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“I…” Jemel begins. “Yes, it does. So much.”

“I could tell from the way you moved. May I touch you?”

“What?” Jemel snaps, “No, you may not.”

“Not like that,” Xan says, voice soft. “Just let me try, please. I can make you feel better. Calm you.”

“If I agree to these ministrations, will you leave?”

“If you wish it, I will.”

“Very well. Do what you must.”

Xan places his hands on Jemel’s head. One on each of his temples and presses lightly. It feels strange, but good. He moves his fingertips in patterns, circling back, up and over Jemel’s scalp, tapping gently. It feels like cool rain. Jemel swallows a sound of relieved pleasure.

He lets go. He lets himself fall into the sweet sensations of Xan’s careful fingers.

Xan takes his time, leaning over Jemel, but keeping his distance. As if he is a servant, attentive deferently to his master.

The pleasure grows. The next sigh, Jemel cannot hold back. Xan does not react. The pain is lifting. Jemel feels heavy. Sleep, sleep that seems to have eluded him for so long, is suddenly, first possible, then inevitable.

“I am truly sorry,” Xan says softly as Jemel drifts. “I did not mean for you to be shamed so, truly.”

Jemel says nothing.

“If you think I took advantage of you, I did not mean to.”

Voice thick, on the edge of sleep, Jemel says, “You broke my vows.”

“Vows to a demon.”

Jemel says nothing. Xan’s fingers continue, working a strange magic, drawing heaviness from Jemel’s mind, melting it away.

“I ought to have stopped you. Even though you wanted it, I should have stopped you.”

“You could not,” Jemel says, feeling as if he is speaking, half in a dream. “You saw my face. I know what my face can do to a man like you. You took me. Of course you did.”

Xan strokes his fingers across Jemel’s hair. “I had never seen your face when I first felt desire for you. You know that.”

“You mean because you flirted with me. I thought you were just tormenting me.”

“Baraboo, I never met a man like you. You are so wise and so delicate. You are beautiful.”

“You don’t know who I am,” Jemel says weakly.

“You are the Scholar. You are the fifth bastard of Prince Rafus. A Darekul.”

Those words hit Jemel strangely, stones flung into still water. He has four older brothers. He has a family.

“I knew who I was, all this time. For five years. And never spoke of it. I saw my brothers. Damon and Lukas, Kerik, in the Rose Palace. Tobi is the only one I have never met. I never told them who I was. What I knew. About them, and about myself.”

“I know,” Xan says.

“And Atticul came to me when I was imprisoned. He told me who my mother was.” Jemel takes a breath. Everyone here knows. Xan might know himself if he had understood some of the Artemian conversation. Nevertheless he wants to tell someone what happened. “She is the Immurite. The most holy priestess of Zai. The one who never leaves her chamber. I care for her. And I never knew.”

“And now you do,” Xan says simply.

“It means I was born of the greatest transgression against Zai there could ever be.” He looks up at Xan, standing over him. Xan’s fingers on his skull have gone still.