Chapter Sixty-Two: Another Lie

Twenty minutes later, unmolested, he made it back to Cemil’s room. By this time he’d regained some semblance of calm and was thinking back to his adventure. Mylo’s men, he repeated to himself so he would not forget. Mylo’s men, at the harbor.

He found the Meskato prince at his desk with his cheek propped up on his knuckles, asleep with a pen in his hand. “Cemil,” Osmund said softly, taking the pen from him and setting it back on the table, then closing the inkwell. “You’ll be sore if you sleep that way, wake up.”

No response. Osmund considered the distance to the bed. He’d carried newborn foals before, which could weigh as much as a person, but Cemil was a tall man, and mostly muscle. The Meskato prince stirred as Osmund got an arm across his broad back, the other below his knees, and deposited him with effort onto the mattress. One hand wandered up the back of Osmund’s thigh and squeezed.

Osmund plucked the hand off and tucked it back against Cemil’s chest. “Go back to sleep,” he commanded.

Cemil made another vague noise. It seemed he had no choice but to obey; the rest of his body did not share his hand’s eagerness. “Tomorrow,” he mumbled.

“Tomorrow,” Osmund agreed, and climbed in beside him.

The first sensation when morning came was pleasure. Osmund moaned, hand lowering to tangle in Cemil’s hair. What a way to wake up!

He tucked the other’s long bangs to the side to get a better look at his face, but they fell loose and dangled again. He gave up and just watched, pulling his nightshirt high to expose more of the view, as well as the rise and fall of his own heaving chest. That drag of teeth, a little unpracticed, bordering on too firm, too insistent. But he loved it.

Oh, he was close. So close already. Cemil drew back just long enough to ask, “Where?” His voice was low and hoarse, and Osmund’s blood thrummed; that single word opened up a realm of dazzling possibility. He looked at his red mouth, his messy hair, and his beloved, handsome features, and didn’t need to say it. Cemil brought him over the edge with his hand, and didn’t pull away.

Osmund forced his eyes to stay cracked open while he crested the peak, watching the pornographic spectacle from somewhere outside himself. In awe, he ran a thumb through his own mess marring Cemil’s immaculate cheek, shamelessly smearing it down to the corner of his lip.

“Heavens,” he managed. “Good morning.”

Cemil’s tongue came out to dab at the spot. “Morning,” he rasped. He squinted and blinked, rubbing slowly at his eye.

“Oh,” Osmund said with a flush, finally thinking with his brain again. He looked around to offer the spare sheet, which they used to avoid dirtying the mattress or bedding, but Cemil had already risen to splash his face at the basin nearby before picking up the ewer on the table and pouring himself some water to drink.

Osmund watched him in sleepy satisfaction, rolling onto his stomach when Cemil returned. “I’m sorry I got home so late. You must really be pent-up.”

Cemil made an approving noise at the sight, kissing his shoulderblade, then licking a line down his spine, so slow. “I don’t need so much foreplay,” Osmund laughed when the Meskato prince gave no sign of letting up. “I already got mine.”

“Mm, but today is about you.”

Osmund smiled and lowered his head into the pillows, unable to track the other’s progress except by the sensation of lips and teeth along his back. Whatever articulate response he was crafting was lost when he felt Cemil’s tongue again, this time in a very…unorthodox place. “Cemil—! Ah!”

If sounds from their room carried to anyone else in the manor, that person would’ve known that their şehzade was a very generous lover.

And that his Tolmish companion had some pretty powerful lungs!

Osmund buttoned his undershirt to the collar, then reached for the hip-length jacket. He took great care as he dressed himself and got his mussed-up hair in order—not that at this point, he could do anything to disguise the fact that they’d spent the morning holed away together. Or that anyone who’d passed by in the halls outside would’ve known why. Oh, he’d never hear the end of it from the servants later

“How was your night out?” he heard from the other side of the room.

“Quite unexpected,” Osmund replied as he snaked his arms through the sleeves. “I went to a coffeehouse with Kasri and Keldin—two of the mercs, if you remember?”

Cemil didn’t. “Any political talk? It flows easily in places like that.”

“Nothing of use—mostly people were there to pay a visit to the storyteller. But I met some Tolmishmen who work down at the docks! I think their employers might be Guild men.”

“You work fast. I trust you plan on seeing them again?”

“Of course.”

Osmund tied his Meskato-style sash, a change of pace from the Tolmish belt he’d worn for so long, and gave his appearance a final check. “Hm, this look is growing on me,” Cemil said, stepping behind him. Osmund watched their combined reflection in the mirror as the taller man pressed his clean cheek into his hair. “I like the color after all.”

“You’ve just gotten used to it,” Osmund said fondly. “Perhaps I’ll even go darker. Aylin says the dye is more effective in stages.”

He hadn’t really meant it—had just wanted to enjoy whatever expression this would produce on Cemil’s face. “Whatever you wish,” the Meskato prince said with exaggerated ambivalence. Osmund smiled impishly.

“Or maybe I’ll cut it all off.”

“That, I forbid.”

“Oh? By what authority?”

“Naturally, as your prince.”

My prince. Osmund liked the sound of it. My prince—but everyone else’s, too. “You sound like a tyrant,” he remarked.

“Then I forbid it as your lover.”

“Goodness, how controlling.”

“I think I ask for very little.”

Osmund leaned against him. The picture they formed in the mirror together looked so…simple and happy. A real couple. Or even—if he squinted, hard—an ordinary one.

“Anyway, you know me, don’t you?” Cemil murmured, surprisingly sincere. “I would be insufferable at the start, but after a day I’d find you more handsome than before.”

The other man had a tired set around his eyes. Osmund turned to touch his cheek. “Cemil, how are you doing? Really?”

“The Merchants’ Guild has been a headache, hobbling the alcohol trade to punish us for seizing their ships while we hunt for the counterfeiters,” the Meskato prince admitted after a time, “but a disgruntled merchant class is business as usual. Once they’ve held out long enough to satisfy their supporters, we’ll both agree on a deal that makes them feel like they’ve gained a bit of influence.”

“And the Videlari?”

Warm breath crawled across his neck in a sigh. “…That woman seems a symptom of a larger problem, as you all suspected. The barons in charge are reportedly stoking old grudges among their countrymen. Soon I imagine they’ll attempt another break from the Empire. I don’t know what my father will have us do.”

Osmund’s thumb unthinkingly traced Cemil’s jaw. “You have so many worries as a prince.”

“Now you understand why I wanted to keep you free of it.”

Osmund did understand. It was with utmost reluctance that he stepped away out of the picture they formed together in the mirror. “We should get breakfast,” he decided, heading for the door. “It’s been a lovely morning, but I don’t want you to overwork yourself later trying to catch up.” Something caught his eye in the corner: a sheet draped over a large angular shape. He hadn’t noticed it in the dark coming home last night. “Cemil, what’s this? Oh—did you buy that bookcase we talked about?”

“It’s your present,” Cemil said somewhere beside him, and before Osmund could ask what that meant, the Meskato prince had drawn away the sheet to reveal what lay beneath.

He had indeed bought shelves, but that clearly wasn’t the surprise. Osmund’s mind emptied as he knelt down to inspect the array of books. Was he dreaming? His fingers traveled from spine to spine eagerly, taking in every title.

“Oh, but this one wasn’t even out yet when I left the Isles!” He pulled the book in question off the shelf and flipped through the pages hungrily. “I was terrified that they would have to stop publishing under the usurper queen! But, here it is! I can’t believe it! And these…!”

“I hope this is a good selection,” Cemil prodded, in the confident tones of someone who had done a lot of research and wanted to be praised. “There aren’t many importers of Tolmish romance novels, but I’ve found a few reliable sources which I can pass to you if you wanted to order anything new.”

“It’s incredible,” Osmund bubbled. “And you—you did all of this? For me? Even though you’re so busy?”

“There could be no finer use of my time than bringing you happiness,” Cemil said nobly, but he sounded transparently pleased to have his efforts acknowledged. “I’m glad you approve of them.”

The novels were a fantastic gift—the best he’d ever received, along with the time in childhood that his mother had commissioned a stuffed toy of his favorite pony—but it was the Meskato prince that Osmund was gazing at now. “Thank you,” said Osmund belatedly, and was mystified to find a lump in his throat. “This is so thoughtful. I, um… Thank you.”

He set down the volume in his hands and embraced the other tightly. “I never asked if it was something you wanted to celebrate. I decided to take a chance and surprise you,” Cemil murmured as he returned the gesture. “From your reaction, I take it you’re unused to things like this.”

“What do you mean, celebrate?” Osmund asked into his collar. “That’s the second time you’ve said something like that.”

“Don’t tell me you don’t realize what day it is.”

Osmund froze, pulling back. By that tone, he should definitely know what day it was. Was it some kind of important Meskato gift-giving holiday he didn’t know about? Would he be expected to return the favor? “What day is it?” he asked faintly.

A laugh. “It’s the fifteenth of Second Sowing,” Cemil said. Then, when Osmund continued to stare, his expression grew troubled: “Your birthday. Isn’t it? I’m sure I remember correctly.”

What a relief! “Oh! My birthday! I completely forgot!” Osmund cried, pleased, just before remembering a second thing, which was the highly relevant fact that the fifteenth of Second Sowing wasn’t his birthday at all.

In reality, Osmund had turned twenty-four on the road to Kaliany all those many months ago, but with everything going on, he’d barely even marked the date. At some point when Cemil asked about it, Osmund, belatedly realizing he should probably not share the same given name and birthday as the presumed-dead prince of Valcrest, had made something up on the spot and thought nothing more of it.

In short, it was another lie.

“Are you alright?” he heard. Osmund realized he’d been staring blankly again.

“Yes, yes of course.” The words came rushing off his treacherous tongue. “It’s just—you’re right. This is—different.”

I have to tell him. I have to tell him.

He was shaken out of this spiral by the singularly horrifying sight of Cemil lifting the book he’d just set down and opening it upon a random page. The Meskato prince’s eyebrows shot high, and Osmund could only imagine what colorful euphemism he’d just stumbled upon. Throbbing organ or aching manhood or something similar, no doubt. He swiped the book away, blushing hard. “Don’t make fun, it’s rude,” he exclaimed.

“I haven’t said anything.”

“You’re thinking it.”

“I didn’t realize thinking was a crime.”

“Oh, stop.”

Osmund would not waste Cemil’s efforts to make him happy. Today, he decided—the fifteenth of Second Sowing, as it would be every year to follow—was his birthday.

The rest didn’t matter.

It didn’t.