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“There are so many. How do you remember them all?” Lyr stretches his eyes playfully wide.

Damon laughs. “They’re my family. My father’s children. The royal children, Atticul, Ferra and Endrew. My father’s bastard sons me, Lukas, Tobi and Kerik. As far as I know.”

“You have not mentioned Kerik.”

“I have not got to Kerik yet. Kerik is different from the other bastards. Kerik’s mother is not a whore or a washerwoman or an actress. His mother is a noblewoman. Lady Ilyne of Fanost. He is of noble birth. There were calls at one point for him to be legitimised by Selim. He would have been ahead of Endrew in the Royal Line. He’s older than him, but…” Damon pauses.

“But what?”

“He vanished. Kerik. A couple of years ago. No one knows where he is. Even Chancellor Vindar, who keeps track of everyone of note. They call him Thousand Eyes. Or some people do.”

“Everyone of note? So Prince Rafus’s bastards are still of note.”

“I suppose. We have royal blood. Darek blood.”

“So there’s you, Lukas, Tobi and Kerik. No more.”

“Apparently not. But after Kerik was fathered, Selim became Emperor and made fathering bastard children a crime against Zai.”

“So you think that meant your father stopped fathering bastards?”

Damon shrugs. “I think it made him much more cautious about admitting to it.”

“So you could have any number of secret half-brothers? Wait, are there no half-sisters? No female bastards?”

“I’m sure there are, but my father has never acknowledged them.”

Days pass like this. Damon resigns himself to letting Lyr ask him questions during the day and sleeping on deck every night. Ignoring his desire until it becomes nothing more than a low hum in the background, spiking only when he sees a glimpse of Lyr’s scarred skin as he climbs from the bed to break his fast, or when he licks his lips, or when he smiles.

When Damon asks Lyr why he is so interested in him, why he has so many questions, Lyr says, “I suppose I have never met the son of a prince before.”

Damon had never really considered that his family was so interesting. His family just were, just an ever-present complication in his life. Most of the complications coming from either Atticul or his father. But Lyr seems sweetly fascinated to hear about everything and asks many questions. It passes the time on the voyage. Damon laughs when Lyr stretches his eyes in amusement at Damon telling him his half-sister Princess Ferra is married to Chancellor Vindar the Thousand Eyes. “On their wedding day, she was a maid of twenty and he was fifty and four. But they have a son now. Prince Umbert. My father’s only grandchild.”

“So he might be Emperor one day.”

Damon hasn’t seen Umbert since he was a babe, named before Zai. “He's in the royal line, yes. And any more sons Ferra bore would be too, behind any children of the male line. Although I have heard that she cannot have more. Umbert is a very sturdy child. He was a large baby. And Ferra is frail. Delicate but beautiful. At court, they call her The Lilac Doe.”

“That is a strange name,” says Lyr plainly. “Lilac can poison a doe.”

On the last evening of the voyage, Damon leaves to fetch food. When he returns to the cabin he finds Lyr lying on the cot.

He is surprised. It is still early evening. He sets the plates down on the table and walks over to the cot. As he approaches Lyr rolls over. He smiles and says, “Damon.” Lyr usually speaks Artemian with little trace of a Juran accent, but tonight his voice sounds thick, his vowels distinctly Juran, even in that one word. And there is a sweet note of pleasure to his voice.

Damon frowns at him. “Lyr, are you feeling well?”

Lyr gasps aloud. A sound that makes Damon’s body respond with sudden prickling heat.

Want.

“I feel good,” Lyr says. He runs his hands down his body. Damon notices Lyr’s white fabric garment is lying on the floor. Lyr is naked under the thin sheet. “I had the drink,” Lyr says in his Juran-accented Artemian.

Damon frowns. Dealing with his feelings about seeing Lyr naked is one thing, but something more is wrong here. Lyr’s eyes are dull and slightly unfocused. And Lyr is being quite wanton. He is moving his hands over his bare skin. That beautiful decorated skin. Where the sheet pulls tight over his slender hips, Damon can see the shape of Lyr’s roused cock.

Damon says, “What drink?”

Lyr takes a long breath, acting as if even breathing is quite delicious. “Mn. Someone knocked on the cabin door. When I opened it, that was waiting for me.” He points to the table.

There’s a carved wooden goblet on it. Damon marches over. Next to the goblet is a small piece of parchment. On it is written, in Juran.