The Red King [Book II]

XV

'So what are you going to do about Maurice?' Alex asked him. Past evening, it was stumbling into early morning hours. Despite the dead quiet of the palace, the silence irritated only by patrolling guards, Alex still used the royal language. James' easy mockery of death made him wary that the world would attempt to prove a point.

ㅤJames slowed. Alex caught up and they walked side by side.

ㅤ'He has to go,' James said, without reservation. 'He'll be a tyrant. We can't accept that. Fuck what King William wants.'

ㅤ'As I thought.'

ㅤ'You don't approve,' James deduced.

ㅤAlex hadn't bothered hiding it. Perhaps it was the exhaustion of needing sleep, but he was tired of all the masks they put on all the time—the fears of being lied to and being honest. James would never topple his own walls regardless of Alex's patience. They'd be waiting a century for them to crumble.

ㅤ'I'm of two minds. Revenge isn't worth killing your people over.'

ㅤJames slanted him a withering look. 'Alex, I'm not getting revenge for Riley. I do not, and never have, liked that man. Riley was a prat. I'm not emotional like that; otherwise, I would've been walking through this corridor a decade earlier.'

ㅤAlex didn't believe the situations were the same for a second.

ㅤ'No, I made a promise to Mererid,' James vindicated. 'I don't run away from my jobs.'

ㅤ'You were never paid. What a crock of nonsense.'

ㅤ'I do charity too.'

ㅤAlex's face screwed up. 'I don't want to see what "charity" looks like for an assassin.'

ㅤ'I've always been punished more for my good deeds anyway. Kill a merchant? Who cares. Save a child from slaughter by taking him to the Taulumn border? Stripped naked, doused in cold water, starved, and tied up in a dungeon.'

ㅤIt'd been a weird way to have met for the first time. Alex had pushed James to the ground, held a blade to his throat, and he'd been a twig-snap away from slicing it.

ㅤ'I'm not sorry. You've killed more nobles than I've met.'

ㅤJames sniffed. Alex couldn't tell if the irritation was pretended or not. 'You wanted to see me naked like all the other gentlemen you pick up off the floor.'

ㅤ'I've never done that t—' Alex cut his bristled defence off. James' blank observation was telling. He'd said it to wind Alex up.

ㅤ'I know I'm deviant, but I've never taken advantage like that,' Alex said, calmer. He would hate to be misunderstood. 'In that kind of position... It's impossible for me to see a prisoner in that way.'

ㅤ'That's a shame.'

ㅤ'A shame?'

ㅤ'Yea,' James huffed. 'They missed out. You're a wild ride.'