“Do we have any choice?”
Flopping down onto the bed with his feet still planted on the floor, Drayce scrubbed his hands over his face. “No,” he admitted, though it came out muffled.
“Don’t tell Caelan what I’ve said, though.”
That jolted Drayce upright in a hurry. “What? Why not?”
“Because it’s only twenty pieces, Drayce. I’m making leaps in logic that I shouldn’t be. Too much on my gut and not enough on hard information. That’s not the kind of thing you base important decisions on. I’ll tell Caelan my worries. I just want to think on it all a while longer.”
Drayce groaned. “Fine, but you gotta tell him soon. This is all a mess, and it’s obviously not getting any better.”
“Do…do you think Caelan suspects about Eno and me?”
He nearly choked on the air in his lungs at that question. Drayce cleared his throat a couple of times to actually get some words out. “You know Cael is my best friend in the world, and I think he’s brilliant.” He stopped and made a face. “But he’s not exactly all that quick when it comes to relationship-type things. I don’t think he’s noticed anything between you and Eno. I’m sure he thinks today’s blowup was you finally getting fed up with Eno’s bossiness or something like that.”
Rayne looked at him with that laser-focus of his, and Drayce suddenly felt the urge to crawl under the bed. He liked it better when Rayne was lost in his own thoughts and not studying him.
“Speaking from experience?” Rayne drawled.
“Huh?”
“Caelan not noticing relationship-type things. Like how he never noticed that you’ve been completely infatuated with him since high school.”
The blood rushed from Drayce’s face straight to his feet. “Oh…shit,” he mumbled, but his brain still wasn’t completely working. Rayne fucking saw way too much. “You caught that, huh?”
“I was bluffing, actually. Nothing more than a guess, but you just confirmed it for me.”
Now it was Drayce’s turn to stare at his hands. His companion wasn’t exactly radiating approval right now. He knew better than to expect that. Caelan was the prince—no, king of Erya. Assuming they made it through all this mess with their heads still attached to their bodies, Cael would either follow in the footsteps of his mother and never marry, or he would probably be married to someone who was a good political match. Someone like Prince Shey Thrudesh-Vo of Caspagir.
“It’s not like I ever expected anything to happen. I know who he is, who he has to be,” Drayce said, cringing a little at his defensive tone. Maybe because he’d begged for that kiss while they were cooking, knowing full well that he was a poor match for someone like Caelan Talos.
“It’s not about who he has to be, but the road that’s stretching out ahead of him,” Rayne started with surprising gentleness. “He’s chasing gods, and we’re all facing a battle against a goddess if we can’t stop her in time. Distractions and temptations are a dangerous thing right now. One wrong move and we could doom Thia.”
Drayce nodded. “Got it. Caelan can’t take his eye off the ball, and we can’t give him an excuse to be distracted.”
They sat in silence, minutes ticking by and the only sound in the room was their breathing. Yes, he’d been right. He and Rayne had far more in common than either had been willing to admit.
Rayne broke the silence first, his voice low and kind. “For what it’s worth, if the world wasn’t falling apart right now, I think you would have made a great Hagen for Caelan.”
Drayce gasped and jerked his gaze to his hands folded tightly together in his lap. He rapidly blinked away the rush of tears and swallowed against the lump in his throat. He wished he could explain the hundred ways in which that statement brought him absolute joy, but there was no point. “I would have loved to have been his Hagen,” he whispered roughly, meaning it down in the deepest depths of his soul.
“But there’s no reason for him to find out about Eno and me. I don’t want it affecting his decisions.” He paused and gave Drayce a small smile.
A loud bark of laughter jumped from Drayce, and he let it push out the bittersweetness that had tainted his earlier happiness. “Oh, he won’t hear that from me. I’m happy to let you and Eno dig that grave on your own. I’ll just sit back and wait for him to explode when he finds out you were hiding it from him.”
He’d expected Rayne to say something snarky, but a shattered look of sadness filled his eyes again. “I don’t think there’s a point in telling him anything about that. I have a feeling it’s all over now.”
Drayce reached out and gave Rayne’s shoulder a shove. “You need to stop that bullshit right now. You fucking slugged the guy. You broke his jaw, probably knocked out a tooth. You broke your own hand. You wouldn’t do that if you feel nothing for him.”