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“What?”
“They think I kidnapped you,” Will explained, and Prince Nico blanched.
“Oh... maybe I should have told them I was running away in a letter…”
“There’s a warrant for my death…”
“Oh…” Nico sat down on a rock, looking around the forest. “Maybe I should go back?”
“I can’t go back, Nico, they’ll kill me. Even if you explain that you weren’t kidnapped, we’re… we’re queer, and we’ll be killed… if you go back, you go back alone.”
“I don’t know what to do…”
“You should go back,” Will said boldly, and Prince Nico looked up at him.
“Then why ask me to run with you? If you do not want me to?”
“I want you to run with me with all of my heart, Nico,” Will said honestly, kneeling on the moss and taking the Prince’s hands, “but you’ll be giving up everything. You won’t just be giving up a title or money. You’ll be giving up the life of dependency and commodities that you’re used to, and you’ll be fleeing with me. I can’t ask you to choose between your life or me. I can’t ask you to give up your family for love.”
“I don’t want you to leave, Will,” Nico said softly, squeezing his hands, “you seem to think I’d be giving up my life by fleeing with you, when in fact I’d be doing the opposite. Being dressed in golden robes of a morning to take a wife who will be forced to marry me when I’m queer, living a lie, being forced to produce a heir, that’s no life, Will, but loving you… loving you is my life. I would pay a thousand crowns just to see you smile and twenty thousand just to make you laugh. I would pay two hundred thousand crowns, the price of a country, to kiss you one last time. I don’t have a life without you. I can live without privilege I didn’t ask for. I can’t live without you.”
“Nico, you’re not leaving privilege for an average fairytale romance. You’re leaving behind privilege for a life of poverty. It’s not worth it, I can’t ask you to do this.”
“You’re not asking me to do this. I’m choosing to do this. We’re running away.” Will was about to protest when he heard a twig break, at which point he hauled Nico up to his feet, running.
“We gotta hurry!”
“Over there! There’s a hideout, I used to go there when I was little, I made it myself!” Will followed Nico, trusting him fully. Nico lead him to a small, cramped hideout, concealed in a mulberry bush and dug into the ground, made from sticks and held together with mud and hemp twine.
“Impressive,” Will whispered, settling on the floor. To his surprise, the Prince did too, his fanciful robes covered in mud. “Are you not worried about your clothes?”
“They’re cotton and silk, not food or medicine. A little mud never hurt anyone.”
“How common of you,” Will quipped in amusement.
“Whilst I may have a penchant for sugar sculptures and fine wine, I may have ran away before.”
“No way,” Will smirked, “when?”
“When I was ten. After Bianca died of consumption. I survived in a village, sleeping on the streets. You soon learn not to sleep outside the windows of those less well-off for fear the morning waste will land on you. So I slept in the doorway of a bakery, because it was slightly warmer from the ovens. I’d stay in the forest during the day. That’s why I built this hideout.”
“Oh…” Will’s mood sombred, but before he had the chance to apologise for overstepping, the sound of footsteps and rustling leaves settled in his chest into deep set panic.
“Nico?” Nico shushed Will silently, and Will’s blood ran cold. That was the King’s voice. If he opened the door, found them, that would be it, Will would be dead.
Nico stepped forwards and crossed the space between them, grabbing Will’s face and kissing him passionately. “One last kiss,” he whispered silently. Will nodded, tearing up- he was going to die, that was their last kiss, this was the last goodbye. He didn’t realise he was crying until Prince Nico wiped a tear from his eye, tenderly cupping his cheek, resting his forehead against Will’s. “I’ll see you in Elysium,” he whispered, his voice breaking, and Will let out a long breath. And that was when the door opened.
The King stood there, and Will dared to gaze upon him. If he was going to die, he might as well see the face of the man condemning him to death, give that man a face to haunt his sleep for years to come. He awaited the King’s move, locked in a checkmate, waiting to be taken away, executed, hung, drawn, and quartered. Treason, most likely. He’d be dragged by horse, hung, then gutted, then decapitated, then cut into four. He waited, but the moment of anger never came. He realised Nico’s palm was still cupping his cheek, and he looked back to the Prince, his breath caught in his throat, and Nico looked so terrified, petrified, a relic in time of a boy once happy in love.
“Nico, what is this?” the King demanded. Nico didn’t reply, and Will decided that if he was to die, he might as well fight for Nico’s freedom.
“Forgive me, Your Majesty, but your son is not to blame for my debauchery. It is me you wish to punish, for defiling your son.”
“That’s not true!” Prince Nico interrupted, “father please, he is the son of a plague doctor, he’s no harm to me! I have not been kidnapped, I absconded with him.”
“I’ll call off the rescue mission when you return to the castle, Nico,” the King announced.
“No, father,” Nico protested, “not without the guaranteed safety of my consort, and not without him by my side!”
“If I would have known that my silence on the matter would ultimately lead to your untimely departure, I would have spoken on the matter sooner.”
“And I wouldn’t have listened, father,” Nico insisted, and the King raised his hand in a gesture for silence.
“You misunderstood. I was well aware of your dalliances, I was merely operating under the assumption that you would tell me about it when you were ready, not that you would run away with no warning and trigger a countrywide panic with word of your untimely kidnapping.”
“This isn’t some dalliance, father, this is serious. And I’m running away with him. I’m not going to take a wife.”
“You misunderstand me again. I am not going to make you take a wife or return alone. Come back, Nico, and things may continue as they were, if not better. Whilst you will have to conceal your true nature from the public to avoid assassination attempts or usurpers, you will be able to court as many men as you wish in the privacy of the palace.”
“I only wish to court this man, father,” Nico said with a blush, surprised by the King’s acceptance but not about to take that for granted. “His name is William Solace, and I must profess that I do so love him, for he makes my heart grow fonder with every breath, makes every step I take on thorny ground lighter, hoisting me onto his shoulders when I do not have the strength and I am wounded inside. I would marry him if laws would allow.”
“The Privy Chamber would never allow such laws to pass, but what they do not know will not hurt them. Perhaps William should be made a knight. I’m sure he could be your personal bodyguard; at least, for the ears of others that is how he shall be known. Inside the palace, however, he shall be your husband.”