#AND EVERYONE KEEPS FUCKING BETRAYING JORD

[lucky-clover-gazette]

kings rising highlights & annotations

chapter 1

indented text is from the book. some quotes have commentary, some do not. some comments are serious, and some are definitely not. most of them will only make sense to people who have read the series. and, like, there are spoilers. so please read the books first if you're interested!

also: part of the reason i'm doing such a close reading is to study cs pacat's style, especially in terms of how she does romance and erotica. there are "craft notes" that might seem weird, like i'm being redundant or restating something rather than analyzing, but those are more things that i want to remember/take away from the writing!

i'm going to tag these longer posts with "sam reads capri" in case anyone wants to read them all at once.

this is a google doc i wrote with overall content warnings for the captive prince series. it's not perfect, but i do think it's important to include.

A hiss of a rock, thrown. Nikandros came up off his knees, drawing his sword. Damen flung out a hand in a motion for halt, stopping Nikandros instantly, his sword showing a half-foot of Akielon steel.

nik. it's a rock. chill the fuck out.

Damianos, prince-killer. His mind, used to battlefield decisions, took in the sweep of the courtyard, and made the commander’s choice: to minimise losses, to limit bloodshed and chaos, and to secure Ravenel. The Veretian guards were beyond his orders, and the Veretian people . . . if these bitter, furious emotions could be soothed among the Veretian people, he was not the one to soothe them. There was only one way to stop what was about to happen, and that was to contain it; to lock it down, to secure this place once and for all. Damen said to Nikandros, ‘Take the fort.’

i like how the book starts immediately with a very clear example of how the status quo has irreversibly changed. damen has no choice but to act as akielion (akielon? whatever) prince/commander, because that’s how everyone sees him now. even if he hasn’t changed at all from how he’d been five minutes ago

Guymar purposefully spat, and for his trouble was backhanded hard across the face with a mailed fist by the Akielon soldier. Damen let it happen, aware of what would have happened if a man had spat on the ground in front of his father.

i think what i said at the end of book 2 holds true here - damen spent prince’s gambit in the romance genre with interruptions from the war/politics genres, but with laurent’s (presumed accidental) outing of him as prince he’s now forced to live in the same world that laurent’s been in for the past two books. like “yep gotta let my former friend and ally get slapped because politics. man if only laurent had known that i was the prince, we could have avoided this :/“

‘We don’t stand together,’ said Guymar. ‘You betrayed our Prince.’ And then, as though he almost couldn’t bear to say it, ‘You had him—’

in all senses of the phrase, laurent very much had damen

Damen said, ‘I made him a promise.’ ‘And when he learns who you are?’ said Jord. ‘When he learns that he is facing Damianos on the field?’ ‘Then he and I meet each other for the first time,’ said Damen. ‘That was also a promise.’

damen reclaiming his princely authority while being so profoundly wrong… embarrassing

He had a sense of holding on, as though if he just held the fort, held these men together long enough to reach Charcy, then what followed— He couldn’t think about what followed, all he could do was keep to his promise.

he is so devoted to laurent that he doesn’t even stop to think that he’s been screwed over. me too damen, as a first-time reader. and even now, on a second read, i'm not sure how much i trust laurent. i've forgotten the intricacies of his plan and i didn't do a close-reading the first time around, so there are certain things i just can't say for sure at this point.

anyway, i actually think d&l have a ton in common in terms of how they express and demonstrate devotion. they both have bleeding hearts, it’s just that laurent’s has had a much longer time to harden. the way he assesses and handles situations is with a detachment he believes is necessary, so he doesn’t lose control, while damen throws himself wholeheartedly into everything he cares about. they have the same fierceness and passion, and while working together they help to balance out their approaches while applying that passion. starting the book out like this, with damen's devotion on full display and laurent's being majorly questioned, is very smart. because they both need to evolve from this point, in order to be good kings and good partners to each other.

like honestly, they both just need to sit the fuck down and tell the truth and accept that they both care about each other and they don’t have to be avoidant freaks about it. not that either of them (mostly laurent, but also damen in a different way) actually wants to do that. and that’s what the first like 1/3 of the book is about, as i recall: their petty divorce drama until they both give in and decide to figure out their shit.

The ghost of his father seemed to prickle over his skin. It was his father’s title, but his father no longer sat on the throne at Ios. Looking at the bowed head of his friend, Damen realised it for the first time. He was no longer the young prince who had roamed the palace halls with Nikandros after a day spent wrestling together on the sawdust. There was no Prince Damianos. The self that he had been striving to return to was gone.

“with real power comes real responsibility, and i don’t want any of that shit” - dennis reynolds, it’s always sunny in philadelphia

Damen took in Nikandros’s familiar, classically Akielon features, his dark hair and brows, his olive face and straight Akielon nose. As children, they had run barefoot together through the palace. When he’d imagined a return to Akielos, he’d imagined greeting Nikandros, embracing him, heedless of the armour, like digging in his fingers and feeling in his fist the earth of his home.

so they've definitely fucked right

Damen thought of the soldiers bursting into his rooms, of being lashed down in the slave baths, of the dark, muffled journey by ship to Vere. He thought of being confined, his face painted, his body drugged and displayed. He thought of opening his eyes in the Veretian palace, and what had happened to him there. ‘You were right about Kastor,’ Damen said. It was all he said.

nice vs. good theme breakthrough!

He heard of his own body, wrapped and taken in the processional through the acropolis, then interred beside his father.

okay so which dead palace employee/slave got to posthumously cosplay as damen’s corpse

He heard Kastor’s claim that he had been killed by his own guard.

copying the regent's homework

To the Kyros of Delpha, Nikandros, from Laurent, Prince of Vere.

"hey girl,"

The letter was old. The writing was old. Laurent must have sent the letter from Arles.

see my previous breakdown from book 2 chapter 21 about how laurent literally failsafed losing the only living person who loves him with this gambit

It made tactical sense, in a horrifying way, for Laurent to have made an alliance with Nikandros. Laurent had always been capable of a kind of ruthless pragmatism. He was able to put emotion aside and do what he had to do to win, with a perfect and nauseating ability to ignore all human feeling.

i mean i think there was feeling there. making the alliance also was a way for laurent to dispose of damen, returning him to his people so the regent couldn’t use him to torture laurent. because at that point i’m not sure if laurent wanted damen dead, but he definitely wanted him gone. and he’d assumed that damen would want that too

In return for aid from Nikandros, the letter said, Laurent would offer proof that Kastor had colluded with the Regent to kill King Theomedes of Akielos.

okay yeah THAT’S GOOD. and it explains how laurent gets himself in his situation in the next chapter, he’s following up on the promise by trying to get the info from govart/guion

The straightforward ease of it left him without words. He had forgotten what home felt like. He had forgotten trust, loyalty, kinship. Friends.

i’m glad nikandros is a real one. but damen please don’t regress so much that you forget straightforwardness and ease =/= truth and loyalty. oh fuck he can’t hear me

‘Your friend [Nikandros, talking about himself] is a fool and courts treason for a keepsake.’

yeah it makes sense that these two are besties

To gain everything and lose everything in the space of a moment. That is the fate of all princes destined for the throne.

this or a kingdom. guess he’ll kingdom

‘Kastor made me a slave. Laurent freed me. He gave me command of his fort and his troops, an act of trust for an Akielon he had no reason to elevate. He doesn’t know who I am.’

oh honey

‘The Prince of Vere freed you,’ said Nikandros. ‘You have been his slave?’ His voice thickened with the words. ‘You have served the Prince of Vere as a slave?’

this isn’t an hr complaint quite yet but it is a “nikandros takes out his phone and bitches on his private twitter moment” moment. which i think should be a tally as well. nikandros private twitter venting moment #1

He knew what they saw—a hundred images of slaves, submitting, bending at the hip, parting their thighs, the casual ease with which these men would have taken slaves in their own households.

back in book 1, when assessing the state of erasmus in torveld’s possession, i recall that damen assumes that veretians think that “there is no honour in submission.” implying that to damen in book 1, and akielons in general, there IS honor in a slave’s submission. but here, when their prince—a person they respect—is revealed to have been made a slave, they definitely don’t perceive it as an honor. so which one is it? whatever submission damen shows/showed laurent is voluntary and honorable by his own moral code. he hasn’t been groomed or brainwashed into submitting his own free will. get on his level or keep your judgment to yourselves, hypocrites

‘Does it shock you? I was a personal gift to the Prince of Vere.’ He had bared his whole forearm. Nikandros turned to Makedon, his voice harsh. ‘You will not speak of this. You will never speak of this outside this room—’ Damen said, ‘No. It can’t be hidden.’ He said it to Makedon.

i think damen can at least subconsciously see the hypocrisy here. and he’s indignant about it >:)

‘You were the Prince’s slave?’ Revulsion was stamped on Makedon’s face, whitening it. ‘Yes.’

'and tbh i’d drop the past tense i had the blacksmith keep this thing on me'

‘You—’ Makedon’s words echoed the unspoken question in Nikandros’s eyes that no man would ever say aloud to his King. Damen’s flush changed in quality. ‘You dare ask that.’ Makedon said, thickly, ‘You are our King. This is an insult to Akielos that cannot be borne.’

and now damen’s piiiiiisssssssed. i think partially because he knows it was the best night of his life and doesn’t want to be shamed for it, lol

‘You will bear it,’ said Damen, holding Makedon’s gaze, ‘as I have borne it. Or do you think yourself above your King?’ Slave, said the resistance in Makedon’s eyes. Makedon certainly had slaves in his own household, and made use of them. What he imagined between Prince and slave stripped it of all the subtleties of surrender. Having been done to his King, it had in some sense been done to him, and his pride revolted at it.

okay yeah damen’s totally ending the institution of slavery once he's king and the gradual development of changing his mind has been both demonstrated effectively and completely earned throughout the past two books. i think this is why some of the cruelest things in book 1 happen to damen in the first place—they had very little to do with the development of his relationship with laurent, and everything to do with this personal arc for damen’s character. moments like this are the payoff to all of that subtle and consistent work. damen’s wake-up call of being treated like a slave and realizing it’s not what he thought, now transferring to his fellow slave-owners like a moral salve (not a typo for slave. like medicine).

The plan he had developed with Laurent was simple,

ARE YOU SURE

Damen’s men were the bait.

damen sees those red flags and just keeps pushing forward

It struck its front hoof on the cobbles, as though seeking to overturn a stone, arching its neck, perhaps sensing, in the manner of all great beasts, that they were on the cusp of war.

do you think damen and laurent’s horses miss each other

But Jord and Huet. Lazar. Scanning their faces, Damen saw who they were. These were the men of the Prince’s Guard, with whom Damen had travelled for months. And there was only one reason why they had been released from confinement. Damen held up a hand, and Jord was allowed through, so that for a moment their horses circled each other. ‘We’ve come to ride with you,’ said Jord. Damen looked at the small clump of blue now gathered before the rows of red in the courtyard. There weren’t many of them, only twenty, and he saw at once that it was Jord who had convinced them, so that they were here, mounted and ready. ‘Then we ride,’ said Damen. ‘For Akielos, and for Vere.’

<3

The uncertain terrain was a valley of doubt, fringed by trees and dangerous slopes.

“the uncertain terrain was a valley of doubt” great line

Damen would never bring men into this kind of disadvantage without a counter plan.

SSFGHYSUDGFYSUDF

If he just did that, just kept to his promise, then after—

now damen’s the one being controlled by his emotions and desperation. oops!

‘If we do that, and your Veretian doesn’t arrive, we’ll all be killed.’ ‘He’ll be here,’ said Damen.

cringe

Laurent had never planned to come. That was what the scout was screaming, right before an arrow took him in the back. ‘This is your Veretian Prince exposed for what he is,’ said Makedon.

so i know that having akielos show up was laurent’s plan, but i forget if laurent had EVER intended to show up at charcy, or if the plan was always to screw damen over. like laurent tells damen that was the plan, after the fact, or at least doesn’t apologize. because he's a petty bitch and mad at damen for lying and doesn't want to talk about the fact that he got tortured. but i still think that laurent could have intended to be there, just with the twist of damen being exposed, if he hadn’t been held up and injured. after all, the akielos allyship plan has been a thing since vere, but the charcy plan was in response to something laurent 100% did not see coming. laurent couldn't have ended the snowball effect of his own gambit by the time he realized he liked and trusted damen, but he could only have planned charcy after they bonded for almost an entire book. they're two different plans, by two slightly different laurents. not that damen can really see that right now.

i don’t know, i always tend to give laurent more grace than he probably deserves. i WANT him to do better than he sometimes does, because he is a character i'm rooting for, and i know that he cares about being honorable in his own messy imperfect way. (me 🤝 damen).

but even if we're just looking at it without any kind of emotional attachment, it simply isn't characteristic of laurent to leave so many of his own people to die, if he can avoid it. so it would make sense for him to at least try to keep his promise of showing up. but then again, when he’s overwhelmed by emotions he does make uncharacteristically stupid choices. and he is pissed at damen, kind of, although i do think he feels much more endeared to him now than he’d been when he sent nikandros the letter from arles. so he must have meant to be there. but then AGAIN, maybe laurent still somehow assumes that damen was just using him as a fuck, especially since damen didn’t tell the truth even when they started having sex. because laurent is an idiot about feelings, and he doesn’t want to see that damen cares, so he convinces himself that damen deserves to be abandoned on the battlefield.

i don't knowwwwww, my heart says one thing and my literary analysis brain tentatively agrees (laurent meant to be there but couldn't make it), but i hate getting things wrong and laurent is a slippery bitch. and again, this is on a SECOND READ. i just don't remember, for sure, if laurent meant to be at charcy. i don't know if it's even ever said, or just meant to be read between the lines. this may seem negligent or shallow, but listen, the first time i read this book was a binge-read. i read it in a night, right after reading a good chunk of prince's gambit in the afternoon. i was paying a lot less attention to the war/plan stuff and just focusing on the dysfunctional gay people. what i didn't realize, in my haste, is that the war/plan stuff adds an entire new dimension to the gay people's dysfunction. which is why i firmly believe that this is a series that needs to be read twice, at least. these are not romance books, they're a fucking psychological experience. they're like an escape room for your brain that just happens to have horny gay people inside.

Damen had no time to think before the situation was on him.

laurent in book 2: “i can’t think”

There was a dark logic to it. Have your slave convince the Akielons to fight. Let your enemies do your fighting for you, the casualties taken by the people you despise, the Regent defeated or weakened, and the armies of Nikandros wiped out.

and if it was laurent of book 1 or early book 2, that would have made perfect sense. but he made the charcy plan at the end of book 2 come onnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn. it can't be as simple as "laurent fully meant to screw you over," even if he didn't manage to show up as a result of his own plans that nobody else knew about. laurent took two steps forward at the end of book 2, trusting damen enough to emotionally and physically be intimate with him AND making this charcy plan with him. i think it makes sense for him to have taken one step back, in not actually telling damen the full truth about the alliance or laurent's own sidequest that ends up getting him captured and injured, but i just don't think he took TWO entire steps back, by putting damen and his men in a deadly situation with zero intention to help. that's too simple for him, both in an in-universe sense and in a "this is how good storytelling (which pacat can at this point be reasonably trusted to do) works" sense. it has to be something in between, even if damen and laurent assume/claim otherwise.

Damen found himself alongside Jord. ‘If you want to live, ride east.’ White-faced, Jord took one look at his expression and said, ‘He’s not coming.’

jord stays losing

[nasthepotprincess]

why don't we ever talk about how badly betrayed jord felt when he found out damen's true identity... especially after having already been badly betrayed by aimeric's true identity?!?!

and he stiiiiillll held that shit down for damianos!!!

[lovelivresse]

Laurent of Vere being iconic a bitch in Prince’s Gambit

“I want you to know,’ said Damen, carefully, ‘that I haven’t done anything to encourage the idea that I—that you and I—’

‘If I thought you had, I’d have had you tied to a post and flogged until your front matched your back.”

“This doesn’t suit me,’ he said, meaning that it didn’t suit him to wear them.

‘No. It doesn’t. You look like one of us,”

(at the brothel) “Laurent raised his fist and applied it to the door. Then he turned to Damen. ‘I assume that’s right? I have no idea how one usually proceeds. This is your arena, not mine.”

“Then Laurent rose and made his way around the table, sitting himself beside Damen, close as a lover.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Verisimilitude,’ said Laurent. The earring winked at him. ‘I’m glad I brought you along. I wasn’t expecting to have to tear things out of walls. Do you visit brothels often?’

‘No,’ said Damen.

‘Not brothels. Camp followers?’ said Laurent. And then: ‘Slaves.’ And then, after the satisfaction of a pause: ‘Akielos, the garden of delights. So you enjoy slavery in others. Just not in yourself.”

“Have I said something to offend you? I didn’t mean—’

‘No. A plausible, benign and uncomplicated theory. Trust you to come up with it.”

“But I am Prince of Acquitart, as well as Prince of Vere, and the laws of Acquitart don’t require me to be twenty one to inherit. It’s mine. There’s nothing my uncle can do to take it,’ said Laurent. And then he said, ‘I suppose he could invade.’ And then: ‘His men could wrestle Arnoul in the stairwell.”

“Damen was watching Kashel as she made her way back to him from the dais. He could hear the sound of drums from the other campfire, a low, constant thrumming.

‘Is this—are you ordering me to do this?’

‘Do you need orders?’ said Laurent. ‘I can direct you, if you lack proficiency.”

“An Akielon has no place in the company of men. Your Highness will understand.’

‘Is my slave making you nervous?’ said Laurent. ‘I can understand that. It takes a man to handle him.”

“The Prince is light in his manner,’ said Councillor Guion, with his eyes on Damen, ‘and does not seem to like to blame Akielos for any wrongdoing.’

‘I don’t blame insects for buzzing when someone kicks their hive over,’ said Laurent.”

“It’s not like you to give up the reins,’ Damen couldn’t help saying.

‘Well, I can’t see the way over your shoulders.’

‘We could try some other arrangement.’

‘You’re right: it should be me in front and you carrying the horse.”

“Laurent said, ‘You have me as an enemy for that. You are not going to enjoy the experience.’

Aimeric said, ‘You go to bed with Akielons. You let them fuck you.’

‘Like you let Jord fuck you?’ said Laurent. ‘Except that you really let him fuck you. Did your father tell you to do that, or was it your own inspired addition?’

‘I don’t betray my family. I’m not like you,’ said Aimeric. ‘You hate your uncle. You had unnatural feelings for your brother.’

‘At thirteen?’ From his frigid blue eyes to the tips of his polished boots, Laurent could not have looked less capable of feelings for anyone. ‘Apparently I was even more precocious than you.”

“That your selfish nature has led you to treason does not surprise me, but how could you betray your uncle’s trust, after the kindness that he has lavished on you?’

‘Uncle’s immoderate kindness,’ said Laurent. ‘I promise you, it was easy.”

“To get inside Ravenel? My dear Enguerran, I’m afraid you are quite mistaken.’

Laurent’s gaze travelled over Enguerran again, his blue eyes cold.

‘I don’t need you,’ said Laurent. ‘I just need your clothes.”

“Laurent swept him with a long, gleaming look.

‘If you didn’t fit Enguerran’s shoulderpiece, I was going to suggest you try the panoply off his horse.”

“He said, ‘What will you do next?’

‘Bathe,’ answered Laurent, in a tone that said he knew perfectly well what Damen had meant, ‘and change into something that’s not made of metal. You should do the same. I had the servants lay out some clothing for you that befits your new station. Very Veretian, you’ll hate it. I have something else for you as well.”

(to Jord) “Here to warn me about the dangers of making command decisions in bed?’ Laurent said.

[...]

‘He knows well enough he should go.’

‘While we compare notes on spreading for the enemy?’ said Laurent.”

“To regroup. My father would never turn his back on his family. Not like you. Spreading for your brother isn’t the same thing as family loyalty.’ Aimeric’s breathing was shallow.

‘That reminds me,’ said Laurent.

He stood, the goblet hanging casually from his fingertips. He regarded Aimeric a moment. Then he changed his grip on the goblet, lifted it, and brought it with calm brutality in a backhanded blow across Aimeric’s face.

Aimeric cried out. The blow snapped his head to one side, as the heavy gold impacted on his cheekbone with a sick, solid sound. [...]

‘Keep your mouth off my brother,’ said Laurent.”

“Stop this,’ said Jord. ‘He’s just a boy. He’s just a boy, he’s not old enough for this, he’s scared. He thinks you’re going to wreck his family.’

[...]

‘I am going to wreck his family,’ said Laurent. ‘But it’s not his family he’s fighting for.”

“I bet you were easy. A few compliments, a little attention, and you gave him all the naive pleasures of a country virgin in his bed. He would have found it diverting. At first. What else is there to do in Fortaine?”

“So says the King.’

There was silence in the courtyard. No one spoke.

‘But there is no King,’ said Laurent, ‘in Vere.’ His voice carried too.”

“My uncle has killed his catamite,’ said Laurent. ‘As a message to us. And what is the message?’ His voice carried.

‘That his favour cannot be trusted? That even the boys in his bed see how false is his claim to the throne? Or that his hold on power is so flimsy that he fears the words of a bought child whore?

[...]

‘And if you want a personal message,’ said Laurent, ‘You can tell my uncle boykiller that he can cut the head off every child from here to the capital. It won’t make him into a king, it will simply mean he has no one left to fuck.”

“He was more than that. You thought of him as—’

‘A brother?’ said Laurent. ‘But I do not have terribly good luck with those.”

“Did you know about this?’

‘Know?’ said Laurent. ‘Everyone knows. I was glad. I just wish I could have seen it happen. I wish I could have seen Damianos when Kastor’s hire-swords came for him. I would have laughed in his face. His father got exactly what he deserved, to die like the animal he was, and there was nothing any of them could do to stop it happening. Then again,’ said Laurent, ‘maybe if Theomedes had kept his cock in his wife instead of sticking it in his mistress—’

That was the last thing he said, because Damen hit him.”

[failes-xtra-bits]

Chapter 17/Oh Jordy….

 ‘I ordered the section cleared,’ Damen said. Jord was intruding(once again). 

‘I’m not here for you,’ said Jord. 

‘Then state your business and leave.’ 

‘My business is with the Prince.’ Laurent pushed himself away from the wall. 

‘Here to warn me about the dangers of making command decisions in bed?’ Laurent said. There was a short, spectacular silence. The flaming of the torches, the wind striking the walls were over-loud. Jord stood very still. ‘Something to say?’ said Laurent. Jord was holding off from them. The same stubborn distaste was in his voice. 

‘Not with him here.’ 

‘He’s your Captain,’ said Laurent. 

‘He knows well enough he should go.’ 

‘While we compare notes on spreading for the enemy?’ said Laurent. This silence was worse. Damen felt the distance between himself and Laurent with his whole body, four endless steps across the battlements. ‘Well?’ said Laurent. Damen stepped forward.

 ‘Maybe—’ More sound on the stairs, the clatter of several urgent footsteps. Jord turned. Guymar and another of the soldiers were coming to the section he had ordered cleared. Damen passed a hand over his face. Everyone in the fort was coming to the section he had ordered cleared. 

‘Captain. I apologise for the breach in your orders. But there is a situation developing downstairs. A group of the men have it into their minds to make sport with one of the prisoners.’ The world was not going away. The intrusive world was returning its concerns, the issues of discipline, the mechanisms of captaincy. 

‘The prisoners are to be well treated,’ said Damen. ‘If some of the men are too full of drink, you know how to keep them at bay. My orders were clear.’ There was a hesitation. Guymar was one of Enguerran’s men, a career soldier, polished and professional. Damen had promoted him for exactly those qualities. 

‘Captain, your orders were clear, but . . .’ said Guymar. 

‘But?’ 

‘Some of the men seem to think that His Highness will support their actions.’ Damen gathered his mind. From the way Guymar said it, it was obvious what type of sport he meant. Guymar’s face was impassive, but his faint disapproval was tangible: these were the actions of mercenaries, dressed up in the Prince’s livery. The Prince’s men were showing their inferior quality. 

Like an archer fixing on his target, Laurent said precisely, deliberately, ‘Aimeric.’ Damen turned. Laurent’s eyes were on Jord, and Damen saw in a rush from Jord’s expression that Laurent was right, and of course it was for Aimeric’s sake that Jord had come here. Under that dangerous, steady gaze, Jord went to his knees(Stand upl!). 

‘Your Highness,’ said Jord. He wasn’t looking at anyone, but at the dark stones beneath him. ‘I know I’ve done wrong. I’ll accept any punishment for that. But Aimeric was loyal to his family. He was loyal to what he knew. He doesn’t deserve to be handed around the men for that.’ Jord’s head was bowed, but his hands on his knees were fists. ‘If my years of service to you are worth anything at all, let them be worth that.’ 

‘Jord,’ said Laurent, ‘this is why he fucked you. This moment.’ 

‘I know that,’ said Jord. 

‘Orlant,’ said Laurent, ‘didn’t deserve to die alone on the sword of a self-serving aristocrat he thought was a friend.’ 

‘I know that,’ said Jord. ‘I’m not asking you to let Aimeric go free or to forgive him for what he’s done. It’s just that I know him, and that night, he was . . .’ (Arghhhhh, JORD!!!)

‘I should make you watch,’ said Laurent, ‘while he’s stripped down for every man in the troop to have him.’ 

Damen stepped forward. ‘You don’t mean this. You need him as a hostage.’ 

‘I don’t need him continent,(Rude!)’ said Laurent. Laurent’s face was perfectly smooth, his blue eyes cool and untouchable. 

Damen felt himself recoil slightly from that callous look, the surprise of it. He realised that he had fallen out of step with Laurent at some crucial point. He wanted to send everyone away, so that he could find his way back. And yet this must be dealt with. The situation here was spiralling into something unpleasant. 

He said, ‘If there’s to be justice for Aimeric, then let it be justice, reasonably decided, publicly applied, not the men taking matters into their own hands.’

‘Then by all means,’ said Laurent, ‘let us have justice. Since you’re both so eager for it. Drag Aimeric away from his admirers. Bring him to me in the south tower. Let us have everything out in the open.’ 

‘Yes, Your Highness.’ Damen found himself stepping forward as Guymar bowed briefly and left, and the others followed him, making for the south tower. He wanted to reach out, if not with a hand, then with his voice.

‘What are you doing?’ he said. ‘When I said there should be justice for Aimeric, I meant later, not now, when you’re . . .’ He searched Laurent’s face. ‘When we . . .’ 

He hit a look like a wall, and the uncaring lift of golden brows. Laurent said, ‘If Jord wants to get down on his knees for Aimeric, he should know exactly who he’s crawling for.’

Damen Laurent and Jord gather in a small room off of one of the parapets. Laurent orders Aimeric Brought along with refreshments. Laurent sat in a high-backed wooden chair. Damen, having observed Laurent so closely, knew that it was about to GO DOWN. But of course our lovely daydreaming Damen can't keep his mind on the business at hand and is thinking about the kiss. And of course ALL that he can think about is how he was cockblocked and wants to get back to it. Aimeric is dragged in by two guards, still looking defiant.

 when he saw Jord, he turned white and said ‘no’

‘The loving reunion’ said Laurent. when Aimeric heard that, he gathered his Defiance to himself. the guards took up their hold again, roughly. so his face was still White, Aimeric lifted his chin.

‘ Have you brought me here to gloat? I'm glad I did what I did. I did it for my family, and for the South. ‘I’d it again.’

‘ That was pretty,’ said Laurent. ‘ Now the truth.’

‘ That was the truth.” said Aimeric ‘I'm not afraid of you. My father's going to crush you.’

‘  Your father has ridden to Fortaine with his tail between his legs.’

‘ To regroup. My father would never turn his back on his family. Not like you. spreading for your brother isn't the same thing as family and loyalty.’ Aimeric’s  breathing was shallow.

‘That reminds me,’ said Laurent. He stood the goblet hanging casually from his fingertips. He regarded Aimeric a moment. Then he changed his grip on the goblet, lifted it, and brought it with a calm brutality in a backhanded blow across Aimeric’s face(SAVAGE!). Aimeric cried out. The blow snapped his head to one side, as the heavy gold impacted his cheekbone with the sick, solid sound.  It left him reeling in the arms of the guards. Jord made a violent move forward and Damen felt his whole body come under strain as instinctively he pushed in to halt him.

‘ keep your mouth off my brother,’  said Laurent. (OK, Laurent is a SAVAGE little french man, he has branded the boys face with the imprint of a goblet AND bloodied his lip in one go)

Damen heard Aimeric say, thickley,’You can hit me as much as you like.’

‘ Can I? I think we're going to enjoy each other, you and I. Tell me what else I can do to you.’

‘Stop this,’ said Jord ‘he's just a boy. He's just a boy, he's not old enough for this, he's scared( fuckin’ creepy). He thinks you're going to wreck his family.’ 

Aimeric turned his bruised bloody face to the words, in disbelief that Jord was defending him. Laurent turned to face Jord at the same time, his golden brows arching. There was disbelief in the expression too, but it was colder, more fundamental. 

It took Damon a moment to understand why. Uneasiness swept over him as he looked from Laurent’s face to Aimeric’s, and realized suddenly and for the first time how close Laurent and Aimeric were in age. There was a six months difference between them, at most.

‘I am going to wreck his family,’  said Laurent.’ But it's not his family he's fighting for.’

‘Of course it is,’ said Jord ‘why else would he betray his friends?’ (face palm) 

‘You can't think of a reason?’

  Laurent’s attention  had returned to Aimeric, drawing close to him  so that they faced one another. Like a Lover, Laurent smiled and touched a stray curl  tucking it behind Aimeric’s ear. Aimeric flinched, violently, then repressed the flinch, though he wasn't able to control his breathing.

Tenderly Laurent drew a fingertip through the blood that welled from Aimeric’s split lip. (OK, that’s out of line)

‘Pretty face,’  said Laurent. Then his fingers dropped back to brush Aimeric’s jaw, tilting it up as though for a kiss. Aimeric made a choking sound in response to pain; the bruised flesh under Laurent’s fingers was white. ‘ I bet you were a peach of a little boy. A pretty peach. How old were you when you fucked my uncle?’

Damen went still, everything in the tower went still, as Laurent said, ‘were you old enough to come?’

‘Shut up,’ said Aimeric.

‘Did he tell you you’d be together again, if you’d just do this one thing? Did he tell you how much he missed you?’

‘Shut up,’ said Aimeric.

‘He was lying. He wouldn't take you back. You’re too old.’

‘You don't know,’ said Aimeric.

‘Thick voiced and rough cheeked, you’d make him sick.’

‘You don’t know anything----’

‘With your aging body, your overripe attentions, your nothing but----’

‘You’re wrong about us! He loves me!’

Aimeric flung the words out defiantly, they came out overloud . Damen felt the bottom fall out of his stomach, a feeling of total wrongness passing over him. He found that he had let go of his grip on Jord, who beside him, took two steps back.

Laurent was looking at Aimeric with curling contempt.

‘Loves you? You paltry little upstart.I doubt he even preferred you. How long did you hold his attention? A few fucks while he was bored in the country?’

‘You don’t know anything about us,’ said Aimeric.

Ok---- so--- that little speech of Laurent’s is long, and hateful, and mean and he takes Aimeric apart piece by piece with Damen and Jord watching unable to do anything. Needless to say he reduces Aimeric to ‘ugly crying’ the kind where you twist your face up and curl your lips… yeah, not pretty. I almost feel sorry for Aimeric, nah, I DO feel sorry for Aimeric, that was brutal. Damen eventually steps in and has Aimeric taken away. Jord calls Laurent a “Cold-blooded son ofa bitch,” and Laurent rounds on him like a Cobra ready to strike, hood raised, eyes blazing, I’m surprised he let him live. Damen(My Boiiii) gets between them and double dog dares Laurent to have a go at him He reminds him that he makes stupid mistakes when he’s angry. Laurent sizes him up and thinks better of it (He don’t want to fight with his Boo thang, he’s mad but he still wants a piece). 

‘What you are saying is that when I lose control, I make mistakes. My uncle knows that, of course.’

 OK. Halt. his uncle knew a few other things as well. Like a betrayal would make him crack and bring out the worst in him BECAUSE 6 months apart would mean that Laurent was left alone while his uncle fooled around with Aimeric. He remembers feelings of maybe jealousy and hurt and resentment. it shames him. Since he can’t take it out on his uncle he let’s Aimeric have it (for still being so stupid) 

‘It would have been an amusing pleasure for him to send Aimeric to work against me, you’re right. You with your barbaric attitudes, your brutish, domineering arrogance, are always right.’  Laurent’s hands on the table were white (ummmm when aren’t they? You mean more than usual Damen?). 

‘I remember that trip to Fortaine. He left the capital for two weeks, then sent word he extended it to three. He said it was his business with Guion that needed more time(see?).’

Damen took a step forward, called by the tone in Laurent’s voice(melancholy? Surely Damen wouldn't respond to anger?).

Laurent said, “IF you want me to calm down, get out.’

(He is forever throwing a tantrum and kicking Damen out. That French temper.)

Fin.