Kael caught him under one arm. Rael took the other. Between them they half-carried, half-dragged Caspian out of the council chamber before any more eyes could see the future king on his knees.
"Move," Kael muttered. "Side corridor. Now."
Caspian's boots scraped the stone. His breath came short and uneven. The world tilted in hard white flashes. For a moment the scent of the wedding-night wine rose in his memory dark, spiced, ordinary and then the heat that had followed, thick and wrong, turning his own body against him while Seraphina's face floated above him like something claimed.
He swallowed bile.
They shouldered into a private antechamber that smelled of dust and old leather. Rael kicked the door shut. Kael lowered him onto a low couch. Caspian immediately tried to stand again.
"Sit down," Kael said.
"I am fine."
"You are the opposite of fine." Rael poured water from a plain pitcher and pushed the cup into his hand. "Drink. Then talk. What the hell was that?"
