"Must you?"

Rayan's voice normally brought Nicholas an irritation that settled heavy over his bones, but tonight, he was more than happy to lower his book until he could see the king over the edge. It was a seemingly endless anthology, and an even bigger headache than Rayan; who knew witches were so flowery?

"What?"

"Must you do that," said Rayan from the sofa, which he seemed to have claimed as his own. "Constantly."

"What are you talking about."

Rayan narrowed his eyes. "You're buzzing. You're a bee."

"Right, that helps."

Rayan hummed a single note to a very flat tune. "Every night. For hours. It's driving me mad."

Nicholas raised his book again as his cheeks grew hot. He hadn't realized he'd been humming. How long had Rayan held his tongue? It couldn't have been the entire time. Those first few nights, Nicholas had been so keyed up over the king's presence he was aware of his own breathing, let alone any noise he made. But he had been in the archive seventeen nights now, give or take a few, and he'd seen Rayan on most of them.

Comfort was a quiet, slippery thing, and a mistake he couldn't afford. He would have to watch himself.

"I normally listen to music when I read," he said. "I guess I...yeah."

"Why would you do that?"

"It helps me focus."

"...If I brought a band down here, you would read faster?"

"That would be extremely distracting."

"Well something has to change!" Rayan was on his feet. Nicholas hid behind the anthology, using it to block out Rayan's stony face and sulking lower in his seat. "We aren't getting anywhere."

"I'm trying."

"Are you? Or are you biding your time until mine runs out? It is running out, isn't it?"

Nicholas didn't acknowledge the dig at his character except to inch the book downward so Rayan could see how much it annoyed him. "I don't know. There's no timeline in the journal."

Rayan muttered a curse. "It could be tomorrow."

"It won't be tomorrow."

"That isn't the point!" He began to pace, though with his legs and the small space, it looked closer to turning around in place. "You need to do better. You need to be better. That ending has to go, all of it."

He was watching Nicholas' face, so Nicholas kept it as blank as possible. It didn't work. The pacing stopped.

"You do understand you are expected to change all of it?"

If he could figure out how, Nicholas was going to save Rayan's life. He had decided on that right away. But the hero would win, just as he was supposed to. Nicholas wasn't about to betray the only friend he had in this world. In any world, maybe.

"Don't go back to faking mute now." Rayan stepped up to the armchair. Nicholas looked down at his book. "You can't have honestly thought I would let you off with a partial fix."

"You aren't letting me off at all."

"How are you so intent on protecting a stranger? You knew him a week."

"I've known him for years."

"I don't give a damn about the man you thought you knew in those delusional years you spent in your head, I am asking about the boy you met. What-"

"Jesus Christ-" the book tumbled to the floor- "If you ask me about his favorite goddamn time of day-"

"Je- who?"

"A week is plenty of time when the person you're learning wants to be learned. People are observable. You would know that if you ever paid attention to anyone but yourself."

Rayan bent forward, leering over the armchair with his hands clasped behind him. "And what have you observed? What did you learn from your prince's behavior that makes him so deserving of a hero's end?"

Nicholas was tired of this game. Of being analyzed and condescended to, questioned and questioned again as if Rayan knew any better than he did, towered over like some playground power trip. So he stood up, and he stepped forward, and instead of raising his chin he glared from beneath his lashes. "Is this really how you want to spend your time? Your clock is ticking, remember?"

Rayan didn't take the bait, or react at all. Nicholas was watching for it, itching for it, but Rayan wasn't even looking him in the eye, which was about the most irritating way he could react. Instead, he stared down the space between them. Nicholas tasted acid on the tip of his tongue, but before he could spit it all over Rayan's stupid fucking pasty face-

His eyes finally flicked to Nicholas'. "Back up."

Nicholas didn't exactly have much room. He had half a mind to tell Rayan to swallow his ego and back up himself if he needed his space so badly. But he had enough wits about him to move until his legs hit the chair.

"He beckons people closer," said Nicholas. "Adrian. He puts kindness before trust. He's...loud, and in your face. But he meets you where you are instead of demanding or prying or- he doesn't let anyone feel lonely, no matter how hard they try. He's blue-blooded and it shows, but he tries to be humble. He's ambitious and...self-deprecating. He puts everything on his own shoulders because he cares so much."

Rayan's jaw shifted. "And what have you observed in me?"

It sounded like a trap, but there was an unusual roundness to his eyes.

"Arrogance. Disdain. Emotional constipation on, like, a clinical level. You handle other people like a game, but they'd better not try to play on their own terms. You enjoy throwing your position around and you treat your best friends like your subordinates. No one can get too close. You're self-absorbed, invasive, cagey, insecure, condescending, and absolutely terrified of dying."

Rayan raised his eyebrows. "I've made quite the impression."

"Fitting for a king."

"You're naive if you don't see the bias in your own perception."

"Because it reflects how I've been treated? What do you think perception is?"

"You don't realize how ungrateful you are. Have you once considered how I could be treating you after all the trouble you've caused?"

Nicholas bowed as far as he could without touching his head to the king's chest. "Thank you, Your Majesty, for imprisoning me. Twice."

"Is this what you call prison?" Rayan raised his arms to the room around him, voice high on a laugh. "The first thing I ever did was release you from prison, or have you forgotten?"

"You mean so you could scrutinize me from the comfort of your own home? Real generous."

Rayan started to argue, but Nicholas raised a hand.

"Shut up," said Nicholas.

"Excuse-?"

"Shut the fuck up, oh my God, I'm an idiot."

"How dare- well, yes."

"The jail." Nicholas brought his hands to his head. He could rip his own hair out. "When I crashed down in North Simona."

Rayan nodded the way adults nodded to babbling toddlers. "Yes. There was a jail."

"Shut up, shut up!"

"Some kings would have you flogged for that mouth of yours."

Nicholas dropped back onto the armchair, bouncing slightly on the cushion. "Across from my cell! There was- the lady-"

"Yes, of course, I know the lady."

"I'm gonna kill you."

Rayan's mouth twitched. "Fairly certain that's grounds for beheading."

"She was a witch!"

He had nothing smart to say to that.

"She was arrested for witchcraft. A love potion that worked too well."

"She must have been transferred to Pondtam by now." Rayan was already in motion, pacing another short moment before starting for the stairs. "I'll have a driver ready for you in the morning. I will send a scribe along- or perhaps an investigator- I must look into Cairo's affairs-"

Nicholas blanched. "Cairo?" He didn't trust the chamberlain alone in a small space. "You mean you aren't going yourself?"

Rayan paused on the second step. "And why would I do that?"

"This is life and death you're talking about, and you're leaving it up to someone else? Is that what it means to be a king, sending others off to do your bidding so you never have to step foot out of your-"

"You really," Rayan said, turning over his shoulder with a cold stare that Nicholas felt to the soles of his feet, "need to learn to hold your tongue on matters you don't understand."

Nicholas didn't know why he kept pushing. God knows his life would be easier if Rayan stayed behind. There was no explaining it, the hotness in his gut. The urge to challenge, to provoke, to piss off a man who could wipe him off the face of this world and every other with the sweep of his hand.

It was unlike himself. But it didn't feel that way when he leaned forward in his seat and said, "Coward."

♛ ♛ ♛

By "in the morning," Rayan had apparently meant the ass-crack of dawn. A driver was ready and waiting outside of the entrance hall as promised. He commanded four black horses. A shurta in all gray sat atop one; he and his horse were unblinking. The coach was small. A try at discretion, maybe, but the midnight walls and silver leaf gilding weren't exactly subtle. Nicholas was pushed down onto the single row of blue velvet seats. A table took up most of the floor space. It was honestly nice. He should probably be concerned about how cozy he had gotten with having his wrists cuffed.

A whispered argument floated through the window in the far door.

"You will take the center seat."

"I will not."

Nicholas tipped forward to see out the back of the window. Yasmin looked about ready to throw Rayan into the car. Nicholas hadn't thought he would actually come.

"As your guard, it is my duty-"

"I do not care. Sit."

"This is unbelievably petty."

"Come again? Was that, 'Yes, Your Majesty'?"

He seemed lively. Nicholas wasn't sure he could deal with that after three hours of sleep.

"You're behaving like a child."

"You're behaving like a woman who wants to lose her job."

It was such an empty threat, Yasmin didn't even humor it. She clenched her fingers in front of his neck and screamed soundlessly. It looked like she needed it. Then yanked the door open, blank-faced, and knelt to help Rayan inside. She took the middle, glaring at Nicholas for no reason as she sat. Rayan didn't look his way at all.

The driver kept to secluded woodsy roads. The quiet between Yasmin and Rayan felt unnatural. Nicholas didn't have any basis for that except the heaviness in the air. He wondered, between the two of them, who was the talker when they were alone. He couldn't imagine it was Rayan. Maybe Yasmin was a different person outside of work. Or maybe it was Cairo. The three of them.

It had taken something like an hour to pass Pondtam Prison the last time. He could handle one uncomfortable hour. Probably fifty minutes, now.

His leg started jittering somewhere around the thirty minute mark. Yasmin's eyes cut swiftly sideways and he used his bound hands to press his leg still.

The horses screeched. The car shuddered.

Yasmin was on alert immediately. Hooves thundered against the ground, pitching the coach forward before stopping it in place. An arm plunged through the window to Rayan's left and latched onto his hand. The force of the pull bunched Rayan's glove up to his knuckles. That was as far as it got before Yasmin grabbed the assailant by the meat of their thumb. There was an awful crunch and a scream, and the hand went limp. Rayan's glove and rings fell to the coach floor.

"This is why I sit by the door," Yasmin grumbled as she launched herself over Rayan's lap and out of the coach. Through either door, Nicholas could see several dark figures emerging from the woods. Shurta gray joined the picture as the guard, the driver, and Yasmin dove in to fight. They were outnumbered, and not just by the figures in black. The horses whined and stomped as hulking beasts with leathery gray skin closed in on the coach.

Nicholas knew them down to the peach-fuzz hair covering their backs. He had decided on the curled tails, the disklike faces, the sagging eyelids that made the Wahkong look like they had no eyes at all. But nothing could have prepared him for the piercing shriek that came from one beast's wide, flat-toothed mouth just before it charged at his door.

The coach toppled. Nicholas was thrown onto the table with a feeling like his spine buckling. Another heavy impact forced the seats off the wall. Wood splintered. Nicholas crashed.

His ears were ringing. Through the static, he heard the clamor of a fight. He craned over his shoulder to look past the wreckage of the seats on top of him, and saw two huge flat feet coming down like a mallet on the door he had sat against seconds before. Some force threw the beast sideways before the strike could land.

Then he looked down and saw Rayan's face, sheet-white beneath him. His eyes were foggy. He was staring up, not through the window but at his own bare hand. Where the attacker had touched him.

"Hey," said Nicholas. He tried to squirm off of Rayan and found himself stuck. "Hey, shouldn't you..."

He trailed off. Rayan wasn't hearing him.

"Hey. Earth to His Majesty." He imagined what would happen if those mallet-feet made it through the door. One good stomp could grind them into dust. "Your Majesty. Sir. Rayan."

Rayan's gaze flickered to his, but Nicholas may as well have been translucent.

"Oh, for fuck's sake." A glint of metal near Rayan's head caught Nicholas' eye, nearly hidden by the dark hair that had come undone around the king's face. Nicholas wriggled his hands out from the tight press of their chests. Rayan flinched with his whole body; Nicholas could feel it everywhere. "I'm not gonna touch you! Just..." He collected all five of Rayan's rings. "Put these on."

The rise and fall of Rayan's chest, and the heartbeat behind it, pushed erratically against Nicholas' ribs.

"Hey!" Nicholas urged. "Wake up. Now is not the time to have a meltdown. We're stuck. We're stuck in a tiny wooden box and there are men with monsters trying to break us in half. You need to do something."

Rayan looked like he was going to puke. If it came to that, Nicholas might prefer to let the Wahkong take them.

"I..." said Rayan. "I don't..."

"'I don't' my ass! Like hell you don't!" Nicholas didn't know what he was talking about. It couldn't have mattered nearly as much as the beasts knocking on their door. "I don't give a damn about your hysteria, you selfish fuck. Wake. Up. You can freak over a little skin-to-skin later, or internalize it with some unhealthy coping mechanism, or- shit, whatever, here!"

Nicholas held up the missing glove. Rayan jerked to grab for it, then hissed in pain. His right arm was caught beneath the fallen table.

"Shit. Okay."

"Don't," said Rayan when Nicholas reached for his hands.

"Trust me!" If his life wasn't on the line, Nicholas would have laughed at how ridiculous that was. With a level of care they really didn't have time for, he held the thumb of the glove with one hand and the pinkie with the other and spread them. He angled his palms as far away as the cuffs allowed. Plenty of room if Rayan moved slowly.

And he did. Painfully so. But he moved nonetheless, pushing his fingers through.

Nicholas slid each ring into place - tomite, encaline, vigalis, forcate, inercium. Pinkie to thumb. Rayan didn't move right away. A harsh pound above them sent the door slamming inward off its hinges.

"I am not going to die because of some deep-seated trauma that was never a part of your character to begin with. Wake the fuck up."

Nicholas could have cried in relief when Rayan glared up at him. The king let his head fall back and spat, "Fuck you."

He lifted the table enough to snake his arm free. Then he bracketed his arms around Nicholas, pressing his hands to the seats crushing them together. The weight eased from Nicholas' back. The busted seat went straight through the open door, leaving a gaping hole where the frame was, and the Wahkong grunted as it was forced back.

Rayan shoved Nicholas off. "Stay here," he said as Nicholas flopped onto his back like a grounded fish. Rayan jumped up, grabbed onto the jagged wood, and pulled himself into the fray.

Orange burst beyond the gap. Nicholas felt the heat of it. He heard Rayan's voice and locked onto it with all of his focus to drown out the sound of screaming.

"You hardly needed me."

The noise that followed was so foreign, it took Nicholas several seconds to process it as Yasmin's laughter.

"Useless king."

Nicholas lay there watching smoke puff into the sky as the commotion faded to nothing.

The carriage was righted without warning. He caught himself on his hands and knees on the floor. Then he stood on wobbling legs and emerged through the hole where the door had been.

One of the Wahkong lay dying on the road. The rest must have fled into the trees. As for the attackers, well- Nicholas didn't have starting numbers, but he didn't think there were any survivors. He counted thirteen bodies. Most bled from open wounds. Some still had lance-head blades sticking from their chests. A couple had been burnt beyond recognition.

"I told you to stay inside," said Rayan. Standing at the center of the disaster, panting and disheveled but otherwise unharmed, he looked every part the brutal villain. Powerful, fearsome, striking as a car crash- or a firework. Untouchable, if not for the clammy gray sheen to his skin. He kept a stubbornness to his stance, like he had something to prove now. Doubt my strength, I dare you.

Nicholas would never.

Yasmin knelt before the heaving beast. "Peace to your soul," she muttered before she slit its throat.

"Who were those people?" Nicholas heard his voice from somewhere outside of himself.

"You don't listen," said Rayan. "You don't fucking listen."

"Zemi Bandits. They steal kova zem for the handsome price," said Yasmin.

Nicholas staggered toward the tree line. "I told you," Rayan called after him, voice ragged. "I told you to stay-"

Nicholas dropped to his knees in the dirt and vomited.