The Traitor’s Mercy by Iris Foxglove

Chapter 15

Right at the moment when Laurent’s heart felt like it finally could return to normal, it broke.

He knew, logically, that Devon Chastain’s shot was meant to kill. Sabre was an easy target, his back to the woods, on his knees, unprotected. And that someone would catch him, bring him to justice.

But all he cared about in that moment was Sabre, bleeding out in the snow.

The prince was shouting, and there was chaos all around, but Laurent moved in a daze to where the man he loved—this stupid, foolish, brave man who was more noble than the rest of them combined—was gasping, making a horrible sound that could likely only mean one thing; the bullet from Devon’s gun had hit his lung. Either he’d done it on purpose to make Sabre suffer, or he wasn’t steady enough with his hand to have hit Sabre’s heart. Either way, while someone was already running for the house and a doctor, Laurent knew it was too late.

He crouched on the snow and gathered Sabre to him, stroking his hair off his already too-pale face, turning waxy.

“It’s okay,” Sabre said, and Laurent couldn’t imagine what the look on his face must be, for Sabre to cough that out with his dying breath, choking and coughing up blood. “I. Saved him. My...father would. Be. Proud, I—I think.”

“Yes,” Laurent said, and his voice was just as harsh, as if he’d been struck with Devon’s bullet, instead. Tears fell unchecked from his eyes. “Sabre, I—I’m sorry I didn’t keep you safe.”

“N-no,” Sabre said, and he was smiling, the idiot, even as his body started to shiver and shake in Laurent’s arms. “Never felt. As safe as I did. With you.”

Laurent could barely breathe through his sobs. “We’ll get you some help, it’s—”

“Too late,” Sabre coughed. He reached blindly for Laurent’s hand, but barely had the strength to squeeze it. “Is it okay if I. Say it, now.”

“I love you,” Laurent said, helpless, lost.

“I love y-you, too.” Sabre coughed, and the light was leaving his eyes, too fast. “Thank you for. Saving me.”

“But I didn’t,” Laurent whispered, leaning down, as if trying to hide the end of this from anyone, even himself.

“You did,” Sabre whispered. “You did. Hold me until I—until it’s. Over.”

Laurent lifted his face, stared down at him, slid his own shaking fingers through Sabre’s hair. It wouldn’t be long. Minutes, at the most. And the only person Laurent had ever loved would die, here in the snow, shot by a noble who Laurent would see dead if it was the last thing he—

“I know what you’re thinking,” Sabre managed. “Let it be. Promise you’ll. Live for you, don’t...don’t do something. Foolish.”

“Shh, love,” Laurent said, because he couldn’t lie, even to the man he loved while he died in his arms.

“I’m glad that it’s your face—” Sabre said, and coughed again, and Laurent felt something shift inside him, something forgotten and suddenly found, and while his heart ached and his tears fell and he realized that this was the end of it, the precious thing he’d found in the last place he’d ever expected it—

Laurent remembered all the things he’d forgotten, and who he was.

It didn’t come to him with the sudden break of a summer storm, but a gentle, easy sigh, like a breeze stirring the leaves. There was not knowing and there was knowing, and it rushed over him like a gentle spring rain.

Solas, said his mother, pulling him to the House of Gold. They won’t find you, here. They can’t find you if you don’t know who you are. And you won’t remember who you are, because love can’t come from this place, where you sell your body. You would hate me for it, but gods willing, you won’t remember me.

His mother had sold him to the House of Gold, not for the money, but for the safety to be found in treating sex, and love, like a transaction. The block she’d put on him to hide him from those back in Mislia, magic so complex he couldn’t fathom the shape of it, stacked up like bricks that now came tumbling down because he had, in the end, found love.

“Hush, love,” said Solas, who was also Laurent, in the language he thought he’d left behind. “The last thing you see may be my face, but gods willing, it won’t be for some time, yet.”

The magic was there, when he reached for it. Warm and bright, not like the dark siphoning thing the mages who made their pacts with demons used, the ones that turned their hair to pitch, bleeding ink through the whole of their eyes. This was older magic, from the older gods they’d slain in Mislia, the dark mages who ruled it, now. And Solas, born with the gift only one in a thousand would ever inherit, taken from his home so he would not be slain in the mages’ rituals for power, bled dry of the magic none of them, with their demon-touched spells, could do.

But Solas, the exile who could heal and bring life in a place clouded by darkness and death, had remembered who he was. And the magic poured bright and hot from him over Sabre, and it was easy even though he hadn’t done it in so long, even if Solas hadn’t remembered any of it for almost two decades.

There were some soft murmurs behind him, but he didn’t care. He’d always been reckless with it, hadn’t he? That’s why his mother took him to Staria to save him, in her way. He wondered what happened to her, but only vaguely; the magic was working, he knew it was, could see the way the light came back to Sabre’s eyes, could feel the warmth of him, again.

“What—am I dead,” Sabre whispered.

“No,” Laurent said. “No, you’re not.” He felt something, on the hand resting on Sabre’s back. Small, and whole, and warm from where it had been, lodged in Sabre’s body. A bullet.

“But I can breathe, and. It doesn’t hurt. And you’re. Glowing.”

“Just a little longer,” Laurent said, even though he wasn’t sure how he knew. But it was only a few seconds before it faded, leaving them there in the snow; Sabre covered in blood but alive and whole, and all of Laurent’s missing pieces finally clicked back into place.

“How,” Sabre whispered, reaching up and touching him. “How did you do that?”

“Turns out, I’m Mislian,” Laurent said. He shook his head. “It’s a long story. But I remembered it, and I…my name. I remembered my name.”

“Is it something awful,” Sabre asked, smiling a bit, his eyes bright now with tears of his own.

“Back from the brink of death, and already you want to be punished,” Laurent managed, through tears of his own. Happy ones, at least. “It’s Solas.”

“Solas,” said Sabre, trying it out. “Hello.”

There was a laugh from behind them. Laurent turned, and saw the prince there, on his knees in the snow. His face was tear-streaked but there was a smile, an inescapable fondness as he looked at his cousin and said, “Didn’t she—she told you, when we were children. That one day, you’d marry the sun?”

“I don’t think courtesans in debt to the crown can marry,” Sabre told his cousin, sitting up. He blinked. “Everyone’s gone.”

“As touching as your farewell scene was, a surfeit of emotion makes others uncomfortable. And they have actual prey to hunt, now.”

Laurent felt a chill as he recognized the king’s voice. His dislike of Mislians was well-known, following the queen’s death. Perhaps they’d been spared only for Sabre to live, and Laurent to die on the gallows. Or here, before his beloved, in the cold snow.

“Your Majesty,” Laurent said, as he and Sabre both got to their feet. If he was going to die, he wouldn’t do it on his knees. He bowed. “I seem to have recovered the memories I lost. I assure you, I didn’t—”

“Yes, yes,” Emile waved a hand. “I despise Mislians, but if one sold you into the pleasure houses, likely you do, too.” His cold eyes bore into Laurent, and Laurent understood what he was hearing, you will hate them for it, because I said so.

“Yes, of course,” Laurent said, bowing.

“And a man is easy to keep in line, when you know what he values most,” Emile said, eyes shifting to Sabre. “Strange that it would be a whore, but perhaps your people know no better.”

Either Emile was testing him, or he really was that terrible about Mislians. Either way, Laurent was smart enough to know an out when he heard it. “Yes, well. As you know, I was one, before. And I will take Sabre’s debt, if you wish it of me. He’s proven his loyalty, and—”

“No,” Sabre said, going to his knees again, bloody and foolish as ever. “Laurent earned his freedom, paid his debt. Mine is my own, and—”

“Would you stand up,” Emile interrupted. “Before some other traitor comes from the woods and shoots you, and I’m forced to see that again. I will forgive that forbidden magic once, because your lord used it to save you, and you saved my son. But that is the extent of my mercy. Come here, Sabre. That collar of mine doesn’t belong around the neck of a noble.”

Sabre startled, but he approached the king—a little warily, but Laurent could understand that. The king reached out and flicked his fingers over the collar, which unlatched from around Sabre’s neck.

“Your father’s ring, you still have it?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Sabre held his hand out, which was bloody. He scrubbed at it, wincing a bit, and Emile sighed, again.

“I will make certain it is known that you have performed a great service to the crown. To ferret out a group of treasonous snakes, you infiltrated the ranks of the pleasure houses at my behest. Your...proclivities...made you the perfect spy for the crown, you see. And you did as we had planned, found the traitors who would have slain my son. Now your noble name is restored to you, wiped clean of suspicion. Your oath isn’t necessary, but you may thank me for my mercy, Duke de Valois.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Sabre said, prettily enough, and bowed.

“And Lord de Rue, it simply isn’t done for the consort of a noble of Duke de Valois’ status to live entirely in the pleasure district. You understand, it might send the wrong message. I’ll see to it your family’s estate and your suite in the royal palace are redone for your use. Now, I believe we are done here. I have every faith in Isiodore’s hunting skills, and it would seem I have to find a suitable tree for a hanging.”

And with that, having just undone months of misery and returned to Sabre the life he himself had stripped away, the king of Staria strode off toward the estate.

“I…” Sabre said, staring at his hand, at his father’s ring. “I don’t know that I even wanted that.”

“He can’t stand to be wrong,” said the prince, who Laurent had all but forgotten was even there. “It was the same when Mother died. He let everyone think he did it in some fit of madness, rather than have the truth out, that she was practicing forbidden sorcery and it went wrong.” Adrien looked exhausted but far less unsettled than he had any other time Laurent had been around him. “Lord de Rue. Thank you for saving him. Not just here, but before.”

Laurent said, somewhat wryly, “All part of the king’s plan, don’t you know?”

Adrien smiled a bit, and standing there in the snow, he looked a little like his father, perhaps. But he embraced Sabre, murmured something that made Sabre blush, and then clasped Laurent’s hand in farewell before heading back the way his father came.

Sabre moved to him immediately, and Laurent took him in his arms. “I thought I’d lost you. And you, with your I’m glad your face is the last thing I’ll ever see.”

“I thought it was nice,” Sabre said, into his shirt. He was crying again. So was Laurent. There was no one there, it was fine.

“Nice, he says.”

“I’m sorry, m’lord. I’ll try and come up with something better, the next time I lay dying in your arms.”

“Cheeky brat,” Laurent said, and took his face in his hands. “First, I love you, and I’m sorry I didn’t let you tell me, before. You can say it whenever you want. Second, you’re a noble again. You don’t have to call me that, anymore, and you can probably do better than a disgraced Mislian whose mother sold him into a pleasure house to hide from mages who will, probably, try and find him again. I might have to leave.”

“Then I will go with you,” Sabre said, fiercely. “Wherever you are, I will be there.”

“This better not be out of gratitude,” Laurent said, but he smiled, fingers moving up and down Sabre’s back, as if reassuring himself there was no longer a wound, there. But there was drying blood, and they both needed to be in a bath, and naked in front of a fire. Sooner rather than later. “I didn’t save your life for you to owe another debt you think you need to pay.”

“You saved my life because you love me, and I will share yours because I love you, too.” Sabre reached out and took Laurent’s hand, brought it to his mouth and kissed his fingers—then took it and pressed to his now-bare throat. “And I want your collar as soon as you have one made for me. A nice one. Black, lined in purple velvet. I want to go home and watch your sister’s plays, and run the curtain. I want you to put me under. I want to never sew another button on a shirt again.”

“I think I can manage that,” Laurent said, and kissed him, there in the snow and the darkness, which no longer seemed so terrifying, anymore.

* * *

Lord Oscar Chastainwas caught near the edge of the forest, summarily hauled back to his estate by Isiodore de Mortain, and hanged from a tree near the edge of the property as a traitor to the crown at dawn the next day.

Laurent and Sabre stayed abed.

Marius and Devon Chastain, however, eluded capture. It was only a matter of time, really, as there was nowhere for them to go, and news of their disgrace was likely already back in the capital. Along with it, the shocking news that Sabre de Valois was never a traitor, and had in fact put his life and honor on the line to prove his innocence by finding the last of the conspirators. If anyone really believed that, Laurent would eat his favorite hat and wear nothing but Yves’ short glittery shorts for the rest of his days. But the nobility would know better than to speak of it, and would treat Sabre as they now did Laurent—as if he never was a whore, as if he were always one of them.

It was all exhausting, really.

The last shock of the weekend came when Emile sent the footman—the one who was enamored of Yves—with a deed to the Chastain estate, which now belonged to Laurent, who stared at the paper with shock and a deep sense of horror.

“What am I supposed to do with this,” Laurent said.

“I’d put it in a safe, were it me, m’lord,” the footman said. “Can I stay on, though? The staff, we’re all a bit worried.”

“No one is losing their jobs,” said Laurent, sighing. He could feel a headache threaten. One of the reasons he’d liked his title was that it didn’t come with property other than the House of Onyx.

“Well, um, about that,” said the footman. “Lord Chastain, none of us are real sure we can be in the same, ah, business as—”

“Wait,” Laurent held up a hand. “What did you just call me?”

“That’s how it works,” Sabre said, from where he was lounging in the bed, naked and wrapped in furs and delightfully disheveled. “You are a proper Starian lord now, Laurent. You own an estate, so you’re Lord Chastain.”

“No, no one ever calls me that, do you hear me?” He fixed the footman with a look. “And I’m not turning this into a—everyone can keep the job they’re already doing.”

“Oh, thank the spirits,” the footman said, and bowed, leaving in a hurry.

Laurent stared at the paper, and then at Sabre. “When we marry, can I take your name?”

“I was going to take yours,” Sabre said. “But not Chastain.”

“Why would Emile do this to me?”

“A reminder, probably. How his favor should be courted and not lost.” Sabre yawned. “Come back to bed, my lord.”

“But I have a—this, now,” Laurent said, waving a hand. “Am I expected to, to leave the House of Onyx?”

“I wouldn’t think so. Do what every noble does, who doesn’t want to manage his estate. Hire someone.” Sabre tilted his head. “It’s a working farm, you know. Dairy, a few other things. I think.”

“Gods help me, none of you know anything,” Laurent said. “At least I have an excuse, I’m in disgrace from a totally different country.”

“About that,” Sabre said.

“I’ll tell you when we’re home.” Laurent might own this estate now, but he didn’t trust that it was safe to speak freely, here. “And as fetching as you look there, pet, with your hurt me, fuck me eyes, we need to get going. I’ve had enough of country living for a while.”

Lord Chastain’s body was gone, at least, by the time they left for Duciel. The majority of the carriage ride back was Sabre telling Yves what happened, and Yves gasping dramatically and practically hanging off Charon’s lap. Charon had apologized profusely for not stopping Devon—so contritely that Laurent had to tell him to stop or he’d erase all his debt and make him run the farm he now owned.

“You should hire my family,” Yves said, when Laurent tried that. “They’re exemplary dairy farmers, it’d be a scream. When I’m old and no one wants me anymore, I’ll come here and, I don’t know, learn how to make cheese. You can come, too, Charon. Everyone can, from the house.”

“You could do that, you know,” Sabre said.

“Sabre! You are supposed to say, Yves, don’t be silly, you’ll never be old and everyone will want you, especially after I manage to introduce you properly to my cousin the crown prince—”

“You do not want to be in that family,” Laurent interrupted, firmly.

“The cheese would likely be preferable,” Sabre agreed. “But I only meant, m’lord, that you could make it a choice for those with debt who are no longer...sought after, in the pleasure houses. An alternative to the quarries. It would allow for an easier transition. Perhaps give former courtesans a skill or two, for when their debt was repaid.”

“Aw.” Yves batted his eyelashes at Sabre. “Our lordling, a revolutionary.”

“Let’s not call him that,” Laurent said, sighing. “But Sabre, that’s a good idea. I think that is exactly what I’ll do. Yves, if you’re serious, I’ll send a letter to your father. The only thing I know of cheese is that it comes from milk.”

Laurent turned to look out of the window, watching as the city came into view, the spires of the palace gleaming gold in the sun. There was still so much unsettled, the missing pieces of his life there to examine, Sabre’s reinstatement, the fact that Devon Chastain was still missing and would, he assumed, try to finish what he’d started once he’d learned Sabre was not only alive, but back in the king’s favor. Marius Chastain, who would perhaps take issue with the fact that Laurent now owned his father’s estate.

The bullet, tucked away in Laurent’s things, kept as a reminder of how quickly things could end.

But with the sound of Yves’ easy laughter, the sun bright and the little snow melting beneath it, and Sabre’s hand held tight in his own...it was easy to put it aside, just for a time, and be happy with what he’d found. A family, a life, and a future that was his to make...with the man he loved, who not even death could take from him. A new foundation on which to build something steady, something lasting, to weather the storms that were sure to come.