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Shaw scrubbed a hand over his face. He hadn’t slept well last night. Truth be told, he never slept well, but the past few months had been especially difficult, and last night it had all come to a head.
Varian was pacing. Breakfast had been laid out in the hall of the newly finished keep, but neither Wrynn had made an appearance. Anduin was still in his room ﹣ Shaw suspected he was not so much pained today by still healing injuries as he was deeply angry and upset at his father ﹣ and Varian was openly so. Shaw thought it a miracle the table in his private quarters still stood at all, after the king’s violent outburst the day before. A tray had been brought up, upon which sat an assortment of typical pandaren breakfast foods (steamed buns, wheat noodles, congee, and some sort of thin pancake topped with fried egg and scallions), beside an empty plate and two mugs. One was filled with steaming coffee from the pot to the side; the other was empty.
“Varian, come sit down.” Valeera Sanguinar sat with her back to the king, a sampling of the food before her. Like Prince Anduin, she seemed to have embraced pandaren cuisine; at least, she seemed very enthusiastic about the buns, which had been offered to Shaw in the barracks and were filled with something he thought was pork. “You’ll like this. It’s got meat in it.”
“I don’t want that bear food.” The king glared viciously at the floor as he paced; Shaw was surprised the carpet hadn’t caught fire. He wasn’t dressed yet, still in a loose shirt and baggy trousers for sleeping, and his bare feet smacked loudly as he walked. Valeera had probably stayed the night with him; though she had dressed in her usual everyday attire, her hair was loose and mussed from sleep, and she also wore no shoes. Except for a very brief moment last night, Shaw doubted Valeera had left the king’s side at all.
And wasn’t that the revelation of the century, he mused grimly. After half his soul being cleaved from him and abandoned by Onyxia five years ago, the king had returned to Stormwind in the company of a blood elf and a night elf. Had deposed the dragon, and been put back together. The night elf had left Stormwind then, to serve his own people; the blood elf had stayed.
Shaw had always known that Varian and Valeera were sleeping together, and had done his best to keep that information quiet. He didn’t understand Valeera Sanguinar ﹣ didn’t know why she was there, why Varian protected her so. She seemed to want no power, in her own name or the king's, and had no obvious agenda. She was meticulous in drinking moon tea to prevent the conception of any half elven bastards and rarely involved herself in affairs of state. Shaw had asked her once, very bluntly, if she was trying to marry the king, thinking perhaps she had some secret plot to align Stormwind with the blood elven city of Silvermoon, and Valeera had laughed in his face. I have no desire to marry Varian, she’d told him, and he thought she meant it. The first honest thing she’d ever said to him.
He’d kept tabs on her nonetheless. People lied, and Valeera Sanguinar had every reason to.
He supposed he’d known for a long time now that it wasn’t just sex. Of course it wasn’t just sex. Valeera Sanguinar was the king’s closest confidante, the person to whom he turned at every crisis and every celebration. Shaw had seen them more than once, heads bent together and sharing a quiet meal, walking too closely in the castle courtyard. Laid out on the grass watching the stars, and pressed against each other like teenagers. Had heard the king cry for her when he was sick, and witnessed his melancholy every time she returned to Quel’Thalas and the Sunwell for her twice yearly pilgrimage. No friend had ever provoked such a response from the king, and no unattached bed warmer would.
Shaw hadn’t wanted to see the truth of it, really. Not only because Ms Sanguinar was a blood elf and an enemy of their people, but because, if he was honest, he didn’t especially like her. Valeera had never been anything but rude and condescending to Shaw as long as he’d known her, flaunting her status as the king’s bodyguard and invoking the king’s name whenever she thought she could get away with it. She got under his skin and lived to make his life difficult. Shaw couldn’t stand her.
“Varian!”
And Shaw hadn’t sent for Valeera because he particularly cared for her. As he watched, she strode into the room with purpose, the only one of them all with enough audacity to challenge the king as he broke down, and Shaw knew then they would be fine. Before she’d even spoken, the king’s eyes had snapped to her, focused and clear in a way they weren't just a few moments ago, and finally took pity on the unfortunate pillow he’d been shredding and put it down.
Much of the room bore the casualties of Varian’s rage. The breakfast dishes still littered the floor in pieces, and Valeera stepped carefully around them, ignoring the sad splatters of food long gone cold. Shaw hadn’t been able to do much more than watch, his every word cut off, and stand by the door to bar the entrance of the unauthorized. Varian hadn’t listened to him as he'd howled, hadn’t even looked at him. But he looked at Valeera.
“Hey,” the blood elf said. “Varian.” She was less than an arm’s length away, ducking her head to catch the king’s eye. “Stop.”
Varian’s fist clenched, still indented in the wall. For the briefest moment he was furious, eyes widening, and he opened his mouth as if to scream at her, but Valeera was faster.
“Hey,” she said again, more gently. “Don’t get lost in your head. Stay with me.”
And slowly, Varian dropped his hand. The tension began to bleed from him. He listened to her, as he hadn’t listened to Shaw, and when he spoke, the hateful clip in his words had vanished.
Shaw had felt like an intruder, watching them yesterday, and he felt like one now. He’d never truly seen them together before, not like that. Had never been privy to the closeness they shared, the moments so private he’d needed to look away. “Stay with me,” Valeera had coaxed, and Varian had.
“Stay with me,” Edwin pleaded, breathing hot and desperate against his skin. “Please, Mattie.”
Shaw shook his head. He couldn’t think about that right now.
“Morning, Shaw,” Valeera said mildly, biting into a steamed bun. In the rare moments she was present at his reports she usually ignored him, Varian being the one to extend brusque pleasantries. The juxtaposition was jarring.
“Good mor﹣”
Varian’s head jerked up. “Shaw!” he thundered. “Did you know about this?”
Shaw didn’t have to ask what he meant. There was nothing else to which the king could possibly be referring, and he’d dreaded this moment from the second the confession left Anduin’s lips.
He’d weighed his options. It wasn’t as if he’d never lied to his king before. A part of the job, his grandmother had taught him. It wasn’t even as if he’d never lied about Anduin before. Shaw thought there were some things the prince should have to himself, and while he’d done his best to guide him, he’d kept the vast majority of the boy’s secrets. The king did not need to know his son had, on more than one occasion, skipped lessons, or snuck from his rooms to observe the high society galas to which he was not invited, or couldn’t remember his mother and felt badly that the fact did not make him sad.
But this… Wrathion was a far bigger, far more dangerous secret than those things. He should have said something. He should have put a stop to it. Varian would never have had to know.
“My agents at the Tavern in the Mists had mentioned that His Highness and the Black Prince were close,” Shaw said slowly. “One of them said they believed the dragon to be enamored with His High﹣”
Varian whirled, his face a splotchy red. He was going to start screaming again. “Didn’t I say? Didn’t I say this would happen?!”
Valeera’s lips flattened to a thin line. She did not comment.
“I wasn’t aware how far things had gone,” Shaw continued stiffly. “I had been assured it was one-sided on the part of the dragon, and was not interfering with His Highness’s recovery.”
He did not mention that Wrathion, as it had been conveyed to him, seemed instrumental in Anduin’s recovery. That the dragon had taken a great interest in the boy from the start, and spent many an hour reading with him, helping him with the strength-building exercises set to him by Tong the Mender, and keeping his spirits up and his mind off the incredible pain. That Anduin had worked for weeks to stand on his own, and walk unassisted, and the very first person to whom he showed his progress was Wrathion.
The White Pawn has been working for days on the dexterity needed for a game of jihui, one of the early reports said. He wishes to be able to move his own pieces when he plays with the Black Prince.
The Black Prince cheered at the sight of the White Pawn in the tavern’s main room. It is the first time the White Pawn has been downstairs since setting up accommodations.
The Black Prince accompanied the White Pawn to a small pond roughly 100 yards from the tavern. He carried the White Pawn’s cane and urged its use when the White Pawn tired. The White Pawn held onto the Black Prince’s arm, and insisted to the Black Prince more than once that he was able to make the walk.
Shaw was of the belief that the other boy’s presence had given Anduin something to work towards. Little goals, such as being able to feed himself again or switch from pajamas to day clothes, that others took for granted were difficult now for the boy, and Anduin enjoyed having someone to show off his progress to. Having seen Anduin in the broken state he'd arrived in, Wrathion ﹣ in the end just a curious, wide-eyed whelp ﹣ would not make Anduin feel small and belittled, would celebrate every small accomplishment for the miracle it was. The miracle that Anduin, at the end of the day, was still alive.
The White Pawn has asked for books on pandaren philosophy. He has heard the Black Prince debating with the Mender and wishes to be part of the conversation.
The Black Prince expressed delight this afternoon upon returning to the inn and finding the White Pawn seated downstairs and attempting to master the use of chopsticks. They sat for some time while the Black Prince positioned his fingers properly and demonstrated himself.
Shaw remembered the first damning report from the Tavern, the one that had him pulling at his mustache as he read the words over and over hoping each time it would say something different.
At approximately 1500 hours, the White Pawn and the Black Prince shared a chaste kiss. This action was initiated by the White Pawn.
Shaw had sat for a long time, glaring at the report. Finally, he’d looked up at its deliverer. “Who else knows of this?”
“No one, sir,” said Amber Kearnen. “I came straight to you.”
“Who is with His Highness now?”
“His guard, sir, and Rell.”
Rell. That was good. Rell Nightwind had a quiet demeanor and a distaste for gossip. “Say nothing of this,” he hissed. “Not a word. Continue your reports as usual. Do not engage the dragon.”
Amber raised an eyebrow. “Mathias…”
“I want the dragon under observation at all times. I want His Highness monitored for signs of enchantment or bewitchery. Keep an eye out for any gifts he may receive.” Wrathion was young, Shaw knew, and would require some sort of tangible connection to the prince in order to charm him. Onyxia, under the guise of Katrana Prestor, had often dispensed trinkets and shiny baubles to favored lords and ladies, a simple and magically less stressful way to keep them within her control.
Amber bit her lip. “I know what that looks like, Mathias,” she said carefully. “The dragon has given him nothing. His Highness seems to be genuinely attracted to him.”
Shaw had hoped it was nothing. A passing boyhood crush, nothing more. It was natural, he’d theorized, for a teenage boy ﹣ even one in Anduin’s condition ﹣ to experiment with kissing. And touching, he’d had to amend, as the reports trickled in. It was normal, and nothing to worry about, and Wrathion seemed… almost innocent in these actions, a surprised but willing participant. Each piece of parchment that crossed Shaw’s desk made it clear: Anduin was in his right mind, and Wrathion had not once harmed or coerced him.
In time, Shaw found himself growing almost protective of the boy and what was clearly a burgeoning romance. He still hoped, of course, that it would peter out, as young love so often did. He hoped, perhaps, that if it stayed secret, if Varian never found out, the boys would eventually drift apart on their own. Weren’t dragons known for their flighty views on mortals?
Because if Varian found out, well. He would react just as he had the day before. As he was doing now. And Anduin ﹣ stubborn as his father ﹣ would not meekly break away from the dragon just because Varian had yelled some. Anduin was more likely to cleave to the Black Prince, as lovers pulled apart so often did. Hadn’t Shaw done the same with Edwin?
“Mathias.” He still remembered the coldness in his grandmother’s voice, the first time she’d warned him away from Edwin VanCleef. “You are not to see that boy again.”
Edwin had been on his mind a lot since he’d come to this infernal continent.
“I want him skinned for a pair of boots!” The king was yelling again.
“Varian.” Valeera’s patience was wearing thin. Shaw thought she’d probably been through this before.
“I knew that blasted tavern was a terrible idea! A da﹣ a black dragon! He’s fuc﹣ he’s corrupted my son!”
Varian seemed more in control of himself today. He wasn’t cursing ﹣ he’d never been able to curse around women. Shaw didn’t know if the constant correcting himself made Varian any calmer, but it did prevent him from flying into another untethered rage.
“Would you like me to leave so you can swear?” Valeera asked mildly.
“This isn’t funny, Val!”
“I never said it was.” Though Varian was the more obvious of the two, Shaw could discern the telltale signs of anger in the way the elf carried herself. The clench of her jaw, and the slow, measured bites as she ate. Vaguely, Shaw wondered if Ms Sanguinar would break down once she was alone. If she would lose control away from Varian, when she didn’t have to keep his legendary temper in check. “Screaming about it isn’t going to make it better.”
“It makes me feel better!”
“Come eat,” she urged again. “It’s really good.”
“I don’t want that fu﹣ that weird bear food!”
“I don’t think they like when you call them bears.”
“Is that all, Your Majesty?” Shaw cut in. Being around them was making him antsy. Too many thoughts flitting through his mind, few of them good.
“Yes,” Varian snapped. “No. I don’t know!” He sat down heavily and thumped his fist on the table, and Shaw was reminded of the hole he’d put in the wall.
“Perhaps I should check on His Highness?” he offered.
“Yes. Good… good idea.” The king began smacking food on his plate indiscriminately. “What is this sh﹣ what is this?”
“Well these are obviously noodles.”
A huff. “I’m so tired of noodles,” Varian grumbled.
“And these,” Valeera continued, undeterred, “are pancakes? I don’t know. They’re good though.”
Shaw bowed formally, though the king was no longer paying attention to him, and slipped out.
Valeera’s relationship with the king irritated him. He tried to push the thought away as he strode through the keep, but it kept coming back, like a bad case of bronchitis or a recurring nightmare. He didn’t understand how it worked, and, if he admitted it, he was jealous.
Valeera Sanguinar possessed the ethereal beauty of the elves, and she was not often even in the same city as the king. And Varian ﹣ the king was the most eligible bachelor in the Eastern Kingdoms, as Genn Greymane liked to remind him, and many of Stormwind’s noble ladies clamored for his affections. People sent their daughters to court hoping to catch the eye of the king, praying fervently that she would be the next queen, and the old worgen had even mentioned the name of a well bred Gilnean woman or three, and Varian was interested in none of them. As far as Shaw knew (and Shaw knew everything that happened within the Alliance), Varian’s bed had never seen the likes of anyone but Valeera and his late wife. He did not flirt, and sometimes was not even courteous. He had eyes only for the blood elf; he looked at no one else.
And Valeera, to Shaw’s knowledge, had been faithful to the king every day of the past five years. Though her missions often took her far from Stormwind and away from Varian, Shaw had operatives in the most unlikely of places, and on the occasion they ran into each other, not one of them ever reported Sanguinar so much as glancing in another man’s direction. Though Varian worried when she was gone, it was for her safety, not her loyalty to him.
How do they do it? he wondered, and if he sounded bitter in his own head it could not be helped. How could Sanguinar stand to leave the castle, knowing her lover was surrounded by beautiful, more appropriate women than she could ever hope to be? How did the king not think, with Valeera’s tendency towards secrecy and her people’s pastime of seduction, that she wasn’t with a different man every night, bed hopping her way through Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms as some of Shaw’s own men did?
How had they stayed together for five years and still have that kind of trust?
“Damnit, Mattie! What was I supposed to think this time?”
“You were supposed to think I was mad at you!” Mathias shouted. “And that I can’t just drop my work because we had a fight!”
Edwin’s eyes flashed. “Yeah, your work,” he scoffed. “That always comes before me, doesn’t it?”
Sigh. “Ed, don’t start ﹣ ”
“No, I’m gonna.” Edwin yanked out a chair and sat down on it backwards, so heavily it jolted against the floorboards. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Let’s review, Mattie. I wanted you to come to the cathedral inauguration, and what did you do that day?”
“Ed ﹣”
“You were busy watching the fights in the Brawler’s Guild.”
“I was working a job!” His target had been a sponsor to one of the season’s heavy hitters, and Mathias had managed to make his death look like a drunken accident.
“Right.” Edwin rolled his eyes. “I was proud of the work I did on the cathedral, Mattie, and you couldn’t give me an afternoon to appreciate it!”
“I’ve seen it, Ed! It’s beautiful! I told you that!”
“But you weren’t there. The one day I needed you. The guild is supposed to get an award for that job and you weren’t there to hear the announcement!”
Mathias groaned, ran a hand through his hair. “What does this have to do with ﹣”
Edwin held up two fingers. “Alright, alright. You apologized. I forgave you. ‘Work,’ or whatever. But then I asked you to spend the day with me. You were off ﹣ ”
“I’m never off, Ed ﹣ ”
“You were off, and you said okay. And what happened?”
Pathonia.
“Fucking Pathonia. A knock at my door and some ‘urgent summons’ for you. Was it even important, Mattie?”
No. His grandmother had set him to decrypting encoded reports and summarizing them for the king’s council. An easy if tedious task she could have foisted on anyone else, all the while giving him an earful in her chilly, detached manner about how she’d warned him about ‘running around with that VanCleef boy’ and ‘I’m getting tired of humoring you, Mathias.’
“And then.” Edwin held up a third finger. “And then I said, ‘Okay Mattie. I get it. I know where I am on the hierarchy ﹣ ’”
“Edwin ﹣ ”
“I said, ‘Just have dinner with me, Mattie. That’s it. Just give me an hour or two at the end of the night.’ And you said you'd be there.”
Mathias sighed heavily. He’d left Edwin in a bad mood that morning, after another argument just like this one. Pathonia had given him a new target and he’d spent the day in irritable silence tailing the fellow. The guy was twitchy and paranoid ﹣ it wouldn’t be easy to take him out, and Mathias hadn’t succeeded by nightfall. He’d been forced to follow the man home, in a very posh, well lit area of the city. It had taken longer than he’d anticipated, and by the time he’d turned up at the Pig and Whistle, Ed was gone.
“Ed.” Mathias tried to remain calm. Tried to keep his voice even. “I had a job. It took longer than it should have, and I’m sorry ﹣ ”
“There’s always a job, Mattie,” Edwin interjected. “It’s always the Alliance or Pathonia. I'm always last on the list!”
“ ﹣ but you can’t fuck someone because we had a fight, Lightdamnit!”
The declaration rang out in the little room, nauseating and obscene. Edwin’s expression didn’t change.
“What am I supposed to think, Mattie,” he asked again, calmer but no less angry, “when I’m trying to be with you and you can’t even be bothered to show up? What does that say to me?”
“I’m not the one sticking my dick in ﹣ ”
“Well you sure haven’t been putting it in me!”
There was no getting through to Ed when he was like this.
Shaw was sure the king and Ms Sanguinar didn’t have arguments like that. He didn’t think they’d ever sat up all night screaming and sobbing at each other, hurling accusations and dirty words with frightening accuracy and abandon. Theirs was a world all their own, companionable and soft and trustful.
Scowling, he pushed the two from his mind, and continued down the stairs.
* * *
Anduin’s room in Lion’s Landing’s keep was a large, spacious affair on the first floor, one of the first to be completed and not originally intended for him. After the accident with the Divine Bell, he had been moved there until Varian could be persuaded to send him to the mistweavers at the Tavern in the Mists, and it had been kept for him even after the keep’s completion. It was thought to be easier on him than ascending the many narrow stairs that led to the other bedrooms. Unfortunately, being on the ground floor meant the prince had little privacy, with guards stationed outside his windows and more than usual before his door and wandering around his hall, and Anduin didn’t like being here.
“Come in,” came the reluctant answer to his knock and Shaw sent a silent apology the boy’s way before turning the handle and slipping inside.
“Good morning, Your Highness.” Anduin had told him many times just Anduin is fine, but he didn’t today, hardly raising his head from his spot on the squashy couch. Shaw didn’t think that boded well for the prince’s mood. Thankfully, the boy was not his father, and there would be no yelling here.
“Good morning,” Anduin replied politely. He was dressed, Shaw noted, in a loose tunic similar to what he’d arrived in and comfortable pants, and on his feet were thick socks and soft pandaren-style slippers. He sat somewhat stiffly, which was to be expected in his condition, with a book laid out on a plush pillow in his lap. Though he’d told his manservant he wasn’t feeling well, Shaw saw no sign of the hot water bottle he often used to ease his healing bones, nor even any of the many potions or creams he’d been prescribed by countless physicians. Within reach was a jug of water and a glass, and dirty dishes sat neatly stacked on a tray, ready to be whisked back to the kitchens.
Privately, Shaw was in awe. The last time he'd seen Anduin the boy lay broken and bleeding, Velen praying feverishly over his ravaged body night and day. He could hardly turn his head, let alone sit up and turn the pages of a book, and it was three days before the draenei would even pronounce him out of immediate danger. It was a miracle that the boy had lived, and one that made Shaw believe that perhaps the naaru of the Light existed, and they were merciful.
The prince watched Shaw warily, and the spymaster couldn’t blame him. The boy probably thought Shaw had been sent to lecture him.
“I’d heard you were ill today, Your Highness,” Shaw remarked conversationally. “I do hope it’s nothing serious.”
Anduin scowled. “I’m not going out there.”
The spymaster shook his head. “I’m not here to make you leave,” he said gently. “I just wanted to see how you’re doing.”
The scowl deepened. The trust Anduin had for him was shaken after the events of yesterday, and Shaw’s heart broke in two. What could he say to the boy that would make it better? He had protected Anduin as long as he could, out of some selfish desire for the impossible to become possible.
Perhaps, if someone had protected him and Edwin, Ed wouldn’t have died. Perhaps they would still be together.
Perhaps they would even be happy.
“What are you reading?” Shaw asked, and after a moment Anduin pulled the book back to show him the cover. It was decorated in a beautiful inkbrush painting of a crane amongst reeds, with flowery Pandaren calligraphy down the side.
“Pandaren folk tales,” the prince said quietly, as though afraid Shaw would judge. “This one is called The Talking Fish.”
“I’d heard you were learning Pandaren. I didn’t realize you’d learned to read it as well.” He was impressed. He’d managed to pick up enough of the language to get by, though Rell was far better at it, but the mysteries of the thousands of strange characters that made up their writing system eluded him. He’d recruited a few pandaren as translators, and they were paid handsomely for the service.
Anduin flushed. “I’m not very good,” he admitted. “These are children’s stories. They’re easier to read.”
“Did Tong teach you?”
The blush deepened. Anduin had never been a good liar. “A bit.”
Shaw knew the Black Prince spoke Pandaren, and also knew he’d shared all his books in the language with the ailing prince. Of course, SI:7 had checked them for spells and enchantments, but they were all in the end just plain paper and ink. He wondered if this was a book Anduin had received from the dragon, if the prince was reading more for comfort than out of any desire to practice his language abilities.
“Pandaren is supposed to be difficult,” he said instead. “It’s a great accomplishment, and you should be proud of yourself.”
Anduin was now the same shade as Shaw’s hair. “Thank you,” he mumbled. “It was easier, when I could ask Tong to explain the unfamiliar words to me.”
“It shouldn’t be any trouble to procure a dictionary, if you like.”
A moment.
“No, that’s alright. I like figuring it out myself. There's a system to reading the characters, and it's not hard if you know how.” And then, “Would you like to sit?”
“Sure.” Shaw lowered himself to the couch with a quiet pop of his knee. He wasn’t sure what to say to the boy. I’m sorry your father’s an asshole ? Or, I’m sorry I couldn’t do more for you. I did my best.
Nothing came to mind that didn’t start with an apology.
His grandmother had disapproved of Edwin. No, perhaps disapproved was too nice a word.
Pathonia had hated Edwin. Hated his smart mouth and his snark, despised his surly demeanor, and loathed that on any given day, Mathias could be found stuck to his side like a burr.
She’d been gentle at first, in her way. “I would rather you not associate with the VanCleef boy,” she’d say, tapping her nails to the table and fixing him with a narrow, steely glare.
And Mathias had ignored her the way all children ignored their parents. Edwin had been boisterous and terribly funny, and his eyes went wide when Mathias disappeared in the open daylight, whooping like he’d just seen the most amazing thing of his young life.
“He’s a distraction, Mathias. Focus,” when she’d catch him staring out the window in the direction of the canals, hoping to catch sight of a skinny boy with raven hair who liked to fish.
Until finally one day, she’d snapped.
“I don’t understand this… obsession you have for the VanCleef boy.” Her many rings clacked together as she waved her hand, as if to pluck all thoughts of Edwin from his brain and throw them away. “He’s reckless, he questions authority, he’s arrogant.” She loomed over Mathias as she spoke, and though he was taller than her now he felt very small.
“He lacks discipline,” Pathonia bit out, “and doesn’t hold himself to a sense of higher standard or duty. He’s a distraction you don’t need, Mathias. Your life, first and foremost, is at the mercy and service of the Crown of Stormwind, no one else. He would never put the kingdom before himself, and he will expect you to do the same.”
He’d been unable to stand up to her then. Unable to stand up to her ever. He’d been just as cowed by her anger as Anduin was by his father’s, and Shaw saw his whole sorry story play out before his eyes with Anduin in the lead whenever a report came from the Veiled Stair.
Shaw didn’t trust Wrathion, not really. But as long as the dragon remained this way, innocent and unsuspicious, as long as he treated Anduin with the love and respect he deserved, Shaw could not bring himself to become his grandmother and try and force them apart. He could not do to them what she had done to him and Edwin.
Despite being what he was, Wrathion truly seemed smitten with Anduin. The young prince had that effect on people.
“Shaw?” Anduin was watching him with a strange look on his face. He wondered what look had been on his own just now.
“Hmm?”
The boy bit his lip. “Father was here,” he started, “last night. And Valeera before him.” He closed the book on his lap without bothering to mark the page. “They never mentioned Wrathion. I heard Father screaming for hours, but neither of them ever brought him up.”
Valeera had been here? When? After she’d spoken to him outside?
For the first time in a while, Shaw wondered if Anduin knew about the relationship between his father and Valeera. Varian had always been very careful to keep it from him, but Varian was not as crafty as he thought himself to be. He didn’t always think before he spoke, and Anduin was not the clueless child he’d once been.
"I'm not his mother," he'd heard Valeera say before, but she was the closest thing he had to one.
“And that’s fine,” Anduin went on, slowly and choosing his words with care, “if you have nothing to say. I don’t… I can’t say I know you well enough, to know if you do or not. But if you have something to say about Wrathion, I’d rather you say it. I’d rather you didn’t sit in silence or pretend everything’s alright.”
Oh, Shaw had plenty to say on the subject of Wrathion, but very little he felt comfortable discussing with anyone, much less Anduin himself.
“I know my father’s angry.” And Anduin’s eyes fell here, his cheeks colored. “I know he’s really angry,” he said quietly. “And I know it’s not only because Wrathion’s a black dragon.”
Shaw’s chest felt tight. For a moment he was fifteen years old again, and Edwin was beside him, bruised jaw harsh in the late afternoon sun.
“I’m sorry he yelled at you,” he murmured. “You know how he is.”
“Yeah.” The boy ran his thumb along the book’s leather spine. “But… he’s gotten so much better. I thought… I thought I could talk to him.”
Just after the Cataclysm Varian had changed. The calamity wasn’t the cause. The king had lost his temper in Darnassus, had reacted in typical Varian fashion over the decision to welcome Gilneas back into the Alliance. The boy had been on the fence about how best to continue his studies with the Light, Shaw knew, and his father’s behavior at the Darnassus summit had pushed him over the edge. He’d informed Varian he would learn under the draenei Velen, and the king had lashed out.
Shaw had heard differing accounts of what happened. Some said Varian struck the boy, overcome by rage, but Shaw didn’t believe that. Anduin was the most precious thing in the world to Varian; he would not lay a hand on him. But Anduin had been injured, that much was certain. Varian had come back from Darnassus without his son, and began to make a concentrated effort to keep his volatile temper in check.
Whatever had happened affected the king deeply. He’d been very melancholy while Anduin was away at the Exodar, and when the prince returned Varian had been calmer. Gentle, even. When the boy made him angry he shut his mouth, and most of the time succeeded in not yelling. He wasn’t quite as careful around the rest of them but there was a notable difference. The relationship between father and son, stalled all those months, began to mend again.
And one black dragon had ruined it.
“You can. You can talk to your father about anything, Anduin. You’ve gotten very good at it.” Indeed, Anduin would not have gone to the Veiled Stair at all if Varian'd had his way.
A small, soft smile began to spread over the prince’s face, and at Shaw’s questioning look, he said, “You’ve never called me by my name before,” and Shaw chuckled.
“I suppose I haven’t.” His grandmother raised him right. Taught him to speak when spoken to, to use titles when applicable, to never get attached. But staying detached from someone like Anduin Wrynn was a lost cause. He was too earnest, endearing in his innocence and unfailingly charming. He was kind and considerate, and put the needs of others above his own without complaint, as if it had never occurred to him to do anything else. Shaw couldn’t quite pinpoint when Anduin had transformed from the reluctant duty imposed upon him to the young man beside him, the one whose thoughts he always had time for, whose dreams he encouraged, whose opinions mattered. Anduin had grown on him like a rose around a trellis, and supporting him was easy and uncomplicated. A decision he’d already made deep in his bones, and his mind would rationalize it later.
Perhaps this was what the dragon saw. Not the Crown Prince of Stormwind and all the power and opportunities, but just a boy with sun-kissed hair and eyes blue as the sky, whose smile put him at ease and in whose attention he basked.
Shaw remembered that feeling, such a long time ago now. When Edwin loved him.
The window whispered in its frame as it opened, just the last few inches, as the top edge finally kissed the jamb. The curtains fluttered soundlessly and Mathias lay immobile in his bed, barely daring to breathe.
“Hey.”
He wasn’t imagining it. Heart hammering, he propped himself up, and there before him in the thin moonlight was Edwin. Uncertainty clung to him, his eyes downcast. He should have been winded, scaling the wall as he had, but he wasn’t.
“Sorry I’m late.” The words came in the exhale, so soft Mathias almost didn’t hear them. Tentatively he shifted his weight, almost as though waiting for Mathias to tell him to go.
He didn’t want Edwin to go.
He was here. After everything that happened, he was here. Mathias didn’t dare make a sound. He felt like he was in a dream. He watched as Edwin gently shucked his tunic, pulling it over his head and letting it drop quietly to the floor. As he pulled off his boots, and made his way in socked feet over the woven rug, careful to avoid the creaky floorboard, to avoid waking Pathonia one room over. Felt the dip in the mattress as Edwin laid down beside him, fitting his body against Mathias’s own.
And all the while, Edwin’s eyes never left his. Vulnerable, in a way they normally weren’t. In a way only Mathias ever saw.
He felt more than saw Ed’s hand come up, felt him cup the side of his head and pull him close. Warm, slightly chapped lips pressed against his forehead, and Mathias’s eyes closed despite himself. His blood pulsed in his ears; a lump rose in his throat. Edwin nuzzled into the crook of his neck and just breathed, just existed with him without words, his calloused fingers carding through his copper hair. He pressed himself close, so close he didn’t know where Edwin ended and Mathias began.
When he opened his eyes Edwin was still there, watching him with an expression so tender it almost broke Mathias’s heart, love and concern smudged into every feature, every line of his sunburnt face. Mathias breathed deeply, inhaling the scents of stone dust and sweat and golden Stormwind air, a deep sense of calm settling within him as he lay in Edwin’s arms. A gentle breeze drifted in, subtle and soothing, and Mathias finally allowed the exhaustion to overcome him, warmth flooding all the way down to his toes.
* * *
“Can I get one of those?”
The spymaster startled, finding Valeera hovering nearby. He hadn’t heard her approach, too lost in his thoughts.
“Varian! Stay with me. Don’t get lost in your head.”
“Stay with me, Mathias. Don’t do this.”
Shaw passed the elf a bottle of barleywine ale, twin to the one he’d been nursing, with a hand that felt it didn’t really belong to him. There was blood in his mouth, and he chewed at the inside of his cheek again before bringing the drink back to his lips, the alcohol burning around the wound he’d made there.
Valeera drank too, her usually stern features softened by the firelight. She did not sit, perhaps didn’t feel she could, even on the fire’s far side. Shaw had never been particularly welcoming to her, after all.
It was too much. Anduin’s confession and Varian’s tirade, Valeera and her strong, assuaging “Stay with me, Varian.” If Shaw hadn’t been there, how would that scene have played out? Valeera, standing before not the King of Stormwind but a normal man, extending her slender hand and laying it softly against a jaw that unclenched at her touch. Varian, reaching not for the king’s personal spy but for the woman he loved, falling into the refuge of her arms, the one spot of dry land in this terrifying sea he’d found himself cast into. His guard crumbling, defenseless and safe as he was with no one else.
Mathias headed for the door, cloak clasped over his shoulders and daggers secured once more in his belt. In the span of a moment a solid weight barreled into him, arms packed with lean muscle coiling around the softness of his belly. His stomach churned.
“Mattie.” Edwin pressed his face to the back of Mathias’s neck, breath hot against the pale freckled skin. “Please. Don’t do this to me.”
His heart sank.
“Ed…”
The mason’s arms tightened until it almost hurt. “Please,” he breathed, voice catching. “Stay with me. Stay with me, Mattie.”
Mathias couldn’t move. His feet felt rooted to the floor, his shoulders and arms wired in place. Every single nerve in his body shrieked at him to do something ﹣ to fall back into Edwin as he always had, to storm out the door and not look back. His eyes were burning and he closed them. He couldn’t face the reality of what he was about to say.
“I can’t, Ed,” and his voice broke over the words. “You know I can’t.”
For a long, aching moment no one spoke. Edwin clung to him, and when he raised his head, he left behind a slew of hot, fat tears.
“I…” There was pressure on his shoulder again, a shaky inhalation, and then it was gone. “I fucking love you, Mattie,” he said, his voice cracked and wobbly. “Why isn’t that enough?”
Mathias couldn’t answer. Mechanically, he unwound the other man’s limbs. Forced himself to take a step forward. And then another. And another. It wasn’t until he’d stepped over the threshold, door clicking shut with sickening finality, that he realized he was crying. The tears seared a path over his overheated skin, pooled along the line of his jaw and fell, one two three, unseen to the floor.
It took an age to lift his foot. Again. And again. He scrubbed a hand roughly over his eyes, but the tears followed him the entire way back.
“Shaw…”
Why was Valeera even here? They weren’t friends. She had looked at him, just once, in the room, with the briefest flicker seemingly of empathy ﹣ but that was impossible. Valeera thought she knew so much. She didn’t know anything about him. About Ed.
Shaw didn’t want to talk to Valeera Sanguinar. He didn’t want to talk about his king and his bigoted diatribe, didn’t want to think about Wrathion and Anduin’s affection for him and the things they had and had not done, what the king assumed had or hadn’t happened. And he certainly did not want to sit here with Valeera ﹣ Valeera, beloved of the king, who against all odds had shadowstepped into their lives and brought the most sorrowful, destructive man Shaw had ever known to his knees in reverence.
All he wanted was to sit here and drink his ale, and if he was supremely lucky, he would drown in it.
“Leave it, Valeera.”
Maybe it was the setting, the gloomy spymaster hunched over in the darkness with naught but the fire and a bottle for company. Or maybe it was his use of her first name, a rare occurrence, uttered quietly and without its usual bite. But Valeera did not say anything else, and when she had finished her own drink she left, silently, without so much as a “goodnight, Shaw.”
For once the insolence didn’t bother him. Maybe it wasn’t insolence at all.
Shaw sat beside the fire again tonight, alone as he always was. As he was always meant to be. Pathonia had told him that and by the Light, had she done a fantastic job of beating it into him. He didn’t feel comfortable around people anymore, couldn’t even bring himself to move his accommodations inside the newly finished keep. There was nothing wrong with his tent. This was fine.
This was ridiculous. There was so much that demanded his attention right now. The Black Prince had apparently returned to the Tavern after parting with Anduin at the Timeless Isle and there was a report waiting from Rell that he really needed to read. A copy of the prince’s latest medical examination indicated a burn on his inner thigh, which now needed to be struck off and recopied before the king laid eyes on it. The Horde was on the move again, and Garrosh fucking Hellscream, and Shaw could focus on none of it before his mind was flooded with memories of sleek raven hair, red bandanas and brazen grins.
Fishing in the canals on hot summer days, clamoring for the best spots beneath neatly manicured trees.
Calloused hands cupping his face, and chapped lips on his.
A proud smirk as dark eyes surveyed the new shipment of clean white stone, as the bricks were hefted onto broad shoulders and carried into the city.
Furious tears in the eyes of screwed up, blotchy faces, voices carrying out into the night.
Watching, just out of the corner of his eye, as a young man flirted openly with nameless, faceless people, and the lingering nausea in his gut.
Mattie breathed in his ear, and the awe when he finally stood before the completed Cathedral of Light, Edwin practically bouncing on the balls of his feet. Look at this, Mattie. What do you think?
Shaw put his head in his hands with a long, drawn out sigh. Pathonia was right. His entire life he’d fought her on this one, singular issue. The only stand he had ever taken, even if he’d had to do it behind her back. And even here, she had been right.
“That boy is a distraction, Mathias.”
Yes.
Yes, he was. A beautiful, infuriating, shameless, electrifying distraction. Even now, even dead for five years, he called to Shaw from beyond the grave.
“You have a good life, Mathias. The VanCleef boy would take a match to it.”
A bit late for that, really.
A strangled, frustrated noise escaped him then and Shaw straightened. Scrubbed a hand through his hair, smoothed his meticulous mustache. No, that wasn’t true. He still had a good life. Spymaster of the Alliance, a title even his grandmother hadn’t achieved, trusted advisor and confidante of King Wrynn. The Defias rebellion had not broken him as his grandmother had wanted. It had made him stronger. Edwin had made him stronger.
And also... much lonelier, perhaps.
“Your life, first and foremost, is at the service and mercy of Stormwind and the House of Wrynn, Mathias. There cannot be anyone else between you and your duty.”
And she was right. No matter how much he rationalized it, the simple fact remained that Pathonia was right. There was nothing else for him in this life but the Crown, and with Edwin dead, there never would be.
With a quiet protest from his creaking knees he stood. Inhaled deeply of the sweet Pandaren air. Exhaled, and without looking back made his way towards his commandeered office.