Harbor (On the Wind #3)

20. Tybalt

CHAPTER TWENTY

TYBALT

I fled before anyone could catch me.

All right, I couldn’t stand the idea of Mercutio, in particular, realizing I’d been insecure enough to follow him up to the tower.

Since my father had all but cut me loose, I’d been dedicating myself to my responsibilities more fervently than ever before. It’d made him rather grumbly, but there was no way around it. I hoped that, if I could dedicate myself enough before Father had a preferable heir, I could have... something. Somewhere.

I wasn’t banking on a crown or anything, but I’d die if he banished me from court.

It was a wonder Father hadn’t sent me away already. I felt so ill-at-ease that I was sure he was watching, waiting, biding his time until it would hurt me the worst to be sent away. Maybe right after his wedding—that seemed sufficiently cruel.

Despite the day’s duties stretching out ahead of me and the strange, tight, wary feeling that’d been growing in me since everything had turned so sour, when I saw Mercutio skulking around, clearly looking for someone, my curiosity got the better of me—or maybe the pit of dread that opened up in my stomach demanded I find out what he was up to.

It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him; he was a dear friend. It was just... since our conversation in the stables, had I not given him reason enough to lash out at me? It was the way, in Urial, to attack when your opponent was unaware, preferably when there was no weapon sharper than a tongue involved.

To find him in Orestes’s company... well, I hadn’t expected that particular wound. Nor did I expect the conversation to turn quite the way that it had.

I’d been sure that Mercutio would proposition Orestes, and though he seemed honorable enough, why shouldn’t Orestes sample whatever he liked? Mercutio was beautiful, capable, stubborn. I’d often wondered if my father would’ve been able to overlook my defects if I’d had the kind of resolve Mercutio possessed.

And then Orestes had denied him, before Mercutio even tried. He’d said he enjoyed my company.

Mercutio had—had suggested I might keep him, as if that were even a possibility.

Orestes hadn’t told him how absurd the mere idea was.

I fled on the balls of my feet, taking the steps fast as I could so that Mercutio wouldn’t catch me. For Orestes, it was already too late. He’d met my eye, spoken honestly, and it had hit me like a runaway sled crashing into a tree.

Back in my room, I felt... strange. Anxious. There was nothing for it but to pace back and forth and hope that—that the movement calmed my agitation or?—

Fuck it all, it was doing no good, and I was already sweaty. It was the cold, uncomfortable, smelly sweat that often accompanied those moments when I found air hard to inhale or my hands especially shaky.

“Shit,” I hissed. “Fuck!”

I needed to change, to get out of these damp, fetid clothes and wear something... fresh. Yes. Plenty of clothes that were comfortable and fresh and?—

I jerked the doors of the wardrobe open only to see a collection of clothes that weren’t my own.

Oh, mine were stuck in there as well, but these others were larger, more utilitarian. The cloth was very fine, but there were hardly any adornments. Where were the buttons? The needlework?

Of course it wasn’t only my clothing in the wardrobe. I’d demanded the servants bring Orestes’s things over. If we were to be exclusive, didn’t it just... make sense? We’d be together, have easy access to each other’s bodies, and I would prove beyond doubt that I was indeed sticking to our agreement. Why not have him nearby?

Other than having to share a wardrobe. And a bed. And all manner of other furniture.

The moment I opened the wardrobe, my own anxiety was forgotten, and I reached for the soft woven cloth of Orestes’s shirt. All his things had been packed up together with some herbal sachet which smelled... well, quite wonderful, really. It had a light, fresh scent that I didn’t recognize, but I thought—well, Orestes sometimes mentioned the wall. I didn’t know much about Nemedan geography, but their wall was a wonder, and it ran their southern border.

In any case, what grew there was bound to be different than the hardy, abused greenery that sprouted in Urial. I’d never much thought of the plant life of my country—surely another personal failing, as I was to be king of all Urial’s trees as well as its people—but I wondered at what Nemeda was like when I breathed in that scent.

Come to think of it, Orestes always smelled fresh and airy and faintly masculine but in a pleasant, nonthreatening way that suggested he was, in fact, in possession of a bar of soap.

I liked the way he smelled, and at the first whiff of that scent, caught up in his shirt, my fear abated. I dragged his tunic closer to me and buried my nose in it.

The fabric was soft against my skin, the threads so very tiny. How had they managed to turn what I was fairly sure was cotton into something so perfect?

I was wondering at it, languishing in the smell, sniffing my way toward the top of his arm where the masculine spice was strongest, when I heard a snort behind me.

“I can think of better places for you to jam that nose of yours.”

I rounded on Orestes, grinning at me.

I gripped his shirt to my chest as heat flooded my face. The embarrassment was only made worse by—by—gods damn it, I was trying to hide in the tent of his clothes, only drawing more attention to my guilt and shame.

Orestes had caught me wanting. Being far too soft for the agreement between us. Not just lusting after him, a man, but longing for him because he made me feel safe when I was anxious and afraid.

I hissed, shoving the shirt away. “I was just—just making sure that having all your things here won’t make mine smell like a feral bird. That’s all.”

“A feral bird?” he repeated, his voice oddly inflectionless. His smile had disappeared.

“Well, yes. Obviously. I mean”—I waved a hand at him, his size, the feathers in his hair—“look at you.”

I wasn’t sure what I expected when I spat at him and stuck out my chin, but it wasn’t for his expression to shutter completely. I thought he’d—perhaps he’d take the Urial way and strike back at me. He had, after all, caught me in an embarrassing moment.

Instead, he seemed to be taking matters very seriously. He crossed his arms, and despite the size of my chambers, Orestes seemed overlarge in his anger.

“Shall I go?”

“What?” My voice cracked.

“I can take my things and return to the other chamber. It’s not like I asked to have them brought here. That was you. If you’re worried about bird shit on your fineries?—”

“I’m not,” I blurted out.

“—I am happy enough to leave you to it.”

Upstairs, he’d been happy to be in my bed. Now, he was happy enough to leave it.

We had promised one another that we wouldn’t allow ourselves to confuse fucking with feelings, yet something crashed over me that made my eyes sting, my eyelids flutter, my breath come sharp and short and the cold sweat return beneath my arms.

Less than an hour ago, he’d been in the tower telling Mercutio that he couldn’t imagine growing tired of my company for some time yet. And that fast, I’d ruined everything.

It had always been the kind ones that’d been run off first. I’d just never chased them away myself—not till now.