Chapter 167 - 165: A Man Like No Other.

Chapter 167: Chapter 165: A Man Like No Other.

But it was more than that. Not only had he lost the fight, but with it, the tumultuous heat he had craved for so long.

It wasn’t fair, to be granted a taste –and such a taste –only to have it stripped from him so soon.

More than the pain, more than the weakness in his legs, it had been that feeling; the feeling of being offered something rare and precious, only for it to slip through his fingers, that had kept him on his knees long after Khobi’s stroke fell.

​And then Khobi had said the strangest thing. Something that had stoked the little embers burning in his belly even as they withered back to dust, daring them to keep breathing.

​I’ll take you on anytime.

​That’s what he said.

​And those words have been echoing in his ears since they first fell from Khobi’s cracked, bleeding lips.

​He could’ve said anything to him in that moment, and those are the words he chose.

​Like somehow, they’re not done. As if even though he’s the one who won, they still have unfinished business.

​And he’s right.

​He’s the strongest soldier in the kingdom. How could he possibly be satisfied with the way things ended?

On the floor across the room, a blade, discarded and forgotten amongst Khobi’s empty bedsheets, glints in the moonlight.

It’s impossible, because it’s just a sword, but Loac could swear he can still hear it singing; that single, clear note, building beyond the background noise of the castle at night, until it’s all he can hear.

​The twisting in his stomach clenches and writhes.

And then it changes shape, into something softer, and endlessly more erratic. It doesn’t feel like sickness anymore. It feels like something different.

Something better; something he was once intimately familiar with, and thought had been lost to time.

​It’s been a while, but he thinks that what he’s feeling just might be anticipation.

​Anytime, Khobi had said.

​...

​Binny is awake before the knock comes.

​His senses have always been sharp, even for a servant.

It serves him well, as it serves the rest of them, being able to hear trouble coming.

And when he wakes to the sound of heavy footsteps in the hall, he knows instinctively that trouble is indeed coming.

​And tonight had been going pretty well, too.

​Eyes bleary, he gets to the door just as the pounding starts, and hurriedly yanks it open so that his visitor doesn’t have any reason to chew him out.

Nobles don’t like being kept waiting. Or being woken.

​Funny, neither do servants, but they never seem to care about that.

​His usual greeting dies on his lips as the door swings open.

It takes a whole three seconds for his usually superhuman servant reflexes to kick in and he bows as deeply as the doorway allows.

For most nobles, that three seconds would have been two and a half seconds too long, and he probably would’ve gotten chewed out for it.

Fortunately for him, the noble standing on the opposite side of the doorway doesn’t seem to notice.

Unfortunately for him, the noble standing on the opposite side of the doorway is probably the last person Binny ever would’ve expected to disturb him in the middle of the night.

​He’s surprised Loac remembers the way here.

​"Where is he?"

​No greeting, no pretenses. How very ’wayward prince’ of him.

​Binny shifts his weight just so, a tried and tested way of better blocking the view into the room, and makes sure to crease his brow particularly convincingly.

​"I’m sorry, m’lord, who do you mean?"

​He’s a little out of practice, but the phrase rolls off his tongue just as easily as it had when he was young, and comes out word perfect.

It’s a little harder to pull off now that he’s grown; children have an air of innocence that is impossible to replicate, but he’s pretty sure that any other noble would have bought it entirely.

​Any other noble, that is.

​Loac just scoffs at the lie, and leans into the door with just enough force that it gives a couple of inches and reveals the telltale outline of a shock of red hair plastered against the stone floor. It’s rather damning evidence, honestly.

​"Oh," Binny coughs, as Loac settles him with a wry look, and barges right on through.

He knows better than to try and stop him.

"Oh, you mean him."

​He doesn’t ask how he knew Khobi was here, and not just because this is his prince and he’s not supposed to.

​After all, once upon a time, hadn’t a young Binny gotten into the same bad habit of doing the same for him?

​"Hey, uh, Khobi," he coughs nervously, gaze darting from his prince in the doorway, to the man on the floor and back again, searching for signs of trouble brewing.

After all, it can only be a bad thing that Loac’s come looking for him in the middle of the night.

Their track record is rock solid testimony to that. "We’ve got company."

​And yet.

​And yet, something feels different.

​To the casual observer, the stony expression Loac is wearing would seem much the same as it always is –all cold and glassy with disinterest for the world around him –but Binny is much more than the average observer, and his sharp eyes catch a strange gleam to those usually foggy blue eyes.

And it’s not anything nearly as dark and terrifying as malice. Nowhere close. It feels much brighter than that. Warmer, even.

​Curious.

​Khobi ignores him. Instead, he pulls the blankets higher up over his head and rolls away, groaning something unintelligible.

Binny doesn’t blame him.

It’s the middle of the night, after all. But he has a feeling that isn’t going to fly with Loac, and he’s right.

​Something in the air shifts, and Binny finds his breath abruptly snatched from his throat.

​It’s something he’s often felt, but never quite understood; that suffocating effect the most powerful and dangerous of men can have upon the space around them.

Even with a lifetime spent surrounded by men like that, he still doesn’t know how they do it; how a person’s mere presence can so charge a room that a single breath could spark it aflame, or thicken its shadows to the point of swallowing up lesser men--only that it is a power afforded only to the most brilliant, blessed few.

Khobi Frost is certainly one of them.

​Loac Trent is another.