Frederik was beginning to suspect that one of the great failures of his life had been mistaking quietness for weakness.

It was, at this point, an error so thoroughly disproven by reality that even thinking it felt insulting to the man currently straddling his hips with the composed authority of someone who had never once doubted where power sat between them.

Cecil looked down at him, dark hair slightly out of place, expression calm in that dangerous way that usually meant he had already made a decision and was simply waiting for the rest of the world to catch up. The sheets had twisted low around Frederik’s waist, the room still heavy with warmth and the aftermath pheromones of intimacy, but Cecil himself looked far too collected for someone who had only minutes ago been decidedly less so.

Frederik lay there, one forearm over his eyes for a moment, breathing slowly and trying without much success to gather the remains of his discipline.

"This," he said at last, voice rough, "is becoming a pattern."

Cecil’s hand settled lightly on his chest, not soothing, not apologetic, simply there because he wished it to be. "You say that," he replied, "as though you disapprove."

Frederik lowered his arm just enough to look at him.

Cecil’s mouth curved very slightly.

There it was again. That look that never came carelessly and was therefore much more dangerous than a smile ever could have been.

"I disapprove," Frederik said, "of your tendency to look reasonable while very clearly being the least reasonable person in the room."

"I learned from excellent examples."

"That is what worries me."

Cecil ignored that. He was good at ignoring things that did not serve his argument, and unfortunately for Frederik, the prince had inherited Gabriel’s strategic instincts along with Damian’s ability to say outrageous things while sounding perfectly composed.

For a few seconds, neither of them spoke. Beyond the private suite, the palace remained muted behind its layers of ether-backed insulation, the distant mechanisms of court and state reduced to a low, harmless hum. Morning had long since given way to afternoon, pale light falling across the bed and catching against Cecil’s skin and his expression, including the dark line of his lashes when he finally glanced away.

Arik was in Wrohan.

That fact altered the atmosphere of the palace in subtle but noticeable ways.

The diplomatic visit had been announced as routine. The language had been polished, the timing publicly logical, the structure reinforced by enough formal ceremony to keep most governments from openly questioning it.

Naturally, that had not stopped anyone from questioning it.

Rumors had multiplied within hours.

Some said Wrohan wanted more than diplomacy and less than peace. Some said Arik had gone because something old had stirred beneath the capital and only he knew how to bury it again. Others claimed the visit had less to do with foreign relations and far more to do with whatever had been quietly removed from three sealed archive divisions two weeks earlier under direct imperial order.

Frederik knew better than to ask what version of events the court currently preferred. By now, the rumors probably contradicted one another so violently they had begun reproducing out of spite.

Cecil, however, seemed entertained by the entire thing.

Frederik narrowed his eyes at him. "You are thinking something irritating."

"I am always thinking something irritating."

"Yes, but this has an implication that I’m in your ideas."

Cecil’s fingers moved once over his chest, absent and possessive at the same time. "The court is currently torn between two theories."

Frederik sighed. "Only two? They’re losing their touch."

"The first," Cecil continued, "is that Arik has gone to Wrohan because something ancient and catastrophic is surfacing, which means everyone in the palace should begin acting as though they are one bad decision away from being folded into history."

"That does sound like court logic."

"The second is that his absence has created a vacuum of attention, and now they need a replacement obsession."

Frederik was silent for a beat.

Then, because he knew exactly where this was going, he closed his eyes again.

"No."

Cecil’s tone remained mild. "Yes."

"No."

"The betting pool is apparently expanding."

Frederik dropped his arm and stared at him. "There is a betting pool."

"There are several."

"Why do you know that?"

"Because Irina told me."

Cecil shifted slightly, still seated on him, perfectly at ease in a position that would have made most men self-conscious and had somehow only made him more imperious. Frederik, who had been raised by Gregoris Frasner and therefore had a more durable sense of self-preservation than most, still felt the distinct instinct to surrender every argument preemptively.

It was humiliating.

It was also, infuriatingly, part of the problem.

"And what," Frederik asked carefully, "is the court betting on now?"

Cecil looked at him with serene cruelty.

"Whether I will marry you before the winter session opens, after the winter session opens, or dramatically during some public crisis in a way that gives my father a headache."

Frederik stared.

Then he let out one short laugh of disbelief. "Your father would not get a headache."

Cecil considered it. "That is true. He would look disappointed in a way that permanently damages the guilty."

Frederik looked at the canopy above them for a long second, then back at Cecil, who still had not moved as though this conversation were taking place over tea rather than in the middle of a bed that no longer looked remotely formal.

"And which option are you favoring, Your Highness?"

Cecil’s gaze sharpened just slightly.

There it was again... that shift Frederik had learned to fear more than raised voices or temper. Cecil rarely needed either. The most dangerous thing about him was how little noise he made when deciding something irreversible.

"I am favoring," Cecil said, "the option in which people stop discussing my future like a scheduling inconvenience and start understanding that I am not waiting for permission."

Frederik felt his pulse change.

Not because Cecil had raised his voice. He had not.

Not because the words were surprising. They were not, not really.

But because Cecil meant them in that complete, unnerving way, he meant everything important.

"Cecil," Frederik said, more quietly now.

"I know what my family expects," Cecil cut in. "I know what the court expects. I know what every noble house with a son, a title, and an ounce of ambition has been hoping for since I turned eighteen." His expression did not harden, exactly, but it lost what little softness had been there. "And I do not care."

Frederik held his gaze.

Outside this room, Cecil was a prince. Damian’s son. Gabriel’s son. A problem no one intelligent underestimated and no one sane treated lightly. Inside it, he was still those things, but stripped of audience and ceremony, he became somehow more dangerous rather than less.

More honest.

"I want you," Cecil said.