“I must disagree.” Arden continued to sound mild but Mattin wasn’t fooled. Arden was crafty, as many a beat-of-four in the palace had learned too late.
“First, you disappear for three days,” Mil remarked, “then you show up looking like the fae brought you back from death.”
That wasn’t an idle comparison. Mattin raised his head without thinking and found Mil glaring at him and Arden together. Arden had quite famously been brought back to life by the fae after dying in Mil’s arms. Mattin turned toward him too, then away when Arden reached out to stroke his husband’s cheek with the back of one hand.
“I am sorry, my love,” he said, as he always said whenever that day was mentioned. Since it was part of how Arden had ended up on the throne, it was mentioned frequently.
“Be that as it may,” Mil continued grumpily after a few moments of silence that left Mattin dizzy, “there’s still something wrong with our Sass.”
It tricked Mattin into looking up again. He did his best to focus. “There isn’t,” he insisted. “Anyway, we have more important matters to discuss. I’m sorry I was absent, but I have the information you requested on the old Savirin lands.”
“Now that I think on it,” Arden commented in a suddenly breezy tone, “I seem to recall you being absent like this once before, Keeper Arlylian. At least once. When you first started to come to council meetings.” He took a bun from the plate before Mattin, tore it in two, and held one of the halves out to Mattin until Mattin took it.
The bun smelled amazing. Mattin’s stomach gurgled loudly enough to probably be heard by the distant guards and he ducked his head to try to eat with some decorum instead of shoving the whole thing in his mouth.
The rest of the bun was placed in his hand before he’d finished chewing. He looked up. Arden gazed back at him. The light in his eyes might have been fondness or it might have been playful teasing about Mattin’s appetite that Arden held in. “There’s more,” Arden told him, voice a little rough, “help yourself.”
Mattin glanced to Mil, who had a similar light in his eyes. For that reason, despite his gnawing hunger, Mattin took his time breaking the bun into smaller pieces to finish it, eating each one as neatly and carefully as possible. Then he went back to his tea. He wasn’t about to get teased for eating like a beast in front of them. They wouldn’t care; they were used to life outside the palace and the rough work of outguards, but they knew Mattin thought differently about such matters.
Soft hands, Mil also liked to call him. Orsparkly wee thing. The kind of person to use a daintily painted teacup and not the sturdy mugs they used.
“I know how to feed myself.” Mattin said it firmly.
“You sure about that?” Mil squinted at him. “Are you thinner than usual too? Fuck me, I know he’s a Master Keeper at the Great Library, but a keeper of his own is what he needs. Someone to take a stand when he works all night and falls asleep in his chair or forgets his cloak for the dozenth time.”
Arden handed Mattin another bun from Mattin’s own plate. Well, from the plate of buns they had given him.
“You could eat your own breakfasts, instead of nitpicking mine,” Mattin grumbled at them, then jolted. “That wasn’t sass,” he added quickly. “It wasn’t.”
Mil grinned widely. “Feeling better already to be sassing his king like that.”
Mattin slouched down in his chair to tear his bun apart. Even with that, he managed to finish it in record time.
“A third?” Arden asked smoothly. “Or perhaps some fruit first?”
“How do you even have those buns here anyway?” Mattin wondered,notwith sass, while accepting the orange slice Arden put into his palm. He hadn’t even seen Arden peel the orange but he could smell it in the air, the citrus new and sharp among the warm tea and the honey on the buns. Beneath that, he could still smell Arden and Mil, their scentshotin that way that Gifted scents were, strong and only stronger when Mattin was weakened. The cool mint seemed entirely gone.
“Asked for ‘em,” Mil said around his slice of orange, which Arden continued to hand to each of them without taking any for himself. “You feeling better? You sure?”
“He doesn’t want us to fuss, my love,” Arden told his husband, sounding so deeplysaddenedby this that even though Mattin knew that Arden was doing it to get a response from him, he looked up with his protest ready.
His protest fell to nothing. They were both watching him expectantly, maybe even hopefully. It was a trick meant to tease the truth from him because they were nosy and Arden was commanding, but also because, for whatever reason, they cared.
Mattin shivered. Hehadforgotten his cloak today, but in his defense, he wasn’t chilled. He wouldn’t feel the cold again until at least tomorrow.
If he explained that, Mil would argue that Mattin’s body was still affected by the cold even if Mattin didn’t want to admit it, and he’d do better to be bundled up. Then Arden would gently chide Mil for scolding him before saying something about winter illnesses and how easily they spread, and Mattin would end up going back to his room for a cloak despite how it would take time from his schedule.
It wasn’t because Mattin was a Blessed and they were Gifted, though many might think so, assuming that just because a Blessed might demand to be taken care of in bed, they wanted that the rest of the time too. It was simply that it was nice to have anyone care about Mattin here in the capital, far from home and his family. Mattin was, after all, the youngest of a youngest, and except for within the Great Library’s walls, he was not especially noticeable or interesting. Unlike his king and his king’s beloved husband.
They were both so incredible, Mattin reflected with a sadness of his own. Remarkable for leaving the palace behind when they had been younger than Mattin was now, and returning only out of duty. Heroes, the two of them. They had saved the palace and everyone in it from the last tyrannical and murderous ruler, with one of them dying in the attempt and the other acting so bravely songs had been written about it. Then they’d chosen to stay here to govern despite Arden’s fear of acting cruelly like so many in his family had when they had ruled—the Canamorra were a family ancient, proud, and often terrible. Since then, he and Mil had worked hard to keep the peace, which only made them more heroic, at least to Mattin. And then, of course, both of them were fatally attractive in different ways: Mil, big and broad and seemingly rough. Arden, dark and watchful and only slightly smaller than his husband.
And Gifted, when many whispered that the fae-gifted were meant to serve the fae-blessed. It wasn’t fair.
Mattin wouldn’t have allowed himself to dwell on it if he’d been feeling better.
He sighed tiredly and ignored how alarmed they both grew at the sound.
“If you two weren’t so…you, you’d recognize that I’m not ill. I’m just post-fever,” he said to the refilled cup of tea set in front of him. “That’s all. I’m Blessed. Didn’t you know?” He’d always assumed others could smell it the way he could smell them. Most Gifted certainly seemed to have no trouble finding a Blessed if they wanted one, and those in between did as they pleased.
