The Unwritten King

8. When It Rains

Rayan was seething. Alone in an unfamiliar part of the castle, watching the king's fingers flex irritably, Nicholas was very grateful for whatever rule forbade wearing rings to large gatherings.

"I...what?" Nicholas said sluggishly. His body was still on the dais. His hand was still in that oily grip, scratching against a coarse beard as that man smelled his wrist.

Nicholas had spent his adolescent years and the entirety of his first and only relationship longing to feel desired. At the foot of the throne, with sultry kohl lining his eyes and light bouncing titillatingly off of the crystals at his hips, he had been looked at like a prize. It felt filthy. He wanted to pick at every inch of skin that had been ogled that way. To scrape it off and let it scab, turnover his cells so he could forget the feeling.

"Have you lost your hearing as well as your mind?" said Rayan. "You've grown too comfortable - must I remind you that you are a prisoner? You are to be seen by no one, and yet you are parading yourself at the center of my ball in-" His eyes flicked over Nicholas before quickly darting back up. "For Saints' sake, you're- this is-"

A frustrated sound came deep from his throat. His arm lunged forward and Nicholas flinched back, shoulders jumping to brace for a hit. Rayan reached past him to yank at the curtain behind him, ripping it from its rod in one pull. "Cover yourself!" he ordered.

Nicholas fumbled under the curtain's weight, bunching ultramarine fabric against his front. He was not particularly uncovered, aside from a slice of his midsection. With the window stripped, moonlight struck Rayan's form, sapping the undertones from his skin but making apparent the enraged flush on his face.

Nicholas draped the curtain across his shoulders and hugged it around himself, nestling into the safety of being closed in and covered. It was the same comfort he drew from the walls of his apartment, or even, on particularly baring work days - presentations, corrections, performance assessments - the walls of his cubicle.

"So that wasn't you?" said Nicholas.

"Me?" Rayan was incredulous. It showed in his stance, the way his shoulders drew back. But it showed on his face, too. Nicholas had expected the king's anger to be cold, contained in lowered tones and darkened eyes. This was bright, loud, erratic, spilling out all over the carpet.

"I didn't want to be up there. Cairo...I thought you put me there."

"I am not that kind of villain," Rayan sneered. He paused. "What does Cairo have to do with this?"

"He offered me a bath. But it was a different room than last time, and he locked the door, and the, um- courtesans. Were there." Nicholas curled his fingers into soft velvet. "I got swept up."

Rayan processed that in increments. "Cairo," he murmured, searching the window behind Nicholas like he could somehow find his counselor through it. His face slipped back into its usual repose, but his jaw ticked, and winds tossed behind his eyes. This was the rumbling thunder before a cloudburst. This was more what Nicholas had imagined.

"Why did you let them force you?" asked Rayan. "You should have said something."

"I did," said Nicholas.

"Clearly not."

"I did. I tried."

Rayan scoffed. "Did you." He didn't phrase it as a question, and wasn't that infuriating, as if Nicholas' answer didn't even matter.

"No one would listen."

"Then speak up!" A sudden outburst, a downpour. Rayan's eyes snapped from the window to Nicholas and he was overflowing again, feeling in full force. "Did you say something, or did you mutter and mumble and let yourself be interrupted with that wounded doe look on your face, trying to appear as powerless as a fawn? How long will you go on pretending you don't have a voice? You are practically bursting at the seams every single second - speak your mind before you blow and take my entire castle with you."