The rest of the days passed in a blur of steel and snow. Aldric fought twice more, winning both matches. The Ashworth envoy watched with narrowed eyes. The Duvall representative's pleasant smile never wavered. The knights watched everyone.
Kaelen stood at the edge of the field, cataloguing, calculating, but his mind kept drifting back to the pavilion.
The realization sat in his chest like a stone, cold and heavy, and it was not relief he felt.
It was jealousy or something diffrent but close to it.
The word tasted wrong in his mouth, foreign and ugly. He had no right to be jealous, he had only known Lysander for weeks, the duke owed him nothing. The king had known Lysander for decades, had raised him, had bled with him, had slept beside him in the dark when they were children too scared to close their eyes.
Kaelen had no one like that, that was what was making him jealous.
