The gate guards checked Jayce's papers twice out of habit and once because they liked him. Slate blew hot breath down Jayce’s sleeve anyway, impatient for oats and a rub. Jayce leaned his forehead to the gelding’s and let his shoulders drop for the first time in days.

  “Great companion as always,” he said, scratching the favorite place under the browband. Slate’s ear flicked, verdict satisfied. “Go be spoiled.”

  Stableboys led the horse away. He made his way up the steps into the palace that kept breathing around him, chains somewhere, laughter too loud at a distance, the ghost of a drill whistle from the practice yard. He walked it as he always did: check the line, check the corners, check the quiet. The three familiar turns from the front to the barracks hallway. Pulling his key out and unlocking his door. Bags down, a long stretch and started rummaging for clean clothes and the batter shower bag without thinking, hands doing the choreography while his mind unspooled the road-tired list of names he'd said aloud enough times that they sounded like a chant.

  Ryder. Damon. Me. Darius. Ezra. Kylar. Zen. Fenway. Tamsin. Kurt. Gibson.

  He added the silent thing beside the list: the letter in his inner pocket, wrapped in oilskin against rain and chance. Ryder had asked him to bring it back if he could coax it from her, something simple, something honest, addressed to Dato. He’d gotten it. Kairi had argued in a soft, stubborn way about names, then written Kairi at the bottom with her mouth set like a captain signing for a ship. Not princess yet. Not here. But willing to know the prince better. He could respect the line she drew.

  Two guards lifted hands as he crossed the corridor toward the shower house; he returned a half-salute that meant I see you and I’m off duty and I’m not. Zen cut across the far end of the hall, all controlled heat, a spark where other men banked. Jayce’s gaze snagged for a heartbeat.

  Zen, good under pressure, a blade that wanted to be used and be useful. Fiery and quick to act. But, could he be soft in the way she'd described of the dream? Gentle without her asking him to be. Patient and be able to laugh quietly with her? The hardest thing, would he make her feel safe? It was hard to imagine Zen as 'safe'. He filed it away to think on later.

  Darius came up near the stairwell, posture neat even out of armor. “Welcome back, Cap.”

  “For a day or two,” Jayce said. He let his mouth tip, not quite a smile. “Might steal you in a couple of weeks. Escort work.”

  “I'm free, and it sounds fun.” Darius didn’t ask who they’d be escorting. Good man. He moved on, light on his feet. Darius read as straightforward, clean lines, clean conscience, too earnest by half. Dream boy material if the world were kind, but the world wasn’t, and Kairi had a way of finding the complicated route every time. But, he could be. He had seen Darius with the other servants in the palace and many were fond of him. He could be that safe, kind and gentle dream of hers.

  Jayce made it to the shower house and grinned. He loved hot water more than any magic on earth. The taps coughed and then delivered, Tearian plumbing singing in the copper. He stepped into heat that unraveled the road from his muscles in long threads. Dirt made its first surrender at his collarbones, then his spine. He leaned his head back into the water and just enjoyed it for a bit before he reached for the soap. The cake of soap Kairi had made for him waited in the corner of his kit, wrapped in a square of cloth tied with red thread. Mint, something greener beneath, the clean bite of willow. He worked it into his palms and paused, breath catching at nothing but thought. He was almost out of the soap. He would have to ask her if she could make some while he was there here soon. Maybe she had a new scent she was playing with this time. He stilled at the thought.

  You ask her for too many things.

  He rubbed harder, like he could sand the idea down before it splintered. She’d given it freely. She gave freely by nature. That didn’t make him less of a beggar. Princess, he reminded himself, an old, careful word he almost never put near her when she was laughing over tea or binding his wrist from some idiotic spar cut. How her hands fit in his and she didn't think twice to lean against him.

  Princess, Jayce. Act like you remember. Friends...

  The heat climbed his neck. He let his mind go where it was going anyway: Dato.

  Dato could be patient. Jayce had seen it when the boy, no, the prince, listened harder than anyone else in a room and said less. He could be kind in ways that didn’t show on paper: a hand on a new recruit’s shoulder after hours, a quiet fix of a schedule so a man could see his family. He was also the coldest wall in Naberia to any nobleman’s daughter, polite to the point of frost, letters answered with distance, dances measured in inches. A prince who treated courtship like a treaty: without warmth, without noise.

  But in the guard, under his middle name, Kylar… there was heat. Jokes traded with the night shift like contraband, a steady presence at the back of the sparring ring who hauled men up with a grin and a correction. Warmth that looked almost careless until you watched the angles and saw the care threaded through. Jayce knew the seam was deliberate; he knew the seam existed at all. Most didn’t. Even knowing it, he couldn’t picture Kylar—Dato—letting himself be seen by a girl. Not really. Not the soft parts. Not the ones a letter might touch and not bounce off. He only has seen Kylar joke around with the other guards and his brothers. But to the rest of the world, he was distant and cold.

  Between Zen’s fire and Darius’s clean lines, between Damon’s polished charm and Dato’s winter politeness, the numbers kept coming up Damon. Damon had been cleaning his reputation the past couple years. Less visits to brothels, more card tables where the stakes were names instead of coins. Damon could be patient when he wanted something. Charming until teeth. If he had a secret place with a girl, he’d teach her every trick he knew, and they’d both enjoy the lesson. It fit too well. Maybe that was the problem. Easy answers made poor locks. But would Damon stay quiet about having a secret girl? Probably, thinking everyone would think it a story.

  He rinsed, dried, dressed with soldier economy. He headed back to his rooms and once back in his rooms he dropped the shower bag and stood with his jacket half on, he paused and looked at himself in the mirror. He slid his arms through the sleeves and let the jacket settle. The familiar comfort of the leather. He took the letter from the inner pocket, checked the seal like a superstition, and tucked it back.

  On the walk to the Royal Wing, his thoughts circled the same point: what would Dato do with a letter signed Kairi? He'd either read it, and ignore it. Or read it, and craft a careful letter of nothing. Or would the prince do something he wouldn't expect. Maybe he would actually write back if Ryder and himself asked him to, nicely, maybe begging. He huffed a laugh. He guessed he would beg Dato to write to her kindly.

  Still, it was hard to see it. Easier to see Damon taking the chance with both hands and making it look like fate had planned it. Love at first sight, head over heels in love and declaring his undying love the first time she saw him.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  The familiar door came up fast, the one he had stood before as boy, then as blade, then as the kind of friend who didn’t flinch. He raised his hand and knocked twice, then twice more a little faster. The knock that Ryder knew it was him.

  “Enter,” Ryder’s voice said through paper and ink.

  Jayce stepped in, closed the door with a click that didn’t echo. Ryder looked up from the thick stack of petitions, eyes clearer than they had any right to be at this hour.

  “Welcome back, Jayce.”

  Jayce touched the inner pocket where the letter sat, laid the names in a neat row one last time like tools before a job, and bowed his head a fraction, soldier, not courtier.

  “Good to be home,” he said, and meant at least half of it.

  Ryder grinned, sat back to stretch the knots out of his shoulders, then pushed up from the desk. He tipped his chin at the side table. Jayce took the chair that let him watch the door and the windows both. Ryder poured two fingers each and slid one across.

  Jayce set Rush’s letters down between the cups. “Once you reply, I can head back.”

  “That means he finally agreed.” Ryder broke the first seal with a thumbnail and read, the corners of his mouth doing the small work of hope and calculation. Jayce let the chair take him, let the burn of the drink settle the last of the road in his chest. He looked at the tidy room as it always has been. The small tokens Ryder liked and clean shelves of books. He glanced over toward the desk of chaos. The one place in his rooms that was never tidy. He let his gaze go toward the door that went to his private solar and then bedroom. Has Ryder slept at normal hours lately? He had a room here as well, a small guards room incase Ryder needed him. He had only stayed a handful of times over the years when Ryder was injured or sick.

  The second seal popped. Ryder took a sip as his eyes moved. “He signs.”

  Jayce exhaled, not quite a laugh. “He does.” He touched the inner pocket where Kairi’s letter sat, then drew out his own paper and laid the list between them. Names in a column, each written like a tally he wanted to spend carefully.

  “It was by accident,” he said. “I signed to be a pain and tease her and she answered me without a blink. Got the truth out of her. Her stalker taught her.”

  Ryder’s brow ticked; he knew Jayce’s nicknames usually hid care under rudeness. He glanced down the list. He chuckled. “My heart, out early. No hope for me?” His finger hovered over the names, no contact yet. “And yourself. No hope for either of us it seems. So, he signs, and he knows Shadowguard swordwork going off this list.”

  Jayce curled his hand around the glass, letting the heat of it press into his palm. “That’s what she gave me. Not the field flicks we use to move a unit, actual conversation. Fluid. No hunting for shapes.” He rolled his shoulder as if that might shake a new angle loose. “And he’s around her age. Patient. Quiet kind. ‘Safe’ was the word she didn’t say but left in the room.”

  Ryder nodded toward the paper. “You stewed on this the entire ride home. Tell me your thoughts.”

  Jayce did what he’d been doing for days: take each name in turn and try it against the edges of what he knew.

  “Zen,” he said. “Fiery by nature. Good under pressure, harder at the edges than she’s describing. He can sign the essentials, sure, but not full sentences without slowing to think. And ‘safe’ is not the first word anyone puts to him. Useful. Loyal. A blade. Not a harbor.”

  He slid his finger down.

  “Darius. Reads clean as chapel glass. Signs enough to get a message across when we’re stacked on a rooftop. Kind, steady. If the world were fair, he’d be exactly the sort of boy a girl would pick. But she didn’t sound like she’d chosen simple comfort. And he knows the drills and is patient enough to teach it. He is a possibility.

  Another name.

  “Ezra, Fenway—older than the bracket she gave me. Good men. Wrong shape.” He didn’t have to explain; Ryder knew the ages like he knew troop counts.

  “Tamsin, Kurt, Gibson.” Jayce shook his head once. “None of them have the time in with signs. And if one of them had found a girl like her, we’d have seen the edges of it on them. They leak. And they wouldn't do well with teaching."

  Ryder’s gaze snagged where Jayce’s finger was going even before it landed.

  “Dato,” Jayce said, and the word sat heavy between them because it always did. “He can be patient—more than most. The kind that listens and says less. He can be kind in the ways that don’t show up on reports: a shifted watch so a father can see his son, a word in a corridor to make a young guard stand taller. He knows our swordwork inside out. And he signs—properly. You, me, Kylar, Tessa’s core… there aren’t many who can hold a full talk.” He looked down at the name and then away. “But.”

  Ryder waited.

  “In court he’s frost to any noble’s daughter. Letters answered like treaties. Dances at an inch’s distance. In the guard, under his middle name—Kylar—he’s warm and thoughtless on purpose, jokes traded like rations. But I’ve never seen him let a girl see the parts of him you can bruise. Not one. If he is doing that, he’s built a door I didn’t know existed.”

  Silence held for a beat. The clock on Ryder’s desk clicked like a breath.

  “And Damon,” Ryder said softly.

  Jayce tipped the glass and watched the amber move. “Damon’s been polishing up. Less red-light, more presentable sin. He learns what he needs when he wants something; he can hold a conversation. You know as well as I he learned it to impress Tessa at first. He knows the forms, we all bled through the same yard. Patient when the prize suits him. Charming to a fault. And if he had a secret place with a girl… he’d teach her, and he’d enjoy it, and she’d feel safe because he’d make safe feel like a game he was letting her win.”

  He set the glass down so the sound was small. “Between Zen’s fire and Darius’s clean lines, between Dato’s walls and Damon’s velvet, the numbers keep coming up Damon.”

  Ryder tipped his glass, thinking. “Four likely then,” he said. “Zen, Darius, Damon, Dato.”

  He set the drink down, fingers steepled. “Zen’s a forge-fire. He can temper, but gentleness isn’t his first language. Darius… earnest to the bone. Safe in the good, uncomplicated way, but not the kind of ‘safe’ that makes a girl feel seen.” He took a moment looking at the last two names, his brothers. “And the other two." Ryder frowned.

  Jayce waited.

  “Damon can dress danger up as velvet,” Ryder went on. “He can play at safety and mean none of it, or mean it for as long as it serves him. Dato—” he exhaled, a small, wry sound. “Ky is all locks and quiet corridors. But when he chooses… he is thorough. If ‘safe’ is true, it might be him, though he’d bury the evidence deep.” Ryder sat back and ran his hand through his hair. "But both of them, both of them would hold onto a secret like that and not say a word."

  Ryder’s gaze lifted. “Did she write to Dato?”

  Jayce slid the oilskin bundle from his inner pocket and set it between the cups. “She did. Addressed to Dato. Signed Kairi.”

  Ryder chuckled, surprise brightening his face. “I honestly didn’t think she would.”

  Jayce’s brow knit. “Then why ask me to get her to?”

  Ryder ran his hand through his hair again, then took a longer pull from his drink. “Curiosity if she would.” He tapped the letter with a fingertip. “Anyway—can you hand that to Ky? He’s either in his rooms at the barracks or in the library trying to outdo Damon on Tearian studies.”

  Jayce raised an eyebrow. “You put them on that in the hope Rush would say yes?”

  Ryder winced, amused and a little guilty. “I actually only told Damon—so he wouldn’t embarrass me. He took to it easily enough; I didn’t have to threaten him much.” A faint shrug. “Ky wandered into the library while Damon was checking a reference, and now it’s been like this for days. Both of them very studious on Tearia.”

  Jayce slipped the letter back into his pocket, feeling the seal settle against his chest. “I’ll check the library. Mostly because I need to see how they’re acting—make sure I’m not skewing my read on who our dream boy is.” He glanced at the list still on the table. “I don’t know what she’s told the stalker… but if they’re both suddenly learning—”

  Ryder sobered, the humor cooling out of his eyes. “It’s out of character for both of them.”

  Jayce nodded. He finished the last swallow in his glass and set it down with a soft clink. “Of your two baby brothers, which do you want it to be?”

  Ryder swirled what remained of his drink, thinking as if the answer might rise from the amber. “Ky,” he said at last. “It would make me feel better to know he’s had someone there just for him all these years. Especially when he felt like I abandoned him when we went on that tour."

  “Understood.” Jayce gathered the list, let the names fold into his palm, and tipped his head. “I’ll deliver the letter—and have a look at what two princes trying actually looks like.”

  Ryder gave a tired smile and rose to get back to the chaos on his desk.

  Jayce cleared his throat. " Get some sleep Ryder. I'll check in with you in the morning."

  Ryder nodded and waved him off. He left the room, the corridor running quiet ahead, and turned his steps toward the library where ambition and study were reportedly burning brighter than usual.