Nothing would’ve felt better than sinking into a mattress for the first time in weeks but James’ body twitched with the need to move.

ㅤ“You're like a lost lamb,” he commented.

ㅤHe’d decided to leave his room for yet another walk, much to Thomas' displeasure. Thomas was so patient it was painful; any normal person would’ve snapped already.

ㅤ“I'm sorry you feel that way,” Thomas plainly apologised.

ㅤNo, he wasn't.

ㅤJames paced the corridors to the obvious surprise of the servants that rounded the corner.

ㅤ“Ah, good morning, sir. You're awake,” the footman stuttered, clearly unsure how to address him.

ㅤ“What does he want?” James cut straight to the point.

ㅤThe poor servant flinched. James hadn't stopped his angst from sharpening his tone.

ㅤ“His Majesty wishes to see you in his study. We're here to guide you.”

ㅤ“No, thank you.” One lost lamb was enough, any more and he might become venomous. “Thomas will show me.”

ㅤThe servants looked to Thomas for guidance, receiving a nod, and they scuttled away like a herd of sheep.

ㅤJames took a quick breather, staring out the window as if he could calm his body with the illusion of freedom, the waking city stretching out before him.

ㅤ“What was Alex doing earlier?” he asked. It’d been playing on his mind.

ㅤ“I couldn't tell you if I knew.”

ㅤWhich meant Thomas didn't know. James was thankful people didn't think before they spoke—it gave him so much information.

ㅤWhat’d caught James' attention the most was the wound on Alex's cheek, reminiscent of assault.

ㅤ“His face?” James turned to gauge Thomas' shuttered expression.

ㅤ“Not for me to say.”

ㅤHe'd find out soon anyway.

ㅤJames sighed, long and hard, willing his stiff body to relax. The last thing he wanted was to meet King William whilst agitated. He needed to be as careful as a feather on water.

ㅤThomas led him through the palace, the bustling of servants so natural that James' stomach twisted. Even if it was familiar, he was the James that’d lived amongst commoners. But there was a small part of him, deep in his gut, that wanted to break out. He could’ve been a young boy leisurely strolling through his home at that moment.

ㅤJames tested his tongue in his mouth and bit it in frustration. To receive respect, he would have to use his old noble drawl. He also corrected his posture as they walked, allowing his thorough-bred arrogance to manoeuvre him, each step punctuated with purpose.

ㅤThomas knocked on a door, receiving a low: “Come in’. He didn’t follow James inside, clicking it shut behind him.

ㅤ“Your Majesty,” James greeted, tasting the foreign familiar way his mouth moved over the words. He wasn't sure he liked it.

ㅤKing William was sitting at his desk, the windows shuttered closed for privacy. James felt a flare of regret burn him. The dim room was a reminder—every time he'd used that potion, his eyes had permanently lost colour and sensitivity. All of it had been necessary to hide, but it’d meant nothing if he’d got caught in the end.

ㅤDuke Chamberlain and another man that James didn't recognise were there.

ㅤ“Julian,” King William acknowledged. James almost flinched. “This is Harrison, my closest aide. All information in this palace goes through him.”

ㅤHarrison bowed, a bitter display. No one had bowed to him since he was a child.

ㅤ“When will I get Eris back?” he asked, rudely blunt.

ㅤ“We have to decide what to do before we can talk about that,” the king replied. “The situation got more complicated after you appeared, alive.”

ㅤ“I'm not sure why you say that, Your Majesty. I’ll follow through with your request and you can finish what you’d planned. And then I'll be on my way.”

ㅤThe king slowly shook his head, his old wrinkled eyes weary.

ㅤ“You're a rightful heir to the throne,” the king explained. “Once we kill Fabian—if we can kill Fabian, that is—someone else has to take his place. Otherwise, it'll be chaos.”

ㅤJames' heart dropped. “Surely you don't mean me?”

ㅤ“Why not you?” the duke chimed in. “There's no one better. Your legitimacy would never come into question so there will never be a fight for succession amongst your distant relatives. It would make the transition as peaceful as possible.”

ㅤJames was incapable of response. He'd lost interest in succession the day the palace had burnt down. He’d been happy to do his royal duty by cleaning up the streets for the betterment of the people, but politics was entirely out of the question. Fabian did that instead.

ㅤThe king shuffled slightly. “I think you should tell us what happened that day.”

ㅤIt was inevitable that someone would ask. Only James had the answer. But the memories had become foggy with time. He’d never told a soul and, at some point in his life, he’d started to doubt it’d all happened. The scene was so far away that James had grown insecure. He wasn't sure if he was truly Julian or a scared orphan boy who'd made up a fantasy to survive.

ㅤSaying it out loud made it real but the weight of his parents’ injustice had grown heavy. James was exhausted.

ㅤ“It wasn't an assassination. There were soldiers there—the kingdom's soldiers.” Every blink was a numbly painful reminder, flashes of fire and slaughter. “They never attacked Fabian.”

ㅤThe maids had helped James flee, women he hadn’t even known the names of, and they’d paid for their bravery and kindness with their lives.

ㅤResignation hung in the air, but no one wanted to be the one to break it.

ㅤDuke Chamberlain eventually did. “You're certain?”

ㅤ “I wasn't sure I saw correctly at first,” he confessed. “But the purge confirmed it. That was personal. He hadn’t found my body so he wanted to make sure.”

ㅤJames slowly brought his glare up to King William, thinking of Milo, keeping his anger tampered down. “I want to know why you never stopped that. Thousands of innocent people died.”

ㅤThe king grimaced. “I honestly tried all I could but the temple got involved too. It became a religious issue, not a war issue. You know our power only goes so far.”

ㅤ“Even so,” James gritted out. “Your knights are complicit in child trafficking—by the way—I’m sure they would've loved a reduction in the workload. You could’ve managed your territory differently. You just didn't.”

ㅤThe king's face hardened. “You know it's not that simple.”

ㅤ“Don't I?” James felt a sick smile tug his cheeks. “All it takes is a few words to the right people. If Fabian didn't fight fair, why did you?”

ㅤJames could be imprisoned for his insolence but years of building resentment and hatred for others’ negligence was enough to make anyone snap. Throwing him in jail wouldn't change the fact that every single person in that room had failed to do their duty.

ㅤ“Duke Chamberlain,” James went on.

ㅤThe duke spared him a glance.

ㅤ“You should probably take your son's concerns more seriously. Your parishes are lawless and your son is running around juggling plates to stay on top of your men's messes. I'm surprised he hasn't killed any of his colleagues yet because I certainly would've.”

ㅤThe duke scoffed. “What would a criminal know about law and order?”

ㅤ“I'm concerned we're drifting away from the point,” Harrison calmly intervened, speaking for the first time. “This meeting is to include Prince Julian, not to worry about what the knights are doing.”

ㅤJames didn't argue, even if an insult was salting the tip of his tongue. No one ever worried about what the knights were doing—that was the problem.

ㅤ“I'm sorry,” he wasn't, “but I'm really not interested in usurping Fabian. Especially when I don't know why you want him dead.”

ㅤThe king leant back in his seat, eyes trained on his empty desk, considering how much to reveal. There wasn’t evidence as to how loyal James was to Fabian. James had left him alive all this time after all, despite what he’d done.

ㅤ“A war is brewing,” the king finally revealed. “Your brother is the one instigating it, along with Theos royalty. We're not yet sure how deep this goes.”

ㅤJames inclined his head in thought. “With Ashad again?”

ㅤ“No, not Ashad. Espar.”

ㅤJames winced from the suggestion alone. The Esparian Empire was a colossal force in the north, its people as tough as iron and as resilient as stone. Thankfully, they'd been on consistently neutral terms with the Khearian Kingdom.

ㅤ“That doesn't make sense. We provide almost all of Espar's food through the winter. There's little for us to gain by taking their rocky lands and we don’t have justification for an invasion in the first place.”

ㅤThe king clicked his fingers at something James said. “That is exactly right. But it's not us that will be invading, which poses the biggest issue for me.”

ㅤ“Then what?”

ㅤ“They've already started cutting off trade to Espar,” Duke Chamberlain revealed. “And violating our trade deal. Eventually, Espar will get hungry enough that they’ll be the ones invading.”

ㅤ“But the amount of people that would die—”

ㅤ“Exactly,” the king agreed. “My people are on the border. It'll be my people that die first.”

ㅤJames wished he'd never been told this. His tired sense of responsibility demanded he acted, but usurping was too much. James belonged on the ground, not in an ivory tower spitting orders.

ㅤ“Give me some time to think about it,” he requested. “If you give me Eris back, I will assist you in some way, but I’ll never agree to be reinstated into royalty again. I'll make that much clear with you now.”

ㅤConversation over, James was given permission to finally leave. He wasted no time in escaping, sighing once he got past those doors. He was tense.

ㅤSomeone cleared their throat. Alex was leaning against the wall by the doors, exhausted.

ㅤ“What happened to your face?” James blurted.

ㅤAlex glanced at the door in panic and gestured to James to follow him, putting distance from the room where they wouldn't be overheard by its occupants. Thomas was left behind but James could feel his eyes on them.

ㅤAlex breathed out a bitter chuckle, his eyes full of accusation. “This,” Alex waved a hand by his cheek, “was your fault, thank you very much.”

ㅤ“Oh.”

ㅤ“Yea, ‘oh’. I got off easy actually, considering you could’ve bloody murdered the king! Why the fuck did you do that?”

ㅤJames bit his lip, strangely interested in the way the muscles in Alex's neck would tense and the apple in his throat would shift with each word. His hand itched to hold it.

ㅤ“James.”

ㅤJames jerked his gaze up to the frustrated, yet confused, expression on the man's face. Right, he was having a conversation. “I was anxious.”

ㅤAlex scoffed, his brown eyelashes fluttering. James kept looking in the most distracting of places. Alex had a lot of features that his gaze was getting drawn to, instinctively.

ㅤ“Anxious my arse, you can't keep—what the fuck do you keep looking at?”

ㅤJames dragged his gaze up again. He shrugged; he wasn't entirely sure himself. Alex was nice to look at.

ㅤHe managed to kick his brain to start working again and grasped Alex's shoulder. “Look, I'm sorry, okay? I panicked. I didn't mean to get you into trouble.” James found himself sidetracked again, his hands were bandage-free and Alex's warmth leaked through his clothing. James could feel the muscles bunched beneath his fingers. He wondered if it was a survival instinct that was making him this way. “You're really strong.”

ㅤAlex batted his hand away, most of his frustration replaced with a cautious intrigue, the question hovering between them. James knew he was behaving weirdly—he didn't need Alex's body language to double down on telling him that.

ㅤHe received no response to his remark, Alex simply staring back at him. His gaze flickered to Alex's lips before returning, realising their faces were a lot closer than he thought. There was something in Alex's eye that James reciprocated, his pupils dilated.

ㅤHis body moved without thinking, pushing Alex an arm's length away by his shoulders, his hands not letting go. He stared at the floor, his heart making weird jumpy movements, his face hot. It wasn't fight or flight, he knew that much, but was nervous as if it was. Was he scared by Alex? No, that wasn't it.

ㅤ“That's... I'm sorry.”

ㅤAlex felt rigid under his palms and James tore his hands away, deciding to keep them to himself. He backed away a step for good measure.

ㅤAlex cleared his throat. “It's okay. It was my fault for not checking. Lesson learnt, I suppose...”

ㅤ“Right.” James nodded once, a jerky movement.

ㅤHe decided it was time to leave.

ㅤ“Thomas,” he called. “I'm going back now.”

ㅤHe risked another glance at Alex who flinched, like he'd forgotten the other man was there.

ㅤ“I'm sure you have some questions so I'll talk to you sometime,” James murmured.

ㅤAlex hardly moved, but he bowed his head in what James assumed was a nod.

ㅤIt wasn’t that James had to answer anything for Alex more than he felt compelled to. Maybe he felt sorry for him, or maybe it was simple respect. He didn't know.

ㅤJames fled the scene before he did something weirder.