Page 38 of Null & Void

“What happened last night?” I rasp.

“What do you remember?” I can hear the humor in his voice.

Hot. I remember being too hot. Touching Riley’s face…he has nice skin. Riley’s weight on me…oh fuck! I look over at him in alarm.

He gives me a small smile. “Nothing happened. You were in perfect control.” He nods his head toward my pants on the ground as he stirs whatever he’s cooking for breakfast. “It’s too hot for leathers and thick clothes.”

He’s only in linen pants and a light tunic, so I grab my own pair of light pants and throw them on before heading to the privy.

When I return, Riley hands me a bowl with a meager portion of breakfast. It’s oats with nuts and what looks like some spices swirled through.

I smirk as I take the bowl. “This looks nice, thank you.”

“Yes, okay. You were right. Food is better with flavor,” he quips with a grin before shoveling food into his mouth from what’s left in the pot.We eat in silence as I try to concentrate through the pounding at my temples. The food only marginally helps.

I spot the empty liquor bottle resting against the wall near the entrance. “We drank the whole bottle?” I whine.

“I think it would be more accurate to sayyoudrank the whole bottle, but yes, we finished it.”

“And how come you look as fresh as a daisy, and I feel like a shriveled-up piece of jerky?”

Riley snorts. “Maybe because you drank three times as much as me and I’m three times the size of you? How’s the head?”

I grunt in response, massaging my temples.

“Here.” Riley moves forward, pulls my hands away, and starts rubbing his hands together while crouching in front of me. “Close your eyes.”

“Why?” I ask dubiously, and he rolls his eyes.

“Fine, leave them open.” He places his surprisingly warm and steady hands over my eyes and sweeps them slowly around to my ears.

The only sounds to be heard is our breathing and Riley repeating the actions of warming his hands and softly bringing them back to my eyes and ears. My eyes are closed; this would have been weird—weirder—with them open.After only a couple of minutes, I realize that the pounding in my head has stopped.

“How?” I ask incredulously as I touch my ears like I’ll be able to sense some kind of Divine Gift he left behind.

He shrugs. “My father used to do this for me when I was a teenager, and it always worked. It just forces you to relax, I think,” he says with a small smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

He sits back against the wall opposite me, as I roll my shoulders. “Not your mother?”

“Uh, no. I mean, she used to when I was very young if I had a headache,” he says with a small humorless laugh. “But no. By the time I was getting hangovers at sixteen, my mother wasn’t coming anywhere near me.”

“Wait. Your father was doing this when you were a teenager because you werehungover?” I can’t hide anything in my voice.

“It was after my brother died. After I killed him.”

I’m gaping. Mouth wide open like a stunned pond fish in Laguz. Riley is busying himself using sand and a rag to clean our breakfast from the dishes.“Do you know the story?” he asks quietly, not looking at me.

I don’t. I know the first-born Prince Ofnemoris died. I know that it was a decade and a half past, and the young Prince Aurelius was only a teenager. Riley’s twin, Amarilyss, was still in Osraed as a Patron and their youngest sister, Nemuel, was not yet born.

But no. Not much is said about it other than it being a tragedy. “I don’t know much or haven’t heard much. I heard King Dillon had to take over royal duties for a few moons while the queen grieved.”

Riley nods. “Lyss didn’t even know she had an older brother when we were able to get her back. It broke my mother’s heart all over again to tell her. Perhaps Lyss already realized, but it’s different gaining a family only to lose a brother you didn’t get to meet. Nemuel didn’t get to meet him either. I robbed them both.”

Riley scrubs the same part of the pot over and over as he speaks. I want to still his hands, but maybe keeping his hands busy is stopping him from unraveling. I can relate.

He looks at me then, eyes glassy, searching my face. “I killed him, and my mother wishes it was me who died instead,” he announces, then he drops everything and stands—well, as much as he can in here—before crawling into the sleeping alcove.

Well, fuck me, what do I donow?

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