Chapter Text
It felt like a cruel twist of fate, Heart supposed, to be a spellsinger who would never again be able to hear a single music note, not after he’d lost his hearing a few years ago to a brief, but terrible illness. To be fair — though really, at times, it certainly didn’t feel fair — spellsinging had never been his true calling, anyway.
That wasn’t to say Heart didn’t miss attending his music lessons, learning how to play traditional instruments like the sueng and the ranat and the khlui with Tutor Lek (who had a reputation for being impossible to please, yet would always reward him with sweets at the end of every lesson, would always look the other way when he spotted Heart’s doodles in the margins of his notations). But magic had always been particularly potent in his family, meaning he was powerful enough to master two different skill sets. Spellsinging was only his secondary area of expertise; Heart was first and foremost, an abjurer.
“Protective magic — of course,” his older twin brother, the crown prince of Ayutthaya, had said after their shared ascension ceremony on their fifth birthday, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Mama and Papa really gave you the perfect name, huh?”
To their subjects, however, it had come as a complete surprise. The heir presumptive was traditionally a soldier to the heir apparent’s strategist, meaning they usually practiced evocation or compulsion magic. He was meant to wield a sword, not a shield. But Heart and his brother turned out to be nothing like anyone expected.
“Everyone says I was s’posed to be an arcanist like you, Mama,” his brother had mumbled when their mother asked after him, noting that he’d been in low spirits ever since the ceremony. “Is that true?”
“Never mind what you were ‘supposed to be’ — we love you for exactly who you are,” she’d said, gently threading her fingers through his hair. “And besides, healers and empaths are always in short supply. We couldn’t be prouder of you for being both.”
Later, Tinn would find her reassurances well-intentioned but misleading. No one expected the future king to work as a doctor, not even for fellow members of Munnai — other than perhaps his younger brother, who was prone to the occasional scraped knee or high fever. Sometimes, as he pored over his books and his diagrams, he’d find himself wondering why he even bothered, only to smother his disobedient thoughts like a flame moments later.
Still, with years of study and training and their parents’ support, both of them learned to pay no mind to the unwarranted opinions of others, to focus on their own duties and ambitions instead. However, there was a shared burden that they couldn’t afford to ignore. Now eighteen, they were both expected to be engaged in one year’s time and married in two, and neither of them had any prospects.
Well, Heart didn’t. Tinn, on the other hand, was in love with a boy he’d never met, because despite Heart’s name, Tinn had always been the romantic one.
It went like this: three nights before their fifteenth birthday, their parents had been called away to settle a territory dispute in the north, the kind in which resentment had started building long before the twins were born. Though they’d promised to be back in two days, a sudden storm kept them from traveling home.
Heart had fallen ill — it hadn’t been the illness, not yet, but it had been debilitating nonetheless — and was confined to his quarters. Even Tinn’s personal aide, Tiwson, son of one of the king’s most trusted chief ministers, had left the palace earlier that morning to attend to an urgent family matter. And so, Tinn, who’d always kept anyone he could potentially call a friend at a polite distance, was left with only his trusty familiar, a sweet-faced Bangkaew named Chompoo, for company.
After having dinner in the kitchens with the cooks, who fussed over him like it was his fifth birthday and not his fifteenth, Tinn wandered the palace grounds with Chompoo by his side. He wasn’t sure where he was going, but he knew he didn’t want to go to bed just yet. He eventually ended up just outside the servants’ quarters, where he heard chatter and laughter accompanied by music.
At first, it was lively and discordant and ear-achingly loud, overlapping voices in varying degrees of quality and intoxication. Then, a sort of hush fell over them, and a boy with a warm, sweet voice began to sing.
When Tinn later recounted the story to Heart, he said he wasn’t sure how long he’d stayed there, hidden beneath a cloaking spell so the guards wouldn’t spot him, his ear pressed against the door. He longed to go inside, but he knew the servants would never be this carefree in his presence. Instead, he simply listened to the boy sing, letting his voice envelop him like a blanket. For a little while, at least, he didn’t feel so alone.
The next morning, Tinn returned to the kitchens to have breakfast with the cooks. “I passed by the servants’ quarters, and I heard a boy with a beautiful singing voice,” he said when they asked him how he’d spent the rest of his night. “Do you know who it was? I’d really like to meet him.”
As it turned out, the boy had a bit of a reputation among the staff, though they seemed wary of Tinn’s interest in him, deciding to confer with the boy first. They later told Tinn that while the boy appreciated his praise, he was too shy to meet with the crown prince and begged them not to tell Tinn his name. Determined, Tinn asked the cooks if they could pass on a letter expressing his admiration. To his surprise, the boy responded with one of his own.
One letter became two, then five, then ten, and soon enough, they were writing to each other at least once a week. Some letters were no more than a paragraph or two, a brief synopsis of their day or even just a passing thought, while others went on for pages and pages like they were composing a novel. Tinn would always read his favorite passages to Heart, swooning the entire time.
On the morning of their eighteenth birthday, Heart woke to the feeling of his mattress sinking on one side as Tinn slipped under the bedsheets to lie beside him. Chompoo joined Heart’s familiar, Taengmo, at the foot of the bed, affectionately nipping at one of Taengmo’s floppy ears, a contrast to Chompoo’s pin-straight ones. At first, Heart thought his brother had come to wish him happy birthday, but the lovestruck look on Tinn’s face and the letter he was clutching to his chest told him otherwise.
“Go on, then,” Heart signed with an amused smile. “What did he say?”
Tinn was practically glowing. “He said that without fail, I become smarter, wittier, and more handsome with each passing year.”
“That sounds like something our grandmother would've said,” Heart snorted, which made Tinn pout. “Is that all?”
“He included an illustration of me, look,” Tinn replied, passing the letter to Heart for him to see. The paper smelled like freshly cut mango — confirmation that the letter could only be from the mysterious boy, who liked to place a charm on the seal of every letter so that, when broken, they’d fill the room with one of Tinn’s professed favorite smells. In the winter, his letters often smelled like sesame and ginger tea and cardamom, and in the spring, of jasmine and lemon basil and honey.
As for the illustration, it wasn’t an impressive drawing by any means, characterized by smudged lines and what looked like several grease stains. Still, it was obviously done with deep affection for the subject. Heart wondered, not for the first time, if this boy loved Tinn as much as Tinn loved him. Was it even possible, considering they still had yet to meet? He supposed if they were honest with one another in their letters, maybe it was.
“If you look closely at the hair, it seems more like an illustration of me,” Heart teased, laughing when Tinn elbowed him in his side. “When did you last ask to meet?”
“I haven’t,” Tinn said, his expression faltering a little. “I don’t want to scare him.”
“Scare him? You’ve been exchanging letters for three years,” Heart pointed out. “He might know you better than I do, and you? You know everything about him but his face and his name!”
“And perhaps that’s what he’s most protective of,” Tinn countered. “Besides, we both know that…we could never be together. If we were to meet in person and spend time together, then my eventual engagement to someone else would only hurt that much more.”
“If you believe that to be his reason for keeping his distance…what do you think?” Heart asked. “Do you feel the same?”
“I can’t pretend that I’m not frustrated by our circumstances,” Tinn admitted. “But what can we do? It’s not like our parents can change our marriage laws without precedent. And besides, I’ve never told them about him to begin with. Where would I even start?”
Heart exhaled slowly. He’d never experienced being in love, not even close, but he could feel Tinn’s despair, almost as if it were his own. Unfortunately, Tinn was right: there was nothing their parents could do, not when they had so little time left. Keeping their distance was all they could do to lessen the inevitable heartbreak.
“This is hardly the right way to celebrate our birthday,” Heart eventually said, plastering on a bright smile. “Luckily, I know exactly how to cheer you up.”
Tinn blinked, confused. “What do you mean? Wait — Heart, no.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be careful,” Heart promised. “Meet me outside Wat Phra Kaew after curfew, by the Wihan Yot Gate.”
“We are not drinking inside the most sacred temple in the country!” Tinn’s signing was becoming frantic, even distressed; Heart would’ve had trouble keeping up if he didn’t know his brother as well as he did.
“Don’t worry,” Heart repeated, grinning impishly. “No one will notice a thing.”
Hours later, when everyone had retired for the night, exhausted from the evening’s birthday festivities, Heart slipped out of bed and headed for the palace kitchens with Taengmo at his heels. She wasn’t as clever or strategic as Chompoo, but she was quick, on high alert for any footsteps or shadows around every corner.
Heart had always been the mischievous twin, if only because he could afford to be. They knew that if Tinn ever stepped a toe out of line, it wouldn’t be long before the entire country heard about it. And so, Heart was always the one left sneaking around the palace on both of their behalves, whether it was for sweets or scraps of information — or in this particular instance, alcohol.
When he entered the kitchens, it was cleaner than he expected to be, considering how many guests they had to feed; it felt as if the entire country had come to the Grand Palace to celebrate, though many members of the khunnang had come to see them with more selfish intentions in mind. Heart was impressed by the servants’ efficiency, only it made his task that much harder since everything was locked away. He spent several minutes working at the cellar door — none of his abjuring skills gave him the ability to pick a lock — while Taengmo wandered off, her nose to the ground, following the scent of leftover sticky rice.
He made a small noise of triumph when the lock finally gave way, allowing him to step inside. His eyes roamed the selection in front of him, eventually landing on a bottle the size of his head that looked especially tempting. Taengmo, he thought, calling for her through their telepathic bond, come back here. I’ve got something, let’s go.
It should’ve been simple, really: all he had to do was take the bottle, replace the lock — that, his abjuring skills could do — and leave without a trace. He’d done it before and he’d never been caught, not even suspected. This time, however, the moment he picked up the bottle, someone tapped him on the shoulder, causing him to cry out in surprise.
“Ah!”
The bottle slipped from his hands and crashed to the floor. Glass shards scattered everywhere, liquor instantly seeping into the soles of his shoes. When Heart looked up, expecting to come face-to-face with a cook or one of the guards, he instead found himself looking at a boy his age who seemed as frightened as he was.
The boy stared at him, unmoving, his outstretched arm still hanging in mid-air like a chronomancer had frozen him in time. Then, in the next instant, he dropped to the floor to kneel at Heart’s feet. Heart saw his body tremble uncontrollably as he spoke — pleading for his life, if Heart had to guess — but with his face pressed to the ground, Heart had no way of reading his lips. Moments later, the boy seemed to realize his mistake and lifted his head, then his hands. Heart winced at the sight of fresh cuts on the boy’s palms.
“I’m so sorry, Your Royal Highness,” the boy signed, wincing with every crook of his fingers. “I didn’t know it was you. I thought you were a thief, and…just now, I thought you were your brother.”
Heart let out a sigh of relief. If the boy knew how to sign, he most likely wasn’t a thief who’d broken into the palace; all of the servants had been instructed to learn the fundamentals of sign language when it became clear Heart’s hearing loss was permanent. “You would hardly be the first,” Heart replied with a small smile. Judging by the boy’s confusion, however, it didn’t seem like he understood him, so Heart switched to simpler sentences, ones that relied less on nuance. “I forgive you. Please, don’t tell anyone I was here.”
The boy nodded gratefully, lowering his head to the floor once more out of respect before straightening back up. Worry was still etched in every inch of his face as if he were waiting for Heart to suddenly change his mind. His familiar emerged from behind a pile of crates, a stout gray cat with a sharp gaze. She eyed Heart with suspicion, winding herself around her master’s ankles, a low purr rumbling through her tiny body; Heart assumed it was to calm him down. “I’ll…” He paused, then made a sweeping motion, uncertain of the word for ‘clean’. “You are…hurt?”
“No, just wet,” Heart said, gesturing at the soaked hem of his chong kraben. “But you’re hurt. Where is the medicine kept? Or I can go get my brother, he can heal you.”
The boy’s eyes widened again at the mention of Tinn. “No, don’t!” he said aloud, panicked. “I mean…thank you, Your Royal Highness, but there’s no need.”
“You’ll heal faster with his help,” Heart protested, knowing full well that the boy knew it, too. But he only shook his head furiously, his jaw clenched. He was surprisingly defiant for someone in the presence of a prince for the first time, Heart observed, impressed. It reminded Heart of someone he once knew, only he couldn’t quite put his finger on who exactly he was thinking of. Regardless, he wasn’t offended by the boy’s belligerence, nor did he want to get in trouble himself, so he simply nodded. “If you’re sure. But can you at least tell me your name?”
“Why?” the boy asked. He looked absolutely terrified.
“So I can ask after you later and see if you’re alright,” Heart said. He was worried the boy’s injuries would get infected without magical intervention, and there were only so many healers among the servants who could keep a close eye on him. Perhaps he’d eventually have to bring Tinn to him, after all.
The boy’s expression started to soften. It was then that Heart couldn’t help but notice how handsome he was: bright-eyed and strong-jawed, with two prominent moles, one on his nose and one on his cheek. His breath hitched when the boy finally smiled. “My name is Gun.”