Chapter Eighty-Seven: Ruthlessly Unpleasant

Not since his most depraved forays from Valcrest Castle had Osmund been tupped so vigorously. The days that followed were bookended by furtive hazes of lust and sex.

In the early hours of the dawn, on his hands and knees in the snow in the mountain’s shadow, as the altitude shortened his breath.

In the evenings, with his back rubbing raw against a slab of rock, or against the exposed bark of a tree.

Once, on the floor of Cemil’s tent not ten minutes before he expected a visit from the finance minister Toraman’s clerks. A very fervent Cemil had told him that if he didn’t hurry up and come now, he’d have to do it in front of those strange men. Part of Osmund feared that he meant it, and suddenly his body obeyed in a blinding, desperate climax.

They’d never really indulged Cemil’s particular tastes before, not on this level. But Osmund could not deny the results, and he spent long hours in the saddle scheming of what daring thing they might attempt next. That he didn’t have the same desire—that is, to risk offending others by fucking where they might be caught—was irrelevant. Cemil’s desire was his desire, and Cemil desired this, and him, so much.

He shouldn’t be hoping for this alliance to fail. Yet Osmund found himself vindictively imagining Cemil unable to perform for Nicoleta, even on the most basic mechanical level. Osmund would make her utterly unable to compare.

“Don’t wear him out,” Kasri said one morning, deadpan, as they were collecting water. “I hear there’s a princess waiting her turn.”

The twins walked off, but Osmund froze, mortified. He was left to wonder which tryst had been too indiscreet. Perhaps trysts, plural. Oh, heavens, strike me down.

But then he’d see a worried line in Cemil’s brow as he talked with his father or with the ministers, and the way he looked to that very far-off castle, visible now but still just a speck on a distant slope, and Osmund became desperate to have those eyes fixed on him, instead.

If it meant surrendering what was left of his shame, he’d do it. What else did he have left to offer?

“I say, cheer up.”

Osmund turned in the saddle to glare at the meddlesome fellow, though he ruined the effect by squinting. The impostor, or what little of him he could see against the blinding white sun reflected in the snow, seemed wholly ignorant to his dislike. Or perhaps it was the other’s own dislike that drove him to bother Osmund anyway. “You’ve been a dreary sight for days,” the man went on gaily. “Even I shudder to look at you. You can’t put on a brave face for the sake of our friend Cemil?”

Osmund nearly told him straight off to go to hell. The words were ready on his tongue, and they would’ve tasted sweet. But he still had slightly more restraint than that. “You’ve been paying an awful lot of attention to that young tambur player,” he said instead, putting on a pointedly fake smile. “You’re a lofty highborn prince, or so I thought. You don’t feel your conduct is a tad shameless?”

The other laughed good-humoredly as if they were friends sparring. “Well, well! You’re one to speak about shamelessness, I hear.”

Osmund bravely ignored that. “You don’t have a wife at home? Perhaps a pregnant one?” he couldn’t resist taunting.

The impostor’s eyes became troubled for the first time. “How do you know about Selenne?”

“You spoke about her while in your cups,” came the lie. That was certainly easy to believe—his impersonator was a thirsty drinker.

The impostor sighed, and Osmund knew he’d got him. “Yes,” he said at last. “Yes, there’s Selenne…”

Lady Selenne. Now there was a woman he didn’t care to ever see again. She was Lord Pravin’s lovely daughter, and she’d seen Osmund as her chance to be a queen. “She’s beautiful, of course, a woman any man dreams of,” the impostor said. “But, damnation, her father. I swear he looks at me like a lion waiting to pounce once my back is turned. I almost fear if Selenne should have a son.”

He didn’t know just how very wise that fear was. Osmund said recklessly, “This sponsor of yours, Lord Pravin…what else is he after, and why does he want you here in Videl?”

The impostor went on talking, which was almost an insult; he clearly didn’t think Osmund was any particular threat to be reckoned with. “Lord Pravin is very interested in the goings-on with Prince Cemil,” he said. “I came here to charm him—of course, not in the same way you have—but I don’t think your beau is like to be won over by some pretty words. So I’m left wondering rather the same question myself. My sponsor doesn’t always share his concerns with me. I don’t know why I’m needed at all when he’s already got—”

He cut himself off, apparently remembering sense at last. “Got who?” Osmund demanded.

The impostor smiled again, this time less prettily. “I misspoke,” he said. “Sorry, my mind is elsewhere.”

He seemed to regret his loose tongue, because he refused to speak another word on the subject, commenting only on how brisk and pleasant the weather was and how beautiful the mountain scenery. He was certainly a Tolmishman, if nothing else.

It was very beautiful. Osmund went numb as he looked at the crisp pinks and blues of the sky glinting on the icy caps, and not from the cold. It was as if he were viewing a painting. That is to say, it was the same feeling as staring up at a work of art and longing to step into it, into that softer, lovelier world.

It was the last night of the trek. Castle Vide looked close enough that they could push off from the ground and float across the valley to it. Sakina tried to speak to him at camp again, but Osmund mumbled some excuse and ignored the sleepless lines under her eyes. He convinced himself that what he was feeling wasn’t guilt.

“Does she seem upset to you?”

He looked up from another sorry attempt at a horse. Cemil was tying back his hair and casting a concerned look behind him, where Sakina had just vanished into her tent.

Osmund considered his options, and settled on feigned innocence. “Does she?” he said lightly. “She’s been concerned about Nur, that is, the tambur player. That girl’s been spending a lot of time with the—the Tolmish prince. Sakina’s worried for her honor.”

Cemil made a hum of acknowledgment. His gaze slowly returned to where Osmund was sitting cross-legged on a damp mat on the ground, and it struck the latter suddenly that they’d barely had a real exchange in days, or at least not the verbal kind. This realization must’ve hit Cemil at the same time, if the awkwardness that came over him was any indication.

Osmund’s shoulders tensed. If he had to listen to one more inquiry into how “alright” he was, he would surely scream. After a significant pause, what Cemil said was, “Let me see your horse.”

The Meskato prince knelt down behind him. Osmund heaved a great sigh. “Even hell wouldn’t want this creature,” he said bitterly.

Cemil chuckled. “Nonsense. I’d have it in our stables.”

“To laugh at.”

“Never. Don’t think me so cruel.”

Cruel. Osmund almost wished he could think of him that way. Underneath Osmund’s handsome red coat, evidence of their rougher and rougher encounters lay in the form of purple bruises on his arms, back, and hips. They’d been left at Osmund’s own direction—he’d begged for each and every one—and then he’d rejected Cemil’s healing magic, claiming he wanted to wear the reminders on his skin.

Reminders of what? That this all was hurting him, but that he continued to beg for it? Not that it did him any good. Osmund had proved himself to be a very stupid man.

“Why don’t we retire early?” Cemil suggested.

“To the tent, or…?” Osmund cast a dubious look around. They’d ridden all morning in preparation for an early camp; it was barely midafternoon, and the sun was bright. If he was proposing a tryst, it would be asking to get caught.

Cemil nodded. “We can have dinner, and figure out the rest of the evening from there. If you’re free.”

Osmund couldn’t think of a real reason to refuse, although a voice in his head screamed for him to make one up. He was well aware that he had been ruthlessly unpleasant to talk to for days on end and was making everyone as miserable as he was, but he couldn’t seem to do a thing about it. It was like being stuck in the saddle of a wild horse racing down a slope, bent on colliding with the first obstacle it couldn’t jump over.

Then again, maybe “dinner” really was just another excuse to fuck. That, he could certainly manage.

They walked into the tent, and Osmund saw the invitation hadn’t been a pretense. A spread of dishes had already been laid out. He found he was intensely hungry; his stomach was a cavern. Cemil started in at once, and so Osmund did the same, but he felt the Meskato prince’s eyes on him as he ate. It made him imagine that Cemil was a soft-hearted stranger who’d stopped to feed a feral animal.

“Do you mean to accept correspondence from Lord Pravin?” Osmund asked, just to have something to talk about, though he knew to touch the subject himself was dangerous. “Because I don’t think you should.”

“You said that when you first arrived in Şebyan, you went to try and serve him, and he treated you poorly,” Cemil recalled, wearing a mild frown. “I reject whatever he might call friendship. But if I can find a way to use him to my own advantage, I will. I know his intentions with me are the same.”

Osmund couldn’t hold it against him. “Can you promise me something, Cemil?”

“Ask me for anything,” Cemil prompted eagerly, which he of course couldn’t mean.

“Then…can you ensure I never have to meet him in person? I mean it, please. Not ever. I can’t stomach the very sight of him.”

Something must have landed wrong. Cemil considered him carefully. His brow was very tense. “Osmund, did he…misuse you?”

Misuse. That was the euphemism that got bandied around when a scullery maid came to court to challenge a nobleman’s honor, charging him to take responsibility for the fruits of his unwanted advances. Rape, to put it bluntly. Osmund didn’t know if Cemil meant the word in the same sense or in a more general one. “Just promise me,” he said, thinking it cleaner not to try and elaborate. Baratte flashed into his mind, and he shut his eyes to banish the phantom.

But Cemil wouldn’t let it go. “If he’s that kind of man, I won’t entertain him at all,” he said, incensed. “I won’t have him trying to slip his way into my court.”

“It isn’t what you’re thinking,” Osmund said quickly, though why he was defending Pravin was anyone’s guess, “but he’s a very crafty man. He’s dangerous. You asked me what I think of the Tolmish prince, and the truth is, I find him false. Pravin has him in his pocket. And I think he’s got someone else planted in your company, too.”

Cemil looked at him sharply. “Who?!”

“I—I don’t know.” He certainly had a guess. Hadn’t Pravin been saying something in the Guild house about the end of the reign of princes? Hadn’t they almost had a dead prince, or even two, at Mirhan’s orchestration? “But he’s no friend of the imperial family. You can be sure of that.”

Cemil exhaled, taking it all in. “I trust you,” he said. Candidly he asked, “Do you think it’d be wise to put an end to Pravin’s scheming?”

“By end…” Osmund hesitated, and drew a hand across his own throat.

“That’s right.”

The irony was nearly scalding. All the time and effort he’d put into hunting down Pravin, and Cemil was offering to do it for him!

He swallowed. It occurred to him that he’d just been handed quite a lot of power on a platter, and he wasn’t sure he was in the best state of mind to use it. For him to kill Pravin was one thing, but to get Cemil involved, based only on his word? And what if that were discovered?

“Let’s give it some thought,” Cemil decided after a heavy pause, noticing his discomfort, for which Osmund was grateful. “We should proceed here with caution. With the Tolmish involved, it’s a diplomatic affair, too.”

Osmund took a blessed bite of cheese to find his appetite had mostly gone again. He pushed a few morsels into his mouth anyway, more for the familiar motions. Cemil remained tense, and Osmund realized he was preparing to launch into some other unpleasantness. “There’s something else I’ve been meaning to talk to you about,” Cemil began. “…A private matter.”

That was an unhappy start. “Yes?”

“The last few days have been…exciting,” said Cemil stiltedly, looking like he’d rather be explaining the concept of death to an innocent, “but I don’t want our arrangement to ever feel like just…sex.”

Arrangement? Was that the word he was using now? “Why not?” Osmund said meanly before he could help himself. “Aren’t we having exactly the kind you like?”

Cemil flinched as if he’d been slapped. “You’re the one always seeking me out for it,” he accused, but he sounded unsteady. “Lately it feels like you don’t want to talk or to see me, unless we’re…”

Osmund could not face that charge head on. “How can you complain about getting exactly what you want?” he sneered instead. “Aren’t you a prince?”

His hands were off the reins again, and he just couldn’t stop it.

“Osmund, are you punishing me for something?” Cemil demanded, angry and hurt. “Is that what this is? I must go through with this marriage. I thought you understood that I don’t have a choice.”

You do have a choice! Osmund wanted to scream at him. You were literally given a choice! The words didn’t come. Frustrated tears blurred his vision, and he glared down at his knees.

“…So it is about the wedding.” Cemil sounded very tired.

Osmund considered. No, he realized, it wasn’t. Not entirely.

Then, was it about Sakina and Mirhan’s treachery, and being made an accomplice with his silence?

Was it about Emre, being maligned and sent away into danger again?

Was it about the impostor wearing his name?

Was it about his utter helplessness on Baratte’s table, and the nightmares that still plagued him in which he hadn’t gotten away?

Was it about Cemil unwilling to say just three words, or even one, Yes, in answer to a direct question?

Or was it about how, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t even draw a single goddamn horse?!

He tried to laugh, but it came out like a sob. He became aware of Cemil sidling up beside him. The Meskato prince’s voice was gentle. “You’re suffering and tell me I must stand by and watch.” It was a plea. “How can I become emperor if I cannot even fix this?”

“There’s nothing you can do,” Osmund said miserably, the words slurring. “Not unless you abandon it all and become someone else.” And they both knew that he wouldn’t.

Cemil’s arms closed around him, and Osmund sank into that protective embrace as if it had any real power. “I’m sorry,” Cemil murmured, and it sounded genuine. “I’m sorry that I’ve hurt you.”

They didn’t really understand each other in the end, and they never would. But Osmund clung to him anyway. It was tempting to believe that if he held on tightly enough, the rest wouldn’t reach them here.