The Fever King (Feverwake #1)(78)

“Dara . . . if Lehrer wanted to seize power, don’t you think he’d just do it? He controls the whole army. He wouldn’t need a scapegoat.”

“That depends,” Dara said. “I think I know Lehrer somewhat better than you do, having had the past fourteen years to make his intimate acquaintance. He won’t want power he has to take by force. He wants it given to him, the way it was when Carolinia was founded. He wants people to beg him to take over.”

“Lehrer gave up the crown because he wanted to return power to the people. That’s why we have a social democracy, Dara. I hate Sacha as much as anyone, but even I have to admit he was elected fair and square.”

“No,” Dara said flatly. “Sacha is a figurehead. Lehrer is in power now, just as he has always been in power. Absolute power.”

Noam looked back down at the courtyard, which was empty now, even the soldier presumably having gone inside in search of shelter.

What if Dara was right?

What if all Lehrer cared about was control?

“That doesn’t make any sense,” he said eventually. “Why bother trying to be chancellor himself, in that case? If he already had absolute power as minister of defense, according to you, then he wouldn’t need the title. Seems pointless to go through all this trouble.”

Dara just shrugged.

“I take it you don’t have a good answer to that, then.”

“No. I have no idea why he’d want the title now. Maybe he feels like people don’t appreciate him enough anymore. Maybe he hopes he’ll finally figure out resurrection magic and bring his brother back and make him king instead. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. It’s still true.”

Dara’s words reached into the heart of Noam’s last lingering doubts, twisting them into something larger: What if Dara’s right? What if Lehrer’s just power hungry? What if we lose and the refugees are no better off and Lehrer blames it all on me?

Dara leaned forward as though he was thinking about letting his body weight pull him over the railing and into the rain. Noam glimpsed the base of Dara’s neck, where his skin vanished beneath the collar of his sweater, and swallowed.

“I’m glad you came, anyway.”

Dara’s weight dropped back onto his heels. “Why’s that?”

Noam chewed his cheek, wishing he’d thought before he spoke. That he wasn’t having to admit now, quiet and half expecting Dara to laugh in his face: “Because I’m always glad to see you.”

He heard Dara’s soft inhale, and for a moment time stood still, stretching out around them. The world had condensed down to the two of them, the patter-fall of water muffling everything else, and Noam was too aware of how close Dara was. If he leaned in just a few inches, their noses would touch. Dara’s would be cold from being out here so long. But Noam imagined his lips would be warm.

Dara’s eyes lowered—looking at my mouth, Noam realized with a shudder of exhilaration. Slowly, slowly, as if moving too quickly might shatter it all, Noam edged his hand closer to Dara’s along the railing, until the edges of their fingers touched. It was perfect. The wind tugging them together, everything cold outside the two of them, golden market lights shimmering through the downpour. He’d never have a better moment, Noam knew, his pulse pounding in his temples. This was it. Noam should—

“We should go inside,” Dara said, and just like that, the moment unraveled. Dara turned away, a small step taking him outside the circle they’d built around themselves.

“Oh,” Noam said. His voice sounded stretched and surreal to his own ears. That warmth was gone, the aching chill in its place like poison darting through Noam’s veins. “Sure. All right.”

Dara started off across the roof, feet sure even on wet stone, leaving Noam to falter after him.

It was a silent descent down to the barracks, Dara two steps ahead of Noam on the stairs, the back of his neck wet and flushed. Noam tried to think about nothing at all. Not the shape of Dara’s body beneath those sodden clothes, not how badly Noam wanted him, not how much Noam hated himself right now for being such an idiot.

Inside felt too hot. His clothes were freezing against his skin. Dara smiled as if nothing was wrong, laughing when someone made a comment about the trail of water they’d left behind them on the floor and heading off toward the showers.

Noam didn’t want to follow him. He wanted to go into the bedroom and curl up still-soaked in his bed and sink through the mattress, through the floor, into the center of the earth.

He waited until he heard the bathroom door shut before he opened the door to the bedroom. For a moment he just stood there, staring at all the artifacts of their lives that he never paid attention to normally—Taye’s rumpled sheets, the book on the floor by the head of Noam’s bed, the bourbon he knew was hidden in a slit beneath Dara’s mattress.

Had Noam imagined it? Was there no substance to the way Dara looked at him, no secret to his smiles?

He unlaced his boots using telekinesis and peeled them off, kicking them into a corner. His squelching socks joined them a moment later.

Ridiculous to think that Dara would be interested in someone like Noam when he could have anyone he wanted. Had anyone he wanted, from what Noam could tell.

Don’t think about him. But Dara always found a way of creeping back in, like a persistent virus.