The Laws of Ilyria - 17/17
Title: The Laws of Ilyria (17/17)
Author: radiogaga33
Pairing: Adam/Tommy, Adam/Kris (friendship)
Setting: Fantasy AU
Rating: PG-13 (NC-17 overall)
Word Count: ~7000
Beta: sweet_poeia
Disclaimers: No claims to any copyrights, trademarks, or any other intellectual property. I do not own these characters. They belong to themselves. This is purely a work of fiction. It never happened.
Author’s Notes: Last chapter
Warnings: Pseudo-slavefic; character death
Summary: Adam is a conquering king hell-bent on revenge against the ruler who destroyed his life as a child. He ends up taking the ruler’s son, Tommy, as tribute after winning the war between the kingdoms. Events unfold.
The Laws of Ilyria
Chapter 17
“You cannot make me go!”
Tommy was in a high state, face flushed and muscles tense, like a man at war with a mortal enemy. It had been six hours now since the Runners had come bearing their terrible news, and what was supposed to be a routine meeting of advisers had morphed into a frantic exercise at finding a way out of the quagmire that the King of Elysia and his High Consort now found themselves in. Over the past six hours, more and more men had been called to the royal drawing room. Scholars, scribes, historians and priests, each of them bearing leather-bound volumes of the laws. For hours, they had pored over each law and debated, locked into an academic exercise that was doomed to failure from the start. After all, the laws of Ilyria were clear.
A king may not take another king as tribute.
A king is duty bound to produce an heir for his kingdom.
And most importantly, A king can never refuse his throne.
There was no solution to be had, no sleight of hand to be employed. Tommy had to go. And so the learned men gathered together in the King of Elysia’s drawing room hung their heads in defeat and told him so.
“You cannot make me go!”
“Tommy….” Adam’s voice was low and hoarse, roughened with emotion. Misery and defeat were etched into his features where he sat in a high-backed chair in the center of the crowded room.
“I won’t go,” Tommy said, pushing away from the table where he’d been sitting for the last six hours with a group of historians, poring over the laws himself.
“Lord Ratliff,” a scholar called out, “there is nothing to be done. The laws of Ilyria are clear.”
“I am Vice-lord Lambert!” Tommy spat out the words the way a homicidal man might hurl daggers. “Do not dare to call me Lord Ratliff again. You may be quick to give up, but I am not! I am no one’s king!”
“Forgive me, my lord, but there is nothing to be done.”
“Try harder! Look harder!” Tommy spun about where he stood. “You’re not even trying. None of you are trying!”
Even to his own ears, Tommy sounded hysterical. He knew that he should stop for a moment, that he should take a calming breath and try to think rationally. But how could he do any of those things when his entire world was falling apart right in front of him?
“Tommy,” Adam began, rising from his chair and walking towards his lover. “They’ve done their best. This was a lost cause from the beginning. We all know what the laws say.”
“Then change them.”
The room grew eerily silent the moment Tommy uttered the words. It was unspeakable what Tommy was suggesting, the highest form of blasphemy, and every man in the room knew it.
“Tommy, you know that the laws cannot be changed,” Adam replied, finally breaking the heavy silence. “You have said so yourself before.”
“I don’t care!”
“Tommy-”
“You are Supreme Protector. Your word is practically law. No one would dare question you.”
“But my word isn’t law. My word isn’t greater than the Oracle’s. To do what you suggest is to invite chaos back to Ilyria, and you and I both know that chaos means death.”
“And what is this?!” Tommy cried, resting his hand over his heart, fingers digging into the burgundy fabric of his tunic. “What is this…this pain, if not dying? To be separated forever. What is that, if not death?”
“Tommy….” Adam’s voice broke over the word.
“You have to change the law, Adam.”
“They can’t be changed. It would be like moving heaven and earth, Tommy. No man can do that.”
“You said you would,” Tommy replied instantly, seizing upon the memory of that night, over three years ago. “You said that you would move heaven and earth if I asked you to. Well, I’m asking now.”
“I can’t!”
Adam’s words broke something inside of him, something that felt like Tommy’s final thread of hope. For the last six hours, he had kept this little flame alive, this final hope that if the scholars failed, Adam would ignore the laws or change them. And now…? Now he felt shattered, miserable, angry and spiteful. And so he lashed out at the closest target.
“You never loved me!”
Adam flinched, shrinking back a little at Tommy’s words. “Don’t say that,” he whispered.
“You never loved me,” Tommy repeated.
“Tommy, now is not the time to say things you don’t mean,” Kristopher said from the far end of the room, finally breaking his silence.
Tommy whirled around, eyes blazing and hands trembling at his sides. “Stay out of this, Kristopher. If I wanted your damned opinion, I would have asked for it.”
“Tommy, don’t,” Adam murmured softly.
Tommy turned back to him, eyes still ablaze with a certain wildness. “You never loved me.”
“How can you say that?” Adam sounded lost, broken.
“I can say it because it’s true. If you loved me, you would fight. You have fought for Elysia, for gold and silver. You have fought for power and empire, and yet you refuse to fight for me.” Tommy wiped at the tears spilling down his cheeks with quick, angry strokes. “Why aren’t you fighting?”
Tommy turned around, dark eyes sweeping over the men gathered in the drawing room. “Why aren’t any of you fighting? Why is everyone so quick to give up? You cannot make me go, do you hear me? I belong here. Elysia is my home, and I’ll be damned before I let any of you force me out of it!”
With those words, Tommy swept out of the room, ignoring the voices calling his name. He raced through the palace halls until he reached his and Adam’s bedchamber. He locked the door, pulled off the sapphire pin attached to his tunic, and slipped the rich velvet garment off his body. With the pin clutched in his left hand, Tommy rifled through his clothing until he found a simple black tunic. He pulled it on quickly and clipped the sapphire pin back into place. Then he wrapped a heavy black cloak around himself and pulled the hood firmly over his head. With some maneuvering, he managed to slip out of the palace without ceremony and quickly lost himself in the streets, in the hectic activity of the late afternoon market, just another citizen to anyone who might have thought to look his way.
For almost two hours, Tommy wandered about, lost in a grey haze, deafened by the rush of blood roaring in his ears and the frenetic pounding of his heart. He couldn’t hold on to a thought long enough. Instead they all spun about madly in his skull, a whirlwind of shattered hopes and aimless desperation. He tried to think of Troianus, tried to call up an image of the city he had not laid eyes on in almost four years. He couldn’t. All that Tommy knew now were these streets, these buildings and these people. All that he knew was his life in Elysia with Adam. The life he had foolishly thought would last until their dying day. But now…. Tommy couldn’t bring himself to finish the thought. There was only so much one man could bear.
Sometime later, when the sun had begun to set in the sky, Tommy began to approach the river. It would be quiet there, he knew. By now, all the citizens in need of water for the night would have already come and gone with their pails and buckets. He could be alone there. He could have a moment’s respite. But as Tommy drew close to the banks of the river, he saw that he was not alone. He watched two men walk towards him, each one carrying a metal pail in his hand. They were older than him, fifty or sixty perhaps. They spoke quietly to each other as they walked, shoulders brushing every now and then, each moment of contact eliciting sly smiles and adoring looks. Husbands, Tommy thought immediately. They were husbands. When they reached him, Tommy returned their smiles of acknowledgment with a brief one of his own, nodding his head politely before drawing away.
Tommy barely made it to the water’s edge before the emotion spilled over, dragging him to his knees and laying him low. For long, wretched minutes he cried, for the dreams he had harbored, for the life he had envisioned, for the moments that were lost to him forever. Even as he had raged in the palace only a few hours ago, he had known-deep down he had known-that there was no victory to be had. He had to return to Troianus.
When the wracking sobs finally eased, Tommy sat down and stared out at the rushing water, a picture of hopelessness. For the first time since the Runners had come, Tommy allowed himself to trace over their words. They had explained that Marcus and a group of rogue generals and captains had concocted a plot to poison the king and seize his throne. But Patrick had been warned anonymously and had ordered Marcus to be put to death for treason. Marcus’s co-conspirators, fearing discovery and retribution, had pushed forward with the original plan, however, and only two days after Marcus’s execution, Patrick had been discovered in his bedchamber, skin mottled and gray, dead from cantharid poisoning.
So much senseless death. And how much more to come? If he did not return to Troianus to claim his throne, the kingdom would devolve into madness. From the uncertainty, from the madness of noblemen and generals jostling for supremacy. They would not stop; it would not end until Troianus had been leveled to the ground. One did not sacrifice a million lives for the sake of one man. It was no less true now than it had been that long-ago evening when Adam had demanded Tommy as tribute.
Tommy sighed heavily and lifted his gaze to the horizon, eyes glowing softly with the reflected light of the setting sun. He had been a fool to dream, to believe that happiness such as he had found could last forever. This pain, this clawing sensation in his chest, was the price of such foolishness. And he would have to bear it, however insupportable it became.
But he still had time. It would take five days at least to assemble a caravan for the journey back to Troianus. There was still time, still hours and days to share with Adam. So what was he doing here, sitting on the banks of the river, squandering the little he had left? Tommy pushed away his despair and the memory of the cutting words he had spoken only hours before. He would make it right. He would find Adam and hold him close until the moment that duty dragged him away from Elysia forever. But first, there was someone he had to see.
Katherine opened the door on the second knock, brilliant blue eyes wide with surprise.
“Good evening,” Tommy whispered, shuffling uncertainly from one foot to the other.
“Tommy,” she whispered before hurling her small body at his and wrapping her arms tightly around his neck. When she drew back from the embrace, her eyes were gleaming with unshed tears. “Kristopher told me everything. I’m so sorry, Tommy. I’m so sorry.”
She began to cry then, delicate shoulders trembling with the effort. Tommy reached out and wiped away the tears streaming down her face. “You can’t do that,” he murmured. “How can I stay strong if I know that you are crying over me?”
“I know. I know. I just…just….”
When her voice trailed off, Tommy pulled her close and cradled her trembling body against his own. “Everything will be alright, Katy. I promise.”
“How can it? Nothing will ever be right again.” Her words were muffled against his cloak.
“Don’t say that, Katy. Everything will be alright. I promise.”
She pulled back then with a questioning expression. For a moment, it looked like she might burst into tears again, but instead she took a deep breath and managed to pull herself together, for Tommy’s sake, for all their sakes. So brave. Such a small, delicate thing she was, and yet, so brave. Tommy leaned forward a little and kissed her forehead.
“Is Kristopher here? I have to speak to him.”
“He’s upstairs. On the roof.”
Katherine didn’t have to show him the way. After hundreds and hundreds of hours spent in this house, Tommy knew his way around. Two minutes later, he climbed the last stair and emerged into the cool evening air. He saw Kristopher immediately, back turned and lean body bent forward over the railing. Tommy walked toward him slowly, stopping only when he was standing beside Kristopher, hands wrapped around the metal railing as well.
“For once, I’m the one who has come after you, instead of the other way around,” Tommy said.
“It was bound to happen eventually.”
Kristopher didn’t turn when he spoke. Instead he kept his gaze trained ahead of him, looking out at the lights of Elysia. Tommy looked out as well, watching the play of moonlight and torch light across the buildings and on the paved streets. He watched the night grocers wheeling their wooden carts laden with fruit and vegetables. He saw young men and women laughing merrily as they ambled along the avenues, flushed with joy and the endless possibility that came with youth. After three years, Tommy has grown accustomed to this place; he knew its streets and alleyways better than he did the lines on the back of his hand. When the hour came, how would he survive the agony of letting go?
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Kristopher asked.
“Yes, it is. I remember thinking, on the day I first marched through the city gates, that I had never seen anything quite so beautiful as this kingdom. And when Adam named me High-Consort, I thought that I would live here forever. One minute I held the key, and now those same gates are to be closed on me.”
Tommy’s voice broken on those last few words, and Kristopher finally turned at the sound, straightening up from the railing.
“I’m sorry for what I said earlier,” Tommy said. “I did not mean to address you so.”
“I know,” Kristopher replied. “I cannot say how sorry I am that it has come to this.”
“We should have anticipated it. We should have expected that my brothers would not be satisfied until they had destroyed themselves and everything around them. I was a fool to imagine otherwise. I was a fool to think that this happiness would last forever.”
“I’m so sorry, Tommy.”
“Don’t be. This was not your doing.” Tommy turned to look out on the city once more. “Who was it that said once that kings are nothing but puppets on lonely strings?”
“Old King Martin of Batuur. He said that.”
“He was right, you know. Kings are nothing but puppets, beholden to the whims of time and fortune. Who would ever want such a fate? And now, I am to be king.” Tommy let out a bitter laugh. “I am already king.”
Kristopher said nothing in reply. And perhaps there was nothing to say. What solace could he give, now that everything had fallen apart? Tommy turned back to face his friend.
“I have to go now. I have to find Adam.”
“Of course.”
“But I wanted to tell you, before the chaos of assembling a caravan begins, I wanted to tell you that I shall never forget you. You have been a far better friend to me than I have ever deserved. I will always remember the kindness you have shown me.”
For the first time in all the years Tommy had known him, Kristopher’s façade slipped. It was shocking almost, to see the depth of sadness in his gaze. Tommy had always thought of this man as infallible. To see him shattered brought home the gravity of what had befallen them all.
“Say nothing more of it,” Kristopher said, reaching out to rest his hands on Tommy’s shoulders. “It’s an easy thing to be a friend to a man like you. It’s the easiest”-Kristopher broke down-“the easiest thing in the world to do.”
Tommy pulled him into an embrace then, and held on tightly for a long moment before letting go.
“You should go,” Kristopher said, hand swiping at a wayward tear or two.
Tommy nodded and began to walk towards the staircase with Kristopher in tow. Katherine was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, eyes still red from crying. When he asked, she led Tommy into her children’s room, watching from the doorway as he moved about silently, pressing a kiss to each child’s forehead. When they had left the room and Katherine had closed the door behind them, Tommy took her hand, and they walked slowly back into the main parlor of the house.
“Don’t let them forget about me,” Tommy said, addressing both Kristopher and Katherine.
“We won’t,” Kristopher replied.
“Promise me. Promise me you’ll tell Daniel and Isolde that once upon a time, they had an uncle who loved them more than words can possibly convey. But he had to go. Even though it broke his heart, he had to go.”
“They’ll never forget you, I swear it,” Katherine replied, fresh tears spilling down her face.
Tommy nodded in acknowledgement and let out a small, sad smile. “For my part, I shall never forget you. Both of you.” He gave a slight bow after that, smiled again, and hurried away from their house and back to the palace.
Their bedchamber was dead silent when Tommy slipped through the heavy oak doors, and for a moment, he feared that Adam wasn’t there. He moved further into the grand room, and just as he began to worry in earnest, he saw his lover sitting on the floor in front of one of the marble fireplaces, staring into the leaping flames in the hearth. Adam turned slowly at the sound of sandals scraping across the soft wool rugs covering the ground, making Tommy stop dead in his tracks. He stared at Adam, heart fluttering wildly in his chest, nervous, breathless, wondering if Adam would turn him away after the hurtful things Tommy had said. He soon discovered that his worry was unfounded. Because Adam’s face brightened for a moment. Then he held out his hand to Tommy in clear invitation.
Tommy almost stumbled to the ground in his mad rush to get to Adam. He fell to his knees beside him and wrapped his arms so tightly around Adam that, for a brief moment, he wondered if Adam could even breathe. But Adam returned the embrace as fiercely as Tommy gave it, and they held each other for several minutes, rocking back and forth softly, each one trying to soothe the other.
Tommy was the one first to break the embrace. He pulled back and sat down facing Adam.
“I’m so sorry for what I said. I didn’t mean a word of it. Please, forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive. I know you didn’t mean it. You were upset.”
“That’s no excuse.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Adam replied. “I don’t want to waste a single second of the time we have left worrying about things that don’t matter.”
“You’re right.”
Tommy shifted on the floor, turning so that he was sitting beside Adam instead of opposite him. Then he rested his head against Adam’s shoulder and stared into the fireplace. The crackling of the fire was the only sound in the room for a long while. Finally, Adam broke the silence.
“Where have you been?”
“Out there. I wandered around for a few hours, and then I went down to the river.”
“I see.”
“When I was out by the river, I saw these men, these two old men carrying pails of water. They were husbands. It was so obvious in their looks and manner that even a blind man could tell.”
Tommy lifted his head from Adam’s shoulder and shifted to face him once again. “They were so happy, and I couldn’t help but wonder….”
“Wonder what?”
“What if you and I had been ordinary men when we met? Have you thought about that?”
“Every single second for the past twelve hours,” Adam replied. “If you and I were ordinary men, we would be married already, and you would be after me to fold away my clothes and to pick up my mud-caked sandals off the rugs.”
Tommy answered Adam’s sad, half-smile with one of his own. “We would live in a small house near the river,” Tommy said. “You would be a blacksmith and I would be a teacher.”
“We wouldn’t be rich, but we’d be comfortable,” Adam continued.
“And happy,” Tommy added. “So deliriously happy. Because we’d be together. Always.”
“Forever,” Adam finished.
“If we were ordinary men,” Tommy whispered softly, wistfully.
But they weren’t ordinary men. They were kings, and the laws of Ilyria had made it so that they had no right to dream, no right to imagine what might have been.
Later, long after midnight had come and gone, they lay in bed together, Adam’s head pressed against Tommy’s chest, and his arm slung across Tommy’s waist. Tommy’s left hand slid through Adam’s long black hair over and over again while his right hand cradled the sapphire pin, watching the play of lamplight across its gleaming stones. Something gripped him then, a certain fierceness and determination.
“I’ll find a way to see you again,” Tommy said.
Adam shifted to stare at him. “How? Kings rarely meet except in war. You aren’t going to declare war against me, any more than I would ever declare war against you. How will we meet again, when our kingdoms are on opposite ends of Ilyria?”
“You’ll have to trust me. I’ll find a way to see you again. I promise.”
Adam stared at him for a long, quiet moment. Then he set his head against Tommy’s chest once again. “I trust you,” he said. “If you say that you’ll find a way, then I believe you.”
“Good.” Tommy lifted his left hand to Adam’s hair once again and began to slide his fingers through the silky strands. “It will take time, but if you’re patient, I will surprise, and one morning, you’ll wake up to see that I have returned. I’ll find a way, Adam. I swear it.”
* * *
In the end, it took them seven days to assemble Tommy’s caravan. The entire kingdom was in a state of organized chaos as nearly every man and woman hurried to and fro, helping with the preparations. Tailors sat at their trade long into the night, sewing clothes for Tommy, new tunics, dyed in the hunter green hue of the Troain crest. They sewed a dozen flags as well, all embroidered with the golden tiger that symbolized Troianus. Blacksmiths worked for hours on end, making wheels, arrows, swords, spears, and tent rods for the journey. Worker-slaves salted meat and fish and filled jars and tins with preserves for the march. Surgeons refilled their medicine bottles and fashioned new instruments. Even whores sorted out their clothing and packed their bags to follow the King of Troianus’ caravan.
After long deliberations, it was decided that thirty thousand men would follow Tommy back to his kingdom. There would surely be chaos and lawlessness there in the wake of the murder of the old king, and Tommy would need the manpower to put down any rebellions and quiet the civil unrest. It was stunning how many soldiers volunteered to march with him before Adam could even give an order. Adam was humbled to discover that so many of his soldiers had come to admire and respect Tommy this much. Enough to leave their families for at least a year, and possibly more. Enough to lay down their lives and march behind a foreign flag. By the third day, Adam had to turn soldiers away. There were simply too many volunteers.
Finally, after the mad dash of activity, they were finished. That night, Adam stood in his bedchamber, leaning against the door, staring over at where Tommy sat on the edge of their bed, shoulders hunched in misery. As the week had drawn to a close, he had grown quieter and quieter, until he barely spoke a word at all. It was indescribable, the way Adam felt to see him like that. There was none of his easy grace now, none of his laughter, none of his joy. And there was nothing that Adam could do. He was Supreme Protector of Ilyria, second to none, and yet he was powerless to do the one thing he wanted most in the world. To change the laws, to keep Tommy here with him.
Adam walked toward the bed and sat down beside Tommy.
“The preparations are finished. The caravan is ready.”
“I suppose that means that I ride in the morning,” Tommy replied.
“At sunrise.”
Tommy nodded and fell silent again, seemingly lost in thought. Adam watched Tommy, lost in his own thoughts. He wanted so desperately to be able to escort Tommy back to Troianus. But even in this, the laws of Ilyria thwarted them. A caravan can only march under one flag. For two kings to march together, the laws would have to be broken. And so, in a few hours, Tommy would leave, and there was nothing that Adam-for all that he was Supreme Protector of Ilyria-could do to change it.
Without warning, Tommy turned to him, eyes blazing with a strange light.
“Tommy?”
“Come with me.” Before Adam could speak, Tommy grabbed his arm and dragged him off the bed toward one of the fireplaces in the grand room. When they reached it, Tommy sat on the floor and pulled Adam down to him so that they faced each other.
“Tommy, what is it?” Adam asked.
“Give me your left hand.”
When Adam reached out, Tommy took his hand and pressed it to his heart. “Do you feel that?” Tommy asked.
“Of course.”
“I want you to remember this. I want you to remember that no matter how far I travel, I shall always be right here with you. I want you to know that I’ll always be out there, thinking just of you.” Tommy reached out and pressed his left hand to Adam’s chest, right over his heart. “And I know that you’ll be thinking just of me.”
Adam stared into Tommy’s eyes, taking in the desperate, almost wild expression he saw there.
“But if I must go, I shall take a part of you with me.”
“What do you mean?” Adam asked. He stared down at their outstretched arms, hands pressed against each other’s heart at the same time. Then turned his head to stare at the fire burning in the hearth. With a suddenness that was jarring, Adam knew. The Ilyrian marriage rite.
“Tommy, we can’t,” Adam said. “It’s against the law.”
“And so what?” Tommy replied. “No one will ever know except you and me. All the days of my life, I have obeyed every law, and still the Oracle has taken from me. I will go. For Oracle and country, I will return to Troianus. But before I do, this law-this one law-I mean to break.”
“Tommy, don’t do this.”
“I marry you.”
“Tommy, don’t,” Adam whispered. But he made no move to end the rite. How could he, when he had dreamed of precisely this for years, long before the Runners had come bearing their news?
“I marry you.”
“Tommy….”
“I marry you.”
Tommy fell silent then, but his burning gaze spoke volumes. Without words, he begged Adam to accept him, to break this one law, to give over this part of himself.
“I accept,” Adam replied.
And just like that, it was sealed. They were married.
That night, they made love like dying men. They fell into their bed, hands pulling roughly at clothing, fingers ripping carelessly when the fabric wouldn’t give quickly enough. They spent most of the night in a tangle of limbs, hopelessly entwined as they traced over each other’s skin, committing every line and every hollow to memory. Adam pushed into Tommy, slow and hard and deep. But it wasn’t enough. He couldn’t seem to get deep enough. He wanted to reach into Tommy’s innermost core, to mark him where nothing-not even the Oracle-could ever erase his scent from Tommy’s body. No matter how close he got, it wasn’t enough. Never enough. And then, it was morning.
The palace slaves came at the dawn’s first light. Adam watched as they bathed and dressed Tommy, biting down hard on his bottom lip to hold in the cry of despair that threatened to break when they pulled the hunter green fabric onto his body. Not even the sight of the sapphire pin clipped to Tommy’s tunic could mitigate the sharpness of the hopelessness he felt. When Tommy was ready, Adam pulled on his own clothes quickly and marched out to the front of the palace where the caravan was already in formation. Adam moved slowly, deliberately, placing one foot in front of the other, trying to keep his head above the water. Too fast. Everything he had ever wanted was slipping through his fingers so fast, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
Outside, Kristopher was already waiting. Adam watched Tommy walk up to him. “Goodbye, old friend,” he heard Tommy say before pulling Kristopher into a tight embrace. After a long moment, Tommy pulled away and came back to Adam.
“I suppose this is goodbye,” Tommy said.
“No, it isn’t. You’ll come back again. Just as you promised,” Adam said, holding on to an impossible hope.
“You’re right. This isn’t goodbye. So instead, I’ll say this. I’ll see you later.”
With considerable effort, Adam managed to smile. “I’ll see you later,” he replied.
They embraced then, holding each other for a long moment. Finally, Tommy pulled away and went to his horse. Adam watched, feigned smile held in place with the fiercest of determination. He watched as Tommy mounted his horse and took his place in the caravan formation. He watched as the caravan marched off. He watched until the last man disappeared along the road that led toward the city gates. He watched until there was nothing left to see, and then he ran into the palace, not stopping until he’d reached their empty bedchamber.
Adam fell to his knees before the dying fire, the same fire that had sealed his and Tommy’s marriage the night before. Had it really only been a few hours? It seemed impossible. Already, it felt like ages ago. Already, the memory was fading from him-Tommy was fading away from him. Adam clawed at his tunic frantically. He had been a good man, hadn’t he? He had been a good son and a good friend, hadn’t he? So why had the Oracle stripped him of everything once again? Why had the Oracle left him here alone, unable to remember what Tommy’s kiss felt like, what his lips tasted like? Had Adam told Tommy that he loved him? He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t-
Adam raced out of the room and down the grand staircase and out into to the courtyard. He surprised the grooms when he appeared in the stables, jumped onto a horse, and rode off without even bothering with a saddle or reins. He rode faster than he ever had before, spurring the animal onto breakneck speed until he rode out of the city gates and reached the caravan.
“Wait!” he cried. “Wait!”
When they stopped marching, Adam pulled to a stop as well and alighted his horse. By then, Tommy had already emerged from the formation, alarm pulling his features tight.
“Adam, what happened? What happened?! You’re crying.”
Crying? In a daze, Adam raised a hand to his face and started with surprise when his fingers came away wet with tears.
“I couldn’t breathe. You were fading from me already, and I couldn’t breathe. And then I couldn’t remember if I’d told you that I love you. I couldn’t remember, and so I had to come. I had to get to you. To tell you that I love you. I love you so much, Tommy. I love you so much.”
Adam’s words came in an almost incoherent jumble, interspersed with hitching sobs as tears continued to fall. Within seconds, Tommy was crying too, shoulders trembling as he pulled Adam close to him. For once, Adam didn’t concern himself with appearances and what a king should and shouldn’t do. He was losing everything that mattered to him, and he didn’t give a damn who saw.
“I love you too. I love you, Adam.” Tommy murmured the words against the curve of Adam’s neck.
“I love you,” Adam murmured again, when Tommy finally pulled back.
“I know. I need to you hold on, Adam. I need you to hold on until I come back again. Someday soon, I’ll return home to where I’m meant to be. Remember what I promised you. I’ll find a way, Adam. I swear it. But I need you to hold on until then. Can you do that for me, Adam?”
“Yes.”
“Watch the horizon, and wait for me. Never let go, Adam.”
“I promise. I’ll never let go.”
They kissed then, a hard, desperate caress, more intense and heartfelt than anything that had ever come before. When they broke apart, Tommy gave Adam one last longing look before he slipped back into the formation and mounted his horse.
A minute later, the caravan began to march again. Adam watched them go. For hours, he remained rooted to the spot, watching until they became little more than a hazy speck on the horizon. Then he mounted his horse once more and road back into Elysia, toward his palace and a lifetime without the man he loved.
Ten months later, Runners came bearing news of King Thomas Joseph’s victory over the warring factions in his kingdom. A year and a half after they had left home, the Elysian soldiers returned, flush with stories of the Troian king’s bravery and cunning. Adam smiled and nodded when they spoke, and tried not to reveal the fact that each new tale shredded his heart anew. As two more years passed, the stories eventually ceased and they received no more than intermittent reports from that faraway kingdom.
Five years after Tommy left Elysia, Adam recalled his soldiers from the other five kingdoms. He was finished with the business of empire. This sudden turn was unsurprising to those who truly knew him. He had never wanted land or tribute in the first place; his campaign across Ilyria had been about revenge and nothing more. It was then that the whispers began in the former protectorates. Rumors abounded about the former Supreme Protector. They called him weak and impotent. They called him mad and hopeless. Eventually, the king of Macedon, buoyed by the rumors, declared war on Elysia and marched on the city. His defeat was swift, furious, and bloody. The Macedonian king’s fall served as an example to any other would-be invaders. Now they all knew that though Lord Lambert had lost his taste for war, he had not forgotten how to wage it.
No more armies came after that, and for years, Elysia was at peace. By the sixth year, Adam was once again the man he had been before Tommy entered his world. He was quiet, cryptic, slow to smile, solitary. Each day, he would spend hours watching the horizon, waiting for a man that never appeared.
He never took another man as his lover and never allowed anyone but Kristopher to be close to him. By the seventh year, misery had etched deep lines into his face, and he looked like a shell of the man he had once been. It was then that he finally fulfilled his obligation to his kingdom and took a wife. She was a simple girl, though high-born. A nobleman’s daughter who had known the former High-Consort and understood that her marriage to Adam would be one of convenience only. Within a year, the queen gave Adam his first son, Thomas. The next year, Matthias followed, but while the boy lived, his mother did not. Adam mourned her, for she had become a friend to him by then.
The years passed quickly after that, the frantic pace broken only by the occasional news from Troianus. King Thomas Joseph had successfully beaten back two invasions from the Outerlands. He’d also taken a wife, Josephine, who had borne him two sons and a daughter. Adam heard it said, more than once, that Princess Leila of Troianus was the most beautiful woman in all the six kingdoms. He never once doubted the truth behind such high praise.
The years kept moving him along, rushing by at dizzying speed until thirty years had passed and Adam was an old man with wrinkled skin and thinning, grey hair. He still watched the horizon for hours each day, waiting for Tommy to return. Some days, his hand still throbbed with the memory of Tommy’s heart beating beneath his palm. Other days, Adam swore he could still smell Tommy’s scent in their bedchamber. And at night, deep in the dark hours of the night, Adam still held Tommy’s hand in his as he slept, as he glided through dreams where he held Tommy close, where he kissed him and made love to him again.
For years and years, Adam held on, just like he had promised, until that morning, thirty eight years later, when Adam woke up and knew, with a certainty that was unshakeable, that Tommy was dead. No news or rumors of illness had come, and yet Adam knew. He could feel it beneath his skin, and in his bones, a palpable emptiness that had never been there before in all the years he had spent waiting. That day, for the first time in almost four decades, Adam did not watch the horizon. He knew now that Tommy would never appear in the distance.
And so that evening, Adam lay down in his bed, an old man weighed down by sadness and loss, waiting once more. Before, he had waited for his lover to return. Now he waited only for death to come. It was all that he could do. Because even in this, the laws of Ilyria were clear.
A man who cannot change his fate, must learn to endure it.
Epilogue
Author: radiogaga33
Pairing: Adam/Tommy, Adam/Kris (friendship)
Setting: Fantasy AU
Rating: PG-13 (NC-17 overall)
Word Count: ~7000
Beta: sweet_poeia
Disclaimers: No claims to any copyrights, trademarks, or any other intellectual property. I do not own these characters. They belong to themselves. This is purely a work of fiction. It never happened.
Author’s Notes: Last chapter
Warnings: Pseudo-slavefic; character death
Summary: Adam is a conquering king hell-bent on revenge against the ruler who destroyed his life as a child. He ends up taking the ruler’s son, Tommy, as tribute after winning the war between the kingdoms. Events unfold.
The Laws of Ilyria
Chapter 17
“You cannot make me go!”
Tommy was in a high state, face flushed and muscles tense, like a man at war with a mortal enemy. It had been six hours now since the Runners had come bearing their terrible news, and what was supposed to be a routine meeting of advisers had morphed into a frantic exercise at finding a way out of the quagmire that the King of Elysia and his High Consort now found themselves in. Over the past six hours, more and more men had been called to the royal drawing room. Scholars, scribes, historians and priests, each of them bearing leather-bound volumes of the laws. For hours, they had pored over each law and debated, locked into an academic exercise that was doomed to failure from the start. After all, the laws of Ilyria were clear.
A king may not take another king as tribute.
A king is duty bound to produce an heir for his kingdom.
And most importantly, A king can never refuse his throne.
There was no solution to be had, no sleight of hand to be employed. Tommy had to go. And so the learned men gathered together in the King of Elysia’s drawing room hung their heads in defeat and told him so.
“You cannot make me go!”
“Tommy….” Adam’s voice was low and hoarse, roughened with emotion. Misery and defeat were etched into his features where he sat in a high-backed chair in the center of the crowded room.
“I won’t go,” Tommy said, pushing away from the table where he’d been sitting for the last six hours with a group of historians, poring over the laws himself.
“Lord Ratliff,” a scholar called out, “there is nothing to be done. The laws of Ilyria are clear.”
“I am Vice-lord Lambert!” Tommy spat out the words the way a homicidal man might hurl daggers. “Do not dare to call me Lord Ratliff again. You may be quick to give up, but I am not! I am no one’s king!”
“Forgive me, my lord, but there is nothing to be done.”
“Try harder! Look harder!” Tommy spun about where he stood. “You’re not even trying. None of you are trying!”
Even to his own ears, Tommy sounded hysterical. He knew that he should stop for a moment, that he should take a calming breath and try to think rationally. But how could he do any of those things when his entire world was falling apart right in front of him?
“Tommy,” Adam began, rising from his chair and walking towards his lover. “They’ve done their best. This was a lost cause from the beginning. We all know what the laws say.”
“Then change them.”
The room grew eerily silent the moment Tommy uttered the words. It was unspeakable what Tommy was suggesting, the highest form of blasphemy, and every man in the room knew it.
“Tommy, you know that the laws cannot be changed,” Adam replied, finally breaking the heavy silence. “You have said so yourself before.”
“I don’t care!”
“Tommy-”
“You are Supreme Protector. Your word is practically law. No one would dare question you.”
“But my word isn’t law. My word isn’t greater than the Oracle’s. To do what you suggest is to invite chaos back to Ilyria, and you and I both know that chaos means death.”
“And what is this?!” Tommy cried, resting his hand over his heart, fingers digging into the burgundy fabric of his tunic. “What is this…this pain, if not dying? To be separated forever. What is that, if not death?”
“Tommy….” Adam’s voice broke over the word.
“You have to change the law, Adam.”
“They can’t be changed. It would be like moving heaven and earth, Tommy. No man can do that.”
“You said you would,” Tommy replied instantly, seizing upon the memory of that night, over three years ago. “You said that you would move heaven and earth if I asked you to. Well, I’m asking now.”
“I can’t!”
Adam’s words broke something inside of him, something that felt like Tommy’s final thread of hope. For the last six hours, he had kept this little flame alive, this final hope that if the scholars failed, Adam would ignore the laws or change them. And now…? Now he felt shattered, miserable, angry and spiteful. And so he lashed out at the closest target.
“You never loved me!”
Adam flinched, shrinking back a little at Tommy’s words. “Don’t say that,” he whispered.
“You never loved me,” Tommy repeated.
“Tommy, now is not the time to say things you don’t mean,” Kristopher said from the far end of the room, finally breaking his silence.
Tommy whirled around, eyes blazing and hands trembling at his sides. “Stay out of this, Kristopher. If I wanted your damned opinion, I would have asked for it.”
“Tommy, don’t,” Adam murmured softly.
Tommy turned back to him, eyes still ablaze with a certain wildness. “You never loved me.”
“How can you say that?” Adam sounded lost, broken.
“I can say it because it’s true. If you loved me, you would fight. You have fought for Elysia, for gold and silver. You have fought for power and empire, and yet you refuse to fight for me.” Tommy wiped at the tears spilling down his cheeks with quick, angry strokes. “Why aren’t you fighting?”
Tommy turned around, dark eyes sweeping over the men gathered in the drawing room. “Why aren’t any of you fighting? Why is everyone so quick to give up? You cannot make me go, do you hear me? I belong here. Elysia is my home, and I’ll be damned before I let any of you force me out of it!”
With those words, Tommy swept out of the room, ignoring the voices calling his name. He raced through the palace halls until he reached his and Adam’s bedchamber. He locked the door, pulled off the sapphire pin attached to his tunic, and slipped the rich velvet garment off his body. With the pin clutched in his left hand, Tommy rifled through his clothing until he found a simple black tunic. He pulled it on quickly and clipped the sapphire pin back into place. Then he wrapped a heavy black cloak around himself and pulled the hood firmly over his head. With some maneuvering, he managed to slip out of the palace without ceremony and quickly lost himself in the streets, in the hectic activity of the late afternoon market, just another citizen to anyone who might have thought to look his way.
For almost two hours, Tommy wandered about, lost in a grey haze, deafened by the rush of blood roaring in his ears and the frenetic pounding of his heart. He couldn’t hold on to a thought long enough. Instead they all spun about madly in his skull, a whirlwind of shattered hopes and aimless desperation. He tried to think of Troianus, tried to call up an image of the city he had not laid eyes on in almost four years. He couldn’t. All that Tommy knew now were these streets, these buildings and these people. All that he knew was his life in Elysia with Adam. The life he had foolishly thought would last until their dying day. But now…. Tommy couldn’t bring himself to finish the thought. There was only so much one man could bear.
Sometime later, when the sun had begun to set in the sky, Tommy began to approach the river. It would be quiet there, he knew. By now, all the citizens in need of water for the night would have already come and gone with their pails and buckets. He could be alone there. He could have a moment’s respite. But as Tommy drew close to the banks of the river, he saw that he was not alone. He watched two men walk towards him, each one carrying a metal pail in his hand. They were older than him, fifty or sixty perhaps. They spoke quietly to each other as they walked, shoulders brushing every now and then, each moment of contact eliciting sly smiles and adoring looks. Husbands, Tommy thought immediately. They were husbands. When they reached him, Tommy returned their smiles of acknowledgment with a brief one of his own, nodding his head politely before drawing away.
Tommy barely made it to the water’s edge before the emotion spilled over, dragging him to his knees and laying him low. For long, wretched minutes he cried, for the dreams he had harbored, for the life he had envisioned, for the moments that were lost to him forever. Even as he had raged in the palace only a few hours ago, he had known-deep down he had known-that there was no victory to be had. He had to return to Troianus.
When the wracking sobs finally eased, Tommy sat down and stared out at the rushing water, a picture of hopelessness. For the first time since the Runners had come, Tommy allowed himself to trace over their words. They had explained that Marcus and a group of rogue generals and captains had concocted a plot to poison the king and seize his throne. But Patrick had been warned anonymously and had ordered Marcus to be put to death for treason. Marcus’s co-conspirators, fearing discovery and retribution, had pushed forward with the original plan, however, and only two days after Marcus’s execution, Patrick had been discovered in his bedchamber, skin mottled and gray, dead from cantharid poisoning.
So much senseless death. And how much more to come? If he did not return to Troianus to claim his throne, the kingdom would devolve into madness. From the uncertainty, from the madness of noblemen and generals jostling for supremacy. They would not stop; it would not end until Troianus had been leveled to the ground. One did not sacrifice a million lives for the sake of one man. It was no less true now than it had been that long-ago evening when Adam had demanded Tommy as tribute.
Tommy sighed heavily and lifted his gaze to the horizon, eyes glowing softly with the reflected light of the setting sun. He had been a fool to dream, to believe that happiness such as he had found could last forever. This pain, this clawing sensation in his chest, was the price of such foolishness. And he would have to bear it, however insupportable it became.
But he still had time. It would take five days at least to assemble a caravan for the journey back to Troianus. There was still time, still hours and days to share with Adam. So what was he doing here, sitting on the banks of the river, squandering the little he had left? Tommy pushed away his despair and the memory of the cutting words he had spoken only hours before. He would make it right. He would find Adam and hold him close until the moment that duty dragged him away from Elysia forever. But first, there was someone he had to see.
Katherine opened the door on the second knock, brilliant blue eyes wide with surprise.
“Good evening,” Tommy whispered, shuffling uncertainly from one foot to the other.
“Tommy,” she whispered before hurling her small body at his and wrapping her arms tightly around his neck. When she drew back from the embrace, her eyes were gleaming with unshed tears. “Kristopher told me everything. I’m so sorry, Tommy. I’m so sorry.”
She began to cry then, delicate shoulders trembling with the effort. Tommy reached out and wiped away the tears streaming down her face. “You can’t do that,” he murmured. “How can I stay strong if I know that you are crying over me?”
“I know. I know. I just…just….”
When her voice trailed off, Tommy pulled her close and cradled her trembling body against his own. “Everything will be alright, Katy. I promise.”
“How can it? Nothing will ever be right again.” Her words were muffled against his cloak.
“Don’t say that, Katy. Everything will be alright. I promise.”
She pulled back then with a questioning expression. For a moment, it looked like she might burst into tears again, but instead she took a deep breath and managed to pull herself together, for Tommy’s sake, for all their sakes. So brave. Such a small, delicate thing she was, and yet, so brave. Tommy leaned forward a little and kissed her forehead.
“Is Kristopher here? I have to speak to him.”
“He’s upstairs. On the roof.”
Katherine didn’t have to show him the way. After hundreds and hundreds of hours spent in this house, Tommy knew his way around. Two minutes later, he climbed the last stair and emerged into the cool evening air. He saw Kristopher immediately, back turned and lean body bent forward over the railing. Tommy walked toward him slowly, stopping only when he was standing beside Kristopher, hands wrapped around the metal railing as well.
“For once, I’m the one who has come after you, instead of the other way around,” Tommy said.
“It was bound to happen eventually.”
Kristopher didn’t turn when he spoke. Instead he kept his gaze trained ahead of him, looking out at the lights of Elysia. Tommy looked out as well, watching the play of moonlight and torch light across the buildings and on the paved streets. He watched the night grocers wheeling their wooden carts laden with fruit and vegetables. He saw young men and women laughing merrily as they ambled along the avenues, flushed with joy and the endless possibility that came with youth. After three years, Tommy has grown accustomed to this place; he knew its streets and alleyways better than he did the lines on the back of his hand. When the hour came, how would he survive the agony of letting go?
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Kristopher asked.
“Yes, it is. I remember thinking, on the day I first marched through the city gates, that I had never seen anything quite so beautiful as this kingdom. And when Adam named me High-Consort, I thought that I would live here forever. One minute I held the key, and now those same gates are to be closed on me.”
Tommy’s voice broken on those last few words, and Kristopher finally turned at the sound, straightening up from the railing.
“I’m sorry for what I said earlier,” Tommy said. “I did not mean to address you so.”
“I know,” Kristopher replied. “I cannot say how sorry I am that it has come to this.”
“We should have anticipated it. We should have expected that my brothers would not be satisfied until they had destroyed themselves and everything around them. I was a fool to imagine otherwise. I was a fool to think that this happiness would last forever.”
“I’m so sorry, Tommy.”
“Don’t be. This was not your doing.” Tommy turned to look out on the city once more. “Who was it that said once that kings are nothing but puppets on lonely strings?”
“Old King Martin of Batuur. He said that.”
“He was right, you know. Kings are nothing but puppets, beholden to the whims of time and fortune. Who would ever want such a fate? And now, I am to be king.” Tommy let out a bitter laugh. “I am already king.”
Kristopher said nothing in reply. And perhaps there was nothing to say. What solace could he give, now that everything had fallen apart? Tommy turned back to face his friend.
“I have to go now. I have to find Adam.”
“Of course.”
“But I wanted to tell you, before the chaos of assembling a caravan begins, I wanted to tell you that I shall never forget you. You have been a far better friend to me than I have ever deserved. I will always remember the kindness you have shown me.”
For the first time in all the years Tommy had known him, Kristopher’s façade slipped. It was shocking almost, to see the depth of sadness in his gaze. Tommy had always thought of this man as infallible. To see him shattered brought home the gravity of what had befallen them all.
“Say nothing more of it,” Kristopher said, reaching out to rest his hands on Tommy’s shoulders. “It’s an easy thing to be a friend to a man like you. It’s the easiest”-Kristopher broke down-“the easiest thing in the world to do.”
Tommy pulled him into an embrace then, and held on tightly for a long moment before letting go.
“You should go,” Kristopher said, hand swiping at a wayward tear or two.
Tommy nodded and began to walk towards the staircase with Kristopher in tow. Katherine was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, eyes still red from crying. When he asked, she led Tommy into her children’s room, watching from the doorway as he moved about silently, pressing a kiss to each child’s forehead. When they had left the room and Katherine had closed the door behind them, Tommy took her hand, and they walked slowly back into the main parlor of the house.
“Don’t let them forget about me,” Tommy said, addressing both Kristopher and Katherine.
“We won’t,” Kristopher replied.
“Promise me. Promise me you’ll tell Daniel and Isolde that once upon a time, they had an uncle who loved them more than words can possibly convey. But he had to go. Even though it broke his heart, he had to go.”
“They’ll never forget you, I swear it,” Katherine replied, fresh tears spilling down her face.
Tommy nodded in acknowledgement and let out a small, sad smile. “For my part, I shall never forget you. Both of you.” He gave a slight bow after that, smiled again, and hurried away from their house and back to the palace.
Their bedchamber was dead silent when Tommy slipped through the heavy oak doors, and for a moment, he feared that Adam wasn’t there. He moved further into the grand room, and just as he began to worry in earnest, he saw his lover sitting on the floor in front of one of the marble fireplaces, staring into the leaping flames in the hearth. Adam turned slowly at the sound of sandals scraping across the soft wool rugs covering the ground, making Tommy stop dead in his tracks. He stared at Adam, heart fluttering wildly in his chest, nervous, breathless, wondering if Adam would turn him away after the hurtful things Tommy had said. He soon discovered that his worry was unfounded. Because Adam’s face brightened for a moment. Then he held out his hand to Tommy in clear invitation.
Tommy almost stumbled to the ground in his mad rush to get to Adam. He fell to his knees beside him and wrapped his arms so tightly around Adam that, for a brief moment, he wondered if Adam could even breathe. But Adam returned the embrace as fiercely as Tommy gave it, and they held each other for several minutes, rocking back and forth softly, each one trying to soothe the other.
Tommy was the one first to break the embrace. He pulled back and sat down facing Adam.
“I’m so sorry for what I said. I didn’t mean a word of it. Please, forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive. I know you didn’t mean it. You were upset.”
“That’s no excuse.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Adam replied. “I don’t want to waste a single second of the time we have left worrying about things that don’t matter.”
“You’re right.”
Tommy shifted on the floor, turning so that he was sitting beside Adam instead of opposite him. Then he rested his head against Adam’s shoulder and stared into the fireplace. The crackling of the fire was the only sound in the room for a long while. Finally, Adam broke the silence.
“Where have you been?”
“Out there. I wandered around for a few hours, and then I went down to the river.”
“I see.”
“When I was out by the river, I saw these men, these two old men carrying pails of water. They were husbands. It was so obvious in their looks and manner that even a blind man could tell.”
Tommy lifted his head from Adam’s shoulder and shifted to face him once again. “They were so happy, and I couldn’t help but wonder….”
“Wonder what?”
“What if you and I had been ordinary men when we met? Have you thought about that?”
“Every single second for the past twelve hours,” Adam replied. “If you and I were ordinary men, we would be married already, and you would be after me to fold away my clothes and to pick up my mud-caked sandals off the rugs.”
Tommy answered Adam’s sad, half-smile with one of his own. “We would live in a small house near the river,” Tommy said. “You would be a blacksmith and I would be a teacher.”
“We wouldn’t be rich, but we’d be comfortable,” Adam continued.
“And happy,” Tommy added. “So deliriously happy. Because we’d be together. Always.”
“Forever,” Adam finished.
“If we were ordinary men,” Tommy whispered softly, wistfully.
But they weren’t ordinary men. They were kings, and the laws of Ilyria had made it so that they had no right to dream, no right to imagine what might have been.
Later, long after midnight had come and gone, they lay in bed together, Adam’s head pressed against Tommy’s chest, and his arm slung across Tommy’s waist. Tommy’s left hand slid through Adam’s long black hair over and over again while his right hand cradled the sapphire pin, watching the play of lamplight across its gleaming stones. Something gripped him then, a certain fierceness and determination.
“I’ll find a way to see you again,” Tommy said.
Adam shifted to stare at him. “How? Kings rarely meet except in war. You aren’t going to declare war against me, any more than I would ever declare war against you. How will we meet again, when our kingdoms are on opposite ends of Ilyria?”
“You’ll have to trust me. I’ll find a way to see you again. I promise.”
Adam stared at him for a long, quiet moment. Then he set his head against Tommy’s chest once again. “I trust you,” he said. “If you say that you’ll find a way, then I believe you.”
“Good.” Tommy lifted his left hand to Adam’s hair once again and began to slide his fingers through the silky strands. “It will take time, but if you’re patient, I will surprise, and one morning, you’ll wake up to see that I have returned. I’ll find a way, Adam. I swear it.”
* * *
In the end, it took them seven days to assemble Tommy’s caravan. The entire kingdom was in a state of organized chaos as nearly every man and woman hurried to and fro, helping with the preparations. Tailors sat at their trade long into the night, sewing clothes for Tommy, new tunics, dyed in the hunter green hue of the Troain crest. They sewed a dozen flags as well, all embroidered with the golden tiger that symbolized Troianus. Blacksmiths worked for hours on end, making wheels, arrows, swords, spears, and tent rods for the journey. Worker-slaves salted meat and fish and filled jars and tins with preserves for the march. Surgeons refilled their medicine bottles and fashioned new instruments. Even whores sorted out their clothing and packed their bags to follow the King of Troianus’ caravan.
After long deliberations, it was decided that thirty thousand men would follow Tommy back to his kingdom. There would surely be chaos and lawlessness there in the wake of the murder of the old king, and Tommy would need the manpower to put down any rebellions and quiet the civil unrest. It was stunning how many soldiers volunteered to march with him before Adam could even give an order. Adam was humbled to discover that so many of his soldiers had come to admire and respect Tommy this much. Enough to leave their families for at least a year, and possibly more. Enough to lay down their lives and march behind a foreign flag. By the third day, Adam had to turn soldiers away. There were simply too many volunteers.
Finally, after the mad dash of activity, they were finished. That night, Adam stood in his bedchamber, leaning against the door, staring over at where Tommy sat on the edge of their bed, shoulders hunched in misery. As the week had drawn to a close, he had grown quieter and quieter, until he barely spoke a word at all. It was indescribable, the way Adam felt to see him like that. There was none of his easy grace now, none of his laughter, none of his joy. And there was nothing that Adam could do. He was Supreme Protector of Ilyria, second to none, and yet he was powerless to do the one thing he wanted most in the world. To change the laws, to keep Tommy here with him.
Adam walked toward the bed and sat down beside Tommy.
“The preparations are finished. The caravan is ready.”
“I suppose that means that I ride in the morning,” Tommy replied.
“At sunrise.”
Tommy nodded and fell silent again, seemingly lost in thought. Adam watched Tommy, lost in his own thoughts. He wanted so desperately to be able to escort Tommy back to Troianus. But even in this, the laws of Ilyria thwarted them. A caravan can only march under one flag. For two kings to march together, the laws would have to be broken. And so, in a few hours, Tommy would leave, and there was nothing that Adam-for all that he was Supreme Protector of Ilyria-could do to change it.
Without warning, Tommy turned to him, eyes blazing with a strange light.
“Tommy?”
“Come with me.” Before Adam could speak, Tommy grabbed his arm and dragged him off the bed toward one of the fireplaces in the grand room. When they reached it, Tommy sat on the floor and pulled Adam down to him so that they faced each other.
“Tommy, what is it?” Adam asked.
“Give me your left hand.”
When Adam reached out, Tommy took his hand and pressed it to his heart. “Do you feel that?” Tommy asked.
“Of course.”
“I want you to remember this. I want you to remember that no matter how far I travel, I shall always be right here with you. I want you to know that I’ll always be out there, thinking just of you.” Tommy reached out and pressed his left hand to Adam’s chest, right over his heart. “And I know that you’ll be thinking just of me.”
Adam stared into Tommy’s eyes, taking in the desperate, almost wild expression he saw there.
“But if I must go, I shall take a part of you with me.”
“What do you mean?” Adam asked. He stared down at their outstretched arms, hands pressed against each other’s heart at the same time. Then turned his head to stare at the fire burning in the hearth. With a suddenness that was jarring, Adam knew. The Ilyrian marriage rite.
“Tommy, we can’t,” Adam said. “It’s against the law.”
“And so what?” Tommy replied. “No one will ever know except you and me. All the days of my life, I have obeyed every law, and still the Oracle has taken from me. I will go. For Oracle and country, I will return to Troianus. But before I do, this law-this one law-I mean to break.”
“Tommy, don’t do this.”
“I marry you.”
“Tommy, don’t,” Adam whispered. But he made no move to end the rite. How could he, when he had dreamed of precisely this for years, long before the Runners had come bearing their news?
“I marry you.”
“Tommy….”
“I marry you.”
Tommy fell silent then, but his burning gaze spoke volumes. Without words, he begged Adam to accept him, to break this one law, to give over this part of himself.
“I accept,” Adam replied.
And just like that, it was sealed. They were married.
That night, they made love like dying men. They fell into their bed, hands pulling roughly at clothing, fingers ripping carelessly when the fabric wouldn’t give quickly enough. They spent most of the night in a tangle of limbs, hopelessly entwined as they traced over each other’s skin, committing every line and every hollow to memory. Adam pushed into Tommy, slow and hard and deep. But it wasn’t enough. He couldn’t seem to get deep enough. He wanted to reach into Tommy’s innermost core, to mark him where nothing-not even the Oracle-could ever erase his scent from Tommy’s body. No matter how close he got, it wasn’t enough. Never enough. And then, it was morning.
The palace slaves came at the dawn’s first light. Adam watched as they bathed and dressed Tommy, biting down hard on his bottom lip to hold in the cry of despair that threatened to break when they pulled the hunter green fabric onto his body. Not even the sight of the sapphire pin clipped to Tommy’s tunic could mitigate the sharpness of the hopelessness he felt. When Tommy was ready, Adam pulled on his own clothes quickly and marched out to the front of the palace where the caravan was already in formation. Adam moved slowly, deliberately, placing one foot in front of the other, trying to keep his head above the water. Too fast. Everything he had ever wanted was slipping through his fingers so fast, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
Outside, Kristopher was already waiting. Adam watched Tommy walk up to him. “Goodbye, old friend,” he heard Tommy say before pulling Kristopher into a tight embrace. After a long moment, Tommy pulled away and came back to Adam.
“I suppose this is goodbye,” Tommy said.
“No, it isn’t. You’ll come back again. Just as you promised,” Adam said, holding on to an impossible hope.
“You’re right. This isn’t goodbye. So instead, I’ll say this. I’ll see you later.”
With considerable effort, Adam managed to smile. “I’ll see you later,” he replied.
They embraced then, holding each other for a long moment. Finally, Tommy pulled away and went to his horse. Adam watched, feigned smile held in place with the fiercest of determination. He watched as Tommy mounted his horse and took his place in the caravan formation. He watched as the caravan marched off. He watched until the last man disappeared along the road that led toward the city gates. He watched until there was nothing left to see, and then he ran into the palace, not stopping until he’d reached their empty bedchamber.
Adam fell to his knees before the dying fire, the same fire that had sealed his and Tommy’s marriage the night before. Had it really only been a few hours? It seemed impossible. Already, it felt like ages ago. Already, the memory was fading from him-Tommy was fading away from him. Adam clawed at his tunic frantically. He had been a good man, hadn’t he? He had been a good son and a good friend, hadn’t he? So why had the Oracle stripped him of everything once again? Why had the Oracle left him here alone, unable to remember what Tommy’s kiss felt like, what his lips tasted like? Had Adam told Tommy that he loved him? He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t-
Adam raced out of the room and down the grand staircase and out into to the courtyard. He surprised the grooms when he appeared in the stables, jumped onto a horse, and rode off without even bothering with a saddle or reins. He rode faster than he ever had before, spurring the animal onto breakneck speed until he rode out of the city gates and reached the caravan.
“Wait!” he cried. “Wait!”
When they stopped marching, Adam pulled to a stop as well and alighted his horse. By then, Tommy had already emerged from the formation, alarm pulling his features tight.
“Adam, what happened? What happened?! You’re crying.”
Crying? In a daze, Adam raised a hand to his face and started with surprise when his fingers came away wet with tears.
“I couldn’t breathe. You were fading from me already, and I couldn’t breathe. And then I couldn’t remember if I’d told you that I love you. I couldn’t remember, and so I had to come. I had to get to you. To tell you that I love you. I love you so much, Tommy. I love you so much.”
Adam’s words came in an almost incoherent jumble, interspersed with hitching sobs as tears continued to fall. Within seconds, Tommy was crying too, shoulders trembling as he pulled Adam close to him. For once, Adam didn’t concern himself with appearances and what a king should and shouldn’t do. He was losing everything that mattered to him, and he didn’t give a damn who saw.
“I love you too. I love you, Adam.” Tommy murmured the words against the curve of Adam’s neck.
“I love you,” Adam murmured again, when Tommy finally pulled back.
“I know. I need to you hold on, Adam. I need you to hold on until I come back again. Someday soon, I’ll return home to where I’m meant to be. Remember what I promised you. I’ll find a way, Adam. I swear it. But I need you to hold on until then. Can you do that for me, Adam?”
“Yes.”
“Watch the horizon, and wait for me. Never let go, Adam.”
“I promise. I’ll never let go.”
They kissed then, a hard, desperate caress, more intense and heartfelt than anything that had ever come before. When they broke apart, Tommy gave Adam one last longing look before he slipped back into the formation and mounted his horse.
A minute later, the caravan began to march again. Adam watched them go. For hours, he remained rooted to the spot, watching until they became little more than a hazy speck on the horizon. Then he mounted his horse once more and road back into Elysia, toward his palace and a lifetime without the man he loved.
Ten months later, Runners came bearing news of King Thomas Joseph’s victory over the warring factions in his kingdom. A year and a half after they had left home, the Elysian soldiers returned, flush with stories of the Troian king’s bravery and cunning. Adam smiled and nodded when they spoke, and tried not to reveal the fact that each new tale shredded his heart anew. As two more years passed, the stories eventually ceased and they received no more than intermittent reports from that faraway kingdom.
Five years after Tommy left Elysia, Adam recalled his soldiers from the other five kingdoms. He was finished with the business of empire. This sudden turn was unsurprising to those who truly knew him. He had never wanted land or tribute in the first place; his campaign across Ilyria had been about revenge and nothing more. It was then that the whispers began in the former protectorates. Rumors abounded about the former Supreme Protector. They called him weak and impotent. They called him mad and hopeless. Eventually, the king of Macedon, buoyed by the rumors, declared war on Elysia and marched on the city. His defeat was swift, furious, and bloody. The Macedonian king’s fall served as an example to any other would-be invaders. Now they all knew that though Lord Lambert had lost his taste for war, he had not forgotten how to wage it.
No more armies came after that, and for years, Elysia was at peace. By the sixth year, Adam was once again the man he had been before Tommy entered his world. He was quiet, cryptic, slow to smile, solitary. Each day, he would spend hours watching the horizon, waiting for a man that never appeared.
He never took another man as his lover and never allowed anyone but Kristopher to be close to him. By the seventh year, misery had etched deep lines into his face, and he looked like a shell of the man he had once been. It was then that he finally fulfilled his obligation to his kingdom and took a wife. She was a simple girl, though high-born. A nobleman’s daughter who had known the former High-Consort and understood that her marriage to Adam would be one of convenience only. Within a year, the queen gave Adam his first son, Thomas. The next year, Matthias followed, but while the boy lived, his mother did not. Adam mourned her, for she had become a friend to him by then.
The years passed quickly after that, the frantic pace broken only by the occasional news from Troianus. King Thomas Joseph had successfully beaten back two invasions from the Outerlands. He’d also taken a wife, Josephine, who had borne him two sons and a daughter. Adam heard it said, more than once, that Princess Leila of Troianus was the most beautiful woman in all the six kingdoms. He never once doubted the truth behind such high praise.
The years kept moving him along, rushing by at dizzying speed until thirty years had passed and Adam was an old man with wrinkled skin and thinning, grey hair. He still watched the horizon for hours each day, waiting for Tommy to return. Some days, his hand still throbbed with the memory of Tommy’s heart beating beneath his palm. Other days, Adam swore he could still smell Tommy’s scent in their bedchamber. And at night, deep in the dark hours of the night, Adam still held Tommy’s hand in his as he slept, as he glided through dreams where he held Tommy close, where he kissed him and made love to him again.
For years and years, Adam held on, just like he had promised, until that morning, thirty eight years later, when Adam woke up and knew, with a certainty that was unshakeable, that Tommy was dead. No news or rumors of illness had come, and yet Adam knew. He could feel it beneath his skin, and in his bones, a palpable emptiness that had never been there before in all the years he had spent waiting. That day, for the first time in almost four decades, Adam did not watch the horizon. He knew now that Tommy would never appear in the distance.
And so that evening, Adam lay down in his bed, an old man weighed down by sadness and loss, waiting once more. Before, he had waited for his lover to return. Now he waited only for death to come. It was all that he could do. Because even in this, the laws of Ilyria were clear.
A man who cannot change his fate, must learn to endure it.
Epilogue