Sage's hot tears melted the snow on his face. He didn't bother wiping them away; his hands were also wet with snow. He cried quietly until a head covered the moon and yanked him into a seated position.
"Sage, are you alright? Are you hurt? What the hell are you doing?"
He stared into Taro's troubled eyes, wide and fearful and confused. "Did you know?" he asked. "Did you know about Patrick?"
"Your uncle Patrick? What do you mean?"
"He's a traitor because he's . . . " Sage's stomach flipped painfully, and he numbed to his very core. I should've known it would be this way. "I'm just not meant to be happy, am I?" He didn't see Taro's expression because his tears clouded his vision, but he felt hands on his coat and was pulled to his feet.
"You can't be out here, it's too cold and you're not dressed properly." Taro turned him back towards the slope and forced him to climb. "Get inside and get warm, and you can tell me what's going on." The two guards stood by the door when they returned, both visibly worried and anxious. "Why didn't you go after him?" Taro snapped and steered Sage inside.
When he was sitting in front of the fire with a hot drink, Sage could barely stay on one thought for long enough to make sense of it all. He watched the flames caressing the wood, turning it black, burning it to dust. Nothing felt real, not even the heart beating inside of him.
Taro sat down. Sage felt the couch cushion dip beside him. "What happened?" he asked calmly.
"I overheard the guards talking," Sage whispered, transfixed on the fireplace. "They said they overheard my parents saying how Patrick was a traitor because he was gay."
The silence in the room made Sage feel colder than he ever had before, even when he was knee deep in snow with an icy wind whipping his face.
Taro suddenly jumped to his feet and stormed through the room, only to return, shaking with rage. "I just spoke with the guards, Carno and Bell." Taro paused to take a long breath. "They swear they're telling the truth. They have no reason to lie, especially since they didn't mean for you to hear them."
Sage looked down to his tea. The heat of the cup hurt his fingers, but he couldn't loosen his grip. "So, you didn't know."
"I didn't. I would've told you if I had." Taro touched his wrist. "Please look at me."
When Sage did, a tear rolled pathetically down his face. "I can never tell them who I am. They'll never accept it."
"They can go fuck themselves," Taro muttered. Sage was so stunned by the harshness of his tone that it cleared his head. He blinked at Taro, who added, "If they want to label a member of their own family as a traitor for being gay, then they can piss off."
"What if they murdered him?" Sage's eyes widened. "What if they murdered him for being gay?"
"Sage, don't think that aloud." Taro scanned the room. "If they did mur-" he moved closer and hushed his tone, "murder him . . . then why would they freak out so much and keep you and your brother inside? Why would Oxley have a file on him? I think there's more to this, and I think it's dangerous for us to know."
"Why was Oxley allowed to know and not me?" Sage's hands trembled and some tea spilt onto his fingers. He dropped the mug and it smashed on the floor. He grabbed Taro's arm to stop him from getting up to clean it. "What if they knew I'm gay? What if that's the reason my dad was so pushy with me and Lady Liniana going on dates?"
Taro looked from the shattered golden cup to Sage's firm grip on his wrist, to his wide and terrified eyes and the angry flames reflecting against his tears. Slowly, he rested a hand over his shaky one. "You were so happy only an hour ago. It's always your family who make you so upset."
"I'm getting so tired of it." Sage fell into Taro's chest and cried against his jumper. He smelt of a bonfire and the cold, and of the earth and the garlic in the soup that Sage was yet to have for dinner. Sage cried until he was spluttering out inaudible words. His head pounded, and his throat hurt from wrenching out such painful sobs. He cried because his chance of living with his duty and a desired partner had never been an option. He cried because his parents would very likely disown him for wanted to be happy. He cried because of the shock, and for poor Patrick who had been bitter and angry because he was related to a family who hated him.
Most of all, Sage cried because his life would never be the same. He knew that now for certain. If Patrick was a traitor for being gay, then Sage would be too, and he would be forced to abdicate before the crown would even touch his curls. He knew he would abdicate because he was too far gone with falling for Taro Vinea. He would choose him over his duty, and that hurt to finally admit.
"I wish I could go back," he sobbed, holding Taro as if he were his life support. "Back to before I knew who I was. I want to go back." He cried hard until his mouth was dry and he had no tears left. He sat as a trembling mess in Taro's lap, but he never told Sage to toughen up or to pull himself together. He always allowed Sage to cry and crumble, and then he would put him back together again.
After sitting together for a while, and after Sage's face had dried and his head stopped hurting, he asked, "What am I supposed to do now?"
"Eat," Taro replied. "Your belly is still rumbling."
Without another word, he sat at the table and ate his soup with a warm crusty roll covered in butter and pepper. He ate as much as he could, but still left half of everything he was given. He often stopped to stare blankly at the table while his thoughts raced a million miles a second.
He didn't know how long he had zoned out for when Taro was suddenly behind him, telling him to go upstairs and he'd run a bath. Sage followed like a zombie. His limbs didn't feel like his own, his breathing felt forced, his eyes were like looking from somebody else's point of view.
He passed the two guards who had overshared something Sage wasn't sure that he was ready to know. Their guilt followed him, but he was still too stunned to talk to them. He followed Taro to his bedroom where he sat motionless on his bed. Taro ran him a bath, but making himself smell nice and feel clean didn't change the fact that his parents would soon loathe him enough to call him a traitor.
When his curls had dried and he was wearing fresh pyjamas, sitting under a fresh duvet that smelt of lavender, he could at least think about it without wanting to rip his brain to shreds.
"Lie down and try to sleep. You're still in shock," Taro said, hovering by the foot of the bed.
Sage could tell that he was trying to rationalise everything, but he was just as shocked as him, and just as furious. "How can I sleep? I can't switch off." Sage rubbed his temples. His eyes stung from crying or from tiredness, he wasn't quite sure.
"Start by lying down." Taro joined him under the covers. He shuffled close and fluffed up Sage's pillow. "And then close your eyes," he said in a softer tone. Sage sighed, but he did as he was told. "Now concentrate on my touch." Taro's arms wrapped around him, and his thumbs softly rubbed circles on his arm.
Sage tried to relax and to focus on his touch, but for once, it wasn't making him flutter in both body and mind, and blush and gush for more. He couldn't stop thinking about Patrick. How long had everyone known that he was gay? Was it a recent discovery because of his murder? Or was he murdered because he was gay?
Sage slept lightly all night. He tossed and turned and woke almost every hour in a cold sweat from bad dreams. He kept dreaming that he was hiding his truth from his family who looked at him strangely. In his dreams they could hear his thoughts and feel how he felt when he looked at other men. They spent the dream trying to catch him out.
Sage woke abruptly at the crack of dawn, which wasn't in the early hours of the morning in winter. Taro had leapt to his feet, but instead of tending to Sage, he stormed to the door and yanked it open. A guard stood on the other side, out of breath and with his phone in his hand.
Sage concluded he had woken to someone knocking on his bedroom door. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and climbed out of bed. The cold was not welcomed after a rough sleep. Sage slipped his dressing gown on and fastened it tightly at the waist.
The guard shared a hushed conversation with Taro before showing him his phone. Sage watched with crossed arms, wondering what was so secret that they couldn't tell him too. But the look on Taro's face sent an eerie shiver down Sage's spine for the second day in a row.
"What is it?" he demanded when Taro paled.
Taro gave the guard his phone back and ordered him to make sure every door and window was locked. He then closed the bedroom door and smoothed a hand down his face. He pursed his lips and stared at Sage so intensely, Sage had to look away. "Give me your phone."
"Why?"
Taro held his hand out, so Sage didn't question him. Taro immediately started typing something on his phone, and then paused to stare at something on the screen. His green eyes flicked to Sage. "I just-" he pursed his lips again. "I'm sorry this is happening to you."
Taro then turned the phone around. Sage flinched at the brightness of the screen, yet he stepped closer to really understand what he was seeing. But when he did, he was left breathless again while he stared at a picture of himself and Taro Vinea, kissing on the front cover of their countries most popular news site.