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Hubert watches his emperor dancing with her new wife with a flush of pride on his face, and yet an unwelcome emptiness in his heart. The way Edelgard and Dorothea gaze into one another’s eyes, the skirts of their wedding gowns swishing together in time with the gentle ballad, sprouts a curious sort of envy in him that he hadn’t expected. It isn’t that he begrudges her for embarking in a new life, one with far less space for him—he’s elated that with the war ended and he reign secure, she has the chance for such a life. And it isn’t that he feels a desire for all the ceremony and majesty of an imperial wedding—it’s scarcely even a want that he can name. Rather, a nagging question he’s long tried not to answer, as to whether this is something he should want, too.
And yet he now wonders that he shouldn’t have seen it coming—indeed, everyone else seems to have seen it but him.
Just imagine, Hubert, Her Majesty had said to him that morning, as he worked his way up the seemingly endless column of buttons that fastened up the back of her red lace gown, right to the heart-shaped cutout at her shoulderblades. Perhaps we could be hosting your wedding next.
Hubert nearly snapped off a delicate button at that. I would not hold your breath, my lady.
Oh, I won’t. He could see her playful smile in the mirror. But if you feel so inclined . . . I do not want you to refrain. Especially not on my account.
Buttons secure, he turned his attention to threading the tiny red carnation buds into her hair, trying not to examine her words too closely. My life is already dedicated to serving you.
And you’ve done admirably. She spun on her stool to face him; clasped both of his gloved hands in hers. But I don’t want my life to be your entire life. That isn’t fair to either one of us. Or . . . A corner of her mouth twitched. To him.
He swallowed, hands shaking. I’m not sure what you mean.
You’ll figure it out.
He’d escorted her down the aisle, red lace train fanning behind them like a bloody path, and felt the way she shifted on his arm the moment her gaze met Dorothea’s at the altar. And then—embarrassingly, in spite of himself—felt a similar shift, a heady rush of fresh air filling him, when he caught the gaze of the best man standing at Dorothea’s back.
Yes, damn her, he knew exactly what—and who—she meant. But it doesn’t make it any easier to voice his feelings—it doesn’t make the next step any less arduous a task.
Ferdinand can’t help the dampness in his eyes as Edelgard and Dorothea’s first dance together concludes, red lace and creamy silk twisting together as they sway. It is everything he could have wished for for both of them, for the end of the war, for the future that awaits them all. And yet the bittersweet taste of it won’t wash away.
As Hubert had styled the wedding party’s hair that morning, Ferdinand almost found his nerve. He stared at the white silk gloves Hubert had removed and draped on the vanity before him as scarred, stained fingers ran through Ferdinand’s locks with a painful intimacy. Gathering up each curl to pile it into place; tucking in white sprays of baby’s breath and hairpins with seed pearl tips all around so they winked like stars.
The hands went still on Ferdinand’s shoulders, bare skin on bare skin for a fleeting moment, and Ferdinand wondered, foolish beyond words, if he might feel the ghost of lips at the nape of his neck . . . If all their quiet glances and smiles, their easy exchanges of words and thoughts and even rare brush of shoulders as they bow their heads together to converse, might have been building toward this moment. Toward something beyond.
But then Hubert only smiled at him in the mirror, squeezed his shoulder once, then moved on to style Dorothea’s hair next.
Now, as the brides move to one side of the ballroom, Ferdinand can’t help but look to the banquet table where the wedding party has sat. Only Hubert remains there, hands clasped in his lap, a strange expression on his face—not his usual scowl, but not smiling, either. He looks almost—pained.
He catches sight of Ferdinand, and seems to force whatever it was away. Ferdinand braces himself for some of his typical bluster, rolling his eyes at Ferdinand for crying at weddings, maybe, or affecting an aloof sneer. What he doesn’t expect is the hopeful smile that spreads on those delicate lips as Ferdinand shuffles forward.
He stops at Hubert’s shoulder. Now or never. Extends a gloved hand.
“I do believe,” Ferdinand says, “that Her Majesty has commanded us all to join them for the next dance.”
Hubert blinks up at him. “Something to that effect.”
“And you would never disobey a direct order from her.”
Hubert closes his eyes with a wince. “Not without good reason, no.”
“Well. If there is a good reason you do not wish to dance with me . . .” Ferdinand’s face flushes at his own boldness. And a little from the champagne. “Then you might as well tell me now, so I do not have to wonder.”
Hubert huffs to himself, head shaking. “No. There isn’t one.” He looks down, as if ashamed. “As much as I might tell myself otherwise.”
Ferdinand blinks the tears away at last. “Then would you do me the honor of a dance?”
Hubert can feel the warmth of Ferdinand’s hand through both their gloves, through the calluses and blisters on his skin.
He can hear Ferdinand’s breathing over the chatter and laughter and strains of the next dance song beginning, the shuffle of dozens of feet on marble flooring, the clink of glasses and scrape of forks.
And for all the glittering chandeliers, the sparkling champagne, the sequins and jewels and dazzling faces all around them, all he sees is the man before him: his face ever open, his smiles effortless, his eyes gleaming and soft. A face he has cursed in the past, but come to cherish; a face he catches himself seeking in every crowd. A face never close enough for his liking, but to bring it closer has always been more than he dares to ask.
“You look—” Ferdinand pauses; puts his other hand on Hubert’s waist. “Entrancing.”
Entrancing. Never something he has been called before. Frightening, intimidating, brooding, perhaps. But Ferdinand always sees things differently. Silly, how he never fully considered that he could be one of those things.
Hubert’s voice catches as he places his other hand on Ferdinand’s shoulder. “You are radiant as ever, von Aegir. Though I’m sure many tell you so.”
“I only want to hear it from one, though,” he says under his breath. When Hubert raises his head, questioning—“And, Hubert. Please.” Ferdinand ducks his head as a blush spreads under his freckles. “Surely we are past such formalities.”
Hubert wants it to be so. They are—close. Closer than he has allowed himself to become with any other. Long nights working side by side, Ferdinand’s head slumping against his shoulder when he suddenly drifts off, and Hubert cannot bring himself to wake him up, to move him, to do anything but let him rest right there. Fingertips that come to fall on the back of a gloved hand, meeting across the garden table when they join each other for tea. Hubert can sustain himself on a bright smile from the prime minister for weeks at a time, letting its memory warm him even as he carries out his business in shadows—in ledgers and invoices—in the careful, consuming work of tending to his lady’s household needs.
Is it enough to last his whole life? The war is done, their empire secure. There is still so much to do, but nothing like before. He’d attacked the wedding planning with the same fervor he’d shown the war, true, but even that, now, is done.
There is a curious emptiness before him, and a loneliness, too.
“Ferdie, I . . .”
But they are moving—Ferdinand stepping toward him, and so he steps back, leaning away though Ferdinand’s hand at his waist holds fast. Stepping to the side—Ferdinand’s head tilting just so, his gaze a few inches below Hubert’s and yet somehow he feels so much larger, impossible to ignore. Then Hubert steps forward, Ferdinand’s face looming nearer as his own foot slides back, and how have they never been this close, how has he never known the sturdiness of Ferdinand’s chest before this moment? How could he have ever not wanted this?
Somehow, the steps become easier, a pattern they needn’t think about, and Hubert’s thoughts wander instead to the bow of Ferdinand’s lips, the way his laughter always echoes through the palace halls. And maybe that is not enough to chart the new course of his life on—but maybe it can be a beginning.
“Hubert . . .” Ferdinand starts, and Hubert lifts his head—but then Ferdinand lowers his, and says nothing more. Hubert allows him his silence. He cannot intrude. Already he’s drawn too close.
The dance ends, and Ferdinand’s fingers dig in at his hip as his other arm steadies him in a twist. He tips him back, only by a fraction, Hubert’s weight and body his to support, and he’s gazing down at him and his breath is tickling Hubert’s throat—
But then, almost before Hubert’s righted again, Ferdinand is letting him go. Hubert blinks, bewildered—hadn’t they been making progress? Ferdinand blinks at him, frowning—and then he is just a red velvet suitcoat and tan breeches and a head piled with curls, weaving through the crowd.
Ferdinand slips out of the stuffy ballroom and into the long stretch of the portrait gallery, red walls and artwork on one side of the corridor, glass windows overlooking the nighttime silence of the Enbarr River on the other. The polished wood and marble statues and rich oil-covered canvases glitter like jewels in the lamplight. His predecessors stare sternly from no few of the paintings, but he isn’t here for their eyes to judge; he needs the silence, and the cool night air radiating off the windows. He moves toward it, and presses his cheek to the glass, watching the dark river flow.
“Ferdie, please . . .”
Hubert’s reflection appears beside him in the glass, a dark streak of hair and clothing interrupted by a pale face. Slowly, head still against the window pane, Ferdinand turns.
“What did I do wrong?” Hubert asks. “I thought that we . . .” But as ever, he trails off.
Ferdinand shakes his head with a clink of pearls against glass. “I suppose I’d been hoping there might be something there after all. You and I. But you—you are married to your work. Always have been. It is not my place to intrude.”
“Married to my—” Hubert huffs, staring down at his polished boots. “The satisfaction my work brings me can hardly compare. And Her Majesty has made it apparent, I suppose, that one can achieve great works while still carrying on a grand romance.”
“So she has.” Ferdinand smiles sadly. “But that life is not for you.”
Hubert shuffles anxiously, boots squeaking against the wood. “I, ah. Have perhaps been reminded that such singlemindedness is neither productive nor appreciated, sometimes. And that—it is also unnecessarily cruel for me to leave matters unresolved.” His mouth twists with a regretful smile. “One could even say it is unprofessional.”
“You? Unprofessional? Minister von Vestra, I am appalled.”
A pale pink rises on his cheeks. “Apparently it can happen from time to time. And now who is being needlessly formal?”
Ferdinand cants his head in concession. “Very well. Hubert.” He pushes off the glass to take a step toward him. Despite the terror thudding in his chest, he stretches out one hand, and presses gloved fingers to Hubert’s cheek—curls them into dark hair, strokes his thumb against a honed cheekbone as Hubert closes his eyes and exhales into his touch. “What matters have you left unresolved?”
“You.” Hubert sighs. “The matter of my burdensome feelings for you.”
Ferdinand frowns. “Burdensome, are they?”
“Yes. Because they possess me.” Hubert opens his eyes, fixing him with a wickedly sharp gaze. “No matter how much time we spend together, it ends too soon. No matter how close I feel we have become—which already seems impossible, given how much we despised each other, once—it is still not close enough.”
Ferdinand swallows down a tiny cry and tries to remain still.
“I should feel nothing but joy today—joy for my lady, and her marriage, and the ceremony itself, which took me nearly as much effort to plan as our entire military campaign. And instead I only find myself feeling piteous of me, lonely, regretful for all that time I could have been spending on my own life, too.”
“I—I see.” Ferdinand’s eyes once again dance with moisture, damn them, as he moves closer. “But perhaps it is not too late.”
“Isn’t it? Each day I refuse to admit what I feel, to give you proper attention, is an insult to you.”
“Well, you used to insult me on a daily basis,” Ferdinand says, “so you can hardly do worse.”
Hubert laughs; when he blinks, his eyes, too, are glassy. “Do you forgive me my foolishness, then?”
“I can forgive you both of our foolishness—the years of questioning and uncertainty you have forced me to endure, and my own stubbornness refusing to allow me to act—on one condition.” Ferdinand’s thumb grazes his cheek again. “Just answer me one question, and I’ll forgive it all.”
“Anything,” Hubert says, his breath finding its way down Ferdinand’s sleeve to his bare skin.
Ferdinand swallows. Goddess, he never thought he’d find the courage for these words to cross his lips. But he never thought he’d see the emperor’s hardened assassin, the arbiter of all palace affairs, so pliant and tender like this.
“Would you allow me the honor of courting you, Hubert von Vestra?”
Hubert stares at him, mouth open and soft. “Always,” Hubert breathes.
And then Hubert’s arm is around his waist—his lips are seeking Hubert’s. Delicate as the distant ballroom strains at first, a flutter of skin on skin.
Then their mouths are parting—vulnerable and hesitant, as with everything between them. But as Ferdinand tastes him, commits him to memory, he thinks—whatever they endured was worth it to bring them to this.
Hubert murmurs, softly, and tips his forehead to Ferdinand’s, pausing for air. Ferdinand is sure he must be able to feel the frantic beat of his heart. But if he does—what of it? He’s nothing left to hold back from him.
“Might I have the honor of another dance?” Hubert asks, his voice rough and warm where it teases over Ferdinand’s mouth.
“Please.” Ferdinand tries to catch his breath as well. “Shall we head back to the ball?”
“Mm. Here, I think.” Hubert’s fingers curl at Ferdinand’s waist. “I’m enjoying having you to myself.”
And with their past aglow around them, Adrestia’s future in the ballroom beside them, they relish another dance. One moment, one hand in one hand, faces pressed together and feet moving in careful harmony, the first of many to come.