There was so much there, a wealth of questions unasked and answers ungiven, ones that Caleb did not delve to pry at any longer because he had seen how that unraveled Essek in painful ways and he didn't want that. Those words, a lifetime together, twisted around Caleb's chest.

It's complicated, he'd told Jester. It was. Caleb had guarded himself for so long, for so many years, after Astrid and Eadwulf, and he had learned to love again slowly, through friendship, through trust, through this wizard before him who was clever and charming and brilliant and willing to do all the most terrible, wicked things that Caleb had been trained to do.

They could be better than what pride and ego and their pasts had made them. Because there were people who believed in them. Because they believed in each other.

It wasn't that complicated.

Caleb shifted their hands slightly, until Essek's fingers tangled between his. Despite the pain in his arm, he lifted his other hand and touched Essek's cheek. His fingers moved slowly back to his ear, all those glinting cuffs and rings, touching in a way that he had thought of for months.

He leaned in and kissed Essek's forehead. The bridge of his nose. His lips.