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Vil hasn’t looked at him once since they’d returned to Pomefiore.
“Roi du Poison?” Rook prods gently as they make their way to Vil’s dorm room, but even his soft query grates against the stark silence of the empty hallways; his last word ricochets flinty sparks of a blade clashing into steel armor—a yet impenetrable barrier that spans the distance between them. (A distance icier than the chilled glass he’d clutched in his hand mere hours prior, fully intending to drink the poison his queen had crafted for another; a distance sharper than the shards that had caught against his fingers when Kalim had shattered the cup to pieces. Reflected in those broken shards loomed a dark, twisted beauty that he shivers to remember, yet could never tear his gaze away from, even as poison smoke had enthralled his lungs and stolen away his vision.)
Vil’s steps are stiff, halting. A professional actor he may be, but Rook has had more than enough practice observing him to know when he is not at his full potential. So Rook reaches out on instinct, memory flooded with the unnatural stillness of Vil in his arms after the Overblot.
And almost imperceptibly, Vil flinches away from him.
Rook’s hand freezes before he can make contact. He opens his mouth, and—
“Ah, we’re here.”
They stand at the entrance to Vil’s dorm room, and for the first time in longer than Rook can remember, Rook doesn’t automatically push open the door and let both of them in.
“You may return to your room if you wish. You’ve had a long day, as well.”
It’s a dismissal if Rook’s ever heard one, and in a tone from Vil he hasn’t heard directed at himself since he’d first started school at Night Raven College. Cool, clinical, precise—the same untouchable aura that had him typecasted into the role of the cruel yet dignified villain, shackles of expectation he could never begin to free himself from.
But Rook lets the implicit demand slide over him without acknowledgement. “May I come in? You’re still recovering, and I’m worried…”
“You needn’t worry about me,” Vil says, but he steps into his room and doesn’t close the door behind himself.
Vil doesn’t once glance in Rook’s direction.
“My beautiful Vil—”
“Rook.”
Rook snaps his jaw shut. Chokes on the burn of voiceless entreaties sliding down his throat like cheap champagne.
Vil shrugs his cloak off and rests it across the nearest chair, his expression perfectly neutral. “I can’t say I don’t understand why you voted for Neige,” he says, and Rook’s heart skips several beats. “I know your values better than anyone else, and I know you won’t compromise them no matter the stakes, and no matter the person—not for yourself, and certainly not for me. Nor would I ever want you to do so.”
I could do almost anything for you, if only you asked, Rook thinks, a desperate fervor clawing at his heart, but I will not lie to you.
“Even knowing that…”
Exposed and flayed raw before Rook’s too-sharp gaze, the faint tremble in the set of Vil’s shoulders is almost painfully obvious. But he still isn’t quite prepared when Vil jerks his head to the side, and the gleam of something wet and shiny on his cheeks catches the light.
“Even knowing that…” Vil takes a slow breath and purses his quivering lips. “My heart is not always as rational as my mind to accept it so easily. You are…quite the cruel man, Rook Hunt.”
Vil is…crying.
A dozen half-formed thoughts flit through Rook’s mind; this is only the second time he’s ever seen Vil cry, and the first instance had been mere hours ago.
But the amber glow of early evening filters through faint slits in the ornate curtains draped with regal insouciance over Pomefiore’s windows; the sunlight casts a radiance against the wet sheen on Vil’s cheeks that’s just golden, framed by flawless blond locks in a picture-perfect snapshot that could be—should be—made permanent in a painting that Rook would buy in a heartbeat. When Vil blinks the tears away, all Rook can think of is that those red-rimmed eyes are every bit as enchanting as they have always been—if not more so. Of course Vil Schoenheit would be such a pretty crier.
Rook can finally look, now, that no more distractions can steal his gaze away from his queen, not even for a heartbeat.
“Beautiful,” Rook breathes, stalking forward like a man possessed. “Oh, my beautiful Vil, I know I have hurt you, and for that, I apologize; I will not make excuses for myself.”
“You shouldn’t apologize for where your heart lies,” Vil says quietly, averting his gaze. “It’s as you said…Neige is simply the most beautiful in the world.”
There’s a brief moment of disorientation, where Rook is certain he and Vil are somehow having separate conversations. Snow White is, of course, a beauty to be reckoned with—and his performance at the VDC had undoubtedly been more beautiful than Night Raven College’s own, hampered as they were by the wretched battle that had just occurred.
But Rook sees through Vil’s words, at least partly, to the beating heart of his prey beneath.
Between himself and Vil lies a thread pulled taut, one end tied neatly around each of their pinky fingers, the distance stretched impossibly wide for just long enough for the string to begin fraying at the center. Rook’s next words could snap the delicate thread or entwine them forevermore—and he has always known the ending they have been creeping towards.
“My heart does not lie with Neige LeBlanche.”
Vil stiffens, violet eyes flickering back toward Rook. Disbelief furrows his brow and pulls his pale lips into a delicate, open pout. “You said you could not lie to your own heart. You said—”
“I said that, true,” Rook interrupts with a fleeting mental apology to his queen, stepping firmly into VIl’s space and noting with satisfaction that Vil does not dismiss him or flinch away any longer. “I said that in the context of the Royal Sword Academy’s performance. I said that Neige sang and danced on stage with full trust in himself and in his friends—truly, the most beautiful in the world. But,” he adds, “I know of beauty in all things. What is the most beautiful in the world on the day of our competition is not necessarily the most beautiful forevermore. And that I find Neige’s performance to be superior to ours does not ordain the resting place of my heart.
“My dear Vil,” Rook says solemnly, sliding his gloves off with practiced ease and discarding them on the floor to cup Vil’s cheek with his bare hand, sweeping his thumb across porcelain skin and catching a single glimmering teardrop he almost longed to taste, “my beautiful, brilliant Roi du Poison. Since our furtive trysts under snow-dappled lamps after curfew; since you opened my eyes, blind for so long, to the meaning of true beauty within myself; since the day I forsake my original placement from the Mirror to stand by your side—since always, Vil, my heart is yours.”
Vil’s eyes are wide with disbelief no longer, but hope—and reflected in his gaze, Rook’s soul laid bare, as he closes the ephemeral gap between them. With his free hand, he twines their fingers together like he twines that thread that has always connected them, looped over and over until they are cocooned as one, mouth to mouth and breast to breast in a union infinitely more beautiful than Rook could have ever aspired to achieve alone.
It is the fire of Vil’s beating heart that Rook feels; it is the ambrosia of Vil’s parted lips that Rook tastes—it is a love rushing and pouring and drowning his every sense in Vil, Vil, Vil.
Parting is such sweet sorrow, yet Rook finds he must pull away nonetheless, lips forever marked by that kiss. “Beautiful Vil,” he says, his voice a low, hushed murmur, if only to have something to say at all. “My beautiful Vil,” he repeats, sinking to his knees on the lush royal purple carpets in an act of worship before a god, in an act of servitude to his liege, in an act of sick adoration only a hunter of his ilk can declare.
“Rook,” Vil gasps above him, fingers of one hand still entangled with Rook’s own. Rook catches that trembling fist in his own bare hands, bringing it to his lips and pressing another kiss to Vil’s gloved knuckles. Only then does Rook finally look up, returning Vil’s heady gaze. Vil swallows, pupils dilating, and rasps, “rise.”
Rook obeys, standing in silence.
Vil licks his lips, his free hand resting against the edge of his bed—when Rook had backed Vil against it, he belatedly realizes he hadn’t even noticed. Shameful, for a hunter of his discretion.
But the boon for his lapse had been more than worth it.
“My expectations for you as your dorm leader have not changed,” Vil states evenly.
“Of course.”
“My expectations for you personally, as your…as Vil Schoenheit, however…we can discuss in the morning.”
A fond smile tugs at the corners of Rook’s lips. “Of course.”