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He shakes himself. He has not allowed himself to even think this way in so very long. But these feelings that coil inside him are the strongest reminder of why he can never belong here. Why he took the mission his father gave him.

He had nothing else.

Overwhelmed, he stands from his chair. Exeinil looks at him, Vane too. “I am going to take a walk,” he says.

“I hope you're not planning to go near it.” Exeinil’s voice is like a chiming bell that makes the hairs on Perl’s neck stand up.

“You don’t enjoy seeing your thrall’s willing obedience?” Vane drawls before Perl can answer.

Perl walks down from the dais. “I’m just going for a moment.” He huffs out a breath, not looking at Kerik as he walks into the halls.

He strolls around the wide corridors. This place is all so familiar to him. It makes him prickle. Every corner holds a memory. Growing up here as Exeinil’s ward. Learning what he truly was, what was whispered about him.

Perl is not walking anywhere in particular. He is just using the motion of his body to shake loose his complicated thoughts. He’s barely aware of where he is when a burly fae steps out of a low archway. Seeing Perl, he steps deliberately to block his path. He has a lascivious smile on his broad, handsome face.

Perl looks up at him, “Greetings Krem. How nice to see you.”

“I was hoping you’d come and find me after we locked eyes at the Silver Ball.” Krem pulls his shoulders back. He’s one of the biggest fae in the Ice Court. He is even rumoured to be Jura-il. There had been a time, when Perl was young and lustful, when he had spent his idle days at court gazing at Krem.

But he has not thought about Krem for a long time. He’s been avoiding looking at him. And he certainly wasn’t hoping to see him now. “I wasn’t seeking you out,” Perl says. “I just wanted to get away from the hall.”

Krem raises a dark eyebrow. He’s wearing a long fringed sarong of glittering gold fabric, and nothing above the waist. He crosses his arms over his broad, brown chest. “And your thrall’s obedience?" he says.

Of course, the entire court is skeptical of Perl having a thrall, after he’d been caught kneeling for Seridil, but none of them have as much reason to doubt him as Krem. Who had held Perl down in his bed long before Seridil ever had; who’d been the first.

Perl had been quite reckless. Krem had seen so much of Perl’s true heart before he had been gifted Seridil, part of an Ismagaari tribute to the fae of Ulla, and Seridil had whispered ideas in Perl’s ear that had made him forget all about Krem.

But that was long ago.

“So you don’t want…?” Krem pauses. “I thought we could spend a little time together. If you need it. You look as starved of pleasure as when I first took you.” His smile spreads. “And I thought it likely that your mortal thrall was not able to meet your needs.” He glances down at the magic suppressor on Perl’s wrist. “It would add some extra thrill, no? To couple while you are imprisoned in that.”

Perl looks at the iron he wears, spelled in place until the test is ended. The thought of what Krem suggests makes arousal flood his belly and rest there, hot and heavy. To let Krem take him while he is so defenceless.

Krem’s voice is low. He always knew how to be discreet about what he offered. Perl has often wondered if he performs the same service for other high fae? If he knew how to spot them somehow? But Krem would never tell Perl such a thing if he did. Krem does not do that. Despite his rejection in favour of Seridil, Krem has never betrayed any of Perl’s secrets.

Perl opens his mouth to say no, but before he can, memories hit him hard and rough. That dark, unused chamber they’d found for their meetings. Kneeling before Krem, shaking, naked and with his cock painfully roused between his thighs. Kissing Krem’s boots. Almost spending from that alone. He realises he is staring down at those boots, the shiny black toes peeping out amongst the tassels of Krem’s sarong. His mouth is dry. “I can’t,” he says. His voice sounds weak and thin, like he barely means it, although he knows the words he says are the truth.

Krem reaches out. His big, cool fingers curl under Perl’s chin. He lifts Perl’s gaze to his own and Perl cannot hide the broken whimper that escapes his lips.

“Can’t you?’” Krem says. His voice is soft, low and dark.

Perl takes a breath. He is quivering with desire. Is he really so weak? Does it really take so little to reduce him to this?

After he swore? After what he promised the Ice Court? After what he promised himself?

After what they did to him?

But Krem would never betray him the way Seridil did.

He steps back, letting his face slide out of Krem’s hands. “I must go,” he says. He must. His mission is too important to endanger it by indulging his base desires.

Krem grasps Perl by the wrist. His face becomes hard and cruel in a way that turns Perl’s knees to water. “I could order you, thrall,” he says in the voice he used to use when they played. Krem’s smile is like a blade against Perl’s throat.

The want is a sudden, sharp pain. The thought of snatching some illicit pleasure right now is overwhelming. No one would interrupt them while such a spectacle is happening in the Ice Hall. But he cannot. He must not. He shakes his head as he pulls his hand from Krem’s grasp.

He turns away, heavy heart beating hard in his chest, and walks briskly back to the Ice Hall to take his place on the dais.

He wonders why he said no to Krem, but when he sees Kerik, sitting straight on the platform, mouth glistening wetly around the slowly expanding silver ball, he forgets all about Krem’s offer.