For Kingdom, Come #19 (Patreon)

“Everything?” Leo’s voice was calm, as he stood on the other side of the locked door, listening to Connel’s breathing. “I doubt that.”

Leo had hoped his family would prove him wrong; he truly had. He’d hoped his mother would prove honourable, willing to own the mistakes of the past and help him down the path of setting them right. He’d hoped the two of them could talk, and he could find some answers, some closure. He’d hoped not to have to steal his own damn crown. He’d hoped for so many things…

But he had expected this. He had expected, and planned accordingly.

He knew Queen Sidra would not have him locked in the dungeons; it was improper for a prince, and far too obvious. People would ask questions. His room, however? There were a dozen excuses she could give.

After his ordeal, Prince Leonias needs time to rest and recover…we thank you for your kind wishes at this difficult time.

We fear that Prince Leonias has been turned, and must be closely monitored, following his terrible ordeal at the hands of the new King of Azetia. It is suspicious, after all, that King Magnus would release him home. It is regrettable, of course, he is my son. But this is for the safety of our kingdom.

We fear that Prince Leonias will do something to harm himself, especially with his view of returning back to the man who hurt him. This is for his safety. I will not lose him again.

“The Azetian crown is cursed,” Connel said flatly. “You wish to undo the curse.”

…that was a surprise. Leo felt his insides jolt that his mother would go so far as to admit it.

“You’re a good man, Leo.” Connel’s voice was fond and sad all at once. “You always want to help everyone. You can’t help him.”

“Excuse me?” Leo felt his own voice turn deadly as if it belonged to someone else. He heard Connel take a startled step back on the other side.

“Say you save him,” Connel spoke in hushed desperate tones. “What then? He’s sane enough to tell everyone about what your ancestors did to his family? To seek revenge against us? To destroy Merril forever and then – what? What do you actually think he’s going to do with you once you’ve helped him achieve his goals? Spare you? Nothing in the way he looks at you, talks to you, makes me think that. He’s obsessed with you. The only thing you’d accomplish is making sure you have no allies to save you.”

Leo’s ears rang. He couldn’t believe he was hearing this, especially from Connel of all people. He’d thought his guard – his friend – believed in what Merril was supposed to stand for as much as he did. It wasn’t about Magnus, or what Azetia would or would not do. It was about what was right. Something in his chest hardened.

Connel sighed, having the absolute gall to sound pitying, as if Leo’s kindness was sweet but naive. The actions of a spoiled little prince who didn’t understand true war and how dangerous real life could be. Who was too dumb to realise that when it came down to it, etiquette meant nothing.

“I know it goes against your every instinct not to try and help. The queen does too. It’s admirable, we both so think so, but…” Connel seemed to resolve himself. Leo heard him put his back against the door, guarding it. “But sometimes you need to be smart. We’ll help the next one. I promise. Your mother promises.”

“But not him,” Leo said. “Not Magnus.”

“Never him,” Connel said, sliding the final bolt in place on the door. “Not after everything he has done.”

Leo said nothing, to that. What was there to say? To defend that Magnus had done terrible things, but that he’d had something terrible foisted on him too for so long? No wonder the tree might grow twisted with such poison planted maliciously at its root.

Still.

“You didn’t save me though, Con,” Leo said into the silence. “You all left me there. I saved myself.”

Connel seemed to be holding his breath, and Leo could imagine the sharp pain on his familiar face, the wretched failure of his duty to serve and protect and how helpless he must have felt stuck in Merril.

“So tell me,” Leo said. “Again. About the allies who will protect me just so long as I do everything you think is right.”

Connel fell silent.

Leo laughed, and even as he did it, it sounded like Magnus’s laugh in his mouth. That same stinging betrayal, masking as something more pleasant. That same desire to rip the stuffing out of the world and remake it anew.

But Leo was not Magnus.

Instead, he sat down, drank a cup of tea, waited an appropriate amount of time for his newfound security to relax, and then squirmed his way into the secret passage hidden beneath the bed.

The palace was riddled with secret passages. Some were common knowledge to staff and the family, while Leo was pretty sure he was the only one alive who knew of some of the others. His mother had married into the family, she hadn’t been born into it. She hadn’t grown up exploring the palace in the way that children did, finding the odd nooks and crannies.

His father had told Leo about the one in his room – which had been his father’s room when he was a boy too – when he was only a kid. He'd told Leo to tell no one else about it. Told him that knowledge was power, and a secret like that might some day save his life.

He wondered how much his father had known about Merril’s true history with Azetia. He wondered if his father ever imagined that another family secret might save the life of the enemy. He wondered if the late King Alexavior would be disappointed in him.

He supposed it didn’t matter.

He didn’t have time to waste.

***

Leo could see how waiting for Magnus to die, manipulating him into having an heir – someone less consumed by hatred or the need for revenge – might be a potential solution to the problem. It was only that the thought alone left him sick.

Because Magnus…

Magnus was an atrocity of a human being. He was manipulative, calculating, and had proven himself more than willing to do whatever it took to meet his aims. No matter how cruel.

Leo remembered the first night, at the Azetian border, when he had first made the deal with Magnus. He remembered the way his heart had hammered with the desperate certainty that he had to save his people, to do as his mother had bid him. He’d been willing to give up everything for Merril then. He’d thought his kingdom was a just and worthy a cause – more important than anything else. He remembered how his heart hammered, too, with the way that Magnus had backed him up against a makeshift bed.

Magnus, from the get-go, had been so sure in his movements in comparison to Leo’s inexperience and flustered uncertainty. Even at the time it had been more attractive than it had any right to be. More giddying that, out of every political machination Magnus could have asked for, he’d asked for Leo. As if Leo was a prize worth having just as himself. He hadn’t understood it then, but he hadn’t been able to keep from responding to the blatant want in Magnus’s eyes.

Even in the worst times, even when Leo had been locked in a dungeon with his body screaming with pain, Magnus had still looked at Leo like something he desperately wanted. Even if he didn’t want to want it. Even if he wanted to rip Leo’s spine out to make him a less appealing prospect.

“You’re not the one who needs to talk right now,” Magnus had said that first time, gaze intent, thumb a caress against Leo’s lips to part them. “So how about you put that mouth of yours to better use, hm?” He undid his trousers. “Show me how much you want to save your people, Leo.”

And Leo had hated him, and desired him, and wanted his information so keenly that it all tangled up in one big mess. Every touch had seemed charged, important, with the crystalline adrenaline of battle.

Magnus was brilliant, and whip-smart, and even back in Merril, Leo couldn’t stop thinking about him. His familiar childhood bed had seemed too vast without the Azetian’s pale form stretched out beside him like one of the marble statues in his gardens. Leo’s own body had felt too unmoored, too princely and untouchable, after weeks upon weeks of Magnus’s hands and lips and teeth on him in night like Leo was a human before he was a figurehead.

If Magnus was obsessed with him, and Leo could even acknowledge to himself that maybe Connel wasn’t wrong about that, then Leo was hardly some passive receptable of that obsession. It was hardly one sided.

What did happen after Leo broke the curse and saved Magnus’s dangerous sanity? Well, he’d be sane enough to reason with. To sign treaties and attend peace talks. To not let the world and both their kingdoms drown. But it also wouldn’t take back what had happened.

Would Leo make some bloodless political match, maybe with one of the Luwenite nobles, and spend every night comparing how his new faceless queen didn’t touch him like Magnus did? Didn’t get so utterly beneath his skin? Wouldn’t raze the world to get him back?

Would Magnus stop making his absurd propositions of marriage, because he had no real need for Leo anymore? Would they perhaps see each other once every few years, and exchange politely worded diplomatic missives in the meanwhile (if peace was accomplished) that Leo would know with every beat in his heart was a lie? A pale fraction of what Magnus really wanted to say to him at any given time?

He didn’t want to marry Magnus, Leo realised as he crawled through the tunnel, feeling the weight of Magnus’s ring on his finger.  But when all was said and done, he sure as hell didn’t want Magnus to marry anyone else either.

And he would rather slit Magnus’s throat himself than ever let him die as something less than himself.

***

In the end, it was shockingly easy to get to the treasury. Everyone expected him to be in his room after all and so they were not looking for him, and the kingdom was busy enough with the recent attacks and the Luwenite declaration of war on Azetia, with the aftermath of the previous night’s celebration.

Leo was the prince of Merril. His signet ring allowed him entry everywhere except his mother’s private quarters.

The crown stood before him on its Merillian green pillow, its design heavy and intricate, its gold shining in the dim light. He could imagine the weight of it in his hands, on his head; weight enough to sink a man like stones tied to their ankles.

Had it been that weight that made his grandfather, his grandmother - whoever had made the decision – curse the Azetian crown? Was it only Azetia, and if so, why? Surely they had not known about the wards keeping the great city in the sky.

Would Magnus even be able to undo the curse, if Leo delivered him the crown? Or would it all be for nothing?

Would his mother tell everyone he was a traitor?

Leo reminded himself, again, that it didn’t matter. Whatever happened to him, he could still take comfort in the knowledge that he what he thought was right, every step of the way. That he chose kindness, even when he could have been clever.

He picked up the crown, mind whirling with plans and passages out of the palace, back to border. If he could get to Zephyr, he knew he could outride anyone they sent after him. He just had to get to the stables. With his stolen crown.

Getting out was always going to be the hard part, wasn’t it?

Leo released a breath, and turned, only to find his mother sitting in the shadows of the treasury. In her hands, she held his father’s circlet, turning it over and over like it might unlock all of the mysteries of the universe.

Leo’s mouth dried out.

She looked up at him, her expression unreadable, and didn’t seem surprised that he’d managed to escape his room at all. She looked like she’d been there, in the dark, for a while. Even if there were surely a dozen other demands on her time and attention.

“You do not know everything, Leo,” she said. “No matter what he has told you. There are matters that I – that we – never wanted you to be burdened with. I would have spared you them forever, if I could. For the sake of Merril, of course. But for your sake, too.”

She offered his father’s circlet out to him.

Leo didn’t move. He couldn’t seem to get himself to move.

“Before you try to leave us, before you do something that you can never take back, don’t you want to know why we did what we did?”

“Tell me,” he said.

And she did.