Summary: Three people contemplate. All of them hurt.

31_days prompt #9, "the open road, the bitter song, the heavy load". Slash.

There were many things in his life that Liam did not enjoy. At the top of that list would probably be his family. He loved them, true – but he loathed that they were royalty. He would have been supremely happy to have been born in to one of the lesser noble houses – a commoner family, even. But he had to be the third child of the famous, groundbreaking, radical co-rulers of Tortall.

The second thing he didn't enjoy was what he was. He wasn't quite sure the proper word for it – he'd only ever heard offensive ones – but he knew who he was. He did not desire women. He would never love a girl in more than a sisterly way. But this was not what he hated, no, it was the necessity of keeping it a secret that he despised. (And this only made his despair over being a Conté worse, for he would likely be married off to a lovely foreign princess he could never fall in love with.)

This train of thought inevitably led to Alan. He was kind, handsome, and although soft spoken he could become wonderfully, passionately angry.

A third thing Liam disliked about his life was Alan – that is, Alan's love for Lianne. Alan had cared for her almost as long as Liam had secretly pined after him, and despite his lover's insistence that he loved them both equally, Liam had no doubt that Alan would choose acceptance, a family, and Lianne.

And Liam would be exactly where he was now, with nothing before him but another road, wonderful for contemplation, and leading to another new place.

It had been a long time since Lianne had last let her fingers run over the strings of the lyre, but she had not forgotten the familiar movements.

The room was empty, quiet, a part of the nursery that was long abandoned. Once it had been the suite that Lianne and Vania shared, but neither had returned after they were moved out of the nursery wing.

It had been – oh gods, it had been sixteen years since she'd moved out of the nursery.

Mithros. Twenty-four. Lianne was twenty-four. Kally had been married by nineteen. Vania, a year younger than Lianne, had already been married for three years. She had given her husband a son, too – another nephew Lianne had never met, and the heir to the Gallan throne.

Lianne had gotten her first marriage offer at sixteen. Thayet had sworn Lia wouldn't marry until she was eighteen, and Alan had sworn he would be the one to marry her.

Thayet loathed seeing her children sent away to marry foreign monarchs. At eighteen, Lianne had confided in her mother, explained that Alan wouldn't marry until after he got his shield, and begged for her blessing. The queen of Tortall had promised this gift to her daughter.

The princess let her fingers slide over the strings, playing familiar chords. Married at twenty-one, not so bad. Unmarried at twenty-four…situation getting desperate.

She'd not even realized what she was playing: the K'mir lullaby Thayet had sang her children to sleep with, when she wasn't away. Images danced before her eyes – a tiny boy with a tuft of Alan's red-blonde hair, a little girl with dark Conté hair and lovely hazel green eyes. Gods, she wouldn't even care what they looked like, so long as they were hers.

Lianne began to sing the old song, and only when her voice warbled and broke did she realize she was crying.

Possibly the only other time Alan had felt this panicked was when Aly fell from a tree and cracked her skull. This hurt in different ways.

The healer on duty looked up when Alan stumbled in to the infirmary, Liam pale and unconscious in his arms.

"What happened?"

"Snake bite," Alan gasped, out of breath from carrying Liam through the camp. "We were sitting, talking, and it bit him before either of us saw."

The healer nodded, helped Alan lay the prince down on a cot. Alan showed him where it was, just above Liam's knee, and he carefully cut the cloth away and began to clean it.

"He'll be fine," the healer informed Alan. "You should go tell your commander what happened, in case he needs to warn the others about the snakes."

"Oh – yes, of course. I'll go do that." Alan excused himself.

Had he seemed too panicked, too worried? Had the other man suspected Alan of feeling more than just the worry of a friend?

And had he believed that Liam didn't see the snake because he'd been engrossed in their conversation, when in fact he'd been distracted by Alan's lips on his?

He trudged to the commander's office.

Sometimes such large secrets were too hard to bear.