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Sarkan arrived in Gidna as winter set in, his hair tousled by the wind but otherwise unaffected by the inclement weather. The intricately worked collar of his coat was perhaps a bit higher than usual, but if the cold bothered him, he gave no sign of it.The makeshift court hardly knew what to make of him, but that was no surprise: the same thing had happened whenever Sarkan showed his face in Kralia every few years. This time, however, the uncertainty was tinged with an awe that Solya did not appreciate. Sarkan had long been accepted as the foremost wizard of Polnya, despite Solya’s best efforts, but the courtiers (Solya included, though he would certainly never admit as much) had never understood the threat the Wood presented before—recent events unfolded. As such, most people did not go out of their way to speak with Sarkan, and the man seemed content to move unimpeded and largely unnoticed around Gidna.The Archduke’s castle was impressive, but it had nothing on Zamek Orla; there were only so many places for Sarkan to lurk before Solya just happened to stumble upon him in the small magical library maintained by the White Larch.“I wondered when you would turn up,” Sarkan muttered, his eyes flicking briefly to Solya before they returned to the rare tome in his hands. It was a treatise on healing magic from the east; the White Larch collected them, as it suited her particular talents. The majority of the books in this room were useless to Solya, but Sarkan seemed to have some aptitude for most types of magic, even the more distinct branches like healing.Solya seated himself in the chair opposite Sarkan. “Regrettably, the task of protecting the king is not so easily abandoned as cleaning up Zamek Orla.”“Alosha must appreciate your help with that crucial duty.” Sarkan turned the page with a care Solya had only ever seen him exercise on inanimate objects.Solya narrowed his eyes. “She has recovered, for the most part, but I would hardly consider her entirely back to form.”“He meant it kindly, Alosha,” Sarkan said, lifting his head from the book.Solya flinched and glanced over his shoulder—Alosha had a bad habit of turning up in time to overhear the most incriminating comments without proper context—but they were alone in the room.Sarkan was reading again, though a small grin curved his mouth. Solya stared, his annoyance forgotten; when was the last time he’d seen Sarkan do more than smirk? Only one thing had significantly changed for Sarkan recently, which meant—“Where is Agnieszka?” The question slipped out without conscious thought; he’d meant to work up to it, couched in considerably more diplomatic terms.“The Wood.”“—Excuse me?”Sarkan scowled at him, as if Solya were the one making ridiculous pronouncements. “She’s set her mind to cleansing the Wood,” he said slowly, enunciating with insulting precision, “an undertaking that actually does trivialize the work I did back in Kralia.”Of all the possible answers Sarkan could have given, that was the one Solya had expected least; and yet, it was the only one that made sense, now that Solya gave it proper consideration. Then the rest of Sarkan’s words sank in. “Have you removed all traces of the Wood’s presence from the capital?” It had been a few months only.Sarkan made a dismissive sound, turning his attention back to the tome once more. “I guarded the Wood for a century. The only reason it managed to get to the queen was through a gambit originating on the Rosyan side of its borders that bypassed me entirely. I’m more than familiar with its methods, and that cursed grimoire was the latest and most sophisticated attempt it had made to infiltrate the city; finding the rest was fairly trivial.”The worst part was Sarkan’s calm recitation of the facts couldn’t even be considered bragging. It wasn’t as if he’d told a crowd of courtiers (or even just mentioned it in front of a single gossipmonger) so that everyone would end up learning of his deeds: he’d told Solya because Solya had asked.Solya made some excuse about a pressing meeting, and departed; Sarkan was too preoccupied with his damn book to notice anything out of the ordinary.Their paths did not cross again until a banquet a fortnight later. Sarkan had avoided all social engagements with ease—Gidna’s social calendar was hardly so packed as Kralia’s—but the king had either ordered or wheedled Sarkan into attending this one: Princess Marisha had recounted the tale earlier that day, but Solya’s patience for or understanding of children below the age of ten was tenuous at best. The only reason he didn’t fend them off with sweets or flashy cantrips was fear of Alosha and Kasia’s wrath. Collectively, of course; he was certainly more than a match for either of them singly.Sarkan was not lurking in the corner of the ballroom, precisely, but he had a noticeable buffer of space around him nonetheless: likely due to the perpetual scowl on his face. He took such care with his wardrobe that it was almost a shame: he’d cut quite the figure if he at least stopped frowning.“I remember when Agnieszka attended an event much like this one,” Solya said, idle. “I see now where she learned her social graces.”Sarkan glared, but it felt rather half-hearted, and a moment later he returned to—whatever it was he was doing. Bringing down the collective mood of the room, perhaps. “These parties are more tedious than I remembered.”The party was rather tedious, not that Solya would admit as much to him. “Why did you come to Gidna?” he asked instead. Sarkan had said something about renewing his pledge to the king when he’d first arrived, but Solya hadn’t paid much attention to his words. “Trouble with Agnieszka?”“She didn’t reject my marriage proposal, if that’s what you’re asking.” Sarkan’s frown deepened at whatever he saw on Solya’s face; Solya couldn’t be quite certain what, exactly, his expression showed. “I didn’t propose to her at all! Could you imagine—no. It would be a disaster, and I refuse to contemplate it.”“Your children would likely be powerful,” Solya said, still off-kilter.Sarkan didn’t roll his eyes, but he conveyed the impression that he would have liked to, had it not been so undignified. “Is that why you proposed to Kasia? Interested to see how a child of two different kinds of magic would turn out?”Solya’s face twisted up in distaste before he could suppress the impulse.“Do women even interest you?” A more suspicious person, unfamiliar with Sarkan’s peculiarities, might have mistaken his tone for morbid fascination.“In theory,” Solya said.Sarkan actually rolled his eyes, then. “What would you have done had Kasia accepted your proposal?”“Married her, of course.” Why else would he have proposed? “But I don’t believe men interest our dear Captain of the Guard any more than women interest me. In that regard, we would have been well-matched.”“What better foundation is there upon which to base a marriage?” Sarkan muttered, as if he had so much as a leg to stand on.“At least my ill-fated entanglements haven’t been immortalized in folk song,” Solya said, mild, and hummed the opening bars of the most popular version of Ludmila and the Enchanter just to be that extra bit of obnoxious about it.That was clearly the end of enough for Sarkan, who stalked off as haughtily as an offended cat. The crowd of nobles—rather sparse, but Gidna was perhaps half the size of Kralia, and at the far edge of Polnya too—parted before him, his progress plainly visible as he crossed the ballroom. Solya widened his eyes slightly, all innocence, when those courtiers closest to him glanced over.“What was that about?” Kasia asked a few seconds later, interrupting Solya’s well-deserved bask in self-satisfaction.“Sarkan thinks you and I would have been a terrible match,” Solya said, mournful.“You can’t tell me you thought otherwise.” Kasia was exasperated now. “I don’t see why you two can’t get along.”Solya drew himself up to enumerate the reasons Sarkan was insufferable (there were many, and some of them even an uneducated peasant like Kasia might appreciate) but she spoke again before he could do so.“You’re quite alike in some ways.”Solya stared at her speechlessly; there was no call to insult him, and after he’d gone out of his way to be pleasant since they’d left that dreadful backwater valley too.Kasia actually snickered. “Well, maybe not many, but you can’t deny that you’d both react the same way to that statement.”“Don’t you have some hapless Rosyan to whack around with a blade?” Solya said plaintively, looking around for any prospective targets. Sadly, Kasia was only becoming more terrifying under Alosha’s tutelage, and if there were any Rosyans present at this little soiree, they were keeping a low profile.“Oh dear, now I’ve offended you.” Kasia didn’t sound very repentant, and her lingering smile ruined it anyway. “Can I offer you a dance to make it up to you?”“I don’t need or want your pity,” Solya informed her. “But a dance does sound lovely.”The dance was not, particularly, lovely. For someone who was so graceful with a blade, she was nearly as clumsy as Agnieszka when she tried to follow the steps of a simple dance. Solya tried not to limp visibly as he retreated from the ballroom floor at the end of the song.He wound up next to Alosha, who was lurking in a shadowed corner tucked halfway behind a pillar. Her eyes roamed the crowd restlessly, plainly ready to leap into action at the first sign of trouble.“Perhaps you might include dancing in your daily lessons,” Solya said, leaning casually against the pillar beside her in an attempt to alleviate the pressure on his poor crushed feet.“Kasia already knows how to dance.” Somehow, Alosha managed to convey annoyance with Solya’s apparent deficiencies as well as amusement at his predicament; she really was a witch of many talents, though Solya would never admit it aloud.“She stepped on my feet no less than seven times,” Solya hissed, then caught himself and smiled. Tempered, he continued, “I know you’re not particularly fond of dancing yourself, Alosha, but if you’d like me to step in, as it were—”Alosha scoffed. “I doubt your feet could take the abuse. Besides, it would be unnecessary. If you’ll recall, the first half of the dance was perfect: you must have said something truly egregious even by your own standards to warrant that kind of punishment.”She was right about the dance, as was often the case. It was one of the things that bothered Solya most about her. “All I asked was when she intended to return to the valley and sweep Agnieszka off her feet,” Solya said, his words edged with unbecoming petulance. It was more difficult to maintain his usual facade around Alosha alone: she’d known him since he was a boy, struggling with life at court and also cantrips as basic as vanastalem; there wasn’t much point pretending, when she knew him so well.“Pouting doesn’t suit you, Solya.” Alosha was, as ever, unyielding and incisive as her namesake. “Kasia probably thought you were mocking her.”Well, it wasn’t as if Solya was above such things—case in point, his earlier conversation with Sarkan—but he and Kasia hardly had the same history. Which was probably why she would have assumed he meant the earnest question maliciously: she didn’t know him well enough.Solya hated it when Alosha was right.“I was serious,” Solya insisted. “If she has no interest in such things, fine. But you cannot tell me there was no connection between her and Agnieszka.”“I’m surprised you noticed.” There was a wealth of meaning in Alosha’s ironic tone; Solya narrowed his eyes at her, trying to decide if he should take offense.It seemed more trouble than it was worth, at the moment. “I see no reason why they shouldn’t seize the opportunity to—” He gestured vaguely, unwilling to resort to crudity in front of Alosha and also fairly hazy on the specifics of what might take place between two women.“Well, you wouldn’t,” Alosha said drily. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you hesitate when you set your mind on something.”Solya inclined his head, accepting that as his due.“That was hardly a compliment,” Alosha muttered.Never one to dwell on the past, no matter how recent, Solya said, “We’ll have to contrive a reason for Agnieszka to come to court. Kasia can hardly abandon her duties here.”“You don’t intend to act as a matchmaker, surely.” Alosha sounded amused by the very thought.“That is exactly what I will do,” Solya said with great dignity, though he hadn’t conceptualized his intentions before that moment.Alosha’s burgeoning smile vanished. “You can’t be serious—”Solya barely heard her as he strode away to begin preparations at once: as Alosha had said, he had never been one to hesitate once he’d decided upon a course of action. Besides, if—on the rare, extremely unlikely chance—things went pear-shaped, well, it had been Alosha’s idea in the first place.Arranging for the king and the rest of the court to move back to Kralia was relatively straightforward, if slightly unpleasant. Within a week or so, it was decided that they would return to Kralia in the spring. Everyone had become rather tired of the cramped accommodations: Gidna’s castle wasn’t built to host the entire court of Polnya, or even the limited subsection of it that had followed the king and his sister here in the wake of their family’s demise.All Solya had had to do was spread the news that Sarkan had removed all threats from the Wood and remind them how much more cosmopolitan Kralia was. Boasting of others’ accomplishments was practically anathema, but some part of Solya was aware that he owed Sarkan and Agnieszka. Ergo, he could stifle his pride for a while and listen to people discussing Sarkan’s accomplishments, and he would contrive to reunite Agnieszka and Kasia.Convincing Agnieszka to meet them in Kralia was a different story entirely, complicated by the slow movement of mail no matter how Solya bribed the couriers, and also by Agnieszka’s utter, unrelenting stubbornness.“Does she want to stay in that forest for the rest of her life!” Solya threw the latest letter from Agnieszka down on top of Sarkan’s open book and stalked over to the library’s window to glare out at the now-tiresome ocean view. A flock of pale-fletched birds wheeled above the water, which only increased his ire. The birds of prey around Gidna were intriguing, but the overabundance of gulls ruined it entirely: Solya refused to lower himself to using those winged rats to spy on people. They couldn’t return to Kralia soon enough.“Obviously.” In the reflection on the glass, he saw Sarkan pick up the parchment and scan it quickly. “What on earth did you even write to her in the first place?”Turning, Solya made a cutting gesture with his hand. The last missive had been rather provocative, he’d known it even before he’d sealed and sent it off, but he wasn’t about to tell Sarkan as much. “That hardly matters. The crux of it is, she should be at court.”“She won’t come to court while the Wood remains corrupted, and even after I doubt she’d feel inclined to visit.” Everything Sarkan said, Solya knew already, but it was especially disheartening to know that Sarkan agreed with him: on principle, he avoided agreeing with Sarkan whenever he could.“Surely she can postpone her little mission for a few years to spend time with her childhood friend,” Solya insisted.“It would be more than a few years. A couple of decades, at least. I don’t imagine a better candidate for Captain of the Guard will appear anytime soon.” Sarkan was infuriatingly unmoved; Solya couldn’t decide whether master or former apprentice vexed him more. “Why are you so set on Agnieszka coming to Kralia?”Sarkan was definitely winning the internal debate; Solya walked back to the table and sat down across from Sarkan, forcing himself to breathe slowly lest his temper get the better of him. “She’s a witch of Polnya, and she belongs at court.”“The Bear sets foot in Kralia more rarely than I ever did, but I’ve never heard a word on the subject from you.”“He’s insufferable,” Solya snapped: he knew Sarkan felt the same, so there was no reason for him to be so difficult. “Agnieszka is—charming.” It took him a moment to come up with a suitable adjective to describe her.“Ah. You intend to add another name to your list of rejected marriage proposals?”Solya gave him a flat stare. “I wouldn’t waste my breath. She already rejected the proposal of a prince.”“A pri—Marek?!”At least Sarkan was properly outraged; Solya nodded. “Who in their right mind turns down a prince?” Agnieszka hadn’t said it in so many words, but she had fled the castle with the children and Kasia immediately afterward which seemed a clear enough reponse. There had been other factors involved, admittedly, but all the same: a prince.“That is not what I meant,” Sarkan hissed. “Of all the preposterous—He had the audacity—”Solya eyed him warily: he was rather more upset than expected. Sarkan had claimed he wasn’t interested in a long-term commitment with Agnieszka, but his reaction now suggested otherwise. Going to all the trouble of prying Agnieszka out of that blasted valley would be a waste if she just ended up with Sarkan. Solya loathed the idea of doing Sarkan’s any further favours, and besides, Agnieszka could do so much better.Sarkan was still ranting, possibly about Marek; Solya wasn’t paying him much attention, but he’d perfected the art of nodding and making thoughtful noises at appropriate intervals—enough to keep Sarkan going, apparently.“You don’t want Agnieszka to come to court?” Solya asked swiftly when Sarkan paused for breath.“Because she did so well in Kralia last time,” Sarkan muttered, his scowl only deepening. “She has no interest in court and its petty intrigues. Why would I want her to come? The Wood needs to be cleansed more than the king needs another witch.”“You defeated the Wood-Queen.” He managed not to shudder openly, but his skin still crawled when he let himself think about that—creature wearing Hanna’s skin like an ill-fitting dress. “Surely the Wood is calmer now. It can wait until the king releases Kasia from his service.”Sarkan looked at him sharply. “Alosha said you meant to act the matchmaker but I thought she was joking.”“Does Alosha know what a joke is?”Sarkan’s eyes slid past him, towards the entrance; Solya whipped around, but the door was still closed: they were alone.“Hilarious,” Solya said, with as much dignity as he could muster: so, not terribly much.“It was a joke,” Sarkan said blandly. His face betrayed no amusement, but it was obvious he was laughing internally; Solya barely resisted the urge to kick him. Fortunately for the sake of his shins, Sarkan added, “I don’t see why you’re doing this.”“Sight has never been your forte, no.”Sarkan scoffed. “You don’t gain anything from meddling in their affairs.”“Perhaps I’m acting from the goodness in my heart.”Sarkan actually laughed aloud at that which was—fair, though Solya adopted a wounded expression anyway. “The truth, or I’ll tell Agnieszka everything.”Solya eyed him again. They obviously had means of communicating that Solya had never heard of, but could they span all the way from Gidna to the valley? He could intercept any correspondence Sarkan sent out—“I could just tell Kasia,” Sarkan added.Solya winced. “Those peasants won’t appreciate Agnieszka,” he said quickly. “Her or Kasia. And Agnieszka can do better than you.”Sarkan rolled his eyes and said, “Well, I can see you’re set on this course. Far be it from me to tell you you’re courting disaster,” which was essentially permission for Solya to continue—not that he needed Sarkan’s approval, of course. “Why don’t you have Kasia ask? The ridiculous girl followed her into the Wood, for heaven’s sake, I don’t think she’d refuse her anything.”“Kasia is already suspicious of my intentions,” Solya said with great dignity. Alosha hadn’t betrayed him to her as she had to Sarkan, or at least Kasia hadn’t confronted him about it yet, but the budding rapport between them seemed greatly damaged if not outright destroyed by Solya’s thoughtless comments at that ill-fated event the month before.Sarkan muttered to himself, but Solya was already distracted with mentally composing his next letter to Agnieszka. This one, surely, would be the one to convince her.He had no more luck with any of his subsequent letters. Winter melted inexorably into spring, grains of sand running out of the hourglass as Solya’s self-imposed deadline loomed. Irritatingly, Agnieszka had stopped replying to his messages entirely, but she underestimated his persistence and also his willingness to blur the truth slightly to achieve his own goals.“That is a blatant, egregious lie even for you,” Sarkan observed, rudely reading over his shoulder as Solya penned his latest letter to Agnieszka. It would be his last: the king and his retinue departed for Kralia in less than a fortnight. If this did not compel Agnieszka to leave that blasted valley, nothing would.“It’s for their own good,” Solya insisted as he signed his name with a flourish. He dried the ink with a murmured cantrip, folded the parchment swiftly and then sealed it with the stylized image of a falcon that he’d created a year after he’d earned his Name. It shone with a pale light: not quite as flashy as Sarkan’s habit of literally burning his name into private missives, but Solya had no need to be so—tacky.Sarkan’s only response was to shake his head and turn back to his latest book.Agnieszka met them in some no-name village two days before they reached Kralia, which was fairly impressive considering it would have taken Solya’s letter a week and more to reach the valley. Even taking into account that she had probably sped her journey with magic, the feat was still noteworthy.The children and Kasia overcame their surprise rather quickly, greeting her with an enthusiasm that had been entirely absent during the months they’d spent in Gidna. The Archduke hung back, studying Agnieszka in much the same way he had scrutinized Kasia: wary, and uncertain what to make of her. Neither Agnieszka nor Kasia could be easily categorized.Alosha shot Solya a suspicious look before moving forward to see Agnieszka as well. Sarkan drew his horse up next to Solya’s, watching the others with a strange expression.“Second thoughts?” Solya inquired, mild.Sarkan gave him a look that Solya didn’t care to decipher. “That will be my line, once Agnieszka realizes your ruse.” He spurred his horse on before Solya could reply; the unease that settled in the pit of Solya’s stomach could not only be attributed to Sarkan having the last word.The unease lingered even when they stopped for the night at the castle of some minor lord. The magical members of their party were unceremoniously lumped together in one suite: the baron’s modest castle could not accommodate nearly everyone. Solya found himself alone with Sarkan in the sitting room following supper, but he couldn’t summon up any enthusiasm for needling the other wizard.The door to the rest of the castle burst open before he could make his excuses and try to sleep: Agnieszka stood in the doorway. Her hair was in a state of disarray somehow beyond its usual chaos, but it was the wild look in her eyes that gave Solya pause. Her very presence was like the sudden onset of a storm to the peace that had settled into the room.“I left Alosha with Kasia and the children,” Agnieszka said without preamble, coming swiftly into the room. “We need to cast the Summoning on her as soon as possible, Sarkan.” If she noticed Solya’s presence, she gave no sign of it, which was just as well.Sarkan looked up from his latest book—it was getting ridiculous, really, where had he even found another new magical treatise?—and said, calmly, “No.”“What? Sarkan, don’t be ridiculous—” Agnieszka started to snap.“There’s nothing wrong with Kasia,” Sarkan said.Agnieszka spun around so swiftly that Solya had time only to drop his hand away from the doorknob before she pinned him in place with a glare. “Your letter said Kasia was showing signs of corruption—”Solya put on a placating smile and took a step away from the door. There would be no escape along that route. “That may have been a slight exaggeration, Agnieszka.” Behind her, Sarkan scoffed loudly, but Solya maintained his pleasant expression rather than try to glare at him. There were greater concerns at hand.“You lied.” Agnieszka sounded resigned more than anything, as if she should have expected nothing more—which was true, but why did that only make Solya feel more uneasy?“In my defense,” Solya heard himself say, “Sarkan knew about it and did nothing to stop me.”“Did nothing?” Sarkan was so outraged by the absolutely true accusation that he put his book aside and stalked over. “I told you it was a bad idea, you absurd dissembler!”“You told me no such thing,” Solya said evenly.“It was strongly implied. And you should have known better!” Clearly, he had been spending too much time with Alosha lately: he sounded almost exactly like her.Solya only raised an eyebrow. He had never let such petty things as knowing better or the truth stop him before, and it was ridiculous that Sarkan should expect him to start now.Sarkan shook his head in disgust, then paused, apprehension writ plain on his face. Solya followed his gaze: Agnieszka was glaring daggers at them both.“Second thoughts?” Sarkan muttered with a faintly malicious edge, eyeing Solya sidelong as if unwilling to take his attention off Agnieszka completely.“That’s enough out of both of you,” Agnieszka said, low and deadly.“What working did you even want to cast,” Agnieszka said some time later, turning with annoyed resignation to Solya.Solya blinked slowly, his ears still ringing from Agnieszka tearing a strip—several strips—off of him and Sarkan. She hadn’t even raised her voice, yet she’d managed to evoke a shame unlike anything Solya had felt since he’d been scolded by his decades-dead mother. And Alosha. But he was far more accustomed to Alosha’s disapproval: it would have been stranger to know that she approved of something he did, now.“What working?” Solya repeated dumbly.“You hassled me all winter,” Agnieszka said impatiently. “You plainly had some reason to want my presence, so. What. Do you. Want.”It was true that Solya had been intrigued by how casting workings with Agnieszka increased their power, but she was an acclaimed witch in her own right now, and he had never been interested in sharing glory. With Marek had been one thing: it was obvious who had made what contribution; but with another witch or wizard? The very idea was anathema to him.“Ah,” Solya said, before the silence could drag on too long. He was very aware of Agnieszka’s narrowed eyes drilling into him. “Well—” He cast about for a suitable excuse to go along with the unexpected out she had handed him, but nothing came to mind. “You see—”Unexpectedly, Sarkan spoke up. “He doubts that I’ve eradicated every trace of the Wood’s influence from Kralia and wants a second opinion.”After a moment, Solya looked away from Sarkan to smile at Agnieszka. Hopefully, the expression conveyed that that was indeed what he thought; in truth, it hadn’t even occurred to him. That unfortunate incident with Ludmila’s corrupted husband aside, Sarkan had never failed to accomplish any task set to him by the king, nor had he ever falsely boasted of his achievements: if he said he’d cleansed Kralia of the Wood’s influence, Solya believed him.Agnieszka glanced between them suspiciously. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll look into it, since I’m already here.” She gave Solya one last narrow look before departing, probably to go be as sickeningly sweet with Kasia and the children as she had been earlier.“You slept with her?” Solya said without thinking, still badly off-kilter; he’d known Agnieszka was a singular witch, but she had never turned the full force of—herself on him before. Even when he and Marek had laid siege to the tower, she had not really attacked him; her and Sarkan’s final working had been Luthe’s Summoning, of all things. Knowing something about a person was far different than experiencing it for himself.Sarkan scowled at him. “That’s not any of your business.” He paused, then with considerably more suspicion added, “How do you even know about that?”“You weren’t subtle. I could feel your magic—both of you—from outside the tower.” And Solya was intimately familiar with how Sarkan’s magic felt when he was in the throes of passion, though they hadn’t slept together since Sarkan’s self-imposed exile to the edge of Polnya. “I wasn’t watching!” Solya snapped,when Sarkan still looked unconvinced: as if Solya’s sight workings could penetrate the wards Sarkan had laid over the tower—and he only knew they couldn’t because he’d tried in the past, not out of any prurient desire to see Sarkan with Agnieszka.Sarkan relented after a moment, if grudgingly. “You can hardly blame me for jumping to conclusions. You always did like to watch.”Solya twitched—they hadn’t spoken of their casual encounters since Sarkan took up with Ludmila—but he managed to suppress the urge to cross his arms; instead, he only offered Sarkan a thin smile. “I don’t recall you ever complaining.”Sarkan glared and opened his mouth, then paused—rethinking the sharp retort he had doubtlessly thought of?—and looked at Solya consideringly.It was strange to have Sarkan’s full attention on him and not merely be dismissed as—as weaker, and unwise, and a nuisance.Solya didn’t like it. Thus decided, he swiftly blurted out some excuse and departed without giving Sarkan the opportunity to reply.They returned to Kralia with great fanfare exactly on schedule. Solya slipped away from the main party as soon as they made it into the castle proper; the scene had been a bit too similar to their homecoming with Queen Hanna, though many of the faces that had been present then were absent now. He intended to make for the Charovnikov to see what books might have surfaced after the library was put to rights, but paused long enough in the corridor outside of it that Alosha and Sarkan caught up to him.Ragostok had kept busy in their absence. The physical destruction caused by Ballo’s corrupted form and the possessed Rosyan soldiers had been mended, though it was still obvious where the damage had been: Ragostok was categorically incapable of crafting anything that could be considered mundane, so the halls around the Charovnikov and portions of the royal wing all bore obvious, if lavish, scars.He had excellent taste. Some of the pieces he produced were too flashy for Solya to truly appreciate, but he couldn’t deny their beauty. The entrance to the Charovnikov now looked more suited to a grand cathedral than a library, even a magical one, but there was a falcon so lifelike it looked seconds away from taking flight carved into the relief above the doors, along with representations of the other witches and wizards of Polnya, which Solya found rather charming. The dragon that depicted Sarkan was perhaps a bit large, but larger specimens existed in the wild, so Solya only gave it a brief frown. More fittingly, an owl perched improbably on a stack of books had pride of place at the top of the arch.“Could you not have stopped him from creating—” Alosha gestured to the section of wall opposite the entrance to the Charovnikov. The stone gleamed iridescent, undaunted by her disapproval, so she transferred her frown to Sarkan.He looked at her. “He inherited your implacable will,” he said; when Alosha’s frown only deepened, he swiftly added, “and it seemed prudent to leave the restoration of the castle proper to a specialist.”“Say what you will of his tastes, Ragostok’s craftsmanship is unparalleled,” Solya added, mild.Alosha gave him a flat look, unamused but otherwise unaffected at the jab. “He wastes his talent on futile endeavours,” she replied coolly. It was a harsh thing to say about one’s (great?-)great-grandson, but Ragostok was no more the subject of her words than he had been Solya’s.“Is any endeavour truly futile?” Solya looked up at Ragostok’s intricately carved archway, musing. “If nothing else, one gains experience from the undertaking.”“What use is experience if you ignore your mistakes and learn nothing from them?” Alosha’s riposte was sharp as always.Sarkan cleared his throat, looking awkward in the brief glance Solya spared him; before he and Alosha could come to blows, however, the sound of running feet interrupted them.Kasia caught the princess’ hand before she reached them, her face going wary as her eyes traveled over their little trio. The king wasn’t far behind, though he was far too serious to run inside the castle.“The hallway is nicer here!” Marisha’s high voice echoed in the otherwise quiet corridor; oblivious to the tension, she dragged Kasia between them, forcing Solya and Alosha to step apart or be trampled. “Why couldn’t the Splendid make the walls in my room sparkle?”Solya slipped into the Charovnikov while Alosha tried to dissuade the princess from changing the very structure of the castle. Futile endeavours, indeed.“Whoever tried to set the Charovnikov to rights made a complete hash of it,” Solya announced as soon as he arrived at the informal meeting hall for the various Named witches and wizards currently in residence at Zamek Orla. The room had been set for dinner, and everyone but the Willow was present. No apprentices were allowed, of course, which was just as well: doubtless one (or more!) of them was responsible for the dubiously reindexed collection. He hadn’t been able to find any tomes that remotely interested him, and even some of the ones he used more regularly had mysteriously disappeared.“I put it back to rights,” Sarkan said, coolly enough that Solya perhaps regretted taking the empty chair beside him.“Under what system? They’re sorted by subject, but beyond that I couldn’t begin to discern—”“The most practical volumes are on the lower shelves, for ease of access,” Sarkan said condescendingly. “The upper shelves are reserved for—”Solya turned to Agnieszka, already tired of Sarkan’s ridiculous explanation. “He didn’t organize the library in that dreadful tower this way, surely.”“No, he did,” Agnieszka said. “It was rather confusing at first, but—”“You would have sorted them by colour!” Sarkan burst out. Solya leaned away, startled, and turned the motion into a casual reach for the nearest dish.“I didn’t know what the spell did. You never bothered to explain anything!” Agnieszka snapped right back, unfazed.“I would have thought it perfectly self-evident,” Sarkan retorted, and then they were off, airing a seemingly endless list of grievances stemming, as far as Solya could gather, from Agnieszka’s season or so of apprenticeship.“Pass the salt,” Ragostok said distractedly; he was at the end of the table, working with gold and an assortment of gems on a small circlet: so perhaps Alosha had managed to talk the princess down from extensive remodeling after all.Solya looked expectantly at Agnieszka and Sarkan: the salt was between them. But their argument showed no signs of slowing.“The salt?” Ragostok repeated irritably, lifting his head. “What on earth are they arguing about now?” he demanded of Alosha.“Solya purposely set them off,” she said, an edge of exasperation colouring her tone.He certainly had not, but he wasn’t about to admit as much. He offered grandmother and grandson a pleasant smile, and accidentally elbowed Sarkan as he leaned over to pass Ragostok the salt.Sarkan barely reacted, not pausing in his tirade as he shot Solya a brief glare. Solya stared back, not that Sarkan noticed: he was too busy shouting with Agnieszka.Ragostok had returned to his work when Solya managed to look away, but Alosha was watching him with a strange expression on her face: amused, yes, but also something else that Solya could not identify but did not appreciate in the slightest.“Can His Majesty spare your presence for so long?” Solya inquired, silky.“Stashek doesn’t need me to hold his hand every second of the day,” Alosha said tartly. Unlike other members of the royal family I can think of, her tone strongly implied.Solya gave her a thin smile. “And I suppose Kasia is with him and the princess in your absence. A sensible choice: Kasia’s record for protecting royalty is rather more successful than yours.”Alosha only leveled an unimpressed look at him before returning her attention to the meal: as much of a concession as he would get from her.Oddly, having the last word did nothing to settle the unease roiling in Solya’s gut.After dinner, Solya found Kasia keeping watch over the king and the princess and an assortment of tutors in the main library. The hall and the collection it housed was larger than the Charovnikov, but not nearly so grand; even before Ragostok’s remodeling, the Hall of Wizards had been more impressive.“Solya.” Kasia greeted him as soon as he drew near, her tone quiet so as not to disturb the children and perfectly calm—difficult to read, and her expression was similarly inscrutable. Impossible to say if she was even aware of his role in Agnieszka’s arrival, much less whether she was angry about the lie.“Kasia,” he replied, hoping his tone was just as difficult for her to read. The earlier meal sat heavily in his stomach, and he honestly could not say what he’d eaten before slipping away to seek Kasia out.“Are you all right?” Kasia looked faintly concerned, which might have been gratifying under different circumstances.“Perfectly,” Solya said. “Well, my appetite was put off by Sarkan and Agnieszka arguing throughout dinner, but otherwise—”Kasia nodded, amused now. “They do argue rather a lot.”Solya digested this. “Since Agnieszka joined us here in Kralia?”“No.” Kasia looked at him strangely. “They were always arguing after—” She paused, a haunted look crossing her face: remembering her time in the Wood’s thrall, perhaps. “At any rate, I imagine they’ve been arguing almost since Sarkan took Nieshka with him after the Choosing.”“They’re always like that?” Solya demanded, forgetting himself. When Kasia blinked at him, he cleared his throat. “That is to say, it isn’t a recent development after—” He hesitated to raise Agnieszka and Sarkan’s short-lived involvement if Kasia was unaware of it. After all, Kasia had not a witch’s sensitivity to others’ magic; even if she had been in the tower on that ill-fated night, she might not know what had happened before Solya and Marek attacked.Kasia looked amused again. “I hope they didn’t argue during, but I didn’t ask.”“Thank you for that.” Solya grimaced; he couldn’t help himself. “So this isn’t lingering animosity from their—separation.”“I wouldn’t think so—” Kasia turned swiftly, a hand dropping to the sword at her side, but it was only a clerk wandering out of the stacks with a precarious pile of books, utterly oblivious to how close he’d just come to death or at least dismemberment. Once she had determined his lack of threat to her charges, her attention return to Solya, one side of her mouth curling into a sly smile. “Why? It’s not as if the animosity between you and Sarkan is from a bad breakup.”“I always found fucking Sarkan improved his character immensely,” Solya said distractedly, still caught on the fact that Kasia had noticed a potential threat before him.“What,” Kasia said; in the quiet of the library, it was almost a shriek.Solya put on a smile as everyone nearby turned to look at them; the hapless clerk actually dropped his stack of books. But after a few moments of Kasia murmuring apologies (to the adults) and assurances (to the king and the princess), their attention finally shifted back to their respective duties. When the last of them had looked away, Solya flicked his fingers and muttered a working to offer them some privacy: the spell would garble the words of those within to anyone beyond its bounds. His and Sarkan’s casual relationship had been fairly common knowledge back in the day, but the only people now who even remembered it had happened were their fellow witches and wizards; he had no interest in spreading it around now.“It was nothing serious.” Solya brushed a non-existent speck of dust off the end of one pale, voluminous sleeve. “An arrangement of convenience more than anything. People are still suspicious of magic today, and it was worse a century ago.” Or they coveted it, and only pretended interest because they wanted something done; Solya hadn’t been burned so badly as Sarkan, but it had happened.Kasia nodded, still a little wide-eyed.“The stigma against relationships between people of the same sex barely exists in the capital,” Solya added, casual, in case Kasia was still uncertain about a relationship between herself and Agnieszka: he hadn’t arranged for them to be reunited only for them remain mere friends, after all. “Some people might look at a couple sidelong but those as powerful as us needn’t worry.”“Right,” Kasia agreed faintly.“At any rate, I’ve known Sarkan for longer than I’d care to admit, and he’s hardly a suitable partner for Agnieszka. I think the two of you would be much better suited.” Solya watched her intently, to be certain that she did not take offense as she had the other time he’d broached the subject.Kasia stared back at him, the shock from earlier gone—or at least hidden. She looked amused once more, Solya decided. “I understand.” It sounded as if she was trying not to laugh. “I don’t think anything will happen between Agnieszka and Sarkan again.”“Well—good,” Solya said, and made his excuses to depart. He still didn’t feel entirely back on even footing, but the unease from earlier had lessened to a more bearable discomfort.Kasia did not seem to take his advice to heart, however. Granted, the pair of them always seemed to be near to each other whenever he saw them, but they were not acting any differently. Kasia had accepted a dance with the Rosyan ambassador—some duke or other—at the ball last night, and she hadn’t even crushed his feet; meanwhile, Solya couldn’t even say for certain whether Agnieszka was in attendance. Did she even care—“Aren’t you becoming a bit too invested in Kasia and Agnieszka’s affairs?” Sarkan interrupted, irritated enough to close his book and actually glare at Solya.Solya paused in his ranting; had he somehow misstepped? Was Sarkan secretly pining for Agnieszka still?“I am not still pining for her.” Sarkan rolled his eyes. “I simply see no reason to catalogue every touch and word exchanged between the two of them. You’ll have to content yourself with knowing that they’re together. It’s no longer any of your business. If it ever was in the first place,” he added in a mutter.“They are not together,” Solya insisted. “Were you even listening to anything I just said? Kasia danced wi—”“Solya.” Sarkan put his hand down upon the cover his book with more force than was strictly necessary. “Marek danced with others when you two were—” As if from a distance, Solya watched Sarkan consider and discard a number of descriptors before settling on, “—involved.”“Appearances needed to be kept,” Solya said stiffly. There was no call for Sarkan to bring up the past.Sarkan looked about as pleased with the turn of the conversation as Solya felt, as if he had hadn’t been the one to broach the topic himself. “The same can be said for Kasia’s dance last night. I doubt that Agnieszka is the jealous type, and even someone as resistant to court life as her can understand that a dance can merely be a dance. You said yourself that Kasia is uninterested in men.”“Very well,” Solya allowed. “But they treat each other no differently than they always have. I’m not convinced anything has changed.”“Because they possess a modicum of discretion and don’t fuck where servants can walk in on them and spread it around the castle?”That had been one time, since Solya was the jealous type and had no other way to stake a claim on Marek, but the episode had served its purpose if even Sarkan was aware of it.“Of course you did it on purpose,” Sarkan said, disgruntled, though Solya hadn’t said anything. Perhaps he’d allowed some of his justifiable smugness show through. “Of all the ridiculous—Why am I even surprised?”“I cannot begin to fathom the workings of your incredible mind,” Solya said, mild, though a smirk slipped out when Sarkan only rolled his eyes again.“If you’re quite done pestering me,” Sarkan said, pointedly opening his book again.“Am I bothering you? You should have said,” Solya drawled, and beat a hasty retreat before Sarkan’s annoyance could transform into real anger. The hour was late, in any case; even the keenest apprentices had abandoned the Charovnikov, or fallen asleep over their tomes.He stumbled upon Agnieszka and Kasia laughing softly together in the corridor outside his chambers. Agnieszka had been given living quarters more suited to her status, across the hall and several doors down from him. The pair of them were pressed closer than most friends usually would—perhaps—but that meant little. They had always been that close; as Sarkan had said all those weeks ago, Agnieszka had ventured into the Wood to save Kasia, despite the extremely high probability to failure, and they certainly hadn’t been lovers then—Solya blinked as Kasia drew Agnieszka down, her smile suggestive but also so intimate that Solya almost felt compelled to look away. Then they were kissing, and he did look away, ducking back around the corner: friends certainly did not exchange kisses like that. Much as the thought rankled him, Sarkan had obviously been correct.Well. So his efforts had been successful, no thanks to Sarkan and Alosha’s indifference or outright interference. Solya couldn’t lord it over Sarkan, since he had managed to notice first, somehow; but he would wait until Alosha realized, and then make himself quite insufferable on the matter.As soon as he heard the sound of a door closing further down the hall, he slipped back around the corner to enter his own room, feeling quite satisfied with himself.The Rosyan ambassador had brought a wizard known as the Griffon, along with the other members of his embassy. Sarkan was familiar with him, though Solya had never heard of him before: apparently he had been assigned to guard the Wood on the Rosyan side of the valley only a few years after he’d been acclaimed, and done a rather poor job of it.But even Sarkan didn’t realize how poorly until the Griffon tried to kill the king in the middle of a negotiation. Solya was amusing himself going through the books that Sarkan had deemed ‘practical’ and therefore worthy of homes on the lower shelves in the Charovnikov, or trying to: Sarkan’s assessments were, for the vast majority, correct.The only inkling he had that something was amiss was the sudden visceral sensation of the Wood’s corruption, a wash of dread accompanied by the phantom sound of rustling leaves and the sharp scent of a forest tinged with decay; he nearly ran into Sarkan on the way out of the library, and by then they had the hysterical screams to guide them to its source: the council chamber.It was largely over by the time they arrived. The room was in complete disarray, but the king was safe and Agnieszka and Kasia had the Griffon cornered; as Solya watched, Agnieszka forced the Griffon to his knees with one of her unpredictable workings, and Kasia put her sword to his throat. Solya helped to restrain him while Sarkan and Agnieszka cast the Summoning on him.Unlike the peasant they had cast it on before entering the Wood, the Griffon’s corruption was largely contained around his heart; thin tendrils radiated outward from his chest like searching roots, twining along his veins and around his bones. It was disturbing to see, but the Summoning revealed that he had willingly taken in the corruption almost twenty years earlier, in a misguided attempt to combat the Wood. He had been of an age with Prince Vasily, entering training in Moskva in his youth and largely growing up with the crown prince; they had been—close. He’d volunteered to guard the Wood when the previous warden had been called away to fight in the war against Polnya, for he’d believed that the Wood was at least partially responsible for Vasily’s fate. He had been unprepared for the task before him, however, and the corruption had twisted that conviction into hatred for Polnya instead.The Griffon’s devotion to Prince Vasily was—foolish and irrational and it struck entirely too close to home. Solya released the binding on him as soon as Sarkan and Agnieszka were finished with the other wizard, busying himself with securing the rest of the Rosyan embassy. The Summoning had revealed that the Griffon had acted alone, but the other Rosyans still had to be found from where they’d fled, in case the rumours surrounding the attack blew events out of proportion to a full-scale assault instigated by the Rosyan king and the over-zealous decided to take it out on the embassy members.Kasia and Agnieszka were standing guard when Solya had finished corralling the rest of the diplomats and sought the king out to report as much. They were standing close, as always, Kasia trying to untangle the snarl of Agnieszka’s braid—nothing unusual, yet Solya found the sight almost sickeningly sweet now. The only thing that had changed was his perspective, however: he might not have even paused long enough in the corridor that night if Sarkan’s words had not lingered in his mind, and he certainly hadn’t heard any particular gossip about the two of them. They must have been exceedingly discreet, which only made it more infuriating.“We should celebrate,” the king said gravely. “You deserve a reward for stopping the Griffon,” he added firmly, when Kasia tried to protest.“A feast, perhaps?” Solya suggested, mild. There wasn’t enough time to put together a really lavish meal, but there would be plenty of alcohol available to make up for it, which was what Solya was after anyway.“Yes! A feast. Tell the kitchens at once,” the king added to one of the servants.“Stashek,” Kasia began.“Solya can guard me now,” the king said, though the look he cut to Solya was a bit dubious—however, Solya hadn’t been the one to stop the Griffon, so the doubt was acceptable for the moment. “And here is Alosha,” he added: she had just come in, at least half a dozen blades visible upon her person, which meant there were probably twice as many concealed somewhere on her body. “You two have done more than enough for today. You should rest before the feast, I know you find them tiring, Nieshka.”Agnieszka looked torn between annoyance and amusement. The latter won out, and she offered the king a curtsey before departing at Kasia’s side.Sarkan found Solya holed up in a corner at the impromptu banquet the king had had thrown in Agnieszka and Kasia’s honour. His lip curled as he nudged at the empty wine bottle lying on the floor with the tip of one boot, but said nothing about Solya’s obviously intoxicated state.“You know,” Solya said: he was already a bottle and a half into the wine, which was the only excuse for his voicing the next ridiculous statement, “I think those two girls are even more terrifying than Alosha.” It even came out a bit wistful, embarrassingly.Sarkan scoffed and cast him an exasperated look: a thoroughly unexpected reaction. “You mean they remind you of what you and Marek could have been, if you hadn’t pushed him so hard for the throne?”Solya stared at him speechlessly, his mouth open but no words escaping. It was a highly undignified expression, he realized in the next second, and quickly shut his mouth.“I suppose Marek had the disadvantage of not being part tree,” Sarkan mused, which was really unnecessary insult added to injury.“No, that is not what I meant,” Solya snapped after a moment. “And I hardly pushed for him to take the throne. Marek wanted the crown for himself. I only tried to help the prince achieve his goal, as any loyal wizard of Polnya ought to have done.”“As any loyal—” Sarkan began, outraged.Though, now Solya was contemplating it: if Marek had worked with his brother rather than at counter purposes. He had been a brilliant military commander, but his disposition was hardly suited to the daily tedious grind of ruling. Solya had always imagined he could take a portion of those duties on himself, or assemble a suitable council they could trust to run the kingdom while he and Marek waged war on Rosya, but Sigmund had ever been a skilled politician. The two princes had complemented each other almost perfectly, but Solya had never truly considered it before: Marek had always resented Sigmund, blaming the king and, to a lesser extent, his brother for abandoning Queen Hanna to the Wood. Collaborating with Sigmund had never been an option.But if Sigmund had ascended to the throne, Marek would have been free to fight Polnya’s wars, and Solya could have been at his side. Solya could make his own way at court, unlike a certain draconic peer, but he truly excelled on the battlefield, and he’d always thrived under Marek’s command.“Gods, you’re not going to start bawling, are you?”Sarkan sounded alarmed, which drew Solya’s attention back to whatever it was he was going on about now. Then he scowled when he realized what Sarkan had actually said. Naturally, he could spend a century and more guarding a bunch of peasants from a primordial horror bent on devouring them all without once faltering, but he balked at the first sign of human emotion.“I am not on the verge of tears,” Solya snapped. It was only that he’d drunk two bottles of wine this evening and also that he’d pinned nearly all of his hopes on Marek: the younger prince had been nearly perfect in all the ways that mattered and Solya had, perhaps, allowed himself to be slightly dazzled by Marek’s potential like so many others.Vaguely aware that he would be appalled at the turn of his thoughts if he hadn’t downed so much wine, he put together a swift working to sober himself up. It was as unpleasant as always, but suitable punishment for allowing himself to become so—maudlin. How embarrassing. This wasn’t the first time one of Solya’s lovers had died, after all; it wasn’t even the first time one of his lovers had died before his time. Solya just had to keep moving forward; focusing on stabilizing Stashek’s rule had been sufficiently distracting at first, and then bringing Agnieszka and Kasia together had occupied his time, but Solya needed something—someone—else to serve as a diversion.“Why do you have that scheming look in your eyes,” Sarkan said suspiciously.Solya smiled and said, light, “I’m sure I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re referring to, Sarkan.”He had a certain standard to maintain, of course, and a limited pool to draw from. Kasia and Agnieszka were out of the question; he’d already tried with Alosha too, years ago. It had been nothing short of a disaster: how was Solya to know that she took up with soldiers by choice rather than because no others would give her the time of day? At any rate, he was certainly well-acquainted with that knowledge now. Ragostok was handsome enough, but he had so little interest in politics, and Alosha was protective of him at the strangest of times; the other witches and wizards that dwelled at court didn’t even merit consideration.Which left the nobles, but any that might have interested Solya lacked that particular combination of ambition, influence, reasonable attractiveness and moderate tolerance for magic that had made Marek perfect.With some effort, he put thoughts of Marek firmly out of his mind. That only left—“Why are you looking at me like that,” Sarkan hissed. “Whatever it is you’re planning, leave me out of it!”“Oh, damn it,” Sarkan said an hour later. He was clearly trying for resignation, but the intent look in his eyes as the light from Solya’s working slowly faded put the lie to that. Exactly as Solya had intended when he’d firmly and with the ease of long practice ignored Sarkan’s muttering and offered to demonstrate a new working that he’d been saving for just such an occasion: intriguing enough that Sarkan had agreed, though he’d insisted they retire to his chambers for the demonstration.Holding the working in reserve hadn’t been a conscious decision. All the witches and wizards that Solya knew strove continuously to expand their repertoire, but this particular working had caught Solya’s eye several years earlier for its intricate complexity more than any practical considerations. It was precisely the sort of magic that Sarkan appreciated; magic for the sake of it, rather than for some dedicated purpose. On the surface, it appeared to be nothing more than a simple illusion spell, but the shape it took varied depending on the caster, and the form evolved depending upon how one shaped the working and the amount of magic appliedIn their youth, before Sarkan had demonstrated with irrevocable finality the disparity in their ability, Solya had actively sought workings like that, desperate to prove that he and Sarkan were on the same level, at least. As if, somehow, the fact that Sarkan’s eyes were upon him and his magic proved that they were equals. Alosha had had a different opinion of his efforts at the time, but Solya contrived not to listen to her whenever he could avoid it.“And wipe that smug look off of your face,” Sarkan added in a mutter, though he was closing the distance between them as he spoke, and there was hardly time to school his expression before Sarkan was kissing him.Sarkan bit at Solya’s smirk, startling a moan from him, at which point it became a matter of pride that Solya reduce him to the same—They ended up on Sarkan’s bed, their clothes impatiently removed with a muttered spell when the endless little buttons of Sarkan’s coat brought Solya up short; Sarkan’s eyes had even gleamed at that unimpressive cantrip, as if something so mundane only drove him more wild.“Any preference?” Solya smirked. He found himself between Sarkan’s legs, though he hadn’t specifically set out to achieve that position, and the last time he had been on top, so to speak, had been—a while ago, now. It was a bit difficult to keep events beyond the closed space of Sarkan’s chambers straight, though at least Sarkan was as badly off as Solya, his sun-starved skin flushed with colour and eyes even darker than usual as he glared up at Solya through half-lowered lids.“Must I listen to your damn voice or will you put it in me already,” Sarkan hissed, but the annoyance melted away as if it had never been there when Solya murmured another working he’d never showed Sarkan before—one of his own devising. Sarkan moaned as if Solya had rubbed up against that heated place inside of him, rather than just eased the way with some conjured oil. “Where—ah—did you find that spell?”“I designed it myself,” Solya said absently, his eyes drawn to the restless shifting of Sarkan’s hips.Sarkan laughed raggedly. “Of course you did.”Solya narrowed his eyes at him, and pressed a finger in. Sarkan’s body took it easily; the working was meant to relax the subject as well. It had been a while since Solya had done this to another, however, so he took his time ensuring that Sarkan would be comfortable, though in truth he enjoyed the way Sarkan arched beneath him, his irritated name-calling dissolving into stuttered oaths when Solya finally added a fourth finger.“You’re not that large,” Sarkan managed, though his voice lacked his usual precise enunciation and the hungry way he was staring at Solya—or more accurately, at Solya’s cock—took any remaining bite from the words.“So impatient.” Solya didn’t bother to hide his amusement as he withdrew his fingers, smirking at the way their absence made Sarkan moan, and slicked himself with the excess oil still clinging to his fingers before settling into position against Sarkan’s body.“Do it—” Sarkan began to snarl, and Solya pushed in all at once, the rest of Sarkan’s words lost in a groan.Finding the proper angle took Solya a few attempts, but as soon as he did he applied himself energetically to the task; he felt as desperate and wild as Sarkan looked. Perhaps more, even; he’d wanted to draw it out, but he was approaching the edge rather quickly himself. He braced himself on one hand above Sarkan and curled the other around Sarkan’s cock, stroking in time with his thrusts until Sarkan shuddered and came, Solya’s name tripping off his tongue as he did.It sounded like one of the breathtakingly complex workings that Sarkan created seemingly without effort; whether it was the way he groaned Solya’s name or how his body tightened around Solya, he followed Sarkan over the edge a moment later, biting his lip to keep silent.Sarkan’s lip curled when Solya pulled out and collapsed on the bed next to him; not a second later, he cast a cleaning cantrip, the warmth of his magic sweeping over Solya’s skin like a heavy caress.“Been a while, has it?” Solya asked lazily, as if he hadn’t finished just as swiftly. “Or perhaps things with Agnieszka were unsatisfying—?”“‘Things’ were more than adequate,” Sarkan muttered, irritation creeping back into his voice.Solya made a polite, if disbelieving, sound.“For someone utterly disinterested in women, you seem rather fixated on Agnieszka.” Before Solya could work up the proper offense to his words, Sarkan added, “The truth is, she wasn’t truly interested in me,” with surprising equanimity. “ We both got carried away. You know how it is with magic.” Obviously, went unsaid: it was why they had ended up in bed together in the first place and almost every time afterward.Solya sat up to get a good look at Sarkan’s face.“What,” Sarkan grumbled, narrowing his eyes.“Nothing,” Solya lied, slumping back against the bed with a groan that was only slightly exaggerated. Marek liked to be the one fucking far more than the alternative; Solya was rather unused to the exertion of taking the leading role. But that wasn’t what bothered him: Sarkan had been so traumatized by the incident with Ludmila that he’d fled to the Wood and returned to Kralia perhaps a dozen times since, but he seemed remarkably calm about how things with Agnieszka had ended.“If you bring Ludmila up again,” Sarkan said warningly; for one heart-stopping moment, Solya wondered if Sarkan had actually discovered something so momentous as mind-reading during his century or so of isolation.“I would never,” Solya said, earnest. It didn’t do to get predictable after all, and Sarkan probably wouldn’t be amenable to a repeat of tonight’s events if Solya prodded at old scars too vigorously. Then Sarkan made a disbelieving noise, so Solya had to add, “But since you mentioned her—”“Get out,” Sarkan said.“You’re not interested in cuddling?” Solya actually batted his eyelashes, not that he thought it would affect Sarkan in the slightest.“Out.” Sarkan was truly merciless.“You’re so much more charming in the afterglow,” Solya said. “I can’t imagine why Agnieszka tossed you aside for Kasia.”Sarkan rolled his eyes, deigning only to lift a hand to point at the door in reply.Solya sighed, exaggerated but still true: he had wanted to cuddle, but he’d made his bed—so to speak—and he would lie in it. Alone.He dressed swiftly, uninterested in dragging the walk of shame out, not bothering to fasten all the tiny clasps on his pale robes. “Good night, Sarkan,” Solya drawled over his shoulder, pausing with his hand on the doorknob.Sarkan muttered something indistinct that Solya graciously chose to interpret as a reciprocal farewell; he opened the door and stepped through.“Oh, Agnieszka,” Solya said, pitching his voice louder with surprise. He smirked as he heard Sarkan curse from within. “No, this is Sarkan’s room—”Sarkan stumbled out of the room behind him, his evening coat making a valiant but futile effort to conserve his modesty. The obvious lack of underlayers at his wrists and throat—not to mention the bare legs from the thigh down—rather ruined the effort. The unfortunate effect was why Solya preferred to wear robes when he could; they were so much easier to put on and take off.“I loathe you,” Sarkan hissed after he took in the empty hallway and Solya’s growing smirk. “There’s nothing between Agnieszka and I, so you needn’t continue this jealous needling!”Solya opened his mouth to inform Sarkan that he was not jealous, but the sound of a door opening down the hall interrupted him. The annoyance on Sarkan’s face drained away as swiftly as Solya’s amusement, and they gazed at each other in mutual, frozen apprehension as the door creaked open.“—heard someone say my name, Kasia,” Agnieszka said, her voice rising on the last syllable of Kasia’s name as she drew it out for several endless, shocked moments.Solya fixed a smile on his face, and kept his gaze steady on Sarkan’s startled expression lest he lose his composure entirely if he so much as glanced in Agnieszka’s direction.“Solya,” Sarkan said warningly, his eyes darting from Solya to Agnieszka.“Sarkan.” Solya spoke his Name like it was a working he meant to cast, making his tone as suggestive as he could; Sarkan’s stunned look was more than worth it. Before he could recover, Solya leaned in swiftly to kiss Sarkan’s cheek, so Agnieszka could not possibly mistake the scene before her—before slipping into the shadows to beat a hasty retreat to his own chambers.Agnieszka finally managed to corner him at Bugoslava’s latest soiree a few days later, catching his arm in a firm grip as he tried to slip past her.“Agnieszka.” He turned away from the convenient dark corner he’d been making for, the better to escape from, and offered her a thin smile. She and Kasia were holding hands, but he couldn’t even make some pithy remark about how lovely it all was because they were mostly acting as they always had and if Sarkan hadn’t pointed it out Solya would probably still be labouring under the misconception that they remained friends only.“I wanted to talk to you about what happened a few nights ago,” Agnieszka said with that grim determination to see something through despite the unpleasant she knew it was going to cause her. Solya braced himself as she asked, “Do you even like Sarkan?” She sounded rather doubtful, which made sense: Sarkan was inherently unlikable, after all, but—Solya blinked at her, biting back his initial three prevarications: dissembling only ever annoyed her, and he knew her well enough by now to know that she was in earnest. But then, she always had been.“What has that got to do with anything?” he asked after a moment.The honest question seemed to dismay Agnieszka, but Kasia seemed more amused as she asked, “Well—how do you feel about him, then, Solya?”Now Solya was the one staring in dismay. “He’s insufferable,” he finally said, but Agnieszka only looked disappointed, as if she didn’t share the same opinion herself. “He’s not the most intolerable wizard I’ve ever known,” he allowed, “and magically speaking, he’s moderately talented.” The last part was not so much an understatement as an outright lie, but no amount of sad expressions would get him to admit that. He’d done more than enough lauding of Sarkan’s accomplishments in the winter, and intended to repeat the feat never again.Agnieszka seemed determined to make him say it, however. “I only want you to be happy. Well, maybe not happy but—content, at least. You were partly responsible for some terrible things. But Alosha said that you were trying to help Kasia and me this winter, though you went about it in a truly absurd fashion.”Solya twitched, his casual scan of the room for a likely avenue of escape from this excruciating conversation interrupted so he could eye the pair of them warily. They didn’t appear upset about his manipulations, but he wasn’t always the most discerning judge of character; even eyes as sharp as his own missed things occasionally.When Agnieszka only looked at him expectantly, Solya said, “Alosha doesn’t speak for me.”Kasia’s subsequent cough sounded suspiciously like a laugh to Solya’s ear.“But do you even like each other,” Agnieszka said, a plaintive note in her voice.“Did you even like Sarkan,” Solya said more sharply than he intended—but, really. “The nature of our—” relationship stuck in his throat, even that relatively innocuous descriptor containing far too many connotations that Solya was eager to avoid. “Witches and wizards—” his gaze flicked to Kasia; he wondered if the Wood had wrought other, less obvious changes to her as well, “—live long lives. Most of us commit only sparingly.”Agnieszka only looked like she was about to start one of the loud arguments the courtiers always gossiped about, and while it entertained Solya to hear that she’d been shouting at Sarkan again, the thought of himself being the subject of similar gossip was far less appealing.“Nieshka,” Kasia said, her tone so full of affection that, were she not steering the conversation into a potentially less fraught direction, Solya might have resented it, “think of it this way. Solya’s involvement—rivalry—” she amended, when Solya made a disgusted sound, “with Sarkan is probably the longest-running relationship he’s ever had.”He definitely resented it. Solya managed to suppress his reaction to a horrified shudder, somehow. “If you must label it, I would prefer longstanding enmity. So don’t think your strange mentorship—rivalry—whatever with Sarkan can compare,” Solya added to Agnieszka, because Sarkan had been right: Solya was jealous. He was used to being the only one who could goad Sarkan into losing his composure, and much as he loathed consciously acknowledging it, he’d grown accustomed to being Polnya’s second most powerful wizard too. Well, he could still be that; Agnieszka was a witch, after all—“Oh, my god,” Agnieszka muttered. “You know what? The two of you deserve each other.”