Jainan hesitated. Bel was intimidatingly brisk and efficient, and he had no desire to take up more of her time. “I know where it is,” he said. It wasn’t a dining room. He had a recollection of it from a palace tour when he’d first arrived, formal and empty, sometimes used for receptions. The palace had more reception rooms than it knew what to do with.
“I suggest formal wear,” Bel said. “Do you need anything else? No? I’ll be off for the evening, then. I’m on call—here, I’ll send you my contact data for your short list.” She spun her finger, and an image of a navigation wheel appeared just below her hand.
“No, I—I need mine recalibrated.” Jainan touched his own wristband, which had not worked properly since they’d shut off Taam’s account. Now it would need to be linked to Prince Kiem’s. But Bel was going off duty, and he didn’t want to keep her. “I’ll ask Prince Kiem tomorrow.” That didn’t in any way lessen the cold tension at the back of his neck.
When he reached the upper floor of the Southern Tower, he couldn’t remember exactly which of the gold-swirled doors he should open, but it didn’t matter: an attendant bowed to him and ushered him to the right one.
It opened onto a forbiddingly large reception room that looked out over a panorama of the city of Arlusk and the snow-covered mountains beyond. The smooth whiteness of the walls was broken up by circular tapestries depicting various Iskat birds, predatory and alien. The rest of the furniture was carefully crafted to fit in with these antique treasures: the chairs and side tables were made of polished wood, only lightly brushed with gilt. There was a table set for two by the window.
Prince Kiem was rising swiftly from it, so swiftly that he knocked the chair backward. Jainan stiffened. “Ah—oh, damn—excuse me—” Kiem somehow hooked his foot under the chair before it hit the floor and awkwardly flipped it up again. He turned back to Jainan and offered him a bow. “Sorry about that. Do you, er, want to sit down?”
Jainan was still frozen. The table was spread with snowy linen and glittered with twelve types of cutlery. Tiny dishes had been set out with geometric position, each holding a delicate morsel of food. There was a candlestick clawing its way up from the middle of the table. It was meant to be romantic.
Jainan couldn’t do this.
“I, er, I mean—maybe you don’t—” Kiem spread his hands helplessly. “I didn’t mean to ambush you. If you’re not feeling well, that’s fine. You can order in food to our rooms. I can go somewhere else. Or, or something.”
Whatever happened regarding dinner, they were going to be sleeping in the same bed tonight. Jainan forced himself not to step back. Running away now wouldn’t help anything. It was only a formal dinner; he had sat through hundreds of formal dinners.
“No, it’s fine,” he said. He took three steps forward and sat, stiffly, and remembered to add, “It’s lovely. I’m honored.”
Kiem gave an exaggerated sigh of relief. A joke, Jainan thought numbly as Kiem sat down. “Sorry it’s not exactly a big wedding banquet. Official mourning and all that. I did get us one of the bottles of Gireshian champagne from the cellars, though.” Kiem grabbed for the bottle by the candlestick and waved it hopefully. His bracelet, a square wooden bead threaded with a cord, clinked too loudly against Jainan’s empty glass. “Thirty years old and spent three years on the ship here. Can I—oh, wait.” He pulled the bottle away, looking stricken. “You don’t drink, do you?”
Giresh wasn’t in-system. Systems outside the Empire could only be accessed through a link, and Iskat’s nearest link was a year’s travel away, so trade and interchange with the wider universe was slow. Out-system goods were luxuries; Kiem was offering him something that would have cost him a chunk of his allowance to acquire from the cellars. Jainan pushed his glass an inch toward the bottle. “Please do.”
“Er, right,” Kiem said. He filled his own glass as well then held it up. “To Thea.”
Jainan blinked. Something in his chest ached. But it was just politeness—reputation in the press aside, Prince Kiem was a diplomat in a family of diplomats. Jainan held up his glass. “To the Empire.” The taste of alcohol burned at the back of his throat.
Iskat meals followed a rigid progression. They always started with the salt course: a collection of small, sharp-flavored bites of fish and meat and pickled vegetables. Then a tiny ceramic cup of tea, drunk piping hot to clear the palette—no Iskaner drank tea outside meals, and they looked askance at you for suggesting it—then the sweet course, with fish or seafood in sweet sauces and crisp wafer cakes on the side. The bulk of the food would come in the mild course, where at last rice and bread would appear on the table. Kiem made appreciative noises at the spread. Jainan was not hungry.
The last plate of the salt course appeared at his elbow from a hovering waiter, holding two silvery wafers of fish and a scattering of seagrass. Jainan automatically inclined his head and picked up the correct cutlery. He gripped it a little in preparation for speaking.
“Blizzards coming early this year,” Kiem said from across the table, at exactly the same time as Jainan said, “I would like leave to apologize.”
There was a dreadful silence. Jainan dropped his gaze to his food, his shoulders knotting up with the effort of keeping his back still and straight, and then Kiem said, “What for?”
Jainan paused. “The ceremony.”
Kiem put a hand across his face and groaned. “Oh hell, I’m sorry too. That was awful, wasn’t it, let’s never speak about it again.”
The relief sat in Jainan’s stomach like acid. “Yes.”
“They could have waited a week,” Kiem said, immediately disregarding his own request. “Would a week have killed them? Hundreds of civil servants in this palace and not one of them could figure out how to suspend a treaty for a week?”
Jainan looked down at his meal and carefully separated the fish from the seagrass with the tip of his knife. A faint citrus tang rose from it. “Mm.”
“Hey, so, a whole meter of snow this month. That’s a lot, huh? This is the time of year when my mother always started swearing about the weather and got herself posted spaceside.”
Jainan blinked. But before he had the time to respond, Kiem launched into a stream of consciousness that was apparently every thought he had ever had about early winter weather. Jainan scrambled to pull himself together enough to reply. When Kiem finished on the weather, there wasn’t even a break before he switched to the food （“Apparently hazelnuts are making a comeback—ever tried hazelnuts?”）， the latest news on Sefalan raiders （“Bel’s from Sefala, you know, she gets her news from the Sefalan Guard over there.”） and the orbital shuttle gridlock the Resolution ship had caused （“Won’t be cleared within the week, I’ve got a bet on it with the deputy station controller.”）。
The stream of chatter started to become soothing. Jainan fell thankfully into autopilot, dredging up opinions so bland they might as well have been written by the press office. Kiem was good at feigning interest: he managed to look like he was hanging on every dull word. Jainan knew it was a diplomatic front, but it made the conversation easier. Kiem took up more space than Taam had; he was constantly gesturing to make a point or nearly putting his elbow in the butter. Jainan tried not to look at his body, his deep brown skin and the smooth curve of his forearm. It felt wrong to let himself be distracted.