Um. Would you like a drink?”

“If you’re having one,” Jainan said politely.

Kiem was very much planning to have one, more so with every word this conversation progressed. He got to his feet. It seemed wrong to have anything ordinary, so he poured a glass of pale spirits from an ornate bottle half-full of preserved berries. “Silverberry wine? Coffee? What would you like?”

Jainan glanced at the second glass Kiem was holding. “Water…?”

Kiem decided he was imagining the disapproval there and brought a chilled bottle of water to the table with a glass. There was an awkward moment when Jainan attempted to rise to take the drink and Kiem wasn’t expecting it, but they got through it with no more than a minor splash on the table. Jainan stared at the spill like it was a tragedy. Kiem winced again. He was apparently going to have to be much neater from now on. “Don’t worry, I’ll get something for it later.”

“I’m sorry,” Jainan said.

“Uh, no, don’t be sorry.” Kiem said. He felt the stifling layer of politeness lying over them like velvet. He sat down and put his head in his hands. “All right,” he said. “Can we speak plainly? Sorry. I’m not great at tiptoeing around things.”

What went across Jainan’s face wasn’t exactly a change of expression. It was more like looking at the surface of the water down at the harbor and sensing that something had just moved underneath. His back straightened and he placed his hands on his knees. “Please,” he said. “Go ahead.”

Kiem took a deep breath. Right. They were going to clear the air. “I think we’ll have a better chance of making this work if we’re open with each other,”

he said. “I know you’re not going to be over the moon about this. To be honest, I don’t know what the Emperor was thinking.” It was probably a measure of the stress they were under that neither of them even bothered to look over their shoulder.

“The treaty,” Jainan said. His expression was entirely neutral again.

“The treaty,” Kiem agreed. “But look, this wasn’t your first choice. I wasn’t expecting it either, but we’re stuck with it. Can we at least agree we’ll try and make it work? I know you’ll need space to—to grieve. We can just act the bare minimum to sell the marriage to the palace, and drop it when we’re in private.”

Jainan smiled. It was an odd, distant smile and didn’t seem to be particularly happy, but it was a smile. “It’s funny,” he said.

“What is?” That didn’t sound good.

“Prince Taam—we had this conversation. One very much like it.”

Taam and Jainan had started off their marriage like this? Kiem felt obscurely heartened, although the circumstances weren’t exactly the same. “So … we’re okay? I promise I’m not an axe murderer.”

“That part he didn’t say,” Jainan said.

It took a moment for Kiem to realize that was a deadpan joke, and he grinned.