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This was bothersome. No, bothersome was something that one could not feasibly avoid, that they were forced to endure and pretend they cared at all about. In theory, this was perfectly avoidable, and Felix was simply bearing the consequences for not considering it sooner.
He flexed his hand, wincing at the pins and needles in his fingertips as blood slowly flowed back into them. With the last few weeks (hell, months) so busy, he’d not really had the time to train—and it really showed. His grip around his blade had been unreasonably tight as he practiced against the training dummies, enough that it actually hindered his effectiveness.
But the real thing at fault, he was sure, was the damn band around his finger.
Felix glared down at it, at the way the gold glistened softly in the sun. It wasn’t gaudy by any real means—not compared to the kinds that Sylvain used to talk about when he had that faraway look in his eyes—but it was still more than the simple golden band Felix had chosen for Dimitri. It was the kind that spoke of a subtle extravagance, in truth designed in a way that made it look like four bands woven and linked together. Two pieces looked as if they were braided, like a secure bond that held the other two—much plainer—bands together. The effort that went into making them and melding them to look like this certainly wouldn’t have been cheap (not that he expected Dimitri to be cheap, really, but he had hoped that the man would have listened when Felix insisted that he didn’t want anything extravagant).
In truth, he wasn’t exactly surprised that Dimitri had chosen something like this. There was something to be said about the way it looked, and the likely symbolism behind it. He could already half-hear Dimitri whimsically muse about how it reflected them—no matter how they pulled apart, their fates were woven together, inexplicably binding them.
Felix’s thumb rubbed against the inside of the band, where the welding seemed to purposely leave the bumps of all four bands as individual elements. Felix assumed it was made this way to fit better to his finger and avoid any irritating pressure, but the thickness here was still far more than he was accustomed to.
He wanted to take it off, in truth. But it wasn’t as if he had it on very long; the subtle ceremony had barely been finished before Dimitri was called away for some urgent matter west—leaving Felix here to handle Fhirdiad in his stead. It had been five days since Felix was a married man, and all he had was a damn ring to show for it. Still…
He huffed. His hesitation was ridiculous. While he was sure there was some superstition about taking off a ring so soon, it wasn’t like Dimitri was here. He could complain about it later, when he actually let Felix indulge in the few benefits of marriage. For now, Felix would rather prefer sensation to his fingers—the ability to keep training—otherwise he was sure the lack of exertion or distraction would make the castle itself suffer.
So, with that readily settled, Felix yanked the ring off his finger and shoved it into his pocket. It would be perfectly safe there, and he could get the rest of his anxious energy out without involving half the castle. Frankly, it was the only reasonable choice.
Maybe “reasonable” was an exaggeration. Even sitting down at the table, Felix could already feel the ache beginning to settle in his back and legs. His arms were even worse, hands shaking even as he brought his fork up to his lips. It would be a miracle if his dinner didn’t end up in his lap, or if he avoided stabbing himself in the face.
In truth, he probably should have considered this fully. It had been a long time since he had any real opportunity to train; with his friends fussing over the wedding traditions that he and Dimitri were discarding—and having to face ones they couldn’t get rid of—and the months spent trying to quell any lingering disruptions from the Kingdom’s victory, he was more likely to collapse into his bed than he was to train when the sun set. He had forced himself to accept it at the time; the Kingdom needed diplomats, not soldiers, and Felix had his role to fill. Even if he did so begrudgingly.
He hadn’t hated it—not when he knew Dimitri would try to take everything on his own otherwise—but it had hardly given Felix time to himself. And it was clearly showing in his poor form, his lack of stamina, and his condition now.
He would have to be better if he was to remain Dimitri’s shield. Maybe he could get up earlier and train before all the business of the day. Even if he didn’t invest as much time as he had in his youth, it surely—
“Not even married a week, and you’re already divorced?” A voice came from across the table, so insufferably self-satisfied that Felix would have thrown his potatoes at the man if he had any confidence he could hit him. “I weep for the future of romance.”
Felix scowled as Sylvain slid into the spot across from him, his plate settling onto the wood with an annoying tick. Exhausted, sore, and dealing with Sylvain most certainly wasn’t on his plans for today.
“What are you talking about?” Felix asked around a mouthful of the roasted beast, knowing that talking with his mouth full annoyed Sylvain to no small amount.
Sylvain’s lips twitched, but he insisted on staying. Instead of replying, though, he pointed to his own ring finger.
Realization was slow to fall on Felix as he stared at the undecorated finger. Like his own. Except only one of them wasn’t married.
Of course Sylvain would notice. He only ever noticed things when it would make him as annoying as physically possible. It was an increasing habit of his lately…though Felix supposed that was as good an indicator as anything of the peace they were slowly able to embrace.
“It was in the way of my training,” Felix muttered, digging into his pocket. “It’s not like I threw it away or—”
He froze, words suddenly forgotten on his tongue. Because the contents of his pocket felt wrong.
Maybe it was just because his hands were sore and tired. Really, that had to be it. If the floor felt weird on shaky legs, then it only made sense that anything he grabbed would feel weird, too.
Realizing Sylvain was still staring at him expectantly, Felix disregarded the stupid thoughts and slammed the dumb thing onto the table. But it sounded wrong.
It sounded like it was in pieces.
Heart now very noticeable in his chest, Felix was slow to pull his hand away. It wasn’t like he was Dimitri—he didn’t just break things wherever he went—and it didn’t sound reasonable for Dimitri to give him something so utterly fragile. Even if he wanted to offer something unobtrusive, he’d had to have known that anything offered to Felix couldn’t be delicate.
And yet, as the ring came to view, he couldn’t deny that it was in pieces. Shattered apart—mostly. Instead of a single band, it looked like the four parts had broken apart, each hooked onto each other somehow. Even as he picked one of the plain bands up between his fingers, the rest dangled firmly, making a soft near-chime that made Felix’s stomach sink.
“The hell?” he muttered, grabbing another of the ring’s bands and finding it in the same incomprehensible condition.
He couldn’t understand how it had broken this badly. Sure, he could imagine a crack on a tension point under enough abuse, or maybe one ring breaking off a little. But this was ridiculous.
And it wasn’t even like he had done anything that would have broken it. It had been firmly in his coat pocket, where it would be safe even if he had fallen or crashed into something (and he hadn’t). He couldn’t understand this.
Worse, Felix found, was the insufferable smile Sylvain had on his face as Felix toyed with the bands between his fingers. Looking like a complete fool while Felix was trying to figure out just how this happened.
“What,” Felix snarled.
Sylvain shrugged. “His Majesty is bolder than I thought, is all.”
Felix glared at him.
“I mean, I never expected him to ever try to test you, of all people.”
Felix startled. “What ‘test’?”
“You mean you don’t know?” Sylvain only laughed as Felix’s glare grew even fiercer. “That’s a puzzle ring. Kings and wealthy nobles used to use them as wedding rings and the like. That way, if their partner removed it—for a little fooling around, or a bit of fun—then they couldn’t put it back together to hide the evidence.”
“That’s stupid.”
“I mean, it worked on you.”
“I wasn’t—” Felix slammed his fist against the table, ignoring the way the sound echoed in the room, “I was training.”
“Mmhm.”
“Sylvain.” Felix’s voice was low in warning. He was hardly in the mood to tolerate idiocy, and even less in the mood to argue with Sylvain about how stupid it would be to think that a removed ring would make everyone think the king’s husband suddenly was single. It was imbecilic. “Dimitri knows I wouldn’t—”
“Well, in the best of moments, sure,” Sylvain hummed. He glanced away, looking thoughtfully at nothing. “But the poor guy is so full of insecurities. I don’t doubt he’s gotten an earful about his choices. And when he sees that ring, that you couldn’t stay loyal for even a week…the poor guy.”
Felix opened his mouth to argue, only for it to snap shut. As much as he wanted to think that Dimitri would understand that Felix had only removed it to train, that would assume that there was a guaranteed semblance of rationality at any given time. And that couldn’t be certain when he could still remember the sad look on Dimitri’s face when Felix had first suggested that he would rather wear a ring on a chain than on his hand (and it had been even sadder when he said the ceremony was completely unnecessary). He’d been clingy and desperate for Felix’s attention the days before their wedding, as if he feared Felix would turn away from him on the altar. Hell, he still even had the bruises on his hips when Dimitri held him in place just before he left, desperate to kiss Felix until he could hardly breathe.
Hell, it was the sort of behavior he’d have expected if he was dating Sylvain, not Dimitri.
And, since it was still fairly unpredictable, he couldn’t guarantee that Dimitri wouldn’t jump to the worst possible conclusion. And the man was so damn pig-headed that Felix was sure it would be almost impossible to talk him out of it.
Felix pressed his lips together, gaze flitting back to the rings. “So how do I fix it?”
“It’s a puzzle, Felix,” Sylvain said with a shrug. “You’ll have to figure it out.”
⚭
‘Figuring it out’ was far easier said than done. The attempts dominated Felix’s every waking hour (and even some of his sleeping ones, too, if he was being honest). His fingers fidgeted with the rings over breakfast, during council meetings, even just before he blew out the candle—only for every moment to result in failure. There was no logical way to slide the rings into place. There was no way he could place one where it didn’t seem to lock the others into the wrong position—that didn’t practically scream at him to make them work.
But any attempt at force would likely end in permanent damage. And, depending on how familiar Dimitri was with the ring when it was whole, that could be an admission in itself. If Dimitri thought Felix was trying to hide the evidence, that could end in an even worse whirlwind of emotion that Felix was massively unequipped to deal with.
And the dread of that filled him with every day of failure. He didn’t let himself think that he couldn’t get this—there was no way in hell that he wouldn’t, that he would be beaten by a stupid piece of metal—and he refused to think about how to broach this topic with Dimitri. He would get this. Dimitri would be none the wiser.
He would.
At least, he was still telling himself that as he fiddled with it at his desk, on day three with those four rings no closer to being together again than he was to being king of Almyra.
“Still at it?”
Felix slammed his hand onto the table, certain that his glare only held half of the contempt he held toward Sylvain right now. The man was intelligent—he certainly had filled plenty of his time with puzzles and board games—and yet even Felix’s utterly demeaning request for help had been shrugged off with a ‘it’s out of my league’. That he was coming back just to gloat made Felix seriously contemplate maiming him.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
“What do you want.”
“Just checking in.”
“Then get out.”
“Aw, c’mon Felix. I was even being nice.”
“No. You’re being annoying.” Felix returned to fiddling with the puzzle. He’d gotten two rings to sit nicely together, but he couldn’t figure out how the other two were supposed to fit in place. They didn’t flip or slide into place, and trying to wiggle one just made the other side even more stuck. “Go away.”
“Harsh.” Despite his words, Sylvain laughed brightly. “And here I was coming to tell you that a certain someone and his retinue was said to have entered the city’s gates.”
Felix’s fingers froze in place. Just enough for one ring to slip and undo all of the progress he had made.
“If you wanted to meet him at the castle gates,” Sylvain continued, as if he didn’t notice Felix’s flurry of muttered curses at the inanimate object, “you’d better get going.”
As loath as Felix was to admit it, Sylvain was right. If Felix didn’t greet Dimitri—if he was still holed up in his office—Dimitri would think something was wrong. It was best to greet him, to pretend that things were fine. He could just…figure out the ring while Dimitri was likely distracted burying his nose into any work that he’d thought he’d been negligent on in his absence. And Felix could just pretend he didn’t see it until the ring was fixed.
Perfect plan.
“You’re going out like that?” Sylvain asked as Felix pushed himself up to his feet.
Felix huffed, glad at least that he was ahead of Sylvain on this one. He reached into his pocket, shoving the rings inside and pulling out a pair of leather gloves and sliding them on. The fabric was thick enough that it wouldn’t show the missing ring. The only way anyone could tell, really, was if they grabbed his hand very tightly. And he was sure he was quick enough to avoid that with Dimitri. “Satisfied?”
“Mhm, definitely,” Sylvain mused. He barely shifted out of the way as Felix shoved past, that insufferable smile still on his face. Felix could still even feel it as he continued down the hall, as he heard Sylvain shout after him: “Remember to smile!”
It seemed, at least, that not everything was out to make Felix’s life miserable. After all, he was barely down the steps at the castle’s entrance for a minute before Dimitri and his retinue came through the gates. Smiling wide, Dimitri passed the reins of his stallion to the knight nearest him, offering a small bow of his head as the knights saluted him and made their way to the stables. All things considered, they were probably well-prepared for the king to neglect the last requirements of travel in favor of greeting his husband.
That realization, in combination with the way Dimitri practically glowed as he smiled at Felix, made Felix’s chest ache. He felt bad for already lying to Dimitri, for even unknowingly breaking his trust. He felt guilty for the fact that he knew a lie would be the only way to keep this smile on Dimitri’s face, to keep the warmth that Felix (admittedly desperately) missed.
But it wasn’t like this was his fault. He hadn’t done anything wrong. Dimitri was the one who gave Felix a ring and didn’t tell him the gimmick behind it. Dimitri was the one who offered something that could be so easily misconstrued. Felix wasn’t—
He gasped as he found his feet swept up off the floor, Dimitri’s arms wrapped around his torso in a nearly suffocating embrace. It was endearing how his face pressed against Felix’s collarbone—as he shamelessly inhaled along the crook of Felix’s neck—but it was definitely not worth the fact that Felix was very sure he was shortly going to have to deal with a cracked rib or two.
“Too tight, you oaf!” Felix spat, tapping Dimitri’s shoulder in the only way that Dimitri understood, at least that wasn’t going to make the man wallow in self-pity for hours on end.
Dimitri simply laughed, careful as he settled Felix back down onto his feet, peppering his face with little kisses as if that served as an apology. His hands brushed down Felix’s arms, even through unrelenting affection, brushing along his wrists and—
And Felix snapped his hands away, crossing his arms as if this was the same lecture he had offered a thousand times. As if he hadn’t accepted Dimitri’s enthusiastic affection as apologies more often than not of late.
“You need to stop being so reckless,” Felix huffed. “A lot of good I would be with a punctured lung.”
Dimitri blinked, his hands dropping and settling at his sides. “I apologize,” he said, his head tilting thoughtfully. “I will be more careful.”
“I’m not asking for an apology,” Felix scoffed.
Dimitri opened his mouth, but seemed to think better of arguing. Instead, he merely nodded. “I shall bear that in mind.”
“Good.” Felix knew Dimitri expected him to relax, to be at ease with his ready willingness to cooperate. And, while that seemed wholly impossible (as Felix’s ribs were hardly the real worry here), there were at least other things that could pull Felix further from the edge.
After all, this close, it was easier to see how Dimitri had fared during his trip. Aside from the uneasy expression on his face, there didn’t appear to be any dark circles under his eyes (so he at least slept decently), or an unnatural dryness to his lips (so dehydration likewise didn’t seem a problem). His cheeks had a decent color to them, but not quite so much that he had to worry that the man faced the cold unprepared. His armor was mostly unmarred, aside from a couple scratches and dents that spoke more of clumsiness than they did any actual battle or struggle. For not having Felix there to consistently lecture him about taking care of himself, Dimitri had done pretty well.
“I assure you,” Dimitri said, his voice fond, “I stayed out of trouble. You appear to have trained me well. I think you—”
Heat rushed to Felix’s face, words lost on his lips as he was clueless as to how to address that, and certainly unprepared for whatever else Dimitri decided to spout. He cleared his throat, his arms crossing even tighter against him. “So you’ve eaten, then.”
Dimitri blinked. “Not recently, no. We’d hoped to return before nightfall, so we rode through the afternoon.”
“Then you’re lucky the cooks have been early lately,” Felix said, doing his best not to roll his eyes. He shouldn’t have been surprised that Dimitri was seeing this as wholly harmless, but he supposed it was compared to the other things he could have neglected. “Come on, let’s eat.”
Felix didn’t miss the way Dimitri reached for him—nor would he have been particularly surprised by Dimitri wishing to go walking hand in hand—but he certainly pretended not to notice. He turned away, footsteps heavy to emphasize how annoyed he was that Dimitri didn’t eat—and in the hope that maybe an obsession with Dimitri’s health—and feeding him as soon as possible—naturally excused his lack of attention toward Dimitri’s affection.
Considering that he could hear Dimitri follow behind him still, it made sense.
⚭
“Might I ask a question?” Dimitri asked, voice uneasy like Felix was a gaggle of council members about to assault him with pointless questions and not his husband.
Felix glanced up at him mid-bite, sure that his expression sufficed in informing Dimitri of how stupid it was to ask.
That, however, didn’t really seem to dissuade Dimitri’s hesitation. His spoon scraped against the inner wall of the bowl, eyes fixed on the movements as his soup swirled inside. “It’s…the gloves. I cannot recall the last time I’ve seen you use them. And…certainly not during a meal.”
Felix’s jaw clenched, fingers twitching against the metal of his spoon. He tried to hide some of the tension by pretending to chew on a bit of grit, but that was hardly convincing when most of the soup was anything but meat. “Hands are cold, is all,” he muttered. That was even less persuasive, he knew.
This was getting to be insufferable.
“Oh!” Dimitri blinked, settling better in his seat. He dipped his head to take another taste of his meal, but there was no missing the way he continued to look at Felix through his lashes. “I would not mind warming them for you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Felix replied, perhaps a little too quickly. “The gloves are fine.”
“I am sure they are inconvenient to dine with.”
“Does it look like I’m inconvenienced?”
Dimitri opened his mouth, only to visibly rethink his comment. “No, I suppose not.”
Felix pointedly took another bite, as if that proved his point. As if he wasn’t actively struggling to keep his grip when the metal of the spoon slid against the leather of his gloves.
To his relief, though, Dimitri didn’t push the issue. Instead, he continued to eat, directing his frown at the soup and not at Felix. Which was fine. It was better when Dimitri decided to eat without being scolded with reminders to take care of himself. It was fine.
Felix hadn’t realized that he’d been essentially ignoring Dimitri until he found himself startled by the sound of a spoon rattling in an empty bowl, dropped as Dimitri sighed with his satisfaction. His gaze flicked up in enough time to see Dimitri settle as his chin rested against his fist, the man’s eye tracing the shape of Felix’s nearly-empty bowl.
“I was thinking,” Dimitri mused, “that a warm bath would be a good way to get the remnants of the road off of me.” He smiled wryly. “Aside from it simply sounding nice.”
“Hm,” was Felix’s extensive reply.
“I’d not really indulged in much on the road—for practical reasons mostly—but right now…I think the luxury sounds nice. Just to linger and indulge in it. To soak in the warmth. To enjoy the quiet.” He tilted his head, acting the very picture of innocence that should have been utterly impossible with a man of his stature. “Do you want to join me?”
Yes. Felix yearned to join him, to be able to focus on nothing but the moment spent together. To indulge in a way that he found difficult with anyone else.
But it wasn’t like he could wear gloves into a bath.
“No,” Felix said plainly. “I have to meet with the scribe to get some letters through.”
“This late?” Dimitri blinked, gaze fixed on Felix as he watched him push himself up to his feet. He remained seated, if only because his mind was too fixed on his confusion to even consider standing. “Is it truly so urgent?”
“Yes.”
Felix turned and left immediately, lest he come up with any bright ideas, or fall to Dimitri’s attempts to persuade him.
⚭
True, Felix had known that the letters and missives barely qualified as important, and they certainly weren’t urgent. But he didn’t need for the damn scribe to tell him, to look at Felix as if he’d lost his mind and become obsessed with menial matters like the council had. He didn’t need to be asked with every single letter whether or not he was sure, or if there was something of any real value that he’d simply forgotten to include in the contents.
What was worse, though, was that Felix had been trapped into this situation because of a lie. And he wasn’t so foolish as to think that another one wouldn’t bind him worse. And so, out of necessity more than anything else, he had indulged the scribe’s questions, coming up with responses that weren’t lies, but were at least more convincing than a simple demand to have these things done. As a result, though, he had spent about four times longer there than he had originally planned—and used about twenty times more energy than he actually had.
Now, practically dragging himself down the hall back to his room, he was annoyed, exhausted, and desperately trying not to think about how he could have been soaking in hot water, pressed against a broad frame, eyes shut as he relaxed listening to Dimitri tell him about his trip.
He clenched his teeth. He would have had that moment, too, if the fool had just told him that the ring was special. There was no escaping that this was entirely Dimitri’s fault.
Well, if he solved the puzzle soon, he wouldn’t have to worry about it. Maybe he could give it a few more tries before he fell asleep. Hell, maybe even lying in his bed, being exhausted out of his mind, would offer some attempts that he hadn’t already tried a dozen times before. Maybe he’d just stumble into the solution.
It was a long shot, but at this point he was desperate.
He sighed, shouldering his door open and slightly stumbling into his room. A part of him was tempted to go to theirs, to just collapse into Dimitri’s arms and fall asleep. He could just lie on top of Dimitri like a blanket too small to actually be useful, could claim that it was better than the cold of the rest of the castle and nothing more. He could blame it on the exhaustion later, could play wholly ignorant that he was being needy like a child.
Except Dimitri was sure to comment on the gloves, especially if they lingered when everything else wound up shed. And there would be no way to avoid questioning there. There was a good chance that Dimitri would try to force his way to an answer…and denying him would be worse.
Well, maybe there were some benefits to Felix’s exhaustion, then. He would certainly pass out the moment he blew out the candle, get absorbed by sleep before he could even consider Dimitri’s absence. Frankly, it was the best possible conclusion, all things considered, and—
“I’d thought you would come here.”
Felix froze in place at the rumbling voice, heart pounding so hard that he could feel it in his throat. He tried to keep his response even—manageable enough after years of ignoring things he’d rather not face, even if he was a little rusty at it—expression level as his gaze slid to the source.
There, leaning against the desk on the far edge of the room, was Dimitri. His arms were crossed tightly against his chest, eye following Felix as the door shut behind him.
“It’s late,” Felix noted, emphasizing the obvious by the blandness in his tone. “I didn’t want to wake you by mistake.”
Dimitri raised a brow.
Yeah, it sounded stupid to Felix, too, if he let himself think about it for even a half second.
Dimitri cleared his throat. His head tilted, but not in the inquisitive or coy way he did when he wanted something from Felix (or when he wanted to avoid Felix’s annoyance). Instead, it just looked tired. “Have I done something to upset you, Felix?”
“What.”
“I know…we wished to enjoy the first days of our marriage together. To spend time together without the burden of our positions hanging over our heads.” His fingers clenched firmly into his sleeves, forceful enough that Felix had to wonder if the material would tear. “But the matter was urgent. It could not be delayed.”
Felix huffed. Of course Dimitri would think this was his fault. Of course he would take the blame onto himself. That Felix expected otherwise seemed utterly ridiculous, knowing the kind of man his husband was. “I’m…not mad about that. I knew what I was getting into.”
“You’ll have to pardon me if I am not convinced.”
Felix couldn’t help the reflexive twitch at Dimitri’s tone. It wasn’t angry or annoyed—it was defeated. As if he had always known a contention would arise, that Felix would find it easy to loathe him for one reason or another. That this marriage was only temporary, and he had expedited Felix’s departure due to his diligence toward his people.
What was the point of all of this hiding if Dimitri already thought there was a strain here? Or was there a chance that the broken ring—the thought that Felix was cheating—would make everything even worse, if not utterly unfixable?
He nearly jumped from his skin as fingers brushed against his own, as he was startled to see Dimitri standing there in front of him—having gotten here so quickly that it was alarming that Felix hadn’t noticed at all.
“Please, Felix,” Dimitri muttered. He seemed uncertain as if he should touch, if he was allowed to, the contact nearly fleeting with how light it was. “I just want to understand.”
It seemed, Felix realized as his eyes met Dimitri’s, that they had already plummeted over the precipice.
He snatched his hand away.
Refusing to pay too much attention to the obvious way Dimitri seemed to wilt at that—how everything seemed to drop and fade into misery—he shoved his hand into his pocket. There was no need for hesitation, no rummaging, not when he had repeated this motion far too often. So it was quick and easy to show Dimitri the contents in his palm—the individual rings as separated and spread out as the moment he had first realized the mess he’d fallen into.
His face burned bright as he spoke, but he had to make this clear before Dimitri got any ridiculous ideas. “I…took it off because it was making it hard to train. I didn’t know that it would…that this would…”
Dimitri cleared his throat. “So that’s what this is about.”
That didn’t sound good. It sounded too plain, too level. It made Felix’s entire spine crawl. He had to make sure Dimitri knew that Felix would never look anywhere else. That no one else had ever affected him as much as Dimitri had. “Dimitri, I—”
But Dimitri didn’t shatter into the thousand pieces that Felix feared, or burn with a rage that would incinerate everything in its path. Instead, he laughed. He laughed loud and fond as he easily plucked the rings from Felix’s palm, turning it over again and again in his hands.
“There was no reason for you to be ashamed,” Dimitri said, warmth and affection filling his voice. “By design, this is a very difficult puzzle to solve. I thought it might amuse you when you are bored in our council meetings; it’s a bit obvious that you’re aching to do something with how much your fingers move during them.”
Felix blinked, his mind barely able to catch up. “You gave me a puzzle. For amusement.” It seemed to make more sense in concept when simplified, but in that it was even more bewildering. He couldn’t fathom how this could be anything near to reasonable. “As my wedding band.”
“Mhm.” Dimitri hummed as he shifted the rings in his hold, his movements slow but precise. Felix could barely follow as the man flipped one ring to line up with the other, adjusting the bands before he seemed to just twist and flick them up into place. Seemingly without effort or thought at all, he had the band as whole and perfect as the moment Felix had taken it off.
When Dimitri held out his hand—and not the one with the fixed ring in it—Felix could only stare.
“May I?” Dimitri asked.
Now that tilt of his head was one Felix was more familiar with, and he couldn’t help but oblige. He stared as Dimitri removed his glove one finger at a time, dropping the garment only so he could more easily press a kiss to Felix’s knuckles.
With a hum, Dimitri slid the ring back onto Felix’s finger. “You really shouldn’t let yourself get so upset when you can’t solve something,” he mused. “I was truly worried.”
That was fair. Reasonably, this could have been solved if he’d just talked to Dimitri. But that didn’t answer the new, more pressing question: “How did you figure it out?”
Dimitri blinked, a smile slow to crawl onto his lips. “Well, as Sylvain was the one to suggest such a wedding band, I also asked him to teach me the solution. So, one day, I could show you.”
Felix opened his mouth, face hot with rage. But Dimitri wasn’t his target. Dimitri wouldn’t understand. Hell, he probably would even try to appease Felix, if he knew.
So, instead, Felix bit his tongue, not saying a word at all as Dimitri laced their fingers together and guided him toward the bed. He was talking about something inane, Felix was sure—details about his trip and things he had found intriguing, which was often an interesting habit to entertain—but Felix couldn’t focus on it. Instead, he thought only that he hoped Sylvain had gotten a real good laugh out of this whole mess.
Because, tomorrow, he was going to kill Sylvain.