Elian spends the morning pretending to be someone who isn't thinking about jumping.
He does it well enough that no one seems to notice.
There are meetings with his tutors, walk-throughs of the week's ceremonies, a half-hour where the king's steward drones on about the seating arrangements for the Virell delegation. It all blurs together like one long sentence without punctuation. Elian nods at appropriate moments, gives polite answers when asked his opinion, and feels his mind sliding away from his body, as if he's watching himself from somewhere outside.
By the time the sun is leaning toward late afternoon, his head hurts.
He finds Rowan in the training yard.
The courtyard is carved into the inner ring of the palace, ringed with stone archways and open to the sky. The clang of steel and grunts of effort echo off the walls. A handful of guards are running drills, wooden practice blades thudding against each other. Sweat darkens their tunics; dust clings to their boots.
Rowan is in the middle of a spar when Elian arrives, matched against another knight, both moving with controlled ferocity. Rowan is all economy—no wasted motion, every step measured. He turns a strike aside with his forearm, twists, and knocks the other man's sword from his hand in one smooth, unhurried movement.
"Yield," Rowan says.
His opponent steps back, breathing hard, grinning. "Fine, fine. Next time."
"There won't be a next time if you keep dropping your guard when you lunge," Rowan replies. "Try again after you've decided you'd like to keep your head."
A few of the others laugh. The atmosphere is easy, familiar. Rowan is respected here; Elian can feel it from the archway, watching unseen for a moment.
It's strange, seeing Rowan in this context—still tied up in duty, but freer somehow. Less… careful. He looks younger when he's focused on something other than Elian.
Elian realizes he's staring and forces himself to move.
He steps out from under the archway and onto the packed dirt of the yard. The change in sound is immediate; a couple of the guards straighten when they see him.
Rowan notices a half-second later. His eyes flick to Elian, and his expression shifts—just a tiny notch—into the precise, attentive calm he always wears around the prince.
"Your Highness," he says, inclining his head.
"Rowan."
The other guards bow quickly, murmuring greetings. Elian acknowledges them with a nod, but his attention is fixed on the man in front of him.
"Did you need something?" Rowan asks.
Yes, Elian thinks. A different life.
"I need air," he says instead. "The kind they don't bottle and perfume and serve with speeches."
One of Rowan's eyebrows lifts. "Is the balcony not sufficient today?"
"Funny." Elian folds his arms loosely. "I want to go out."
"Out," Rowan repeats slowly, as if the word needs careful examination.
"Into the city."
There's a beat of silence where dust motes drift in a shaft of light between them.
"You know that's not exactly encouraged right now," Rowan says.
"Lots of things aren't encouraged." Elian shrugs. "I'm not asking to join the thieves' guild. I just want to walk among people who don't bow when I pass."
Rowan's gaze sharpens. "It's not about the bowing. There are risks. Especially with the Virell delegation arriving tomorrow."
"I'm not going to run off with their ambassador," Elian says dryly. "Though that might solve everyone's problems."
Rowan doesn't smile. "You know what I mean."
Elian studies him. There's concern there—not just in the way his jaw tightens, but in the way his hand curls slightly around the hilt of his practice sword. Elian's request has landed heavier than he meant it to.
He could push. He could pull rank and say, I am the prince, and I gave you an order. Rowan would obey. But the taste of that feels wrong in his mouth.
"Do you remember the festival?" Elian asks instead.
Rowan's frown eases a fraction. "Which one?"
"The one when I was fourteen. The Spring Moon festival. I disappeared for three hours, and you nearly lost your position because of it."
Rowan's eyes flicker, some old, half-buried emotion moving there. "I remember."
Elian smiles, but it's tilted. "You found me."
"You were standing on a barrel trying to win a glass bird from a throwing game."
"I won it."
"You missed every shot for half an hour," Rowan says. "The stall keeper gave it to you out of pity."
Elian laughs; he can't help it. The memory is absurd and vivid—colored lanterns swinging over crowded streets, musicians playing too loud, the smell of fried dough and spiced wine. For a few hours, he'd felt… ordinary.
"I want that again," he says quietly. "Just for one night. No crown. No speeches. No people measuring my worth in alliances."
Rowan watches him. Their gazes hook and hold, the noise of the yard fading into a dull backdrop.
"You're not fourteen anymore," Rowan says at last. "And if something happens to you now, it doesn't just cost me my position."
"So we're more careful," Elian says. "You're good at that."
Rowan lets out a slow breath. Elian can almost see the calculation behind his eyes: routes through the city, guard schedules, exit points, the odds of things going wrong.
"You're not going alone," Rowan says.
"I had assumed as much."
"And we stay out of the busier districts. No noble quarter, no river docks at night. We're in and out before midnight. If anything feels wrong, we turn back."
Elian tries not to show his relief. "So that's a yes."
"It's not a no," Rowan says, which from him might as well be a signed edict.
"Tonight?" Elian asks.
"Tonight," Rowan says reluctantly. "After the evening meal. Come to the western service stair. Wear something that doesn't have your family crest embroidered all over it."
Elian's heart trips. The day, which had felt like a low, endless line, suddenly has a bright point in it.
"I'll see what I can do," he says.
Rowan nods once and turns back to his sparring partner, but Elian catches it—the tiniest hint of a smile ghosting across his face.
***
When Elian was twelve, sneaking out had felt like a game.
He'd done it partly out of boredom, partly to prove he could. The palace had seemed so big then; its rules, like a net he could slip through if he was clever enough.
He remembered sitting in his room while a storm rattled the windows, listening to the rain pound against the glass, heart racing with the idea. What if I just… left? No escorts, no ceremonial cloak, no hovering attendants. Just walked out.
The thought had felt outrageous. Exhilarating.
He'd waited until the guards rotated at midnight, until his nursemaid had fallen asleep in the chair by the door, her head tipped back. He'd slipped past her, bare feet silent on the rug, and made his way through the west wing, through the older corridors where the patrols were less strict.
It had been remarkably easy to step through a side gate that night, the storm working in his favor. The guard on duty had been half asleep under his hood; Elian had walked by with a basket of linens and his head bowed, heart hammering.
The city had wrapped around him like a different world—lanterns low against the rain, vendors still calling to those hurrying by, the slick cobblestones shining.
He'd wandered, soaked and grinning, the air full of smoke and laughter and the smell of wet bread. He'd watched a couple arguing loudly in the street and thought, They don't know who I am. They don't care. It had felt like flying.
Of course, the palace had noticed within an hour.
Later, Rowan had told him he'd taken one look at the empty bed and felt something icy slide down his spine.
"I thought you'd been taken," Rowan had said. "Or—"
He'd stopped there, jaw clenched.
Elian hadn't thought about that part. He'd only thought about himself.
He could still recall, with uncomfortable clarity, the way Rowan had found him—standing on a barrel, arm drawn back to throw a ring at a row of glass birds. Elian had been laughing, rain dripping from his hair, when a large hand had closed around his wrist mid-throw.
He'd turned, ready to snap, and found Rowan's face instead, pale under the rain, eyes blazing.
"Off," Rowan had said tightly. "Now."
Elian had obeyed without thinking. Even back then, there was something in Rowan's voice that cut through his defiance like nothing else could.
They'd walked back through the city with Rowan's grip firm on his shoulder, neither saying much. Elian had expected a lecture. Instead, halfway back, Rowan had just exhaled shakily.
"You can't do that again," he'd said. "Not like this."
Elian had bristled. "Why not? I'm not a prisoner."
"No," Rowan had replied. "You're a target."
Elian had opened his mouth with some flippant comment and then shut it again. There'd been something raw in Rowan's expression, something that looked a lot like fear.
He'd apologized then. Awkwardly, stiffly. Rowan had nodded once and dropped the subject.
The glass bird had survived the trip back, somehow. Rowan had carried it, wrapped in his cloak, and left it on Elian's nightstand without a word.
Elian had kept it.
He still had it now—a little thing of pale blue glass—which he sometimes picked up and turned in the light when he couldn't sleep.
Tonight, as the sun sinks and the palace shifts into its evening rhythm, he finds it again.
He takes the bird down from the shelf and runs his thumb over its smooth back. It catches the lamplight, throwing a small bright smear against the wall.
There had been a time when sneaking out was rebellion for rebellion's sake.
Tonight, it feels less like rebellion and more like oxygen.
***
He dresses carefully.
His wardrobe is an exercise in ostentation—velvets embroidered with gold thread, silks dyed in rich jewel tones, tunics with his family crest sewn into every other seam. Most of it screams look at me in a way that feels physically painful when he's already exhausted from being looked at all day.
At the back of the closet, though, are a few simpler things. Left over from hunting trips or training sessions where he insisted on wearing something he could move in: a plain dark tunic, well-worn trousers, a hooded cloak in a nondescript brown.
He pulls those on and stares at himself in the mirror.
Without the crown, without the high collar and thick embroidery, he looks… less like a prince and more like someone who might actually be able to vanish in a crowd.
His face, though, is still his face.
He rummages through a drawer and finds a bit of charcoal. It's a silly idea, but he's not above silly if it helps. He smudges a faint line along his jaw, darkens his brows, musses his hair more than usual. The result is imperfect, but it breaks up the neatness the palace demands of him.
He looks like a worse version of himself. Somehow, that feels right.
By the time the palace bells toll the hour after dinner, he's ready.
He slips out of his chambers through the side door, into the servant corridor. It smells like soap and steam and boiled vegetables, a far cry from the perfumed halls on the other side of the wall. He moves quickly, keeping his hood up when he passes the occasional maid or scullery boy. Most of them don't look up.
The western service stair is dim and narrow, lit by a single lantern halfway down. Rowan is already there, leaning against the wall, arms crossed.
He looks Elian over once, from boots to hood, and huffs out what might almost be a laugh.
"You look like you lost a fight with a coal bin," Rowan says.
"Excellent. That's exactly what I was going for."
Rowan reaches out and tugs the hood a little further forward over Elian's forehead, fingers brushing his temple. "Better."
"You're enjoying this," Elian says.
"I can't enjoy anything that has a high chance of getting us both killed," Rowan replies. "But I'll admit it's a slight improvement over the cloak with the ten-foot train."
Elian smirks. "You just don't appreciate fashion."
"If fashion makes it easier to stab you, I don't appreciate it. No."
Elian's smile widens in spite of himself. This—this easy exchange, this familiar rhythm—is what keeps him sane when everything else is narrowing around him.
"What about you?" he asks, eyeing Rowan's clothes. "Do you plan to blend in by radiating disapproval until no one comes near?"
Rowan is dressed in a plain dark doublet, the kind any middling tradesman might wear, with his hair tied back loosely instead of the tight knot he usually favors on duty. He's left the sword, but Elian knows there's a knife up his sleeve and another in his boot.
"I'm on leave with a friend who insists on bad decisions," Rowan says. "That's my cover."
"Tragically believable."
Rowan shakes his head. "Before we go, we need to be clear. If I say we're leaving, we leave. No arguing. No bargaining. Understood?"
Elian rolls his eyes. "Yes, Sir Hale."
"I'm serious," Rowan says, voice low. "This isn't the palace. If something feels wrong, we don't wait to see if we were right."
Elian holds his gaze. Something about the firmness there—the calm, the care—settles a piece of his frayed nerves.
"Understood," he says quietly.
Rowan nods, satisfied. "Stay close to me. Don't give your real name. Don't flash any coin if you can help it. And if anyone asks, you're—"
"Your younger brother?" Elian suggests.
Rowan snorts. "You'd last five seconds before someone questioned that."
"Why?" Elian lifts his chin. "We both have… faces."
Rowan actually laughs softly at that. "Your accent gives you away. And your spine."
"What's wrong with my spine?"
"It's used to people moving out of your way," Rowan says. "Try slouching."
Elian narrows his eyes, then exaggerates a slouch, rolling his shoulders forward.
Rowan considers. "Better. Terrible for you, but better."
"I'll see a physician about it when we're back," Elian mutters.
"Please don't let that be the thing that gets me reprimanded," Rowan says dryly. "Prince injures posture while pretending not to be prince."
Elian's laugh is real this time, light cutting through the tightness in his chest.
"Ready?" Rowan asks.
"No," Elian says. "Yes."
Rowan gives a short nod and pushes open the door at the bottom of the stair.
Cool air hits them, carrying the smell of lantern oil and distant sea salt. The palace walls fall away behind them as they step into the night.
***
The city feels different in the dark.
In the daytime, Elian sees it from the balcony, ordered and distant, like something on a map. At night, walking its streets with his hood up and Rowan at his side, it feels alive in a way the palace never does.
The alleys are narrow and crooked, lit by flickering lamps. Voices spill from doorways—laughter, arguments, the sing-song call of a vendor still hawking pastries late into the evening. Somewhere, a fiddle scrapes out a tune that's slightly off-key but enthusiastic.
Elian drinks it all in like water.
They keep to side streets, moving with purpose, not lingering in one place too long. Rowan's hand occasionally touches the small of Elian's back, nudging him away from a patch of potholes or steering him around a group of men talking loudly at a corner.
"Stop scanning the roofs," Rowan murmurs once. "You look like you're planning an attack."
"I am planning how not to fall off them," Elian says.
"Focus on your feet," Rowan says. "And don't walk like you own the ground."
"I was born here," Elian mutters. "I own some of it."
"Then be a generous landlord and let it go for the night," Rowan says.
Elian bites back a smile and tries to let his gait relax, matching Rowan's stride. The rhythm of their steps falls into sync without effort.
They pass a bakery with its door propped open, the warm smell of fresh bread curling into the street. Elian slows instinctively.
Rowan notices. "Hungry?"
"It just smells… good," Elian says. "Real. Not like the palace bread that looks perfect and tastes like nothing."
Rowan eyes him for a second, then digs into his pocket and pulls out a few coins. "Stay here."
"You don't have to—"
"Stay," Rowan repeats, and disappears inside.
Elian hovers by the doorway, hands in his cloak pockets, watching the people passing by. No one looks at him twice. A woman sweeps her stoop, humming a tune. A boy chases a stray dog down the alley, laughing breathlessly. A couple argues in quick, overlapping sentences about rent versus medicine.
No one bows.
His chest tightens unexpectedly.
Rowan emerges with two small loaves wrapped in paper. He hands one to Elian.
Elian peels back the edge and breaks off a piece. The crust is crisp, the inside still warm.
He takes a bite and closes his eyes. "By the stars," he says around a mouthful.
Rowan takes a bite of his own. "Better than the palace?" he asks.
"Yes," Elian says immediately. "Don't tell the royal baker. He'll resign in disgrace."
Rowan's mouth quirks. "Maybe he'll open a stall down here. Then everyone wins."
Elian chews in silence for a few moments, the warmth of the bread grounding him.
"What do you think they'd say," he asks quietly, "if they knew the prince was standing here eating street bread and slouching?"
"Which they?" Rowan asks. "The council? Your parents? The people?"
"Any of them. All of them."
Rowan considers. "The council would call it reckless. Your parents would call it unnecessary. The people…" He glances at the passerby. "I think most wouldn't care, as long as you didn't make the queues longer."
Elian snorts. "That sounds right."
Rowan finishes his bread and dusts his hands. "Come on. Before you fall in love with a baker and I have to explain to the king why you ran away to knead dough."
"I could be happy as a baker," Elian says. "Flour, heat, no politics."
"You'd unionize the other bakers within a week," Rowan says. "Start a grain reform movement. Overthrow the millers."
Elian laughs, the sound rolling out of him easier than it has in weeks. "You know me too well."
Rowan doesn't answer, but the look he gives Elian says all that and more.
They keep walking.
The tavern they end up at is in a lane off the market square, its sign swinging gently in the breeze: a painted fox with a mug in its paw. The windows glow with lamplight; the muffled murmur of voices leaks through the cracks.
Rowan pauses just outside. "Last chance to change your mind."
"If I change my mind, I'll be back in the hall by now, listening to Lord Ferris explain the grain tariffs again," Elian says. "I'll risk the tavern."
Rowan huffs. "Stay behind me at first. The floor's uneven. Watch your step and your pockets."
Elian nods, stomach fluttering in a way that has nothing to do with danger.
Rowan pushes the door open.
Heat, noise, and light hit them all at once.
The tavern is crowded but not packed, the air thick with the smell of beer, stew, and sweat. A musician sits on a crooked stool near the fireplace, coaxing a quick tune from a fiddle. People talk over each other, laughing, arguing, trading stories. Tables are scarred with old knife marks and ringed with mismatched chairs.
No one looks up when they enter.
Elian feels a flicker of something like disappointment, chased immediately by relief. He follows Rowan to a quieter corner near the wall, where they can see the door and most of the room.
Rowan pulls out a chair with his boot and nods at it. "Sit."
Elian obeys, grateful to get out of the way of a serving girl carrying three tankards at once.
Rowan catches the girl's eye and lifts two fingers. She nods and disappears behind the counter.
Elian leans back, letting his gaze roam.
It's not the kind of place his parents would approve of—too noisy, too messy, too… alive. There's a group of older men playing dice near the hearth, coins clinking as they bet. A woman with ink-stained fingers is sketching something on a scrap of paper, glancing up at the room every few seconds. Two sailors argue good-naturedly about whose ship has the worse captain.
At the center of it all, the musician's bow darts across the strings, the tune fast enough that a couple of people have started to tap their feet.
The serving girl returns and sets two clay mugs on their table. Rowan slides one toward Elian.
"What is it?" Elian asks.
"Beer."
Elian eyes it. "Will I die?"
"Not from this," Rowan says. "Sip slowly."
Elian lifts the mug and takes a cautious sip. It's bitter, heavier than the wine they serve at court, but not unpleasant. It tastes… honest. No spices to hide behind. No layers of ceremony.
He takes another sip.
Rowan watches him, then glances away, scanning the room with professional disinterest.
"You don't have to be on alert every second," Elian says quietly. "You can… I don't know. Sit. Be here."
"I am sitting," Rowan points out.
"You know what I mean."
Rowan's eyes flick to him. "I can't turn it off."
Elian studies him—the faint furrow between his brows, the way his shoulders never quite fully relax.
"You like this," Elian says softly. "Not the worry. The… watching. The protecting."
Rowan's gaze drops to his mug. "It's what I'm good at."
"So if the war had gone differently, you would have done this for someone else?" Elian asks. "Some other royal?"
Rowan's fingers tighten slightly around the handle. "It doesn't matter. It didn't go differently."
"That's not an answer," Elian says.
Rowan's jaw flexes. He doesn't respond.
The musician changes tunes, something slower now. People shift, conversations dipping, rearranging. Two people—Elian can't see their faces from here—stand up and move to the open space near the hearth.
It's a man and a man.
Elian's pulse stutters.
They're not dressed finely—simple shirts, sleeves rolled up, one with ink on his fingers, the other with calluses visible even from across the room. They take each other's hands: one set rough and tanned, the other narrower, smudged with charcoal.
No one gasps. No one shouts. No one moves to stop them.
The musician's bow takes on a softer tone. The two men sway at first, then fall into an easy rhythm, one leading, the other following. They're not particularly graceful, but it doesn't matter. One says something that makes the other laugh, head tipping back for a moment before he leans forward again, pressing their foreheads together as they turn.
It's simple. Casual. Completely unremarkable to everyone else in the room.
To Elian, it's like the floor cuts out from under him.
He can't breathe for a second.
He's seen men look at each other like that before. In corners at court, in hidden glances, in the way a hand lingered on another's arm just a moment too long. But always hidden. Always behind something. A pillar. A curtain. The safety of pretense.
Here, they are … just there. In the open. Not making a statement, not protesting, not draped in defiance.
Just dancing.
"Elian," Rowan says quietly.
He startles slightly. Rowan's watching him, not the dancers, eyes sharper than they've been all night.
"You're staring," Rowan says.
"They're dancing," Elian says, voice low.
"Yes."
"I didn't think…" Elian trails off. "I don't know what I thought."
Rowan follows his gaze, just for a moment. His face stays careful, unreadable, but Elian notices the way his throat moves when he swallows.
"Does no one care?" Elian asks, barely above a whisper.
"Some care," Rowan says. "Some don't. Some have their own reasons not to look too closely."
"Here, they can just…" Elian gestures vaguely at the space where the two men are, as if the movement can capture all the things he doesn't know how to say. "No one is counting heirs when they look at them."
"Here, they're just people," Rowan says. "Not symbols."
Elian's chest aches so sharply he has to set his mug down.
He watches as the taller of the two stumbles slightly, and they both laugh. One reaches up, brushing the other's hair off his forehead. The gesture is unselfconsciously tender. The kind Elian has only ever seen between men and women in public.
Elian feels something hot prick at the backs of his eyes. He looks down quickly, staring at the scratched surface of the table.
"If you want to leave—" Rowan starts.
"No." Elian's fingers curl into fists. "I don't want to leave."
Rowan is quiet for a moment. "Are you all right?"
"I don't know." The words come out raw. "Is this what it's like? For people who… for people who can be themselves?"
Rowan's gaze holds him. The noise of the tavern seems to dull, the music thinning.
"There's no one way it is," Rowan says. "Not for anyone."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only honest one I have."
Elian huffs out a breath that's almost a laugh, almost a sob. He scrubs a hand over his face.
A shadow falls over the table.
"New faces," a voice says.
Elian looks up.
A man stands by their table, about his age, maybe a year older. His hair is cropped short, his nose a little crooked, like it's been broken and badly set. He wears a leather apron over his clothes, ink stains on his fingers, the smell of paper and glue clinging to him.
A bookbinder, Elian guesses automatically.
Rowan shifts slightly, posture sharpening, but doesn't move his hand toward any of the knives Elian knows he has.
"Don't think I've seen you two in here before," the man says, eyeing them both. His gaze lands on Elian and lingers just a heartbeat longer than feels casual. "You from around here?"
"Passing through," Rowan says evenly. "Just a drink."
"Plenty of those to go around." The man's mouth curls. He nods at Elian. "You don't look like you're having much fun."
"I'm having enough," Elian says. His voice comes out steadier than he expects.
"First time?" the man asks.
"At a tavern?" Elian considers. "Yes."
The man grins. "Well, you picked one of the better ones. Less broken furniture. Better music."
He glances toward the musicians as one of them hits a sour note and winces. "Most nights, anyway."
Elian huffs a small laugh despite himself.
"I'm Tomas," the man says. "I've got a stall two streets over, if you ever need a book mended. Or a new one made."
Rowan's attention sharpens. "We won't be in town long."
"Shame." Tomas leans a hip against the table, casual. "What do they call you, then?"
Elian opens his mouth and freezes. For a second, his mind goes blank—no titles, no names that aren't wrapped up in who he's supposed to be.
Rowan steps in without missing a beat.
"This is Eli," he says. "I'm Hale."
Eli.
It lands strangely on Elian's ears, like a word said in a language he almost knows. A sliver of his own name, cut down, made smaller, made safer.
Tomas nods. "Eli. Hale." He tests the names, as if checking how they feel in his mouth. "You two brothers?"
Rowan says "No" at the exact moment Elian says "Yes."
Tomas' eyebrows shoot up. "That so?"
Elian flushes. "We're not brothers."
"Definitely not," Rowan says, perhaps a little too firmly.
Tomas looks between them, and something amused glints in his eyes. "Friends, then."
"Yes," Elian says quickly.
"Something like that," Rowan says at the same time.
Elian shoots him a look. Rowan pretends not to see it.
Tomas' smile widens. "Well. If your friend here ever wants a proper introduction to taverns that don't nearly drown you in the smell of overcooked stew, come by my stall. I'll point you in the right direction."
He lets his gaze rest on Elian for a beat, a question there, an invitation. Not pushy. Just open.
Elian feels warmth rise in his cheeks. "Thank you," he says. "I—this is—" He stumbles over the words, suddenly aware of how sheltered he sounds.
Tomas' expression softens. "It's all right," he says. "Everyone's new somewhere, once."
Someone calls his name from across the room. Tomas straightens.
"That's my cue." He taps the table lightly. "Enjoy the night, Eli. Hale."
He moves away, vanishing back into the whirl of bodies and voices.
Elian stares after him for a moment.
"You handled that well," Rowan says mildly.
"I forgot my own name," Elian mutters.
"You remembered not to give him the real one," Rowan says. "That's something."
"He thought we were…" Elian trails off, realizing the rest of that sentence might step somewhere he's not ready to walk yet.
"Yes," Rowan says.
Elian looks at him. "That didn't bother you?"
"Did it bother you?" Rowan counters.
The question hangs between them.
Elian looks down at his mug. "No," he says quietly. "It didn't."
Rowan's jaw ticks, just once. "Then there's your answer."
They sit in silence for a few minutes. The two men by the hearth have stopped dancing and are now talking with their heads close together, shoulders pressed comfortably.
Elian can't stop glancing at them.
He feels stretched thin, like his skin doesn't quite fit right. The room is too loud and too sharp, everything too bright and too dim at once.
"I want this," he says suddenly, the words slipping out before he can soften them.
Rowan's attention snaps fully to him. "What?"
Elian gestures around—at the tavern, at the dancers, at Tomas laughing with a group at the bar. At the freedom threaded through all of it.
"This," Elian says. "Not this exact place, not these exact people. Just… the option. To walk into a room and not calculate who's watching. To dance with who I want without it turning into a council meeting."
He meets Rowan's eyes, and they are darker than usual in the low light.
"I want the possibility," Elian says, voice low. "Of something that's mine. Not leased to me by the crown until it needs to take it back."
Rowan's expression doesn't change much, but something in his face tightens.
"You know what your life is," he says quietly.
"I know what my life has been," Elian says. "I'm not sure that's the same thing."
"Your marriage—"
"—is for the kingdom," Elian says, finishing the sentence for him. "I know. I've had that line memorized since I could walk."
"Then you know what's at stake," Rowan says. "You don't get to just opt out because the world isn't fair."
Elian flinches. "You think I don't know that?" His voice edges sharper. "You think I've been sitting in that hall dreaming about the color of the wedding flowers? I know what it means. I know what I owe. I also know that every day I get closer to it, I feel less like a person and more like… like metal being hammered into a shape that doesn't fit."
Rowan's gaze doesn't waver. "And you think a night in a tavern changes that?"
"No," Elian snaps. "I think it reminds me that other options exist. Or that they should."
The sourness in his tone surprises even him.
Rowan takes a breath, slow and controlled. When he speaks, his voice is softer. "Elian, I'm not saying you don't deserve more. You do. You deserve to… to have choices." The word catches in his throat. "But wanting doesn't change the fact that your choices affect thousands of people who will never know your name except as a story told over a fire."
"I know," Elian says, quieter now. "That's the problem. My life is everyone's story but mine."
His eyes burn. He looks away, focusing on a knot in the wood of the table until his vision clears.
Rowan is silent for a long stretch. When he speaks again, his voice is different—less guard, more man.
"I have thought about this more than you know," he says. "What it would look like if things were different. If you had been born a third son instead of an only one. If the kingdom had more heirs than it knew what to do with. If you were just…"
He trails off.
"If I were just what?" Elian presses.
Rowan's mouth flattens. "If you were just you. Without all this."
Elian's chest twists. "And what do I look like in that version?"
Rowan's gaze meets his, steady and unflinching. "Happier."
The word lands like a stone dropped into water, ripples spreading outward.
Elian swallows. "And you?"
Rowan blinks, caught off guard. "What about me?"
"What do you look like in that version?" Elian asks. "The one where I'm not… this."
Rowan's fingers flex on the table. For a moment, Elian thinks he won't answer.
Then, finally: "I don't know," Rowan says. "I don't know who I am without this."
The honesty of it steals the wind from Elian's lungs.
He wants to say something—to confess that he's thought of a version of the world where Rowan isn't wearing armor every time he sees him, where Rowan's eyes soften without snapping back to assessment, where the distance between them is measured in inches, not rules.
He wants to, but the words stick.
A bell tolls in the distance, muffled by walls and noise. Rowan's head snaps slightly toward the sound.
"It's later than I meant," he says. "We should go."
Elian opens his mouth to argue, then remembers their deal. If Rowan says they leave, they leave.
"Fine," he says. The word tastes like defeat and relief, both at once.
They stand. Elian glances one last time at the two men near the hearth. One has his head on the other's shoulder now, eyes closed, face relaxed.
He looks content.
Elian feels something inside him twist, then set.
He follows Rowan out into the cooler air.
***
The walk back is quieter.
The streets have thinned; more shutters are drawn, more lanterns extinguished. The market square is mostly empty now, the frantic energy of the day replaced by a slower hum.
They walk side by side, not touching.
"You're angry with me," Rowan says eventually.
"I'm not," Elian replies.
Rowan snorts softly. "You are."
Elian hesitates. "Fine. Maybe a little."
Rowan glances at him. "Do you want to tell me why, or should I make a list?"
"You don't have to act like you know everything about me," Elian says.
"I don't," Rowan says. "But I know when something I said lands badly."
"It's not just what you said," Elian replies. "It's… all of it. That I can stand in a room and watch two men hold each other like it's nothing, like it's allowed, and then come back here and be congratulated on my engagement to a woman I've never met and—"
He cuts himself off, frustrated with his own lack of vocabulary.
"And?" Rowan prompts.
"And you tell me I don't get to opt out," Elian finishes. "Even in my own head."
Rowan is quiet for a few steps. "Thinking about different lives isn't the same as living them," he says. "In your head, you can be anywhere, with anyone. Out here, there are consequences."
"I'm very aware of consequences," Elian mutters.
"I know," Rowan says. "Believe me, I know."
They walk in silence for a while.
"I wasn't trying to say you don't deserve something like what you saw tonight," Rowan adds after a moment. "I just… I don't know how to protect you if you run after it."
The admission is soft. It disarms Elian more than any lecture would have.
"I'm not asking you to protect me from wanting things," Elian says quietly. "You can't. I'm asking you to stand there while I admit I do."
Rowan's hand brushes his as they turn a corner, fingers barely grazing. Elian isn't sure if it's an accident.
"I can do that," Rowan says.
They reach the outer wall of the palace sooner than Elian expects. The hidden postern gate they used to slip out is ahead, half-obscured by ivy. Rowan checks the alley for movement, then nods once.
"Follow," he murmurs.
Elian does.
Inside the palace grounds, the world contracts again. The air feels different here—thicker, ordered. They move quietly through the gardens, Rowan taking paths that avoid the main lanterns, skirting the edges of fountains and trimmed hedges.
At one point, voices drift toward them—two guards talking at the far end of a colonnade.
"…heard they're announcing it tomorrow—"
"—about time, isn't it? The prince isn't getting any younger and the king—"
Rowan's hand snaps out, fingers curling around Elian's forearm, pulling him behind a pillar before the rest of the sentence reaches them. They stand pressed close, Elian feeling Rowan's breath against his cheek, the heat of his body cutting through the night air.
The guards' footsteps pass. Their voices fade.
Rowan doesn't move immediately. Elian is acutely aware of the shape of him, the line of muscle along his arm, the steady thump of his heart where their chests almost touch.
He realizes he's holding his breath.
Rowan steps back, releasing him. The space between them feels too wide, too abruptly.
"Sorry," Rowan says. "Habit."
"It's fine," Elian says, but his voice comes out thinner than he intends.
Rowan studies him for a moment, eyes searching his face as if trying to read something there.
"Go in through the same service stair," Rowan says. "I'll take the longer route, make sure no one noticed we were gone."
"You always do that," Elian says.
"Do what?"
"Make sure," Elian says. "Cover my tracks. Take the blame before I even get the chance to earn it."
Rowan's mouth twitches. "Again. It's what I'm good at."
Elian looks at him, really looks, at the faint scar at his hairline where his hair never quite covers it, at the callouses on his hands, at the way his shoulders seem built to carry things that were never meant for one person.
"Thank you," Elian says, and the words feel insufficient for everything they're trying to hold.
Rowan inclines his head. "Try to sleep."
"If I can't?" Elian asks.
"Then try again," Rowan says. "And if that doesn't work, come back to the balcony. I'll be close."
There's nothing romantic in the words. There doesn't need to be.
Elian nods. "Goodnight, Rowan."
"Goodnight, Eli," Rowan says—deliberately, just this once.
Elian feels the borrowed name sink into him, a small, secret thing he can tuck away.
They walk in separate directions: Elian toward the service stair, Rowan toward his rounds.
The palace is too quiet when Elian reaches his chambers. He undresses slowly, his fingers clumsy on the buttons, his mind still back in the tavern, in the smell of beer and bread, in the sight of two men dancing like the world wasn't waiting to punish them for it.
He lies awake for a long time.
When he finally gets up and pads onto the balcony, the city is already asleep, its lights flickering out one by one.
He wraps his arms around himself and looks out over the rooftops, trying to memorize the feeling of being out there, among them, as something more than a symbol.
Somewhere below, in a narrow street, a tavern door is still open, spilling light onto the cobblestones. Maybe Tomas is still there, wiping down tables. Maybe the two men are walking home, hands brushing, talking about nothing important.
Elian's throat tightens.
Behind him, on the other side of the door, he can hear the faintest creak of boots in the corridor. Rowan, making his rounds, keeping watch over a life that feels more and more like a story written by someone else.
Elian closes his eyes and presses his palms flat against the cold stone of the railing.
He wants something he can't name without breaking it.
He wants, and for the first time, he lets himself admit it, if only in the silence of his own chest.
Far below, the last tavern lantern goes out.
Up here, in the quiet, Elian stands very still and does not fall.