“Why do you even want to marry me?” Certainly not for the usual reasons people in Tirglas married.
Those hazel eyes blinked up at him. “Because you are my light, my flame eternal. I love you.” A flush of golden light seemed to glow around the man as he spoke. The Goddess’ own timing in the gust of leaves and the angle of the sun.
Hamish’s heart still fluttered at the sight. “But that’s nae how it works here.” Love could be a factor, granted, but there was so much more. “Children are expected after a wedding.”
“I recall you stating something along those lines some time back. Two years, was it?” Darshan bowed his head. “I have never been this deep into a relationship. You are aware of that. And marriage? If you had told me when we first met that I would want to marry… I would have found the mere concept alarming.”
When we first met. A month had passed since then. So much had happened that Hamish would never have been able to predict. He had been prepared for his mother to attempt an alliance between himself and a Udynean noblewoman. Instead, the Goddess had sent him the chance to fall in love when he’d thought it lost to him.
“Truth be told,” Darshan continued. “I have no idea where we are headed or where I want to be.” He brushed the hair back from his forehead, fisting the strands. “As for how to get there…” A sigh gusted out his lips, his shoulders seeming to deflate with the escaping air. “Back home, love in marriage, especially amongst the nobility, is a rare thing to have. Personal feelings are often pushed aside in favour of forming strong political ties and even stronger bloodlines.”
“You get neither of them by marrying me. Me mum will never accept our marriage as anything but a sham.” He wasn’t even sure if she would recognise Darshan as the victor.
His lover shrugged. “If your mother sees no merit behind acknowledging the alliance it would make between our kingdoms, then I am afraid that cannot be helped.”
I suppose. Perhaps his siblings would have better luck after Darshan was beyond his mother’s sight. He doubted it, but it was the best chance until she was gone and Gordon took the throne.
“That being said, we do not need to have children to solidify such an alliance.”
His stomach twisted at the thought. It wasn’t just convention that made Darshan’s statement a dubious one. “But I want to be a father.” The admission was out before he could reel it back.
Darshan stopped midstride. His head snapped around, those hazel eyes wide.
“I always thought I would be,” he rambled on, all the words pushing for their chance to escape. “Even as a young lad, I had believed it a path I could claim.” The idea of sleeping with some poor woman his mother had picked for him, of dragging her through it all had been what’d stopped him from voicing his paternal desire to anyone else.
His lover remained as still as a deer looking for danger. The lump in his throat bobbed as he audibly swallowed.
Hamish scratched his nose with the back of a thumb. “I guess you’re going to call me foolish and sentimental?”
Finally, something other than stark terror crossed Darshan’s face, curving his lips into a watery smile. “There are worse things to be.” His gaze returned to the forest whilst he toyed with his little finger. “Forgive me, mea lux, I had no idea you felt this way.”
“That’s why we needed to talk.”
“Clearly. It is just—” A sigh sagged his lover’s shoulders. “It is a lot to think on after everything else. If you would permit me the time to mull over the idea?” He clasped Hamish’s hand. “And we shall have far more of it once these trials are over.”
Did they? How much time did they really have to spare? He’d two more harrowing nights of sleep before Darshan’s participation in the union contest was revealed. That couldn’t be long enough to mull over the idea of children. “Dinnae think that means you can take forever.”
The smile Darshan gave was a small one, creased with concern. He caressed Hamish’s cheek. “It is not something to be considered lightly. There will be—” He grimaced. “—obstacles back home. But I shall consider it thoroughly. And I swear you shall have an answer before we set foot on Udynean soil.”
Nodding, Hamish returned to walking through the forest. What obstacles could possibly prevent an imperial prince from being a father? Was the crown prince the only one allowed to sire heirs? It sounded like something the Udynean court would enforce. But then why would the Mhanek be concerned about Darshan choosing to not have children?
Hamish pressed his lips tighter together. If he let his thoughts wander in endless circles, allowed another word to slip free, he’d wind up bombarding Darshan with more questions that could have the man fleeing.
But his mind was nowhere near as cooperative as his mouth in staying still.
Were there other dangers in raising children in the imperial palace? Assassins. Darshan was only here because the previous ambassador had been killed. Surely, no one would attempt such a thing on a small baby. They tried with us.
Hamish felt along his head, to the scar buried deep beneath his hair. He’d been eleven when those ruffians had tried to slaughter him and Caitlyn.
Fire. His thoughts turned back to that fateful day. Most considered of it as the time his younger sister had revealed herself to be a spellster.
He didn’t remember much after one of the scunners had hit him from behind, but there’d been screaming. At first, it was just his sister’s piercing cry, then the men as she unleashed the power of a furnace on the bastards. And fear.
Hamish rubbed his hands, which seemed hotter than they should’ve been. Not sweaty, just uncomfortably warm.
Darshan eyed him, but whatever caused the
