The Untuned Lute

Eamonn looked up from the fire, and pulled his hands back from it. He had not been following the idle chatter bouncing back and forth across the winter camp. It rarely concerned him, and when it did, it was never good. This seemed to be one of those times, and he briefly regretted not listening in.

"Don't bother," another voice called from behind him. "You'll get better results talking to a stone — more intelligible, too."

"Don't," a third voice said. "What if his highness hears you?"

"I doubt he cares more than any of us," the second voice said. "A coldblood is a coldblood, no matter what the parentage."

"Enough," the first man said, stepping into Eamonn's view. "I said, if you think you can fight better than any of us, step into the ring. Or are you just going to sit there hugging your sword like it's a woman?"

Eamonn swallowed, slow, and looked up at the man in front of him. He was the same as any of the other guards in the prince's winter camp — the same as any southern man, built lithe and strong, and yet stiff and uncomfortable in the cold. All of them were dressed in too many layers, and their fighting suffered for it, encumbered by furs and leathers they were not used to wearing.

"I didn't say anything," Eamonn said. It didn't matter if he kept his tone level; his accent did all the threatening for him.

"Don't have to say it," the man said. Eamonn grasped in his mind for the man's name; he remembered it being something unbearably southern — Aruwne? "We can all hear you thinking it."

"The prince will be coming down soon," someone said behind Eamonn; he did not care enough to turn and find out who. "If you want to do something, do it before he comes down for his meal."

Meal? Eamonn glanced down in the cooking pot and found it dry. The guard behind him snorted. "Not that kind of meal, brother."

"If you want to spar with me, just ask," Eamonn said, a flicker of anger closing his throat. He'd come out here to get away from — other things, not find himself in the middle of a fight he hadn't even been aware he was having.

"Can you understand him?" Aruwne said, looking right over Eamonn's shoulder. "I think he said he's too afraid, right?"

"Can't understand a word."

"You'd think he'd at least talk like his highness," Aruwne said. "A good spy would attempt to blend in, no?"

Eamonn said nothing for a moment, and then reached down and unsheathed his sword. The sound of it shut Aruwne up immediately, his posture going tense as he reached down for his own blade.

"If you want to talk, talk," Eamonn said. "If you want to fight, fight."

There was no answer for a moment except the crackle of the flames below him, and the whistle of the wind from outside the protective ring of tents.

"No northern tricks," Aruwne said, and then his eyes slid towards the direction of Yvin's tent. If Yvin was coming, he'd want to end it quick. That was fine with Eamonn, who had no interest in fighting, but he knew the aggression would only worsen if it was left unchecked.

"Not here," Eamonn said. "Do you want his highness to see? Are you hoping to improve your station?"

Aruwne scoffed, tossing his head. "None of us could hope to rise to your station, your highness," he said, and then he gave a mocking little bow that was surely intended to infuriate, but Eamonn shrugged it off. The title — or lack thereof — no longer had any effect on him. He stepped over the flames without a care, the tip of his sword driving Aruwne back; he stumbled over his feet for a moment, as if he had not expected Eamonn's aggression to come at him so directly.

"The training yard's behind you," Eamonn said, and Aruwne glanced over his shoulder — another fatal mistake, even in these circumstances. Who was training these men? He certainly didn't recall the kingsguard being so lax, either before he'd left or since he'd returned home. Aruwne did not acknowledge his mistake, simply turning his back on Eamonn, who groaned internally. He could have killed him twice over with little effort.

The yard was little more than a ring of packed snow from the tread of boots. That was fine with Eamonn. He'd learned to fight in hip-deep powder and frozen grass alike, and had been an equal match for Maron, though perhaps not at the beginning. He swallowed again, dashing those memories from his mind. Maron was not here. He would never be here. He had to remember that, if nothing else. It was the one good thing about being back in the south.

"Come on, coldblood," Aruwne said, the same name again, making Eamonn roll his eyes. If they insisted on quantifying things by blood, Eamonn's blood was considerably hotter than Aruwne's — in most senses of the word, not just origin. Aruwne even looked cold, his face pale behind his wrappings, his fur hat pulled down tight over his head. Eamonn was beginning to warm simply from the thrill of the fight, his breath spilling out onto the air in a white cloud.

"Raise your sword, if you can," Aruwne goaded, and Eamonn did so, his black blade dark against the ground. "It's not that sword I have a doubt about," Aruwne said. Eamonn tried to ignore the chuckles from behind him. He had no problems letting his sword speak for him; it would contain all he wanted to say anyway.

He took up his buckler and levelled his sword. Southerners did not fight with a shield, and Aruwne's sword was a little thing — not quite a royal rapier, but nowhere near the breadth and length of Eamonn's. Aruwne would be faster, but Eamonn would be stronger. That was not quite the crux of the fight, though.

Eamonn shifted his feet, and Aruwne lunged at him without warning. His sword glanced off Eamonn's buckler with a clash of metal, his blade vibrating in his hands.

"Damn Northerner," he growled, shifting his weight. "Can't even fight without hiding behind something. Just like you hide behind your brother."

Eamonn ignored him; he had the superior reach, and he had spent a year studying how southern men fought, especially those far more talented than Aruwne. He might be fast, but — Eamonn lashed out at him, his heavy blade dropping onto Aruwne's with all his strength, followed by a jab with the edge of his buckler to catch him in the ribs. He heard Aruwne's pained grunt, but it wasn't enough to make him stop. He was truly hot all over now; his mind was twisting with the heat, his heart throbbing in time with his breaths.

This is what I'm meant to be like, he thought, forcing Aruwne to parry and block again and again, until his hands were surely numb, his sword ringing like a bell. Not like — not like anything else. But the thought lingered, wavering the heat of his resolve, allowing Aruwne two, three good strikes on his buckler, seeking the edge of it, trying to slide underneath.

He truly means to maim me, Eamonn realised, the shock of it cold on his spine. And no one here would stop it.

He fought back in earnest now, his ears filled with the ring of metal on metal, his focus narrowing down only to Aruwne's sword. Aruwne was outmatched, and he was beginning to realise it; with each breath that Eamonn sucked in and each time he redoubled his attack, he could see the fear mounting in Aruwne's eyes. He did not know if Eamonn would kill him or not. For a moment, Eamonn was also unsure. He could picture it so clearly in his mind. The brief resistance of bone against the steel of his sword; the sound of it sinking into flesh. Aruwne would grasp at the blade as his lifeblood welled around it.

Cool, familiar hands settled over Eamonn's wrists, guiding the movements of his blade. The red veil of bloodlust was descending over his vision, tainting everything. Kill him, Maron's voice said, as Eamonn knocked Aruwne's feet out from under him, sending him sprawling in the snow. He could feel Maron's breath on the back of his neck, and smell the scent of him. Maron would pull Eamonn's hands above his head, pin him with his hot weight across his whole body. Kill him, and then I'll show them who you really are.

And he wanted to. The tip of his sword was poised above Aruwne's chest, though his opponent's hands were raised in defenceless pleading, his lips forming words that Eamonn could not hear. Killing — killing him was natural. It was right. It was —

"Eamonn!"

He flinched, pulling his blade back from Aruwne's and sheathing it as quickly as he could. For a moment, he could not turn, feeling his brother's irate gaze on his back.

"How is it that I have to come looking for you?" Yvin said, and when Eamonn turned, Yvin looked exactly as he had imagined — pink-cheeked from the cold, his long, dark hair tossed about by the wind. Their resemblance was undeniable; Eamonn had been as shocked as anyone else when he saw Yvin for the first time on his return. Their faces were the same shape, but for Eamonn's once-broken nose. But they were nothing alike in the body — Eamonn's training had seen to that.

Yvin crossed his arms over his slim chest, his shirt billowing in the wind, before waving a hand to Eamonn and drawing him close."Honestly, of all the trouble you bring, I never imagined shirking would be part of it."

"I'm — " Eamonn said, and then realised the gazes of all the other guards were trained on him in full force — well, those gazes that weren't on Yvin, that was. Yvin never dressed properly for the cold, and you could see his peaked nipples through the thin fabric of his shirt, Eamonn realised with a hot shock. He wrenched his eyes up to Yvin's angry face. How could he walk around like that? How could he let them —

"I'm sorry, your highness," he forced himself to say, though his accent dragged on the words terribly, and Yvin raised a dark brow. Still, he seemed to think better of scolding Eamonn in public. Eamonn was glad he was still afforded that grace. He was meant to be the eldest, after all, and being scolded by the youngest — even he couldn't bear that with a straight face.

"I hope you've had fun playing with your friends in the snow," Yvin said, waving his hand in front of his face as if it might somehow stop the flakes from falling. "Should I call them friends? Most of them think you're a spy, you know."

"I'm not," Eamonn said, reflexively. Yvin raised an eyebrow at the churlish denial. But spies in the north favoured bedding their marks, and he'd rather not even think about such things.

"Well, I'm glad we've cleared that up," Yvin said, chuckling to himself. "May we now attend to my needs?"

Eamonn knew what that meant, though he pretended not to, nodding slowly. "If you wish to be entertained, your highness — "

"I'm not listening to another one of your northern songs, Eamonn," Yvin said. "And I've had just about enough poetry I can't understand a word of."

"Yes, your highness," Eamonn said, clenching his jaw. So he hadn't escaped a public scolding at all — why was Yvin like this? It was as if he could lift no sword, but the needle of his tongue did all the wounding for him.

"I want him," Yvin said, pointing behind Eamonn.

"Him?" Eamonn said, without thinking.

"Are you going to suggest an alternate?" Yvin said. "Go on, brother. I've been curious about your tastes."

"Of course not," Eamonn said, with more fervour than he had intended. It was always too easy to let his emotions slip around Yvin. Yvin blinked.

"Don't worry, I'll have the camp well-stocked with northern women for you by tomorrow," Yvin said. "Unless — " And he paused, raising his brows at Eamonn again, letting the implication go unsaid. It was a warning not to continue pushing, and Eamonn heeded it. He didn't — he still wasn't sure how much Yvin knew about him. Instead, he offered a hand to Aruwne, who clutched hard at it with a fervour that Eamonn did not think he had earned.

"It was worth it, coldblood," Aruwne said, voice pitched low. "No one warms the blood like your brother."

Eamonn considered dropping him again, but Yvin was already staring at his back, and Eamonn knew he would not go inside and warm himself until he had gotten his way. The last thing he wanted was for Yvin to start losing fingertips.

Yvin was above mockery, and so he did not notice the chuckles and glances of the other men around them as they left the tent circle, nor the other guards clapping Aruwne on the shoulder. He had partly been right; Eamonn had been shirking, though the duty he was shirking was the one about to come to fruition, where he would have to stand guard outside Yvin's tent while Yvin — did what he was about to do.

He could feel Yvin's dark, curious eyes on him as he reached his place outside the tent, and as Aruwne went past him and inside, he thought Yvin was going to say something, though what it was he could not speculate. But after a moment Yvin lowered his eyes and went inside silently. Eamonn felt the faintest breath of warm air across his face as the flap of the tent fell closed.

Of all things he could be considered, Eamonn did not consider himself to be a person of feeble mind. He spoke three languages and could understand a fourth. Yvin might not think much of his knowledge, but he had been trained in the north to be more than just a sellsword. Still, all of that was useless here, because the one thing, the one thing he could not make his mind do, was silence the sound of his brother fucking on the other side of the tent wall.

Or getting fucked, as the case might be — he thought without wishing it, and fought to quash that thought. He had no wish to think about the mechanics of it, not about Yvin, not about anyone. It made his gut roil and burn with sick acid; it always had.

He shifted from foot to foot, though that did nothing to quell the sounds from behind him, and just had the effect of reawakening his frozen feet, blood running painfully through them. He was a good guardsman, usually, when there were fewer distractions, and he was used to the cold. Even being knee-deep in snow wasn't much to him, not when they were still on this side of the border.

This reverie afforded him a few moments of mental peace before he began to pick up on the sounds again. It was true that having his hands cupped over his ears or pressed close against them might be more effective, but he couldn't bring himself to break the stance of a guard. Part of that would be admitting it affected him at all.

It sounded as if the noises were reaching a peak; he hated to admit that he knew by now what Yvin sounded like at that point. If he'd said as much to anyone in the north, he'd be doing little more than proving himself mad, or confirming what most of the north thought of southern perversions, anyway. He shivered a little, shifting from foot to foot once more. Thankfully, Yvin's cries had faded into whimpers, leaving Eamonn to savagely quell the thought — what could possibly make a man sound like that?

For a brief, blessed instant — few and far between as they were, standing outside his brother's door — there was silence. Nothing but the pure silence that came from being surrounded by snow, somehow deeper and more complete than regular quiet. He cherished it, because he knew it would only last for half a moment, and then it was indeed broken by Aruwne coming out of Yvin's tent, clutching the ties of his trousers closed and flinching against the cold. He looked as out of breath as when he had fought Eamonn — no, more, as if he had expended two or three times the effort. He was red-cheeked and his breath was a cloud upon the air. Eamonn tried not to look at him. Tried very, very hard.

"He wants to see you," Aruwne said, breathless. He appeared half-stunned, as if he had been hit in the head with something and had not quite yet recovered, which Eamonn was forced to think might well be an apt enough analogy. At least, all the men that came out of Yvin's tent had that same stricken look. He looked as if he had entirely forgotten he'd been fighting Eamonn not an hour before; all of it had been struck from his memory by — whatever it was that Yvin had done.

Of course Yvin wanted to see him. There was nothing else that could possibly be worse. But Eamonn couldn't disobey, so he ducked his head and went into the vestibule.

He was afforded one or two moments of still quiet while he unbuckled his sword and hung it on the rack next to Yvin's, which was a thin rapier in a blue leather sheath, the handle as delicate as lace. He removed his boots, feeling ill at ease with even that vulnerability; he still had both stockings and wool socks on, but it just felt inexplicably wrong. Then he took a last breath, and stepped fully into Yvin's tent.

The first thing he always noticed was the scent. Men did not wear perfume in the north, or burn flowers in a brazier to scent the air, but Yvin did both; he was currently rolling the large crystal stopper of a perfume bottle along the line of his neck, no doubt to dispel whatever odour Aruwne had left on him. It smelled like fresh-cut wood, like a cedar forest in the snow.

Eamonn found him difficult to look at. There wasn't just one reason; it was everything. It was the length of his smooth, dark hair falling perfectly down his back. It was the litheness in his limbs, the way he seemed entirely at ease, comfortable within his own body. But, most of all, it was the ever-present look of some knowledge in Yvin's eyes, as if he could ferret out Eamonn's secrets with a mere glance.

Fortunately, Yvin did not seem to care that Eamonn was staring at him; he rather suspected Yvin was used to it, and paid it no mind at all. He just drew the eye. Or, if Eamonn wanted to be specific — which he absolutely did not — he drew Eamonn's eye, and once it was drawn, he found it difficult to look away from him. A Northerner would think him closer to woman than man, with the smooth beauty of his face and the softness of his skin, the fine jewellery on his ears and around his neck. But Eamonn, being part of the north, and part of the south, could see that he was a man — one entirely comfortable with who he was, his beauty, his affinity for trinkets.

That wasn't even the worst of it. The worst part was when Yvin looked up and met his gaze, his mouth curving in a smile that always disarmed Eamonn and made him stutter.

"Can you make that tea?" Yvin said, as if they were old friends. "They've given me northern tea again, and I still can't remember how to make it. The powder just goes into a lump when I try."

Eamonn said nothing. At least Yvin was always in a better mood after he'd — had a visitor. But he took off his gloves, flexing his cold hands in the warmth of the tent, and went to the tea tray, the kettle gently steaming with a spark of Yvin's magic lighting the base. That was another thing he was still not sure he'd ever get used to about the south. Wordlessly, he took out the tiny tea fork and beat the powder into a froth, adding hot water, honey, and the slightest dash of warm milk, before bringing it to Yvin's table.

"Father didn't tell you to be my servant, did he?" Yvin said, with the slightest smile, taking the cup from Eamonn's hands.

"He didn't," Eamonn said. That was true. The king hadn't given him any such instructions, but the conversation had been awkward enough without it explicitly being said. The king had taken him alone to the dark lapis lazuli hall, where the light glimmered like blue stars around them, and the king had stood by the window, looking out into the dark sea beyond, and then back at the son he had sent to the north so many years ago. Eamonn had realised then, with a jolt, that his father had absolutely no idea how to speak to him now.

The king had said something about how Yvin, despite being younger, was a prince, and Eamonn was not — not any more. Eamonn knew what that meant without it having to be said.

"Don't be such a stranger, then," Yvin said now, bringing the tea to his lips and wincing at its bitterness, briefly wrinkling that perfect brow. "Do blood ties mean so little to you?"

"Is there anything else you wish of me?" Eamonn said, and despite the fact that he was trying to look nowhere at all, his eyes were drawn to the sleeve of Yvin's midnight-blue silk robe, which slipped around his skin like dark water, as it shifted a little with the faintest breath of movement. He tried not to think about Yvin's question; he knew a baited hook when he heard one. He was unable to deny the fact that Yvin was his brother, but he still wasn't sure of its actual meaning. Yvin used it mostly to taunt him.

"Only for you to answer a question," Yvin said, casually pushing his hair back and looking up at Eamonn. The robe shifted a little, sliding back along the long line of Yvin's leg, revealing the paleness of a silk stocking, and above that, the fine lace of a garter. Eamonn wrenched his eyes away, sure his face was bright red with shock.

Either Yvin hadn't noticed, or didn't care, because he only kept his eyes fixed on Eamonn and said, "What, exactly, is it you dislike so much about me?"

"I don't dislike you," Eamonn said, and although it was not strictly a lie, Yvin raised an eyebrow. Just that simple gesture was enough to unsettle Eamonn, making him shift back and forth on his feet like a child receiving a lecture.

"What about me makes you uncomfortable, then?" Yvin said, lifting the tea to his lips once more. "You are a Southerner, after all, despite appearances. I thought you'd be used to your own kind by now."

It took all of Eamonn's strength not to flinch at your own kind, but he let it go. He'd had enough fighting for today. He had to control himself; he could not fight everyone in the south that disrespected him. Especially not when it was Yvin. "I'm not uncomfortable," he said, and got nothing from Yvin except that same raised brow.

"Well, I am. I swear when you come in here it gets colder," Yvin said, drawing the silk of his robe around his body. It pulled the lines tight, showing his impossibly slim waist. "It's not just from the outside, either."

"It's much colder in the north," Eamonn said.

"Colder, in the north?" Yvin said, mockingly. "I would never have known if you hadn't come back to tell me, brother. You still haven't told me — is bearing that news the only reason you returned?"

And there it was again. Eamonn knew Yvin only called him brother to rankle him — to remind him that he was no different from a common sellsword, not really. "I was called home," Eamonn said, pulling his hands behind his back and squeezing his wrist to maintain his control. "The king determined it was time." Thank all the gods that Yvin couldn't really see through him with his midnight-blue eyes.

"The king?" Yvin said, instantly, leaning forward. Eamonn cursed the slip of the tongue. He was so used to talking about it in those terms, but he couldn't, not any more. "Not 'my father'? Not 'our father'?"

"He is the king," Eamonn said, trying to keep a measured tone. Why was it always warm in here? Sweat was beginning to crawl down the back of his neck. He was doing his duty. At least he supposed this was part of it, though he much preferred standing outside in the snow, waiting for nonexistent threats.

Yvin smiled, and that was somehow worse; he had a truly beautiful smile, his face radiant with joy, apart from the always-present knowing look in his eyes. There was no reason for him to smile, however, and it struck Eamonn with the same chill as if he had suddenly drawn a knife.

"You're so bland," Yvin said, and looked Eamonn up and down slowly. Eamonn flinched. "If you showed some personality, you know, people wouldn't think so ill of you." It was meant to tease, Eamonn knew; Yvin was looking at him sidelong, almost playfully, but Eamonn couldn't help frowning.

"I don't care what people think," Eamonn said, the words bitter on his lips. I don't care what you think. But he should care what Yvin thought. He knew Yvin was his brother. He knew they were akin in flesh, blood, and lineage, but when he looked at Yvin, he saw a stranger, and he knew that was true in the reverse.

Yvin's mouth had tightened and drawn flat; in the space between moments, his gentle teasing warmth had evaporated. "Sometimes I wonder if it would actually kill you to pretend you don't hate being here," Yvin said, and his voice was sharp enough to slice Eamonn's flesh. "Don't you know what everyone here has sacrificed for you? And yet you always look like you've bitten into a lemon."

He looked Eamonn up and down as if waiting for a reaction. Eamonn did nothing except tighten his muscles a fraction further, thinking show nothing, feel nothing. "You still haven't answered my question." His eyes narrowed. "Is it the way I look that you dislike? Is it the way I talk?" He stood, then, the silk flowing along the lean lines of his body. "Is it the company I keep?"

Eamonn couldn't answer, but it did not matter, because he had to look away. He glanced around desperately, eyes flickering from the crystal fire in the hearth, to the light catching on Yvin's jewels, hung up next to his clothes, equally gleaming in the light.

"Oh, please," Yvin said, which unfortunately drew Eamonn's attention right back to him. "I knew Northerners didn't approve of those who prefer the company of their own sex, but must I remind you again that you're a Southerner? Just because you've spent time there doesn't make you any different from me."

Anger was welling in the back of Eamonn's throat. Some time? He'd spent twenty-five years there as the prince-in-exile, a guarantee against the north moving against his father, and that was nothing to Yvin? It shouldn't be surprising, but that had been all of Eamonn's life. That was all he had had in the north, the knowledge of his duty. That, and Maron's company.

He swallowed, slow, trying to push the anger down. That was what Yvin wanted. He wanted Eamonn to crack in two, though he could not tell why. He had absolutely no idea why Yvin had any interest in him at all.

"I'm only here to do my duty," he said, "as I was ordered to, by our father. My thoughts are irrelevant."

Yvin laughed, but the warmth of it didn't reach his eyes. "Well done. No, that's all right. As long as you don't try to interfere with anything, I suppose you can do your duty. Whatever you think of me, I can see the truth of you when I look in your eyes. Have you ever been with a woman?"

The shock of the question reverberated through Eamonn like a struck bell. The directness was too much. How could Yvin look him in the face and ask him such a question without blinking, without flinching? He did not know what he was supposed to say. He wished he had his sword by his side to rest his hand on for comfort, but he was denied even that.

"I don't have to answer that," he said, finally, after the silence had grown long enough to be uncomfortable.

"No, you don't," Yvin said, and he was smiling again. "But I can tell by the look on your face. Maybe think about that before judging me."

"I'm not judging you," Eamonn said, ignoring the sick twist of his stomach. And I'm not going to think about it. He braced himself for the question he knew was coming next, as if he was about to take a near-fatal blow, but it did not come. Yvin's attention had shifted away from him, and it was as if he had been standing too close to a now-extinguished fire, the front of his body still over-hot.

Yvin shrugged, and it was a liquid movement through his whole body, the shoulder of his robe slipping. "Tell yourself whatever you like, brother," he said. "You can make passable tea, at least." Then he drew his hair back and began to braid it, reaching for the gold and silver pins on the table in front of him.

Eamonn knew when he was being dismissed, but something in him fought against it. He bit back the words that welled to his tongue. He was unsure of what would make Yvin acknowledge his usefulness. Perhaps if he offered to help with his hair? No, that was utterly ridiculous. He had talents besides making tea, he told himself again, though he knew too well that Yvin didn't appreciate a well-played song or entertaining tale if it came from Eamonn's mouth.

Yvin glanced at him, as if wondering why he was still present, and Eamonn turned tail and fled, jamming his feet into his unlaced boots and grabbing his sword without pulling his gloves on, the cold metal stinging his fingers.

The cold of the outside air was a shock against his hot face as he plunged into the whirling dark. The sentry relief was on his way from the camp to Yvin's tent, and spared Eamonn only a disparaging look as he veered off the laid track and made his way to his own tent, which was adjacent to Yvin's, but far enough away that he was wrapped in blessed silence.

His tent had none of the niceties of Yvin's — none of the space, the plush carpet, the golden washbasin. But he had never asked for those things. He didn't know whether they would be provided if he did ask; he wasn't a southern prince any more, after all.

At least he had a crystal fire that warmed the tent without the possibility of running out of fuel, and kept the water hot. He stripped and washed his face as quickly as he could manage, sliding into the cool sheets of his bed. There was nothing to do but rest, but sleep did not come to lay its hand on his forehead. All he could see when he closed his eyes was the slide of the midnight-blue silk on Yvin's long legs, the way it moved with his faintest motion, with the slightest breath of air. What would that feel like on his own skin?

No, he couldn't think about that. In fact, he ought not to think about Yvin at all. He wasn't his brother, not really.

He tossed and turned, pressing his face into the pillow. No man should dress like that. At the very least, it wasn't warm enough. He pressed his teeth together until his jaw ached. How many guards like Aruwne had he seen going in and out of Yvin's tent? How many more would there be? It was impossible to tell. He folded the pillow around his ears and squeezed it tight, until all he could hear was the terrible pounding of his heart. Don't think about it. Don't think about it.

Thankfully, he did not have to speak to Yvin until the next evening. The mornings in the camp always passed with more ease before Yvin was due to make an appearance, and the days when he remained in his own tent were the most peaceful of all. In truth, Eamonn was usually so ignored that it wasn't that different from the north — only now it wasn't Maron that woke him in the morning, but the flinch of his own mind. It was always somewhat of a relief to wake and find himself alone within the narrow space of his tent.

He changed with the guard and took his place in front of Yvin's tent. He had gained a little new respect from besting Aruwne. None of the men could deny that, and so they left him alone once more. It was always quiet during these hours. Most days, Yvin didn't even slide from between his sheets until the early afternoon, and some days not until evening. On occasion, Eamonn tried to contemplate what it was like living such a life of idleness, but he could not. From the first day he'd arrived in the north, Maron had always woken him at the barest light of dawn. This is your duty, he'd always said. When they'd stood on the top of the tower, shading their eyes against the light on the snow, Maron had always pointed to the distant spires of the south, which seemed as thin and small as a needle. Your duty is here, and there.

He did not want to think of Maron right now. He did not want to think about Maron at all, but especially not so close to Yvin; somehow it felt like Yvin would know what he was thinking. Instead, he went through his usual routine, walking back and forth in front of the tent, going over new things he was trying to memorise. There was a book of logic puzzles he'd taken from the palace library months ago that he was still trying to work his way through, and all he had to do was bring up a fresh page in his mind's eye.

Is Yvin right? he thought, when he'd been at it for an hour or so. Am I boring? He dismissed the thought; he wasn't sure he wanted to be Yvin's idea of interesting, and he was happiest alone. He truly was. It guaranteed no one would try to slide a knife into him, literally or otherwise.

Night came, the soft purple velvet light falling across the snow and then followed by the midnight cloak, the stars distant pinpricks of light. He had almost accepted that he had made it through another day without humiliating himself in front of Yvin, when the tent flap rustled behind him and Yvin's dark head emerged into the night, accompanied by the scent of cedar.

"Oh, it's cold," he said, shivering a little. Eamonn could glance right down into the wide neck of his gauzy white shirt, but looked away before he could see anything. "You don't have to always stand outside, you know," Yvin said. "Did someone tell you that you had to stand outside?"

"I like being outside," Eamonn said. He expected Yvin to look at him like he was a fool, but he nodded a little instead, which was more surprising. It was as if Yvin had forgotten they had argued at all.

"Really?" Yvin said, wrinkling his nose. "Even though it's freezing?"

"Didn't you choose to come here?" Eamonn said. "It's not exactly where I would have chosen for a holiday if I hated the cold." It was strange to speak to Yvin this way, as if no history mattered. It was the closest he'd come to a normal conversation in months. He had to hold himself back from calling Yvin a delicate Southerner, but from the look in Yvin's eyes, he knew what Eamonn was thinking.

"I wouldn't say 'choose'," Yvin said, voice quirking with what sounded like a smile. "What's that?"

"What's what?" Eamonn said. Yvin's hand extended into the cold and pointed towards the ridge at the top of the valley. Just for a moment, he could smell Yvin's perfume on the cold air, but he pushed that thought aside and followed the tip of his finger.

There was a movement in the snow on the top of the ridge, followed by a small pack of dark horses, descending like a boat's prow breaking through ice. Shit, Eamonn thought. They certainly weren't Southerners, not from the expert way they were carving through the snow.

"Go inside," he said.

"Of course not," Yvin said, and instead he came out, balancing on the outside lip of the tent in nothing more than a thin shirt, slippers, and a pair of dark trousers that were surely uncomfortably tight. "This is the most interesting thing that's happened in weeks." He wrapped his arms around himself, his breath a white cloud on the air.

"At least stay back," Eamonn said, unsheathing his sword just enough that it could slip free easily if he needed it.

"Oh, are you going to protect me?" Yvin said, and Eamonn could hear the smile in his voice again. "Being so big and strong and all."

"That's why I'm here," Eamonn said, clenching his jaw.

"Is it?" Yvin said, but that was the last thing he had the time to say before the dark horses were upon them, crashing down like the dark crest of a wave. Eamonn put out a warning arm between them and Yvin, who still had not gone inside. Of course they had come right to them. Why would they not come to the tent woven with golden thread that gleamed under the barest fragment of the moon?

Eamonn kept his hand hard on his sword. His breath was slowing, eyes narrowing, as he tried to take in every detail of the men, their dark horses, their layers of furs. They were definitely not soldiers of the northern king, sent down from the palace to push the Southerners back from the border; if they were, the position of the tents had been carefully calculated to ensure that their side had no authority. Neither were they from any of the alliances that kept the king in power — the houses of the north denoted by their peculiar insignias of flowers, despite the fact that, in the north, a flower might bloom one month out of twenty.

These men had nothing on their shields, and they carried no flag. Free men, roamers. Perhaps traders or bandits. Nothing to set Eamonn's teeth at ease. He could just see the gleam of their eyes through the furs wrapped around their heads; these were men used to the harshness of the north.

"Hail," he said, in Northern. "Do you ride under any banner, cousin-of-the-land?" Curiously, he felt Yvin go still and silent behind him, as if he had finally realised this situation was other to him, despite his curiosity.

His politeness brought a slight chuckle from the riders. Yes, I know, he thought, say what it is you have to say so we can move on from this.

"We know what banner you ride under, Southerner," the leader of the pack said. The reins of his horse jingled with gold tokens and bones, fluttering with red silk threads, picked from the flag of a fallen soldier. "We know who you are."

Eamonn said nothing. He tried to relax his stance a little, but did not move his hand from his sword.

"Eamonn," Yvin said, very quietly behind him, but whatever he saw in Eamonn's back caused him to fall silent for once. Eamonn's heart slowed; the movement of the wind and the snow seemed to as well. If they came for him, the first thing was to push Yvin back into the tent, no matter how hard he fell. There were five or six of them. He could hold them off enough for the other guards to arrive, he thought, and the sounds of the battle would draw them quickly, though perhaps not quick enough.

"I respect what you've done," the Northerner said, and then he smiled, a flash of white teeth against the dark furs he wore. "You're not a cousin in blood, but a cousin-of-the-land suits." And then he dismounted his horse in a fluid rush, pulling the furs from his head. Eamonn's breath stuttered in his throat; in the dark, for a moment, the man had almost looked like Maron. But it was a stranger, and Maron would never ride bannerless. This man had green eyes that caught the light, and a neatly trimmed dark beard.

"Oh, he can stay," Yvin said, and the sudden drawling warmth in his voice scorched the back of Eamonn's neck."If we're friends. If we're not friends, too."

"He can't stay," Eamonn said, but he sheathed his sword anyway. "Cousins, what brings you over the border?"

"We saw the lights," the Northerner said. "Thought it might be some of our men." He smiled again, and it was a crooked, rakish smile. Eamonn, who didn't quite believe this, cocked his head. "All right, cousin," the Northerner said, raising his hands. "Sometimes fool nobles venture too close to the border in search of a thrill, but I can see you're no fool. There'll be no trouble tonight."

"Tell him he can come in," Yvin said, and Eamonn turned to say something like are you mad? but was distracted by the sight of Yvin's lips turning blue. He was shivering from top to toe, his hands shaking badly.

"I'm not going to do that," Eamonn said, but Yvin fixed him with a hard stare, despite his trembling.

"Am I the prince or not?" he said. "Did you not swear loyalty to me?"

"You're invoking that on me?" Eamonn said, and he forced down the first blush of anger. He was not a prince of the north any more. His father had looked him in the eye and asked if he would ever try to take the throne, if he felt being the firstborn still afforded him that right.

So that was what Yvin thought too: that Eamonn still clung to his birthright, and that he would seize the throne at the first chance he had, probably for the north. Of course Yvin believed his vows meant nothing. It stung. He had known there was little trust or love between them, but Yvin was the only one who at least tried to talk to Eamonn sometimes. Gods, most days Yvin was the only person that would look him in the eye.

"Yes, I am," Yvin said. "Well?" His hard stare felt like it was entering Eamonn's eyes and pushing through his mind, all the way to the back of his skull. Eamonn had no choice but to stand aside, though it rankled him terribly.

"The prince wishes to speak with you," Eamonn said. Yvin's furious gaze was still upon him, and he found himself hesitating, scraping at the bottom of his memories of southern court etiquette. Was he allowed to look away before Yvin wanted him to? He ground his teeth and wrenched his gaze back to the Northerner.

"I thought I was speaking to the prince," the Northerner said, though his gaze did drift to Yvin, looking him up and down slowly.

"The southern prince."

"I thought I was speaking to the southern prince."

"Come inside or stay in the snow," Eamonn said. "I don't care which."

"Yes, my lord," the Northerner said, giving a mocking bow. He said something to the other men — something Eamonn deliberately did not hear, though he was sure it was about a warm bed for the night — before he ducked his head and went into the tent, his men guiding their horses towards the camp.

Yvin made to follow, but Eamonn caught his wrist, causing Yvin to turn on him like a cat that had had its tail stepped on, his eyes dropping to Eamonn's hand. Eamonn, too, was shocked that he'd had the temerity to grab Yvin, but he could not help himself.

"You were questioning my loyalty?" he said, and the sudden depth and roughness of his voice seemed to surprise them both, though he fought not to show it. "In front of them?"

"Of course I had to, if you were going to openly defy me," Yvin said, shaking his hand free of Eamonn's grip. "Are you going to break your fealty after only these scant weeks? Have you forgotten your place, Eamonn, or do you just not intend to keep it?"

"I haven't forgotten it," Eamonn said. He was still bristling, and he could see Yvin observing him, cataloguing his reactions to use against him later.

"Then you should have done as I said, and let him in," Yvin said. "You're a product of north-south hospitality. Shouldn't you be encouraging this… diplomacy?"

He ignored the mention of hospitality. Of course Yvin would call it that, when he had no idea how Eamonn had been treated by either side. "You expect me to hold my tongue and protect you from your own choices?"

"No, not at all," Yvin said. "I know you will, brother."

"You don't know anything," Eamonn said, catching himself before he could reveal exactly what Yvin didn't know. Yvin just looked at him, his eyes shining in the moonlight. Eamonn wished he had said nothing; he wished he would stop giving up parts of himself to Yvin, like scratches from a little knife, beads of blood rolling down the steel.

"It's you that doesn't know me," Yvin said. "Do as I say. If I must be scolded later, do it then. If you must be scolded later, then it will be at my hand. Don't make me report this to Father."

Eamonn went cold. If the king heard he had defied Yvin, it would be the end. The north won't have me. If the south won't have me, what else is there?

Yvin turned and went inside without a second thought, letting the tent flap fall in Eamonn's face as he tried to follow. Eamonn was left to stumble alone into the vestibule under the eye of the Northerner, who had clearly been watching Yvin pass through alone.

Even seeing him in the dim light was a shock. He bore an uncomfortable resemblance to Maron. The same hooked nose, broken once or twice, the same dark eyes, the same braided-back blond hair.

No, no. That was simply what all northern men looked like.

"What's your name?" Eamonn said, and though he deeply did not wish to, he unbuckled his sword and put it on the rack, then motioned for the Northerner to do the same.

"Marijus," he said. That made Eamonn flinch, though he tried to disguise it as a shiver. Marijus misinterpreted the gesture, thank the gods, and put his hand on his sword, slowly. "You wish me to give up my blade?"

"Southerners live by the rule of peace," Eamonn said. "It's a show of good faith."

"I had no plans to use this sword," Marijus said, putting his blade next to Eamonn's.

Don't react, he told himself. Don't even listen. Whenever the subject came up, his stomach would start to cramp, and his chest tightened. Worse than that, sometimes his vision would blur, and his ears would ring, and there was nothing he could do but disappear into his own mind. He could put up with the teasing, the mocking from other soldiers. It was better than the alternative of thinking about it at all.

"What did they use to call you?" Marijus said, unbuckling his vambraces. "Prince of the snow? I really cannot remember." His tone was light, airy, as if they didn't both know exactly what Eamonn used to be called.

"Do you wish to see my brother or not?"

"I think it's your brother that wishes to see me," Marijus said. "Is that how it works in the south? One runs hot, one runs cold?" And he looked up and down at Eamonn, clearly finding him wanting. "I never would have guessed you were brothers, apart from the looks, that is. Are you twins?"

"What do you think," Eamonn growled, his voice coming out of him like cracking ice. Marijus held up both his hands and laughed with a crooked smile.

"Patience, friend. I said in looks, not appetites," he said. "Now, I believe he wants me to come in, no matter if you wish to the contrary."

"It doesn't matter what I wish," Eamonn said, his jaw creaking. His hands were going numb not from the cold, but from squeezing them into tight fists. "Just go speak to him."

"Surely you miss the north," Marijus said, still smiling crookedly. "You were considered a brother there, too, no? Or was it — "

"Don't talk about that here," Eamonn said, his voice dropping to a furious whisper. He stepped forward into Marijus's space, and the other reacted quickly, holding his hands up and shifting back.

"All right," he said. "I'll go speak to your prince." He removed his furs, stripping down to the wool tunic most Northerners wore as their skin layer. As a warrior Eamonn could appreciate that he was in fine form, the man well-accustomed to hard work and handling a sword. The sort of man that Eamonn might take seriously in a duel, stronger and faster than any weakling like Aruwne. "He speaks Northern, then?"

"No," Eamonn said.

"Southerners!" Marijus said, rolling his eyes. "Well, less talking might be a good thing, perhaps." And then he turned and pushed into the tent proper. Eamonn could do nothing but follow; there was no way he could leave them alone together, even if it meant going without his moment to steady himself.

There was the same sensory rush there always was when he stepped inside, the scent of Yvin's perfume like a cedar forest in the spring. The light was low and the crystal fire burning hot, the difference like walking into a chamber of summer. Eamonn had to loosen his own wool and leather tunic to stop the first beads of sweat rolling down his neck.

Then there was Yvin. Of course Yvin had used their slight delay to freshen up. He was flushed, turned away from the entrance, and although he had not changed his clothes, there was something different about him. He had put on one of his golden necklaces, and earrings to match that caught the light; his eyes were outlined with dark and highlighted with gold, a light sheen of it that even ran down the collar of his shirt. He had undone his shirt further, so that if he moved a little Eamonn was sure that it would come off his shoulders, revealing his chest.

More than that, the way he moved had changed as well, a fluidity that spoke to how he might move in bed. Eamonn blinked, hard, trying to wash the thought from his mind. His stomach clenched, and he sucked in a breath that felt like it did nothing in his chest, his heart stuttering in horror.

Yvin turned, holding a decanter in one hand and two glasses in the other, and then stopped, abruptly, looking past Marijus to Eamonn. "Brother," he said, with some surprise. There was something else in his voice that Eamonn did not have the understanding to name. He was beginning to feel ill again, his whole body drawing tight and hot. There would be no end to it if he had to kneel and throw up, but the back of his throat was burning with bitter bile.

I can't be here, he thought. I have to be here. If Marijus slipped free a hidden dagger and cut Yvin's throat, there would be worse to pay than a little discomfort.

"I didn't think you'd come too," Yvin said, raising his brows, his tone gently mocking. "Honestly, Eamonn, for once you've shocked me."

"I don't — he doesn't speak Southern," Eamonn said, and it was too fast and strange, his voice coming out rough and strangled.

"That was some of the appeal, yes," Yvin said. Marijus looked between the two of them. "But I suppose it would be polite to have some initial conversation." Yvin put the wine down on the kneeling table by the crystal fire, and fetched a third cup, holding it up in Eamonn's direction. Eamonn shook his head.

"No, of course you don't drink," Yvin said, shaking his head in mocking reply. "I don't know why I offered. I've never seen you indulge in anything."

By design, Eamonn thought. "You're neglecting your guest."

"I'll make up for it later," Yvin said, indicating for Marijus to take his place at the kneeling table, which he did, though he sat northern-style, and it was Yvin who knelt politely. "Sit down, for the sake of the gods," Yvin said to Eamonn. "I'd rather not feel chaperoned if I can help it, you know."

Eamonn went to kneel, but his body betrayed him, settling him down in the northern style as well. Looking at Marijus, even if he was doing it from the corner of his eye, was worse in the dim light of Yvin's tent. The shadows changed his face as he breathed, and Eamonn was half-sure that if he spoke, it'd be Maron's voice coming from him, saying something like you didn't think you could just leave, did you? Just like that? Eamonn did not know what he could say: I had to.

But the worst of it that was he couldn't deny that, on some level, he had missed being among men of the north, even if he didn't — couldn't — think about why. They were just — he preferred the way they looked, and he had tried to mimic that in training: the way they favoured overt strength, broader shoulders, deeper chests. He just appreciated their physical abilities, that was all. That was how it had been with Maron. Or how it had started.

Yvin sighed, and poured the wine. Eamonn was painfully aware that he was destroying the atmosphere, though on some level he was glad. Perhaps his presence would dissuade Yvin from… whatever it was he meant to do.

"I've heard stories about what Southerners do in bed," Marijus said to Yvin, who blinked back guilelessly. Eamonn knew what the timbre of his voice meant. He'd heard it once or twice from Maron, when he had leaned close to Eamonn to whisper secretly to him, no matter how it made Eamonn shift uncomfortably or blush.

Eamonn's mouth twisted. His jaw was beginning to ache from keeping it clenched tight, but he found he could not stop. The muscles of his neck were sore too, for no particular reason, but he had to turn his head towards Yvin and say, "I've heard stories of what Southerners do in bed," and watch Yvin's brows knit in confusion.

"You have?" he said. "Shouldn't you know?"

"I left when I was only five summers old," Eamonn snapped, feeling the tension of a over-wound string. "And that's what he said, not me. Just pretend I'm not here."

"Easy enough," Yvin said, raising the glass of wine to his lips, and carefully leaving them red and wet. "What have you heard?"

"Is it true southern men get wet between the legs like women?" Marijus said, looking not at Eamonn but at Yvin, and then he picked up his wine glass and raised an eyebrow.

"I can't ask him that," Eamonn said, and as much as he wished it wasn't happening, he could feel his face going more red than it ever had before, a single point of burning heat amidst the warmth of the room.

"If you knew, you'd tell me yourself," Marijus said. "If you don't, then ask."

"My, there must be a lot he wants to know," Yvin said, idly tracing the edge of his glass with his fingertip and making it sing. "I'll have to provide a complete education."

"Is it true southern men get wet between the legs like women?" Eamonn said, stumbling over the words. Yvin blinked, momentarily taken aback in a way that Eamonn had never seen before. Then he smiled, his red lips parting to reveal sharp-edged teeth. He brought his hair over his shoulder and began to unbind it until it fell like a straight dark curtain of silk around his face.

"Regrettably, it's a myth," Yvin said. Marijus was watching him, eyes stroking down his face and hair like a caress. "Or, perhaps, something that appears in ancient tales. You know all about that, don't you, brother?"

"Why would I," Eamonn said, forcing the words out from his stiff jaw. "It's nothing but a story."

"Oh, dear," Yvin said, combing fingers through his hair. "Do you really know so little about how we used to be? It wasn't just that, you know, though I'm not surprised that's what he'd latch on to... Would you like to know the rest? How Southerners really used to be, before this age?"

"I'm not asking the questions," Eamonn said desperately, turning back to Marijus in the hopes Yvin would stop talking.

"Do Southerners lie with their brothers and sisters?"

Eamonn felt as if he wanted to jump out of his own skin and leave his corpse behind. It was difficult to breathe; there was a peculiar scent in the air he could not name, and a tension that hung even thicker. Yvin was moving a little, changing his position to be more comfortable, and Marijus looked like he might leap over the table at him at any moment, to draw the neck of his tunic open. It was so hot. Why was it so hot?

He reached forward without thinking, grabbing Yvin's wine glass from the table and bringing it to his lips, choking on its flavour. Yvin was watching him with quizzical, accusatory eyes, as if he could not believe what he was seeing. Eamonn swallowed a mouthful, the taste making him frown. He had not drunk for a long time; he did not like waking up in the morning with no memory of what had happened.

Drink up, little prince, Maron's voice said, far away and from long ago. Eamonn could feel Maron's fingers on his neck, brushing at Eamonn's long hair. It's almost as sweet as you are. He shivered, like cold water had dripped down the back of his spine, and pushed the sensation away.

"Control yourself, brother," Yvin hissed, using the word as a bludgeon, as always. He snatched his wine back from Eamonn's nerveless hand. "Are you going to interpret for me or not?"

"Do Southerners," Eamonn said, and then stopped. Yvin turned to him, raising his eyebrows.

"Do we what?"

I don't know anything, Eamonn thought, hard enough to silence all other thoughts, and that much was true. He had left the south when he was very young, and all he knew was the same half-truths as the rest of them, bandied about as the butt of jokes. Yes, all Southerners took ten wives and satisfied them all each night; yes, they all traded partners with their brothers and sisters, and parents, and they all did whatever else was the most shocking thing a Northerner could think of around the fire.

But Eamonn still did not know what was true and what was false, not even after having returned a year ago — because if he even began to think about it, all he could remember was the heat of Maron's touch, and a faint sense of needing to throw up.

"Do Southerners lie with their brothers and sisters?" Eamonn said, his lips feeling raw as the question left them. Yvin turned to him, and the weight of his midnight-blue gaze was too much to bear. Eamonn looked away, towards the ceiling of the tent.

"Is he really asking this?" Yvin said, and there was a sly tone to his voice that Eamonn tried to ignore. "Is this him asking?"

"Yes," Eamonn said, through gritted teeth. He could feel the direction of Yvin's attention changing, as if he was losing interest in Marijus entirely. He went hot all over, as if he had accidentally stepped into the fire, and now it was lapping at his flesh. Oh, gods, why hadn't he learned by now when to hold his tongue?

"Only if ritual demands," Yvin said, as if it meant nothing, despite Eamonn's desperate inhale. It wasn't true. It couldn't be true. Yvin was mocking him, trying to make a fool out of both ignorant Northerners. "But you know that, don't you?"

Eamonn shook his head. He was not here. None of this was happening.

"Is your education really so incomplete?" Yvin said, and he reached out to Eamonn, who flinched back.

"He says no, they don't," he said, very quickly.

"That settles one rumour, I suppose," Marijus said. He was at total ease, legs splayed, eyes burning a hole in Yvin. "He has beautiful eyes."

"You have beautiful eyes," Eamonn said. He felt light, outside of his body. Yvin was looking only at him.

"We have the same eyes, brother," he said, soft, looking at Eamonn gently. "They're the same."

"It's not me saying that," Eamonn said, desperately, but Yvin did not break his gaze.

"I think you had best go outside now," Yvin said, in a tone that was almost pitying. "I'd like it if you waited in the vestibule, if you wish to keep me safe."

"I don't want to," Eamonn said, and then shook his head, disgusted with his own petulance. "Yes, your highness," he said through numb lips, pushing himself up from the table too roughly, making the glasses rattle, ignoring Yvin calling his name until he was safely outside.

Though it was not the true outdoors, where the air was cold enough to sting the heat from his face, it was better in the vestibule. He did not have to see or hear anything. At least, not yet. There was a small mirror on the stand, just big enough, presumably, for Yvin to give himself one last look before he graced the world with his presence. Instead, Eamonn caught his own eye in it, his face flushed red and eyes dark and wild. Even his hair was in disarray. He didn't remember running his hands through it, but the combined effect looked as if he had just been — as if he had just — no. It did not bear thinking about.

He fixed his hair with shaking hands, running his fingers down his cheeks to feel the scrape of his stubble, and looked again at the man in the mirror. That's me, he thought, and then is it?

He had to shrug out of his wool and leathers, shedding the outer layers of protection until he was down to his tunic. His skin felt cold and curiously stiff, his muscles slow to shift. He had to walk back and forth in a tiny circle, just to keep from opening his mouth and letting whatever was there consume him.

There had been one night sitting at Maron's side, he dimly remembered, when the fire had burned low in the hearth as the hour drew late. One of Eamonn's friends had been there too, and when their cups had gotten low, Maron had nudged him, and Eamonn had sent his friend away.

Wasn't that what Yvin had just done?

I'm supposed to protect him, he thought, clenching his fists. He touched the cold hilt of his sword, and then Yvin's rapier, which he had never seen him use. It was so light and delicate to the touch that Eamonn doubted it could even cut a man. I'm supposed to.

Then, suddenly, a soft sound from behind the canvas wall. Eamonn shouldn't be able to hear it, but he was so attuned, so sensitive that he could even tell it was Yvin's moan, melting into laughter. Eamonn flinched, putting his hands over his ears. He didn't care who saw. He just could not hear. He absolutely could not. But he had to stay here in case Yvin called for help. He had to listen.

It would help if it wasn't Yvin. If he could just pretend it was someone he did not know. But that was Yvin, wasn't it? He'd been born five summers after Eamonn had left the south; they'd never even met until Eamonn's return. He was a stranger. Yes, family members had written to Eamonn every now and then, but there'd never been more than a mention of his younger brother.

The way he was feeling didn't make sense. He was shaking, the back of his neck quivering, as if a strange hand had gently brushed over it. The sounds were getting louder. He could hear Yvin's moans, hear the harshness of his breath, and below that, something soft and wet that hurt to listen to, that made his heart twist.

He can't like it, Eamonn thought, pacing back and forth once more. How can he like it? But there was no point lying to himself. Yvin clearly liked it. Yvin loved it. Otherwise, why would his voice be so loud, high and breathy? It sounded like he was in pain, but Eamonn knew that he wasn't. He knew how it sounded when someone did not like this.

He clamped his hands harder over his ears, digging his fingernails into his skin. He was meant to be the eldest; he was meant to be the one who led the rest of them, but he could not even handle this. Would it be so bad to run out into the night, into the chill of the snow? Would it be so bad to curl up under a frozen blanket and never return?

He felt sick and shaken all over, like if he moved he might vomit. But he could not escape the sounds. He shouldn't be able to hear so clearly. The bed was at the other side of the tent, after all, but he couldn't help listening. He paced back and forth, digging his fingers into his head, but — but some part of him demanded to know. Maybe it was Maron's lingering touch, or worse, maybe it wasn't. He bit into his tongue until he tasted blood, his stomach clenching tight and hot. He didn't want to listen. But — he could hear Yvin's voice murmuring something, and he was compelled to step closer until his fingertips, fallen away from his ears, were grazing the canvas of the tent.

"Too much," Yvin said, and his voice shattered into a high moan, as if he was totally succumbing to pleasure. At least, that was Eamonn's guess. His face was red as he turned his ear towards the canvas, and he felt sick and hot all at the same time. He was just listening to keep Yvin safe. His breath was harsh, his chest burning with pain. "It's too big, it's too much."

He could hear the slick, wet sound of it. Worse, he knew that sound. He'd tried to forget. At first he'd tried to leach the memories of their power by revisiting them; then he'd tried pushing them down, until it had brought him low with a fever, but he had never — allowed himself to indulge in them. He told himself he had forgotten, but he remembered everything, every sound, every touch, even the sound of Maron being — inside him, Maron touching the back of his neck, and saying darling, with a kind of wonderment that made Eamonn as hot as it did sick.

He had to hold himself still to avoid making any kind of movement that meant anything. He held his breath. Then, under all of it, under the terrible thump of his own heart, he heard it. He heard Yvin say, "Stop." And then, louder, riding on the edge of a pained moan, "Stop, it's too big," his voice rising and shattering Eamonn like ice.

Several things happened at once. The string between them was missing; he could not remember picking up his dagger, but he realised it was in his hand, clenched so tight his fingers ached. He could not remember pushing back into the warmth of Yvin's tent, with its dim light and smell of sex, and he could not remember taking the steps across to Yvin's canopied bed, but he was there all the same.

If he'd stopped to think, he never would have taken that first step, because he did not want to see what he was seeing. He didn't want to see Yvin's face crumpled in pain, twisted up, his mouth open. But was it pain? His hands were clenching in his sheets, and it was only when Eamonn got his hands around Marijus's neck, his dagger a cold threat at his throat and Marijus's hips stilling in shock, that Yvin opened his eyes.

"Get out," Eamonn said, pulling Marijus off Yvin, trying to ignore that he could see everything — he could see Yvin's splayed legs, his hard cock, his wet hole — because all he could do, for a moment so brief he could push it down later, was look.

No. He had to get out. He had to get Marijus out. What he'd done was unforgivable. But he could not move; he had gone numb and strange all over, as if he was looking at himself through a long, dark tunnel with a mirror at the end, and a figure that mimicked his movements. His body was shaking, and he could not make it move — run, it said, and he was close to powerless under the instruction. Run to the highest, coldest tower, where no one dares to follow you —

"What are you doing?" Marijus said, and Yvin was calling his name, but Eamonn could barely hear it. His vision was burning red, and he dragged Marijus out of the tent, hearing his surprised yelp at Eamonn's superior strength. He threw him out into the snow, and stood over him, feeling no cold on his stockinged feet, only the pure heat of rage engulfing him. The guards on the outskirts of the tent circle startled, but Eamonn raised his hand. This was northern business. This was his business.

"Get your men and get out of here," Eamonn said, and he could not hear his own words when he spoke, only the thump of his heart, the shake of his breath. "If I see you here again, I'll kill you myself."

"You're mad," Marijus said. He sounded even more like Maron when he was angry, his accent thickening. Their faces blurred together as Eamonn fought it, blinking stinging sweat from his eyes. It was — he knew better than to ever, ever make Maron angry. He cringed back, expecting a strike or something worse, but it was just Marijus shrugging back into his furs. Eamonn fought to retain his equilibrium, grasping at the threads of his fury to keep himself upright. Marijus was looking at Eamonn as if he truly was mad now. "You saw him, he wanted it."

Red. Nothing but red. He grabbed Marijus by his furs and threw him backwards, where he landed with a painful thump, ungainly on his back. "If I see you, if I see any bannerless men on this side of the border, I will not stop until I've killed every last one. You know who I am. You know what I've done. Get your men."

Something in what he said must have struck fear into Marijus, because he did as Eamonn said. Eamonn did not, could not move — despite the burning cold in his feet, spreading to the rest of his body — until the dark horses had crested the hill. Only once they had vanished did he bark orders to the guards to keep watch, and turn back towards Yvin's tent.

He stood outside for a moment more. He knew exactly what it would be like in there. He knew that Yvin would be limp and dead-eyed, and it would take long hours for him to come back to himself, raising a weary head, alone, cold, with the fire burned down. At the very least, Eamonn could make sure that he was not alone. He reentered the tent with a speed and lack of hesitation he had never shown before, ducking his head with terror clawing at the back of his throat at the thought of seeing Yvin so lifeless, so crushed.

Instead, Yvin was sitting on the end of his bed, clad only in midnight-blue silk pooled around his waist, running his hands through his hair.

"If you're going to interrupt, you better have the courage to finish the job yourself," he said, eyes flashing with what looked like rage. Eamonn was stunned speechless, standing there dripping with snowmelt on the threshold. Walking back into the heat of the room was like getting hit in the face, like taking a blow to his shield that rattled his whole body. It was like reaching his limit, and knowing that whatever came next would be the last.

"What do you mean?" Eamonn said. He couldn't focus; his thoughts and eyes were jumping around in equal measure, his arms shaking. He searched Yvin's face and found only a blade of anger directed directly towards him. There was no pain, no hot shame, nothing but annoyance.

"I said," Yvin said, through clenched teeth, "if you take issue, fine, say what you like, but don't interrupt me."

"But I heard…" Eamonn said, and he was turning cold and pale with shock, the blood in his body rejecting its flow, turning against itself.

"Don't stand so godsdamn close if you don't want to hear," Yvin said, and the angry shake of his body threatened to shift the silk from his lap. Eamonn would have to look again, he knew, have no choice but to look at Yvin's red, hard cock, and the wetness between his legs, just as Marjius had said, just like a woman. Thank the gods he wasn't like that, he thought wildly, even though he knew it was just oil. If he was a true Southerner like that — Maron might never have stopped. He would not think of Maron. He would not think about how he knew what it felt like to be freshly fucked.

"I heard what you said," Eamonn said, but he could tell his words weren't getting through to Yvin at all.

"What, does it offend you that I like a big cock?" Yvin said. "Or does it simply offend you to know my preferences? I like them big, Eamonn, my brother. I like them big enough that it hurts a little, you know? Oh, no, I suppose you wouldn't."

"You said no," Eamonn said, and his voice could barely raise over a broken whisper. He was losing the ability to stand, his legs threatening to fold underneath him. Had he imagined it? Had he wanted to hear it? He did lose strength, then, and crouched on the ground, wobbling. "He couldn't understand what you said, but you said to stop. I heard you."

"I know he couldn't understand me," Yvin said, with the condescension of explaining an elementary concept to a particularly stupid child. "I don't have to inform you of my preferences, but there's a thrill in telling someone to stop and having them continue." Eamonn watched Yvin shiver with that thrill, going through his whole body. It made him feel ill and deeply strange, as if his body was crumbling from the inside out. He knew what that felt like, and it certainly had no thrill. Of course, Maron had preferred it if he had made no sound at all; the no and his refusal of it were implicit. Maron knew best, after all.

"Right," Eamonn said, attempting an approximation of a nod, but his head just bounced up and down frenetically. He bit his tongue, hard.

"Aren't you going to apologise?" Yvin said, and now his voice was as slippery and soft as the midnight-blue silk. "Brother?"

"Yes," Eamonn said, and he couldn't stop shivering now, his body rebelling against him. He was ice-cold from head to toe, and his eyes stung with something he could not name. His body was moving, but it was not of his own volition; he was outside of it, looking down as it reached out and fetched a bowl from the side table next to him, and politely vomited in it, the bile scorching his throat, the retches loud and all-consuming, straining every muscle in his body.

When he could hear and think and see again, Yvin was standing in front of him, the silk robe firmly knotted at his waist. He put a warm hand on the side of Eamonn's face, and for the barest moment Eamonn allowed himself to lean into it, feeling like a beaten dog accepting a touch from a kinder master. It took what felt like hours of effort to stand, his muscles frozen and stiff. If — if Yvin was done with him, there was nowhere else to go. Nothing to do.

He sucked in a slow breath, pushing everything down until it was locked away again. Then he pulled away and stepped back from Yvin and pulled his hands behind his back, knotting his fingers together and digging his nails into his flesh, hard.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"You don't have to apologise," Yvin said, quietly. His voice was soft and gentle, and it paradoxically made Eamonn flinch. He'd never heard Yvin sound like that before.

"I do," Eamonn said, and his voice was thick and slow; he had to force his tongue around the suddenly unfamiliar syllables. "I apologise for interrupting you, your highness. It won't happen again."

I will do it this time, he thought. I'll go into the snow and let the ice claim me.

"Sit down," Yvin said, firmly enough that Eamonn had no choice but to obey. Yvin ushered him to the end of the bed, and Eamonn noticed before he sat that the sheets were firmly and neatly made, as if they had never been disturbed at all. "It's rare for me to get something so wrong, you know," Yvin said. When Eamonn was sitting, they were of a height, and Yvin put his warm hands on Eamonn's shoulders — his grip tightened when Eamonn tried to twist back from the contact — and looked Eamonn right in the eye, not allowing him to cringe away. "Perhaps I've misjudged you. I thought your aversion due to ignorance or prejudice, but it's not that, is it?"

Eamonn shook his head. His heart was going to explode. Its beats were shaking his chest, and he didn't know how Yvin hadn't noticed. No — forget. It hadn't happened. It hadn't. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"The same thing I'm always talking about," Yvin said, with a flat amusement. "Sex, Eamonn. You can barely stand to think about it, can you? I thought it was just me, as if we had some sort of ideological disagreement."

Eamonn shook his head with that same broken, jerking motion, unable to soothe the tension in his neck, muscles refusing to work. He spared a brief thought that he was sitting on Yvin's bed in clothes he had sweated terribly in, not to mention the dampness where the snow had settled on his shoulders and in his hair. He was drifting again, and did not come back to himself until Yvin took him by the chin with a gentle, warm hand and turned Eamonn's face towards his eyes again.

"Someone did something to you, didn't they?" Yvin said, very soft.

Eamonn hated it; for the briefest of moments he truly hated Yvin, who would slight him by speaking to him out of pity, and that rage felt like opening an old scar across his heart, spilling rotten blood through his chest. This was real, wasn't it? This was really happening. Yvin might as well have cut him deep and kept on cutting until his hands were covered in Eamonn's blood. It was the same whether he did it with words or a knife, though Eamonn wished for the knife.

"No," Eamonn said, because it was all he could say. Nothing had happened to him. Nothing that he had not had the power to stop. That was the worst part. Knowing that was the part which made his guts always feel like there was something jagged inside them, that ripped and tore at the core of him.

"We may not know each other truly," Yvin said, and he was still holding on to Eamonn's chin, his fingers a warm counterpoint to the chill of Eamonn's body, "but surely you can trust me, if nothing else. We're blood, aren't we?"

Eamonn nodded, because that was all that he could do.

"It helps to talk about these things, I think," Yvin said. "But you have to know, with me, I am awake. I know exactly what I want."

Confusion reigned in Eamonn's mind. "I knew you were awake," he said, and he frowned. It felt like pulling the stiff leather of his face into an unnatural position. "I heard you speaking. That led to this."

"Right," Yvin said, very slowly, and then for a moment he said nothing, and simply looked down at Eamonn as if he was trying to undo a difficult knot. "No, you're right." He let go of Eamonn's face slowly, his thumb slipping over the line of his jaw. "I should apologise. I had certain misconceptions of you. I suppose it's because you left very early, didn't you?"

Eamonn nodded again. It was like the inside of his head had been emptied and filled again with thick tufts of wool, and it was very difficult to think past them.

Yvin had moved back over to his table where his wine bottles stood, and Eamonn watched as he delicately touched them one after another, frowning. After a long moment, he realised that Yvin had asked him a question.

"I left when I was five summers old," he said. His voice rasped as if someone had cut his throat.

"So your education would have been all northern," Yvin said, absently. He was using a little of his magic as he worked, to heat water for what looked like southern tea. Eamonn knew Yvin was just making him talk, and acting as if he was not, but at least he wasn't making him talk about that.

"I don't remember much," Eamonn said, running his hand over his face and scratching at his beard. It was kind of Yvin to redirect like this, even though Eamonn wasn't sure why he seemed to care.

"If you don't know, let me say now that I can take care of myself," Yvin said, his back to Eamonn. "I have my magic, and other things."

"Your magic is the magic of a hearth witch," Eamonn said, without thinking. Yvin stiffened, and turned to look at him out of the corner of his eye — was he upset? Eamonn fought the instinct to fall to his knees. "I mean — I don't mean it in that way. I meant only that it wouldn't… It's not the magic of a war mage."

"I see what you're saying," Yvin said, after a moment, expression calm again. "And you yourself? I haven't heard you talk about it, but you're of the royal bloodline, after all."

"I never came to it," Eamonn said. The chill in his body wasn't fading, despite the warmth of the room. It was like he could feel the core of ice in his body and the heat of the room as perfectly separate things, like an over-hot blanket tossed over his body that was doing nothing to warm him. "I don't know if that means anything."

"It might," Yvin said, too light. He came back to Eamonn with a glass, which Eamonn flinched back from on instinct — but then he saw that it contained not wine, but just water, and took it gratefully. "Or it might not."

"Why do you ask?"

"Mere curiosity," Yvin said, settling on the bed next to him with his tea. Eamonn was faintly grateful that Yvin had not given him the southern tea; he still didn't have a taste for it. Another faint memory surfaced, though he forced it down — Maron saying, don't you know how to properly say thank you? "Drink your water."

Eamonn did, under Yvin's careful eye. Yvin had warmed it like they did in the north, and the line of heat it drew down into his stomach was most welcome indeed. They sat in a semi-companionable silence for a few moments, Yvin looking pointedly at him until he finished the water, and then he took the glass back and put it on the table. Yvin's stare continued even longer, until Eamonn was shifting in his seat. He didn't know what Yvin wanted from him.

"We haven't talked as much as I'd like," Yvin eventually said, breaking the silence only when it became apparent that Eamonn was not going to speak; all he could do was look down at his hands in his lap, which did not look like they belonged to him at all. "I would like to hear about the north from you," Yvin continued, smiling crookedly. He was looking at Eamonn with a scrutiny that made him uncomfortable, and he shifted his weight a little. "Did you have friends there? People you'd rather not have left behind?"

"I don't know," Eamonn said, feeling curiously slip-tongued. Some of the warmth of the room was finally managing to get under his skin with an odd, jittery sensation. He was beginning to feel strange in a way he could not quite explain, as if the edges of the world were becoming rose-tinted and hazy. "I don't think anyone is missing me, if that's what you mean. Just as I don't think anyone missed me when I left either."

"People used to talk about you all the time," Yvin said, and when Eamonn turned to look at him, the movement of his body feeling strange and slow, there was something in the back of his eyes that Eamonn could not name. He didn't quite dare to guess what it was. He looked down again, biting at his lips, and then back up. Yvin was smiling now, but the strange look had not gone away, and the smile did not reach his eyes.

There was something new about him, as if he had added glitter on his cheeks. If he had put make-up on just then, Eamonn hadn't noticed it. The little stars were everywhere, he thought, turning his head slowly around. They were on the walls of the tent, on the sheets of Yvin's bed, glittering on the tips of Eamonn's fingers, and when he moved his hand in the air, they bloomed and died in the dim light.

"Why are there stars in here?" he said, opening and closing his hand to watch the lights sparkle.

"You didn't finish what you were saying," Yvin said, and he had moved a little closer when Eamonn wasn't looking. There were glittering stars caught in his eyelashes, and blooming in the dark blue of his eyes.

"What?" Eamonn said. He was finding it more and more difficult to focus, the lights leaving little trails as he moved and blinked, streaking the back of his eyes. "What was I saying?"

"You were telling me about your friends in the north," Yvin said, drawing closer still.

"I was telling you about Maron?"

"That's right."

Eamonn frowned. He had sworn never to talk about Maron, but somehow Yvin knew about him. Had he said something when he hadn't meant to? He was usually so careful not to make slips of the tongue. He rubbed his hand over his face; it wasn't that he didn't remember it, but things were so fuzzy, as if someone had wrapped a warm blanket around his face, cutting off his air. It felt nice in a way he couldn't explain, but also strange.

"I've always known Maron," he said, and he sighed. Maybe Yvin was right, that it helped to talk; even saying that felt like a heavy weight slipping off the back of his shoulders, as if he was shedding his armour after a long day. "Always. Ever since I came to the north, he was always there."

"A friend?" Yvin said, and he was close enough now that Eamonn could feel his slight weight dipping the mattress, and he could somehow feel the warmth of him up and down his side, as if Yvin was pressed against him. When Yvin spoke, his voice made the air tremble, and painted colours like an aurora behind Eamonn's eyes.

"Um. I don't know if he was ever my friend." He laughed because he had to, but it was awkward and painful even to his own ears, like the rasp of metal against metal.

"Something more?" The colours behind his eyes changed, to warm reds, honey-thick.

Yvin was determined to drag it out of him, then, and he was — he was not good at refusing. "He helped me when I first arrived," Eamonn said, his tongue thick like a dead thing in his mouth. "I was nothing to them, just something to keep so that the king didn't attack. Maron taught me the language, taught me to fight. He practically raised me."

"Really?" Yvin said, and when he spoke, it changed the light of the room. Eamonn could feel it, as if he was standing under gentle rain. It made him shiver, goosebumps rising across his arms. He realised with a start that he was less dressed than he preferred to be, his wrists and forearms exposed to the air. It had been a long time since he'd been in this state in the company of another person. He usually bathed with his eyes closed.

"He taught me the sword and the bow," Eamonn said, letting his eyes slip closed until he was in the comfort of the dark. "Taught me northern customs, northern legends."

"So you never thought about the south?" Yvin said, and there was a hidden touch of bitterness in his voice that would have gone unnoticed if Eamonn couldn't see the colours of his emotions, like a thin thread of blue woven into a silver cloth. "You never thought about us at all?"

Eamonn hesitated. This conversation had taken a turn he did not like, and the stars around him were beginning to fall, leaving little trails as they shattered against the ground.

After a moment Yvin just laughed, a shivery, silver thing like a braid of tiny bells. "I'm sorry, I misspoke," he said, calm and warm once more. His voice felt like a feather being dragged lightly across the nape of Eamonn's neck, making him shiver and roll his shoulders. It felt like being laid back down in a field of flowers, their petals skimming over his naked skin. He had never felt like this before, compelled to run his hands over the silk of Yvin's sheets, back and forth until he lost his train of thought.

"Did you and Maron ever fight?"

"No," Eamonn said, immediately, without thought. And then, "Yes, a little. I was too northern and also trying too hard to be southern, and most people didn't like that very much. An imposter in the nest. Amongst other things."

"Was it him?"

"Was it him what?"

"Was it him that did something you didn't like?"

"I don't know what you mean," Eamonn said. Parts of his body were beginning to ripple on the inside, like Yvin had cast a handful of pebbles into a pond. He didn't know what Yvin meant. He had to not know what Yvin meant. "He was — he is — to me he was a mentor."

"How did it start?"

"Nothing happened," Eamonn said, his voice coming out in a rough whisper. "Nothing at all."

"What was the first thing?"

"There was no first thing."

"How old were you?"

How old had he been? He could not even remember a point where it had truly started. It felt like Maron had always been there. Maron was the only one who had ever understood him, who had ever cared about him. That was right, wasn't it?

I should never have come back here, he thought. There was faint, strange music coming from somewhere, a continuous note that was rising and falling in time with his breaths, his chest heaving. It felt like a terrible wave of ice-cold water was building up behind his chest — one that would break hard against his lungs and heart, knocking them into his ribs. He sucked in a breath that seemed to do nothing at all, thin and airless. "It wasn't anything. It wasn't anything. Everything was different then."

Yvin's voice was very close and low, and it was mixed with a phantom sensation like there were ants crawling on his skin, dipping in and out of the fabric. "What was different?"

"Me," Eamonn said, and grimaced, biting down on his tongue to try and stop the flow of words. But the pain failed to cleanse his mind. "I was younger, I, I didn't look like I do now, I was skinner. I looked like you."

"Like me?" Yvin said, and there was surprise in his voice that Eamonn hadn't expected. "You looked like me?"

"I was s-skinny and young, and I barely knew what was happening, I didn't understand at first when he — when it started."

A rush of shame went over him, burning hot. He had never spoken about this. He had barely even allowed himself to think about it. Now he could almost feel it all over again, the warm hand on his hip, a touch that lingered a moment more than it ought. The first few times he had thought Maron had absentmindedly brushed against him, or perhaps things were just like this in the north. Everything else was different, after all.

"My hip," he said, and he could feel those ghostly hot fingers touching him again, and then he couldn't breathe, his chest hitching. "M-my waist." He had been like Yvin there, skinny enough that if he tried, Maron could probably have wrapped both his hands around it. He could feel them now, those hot fingers on his waist, though they weren't quite right, smaller than he remembered. Oh, gods, the worst parts about what had happened was how good some of it had felt, and those fingers brought it all back, like they were drawing all the memories to the surface of his skin. The velvet darkness of keeping his eyes closed was beginning to lose what little safety it had had.

He couldn't even bring himself to say the next part, afraid that he'd stutter. The word that came to mind was a northern word that Yvin wouldn't even understand, and especially not the implications of it, the way it was used.

"Where else?" Yvin said, and Eamonn jumped. His voice sounded a lot closer than he had expected, as if his mouth was right at Eamonn's ear. He could almost feel the softness of it. For some reason Eamonn was hot, too hot. Yvin always kept his tent too warm, as if he missed the burning summers of the south, but this was different. It was coming from inside Eamonn, a burning core in his body that he could not quell. It wasn't supposed to be like this, was it?

"Here?" Yvin said, and Eamonn once again felt it, as if Maron was touching him once more, the trace of warm fingers against the curve of his neck. He shivered. The stars behind his eyes were changing, blooming into different colours, falling against him like rain. He could not parse the physical sensations. Was this what talking was meant to be like?

"Or here?" A feather brushed over his neck, and he inhaled sharply. It felt like the faintest brush. It felt like the ends of Yvin's hair, soft and silky. No, not there, not at the beginning. Maron had been careful, so careful to make it seem like it was all in Eamonn's imagination, and he still had doubts.

I didn't think of you that way, Maron had said, looking at Eamonn in the dark of a dim candle. Truly, you were more like a son to me until you — and then Maron had looked away, conflicted, and Eamonn had felt his guts writhe with shame. The sting of it was as strong now as it had been then; he'd been the one to twist things, he knew. He swallowed, slow.

"No?" Yvin said, and his voice was very low, as if it was coming just from his throat. "Here?"

The sensation moved to his chest, a phantom brush over his nipples, and he jerked back in shock, falling backwards through a seemingly endless void before he hit the bed, the air knocking out of his lungs. He had fallen back into a field of flowers with a hard thump, a haze of golden pollen rising in the air around him. Pollen that smelled like Yvin's perfume, a cloud of fresh cedar with a hint of southern tea. He couldn't stand it. It was too strong, every breath sending it further up his nose, down his throat into his lungs.

"It feels good to talk about it, doesn't it?" Yvin said, and Eamonn's mind stuttered over the words. It wasn't what he had expected Yvin to say; something about the words wasn't right. It didn't feel good. It felt awful, like something inside his stomach was being torn apart, as if he had swallowed a knife and it was working its way down his throat with every word, settling in his belly until he was spitting blood instead of words.

And yet. And yet there was still this strange warmth inside him that was turning into something else, that felt as if his hands were being licked by flames, a rush in his blood that was being sent around his whole body. Something heavy and warm pinned his hips, as if a thick blanket had been thrown over him.

He shifted; he could hear the sound of shifting fabric, and with a sudden flash of clarity he realised he could feel hands on the muscles of his stomach, brushing down over his hips. His eyes flew open, the colours of the world too sharp and overwhelming. He wanted to put his hands up over his eyes, but his arms were too heavy, and trying to move them made his head swim. He could only lift them a little, and then they flopped back onto the bed, useless and exhausted.

The weight on his hips was Yvin. Yvin. How could it be Yvin? He'd thought — somewhere, deep within him, he'd opened his eyes expecting to see Maron, though Maron was heavier, and would have pinned him with his weight. Yvin didn't need superior weight to pin him; the shock of the sight did it for him. Yvin was sitting on him as if it was the most natural thing in the world, his silk robe slipped over his shoulders, his hair over his skin like black earth against snow.

"What are you doing?" Eamonn said, and his words sounded strange to himself, as if he was drunk. But he hadn't been drunk in a long, long time. Nothing good had ever come of it.

"I'm trying to help you," Yvin said, and he leaned forward and put his hands on Eamonn's bare waist again. When had he taken off his shirt? He had no memory of it. He did not ever take off his shirt except to bathe, and a mere glance down at his chest made his vision swim. Whatever Maron had done had changed him, made his body want things he did not want, made his nipples look big against his chest — especially when they were hard and tight as they were now.

No, no, no. This couldn't be happening.

"Get off me," he said. His whole face was a burning ember fetched directly from the fire. He tried to twist, tried to buck Yvin off, but there was no strength in his body, no way he could escape from Yvin's hands, and their firm grip on his waist. Yvin was small. That was an indisputable fact. Eamonn was bigger, stronger, older, but there was nothing he could do. It felt like there was blood welling under his skin, pushing to the surface, about to split the skin. "Yvin, get off me." He sounded plaintive, weak; he couldn't summon any force into his words.

"It really wasn't your fault," Yvin said, as he slid his hands up Eamonn's stomach to his chest. Eamonn bared his teeth and rocked back and forth, trying to move, trying to get away, but all that did was jostle Yvin a little, in a way that made him flush as if he was wine-drunk and bite at his bottom lip. "It's not your fault no one ever told you. They didn't know."

"Know what?" Eamonn said, and only by the force of his anger did he manage to move a little, the back of his left hand knocking at Yvin's thigh.

"Come on," Yvin said. "What did Maron do next?"

"Get off," Eamonn said. "This has nothing to do with you. Nothing at all."

"You'll feel better, I promise," Yvin said, and he was stroking Eamonn's chest with an impossibly soft hand, leaning down over him until Eamonn was sheltered by the curtain of his hair. "I promise," he whispered into Eamonn's ear. "It'll be for your own good." The touch of his hair was a maddening whisper across Eamonn's skin.

It's for your own good. Maron had said that to him; though the words had been different, the tone was the same. Little prince, it'll be for your own good. He could feel Maron's breath at his ear, the way that he always held Eamonn's head so that he couldn't move, right before he kissed him. Oh, gods, he couldn't stand it. He couldn't stop trying to wriggle away, trying to get free of his own body, though even Yvin's slight weight was keeping him pinned.

"You're mad," Eamonn gasped. Yvin touched his neck again, sliding his fingers over it, and then up to his face, gently taking hold of his chin once more.

"Maybe to you," Yvin said, and there was something about how calm he was that was deeply unsettling. Eamonn was only able to meet his midnight-blue eyes for a mere second. Yvin bent his head and pressed his nose into the juncture of Eamonn's neck and shoulder, inhaling deeply as his hair slipped over Eamonn's face and neck, like the touch of a gossamer lover. "You smell really good," he said, and there was a catch in his voice that Eamonn could not quite identify.

Eamonn cringed away, trying to turn away from Yvin's gaze. There was nothing he could do. Worse than that, it didn't matter if there was. He knew that he would do nothing to stop it, and it made bitter bile rise at the back of his throat, until he wanted to choke on it just to make this end.

Then Yvin turned his head and there was a moment where Eamonn had no idea what was happening, until he realised it was the warm, wet drag of Yvin's mouth across his own unresponsive lips, leaving behind a hot tingle as Eamonn twisted away, managing only to jerk his head a little and redirect Yvin's lips onto his cheek, in a parody of a brotherly kiss.

"You're my brother," he spat out in harsh gasps, trying to temper his breath, to regain some control. "You're my brother."

"If you really felt that way, would you be hard?" Yvin said, a hint of a laugh in his voice. The whole world was nothing more than what existed inside the black curtain of Yvin's hair.

"I'm not," Eamonn said, though the lie fell flat, and Yvin really did laugh, sitting up in a swift motion that brought cool air all across Eamonn's front, making him shiver and flinch. Yvin's body caught the light, and he tried to look and not look at the same time. The stars were clustered across his skin, his whole body luminous with them, and then there were two sparks on his chest that were not stars at all but jewellery, his nipples pierced through with metal. Eamonn went hot and cold at the same time.

"I do understand you, for all you might think I don't," Yvin said, leaning back on his haunches. "But I didn't think you were this divorced from your own self, from your own body." And then he leaned back further, and settled his ass over the hard length of Eamonn's cock, smiling as if he had gotten away with stealing something.

"No," Eamonn said, and it came out as a desperate whisper. With all of his might, he tried to buck Yvin off, but his body just rolled, pushing up against Yvin, who made a high, breathy noise. His eyes went soft and half-lidded, and he reached up and drew his hair back. "Stop."

"I'm trying to help you," Yvin said again, and the worst part was he sounded serious, looking down at Eamonn like he was a thing to be pitied. "Later, you'll thank me, I promise."

Eamonn shook his head as much as he could, and closed his eyes, hard. He could feel hot tears dripping down the side of his face, and Yvin leaned closer, wiping them away with gentle fingers.

"It'll be all right," he said, and kissed the side of Eamonn's face, ignoring his shiver, his tremble. Eamonn felt the hot flick of Yvin's tongue tasting the tears, and he cringed away in shock. "Brothers should look after each other, no?" Yvin turned his head to the side and slid down Eamonn's body, pressing his ear to his chest as if to listen to the beat of his heart. "Tell me what he did to you."

Eamonn flinched as if Yvin had flicked cold water on his naked chest. Yvin was warm, so warm, and that was the worst part — that it had been so, so long since he'd been touched by anyone.

"I can tell he used to touch you here," Yvin said, looking up at Eamonn through the curtain of his hair. He flicked his tongue against the edge of Eamonn's nipple and it went through him like a shock of lightning, hard and fast through his whole body, his legs seizing up, his toes curling, and all he could do is squeeze his eyes closed and think it doesn't feel good, it doesn't feel good, and he could feel the vibration of Yvin's soft laughter through where their bodies were connected. "I can tell someone tried to develop you," Yvin said. "Come on, tell me."

He sealed his lips together as firmly as he could. Yvin looked up at him again, and Eamonn could feel his midnight-blue eyes carving through his resolve. Maybe. Maybe if he just answered a little, Yvin would be satisfied.

"I — " His voice was trembling, and he sounded incredibly weak to his own ears. "I can't — I don't know how to say it in Southern."

"Hmm," Yvin said, and just the touch of his breath on Eamonn's nipple was unbearable, some part of him yearning for something rough, something to knock the breath and thoughts out of him. "He liked your chest a lot, I can tell that. Even now your body remembers."

"No," Eamonn said. He'd worked so hard to make sure his body forgot, to overcome its wants so that he never woke in the morning hard, so that he never dreamed of Maron, or the heat of another next to him.

"I can see it, even if you can't," Yvin said. "I think it would hurt less if you accepted it. If you're not going to tell me, I'm going to start guessing."

"Please don't," Eamonn said. "Isn't this enough? Hasn't this been enough?"

"No, not at all," Yvin said. "This is just the beginning. It's strange, you know. It's like I can see fingerprints all over you."

"Stars," Eamonn said, without meaning to. Yvin eyed him curiously.

"Your mouth," Yvin said, voice rough. "Tell me what he did to your mouth." His eyes dropped to Eamonn's lips, and he could not help but bite at them, try and twist his head away from the power of Yvin's gaze.

"He used to look at it," Eamonn said, and when he closed his eyes, hard, the stars bloomed in the darkness again. Being pinned by Yvin's warm body was beginning to feel strange, as if he was floating in a warm endless ocean. The thing about Maron was — every time Maron had done something — no. He squashed the thought. "Especially when he was drinking."

"Would he drink often?" Yvin said, and slowly pushed himself up until their mouths were level again. Yvin's lips were red and plush, and as Eamonn watched him, he ran the tip of his pink tongue across his bottom lip.

"No," Eamonn said. The movement of Yvin's hair, the edge of his silk robe against his chest, was very distracting, and Eamonn could not hold thoughts in his head, because he did not want to hold these thoughts in his head. But even so, without moving his head, he could smell northern ice wine, the sweet, heady smell of it, thick like syrup. It wasn't coming from Yvin. It was only from his memories.

"Special occasions," Yvin said, and he put his thumb on Eamonn's bottom lip, and just that slight pressure made him open his mouth as if Yvin had put a key to a welcoming door, Yvin's thumb sliding in with no resistance. Fuck, Eamonn thought, but he couldn't resist the pressure, the sensation of Yvin against his tongue, the clean taste of his skin. Yvin pressed forward further, deeper, with a terribly slow slide along the length of Eamonn's tongue, and when he reached the back, that was when it happened; that was when his body betrayed him. It had been so long. So long that he'd forgotten what it was like, when he shuddered and then relaxed all over, as if he was melting down onto a beach, the hot sand pressing up into his back, as if each of his muscles gave up and surrendered.

He saw the light in Yvin's eyes change, flickering with surprise. Eamonn felt, for the barest moment, very small, and he barely managed to resist closing his mouth around Yvin's thumb, and instead just feebly moved his tongue against it. He heard the sound he made, the softest, most pathetic little sound, and he knew Yvin heard it, pulling his thumb to the side to force Eamonn's mouth open. He heard the whimper he made as if it came from someone else, as if his younger self had inexplicably become present.

"Oh, you're easy," Yvin said, and Eamonn could see the shock in his eyes. Eamonn wanted to deny it, but he had gone so red just at the words, just at Yvin's tone, that all he could do was look away. "I didn't think — I didn't think you liked it."

"I didn't," Eamonn whispered, and Yvin slipped his thumb free of his mouth. "I hated it. I hated all of it."

"No, you didn't," Yvin replied, and he put his hand on Eamonn's neck and kissed him again, this time with the hot lick of his tongue dipping into Eamonn's mouth, sending a rush of heat down his body. He reached behind himself, and Eamonn felt his hand on his chest, on his stomach, slowly working backwards, working down, until he had to move his body. Yvin's hand was grazing across Eamonn's cock, brushing across the fabric. Eamonn groaned. No, no, no. It didn't feel good. He didn't like it.

He'd thought about killing Maron for a long time, idly, in his dreams, at the back of his head. But he never had. He'd let Maron do whatever he liked to him. Turnabout was fair play, wasn't it? He'd never done anything, but he'd thought it, over and over again. Maron was fond of bringing him onto the battlements, and one good, hard shove would have sent him over. He'd never have seen it coming. Maron also often fell asleep in bed after — after a long night, and Eamonn always had his knife. It would have been a moment's work, and yet he'd done nothing.

"Did you like it when he touched you here?" Yvin said, putting more pressure on Eamonn until he made a harsh, choked-off sound, and found that he was able to move fractionally. But his traitorous hips only pushed up into Yvin's hand, and he turned his head away, feeling more hot tears slip through his eyelids. "Did you ask for it?"

"No."

"He just took it?"

"He never touched me there."

"Never?" Yvin said, a touch of reproach in his voice. "Ever? That's not very nice." And then he slipped the rest of the way down, his hair striking sparks against Eamonn's chest, and Eamonn felt the hot flick of his tongue against his stomach, and flinched. "I just want to see it," Yvin said, and Eamonn could feel the lie in the movement of his lips against his skin, his hands delicate as he freed Eamonn's cock, and whistled low.

"No wonder you've never been with a woman," he said, looking up at Eamonn through his long, long lashes. "You'd scare them off."

Eamonn looked down at him, meeting his knowing eyes for the barest second he could stand, and then he turned away, biting at his own tongue, hoping for a spark of pain to jolt him free of the prison of his mind. He tried not to think about his own cock, let alone look at it; he barely touched it except when necessary. And there was Yvin, looking at it as if he was doing more than just looking — as if he was appreciating it, as if he was hungry for it, his mouth sliding open a little so that Eamonn could see his pink tongue, the tips of his teeth.

"Please don't," he said, but the protest was a fraction slower and less vehement than before. It was like Yvin's thumb was still in his mouth, still pressing down at the root of his tongue, sending golden poison all around his whole body. He knew he was hard. He knew his body was responding to what Yvin was doing, to what his brother was doing, and that made bile rise in the back of his throat. "He never — he never did that."

"He never did this?" Yvin said, and bent his head and ran his hot tongue over the head of Eamonn's cock, and Eamonn shouted, his body coming alive with pleasure and resistance all at once. His knee came up and hit Yvin in the side, knocking him away so hard Eamonn could hear the breath rush out of him. Gods, for a moment he thought he'd really hurt Yvin. If — if he had, what would Yvin do? He couldn't even lift his hands to protect his face — at least Yvin didn't have a knife, at least he couldn't — but Yvin rose from the bed, laughing, hair caught in his mouth.

"Did you like that a little too much?" he teased. "No wonder he never indulged you. You got too greedy, right? And it was all about him."

"Stop it," Eamonn said. He tried to pull some semblance of resolve together. He was — he might not be a prince, but he was still older, and Yvin ought to listen to him. He tried to put some of that authority into his tone. "That's enough, Yvin."

"If only it was that easy," Yvin scoffed. "I really, really wanted to ride you, but I think you'd have to fist me first."

"Stop," Eamonn repeated, but he could not keep his own mind from imagining it, though he had little conception of what it would look like, what it would feel like. A cock was bad enough, he thought. Fingers were bad enough, but a whole hand? Then again, some part of him said, even though he had been determined not to think about it again: why would Yvin have made those sounds, if he hated it as much as Eamonn did? "Or I'll — I'll make you stop."

"Oh?" Yvin said, looking at Eamonn with too-bright eyes. "Are you going to hurt me? Really hurt me?" He tilted his head back so the silk of his hair slipped away, exposing the curve of his neck.

"I'll tell Father," Eamonn said. He regretted it immediately, the words slipping right back down his throat like poison. It was the first time in years that he'd said Father, and he'd said it like a petulant child, and what made it even worse was the way Yvin's eyes went dark and cold at once, and his smile turned from pleased to sharp-toothed. Eamonn's head lolled back on his neck, away from Yvin, but he could still feel the chill of that cold gaze, even as Yvin was still warm against him, his hair still a sensuous net over Eamonn's caught skin.

"You're too sweet for your own good," Yvin said, but it did not sound friendly, not at all. "Do you not understand anything that's happened since you came back?"

"I don't," Eamonn said, low, unsure if he was talking to himself or to Yvin. He was beginning to understand the extent of his ignorance, at least.

"No, probably not," Yvin said. "No one wants you here, you know that? Now everyone's worried about right of succession, and the blood, and ancient law. But you're not aware of any of that, are you? Why do you think Father put you in the barracks for a year? You didn't even complain, from what I've heard. That's only made everyone worry more."

"I never asked for this," Eamonn said, and there was a choke of tears in his voice that made him feel deeply weak.

"No one cares if you asked for it," Yvin said. "It's yours by right." And he bent his head and put the head of Eamonn's cock in his mouth again, sucking with a sudden intensity that made Eamonn yelp and his legs tremble from a power he did not understand. Then Yvin stopped again, and that was somehow worse, the realisation that he had been enjoying it now palpable from the absence of pleasure. "Why do you think they gave you to me when I asked?"

"When you what?" Eamonn said, and it was breathless, ruined. His fingers clenched on the sheets. "When you did what?"

"Don't be stupid, brother," Yvin said, cocking his head. "Do you think they'd let you get this close to me if I didn't insist on it? And trust me, I didn't win you by any grace or indulgence, that's for certain. A neat delay on an untidy problem, and I spent what little goodwill I have on it." He spat the words out as if they were bitter even to the taste. Then he smiled, rubbing the head of Eamonn's cock over his wet lips. "But in the end it was worth it, wasn't it? To have you like this."

"He never touched me there," Eamonn said, high and choked. He pressed his hands over his face. It was all he could think to say, all that was left in him.

"No. That was just for me," Yvin said, still cold, still harsh, and he ran his fingers over Eamonn's balls — Eamonn flinched, fearing pain, or worse, fearing that he would enjoy it — and down further, dipping, his fingers sliding over Eamonn's hole.

"No," Eamonn said, "no, no, no," until he could say nothing more than that, think nothing else, because if this went any further, Yvin was going to know. He was going to know, and it was going to be worse than being seen naked. Worse than plunging into a frozen lake and being dragged down to nothingness.

"Roll over," Yvin said, digging his other hand into the jut of Eamonn's hip, and then pulling at him until he went, easy, the world rose-coloured and full of stars. And then he was on his side and all he could do was press his face into the pillow and sob, tears coming too wet, too hot on his cheeks. "I know," Yvin said, running his hand along Eamonn's flank like one might soothe a spooked horse. "It'll be better, I promise. I really do."

Then there was another familiar-unfamiliar sound, and a new scent joined the air, the base scent of oil, and Eamonn froze, his body locking into place. He must've said something wrong, because Yvin wasn't understanding him. But he couldn't think what else to say. Maron had trained him out of saying no; at the end, just a chideful look had frozen Eamonn's tongue. It seems I didn't train you well enough, little prince, Maron's voice said now.

Eamonn closed his eyes; he could feel cold fingers tipping his chin up for a kiss, and he pressed his lips together to forestall intrusion. That was all he could do.

Yvin's other fingers were warm and wet as they slid against Eamonn's hole. He made no effort to push, just rubbing maddeningly, hot and slick, over and over, like a promise. "I've been thinking," Yvin said, and now he was rubbing his mouth over the jut of the muscle of Eamonn's shoulder blade, scraping lightly with his teeth. His tone was calm, as if he wasn't maddening Eamonn with his gentle touch.

Eamonn's eyes were wet, but his body wasn't listening to how he felt; there was a current of lightning running through him, connected to his nipples, his cock, and now Yvin was adding his hole, which sparked with every terrible touch.

"I've gone back and forth on this for a long time," Yvin said. Eamonn could barely think, his tears caught in his throat and coming out as a sob, or — something else he did not want to name, something high and needy. "I used to think you had it worse being sent away from us, from me. But then I remember you're not acquainted with the rituals of the southern court, and I feel sorry for myself." He bit Eamonn's back gently, and Eamonn cried out, pressing his face into the pillow so he didn't have to see, didn't have to think. "But now? Knowing even just a little of what he did to you, I wonder if we're the same."

Between the incessant pleasure of Yvin's movement and the stars in Eamonn's eyes, the part of him that was a dam against the memories was being worn away, cracking down the middle.

"We're not the same," he said, and his voice was slurred with pleasure. He made himself swallow, to hide that voice. He hated hearing himself like this. "We're not the same at all."

"Don't lie to yourself," Yvin said, and he still sounded so calm. What would it take to crack him? Eamonn didn't even know if it was in his power, but if it was — he had to find it.

Yvin pressed his finger in a little harder, and Eamonn felt himself begin to open up to him, just with the barest intrusion. Eamonn shivered, full-bodied; his body knew how to respond to a man's touch, even if he tried to deny it. "Oh, you like that," Yvin said, and there was a faint, awed surprise in his voice. "You really like that."

What use was there in denying it? Eamonn thought, bitter bile rising at the back of his throat. No matter how he felt about it, his body would always betray him. Was that what Maron had liked? Making him betray himself over and over again, leading him to the edge and watching him take the last step over it? He could move again, a little, but all he could think to do was bring his hands to his own chest, pressing against it to try and relieve some of the ache, jerking against his own touch.

"Was that what he made you do?" Yvin murmured against his skin. "Touch your tits while he fingered you?" Eamonn jerked at the word, feeling its searing power against his skin. Yvin was right, he was right.

"Yes," Eamonn said, and his face was burning, but he couldn't stop now that he'd started, just squeezing handfuls of his own chest, twisted towards and away from Yvin at the same time. "I had to t-touch myself while he did — what he did."

"What did he do?" Yvin said, kissing Eamonn's back, rubbing his face against his skin.

"In the old armoury," Eamonn said, gasping when Yvin's finger began to tug at the edge of his hole, just beginning to open it a little for… what Eamonn really wanted. Just thinking about the old armoury brought the scent of it to his nose, old leather, oil, sweat. The first time he hadn't understood what was happening. He'd still had long hair then, and Maron had just sort of worked his hand into it and pushed him to the ground. Maron had had the superior strength then, but it wasn't that which had made Eamonn follow his grip. It was the mere fact of being touched at all, a closeness he didn't know he had been missing.

He was telling Yvin this as he remembered, he knew, but he could not hear his own words. He was too deep in the memory, his senses overwhelmed. Maron had put him down with just the warmth of his hand on the back of his neck, and he remembered confusion, simply not understanding what was happening until Maron put his fingers in his mouth, hooked to the side to stop him biting, and then slid his cock in alongside them, and held him, pinned him there. He remembered his mind coming to a complete halt, as if he was reading the same words on paper over and over again: what is happening?

"Did you get hard when he fucked your mouth?" Yvin said, and somehow his fingers were inside Eamonn, sending terrible golden pleasure all through him, and he was pinching his own nipples so hard that they burned, two red peaks on his chest, and looking down he could hear Yvin's voice saying tits, the word burned into his mind.

"He didn't fuck my mouth," Eamonn said, and his voice sounded far away, someone else's voice. His body, too, wasn't his; he'd given it to Maron, and now to Yvin, and although he hadn't wanted either, it had never been his choice to make. "He just kept it there. He just held me there and kept it in my mouth."

Again, his senses overwhelmed him. The scent of it, the weight in his mouth, the heat. The worst part: there had really been nothing stopping him. He could have left. He could have jerked his head back and spat in Maron's face, pushed him out the window and down the spire, could have shouted and screamed until his face was red, drawn his sword, written to his father, anything. But he didn't. He had just knelt there and felt it, going red in the face, his ears burning, and his mind still couldn't get past is that — is that what I think it is? And Maron had kept him there with a firm hand on the back of his head, as if he expected Eamonn to try and twist away, but he didn't. He did nothing, and when it was over, he was only more confused. He'd never seen Maron do this with someone else; he'd never even seen Maron with a woman.

It was — Maron cared for him. That had to be why.

"I know what you're talking about," Yvin said, fingers probing inside Eamonn now. Eamonn had almost forgotten his cock, because that was what it was always like; it still stood true that if someone wanted him to come, it wasn't from there. "You're so tight," Yvin murmured, his other hand coming around Eamonn's hip to first touch his stomach, then his cock, rubbing his palm over the head at the same time that the tips of his fingers nudged the pleasure-spot inside him, and Eamonn jerked, the moan coming out of his mouth full and real. If someone was standing outside, they would have heard and thought that he wanted this. They would make no mistake.

His fingers were rough on his nipples, and they felt huge and burning, as if they would be red and stretched out forever, and whoever saw him would know, intrinsically, that he had a body changed by fucking. He choked on his own spit, his mouth wet and open, and though he still clutched to the shield of unwillingness, it was like Yvin didn't care about it at all.

Part of him burnt at this. He'd been nothing in the North, not really, and Maron had been older, and he'd — he'd cared for Eamonn. But Yvin? He might be the prince, but Eamonn was still the eldest. He fought for some command over that authority, but it eluded him.

"I wonder how he knew you were a slut right away," Yvin murmured. "How did he know it on sight? Well, you did say you looked like me." And then he laughed a little. "And maybe it went deeper than looks. Holding someone's cock in my mouth like that, it makes me calm and then crazy."

Calm and then crazy. Yes. Maybe they were the same.

He'd been calm back then, too calm, as if Maron had put some kind of spell on him, and then after, when he'd returned to his chambers, something had changed in him, as if his mind was on fire. First he'd paced, then he'd taken his knife, and unable to turn it on himself, he'd cut all his hair off, piece by silken piece, until in the south he'd have looked like a bastard, like a traitor, and in the north he just looked like anybody else.

"You're so wet," Yvin said, his voice catching on a moan. What he was doing with his hand was making Eamonn wetter, but it was the sound of his voice, the feeling of the vibration of it against his back, that was making Eamonn go mad. He flushed with heat that went not only to his face but through his whole body, his chest and stomach flushing red too.

"You can't do this," Eamonn said, and his voice did not sound like his own, rough. "We're brothers. You're my brother." It sounded weak and futile even to his own ears. As if that mattered now.

"Yes, I know," Yvin said, and Eamonn couldn't tell if he sounded amused or irritated. "It's not like it means nothing to me, Eamonn," he said, and, perhaps in some kind of capitulation, he slowly pulled his fingers from Eamonn's hole. Eamonn felt sick at the wet sound that came from his own body. I'm not ready, he thought, and the hot cloak of shame settled over him, that he knew what it felt like to be ready.

"I've thought about why they sent you away," Yvin said, and he was shifting behind Eamonn, pushing his left leg up and then shoring himself up against Eamonn's back. He couldn't see Yvin's face, only the darkness of the pillow and the flickering dim wall of the tent. It could have been anyone touching him, anyone's cock pressing lightly against his hole, and he made a noise in his throat, a yearning noise that he regretted immediately. "I wondered that almost every day."

"Why were you thinking about me at all?" Eamonn choked out, and there was a moment of absolute silence. He could still feel Yvin behind him; there was no distance between them at all, his body pressed completely against Eamonn's back, his hand on Eamonn's cock, his cock against Eamonn's ass, but the only movement in him was the tremble of his breath.

"I think they sent you there to be raised as a slut," Yvin said, and with just a hitch of his hips the head of his cock was spreading Eamonn's ass open, making him cry out, the sound catching in his throat. He wasn't ready, and it burned. He pressed his face into the pillow and felt hot tears slide into the fabric. He could think of nothing but the pain — not the agony of it, but the way that it was coming from Yvin, hot pain like a gift. Yvin slid in further, and he realised that Yvin was gripping his waist so hard that his fingernails were cutting into Eamonn's skin. "I think they looked at you when you were born and thought, he's going to be a slut. And they sent you away to be trained, so you could come back for all your brothers to fuck. Have you ever thought of that?"

Eamonn shook his head, but it was dredging up a dark feeling inside him he could not name, poison leaching into his heart, and he was hot for it. That was what he had been made for, after all. That was why Maron had done everything to him. He had come to want it — no, it was worse than that. He had come to need it. He wanted to be bent over and used until he could no longer think for himself, until he was wet with it and free to be fucked by anyone that willed it.

Maron had made him feel it, over time, with relentless torture — making Eamonn touch himself but forbidding him to come until it was unbearable, making Eamonn ride him with his hands tied behind his back, touching his inner thighs with the barest scratch of his nails — if you come, I'll be very upset with you. But Yvin was making him feel it just with his words. It really was coming from him, from his mind.

"You like it," Yvin said, and there was a note of anger in his voice that Eamonn had not heard from him before. "You like it."

Something broke in him. "I like it," he said, and it mostly came as a wet moan into the pillow, but Yvin went still for a moment, and there was only the sound of his ragged breaths, before he pushed harder. And Eamonn could only take it, like he was a slut for his brother to fuck, because he was; all he could make were great sounds that were caught between pain and pleasure, and he realised with a swell of horror that he was on the verge of coming, his balls drawn tight and the pleasure concentrated low and hot in his stomach, his thighs. He was going to come from his brother not even fucking him, but just from the stretch of him putting his cock in him, that was enough. He had to be a slut, a stupid fucking slut, because how could he let this happen again?

"Tell me the last time someone did this to you," Yvin said. "I want to hear. I need to know everything so I can — " It sounded like Yvin cut himself off, biting the words to nothingness. "Just tell me." It sounded like a order, and Eamonn was powerless to resist it.

"Maron," he said, and he sounded drunk, the voice coming from somewhere far away, his tongue tripping over the familiar-unfamiliar words. "The day I left."

"The day you left?" Yvin said, incredulous, and he was just moving slightly, still barely working himself into Eamonn's body. Eamonn could not tell if his incredulity was born from how long it had been for Eamonn, or the fact that Maron had been relentless until the end. Eamonn had gone too tight all over; Yvin was small, wasn't he? But his cock felt enormous and it was all Eamonn could think about, how it felt huge and thick inside him. His hands had gone slack on his chest. He didn't care about his own cock. He didn't care about his chest. The terrible slide of Yvin's cock was all he could think about, how it was forcing him open, how it had been so long, how had he gone so long without this?

Then Yvin finally pressed his hips home, his cock sliding up inside Eamonn, hard against his pleasure-spot, and Eamonn closed his eyes with a soft, wounded sound and came, wet and hot against his own stomach, and it was like it wouldn't stop, the wave of pleasure cresting again. His whole body went tight and he heard Yvin grunt, and then everything went soft, his vision, his hearing, and all he was was a soft hole for Yvin to fuck, working his cock in and out. The bend of his leg must have hidden that he had come, because Yvin didn't stop.

"Tell me about it," Yvin said, and his voice was rich with pleasure. "Tell me."

"I hated it."

"Hated it like you hate this?" Yvin asked. And he reached around to find Eamonn's cock, half-hard again and wet with come, and he heard Yvin's sharp inhale before he slapped Eamonn's cock hard enough to make him jump, and gripped his hips and began to fuck him with purpose. "Tell me," he said again.

"It was too much," he said, and he hated to recall it, the way that Maron had been rough and urgent, because it was the last time before Eamonn left, and it was frantic. Maron had stripped him naked but removed none of his own clothes, had bent him over the bench and opened him with too much oil while Eamonn cried, silently, tears dripping down his face and thinking is it because of this? Is it because I'm leaving?

Maron's cock had felt huge and relentless, and he had paid no heed to Eamonn's pleasure, despite the fact that his body now took it on its own — because hadn't that been Maron's goal all along, to make Eamonn's body take pleasure without him needing to have any regard for it?

But Yvin was different; he was as if all his concentration was on making Eamonn yield to him, not through power, but through his own pleasure. It was at this point, exactly this point, that he realised for the first time that Maron did not care for him at all. Hot tears dripped from his eyes; he felt cold, and as if he was falling, plunging down through the world into some other place where there was nothing. Just nothing. He was only a vessel for others now.

"You're sweet," Yvin said, laughing against his back. "Did you really think, all this time, that he saw more in you than a slut who didn't know he was a slut? I mean, he clearly had his eye on you from the beginning, and he never spoke to you about it, did he? He never whispered of his love to you in the moonlight, if that's what you were expecting."

Eamonn went rigid; he could feel something strange, as if Yvin had plunged his hand beyond Eamonn's chest and was squeezing at the flesh of his heart, digging his nails in.

"What are you doing?" he said, his voice thick-tongued and strange. "How — how do you know that?"

"Can't you tell?" Yvin said. It happened again, as if Yvin's fingers were somehow inside him, stroking at his flesh, pinching his heart.

"No, I mean — " It felt hot inside his chest, as if Yvin had stoked a fire there. But he couldn't complete the thought.

"You know what I'm doing," Yvin said. He punctuated his words with a vicious thrust, making Eamonn cry out. Slowly, he pulled his hips back, until just the tip of his cock remained, and slid back home slow again. Then he did it again, slow, the sensation making it impossible to think. All Eamonn could do was surrender to it, going slack-jawed and loose.

Eamonn was going mad, his mind on fire. If he didn't want it, why did it feel so good? If he hadn't wanted Maron, why had it felt so good? He was at fault. His body was at fault.

"Whenever I do this," Yvin said, pulling back once more, "you fight to keep me in, do you know that? You really fight it." All Eamonn could do was make a soft sound of assent. Yvin's hand moved up to his waist. "I can't believe you really thought it was some great romance, Eamonn," he said.

Eamonn cringed. Somewhere, distantly, his mind turned over — how did Yvin know? He had let a lot slip, but he hadn't said that. Or had he? He wasn't that obvious. To be so slip-tongued was unthinkable. The idea was too much to bear.

"Isn't that why people do it?" Eamonn said plaintively, before he could think better of it, thick-tongued and fuck-stupid.

"No," Yvin said, huffing a laugh. "Come on, do you really think he loved you? Even after what he did to you the last time? Go on, then."

"He tied me to that bench," Eamonn said, his voice cracking. Yvin's hand stuttered on his waist as though in response. "He tied down and fucked me and left me there, and then came back and fucked me again."

"Gods," Yvin said, reverently. "How many times did he fuck you?"

"I don't know," Eamonn said. That was the worst of it, the shame burning through the core of him. He really had no idea. He had lost the ability to separate moment from moment, overwhelmed with the heat of Maron's body against his, and yet how cold he was where they did not touch, coming until he was coming dry. His head had throbbed with it, and he'd jerked against the bonds until he'd had to hide the marks the next day.

"Don't be shy," Yvin said.

"No, I really don't know," Eamonn said. "I'll never know how many times."

"For that long?" Yvin said, with a note of calculation in his voice, and then his hand slid down to Eamonn's stomach, pressing low and firm. "Did you feel his come here? Did he really fill you up, until you could feel it?"

"So much," Eamonn said. He must have finally gone completely mad, because the memory of it — how it had felt to be like that, to feel like if he was a woman Maron would have gotten him pregnant with it — had made him feel sick with shame. And yet, to be so claimed, so owned by someone — even the thought of it was making his cock swell anew. He knew Yvin felt it.

"You fucking slut," Yvin growled and slapped his cock again, making his hips jump as Yvin's pace increased, until he was driving into Eamonn with all his force, the bed shaking with it, his hand reaching down to squeeze Eamonn's balls until he could do nothing but tremble and shake with the strange pain-pleasure of it. "Why did you let him do that to you when I was waiting for you at home? Why didn't you come back for me? Was it that good? Or did it not matter who it was? You'd lie down for anyone with a big cock, wouldn't you? You don't care who it is. Answer me, slut."

"I didn't want it," Eamonn said, but he could barely think for the pain-pleasure; the only reason he had not yet come was Yvin's grip on him — and then it loosened and he was coming without coming, his body shaking with it. His vision went white and his hearing quieted, until there was nothing in the world but an endless, mind-cracking bolt of pleasure, a gulf that yawned beneath him and he plunged into, his body and soul surrendering. He could feel Yvin coming too, the heat of it, the wetness inside, something inside Eamonn calling out for more, more, more.

When his senses returned, Yvin was gripping his hip, preparing to slide free of Eamonn's body.

"Wait," Eamonn said, reaching behind him to halt Yvin's movement. His voice sounded dull and strange to his own ears, as if he was listening in from the next room to a stranger.

"If you want me to go again, you'll have to give me a moment," Yvin said, kissing Eamonn's back. "Or next time give me some time to prepare; I'm sure I can make myself a tisane to get you pregnant."

"What?" Eamonn said, and not even the shock of what Yvin had said could cut through the dull cloud of pain in his mind. So Yvin was just done with him. After all that, and he was just going to send Eamonn out in the snow like all the others he had fucked, stumbling back to their cold beds. His body and mind twisted at the thought.

He was mad to play this card, he knew. But nothing could be worse than staying silent. He couldn't be one of them. He just couldn't. "No, it's… something else."

"Something else?" Yvin said, and he moved a little, leaning his head against Eamonn's ribs as if he was a lover. The warmth of Yvin's body, his closeness, made Eamonn flush, as if Yvin had divined the fear that had chilled him. "Well, you've told me the rest already. Go on."

"I can't," Eamonn said, and Yvin kissed his ribs, flicking his tongue there and softly biting him as he looked up with his midnight eyes.

"You just brought it up!" Yvin said, and he laughed. "Did this work for you back then, playing the maiden and also the whore?" He winked up at Eamonn. "Come on, brother," he said. "What could it be? Did he put his fingers back in you? Push the come back in? Did he lick it out of you?"

"He did it so no one else could have me," Eamonn said, his voice so quiet he was unsure if Yvin could even hear him. "So no one else would want me."

"He claimed you," Yvin said, his voice flat. "He really did it, didn't he? I didn't even know he could." He touched the back of Eamonn's neck, feeling around for something that Eamonn could not name.

"He did it… in me," Eamonn said, and he couldn't breathe, as if there was a rock on his chest, crushing him. "There was so much. I didn't know what to do."

"I know what he did," Yvin said, squeezing Eamonn's hip. "I know what he fucking did. Give me a moment," he said, sighing, and when Eamonn tried to wriggle away, Yvin pinned him, just with the slight movement of his leg over Eamonn's.

"Please, " Eamonn said, reaching back to touch Yvin, fumbling for his hand, his side, anything to connect to him. He had no idea if he was pleading with Yvin to stop or to continue. He had full control of his body now, he realised. How long had he had it, and not noticed? And not even tried to fight? Shame gripped at his stomach, making him weak and foolish.

"Please don't," Eamonn said. "You've done everything else — you've done enough, haven't you?"

"You said he did it so no one would want you," Yvin said. "But he was already wrong then, wasn't he? You're mine, you're mine."

And then he bit Eamonn again, and at the same time Eamonn felt him shudder and relax — and then he felt it, felt himself being flooded, hot and wet, inside, so much of it, until he could do nothing but groan and sob as Yvin filled him with piss. It felt like it would never end, until he could feel the heat of it all through his guts, and he was sure if he looked down he could see it, a swelling because he was full of Yvin, his abdomen burning hot and fluttering with pangs of fullness.

"Careful," Yvin said, once he was done, and Eamonn still could do nothing but silently sob and shake. "You have to hold it in." And slowly, very slowly, he was pulling out, and Eamonn could not pinpoint if he was going tight because he wanted Yvin to stay, or because of what he had done, but his consciousness narrowed down to the feeling of fullness, clenching down as Yvin pulled himself free.

"You're beautiful," Yvin said, kissing away Eamonn's tears, and he was smiling. His smile was blinding as he leaned over to kiss Eamonn's slack mouth, the silk of his robe brushing against Eamonn's stomach. Eamonn was sweating; he had to concentrate.

"Let's get you into the bath," Yvin said, and Eamonn had to move slowly, so slowly that it felt like an hour before he could even get both his feet on the floor, and then another to make it to Yvin's bath. Yvin was always at his side, talking in a low, soothing voice, touching his side, touching his stomach to feel the tightness of it, while Eamonn hissed in a breath. He was still crying, but not with any control over it, just a stream of endless, silent tears rolling down his cheeks and his neck. He paused at the edge of the bathtub, struggling to breathe. He was so hot, relentlessly warm all over, and his cock was beginning to swell again, though he prayed Yvin had not noticed.

"Come on," Yvin said, rubbing at the small of his back. Lifting his leg was torture. The fear of what would happen was too much, that he could do that in front of Yvin. Hadn't he suffered enough? Wasn't there an end to the depths of depravity he would enjoy against his will? "You can do it," Yvin said, sounding endlessly patient, and then when Eamonn made it into the tub, he found he could not move, his whole body clenched in a knot.

"You've done well," Yvin said, leaning against the edge of the tub and gently patting Eamonn's forehead, pushing his sweaty hair back against his scalp. Eamonn couldn't help but turn into that touch, looking up at Yvin. "You've done so, so well." Yvin settled his arms down on the edge of the tub and rested his head on them. "I love you, you know."

"W-what?" Eamonn said. He couldn't think; he felt as if he had drunk all he could and then more, and his mind was unravelling as a result. Yvin couldn't have said that. No one had — no one had ever said that to Eamonn. He felt strange, cloudy, and his tongue didn't work. He couldn't make up his mind to protest. What if Yvin took it back? What if he didn't?

"I always have," Yvin said. "Even before I knew what it was. Even before I really understood who you were."

"You didn't know me," Eamonn said. "I wasn't there to know."

"But I know you," Yvin said, and he reached out and ran his finger down from Eamonn's cheek to his neck, ending at the joint of his shoulder, where he lingered. "I can't explain it. It's like… it's as if to me, you never went away at all."

"But I did," Eamonn said helplessly. Yvin blinked at him, his huge blue eyes framed with soft, long lashes, dark against his cheek.

"You can let it go," Yvin said. "It'll just wash away."

"I can't," Eamonn said. He couldn't even stand to try. "I don't want to — I don't want you to look at me."

"I have to," Yvin said. "It'll be all right."

"I can't," Eamonn said. Just one glance down at his body made bile rise in his throat once more, and he shook with it, closing his eyes. He didn't want to be here. He didn't want to be like this.

"It's all right," Yvin said, and he pulled Eamonn's head against his chest, his hair and his soft skin brushing against Eamonn's wet cheek. He stroked Eamonn's hair, as Eamonn finally felt his body give out, a wet rush down his thighs, and he sobbed, pressing his face into Yvin as he held him, tight, until it was all over. Then Yvin murmured something, and a fresh rush of hot water came over Eamonn's feet; he flinched and raised his head, but it was clear water, steaming even in the warm air.

"Hearth magic," Yvin said, shooting a pointed glance back at Eamonn before shrugging out of his robe at last and sliding into the bath next to Eamonn, taking only a moment to tie up his hair with a black tie before settling down into the water up to his shoulders. Eamonn drew in a shuddering breath as the line of the water reached his chest too, and his skin began to burn, flushing red under the steam. Something was wrong; when he looked down at his hands under the water, he could not identify them as his own. His legs, too, crooked at the base of the tub, did not look like his legs.

"Don't look so glum," Yvin said, sliding right up to Eamonn's side until there was no water between them, and laying his head on Eamonn's tender chest. "You don't feel any better?"

He'd forgotten all language. He'd forgotten how to think. He'd felt exactly like this after Maron had left him there on the bench, picking at the knots on his hands, shivering in the cold. Yvin hadn't left him, but it was still somehow the same. He was still alone, drowning in his own shame. Eamonn looked down at the nape of Yvin's neck, the contrast between his skin and the darkness of his hair, the particular softness of it, the small shell of his ear. I'm not here, he thought.

If only that were true. He could still feel his cock half-hard between his legs, still feel that insistent throb in his hole, the hot peaks of his nipples. He ground his teeth against his tongue, hoping the pain might bring him some clarity, but it brought no relief. Yvin turned his head up, looking at Eamonn with nothing but fondness in his eyes.

"I'm so glad you're here," Yvin said, nuzzling against Eamonn's chest. "I didn't think it would be quite like this, but I'm so happy it's finally happening. I always wanted it," he said, eyes shining. "I mean, apart from the time I hated you."

He had a cloth and soap and began washing Eamonn all over, from his neck and shoulders to his chest, his sides, his thighs, even under his arms and between his toes, until Eamonn was on edge with it, over-hot and shivering at the same time. The water never seemed to grow cold, not with Yvin in it, looking at Eamonn with heartsick eyes, gently washing his hair and massaging his scalp until Eamonn couldn't help but make a sound, leaning back against Yvin and fighting the urge to sleep.

Eamonn swallowed past his closing throat. It just didn't make sense, he thought hazily. He definitely hadn't met Yvin before, nor spent any time with him; he'd honestly never even thought about him, beyond a brief and passing jealousy when the letter from his mother had arrived. But he'd tamped it down, because what was the point? The north was his new home; he didn't even think about the south any more. Yvin had never written to him, and he'd never written to Yvin.

This wasn't a safe place, he thought, but his body thought otherwise. It always seemed to think the opposite of what he was feeling.

"I want to do something," Yvin said, when Eamonn abruptly came back to himself after a moment floating somewhere else. He was lying across Eamonn, looking up at him with lantern eyes. "Can I?"

"Is there anything you haven't done?" Eamonn said, surprised at both his ability to speak and the roughness of his voice.

"Plenty," Yvin said, with a laugh in his voice.

"I'm cold," Eamonn said.

"I'll warm you up," Yvin said.

What he wanted was to pull Eamonn from the water of the bath, and over to Yvin's vanity, where he stood behind Eamonn for a long moment, his hands on his shoulders. The room seemed to be getting warmer and warmer as Eamonn grew colder and colder. Was that Yvin's doing, changing the crystal fire with just a thought? Yvin leaned over Eamonn and picked up something from his table, unfolding a razor with such sharp steel that it seemed to cut the air in two.

Oh, so this was it, Eamonn thought, dull with shame and tiredness. What had been the point of everything else, then?

"You said you looked like me," Yvin said, fussing around and smoothing something cool onto Eamonn's face; then he sat over his legs, all hot, smooth skin, turning Eamonn's head this way and that. "I want to see it."

"I can't," Eamonn said. "I can't — be like that again."

"Be like what?"

"Weak," Eamonn said, spitting out the word.

"Oh, you think I'm weak?" Yvin said, and Eamonn could not help cringing back from him, even as Yvin rested his weight on him and tipped up Eamonn's chin so their eyes met. "Do you really?"

No, he didn't. But if he allowed himself to look at Yvin, really look at him — the delicacy of his features, the way he carried himself, even the neatness of his fingernails and the smooth silk of his hair — it was like he was an open invitation. Eamonn couldn't be like that. Not again. Never again.

"You don't need to tell me, brother," Yvin said, touching Eamonn's lips for just a second. "I know what it means when someone looks at me like that." He smoothed his fingers over the scratch of Eamonn's beard. "I should have sat on your face before, though," he said, and it was so matter-of-fact that Eamonn barely flinched as Yvin gently rolled his hips forward, sliding close enough that Eamonn could smell the scent of his body, acutely aware of his nakedness, the light catching on the piercings through his nipples.

Then he put the razor to Eamonn's skin, and slowly, slowly scraped it down his skin. There was something terrifying in it, both because of the ice-cold sharpness of the tool and being the subject of Yvin's unyielding concentration. He found himself watching Yvin's mouth, the way he held it when he was concentrating, the lushness of his lips pinched slightly, his brows furrowed. His hair was slipping out of its tie, falling like black silk over his shoulders.

He started on the left side and slowly, slowly made his way from one side of Eamonn's face to the other. Eamonn was floating; there was something about the smooth, regular strokes of Yvin's expert hands. This wasn't the first time he'd done this, Eamonn realised with a strange thrill going up his spine.

"Don't move," Yvin said, when he was done, looking up and down. He could not see himself in the mirror. Yvin was gazing at him with deep consideration. Eamonn could not even see a glimpse of himself in the midnight of Yvin's eyes, and there was no hint in Yvin's expression. "Here," Yvin said, and he put the same substance on Eamonn's chest and bent his head, carefully shaving away the hair there, the razor's edge tantalising on his skin as Yvin removed it, leaving only clean skin in his wake, his hands brushing against Eamonn's nipples. Yvin paused as Eamonn gasped. "I said don't move," he said reprovingly.

Yvin worked his way down with hot, maddening strokes of pressure over Eamonn's skin. It felt like he had walked into a trap that had stolen his will. He could move, but he did not want to. At least Yvin — at least Yvin seemed to see him, to want him. Yvin never asked him, but Eamonn never said anything either; he could push Yvin away with one hand, but there was too much pressure, too many things happening at once. He had gone limp and lost, anchored only by Yvin's confident hands. Those hands were everywhere, touching him all over, drawing the razor under his arms, his stomach, one leg and then the other — and then, very carefully and reventially, his balls, making Eamonn hold his breath.

"Turn over," Yvin said, when Eamonn thought surely they were done.

"Why?" Eamonn said. He could barely hold himself upright, his eyes falling closed. Yvin was leaning on him, his arms slung over Eamonn's thighs, looking up at him. One of his hands was on Eamonn's inner thigh, creeping lower. "No," Eamonn said, but it came out as a sigh, and it didn't matter, anyway. Nothing he said mattered. He didn't want to. He didn't want to, with Yvin slowly dragging his blunt nails down Eamonn's thigh. So he did as he was told, the hot cloak of shame settling over his back again.

"Hold yourself open," Yvin said. It felt so awful to do as he was told, but also good. There's something wrong with me, he thought, as he did as Yvin said. He held his breath as Yvin carefully removed the hair there, and then finally put the razor away. "Does that feel better?" he said.

No, nothing felt better. All he could feel was a dull resignation.

"Look at yourself," Yvin said, making him turn around again as if he was nothing but a doll. The person in the mirror was a stranger. No, it was like Yvin's double, dark eyes peering out of a vulnerable face. He looked much younger without his beard, as if Yvin had reached into the past and plucked him from Maron's hand. Side by side, they looked almost like twins, apart from the difference in their stature and Eamonn's haunted gaze. Tears were coming unbidden from his eyes again, but like this they looked like diamonds reflecting from his cheeks.

"Almost right," Yvin said, smiling at him in the mirror. "Here." He made Eamonn sit again, and draped his hair over Eamonn's head, so it looked as if it belonged to him. Eamonn's breath caught in his throat. There he was. There was the young prince of the south in the armoury, Maron coming up behind him, hands in his hair.

"I don't want to be like this," Eamonn said, nausea clawing at his throat. "I don't want it."

"It's going to be different," Yvin said, turning his head away from the mirror and leaning down to kiss Eamonn. His lips were soft and warm, and his tongue flicked into Eamonn's mouth, and then he slid backwards, scraping his sharp teeth over Eamonn's bottom lip. "One more thing."

"No more," Eamonn said, gripping at Yvin's hands, his arms, as if that would someone imbue his words with seriousness. Yvin looked down at him curiously. "Let me go."

"You can go whenever you want," Yvin said, and he put his hands over Eamonn's. Somehow, Yvin's felt more real. Eamonn felt ephemeral, strange. Like he was fading into nothingness. Even in the mirror, it was like Yvin was really there, but Eamonn was a smudged portrait of a man, as if someone had given up halfway through painting him. "But I have one more thing I want to show you." He gently urged Eamonn to stand. His legs shook under him; he had to lean on Yvin just to move a few steps.

Yvin took him to the wardrobe, then took a step back and looked Eamonn up and down. "It might work," he said, pulling open a drawer. He took out something wrapped in delicate paper that almost floated on the air, and handed it to Eamonn, who unfolded it under Yvin's closely-watching eye. He handled it as if it could be a viper, but instead he was left looking stupidly at a scrap of blue silk in his hand.

"I don't understand," he said.

"Let me help you," Yvin said, taking it back. He knelt at Eamonn's feet, reaching out to run his palm up Eamonn's leg. It felt different, closer, more intimate. Eamonn's skin was so smooth. Yvin gestured, and it was only when Eamonn had lifted one foot and then the other, and Yvin was sliding the silk up his legs, that he realised what was happening, the touch of the silk like the touch of a lover.

"This isn't right," Eamonn said. It looked wrong on him. It felt so wrong to look down at himself and see the scrap of blue working its way up his legs. "Maron never did this to me."

"Oh, are you still thinking of him?" Yvin said, looking up at Eamonn. "This has got nothing to do with him. This is something I want."

"What you want?" Eamonn said weakly. "But — " Yvin made no attempt to stop, pulling up the smallclothes until they reached Eamonn's hips. They were small, barely containing his cock, which stretched them out. It was all silk and soft lace, and it looked wrong on him. The lack of hair made him feel bare, the silk too close to his skin. His ass was even worse, the silk slipping between and up against his hole like the faint touch of Yvin's finger. He inhaled a shaky breath.

Yvin was flushed, and Eamonn could feel the heat of his breath, his skin, against Eamonn's thigh, coming hotter and quicker than it ever had before. Oh, so that was what it took? Wearing this? A spike of anger sharpened Eamonn's tongue. "If you want a woman, go get a woman," he said.

"Is that what you think this is?" Yvin said, settling back on his heels. He looked up at Eamonn with sudden cold eyes. "I don't want a woman. I want you. I want you wearing that."

"Why?" Eamonn said. His hands had clenched into fists, which Yvin narrowed his eyes at. Eamonn's nails were scraping against his palms, and he couldn't help but dig them in further, spurred by sudden rebellion. "Why would you want this?"

"I told you, I've always wanted you," Yvin said, with mild surprise. "Of course I want to see you like this. I know part of you knows what you look like right now. Just give in to that part."

"I don't know what you mean."

"Yes, you do," Yvin said, and he leaned in and sighed a hot breath over Eamonn's cock, which was half-hard and growing harder. It made the silk burn around him, as if it was Yvin's hand there instead, a hundred thousand touches brushing him all at once. "Come on, let's finish."

By that he meant reaching into the drawer again and bringing out the matching piece. Eamonn curled his lip at seeing it, covering his chest with his hand as if he was a maiden.

"I won't," he said.

"Yes, you will," Yvin said, with especially firm patience, as if it was inevitable. "Is there any point to playing the maiden again?"

"I don't want to," Eamonn said, and he sounded lost and small. But his tone had wavered, and Yvin stepped closer to him, raising the silk in his hands.

"But you will," Yvin said, "because I want you to." And he stepped forward once more, until there was nothing but a breath between them, and he pressed the silk against Eamonn's body, making him flinch. Eamonn pushed him away, but it only made Yvin lean back; he'd barely put any power into it. "Don't you want to be pretty for me, Eamonn?" Yvin said, looking up at Eamonn with all his power behind the gaze, lowering his long eyelashes. "I want to see you spilling out of it — your chest is big enough for that, don't you think?"

"It won't fit."

"Oh, it absolutely will," Yvin said, cheerfully, as if he sensed a weakness in Eamonn's resolve. He put his hand on Eamonn's defensively raised arms, and that was enough to make him shiver. Yvin pinched him, very gently, and it raised goosebumps on Eamonn's exposed skin. "Have you ever had your cock sucked through silk?"

Eamonn said nothing, but he knew he was getting hard, though he was able to control himself and not look down to see it, to watch how it was pushing against the soft fabric. It was as soft and smooth as Yvin's hair, and the thought made him whimper.

"Be good," Yvin said, and then he pushed at Eamonn's arms, opening them and slipping the silk over them, Eamonn shivering as the light, cool touch went up his arms. And then he was standing there shivering and ashamed in front of his brother, as Yvin cocked his head and looked up him and down.

The top of the set was the same lace and blue silk, but there were cuts where it laid over his chest, and these slits opened to reveal his red and swollen nipples, as if he was such a slut that he could not even wait to remove the garment again. His cock really was pushing at the silk of the smallclothes now, and a faint wet spot had appeared on the fabric. He groaned and reached up to cover his face, to wipe away the hot tears that were leaking from his eyes.

"It's not so bad, is it?" Yvin said. "Wouldn't it feel better if you just accepted it?"

"Never," Eamonn said, and his voice cracked. "You're mad, you're my brother."

"Yes, I know," Yvin said, patiently. "You can pick what I wear too." And he took Eamonn's hand and pulled him the two or three steps to the drawers. It was worse to move, the silk caressing him as if he was being struck by lightning, a flash in the dark, making him shift and bite back a moan. It felt as if he was trapped in a false world, too hot and too cramped — as if the inside of the tent was a bad dream, and if he could only figure out how to step back into the real world of the cold snow, the illusion would shatter.

"I don't understand what's happening," Eamonn said. He was half-leaning on Yvin, who was bearing his weight with some difficulty.

"It's because no one taught you properly," Yvin said. "I don't mean him, I mean that no one taught you of your own ways." He took Eamonn's hand and pushed it into the drawer of silk and lace, slipping his arm around Eamonn's waist and feeling the shudder that went through him. Eamonn couldn't think, his mind melting into sensation, until he was pulling free a scrap of red silk, Yvin's whispered yes resounding through his whole body.

He knelt because it felt right. Yvin lifted one foot and slid it into the silk, and then the other. His legs were perfect, just as like every other part of him, smooth and delicate, and Eamonn found himself running his hands up them, sure his rough calluses would offend Yvin, but he only sighed and closed his eyes. Yvin was flushing red down his chest to match the fabric, and when he settled it over his cock, Yvin tensed his thighs.

Eamonn waited a moment until he was sure Yvin wasn't expecting it, and leant forward incrementally until his mouth was kissing the silk. Yvin cried out, his hand reaching forward to grab Eamonn's hair. Eamonn opened his mouth and Yvin moaned, pushing his cock against his mouth, the silk damp under Eamonn's breath. Eamonn licked him, closing his mouth over his cock under the silk and felt, just for the briefest second, a flutter of power. He could influence Yvin; he could draw reactions from him. It was easy. Eamonn was warm all over, and he could feel a fluttering sensation behind his heart, like a second heartbeat.

"Yes," Yvin said, urgently. "Yes, yes, just like that." And contrary to his words, he pushed Eamonn away, his hands rough and desperate. "Pick something else, quickly."

Eamonn turned his head towards the drawer again. His head was spinning. He could think only of Yvin, his head clouded by his scent, his mouth wet with longing. There was something black tucked into the side of the drawer, and it unfurled into his hands as long ribbons. "Oh, I forgot about that," Yvin said, and when he took it from Eamonn's hands, he could feel the tremble in them, like Yvin was nearly totally overcome.

It was a woman's corset, and Yvin wrapped it around his waist, turning around for Eamonn to pull the strings tight. "This is perfect," he sighed. "You have the strength to get it really tight." Eamonn looked down at his own hands and could not recognise them, the black ribbons smooth on his palms. The red thing he had put Yvin in had no back, and when he yanked hard on the ribbons, it pulled Yvin back against him, his cock pressing against Yvin's ass, and he heard Yvin's startled breath.

"Do you like it both ways?" Yvin said, tilting his head back to look at Eamonn from the corner of his eye. "That suits me. You won't have to hold back with me, Eamonn. I'm not delicate."

Eamonn could not speak, his tongue caught in his mouth. All he could do was pull harder, tightening the corset around Yvin's waist, but also pulling him back, his own traitorous hips pushing forward. Yvin made a small noise. "Tighter," he said. Eamonn pulled with all his might, and Yvin squeaked, the breath rushing out of him, and Eamonn watched his hands knot the ribbons at the back. He could barely stand to look at what he had done; Yvin's waist seemed as if he could fit just one hand around it, and he was leaning forward against the wardrobe, his breath coming shallow in his chest. Eamonn could feel that shivering feeling behind his heart again; now that he was looking, he could not tear his eyes away from the impossible slimness of Yvin's waist.

"Hurry," Yvin said. "Before I lose my breath." And he grabbed Eamonn's wrist and pulled him back to the bed, lying down on it and looking back at Eamonn. Eamonn was unable to glance away from the stark contrast of him, his flat chest over his pulled-tight waist, the red silk between his legs barely able to cover his cock which was threatening to reveal itself. Eamonn was the one who could not breathe.

"You do like it, brother," Yvin said, propping himself up on his elbows, his hair sliding over his shoulders. "What are you going to do about it?"

Eamonn could not move. All he could do was look at Yvin's pink nipples on his chest, the movement laboured. If I move, he thought, if I get on the bed, then I truly am doing this to myself. It will be my fault. He hesitated. But the alternative was worse; he did not want to be alone. No, it was more specific than that. He didn't want to be without Yvin.

He moved a little, pushing his knees into the bed, and then Yvin rolled his eyes and reached out to pull him down, ending with Yvin lying on Eamonn's chest again, looking down at him.

"Can you come from your nipples?" Yvin said, and his voice was breathless, the corset hard and unyielding where he was leaning on Eamonn.

"I don't know," Eamonn said, his voice choked.

"Eamonn," Yvin said, in a way that was faintly scolding — Eamonn could not help yearning towards him at the sound of his name; not brother, not little prince — "we're never going to make any progress if you don't make an effort." He reached up and brushed his fingertips over Eamonn's nipples, and he flinched, twisting away and towards the touch at the same time. It wasn't enough. "Can't you find a way to ask for what you need?"

Eamonn still could not speak. He reached up and put his hands over Yvin's, and then stopped. Yvin was displaying some patience, because he allowed it — Eamonn holding him there, feeling the softness of his hands — and then Eamonn drew them up over his own chest and squeezed, his hands over Yvin's. Yvin's face lit up. He gripped at Eamonn's chest viciously, his hands full.

"Of course you can come from these tits," Yvin said. "You had to deliberately want them to be like this. They're huge, Eamonn. No one could mistake us for each other when you're like this." He pinched Eamonn's nipples hard, and Eamonn closed his eyes, groaning, arching his back and jostling Yvin. The sensation was coming back around, everything connected, his cock, the stimulation of the silk, which was beginning to feel wet and clinging. He groaned, Yvin twisting and pulling, until Eamonn felt like his nipples had been stretched, his body permanently changed by Yvin. They were standing red and huge on his chest, but it still wasn't enough.

"It's all right," Yvin said. "One day." With a moment's work, before Eamonn could even think, he had fetched a phial from the table next to his bed, and brushed Eamonn's nipples with a cold salve that made him flinch, but did nothing else. He winked at Eamonn, slow, before he turned over and took Eamonn's cock in his talented, hot mouth.

The pleasure was indescribable, as if he was melting down into Yvin's mouth with his whole being. There was some thrill of satisfaction he rarely felt at the way that even Yvin struggled for a moment before sliding Eamonn's cock down his throat, and the way Yvin swallowed and choked around it made him drive his hips forward without thinking. Yvin retreated for a moment.

"Control yourself," he said, slapping Eamonn lightly on the thigh. Eamonn went tense; Yvin was breathless, his face beginning to turn red. "If you can't, then find something to distract yourself with." He slid his hips backwards, and Eamonn turned his head away instinctively, but it was difficult to look away from how bare and confident Yvin was, his smooth ass framed with the red silk. He pushed back further and tilted his hips, and Eamonn was plunged into the scent of him again, existing only in the world of Yvin. "Finish what you started."

Eamonn couldn't do it. It was just not something that he could do. Yvin's body was curling over him, Eamonn's face sliding against his thigh and making it tremble. He grabbed Yvin's hips and squeezed. He could see the muscles of Yvin's stomach trembling; he opened his mouth to protest, and slid Yvin's cock into it instead, the hot, intoxicating weight of it gliding across his tongue. It was so good. The pleasure he was feeling was not primarily from Yvin's mouth sealing back over his cock, but from holding Yvin's in his mouth, carefully, preciously, as if it was his only purpose.

"He really didn't teach you anything beyond that?" Yvin said, with a slight air of reproof. Eamonn did not know if it was directed at him. The power of having his brother's cock in his mouth was washing him with great, huge waves of shame. The worst part was that the shame only made him harder. Yvin sounded disdainful, but Eamonn could hear the roughness of his voice in counterpoint to the heat of having Yvin in his mouth, the way his thighs were shaking just from Eamonn taking him into his mouth. "No matter, it's better if I teach you."

And he sucked Eamonn's cock in again. Yvin was skilled with his mouth, experienced enough that it seemed second nature for him to pleasure a man. Eamonn tried to copy him, tried to suck and move his head as he did, tried to rub at Yvin with his tongue, but it did not take long for him to reach his limit — and it seemed to be those chokes and whimpers that made Yvin reward him, and made Yvin's thighs shake. Eamonn's heart thumped in his ears; he could feel that strange, shivering thing in his chest growing louder, as if all his body was becoming attuned to pleasure.

It took only a moment before he came down Yvin's throat, and at that moment his body relaxed, and Yvin pushed down, forcing his cock into Eamonn, ignoring his frantic choking, and came as well. It was hot, but Eamonn could barely taste it until Yvin pulled slowly free, and then he could do nothing but close his mouth and hold the flavour of Yvin's come on his tongue.

He put his hands over his face again, unable to hear, unable to see. Yvin carefully tucked him back into the silk underclothes and then sighed again, lying on Eamonn's chest once more. "Don't do that," he said, gently stroking Eamonn's side. "I thought it was getting better."

No. Nothing had gotten better. The sensations were only growing worse. Yvin's touch was hot and unbearable, but he wanted more. He knew he would always want more now, and it was impossible.

"I wish I had died in the North," Eamonn said, without summoning the will to say it. "That's what everyone intended. I wish I had died."

"I don't," Yvin said, fiercely. "I wish you had stayed in the South with me." There was something wrong with him; his face was red and his breath was coming short and sharp, like a panting dog. His eyes were unfocused, and every now and then he wavered, and had to balance himself by gripping at Eamonn's body. "I can't breathe," he said, as if confessing a secret, and then he laid his head on Eamonn's chest, one hand pushing up to press on him. "You're softer than I thought," he said, wriggling up to kiss Eamonn on the chest. He lay there for a moment, his breathing laboured.

Eamonn reached down; he could not help but put his hands around Yvin's waist, which made Yvin gasp and wriggle against him, as if he was hoping to summon up the energy for one more round.

"Why did you wish that?" Eamonn said, and his voice was also a breathless whisper now. The lights of the room were dimming, as if it was Yvin's magic that had been keeping the room lit. "I don't — I can't understand this."

"You will," Yvin said. His eyes were fluttering closed, and he nuzzled against Eamonn's chest, his mouth opening and closing slowly against his skin. "It's my fault for thinking it would be easy." And he exhaled once and went limp against Eamonn's chest, though Eamonn could still feel the shallow movement of his breath.

He waited for a moment, unable to escape the thought that he had somehow killed Yvin, even though he could still feel him breathing. He swallowed the thought down; Yvin was fine. Yvin was the kind of person who would always come good. And what would happen if Eamonn did kill him? The full power of the court, his father, and Ixi would all come down on him at once.

But at least then no one would know. If they couldn't already tell by looking at him. If there wasn't something about him that would make them whisper slut to each other as he passed by. Cold terror gripped his throat; he'd heard Yvin talk openly of the men he invited to his tent. Would he be the next story passed from ear to ear around the fire? Maybe — maybe there was only one way to stop all this.

His own breathing was becoming laboured now. Some part of him could still acknowledge that it was pleasant to have the warm, slight weight of Yvin on him, even though his own body was rapidly cooling, his hands feeling icy and numb. It was just… nice.

Hurriedly, he slipped out from under Yvin, who rolled onto his side with a sleepy sigh. Eamonn looked at his back for a long moment; there was no tension in it, only soft relaxation. He reached out slowly and undid the bow at the small of Yvin's back, watching him relax with a soft noise.

Eamonn's hands were trembling. He couldn't kill Yvin. He couldn't do it. Even if he tried, he was sure he would falter at the first sign of blood. Instead, he shivered back into his clothes, flinching at the rough texture of his shirt on his tender chest. That was the only point on his body that was warm, a curious heat that he could not explain, making him wince as he moved.

There was something very strange about his things still being where he had left them. His sword was hanging right where he had left it, his boots still haphazardly strewn across the floor, and he winced as he pushed his feet into their cold grip. His sword felt absurdly heavy; his body had no strength left in it. Even his furs felt cold and stiff against his body, dragging him down as he plunged into the cold.

The cold and snow did not bring the relief he had wished for, even when he sucked in deep lungfuls of the burning air. He made it back to his tent by blind instinct and hesitated at the door, wishing he had the courage to turn and walk into the dark night until he found a cliff or a deep pool, but he did not.

Inside his tent was still the same. It should be different, he thought, standing in the middle of his small, dark room. If he had been fundamentally changed, shouldn't everything else? Unless he had not changed at all. He lit the crystal fire with a touch and stood near it for a moment, but its warmth did nothing to quell his shivers, even with his fingers almost close enough to touch. He had to get out of here.

It took only a moment to pack up his things; he had left most of what he had ever cared about in the North, and he was sure they had been burned by now. If he went back to the southern capital, would the king allow him there? Would there be an understanding that Yvin was so intolerable that it would cause any man to break and flee? There was no choice, regardless. He had nowhere to go.

His chest was beginning to ache now, his nipples too hot, unbearably itchy points, and when he pulled off his shirt, he realised to his shock that he was still wearing the smallclothes Yvin had put on him. He pulled them over his head with as much force as he could muster, twisting as they scraped over his sensitive nipples, making a low, punched-out sound. It's me, isn't it? he thought, lying back on the cold, narrow bed with a thump. All along I wanted to think it was them, but it was me.

And then he was kneading at his chest, pulling on his nipples, and the pleasure was unbelievable, lighting him up from the soles of his feet to his tingling scalp, until he could do nothing but roll onto his front and rub against the rough blanket, pressing himself deep against it, his questing fingers reaching down to his hole and finding it sore and hot too, yielding and soft. He just felt so empty. Ever since Yvin had pulled out, he had felt empty and hollow inside, and even the crook of his fingers did nothing to soothe it.

He twisted and pushed himself into the blanket until he was nothing more than a sweaty, panting mess. Every time he thought he was finally at his peak, his ardour cooled, his fingers unable to satisfy him, until his skin was burning, sweat dripping off his forehead, and he was shaking with it, his pillow wet with tears and spit. It's me. It's my fault. It's me.

There was no way to tell how long it went on for, but when he finally ceased his movements, there was nothing left in him. No resistance, no fight. If I stay, I'm asking for this, he thought, and his hands were limp against his thighs. If I stay —

His things remained in the pack by his bed, and all he retrieved was one thing before putting his shoes back on. He did not bother with his furs, walking into the stinging cold of the knifing wind in just his shirt, the sweat on the back of his neck freezing in the midnight air.

It felt like an eternity getting back to Yvin's tent, and he cursed his weakness, his foolishness, his stupidity, but it made no difference. This was the only way out. He'd thought about it with Maron, but he'd never had the courage. Something had changed in him now, his heart thundering. He would never be able to control himself, he knew. The knife was his only way out.

The tent was dark and silent. He could see the shape of Yvin under the bedclothes, a small bump in the middle of the bed, silhouetted against the hangings drawn around him. Eamonn was silent-footed in his approach, thinking of nothing but the hunger inside him and the knife in his hand.

It took no effort at all to part the curtains; the fabric was sheer enough to lift at the mere suggestion of a touch, though his was rough and desperate. At least these sensations were familiar: the knife in his hand, its cold weight a prelude to hot blood. He knew how to do this.

"It's not often I make such a mistake in character," Yvin said from behind him. The lights flared around Eamonn, blinding him, and when he turned, cringing back from the light, he saw that Yvin was sitting at his table, a glass of wine by his hand, and his sword across his lap. He was fully dressed too, and more appropriately than Eamonn had ever seen, his collar buttoned high as if it was some kind of armour.

"You have to stop," Eamonn said, gripping the knife with a desperate hand. He could see Yvin's eyes were drawn to its dark, icy steel, and he raised a brow.

"So they did send you for me," he said. "I'm surprised I didn't see it coming. You're a better liar than I thought."

"I'm a terrible liar, actually," Eamonn said, and he forced out a laugh that he could no longer hold back.

"You think this is funny?"

"I think," Eamonn said, touching his finger to the cold, steadying metal of the blade, "I think the way this looks is funny." He couldn't hold it back, the bitter laughter halfway to a sob. "Do you know how many people begged me to do this to you? Do you know what they offered me?" He felt as if he was drenched in sweat now, wavering back and forth from foot to foot.

"What was the thing that convinced you?" Yvin said, voice tight and cold. "Money? Women?"

"Nothing," Eamonn said, choking on his own breath. "I just — I want you to know this has nothing to do with the north. They don't want me back any more than you do."

"I do want you," Yvin said, low.

"That's the problem," Eamonn shouted, his voice over-loud and ringing in his own ears. For a moment he wished Yvin had done to him what Maron had, fucked him and left. He touched his own neck with shaking hands. "You won't stop, will you? You won't stop, and I won't stop — this is the only way, brother."

"Sit down," Yvin said, his voice cold and poisonous. He had taken the word brother like a blow, and his flinch startled Eamonn. "You'll grant a dying man one last request, won't you? Maybe we should take this opportunity to be honest with each other."

"I have been honest with you," Eamonn said. Too honest, he thought, flushing and cold at the same time. That was the problem.

"No, you haven't," Yvin replied, whip-fast. "Unless you consider silence in response to a question to be honesty. You don't even understand what's happening here, do you?"

"Of course I do," Eamonn snapped. "You're — you're delusional. You don't want me, you want someone that doesn't even exist. It would be better for all of us if you considered me dead — or that you never had an older brother at all."

Yvin drew in a shuddering breath and let it out with slow control. "Let me tell you something about the magic of the royal family," he said, examining his nails, almost as if he had no care in the world. "You might think of it as a birthright — but then why wouldn't you have it? You are the eldest, after all."

"Because there's something wrong with me," Eamonn said, and it was all he could think of, wiping a hand over his hot face.

"I don't believe that to be true," Yvin said. "You called me a hearth witch. Is that truly what you think of me?"

Eamonn hesitated, and then shook his head, but it rang false even to him. They had no magic in the north, but he had seen fearsome things from his father's war mages. Yvin's magic, despite him being of royal blood, was not that. His silence made Yvin laugh, a steel-edged thing.

"I don't know how I could be so stupid," Yvin said, seemingly to himself. "I don't know why I thought you'd be the one who'd look past what everyone else sees — the only one to see past the surface." He shook his head, his hair slipping over his shoulders like a funeral veil. "Am I the fool?"

"What are you talking about?" Eamonn's stupidity reigned; he had walked into some sort of a trap he did not understand. No one had spoken to him of magic, not really. It was none of his concern. His heart throbbed and he clenched his jaw tight, and put one cold hand against his chest.

"Tell me how you see me," Yvin said, leaning forward. The bright light changed his face; Eamonn was so used to seeing him in half-shadow, with a sly look on his face, that this made him look like a stranger. "Be honest."

"I can't," Eamonn said, because the words crowding up his throat were unkind.

"It's all right, I won't force you," Yvin said, looking away and running his fingers over the rim of his wine glass. "I know. I know you see me as a stupid slut who does nothing but lie indolent, who knows nothing of the world, and cares nothing but for himself. I know that."

Eamonn hesitated, which was as good as agreeing. "I don't," he said, but Yvin raised a brow. "I don't," he said again, but it fell flat between them. I don't know you at all. You call me brother — but we're strangers. I want to know —

"I know you think that, because that's what I want people to think," Yvin said. "But not you."

"Why would you want people to think that?" Eamonn said. His nails were digging into his own thigh.

"It's my fault for thinking you would see past it," Yvin said, and then he stood and turned away — but it was not quick enough for Eamonn to miss the way he tipped his head up as if to forestall tears from falling, or how he hid his face with the curtain of his hair. There was no emotion in his voice, but his hands were clenched tight at his sides, shaking with what Eamonn could only conceive of as anger. "Or when I accused you of being a spy, you didn't think about turning that about." Yvin looked away again. "Well, now you know. When the king or his crown prince want to know something, they send me. Nobody looks twice at the youngest prince, who just fucks his way through life, do they? Not even you, as it turns out."

"It's not like you care about me," Eamonn said, the bitter words sliding over his tongue. His lips were going numb, but his back felt like it was on fire. He was still holding the knife; its promise was the only thing he had to anchor him. "It cuts both ways, don't you think? How can you expect anything of me when — after this?"

Yvin turned to look at him then, and his eyes were full of icy fury, shocking Eamonn to the core. "I did this for you," he said. "You and I are the same, Eamonn, the same, and I need you to understand why."

"We're nothing alike," Eamonn said, squeezing hard on the knife until his knuckles creaked. "I can't — I can't be the same as you. I don't have magic. I'm not a prince. I don't have anything."

"Magic?" Yvin said. "You don't know about the true nature of my magic; very few do." He looked down for a moment. "Do you know how to awaken the magic of a royal?" Before Eamonn could answer, he held up a hand. "I know you don't," he said. "There's a ceremony, a ritual." He reached down and gripped at the hilt of his filigree sword, as if to steady himself. Eamonn had never seen Yvin so off-balance, and it scared him. He'd half-thought Yvin mad before, but now he was both more and less sure at the same time; it was putting him on edge.

Yvin bit at his own lips, eyes tipped up as if they might be filling with tears. "The oldest prince is meant to care for the youngest, you know," he said. "But you weren't there for me. You were supposed to be and you weren't."

"I didn't know," Eamonn said. It felt, again, like he had been poisoned, black acid spilling inside his body. It hurt because it was true, and he knew it. He should have been there. "But you had Ixi."

"Ixi," Yvin spat, full of disdain. "Ixi has no thoughts in his mind except two things: where the next drink is coming from, and finding a warm place for his cock."

"He's the crown prince," Eamonn said, mostly out of reflex. Yvin just arched a brow and shook his head.

"You were supposed to be there," Yvin repeated, biting off each word. "I always thought, no matter that you'd been sent away, no matter that you hadn't returned once, you would come back for me, but you didn't. You left me there! You took away that ritual from me. It wasn't meant to be… the way it was. It shouldn't have been him."

Eamonn could not bear to question who him was; he already felt as if he might vomit again. He could see, from the fear flickering in Yvin's eyes, that the duty had not fallen to Ixi.

"Even that brought no relief, because you know what my magic does?" Yvin said, fist clenching on his sword. "When I have sex with a man, I can see a portion of his soul." He looked up at Eamonn with flashing eyes, as though daring him to say what was on his lips.

"Impossible," Eamonn said, his lips quirking in a way he could not hide. Totally, utterly ridiculous — but it wasn't, not at all. His blood chilled, remembering things that Yvin had said to him, the pressure of his sharp nails at Eamonn's heart. He had known things that Eamonn had never told him, would never tell him. Oh, gods, he thought, a formless prayer that surely fell on deaf ears.

"Of course it's possible," Yvin spat. "Ideal, even. What better spy could you think of, if you could make one of your choosing? A secret-finder, blackmailer, and honeytrap, all in one." And then he smiled with too many teeth, and for a brief moment Eamonn could see horror in the depths of his eyes. It made Eamonn feel weak. He would do — anything to prevent seeing that in someone else's eyes. He saw enough of it in the mirror. "And all it takes to awaken is a simple ceremony; you drink the sacred wine, and then your brother fucks you until you awaken. Sounded pretty good to me, when I thought it would be you." He took a sip from his glass and looked at Eamonn once more, and then laughed. "Don't look so upset, brother. It's over, it happened."

"I wish," Eamonn said, without thinking, and then closed his mouth. Yvin cocked his head and looked at Eamonn curiously. Maybe parts of what Yvin had said were true; maybe they were the same. He could see the way Yvin was holding everything back now, as if Eamonn had cracked through his shield. It'll drown him, he thought. It'll drown him if he faces it alone.

"It's not as sad a story as you seem to think," Yvin said, and the usual falsely playful tone was returning to his voice. "Besides, I don't even think they're going to make me spy any more. I was… tested… by Father and Ixi on my last return, and found wanting."

"Don't pretend this means nothing," Eamonn snapped. "This is — everything about this is wrong. You might not be able to see that, but I can. It's wrong."

Yvin shrugged, a fluid movement, and then leaned forward. Eamonn could see into the depths of his mad lantern eyes for a moment, and it made his breath stutter in his throat, whatever accusation he had been preparing to throw dying on his tongue.

"Have you ever hated someone so much it turned back into love?" Yvin said.

"That's not possible," Eamonn said.

"Don't lie to yourself, for both our sakes," Yvin said, and laughed again. "I know you have. You just told me."

"I should kill you," Eamonn said unsteadily, lurching to his feet, and whatever was in his tone made Yvin look at him seriously.

"Probably," Yvin said. "I've heard being half-awakened can make a man go mad. Easy way to eliminate threats to the throne, I suppose."

"You want the throne?" Eamonn said. "You?" And then he faltered, because he had thought of that surface-level Yvin again, and not whoever was in front of him. "I'm not an assassin," he said. "I'm not a spy."

"I know," Yvin said. "You want to kill me because you want to kill me. That's love."

"No, it isn't," Eamonn said.

"It is to me," Yvin said. "Do you really want to fight me with that little thing? I might be small and weak, but I'm faster than you might think."

"I don't need a sword to kill you," Eamonn said, and he took a step forward. Yvin sighed and slipped his rapier free of its buckle. It was a long thing of delicate steel, the hilt around his hand like fine lace.

"Perhaps I was a fool to not see it going this way," Yvin said. "But if you want to fight, I can fight. Though if you lose, I'm going to fuck you again."

"I don't want your awakening," Eamonn spat.

"Then I'll fuck you just for the pleasure of it," Yvin said, and without any warning he lashed out at Eamonn, who was able to avoid the lick of his blade only out of pure reflex. He flipped his dagger and held it backwards, using the blade to fend off Yvin's slashes.

Yvin had not been lying. He was fast. He was very fast, and Eamonn was in poor condition, his vision blurring, his heart thumping, his feet clumsy on the floor. Worse than that, the ache in his nipples was returning, agitated by the rough rub of his shirt as he moved, and he couldn't help wincing, holding his other arm over them as if it would help. Yvin noticed the movement, but said nothing, only smiling.

But Eamonn's body did not betray him, at least in this. He still knew how to fight. It felt like a lifetime ago, but he'd proved that in the training yard only hours before. He was sure he would know how to fight even if he was asleep, or mortally wounded. It felt good to finally be fighting again. At least this he understood. Yvin was fast, as he had said, but he was also weak and lacked experience. This was not his battlefield. It was easy to dodge or deflect his strikes, even though Eamonn only had his black iron dagger. It was fatigue that would claim him before Yvin's skill could.

The fight became mad and strange. He watched Yvin's face change from anger to something he could not understand. His own feelings surged and twisted, part of him thinking kill, kill, but the red veil of bloodlust never descended over his vision. It was not like fighting Aruwne at all. He had no urge to kill. Yvin's strikes were twisted and tentative, as he was trying to hurt Eamonn and not hurt him at the same time. Eamonn was going slow, and Yvin's rapier pierced his shirt and flicked a tear in the side of it — but careful, so careful not to lick at his skin.

"If you hate me so much, why don't you try and kill me?" Yvin said, out of breath, desperate, and Eamonn let him force him back until he was pressed against the bedpost, the edges of the carving pressing into his skin. Yvin's blade was at Eamonn's neck, but Eamonn felt no fear, sliding his dagger between it and his flesh, and pushing it away.

"I wish I could hate you," Eamonn said, over-honest, and for a second he saw Yvin falter, before he redoubled his attack. He could feel that sensation burning at the centre of his chest again, a burning thump behind his heart. But now it echoed like a war drum, like a summons to his soul.

"You don't care what's happened to me," Yvin said, his eyes blazing. "You left. You'd leave me again in an instant."

"They shouldn't have done that to you," Eamonn said, and he dropped the knife; it landed with a dull thump on the ground. He felt very strange, his heart thundering in his chest, squeezing on each off-beat, as if he was about to die, his soul fluttering where it was trapped in the cage of his ribs.

"Stop pretending," Yvin said, and he laid his sword against Eamonn's cheek, the blade cold against the corner of his mouth. "Stop pretending you care about me."

"We're the same," Eamonn said, uncaring that as he spoke the blade slipped and cut him, and he could taste his own blood. He flicked his tongue against the blade and tasted its chill. "We're the same. They shouldn't have done that. It should have been me."

"What?" Yvin said, his fury faltering. Eamonn lifted his hand and pushed away the blade. The war drum in his chest was synchronising with his heart, creating a terrible rhythm that shook through his entire being. He took a step towards Yvin, crowding into his space. He caught a glimpse of Yvin's wide, shocked eyes, heard the sound of his sword landing on the floor. Eamonn lifted his hand towards him.

There was a tearing sound behind him, a chill wind that slammed into him, and then a hard blow as the world went dark.

In the dream, he had never left the south. He was a king on the cold throne of the tides, the floor slick with blood, the air thick with the stench of it, mingling with salt. He could barely hear over the burning madness in his mind, the sound of his heart in his chest. The only thing he could feel the cold steel of his unsheathed blade, his hand clenched around it until blood ran between his fingers. At his foot was Yvin, naked and smeared with blood, looking up at Eamonn with hopeless, dead eyes.

You should have killed me, this Yvin whispered against Eamonn's leg, pressing his whole body into him. He was cold, and flinched at Eamonn's touch as his hot blood dripped into his hair, through his eyes, down across his body. He shivered constantly, and his eyes were dull, his hair matted as he lay lax-limbed against Eamonn, paying no heed to the cold water that lapped at his naked feet.

Cold. That was all that surrounded him when he woke, the endless cold wind. His head hurt terribly. It was a moment's work to find where he had been hit on the back of his head, the pain radiating through his skull. He could barely see, just blurred moving shapes in front of him. "Yvin?" he said, but he knew he was alone, his voice reaching no one.

He pressed his hands into his eyes and fought his mind back to some kind of order, shoving back the dizziness. There was broken glass on the floor, and a jagged rend in the tent, his feet disturbing Yvin's sword as he stumbled towards the entrance. They'd taken him. They'd taken Yvin.

Without thinking, without seeing, he made his way to the front of the tent, pulling spare furs over himself. The weight of his sword in his hand was his only comfort against the whirling night, the howling wind, and worse, his thundering heart. There was no doubt in his mind about who had taken Yvin, and there was also no doubt about where he was. It was like there was a hook in his skin, attached to a string that tugged. He would follow it, and Yvin would be at the end of it, along with the Northerners who had taken him.

He could not find a horse; there was nothing in the camp except corpses and blood, their staring eyes offering him no hope. He had no idea how long he'd been lying insensate on the floor of Yvin's tent, no idea how long they'd had Yvin, and what they might be doing to him. The red veil of blood was drawing over his vision, and he ploughed through the snow as if there was nothing on the ground but spring flowers. There was nothing that could stop him. Nothing that could dispel the killing veil over his eyes. He was the only one that could go after Yvin. He owed him years; this would just be the start of paying his debt.

Snow, and darkness, and red. That was all there was. After a while of walking into the night, he began to wonder if he had died on the floor of Yvin's tent, and had entered some kind of abyss — but of course that could not be true. Not when the weight of Maron's arm was slinging over his shoulder, drawing them into lockstep. He knew it was a ghost, a memory. He had spent many nights with Maron, walking into the snow like this. Walking, and walking, until Maron had determined it was time to camp.

"You aren't here," he said to the phantom, which leaned lover-close and slid his cool fingers along the back of Eamonn's neck.

"You should grow your hair out again," Maron said. "It's no fun like this. I can barely pull it."

And then Eamonn would turn, obviously hot-faced and upset, but Maron would always look as if what he had said was normal, and it was Eamonn's reaction that was strange. He'd raise an eyebrow and turn away, making Eamonn feel as if he'd misheard, or his grasp of the language was more shaky than he had thought.

Not here. Not now. He sought for the hot hook of Yvin in his heart, leading him to warmth. But the phantom was too insistent.

"I trained you well, little prince, didn't I?" the memory said. Eamonn fought not to look at it; it left no tracks in the snow, but even seeing Maron's profile in the corner of his eye was enough to provoke a learned fear in the very pit of his stomach, a weak clenching of terror. Its weakness was only because he had also learned there was no escaping whatever was to come. "I sometimes thought I'd pushed you too far — now I see I never went far enough."

"Get away from me," Eamonn shouted, swinging wildly with his sword. It hit nothing, as he knew it would; he was alone in the whirling night, just him and his pounding heart. Yvin, he thought, desperately. He needed Yvin.

He had been running for a long time when he found the camp. He knew that from the way his muscles were shaking and his legs were beginning to drag, but seeing the lights made him redouble his pace, spurring energy through his weary form. There were men dotted around the edge of the tents, but all he could focus on was the one in the middle, lit by braziers burning like stars in the night. He drew his sword as he approached, the dark weight of it comforting him.

"Prince of Ice," one of the Northerners said as he approached. "So you did come after him. How quickly your loyalties change." "

"Give me my brother," Eamonn said, and the rough ferocity in his voice startled both the Northerners; he saw the wary glance they traded.

"You might not want him any more," the other one said, with a sneering look. "Besides, isn't giving him over what you planned? I can't think of a better way for you to atone for what you tried to do."

"Give me Yvin," Eamonn said again, shifting his grip on his sword. They were warriors, and they knew the intent of his movement.

"That little tease is getting what he deserves," the first Northerner said. "Come have a drink with us instead. Remember who you really are. Don't look so concerned, it's not as if any of us are going to fuck him." He turned to his compatriot, laughter in his voice. "You'd catch something that'd rot your cock off."

Eamonn cut him in two without a second thought, hot lifeblood splashing his face. He could see the viscera, the man's trunk falling at his feet. It was a moment's thought to turn and cut the next one down, another wave of blood splashing onto him. They were shouting something to each other now, but he did not care, making his way further into the camp until all the snow around him was splattered with blood, and his sword was dripping with it. The frenzy was in him now, unquenchable except with the death of those opposed him.

They were no match for him, a handful of bandits unused to fighting anyone more skilled than their own kind. His breath was steam on the air, his body heaving with the breaths of a great beast, when Marijus stepped out of the tent, sword in hand.

"Is this really what you want?" he said, and Eamonn flinched; he could see nothing but Maron in him now, the cruelty of his eyes, the way he looked at Eamonn, as if he knew, knew what Yvin had done to him, because he could see right into the quick of him. When Eamonn blinked, Marijus's face shifted forward and back. Maron. Maron could not be here. Maron could not be this close to Yvin. He wouldn't allow it. Eamonn was beyond human speech, his furs soaked with blood. He could taste it between his teeth.

Marijus had some skill, dodging Eamonn's lunge, swiping back at him. If the sword hit him, he felt nothing from the wound. "You want that thing over the whole of the north? You would sacrifice this entire kingdom rather than cut his throat?"

"I would sacrifice both kingdoms," Eamonn said, spitting blood. His body had come alive in the fight, his heaving breaths accompanied by the burning of his heart. "Did you hurt him?"

"I wish I had," Marijus said, and he was fighting back in earnest now, his sword a silver flash in the dark. He was akin to Maron in skill too, but the fear had no power against Eamonn's resolve, not now. "After all the north has done for you, after all the effort, this is how you repay us?"

"Did you fuck him?"

"As if he would notice," Marijus sneered. "If I tried to put my cock in him, I'm not sure either of us would feel it." Eamonn brought his sword down in a heavy clash, sending Marijus stumbling back. "So Southerners do fuck their siblings. I thought the north would have at least cured you of that impulse."

Eamonn had no more desire to speak. There was nothing in the world but his sword and Yvin. He was so close; he could smell the scent of cedar even above the thick smell of blood. They fought furiously, until Marijus reached the end of his skill, and Eamonn's sword bit deep into his chest and out the other side, spearing him down into the snow and dirt. He was still trying to move when Eamonn wrenched his sword free. If there was anything of Maron in him, it was as dead now as he was.

How he felt did not need to be said. I'd burn down every kingdom, kill every king, slaughter every prince that kept me from him. He shrugged out of his bloody furs and left them on the ground outside the tent, his body steaming in the cold. Yvin, he thought. He knew he had gone mad, but he did not care. Yvin. That was all that mattered.

He pushed into the tent, leaving a bloody smear on the flap, and drew in a shuddering breath at what he saw. Yvin was tied to the bed, spread-eagled, his whole body exposed. A blindfold was tied tight around his eyes, something stuffed in his mouth, and his cheeks were wet with the marks of tears. There was wetness on his stomach — just seeing it made Eamonn's temper flare once more — and a scrap of colour between his legs that Eamonn could not name. He was flushed red and his chest was fluttering with shallow breaths.

"Did they hurt you?" Eamonn said, and it was a moment's work to free Yvin's mouth; what was inside was the red smallclothes he had been wearing before. The sight of them, crumpled and wet, was like a bolt of lightning striking Eamonn where he stood. "What did they do to you?"

"Fuck you," Yvin croaked, and Eamonn could tell he was trying to thrash, but his limbs were tied so tightly he could only move a little back and forth. Eamonn's hand on his mouth had left blood on his cheek, across the corner of his lips, and he could not look away, despite the squeezing of his heart. "My brother will kill you. He'll kill you all."

It was only then Eamonn realised he'd spoken in Northern. But he was too entranced by the way Yvin had said my brother, full of complete faith, to speak again. Instead he traced his fingers down Yvin's chest, flicking at his pierced nipples, dragging his fingertips down the ladder of his ribs, leaving bloody smears in his wake, as if he was a painter and Yvin his canvas. Yvin was breathing shuddering breaths through his teeth, and he was burning hot below Eamonn's fingers, twisting away from his touch. There was something about the way he was moving that was curious, the way he shifted his body back and forth as if he was in pain, lifting his hips even though it pressed him further into Eamonn's hands. Eamonn grasped at his waist, pinning him again. He was using too much force, but he did not care.

Yvin was growing hard seemingly just from the struggle, letting out shuddering, panting breaths, his mouth falling lax and open. His torso was smeared with blood now, as if he had been the one who had killed. Eamonn grasped at his hips. Lower.

It could be anyone, couldn't it? Yvin would get hard for anyone. He didn't even know it was Eamonn touching him. The thought made Eamonn tense his hands on Yvin's hips, squeezing until his fingers were digging deep into his flesh. Yvin groaned, twisting back and forth.

"My brother won't just kill you, he'll destroy you," Yvin said, and then he spat at Eamonn. It landed wet and hot on his face, and he wiped his skin clean, bringing his wet and bloody fingers to Yvin's hole instead. Yvin flinched.

"Would anybody do?" Eamonn said, and he could barely recognise his own voice, the voice of a thing from the depths of the earth, cracked and reforged until it was unrecognisable. "Anyone? The crown prince?" His fingers at Yvin's hole did not encounter flesh, but warm metal. There was something inside him. The thought made Eamonn burn inside, and he looked down with great effort, twisting it, pulling it, tugging until Yvin was sobbing with it, great colourless tears pouring down his cheeks.

It was big. Whatever was there was so big that merely moving it made Yvin wail, and trying to pull it out, however gently, stretched his hole until it was red and sore, soft and swollen. Eamonn pulled it until he thought it was reaching its apex, Yvin drawing in huge, unsatisfying breaths, and then, after a moment's hesitation, he pushed it back in again. Yvin sobbed, twisting his hips. His cock was hard and twitching against his stomach, and Eamonn could see the waves of pleasure going through his body, his muscles tightening and then relaxing, his cock letting out a pulse of wetness that made Eamonn wonder if he had come.

He did not know the names of things, but he knew something about Northerners who thought they could fuck like Southerners; he'd heard enough soldiers talking. In some ways he was grateful that was not the approach Maron had taken. Those soldiers always went for whatever was biggest, most painful. They had no restraint. But maybe they had the right idea, seeing the way that Yvin reacted.

He stroked Yvin's thighs until he stopped shaking. Yvin's cheeks were still wet, his teeth scraping over his bottom lip until it was red and swollen, his teeth gritted together.

Again, Eamonn began working the plug out of him, slow and gentle. He didn't want to hurt him, not really, but he was also so soft that Eamonn could not help himself. Yvin did not make it easy, tensing, squeezing around it like he was trying to eke out whatever pleasure he could find. No, it wasn't that. He was trying to keep it in.

"Brother," Eamonn sighed. Yvin's best efforts were not enough; his hole was too wet and weak, too swollen and stretched, to clench shut. Maybe he would never be the same again. That didn't matter; Eamonn didn't mind.

"If you touch me, he will pull your eyes from your head," Yvin said, and his voice was choked with sobs, his voice raising in a pained whine as Eamonn pulled the plug past its widest point, making Yvin shudder and tense again, coming without coming. Eamonn watched his hole try to close and fail, fluttering weakly. There was still something else there, something inexplicable. Eamonn traced the edges of his hole with his fingers, feeling it weakly respond, and pushed inside, finding the rounded surface of what felt like a ball, pushed deep inside Yvin. Now that he was looking for it, he could see the slight distension of Yvin's stomach, as if he was truly full inside.

"There's no need to be nice about it, you bastard," Yvin said, furious and helpless, trying to kick and finding himself unable to move. "You don't fuck half as well as my brother, you fuck, you bastard!" Eamonn had found the string and was tugging on it, feeling the movement of the spheres inside Yvin, who keened, losing his speech, choking on his own spit. He had never understood the appeal of southern sex in particular, but he was finding it himself now, like fanning a long burnt-out flame.

"Did he fuck you?" Eamonn said, pulling harder than he intended and making Yvin sob. It made him hot all over, hearing that. Hearing Yvin sound like that because of him. "Did he come in you? Did you like it?"

"Fuck you," Yvin said, but it was weak. Eamonn pulled again, and the first sphere shored up against Yvin's hole, which weakly tried to close against it, the silver cresting there. He could see it against the red, blood-hot flesh. Yvin was still managing to struggle, and Eamonn pulled again, firm and unrelenting. He put his thumb on the tight, over-stretched skin between Yvin's balls and his hole, pressing and feeling the sphere move, Yvin choking and sobbing and coming as Eamonn pulled the first sphere out of him, his come streaking his chest and splattering as high as his chin. Then he went limp and silent, not even responding when Eamonn pinched his thigh, though his tired cock slowly filled again as Eamonn pulled the second sphere on the string out of him, and the third, and the fourth. There was no end to it. Eamonn wondered, with a hot shock, what it would feel like to be that full, to have his every move become an inescapable torture, everything inside him moving and shifting all at once.

You'll have to fist me first, Yvin whispered in his memory. As the final sphere slipped free of him, and Yvin whimpered in his daze, Eamonn replaced it with two fingers. Yvin was burning hot inside, his flesh swollen and struggling to clench closed. Two fingers slid into him like it was nothing; three barely stretched his hole. It was only when Eamonn added his little finger that it seemed to satisfy Yvin's need to be filled, and he relaxed a little, his thighs going slack.

"You know it's me," Eamonn said, curling his fingers inside Yvin, looking for the disarming spot that made him sob with pleasure. He knew where it was from experience — once Maron had found it, he had been relentless about it; Eamonn craved that touch even now. It was difficult to find without Yvin's reactions, but it was worth it just to feel the involuntary responses of his body, his thighs trembling, the soft sounds of pleasure from his slack mouth.

He could no longer hold back. This was how it was meant to be. He was older, after all, and stronger; he was the one that was meant to push Yvin down. And he knew Yvin would be easy for it, so easy. He freed his cock and pressing the head against Yvin's wanting hole, pushing the head into Yvin's hot flesh, feeling how wet he was, how stretched, and then pulled back to do it again, feeling Yvin weakly try to close and then be gentled open again, back and forth until he thought he was insane not to just drive into the depths of the fluttering muscle.

There wasn't enough range of motion. He pulled out his belt knife and cut the ropes on Yvin's legs before letting the blade fall. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered except for Yvin's soft skin, the sacredness of the crook of his knee, his thigh. He was so easy to move, pliant with the flexibility of the well-fucked, and it was easy to push his knees to his chest to expose his willing hole. It took Eamonn a moment to line himself up properly; his hands were shaking, his hips pushing forward. Yvin's body just yielded to him. There was no other way to describe it.

It didn't seem right that his cock could fit in such a tiny space, but it just kept going, and he watched it disappear into Yvin's hole, which squeezed at him with his fluttering breaths. It wanted him. It wanted him so much that if he tried to pull back, it clung to him. It removed his ability to reason. It removed his ability to do anything except supplicate at the altar of Yvin. He could hear himself making sounds without his volition, inarticulate noises breaking through his control.

Yvin was sobbing beneath him, but he had no choice but to surrender to Eamonn's thrusts, the sounds of their bodies colliding harsh and loud to his ears. Then he felt it — the sensation of Yvin's magic clawing at Eamonn's heart. It was not as it had been before. It was harsh and hot, as if Yvin was attempting to tear his soul out from inside him. Eamonn leaned into the touch, expecting Yvin to react with familiarity, but he cringed away instead, trying to claw his way up the bed; Eamonn pulled him back, revelling in his piteous mewl.

It was so hot inside Yvin, it felt like he was melting, as if they were becoming one. By the time he had pushed all the way in, opening up even the most secret parts of Yvin's body, he was leaning his whole weight on Yvin, shoving him down into the mattress. It had never felt like this before. Not in the north. Nothing Maron had done to him had ever made him feel like this, as if his whole body was driven towards seeking his own pleasure. Yvin was the difference. Yvin was making him like this.

He saw flashes of Yvin the lax, forgiving curl of his hands, the defeated bow of his neck, but then his bent back, his raised hips, as if he could not stop himself from responding to Eamonn's touch. He was flushed red all over, and there were red marks where Eamonn had gripped his flesh. It was right to mark him. It was right. Yvin was Eamonn's, and the pleasure of conquest washed over him in burning waves.

"Yvin," Eamonn said, and Yvin tugged at his bonds. Eamonn pulled back, slow, and pushed back into him, knocking the breath out of him. Yvin began to shift a little, trying to move, but unable to free his arms; his face crumpled in on itself, but his body was still squeezing tight down on Eamonn's cock.

"Eamonn," he said, and Eamonn couldn't help but grip at his hips until red marks bloomed on his skin. He knows me, he thought, his mind burning. We're the same. His soul and mine recognise each other.

But Yvin tipped his head back and yelled, "Eamonn! Eamonn!" and began to thrash terribly, pulling hard on his bonds, and trying to writhe backwards. Eamonn could do nothing but pull Yvin back down on his cock, and reach up with his other hand and wrap it around Yvin's wet cock, ignoring his whimpers. He would force him to give into the pleasure only Eamonn could give him. He knew Yvin as well as he knew himself, knew that pleasure and pain mixed into one. He squeezed Yvin's cock hard until Yvin gasped and whimpered, turning into an unwilling moan as Eamonn began to move his hand in time with the strokes of his hips, and he felt Yvin's body going slack and accepting under him, losing the will to fight.

He was so close to the edge from everything that had happened, the urgency of finding Yvin again, that it did not take long before his thrusts were frantic, his hips stuttering. Yvin was wheezing for breath underneath him, but he was wet, so wet that the only sounds in the tent were Yvin's moans and the soft sound of Eamonn's cock entering him over and over again.

Yvin came first, and Eamonn revelled in it; he had drawn that out of Yvin by understanding his body, relentlessly driving his cock where Yvin would feel the most from him. He watched Yvin suffer through his reluctant pleasure, biting his mouth closed, his neck tight with tension. That was enough for Eamonn himself, his head dropping low as his body tensed, shoving his cock into Yvin with no regard for his overstimulated winces, pushing himself to the hilt to come in the deepest part of him, where no other could reach.

He lingered a moment before pulling out of the clutch of Yvin's hot hole. He had come so deep inside that none of it escaped, but nonetheless he could not stop himself from working the plug back inside Yvin. It had gone cool on the bed, and he watched Yvin's discomfort as he pushed it into his warm hole, though he had lost the will to struggle. He had lost most of his will, it seemed, because he just lay there even as Eamonn withdrew. Eamonn had thought he would kick, that he would fight, but instead he did nothing. Eamonn understood that, and he stroked at Yvin's wet cheeks for a moment; they were burning red, his hole weakly fluttering around the silver plug.

There was blood smeared on his stomach, on his chest, his nipples, his throat, his waist and hips — everywhere Eamonn had touched him, like a chronicle. Looking down at Yvin, Eamonn fought the urge to fall upon him again and never get up, spend the entirety of the rest of their lives entwined on the bed.

Eamonn sucked in a breath. A touch of the chill of the outside brought him a moment of clarity. He went outside on numb, shaking legs, looking at his bloody hands against the background of the blood-splattered snow, black and white. Trails of cold sweat were creeping down his hot back. The burning sensation in his chest had retreated a little, leaving him feeling bereft and wrong, now that the terrible urges had subsided and left a grasping void in his chest. But he pushed at his own flesh and found it unyielding, as if he was still truly who he had always been. The back of his neck throbbed as if it had been scratched, but when he touched it, there was nothing there. Why had he done that? Why had he done any of that?

The wind was merciless, pulling at his shirt and sending icy fingers under his collar, cutting through him. He could walk into the void of darkness where he truly belonged, where he could neither hurt nor be hurt, simply wrapped in a cocoon of death. Surely the north would grant him that final reprieve, like being swathed in a great blanket of snow. Still, still, he did not have the courage; instead he walked in circles around the camp for what felt like an hour, finding water to wash his trembling hands until the water ran clean and nothing remained but his bare flesh. Only then did he return to Yvin, who had not moved except for drawing his slim legs up towards his body.

"Yvin," Eamonn whispered, and then rushed to him and stroked his hot forehead, undoing the blindfold and pulling it from his unseeing eyes. Oh, gods, he did not know how he had missed the midnight blue of Yvin's eyes until he was seeing them again now; they were wet, his dark, long eyelashes clumped into tines. He was red and soft and limp where Eamonn touched him, rolling over with a touch but unseeing, unmoving of his own volition. Eamonn did not want to leave him; he smoothed Yvin's sweat-damp hair back over his forehead, and watched Yvin's eyes moving slightly. "I'm going to get you out of here. I'm going to take you back." He had almost said home, though he did not know where that was. He didn't want to take Yvin back there, not to where the king and Ixi waited.

It was barely a moment's decision to steal clothes from Marijus, and he dressed Yvin like an oversized doll, his head lolling on his neck. Yvin did not resist as Eamonn lifted him onto his back. He was burning hot; Eamonn could feel it even through his furs. "Don't look," he said, as he picked his way through the camp, amidst the fresh snow covering the splashes of dark blood, the bodies long since cooled.

"Don't look," he said again, and Yvin obediently pressed his face into the back of Eamonn's neck, where Eamonn could feel his shallow breaths. Every few steps he remembered the plug he had pushed back into Yvin, a hot spark of horror dropping into his stomach. He could not explain it beyond the blood-madness. He could have ripped Marijus's limbs from his body, but what he had done to Yvin wasn't the same. Perhaps it wasn't a drive for blood, as he had always thought it was. It was a drive to conquer.

The return journey seemed to take no longer than a single blink, his body working on its own as Yvin pressed his face into Eamonn's neck, shuddering slightly with what Eamonn suspected were sobs. It hardened the core of him as he approached their camp, the tents looking small and dark against the snow. There were no lights, no fires. No one was here but them.

The blizzard was beginning to grow stronger, and Eamonn was relieved when he ducked his head and brought them back into Yvin's tent. He had forgotten the rend in the wall, and the disarray inside, the snow piled by the wall. Yvin was clinging to him, his hands gripping at Eamonn's furs, as Eamonn tried to lower him.

"It's all right, Yvin," Eamonn said. It wasn't all right. "We're home."

Even if he was wrong, he was right. Home was not the north, where people had either feared or avoided him. Not the south, where his father refused to meet his eyes, or where Ixi simply pretended he did not exist. Yvin's tight grip on him meant more than any place ever could.

Yvin's movements were slow, as if he was in pain; he blinked up at Eamonn with blank eyes. He was shivering, his lips blue. Eamonn tried not to look at them.

"Can you light the fire?" Eamonn said, and he had to pick Yvin up and put his hands on the crystal hearth before anything happened. Yvin's head lolled back on his neck, and it was long minutes before warmth began to emit from the hearth again. When it did, a wave of magic washed over Eamonn, leaving a strange tingling in his muscles and bones. The lights began to glow, the rend in the tent sealing over, and the soft noise of water filling the bath made him turn.

It was his turn to undress Yvin, and it took great effort because no matter what he did, Yvin wouldn't stop clinging to him, even after he shed his furs, gripping at Eamonn's wrist like someone being woken from a dream. He was loathe to admit it, but he didn't want to let Yvin go either. The places where Yvin touched him felt over-hot and burning; where they were not joined felt frozen and wrong.

He tried not to look at Yvin's body as he pushed him into the bath, holding him up by his slack arms as he threatened to slip under the surface. Eamonn washed him with as much care as he could, the water growing gently pink and then fading back to clear. With the blood gone, he somehow looked worse, his waist and hips dark with bruises. He was marked, and Eamonn had marked him; he could fit his fingers right over the bruises, and it cost him a shuddering breath, hoping Yvin did not notice. Yvin's head was bent, his hair in wet clumps over his shoulders. For some reason, Eamonn could not look away from the delicate curve of his neck; it took great effort to tear his gaze away.

Eamonn did not know what to do except begin to wash Yvin's hair, pulling it back and rubbing his scalp until Yvin made a soft noise and said, "Eamonn?"

"I'm here," Eamonn said, surprising himself with the timbre of his voice, rough and deep. . Yvin must know what had happened.

"Was it a dream?" Yvin said, and his voice was hoarse and strange. "I was so cold. Was it all just a dream?"

"No," Eamonn said, and Yvin flinched, sliding under the water with nothing more than a quick inhalation of breath. Eamonn plunged down into the water after him and pulled him back, wetting his sleeves to his elbow. Yvin had gone limp and boneless, but when Eamonn propped him against the side of the bathtub, he remained there, taking slow, shallow breaths. After what seemed like a long time, he looked up at Eamonn with his midnight-blue eyes, lids slightly lowered; there was a hint of a sharp, scrutinising gaze in his eyes that dissolved as Eamonn looked for it, until he wasn't sure it had been there at all.

"What you said before," Eamonn said, and when he looked down at Yvin, he wasn't sure if Yvin was even listening, his lank, wet hair falling across his face. He had to be the strong one now, but he was shivering too. Whatever he had done — was this what it meant to be awakened? He would lose all control over himself soon. He could feel it mounting inside him again, a strange, creeping heat. "Was it true?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Yvin said, and his voice was a croak, mumbled into the flesh of his arm. There was a tone in his voice that Eamonn hadn't heard before, as if it belonged to a different person. There were marks on his arms, too, and the ghost of a shadow around his neck. That wasn't me, Eamonn thought, with a sick swoop of his stomach. He fought the urge to put his hands over the bruises. No, better yet, his mouth, drawing the blood up to the skin, biting down —

"You do know," Eamonn said, his own voice dropping deep, sudden enough that Yvin seemed a little startled by it. "You said this — awakening — would make me feel better. You said that."

"I did," Yvin said. He was looking straight at the wall of the tent, as if nothing could draw his gaze away.

"I feel worse," Eamonn said, clenching his hands and looking down at his nails biting into the meat of his palms. "I feel strange." He could feel the second pulse, even now that it was mostly silent, like an echo of his heartbeat, but when he looked down at the bruise on Yvin's neck it roared. "Something in me is changing. Something wrong is happening to me."

Only then did Yvin meet his eyes. "I know," he said. There was nothing in his eyes, no sympathy, no concern. Eamonn expected him to look broken, but he looked exactly as he had before the Northerners had taken him, and that was somehow worse. It was as if what had been done to him was something he was used to. There was just no reaction to it. Nothing but endless depths that made Eamonn go cold, even his fingertips in the hot water perfectly divorced from the warmth. Yvin reached up and touched the marks on his own neck, sweeping his fingertips across the marks and then gently digging them in, as if he was looking for something.

"You," Eamonn said, the word slipping between his lips, rippling on the surface of the bath. Yvin moved slightly, and then winced. The memory of what was still inside him shocked Eamonn out of his stupor, thinking about the width, the heaviness of it, the way his hole had to fight to close around it — but he also thought about what it would be like to have it there, an ever-present reminder that he was a slut. He swallowed, slow, his throat clicking. Yvin just sighed with faint resignation.

"Do you need it again?" Yvin said, turning to look at him again. "Do you think this will be the last time?"

"How would I know," Eamonn said, through gritted teeth. Yvin's dispassionate tone had put him on edge, seizing the upper hand without even trying. It was as if he didn't even care what had happened to him. Pangs were going through Eamonn's hands; he had clenched them so hard on the edge of the bath that his knuckles were white.

"It should feel" — Yvin paused, casting his dull eyes around the room before fixing them back on Eamonn — "monumental." His tone was flat, almost as if he was bored.

They both moved at the same time, Yvin trying to stand, for what purpose Eamonn could not name. Eamonn grabbed at him and pushed him back down, hearing Yvin's pained grunt as his back hit the lip of the tub. Eamonn grabbed him by the neck and pressed him down until Yvin was bent painfully backwards, his eyes flashing up at Eamonn. Hot waves of fire were cloaking his back, pushing him down towards Yvin. It wouldn't be enough until they were both naked again, skin to skin, with his teeth against Yvin's neck.

"We are the same,'' Eamonn said, and it was difficult to think when he had his whole hand wrapped around Yvin's soft neck, covering the marks there with his own. He squeezed a little harder, and Yvin choked, a wet sound that he could feel shifting in the planes of his throat. Yvin reached up with a dripping hand around Eamonn's wrist, and he could see the pleading tone in Yvin's eyes even if he could not speak. He stepped into the bath, water splashing over the sides, ignoring his own clothes, and turned Yvin over. It was so easy; he was so light, so small, that it seemed incomprehensible that Eamonn hadn't broken him.

He pulled Yvin back by his hair and listened to him whimper at the movement, his nipples scraping over the lip of the bath, and Eamonn reached down to his ass, squeezing it until Yvin made another soft sound, and then sliding his fingers over the base of the plug. "There's something wrong with you," Eamonn said, tugging at it at a little. He had no ground to stand on; whatever was wrong with Yvin was wrong with him too. He pulled harder at the plug and Yvin jerked and groaned, his hot, swollen hole fighting to keep closed even as Eamonn worked the plug free and it landed with a splash in the bath. Yvin was wet inside.

"Do you like keeping it like this?" Eamonn said, lowering his head down to Yvin's flushed ear. "Aren't you embarrassed?" He pushed two fingers in and Yvin took them with no resistance whatsoever, the hot, silken walls of his hole wet with come. "Aren't you ashamed that you were fucked like this?"

"I've been fucked every way," Yvin's tired, hoarse voice said. "I don't get embarrassed any more."

"You should," Eamonn said. "You should be embarrassed to be like this." He crooked his fingers and Yvin flinched as Eamonn dragged his fingers out, in and out, again and again until Yvin was shuddering with it, and he remembered how he'd put three, four in him before, tugging at the edge of Yvin's hole until he whimpered. He wouldn't even notice, he thought, Marijus's words sending a hot shock through him.

"Should I?" Yvin said, and even though the words were half-broken, he was looking back over his shoulder at Eamonn. "Should I be the one ashamed that I'm like this? I didn't do this to myself, Eamonn."

"Don't," Eamonn said. He twisted his fingers, searching inside Yvin, spreading them wide until he made a sound like he was going to die. More. More. Yvin had practically invited him to slide his fist inside. "You made me like this. You bear equal responsibility."

"Equal?" Yvin said, drawing in a shuddering gasp of air. "I was expecting to take it all." He smiled, and the lantern-madness in his eyes had returned. It wasn't enough for Eamonn. He wasn't sure there was a limit on what he would do to Yvin. He hooked his arm around Yvin's waist and pulled him from the water, hefting him with little effort. Yvin made a shocked noise, but he didn't fight back until Eamonn threw him on the bed, his wet limbs making dark marks on the silk like blood.

"What have you done to me?" Eamonn said. He could feel thick blood throbbing in all parts of his body, his heart moving too fast, his skin singing with sensitivity.

"Nothing that shouldn't have already happened," Yvin said, looking up at Eamonn through his hair. There was rebelliousness in his eyes; Eamonn could see his tongue flick in his half-open mouth. "I'm only setting things right."

Eamonn undressed quickly, and Yvin watched him, calculating. Eamonn crawled over to him, needing the comfort of his skin, the scent of the crook of his neck, and when he drew close, eyes dropping to Yvin's lips, Yvin pulled his head back — and it was only the slightest movement that warned Eamonn before he head-butted Eamonn with punishing force, the pain making Eamonn growl. His senses were all dancing with sparks. He could just taste blood in Yvin's mouth; his lip had split, but he was smiling.

That was it. That was enough to send him mad, his brain boiling with it. It was a moment's thought to flip Yvin over, pinning him down to the sheets. Yvin was still smiling, laughing even. There was blood in his teeth. He had to be punished. Had to be put in his place.

"Wait," Yvin said, and his head was bent down, his voice half-muffled. Wait? It was too late to wait. If Yvin wanted to wait, he shouldn't have done this. He shouldn't have revealed himself to Eamonn as he had, the sweet curve of his neck, the jut of his shoulder blades in his back. Worse than that, if he had never let Eamonn touch him, inside and out until he was learning the reactions of Yvin's body alongside his own…

He squeezed Yvin's ass, his fingers leaving red marks in his soft flesh until Yvin made a pained sound. "Wait," he said again. "You don't know what you're doing, Eamonn, and you're big, and I'm sore, I'm really sore." He was flushing over the back of his neck, as if he really could still find something to be ashamed of, despite his words.

"I know you can take it," Eamonn said, and reached down to line the head of his cock up with Yvin's wet hole. Yvin wasn't lying. Everything he had said was true. But it didn't stop Eamonn. He could feel the hot throb of Yvin's hole around him as he pushed in, ceaseless, unyielding. Yvin groaned and thrashed underneath him; the sounds he was making were as if Eamonn was pressing on a bad bruise, grabbing Yvin's hips and pulling him back, until Yvin was making choked-out, broken noises, and when Eamonn slipped his hand under, he found that Yvin was hard, so hard it felt like he was about to come just from the brush of Eamonn's fingers.

"You started this," Eamonn said, mouthing at the sweat-damp back of Yvin's neck. "You did this to me. You wanted this. Bear the consequences." He bit Yvin gently, worrying at the skin on the back of his neck and listening to Yvin's breath change, the shuddering intensity smoothing into shallow nothingness, as he went limp and compliant under Eamonn, as if he had folded his spirit, his soul away. It was like looking into a mirror and seeing himself in his youth.

Eamonn couldn't stand that, so he pushed his hands under Yvin and pulled him up against his chest, Yvin's head tipping back against his shoulder. He made a soft noise as the angle changed, and Eamonn could feel his cock slipping ever deeper, Yvin shifting uncomfortably.

All that he's done and I'm still the first to do this to him, Eamonn thought, flames licking at his back. He put his hand low on Yvin's stomach, Yvin's cock brushing the back of his hand, and pressed, hard. Yvin let out a low, stifled sound. Eamonn could feel it, how Yvin was holding himself back with every slow shift that he made; only his body was telling the truth.

"It's not enough for you, either, is it?" Eamonn said, running his fingers over Yvin's stomach, his chest, his neck. Yvin was feverishly hot, and although he was trying to be still and silent, there was a strange, twisted expression on his face, and when Eamonn twisted his head to look into his eyes, there was only a strange, lamplit emptiness.

It's not the same, he thought, it's not the same as what he did to me. But it was. There was no thrill in Yvin, none of the verve or joy that he'd had when tormenting Eamonn. He was just present. The urgency in him was gone, replaced by nothingness. "This is what you wanted." Wasn't it?

"You already know it is," Yvin said, so quietly that Eamonn would not have been able to hear him if they were not pressed so close together. "How would you like me to say it? You can't be stupid any more. You've got to start thinking."

"You're the one who was trained for me," Eamonn said, and even his desire to speak, to unpick the tapestry of Yvin's manipulations, was fading behind seeking pleasure in his flesh. No, worse than that, it was drowned out by the deep, overwhelming desire to master him, conquer him entirely.

"It's your right," Yvin said. There was blood on his chin, and he looked back at Eamonn with blank blue eyes. "It's yours."

"You are," Eamonn said, turning Yvin's head with a firm grasp and kissing his slack mouth, pressing his teeth into the side of Yvin's neck, which made him gasp and flinch. He was trying to pull away and press closer at the same time. It was like something was drawing Eamonn right to the soft skin of his neck; it was where the smell of Yvin was strongest, fresh cedar cutting through the veil of blood. "You're my right."

"Not me," Yvin said, his voice bitter. He shifted his hips back like a whore, reaching down to dig his nails into the flesh of Eamonn's thighs. "The throne. That's your birthright. Don't you want to take it back?"

Yes. Just the thought of it — Ixi and his father at their knees at the point of Eamonn's sword. They didn't want him. They never had. His father hadn't even been able to look him in the eye. He would have to, under the threat of death, Yvin by his side. But it was as much Yvin's right as it was his, wasn't it? Yvin was the one who had done this. "It's putting things right," Eamonn said, gripping at Yvin's waist so tight he felt his fingers begin to sink into his flesh. "They should never have separated us — they shouldn't have have sent me away." "

"But they did," Yvin said, raking his nails down Eamonn's shoulders and making him shout. Every few seconds Eamonn was jolted by the knowledge that they were having sex, his cock sliding in Yvin's wet hole, just pressing back and forth incrementally — that he was fucking Yvin while they were talking, as if it was normal, natural. "Do you know why they sent you away?"

"I tried not to think about it," Eamonn said, mouthing at Yvin's neck again, sucking at it until it was red and bruised. He had to claim Yvin. He would make it so that Yvin would never want anyone other than him, that Yvin would always know no one else could satisfy him. He closed his teeth around the side of Yvin's neck and ignored Yvin's gasp; there was a note of worry in it that Eamonn had not heard from him before.

"Don't lie to me," Yvin said, pinching Eamonn's thigh. "I bet it's all you thought about." He was flushed and feverish, sweat beading on his forehead, and he leaned back, turning his head against Eamonn's neck.

"It was," Eamonn said, his lips brushing Yvin's skin. He couldn't stop breathing in the scent of him; it was the only thing that cleared his head, if only for a brief moment. "Until Maron — "

"Don't say his name," Yvin said, his voice coming out with sudden passion, a snarl. "Don't say his name when you're with me."

Cold air brushed against Eamonn's back; he could feel the hand of Yvin's magic inside of his chest again, but it felt different now. It was soft and barely there, as if the blood in his body was too hot for it to touch. He touched Yvin's chest, right above his heart, ignoring the way Yvin twisted away from his fingers.

There was too much separating them. He pulled his cock out, slow, watching Yvin's hole try to grasp onto him. The brief moment he was free of him was torture, and it was effortless to flip Yvin over, push his legs up to his chest and slide back into him. Gods, he was so hot inside, and it was like his body yearned for the shape of Eamonn's cock. As if it was just for him. He pressed his whole weight onto Yvin's body and made him whimper. Even the air separating them was still too much.

"I feel you," he said, looking down at Yvin, who looked away. "I can feel your magic."

"No, you can't," Yvin said, digging his nails into Eamonn's back again, harder, until the pain jolted his mind back into red. He could smell his own blood on the air. "That's your own magic you're feeling, brother."

It wasn't. He had no doubt of that. He had felt exactly the same thing from Yvin before, but now it was more acute, as if a scratch had turned into a cut. The double heartbeat in his chest was his own, but that was something different.

"I don't see what any of this has to do with sending me away," he said. Yvin's mouth pulled tight, as if he was trying to hold in the words, but he could not.

"When we're born, they divine our purpose," Yvin said. His face was twisted; Eamonn could not tell if it was pain or pleasure. "They divine our magic, our future. They see what we'll become. Just a little bit. A glimpse. Not like me. But just enough."

"What do you see now?" Eamonn said. He couldn't stop moving his hips; Yvin's body reacted, even if his face remained still. He relaxed himself as Eamonn pushed into his soft, wet hole, and squeezed when he pulled back; it was intoxicating. It made it so hard to think.

"I see the same thing they did," Yvin said, looping his arms around Eamonn's neck and pulling him lover-close. "The difference is, they feared it, and I do not, Eamonn. Your soul yearns for blood; it can never be sated except to conquer." He let out a shuddering breath. "One glimpse was all it took before they realised you could never be king. It's still there, Eamonn. I've felt it. You've felt it. You're feeling it now."

He could lie to himself. He could not lie to Yvin. He was feeling it, the fire of his soul within him. He struggled to regulate his breathing, which was coming in great gusts but failing to relieve the crush in his chest. Conquer. Master.

"This is what you wanted?" Eamonn said. For a moment, his head dropped to Yvin's neck again, a breath of that fresh scent bringing him a moment of clarity. He felt so lost. "This is why you did this to me?"

"Yes," Yvin said, and then he laughed, a hollow sound that did not reach his eyes. He pulled Eamonn closer, until his lips brushed at Eamonn's ear. "The only thing in my life I've wanted as much as I want you is to see them suffer." He bit Eamonn's ear, ran his tongue across the shell of it in a wanton flick. He knew Yvin was trying to raise his blood, his soul, until he could no longer think, but — he was able to cut through it.

"And you?"

"Me?"

"What happens to you?"

Yvin laughed again, that same hollow, cut-glass sound. "I thought I'd done it, but clearly not, if you're still thinking about me." Eamonn could see nothing but the side of Yvin's face, the edge of one eye, before he leant forward and bit Eamonn again, sinking his teeth into the meat of his shoulder until there was nothing but pain. Eamonn roared with it, more beast than man, and grabbed at his neck, his hip, and began to fuck him in earnest, until there was no sound but their harsh breathing, the sound of their bodies colliding, the wet sounds of Yvin's hole — and he was wet, despite the fact that Eamonn had applied no oil, and it was down the backs of his thighs as if Yvin's body was accommodating him, as if he had conquered him entirely.

But it wasn't real. Yvin was by turns limp and distant, only rousing himself to goad Eamonn further. This wasn't what he wanted. Yvin was his most beautiful with life in his eyes, whether it be teasing, mocking, or simply glancing at Eamonn pointedly; this was not Yvin at all.

"You can't make me king," Eamonn said, pressing his face into Yvin's flushed-red neck. Yvin was still quiet beneath him.

"My king," Yvin said, muffled into the fabric.

"I didn't ask for this," Eamonn said, pulling Yvin tight against him. Yvin squirmed, tried to pull away. "I never asked you to. What would you sacrifice for this, Yvin? Yourself?"

"Without question," Yvin said through bared teeth. He laughed his hollow laugh once more. "Eamonn, you're the only one who thinks there's anything left of me."

Eamonn pushed Yvin's sweat-damp hair from his forehead, and looked down into his eyes. There was a spark of life left in them, but it was too deep, too buried for him to reach. He kissed Yvin instead, and even that was driven by the urge to conquer, to make Yvin choke on Eamonn's tongue.

"And me?" he said, against Yvin's lips, feeling his shuddering breaths. He dipped down to the side of Yvin's neck again, mouthing at the spot where his scent was strongest. "You'd sacrifice me?"

"I'm giving you what you want," Yvin said, his breaths coming out in uncertain huffs. His voice wavered a little, as if he was unsure, or even regretful —

"No," Eamonn said. "I'll destroy it. I'll burn it down. I'll run our armies across the whole land. You can't do this, Yvin. You can't do this to me."

"You left me," Yvin said, and only as he spoke did his breath hitch, did he squeeze down upon Eamonn's cock, letting out a soft sound. "They never cared about me. I wanted you. I wanted you."

One revenge against three people, Eamonn thought. The heat around them was oppressive now, as if the entire tent was on fire, and he was losing strength in his legs. He wished he could do more; he wished he could truly ruin Yvin. He squeezed Yvin's nipples, tugging on the piercings until Yvin's mouth trembled, and tears formed at the corners of his eyes, until his nipples were red and peaked on his slim chest.

"Yvin," he said, and his voice came out true and honest, which startled them both. Yvin's hands came up to touch his own chest with a kind of wonderment, as if he could not believe what he was feeling, as if no one had been so focused on Yvin's pleasure before. Eamonn's heart clenched against that strange double-beat. "You don't have to do this."

Yvin laughed, his eyes crinkling at the corners. His hair was half over his face. His teeth had blood between them. "There's nothing else for me. There's never been anything else."

Eamonn kissed him. Instinct drove him down to that spot on Yvin's neck he'd been worrying at; it was red and luminous. He closed his eyes and breathed in Yvin's scent, opening his mouth. Distantly, he could hear Yvin saying wait, Eamonn, you don't know what you're doing — before he bit down.

Yvin. The whole world was Yvin. A naked Yvin, reclining on a velvet bed of stars, his hair around him softer than any silk. Distantly, behind them, Eamonn could hear the faint crash of the waves as he knelt before Yvin, touching the mother-of-pearl soles of his feet, kissing the soft insides of his knees, rubbing his face against his thighs. He could feel Yvin's magic again, grasping his heart not with cruelty but something more, something unnameable and desperately present, and he returned the touch, pushing his hands into the cool, still pool of him, reaching for the beat of his heart beneath.

Is this my magic or yours? Eamonn thought, but it didn't matter. He was drowning in Yvin, pushing back until it was returned, as if they were clutching at each other in their sleep, yearning towards each other's warmth.

He could feel Yvin hitting him, somewhere distant and far away, pounding his fists into Eamonn's chest. "You've bound us together, you fucking fool," Yvin said, but his voice was wracked with sobs. "Eamonn, break it, please."

Without thinking, Eamonn pushed back into him. He was driven by something greater than his desires, something that he could not understand. His body yearned for Yvin; his mind could not stand to be separated from him. I missed you without knowing you, he thought, and Yvin's face twisted with pain. I loved you without meeting you.

"Stop it," Yvin hissed.

For a moment, Eamonn allowed himself to think his most forbidden thoughts, and he knew Yvin was seeing what he saw, as if he had turned into a river that was pouring down into Yvin, who was still trying to twist away. What would it have been like if they had allowed him to stay in the South? He'd have grown up, happy, with his parents, with Ixi, trained as a king, studied the law. He'd have a rapier, not a heavy broadsword. His voice would sound the same as any of them. He'd have understood everything from the day he was born.

Then there would be the waiting. Ten years of lonely waiting without Yvin, until they would bring Eamonn to see him, to see his new little brother.

"Stop," Yvin said, pushing at Eamonn's chest with the little strength he had.

They'd always be close. That was inevitable. Yvin would be clinging to him from the moment he could walk. Too close. Sometimes their parents would try to separate them, gently, and Yvin would cry and cry, and sneak from his own room into Eamonn's bed, and it would be so normal that it wouldn't even wake him; he'd just pull Yvin close to his chest and keep on sleeping.

"Get the fuck off me," Yvin said, a desperate snarl, and although he tried to push Eamonn away, Eamonn caught his wrists and held them, pulling Yvin closer. Yvin tried to push at him with his feet, but Eamonn leaned into it, Yvin's ankles locking around his back as Eamonn rocked forward, sliding into him to the hilt once more, pinning him.

When would it start? How old would they be, before Eamonn realised he didn't look at Yvin like a brother? Would it be before his awakening, or after? How long would Yvin's hair be? Eamonn would push it back behind his ear, one of a million touches that couldn't help lingering just a moment too long — a moment that would make Yvin blush and turn away, looking at Eamonn with incalculable eyes, as if behind that gaze he was lining these moments all up, counting them out in his mind at night, thinking what did Eamonn mean by that? He can't see me the way I see him. He can't.

"I'm giving you what you want," Yvin hissed, clawing at Eamonn's wrists. "You're the firstborn. You want to be king. That's what your soul yearns for. You hate what they did to you as much as I do."

"You have no idea what I want," Eamonn said, looking down at Yvin. The tears in his eyes had spilled over, dampening his hair, and when Eamonn leant down to kiss him, Yvin's mouth was soft and trembling on his, holding back as if he wasn't allowed, as if it wasn't meant for him.

Then there would be Yvin's awakening, carried out by the eldest brother, as was his right. And he would kneel on the bed over Yvin, who would blush and look away, both of them determined to carry out the ritual — only the ritual as was demanded, without any touches of affection, without kissing his lush mouth, without dragging his lips down the sweet hollow of Yvin's throat or the buds of his nipples. Just fucking him over and over, driving his cock into his hole, Yvin pulling on his bindings, clenching his teeth and trying not to enjoy it, Eamonn holding Yvin's soft cock in his mouth and trying not to think about it, just ritual, all ritual.

"If you make me king, I'll burn it all down," Eamonn said, gazing down at Yvin. He looked destroyed, his eyes red, and he could barely look Eamonn in the face. "If you make me king, I'll kill anyone who looks at you. Ever. I'll kill anyone that ever thinks about you."

"You don't care about me," Yvin said, but it sounded uncertain, his hands going weak against Eamonn's grip. "You don't want me."

"They should never have separated us," Eamonn said, and he began to fuck Yvin again. Something in Yvin had broken, and he was loud, as Eamonn remembered him being loud, crying out with each thrust. Eamonn sought not his own pleasure but Yvin's, wrapping his hand around his wet cock and squeezing it, Yvin's heels driving hard into his back. "But you can't ask this of me, Yvin. You can't ask me to be king."

"Then what?" Yvin said. Eamonn leaned down and bit his neck again. It was an impulse, a seeking out of sensation, biting him over and over again until he was a mess, until there was blood running down his skin. Eamonn lapped at it; there could be no remaining distance between them. None at all. None of any kind. "I can't keep living like this, I can't do it."

"Don't limit yourself," Eamonn said, and he touched Yvin's forehead, licked the tears from his eyes, kissed the blood from his mouth. In his mind, he could see a great wave of blood cresting across the continent, across the world, a swelling tide of blood in Yvin's name, and he gasped, the kicking in his chest starting again. Yvin felt it too; he saw it reflected in the depths of his eyes. "My prince."

"You're not serious," Yvin said, and Eamonn pulled back from him, sliding free, and then slowly, excruciatingly pushed back into him, watching Yvin's face twist in agonised pleasure-pain, again and again, rubbing his cock until Yvin finally gave into him and came, his hips twisting, coming all over Eamonn's fingers. Eamonn licked his hand clean, savouring the taste, as Yvin watched him with wide, unsettled eyes.

"I won't do it without you," Yvin said, and then he finally touched Eamonn with sincerity, his hand on his chest, his cheek, and Eamonn fucked Yvin until he could barely stand it any more, coming deep inside. He was still hard when he withdrew, but it seemed somehow unimportant; he would fuck Yvin again. Maybe Yvin would fuck him until he slept, and again when he woke up. Maybe Yvin would do more unspeakable things to him, things he'd never heard of, things he had only dreamt.

For now, he pulled Yvin to the edge of the bed. Yvin was hardly awake, barely able to sit up, and Eamonn drew the blue silk robe around him. It wasn't necessary; he could already see Yvin as he truly was, as he would be, cloaked in the robes of majesty, crowned at the throne of tides, his feet wet with holy water, the madness in his eyes reflected in Eamonn's. And he would kneel then, as he did now, naked at Yvin's feet, kissing his hands, kissing his wrists, knowing he would do what Yvin commanded, kill as he wanted, bathe in blood if he wanted — the blood of his father, and Ixi, and everyone else who would look at them — and then as now, he would press his lips into the centre of Yvin's palms, attuned to him over the sound of his own terrible heartbeat, and whisper, "My king."

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