Chapter Forty: Sweetest Work

Osmund returned with his sleeves rolled up and a pail sloshing under each fist. The water was lukewarm; he’d heated it carefully over the stove. Maybe it’d have been faster to track down the fire mage Kasri from the mercenary band and ask for a couple seconds of her time, but for this—for him—it felt good to put in the effort himself.

The room Cemil had been recovering in had double doors that opened to a private garden outside; not the most secure, but it was easier for him to stumble to the privy, which he insisted he could do on his own. Presently the Meskato prince sat on the doorstep, facing the open air. The tired set of his shoulders made him appear somewhat shrunken.

Osmund astutely kept that observation to himself as he set down the two buckets by the step. Over his shoulder was slung a bag containing various soaps and hair oils he’d bought in town a few days back. (They’d already gotten a test run as part of a luxurious bath he’d taken earlier.) “Ready?”

Cemil nodded stiffly. Poor man—he was so uncomfortable. Osmund almost felt bad for him, but he was on a mission. “I’ll try my best, but…your clothes might get wet if they stay on. Is that okay?”

Cemil hesitated for a fraught moment. Then he stood. “Here.” And right there—to Osmund’s surprise—he started to strip!

Osmund wasn’t sure how to school his features as the layers came off one by one. Mostly, his brain just rattled with anticipation. No, this isn’t the time to want him carnally, he scolded himself with all his might! The atmosphere wasn’t right. He was going to be composed about this!

But then Cemil was sitting back down beside him on the doorstep, clothing discarded in a loose pile, and higher mental functions went out the window entirely.

“Osmund,” Cemil said sharply. Osmund looked up, red in the face.

“S-sorry. You’re just so—”

There was a heavy exhale. “If you want to say something, say it.”

How could he be insecure, looking the way he did? “You’re beautiful,” Osmund said dazedly, turning redder by the second. “You can’t be cross with me for staring! Y-you’ve seen practically all of me, but I…heavens.”

Cemil was still locked up. His jaw clenched. “You aren’t going to ask?”

It wasn’t hard to guess what he meant. The only thing that would get him odd looks in a bathhouse was a peculiar fractal pattern, pale in color, branching across his legs and midsection, and down his arms and chest. In appearance and distribution, it was unlike any scar or mark Osmund had ever seen. It almost resembled the weblike sketches he’d glimpsed in books depicting the human circulatory system, as if onto his skin was printed a map of his life’s blood.

Truthfully, Osmund had thought he’d known what to expect, but this was something else.

“I admit I don’t understand,” he said gently. Slowly he extended his hand, watching Cemil’s face for a cue, until he was tracing one of the stark lines on his bicep with his finger. It felt exactly like the surrounding skin, wonderful and warm. He longed to let his hands roam freely. “This is what you’re trying to hide? Is it an illness?”

“I had my body magically altered,” Cemil explained quietly. “This is the reminder of that. Such strong magic leaves its mark forever.”

“Oh.” Osmund poured some water over Cemil’s shoulder, and started for the soap. He could feel the Meskato prince still watching him with a hawk’s focus. “But you’re not in pain? It doesn’t trouble you?”

“…No. You’re still not going to ask why?”

“I think I know.” More than ever in his life, Osmund prayed he wouldn’t misstep. “You’re…like Sakina, aren’t you? But in the other direction.”

A pause. Osmund saw the motion of Cemil’s throat as he swallowed. “You’ve known?”

“Not for very long.” He couldn’t exactly confess what he’d witnessed in that cave. In his own buried memories of a faraway life in Valcrest castle, they’d actually met long before their time. Two little princes, both in lives that didn’t suit them. “I hate that you’ve been so worried about telling me. Lift here, please?”

Cemil was still so tense, but obediently he raised his arm at Osmund’s nudging and let him run a soapy cloth down his side. (Osmund may have only bargained for a hair-washing, but he wasn’t letting an opportunity like this get away!) “I wasn’t sure how you’d react. I assume you’ve only lain with…ordinary men.” The Meskato prince sounded sour as he said it.

Osmund laughed. He couldn’t help it. “‘Ordinary men’?” he repeated in disbelief. “You think I’d ever be tempted by someone ordinary after meeting you?”

This was the sweetest work there was. Osmund relished every moment he got to spend running the wet cloth over the other man’s skin, the best use he’d ever made of his own two hands. Then Cemil asked, his voice strange, “So, even not knowing this magic existed, you were prepared to love me in my natural form?”

“Yes!” The answer burst out of Osmund immediately. “I love you as you are. For the man you are. And heavens, Cemil, you have no idea how much I’ve wanted you. You’d think me a degenerate if you could read the contents of my thoughts!”

Cemil was finally smiling again. “You seem confident about that. But mine, I think, would scandalize you.”

“Now who’s confident?” Osmund’s motions with the washcloth were becoming looser, more self-assured. “When you’re feeling better, you may try as hard as you wish to shock me.”

“Mm. Don’t make promises you’ll regret.”

Osmund smiled giddily at him. Cemil might make him eat those words one day, but that was a future he couldn’t wait to welcome in.

In the meantime, maybe he could pull some surprises of his own. The pail of water between his feet was half-empty, which made it easy to suddenly heft into the air and dump over Cemil’s head without warning.

The look on the man’s face as he shoved his wet hair out of his eyes was priceless. “Just had to wet your hair before I can lather it,” Osmund explained, playing innocent. “Hold still?”

Worth it, he thought, even when the Meskato prince lifted the other pail and upended the whole thing over Osmund and his clean, dry clothes.

“May I ask you something?”

“You don’t need my permission.”

“I know, I just feel it’s…polite?”

They were laying on Cemil’s bed, a bit shamefaced after Sakina had heard the noise of their roughhousing and turned up at the doorway to scold them. Osmund should have known better—Cemil was still recovering, and truth be told, he wasn’t completely back in top form yet, himself. They were drying off from the afternoon’s misadventures in just their smallclothes, but Osmund wasn’t thinking of anything sexual right now. It was nice to just exist together.

“Why did you think it was something to keep hidden?” he asked, one leg idly hitched over Cemil’s next to him. Only half an hour in, and he already couldn’t get enough of sharing his touch. “I mean—I could understand if you were on the Isles, but this is the Empire.”

“Mm. Your homeland—there’s a stigma against making alterations to one’s natural body, I presume. The Ocentine religion?”

“It’s nothing to do with the teachings of Saint Ocens! But yes. We do have an unhappy history with shapeshifters and the like, which I guess is responsible. The, um, royal family even once tried to outlaw traditional clan tattoos, which northerners hated. We nearly had a civil war about it.”

Cemil snorted. “You’re right,” he agreed after a time. “The Empire is different. Our Emissary, the Great Khan taught us that men and women are equal in the eyes of heaven, but they inhabit different stations in life. To cross from one station to the other means defying nature. It isn’t against any law to fashion yourself the way that you like, or to seek medical remedies. But many don’t understand, and react poorly. It means breaking with family expectations. With tradition.”

Osmund looked over curiously. “So then…how is it that you were able to…?”

“There’s a prophecy.” Cemil’s expression was distant. “The soothsayer spoke it into the world on the same day I announced to my parents who I was. A miracle of chance. I wasn’t yet nine years old.”

Osmund’s eyes fell shut as he tried to remember the exact words Sakina had taught him. “‘When the fourth son falls…’ And, you already had three older brothers…”

“Just so.” Cemil sighed. “From childhood, I was gifted at riding, reading, and swordplay, at least more so than the younger princes. The prophecy also mentions an Anshan horse, and I have Anshan ancestry. I think palace officials—and my father the emperor—were ready to believe the subject of the prophecy was meant to be me.” He gave another small laugh. It was humorless, with something rueful in it. “If there’s one thing more powerful than tradition in the palace, it’s the love of a good story. They don’t believe in…ah, what’s the Tolmish word? …Coincidences.”

“You think that’s why they listened to you? Why you were able to, um, live as yourself?”

“I’m sure it was.” Cemil continued to contemplate the ceiling. “Sakina was once a prized son to her family. I’m sure she’s relying on traditional herbal remedies even now; what was done to me isn’t accessible to most. And it comes with a cost, like all magic does.”

“You mean, these markings on your body?”

“I’m also less sensitive to touch than other people. At least in the affected places.”

Osmund had been seizing the opportunity to trace one of said markings again, but with this new information his finger retracted and his eyes went wide. “Really?”

“It’s not as though I can’t feel at all,” Cemil explained, frowning at Osmund’s horrified reaction. “I’ve accepted it. For me, it was a worthy trade.”

“I see. Well, of course it was,” Osmund agreed, feeling foolish, but sad nonetheless. All of their encounters thus far were now painted in a wholly different light: maybe Cemil enjoyed Osmund’s pleasure so much because a part of him wanted to experience it vicariously. Osmund vowed he’d do his best to extract those same reactions from Cemil one day, whatever it took to get him there. The thought heated his cheeks.

“What are you thinking of?”

His red flush deepened as he noticed Cemil’s gaze. “Um,” Osmund blubbered, dazzled by that barely-there smile even after all this time. Cemil laughed for real, and fondness bloomed, overwhelming, in Osmund’s chest. And sadness rooted there too.

To think this magic had been so important to the other man—had represented so much—and yet still he felt the need to conceal himself from others. As if he believed there was something wrong or defective about him. What could be further from the truth?

“I’ve just remembered something interesting,” Cemil said with new spirit, before Osmund could get too deeply lost in his thoughts. “Did you know, I once traveled to your home kingdom of Valcrest.”

Osmund froze. Even his breath stilled in his lungs. “I-is that so?”

“Mm. I visited the castle as part of some sort of marriage alliance. It’s all a blur, unfortunately. I didn’t speak the Tolmish language at the time. I’d only just begun my studies with Lala Muharrem.” Osmund turned his too-readable face towards the open door to the outside and pretended to watch the birds in the garden, praying the subject would drop, but then Cemil continued in an offhand tone, “Of course, the royal family is dead now. When the necromancer queen seized power, their whole line was extinguished.”

Relief settled in. “Th-that’s what I’ve heard too. Dreadful.”

“Not about the king.” Cemil was frowning when Osmund chanced a look back at him. “I don’t recall much of my visit, but I remember he was a vile man, your former sovereign. I witnessed him beating a horse and terrorizing a servant. My father wouldn’t let any more of his own children visit after me.”

Osmund stared openly. Wait, what?

“So…the marriage alliance to the prince, or um, the princess—it failed because of their father?”

“That’s right. No one wanted to tie their families with that of Valcrest’s ruler. Not when he was so despised.”

This was—that meant—

So, Osmund’s entire life, when countless suitors had rejected him—

It’d been because the person they really hated was—

“Osmund?” He felt fingers brushing his. “Are you alright?”

No. He couldn’t process this information yet. Not here. He just couldn’t. Osmund might burst into pieces if he thought about it too long, and good luck explaining that!

He linked his fingers with Cemil’s.

“Sorry, my mind wandered,” he said, the smile coming easily in spite of it all. “I’m just happy to be here next to you.”

A matching smile slowly bloomed on Cemil’s face. He felt the pressure of a squeeze where their hands were joined. “So am I.”