Maxim stroked his beard and looked troubled, but he said nothing, only waved a hand to show Kell that he was dismissed. He turned, feeling his mood darken, but as Staff and Hastra moved to follow, Maxim called them back.
“Leave him be,” he said, and Kell was grateful for that small kindness as he escaped to his rooms.
His relief didn’t last. When he reached the doors to his chamber, he found two more guards standing outside them. The men were Rhy’s.
“Saints, I swear you just keep multiplying,” he muttered.
“Sir?” said Tolners.
“Nothing,” grumbled Kell, pushing past them. There was only one reason Tolners and Vis would be stationed outside his door.
He found Rhy standing in the middle of his room, his back to Kell as he considered himself in a full-length mirror. From this angle, Kell couldn’t see Rhy’s face, and for a moment, a memory surged into his mind, of Rhy waiting for him to wake—only it hadn’t been Rhy, of course, but Astrid wearing his skin, and they were in Rhy’s chambers then, not his. But for an instant the details blurred and he found himself searching Rhy for any pendants or charms, searching his floor for blood, before the past crumbled back into memory.
“About time,” said Rhy, and Kell was secretly relieved when the voice that came from Rhy’s lips was undoubtedly his brother’s.
“What brings you to my room?” he asked, relief bleeding into annoyance.
“Adventure. Intrigue. Brotherly concern. Or,” continued the prince lazily, “perhaps I’m just giving your mirror something to look at besides your constant pout.”
Kell frowned, and Rhy smiled. “Ah, there it is! That famous scowl.”
“I don’t scowl,” grumbled Kell.
Rhy shot a conspiratorial look at his own reflection. Kell sighed and tossed his coat onto the nearest couch before heading for the alcove off his chamber.
“What are you doing?” Rhy called after.
“Hold on,” Kell called back, shutting the door between them. A single candle flickered to life, and by its light he saw the symbols drawn on the wood. There, amid the other marks and fresh with blood, was the doorway to Disan. The way to Windsor Castle. Kell reached out and rubbed at the mark until it was obscured, and then gone.
When Kell returned, Rhy was sitting in Kell’s favorite chair, which he’d dragged around so it was facing the room instead of the balcony doors. “What was that about?” he asked, head resting in his hand.
“That’s my chair,” said Kell flatly.
“Battered old thing,” said Rhy, knowing how fond Kell was of it. The prince had mischief in his pale gold eyes as he got to his feet.
“I’m still nursing a headache,” said Kell. “So if you’re here to force me on another outing—”
“That’s not why I’m here,” said Rhy, crossing to the sideboard. He started to pour himself a drink, and Kell was about to say something very unkind when he saw that it was simply tea.
He nodded at one of the sofas. “Sit down.”
Kell would have stood out of spite, but he was weary from the trip, and he sank onto the nearest sofa. Rhy finished fixing his tea and sat down opposite.
“Well?” prompted Kell.
“I thought Tieren was supposed to teach you patience,” chided Rhy. He set the tea on the table and drew a wooden box from underneath. “I wanted to apologize.”
“For what?” asked Kell. “The lying? The drinking? The fighting? The relentless—” But something in Rhy’s expression made him stop.
The prince raked the black curls from his face, and Kell realized that he looked older. Not old—Rhy was only twenty, a year and a half younger than Kell—but the edges of his face had sharpened, and his bright eyes were less amazed, more intense. He’d grown up, and Kell couldn’t help but wonder if it was all natural, the simple, inevitable progression of time, or if the last dregs of his youth had been stripped away by what had happened.
“Look,” said the prince, “I know things have been hard. Harder these past months than ever. And I know I’ve only made it worse.”
“Rhy—”
The prince held up his hand to silence him. “I’ve been difficult.”
“So have I,” admitted Kell.
“You really have.”
Kell found himself chuckling, but shook his head. “One life is a hard thing to keep hold of, Rhy. Two is …”
“We’ll find our stride,” insisted the prince. And then he shrugged. “Or you’ll get us both killed.”
“How can you say that with such levity?” snapped Kell, straightening.
“Kell.” Rhy sat forward, elbows on his knees. “I was dead.”
The words hung in the air between them.
“I was dead,” he said again, “and you brought me back. You have already given me something I shouldn’t have.” A shadow flashed across his face when he said it, there and then gone. “If it were lost again,” he went on, “I would still have lived twice. This is all borrowed.”
“No,” said Kell sternly, “it is bought and paid for.”
“For how long?” countered Rhy. “You cannot measure out what you have purchased. I am grateful for the life you’ve bought me, though I hate the cost. But what do you plan to do, Kell? Live forever? I don’t want that.”
Kell frowned. “You would rather die?”
Rhy looked tired. “Death comes for us all, Brother. You cannot hide from it forever. We will die one day, you and I.”
“And that doesn’t frighten you?”
Rhy shrugged. “Not nearly as much as the idea of wasting a perfectly good life in fear of it. And to that end …” He nudged the box toward Kell.
“What is it?”
“A peace offering. A present. Happy birthday.”
Kell frowned. “My birthday’s not for another month.”
Rhy took up his tea. “Don’t be ungrateful. Just take it.”
Kell drew the box onto his knees and lifted the lid. Inside, a face stared up at him.
It was a helmet, made of a single piece of metal that curved from the chin over the top of the head and down to the base of the skull. A break formed the mouth, an arch the nose, and a browlike visor hid the wearer’s eyes. Aside from this subtle shaping, the mask’s only markings were a pair of decorative wings, one above each ear.
“Am I going into battle?” asked Kell, confused.
“Of a sort,” said Rhy. “It’s your mask, for the tournament.”
Kell nearly dropped the helmet. “The Essen Tasch? Have you lost your mind?”
Rhy shrugged. “I don’t think so. Not unless you’ve lost yours …” He paused. “Do you think it works that way? I mean, I suppose it—”
“I’m an Antari!” Kell cut in, struggling to keep his voice down. “I’m the adopted son of the Maresh crown, the strongest magician in the Arnesian empire, possibly in the world—”
“Careful, Kell, your ego is showing.”
“—and you want me to compete in an inter-empire tournament.”
“Obviously the great and powerful Kell can’t compete,” said Rhy. “That would be like rigging the game. It could start a war.”
“Exactly.”
“Which is why you’ll be in disguise.”
Kell groaned, shaking his head. “This is insane, Rhy. And even if you were crazy enough to think it could work, Tieren would never allow it.”
“Oh, he didn’t. Not at first. He fought me tooth and nail. Called it madness. Called us fools—”
“It wasn’t even my idea!”
“—but in the end he understood that approving of something and allowing it are not always the same thing.”
Kell’s eyes narrowed. “Why would Tieren change his mind?”
Rhy swallowed. “Because I told him the truth.”
“And what’s that?”
“That you needed it.”
“Rhy—”