Chapter 159: Chapter 159: Break through

Sebastian, unfortunately, was also there.

That alone made the entire exercise significantly worse.

He was technically there because the meeting touched cross-border coordination with Palatine units and logistical review, and Sebastian had both the rank and the temperament to make himself useful in almost anything that involved uniforms, budgets, or the possibility of saying something sharp in a respectable tone.

In practice, he made the room feel smaller.

Not because he was loud. Sebastian had the type of presence that allowed his attention to wander just enough to make everyone work harder for it. Dark coat thrown over the back of his chair, sleeves pushed up once the room grew too warm, expression caught somewhere between professional focus and effortless boredom, like none of this was quite enough to deserve the full force of his mind.

Nero had spent most of the meeting trying not to look at him too often.

Which would have been easier if Sebastian had not kept speaking.

His voice moved through the room with irritating ease. He corrected one officer without humiliating him, dismantled a weak recommendation in three clean sentences, and then ruined Nero’s concentration entirely by leaning over the main map table with one hand braced beside the route markers, saying something low and practical about supply chain redundancies while the winter light from the high windows caught at the line of his throat.

Nero hated him a little.

Not truly. But enough to survive the afternoon.

When the first break was finally called, everyone in the room relaxed. Officers stood. Papers shifted. Someone reached for coffee with the air of a man returning from war. Nero said something brief to the Palatine liaison, signed the page that had been set in front of him, and escaped before anyone could try to discuss educational leadership pathways or youth preparation structures or whatever other elegant nonsense people loved to drape over princes who had already seen combat.

He stepped out onto one of the balconies off the side corridor, needing air more than privacy.

Alamina winter had not fully released the capital yet. The cold still lingered in the stone and metalwork, in the railings, in the pale sky over the city. Not the deep bite of midwinter anymore, but enough to keep people honest. The kind of cold that crept in through fabric and stayed there patiently.

Nero preferred it.

He rested both hands on the balcony rail and looked out over the grounds, the clipped geometry of the inner courtyards, and the distant rooftops beyond the palace walls and let the air pull some of the heat out of him.

Behind him, the door opened again.

Sebastian’s presence had become one of the most irritating things Nero could recognize on instinct.

“There you are,” Sebastian said.

Nero kept his gaze on the city. “I wasn’t aware I was lost.”

Sebastian stepped up beside him, settling one forearm against the stone railing with the lazy ease of a man built to look composed in every climate. “You disappeared very quickly. I thought perhaps you’d finally decided these meetings were beneath you.”

“They are beneath everyone.”

That made Sebastian laugh softly.

Nero felt the sound under his skin like a private attack.

For a moment neither of them said anything. The cold moved around them in thin currents. Somewhere below, a gate opened and shut. A flag line clicked faintly in the breeze.

Sebastian glanced sideways at him. “You were quiet in there.”

“I spoke when necessary.”

“Mm.” Sebastian’s mouth curved faintly. “Very princely.”

Nero turned his head just enough to look at him.

Sebastian had no business looking like that during a low-priority military meeting. No business being half-undone by work in a way that somehow only sharpened him – dark hair touched by winter light, posture still easy, and eyes clear and annoyingly attentive when he chose to use them. He looked like the kind of man who made people confess things by letting silence do half the labor.

Nero disliked that too.

“I’m always princely,” he said.

“That,” Sebastian said, “sounds like something a very young prince would say.”

Nero held his gaze for one beat too long.

Sebastian, as usual, seemed not to notice what mattered and to notice everything else.

He smiled slightly and looked back out over the city. “Don’t glare at me. I’m giving you credit. You handled the room well.”

Nero sighed and this time chose war. “Are you blind?”

Sebastian knew exactly what Nero meant.

Nero saw it as soon as the question came up.

Not in some dramatic recoil. Sebastian was too controlled for that, but there was a flicker there, a tiny pause before the amusement settled back over his face. A pause that said understood.

This made things ten times worse for Nero because he already knew what Sebastian was thinking.

Sebastian rested one hand on the doorframe and looked at him with that same infuriating ease. “That sounds ominous.”

Nero held his gaze. “Does it?”

“Yes.” Sebastian’s tone stayed light, almost teasing, and that lightness was suddenly unbearable. “Usually when someone says I should be careful with praise, they’re either warning me or trying to flirt.”

Nero did not smile.

Sebastian noticed that too.

The corridor beyond the door remained quiet for one more breath, the meeting room only a muted presence behind them. Plenty of time to step around it. Plenty of time to let the moment dissolve into something ambiguous and survivable.

Sebastian, apparently, preferred that option.

“Well,” he said, easy again, as if they were still playing at harmlessness, “I’ll assume you’re being dramatic and spare us both a more embarrassing interpretation.”

Nero looked at him for a long second.

Then he realized, very clearly, that he was done.

Done with the half-phrases and the careful distance and the polite room he had kept around this like something fragile. Done with letting Sebastian smile through it as if it were a passing inconvenience. Done with trying to preserve a version of this that did not already hurt.

So he said it.

“I like you.”

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