46. Brett

The day passed in a blur, and other than waking with Paris at my side, there wasn't a bit of good in it.

We stayed with Hector while he tossed and turned. He looked awful, struggling to breathe and coughing and shaking with fever, but Killian said it was all good. His body fighting the poison, purging itself. He promised that Hector would live, and even though Paris still worried, I could see that Killian's words held weight with him.

I couldn't blame him, as they held weight with me, too. And what did I know of poison? Less than Killian, quite clearly.

At noon, the summons to a dinner came. The king "cordially" invited us to eat dinner with him, to celebrate our presence in the palace.

I found it suspicious, and Paris was downright terrified. He looked at Killian. "Do you think they're going to try to come for Hector while we're gone?"

Killian snorted. "This isn't about Hector. We haven't turned away the trays of soup, and they've all been poisoned. They probably think that's proceeding as planned, and expect him to die soon."

Paris shivered and buried his head in my shoulder. "This is about our Hawk standing up to the king when we arrived," Killian continued.

"Standing up to the king?" That, apparently, had gotten Hector's attention enough to get him to sit up, something he hadn't done all day.

I shrugged. "He was nasty to Paris when he summoned us to his little self-monument room. It couldn't be allowed to stand. I pointed out that he was being rude."

"Self-monument..." Hector stared at me, like maybe I was speaking the wrong language.

I turned to Paris, looking for an explanation. "I don't have a better word. The room they made us go to where he sits on his ass above everyone else, as though he's somehow more important than the people he's supposed to be caring for."

"Throne room," Paris offered. "It's um, normal here. He's the king. He's above us."

Killian snorted. "How very Urial."

"I thought you were clan leaders," Helena said, looking between me and Killian. "Aren't you above the others? No throne room? No crown?"

I could tell Killian only wanted to make a crack about the red crown on his head in crane form, so I spoke up first. "In Nemeda, leaders aren't above the people. We're among the people. It's not a position of... of self-importance. It's a position of responsibility. We take care of the people. We don't hold ourselves over them."

Helena continued to stare at me as though I wasn't speaking sense, but Hector looked like he was having a vision of wonder. "You... You're responsible for the people in your families. You take care of them. And people respect you for that?"

At this, Paris perked up. "You know, I never looked at it that way, but it's true. The clan chiefs in Nemeda act much more like you than like the king."

Once again, Killian was giving Hector that intense stare. Like my friend was a monster in a tale and wanted to eat the poor bedridden man all up.

Hector was a little distracted by it, glancing repeatedly at Killian, while trying to focus on his brother. "And the Nemedans... they respect that?" He gave up and looked right at Killian. "You respect that?"

"Very much," Killian answered, without looking away, his voice deeper than usual, almost guttural.

Helena giggled, apparently the first member of Paris's family to realize what was happening. That Killian was... rather taken with Hector. I'd never seen it before, so it was hard for even me to absorb.

Helena stayed with Hector while we went to the dinner, since we, not she, had been summoned. She locked the door behind us at Paris's insistence, and promised him she wouldn't let anyone in unless it was us.

The table was laid like a formal meal in Nemeda, with multiple eating utensils next to each plate, and three plates, three glasses, and two bowls in front of each setting.

All right, well, it wasn't quite as complicated as a formal Nemedan meal, but frankly, we rarely had those. When a new clan leader was put into position. When we finalized a diplomatic agreement.

Certainly not whenever random diplomatic personnel arrived in our lands.

The blank way Paris looked at the settings gave me a clue that they also didn't have formal meals like this for no reason.

Killian smirked at me, and I nodded back. Seamlessly, we both began to treat it as what the king was presenting us with. I didn't know if formal manners in Urial were the same as Nemeda, but they certainly couldn't be any more formal. Formal Nemedan dinners were... a lot to deal with.

One had to eat from the correct dish, in the correct order, with the correct utensil, only eat the foods that were served together at the same time, and then abandon them when the next course was served, including the drinks, which were left in place even after you were no longer supposed to drink from them.

Killian and I were both stiff and formal, keeping to appropriate Nemedan manners, speaking only about the subjects brought up to us, and only when we were spoken to.

It was strange and frankly, more than a little amusing.

The dinner began with all the people staring at us, like we were strange foreign creatures who they were expecting to do something outrageous. After three courses, most of them had lost interest in us, too busy trying to keep up with the rules of their own formal dining, so that we wouldn't do better than they did.

The king's mood darkened with each course, glaring at us as though we were spitting in his fancy foods.

We were working our way through what I assumed was the last of it, a plate with cheese and fruit, when the king slammed down his fork, stood, and stalked out of the room.

The moment the door closed behind him, half the table slumped a bit, clearly relieved to have him gone. Then conversation began in earnest, and funnily enough, they all treated Killian and me as though we were simply guests, and not unwanted foreign barbarians.

I supposed that our show of manners hadn't just gone to irritate the arrogant old blowhard "king," but to show the people of Urial that perhaps Nemedans weren't so strange and barbaric after all. The feathers in our hair didn't mean that we didn't know how to eat a meal without licking the plates, like we were farm animals eating from troughs.

There was nearly an hour of pleasant conversation after that. It was... nice.

Hector was asleep when we returned, and Helena only let us in when Paris confirmed it was us, so he calmed at least somewhat. He wasn't thrilled at yet another bowl of poisoned soup having been delivered, though.

Killian, nonchalant about the whole damned thing, went to the window, and tossed the soup out, dropping the bowl back on the tray.

Paris frowned and looked at the window. "What if the animals eat it and die?"

Killian waved him off. "What animals? Rats? They eat the plant it comes from with no ill effect. Humans are the only animals I know affected by it."

That calmed Paris, at least enough to sit with his brother a while. His brother's presence, even unconscious, seemed to calm him further, so I left him to that, and went to change into night clothes. I expected Paris would be along to stay with me, as he had the night before, but when there was a knock on the other door—not the one that led to the family's sitting room, but the one that led to the hall, it put me on guard.

I answered, though, confident that I could handle just about anything Urial could throw at me.

It was a short man, slight, with red hair and bright blue eyes, and the look he gave me was... odd.

"It's Brett, right?" he asked, pushing the door open and forcing his way in, then shoving it closed and locking it behind him, all so fast I barely had time to understand what he was doing before it was done.

What the hell?

"Yes. I'm Brett."

"Right," he breathed, then bit his lip.

It was, I thought, supposed to be alluring. It was calculated, intended to look enticing. Nothing at all like the way Paris made the same expression, when he was actually uncertain and wanted me to wrap my arms around him and pull him in to hold him close.

I had no such urge with this stranger.

He, on the other hand, was determined. When I didn't say anything, or take him in my arms, he sort of... lunged at me. For a moment, I thought he meant to stab me, but he had no weapon. He was just trying to press himself close to me, pushing up onto his toes to mash our lips together.

"I—what are you doing? Who are you?"

I'd barely managed to slide my hand between us, into his chest, and hadn't managed to dislodge him, before the door that led into the family sitting area flew open so hard it banged against the wall behind it.

"Tybalt," Paris said, through his teeth. "What the hell is going on here?"

Fuck. He didn't think I was... did he?