Chapter 35: The Start of Something Big.

The assignment came at midday, delivered in the flat, impersonal tone the senior staff used for ordinary rotations.

Merrick was to take the second prince’s lunch tray and prepare his afternoon bath afterward.

For a moment he simply stood in the servants’ corridor holding the slip of paper, reading the words twice to make certain they were real. Then the meaning settled, and something bright and warm rose in his chest

Aaron! He was being sent to Aaron’s rooms.

The tray was already prepared in the kitchen, a small pot of tea, the heavier portions the second prince preferred after training. Merrick took it with hands that were steadier than he expected and began the familiar route toward the family wing. Each step felt slightly too light. He had walked these corridors for five years with his head down and his presence erased. Today the same stones seemed different. The decision to skip last night’s suppressant had made him a lot more jolly than he normally used to be.

He reached the correct door, balanced the tray against his hip, and knocked once.

"Enter."

Aaron’s voice was rough, and although Merrick could tell the voice wasn’t like it used to, just hearing it sent jolts of excitement through his body.

Merrick pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The second prince stood near the open wardrobe, half-turned, shirtless. Afternoon light cut across the broad lines of his shoulders and back, caught the faint sheen of residual sweat along his spine, and followed the hard shift of muscle as he reached for a clean shirt. Dark hair fell forward into his eyes. The air in the room still held the heat of recent exertion and the unmistakable dominant scent that Merrick had catalogued from a distance for years.

With the suppressant gone, seeing the second prince’s naked body made Merrick swell. His carefully maintained composure stuttered. His foot caught the edge of the rug. The tray tilted. Dishes slid.

A large hand closed around his elbow and another steadied the tray before anything could fall. The contact was brief, firm, and devastating. Aaron’s bare skin was close enough that Merrick could feel the heat of him. The newly unshielded part of his awareness drank in the details with painful clarity—the strength in the grip, the faint metallic note of old blood on split knuckles, the low restless energy that never seemed to leave the second prince entirely.

"Careful."

Aaron’s voice carried no real concern, only the automatic reaction of someone who had moved without thinking. He released Merrick as soon as the tray was stable and stepped back, already turning away.

"I—forgive me," Merrick managed. His own voice sounded thin. "I lost my footing."

Aaron made a short, dismissive sound and dragged the clean shirt over his head with impatient motions. "Just put it down."

He was clearly not in the mood for conversation. The set of his shoulders, the way he avoided looking at anyone for longer than a second, the residual tension in the room—all of it pointed to a man still carrying something heavy and unresolved. Merrick recognized the signs. He had watched them from doorways and corridor edges for years. Today, without the full weight of suppressants flattening his perception, the recognition felt sharper, more personal.

He carried the tray to the table near the window and set it down with deliberate care. His hands wanted to linger. He forced them to withdraw.

"Should I prepare the afternoon bath now, my prince?"

Aaron nodded once without looking up. He had dropped into the chair beside the table and was already lifting the lid on the first dish, expression distant.

Merrick should have left the room and gone straight to the bathing chamber. That was the safe sequence. That was what five years of careful survival required.

Instead he hesitated. The question rose before he could stop it, reckless, and entirely unlike the invisible servant he had trained himself to be.

"Is something bothering you?"

The words left his mouth and immediately felt too large for the space.

Aaron’s hands stilled on the dish. He looked up.

For a long moment the second prince simply stared at him. Surprise, clear and unguarded, crossed his face. Servants did not ask the mad prince personal questions. They delivered trays, prepared baths, kept their eyes lowered, and disappeared. They did not stand in the middle of his rooms and inquire after his state of mind.

Merrick felt the full weight of that stare land on him. Panic followed hard on the heels of the boldness. Heat climbed the back of his neck. The faint, returning edge of his own scent, still weak, still mostly flattened by years of chemical restraint, suddenly felt dangerously noticeable.

"I apologize," he said quickly, dropping his gaze. "I overstepped. Forgive me. I’ll prepare the bath at once—"

Aaron lifted one hand, a short, impatient gesture that stopped the apology mid-sentence.

"It’s nothing," he said. His voice had gone flatter. "I’m fine."

He looked at Merrick for another second longer than necessary, something faintly puzzled moving behind his eyes, as if he had noticed an inconsistency he could not immediately name. Then he turned back to the tray and dismissed the moment with the same roughness he applied to most things that did not require a fight.

"Go prepare the bath."

"Yes, my prince."

Merrick left the room with measured steps and closed the door quietly behind him. Only when he was alone in the short corridor that led to the bathing chamber did he let out the breath he had been holding.

His hands were unsteady again.

He pressed his palm flat against the cool stone wall and closed his eyes. The image of Aaron’s bare shoulders in the afternoon light, the brief hard grip on his elbow, the startled way the second prince had looked at him when asked a simple human question, all of it looped behind his lids with relentless clarity. For years he had existed as function and silence in this house. Today, for a few stretched seconds, Aaron had actually seen him.

It was not much, It was barely anything. A half-second of attention.

But after five years of deliberate invisibility, it felt like a door that had always been sealed had shifted on its hinges by the smallest degree.

Merrick opened his eyes, straightened, and continued toward the bathing chamber to do the work he had been assigned. The water would need to be drawn at the correct temperature. The oils Aaron preferred would need to be set out. The room would need to be left ready and then vacated before the second prince arrived.

He performed them with the same efficiency he had always used, only this time he had a bright smile on his face. He shouldn’t be this excited over such little things, but this didn’t feel little to Merrick. To him it was the start of something big.