“Tell me,” said Rhy, with a knowing glance down at the covers, “have you, by chance, misplaced a child?”
“That depends,” said Nadiya, leaning on the bedpost, “what does she look like?”
“This high,” said Rhy, holding up a hand, “dark curls, rather adorable. Takes after her father, obviously.”
“Hm,” said Nadiya, “that does sound familiar. But my child is good, and knows how to behave.”
A twitch of movement, beneath the covers.
“And my child is smart and knows it’s time for bed.”
The body wriggled, but did not emerge.
“And my child is brave, and wouldn’t hide from sleep.”
At that, Ren’s small head popped up from the pillow. “I’m not hiding,” she said defiantly. “I just wanted a story.”
Rhy stared down at his daughter. “Where did you come from?” he asked in mock surprise. Ren giggled, and Alucard felt his heart twist, at the girl’s joy and the love in Rhy’s eyes.
“Is this the child you lost?” asked the king, holding Ren aloft like an offering.
The queen leaned in to study her daughter. “You know, I’m not sure.”
“It’s me,” protested Ren, and Nadiya smiled, and reached to take her.
“Well, that’s a relief,” she said, swinging the girl onto her hip. Ren’s head immediately began to loll, dark curls resting on her mother’s shoulder. The queen kissed the top of the girl’s head. “Say goodnight to your fathers.” And Ren’s voice was soft and small, murmuring her good nights first in High Royal and then Arnesian before Nadiya carried her from the room.
When they were gone, Rhy reached again for the glass, studying the tonic as if it were new to him, as if he did not take it every night, to keep his dreams at bay. Dreams of his mother dying in his arms. His father impaled on the palace steps. His own body tortured and torn apart, unable to die, unable to do anything but watch and suffer. Dreams from which Rhy woke screaming, and Alucard could do nothing but hold him back, hold him down, hold him close.
The tonic was a kindness, a mercy.
One Rhy seemed to think he didn’t deserve.
“Rest is not a weakness,” said Alucard gently. The king flashed him a wan smile, and downed the tonic in a single swallow.
The heat of earlier had melted away between them, leaving a pleasant warmth. Rhy sank back against the pillows, and Alucard flexed his fingers and summoned a small breeze, snuffing the candles and plunging the bedchamber into a darkness eased only by the Isle’s red glow through the curtains. Or at least, that is how it must have looked to any other pair of eyes. To Alucard, the threads of magic still burned around their bodies. His own, the blue-green-white of a shallow surf, and Rhy’s, a galaxy of silver against the dark silk sheets.
Alucard lay on his side, one arm draped across the king’s stomach, and watched the rise and fall of his lover’s chest, the fine tendrils that flowed in and out of his spelled heart. The threads were the moonlit shine peculiar to Antari magic, and yet, they did not look like Kell’s or Lila’s, did not move in the same steady way, tracing the lines of every limb and vein. Instead, all of them began and ended at the black sigil, the one Kell burned there with dark magic, binding their bodies, their pulse, and their pain.
Rhy glanced over and caught his stare. “What are you thinking about?”
“Your brother,” said Alucard, regretting the words as soon as they were out.
Rhy raised a brow. “Should I be jealous?”
He rolled his eyes. “Go to sleep.”
“I knew all that loathing was a farce.”
“Be still,” Alucard muttered, rolling onto his back.
The king chuckled, his voice trailing off as the tonic began to take effect. He sighed, and quieted, his limbs loosening as sleep dropped like a curtain. Alucard lay beside him in the dark, thumbing the gold band on his right hand. Feeling the impression of the heart and crown over and over as he rolled it around his finger. He was sure Rhy was asleep until his voice broke the quiet.
“Why do they hate me?” the king whispered.
The edges of his words were foxed, softened by the drug, but even in its grip, his mind had drifted back to the bath, the Hand.
“Many love you,” said Alucard gently. “A few do not.”
Rhy’s eyes drifted open, gold slivers in the dark. “Am I such a terrible king?”
Alucard sighed. “All kings are terrible, to those looking for someone to blame.”