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1809 The Treaty of Fredrikshamn forced Sweden to cede Finland to Russia, ending their centuries-long union. Finland became an autonomous Grand Duchy under Russian rule, keeping its own laws but losing political ties to Sweden. The separation strengthened a Finnish sense of identity and desire for independence, while cultural loyalty continued to lean toward Sweden.
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1809
Tino had never truly believed that Ivan was gone for good.
From the beginning, there had been a certainty beneath everything Ivan did—a quiet assurance that refusal was temporary, that time itself would eventually bend in his favor. And if not, Ivan had other, more intimidating tools of persuasion at disposal.
Even when Ivan had presented himself as a choice, it had been performance rather than truth.
Ivan did not accept being denied.
He simply was not rejected.
He was not a man who did things in halves or quarters.
He claimed. He absorbed. Or, failing that, he destroyed. Rejection was not on the table.
Patience, to him, was merely endurance stretched across years until resistance wore thin.
So when Tino sat beside Berwald in Duke Karl’s private chambers at Gripsholm castle; two realms that had once moved as one now stilled by defeat, he felt that long-dreaded inevitability finally settle.
Not with drama, but with the slow, crushing weight of certainty.
This was where it ended.
Berwald’s hands had been trembling when he held Tino’s.
His thumb kept circling the band on Tino’s finger, as if by touching it often enough he might fix it in place. Tino memorized that gesture even as it was happening. Those hands, Berwald’s beloved hands; scarred, powerful, endlessly careful with him.
He would miss them more than he could put into words. He would miss the quiet symmetry of their rings, the visible proof that they had chosen one another.
They did not name their loss aloud.
Berwald could not bring himself to look at Tino as he cried, tears tracing paths down a face that had weathered battle without flinching.
Instead, he spoke of what could still be done. Of damage control. Of ensuring safety where freedom was no longer possible.
If he could not prevent the separation, Berwald said, then he would make sure Tino would not be broken by it.
And he meant it.
Through relentless negotiation, through swallowing his pride again and again, Berwald carved out what protection he could.
Finland would not vanish into Ivan’s shadow entirely. Tino would not be reduced to an ornament or a captive voice. He would be Grand Duke and as such granted structure, autonomy, a position that forced Ivan to acknowledge him as more than something owned.
It was the closest thing to mercy Berwald could manage.
Tino knew, though, how Berwald would interpret it all.
He had seen that pattern too many times over the past centuries. Berwald would carry this as personal failure; as evidence that he had not been strong enough, not formidable enough to protect what he loved.
The echoes of old humiliations lingered there. Scars and thought patterns left by men like Mathias who had always been eager to equate masculinity with dominance and frame that as worth.
Tino begged to differ.
That night, Tino had wanted to reach across that gap. To ease the weight Berwald placed on himself. To say something that would anchor them beyond borders and treaties.
To promise that love was not so easily signed away; that it endured and remained, despite political turbulences.
But the world they lived in was not kind to such assurances.
Time was relentless. It eroded even the strongest convictions, reshaped people whether they wished it or not.
Some survived it intact.
Others were changed so thoroughly, that even they could no longer recognize what they had once been.
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1814 - Treaty of Kiel — Denmark was forced to cede Norway to Sweden, ending the long Danish–Norwegian union. Norway immediately resisted the transfer, declared independence, adopted a constitution, and elected a Danish prince as king. Sweden responded militarily. Norway was ultimately compelled to accept a union with Sweden, though it managed to retain significant autonomy
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1814
Tino let the newspaper sink to the table, his wrists resting limply beside it.
The Cyrillic print swam before his eyes. He knew the language well enough.
He had learned it out of necessity, through exposure and repetition. But the words refused to settle into meaning. They remained shapes, ink pressed into paper without substance.
His gaze drifted past the text, catching instead on the small illustration beneath the headline: two emblems rendered in black and white, Sweden and Norway joined together in deliberate symmetry.
His Berwald had remarried.
The realization arrived without ceremony, but it hollowed him all the same.
A sharp sting gathered behind his eyes.
Ivan sat beside him at the breakfast table. Close enough that Tino could feel the unbidden presence of his body.
There was no shared rhythm between them, as far as Tino‘s heart was concerned. No consensual intimacy, no curiosity, no concern.
Just crushing, unwanted proximity.
The ordinariness of the morning — the quiet clink of cutlery, the pale light through the windows — felt grotesquely mismatched with the collapse unfolding inside Tino’s chest.
He lowered his gaze to his plate before the tears could spill. He refused to give Ivan the opportunity to notice, to comment, to cruelly perform sympathy.
Closing his eyes entirely was easier. Safer.
Inevitably, his thoughts betrayed him.
He was pulled backward into memory, toward the man he still loved, the man he had been forced to leave behind. He wondered achingly, longingly what Berwald’s life looked like now.
Whether five years had dulled the edges of what they had shared for centuries, or whether it still lived somewhere beneath the surface, intact and painful.
He remembered Duke Karl’s bedchamber as if it were carved into him: the hush of it, the weight of inevitability pressing down as they lay tangled together. Their hands clasped tightly, the matching gold bands glinting faintly in the low light.
An unspoken vow burned into Tino’s memory. Berwald’s hot and urgent mouth at his throat, the solid presence of his body caging him in as if refusing, physically, to let go.
Did Berwald carry breakfast to someone else now? How did his mornings look? As loveless as Tino‘s? Or had he opened his heart to somebody else?
The thought struck him breathless, chilled him to the bone.
He imagined Berwald moving through the quiet of a shared bedchamber that was no longer his; bringing a plate to Lukas, waking him gently with a kiss to the forehead, just as he used to do for Tino.
Touches that spoke of devotion rather than ownership. Of care freely given. Allowing himself a softness that many men could not freely access anymore.
Did Berwald stretch out on the sofa on winter evenings, snow piling against the windows, inviting Lukas into his arms for warmth? Did his long fingers lace together with Lukas’ now, the ring that should have been Tino’s resting instead on Norway’s hand?
Tino’s chest tightened until breathing hurt.
He could not picture Berwald with someone else without something inside him splintering, without it violently transmuting him into another Tino.
“Is something the matter?”
Ivan’s voice cut cleanly through the pounding in his ears.
Calm. Polite.
Empty.
Tino forced himself to surface from the undertow of his thoughts, though it felt like being dragged from deep water, lungs burning.
Five years, he thought numbly.
Five years to forget him. Five years, a lifetime to reshape somebody into someone he did not recognize anymore.
Ivan grabbed his elbow tightly, demanding an answer.
Tino shook his head, throat closing. He would not meet Ivan’s eyes. He would not allow Ivan access to the ruin of feelings that were not his to witness.
“Eat,” Ivan said resolutely, pushing the plate closer.
His smile was thin, controlled. “You haven’t touched anything all morning.”
It was not concern. There was no tenderness to break his fall nor the interest to do so.
It was instruction.
Eggs, rye bread, a small bowl of lingonberry kissel sat arranged before him; food chosen with surface-level familiarity. A nod, perhaps, to shared culinary habits between Finland and Russia.
Once, Tino might have mistaken such details for care. Now he recognized them for what they were: functional, impersonal.
Performative. Manipulative.
Berwald’s breakfasts had looked similar. Remembering it brought a smal smile back to Tino’s lips.
But Berwald had taken the time to arrange them into smiling faces, crude hearts, the colors of their flags placed with quiet pride. Small, foolish gestures that had meant everything.
This breakfast in front of him was a mockery of the original.
Tino lifted his eyes at last, his stomach twisted tight. “I’m not hungry, thank—”
“Eat.”
The command was sharper now.
Ivan leaned in, pressing a spoon against Tino’s lips and forcing it past them. Metal clicked against teeth. Ivan’s expression had hardened, dark brows drawn low over cold blue eyes.
There was no room for Tino‘s needs.
Ivan wanted to feel appreciated, so Tino had to perform.
Tino ate.
He swallowed what he did not want.
He obeyed.
He did what was required of him. Not what he felt, not what he wanted, not what he needed.
Tino lived in partnership with someone else, as dictated.
He was not Tino anymore. Not Finland, partner of Sweden.
He was the Grand Duchy of Finland, subjugated by the almighty Russian Empire.
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1917 - The February Revolution ended the Russian Tsar’s rule, which removed the personal authority binding Finland to the Russian Empire. This allowed Finland to reassert political autonomy, revive its parliament, and push openly for sovereignty, setting the stage for full independence the same year.
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January 1917
The ballroom glittered like a wound dressed in gold.
Berwald stood at its edge, rigid as one of the marble columns propping up the high ceiling, and watched Finland celebrate.
Candlelight fractured in a thousand crystal facets, skittering across silk gowns and polished boots, catching on medals pinned to chests that had never known doubt.
Music swelled. Soon, strings bright and confident and laughter followed it, easy and unburdened. The air smelled of perfume, wax, and wine, layered thick enough to make breathing feel like work.
He did not belong here.
He knew that with the same dull certainty with which he knew the shape of his own hands.
Berwald had learned how to endure crowds when he had no stomach for it. How to stand, how to nod, how to answer when addressed, but tonight the performance scraped against something raw inside him.
He felt hollowed out, moving through the motions of a man who still existed on paper, in titles and obligations, but not entirely in himself. And Berwald wasn’t sure he ever had. What he was sure of, was that his heart had been left elsewhere.
East, above the polar circle.
Where lingonberries sprinkled the forest ground. Where snow covered the tree tops of pine tree forests, swallowing the world‘s noise. Where neon green wisps of a fox‘s tail streaked the night sky, lights dancing in front of the vast expanse of the black universe.
East, where he first glimpsed at Tino, rosy-cheeked, smiling brightly at him — a stranger for all the boy had known — on crude skis; speaking a foreign tongue and inviting him into his home, his goahti.
East, where his heart lay.
Now, torn loose and signed away with ink and seals and measured, clipped words.
A mere formality.
The Treaty of Fredrikshamn had been called necessary. Inevitable. Spoken of in careful tones, as if gentleness could soften the violence of it.
Finland ceded. Borders redrawn. Loss translated into diplomacy.
They had never spoken Tino’s name aloud, but Berwald had heard it anyway in every clause.
He watched couples turn across the floor, hands gloved and proper, bodies aligned with practiced intimacy. Dignitaries leaned together in quiet conversation, smiling as if history were something that happened neatly, without blood or grief. Berwald’s jaw tightened. He could still remember the weight of the pen in his hand, the moment of hesitation before he signed. The pressure of the room then, too.
All eyes waiting.
No space for refusal.
No space for tenderness in men.
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The first thing Berwald noticed was the color.
Pale blues and silvers moved through the ballroom like moonlight caught in fabric, too soft to belong among the louder hues of courtly excess. His gaze snagged on it without conscious thought, drawn by a familiar gravity he had not felt allowed to acknowledge in more than a century.
Then the figure turned slightly, and the world narrowed to a single point.
Tino.
Berwald’s breath caught, sharp and humiliating in his throat.
For a heartbeat he could not move, could not even blink, as if the sight alone might vanish if he acknowledged it too fully. Tino stood at the edge of a cluster of Russian dignitaries, draped in silk so fine it seemed to drink the candlelight rather than reflect it. Cream-colored fabric hugged his shoulders; silver embroidery traced quiet patterns along his sleeves.
Jewelry rested at his throat and ears. Delicate, unmistakable. Lapis lazuli set in silver.
Sami craftsmanship.
Berwald’s chest tightened painfully, his earliest memories of Tino blossoming in his mind.
Ivan had no right to that knowledge.
No right to dress Tino in symbols he had not earned, to parade fragments of a heritage he could never understand. The finery felt less like devotion and more like conquest.
Wealth laid thick over a living thing, as if beauty could be owned by virtue of having paid for it.
As if Tino was his kept boy.
And yet, what unsettled Berwald most was not the extravagance.
It was Tino himself.
He looked… dimmer. Not physically diminished. His face was just as beautiful, still soft in that way Berwald’s mind had never learned to stop cataloguing. He was glad to see that he had retained his healthy plumpness.
But something essential seemed muted.
His posture was perfect, his expression composed, but the spark that used to live behind his eyes was dulled, as if wrapped in glass. He did not lean into the conversation around him. He did not lead it. He stood where he was placed.
Like an adornment.
Berwald’s fingers curled slowly at his side, a restrained, helpless motion. He had always wanted to take care of Tino. Not in the crude and shallow sense of provision, but in the quieter way that mattered. To be the place Tino could turn toward when the world became too loud, too demanding.
To be chosen, not purchased.
A traitorous thought pierced him then, sharp and self-conscious: What if Tino loves him, loves Ivan?
Ivan was everything Berwald no longer was. Big, broad, unyielding in presence. Power sat on him easily, unapologetically. Berwald felt the weight of his own years then, the slow erosion of certainty, of former glory.
He wondered what Tino saw now when he looked at him, if he saw anything at all.
As if summoned by the self-depreciating thought, Ivan’s head turned.
His gaze met Berwald’s across the room.
Cool, assessing, instantly aware.
The faintest curve touched Ivan’s mouth, not quite a smile. Then, deliberately, his arm wound around Tino’s waist, hand sliding lower, closer to the hip.
Possessive. Public. A statement.
Berwald exhaled soundlessly, his grip tightening around his champagne glass. He wished then, that he possessed some of the courage and fire Mathias had in him when somebody dared to even think about claiming what he deemed his.
Then, Ivan leant down, tilted Tino’s chin upward with practiced ease and claimed his mouth in a kiss meant to be seen.
Berwald watched, unable to look away, every nerve screaming.
Tino did not respond. His lips remained passive beneath Ivan’s, his body still.
His eyes. Those pale, icy blue eyes stayed open.
And then Tino‘s eyes shifted, following Ivan‘s pointed look.
They found Berwald.
For one suspended moment, the noise of the ballroom collapsed into silence. Years of separation rushed back between them without words: the forced parting, the unsent letters, the nights Berwald had spent staring into darkness, knowing exactly what and who was missing.
A part of his very own being, of his soul had been brutally ripped out of him.
Tino’s gaze flickered, something raw breaking through the composed surface.
Heartbreak, bare and unmistakable.
Berwald’s hand began to tremble. He barely noticed until the champagne inside his glass quivered, threatening to spill. His chest ached with the sudden, overwhelming urge to cross the room, to take Tino’s hand, to tell him he was still here.
That he always had been.
That he would always be holding unto their promise from Gripsholm.
Tino looked away first, brows knitting together in a pained expression.
He turned subtly, guiding Ivan with a light touch, positioning them so Berwald could no longer see his face.
The movement was gentle, careful. Within moments, the crowd swallowed them, silk and fur vanishing into the press of bodies.
Berwald stood frozen, breath shallow, heart breaking all over again.
He could not know that Tino had turned away out of mercy for him.