Chapter 10: Epilogue: Waltz of The Once and Future Kings
The silence of Vil’s private rink was a different creature than the roar of an arena. It was a living, breathing quiet, broken only by the crisp shhhk of his blades etching lines into the virgin ice. The recessed lights overhead cast a cold, clinical glow, turning the surface into a black mirror that reflected the shadowy arches of the ceiling. It was perfect. It was sterile.
He’d been here for an hour, working through the choreography for his new short program. His body executed the turns, the crossovers, the tentative steps of a jump setup with mechanical precision. But his mind was elsewhere. It was in a cheap hotel room, surrounded by the sound of tearing fabric and ragged breath. It was wrapped in the solid, warm weight of Leona’s arm across his chest as dawn broke.
The music in his earbuds cut out. A text notification buzzed against his hip.
He glided to a halt, snow spraying from his edges. Pulling out his phone, he saw the preview on the lock screen.
Leona: Finished morning skate. Coach tried to kill us. Your oatmeal is bullshit, by the way. I’m starving.
A smile touched Vil’s lips. He typed back, his fingers stiff in thin gloves.
Vil: Oatmeal is sustainable energy. Your arterial plaque platter will catch up to you by thirty-five.
The three dots appeared immediately.
Leona: Live fast, die never. I’m coming over.
Vil’s breath caught. Leona: To the estate. On the train now. Be there by 4.
He hadn’t been prepared for this. The estate was his sanctuary, his museum. Every surface, every curated bookshelf, every shade of linen was a deliberate part of the Vil Schoenheit narrative. Letting Leona in here felt more invasive than letting him into his bed. This was where the performance lived.
Vil: I’m training.
Leona: Train with me.
Vil stared at the message. He looked around the vast, empty rink. He thought of Leona here, in this temple to control and beauty, with his chaotic energy and his hockey bag. His heart did a strange, stuttering leap against his ribs.
Vil: The code for the front gate is 1022. Don’t track mud on the Italian marble.
Leona arrived looking like a storm cloud that had lost its way. He stood in Vil’s minimalist foyer, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder, his boots looking aggressively practical on the pale stone floor. He was scanning the space—the white walls, the single, dramatic orchid, the abstract painting that cost more than his first car—with an expression of deep suspicion.
“It’s very… white,” he said, his voice echoing in the cavernous space.
“It’s serene,” Vil corrected, walking toward him. He’d changed out of his skating gear into dark linen pants and a cream sweater. He felt absurdly underdressed and overdressed at the same time.
Leona dropped his bag. It hit the floor with a solid thump. Then he closed the distance between them, his hands coming up to frame Vil’s face. He kissed him, slow and deep, tasting of train-station coffee and himself. The familiar scent of him—sweat, cheap detergent, that indefinable Leona-smell—invaded the perfectly scent-diffused air.
“Missed you,” Leona murmured against his mouth, as if it were a simple, uncontested fact.
Vil’s carefully constructed composure softened at the edges. He leaned into the kiss, into the solid reality of him. “It’s been forty-eight hours.”
“Forty-nine.” Leona pulled back, his thumbs stroking Vil’s cheekbones. “So. Show me your palace.”
The tour was brief and awkward. Vil found himself narrating in his press-tour voice—“This is the receiving room, the limestone is from quarries in Tuscany”—while Leona listened with a half-smirk, occasionally poking a sculptural piece or running a finger along a dustless shelf.
“Where’s all your stuff?” Leona finally asked, standing in the middle of Vil’s bedroom. It was all platform bed, neutral tones, and severe lines.
“What stuff?”
“I don’t know.Photos. Trophies that aren’t in a climate-controlled display case. That hideous mug I made you in ceramics class when we were sixteen.”
Vil blinked. He’d forgotten about the mug. It had been lumpy and glazed a violent orange. He’d kept it for years, until one of his early stylists had done a “home refresh” and deemed it “visual clutter.” He felt a sudden, sharp pang of loss for it. “It… didn’t fit the aesthetic.”
Leona just looked at him, his green eyes seeing too much. “Right.”
The tension built as they walked down the chilled corridor toward the private rink. It was the heart of the estate, the reason for everything else. Vil’s sacred space. He input the code on the keypad, the heavy door hissed open, and the cold, bright air washed over them.
Leona stepped inside and stopped dead.
The vastness of it, the perfect, untouched sheet of ice, the absolute silence—it seemed to momentarily disarm him. He walked to the boards, leaned over, and placed a bare hand on the surface.
“Jesus,” he breathed, the word clouding in the air. “You really did build your own world.”
“It’s practical,” Vil said, his defenses rising. “I can train anytime. No scheduling conflicts.”
“Uh-huh.” Leona straightened up. He nodded toward the benches. “You gonna lace up, or just admire it?”
They changed in the adjoining lounge. Vil slipped back into his custom black training gear, the fabric a second skin. Leona emerged in his team-issue sweatpants and a loose grey hoodie, his own skates—beaten-up hockey boots with nicked-up blades—in his hand.
Seeing him step onto the ice was a jarring, electric sight. His posture was all wrong. He stood with a wide, balanced stance, knees bent, as if waiting for a hit. His strides were powerful, choppy pushes, not the graceful glides of a figure skater. He carved a hard, fast circle, spraying ice chips, his body a study in contained aggression.
Vil watched from the entrance, a strange feeling tightening his chest. This was his domain. And Leona was translating it into a different language.
Leona completed his circuit and slid to a stop in front of him, snow dusting the toes of Vil’s skates. “Okay, Prince. Impress me.”
“With what?”
“Your new program. The one you were thinking about in the hotel. Show me.”
It was a demand, not a request. The old Vil would have bristled. The new Vil felt a spark of challenge. He pushed off from the boards, circling to the center of the ice. He didn’t use his music. He just skated.
He began with the step sequence he’d been struggling with, letting his body flow through the motions. Without music, the silence was a partner. All he could hear was the sound of his blades, his own breath, and the palpable weight of Leona’s gaze from the boards. He felt exposed.Raw. It was terrifying.
He finished the sequence and launched into a double axel, landing clean but without his usual flair. He came to a halt, chest rising and falling.
“It’s stiff,” Leona’s voice cut through the quiet. He’d skated closer. “You’re thinking about the edges, not the feeling.”
“The edges are the feeling,” Vil snapped, irritation flashing. “They’re the foundation.”
“Yeah, and my foundation is not falling on my ass while a two-hundred-pound defenseman tries to separate me from my spine.” Leona glided around him, a shark circling. “But when I see an opening, I don’t think about my feet.I feel it. I go. You’re counting in your head. I can see it.”
Vil stiffened. He had been counting. “It’s technical. It has to be precise.”
“It’s dead,” Leona said bluntly. He stopped in front of Vil. “Where’s the guy who tore his Laverne to shreds?That was alive. This is a wax figure.”
The words were a slap. Vil’s eyes flashed. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. This is my craft. Not your… brutalist shoving match.”
A slow grin spread across Leona’s face.“Okay. Prove it. Do it again.”
“Why?”
“Do it with me.”
Vil laughed, a short, sharp sound. “You can’t do this footwork.”
“Probably not. But I can keep up.” Leona’s grin turned wolfish. “Scared I’ll make you look bad?”
It was a juvenile taunt. It worked perfectly. Vil set his jaw. “Fine. Try not to trip me.”
He started again, slower this time, tracing the elaborate pattern. To his astonishment, Leona fell in beside him, mirroring his movements. He was clumsy, his hockey skates slipping on the deep edges, his body fighting a lifetime of different muscle memory. But he was there. His focus was absolute, his brow furrowed in concentration. He didn’t try to be graceful; he tried to be present.
And Vil, watching him from the corner of his eye, felt his own skating change. He stopped counting. He started feeling the push and pull, not just with the ice, but with the large, determined man grunting and cursing beside him. It became a dance of adaptation, of syncopated rhythms.
When they reached the end of the sequence, both of them were breathing heavily. Leona was sweating through his hoodie. “See?” he panted, a triumphant gleam in his eye. “Less dead.”
Vil didn’t answer. He just looked at him, at the mess of him, at the absolute commitment in his inelegant effort. The tightness in his chest unfurled, replaced by a warmth that spread to his fingertips.
Without a word, he skated to the sound system controls on the wall. He scrolled through his playlists, past the dramatic symphonic pieces and the modern, percussive cuts. He found what he was looking for—a simple, old piano track. He hit play.
The gentle, familiar notes of “Someday My Prince Will Come” floated into the air, soft and echoing in the vast space. It was nostalgic. It was almost cheesy. It was the melody from their first-ever pairs exhibition, a lifetime ago.
Leona recognized it instantly. He looked from the speakers to Vil, his expression unreadable.
Vil skated back to the center. He didn’t assume a starting pose. He just held out a hand.
A silent question hung in the frozen air.
Leona stared at his hand, then at his own, still encased in hockey gloves. He pulled them off, one by one, letting them fall to the ice. He took Vil’s bare hand in his. His palm was calloused, warm, solid.
“Lead the way,” Leona said, his voice rough.
It wasn’t pairs skating. It wasn’t even close. It was something else entirely. Vil began to move, not with the program’s steps, but with a simple, flowing waltz pattern. Leona’s powerful, hockey-honed legs found the rhythm, his pushes surprisingly gentle. He couldn’t do turns, so Vil guided them in wide, sweeping circles.
Leona’s hands settled on Vil’s waist—not the prepared, technical hold of a lift, but the same firm grip from the hotel room. A claiming.A grounding. Vil’s hands rested on Leona’s shoulders, feeling the corded muscle beneath the damp fabric.
They moved together under the soft glow, their blades whispering parallel secrets against the untouched ice. There were no throws, no jumps, no spins. Just two bodies in motion, learning a new way to fit. Vil felt the ghost of their old partnership in the way Leona instinctively adjusted his balance, in the way his body communicated a shift in direction a fraction of a second before it happened. But this was quieter. Softer.
Leona’s forehead came to rest against Vil’s temple as they turned. His breath was warm against Vil’s chilled skin. “See?” he murmured, the sound barely louder than the scrape of their blades. “This is alive.”
The music swelled to its simple, hopeful conclusion. They slowed to a stop, their momentum dying until they were just standing in the center of the ice, holding each other. The cold seeped through their clothes. Vil was acutely aware of every point of contact: Leona’s hands on his waist, his own fingers curled into the hoodie, the press of their bodies from chest to thigh.
Leona leaned back just enough to look at him. His eyes were dark, serious. “This is what you should skate. This feeling.”
“It’s not a competition feeling,” Vil whispered.
“Isn’t it?” Leona countered. His thumb stroked over Vil’s hip bone. “You just have to fight for it. Like anything else worth having.”
He bent his head and kissed him, there in the center of the perfect, private ice. It tasted of cold and warmth, of past and future, of a collaboration they were only just beginning to understand.
When they broke apart, Vil rested his head against Leona’s shoulder, looking out at their blurred reflections in the dark ice. Two figures, holding on. A world he’d built for one, now irrevocably occupied by two.
“Your mug was hideous,” Vil said into the quiet. “A truly offensive shade of orange.”
Leona’s chest vibrated with a quiet laugh. “I know.”
“I want it back.”
The arms around him tightened. “I’ll make you a new one. It’ll probably be worse.”
“I’ll put it right there,” Vil said, nodding toward the pristine, empty console by the rink entrance. “Where everyone can see it.”
Leona’s laughter was fuller this time, a real sound that bounced off the ice and the glass. “Now you’re talking, Prince.”
They stood there until the music had been silent for long minutes and the cold began to bite through to the bone. The silent, perfect rink was no longer sterile. It was etched with the evidence of them. It was alive.