The Summer Palace (Captive Prince, #3.5; Captive Prince Short Stories, #2)

by C.S. Pacat

Now Damen felt the bright, heady set of new desires that had had him breaking from his royal entourage in the last miles spurring his horse to gallop ahead alone as he wished—as he so giddily wished.

He tossed his reins to a servant, was told, ‘By the east fountain,’ and pushed his way past the branches of myrtle hanging low over the paths to the marble flags, to a balconied garden where a figure stood, looking out. On the horizon, the sea was a sudden open view, huge and blue. Damen looked too—at one thing only: the breeze playing with a strand of blond hair, at the cool, pale limbs in white cotton. He felt his own rising happiness, the speeding of his pulse. Some part of him, absurdly, wondered how he would be received: the fluttering, enjoyable anxiety of a new lover. It was nice also to just look, to see him when he thought he wasn’t being observed, even as the familiar voice spoke in a precise, assured fashion.

‘Tell me as soon as the King approaches, I want to be informed right away.’ Damen felt a burgeoning delight. ‘It’...

He was standing before the view. The breeze that was playing with his hair was also playing with the hem of his chiton. Laurent wore it at mid thigh, which was the fashion for young men. In Ios, he had worn only Veretian clothing, perhaps a testament to his fussy skin that would not dar...

—the Kingsmeet, and the trial that followed, two days and two nights in the same tattered garment, sleeping in it, even after kneeling in it at Damen’s ...

‘I was watching the road.’ ‘Hello,...

Laurent’s cheeks were slightly flushed, though it was not clear whether it was from summer heat or his admission.

of those who had involvement in Kastor’s treachery. In the palace at Ios, they had snatched moments together like illicit lovers, at sunset, at dusk, in the gardens, in the bedroom, mornings with Laurent sweetly above him.

‘Hello,’ said Laurent, and Damen couldn’t help the spill of feeling at how close they had come to not having this at all. ‘It’s been too long, I’ve forgotten how. Remind me.’ ‘We’re here. We can take our time,’ said Damen.

‘It suits you,’ said Damen. He was running his finger helplessly along the hem of Laurent’s chiton where it ran from the pin at his shoulder down across his collarbone diagonally to his chest. ‘The mechanism’s simple.’

‘I know how it works,’ Damen said softly, into Laurent’s ear. ‘I want to do things slowly. Oh, you do remember.’ ‘They showed me to my rooms, they’re open like this, to the sea. I had them lay out these clothes for me, and I thought about you coming. I thought about what it would be like here, with you.’ ‘Like this,’ said Damen. He kissed the top of Laurent’s bare shoulder, then his jaw.

‘Stop my mouth,’ said Laurent. ‘I don’t know what I’m saying.’

Damen lifted his head and kissed Laurent tenderly, found him flushed, warm like summer. He could feel Laurent’s hands sliding up over his body, an unconscious mapping that was new, or rather, recent; like the new look in Laurent’s eyes.

He remembered only impressions from the baths: Nikandros arriving, alone, white-faced. Laurent up to the elbows in Damen’s blood. Kastor dead. Damen on the ground. Laurent adopting the tone of emotion-stripped authority that he would maintain throughout those first days: Fetch a pallet to carry him on, and a physician. Now. Nikandros: I’m not leaving you alone with him. Then he’ll bleed to death.

The King’s rooms, with their outflung balcony and pillared view of the sea. My father died here. He didn’t say it.

He remembered Laurent, giving orders in that even voice wiped clean of emotion—secure the city, prepare for regional resistance, send news north to their forces in Karthas. In the same voice, Laurent directed the physicians. In the same voice, Laurent called Nikandros in to kneel and rise Kyros of Ios. In the same voice, Laurent ordered Kastor’s body held under guard, for viewing. Laurent had a mind that took in problems, faced them, quantified them and then, steadily, solved them: keep Damianos alive; cement Damianos’s rule; don’t appear to be ruling in his stead.

He had turned his head to see Laurent lying beside him, fully clothed on top of the covers, still wearing that tattered, bloodstained chiton, in a sleep of utter exhaustion.

Kissing felt much more intimate when sword and breastplate were discarded on the path and it was body against body. Laurent’s mouth opened to him, and he tongued inside in the way he liked. Laurent encouraged it, fingers curling around his neck.

‘You’re here early.’ As if only now noticing this. ‘Yes.’ Laughing. ‘I planned to greet you on the steps. Veretian protocol.’ ‘Come out and kiss me in front of everyone later.’ ‘How far behind did you leave them?’ ‘I don’t know,’ Damen said it, his smile widening. ‘Come on. Let me show you the palace.’

Later he would show Laurent the stables and the library, and the path that wound through the gardens, through the trees of orange and almond.

For now it was the simple pleasure of Laurent beside him, their hands linked, with only sunlight and fresh air about them. Here and there, they stopped, and everything was a delight: the leisure to kiss, to linger under the orange tree, the bits of bark that clung to Laurent’s chiton after he was pressed up against it.

They stopped at one of them. Laurent plucked a white flower from the low-hanging branches, and lifted his hand to tuck it into Damen’s hair, as if Damen were a youth from the village. ‘Are you courting me?’ said Damen. He felt foolish with happiness. He knew courtship was new to Laurent, didn’t know why it felt so new to himself. ‘I haven’t done this before,’ said Laurent. Damen took a flower of his own. His pulse sped up, his fingers felt clumsy as he tucked it behind Laurent’s ear.

‘My mother planted these gardens,’ said Damen. His heart was pounding. ‘Do you like them? They’re ours now.’ Saying the word “ours” still felt daring. He could feel it mirrored in Laurent, the shy awkwardness of what was so dearly desired. ‘I like them,’ said Laurent. ‘I think they’re beautiful.’

‘There’s a statue of her here. Come and meet her.’

Damen was smiling; there was delight in seeing Laurent explore himself, a young man who was sweet, teasing, at times unexpectedly earnest. Having made the decision to let Damen in, Laurent had not gone back on it. When the walls went up, it was with Damen inside them.

Laurent made a formal Akielon gesture that matched his chiton and the gardens, but was different to his habitual Veretian manners. Damen felt his skin prickle with strangeness. It was part of Akielon courtship to seek permission from a parent. If things had been different, Damen might have knelt in the great hall in front of King Aleron, asking for the right to court his youngest son.