Chapter 72: It Won’t Happen Again.

Chapter 72: Chapter 72: It Won’t Happen Again.

"Fuck, it feels like Jaga caved my fuckin’ face in," Montrel laments as they plod their way away from the training grounds under the watchful eye of Vogrid.

There probably wasn’t even going to be any food left by the time they got to the dining hall, all because their king’s prissy attendant hadn’t wanted to get his floor dirty.

It was a castle . Floors got dirty.

"I thought you’d be used to it by now," Khobi snorts back, and the withering glare Montrel sends him doesn’t have quite the desired effect since the bridge of his nose is starting to puff up kinda bad. Not that Khobi had ever really been intimidated by him. He must be losing his touch.

"C’mon," he declares, "Let’s get some food. I’m fuckin’ starving."

It’s a safe bet that Khobi is too. In part because he’s been running his ass off, and in part because he’s always starving.

Predictably, Khobi’s stomach growls at the mention of food. Their companions are still being brushed down back in the barracks but they know their way to the dining hall by now so neither of them feel too guilty for not waiting.

Hot food waits for no man, and after the nightmare of the morning they’d pushed through, they’ve earned it.

As they walk, Montrel wonders at how eerie the castle sometimes seems. He grew up within these walls, and yet its vastness still manages to leave him in awe.

In the winter months it always seems especially huge --there was something about the cold, and the rain, that left the castle halls quiet.

Families tucked themselves away by their hearths, the courtyards sat empty and lonely and dripping, and the soldiers did their best to avoid being out when the storms and the snows came.

It’s like that today.

The cold months haven’t come yet, but after the sudden rain this morning they sure feel close.

It’s on days like this, in the cold after a miserable downpour, that Montrel kinda wishes he had a wife to go home to. Finding one’s been on his to-do list (and his mother’s) for a while now,he’s just never really gotten around to it.

It’d be nice, he thinks wistfully, to be able to go home after a long, cold day out in the rain, and see a pretty face waiting for him by the fire.

He hasn’t found her yet, so there’s no one waiting for him at home, but he’s sure (despite Gandy’s rude comments) that one day there will be.

She’ll be pretty, he thinks, but not spectacularly so, and a great cook, and a little bit of an airhead, but in a way he finds endearing.

His thoughts turn briefly to Khobi, plodding alongside him, and he grimaces as he suddenly remembers that not everyone is so lucky.

Poor bastard , he sighs to himself, shaking his head, because he can’t imagine too many fates worse than sharing a life with his problem of a prince. Who wants to go home every night to find someone else sharing their bed? If there’s even anyone there at all.

"What’s that face for?" Khobi asks, looking at him strangely. Montrel hurriedly smooths out his expression --he’s been told he has a bad habit of wearing his opinions about the prince too openly. "Did Jaga punch you too hard?"

"Nothin’ like that," Montrel growls back, shaking his head like it’s nothing Khobi should be concerned with. And maybe he shouldn’t be. Better not to remind the kid about the grim future that’s speeding towards him.

Khobi always got pretty touchy whenever someone brought that up.

"I hope the kitchens made honey cakes today."

"Huh? Honey cakes?" Khobi remarks flatly, raising an eyebrow. "...Didn’t know you liked em."

"Eh? So what if I do?" Montrel scoffs back, even though he’s never really been overly partial to them. Too sweet. "...Just got a weird craving for em today, is all."

"...Right."

Montrel’s just about to point out that Khobi’s not one to talk when it comes to food preferences, when he becomes suddenly, and frightfully aware of how loud their voices sound.

He’s been told --often --that his voice has a certain volume to it, but it’s something he rarely notices.

Right now, in the silence of this corridor, he notices.

Beside him, Khobi hesitates.

Something’s up, and he feels it too. The only difference is that he knows what it is.

" --Hey, Khobi," he says, voice dropping low as he stares ahead into the empty corridor beyond them. It’s not just silent, it’s still .

The servants here tread light, and flit like shadows, but they’re not invisible, and give every wall a set of eyes. For a corridor to be this empty, it can only be because they’re staying away.

Brow furrowed, he grabs Khobi by the arm and tugs to try and wheel him away. "...Let’s go a different way."

"This way’s quickest," Khobi reminds him, shrugging him off like he couldn’t care less about the unpleasant emptiness in the air.

(Two differences, then.)

He’s right, but Montrel very much doesn’t want to go that way.

"Yeah, but --"

He isn’t quick enough to make some excuse for why they should be anywhere but here. Khobi’s already stalking off ahead of him, and Montrel’s seen enough of the guy these days to know when he’s on edge.

"Well, fuck," is all he can say, and follows.

Maybe it’ll be fine , he tries to tell himself, feeling the prickle of wandering eyes crawl across skin and down the side of his face.

There’s a corridor looming a pace ahead, it seems darker than all the rest, and an unnatural shadow hangs off of it, like it’s leeching from the hallway to suck away light.

Even as he tries to convince himself, he finds himself gritting his teeth. Maybe he won’t see us .

"Montrel."

They almost make it.

Montrel pauses half a heartbeat at the sound of his name, and then keeps on walking. The low growl of the voice that spoke it is enough to make him want to snarl, but he knows too well that if he doesn’t keep his cool right now, then no one will.

"Keep it movin’ Khobi," he grits out, hand pressing insistently against Khobi’s shoulder blade to keep him from turning back.

The kid puts up resistance but thankfully doesn’t stop dead in his tracks, which gives him just enough confidence to fling a sour look back over his shoulder.

"...What do you want?" he asks flatly, eyes tracing the familiar figure in the shadows and meeting a pair of narrowed blue eyes.

Loac just stares right through him, and Montrel shivers.

"It’s been a while," the prince finally answers, in that long, bored drawl he loves so much, and that Montrel can’t stand. He shrugs, and the shadows shift around him like a living thing. "...Haven’t seen you round much."

Beside him, Montrel feels Khobi tense.

"I’ve been busy," Montrel snaps back, just half a tone from rude. "Maybe you don’t know how it is. I can’t spend all my time chasing you around."

"...I ’spose not," Loac replies, after some consideraton. His eyes snap briefly to Khobi, and then away again --the movement so quick Montrel’s almost certain he imagined it. "Gurdet give you somethin’ new to chase?"

"Yeah, he did, actually," he shoots back dryly, and the hand that clenches on Khobi’s bicep as the redhead turns is more than a warning. "He’s a lot more fun that you."

Montrel already doesn’t like this at all. His interaction with Loac is usually limited to bursting in on his prince in the midst of some sort of lewd act and cussing him out as he attempted to drag him by his collar before the king.

To just unknowingly stumble upon him, in a castle of this size was about as unlikely as it was unlucky.

Moreover, this isn’t one of Loac’s usual haunts. He likes the castle barns, and the roofs of towers, and other peoples’ bedchambers.

Places like this were too noisy and were usually crowded, and didn’t get nearly enough sun.

Had he been waiting for them?

"Is he now?" Loac’s voice changes, just a little, and Montrel thinks he likes it even less than before. This time, when his eyes rove away to Khobi, they linger. "I heard he took down Rogard."

When he looks, Montrel’s very concerned to find that Khobi is glaring right on back.

"Hardly," he says quickly, before Khobi can say anything, because the guy has a history of bad behaviour around his betrothed. "Drogger stepped in."

" --But I would’ve ," Khobi butts in, elbowing Montrel aside. By mistake or by design, his elbow catches Montrel on the nose and makes his eyes water.

He doubles over, holding his face, and the way to Loac suddenly becomes clear. "If Drogger hadn’t stopped us, then I would’ve --"

"So you didn’t," Loac infers flatly, looking away, annoyed. "Tsk, I should’ve known..."

"What’s that supposed to mean? You lookin’ for another fist to the face, asshole ?" he growls, striding up to meet him and ignoring the way blue eyes dust frost over his skin wherever they trail.

With his back to the wall, Loac has nowhere to run, but barely even flinches when Khobi storms up to meet him.

He’s only an inch taller, but from the way he holds himself it might have been a foot.

From this distance he’s close enough to see the yellowing outline of the bruise fading over one of his eyes. It’s quite satisfying.

"That was a lucky shot," Loac shoots back coolly, hand rising subconsciously to trace the discoloured skin under his eye.

His eyes narrow, infinitesimally, and his next words sound like a warning. "It won’t happen again."

"Oh, you think so, huh?"

" --Khobi," Montrel says, and the hesitation in his voice is obvious and unusual. He tries to lay a hand on his shoulder but Khobi shrugs him off without too much effort.

That’s when he sees the knife.

It’s little more than a glint of sunlight off silver, but Khobi’s been attacked enough times to know a blade when he sees one.

It comes sweeping out of the shadows, and time stops.

Khobi’s heart beats in his chest, just once.

Fast , is the only thing he can think, before his body starts moving on its own.

Without thinking, he slams a hand into Montrel’s chest and shoves him out of the way, and the blade cuts uselessly through space where he’d been, heading straight for Khobi’s ribs.

It never makes it.