a silver splendour, a flame

The party automatically shifted as they rode onwards to Vaux Romandith: Yuri, protective of his brother, raced to ride behind him, and Yuuri, with a curiosity he was terrible at hiding, did the same. Like Otabek, Jean-Jacques rode the griffin he’d summoned, though Emil was on horseback and stayed close at hand in a way that was reminiscent of Yakov’s guard, back at Mosciren. Jean-Jacques seemed inexperienced and a little bit brash, though; a strange choice for a leader.

Yuuri was pretty sure he didn’t know all of the details. The East had been far removed from the old conflict between North and West; in what little was told of the story nowadays it ran something like: the Northerners once decided the Western heir was unfit to rule, and removed him from power.

So perhaps Jean-Jacques was the child of the new order. He certainly had no love for Viktor, though Viktor hadn’t remarked on it since their strange exit at the mouth of the valley. Instead he’d turned his mind to logistics, which Yuuri noticed was a way to keep the Westerner talking, and which, mile by mile, seemed to be slowly settling Jean-Jacques’ nerves. “How did you know to come and meet us?”

“Shen-Osheth sent word ahead by Wayseeing Stone.”

“I see.” Viktor paused for a moment and Yuuri watched him choose his battle, fascinated: “And it was worth attending to personally?”

Jean-Jacques’ navy eyes drifted sidelong. “It would hardly be honorable to let you die on our border,” he said with a calm that he clearly did not feel, given away by the subtle twitching of a single muscle in his cheek. Not befitting of a ruler. Then he nudged the griffin, and sent it skywards, joining Otabek’s banshee without so much as another word.

Viktor took the slight well. Yuri rolled his eyes, and looked up to fix Jean-Jacques with a stone-cold glare:

“Idiot — “

“Yuri.”

Vitya, he just insulted you!

He’s got plenty to be angry about. Let it go.

Yuri’s eyes narrowed suspiciously as he stared at his brother’s back. Viktor, the high prince, had a reputation for replaying slights. He wasn’t particularly vindictive; that trait often fell to his younger brother instead, but he’d never failed to craft the lesson that there was a distance between him and the rest of the elven class, to reinforce the legends of his own invulnerability. Did you hit your head, too, when you nearly died out there?

Alongside him, the halfling shifted to stroke the long, graceful neck of the desert cat, and Yuuri became the next recipient of Yuri’s narrow eyes and sharp stare. Is it the halfling’s fault?

Silvery laughter trickled into his thoughts and Viktor glanced back over his shoulder, flashing a subtle smile. The antelope he rode slowed; fell into pace next to Yuuri’s cat. “His name is Yuuri,” he reminded Yuri mildly, and Yuuri’s fingers clenched in the short fur of his mount.

“You were talking about me.”

“Of course we were talking about you,” Yuri muttered, shaking his head with a scowl. “You and your fire and your secrets. I’m riding with Mila.”

- - -

Three weeks and four days after Beltane, 1017 II Age

It was a two day ride across the plains into the giant redwood forests of Vaux Romandith, which themselves were twisted around a deep lake the color of dark sapphires, the result of centuries of rainfall into an ancient crater. The city itself rose into the trees: spiral staircases wound around the great trunks, leading up to the halls of the Westerners, joined by a matrix of rope bridges and wooden archways. Make camp in the meadow of Feyriath, Jean-Jacques instructed brusquely at the gates of the city, and at least he sent Emil to help. It was strange to come upon the woodland city so early in the season: Yuuri still remembered it when the meadow was packed with multi-colored tents, set up for the games of Lughnasadh. That was where the real brightness of the West shone most clearly: as harvesters they were strong and they celebrated their strength with sports and games, the likes of which he’d never played back in the East. The meadow would be empty now, though Solstice was coming soon. The peak of summer. He’d only ever seen that festival from Hasetsuil, and once, traveling the Wheel with Phichit, from Shen-Osheth, the last time he’d taken the sunset road.

Vaux Romandith, city of the harvest. It was a simpler place than even Hasetsuil was, with some parts of it shrunken and emptied, the built-up ghosts of some earlier, better time. Yuuri had come to appreciate the Westerners for their pragmatism and determination in his previous stay, but now, with Viktor riding through the streets, he watched their clear-eyed gazes become a little cloudier: some suspicious, some worried, some brimming with the same sort of resentment which burned so obviously in Jean-Jacques.

Viktor did something Yuuri had never seen him do: he pulled up his hood, and rode on more quickly, in complete and total silence. Spurred on by instinct he nudged the cat forward, closer even, and reached out to touch the prince’s shoulder. Underneath his fingertips, Viktor flinched, and then he stilled, and after a moment of further silence, he took one hand off of the antelope’s lead and laid his hand over Yuuri’s.

He still did not smile.

- - -

Viktor’s serious mien stayed with him long after they’d set up tents in the meadow, a big natural hollow nestled above one edge of the lake. Gone were the camping provisions that had been rolled up in their packs; these were the festival pavilions. Emil quietly helped them set up two of them, before insisting that they were guests of the city, and could call on him if they needed anything at all, before making himself scarce.

At sunset, Yuuri found Viktor skipping rocks on the shore, never short of a perfectly smooth pebble to toss for one-two-three-four-five impressive bounces. His boots were neatly piled near a piece of driftwood, along with a woven bag, and he’d rolled up his pants to his knees, standing barefoot so that the water might lap at his ankles. The stag, too, stood on watch nearby; opaque and intangible and still, something each subtle wave passed completely through. Yuuri released the phoenix, letting it dart lowly and neatly over the water after every rippling circle leftover from Viktor’s idle toss.

“You don’t have to stay with me if you don’t want to,” Viktor murmured quietly, without looking back, his blue eyes fixed ahead on the water, following the low curve of Yuuri’s bird as it flew. “In fact you probably shouldn’t.”

Everything would be simpler if he didn’t, but it was impossible to pretend like he hadn’t gone to sleep calmer listening to the steady rise and fall of Viktor’s breath. Equally foolish to ignore the way he always crept closer as they slept, woke up with his chin propped against Viktor’s shoulder, his arm thrown over Viktor’s waist. Yuuri understand flight well enough to not begrudge the initial fall.

“Why are they still angry with you over something that happened a century ago?”

Viktor sighed heavily, and leaned over to sweep his hands through the water, rinsing off his forearms. It felt good to be clean again, after the long ride from Shen Osheth. The water at Vaux Romandith was crisp and cool, nothing like the healing mineral springs of Hasetsuil, but just to be near it after so many days in the desert was a comfort. “They were very fond of their Prince,” he admitted softly. “Loyal. More loyal to him than to my father … he was …”

He was my best friend, once.

There was a reason he hadn’t come to this place since the last time he’d left it. “Removing his house from the royal order seems to have had more consequences than I had the foresight to imagine at the time,” Viktor admitted, and this time he brought water up into his palms, splashed his face. “They have every right to resent me for it. They’ll resent you by association, given the chance.”

“I don’t care.”

“You should.”

“I don’t,” Yuuri emphasized quietly, and he stopped at the same dead log, sat down, took off his shoes. Moving to set them alongside Viktor’s, he caught a glimpse of what was in the canvas basket: soaps, evidently, probably part of the hospitality basket Emil had left behind, and he found himself trying and failing to stifle a quiet laugh. 

That was enough to get Viktor to turn and look at him, curious. “What.”

“Everyone thinks you’re untouchable,” Yuuri murmured, reaching down for a bar of soap, and holding it up with a subtle, playful smile. “Stick you in the desert for a week and evidently the first thing that’s on your mind is to come take a bath like all the rest of us.”

It was gratifying to see Viktor’s shoulders ease up a little, after that, to see the faint edge of his smile. “Try not to let the word get out,” he said wryly, though his eyes were kinder and his gaze was fond. Self-deprecation didn’t suit him somehow. “It’d be terrible for my reputation.”

It always made him imagine that he could be brave, that little smile. Yuuri made another decision without giving it any conscious thought. “Turn around,” he said then, and when Viktor raised an eyebrow, so unaccustomed to people telling him what to do, Yuuri picked up one of the pieces of pressed soap, and tilted his head. “I’ll be just a minute.” Realization hit Viktor’s blue eyes and Yuuri couldn’t help but smile a little bit further. Only he ever made Viktor look like that. “Don’t worry,” he quipped, feeling summer-strong: “I won’t tell anyone that you blush, either.”

Viktor’s brow rose further, but he turned nonetheless, and for a brief moment only, Yuuri had the unparalleled pleasure of watching him pull his tunic over his head, shaking out the long platinum of his hair.

Then the shirt hit him in the face. Viktor always had perfect aim. “We’ll see who’s blushing in a minute.”

Something else to keep a secret: the way Viktor’s eyes fluttered shut when someone else washed his hair, and the way the long strands of it bled like liquid silver over Yuuri’s fingers. Or the way he sputtered, utterly surprised, and then laughed, when splashed in the face, before revenge came on Yuuri in the form of a perfectly summoned, crashing wave.

Back in the meadows Georgi, Mila, and Seung-gil had already settled into one pavilion; deference, probably, on the part of the Northerners and avoidance for the latter. Viktor, walking back to the camp with Yuuri’s hand in his own offered only the faintest of smirks when he saw Otabek sitting outside, stretched out on his beck halfway between the two tents.

“You’re not fooling anyone,” he said dryly, and then Yuuri followed him inside, changed with no small amount of gratitude into a fresh set of sleeping robes, and laid down next to Viktor.

“… Besides,” Yuuri murmured, as his mind drifted back to the conversation they’d started to have about exactly this, about the room he was sharing as though it wasn’t especially significant: “You’d do things differently now, wouldn’t you?”

Viktor turned on his side, propped himself up on an elbow. “… Yes.”

“Can you help them now?”

The sweep of Viktor’s fingers over his shoulder and down his side was an enchantment all its own. Viktor seemed to be doing it for his own good, reassuring himself of something, perhaps, though Yuuri couldn’t quite say what. “I’m not sure,” admitted the prince lowly. “Maybe.”

“If anyone can, it’s you.”

Viktor leaned forward, pressed his lips to Yuuri’s forehead, smiled a little sadly at this show of faith he hadn’t earned from the halfling into whose hands had been put the gift of life itself. You think far too highly of me.

But then:

“… Why did you run away, at Shen-Osheth?” Yuuri’s breath caught in his throat and he froze, leaving Viktor scrambling to find something to fill this sudden and harsh silence with. “I was … too forward, I lost my senses for a minute, I admit that —“

“No, it wasn’t you.”

“Then what?”

“I’m …” Yuuri didn’t want to look at him, and so he inched closer, let one hand clench into the softness of Viktor’s robes. “Soulbonds frighten me,” he said, which was the absolute truth, told incompletely.

“Ah.” Viktor sounded brittle again, like Yuuri kept treading on some unknown, dangerous ground. “That makes two of us,” he said dryly. “Will you tell me why?”

“… Not tonight,” Yuuri begged, and Viktor glanced down at his curling fingers, white-knuckled in near panic. “Please.” Viktor reached for the hard lock of his hand, and gently unraveled Yuuri’s clenched fist, threaded their fingers together, brought the knot of them briefly to his lips.

The kindness of it made Yuuri’s chest constrict, nearly undid him. “I’m trying to figure it out,” he apologized, still frantic and at the edge of his terror. “How to explain it, how to —“

“Shh.” What had he done that had been so remarkable, to be entrusted with this other side of Viktor, soft and cool and all-encompassing as snow: “We’ve got plenty of time.”

Do we?

- - -

Three weeks and five days after Beltane, 1017 II Age

The next morning, Yuuri woke not the way he was getting accustomed to, nose turned into Viktor’s throat, but alone, listening to Viktor rummage around through the dark. He sat up, let his eyes acclimate, watched as the high elf stole about the room:

“What are you doing?”

“Leaving,” admitted Viktor with another one of his wry smiles. “Something I need to do.”

And you were going without saying goodbye? Yuuri was terrible at hiding his feelings; Viktor swept his fingers along his cheekbone, having read plainly the flicker of consternation on the halfling’s face. “Since you’ve caught me in the act,” he murmured carefully, trailing off for a moment as he weighed the options:

Was it right, to bring his present along for the collision into his past?

Yuuri, whose face was soft and still curiously guarded, studying him like this. Yuuri who’d stepped a little bit out of himself at the lake the night before, whose fingers in Viktor’s hair had been paradise and whose mouth still made him think of spices and honey, sunrise and Beltane bonfires.

Christophe would be able to read it as plain as day, this problem of possessiveness, the way his fingers sometimes darted of their own accord to slip over Yuuri’s shoulder or down his back as they slept.

Christophe would know it for what it was, the contrast between now and then drawn all the clearer.

“Yes?” Prompted Yuuri, the halfling he was in love with.

It was probably selfish and a little bit cruel, but Viktor didn’t relish the thought of going alone. “… You get to decide whether or not you’re coming along.”

“Where to?”

“An oasis, evidently.” Viktor tried to make light of it. A’ve Palmera, unless Guang Hong’s friend had been lying, unless his luck finally ran out. “It’s a four day ride East towards the canyon, and if we’re tremendously lucky at the end of it there might even be another bath.”

“Why aren’t you telling the others?”

“I’ll explain it to Yuri later,” Viktor replied softly. Once they were a good enough distance away. Once the odds that Yuri demand Otabek track them down were a little bit lessened. He won’t like it but he’ll understand. “It’s something I need to do …” He paused, tilted his head. Alone wasn’t the right word, not when he’d just invited Yuuri along. “… Let’s just say … the smaller the retinue, the better, I think.”

- - -

One week after Samhain, 917 II Age

He’d tried and failed to fix it in Hasetsuil, dodging Viktor for a week in the hopes that the problem might just go away. Problem was, after the first day Viktor had this strange habit of coincidentally being headed wherever it was Christophe thought he might run off to: he was on the beach, he was in the Springs, he was studying with Minako, he was fortuitously everywhere, he was calamity incarnate. Seven days later, Christophe was cornered between Viktor and the sea, trying to answer the question why are you avoiding me while tears sprang up in his Prince’s eyes.

Maybe he should’ve found a way to lie, tried to break his heart then, but Christophe couldn’t wish him ill, had opened his arms up and made up a story about how soulbonds intimidated him, now that he had the python familiar, and he just wanted to be careful until he had its magic all figured out.

Viktor had nuzzled into his neck, blueish eyes the wrong shade entirely, and nipped at his ear and whispered it can’t possibly affect me, Christophe; I already love you. Christophe had been grateful that he was the one with the wild empathy magic, sparing Viktor the impression of how strongly he’d wanted to vomit.

He’d tried and failed to fix it on the ships to Shen-Osheth. Quarters were too close; Viktor, often times forgetting his rank always crept closer, as though he belonged in Christophe’s arms; got snappish when he wasn’t nearby. Made it impossible to think because his hands tended to wander and he’d been a good kisser before, when they’d been playing at trying to stumble into an arrangement that might make everyone happy, and this was worse; way worse.

It sickened him at Beltane, trying to use his own magic to undo it. You don’t love me. You don’t.

Christophe, Viktor had laughed then, like it was a joke, hilarious; drenched him in a crashing wave and another one of those kisses to drown in: quit practicing on me, it’s not going to work.

Viktor who swept them up into silver and white and blue before Christophe could really object. Viktor who hadn’t wrangled him into a soulbond just yet but whose heartbeat he could hear plainly without even thinking about it, like that last step was simply inevitable.

At Lughnasadh, Viktor entered into three of the games and it was only there that Christophe could finally see the solution. He won in swimming; that surprised no one, water mages tended to. Then he’d gone on to the sword-fights, where he caught perhaps one or two lucky breaks to take the title of champion away from a crowd favorite. Perhaps that wasn’t a surprise either: in Viktor’s movements, Christophe saw all of the grace of his mother, agile, swift; in his blows, the merciless fury of his father: the stark King and Queen of Winter, brought together in their son.

Then Viktor took the bow, and stood there with the stag, solid and tangible at his side, and Christophe watched as arrow after arrow sailed perfectly home into the heart of each target.

He remembered it perfectly, the strong breeze out of the West.

Impossible conditions for any archer.

It wasn’t just you.

It was the stag.

Viktor’d been terribly pleased with himself after that, happy and humming in the circle of arms he’d crafted out of habit. At Samhain, he excused himself from the dance to speak, for a moment, privately with Lilia.

I’m leaving in an hour. Promise me you’ll find Viktor after. Lilia’s expression never seemed to change, but Christophe had never felt so laid bare, so exposed, so perfectly desperate. Take him back to Ast Petyriel, he likes it better there…

What is this about, Christophe?

He’ll tell you then. He’ll be in his room. Promise me. Please.

Then he’d brought Viktor back to his room in the Alcazar of Mosciren, and he’d kissed him on the forehead and knelt down to touch the stag like he’d done, unwittingly, unknowingly, a hundred times.

Viktor watched him with the soft, adoring smile that he’d learned to hate. “I don’t really have words for this, Viktor …”

“We’re a bit beyond words, aren’t we, Christophe?”

“Shh.” Gods, this was going to hurt. Christophe took a deep breath and prepared himself for the shattering. “I’m really sorry that I have to be the one to teach you this, Vitya,” he said, surprised at the way his own voice was already caught in his throat, the way he was already crying. I wish you didn’t love me, he thought, and like that the heartbeat was gone, and Christophe learned something too; the way his own magic could make him feel ill, when someone else’s heart broke.

He fled because he couldn’t stand it, couldn’t breathe. In Viktor’s bag he’d left a letter with a dozen different apologies; already Christophe knew they were not going to be enough. He'd felt the sadness as it broke over Viktor like a tidal wave, and he'd felt the realization, too, and then he'd understood the depths of Viktor's rage.

- - -

Four weeks and two days after Beltane, 1017 II Age

This time Viktor bought their horses. He’d gone to a stables and then he’d insisted.

Heading northeast from Vaux Romandith was a steady, uphill slope back out of the valley with its emerald woods, and then a winding, provincial road. It led across another strip of rolling fields, these tended by farmers who hardly looked up as Yuuri and Viktor rode by; Viktor kept his hood up, and did not stop to engage in any smalltalk. For a while the road clung to a small creek, but eventually this deepened into a second, smaller lake and after that Viktor had not been joking: beyond the fields they climbed up into the steppes and there was no water. Yuuri liked the summer heat, felt at ease; Viktor did not entirely share his enthusiasm. He’d never been here before, but Viktor seemed to know the way.

Doesn’t this head back to the cauldron?

The cauldron is southeast of us now. We won’t see any danger.

On the end of the fourth day brush and stone and sand gave way to a circle of trees in the distance, sudden and stark and out of place amidst all the sandy rocks.

“We’re here,” said Viktor, and he stopped to dismount, and led the horses in.

A’ve Palmera. There were old songs about this place; Minako still sang them sometimes, and Yuuri hummed the mournful tune of them under his breath. Ahead a looming statue had lost almost all of its detail, washed way by time and sandstorms, but he remembered a little about the old legends; about this last outpost between the kingdom of the Aes Sidhe and the wilds where the Ban Side roamed. Around them other rocks looked too purposeful to have been mere accident; these were ruins, Yuuri realized, crushed structures of a battle from a millennia ago. Among them, though, was an adobe villa; more recently carved out of the stone, and Viktor smiled sadly when he saw it.

Someone was already walking out to greet them, followed by what looked to be an enormous snake, and then that person, whoever it was, froze where they stood.

“Christophe,” Viktor said, without smiling.

“… Vitya.” Yuuri’d heard the nickname from Yuri and some of the other Northerners as they’d traveled and wasn’t sure, suddenly, if he liked the use of it here, among people who were supposed to be enemies. Christophe stared for a moment, and then shook his head as though to clear it. The snake reared upwards, and for a moment its reptilian eyes flickered purple before Christophe banished it. Christophe was a name Yuuri had heard of before, too.

The once Prince of the West.

“Well,” Said Christophe, who had force of will enough to summon an impish smile yet. “Don’t just stand there and stare. Might as well come inside.”

Inside, Yuuri discovered, was no less awkward than outside: Christophe wasn’t alone at the house, though he waved off the pair of mages who’d stared at them all, slack-jawed, and then cleared out its guest hall of other, equally disapproving elves.

“Couldn’t come out here alone —“ Viktor mused idly, looking around, and for that comment he found himself fixed with a hard stare as Yuuri found a seat in the far corner, as far away as he could get from these two royals, who’d once played at war.

“Don’t.” The mercurial smile was gone. Viktor did not sit. Christophe did. He sank purposefully into a chair at the head of the table, folded his long, lean legs, and rested his wrists across the arms as though perfectly at ease. “I gave you what you came for the last time you were here,” he said coldly. “Friendless and without family were not on your list of demands, at the time.”

“… About that,” Viktor said carefully, and he drew a chair back from the table and sat down with care. It scraped against the floor; Yuuri nearly winced. “I regret that.”

“Regret!” Christophe laughed, clapped his hands as though delighted, but in both of these things Yuuri saw the same jagged edges he’d witnessed from time to time in Viktor. “You’re a hundred years late to the party, Vitya.” He turned then, and fixed Yuuri with another one of those strange stares, and laughed again in subtle amazement.

Yuuri couldn’t quite help himself. “… Sorry,” he said, carefully, anxiously. “What’s so funny?”

Christophe smiled and this time it wasn’t one of those angry smiles. “I do not think he could have picked someone more completely the opposite of me to fall in love with,” he teased with a momentary flash of white, white teeth and a coyote’s grin, words that made Yuuri’s heart skip a beat.

“S-sorry, what?”

“You have to admit it’s a little bit funny, Vitya.”

Viktor sighed and shook his head; reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose. How long had it been since he’d suffered these jokes? A century. Gods, a whole century. That’s how long.

He’d laughed more, back then. “… It is,” he conceded dryly, because Yakov didn’t know and Lilia didn’t know and Yuri only suspected, and by Samhain he suspected his father was going to come home with two sons both attached to precisely the sorts of people they weren’t really supposed to love, “perhaps the slightest bit humorous.”

“He’s in love with me?” The heat had gotten to him. Heat never got to Yuuri and here he was, experiencing a mirage, in an oasis. That or his sister had suddenly gotten very good with her magic and the past few months had all been a trick. He turned from Christophe to Viktor: “You’re in love with me?”

“Obvious, really.” Christophe snorted. “He brought you here, didn’t he? What an event to witness, what, you took the Vaux Romandith road right? For this meeting of minds.” Those sharp eyes flickered back to the Northerner now, completed a perfect eyeroll. “Gods, Viktor, you are the actual worst. Let’s get this over with. Nothing ever happens here and the suspense is probably killing the stewards. Why are you here?”

“I have something for you,” Viktor murmured, and he reached into the knapsack he’d brought along inside, and from it he pulled out a burnished circlet; a crown, Yuuri realized; rather like what he’d seen on Kenjirou and on Guang Hong and even on Viktor. This was the color of copper, looked like twisted stalks of wheat. Viktor set it on the table and for the first time since they’d come in, it was Christophe who looked shaken.

“… Give it to Jean-Jacques. Apparently he’s in charge now.”

“Give it to him yourself,” Viktor replied idly. “Solstice is coming.” Then he stood, strode back to Yuuri, and held out his hand.

“W-wait! That’s all? You just come here, you drop that on the table, you —“

“No. I’ve had a four day journey and I’m tired of you already and I want a bath.” Viktor looked over his shoulder, and his smile was thin but it was a smile nonetheless, an actual effort that hadn’t been quite so hard as he’d expected. “I’ll let you tell your staff that we need a guest room.” His brows rose and Yuuri swore there was something there, some playfulness, some mischief: “I’m sure they’ll love that.”

“Viktor, wait —“

“Christophe.” This was a warning. “… It was a century ago and we were both idiots and I’m tired of hating you.” This time Viktor did not look back; he threaded his fingers into the warmth of Yuuri’s hand, gave the halfling’s palm a gentle squeeze. “I still think you should have found a way to break it sooner. But I … I clearly overreacted.”

“Overreacted.” Christophe echoed, incredulous. “You marched into my country and demanded I step down and when my people told you no you occupied us!”

“Nobody listened to me when I got here,” Viktor muttered, and he turned around, and suddenly Yuuri felt like he was watching two teenagers arguing. Viktor was pointing at himself with his free hand. “High Prince?”

“Prince of the West!”

“Ex-Prince of the West. It shouldn’t have mattered. My father is the King. But all they wanted was you. So much loyalty, Christophe …” Viktor sighed heavily, and suddenly the fight in him was gone, as quickly as it had come, the way flash floods sometimes ran over the floodplains in the East during the spring’s thunderstorms. “I still think that magic of yours is dangerous.”

Yuuri blinked, looking back and forth between the two of them. “I still think you ruined my country.”

“Well,” Viktor exhaled, and this time he really did make for the door, “as long as we’re clear on both points.”

“Peace, then?”

“We aren’t friends.” Viktor muttered, his eyes narrowed. “But we are staying for a few days. You have a villa and —“

“And you hate deserts. And camping.”

Confirmed. Viktor's elusive smile flickered back to life. “And I hate deserts," he agreed. "And also camping.”