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But his body does not respond to her the way it does to men. And his body has never responded to a man the way it responds to Lyr.

He’s always protected himself by rarely acting on his desires. He knows the risks are too high. But Lyr is different. Too different. Too hard to resist.

It had taken everything he had to leave Lyr in the cabin tonight.

He finds a pile of old sacking on a quiet part of the deck. He’s slept in worse places.

When the dawn starts to light the sky a shade of purple, he goes to the galley, collects food and ale and returns to his cabin.

He finds Lyr sleeping in the cot. Curled in a small ball.

Lyr opens his eyes and looks at Damon. “I brought food,” Damon says, “Ale and gruel. Come and eat.”

Lyr sits up. The sheet slips down his body. Damon can see the intricate pattern of scars on his chest and shoulders for the first time. The spirals on his arms continue onto his shoulders, and across his chest are four large runes, in no language Damon knows.

Lyr leans out of the bed and picks up his white robe. He wraps himself in it. As he does, Damon sees more. The way those scars cover his legs too, endless lines of cuts that circle round, and there are more runes on his back and down onto his ass. Tiny ones. Hundreds of them.

Damon tells himself that anyone would look at Lyr. Would wonder about his body and the decorations that cover so much of it. But, as he watches Lyr climb from the bed, he also takes in the slight plains of Lyr’s belly. The lines of his thighs. A small glimpse of his soft, relaxed cock.

Lyr smiles at Damon as he sits down, looking at the food on the table.

“Thank you,” he says.

“I can’t let you starve.”

Lyr starts to eat his gruel. Damon does likewise. It’s good for ship food. Rich and satisfying. Damon has eaten his share of bad gruel, lumpy, tepid grey concoctions, thin as seawater, fuel for battle. But this is luxurious, made with pig fat, barley malt and nuts, rich with the spoils of a successful conquest.

Damon has eaten half the bowl when Lyr says, “You said yesterday your father had many bastard sons. How many brothers and sisters do you have? Apart from Atticul and Endrew?”

Damon says, “Officially I have six brothers and one sister. But I do not think even my father knows for sure how many children he has.”

“I have many brothers and sisters too,” says Lyr, who is eating more slowly and delicately. Damon finds himself staring at Lyr’s mouth as he says. “It was a big family. Have you met many of them? The ones that your father begat on other women?”

Damon nods, glad for the simple topic of conversation. “I grew up with my brother Lukas. Another of my father’s bastards. We are very close in age. He is only a moon younger than me. He was fathered on a washerwoman at the Rose Palace. But she died when he was seven and he came to live with us in the Tower of the Heir.”

“Does he live there still?”

“No,” Damon shakes his head as he finishes his gruel. “He ran away when we were both fourteen, just before I was sent to war. He’s currently in the Mortingale Mountains. He’s one of the Mortingale Outlaws.”

Lyr looks blank at the mention of the Mortingale Outlaws.

“Fools,” Damon says. “Rebels and fools. Five years ago they tried to attack Emperor Selim. They got into the palace. It went badly for them. Many ended up dead.”

“Did your brother survive?”

Damon takes a sip of his ale. “Yes. He’s good at running away.”

“Do you miss him?”

“I’ve not seen him for a long time.”

“So that’s Lukas. Do you know any of the others?”

“Not as well as Lukas, but there’s Tobi. His mother was an actress with a band of travelling players. I am not sure if my father would have acknowledged that the child was his, but Tobi looks a great deal like my father’s other children. Endrew had not yet been born when Tobi arrived with his mother. But he looked so much like Atticul and Ferra, it could not be denied who he was.”

“Ferra is your sister?”

“Yes. Legitimate sister.”