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The hooded figure was nearly invisible in the shadows of the winding prison stairs, but the prison guard was very used to the sound of the crown prince sneaking around the castle after curfew. He glared at where he thought the prince was camouflaged in a dark alcove.
“Let me guess,” Jaehyun said and tried to pretend that he wasn’t disconcerted by how well Jaemin had disguised himself again. “You want to talk to the newest prisoner. Two minutes again?”
Jaemin laughed. “You know me so well. But I actually want a little bit longer with this one. If you give me twenty minutes I’ll double your month’s pay and I’ll make sure that Doyoung is assigned to your next three shifts.” He winked.
Jaehyun felt his face grow hot. “How’d you-? Nevermind, I really don’t want to know. You better not be joking about my pay though.” He moved to let the prince pass.
The guard hesitated before heading up the stairs. Jaemin was clever, and more strategic than half of the advisors in the old king’s council room, but he was still just a nineteen-year-old boy. “Your Highness-? You’ll be safe, right?”
Jaemin snorted in response.
“You’ve been meeting with every captured mage for the past six months. I just don’t want to see you on the other side of the bars one day. Magic is dangerous.” But the old king is more dangerous was the unspoken implication.
“Just go back to the guardroom, Jaehyun,” the prince said quietly. “It’s not what you think.”
Jaehyun shrugged. The prince’s rampant disobedience in the face of the old king’s hatred of magic was an open secret around the castle. And way too far above his pay-grade for him to handle.
Jaemin continued down the stairs to the lowest cell in the castle. He knew the newest prisoner would have the highest level of security because of the potential worth he would have as a trading token in the ongoing war between the humans and the mages.
The bars of the cell were made of cold iron, and he knew their presence would be making the mage sick with nausea. Jaemin slipped the cell key out of his pocket and quickly unlocked the door.
As his eyes adjusted to the darkness he saw the prisoner he had come to see.
The chief warlock’s son, Lee Jeno, was strung up by his wrists, feet barely brushing the floor although Jeno had obviously long lost his strength to stand. There were long whiplashes along his bare chest, although Jaemin could tell that they were the dispassionate work of an amateur, probably one of the bounty hunters who had caught Jeno creeping onto their land.
“I can’t believe you,” Jaemin hissed. “I thought you liked me enough to at least listen to me when I told you to never come near the castle-! I heard the bounty hunters tell my grandfather that they caught you outside the third wall! Are you completely brainless?”
Jeno slowly lifted his head, dazed in pain, at Jaemin’s exclamation. “Jaemin?” His eyes were bright with pain, reflecting the fire of the only torch.
“Shh, don’t bother speaking. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of this whole mess. I’ll get you home to your family.”
“You can’t,” Jeno said, struggling to force his cracked, dry lips to form words. “Your grandfather- he’ll hurt you.”
“And he’ll kill you for being an unregistered mage, so maybe then we’ll be even.” Jaemin didn’t have much time to get everything done that he needed to do for Jeno.
Jeno’s chains gave a loud protesting clatter as Jaemin unlocked them and wrenched them off of the mage. Jeno moaned in pain, as his body hit the floor, Jaemin struggling to hold his weight up. Jaemin shook off the urge to hold Jeno tighter to his chest. As much as he had thought about the mage since they had first met six months ago, he was still pretty sure that creepy cuddling in a prison cell was out of the question.
“Roll over, lump,” Jaemin said. He didn’t have the time to shed any tears about Jeno’s treatment, but they’d probably come later when he was alone in his cold bed. Attempting to follow a diagram that he’d seen in a book, Jaemin’s finger prodded gently down Jeno’s arms, shoulders, and sides, as Jaemin tried to catalog any breaks or dislocations.
“I think that you’re fine.”
“Yes, I’m certainly not being jabbed at like you’re a fisherwoman and I’m the latest catch,” Jeno said in a mumble, trying to roll away.
“Oh, don’t be a baby.” Jaemin hurriedly unwrapped the package in his cloak. “I’ve got food, water, bandages- I tried to get anything you might need.”
Jeno was already ripping into the loaf of bread that Jaemin brought, but he quickly choked on the dryness and reached for the flagon of water.
“Were you literally raised by wolves?” Jaemin raised an eyebrow. Jeno shot him a look, and Jaemin shrugged.
They sat in silence for a moment, Jeno eating and drinking as much as he could in the few minutes they had, and Jaemin trying to memorize every line of his injured face. Even though Jaemin was furious with the mage, this was still the first time they had seen each other in six months since Jaemin had crept onto mage land and Jeno had helped him back before the chief warlock could find out.
Jaemin reached for Jeno’s hand and examined his wrists carefully. The skin looked terrible: matching bracelets of blisters and burns from the iron chains. The veins on the tops of Jeno’s hands were stark and turning dark against his whitening skin. The iron was having a bad effect on him. Jeno tried to yank his hands back, but Jaemin wouldn’t let him.
“I can’t believe-” Jaemin started, but his voice broke and he had to stop before he embarrassed himself.
“Yeah, yeah, you can’t believe I was such an idiot that I snuck onto your land,” Jeno said with a grin.
“No!” Jaemin said, his voice tight with anger. “I can’t believe my coward of a grandfather would dare to actually hurt you. You’re the warlock’s son! You should have some kind of immunity! This is absolutely-” he gestured for a moment, struggling to find the word. “-barbaric!”
“Okay, Jaemin. But seriously, don’t worry about me. The mages aren’t going to let me rot in a cell. I won’t be here long.”
Jaemin sighed and pulled a vial out of the unwrapped package. “This is a pain potion. I didn’t know if you would want it. It’s powerful- you won’t feel anything for twenty-four hours, but it’ll also partially incapacitate you. I figured you wouldn’t appreciate that in enemy territory.”
Jeno shook his head. “I’m not lying about my family, Jaemin. They’re going to come for me, and I need to be ready to fight when they do.”
Jaemin’s eyes flashed in the darkness as he analyzed Jeno, and Jeno was suddenly aware of the fact that maybe he had dismissed Jaemin as a sheltered, kindly prince too soon. He was obviously far more intelligent than Jeno had given him credit for. He wondered if Jaemin was scared of magic.
Jaemin daubed ointment on Jeno’s wrists, ignoring his hisses of pain, and then wrapped them up in flesh-colored bandages. “These should be a layer of protection from the iron,” Jaemin said, although they both knew that wasn’t true. “And they shouldn’t be visible unless somebody’s really looking at you. You shouldn’t get in trouble for them.”
“Thanks.”
Jaemin looked back up at him, and Jeno saw that he was crying. Actually crying real tears for him. Jaemin swiped them away angrily and Jeno didn’t mention it. “Don’t mention it. I need to put you back in the chains.”
What did the tears mean? Why was Jaemin crying for him?
Jeno obediently stood, and Jaemin appreciated the fact that the mage attempted to hide his groans of pain when he needed to reach his arms above his head again and when the chains clicked back around his bandages. Jaemin lengthened the chains manually so that Jeno’s feet could reach the ground, but he couldn’t do anything about Jeno’s sore shoulders.
“Jaemin,” Jeno said hurriedly, filled with urgency now that his time with Jaemin was shortening. “There was something that I needed to tell you. The reason that I came onto your land. It’s important.”
Jaemin looked over his shoulder. “The guard’s about to come back, Jeno, and I haven’t got the money to buy more time. Just tell me later, I’ll be back down here later. I don’t know when though-”
“Jaemin, please, this is important-!”
But the prince had already grabbed his cloak and left the cell, the key clicking back into the lock. He didn’t say another word, and Jeno’s eyes strained to follow him as he dashed up the stairs. The torch burned orange spots into his eyes, but he didn’t care.
***
Two days had passed since Jaemin had gone to visit Jeno in the dungeons, and he was counting down the days until he could do it again. Two days was a long time to go without medical care or proper nutrition-
“Your Highness,” his tutor sighed. “Are you even paying attention?”
Jaemin’s eyes quickly darted back to the paper that his tutor had been sketching on. “Um, yes, of course. These are the battle plans of the late King Nicholas of Gundery when he attempted to take over the wastelands.”
“Yes, and why did he fail?”
Jaemin shrugged. “Because he didn’t consider all of the chess pieces on the board.”
His tutor massaged his temples with tired fingers. “And in terms that make it clear that you actually know what you’re talking about?”
“King Nicholas knew that the wastelands were inhabited by the Lost Ones, but he had forgotten about the other layer of treaties that lay behind political treaties. The Lost Ones had a magical alliance with the àite draoidheachd, the land of the mages. The mages were able to fully route the Gundery army from behind even though they had a much smaller number of troops.”
“Because they use inhuman tactics, like magic,” his tutor said, eager to agree with the king’s anti-magic sentiments in front of the prince.
“Hmm,” Jaemin said noncommittally. “Really, if you think about it, the real inhumanity here is King Nicholas actually being the first king to instate a mandatory attendance for princes at the annual Harvest Ball. You’d think that he’d understand skipping out on a ball every once in a while since he was a prince, but no.”
The tutor ignored him and continued their history lesson.
There was a knock on the door, and a servant girl opened it carefully. “Your Highness, His Royal Majesty requests your presence in the throne room.”
Jaemin shot his tutor an apologetic look but practically skipped out of the room after the girl.
“And idea why, Rora?”
Rora shrugged. “I’m not sure. I think that he’s just doing his old “gotta teach my grandson all the tricks of the trade” thing. Maybe it’s got something to do with that mage they caught a few days ago?”
The blood in Jaemin’s veins froze, and he nearly tripped before forcing his limbs to work normally. “The mage?” His voice was weak to his own ears.
“Yes, when I left the king had ordered him brought up from the dungeons.”
“I see,” Jaemin said, and picked up his pace.
His grandfather’s throne room was one of the largest rooms in the castle, with long benches lining the sides so that the people could await judgment on the days when there were public hearings, and so his grandfather’s advisors could be close to counsel his grandfather. Jaemin despised his grandfather’s advisors. He always felt like they did far more damage than they did good.
His grandfather was waiting for him with a broad smile. “Ah, my grandson. I’m so glad you’re here. Today you’re going to see what happens when you practice magic on our territory. A punishment fit for dogs.”
Jaemin didn’t smile, his blank expression frozen on his face as he forced himself to walk towards his grandfather. “Who,” he managed to say.
“The mage we caught a few days ago. You won’t believe who he is-! One of my advisors informed me that the boy is actually their leader’s son. The equivalent of a prince to their backward brains. I bet they’d pay good money to have him returned. Maybe even exchange him for a top war general.”
“I see,” Jaemin said, and hastily tried to collect his thoughts together and not let his fear for Jeno show. Jeno wasn’t his responsibility. This would be fine. Everything would be fine. “Wouldn’t it be better if the mage were unharmed then?”
The king shrugged. “Advisor Hurley counselled that we rough the boy up a bit, really send a message to the mage land that they can’t send spies on our land and expect to get away with it.”
“Surely they wouldn’t send their prince as a spy,” Jaemin tried again, but his grandfather dismissed him with a wave of his hand.
The throne room doors opened again, and Jaemin watched as two guards dragged a struggling Jeno to the front. He looked much worse than when Jaemin had last seen him. His body was thin as if they hadn’t fed him at all since his capture, and his face and body were filthy, covered in dirt, blood, and spit. There was a fresh cut on his lip and a rising bruise over his eye. Probably courtesy of the guards who brought him up to the throne room.
Jeno completely ignored Jaemin. He’d never seen Jaemin like this, all dressed in his princely finery, hair brushed, wearing a crown, and for one wild second, Jaemin thought that Jeno couldn’t recognize him. Then Jeno shot him a wink and Jaemin realized that Jeno was purposefully ignoring him. Of course. Nobody just forgets Na Jaemin.
“Well, well, well-” his grandfather said loudly, and Jaemin wished that his grandfather didn’t love the sound of his own voice so much. “The famed leader of the mages’ son has finally graced our presence. Ready to beg for mercy, dog?” One of the guards kicked Jeno’s legs out from under him and he sprawled to the floor, hands chained behind his back and unable to catch him.
Please be quiet, please don’t say a word, Jaemin silently wished.
Jeno was looking at the floor, but his words were loud and vicious. “You’ll be the one begging for mercy before the night is over, old man.”
One of the guards kicked him in the side, and Jaemin started at Jeno’s grunt of pain.
“You dare to talk back to your king!” Jaemin’s grandfather roared and stood to his feet. He seemed to have forgotten the minor political detail that Jeno wasn’t actually one of his subjects.
“I’ll talk back to a whoreson who would rather drink himself silly and spill innocent blood than rule his own country,” Jeno said, and Jaemin sighed sadly. Well, there goes his pretty mage friend. Soon there would just be a stain on the floor to remember him by.
The king was rapidly turning red, and the guards looked unsure whether they should keep kicking Jeno or leave his punishment up to the king.
“Ten- fifteen lashes!” The king roared. “Somebody fetch the horse master!”
“Grandfather, that’s far too extreme!” Jaemin said quickly, standing up out of his seat.
“Sit down, Jaemin, you just need to watch and learn. This is how you treat rabid dogs,” his grandfather said, and Jaemin didn’t know if he’d ever hated anybody more.
Jeno was trembling on the floor, but Jaemin was pretty sure that the boy was shaking with anger and not fear. Jaemin wouldn’t let anything happen to him, he suddenly realized with a start. Jeno wouldn’t be hurt today, not anymore, because Jaemin wouldn’t allow it.
“I won’t stand for this,” Jaemin said in his most princely voice, and his grandfather looked startled. “The treatment of this political prisoner is barbaric and I expect more from the country of my family. This boy should be treated well so we can build an alliance with the mages.”
His grandfather’s lip curled. “I’ll need to speak to your tutor about your wayward political beliefs, child. The mages are not neighbors to have an alliance with. They’re pests that need to be exterminated.”
The horse master came back and he was wielding one of the largest horsewhips that Jaemin had ever seen. Long, curling, and black, Jaemin knew that every strike from the whip would split Jeno’s back, would send rivulets of crimson blood running down to soak into the waist of his trousers. He wouldn’t let it happen, but he could feel panic rising in his heart.
His grandfather was looking at him with an analyzing eye. “You have sympathy for the mages, Jaemin?”
“No, I-” he was hyperventilating, but he desperately tried to focus on the armrest of the chair beneath his tight fingers and ignore his thumping heart. “I just don’t think that-”
“A bleeding heart is a bad trait in a future king,” his grandfather said lightly. “I think that we need to work that useless weakness out of you. Starting today.”
“What-?” Jaemin said.
“You’ll deliver the punishment yourself, Jaemin,” the king said with an imperious wave of his hand. “Go on. Get up and take the whip.” Jaemin knew his grandfather. He knew that there was no way that he could get out of this, not when his grandfather was wearing that stony expression and his fingers were twitching like that. “You should be glad I’m not having you whipped alongside the dog for your insolence.”
Jaemin was shaking, and he was cursing his body for the visible weakness, but he couldn’t control himself. For years he had attempted to cultivate a certain persona for the court: cold, untouchable, and wickedly intelligent. Now that whole image was shattered. The whole court had seen him weak for a mage boy.
But none of that hurt so much as the warm handle of the horsewhip pressed into his own and the look of trust in Jeno’s eyes. “I don’t- I don’t know how to whip somebody,” Jaemin said quietly, and the horse master, one of the first servants that Jaemin had befriended, grabbed his wrist.
“Just pull back and then flick like this. You’ll get the hang of it.”
Jaemin stared down at Jeno’s back. There were thin cuts from an old flogging, bruises around his shoulder joints, and dirt covering his skin. Jaemin couldn’t hurt him.
“Fifteen lashes or you’ll take them, Jaemin,” his grandfather warned.
Thoughts were spinning around Jaemin’s head in an endless cycle, but he grabbed onto his grandfather’s words. “That’s an option?”
“What?” The king said.
“Don’t you dare,” Jeno whispered.
The court was whispering.
“You would whip me if I don’t whip this mage, right?” Jaemin asked. “Well, I refuse.” He threw the whip on the ground and the clatter of it echoed in the silent throne room.
The king looked like he might have a heart attack. His face was purpling and he was standing now, looking at a loss for words. “Knees- now-!”
Jaemin felt the hands of the guards on his shoulders, their touch was hesitant. Most of the guards knew him, knew him and liked him a lot more than they liked the old king. But liking somebody doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t be loyal to their king.
“Don’t worry about it,” he whispered, bowing on the ground next to Jeno.
“You’re an absolute idiot,” Jeno whispered angrily. “I could’ve handled the whipping! It would’ve been fine! You have so much more at stake-”
“I didn’t do this for you, you self-centered sod,” Jaemin said, faking cheeriness. “I get faint at the sight of blood. I’m afraid whipping you would have scarred me permanently.”
The horse master tugged Jaemin’s overrobe, tunic, and undershirt off of him, and Jaemin shivered, half-naked in the chill of the throne room. “Don’t stare,” he whispered to Jeno. “I’m a modest girl.”
“I don’t-” Jeno looked torn.
“Your Highness,” he heard Claude say behind him.
Jaemin’s whole body was shaking now with fear and nerves, but he still smiled tightly back at the horse master. “Go ahead, Claude. No hard feelings.”
The first whiplash came like fire, ripping a long slash down Jaemin’s back and he yelped embarrassingly, lurching forward. The horse master hesitated, but the king motioned him on. The second lash wasn’t any better- Jaemin wasn’t used to pain and he wasn’t ready for the whip to cut a new line in his back intersecting with the first wound. By the fifth lash, he knew he was sobbing, but he needed to get a hold of himself.
He was holding himself up on his knees and fists, and his hair was falling into his face as he gasped. Jeno was shouting something next to him, but all he could focus on was the pain. He needed the time to absorb every blow, catalog the pain, compartmentalize before the next lash came and knocked him out of his mind again.
Seven, eight, nine-
There’s blood on the ground next to him, dripping off of his bent shoulders and creeping up into his hairline as he bends his neck lower and lower in an attempt to escape the pain. Black spots are spinning in his vision and he thinks he’ll throw up, and he realizes with some kind of dissociative horror that he’s been drooling on the floor. He didn’t even feel the tenth and eleventh lashes, the pain was a wall of fire blocking out everything except for the pressure of the whip pushing him further into the floor.
He was unconscious before the twelfth blow.
***
He woke a few times later that night, the burning pain along his shoulders and back making it impossible to sleep. Rora had snuck him a pain potion, and she and another servant girl had cleaned all of the blood away and attempted to put a poultice over his wounds. He knew it was useless. Unless the larger wounds were stitched up, they were going to scar into a mangled mess. They’d scar even if they had been stitched immediately.
He didn’t think his grandfather was going to let a doctor anywhere near him. He may be the heir to the throne, but his grandfather had been wanting to teach him a lesson for a long time. Between fever dreams and incoherent pain-thoughts, Jaemin wondered if this was all some kind of delayed punishment for Jaemin killing his mother when he had been born. His grandfather sometimes mentioned it- mentioned that Jaemin had been a difficult birth, that his father had been away on the battlefield, that Jaemin’s mother had been the light of the old king’s life.
Jaemin had her face.
He knew because the king startled sometimes when Jaemin would turn around, or when Jaemin would make a certain facial expression.
Would his mother have been proud of him today?
He slipped into another fever dream.
The pain went on and on, his whole body throbbing with his heartbeat, and he hoped that he wasn’t bleeding out. It figures that he would die just to save some cute boy that he’d only met a couple of times. What a way to go.
Jaemin didn’t think he was bleeding out, because the sheets had dried below him, but he liked to be melodramatic. Surely his grandfather would forgive him if he died, right?
A few more hours passed.
He didn’t even realize that he’d slipped back into another fitful sleep until the door to his chambers banged open and Jaemin groaned as his body jerked instinctively.
“Jaemin?” It was Jeno. Somehow it was Jeno, and Jaemin wondered if he were still dreaming. “Jaemin, oh, God, your back.”
“My one beauty,” Jaemin moaned sarcastically, trying unsuccessfully to look at Jeno’s face. He was too tall, Jaemin’s neck hurt too much to turn, and there was hair covering Jaemin’s eyes that he couldn’t brush away. “My poor, beautiful back- forever ruined for a stupid mage who couldn’t stay on his own side of the line.”
“I found him-!” Jeno screamed out of the hallway, and Jaemin wondered deliriously if he had been lost. “I’ve got him, father!”
Father?
Jaemin was too tired to think though so he just lay there as a group of three or four men and women surrounded his bed. One of them lifted the loose bandage that Rora had laid on the poultice and tsked her tongue briskly.
There were hurried sounds around them. A cloth package being unwrapped, the smell of herbs being crushed, Jeno’s cool, gentle hand on his arm.
“You’re okay?” Jaemin asked quietly.
“I’m fine, I’m fine, Jaemin. I told you I would be fine. My family came for me. We’re safe now. The whole country is safe now.”
“The king-?” Jaemin was half-scared to hear the answer, half-ready. His entire life he had been prepared to take the throne. But his grandfather was the only family he had left.
“He’s in the prison,” one of the older mages said.
There was a cool feeling on Jaemin’s back and all of a sudden the pain evaporated. The feeling was so intense, all of the pain leached out of Jaemin’s body and flooding him with endorphins. His whole body relaxed into the bed and he groaned in pleasure, his eyes fluttering shut. Jeno’s hand flexed tightly on his arm. “Oh shit, that feels so good, oh my God-”
The mages gave him a moment to compose himself, but Jaemin felt so good that he didn’t care that he was making inappropriate noises. Jeno was flushed bright red and that made Jaemin feel like smiling.
“He’ll stay there until he’s able to have a proper trial according to the laws of your nation,” the mage said. “He’s broken several ordinances of the original law of the land. And he’s broken several of the founding treaties that have kept this nation stable.”
Jaemin nodded slowly, attempting to find his mind amidst the deep pleasure of painlessness. “Yes, yes, I think he probably has, right.”
“And of course, striking a prince is a crime punishable with death-”
“Don’t hurt Claude!” Jaemin yelped suddenly, and Jeno startled backward.
“Claude?”
“The horse master.”
“Ah, yes, no, Claude won’t be hurt. He was just following orders. I was actually talking about your grandfather who ordered the whipping.”
“Oh.” Jaemin shrunk a little bit into the bed, the reality of the situation hitting him. The mages were conquering their land. He was incapacitated in bed. He doubted they would hurt him after just healing him, after he had saved Jeno- although, technically, they had saved Jeno.
There was a moment of silence and Jaemin suddenly processed the fact that Jeno was running gentle fingers up and down Jaemin’s arm. He met Jeno’s eyes and the boy was looking at him with an unreadable expression. Jaemin tried to ask Jeno ‘are you hurt?’ with his eyes, but Jeno just smiled wearily and brushed his hand up and tangled it in Jaemin’s hair.
Was this appropriate behavior in front of the chief warlock?
Maybe it was a mage thing.
Either way, Jeno’s hands in his hair felt far too good to complain about, so Jaemin just melted further into the bed and let Jeno’s fingernails gently scratch his scalp.
“The question now is what to do with you,” the older mage said, and Jaemin realized that the older mage was the chief warlock. Jeno’s father. He suddenly wished that they had met in better circumstances, as opposed to the warlock conquering Jaemin’s country.
“I- Will you-” Jaemin’s mouth was dry and he knew he was probably dehydrated from blood loss. “Am I going to be killed?” He braced himself for the answer, and Jeno’s hand tightened protectively in his hair.
Jeno’s father laughed, and it was the same smile that Jeno has, all wide grin and nearly-closed eyes. “Kill you? I don’t think my son would appreciate that considering that you’re-.”
“Father,” Jeno said quickly. “Don’t- I haven’t- He doesn’t know.”
“Doesn’t know what?”
“You didn’t tell him?” The chief warlock said and raised an eyebrow at his son.
Jeno was blushing again, and staring at the ground. “I didn’t get a chance.”
“Tell me what?” Jaemin tried to ask again.
“Why don’t we leave the room and give you two ‘the chance,’” the chief warlock said in a knowing tone that made Jeno cringe. Jaemin wondered if this is what having a dad was like.
All of the older mages left the room and left Jeno sitting on the bed next to Jaemin. Jaemin wished he could sit up.
“The thing I was trying to tell you in the dungeon,” Jeno said. “But I didn’t get a chance to tell you.” He had stopped moving his hand since his father had left the room.
There was a brief moment of silence, and Jaemin grunted and grabbed Jeno’s still hand with his own and forced Jeno to keep brushing his hair. Jeno grinned and began gently playing with the strands of Jaemin’s hair.
“Do you remember when we met?” Jeno asked. “I knew who you were. I knew you were the evil king’s grandson.”
Jaemin snorted.
“I thought you would be like him. All evil and hating magic and everything. But you weren’t. You were curious about magic. You said that you thought that your father may have been magic and you were curious if the mages knew anything about him. I tried to find out after you left, by the way. He was a mage, or at least, a mage’s son. Gehyun of the ninth district. He left when he met your mother. He must have concealed his magic very well.”
Jaemin closed his eyes and relished the new information about his parents. Magic. He had magic in his veins.
“Apparently your grandfather had him executed when he found out after you were born.”
Jaemin’s eyes snapped open. “That’s not- that’s not true-! My father died in battle-!”
Jeno looked horrified at himself. “You didn’t know? Oh, spirits, I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m so sorry. This is such horrible timing and you’re injured- Spirits, I’m the worst at this.”
“Don’t worry about it, Jeno,” Jaemin said after a moment. “I knew he was brave anyway. I thought that- I thought my whole life that he’d died in a war against the mages. I guess my grandfather thought it would be funny to lie about it that way since it was kind of the opposite.”
His grandfather had killed his last remaining parent. He didn’t know what he should feel. All he felt was weariness.
“I- but, anyway,” Jeno continued. “I’m sorry. But I couldn’t stop thinking about you after our first meeting. You were incredible. You had been so courageous and determined and you were really smart and you were-” Jeno flushed again. “I just couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
“I know I’m a great beauty,” Jaemin said, pretending to yawn. “You don’t need to contain yourself around me, darling. I’m used to all the girls swooning over all this.”
“I’m not swooning!” Jeno protested. “I just thought that you . . . looked memorable. After you left I kept trying to get news about you. I would ask passing travelers about the royal family or the crown prince. Do you know they call you the Fox Prince because you sneak around so much at night? I didn’t know that. You should be glad they don’t call you the Owl Prince or something boring like that.”
Jaemin didn’t know he had a nickname either, but he was still caught on the fact that Jeno had tried to find out information on him while they were separated. Jaemin thought about the multiple trips he had made to the dungeon to talk to captive mages about the chief warlock’s son. He wondered if any of them had been released and gone back and told the other mages about the crown prince’s obsession with Jeno. God, that would be embarrassing.
“My father- I’m-” Jeno was stuttering again. “I’m nineteen and by mage law, I need to be bonded with somebody to help contain my magic. The bonding needs to happen early in life so that the two souls can become entwined before the magic fully develops. My father told me that I needed to choose a bondmate, and I could only think of one person that I’d ever thought of in that way.”
Jaemin grinned, liking where Jeno’s speech was going even though Jeno was avoiding his eyes. “Oh, God, don’t tell me you told your chief warlock father that you had a crush on the crown prince.”
“It’s not a crush!” Jeno said spluttering and then whacked Jaemin in the head which was really unnecessary considering he’d just taken fifteen lashes for him. “I don’t- I’m not kidding, Jaemin. And this is a really big deal. You need to take this seriously because you can’t agree unless you know what you’re going into. I won’t make you- nobody will force you. It’s not a marriage, but it’s close. You can-” Jeno’s lips tightened and he glared at Jaemin’s blanket. “You can marry somebody else in the human way if you want, but- but most mages don’t marry anybody other than their bondmate.”
Jaemin laughed at Jeno’s put-upon expression. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, if we get bonded I won’t marry anybody else. While there is always enough Jaemin to go around, I’m afraid that I wouldn’t want anybody I care about to face the wrath of my jealous bondmate.”
The concept of bonding was foreign to Jaemin, but he knew enough about mage culture to know that asking somebody to bond with them was a very serious topic. Jeno had obviously put a lot of thought into this and it made Jaemin wonder why when Jeno had barely known him. Jaemin knew that he was smart and he knew that he was funny, but he didn’t think that anybody else had honestly fallen for him in a single meeting before.
“You do want to bond with me?” He asked hesitantly. “Honestly? This isn’t some kind of stupid, sacrificial thing because I helped you out, is it? Or because I’ve got like, magic blood now?”
Jeno shook his head so wildly that Jaemin was worried about his neck. “No, of course not! I wouldn’t mess with a bond like that! It’s because- because- My soul felt different when I was around you. Complete. I didn’t even realize that I always felt a little less like myself until I met you and then I realized that I had never really felt like myself before. I talked to my father about it and he said that- that we might be soulmates.”
Jaemin blinked at him. “Soulmates?”
“Yeah, that’s what he said. And it could be one-sided. Which is totally fine. I don’t- I survived nineteen years without you, I can keep going. But I just wanted to let you know.”
Jaemin thought about it for a moment. The way he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Jeno, how even leaving him in the dungeon had hurt Jaemin’s heart. The way that he had dreamed about Jeno’s eyes, his hands, his smile, during the six months since they met.
“I don’t think it’s one-sided,” Jaemin said.
“Really?” Jeno looked so hopeful that Jaemin wished he could give the mage everything he wanted. But he needed to think first.
“I can’t just bond with anybody though,” Jaemin said. “I think I’m a prisoner of war. And we don’t know each other well enough yet. And I don’t know how I’m going to get to know you in a prison cell-”
“You’re not going in a prison cell!” Jeno said indignantly. “And you’re sure as hell not a prisoner of war! You’re still the crown prince, Jaemin. No offense, but the mages have never wanted to rule over humans. You’ll be a good king.”
“I’m still going to rule?” Jaemin asked, surprised.
“Of course. And if you’re my bondmate-” Jeno’s eyes flickered in embarrassment every time he said the word ‘bondmate’ and it made Jaemin smile. “I can come live here. The chief warlock isn’t chosen by blood. It’s an election of power. The spirits pick the next warlock. I’m free to . . . to follow you where you go. If you want. Not in a creepy way, just in a- a bondmate way.”
“You’ll stay here?” Jaemin asked, looking up at Jeno with more pleading in his eyes than his pride was comfortable with. “You’ll stay with me?”
Suddenly that idea sounded perfect. Jaemin could introduce him to the kitchen servants and they could steal apple pastries and they could go riding together. Maybe they could visit the mage land when Jaemin was recovered and Jeno could introduce him to his mother. They could sit on the hearth in front of the fire during winter, and Jaemin could make him flower crowns in the summer-
Shit, he was really gone, wasn’t he?
“If that’s what you want,” Jeno said. “I don’t know if I could handle leaving you. Not after everything. Oh, god, Jaemin, you had no idea how hard it was to let them whip you. I was so close to grabbing the whip out of that brute’s hand, but I thought it might make the punishment worse.”
“It would’ve.”
Jeno’s hands ghosted over the new poultice on Jaemin’s back. “You’ll still scar.”
“It’ll have been worth it. Look at me, Jeno. I’d do it again. And again, and again, and again, because I wasn’t lying in the throne room. If I had to see that happen to you I wouldn’t be okay. I can’t see you hurt like that again.”
Jeno looked surprised by Jaemin’s earnestness. “Okay. Okay, Jaemin. But I’m going to be the one to take care of your back from here on out.” He laid a possessive hand on Jaemin’s shoulder. “I’ll heal you.”
“My hero,” Jaemin simpered.
“Oh, shut up,” Jeno said. “I’m going to go- I’ve got to go talk to my father about the bonding. I’ll tell him- what?”
“That I’m perfectly willing to bond with his idiot son because the sap is obviously, hopelessly enamored with me, but I’m going to go ahead and request a further six months of your presence to get used to your personality.” Jaemin grinned.
Jeno scowled. “I’m just going to say that you asked if I would stay. You’re really okay with that?”
“I’m going to need all the help I can get,” Jaemins said. “I’ve got to get rid of all the evil advisors and get rid of the evil king and repeal all the evil laws-” He yawned, but this time it wasn’t fake. “Being a hero is hard work.”
Jeno rolled his eyes. “Don’t worry about it. If anybody can do it, you can.”
The door closed, and the hallway light, which had been illuminating Jaemin’s chambers, was extinguished. Jaemin lay in the darkness, but for once he didn’t feel alone. He could feel warmth and strength in his chest, and he thought that he might be feeling Jeno’s soul.
He went to sleep clutching tight to the feeling of belonging.