Chapter Text
In amidst the steady stream of information that Cale receives on weekends, he spends a handful of days per week in scattered locations across the country. It is far too risky to talk to his friends or his brother face-to-face, lest he land himself the guise of a spy, so he watches from opportunely-faced lodgings across streets as tea parties grow tense around Amir’s sly smile, or from the back of a merchant’s cart as Gilbert jokes about something too close to the truth and a horse throws its head back in mirror of its rider’s unsettlement.
A couple times, he ends up in and around the capital, listening through a wall or across a tearoom as not-quite nobles debate the burgeoning sport of court appearances—the legal, rather than the social kind. He slips into it like routine: orders, then sips some mid-range ale, lets his thoughts follow the dexterous turns of noble conversation to wring out the important parts, and latches on to key turns of phrase to spread during the evening’s peak period.
Here in the capital, there is less to worry about and more to take note of in case it ever grows into a larger transgression. The Central faction’s wrongdoings are strictly financial; the close eye of the Crown on their geospatially proximal rooks and knights would not allow more than that. Perhaps they are lucky for it. He had agreed, as the other Northeastern heirs had, with Amir’s keen suggestion to leave the more harmless crimes be. If they are all exposed, what moral high ground is there for the arrogance of nobles to feel shamed by?
In all fairness, there is a high likelihood that the Henituse county had some history of embezzlement—whether it was the main family or their branch constituents, recent members or a more distant ancestor, the money had pooled into the sizeable amount it was today. At some point, people stopped questioning the increases in an already incomprehensible family fortune. But it is not Cale’s duty to bring himself to justice. Let some future hero do that, if they be willing to untangle a long, long history of ledgers and accounts kept by cut-off branches of the Henituse lineage.
At the very least, Cale has faith that Alberu will not let the less criminal of them be made paragons of good—such an act would go against his drive for perfection. And if Alberu Crossman settled for anything less than perfect, Cale would not be stuck here on a damn inn bed counting the seconds with paced breaths and brushing through his hair to feel the tickle of its edges on his soul mark. Cale groans and turns over, stuffing his head under the pillow in attempt to fight the sudden urge to find a handheld mirror. Just his luck to end up back in the capital for another pointless birthday.
His restraint fails, and he finds himself stumbling blearily over to this inn room’s vanity. The remembered image of his mark is faint still; back when Ron showed him the irritated pink skin of his nape, scarred through with silver and gold, he had thought he would see it often enough on his soulmate’s skin to not crane to see his own. In the vanity mirror, Cale spies the golden tears that drip down his spine. The silver sun, he can barely spot the edge of; a crescent under the shadow of his hair as he drags it somewhat into view.
What was it again, that Cale had thought the mark to be back when it had only just appeared? A gift. How childish of him to assume something like that; to buy so easily into the fairytale world, it was no wonder, beside his reputation, the more mature prince had dismissed his efforts. Cale scoffs at his reflection, letting his hair cover the mark once more, “Someone who will love me, huh? Happy birthday to me.”
It is not, strictly speaking, a terrible birthday. His friends send him letters that weekend, as do Lily and Bassen. He meets up with Gilbert while they are in the same area, and the viscount’s heir hands over a sealed jar of sea glass as a group birthday present. In the tumbled-smooth translucence, there is a golden turtle figurine. Cale sets it by the fireplace in the Chetters’ guest room and watches how the bright colours burn out to a sunset char around the suspended black silhouette.
The fake messenger passes by a few days later, this time dressed in an unmarked uniform and carrying an unmarked bag. She catches him just as he returns from a snack run, holding out an envelope sealed with a familiarly crude crying sun stamp. Once she leaves, Cale sticks it deep in his spatial pouch and tosses the bundle into a corner. The sweet bread he had bought suddenly feels like it might clog his throat. He forces himself through a few mouthfuls anyway before declaring it a lost cause.
Whether Alberu means anything by sending this missive now, Cale would rather not find out. That first letter had been a very clear move on Alberu’s part, putting the ball in Cale’s court for what might be the last time. Whatever this one is, it can wait. Alberu will wait, has already volunteered himself to waiting, and Cale will trust his word on it—insofar, at least, that the prince’s reclusive social life and general disinterest in interpersonal relationships leaves Alberu few options that he would genuinely consider, let alone pursue.
How callous of Cale to think ill of his soulmate like this… but it is also one of the many similarities that once had Cale on tenterhooks keening for a closeness that he is not worthy of. They are meant to be alone. They have shaped themselves to be alone. And yet.
With the arrival of the second letter, Cale rereads Alberu’s first. He shapes the words on his tongue like their taste might offer him some insight beyond the gilding. It does not. Cale accidentally bites his cheek as he recites, faux-furious, to a patron he will never meet again, “Do not feel pressured to meet me! The audacity of that fucker!”
“Will you?” the man slurs, already drunk beyond belief.
Cale slumps, letting the wind leave his sails. He flips his hand back and forth, a maybe-so gesture, and shakes his head. “I have to, don’t I? Or else he wins.”
“Ah, yes… pride…t’rrible thing, that…” His first unwitting victim of the night takes one more sympathetic swig of his drink. The drunkard drops, out cold on the bench.
Cale stares down at the man with a disappointed shake of his head. The pub owner shoots him a subtle thumbs up, then rubs her pointer finger against the pad of her raised thumb. Good job, she means, we’re raking in the money.
He flashes her a brief smirk and disappears upstairs to freshen up. There is nothing else here for him to do; his next potential target will come with the late-night rush. Cale loosens his collar roughly.
This kind of work is not self-satisfying in the way people like to talk about their lives, but it has given him back a sense of duty that he did not know he missed. Cale has shaped a reputation before, played lip service before—it is not hard to make villains of nobles—but never with the tedious kind of skill that he has deployed in bar and pub and late-night speakeasy around the kingdom.
He had long forgotten how tiresome it is to put on a social face and play nice in the sticky web of politics. A small comfort that what he learned in etiquette lessons at eight still serves him well enough now, though in practice none of this is terribly different from planting seeds of doubt or loosening tongues as a lout. Tasha’s instruction fills in half the gaps, and Cale’s various attempts at grappling with Alberu’s illusive character fleshes out the rest.
Sometimes, he pokes around for information about the first prince’s soulmate; it serves well to hide the politicking within social gossip, a smokescreen of sorts, though there is surprisingly little to be heard about the matter.
“Commoner of some kind. Must be,” says a clerk’s wife from the second prince’s palace, “else he’d parade them around.”
“Don’t be dense,” her friend, a clerk herself for the second prince, butts in, “those noble folks go for blood. It’s bait, obviously—get some poor sod and hide them away like a weakness, and the factions start going for them instead of the prince.”
Cale raises his brow. It’s an innovative suggestion, if odd to imagine Alberu doing. Too much risk of secrets being exposed, and better for optics to pull the hoax with just about any other noble of their generation. He turns the conversation to how romantic it is that the lovers are sequestered away, and how dedicated Alberu must be—this next part he emphasises with a sly grin, chin propped up in palm: “But not as much as he is to the empire, of course.”
That recaptures their waning attention.
“I doubt that,” one laughs, “have you ever heard of a soulmate who did not drop everything for their other half?”
“Don’t remind me,” the clerk sighs, her mood dropping visibly.
“You’ll find someone better one day,” the other woman comforts, “it just wasn’t meant to be.”
Cale blinks, taken off-guard. “You know someone with a soulmark?”
“Don’t get me started! And I can’t even be mad, really, because I was the one who decided to date a girl with a soulmark… and she was already so attentive to them even before they realised they shared a mark! I could see her slipping away, and I couldn’t…” As the clerk droops against the sticky bar counter, Cale snags her drink.
“A soulmark is hardly a compelling thing.” He shakes his head, dropping the drink in her extended hand.
“You say that, but is there truly any fighting against fate?”
Cale shrugs. “I agree that there’s no point fighting a good thing, but why not take your time with it?”
The jilted clerk squints at him. “For whose sake?”
“Why, for the people!” He flashes her another swift smile, dragging the conversation back to his original goal. “I personally find the prince rather admirable. To know the person your fate aligns with, and to still dedicate himself to his work… maybe I’m just too selfish to understand a decision like that.”
The clerk’s friend shakes her head with a slight grin. “You praise a prince for doing his royal duties.”
“Well, he has been doing more of them recently, hasn’t he?” the clerk slips in again. “No one can say anything about His Highness’s incompetency or ineffectiveness anymore. You won’t believe the rounds of copy they have us running back and forth in the second prince’s palace…”
Cale leans forward, picking up on the scent of something good. “Oh? Pray tell, on what?”
***
“The king is furious,” he learns later that week from a royal advisor’s nephew’s best friend. They scoff into their drink, “You know the budget that goes into royal jewellery? To think, all that money down the drain…”
It takes a few moments to place what the patron is referring to, but once he does, Cale nods along agreeably, “You’d think Their Majesties would put appearances aside for now. Let the coffers refill with time.”
“They’ll seek reimbursement from the Orsenas for their blunder, get back some value that way, but it will be Mogoru that pays the full price eventually.”
Cale makes a noncommittal noise, lifting his glass. If his father has realised the same opportunity there, it will be a good day for the Henituses. “As long as it’s not us,” he jokes.
“Truly! I never realised it could be so gratifying to see the nobility wobble on their stilts like this,” the patron—a noble themselves of the lowest echelons and thus not a worthy target for a goal of destabilising high society—muses, shaking their head with a grin. They go in for another swig.
Cale clicks his tongue in sympathetic disapproval. “And to think the second and third princes picked such allies… you have to question what they would do with the power of a crown.”
The patron shudders, their face tinting sickly green. “Oh, I’d rather not. Really.”
Ah, that’s right. Eric and Bassen had made a mastery of exposing the Sten family’s violent penchants only a handful of days ago. Cale drops his glass and leans forward, illusioned brown hair curtaining them as he bats black eyes with open curiosity. “But those are the main contenders, are they not? If not them, then who?”
The patron takes a deep draw of their drink, mulling over the candidates gravely. “Who…”
Cale leans back in his seat and plays along. He swills the liquid in his glass in contemplation. When the patron’s attention is about to wane from the complex train of thought with no satisfactory answer reached, he prompts, “Well, there’s the first prince, right? You don’t hear much about him either way, but he seems stronger than the others. Surely, he stays in the palace for a reason.”
They wave a hand at him, receptive but not quite hooked. “The first prince? But how can we trust him when he has no policies to stand for?”
“Maybe he does,” Cale shrugs, pointing his straw at them. Grenadine-red droplets fleck the tabletop. The next part, he speaks slowly, as if testing the viability of the thought even as he says it. “Maybe he just doesn’t announce them for the other factions to target before they go through. Haven’t done any research into him myself, but who knows? If he’s keeping to himself while doing things behind the scenes, that’d make him a cunning king instead of a wastrel prince. The man doesn’t exactly have a faction—he has to survive somehow, and there’s no doing that by showing off in the royal court.”
The patron stares into their empty glass. “True. But that’s still a lot of maybes.”
“Who better than people like you to straighten them all out?” Cale flashes a smile, shaping his gaze into something hinting at admiration. The patron’s spine subconsciously straightens.
He leaves them there to sit and stew over the new-found option of Alberu Crossman. As much as his soulmate’s pristine reputation gives no reason for people to dismiss Cale’s implications, there is also nothing entirely outstanding that they can grip onto. By design, he knows, and what a familiar pattern it is.
***
The design is breaking. Falling apart. Maybe Alberu is disassembling it himself, because Cale cannot for the life of him imagine the prince being so careless. It is a coin toss whether the letter he sent with the impostor messenger has been read at all.
Around the same time that his friends start sending him tips about internal conflict in the other noble factions, more stories start circulating with the first prince’s title attached. Cale gets Ron to let him into the manor to use the communication orb.
“Thoughts?”
Gilbert, helpful as ever, shrugs. “Up to you. You can’t play at being Bob forever.”
“I know that,” Cale retorts, “but what is he doing?”
“Making a name for himself, one would think. Don’t roll your eyes at me!” Gilbert’s gaze flickers to the side, where the Henituse communications mage waits patiently. “As it stands, I’d say you’ve already made up your mind.”
He has a point. Cale fidgets with his illusionary brooch, tapping it against the table in a steady, irritable rhythm. The red framing his vision feels foreign to him now, but its lighter shade widens his field of view. “This is different.”
Gilbert just laughs. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to reconnect with your family. And you’re only stopping by temporarily, aren’t you? Get what you need, chat as long as you can bear, and go. If Count Henituse didn’t kick you out when you were a troublesome brat, he’s not going to cut you off now.”
Cale scowls. Once again, Gilbert isn’t wrong. In terms of family prospects, Cale has already achieved all that he set out to do that first time he stepped out of line. His soulmark attachment to royalty disqualifies him from becoming head of the household. By nature of sitting in the soundproofed communication room with the Henituse communication orb, hired communication mage waiting patiently nearby, Cale is clearly still welcome in the house.
“But—” He rakes his hand through his hair with a grimace. “No, you’re right. I’m getting caught up over nothing.”
“Hey, where’s your concerns over leeching off the rest of us?”
“Unfounded, clearly. Send my father a cheque, Gil. Bye.”
Cale waves his hand at the communication mage, and the call ends.
***
He talks to his family—both an overstatement and understatement for the spectrum of awkward small talk (his father) to excited chatter (Lily)—before he leaves again. Basen and Violan return from their outing just as Cale is preparing to leave.
“Have you been well?” Basen calls after him as he reaches for the handle of the carriage that will irrefutably announce his return to noble society.
Cale pauses. Checks his pocket—key, ring, missive—and looks back. He weighs up truth against lie, lips pressed in a tight line. “Better than I was here.”
“You can come back to visit whenever you want. Do you know that?”
It is such an uncharacteristically impulsive statement for Basen that Cale spins around, a laugh halfway out of his mouth before he catches the kid’s white-knuckled clench. He clears his throat. “Why do you say that?”
“When you left, you said that… I’d be the Henituse heir.”
Cale shrugs. “Doesn’t seem like Lily wants it over her knightly aspirations. Unless she changes her mind, it’s all yours.”
Basen frowns, struggling to piece together his next question. Cale waits patiently.
“But you’ll come and visit, right?” Basen’s cheeks flush red at his own outburst, but he barrels on, “You’re still a Henituse! I didn’t take that from you.”
“When was a name limited edition?” Cale laughs, shaking his head. “No, you didn’t. I got engaged. I’m—well, almost not a Henituse anymore. Marrying out. You’ve learnt about that in your lessons, surely.”
Basen shakes his head too, brown hair swishing with violent frustration. “No—I mean, yes, I get it, but you’re still a Henituse! You’ll still be a Henituse!” His voice cracks on the second ‘still’ as he scrunches his eyes tight. “Be proud.”
Cale glances between him and the waiting carriage. “What’s wrong, Basen?”
“Aren’t you proud, hyung?”
“Most people would say I’m too proud.”
“You don’t even look like yourself.”
At first, Cale finds that observation, spoken firmly as if Basen is the older of them, funny. Then he looks down at the brooch. A piece of hair falls into his eyes. “You’re right,” he muses, curling the strands around a finger and holding them up to the light. “Huh. Would you look at that, it’s almost your shade.”
“You don’t look like a Henituse,” Basen says quietly. “Not like that.”
They stare at each other, a tense but subdued standoff. Who taught Basen wordcraft like that? There are several esteemed tutors in rhetoric that are on the Henituse books. It would be a pointless exercise to single one out, but Cale thinks they deserve their just desserts.
When Basen says, ‘like a Henituse’, he means, ‘proud and self-assured’.
Cale sighs, a disbelieving chuckle that he hides in his hand breaking up the end of it.
He pops the brooch off.
“It’s not useful for you, clearly, or I’d tell you to get into trouble with it.” Cale runs his fingers through his now scarlet hair, flashing his brother a wry smirk. “Is this Henituse enough for you?”
Basen throws his arms around Cale’s waist and squeezes tight.
When the coach finally trundles out from the turtle-adorned gates, Cale sits inside and weighs the keys to the Henituses’ central region villa in his hand. Curiously, a small voice pokes at him to look back, even long after the Henituse county has disappeared from view.
***
Without the brooch, Cale feels somewhat naked, but Alberu’s shift in tactics means that Cale should change too. They are in a new phase of the plan. How did it go again?
Step 1. Make the other heirs look bad.
Step 2. Make Alberu look good.
Step 3. Profit.
As far as looking bad goes, the comparative ineptitude of the Second and Third Princes makes Alberu shine by default. Then, there is the matter of a rumour unconfirmed: the soulmate kept in the palace, an amorous meeting. Cale, for his part, has been ‘sent away’ according to Count Henituse, for rehabilitation through seclusion. One or two gossipmongers have tried to tie them together, but the sheer slanderous nature of connecting anyone to Cale Henituse is enough for others to dismiss those speculations.
So, there is the foundation of logic. Emotion would be the next element. There must be a story to carry the character, something the audience wants to see through to a conclusion.
Cale’s fingers tap a restless rhythm against the carriage windowsill as the villa’s front doors come into view. He can doll himself up and play the part of reformed-by-love soulmate. Alberu will spot this story’s usefulness and play along.
Cale lets out a frustrated sigh, battling those complicated emotions back under control as he swings open the carriage door. The footman narrowly dodges it, the flicker of spite and fear in his eyes betraying an otherwise professional face before he bows, offering a hand to Cale. Cale glances at him, weighing an apology on his tongue. After a moment too long, he brushes past the footman entirely, words like cotton clogging his throat.
He gathers everyone in the foyer instead: there is only a handful of staff per area of household management, totalling around thirty. “I heard Ron trained some of you.” A few scattered nods. “Good. Keep to your business and I’ll keep to mine, and you’ll find no problems with me. Whatever the count said in the notice, do not bother me.”
Leaving it at that, Cale asks the butler to lead him to his room.
The central region villa is furnished and sparsely populated, which suits Cale just fine, except that now people are treating him as Cale Henituse again. It is a strange skin to don, to be inadvertently dressed in, after so long piecing together what he could salvage from under the trash act. He returns easily enough to the sharp glares and dismissive scoffs but makes sure to trap his tongue between his teeth before it can ruin him again.
His friends take him out to dinner in the high-end restaurants around the city square, and they eat like the civil nobles that they are. The other diners’ whispers curl through the evening air.
“And you?” Amir prompts with a sly grin that she hides behind a forkful of medium-rare steak. “How have you been?”
Cale quirks a brow. “All the same, I’m afraid.”
“How was that trip, then? Come on, Cale, how long have we known each other?” Gilbert leans forward. Cale leans back, tipping his chin down slightly in resistance. Gilbert rolls his eyes and flattens his tone to something serious, hinting at concern. “I recall not even your own father’s begging could get you to behave. Something happened.”
Cale grabs his drink and takes a swig. Instead of setting the glass down, he rolls its crystalline stem between his fingers. Their audience holds their breath for the blow. His voice lowers—enough to pretend at an attempt at privacy. “I met someone.” He curves his lips up, slicked with champagne, and puts the glass down firmly. He pulls his hands to his lap. The room untenses.
“And?” prods Amir.
“I think… I want to be better for him.”
Their audience hangs onto every word.
Eric comes in on cue, as straightforward as always. “This isn’t a phase?”
“Even if he never reciprocates my feelings…” Cale stares out the window, his reflection clear to those lucky enough to get the best seats. “He deserves my sincerity.”
***
The news of their performance is well-received and quickly disseminated. It is a small enough story not to detract from the continued unrest among the Second and Third Princes’ factions, big enough to take passing note of. Cale accepts jesting awards from his friends for their little act, shaking off the last remnants of the fantasy he had once held for soulmarks along with the character. His soulmate connection is spider silk-thin and fragile; no one bothers to immortalise those in fairytales. Death is a benign chill beneath it.
“He’ll burn himself out like this,” Eric comments drily as Cale skims the front-page story of the Whilsmans demanding compensation from the Orsenas for an import of defective jewellery—a recent trend inspired by Alberu’s unveiling of production conspiracy. “But we owe him, now. All’s good for you, isn’t it?”
Cale shoots him a small smirk and changes the topic.
Alberu keeps shooting upward in high society’s esteem, his politics and more relational goodwill breaking like dawn light across the conversations Cale overhears. The central region is drunk on their new golden boy. Cale thinks he understands what Alberu meant during their disagreements, now. The Vow does not so much as twitch; the prince probably does not have the time for suspicion. Now that they are both in the public eye, neither has any reason to check it.
In the coming weeks, Cale accepts two invitations to various social events—low-stakes ones, as informal as a noble gathering can be—and acts as civil as he thinks they deserve. Though his tongue is sharp, he stays his hand from soaking the roots of the Ailans’ petunias in spirits and glass shards. When other attendees ask him about the Henituse county, he makes bemused noises and stares into the middle distance until they give up.
Cale forwards the third invitation, addressed to Heir Henituse, to Basen. He plucks the illusory brooch from its place in the centre of his jewellery box, pins it beside the ring on a string around his neck, and heads out to the bar.