“Your guess is as good as mine,” Bel said, finally picking up her coffee. “You really have to stop now. Jainan’s due in three minutes.” Even as she spoke, the chime sounded at the door. Bel checked the feed. “That’s him.”
“Oh, shit,” Kiem said, tugging at the jacket of his ceremonial uniform frantically. “Is this thing creased? Do I have time to change? Have we got drinks?”
“No, no, and drinks are in the cabinet as usual,” Bel said. “Just let him get the occasional word in edgewise and you’ll be fine.” She took her coffee into the study and hit the door release on the way past, leaving Kiem to hurry over and receive Jainan.
CHAPTER 3
Jainan nav Adessari was standing by himself outside the door. Kiem had expected a small crowd of aides and assistants, not a single, preternaturally calm person with the assurance of a negotiator in a war zone.
Kiem had the photo in his head, but it was still a shock to see that grave stare right in front of him. Jainan’s dark eyes gave a hidden spark of electricity to an expression that was otherwise entirely proper and neutral. His clothes were Thean, a half-sleeved tunic with a blunter, looser cut than Iskat styles, in a muted blue that split the difference between a formal outfit and mourning grays.
Jainan cut his eyes away and bowed. It was a formal bow, a shade more correct than what was required from a count to a prince. Kiem realized with a spike of embarrassment that it was probably a polite way of telling him he was staring.
He snapped himself out of his frozen moment and stepped back, bowing formally himself. “Welcome! Glad you could make it, my name’s Kiem, nice to meet you. I mean, properly. I know we’ve sort of seen each other in the distance at functions. Thanks for, um, agreeing to all this. Come in, come in.”
Jainan rose from his bow and looked at Kiem thoughtfully. Kiem wasn’t given to blushing, but he almost felt his face heat as he heard his own voice sounding even more inane than usual. My name’s Kiem, like Jainan wasn’t aware whose room he had visited. And thanks for agreeing to all this? Jainan knew as well as Kiem that it wasn’t as if either of them had a choice.
But all Jainan said was, “Jainan. A pleasure, Your Highness. It is more than an honor to be invited.” As he stepped over the threshold, he took in the tall windows and the gardens outside with a quick dart of his eyes. He moved gracefully, almost soundlessly, and Kiem suddenly felt clumsy and awkward in comparison. Even more so as he lumbered back out of Jainan’s way and Jainan’s eyes went to him briefly, then cut away again.
“Sit down, please,” Kiem said hastily, when he realized Jainan was politely hovering. He waved to one of the chairs clustered around his coffee service, a samovar with an old collection of cups that he had always ignored in favor of the dispenser, but it was traditional to have it for guests. Jainan sat on the edge of a chair, highly composed. The blue-gray of his uniform drew the color out of his face but didn’t take away from the smart shape it cut around his shoulders—Kiem stopped staring. “I, uh. I hope you didn’t have to interrupt anything to come?”
“No,” Jainan said, soft and measured. “My last appointment was the one-month Mourning for Prince Taam, which finished yesterday.”
Wrong question, wrong question. “Ah. I didn’t realize that had already happened.”
“I apologize,” Jainan said. “I should have sent you a reminder.”
Kiem winced. He’d gone to the public first-day and ten-day Mournings, but protocol said he wasn’t close enough to Taam to still be going to memorials a month later—he couldn’t remember speaking to him in years. That was before he was engaged to marry Taam’s ex-partner, though. He should probably have badgered someone for an invitation after yesterday’s bombshell. “Right. Yes. Um. Would you like a drink?”
“If you’re having one,” Jainan said politely.
Kiem was very much planning to have one, more so with every word this conversation progressed. He got to his feet. It seemed wrong to have anything ordinary, so he poured a glass of pale spirits from an ornate bottle half-full of preserved berries. “Silverberry wine? Coffee? What would you like?”
Jainan glanced at the second glass Kiem was holding. “Water…？”
Kiem decided he was imagining the disapproval there and brought a chilled bottle of water to the table with a glass. There was an awkward moment when Jainan attempted to rise to take the drink and Kiem wasn’t expecting it, but they got through it with no more than a minor splash on the table. Jainan stared at the spill like it was a tragedy. Kiem winced again. He was apparently going to have to be much neater from now on. “Don’t worry, I’ll get something for it later.”
“I’m sorry,” Jainan said.
“Uh, no, don’t be sorry.” Kiem said. He felt the stifling layer of politeness lying over them like velvet. He sat down and put his head in his hands. “All right,” he said. “Can we speak plainly? Sorry. I’m not great at tiptoeing around things.”
What went across Jainan’s face wasn’t exactly a change of expression. It was more like looking at the surface of the water down at the harbor and sensing that something had just moved underneath. His back straightened and he placed his hands on his knees. “Please,” he said. “Go ahead.”
Kiem took a deep breath. Right. They were going to clear the air. “I think we’ll have a better chance of making this work if we’re open with each other,” he said. “I know you’re not going to be over the moon about this. To be honest, I don’t know what the Emperor was thinking.” It was probably a measure of the stress they were under that neither of them even bothered to look over their shoulder.
“The treaty,” Jainan said. His expression was entirely neutral again.
“The treaty,” Kiem agreed. “But look, this wasn’t your first choice. I wasn’t expecting it either, but we’re stuck with it. Can we at least agree we’ll try and make it work? I know you’ll need space to—to grieve. We can just act the bare minimum to sell the marriage to the palace, and drop it when we’re in private.”
Jainan smiled. It was an odd, distant smile and didn’t seem to be particularly happy, but it was a smile. “It’s funny,” he said.
“What is?” That didn’t sound good.
“Prince Taam—we had this conversation. One very much like it.”
Taam and Jainan had started off their marriage like this? Kiem felt obscurely heartened, although the circumstances weren’t exactly the same. “So … we’re okay? I promise I’m not an axe murderer.”
“That part he didn’t say,” Jainan said.
It took a moment for Kiem to realize that was a deadpan joke, and he grinned. “Maybe he was. I mean, you have to be explicit.”
Jainan’s expression shuttered completely, and he put the water down.
“No—I—oh, shit, sorry. I didn’t mean—” The door chime rang again. Kiem only just stopped himself throwing up his hands in frustration. There should be some kind of law against him opening his stupid mouth. “Well, it wasn’t as if we were doing anything important. Come in!” he added, raising a hand to gesture the door open.