lay sprawled on a mattress set into a wide wooden frame low to the ground, surrounded by discarded cushions. This person had Cemil’s build, his brown skin and dark hair, and yet one still might not have recognized him. He was only in his nightclothes, but that enchanted sword—ominously-glowing pommel and all—rested just within his reach. The sight of it made Osmund aware of the sweat beading on his temples.

“Cemil?” he ventured softly, forgetting the title once again. “A-are you awake?”

The ruffled lump on the bed curled in on itself and made a sound like a wounded animal—a warning sound. “Go,” it rasped in Cemil’s voice. “Get out.”

When people told Osmund to leave, he did. Back in Valcrest, disobeying Father could’ve meant a black eye, a bruised arm, a boot in his side. And so he was very good at obeying that particular command without fail. Until now.

Knees trembling as he summoned his every drop of courage, Osmund crept over to the bedridden figure. It was only Cemil after all, eyes clenched shut, long hair damp with sweat and clinging to his face. He was in so much pain. Osmund’s heart hurt just looking at him.

“I-I’ve brought you some medicine,” he offered, producing the bottle in front of him as he kneeled at his bedside. “It’s a very p-powerful painkiller. Horses eat it in the field when they’re feeling poorly. I noticed it g-growing in your garden. It’s native to the Tolmish countryside. I’ve taken it myself, it’s very effective!”

Cemil’s agonized shivers subsided for a moment. One amber eye peeked open. From his lips came a sound like Osmund’s name, as if only recognizing him.

“—Osmmd?”

“Th-that’s right,” the Tolmishman said. “I-I’m here to make you feel better.”

In a great endeavor, Cemil propped himself up on one arm and took the potion from him. He stared at Osmund a good, long moment, his breathing labored. Then he swung back the little bottle and downed the entire thing in one swallow.

“You should rest now,” Osmund advised, trying to adopt a soothing manner as the Meskato prince sagged again. “I-it’ll start working soon.”

Cemil made a vague noise of assent, eyes falling shut as he settled back into his nest of sorts. He looked almost peaceful. And he’d trusted him. Osmund felt very warm all over.

For some reason, he decided to keep talking. After so long wishing for Cemil’s company, the words came flowing right out. “I wonder if it grows wild here, or if it was imported from the Isles,” he continued. “It’s a c-captivating flower. We call it the nightroot, though I don’t think most people use it for medicine like I do. I-I hope you don’t mind that I dug it up. It’s a blue flower with black markings and a distinctive red center.”

Cemil’s eyes opened. His brows worked, his expression growing sharper, more alert. Evidently, Osmund had said the wrong thing. No, he realized in mounting alarm, he’d said a very, very wrong thing.

The Meskato prince had peeled his upper body away from the cushions entirely now. His loose shirt hung from his wide shoulders as he rounded on Osmund. Even in his present state, he was formidable. “What did you say?” he ground out in a low timbre, and every cell in Osmund’s body was beginning to scream danger.

“Nightroot,” he repeated, a deer frozen by lamplight. “B-blue flower…black markings…red center. I didn’t know it was important to you. I’m s-sorry!”

“████,” Cemil began slowly, and Osmund realized he must be using the flower’s Meskato name, “is poison.”

Osmund threw up his arms instinctively in self-defense, realizing where the dreadful misunderstanding had come from. “Only the petals!” he yelped. “The petals! D-don’t panic! I didn’t—oof!”

His back hit the ground, hard. Above loomed Cemil in silhouette, full weight pinning him to the floor. A blade pressed itself snug to Osmund’s bobbing throat, searing hot against his skin, as if pulled from a brazier. The enchanted sword.

Words failed Osmund entirely, and he looked up at the other man in wide-eyed terror.

“Which of them sent you?!” the Meskato prince demanded, his voice terrible with pain. His pupils were still blown with sickness. “Who was it? Was it Bayram?!”

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about! Believe me!” Osmund pleaded. The room seemed to swim, infinite shadows and starbursts of color. He was so aware of his own pulse, throbbing defenselessly just beneath where the sharp edge rested. “I don’t know who that is! Please!”

“I should have known!” Cemil went on in a delirious rage, not even listening to him. “I should have known better than to trust a pretty face who happens to turn up at my door!” His voice darkened. “You’re going to die for nothing. Bayram cares nothing for you, whatever he promised you he lied!”

Osmund couldn’t help it. He knew he should continue trying to explain, to reason with Cemil who was clearly still half-out of his mind, or at least to beg for his life. But he had one last response for when someone started roaring threats in his face like this, and he hated it. It was a childhood reflex, a final effort for when all other attempts to secure mercy had failed.

He started to cry. Really cry.

His throat still burned where the blade had kissed it, but Osmund felt its pressure lifting, just a bit. He couldn’t rein himself in after that. He sobbed and wailed like a little boy. He could hear father’s scorn booming in his ears, as if his ghost lingered just out of sight: Weak sniveling pathetic child, are you really a son?! How dare you blot our family name with these disgusting theatrics!

The tears came and came. He expected at any moment a swift end to his misery—but nothing came. Osmund was aware he had cried a shamefully long time when at last he got a handle on himself, swiping an arm across his sore eyes. The blade was gone, and so was the pressure on his body.

Dreading what he might see—but realizing he was not actually about to die—Osmund sat up and blinked furiously until shapes again took form in the dark room. Cemil sat a ways apart from him. His body was set like a stone.

Whatever fear had already dissolved away, replaced by anxiety. “Cemil?” Osmund’s voice was pitifully cracked from its exertions. “A-are…are you alright?”

But Cemil didn’t respond. If not for the even, regular motions of his breathing, he would have been utterly still.

After the longest five, maybe ten, well-who-really-knew-how-many minutes of his life, he heard:

“I feel better.”

Relief burst in like a flood. “Good!” Osmund was nearly as relieved by this news as he was to finally be free of that wicked, tense silence. “That’s good! I-I’m so glad it worked!”

Cemil did not seem nearly as glad of this as he was. His head hadn’t moved, gaze fixed somewhere on the floor. Osmund began to fret for the first time that perhaps something had gone wrong with the potion, though he’d been careful, so careful.

“Osmund…” The Tolmishman looked up eagerly to listen. Cemil’s lips opened and it looked like he was going to continue, but then he turned away again, evidently unable.

Osmund moved as if in a trance, sitting himself down before Cemil so at last he could study him properly. The Meskato prince stubbornly avoided his gaze, and without even thinking about it, Osmund reached out and angled that beautiful face up towards him. What he saw shocked him so much that he completely forgot to be flustered by his own impertinence.

There was a distinctive glimmer in the prince’s eyes. At first Osmund thought it only a trick of the low light, but no sooner had he noticed it than Cemil moved his face away again. His behavior all but confirmed the truth of what Osmund had seen.

“You only helped me,” Cemil murmured, his voice heavy with anguish, this time of a different breed. “I’m…I’m sorry. I hurt you. Already I’ve broken my promise.”

He feels bad for scaring me, Osmund realized in a warm rush. Of course he does. He’s a good, decent man. “Don’t feel that way!” he exclaimed, hurrying to reassure him. The whole incident already seemed a ridiculous memory. “Y-you were just a little confused and sick, and you didn’t really hurt me! I’m completely fine now, there’s nothing to feel sorry about!”

Cemil turned to him with an expression like he was going to firmly argue, but his eyes grew wide seeing him up close. “…You’re bleeding,” he said, gaze fixed to the other’s neck.

Osmund shivered at the look’s intensity, and raised one hand to the spot. Sure enough, his fingers brushed over a slow, wet trickle he hadn’t noticed before. The blade was sharp; it must have grazed him after all. “This is nothing!” he was prepared to say, when Cemil asked:

“May I touch you?”

Oh. Osmund startled, aware of his skin flushing hotter and hotter. “I mean that I,” Cemil started to clarify, looking more out of his element than Osmund could’ve imagined, “can help. But…I know you may not wish me to be so close, after that.”

They were already so close as to be practically sharing the same breath. To be the object of his attention was like fire, and Osmund’s whole body burned with it. “Help?” he finally managed in a squeak. “How?”

But Cemil had apparently already resolved to take action. “It will only take a second,” he swore, lifting his hands to Osmund’s throat. “Tell me to stop, and I swear I will.”

Osmund kept perfectly still, reminding himself to exhale as he felt the warm pads of Cemil’s fingers graze up beneath his chin, then to the tender place above his thrumming pulse. The Meskato prince seemed afraid to press down with more than the barest touch, but Osmund found that he, mysteriously, wasn’t afraid in the least.

Then, warmth. The most comforting, reassuring warmth he’d ever felt.

He couldn’t help it—he jerked in surprise. Cemil pulled his hands away at once, but his work was done. Osmund prodded the spot in amazement. Not even the tiniest scratch remained.

“You…have healing magic.”