Chapter 14: The Night Before

Fenny came to the Prince's rooms after dark with the jar in one hand and his tin in the other.

He set the jar on the desk, and the ash in it clinked.

Then he set the tin down beside it and took a step back.

"I'm not taking one tonight," he said.

Cavan sat on the edge of the bed in his shirtsleeves and looked at the little fox stamped on the lid.

"Tell me, then," he said. "All of it."

Fenny told him.

He told him about the year he was fifteen, and the first time his hands went hot in a fright.

He told him about the healer who gave him the first white tablet.

He told him about nine years of never touching anyone for long.

He told him he had counted the tablets left in the tin every night since the wedding.

Each one swallowed was one more night of keeping his hands to himself.

"I should have said it that night," Fenny finished. "I couldn't. You said I looked at you like you were broken."

"I said it to my mother, in a panic, with my trousers open."

Cavan's voice was rough.

"I was ashamed of me. Not you."

"I know that now."

"Come here."

Fenny crossed the rug and stood between his knees.

Cavan took his hands and turned them over.

There was ink in the creases of the fingers, as always.

"I can't tell what's the bond and what's you," Cavan said. "I said that, and I meant it."

He turned Fenny's hands in his own.

"But I've watched you for a fortnight. You wash my hair in the tub and sulk about my boots."

"I do not sulk."

"You kept the ash. Tell me which part of that is your body."

Fenny let out a shaky laugh.

"The boots," he said. "Definitely the boots."

Cavan pulled him down onto the bed.

He kissed him slowly, with a hand spread on his jaw.

Fenny made a small broken sound into his mouth and went soft all over.

The sweetness rose in the room first, honey on the warm air.

It was slow tonight, a long swell with nothing frightened in it.

"It's coming," Cavan murmured.

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