He regarded me soberly. “Is there anyone who knows more of the Skill than you do?”
“No, my Prince.” I did not add that I'd killed them all. I could not have said why I suddenly added his title. Only that something in his manner demanded it. “Then you are Skillmaster now. By default.” “No.” That I could answer, my tongue moving as swiftly as my thoughts. I took a breath. “I'll teach you,” I said. “But it will be as your father taught me. When I can and what I can. And in secret.”
Without a word, he reached his hand across the table to me, to seal the agreement with a touching of hands. Two things happened as our hands met. “The Wit and the Skill,” he stipulated. As the skin of my palm touched his, the leap of Skillspark between us sang. Please.
His plea was sloppily done, pushed by the Wit, not the Skill. “We'll see,” I said aloud. I was already regretting it. “You may change your mind. I'm neither a good teacher, nor a patient one.”
“But you treat me like a man, not 'the Prince.' As if your expectations of a man were higher than those for a prince.”
I didn't reply. I looked at him, waiting. He spoke hesitantly, as if the answer shamed him. “To my mother, I am a son. But I am also, always, the Prince and Sacrifice for my people. And to all others, always, I am the Prince. Always. I am no one's brother. I am no man's son. I am not anyone's best friend.” He laughed, a small strangled laugh. “People treat me very well as 'my Prince.' But there is always a wall there. No one speaks to me as, well, as me.” He shrugged one shoulder and his mouth twisted to one side wryly. “No one except you has ever told me I was stupid, even when I was most definitely being stupid.”
I understood suddenly why he had so swiftly succumbed to the Piebalds' plot. To be loved, in a familiar, unfearing way. To be someone's best friend, even if that someone was only a cat. I could recall a time when I thought Chade was the only one in the world who would give me that. I recalled how terrifying the threat of losing that had been. I knew that any boy, prince or beggar, needed that from a man. But I wasn't sure I was a wise choice for that. Chade, why couldn't he have chosen Chade? I was still formulating an answer to that when there was a knock at the door.
I opened it to discover Laurel. Reflexively, I looked past her for Lord Golden. He wasn't there. She glanced over her own shoulder with a small frown, and then back to my face. “May I come in?” she asked pointedly.