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The chamber was too small for so many bodies.
At least, that was how it felt to Hans, though it was one of the largest chambers in Pirkstein. A new room assigned to him for the wedding and not the one he had slept in for twenty years...
This place smelled of nothing.
No worn leather, no wine-soaked velvet, no trace of his books or boots or the life he had lived until now.
No Henry.
Just fresh limewash, polished floors, and the faint bite of herbs someone had hung to “bless” the day.
And yet, the moment three servants, the tailor, and two maids stepped inside, the walls seemed to press inwards, shrinking with every whisper and rustle of fabric.
Too warm.
Too loud.
Too bright.
Someone tugged at the hem of his pourpoint. Someone else fussed with his collar. A third scolded him—politely, but firmly—to keep still.
Hans tried.
He truly did.
But his fingers were jittering, breath short, throat tight—as though he could feel again the rope of the scaffold biting into his skin, which mark was deliberately hidden beneath a collar cut too high, too stiff, too suffocating.
Sweat gathered at his temples, in the hollow of his throat, along his ribs beneath the fine linen. If he hadn’t died at Trosky, then surely he was dying now. He wiped his palms on his hose—once, twice, a third time—and still they came away slick, trembling as though the room itself were tipping under his feet.
“Hold still, my lord.”
“Please, Sir, lift your chin—”
“You’re wrinkling the sleeves—”
Voices, everywhere. Too loud, too close.
But somehow Hans didn’t hear a word of it.
It was all just a humming static in his skull, like a beehive shaken awake. The moment any voice tried to form meaning, it blurred into nothing. Distant. Useless. His heart thundered too loudly for sense.
He bit at his thumb—again—nail frayed already from the morning’s torment.
“Where is Henry?” Hans muttered.
No one answered. Or perhaps they did, but he couldn’t hear it.
He tried to breathe, deeper, but his diaphragm refused to move. It sat tight and clenched beneath his ribs, a stone lodged there since dawn.
Christ, he couldn’t breathe. His vision blurred at the edges, greying, narrowing, more and more.
Another button slipped from the tailor’s fingers. Hans twitched.
“Sir—please—don’t move—”
“Where is Henry?” he repeated—this time with a sharper edge of panic in his voice.
A maid stammered something about checking the courtyard. Someone else mentioned the stables. A third suggested he might already be at the St. Matthew's church.
Hans’s pulse spiked.
What if Henry had gone?
What if the thought of seeing Hans wed to another had undone him? What if he had left, ridden toward Kuttemberg or far away God knew where, unable to watch the man he loved bind himself to someone he did not?
No.
No, Henry wouldn’t.
Not like that. Not after the promises of last night, and the nights before.
There must be some reason. Some delay. Something that kept him.
Hans tried to believe it.
His breath hitched sharply, chest seizing. He pressed a hand to his sternum, fingers splayed over silk and linen as if he could force space open there, because by now it was more the lack of air killing him than the air that filled his lungs.
“Sir? My lord?” the servants were worried now, hands reaching for him.
He jerked away.
“Don’t fucking touch me!”
Silence rippled through the room. Even the tailor froze mid-motion as he finished adjusting the hem of the ceremonial cape, two pins held motionless between his lips.
Hans lowered his hand slowly, ashamed. He ran his other thumb across his bottom lip, seeking the familiar sting of bitten nail.
Then—
The door creaked.
Hans spun around so fast the maids startled.
And there he was.
Henry.
Handsome, Henry.
His Henry.
Filling the doorway like some answer to prayer Hans hadn’t dared to voice aloud. Breath caught in Hans’s chest, held there painfully tight.
In armor.
Freshly polished Leipa plate, the one Hans had commissioned, fitted to Henry’s shoulders and chest with near-perfect craftsmanship. A mantle draped from his back, deep blue, trimmed clean and sharp like a knight’s.
Like Hans’ knight.
Hanush had promised—if Hans agreed to the marriage, he would knight Henry before winter. Hans himself would be the one to lay the sword on his shoulders.
A bribe. A consolation. A victory.
Seeing Henry now, proud and solemn in the armor meant for him…
It was almost enough to steady Hans’s shaking hands.
Almost.
“Henry…” Hans breathed, voice frayed, “…thank God, you’re here…”
Henry’s expression was serious, guarded, but his eyes softened at the sight of Hans.
Behind Hans, a servant cleared her throat. “My lord, we really must continue, the ceremony—”
“Out.” Hans ordered.
“Sir, we still have to—”
“Now.”
There was a moment of silence.
The maids exchanged a few quiet, uneasy glances; the tailor let out a long, exasperated sigh, already perilously close to losing his patience.
Then, the room emptied in a flurry of skirts and mutters, all brushing past Henry as they hurried out. He did not move aside. He didn’t even blink. He stood like a statue anchoring the doorway, gaze fixed solely on Hans, watching the tremor in his breaths, the twitch in his fingers, the panic he couldn’t hide.
The last maid slipped through the door and shut it softly behind her.
Hans crossed the room in three unsteady steps.
He nearly collided with Henry.
“Where… why were you late?” His voice cracked embarrassingly. His eyes shone with unshed tears he had stubbornly tried to blink away. “I thought—Christ, Henry, I thought you were gone…”
Henry drew a slow breath, strong and steady—everything Hans was not.
“I’m sorry, my Lord…” he said softly. “I had to finish something...”
Hans gave a broken, bitter little laugh.
“Deciding whether to abandon me or suffer through this with me?”
Henry’s brows lifted gently, as if surprised Hans could think so lowly of him.
Then he drew his hands from behind his back.
Hans hadn’t even noticed they were hidden.
In his palms lay a long, wrapped bundle. A fine cloth, ivory-white and soft as velvet. Henry unfolded it with reverence.
Steel glinted beneath.
Hans’s breath stopped.
A sword.
New. Brilliant. The metal polished to a mirror sheen, the grip bound with deep red leather, the pommel engraved with painstaking care. The blade bore an engraving Hans recognized instantly.
Henry’s sigil: the M and the J overlaid upon one another, perfectly engraved into the blade just beneath the hilt. And further along the length of the blade, another inscription ran.
Henry held it out like an offering at an altar.
“I had to finish your wedding gift…” he said quietly.
Hans stared.
Words fled him.
Slowly—cautiously—he raised his fingertips to the blade. He didn’t dare touch at first, as though it were something holy.
Then he let his fingers glide along the flat, tracing the etched Latin letters.
His chest tightened.
He laughed softly—mirthless, fond, broken all at once.
“Audentes fortuna iuvat…” he echoed, shaking his head as his hand dropped limply to his side. “What a fool I am… Fortune doesn’t favor us, Hal...”
Henry lowered the sword gently onto the mattress, careful as if setting down a sleeping child. Then he stepped closer, closing the distance between them.
“Let me,” he murmured, while he reached for Hans’s buttons, small, pale fastenings set into the deep crimson of the collar of the ceremonial cape, each one bordered by fine gold embroidery that caught the light as his fingers brushed it. The silk was rich and unyielding beneath his touch, tailored to hold Hans straight and still, the star-shaped stitching running like quiet blessings down his chest.
Beneath it, the linen of his pourpoint showed pale and immaculate at the sleeves and throat, stark against the red, as if purity had been layered carefully under splendor. Even that was fastened down the front with a neat line of small buttons.
Henry’s fingers were steady. Sure. Calloused but gentle, working each clasp into place with the same devotion he’d given the sword.
The heat of Henry’s knuckles brushed Hans’s chest through the fabric.
And Hans’s breath shuddered.
The room was quiet now, save for the scrape of the clasp, the soft rustle of silk, and Hans’s unsteady breath.
Hans didn’t know when his hands had started shaking again.
But Henry noticed.
Of course he noticed.
His thumbs brushed the last button, hovering there—neither fastening nor retreating—while Hans’s breath came short and shallow, the rise and fall of his Adam’s apple strained and uneven, shifting up and down with effort, caught high in his chest where there was no room left to expand.
Slowly—agonizingly slowly—Hans lifted his own hands.
It kept moving. Until his fingertips brushed against Henry’s.
Henry stopped.
Hans’s fingers, trembling at first, slid along the back of Henry’s hand until they reached his palm. Then, very carefully—almost reverently—he laced their fingers together.
A single breath trembled through him.
“I don’t want to do this, Henry…” he whispered, his voice, was cracked in the middle, raw with fear and something far more painful. “I don’t… please…”
Henry drew in a slow, heavy breath. His chest rose, then fell, as though he were bracing himself against a blow.
He closed his eyes. His jaw tightened until the muscle jumped. His fingers gripped Hans’s so tightly their knuckles whitened.
“Hans…” he murmured, barely above a breath.
Hans stepped closer—not much, barely an inch, but enough for Henry to feel the heat of him, the fear radiating beneath the fancy dress.
“Please, Hal… don’t make me do it…”
The words spilled out raw, aching, scraped from the bottom of Hans’ ribcage. He looked up at Henry, eyes wide, glistening with a pain far older than the wedding day.
Henry couldn’t look back.
He tried—God, he tried—but his gaze dropped instead to their joined hands, to the way Hans’s thumb pressed desperately against his knuckle. His own jaw clenched hard enough to ache.
“Hans…”
His voice failed him, the lump in his throat nearly swallowed his voice.
He forced a swallow. It didn’t help.
“Take me away.”
Hans said it—
Soft. Ruined. Childlike in its honesty.
Henry’s head snapped up, eyes locking with Hans’s in an instant.
For a heartbeat, the world held still.
Henry’s breath faltered. His lips parted in a silent quiver. His hands tightened around Hans’s as though they might break but refused to let go.
“Don’t ask me that, Hans…” His voice came out hoarse, ragged, a whisper scraped raw against the back of his teeth.
His forehead lowered until it touched Hans’s, their breath mingling, warm and unsteady between them.
“You know I would,” he breathed. “God forgive me, you know I would…”
Without hesitation.
Without regret.
Without looking back.
Hans’s fingers clenched around his with desperate strength, as if in that touch, he might hold onto the last thing that felt true.
“But I can’t.”
The words were broken.
Barely a breath.
Barely a man’s voice at all.
“It would be your ruin… and I cannot— I will not be the cause of that…”
Outside, the bells kept tolling.
Tolling and tolling and tolling.
Another voice rose up the stairwell, distant yet sharp:
“My Lord! It’s time!”
But neither of them moved.
Hans’s breath turned ragged.
“I know… I’m a terrible person…” he whispered.
Henry shook his head. “Don’t.”
“I’m marrying a good woman,” Hans pushed, voice splintering. “An innocent one. And I… I—”
He broke.
Completely.
His forehead pressed harder to Henry’s, their breath mixing, shaking, shallow, stolen from the same thin air between them.
“But I’m going to stand before God and vow myself to someone who is not you…!”
Henry’s throat worked painfully as he tried to swallow. The words struck deeper than any blade ever had—straight into the soft, unguarded part of him he never let anyone see.
He felt Hans trembling.
Felt their joined hands shaking between them.
Felt his own resolve teeter, then shatter.
“Hal…” Hans exhaled his name like prayer. “Please.”
And something in Henry broke.
Quietly.
Irrevocably.
His fingers tightened again—first around Hans’s hands, then sliding up along his wrists, his arms, until Henry was holding him, anchoring him, their foreheads pressed so close there was no air between them.
“Hans…” Henry whispered, voice rough, torn. “God help me…”
Hans was sobbing in silence, his shoulders rising and falling in uneven, broken motions.
Henry’s fingers lifting to his jaw.
His forehead tilting.
His breath warming Hans’s cheek.
And—
He kissed him.
A soft, breaking sound escaped Hans’s throat—caught between his quiet sobs—as he leaned into it, desperate and starved, clinging to Henry as though this were the only moment of truth he had left in the world.
Henry’s lips trembled against his, breath shaking, as though he, too, felt the weight of heaven watching. Hans’s hands rose to Henry’s face, cupping his cheeks, pulling him closer, deeper, as if he feared that the world outside would rip them apart the second they parted.
Downstairs, the bells tolled again.
Someone called. Someone knocked. Someone waited.
But Hans only pressed harder into the kiss.
Because suddenly, something made sense.
Priests claimed that God was everywhere.
In stone and steeple.
In the wind.
In breath.
In love.
And if God was truly inside them—then this kiss was their altar.
Their vow.