Chapter 15

The real one? What does that even mean?

Before Kosha could form the question, a massive hand closed around his shoulder and dragged him into the chamber.

Despite Lucien’s gentle smile, his grip was merciless. He shoved Kosha backward, slamming him painfully against the heavy door. The ancient wood swung shut with a groan and sealed them inside with a sharp click.

“Your Highness, wha… agh!”

Lucien moved before Kosha could finish.

He swept Kosha’s disheveled bangs away from his face with such force that it felt perilously close to being dragged by the hair. Kosha’s long eyelashes fluttered as his body locked beneath the instinctive terror of prey caught in a predator’s grasp.

Those cold ash-blue eyes examined every inch of his face with clinical precision.

Lucien released another faint laugh. “I suspected there was more to this. What else is there? Tell me.”

Kosha stared up at him without comprehension.

Lucien’s brow furrowed. Irritated by the blank response, he seized Kosha by the lower face, his palm easily encompassing both cheeks. He turned Kosha’s head from side to side, angling him toward the candlelight as though inspecting an unusual piece of livestock.

“You babbled about love potions and all that nonsense,” Lucien said, his thumb grazing Kosha’s cheekbone.

“Pardon?”

“Did Bastian send you too?”

The question was meaningless. Kosha did not know who Bastian was.

He knew only that Lucien was behaving in a deeply, dangerously abnormal manner. He scrambled to order his thoughts and drew a careful breath, preparing to offer a professional diagnosis.

Your Highness, are you feeling well? Sir Gosrick instructed me to find Sir Mailot. May I examine you? It is highly unlikely that my potion caused this, but I will do everything I can to help.

“Your Highness, I…”

Lucien’s hand shifted from his cheek to his scalp. Long fingers twisted viciously into Kosha’s curls, and the savage pull obliterated the speech he had so carefully prepared.

“Ah!”

Lucien dragged him across the floor toward a velvet chaise in the corner. Kosha’s knees struck the boards, and tears sprang instantly to his eyes. The prince settled into the cushions and forced Kosha to remain kneeling between his legs, trapped in a humiliatingly vulnerable position.

“What did Bastian order you to do?” Lucien asked, resting his forearms on his knees and propping his chin against his knuckles.

The pressure in the room seemed to intensify until the air itself felt heavier. Kosha’s lungs struggled beneath it. His lips parted, but no coherent answer emerged.

Was this magical pressure, or merely the terror radiating from the man before him?

“It’s all right. Tell me.” Lucien’s soft smile promised catastrophe to anyone foolish enough to believe it. “I might even listen. I could kill you here and pretend I knew nothing about it, but that would be a terrible waste.”

“I only want to examine you. Sir Gosrick said there was a problem, so perhaps I could…”

“For a man, you’ve got quite a face.”

Lucien leaned back and crossed his long legs with predatory ease. The polished toe of one leather boot pressed into the deep opening of Kosha’s loosened gown, forcing the thin linen farther apart.

Cold air touched Kosha’s exposed chest.

Lucien’s smile twisted.

He had witnessed countless variations of this performance before: damp hair, flushed skin, and clothing designed to fall away at precisely the right moment. Assassins and spies had thrown themselves into his bed, meticulously prepared to be used. Some had been seasoned professionals, while others had affected virginal innocence.

A man playing the role was at least novel.

Yet Lucien had never seen anyone wear such absolute, terrified ignorance with so much conviction.

Kosha tried to retreat on his bruised knees. Lucien immediately uncrossed his legs and caught him by the hair, stopping him with another vicious pull.

“A male prostitute or two hardly ruins a man’s reputation these days,” Lucien said.

“A male… No, Your Highness, that isn’t what I am.”

“Better, really. No chance of ending up with an unwanted brat.”

“You said there was a problem with the love potion, so I thought…”

“Answer what I ask. Don’t prattle on without permission.”

SMACK!

Lucien’s palm struck Kosha across the face.

Because his head remained anchored by the fist in his hair, he absorbed the full force of the blow. His skull rang, his vision burst white, and burning pain spread across the left side of his face.

“Ah…”

Kosha folded inward, clutching his cheek.

A mage’s body was more fragile than an ordinary human’s, with a nervous system acutely sensitive to physical trauma. Violence was a language his body remembered far better than his mind wished to. Kosha knew all too well how cruel Lucien could become whenever he was afflicted by one of his mysterious “problems.”

Lucien watched his distress with open contempt. “What did he promise you? Did he expect you to return carrying proof?”

Kosha could not comprehend the political accusation buried beneath the threat. He only knew that the situation had turned catastrophically wrong.

The pressure of Lucien’s boot shifted lower, pinning him in place. Though the touch itself was measured, Kosha gasped as if he had been struck in the stomach.

Lucien interpreted the reaction as confirmation. His ash-blue eyes curved with cruel amusement.

“Oh? So that was the arrangement.”

Kosha bit the inside of his lip until he tasted blood and fought to remain conscious. Fear alone did not account for the weakness spreading through him. A peculiar numbness crawled beneath his skin, making even the brush of linen against his body feel unbearable.

When he tried to push the boot away, Lucien leaned closer and seized his bruised face. His fingers pressed into the hinges of Kosha’s jaw, forcing his mouth open.

“I have nothing else to occupy me tonight,” the prince whispered.

Nothing else? The kingdom sounds as if it’s collapsing beyond these walls!

Kosha tried to wrench his head away. “No. Your Highness, I’m a mage. I’m not…”

Lucien silenced him with a brutal invasion that left Kosha choking and unable to speak. The prince treated his body as something to be inspected, controlled, and degraded, ignoring every muffled protest.

Kosha clawed at the powerful arm restraining him, but it felt as immovable as an oak rooted in stone. When Lucien finally released him, Kosha doubled over in a fit of coughing and retching, saliva spilling across his chin.

Terrified that the mess would provoke another blow, he hastily scrubbed his mouth with the sleeve of his gown.

Lucien caught his jaw again before he could finish.

Kosha looked down, and horror emptied his face.

“N-no.”

Lucien ignored him.

The prince’s intentions were unmistakable now. Whatever poison, spell, or madness afflicted him had stripped away every restraint Kosha had once associated with the royal heir.

“Open your mouth,” Lucien ordered.

Kosha recoiled, but Lucien held him fast.

“No. Please.”

“If you resist, you die.”

The threat was delivered with chilling softness. Beneath the fever and cruelty, the calculating Lucien remained present enough to understand exactly what he was doing.

This isn’t Lucien. This is a sick, poisoned animal wearing his face.

Kosha tried to summon fire.

Two lamps burned nearby. A single ember should have been enough. He needed only a spark to startle Lucien, break his grip, and escape.

His fingers twitched against the floorboards.

Nothing happened.

His mana formed for an instant, then shattered inside him, scattering through his nervous system in a burst of stinging static.

Why isn’t it working?

The sensation was horribly familiar.

Where have I felt this interference before?

Panic destroyed the thought before it could take shape.

Lucien forced Kosha into a degrading sexual act, using pain and the threat of death to suppress every attempt at resistance. Kosha’s breath came in broken, desperate gasps. Tears streamed down his face as he fought for air, his hands pushing uselessly against the prince’s thighs before clutching at them simply to keep himself upright.

The grip in his hair dictated every movement. Whenever Kosha tried to twist away, Lucien wrenched him back into place.

“Can’t you even do this properly?” Lucien asked, dark amusement threading through his voice.

Kosha could not answer.

His throat burned, his jaw throbbed, and the room blurred behind a veil of tears. Lucien’s laughter reached him from somewhere far away, distorted by panic and the thunder of his own pulse.

“You’ll have to learn before Mailot brings that damned mage back,” the prince said.

The cruelty of the statement held no humor for Kosha. Worse, the “damned mage” Lucien believed Mailot had gone to retrieve was already kneeling before him, being brutalized while the prince mistook him for an enemy’s agent.

Kosha lacked the strength to endure much more.

At last, Lucien released him.

Kosha collapsed sideways, coughing so violently that his entire body convulsed. Wet, broken sounds tore from his raw throat as he struggled to breathe. His gown, the floorboards, and the edge of the expensive rug were left soiled by the assault.

Lucien regarded the aftermath without remorse.

“Are you really going to leave such a mess?” he murmured. “Wasn’t your assignment to take everything with you?”

The voice came from directly beside Kosha’s ear.

He flinched and looked over his shoulder.

Lucien had lowered himself to one knee. For the first time, their faces were close enough for Kosha to see every detail of the prince’s expression.

The blue-gray eyes fixed upon him were clouded by a strange, feverish glaze. Kosha had always been hopeless at reading desire in others, but even he recognized the raw hunger burning in Lucien’s gaze. It was an emotion he had never once seen during all those years when Kosha had chased after him with desperate, unrequited devotion.

“Y-Your…”

The instant Kosha parted his swollen lips, the heavy door burst open.

“Your Highness!” a frantic voice bellowed. “Those damned Gaecrux bastards delayed me! Sir Gosrick said he sent the mage up here, but we must have missed each other!”

Both men turned toward the entrance.

The chamber fell into a suffocating three-way silence.

A middle-aged scholar stood in the doorway with a stack of tomes clutched against his chest. He stared in utter bewilderment, his gaze darting between the disheveled prince and the sobbing, battered man on the floor.

At last, his eyes settled on Kosha’s pale face.

“Who are you?” Mailot asked.

The sheer absurdity of the question shattered the remaining tension.

Lucien expelled a sharp, irritated breath and raked one hand through his perfectly arranged ash-blond hair. “Mailot, get out.”

Mailot.

The name pierced the haze smothering Kosha’s thoughts.

Summoning the last scraps of adrenaline left in his body, he twisted away. Lucien reached for him, but his fingers caught only the edge of Kosha’s linen sleeve.

“Wait. I’m…”

Kosha’s limbs felt as limp as soaked rope. He dragged himself across the floor on his stomach, his movements scarcely more effective than the writhing of a crushed insect.

The exhaustion that had plagued him earlier seemed insignificant compared with the crushing weight now pinning him to the earth.

The chamber was small. Only three paces separated him from the scholar’s boots.

To Kosha, the distance stretched into an impossible infinity.

“I…” His voice broke. Blood and saliva streaked his chin. “I’m a mage.”

Mailot did not move.

“I’m the mage,” Kosha sobbed.

The scholar’s face contorted in grotesque horror.

At the sight of that expression, a final, terrible thought passed through Kosha’s mind.

What does Lucien look like right now, standing behind me?

He could not bring himself to turn around.

His strength failed. Darkness swallowed his vision, and Kosha collapsed unconscious at Mailot’s feet.

***