No. The warmth within Tiiran would not be displaced.
They had both sat with him on a dusty rug before a fire and made him feel loved.Loved. That was the warmth. Belonging and heat and safety. Passion.
Love.
Tiiran pulled in a long breath and felt himself hot at the shells of his ears and then down his neck.
Whatever Nikoly and Orin had been up to in the palace, together or separately, they had given Tiiran that. No one else ever had.
He didn’t really care about their reasons, even if theyhadbeen using him, even if it was all lies. Anyway, treason was the way of things in this palace, with the succession of failed rulers stretching back twenty years or more. And Piya had proven himself to the hog-fucker Tiiran had once called him.
“I understand.” He raised his head.
Captain Pash was trying to make Tiiran side with him against Orin and Nikoly in order to get Tiiran to tell him all he knew of them. They must be guilty—or suspicious enough—to warrant that. Which meant they both were likely gone for good.
Tiiran had known Nikoly wasn’t honest. He’d said as much to Orin. He felt a little foolish now to think of it, and all those conversations between them that had been above Tiiran’s head.Roses, he had called how they spoke to each.Poetry.But perhaps not. Maybe it had only been code to keep secrets.
Tiiran met Pash’s stare and Pash raised his chin. One of the guards behind him took a small step away. Tiiran imagined his eyes had gone black.
If Orin and Nikoly ever returned, they were probably as good as dead. Jola hadn’t done anything suspicious and she’d been taken. So, they must not return. They must have no reason to.
“That’swhat brought you here?” Tiiran demanded, as rude as he fucking pleased no matter how his voice shook. “A thousand rumors travel through this palace every single day, and you chose the ones about a library assistant taking lovers?Thisis how you safeguard the ruler and the realm? Palace guards get pretty new armor but meanwhile the palace itself is only half run, if that.” He’d surprised them. If they’d come into the library before, they would have expected Tiiran’s temper. Not that they were here for his temper. All of Orin and Nikoly’s worry, always calling Tiiran the danger, whentheywere the ones the Palace Guard were after.
Tiiran almost laughed. Then he realized they might have been cautioning Tiiran for their own sakes.
But the warmth remained. He stillfeltloved, even if he wasn’t.
He focused on Pash. “That anything gets done in the palace, perhaps in the country, is because the people devoted to it have kept it going. Piya hasn’t even bothered to choose a palace Head of House.”
“Assistant Tiiran,” Pash interrupted, voice growing cooler, “you should watch what you say.”
“Oh, I am.” This time, Tiiran was not speaking without thinking. “You are in the Great Library, built to support the rulers of this country, to help them govern with fairness and justice. This library is only a few years younger than the country itself. And yet it is all we can do to keep this library functional, something certainly not aided by the current piss-stain on the throne.” The rattle of armor punctuated his words, palace guards startled into reacting. Tiiran curled his lip in a snarl. “He doesn’t rule. He spends all his time ordering banners put up and arresting perceived threats—sorry, havingthe Palace Guarddo all that for him like scullery help cleaning up a kitchen mess. He doesn’t govern—not even his own palace. He doesn’t even use or trust his own Outguard—who exist to help him just as the library does. And yet he suspects treason being plottedhere? Do you know whatdoesget plotted here? How to keep the library going on what little funds the treasury gives us, even though our job is to serve him. Yet do you see a Master Keeper at his council meetings? No! Because he doesn’thavecouncil meetings, the useless saddle-goose.”
Niksa moved at the edge of his vision, desperately shaking his head, doubtless to tell Tiiran to shut up.
Tiiran refused. “I’m not the only one to think so, though I might be the only one to say so, and if he were to set foot in the library he put his family name on, I would say it to his face. People want peace, you know. They want a good ruler so they can live their lives with only the usual of life’s troubles. If he’d wanted support as a king, all he had to do was his job. I bet most of the nobles feel the same. Not even nobles couldallbe that stupid as to want the throne.”
Pash spoke through gritted teeth. “Be quiet.”
“Why?” Tiiran asked honestly. “Who’s to hear me but you three? You can’t even trust your own people not to blab about the lack of respect anyone has for him? That says more about the guard than it does about me. Oh,” Tiiran realized out loud, mind and mouth moving fast, “if Piya is hiding in his rooms, then who is there to give him information and influence himbutyou? If there is treason here, it’s with you, isn’t it? If you want the throne, you’re dumber than even the nobles.”
“Quiet him.” Pash glanced back when one guard moved forward but the other didn’t.
“But he’sfae.” It was the smallest whisper from the frightened guard. The other only continued to come closer.
Tiiran glanced quickly to Niksa, so pale and worried, and regretted making yet another assistant witness this. But if Niksa stayed hidden, he should be able to get out of the library unscathed. Niksa was so sour already, in pain so often. The fae ought to interfere at least once to grant him something sweet.
Tiiran faced the guard just as the guard reached him, and then Tiiran was on his toes, his robe tight at his neck as the guard lifted him to nearly leave him dangling.
“Quick to speak of treason, aren’t you?” Pash demanded, closer now and looking at Tiiran with interest. “Perhaps I asked you the wrong questions.”
“Scullery help,” Tiiran wheezed at him, and was dropped to his feet in time to glimpse the fist swinging toward him.
From his position on the floor, gasping with half his face pounding and one eye unable to open, the sudden, hushed conference over what to do with a mouthy, possibly traitorous assistant who unfortunately had fae blood seemed very distant.
His vision darkened, sparkling at the edges. He didn’t remember Lanth shaking when they’d taken her, but she might have. A useless detail to bother him; that wasn’t the part of her story now, only that she had been dragged from the library.
Tiiran wet his lips and looked up. He wasn’t like Lanth, not for this, not for almost anything, but people might assume so. Orin and Nikoly would if they heard of it. Tiiran wished that someday they would know the truth; as much as he loved it, the library wasn’t Tiiran’s home. He had knownhomeonly with them.
